NAIROBI, Kenya: U.N.-sponsored peace talks on Somalia were postponed Friday without a deal on face-to-face discussions between the government and an opposition alliance backing an Islamist insurgency, officials said.

The two sides agreed to meet with diplomats again on May 31 after four days of talks in Djibouti when the two sides refused to hold direct discussions.

The deputy director of WFP Somalia Mrs Denise Brown has declared that there is catastrophic humanitarian situation in Somalia mainly central Somalia.

A total of 362 aliens from Ethiopia and Somalia were arrested between 1 April and 8 May, this year, for entering the country contrary to immigration law.

According to Coast Region Immigration Officer Omari Kipande the aliens had told immigration officers that they entered Tanzania after fleeing clan and tribal wars in their countries.

UNITED NATIONS (Shabelle.net) — The Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on Thursday calling for a U.N. political presence in conflict-wracked Somalia for the first time in years and setting conditions for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers.

As South Africa witnesses a rise in attacks against foreign migrants, the BBC's Joanna Jolly visits a township outside Cape Town, the scene of recent xenophobic violence.

Ahmed Dakane is a 31-year old Somali refugee. For the past four years he's been living in the South African township of Zweletemba, on the outskirts of the town of Worcester in the wine-growing hills outside Cape Town.

Somali elders on Thursday sneered at Ethiopian troops for doling relief food to hungry Mogadishu residents, saying the exercise was just a gimmick to cover their blood-soaked hands.

"The United States is very concerned about the increasing number of acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea, especially off the Somali coast," according to the U.S. Department of State. Piracy and armed robbery have disrupted trade in east Africa and threatened the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the Somali people.

High Commissioner Guterres meets a family that recently arrived in Yemen from Somalia
15 May 2008 – The top United Nations refugee official, beginning a five-day visit to Yemen, today called on the international community to bolster its assistance to Somali refugees who have reached the Middle East country after making the perilous crossing of the Gulf of Aden.

NAIROBI, May 15 (Shabelle.com) - Talks between Somalia's interim government and the opposition in Djibouti are a waste of time and no tangible outcome can be expected, Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said on Thursday.

New York (Shabelle Media Network) – A Vietnamese representative to the UN Security Council expressed concerns about insecurity and political instability in Somali and called for a comprehensive solution to the issue.

Ambassador Hoang Chi Trung, Deputy Representative to the UN Security Council made the remarks at the council’s meeting on the situation in Somali in New York on May 14.

Burundi's Minister for National Defence and War Veterans Lt-Gen GermainNiyoyankana has said the second contingent of Burundian soldiers isexpected to be deployed in Somalia in the course of June 2008.

Somali transitional government has expressed hopeful the talks between the government and the opposition that is going on in Djibouti.

Speaking to Shabelle radio the reconciliation minister of the government Abdi Risaq Askari has declared that his government is looking forward the outcome of Djibouti talks.

Following unknown armed groups have attacked a hand grenade into Ethiopian troops based at Towfiq hotel the soldiers have started to spread out in Yaqshid neighborhood north of Mogadishu on Thursday morning-residents said.

“The soldiers have are going around our Yaqshid ward” Abdirahman Bashir a resident in Yaqshid told Shabelle English service.

(Shabelle.net)Mrs Faduma Dalel Farah, a mother of four, is a typical victim of the ongoing conflict in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

She and four of her six children were wounded when insurgents attacked forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Wardigley district in central Mogadishu. Her husband, Said Abdi Farah, was killed when a shell landed on their house.

LONDON (Shabelle.net) - A former employee of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) has accused the agency of throwing him out for blowing the whistle on corruption in its operations in Somalia.

The war-torn country of Somalia is the most dangerous place for reporters after Iraq. AFP
NAIROBI // Ten years after he fled his war-torn homeland of Somalia, Ahmed Aden returned to give a voice to the millions of Somalis living in fear under the rule of violent clan-based militias.

Joint Statement Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and Western Somali Democratic Party (WSDP) Affirming that successive Ethiopian regimes have maintained a policy of denying the Somali people of Ogaden of their legitimate rights for self-determination.

High Commissioner António Guterres leaves for Yemen tomorrow (Wednesday) for a five-day visit that will include a first-hand look at UNHCR's efforts there on behalf of refugees and internally displaced people and the opening of a regional conference on refugee protection and migration in the Gulf of Aden.

The new leadership of the African Union is trying to organize what is described as a "major international endeavor" to bring stability to Somalia.

Shabelle London: 13 May 2008.Amnesty International today condemned the recent threats against humanitarian workers in Somalia made by Muqtar Robow Abu Mansur, a leader and spokesperson of Al-Shabab.

Amnesty has released a public press statement today, which Shabelle Media network received a copy of it.