November 13, 2018 | Morning Headlines

Acting Southwest President Warns Ministers Against Use Of Public Resource For Campaigns

12 November – Source: Goobjoog News  – 152 Words

Acting President of Southwest state Abdikadir Sharif Sheikhuna has warned state ministers against the misuse of public properties under their control and asked them to submit an inventory of all government properties.

Sheikhuna, who is also Speaker of Southwest state assembly, told reporters that he had summoned the ministers for accountability, in preparation for the upcoming presidential elections. Sheikhuna also instructed the ministers to avoid misusing public resources for political campaigns. The meeting also discussed on security for the upcoming elections.

President Sharif Sheikh Adan resigned last week and pulled out from the presidential race following hard battle with the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS). His resignation came just  hours after the state elections coordinating committee resigned citing interference from the FGS. Meanwhile security commanders in Baidoa along with police officers and AMISOM forces  held a separate meeting to discuss security for the upcoming election.

Key Headlines

• Acting Southwest President Warns Ministers Against Use Of Public Resource For Campaigns (Goobjoog News)
• Nugal Governor Warns Federal Government Against Interference Of State Polls (Goobjoog News)
• Aid Crunch Forces Medical Centres To Close In Bakool Amid Malaria Outbreak (Radio Ergo)
• Melbourne Attacker Inspired By ISIS But Not Linked To It (Israel National News)
• ‘The Lesson Is To Be Hopeful’: Ilhan Omar’s Journey From Somali Refugee To US Congress (The Guardian)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Nugal Governor Warns Federal Government Against Interference Of State Polls

12 November – Source: Goobjoog News – 197 Words

Nugal regional governor in Puntland Abdisalan Hersi has asked the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) to keep off the state presidential elections of Puntland slated for January next year. Hersi told the media in Garowe town on Monday that the government had dispatched Members of Parliament to the northeastern state “without consultations with the Puntland administration”.

“The FGS has sent MPs and other politicians to Nugal region without any arrangement with the Puntland administration in Garowe,” said Hersi. Hersi said the FGS should let the people of Puntland to make their own political choices without interference. The local administrator also urged the Prime Minister,  Hassan Khaire, to honour the pledges he made to the region about five months ago during the 20th anniversary celebrations for the Puntland state.

Governor Hirsi called on the FGS to stop interfering in the affairs of other states, and allow — for instance — the people of Puntland to exercise their political and civil rights without any influence. The Puntland administration blocked Planning Minister Gamal Hassan and national electoral chief Halima Yarey from addressing the Puntland State University in September following the Federal Member States (FMS) decision to suspend cooperation with the FGS early September.

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Aid Crunch Forces Medical Centres To Close In Bakool Amid Malaria Outbreak

12 November – Source: Radio Ergo – 448 Words

The move by local aid agencies in Bakool region to stop operations has adversely affected local residents as medical centres supported by the agencies have been forced to close in the midst of a malaria outbreak. Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Bakool region running the centres have stopped their operations after donors ceased their support, according to officials who spoke to Radio Ergo.

One of the areas most affected is Wajid town whose residents have been relying on three aid agencies for medical support. Wajid Mother and Child Health Centre and other health centres run by Gargaar Relief and Development Organisation (GREDO) and African Relief & Development (ARD) have been not delivering medical since late last month.

Adan Ibrahim Ali, head of a health centre run by GREDO has told Radio Ergo that his organisation halted its operations after aid support ended for four months: “All operations were paused because the organisation has no more funds since the donors have ceased their support. The centre used to treat mothers and children and it also used to manage severe malnutrition,” Adan said.

Yakub Adan Amin, Wajid Deputy District Commissioner said his administration did not have the capacity to provide full health services for the residents of the town: “We do not have the capacity to fill the gaps left by these organisations. We sent several proposals. We do not have a general hospital here. We were only dependent on these health posts,” he explained.

An outbreak malaria in the area has made the situation worse with several children suffering the brunt of the disease. Shamso Mohamed Nur, a mother of six who lives in Wajid told Radio Ergo that three of her children have been infected by malaria: “We stay with the sick children at home because there is no operating healthcare here. Those who afford to seek medication from pharmacies are lucky but we do not have money. We have been relying on these health centres,” Shamso said.

Malaria outbreak is common at a time when deyr rain is experienced in several parts of the parts of the region escalating the situation. Nurto Ibrahim Hussein and her eight children have been living in an IDP in Wajid town since last year. Nurto told Radio Ergo that two of the children contracted diarrhea after drinking contaminated water.

“Initially, we used to go the health centres to get free treatment but we have nowhere to go and I cannot afford to buy medicine for my children,” she said. The militant group Al-Shabaab imposed a blockade on aid agencies in Bakool region in 2014 and has since maintained a grip on parts of Bakool region restricting aid support to residents.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Melbourne Attacker Inspired By ISIS But Not Linked To It

12 November – Source: Israel National News – 464 Words

The Australian government said Sunday that a Somali-born Australian who went on a deadly knife rampage in the country’s second-largest city of Melbourne was inspired by Islamic State (ISIS) but did not have a direct link to the jihadist group, AFP reports. The man, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, stabbed to death well-known local cafe co-owner Sisto Malaspina and injured two other men in Bourke Street in the heart of Melbourne on Friday afternoon before he was shot and killed by police.

The 30-year-old had gone to the city in a utility vehicle filled with gas cylinders before setting it alight. ISIS later claimed via its propaganda arm that Shire Ali was an “Islamic State fighter and carried out the operation”, but provided no evidence to back its claim.

“In relation to his connections with ISIL (another name for ISIS) or with any terrorist group… there’s not, as I’m advised, a membership of an organization or a definite link to ISIL,” Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told reporters in Brisbane on Sunday.

“The working theory is at the moment a case where this person has been downloading information or receiving messages in his own mind about what he should be doing. It’s inspired as opposed to affiliation or membership,” Dutton added. Shire Ali, known to the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), had his passport revoked in 2015 on fears he was trying to travel to Syria to join ISIS, but he was also assessed by authorities as not being a domestic threat, according to AFP.

Dutton defended the actions of ASIO, saying they had more than 400 investigations and people of interest to monitor: “Police did not have intelligence in relation to this person that he was about to commit an act,” he added: “The fact is that many people, particularly where there is a low level of sophistication, where you have someone who can grab a knife from a kitchen drawer… it is impossible for authorities to cover every one of those circumstances,” said Dutton.

OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE

“Life there can be harsh, precarious and chaotic, with arrivals and departures every year. Omar, who visited Dadaab in 2011 to help with humanitarian assistance for victims of famine in her homeland, has become a hero to many in the camp.”

‘The Lesson Is To Be Hopeful’: Ilhan Omar’s Journey From Somali Refugee To US Congress

11 November – Source: The Guardian – 682 Words

Ilhan Omar, who lived in a Somali refugee camp when she was a girl and was elected to the US Congress last week, has said she hopes her victory would give hope to those whose childhoods resembled hers. Omar fled the civil war in Somalia with her family in 1991 and spent four years in the Utango camp, near the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, before arriving in the US with her six brothers and sisters under a resettlement programme.

“I would have loved to have heard a story like mine. I could have used it as an inspiration to get by. The lesson is to be hopeful, to dream and to aspire for more,” said the 36-year-old member-elect of the US House of Representatives for Minnesota’s fifth district. Omar, a Democrat, will assume office in January, sharing with Rashida Tlaib the historic distinction of being the first Muslim women elected to the US Congress.

Multiple media outlets, including the Guardian, have reported that Omar lived in the vast Dadaab camp, which opened to receive civil war refugees around the same time as the Utango facility. The report in the Guardian, describing the celebrations and prayers for Omar in Dadaab after her victory, also included interviews with residents of the camp, who said they remembered her living there almost 30 years ago.
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The interviews were conducted by telephone by an experienced local journalist who is a native Somali speaker, and, while the Guardian is confident the interviewees were speaking in good faith, it is now clear these memories were erroneous. The politician has previously spoken of her flight from Somalia, describing how militiamen prepared to attack their home in Mogadishu at midnight and had to be convinced by older female relatives to leave the family in peace. Omar left with her family shortly after, and remembered walking through streets strewn with debris and corpses.

The Utango camp was isolated and rudimentary with limited sanitation. Omar collected firewood and water for the family, and has described how she enviously watched similar-aged children going to school in uniforms, and asking her father if she could resume her education. They were among the first to reach the Utango camp, which had just opened. Arrivals were housed in tents or makeshift huts before the facility was closed, in about 1996.