Washington, May 5, 2007 – The national leaders of Somaliland as well as the Somaliland public have for so long challenged the Diaspora to contribute constructively and meaningfully to the economic, political and social development of the country. More importantly, they commanded the Diaspora to play a greater role in diffusing the fraternal but sometimes destructive tension and rivalry that occur.
Read full text...
New York , May 8, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists extends its condolences to the colleagues and family of respected Associated Press reporter Anthony Mitchell, who was killed in a weekend plane crash in Cameroon.
Mitchell, 39, a staff reporter with the AP’s Kenya bureau, was among 114 passengers killed when a Kenya Airways aircraft crashed early Saturday shortly after takeoff from the coastal city of Douala, Cameroon, according to news reports. He was returning to Nairobi after completing a weeklong assignment in the Central African Republic on international animal smuggling, AP reported.
Mogadishu, May 11, 2007 – Two aid workers kidnapped by gunmen in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region are in good health and their abductors are negotiating with local elders to free them, a source close to the captors said on Friday.
The source, who did not want to be named, said the Briton and Kenyan were being held near where they were seized on Wednesday, some 75 miles (120 km) south of Puntland's main port Bossasso. They worked for the CARE International relief agency.
Read full text...
MOGADISHU, May 11, 2007 – The African Union (AU) on Friday urged member states who have pledged troops to its peacekeeping mission in Somalia to deploy them as soon as possible to allow Ethiopian troops to withdraw.
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is supposed to replace Ethiopian soldiers helping the interim government in taming the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
But only 1,500 Ugandan soldiers have deployed so far, less than a fifth of the planned, 8,000-strong unit.
MOGADISHU, May 11, 2007 – In a bid to reinforce its tenuous grip on Somalia’s war-wracked capital, officials have launched a crackdown on an outdoor market in Mogadishu known for its weapons vendors.
The government official in charge of the operation, Colonel Abdurisak Dimoqradi, told reporters traders in the large Bakara market had been told to dismantle their stalls and clear out of public buildings they had taken over.
JOHANNESBURG, May 11, 2007 – Ethiopia's efforts to stabilize Somalia are unlikely to succeed and African countries should live up to their promises to send peacekeepers there, a continental advisory body said on Thursday.
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) also said in a report that Ethiopian military support for Somali government forces against Islamist insurgents was "doomed to failure".
Backed by Ethiopian troops, tanks and warplanes, Somali forces ousted rival Islamist leaders in January and are trying to secure the capital after a surge of bloody fighting.
Niqabs and burkas have become more popular in recent years
Mogadishu, May 09, 2007 – Two hand grenades have gone off in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, where government soldiers were confiscating and burning face veils worn by women.
MOGADISHU, Somalia, May 12 2007 — The United Nations’ top humanitarian official made a landmark visit to this battle-scarred capital on Saturday, but his trip was disrupted by an explosion that killed four people near the United Nations compound.
John Holmes, the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, is the highest-ranking United Nations official to visit Mogadishu in more than a decade. His trip, including a meeting with President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, was delayed briefly by the blast near the compound.
MOGADISHU, 12 May 2007 - Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi yesterday sacked his deputy and the defence minister, both of whom have been critical of the interim government and its Ethiopian backers. In a statement released by his office, Gedi said he had dismissed Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Mohamed Aidid and Defence Minister Barre Aden Shire Hirale but did not give a reason. .
ead full text...
New York, May 9, 2007 - The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the death on Saturday of Mohammed Abdullahi Khalif, a contributor to the private radio station Voice of Peace in Somalia’s northeastern, semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Khalif was killed by crossfire while covering an army raid on an illegal gun market in the city of Galkayo.
Kampala, 12 May 2007UGANDAN - troops in Somalia are planning to pull out in four months' time to pave way for a UN-led force to take control of security in the war-torn Horn of Africa country.
Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga told Daily Monitor that Uganda is now following the AU peacekeeping time table. This appears contrary to President Yoweri Museveni's position that the UPDF's mission in somali would be open-ended..
