PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN SOMALAWIAN PART 5: Pirates have seized another vessel, a German cargo ship, off the coast of Somalia, the International Maritime Bureau said on Friday, bringing the number of ships hijacked to a record four in 48 hours. "Another ship, a German vessel, was taken late on Thursday," said Noel Choong, head of the bureau's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur.  Earlier on Thursday, Somali pirates hijacked an Iranian bulk carrier and a Japanese-operated tanker. A day earlier, they seized a Malaysian oil tanker.  Reuters

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TARGET: PEACEKEEPERS.  VICTIMS: CIVILIANS.  Four civilians died Wednesday in the battle-scarred Somali capital in fighting after an attack by Islamist insurgents on Ugandan peacekeepers, witnesses said.Insurgents fired heavy artillery and mortars in Mogadishu's southern K4 quarter where Ugandan troops from an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force are based, witnesses said, adding that the battle raged for an hour. AFP.

A FAMILIAR GUEST VISITS ETHIOPIA:  The Red Cross on Wednesday revised its emergency appeal for Ethiopia to five million euros (7.9 million dollars) as the situation in the drought-hit south of the country got worse. "Over the past two months the situation has worsened and living conditions have deteriorated. People have exhausted all their resources and are unable to feed themselves. AFP.

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A FAMILIAR ACCUSATION VISITS AN UNLIKELY TARGET: The Sudanese ruling party accused an Islamist opposition leader of collaborating with the US and UK to overthrow President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir....Al-Bashir and Al-Turabi split ranks in 1999 and the latter was jailed on accusations of conspiracy. He was released in October 2003.The opposition leader was jailed again for more than a year in 2004 over accusations of connections with an alleged coup plot before being released in 2005. Sudan Tribune

PIRATES OF THE SOMALAWIAN, PART 4:  Pirates have hijacked a tanker with more than 20 crew on board in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia, a global maritime watchdog has said....Tuesday night's hijacking was the fourth in this area in the past few weeks, the International Maritime Bureau said.  BBC


IS IT PERSEVERANCE OR OBSTINACY?  Somalia's government has formally signed a peace deal with some opposition figures, U.N. officials said on Tuesday, but the pact initialled in June has been rejected by hardliners and done little to quell violence….Like previous rounds of talks -- including a six-week peace conference last year in rubble-strewn Mogadishu -- the negotiations have done little to reduce bloodshed on the ground. At least five people were killed on Tuesday when Islamist fighters attacked a military base near a busy Mogadishu market.  Reuters. 

ETHIOPIA PUSHES BACK ON PRESS REPORTS OF MASSACRE:  Accordingly, on last Friday (August 15), a remote-controlled wayside explosive planted by Al-Shabbab militants at el-Shaabia, 18-km away from Mogadishu on the line to Afgoye went off killing 11 civilian passengers on board a public bus. Soldiers of the TFG and Ethiopia then took a joint counter measure on the Al-Shabbab militants responsible for the bombing and killed five terrorists therein. In the shootout, five civilians were killed, the spokesperson’s news release said. Therefore, the fact-finding team confirmed that it was the Al-Shabbab bombing of the bus that caused the deaths of passengers, not fire from Ethiopian soldiers, it said. Leaders of the Suleyman clan around the area also expressly condemned the terrorists. GaroweOnline.

SAY MY NAME, SAY MY NAME, SAY MY NAME:  Teklemariam and Kidane were advised by the coaches and EAAA to take charge of the first 5000m and they did their best to set the pace during the first half of the game. Since their chance of medal was extremely narrow, leading the packs was their best chance to put Eritrea into the World Athletics map. Eritrea's name was at the top during this Olympic 10000m competition because of these three athletes. Shaebia.org

REGRETS, I HAD A FEW:  Marathon world record-holder Haile Gebrselassie regrets pulling out of the 42-km race at the Olympics over fears that Beijing’s air pollution would damage his health. “I’m surprised. What do you expect from me? I was here in February, I didn’t see no blue sky,” the Ethiopian runner told Reuters on Monday in China’s capital, where the sun was shining in a slightly hazy sky.  More 

RECONCILER, RECONCILE THYSELF: The foreign ministers of Libya and Eritrea have announced that the meeting of the liaison group working to reconcile Sudan and Chad will convene a meeting in the coming days, APA learnt Sunday…. Members of the group are Eritrea, Gabon with the participation of Chad and Sudan. Source 

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THESE TWO STORIES IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL: 

1. Djibouti has dropped plans to raise port tariffs that would have cost land-locked Ethiopia an extra $22-million a year, the government in Addis Ababa said on Monday. The Red Sea state has been Ethiopia's main gateway for imports and exports since it lost the ports of Assab and Masawa when Eritrea won its independence in 1991. 

