The Security Council has extended for another six months the African Union-led mission in Somalia, which has been helping the war-wracked country that has not had a functioning government since 1991 to achieve national reconciliation and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. Established in February 2007, AMISOM is also tasked with providing protection to the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) to help them carry out their functions of government, and security for key infrastructure.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) condemns the attack carried out by armed forces of the Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) at the offices of Waayaha Press, a Mogadishu-based privately owned weekly newspaper. On Tuesday, 19 February 2008, security forces, who were conducting security related operation in Bakara market, came into the offices of Waayaha Press and ordered the management and the journalists to move into one side and searched the offices, according to the management of the media house.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that there are up to 2 million vulnerable people in need of humanitarian aid in war-wracked Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991 and where fighting has intensified in recent months. In the capital Mogadishu, the number of people escaping the city to the poorest areas of the Horn of Africa nation has doubled to 700,000 in the last six months.

A militant Somali Islamist group linked to al Qaeda claimed responsibility on Thursday for bombings that killed at least 20 Ethiopian immigrants in a northern Somali port earlier this week. Regional officials confirmed that the al Shabaab militant group was responsible for the blasts on Tuesday night in the port of Bosasso in an area where Ethiopian immigrants congregate. Close to 100 people were wounded.

People in drought-affected regions of central and southern Somalia need urgent help after losing most of their livestock, the deputy prime minister and minister of information, Ahmed Abdisalam, told IRIN on 30 January. "The reports we are getting are that the drought-affected areas are in a grave situation, with shortages of water, inadequate pasture for remaining livestock and the consequent destitution of many families," Abdisalam said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres, a French aid group, has pulled its international workers out of Somalia after what appeared to be the targeted killings of a number of its staff. The suspension came on Friday, four days after a roadside bomb in Kismayu, south-west of the capital, Mogadishu, killed three employees and two other people.

The Chinese government has donated US$500,000 humanitarian aid to Somalia through the World Health Organization (WHO) in Nairobi. China and Somalia enjoy cordial relationship, and the friendship cherished by the two countries and peoples have been developed continuously since China and Somalia established diplomatic ties in the year of 1960, said Zhang Ming, Chinese Ambassador to Kenya, at the hand-over ceremony.

Somalia's interior minister Muse Nor Amin said on Wednesday that the allied Somali-Ethiopian forces have left some of their key bases inside the capital, Mogadishu by a government order facilitate the displaced people to return to their homes in the city. Speaking in a press conference in Baidao, the country's southwest city, Mr. Nor has described the withdrawal by the troops as a road map of bringing people's freedom back and ending the military presence in civilian areas.

A report issued by the outgoing AU Commission Chairman, Alpha Oumar Konare, said anti-government militias in the country had spread their tentacles to less violent places - Middle and Lower Juba. The militias are taking advantage of the transitional government's inability to deploy troops to all the regions. Its actions are calculated to destabilize the country and in the process weaken the government.

The Somalia town of Galkayo is known as a refuge from the violence to the south. But girls and women who are separated from their clans know little safety: An 8-year-old was raped and her mother must keep working with the man who did it.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)has called for the release of three journalists who have been arrested in the last three weeks and held without charges after two other journalists who had also been detained by Somali authorities were freed in the last 24 hours.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) is condemning the arrest of journalist Ayanle Hussien Abdi in Beledweyne town of Hiran region, which situates in central Somalia. The journalist, who is freelancing for BBC Somali Service, was arrested on Tuesday evening, 15 January 2008, by forces sent by Governor of Hiran Yusuf Ahmed Hagar "Dabaged". The reason behind the arrest is not identified.

ARTICLE 19 has released its analysis of the draft Somali Media Law, which seeks to establish a broad regulatory framework for all media in Somalia. Although the draft Law does include some positive features, it seeks to subject all media to a largely government controlled regulatory regime and imposes a number of overbroad restrictions on what may be published or broadcast.

The Security Council has called on all sides in Somalia to use peaceful means to consolidate peace in the East African nation that has not had a functioning national government since 1991. Foreign Minister Massimo D’alema of Italy, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, read out a statement urging “all Somali parties to reject violence and… to enter into substantial dialogue aimed at achieving a full and all-inclusive national reconciliation.”

he United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) representative for Somalia on Friday voiced his concern at the increasing number of rape cases in the country's war-torn capital, Mogadishu. "Sexual violence and rape are part of the game now," Christian Balslev-Olesen said at a press briefing on the deteriorating access to health in Mogadishu.

After the website Somali Gay Community was launched earlier this month, the staff behind the site has received death threats. The news about the website, which major Somali media picked up from afrol News, caused a storm of debate that included threatening hate messages. But it also gave the new gay site very many hits and members, documenting needs in Somali society.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) protests the arrested of journalists Abdiqani Hassan Farah and Mohammed Shakale in Las Anod town of Sool region. On Monday, 26 November 2007, Somaliland armed forces arrested the two journalists separately in the city centre of Las Anod, according to news reports and journalists in Las Anod who reported to NUSOJ.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the recent waves of attacks on media in Somalia which have included arrests and censorship. On Monday 26 November, two journalists were arrested by forces in the self-proclaimed state of Somaliland for their work in a disputed town. The same day, the mayor of Mogadishu restricted media coverage of the conflict between the government and Islamist insurgents.

Despite a lull in fighting in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, hundreds of families are still fleeing the city, joining what the UN has estimated to be one million displaced people (IDPs). "Many families are leaving because they don’t believe the current break in the fighting will last," a civil society source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity, told IRIN on 21 November.

Mogadishu mayor Mohamed Omar Habeb’s demands that news media and journalists must register with the authorities in order to be able work in the capital are a violation of the Transitional Federal Government’s undertakings, Reporters Without Borders said in a letter to President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. Mayor Habeb said on 14 November that “all the media” including “representatives of foreign media” would have to register with the authorities “within 30 days in order to continue working in Mogadishu, otherwise they will not be authorised.”