Ecoterra Press Release 223 – The Somalia Chronicle June – December 2009, no 35
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
March 14, 2010
ECOTERRA Intl.
SMCM - Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor
ECOTERRA INTERNATIONAL - UPDATES & STATEMENTS, REVIEW & CLEARING-HOUSE
2009-08-04 TUE 11h48:37 UTC
Issue No. 223
A Voice from the Truth- & Justice-Seekers, who sit between all chairs, because they are not part of organized white-collar or no-collar-crime in Somalia or elsewhere, and who neither benefit from global naval militarization, from the illegal fishing and dumping in Somali waters or the piracy of merchant vessels, nor from the booming insurance business or the exorbitant ransom-, risk-management- or security industry, while neither the protection of the sea, the development of fishing communities or the humanitarian assistance to abducted seafarers and their families is receiving the required adequate attention, care and funding.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." George Orwell
EA ILLEGAL FISHING AND DUMPING HOTLINE: +254-714-747090 (confidentiality guaranteed) - email: somalia[at]ecoterra.net
EA Seafarers Assistance Programme EMERGENCY HELPLINE : SMS to +254-738-497979 or sms/call +254-733-633-733
"The pirates must not be allowed to destroy our dream !"
Cpt. Florent Lemaçon - F/Y Tanit - killed by French commandos - 10. April 2009 / Ras Hafun
NON A LA GUERRE - YES FOR PEACE
(Inscription on the sail of F/Y TANIT - shot down on day one of the French assault)
"... obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears, and that any group of people who are degrading another group of people have to be fought against with whatever tools we have available to us. "
B. H. Obama - US-American President, who said also: The world has changed ! YES, WE CAN !
Clearing-House: Cut out the clutter - focus on facts !
(If you find this compilation too large or if you can't gasp the multitude and magnitude of important inter-related complex issues influencing the Horn of Africa - you better do not deal with Somalia or other man-made "conflict zones". We try to make it as condensed as possibly.)
Breaking:
While the masters of ceremony and the spindoctors get ready for the planned show in Mombasa, MV HANSA STAVANGER, sails escorted by two German warships with just 5 knots southwards and will most likely only arrive on Friday at the Kenyan Port.
News from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships and vessels in distress
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier confirmed the release of MV HANSA STAVANGER (see our earlier reports).
"It is with great relief that I have learned the crew of the Hansa Stavanger has been freed," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement. "My thanks goes to those who worked tirelessly to bring about a solution."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel "hopes that the released crew members and their families can recover as quickly as possible from the stress and emotional strain of the past weeks," a spokeswoman said.
A family from Nasinu in Fiji is overjoyed today after hearing that their prayers may at last have been answered, with the release of their relative who was held hostage by Somali pirates over the past few months. The lone Fiji national, Wayne Suliano, was among the 24 members of the crew who had been held hostage. Suliano's brother Joseph Suliano said they had heard the good news but were yet to hear from him. "We are waiting for his call," he said.
Two Filipino seafarers on board the container vessel that was hijacked off the Gulf of Aden were freed on Monday night, the Philippine Embassy in Nairobi confirmed.
The two crewmen of the M/V Hansa Stavanger are "well and in good condition" said Vice Consul Bernadette Mendoza.
With the release of two Filipinos, the number of Filipino seafarers still under custody of Somali pirates is down to 42 in three vessels, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesperson Ed Malaya.
Warships Escort 'Hansa Stavanger' to Mombasa by Matthias Gebauer for SPIEGELonline
Their four-month ordeal in the hands of Somali pirates is over, and the crew of the German freighter Hansa Stavanger are overjoyed at being released after a $2.75 million ransom was paid. But it's a defeat for the German government, which abandoned two attempts to retake the ship by force.
Somali pirates released the German container ship Hansa Stavanger on Monday after the owners dropped $2.75 million (€1.91 million) in cash from a small plane, ending months of ransom negotiations ever since the ship was seized on April 4.
The pirates had boarded the vessel in the Indian Ocean and forced the captain to sail to Harardhere, a notorious pirate stronghold on Somalia's coast.
The ship has a crew of 24, including five Germans. It embarked for the Kenyan port of Mombasa on Tuesday accompanied by two German warships. It isn't expected to arrive until Friday because it can only make a speed of five knots -- after its long mooring, it is being slowed down by shells stuck to its hull.
A German navy doctor has examined the crew and found them to be exhausted but well. Frank Leonhardt, the manager of the shipping line Leonhardt und Blumberg, said: "I've phoned the crew and they are as well as could be expected under the circumstances." The Stavanger will continue with a replacement crew once it arrives in Mombasa.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she hoped "the released crew members and their relatives will recover as quickly as possible from their ordeal in recent weeks."
But despite the relief at the men's release, the ransom payment is a defeat for the German government. Its crisis team had been determined not to pay. But two attempts to free the ship by force were abandoned. At one point the Germans had dispatched their elite GSG-9 unit to Somalia, but the mission was halted when allied US forces deemed it too risky.
The hijacking has triggered a major row in Berlin about whether Germany is well enough prepared to deal with hijackings. There had been a lack of coordination among various German government departments involved, and changes have been made since then to improve the way they work together.
In the end, events unfolded as they usually have in recent pirate hijackings. The ransom was paid and the pirates made off without being pursued.
When the relief has dissipated, though, there is likely to be fresh debate about whether there's any point to the European Union's Atalanta"navy mission in the Gulf of Aden if warships aren't even permitted to hunt down escaping pirates.
Still the most important fact seems not to be realized by the Germans, who are a nation in long-standing friendly relations with Somalia: Only after the German Navy was forced by the US and some naval falcons into participating in naval operations off Somalia against Somalis, also German ships were sea-jacked - never ever before.
Masindra Shipping official Liza Ali has finally confirmed that the tugboat TB MASINDRA 7 and its 11 Indonesian crew had been released (we reported earlier). She said the vessel with its barge is now in the Indian Ocean but could not give further comment as it is still in unsafe territory. She confirmed that a ransom was paid.
With the latest captures and releases now still at least 12 foreign vessels (11 if M/S IO EXPLORER is truly "gone") with a total of not less than 168 crew members are accounted for (of which 42 are confirmed to be Filipinos) and are held in Somali waters. They are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which were observed off the coast of Somalia and have been reported or had reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed. MV JAIKUR 1 remains in Mogadishu harbor, but is an insurance and not a piracy case - all foreign crew was evacuated. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) had been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases (for Somalia, incl. presently held ones) and the mistaken sinking of one vessel by a naval force. For 2009 the account stands at 151 attacks (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 47 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as at least three wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces. More than 116 Somalis are held in foreign prisons under charges of piracy. Mystery pirate mother-vessels Athena/Arena and Burum Ocean as well as not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (also not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail. In the last four years, 22 missing ships have been traced back with different names, flags and superstructures.
Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season in winter and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon season starting from mid February and early April every year. Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: GoA: YELLOW IO: YELLOW (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Allegedly still/again two groups from Puntland alone are out hunting on the Gulf of Aden and in the Indian Ocean, where also groups from Harardheere have set out again, despite the heavy seas and the rough weather.
Directly piracy related reports
Aid Group to Defend Somali Piracy Suspects, Ensure Fair Trials by Sarah McGregor
France-based Lawyers of the World, an international legal aid network, said it will defend 24 Somali piracy suspects held in Kenya, to boost the chances of a fair trial.
The hearing for the first group of 11 Somali men accused of piracy starts today in the port city of Mombasa, lawyer Avi Singh, a dual U.S.-Indian citizen coordinating the pro-bono defense effort, said in an interview yesterday in Mombasa. All 24 men claim they are not guilty and face up to life imprisonment if convicted.
Kenya, which borders Somalia, became a venue for piracy trials after signing prisoner-transfer deals this year with the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union in exchange for legal and logistical support. Those same countries are demanding that Kenya improve its own legal system.
"Foreign navies are dumping pirate suspects in Kenya," said Singh. "They are the governments telling Kenya to get the judicial system right, then using it for a quick and dirty solution to piracy."
UN Human Rights investigator Philip Alston authored a report published this year that alleged widespread judicial corruption in Kenya and called for a "root and branch" overhaul of the system.
The country´s courts are struggling to process a backlog of more than 80,000 cases, according to a government-appointed task force led by Justice William Ouko.
Fair Trial
The trials can´t be held in Somalia because the country doesn´t have a functioning judicial system after 18 years of civil war.
As a result, foreign navies have dropped off more than 110 suspected Somali pirates since 2006 at Kenya´s Mombasa port.
Resources provided to the prosecution and courts in Kenya have not been matched by funds to help suspected pirates pay for defense lawyers, summon witnesses, or collect evidence, said Singh.
He interviewed his 24 clients for the first time at Shimo La Tewa maximum-security prison near Mombasa yesterday. Some of them staged a 7-day hunger strike last month to protest their lack of legal representation, said Singh, citing prison records. Others claimed they were denied medical treatment, he added.
Lawyers of the World plans to set-up an office in Kenya to strengthen basic rights for detained piracy suspects, said Singh. That may include coordinating with relief agencies to deliver food, medicine and other supplies to inmates charged with piracy.
