The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the shooting of a Somali radio journalist – the seventh killing this year - and reiterated calls for international action over the crisis in Somalia where reporters have become prime targets in spreading violence.

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Somalia François Lonsény Fall has called on the war-ravaged East African nation’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) to invite opposition groups to join the reconciliation meeting currently under way in the capital Mogadishu. “We would like to see the stakeholders who renounce violence inside and outside the country take part in this process,” Mr. Fall said in an address to the National Reconciliation Congress.

The UN refugee agency has launched an appeal for US$48 million to provide badly needed assistance for victims of the renewed conflict inside Somalia. UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists the estimated number of Somalis who will receive assistance from UNHCR under the appeal – newly arrived Somali refugees in neighbouring countries and people displaced inside Somalia – will rise to 478,000 by end 2008 from 312,000 currently.

Peace talks due to start in Somalia this week were overshadowed by a grenade attack in a Mogadishu market that killed at least three people on Wednesday. The attack caused chaos at the Bakara market a day before the opening of the peace meeting, already adjourned from the weekend in a climate of violence.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the persistent arrest of journalists in Somalia by the state security agents following the arrest of radio producer Abdifatah Dahir Jeyte, on 16 July, by Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS), a counter-terrorism branch of the north-eastern city of Bossasso in Puntland region. The journalist was released after a protest of his colleagues and NUSOJ mediation.

After three postponements and many threats of non-attendance, Somalia's national reconciliation conference, due to start on 15 July, will proceed as planned, a senior official told IRIN. "We are moving as planned and the conference is on schedule and will begin on 15 July," Abdulkadir Walayo, the media adviser for the National Governance and Reconciliation Commission (NGRC), which is organising the conference, said on 11 July.

International Medical Corps (IMC) has announced a temporary suspension of all its activities in and around the Somali town of El-Berde, 420km northwest of the capital Mogadishu, citing security concerns. "All IMC staff members employed in El-Berde have been urged to relocate immediately and have been offered help in evacuating to safer areas," the medical charity stated.

Five Somali children were killed by a land mine in the capital Mogadishu. The children were reportedly playing with the device when it suddenly exploded. The children came across the land mine when they were asked to attend the Friday prayers at the mosque. Instead, they decided to play football and in the process, they came across the device. One of the children caused the explosion by throwing it against a wall.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes by almost daily fighting in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. The UN says more than 400,000 Somalis fled the city in the last five months, many of those have headed north towards Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in the north east of the country. Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow reports that Bosaso, the region's largest city, is now struggling to provide for its growing refugee population.

The Somali government on Thursday carried out its first formal executions, killing two suspected Islamist insurgents convicted of murdering a government official just three days earlier. But even as the administration meted out capital punishment for the first time since its formation in late 2004, rebels kept up a campaign targeting government officials with a trio of blasts.

More than 3,500 people have fled the Somali capital Mogadishu this month amid an escalation of violence in the coastal city over the past few weeks. Meanwhile, only 123,000 of the estimated 401,000 civilians who fled the heavy fighting that raged in Mogadishu between February and May have returned to the capital, according to figures compiled by UNHCR and a network of partners.

In its bid to bring peace in the country, Somalia’s transitional government deemed it fitting to grant amnesty to its opposition fighters, the government announced.
For several months, the Somali government has been involved in sporadic gun battles with opposition fighters, resulting to several deaths. The core of the opposition fighters hailed from the Hawiye clan.

Somalia's transitional federal government has decided to allow three privately-owned radio stations - HornAfrik, Shabelle and Quran Kariim (Holy Koran) - to resume broadcasting, four days after it ordered them to suspend operations. "This decision was to be expected, as the high-handed fashion in which the stations were closed was both abusive and counter-productive," Reporters Without Borders said.

Somali insurgents shot dead a local official on Thursday and attacked Ethiopian troops overnight just hours after a second attempt to start a peace conference was postponed, residents said. Islamist-led insurgents have been fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies since the New Year when they were ousted from Mogadishu in a two-week offensive.

Residents of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, are flocking back to the city but many have found their homes destroyed, while food and medical care are in short supply, local sources said. "Our estimate is that since the end of major combat, [late April-early May], 16,000 to 17,000 families have returned to the city," said a civil society source involved in assisting the returnees.

The closure of several leading radio stations by the Somali government has silenced important community voices in the war-ravaged country, a media watchdog has said. The stations, HornAfrik radio and television, Shabelle Media Network and Radio Voice of Holy Koran, were shut down on 6 June, for alleged support of anti-government elements.

Ethiopian soldiers fired at a would-be suicide bomber who was speeding towards their base in the Somali capital blowing up the car and killing the bomber and a civilian who was standing nearby, officials have told Al Jazeera. Monday's attack came one day after a suicide car bomber drove through a roadblock guarding the compound of the Mogadishu home of Ali Mohamed Gedi, the interim prime minister, and rammed the vehicle into a wall, killing seven people but missing Gedi.

The UN refugee agency estimates that up to 90,000 people may have returned to Mogadishu in recent weeks, or almost a quarter of those who fled fierce fighting earlier this year in the Somali capital.The figure is based on monitoring of population movements inside Somalia by UNHCR and a network of partners.

About a quarter of nearly 400 000 refugees who deserted Mogadishu during fighting earlier this year have returned to the Somali capital, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. But life in the war-scarred city was tough, with shortages of electricity and water, uncollected garbage clogging the streets and many businesses and schools shut, the agency said.

Hawa Aden Mohamed was motivated to establish the Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development by her own experience, particularly the opportunity to go to school at 14. "If I had not got that chance, where would I be now?" she asks rhetorically. "That is why I am a believer in second chances," she tells IRIN in Galkayo town, 700km north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.