Washington: The International Monetary Fund has announced that it is recognising Somalia's new government after a 22-year break in relations with the once-chaotic country, part of a general push by the United States, United Nations and the West toward encouraging rehabilitation there.
The US formally recognised the African nation's new government in January the first time the US had recognised a Somali government since 1991, when warlords overthrew longtime dictator Siad Barre and then turned on one another.
The UN Security Council in March voted unanimously to partially suspend an arms embargo on Somalia for 12 months for military equipment intended solely to develop the country's security forces and provide security for the Somali people. Earlier in April, President Barack Obama cleared the way for the US to arm and train Somali forces.
The International Monetary Fund yesterday announced it was recognising the Somali government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who took office last September....
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10:30 AM, Apr 13, 2013
A team of the National Investigation Agency is visiting Raxaul in Bihar to interrogate two suspects there in connection with the Hyderabad blasts. The two suspects, one a resident of Hyderabad and the other a Somalian national, had been arrested on Saturday evening from a village in Raxaul on the Indo-Nepal border, by immigration officials. ...
11:30 AM, Feb 24, 2013
US President Barack Obama says al Qaeda is a "shadow of its former self," and does not pose the kind of threat to America that requires tens of thousands of US troops to fight abroad. ...
08:46 AM, Feb 13, 2013
Press Council of India Chairman Markendya Katju on Sunday hit out at Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi describing as "phoney" his claims of development in the state and saying its malnutrition rate was worse than Somalia. ...
04:29 AM, Dec 24, 2012
New Delhi: As many as 43 Indians are under the captivity of Somalian pirates, the government said on Monday. "43 Indian citizens are under the custody of Somalian pirates as on date," Minister of Shipping GK Vasan informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply. The government has set up an inter-ministerial group of officers (IMGO) to deal with hostage situation arising out of the hijacking of merchant vessels with...
02:29 PM, Aug 27, 2012
Mumbai: Suspected Somali pirates have struck again. Liberian oil tanker MT Smymi has been hijacked by the suspected pirates off the coast of Oman. Eleven Indians were among the crew members being held captive. The oil tanker was a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) and was carrying 1,35,000 tonnes of oil. The company owning the vessel is believed to be from Greece. Pirates based on the coast of northern Somalia...
10:27 AM, May 12, 2012
Mumbai: Somalian pirates have hijacked a Dubai-owned Nigeria-bound vessel and taken 22 crew members including 17 Indians hostage. The MT Royal Grace, a chemical tanker was hijacked on March 2 after it set off from a Sharjah port for Nigeria. Three Nigerians, one Pakistani and a Bangladeshi are also on board the MT Grace. Reports say the families of the crew members were not informed by the ship owner about...
09:15 AM, Apr 09, 2012
Mogadishu: At least six people, including two of Somalia's top sports officials, were killed when a female suicide bomber struck a ceremony at Mogadishu's national theatre in an attack Islamist rebels said was aimed at assassinating government ministers. Al Shabaab insurgents claimed responsibility for the blast on Wednesday that killed the heads of Somalia's soccer federation and Olympic committee in yet another stark reminder of the fragile security in the...
08:54 AM, Apr 05, 2012
Somalia: A British tourist freed on Wednesday by Somali pirates after six months in captivity said she did not know for weeks that her husband was killed in the raid on a luxury beach resort on the Kenyan coast. "I just assumed he was alive," Judith Tebbutt said, speaking haltingly in a video broadcast by the BBC, adding that her son, Oliver, told her of the killing. "That was difficult,"...
02:41 AM, Mar 22, 2012
Mogadishu: Turkish Airlines started flights to Mogadishu this week, the first major international carrier to run a regular service to the Somali capital in more than two decades. Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag flew into Mogadishu to launch the twice-weekly Turkish Airlines service to Istanbul via Sudan's capital Khartoum. "Somalia was cut off but we have now connected it to the world," he told reporters at Mogadishu's airport on...
