Minn. Capitol adds Somali to list of languages

Minn. Capitol adds Somali to list of languages
The Associated Press • September 1, 2009

Read Comments(119)Recommend(2)Print this page E-mail this article Share Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Buzz up!Twitter
ST. PAUL — Somali-speaking visitors to the Minnesota State Capitol can now pick up a brochure in their language to guide them around the building.



The Minnesota Historical Society has added Somali to a list of about two dozen translations for the brochures, which cover the building’s history and uses as the seat of state government.

Brochures are available in languages ranging from Spanish and Russian to Slovak, Thai, Swedish and Turkmen. There are also Braille and large-print versions.

The Capitol will mark its 105th birthday in January.

Somali-American professors angered over repeated searches

Monday, August 24, 2009


Abdi Samatar, the University of Minnesota's department chair for geography, says he has been pulled aside for secondary questioning at airports four times this summer. Samatar and his wife are asking the U.S. government to provide an explanation for the lengthy interviews and searches. (MPR Photo/Laura Yuen)
Minneapolis — Two Somali-American scholars at the University of Minnesota say they're outraged by what they consider invasive questioning and searches while traveling abroad this summer.

Abdi Samatar chairs the U's geography department. He's married to Cawo Abdi, a sociology professor. Since June, the husband and wife say they've been pulled aside a total of six times at airports for lengthy interviews that have lasted up to two and a half hours.

They believe customs officials targeted them for being Muslim and ethnic Somalis.

Earlier this month, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan -- the "Brad Pitt of India" -- made headlines around the globe when he was stopped at a New Jersey airport. Khan said, at the time, that he believed he was questioned because his Muslim name raised red flags in a post-Sept. 11 world.

But countless Somali-Americans who don't enjoy Khan's level of celebrity say they've been subjected to similar searches, called secondary inspections, upon re-entering the U.S.

"He went through every little thing that was in my wallet, one by one," Abdi Samatar said, recalling the inspection of one customs officer.

Samatar, who sports a graying beard and bookish, gold-rimmed glasses, said he has counseled the U.S. State Department on Somali affairs and travels around the world for his research.

But he now believes he's of interest to the government for other reasons. Since June, Samatar has gone through four secondary searches, which he described as demeaning and humiliating. U.S customs officers, sometimes acting apologetically, have rummaged through his personal diary, his toiletries, his kid's diaper bag, and academic papers on Somali pirates.


Cawo Abdi
One officer took a keen interest in the papers, Samatar said. The officer wanted to know why he was reading them. The professor said he was planning to write about the issue of Somali piracy.
When the officer asked why Samatar wanted to write such things, the professor said he responded: "We are scholars, and we write papers and books."

Samatar said the last time he was pulled aside for additional screening -- upon returning to Minnesota from Sweden for a conference --- he refused to answer the customs officer's questions and was eventually released.

Samatar believes the searches must be related to a federal investigation into about 20 Minnesotan men of Somali descent. Authorities say the men left for East Africa to fight with an extremist group. One of the travelers blew himself up last fall in Somalia, becoming the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing.

Authorities fear those fighters could come back to the U.S and inflict harm here.

Samatar said he understands those concerns, and agrees that government agencies should be on high alert.


Shah Rukh Khan
"But they should be on high alert on an intelligent basis, rather than on a dumb basis," he said. "It seems to me there is a sort of 'Dumb Operating Procedure,' which picks up people for all kinds of nefarious reasons: You have a Muslim name, you live in Minneapolis, you are a Somali, and you travel a lot. Therefore, you become a target."
Samatar and his wife are both U.S citizens with American passports. In August, they were returning from South Africa on separate flights and were steered into a waiting room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. "We looked at each other, and we smiled, and we said, 'OK, let's see where this takes us," recalled Cawo Abdi, Samatar's wife.

But now, Abdi said, she feels indignation.


