BEIRUT: Lebanon acquired a new 30-minister government Sunday led by Saad Hariri, bringing together the entire political spectrum except for the Christian Phalangist party that rejected the portfolio it was offered.
“This is a government of entente,” Hariri said of the new line-up formed six weeks after the election of President Michel Aoun.
New portfolios include an anti-corruption post and, for the first time, a minister of state for women’s affairs.
Hariri said the Phalangist party had been offered a minister of state post but had turned it down.
The new government will have “at the top of its list of priorities to preserve security against the fires ravaging our region,” Hariri told reporters.
He stressed that the government would act to “preserve our country from the negative consequences of the Syrian crisis.”
On November 3, former premier Hariri was nominated to form Lebanon’s next government, but the process was seen as likely to be hampered by deep differences with the powerful Hezbollah movement.
Hariri, 46, is anti-Syria and a fierce opponent of Lebanon’s influential Shiite Hezbollah, members of which have been accused by an international court of involvement in his father’s 2005 assassination.
But he was forced to throw his support behind Aoun, their candidate for the presidency, in order to secure his return to power as premier.
Hariri’s government will have two ministers from Hezbollah.
His nomination and Aoun’s election after a two-year vacuum have raised hopes that Lebanon can begin tackling challenges including a stagnant economy, a moribund political class and the influx of more than a million Syrian refugees.
Hariri also announced the establishment of a state secretariat for refugees, and called on the international community “to take responsibility for helping our country bear the burden.”
Lebanon is due to hold parliamentary elections in May 2017, the first legislative vote in eight years.
The current parliament — elected in 2009 — has extended its own mandate twice amid fierce disagreements over revamping Lebanon’s electoral law.
“The government will also work on the preparation of a new electoral law,” Hariri said on Sunday.
The thorny issue divides religious parties and communities in a country where politics is based on parity between Christians and Muslims.
Lebanon gets new government led by Saad Hariri
Lebanon gets new government led by Saad Hariri
The art of war: fears for masterpieces on loan to Louvre Abu Dhabi
- UAE paid more than €1 billion to borrow priceless works, but experts in France want them back
PARIS: The Middle East war has raised fears for the safety of priceless masterpieces on loan from France to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the museum’s only foreign branch.
The Abu Dhabi museum, which opened in 2017, has so far escaped damage from nearly 1,800 Iranian drone and missile strikes launched since the conflict erupted on Feb. 28.
However, concerns are mounting in France. “The works must be removed,” said Didier Selles, who helped broker the original agreement between France and the UAE.
French journal La Tribune de l’Art echoed that alarm. “The Louvre’s works in Abu Dhabi must be secured!” it said.
France’s culture ministry said French authorities were “in close and regular contact with the authorities of the UAE to ensure the protection of the works loaned by France.”
Under the agreement with the UAE, France agreed to provide expertise, lend works of art and organize exhibitions, in return for €1 billion, including €400 million for licensing the use of the Louvre name. The deal was extended in 2021 to 2047 for an additional €165 million.
Works on loan include paintings by Rembrandt and Chardin, Classical statues of Isis, Roman sarcophagi and Islamic masterpieces: such as the Pyxis of Al-Mughira.
A Louvre Abu Dhabi source said the museum was designed to protect collections from both security threats and natural disasters.
