A new tool by Google reveals how Africans use the Internet. Not being a surprise, "sex" is one of the most searched words in the Internet, but it may come as an embarrassment to many Muslim countries that their citizens are the world's most frequent digital sex searchers; in particular North Africans.
(Full Story)
|
The U.N. Security Council has not ruled out the idea of a U.N. peacekeeping force for Somalia, a top envoy said Saturday after meeting with African Union officials to discuss problems in Somalia and Sudan. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has come out against such a force, but the fierce fighting that has ravaged Mogadishu, the Somali capital, in the last few days appeared to weigh on the diplomats' minds.
(Full Story)
|
Tanzania and Kenya have pledged to start joint naval operations off the East African Indian Ocean coast, to tame rising cases of piracy in the area. Zanzibar President Amani Abeid Karume and the visiting Kenyan Vice- President, Kalonzo Musyoka, yesterday expressed concern over the upheaval caused by pirates in the area.
(Full Story)
|
Will GPS Wear Itself Out? asks William Matthews and reports that experts say already the system will be less reliable if older satellites fail. Four F/A-18 Super Hornets hurtled off the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Arabian Sea and sped north toward Afghanistan on April 26 to drop 500-pound GPS-guided bombs on dug-in Taliban machine gunners.
(Full Story)
|
According to Joe Borg, the European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, the rapid spread of piracy eastwards from Africa may soon affect Australian interests and Australia may need to join forces with the European Union to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean if Somali pirates continue to expand their area of attacks.
(Full Story)
|
NATO's military planners and legal experts are developing a comprehensive operation plan for a new anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, with an anticipated launch date in June, a senior NATO source told Jane'sDefenceWeekly.
(Full Story)
|
The U.N. Security Council does not think conditions are yet right to send a peacekeeping force to Somalia but will step up support for African Union (AU) troops there, a senior Western envoy said on Saturday.
(Full Story)
|
U.S. military forces will not deploy to Somalia despite reports Eritrea is supplying arms to opponents of the Somalian government, a top U.S. diplomat said. "This is an internal Somali matter," Johnnie Carson, the Obama administration's top official on Africa, told the BBC in a story aired Saturday.
(Full Story)
|
Iran has sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden to protect oil tankers and other vessels from the world's fifth-largest crude exporter against attacks by pirates off the coast of Somalia, state radio said on Thursday.
(Full Story)
|
Japan on Friday ordered its navy to dispatch two aircraft to watch out for pirate activity off Somalia. Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada ordered the two P-3C surveillance planes to assist Japan's two Maritime Self-Defence Forces destroyers patrolling off the coast of Somalia in their anti-piracy mission.
(Full Story)
|