Amanda Lindhout after the abduction (left) and before.

CALGARY — Alberta journalist Amanda Lindhout recently freed after months of captivity in Somalia was released Tuesday from a Nairobi hospital, said a spokeswoman for the family.

"I can confirm that Amanda has been released from full-time hospital care. However, there are no other updates to report in regards to her expected return to Canada," said Sarah Geddes in an e-mail.

"(Lindhout and her family) are taking it day by day and Amanda will return when she is ready. I can also confirm it won't be anytime soon."

Amanda Lindhout was held captive for 15 months with Nigel Brennan

OTTAWA — Amanda Lindhout was a waitress at an Irish pub in Calgary, Alberta, with a dream of becoming a journalist. But Ms. Lindhout, who has no formal journalistic training, did not join the ranks of citizen journalists who blog about their communities. Instead, she used her earnings from the bar to finance reporting trips to several of the world’s most dangerous war zones.

Last week, Ms. Lindhout and her Australian companion, Nigel Brennan, were released by Somali kidnappers, who had held them for ransom and abused them over the last 15 months. Despite the risks, suffering and capture, which reportedly ended with a payment of $600,000 raised by their families and friends, Ms. Lindhout’s achievements as a journalist have been modest.

She wrote a weekly column for her hometown newspaper in Alberta for six months, freelanced from Iraq for Press TV, an English satellite channel financed and influenced by the government of Iran, and produced a handful of reports for a cable news channel in France. At the time of her capture, Ms. Lindhout appears to have had no assignments other than her work for The Red Deer Advocate, a small daily that generally relies on wire services for coverage of other parts of Alberta, let alone the rest of the world.

The two journalists were held captive separately for 15 months

Two foreign journalists held captive by militants in Somalia for more than a year have told the BBC of their joy and relief at being freed.

"I'm so happy to be free; it feels like a dream," Canadian Amanda Lindhout said. Her Australian colleague Nigel Brennan said he was still "in shock".

Details of the release are not yet known, but a ransom demand was made.

Somalia has been without an effective government since 1991, and journalists and aid workers are frequently seized.

Amanda Lindhout, a Canadian Freenlance reporter

MOGADISHU - Two freelance journalists kidnapped in Somalia in August 2008 were freed on Wednesday and are in a hotel in the capital Mogadishu, a Somali member of parliament and hotel sources said.

"We have now brought both foreign journalists to the Sahafi hotel. We have been working for eight days on their release, but finally succeeded," MP Ahmed Diiriye told Reuters. "I don't want to comment on how we released them now."

Amanda Lindhout, a Canadian freelance reporter, and Nigel Brennan, a freelance Australian photojournalist, were kidnapped in Mogadishu in August 2008.

A Somali journalist, Abdifatah Mohammed Elmi, who was working as their interpreter, was also kidnapped. Elmi was released in January 2009.

The journalists were seized while travelling to camps outside Mogadishu for Somalis displaced by the violence in the Horn of Africa nation.

Mustafa Haji Abdinur (R) accepts an award from Bill Keller

"By recognizing me, you are also recognizing the courage of the small band of working journalists still in Somalia," Mustafa Haji Abdinur said at the ceremony for the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) International Press Freedom Awards.

Noting the dangers facing his media colleagues in the country, Abdinur -- who is also editor-in-chief of Somalia's independent Radio Simba -- said the CPJ was "paying tribute to those reporters who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their profession."

Six Somali journalists have died on duty in Somalia this year alone, and 18 have been killed since 2005.

Inmates at the Shimo la Tewa GK Prison in Mombasa, Kenya are greeted by Hollywood movie star actor Nicholas Cage, right, who is also the United Nations Goodwill ambassador on Drugs and Crime when he visited the prison, Tuesday Nov, 17, 2009. The prison is under going a major face-lift from the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime. (UNODC). (AP Photo)

MOMBASA, Kenya — Film star Nicolas Cage has visited a Kenyan prison holding suspected Somali pirates awaiting trial to highlight the problem of piracy in the Indian Ocean.

Inmates danced for the movie star and shook his hand as he toured the Shimo La Tewa prison in the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa. The prison has become a model for other jails in the country because of the reform work of its chief warden, Wanini Kireri.

Cage, a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador on Drugs and Crime, told The Associated Press Television News on Tuesday that he wanted to meet with some of the suspected Somali pirates, hear their stories and understand what is fueling piracy off the Somali coast.

New York, November 18, 2009—Two Somali correspondents for international media outlets were injured in separate shootings, one in the northeast semi-autonomous region of Puntland, and the other in the capital, Mogadishu, according to local journalists and news reports.

In the Puntland city of Galkayo, northeast of Mogadishu, a police officer fired on the car of Mohamed Yasin Isak, a local correspondent of the Somali-language service of U.S. government-funded Voice of America, at a checkpoint in front of the regional governor’s office, according to Media Association of Puntland. Local journalists counted at least 15 bullets holes in Isak’s car. One shot struck the journalist in the upper arm, causing a minor injury.

Police commander Col. Muse Ahmed Muse Hasasi told local reporters that the unidentified officer fired because the journalist’s car was speeding and appeared suspicious, according to news reports. Speaking to CPJ, Isak denied the allegations. “Am I crazy? How can I drive high speed through a police checkpoint?” he said.

MOGADISHU —Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government has launched strong FM radio (Radio Mogadishu) that can be listened in Mogadishu and its outskirts.

The radio attracted more Somali audiences who could not afford to get balanced news and programs from the local independent radio stations in Mogadishu because they are forced to broadcast the propaganda of the Islamist militants.

Somali information minister, Dahir Mohamud Gelle, who is also the owner of the independent Holy Quran Radio in Mogadishu, said Radio Mogadishu would broadcast the news of the government and the Somali people.

NAIROBI, Kenya — For the first time, sophisticated U.S. military surveillance drones capable of carrying missiles have begun patrolling waters off Somalia in hopes of stemming rising piracy.

Three ships have been seized in a week off Africa's lawless eastern coast and Vice Adm. Robert Moeller, the deputy commander for the U.S. Africa Command, said pirates continue to pose a significant challenge.

With the monsoon season now ended, there have been a rash of attacks as pirates return to the open seas. More than 130 crew members from seven ships are currently being held, including about 70 from the latest attacks.

In an effort to stem the surge, unmanned U.S. military surveillance planes called MQ-9 Reapers stationed on the island nation of Seychelles are being deployed to patrol the Indian Ocean in search of pirates, Moeller told The Associated Press in an interview at command headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. The patrols began this week, military officials said.