Dan Ford said...
Olaf, that is the first photo I have ever seen of a barefoot cowboy! Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Olaf: Here is the second one,

cheerio,

Olaf

Cheers! News from Africa

Ever heard of the armies of Puntland, and Somaliland?

(Reuters) HARGEISHA, 9 April 2007: Forces of the breakaway Somali republic of Somaliland and neighbouring semi-autonomous Puntland clashed on Monday over a disputed strip of desert that has been the source of sporadic violence for years.

One person was killed and three others wounded durig fighting between Somaliland and Puntland security forces along their shared border in the Sanag region.

“Puntland forces attacked the town of Dahar around 8:00 this morning,” Somaliland Information Minister Ahmed Hagi Dahir said in a statement. “ The attacking forces were supported by 17 technicals and 3 big trucks.”

Technicals are pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons, the Somali version or a tank.

Both Somaliland and Puntland are in the north of the Horn of Africa and have enjoyed relative peace, while the south of the country has been mired in anarchy since the 1991 ouster of Mohamad Siad Barre.

Somaliland, formerly the colony of British Somaliland, claims independence as a sovereign nation. Despite having held democratic elections and maintaining relative security, it has no international recognition.

Puntland remains part of greater Somalia, butgenerally administers its own affairs through its own military and governmental institutions.

The two have fought for years over the SOOL and Sanag regions, part of which Puntland claim on an ethnic basis while Somaliland says they are part of its territory under the colonial border Britain left.

For a change...some good news about UN performance: lessons learned, and implimented. This is also an interesting link to work on one's information overflow.

:)

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=22082&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo

Specialized UN police units helped civilians during recent DR Congo unrest – official
30 March 2007 – Specialized United Nations police units from Bangladesh and India were instrumental in saving civilian lives amidst heavy fighting during last week’s violence in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The specialized armoured police units – known as Formed Police Units (FPUs) – from Bangladesh and India “operated at considerable risk to extricate people who had been pinned down by gunfire who were actually inside homes where mortar rounds and other munitions were being deployed,” said UN Police (UNPOL) Adviser Mark Kroeker told the UN News Service.

The UN mission in the DRC, known as MONUC, estimates that hundreds were killed and many more wounded in the violence which broke out on 22 March between Government forces and guards of former Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was defeated last year by current President Joseph Kabila in the run-off round of landmark presidential elections.

The FPUs rescued not only “the high-level people such as ambassadors, but also just ordinary people who are trapped and who needed to be evacuated from the line of fire,” Mr. Kroeker added, voicing his gratitude to the police officers, none of whom have been reported injured. “They were in what turned out to be almost a military environment, but they operated as a rescue unit helping people.”

FPUs were first used as part of the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), but their success there and in other operations has led to calls for increasing deployment, and to date, there are 35 units dispersed among six missions worldwide.

Each of these units, comprising over 100 police officers from a single country, is highly mobile and tactically ready to respond to various situations, including crowd control, riots or natural disasters, in which local agencies are overwhelmed or lack capacity due to conflict.

FPUs, known for their competence and efficiency, have demonstrated “compassion and caring” not only last week in the DRC, but in other instances as well, Mr. Kroeker said.

For example, a Jordanian FPU with UNMIL in Liberia recently visited an orphanage housing approximately 350 children who lost their parents in the civil war that ravaged the country, bringing with them food from their own storage to feed the orphans. An Indian FPU stationed in Kisangani in the DRC is aiding in the re-equipment of schools and also assisting community members with a range of tasks, including helping people start their cars.

Mr. Kroeker noted that such efforts help to hasten communities’ acceptance of the UNPOL officers and also show that “they’re more than just police officers, but police officers who care” with a “beating humanitarian heart under that big façade of the tough cop.”