Puntland authorities have ordered the immediate closing of the weekly newspaper Shacab for allegedly inciting violence, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) sources. The decree, issued after a cabinet meeting on Thursday, cited the government's constitutional responsibility to uphold the unity of Puntland.

A blast that killed at least 15 people in a Mogadishu stadium during a speech by Somalia's transitional premier has raised concern even higher over the viability of ambitious peace and reconciliation plans for the war-shattered nation, analysts said Wednesday.

The old Somali adage, "A mother's purpose is to be a cook, laundrywoman, nurturer and wife to her husband," describes to some degree the traditional role of the women in Somaliland. That role was radically altered by the Somali civil war of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Traditionally, Somali men were the providers of their families' basic needs. However, when the civil war erupted, thousands of them were killed, maimed or exiled. In the aftermath of the war, the task of caring for the thousands of families in Somaliland fell to the women, who had to take on the dual role of father and mother in their homes.

The huge waves which battered northern Somalia after the tsunami in December are believed to have stirred up tonnes of nuclear and toxic waste illegally dumped in the war-racked country during the early 1990s. Apart from killing about 300 people and destroying thousands of homes, the waves broke up rusting barrels and other containers and hazardous waste dumped along the long, remote shoreline, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) said.

At least 13 people were reported killed in renewed inter-clan fighting in Hobyo district, Mudug region of central Somalia, sources told IRIN. At least 30 others were reported wounded, the sources added.

We are a Somali local organization called Somali Human Rights Action working in a central zone of Somalia. As a human rights organization for the last three years, we feel the need to say so much thanks for your continued support in knowledge and all that you have been to us. You have been so helpful to our growth, we express our heart-felt gratitude to you all. I also take the opportunity to all who have made us grow through you.

The interim Somali government, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is to relocate to the towns of Baidoa, 240 km southwest of the capital Mogadishu, and Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital, an official told IRIN on Tuesday. "The cabinet has decided that the government will temporarily relocate to Jowhar and Baidoa," Abdirahman Nur Dinari, a government spokesman, said. It would operate simultaneously from the two towns, he added.

As Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) embarks on a five-year plan to re-build the war-torn country after two years of peace talks and 14 years of state collapse, Amnesty International is making an urgent call for human rights to be made a priority. "Vital to the success of the transitional government and the establishment of the rule of law in Somalia will be to secure justice for victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity," said Kolawole Olaniyan, Director of the Africa Program of Amnesty International. "There must be an open and transparent process to start establishing the truth and responsibility for past crimes with a view to prosecutions once a competent and impartial justice system is in place."

The International Federation of Journalists has condemned the detention of Somali journalist Abdirisak Ahmed Absuge who was arrested 5 March by the authorities of the Middle Shebelle region. "The authorities should either release Absuge or charge him. They can not indiscriminately detain journalists without reason," said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. This latest event comes shortly after the murder of BBC journalist Kate Peyton which raised many concerns regarding the protection and safety of media professionals in Somalia.

As UNHCR prepares to close all but one of the eight refugee camps opened since 1990 to care for Somali refugees in eastern Ethiopia, Somali women and girls say they have profited from opportunities in the camps that they would never have had at home in their traditional, male-dominated society. The free education offered in UNHCR's refugee camps appears to be their top priority.

The topic of IGAD peacekeepers for Somalia is a controversial one here in Mogadishu. Many Somalis see this initiative as an attempt by Ethiopians to dominate in the Horn of Africa and form a renegade regime in Mogadishu. Recently Somalia’s government approved the deployment of at least 7500 troops to help restore law and order in a country shattered by years of civil war.

This plan was voted on at a cabinet meeting chaired by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in the Kenyan capital early this month, but it will have to be taken to the country’s parliament for final approval. The mission, which will be the first multinational force in Somalia since the end of a failed UN-mandated intervention in 1993, is expected to help install the country’s transitional government.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has earlier early warned of the deployment of troops from frontline states, adding that the decision taken by regional organisations to send troops to Somalia risks destabilising Somalia's fragile transitional government and jeopardising the peace process.

President Yusuf, elected last October, and his government led by Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi, have been based in Nairobi amid continued fears of instability in Somalia. However, early this month a delegation of parliamentarians and ministers of the Transitional Federal Government led by parliament speaker Shariif Hassan have visited Mogadishu to assess the security situation in the city.

On their return to Nairobi, Mr. Shariif told a parliament meeting that Mogadishu is where the government should settle. The decision will also depend upon a combination of political strategy and security calculations linked to the appointment of the cabinet and the possible deployment of African peace-keeping forces.

