Ethiopian Foreign Affairs
Press Statement
Addis Ababa, June 3, 2007 – Prime Minister Meles Zenawi held talks with Somaliland president Dahir Rayale Kahin on Saturday.
The discussions focused on trade and other issues of interest to the peoples of Ethiopia and Somalila
MOGADISHU, June 4, 2007 – A suicide bomber in a car killed seven people near the home of Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi in the capital Mogadishu yesterday, but he was unhurt, security sources and witnesses said.
“I saw limbs nearly 1km from where the suicide bomber detonated,” said a police officer at the scene.
SOMALI CLASHES: Two Ugandan African Union soldiers patrol near Somali capital Mogadishu's airport, June 2, 2007. |
MOGADISHU, June 3, 2007 - At least 12 Islamist fighters, including foreigners were killed in US naval shelling and fighting with forces from the Somali semi-autonomous region of Puntland, officials said Sunday.
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MANAMA, Bahrain, June 07, 2007 - U.S. military officials said Wednesday that a Navy ship recently fired on pirates who overtook a Danish vessel off Somalia's coast.
The USS Carter Hall, part of a U.S. task force that helps maintain security off Somalia and nearby countries, engaged the pirates after they hijacked a Danish cargo ship, the Danica White, in international waters, said Lt. Denise Garcia, a public affairs officer at U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.
A US navy ship launches a guided missile. A US warship bombed targets in northeastern Somalia after Islamist fighters clashed with troops from the country's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, witnesses and officials have said. |
MOGADISHU, June 02, 2007 – A US warship bombed targets in northeastern Somalia after Islamist fighters clashed with troops from the country's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, witnesses and officials said Saturday.
"We cannot yet tell you the casualty figures, but what I can confirm is that the American warship bombed several targets in the surroundings of Bargal" late Friday, Mohamoud Salah, a resident in the area told AFP by satellite phone.
The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders’ Network (EHAHRD-Net) is alarmed by the news of the closure of three radio stations in the Somali Capital, Mogadishu.
According to Network sources in Mogadishu, the three leading private radio stations; HornAfrik Radio, Radio Shabelle and Radio IQK (Holy Quran Radio) were closed after Somali security forces backed by Ethiopian troops, launched a security crackdown in the wake of Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing of the office of the Somali Prime Minister. The government accused the radio stations of "creation of hostility, assistance to terrorism, violating the free system, confusing the public and government denial”.
Ethiopian troops patrol the street of Mogadishu |
Mogadishu, June 08, 2007 – Reports in Somalia say that a coalition of groups opposed to Somalia's struggling transitional government and its Ethiopian backers has been formed with the support of the Eritrean government. VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu has details from the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
Djinnit says Burundian contingent will be deployed in a few days
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, June 8, 2007 – Weak reasons from donor countries have delayed the deployment of African Union (AU) forces in Somalia, said Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.
According to Seyum Mesfin, Minster of Foreign Affairs, though a number of countries like Malawi, Burundi, Nigeria and Ghana are ready to send their troops to Somalia, enough resources could not be allocated for the deployment.
Eritrean President Aferwerki |
Nairobi, June 9, 2007 - Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki on Saturday asked the United Nations to take the lead role in resolving a border dispute with arch-rival Ethiopia as tensions simmer between the two nations.
Issaias made the remarks in a meeting with UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe in the capital Asmara, the information ministry said in a statement.
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BELETWEIN, Somalia, 6 June 2007 - The Somali ambassador to the African Union has asked clan elders in the central Hiran region to cooperate with ongoing security operations led by the Ethiopian army, sources said.
Ambassador Abdikarim Lakanyo met with elders in the Hiran regional capital, Beletwein, on Wednesday in an effort to strengthen understanding between locals and the Ethiopian army contingent in the regions, officials said.
Mogadishu, June 9, 2007 - Ethiopian and Somali forces continue wider security operations in the Somalia capital searching for weapons and suspects – as a hand grenade bomb was targeted on the Ethiopian base in the former Pasta Factory in north of the capital overnight.
There was no immediate casualty on the Ethiopian soldiers.
Hundreds of heavily armed Ethiopian forces with Somali soldiers began this morning door to door search for suspects, blocking the main industrial roads in north of the capital.
Nairobi, 9 June 2007 - It is denials, half-truths and counter-accusations as the Darfur conflict once again dominates news from Africa.
This follows last week's announcement of new sanctions on Sudan by President George Bush due to what he said was reluctance by Khartoum to solve the four-year-old conflict.
According to Sudan's Foreign minister, Dr Lam Akol, the sanctions could only complicate a conflict whose roadmap was almost being agreed on. "Unless the US reviews its hostile stand on Sudan, the rebel groups would continue fighting because they are receiving negative signals. The Sudan government can only solve the conflict through dialogue and not through decrees as being pursued by the US," said Akol during an interview in Khartoum.
