Turkish Airlines says it has started twice-weekly flights to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, which because of civil war and insurgency has not had passenger service from an international carrier in more than 20 years. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag of Turkey announced the development on Tuesday after arriving in Mogadishu on a flight from Istanbul Ataturk Airport. Somalis can now travel the world again, he said.

Source: NYT 

This is great, but I’m gunna give it a side eye for right now. Maybe I’m underestimating the economic capabilities of the average Somali individual, but I don’t really think buying plane tickets is really in the cards right now. 

Related: Turkey in Somalia: A Welcome Ally 

Donald M. Payne, who served 12 terms in the House of Representatives and was the first African American congressman from New Jersey, died March 6 at a hospital in Livingston, N.J., according to a statement from his office. He was 77 and had colon cancer.

Rep. Payne was first elected to the U.S. House in 1988, taking over the seat that had previously been held for 40 years by Peter W. Rodino, former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The district encompassed parts of Jersey City, Elizabeth and his hometown of Newark.

He was the head of a family political dynasty in New Jersey and was a past chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

He was considered a vocal advocate for education, labor, health care and fair housing and helped push through legislation to increase education grants for students and reduce interest rates on college loans.

He was a longtime member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and a past chairman of its Africa and global health subcommittee, He was among the first public officials to denounce mass killings in the Darfur region of Sudan as “genocide.”

“This is a pariah government, which once harbored Osama bin Laden and took more than 20 years to even begin to end its civil war with the south,” Rep. Payne told The Washington Post in 2004. “Darfur could happen again if we don’t condemn this government’s role in planning and executing” the militia’s campaign of killing.

He also served on an influential advisory group to Democratic congressional leaders and was a member of the Democratic steering committee, which assigns committee posts and develops the party’s legislative priorities.

Because he seldom faced political opposition in his district, Rep. Payne “had the luxury of following his heart in his voting record,” said Brigid Callahan Harrison, a professor of political science and law at Montclair State University in New Jersey. “He was consistently one of the most liberal members of Congress.”

In 1994, Rep. Payne led a presidentially appointed delegation to Rwanda, seeking to end the ethnic violence that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. In 2004, he called for the creation of an international war crimes tribunal to hold Sudanese militia members responsible for widespread massacres in Darfur. Within a year, the International Criminal Court began an investigation of atrocities committed in Darfur.

“Don Payne stood for human rights throughout his career,” Mark Schneider, senior vice president at the International Crisis Group, a human rights organization, said in an interview. “He forced several administrations to acknowledge what was happening throughout Africa and pressed for major diplomatic and financial commitments to Africa.”

Twice during visits to Somalia, Rep. Payne’s airplane was fired on by militants, but he escaped injury. He made so many trips to Africa and Haiti that he was sometimes accused of neglecting his constituents in New Jersey. In response, he often pointed to millions of dollars in federal spending that he steered toward projects in his district.

Read on here 

Mostly shock at work today. Wonderful advocate on the Hill. 

Army General Carter Ham told the United States house armed services committee that leading figures in al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and North Africa’s al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) were discussing ways to synchronise their actions.

If successful in their efforts to link up, the Commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said that the terrorist networks would pose a “real challenge” to the United States.

The four-star General, who commanded the US military intervention in Libya, had earlier expressed concern about the “stated intent” of the groups to work together, voiced most strongly by Boko Haram and AQIM.

Boko Haram – a militant Islamist group whose campaign of terror in northern Nigeria has left hundreds dead – has reportedly received weapons and training from al-Qaeda’s North African wing.

And some analysts have pointed to the sophistication of its bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital Abuja last year, in which 23 died, as evidence of strengthened ties to other terrorist groups.

“Boko Haram has definitely taken inspiration from groups like al-Shabaab and AQIM, but current evidence for actual linkages isn’t compelling,” Alex Vines, head of the Africa programme at the Chatham House think tank, told The Daily Telegraph.

“While we see increasing sophistication in Boko Haram’s techniques, including the use of suicide bombings, much of Boko Haram’s agenda is still to do with Nigerian issues and not a broader radical Islamist agenda.”

Al-Shabaab demonstrated its chilling capacity to carry out attacks further afield in July 2010, when twin suicide bombings killed 74 football fans watching the World Cup Final in Uganda’s capital Kampala.

