Four days of peace talks between the Somali Transitional National Government (TNG) and factions opposed to it came to a close in Nairobi on Sunday, with both sides claming the talks had been a success and announcing that they had agreed to meet again for further reconciliation talks.

Hundreds of thousands of Somali's in the southwestern region of Gedo are at risk of starvation following drought and poor harvests, a spokesman for the French NGO Action contre la faim (ACF) told IRIN on Thursday.

The interim government of Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galayr was voted out of office on Sunday after it failed to defeat a no-confidence motion tabled by disgruntled members of the Transitional National Assembly (TNA).

Addressing the UN Security Council on 19 October, the prime minister of Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG), warned that unless his fledgling administration received more international support Somalia could disintegrate further and become a haven for international terrorism.

Continuing insecurity in Somalia makes it unsafe to deploy a post-conflict
mission in the country, according to a United Nations assessment.

Enforcement of travel restrictions and a ban on trade across the Kenya/Somalia border, coupled with a prolonged drought, has created a food security crisis particularly in the southern Gedo Region of Somalia.

US intelligence officials believe that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organisation may be moving its operations base out of Afghanistan to Somalia. Bin Laden may also be planning to follow.

Serious floods are likely to occur between October and November this year in southern Somalia.

All UN international staff were evacuated from Somalia on Monday 24 September, after insurance coverage for war-risk was withdrawn. The lapse of war-risk coverage was a result of the enormous insurance claims arising out of the attacks in the US on 11 September.

There will be a food gap of close to 22,000 mt in southern Somalia over the next 12 months. In its monthly food security report, the European Union-funded and FAO-implemented Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) estimates that according to data collected during the August harvest more than 400,000 people will be affected by the shortfall.

The regional capital of the southern Middle Juba region, Bu'aale, was captured on Tuesday by the militia of Juba Valley Alliance (JVA), local sources in Kismayo, 500 km south of Mogadishu, told IRIN.

Somalia's capital Mogadishu has seen an upsurge in fighting this week as militia loyal to rebel factions clashed with government loyalists, according to local sources.

The United Nations Security Council has called on Somali factions to lay down their weapons and engage in peaceful dialogue with the Transitional National Government (TNG), the current Council President, Ambassador Wang Yingfan of China, said on 11 July.

The on-going police operation by the Transitional National Government (TNG) provoked fighting on Thursday, after attempts were made to erect a road block near the compound of faction leader Husayn Aydid. Confrontation between the TNG forces and militia loyal to Aydid led to five dead and at least ten wounded, Agence France-Presse (AFP) said. By late afternoon, the police had been forced to withdraw the checkpoint, local sources told IRIN.

Two MPs have accused the Transitional National Government (TNG) of embezzling donor funds, news agencies and local media said on Thursday. Finance Minister Sayyid Ahmad Shaykh Dahir confessed to being part of the scandal when the misappropriation of US $3.5 million was discussed in parliament on Wednesday.

The Transitional National Government (TNG) said it had nationalised the Mogadishu Islamic courts. The TNG director of information, Abdirahman Dinari, told IRIN told that President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan had announced on Tuesday that the courts would henceforth operate under the justice ministry, and would no longer be an independent entity.

Long queues of voters could be seen around polling stations in the Hargeysa, capital of the self-declared state of Somaliland, as they waited in line to vote in the referendum on independence. Pro-referendum demonstrations with women singing and waving branches took place on Wednesday evening and Thursday, and some celebrated by slaughtering a goat. Voters at the polling stations told IRIN that they had turned out to vote "yes" for the "motherland".

Somalis in the self-declared state of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, will be asked on 31 May to vote on a new constitution which includes an article on territorial independence. Somaliland independence was unilaterally declared in May 1991, but has never received international recognition. The declaration followed the collapse of Muhammad Siyad Barre's military dictatorship, which had pursued brutal policies in the north during the civil war of the 1980s. During a recent visit to the capital, Hargeysa, IRIN spoke to Somaliland President Muhammad Ibrahim Egal about independence, and the issue of past atrocities. A number of sites discovered in 1997 were identified by an international forensic team as having characteristics of mass graves, but no further investigation followed.

The combined effects of the continuing livestock ban and high inflation are leading to a growing "north-south economic divide" in Somalia, said a joint report by the USAID Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET) and the European Union funded FAO/Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU). The north and central parts of the country continue to suffer the impact of lost livestock exports to the Gulf states, whereas the ban has had a "negligible impact" in the south, FSAU said in its April monthly food security report.

The self-declared state of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, is gearing up for a referendum on the constitution ­- including an article on independence ­- at the end of May. Unilateral independence was declared on 18 May 1991 by the northern-based Somali National Movement (SNM) after it had fought a successful insurgency against former President Muhammad Siyad Barre, whose government collapsed in January 1991.