AFGHAN PARLIMENT REJECT 2/3 OF MINISTERS NOMINATED BY KAZAI

The Afghan parliament has rejected two-thirds of the ministers nominated by the country's president.
Legislators cast their votes on Saturday on whether or not to accept Hamid Karzai's list of new cabinet members.

• "Of the 24 nominees introduced to parliament, seven have succeeded in getting your vote of confidence," Mohammad Yunus Qanooni, the parliamentary speaker, said after the vote counting finished.
• Sarwar Danish, the nominee for justice minister, and Obaidullah Obaid, nominated for the higher education portfolio, were two of the first to be rejected.
• Later Ismail Khan, who was energy minister in the last cabinet, failed to keep his post.
• Husn Bano Ghazanfar, the only woman nominated by Karzai, fell two votes short of being confirmed as minister for women's affairs.
• Parliament stayed open for more than two extra hours on Saturday to finish voting for the ministers after a secret ballot process that began early in the morning but ran on all day.
• Abdul Rahim Wardak, the defence minister, was the first to gain approval to stay on. Other ministers approved were those for agriculture, interior, finance, education, culture, and the combined portfolio of mines and industries.
• Karzai had not proposed a nominee for foreign minister. He has asked incumbent Rangin Dadfar Spanta to stay in the post until after the January 28 international conference in London that is to discuss the way forward for Afghanistan.

Source: Al Jazeera, The Agencies