Within Somalia, the group is battling on many fronts, including against Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, and an African Union offensive in Mogadishu that has taken back much of the capital.

But an announcement by al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri formally welcoming al-Shabaab to its ranks has provoked concerns that the group is committed to exporting its terror tactics to the region and beyond.

Africa is an increasingly important arena for US counterterrorism efforts, as concern mounts that al-Qaeda affiliates are extending into unstable parts of Africa. An expeditionary base in the Horn of Africa and extensive military training and intelligence-gathering operations across the continent are just some of America’s counterterrorism strategies in the region.

“One of the key lenses that the United States looks at Africa through is counterterrorism,” added Vines. “Paradoxically, we’ve seen a deepening of the security relationship between the United States and Africa under President Barack Obama, whereas President George W. Bush is remembered more for his humanitarian activities on the continent.”

inaa-abdalle:

outside the London conference..

(Source: irathersmiile, via misshamdi)

wordsforstrangers:

Top Refugee-Sending Countries To US (by kuow949)

Here’s your bit of world/refugee statistics today.

Someone told me that life for Burmese people is getting better, recently.

I’m inclined to believe that that’s not true.

I wish people wouldn’t just say things like that off the cuff, especially about countries that aren’t getting as much media hype as they used to.

People don’t generally become refugees because political/living climates are improving, and they’re around the second highest peoples to be refugees these days.

[data source]

(via thefemaletyrant)

dynamicafrica:

Pirates have attacked a cargo ship off #Nigeria, kidnapping two crew members and injuring another, an international maritime watchdog has said.

Another member of the crew is missing following the attack in which the pirates looted the ship.

The Dutch-owned ship was anchored near the Nigerian coast when it was targeted by the eight armed men.

The United Nations this week warned that pirate attacks in the Gulf of Guinea are becoming more violent.

In this latest attack eight armed pirates in speedboats fired at the ship on Tuesday afternoon, said Noel Choong, of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said.

This comes two weeks after gunmen fired on a cargo vessel killing the captain in another attack in Nigerian waters.

The West African coast is becoming a major centre for pirate attacks and is now placed by maritime insurers in the same risk category as Somalia.

Mr Choong told the AFP news agency that there had been eight incidents this year and “more attacks may have gone unreported”.

“We urge ships to be vigilant at all times. Please go for direct berthing at port instead of anchoring, or stay very far away from coast,” AP news agency quotes him as saying.

The UN has called on West African nations to co-operate and come up with ways to combat sea piracy.

(Source: )

Two hostages were killed as a Danish warship intercepted a cargo vessel that had been hijacked by pirates off Somalia’s coast, Denmark’s navy has said.

The Danish ship HDMS Absalon had been following the hijacked vessel for several days and tried to stop it when it started moving away from the coast on Monday, the navy said.

When the crew did not stop despite warning shots, the Danish forces opened fire, the navy spokesman Kenneth Nielsen said. The pirates surrendered and the Danes took control of the ship.

As they boarded the vessel, they found 17 suspected pirates and 18 hostages, Nielsen said. He declined to give their nationalities.

“Two of the hostages were found seriously injured and even with speedy assistance from Absalon’s doctor, their lives could not be saved,” the navy said in a statement.

It said it was not clear how the hostages were injured.

The HDMS Absalon joined Nato’s Ocean Shield anti-piracy force in November.

Source: The Guardian 

The United Nations resolution passed on Wednesday allowing increase of AU troops in Somalia will see the number of Ugandan forces in Mogadishu rise from 5,160 to 6,860.

The resolution also admits Kenya as the fourth African troop-contributing country with 4,700, while Burundi will add 1,000 troops.

Djibouti, the third country, which deployed one battalion last year, will add 850 combatants.

The spokesperson of the AU forces in Somalia, Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda, said the boost will allow them start the second phase of the mission-expanding the military offensive outside Mogadishu.

“We will now launch Phase Two - which is expansion into South West of Mogadishu. We are targeting Gedo and lower Juba, central regions of Bay and Bakool and also some parts of Hiiraan. The idea is to chase al- Shabaab and capture the key towns as quickly as possible,” he said.

Read on here

Source: AllAfrica

akfung:

Mogadishu, Somalia — A Somali boy carries swordfish as he rides on a motorcycle taxi.  (August 2010).

