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Since the end of the transition period in 2012, land prices started to rise to as much as ten-fold compared to the previous year in parts of Mogadishu. This in turn led to private investors buying up public land with the help of their friends in government.
Let us take a look at the effects of corruption in Mogadishu where almost all the public gardens have opaquely been turned into petrol stations or restaurants.
This site used to be a state-owned petrol station. There is no transparency about how and why it was sold to a private company.
This site used to be a state-owned petrol station. There is no transparency about how and why it was sold to a private company.
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This petrol station in Hawlwadaag is built on public property that was used as a public garden.
This petrol station in Hawlwadaag is built on public property that was used as a public garden.
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This petrol station in KM4 is on public land.
This petrol station in KM4 is on public land.
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A truck gets into the Yaqshid garden where work is ongoing to turn it into a petrol station.
A truck gets into the Yaqshid garden where work is ongoing to turn it into a petrol station.
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After stopping work on the site earlier in the year due to opposition from the new Banadir administration, work has resumed on the site without intervention from authorities
After stopping work on the site earlier in the year due to opposition from the new Banadir administration, work has resumed on the site without intervention from authorities
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The Bondhere district part of the gardens illegally sold to local businessmen.
The Bondhere district part of the gardens illegally sold to local businessmen.
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The second garden of Yaqshid one year ago when it was sold to a local businessman.
The second garden of Yaqshid one year ago when it was sold to a local businessman.
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This is the Florensa, aka Hararyale, public garden illegally sold to Hass Petroleum.
This is the Florensa, aka Hararyale, public garden illegally sold to Hass Petroleum.
The video goes on to show the destruction of Tadmur prison, which occurred in late May.
In May, Mamoun Abdelkarim, Syria's head of antiquities, said: "Using the Roman theatre to execute people proves that these people are against humanity."
Mr Abdulkarim said most of the museum's antiquities had been transferred to Damascus before IS approached the city.
Since capturing the city, IS has also taken control of a military airbase and a notorious prison nearby.
The ancient ruins are situated in a strategically important area on the road between the capital, Damascus, and the contested eastern city of Deir al-Zour.
Fighters with IS started claiming vast swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, aided in part by the insecurity generated by Syria's civil war.
More than 230,000 Syrians have died in the war, which began after President Bashar al-Assad's forces tried to put down anti-government protests in March 2011.
Islamic State (IS) has beheaded two women in eastern Syria, the first time the jihadist group has decapitated female civilians, activists say.
The women were killed along with their husbands in the city of Deir al-Zour and the town of al-Mayadeen, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
All four were accused of sorcery.
IS has previously decapitated the bodies of Kurdish female fighters killed in battle. The group has also beheaded men for witchcraft in Iraq.
The group's extreme interpretation of Islamic law has also seen gay men thrown off buildings and women stoned for adultery.
Last week, IS militants in Syria hanged two youths from a beam by their wrists after accusing them of not fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
The killing of people for sorcery is not unique to IS. The authorities in Saudi Arabia have also beheaded both men and women on similar charges.
Tunisia has declared a state of emergency, just over a week after 38 tourists, mainly Britons, died in an attack in the resort city of Sousse.
The state of emergency gives security forces more powers and limits the right of public assembly.
Authorities had already tightened security, deploying more than 1,400 armed officers at hotels and beaches.
Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi said in a national address that "exceptional measures" were needed.
"In order to face up to this scourge we need to be prepared. We need to have enough troops, proper training and material means - we are in desperate need of material means," he said, appealing for international counter-terrorism support and co-operation.
The state of emergency will be in place for a renewable period of 30 days.
An official from the prime minister's office said several officials had been sacked in the wake of the attack, including the governor of Sousse.
"Just as there have been security failures, there have also been political failures," Dhafer Neji told AFP.
Security forces were criticised for not responding more quickly to the attack on 26 June in Sousse, when a gunman opened fire on tourists on a beach and in a hotel before being shot dead by police.
Those killed included 30 Britons.
The gunman has been identified as student Seifeddine Rezgui, who authorities say had trained in Libya.
Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid conceded in a BBC interview on Friday that the slow response of the police was a key problem.
He said Rezgui had probably trained with the Ansar al-Sharia group, though Islamic State (IS) earlier said it was behind the attack.
Eight people have been arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Rezgui, and the government says it has uncovered the network behind the Sousse attack.
Authorities have also pledged to close some 80 mosques that were operating outside government control and accused of spreading extremism.
Analysts say Tunisia has been put at risk by the chaotic situation in neighbouring Libya, and by the danger posed by Tunisians who have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq returning home.
In his speech on Saturday, Mr Essebsi spoke in general terms about the threat posed by Libya.
He also spoke at length about the economic and social challenges facing the country, including high unemployment and poverty in the country's interior.
Tunisian security forces had responded to security challenges "gradually", he said, "because we did not have the culture of terrorism in Tunisia".
The last time Tunisia declared a state of emergency was in 2011, in the uprising which overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. It was lifted in March 2014.
Officials are expected to pass a counter-terrorism bill that has been in parliament since early 2014 in the coming weeks.
The Sousse attack represented the second blow in three months to Tunisia's tourism industry, an important sector for the country.
In March, two gunmen killed 22 people at the renowned Bardo museum in Tunisia's capital, Tunis.