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/ 15 September 2005
Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland holds parliamentary polls later this month with the hope the exercise will boost its chance of world recognition as a state independent of a nation in chaos. Somaliland will on September 29 conduct its third multiparty elections since 2000, as the rest of the Horn of Africa nation founders in lawlessness despite the creation of a transitional federal government.
The European Union on Tuesday warned Somalia’s bickering leaders to resolve a long-running and deepening dispute over the seat of the lawless nation’s transitional government or lose out on much-needed aid. ”The leaders have some differences that are not fully encouraging aid to Somalia,” British envoy David Bell told a meeting of EU diplomats.
A blast that killed at least 15 people in a Mogadishu stadium where Somalia’s transitional prime minister was speaking about plans to bring a government to the lawless country and reconcile rivals has deepened concern over the viability of peace prospects in Somalia, analysts say.
At least 15 people were killed and 38 wounded on Tuesday when a blast hit a stadium in Mogadishu where Somalia’s transitional prime minister was addressing a large crowd, police and witnesses said. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, making his first visit to the capital itself since taking office last year, was unhurt by the explosion.
Somali warlords and intellectuals came in for mockery with the staging of a play dramatising the decade-old conflict in the Horn of Africa country.