Las Anod, Somaliland, November 10, 2007 – Twenty-two people, most of them teenagers, arrived Tuesday in Las Anod, the headquarters of the Sool Region. They were arrested by Somaliland forces during a recent demonstration in the town.
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Somaliland International Recognition Action Group (SIRAG) Press Release
London, UK, November 5, 2007 – SIRAG condemns the recent interference of Somaliland Government to close down the office of SHURO-NET. This outstanding human rights defender organisation has gained the recognition and respect of the Diaspora as well as friends of Somaliland through their conscientious and dedicated work in defending the fundamental rights of the citizens of Somaliland.
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Mogadishu 10, Nov.07 - Mass Ethiopian troops entered Gupta a section of Daynile district in the northern part of the capital Mogadishu Somalia.
The Ethiopian troops with their tanks and armored personnel carriers besieged areas around the industrial areas, yet there are seldom families in the vicinity.
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Nairobi, 10 November 2007 - Digital revolution is already fuelling Africa’s development in a great way. The immense possibilities offered by information technology could wipe out ignorance and usher in better governance and greater participation.
This was the main message at the end of the recent Kigali summit on connecting Africa.
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Mogadishu, 9th November, 2007 - More than 70 people have died and more than 200 have been wounded in battles in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
Ethiopian forces are now engaged in revenge attacks on locals after the bodies of Ethiopian soldiers were dragged through the streets.
In one of the ugliest days of fighting on the streets of the Somali capital, Ethiopian troops backing the fledgling Somali government fought insurgents in an up-close battle that bodies dragged through the streets of violent Mogadishu, with crowds cheering.
Brussels, November 05, 2007 – Horn of Africa enemies Ethiopia and Eritrea may return to war over their disputed border in a matter of weeks if there is no major international push to halt them, an influential think-tank has warned.
A 1998-2000 war on the boundary killed 70,000 people and brought untold hardship to two of the world's poorest nations.
Now analysts are warning of a repeat as troops build up ahead of an end-November deadline by an independent boundary commission for Ethiopia and Eritrea to mark out their border.
Main Developments Fighting continued to cause suffering and displacement in Mogadishu and other regions in Somalia. An additional 24,000 people fled the conflict and unrest in the past week, bringing the total number of displaced since the last weekend of October to 114,000. There are now an estimated 850,000 IDPs in Somalia, made up of some 450,000 people displaced in 2007 because of conflict and insecurity consuming Mogadishu since February, in addition to the estimated 400,000 protracted IDPs displaced prior to 2007 by Somalia's long-standing conflict.
Sheikh Ahmed says with passage of time more Somalis to join resistance against Ethiopian troops in Somalia.
ASMARA, November 8, 2007 – A top Somalian opposition leader on Thursday vowed to fight until the withdrawal of all Ethiopian troops, ruling out peace talks with the transitional government. "It is our belief that every individual in Somalia has to participate in the resistance and the defeat of the Ethiopian occupation," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said in the Eritrean capital.
Nairobi, November 7, 2007 – While thousands of people flee the Somali capital Mogadishu, the medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), is gravely concerned about the remaining population as violence intensifies in the city.
MSF is one of the only international organizations providing health services in Mogadishu and is witnessing increasing violence in the areas near one of its clinics.
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New York, November 6, 2007 – Every day that gun shots ring through a Mogadishu neighborhood, every week that an explosion rips homes into plumes of dust, and every month that thousands of civilians flee the capital, Somalia plunges deeper into crisis.
Last week's resignation of Ali Mohamed Gedi, the country's prime minister, is the latest shake-up in a chronology of political turmoil in the Horn of Africa state, and was viewed by many as yet another indication that the Transitional Federal Government is not in control.
VOA’s Somali Service Interview with Assistant Secretary Frazer
November 6, 2007
Jendayi Frazer, Asst. Secretary of State for African Affairs
Q. Fighting between the government with the help of Ethiopian troops and the insurgents in Somalia seems to be increasing by the day. Who is responsible – both the insurgents and the government?
A. The insurgents are responsible, because the government has the right to protect and defend a country and the insurgents have an option, which to join national reconciliation, join a political process, rather than to take up their grievances with the government through armed force.
BACK TO SCHOOL: Abdulkhadir Wasuge checks enrollment figures at Horseed Primary School in Jowhar, Somalia, a nation where the literacy rate has plummeted during a civil war. “Education is the light,” he says. “I want to make sure young people don’t miss out.” |
Abdulkhadir Wasuge has a mission: trying to ensure that that 'young people don't miss out' on a chance to learn and grow.
JOWHAR, Somalia, November 11, 2007 — A nation overwhelmed by civil war, flooding and, most recently, the threat of starvation might be forgiven for overlooking the back-to-school season.
