The Islamic administration of Al-Shabaab that controls Somalia’s southern regions of Jubba has on Sunday declared holy war on Kenya over reports that Nairobi is training Somali troops.

Sheikh Hussen Abdi Gedi, Al-Shabaab’s second in command in the southern port city of Kismayo said his group has received reports of planned offensives from the Kenyan side, urging the regions’ residents to prepare for holy war.

“Kenya has prepared troops that comprise of Kenyans and Somalis, who are trained to attack and take over the regions. They are planning to attack us on the land, sea and air. We are urging people to be ready and defend our land,” he told Al-Shabaab’s Andalus radio on Sunday.

His sentiments come as Kismayo, the lucrative southern Somali port city that fuels insurgent activities across the war-torn country, witnesses a low flying military planes which raised high tension.

The border between the two countries has also seen the enormous presence of Kenyan troops, who are patrolling with the battle wagons.

It is the first time that the rebel group has declared jihad against Kenya since capturing the bordering region.

However, Kenya denied reports of its involvement in the training of Somali soldiers, saying it has nothing to do with the Somali issues.

In Kenya’s Daily Nation, Defence Minister Yusuf Haji dismissed the story as a total fabrication, saying there was no trained Somali troops in Kenya destined for Somalia.

“I am not aware of any Somali troops being trained in Kenya.. It is total lies,” said Mr Haji on telephone.

Internal Security Assistant Minister Orwa Ojodeh also dismissed the reports saying Kenya does not have a bilateral agreement with the Somali government, or any other group in the country, to train troops on their behalf.

“That report is not true and should not be taken seriously and should not be taken seriously,” said Mr Ojodeh.

Sources quoted by Garowe Online said Nairobi trained in its soil some 2,500 troops, who are ready to join the Somali government’s offensive against Al Shabaab rebels.

Nairobi, Kenya Image via Wikipedia

Somalia’s insurgent group Al-Shabaab has threatened and also accused neighbouring Kenya of deploying more troops to the bordering towns.

Sheikh Mahammed Arab, an Al-Shabaab administrator in Somali border town of Dhobley, near the Kenyan border said they have received reports that Kenyan military numbering more than 1500 with battle wagons are making military movement along the border.

“We have the information about heavy military movement along the border between Somalia and Kenya. We don’t know the meaning of this but we are warning of repercussions for any aggression,” he said.

Al-Shabaab authority in Jubba regions has early warned Kenya to withdrawal all its forces along the border.

Al-Shabaab militants recently captured the Lower Jubba region in southern Somalia from Hizbul Islam, their former allies.

Kenya has repeatedly in the past refuted of carrying any military operations along the border other than normal border patrols.

The allegations come as a purported Al-Shabaab song released on Wednesday warn Nairobi of retaliation for its crack-down against Muslims.

Read more here.

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Somalia has been placed in intensive-care with a ‘death counseling’ physician at its bedside. The expected medical prescription is euthanasia. Multiple destructive groups with different objectives have contributed to its ailment and only the mobilization of a critical mass of citizens with their real leaders can avert the dreadful end of history of Somalia.

This article advocates the launch of Somalia Citizenship Defense Movement (SCDM) with the goal of mobilizing three quarters (3/4 or 75 %) of citizens led by their real leaders for the formation of Somali State that not only has de jure legitimacy but more importantly has de facto legitimacy in order to defend and protect the security, dignity and sovereignty of all citizens. Somalia is different from Kenya, Liberia, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia for understandable reasons so it must help itself. The claim that a Government exists in Somalia is to deprive the Somali people of the opportunity to quest for peace and effective State in Somalia.

The tragic situation in Somalia has solicited the US Government to develop a fresh strategy that first and foremost would aim to defeat terrorists, pirates and reverse the precipitously worsening humanitarian situation. However, experience shows that external strategy formulated on interpretations and conclusions worked out by external actors will overlook issues pivotal for the internal political dynamics of the Somali people who will ultimately bear the consequences of ill-conceived policies. Therefore, while transnational factors dominate the Somali crisis, it is imperative that the Somali people search solution from within.

Read more here.

The 28-year-old Somali who attacked the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard was recently in prison for seven weeks in Kenya, reports Denmark’s Politiken.

The formal reason for his incarceration was that a Kenyan police checkpoint found him without travel documents.

At the time of his arrest, Kenyan police was investigating reports of plans to carry out a terrorist attack against, among others, the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was due in the country.

The Kenyan media has linked the man’s arrest with the terrorist plans, a link that intelligence sources have confirmed. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service has previously said in a release that the man ‘is suspected of having been involved in terror-related activities during his time in East Africa’.

In Kenya, Denmark’s Ambassador Bo Jensen has declined to confirm or deny Politiken’s information that the Danish-Somali who has now been remanded in custody in the Westergaard case, is identical with the man who was detained in Kenya.

But he says that it is highly unusual to be detained in prison for seven weeks as a result of problems with a passport.

Read more here.

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It will take time before we achieve a robust common market in which labour and capital can flow freely.

The protocol signed in Arusha last month by the regional leaders reveals that free movement of workers and professionals will only come in phases, stretching all the way to 2015.

So far, Rwanda remains the only country in the region to have abolished all work permit requirements for East African community citizens. Existing restrictions on the buying and trading of shares and stocks within the region will also be lifted in phases.

The gradual pace at which the common market is being implemented notwithstanding, the Arusha protocol has made the EAC by far the most advanced trading bloc in Africa.

Indeed, the EAC is now way ahead of its two main rivals, the Common Market for Eastern Africa (Comesa) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).

Emerging at a time when sub-Saharan Africa has multiple trading blocs with overlapping memberships, the EAC now has what it takes to play the role of an anchor between them.

