New Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif made his first cabinet appointment on Saturday, telling UN ambassador Ahmed Aboul Gheit that President Hosni Mubarak wanted him as foreign minister.
Nazif told his first news conference as prime minister on Saturday his priorities would be education, health, controlling prices, improving wages and economic reform to provide jobs. Aboul Gheit, 62, takes over the foreign ministry from Ahmed Maher, who had held the post since May 2001 but has suffered from bouts of ill health.