(Reuters) – Somalia’s security forces need rebuilding to cement gains made by foreign troops against Islamist militants, but how to pay and arm recruits, tackle corruption and prevent rebels infiltrating their ranks remain hurdles for the cash-strapped government. Proving the dire state of the Somali forces, when Islamist gunmen attacked a court in Mogadishu in...
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE For a fearsome pirate, even one in self-declared retirement, there is a notable lack of what literature has led one to expect: Cutlass, eye-patch, hook or even a parrot. Instead, Mohamed Abdi Hassan, one of Somalia’s — if not the world’s — most notorious pirate chiefs, appears far more businessman than sea...
The IGAD Heads of State and Government held its 21stExtraordinary summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on 3 May 2013, under the Chairmanship of H.E Mr. Hailemariam Desalegn, the Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and current Chairperson of the IGAD Assembly to discuss the political situation in the Federal Republic of Somalia....
Nairobi, ( HRW)– The Ethiopian government should mark World Press Freedom Day, on May 3, 2013, by immediately releasing all journalists jailed under the country’s deeply flawed anti-terrorism law, Human Rights Watch said today. On May 2, 2013, the Supreme Court upheld an 18-year sentence under the anti-terrorism law for Eskinder Nega Fenta, a journalist...
Somali president expected to present plans for rebuilding military, police and justice systems, as civil society calls on nascent government to empower women and provide jobs By Mark Tran On Tuesday next week, the UK hosts yet another big conference on Somalia, bringing together officials from 50 countries and organisations, including the UN, African Union...
Somalia, where almost 260,000 people — half of them young children — died of hunger in a 2010-2012 famine, according to a UN report on Thursday, is an impoverished country in the Horn ofAfrica. It has been ravaged by a civil war since the fall of the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991: –...
A strategic port is booming yet politically vulnerable A RED shipping container is suspended from a crane above a tandoori-hot dock alongside the freighter on which it has just crossed the Indian Ocean. Suddenly something goes slightly wrong. The container slips, maybe by a foot: no harm done. Perhaps a mechanical fault is to blame,...
By Omar Sacirbey BOSTON — When Karen Hunt Ahmed and her Muslim husband divorced four years ago, many friends asked her, “Now you can stop this Islam stuff, right?” Some friends, she thought. “Like it was a hobby I took up when I got married and now I’m supposed to drop it,” said Hunt Ahmed, president...
By ELEANOR HARDING and MARK PRIGG It could spell an end to laundry days – or at least make them a much less frequent chore. Manufacturers claim they have invented a shirt that stays clean even after 100 days of wear. The garment resists odour so effectively that it even smells fresh after being worn during rigorous exercise,...
By Jason Straziuso NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The 2011 Somali famine killed an estimated 260,000 people, half of them age 5 and under, according to a new report to be published this week that more than doubles previous death toll estimates, officials told The Associated Press. The aid community believes that tens of thousands of...