PHOTOGRAPH BY: FEISAL OMAR / REUTERS

(via discipline-your-mind-deactivate)

Mounting concern about the twin threats posed by pirates and Islamic insurgents operating in Somalia has led Britain and other EU nations to consider the feasibility of air strikes against their logistical hubs and training camps, the Guardian has been told.

The issue has been rising up the agenda of David Cameron’s National Security Council in recent months, reflecting anxiety in the west about piracy, but also the ambitions of some leaders within al-Shabaab, the clan-based movement that is fighting against Somalia’s western-backed transitional government.

Though the “war games” remain on the drawing board for now, the disclosure that they have been under serious scrutiny shows the depth of unease about the situation within the British government, which is hosting an international conference on Somalia in London starting on Thursday.

According to sources, the international coalition that has been spearheading the fight against the pirates drew up contingency plans in the summer of 2010, and again last year, for what was termed “over the beach” air strikes against Somali camps.

The UK has also considered plans for attacking targets in places where al-Shabaab and the pirates appear to co-exist, particularly in southern Somalia.

But though the military advice is that any attacks would be relatively straightforward, and may only involve small numbers of heavily-armed helicopters flown from warships, planners have also flagged the likelihood that civilians could be caught up in any fighting.

That has been one of the prime considerations militating against pre-emptive military action, though sources said that situation could change.

“We don’t have the assets in place,” said one senior official in Whitehall. “That does not mean we could not get them in the air quickly. You have got to think long and hard. You have got to be absolutely sure [about the targets].”

The official said that a short, sharp strike might “interdict” potential terrorists and pirates, but would not be a solution to either problem in the long term.

Read on here

Source: The Guardian

At least two police officers have been wounded in the Somali capital Mogadishu after a car bomb exploded next to a police department building in an attack claimed by the insurgent al-Shabab group.

Police said the bomb went off on Friday after they had arrested the driver of a car suspected of carrying explosives.

Officers said they were waiting outside the criminal investigations department for bomb disposal experts when the explosives in the car detonated.

The attack was the latest in a wave of assaults in war-torn Mogadishu.
    
“We had seized this car earlier in the morning and detained the driver, who is alive and under arrest,” Mohamed Ali, a police officer, said. “It went off prematurely as we were waiting for bomb experts to come and disarm the car.”

The blast destroyed the gate to the police department and shattered the windows of buildings nearby. The explosion set ablaze cars parked in the compound, residents said.

The criminal investigations department is located near other government offices in central Mogadishu.

Shabab claims responsibility

Al-Shabab, which is allged to have ties to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the blast in a post on Twitter. They said the car bomb was triggered remotely by their mujahideen, or holy warriors.

“The mujahideens managed to get a car bomb into the complex before exploding it remotely 30 minutes later,” the group said in its online message.
    
Al-Shabab aim to overthrow Somalia’s weak leaders and institute Islamic rule. They have been fighting the Transitional Federal Government since 2007. Their online posts went on to say that al-Shabab would be embarking a “new campaign” to target bases associated with the TFG and any foreign governments.
    
The group has intensified the frequency of attacks in Mogadishu since withdrawing from most of its bases in the capital in August last year.

“This is happening because al-Shabab are able to hide themselves with people returning back to Mogadishu,” Colonel Omar Mohamed, of the police’s criminal investigations department, told Al Jazeera shortly after the attack.

Al-Shabab fighters control large parts of central and southern Somalia, but are facing increasing pressure from regional armies, including Kenyan troops in the south and Ethiopia’s army in the south and west.

Thousands of Somalis are fleeing into the capital after African Union-backed government troops have launched renewed attacks on Shabab positions on the outskirts of the capital.

More than 7,200 people have fled into the city from the rebel-held Afgoye corridor, a 40 kilometre (25-mile) stretch of makeshift camps along a road, home to some 410,000 people, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

“UNHCR fears for the safety of the displaced and we urge all armed groups and forces to make the protection of civilians a priority,” the agency said.

Source: Al Jazeera

Nairobi - The Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab has accused Britain of trying to colonise Somalia, ahead of a major international conference in London on the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

Leaders from Somalia and 40 other nations are expected to gather on February 23 for the British government-hosted conference, in the latest diplomatic attempt to find some external solution to over 20 years of civil war.

