First article never made print:
"Somalia’s prime minister steps down" June 20, 2011|New York Times
NAIROBI, Kenya — Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, the American-educated prime minister of Somalia, resigned yesterday after weeks of pressure to abide by a deal between two other top officials that extended Somalia’s wobbly transitional government for another year....
Related: Skipping Through Somalia: Showing the Somalis How It's Done
I guess they showed him.
Earlier this month, Somalia’s president and the speaker of Parliament agreed to sack Mohamed in a deal to extend the government. Analysts said the speaker wanted to appoint his own associates to high positions, and that although the president was reluctant to see Mohamed go, he agreed in order to keep his own job.
But as word spread that Mohamed was being forced out, riots erupted in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. Hundreds of civilians marched through the streets saying that Mohamed was the only honest politician in the government. Soldiers lit huge bonfires in protest and abandoned their posts.
Many said Mohamed was the first prime minister to ensure that soldiers got paid, as opposed to having commanders steal their salaries. Mohamed tried to make the argument that the public was fully behind him, even members of other clans.
But Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, forced him to step aside, several analysts said. Uganda plays a kingmaker role in Somalia, with several thousand Ugandan peacekeepers guarding government officials.
So much for Somali sovereignty.
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What did make my paper:
"Somalia names PM with Western ties" June 24, 2011|New York Times
NAIROBI — The president of Somalia’s transitional government yesterday appointed a new, Harvard-educated prime minister who said he would try to revive an economy wrecked by war and establish better security in a country that has been virtually lawless for 20 years.
The president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, appeared to continue with his preference for Western-educated technocrats by naming Abdiweli Mohamed Ali prime minister.
His or the Ugandan king?
Ali’s resume includes a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard, a master’s degree in economics from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, and a PhD in economics from George Mason University in Virginia. In recent years, he has been teaching economics at Niagara University in upstate New York.
Ali, who has been deputy prime minister, is Somali-American, and his profile is similar to that of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, the previous prime minister and also a US citizen, who was abruptly pushed out of Somalia’s transitional government this month as part of a UN-backed deal to resolve an internal political dispute.
Now the UN is meddling?
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Nothing about the pirates or the poor, huh?
