Somali prime minister sworn in

The new prime minister of Somalia, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, has been sworn in at a ceremony in Djibouti.

Mr Sharmarke told parliament he would give peace and security top priority.

Mr Sharmarke, a former diplomat, is the son of a former president who was killed in 1969 ahead of the military coup that brought Siad Barre to power.

Somalia has not had a stable government since his overthrow in 1991. MPs met in Djibouti because Islamist militant groups control the capital, Mogadishu.

The new prime minister told the BBC: "We'll try to actually extend an olive branch to those still outside the peace process."

He added: "Secondly, we'll try to stabilise the country's security, which I think is paramount... And third ... we have to bring the IDPs (internally displaced people) back to their own homes, we have to try to bring most of the refugees in Kenya and elsewhere back to Somalia."

Mr Sharmarke is widely seen as a bridge between Islamists within the government and the international community.

The BBC's Kevin Mwachiro says Mr Sharmarke's appointment seems to have ticked all the right boxes.

His father was Somalia's first civilian president and is still fondly remembered.

He is from the Darod clan, ensuring that the country's three major clans are represented in the country's struggling leadership, and he also enjoys widespread support from parliamentarians and Somalis living at home and abroad.

More importantly, he and the newly-elected president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, seem to get along.

Mr Sharmarke has a month to appoint a new cabinet, which will have to be approved by parliament, and then there is the issue of how to deal with the radical Islamist group al-Shabab.

The insurgents have denounced the country's new administration as being anti-Islamists.

But reports from Mogadishu say there have been demonstrations of support for the new prime minister in the capital and elsewhere.