Ahmad Haji Ali Adami, chairman of the electoral commission in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, has described this weekend's local elections as a success. Independent observers also described the polling - which took place on Sunday throughout the breakaway region - as peaceful.

A political grouping has been revived during the ongoing Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation conference in Eldoret. The delegates from the Sade community, also known as the Marehan, declared the relaunch of the Somali Democratic Party (SDP).

After weeks of wrangling over the number of participants attending the Somali peace talks in the Kenyan town of Eldoret, faction leaders have agreed to a maximum figure of 300.

Most of the outside world has turned its back on what it thinks is an "insoluble mess" in Somalia, says the NGO Médecins sans frontières. MSF has appealed for a reversal of this neglect and says the last ten years of suffering endured by the population "demands a response".

Somalia's political leaders signed a promising new declaration at Eldoret in Kenya on 27 October 2002. The framework for dialogue is sound and comprehensive, most major political movements are represented, and key members of the international community are engaged. However, mismanagement, regional rivalry, lack of political support and financial constraints have brought the talks to near collapse. As the conference enters its main phase, the UN Security Council should ensure that the arms embargo against Somalia is actually enforced and commit to targeted sanctions against warlords or politicians who undermine the negotiations. The EU and U.S. should construct a package of incentives for reaching a peace agreement, enhance their representation and technical aid, and conduct robust public diplomacy in support of the process, says the International Crisis Group.

A group of Islamists based in Somalia and linked to Al-Qa'ida has emerged as the prime suspect for last Thursday's bomb and missile attacks on Israeli tourists in Kenya, American officials claim.

Peace efforts in the war-torn Somalia received a major boost this week following a declaration to end hostilities in the country's capital of Mogadishu. The seven Somali faction leaders whose militia have been fighting in the capital signed a joint declaration in a landmark resolution.
Related Link: Talks move into phase two
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=31194

In 1999, Africa’s top resettlement officials filed into a sunlit room in the Joint Voluntary Agency (JVA) compound in Nairobi, Kenya for an important meeting. The topic: Do we resettle the Sudanese “Lost Boys” or the Somali Bantus first? History plays out in such moments, and destinies of thousands of people are shaped and changed. The Sudanese boys would go first. The Somali Bantus would wait three more years. Now, their time has come.

Tension is rising in Sool and Sanaag regions of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, to which both Somaliland and the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have laid claim, a local journalist told IRIN on Monday.

The organisers of the Kenyan-hosted Somali peace conference are reported to be in a buoyant mood after three major clans and minority groups delivered lists of their participants to the six technical committees, a source close to the talks told IRIN on Tuesday.

A leading Somali faction leader has walked out of the current reconciliation conference in the Kenyan town of Eldoret, and returned to the capital, Mogadishu. Ali Mahdi Muhammad, who is a member of parliament in the current Transitional National Government (TNG), told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme that the talks were "a waste of time", and making no progress.

Key issues that impact women’s access to justice were discussed at a UNIFEM workshop in Somaliland. Participants identified challenges such as aspects of Somali culture that restrict women to the home and family sphere; differing interpretations of judicial regimes, like sharia, secular and customary law; and the absence of women within the judicial system. The workshop was held as part of the ongoing UNIFEM peace and security project.

The Somali peace talks, under way in the Kenyan town of Eldoret, "are on course", a statement issued on Tuesday by the office of Elijah Mwangale, the Kenyan special envoy and chairman of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development's technical committee, has said.

Somalia's various political factions and the Transitional National Government (TNG), attending reconciliation talks in the Kenyan town of Eldoret, have issued a joint statement calling on the international community to lift the freeze on the assets of the Al-Barakaat bank.

The Somali peace talks, underway in the Kenyan town of Eldoret, are deadlocked over representation in the various committees which are being set up to discuss the establishment of an all-inclusive government, sources close to the talks told IRIN on Tuesday. Members of the leaders' committee (comprising representatives of faction leaders, the Transitional National Government and five members from civil society), which met on Monday, failed to agree on the number of participants each group would be allocated in the various committees, the sources said.

Warring factions and the transitional government (TNG) in Somalia have signed a ceasefire deal aimed at bringing more than a decade of fighting and anarchy to an end, foreign mediators have said.

As warlords, faction leaders, members of the Transitional National Government and others gather in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret for "make-or-break" peace talks, a small group of "alternative" invitees is slowly making its voice heard.

More participants on Wednesday joined Somali peace talks in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, raising hopes that the conference could achieve real progress. "For the first time since these meetings have been taking place, we have virtually everyone together, and this augurs well," Kenya's Foreign Minister Marsden Madoka told delegates.

Handicap International started a programme in 1992 when Somaliland self-proclaimed independence from the South of Somalia. After several years of conflict, the political situation is now steady and allows development of 3 projects and 1 in Djibouti.

Women representing five regions in southern and central Somalia are holding a meeting in the town of Marka, 100 km south of the capital, Mogadishu. The three-day workshop, jointly sponsored by the UN Development Fund for Women and IIDA, a local women's NGO, opened on Monday.