Lost Admirals and Shooters on the Loose off Somalia

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 15 seized foreign vessels (17 sea-related hostage cases since yacht SY LYNN RIVAL was abandoned and taken by the British Navy) with a total of not less than 203crew members (incl. the British sailing couple) plus at least 9 crew of the lorries held for an exchange with imprisoned pirates, are accounted for. The cases are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which were observed off the coast of Somalia and have been reported or had reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed too. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) had been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases for Somalia and the mistaken sinking of one sea-jacked fishing vessel and killing of her crew by the Indian naval force. For 2009 the account closed with 228 incidences (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 68 vessels seized for different reasons on the Somali/Yemeni captor side as well as at least TWELVE wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces. 
For 2010 the recorded account stands at 39 attacks resulting in 14 sea-jackings. 
The naval alliances had since August 2008 and until January 2010 apprehended 666 suspected pirates, detained and kept or transferred for prosecution 367,  killed 47 and wounded 22 Somalis. (New independent update see:http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/pages/_Bilan_antipiraterie_Atalanta_CTF_Otan_Russie_Exclusif-1169128.html). 
Not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (although not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail – like the S/Y Serenity, MV Indian Ocean Explorer.Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: GoA: ORANGE / IO: RED  (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon. Starting from mid February until early April every year an increase in piracy cases can be expected. 
If you have any additional information concerning the cases, please send to office[at]ecoterra-international.org – if required we guarantee 100% confidentiality.
For further details and regional information see the Somali Marine and Coastal Monitor at www.australia.to and the map of the PIRACY COASTS OF SOMALIA.

—————- directly piracy, abduction, mariner or naval upsurge related reports ——————–

Pirates (not the software kind) have something Twitter doesn’t – a business model (TheInquisitr)
Who would have thought. I mean really we’re talking about pirates here – of the Somalia kind – and one would think that this is the last place that you would some kind of business model but apparently they do indeed have one. At least according to the newest Security Council to Somalia report (link leads to PDF report) these Somali pirates operate on a very corporate level when it comes to handing out the spoils of their piracy. 
The section of the much larger report that deal with this is titled Annex III – Piracy business model and starts out with this

The typical piracy ‘business model’ has evolved since the Monitoring Group’s

December 2008 report (S/2008/769). The success and expansion of pirate militias

has necessitated new organizational arrangements and practices. Although

leadership of pirate networks remains anchored in Puntland and central Somalia,

participation in maritime militias and investment in pirate operations is open to a

broad cross-section of Somali society. The refined business model guarantees every

participant in the operation, if successful, a well-defined percentage or share of the

ransom money.

The typical piracy ‘business model’ has evolved since the Monitoring Group’s December 2008 report (S/2008/769). The success and expansion of pirate militias has necessitated new organizational arrangements and practices. Although leadership of pirate networks remains anchored in Puntland and central Somalia, participation in maritime militias and investment in pirate operations is open to a broad cross-section of Somali society. The refined business model guarantees every participant in the operation, if successful, a well-defined percentage or share of the ransom money.

Like every good corporate entity payments are based on shares owned as well as fixed costs:

To be eligible for employment as a pirate, a volunteer should already possess a firearm for use in the operation. For this ‘contribution’, he receives a ‘class A’ share of any profit. Pirates who provide a skiff or a heavier firearm, like an RPG or a general purpose machine gun, may be entitled to an additional A-share. The first pirate to board a vessel may also be entitled to an extra A-share. 
At least 12 other volunteers are recruited as militiamen to provide protection on land if a ship is hijacked, In addition, each member of the pirate team may bring a partner or relative to be part of this land-based force. Militiamen must possess their own weapon, and receive a ‘class B’ share — usually a fixed amount equivalent to approximately US$15,000.

After a successful job pay-outs went down like this

When ransom is received, fixed costs are the first to be paid out. These are typically: 
• Reimbursement of supplier(s) 
• Financier(s) and/or investor(s): 30% of the ransom 
• Local elders: 5 to 10 %of the ransom (anchoring rights) 
• Class B shares (approx. $15,000 each): militiamen, interpreters etc. 
The remaining sum — the profit — is divided between class-A shareholders.

Armed And Dangerous (strategypage)
For the first time, private security guards killed a Somali pirate during an attempt to capture a merchant ship off the Somali coast. The Arab owned ship Almezaan was carrying cargo to Mogadishu when a speedboat, with four armed men, tried to board. The Almezaan’s guards had fired warning shots, and the pirate boat turned away. But then the pirates came back shooting, and the security guards, standing on a much more stable firing platform, returned fire, hitting the pirate boat several times. There were no injuries on the Almezaan. When the pirates were initially spotted, a call was put out to the international anti-piracy patrol, and a nearby Spanish warship rushed to the scene. The Spanish frigate launched its helicopter, which spotted the fleeing pirates. The Spanish eventually caught up with the pirates, arresting three and finding the body of another on the speedboat. The Spanish also seized a mother ship the speedboat was operating from, arresting two more pirates. Both pirate vessels were sunk. The Almezaan, bringing cargo from the UAE, continued on to Mogadishu. 
This is not the first time pirates have died on the job. Dozens are believed to have been killed from falls (while boarding large ships via ropes and grappling hooks, or crude ladders) or drowning (many speedboats have flipped over or been swamped because of  the wake of large ships, or simply because of poor boat handling.) American and French commandoes have killed over a dozen pirates (at least) and some have been killed (often by accident) by the warships that patrol the coast. But this is the first time security guards on board a merchant ship have been the cause of death. 
For the last year, despite the high expense, more shipping companies have been putting armed guards on merchant ships passing near the “Pirate Coast” of Somalia. France has put detachments of troops tuna boats operating in the Indian Ocean, and Belgium has offered to supply detachments of soldiers for Belgium ships that must move near the Somali coast. This was expensive, with an eight man detachment costing $162,000 a week. Some merchant ships, including American ones, have already arranged to carry armed guards while travelling near where Somali pirates may operate.
The piracy has been a growing problem off the Somali coast for over a decade. The problem now is that there are thousands of experienced pirates. And these guys have worked out a system that is very lucrative, and not very risky. For most of the past decade, the pirates preyed on foreign fishing boats and the small, often sail powered, cargo boats the move close (within a hundred kilometers) of the shore. During that time, the pirates developed contacts with businessmen in the Persian Gulf who could be used to negotiate (for a percentage) the ransoms with insurance companies and shipping firms. The pirates also mastered the skills needed to put a grappling hook on the railing, 30-40 feet above the water, of a large ship. Doing this at night, and then scrambling aboard, is more dangerous if the ship has lookouts, who can alert sailors trained to deploy high pressure fire hoses against the borders.
Big ships have small crews (12-30 sailors). Attacking at night finds most of the crew asleep. Rarely do these ships have any armed security. Ships can post additional lookouts when in areas believed to have pirates. Once pirates (speedboats full of armed men) are spotted, ships can increase speed (a large ship running at full speed, about 40+ kilometers an hour, can outrun most of the current speed boats the pirates have), and have fire hoses ready to be used to repel boarders. The pirates will fire their AK-47 assault rifles and RPG grenade launchers, but the sailors handling the fire hoses will stand back so the gunmen cannot get a direct shot.
Now that the pirates have demonstrated their ability to operate far (over 700 kilometers) from shore, it’s no longer possible to just use naval patrols and convoy escorts. This works in the Gulf of Aden, but father off the Somali coast, there is simply too much area to patrol. With ocean going mother ships, the pirates can operate anywhere in the region. Between the Gulf of Aden, and the Straits of Malacca to the east (between Singapore and Indonesia), you have a third of the worlds shipping. All are now at risk. Convoys for all these ships would require more warships (over a hundred) than can be obtained.
The anti-piracy patrol has responded with a policy of going after the mother ships. An increased number of maritime patrol aircraft and UAVs (stationed in Djibouti) can often spot pirate mother ships heading out to sea. So far this year, over twenty of these mother ships have been found and sunk (their crews are either put on trial, or simply put on a Somali beach). The pirates have become more careful to make their mother ships look like fishing ships.
The only other option involves a military operation to capture the seaside towns and villages the pirates operate from. This would include sinking hundreds of fishing boats and speedboats. Hundreds of civilians would be killed or injured. Unless the coastal areas were occupied (or until local Somalis could maintain law and order), the pirates would soon be back in business.
Pacifying Somalia is an unpopular prospect. Given the opprobrium heaped on the U.S. for doing something about Iraq, no one wants to be on the receiving end of that criticism for pacifying Somalia. The world also knows, from over a century of experience, that the Somalis are violent, persistent and unreliable. That’s a combination that has made it impossible for the Somalis to even govern themselves. In the past, what is now Somalia has been ruled, by local and foreign rulers, through the use of violent methods that are no longer politically acceptable. But now the world is caught between accepting a “piracy tax” imposed by the Somalis, or going in and pacifying the unruly country and its multitude of bandits, warlords and pirates.
The piracy tax is basically a security surcharge on maritime freight movements. It pays for higher insurance premiums (which in turn pay for the pirate ransoms), danger bonuses for crews and the additional expense of all those warships off the Somali coast. Most consumers would hardly notice this surcharge, as it would increase sea freight charges by less than a percent. Already, many ships are going round the southern tip of Africa, and avoiding Somalia and the Suez canal altogether. Ships would still be taken. Indeed, about a third of the ships seized this year had taken precautions, but the pirates still got them. Warships could attempt an embargo of Somalia, not allowing seagoing ships in or out without a warship escort. Suspicious seagoing ships, and even speedboats, could be sunk in port. That would still produce some videos (real or staged, it doesn’t matter) of dead civilians, but probably not so many that the anti-piracy force would be indicted as war criminals.
On the plus side, illegal fishing in Somali waters has diminished, because of the pirate threat. Suez canal traffic in the Gulf of Aden more frequently uses convoys, and travels along the 1,500 kilometers long route, guarded by warships, through pirate territory. There would still be enough ship captains stupid or impatient enough to make the “Aden Run” alone, and get caught by the pirates. There is also the southern Somali coast (from Mogadishu down into Kenyan waters), where foreign aid ships, and those hired by Somali merchants, deliver food and consumer goods. For a long time, the pirates would leave these vessels alone. But no more. The Somali merchants usually have one or more local warlord as a patron, and the security guards on the Almezaan may have been Somalis, with orders from their warlord boss to kill any pirates who get too close.
The UN, and the heads of major world navies, continue to agitate for a large peacekeeping force to go in. The UN because of the growing casualties among its aid staff inside Somalia, and the admirals because of the toll of keeping nearly a hundred of warships and patrol aircraft stationed off Somalia in the endless anti-piracy patrol. Eventually, public opinion might lean towards pacification, rather than the endless anti-pirate patrol. Eventually, maybe. But for now the piracy is definitely there, and will grow larger if nothing decisive is done. Which is what has already been happening, and may continue to happen.