"It's a very unpleasant experience to be interrogated for two or three hours when you have never committed a crime, when you are doing your job, and you of course care about the security of every American," she said. "Being a citizen, I expect, and I have a right, for a certain level of protection, and I don't feel like I'm treated like an American."

Handling all Somali travelers with suspicion will undermine the FBI's investigation, she said. Abdi believes the government can't afford to alienate her community because it needs its help to solve the case.

The FBI wouldn't say whether the airport security measures were in connection with the investigation. The agency deferred all questions to Customs and Border Protection.

Both professors believe they're on some kind of government watch list. They also think that the birthplaces listed on their passports may have automatically triggered the extra scrutiny. She was born in Somalia. He was born in neighboring Djibouti.

Brett Sturgeon, a spokesman for the U.S Customs and Border Protection, said it's possible a traveler's home country could be of interest to customs officers. But that alone wouldn't lead to a secondary inspection, he said.

"It's a totality of the circumstances, and it's done on a case-by-case basis," Sturgeon said. "So by saying CBP is 'secondary-ing' all ethnic Somalis would not be accurate."

The department maintains that does not practice ethnic or religious profiling.

While Sturgeon couldn't speak to individual cases, he said someone who is being stopped every time he or she is re-entering the country might have a name that's popping up on a federal law-enforcement database. It could be for reasons ranging from immigration matters to criminal offenses.

Individuals who routinely experience difficulties while traveling can file requests for redress through the Department of Homeland Security.

Samatar and Abdi said they are formally seeking information from the U.S government to find out why it seems so interested in them. They say they won't rule out a lawsuit.

Their story is shared by many Somali-Americans who have traveled abroad in recent months. Some say they're worried about more airport hassles again in November while traveling to the Middle East for the annual Muslim pilgrimage.

Tech college sets enrollment record with 15% jump

Tech college sets enrollment record with 15% jump
By Dave Aeikens • daeikens@stcloudtimes.com • August 26, 2009

Post a CommentRecommendPrint this page E-mail this article Share Del.icio.us
Facebook
Digg
Reddit
Newsvine
Buzz up!Twitter
Enrollment at St. Cloud Technical College has surged past the 4,000 mark for the first time in the school’s 61-year history.



The college reported 4,168 people enrolled when classes started Monday. That is up 15 percent from the previous year, President Joyce Helens said.

Helens attributed the growth to two things: the continued effort to improve the college and its programs, and a down local economy that has unemployed and underemployed people seeking new training.

Online courses have almost doubled from 850 students last year to 1,600, Helens said. Orientation programs drew more than double the number of expected students and early book sales this summer sold out.

The enrollment growth has created some pressure on the school.

“When you walk down the hall, there are people everywhere,” Helens said.

Many classes have waiting lists but students can still get into select courses, Helens said. Technical programs such as welding, drafting, architecture and surveying are full. Courses can be added as rooms become available.

Parking also has been a challenge. The college paved some dirt areas to provide additional spaces, and students can use the lot across the street at the Whitney Senior Center.

The technical college is looking at adjusting schedules to provide more options for classes, she said.

“Everybody is being so flexible and wonderful,” Helens said.

The technical college is in the process of changing its mission, and potentially its name, in the next year. The college wants to offer an associate of arts degree transferable to four-year schools. It offers such a program now but through Anoka-Ramsey Community College.

The proposed new name of the college is St. Cloud Technical and Community College. Helens said the hope is to have the changes in place for second semester. She is scheduled to present the plans to the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities board in September.

Muslim meat workers to discuss prayer conflict

Muslim workers involved in a prayer dispute at a Grand Island meatpacking plant are scheduled to meet Sunday to decide what to do next.

OMAHA — Muslim workers involved in a prayer dispute at a Grand Island meatpacking plant are scheduled to meet Sunday to decide what to do next.

Mohamed Rage, who leads the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said Saturday that workers at the JBS Swift & Co. plant wanted to hold another protest, but that he urged them not to.

