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Mogadishu, Somalia (AHN) – Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed, the Prime Minister of the transitional federal government of Somalia, flew to Djibouti for his first official visit abroad since he was nominated in October.

Somali government spokesman Abdi Hajji Goobdoon, told reporters that the Premier Mohammed was accompanied by a delegation that made the trip after an official letter of invitation from Djibouti President Isma’il Omar Gelle. The trip will strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two eastern African nations.

Somalia’s Premier and his delegation were cordially welcomed when they arrived in Djibouti City. Mohammed’s trip comes as the Djibouti government on Tuesday proclaimed it is ready to help Somalia’s new government bring peace back to Somalia.

Djibouti Ambassador to Somalia Tayib Dubad Roble, made the announcement after meeting in Mogadishu with Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed and several of the newly-sworn cabinet ministers.

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – International protest is building about the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange this week. Assange is being held in a British jail awaiting extradition to Sweden on rape charges.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department is seeking to extradite him to the United States to face espionage charges after his Web site released more than 250,000 documents that exposed secret State Department communications. However, political leaders in Australia, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere say Assange is a political prisoner who is being punished for exercising rights of the free press.

Some of the harshest criticism is coming from Australia, where hundreds of people rallied Thursday in three cities to protest Assange’s arrest. Assange is an Australian citizen.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said Assange was merely doing the job of any journalist by publishing the documents. “The blame for any violations of the law should fall on the persons who gave the documents to Wikileaks,” Rudd said. “The Americans are responsible for that.”

The State Department communications, called “cables,” described Rudd as a “control freak” and said that he made mistakes as Australia’s foreign minister.

Rudd said he was unconcerned about the criticisms.

He also said Australia would offer consular help to Assange.

Consular help refers to sending diplomats to meet with a citizen of their own country who is arrested abroad to determine whether legal assistance can be arranged.

In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described the arrest of Assange as a crime.

“I want to express my protest against this offense against free expression,” Lula said. “I will use the presidential blog to express my protest.”

He also encouraged the international news media to be more vigorous in defending Assange.

“The young man who is giving so much trouble to the diplomacy of the United States was arrested and so far I have not seen any protest defending free expression,” Lula said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described the U.S. government’s efforts to prosecute Assange as hypocritical.

“If it is full democracy, then why have they hidden Mr. Assange in prison,” Putin said during a press conference Thursday. “That’s what, democracy?”

Putin’s remarks appear to be a response to a February 2010 cable from Defense Secretary Robert Gates that said, “Russian democracy has disappeared and the government is an oligarchy run by the security services.”

In Mexico, the Journalists Club put up a plaque in their Mexico City headquarters honoring Assange for his “contribution to the conscience of mankind.”

The State Department documents published by Wikileaks described Mexico’s difficulties in managing its war with drug cartels. The cables described the government’s efforts as ineffective, often corrupt and divided among competing administrators.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service is saying any U.S. prosecution of Assange would face unprecedented legal and diplomatic challenges.

A 24-page report from the government agency examines how the Justice Department could apply U.S. criminal laws to a foreign news operation.

“We are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it,” the report said.

The prosecution of Assange creates First Amendment and diplomatic hurdles “based on concerns about government censorship,” the report said.

Some members of Congress, such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I.-Conn) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), say Assange should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917.

However, the Congressional Research Service report said no single law forbids the news media from publishing diplomatic cables only a “patchwork” of statutes that leave unclear answers.

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New Delhi, India (AHN) – The Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has asked all the Indian airlines to make their airfares public by putting up the relevant information on their respective websites. The airlines have been given a 48-hour deadline to comply with this instruction. The Government wants to ensure transparency in ticket prices because of the fact that the flyers have constantly complained that they feel cheated because of exorbitant prices.

Earlier, in November, the DGCA had also asked the airlines to provide it with a copy of the route-wise established tariff on the first day of the calendar month.

Top officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the DGCA held a meeting with the representatives of the major Indian carriers and issued this directive afterwards. On Monday, the government officials met the representatives of full-service airlines like the Air India (the national carrier), Jet Airways and Kingfisher. On Saturday, they met the no-frill carriers like the IndiGo, Spicejet and GoAir.

During the meetings, the airlines were made aware of the provisions under the Rule number 135 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937, which talks of making the tariff public through either websites or daily newspapers.

The meetings and the directive came as a result of the stand-off between the government and the airlines over the latter’s intentions to raise prices further, which the government is opposed to. This was visible in the recent surge in airfares, especially since November 15 this year, despite continuous government instructions to the contrary. It was in the month of November that the airlines actually went ahead with a 200-300 percent hike in fares.

