Zanzibar president calls for unity

The new president of Zanzibar has urged the main opposition party leader to accept the outcome of last month's elections.

In his first address to parliament, President Amani Abeid Karume said his advice to the leader of the Civic United Front Seif Shariff Hamad was that the voters' verdict should be respected, despite a number of irregularities.

President Karume said it was time the people of Zanzibar drew together by forgetting their political and religious differences.

The Front has boycotted parliament because it doesn't recognise the election results in Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service