Abbas re-elected head of Palestine Liberation Organization, new leadership selected

President Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Friday, as he seeks to strengthen his control over politics in the occupied West Bank, AFP reported. During a four-day meeting, the PLO’s parliament, the Palestinian National Council, which was not attended by Abbas’s rivals Hamas, backed him and selected a new leadership of the PLO’s executive committee. “President Abu Mazen [Abbas] was nominated and unanimously approved as the president of the State of Palestine,” senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath said. The PLO, an umbrella group which is dominated by Abbas’s Fatah party and includes most Palestinian factions, but not Hamas, represents the Palestinians internationally.