Tension between regional Somali leaders may scuttle the peace talks in Kenya, mediators have warned as fighting continues in central Somalia. Some 13 people were killed and several others injured after inter-clan fighting over land and water in Hiirran region at the weekend.

The United Nations has launched a new socio-economic survey for Somalia, the first since the civil war broke out in 1991. Launched on Wednesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, it is the product of a joint initiative between the World Bank, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and several other UN agencies. Somalia is considered one of the poorest countries in the world, a situation aggravated by the civil war and the absence of a functioning national government for over a decade. According to the survey - also referred to as the "Somalia Watching Brief 2003" - 43 percent of Somalis live in extreme poverty with an income of $1 a day or less.

The stalled Somali peace talks, which were being held in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, have been given a new lease of life after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni saved them from collapse. After arriving in Nairobi on 8 January, Museveni, the current chairman of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), immediately held talks with the Somali leaders who were due to take part the next day in a retreat designed to revive the peace talks. He then went on to launch the retreat itself on Friday, an IGAD official told IRIN.

Rival militias battled over barren desert lands in central Somalia on Tuesday in fighting that killed at least 31 people and wounded 50 others, a spokesman for one of the militias said. The violence came as the U.N. Security Council called Tuesday for the creation of a monitoring group to investigate violations of the U.N. arms embargo against Somalia and make recommendations to strengthen it.

Members of the Somali leaders' committee attending peace talks in Kenya say they will reject the expansion of a proposed retreat for Somali leaders, one of the leaders told IRIN on Monday. The 10-day retreat is due to begin in Mombasa on 18 December and is expected to bring together most of the Somali leaders "to give them a chance to iron out outstanding issues and chart the way forward", said James Kiboi of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) technical committee, which is steering the talks.

Members of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC) attending peace talks in Kenya have called on the conference organisers not to allow a proposed retreat for Somali leaders to become a parallel conference. Col Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud, the current SRRC chairman, told IRIN that the Council welcomed any effort to move the peace process forward. "However we will not accept another conference," he said.

At least eight people were killed and over 10 wounded in heavy fighting which broke out in the southern coastal town of Marka, 100 km south of the capital Mogadishu, last week, according to local sources.

Hundreds of families who were driven out of their homes by recent fighting in the Galgudud Region, central Somalia, are said to be living in "destitute" conditions. Local elders told IRIN the exodus was due to heavy fighting two weeks ago between the Darod subclan of the Marehan and the Dir subclan of Fiqi Mahmud. The clashes were concentrated in and around the village of Herale, some 80 km northwest of Dhusa-Marreb, the regional capital.

Australia's Somali community in Melbourne appears divided on how it wants to deal with allegations of police racism and brutality. The Somali Community Association met with senior police this week to demand answers, after a 23-year-old Somali man alleged he was beaten up last month at Footscray police station in Melbourne's inner west.

Three days of heavy fighting in the northwest of Galgadud Region have left at least 50 people dead and over 150 wounded, local sources in the regional capital, Dusa-Mareb, told IRIN on Monday.

In Somalia, if parents do not take the initiative their children will not get an education. Only 17 per cent of school-age children attend school in this war-scarred country. Yet, in the small village of Bansofe, its 270 families banded together to make educating their children possible.

An Ethiopian camp for Somali refugees - once the largest of its kind in the world - will close by the end of the year, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It said in a statement on Friday that the closure of Hartishek camp, located in a semiarid area near the border with Somalia – would bring to an end "one of world's most tragic refugee cases".

The Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) provides a specialised news and information service designed to enhance the capacity of the international community to understand, respond to and avert humanitarian emergencies. In 2002, IRIN launched its Radio project, designed to strengthen universal access to impartial news and information, especially among conflict-affected and other vulnerable populations, through a cooperative partnership with community radio stations.

Hundreds of people are fleeing their homes and businesses in the southwestern town of Baidoa after heavy fighting broke out between rival factions of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA) which controls the area, local sources told IRIN on Thursday.

Organisers say the Somali peace talks underway in Kenya are on course, and contrary to reports, have not stalled. James Kiboi, a member of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) technical committee which is steering the talks, admitted that "some personalities are not at the talks", but that the proceedings were continuing.

The mood is joyful as a group of Somali women break into song and dance to crown Asha Abdi's decision to declare her interest in the presidency, the top job in the land. Asha, who is a delegate at the ongoing Somalia peace talks being held in Nairobi, Kenya, says she is looking forward to uniting her country, which has been embroiled in a bloody civil war since 1991.

The Somali leaders committee at peace talks currently underway in Kenya have dismissed a recent statement by the president of the Transitional National Government, (TNG) Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, rejecting the adoption of the interim constitution. In a press statement issued on 18 September, the leaders said that Abdiqassim made the statement "in his personal capacity and do not necessarily represent that of the Somali people since his term of office has officially ended on 12 August, 2003".

Peace talks intended to end more than a decade of violence and chaos in Somalia entered their final stage on Tuesday after delegates adopted a transitional charter, mediators said. The negotiations had been stalled for weeks because of disputes over what type of federal government best suited the troubled Horn of Africa nation, which has not had an effective central government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

The president of Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG), Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, and four prominent faction leaders met on Tuesday in Mogadishu to discuss the Somali peace talks currently underway in Kenya, one of the leaders told IRIN on Wednesday.

A UN-appointed independent expert on human rights for Somalia has said that appalling conditions in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) should be tackled urgently. Speaking at the end of an 11-day mission to Somalia, Dr Ghanim Alnajjar called on the international community, local authorities and civil society groups to address the issue, according to a press statement from the UN Resident & Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office for Somalia.