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	Beyond Rangoon: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Hans Zimmer, U Aung Ko, Frances McDormand, Spalding Gray, Tiara Jacquelina, Kuswadinath Bujang, Victor Slezak, Jit Murad, Ye Myint and Cho Cho Myint EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Milan Records RELEASE DATE:  15 August, 1995
	Sucker Punch Haji's Kitchen EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Crystal Clear Duplicate RELEASE DATE:  27 June, 2001
	Hello Buddy Haji Springer EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Thizz Ent. RELEASE DATE:  17 April, 2007
	Sotuma Sere Al-Haji Papa Bunka Susso EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Trad. Crossroads RELEASE DATE:  20 May, 2003
	Sessions Seamus Haji EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Ministry of Sound UK RELEASE DATE:  08 August, 2006
	Haji Plays J.S. Bach Haji and Furukawa EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Sony RELEASE DATE:  27 February, 2006
	Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood By Brown Co. Brown Co. and Haji P. & Dundee EDITION:  Audio CD
	Ritmo Latino: Mixed by Seamus Haji Various Artists EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Import [Generic] RELEASE DATE:  18 December, 2001
	Haji's Kitchen Haji's Kitchen EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Shrapnel RELEASE DATE:  25 July, 1995
	Aphrodite's Dream Haji Mike EDITION:  Audio CD MANUFACTURER:  Tp Records

