Egypt's PM announces new cabinet members' names

Egypt's prime minister has drawn on bureaucrats and Islamists for the country's first Muslim Brotherhood-led administration, disappointing those who wanted a more inclusive government able to carry forward the recent revolution, Reuters reports.

Prime Minister-designate Hisham Kandil's appointment of at least two Brotherhood politicians, including one as education minister, marked a major break with the past. But the cabinet's heavy reliance on civil servants also smacked of the Mubarak era, when government was run by technocrats.

Incumbents who kept their jobs included Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Saeed and Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr Kamel, both of them career bureaucrats. The government - replacing an interim one which took office last year - is due to be sworn in on Thursday.

The new interior minister was named as Ahmed Gamal el-Din, a career policeman similar to those who held the job under Mubarak. He pledged to confront the lawlessness of which Egyptians have complained since Mubarak was deposed. "Egypt needs security and stability," he said, after meeting Kandil.

Mostafa Mussad, a member of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, was appointed education minister. Another Brotherhood member was appointed to run the housing ministry.