August 3, 2016 | Morning Headlines
UK Minister For Africa Meets President, PM In Mogadishu, Urges Against Poll Delay
03 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 443 Words
The election of a new President and Members of Parliament s in Somalia must be expedited without any delays, British Minister for Africa Tobias Ellwood said while meeting President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Abdirashid Sharmarke on Tuesday.
In an exclusive interview with Goobjoog News in Mogadishu, Ellwood said Somalia was entering a very important chapter adding that the elections should take place as soon as possible to actualize the new beginning: “We encourage the elections to take place as soon as possible. We really don’t want too much of a delay between the end of the mandates of Parliament and the President and the elections themselves. We have got to get all these right. So we do encourage them to happen as soon as possible.”
Ellwood said he impressed upon the President and the Prime Minister on the need to ensure the polls are conducted on time noting the international community looked forward to the exercise being conducted without any further delays.
Regarding Britain’s decision to exit the European Union following the June 23 Brexit vote, the British Minister said his country will remain committed to its bilateral relations and support for Somalia just as it will actively continue its role on the international arena.
“I can confirm to you that there is every intention for Britain to remain fully engaged on the international stage. When it comes to countries like Somalia we are the pen holders. We remain a permanent member of the United Nations and fully committed with the desire and determination to play our role on the international stage. And that, am sure, will continue here in Somalia as well,” said the UK official.
Key Headlines
- UK Minister For Africa Meets President PM In Mogadishu Urges Against Poll Delay (Goobjoog News)
- Somali Political Leaders To Meet Amid Poll Delay Fears (Garowe Online)
- A Senior Military Officer Injured In Mogadishu Attack (Shabelle News)
- Fish Prices Fall By 40% In Mogadishu (Goobjoog News)
- Court Martial Convenes In Somalia To Try Ugandan Soldiers. (AMISOM)
- UPDF Officer Charged Over Death Of 10 Colleagues In Somalia (New Vision)
- Somalia Urged To Pass Law Banning ‘Horrendous’ FGM (Reuters)
- Somalia Furious At Raila’s Call For Somaliland Independence (The Star)
- Candidates Reach Out To Somali Voters (St Cloud Times)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali Political Leaders To Meet Amid Poll Delay Fears
02 August – Source: Garowe Online – 156 words
Somali political leaders are scheduled to meet in Mogadishu on Wednesday even as fears over poll delay continue to mount. The meeting—scheduled for Tuesday— appears to have been postponed to tomorrow due to unavailability of flights to Mogadishu for some leaders. The exact date when the National Leadership Forum (NLF) will kick off remains unclear.
Federal Electoral Implementation Team (FEIT) Chairperson Omar Mohamed Abdulle assured the people of Somalia that his team would act independently without exhibiting due favours to any particular candidates. FEIT will present to the Somali leaders, who include the President, Prime Minister and presidents of all regional governments, a timetable jointly drawn up by Somali experts and international diplomats in Mogadishu.
It is yet unclear how Somalia would meet electoral benchmarks for long marred by deadlocks over the fate of 4.5 power sharing formula. Technical and implementation details are likely to take a center stage in the discussions to be initiated by Somali leaders tomorrow, said a source privy of the matter. The NLF is poised to agree on a new election timetable.
A Senior Military Officer Injured In Mogadishu Attack
02 August – Source: Shabelle News – 91 Words
Suspected Al-Shabaab gunmen shot and wounded a senior Somali military commander in the capital city of Mogadishu on Tuesday. Two pistol-wielding gunmen ambushed Col Dirie Qarshe, as he left his residence at Hosh neighbourhood in Dharkenley district in the morning.
Following the shooting, the military commander sustained slight gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital for medical treatment, according to residents. So far no group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack. However such attacks, particularly executed by members of the Al-Shabaab militant group, have become common in Mogadishu.
Fish Prices Fall By 40% In Mogadishu
02 August – Source: Goobjoog News – 172 Words
Fish prices in Benadir region have fallen by 40 percent for the first time in three years. Fishermen say prices are expected to continue falling until the end of summer when prices rise and stabilize once again.
They explained that the weather played a major role in price fluctuations. The price of fish, especially smaller ones, is expected to fall even lower until the end of the next month. Mustaf Haji Maki, who sells fish at the Fish Market in Mogadishu, said the price of fish has drastically dropped over the last few weeks.
