President Obama today announced a $3 billion private sector pledge to support agriculture and help feed Africa’s starving populations, saying the U.S. has a “moral obligation to lead the fight.”“When tens of thousands of children die from the agony of starvation, as in Somalia, that sends us a message we still got a lot of work to do.  It’s unacceptable.  It’s an outrage.  It’s an affront to who we are,” the president said at the Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security in Washington.

Arguing that food security is a moral, economic, and security imperative, Obama urged the world’s biggest economies to fulfill their promises to aid the cause financially. The president said additional nations and non-governmental organizations need to “step up and play a role” because government cannot solve the problem alone.

At least seven people, mostly Somali soldiers, were killed on Saturday in bomb explosions in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials and witnesses said. A roadside bomb planted under a tree killed four soldiers and one civilian in northern Mogadishu's Karan district while at least two soldiers died in a separate grenade attack in Bakara market.

"Four soldiers were killed when a bomb planted in the shade of a tree was detonated. One civilian was also killed in the attack and the security forces are conducting investigations," Abdirahman Mumin, a Somali security official told AFP from the scene of the blast.

He attributed the attack to the Somali Islamist extremists who abandoned fixed positions in the capital last August and who have since concentrated on guerrilla tactics. "I think Al-Shebab planted the bomb during the night when nobody was in the area," he said. In a second attack, unknown assailants hurled grenades at Somali soldiers who were pulling down illegal buildings near Bakara market, killing at least two of them.

"There was a heavy explosion in Bakara market as the soldiers were destroying illegal buildings. It was a grenade attack and I saw the dead bodies of two soldiers," Dahir Moalim, a witness, told AFP.

US brand of inspirational speakers takes its 'ideas worth spreading' to the final frontier: Somalia

"I love Mogadishu, I love Mogadishu, I love Mogadishu!" chanted Amir Issa, a Somali businessman and camel farmer. "Please stand up, say that: I love Mogadishu!"

A video camera panned around the room, showing the audience rising to its feet and joining in the chorus. The scene was streamed live to internet users around the world. TED, the California-cool brand of inspirational speakers with "ideas worth spreading", had reached its final frontier: war-tornSomalia. "The story of the Somalis is they are survivors," continued Issa, microphone in hand, standing on a simple stage against a white wall that bore the TEDMogadishulogo.

"They will survive in any climate … Mogadishu is ready to receive anybody … Mogadishu is ready for you." TED – it stands for technology, entertainment, design – (Technology, Entertainment, Design) was born in the US in 1984 and its annual conference, described as "three and a half days of intellectual soul searching", attracts some of the "smartest, richest and most talented people on Earth". Speakers have included Bill Clinton, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, Malcolm Gladwell, Jane Goodall and Al Gore. Tickets can cost thousands of dollars.

The United States is training a growing force of African troops as part of a wider strategy to fight al-Qaida-affiliated militants in Somalia. Boot camps where contractors hired by the U.S. State Department provide training to Ugandan soldiers made headlines earlier this week. According to recent reports, U.S. contractors will train three quarters of the 18,000 African Union troops deployed to Somalia, and the U.S. government has spent $550 millionover the past several years on training and equipment.

Politics is what leads to the use of private contractors instead of the military in many African conflicts and crises, such as the mission in Somalia, explained Doug Brooks, an expert on the private military industry and president of the International Stability Operations Association.

“A lot of people see the use of contractors as a way of avoiding democratic accountability or a way of undermining democracy,” he said. “But this is not a secret policy. This is a policy talked about in hearings and things like that all the time.”

American military advisers in Uganda are drawing on lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan to help train African Union soldiers to fight Somalia's most powerful insurgent group, al-Shabab.

Earlier this year, a small contingent of U.S. Marines joined American military contractors at a training base nestled in Uganda's rolling countryside about 2 1/2 hours drive from the capital, helping fill gaps where the al-Qaida-linked fighters have found weaknesses. The base, called Singo, was built by the U.S. and is a key part of the Obama administration's strategy to bring stability to Somalia.

The United States has sent in only small units of Special Forces to attack al-Qaida members in Somalia or hostage-taking pirates since U.S. troops withdrew from the nation in 1994, while other African countries have deployed thousands of troops to bring order to a country plagued by lawlessness, insurgents and hunger.

European helicopter gunships attacked a pirate base on the Somali coast on Tuesday, destroying five speedboats, in the first such airborne strike on land by the anti-piracy force. The Somali-based pirates responded by threatening to kill crew being held on more than a dozen hijacked vessels if they were attacked again. The EU Naval Force (EU Navfor) said it had carried out the overnight raid on pirate targets using helicopters and surveillance aircraft.

It was the first time EU Navfor had taken its fight against the pirates to Somali soil since its mandate was expanded earlier this year to allow strikes on land as well as sea. At risk are more than 300 hostages of various nationalies held by the pirates, who have so far generally refrained from killing crew as they seek multi-million dollar ransoms.A Somali pirate who identified himself as Abdi told Reuters a helicopter attacked the central Somali coastline near Hardhere, a known pirate haven.

"An unidentified helicopter destroyed five of our speedboats early in the morning. There were no casualties. We were setting off from the shore when the helicopter attacked us. We ran away without counter-attacking," he said.

The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, and head of United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) appear in need of a serious reality check. The latest statement by his office in which he is “congratulating the Somali people and the TFG on the inauguration of the Traditional Elders in Mogadishu on May 5” is disappointing to say the least.

This statement issued from Mahiga’s office made assumptions about the transitional process and the convening of traditional elders in Mogadishu – an act which stood in absurd contrast to the reality on the ground. It also reflected a complete oblivious attitude to the possible damaging effects of the ongoing de-facto top-down process of the transition and poses potentially disastrous consequences.

Ethiopian troops and Somali government forces killed 17 al Shabaab rebels on Thursday after the Islamist militants blocked a road in southern Somalia and stole goods, a regional official said. Mohamed Abdi Mayow, the governor of Bakool region, said the al Qaeda-linked militants had been blocking trucks carrying supplies to Hudur for seven weeks and had unloaded goods from at least five lorries. "They blocked all supplies and unloaded goods. This led to the fierce fighting and we swept al Shabaab from the area, Mayow told Reuters by telephone from Hudur.