hammering home

the point, he's the candidate for real change.

The new Prime Minister of Somalia Abdi Farah Shirdon has named his cabinet which for the first time has a female Foreign Minister, Fauzia Yusuf Haji Adanhas. The cabinet is significantly smaller than before with just ten members. Merry Harper reports.

As Foreign Minister and deputy prime minister, Fauzia Yusuf Haji Adanhas is probably the most powerful female politician Somali has ever had. Another woman, Maryan Qasim has been appointed as minister for social development, a huge role for a country that has been devastated by 20 years of civil conflict, drought and

famine

. The cabinet has to be approved by parliament which may prove difficult as some of Somalia's clans feel they haven't been properly represented.

South Sudan says it has expelled a United Nations official who is carrying out an investigation to the human rights situation in the country. A government's spokesman in the capital Juba said the UN investigator had published reports which had no truth in them. UN officials said the expulsion may have been related to a report published in August accusing the army of torturing, raping, killing and abducting civilians. The UN called the expulsion a

breach

of South Sudan's legal obligations to the United Nations.

World News from the BBC

Syrian oppositional groups have started several days of meetings in Qatar to try to unify their ranks and eventually form a government in exile. The biggest group, the Syrian National Council, consisting largely of academics and