NAIROBI, 13 July 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:

SOMALIA: Restrictions on trade affecting livelihoods ISRAEL-SUDAN: Sudanese asylum seekers take long bus ride to find bed for night AFRICA: Education tops pastoralists' concerns SUDAN: Government warns of heavy rains as number of displaced rises SOMALIA: Green light for reconciliation conference SUDAN: Darfur actors to discuss road map for peace

Also see:

AFRICA: Can pastoralism survive in the 21st century? at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73231

SUDAN-UGANDA: Justin Okot: "I was forced to be an LRA rebel for seven years" at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73211

SOMALIA: Restrictions on trade affecting livelihoods

Restrictions on the movement of people, in addition to continuing insecurity, have closed Somalia's largest market for the first time since the start of the civil war in 1991, limiting the ability of the population to make a living, said local sources. "Nothing has come in or gone out of the market for the last five days," Ali Muhammad Siad, the chairman of Bakara market traders in the capital, Mogadishu, told IRIN on 9 July.

Government forces backed by Ethiopian troops have been searching the market for weapons, said a local journalist, who declined to be named. Attacks by insurgents targeting government and Ethiopian forces continue, despite a curfew since 22 June, and house-to-house weapons searches by government troops.

"Through all these years [civil war years] we have never closed for one day but today [9 July] it [the market] is totally closed," said Siad. Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73140

ISRAEL-SUDAN: Sudanese asylum seekers take long bus ride to find bed for night

A group of about 60 Sudanese asylum seekers spent 8 July being bussed between Israel's southern city of Beersheba and the lawns in front of the Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem, as the authorities tried to decide where they could spend the night.

The Sudanese, including some from Darfur, had illegally crossed the Egypt-Israel border in the past few days. Initially, the Beersheba municipality found lodgings for them, while others went to Rahat, a Bedouin town in the southern Negev desert.

However, a city spokesman, Amnon Yosef, said Beersheba could no longer afford to house the asylum seekers and the government was not transferring promised funds for their care. Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73146

AFRICA: Education tops pastoralists' concerns

Pastoralists across Africa want their children to have access to education that suits their nomadic lifestyles, representatives of pastoral communities said on 9 July in Isiolo.

"The issue of the education curriculum is important to understanding pastoralism; imagine taking a lot of time to teach a child in Mandera [northern Kenya] how to plant beans when that child could be taught how to tan leather, given that it is the available resource," Ali Wario, Kenya's assistant minister for special programmes in the office of the president, said.

Wario, who opened the three-day workshop attended by at least 70 participants, said children in Kenya's pastoralist areas not only lacked access to education but, when available, the curriculum often did not suit pastoral lifestyles. "We must have mobile schools in pastoralist areas if children are to gain from the education system." Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73156

SUDAN: Government warns of heavy rains as number of displaced rises

The Sudanese government has warned that heavy rains expected in various parts of the country could lead to further flooding and displacement, but said it was doing all it could to contain the situation.

About 20 people have been killed and 15,000 houses destroyed as flash floods triggered by heavy rains swept through parts of central, eastern and southeastern Sudan, the head of the civil defence authority said on 10 July.

Major General Hamadallah Adam Ali told reporters in the capital, Khartoum, that dozens more people had been injured. Full report:

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73162

SOMALIA: Green light for reconciliation conference

After three postponements and many threats of non-attendance, Somalia's national reconciliation conference, due to start on 15 July, will proceed as planned, a senior official told IRIN.

"We are moving as planned and the conference is on schedule and will begin on 15 July," Abdulkadir Walayo, the media adviser for the National Governance and Reconciliation Commission (NGRC), which is organising the conference, said on 11 July.

He said most clans had put forward the names of their delegates. "We have 85 percent of the names and we expect the rest within the next two days."

The conference will be staged in Mogadishu, the capital, despite security concerns raised by some Hawiye elders. Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73188

SUDAN: Darfur actors to discuss road map for peace

The UN and African Union are to meet key regional and international actors in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur to seek a blueprint for peace in the region.

The meeting in Libya on 15-16 July comes days after the UN warned that violence in Darfur had displaced another 160,000 people since the beginning of 2007, and increased the number of people in need of aid to 4.2 million, or nearly two-thirds of the population.

"Security incidents involving internally displaced people have more than tripled," said a statement issued in New York by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73191

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