But al-Shabaab spokesperson Sheikh Ali Mahmoud Rage said the conference was another attempt to “colonise” Somalia.

“Britain must understand that the Muslims have long rejected British Imperialism and the futility of their renewed attempt is all too obvious,” the militant group added on its Twitter feed late on Monday.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague visited Somalia last week ahead of the conference.

In colonial times, Britain controlled what has now become the semi-autonomous northern region of Somaliland, while Italy controlled the rest of the country. Somalia gained independence from colonial rule in 1960.

Al-Shabaab, which last week said it had merged with al-Qaeda, has been fighting to oust the internationally backed government since early 2007.

In recent months, the group has been losing control of part of the territory as a result of pressure from pro-government forces, including African Union and Kenyan troops, leading to international hopes that a solution to the conflict may be within reach.

The African Union peacekeeping mission, known as Amisom, said on Tuesday that it had captured two insurgents sites outside of the capital.

“Operations are ongoing to expand the zone of security in Mogadishu,” said Brigadier General Audace Nduwumunsi, the acting AMISOM commander.

The peacekeepers tentatively began moving out of the capital in January, five months after the insurgents withdrew most of their forces from Mogadishu.

Source: News 24

So instead I’m going to do a quick list of three news I saw over the weekend, but didn’t have time to repost (and by didn’t have time to repost I mean I couldn’t make myself be a contributing member of society this weekend and was horizontal for 85% of it) 

1. Zambia/Cote d’Ivoire - Chipolopolo win thrilling football final in dramatic penalty shootout. Shockingly Related: Prostitutes offer free services to celebrate Chipolopolo. Unfortunately and embarrassingly related: Ghana didn’t even get 3rd place?!

This is how I feel. On another note look at the pure joy happening to the right. 

2. Nigeria recaptures Christmas bombing suspect

“Marilyn Ogar, the deputy director of public relations in the State Security Service, said no further information would be given on how he was recaptured. “We have brought forward Kabiru Sokoto who was declared missing. I think that is enough,” she said.

“How we went about it is our own business. It is private to us; we operate under the need-to-know principle and so we won’t begin to tell you our mode of operation,” she added. 

Sokoto’s escape on January 18 was described by security sources as “unusual and suspicious” and it prompted President Goodluck Jonathan to sack the chief of police and his six deputies.

Related: Cameroon’s Economy Suffers as Boko Haram Infiltrates Country 

“I will break the good news to our Islamic nation, which will… annoy the crusaders, and it is that the Shabab movement in Somalia has joined al-Qaeda..The jihadist movement is with the grace of Allah, growing and spreading within its Muslim nation despite facing the fiercest crusade campaign in history by the West.” - Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri

dynamicafrica:

An exceptional harvest, good rains and food deliveries by numerous aid agencies have helped end famine in Somalia but food stocks could run out again in May, the United Nations has said.

“Famine conditions are no longer present,” said a statement released on Friday from the office of Mark Bowden, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.

The famine, which was declared in July 2011, killed tens of thousands in south and central Somalia. More than 2.3 million Somalis, almost one-third of the population, are still in need of aid.

“Millions of people still need food, clean water, shelter and other assistance to survive and the situation is expected to
deteriorate in May,” the statement cited Bowden as saying. 

Three conditions

Grainne Maloney, who works for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, told Al Jazeera that there has to be three outcomes for a famine to exist.

“The first is elevated mortality. At least two deaths per 10,000 people per day. Second, elevated malnutrition, meaning 30 per cent of children are acutely malnourished. And third, at least 20 per cent of population cant reach their food need,” Maloney said.

“So, although the magnitude and severity of the crisis have been reduced, we are still in an extreme crisis as 31 per cent of Somalia’s population continue to require some level of humanitarian assistance.”

The UN said the current harvest would provide just 10 to 20 per cent of this year’s food needs. It warned food stocks could run out in May, ahead of the main August harvest.

“We have less than 100 days to avoid another famine,” said Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

“The crisis is not over. It can only be resolved with a combination of rains and continued, coordinated, long-term
actions that build up the resilience of the population and link relief with development.”