Attacks
Somalia has lacked a functioning central government since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, and pirates are able to operate from its coast, which is almost as long as the U.S. eastern seaboard.
The number of piracy incidents off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden escalated to 130 in the first half of 2009 from 24 a year-earlier, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The monsoon season has slowed the pace of attacks in the area in recent months, according to IMB.
The EU, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. have anti-piracy forces patrolling eastern Africa´s coastline to protect a sea link between Asia and Europe that carries a-tenth of the world´s trade.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Kenya this week as part of a seven-nation tour of Africa, is scheduled to meet the president of Somalia´s transitional government Sheik Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
This is what it is all about: "War-Badges" and new toys for the boys in uniform!
In some nations more hidden to ease their taxpayers - in some contries more blunt.
PLA to upgrade defense, personnel structure (China Daily/Xinhua)
The major part of China's armed forces, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), has set a goal of building up a defense that is capable of handling threats in multidimensional battlefields.
Celebrating the PLA's 82th anniversary on Saturday, military experts said an ongoing significant reform inside the 2.3-million strong PLA will require a modernization of the Navy and Air Force. Among three PLA senior officers who were promoted to full generals on July 20, Deputy Chief of General Staff Ma Xiaotian was awarded three-star insignias on the shoulder of his original Air Force blue uniform.
PLA officers from different services used to change to the Army's green uniforms when they were promoted to the highest positions in the PLA, a symbol of the Army's dominance in the PLA.
For example, General Liu Huaqing abandoned his white uniform as the Navy's commander after being promoted to vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) in 1987.
General Ma is the first military leader outside of the Army to be promoted and to maintain his original uniform, symbolic of an effort to pay more attention to the other military branches.
In China's top military authority, commanders of the PLA's Navy, Air Force and the Second Artillery Corps for the first time will become members of the CMC.
"Keeping original uniforms is just a superficial phenomenon," said Gong Fangbin, a professor with the PLA's National Defense University.
"Becoming members of the decision-making CMC will greatly increase engagement in the PLA's major deployments by the Navy, Air Force and the Second Artillery. The move also follows an increasing trend of the global military development," Gong said.
As a spectator on the visitor's stand beside the Tian'anmen gate tower for the National Day parade in 1984, Gong said the PLA adopted an Army-dominating concept after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, because at that time, the major security threat against the country was an inland attack.
"When we saw the ballistic missile launcher vehicles for the first time in the parade, we were surprised and even shocked because most didn't know what kind of weapon system it was," Gong said.
"I'm looking forward to witnessing new cutting-edge equipment in the upcoming National Day parade. The PLA should acquire more advanced weapons systems to protect China's growing overseas interests," he said.
Gong's goal has already begun in the country's unprecedented naval deployment to the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters to escort merchant vessels, protecting them against piracy, since the end of last year.
The PLA has also started to improve its personnel structure by encouraging more college graduates to join the military forces.
A recruitment campaign this summer enlisted about 120,000 college graduates who will fulfil their two-year military service at the end of the year.
"The move will significantly change the structure of the PLA's enlisted personnel, which used to consist of poorly educated farmers in the early days of the country's foundation," Gong said.
"What's more important is it will greatly enhance the common citizens' awareness of the responsibility to serve the country, since a college education is no longer enjoyed by only a few in China," he said.
"The college graduates with the experience of two-year military service also help to improve the military reserves for the whole country," Gong added.
The PLA was founded by the Communist Party of China in 1927 when the country was embroiled in territorial fights led by warlords.
In what has become China's first BlueWater operation since 500 years, its Zhoushan missile frigate, together with two other vessels, form the country's third batch of flotilla in the escort mission in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia.
China army called on to keep order on anniversary (AP)
China's military celebrated its 82nd anniversary Saturday, with an editorial in the official paper calling on the armed forces to maintain social stability in the wake of unrest on the fringes of its territory.
The People's Liberation Army, the world's largest with 2.3 million members, should strengthen coordination with local governments to prepare to deal with all kinds of "unexpected" incidents, a front-page editorial in the official People's Liberation Daily said.
"We must closely pay attention to developments in the domestic and international situation ... and firmly oppose all violent criminal activities and attempts to split the country," it said.
The editorial echoed comments by Defense Minister Liang Guanglie on Friday in a speech to mark the anniversary. "Social stability" has become a watchword for China's leaders as economic growth slows and exposes rifts between rich and poor. The government is also worried about ethnic fault lines, particularly after a riot last month in the far western Xinjiang region between minority Uighurs and Han Chinese, the country's predominant ethnicity.
The violence in Xinjiang — where nearly 200 were killed — and a similar uprising in Tibetan areas last year were branded by Beijing as the work of terrorists, separatists and foreign forces, part of a plot to carve up China.
"The PLA will also prevent antagonistic forces from carrying out separatist and sabotage activities and safeguard national security and social stability," Liang said.
China has long been tightlipped about its military strength and capacity, drawing criticism from other countries wary of the Asian giant's growing power and military spending that has jumped by double-digit percentages every year for nearly two decades.
But in recent years, China has been increasing its international military ties as it attempts to modernize its army. Earlier this year, Chinese warships were sent to patrol waters off Somalia as part of the international effort against piracy. The Defense Ministry also recently said it will launch its first Web site in what state media billed as an effort to be more transparent.
In his speech Friday, Liang said the army would develop peacefully and increase cooperation with foreign armed forces to fulfill its international obligations, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The editorial also called for modernization and added that the army should accelerate the shift in military training toward information technology.
The PLA is under the direct control of the Communist Party's Central Military Commission, headed by President Hu Jintao. Saturday marks the Communist uprising in Nanchang, eastern Jiangxi province in 1927, when Communists held the city for a few days. They later became a disciplined guerrilla force and won China's civil war that saw the Communists taking power in 1949.
Ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, ecology
Toxic or Nuclear?
The Poor are Paying for Waste Dumping off Africa
By David Njagi
Habiba Alin lies crouched on a neatly spread bed rest on the floor adorned with colorful Somali outfits. Inside a dome shaped thatched hut at Bulajogo village in Wajir district of North Eastern province of Kenya, she rests her head on a second hand pillow tucked over the makeshift she has called bed for the last seven months. It appears to give her cozy relief from the pain she is struggling to fend off.
Months of agony have left the 48-year-old brow furrowed with lines of suffering and a ghastly stare, like the one leveled by someone who has seen freedom beckoning, yet that freedom is as elusive as it chastening - at least for now.
Nearby, her relatives wait hopefully, although desperation is already beginning to show on their frail, sometimes stooped stance, as they watch the speechless figure lying on the floor ebb out of her mortal soul.
"She has now been lying down like this for about seven months," Amina Alin, Habiba's elder sister, told IslamOnline.net (IOL). "She was taken to the hospital where she underwent several tests including TB and HIV but at last she was diagnosed with throat cancer."
"She had first complained about chest pain and later on she was unable to eat," added 50-year-old Amina. "She could not swallow any solid food and later on she was totally unable to eat."
Throat Cancer on the Rise
A few homesteads from where Habiba lies dying, Adan Abdi has just buried his step father who travelled from a pastoral village called Arbejahan six months ago to seek treatment in Wajir hospital. Like Habiba, the disease took away his ability to speak or eat before robbing him of his life.
"At first he said he thought it was just tonsils because he was having difficulties swallowing saliva and the throat was a bit stiff," says Hassan Yakub's stepson. "Later he could not take solid food and survived on water and liquefied food.
However, he would throw it all up, until the last two months when he could not swallow anything. Finally he died of starvation."
Aden Garad, a community social worker based in Wajir, says throat cancer has continued to claim his kinsmen for the last 20 years, and he can count more than 150 people who have died from the disease.
Last month alone, he says, four have died while another four were hospitalized at the Wajir District Hospital, information that Dr. Salat Girad Mohamed, a superintendent at the hospital, confirmed.
Despite the suffering that throat cancer is bringing to this arid region of Kenya, however, little is known about its causes, while Mohamed says there is no known treatment for the disease so far.
Toxic or Nuclear?
According to Garad, few hypothesis have been fronted about the cause of throat cancer in this part of the country. In his view, the problem can be traced to the post colonial era when toxic waste of unverified substances was reportedly dumped in North Eastern Kenya by European settlers.
But Truth Be Told Network (TBT), a Kenyan based lobby group working for social and economic welfare of the Somali people, says the causes of throat cancer stretches beyond Kenyan soil, and could be linked to alleged dumping of nuclear waste along the coastlines of the two countries.
According to the lobby group, the pattern of infection in North Eastern Kenya appears to have been shared by neighboring Somali residents, 20 years after Mogadishu reported the first allegations of nuclear waste dumping in her coastal waters.
While Sheikh Salah Abdi of TBT says there is no evidence to prove that nuclear waste was dumped there, he maintains his organization has clues which show that fish found in the two countries have contaminated substances linked to the alleged waste dumping.
"It has been documented that there is widespread dumping of waste in Somalia waters and on inland sites for over 20 years," asserted Abdi. "But whether the waste was nuclear contaminated or not no one has verified."