Now that the prices have crashed, they have begun to buy the two popular varieties of fish. According to Maki, a fish seller, fish prices are dependent on weather patterns, which impact fishing activities, “and this is why prices increase or decrease from one day to the next.: “Customers are buying more fish now due to availability and low prices. The fish that is being sold is fresh and tastes much better,” he said.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Court Martial Convenes In Somalia To Try Ugandan Soldiers
02 August – Source: AMISOM – 425 Words
Mogadishu, 2 August 2016 – The Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) Divisional Court Martial today convened in Mogadishu, to try soldiers alleged to have engaged in various forms of misconduct.
The Divisional Court Martial is constituted by the UPDF high command and is charged with the trial of cases of misconduct committed by soldiers serving in missions out of the country, for example, Somalia and Central African Republic.
The court martial sitting in Mogadishu is chaired by Brig. General Dick Olum who explained that the sitting is being held under the mandate of the UPDF and not AMISOM, because Troop Contributing Countries are authorized by the African Union to tackle cases of indiscipline committed by their officers.
“Any soldier who comes to serve under AMISOM, as per African Union standards is charged by the law of his country back home. AMISOM doesn’t have a legal court,” Gen Olum said. The court martial is currently trying a case in which 18 soldiers were charged pursuing personal interests, endangering the operational efficiency of troops. It emanates from an incident in which five soldiers were arrested in June, this year, over illicit sale of fuel in a racket that included civilians in Mogadishu. The fuel in question was over 10,000 litres.
One of the accused, Major Bob Francis Aring, who was a transport officer pleaded guilty to the charges, conceding to having failed to take charge of a vehicle under his supervision, which was in turn used by officers under his command in the illegal sale of fuel. The Court Martial in its sentence demoted him to the rank of Captain in addition to a year in detention. The hearing of the case for other suspects is already underway with 10 prosecution witnesses presented so far.
The chairperson of the court says it is being convened in Somalia to send a clear message to all serving UPDF soldiers that they must uphold high standards of discipline while serving under AMISOM or any other mission: “We thought that this is the best way for people like you to follow what is happening here. We thought the leaders of AMISOM should also know what is happening, because you may think when we go home, we don’t charge them,” Brig. Gen. Olum stated.
UPDF Officer Charged Over Death Of 10 Colleagues In Somalia
02 August – Source: New Vision – 286 Words
A senior UPDF officer who allegedly failed to protect his colleagues while on a mission in Somalia, resulting into death of 19 of them has been charged with failure to perform his duties.
Lt. Col Bosco Mutumbi, 50, who was the commander of Battle Group 16 (BGXVI) in Somalia, is said to have ignored intelligence information which resulted into the Al-Shabaab attacking Janale detachment and killing 10 UPDF soldiers.
Prosecution led by Maj. Raphael Mugisha alleged that Mutumbi faces two counts of failure to execute one’s duty leading to the death of fellow officers and failure to brief subordinate commanders to execute an operation against the Al-Shabaab.
Mugisha told court that between June and September 2015, Mutumbi was briefed about the vulnerability of Janale UPDF detachment to the Al-Shabaab but he failed to relocate it. Mutumbi also reportedly failed to provide support weapons, arms, ammunition, manpower and other equipment which resulted in Al-Shabaab attacking the detachment on September 1, 2015, leading to loss of lives.
Following the incident, President Yoweri Museveni ordered for the arrest of the battalion commander of the UPDF sector in Janale, company commanders and intelligence officers. Janale is a town in Somalia lower Shabelle region which is 65 kilometres south west of Mogadishu the capital city of Somalia.
Somalia Urged To Pass Law Banning ‘Horrendous’ FGM
02 August – Source: Reuters – 593 Words
Somalia’s next government should ensure a law is passed banning all forms of female genital mutilation (FGM), a United Nations official said on Tuesday, describing the deeply entrenched practice as a “horrendous rights violation”.
Somalia has the world’s highest rate of FGM with 98 percent of women between 15 and 49 having been subjected to the potentially deadly ritual. A bill on FGM is sitting in parliament but is unlikely to be debated until next year because of elections expected this month in the Horn of Africa country.
Jeremy Hopkins, deputy representative for UNICEF in Somalia, said the U.N. children’s agency was optimistic a law would eventually go through, but the details in it would be crucial: “Our approach for the legislation is to go slow. We don’t want to risk this being politicized,” he said in an interview in London.
“We promote total abandonment of FGM, whereas there is a large part of public opinion in Somalia which will promote a milder form of FGM,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Most women in Somalia have undergone the severest form of FGM, known as infibulation, in which the external genitalia are sliced off and the vaginal opening sewn up.
The cutting is usually done by traditional circumcisers, sometimes using rusty and unsterilized instruments. Hopkins said there was evidence that families were moving toward “a milder form of FGM”, but that this was not something UNICEF condoned.
“I would say there has been quite a big shift in recent years away from infibulation to this lesser form,” he added. It is not clear whether the alternative form involves a small nick or the partial removal of the clitoris. Hopkins said UNICEF was concerned that parents appeared to be increasingly taking their daughters to clinics to undergo FGM.
Somalia Furious At Raila’s Call For Somaliland Independence
02 August – Source: The Star – 310 Words
Somalia has reacted angrily to Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s remarks that the international community recognises Somaliland as an independent state. Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya, Gamal Hassan, termed Raila’s comment as irresponsible and damaging the country’s territorial integrity.
Raila reportedly said at Chatham House, London where he delivered a speech, that he supports the full recognition of the breakaway semi-autonomous state: “I am a strong supporter of the full recognition of Somaliland. I think there is a very strong case,” he said said during a question and answer session at the forum.
But Amb Hassan dismissed Raila and said: “That comment was in a bad taste. It questions the territorial integrity of Somalia, Politics of Somalia should be left to Somalis. Politicians should refrain from such issues. In a different response posted on Twitter, the embassy in Kenya termed the comment by the Opposition leader as “damaging”: “Unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia is inviolable,” the embassy said.
Somaliland whose capital is Hargeisa is not internationally recognised as an independent state but mainly referred to as semi-autonomous. It declared independence from the larger Mogadishu-based Somali government in 1991, following the collapse of the government led by Siad Bare. But it has not been recognised internationally yet.
Raila’s comment comes a week after the chair of council of governors, Peter Munya called for “some recognition” of Somaliland. He spoke after he led a Kenyan delegation to Hargeisa in a bid to convince leaders to remove restrictions on Miraa trade.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“A growing number of Somalis have either become naturalized citizens or are second-generation children of immigrants and were born U.S. citizens, giving them voting rights. But just how many are registering to vote and exercising that right is unclear.”
Candidates Reach Out To Somali Voters
02 August – Source: St Cloud Times – 1,262 Words
On a sunny July day, as a crowd gathered at St. Cloud’s Lake George to celebrate Somali Independence Day, political candidates seized the microphone one after the other.
It’s a sign of the growing strength of Somali-Americans as a voting bloc that both political parties are taking seriously. Both the Republican and DFL state parties are reaching out to East African voters in an effort to connect with them on issues and earn their support.
As Somalis become more established in the St. Cloud community nearly two decades after the first refugees settled here, they’re also growing more politically involved and active: “I do get the feeling at least talking to the members of the Somali community that they’re aware that they’re becoming more influential, and they want to participate in the public culture more than they have in the past,” said Aric Putnam, DFL candidate for the Minnesota House in District 14A.
It’s not just candidates targeting potential Somali voters. Somali community groups have organized forums and events and are inviting candidates to speak: “They’ve become a significant voting bloc now here in the St. Cloud area,” said Zach Dorholt, DFL candidate for the Minnesota House in District 14B.
“There are a lot of really talented young and organized folks in that community who have made it a point to reach out to us and to engage candidates.” The Democratic Party traditionally has had more success in attracting minority and immigrant voters. But Republicans say they think the Somali people could find a lot to like in their party’s platform, including social values and protections for small business owners.
“They tend to be very conservative in terms of the way they live,” said Keith Downey, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party. “They’re trying to make it. They’re trying to realize the American dream.” However, winning over Somalis, who are mostly Muslims, could be challenging for local Republican candidates in the shadow of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose rhetoric has been seen by many as anti-Muslim.
It has fired them up,” Dorholt said. “Trump’s comments specifically have caused people to get more involved.” The growing political importance of Somalis isn’t surprising, said Matt Lindstrom, political science professor at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University. With an estimated 40,000 Somalis living in Minnesota, “frankly, it’s just a matter of math,” Lindstrom said.