Geneva, Switzerland, March 25, 2008 – Somalia is again polio-free, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) announced today, calling it a 'historic achievement' in public health. Somalia has not reported a case since 25 March 2007, a major landmark in the intensified eradication effort launched last year to wipe out the disease in the remaining few strongholds.
NAIROBI, March 27, 2008 – The United Nations and the World Bank, in close cooperation with the Transitional Federal Government, are holding a high level summit on “Somalia’s Financial and Economic Issues” on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 March 2008 in Nairobi.
The meeting will cover a wide range of issues such as the advancement of peace, Somalia’s economic prospects, investment in fragile African states, youth employment, job creation and action beyond humanitarianism.
Garowe, Somalia Mar 28, 2008 – The leader of Somalia's Puntland regional government issued a decree on Thursday officially relieving of duty the region's internal affairs minister.
President Mohamud "Adde" Muse's decree criticized Abdirashid Barkadle for ineffectively administering the Ministry of Internal Affairs and declared Deputy Minister Ahmed Adan Arab the Ministry's caretaker head.
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Nairobi, Mar 28, 2008 - Rising numbers of Somali refugees are now seeking asylum in neighboring countries to escape the increasingly volatile situation in many parts of their homeland, particularly in Mogadishu. Since the beginning of the year, some 15,000 Somalis have sought asylum in Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and – even further afield – in eastern Sudan.
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MOGADISHU, Somalia Mar 28 - Et hiopian soldiers patrolling a busy street in the Somali capital came under grenade attack on Friday, and the soldiers responded with violent force, witnesses said.
At least three civilians, including a man in his 60s, were killed in the panic following the grenade explosion.
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HARGEISA, Somalia Mar 31 - The home of a Cabinet minister in Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland was attacked by unidentified men, who hurled hand grenades into the home before escaping, according to the minister.
Abdi Hassan Buni, Minister of Relations with Houses of Parliament, said no one was wounded when the grenades hit a part of his home in Hargeisa, the separatist republic's capital city.
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Nairobi, Kenya, 29 March 2008 - Nuria Habiba Edin did not take breakfast and is not looking forward to having lunch.
Although she has her food relief ration, the woman prefers to feed it to her three frail sheep and two goats
Main Developments
On Friday 28 March residents in Mogadishu looted trucks carrying food aid to displaced people. They targeted World Food Programme (WFP) contracted trucks and also blocked the main road before local police restored order. A relatively small amount of sorghum and vegetable oil had been stolen and almost all the food was subsequently recovered. The incident was prompted following Commissioner of Kaaran district's remark, who had publicly stated that people should go out and take food by force from passing UN trucks. Given the dire and deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country, it is of major concern that senior government officials are encouraging and fueling such incidents.
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The President with chief mediator Kofi Annan (left) and ODM leader Raila Odinga during a break in a session of the talks. Photo/FILE |
Nairobi, Kenya, 29 March 2008 - Maybe it was an Easter gift to Kenyans as the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, No 4 of 2008 and the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) Act, 2008, were given assent by the President and became effective on March 20.
The Acts demand that there be a Prime Minister and that the “… coalition Government reflect … parliamentary strength of the respective parties …” and that there be “…portfolio balance.”
PEACE AND SECURITY COUNCIL
116 th MEETING
28 March 2008
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Press statement
The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU), at its 116 th meeting held on 28 March 2008, was briefed on the situation in Somalia.
Council reiterated its support to the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs), as well as the need for the Somali stakeholders and the international community as a whole to seize the opportunity that exists to restore lasting peace and reconciliation in Somalia and bring to a definite end the suffering inflicted on its people.
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Geneva, 28 March 2008 - The United Nations Human Rights Council 'needs to be more focused on saving lives and less focused on allowing governments to save face,' was the damning assessment of one human rights group as the Council ended its seventh regular session in Geneva on Friday.
The efficacy of the council came under the microscope again, this time for its failure to address the human rights drama at the very moment it was unfolding in Tibet.
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Washington - A Tanzanian detainee at the US military prison in Guantanamo has been charged in connection with the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Dar Es Salaam that took 11 lives, the US military said Monday.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, suspected of purchasing explosives, moving around bomb components and scouting the embassy with the suicide bomb driver, could face the death sentence if the military justice system accepts the charges as a capital offense, according to a Department of Defence website.
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Mogadishu residents waiting at a food distribution center. After 17 years of war, simple survival seems to be driving the violence |
MOGADISHU, Somalia: The trouble started when government soldiers went to the market and, at gunpoint, began helping themselves to sacks of grain.
