Direct flights to Somaliland launched
Travelling to Somaliland is now easier with the launch of direct flights to the city of Hargeisa in the country by East African Safari Air Express.
This follows the signing of a bilateral trade agreement between the airline and the Government of Somaliland last year.
However, no bilateral agreements have been put in place between the Kenyan government and the country
The firm will be operating scheduled flights twice a week, on Tuesday and Saturday’s.
Mr Hussein Ali Duale, minister of Finance of Somaliland, said this is bound to open the country to trade from the East African Community.
The two-hour flight from JKIA cuts down on a tedious 12-hour journey of connecting flights.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates appeal for help
British couple kidnapped byPlease help us, these people are not treating us well," said Mrs Chandler, speaking to a photographer from the AFP news agency who accompanied the doctor on his visit. "I'm old, I'm 56 and my husband is 60 years old. We need to be together because we have not much time left."
The couple have been held apart in pirate camps in several locations in Somalia since they were captured on their yacht, the Lynn Rival, on Oct 23.
The doctor, Mohamed Helmi Hangul, said Mrs Chandler was in poor health.
"She is sick, she is very anxious, she suffers from insomnia," he said, adding she appeared "disorientated".
The pair are being held between the coastal village of Elhur and the small town of Amara, further inland. They are guarded by pirates armed with assault rifles.
Mr Chandler was said to be in better health than his wife but admitted the conditions of their separate detention were difficult.
"Please help us, we have nobody to help us, we have no children ... We have been in captivity for 98 days and we are not in good condition," he said.
The doctor said Mr Chandler "had a bad cough and seemed to have some fever".
Mr Chandler said in a telephone interview with ITV News on Jan 21 his captors had "lost patience".
Somali pirates appeal for help
Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates from their yacht in the Indian Ocean, said they are not being treated well and need urgent help.
The couple have been held apart in pirate camps in several locations in Somalia since they were captured on their yacht, the Lynn Rival, on Oct 23.
The doctor, Mohamed Helmi Hangul, said Mrs Chandler was in poor health.
"She is sick, she is very anxious, she suffers from insomnia," he said, adding she appeared "disorientated".
The pair are being held between the coastal village of Elhur and the small town of Amara, further inland. They are guarded by pirates armed with assault rifles.
Mr Chandler was said to be in better health than his wife but admitted the conditions of their separate detention were difficult.
"Please help us, we have nobody to help us, we have no children ... We have been in captivity for 98 days and we are not in good condition," he said.
The doctor said Mr Chandler "had a bad cough and seemed to have some fever".
Mr Chandler said in a telephone interview with ITV News on Jan 21 his captors had "lost patience".
Somali pirates appeal for help
Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates from their yacht in the Indian Ocean, said they are not being treated well and need urgent help.
Friday, January 29, 2010
15 Somalis dead as Islamist attacks spark fighting
15 Somalis dead as Islamist attacks spark fighting
PHOTOS
15 Somalis dead as Islamist attacks spark fighting
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
The Associated Press
Friday, January 29, 2010; 10:18 AM
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Somali insurgents sparked the heaviest day of fighting in the capital in months Friday, launching simultaneous attacks on government forces and peacekeepers that killed at least 15 people, residents and a medical official said.
A spokesman for the Islamic insurgency said the early morning attacks on multiple government bases and African Union peacekeeping troops were a response to a plan for peacekeepers and the government to wrest back control of Mogadishu.
"The fighting was a response to the so-called government and the (African Union peacekeepers) trying to intimidate us by saying that they will take control of the whole capital," Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage said.
Friday's attacks come a few days before the first anniversary of President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed's government. At the time it was hoped that the election of Ahmed, a former Islamist, would drain support from the insurgency. But the weak and divided administration has not proved able to deliver either security or services to the population.
Italy and the African Union have recently criticized the world's governments for not honoring their pledges to fund Somalia's fledging security forces, which would help them offer a measure of security.
In April, donors pledged more than $250 million to fund the AU peacekeeping force for a year and the government's security force. But by year's end only 30 percent had been disbursed, Italian and AU diplomats have said.
Somalia has not had an effective central government for 19 years, during which time all institutions that existed have crumbled and the government has limited sources of income of its own.
The U.N.-backed government currently only controls a few city blocks and only the presence of about 5,100 foreign peacekeepers keeps it from being overrun altogether. The government has been planning for months to try to retake control of the capital, where Islamists openly hold courts and carry out punishments that include amputations and executions.
The U.S. State Department says some of the Islamists are linked to al-Qaida, and experts say a few hundred foreign fighters have joined the Islamist insurgency. But it is unclear how much influence the foreigners or al-Qaida have over the insurgency, which is an uneasy alliance of factions with different objectives.
Ali Muse, the head of the ambulance service in Mogadishu, said more than 30 people were wounded in Friday's fighting. Women and children were among 15 people killed, he added.
Rage said they lost two fighters and killed several on the other side. It was unclear whether the Islamist dead had been counted by Muse. Islamist fighters often wear civilian clothes.
Somali police spokesman Col. Abdullahi Hassan Barise says Somali forces beat back the insurgents and that the attacks did not appear particularly serious. The AU peacekeeping mission spokesman Barigye Bahoku said that al-Shabab fighters attacked them and they defended themselves. He said the AU did not suffer any casualties.
Local residents, though, said it was the most serious single day's fighting since August.
"Artillery exchanges and automatic weapons fire echoed in all parts of the city from the north to the south just after midnight, creating new fear that the fighting was at its most intense for almost six months," said resident Iise Shekh Jama.
"It was the worst fighting we have seen for months. Mortars and stray bullets were raining down into the residential areas killing civilians. I cowered all night in our room with my kids and wife," said Aden Muse, a resident in Mogadishu's southern Medina neighborhood.
Rage says the insurgents attacked seven locations in Mogadishu. Eyewitness Haji Ibrahim Omar said one of the places attacked was a major peacekeeping base at a junction linking the port and airport, where he said AU troops used tanks to fend off the attack.
The AU has used tanks in the Somali capital before. On July 12, they drove the insurgents out of a major Somali neighborhood following months of fighting. That battle forced the insurgents to abandon their attempt to take control of Mogadishu and return to hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings.
The use of heavy weapons in civilian areas also illustrates the dilemma facing the peacekeepers: They can use their tanks and mortars to outgun the Islamists, but doing so often causes civilian casualties that may turn the population against them, making it difficult to hold territory they have taken.
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Associated Press Writer Mohamed Sheikh Nor in Mogadishu contributed to this report.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The billionth African
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Some time last year, in all probability, the "billionth African" was born, a milestone that will only benefit the poorest continent if it can get its act together and unify its piecemeal markets
Nobody knows, of course, when or where in its 53 countries the child arrived to push Africa's population into 10 figures. The U.N. merely estimates that in mid-2008 there were 987 million people, and in mid-2009, 1,010 million.
Given the difficulties of obtaining accurate data from the likes of Nigeria, where provincial population figures are often hostage to the ambitions of local politicians, or any data at all from the likes of Somalia, experts are reluctant to hazard any greater degree of accuracy.
There is less doubt, however, about the underlying trend -- that Africa's population is set to grow faster than in any other part of the world in the coming decades, and to double by 2050. "Despite the fact we have these huge populations in China and India, the actual growth of the population will be much more in Africa than in Asia," said Gerhard Heilig, head of the U.N.'s Population Estimates and Projections Section.
The statistics naturally invite comparisons to the Asian giants, and inspire hopes of a flood of investment from Africans and outsiders to meet the needs of a continent likely to be home to one in five people by the middle of this century.
By contrast, China's projected population of 1.4 billion in 40 years will be shrinking, while India will only be adding an annual 3 million to its 1.6 billion people. The prominence given to Africa at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland suggests the potential of a vast and young African population is not lost on some at the pinnacle of global commerce. But to many others, the numbers are stark reminders of the mammoth task Africa's leaders face in providing the food, jobs, schools, housing and healthcare that are still so sorely lacking.
UNFPA, the U.N.'s population arm, summarizes by saying that sub-Saharan Africa faces "serious political, economic and social challenges" and points to the last two decades as evidence that more people does not mean more wealth. "Twenty years of almost 3 percent annual population growth has outpaced economic gains, leaving Africans, on average, 22 percent poorer than they were in the mid-1970s," it says.
"UNITED STATES OF AFRICA"?