BAIDOA, Nov 07, 2007 – Somali lawmakers on Wednesday approved a law that allows non-legislators to become cabinet ministers, clearing the way for the president to nominate a replacement for Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi.
"All lawmakers have approved the issue," Parliament Speaker Sheikh Adan Madobe told more than 200 assembled legislators, who moments before had overwhelmingly approved the measure by a show of hands after three days of debate.
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11 November 2007
The Ethiopians in Somalia have discovered to their cost the same harsh reality confronting the Americans in Iraq: it is easy for a well-equipped and trained army to defeat in short order an inferior enemy. What follows, however, is frustration and humiliation as that enemy regroups and begins a guerrilla war against the occupying power.
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Speaker ofSomaliland lower house of parliament Abdirahman M Abdillahi (Iro) |
Hargeysa, 10 November, 2007 (SL Times) – The speaker of Somaliland’s lower house of parliament, Abdirahman M Abdillahi (Iro), confirmed yesterday that the government had submitted to parliament, this week, the recent government revised ‘Press Law’ sanctioned by its council of ministers early in the year.
In a television interview, the speaker was asked by SLTV, “was it true that parliament received from the government its revised version of the current press law?
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PRESS RELEASE
3/11/2007
The Somaliland Forum strongly condemns the Government of Somaliland’s interference in the internal governance of the independent human rights network, SHURO-Net. The appointment of a parallel Board of Directors headed by a civil servant at a contrived meeting on Thursday October 24th 2007, attended by a minister and a deputy minister (Mr. Yussuf Issa Dualeh (Tallabo), and the use of the police to force the take-over of the management of the organization is an act reminiscent of a bygone era that Somaliland people hoped was a thing of the past. Neither the Board of SHURO-Net, nor the legitimate representatives of its numerous constituent organizations attended this meeting.
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GAROWE, Somalia Nov 4, 2007 – Legislators in Somalia's Puntland region have threatened to withdraw support from the regional administration if the city of Las Anod is not recaptured within a month.
Puntland lawmakers met in the capital Garowe on Sunday where discussion was mainly centered on the deteriorating situation in Las Anod, provincial capital of Sool.
Analysis
3 November 2007
By Ahmed Aideed
Both Somaliland and Kenya are in full electioneering mood. Both have vibrant plural democracies that have a twinge of cultural overtones; ethnicity in Kenya and clannism is Somaliland.
Another similarity is the tussle over the composition of the election bodies going on between the ruling group and the opposition. The parallels do not end there as in both countries, the debate on resource distribution between the central and the peripheral areas is dominating the political debates. And in both countries the incumbent ruling parties or coalition are facing a possible defeat.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon |
United Nations, Nov 09, 2007 – Sending UN peacekeepers to Somalia is not realistic and the international community should consider other options including a "coalition of the willing", Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday.
Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Mogadishu this year amid persistent fighting since Somalia's transitional government came to power after ousting militant Islamists with the help of Ethiopian troops.
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By Abukar Arman
For almost two decades, the Somali political theater has been marked by random, tragicomic episodes that have frustrated the average observer and fatigued donor countries, who have funded numerous failed projects to solve the Somali conundrum.
The drama generated by these "episodes" has routinely blurred the vision of the average Somali activist (especially in the Diaspora), analysts from around the world and, indeed, stakeholders, keeping them from clearly identifying and dealing with the real issues of this Horn of Africa state
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By Jamal Ali Hussein
6 November 2007
As the Commonwealth countries meeting is about to start in Uganda during November 2007, the United Kingdom citizens who are originally from Somaliland are currently worried about the situation of their original mother country. They are amazed by the lack of Britain’s role in leading the way to promote Somaliland to a successful re-recognition. Somaliland Community particularly want the British Government to remember the words of its Prime Minister Harold Macmillan during early 1960s when Somaliland was about to receive its independence from Britain.
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MOGADISHU, Nov. 08, 2007 – Somali insurgents dragged the bodies of dead Ethiopian soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu on Thursday, amid fighting that killed at least 21 people and sparked a further exodus from the lawless city.
Witnesses said at least three Ethiopian soldiers, who are backing the interim Somali government, were killed during battles in the Sqa Holaha neighborhood in northern Mogadishu.
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Ethiopian forces have shelled suspected hideouts of armed groups in Mogadishu [Reuters] |
Mogadishu, Somalia, 10 November 2007 - At least 16 more bodies have been found in Mogadishu, bringing the death toll from fierce fighting in the last three days in the Somali capital to 59.
Residents rummaging through the destruction found nine bodies near a mosque and another six in the Black Sea district south of Mogadishu, where Ethiopian forces clashed with fighters this week.