Mogadishu, 11 May 2007 - UN special representative for Somalia, Francois Fall, who landed at Mogadishu international airport early Friday morning, told journalists that he came to Somalia to talk with the Somali transitional government over the national reconciliation conference.
Fall has had a closed door meeting with Somali president Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed and his prime Minster Ali Mohammed Gedi. The prime minister told stringers, after the meeting, that the Somali officials including the president and the UN envoy discussed issues pertaining to the reconciliation convention and how it was vital to speed up the deployment of the African Union troops in Somalia.
Nairobi, 10 May 2007 - Years of violence have turned Somalia, particularly the capital, Mogadishu, into one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid workers. Across the country, faction fighting, road-blocks manned by gunmen, kidnappings and killings have reduced humanitarian activity to a minimum, say aid workers.
Mogadishu, 10 May 2007 - Mohammed Dheere, Mogadishu mayor, said Thursday that there was never a decree from his office or the government's over burning women's face veils.
Government soldiers have lately been burning women's face veils in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Mogadishu, 10 May 2007 - Ethiopian envoy to Somalia, Fiseha Shawel, made clear the Ethiopian military mission in Somalia Wednesday. He also talked about "terrorist" suspects seized from Somalia and sent to Ethiopian jails in Addis Ababa as Shabelle stringer, Abdiaziz Dhoore, interviewed him at the Ethiopian military base near former US embassy, south of the capital Mogadishu on Wednesday.
|
|
Headlines |
Nairobi/Mogadishu, May 12, 2007 (Al-Khaleej & SL Times) - Somaliland officials have been involved in secret talks aimed at exploring the possibility of re-unification with Somalia, the daily Arabic newspaper Al-Khaleej disclosed on Thursday.
According to Al-Khaleej which is based in the United Arab Emirates, the talks are being sponsored by Ethiopian and American diplomats in an attempt to convince Somaliland to accept re-joining Somalia under new favorable terms to be guaranteed by both Addis Ababa and Washington
|
The speaker of the lower house of parliament, Mr Abdirahman M. Abdillahi (Eiro) |
Hargeysa, Somaliland, May 12, 2007 (SL Times) - The speaker of the lower house of parliament, Mr Abdirahman M. Abdillahi (Eiro) opened Tuesday's morning session of the lower house by stating to the house members that the verdict of the Supreme Court on Monday regarding the extension term which the house extended for the expired National Election Commission [NEC] was accepted by the house. Mr Abdirahman, nevertheless, said,
|
Hargeysa, Somaliland, May 12, 2007 (SL Times) - The Somaliland Supreme Court on Monday nullified parliament's last February extension of the expired five-year term of the National Election Commission [NEC] for another two years. The Supreme Court verdict came after President Dahir Rayale Kahin contested in the Supreme Court sitting on Monday in parliament's decision not to review six out of the seven member team comprising of the new NEC and the decision of parliament to extend for another two years the expired five-term of the old NEC.
Read full text...
|
Family of Shuun Abdi Hersi and neighbours preparing for the demostration against the vice-president |
London, May 12, 2007 (SL Times) – Reports are circulating about a possible demonstration by some in the UK Somaliland Diaspora against the Governments' delegation led by the Vice President Ahmed Yusuf Yasin in London.
Even though the delegation received warm welcome earlier, there are reports about some people who were working on holding demonstrations against the delegation. The people who want to demonstrate have complaints about illegal arrests of their parents in Somaliland.
|
|
By Tara Lee
News reports have called last month’s violence in Mogadishu the worst in Somalia’s history. I was in northern Somalia last month, and I saw evidence that suggests this isn’t so. Mogadishu’s recent violence -- including the mass deaths of civilians and the heavy artillery shelling into residential areas -- merely echoes what most have forgotten happened in the city of Hargeisa, in the north of Somalia, in 1988.
