{"id":26144,"date":"2018-12-19T16:23:43","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T16:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26144"},"modified":"2018-12-19T16:23:43","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T16:23:43","slug":"lebanon-foreign-minister-to-retain-post-in-new-cabinet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26144","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon foreign minister to retain post in new cabinet"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1423031\/middle-east\" readability=\"53\">\n<p>\nBEIRUT: Lebanon&#8217;s finance and foreign ministers will retain their posts, a senior official said on Wednesday, as rival parties near a breakthrough in talks on forming a new coalition government.<br \/>Ali Hassan Khalil, a top aide to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, will remain finance minister, the official told Reuters. A second senior political source, who confirmed Foreign Minister German Bassil would keep his job, said Elias Bou Saab would become defence minister.<br \/>Lebanon is on track to form a new cabinet in days, politicians said, after months of wrangling that has hurt the outlook for its struggling economy.<br \/>More than seven months since a parliamentary election, rival parties have yet to agree a deal on the government as officials warn of economic crisis.<br \/>Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri&#8217;s efforts have faced conflicting demands for cabinet seats, which Lebanon&#8217;s power-sharing system parcels out based on sectarian group.<br \/>Bassil, President Michel Aoun&#8217;s son-in-law, heads the Free Patriotic Movement, of which Bou Saab is also a member. The defence ministry in the outgoing cabinet was with the Christian Maronite FPM that Aoun founded.<br \/>&#8220;We are on the brink of forming the government,&#8221; Berri, whose Shi&#8217;ite Amal party is allied to Iran-backed Hezbollah, was cited as saying on Wednesday.<br \/>The stagnant economy will be a top priority for the next government. Heavily indebted, Lebanon needs an administration that can set about long-stalled reforms to put public debt on a sustainable footing.<br \/>Lebanon is the world&#8217;s third-most indebted nation with a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 150 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEIRUT: Lebanon&#8217;s finance and foreign ministers will retain their posts, a senior official said on Wednesday, as rival parties near a breakthrough in talks on forming a new coalition government.Ali Hassan Khalil, a top aide to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, will remain finance minister, the official told Reuters. A second senior political source, who confirmed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26144","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\/26144","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=26144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}