2. Land-locked Ethiopia has given Djiboutian President Omar Ismail Guelleh large tracts of land for wheat farming and a lakeside holiday home, officials said on Tuesday.


EASTERN FRONT DEMOTES ITS CHAIRMAN.  COMING SOON: THE CHAIRMAN RETALIATES:  Amna Dirar, a senior member of the Eastern Front that includes members of the non-Arab Beja tribe and Arab Rashaidiya tribe, said a group of party officials and military chiefs suspended the membership of chairman Musa Mohammed Ahmed at a meeting on Friday. Ahmed, who did not attend the meeting, was not immediately available for comment.  Reuters

SAME STORY, DIFFERENT DAY:  "There was huge explosion, which blew one of the Ethiopian military vehicles off the road," said Omar Nur Abdirahman, who lives in Arbiska, scene of the incident. "Afterward, Ethiopian soldiers started shooting people in the two minibuses wildly." The Ethiopians are backing Somalia's transitional government. Omar said he and others fled to the nearby forest as the Ethiopian forces began shooting everywhere.  CNN  

OUTSOURCING "ENHANCED INTERROGATION" aka TORTURE: Though hundreds of Kenyans have been arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities, only one has been successfully tried in court, he said. At least 85 people from 17 countries, including 15 Kenyan citizens, have been sent to Ethiopia without charge or access to lawyers, and many say they have been tortured in Kenyan and Ethiopian custody. As of late last year, at least 40 were still being held in Ethiopia, a key U.S. ally in the region. One Kenyan citizen has been transferred to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Washington Post

MORE PEACEKEEPERS WHERE THERE IS NO PEACE TO KEEP: Troops from Ethiopia taking part in UNAMID force operating in Darfur will start arriving in Al Fashir as of coming Saturday, the 16th of August, in implementation of the agreement between the Sudan, the UN and the African Union.  Ethiopian Review

AFRO OPTIMISM: STAND BY FOR THE CONTRADICTORY NEWS:  "I think the two parties to the Djibouti agreement are fully committed. There is a high level political meeting and the security committee is meeting at a very high level in Djibouti this weekend. So there is a commitment and I would lead the AU delegation. So once we have launched this committee, we hope that both the government and the ARS will go in Somalia and to galvanize the Somali population. I can tell you that when I was in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu I met with the civil society, elders, members of the cabinet and they are all for the total implementation of the Djibouti agreement, and I don't have any doubt that we are going to move forward," he said.  VOA

AND NOW THE CONTRADICTORY NEWS: A TALE OF TWO RIGID MEN:  To the extent that President Abdullahi Yusuf and Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys have been on the opposite sides of Somalia’s conflict for a long time, they have also been, ironically, on the same side when it comes to perpetuating the violence.Inbred in the notoriously unsparing culture of Mudug, where the pair spent their formative childhood, Aweys and Yusuf have long collaborated, though inadvertently, in aborting peace initiatives. Their most recent feud with their colleagues, Prime Minister Nur Adde and Chairman Sheikh Sharif, perfectly illustrate this tendency. Hiiraan

ANOTHER PROXY WAR, ANOTHER OIL WAR:  Chad has accused Sudan of harbouring and supporting Chadian rebels. Analysts say the two countries are fighting a proxy war using each other's rebel forces….The government was trying to clear the rebels out of the far north of Darfur so that Chinese companies could explore for oil, he said. BBC

SUDAN, KENYA ASK ISAIAS TO REJOIN THE CLUB:  His Excellency is mad at IGAD because the regional body refused to condemn Ethiopia’s presence in Somalia.   Plus, IGAD endorsed having AU Peacekeepers in Somalia.   Plus, IGAD recommended direct negotiations between Eritrea and Ethiopia on the border.    Sudan Tribune.

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION:  Authorities on Tuesday (August 5) locked up eight high school students at a military training school in metal shipping containers for objecting to the burning of hundreds of Bibles, sources told Compass.

MORE OF THE SAME:  Fierce fighting erupted in parts of southern Somalia on Tuesday, as Ethiopian forces traveling along a key road were ambushed different times by Islamist guerrillas, Radio Garowe reported.  Garoweonline. 

