Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste. The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country for nearly 20 years", Januna Ali Jama, a spokesman for the pirates, based in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, said.

About 100 migrants are feared to have drowned after being thrown overboard by smugglers in the Gulf of Aden, the UN refugee agency says. The migrants were attempting to flee to Yemen from war-torn Somalia but were forced off the boat about 5km (3 miles) from the coast, a UN official said.

Is Ethiopia under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi a worthy ally against extremism in the Horn? Roughly 800 U.S. troops are stationed in Djibouti and working closely with troops from the Ethiopian government. U.S. Special Forces have been providing training to the Ethiopian military. US troops have trained with Ethiopian troops that patrol the border with Somalia.

At least 12,000 civilian residents of Mogadishu have fled their homes in the Somali capital since last weekend because of a surge in fighting between Islamist insurgents and Government forces backed by the Ethiopian military, the United Nations refugee agency has reported. Half of the newly displaced have found shelter in different neighbourhoods within Mogadishu, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), while the remainder have escaped to the town of Afgooye, about 30 kilometres away.

The Security Council has welcomed the recent signing of a peace and reconciliation agreement by Somalia’s warring political groups and urged the two sides in the troubled Horn of Africa nation to fully implement their commitments under the accord.

A new series of clashes in Somalia have claimed lives of at least 18 people as daily fighting continues on the Horn of African country. At least seven Somali soldiers were killed in the fighting with Lower Shabelle region forces in Merka town, Press TV correspondent said on Thursday.

Much of Somalia's displaced population has scattered across rural villages, which are hard to reach because of rampant insecurity and limited resources, an international agency said, impeding aid delivery.

At least 20 people have died after a bomb hidden under a pile of rubbish exploded in Somalia's capital, according to witnesses. Witnesses said the dead in Sunday's blast in Mogadishu's southern K4 neighbourhood were mostly female civilians, 10 of them street cleaners.

While the world looks elsewhere, Somalia is in flames. The nation just topped a list of the world’s most unstable countries by Foreign Policy magazine, and the United Nations has declared the humanitarian situation there “worse than Darfur.”

In the next three months the number of people requiring immediate food aid will reach 3.5 million. Over one million refugees have fled their homes. Due to a raging insurgency against the current transitional government – which has support from both the West and Ethiopia – Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, has earned the nickname, “Baghdad on the sea.”

In Somalia, there are no diplomatic superstars like Condoleezza Rice or Kofi Annan, who rushed to Kenya to settle its election crisis; there are no celebrities like Mia Farrow or Jim Carrey to urge international action and awareness as they did in Sudan and Burma.

Aid agencies working in a climate of heightened insecurity in Somalia have been forced to come up with inventive ways to keep their HIV programmes, and their staff, alive following the recent kidnappings of several foreign and local aid workers.

Clashes between insurgents and government troops in Beletweyne, Hiiraan region of central Somalia, have created serious food scarcities in the town, hitting thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) hardest, locals said. "Already, two children are said to have died of hunger; many others are malnourished," a journalist, who requested anonymity, told IRIN on 1 August.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has sounded the alarm about the impact of escalating violence on young people in Somalia, where just last week seven children died in battles between anti-government forces and Ethiopian troops based in the capital, Mogadishu.

The first women lawyers association in Somalia has been established in the Somaliland region with the help of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “It will take time for the male-dominated legal profession to understand and accept the importance of women lawyers in society,” Antonia Lulvey, UNDP’s judiciary project manager, said.

Fears of major clashes in the town of Beletweyne in central Somalia's Hiiraan Region have sparked a mass exodus from the town, sources there told IRIN on 14 July. "Thousands of people have already left the town and many others are still leaving," Ga'al Hirsi Hooshow, the chairman of the Beletweyne Elders' Council, said.

The death toll from fighting between Somali anti-government fighters and Ethiopian and Ugandan forces, has risen to 53 people, according to a human rights organisation. The increased toll was reported on Wednesday by Ahmed Sudan, chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Peace and Human Rights organisation.

Somalia has been without effective central government for almost two decades. Most state institutions have vanished in large parts of the country -- schools are no exception. In the northeast and northwest of Somalia, where there has been relative stability, schools have been operating almost as normal; it is in the southern and central regions of the country -- including the capital -- that the education system has collapsed.

Exposure to the elements after heavy rains washed away shelters, and lack of adequate food, have hit many Somalis who fled the capital, Mogadishu, to seek refuge in the northern outskirts, local and civil society leaders said. "At least nine people, including a pregnant woman and two children have died in the last two weeks," Abikar Sheekhay, a medical doctor who visits the camps, told IRIN.

Describing it as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, UN refugee agency chief António Guterres on Wednesday urged the international community to make peace in Somalia a priority and acknowledged that UNHCR had to do more to help those uprooted by the 17-year conflict.

Overnight violence in Somalia pushed the death toll on Friday to 38 in the days since a peace deal was signed in Djibouti last week. The June 10 agreement between Somalia's interim government and some opposition figures was rejected outright by hardline Islamists in exile and the insurgents on the ground, and experts had warned it was likely to have little impact on the violence.

An estimated 100 people were killed and thousands fled their homes in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, over the weekend following renewed fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents, local sources told IRIN. Another 200 people were reportedly wounded in the clashes, which started on
19 April, hospital sources said.