US President George W. Bush marked Saint Patrick's Day at the White House by meeting with the family of a murdered Catholic man who are pressing their campaign to bring his alleged IRA killers to justice. Afghanistan US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised the Afghan people as an inspiration to the world for embarking on the road to democracy, as a bomb blast in the birthplace of the ousted Taliban regime killed five people. Mideast Palestinian militant groups agreed to extend a lull in attacks against Israeli targets but stopped short of the formal truce the international community had hoped Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas would obtain. US European capitals reacted coolly to the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, to be the next head of the World Bank, but aid groups voiced dismay and some puzzlement. Iraq After the historic opening of their elected national assembly, Iraq's political heavyweights bartered over the make-up of the next government, seeking a balance among the fractious ethic and religious communities. Germany German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder put forward a crisis package of corporate tax cuts and investment projects as he struggled to revive a stagnant economy crippled by high unemployment. Russia Anatoly Chubais, the head of Russia's electric power monopoly and an architect of 1990s privatization, said he was the target of a well-planned bomb and machine gun attack possibly tied to his energy deregulation plans. Lebanon The Syrian army completed the first stage of a planned pullback from Lebanon ahead of schedule, with some 4,000 troops having returned home, as more symbols of its near-30-year presence in the country were hauled down. UN A group of UN experts called for concrete action by the UN Security Council to end the civil war in Sudan's Darfur region, where it said killings, rape, torture, abductions and forced displacement are daily occurrences.