However, this situation is beginning to create subterranean battles for loyalty, especially between Comesa, SADC and the EAC.

The saving grace is that Comesa has also turned unto a full customs union. Even more significant, it has borrowed the EAC common external tariff and adopted it as its own.

The implication is that it is now possible for Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi to continue trading amongst themselves under the EAC customs union, while at the same time maintaining a preferential free trade area relationship under Comesa.

This is what the region should strive for in the medium term. More trade, not aid, is what will save Africa.

Read more here.

Incest is rife among Kenyan teenagers, a new study has revealed.

According to the National Council for Children’s Service, adolescents admitted having sex with close relatives like uncles and aunts.

Most vulnerable are girls aged 10-15, but older and younger girls are also defiled with most cases unreported.

The research, conducted between 1990 and 2008 in 45 institutions countrywide, says boys and girls engage in multiple sexual relationships, but their knowledge on strategies to prevent pregnancy and infection is limited.

“Most students had unprotected sex with their peers and some have had sex with uncles, aunts and sugar daddies,” says the report.

The report says boys under the care of househelps and relatives are more vulnerable as many parents assume boys are not sexually abused.

A report released by the Centre for the Study of Adolescents in October said teenage girls were selling their bodies for airtime, chips and even sanitary pads.

They were also said to be sleeping with different partners — some admitted having as many as six in six months.

Read more here.

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Activists are expressing disappointment with President Barack Obama’s plans for the Aids treatment programme in Africa, charging that he has fallen short of the achievements of his predecessor, George W. Bush, reports The East African.

“President Obama has all but failed to fulfil his commitments to wage an aggressive battle against global Aids,” a coalition of Aids-focused groups declared last week, assigning him a grade of D+ for his performance to date.

Gregg Gonsalves, a leading US anti-Aids campaigner, warned an audience in New York last week, “I am about to say something shocking: I miss George W Bush.”

In many respects, Gonsalves continued, Bush was a terrible president, but “he was exceptional in one. The President’s Emergency Programme for Aids Relief (Pepfar), despite its flaws, saved millions of lives around the world.”

Obama, by contrast, is not providing the resources needed to sustain the rate of growth in the number of HIV-positive Africans who receive ant-viral treatments through Pepfar.

That trend prompted Dr Peter Mugyenyi, director of a Uganda Aids clinic, to express fear that “the carnage of Aids will once again surge and the obvious success we have seen of Pepfar may begin to be reversed.”

Since its inception in 2004, Pepfar has provided anti-viral treatments to nearly 2.5 million people with Aids.

The programme targets 15 poor countries, 12 of them in black Africa.

Kenya ranks as the single-biggest beneficiary of this aspect of Pepfar, with close to 300,000 Kenyans receiving anti-viral drugs as of September 30.

Nigeria has the world’s second-highest number of Pepfar treatment recipients: 286,000. Some 197,000 Tanzanians are getting anti-viral medications through the programme, as are 175,000 Ugandans.

But under Obama’s recently announced five-year Pepfar strategy, the average annual rate of growth would slow to 320,000.

Read more here.

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This is an image from television taken early November 1984 of Birhan Weldu after arriving at a relief station in Mekele, Ethiopia Photo: AP

The Ethiopian Government has appealed for an emergency food aid for 6.2 million people suffering from malnutrition and hunger due to drought, reports Kenya’s Daily Nation.

The Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Mitiku Kassa, today presented the government’s humanitarian requirement to donor Community in Addis Ababa.

According to Mr Mitiku, Ethiopian needs $121 million worth food aid from the international community for the coming three months.

Britain NGO Oxfam said the appeal for food aid coincided with the 25th year’s irritating memory of 1984 “great famine”, which drew the attention on the international media and humanitarian organisations.

In 1984, hunger killed about 1 million people in Ethiopia, during the Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

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Stories of drought and starvation are the order of the day in the Ukambani region of Kenya, says the Daily Nation.

Livestock farmers have suffered substantial losses as their investments hung by the thread. In time of disaster, dogs, birds and hyenas are the beneficiaries, feeding on the carcasses.

Residents say their children face a bleak future because they depend on the sale of their animals to pay school fees. Hunger has kept the residents of this sleepy little town company for almost five years due to rain failure. The majority depend on relief donations for survival.

To make matters worse, on October 9th, reports of a localized cholera outbreak which claimed 29 lives surfaced. The northwestern and eastern regions of Kenya are not only facing an acute water shortage, due to a prolonged drought, but also have poor latrine coverage.

“Two people have died in Garbatulla, five in Laisamis, three in Turkana North, one in Turkana South and 18 in Turkana Central,” said an official in Kenya’s Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation.

Ms Muthili Kilonzi, from Kalisasi Location, has a sad story to tell. She says her donkey died on her way home from a river last week, with two 20-litre jerricans still loaded with water on its back. “I offloaded and emptied the jerricans and went home without water,” she says in sorrow.

As Al Jazeera reports, cattle and goats – the weakest of the livestock species reared here, began dying a long time ago. In some places, livestock grazers have already lost entire herds to drought and disease.

The livestock are so weak that the sellers know they won’t make it back to their grazing areas alive; it’s sell them or lose them and as a result it’s a buyer’s market.

Prices have hit rock bottom, you can now buy a cow for around 300 Kenyan shillings – about four US dollars. Sheep, goats and camels are also on sale for measly amounts.

The drought situation is so bad in northern Kenya that the herdsmen have been forced to share what little food they receive from aid agencies with their weak animals. People have also been forced to sell their assets, such as their remaining livestock, alleviating short term hunger but exacerbating long-term problems. In fact, weather experts are now predicting that floods caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon will follow the drought and may potentially cause even greater damage than what is being seen now.

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