LONDON - The Bush administration is applying its strongest pressure to date on Syria, insisting on an immediate withdrawal from neighboring Lebanon and blaming terrorists based in Syria for last week's deadly suicide attack in Israel.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Syria is "out of step" with growing desire for democracy in the Middle East. International resolve is firm that Syria must no longer hold political and military control over its smaller neighbor, Rice said Tuesday.

Rice was in London for an international conference on Palestinian security and government reform, which the Bush administration has called a building block for wider democratic change in the region.

VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II skipped his popular Wednesday weekly audience with the faithful while concentrating on regaining his ability to speak and continuing to work on church matters from his hospital suite in Rome.The Holy See said there would be no substitute for the pontiff for the public audience, which usually draws thousands of pilgrims and is held in winter in a Vatican auditorium or, in good weather, in St. Peter's Square.John Paul was hospitalized in Rome's Gemelli Polyclinic hospital on Feb. 24 with breathing difficulties, the same problem that sent him racing there in an ambulance earlier in February for a 10-day stay.The latest hospital stay, which prompted doctors to cut a hole in his windpipe to help his breathing, is widely expected to be longer after some top Vatican officials suggested he was discharged too soon the first time."Doctors give us encouraging news, but we need to wait," Cardinal Achille Silvestrini was quoted as saying in the Corriere della Sera newspaper today.

TORONTO - A white supremacist was deported from Canada on Tuesday and immediately taken into custody by authorities in his native Germany, where he faces charges of denying the Holocaust and inciting hatred via the Internet, immigration officials said.Ernst Zundel, 65, author of "The Hitler We Loved and Why," was turned over to German authorities.German authorities had said he would be arrested for decades of anti-Semitic activities, including repeated denials of the Holocaust, which is a crime in Germany.Zundel's attorney, Peter Lindsay, said his client was held in near-solitary confinement for two years while and authorities determined whether he posed a security risk to Canadians.A Canadian judge ruled last week that Zundel's activities were not only a threat to national security, but "the international community of nations" as well."Zundel's day of reckoning has finally come," said Frank Dimant, executive vice president of B'nai Brith Canada. The group had been at the forefront of efforts to have Zundel deported.A spokeswoman for the Justice Ministry said Monday that Mannheim prosecutors were able to open a case against Zundel because his Holocaust-denying Web site is available in Germany.