From 2003 to 2008, Africa experienced an unprecedented boom due to a mixture of debt forgiveness, free market reforms and soaring commodity prices that lifted annual output by five percent or more -- crucially outpacing population growth. That came to a juddering halt with this year's global economic slump, but the International Monetary Fund is forecasting African growth at 4.0 percent for 2010, against 1.7 percent for 2009.
If it can sustain this, and consolidate its patchwork of small countries and 30 overlapping trade blocs into a single, huge market, Africa has a chance of unlocking the 'demographic dividend' that sucked investment into India and China, dramatically raising productivity, analysts say.
"If that doesn't work, the demographic dividend is off. It'll just be a lot of small, unsustainable states competing against each other, as we've seen for the last 50 years," said Patrick Smith, editor of Africa Confidential magazine.
Pan-Africanism, including even a 'United States of Africa', has been a rallying cry since the continent started to shake off its colonial shackles in the 1950s and 1960s. The reality, however, has seldom matched the rhetoric as first the polarizing framework of the Cold War and then short-term national self-interest hampered growth in cross-border trade, investment and political cooperation.
Today, intra-regional trade accounts for just 9 percent of Africa's total commerce, compared to nearly 50 percent for emerging Asia, according to U.N. trade body UNCTAD.
However, there are signs this might be changing, most notably with an agreement last year by three major blocs -- the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community -- to create a single free trade zone encompassing 530 million people.
Implementation will inevitably hit snags and delays, but at a practical level, everything from more cross-border bus routes to electricity lines and regional 'power pools' all point to closer regulatory and political alignment. "It's not just a political slogan now. There are some actual actions," said UNCTAD Africa specialist Janvier Nkurunziza.
SOUTH AFRICA SETS THE TONE
Set against this new political will, however, is the sheer scale of the investment needed to address Africa's problems. The World Bank's International Finance Corporation estimates that Africa spends only $10 billion a year on upgrading its dilapidated electricity grids -- compared to $40 billion needed to meet demand forecast to treble in the next 20 years.
Similarly, sub-Saharan Africa needs to invest $11 billion a year in farming to feed the extra mouths in 2050, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization said this month. And even if they secure the cash, leaders need only look at relatively wealthy South Africa, where millions of blacks still live -- and frequently riot -- in shanty towns 15 years after the end of apartheid, to realize that rolling out infrastructure on a grand scale is far from simple.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sweden rattled by Somali militants in its midst
 | Abadirh Abdi Hussein, a 25-year-old hip hop artist known by his stage name "Kadafi" stands at the entrance to a square in Rinkeby, an largely immigrant suburb on the outskirts of Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday Jan. 22, 2010. Hussein has become the best known Somali in Rinkeby because of his campaign to counter radical Islamic extremists, who he says are recruiting young members of Somali immigrant families in the Rinkeby area, for a bloody insurgency war against Somalia's government, in the Horn of Africa. (AP Photo / Karl Ritter) |
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STOCKHOLM—Ten subway stops from downtown Stockholm is "little Mogadishu," a drab suburb of the Swedish capital where radical Islamists are said to be recruiting the sons of Somali immigrants for jihad in the Horn of Africa.
Police and residents say about 20 have joined al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked group waging a bloody insurgency against Somalia's government, and many of them came from the suburb of Rinkeby -- the heart of Sweden's Somali community. According to SAPO, the Swedish state security police, five of them have been killed and 10 are still at large in Somalia.
The issue has gained notice at a time of worsening fears of Islamic radicalism in the Scandinavian countries, home to more than 40,000 Somalis who have fled their war-ravaged homeland. These fears sharpened with the Jan. 1 attack by a Somali immigrant in Denmark on a cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.
"It's a small group but they have power," said Abadirh Abdi Hussein, a 25-year-old hip-hop artist and "110-percent Muslim" who has become the best known Somali in Rinkeby because of his campaign to counter al-Shabab's influence. "People don't speak up against them. They don't dare."
Al-Shabab, which wants to install strict Islam in Somalia, controls much of the desert nation's southern region and large parts of the capital. Intelligence officials say it is recruiting foreign fighters, including from the Somali diaspora in Europe and North America. U.S. authorities say as many as 20 recruits have left Minnesota.
In Sweden, police say they can do little to stop them leaving for Somalia unless they can prove that they are conspiring to commit terrorism. Unlike the U.S., Sweden has not put al-Shabab on any terrorism list.
"Legally you can't prosecute anyone, neither the youth nor those who urged them to go," said Johnny Lindh, police superintendent in the precinct that includes Rinkeby.
Lindh said police have been in touch with several devastated parents who said their sons secretly joined al-Shabab and traveled to Somalia without telling their families.
A 24-year-old Rinkeby resident, who came to Sweden with his family in 1991, and who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone, said his uncle was with a group that left Rinkeby in mid-2008. According to the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his family's safety, the uncle said that he was traveling within Sweden and would only be gone a few weeks.
Speaking in Swedish, the man said that he, too, was approached repeatedly by an al-Shabab recruiting agent, but turned him down.
"He used to ask, like, 'have you ever thought about the way things are in Somalia? Do you want to help?' You knew what he was getting at: jihad," he said.Continued...
Press Release: A Word of Appreciation to Amoud Foundation
Press Release: A Word of Appreciation to Amoud Foundation
ARDAA is a non-profit, community-based umbrella organization established in 2007 in North America to support socio-economic development projects in the Adal regions, coordinate resources and efforts through fundraising, training, capacity building, leadership development, public relations and advocacy.
ARDAA congratulates the Board of Directors, volunteers, donors and the other stakeholders of Amoud Foundation for the establishment of Al-Hayatt Hospital in Borama. This remarkable achievement is the result of hardworking group of individuals from Amoud Foundation with a vision for development, philanthropy, and nurturing of human capital. Al-Hayatt Hospital, which is a state-of-the art facility, will provide modern health care services to the communities not only in Somaliland but in the entire Horn of Africa. It will also be a teaching hospital with the capacity to engage in research and development in tropical diseases under the auspices and sound management of the Faculty of Medicine at Amoud University.
“This is another milestone project delivered by a competent and caring sister organization, Amoud Foundation, to the community we hail from”, said Ibrahim Absiye, President of ARDAA. “Al-Hayatt Hospital, operated by Amoud University, is a dream come true, and on behalf of the entire ARDAA family, I congratulate the Board of Directors of Amoud Foundation for this first-of-its kind institution in the region, and thank them for a job well done”, Mr. Absiye added.
“Amoud Foundation leadership has done it again by constructing one of the best health care institutions in Somaliland, Al-Hayatt Hospital, and transferring its management to the best medical faculties in the country, Amoud University and staffed by doctors from the Adal community”, said Mahamud Abdillahi Iman (Qame), ARDAA Vice President for Social Planning and Development. Mahamud praised the role of the local doctors and the leadership of the university. “We are proud of the ability and capacity of our physicians as well as the wise and responsible leadership of the faculty of medicine and the whole university staff. This combination will ensure the success of the hospital and serve the community using modern technology and very well trained hands, graduates of Amoud University”, Qame explained.
We, at ARDAA, would like to encourage Amoud Foundation and Amoud University to continue their leadership and strategic investments in our community. We congratulate them for this noble achievement and look forward to working with both institutions for the betterment of the community.
ARDAA Public Relations and Communications Committee
Please visit us at www.ardaa.org
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Published 1/19/2010
Return To Article
US and Western European political leaders have begun to focus on Yemen as a source of projected instability and as a haven for jihadist terrorism against the West.
This simplistic and overly narrow view has largely been a reaction to media reporting of the links of alleged (and unsuccessful) Nigerian-born terrorist bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to a radical Yemeni group, and to intense ongoing fighting between insurgents and Yemeni and Saudi government forces on the Yemen-Saudi border.
The reality is far more complex and far-reaching.
The situation has a long history which has been ignored — or which has lacked priority — as far as Western intelligence services have been concerned. The current reaction has been one in which the US and UK leaderships, in particular, have merely elected to follow the media outrage over the alleged links between Abdulmutallab and “al-Qaida” training camps in Yemen . However, there is a contextual and vitally-linked pattern of activities and competition which engages, among others, Iran , Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, Russia , Egypt , Eritrea , Ethiopia , Somalia , Somaliland , Yemen , Djibouti , Libya , and others.
