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Somali Pirates ‘Acquire
Arms’ From Libya |
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CAPE TOWN – Somali pirates have acquired
sophisticated weaponry, including mines and
shoulder-held missile launchers from Libya, and are
likely to use them in bolder attacks on shipping, a
senior maritime security analyst said on Thursday.
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NRC and 21 other NGOs are raising concerns over a
new drought period in Somalia, where people are
still struggling to cope after the devastating
famine last year
Forecasts for insufficient rains in Somalia
threaten to reverse gains made since last year’s
famine, and prolong the dire food crisis which
continues to cripple the country, a coalition of 21
aid agencies said today. With the March - May rains
forecast to perform poorly, the number of people in
need of food aid is likely to increase. The agencies
are calling on the international community to
continue to prioritize aid for Somalia at a time
when the UN appeal for 2012 remains vastly
underfunded.
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Nairobi, Kenya, April 14, 2012 – Police said Friday
they were interrogating a suspected terrorist who
has confessed having traveled to Somalia to receive
Al Shabaab training.
Abdullah Abdul Majid aka Abul was arrested on
Thursday last week on suspicion of involvement in
the grenade attacks at Nairobi’s country bus station
which killed nine people and wounded dozens others
last month.
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New York, April 14, 2012-Kenyan authorities must
investigate threats made against two journalists who
covered a police raid on a supermarket, the
Committee to Protect Journalists said today. One of
the journalists was also threatened in relation to
another story he published.
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Hundreds of miraa (khat) users have fled from
southern Somalia districts after Al-Shabaab outlawed
the drug.
Residents in various parts of Mogadishu said several
miraa users had moved to Mogadishu in the last few
days.
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Mogadishu, Somalia
- Today, unconfirmed reports that a Daphne native
who joined an Al-Qaeda linked terror group in
Somalia may be dead.
Omar Hammami, also known as Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki
joined Al-Shabaab in 1999 and eventually became one
of the group's top commanders.
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It is no surprise that piracy has steadily climbed
up the ranks of threats to India’s security, given
India’s energy trade with the Middle East.
But now, with vast untapped oil reserves
reported in Somalia and just off its coast, piracy
emanating from the Horn of Africa is impinging on
India’s future energy sourcing opportunities as
well.
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Mogadishu, Somalia (AP) Militant leaders and foot
soldiers from the militant group al-Shaba are
fleeing to hideouts in a mountainous region of
northeastern Somalia after facing increasing
military pressure around Somalia's capital, the
prime minister said in an interview Wednesday.
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April 15, 2012: It is feared that the Somali pirates
are planning to change tactics, using new weapons.
That's because smuggler and black market chatter in
countries adjoining Libya is that naval mines and
shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles taken from
Libyan military bases during the rebellion last year
are now available for sale. Some of the missiles
have been captured by police in Egypt but no naval
mines have been seen yet. Back in 1984, a Libyan
merchant ship covertly dropped dozens of naval mines
near the Red Sea entrance to the Suez Canal,
damaging 19 ships. Western mine clearing forces were
called in to clear the mines, and some Russian mines
were found. Libya had recently purchased mines of
this type. An Islamic terror group took credit for
the mining, but all the evidence pointed to Libya.
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Sheikh Sharif Lauds
Coming Talks With Somaliland |
Mogadishu,
Somalia,
April 14,
2012 (SL
Times) – The
President of
the
Transitional
Federal
Government
of Somalia (TFG),
Sheikh
Sharif said
the fact
that
Somaliland
and Somalia
will hold
talks after
21 years is
a victory
for Somalis.
He stressed
that talking
to each
other is the
way to solve
problems
whether
between
Somaliland
and the
south or
between
southerners
themselves.
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Somaliland President Sets Up Committee For Talks
With Somalia |
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, April 14, 2012 (SL Times) –
Somaliland’s President Ahmed Silanyo has formed a
5-member committee to prepare for the coming talks
with Somalia.
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Rise In
Bus Fares Stirs Conflict |
Hargeysa, Somaliland, April 14, 2012 (SL Times) –
The cost of riding a bus in Hargeysa rose from 1,500
Somaliland Shilling to 2000 Somaliland Shillings.
The steep and sudden uptick in prices has resulted
in several conflicts between passengers and bus
drivers which in some cases led to police
intervention and bus drivers being arrested.
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Galgala
Natives Anxious About Al-Shabaab And Aerial Bombing |
Hargeysa, Somaliland,
April 14, 2012 (SL
Times) – Residents of
the mountainous Galgala
area of Sanag region
have expressed strong
fears of the reported
arrival of al-Shabaab
militants there and the
possibility that it
might lead to aerial
bombardment by western
war planes.
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Minister Of Health
Praises Hargeysa Hospital |
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, April 14, 2012 (SL Times) –
Somaliland Minister of Health Dr Hussein Muhummed
Muhammad held a press conference at the Ministry of
Health in which he praised the health services
provided by Hargeysa’s' General Hospital.
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By Teresa Krug
Mogadishu, Somalia – With just 100 days until the London Olympics
opening ceremonies, one country must cope with
overcoming the emotional loss of its sporting
figurehead.
The death of the president of the Somali Olympic
Committee (SOC), Aden Yabarow Wiish, along with the
head of the Somali Football Federation, Said Mohamed
Nur, in a suicide attack in early April shocked
Somalia’s sporting community.
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, April 14, 2012 – The
Somaliland Journalist Association (SOLJA) has
secured the release of two Journalists who were
detained in the town of Las’anod last week for
charges of propagating false information against the
state on the clashes which occurred in Sool and
Buhoodle, the charges which amount to sedition.
