Hamas has formally taken power, with the Palestinian president swearing in its 24-member cabinet, including 14 ministers who served time in Israeli prisons. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who is a moderate from the defeated Fatah movement, administered the oath to some of the cabinet ministers in a brief ceremony at Gaza City's parliament building on Wednesday. With Israel banning the travel of Hamas leaders between the West Bank and Gaza, the remainder of the ministers held a separate ceremony in the West Bank. The two settings were hooked up by videoconference.| Now they're officially in charge. If they hold true to form, they'll now proceed to screw things up even worse than they are, if that's possible. |