cc. In solidarity with Cuba and the Cuban people, Mwandawiro Mghanga argues that Barack Obama should rescind the US’s continued blockade on the Caribbean country as a demonstration of his commitment to fulfilling his campaign promises of more egalitarian policies towards the world’s poor. Cuba’s successes through socialism and its continued efforts to export healthcare support and education around the world in spite of its own constraints, the author contends, merit recognition in the form of normalised trading and diplomatic relations with its rich neighbour.

Mali's National Programme to fight Female Circumcision (PNLE) plans to reduce the practice from 85% to 65% by 2012, PANA reported Thursday. The plan resulted from an action plan that evolved from a workshop that involved the Malian technical services, the civil society organisations as well as technical and financial partners.

UNHCR is seeking $92 million to ease the plight of nearly 250,000 Somalis in one of the world's oldest, largest and most congested refugee sites amid growing fears of even more arrivals as the situation in Somalia deteriorates. The emergency assistance to Somali refugees in Dadaab, Kenya, focuses on relieving dramatic overcrowding in three adjacent camps that are now three times their initial capacity, with thousands more people continuing to arrive each month.

With examples of the considerable risk of sexual violence faced by Somali women from a range of military organisations including the Somali Transitional Government, Ethiopian troops, and local militias, Nada Ali argues that much more needs to be done to ensure that those vulnerable within some of the African continent’s most conflict-torn areas receive adequate protection from abuse. The UN Security Council’s formation of an international commission of inquiry focussing on sexual violence, Ali argues, represents a key step if perpetrators are to begin to be effectively held to account.

Ministers from across the developing world say they want to take control of their own health research agendas as part of a wish list presented at the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health yesterday (19 November). Launching the much-awaited 'Call to Action' at the closing event of the Forum they said they want to prioritise policies dealing with research for health and improve coordination between ministries so that their respective countries can have more ownership of research.

Hawa* is determined her young daughter will not undergo female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), which is widespread in Somalia's self-declared republic of Somaliland. An estimated 90 percent of girls still undergo the procedure.

Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities to explain the detention of freelance journalist Hadis Mohammed Hadis for the past ten days in Hargeisa, the capital of the northern breakaway region of Somaliland. Hadis was arrested while filming at Hargeisa airport on 3 November, five days after 25 people were killed in a suicide bombing in the city.

The Kenyan government, foreign donors, and United Nations agencies should rapidly increase their response to the worsening Somali refugee crisis in Kenya, Human Rights Watch has said. More than 65,000 Somali refugees will have sought refuge in Kenya by the end of this year, up from 19,000 in 2007. New arrivals face extortion and abuses when trying to cross Kenya’s officially closed border and are received in appalling conditions in overcrowded, underserviced refugee camps.

The Somali Diaspora traces, through photographs and essays, the journey of a family from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to new lives in the United States. The work takes readers from civil war in Africa to the culture shock of arriving in the United States, growing roots in the Somali community, learning English, finding work, and–in a remarkably short time–participating fully in American life.

‘The Somali Diaspora is remarkable in its ambition; it is a necessary book, very much worth reading and buying, and an important addition to the work done on the Somali presence in North America.’ Nuruddin Farah

‘Having travelled many of the steps of the Somali Diaspora, Abdi Roble always photographs what he knows and cares deeply about, making these photographs as much autobiography as photojournalistic narrative. The Somali Diaspora deftly chronicles the almost irreconcilably odd collision of cultures that emerges out of relocation, but with hope and sympathy throughout. It also performs the important job of making Minnesotans, and Americans at large, look at and take stock of the society we've created that they seek as refuge.’ George Slade, artistic director, Minnesota Center for Photography

‘Opening The Somali Diaspora is like finding a hidden doorway into the lives and experiences of Somali immigrants to the United States. This book will serve to give us all a deeper sense of connection to anyone whom we may come to call 'neighbor' and 'fellow citizen.'‘ Omar Jamal, executive director, Somali Justice Advocacy Center

