Jordan king swears in new reform government

Jordan's King Abdullah II on Monday swore in a new 30-strong cabinet led by Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh, an international judge tasked with bringing in political reform. In a letter to the king on Monday, Khasawneh pledged to push ahead with political reform "at this critical stage of Jordan's history," the state-run Petra news agency reported. "The government will coordinate with all political powers and civil society groups in Jordan to prepare laws that govern political life and insure democracy, justice, transparency and integrity," he told the king in the letter, adding that "fair elections are key to democracy." The new cabinet includes 25 newcomers, among them Umayya Tukan, a former Central Bank governor, for the finance portfolio and Mohammed Raud as interior minister, and two women, at higher education and social development. The line-up, under which Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh kept his portfolio and veteran journalist Rakan Majali became information minister, does not include opposition Islamists who refused to join Khasawneh's team. The king a week earlier dismissed prime minister Maaruf Bakhit's government and replaced him with Khasawneh, 61, an International Court of Justice judge, instructing him to focus on political reform.