Hargeysa, July 25, 2007 [Haatuf] - A New Political party, founded by an organisation of intellectuals called Gud-Gude in Somali, was inaugurated in Hargeysa, last Tuesday.
On Sunday (29 July 2007) VOA Somali discussion program Somali Forum features a discussion with top political leaders from the Somali-speaking areas of the Horn of Africa region.
Expected guests will be the Somali Transitional Federal Government Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi; President of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, Dahir Rayale Kahin; and the President of Ethiopia's Zone 5 (Somali) Region, Abdillahi Hassan.
Lusaka, July 19, 2007 – THE plane carrying visiting Djibouti President, Ismail Guelleh, yesterday failed to take off at the Livingstone International Airport, causing panic among security staff.
The Zambia Air force (ZAF) aircraft, which had carried the visiting leader from Lusaka, could not start as panic gripped senior military, security and Government officials who were all over the airport apron.
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A flag of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is seen at its headquarters in Geneva, 2006. Ethiopian authorities have ordered the International Committee of the Red Cross to pull out of the volatile Ogaden region for allegedly interfering in political issues.
Addis Ababa , July 25, 2007 – Ethiopian authorities have ordered the International Committee of the Red Cross to pull out of the volatile Ogaden region for allegedly interfering in political issues, officials said Wednesday.
Message from Amnesty International
22 July 2007
Amnesty International sends its warm greetings again this year to human rights defenders and their supporters in Mogadishu on the occasion of Somali Human Rights Day 2007.
We congratulate Dr Ismail Jumaale Human Rights Organization (DIJHRO) for organizing today’s event in Mogadishu, together with the Peace and Human Rights Network (PHRN) and other civil society organizations and activists.
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Nairobi, 29 July 2007 - Miraa traders in Meru have welcomed the lifting of the ban on direct flights from Kenya to Somalia, which is set to take effect in two days. The traders say they lost millions of shillings during the ban. The government imposed the ban in November last year following a security advisory from the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.
Mogadishu, July 25, 2007 – European Union special envoy for Somalia, George Marc-Andre, who is visiting the semiautonomous province of Puntland, north Somalia, has had meetings with the officials in Garowe, the capital city of the province.
ADDIS ABABA, July 25, 2007 – The Ethiopian regional government that ejected the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from the restive Ogaden region said on Wednesday it repeatedly warned the aid agency against consorting with rebels.
Tuesday's expulsion shocked humanitarian groups working in the desolate area bordering Somalia, where a guerrilla group has accused the Ethiopian authorities of blockading food relief, choking commercial trade and risking a "man-made famine".
WASHINGTON, 27 July 2007 (VOA)--The tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia may be playing themselves out in part in Somalia. Some observers say the violence in Somalia may be a proxy war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Timothy Othieno is a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Midrand, South Africa. He spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua about whether he thinks Somalia is a proxy war.
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, July 28, 2007 – The president of Somaliland, Hon Dahir Rayale, on Monday met a delegation led by the European Union special envoy to Somalia and Somaliland, Georges-Marc Andre, at the presidential palace in Hargeysa. The envoy and his team were on a short visit to Somaliland. The two sides discussed several issues including the EU financial aid to Somaliland. The envoy promised to raise this issue with the European Union in order to give Somaliland full financial support.
ADDIS ABABA, July 26, 2007 – The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has started relocating about 4,000 Somali refugees to a re-opened refugee camp at Teferi Ber in eastern Ethiopia. The camp was closed in 2001 after its previous population of Somali refugees were repatriated. Kisut Gebre Egziabher, senior public information assistant at UNHCR, told IRIN that about 2,000 refugees had been moved from an overcrowded camp at Kebribeyah, 120km south, where they had been staying after fleeing fighting between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in central and southern Somalia last year.
BRUSSELS, July 27, 2007 – The European Commission said Friday that it had allocated 10 million euros (13.6 million dollars) to Somalia to help people affected by civil strife and extreme weather conditions.
The aid will be used to provide better food and food security, cleaner water and sanitation, and health services -- mainly in central and southern areas -- the European Union's executive arm said in a statement.
Addis Ababa, 28 July 2007 - The Somali Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi calls upon the international community to support on-going efforts geared toward ensuring sustainable peace and stability in Somalia.
Briefing journalists here on Friday, Prime Minister Gedi said the international community should provide special support to the success of African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) and to the deployment of AU peacekeeping mission in the region.
