Axadle - Breaking news and analysis from Somalia, the Horn of Africa, and across Africa.

Under mounting pressure, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer admitted he made the wrong call in appointing Labour grandee Peter Mandelson as Britain’s envoy to Washington, as he tried to contain a crisis tied to Jeffrey Epstein’s long-time associate. Already deeply unpopular with voters and facing discontent among Labour MPs, Mr Starmer is battling a controversy that has cast a long shadow over his leadership and raised fresh doubts about his judgment. Speaking in parliament as the row intensified, Mr Starmer said: "At the heart…

Slovenia’s post-election deadlock deepened today after Prime Minister Robert Golob said he had been unable to assemble a governing coalition, despite his party’s razor-thin victory in last month’s parliamentary vote. The setback now gives an opening to runner-up Janez Jansa, a supporter of US President Donald Trump, to try to build a coalition in the EU member state of two million people. "We are looking forward to our work in the opposition," the liberal Mr Golob, 59, told reporters after meeting the president, saying he…

Monday April 20, 2026 Jowhar (AX) — Hirshabelle State President Ali Abdullahi Hussein Guudlaawe has directed his cabinet to accelerate preparations for Somalia’s planned one-person-one-vote elections, pressing for wider public engagement even as political fault lines and security worries grow around the process. Guudlaawe urged officials to step up voter education campaigns and bolster administrative readiness ahead of the expected polls. He also called on residents of Hirshabelle to take part actively in the electoral…

A burst of domestic violence in Shreveport, Louisiana, turned catastrophic when a man killed eight children — seven of them his own — across a rampage that unfolded at three locations, police said. The early-morning attack at a home in the city marked the deadliest mass shooting in the United States in more than two years, according to figures compiled by the Gun Violence Archive. Two women were also shot and critically wounded, among them the mother of several of the children who were killed. Investigators said initial…

Monday April 20, 2026 Mogadishu (AX) — Somalia’s media landscape is still operating under heavy pressure, with journalists facing repeated attacks and those behind them largely escaping punishment, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) said. In its annual State of the Media report, released Sunday, the union recorded 72 violations of media freedom from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2025, and said the pattern of abuse was broad, persistent and deeply rooted. The report said 70 of the cases involved individual…

Ukraine struck Russia’s Tuapse oil refinery for the second time in less than a week, according to Robert Brovdi, commander of Kyiv’s drone forces, who announced the attack in a social media post. Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone assault on the Black Sea port city of Tuapse triggered a fire and killed at least one person, coming only hours after authorities had put out a blaze caused by a similar strike on 16 April. Rosneft’s Tuapse refinery, which is geared toward exports, can process about 240,000 barrels of crude a…

Monday April 20, 2026 Mogadishu (AX) — In a bid to calm mounting political tensions, Somali opposition leaders sat down with influential Hawiye clan elders in Mogadishu on Sunday, as the country edges closer to a disputed electoral process. The discussions drew a number of prominent opposition figures, among them former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and former Prime Ministers Hassan Ali Khaire and Mohamed Hussein Roble, as well as lawmakers and other political actors. At the center of the talks was Somalia’s increasingly…

Iran has not yet decided whether it will join a fresh round of peace talks with the United States, clouding efforts to prevent the Middle East war from flaring up again. US President Donald Trump said he was dispatching negotiators to Pakistan for discussions aimed at ending a conflict that has engulfed the region and shaken global markets, even as he renewed threats to strike Iran's infrastructure if no agreement is reached. An initial round of talks in Islamabad earlier this month ended without a breakthrough, and both…

Somalia: U.S. Military Hits ISIS Targets in Puntland State Airstrike BOSASO, Somalia – The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) says it conducted an airstrike in Somalia’s Puntland State state against Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, underscoring the continuing pace of U.S. military activity in the country. According to a statement issued Saturday, the strike was carried out on April 17 in a rugged mountainous area about 30 miles…

By BRUHAN MAKONGMonday April 20, 2026 The African Union has sharply criticised Israel’s appointment of a diplomatic envoy to North Western State of Somalia, saying the move risks stirring fresh instability in the Horn of Africa and does nothing to alter its view that the territory remains part of Somalia. The African Union has condemned reports that Israel has appointed a diplomatic envoy to the self-declared Republic of North Western State of Somalia, insisting that any unilateral recognition of the territory is “null and…