While aid deliveries to some 180,000 people in camps in the capital Mogadishu have improved the situation there, conflict in southern and central Somalia is still hampering aid deliveries to the worst-hit areas.

Read on here 

Source: Al Jazeera

(Source: )

The deaths of tens of thousands of people during the drought in east Africa could have been avoided if the international community, donor governments and humanitarian agencies had responded earlier and more swiftly to clear warning signs that a disaster was in the making, according to a new report.

Figures compiled by the Department for International Development (DfID) suggest that between 50,000 and 100,000 people, more than half of them children under five, died in the 2011 Horn of Africa crisis that affected Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

The US government estimates separately that more than 29,000 children under five died in the space of 90 days from May to July last year. The accompanying destruction of livelihoods, livestock and local market systems affected 13 million people overall. Hundreds of thousands remain at continuing risk of malnutrition.

The authors of the report, published by Save the Children and Oxfam, suggest current emergency response systems, which they believe to be seriously flawed, will soon be tested again as new humanitarian crises loom in west Africa and the Sahel, where growing food shortages are reported.

“Early warning systems in the Sahel region show that overall cereal production is 25% lower than the previous year and food prices are 40% higher than the five-year average. The last food crisis in the region, in 2010, affected 10 million people,” the report warns.

A recent Save the Children assessment in Niger showed families in the worst-hit areas were already struggling with a third less food, money and fuel than is necessary to survive.

The report, A Dangerous Delay, concludes that although drought sparked the east Africa crisis, human factors turned it into a disaster.

“A culture of risk aversion caused a six-month delay in the large-scale aid effort because humanitarian agencies and national governments were too slow to scale up their response to the crisis, and many donors wanted proof of a humanitarian catastrophe before acting to prevent one,” it says.

“Sophisticated early-warning systems first forecast a likely emergency as early as August 2010, but the full-scale response was not launched until July 2011, when malnutrition rates in parts of the region had gone far beyond the emergency threshold and there was high-profile media coverage.

»»>”Waiting for a situation to reach crisis point before responding is the wrong way to address chronic vulnerability and recurrent drought in places like the Horn of Africa. The international community must change the way it operates to meet the challenge of recurrent crises … Long-term development work is best placed to respond to drought.”

Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s chief executive, said: “We all bear responsibility for this dangerous delay that cost lives in east Africa, and need to learn the lessons of the late response.

“It’s shocking that the poorest people are still bearing the brunt of a failure to respond swiftly and decisively.”

Justin Forsyth, Save the Children’s chief executive, said: “We can no longer allow this grotesque situation to continue, where the world knows an emergency is coming but ignores it until confronted with television pictures of desperately malnourished children.

“The warning signs were clear and with more money when it really mattered the suffering of thousands of children would have been avoided.”

The report comes before a March summit on Somalia, to be hosted in London by the British government, which is expected to address aid and development as well as governance and security issues.

Somalia’s remains the most acute food crisis in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people still at risk. According to UN estimates, the rate of malnutrition, measured by the median global acute malnutrition (GAM) standard, increased in southern and central Somalia from 16.4% to 36.4% in 2011. The 15% “critical” threshold was exceeded early in 2011.

The report notes that the delays in activating relief operations last year massively increased the cost of subsequent assistance. “Trucking five litres of water per day as a last-resort lifesaving intervention to 80,000 people in Ethiopia costs more than $3m [£2m] for five months, compared to $900,000 to prepare water sources in the same area for an oncoming drought,” it says.

The report makes a series of recommendations, including improved risk-reduction strategies, greater funding flexibility, and preventative humanitarian work. “All actors and early-warning specialists need to develop a common approach to triggers for early action,” it says.

The report backs further reforms to tackle hunger crises such as the east Africa emergency, as set out in the Charter to End Extreme Hunger, a joint-agency initiative that urges governments to fulfil their responsibilities and take concrete steps to stop food shortages arising from drought and other causes from turning into catastrophes.

A spokesperson for DfID said: “Britain has led the world in tackling food insecurity in east Africa in the last year and we continue to urge others to prioritise this critical issue.

“British taxpayers’ generous support has helped hundreds of thousands of people in dire need in the Horn of Africa and longer term British assistance in Ethiopia and Kenya has meant that millions more were not caught up in this terrible tragedy.”

Source: The Guardian