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President Adan Abdulle Osman (1908-2007) |
Nairobi, June 09, 2007 – The first post-independence African leader to peacefully hand over power, Somalia's first President Adan Abdulle Osman, has died aged 99, the interim Somali government said on Saturday.
Osman, Somalia's only effective democratically elected leader, died in a hospital in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Friday.
"He played a crucial role in both domestic and foreign politics. He democratically led the country in a just way," government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon said.
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Hargeysa, June 9, 2007 (SL Times) -
The Chairman of parliament's Select House-Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Hussien M Ige, in a press statement issued last Saturday said, "the law which regulates the registration of political parties, law No 14/2000, can not be considered obsolete until it is substituted and is replaced by another law. It should be legal for political associations to participate in local authorities elections."
The select House-Committee Chairman went on to say that "the obstruction of political associations' participation in local authority elections is unconstitutional."
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| Addis Ababa, June 05, 2007 – This weekend, the President of self-declared Somaliland was received with all honors by the Ethiopian Prime Minister. While the authorities downplayed the importance of the summit as "consultations", regional observers see it as yet another step towards a first-ever recognition of Somaliland's independence. According to an official communiqué by the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Prime Minister Meles Zenawi held talks with Somaliland president Dahir Rayale Kahin on Saturday." The official statement, for the first time, refers to Somaliland and its leader as any other sovereign state and Head of State.
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Nairobi, June 06, 2007 – Over 600 cases of cholera, including eight cholera-related deaths, have been reported in the Togdheer region of Somaliland in the past two weeks. Save the Children is working quickly with the Ministry of Health and other agencies to help contain the outbreak aiming to keep death rates under 1%.
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Prime Minister Meles Zenawi |
MOGADISHU, Somalia, Jun 05, 2007 – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi made a surprise visit to Somalia on Tuesday, the highest ranking government official to visit Mogadishu in more than a decade, officials said.
Ethiopia , the region's military powerhouse, has sent troops to protect this chaotic nation's government. But many in predominantly Muslim Somalia resent having troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population. The countries fought two brutal wars, the last in 1977.
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“Somalilanders Are Confident That, It Is Just A Matter Of Time And The Country Will Gain International Recognition” chair of Somaliland Heritage
Elie B. Smith
Pari, France, June 08, 2007 – Somaliland Heritage is a non profiting making organization created under the 1901 French law on associations. The headquarters of the organization is based in Paris, France, but she has offices in London, UK and in Hargeisa in Somaliland. Before the Press conference organization organized by the Paris based organization, I spoke with the pioneer chair of Somaliland Heritage, Mrs. Maryan Ibrahim Abdi.
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, June 8, 2007 – The absence of a follow-up policy for ensuring accelerated delineation and demarcation and, equally important, for promoting border cooperation lead to unintended contrary effects, said AU’s commissioner for peace and security, Said Djinnit.
During the opening of the conference of African ministers in charge of border issues in Addis Ababa earlier this week Djinnit pointed out the absence of a concerted policy articulation and systematic practice of cross-border cooperation has also led to the unwanted problems.
New York, June 7, 2007 - Three private broadcasters covering a government security crackdown in the aftermath of Sunday’s deadly suicide bombing of the residence of the Somali prime minister in the capital, Mogadishu, were indefinitely shuttered on Wednesday after authorities accused the stations of fomenting unrest, according to news reports and local journalists.
HornAfrik Radio, the first independent broadcaster in Somalia’s history, the leading independent station Radio Shabelle, and the private station Radio IQK (Holy Quran Radio) remained off the air today, a day after being shut down by an order of the Somali Information Ministry. HornAfrik Co-Director Ali Sharmarke
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Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi looks at his destroyed house, 04 June 2007 |
Nairobi, June 08, 2007 – The top U.N. political officer, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, B. Lynn Pascoe, visited Somalia Friday where he said he is upbeat about the reconciliation conference, due to take place on Thursday. Katy Migiro has more on the story from the VOA bureau in Nairobi.
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| Uganda President Museveni |
Kampala, Uganda, June 08, 2007 – Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said dialogue between warring parties in volatile Somalia is crucial in solving the lawlessness in the country.
President Museveni, who was giving the state of nation address in parliament on Thursday said once the warring parties dialogue most of the problems Somalia is facing will be solved.
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Commentary
By Idris A. Ibrahim
A prominent scholar in Somaliland affairs confided me once in a friendly chat at Maansoor Hotel over a dinner some three (3) years back that Somaliland has evolved into a giant that even the most severe political blows would not cause a dent to it. By this statement he meant that it has passed the tests of time with distinction and that the fear that it may back-pedal into anarchy is no longer valid.