* For more information, including the book's table of contents, please visit the .
* Abdi Roble was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. He emigrated to the USA in 1989, where he developed a passion for photography. Roble started the Somali Documentary Project in 2003, and won the Arts Freedom Award by the South Side Settlement House in 2006. Doug Rutledge is a poet, essayist and academic.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

The National Election Commission (NEC) of Somaliland has begun its voter registration exercise in Sahil region for about two weeks now. Over 100 NEC registration out-posts and registration-teams, numbering 1,400 were deployed throughout Sahil's districts. The registration teams are provided with an array of equipment and high-tech gear for registering the adult ‘voting’ population in Sahil who will cast their votes in the next general election and for all coming future elections.

The African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) condemns in the strongest term the stoning to death of Aisho Ibrahim Dhuhulow a Somalian woman after an Islamic Sharia law court found her guilty of adultery.

Some 40 Somalis staying illegally in Nepal for the past three years have demonstrated outside District Administration Office (DAO) Kathmandu Wednesday seeking attention from the government to provide them the status of refugees. The UN refugee agency in Kathmandu has already registered them as refugees and has been extending financial assistance. However, government has not accepted them as refugees.

Since 2003, photographer Abdi Roble and writer Doug Rutledge have been documenting the lives of Somali immigrants in the United States and of the people forced into the vast refugee camps that were set up in Kenya in the wake of the 1991 civil war in Somalia. In The Somali Diaspora, Roble, who immigrated to the United States from Somalia in 1989, and Rutledge trace the journey of a family from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, home to more than 150,000 Somalis, to new lives in the United States.

Following a recent offer by Kenya to train Somali forces, Islamists have responded with a threat to launch an attack on Kenyan territory if it goes ahead with plan. According to reports, Kenya had offered to train 10,000 Somali government troops in a bid to boost capacity to deal with insurgency and bring back law and order in that country.

At least 300 women are victims of sexual violence every year in Bamako, according to local police records, but the actual figure is much higher said the president of the Bamako-based non-profit, Women in Law and Development in Africa.

The Hargeisa Institute of Health Sciences (HIOHS) and Somaliland Nursing and Midwifery Association (SLNMA) have two vacancies for nurse educationalists with significant overseas experience to contribute to a programme of work being implemented to enhance nursing education within Somaliland. These rewarding positions offer a unique opportunity to be involved in the development of human and institutional capacity, crucial for the rebuilding of the health system in Somaliland.

The Hargeisa Institute of Health Sciences (HIOHS) and Somaliland Nursing and Midwifery Association (SLNMA) have two vacancies for nurse educationalists with significant overseas experience to contribute to a programme of work being implemented to enhance nursing education within Somaliland. These rewarding positions offer a unique opportunity to be involved in the development of human and institutional capacity, crucial for the rebuilding of the health system in Somaliland.

A woman who was denied asylum in the U.S. despite her fears that she would suffer additional female genital mutilation if she was deported to her native Mali has been given a second chance. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey - whose intervention was sought in a national campaign by women's and human rights groups has reversed a ruling by a federal immigration board that acknowledged that the woman's genitals had been cut as a child but said that while "reprehensible", the mutilation could not be repeated.

Mali's government and Tuareg rebels reached aceasefire agreement on Monday to end almost a year of sporadic clashes in the country's vast northern desert, Algeria's official APS news agency said. The truce came after four days of talks in the Algerian capital, Algiers, between government envoys and members of the rebel Democratic Alliance for Change mediated by Algeria's ambassador to Mali, Abdelkrim Ghrib.

As G8 leaders wrapped up their forum in Hokkaido in Japan, some 13,000km away, the hundreds of people who had gathered for the seventh annual alternative People’s Forum, this year held in the town of Koulikoro, Mali, were issuing a closing statement to their own conference, and its tone was defiant.