NATO SAILORS REASSURE SEAFARERS – GULF OF ADEN (NATO Press Release)
For NATO Commanders, their counter piracy mission, Operation Ocean Shield, is not just about deterring and preventing pirate attacks. It is increasingly about gathering piracy information and reassuring innocent seafarers that they can be safe on the high seas.
NATO boarding parties, made up of sailors and marines are routinely conducting maritime security assurance visits to small vessels operating in the Gulf of Aden. These friendly meetings aim to allay concerns that local seafarers may have about their safety and to reassure them that naval vessels are patrolling in the area. Where necessary the navies will provide water and food to these small dhows.
NATO‟s aim is that the assurance visits will help Somalis recognise that there is a viable employment alternative to piracy.
Royal Marine Boarding Team leader, Captain Chris Beesely RM said „Interacting with local seafarers not only help encourages them to get back to sea but it also helps us get a better understanding of their pattern of life. That means we can quickly identify if something is different from the norm and react accordingly.‟
The Commander of the NATO Task Group, Commodore Steve Chick of the UK Navy said,“The combined efforts of NATO, other organisations such as the EU Naval Force, Combined Maritime Force, and not least, the Puntland authorities have led to a steady drop in piracy incidents in the Gulf of Aden over the last year. We are keen to see innocent seafarers feeling safe enough to return to their trade at sea. Many have been frightened away by the pirates and the boarding parties are doing much to provide a message of reassurance”.
Note
1. The NATO Task Force 508 conducting Operation Ocean Shield is one out of three coalition task forces operating in the fight against piracy. TF 508 consists presently of five ships:
HMS CHATHAM (Flagship – Royal Navy)
USS COLE (US Navy)
TCG GELIBOLU (Turkish Navy)
HS LIMNOS (Greek Navy)
ITS SCIROCCO (Italian Navy)

USS De Wert, HSL-46 Return Home by Ensign Andrew T. Ashby, USS De Wert PAO
Eager Sailors aboard USS De Wert (FFG 45) will soon be returning home following a highly successful Counter Piracy deployment on March 18.
De Wert, along with coalition ships and navies from around the world, was engaged in the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin. Countries represented in this ongoing effort include France, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Russia, and China. Key elements in the Counter Piracy order of battle are the Visit, Board, Search, & Seizure (VBSS) teams and the crew-served weapon teams and embarked helicopter detachments which provide cover-fire support during VBSS operations.
De Wert, with embarked HSL-46 Detachment 5 the “Spider Pigs,” departed Mayport in mid-September and enjoyed a brief port visit shortly thereafter in Gibraltar following her Atlantic transit. The Mediterranean Sea transit brought De Wert to Cyprus for another port visit before her southbound Suez Canal transit into the Fifth Fleet/CENTCOM area of responsibility.
From there, Red Sea operations included approach and assist visits (AAV) which help to further our understanding of the daily routines and schedules of those people whose livelihoods depend on the Red Sea while exercising a sort of face-to-face frontline diplomacy in the Middle East. These visits involved De Wert’s VBSS teams approaching fishing dhows in the Red Sea and discussing fishing conditions and sightings of illicit activity. Also while in the Red Sea, De Wert made a port visit in Jordan and her Sailors enjoyed MWR-sponsored tours of the historical sites located there such as the ancient city of Petra, the River Jordan, and the Dead Sea.
Shortly following her Jordan port visit, De Wert was assigned to patrol the Gulf of Aden in an effort to shield merchant vessels from piracy in the Internationally Recognized Transit Corridor (IRTC). Upon successful completion of her patrols, De Wert went to the Seychelles Islands for a port visit before transitioning to Somali Basin operations.
De Wert’s missions in the Somali Basin included intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and rapid response to piracy attempts. On two separate occasions, De Wert answered distress calls from vessels under attack by pirates. Pirates have been known to fire on civilian vessels and it was with that knowledge that De Wert quickly closed in on the pirate skiffs and, along with other coalition vessels, was able to avert the hijackings and stop the pirates dead in their tracks. De Wert’s hasty response in these urgent situations helped to prevent the sort of ruthless acts of piracy which have left many civilian mariners seriously injured, detained, or even dead.
A highlight of De Wert’s deployment was providing security and humanitarian relief to the Ukrainian bulk carrier Ariana which had been held hostage by Somali pirates for more than seven months before a ransom agreement was finally reached. Ariana was subsequently released from captivity; however, there is a threat that rival pirate clans will “re-pirate” newly released vessels. This threat made it crucial for De Wert’s VBSS teams to embark the vulnerable vessel and provide onboard security – within view of other anchored pirated vessels and the pirate camps along the Somali shoreline. HSL-46 Detachment 5 provided overflight support for the VBSS operation and vertical replenishment for the malnourished crew of the Ariana. De Wert watched over Ariana for a week before a salvage vessel could make repairs to Ariana and get her safely underway.
Routine operations in the Red Sea and Somali Basin turned out to be not quite so routine when De Wert rendered assistance at sea on three separate occasions. The first of these vessels in distress was a Yemeni dhow adrift at sea due to propulsion and flooding problems. Highly skilled enginemen from De Wert’s engineering department were able to accomplish repairs functional enough for the fishermen to return home while De Wert’s culinary specialists provided much needed provisions and water to the famished fishermen. The second vessel was another Yemeni dhow which had been without food and water for several days; again, De Wert Sailors were ready and able to render assistance. The third and final of the vessels was an Iranian dhow which had been without water for several days and De Wert provided those parched fishermen with sorely needed drinking water.
Upon concluding successful operations in the Somali Basin, De Wert transitioned back to the Gulf of Aden and later the Red Sea before her northbound Suez Canal transit. De Wert Sailors again visited Jordan before leaving the Red Sea and enjoyed two European port visits in Italy and Spain before heading home.
Among De Wert’s deployment accomplishments are 19 Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist (ESWS) qualifications, 6 Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) qualifications, 20 underway replenishments (UNREP), over 800 flight hours, 45 approach and assist visits (AAV), humanitarian relief for mariners in distress, and 2 piracy attempts averted.
After an exciting six-month Counter Piracy deployment, the sailors of De Wert are finally returning home and they look forward to future opportunities for success.
Commanding Officer Cmdr. Sean G. McLaren concludes, “This is a deployment the crew can be proud of. We were a powerful force for good.”
As the ship settles back into homeport, all hands aboard De Wert feel the same sense of pride and accomplishment which is theirs for a successful deployment in harm’s way. 
——— ecology , ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, UNCLOS, humanities ———— 

NO WAY THAT CITES DECIDES – WHO LIVES AND WHO DIES !

