Latest news with #MohamedSiadBarre
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Taiwan condemns Somalia travel ban
Taiwan has condemned Somalia for banning travellers with Taiwanese passports from entering or transiting through the East African country. The ban took effect on Wednesday following an order issued by Somali aviation authorities last week, Taiwan's foreign ministry said. Somalia is yet to comment on the ban which comes as Taiwan, a self-ruled island claimed by China, boosts ties with Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia 34 years ago, but remains mostly unrecognised internationally. In 2020, Somaliland and Taiwan set up embassies in each other's capitals, angering both China and Somalia. Somalia's civil aviation authority issued a notice to airlines saying that Taiwanese passports "will no longer be valid for entry into or transit through the Federal Republic of Somalia" from 30 April, Taiwan's foreign ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday. Somaliland and Taiwan: Two territories with few friends but each other "The ministry of foreign affairs has strongly protested Somalia's action made under the instigation of China to restrict the travel freedom and safety of Taiwanese nationals and has demanded that the Somali government immediately revoke the notice," the ministry said. It condemned Somalia's "misinterpretation" of UN Resolution 2758 by linking it with the "one China" principle. The ministry urged Taiwanese against traveling to Somalia or Somaliland for their own safety before Somalia reverses the ban, Taiwanese media reported. Neither Somaliland nor Somalia has commented. China said it "highly appreciates" the ban, calling it a "legitimate measure" that "reflects Somalia's firm adherence to the one-China principle", Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told journalists on Wednesday, according to the AFP news agency. Taiwan has its own constitution and holds regular, multiparty elections to choose its own leaders. China insists Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force if necessary to bring the island under its control. Following a diplomatic push by China, Taiwan - officially known as the Republic of China - is only recognised by a handful of countries. Somaliland, which is not recognised by any other sovereign state, unilaterally declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, following the collapse of the dictatorial regime in Somalia led by the late General Mohamed Siad Barre. Somaliland also holds regular elections, while many parts of Somalia are under the control of the al-Shabab militant group, which is linked to al-Qaeda. Somalia sees Somaliland as part of its territory and has condemned Ethiopia for striking a deal with the Somaliland authorities to lease one of its ports. What's behind China-Taiwan tensions? The unrecognised nation where 15-year-olds vote eSwatini - Taiwan's last friend in Africa Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Africa Daily Focus on Africa
Al Binaa
08-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Binaa
Has Syria Entered a State of 'Somalisation'?
• There are many differences between Somalia and Syria, yet striking similarities as well. Somalia was once a nation of prosperity and progress, earning it the nickname 'the Switzerland of Africa' in the 1960s. While there are notable distinctions between former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and former Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre, both nations experienced long tenures under these leaders, marked by regional conflicts, shifting international alliances, and internal wars that ultimately led to their downfall. In both cases, their removal paved the way for civil strife and the rise of extremist groups, resulting in what has come to be known globally as 'Somalisation' – a state where a failed government presides over a fragmented nation, where armed factions roam unchecked, and where the population teeters on the edge of famine and systemic collapse, all while enduring continuous sieges and existential threats, short of outright territorial partition into officially recognised entities. • The past two days in Syria have been particularly alarming. The bloodshed along the Syrian coast, largely suppressed in the Arab and international media, coupled with the dangerous escalation of sectarian tensions, ethnic cleansing, and massacres, suggest that any remaining opportunity to establish a viable governing structure – one that could preserve Syria's unity and ensure the meaningful participation of its diverse communities, has been lost. If it was once a difficult prospect, it is now verging on impossibility. • In the aftermath of the coastal violence, the Kurds in northeastern Syria will cling more firmly to their autonomy, their weapons, and their resources. The people of Suwayda will likely maintain a cautious stance, refraining from committing to any joint political project, especially one involving Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, if the cost is disarmament. Meanwhile, foreign interventions under the pretext of 'protecting minorities' will gain further legitimacy, as will calls for federalism and partition. • A centralised government, sustained by an exclusive sectarian and partisan core, no matter how confident it may be in its numerical dominance, will soon realise it has plunged Syria into an enduring civil war. Even if it temporarily regains control over the coastal region, such control will be fleeting. The hopes that many Syrians had for relief from sanctions, economic recovery, security stability, and an end to Israeli attacks have now vanished, replaced instead by anxieties and nightmares.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Palestinians could do worse than setting up home in Somaliland
