Egypt's finance, foreign ministers retain posts in new government

Egypt’s Prime Minister Hesham Qandil has selected a new government in which the finance and foreign ministers from the outgoing cabinet will retain their posts, state television reported Wednesday.

Qandil was meeting with the ministers, including Foreign Minister Mohammad Kamel Amr and Finance Minister Mumtaz Al Saeed, a day before he was to formally unveil the cabinet, the Nile News channel reported.

A military official said army commander Field Marshal Hussain Tantawi, who served as Hosni Mubarak’s defence minister and then ruled the country after the dictator’s overthrow, will be defence minister.

The premier selected Ahmad Gamal Al Din, a former deputy interior minister, as his new interior minister, the report said.