Governments shut door on ivory trade proposals (ECN)
Governments have shut the door on any calls to re-open the ivory trade, as a major international wildlife conference comes to an end. 
The parties to the Doha meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) yesterday reinforced their vote from earlier in the week, ahead of the conclusion of the triennial conference. 
Members had previously rejected Tanzania’s two-part proposal to downlist its elephant population – allowing trade – along with a request for a one-off sale of its near 90 tonnes of stockpiled ivory. In addition, a similar downlisting proposal from Zambia was rejected, despite a last-minute amendment by the country to remove a request to sell its own 22-tonne reserves of ivory. 
Conservation groups – and the majority of neighbouring African states – had been critical of the proposals in the build-up to the conference, saying that even controlled sales risked building the demand for illegal ivory products, and would place elephant populations around the world at risk from increased poaching. 
Earlier in the week Born Free – which had previously been highly critical of what it saw as the UK’s lack of commitment in opposing the Tanzania and Zambia – criticised the EU and US position on the proposals. When highlighting a seizure of tusks in Spain in the immediate aftermath of ivory talks at the conference, the group found itself asking: “why are the world’s ‘superpowers’ not ‘superconservationists’?” 
However, speaking on the scene in the immediate aftermath of the vote, Born Free CEO Will Travers praised member parties for not being swayed by “emotional arguments by vested interests”. 
“Confirming the commercial trade ban on elephant parts and products from Tanzania and Zambia will help ensure that the future of elephants across dozens of [African elephant] range states will not be jeopardized by increased trade,” he added. 
“In the face of overwhelming evidence of high levels of elephant poaching, massive international ivory smuggling, the involvement of organized crime syndicates and the high price ivory can fetch in the global marketplace, CITES parties had no choice but to reject the proposals to downgrade elephant protection.” 
Meanwhile, outgoing CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers warned criminal gangs to expect a more ‘joined-up’ approach from Interpol, customs officers and governments in the future. 
Acknowledging that “all too often” the response to ruthless organised crime in illegal trading “has not been equally organised or sophisticated,” Wijnstekers said that “a new era of wildlife law enforcement” was to be introduced, so “those who rob countries and communities of their natural resources will face a determined and formidable opposition”. 
“It is high time that more wildlife criminals end up behind bars, where they belong,” he added.

CITES: CRIMINAL, CONTROVERSIAL OR CLUELESS?  by Venatrix Fulmen
CITES itself is often part to the cover-ups along illegal wildlife trade in order to avoid situations where the criminal involvement of high governmental officials themselves in illegal wildlife trade would upset the convention’s membership base, which is governments. 
CITES always claims that it is not an investigative body, though there are clear provisions for investigations, an investigating office and officer and rules for punishment procedures after violations are established. 
CITES also says that it has no investigative powers, but the CITES secretariat not only and regularly does not use the investigative powers it has based on the convention, it for example even went to the extent to inform various member countries not to assist any third party with any kind of investigation into the trafficking e.g. of apes. 
Most of the evidence concerning violations of the CITES convention has in the past been collected and presented by non-governmental organizations, but CITES persistently declines for any NGO to participate in any of the so called “verification missions” commenced by CITES, which usually are mere diplomatic and fig-leave exercises. 
The outgoing Secretary-General should have asked for more serious prosecution of illegal trade at the beginning of his “career” with CITES and not while leaving an organization for whose mere role to play the sleeping watchdog or the one who only whacks his tail instead of at least barking he is mainly responsible himself. To call the cops only when the thieves are gone also could be interpreted as collusion and during the last 20 years the illegal trade has increased.
While 112 tonnes of stockpiled ivory will stay off the international market for which Tanzania and Zambia had petitioned in order to get a special permission to hold the sale, following the decision by the Convention not to allow a one-time sale, the trading from Southern Africa continues.
The schizophrenic approach CITES has become known for, is manifested also by the so-called “controlled” trade permissions for ivory given to Southern African nations. Maybe pensioner Willem Wijnstekers will now become a consultant to his friend Mugabe, who is known to maintain two ivory stockpiles – one for the eyes of CITES and one for the trading with his Chinese friends.

Zimbabwe get CITES nod for controlled ivory trading (ZimGuardian)
THE United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) has given four southern African countries, including Zimbabwe, the greenlight to continue controlled trading in ivory despite attempts to impose a 20-year ban on the lucrative trade.
Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana were given permission to continue selling their ivory stockpiles during the CITES summit that ended in Doha on Thursday.
These countries’ bid to continue controlled trade in ivory looked doomed following appeals by Kenya, which heavily lobbied the world conservation body not to allow any trade in ivory as one way of stemming poaching within its game parks.
Kenya had suggested that there be a 20-year moratorium on moves to ease international trade controls on elephant ivory.
African elephants are listed under the CITES’ Appendix I, in which trade of ivory is prohibited.
The last CITES meeting in 2007 agreed to a nine-year moratorium on any further trade in ivory, after a sale of 105 tonnes of elephant ivory from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe to China and Japan.

In Brief: Deforestation gets a mixed report (IRIN)
One of the most comprehensive forest reviews conducted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization shows that the rate of forest loss halved every year between 2000 and 2010, but was still high. 
Around 13 million hectares of forests were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes each year between 2000 and 2010; during the 1990s around 16 million hectares were lost annually. 
The world’s forests cover just over four billion hectares or 31 percent of the total land area. 
Other significant findings released on 25 March were: 
- Brazil and Indonesia, which recorded highest loss of forests in the 1990s, have significantly reduced their deforestation rates. 
- South America lost 4 million hectares of forest per year; Africa lost 3.4 million hectares annually – these were the highest losses in the last decade. 
- Oceania registered a net loss of forests, partly due to severe drought in Australia since 2000. 
- Asia registered a net gain of some 2.2 million hectares annually in the last decade. 
- Tree-planting programmes in China, India, the United States and Vietnam, combined with a natural expansion of forests in some regions, added more than seven million hectares of new forests annually. 
The full report of the assessment will be released in October 2010. 
Read the Key Findings: http://www.fao.org/forestry/static/data/fra2010/KeyFindings-en.pdf 

WHO: Health Care Services In Somalia Facing Cutbacks by Lisa Schlein (VOA)
The World Health Organization says its operations in Somalia are running out of cash putting life-saving health services at risk in the war-torn country.  WHO says it may have to scale back its activities in the next month unless donors provide funding for vital programs.
The World Health Organization says it only has received eight percent of the $46 million it needs to provide critical life-saving care to Somalis until the end of the year.
WHO spokesman, Paul Garwood, says the agency is on the verge of reducing activities in some parts of the country.  And, if this happens, he says the health and well being of Somalis will suffer, especially women and children.
He says access to health care will be greatly diminished, increasing the risk of more mothers dying in childbirth.  He says one in six children under age five currently suffers from acute malnutrition and this number is likely to rise. “There is the great fear that one in every seven children will not live to celebrate their fifth birthday if the right kind of funding does not arrive into the health sector.  Every day, 7,300 children will have no access to health care leading to serious complications, death and, of course, malnutrition,” he said.  
Health statistics in Somalia are not good and the, World Health Organization warns, they will get worse if funding is not forthcoming.  It says every day, nearly 21,000 people will not be able to get urgently needed medical care.
If the money is not there, WHO says nearly 2 million children under the age of 15 will not be vaccinated against measles and meningitis.  It says 9,000 women, men and children may have acute watery diarrhea.
WHO notes Somalia has been at war with itself for almost two decades, with devastating social, economic and humanitarian consequences.  It says 3.2 million people or half of Somalia’s population now are in need of humanitarian assistance.