Islamist insurgents poured into the streets to defend the merchants. The government troops got hammered, taking heavy casualties and retreating all the way back to the presidential palace, supposedly the most secure place in the city. It, too, came under fire.
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The Aviation minister's lioness shot by police |
Hargeysa, Somaliland, March 29, 2008 (SL Times) – A lion killed a woman in Somaliland’s capital city Hargeysa on Thursday night after breaking loose from a private zoo belonging to Aviation minister Ali Waran-Adde.
The victim was identified as Hinda Hassan Essa, a woman of 25 years. According to the zookeepers, the animal (a lioness) after escaping from its cage at around 10 o’clock in the night had headed southeast towards the dry river bed that runs through the middle of the city along a west-east axis.
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The detainees were seized while trying to cross into Ethiopia via Wajaale border town in Somaliland and include Nephew of Puntland’s ruler, Adde Musa
Hargeysa, Somaliland, March 29, 2008 (SL Times) – Somaliland police on Wednesday arrested 5 men suspected of taking part in last month’s hijacking of a Russian ship off the coast of Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland.
Puntland pirates released the captured vessel and its crew after being paid US$700,000 ransom by the Russian owners of the vessel earlier this month.
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Somaliland Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdillahi M Duale |
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, March 29, 2008 – The Somaliland Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week issued a statement criticizing the report made by UN Somalia and environs stating that the report made substantial distortions on the situation in Somaliland suppressing the progress made in Somaliland.
In the statement issued this week the Somaliland Ministry of Foreign Affairs charges that the report misrepresents the security situation in Somaliland. The report the Secretary General made to the Security Council inadvertently stated that “Security in the north of Somalia remains fragile, but the situation there is relatively better than in southern and central Somalia.
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NAIROBI, Kenya, 31 March 2008 - At least 10 people were killed in Mogadishu, Somalia's chaotic capital, on Saturday afternoon after government troops shelled a market area known to be an insurgent hide-out.
According to witnesses, the fighting started when insurgents fired mortars at Villa Somalia, the presidential palace and seat of the transitional government. At the time, Somalia's president, Abdullahi Yusuf, was meeting with Ethiopia's foreign minister, Seyoum Mesfin. It was not clear if any government officials or Ethiopian troops, who are helping guard the palace, were hit.
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Somaliland high-speed 4WD vehicles-boundary guards and special police units |
THERE has been some quite interesting reaction arising from the piece in this column last week on Somaliland titled: Somaliland: A Viable state but unrecognized. IN an SMS text message to me one reader wrote: “Rarely do I agree with what you write but today I do.
The African Union as well as the United Nations must recognize Somaliland to prove that they are not rubber stamps of George W. Bush. If America has recognized Kosovo, the AU should recognize Somaliland. Otherwise, Somaliland should seek Iran and Russian support!”
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By Ahmed Aideed
Rumors about an impending reshuffle by Riyale are running wild in Hargeisa and may be a reality by the time this piece is published. However, what is of interest is the signals it will send to the general public and even Somaliland's international friends.
Riyale's Achilles Heel has been largely his bloated ineffective and sycophantic cabinets. His decisions to appoint so many lackluster characters may have been dictated by a need for loyalty or irrational clannish calculations. These inevitably may have predisposed him to individuals whose only claim to high office is alleged clannish credentials or sycophantic oratory.
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London, 28 March 2008 - A man who claimed to be the tallest man on the planet has failed to take the title - but he does have the world's biggest hands.
Hussain Bisad, an asylum seeker from Neasden, north-west London, was aiming to take the world's tallest man title away from the current holder Tunisian Radhouane Charbib, who stands at 7ft 8.9ins tall.
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14 March 2008 - S/2008/178
Annex III
Contingency plans for a possible United Nations peacekeeping operation
1. In examining possibilities for a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Somalia, the fact-finding team undertook a thorough analysis of the security situation, including threats and risks to the security of United Nations personnel. It is important to note that the situation is not the same throughout the country. Conditions in the north are relatively better than in southern and central Somalia. In those areas,
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Analysis
By Rashid Mustafa X Noor
To wonder why Somaliland is fast becoming an African beacon for democracy, human rights and free press; one must first, look, to the traditions inherent in every African in order to come to some sort of an idea to how, why and where Somaliland gets its inspiration and stamina, against all odds, to do well in its ratings for democracy, freedom of press and in conducting fair and open elections in Africa.
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MOGADISHU, Somalia, March 28 (UPI) -- The transitional government in Somalia, installed 15 months ago by Ethiopian troops with U.S. support, appears ready to fall, a government official said.
