International donors pledged more than US$250 million on Thursday to strengthen Somalia’s security forces and try to stop the rampant attacks by armed Somali pirates that have plagued one of the world’s most important waterways.
The hefty sum, which included funding for military equipment and material as well as development aid, exceeded the initial request made by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said.
“We have just begun the first step of an important process to restore rule of law in Somalia ... which has been a lawless state for 20 years,” Ban told a news conference following a one-day, UN-sponsored donors’ conference.
Stabilizing Somalia was the focus of Thursday’s meeting, but the near-daily pirate attacks along Somalia’s 3,100km coastline that endanger ships from around the world immediately moved to the forefront of the discussions.
“Piracy is a symptom of anarchy and insecurity on the ground,” Ban told the delegates. “More security on the ground will make less piracy on the seas.”
Somali President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed pledged to do “everything imaginable” to stabilize Somalia and fight piracy.
“This phenomenon will not last forever,” he promised, expressing “regret” for the pirates’ actions.
The pledges were a recognition of the need to end two decades of anarchy in Somalia and of the threat that further lawlessness posed to the world, not just one nation.
The funds included at least US$134 million for African Union peacekeepers already stationed in Somalia. The force numbers 4,350 but is expected to expand to 8,000 troops.
Another US$31 million will go to training the Somali police force by the UN and developing Somali security forces and their oversight bodies.
The package also included aid for medicine, education and rural development under the auspices of the European Development Fund.
According to the UN humanitarian agency, an estimated 2.8 million Somalis received food aid last month, up from 1.8 million at the start of last year.
“The situation continues to be very difficult, but with this financial help ... I sincerely hope we will be able to control the situation there,” Ban said at a joint news conference with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
Ahmed, elected by parliament in January, is a former fighter with the Islamic insurgency. He has been trying to broker peace with warring groups after years of chaos and gain legitimacy, but his Western-backed government wields little control outside the capital of Mogadishu and needs help from African peacekeepers to do even that.
UN bodies will oversee funding earmarked for Ahmed’s government, which wants to build a police force of 10,000 along with a separate security force of 6,000 members.
In the past year, pirates have hijacked dozens of ships in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping lane linking Asia via the Suez Canal to Europe.
Piracy experts estimate the seafaring gangs took in about US$80 million in ransom payments last year.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home