Western states and the great Asian trading states are essentially unable, or unwilling, to enter comprehensively into the matrix, and have elected, almost as a distraction, to focus on current, specific factors, such as the “presence of al-Qaida” in Yemen . And even in that regard, there is a clear inability of the US , or UK , for example, to surgically deal even with the narrow problem which they have identified as being “terrorist training” in Yemen .
This overall complex is, moreover, intrinsically linked to the longer-term security and control of the Red Sea/Suez Canal sea lanes which are critical to global trade.
Within just the Yemen Republic context, to a significant extent, the challenges now facing Pres. ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Saleh are a culmination of issues, which center around:
(i) Pres. Saleh’s longstanding corruption, and in particular his links with Somalian and Puntland leaders to the significant detriment of long-term Red Sea security and Western (and other) interests;
(ii) Iran ’s active engagement in financing Shi’a and Sunni jihadist and rebel activities in Yemen and along its border inside Saudi Arabia ; and(iii) The shared decision by Yemeni, Saudi, and Egyptian leaders (supported by Libya ) to isolate the Republic of Somaliland . This situation has favored the ongoing corrupt business activities of Pres. Saleh and his Puntland Somalian friend, Col. Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed, former President of both the self-proclaimed Puntland region (which he “founded” as a quasi-independent state within Somalia) and of Somalia itself.
Linked with all of this is the question of the chronic instability in the recently-created state of Eritrea . Eritrea is supported by Egypt, Israel, and some Arab states, for different motives, including Egypt’s desire to use Eritrea to constrain and contain Ethiopia, which Egypt sees as a potential regional threat (because of Ethiopia’s control of the headwaters of the Blue Nile, which is Egypt’s lifeline). Eritrean Pres. Isayas Afewerke, already locked into a power struggle with Ethiopia and particularly with Ethiopian Prime Minister (and Isayas’ former ally) Meles Zenawi, has been happy to work with Libyan leader Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi to fund a range of terrorist activities against Ethiopia, potentially leading to a renewal in 2010 of conventional war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The forthcoming and pivotal May 2010 Ethiopian Parliamentary elections may be a trigger point for revived Eritrean conflict with Ethiopia, and Eritrea has already — in January 2010 — begun brief military incursions into Ethiopia and has been transporting clandestine supplies of weapons and explosives into the heart of Ethiopia, even into the capital, Addis Ababa, for use by anti-government forces sponsored by Eritrea.
That is part of the current context to be borne in mind when looking at Yemen itself, and the position of Yemen Pres. Saleh.
The Western media gained a hint of Pres. Saleh’s longstanding linkage with Puntland when, during Yussuf’s Presidency of Somalia in November 2008, a Yemeni ship captured by pirates was suddenly freed without ransom being paid. Significantly, most of the pirates operating off the Horn of Africa are from Puntland, and, following the collapse of Somalia into civil war, the Somalian fishing fleet fled the Somalia coast for safe-haven in Yemen . There, however, it was impounded by Pres. Saleh. Pres. Saleh’s son, and the son of former Somalian/Puntland Pres. Yussuf, now jointly own and run that fleet of fishing vessels, among their other joint enterprises.
Former Pres. Yussuf — who, as “President” of Puntland, conducted frequent raids and terrorist operations against the neighboring Republic of Somaliland — is now a guest of Pres. Saleh, living in exile in Yemen . Not surprisingly, Yemen has shown considerable solidarity with Egypt in maintaining both an Arab League and African Union boycott on trade with Somaliland, ending millennia of cross-Red Sea trade in hides and other materials, and in the recognition of Somaliland as the sovereign entity which historical and legal precedence shows it to be.
But in the overall situation, at its heart, Egypt, Saudi Arabia (and the Persian Gulf emirates, and Iran are engaged in an attempt to dominate the Red Sea, which is vital in various ways and in varying degrees to their national survival. Much of the trade viability of the Persian Gulf is linked with the ability to utilize the Red Sea/Suez SLOC.
Within the context of this competition between the Arabian Peninsula states and Iran over the Red Sea is the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia (and now Yemen ) for control of much of the Arabian Peninsula itself, as outlined in the November 17, 2009, report by Yossef Bodansky on Iranian involvement in the declaration by Saudi Shi’a clerics of the “ Republic of Eastern Arabia ”. And also engaged in this competition is Israel , itself a Red Sea and Indian Ocean state by virtue of its sea frontage on the Gulf of Aqaba and its projection of naval power into the Indian Ocean .
Iran has long been a major sponsor of Islamist insurgent and tribal groups in Somalia , regardless of whether these groups have been Sunni or Shi’a Muslims. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has attempted to compete for regional influence in the Horn by funding a massive proselytization of Ethiopians, to increase the numbers of Muslims over the historically Orthodox Christians there, in stark disavowal of the Prophet Mohammed’s strict injunction that Ethiopians should not be attacked or forced to convert to Islam because of the refuge and respect which an Ethiopian king — the King of Axum — had given in 614 CE to some of Mohammed’s followers and to one of his wives when they were being pursued by Mohammed’s enemies.
Significantly, and to varying degrees, Iran , Egypt , and Saudi Arabia have allowed and even encouraged instability and division to occur along the Red Sea littoral — with regard to Eritrea , Yemen , and Sudan — in order to gain strategic leverage. Libya, long a Red Sea power aspirant (in order to gain leverage at Egypt’s rear, and over its Red Sea/Suez Canal seaway), has also pumped money and weapons into the Red Sea disputes, particularly in support of Eritrea and Somali elements opposed to Ethiopia. Libya , of course, demonstrated its ability to disrupt Red Sea/Suez sea traffic — to the massive detriment of Egypt and the trading states — when it used the mine-laying ship, Ghat, to drop floating mines in the Red Sea in 1984.
In the midst of all of this, Ethiopia is moving toward parliamentary elections in May 2010, and Eritrea and its allies ( Egypt , Libya , and others) have been stepping up military pressure on the Ethiopian border, and even shipping weapons and explosives clandestinely into Addis Ababa , the Ethiopian capital. It is not inconceivable that a significant military clash could occur between Ethiopia and Eritrea before the May 2010 Ethiopian elections.
Thus, it is not just Yemen , or even the Arabian Peninsula, which is under severe pressure from unrest and insurgency, but also the entire Horn of Africa, including Somalia , Somaliland (which has been able to hold the line thus far), Eritrea , and Sudan . And with this, the entire security of the Red Sea/Suez sea lines of communications (SLOCs), so vital to Asian, European, and Australasian trade, is also under threat.
What is also of significance in this is the fact that the Republic of Somaliland — one of the few areas of stability in the region — is not yet recognized by the international community even though it meets all of the legitimate criteria of sovereignty as determined by the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN). This situation is very much in the hands of Egypt, which — because of its fears over Ethiopia and the fact that Somaliland is a key transit access for Ethiopian trade — has refused to allow the AU or the Arab League to recognize Somaliland’s sovereignty, and the UN will not recognize a state until the regional body (in this case the AU) first recognizes it.
Eritrea’s historical source of revenue has been as a trading and entrepôt for Ethiopian imports and exports, and this was a natural rôle for it when it was a province of Ethiopia [for years Eritrea was known within the Ethiopian Empire as the Bar Negus: the Kingdom of the Sea. When Eritrea, independent from Ethiopia after the collapse of the Dergue in 1991, attempted to blackmail Ethiopia into accepting the new Eritrean currency, the nakfa (introduced November 1997), which was not internationally tradable, as payment for Ethiopian coffee for onward export — Eritrea, as a trader, was the fourth biggest coffee exporter in the world, based on through shipment of Ethiopian coffee — Ethiopia ceased trading through Eritrea.
Eritrean leader Isayas had not bargained on Ethiopia, landlocked following the loss of Eritrea, being able to trade through routes other than the Eritrean Red Sea port of Massawa and other lesser ports, and found Eritrea bankrupt when Ethiopia began trade through Djibouti, and subsequently Somaliland. Eritrea , almost overnight, became bankrupt, and Isayas faced the need to distract an increasingly hostile population.
This led to significant control of the Eritrean population (which continues today), and to the 1998-99 Eritrea-Ethiopia war, which, when concluded, failed to bring about a resumption of Ethiopian trade through Eritrean ports, leading to the continuing situation of desperation in Eritrea, and the likelihood of yet another conflict.