"I feel this slipping away," Mohamed Abdirizak, an official who abandoned a middle-class life in Virginia to return to Somalia, told the Los Angeles Times
By J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.
March 27, 2008
Last week the Federal Register, the official journal of record for the acts of the United States government, carried notice that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in consultation with Attorney-General Michael B. Mukasey and Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. “Hank” Paulson, had formally designated al-Shabaab (“the youth”), the one-time military wing of the Islamic Courts Union which controlled much of Somalia for six months before being driven out by an Ethiopian intervention force in December 2006 and which has since spearheaded a brutal insurgenc
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Commentary
By Bashir Goth
The policy of divide and rule is the mainstay of colonial administrations and dictatorial rulers. It is only through division along tribal lines that such shaky governments retain power and consolidate their grip on the life of their subjects. Rayale’s recent announcement of new regions and districts in Somaliland is a textbook example of such bankrupt regimes that cannot survive without leaning on clan crutches.
The people of Somaliland had great dreams for their sovereignty. Emerging from the yoke of brutal dictatorship that thrived on division and playing one clan against the another, they aspired to build a viable state based on good governance, social cohesion and constitutional democracy where elected houses made decisions through transparent systems and public debates.
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By Valerie Epps
Let us first start with a question. When a group of people ― who have inhabited a definable area of land for many years and are distinct by race, ethnicity, language, culture or religion from the rulers of the area they inhabit ― announce that they wish to rule themselves (usually because of perceived long term ill treatment), and when this call for independence is backed up by a clear majority of the people in the area, why does the international community resist the claim of secession?
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Barack Obama chose his running mate last week. By throwing grandma under the bus in favor of his divisive, racist pastor of 20 years, Obama told the world that he was willing to run to the finish line with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on his back.
“I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world,
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Said Biyad, 42, is accused of killing his four children after an argument with their mother |
LOUISVILLE , Ky., March 24, 2008 — A state psychologist says a Louisville man charged with killing his four children and attacking his wife is mentally fit to stand trial on four counts of murder.
Attorneys for Said Ali Biyad have argued that he is incompetent and therefore should not face trial.
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It is taken for granted that politicians and the truth are not the best of friends. For most politicians, the truth is an elastic matter that can be bent and manipulated to fit their agenda and fulfill their purposes. In countries with an open and sophisticated political culture such tampering with the truth is done cleverly and in such a way that it would not seem an outright lie. But in countries with one-man dictatorship, politicians do not bother to even try to dress up their lies in a more acceptable garb.
Take the case of Djibouti’s President-for-life Ismail Omar Guelleh who in a BBC program went on and on praising his own record, and then in order to compare it with the pre-independence living conditions in Djibouti said, “Markii u gaalku naga tagay (When the French left us)”, as if his Somali audience did not know that although Djibouti did receive formal independence from France, the French never actually left Djibouti and Djibouti still serves as a French military base, just as it did in colonial times.
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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 Maxamed Saalim, Las-Anod, Somaliland
In early Greek mythology, there used to exist a character named Heracles who as legend has it ‘was an immortal that saved the world of mankind’. Well, readers, keeping in the back of my mind that it is unlikely anyone who has ever heard of Heracles will attempt to believe that such a person ever existed, I nevertheless wish to compare certain exploits of Heracles - three of the twelve labours - with the momentous tasks that the contemporary Dr. Ahmed .H. Essa needs to complete in the near future if he wishes to become not only the next president of Somaliland but as well as the finest the country has ever known.
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By Mohamed Yabarag
Somaliland, unrecognized and lacking resources to feed its starving citizenry, can ill-afford another grandiose project such as the one Rayale’s government has just announced largely to outsmart and outwit the opposition who are believed to have similar programme in their political manifestos. If the government’s intention is to bribe the electorate ahead of the upcoming election with such nonsensical ideas,
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By Abdirazak Moumin Soubagleh
Thank you Mr President BUT ...
About the new "Gobol" and "Degmo", some of them are good and some others are BAD.
I was born in Djibouti but my parents are from BOON. So, you decided Mr President to distribute some gifts to some specific or special people. Maybe to thank some of them and to punish some of them ...
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Kosovo And Somaliland: The Impossible Equation
By Ahmed Ali Ibrahim Sabeyse
THE SOMALI IRREDENTISM AND REGIONAL POLITICS:
How does Somalia fit into the overall Egyptian regional policy? First of all, to assuage any Ethiopian attempts to utilize the waters of the Blue Nile, a strong, united Somali state is the safest long term insurance policy. During the mid-1950's President Nasser invested in the independence movements of the African continent and the Pan-Arab nationalism. Somalia and Egypt concluded a number of trade agreements. The Arabic version of one of the clause in one of the bilateral agreements stated the following:
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By Farah Ali Jama, Ottawa, Canada.
