Abbas tasks Fayyad with forming new Palestinian govt

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Monday reappointed Salam Fayyad as premier and tasked him with forming a new government after his cabinet resigned, an official said.

"Abbas reappointed Fayyad and asked him to form a new government," a senior official in the president's office told AFP shortly after Fayyad's government cabinet resigned en masse.

The move comes after the Palestinian leadership announced it would hold legislative and presidential elections in the coming months, and as a wave of unprecedented public protest sweeps through the Arab world demanding democratic reform.