January 26, 2015 | Morning Headlines.

Main Story

Turkish President opens refurbished Mogadishu airport

25 Jan – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 85 Words

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Mogadishu, opened a new terminal in Aden Ade International Airport and Digfer hospital which was named after Erdogan. President Erdogan was accompanied by some members of his family, businessmen and delegates.Turkish firm Favori has constructed and refurbished Mogadishu International airport into a modern airport.Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud thanked his Turkish counterpart for the historic visit and support. Erdogan is also set to tour several Turkish sponsored projects in the country.

Key Headlines

Turkish President opens refurbished Mogadishu airport (Radio Bar-Kulan)
Pistol wielding men murder a student in Mogadishu (Radio Goobjoog)
Somaliland administration seizes ship carrying military hardware at the Berbera port (Radio Dalsan)
Somali President meets with Saudi Arabia’s new King (Somali Current)
Puntland Democratization Minister resigns (Garowe Online)
QC projects benefit 680000 in Somalia (Peninsula Qatar)
Turkish president inaugurates hospital in Somalia (Anadolu Agency)
IGAD says terror attacks won’t deter efforts to stabilize Somalia (Xinhua News/Hiiraan Online)
Turkish president in Somalia to launch development projects (AP/Townhall)

SOMALI MEDIA

Turkish President opens refurbished Mogadishu airport

25 Jan – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 85 Words

Pistol wielding men murder a student in Mogadishu

25 Jan – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 100 Words

A local student named Mohamed Dek was killed last night in the Laba Dhagax neighborhood in Warta Nabadda district. At the time of the attack, the young man was sitting with other youths when a group approached, singled him out, and shot him in the head. There is no apparent motive for the attack. Those who knew the victim say he was about to finish his secondary studies.There has been no official statement from authorities in the area about the murder. Such targeted murders are a familiar occurrence in Mogadishu, and perpetrators often escape without a trace.

Somaliland administration seizes ship carrying military hardware at the Berbera port

25 Jan – Source: Radio Dalsan – 148 Words

Somaliland authorities have seized a ship carrying arms and military hardware, which docked in the port city of Berbera. Somaliland Interior Minister, Ali Waran Adde, said their authorities do not know who owns the ship and to whom the ship was carrying the weapons.”The ship docked in the port of Berbera was carrying weapons, artillery and armored vehicles, we do not know where it was going,” said Ali Waran Adde.

The Somaliland Minister of Fisheries told VOA that the ship was also carrying food to Somaliland, and the
military equipment was seen during the off-loading of the food. Reports indicate that the ship left from the United Arab Emirates, and was heading to Sudan, where the military equipment, would be delivered to an unknown recipient. Somaliland authorities said investigations are underway and detailed reported will be released in a short period of time.

Somali President meets with Saudi Arabia’s new King

24 Jan – Source: Somali Current – 119 Words

Somalia’s president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met with the new Saudi King Salman Ban Abdal-Aziz in Riyadh on Saturday. The president joined with Muslim leaders to attend the funeral of Saudi Arabia s King Abdullahi Bin Abdul Aziz on Friday. President Hassan expressed his condolences to the people of Saudi Arabia on the death of their king.The new Saudi King Salman Bin Abdil Aziz thanked Somalia president for his sympathy and supported latest Somali progress, marking the first bilateral meeting between the two heads of state.The late Saudi king was laid to rest in Riyadh on Friday afternoon — Arab and other Muslim heads of state attended the burial ceremony held in the Saudi capital.

Puntland Democratization Minister resigns

24 Jan – Source:Garowe Online -176 Words

Puntland’s Minister for Democratization, Federal Affairs and Constitution, Sahro Saed Nur, has resigned from her post for alleged meddling in clan affairs, Garowe Online reports. Presidency sources told Garowe Online that Nur lodged her resignation letter with President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali in advance of his trip to the port city of Bossaso.

Sources, who declined to be named in print, further noted that a group of youths from the clan that Nur belongs to discussed the crowning of new elder with President Ali. Presidential officials and Nur could not be reached for comments on the matter.The resignation is likely to pose a challenge to the state’s transition to a multiparty political system. On December 9, 2014, Puntland parliament unanimously passed 24-clause bill that would pave the way to the formation of credible Electoral Commission. As a result of two-day intense debate, lawmakers voted out the role of the Ministry of Constitution in the registration of political associations and supervision of the body’s day-to-day activities.

REGIONAL MEDIA

QC projects benefit 680,000 in Somalia

24 Jan – Source: Peninsula Qatar – 120 Words

Continuing its long-standing commitment to the people of Somalia, Qatar Charity (QC) has provided QR25.5m worth of life-saving relief, recovery and rehabilitation programmes and activities.Relief and other programmes have benefited more than 680,000 people in Somalia.

