Heavy fighting has broken out in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, leaving at least 18 people dead, many of them civilians.
The fighting began when insurgents attacked African Union Dictators-R-Us and Ethiopian troops Woyanne thugs Thursday, drawing retaliatory fire. During the battle, heavy artillery hit the populous Bakara Market.
The fighting also drew in forces from the transitional Somali government. The government is backed by Ethiopia TPLF, which is believed to have more than 10,000 troops in the country.
Thursday, Ethiopia’s prime minister the leader of TPLF dismissed opposition calls for a timetable to withdraw his country’s troops from Somalia.
Addressing parliament, Meles Zenawi Dictator Zenawi, said troops would remain in Somalia until a credible international force can take over and Somalia’s stability is assured.
Ethiopian troops TPLF Thugs entered Somalia in 2006 to help the government oust an Islamist movement that had seized power throughout much of the country.
U.N.-backed reconciliation talks between the Somali government and some of its opponents have achieved little, while a bloody Islamist insurgency rages on.
In New York Tuesday, a U.N. official said the Somali government and opposition groups would meet for a third round of talks October 25-26 in Djibouti.
The official, Amadou Oul Abdallah, also said the U.N. and World Bank are planning a donor conference to assist Somalia, where millions are in need of aid because of fighting and drought. He said a preliminary meeting for the conference will take place Monday in Stockholm.
UPDATED WITH FINAL RESULTS As in the previous debates, CBS News and Knowledge Networks have conducted a nationally representative poll of uncommitted voters to get their immediate reaction to tonight’s presidential debate.
In the first presidential debate, second presidential debate and vice presidential debate, more uncommitted voters said the Democratic candidate was the victor.
And tonight’s results have, by a wide margin, made it a clean sweep. Here are the final results of the survey of 638 uncommitted voters:
Fifty-three percent of the uncommitted voters surveyed identified Democratic nominee Barack Obama as the winner of tonight’s debate. Twenty-two percent said Republican rival John McCain won. Twenty-five percent saw the debate as a draw.
More uncommitted voters trusted Obama than McCain to make the right decisions about health care. Before the debate, sixty-one percent of uncommitted voters said that they trust Obama on the issue; after, sixty-eight percent said so. Twenty-seven percent trusted McCain to manage health care before the debate; thirty percent said so afterwards.
Sixty-four percent think Obama will raise their taxes, while fifty percent think McCain will.
Before the debate, fifty-four percent thought Obama shared their values. That percentage rose to sixty-four percent after the debate. For McCain, fifty-two percent thought he shared their values before the debate, and fifty-five percent thought so afterwards.
Before the debate, fifty percent said they trusted Obama to handle a crisis; that rose to sixty-three percent afterwards. More uncommitted voters trusted McCain on this – seventy-eight percent before the debate, eighty-two percent after the debate.
But more trusted Obama than McCain to make the right decisions about the economy. Before the debate, fifty-four percent of uncommitted voters said that they trust Obama to make the right decisions about the economy; after, sixty-five percent said that. Before, thirty-eight percent trusted McCain to do so, and forty-eight percent did after the debate.
Before the debate, sixty-six percent thought Obama understands voters’ needs and problems; that rose to seventy-six percent after the debate. For McCain, thirty-six percent felt he understands voters’ needs before the debate, and forty-eight percent thought so afterwards.
We will have a full report on the poll later on. Uncommitted voters are those who don’t yet know who they will vote for, or who have chosen a candidate but may still change their minds.
Click here to listen >> [podcast]http://audio.wbez.org/cityroom/2008/10/cityroom_20081013_nmoore_1633917_Obam.mp3[/podcast]
We’ve been reporting on Chicagoans who are deeply invested in the presidential race between Illinois Senator Barack Obama and Arizona Senator John McCain. Today, we meet an Ethiopian-born Chicago resident who’s been volunteering for the Obama campaign.
Ethiopian Diamond restaurant boasts the best coffee and food of its kind in Chicago.
It’s also been the site of gatherings for the city’s African and Caribbean population who are supporting Barack Obama.
RETTA: Obama, his case is very unique. But Obama is for the people. Obama, his agenda, his change and his hope that resonates to everybody.
Befekadu Retta has been organizing on behalf of the campaign. He lives in Edgewater and says his young children forget about their cartoons when Obama appears on the television screen.
The Ethiopian native says there may be a feeling a kinship because Obama’s father was Kenyan.
RETTA: Yes, African. First-generation African. But again that doesn’t persuade me as what he’s standing for.
Retta says he evaluates the candidate on the economy, education and support of the African Diaspora.
Retta came to the United States more than 20 years ago as a refugee. He went to Roosevelt University, became a citizen and works for Cook County.
The pull of politics is apparent for him in this historic presidential race. Retta was in Iowa when Obama won the primary and he’s taken his children to Ohio to canvass. When he returned to Iowa a few weeks ago, about a hundred Africans and West Indians went too.
Retta says Obama is an easy pick for those in the African Diaspora. Obama’s plan includes debt relief to poor countries and investing in fighting AIDS.
RETTA: African and Caribbeans have been a victim of poverty, starvation, lack of democracy. Obama, according to his platform that we have seen so far, hopefully he will continue on that and he will give for the other part of the world how people can live together. How they can tackle the poverty, especially HIV that which affects all over the world and especially the Third World. We’re hoping he’ll be able to help and to make sure that the other part of the world are with us to tackle and solve those problems.
