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DHOBLEY, February 23, 2012 (AFP) - The bullet-scarred hospital is basic but operational, the school is simple but has laughing children. Small successes for most nations; a major achievement in war-torn Somalia.

However, heavily armed gunmen loyal to at least three potentially rival forces also patrol the dusty tracks of this war-ravaged southern Somali town, which Al-Qaeda allied Shebab guerrillas continue to attack.

A summary of news and reports from the field staff and interns of GHNI, Geneva Switzerland.

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22 February 2012 - In 2011, pirates made some $170 million in ransom money for hijacked vessels and their crews. That figure represents an increase since 2010, when ransoms paid amounted to over $110 million, according to UNODC.

Ransom money is increasingly flowing into the legal financial system, while the laundering of the proceeds of piracy is causing consumer prices to rise steeply in the Horn of Africa and the surrounding area.

As the world wonders how to put Somalia on an even keel, there are warnings that outside interference could make things worse

Read the full article in the Guardian.

The past few months have been truly grim for mother-of-three Suldana Ali, pictured above, but new hope has given her a reason to smile again.

After enduring hunger and desperate need, Suldana is now able to look after her family due to the work of a Tearfund partner.

The 27-year-old fled her native Somalia because of the drought that has inflicted terrible hunger on her community. She ended up in a makeshift home in a camp outside the town of Dhobley on the Kenya/Somalia border.

A new fund focused on bringing more stability to Somalia is expected to be agreed as part of tomorrow's London Conference, International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell has said today.

The international Stability Fund – led by Britain – will help create jobs, agree local peace deals and set up police, courts and basic services in areas where there is less fighting, or which have been recently freed from militant control.

Abdullahi Sheikh Ahmed, an elder in Tabda, southern Somalia, is still bitter about a time, not long ago, when al-Shabab militants choked off the only supply routes to the town, a common strategy of the Islamist group to tax people in areas under their control.

"When they blocked people and vehicles and they were not bringing us anything," he said, "as a group of elders we requested how to meet the Shabab representatives in the area, we were begging them for a couple of days to allow us to bring a single donkey cart of food."

MOGADISHU, February 22, 2012 (AFP) - Somalia's Islamist Shebab insurgents face increasing pressure from regional armies and government forces, with almost every Horn of Africa nation drawn into the two-decade-long conflict.

Somali and foreign leaders are meeting in London Thursday for a conference aimed at tackling the crisis.

Here is an overview of key groups in the conflict: