New cabinet formed in Palestine

According to the BBC Palestinian Authority President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas has sworn in a new cabinet in the West Bank.

There had been plans for a unity government to end almost five years of division between the rival factions.

A Hamas spokesman said naming a new cabinet was a "big error".

The swearing in of the 25-member government, which features 11 new faces, comes more than a year after the last cabinet resigned in February 2011, the ABC says.

At the time, the Palestinian leadership had said it would hold legislative and presidential elections "in the coming months," and Mr Abbas tasked Mr Fayyad with forming a new government.

But the process was put on ice after the surprise announcement in April 2011 of a reconciliation deal between Mr Abbas's Fatah movement and its Islamist rival, Hamas.