Retta says there’s been energy in his community about Obama. But that’s not always the case in American elections. Traditionally, the focus is on political activism in the Old Country.
RETTA: We have our own back home attachments with politics and economy because home is home.
One expert says he’s never seen this level of presidential election interest among the West Indian and African populations in the U.S. They’re contributing and registering voters. Jean-Germain Gros is a political science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
GROS: We have to be honest about it, it’s race. A lot of people of African descent would very much support Obama because he’s of African descent. But I would think that equally important is this fact: if Obama should become elected, for a lot of people this would provide a kind of inspiration if not to them but to their children.
Gros says there’s an African and Caribbean tradition that at election time artists put out tunes for a particular candidate. This is the first time in his memory he’s seen someone do that for a U.S. presidential candidate.
song
Mighty Sparrow is the calypso crooner. The title of the tune is “Barack the Magnificent.”
The backlash over Sarah Palin has already reached infamous and high levels in many circles. Mockery and scorn follow Palin on late night shows and among some pundits, and her campaign for Vice President has seemed like one big routine meant for Tina Fey to recreate. Worse yet, the recent “Troopergate” probe in her own home state of Alaska has put Palin’s judgment as a governor in jeopardy, with accusations of abuse of power.
So with that in mind, it probably wasn’t the best call for Palin to make a public appearance among Philadelphia sports fans, who boo people for little to no reason as it is.
Palin was planning to reinforce her self-proclaimed “hockey mom” image by dropping the first puck at the Philadelphia Flyers opening game against the New York Rangers on Saturday night. There, Palin would be joined by a Flyers fans who won a “hockey mom” contest to drop the puck with her, as they were also joined by Willow and Bristol Palin. It was an act of publicity in a swing state that Palin and John McCain need to make headway in.
But the Philadelphia fans were in no mood for Palin, as they greeted her with a loud string of boos once she came out onto the rink. In fact, once the boos started, the music over the PA system had to be turned up extremely loud to drown out the boos. When watching the game on television, the music could clearly be heard drowning out any sounds that the crowd was making, until Palin left the rink.
Though there was some applause for Palin, the Philadelphia fans did what they often do best and overshadowed it with the booing. Even the Wachovia Center scoreboard had to put up a message beforehand, saying “Flyers fans, show Philadelphia’s class and welcome America’s No. 1 hockey mom, Sarah Palin.”
Even though Palin wasn’t booed as much as actual sports figures are in Philadelphia, her less than enthusiastic reception reinforced two stereotypes. One is Palin’s growing unpopularity, as she now faces legal trouble for the “Troopergate” issue and the McCain/Palin ticket declines as well.
Zersenay Tadese and Lornah Kiplagat brilliantly defended their IAAF World Half-Marathon Championship titles with runaway victories in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
The Eritrean and Dutch stars used almost identical tactics when stretching their opponents in the early stages of their races to collect winner’s purses of 30,000 US dollars (£17,598).
Tadese, who opened up a 30-second lead after 10 kilometres, scorched to a sub-one hour time of 59 minutes 56 seconds to destroy the ambitions of Patrick Makau Musyoki and Ahmad Hassan Abdullah.
The Kenyan matched his runner-up feat of last year by clocking one hour, one minute and 54 seconds while the Qatari bronze medallist finished in a season’s best 1:01:57.
The dominant Kenyans took team honours for the third successive year, their three counters posting a mark of three hours seven minutes and 24 seconds.
Eritrea and Ethiopia repeated their silver and bronze medal performances at the previous championships in 3:09:40 and 3:10:52.
“This was a race I was determined to win and yes, I did prepare specially for it,” said 26-year-old Tadese, effectively clinching a third successive global title having claimed the now-defunct IAAF World Road Running crown over 20km two years ago.
Kiplagat also stood head and shoulders above the opposition in her 13.1 mile race when after forcing a fast pace through the first 5km uphill stretch, she accelerated two kilometres later to destroy her rivals.
“I just wanted to get away and not place myself under any pressure as happened last year,” said Kenya-born Kiplagat, who has represented Holland since 2003 after marrying coach Pieter Langerhorst.
Kiplagat’s scorching pace in a perfect racing temperature of 25 degrees saw her roar to a season’s best of 1:08:37 to decisively win ahead of Aselefech Mergia and Pamela Chepchumba.
A convey of Ethiopian military troops Woyanne henchmen which has left the Somali capital Mogadishu, and heading towards Afgoi district which is some 30KM from the Somali capital Mogadishu came under a remote control landmine explosion just some 18KM before reaching the actual destination on Sunday morning.
The explosion was an earsplitting one, and its sound was heard almost in the entire neighborhood.
“The Ethiopian troops TPLF thugs were traveling in 14 military trucks and immediately after the explosion they have alighted from the trucks and opened heavy fire in all the directions, they have also cordoned off the road for a brief time and later reopened it, I have seen them from very far collecting the bodies of 3 of their soldiers but what I can verify is that 1 of their military trucks was burnt to ashes” said Hassan Kassim a resident in the area.
It is the same, same place where Ethiopian military soldiers TPLF mercilessly butchered more than 80 innocent Somali civilians traveling along the road which links Mogadishu and Afgoi district.
Since the arrival of the Ethiopian troops TPLF in Somali particularly in the capital Mogadishu backing the Somali transitional government they have encountered uncountable attacks and roadside bombs.
Somali has not had effective central government for nearly two decades since late Mohamed Siyad Bare was overthrown from power in 1991.