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Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi (l) is welcomed by Somali PM Ali Mohamed Gedi (r) on his arrival at Mogadishu airport |
Nairobi, June 06, 2007 – The Somali government has closed down three main FM stations in the capital, Mogadishu. Katy Migiro reports for VOA that the media clampdown follows a surprise visit by the Ethiopian Prime Minister aimed at shoring up confidence in the Somali government.
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London, 10 June 2007 - A BRITISH student who was caught up in fighting in Somalia has described how he fled for his life only to be arrested as a suspected Al-Qaeda member and then rescued by a British consul from a secret operation to transfer terrorist suspects to Ethiopia for interrogation.
Reza Afsharzadagen, 25, from north London, was among hundreds of refugees forced to flee battles last December between Islamic radicals who had seized power in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, and Ethiopian soldiers trying to install a rival United Nations-backed government.
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Stockholm, Sweden, June 03, 2007 – A Swedish citizen has been reported killed in Somalia following an American air attack against alleged Islamic extremists in the rebel Puntland region.
The governor of the Barri Region, Mussa Jelle Yusuf, told news agency AFP that the Americans were targeting "an al-Qaeda hideout."
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Somaliland Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Edna Adan Ismail |
Mar 21, 2007
The University of Toledo College of Medicine’s Medical Mission Hall of Fame will induct its fourth class of honorees Friday, March 23. Dr. Ira Abrahamson, Dr. Harold and Bonnie Jo Adolph, Dr. Lawrence Conway, Dr. James Diller and Dr. Edna Adan Ismail will be honored during a program in the Driscoll Alumni Center Auditorium on UT’s Main Campus from 4 to 6 p.m |
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Muhammed can't wait to enter the next phase of his life and neither can his teachers. They have watched him grow into the young man he is today |
Owatonna, USA, 9 June 2007 - He's a senior from Owatonna and he's already a role model for young kids and hopes to continue making an impression by reaching his goal of becoming a teacher. Ihmad Muhammed is and astounding graduate from Owatonna High School.
Muhammed can't wait to enter the next phase of his life and neither can his teachers. They have watched him grow into the young man he is today.
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Parliament’s vote that excluded the two candidates from Sanag (Mohamud Abdi Hamud) and Awdal (Muse Ahmad Omer) and passed the other five candidates for the election commission has raised a lot of questions about parliament’s judgment, if not its integrity. While we cannot say for sure that the Awdal and Sanag candidates were not confirmed due to clan bias, there is at least one good reason to be concerned, which is that the three candidates that the parliamentary subcommittee was not satisfied with had the same “age” problem, and yet one of them was approved while the other two were rejected.
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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.
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By Adan H Iman, Los Angeles
On June 2, 2007, the Somaliland House of Representatives convened to vote on the seven individuals appointed for the National Election Commission (NEC). According to press accounts, the House Sub-Committee for Internal Affairs, which had been entrusted to examine the credentials of the appointees against the official requirement for the job, recommended that three individuals did not fulfill the qualification required for the job; ostensibly their ages were determined to have exceeded the maximum age specified in the official job bulletin.
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Ist: A Person Who Believes Or Practices
By Elizabeth Parker, Hargeysa, Somaliland
This is a dictionary explanation of the suffix ist.
So a person that plays a violin is a violinist.
A man or woman that believes and practices science is a scientist.
A person that doesn’t believe in God is an atheist. Islam is my way of life I strongly believe and practice this religion. My life changed for the better when I converted as the lives of millions of others.
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Awdalites Should Respect The Rules They Signed!
By Abdale Farah Sigad
(I can't help thinking, why make a fuss over one useless seat which has no value for Awdal's future, when at least 15 more seats are missing from Awdal's share in the parliament itself)
Disappointment would be an understatement to describe how I feel about the selection of the national election commission by Somaliland Parliament. But to put the fact straight! If you are from Awdal or East Sanaag you should know that this is what happens in democracy when you sign away your rights.
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Somaliland Marches On!
By Abdulkadir Idan, London, England
The Horn of Africa has reached a new state of insecurity and the ultimate height of instability and anarchy. This continues to be fuelled by neighboring states that see the existence of any stability in the region as a threat to their regional hegemony. Ethiopia's invasion has contributed to more insecurity then any other period of time. Ethiopia's current occupation seems almost indefinite however if this remains this would only contribute to many more years of instability, turmoil and horror for the tired and innocent victims of Somali's instability.
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By Mohamed F Yabarag, London, UK
If you have recently scoured Somaliland websites, especially those from Awdal region, you must have come across many articles authored by individuals as well as groups denouncing the national legislator council for excluding two candidates (one each from Awdal and Eastern Sannag) from becoming members of the national commission. The said articles have repeatedly accused the House of Parliament (Golaha Wakiilada) of all sorts of things, including nepotism, tribalism and favoritism by snubbing the said members simply because they hail from non-Isaaq inhabited regions.
