February 3, 2016 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

A Famous Businessman Shot Dead In Bosaso Town

02 February – Source: Shabelle News – 81 Words

Armed groups murdered a renowned businessman in the port city of Bosaso, the commercial hub of the north-eastern semi-autonomous state of Puntland, reports said.
The businessman who was identified as Hersi Aden (Hersi Adunyo) was shot dead by unknown gunmen at Karama hotel located in the heart of Bosaso on Tuesday evening, residents told Radio Shabelle.The reason behind the murder of Aden is unclear. The city has been hit by deadly violent protests by local residents who are against unemployment. Puntland police who came to the area after the incident say they are yet to establish the reason for the businessman’s killing.

Key Headlines

A Famous Businessman Shot Dead In Bosaso Town (Shabelle News)
New Campaign Takes Aim At Inequality In Somalia (Hiiraan Online)
Displaced Bakol Families Walk To Luq Town (Goobjoog News)
Int’l Maritime Watchdog Calls For Vigilance Against Pirates In Somalia (Xinhua)
Flight Makes Emergency Landing In Somalia Capital After Fire (Bloomberg)
Why Elections In Somaliland Are Neither Free Nor Fair? (Hiiraan Online)

NATIONAL MEDIA

New Campaign Takes Aim At Inequality In Somalia

02 February – Source: Hiiraan Online – 323 Words

In Somalia, political marginalization and failure to achieve a greater level of equality has been a major problem for decades, a conundrum that analysts say despite sharing the same culture and one religion makes many to question the existence a common Somali identity. Rights groups have earlier suggested that unraveling the challenge would require a legislative or administrative reform to repeal ‘discriminatory’ provisions to end ‘entrenched’ discrimination.

However, a new US-based campaign group tries to challenge the status quo to combat political and social inequality in Somalia to achieve an ambitious goal: Equal Somalia (Soomaali Siman).
At an event organized by the campaign group, Soomaali Siman (equal Somalia) in Columbus Monday, the founders say they aim to mobilize Somali societies across the world to counter the ‘outrageous’ inequality setting which they said threatens the identity of the country and its people.
“Instead of honoring those who didn’t participate the civil war in Somalia, they were instead marginalized politically as minorities.” said professor Abdi Kusow of the campaign’s founders as well as the co-author of a research about the inequality and discrimination faced by Somali minority groups in Somalia last year.

“Its a sad tale that we have to work out towards its elimination.” The group also highlighted an economic marginalization and political exclusion against minority clans, something they said the campaign takes aim to bring to an end. “The inequality problem is something created by foreign actors that we have assumed as fitting.” Said Dr. Rashid Farah, one of the scholars who attended the event. “Its a factor that further polarized our people.” he said.

In many African states including Somalia, ethnicity has been considered as a major obstacle to modem state-building causing political instability and violent conflict.
Scholars also argued that ethnicity, so commonly invoked as an explanation of conflict in contemporary African states, seemed less relevant and led to social consequences of political and economic exclusion that followed the state collapse.

Displaced Bakol Families Walk To Luq Town

02 February – Source: Goobjoog News – 332 Words

Several hundred people facing food and water shortages in besieged parts of Bakool region have joined camps for the displaced in Luq, Gedo region, after walking for around a week. Around 175 farming and pastoralist families are reported to have arrived in five existing IDP camps in Luq over the past three weeks. They include large numbers of women, children and elderly people. They came from Wajid, Hudur and Elboon in Bakool hoping to find assistance in the camps.

Faduma Haji Abdullahi and her 10 children arrived in Luq from Wajid last week after five days of walking. “On our way, the children became very weak. They were almost dying of hunger and thirst,” Faduma said. She said they were farmers who had suffered from severe water shortage. Is’haq Ibrahim Ahmed, a pastoralist from one of the remote parts of Hudur district, said his livestock had died because the pasture had completely disappeared. “We have walked for eight days to get here,” he said. “We came here to get help from aid organizations, but we have not yet been assisted.” He said they were facing a lack of food and water in the camps as well. Those arriving in Luq avoided the main roads linking Bakool to other regions because of blockades by Al-Shabaab.

As few could afford to pay the fare charged by the rare vehicles using the back routes through the bush, they either went on foot or used donkey carts. Adan Deeq, a committee member in the IDP camps, says there were 90 newly arrived families from Wajid, 50 from Hudur, and 35 from Elboon Village. “Presently, they are being hosted by the other families who were already living in these IDP camps,” he said. He added that there were no regular deliveries of food aid in the camps and supplies were short. The new arrivals have joined more than 3,000 other families displaced by conflict and droughts in different parts of Gedo, Bay and Bakol regions. They have been living in IDP camps up to four years.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Int’l Maritime Watchdog Calls For Vigilance Against Pirates In Somalia

02 February – Source: Xinhua – 564 Words

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has called on foreign vessels to remain vigilant off the coast of Somalia despite no Somali-based attacks being reported in 2015. The maritime body in its annual report for 2015 warned vessels transiting the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean to stay particularly vigilant. “Somalia remains a fragile state, and the potential for an attack remains high. It will only take one successful hijacking to undo all that has been done, and rekindle this criminal activity,” said Pottengal Mukundan, Director of IMB, which has monitored world piracy since 1991.

