Somali wedding planners rejoice in new freedom

Women decked out in brightly colored gowns, gold jewelry and elaborate dance with men to the slow tunes of Somali love songs. A pianist, guitarist and female singer entertain the crowd packed into a small, stuffy hall for a wedding reception. Such a scene would have been unthinkable in Mogadishu just months ago when a hardline Muslim movement ruled the seaside capital and much of southern Somalia, imposing sharia law and shutting down many forms of entertainment seen as un-Islamic. But business is back after the interim government, with Ethiopian military help, in January ejected the Islamists and their strict form of Islam.