An old English saying states, “There are many ways to skin a cat.” And if I may add that the callous and unqualified Riyaale, his inept and highly corrupt administration, the unpatriotic UDUB party, and their domestic and foreign cohorts all of whom are known to be public enemies number one and indeed part of our avowed enemies and enemies of humanity and who all have one thing in common i.e. to fight our just cause and existence of Somaliland by any means necessary,
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By Ahmed Ismail Yusuf
Sometime, about three years ago, a long lonely evening in a din apartment of mine in North American, I got a call from a friend of mine who was in a bit better shape than I. Of course, in a bit better because he was enjoying the company of his own family, where I, on other hand, was chaperoning my shadow then! Prior to the call, I was a little apprehensive but excited about a matter of work at hand. For the next moment, a simple word that he uttered over the phone has been ringing in my ears ever since:
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New York, March 26, 2008 – The UN Human Rights Council has praised Somaliland's democracy spread ahead of elections in August 2008 - in stark contrast to its neighbors.
Below is an excerpt and full summary from a report published by the United Nations Human Rights Council:
The situation in “Somaliland” was comparatively peaceful in contrast to south and central Somalia. Following the first-ever parliamentary elections in 2005, “ Somaliland” continued to make incremental progress on public administration and governance.
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Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs
Washington, DC, March 12, 2008 – Distinguished members of this panel, students and faculty of Howard, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.
It is a pleasure to come to Howard and the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center to participate on this panel. My thanks to Bernadette Paolo, President and CEO of the Africa Society.
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Book Review
A book on the Somali names and nicknames has been reissued thirteen years after it was first published in Canada. Written by the Somali linguist and lexicographer Abdirahman Farah Barwaaqo, Magac bilaash uma baxo (No name is given without a purpose), attracted the attention of Somali readers and linguists researching Somali language. “It is the book I have been waiting for twenty four years,” wrote Georgi Kapchits, a Somali speaking Russian linguist, in a review. The book is the first of its kind written about Somali names and nicknames. The linguistics sub-field the book belongs to is known as onamastics, “the study of the origins and forms of proper names.”
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A Press Release: PROGRESSIO
To mark the launch of Horn of Africa expert Mark Bradbury’s new book, ‘Becoming Somaliland’.
WHEN: Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 6pm.
WHERE: The Brunei Suite, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG.
By Leaza Kolkenbeck-Ruh
When South Africa takes over leadership of the United Nations Security Council next month it faces a decision which could have far-reaching consequences for Africa: whether to recognize Kosovo's recent declaration of independence. For although the issue concerns the former Yugoslavia, recognition of Kosovo could set a precedent for secessionist movements elsewhere. Leaza Kolkenbeck-Ruh of the South African Institute of International Affairs examines South Africa's choices.
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Washington, March 25, 2008 – K'naan, global hip-hop artist, is set to release his critically acclaimed album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, for the first time in the U.S. Originally released in Canada, the album received a Juno Award for Best Rap Recording of the Year and was the BBC 3 Winner for Best New Artist, World Music. The American version of the album features re-recorded songs, extra tracks, and a bonus DVD. Entitled The Dusty Foot Philosopher Deluxe Version, the album will be released by Bay Area record label, Interdependent Media on June 24th, 2008.
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Winnipeg, March 25, 2008 – The surrogate family of a Somali-born refugee convicted of numerous crimes in Winnipeg courts fears the only thing waiting for their loved one -- who will later this week involuntarily return to his homeland -- is certain death.
Despite an ongoing legal battle to keep him from deportation, officials removed Yassin Ibrahim, 23, from Winnipeg yesterday and sent him to Toronto, where he will board a plane today with a handful of other Somalian convicts bound for the war-torn country.
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By Medhane Tadesse
Those of us who criticized the UN on Somalia from the outset can take no comfort from its catastrophic failures and consequences. The UN has always claimed that intervention in Somalia is marred by a lot of risks. With the debacle in early 1990’s such an excuse was generally accepted. But the UN failed to act even when there were no risks at all, such as when the TFG was first established and later when it reached Mogadishu after the military defeat of the Islamists. With the shameful memory in the very recent past, in 2004 and early 2007, the likely consequences of inaction seemed obvious and far outweighed the risks of intervention.
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