Somalia President, Abdullahi Yusuf is holding talks with a UN envoy in Nairobi due to worsening humanitarian conditions in Mogadishu
Somalia President, Abdullahi Yusuf. |
Nairobi, 10 November 2007 - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf arrived in the Kenyan capital yesterday for the talks with the Secretary-General's Special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, and other UN officials, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq told reporters on Friday.
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2 November 2007
Foreign Minister Seyoum told ETV and Ethiopian Radio on Thursday that successful steps taken by defense forces and local populations in recent months meant that ONLF had no more chance to disrupt peace in the Somali Regional State. In a wide-ranging interview, Minister Seyoum said community elders and public figures in the Somali Regional State had made a number of efforts, in and out of Ethiopia, to reach out to representatives of the group, but its leadership had remained determinedly belligerent, preferring to stay in the comfort of western capitals.
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November 09, 2007
A spokesman for Somalia's Hawiye clan said on Thursday that clan elders are ready to convince rebel forces to stop attacking Somalian government and Ethiopian forces on the condition that Ethiopian troops withdraw from the country, Somalian media reported.
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Nov 10, 2007 - Just as the White House claims it has finally turned the corner in what it defines as the "central front" in the "war on terror" - Iraq - it has found itself desperately trying to contain new crises on the war's periphery stretching east to Pakistan, west to Turkey and south to the Horn of Africa.
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's latest "coup" last weekend, combined with the continuing threat of a Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan and the looming probability of war
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Watford, England, 7 Nov 2007 - The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) office in the United Kingdom has launched an environmentally friendly development project in Somalia that will strengthen livelihood strategies of the Somali people by promoting the use of alternative energy options to meet growing energy needs.
ADRA United Kingdom is funding the Somalia Energy and Livelihood project in partnership with the European Commission, which is furnishing 75 percent of the project’s US$2.8 million value. The three-year project, to date the largest ADRA UK project co-funded with the European Commission, launched November 1, 2007, in Puntland and Somaliland.
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Castro praises Chavez's criticism of Europe
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Fidel Castro has praised President Chavez's criticism of Europe during the summit of leaders from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal
Fidel Castro broke two weeks of silence on Sunday, applauding his friend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for having “leveled devastating criticisms at Europe''.
Castro also hailed speeches by Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua and Bolivia's president, Eva Morales during the Ibero-American Summit, which ended Saturday in Santiago, Chile.
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SPRINGFIELD, Nov 9, 2007 - A former tester at a now-closed trucking school in West Plains pleaded guilty of Friday for providing fraudulent commercial driver licenses. Orbin May worked for the South Central Career Center Truck Driver Training School. May admitted he gave incomplete or inadequate driving tests. He also admitted fraudulently certifying that applicants had legitimately passed tests.
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Victim Mohamed Ali Maslah |
Kentish Town, November 08, 2007 - A KNIFE-wielding maniac who stabbed a Kentish Town taxi driver to death in a row over a fare has been jailed for life.
Somalian mini-cab driver and father-of-five Mohamed Ali Maslah, 41, from the Wendling estate in Haverstock Road, was knifed 11 times in the back and head by Desmond Wilson on May 5 this year.
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Asked how he saw the emergency that was declared by President Musharraf, a Pakistani merchant replied, "this is not emergency; this is hooliganism." The same response applies to Mr Tallabo’s claim that the country is in a state of emergency. Mr Tallabo was not just guilty of hooliganism in words, but went way beyond that and actually engaged in hooliganism in practice. Why are we saying this? Answer: when the Deputy Minister of Justice, Mr Tallabo, says the country is in a state of emergency, when in fact it is not, it constitutes an act of hooliganism. When the same minister takes over a civil society organization (Shuro Net) it is hooliganism. That much is clear. But what is not clear is whether Mr Tallabo’s claim regarding emergency was because he did not know the relevant procedures for declaring emergency or he was pretending not to know.
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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 Rooble
It is normal in every country that has gone through long and disastrous civil war there is a high number of disabled people. To say this looks very narrow but going into details will ensure it is an ocean and one can never see all the sides.
Here in Somaliland, the number of the people living with disabilities is very high starting from the moment the war started until this moment a lot of people are joining the group everyday. The cause is not only one reason but comes in different shapes and sizes.
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The Majeerteeniya theory failed due to its whimsical nature
By Abdirahman Ahmed Ali
History repeats itself in Las Anod after the people of Sool evicted the Majeerteen militia from their territory and redefined Sool as an integral part of Somaliland due to the Majeerteeniya’s failed “Qabiil” theory. The current public uprising against Majeerteeniya was expected due to illegal activities of the militia in the region.
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Creating Marketing Orientation For Our Society
By Ibrahim Adam Ghalib
I used to hear that the Somalis are oral society. Now I realized that this is true. After the disintegration of the central government of Somalia the people started to sell something without identifying the market. This is not confined to the people in the country alone but even the Diaspora that returned to the country also started to do business of their own.
