February 10, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Federal Government To Safeguard Women’s Interests In National Politics, Prime Minister Sharmarke Says
10 February – Source: Wacaal Media – 162 Words
Women in Somalia have been asked to play an active role in the country’s affairs including the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Speaking after hosting women groups in his office, Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke said the Federal Government of Somalia will ensure women participation in all national functions and processes to ensure they received their share of national resources and positions. He assured women officials that the government will safeguard the 30% reservation for women.
“I reiterate before you today my administration’s position on women affairs. You have an important role to play and you must and will get your share in elective and appointment positions in the government” said Sharmarke. Speaking on behalf of the women officials, Batulo Sheikh Ahmed Gaballe expressed gratitude for their first meeting with the prime minister. Batulo said women groups have submitted their opinion and advice to the government regarding key national issues such as the 2016 elections. She pledged to work closely with the federal government.
Key Headlines
- Federal Government To Safeguard Women’s Interests In National Politics Prime Minister Sharmarke Says(Wacaal Media)
- Two Killed And Five Others Injured In Bardhere Town (Goobjoog News)
- Displaced Sanaag Pastoralists Face Harsh Life In Sool (Radio Ergo)
- Galkayo Elders Cry Foul Over District Council Nominee List (Goobjoog News)
- Modern Police Station Opened At Mogadishu International Airport (CCTV)
- Can A New Currency Help Somalia? (Reuters)
- $15m In Funding For Ethiopia Somalia (The Australian)
- Somalis Open Driver-owned PDX Yellow Cab Taxi Company (Oregon Live)
- KPL Mourn Death Of Ulinzi Player Ouma (Kenya Premier League)
- El-Adde: Lessons Learnt And Way Forward (Daily Nation)
- More Than An African Problem (The Economist)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Two Killed And Five Others Injured In Bardhere Town
10 February – Source: Goobjoog News – 42 Words
Two people including one civilian killed and five others injured in clash between Somali government soldiers at Bardhere’s khat market. Sources say the fighting flared up after a groups of government soldier tried to disarm several soldiers who were at the market.
Displaced Sanaag Pastoralists Face Harsh Life In Sool
10 February – Source: Radio Ergo – 342 Words
Hundreds of displaced nomadic pastoralists are stranded near Lasanood in Sool with no pasture or water for their livestock and meagre means for their own consumption. The families arrived at Dhagahya-Addo, 25 km north of Lasanood, in October last year in search of grazing for their livestock. They trekked from Badhan, Hingalool and Elbuh under the jurisdiction of Sanaag region following prolonged drought there after the autumn ‘deyr’ and spring ‘gu’ rains failed.
But now they are finding it hard to keep their animals alive and fear that worsening conditions will take their toll on their families too. Radio Ergo’s local reporter visited Dhagahya-Addo and. found the area had been totally denuded of pasture by overgrazing, as more and more families had arrived with their livestock during the latter part of last year. Faduma Ahmed Mahamuud told our reporter the overgrazing was affecting them as relative newcomers to the area, as well as the others who initially lived in the area.
Faduma said she could not afford to buy food for her 10 children. “Last Friday, I took seven goats to Lasanood to sell but no one wanted to buy them as they are too thin. I have come back with them. I don’t know what to do now,” she said. Sabah Ali Haji, from Hingalool, said 50 out of her 100 goats had died from hunger.
She said she had started slaughtering the rest of her herd for her children as there is no market for skinny animals and she cannot afford otherwise to buy food for the children. Meanwhile, four of her children have become sick and are weak from hunger. Awil Farah Abdi, a herder, told Radio Ergo the families lacked adequate shelters to protect them from the scorching sun during the day and the cold during the night. “As the pasture which we came here for became scarce, we better go back to where we came from – but we don’t have means to do that either,” he said. He said their situation would worsen unless they received assistance.
Galkayo Elders Cry Foul Over District Council Nominee List
10 February – Source: Goobjoog News – 156 Words
Elders in Galkayo have raised concerns over the list of nominees to the district council arguing that it is not representative of the people of Galkayo. One of the elders, Mohamed Mohamud told Goobjoog News many of the residents living in the town have not been fairly represented noting that the list is skewed to favour certain individuals. Mohamud said the 27 members were selected based on vested interests and were therefore not representative of the people of Galkayo.
The elders have petitioned the Galmudug President Abdikarim Guled on the matter. “We handed over the case to the Galmudug president and he promised to consider our concerns,” said Mohamud. The move comes after a case was lodged against the council selection elections in which the incumbent mayor of the town was elected by a council whose membership also includes few nominated by local clan elders.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Modern Police Station Opened At Mogadishu International Airport
10 February – Source: CCTV – Video: 1:40 Minutes
Can A New Currency Help Somalia?
10 February – Source: Reuters – Video: 1:37 Minutes
After decades of economic and political instability, Somalia’s central bank governor says he wants the country to mint its first currency since the 1980’s. As Grace Pascoe reports he hopes it will help rebuild an economy emerging from tears of chaos at the hands of Islamist and clan militias.
$15m In Funding For Ethiopia, Somalia
10 February – Source: The Australian – 52 Words
The Australian government is providing a further $10 million to help drought-stricken Ethiopia. The extra funding will go towards food and nutrition support, as well as health and sanitation services. The government is also giving $5 million in humanitarian assistance to Somalia to assist those affected by the drought and ongoing conflict.
Somalis Open Driver-owned PDX Yellow Cab Taxi Company
10 February – Source: Oregon Live – 885 Words
For 13 years, Dawood Ghedi paid whether he worked or not. Every Friday, he had to give cab companies $630 to secure a car for the following week. Ghedi drove cabs seven days a week, he said, 12 to 14 hours a day. He bought his own gasoline and health insurance. He never earned a vacation day or sick time. A 2012 City of Portland survey of 250 drivers found he wasn’t the only one. Most Somali drivers Ghedi knew were working the same long hours for very little money.
“We were in a bad situation,” Ghedi said. “But we have families. We have to work. I can’t make it if I don’t do 12 hours a day.” Ghedi and nearly three dozen other Portland cab drivers quit Friday morning. Saturday afternoon, they launched their own company. PDX Yellow Cab was four years in the making, the first major Somali-owned business to open in Portland. “We’ve been struggling,” Ghedi said. “We have 20 years, 15 years driving in this city. Today, we are owners. Today, we are free.”
For years, Portland officials allowed a limited number of vehicles to be used as cabs. They doled out permits to companies — 135 each to Radio and Broadway, 19 to Rose City — who then leased the permits out to drivers for a weekly fee. The city didn’t limit the number of people who could be drivers, so companies had more drivers than it had permits. If Ghedi took time off one week, another driver would step up to pay the permit. Ghedi, then, would go to the back of the line. Even working nearly 100 hours a week, Ghedi said he barely broke even. About five years ago, he and other Somalis began talking.
KPL Mourn Death Of Ulinzi Player Ouma
10 February – Source: Kenya Premier League – 422 Words
The Kenyan Premier League has sent a message of condolence to the family of Ulinzi Stars full back Kevin Ouma who was confirmed to have died in the Al Shabaab attack on a Kenya Defence Forces camp in El Ade, Somalia on January 15. “On behalf of the Kenyan Premier League and the football fraternity in the country, I wish to sincerely send a message of condolence to his family and the Kenya Defence Forces,” KPL chief executive officer Jack Oguda said.
“Ouma was a hardworking and talented defender who added quality to the league in the years that he played. He won several titles with Ulinzi, an attest to his football qualities. He will be sorely missed,” Oguda added. Ouma was born on February 28, 1982. He won the league with Ulinzi Stars in 2010 and KPL Top 8 in 2011. In 2013 he stopped playing due to a serious knee injury. He was a Senior Private based at Moi Barrack 9KR.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“There needs to be an immediate lessons-learned process identifying quick wins — generally changes to tactics and procedures — and, even more importantly, a longer term analysis that evaluates the overall security capability.”