Instead, Rage said, all the Muslim workers — including those no longer with the company because of the dispute — will meet Sunday to talk about a resolution.

Muslim workers — most of Somali background — have been asking for accommodations with break times to allow prayer at sunset. The issue led to walkouts at the plant this week — not only from Muslims, but also from non-Muslims who protested such accommodations as preferential treatment.


The plant employs about 2,500 people, not including managers. About a fifth of them are Muslim.

Rage said 80 Muslim workers were thrown out of the plant after an altercation late Thursday. When they tried to return for their shift Friday, he said, they were fired, along with 70 other workers.

Seventeen to 19 others were fired late Friday, Rage said.

“They were praying, and praying became a violation in the plant,’’ he said.

Dan Hoppes, president of Local 22 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, described Thursday night’s events differently from Rage. He said that according to management and employees, 60 to 80 people quit late Thursday after raising the prayer issue and creating a commotion.

Hoppes said supervisors had told the workers to go back to work or leave, and they left.

JBS Swift & Co. has confirmed 86 firings, saying the employees were terminated for repeatedly leaving work without authorization.

A message left Saturday for a company spokeswoman was not returned.

On Monday, hundreds of Muslim employees walked off the job, saying they weren’t being allowed to take a break to pray during Ramadan. Break times were then altered on the second shift so that Muslim employees could make their fourth of five daily prayers at sunset.

Then hundreds of non-Muslim workers walked off the job in counterprotests Wednesday and Thursday. Later Thursday, plant managers did an about-face, saying the new break times weren’t working.

JBS Swift & Co. said in a statement Friday that the company is working to resolve the issue.

“JBS values its diverse workforce and has a long track record of making significant accommodations to employees,’’ the statement said. “We work closely with all employees and union representation to accommodate religious practices in a reasonable, safe and fair manner.’’

Source: AP, August 16, 2009

Helping Somalis build bridges of language

By Maria Sacchetti
Wednesday, August 12, 2009


Until this year, 14-year-old Burhan Ali could hardly speak to his mother.

His mother, a refugee from Somalia, would scold him in her native tongue, and Burhan would fume silently. For the American-born teenager, it was living “like I’m on mute.’’

They were mother and son, separated by one language: Somali.

But that has been changing in the past few weeks. Every morning, Burhan has voluntarily studied his mother’s language as part of a six-week summer program in Boston that offers youths jobs and free classes.

For Somali-Americans, it is a chance to recapture a dying language that was only written down for the first time in the early 1970s and is rapidly being overtaken by English and other languages. It is also bringing youths closer to their parents and to their culture.

“The language is tied with the culture, which is tied with the history,’’ said Abdulkadir Y. Hussein, founder and chief executive of the African Community Economic Development of New England, which is running the program for about 80 children and youths ages 6 to 18. “If the language dies, then the culture dies and then your history dies, too.’’

It is an issue that advocates say has only grown in importance in the past year amid concerns that disengaged Somali youths in the United States, particularly in Minnesota, may be joining militant groups in their homeland.

Advocates for Somalis, who have said they have not heard of such recruitment in the Boston area, say the classes seek to build students’ confidence and self-esteem by connecting them to their history and their families, which can help them in all areas of life, from avoiding extreme behavior to succeeding in school.

Shirwa Hassan of Scansom Publishers, a Toronto-based Somali publishing house that participated in the Boston-area’s first Somali book fair last month, said Somali is a poetic, nuanced language of a mostly nomadic people, who confronted drought, lack of food, and civil war.

The language of the nation on the Horn of Africa was exclusively oral until the early 1970s. The alphabet is Latin, but is pronounced like Arabic. It is so new that only about 250 Somali books exist, and they are mostly distributed outside Somalia.

In Somalia, barely 38 percent of the population can read or write, according to the US State Department. About 5,000 Somalis and Somali-Americans live in the Boston area.

One day last week, in an airy classroom with yellow walls in a Roxbury community center, eight boys and girls huddled over workbooks in Somali and English, learning grammar, vocabulary, history, and culture. The scratchy roar of an air conditioner filled the room.

