Dear Readers,

After a long hiatus brought on by technical issues too infuriating to burden you with, theSomalia Reportweekly newsletter is back.

Although your humble editor, who took over from Michael Logan two months ago, cannot hope to match Mr. Logan'sirreverentcomedic wit, he will try, with cap in hand, to walk meekly in his shoes.

Without further ado: this week, in Somalia...

London Conference

Dominating the Somalia news scene this week, of course, was the London Conference on Somalia, hosted by the British government at London’s famed Lancaster House.

The conference was attended by assistant editor Venetia Archer, who, in a first for Somalia Report, providedlive, up-to-the-minute coverage of the conference via Twitter.

The conference providedSomalia Reportwith an occasion to show off its brand new, ever so modishhomepage Twitter feed.Going forward, Twitter updates will increasingly complementSomalia Report'sday-to-day coverage of events in Somalia.

The run up to the London conference was overshadowed bygrowing internal rifts within the Ethiopian-backed Sufi militia Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa (ASWJ), as its three factions challenged one another's right to attend the conference.

As theUnion Jack flew over the Mogadishu skyline, heads of states and foreign ministers vied to prove how much more they cared about Somalia than their colleagues… at least until the next international conference (which, the Turkish foreign minister was quick to remind, will take place in Istanbul in June).

Notable attendees included British PM David Cameron, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who delivered a refreshingly firm warning to Somali politicians that "transitions," by their very nature, must eventually, well, transition into something. We'll see if the two Sharifs were listening.

One interesting outcome of the conference may be theproposedJoint Financial Management Board, an oversight body that will report to donor governments about how the TFG is misspending their money at any given moment.

Such a mechanism appears imminently necessary, particularly in light of a damning audit report presented by former head of the TFG's Public Finance Management Unit, Abdirazak Fartaag, at Nairobi’s Grand Regency hotel on Saturday.

The report reveals lurid details of the TFG's cash-based accounting system (or lack-of-accounting system),detailed in thefirst entry of Somalia Report’s series on TFG corruption, penned by your humble editor.

Al-Shabaab

In Mogadishu’s Dharkinley neighborhood,22 school children, some as young as 10, were arrested during a weapons training class at a local mosque.Officials confiscated a cache of hidden weapons and arrested 20 suspected al-Shabaab militants.

This week saw further military setbacks for al-Shabaab, as Ethiopian troops (despite previous assurances that they will be leaving Somalia, like, any day now) and Transitional Federal Government forces continued to push deeper into the Rahaweyn heartland of Bay and Bakool regions.Both regional capitals, Baidoa and Hudur, were seized without much of a fight.

Al-Shabaab commanders explained the loss of territory as a voluntary “tactical retreat,” by now a familiar refrain. “One more such tactical victory,” to paraphrase the great Pyrrhus of Epirus, “and Shabaab shall be utterly undone.”

On the political front, three Islamist factions within the TFG: al-Ictisaam, al-Islah and Ala-Sheik,coalesced into Daljir, a nascentpolitical party that intends to contest the August elections.It remains to be seen whether the three elements will be able to surmount the significant ideological differences between them.

The project has reportedly been spearheaded behind the scenes by former Somali PM Mohamed Farmajo, in an attemptto maneuver his way back into power.

Piracy

With the end of theWajillomonsoon season the pirates were back in business, hijackingthe Panama-flagged Roll-On/Roll-Off (Ro/Ro) vessel MV LEILAand the UAE-owned charcoal boat MV SAVINA-FAHAD. The former incident marked one of the few occasions that a Ro/Ro vessel, which possess extremely high freeboards, has been taken by Somali pirates.

On Tuesday, the LEILA arrived at the northeastern pirate hub of Bargaal,much to the chagrin of some local clan elders.

In Galkayo, pirates on Monday directly challenged Puntland authoritiesby staging a daring jail breakof a colleague arrested that same morning, reported to be a high-ranking investor, at the central police station.

And finally, in news only notable for the absence of it,@HSMPressfell silent for a entire six days, eventually exploding yesterday in an AK-47 burst of 12 tweets. His own "tactical retreat," if that's what it was, appears to be over.

…and that’s this week, in Somalia.