The Somali parliament overwhelmingly backed the government of Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein yesterday, one day after President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed announced his dismissal.
“One-hundred and forty-three MPs [members of parliament] recognized the existence of the government, 20 rejected it and seven abstained,” Speaker Aden Mohamed Nur said after counting the votes during a special parliament session in the town of Baidoa.
“Therefore the government of Nur Adde [Hassan Hussein] is legitimate,” he said.
On Sunday, Yusuf announced he was sacking the prime minister and the Cabinet because they had failed to bring security to the nation, but the Hussein challenged the move as unconstitutional.
The transitional federal charter says the president needs parliament’s approval to sack the prime minister.
Speaking to parliament before the vote, Hussein said: “It was difficult to work with the president, who disapproved of the peace process.”
“The president was interfering with the activities of the prime minister and parliament,” he said.
“It’s up to parliament to make a decision in order to save the transitional federal institutions and the rule of law,” he said.
Yusuf said yesterday that he would comply with parliament’s decision and gave no hint he would resign should parliament confirm Hussein in his job.
On Sunday, Hussein accused Yusuf of seeking to scuttle a months-old UN-sponsored reconciliation process with the main political opposition group, the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia.
The UN mediator of the talks warned that the latest row risked hindering ongoing reconciliation efforts and African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping also voiced concern.
Hussein, 70, was sworn in in November last year but has been at loggerheads with Yusuf in recent months, notably over ongoing efforts to strike a reconciliation agreement with the Islamist-led opposition.
Hussein replaced Ali Mohamed Gedi who was forced to resign after months of a bruising power struggle with Yusuf, a veteran warlord who has headed Somalia’s transitional administration since its inception in 2004.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS