April 18, 2017 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

Federal and State Leaders Endorse New National Security Architecture

17 April – Source : Goobjoog News – 408 Words

The Federal and State governments have approved the national security architecture which has been billed as crucial in coherently establishing a professional security structure bringing together the input of the federal and state governments. In a communique released on Monday following a three day meeting in Mogadishu, leaders of the Federal and State governments said they had agreed on a unified structure, policies and implementation of the new architecture spearheaded by the National Security Council. State governments will also establish state level security councils headed by the respective state presidents, the communique read. The international community has for some time now called on Somalia to establish a national security infrastructure. The Istanbul Humanitarian Conference last January emphasized the need to establish a unified and coherent formation of the country’s security organs guided by a national security architecture.

The architecture is expected to draw the roadmap for proper integration of security forces which are currently run and administered by both the federal and state governments. Article 126 of the Provisional Constitution contemplates the formation of four divisions of the country’s security structure namely, the Intelligence services, police force, armed forces and prison forces. The leaders hosted by President Mohamed Farmaajo also set out a range of areas of agreement to ensure coordinated functioning of the state. Notable is the acceleration of the process towards the 2020 elections which are expected to allow one person one vote. The process incorporates the conclusion of the constitutional review process, a national referendum to approve the supreme law and registration of voters which will be preceded by a national census exercise.

Endorsing the National Development Plan, the leaders agreed to conduct a national census based on actual head count. The last national census statistics released in 2014 was based on survey estimates. The 15 point communique noted the leaders’ agreement to enhance economic growth through creation of jobs, investment and trade promotion and development of economic infrastructure. Unemployment in Somalia particularly among the youth remains one of the single most challenges facing the country with the UN estimating that 67% of the youth lack any form of employment.

The meeting was the first formal meeting for President Farmaajo with the state presidents since his election in February 8. Present were Galmudug vice president Mohamed Abdi Hashi, Puntland leader Abdiweli Gaas, his Jubbaland counterpart Ahmed Madobe, South West’s Sharif Hassan Sh. Adan and HirShabelle President Ali Abdullahi Osoble. Prime Minister Hassan Khaire was also in the meeting.

Key Headlines

Federal and State Leaders Endorse New National Security Architecture (Goobjoog News)
US Denies Reports Of Airstrikes In Somalia Last Week – Africa Command (Radio Dalsan)
Immigration Arrests In US Worry Somali Community (Shabelle News)
CAF President Arrives In Somalia On Official Visit (Africa Review)
Will The ‘Long Rains’ Save Somalia? (Aljazeera)
Adventures In Social Mobility (BBC Radio 4)
Attention Shifts To Somalia In Bid To Protect Maritime Trade (The East Africa)

NATIONAL MEDIA

US Denies Reports Of Airstrikes In Somalia Last Week – Africa Command

17 April – Source : Radio Dalsan – 178 Words

US Africa Command said in a release that US military did not conduct any counterterrorism strikes in southwest Somalia on April 14 contrary to what the media has reported. The US military did not conduct any counterterrorism strikes in southwest Somalia on April 14 contrary to what the media has reported, the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a release on Monday. “The US military did not conduct any kind of kinetic action in that area during the timeframe referenced,” the release stated. “The most recent US strike in Somalia was conducted in January 2017.”

In March, President Donald Trump gave the green light to a Department of Defense request to increase the number of artillery and airstrikes in Somalia against the Al-Shabaab terror group. Somalia has been experiencing violence since the country devolved into civil war in the early 1990s. The state’s collapse provided a breeding ground for warlords, pirates and the al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Shabaab. The terror group has been staging numerous attacks in Somalia in an attempt to create an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law.

Immigration Arrests In US Worry Somali Community

17 April – Source : Shabelle – 115 Words

Somali advocates have expressed concern after a spate of immigration arrests in the Atlanta area. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Bryan Cox says the agency has recently been able to obtain travel documents to execute deportations to Somalia. The agency had previously been unable to obtain these documents because of conditions in the country.

Omar Shekhey is the president of the Somali American Community Center in Clarkston. He says many have been in the country for decades and it’s dangerous to deport them as Somalia is in the middle of a civil war and famine. Cox says Somali nationals aren’t being specifically targeted. More than 200 Somalis have been deported this fiscal year.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

CAF President Arrives In Somalia On Official Visit

17 April – Source : Africa Review – 472 Words

CAF President Ahmad on Monday, 17 April 2017, arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia, on a two-day working visit, his first to the Horn of Africa since assuming the reins of the continent’s football governing body last March. He was welcomed on arrival at the Mogadishu Airport by Somali Minister for Youth and Sports, Khadija Mohamed Diriye, president of the Somali Football Federation (SFF), Abdiqani Said Arab and other Government officials. Welcoming the CAF President at a short ceremony at the Arrival Hall, SFF president Abdiqani said “this is a big day for Somalia and Somali football. We are proud to have the CAF President here. He promised that his first official visit will be to Somalia, and he has fulfilled his promise.

We are very happy to have the CAF president here in our country. “We welcome Mr. Ahmad and the CAF executive committee member, my friend and brother Souleiman Hassan Waberi who has supported us all the way. We also welcome personnel from the CAF Secretariat and other members of the CAF delegation to Somalia”.

Minister of Youth and Sports, Mrs Diriye also lauded the CAF President for honouring his promise to visit Somalia on his first official trip. “On behalf of the Somali people, President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, we would like to welcome the CAF president who has fulfilled his promise to make his first official visit to Somalia. The CAF president promised us and he has lived up to his word”, said Mrs Diriye.

Will The ‘Long Rains’ Save Somalia?

17 April – Source : Aljazeera – 378 Words

The main rainy season in Somalia was deficient in 2016. Then the important short rains of October to November 2016 failed, causing crop failures and severe food shortages. A report this month from the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that “the humanitarian situation in Somalia is on the verge of catastrophe, and concern is growing that the trajectory is worryingly similar to Somalia’s 2011 famine disaster, when an estimated 260,000 people died. Today, an estimated 6.2 million, more than half the country’s population, face acute food shortage and the number of severely malnourished children is on the rise.”

Drought is also affecting neighbouring countries, with some 16 million people severely food insecure in the Horn of Africa region: 5.6 million people in Ethiopia, 2.6 million people in Kenya, 6.2 million people in Somalia and 1.6 million people in Uganda. Human population and agricultural practices affect water usage and distribution, but the climate brings the rain, and the climate is changing. Over the past 30 years, the long rains have been steadily decreasing in intensity as the climate has warmed.

East Africa has two rainy seasons; the critical “long rains” of March to June, connected to the development of the Indian monsoon, and the less critical but still important “short rains” of October to November. The 2016 rainfall failure was due to the negative “Indian Ocean Dipole” (IOD). This is the name describing cooler than average waters in the western Indian Ocean, and warmer than average waters in the Eastern Indian Ocean. A negative IOD causes stable, sinking air over the Horn of Africa and this suppresses any rain-bearing clouds.

Adventures In Social Mobility

17 April – Source : BBC Radio 4 – Audio – 38:00 Minutes

What are the unwritten rules you must learn to get a top job? Hashi Mohamed came to the UK aged nine, as an unaccompanied child refugee, with hardly any English. His academic achievements at school were far from stellar. Yet he now works as a barrister – and so is a member of one of the elite professions that have traditionally been very difficult for people from poor backgrounds to crack. So how did he do it? In a personal take on social mobility, we meet his mentors. These are the people who gave him a few lucky breaks and showed him how to fit into a world he could barely imagine. But how many people can follow that path? And why should they have to?

OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE

“As maritime shipping is approximately 90 per cent of how the world’s goods are transported, interference at these choke points is a serious threat to international business which in the case of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, is worth an approximated $700 billion annually,” he said. All traffic through the Suez Canal, the quickest route for European shipping to reach Asia, must pass through Bab el-Mandeb to reach the Gulf of Aden, and subsequently the Indian Ocean.”

Attention Shifts To Somalia In Bid To Protect Maritime Trade

17 April – Source : The East African – Words

Somalia is suddenly back in the limelight, with a number of high-level visits in the past few weeks signalling a renewed interest by the international community in the country that had been written off as a failed state. Among world figures who visited the country last month were British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and the new African Union Commission chair Moussa Faki Mahamat, who made Somalia his first stop only four days after taking office.

In addition to the visits, Somalia is attracting fresh attention from traditional allies, as well as newcomers from the Middle East, Europe and Africa. They include the United Kingdom, former colonial power Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia as well as the African Union, and the traditional seafarers in the Indian Ocean such China, the Philippines, Japan and India. Important shipping route: Experts attribute the fresh interest in Somalia to a combination of factors. These include the recent successful presidential election that saw Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo take up the leadership; the country’s strategic location along the world’s most important shipping route, the war in Yemen and the resurgence of piracy in the Indian Ocean.

Political risk analyst for Middle East and North Africa, James Pothecary, told The EastAfrican that a leading factor in the increasing importance of Somalia is the war in Yemen and how it impacts the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is located between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. It connects the Read Sea to the Gulf of Aden The strait is the gateway to almost all maritime trade between Europe and Asia and any security threats in this location would disproportionately affect global maritime trade routes and the security of sea lines of communication, said Mr Pothecary, who works for Allan & Associates in UK.