Somalia's fractured government slides into chaos
China Daily | Updated: 2008-12-17 07:59
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf named a new prime minister yesterday, snubbing a vote by parliament to reinstate sacked premier Nur Hassan Hussein and further deepening rifts in the fractured government.
The split at the top of the Western-backed government is blamed for stalling a UN-hosted peace process and threatens to tear the weak administration apart at a time Islamist insurgents are camped on the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu.
Chronic instability in Somalia has uprooted about 1 million people, a third of the population rely on emergency food aid and the chaos has helped fuel kidnappings and piracy off the coast.
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