According to Abdi, a spate of unregulated cross border trade seized the horn of Africa, opening up routes for the ferrying of huge fish stockpiles for both local and international consumption, following the collapse of the Somalia government in 1991.
Now the organization fears the effects of toxic dumping in Somali waters and its effects on both local and international consumers could be wider than earlier thought, following allegations of overfishing by private companies from as far as Europe.
Speaking in anonymity to IslamOnline.net in Nairobi, a civil society worker based in Hargeisa, Somalia, said there have been sporadic outbreaks of skin rashes in the town, with more than 300 cases showing signs of radiation contamination, and some mothers give birth to malformed babies.
It is estimated that more than US$ 300 million worth of tuna, shrimp and lobster are ferried overseas from the 3,300 kilometers long Somali coast line every year, although the European Union requires food exports to obey the traceability and rules of origin as a South-North trade condition.
For now, it is not clear whether the diseases plaguing the two countries has been caused by allegations of DDT dumping alleged by Sheikh Ahmed Ali, a former civic leader in Wajir township, nor is it clear whether there is a nuclear waste link as lobbyists and civil societies claim. But what is clear is that some waste dumping of some kind was cast in unknown parts of Kenya and Somalia, and it could be the reason people living near these sites are ailing.
Ecological Disaster
Kenya's National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), however, maintains that the allegations are based on assumptions and denies knowledge of any kind of toxic dumping on Kenyan soil.
"In 2006 we sent a high powered delegation to North Eastern Province to investigate these allegations," Dr. Muasya Mwinzi, NEMA's director general, told IOL. "They found no evidence of toxic or nuclear dumping."
According to Sheikh Abdi the consequences of toxic dumping are not confined to food consumption alone, but are heralding a serious ecological disaster across the 637,657 sq kilometer coast of neighboring Somaliland.
He says most of the substances found in the dumpsites are not biodegradable and have been piling up over the years because there is no legislative instrument that restricts dumping by foreign private companies.
Quoted in The Independent online issue of January 5, 2009, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, says the dumpsites could contain nuclear substances because heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury have been found there before.
Speaking on telephone to IOL in Nairobi, Somali Ambassador in Kenya, H.E. Mohamed Ali Nur, says after the 2005 tsunami, cases of radiation sickness were reported after leaking barrels believed to have been dumped into the Indian Ocean were washed ashore.
People living in the parts of the two countries where cases of exposure have been suspected believe the collapse in 1991 of the Somali government led by the late President Siad Barre, made parts of Eastern and Horn of Africa porous to illegal activities ranging from piracy, smuggling and illegal industrial waste disposal.
According to Nur, the American led evacuation of Somali children last year revealed that most were suffering from tumors, while some had missing limbs.
"Most of the children were from towns along the Somali coastline," says Nur. "Most had tumors while others had limbs missing from their hands and legs. This is reason enough to believe that some illegal toxic dumping has happened in Somalia."
Somalia on the verge of a cholera epidemic
Cholera in Somalia's capital and some other towns claims the lives of 13 children and nine women as hospitals complain about the lack of medicine to treat the patients.
Doctors told a Press TV correspondent that cholera was spreading in the Somali capital Mogadishu as well as the Afgooye corridor and central Shabelle and required immediate attention.
According to the doctors, hundreds of people have been affected and hospitalized where the disease is spreading. So far, 13 children between the ages of three and seven have been killed as well as nine women.
The doctors said that medical services are not available in many parts of Mogadishu and other towns affected by the disease. Treatment has become very difficult as there is no medicine to treat the hospitalized patients.
They further said that UN agencies and aid groups at present are stationed outside Somalia and private hospitals are not doing much to help.
Moreover, some cases of cholera have also been reported from the neighboring regions of Bay and Bakool where, reports say, some civilians have died.
The latest reports indicate that the cholera outbreak might spread to other regions in south and central Somalia.
Empiric Research of the Level of Starvation in South and Central Somalia by Mohammed Omar Hussein
Up to date research done to assess the level of starvation and hunger of both human and livestock in the regions and districts in south and central Somalia, indicate that the major factor that is killing both human and animals is starvation caused by wide spread malnutrition, and the poor system by which the Aid organizations are dealing with the humanitarian situation and how they distribute Aid among the needy people.
The Aid given by the Aid organizations to needy Somali people is not adequate to the assigned people and is of inferior quality.
In the central regions of Somalia the level of starvation of both human and livestock is parallel. Due to less rain the animals have less pasture to eat, and hence they are given the ordinary food consumed usually by people, such as yellow maize, sorghum and millet.
There vast starvation in both human and livestock in the regions also where the two rivers flow and worse in most places in central Somalia where are no operative Mothers and Child Health (MCH) care centers.
Most of the populations in Somalia and especially the pastoralists suffer from Tuberculosis, Bilharzia and Typhoid.
One of the regions which is affected by the prolong drought is the lower Shabelle region in Somalia. The region has fertile soil which is suitable for high quality banana plantation, and in fact the banana produced by the vast farms in the region were used to be transported to overseas countries during the Heydays and was the backbone of the income of the country.
The people in the region were entirely farmers and depend on their farms products such as the banana.
Unfortunately the low quantity of bananas produced by the region today merely remains for domestic consumption since the country had no strong central government to facilitate production for export.
The districts, the locations and the sub-locations in the region have no feeding centers to curb the severe malnutrition which has engulfed the residents in the region, and the fatality rate in children is high.
The inhabitants of the lower Shabelle region are currently suffering from different types of diseases such as Malaria, Bilharzia, Scabies and different kinds of intestinal worms.
The research denounces the activities of both international and local organizations for turning their eyes from these people suffering in the different regions in Somalia.
I can say that the way Aid agencies get the required data collection done on the ground is not to the standard, and thus the way they approach and distribute the donation will not be up-to the requirements in time. The local NGOs operating in the lower Shabelle and the two Jubba regions are not native from the areas they dealing with, thus they can drive the donation offered by the international agencies to improper use.
According to the law and constitution of the country the inhabitants of every region are to be put into operation concerning activities such as distribution of donations offered by the international agencies. Much qualification is not required from the indigenous of the area because all that is need is the strong link between the indigenous local organization and the regional administration.
The research I conducted also indicates that there is a grave humanitarian situation in Afgoi district and its surrounding villages. Some parts of this area are holding thousands of Internal Displaced People - hence I urge the Aid agencies to instantly to respond to this deteriorating humanitarian disaster.
Anti-piracy measures
Guards Against Somali Pirates Called a Bunch of Bunglers - Written by Dan McCue for CourtNews
Tyco Telecommunications says it paid more than $1 million for a security service to protect it from Somali pirates as Tyco's slow-moving boats lay underwater cable off the Horn of Africa, and the security patrols failed to show up for three weeks, then tried to hire a subcontractor based in Iran, in violation of the U.S. economic embargo.
Tyco Telecommunications sued Peterson & Associates Consulting, of Alpharetta Ga., and K&M Global Security Solutions, of Serbia, in Manhattan Federal Court.
Tyco says it was forced to delay the project, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in unanticipated operating and dock costs, and millions more for alternative security arrangements. And it says the defendant companies and their principles, Matt Peterson, Dale Kneeland Sr. and Michael Murrell, have refused to return the money they demanded in advance.
Piracy off Africa's East Coast and in the Gulf of Aden has escalated since the collapse of Somalia's last national government in 1991.
Tyco Telecom says it responded by "hardening" its ships against boarding, installing razor wire and sealing access points. It also hired armed shipboard guards and developed contingency plans to meet the Somali pirate threat.
But Tyco said the situation changed dramatically between April 8 and 12, as it made final plans to install more than 8,000 miles of undersea fiber-optic cable connecting South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Djibouti, Egypt and India.
The high-profile project was to lay the first cable to provide broadband to East African countries that previously had relied on expensive and unreliable satellite telecommunications services.
On April 8, pirates captured the cargo-laden Maersk Alabama. After the U.S. Navy intervened, ultimately capturing one pirate and killing two others on April 12, Somali pirates vowed revenge, particularly on U.S.-flagged vessels -such as Tyco's.
Tyco says it was particularly worried about the Tyco Resolute and Teneo, which would be working off the coast of Kenya, just south of Somalia. When that job was completed, the ships would work off the coast of Somalia itself.
Unwilling to risk the loss of personnel or property, Tyco says it hired the defendants.
What followed was worse than a comedy of errors, with gross incompetence accompanied by several false and misleading claims, according to the complaint.
Peterson & Associates holds itself out as a "global leader in bringing maritime companies together with experienced counter piracy firms," which K&M Global Security claimed to be, Tyco says.
But Tyco claims the two companies had no such abilities, and scant experience in maritime security. Only upon receipt of Tyco's money did they begin to "cobble together an ad hoc collection of men and material for the task," the complaint states.
Tyco says the defendants made several excuses, including blaming inclement weather on their failure to show up.
It claims the defendants failed to arrange visas for the international crew they assembled, but left stranded in Istanbul, 1,000 miles from the ships they were meant to protect; and failed to procure weapons, safety gear, night vision goggles and other equipment necessary to execute the contract.
