Lebanon's PM-Designate Steps Down After Months of Deadlock

BEIRUT - Lebanon's Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri stepped down Thursday over what he called "key differences" with the president, deepening a political crisis that has left the Lebanese without a government for nine months even as they endure an unprecedented economic meltdown.

With no clear candidate to replace Hariri, Lebanon is likely to slide deeper into chaos and uncertainty. Prospects for forming a government to undertake desperately needed reforms and talks for a recovery package with the International Monetary Fund are now even more remote. Poverty has soared in the past several months and dire shortages of medicines, fuel and electricity have marked what the World Bank describes as one of the world's worst economic crisis of the past 150 years.   "I have excused myself from forming the government," Hariri said after a 20-minute meeting with President Michel Aoun. "May God help the country."