July 21, 2007: The Transitional Government is still trying to hold a reconciliation conference in Mogadishu, but clans native to the city and their Islamic Courts allies refuse to talk until Ethiopian troops withdraw. If that were done, the Islamic Courts would use force to coerce other clans to accept an Islamic dictatorship, or at least leave the local clans in charge of Mogadishu. The greed, readiness to use violence and lack of civic spirit are a curse that has prevented Somalia from forming a government for over a decade.
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Dr M. Gabose (Chair) |
Mr M. Hashi (Vice-chair) |
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Mr J. Aidid (2nd Vice-chair) |
Hargeysa, 29 July, 2007 (SL Times) - The leaders of Qaran Party, Dr M. Gabose (Chair), Mr M. Hashi (Vice-chair) and Mr J. Aidid (2nd Vice-chair) were arrested by the Somaliland government early this morning around 8 am. They are accused of engaging in unauthorized political activities because they have established a political party.
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European Union Envoy for Somalia/Somaliland, Mr George Marc-Andre |
Hargeysa, 28 July 2007 (SL Times) - The Special European Union Envoy for Somalia/Somaliland, Mr George Marc-Andre, arrived in Somaliland on Monday. This was his first visit to Somaliland since being appointed by the EU as the organisation’s special envoy to Somalia/Somaliland, a post that was created by the EU only last month.
The EU Special Envoy said the purpose of his visit was to acquaint himself with Somaliland, and to check on how the preparations for Somaliland’s election were coming along.
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“It Is Too Late To Stop The Wishes And Aspirations Of The People Of Somaliland”
Leading Qaran party officials |
Press Release
July 27, 2007
Qaran is an offspring of a popular movement brought about by the neglect, corruption and incompetence of the current administration in Somaliland, and as such, it is very keen in closely following the wishes and aspirations of its supporters. Qaran, like the people in Somaliland chooses peace over war, negotiations over armed conflict, respect for the laws (local and international) and peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.
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Nairobi, July 27, 2007: CNOOC's willingness to strike an oil deal with the fragile government of Somalia, which has been a failed state for more than a decade, has provided stark evidence of China's willingness to brave terrain that western oil majors deem too treacherous.
The state-owned Chinese oil giant has signed a production-sharing deal with the transitional federal government in the east African country, which ranks as a high-risk frontier even in an industry well accustomed to dangerous environments.
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July 15, the long awaited, thrice delayed and seriously compromised National Reconciliation Conference (N.R.C.) -- aimed at beginning to resolve Somalia's multiple conflicts -- was kicked off, only to be abruptly adjourned, as eight mortar rounds were fired at the meeting's venue, a refurbished former police garage in the country's official capital Mogadishu. The chair of the commission that organized the conference, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, said the adjournment was due to the fact that only half of the 1,325 anticipated delegates had arrived; local and international media, however, traced it to the mortar attacks. The conference is scheduled to reopen on July 19.
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HARGEISA, Somalia, July 28 2007 - The government of the breakaway Somali republic of Somaliland on Saturday arrested three politicians planning to form an opposition party, in a move diplomats said could hurt its bid for sovereignty. Security forces arrested the leader of the Qaran political association, Mohamed Abdi Gaboose, and his deputies Mohamed Hashi Elmi and Jamal Aideed Ibrahim, and charged them with founding an illegal organization and creating instability.
A regional court ordered the three held at Mandera prison.
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Nairobi, July 27, 2007 – Ethiopia is accused of killing civilians with white phosphorus bombs, the US navy of attacking suspected al-Qaeda operatives in Puntland, and Eritrea of delivering surface-to-air missiles to Islamist militia, in a startling new report on Somalia by UN arms monitors.
Warning that the number of weapons in Somalia now exceeds that during the early 1990s, when the failed East African state was engulfed in civil war, the UN monitoring group describes persistent instability in which anti-government Islamist forces are far from a spent force, and former warlords are reasserting themselves.
Addis Ababa, July 20, 2007 – Ethiopia on Friday released 38 opposition figures, days after sparking an international outcry by slapping them with heavy jail terms over incidents that followed disputed 2005 polls.
The group was pardoned by President Girma Woldegiorgis on Thursday and witnesses and relatives told AFP that they were released from their prison in Kaliti, 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the capital.
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Somali's are trained how to handle assualt rifles, at the Arbiska training camp just outside the Somali capital, Mogadishu, 26 Sep 2006 (file photo) |
By Alisha Ryu
Nairobi, 27 July 2007 - Eritrea is denying a U.N. report that accuses the Horn of Africa country of supplying huge quantities of arms, including surface-to-air missiles, to Islamic insurgents in Somalia. The report also says Somalia is awash with more arms than at any time since the early 1990s, when the country descended into civil war. VOA correspondent Alisha Ryu has details from our East Africa Bureau in Nairobi.