More than 40 water wells were drilled in the regions of Hiran, Lower Shabelle and Middle Shabelle where demand for water is highest among the native and displaced communities. Other project interventions included free food distributions, rehabilitation of health centres and schools, sponsorship of more than 7,000 orphans and Shariah-compliant income-generating projects for the needy. Income-generating projects included donation of 40 modern fishing boats to the federal government and 1,500 other programmes, many of which focused on animal husbandry.

Turkish president inaugurates hospital in Somalia

24 Jan – Source: Anadolu Agency – 251 Words

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended Sunday the official opening of a 200-bed Somalia-Turkey Training and Research Hospital in Mogadishu. The two countries signed a protocol stipulating that the hospital would be operated jointly, and that the Turkish Health Ministry would provide specialized personnel and financial support for the next five years, after which the hospital will be run by Somalia. The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) — Turkey’s international development body — undertook the project. The estimate amount of the hospital’s operating budget is around $135.7 million, of which Turkey will contribute $85.6 million during the five-year period.

Some 36 Somali assistants are expected take part in the hospital’s training program each year. Some 52 Turkish and 91 local staff will work as hospital administrators, head doctors, administrative directors or financial directors. Security will be provided by 40 Somalis and five Turkish citizens. The hospital will have children, maternity, urology, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, internal medicine, general surgery, anesthesia, eye and dental branches. The 13,500-square-meter indoor space boasts 12 intensive care beds, 14 newborn intensive care beds, 20 incubators, four operating rooms, a delivery room, as well as radiology and laboratory units. Erdogan also attended the inauguration ceremony of a new terminal at Mogadishu Airport, constructed by the private Turkish construction company, Kozuva. “I wish this building will bring good luck to Somalia, which has gone through hard times,” he said. “Somali people will never forget the aid of Turkish people,” said Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

IGAD says terror attacks won’t deter efforts to stabilize Somalia

25 Jan – Source: Xinhua News/Hiiraan Online – 362 Words

East Africa’s bloc on Friday condemned a suicide car bomb attack at a Mogadishu hotel on Thursday, saying such attacks will not prevent efforts aimed at stabilizing Somalia. In a statement received in Nairobi, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) also slammed Al-Shabaab for their cowardly act of terror at the SYL Hotel where the Turkish delegates were meeting ahead of a visit by their President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Somali capital.

“Even though five people including three members of the security forces lost their precious lives as a result of the criminal act, it will not be able to stop the Al-Shabaab’s downhill journey to the dustbin of history,” IGAD said in the statement.The regional bloc said the Somali government and its people were determined to rebuild their long suffering homeland, noting that the whole world is in solidarity with them. “Somalia has established a federal government, a functioning parliament, and security and defense forces. Its vibrant markets are back and schools and health facilities are offering their services proving that war, violence and terror that reigned over this beautiful land for more than two decades are indeed fading away,” IGAD said.A car loaded with explosives rammed into the gate of SYL hotel in Mogadishu on Thursday, killing five people. No Turkish nationals were among the fatalities.

.Turkish president in Somalia to launch development projects

25 Jan – Source: AP/Townhall – 127 Words

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, under tight security to launch Turkish-sponsored development projects including an airport terminal.Hundreds of soldiers were deployed across Mogadishu on Sunday. This is Erdogan’s second visit to Somalia and he is accompanied by his wife, daughter and ministers. Erdogan cut a ribbon to open a new Turkish-built terminal for the Mogadishu airport.

Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud lauded Turkey for investing in Somalia despite the insecurity caused by decades of turmoil, currently from an Islamist extremist insurgency by al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaida. Two days ago three people died when an al-Shabab suicide car bomber detonated explosives at a hotel where the Turkish president’s advance party was staying. No Turks were injured in that incident.

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

“On the one hand, Erdogan’s Somalia trip is part of an Africa tour intended to strengthen Turkey’s economic and diplomatic ties with a dozen of its closest African partners .On the other, it is aimed at re-energising the strategic partnership between Somalia and Turkey and to reaffirm the latter’s commitment to be in it for the long haul.”