————————— anti-piracy measures ——————————–

EU Force Frees Somali ‘Pirates’ (BBC)
The EU’s naval force has freed six Somali pirate suspects, a day after they were captured trying to hijack a vessel off the East African coast.
Cmdr John Harbour said the men had to be released because the crew of the cargo vessel refused to give evidence.
The suspected pirates were allegedly part of a gang who attacked the Panamanian-flagged ship MV Almezaan. Security guards on board the ship opened fire, killing one of the pirates before an EU warship arrived.
It is believed that this is the first time that private security guards on board a ship have killed a pirate during the spate of attacks off the Somali coast in recent years.
It has sparked a debate about whether more ships should travel with guards. Some say it might encourage pirates to use more violence, while others say it would help deter attacks. “It was a clear-cut case we intercepted the pirates, we destroyed their mother-ship and we went on board the cargo ship to get statements,” Cmdr Harbour told the BBC.
“But we had to release them because the master of the ship would not testify.”

The death of a suspected pirate off the coast of Somalia has drawn attention to the use of armed private security contractors on board merchant vessels.
The incident, which involved guards aboard the Panamanian-flagged MV Almezaan, is believed to be the first of its kind. 
But several organisations, including the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), have previously expressed concerns over the use of armed security contractors. 
“While we understand that owners want to protect their ships, we don’t agree in principle with putting armed security on ships,” IMB director Capt Pottengal Mukundan told the BBC News website. 
“Ships are not an ideal place for a gun battle.” 
One argument is that the use of armed operatives could encourage pirates to use more violence when taking a ship. 
But Mr Mukundan said he had seen no evidence that there had been much of an increase in the use of armed guards by merchant ship owners. 
Dozens of warships patrol the waters off the Somali coast, but this has not deterred the pirates. The amount of ocean to patrol is extremely vast and pirates have responded to the increased naval presence by moving attacks farther out to sea. 
“The naval forces are displacing the threat – they can’t be everywhere at once,” says Nick Davis, chief executive of Merchant Maritime Warfare Centre, a not-for-profit organisation. 
“Almost the whole of the Indian Ocean region – some 5 million square nautical miles – is a security risk.” 
Prevention
But the shipping industry has, so far, largely resisted arming their boats – not least because this would deny them port in some nations. Furthermore, arming the ships can raise liability issues and increase insurance costs. 
Christopher Ledger, director of security firm Idarat Maritime, says the use of private operatives is not necessary and that ship owners can find other ways to protect themselves, such as boosting training, carrying out more drills and purchasing equipment that could prevent pirates boarding a vessel. 
“Private security guards are not necessary, they simply muddy the water,” he said. “They are often foreign to the crew themselves and they don’t know the ship well. 
“Many are former soldiers that have been in Iraq or Afghanistan and they think they can shake the dust off their shoes and make it as a private security guard. Their day rate is pretty high and the crew have to find ways to get them on and off the vessels.” 
Their presence, he said, would only lead to “more spilt blood”. 
This month, international shipping law firm Ince and Co released a report highlighting the issues arising from the use of armed guards. It pointed out that a fundamental question arose as to who would authorise the use of force. 
Stephen Askins, a lawyer with Ince, told the BBC News website that the debate on the use of armed guards was one that polarised the industry. 
“Most industry bodies and ship-owners are against them,” he said. “But no ship with an armed guard has been hijacked, so there are those – particularly those who have had hijacked ships – who think they are necessary.” 
He said private security companies had come into their own in places like Iraq and had seen seen the maritime sector as potentially lucrative. 
“Many have moved across but there is no system of accreditation, so there is no way of knowing the good from the bad,” he said. 
Legal status
Most security operatives are former British servicemen, but there are also operatives from the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. 
Mr Askins said some firms provided armed escort vessels, but that these did not have any status in international law. 
“The various conventions dealing with piracy relate to states and their navies,” he said. “The rights that they are given, like the right of innocent passage relate to military ships. There are also issues over the use of armed force. The relevant law is the law of the flag state, but a merchant ship could, for example, be Panamanian and the escort ship could be, say, UK flagged.” 
But he also pointed out that there were some very good companies that had “robust rules of engagement”. 
“Lethal force for them would come after a series of steps including warning shots. The good companies would follow that procedure. Normally that would be enough to deter an attack.” 
In May 2009, the US Coast Guard drafted a maritime security directive that would require US-flagged ships sailing around the Horn of Africa to post guards, and ship owners to submit anti-piracy security plans for approval. 
At the time, the Coast Guard’s director of prevention policy, Rear Admiral James Watson, said that they expected to see “additional security” that could “involve the use of firearms”. 
He added that they were “looking for things that work but that don’t make the situation worse”. 
The directive has not yet passed into law. 
For now, the handling of Tuesday’s shooting by a private security operative will be watched closely by legal experts. 
An independent inquiry is planned, but first investigators will need to establish who had jurisdiction – the flag the vessel was flying, its owners or the nationality of the contractors – and who was responsible for the security contractors.

Missing the target by Lloyds List Comment
With the continuing rise in piracy incidents off the east coast of Africa it was only a matter of time before one the smaller shipowners decided to fight fire with fire. 
It comes as little surprise that in one of the world’s most lawless regions, local shipping operators would eventually turn to one of the many unregulated security firms that proliferate in the absence of law and an abundance of arms. 
The hiring of local Kenyan and Somali security firms is certainly no solution to the problem – indeed, the only predictable outcome is an escalation in the scale of violence deployed by pirates and a further descent into some kind of modern, watery version of the Wild West. The message that this week’s killing will send to pirates is that they need to be the ones shooting first. 
Local security firms might be to blame, but they are simply responding to market forces – they have the labour, the assets and the demand for their services appears to be growing. 
The price differential between western, ex-military security services and their untrained African counterparts is astronomical, and it is unsurprising that local shipowners are picking the cheaper option. 
If any was needed this is further, evidence of the scale of the task facing the international security forces, which are the only viable, long-term solution to the security of shipping in the region. 
An increase in the presence of naval forces would surely lessen the demand for unregulated security, which may ultimately prove to be as dangerous as the pirates themselves.

Combating piracy (ArabNews)

Kenyan jails can’t hold more pirates (VoiceOfRussia)
This Friday, Kenya for the first time refused to accept detained Somali pirates. The country’s police say there already are over 100 people accused of piracy waiting for trial in Kenyan jails. The Italian frigate that brought three alleged pirates to the Kenyan port of Mombasa is still in the port, the crew uncertain of what to do next. Kenya signed a treaty providing it to render its jails to detained pirates in late 2008 but appeared to have neither proper experience nor possibility for that.
[N.B.: The three exhausted men and the body of one who died in the incident stem from a capsized fishing boat and were taken on board the Italian warship. Under normal circumstances the three Somalis would have been received by Kenya and treated well as seafarers in distress. But today under the counter-piracy frenzy spinning out of hand and because the Italians accuse the Somalis of being involved in acts of piracy without having any proof to show, naturally the Kenyans have to be cautious.]

Kenya declines to accept “pirates” (CapitalFM)
- Kenya has declined to receive three suspected Somali pirates and one corpse held by an Italian warship at the port of Mombasa, arguing that its prison and court systems were overwhelmed.
Police on Friday said a decision had been reached within government ranks to ensure “no more piracy suspects will be tried in the country because it is already overwhelmed with ongoing cases.”
Coast Provincial Police Chief Leo Nyongesa told journalists that “the government has imposed a temporary ban on pirates being brought into the country.”
“Our hands are tied since we have many pirates on trial in Kenya and we cannot accept more at the moment,” Mr Nyongesa told a press conference in his office.
It was is the first time that Kenya – which is one of only two States to have an agreement with Western naval powers for the transfer of suspected pirates – declined to accept the buccaneers.
The three suspected pirates and the dead man arrived in the country late on Thursday aboard an Italian Naval Warship MV Scirocco which docked at the Port of Mombasa.
The Italian frigate Scirocco had interdicted the suspected pirates in high seas and proceeded to sail to Mombasa.
The warship has not been allowed to offload and has been kept waiting since Thursday as authorities engaged in high-level consultations.
“This is a government directive and there is no way we shall bend it to allow the suspected pirates on our soil as for now,” the Coast Police chief said.
But even as he spoke, reports indicated that talks were underway in Nairobi and there was a possibility of the pirates being allowed into the country.
At the moment, Kenya has over 100 suspected pirates in custody with 10 serving seven years and nine serving 20 years each in prison.
Since late 2008, Kenya has signed agreements with most major naval powers patrolling the pirate-infested waters of the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden for transfer and trial of suspects.
The Seychelles recently signed a similar agreement whereby it accepts to hold suspected pirates in its prisons although the small island nation objected that it did not have the capacity to try them.
The laws applying to cases in which suspected pirates who throw their weapons overboard before being captured, are not sufficiently robust to allow swift and efficient prosecution.
The courts in Mombasa – which lack expertise, translators and are already burdened with a huge backlog of domestic cases – have only convicted 19 pirates in more than a year and are prosecuting more than 100 others.