Read full text..
|
Somaliland, home to more than 2 million people, declared independence in 1991. It meets the requirement for sovereign statehood. |
HARGEISA, May 12, 2007 - The unrecognized Republic of Somaliland has sent a formal request to the African Union (AU) asking to be recognized as an independent African government, according to diplomatic sources in Addis Ababa.
|
The late president of Somaliland, Mohammed Ibrahim Egal |
By Ahmed M.I. Egal
Introduction The aim of this essay is to piece together the political philosophy of the late President of Somaliland, Mohammed Ibrahim Egal, into a set of principles and values that underpinned his political outlook and his actions. This fifth anniversary of his death provides an appropriate context to examine Egal’s political legacy, with the distance afforded by time, hopefully, enabling a measure of objectivity in the analysis. As with all such endeavors, this enterprise is fraught with the dangers of simplification of complex domestic and foreign policies on one hand and over-analysis of actions dictated by the practical exigencies of the day on the other. In this context, we must remain aware that Egal always viewed himself, first and foremost, as a practical politician and was generally suspicious or skeptical of the grandiose claims of political ideologues.
By Dalmar Kaahin, Ottawa, Canada
Undoubtedly, the Somali clan ideology not only brought Somalis to their knees where hunger and disease stalk them, but also foreign invaders use this wicked clan ideology as a weapon to conquer Somalia. Evidently, the recent US-Ethiopia coalition attacks against Somalis—who have simply refused parachuting a foreign-imposed Somali regime into their country—demonstrate the cunning strategies of foreign powers. Both US and Ethiopia use dirty tactics: deadly combinations of deep-seeded Somali clan ideology and terrorism myths.
|
Mogadishu, May 11, 2007 – UN envoy to Somalia Francois Fall has arrived in Mogadishu for his first visit since the end of some of the deadliest fighting in the city’s history
UN envoy to Somalia Francois Fall arrived in Mogadishu on Friday for his first visit since the end, two weeks ago, of some of the deadliest fighting in the city’s history.
Read full text...
|
Johannesburg, May 08, 2007 – AU Chairman John Kufuor is downplaying his statement of Monday that the African Union would be sending an additional 8-thousand peacekeepers to Somalia. He made the comment Monday at the opening of the Pan African Parliament in Midrand, part of Johannesburg, South Africa.
Tuesday, the Ghanaian president is quoted as saying that he never stated they would be sent immediately – and that the AU is having problems finding the extra peacekeepers. President Kufuor was also quoted as saying dialogue is the only answer to Somalia’s political problems.
|
MOGADHISHU, Somalia, May 12 2007 - Wearing a flak jacket over a blue pinstriped suit, the top U.N. humanitarian official crawled into a hut made of sticks and plastic tarp Saturday and asked the owner how he survives in one of the world‘s most violent cities.
"It‘s not safe here," Dahir said, surrounded by some clothes and a few pots.
Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, left Somalia the same day he arrived rather than spend the night as planned.
Read full text...
|
12 May 2007
The United Nations Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict has demanded that the parties in Sri Lanka and Nepal demobilize all child soldiers without delay, as it also examined new reports on children caught up in fighting in Uganda and Somalia.
|
|
International News
|
|
|
Abu Dhabi, 8 May 2007 - In an interview with Abu Dhabi TV station, President Isaias Afwerki said that the TPLF regime's invasion of Somalia is a US invasion through an agent. In the interview focusing on the objective situation in the region, President Isaias said that the Somalis have the capacity to resolve their issues themselves, if the issue is to have a genuine resolution,
|
|
May 7, 2007
Alexandria, Virginia, USA, April 27, 2007 - The Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the human rights lawsuit filed against former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar for his role in torture, extrajudicial killing, war crimes and other abuses committed against the civilian population of Somalia in the 1980s.
|
|
Mrs. Maslah said her husband's death had left her and her family 'devastated'. |
London, May 08, 2007 – A minicab driver who fled war-torn Somalia for a new life in London has been stabbed to death.
Father-of-five Mohamed Ali Maslah was found by police collapsed and bleeding next to his cab in Islington in the early hours of Saturday.
|
|
Don't break out the champagne just yet, he still has time to drag the country into another bloodbath...
