August 7, 2017 | Morning Headlines
42 Somali Students Secure Tertiary Education In China
06 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 150 Words
Forty-two Somali students will go for further studies in China in early December 2017 according to the Federal Ministry of Education. Addressing a Press Conference that was held in Mogadishu, Minister Abdirahman Dahir Osman said his ministry is determined to secure free foreign education tuition for Somali students. The current successful students are required to submit their academic certificates and identification cards to the Federal Ministry of Education before December 2017 for proper identification.
The Minister added that the Somali Federal Government will guarantee to make sure that the students will get assistance until they finish their education. Nine out of the forty-two students are girls and comprised of students who finished their education in 2015-2016 academic year. Federal Ministry of Education is also busy on how to secure further education opportunities for the students that concluded their education in the academic year of 2016-2017 said the Minister.
Key Headlines
- 42 Somali Students Secure Tertiary Education In China (Goobjoog News)
- Somalia’s Federal Parliament Passes 2017 Budget (Garowe Online)
- Somalia Military High Court Upholds Earlier Verdicts (Goobjoog News)
- Constitutional Affairs Minister Apologizes Federal Parliament Over Twitter Post (Somali Update)
- Two Killed In Somalia Suicide Car Bombing (Gulf Today)
- Gunmen Kill Governor and His Brother In Somalia Capital (Anadolu Agency)
- Album Restores Worldly Sounds Of ‘Swinging Mogadishu’ (Mail Online)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia’s Federal Parliament Passes 2017 Budget
06 August – Source: Garowe Online – 152 Words
The Federal lawmakers have approved Somalia’s Federal government budget for 2017 during a parliamentary session held on Sunday. During the parliamentary session, the lawmakers debated the annual budget for this year drafted by the Finance Ministry, before casting their votes. The Parliament passed the budget after 167 MPs voted in favor of it, whereas 2 rejected it. 169 lawmakers attended the session held at the Federal Parliament headquarters in the capital Mogadishu.
Subsequently, the House Speaker, Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawari, announced the official result to pass the budget for the Somali Federal government led by the President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo and his Prime Minister Hasan Ali Khayre. The new budget considered higher than the past Federal governments, due to the formation of Upper House chamber for the first time. International partners and particularly Turkey still financially support the war-ravaged East African country, and directly support the budget of Somalia’s Federal government.
Somalia Military High Court Upholds Earlier Verdicts
06 August – Source: Goobjoog News -142 Words
Somalia Military High Court sustained earlier sentences passed by First Degree Military Court Section 60 in Baidoa town. The chairperson of Military Court in Baidoa Brigadier Liban Ali Yarow announced the verdict against the 3 accused who filed an appeal after they received death and life sentences. The 3 accused persons are Mohamed Aden Ali Burrow 22 years, Somow Ali Adan Ilkacase 23 years, Hassan Abdullahi Ibrahim Qorgab 28 years.
In the initial verdict, the accused Mohamed Aden Ali Burrow was sentenced to death by firing squad while Ilkacase and Qorgab were both given life sentences. The suspects were accused of a murder case in early July 2017 in a mosque situated in Baidoa town where a local Islamic scholar known as Sheikh Madeer Sheikh Madgab was killed. The deceased was one of the delegates that selected members of the National Parliament.
Constitutional Affairs Minister Apologizes Federal Parliament over Twitter Post
05 August – Source: Somali Update: 322 Words
Somali Constitutional Affairs Minister has on Saturday apologized to Members of the Parliament following comments he made last month that sparked outrage, after he condemned a parliamentary decision that blocked Supreme Court move to nullify eight disputed seats. Minister Abdirahman Hosh Jibril spoke at a parliamentary session on Saturday which followed a motion to review his position tabled by Members of the Lower House. A session to hold a vote of no confidence against the minister failed to uphold due to not meeting the required votes Wednesday according to sources. The MPs who supposed to attend Wednesday’s sitting were influenced by the Offices of the Prime Minister and the President who lobbied to ease the tension between the lawmakers and the minister. “I am very sad and wish to apologize for the outrage caused by the comments I wrote on my twitter account,” said the Somali-Canadian former lawyer and Member of Somali Federal Parliament.
Earlier, the Supreme Court and the Solicitor General endorsed a re-election to be held for the eight disputed seats which the court said was due to irregularities and corrupt process. In a twitter post on July 22, Minister Hosh publicly hit the People’s House by insisting that Parliament cannot overturn the verdict of the highest court of the land. “If I would knew that my comments would cause such l irritation, I would not have written” he told the parliamentary session. The embattled minister also acknowledged the mandate of the Lower House as the country’s legislative body, and emphasized the importance of the separation of power within government institutions. “I recognize the duty of the parliament as the highest legislative body. I am ready to cooperate with you [the lawmakers], should you question my work as a minister,” he added. At the end of the minister’s apology, the chair of the parliament asked Members of the House to accept the minister’s apology and quash the motion against him.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Two Killed In Somalia Suicide Car Bombing
05 August – Source: Gulf Today: 250 Words
At least two people were killed in an apparent car bomb blast on a major street in Somalia’s capital late on Friday, police said, just hours after the US military confirmed that a recent airstrike had killed a high-level Al Shabaab extremist commander blamed for deadly attacks in Mogadishu. Captain Mohamed Hussein said the blast occurred on Maka Almukarramah road in Mogadishu and the two victims were pedestrians.