The situation is ultimately detrimental to Egypt , given that the isolation of Ethiopia (and Somaliland) actually contributes to the insolvency of Eritrea , which Egypt (and others) have been using as a buffer to keep Ethiopia landlocked. The potential threat to Egypt’s Nile waters from Ethiopia is, in fact, not addressed by keeping Ethiopia landlocked, and nor is Egypt’s absolute strategic need for a stable Red Sea SLOC (leading to and from the Suez Canal) better guarded by having Ethiopia kept landlocked.
Within all of this, the US, and many other NATO states, along with Japan, Australia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and others, have committed major naval forces to the Red Sea/Horn of Africa region of the Indian Ocean in an attempt to suppress regional piracy, all of which (virtually) comes from Puntland and is supported by former Puntland/Somalia Pres. Yussuf, who is now a guest of Yemen Pres. Saleh. At no point have the NATO powers thought of addressing the piracy issue by tackling Yussuf and Saleh head-on, or through direct punitive attacks on the Puntland piracy havens.
Moreover, the US and the NATO states — as well as the other maritime powers now projecting naval force into the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa — have neither the resources nor will to deal decisively with the pirates in their land havens, the villages of Puntland, or with the Iranian- and salafist-backed insurgencies now underway on the Arabian Peninsula. Only France , with a significant history of sustaining forces in the region (particularly Djibouti ) has shown some real independence of action.
Thus, the advantage, strategically, remains with Iran , which is destabilizing the area through proxy forces. Much is being made of the so-called “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP), which claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on December 25, 2009, of US Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit .
Certainly, there is a link between Yemen — now the modern state encompassing the ancestral home of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden’s family — and the global al-Qaida phenomenon. The reality, however, is that al-Qaida, and bin Laden, although ostensibly salafist Sunnis, have long had distinct Iranian connections. Moreover, there is more than one group in Yemen and Saudi Arabia claiming to be part of al-Qaida. The Western fixation with categorizing and naming amorphous and transitory groups as though they were permanent and organized fixtures, based on their claims, leads to attempts to see the regional situation in black and white terms.
Within the Yemeni context, as well, is the continued rivalry between north and south, between the factions which once gravitated toward the control of Sana’a (and the former Yemen Arab Republic), and those which once gravitated toward the control of Aden and the old Arabian Sea (Gulf of Aden) sultanates. There were, in fact, nine sultanates which signed protectorate agreements with the United Kingdom in the early 20th Century to form the British Aden Protectorate, and, after several geopolitical transitions, and with the departure of the British from Aden, the area became the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY: South Yemen). The PDRY became a major Soviet proxy state, and attempted to project power against Saudi Arabia , and the Sultanate of Oman.
Then, the unified group under PDRY and Soviet control was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arab Gulf (PFLOAG), which conducted a major insurgency across the Omani border, into the Dhofar region, against the old Sultan of Muscat & Oman, Sultan Sa’id. This led to a major Cold War confrontation, with the British backing of Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id al-Said, who had overthrown his father. This was a protracted insurgency which Oman won. Significantly, Oman largely embraces a distinct form of Islam, the Khariji sect, which rejected both Sunni and Shi’ite formulas; the Ibadi branch of the Kharijites became (in the Prophet Mohammed’s lifetime) Oman ’s official religion, making it the only Kharijite country in Islam.
The geopolitical importance of Oman should not be overlooked, despite the fact that the country and the Sultan have been quiet during the current crises: Oman controls the southern shore of the Strait of Hormuz and a vital part of the Arabian Sea coastline.
It is not insignificant that the new — and cautious — Iranian-Russian alliance is jointly and severally interested in projecting power deep into the Indian Ocean and through the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Russia ’s historical involvement (as the USSR ) in the PDRY (and to a lesser extent the YAR), and in Somalia have not been forgotten. Neither has Iran ’s military involvement during the 1970s in support of Oman against the PDRY — the Shah and Sultan Qaboos cooperated closely — been forgotten in Tehran . Further, the historical links across the Strait of Hormuz are profound: Baluchistan, now divided between Pakistan , Afghanistan, and Iran, was once Omani territory.
These are all links which are of profound significance, and yet they are unrecognized by current analysts who insist on dividing consideration of conflict and political phenomena along the lines of modern nation-state boundaries.
Iran ’s determination to proceed with its proxy drive into the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea has been compounded by the declining ability and will of the US to sustain its position in the region, and by the strength and cooperation of the new alliance with Russia . Clearly, Russia and Iran remain cautious of each other, but have mutual objectives at this point, and a history of seeking influence over the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea/Horn.
As Holy Roman Emperor Charles V said of the French King, Francis I, in the 16th Century: “My cousin and I are in complete agreement: We both want Milan.”
Clearly, the Yemen/Red Sea/Horn of Africa/Arabian Peninsula situation cannot be divorced from the Northern Tier — the area including Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and so on. Attempts by Western media and policymakers to treat the Yemen situation as separate, and a “new theater”, once again ignore the complex integration and internally competitive dynamic of the entire region. Bearing in mind the Iranian southward projection, and Pakistan’s rôle as a key littoral maritime player in the Arabian Sea (and key partner in the US-dominated Combined Naval Task Forces (CTF) 151, the joint statement issued by the Iranian, Afghanistan, and Pakistan governments on January 16, 2010, was instructive. It said that, as the Xinhua news agency report of that date noted, “ Afghanistan , Iran and Pakistan affirm that the three countries bear a shared and common responsibility for security and stability in the region, and reaffirmed the commitment to playing their due rôle in the reconstruction of Afghanistan .”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on January 16, 2010, that Afghanistan , Iran and Pakistan were the most important neighbors for establishing peace and stability in Afghanistan , adding that peace in Afghanistan meant peace in the region. Minister Qureshi said that the Islamabad trilateral meeting decided to move forward in line with the tripartite summit in Tehran in 2009 to adopt regional approach to find out solution to problems in the region. He said that intelligence chiefs of the three countries will also meet in Tehran soon to discuss cooperation in intelligence sharing.
All of this is reflective of the changing fortunes of the great powers in the region. Power vacuums, or perceived vacuums, lead to surges by other aspirant powers. That is what is now happening in what this writer has termed “the North-West Quadrant of the Indian Ocean”, which includes the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden , and the Red Sea/Gulf of Aqaba/Suez. Additionally, all the action in this neighborhood has a hugely important global impact on the transportation of oil and gas and the VLCC tankers that carry the assets.
There is a great deal of shuffling which is reminiscent of the beginning of the 1960s, and the British withdrawal orchestrated by socialist Prime Minister Harold Wilson, a process which led to the Soviet surge into South Yemen and the Horn of Africa. The local players have no option but to try to rebuild their security in the knowledge that their superpower allies — in this case, the US — may not offer security support into the future.
First published at: http://www.oilprice.com/article-media-and-political-hysteria-over-yemen-hides-broader-deeper-strategic-matrix-of-long-term-importance.html
This article was written by Gregory R. Copley for the OilPrice.com Free Market Intelligence Report which focuses on Big Picture Geopolitical analysis, Investment Trend Spotting, Risk management and “Real News.” To find out more visit: http://www.oilprice.com/Market-Intelligence-Report.php.
US and Western European political leaders have begun to focus on Yemen as a source of projected instability and as a haven for jihadist terrorism against the West.
This simplistic and overly narrow view has largely been a reaction to media reporting of the links of alleged (and unsuccessful) Nigerian-born terrorist bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to a radical Yemeni group, and to intense ongoing fighting between insurgents and Yemeni and Saudi government forces on the Yemen-Saudi border.
The reality is far more complex and far-reaching.
The situation has a long history which has been ignored — or which has lacked priority — as far as Western intelligence services have been concerned. The current reaction has been one in which the US and UK leaderships, in particular, have merely elected to follow the media outrage over the alleged links between Abdulmutallab and “al-Qaida” training camps in Yemen . However, there is a contextual and vitally-linked pattern of activities and competition which engages, among others, Iran , Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, Russia , Egypt , Eritrea , Ethiopia , Somalia , Somaliland , Yemen , Djibouti , Libya , and others.
Western states and the great Asian trading states are essentially unable, or unwilling, to enter comprehensively into the matrix, and have elected, almost as a distraction, to focus on current, specific factors, such as the “presence of al-Qaida” in Yemen . And even in that regard, there is a clear inability of the US , or UK , for example, to surgically deal even with the narrow problem which they have identified as being “terrorist training” in Yemen .