Prime Minister Blair's long goodbye - don't break out the champagne just yet, he still has time to drag the country into another bloodbath, he doesn't actually go until 27th June - was typically stage managed. Only the supinely faithful were allowed in to Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency. Sightings of Blair in this, his fiefdom, are as rare as total eclipses of the sun.
|
|
May 2007
US President George W. Bush on Friday authorized nearly 30 million dollars in aid for refugees in Africa and the West Bank and Gaza, the White House said Friday.
Bush authorized the US State Department "to use up to 29.5 million dollars from the US Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund for operations" in those areas "in order to meet unexpected, urgent humanitarian needs," said a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial
|
With the dislodgement of the Islamic Courts from many of their strongholds in the south, many people were wondering what is the US policy in Somalia going to be and how that is going to affect Somaliland? Well now, after several months those people won’t have to wonder. For it is clear now that the US policy towards Somalia is the same as it was before the invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops, namely to fight terrorism, to help in humanitarian efforts and to encourage stability. From a Somaliland perspective, these three principles have had little beneficial impact on Somaliland. First, if we take the anti-terrorism issue, Somaliland has broken more terror networks and apprehended more terrorists than many countries, but although Somaliland has paid dearly for its efforts and exposed itself to retaliatory attacks by such outfits as the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), the west and especially the US never even said thank you to Somaliland, let alone reward it economically or militarily.
Read full text...
|
|
Special Report |
In November 2005, the Centre for Human Rights began investigating the possibility of a third destination for the LLM field trip. The reasons for increasing the number of field trip destinations to include Somaliland include the following:
Somaliland is a state in the making; it would be ideal for students on the programme to have a first hand experience of this.
|
|
|
Opinions
|
By Xiis Ahmed
Every passing day now seems to shed more and more light on the UDUB regime's true colors. To many law abiding good citizens of Somaliland, this frightening new develop reminds them of the life they endured under the fascist dictatorial regime of Siyad Barre.
It is not coincidence that most of this regime including Rayale himself is former Siyad Barre apologists that were singing Guulwade songs till that fascist regime's boat t sunk in 1991.
Read full text... |
|
The Scoreless Stalemate In Our Political Skullduggery
By Idris A. Ibrahim, Hargeysa, Somaliland.
For many years, I have never penned an article by which I have been aiming at expressing my views on the ever- changing political dynamics in Somaliland. The reason was not that I have been hamstrung by the lack of the proper words that I would describe what was burning inside me but was more of a choice to stay mum about the whole stuff.
Yet, staying in such a hibernation state for those years has left me with nothing but the urge to catch up with the ins and outs of the political system in Somaliland. There are, however, certain hot issues that are boggling the minds of all sensible citizens in this beautiful country
|
|
Somaliland Budget: Fiscal Year 2007
By Ibrahim Adam Ghalib, Borama, Awdal.
A budget is an estimate or plan of how much money will be spent over a period of time in relation to the amount of money available. It is a process tailored on historical information, trends, industry conditions and the economy. The budget of the preceding year is an important document as well as the abstract account showing the actual in order to compare your figures. The revenue and most likely income are first identified before any expenditure estimates is even considered. There is a direct relationship between projected revenues and the expenses that will be incurred. Preparing the revenue side of the equation will make clear the extent of development programs and services that can be rendered in that fiscal year.
|
|
The Deployment Dilemma
Abdifatah Ismail, Cape Town, RSA
As the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia consolidates its power across the country, there is a growing realization that prolonged Ethiopian stay in Somalia may lead to a possible renewal of war and subsequent dire humanitarian catastrophe in this conflict ridden nation of ten million.
Following the fall of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, rumors are rife that the powerful Ethiopian army may pull out from the country any moment from now. The question on every one’s mind is then where their replacement, if any, will come from as the TFG’s security forces are not capable of filling the vacuum.
|
|
By Abdirahman Haji Abubakar, Ottawa, Canada
The stories emerging from the south are very disheartening. After killing thousands of innocent civilians, injuring many others and destroying whatever little infrastructure left from the civil war, Ethiopian troops are now in control in Mogadishu with help of the American support. What is morally reprehensible is that the officials of the TFG (Transitional Federal Government) who are predominantly the warlords from the Hawiye tribe, were saying “we are killing and chasing the terrorists” when the Ethiopian troops were shelling indiscriminately many parts of Mogadishu. How morally bankrupt these warlords from Hawiye are?