I've always had a soft spot for Somaliland. While visits to Somalia, just next door, entailed armed escorts and bullet-proof vests – hence I never went – to get to Somaliland you basically sauntered by foot over its border with Ethiopia, where I was freelancing, and hopped on a minibus which in less than three hours of driving through the desert dropped you off in the feisty capital, Hargeisa, where I'd stay at the wonderful pink-walled Oriental Hotel. I haven't thought much about the country since I left the Horn of Africa, but now they are talking about it as one of the options, along with neighbouring Puntland – an autonomous region in northeastern Somalia – for rehousing Palestinians from the wasteland of Gaza. I'm not convinced any of us should be considering or telling Palestinians where they 'can go'. But at the same time, one can't deny that the images of Gaza are pretty astonishing. What it takes to achieve that level of destruction is hard to comprehend, and I worked with a lot of bomb-dropping jets and Multi-Launch Rocket Systems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Palestinians clearly need somewhere to live. Perhaps some of the more centrist ones check out the Daily Telegraph. So this is for them, regarding what Somaliland is like as a potential get-out-of-jail/Armageddon card. One of the reasons I enjoyed going there is that the people are very friendly, especially after the recalcitrance and obstructionism of trying to report in Ethiopia. Somalilanders – like all Somalis –can't stop talking. They're upbeat, loud and gregarious. And exceptionally welcoming to a stranger. This was partly due to the fact that the international community still hasn't recognised it as a country, despite its breaking away from Somalia more than 30 years ago, and so it exits in a strange limbo state, unable to access global financing and all the rest of the international community's infrastructure. So the Somalilanders like the fact when someone comes to visit, thereby giving a degree of recognition to their self-declared sovereign state that no one else is willing to do officially. Hence the surprising proposal for absorbing Palestinians – reportedly in exchange for recognition of the country's sovereign status from Israel. The warm welcome I encountered also had something to do with them looking favourably on the British as colonisers, who, unlike the Italians in Somalia, didn't leave the place a basket case. But whether the locals would welcome a load of Palestinians is another matter – that said, Somalianders know all about having their homes and towns reduced to rubble, as happened during the civil war when the jets of Somalia's late dictator Mohamed Siad Barre pulverised Hargeisa. So its current inhabitants, having rebuilt their city and lives with little international assistance – due to that lack of recognition – might well be sympathetic to the Palestinians' situation. There is an uncomfortable truth, though, underpinning my good times spent there. Like all Brits embracing exciting adventure in foreign lands, I knew I could leave – as I did. When I was there, other than carrying out my journalism, I spent much of my time at the tea stalls drinking deliciously sweet brews – it's a booze-free country – and other times chewing the leaves of khat, famed for its nice low-level narcotic buzz; there wasn't much else for a visitor to do. Something a long-term transplant is going to have to confront. Islamist extremism has been gaining a foothold in East Africa for some time – one day as I walked through Hargeisa, a guy in Muslim frock mimed gunning me with an AK; I don't think it was meant humorously. This is a tough part of the world, and basically off the grid as far as most Western countries are concerned. So, that said, perhaps having a load of Palestinians – the current cause célèbre – in Somaliland might get people to finally pay more attention to the country, with the mutual benefits helping keep good relations between the locals and newcomers. Hargeisa clearly has advantages to a bombed-out Gaza. Perhaps it could work as temporary residence until Gaza is 'restored'. While Donald Trump's remarkable suggestions about turning Gaza into a 'Riviera of the Middle East' might seem typically Trumpian and outlandish, based on my time in Iraq, I get where he is coming from to a degree. My first tour in Iraq was spent in the city of Al Amarah. It was out in the sticks, marooned from the country's main urban focal points. The ungenerous visitor might easily take one look at Al Amarah under the midday sun and describe it as an unbearably remote dump. But during my first night at CIMIC House, the small civil-military outpost in the centre of the city (and where Rory Stewart initially held sway over the surrounding Maysan province), as I sat outside in my combats at a white plastic table, eating what the army chefs had rustled up and gazing over the Tigris River that ran by one side of the compound, I saw otherwise (this was before everything 'kicked off' and we took the country to hell and back again). While my fellow officers discussed forthcoming operations, guard routines and the manning of tanks, as the lowering red orb of the sun hovered over the wide shimmering expanse of the Tigris, I imagined the glow of bare shoulders and elegant dresses and the pouring of wine and clinking of glasses. 'This would be the perfect spot for a restaurant,' I mused, 'were there not a war going on.' I wasn't alone in succumbing to Iraq's hidden charms. Agatha Christie visited Iraq before its independence from Britain in 1932 and lived for a time in the city of Nimrud. Christie felt similarly about what she encountered as I did. 'What a beautiful spot it was,' she wrote. 'The Tigris was just a mile away, and on the great mound of the Acropolis, big stone Assyrian heads poked out of the soil…It was a spectacular stretch of country–peaceful, romantic and impregnated with the past.' Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza – they all have such special qualities and potential. And yet they've all been taken down a terribly bloody path. Credit, then, to Somaliland for what it's achieved and the peace it's maintained. Perhaps not that bad a place to end up, then, at least for the time being. James Jeffrey is a writer, assistant online editor for the Catholic Herald and a Camino guide who splits his time between the US, UK and further afield Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Palestinians could do worse than setting up home in Somaliland