This overall complex is, moreover, intrinsically linked to the longer-term security and control of the Red Sea/Suez Canal sea lanes which are critical to global trade.
Within just the Yemen Republic context, to a significant extent, the challenges now facing Pres. ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Saleh are a culmination of issues, which center around:
(i) Pres. Saleh’s longstanding corruption, and in particular his links with Somalian and Puntland leaders to the significant detriment of long-term Red Sea security and Western (and other) interests;
(ii) Iran ’s active engagement in financing Shi’a and Sunni jihadist and rebel activities in Yemen and along its border inside Saudi Arabia ; and(iii) The shared decision by Yemeni, Saudi, and Egyptian leaders (supported by Libya ) to isolate the Republic of Somaliland . This situation has favored the ongoing corrupt business activities of Pres. Saleh and his Puntland Somalian friend, Col. Abdullahi Yussuf Ahmed, former President of both the self-proclaimed Puntland region (which he “founded” as a quasi-independent state within Somalia) and of Somalia itself.
Linked with all of this is the question of the chronic instability in the recently-created state of Eritrea . Eritrea is supported by Egypt, Israel, and some Arab states, for different motives, including Egypt’s desire to use Eritrea to constrain and contain Ethiopia, which Egypt sees as a potential regional threat (because of Ethiopia’s control of the headwaters of the Blue Nile, which is Egypt’s lifeline). Eritrean Pres. Isayas Afewerke, already locked into a power struggle with Ethiopia and particularly with Ethiopian Prime Minister (and Isayas’ former ally) Meles Zenawi, has been happy to work with Libyan leader Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi to fund a range of terrorist activities against Ethiopia, potentially leading to a renewal in 2010 of conventional war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The forthcoming and pivotal May 2010 Ethiopian Parliamentary elections may be a trigger point for revived Eritrean conflict with Ethiopia, and Eritrea has already — in January 2010 — begun brief military incursions into Ethiopia and has been transporting clandestine supplies of weapons and explosives into the heart of Ethiopia, even into the capital, Addis Ababa, for use by anti-government forces sponsored by Eritrea.
That is part of the current context to be borne in mind when looking at Yemen itself, and the position of Yemen Pres. Saleh.
The Western media gained a hint of Pres. Saleh’s longstanding linkage with Puntland when, during Yussuf’s Presidency of Somalia in November 2008, a Yemeni ship captured by pirates was suddenly freed without ransom being paid. Significantly, most of the pirates operating off the Horn of Africa are from Puntland, and, following the collapse of Somalia into civil war, the Somalian fishing fleet fled the Somalia coast for safe-haven in Yemen . There, however, it was impounded by Pres. Saleh. Pres. Saleh’s son, and the son of former Somalian/Puntland Pres. Yussuf, now jointly own and run that fleet of fishing vessels, among their other joint enterprises.
Former Pres. Yussuf — who, as “President” of Puntland, conducted frequent raids and terrorist operations against the neighboring Republic of Somaliland — is now a guest of Pres. Saleh, living in exile in Yemen . Not surprisingly, Yemen has shown considerable solidarity with Egypt in maintaining both an Arab League and African Union boycott on trade with Somaliland, ending millennia of cross-Red Sea trade in hides and other materials, and in the recognition of Somaliland as the sovereign entity which historical and legal precedence shows it to be.
But in the overall situation, at its heart, Egypt, Saudi Arabia (and the Persian Gulf emirates, and Iran are engaged in an attempt to dominate the Red Sea, which is vital in various ways and in varying degrees to their national survival. Much of the trade viability of the Persian Gulf is linked with the ability to utilize the Red Sea/Suez SLOC.
Within the context of this competition between the Arabian Peninsula states and Iran over the Red Sea is the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia (and now Yemen ) for control of much of the Arabian Peninsula itself, as outlined in the November 17, 2009, report by Yossef Bodansky on Iranian involvement in the declaration by Saudi Shi’a clerics of the “ Republic of Eastern Arabia ”. And also engaged in this competition is Israel , itself a Red Sea and Indian Ocean state by virtue of its sea frontage on the Gulf of Aqaba and its projection of naval power into the Indian Ocean .
Iran has long been a major sponsor of Islamist insurgent and tribal groups in Somalia , regardless of whether these groups have been Sunni or Shi’a Muslims. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has attempted to compete for regional influence in the Horn by funding a massive proselytization of Ethiopians, to increase the numbers of Muslims over the historically Orthodox Christians there, in stark disavowal of the Prophet Mohammed’s strict injunction that Ethiopians should not be attacked or forced to convert to Islam because of the refuge and respect which an Ethiopian king — the King of Axum — had given in 614 CE to some of Mohammed’s followers and to one of his wives when they were being pursued by Mohammed’s enemies.
Significantly, and to varying degrees, Iran , Egypt , and Saudi Arabia have allowed and even encouraged instability and division to occur along the Red Sea littoral — with regard to Eritrea , Yemen , and Sudan — in order to gain strategic leverage. Libya, long a Red Sea power aspirant (in order to gain leverage at Egypt’s rear, and over its Red Sea/Suez Canal seaway), has also pumped money and weapons into the Red Sea disputes, particularly in support of Eritrea and Somali elements opposed to Ethiopia. Libya , of course, demonstrated its ability to disrupt Red Sea/Suez sea traffic — to the massive detriment of Egypt and the trading states — when it used the mine-laying ship, Ghat, to drop floating mines in the Red Sea in 1984.
In the midst of all of this, Ethiopia is moving toward parliamentary elections in May 2010, and Eritrea and its allies ( Egypt , Libya , and others) have been stepping up military pressure on the Ethiopian border, and even shipping weapons and explosives clandestinely into Addis Ababa , the Ethiopian capital. It is not inconceivable that a significant military clash could occur between Ethiopia and Eritrea before the May 2010 Ethiopian elections.
Thus, it is not just Yemen , or even the Arabian Peninsula, which is under severe pressure from unrest and insurgency, but also the entire Horn of Africa, including Somalia , Somaliland (which has been able to hold the line thus far), Eritrea , and Sudan . And with this, the entire security of the Red Sea/Suez sea lines of communications (SLOCs), so vital to Asian, European, and Australasian trade, is also under threat.
What is also of significance in this is the fact that the Republic of Somaliland — one of the few areas of stability in the region — is not yet recognized by the international community even though it meets all of the legitimate criteria of sovereignty as determined by the African Union (AU) and the United Nations (UN). This situation is very much in the hands of Egypt, which — because of its fears over Ethiopia and the fact that Somaliland is a key transit access for Ethiopian trade — has refused to allow the AU or the Arab League to recognize Somaliland’s sovereignty, and the UN will not recognize a state until the regional body (in this case the AU) first recognizes it.
Eritrea’s historical source of revenue has been as a trading and entrepôt for Ethiopian imports and exports, and this was a natural rôle for it when it was a province of Ethiopia [for years Eritrea was known within the Ethiopian Empire as the Bar Negus: the Kingdom of the Sea. When Eritrea, independent from Ethiopia after the collapse of the Dergue in 1991, attempted to blackmail Ethiopia into accepting the new Eritrean currency, the nakfa (introduced November 1997), which was not internationally tradable, as payment for Ethiopian coffee for onward export — Eritrea, as a trader, was the fourth biggest coffee exporter in the world, based on through shipment of Ethiopian coffee — Ethiopia ceased trading through Eritrea.
Eritrean leader Isayas had not bargained on Ethiopia, landlocked following the loss of Eritrea, being able to trade through routes other than the Eritrean Red Sea port of Massawa and other lesser ports, and found Eritrea bankrupt when Ethiopia began trade through Djibouti, and subsequently Somaliland. Eritrea , almost overnight, became bankrupt, and Isayas faced the need to distract an increasingly hostile population.
This led to significant control of the Eritrean population (which continues today), and to the 1998-99 Eritrea-Ethiopia war, which, when concluded, failed to bring about a resumption of Ethiopian trade through Eritrean ports, leading to the continuing situation of desperation in Eritrea, and the likelihood of yet another conflict.
The situation is ultimately detrimental to Egypt , given that the isolation of Ethiopia (and Somaliland) actually contributes to the insolvency of Eritrea , which Egypt (and others) have been using as a buffer to keep Ethiopia landlocked. The potential threat to Egypt’s Nile waters from Ethiopia is, in fact, not addressed by keeping Ethiopia landlocked, and nor is Egypt’s absolute strategic need for a stable Red Sea SLOC (leading to and from the Suez Canal) better guarded by having Ethiopia kept landlocked.
