In a country so poor and with conflict.  Piracy is quick way to earn riches beyond most Somalis.  It is economic engine of the country.

MOGDISHU - Adam Shine waited months for the chance to join one of Somalia's growth industries. He has now completed his training and is ready to use his boat-handling and global-positioning skills to hijack ships.

"I came here with my friends. They had a gun and were immediately recruited and joined companies. But I've never had a gun so, after a fairly long process, I was told to take part in training for a month and now I can join," he told Reuters by phone from the coastal, pirate haven of Haradheere.

The new 20-year-old recruit is just one of hundreds of youths in Haradheere desperate to sign up in the hope of earning a tiny slice of hijack ransoms worth millions of dollars.

The steady stream of new recruits suggests that patrols by European Union warships since December 2008 to deter hijackings and arrest the seaborne gunmen have done little to dent the enthusiasm for piracy in the failed Horn of Africa nation.

A somali resident purchases a mobile phone handset at shopping centre in Mogadishu.

About a year ago, Muqtar Ali's brother was shot dead by gunmen in the busy Bakara market of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, and his $200 in cash was stolen.

Ali says that if a new mobile money transfer service unveiled by Somalia's biggest mobile telecoms firm last month had been in place then, his brother would still be alive.

Telecoms firm Safaricom pioneered mobile money transfers in neighboring Kenya and now has 8 million users. Besides transferring cash to friends and relatives, people pay power bills and even receive dividends from some companies.

Hormuud Telecom, the biggest network in Somalia with more than a million subscribers, says it designed the software for its SAAD money transfer service, but was helped by Safaricom workshops and consultants.

Shopping online gives users access to a huge number of products and services offered by retailers based both in the UK and abroad.  This provides the user with unparalleled choice and value, but there a few things that the user should keep in mind to ensure that they have a safe and secure online shopping experience.

Check the terms and conditions for both payment and delivery details carefully.  Many users fail to take the time to read the terms and conditions, and particularly in the case of expensive purchases, it is worth taking the time to getting a good understanding of the T&C’s regarding your purchase.  In most cases, you usually have at least 7 days to cancel the order and ask for a refund from an EU retailer should there be a problem.

Keep a record of what you have ordered, and any correspondence with the retailer.  In almost all instances the retailer will email you with product and payment confirmation details, however it is a good idea to print off a physical copy in case there is a problem with your email.

A plane of the East Wing air freight company sitting on the tarmac at Shymkent airport in southern Kazakhstan, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2010

SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan — The trail of the plane busted in Thailand last month for allegedly smuggling North Korean weapons to Iran leads back to a small airfreight company housed near an old Soviet airfield on the edge of the Kazakh steppe.

The aging Russian plane's odyssey took it through a web of companies, financiers and air cargo carriers with addresses stretching from New York through the Persian Gulf to New Zealand, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The persistence of carriers willing to ship anything anywhere for a price — even to countries under international sanctions like Iran and North Korea — has frustrated global efforts to stem the flow of illegal arms.

The officials of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland have Wednesday said that the TFG's proposal of printing current is illegal decision.

Abdikarin Ahmed Guled, the information minister of the semi-autonomous region of Puntland said in an interview with Shabelle radio that the decision of the transitional government of making the new money from Sudan was outlaw plan.

Pirates are enjoying life of envy which hard to get in Somalia

A parcel of land here that sold for $12,000 two years ago now costs more than $20,000. The price of a nice pair of men's shoes has gone up from $20 to $50.

The reason: pirates.

The influx of millions of dollars in ransoms has changed life in this coastal Muslim community, driving prices up and creating a schism between the pirate haves and have-nots. As piracy ramps up again with the end of the monsoon season, the lifestyle of the pirates — big houses, fast cars and easy drugs — is decried by both religious leaders and ordinary villagers.

"The use of drugs such as cannabis and the drinking of alcohol, sex and other obnoxious misconduct are now becoming common within the pirates, causing social problems," said Sheikh Ahmed, a mosque leader in the town of Galkayo. "That is what is worrying us, a lot more than the risk they pose to the foreign ships and crew."

"There was a heavy exchange of gunfire between some of our friends" one pirate told the local journalist, speaking of the other pirates.

"They fought over the 3 million euro ($4.5 million) received as a ransom from the Spanish boat."

At least two pirates were wounded in the gunfight in Harardhere, a pirate stronghold in central Somalia, the local journalist told CNN.

A head for business: Iman has run a successful cosmteics company since retiring from the catwalk

"The moment I got into the modeling industry, I knew I had to be an entrepreneur," says former supermodel Iman.

One of the most recognized models of the 1970s and '80s, Iman has used her entrepreneurial skills to great effect in the fashion industry, with her own cosmetics business and in her charitable fund-raising work.

Married to rock star David Bowie and now residing in New York, Iman was born in Somalia in 1955. Her father was an ambassador, but her comfortable upbringing was disrupted in 1969 with the assassination of Somalia's president, forcing her and her family to flee to Kenya.

"We left Somalia with nothing but the clothes on our back. Not even photographs, nothing. So it's a total loss of everything and a total loss of your own self, your own country, your own place in terms of your people. If you're lucky you're in a country that will give you a second chance," she told CNN.

She was lucky and her adopted home of Kenya provided her with a scholarship at Nairobi University, and it was also in the Kenyan capital that she was discovered as a model.

President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed

Sharif arrived in the Ethiopian capital on Friday to attend the "Saudi-East African Forum", a four-day gathering that aims to bolster trade partnerships between Riyadh and seven countries in the region.

"Piracy and terrorism have obstructed all kinds of development in Somalia, but there are mechanisms put in place to tackle these issues," he told the participants, which included government officials and representatives of 50 Saudi companies.

The Hargeisa livestock market is now booming with activity

HARGEISA - Days after Saudi Arabia lifted a nine-year ban on livestock imports from Somalia, the market in Hargeisa, Somaliland, has seen a 10-fold increase in sales, according to local traders.

"One thousand five hundred sheep used to be sold in the market before the recent announcement... compared to more than 16,000 animals in the market daily in the last few days," Jama Farah Du’alle, a middleman (`dilal’) in the market, told IRIN on 7 November.

Livestock keepers in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, whose mainstay is pastoralism, said they were beginning to see a change in their fortunes.

"In the last nine years I used to earn 5,000-10,000 Somaliland shillings a day [US $1.6 - 3.2] but by Allah’s mercy in the past few days I have been earning 60,000-70,000 a day, which has really improved my life," Du’alle said.

Somaliland’s livestock minister, Idiris Ibrahim Abdi, announced the Saudi move on 5 November. Imposed in late 2000, the ban followed an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in the Horn of Africa region.