They failed even to secure an adequate escort vessel, at one point trying to secure an undersized and decrepit tugboat for the mission, only to have its captain and crew flatly refuse to go, the complaint states.
Finally, in desperation, the defendants tried to hire a vessel sailing under the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which would have violated the U.S. embargo unless a special temporary license were secured from the U.S. Treasury Department, which the defendants failed to do, Tyco says.
Finally, Tyco says, the defendants willfully hid their inability to fulfill the contract in an effort to induce additional payments from Tyco, preventing it from securing competent alternative protection.
Tyco demands more than $1 million, plus interest and costs. It is represented by Mark Grannis, with Wiltshire & Grannis of Washington, D.C.
Norwegian frigate to hunt Somali pirates
The Norwegian frigate "Fridtjof Nansen" has this weekend left home base and is heading for the coast of Somalia, where it will join the EU-led "Operation Atlanta" in its effort to fight pirate attempts.
During the past few weeks the frigate and its 140 man crew have undergone test missions off the Norwegian coast.
On board is also a unit of the Norwegian Special Naval Force (MJK), equipped with high speed boats which will be used to intercept pirates attempting to board cargo ships in Somali waters.
The Norwegian frigate is initially on a six-month assignment.
No real peace in sight yet
Somalia president travels to Kenya, while7 are killed in clashes
At least 7 people were killed and 20 others wounded Monday in armed clashes between pro-government forces and Islamist insurgents in the Somali capital Mogadishu, on a day President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed flew to Kenya, Radio Garowe reports.
Three combatants were killed when Hizbul Islam rebels attacked the Villa Somalia presidential compound, drawing Somali government troops and African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM) into battle.
At least 12 people were wounded inside Bakara Market, after artillery shells slammed into buildings.
Business stopped temporarily at the market but resumed later today, witnesses said.
Separately, three people including two soldiers were killed near KM4 intersection when the two soldiers opened fire on each other.
Local sources said the two soldiers "disagreed over extortion money" they were forcefully collecting from civilians using the road. Mogadishu is teeming with armed men in uniform, many of whom have been accused of robbing the public.
In a different incident, one soldier was killed when suspected insurgents hurled a hand grenade at a group of soldiers in Medina district.
Five soldiers wounded by the explosion were reportedly receiving medical treatment at Medina Hospital.
Meanwhile, President Sheikh Sharif flew from Mogadishu's Aden Adde International Airport leading a delegation that included Cabinet ministers and lawmakers.
The Somali president is expected to attend a regional trade summit in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Further, President Sheikh Sharif is supposed to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the sidelines of the summit.
The U.S. government, under President Barack Obama, has been attempting to reshape U.S. policy on Somalia and has donated a weapons shipment to President Sheikh Sharif's interim government in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab attempted to kill worshippers en masse with 40kg bomb buried in mosque.
A bomb weighing 30 to 40kg was overnight buried inside a big mosque at Guri-El town's central mosque, mareeg reports.
The security personnel of the moderate Ahlu-Sunnah Waljama have apprehended three men believed to be the buriers of the bomb inside the mosque.
"The main aim of the bombers was to detonate it while the worshipers were inside the mosque performing their dawn prayers," said Sheikh Abdi Rizak Ashari, the spokesman of Ahlu-Sunnah Waljama in the central regions of Somalia. "Fortunately we got tips that there was a bomb buried in the mosque and we used our experts to defuse the device. The three suspected men are figures we know and they are members of the so called Al-Shabaab, and we shall take them before the law and punish them for the crime they have committed after been found that they are guilty," he added.
This is thee first case in Somalia, where an explosive device was hidden in a mosque where hundreds of worshippers come together.
Somali gangsters who kidnapped three foreign aid workers from Mandera town in North Eastern province of Kenya demanded ransom on Monday.
One of the kidnappers, who rejected to be named, told local radio Shabelle that they held three foreign aid workers captive and their condition was good.
He described the nationalities of the three aid workers as American, Zimbabwean, and Pakistani. They were working for Action Against Hunger (ACF) aid agency.
The kidnappers did not specify the amount of money which they wanted from the Aid workers and where they held them.
The three foreign aid workers were kidnapped on 18 June, 2009 from Mandera, a Kenyan town close to the Somali border and abducted into Somalia.
The caller demanded that a ransom, whose amount he did not specify, be paid to his group for the releases of the hostages who he said were being held "somewhere inside Somalia."
He argued his group was not affiliated to any political or insurgent movement in Somalia where freelance groups are often behind the kidnapping of foreigners.
Foreigners are regularly kidnapped in Somalia, which has been mired in civil war since 1991, and usually are freed in return for a ransom.
Journalists and aid workers are particularly targeted.
UPDF troops prepare to attack Somali militants
By Charles Kazooba
The United Nations has begun preparing for combat between Somali insurgents and African peacekeepers led by Ugandan troops, Daily Monitor has learnt.
In an interview last week, the Uganda army Land Forces Commander, Lt. Gen. Katumba Wamala, told Daily Monitor they were waiting for a green light from the United Nations and the African Union to launch attacks against the Al Shabab, a group linked to Al Qaeda.
When contacted on Wednesday, however, outgoing Security Council president Ruhakana Rugunda said the proposal to attack the militants—a mandate outside the peacekeeping mission—was yet to be adopted on the Council´s agenda.
"They are still ideas emerging within member states. Formally, it´s not on the agenda yet. But reviewing the mandate African Union mission will be discussed," Dr Rugunda said in a phone interview from Uganda´s Mission in New York. Gen. Katumba Wamala said more action is necessary but would have to wait for the UN´s permission. "We are yet to get permission from AU and the UN to strike those insurgents. That is the only way we can contain the conflict," he said, adding: "We don´t want to lose Somalia to those terrorists."
The African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom), a regional peacekeeping mission, controls the presidential palace, airport, and seaport in Somalia and has lately suffered the wrath of Al Shabab insurgents. At least 20 troops have been killed out of the 4,450 deployed by Uganda and Burundi.
Last week, Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga told Daily Monitor that the UN is building another base for military supplies in Mombasa in addition to the existing one in Entebbe. The boost in logistics support will also be supplemented with the United Nations Trust Fund.
According to the Kampala government, the recent donors´ conference in Brussels raised pledges as high as $213m (Shs450b) towards the Trust Fund, a clear indication of international support towards the Mission.
Initially, the Trust Fund was not applied to supporting Amisom because funding was needed elsewhere to meet requirements not supported by major bilateral contributors. The United Nations Security Council recently approved a UN logistical support package to Amisom including equipment and services amounting to $72m (Shs152b).
Dr Rugunda said all the efforts by the UN and the UN Security Council are signals for a major assault against the Al Shabab fighters. He also reported that the UPDF and Burundian troops would only attack the Somalis after the mission is taken by the UN.
But the chairman of the Defence and Internal Affairs committee of Parliament, MP Mathias Kasamba (Kakuuto, NRM), has said such an operation would have to be approved by Parliament. "Once those international bodies agree, UPDF will have to get our approval before they can go ahead," he said.
23 more UPDF flown to Kenya
By Charles Ariko
Twenty-three more Ugandan soldiers serving on the African Union mission in Somalia have been evacuated to Nairobi for treatment after they got infected by a waterborne disease that hit the peacekeepers' camp in Mogadishu last week.
This brings to 40 the number of Ugandans airlifted to Kenya following the outbreak of the disease that has so far killed one UPDF soldier and four Burundians.
According to the Army spokesman, Lt. Col Felix Kulayigye, the 23 soldiers were evacuated on Friday morning to a hospital in Nairobi. However, he said, 11 of the earlier group had been discharged and flown back to Mogadishu.
Kulayigye said the World Health Organisation was working together with senior UPDF doctor Lt. Col. Sam Kasule, who was dispatched from Kampala to beef up the medical team.
Medical experts are still trying to identify the type of disease, said Kulayigye, adding that the army was now concentrating its efforts on stopping the spread of the disease.
"Diagnosis is still problematic. We have now embarked on checking and prevention to mitigate the impact of the epidemic."
The UPDF dismissed earlier fears that the soldiers could have been poisoned by Al-Shabaab, the Islamist insurgents fighting the Somali government and the peace-keepers.
"This has nothing to do with poisoning. Cases of poisoning do not present themselves in such a way," said Dr. James Makumbi, the UPDF's Chief of Medical Services, on Saturday.
The symptoms include chest pain, fever, headache, swelling of the lower limbs, a fast heart beat and respiratory problems.
Makumbi said the epidemic could have been caused by the terrain, which is flat and swampy, coupled with poor sewerage disposal.
Matters were worsened by Mogadishu being a war-torn coastal city where many displaced people are concentrated in a small area.
"Owing to the fact that the water table is close, even underground water sources became contaminated with fecal matter," he said.
Over 50 Burundians have also been affected. By last week, four had died.
Uganda and Burundi are the only countries that have heeded the call from the African Union to send peacekeepers to Somalia. But the 4,300 force, among them some 2,700 Ugandans, falls short of the 8,000 soldiers needed to secure Mogadishu.