The teacher, Ardo Mohamed, dressed in a long skirt and head scarf, started with a game between boys and girls: Name a word that starts with an M.

They easily called out words: Marti (guest). Maayliyid (wealth). Maya (no).

But they struggled with other exercises.

“What does dugsiyada mean?’’ Mohamed asked.

“Mosque?’’ one student ventured.

“No,’’ she said, “schools.’’

“How many of you are understanding this?’’ the teacher asked.

Some smiled sheepishly.

“I am,’’ said an 18-year-old student, Mohamed Abdullahi, with a smile.

In this room, the Somali-American teenagers fit in perfectly, with the girls dressed in head scarves and long, modest skirts. But in regular schools, the girls’ garb can stand out, and the Somali-Americans are in many ways very different from other students. Their parents speak a different language, come from a different country, and worry about different things.

Their parents are consumed with worry about their homeland, which is still run by a transitional government and struggling to recover from the civil war and deal with militant insurgencies. Family members back home increasingly depend on the money sent by relatives in the United States.

For the children of immigrants, even those who were born in refugee camps, the issues can often seem distant. Despite cultural differences, especially in the girls’ clothing, many often blend easily in America, with their Nike sneakers and flip-flops and impeccable English.

But they also grow distant from their parents, partly because of language, which is one of the main reasons several students signed up for the class.

“It’s an embarrassment not to know your language,’’ said Said Said, 14, who gets double-takes about his name, except here.

Ayan Abdullahi, 16, wanted to improve her Somali to better communicate with her grandmother, who nags her to eat more because she thinks she is too skinny. Until now, Ayan could say little in return.

“I can say a whole sentence in Somali now,’’ she said. “I usually would put in English words, and my grandmother would say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ ’’

Until he began the classes, Burhan Ali had relied on his sister to translate between him and his mother, which often worked against him. Once, she broke a cup and blamed him for it.

“I couldn’t say anything about it,’’ he said, still upset.

But now, he surprises his mother when they settle in to watch the news. His mother is desperate to know what is going on in the world, but understands little of the newscast.

“Now, I can actually tell her what the news is about,’’ he said, a warm smile going across his face. “She thinks it’s wonderful. She says she loves it.’’

As for his sister, “she doesn’t like it that much,’’ he said with a laugh.

Source: Boston Globe, August 12, 2009

Somali markets expand in area

Somali markets expand in area
By Britt Johnsen • August 11, 2009

Read Comments(23)
bljohnsen@stcloudtimes.com



A new Somali-owned market and community center has opened under ownership familiar to the St. Cloud area, and despite the recession, its new owner is confident it will thrive.

Hared Jibril opened Hormud Meat-Grocery Market Inc. in late July at 3360 Division Street W. He used to own 33rd Meat & Grocery Store, until he recently turned ownership over to a man named Ali Awal.

St. Cloud’s sixth Somali-owned grocery store sits near Bonanza restaurant on Division Street. On a recent morning, the store was empty as Jibril swept the floor near the cash register.

He said business has been slow since he opened, but he thinks the store offers a number of unique features — including an area where people can use the Internet. Five computers will be installed this week, Jibril said, and he plans to add five more.

He also offers a cafe that he predicts many people will use to feast on beef sandwiches and coffee after the Muslim holiday, Ramadan. Most of the St. Cloud Somali population is Muslim. Ramadan begins in late August and ends around Sept. 20.

Employment improving

Somali refugees left their war-torn country and came to the St. Cloud area beginning in the 1990s. They originally came here because of entry-level manufacturing jobs and positive word-of-mouth from university students.

But the recession took its toll on many businesses, including those owned by Somalis, many of whom last year and this year lost hours or jobs at manufacturing plants. The manufacturing industry has been among those hardest hit as unemployment climbed as high as 9.8 percent in Stearns and Benton counties this winter.

Mohamoud Mohamed is a frequent spokesman for the Somali community in St. Cloud. He is also leader of the St. Cloud Area Somali Salvation Organization. He talks to Somali and African refugees as they come to or leave St. Cloud.

Mohamed said the employment situation for the Somali population is getting better as places such as Electrolux are beginning to hire again.

County studies yield salary increases for staff

County studies yield salary increases for staff
Amid cutbacks, pay rises
By Kirsti Marohn • kmarohn@stcloudtimes.com • August 9, 2009

Read Comments(48)Recommend(5)Print this page E-mail this article Share Del.icio.us

St. Cloud-area counties are using hiring and wage freezes, furloughs and layoffs to cope with tight budgets amid the nation’s worst recession in decades.



But within the past three years, all three counties undertook comparable worth studies that gave most employees a salary bump on top of regular cost-of-living increases. In Stearns and Benton counties, the pay increases are taking effect this year, just as county officials are looking for ways to reduce expenses to balance the books for 2010.

Officials say Minnesota’s pay equity laws — among the toughest in the nation — are necessary to ensure employees receive equal pay for equal work, as well as to make sure wages aren’t falling behind those offered by other local governments and the private sector.

But a few critics say the comparable worth studies cities and counties do to make sure they are complying with the law go well beyond ensuring that women are treated fairly in the workplace. They say the studies wind up pushing up all public sector salaries and contend the studies have been rendered inaccurate by the economic downturn.

A St. Cloud Times analysis of payroll data from all three counties found that while most employees received a modest salary adjustment following the studies, a handful of employees received pay hikes of more than 10 percent — a contrast to the flat salaries most private-sector workers are experiencing in the tough economic times. When combined with other increases, a few saw their pay jump by more than 20 percent.

Some examples:

The salary of a social worker who has worked for Stearns County since 1993 rose from $56,345 in 2007 to $71,810 this year, thanks to the comparable worth study, step increases and cost-of-living adjustments, a total increase of 27 percent over two years.

A computer specialist hired by Benton County in March 2008 got an almost 17 percent increase based on the comparable worth study alone. Combined with cost-of-living and step increases, his annual salary rose almost 25 percent to $51,293.

Amid cutbacks, pay rises
By Kirsti Marohn • kmarohn@stcloudtimes.com • August 9, 2009

Read Comments(48)Recommend(5)


St. Cloud-area counties are using hiring and wage freezes, furloughs and layoffs to cope with tight budgets amid the nation’s worst recession in decades.



But within the past three years, all three counties undertook comparable worth studies that gave most employees a salary bump on top of regular cost-of-living increases. In Stearns and Benton counties, the pay increases are taking effect this year, just as county officials are looking for ways to reduce expenses to balance the books for 2010.

Officials say Minnesota’s pay equity laws — among the toughest in the nation — are necessary to ensure employees receive equal pay for equal work, as well as to make sure wages aren’t falling behind those offered by other local governments and the private sector.

But a few critics say the comparable worth studies cities and counties do to make sure they are complying with the law go well beyond ensuring that women are treated fairly in the workplace. They say the studies wind up pushing up all public sector salaries and contend the studies have been rendered inaccurate by the economic downturn.

A St. Cloud Times analysis of payroll data from all three counties found that while most employees received a modest salary adjustment following the studies, a handful of employees received pay hikes of more than 10 percent — a contrast to the flat salaries most private-sector workers are experiencing in the tough economic times. When combined with other increases, a few saw their pay jump by more than 20 percent.

Some examples:

The salary of a social worker who has worked for Stearns County since 1993 rose from $56,345 in 2007 to $71,810 this year, thanks to the comparable worth study, step increases and cost-of-living adjustments, a total increase of 27 percent over two years.

A computer specialist hired by Benton County in March 2008 got an almost 17 percent increase based on the comparable worth study alone. Combined with cost-of-living and step increases, his annual salary rose almost 25 percent to $51,293.

