North Sudan ruling party threatens to reject southern referendum
Listen Khartoum (Alshahid) – North Sudan’s dominant party National Congress Party (NCP)threatened on Monday to reject the results of a southern independence referendum unless the south withdraws its troops from disputed areas and allows free campaigning in the vote. Southerners are just over 100 days away from a vote on whether to stay part of [...]
Somalia: Somaliland and Puntland plan security cooperation against Alshabab
Listen Hargeisa (Alshahid) -A senior member of the government in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Somaliland has appealed for cooperation with the neighboring state of Puntland, Radio Garowe reports. Dr. Mohamed Abdi Gabose, a practicing medical doctor and Somaliland’s new interior minister, told a press conference in Hargeisa Sunday that Somaliland “has started making good connections” [...]
UN thanks Rwanda for not withdrawing peacekeepers from Sudan
Listen New York (Alshahid) -UN chief Ban Ki-moon has thanked Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame for keeping peacekeeping troops in Sudan, despite anger over looming genocide accusations against the Rwandan Army. Rwanda had threatened to pull out of all UN peacekeeping operations because of a UN human rights report, due to be released on Friday, on [...]
Somalia: Former PM Sharma’arke hands over to successor
Listen Mogadishu (Alshahid) – Former Somali Prime minister Omar Abdirashid Sharma’arke on Monday officially handed over his office and portfolio to the newly appointed acting PM Abdiwahid Elmi Gonjeh. In a brief but colorful ceremony that was held at Mogadishu’s villa Somalia, former PM described his successor Mr. Gonjeh as a man of integrity and [...]
Somalia President attends the International Somalia Contact Group meeting in Spain
Listen Madrid (Alshahid) – Somali president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has attended the first International Somalia contact group meeting which was hosted by the government of Spain. Madrid Members of the International Somalia Contact Group on peace and reconciliation met in Madrid, Spain to discuss the humanitarian and security situations in Somalia. United Nations special representative [...]
Boat sinks with 85 Somalis and Ethiopians; 13 people die
Listen Nairobi (Alshahid) – Thirteen people aboard a skiff drowned Monday in the Gulf of Aden as the crew of the U.S. destroyer Winston S. Churchill attempted to assist the disabled vessel, a military statement said. The skiff, which is a small boat, was found drifting in a Gulf shipping corridor on Sunday. When U.S. [...]
Somalia: SRSG’s Statement to the International Contact Group
Listen Mr. President, Secretary of State de La-ig-lesia, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to welcome all of you to this, the 18th Meeting of the International Contact Group for Somalia. I warmly thank the Government of Spain for hosting this very timely meeting in their lovely capital city. As many of you [...]
Kenya heavily burden by Somali conflict; blames international community
Listen Nairobi (Alshahid) – Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki said Kenya was shouldering the heaviest responsibility in form of large numbers of refugees, piracy, the influx of small arms and the growing terrorism threats while the international community continues to neglect Somalia leading to loss of many opportunities to achieve peace. ‘While the scale and magnitude [...]
Kenya: Chiefs are necessary in the management of public affairs
Listen Most Kenyans hate the provincial administration today in reference to their colonial history. The provincial commissioners, district commissioners, district officers and chiefs were used by Kenya’s post-independence government to manage the people in both urban and rural areas. Now with the new constitution in place, some Kenyans are of the view that the provincial [...]
Negative ethnicity is the dragon that Kenyans must slay or perish
Listen As Kenya implements the new Constitution and constructs majimbo politics, economies and cultures which we cannot embrace and simultaneously reject ethnic divisions, negative ethnicity is the dragon we must slay or perish. To extricate ourselves from the grip of negative ethnicity, we must not only understand how it misrules us, but also how it [...]