Within all of this, the US, and many other NATO states, along with Japan, Australia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and others, have committed major naval forces to the Red Sea/Horn of Africa region of the Indian Ocean in an attempt to suppress regional piracy, all of which (virtually) comes from Puntland and is supported by former Puntland/Somalia Pres. Yussuf, who is now a guest of Yemen Pres. Saleh. At no point have the NATO powers thought of addressing the piracy issue by tackling Yussuf and Saleh head-on, or through direct punitive attacks on the Puntland piracy havens.
Moreover, the US and the NATO states — as well as the other maritime powers now projecting naval force into the Indian Ocean off the Horn of Africa — have neither the resources nor will to deal decisively with the pirates in their land havens, the villages of Puntland, or with the Iranian- and salafist-backed insurgencies now underway on the Arabian Peninsula. Only France , with a significant history of sustaining forces in the region (particularly Djibouti ) has shown some real independence of action.
Thus, the advantage, strategically, remains with Iran , which is destabilizing the area through proxy forces. Much is being made of the so-called “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP), which claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on December 25, 2009, of US Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit .
Certainly, there is a link between Yemen — now the modern state encompassing the ancestral home of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden’s family — and the global al-Qaida phenomenon. The reality, however, is that al-Qaida, and bin Laden, although ostensibly salafist Sunnis, have long had distinct Iranian connections. Moreover, there is more than one group in Yemen and Saudi Arabia claiming to be part of al-Qaida. The Western fixation with categorizing and naming amorphous and transitory groups as though they were permanent and organized fixtures, based on their claims, leads to attempts to see the regional situation in black and white terms.
Within the Yemeni context, as well, is the continued rivalry between north and south, between the factions which once gravitated toward the control of Sana’a (and the former Yemen Arab Republic), and those which once gravitated toward the control of Aden and the old Arabian Sea (Gulf of Aden) sultanates. There were, in fact, nine sultanates which signed protectorate agreements with the United Kingdom in the early 20th Century to form the British Aden Protectorate, and, after several geopolitical transitions, and with the departure of the British from Aden, the area became the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY: South Yemen). The PDRY became a major Soviet proxy state, and attempted to project power against Saudi Arabia , and the Sultanate of Oman.
Then, the unified group under PDRY and Soviet control was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arab Gulf (PFLOAG), which conducted a major insurgency across the Omani border, into the Dhofar region, against the old Sultan of Muscat & Oman, Sultan Sa’id. This led to a major Cold War confrontation, with the British backing of Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id al-Said, who had overthrown his father. This was a protracted insurgency which Oman won. Significantly, Oman largely embraces a distinct form of Islam, the Khariji sect, which rejected both Sunni and Shi’ite formulas; the Ibadi branch of the Kharijites became (in the Prophet Mohammed’s lifetime) Oman ’s official religion, making it the only Kharijite country in Islam.
The geopolitical importance of Oman should not be overlooked, despite the fact that the country and the Sultan have been quiet during the current crises: Oman controls the southern shore of the Strait of Hormuz and a vital part of the Arabian Sea coastline.
It is not insignificant that the new — and cautious — Iranian-Russian alliance is jointly and severally interested in projecting power deep into the Indian Ocean and through the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Russia ’s historical involvement (as the USSR ) in the PDRY (and to a lesser extent the YAR), and in Somalia have not been forgotten. Neither has Iran ’s military involvement during the 1970s in support of Oman against the PDRY — the Shah and Sultan Qaboos cooperated closely — been forgotten in Tehran . Further, the historical links across the Strait of Hormuz are profound: Baluchistan, now divided between Pakistan , Afghanistan, and Iran, was once Omani territory.
These are all links which are of profound significance, and yet they are unrecognized by current analysts who insist on dividing consideration of conflict and political phenomena along the lines of modern nation-state boundaries.
Iran ’s determination to proceed with its proxy drive into the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea has been compounded by the declining ability and will of the US to sustain its position in the region, and by the strength and cooperation of the new alliance with Russia . Clearly, Russia and Iran remain cautious of each other, but have mutual objectives at this point, and a history of seeking influence over the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea/Horn.
As Holy Roman Emperor Charles V said of the French King, Francis I, in the 16th Century: “My cousin and I are in complete agreement: We both want Milan.”
Clearly, the Yemen/Red Sea/Horn of Africa/Arabian Peninsula situation cannot be divorced from the Northern Tier — the area including Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and so on. Attempts by Western media and policymakers to treat the Yemen situation as separate, and a “new theater”, once again ignore the complex integration and internally competitive dynamic of the entire region. Bearing in mind the Iranian southward projection, and Pakistan’s rôle as a key littoral maritime player in the Arabian Sea (and key partner in the US-dominated Combined Naval Task Forces (CTF) 151, the joint statement issued by the Iranian, Afghanistan, and Pakistan governments on January 16, 2010, was instructive. It said that, as the Xinhua news agency report of that date noted, “ Afghanistan , Iran and Pakistan affirm that the three countries bear a shared and common responsibility for security and stability in the region, and reaffirmed the commitment to playing their due rôle in the reconstruction of Afghanistan .”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said on January 16, 2010, that Afghanistan , Iran and Pakistan were the most important neighbors for establishing peace and stability in Afghanistan , adding that peace in Afghanistan meant peace in the region. Minister Qureshi said that the Islamabad trilateral meeting decided to move forward in line with the tripartite summit in Tehran in 2009 to adopt regional approach to find out solution to problems in the region. He said that intelligence chiefs of the three countries will also meet in Tehran soon to discuss cooperation in intelligence sharing.
All of this is reflective of the changing fortunes of the great powers in the region. Power vacuums, or perceived vacuums, lead to surges by other aspirant powers. That is what is now happening in what this writer has termed “the North-West Quadrant of the Indian Ocean”, which includes the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden , and the Red Sea/Gulf of Aqaba/Suez. Additionally, all the action in this neighborhood has a hugely important global impact on the transportation of oil and gas and the VLCC tankers that carry the assets.
There is a great deal of shuffling which is reminiscent of the beginning of the 1960s, and the British withdrawal orchestrated by socialist Prime Minister Harold Wilson, a process which led to the Soviet surge into South Yemen and the Horn of Africa. The local players have no option but to try to rebuild their security in the knowledge that their superpower allies — in this case, the US — may not offer security support into the future.
First published at: http://www.oilprice.com/article-media-and-political-hysteria-over-yemen-hides-broader-deeper-strategic-matrix-of-long-term-importance.html
This article was written by Gregory R. Copley for the OilPrice.com Free Market Intelligence Report which focuses on Big Picture Geopolitical analysis, Investment Trend Spotting, Risk management and “Real News.” To find out more visit: http://www.oilprice.com/Market-Intelligence-Report.php.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Somalis in Finland often victims of racist attacks
Somalis in Finland often victims of racist attacks
Browse in the Finland-News January 2010
| Back next | Finland overview News January 2010 | |
| Finland news | 2010: January | 2009: December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, January
| Top news from Finland | comments | gossip Suomi | News Archive | Euro-Election 2009 in Finland | election financing scandal in Finland |
Violence against Somalis in Finland
To insights that led to Finland to appear in a good light, an EU investigation into the situation of minorities in member states whose results were recently published.
Somalis living in Finland more racist threats, harassment and even violence are exposed than any other minority in Europe.
In the survey of 100 Somalis have been 74 cases of adverse experiences in this regard known.
They lead to the sad statistics clearly against the North Africans in Italy (44 of 100), the Romas in the Czech Republic (42 out of 100) and the Somalis in Denmark (40 of 100).
The numbers would not mean, however, that are directed racist attacks against the entire Somali population in Finland.
Rather, a certain group of citizens of Somali origin was particularly affected, as explained by the competent department of the EU's authority, Jo Goodey.
In the survey, according to him, several respondents indicated that they were affected even more than 10 times within a year.
The large number of cases in Finland could with the age of immigrants - 16-24 year olds in Europe are the most common victims of racist violence - and related to their concentration in certain areas.
The exact causes of Finland, however, must find their own.
Already in the spring of 2009, the EU had published a report which highlighted the fact that Somalia has become one third of the metropolitan area, already a victim of a racist encroachment.
