Somalia's fractured government slides into chaos

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.