Ashraf Ghani sworn in as Afghan president

Ashraf Ghani has been sworn is as the new president of Afghanistan in a lavish ceremony at the presidential palace in Kabul, ending months of turmoil over a fraud tainted election. The former finance minister was inaugurated in a grand event today marking the country's first democratic transfer of power since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Ghani succeeds Hamid Karzai after a three-month standoff over disputed election results that fuelled tensions with local leaders and worsened Afghanistan's dire economic outlook. Both Ghani and his poll rival Abdullah Abdullah claimed to have won the fraud-tainted June 14 election, plunging Afghanistan into a crisis that threatened to trigger nationwide unrest.