{"id":23825,"date":"2018-11-30T16:22:16","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T16:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23825"},"modified":"2018-11-30T16:22:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T16:22:16","slug":"israeli-police-arrest-jordanian-suspected-in-eilat-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23825","title":{"rendered":"Israeli police arrest Jordanian suspected in Eilat assault"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"39\">\n<p>\nBEIRUT: The World Bank and Lebanon\u2019s caretaker finance minister jointly called on Friday for the formation of a new government after half a year of political stalemate, saying a new administration was needed to halt \u201cconfusion\u201d over the economy.<br \/>Almost seven months since the parliamentary election, Prime Minister-designate Saad Al-Hariri has hit a wall in his efforts to form a national unity government as political factions jostle for positions in a new cabinet.<br \/>Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and World Bank Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa Ferid BelHajj said in a statement a new government was needed soon, \u201cto put an end to the confusion over the financial and economic situation and to produce a climate of confidence regarding the future of projects scheduled for Lebanon.\u201d<br \/>Politicians have repeatedly warned there is a risk of economic crisis if a government is not formed soon.<br \/>The World Bank has committed $2.2 billion for projects in Lebanon including transport and job creation. But around $800 million is unused while awaiting government approval and Lebanon must pay commitment fees on it.<br \/>Members of the outgoing cabinet have remained in office in a caretaker capacity but are unable to take major decisions until a new cabinet is named.<br \/>More than $11 billion of international donor funding pledged in April is also contingent on a new government making a tangible commitment to economic reform.<br \/>BelHajj and another World Bank official two weeks ago said Lebanon was losing momentum and there was a risk donors might start losing interest.<br \/>Lebanon has the world\u2019s third highest debt-to-GDP ratio and a new government must be in place before Lebanon embarks on major fiscal reforms. The International Monetary Fund said in June these reforms are urgently needed to put the debt on a sustainable footing.<br \/>The World Bank estimates Lebanon\u2019s national debt will stand at 155 percent of gross domestic product by the end of 2018 and that a rise in current spending will increase the fiscal deficit to 8.3 percent of GDP in 2018, from 6.6 percent in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIRUT: The World Bank and Lebanon\u2019s caretaker finance minister jointly called on Friday for the formation of a new government after half a year of political stalemate, saying a new administration was needed to halt \u201cconfusion\u201d over the economy.Almost seven months since the parliamentary election, Prime Minister-designate Saad Al-Hariri has hit a wall in his&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}