Read full text...
|
|
Bashir Goth
I am not a fan of hereditary rule. I would rather live in a place where every child can dream of being able to reach the highest position of power. A place where even immigrants and children of immigrant parents such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy can find an open field to compete and achieve their goals through ambition, merit and hard work and not through the mere chance of being born into it.
Read full text...
|
|
By Ismail Ahmed, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia
Perhaps and most possibly, very few men had suffered so harshly at the hands of the newly minted Majeerteenian morons than Dr. Mohamed Jama, better known as Dr. Siffer. The Majeeretenian petty slobs, have been personally hand picked by Col. Abdillahi Yusuf himself, soon after he was elected as Somalia’s interim president in a scandalous conference held in the Kenyan city of Embagathi in 2004.
Dr. Siffer, who, before seeing behind his nose was driven by a non-existing imaginary Somali Republic, has become the victim of his elusive empty euphoria.
|
|
By: Dr. Shacabi, California, USA
Divided we fall, united we stand," said former US President Abraham Lincoln. How true are his words when applied to the situation of Muslims today? We are separated and divided on petty issues, and we are so weak that the Western World is playing with our lives like a football. We invite them play with us. In the past, the Muslim world was under occupation and colonialism.
|
|
| FEATURES & COMMENTARY |
By J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.
A little less than year ago, I appeared before a joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations and the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation of the United States House of Representatives to offer testimony on the expanding crisis in the Horn of Africa caused by the fall of Mogadishu to forces of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).
|
|
By Jamal Madar
For the first time in months, a semblance of normalcy is beginning to return to the deserted neighborhoods of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, after weeks of intense aerial, artillery and tank shellings by Ethiopian troops into the densely populated areas of the city in a desperate attempt to quell the popular insurgency against the puppet Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia allied to the Ethiopian occupying forces.
|
|
K’naan and the Marleys at Antone’s |
Sunday, May 6, 2007 – Understand this — the Marleys are not ordinary human beings like you and me. Born into a lineage revered in many parts of the globe as a form of divine royalty, brothers Stephen and Damian brought a sense of ceremony to their sold-out Antone’s performance. And it began well before they even hit the stage, bringing with them, as always, a rasta cat to wave the Jamaican flag continuously throughout their performance.
|
|
Introduction
Ethiopia needs hard-currency and the Republic of Somaliland needs electricity, Ethiopia have electricity to export and Somalilanders have the money to pay for it, this is a match made in heaven.
|
|
Statement to Heads of State
12 th May 2007
Kampala: EHAHRD-Net’s statement to all East and Horn of Africa Heads of State:
Today the 12 th of May 2007, on the Occasion of the opening of the Forum on the Participation of NGOs in the 41 st Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the 15 th African Human Rights Book Fair, in Accra , Ghana; the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Network calls upon members of the UN Africa Group, together with other regional groups, to support strong reforms at the UN Human Rights Council in its fifth and final session of its inaugural year from June 11-18.
|
|
Shanghai, 12 May 2007 - Africa will continue to enjoy economic growth well above its long-term trend in 2007 and 2008 on the back of global demand for the continent's oil and minerals, the African Development Bank said on Sunday.
The lender forecast average gross domestic product growth for Africa of 5.9% this year and 5.7% in 2008.
|
|
|
|
by Ramzy Baroud
May 13, 2007
The Darfur crisis in Sudan is perhaps the most politically convoluted conflict in the world today. Its underpinnings involve local, regional and international players, all selfishly vying for power and economic interests. Alliances shift like quicksand, reminiscent of Lebanon. Neither the interest of the people of Darfur, nor the sovereignty of Sudan seem to be a major concern to any of those involved:
|
|
|
