Small business owners are using a unique form of mobile money to connect with customers. Hamza Mohamed Mogadishu, Somalia – Abukar Abdulle Mohamed is a busy man. His three phones keep beeping away as he negotiates and shakes hands with a group of mainly middle-aged men. Fifty-four-year-old Mohamed is a livestock trader with more than thirty years...
Graham Smith Ethiopian Airlines has ordered a further eight Boeing 787s, less than two months after one of its Dreamliners caught fire at Heathrow. The African carrier already has five B787s in its fleet. It previously had five more on order, a figure that has now increased to 13. Both LHR runways were closed for...
BY BEN RAWLENCE It’s the closing night of the Dadaab film festival—a week of screenings in the world’s largest refugee camp, organized by the nonprofit Film Aid. I’m sitting on a plastic chair in the sand, watching black-and-white images of Ethiopian soldiers battling Italian armored cars and Somali nomads, projected on a large open-air movie screen...
By KENNEDY KANGETHE NAIROBI, Miraa traders have denounced the call by Wajir South MP, Abdullah Diriye, to discourage the use of the stimulant among the Somali community. Nyambere Miraa Traders Association (NMTA) spokesman, Kimathi Munjuri, says the community remains the biggest traders with more than half of the women in Wajir feeding their family from the...
By Faisal A. Roble Prologue Since the talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, between delegates from the Federal Government of Somalia and the administration of Jubbaland concluded, both my email and my telephone message racks have been flooded with requests to give my take on the meaning of the talks and the agreement produced. On August...
Ladies, don’t try to outdo your partner – it makes them feel rotten about themselves. Rather than bask in your well-earned glory following a particular success, deep down a man’s self-esteem is likely to be taking a bruising. Whether the achievement is social or intellectual, men subconsciously feel far worse about themselves when a wife...
After delay caused by al-Shabaab attack, organisers say Mogadishu event poses toughest security challenge yet David Smith Along with a gourmet coffee shop, a literary festival and a rush of intrepid tourists, the staging of a TEDx event is one of those apparent symbols offered as proof that a war-torn country is normalising and even...
By Teresa Carson PORTLAND, Oregon Thirteen Muslim Americans challenging the U.S. governments’ secretive “no-fly” list won a partial victory in federal court when a judge found they “have a constitutionally protected liberty interest” in travelling internationally by air. But U.S. District Judge Anna Brown has yet to decide whether the government violated their constitutional rights...
Women and children living in Somalia’s makeshift camps for displaced people face a high risk of rape and other sexual violence, Amnesty International said today after returning from a research trip to the country. The organization’s researchers spoke with dozens of women and girls who felt at risk of sexual violence. Some of them, one as...
By NICK MCDERMOTT Jet lag could soon be cured after the discovery of a gene which prevents us from adjusting to new time zones. When flying long-haul, it can take some travellers days before they overcome the fatigue and can enjoy a good night’s sleep. But they’ll be relieved to know that a pill to beat...