Kenya Declines to Take Somali Pirates Into Custody From Italian Navy by Hussein Moulid (AHN) 
Mombasa, Nairobi, Kenya (AHN) – Kenyan Government officials have declined to accept three suspected Somali pirates and one corpse held by an Italian warship at the port of Mombasa, on Friday said a police source.
“The government has forced a temporary prohibit on pirates being brought into the country.” Coast Provincial Police Chief Leo Nyongesa told journalists. Our hands are tied since we have many pirates on trial in Kenya and we cannot accept more, he added. 
Kenya is among two nations to have an agreement with Western naval powers for the arrest and prosecution of suspected pirates. 
Italian Naval Warship MV Scirocco with the three suspected pirates and the dead man docked at the Port of Mombasa early on Thursday and is still at bay pending the government ruling on the matter. 
Sources say that the Italian warship had interdicted the suspected pirates on the high seas. 
The coast Police Chief also said that, “There is no way they shall allow the suspected pirates in our country for now, and this is a government directive and must be adhered to”. 
Kenya has over 100 suspected pirates in custody serving up to 20 year prison sentences. 
Although Kenya has an agreement with Western naval powers for the transfer and prosecution of suspected pirates it has declined to accept the pirates because courts lack expertise, translators and are already backlogged with a huge excess of domestic cases.

Somaliland Court Sentences Eight Pirates (Somalilandpress)
A court in Berbera sentenced eight pirates to 15 years jail each on Wednesday. 
The Somaliland coastguards arrested the suspects in January after they discovered the group was planning to hijack ships off the Somaliland’s waters. They were captured with their speedboat and weapons that the court said they were using to carry out the operation.
Judge Osman Ibrahim announced the court’s decision after the hearing that continued since they were arrested. He said the suspects were found guilty and the court sentences them to 15 years in jail each.
Somaliland has been successful so far to combat pirates and to protect its waters from the piracy. Many pirates caught by Somaliland coast guards are now in jails.
“Without Somaliland, the pirates would operate in Djibouti and all the way to Sudan waters” said Somaliland’s Minister of Planning while speaking to a UN delegation. “We are blocking them to do so. That means Somaliland maintains a strategic position in the region” he concluded.

————– no real peace in sight yet ————–

Somali security agents have demolished some 500 houses near the airport in the capital, Mogadishu, amid concerns they could be used as cover for an attack.
A BBC reporter says hundreds of people were sitting in the open in the Afisoyoni suburb, saying they had nowhere else to go. 
Mogadishu’s mayor has said the makeshift homes could be used by militants from the al-Shabab group. 
The airport is one of the few areas run by the UN-backed government. 
Al-Shabab controls much of southern Somalia. 
The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says most Afisoyoni residents have already fled fighting in other parts of the city.
The government says it will provide land for those whose homes have been destroyed. 
But our reporter says there is no evidence of this. 
He says the airport has come under attack several times in the past – but never from this suburb. 
Mayor Abdurisaq Mohamed Nor ordered the homes to be demolished earlier this week. 
About half of Mogadishu’s residents have fled their homes after two decades of conflict.

Somali President travels to Libya (Mareeg)
Somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has travelled to Libya on Friday to attend a summit of Arab league in Sirte Libya.
The leaders of the Arab League are expected to discuss issues including the Somali crises and many other issues.
Ali Ahmed Jama, the foreign minister of the Somali govern reached before to pave the way for the arrival of the president.
Articles supporting Somalia are expected to be produced from the summit in Sirte Libya.
Somalia joined the Arab League in 1974. The country has not had an effective central government since 1991 when warlords ousted General Mohamed Said Barre.

Mogadishu braces for govt’s military offensive (garoweonline)
The besieged Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia is planning to launch full scale its much-awaited offensive against the powerful insurgence in the coming week, sources told Radio Garowe. 
A high ranking official who requested not to be named said the preparation has been completed and the plans are to retain the control of the Horn of African nation which had been ruined by two-decade long civil war. 
“This coming week will launch our offensives to retain the control of 10 districts in Mogadishu, which are not under the control of the government,” he said. 
“The war will start within weeks and the plans are that way unless its changed,” he added. In recent weeks, thousands of people have fled Mogadishu’s near-daily insurgent attacks and the TFG officials’ repeated threats of launching a massive offensive to push back the insurgents. 
The official also said American warplanes will take part in the offensives and the neighboring countries of Kenya and Ethiopia will tighten their borders with Somalia. 
Last week, U.S. under-secretary for African affairs, Johnnie Carson, rejected widespread speculation that U.S. special forces or warplanes would take part in the TFG’s anticipated offensive against Al Shabaab and other insurgents in Mogadishu. 
The two main insurgents Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam have deployed thousands of their fighters including ‘child soldiers’ in the restive capital Mogadishu, vowing to defend them from any aggression. 
“We will fight the TFG and AMISOM if they attack us. And we have the public support,” he told congregation last week at a Mogadishu Mosque. 
Somali military commander Gen. Mohammed Gelle Kahiye has previously stated that the force will receive special care will in the fight, adding that work is completing at the special Hospital where the wounded will be admitted. 
The war against the insurgents was planned by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who said it is the only remaining option for his one-year old administration to voyage in the rattled waters. 
The TFG was created at the conclusion of Somali peace talks in Kenya in 2004. Sheikh Sharif became TFG president in Jan. 2009, after a fast-paced and controversial peace agreement was signed in Djibouti. 
The Horn of Africa country has defied numerous international attempts at peace, mostly imposed from atop through peace conferences in foreign capitals. It is not clear whether or not President Sheikh Sharif’s interim government will succeed in the offensive by overpowering the insurgents, his former allies. 
However, many Somalis worry that the TFG leader has not presented a post-war plan to help Somalia recover from two decades of conflict and chaos.

District commissioner killed in Mogadishu (Mareeg)
Hamar Jajab district commissioner Ahmed Mohamud Qorleh has been killed in a roadside bomb in Mogadishu, an official said on Saturday.
Warsame, deputy mayor of Mogadishu has also been injured in the explosion attack. 
The spokesman of Banadir region administration confirmed that Qorleh was killed in the blast.
No group has immediately claimed the responsibility of the attack, but it is suspected that al Shabaab militant group was behind it.
Al Shabaab assassinated more district commissioners and other government officials in Mogadishu.

Fire devastates refugee houses (Mareeg)
Fire has devastated 200 makeshift homes of Somali IDPS in Bosasso in Puntland, witnesses said on Friday. 
The fire caught a camp of IDPS in western Bososso and has destroyed most of the makeshift houses in the town. 
Fire brigades from the administrations and residents have managed to put out the fire before it escalated to other areas in the town. 
The administration of the town said they would support the refugees who their homes were destroyed by the fire today.  
More Somali refugees who fled from the endless wars in the capital reached towns under the control of Puntland.

Al-Shabab Destroys a Grave of Another Famous Cleric (Shabelle)
The Islamist fighters of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen have destroyed the grave of another famous Somali cleric Mo’alin Mohamed better known as (Biyo Mallow) in Mogadishu, officials said on Thursday. 
Many forces of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen with high officials had cordoned off the mosque in Hawl-wadag district in Mogadishu on Thursday morning and started wiping out the grave of Mo’allin Mohamed “Biyo Mallow” who was buried in the mosque earlier.

Sheik Sa’id Karatay, an official of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen told reporters that it was their third day continuing in demolishing operations of cemeteries in Mogadishu saying that they had wiped out seven burial grounds including the one of Mo’allin Biyo Mallow. 
Several graves of famous Somali clerics including Sheik Mohudin Eli, Sheik Aden Dere, Moalin Biyo Malow and many other cemeteries were all destroyed over the past two days by the Islamist fighters of Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen and the official said lastly that they would continue their operations to demolish all such cemeteries in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Father missing his family (Mareeg)
Abdullahi Moallim Mohamed, a Somali father is looking for his wife and children. 
Abdullahi who has reached Nairobi, Kenya is trying to get any news from his missing family. 
He is missing his kids, Hanad Abdullahi Moallim, Salaman Abdullahi Moallim, Leylo Abdullahi Moallim, Moahmed Abdullahi Moallim and Ahmed Abdullahi Moallim. 
He had never seen them since 2006 when they fled from Mogadishu Somalia. Abdullahi says he was told that his wife and kids are in Sweden. 
Therefore if Kaafiyo Yuusuf Axmed is listening or there is someone who knows where they are and is listening should kindly contact Abdullahi Mohamed Moallim who can be reached in Nairobi via his mobile Number +254727771050 (don’t misuse this number!)

