Doing a great job!
"Amid chaos and despair, mayor fights to get Somalia’s capital on its feet; Official restores services, vows honest oversight" by Katharine Houreld, Associated Press | September 23, 2010
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Mayor Mohamed Nur is making an effort to provide basic services for one of the most despondent cities on earth, a place where officials are much better known for lining their own pockets. Somalis battered by two decades of war have lost faith in the weak central government, which is beset by militias, corruption, and infighting....
I think most citizens of the world have lost faith in their governments -- no matter where they reside.
Governments represent the interests of the elite rulers of a country and not the people -- no matter where they are found.
He hired women to clear piles of garbage in his neighborhood....
That's lifting them up from the Islamists.
90 percent of Somali children do not attend school....
Founded centuries ago, Mogadishu was once an important trading city on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Some inhabitants still speak the Arabic of traders who brought Islam to Somalia, and the Italian of the country’s former colonial ruler. In the 1930s, the city featured broad avenues, a Roman Catholic cathedral, and, in a sign of peaceful religious coexistence, a mosque with a gleaming white minaret a block away.
Yeah, I noticed that goes out the window whenever AmeriKa shows up on your shores.
A city that developed over centuries crumbled swiftly. Rebels forced out President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Factions then turned on one another.
Ugandan and Burundian soldiers, members of a 7,100-strong African Union peacekeeping force that has been in Somalia for three years, trundle down dusty streets in long convoys of white armored vehicles past vegetable sellers and overloaded, ancient minibus taxis. Sweating gunners scan for snipers or bombs buried in the road.
The peacekeepers have been expanding their perimeter into what were once luxury hotels overlooking the seafront, reinforcing their positions by filling sandbags under bright bougainvillea where children once played....
--more--"
"Somalia clashes kill 22, including civilians" by New York Times | September 24, 2010
MOGADISHU, Somalia — At least 22 people were killed and more than 60 wounded yesterday in intense clashes between Islamist insurgent groups and Somali government forces supported by African Union soldiers, witnesses and health officials said....
Al-Shabab and another militant Islamist group, Hizbul Islam, have been expanding an offensive to oust the weak transitional government.
--more--"
"Battles kill 23 in Somali capital as violence grows" by Associated Press | October 5, 2010
MOGADISHU, Somalia — An increase in violence has killed at least 23 civilians in the past three days in Mogadishu, officials said yesterday....
Ambulance drivers risk their lives to save people hit by the mortar fire, artillery shells, and random gunfire....
The city lurches between quiet periods, when shoppers fill markets, to heavy warfare, where no place is entirely safe.
Somalia is ranked among the worst performers in national governance in Africa by the London-based Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance. Zimbabwe and Chad are among the others.
Overall, security has deteriorated in Africa over the past five years, according to the index.
South Africa, the continent’s biggest economy, scored fifth overall in government performance but ranked 44th of 53 African countries in personal safety.
And the paper names the next post on the list.
--more--"
"Somali militants execute 2 teen girls as spies
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- The two accused spies died amid a fusillade of bullets from a firing squad organized by a hard-line militia. The condemned pair were only girls, aged 15 and 18, and their grieving relatives say they were uneducated, usually stayed at home, and could not have spied for anyone.
I'm wondering why they let the French spy go.
These stories are starting to stink like the streets of Mogadishu.
Horrified residents of the town of Belet Weyne, in western Somalia, were forced to watch the execution by al-Shabab Wednesday. One woman fainted as the girls were gunned down by 10 masked executioners....
Al-Shabab, an insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda, has carried out whippings, amputations, and executions to enforce its own strict interpretation of Islam. But this was the first public execution of girls in Belet Weyne, which the group took over a year ago.
It's the "Al-CIA-Duh" base in Somalia, folks!
Yeah, WHOSE INTERPRETATION of ISLAM is that?
--more--"
Related:
Memory Hole: Somali Slander
Memory Hole: More on Somalia
Somalia: Worse Than Darfur
Memory Hole: U.S.-Approved
Ethiopian Atrocities in Somalia
Somehow all that gets left out of the background paragraphs the AmeriKan media provides.
Also see: Ethiopia's Invisible War Crimes
