ROME, April 28 (Xinhua) - Italy's new cabinet, lead by Prime Minister Enrico Letta, was sworn in on Sunday, starting their task for breaking the impasse the country had been locked for months.
The coalition government, the result of an enforced alliance between the center-left Democratic Party (PD) and the center-right and PD opponent People of Freedom (PdL), is composed of 21 ministers including seven women, more than ever, and the country's first ever non-white minister.
It features nine ministers from the PD and five from the PdL along with some from the outgoing Premier Mario Monti's Civil Choice and highly respected institutional figures.
Key appointees include Angelino Alfano, the head of three-time Premier Silvio Berlusconi's PdL, as the deputy prime minister and the interior minister, and Fabrizio Saccomanni, director general of the Italian central bank, as finance minister.
Former European Commissioner Emma Bonino is the first female foreign minister in Italy's history, while Anna Maria Cancellieri, former interior minister of the Monti government, is the new justice minister.
Mario Mauro, a former vice president of the European Parliament, is the defense minister. Enrico Giovanni, the head of Italy's National Statistics Institute (Istat) is the labor minister, and Chiara Carrozza, an expert on robotics, is the minister of education.
Fresh names include Cecile Kyenge, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as minister for integration, and Josefa Idem, a West-German-born Italian sprint canoer, as the equal opportunities and sports minister.
The group, also the youngest cabinet of ministers in recent memory, is tasked with the challenge to introduce urgent economic and institutional measures to face deepening social-economic crisis.
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