"I will sacrifice my soul for the Somali people" says Dhumal.
The local media have been lately reporting different stories on the whereabouts of the commander of Somali national Force General Yussuf Hussein Dhumal, some said that he has passed way in the recent clashes between the government forces and its Islamists rivals while some said that he is bed driven, fortunately Somaliweyn radio had exclusive interview with the general on Monday.
The general was on Monday morning standing in front of a parade of Somali army in their newly brought camouflage uniforms taking salute from the parade master.
After the General has taken his morning salutation from the parade of soldiers Somaliweyn reporter went to the general to interview about the ramours of his death and alike.
"I heard that some of the local media creating exaggerations out my condition as you can see with your wide open eyes I am healthy enough and you can also see that I am with my officers here with me having light moment with them, I have no slight wound on body, but I strongly believe that my expiry time will not be extended from the time when God has assigned to take it" said General Dhumal.
The General also added that he has been in the front-line when the clashes between the government and its adversaries were taking place in the capital Mogadishu, and has not sustained even the slights injuries.
In his interview he also said that he has been to couple of African nations for what he called perambulation, and discussed with them on how to create stronger Somali Armed Forces.
Lastly but the not the least the General said that he will sacrifice his soul for the benefit of the Somali people and the nation, and urged the media to transmit accurate reports.
Impacting reports from the global village
Withdraw army from Somalia, Besigye demands
By Patrick Jaramogi
FDC President Col. Dr. Kizza Besigye wants Ugandan troops deployed in war-torn Somalia to be brought back home.
"As FDC, we opposed the deployment of UPDF in Somalia. There was no way they were going to keep peace when there is no peace in Somalia," he said at the party's weekly press briefing at Najjanankumbi yesterday.
"Rather than keeping peace they were sucked into civil war. There is ample evidence that the UPDF supplied arms to one of the warring factions and that is why we are saying they should return home."
"They are involved in a civil war and that is why we are now seeing an element of food poisoning. That is what we call biological war-fare. FDC may not do much, but it is upon the parents of the soldiers who are dying in Somalia to come up and demonstrate," he said.
However, the army has ruled out poisoning, describing the disease that has hit 40 soldiers so far as a strain of a bacterial, water-borne infection.
But Besigye, a medical doctor, said bacteria can be a form of poison. "Bad elements can put bacterial substances in your water and that is why we see only UPDF and Burundian troops affected and not Somalis."
He lashed out at Ugandans for keeping quiet about sensitive issues. "Entebbe Airport has gone and Ugandans are just crying "mama nyabo". Up to when shall we keep quiet? Even if President Museveni leaves and Besigye comes in but Ugandans don't learn to oppose corruption, it will continue to thrive."
Commenting on the Kampala City Council Bill before Parliament, Besigye said the takeover of Kampala city by the Government will only succeed if the Kampala residents are consulted.
"It appears the Government is keen on proceeding with the take-over of Kampala in an arrogant manner. These are critical issues that have fundamental constitutional biases," he stated and added "The expansion of Kampala will involve re-demarcations of the new district boundaries. These districts must consult the population on this."
Besigye pointed out that for Mpigi, Wakiso and Mukono districts, which are located in Buganda, it was important that the Mengo government endorsed the idea first.
However, the UPDF soldiers serving on the African Union mission who were admitted to Nairobi hospital after contracting a water born disease have been discharged.
UPDF Army spokesman Lt.Col.Felix Kulaigye says the twenty three who were flown to Nairobi tested negative and are back in Somalia.
Late last month a strange disease attacked the peace keepers in Somalia affecting the peace keeping force.
He also maintains that the UPDF will not pull out of Somalia as demanded by the opposition, FDC President Kizza Besigye.
Its only Parliament to demand for the withdrawal, he says.
UN admits failures in Kenya camp (BBC) One of the world's largest refugee camps fails to meet even the most basic standards, the UN has admitted.
More than a quarter of a million Somalis are crowded into the Dadaab camp in eastern Kenya having fled fighting in their own country.
Chronic overcrowding makes it difficult to help those in need, officials say, and Kenya is resisting expansion calls.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, is due to visit on Tuesday to discuss additional space.
The UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, believes that with more than 6,000 new refugees arriving every month it has no choice but to expand the camp.
Dadaab is a collection of three sprawling tented cities on Kenya's sandy frontier with Somalia.
As Somalis lined up for their daily ration of food, one resident, Mohamed Shukra Shukra, told the BBC: "The problem is no water... no hospital, no food, it's a problem."
The UN said that when judged by its own standards it was clear the camp was failing.
Senior operations manager Bono Katandi said: "If you talk about health the standard is one health centre to 10,000 population.
"We're talking of 28,000. When you talk about water we're only getting less than 12 litres of water per person per day while the standard is 20 litres."
But the agency insists the problem is not of its making, the BBC's East Africa correspondent Peter Greste reports from Dadaab camp.
When the camp was built almost two decades ago it was designed for 90,000 refugees, but there are now more than three times that number.
Mr Katandi said more land was needed.
"Unless you get more land you will have difficulties providing enough water," he said.
"We will still have difficulties providing enough shelter. We'll still have difficulties providing enough health facilities within the location that they are now."
Terrorism suspects back in Holland on Wednesday
The four young men arrested by the police in Kenya on suspicion of terrorism last week are to be returned to the Netherlands on Wednesday, reports the justice department.
The men are currently being held in Belgium after being flown out of Kenya and have agreed to their extradition to Holland. They will appear in court in Rotterdam on Friday.
The Dutch authorities have already launched an investigation into the detainees´ possible involvement with terrorism.
Three of the men, who are all 21-years-old, are Dutch and one is a Moroccan with a Dutch residency permit.
Is Eritrea a threat to US security?
By Michael Abraha
Eritrean government ´support´ of Islamic extremism flourishing in Somalia has continued unabated. The Obama administration says Eritrea´s behavior poses a direct threat to its national security and a serious danger to international peace. It is no surprise that the US has heightened its rhetoric against Eritrea´s alleged arming and funding of the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab mujahedins who want a Somali society under strict Sharia law.
The Obama Administration says Eritrea´s "spoiler" role in Somalia is unacceptable. The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, has said her government will take "appropriate steps" if the Eritrean government fails to withdraw in "short order" its backing of Al Shabab and other violent extremists.
Some experts view Washington´s criticism of Eritrea as coming close to calling it a state sponsor of terrorism. It was a replay of the Bush administration´s threats of putting the Eritrean government in its list of terrorist states.
While speaking of possible UN sanctions against Eritrea, the Obama Administration has been bolstering President Sharif Ahmed´s beleaguered government in Mogadishu. It has stepped up transfer of weapons and funds to the African Union Peacekeeping Mission and to the Transitional Somali Government under Sharif Ahmed. The Eritrea topic is also expected to be highlighted when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets Ahmed in Nairobi on Thursday as a matter of ´mutual concern´.
The Eritrean government has meanwhile not budged an inch reaffirming instead its view that it is Washington that has to change its policies on Somalia and the Horn. No African state has come up in support of Eritrea.
This pariah status is becoming firmer as the government continues to align itself with America´s enemies in Somalia. Still, the Obama administration appears uncertain when to call for UN sanctions even though the African Union has long endorsed such an idea.
At the risk of being called soft on terrorism, the Obama administration has only been sending conciliatory signals. At this pace, one of two things may need to happen before the Obama administration takes steps against the Eritrean government: the US would respond swiftly if Al Shabab, while still being ´backed´ by Eritrea, were to take over the country installing a hostile Islamist state; or if Al Shabab commits terrorist acts against US interests outside Somalia.
Time is running out for Eritrea´s intransigence. The Eritrean government should begin mending fences and join hands in the effort to pacify Somalia and stabilize the rest of the Horn region.
Supporters of Canadian man fight Ethiopian court's life sentence (CP)
Supporters of a Canadian sentenced to life behind bars in Ethiopia want the Harper government to suspend aid to the African country over what they consider a politically motivated sham.
The Ethiopian High Court ordered Bashir Makhtal to spend life in prison Monday, disappointing backers fighting for his return to Canada.
"I'm really devastated about it," said Said Maktal, a cousin in Hamilton, Ont., who spells his name differently. "I don't think that Bashir's been given the due process.
"This is the time for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to intervene in the case."
Makhtal, 40, was convicted of terrorism-related charges last week in Addis Ababa.
The court found Makhtal guilty of membership in the political and military central committees of the separatist Ogaden National Liberation Front; working to co-ordinate attacks against the Ethiopian army, and working with the Eritrean government in recruiting and training insurgents.
"The nature of these crimes forces the court to impose punishment that would act as a lesson to deter others," the High Court said Monday. "And the court has decided to impose a life sentence."
Thumbing his rosary, Makhtal - who could have received the death penalty - remained calm as the sentence was read.
The Ethiopian-born Makhtal, a Canadian citizen, says he's innocent. He is appealing the conviction.