 "ADDIS NEGUS ENJI, LEW'T MECHE METTA": THE RED LINE IS HERE, NO HERE, NO HERE:  On the streets of Addis Ababa, some Ethiopians say they've noticed political improvements. But fear of government intimidation remains strong and many have interpreted the arrest of Kassahun as a warning against speaking out. Two Ethiopian journalists have been arrested for writing sympathetically about the singer's case.  "Before, when we were operating in a full-fledged dictatorship, you knew what you could and couldn't do," said one Ethiopian, who was afraid to be identified. "Now there is more openness, but you don't know where the line is -- until you've crossed it." LaTimes
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EASTERN SUDAN: TIME FOR BETRI HASEWSEW: Sudan's eastern fighters may return to war if they do not receive money and training to rejoin society as required under an eastern peace deal, a presidential advisor warned on Sunday.Amna Dirar, one of the leaders of the Eastern Front which fought Khartoum for years before they joined a coalition government after a peace deal in 2006, also said only a fifth of the cash promised for developing the impoverished east had emerged in 2008. Reuters

TIME FOR THE ERITREAN PRESIDENT TO PICK UP HIS SCI-FI PHONE AND CALL YEMEN'S PRESIDENT:  Yemen's Interior Ministry has accused the Eritrean authorities of arresting 42 Yemeni fishermen and torturing them off the Red Sea. Sahwa

SEVEN REASONS WHY THE DJIBOUTI AGREEMENT IS FALLING APART: Clause 7(C) demands ARS-D solemn public condemnation of all acts of armed violence in Somalia and dissociation from any armed groups or individuals and refrain from non peaceful declarations and actions. This simply means dissolution of ARS-D as political arm for armed resistance and oppressed victims from June 9, 2008. In nutshell, the requirements of the agreement are intended to de-legitimize the armed resistance against Ethiopian/TFG Forces in Somalia without parallel rightful restoration of freedom, protection, justice and democratic governance in Somalia. GeeskaAfrica



YICHALAL:  IF VIRGINIA TURNS BLUE, WILL IT BE DUE TO ETHIOPIANS? The U.S. State of Virginia, which is home to one of the largest Ethiopian American Communities in the country, hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in four decades, but some say it might turn blue come November. “I really believe for the first time in 44 years that we have a great chance of getting the electoral votes in a blue column for Sen. Obama this Fall,” Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine recently told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.  And, if the predictions hold true, the Ethiopian American vote could become the deciding factor in November that would deliver Virginia to the Democrats in a close general election.  Tadias

KIDI BELI, PART ONE: ONE CITY TWO MAYORS: Many Somalis are simply appalled by the latest dispute, which has led to an absurd situation where Mogadishu is ruled by two competing mayors, the outgoing Omar-Dheere who has ignored his dismissal and a new strongman appointed by the Somali PM Nur Adde. "I am the legal mayor of Mogadishu, the letter of sacking by the PM is only legal when accepted by the president," Habeb said in a recent phone interview. Yet Mohamed Osman Ali Dhagahtur, who was proclaimed acting mayor of Mogadishu last month, insists that the city is under his control. Geeskaafrica

KIDI BELI, PART TWO: ONE CITY, TWO POLICE COMMISSIONERS: Police officers who were recently sacked in Lower Shabeelle [southern Somalia] have opposed the appointment of new officers by the Somali police commissioner. The former assistant police commander for Lower Shabelle, Nuriye Ali Farah, who was sacked from his position, told that the newly-appointed officers will be treated as civilians once they arrive in Lower Shabelle, and will not be viewed as official representatives of the region. Mareeg

IT IS A FINE LINE BETWEEN VISIONARY AND DELUSIONAL:  A $200 billion project, which will link two continents, has been launched in Djibouti. The ambitious Al Noor City project will serve as a catalyst for regional economic growth and contribute to the development of the Gulf economy, officials have revealed. It will include futuristic cities on either side of the Red Sea and linking them via a road and rail bridge. Gulf-Daily

A NON-SHOOTING WAR: The security zone separating Ethiopian and Eritrean troops will cease to exist after the UN voted to end its border peacekeeping mission. The risk of new fighting is at its highest level in years—but a continued stalemate is still the more likely scenario.  Economist

THE SPLITTING CELL VISITS THE OLF.  Oromo Liberation Front lashes out against its clique.   OLF Press Release 

MAURITANIA FOLLOWS TURKEY’S EXAMPLE.   The general who masterminded Africa's latest coup appeared in public for the first time Thursday, leading a triumphal march on the streets of Mauritania's capital and declaring he is "determined to save democracy" in the Islamic nation.  Source 

"ONLY IN AMERICA"  is often an overused phrase.  But not this time: Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, won a vote of team captains Wednesday to earn the honor of leading America's contingent into the 90,000-seat Bird's Nest Stadium. The 1,500-meter track runner will be the flagbearer only 13 months after becoming a U.S. citizen. Source

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