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An Uprising Call from Mandera Prison
By Yusuf Deyr, Hargeysa
I wish if I could have lyric poem or song full of irony and sarcasm with a deadly weapon tongue, like Professor Gariye. An owner of special breed of idiomatic phrases dressed up with metaphoric expressions and a good student of William Shakespeare. An honest ambassador for an oppressed nation with iron guts; and impartial wise judgement, like Professor Gariye. Accurate and sharp in my prediction; and full of witty knowledge of astronomical data with a mathematical certainty.
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A Nation Is At Risk!!
By Daha Farah
It is hard to believe that the two opposition leaders came out of their recent meeting with the president to tell us that he thought Justice Ministry line manages Shuronet and that he had very little information of what happened in the past few weeks!
Although I do not know whether they believed this or not, for me, it is absurd and we are in a dangerous situation. This shows the man is not in charge. With all the current events in the country and the president is not in full vigilance shows that the system is in disarrays and the national Security is at increased risk. People like Tallaabo are ruthless if they are not controlled and can instigate civil unrest that can jeopardize our nationhood and commitment to democracy.
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By Noah Arre
I like journalism for its bluntness, for its integrity and for its inherently invaluable place in the society. Unfortunately, my current profession is in a different field and at this stage in my life I can in no way establish a new career in this challenging area (journalism). Journalists can easily make you understand about any thing they talk about. To me, their eloquence; their simple, yet powerful language in the stories and news they report; their impressive telling of tales as well as their sacrifices in acquiring them, all make me envy them yet enjoy and admire!
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By Abdifatah Mohamed Ahmed
In every head of the citizens there is wisdom, and it is better to snatch that wisdom. If we want to achieve a sophisticated position. we need to respect the rights and onus of the citizens, we need to respect the positive missions and visions of the citizens, we need to encourage and cheer, true citizens of the country instead of disheartening them all the time .we need a true liaison and cooperation between government sectors and true people of the soil, based on justice and equity. We need to recognize the potential activities of workers generally and particularly human right organizations such as shuro- net
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Dear colleagues and SHURO-Net
It may not be easy to comment on certain things in SHURO-Net especially when writing from afar. The widely supplied documents on the legalities of the Human Rights network elections goes with great concern for people who would have love to support the Network.
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JT Interview: Former US Ambassador To Ethiopia, David Shinn
Former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Dr. David H. Shinn |
Washington , November 6, 2007 – Jimma Times spoke this week with former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Dr. David H. Shinn. He discussed about the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war and current events in the region, including Egypt’s Nuclear power program, ONLF, opposition groups from Oromia, challenges facing the TFG and Somaliland.
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Dhows brought Indian settlers to the coast of East Africa |
Last month the US officially launched its military command centre in Africa known as Africom, a sign that Washington attaches increasing strategic importance to the continent.
Mombasa, Kenya, 10 2007 - When the Portuguese conquered humid Mombasa in the 16th Century, they built Fort Jesus on a promontory of the old Arab town that commanded the harbour, but also enjoyed cool breezes from the Indian Ocean.
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“Eager to get internationally recognized statehood before Transdniestria and other older conflicts, Kosovo is toying with the idea of declaring independence unilaterally in December.
Romania's Foreign Minister Adrian Cioroianu added his country to a growing list of states that oppose an independent Kosovo
BERLIN, November 6, 2007 - With Serbia and Kosovo meeting in Berlin this week, German Foreign Ministry official Martin Jaeger strongly rejected media reports from Pristina which said that Germany would recognize Kosovo's independence after 10 December 2007 when the current 120-day negotiation period ends.
PRESS RELEASE
Stockholm, November 9, 2007 – 140 Journalists who died in the line of duty this year until November 9, 2007, will be honoured in Stockholm, Sweden, by PROFOCA (Professional Foreign Correspondents Association) during the 2007 JOURNALISTS STOCKHOLM MEMORIAL to be conducted on November 15 at the Catholic Cathedral.
During the ceremony, seven colleagues from Somalia, Abdulkadir Mahad Moallim Kaskey
MINNEAPOLIS, November 7, 2007 – For years, Abdurahman Ali Osman worked behind the scenes on creating Somalia's fragile government. Now he wants to lead it.
The St. Paul man is among a handful of Somalis in line to become prime minister in Somalia, where the premier stepped down last week amid growing violence after losing a power struggle.
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By Gordon Prather
A couple of weeks ago, Russian President Putin made a historic visit to Iran, nominally to attend a summit of the Caspian Sea littoral states Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran.
The summit, itself, resulted in a number of "milestone" agreements, including one prohibiting other countries (such as the United States) from using "in any circumstances" territory or facilities of any Caspian Sea littoral state (such as Azerbaijan) for "use of force or aggression" against another (such as Iran).
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