LEBANON PM - DESIGNATE HARIRI QUITS

Saad Hariri, Lebanon's prime minister-designate, is stepping down just 10 weeks after being asked to form a unity government.
Hariri resigned on Thursday, two days after opposition groups in parliament rejected his proposed cabinet.

• "I announce to all Lebanese that I told President Michel]Suleiman today that I will step down from forming a government, in the hope that this decision will be for the benefit of Lebanon," Hariri said after a meeting with the president.
• The leader of the March 14 alliance has been trying to get a consensus on the distribution of the country's 30 ministerial posts since June, but has so far failed, prompting his decision to step down.
• Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, said: "There was a lot of hope after the June parliamentary elections. We saw meetings between rival politicians, meetings that we would have never seen in the past, they actually sat down together and spoke.
• Hariri said that the conditions set by the Hezbollah-led bloc sought to undermine the election, which his Western-backed coalition had won.
• Rival alliances had agreed on the broad division of seats in the cabinet, but could not agree on the details.
• Under Hariri's proposal, his alliance would have had 15 seats, the Hezbollah-led minority would have had 10, and Suleiman would pick the remaining five.
• However, the opposition dismissed the make up and put forward an alternative.

Source: Al Jazeera