Lebanon's tension abates as eyes turn to Egypt

[Swede]

On the face of it, the country's complex political machinery creaked into action and delivered a new prime minister to replace Saad Hariri whose government collapsed in acrimony a few weeks back.

The rules, of course, have to be complex to reflect the patchwork of ethnic and religious groups which are bound together here by a rather fragile set of working agreements.

The president has to be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the national parliament a member of the Shia community


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9379197.stm