.

————  reports, news and views from the global village with an impact on Somalia ——————- 

Kenya frees American suspected of terrorism links (AP)
An American man of Somali origin arrested in Kenya over suspicions of terrorism says police have released him along with two other men.
Suleman Essa said Friday that Kenyan police did not tell him why they arrested him on Thursday as he and the two others boarded a plane headed for Somalia. Kenyan police said Thursday that Essa was on a terror watch list. Essa says he does not belong to a terrorist organization. He did not say why he and the others planned to go to Somalia.
Essa says Canadian citizen Ahmed Ali Hassan and Kenyan citizen Muhammed Hussein Hash were also released Friday.
Many ethnic Somalis who grew up abroad, including in the U.S., have traveled back to Somalia to take part in an ongoing insurgency there.
Comment: The above piece reflects the typical one-sided reporting many get used to these days. 
What happened was that an Australian of Somali origin travelling on his valid Australian passport but implicated in an Australian allegedly terrorism-related investigation was arrested in Western Kenya and was obviously released from the cells on a police bond for further clarification – only to disappear (who wouldn’t?). The wires and other media went haywire, blaming Kenya for all sorts of failures, though no guilt of this man has ever been proven by the Australian judiciary or  a proper court of law. 
To prove to the anti-terrorism sponsors that the Kenyan security forces are worth the donations, immediately three innocent men of Somali ethnicity were impounded the next day, just because the trio wanted to board a plane with relief goods for Somalia to help the impoverished and suffering people there. Such, if you are not a member of the totally corrupt UN-System and hold their passport – already is enough to get arrested.  What a world! 
There were times, when Kenya was world-famous for its big smile and friendly people offering great hospitality to visitors and travellers from all over the world to see the natural wonders of Africa and enjoy the rich culture of Kenya’s 56 different nations living peacefully together, though the Kenyans just had emerged from a brutal colonial time and the fight for freedom.
With tourism being the biggest foreign exchange earner this hospitality also helped the country to emerge from an underdeveloped to a a rapidly developing nation.
Unfortunately Kenya didn’t walk the walk of a sovereign, non-aligned nation but got lured into the scams of the superpowers.
Now, with US-induced, idiotic counter-terrorism and likewise stupid UK-fostered counter-piracy schemes the worst which exist in all societies – the brutes and the corrupt – get fed and slowly the upper-hand.
Kenyans beware: Keep your real friends and don’t get just lured away by the dollar- or pound-waving masters of deceit. 

Kenya’s ‘urban refugees’ face harassment – report by Frank Nyakairu (AlertNet)
Tens of thousands of refugees seeking safety and a livelihood in Kenya’s capital suffer police harassment, violent attacks and deprivation, a report said on Thursday. 
Many refugees chose Nairobi over the country’s crowded refugee camps because they want economic independence and a sense of community but often they instead fall victim to exploitation, extortion and sexual abuse, according to the report, compiled by three humanitarian organisations. “Refugees are moving from camps in Kenya into the main capital city, Nairobi, where they are facing very many challenges including police harassment, extreme poverty and violence,” said Sara Pavanello, Research Officer with the Humanitarian Policy Group, part of the London-based Overseas Development Institute. 
The report, entitled “Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya,” was compiled by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and the Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK). Kenya is home to some 46,000 registered refugees, mostly from Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan, countries that have endured decades of crises. 
Unofficial figures, however, show there could be any many as 100,000 refugees, the report said. Kenya also hosts two U.N. run refugee camps in its northern regions housing up 330,000 refugees. 
“Refugees spoke of constant harassment by police – from officers demanding financial bribes to physical beatings and intimidation,” said Kellie Leeson, the IRC’s Country Director in Kenya. 
POLICE EXTORTION 
Kenya recognises refugees on a prima facie basis – a migration policy that extends automatic refugee status to people who are part of a large-scale influx. But the report said refugees lacked access to basic services like health care and education and struggled to integrate in the East African country. Unlike closed refugee camps, cities present obvious opportunities to stay anonymous and engage in economic activities. 
But cities also present dangers to refugees who may not possess legal documents, making them vulnerable to exploitation, arrest and detention. “Arrests are almost always made with an aim of extorting money from refugees and once money is paid, refugees are often releases,” said Pavanello. Kenya’s police were not available for comment. Ethiopian refugees of the Oromo ethnic group living in Nairobi have also been targeted by Ethiopian intelligence officials who they claimed often abducted and forcibly repatriated them, the report said. 
The United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration said over 17,000 people fleeing conflict, hunger and poverty in Somalia and Ethiopia are smuggled through Kenya to other destinations every year. 
WOMEN MOST VULNERABLE 
According to the report, women and children bare the brunt of the hardship facing urban refugees. “We found that some women and girls have been forced to engage in commercial sex work to raise money for their families,” said Laban Osoro, a lawyer with legal aid group, Kituo Cha Sheria. Language barriers and high levels of xenophobia amongst the local population in Kenya’s capital further compound the difficulties faced by the refugees. 
The three organisations called for the full implementation of Kenya’s Refugee Act of 2006 and a new U.N. urban refugee policy that recognises and extends protection and social services to urban refugees.

Gen. Wamala advises on Somali crisis by Steven Candia (NewVision)
The commander of the Ugandan land forces, Lt. Gen. Katumba Wamala, said increasing the number of troops in Somalia will not solve the crisis in the war torn nation. He instead appealed for a more holistic approach to the Somali problem. 
Speaking at the opening of a consultative assessment workshop for the African Union (AU) in support of the transitional federal government of Somalia, Wamala said the problem in the country was more than just the issue of troops. 
“For those who think the solution to Somalia’s problem is just guns, they are mistaken. The problem is not the number of guns, the problem is failed institutions and what is needed is a holistic approach to the problem,” he said. 
Under the multi-prolonged approach, Katumba Wamala said there was need to tackle the security issue alongside building state institutions, which he said are almost non-existent due to two decades of insurgency. 
“We cannot think of sending more soldiers when other arms of government are not functional. We need to improve the arms of the state,” he said. 
Participants included the Soma li minister for labour and human resource, Mohamed Abdi Hayir, Wafula Wamunyinyi from the AU commission for Somalia and the Somali ambassador to Uganda, Sayid Ahmed Dahir. 
The workshop also established what is needed for the effective running of crucial ministries and offices in Somalia and to ensure local ownership of the process. 
The crucial ministries included that of defence, national security, internal affairs, public service, finance and the office of the prime minister. 
The ultimate aim is to improve service delivery in crucial areas and it is hoped that this will provide the necessary catalyst for peace and stability. 
Hayir hailed Uganda and Burundi for having sent troops to Mogadishu, saying the problem in Somalia was more than just a Somali issue and called for external intervention by other Africa states. 
He urged the two countries to maintain their troops in the country, saying his government still lacked the capacity to work alone. 
Wamunyinyi lashed out at the numerous conferences and workshops that have been held in the name of addressing the Somalia problem but with no solutions. 
“We are no longer interested in conferences that bear no results and this is particularly true for people dealing with the Somali crisis,” he said.

Beyond the Arab League by Osama Al Sharif (*)(ArabNews)

Call for action on human trafficking by Michael Hamlyn (WeekendPost)
Human trafficking in South Africa is a serious problem and warrants intervention on all fronts, according to a study released at a National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) conference on human trafficking, which ended in Cape Town yesterday.
The report, carried out by the Human Sciences Research Council, says victims are mostly women, girls and boys trafficked for a variety of purposes, including prostitution, pornography, domestic servitude, forced labour, begging, criminal activity (including drug trafficking), and trafficking for the removal of body parts (or muti).
Young boys are trafficked to smuggle drugs and for other criminal activities.
Conducted on behalf of the NPA, the study identified a number of trafficking flows into South Africa.
South Africa is a destination country for intercontinental trafficking for people (mainly women) from Thailand, Philippines, India, China, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and the Ukraine. The main point of entry of this trafficking stream is OR Tambo Airport.
People are trafficked from within Africa across the country’s land borders, mostly from Mozambique and Zimbabwe but also Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho. Longer-distance trafficking involve victims trafficked from the DRC, Angola, Rwanda, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria and Somalia. All documented cases in this last category are women trafficked for both sexual and labour exploitation.
The largest movement of trafficked people is domestic – from rural areas to cities. Women, girls and boys, and to a lesser extent men, are the targets of traffickers for prostitution and for the same purposes listed. The albino community was identified as vulnerable to human traffickers for the harvesting of body parts.

