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Saturday 16 April 2011

15 pirates arrived to Deleisha village with their small boat last week offering locals money in order to get fuel.

Locals welcomed them and asked them to stay overnight before they get the fuel next morning. Early morning, police and army arrived to the place and arrested the pirates. Since there was no response from their colleagues and their ship had run out of fuel, three other pirates who were waiting in the ship arrived in Socotra sea port. The army caught them too including the ship which had a Yemeni flag.

Thursday 7 April 2011

Friends of Soqotra Ten Years - Annual Meeting Bern 2011‏

Dear visitor,

We would like to announce the date and place for the 10th FoS AGM, planned for September 23-25th in Bern, Switzerland, kindly hosted this year by Dr Eike Neubert.

10th FoS AGM Invitation
Ten years ago, Friends of Soqotra (FoS) was established, a non-profit charity organization initiated and maintained by a number of volunteers, for the promotion of the sustainable use and conservation of the natural and cultural environment of the Soqotra Archipelago (Yemen). The Friends of Soqotra Annual Meeting is one of the organization’s main activities. The annual meeting provides a platform where people of all ages and nationalities are welcome and where ideas can be exchanged. It enhances communication between groups and individuals involved or interested in the island, transferred to Soqotra through the Tayf newsletter. FoS is now a decade young. During this time, Soqotra underwent strong changes and threats to the natural and cultural heritage have increased. FoS would like to continue its commitment and maintain promotion of the international communication between groups involved or interested in Soqotran culture and nature.
We would like to welcome you to the 10th AGM of the FoS, held at the Naturhistorisches Museum der Burgergemeinde Bern, Bern, Switzerland, 23th-25th September 2011, kindly hosted by Dr Eike Neubert.
We hereby invite members of FoS and non-members, people with a wider interest in Soqotra, to attend the lectures and join in the discussions. During the FoS Conference, an update on current issues on Soqotra will be presented, including members from different institutions and with very diverse interests - which has always lead to fruitful discussions in the past, interaction and communication between international groups visiting the island.
Details on the venue will be sent in a next circular. We invite presentations. If you feel interested, please send a topic of your talk (open to anything regarding Soqotra) and a few lines to AGM 2011 Steering Committee BEFORE June 6, 2011, or to our host, Dr Eike Neubert at eike.neubert@nmbe.ch. Based on this, we will prepare a programme. If certain of attending, please forward your schedule of arrival and departure as well. For requests/questions, please contact the Steering Committee. Note that FoS cannot reimburse expenses for travel or accommodation costs and hope you can cover this by expense of your institute or individually. A programme will follow in June and the FoS is open to a wide public and we look forward to seeing new faces every year, anyone interested in attending talks about ongoing research on Socotra in any field, updates and meeting others that are active on the island. Membership is not required for attending the meeting.
with best

Kay Van Damme,
FoS Chairman