Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Burkinabe President Appoints Scribe to Premiership

Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore appointed, on Tuesday, a former journalist and ambassador to France as the new prime minister, hoping to restore stability after a series of violent protests by soldiers.
Soldiers took to the streets of Ouagadougou and at least three other cities last week, looting shops and torching merchant stalls and the homes of army officers and other officials and Compaore had sacked the government and top military chiefs on Friday following the rampage.
A decree made public late on Monday named Burkina's 56-year-old ambassador to France, Luc Adolphe Tiao, as the new prime minister. Since mid-March, the capital and outlying towns in the impoverished country have been roiled by unrest.
Protests by soldiers over pay have been joined by angry students, business people, and residents taking to the streets against rising food prices, police brutality and crime. The new army chief of staff, a respected general and former chairman of Burkina Faso's football federation, said the military needed to resolve its own problems through dialogue.

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