El-Adde: Lessons Learnt And Way Forward
10 February – Source: Daily Nation – 628 Words
The terrible attack on Kenya Defence Forces troops at El-Adde in the Gedo region of Somalia last month offers an opportunity to change things for the better if the right process can be followed, and lessons identified and learnt. It was a tragic event for Kenya, for the armed forces and particularly, for the families of the soldiers involved. In war, such hard knocks are not uncommon, they are the price of conflict. To prevail, it is important that lessons are learnt and reforms made.
Four pointers stand out in the circumstances: First, there might be a temptation to keep a hold on the casualty figures, for a number of reasons, including the impact on domestic inter-ethnic relations, or the reflection on the competency of those involved. But warfare is as much about perception as it is about reality and Al-Shabaab have gained much from their quick release of images. Bad news generally does not get better and in the absence of information, people make it up to be generally worse than it is. The Kenyan Government needs to get accurate information into the public domain as soon as the families of the casualties have been informed.
The public reaction will, second, depend on how the government responds to this event. The best that could come out of it is that it is seen as the event that catalysed improvements. There needs to be an immediate lessons-learned process identifying quick wins — generally changes to tactics and procedures — and, even more importantly, a longer term analysis that evaluates the overall security capability.
“Beyond the obvious parallels, these two incidents bear one chilling similarity: both seem to have been perpetrated by airport employees.”
More Than An African Problem
09 February – Source: The Economist – 770 Words
The extraordinary events that unfolded over the skies of Somalia on February 2nd have now become clearer. About 15 minutes after Daallo Airlines Flight 159 departed from Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, an explosive device carried by Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh, one of the passengers, blew a gaping hole just above the right wing of the plane (a spot identified in al-Qaeda literature as being the most effective place to detonate a bomb).
Mr Borleh, who is suspected of being a suicide bomber, was sucked out of the aircraft and fell to his death. Everyone else survived. Had the incident occurred minutes later, once the plane reached cruising altitude, the resultant explosive decompression would almost certainly have killed all aboard. To say that the 73 innocent passengers on Flight 159 had a lucky escape is an understatement.
Last October, the 224 souls aboard Metrojet Flight 9268 were not so fortunate. A bomb detonated on the Russian charter flight about 20 minutes after its departure from Sharm el Sheikh International Airport on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. A local affiliate of IS took credit for the atrocity. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the Daallo bombing, although suspicion will inevitably fall on the Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked militant Islamist group based in the Horn of Africa.
TOP TWEETS
@abdirizakmire : Explosive detection dogs &their Somali handlers examine bags at #Mogadishu airport. #Somalia#Daalloairlines @CNNi
@AbdulBillowAli: Lessons learnt from El-Adde and way forward.#Somalia. http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/
@4CAConsulting : #Somalia central bank chief thinks a new currency is key to rebuild the country’s economyhttp://reut.rs/23UTM5j via @Reuters #development
@RadioErgo : #Somalia:Displaced Sanaag pastoralists face harsh life in Sool http://bit.ly/20nXhgg @RadioErgo #Sool#Sanaag
@MOALIMUU : Breaking: Koryoley local authority say Alshabaab bases were being bombarded by planes overnight in some villages outside the town.#Somalia
@risk_insights : #Somaliland: a country abandoned by the worldhttp://buff.ly/1TaUYxJ #Somalia
@omabha : Somalia: KDF Jets Bomb Al Shabaab Stronghold in Southern Somalia – http://AllAfrica.com http://dlvr.it/KSbMyJ #Somalia
IMAGE OF THE DAY
The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for Somalia, Michael Keating meeting with President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali “Gaas” during the Ambassadorial visit in Garowe to discuss 2016 electoral process
Photo: UNSOM