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Europe

Somalia sinks deeper into a state of total disintegration

Zam Zam Abdi fled Mogadishu after being threatened with death by the hardline Islamist militia - the Shabab. The message from the armed group once allied to the Union of Islamic Courts, the coalition that briefly seized power in 2006, was simple: if she continued working for her women's rights organisation in the Somali capital, she would be killed. The warning was posted on her office gates. But it is what happened to a friend and colleague, working for another organisation, that persuaded her to escape. He was shot dead and the same note left on his body.'Most of us had to leave,' she said. 'We had emails and phone calls telling us to stop working. They used an expression famous in Somalia: Falka aad ku jirtid maka baxeeysa. May ama haa? It means - "Stop what you are doing or we will act. Yes or no?" Then someone spoke on the radio - a local leader called Sheikh Mahmoud - delivering the same warning.'Zam Zam, 28, separates the chaos and violence that has pervaded her country since the overthrow of President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 into 'ordinary Mogadishu' and 'not ordinary'. 'Ordinary', in Zam Zam's definition, describes her country's persistent clan warfare, even the heavy fighting in the city that drove her to leave before with her daughter when Ethiopian troops - supporting the internationally recognised government - shelled her neighbourhood in 2006 to drive the Islamic Courts out after six months in power. In the ordinary violence and chaos, Zam Zam and her colleagues could still work, negotiating with the clan warlords. In common with the UN, Zam Zam believes that what is happening now is something else. Something terrible, exceeding perhaps even the bloodsoaked chaotic days of the early 1990s when Somalia was last plunged into anarchy.It is Mogadishu that symbolises what is happening. A large proportion of its population - already jobless, hungry and surviving on aid - has fled the fighting in the city between the Shabab and the forces of the country's weak and rapidly imploding government, backed by its Ethiopian allies. The streets are stalked by assassins, kidnappers and suicide bombers. And the Shabab is threatening to overrun the country's south and centre. If what is happening is a disaster, it is a disaster hardly noticed by the world. Yet it has not only been human rights workers who have been attacked. Government officials, politicians and journalists, anyone who does not fit in with the Shabab's world view, have been threatened and killed, mostly for being tainted by Western ideas. 'When the leadership of the Islamic Courts fled in 2006, the Shabab became more independent,' said Zam Zam. For humanitarian workers, problems were exacerbated when one of the Shabab's leaders, accused also of being a leader of al-Qaeda, was killed in a US air strike in late spring in the town of Dusa Mareeb. 'When the US hit Shabab hideouts they started seeing us as being spies of the West. If people were kidnapped they would ask to see our laptops before releasing us to see what information we held on them.'While the world has focused on the rampant piracy problem afflicting the Gulf of Aden, which saw yet another tanker held for ransom last week, the seizing of ships is only a symptom of a much more terrifying malaise.What it points to is the wholesale failure of a state and the international community's abandonment of the Somalia problem except where it affects its interests - in terms of shipping trade and the 'war on terror' for the West and on a more local scale for the regional interests of Ethiopia and Eritrea.Last week, however, the African Union Commission's chairman, Jean Ping, reiterated what many are convinced of: that the piracy problem is inseparable from Somalia's caustic political and security problems. 'Piracy is an extension on the sea of the problem you are facing on the land ... [it] is an important aspect of all the disorder you already have in Somali territory,' he said.Somalia is not so much a failed state as one that is atomising. Forty-three per cent of the country is in dire need of humanitarian assistance, about 3.2 million people at the last count. There are 1.3 million internally displaced, 100,000 of them fleeing the fighting in Mogadishu alone since the beginning of September. Inflation is running at 1,600 per cent. One in six children in southern and central Somalia is acutely malnourished.Dozens of aid workers, most of them locals, have been murdered this year, largely by members of the Shabab. According to the Shabab, even locals who take money from the UN are therefore in the pay of foreign interests and enemies to be killed.Mogadishu and other centres have been hit by suicide attacks - merely one aspect of an intensely violent society. There is the religious conflict between the factions of the Islamic Courts allied to the Shabab and those they regard as insufficiently Islamic. Then there are the ever-present clan conflicts, at the centre of which is the rivalry between the Hawiye and the Darod groups. Added to this is the battle between the Transitional Federal government backed by Ethiopia and the Islamic Courts.These conflicts are underscored by complex, interleaving rivalries even within the Islamist factions which have pitted the Shabab - literally the 'Youth' - against the more moderate Djibouti faction. On top of all this has been the mushrooming of criminal activity, piracy, smuggling and people-trafficking, some of it linked to groups such as the Shabab. Foreign jihadi fighters have also been attracted into the chaos. The consequence has been a disaster. 'The situation is very serious,' said a Mogadishu businessman who spoke to The Observer on Friday asking not to be identified for fear of being targeted by one of the rival groups. 'A lot of the population has fled from the city. Some areas are deserted and it is very difficult and dangerous. There are no jobs. People are only surviving on the food provided at the kitchens of the aid organisations. Others get money sent from their relatives overseas. 'The military loyal to the government are looting. They are taking mobiles from people and committing other crimes. Then there are the different factions of the resistance who call themselves names like the Union of Islamic Courts or Islamic Jihad. Last week the Shabab took two more towns. This is the worst situation since the civil war began,' he added. 'You don't know who will attack or kill you.' And despite the advances on the battlefield made by the Shabab, he does not believe that the period of calm and order enjoyed in Somalia in 2006 when the Islamic Courts first took over would be replicated if the Islamist groups won once more. 'This time it will be worse,' he said. 'The Courts replaced the clan warlords but had no ideas for the future and were driven back. This time the Islamic groups will fight among themselves. This time we will have Islamic warlords. They will fight and there will be more difficult problems.'Somalia's tragedy has been a slow, deadly and divisive affair that has ground out over the years since the fall of the socialist state founded by Siad Barre in 1991. Its roots, at least partly, are to be found in his disastrous war to seize the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, an adventure that would lead to eventual defeat for Somalia's forces and the beginning of Ethiopia's long history of interference in Somalia, which saw it arm the warlords who brought Siad Barre down.Despite the overthrow of his authoritarian regime, the rival clans responsible for his downfall could not agree on a replacement, leading to lawlessness and social collapse. The result was a country that, when confronted with famine, was unable to cope, leading to the deaths of more than a million of its people. While the rest of the world knows Somalia for the intervention by American and Pakistani troops as part of Operation Restore Hope in 1993, for Somalis the country's story has been told in clan strife and repeated failures - 14 to date - to establish a government whose writ runs throughout the state. The most recent effort was the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Djibouti in 2004 whose authority was quickly challenged by the Islamic Courts, which emerged out of the port city of Kismayo and sought to establish a strict interpretation of sharia law before being driven out by Ethiopian troops who intervened on behalf of the TFG. While the rule of the Islamic Courts was, by most Somali accounts, a period of relative calm, it is what has happened since that has driven Somalia towards a new catastrophe. Despite a peace deal between one of the factions of the Islamic Courts and the TFG, the Courts' former militia, the Shabab, has split apart - with the most militant faction responsible for the most violence, in particular those who look to the leadership of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a hardline Salafist said to be close to al-Qaeda.The outcome so many Somalis feared has already come to pass in large areas of south-central Somalia that have fallen under the control of the country's reinvented militant Islamist movement. In recent days its fighters have captured two more towns close to the capital, including Elasha, nine miles south of Mogadishu. In Elasha in recent days rival Islamist groups have already clashed violently.Elsewhere, the Shabab is already consolidating its victories, including in Marka, capital of the Lower Shabele region. Speaking to a crowd in Marka, Muktar Robow - known as 'Abu Mansur' - a spokesman for the Shabab said the group had come to secure the region against foreigners and criminals.According to the community-based station Radio Garowe, in the north of the country, he said that the Shabab intended to establish an Islamic court to administer justice, adding: 'We will not allow the citizens to be oppressed again.'Militarily, it is a situation so bleak for the forces of the TFG and its Ethiopian allies that President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed admitted two weeks ago that Islamists now control most of Somalia, raising the prospect that his government could completely collapse. 'We are only in Mogadishu and Baidoa, where there is daily war,' he said. That leaves a fundamental question: will the Shabab press its advantage to attempt to take Mogadishu once again? On Friday the indication was that it might be its intention, as the capital saw one of the fiercest gun battles in recent weeks when Islamist fighters attacked the house of a local government official, leaving 17 dead. The Islamist factions have also become increasingly bold in recent weeks, with their spokesmen in Mogadishu regularly holding news conferences and carrying out floggings in the parts of the capital they control, whereas only a few months ago they were careful not to be seen in the open.Despite the high profile of the Shabab in recent weeks, some analysts believe that it may be content with the chaos in Mogadishu that has bogged down the contingent of African peacekeepers as well as Somali-Ethiopian troops. They believe, too, that the Shabab is wary of the several thousand Ethiopian troops who defeated them before.Fears over what would happen if the Islamists were to take the capital and impose sharia law across the south were underlined by a single incident at the beginning of the month - the stoning to death for adultery of a 13-year-old rape victim, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, in Kismayo. 'You know how bad it is getting,' said Zam Zam, 'when a 13-year-old is stoned to death. Then you know that it is really scary.''Somalia in general and Mogadishu is in the midst of a deep political, humanitarian and security crisis,' said Asha Haji Elmi, an MP and activist and delegate to the UN-led peace process, who fled before the Ethiopian advance in 2006. Now based in Nairobi, she remains in daily contact with people in Somalia. 'They talk to me about a precarious situation, and it is civilians who are paying the heaviest price, especially women and children. It is unbelievable. There are internally displaced spread everywhere. There is no secure place.'She forcefully rejects any new attempt to impose a military solution on her country: 'The solution is political. It requires dialogue. That is the only symbol of hope. A military solution cannot be the answer to the problem. Everyone who has tried to solve Somalia's problems by force has failed.'A short and bloody history1960 Britain withdraws from British Somaliland, making way for a union with Italian Somaliland. The new country is known as the Somali Republic.1969 A coup launched by Mohamed Siad Barre ushers in a period of increasingly authoritarian rule. 1977 Siad Barre invades the Ethiopian territory of Ogaden in a bid to create a Greater Somalia. The Soviet Union and Cuba back Ethiopia. 1991 Siad Barre is deposed by warlords, largely from the south, armed and supported by Ethiopia. The country descends into factional fighting. In May the northern clans declare an independent Republic of Somalia.1993 Facing an appalling famine, the UN launches a humanitarian effort led by US and Pakistani troops. Thwarted by General Mohamed Farah Aideed, the mission suffers casualties, including the episode described in the film Black Hawk Down, above right, when 17 US Rangers were killed - and the UN mission leaves in 1995 in the wake of the US withdrawal.2004 The two-year peace process concludes in the establishment of the Transitional Federal Government. It never manages to establish real authority. 2006 A coalition of businessmen, clerics and militias known as the Union of Islamic Courts sweeps to power. Ethiopia, encouraged by the US, intervenes to support the TFG and drives back the Courts, claiming they are allied to al-Qaeda's East African network.2008 With the leadership of the Courts in exile, a resurgent Islamist movement, focused on the hardline Shabab militia group, makes gains throughout the country, threatening Mogadishu and Baidoa by November.SomaliaHuman rightsPiracyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Published: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:04:26 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the article

