SYDNEY, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Australian Prime Minister John Howard appeared headed for defeat Saturday as the rival Labor Party gained enough support to predict victory.

"I'm a cautious type, but on these numbers so far I think we have enough to form government," said Labor deputy Julia Gillard, predicting Labor's Kevin Rudd would be the next prime minister.

Howard, 68, a Conservative, was in danger of losing his own seat in Bennelong in suburban Sydney and needed a late surge in the eastern states to gain a fifth term in office, The Australian reported.

Howard trailed Rudd in every major poll since January, but had drawn a surge of support in the final days of the election, the Australian said.

Early counting showed the Labor Party picking up six seats in Queensland with a swing to Labor of about 5.7 percent, the newspaper reported.

Expectations low for Mideast summit

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- A former U.S. ambassador to Israel says not much is expected of a Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, Md., next week.

The low expectations are, in part, because President George W. Bush has been relatively disengaged from the summit, leaving the role of restarting the peace process to Secretary of State of Condoleezza Rice, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) reported Saturday.

"You don't get a sense that he's invested in it," said Daniel C. Kurtzer, who served as Bush's ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005.

Bush is to deliver the opening speech and conduct three rounds of diplomacy with Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the summit Tuesday. He has yet to visit Israel and has made only one trip to Egypt and Jordan while Rice has logged 100,000 miles flying to and from the Middle East eight times in just the last year.

Rice has said her goal is to achieve a peace agreement by the end of the Bush presidency, while Bush privately has said he has no intention of trying to force a peace settlement on Israel or the Palestinians, the Post reported.

Lebanon in constitutional crisis

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Lebanon's deadlocked political leaders reportedly plan to wait a week before naming a successor to the outgoing president in the increasingly shaky government.

"No political party in Lebanon has interests in having an explosive, chaotic situation," said Okab Sakr, a Beirut-based political analyst and commentator.

Lebanon faced a constitutional crisis after Pro-Syrian President Emil Lahoud's term expired Friday without the naming of a successor. Hours before leaving office, Lahoud declared a state of emergency and handed power to the military, an order deemed unconstitutional by pro-Western leaders in Lebanon, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

The pro-Western government and the Syrian- and Iranian-backed opposition have laid claims to power, but all sides said they have ruled out violence as a way to resolve differences, the Times reported.

The parliament is to meet again Nov. 30 to try to find a choice acceptable to the Western-backed majority and the opposition, the Times reported.

Suicide attacks kill 17 in Pakistan

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Two suicide bombers struck Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi Saturday, with one of them reportedly killing 15 in a bus carrying defense security employees.

The second attacker at another location in the city blew himself up at an army check point, injuring three security people.

In the bus attack, local TV channels reported the vehicle was carrying employees of Pakistan's Inter-Service intelligence when it came under attack near its headquarters known as "Hamza Camp," Xinhua reported.

GEO TV reported the suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laded vehicle into the bus.

Other Pakistani media reports quoted Pakistani military spokesman Waheed Arshad that the bus caught fire, killing 15 passengers on board. It was not clear how many were aboard the bus or how many escaped.

The Voice of America put the dead at 20.

More than two dozen people were reportedly injured in the twin attacks.

Rawalpindi was Pakistan's capital before nearby Islamabad took its place. Since then, Rawalpindi has become a garrison city.

No group had yet claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the BBC reported such attacks are often suspected to be the work of pro-Taliban militants to retaliate Pakistan's military operations in its restive tribal areas.

The attacks come in the midst of Pakistan's political and other problems brought on by the imposition of emergency rule by President Pervez Musharraf.