Riyadh  - Saudi Arabia has appointed the country's first-ever female cabinet official on Saturday as part of a wide-ranging cabinet reshuffle.

Saudi King Abdullah appointed Nour Fayez as deputy minister for women's education, in a move considered a milestone in Saudi Arabia, a country in which women only started to vote five years ago.

In the religiously conservative country women are banned from driving, and rights groups have frequently condemned the legal status and treatment of women.

The country, governed via a strict interpretation of Islamic law, prevents unrelated women and men from mixing in public. Women only make up to 5 percent of the workforce in Saudi Arabia, the lowest proportion in the world.

Nairobi  - Somalia's parliament on Saturday overwhelmingly approved the son of an assassinated former president as the country's new prime minister.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Friday appointed Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke to the prime minister position as Sheikh Sharif continues to drive for peace and stability in his war-torn country. Sheikh Sharif was only elected last month.

Some 414 lawmakers backed the new man, with nine opposed, the UN's political office in Somalia said.

Harare  - Zimbabwean ministerial appointee Roy Bennett, who was arrested Friday shortly before the swearing-in of a unity government, has been charged with treason, his lawyer said late Friday.

Bennett, the MDC's candidate for deputy agriculture minister, has been charged in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe dating back to
2006, his lawyer Trust Maanda told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama's economic recovery package was set to clear its final hurdles Friday as both houses of Congress voted on a nearly
790-billion-dollar compromise bill to help pull the United States out of recession.

The House of Representatives approved the stimulus package - the largest single spending proposal in US history - by a vote of 246-183 Friday afternoon. The Senate was expected to follow suit Friday evening.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama's economic recovery package was set to clear its final hurdles Friday as both houses of Congress voted on a nearly
790-billion-dollar compromise bill.

The House of Representatives approved the stimulus package - the largest single spending proposal in US history - by a vote of 246-183 Friday afternoon, with no support from the chamber's minority Republicans. The Senate was expected to follow suit Friday evening.

Washington  - The US House of Representatives app