As per the directive, the domestic airlines will have to “upload the route wise tariff across its network in various fare categories commensurate with date of purchase on their respective websites…” The guidelines are expected to help ensure transparency in the tariff structure of the carriers besides allowing the flyers to “enable predictability” while embarking on an air journey.

According to the directive, the airlines have to communicate detail-wise and route-wise fares, besides informing the public of the details involved in each “fare bucket.” Fare buckets are the different categories into which the aircraft seats are divided, depending upon their price.

On their part, the airlines have reluctantly agreed to comply with this directive, though many among them grudge that doing so would take away the competitive edge among themselves.

Meanwhile, Chairman of one of the major carriers, the Kingfisher airlines, Vijay Mallya said during a recent event, “There is no case of capping airfares in a liberalized environment, be it at the upper or lower band. It is a function of demand and supply and there is no exploitation by airlines.”

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Madrid, Spain (AHN) – Spain’s Parliament is close to a vote on a proposed law to protect copyrights that was heavily influenced by the U.S. government, according to the latest Wikileaks disclosures.

The legislation resulted from pressure by the U.S. Embassy in Madrid to fight Internet piracy.

The proposal received a first round of approval by Parliament Sept. 23 and is undergoing final revisions in the Economic and Finance Committee.

Wikileaks, a Web site that publishes secret government documents, recently published 35 communications from the U.S. State Department involving Spanish government copyright laws from 2004 to 2010.

They show the U.S. government threatened to blacklist Spain by putting it on its Special 301 list unless its government toughened its anti-piracy laws.

Special 301 refers to a priority watch list of countries with lax anti-piracy laws that allow easy unauthorized downloading of copyrighted material, such as music and movies.

Countries on the list could be targeted for trade sanctions by the U.S. government.

The communications disclosed by Wikileaks, called cables, show the U.S. government was disappointed with the Spanish government for its slow progress in protecting copyrighted material on the Internet.

The cables were based on meetings between top Spanish economic ministers, industry representatives concerned about protecting their copyrights and U.S. officials.

The U.S. officials included Christopher Wilson, a top government trade representative, and Dan Glickman, chairman of the powerful Motion Picture Association, an advocacy group for the movie industry.

A 2004 cable from the U.S. Embassy says, “The picture of intellectual property piracy in Spain is a mix of third world and first world.”

Subsequent cables documented the reluctance of the Spanish government to change policies.

A turning point appeared to have been reached in 2007, when Spanish negotiators agreed to many of the suggestions by U.S. trade representatives.

“This is the road map of where we want to go and how,” a U.S. Embassy cable said in describing the plan for Spain to change its anti-piracy policy. “Our strategy requires a continuous and constant high-level attention from the embassy to this issue and occasional help from agencies in Washington over the next three or four years.”

But when no further action was taken by the Spanish, a 2008 cable from U.S. Ambassador Eduardo Aguirre suggests putting Spain on the Special 301 blacklist.

The pressure apparently worked. A year later, the Spanish Parliament incorporated anti-piracy provisions into the pending economic development legislation.

Some Spanish commentators say the cables reflect shameful concessions by their political leaders to U.S. pressure.

Spanish editorial writer Esperanza Hernandez wrote this week that Spanish officials “behaved in a way that was subservient in defending the interests of the United States to the detriment of the rights of Spanish citizens to access culture and knowledge through the Internet.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department continues seeking ways to limit damage from the Wikileaks publications while more Internet service providers announce they will no longer host the Web site.

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The rate of unemployment in UK is ascending at the rapid pace while jobs are also decreasing. That’s why unemployment has been made a big contour against the government of United Kingdom. Seeing this knotty situation in huge dire straits, the government of UK is also backed-fire to exterminate. But, after arrival of unemployed loans, the terrific situation unemployment has been lessened. Even if you are an unemployed person along with tenant standing, then you can raise the benefits of unemployed unsecured loans which are very fruitful for all unemployed people.

These loans succor all unwaged people to meet various needs such as paying for the health check up or other treatment bills, paying off the previous debts, wedding expenses, paying for education costs, purchasing used or new vehicle, going on exotic holiday and so forth. If you are looking for the work after losing your current job then you can take outstanding monetary help of these loans and you can reimburse the amount after achieving your target as job.

