(AFP (eng) 11/06/13)
JOHANNESBURG, June 11, 2013 (AFP) - Nelson Mandela was spending his fourth day in hospital Tuesday where he was being treated in intensive care for a lung infection. The 94-year-old former president was rushed to a Pretoria hospital early Saturday and was said to be in serious but stable condition. His latest health scare has been met with prayers and a growing acceptance among South Africans that their hero may be nearing the end of his life. "He is receiving intensive care treatment," presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj, who served jail time with Mandela, told AFP on Monday. He "remains in hospital, and his condition is unchanged," the presidency said after describing him as being in a "serious but stable" condition...
(RFI(EN) 04/06/13)
Al-Shebab fighters in Somalia on Sunday publicly displayed two soldiers they claim are Kenyans, captured during skirmishes that left five people dead last month after a cross-border attack. Al-Shebab fighters displayed the two prisoners to thousands of people gathered in southern Somali town of Jilib. The Islamists used vehicles mounted with loudspeakers to order residents to participate in the event before they paraded the two prisoners in front of the crowd. Witnesses told RFI that they saw two handcuffed Kenyans in worn-out clothes in the middle of the crowd as the fighters were giving a scornful look to the prisoners. Opinions about the prisoners in the town are split. Some sympathise with their plight while others are indifferent, regarding them...
(Hrw 29/05/13)
Kenyan police in Nairobi tortured, raped, and otherwise abused and arbitrarily detained at least 1,000 refugees between mid-November 2012 and late January 2013, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Kenyan authorities should immediately open an independent public investigation, and the United Nations refugee agency – which has not spoken publicly about the abuses – should document and publicly report on any future abuses against refugees, Human Rights Watch said. The 68-page report, “‘You are All Terrorists:’ Kenyan Police Abuse of Refugees in Nairobi,”is based on interviews with 101 refugees, asylum seekers, and Kenyans of Somali ethnicity. The report documents how police used grenade and other attacks by unknown people in Nairobi’s mainly Somali suburb of Eastleigh...
(AL Jazeera 29/05/13)
New report details beatings, rape, and extortion by Kenyan police against Somali refugees during anti-terror campaign. Nairobi, Kenya - Sitting on a mattress in her cramped flat in eastern Nairobi, Ubah Abdi Warsame, a refugee from war-torn Somalia, points to her left ear and says that is where a Kenyan police officer booted her in the head. She still feels pain, she told Al Jazeera. Memories of the December morning - when baton-wielding paramilitaries ransacked her apartment block and beat, detained and demanded cash from the Somali refugees inside - continue to disturb her sleep. According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, it was not a lone example. The rights group describes in a new report a 10-week campaign of...
(Midnimo 22/05/13)
May 2013 “Information Clearing House” – The UN has announced that in 2010-2012, including the Great Horn of Africa Drought period, at least 250,000 Somalis starved to death. Most of those who died from starvation were internally displaced persons, displaced in the main by the military invasion and occupation of southern Somalia by the UN backed Ethiopian Army and then the AU “peacekeepers”, today some 25,000 strong. When I last wrote about starvation in Somalia I spoke of the UN budgeting 10 cents a day for food aid to feed each Somali refugee. Its called a “budget shortfall” as in “we want to help but we just don’t have the money”. Yet during this period of mass starvation of the...
(NPR 14/05/13)
In 2011, Jessica Buchanan was an aid worker in northern Somalia, helping to raise awareness about how to avoid land mines. The north was the relatively safe section of the country; that October, she traveled to the more dangerous southern region for a training. The night before she left, she texted her husband, Erik Landemalm, also an aid worker in Somalia. She asked him a question: "If I get kidnapped on this trip, will you come and get me?" On the trip back from the training, Buchanan and a colleague found their convoy surrounded by armed Somalians. The man responsible for protecting them had sold them out to land pirates, who demanded a ransom of up to $45 million. Buchanan...
(Heegan Times 13/05/13)
A peaceful year for Somalia compared to the last five years, but, the case has been different for journalists in 2012. The Horn of Africa nation has documented twelve journalists’ deaths, most of them in the seaside capital, Mogadishu. Somalia rating of unsolved journalist murders per million inhabitants stands 2.396, an increase from last year’s 1.183. The most deadly attack, three journalists, Abdisatar Dahir Sabriye , Liban Ali Nur and Abdirahman Yasin, were killed in a blast at the Village Restaurant, upscale café frequently visited by politicians and business people in September. Two other journalists, Mahad Salad Adan and Farhan Jeemis Abdulle were in killed in Galkayo by gunmen in March 2012 and May 2012, respectively. “Killing a journalist does...
(Reuters (Eng) 07/05/13)
Britain will help boost radio communications on the Somali coast as part of efforts to combat rampant piracy along global shipping routes near the East African country, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Tuesday. Britain will also spend millions of dollars on bolstering Somalia's security forces, Cameron said at the opening of a major London conference on Somalia aimed at bolstering stability after two decades of lawlessness and civil war. Delegates hope to find ways to back Somali plans to strengthen its army, judiciary and other institutions, and will also be asked to pledge aid for reconstruction."I am pleased that Britain will commit 10 million pounds ($15.5 million) to help develop Somalia's armed forces and 14.5 million pounds to double...
(Reuters (Eng) 26/04/13)
Africa's brisk economic growth over the past decade has been consumer driven, a much-hyped trend that masks the uncomfortable fact that the region remains far too reliant on commodities. Sub-Saharan Africa's growth has been second only to Asia and cracked along at 5.8 percent last year, according to a World Bank estimate, if South Africa, the continent's biggest economy, is excluded. About two-thirds of growth in the past decade has been driven by domestic demand, which has been stoked by a number of factors including the continent's fast-growing and young population. Consumption has had multiplier effects into a range of services including banking and finance. Yet unlike in Asia, Africa's consumer boom has been financed mostly by income generated from...
(Reuters (Eng) 03/04/13)
A bomb exploded outside the headquarters of Somalia's biggest bank on Tuesday, wounding at least two people hours after al Qaeda-linked militants ordered the company cease operations in areas under their control. The blast outside Dahabshiil's office in Mogadishu shattered its doors and littered the area with debris, police said. "A remote-controlled bomb planted in front of Mogadishu's Dahabshiil bank and money transfer headquarters injured two guards," police captain Nur Hassan told Reuters. Earlier, members of Islamist group al Shabaab walked into Dahabshiil branches in areas of Somalia under their control and demanded they close, accusing the company of working for aid agencies they have banned in their territories, according to a statement on the movement's website. Money transfer firms...