Experts foresee doctor shortage

Experts foresee doctor shortage
By Frank Lee • fclee@stcloudtimes.com • July 26, 2009

Read Comments(57)

Aging baby boomers, retiring doctors, the high cost of medical school and the possibility of universal health care will soon create a shortage of primary-care physicians, some experts believe.



“We are facing a shortage, particularly of family medicine physicians and internists,” said Dr. Daniel Whitlock, vice president of medical affairs at St. Cloud Hospital.

Primary-care physicians in Minnesota also include pediatricians and obstetricians, according to Dr. Allen Horn, president of CentraCare Clinic, a physician-led, multispecialty group with more than 180 physicians at nine sites in six Central Minnesota communities.

“A lot of doctors are in the baby boomer generation, so we are going to have more and more physicians retiring in the years to come,” Horn said.

Dr. Toby Christie-Perkins graduated from Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine and recently started his residency at St. Cloud Hospital. Not including the cost of his undergraduate education, his medical school debt is $210,000.

“I think the cost of medical school is a big reason why there is a shortage no w; medical school is very expensive — hundreds of thousands of dollars — and coming out of medical school with that kind of debt is pretty daunting and trying to pay that off is difficult,” he said.

Accessibility

According to recently released U.S. census estimates, the number of senior citizens has jumped 23 percent since 2000 to 516 million.

By 2030, the number of baby boomers will double from 35 million to 71 million; yet, since 1980, the number of first-year enrollees in U.S. medical schools per 100,000 people has declined annually, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

“There are a number of patients who I have talked to who are quite upset that they couldn’t be seen (quickly), and they just say to me, ‘Why don’t you just recruit some more doctors?’ But they don’t grow on trees, and so I think there is a growing awareness of the impact,” Horn said.

“CentraCare Clinic has the only internal medicine doctors in St. Cloud outside of the VA, but we have not had a candidate for internal medicine for over three years. We’ve been recruiting during that time, but we haven’t been able to get a candidate to come to St. Cloud,” Horn said.

Youths learn job skills through work in community

Youths learn job skills through work in community
By Kendra Richards • karichards@stcloudtimes.com • July 16, 2009

Read Comments(34)Recommend(1)Print this page E-mail this article Share Del.icio.us

Youths from Benton and Stearns counties are helping themselves and their community through a program funded by federal stimulus dollars that is intended to prepare them for their futures.



Stearns-Benton Employment & Training Council, a local training partner of the Minnesota WorkForce Center of St. Cloud, is working with CareerONE, a summer jobs program, to give youths the skills and experience employers need. They receive a work-readiness certificate when they finish the program.

"We want to give them a successful start on their career and to certify them for employment," said Sally Brenden, deputy director of SBETC.

The $601,000 for the CareerONE program came from the Department of Labor's stimulus money, routed through the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The stimulus money covers the entire cost of the program, paying the youths, supervisors and SBETC employees who do the recruitment and determine eligibility. It is also pays for training, transportation, safety equipment, support services, uniforms, T-shirts, food and use of St. Cloud State University's facilities as the base of operation.

Opportunity

The youths are from low-income families in Stearns and Benton counties. They earn a stipend of $55 a day, and they can earn an additional $100 bonus, Brenden said.

"It is a wonderful opportunity for them to make a nice amount of money," Brenden said.

There are two sessions that run seven hours a day, Monday-Thursday, for four weeks. The first session, which began June 22 and runs through today, is for workers ages 14-17, and the July 20 to Aug. 13 session is for 18- to 24-year-olds.

"It's a wonderful opportunity for youth to demonstrate they have work credentials potential and to become an excellent employee," Brenden said. "This program is all about the youth. We surround them with honor and wonderful staff so they can do amazing things for the community, make money and work hard to find and start a career."

