The fighting that broke out in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Wednesday, prompting more people to flee their homes, has cast a cloud over anticipated reconciliation talks between various political groups. Many of the families that fled the latest fighting came from areas that were previously unaffected by clashes between Ethiopian-backed government forces and insurgents.

Abdulkadir Ashir "Nadara," head of the privately-owned TV station Universal TV, journalist Bashir Dirie Nalei and cameraman Hamud Mohammed Osman were arrested on 8 April at Mogadishu airport and have been held since then. The three journalists had covered a press conference by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, during which "Nadara" had asked him about favouritism in his choice of officials.

Reporters Without Borders welcomes the release of Yusuf Abdi Gabobe, the publisher of the Somaliland privately-owned daily Haatuf, Ali Abdi Dini, its editor, and Mohamed Omar Sheikh Ibrahim, one of its journalists. They had been detained since January because of an article about corruption in the president’s immediate circle.

The United States, Europe and African countries on Tuesday called for all fighting to stop in Somalia after battles in Mogadishu killed hundreds and the rest of the country struggled with an influx of 100,000 refugees.

Thousands of people have been flooding into the small town of Balcad, north of Mogadishu, saying that life in the Somali capital has become unbearable. They are part of a massive exodus from battle-torn Mogadishu that has seen almost 100,000 people flee the city since the beginning of February, including some 47,000 in the last two weeks.

An estimated 57,000 people have fled violence in the Somali capital Mogadishu since the beginning of February, including more than 12,000 in the last week when escalated fighting left at least 24 people dead. The figures were compiled by UNHCR based on information provided by non-governmental organisations in Somalia.

Radio Shabelle reporter Mohammed Bashir Sheik Abdirahman and his driver Osman Qoryoley were arrested at Mogadishu international airport when they arrived for a news conference which Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi was supposed to give there. Muhiadin Omar Jimale, another radio journalist, was also stopped and would probably have been arrested, but he managed to escape.

Ethiopian tanks guarding a Somali government base in Mogadishu opened fire on unidentified attackers on Thursday as clashes broke out in the capital for a second straight day.

The United Nations has condemned the killing of a prominent Somali human rights activist, Isse Abdi Isse, chairman of the Kasima Peace and Development Organisation (KISIMA), calling his death a loss for all Somalis and warning aid workers they were increasingly the target of violence in the chaotic country.

Interim Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi has appealed for some 42 million dollars to secure his country's capital, Mogadishu, and to fund a reconciliation conference in the war-torn state.

Radio reporter Hassan Sade Dhaqane and several onlookers were arrested by government troops in the Mogadishu neighbourhood of KM 4 as he was covering a mine-clearance operation that had drawn a crowd. The government confirmed his arrest to Reporters Without Borders’ partner organisation in Somalia, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), but refused to say where he is being held. He has not been formally charged.

Heavy prison sentences have been passed by the regional court of Hargeisa, the capital of the northern breakaway state of Somaliland, on the publisher of the privately-owned daily Haatuf and three of its journalists for allegedly defaming the government, the president and his family.

The collapse of the Somali state in 1991 and the subsequent crash of the domestic currency, the shilling, meant the crippled economy was starved of liquidity to facilitate an economic recovery and of any means to replace ageing banknotes. Without a viable central bank or any other financial authority able to provide such an essential service many people decided to take it upon themselves to do so.

Newly arrived African Union (AU) peacekeepers have come under attack in the Somali capital Mogadishu for the second day running. Around 400 Ugandans arrived on Tuesday, and the same again the next day. They have not yet gone on patrol but have come under fire at their airport base.

A small advance team of African Union troops has arrived in Somalia, say officials in the country.Police sources and airport staff in the southern town of Baidoa told a BBC correspondent that 30 soldiers had arrived in the town.

This year’s World Social Forum was held in Nairobi Kenya, the first in the African continent. Many who participated in it have written their accounts of the Forum, and the significance to the movement building towards another, a better world. What seemed to be missing from the accounts I’ve read is that while we were in Nairobi, the US bombed the East African country Somalia in what was falsely justified as a move to eradicate Al Queda operatives in the Horn of Africa.

In the many workshops dealing with peace and security held at the Forum, few raised the importance of our presence in Kenya, a country which has played a key role in providing support for US military offensive against neighboring Somalia.

The increasing US military role in Africa should be a concern to all of us and the January 23rd bombing of a defenseless people, while the Social Forum was on its 3rd day, should have raised alarm from the progressive peace movement. US military attack of Somalia should be seen parallel to US aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How then to explain the silence of the US peace movement on Somalia. Perhaps US-based organisations don’t have the proper analytical framework from which to understand the significance of the Horn of Africa region. Perhaps it is because Somalia is largely seen as a country with no government and in perpetual chaos, with 'fundamental Islamic' forces not deserving of defense against the military attacks by US in search of 'terrorists'.

The US has officially made known the intention to have the largest US military presence in Africa, known as AfricCom. The rationale for this of course is to curb further spread of Islamic fundamentalists presence in Sub Sahara Africa which viewed as open ground for possible Al Queda recruitment.

US political and military alliance with Ethiopia – which openly violated international law in its aggression towards Somalia, is destabilizing the Horn region and begins a new shift in the way the US plans to have permanent and active military presence in Africa.

Four days after the bombing of Somalia, one of the largest peace protest was held in Washington DC on 27 January. Somalia remained off the agenda by the expressed intent of the organizers to keep single focus on Iraq and ‘bringing the troops home’.

Does this mean the US public only responds to messages of peace as narrowly defined as securing the safety of US military personnel in Iraq? Visions of the global peace movement cannot be limited the interests and concerns for particular geographic areas and people. What drove hundreds of thousands out to the Washington DC protest in the friging cold weather is beyond self-interest and the concern for all lives, Iraqi, American, Afghani and Somali !

Somalia goes to the relevance (or irrelevance?) of Africa in US history; lack of proper framework from which to understand current political events in the continent and ways of engaging the general public.

It is bad enough that the Washington Consensus views Africa through the lens of national security concerns, or as a source of oil and other minerals. The peace movement, which speaks for all peace-loving people in the US and the world, should maintain a different perspective if we are to move towards the vision that 'another world is possible'.

* Nunu Kidane is Network Coordinator for Priority Africa Network (PAN) based in Oakland, California – [email][email protected]

Somalia has welcomed a resolution by the United Nations Security Council authorizing a six-month deployment of African Union (AU) peacekeepers to the Horn of Africa country, which has had no functioning regime in more than 15 years.

Reporters Without Borders have strongly condemned the murder in Baidoa of presenter Ali Mohammed Omar, of Radio Warsan, on 16 February and deplored the “deteriorating security situation” in Somalia which it said was taking a toll on journalists. Omar was shot in the head on his way home.

A smugglers boat capsized off the coast of Yemen earlier this week leaving at least 30 people dead amid a recent spike in people smuggling across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. Chief UNHCR spokesperson, Ron Redmond, told journalists in Geneva on Tuesday that at least 30 Somalis and Ethiopians died when the boat – carrying 120 people – foundered as it approached the Yemeni coast on Monday.

An independent U.N. human rights expert Monday called for the release of three journalists arrested in Somalia and voiced “deep concern” at the closing of radio and television stations. “Threats to journalists and media outlets constitute serious violations of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, said in a statement, released at UN Headquarters in New York.