Europe

Stelios refuses to approve easyJet accounts

The dispute between the easyJet board and the airline's largest shareholder escalated this morning after Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou refused to approve annual accounts which showed a 46% fall in pre-tax profits.Haji-Ioannou, who has fallen out with board members over the budget carrier's strategy, said he was "unable" to back today's figures due to a number of objections related to easyJet's acquisition of GB Airways. The easyJet founder also ruled out becoming chairman of the airline but has proposed two lieutenants from his easyGroup business as non-executive directors. In a letter to the board published at the end of easyJet's annual results, Haji-Ioannou again criticised the airline's ambitious expansion plans."I would like to place on record that I believe that with careful cash management and in particular more prudent capital expenditure, easyJet and its shareholders will be the winners in European short-haul aviation. We must focus on cash flows forecasts and not on carrying more passengers," he said.Sir Stelios, who remains the airline's largest shareholder with a 27% stake, has demanded that the carrier begin paying dividends for the first time. The accounts were signed off by the airline's auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers.EasyJet reflected its founder's concerns in a change in short-term strategy announced today. Europe's second-largest low-cost carrier said it had reduced winter growth plans from a 12% increase in capacity to zero and added that it had deferred four aircraft deliveries scheduled to arrive in 2010. It added that, according to a multi-billion pound order with Airbus, it can defer up to half its 109 future aircraft deliveries for up to two years. However, easyJet refused to state whether it is considering pushing back those orders."EasyJet delivered a good trading performance in the financial year ending September 2008 ... We recognise that economic conditions will be very difficult and easyJet is planning accordingly," said Andy Harrison, easyJet chief executive.Boosted by an expansion that added 28 aircraft to its fleet over the year, easyJet said revenues grew by 32% to nearly £2.4bn as passenger numbers rose 17% to 43.7 million. The passenger load factor, which states the amount of seats sold per flight and is an important indicator of the financial health of a low-cost carrier, was flat at 84%. Profits were hit by higher fuel costs.Harrison said in a conference call with reporters this morning that the concerns raised by Haji-Ioannou were "not new news" and had already been considered by management, the audit committee and auditors. He said they were non-cash items and had "no impact on the value or commercial strength of the company".Haji-Ioannou said in his statement that easyJet should monitor the profitability of GB Airways more closely by accounting the performance of each of its routes separately. He said the valuation of GB's Gatwick airport slots was too optimistic given the current economic climate, that the aircraft owned by GB should be written down in the easyJet accounts and that the impairment value of the GB assets should be tested separately on an annual basis. "I am left without any other options but to abstain from voting on the accounts as a director of easyJet plc. I am doing so reluctantly, but I believe it is in the interest of all shareholders to be more prudent at the present time," said Haji-Ioannou. The easyJet founder said the airline should pay a dividend from 2011 onwards, which would represent an about-turn in a company strategy that is predicated on growing the business much faster than all rivals except Ryanair.EasyjetAirline industryCredit crunchguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Published: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:03:42 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the article

