A global recession and the hijacking of international aid are among factors behind a potentially "life-threatening" humanitarian funding crisis facing Somalia as aid funds dwindle, according to the United Nations' top envoy to Somalia.

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"A suicide bomber . . . has killed at least 19 people including three government ministers in the Somali capital Mogadishu" on December 3, 2009.

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Somali Insurgents Attack Airport

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Somalia's hardline Islamist group al Shabaab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a deception, north Mogadishu residents said on Friday.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates holding a Spanish fishing boat will not negotiate its release until their colleagues facing hijacking charges in Madrid are freed, a member of the gang said on Tuesday.

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I find the Pakistani link to Somalia peculiar, though Pakistan does have a history with Somalia.

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NAIROBI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged strong support for Somalia's fragile government on Thursday and vowed to take action against Eritrea if it did not stop "unacceptable" interference in the country.

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Two French agents held by rebels in Somalia will be tried soon under Islam's Sharia law, an official of the radical Shebab group said, as a Somali minister told FRANCE 24 the pair had been taken out of Mogadishu.

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Fear and beheadings in the heartland of the militants

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Gunmen stormed into a hotel in the Somali capital on Tuesday morning and kidnapped two men who had registered as French journalists, witnesses said.

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Somali Islamist fighters's beheading is the largest mass execution since the Islamists were pushed from power two and a half years ago.

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A Note on Cultural Relativism and White Guilt

In October last year, al-Shabab ordered a 13-year-old girl to be stoned to death in public in the southern city of Kismayo. She was accused of adultery after reporting she had been raped by three men. (source)

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An Islamic court in Somalia on Thursday cut off a hand and foot from each of four men convicted of stealing phones and guns, drawing hundreds of onlookers as the weeping men were punished at a military camp.

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Mogadishu's best barometer of ­violence is the little blackboard on which Dr Taher Mahmoud daily records the number of patients in his hospital. For the last 20 years the tall surgeon with huge hands has been operating on the victims of the city's civil war.

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Fierce fighting in Somalia's capital has killed 113 civilians in the past three days and forced more than 27,000 to flee their homes, a human rights organization said Tuesday.

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Mortars and machine-gun fire rocked the Somali capital on Sunday, leveling homes and a mosque in renewed violence that has killed at least 35 people.

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Practical Solution to Somalian Piracy

People discuss this issue as though it is too difficult and complex to deal with. Look, here are several simple suggestions that will put an immediate end to their shenanigans. First, change the maritime laws so cargo ships can carry arms and defend themselves if attacked.

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Somali insurgents fired mortars at a visiting US Congressman today as pirate gangs threatened revenge against the United States for the dramatic rescue of an American hostage yesterday.

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hen you land at Mogadishu's international airport, the first form you fill out asks for name, address, and caliber of weapon. Believe it or not, this disaster of a city, the capital of Somalia, still gets a few commercial flights. Some haven't fared so well.

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An attack on an African Union peacekeeping base in the Somali capital Sunday killed 11 people, the AU said, but it denied insurgent claims of a suicide attack.

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Somalia at it's worst

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And with the conflict between first the ICU and the Ethiopian-backed TFG, and now the TFG and al-Shabaab comes death and destruction.

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MOGADISHU — Islamist fighters threatened to attack Somali pirates Sunday in an effort to rescue a Saudi oil supertanker carrying $100 million worth of crude oil that was hijacked last week, the Agence France-Presse reported.

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Islamists have advanced to within miles of Somalia's capital, seizing vast territory in recent weeks and vowing to use strict Muslim rules to bring their lawless country under control.

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The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

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