Makhtal settled in Canada as a refugee in 1991 and later moved to Kenya, opening a used-clothing business. He was working in Somalia when Ethiopian troops invaded in late 2006.
Makhtal fled back to Kenya, but was detained along with several others at the Kenya-Somalia border.
Lorne Waldman, Makhtal's Toronto lawyer, has denounced the legal proceedings as a "kangaroo court" that ignored important evidence. Some allegations suggest Makhtal was involved in military activity at a time when he wasn't even in the region, Waldman says.
He wants the federal government to pressure Ethiopia by cutting off all development aid short of humanitarian assistance.
"We're now looking to them to make a very forceful response to Ethiopia," Waldman said.
"And we hope that if enough political pressure is brought to bear that they will in fact do the right thing and let Mr. Makhtal leave the country as quickly as possible.
"There have been other foreign nationals in Ethiopia who have been expelled after they've been given serious sentences. It wouldn't be unprecedented in Ethiopia."
Waldman said he would "aggressively pursue" a previously filed Federal Court lawsuit aimed at forcing Canada to halt development aid to Addis Ababa.
In a statement, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said the government is "extremely disappointed" by the sentence, adding Canada would "continue to explore all options for supporting Bashir Makhtal."
Catherine Loubier, a spokeswoman for Cannon, said government efforts would focus on the continuing court proceedings - not suspending development dollars. "We're not considering cutting aid because we're not there yet."
Waldman says political action is needed.
"Given the nature of the legal proceedings in Ethiopia, we have no expectation that the appeal will result in a different verdict."
Maktal said he wants Harper to pick up the phone and make Canada's concern for his cousin clear to the Ethiopian government.
"We've passed the time of waiting, and this is the time of action. We'd like to see the government do something good for Bashir.
"I don't want to see him die there for something he never committed."
Australia Police: Several In Custody After Terror Raids
Australia's Victoria state police said Tuesday that " several" people are in custody, and a number are assisting police with inquiries, after pre-dawn counter-terrorism raids in Melbourne.
"Police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia," Victoria Police said in a statement.
The statement said the operation involved approximately 400 officers from the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and New South Wales Police, and involved 19 search warrants across
NSW Police Force in joint counter terrorism operation
Several people are in custody and a number are assisting with inquiries as a result of a joint counter-terrorism operation in Melbourne this morning involving the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Victoria Police, NSW Police, the NSW Crime Commission and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
NSW Police Officers from the Counter Terrorism & Special Tactics Command have been part of this joint counter-terrorism operation for the past six months and have provided investigative and intelligence assistance.
Over a number of months more than 20 NSW Police officers have been actively involved in the Melbourne phase of the investigation.
Police executed 19 search warrants across Melbourne at around 4.30 this morning. Warrants were executed on homes in Glenroy, Carlton, Meadow Heights, Roxburgh Park, Broadmeadows, Westmeadows, Preston, Epping and Colac.
Today´s operation involved approximately 400 officers from the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and NSW Police.
Police believe members of a Melbourne-based group have been undertaking planning to carry out a terrorist attack in Australia and are allegedly involved in hostilities in Somalia.
Phone call sparked Operation Neath by Cameron Stewart for The Australian
IT was a single phone call that sparked the second-largest terror investigation in Australian history, known as Operation Neath.
In January, at the height of Melbourne's parched summer, an Australian-Lebanese man in his 30s telephoned a Somalian in the city's western suburbs and made a disturbing request.
He wanted assistance for himself and some of his friends to travel to the war-torn African state of Somalia.
The men wanted to become Islamic warriors with al-Shabaab, an extremist group in that country with close links to al-Qa'ida, and which is listed as a terrorist organisation by the US. The fledgling Somalian terror group, barely three years old, had become the new face of Islamic resistance in Africa and was actively recruiting foreign fighters to help it overthrow the US-backed government in Somalia.
Investigators were monitoring the Lebanese man's calls after he came to their attention late last year for espousing extremist views at his local mosque in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
What unfolded over the next few months would confirm the worst fears of the nation's counter-terrorism chiefs and provide a grim reminder that Australians remain vulnerable to the threat posed by a handful of Islamic extremists, living in our suburbs, who are seduced by the dark side.
Australia's security agencies had suspected for several years there were illegal links between small pockets of the nation's 16,000-strong Somali community and the extremists in their war-torn homeland.
But the AFP and ASIO had never been able to prove the links, and an AFP investigation called Operation Rochester in 2007 petered out after no illegal connections were identified.
Now the authorities had found what they were looking for. And they would find much more than they bargained for. Authorities learned that the Somalian man who had been contacted by their Lebanese suspect was the "facilitator", or point man, for Australian jihadists seeking to travel to the failed state and join the al-Shabaab resistance there.
Working from Melbourne's western suburbs, this travel agent for would-be jihadists had close connections with al-Shabaab members in Somalia and was able to arrange funding and logistics for Melbourne recruits.
Authorities believe he had in recent months arranged for two Somali Australians to be smuggled into Somalia, via Kenya, to train with al-Shabaab.
One of those Australian men remains in Somalia, where he is presumed to be training or fighting with al-Shabaab. The other Somalian man has recently returned to Melbourne.
But the Lebanese man proved more problematic for the Somalian facilitator in Melbourne. Visa and passport difficulties prevented him from making the trip to Somalia.
Frustrated by his inability to travel abroad to join al-Shabaab, the Lebanese man and the core hardline group discussed their options. Investigators listened in horror as the men were then overheard planning a terrorist attack in Australia.
>From that moment, about three months ago, the top-secret investigation known as Operation Neath became the dominant focus of Australia's national security agencies.
Jointly run by the AFP, Victoria Police and ASIO, the investigation comprises about 150 police, intelligence agents and officials.
The group of suspects, involving Lebanese and Somali Australians, is believed to total about 18 men, with a core of hardliners. While they are deeply religious, there are no imams, or self-styled religious leaders, among them.
They are working-class men, consisting mostly of construction labourers and taxi drivers. None is believed to be tertiary educated, and they seem to have a limited understanding of the international affairs and events on which they justify their violent religious crusade.
The electronic evidence gathered by police against the group is chilling. Investigators listened as the men discussed a suicide attack on an Australian army base. The only reason offered for such an attack was the presence of Australian troops in Muslim countries, although Afghanistan and Iraq were not mentioned by name.
The plan was for the group to storm the entrance to an army base, firing automatic weapons. They would kill as many Australian soldiers as possible until they were themselves killed. None of them would surrender.
But hopes that this was nothing more than hairy-chested rhetoric were soon dashed when surveillance teams followed one of the suspects to Holsworthy Barracks in southwestern Sydney.
The historic military base is home to Australia's elite Parachute Battalion and Commando Regiment.
Investigators watched as the suspect quietly cased the scene, observing movements of people and traffic. Other suspicious behaviour near Victorian defence bases raised concerns of investigators that the group might also be conducting reconnaissance missions in that state.
In addition, the suspects were overheard discussing ways to obtain firearms, and swapping notes on which of their family and friends had firearm licences.
Gathering evidence against the group was a painstaking task, with the suspects often taking steps to evade surveillance by meeting in their local mosque or holding discussions in parks.
But several months ago there was a hitch in the group's plans. One of the group's core players, the Lebanese man who originally sparked the investigation, suddenly found himself in jail for alleged assault.
He had been involved in a confrontation with a nearby resident over a minor matter and was put behind bars, making it difficult for authorities to assess how close the group might be to carrying out the attack.
Investigators were also concerned about another member of the group, a Somalian, who returned to Australia last month after receiving military training from al-Shabaab in Somalia.
Training with al-Shabaab usually involves a six-week course covering guerilla tactics and instruction on how to handle explosives. However, Somalia is a lawless, failed state that remains a blackhole for Western intelligence agencies.
Australian agencies do not know what sort of training the Australian might have received there, but they do know the man did not finish his full training course. It is unclear why he cut short his training and returned to Melbourne.
Authorities were concerned that this man, who holds an Australian passport, might have become further energised and radicalised while in Somalia, and may have returned to Melbourne to encourage the Melbourne cell to carry out the plan sooner rather than later.
These uncertainties placed authorities in a dilemma. Continuing to monitor the activities of the group would allow investigators the chance to gather new intelligence to maximise their chances of securing convictions against the men. But not acting quickly would risk the unthinkable prospect of the group actually carrying out the attack.
Faced with these decisions, the AFP is understood to have recently presented its evidence against the Melbourne cell to the Office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, which advised that the evidence was sufficient to support charges being laid under national terrorism laws.
In recent weeks plans were drawn up for an extensive series of raids on properties across Melbourne. Sources said these raids were to take place as early as this morning after it was concluded, at a series of high-level meetings over the weekend, that immediate action was justified to prevent the possibility of innocent lives being lost.
The Australian defends published terror story
The Australian newspaper's editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell has defended the timeframe used for publishing details of an alleged terrorist attack on Australian soil.
The Australian newspaper learnt of the terror investigation last week and agreed to hold off on publishing the story until Tuesday.
Victoria Police claim details of the operation hit the streets in the early hours of Tuesday morning, potentially jeopardising a series of early morning raids.
