24 Aug 2011 – Morning headlines
Key Headlines:
- Prime Minister – ‘Fighting will not stop until we defeat al Shabaab’
- President Sharif meets top UAE heads in Dubai
- Mogadishu demo welcomes rebel withdrawal from the city
- Al Shabaab execute 3 men suspected to be spying Kenya Somalia
- ‘U. N. peace keepers should take over in Somalia’ suggests Kenya
- African Union Set to Raise Funds for Food Relief
- IOM steps up transport and medical assistance for fleeing Somalis
SOMALI MEDIA
President Sharif meets top UAE heads in Dubai
23 Aug- Source: Radio Mogadsihu – 75 words
Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Wednesday held talks with the senior members of the United Arab Emirates in the capital Dubai; the heads focused on the bilateral ties between United Arab Emirates and Somalia and how the role UAE can play in assisting the drought ravaged IDP’s in Mogadishu.
Prime Minister: ‘Fighting will not stop until we defeat al Shabaab’
23 Aug – Source: Markacadeey, Garowe Online – 185 words
Somalia’s Prime Minister has said that the fighting in Mogadishu and surrounding regions will not stop until government forces defeat al Shabaab. Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Gas told reporters in Mogadishu that the TFG forces will attack surrounding regions in central and southern Somalia to remove al Shabaab.
http://www.markacadeey.com/
Mogadishu demo welcomes rebel withdrawal from the city
23 Aug – Source: Radio Mogadishu, Bar-Kulan, Shabelle and Kulmiye – 201 words
Hundreds of locals rallied in Mogadishu’s Konis Stadium in support of the recent rebel withdrawal from all positions in the city. Somali PM Dr. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali who joined progovernment demonstrators called the 6th August 2011, the day al Shabaab pulled out of all positions in the capital as ‘the day of victory’.
Al Shabaab execute 3 men suspected to be spying Kenya, Somalia
23 Aug – Source: Mareeg Online, Shabelle, Jowhar, Kulmiye – 165 words
Rebel group al Shabaab have on Tuesday shot down three men whom they had accused of spying to the TFG and neighboring Kenya, eyewitness said. These were young men, caught from Mogadishu and Sakow district of middle Jubba region were killed in a plain field in Daynile district in Mogadishu, reports said.
http://www.mareeg.com/fidsan.
Humanitarian aid deliveries arrive in Mogadishu
23 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 145 words
Two cargo flights Sudan and Iran carrying 55 tonnes of humanitarian aid landed at Adan Adde International Airport in Mogadishu. 27 tonnes out of the 55 tonnes came from Iran while the remaining 28 tonnes came from Sudan.
Puntland official gunned down in Bosaso port town
23 Aug – Source: Shabelle – 107 words
A high-ranking Puntland official was yesterday gunned down by unknown armed men in the center of Bosaso, about 1500 km north of Mogadishu. Reports from Puntland state suggested that the assailants, armed with pistols, shot and killed Hala Mohamed Jama, the chief of Puntland’s Darawish forces.
http://www.shabelle.net/
Ahlu Sunna free suspected al Shabaab sympathizers in Dushamareeb town
23 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 143 words
The Ahlu Sunna administration in Dusamareb town of Galgadud region has released suspected al Shabaab sympathizers. Deputy district commissioner, Abdullahi Abdi Noor, who is also the head of social services in the district, said that the four had been arrested after rebels attacked the Galqoryale. area and kidnapped ten people and two vehicles from the area.
Somalia receives aid from Djibouti and Sudan
23 Aug – Source: Shabelle – 176 words
The TFG on Tuesday received aid including medicine and food from Djibouti and Sudan. The Djibouti Ambassador to Somalia, Dayib Dubad Roble handed over the aid medicine (10 tonnes) from his country to the Somali government at Aden Adde international airport to help the famine affected people in the horn of African nation.
http://www.shabelle.net/
Somalis in south Africa donate food and clothes to drought victims in Somalia
23 Aug – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 146 words
The Somali community in South Africa has donated 8 tonnes of food rations and clothes to drought and famine-struck Somali people in the Horn of Africa. The community has mandated a South African aid agency, Gift of the Givers, to distribute their aid to the needy people inside Somalia and Dadaab.
REGIONAL MEDIA
‘U. N. peace keepers should take over in Somalia’ suggests Kenya
23 Aug- Coastweek, Xinhua- 874 words
Kenya’s Foreign Ministry has defended the UN against accusations by local politicians that the world body was lax in its handling of the crisis in war-ravaged Somalia but made an unequivocal call for an immediate takeover of peacekeeping responsibilities. Onyonka said the UN should take over the peace keeping responsibility from AMISOM whose official mandate of peacekeeping in Somalia is expected to last until end of August until a new “concept of operation” is agreed with the UN Security Council.
http://www.coastweek.com/3433_
Uganda distances itself from taking sides in Somali crisis
23 Aug- Source: Coastweek, Xinhua- 396 words
Uganda has distanced itself from taking sides in the Somali crisis that has raged for decades, leaving a large number of people dead and millions homeless. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that taking sides in Somali politics would be counterproductive: “We are not targeting al Shabaab because we have taken sides; no. They refused to respect the AU flag and attacked our soldiers, ” he said.
http://www.coastweek.com/3433_
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
African Union Set to Raise Funds for Food Relief
23 Aug- Source: VOA – 395 words
A spokesman for the African Union says final preparations are being made for the scheduled August 25 “pledge conference” in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Organized by the continental body, the meeting aims to raise funds to help relief efforts in hunger-stricken East Africa, which has created hundreds of thousands refugees and internally displaced.
As starving Somalis flood into Ethiopia, UN sends in emergency aid team
23 Aug – Source: UN – 534 words
The UN has deployed an emergency team to south-eastern Ethiopia where 18,000 new refugees fleeing drought, famine and conflict in Somalia have recently poured in, compounding a situation already fraught with high mortality. “Our team includes experts in health, nutrition, protection, field coordination, and registration” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokesperson Adrian Edwards.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/
IOM steps up transport and medical assistance for fleeing Somalis
23 Aug- Source: Reliefweb – 341 words
At the Dolo Ado transit centre, IOM and its health partners, including UNICEF and the Ethiopian Agency for Refugees and Returnees Affairs, ARRA, have started a comprehensive campaign to vaccinate all children against measles from the age of six months up to 15 years, before relocating them to the camps.
http://reliefweb.int/node/
East Africa, Eritrea and the relief effort in Somalia
23 Aug – Source: The Guardian – 341 words
Africa’s leaders have been criticised for their slow response to drought warnings, but the public have got behind private donations – catch up on what the African press is saying about the crisis. Laila Ali introduces us to Dr Hawa Abdi, who runs a hospital in one of Somalia’s most dangerous areas but refuses to be bowed by clan politics. And is Djibouti the forgotten country in the crisis? The Food and Agriculture Organisation has met in Rome to take stock of the disaster and assess how to avoid a repeat.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/