Source:
Helsingin Sanomat
Browse in the Finland-News January 2010
| Back next | Finland overview News January 2010 | |
| Finland news | 2010: January | 2009: December, November, October, September, August, July, June, May, April, March, February, January
| Top news from Finland | comments | gossip Suomi | News Archive | Euro-Election 2009 in Finland | election financing scandal in Finland |
Violence against Somalis in Finland
To insights that led to Finland to appear in a good light, an EU investigation into the situation of minorities in member states whose results were recently published.
Somalis living in Finland more racist threats, harassment and even violence are exposed than any other minority in Europe.
In the survey of 100 Somalis have been 74 cases of adverse experiences in this regard known.
They lead to the sad statistics clearly against the North Africans in Italy (44 of 100), the Romas in the Czech Republic (42 out of 100) and the Somalis in Denmark (40 of 100).
The numbers would not mean, however, that are directed racist attacks against the entire Somali population in Finland.
Rather, a certain group of citizens of Somali origin was particularly affected, as explained by the competent department of the EU's authority, Jo Goodey.
In the survey, according to him, several respondents indicated that they were affected even more than 10 times within a year.
The large number of cases in Finland could with the age of immigrants - 16-24 year olds in Europe are the most common victims of racist violence - and related to their concentration in certain areas.
The exact causes of Finland, however, must find their own.
Already in the spring of 2009, the EU had published a report which highlighted the fact that Somalia has become one third of the metropolitan area, already a victim of a racist encroachment.
Source:
Helsingin Sanomat
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Somalia is probably our biggest competitor
Live export demand defies rising prices
15 Jan, 2010 04:00 AM
DESPITE the sharp rise in sheep export prices over the past eight months, demand for Australian sheep in the Middle East is holding strong.And this demand is not expected to drop off according to Livecorp livestock services manager Peter Dundon.
Mr Dundon, who is based in Bahrain, said if Australian producers were debating whether they should be sticking with sheep or not, he would strongly suggest they do.
"While there is some resistance to the higher prices, importers are still keen to source Australian sheep simply because of the food security issue," Mr Dundon said.
"While the fact that there are higher prices has seen some importers look to northern Africa to source sheep, no one can guarantee supply like Australia can.
"Bahrain demands 2500 sheep per day and Australia supplies 95 per cent of that market.
"If the trade to Bahrain stopped tomorrow, a whole lot of people would not have access to fresh meat.
"Somalia is probably our biggest competitor and are closest to Australian sheep in price, but Somalian sheep are about half the weight. They dress out at 11 kilograms as opposed to Australian sheep that have a 21-23kg carcase weight.
"Northern African countries also continually have issues with Foot and Mouth Disease and Rift Valley Fever and that disrupts supply."
Mr Dundon admitted that there had been a marked change in the composition of the sheep that have been exported live to the Middle East in the past five years.
"We are now sending lighter sheep than we used to, but that is a reflection of the changing Australian sheep flock," he said.
"Sheep are now being turned off at a younger age, so they are going to be lighter.
"Weights are also influenced by seasons. Seasonal conditions over the last couple of years have probably contributed to lighter weight sheep coming through, but at certain times of the year there are good heavy wethers sent over.
"I think if there is a readjustment to the Australian sheep flock and more people go back into sheep you will start to see heavier weights coming through again."
Mr Dundon said there were more ewes being exported now compared to five years ago.
"This is concerning because, while some importers are happy to take them, we would rather see those ewes remaining in Australian paddocks and being used for breeding," he said.
"The fact more ewes are now exported is an indication Australian farmers are going out of sheep and we want more sheep being produced not less."
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Minneapolis police: Boy arrested in Seward triple homicide
Updated: 01/09/2010 02:37:40 PM CST
A teenager has been arrested in connection with the triple homicide in the Minneapolis Seward neighborhood earlier this week.
The suspect is a 17-year-old male and is being held at the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center. Because he is a juvenile, police are not releasing his name.
The teen was arrested Friday night by the Violent Criminal Apprehension Team and homicide investigators, the police department announced today.
The shootings happened Wednesday night at the Seward Market & Halal Meat at 25th Avenue South and East Franklin Avenue. Police have said that two men walked into the store about 7:40 p.m. and shot three people dead. The victims and the shooters were likely Somali immigrants, police said earlier this week.
Investigators are still looking for more suspects, said police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer. He would not say how many suspects may have been involved.
Palmer said investigators are still piecing together information to determine what the motive for the shootings was.
"The Minneapolis Police Department has received a great deal of cooperation in this investigation from the Somali community and that cooperation continues," the department said in a prepared statement today. "That cooperation has been vital to the furtherance of this case and the Minneapolis Police would (like) to publicly acknowledge our appreciation of this effort by the community to assist us."
The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Population 'must be capped at 70m'
A cross-party group of 20 MPs and peers has said that the next government should not let the UK's population go above 70m. If it does, the quality of life and public services will suffer, the Balanced Migration Group said.
The Office for National Statistics had warned that by 2033 population in the UK could rise by 10m to more than 71.6m, much of this driven by immigration.
The group, which reckoned that "70m is too many", said that further immigration could threaten the "future harmony of our society".
Co-chairmen former minister Frank Field and Tory MP Nicholas Soames said: "Poll after poll shows the public to be deeply concerned about immigration and its impact on our population. It is time parties turned their rhetoric into reality by making manifesto commitments to prevent our population reaching 70m by 2029."
The group wanted the government to have more control over the UK's borders and stop the "almost automatic link between coming to Britain and later gaining citizenship".
However, because net migration went down by more than 30 per cent in 2008, with many eastern Europeans going back home, estimates that the UK population would be more than 70m by 2025 would probably have to be revised since they were based on the 2007 net migration figure and didn't take the 2008 reduction into account.
The Office for National Statistics had warned that by 2033 population in the UK could rise by 10m to more than 71.6m, much of this driven by immigration.
The group, which reckoned that "70m is too many", said that further immigration could threaten the "future harmony of our society".
Co-chairmen former minister Frank Field and Tory MP Nicholas Soames said: "Poll after poll shows the public to be deeply concerned about immigration and its impact on our population. It is time parties turned their rhetoric into reality by making manifesto commitments to prevent our population reaching 70m by 2029."
The group wanted the government to have more control over the UK's borders and stop the "almost automatic link between coming to Britain and later gaining citizenship".
However, because net migration went down by more than 30 per cent in 2008, with many eastern Europeans going back home, estimates that the UK population would be more than 70m by 2025 would probably have to be revised since they were based on the 2007 net migration figure and didn't take the 2008 reduction into account.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
WATCH Burj Khalifa Fireworks: Dubai Tower Opens To Spectacular Lights Show
WATCH Burj Khalifa Fireworks: Dubai Tower Opens To Spectacular Lights Show
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Al Shabaab of recruiting and using child soldiers
Al Shabaab of recruiting and using child soldiers
Bloody fighting grips Somali town of Dhuusa Marreeb
Al-Shabab has been carrying out hit-and-run attacks throughout central and southern Somalia
At least 47 people have been killed and 100 injured in fighting in the central Somali town of Dhuusa Marreeb, a human rights official has told the BBC.
Ali Yasin Gedi, of Somali human rights group Elman, said many people had fled the town where allies of the government fought to drive out Islamist rebels.
The pro-government Ahlu Sunna group is said to have recaptured the strategic town from al-Shabab militants.
The militants were reportedly in control of the town for a few hours.
Correspondents say Ahlu Sunna was founded as a non-violent group to promote moderate Islam but decided last year to take up arms against al-Shabab, which is accused of links to al-Qaeda.
Somalia has not had a functioning national administration since 1991. Its UN-backed government controls only a few parts of the country.
'Most violent yet'
Mr Gedi said his information was based on conversations with his organisation's workers in the town, 500km (310 miles) north of the capital, Mogadishu.
 |
He told the BBC that some people had been taking the wounded to hospitals elsewhere in the region.
"Our monitoring office has confirmed that most of the casualties were from the warring factions, but some civilians were also killed," he said.
"Many people who fled from the town have not returned yet and they are in the outskirts of the town without shelter and the sun is extremely hot."
One resident, Hussein Moalim Mahad, told AFP news agency the fighting had been "the most violent ever seen in Dhuusa Marreeb".
Local chief Abdulahi Gedi said he had sent out two teams to collect bodies lying inside and outside the town.