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NAIROBI, July 26, 2007 – At least five people were injured when security forces opened fire on protesters demonstrating over crippling inflation rates linked to an influx of fake currency in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, local sources said.
Nearly 3,000 people, angry at soaring prices and exchange rates, converged on the Puntland presidential compound in the regional capital, Garowe, Ahmed Abdisalam, of the Daily Puntland Post newspaper, said on 26 July.
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MOGADISHU, Somalia, July 26, 2007 – The deputy chairman of Somalia's peace conference asked the country's ousted Islamic movement to join the talks, but the group's leader dismissed the meeting Thursday as "a disgrace and a humiliation."
The conference, which started July 15 after several delays, is meant to heal the wounds of 16 years of conflict. But it has been the target of regular attacks by insurgents linked the Council of Islamic Courts, which was driven from power in December by Ethiopian troops supporting the government.
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By Dr. Mohamed-Rashid Sheikh Hassan
The World is closely watching Somaliland’s current political development, in particular the European Union who wants to provide financial and logistic support to Somaliland elections; the United Nations that has developed package of projects to support Somaliland’s socio-economic reconstruction and development; the United Stated which is concerned about the stability and security of the regions and African Union which wrote a favorable report for Somaliland Case in 2005.
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Mogadishu, 29 July 2007 - A high-level international delegation led by United Nations deputy special envoy for Somalia Mr. Per Lindgarde arrived in the Somalia capital Mogadishu for a one day visit showing their support to the continuation of the reconciliation congress in the city which entered its 13th day.
The delegation landed at the Aden Adde airport in Mogadishu around 11:00am local time today and attended the peace conference. The visit was to show how the international community is determined to support the current meeting for reconciling rival Somali clans.
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New York, 28 July 2007 - Hillary Clinton has decided that, in order to look presidential, she needs to pick a fight. Her spat with Senator Barack Obama over meeting with foreign leaders is the latest example. Before that, she falsely claimed that the Pentagon had accused her of being unpatriotic.
This phony controversy, fanned and inflamed by the media, says more about Hillary than it does about the Pentagon. Would she, as president, deliberately pursue policies that embolden the enemies of America? Is she too reckless and irresponsible in foreign affairs to be Commander-in-Chief?
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Volunteer Veronique Moses tries to comfort Mariamo Jamossa. Moses is trying to keep four families off Salt Lake's streets. |
Utah, July 29, 2007 - Abdio Mohammed moved out of her home Saturday. The 14-year-old moved away from her friends, away from her grandma a few doors down and away from the uncle who helped her family navigate this new country a world away from the African land where she was born.
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· 16-year-old surrounded by armed gang on pushbikes
· Friends say Somalia youth was in the wrong place
London, July 27, 2007 - A 16-year-old boy was shot dead at point blank range yesterday in what a witness said was a random "execution" after he was chased across a south London estate by a gang of armed youths on bicycles.
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Last week’s scandal in which it was revealed that the UN’s Moroccan peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast were involved in, as Reuters put it, “widespread sexual abuse”, is yet one more reminder of some of the negative consequences of foreign military intervention. It is also another blow to the already battered reputation of UN peacekeepers. The fact that the culprits were Moroccans shows that they have not changed since the bad old days of Operation Restore Hope when Moroccan troops were known for running some of the most active prostitution rings in Somalia.
It isn’t just the Moroccans who have not changed. The international community has not changed either, since it is still claiming that foreign troops are good for Somalia, despite much evidence to the contrary.
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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 Nima Ahmed
As a country in process to proving its existence to the world as well as to its people, it is always important to couple promises and talks with deeds and actions.
I am writing this article with reference to a piece of promising news about Cigal International Airport, back on 21 July, 2007 in Somaliland Times. One of the news sites I continuo reading to update my self with the happenings in my beloved Somaliland.
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Can We Mend the Life of One Somali Family?
By Abdullahi Dool
Together, we can make a difference in the life of not one but many members of our nation. However, I bring to your attention one heart aching as well as touching story. This is a pressing matter which warrants not only our attention but our swift action. The story first picked up by the wires and a number of international news outlets and also run by our press and electronic media concerns the suffering of a Somali family in Burao in Somaliland. This does not in any way mean that they are the only ones struggling. Back home and in the Diaspora, the suffering of our people is everywhere evident.