Mr. Yusuf and other officials have repeatedly said that they will one day return to Mogadishu since a number of foreign governments have flagged this as a key measure of the TFG. To disarm armed groups in Somalia will also be a hard task for the TFG to ensure, as leaders of all armed factions appear to be opposed to the recent call of Mr. Yusuf on disarmament.

The peace conference held in Kenya for Somalis has finally established a new government for the war-torn country. Somalia has been without central authority for nearly 14 years. Somalis at home and abroad are apparently tired of a ruthless 14 years of civil war, and have demonstrated their support for the new government.

Peaceful and impartial steps to campaign for national reconciliation in the entire country through broader participation from all areas of the Somali people must be a top priority of the government. It is required to do this by developing a reconciliation process to foster public support as the way forward.

At least 40 members of Somalia's interim government left the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Wednesday for various regions of Somalia to explain the new government's policies to the public, an official in prime minister Ali Mohammed Gedi's office said. The delegations, made up of five teams of ministers and members of parliament, were due to visit regions in southern and central Somalia.

African Rights has welcomed the release from prison of Zamzam Ahmed Dualeh, the 17-year old girl who was arrested in Hargeisa on August 15. She was sentenced to five years in prison after a grossly unfair trial in which she was forced to defend herself because her lawyers had been detained. The move comes some weeks after President Dahir Rayale stated, on the Somali Service of the BBC, that he was ready to pardon her if Zamzam and her mother submitted a petition for a presidential pardon. As previously detailed by African Rights, Zamzam was detained on charges that she was part of a conspiracy to murder Somaliland's Vice-President, Ahmed Yusuf Yassin, and that she had acted at the behest of men based in neighbouring Puntland.

The decision by African regional organisations to send troops to Somalia risks destabilising Somalia's fragile transitional institutions and jeopardising the peace process. At an emergency session of the African Union Peace and Security Council in Addis Ababa last week, the Horn of Africa inter-governmental organisation IGAD received the green light to send 7,500 troops in response to a request from Somalia's interim President to help him return to the country and disarm its warring factions. The Somali transitional government is deeply internally divided over the issue, and the parliament has not yet approved any foreign military deployment. Various Somali leaders and groups have threatened to oppose such an intervention by force.

The shooting of a British journalist working for the BBC by unidentified gunmen outside her hotel in the capital of Somalia has the hallmarks of a targeted attack that threatens all media staff working in the country, warned the International Federation of Journalists. Kate Peyton, 39, a producer based in Johannesburg, was taken to the Madina hospital in Mogadishu for an operation to remove a bullet wound to her back but later died of internal bleeding. The circumstances surrounding the incident remain unclear, but according to local reports Peyton was entering the Hotel Sahafi when two masked men drove by in a taxi and shot her in the shoulder.

A UN-appointed expert, just back from a 13-day mission to Somalia, is urging the new government to investigate and prosecute crimes committed during the country's 13-year-old civil war. The United Nations' independent expert on Somalia, Ghanim Alnajjar, told reporters in Nairobi Monday reconciliation will never happen in Somalia unless past crimes are dealt with and human rights in general are respected.

The head of security for Middle Shabelle region, who is also the brother of local chief Mohamed Omar Habeb, authorised journalist Abdiqani Sheik Mohamed to return to work on 3 February 2005, the local press freedom group Somali Journalists Network (SOJON) told Reporters sans frontières (RSF). The journalist, formerly of the privately-owned station Radio Banadir, had been living in internal exile in Mogadishu, in precarious circumstances, since a decree issued on 27 September 2004 banned him from "practicing his profession." (Fench version included)

A carnival mood enveloped Somalia's capital city of Mogadishu as the speaker of the Somali Transitional Federal parliament, Mr Sharif Hassan Aden, alongside 80 MPs were welcomed with pomp and glory on arrival from Nairobi. Business premises were closed as thousands of Somali people thronged the 18 km stretch from the Danile airstrip to the town centre.

A member of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, currently based in Nairobi, Kenya, has denied reports of a split within the government over the deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops and relocation to the Somali capital, Mogadishu. "I am not aware of any such split," Aden Ibbi Abdirahman, the state minister for parliamentary relations, told IRIN on Monday. He was reacting to reports in local Somali media.

Hugh McCullum, who covered part of the civil war from Mogadishu in the mid-1990s, outlines the recent history of chaos and warlordism in Somalia and weighs the slim possibility that the present attempt at legitimate government will succeed, since those same warlords have key roles in it. The article also shows the commentary and debate which arose after the article was released.