The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Somalia (SRSG), Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, invited Somali women to share their experiences, concerns and recommendations on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 in Nairobi on 9 June, on the occasion of the Global Open Day on women, peace and security.

In the wake of Israel’s attack on aid ships bound for Gaza on 31 May, Natasha Shivji contrasts the oceanic activities of Somali pirates with the recent measures taken by Israeli security forces in maintaining Israel's siege of Gaza. East Africa ‘must straighten the international law that has been manipulated to condemn our people’, writes Shivji.

The human and environmental disruption wreaked by drought in Somaliland, where more than 60 percent of people raise livestock for a living, means the self-declared, but barely recognized, independent state should draw up its own plan for climate change adaptation, according to a new report.

UNHCR has completed and inaugurated a multi-million dollar water and electrification project that will benefit tens of thousands of people, including Somali refugees and members of the local community, in a semi-arid region of eastern Ethiopia. The US$5 million Jarrar Valley Water Supply scheme in the country's Somali region is using electricity to pump 1.3 million litres of fresh water a day to 51,000 people, including 16,000 refugees.

Canada will grant Mali CFA F 9.3 billion to enable the African country train health professionals for a period of six months, according to a memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed Wednesday in Bamako, the capital, between the two countries. The grant will also enable Mali to implement its Programme for Health and Social Development (PRODESS) and the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategic Framework(GPRSF).

Dozens of families on the outskirts of Bamako, the capital of Mali, are under threat of being evicted from their lands by the Government in favour of a housing project. The cultivation ban, ordered in July 2009, jeopardizes their right to adequate food. Moreover, if the eviction is realized, it will hinder the ability of the families to feed themselves in the long run.

A husband and wife can keep separate homes, but only with the husband’s approval. A divorcée can keep her ex-husband’s name – if he agrees. A girl should be able to marry at 15. These and a dozen other changes to the family code are being proposed by Mali’s top Islamic council, even though they were blocked last August after strong opposition from some Muslim leaders.

The Ethiopian government and United Nations have opened a new refugee camp for thousands of Somalis fleeing violence in the Horn of Africa country. Somalia shares its northwestern border with Ethiopia, which has experienced a growing influx of Somalis over the last three months.

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has completed the second review of Mali’s economic performance under a programme supported by the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). The decision also allows the government to request a further disbursement amounting to about US$3.1 million, which would bring total disbursements to Mali to SDR 21.99 million (about US$34.1 million).

Malili – a 5,000 acre East African technopolis – is a city built up for technology firms and it’s the Kenyan government’s way of creating a regional ICT brand. The Malili project is modeled off of other large technology and research parks around the world. One often cited in comparison is Smart Village Cairo, which currently hosts 120 companies and 20,000 professionals and they’re expecting that to increase to 500 companies and 100,000 professionals by 2012.

Dialoubé is in a region of sparse savannah in north-western Mali, near the Mauritania border. A cold, dry harmattan wind whistles through the fence surrounding the nursery full of young Acacia senegalensis seedlings, about 100 metres away from the villagers' mud houses. Further out lies a 50-hectare plantation established in 2007: part of Mali's Acacia Senegal Plantation Project which aims to plant 6,000 hectares of acacias in four villages in the area.

Survival has launched an ad campaign exposing the Botswana government’s malicious treatment of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen, the country’s oldest inhabitants. An advertisement depicting an inverted Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), the Bushmen’s ancestral home, has appeared in a series of popular magazines, including Condé Nast Traveller, The World of Interiors, and Red Bulletin which is distributed with the UK’s Independent newspaper.

School enrolment has risen sharply in Somalia's self-declared independent region of Somaliland since 1991, raising the literacy rate from 20 percent to 45 percent, education officials have said.

Somali prominent journalists in Mogadishu have for the first time officially launched a new Press Freedom Group.Somali Foreign Correspondents Association (SOFCA), after meeting at Nasahablod hotel in Mogadishu.

It was not the three days of labour that caused Fatimata Guido the most pain, her urine-stained sheets or the five operations she has had to repair an obstetric fistula. “It is the fear of having sex again, since that is what got me into this situation in the first place.”

This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group examines what stalled democratisation could mean. It concludes that politicians must finally uphold the constitution, abide by electoral laws and adhere to inter-party agreements if the region, which seeks independence from Somalia, is to hold genuinely free and fair elections in 2010.

In Mali the government has approved long-term leases for outside investors to develop more than 160,000 hectares of land. Government officials say the country could not develop its cultivable land otherwise, but local farmers say they fear being pushed out.

Hussein M. Adam reviews Iqbal D. Jhazbhay's 'Somaliland: an African Struggle for Nationhood and International Recognition', a book he finds to be 'highly original, relevant, valid and timely'.

Somali nationals claiming asylum in India form a small but significant community of refugees who are seeking asylum in a region far from their roots. But the Government of India does not recognize Somali refugees, who are part of the approximately 11,257 refugees (also including Burmese, Iranians, Iraqis, Palestinians and Sudanese, among others) who can only rely on the ‘protection’ of the Indian office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The United Nations refugee agency has voiced regret at Djibouti’s forced repatriation of 40 Somali asylum-seekers, including 13 women and children, who were rescued by a Dutch ship in the Red Sea last month.