Unverified reports say al-Shabab has been spotted regrouping in areas outside the town.
It is the first fighting in the area, which has been controlled by Ahlu Sunnah since a year ago when they defeated al-ShababSaturday, January 2, 2010
Danish cartoonist 'attack' foiled
| Danish cartoonist 'attack' foiled | |||
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Danish police have shot and wounded an axe-wielding Somali man who tried to break into the home of a cartoonist whose 2005 drawings of Prophet Muhammad outraged Muslims around the world. Intelligence authorities said the 28-year-old suspect, armed with an axe and knife, had attempted to enter the home of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in the eastern city of Aarhus late on Friday. Westergaard, whose 5-year-old granddaughter was in the home on a sleepover, sought shelter in a specially made safe room when the suspect broke a window of the home, Preben Nielsen of the Aarhus police said. Michael Larsen, a police spokesman, said that authorities arrived at the house minutes after receiving an alarm alerting them to the intruder. "[The authorities] found a person and he attacked the police with an axe and a knife. He was shot in the leg and the hand and he is in hospital [now]," he told Al Jazeera . The suspect's wounds were reportedly not life threatening. 'Ties to al-Shabab' Larsen said police officials are treating the incident as attempted murder, both of Westergaard and a police officer. The man, who's name has been withheld as part of Danish privacy laws, was to be charged on Saturday. Officials from the Danish security and intelligence service, Pet, said the suspect, a Danish resident, had close ties to the Somali group, al-Shabab. "The attempted murder of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard is linked to terrorism," the agency said in a statement. "The person arrested ... has close links with the Somali terrorist organisation al-Shabab as well as with the heads of al-Qaeda in east Africa." Controversial cartoons Westergaard has been under police protection since his work appeared among a dozen cartoons published in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005. The drawings triggered violent protests a few months later in a number of countries around the world, and again when they were republished in 2008. Protesters felt the cartoons had profoundly insulted Islam, which generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, favourable or otherwise. Several dozen people were killed during the riots at the time as angry crowds attacked Danish embassies around the world. |
Friday, January 1, 2010
Communal Groups Back Somali in Bid To Block Israel Lawsuits
Communal Groups Back Somali in Bid To Block Israel Lawsuits
Washington — American Jewish organizations that fought to establish the jurisdiction of U.S. courts for suits against terrorist groups are taking an opposite tack in suits involving human rights abuses.
Jewish groups have filed briefs siding with a former Somali official now living in Virginia who is alleged to bear responsibility for atrocities committed during his tenure.
The case’s outcome is expected to set a precedent on the vulnerability to human rights lawsuits of former and present officials of internationally recognized governments. But supporters of Israel fear the result could enable Palestinians who claim to be victims of Israel to pursue Israeli officials here.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments March 3 in the case of Yousuf v. Samantar, in which a group of Somalis is seeking financial damages from Mohamed Ali Samantar, Somalia’s former defense minister. He also served as prime minister from 1987 to 1990. Samantar was a top official in the regime of President Siad Barre, a socialist-leaning dictatorship that was denounced by international groups for its systematic use of torture and arbitrary arrests, and for the rape and murder of political rivals and dissidents.
Among the five Somalis suing Samantar are a student who was allegedly detained and raped 15 times by a military man, a former officer who alleges he survived a mass execution and a businessman who claims he was tortured for months by the regime Samantar helped lead. Two of the plaintiffs are now American citizens. The case was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act.
The Supreme Court will rule on the plaintiffs’ right to pursue a civil lawsuit against Samantar. Pro-Israel activists, fearing a precedent that will allow others to pursue legal action against Israel for alleged war crimes — as has happened in Europe — have filed briefs opposing their suit.
“There will be a rash of lawsuits of this kind against Israel” if the court rules for the plaintiffs, warned Alyza Lewin, an attorney with the firm of Lewin & Lewin, which has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of Samantar and against making foreign officials vulnerable to civil lawsuits. The brief was filed on behalf of four Jewish groups: the Zionist Organization of America, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, Agudath Israel of America, and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
It is an unusual setting, one in which pro-Israel activists are siding with the Saudi government — which has also filed a brief on behalf of Samantar — while pitting themselves against international human-rights advocates. Furthermore, this battle also puts the Jewish community on the side of those seeking to limit international jurisdiction after years of fighting to broaden the ability to sue foreign entities in order to go after terror groups and their sponsoring states.
Samantar moved to dismiss the 2004 lawsuit on grounds of immunity provided under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects foreign governments in most cases from legal action in the United States. But in January 2009, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case, ruling that this immunity applies not to individuals but only to governments and their agencies. A Washington circuit court had previously reached the opposite conclusion. The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected to resolve the dueling decisions.
For Jewish communal officials, the Samantar case set off alarm bells. The Jewish groups that filed the brief cite more than 1,000 cases of lawsuits against Israeli officials around the world as part of an effort that Israeli leaders dub “lawfare” — a campaign to take Arab human-rights grievances against Israel to international courtrooms.
One of those recent cases was the December attempt to issue a criminal arrest warrant in Britain against Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni because of the role she played as foreign minister during last January’s Israeli military operation in Gaza.
In the United States, the law does not allow citizens to file similar criminal lawsuits against foreign officials. But in civil suits, it is an unsettled question whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which protects governments, extends to individual government officials and former government officials who were acting in their authorized capacities at the time in question.
Lewin, of the law firm representing the four Jewish groups, says it should. “It would be tempting for us to say, wouldn’t it be nice to sue government officials in these cases, but the risks and the costs outweigh the benefits,” she said.
“You’d have the entire Middle East conflict here in the U.S.” if Samantar won, agreed Marc Stern, co-executive director of the American Jewish Congress. Stern, who also filed a brief on this issue, claimed that allowing civil suits would “require Israelis to recount in an American court years after the event why every rocket was fired and why each attack took place.”
A couple of Israeli officials already faced this threat in the United States.
In 2005, former chief of staff and current Cabinet minister Moshe Ya’alon was served with a civil suit while entering a Washington think tank he was attending as a visiting scholar, filed by families of victims from a 1996 Israeli shelling in Lebanon. A week earlier, Avi Dichter, former head of Israel’s General Security Service, had the same experience in New York. This lawsuit was on behalf of victims of an Israeli bombing in Gaza.
These lawsuits cannot lead to arrests, but they can cause significant financial liabilities to Israelis and eventually deter Israeli officials from visiting America, pro-Israel activists say.
Fighting to maintain immunity for foreign officials seems to place Jewish activists far from positions they have taken in the past. Supporters of Israel actively backed legislation that paved the way for relatives of terror victims to sue terror organizations and their sponsors in American courts. Over the years, these lawsuits have yielded several rulings against Hamas, Fatah and Iran for compensation reaching hundreds of millions of dollars.
Unlike the laws governing human-rights suits, the law empowering individuals to file civil suits against terror organizations and their state sponsors is specifically exempted from the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. But the terrorism law — also unlike the human-rights laws — clearly disallows suits against individuals.
The Anti-Defamation League, in a separate friend-of-the-court brief filed in the Samantar case, differed with the position taken by the AJCongress and the groups represented by Lewin. The ADL brief spoke of the need to strike a balance between the allowance of victims of severe human-rights violations overseas to seek remedy in American courts, and the need to “protect the ability of lower courts to dismiss meritless claims brought for political or other improper purposes.”
The Samantar case made some strange bedfellows in fighting to limit the scope of lawsuits against foreigners. Alongside the former Somali politician were not only the pro-Israel activists, but also the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A brief filed by the Saudis reflects concerns similar to those of pro-Israel advocates — that this case could lead to an outpouring of lawsuits against former and current government officials. Citing numerous suits filed against Saudi Arabia after the 9/11 terror attacks, the brief states the kingdom’s “unique experience” and “strong interest” in the outcome of the case.
On the other side are human- rights groups, led by the Center for Justice & Accountability, representing the Somali citizens suing Samantar. “This case stands for the proposition that the U.S. cannot be a safe haven for human-rights abusers like Samantar,” said Pamela Merchant, the group’s executive director, “and we are confident that the Supreme Court will not allow U.S. law to be manipulated to undermine this principle.”
Both sides are waiting for the American government’s brief to be filed. While previous administrations have opposed expanding the ability to sue foreigners in the United States, senior Obama administration officials were supportive of this notion in their previous capacities.
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com
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