Washington, January 27, 2007 (SL Times) – Somali Poet Mohamed Hashi Dhama (popularly known as Gaariye) will give a poetry reading at the UW Simpson Center for the Humanities on Saturday, February 3, 2007 in Communications Building Room 120. An internationally known poet whose poetry topics range from love to the menace of nuclear weapons to the heroism of Nelson Mandela, Dhama has worked at the Somali Academy of Culture and as a lecturer in Somali literature at the National University. His reading is co-sponsored by the African Studies Program,

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Conflicts in Sudan and Somalia are among the crises competing for attention -- and troops and funds for peacekeeping operations -- at an African summit.

The new U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, is including next week's African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital on his first official tour, underscoring the importance global leaders place on helping the 53-member union address the continent's problems.

The U.N. has pressed for a 7,000-member African Union peacekeeping force to be replaced by a more powerful, 20,000 U.N. force in Sudan's Darfur, where civil war has resulted in an estimated 200,000 deaths and forced more than 2.5 million from their homes. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has resisted large-scale U.N. intervention, even as Darfur's four-year war spills over the border, aggravating rebellions in Chad and the Central African Republic.

January 22, 2007

“A global fund is being created to subsidize the purchase of a new generation of anti-malaria drugs for Africa, where the mosquito-borne disease kills 1 million people a year, mostly children under 5, a World Bank-sponsored forum announced Friday.

The two-day conference of 80 health experts, African government ministers and nongovernmental organizations was called to build on a 2004 report by Nobel economics laureate Kenneth Arrow on how to make the new drugs affordable to the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.… The conference began the task of building a network of donor countries, led by the Netherlands, and of setting up the architecture for administering the fund.

Mogadishu, January 26, 2007 - The government administration in Mudug provincial town of Haradhere, central Somalia, has voiced concerns that the Somali pirates have begun massing at the town. The pirates were reportedly intending to launch hijacking the ships crossing Somalia coasts.

Abdisalna Khalif, the government management for Mudug region, has told Shabelle by the phone that groups of heavily armed pirates have lately been gathering at Hardhere town, which was notorious for piracy in the past.

MAPUTO, Jan 24, 2007 - Mozambique is reconsidering whether it will contribute troops to peacekeeping forces deployed in Somalia and Sudan, the country’s defence minister told Reuters on Wednesday.

"We have ordered a thorough study to be conducted before we intervene, then we will decide," Maj. General Tobias Dai said in an interview. "We need to know the region, the nature of the conflict and its evolution and also understand different efforts that we would propose."

Earlier this month a Mozambique Defense Ministry spokesman said a military contingent was training intensely in preparation for deployment to the Horn of Africa after requests for peacekeepers were received from the United Nations among others

GAROWE, Somalia Jan 23, 2007 – A large conference opened Tuesday morning at the Puntland Research and Development Center (PDRC) in the regional capital Garowe, where government and aid agencies discussed development and reconstruction initiatives in the region.

The Puntland leadership, including Vice President Hassan Dahir Afqura, Cabinet ministers and regional legislators, sat across from representatives of donor organizations from the World Bank, the European Union and other agencies.