I've always had a soft spot for Somaliland. While visits to Somalia, just next door, entailed armed escorts and bullet-proof vests – hence I never went – to get to Somaliland you basically sauntered by foot over its border with Ethiopia, where I was freelancing, and hopped on a minibus which in less than three hours of driving through the desert dropped you off in the feisty capital, Hargeisa, where I'd stay at the wonderful pink-walled Oriental Hotel. I haven't thought much about the country since I left the Horn of Africa, but now they are talking about it as one of the options, along with neighbouring Puntland – an autonomous region in northeastern Somalia – for rehousing Palestinians from the wasteland of Gaza. I'm not convinced any of us should be considering or telling Palestinians where they 'can go'. But at the same time, one can't deny that the images of Gaza are pretty astonishing. What it takes to achieve that level of destruction is hard to comprehend, and I worked with a lot of bomb-dropping jets and Multi-Launch Rocket Systems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Palestinians clearly need somewhere to live. Perhaps some of the more centrist ones check out the Daily Telegraph. So this is for them, regarding what Somaliland is like as a potential get-out-of-jail/Armageddon card. One of the reasons I enjoyed going there is that the people are very friendly, especially after the recalcitrance and obstructionism of trying to report in Ethiopia. Somalilanders – like all Somalis –can't stop talking. They're upbeat, loud and gregarious. And exceptionally welcoming to a stranger. This was partly due to the fact that the international community still hasn't recognised it as a country, despite its breaking away from Somalia more than 30 years ago, and so it exits in a strange limbo state, unable to access global financing and all the rest of the international community's infrastructure. So the Somalilanders like the fact when someone comes to visit, thereby giving a degree of recognition to their self-declared sovereign state that no one else is willing to do officially. Hence the surprising proposal for absorbing Palestinians – reportedly in exchange for recognition of the country's sovereign status from Israel. The warm welcome I encountered also had something to do with them looking favourably on the British as colonisers, who, unlike the Italians in Somalia, didn't leave the place a basket case. But whether the locals would welcome a load of Palestinians is another matter – that said, Somalianders know all about having their homes and towns reduced to rubble, as happened during the civil war when the jets of Somalia's late dictator Mohamed Siad Barre pulverised Hargeisa. So its current inhabitants, having rebuilt their city and lives with little international assistance – due to that lack of recognition – might well be sympathetic to the Palestinians' situation. There is an uncomfortable truth, though, underpinning my good times spent there. Like all Brits embracing exciting adventure in foreign lands, I knew I could leave – as I did. When I was there, other than carrying out my journalism, I spent much of my time at the tea stalls drinking deliciously sweet brews – it's a booze-free country – and other times chewing the leaves of khat, famed for its nice low-level narcotic buzz; there wasn't much else for a visitor to do. Something a long-term transplant is going to have to confront. Islamist extremism has been gaining a foothold in East Africa for some time – one day as I walked through Hargeisa, a guy in Muslim frock mimed gunning me with an AK; I don't think it was meant humorously. This is a tough part of the world, and basically off the grid as far as most Western countries are concerned. So, that said, perhaps having a load of Palestinians – the current cause célèbre – in Somaliland might get people to finally pay more attention to the country, with the mutual benefits helping keep good relations between the locals and newcomers. Hargeisa clearly has advantages to a bombed-out Gaza. Perhaps it could work as temporary residence until Gaza is 'restored'. While Donald Trump's remarkable suggestions about turning Gaza into a 'Riviera of the Middle East' might seem typically Trumpian and outlandish, based on my time in Iraq, I get where he is coming from to a degree. My first tour in Iraq was spent in the city of Al Amarah. It was out in the sticks, marooned from the country's main urban focal points. The ungenerous visitor might easily take one look at Al Amarah under the midday sun and describe it as an unbearably remote dump. But during my first night at CIMIC House, the small civil-military outpost in the centre of the city (and where Rory Stewart initially held sway over the surrounding Maysan province), as I sat outside in my combats at a white plastic table, eating what the army chefs had rustled up and gazing over the Tigris River that ran by one side of the compound, I saw otherwise (this was before everything 'kicked off' and we took the country to hell and back again). While my fellow officers discussed forthcoming operations, guard routines and the manning of tanks, as the lowering red orb of the sun hovered over the wide shimmering expanse of the Tigris, I imagined the glow of bare shoulders and elegant dresses and the pouring of wine and clinking of glasses. 'This would be the perfect spot for a restaurant,' I mused, 'were there not a war going on.' I wasn't alone in succumbing to Iraq's hidden charms. Agatha Christie visited Iraq before its independence from Britain in 1932 and lived for a time in the city of Nimrud. Christie felt similarly about what she encountered as I did. 'What a beautiful spot it was,' she wrote. 'The Tigris was just a mile away, and on the great mound of the Acropolis, big stone Assyrian heads poked out of the soil…It was a spectacular stretch of country–peaceful, romantic and impregnated with the past.' Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza – they all have such special qualities and potential. And yet they've all been taken down a terribly bloody path. Credit, then, to Somaliland for what it's achieved and the peace it's maintained. Perhaps not that bad a place to end up, then, at least for the time being. James Jeffrey is a writer, assistant online editor for the Catholic Herald and a Camino guide who splits his time between the US, UK and further afield Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
