SOMALI MPs ELECT NEW PRESIDENT

Opposition leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has been elected as new president of Somalia after a run-off parliamentary vote in neighbouring Djibouti. Ahmed, the chairman of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) and the leader of the Islamic Courts Union, won the necessary 293 votes in a second round of voting just before 4am local time (0100GMT) on Saturday. The new president, who briefly ruled Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia in 2006 before being ousted by the Ethiopian military, defeated Maslah Mohamed Siad, son of ex-president Mohamed Siad Barre. "We have 293 votes for Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and 126 for Siad," Hussein Mohamed Jama, the head of the presidential electoral commission, said. "I declare Sharif Sheikh Ahmed the president of Somalia after winning this election," Aden Mohamed Nur, the parliament speaker, said.

See the Profile: Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed