May 15, 2013 | Daily Monitoring Report.

Main Story

PM mandates joint committee to resolve Jubbaland reconciliation

15 May – Source: Raxanreeb/Radio Mogadishu/Bar-kulan/Horseed Media/Jowhar Online – 263 words

Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon has appointed a 16 members-joint committee assigned to resolve the disputes on Jubbaland administration formation and reconciliation process, RBC Radio reports. The joint committee comprises of the Interior Ministry and the National Security and members of Somali Federal Parliament.

“Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon has issued a decree today in which he has named a joint committee from the cabinet and the parliament comprising 16 members to address the reconciliation process of Jubbas regions.” A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said.

“This committee will soon head to Kismayo town and will be chaired by the Deputy Interior Minister and National Security Abdi Guhad Jamac Ahmed [better known as Oday].” The statement added.

Key Headlines

PM mandates joint committee to resolve Jubbaland reconciliation (Raxanreeb/Radio Mogadishu/Bar-kulan/Horseed Media/Jowhar Online)
Somalia: ‘92 MPs sign motion’ against Prime Minister Shirdon (Garowe Online)
Somalia’s Defense Ministry Pleads for help to rebuild national Army ( Radio Shabelle/BBC Somali Service)
Drs. Maryan Qasim: UN promised to help us improve health care in Somalia (Shabelle)
Canada restores diplomatic ties with Somalia (AFP)
Four jailed in Minnesota over al Shabaab recruitment (Standard Media/Daily Nation)
Refugees continue to move back to Somalia at slow pace (Raxanreeb)
Somalia taking steps to re-open embassies (Sabahi Online)

SOMALI MEDIA

PM mandates joint committee to resolve Jubbaland reconciliation

15 May – Source: Raxanreeb/Radio Mogadishu/Bar-kulan/Horseed Media/Jowhar Online – 263 words

“This committee will soon head to Kismayo town and will be chaired by the Deputy Interior Minister and National Security Abdi Guhad Jamac Ahmed [better known as Oday].” The statement added.

Somalia’s Defense Ministry Pleads for help to rebuild national Army

15 May – Source: Radio Shabelle/BBC Somali Service – 146 words

During an interview with BBC Somali Service in London, Deputy Defense Minister Abdi Rahman Kulmiye revealed strategic plans drafted by his ministry to restore security in the country. Mr. Abdirahman said that his ministry has put down new plans that were intended to restore discipline and integrity in the national force that disintegrated 21 years ago after the central Somali government collapsed.

The Deputy Defense Minister added that the arms embargo imposed on the country for years has been lifted and therefore requested the international community to help in donating arms and restoring back its army force.

“In order for us (government) to defeat al Shabaab we need Arms and an organized armed force. We are already building our army but no force can operate without weapons so we are pleading with the international community to help us in acquiring arms” stated the minister.

Drs. Maryan Qasim: UN promised to help us improve health care in Somalia

15 May – Source: Shabelle – 108 words

Drs. Maryan Qasim, the Minister for Development and Public Services after meeting world health organization (WHO) officials said that they addressed enhancing health care in the country.

The UN delegation led by Qulam Rabani who is the head of WHO Africa met with the minister in the capital, Mogadishu. The minister said that she convinced the delegation how the United Nations can take part in improving health care in the country.

She added that her ministry and WHO agreed on a plan that will enable them implement the agreed projects that were expected to start soon. Drs. Maryan said that she expected massive improvements in the countries health care system.

Refugees continue to move back to Somalia at slow pace

15 May – Source: Raxanreeb – 364 words

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR said that the population movement tracking in Somalia indicates that in April, about 2,100 refugees left Kenya for Somalia. Some 2,340 people crossed the border in March. In all, about 16,000 people were recorded crossing from Kenya into Somalia in the first four months of 2013.

Those interviewed by UNHCR and partners said they returned due to the improving security situation in Somalia with the majority moving to Dobley, Diff, Baardheere and Kismayo in Lower Juba and Ceel Waaq in Gedo. Those moving also cited insecurity and inadequate humanitarian support in the camps in Kenya as reasons to leave. Others sought to resume seasonal work.

Preliminary figures from a verification exercise conducted by UNHCR in Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya showed a 20 per cent drop in the number of people from 470,000 to 390,000. UNHCR said that while this can be explained by a more accurate count, physical evidence of empty plots suggest that refugees have also left the camp.

Somalia: ‘92 MPs sign motion’ against Prime Minister Shirdon

15 May – Source: Garowe Online – 119 words

Reports from Mogadishu say that some 92 Somali MPs have signed a motion against Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon, Garowe Online reports. Parliamentary sources tell Garowe Online that the motion was handed over to parliament’s leadership in Mogadishu on Tuesday. The motion has not yet been formally presented for a vote in parliament however, the sources added.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who appointed Shirdon as Prime Minister in October 2012, was “not pleased” with the confidence motion against the Prime Minister.

But inside sources say that, in a meeting with Prime Minister Shirdon in Mogadishu, President Hassan reportedly complained that “some 25 MPs from Shirdon’s own Darod community had signed the motion” alongside Somali MPs from other communities.

Insecurity impacts on humanitarian work in Somalia, UNOCHA says

14 May – Source: Raxanreeb – 147 words

Despite improvements, humanitarian access remains tenuous in Somalia, United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Activities says. On 5 May, an attack in Mogadishu killed at least 12 people. The incident led to the closure of main roads in the capital, hampering movement of aid workers and supplies, particularly to people in settlements.

Two attacks in Mogadishu on 14 April killed at least 30 people and wounded dozens of others. UNOCHA said a humanitarian mission to Beledweyne in Hiiraan on 22 April was postponed after clan militia fired at a commercial plane as it approached Galkayo airport in Mudug, from where the mission was scheduled to begin.

On 1 May, aid workers were temporarily relocated from Kismayo, Lower Juba, after mortars landed in the northern part of the Kismayo airport. While such attacks are often not directed at the aid workers, they hamper planning of humanitarian operations.

REGIONAL MEDIA

Four jailed in Minnesota over al Shabaab recruitment

15 May – Source: Standard/Daily Nation – 291 words

Four men have been given prison sentences in the US state of Minnesota in connection with the recruitment of fighters for a Somali militant group.

Abdifatah Isse, Salah Ahmed and Ahmed Mahamud were jailed for three years by a federal judge after pleading guilty to providing material support to al Shabaab, a designated terrorist group. Omar Mohamed was given 12 years for conspiracy to provide material support.

Somalia taking steps to re-open embassies

14 May – Source: Sabahi Online – 140 words

Somalia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation is working to re-open embassies and diplomatic missions that have been closed since 1991, in an effort to align foreign relations with the new Somali federal government.

The ministry’s Permanent Secretary Mohamed Sharif Mohamud said Somalia has plans to soon re-open embassies around the world, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, Algeria and Iraq.

With the election of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in September 2012 and improving security conditions in Somalia, countries have started re-opening their embassies in Mogadishu as well, including the United Kingdom, Egypt, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and Iran. Most other countries with diplomatic relations with Somalia have missions based in Nairobi.

The ministry will also replace some ambassadors with appointments that are better aligned with the government’s economic and human development policies, Mohamud said.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Four jailed in Minnesota over al Shabaab recruitment

15 May – Source: BBC – 217 words

Four men have been given prison sentences in the US state of Minnesota in connection with the recruitment of fighters for a Somali militant group.

Abdifatah Isse, Salah Ahmed and Ahmed Mahamud were jailed for three years by a federal judge after pleading guilty to providing material support to al Shabaab, a designated terrorist group.

Omer Mohamed was given 12 years for conspiracy to provide material support. Prosecutors had recommended reduced sentences because the men co-operated.