But the newspaper has rejected the claim, saying early editions were held back while the raids took place.
In a seven-month joint investigation, police uncovered an alleged plot by men of Somalian and Lebanese descent to storm the Holsworthy Army.
Barracks in Sydney, home to several thousand troops, and launch a suicide shoot-out.
Victoria's police chief Simon Overland said he was "extremely disappointed" details of the operation were leaked.
"We will be vigorously pursuing the leak from my end and I expect that the federal authorities will be doing the same," Mr Overland said.
He said he was disappointed the newspaper hit Melbourne streets at 1.30am (AEST) on Tuesday - three hours before the raids began.
"This, in my view, represents an unacceptable risk to the operation, an unacceptable risk to my staff," Mr Overland told reporters.
"It's a risk that I take extremely seriously and is cause for great concern."
But Mr Mitchell said copies of the paper carrying the story were not available at that time.
"We held the story out of all early editions," Mr Mitchell told the Australian website.
"No newspaper that was sold before the raids had any mention of them - they had Godwin Grech on the front page.
"Only papers that were sold at newsagents after the raid, and those destined for home delivery, had the raid story on page one."
The newspaper said it took part in a "complex logistical exercise" to hold back its coverage of the raids until later editions and altered its online publishing schedule to ensure the reports did not appear on the newspaper's website.
"Simon Overland is wrong," Mr Mitchell said.
"This is his sour grapes about not getting enough credit for Victorian police and him protecting himself against complaints from Victorian editors."
Journalist Cameron Stewart, who was a spy with the Defence Signals Directorate before joining The Australian in 1987, said the AFP nominated the publication date for the article after he sought comment from them.
"They said please don't publish because you might comprise the investigation," he told Sky News.
"I listened to their arguments and we did not publish.
"We said that's fine, please nominate to us the date that we can publish.
"They nominated today and we did publish that."
He said the paper went to "extraordinary lengths" to ensure no editions of the newspaper that contained the story hit the streets "until late in the piece".
The newspaper did not run the story in the first three editions, he said.
Utter Nonsense
As "utter nonsense" termed the Head of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme, Andrew Mwangura, an article by the Chinese news agency Xhinua, which tried to link Somali piracy to the five alleged terror-plotters in Australia.
The only thing I said was, that money from the piracy is immediately used up on the land in Somalia, said Mr. Mwangura. But the media tried to use this sentence to establish a link from the pirates to Al-Shabab and from there to the Australians of Somali and Lebanon origin, which stand accused of plotting an attack against an army installation. That's very bad journalism.
Somali refugees need help: expert by Jon Pierik
Australian immigration authorities have been urged to provide greater assistance to Somali refugees following the arrests of several Melbourne men allegedly linked to a Somali-based terror group.
African Think Tank chairman, Dr Berhan Ahmed, has claimed young Somali immigrants are susceptible to a world of robbery and drugs when they watch their parents struggle in a new country.
Dr Ahmed, himself a former refugee, said parents often reacted to this threat by "pushing" their children into religion which, if fanatical, could lead to ties with terrorist groups.
The five men arrested in Melbourne on Tuesday accused of plotting to launch a suicide attack on an Australian Army base were of Somali and Lebanese descent and allegedly had links to terrorist cell al-Shabaab.
Dr Ahmed said the emotional pull of wanting to help their homeland could grow when life turns sour in their adopted country.
"That marginalisation here can lead to emotions taking over, thinking about their homeland," he said.
"When they have nowhere to go here, they want to do something for their homeland."
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Acting Chief Commissioner Tony Negus said police believe the men were seeking a fatwa, or religious ruling, to justify their plot, and it is alleged some of them had travelled to Somalia.
Somalia has been in civil war since 1991 in which al-Shabaab, which is aligned with al-Qaeda, wants to overthrow the ruling government.
It was also reported the alleged plot was designed to punish Australia for its military role in Muslim countries.
Dr Ahmed says many Somali refugees become disenchanted when they are forced into jobs such as labouring and taxi drivers, despite having high qualifications.
"The settlement process has to change from the 20th century to the 21st century," he said.
"There are doctors in the taxi industry, there are pilots. But they are not given an opportunity."
Dr Ahmed said more needed to be done to provide better housing for refugees.
"When they come here they live in housing commission flats. The problem with housing commission flats is they are full of drug problems," he said.
"Drug dealers recruit these kids.
"The number of Somalis now in jail here is the second-highest of any Africans in jail."
In a report he is about to table with the Department of Immigration, Dr Ahmed said opportunity was the key to ensuring improved integration.
Sherene Hassan, the vice-president of Islamic Council of Victoria, says Somali refugees "are generally a very hard working community who have embraced the Australian way of life".
A 2006 census by the Victorian Multicultural Commission found there were 4,313 Somalia-born residents in Australia, with 2624 in Victoria.
US-American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares Africa trip Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is arriving in Africa on Tuesday. The stops on her official tour include Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.
Clinton´s trip comes just three weeks after President Obama made his first presidential visit to Africa, saying that the continent will be a priority for his administration. Clinton will discuss trade, development and gender violence with African leaders but critics say that the militarization of Africa and the exploitation of its resources should take center stage.
US-American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected in the country on Tuesday evening for the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum.
Mrs Clinton is on Wednesday scheduled to deliver a speech at the Ministerial Opening Ceremony for the AGOA Forum. She will also hold talks with Kenya´s senior leaders.
Also during the high-level tour, the top US diplomat will on Wednesday afternoon visit the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) laboratories along Waiyaki Way.
She will be accompanied by US Secretary of Agriculture, Thomas J. Vilsack, together with U.S. Representatives Donald M. Payne and Nita M. Lowey.
"The visit will focus on KARI´s contributions to Kenya´s food security and agricultural development. It will include a laboratory tour, discussion with KARI staff and collaborating partners, observation of a maize research plot, and ceremonial tree-planting," according to a brief from the US embassy in Nairobi.
"As highlighted in President Obama´s speech at the G-8 meetings and subsequent communiqués, food security is a high priority of this US Administration."
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), support a wide array of agricultural development activities in Kenya and the region. USAID and USDA have supported KARI through a variety of capacity-building and technology development and transfer programs since the 1960s.
On Thursday, Mrs Clinton is scheduled to meet with Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the President of Somalia´s Transitional Federal Government.
The seven-nation, 11-day trip is to be Mrs Clinton's longest since she became the top US diplomat six months ago and her first to sub-Saharan Africa.
The State Department has underlined that her visit, which comes just three weeks after President Barack Obama visited the continent, is the earliest trip by a Secretary of State to Africa of any administration.
Mrs Clinton could face tough talks in Nairobi. African leaders have been concerned that President Obama is looking to extend the trade preferences under the 2000 African Growth and Opportunity Act to other poor nations -- including Bangladesh and Cambodia, competitors in the textile market.
Traffic flow in the Nairobi city centre was on Tuesday interrupted following the ongoing African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum at Kenyatta International Conference Centre KICC.
Police Spokesman Eric Kiraithe said in a statement that various city roads would remain closed until Thursday when the conference closes.
He said Parliament road, city hall way leading to Uhuru highway junction and Wabera road about would remain closed.
Others are Posta road from Hotel Intercontinental roundabout to GPO.
"The roads will remain closed from Tuesday 9am to Thursday 5pm and only vehicles with AGOA conference special stickers would be allowed to access the roads" added Kiraithe.
Motorists were however inconvenienced following the directive that caught many unaware.
Kiraithe appealed to motorists to cooperate and where possible avoid the Nairobi Central Business District to avoid being inconvenienced.
" Police traffic police officers will be deployed in their relevant areas to direct traffic as necessary" he said.
Clinton visit
Meanwhile security has been tightened ahead of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visit.
Mrs Clinton arrives in the country on Tuesday evening for the AGOA forum that opened on Tuesday.
She will officially open the meeting (tomorrow)Wednesday.
She is also expected to meet top government officials and the president of lawless Somalia's interim government.
Over 2,000 delegates from the US and across Africa are in Nairobi for the forum to discuss ways in which the continent can benefit from preferential trade with America.
Can they not see each other on an island instead of bothering millions in Nairobi, who will have nothing from the show?
Ahmedou meeting with Somali-Canadian Diaspora
On July 31, 2009, the Canadian Friends of Somalia, a non-profit organization based in Ottawa had arranged a meeting between the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) of the United Nations, Mr. Ahmedou Ould Abdalla and the members of the Somali Diaspora from Ottawa, Toronto, and Edmonton including academics and community leaders. The meeting took three hours and was held at the parliament of Canada.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss and exchange views on how the Somali Diaspora can take a leading role in the political and the reconciliation process in our Somalia. The SRSG of the United Nations also briefed the Somali attendees on current situation in Somalia and his latest efforts on bringing peace to Somalia including his report to the Security Council on July 29.
A number of the participants were critical of the UN and particularly the leadership of the SRSG and his negative influence in the Somali peace process.
They alluded to the fact that his Excellency became partisan in the Somali conflict and thus became part of the Somali problem. They advised him that the SRSG has outlasted his usefulness in the peace process and might be the time to change course.
The participants asked serious but vital questions to the SRSG including:
The role that the United Nations Political Office for Somalia played in the agreement between Somalia and Kenya on territorial waters and continental shelf. Some of the participants alluded to the fact that His Excellency Ould Abdalla was personally implicated in this agreement.
Why he is resistant to talk to the opposition including Alshabab and if in fact the SRSG had made any contact with the opposition groups.
Why he is not willing to work with and recognize the successful political processes of Puntland and Somaliland which were led and owned by the Somalis themselves. The participants emphasized the importance that the UN and donor countries should encourage the successful endeavors of these peaceful areas instead of creating alien principles and imposing them on the Somalis. The participants suggested that the only two genuine reconciliation conferences were held inside Somalia; both were Somali-owned, and both were funded by Somalis from their meager resources. The fruits of these conferences were the creation of two peaceful oases in a sea of conflict.
Acknowledging the fact that the much-hyped Djibouti reconciliation was a disaster for Somalia, what is next for the United Nations?
What is the role that the Somali Diaspora can take in the political and reconciliation process in Somalia?
Mr. Ould Abdalla as good old diplomat as he really is, was very evasive on directly answering most of the questions. He was not forthcoming in sharing any substantive information and was equally not responsive to the ideas of the participants. He was highly charged and came to the meeting with a preconceived notion that he can simply placate the participants with few verses from the Quran. His answers were short and nonessential.
The meeting was attended by two academics from the Somali Diaspora, Professor Abdiweli M. Ali of Niagara University and Professor Amina Mire of Carlton University. The two professors touched the substantive issues facing Somalia today including piracy, illegal fishing, and nuclear waste dumping.
These provided some suggestive solutions to the current problem in Somalia and how the Diaspora can be engaged in partaking the peace process. Few of the advice they proffered to his Excellency were:
To widen the peace process and incorporate the Diaspora in a more structured and formal manner.
Allowing the Diaspora to take its unique position and employing the Somali professionals in the UN offices now occupied by non-Somalis without intimate knowledge of the local conditions and cultures.
That Somalia is not Mogadishu and Mogadishu is not Somalia. Somalia should not be a hostage for Mogadishu any more.
Before the meeting with the Somali Diaspora, the SRSG had a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Canada, Mr. Cannon. The two discussed the role that Canada can play in the current peace process and the reconstruction and development of the country, if and when peace returns to Somalia.
Mr. Farah Aw Osman, the Executive Director of the Canadian Friends of Somalia concluded the meeting with few encouraging remarks.
Around 50 journalists killed worldwide in 2009
At least 46 journalists have been killed in 21 countries since the beginning of 2009, the International News Safety Institute (INSI) report said, according to RIA Novosti.
The reports states that Somalia, Mexico, Pakistan, Iraq and Philippines are documented as the most dangerous countries for journalists.
"The situation in Mexico is causing grave concern with at least three deaths confirmed and three more under investigation," the report said.
According to INSI, whose main aim is to develop safety programs for journalists, the majority of journalists were killed in Asia (13 people), the American continent (10 deaths) and Africa (ten correspondents).
In Pakistan, Iraq and the Philippines three journalists have died in each country. Six reporters in Somalia have died in the troubled state up to the end of July.
However, the number of journalists killed in Iraq has reduced as the safety situation in the country becomes more stable, INSI said. Earlier Iraq was the most dangerous place for correspondents.
An Australian and a Canadian journalist are still held hostage for nearly a year now in Somalia.
Note: We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:
A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local "distributors" and dealers - and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn - come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality yourself!)
There is no limit to what a person can do or how far one can go to help - if one doesn't mind who gets the credit !
ECOTERRA Intl. maintains a register for persons missing or abducted in the Somali seas (Foreign seafarers as well as Somalis). Inquiries by family member can be sent by e-mail to office[at]ecoterra-international.org
For families of presently captive seafarers - in order to advise and console their worries - ECOTERRA Intl. can establish contacts with professional seafarers, who had been abducted in Somalia, and their wives as well as of a Captain of a sea-jacked and released ship, who agreed to be addressed "with questions, and we will answer truthfully".
ECOTERRA - ALERTS and pending issues:
PIRATE ATTACK GULF OF ADEN: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do http://www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2
NATURAL RESOURCES & ARMED FISH POACHERS: Foreign navies entering the 200nm EEZ of Somalia and foreign helicopters and troops must respect the fact that especially all wildlife is protected by Somali national as well as by international laws and that the protection of the marine resources of Somalia from illegally fishing foreign vessels should be an integral part of the anti-piracy operations. Likewise the navies must adhere to international standards and not pollute the coastal waters with oil, ballast water or waste from their own ships but help Somalia to fight against any dumping of any waste (incl. diluted, toxic or nuclear waste). So far and though the AU as well as the UN has called since long on other nations to respect the 200 nm EEZ, only now the two countries (Spain and France) to which the most notorious vessels and fleets are linked have come up with a declaration that they will respect the 200 nm EEZ of Somalia but so far not any of the navies operating in the area pledged to stand against illegal fishing. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from South Korea, some from Greece and China) carry now armed personnel and force their way into the Somali fishing grounds - uncontrolled or even protected by the naval forces mandated to guard the Somali waters against any criminal activity, which included arms carried by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters.
LLWs / NLWs: According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are also used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed arsenals of so called non-lethal as well as sub-lethal weapons systems. (Pls request details) Neither the Navies nor the UN has come up with any code of conduct in this respect, while the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is sponsoring several service-led acquisition programs, including the VLAD, Joint Integration Program, and Improved Flash Bang Grenade. Alredy in use in Somalia are so called Non-lethal optical distractors, which are visible laser devices that have reversible optical effects. These types of non-blinding laser devices use highly directional optical energy. Somalia is also a testing ground for the further developments of the Active Denial System (ADS) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). If new developments using millimeter wave sources that will help minimize the size, weight, and system cost of an effective Active Denial System which provides "ADS-ACTD-like" repel effects, are used has not yet been revealed. Obviously not only the US is developing and using these kind of weapons as the case of MV MARATHON showed, where a Spanish naval vessel was using optical lasers - the stand-off was then broken by the killing of one of the hostage seafarers. Local observers also claim that HEMI devices, producing Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) Bioeffects, have been used in the Gulf of Aden against Somalis. Exposure to HEMI devices, which can be understood as a stun-gun shot at an individual over a larger distance, causes muscle contractions that temporarily disable an individual. Research efforts are underway to develop a longer-duration of this effect than is currently available. The live tests are apparently done without that science understands yet the effects of HEMI electrical waveforms on a human body.
ECOTERRA Intl., whose work does focus on nature- and human-rights-protection and - as the last international environmental organization still working in Somalia - had alerted ship-owners since 1992, many of whom were fishing illegally in the 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone, to stay away from Somali waters. The non-governmental organization had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand.
ECOTERRA members with marine and maritime expertise, joined by it's ECOP-marine group, are closely and continuously monitoring and advising on the Somali situation. (for previous information concerning the topics please google keywords ECOTERRA (and) SOMALIA)
The network of the SEAFARERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. ECOTERRA Intl. is working in Somalia since 1986 on human-rights and nature protection, while ECOP-marine concentrates on illegal fishing and the protection of the marine ecosystems. Your support counts too.
Please consider to contribute to the work of SAP, ECOP-marine and ECOTERRA Intl. Please donate to the defence fund.
Contact us for details concerning project-sponsorship or donations via e-mail: ecotrust[at]ecoterra.net
Kindly note that all the information above is distributed under and is subject to a license under the Creative Commons Attribution.
To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/
Send your genuine articles or networked information please to: mailhub[at]ecoterra.net
Pls cite ECOTERRA Intl. - www.ecoterra-international.org as source for onward publications, where no other source is quoted.
Press Contacts:
ECOP-marine
East-Africa
254-714-747090
marine[at]ecop.info
www.ecop.info
ECOTERRA Intl.
Nairobi Node
africanode[at]ecoterra.net
254-733-633-733
EA Seafarers Assistance Programme
SAP Media Officers
254-722-613858
254-733-385868
sap[at]ecoterra.net
N.B.: If you are missing certain editions of our updates, this can have two reasons: Either you have not white-listed our sender address office[at}ecoterra-international.org for your inbox and your server provides for censorship (beware of yahoo and
barracudacentral as filter) or you do not belong [yet] to our trusted friends and supporters, who receive all updates including those with classified content. Join the network or become a funding supporter to get them all. Look up earlier updates on the internet - e.g. at: http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=136&Itemid=229
To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this listserve - just send a mail with reference SMCM to office[at]ecoterra-international.org
We welcome the submission of articles for publication through the SMCM.
Note: ECOTERRA is not responsible for the spam that sometimes appears to come from our domains. This is spoofed mail, is part of a systematic, ongoing harassment of independent groups and websites, and is under FBI investigation.
For more information see this article in The Nation or this article in Wired News.
One tree makes approx. 16.67 reams of copy/printing paper or 8,333.3 A4 sheets. Kindly print this email only if strictly necessary.
Print
Email
