News stories by Abdurrahman Warsameh, page 2

Armed groups are withholding aid and preventing Somali famine refugees from leaving camps to ensure the continued supply of food by aid agencies that they are presently selling on the open market.

The shelling and gunshots, once a common sound in Mogadishu, no longer ring out in the city’s streets. The surprise withdrawal on Aug. 6 of the Islamist extremist group Al Shabaab from their stronghold in Mogadishu has meant that people now move about the city, for the first time in two years, without fear of constant attack.

As the first of food aid from the United Nations World Food Programme was airlifted into Mogadishu on Wednesday, it came too late for Qadija Ali’s two- year-old son Farah.

Tens of thousands of starving Somalis have made their way to the government- held part of Mogadishu in search of food, but many parents have made the anguished decision to leave a child too weak to make the journey behind in hope of saving the others.

The appointment of a new prime minister in Somalia amid protests and a media crackdown will do nothing to resolve the country’s problems of corruption and cronyism, political analysts say. But they hope the new appointee may be able to do something about media freedom in the country.

'Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that,' former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said. Uncomfortably close to a bald statement of fact for fans of the beautiful game in Somalia, who risk their lives to watch the World Cup unfolding in South Africa.