Varied experience

Twenty employers signed up to work with the program in the St. Cloud area — profit and nonprofit. More than 190 youths are working on their projects

Mother fears son died in Somalia

Mother fears son died in Somalia
July 13, 2009

Read Comments(10)Recommend(1)Print this page E-mail this article Share Del.icio.us

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A 20-year-old man believed by his family to have been killed in his native Somalia “had no clue” what the country was really like when he left his home in Minneapolis to fight there, his mother said Sunday.



Abayte Ahmed said through an interpreter Sunday that she and her husband, who live in Minneapolis, identified their son, Jamal Bana, in a photo on a Somali news Web site, Dayniile.com, showing a dead body in Somalia. Bana’s father saw the photo Saturday morning during his daily check of news reports on the fighting in that country.

Bana was among a group of up to 20 young Somali men who left Minneapolis in recent years — disappearances under investigation by the FBI out of suspicion they were recruited by a radical Islamic terror group to fight in their homeland. Ahmed said her son disappeared Nov. 4.

Minneapolis FBI spokesman E.K. Wilson did not immediately return a call for comment Sunday. A day earlier, he said he could not confirm Bana’s death.

Family members, who spoke to the media Sunday afternoon outside the south Minneapolis home where Bana grew up, said they had no doubt he was killed.

It wasn’t clear exactly when Bana died, but the family believes it happened Friday, said Abdirizak Bihi, a Somali activist who spoke with Bana’s family.

“My son had no clue about Somalia,” said Ahmed, without elaborating.

Somalia’s last functioning government was overthrown in 1991, and since then the country has been fought over by packs of warlords. Ahmed said her son was only a year old when she and her husband left Somalia for the United States.

She said she heard from her son only once since he disappeared — a brief call on Nov. 15 in which he simply said, “I’m in Somalia” before hanging up.

She described her son as kind and said he had helped take care of his six younger siblings.

“Somebody must have put something in his mind,” Ahmed said through Jamal.

Another young Somali man from Minneapolis, Shirwa Ahmed, is believed to have carried out a suicide bombing last October as part of a series of coordinated attacks that targeted a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian consulate and the presidential palace in Hargeisa, capital of the Somaliland region. FBI Director Robert Mueller said in February that the bomber had probably been “radicalized” in the Twin Cities.

In June, the Minneapolis family of another young Somali, Burhan Hassan, said they believed he had been killed and buried in Somalia.

The FBI has acknowledged its ongoing investigation into the disappearances but won’t elaborate.

Free health fair planned for tonight

Free health fair planned for tonight
Times staff report • July 10, 2009

Post a CommentRecommendPrint this page E-mail this article Share Del.icio.us

A free health fair where people can learn about community health resources and illness prevention will happen from 6-8 tonight at Southside Boys & Girls Club, 1205 Sixth Ave. S.



The health fair comes after a year of the community health worker project funded by Create CommUNITY to address access to health care among minority communities. The Minnesota International Health volunteers implemented the pilot project with Fartun Hussein, a community health worker with the Central Minnesota Somali community.

Create CommUNITY has extended the community health worker project to mid-January 2010.

The health fair is sponsored by Create CommUNITY, the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Minnesota, Bernick’s, Coborn’s and other organizations.

Dance, movement are focus of annual multicultural event

Dance, movement are focus of annual multicultural event
Times staff report • July 10, 2009

Read Comments(6)Recommend(1)Print this page E-mail this article Share Del.icio.us

Dance and movement will take center stage Sunday at the Multicultural Center of Central Minnesota’s fourth annual celebration in Wilson Park.



“Global Movements,” the theme of this year’s event, will be played out through a variety of acts from around the region who will perform traditional American Indian, Latin and Somali dances and hip-hop. Performers include Ilays Multicultural Artists, Universal Dance Destiny, Native Pride Dancers and the Stearns County Pachanga Society.

Kathleen Kampa of the Central Minnesota School of Dance will teach folk dances from around the world.

The event includes a silent auction, free food samples and family events.

It is free and runs from 1-4 p.m. Sunday.

The organization’s goals are to increase cultural understanding and connect people and organizations with community resources.