01:59 PM, Mar 07, 2012
Mogadishu: Pirates moved an American hostage at least three times in 24 hours and threatened on Thursday to kill him after US Navy SEALs rescued an American and a Dane in a bold, dark-of-night raid that raises questions about whether other Western captives are now in greater danger. "If they try again, we will all die together," warned Hassan Abdi, a Somali pirate connected to the gang holding the American,...
03:28 AM, Jan 27, 2012
Mogadishu: US special operations forces swooped into Somalia on Wednesday and rescued two hostage aid workers after killing their nine kidnappers, a rare and daring raid in the Horn of Africa nation to free foreign captives. American Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, of Denmark, humanitarian aid workers for a Danish demining group, were rescued three months after they were kidnapped on October 25 in the town of...
04:36 AM, Jan 26, 2012
Washington/Mogadishu: Helicopter-borne elite US Navy Seals struck deep into Somalia in a daring pre-dawn raid and freed two hostages - an American woman aid worker and a Dane - after a shootout with pirates holding them, leaving at least nine gunmen dead, a rare mission in the restive African nation. The secret operation to secure the safe release of 32-year-old Jessica Buchanan, an American citizen employed by the Danish Demining...
06:25 PM, Jan 25, 2012
New Delhi: As many as 21 Indian sailors, who were hijacked on ship MT Fairchem Bogey, were on Saturday freed by the Somali pirates. According to reports, the ship and the crew moved towards a safe sea port after they were freed by the pirates. The ship was hijacked on August 20, 2011. However, around 22 sailors are still in the captivity of the Somali pirates. ...
07:54 PM, Jan 14, 2012
Mumbai: There was great relief at last for 17 Indian sailors, who shared an emotional homecoming. The sailors from merchant tanker MT Savina Caylyn were freed by Somali pirates in December last year after the ship owner paid a multi-million dollar ransom. The 17 sailors were taken into captivity along with their oil tanker ship, Savina Caylyn, in February last year near Yemen. Earlier on Tuesday morning, 13 crew members...
07:42 AM, Jan 10, 2012
Mumbai: The families of MV Iceberg hostages have said that they want to meet the ship owner and the government is considering facilitating a meeting with the Dubai-based owner. The negotiations between the ship owner and pirates have failed. Six Indian hostages have been in the pirates' captivity for almost two years now. CNN-IBN had first established communication with captive sailors. ...
01:01 PM, Jan 05, 2012
Nairobi: A suicide bomber struck the Somali capital on Tuesday, the latest in a wave of deadly attacks in Mogadishu, and dozens of Islamist rebels and Somali government troops have been killed in fighting in the south. The car bomb exploded 50 metres from the recently reopened Turkish embassy, near to the Kilometre 4 (K4) junction, a busy intersection in Mogadishu's administrative district. A health official said at least three...
01:27 AM, Dec 07, 2011
Islamabad: Al Qaeda claimed responsibility on Thursday for the kidnapping of a 70-year-old American aid worker in Pakistan in August, and issued a series of demands for his release. In a video message posted on militant websites, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said Warren Weinstein would be released if the United States stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. He also demanded the release of all al Qaeda and...
03:22 AM, Dec 02, 2011
New Delhi: The latest Transparency International corruption index is out and predictably India has slipped lower on the list. India is now ranked 95th on the list - worse than China, but better than Pakistan that's ranked way below at 134th. India is perceived to be more corrupt than China which is ranked 75th on the list, but is better off than Pakistan, that is listed at the 134th position....
09:57 AM, Dec 01, 2011
Sana'a: A Yemeni criminal court has sentenced 10 Somalis to 10 years in prison after convicting them of piracy in Yemen's territorial waters, the state-run Saba news agency reported. The court based in Mukalla, the provincial capital city in Yemen's southeast province of Hadramout, said that the convicts were arrested while they were targeting Yemeni and foreign ships in the Yemeni territorial waters in the Gulf of Aden as their...
09:58 AM, Nov 20, 2011
