Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi swore in a new cabinet on Thursday that retained military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as defense minister.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi swore in a new cabinet on Thursday that retained military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi as defense minister.

Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said, who served in a military-appointed government, will keep his post.
The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party took five cabinet seats including higher education and the information ministry, which regulates the media.

Ahmed Mekki, a former appeals court deputy judge who sided with the Brotherhood when the constitutional court disbanded in June the parliament they had dominated, was appointed justice minister.

Only two women, both from the outgoing government, were included in the 35-member government team -- Nadia Eskandar Zukhari at scientific research and Nagwa Hussein Ahmed Khalil at social affairs.
Zukhari is the only member of the cabinet of the Coptic Christian minority, which represents about 10 percent of the population.

Prime Minister Hisham Qandil said he chose the ministers based on their competence.
"The main principle, the main criterion, was competence," he told a news conference.

"We should stop using such terms as them and us, and that this is a Christian, or a Copt, or a Muslim. All I see is Egyptians and citizens," he said.
"We are the people's government; we do not represent any trend," he added.

The little-known Qandil was irrigation minister in the outgoing cabinet before Mursi appointed him last week.
Qandil, a senior manager at the African Development Bank before heading Egypt's Nile Water Sector, has denied that he had belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood or any other party.

He said the cabinet, including eight ministers of state, will have to tackle the "enormous" economic and security challenges facing the country since Hosni Mubarak's overthrow in February last year.