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By Abdirahman Ahmed Ali
The ubiquitous enemies of Somaliland had continuously conjured up all possible tools to disrupt the development and progress of the nation. All throughout Somaliland’s history, our foes bombed women and children in major cities resulting in the death of half million innocent civilians in 1988 and these unscrupulous individuals are still attempting to destabilize the nation’s diplomacy, security and treasury. In 2003, foreign aid workers were assassinated in Somaliland in an attempt to tarnish the image of Somaliland in the international community, which was followed by a bombing in Hargeysa last month.
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By Mohamud Samatar
There is no doubt that the Imbhagati made government of Somalia is contemplating how to create chaos and unrest in Somaliland to bring it under it's control, but the irony is Somaliland has a democratly elected government , has declared that she is no longer part of Somalia, withdrew it's union with Somalia and declared it's independent in May 18 1991. Somaliland has been peaceful and has held free and fair presidential election and Parliament.
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Editorial: The solution to the Somali conflict must be political in nature and, as importantly, must be free from foreign meddling.
Countless civilians killed, wounded in battles between Ethiopian troops and Somali fighters |
June 5, 2007
During the months of March and April of 2007, residents in Somalia's volatile capital, Mogadishu, witnessed some of the most brutal gun battles in more than 16 years of conflict. Upwards of 1,300 people–mostly innocent women and children–were killed, with another 321,000 civilians fleeing the increasing violence in Mogadishu between February 1 and April 26, according to UN and aid agency estimates.
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By John Drysdale
I chose the year 1955 to begin this article about Dhaqanguur - a Somali verb meaning to change one’s way of life. I am not implying that Somalis hanker after a change in their life styles, though in disruptive and murderous Mogadishu today many probably do. What they have hankered after in both old and new Somalia is a change from 47 years of indifferent government, or no governance at all, to peace and solid governance, free from war and incorrigible corruption.
Readers who may not be familiar with the Horn of Africa may wish to be reminded that the northern coast of Somaliland overlooks the Gulf of Aden. It was, until 26 June 1960, the British Somaliland Protectorate, with Berbera as its seaport and Hargeisa as its capital. The rest of the Horn, with the longest coastline in Africa, stretches along the Indian Ocean littoral to the shores of Kenya.
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In April 1981, a group of Isaaq émigrés living in London formed the Somali National Movement (SNM), which subsequently became the strongest of Somalia's various insurgent movements. According to its spokesmen, the rebels wanted to overthrow Siyad Barre's dictatorship.
Additionally, the SNM advocated a mixed economy and a neutral foreign policy, rejecting alignment with the Soviet Union or the United States and calling for the dismantling of all foreign military bases in the region. In the late 1980s, the SNM adopted a pro-Western foreign policy and favored United States involvement in a post-Siyad Barre Somalia.
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Bamiyan Buddha 28 Feb 01 (file photo) |
New York , June 06, 2007 – The non-profit World Monument Fund has released its biennial Watch List of the world's 100 most endangered architectural and cultural treasures. From VOA's New York Bureau, correspondent Barbara Schoetzau reports this year's sites can be found across the globe, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.
Every two years, the New York-based World Monument Fund issues its Watch List to call attention to cultural heritage sites that are at risk. The 2008 Watch List includes sites as diverse as the Blue Mosque in Cairo, Egypt, rock art in Somaliland and Libya and historic neighborhoods of New Orleans. The U.S. city flooded in 2005
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Dr. Mohamud Hussein Egeh obtained with Master of Science in Agricultural & Environmental Science and degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Water Resources from McGill University, Montreal, PQ, Canada and Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA respectively. He is also a member of Canadian Society for Agricultural Engineers (CSAE), Saskatoon, SK and A merican Society for Agricultural Engineers (ASAE), St. Joseph, MI as well as American Water Resources Association (AWRA), Middleburg, VA.
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by Toni Solo
9 June 2007
Alternating between "with us or against us", "bring 'em on" snarling or "why do they hate us?" whining, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney characterize Americanism at its most crass and banal. The suave barbarism of Condoleezza Rice, John Negroponte or Robert Zoellick offers a more inisidious version, but one no less repugnant. Based on crude US chauvinism, a facilitating medium for empire, Americanism is inherently anti-humanitarian and anti-democratic. The Bush regime's trashing of domestic and international legal and human rights norms is Americanism rampant.
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By Kiflu Hussain
28 May 2007
Perhaps the best way to understand the present quagmire in Mogadishu, is by reading the titled Somalia; The problem child of Africa authored in 1977 by a venerable geography professor named Mesfin W/Mariam. In that book and numerous others he published afterwards, Mesfin predicted today’s events in the Horn of Africa.
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