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Death Knell Rings for the TFG
By Dalmar Kahin
As the Somali “national” reconciliation conference in Kenya gave birth prematurely to the Transitional Federal Government TFG (or Tigray Founded Government), in October 2004, the demise of the foreign-imposed rogue regime appeared on the horizon. Colonel Abdillahi Yusuf—an inept leader at the helm, and the greatest hog at the trough—no sooner than parachuted into the presidential seat, demanded the deployment of foreign troops—not aid—to Somalia.
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Somaliland Government Should Respect Freedom Of Speech
By Mohamed F Yabarag, London, UK
It is increasingly becoming apparent nowadays that freedom of speech and press are under constant threat in Somaliland. Barely a day or a week goes by without hearing a journalist being arrested on the false pretext that he/she wrote a defamatory or libelous article against the government or against one of its high ranking officers. The current government’s disdain for freedom of speech was never in question as they wrongly incarcerated many journalists in the past on many occasions and consequently created uproar among the peace-loving people of Somaliland as well a few observes from abroad.
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By Mohamed Jibril
The produced, intoxicating and mesmerizing knowledge of western scholars and its full-fledged, hegemonic and enduring hypnotization of less-sophisticated minds are evident. It is the very knowledge that, due to its proficiency of formulating, manufacturing, and manipulating history and politics, swayed blindly the colonized to acknowledge that the colonizers (who ruthlessly murder them, rape their women, destroy their villages, and take their resources forcefully…etc) are doing a favor for the colonized by civilizing them, liberating them, and, above all, coaching them the art of “democracy” and “freedom.
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Press Release
July 20, 2007
The Ethiopian Somali Advocacy Council demands that justice prevail
The Ethiopian Somali advocacy council would like to inform you that Mr. Mohamed Abdi, Ethiopian origin, but naturalized American citizen from Atlanta, Georgia, who is the husband of lovely wife Ifraah Nour and four children is languishing in one of the notorious jails in Ethiopia in the last three months.
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Press Release
July 28, 2007
The Washington DC area Somaliland community is dismayed at the reckless and illegal actions taken by Rayale Administration for arresting the entire leadership of the Qaran Political Party in Somaliland. This act is a blatant and intolerable abuse of power.
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By Yassin M. Ismail, Kent UK
28 July 2007
Last week Ethiopia ordered the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) out of Ogaden region amidst military operations by Ethiopian army to curb spread of violence and sporadic attacks of the OLNF insurgents on Ethiopia military positions. The new military crackdown was the response of recent OLF attack in which dozens of Chinese workers at an Oil drill were kidnapped and many others killed by the OLF fighters.
Ethiopia’s retaliation to the assault came fast and heavy as anticipated as columns of its troops carried out sweeping campaigns in the Ogaden region in which scores of people have been killed. Human rights advocacy groups reported Ethiopian attacks were heavy and indiscriminate.
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By Iqbal Jhazbhay
In 1986 Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui called for a metaphorical bridge across the Red Sea that would reintegrate Africa with Arabia several million years after a natural cataclysm had torn the Arabian Peninsula from the rest of Africa.
He noted that, just as in the view of continental pan-Africanists, the Sahara desert is a sea of communication linking states below the Sahara with their neighbors above the desert, so the Red Sea could become a similar bridge.
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The Financial Times reported on July 13 that the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (C.N.O.O.C.) has signed a deal with Somali President Abdillahi Yusuf to explore the northern Puntland region for oil. The initial agreement was signed last May, and it was endorsed at the China-Africa summit held in Beijing last November. [See: "Upcoming Summit Highlights Africa's Importance to China"]
A meeting between C.N.O.O.C. and Somali officials was held on June 24 to finalize the deal. The terms indicate that the Somali government would retain 51 percent of the oil revenues under a production-sharing arrangement. Further reporting from the Financial Times, however, revealed that Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi was not aware of the contract, suggesting that the oil deal remains vulnerable to political infighting.
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Introduction
The Freedom in the World 2007 survey contains reports on 193 countries and 15 related and disputed territories (Somaliland is added in this year). Each country report begins with a section containing the following information: population, capital, political rights [numerical rating], civil liberties [numerical rating], status [Free, Partly Free, or Not Free], and a ten-year ratings timeline.
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By J. Peter Pham
July 26, 2007
The Somalia “National Reconciliation Congress” has such an encouraging ring to it. That is what we might conclude from an official State Department reference several weeks ago, but FSM Contributing Editor J. Peter Pham, Ph.D., knows the true story, which he shares with you here.
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by John Pilger
July 29, 2007
One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked.
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