The Law Enforcement component aims to strengthen the establishment and functional capacities of both basic and specialized policing capabilities, enabling the civilian police to contribute more effectively to public security. The component will promote better public relations between the authorities and the Somali population. UNDP intends to recruit a Law Enforcement expert for 3 months.

Heavy fighting has again broken out in the Medina district of Mogadishu, according to sources in the Somali capital. The fighting pits militias loyal to faction leader Muse Sudi Yalahow against those led by his former right-hand man, Umar Mahmud Muhammad Finish.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)has renewed calls on the regional Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, responsible for organising the current Somalia peace talks, to guarantee formal participation by the Eastern Africa Media Institute (EAMI) Somalia Chapter as the formal civil society representative of the Somali media community.

The Kenyan chairman of the Somali peace talks, Bethwel Kiplagat, said on Tuesday the conference would soon start work on setting up a provisional, broad-based federal government for Somalia, but appealed for guidance on how this should be done.

International Medical Corps requires a Nutritionist Program Manager to manage nutrition activities in Maternal & Child Health Centers (MCH); supervise SFP and Information Education Communication (IEC) activities; oversee outreach, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting; and provide technical support to IMC senior and national staff.

Somalia's peace talks are in danger of collapsing and need stronger leadership from mediators, the international community and Somali factions themselves. A serious problem is that faction leaders and civil society representatives are self-appointed, with real risk that the negotiation will produce another "government in exile" unable to provide a working administration inside the country that represents popular will, says the International Crisis Group.

Hundreds of families are fleeing their homes in Mogadishu's southwestern Medina district after fierce clashes broke out in the Somali capital last week. Many families had lost relatives "to indiscriminate shelling by both sides", a local journalist told IRIN. Residents began fleeing Medina after fighting between rival factions broke out on 26 February. "They are basically leaving so as to keep what is left of their families alive," he said.

A newly-formed committee, set up to monitor a shaky ceasefire accord between the warring sides in Somalia, met on Thursday following clashes between rival warlords in Mogadishu. The monitoring committee - made up of the US, EU, AU, Arab League and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) - met at the venue of the Somali peace talks in Mbagathi near the Kenyan capital Nairobi, sources close to the talks told.

Working in collaboration with the ADM Advisor under the supervision of three heads of mission and in collaboration with five other senior staff members, S/he will be responsible for overall administrative and financial tasks of the program, under advisement of the ADM Advisor.

The project evaluator will be required to assess and study the relevance of an education project in Somalia in assisting in the provision of primary education to children in the target schools.

UNICEF said last month at a meeting of donors in Nairobi that the key to Somalia's future lay in the survival and protection of women and children and noted with optimism that peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchy were moving forward.

An international committee is being set up to monitor a shaky ceasefire accord signed by Somali faction leaders, Kenya's special envoy for Somalia Bethwel Kiplagat said on Tuesday. He was speaking at a plenary session to relaunch the Somali peace talks at their new venue in Mbagathi, near Nairobi.

Somalia's transitional national government (TNG) said on Tuesday it was pulling out of peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchy in the Horn of Africa country. ''The main reason is that the conference was not going well,'' TNG delegate Mohamed Awale told Reuters. ''We decided that from the beginning, but we hoped that things would get better... in fact it is getting worse and worse.'' The talks began last October and have been mired in wrangling over the number of delegates attending and where they should stay. Analysts say little progress has been made.

Faction leaders attending the Somali peace talks in Kenya have condemned the slow pace of the conference and accused Somalia's neighbours - the so-called frontline states - of working for their own interests. A statement, signed by 11 faction leaders, blamed "continuous contradictions, differences and misunderstandings" between the three frontline states - Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia - for the "very slow progress of the process".

As the four-month-long Somali Peace and Reconciliation Conference resumes at a new Kenyan venue and with a new chairperson, Somali human rights activists have issued an important declaration founded on their many years of mostly unacknowledged and risk-fraught human rights defence work. Somali human rights defenders from 23 organizations, meeting in Hargeisa from 10 to 18 February 2002, declared that they will "increase the struggle against human rights abuses, such as arbitrary killings, torture, arbitrary detention and kidnapping, and work for the equal rights of all, with full protection for vulnerable groups such as women and minorities".

Despite the slow progress at peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchy in Somalia, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is optimistic about the future - even if the war continues. Steven Lauwerier was UNICEF's project officer based in Baidoa, in southern Somalia, until fighting broke out there late last year. He says progress is being made because UNICEF are now investing in people rather than infrastructure.

It was no surprise to many observers when the US led war on terror turned its spotlight on Somalia during their operation in Afghanistan. But any confrontation between the most industrialized country and a country at the bottom of the human development index would be a catastrophe beyond imagination, says this commentary on the web site of the African Conflict Journal.

Delegates to the Somali peace talks, arriving at the new venue in Nairobi from the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, have been greeted by chaos and confusion.

Three children have died in an outbreak of measles in the Middle Juba region of southern Somalia, according to an international aid agency operating in the area.

Large foreign ships are harassing and intimidating Somali fishermen around the southern coastal towns of Marka and Barawe, according to local fishermen, who fear the ships are destroying the livelihood of Somali fishermen and their families.