Tag: News in English

Members of the Somali community in the Midlands are urging the government to press ahead with plans to criminalise the herbal stimulant, khat. Home Secretary Theresa May wants to re-grade the plant, a stimulant popular among Yemeni and Somali communities, as a class-C drug. But the Commons Home Affairs Committee said this was contrary to…

The foreign correspondents who covered Somalia in the early 1990s included a lot of war-weary hacks. Dan Eldon wasn’t one of those. He was fresh-faced and talented and just 21 years old when he first travelled to the Horn of Africa nation in 1992. He went to photograph the grinding conflict that even then seemed to…

The death of a young Somali refugee in a gas explosion at his home in Albany was an accident, with a WA Coroner finding between 1kg and 4kg of gas had built up underneath the property and there was no way the family would have known. Coroner Dominic Mulligan said the death of 18-year-old Barkad…

US officials on Monday voiced concern over the arrest of an alleged rape victim in Somalia and the journalists who reported on her story, calling for a “credible investigation” into her allegations. Washington was “deeply concerned” about the arrests of the woman, as well as Mohamed Bashir Hashi, the reporter who interviewed her, and Abdulmalik…

Doha — We received with sorrow the news that the Somali Government has expelled Shabelle network from the premises given to them by the former minister information and confiscated their transmitters and radio equipment. When they were finally returned to them, they were vandalized and were out function. The Radio transmitters have been damaged and…

“Whatever the Imam says is highly respected,” she said. “He is the leader in the religion.” Setting up shop at the mall also was strategic. On Fridays, when few Somalis work, the shopping center attracts young, uninsured men — a demographic that’s critical to the economics of the exchange. Hassan Abdi of Minneapolis followed the…

Somali government security forces have arrested the director of the popular privately owned radio station Shabelle for allowing a reporter to use the station’s camera to record an interview with an alleged rape victim, Al Jazeera has learned. Speaking from prison on Monday, Abdimalik Yusuf Mohamud said he was arrested because a camera belonging to…

(FINNBAY) – Helsinki, 25 November 2013. According to the latest report published by the Open Society Foundations, Somalis in Helsinki enjoy a good life in Helsinki due to numerous policy initiations from the Helsinki City. Somalis in Helsinki is part of a seven city research series, Somalis in European Cities, which examines the realities of…

Tweets written by a Somali medical student about some of her unpleasant experiences in Norway have inspired an online discussion about racism in the Scandinavian nation that witnessed the horrific massacre of 77 people by a far-right extremist just two years ago. Over the weekend, Warsan Ismail, a 23-year-old Norwegian of Somali descent, released various…

A senior Somali government official wants Canadians to pay closer attention to youths to make sure they are not being influenced by radical preachers trying to lure them into taking up arms in his country. Abdurahman Adan Ibrahim, a Member of Parliament and former Deputy Prime Minister, flew to Toronto last week to accompany a…

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — A man originally from Somalia has become the first African immigrant to win elected office in Lewiston, a city that has long had a significant Somali population. Write-in candidate Jama Mohamed picked up 10 additional votes at a Thursday recount to win a seat on the school committee. The 29-year-old Mohamed…

Nure Alam has been a taxi driver in the UAE for five years with cab-riders often leaving their bags or phones behind by mistake. However, according to a report by The National, one of Alam’s passengers left something else in the cab: almost $25,000…in cash. Mr. Alam reportedly found an envelope under his passenger seat…

Local Somali leaders are raising money for victims of a tropical storm in Somalia. A cyclone killed 400 people and 100,000 livestock Sunday, Nov. 10, as it hit the Puntland region of the country, a flat and dry region that isn’t able to handle heavy rains, emergency crews say. Many villages were damaged or destroyed,…

Long before violence gripped the community in the summer of 2012, the Somali Youth Association of Toronto was working on the ground with young people, offering them alternatives to guns and gangs. Established in 1992, the non-profit youth centre has been running after-school programs for people 14 to 30 and their families, offering culturally sensitive…

Rayan Dhamuke, 12, doesn’t get to swim a lot, unlike her brothers. During the past summer, she had to visit the pool at 5 a.m. so that she would have the privacy she needed to enjoy the water while still adhering to her family’s cultural and religious beliefs. To better accommodate girls like Dhamuke, the…

SCOTTISH law students have sparked a racism row after allegedly “blacking up” as Somali pirates on a drunken night out. The undergraduates from Edinburgh University pulled the stunt to take part in the annual ‘beerienteering’ race across the city. The event, organised by the Edinburgh University Law Society, involved a fancy dress competition. Students, including…

His Excellency Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon and Cabinet were today briefed government plans to rebuild and reopen Somali National University at the weekly Cabinet meeting. The plans were unanimously supported by the Cabinet. Somali National University was established in 1974, consisting of 13 faculties, 700 staff and educating over 15,000 students. The physical structure…

While the UK prepares to ban khat in line with the rest of the western world, it appears that Kenyan taxpayers are being asked to pay for a group of lobbyists’ all expenses paid trip to the UK, ostensibly seeking to overturn the khat ban at the High Court. I understand that the amount earmarked…