Fikirka Xorta ah - The STARS Foundation, a London-based charitable foundation which works to improve the lives of disadvantaged children around the world, is pleased to announce the three recipients of the 2008 STARS Impact Awards.
Fikirka Xorta ah - The president of Somalia’s beleaguered transitional government, a former warlord who has been steadily marginalized over the past few months and widely blamed for his country’s deepening crisis, is expected to resign over the weekend, several Somali officials said on Wednesday. President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed faces a litany of challenges: a powerful Islamist insurgency; a rancorous Parliament that is threatening to impeach him; a united front of Western diplomats who say he has gone from the being the solution for Somalia to being the problem; and neighboring countries, such as Kenya, that have gotten so fed up with him for blocking peace efforts that they are preparing sanctions against Mr. Yusuf and his family.
“Yusuf was an obstacle to peace,” said Ibrahim Isaaq Yarow, the transitional government’s deputy information minister. “The parliamentarians were congratulating one another today when they heard the news that the president is resigning.”
Fikirka Xorta ah - Jendayi Frazer held separate meetings with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein at the airport in Kenya's capital, Nairobi Monday.ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — The African Union is holding talks on the violent chaos in Somalia.
The AU says its peace and security council is discussing Monday how to boost the group's peacekeeping force in the country.
The AU has fewer than 3,000 peacekeepers in Somalia — there are meant to be 8,000.
Ethiopia has troops in the country protecting the weak Somali government, but it recently announced it would withdraw by the end of this month. That will leave the government vulnerable to Islamic insurgents, who began a brutal insurgency in 2007.
Somalia's lawlessness also has allowed piracy to flourish off the coast.
Fikirka Xorta ah - MINNEAPOLIS — Mohamud Ali Hassan once told the Somali grandmother who raised him that he'd become a doctor and care for her. The Somali immigrant, who moved to the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" when he was 8, had good grades at the University of Minnesota and called Muslims to prayer at his mosque, where he also slept during the holy month of Ramadan.
But on Nov. 1, Hassan disappeared, as have a dozen other boys and young men here — two days after another young Muslim from Minnesota blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Somalia.
Fikirka Xorta ah - As the defined period for the Gaza cease-fire comes to an end today, preceded by a new cycle of violence, Israelis are being treated to a predictable dose of political posturing and chest-thumping. "We must do something, exact a price," we hear. Yes, the rocket fire needs to stop, but there is no military answer to this predicament.
Fikirka Xorta ah - Somalia's parliament voted Wednesday to begin impeachment proceedings against President Abdullahi Yusuf, another sign that his U.S.-backed government is unraveling. "This is the end of the government. This is it," said Mohamed Amin, a member of an opposition coalition that has a majority in parliament.
Yusuf's government began disintegrating almost from the start two years ago, when it was installed with the might of the Ethiopian army and help from the United States.
Fikirka Xorta ah - The situation in the Horn of Africa is rapidly reaching crisis proportions and specifically United States policy towards the one time Somali Democratic Republic needs to be reformulated on the basis of something other than the series of unrealistic assumptions on which it has hitherto been predicated.
Fikirka Xorta ah - The U.S. will take the lead in coordinating efforts to combat piracy coming from Somali territory, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after the United Nations authorized the inland pursuit of brigands. The Security Council voted 15-0 to adopt a U.S.-drafted text that permits all nations and regional organizations -- with the consent of Somalia’s provisional government -- to “take all necessary measures that are appropriate” to deter piracy.
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Fikirka Xorta ah - Somalia’s transitional government plunged into deeper turmoil on Tuesday when the country’s president defied the Parliament by appointing a new prime minister and the Kenyan government reacted by threatening sanctions. 