The report says the threat of these attacks still exist in waters off Southern Red Sea/Bab el Mandeb, Gulf of Aden including Temin and the northern Somali coast, Arabian sea/off Oman, Gulf of Oman and off the eastern and southern Somali coast. In the past, vessels have been attacked off Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, Madagascar, Mozambique as well as in the Indian Ocean and off the west and south coasts of India and west Maldives.

“Masters are reminded that fishermen in this region may try to protect their nets by attempting to aggressively approach merchant vessels. Some of the fishermen may be armed to protect their catch and they should not be confused with pirates,” IMB said. Experts say piracy off the coast of Somalia has been curtailed over the last four years due to effective deterrence by international naval forces, privately armed security guards on board merchant ships, and mariners avoiding the high-risk area along the Somali coast.

Flight Makes Emergency Landing In Somalia Capital After Fire

02 February – Source: Bloomberg – 204 Words

A passenger jet made an emergency landing in Somalia’s capital when a fire broke out shortly after take off, with two people suffering minor injuries, an official said. The Daallo Airlines plane returned to Mogadishu’s airport on Tuesday after a bang was heard on board and a fire erupted, Ali Ahmed Jama, Somalia’s minister of air transport and civil aviation, told reporters in the city. He said investigations are under way to discover the cause. The jet was bound for neighboring Djibouti.

Voice of America’s Somali-language website published photos showing a large hole in the aircraft’s fuselage close to the right wing. The minister said there was damage to the plane’s wing and inside it. Abdirahim Ahmed, a witness at the airport, said he saw fire on at least one of the plane’s wings when it landed. The aircraft was carrying about 60 passengers and crew who were evacuated, Mohamed Abdullahi, a police officer at the scene, said by phone.

Daallo Airlines, based in Dubai, flies regularly between Somalia’s capital and cities including Djibouti and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, according to its website. The carrier will issue a statement later today, a person who answered the phone at the company’s executive offices said Tuesday.

OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE

“Somaliland performed a biometric voter registration exercise in 2008-2009, with fingerprints and facial recognition, and much effort was devoted to cleaning the voting register, but the former National Election Commission failed to provide accurate and credible lists. However, this time around the current NEC must be careful to turn the voter registration system to be a flop,”

Why Elections In Somaliland Are Neither Free Nor Fair?

02 February – Source: Hiiraan Online – 773 Words

Election is a formal process by which a population elects an individual to hold public office. It is also a tool for selecting legislatures in local councils, parliament and even people for the uppermost houses. Under the Somaliland constitution, all the people whose age is above sixteen will be allowed to cast their vote.Elections in Somaliland empower ordinary citizens to express their rights topick leaders who will be able to shape the Somaliland future.

These privileges can only be granted if elections were held through free and fair means. It is the duty of the Somaliland National Electoral Commission (NEC) to prove the ambitions of the people in the country given numerous challenges that has always been used to prevent an election from being “free and fair in Somaliland,in the following paragraphs methods used to hamper efforts to enhance transparent elections are described below:

There has been gaps within the Somaliland electoral systems. Among these are included interference from the incumbent government, Non-governmental entities had also interfered with elections, through physical force, verbal intimidation, or fraud, which resulted in improper casting or counting of votes, fraud, failure to validate voter residency, fraudulent tabulation of results, and use of physical force or verbal intimation at polling places.

However, I am not sure whether the present technology is secure, but whether it can cover the whole country. If yes, it is ok or else the possibility for multiple voting is maximized.If the latter is the case; then NEC together with the government should explore alternative options, ensuring coverage in remote areas in order to wipe out multiple voting and other malpractices likewise seen in the previous elections. And If Somaliland National Electoral Commission (NEC) disregards in addressing the issue; the whole system will be in jeopardy.

Moreover, The other irregularities that cannot be seen at the polling stations is that when ballot boxes returned to the district election commission center; it is where rigging and altering ballot papers in favor of favored candidates started. When results announced no complaints are taken into account for the reason that the governments in Somaliland do not want the fabrications of the election results that have occurred during the elections to be revealed because they are of the view if any vote rigging were revealed it would affect both the election commission and the government.