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.

Nairobi - Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan on Friday hinted he would send the names of politicians and businessmen accused of orchestrating Kenya's post-election violence to The Hague after failed attempts to set up a local tribunal.

Justice Philip Waki, who headed a probe into the violence, gave Kenya until March 1 to create a local tribunal. However, Kenyan MPs on Thursday failed to pass the necessary bill.

Annan said that he and fellow members of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities would review what actions needed to be taken "in line with the spirit, letter and intent" of Waki's probe.

Nairobi - Thousands of Kenyans on Monday attended a mass burial of over 100 people who died when fuel leaking from an overturned tanker caught fire and engulfed the crowds attempting to scoop up the leaking petrol.

President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga joined mourners gathered around two mass graves dug a short distance from where the accident took place near the town of Molo.

At least 130 people died and around 200 were injured in the inferno, which broke out late on Saturday, 31 January.

Nairobi - Libyan leader and new head of the African Union, Moammer Gaddafi, has defended the actions of Somalian pirates as an act of self-defence against "greedy" Western nations, the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation reported Friday.

The paper, reporting on Gaddafi's courtesy call on AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, quoted him as saying: "It is not piracy, it is self defence. It is defending the Somalian children's food.

Nairobi/London - Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has called off a probe into a huge fraud involving contracts with the Kenyan government, saying Kenya had failed to provide evidence to allow it to prosecute those responsible.

The fraud, which took place between April 2002 and February 2004, involved contracts with the phoney Anglo Leasing Company worth almost 100 million dollars.

The SFO office was probing offshore accounts in Jersey and Guernsey as part of the fraud, which saw payments made for passport equipment and supplies for the Kenyan police that were never delivered.

Nairobi - Somali pirates are leaving a Ukrainian ship laden with weapons as they prepare to release it, a maritime group said Thursday.

The MV Faina was seized off the coast of Somalia in September and is carrying a cargo of 33 T-72 tanks and other armaments.

"We know now they are leaving the ship in small groups," Andrew Mwangura, of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.