Russia and U.S. Report Breakthrough on Arms by Peter Baker and Ellen Barry (TheNewYorkTimes)
The United States and Russia have broken a logjam in arms control negotiations and expect to sign a treaty next month to slash their nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in half a century, officials in both nations said Wednesday.
President Obama meeting last year in London with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia. They have negotiated arms cuts. After months of deadlock and delay, the two sides have agreed to lower the limit on deployed strategic warheads by more than one-quarter and launchers by half, the officials said. The treaty will impose a new inspection regime to replace one that lapsed in December, but will not restrict American plans for missile defense based in Europe.  

U.S. Drone Strikes Are Justified, Legal Adviser Says by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
The State Department’s legal adviser says the U.S. is in armed conflict with al-Qaida and the Taliban and “may use force consistent with its right to self-defense.” Harold Koh’s comments mark the first time the Obama administration has laid out its legal rationale for drone attacks. 
The Obama administration has for the first time laid out its legal rationale for drone strikes: The State Department’s legal adviser described the reasoning in a major speech to a conference of international lawyers.
Drone attacks have increased dramatically under President Obama, killing suspected terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But the operations are shrouded in secrecy, and some international law experts consider them to be illegal assassinations. Until now, the administration has resisted pressure to describe the legal rationale behind the attacks. 
Harold Koh outlined the administration’s thinking in a keynote speech at the American Society of International Law annual conference in Washington, D.C. 
Past Criticism Of Bush Policy 
Koh, who was dean of Yale Law School during the Bush administration, was a frequent critic of U.S. counterterrorism policies. In 2004, he told NPR, “The extent to which this administration has let the Geneva Conventions be flouted, has let the Torture Convention be undermined, and then hasn’t really gotten to the heart of why that happened, I think will be the epitaph for this administration’s human rights policy in the years ahead.” 
Now, as the State Department’s legal adviser, he is responsible for dismantling, changing or overseeing many of the legal policies he observed from the outside over the past eight years. 
As recently as last week at an American Bar Association breakfast, Koh resisted pressure to publicly describe the Obama administration’s legal reasoning for targeted drone killings. 
“There are some questions I don’t answer with one cup of coffee,” he said to laughter. 
“Put it this way: You can expect a more detailed discussion of this to come,” he added. 
‘Armed Conflict’ 
The detailed discussion came Thursday evening, in a packed ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Washington. 
“The U.S. is in armed conflict with al-Qaida as well as the Taliban and associated forces in response to the horrific acts of 9/11,” he told the crowd of lawyers, “and may use force consistent with its right to self-defense under international law.” 
Koh explained that Congress made the conflict official when it passed a law known as the Authorization for the Use of Military Force shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 
He said the government uses advanced technologies to ensure “that civilian casualties are minimized in carrying out such operations.” And he said whether a given person becomes a target depends on various considerations, “including those related to the imminence of the threat, the sovereignty of the other states involved, and the willingness and ability of those states to suppress the threat the target poses.” 
Koh argued that a state engaged in armed conflict or legitimate self defense (such as the U.S., according to Obama administration reasoning) is not required to provide targets with legal process before using lethal force. 
‘A Global War On Terror By Any Other Name’ 
Some conference attendees were not convinced. 
Weeks before the event, Notre Dame law professor Mary Ellen O’Connell said she was eager to hear Koh make his case. 
“It really is stretching beyond what the law permits for this very extreme action, killing another person without warning, without a basis of near necessity, simply because of their status” as a member of al-Qaida or a related terrorist group, O’Connell said at the time. 
After the talk Thursday, O’Connell thanked Koh and said she is still not convinced. 
“What I’m hearing you say is that the Obama administration continues to see that there is such a conception as a global war on terror,” O’Connell said. 
Koh interjected, “I said a lot of things in my remarks — that’s not one of the things I said.” 
Later O’Connell muttered, “A global war on terror by any other name would smell as bad.” 
Like O’Connell, American University law professor Ken Anderson has studied drone attacks, and he was eager to hear the administration’s legal rationale. Unlike O’Connell, Anderson believes the strikes are legitimate and necessary. 
He argues that the alternative to drone strikes is not to abandon violence and force. 
“The alternatives are whether you’re going to drop larger-sized bombs on whole villages or instead invite the Pakistani army to do a rolling artillery barrage that will simply destroy the entire place,” he said. 
There are still many unanswered questions about these attacks and the legal reasoning behind them, and the administration’s decision to show a bit of leg last night might increase the pressure to reveal more. 
After the speech, ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer told NPR he’ll file a lawsuit to get the Justice Department document laying out the full legal rationale for these strikes.

The rotating presidency of the Arab League will officially be handed over to Libya, ahead of the summit’s inauguration on Saturday in Sirtre, Libya, replacing Qatar. 
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddaffi will replace Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani of Qatar as president of the Arab League. After the consultation session, this year’s summit conveners will attend a closed door session to discuss five agenda items, including Jerusalem and the possible withdrawal of the Arab Peace Initiative. 
While Arab leaders began arriving for the Sirtre symposium on Friday and Saturday, seven leaders confirmed they will not attend this year, including UAE Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, King of Bahrain Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifah, and Sultan of Oman Qaboos bin Said. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will not attend for heath reasons. 
Meanwhile, Lebanon will not participate in the summit, while Saudi Arabia has neither confirmed nor declined its invitation to the 22nd series of high-level meetings. 
Those leaders already present in the Libyan city include Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Mauritania Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, Sheikh Sharif Ash-Sheikh Ahmad of Somalia, Omar Al-Bashir of Sudan, Emir of Kuwait Sabah Al-Ahmad As-Sabah, and personal representatives of the King of Bahrain. 
Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad also arrived in Sirtre, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh as well as Saud Bin Rashed Al-Mu’la, representing the UAE and Fahed bin Mahmoud Al-Sa’eed, the deputy of the Omani prime minister. 
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will also attend the summit, having been received by President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday.

