Mali President Traore appoints new Prime Minister

Cissoko (left) has been told to form a new government Mali President Dioncounda Traore has appointed Diango Cissoko as the country\'s Prime Minister, on the same day that Cheick Modibo Diarra resigned from the post. The former Prime Minister quit on national television after former coup leader Captain Amadou Sanogo ordered soldiers to arrest him at his home.
The 60-year old appeared on ORTM television and expressed the hope that \"the new team\" would succeed in their task. Sanogo denied that Diarra was forced to resign, because of his arrest by coup soldiers. He said, \"when a prime minister has such excessive personal ambition, be it for elections or otherwise, when he is strangling the country, you have to act quickly. Mr Diarra is doing very well. He is not under any pressure, under any threat of violence. He is currently at home. But we are morally obliged to protect him and his family.\"
Earlier, Diarra cancelled a trip to Paris for a medical check-up after his baggage was removed from the plane. A source confirmed that the ex-prime minister was arrested by about 20 soldiers who said that Sanogo had sent them to arrest him.
Sanogo ousted former president Amadou Toumani Toure’s government back in March and despite an interim-government being set-up with Diarra as the Prime Minister, Diarra has remained a key influence.
Human Rights Watch researcher Corinne Dufka told AFP: \"Since March Sanogo and his men have been implicated in a steady stream of abuses. Not one of these incidents has been properly investigated. Instead Sanogo was rewarded with a high-level government post to reform the armed forces.\"
New Prime Minister Cissoko is a veteran public servant and has been handed responsibilities of forming the new government. He told state television that his priorities are to regain control of the north from rebels and organise a general election in the troubled West African nation. \"I want to tell Malians that they must get together, because it\'s only a unified people that can confront their problems,\" he said.
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council has told the Malian military to stop meddling in political affairs,and has threatened sanctions against those preventing the restoration democracy.