Nazanine Moshiri

Signs of progress amid the chaos of Mogadishu

We are on the maiden flight of Jetlink Express - from Nairobi to Mogadishu. Along for the ride, a few hardened journalists, and mainly diaspora Somalis, returning home, some for the first time in almost 10 years.

Somalia's Transitional Federal Government has a message for the World, Mogadishu is safe and, crucially, open for business.

It is as important point to get across. Somalis living abroad send around a billion dollars home every year.

If they actually start heading home, and staying, well, then that investment could double.

Driving around the capital Mogadishu, there is plenty of activity.

Freshly painted luxury villas are popping up everywhere; one close to airport has a price tag of half a million dollars.

But most are lying empty, landlords have invested in the hope that the Turks with their good intentions, or eventually the United Nations will take their building over.

Too soon for reconciliation in Ivory Coast?

Abidjan is beginning to come back to life. The checkpoints that menaced the streets earlier this year are largely gone. The rubbish tips which were piled up high have been cleaned up. And the bullet ridden, blackened walls, which scarred the city, have been filled up and repainted.

The markets are heaving with people and goods. On the surface things seem to be getting back to normal.

In some parts of the City, it feels almost as if the war never happened – that is until you reach the suburb of Yopougon. I have seen mass graves before in Somalia, but never inside a busy neighbourhood surrounded by people’s homes, market stalls and children playing.

Fatoumata Ouattara's tells me that her husband left one morning in April 2011, just after the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo, to go look for food. The next time she saw him was just before he was buried along with dozens of others inside of a grave the size of a badminton court.

Tragedy turns hideaway into media haunt

It is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The group of islands which surround Lamu, a World Heritage site, attract the world traveller type of tourist.

It is not cheap - this is not a place for the package tour, the people who come here have money to spend.

Tourism which is so vital here could now be under threat, as the murder of a British businessman David Tebbutt and the kidnapping of his wife Judith has cast a shadow. 

Locals want to know why the media have flocked to Lamu, when the incident took place more than 60km away in Kiwayu. 

Any talk of Al-Shabaab or pirates being involved is dismissed as speculation.

The African drought tragedy

DADAAB, KENYA - After three days at Dadaab, it is hard not to be affected by what you see.

The crying sick babies; the young children caked in dust; their mothers doing everything on their own; their husbands either dead, or looking after what little they have left back in Somalia.

There are just so many stories of survival, but as soon as we spotted Habiba - a woman in her 90s - we knew her tale would be extraordinary.

Old and frail, with a walking stick in one hand and the other clasped by her daughter, Haretha, she walked all the way from the Somali border around a 100km away, and somehow these two women made it together.

It was love and a sheer desire to live that got them through; clinging to her mother, Haretha told us "she is the only family I have".