Tsvangirai Wins Moroccan Democracy Award

Ethiopia intends to withdraw its troops from Somalia before the year ends, Addis Ababa’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahide Bellay has said. Experts fear the looming pullout will leave Somalia’s fractured interim government vulnerable to the increasingly powerful onslaught of various Islamic insurgents hell-bent on overthrowing it. Ethiopia has kept thousands of troops in Somalia to back the transitional administration, which has however failed to gain effective control of the country. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has requested the UN to send a peacekeeping force to replace the tiny African Union force currently deployed in Somalia.[PE]