A manifesto that will allow Lebanon's new national unity government to take office was finally thrashed out on Friday after three weeks of negotiations, Information Minister Tareq Mitri said.

""We reached a consensus after a long discussion,"" Mitri told reporters after the ministers involved in drafting the text reached agreement on the government policy after holding 14 separate sessions.
""The committee has completed its task,"" Mitri said, adding that the policy statement will be submitted to the government before it goes to parliament for ratification.
Lebanon's new national unity government agreed a policy statement on Friday which political sources said recognized Hezbollah's right to use all possible means to liberate Israeli-occupied land.
""The ministerial statement is drafted and forwarded to the cabinet with the agreement of all its members,"" Information Minister Tareq Mitri said after the meeting.
The policy statement recognizes the right of Lebanon, its government, people and resistance to use all means possible to regain Lebanese sovereignty over Shebaa Farms and nearby Israeli-held parts of Ghajjar village.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his majority coalition initially wanted to exclude mentioning Hezbollah's right to regain Lebanese land by force and defer the subject to a national dialogue to be chaired by President Michel Suleiman.
The controversy over Hezbollah's weapons intensified after its resistance fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a bid to swap them with Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Israel used the cross-border raid in July 2006 as a pretext to spark a devastating 34-day war on Lebanon.
The issue boiled to the surface again when Hezbollah led an armed takeover of large swathes of west Beirut in fierce fighting, after the government harassed the resistance movement.
The new cabinet, in which the opposition has the right of veto, was formed after weeks of bickering despite a May power-sharing agreement struck in Qatar that ended a protracted political dispute.
The statement also adopted economic reforms agreed at an international aid conference held in Paris in 2007.
(Source: middle east online.com)