Canada restores diplomatic ties with Somalia

14 May – Source: AFP – 223 words

Canada announced Tuesday it is restoring diplomatic relations with Somalia, more than two decades after severing ties with the strife-torn African nation.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird made the announcement after meeting here with Augustine Mahiga, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Somalia.

The government said in a statement that David Angell, Canada’s High Commissioner in Kenya, now will also be accredited as ambassador to Somalia. The Canadian government ended diplomatic relations with Mogadishu in 1990.

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

“Indeed, how to foster and secure ‘Somali ownership’ was a key theme in many speeches made in London last week. While the debate may be familiar, though, the context most certainly is not. For in the case of Somalia, it is not simply ‘Western’ donors negotiating ownership with African aid recipients but Africans negotiating it with other Africans.”

African donors and Somali ownership: The elephant at the Somalia Conference

14 May – Source: Id Birmingham blog – 1118 Words

And so it ends. After months of preparation, fretting over guest lists, measuring flags and re-drafting seating arrangements, the Somalia Conference is over. The final communiqué has been issued, the speeches uploaded to YouTube and the attendees prepped for the next leg of the reconstruction roadshow.

Representatives of Somalia’s new administration can look forward to high-level discussions in Tokyo, Nairobi, Brussels and Istanbul – not to mention in New York and Addis Ababa – over the coming months where plans to rebuild the devastated former state will be fleshed-out in consultation with regional and international partners. What can be said, then, of last week’s event in London?

A milestone on the path to Somalia’s rebirth or a day of prepared statements and hotel rooms? A conference that will set in motion a renewed commitment to re-assembling a shattered country or, like last year’s London Somalia Conference, one that will be remembered as little more than yet another inconsequential Somalia summit?

The answers to these questions will, naturally, come with time and cannot be found in the measured but vague statements released from the conference over the course of last Tuesday’s deliberations. Needless to say, though, that any successes in Somalia will come from a combination of two things: the level of commitment by Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s weak government (in power since last autumn) to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of Somalis outside militarized Mogadishu and the extent to which international actors (including regional African states) are willing to support it in its effort to do so.

“….a child born in Somalia is 35 times less likely to survive their first day than a child in Sweden or Singapore. It would be easy to say that this is a ‘developing country problem’.”

Sub-Sahara Africa leads in infant deaths

14 May – Source: Daily Nation – 501 Words

Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Sierra Leone and Somalia have some of the highest newborn death rates in the world. The Birth Day Risk Index in the annual State of the World’s Mothers report shows that sub-Saharan Africa remains by far the most dangerous region to be born.

Globally, one million babies die each year on the day they enter the world — or two every minute — making the first day by far the riskiest day of a person’s life in almost every country. The report identified key factors contributing to these high levels of newborn deaths in Africa.

These include high rates of premature birth — Malawi has the highest rate of babies born early — as well as many babies born too small. More than a third of babies in Mauritania are underweight. Other factors include the poor health of mothers, early marriage before girls’ bodies have properly matured, low rates of contraceptive usage and healthcare.

Top tweets

@shephardm Canada establishes diplomatic relations with #Somalia: http://bit.ly/19p503b . Ottawa has been largely absent despite Canada’s huge diaspora.

@UNDPSomalia #Somalia Human Development Report on youth empowerment launch by @SomaliPM today! 42% of Somalis are aged 14-29: http://www.so.undp.org/shdr/.

@Guuleyste High level 16-member committee named by Somali govt 2 lead “negotiations & reconciliation” in admin setup in Juba regions in south #Somalia.

@africarenewal #WHO has issued a polio surveillance alert for all of #Somalia, northern #Kenya and eastern #Ethiopia. http://ow.ly/l1o54.

@HurstPublishers OUT TODAY – Al-Shabaab in #Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group – http://bit.ly/16wD8gz pic.twitter.com/j2jBCt87uX.

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Image of the day

Image of the day Somalia’s Prime Minister, Abdi Farah Shirdon Saaid, addresses the audience at the New Deal conference in Mogadishu, Somalia, on May 14. Photo: AU/UN IST Flickr.