Kenya says to work with IGAD to restore peace in Somalia
NAIROBI, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- The Kenyan government has promised that it will work with the seven-member regional mediation body, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), to bring peace to war-torn Somalia.
Speaking in eastern Kenya late on Saturday, Kenyan Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka said there's need to sort out the problem once and for all so as to secure the Somali coastal strip waters which have become dangerous.
Musyoka's remarks came in the light of the ongoing piracy saga, in which Somali pirates last week hijacked a Ukrainian ship with 21 crew members and military consignment headed for Kenya.
The pirates are demanding a whooping ransom of 20 million U.S. dollars to release the ship.
"Kenya will only have peace if Somalia has peace", he noted in a statement received here on Sunday.
The Islamists in Somalia have waged an Iraq-style insurgency against the transitional government in the country and its Ethiopian military allies since being driven from Mogadishu at the end of 2006.
Source: Xinhua
Somali police arrest radio journalist
MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somali police arrested a radio journalist as he was apparently preparing to report a rebel attack on the house of the parliament speaker, his colleagues and police said Sunday.
Ali Ilyas Abdullahi who works for the Holy Koran Radio was arrested on Saturday in the southern town of Baidoa, the seat of the country's parliament, which has suffered insurgent attacks recently.
"He was jailed without reason and knows nothing about the charges against him," his colleague Mohamed Adawe told AFP.
After Abdullahi's arrest, parliament speaker Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur criticised local media of siding with the rebels, some of whom fired mortars at his house late Friday but caused no injury.
"The local media are not impartial. They are clearly siding with the opposition by favoring their violent acts," Mohamed told a press conference.
"It's true that the young journalist was arrested yesterday, but I can't give you more details on the situation that led to his arrest," said Hussein Mohamed, a policeman in Baidoa.
Islamist militia have waged a relentless war against the Ethiopia-backed government forces who ousted their movement early last year.
The war-wracked Horn of Africa nation was ranked as the world's second-deadliest country for journalists by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Source: AFP
Malaysia ex-hostages tell of Somali pirate threats
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Somali pirates pointed guns habitually at Malaysian and Filipino tanker crew members held captive for weeks, but allowed Muslim hostages to fast and pray to observe the holy month of Ramadan, news reports said Sunday.
The 79 crew members of two Malaysian vessels hijacked separately off the coast of Somalia in August were flown back to Malaysia on Saturday, nearly a week after the pirates freed them following the payment of an unspecified ransom.
Their narration of their time in captivity provided a glimpse into the behavior of Somalia's sea bandits at a time when the shipping lanes off the African country's lawless coast have turned into the world's most perilous waterway.
Malaysian crew member Baharudin Mohamed said the pirates were "fond of pointing their guns at us throughout the ordeal," the national news agency Bernama reported.
"We could not understand their language," he said. "That sometimes resulted in the pirates turning aggressive. However, they were accommodative when we requested to pray and we were able to fulfill our religious obligations" during the Ramadan fasting month that ended last week.
Pirates hijacked the two ships in the Gulf of Aden north of Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991. One Filipino crew member died in the raid.
Dozens of vessels have been attacked in the notorious African waters this year, including four failed attempts in a single day last week. Pirates are demanding a US$20 million ransom for a Ukrainian cargo ship that was seized Sept. 25 as it transported 33 Soviet-designed tanks and heavy weapons to a Kenyan port.
The Malaysian crew said the pirates accidentally killed a Filipino while seizing their ship.
The pirates "fired a warning shot which unfortunately ricocheted off the ceiling and penetrated his head," crew member Nuzaihan Abd Rani was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper.
Crew members said the pirates approached their tankers in speed boats that looked like innocuous fishing vessels. Once they were close enough, they fired gunshots and climbed aboard.
Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's Malaysian-based piracy reporting center, said 12 ships with more than 250 crew remained in the hands of pirates as of Friday.
"To be fair, if all ships maintain a 24-hour radar watch, the chances of them escaping is high," Choong told The Associated Press. "Once they keep a 24-hour watch, they can assess every small ship and they can take evasive measures and call for help."
Source: The Canadian Press
Somalia accepts international help against pirates
The Ukrainian vessel, the MV Faina, remains surrounded by several US warships that have been monitoring the pirates' activity and a Russian warship has been sent to the Somali waters.
The pirates are holding the Faina, a few miles off eastern Somalia.
They have demanded $20 million for the release of the vessel and its crew of 13 Ukrainians, seven Russians and one other Eastern European. The ship's captain died of natural causes shortly after the hijacking, the pirates have said by satellite telephone.
President Abdullahi Yusuf of Somalia has now given the US and Russia a green light to take action against the pirates, although there is no sign that military action is imminent.
"I also call on the international community to act quickly on what is happening in Somali waters as well as onshore," he told reporters in the capital, Mogadishu," he said.
"We must do everything we can to stop piracy off the coast of Somalia."
The pirates had imposed an "embargo" against Somalia and other countries by preventing trade and food deliveries, he said.
The vessel, which was hijacked last Thursday, is carrying Soviet-era T72 battle tanks and other military equipment believed to have been en route for autonomous south Sudan, but the shippers and the Kenyan government claim they are theirs.
The defence chiefs of eight European Union countries joined the fight on Wednesday, agreeing to move towards creating a maritime security force against piracy, French defence minister Hervé Morin said in Paris.
Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said Russian commanders hope for a peaceful end to the hijacking.
"Taking forceful measures, for obvious reasons, is an extreme measure, as this could create a threat to the lives of the international crew of the cargo ship," he said.
There have been more than 60 other pirate attacks this year on ships off Somalia and in the nearby Gulf of Aden.
The Horn of Africa provides a vital global trade route, linking Europe to the Middle East and Asia, but is one of the most pirate-infested waters in the world. Around 30 vessels have been seized this year, and two Malaysian ships were released this week after ransoms were paid by their owners.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
