Somalia to Choose New Interim President on Jan 26

Somali legislators will choose a new interim president on January 26, the country’s Parliament speaker Sheikh Adan Mohamed has announced. Mohamed, who has been acting as president since Abdullahi Yusuf’s resignation last December, has established a 15-member election commission from among the legislators that will conduct the vote. Meanwhile, the moderate opposition Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), has expressed interest in entering into a unity government with the current administration headed by Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein. ARS wants the current transitional federal parliament expanded to accommodate its leaders. Hardline Islamist groups have however trashed ongoing political talks and have continued unabated with their insurgency against the interim government.[PE]