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Mogadishu, Somalia, April 14, 2012 – Somali Prime
Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said this week that
the increasing military pressure on Al-Shabaab was
forcing its members to flee to hideouts in the
mountainous region of north-eastern Somalia, lying
between Puntland and Somaliland.
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, April 14, 2012 – Somali
pirates have released a Panama-flagged vessel they
seized two months ago allowing it to continue on its
way to Somaliland, the ship's agent and a government
official said on Thursday.
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Sudan Army Moves On
Disputed Town |
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Khartoum, Sudan, April 14, 2012 – Sudan’s army said
it was advancing on the disputed town of Heglig
yesterday in an attempt to oust South Sudanese
forces from the oil-producing area after the South
said it would withdraw only if the UN intervened.
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U.S. Watches For North
Korea's Next Move After Rocket Crash |
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Washington, April 14, 2012 – The United States kept
a wary eye on North Korea after the reclusive
state's unsuccessful launch of a long-range rocket
and President Barack Obama said on Friday Pyongyang
faced further isolation if it continued to defy the
international community.
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Abu Dhabi, UAE-- Diaspora members of the community
of Awubere Wereda in the Somali Zone of Ethiopia
have launched an initiative for establishing Harawe
University of Awubere (HUA).
In their kick-off meeting held in Abu Dhabi, UAE,
prominent members of the community highlighted the
need for a university in the area which is one of
the most populous regions in the Somali zone.
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Despite rhetoric of Somali inclusion, proposed
solutions to the country's problems continue to be
externally-driven and exclusive.
By Jo Evans
Change is on the horizon in Somalia, or so the
international community would have us think.
In recent years we have seen a shift in Western
policy away from prioritizing the imposition of a
centralized governing structure – in the form of the
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) – towards
focusing on local power bases.
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When: Friday, 20 April 2012 at 6pm
Where: Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, Bethnal
Green, London, E2 6HG
Kayd Somali Arts and Culture is pleased to invite
you to a presentation and discussion of the new book
Getting Somalia Wrong? with author, Mary Harper, and
discussants Idil Osman and Quman Akli.
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text...
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Walid Khadduri *
The Republic of Somalia is considered a poor
‘failed’ state. News about Somalia is often full
of violence and lawlessness, and in recent
years, of acts of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and
the western part of the Indian Ocean. Chaos and
strife have been beleaguering the country since
the overthrow of President Mohamed Siyad Barre
in 1991.
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Talking About Talks |
Somaliland
President Ahmed Silanyo has set up a committee to prepare
for expected talks with Somalia. The President of Somalia,
Sheikh Sharif, too, has also said he will form a committee
to represent his government in the talks. With these two
announcements, the possibility of face-to-face talks between
Somaliland and Somalia inched a bit closer to becoming a
reality. But since no date was given for when the talks will
start, we are still in the stage of talking about talks.
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Somaliland's Broken
Judicial System |
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By Ali
Mohamed
Recently Seychelles’ government transferred 17
convicted Somali pirates to prisons in Somaliland to
complete their remaining sentences. We should
applaud Somaliland government’s efforts to help
international community to fight piracy that plagues
in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean; however, these
new dangerous prisoners would put more burdens on
Somaliland’s already overcrowded jails, and its
broken judicial system. Close to half of the
prisoners in Hargeysa’a Central prison---which would
house the new prisoners, had never been convicted or
charged, and are waiting for trials according to
local defense attorneys.
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An Elephant In The Room |
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By Ismail
Ahmed,
The man, who was widely held in a high esteem
throughout Somaliland Republic as Somaliland’s most
successful businessman, has turned out to be a
destructive elephant in the room.
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What Can African
Leaders Learn From Brazil? |
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By Liban
Obsiye
It is no news now that China, once just another poor
communist nation in the eyes of its critics, has
developed to be the second wealthiest country in the
world. However, what would have astounded most
people, especially some economists, is that another
once dust bowl of the world economic order, Brazil,
has overtaken the mighty trading nation of Great
Britain for the first time in history to become the
world’s sixth largest economy.
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Local Governments in
Somaliland: Challenges and Opportunities |
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By Abdirahman Adan Mohamoud
Local Governments in Somaliland have undergone huge
changes since the initiation of decentralized local
governance in Somaliland. Service delivery has been
specifically enhanced, though it is not yet up to a
satisfactory level. Presently, however, local
governments face numerous challenges, including
fiscal constraints, capacity concerns, contradicting
legal framework, and service delivery issues.
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What Went Wrong? - Why
Southern Somalia Failed And Somaliland Succeeded? |
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By Abdi Hussein Daud
For the past two decades, southern Somalia has been plagued by sporadic and
unrelenting civil war, terrorism, pirates, famine, and wide spread diseases
which claimed the lives of up to 200,000 to 300,000 people. The persistent
multifarious ordeals that ordinary citizens have endured thus far are widely
reported by the international media as well as humanitarian agencies. Since its
effects and magnitude have been extensively scrutinized elsewhere, it is futile
to reiterate in here.
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Calling A Spade A
Spade |
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By Ahmed I. Hassan – Part 7
The Club of Vandals [Conti…]
The
Second Catastrophe: October 21, 1969—arguably, the
darkest day in the history of the Somalis.
In
the beginning, hardly a Somali expected that day to
attain that unenviable distinction. Instead, it was
a day most Somalis, with relief and hope, thought
was the dawn of a second chance for Somalia;
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