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Showing posts from July, 2012

Mogadishu

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I have just been to Mogadishu. I spent a few days there, and managed to visit many parts of the city including the airport area, Kilometre Four, Hamarweyne, Hodan, Medina, Abdi Aziz, Bondhere and other places. I went deep inside Bakara market to a former Al Shabaab headquarters. I also travelled down the coast south of Mogadishu to the beautiful Jazira Beach and a nearby fishing village.  I will be writing a number of blog posts about what I saw and heard, complete with pictures. You can see some of the photos via this link: More photos from my trip I did a piece for the for the BBC about my overall impressions of Mogadishu. You can listen to the radio piece via this link: Mogadishu radio piece Below is the script for the piece. I have added some of photos I took in Mogadishu.  The noise of hammering was one of the three main sounds I heard while moving around Mogadishu. After more than two decades of war, some parts of the city resemble a graveyard for buildings.  Former parliament bu

Academics review my book

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Tufts University in the United States has organised for five heavyweight thinkers and academics to review my book. You can read them and my response by clicking on the following link. Please post any comments on the Tufts University site: Academics review my book Writing my book

The Sixth and Final Day of the Hargeisa International Book Fair

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Hargeisa International Book Fair: The Sixth and Final Day This was the young people's day. In the morning we had presentations from the young regional Readers' Clubs. They had come to the book fair from all over Somaliland and beyond, including Sweden. They spoke passionately about reading. I gave each of them a copy of the BBC Network Africa Proverb Book which seemed especially poignant as this was Network Africa's final week on air. Handing out BBC proverb books We then received a surprise visit from the British ambassador to Somalia, Matt Baugh, the head of DFID Somalia, the British deputy ambassador to Ethiopia and others. They strolled around the book fair looking at the books, art, fruit and other items on sale. It was all very relaxed and they did not arrive with a big security apparatus (at least not one that I could see). The British ambassador Matt Baugh Mr Baugh then addressed the crowd. The organisers of the book fair said they considered him the British ambassa