With unemployed unsecured loans you can come by an amount ranging from £1000 to £25000 for the repayment period of 1-10 years. For this approved amount you do not need to put your collateral that indicates towards your home, real estate or other valuable thing. Even your collateral is not involved because lenders offer unsecured loans to you even when you execute some terms and conditions like your age must be 18 years of age, citizenship of UK and an active checking account is in your name.

Bad credit standings like defaults, arrears, CCJs, IVA, bankruptcy, foreclosure, bankruptcy and the list on can also go for unemployed unsecured loans to make money without facing any knotty formality. You can avail of these loans in quite hassle free way. Repaying the amount in time it is possible that you can ameliorate your credit records. Filling out a simple online application form and submitting it, you can meet your cash need within few hours on the same day.

Sure, tens of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables are out in the open, but the Obama administration is still warning federal government employees, and even some future diplomats, that they must refrain from reading any for themselves.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – British Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone said Thursday that the United Kingdom will initiate positive action to ensure workplace equality.

Among the initiatives the coalition government would make are: to name and shame companies that do not provide equality for women workers, give preference to applicants from under-represented groups such as ethnic minorities, gays and disabled people along with placing more women in the boardroom.

The initiatives are contained in the government Equality Strategy, which the minister recently published.

While labor unions welcomed the strategy to remove workplace discrimination based on gender, business leaders were apprehensive it would lead to lawsuits from job applicants.

Featherstone said the target of the coalition government is that 50 percent of all new appointments to public boardrooms by 2015 would be females.

Even on the domestic front, Britain has a lot of catching up in terms of promoting gender equality at home.

According to the newly released international Fairness in Families Index, U.K. was 18th place among 21 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations in the area of equal parenting.

Rob Williams, chief executive of the Fatherhood Institute which released the index, said British families lag in terms of paid paternity leave, time spent caring for children, and men and women’s pay.

Among the measures of family fairness indicators used by the institute were paternity leave, ratio of men’s and women’s time spent caring for children, percent of women in management roles, percent of men in part-time workforce and time spend by men and women performing unpaid domestic work.

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Tehran, Iran (AHN) – International human rights groups failed to convince the Iranian government against executing 1980s football star Nasser Mohammadkhani’s mistress, who was accused of killing the footballer’s wife. Groups were campaigning since 2002 for Shahla Jahed’s release. Her lawyer on Wednesday confirmed that the 40-year-old woman was hung in Tehran.

The Council of Europe vehemently criticized the Iranian government and said that it had no respect for human rights.

Organization’s Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland said he was dismayed to hear how inhumanly the execution was carried out. This was the 146th execution Iran carried out this year.

If local media reports are to be believed, Jahed was present at the court’s final hearing. She also prayed before her hanging and called the executors to spare her life. Jahed had been living with Mohammadkhani in a temporary marriage practice known as sigheh, a valid thing under Shia Islam.

Jahed had initially admitted that she killed Laleh Saharkhizan, but later denied any role in the murder.

Generally, Iran allows the convicted prisoner’s family to appeal the victim’s family to stop execution, giving an authority to the victim’s family to decide what should be done to the killers of their loved ones.

In Shahla Jahed’s case, her lawyer Abdol-Samad Khoramshahi claimed that the court did not give him sufficient time to appeal against her execution properly. However, he pleaded victim Laleh Saharkhizan’s family to show mercy, only to face their rejection.

The court initially suspected Mohammadkhani for murder of his wife and jailed him for several months, but released him later after Jahed confessed her crime. However, the court ordered 74 lashes for taking opium with Jahed.

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Cosatu dislikes the idea of wage restraints proposed in government’s new economic growth plan, but may support other aspects of the initiative.

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – Britain’s health secretary Andrew Lansley announced during a televised interview Sunday that the coalition government is going to ban cheap alcohol, dissuade teenagers from smoking and to encourage young mothers to breastfeed their babies.

Lansley confirmed that the coalition government was preparing a range of interventions intended to reduce certain inequalities. These necessary “state interventions” are the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes, banning low-cost alcohol sales and of introduction of breast feeding areas in the workplace.

These government interventions were said to be necessary to preserve the public health as the “health inequalities” of the poorest sectors of society need to be addressed.

In the same program, Lansley’s attempt to “micro-manage” the lives of people through government intervention drew sharp criticism from former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe. “Now we have got the state actually saying to employers in a time of recession you must provide paid breaks, paid facilities, a special fridge for expressed milk and goodness knows what else for women returning to work who have decided, on their responsibility presumably, to have a child,” she commented.

She added, “It is not appropriate for the state to micro-manage our lives as they are doing.”

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