Europe

Stelios raises easyJet stake and threatens to return as chairman

A rift between easyJet and the airline's flamboyant founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, erupted into the open yesterday after the tycoon increased his stake in the business and threatened to reinstate himself as chairman.The board of the budget airline made public the details of an email sent by Haji-Ioannou to the company late on Thursday. In it, the airline's founder disclosed that he had lifted his stake from 15.6% to almost 27%, after taking control of his sister's shares. Haji-Ioannou said he wanted to appoint two representatives to the board or else exercise his right to name himself chairman. The tycoon remains a non-executive director but has not been chairman since 2002.The two sides are at odds over strategy. Haji-Ioannou is demanding that the carrier because of the slowing economy, stoking some speculation over the financial health of his easyGroup empire, which operates businesses from hotels to pizza delivery to men's toiletries. EasyJet has never paid dividends in its eight years as a public company, preferring to invest for growth.In an emailed response to questions, Haji-Ioannou said: "I am merely applying my rights under the articles of association of the company to protect my investment in easyJet." He said his request was for the company to pay a dividend by 2011 "if the markets allow".The company said it had been taken by surprise. In a statement, chairman Sir Colin Chandler said "there has been a far-reaching debate over these issues", adding that "the ongoing dialogue with Sir Stelios continued" during a scheduled board meeting on Thursday, when it appeared as though a resolution was in reach. He said dialogue would continue, but noted: "I would like to make it clear up front that the other non-executive directors and I fully support the executive management of the company."The board includes Channel 5 chairman Dawn Airey, former Alliance & Leicester executive David Bennett, Ladbrokes boss Sir David Michels, and John Browett, who runs DSG International, the owner of Currys, Dixons and PC World.The relationship between Haji-Ioannou and the company began to sour in summer when the tycoon filed a claim in the high court accusing the carrier of breaking its licence agreement by starting too many ancillary businesses, including a credit card and hotel-booking website. The case is still rumbling through the courts.At an investor day in September, the airline outlined plans to take delivery of 85 new aircraft in the next three years, adding 35 craft to the fleet and bringing it to 200, after taking into account the retirement and sale of older planes. The aim is to build routes to mainland Europe.At its full-year results due next week, however, the airline is expected to pare back its ambitions. In the statement, the company defended its plans and said it was already taking a "cautious" approach to spending.EasyJet said its full-year figures would be in line with market expectations, adding that forward bookings and total revenue per seat are running slightly ahead of last year. The company is expected to report profits of £115m, a little over half the previous year's £202m.Haji-Ioannou, 41, who was born in Cyprus, started easyJet when he was 28, floating the business on the stockmarket in 2000. His brother Polys owns a further 11.3% of the airline.Pressed about the financial state of easyGroup, Haji-Ioannou responded: "I am doing very well financially, considering the macro climate, thank you. I have no leverage at all."Shares in easyJet have more than halved in price since the start of the year, costing the businessman a paper loss of around £170m.Douglas McNeill, airline analyst at stockbrokers Blue Oar, said the market was still digesting the situation. "On the one hand you have conflict at board level, which is undesirable. But there is also the prospect of a change of strategy and the distribution of cash," he said. "The rapid rate of expansion that has been planned requires a huge amount of cash to be spent on new planes. Stelios clearly thinks that cash could be better used elsewhere."EasyjetAirline industryguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Published: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:16:05 GMT - Source: Guardian.Co.Uk - Read the article

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