The exact target was unknown. Five other people were injured, Hussein said, adding that security forces had been on high alert after tipoffs of a possible attack by the Al Qaeda-linked Shabaab. Most of Mogadishu’s major roads were blocked and cars were being searched by soldiers before the blast. The US military earlier Fridayconfirmed that Shabaab commander Ali Mohamed Hussein had been killed in an airstrike last weekend in southern Somalia. Also known as Ali Jabal, he had been blamed for a number of deadly attacks in Mogadishu and was the highest-level Shabaab commander killed this year.
The Somalia-based Shabaab, the deadliest extremist group in Africa, often targets the capital with deadly bombings in high-profile areas such as hotels and military checkpoints. On Friday, the US State Department issued an updated travel warning for Somalia, telling citizens to avoid going there because fighters associated with both Shabaab and the Islamic State group “operate with relative impunity throughout large parts of the country, including Mogadishu.” This is the second time in a week that a
deadly blast has rocked Maka Almukarramah road.
Gunmen Kill Governor and His Brother In Somalia Capital
05 August – Source: Anadolu Agency – 121 Words
The governor of central Galgaduud region and his brother were gunned down in Mogadishu’s Yaaqshid district Friday night, according to an eyewitness and a militant group. Governor Mohamed Ali Elmi and his brother Hassan Noor were visiting relatives when gunmen shot them, eyewitness Mohamed Ali told Anadolu Agency.
The Al-Shabaab claimed the attack in a statement posted on a website affiliated with the armed group, saying the incident took place in Arafat village in the district. Regional state MPs strongly condemned the killings. Also, armed men killed a prominent regional elder identified as Gedi Firdhiye in Mogadishu’s Dharkenley district on Friday night, a security official in the district said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Mogadishu, whose location made it a historic trading port, took in musical influences from the Arab world, Iran and, most strikingly, India. Vocals on several tracks on “Sweet as Broken Dates,” such as “Rag Waa Nacab Iyo Nasteexo” (“Men Are Cruel and Kind”) by Aamina Camaari, take on the high-pitch and melodic sense of the playback singers whose sound defines India’s film industry.”
Album Restores Worldly Sounds Of ‘Swinging Mogadishu’
06 August – Source: Mail Online – 705 Words
Somalia is rarely described as on the musical vanguard but there was a time, before its turmoil, when the Horn of Africa nation bustled with an electrifying mix of the world’s sounds. A new album aims to bring a wider audience to the music of Somalia through the restoration of dusty cassette recordings from the 1970s and 1980s, a time when “Swinging Mogadishu” came alive with free-flowing nightclubs that became a crossroads for funk, pop, reggae and Bollywood.
“Sweet as Broken Dates,” which comes out August 25 on two LPs or one CD, took more than a year of exploration led by Vik Sohonie, a former news reporter whose New York-based label Ostinato Records seeks out music from countries whose cultures are often overlooked. “As someone who has a degree in history, I always knew that these places had more to offer than what’s in the media,” Sohonie said.
Somalia has lacked a functioning government for a quarter-century and its leading musicians have drifted around the world. Making the project even more complicated, Somalia had no record labels releasing albums; the music industry was entirely managed by the now crumbled state, with Siad Barre’s military regime putting bands on the government payroll and tightly controlling selections of state radio. “This is a music universe that has been just completely untapped,” Sohonie said. – Hunt for aging cassettes – Sohonie traveled to Somalia but found that the key resource was scattered elsewhere — cassette tapes, from listeners who taped radio broadcasts or put clunky old recorders on stage at performances.
He found aging cassettes on sale in public markets in nearby Djibouti and seized upon a vital trove in the breakaway region of Somaliland, where an Italian-educated mathematician and preservationist, Jama Musse Jama, has salvaged some 10,000 cassettes as part of his Red Sea Foundation. Michael Graves, an audio engineer who has won Grammys for restoration work on US folk music and radio recordings of late country music legend Hank Williams, digitally remastered the songs on “Sweet as Broken Dates” but the compilation deliberately keeps some of the cassettes’ rough edges.
Mogadishu, whose location made it a historic trading port, took in musical influences from the Arab world, Iran and, most strikingly, India. Vocals on several tracks on “Sweet as Broken Dates,” such as “Rag Waa Nacab Iyo Nasteexo” (“Men Are Cruel and Kind”) by Aamina Camaari, take on the high-pitch and melodic sense of the playback singers whose sound defines India’s film industry. Bollywood has long enjoyed an enthusiastic market in Africa and the Middle East but Somalia has another connection as its traditional music is based on a five-note pentatonic scale, as are some Indian ragas. “Even if you’re listening to a funky pop track, there is still a little element of Indianness that makes it unique,” said Sohonie, who is Indian.