League of Arab States: Address human rights abuses and impunity in armed conflicts (AI)
On the eve of the League of Arab States (LAS) summit, to be held on 27 March in Sirte, Libya, Amnesty International calls on the member states of the LAS to ensure that they make respect for human rights and international humanitarian law a cornerstone of their deliberations while addressing the conflicts afflicting the region. These principles should be equally applied in any efforts to address the conflicts in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen. In all these conflicts it is civilians who continue to bear the brunt while member states of the LAS fail to hold perpetrators to account and allow political considerations to trump their obligations under international law. 
Amnesty International also urges the LAS to take concrete measures to ensure that those responsible for gross human rights violations are held accountable and to unequivocally signal that it does not perpetuate a culture of impunity. 
In Gaza and southern Israel, in the 22 days from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, around 1,400 Palestinians were killed and some 5,000 injured during an Israeli military offensive. In the same period 13 Israelis were killed, including three civilians killed by indiscriminate rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian armed groups into southern Israel. Following the end of the conflict, the UN Human Rights Council mandated a fact-finding mission, headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, to investigate the alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law relating to the conflict. The Mission, which issued its report in September 2009, found that both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups had committed war crimes and other serious violations of international law, possibly including crimes against humanity, in Gaza and southern Israel. In response to these findings, the UN General Assembly has called on both the Government of Israel and the Palestinian side to conduct investigations into the alleged violations that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards. 
On the basis of the information submitted by the parties to the UN to date and other information available in the public domain, Amnesty International considers that the measures so far undertaken by the relevant parties do not meet the standards for investigation required by the UN General Assembly (GA). Amnesty International welcomes the support of the League of Arab States for independent and impartial investigations into the conflict, including the need for the UN Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court should Israel and Hamas prove to be unwilling or unable to investigate the alleged violations by their forces in conformity to the standards required by the UNGA. 
In Sudan, the scheduled presidential and legislative elections in April 2010 and the referendum in January 2011, on whether or not southern Sudan secedes from Sudan, are critical times which require a close scrutiny by the LAS of the human rights situation across the country. 
This concern is compounded by reports in 2009 and beginning of 2010 of a sharp increase in armed conflict in southern Sudan. UN reports estimate that over 2,500 people were killed and 350,000 displaced due to conflict between different ethnic communities in southern Sudan. In the region of Darfur, attacks against civilians continued and more than 2.7 million persons continue to live in camps for the internally displaced. The government resumed its military air and ground operations in the area of Jebel Marra in Darfur in February 2010. The offensive, which lasted for more than a month, is alleged to have caused hundreds of casualties and displaced thousands of people. Accurate information remains unavailable as a result of the government denying full access to the African Union/United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), as well as various humanitarian NGOs and UN agencies. 
After the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against President Al Bashir in March 2009, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Sudanese government expelled 13 international humanitarian organizations from Darfur, and closed down three national human rights and humanitarian organizations. The closure of the NGOs was accompanied by a clampdown on human rights defenders in Sudan. A large number of human rights defenders had to flee the country while those remaining have been silenced by the government’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). In recent years several human rights defenders had been arbitrarily arrested and kept in incommunicado detention, some of them had been reportedly tortured by the NISS, while others were subjected to various methods of intimidation, such as having their homes searched, their equipment confiscated or their freedom of movement restricted. 
In December 2009, the Sudanese National Assembly passed a law reforming the NISS. However, the new law maintains the powers of NISS officers to search, seize, and to arrest and detain people for a period of 45 days without judicial review. The law also provides immunity from prosecution to NISS personnel for human rights violations they may have carried out in the course of their work. 
To address the serious human rights violations that continue to take place in Sudan, violators should be brought to justice at all levels. Those suspected of being responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity should be held accountable for their actions. The League of Arab States should therefore immediately review its position of rejecting the arrest warrant issued by the ICC against President Al Bashir and cooperate with the ICC. 
Amnesty International calls on the member states of the LAS to: 
Call on the Sudanese government and armed opposition groups to immediately order their forces to take all necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties, and to specifically prohibit attacks on civilians, during military operations in Jebel Marra and other parts of Darfur, and to allow UNAMID and humanitarian organizations unrestricted access. 
Ensure that the mandate of the League of Arab States Election Observations Team includes human rights monitoring as a key element of their brief and that human rights violations are immediately publicly reported by the LAS and are promptly brought to the attention of the Government of Sudan. 
In Somalia, specifically around the capital Mogadishu, the ongoing armed conflict resulted in 2009 and early 2010 in tens of thousands of newly displaced people. Thousands of civilians were killed or injured during the same period as a result of the upsurge in violence, often because the parties to the conflict did not take the necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties. Sometimes attacks were indiscriminate, disproportionate or directly targeted at civilians in violation of international humanitarian law. There is complete impunity for those who violate international humanitarian law despite the commitment of the new Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to address justice and reconciliation issues under the 2008 Djibouti Peace Agreement. 
Amnesty International also remains concerned at the lack of adherence to international human rights standards and effective accountability with regard to international military and policing assistance to the TFG. In April 2009, the LAS pledged US$18 million in support of the security sector in Somalia. According to the March 2010 Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia, tasked with monitoring the UN arms embargo on Somalia, “external assistance to the Transitional Federal Government continues to function as a major loophole in the general and complete arms embargo, through which arms, ammunition, equipment and skills all flow to armed opposition groups.” 
Amnesty International calls on member states of the LAS to: 
End all supplies of weapons, military and security equipment, and financial assistance for the purchase of weapons to the TFG until effective mechanisms are in place to prevent such material assistance from being used in committing serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law; 
Ensure that member states respect the UN arms embargo on Somalia, including the obligation to request exemptions, for any security sector assistance to Somalia’s TFG, from the UN Sanctions Committee; 
Demand that grave abuses committed against civilians by all parties to the conflict are investigated by an independent Commission of Inquiry, or similar mechanism. 
Yemen currently is at risk of being locked into a downward spiral on human rights in view of sweeping government measures being taken in the name of counter-terrorism and in response to human rights abuses committed by Islamist groups, the conflict in the northern governorate of Sa’da and separatist unrest in the south. 
Since the alleged attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit last December by a Nigerian national said to have received training in Yemen, the government has further intensified its sweep against alleged al-Qa’ida suspects, including in attacks in which civilians have been killed. 
In Sa’da governorate, fighting between government forces and the Huthis, armed fighters belonging to the Zaidi Shi’a minority, which resumed with new intensity last August was marked by serious abuses on both sides prior to the ceasefire announced in February, with some 250,000 people now forcibly displaced. Saudi Arabian military forces carried out attacks along and in the border region with Yemen which appear to have lacked adequate safeguards for the protection of civilians. The Yemeni government has sealed off the area, preventing independent reporting of the conflict, and aid agencies have faced continuing problems as they seek to provide humanitarian access to those at risk. 
Amnesty International calls on member states of the LAS to: 
Urge the governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia to comply fully with their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, including in the context of counter-terrorism law, policy and practices; 
Ensure that any military or security assistance made available to the Yemeni authorities is not used to commit human rights violations or breaches of international humanitarian law. 
Amnesty International notes that the upcoming LAS Summit is itself overshadowed by the legacy of impunity, and will take place in the absence of any high-level delegation from Lebanon due to the Libyan government’s alleged complicity in the enforced disappearance of a prominent Lebanese Shi’a cleric in 1978. The cleric, Imam Musa al-Sadr, disappeared with two companions while in Libya and their cases still remain unresolved more than 30 years later. The Libyan authorities deny responsibility for their enforced disappearance but have never conducted a full, independent and impartial investigation, and in August 2008, an investigative judge in Lebanon issued an indictment and arrest warrant for Libyan leader M’uammar al-Gaddafi and six others accused of responsibility for the enforced disappearances.

Bin Laden threatens to kill Americans if US executes alleged Sept. 11 mastermind (metronews)

Terror suspects were taking orders from Yemeni Al Qaeda: Saudi Arabia (ANI)
Saudi Arabia has confirmed that several of over 100 suspects who allegedly plotted terror attacks on key oil and security facilities in Saudi Arabia, were waiting for a go ahead from senior Al Qaeda leaders in Yemen to strike.

“They were ready but waiting for an order which fortunately didn’t come,” he said of the militants.
While Al-Turki declined to identify which facilities the suspects were allegedly targeting, he said one of the suspects, a Saudi national, was employed by a private Saudi industrial security company responsible for protecting oil sites and other critical infrastructure.
“As an employee, he had access to all of those sites and to current plans for protecting them,” he said.
He did not dispute news reports indicating that the plotters had been exchanging e-mails with a man in Yemen believed to be a senior leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.ccording to reports, members of the two suicide cells had been exchanging coded e-mails about the planned strikes with a man in Yemen whom the accounts called “Abu Hajer.”
One Saudi official said “Abu Hajer” is believed to be a nom de guerre for Said Al Shihri, a Saudi leader of AQAP.
He was released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in December 2007 after being held there for six years, and he was taken to a Saudi rehabilitation center from which he disappeared.
 

The mystery is how 29 men from Somali families in Ontario could all be murdered in Alberta, in a period of less than five years, without making a lot of people sit up and notice.
Apparently the string of killings was an open secret among Somali-Canadians. But no one talked about it openly; the pattern didn’t emerge in anyone’s summary of crime statistics.
The pattern was pretty simple: A series of young men were all attracted to the fast life and seemingly easy money of dealing drugs in Alberta. They were outsiders, and tended to be lower-echelon members of the drug trade, according to Alberta police. This made them the first to be killed in the violence that so often follows lucrative drugs and gangs.
Still, the recruiting in Ontario appears to continue.
There’s no indication that all 29 victims were targeted in an overall plan, and the pattern instead echoes another awful criminal phenomenon in Canada: The disappearance of many native women over a period of years.
Native groups have rightly argued for special attention to be paid to these crimes.
The Somali-Canadian men’s deaths suggests that here too it’s not sufficient to address each crime as an isolated event, cut off from the larger socio-cultural context. Where 29 murders have taken place, an average of one every two months, it would be naïve to think that more will not follow.
Yet it’s unfair to tell the police they alone have to solve this problem. Someone in the lives of these young men has to show them the stark truth they they are not as bulletproof as they feel, that the world doesn’t really offer easy money, and that getting into the drug trade is far easier than getting out.

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We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:
A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local “distributors” and dealers – and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn – talk to people who lived in Somalia in the 70s and 80s and come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality today for yourself!) 
- and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.   

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