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Oil surges past $90 as war in Middle East chokes Strait of Hormuz, rattling fuel costs worldwide Oil prices spiked and showed no signs of easing a week after the United States and Israel launched major attacks on Iran, tipping the Middle East into war and choking off one of the world’s most vital energy arteries, the Strait of Hormuz. Commercial tankers carrying roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day are stranded in the Persian Gulf, unable to safely pass through the narrow waterway bordered by Iran, as missile and drone…

Sunday March 8, 2026 Arusha (AX) — East African Community leaders on Sunday approved and swore in Somali jurist Abdiwahid Warsame Abdullahi as a judge of the First Instance Division of the East African Community Court of Justice, marking a milestone in Somalia’s integration into the regional bloc. The appointment was endorsed at the 25th Summit of EAC Heads of State in Arusha, where Abdullahi took the oath of office. His elevation brings Somali legal expertise onto the bench of the EAC’s principal judicial institution at a…

Somalia’s federalism debate is back in the spotlight after recent constitutional changes, but the fiercest political struggle is not about legal design. It is about who controls the state’s levers of influence. The contest runs through clan coalitions and elite networks that use government institutions as their arena. Until that deeper reality is confronted, arguments about centralization versus autonomy—whether power tilts toward Mogadishu or is diffused among member states—will misread how authority actually works. The…

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The International Press Institute on Sunday condemned the killing of Somali journalist Abshir Khalif Shidane in Kismayo and the separate detention of a television reporter in Mogadishu, calling the incidents the latest evidence of mounting pressure on the country’s media and urging swift accountability. Shidane, 25, was shot and killed the evening of March 2 in Kismayo, the capital of Jubaland State, after a police officer opened fire following a brief argument at a checkpoint, according to reports from…

Opinion: Ethiopia’s impunity test — why Abdi Iley’s return to public life imperils reconciliation In Ethiopia’s Somali Region and far beyond it, reconciliation is not a slogan but a test measured in the dignity afforded to victims. The reemergence of Abdi Mohamed Omar — widely known as Abdi Iley, the former Somali Region president — after a March 2024 pardon has turned that test into a crisis. Rights groups have long documented grave abuses by the region’s Liyu Police during his tenure, including torture, extrajudicial…

MOGADISHU — Somalia has extended the mandates of its federal institutions to five years under a newly adopted constitution, effectively adding one year to current terms, Speaker of the House of the People Aden Mohamed Nur Madoobe announced Thursday. The move, unveiled at an iftar gathering in the capital, immediately deepened political fault lines in a country already grappling with drought and humanitarian strain. Madoobe said parliament and other constitutional bodies would now operate under the revised charter, which…

East Africa’s new drought surge pushes millions toward hunger as water prices soar and livestock die Friday March 6, 2026 MOGADISHU — A failed rainy season has deepened drought across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, thrusting nearly 26 million people into extreme hunger, accelerating livestock deaths and sending water prices soaring, Oxfam warned in a report released this week. The crisis arrives less than three years after the Horn of Africa’s longest and most severe drought on record, when five consecutive rainy seasons…

New York — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday appointed U.S. diplomat James Swan as his new Special Representative for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known as MONUSCO, placing an experienced Africa hand at the helm of one of the U.N.’s most challenging peace operations. Swan succeeds Bintou Keita of Guinea, whom Guterres thanked for her leadership and service during a difficult period for the mission. The appointment lands at a pivotal moment for MONUSCO,…

MOGADISHU, Somalia — President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has named Zakariye Yusuf Hussein deputy director general of the Presidential Palace, a senior Villa Somalia post the government cast as part of a wider push to modernize public administration and elevate youth participation in decision-making. The appointment was announced Thursday in a presidential decree. The move follows a recent reshuffle at the presidency after Mohamed Amin Sheikh Osman, who previously held the deputy director general role, was appointed Somalia’s…

Somalia’s Hassan Sheikh Mohamud appoints Zakariye Yusuf Hussein deputy director general at Villa Somalia in youth-focused reform move MOGADISHU — Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Thursday appointed Zakariye Yusuf Hussein as deputy director general of the Presidential Palace, known as Villa Somalia, in a decree presented by the presidency as part of efforts to promote youth participation in governance and modernize public administration. The leadership change follows the reassignment of Mohamed Amin Sheikh Osman,…