Erdogan: The hero of Somalia

25 Jan – Source:Hiraan Online – 915 Words

There was never any doubt that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would receive a hero’s welcome in Somalia. On Thursday, he vowed to go ahead with the trip despite a bomb attack at a hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on the eve of his planned visit. Later his office announced he would delay it by a couple of days in order to attend the funeral of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz.Still, Erdogan’s resolve to visit the Horn of Africa nation so soon after the deadly attack has only heightened his popularity. He landed at Mogadishu airport on Sunday morning and was greeted warmly by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

But how does someone currently facing a barrage of allegations – on account of corruption, delusions of grandeur, dictatorial tendencies, and polarising rhetoric – by both Turkish and western media, earn such an enviable stature in Somalia? The fact is, Erdogan has done for Somalia what no other world leader has done in decades. In August 2011, when Erdogan was still prime minister, he ignored the prevalent narrative of Mogadishu as a no-go zone and flew in with his family, senior cabinet members, and representatives from non-governmental organisations and the business sector. His visit was the first by a non-African leader to the famine-hit Somali capital in two decades and came during the holy month of Ramadan to stress that Ankara was not going to abandon “their Muslim brothers and sisters”.

Defying pressure from the international community, Erdogan resisted Nairobi’s magnetic field of international corruption. From 1991 to 2011, the UN and its affiliated international institutions – mostly based in neighbouring Kenya – collected an estimated $55bn on behalf of Somalia. Dubiously, the nation in whose name this hefty sum was collected, has not gained any substantive infrastructure-related or any other sustainable project.Erdogan’s team had clear instructions: produce tangible, sustainable results with Turkish funds totalling some $500m.

“Decades of misrule and power wrangling has left us in the lurch such that we have become a laughing stock in the eyes of the world. Some writers have called for Somalia to be placed under a United Nations Trusteeship because of the incompetence of her leadership.”

How to perfect our nomadic way of life

24 Jan – Source: Wardheer News – 1,826 Words

Do you pick your nose in places frequented by the public? Do you floss your teeth with toothpick in public and then spit in piecemeal? Do you place the same toothpick closer to your nose in order to assess the devastation of the smell from tartar known to attract hungry house flies in waiting? Do you brush your teeth with ‘Cadey’ (Salvadora persica) in public places thinking that it is a hygienic practice that is acceptable anywhere and everywhere with everyone? Do you cough up phlegm in full view of a foreign person and then spit out with a deafening ‘tufoo’? Do you munch ‘Miraa’, ‘Nakhwa’ ‘Qaad’ or ‘jaad’ like the only cow you owned in your homeland-the only ‘xil iyo xoolo’ you owned in your lifetime and are your rotten teeth and greenish ‘daaqsin’ visible to eyewitnesses? When eating food, have you noticed how ‘suugada’ decorates your lips? Do you disgorge ‘dhuusada’ in public and in private transportation believing ‘waa iska caadi no’ such that passengers look at you with curious eyes and feel like getting you by the throat? Do you swear day and night thinking that it is ethical and part of human way of life? After eating with your hands, do you massage your palms, arms, and face with the sticky traces of ‘dufan’? Do you say ‘uf’ to others because you feel they emit bad smell?

Also, in the process of chewing ‘Qaad’ and after depression (also known as ‘qaadiro stage’), do the sheer looks of your eyeballs that resemble like that of ‘abeeso’ threaten young kids because of your menacing characteristics? Do you eat food with your mouth wide open exposing all the cavities housed therein? In the process of chewing ‘Qaad’, after your semen transform in to ‘caano barax ah’, do you grasp your genitals at the sight of a female assuming that you are signaling desirability? Do you use your clothes to wipe off mucus and sputum instead of handkerchiefs or napkins? Are you sensitive and hypervigilant? Do you urinate in public assuming you are safe from the eyes of onlookers? Do you chatter like apes and conduct business in the ‘monkey business’ styles? Do you sit comfortably in public transportations while the feeble and elderly hold on to the guardrails in standing positions? Do you avoid sitting on toilets for fear water may splash on to your buttocks and do you prefer the ‘kadaloobsi’ technique until you break the toilet to pieces? Do you beat wives and children senselessly in the course of ‘Qaadiro stage’ thinking that you are disciplining them?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, then you better watch your polluted and repulsive behaviors because you are psychologically a sick person belonging in the sanitarium. The old wise saying, ‘if you go to Rome, do as the Romans do’ is pretty much the same as our own Somali proverb that says ‘haddaad tagto meel il laga la’yahay, il baa laystiraa’. What I have posed above are crises that need crisis intervention.

“However, even if al-Shabaab was being driven back in conventional fighting across much of the country and also increasingly cut off from its financial assets, the group’s notorious and highly organized intelligence unit, Amniyat, managed to pull off several breathtaking attacks, showing that the movement still had teeth and ambition.”

Al-Shabaab: On the back foot but still dangerous

23 Jan – Source: Jamestown Foundation – 1, 783 Words

As the Islamic State and Boko Haram expanded rapidly throughout 2014, gaining territory and power in the Middle East and West Africa respectively, al-Qaeda’s Somali affiliate al-Shabaab was on the back foot, retreating from its strongholds as a result of two major offensives carried out jointly by the Somali National Army (SNA) and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops. Key to this was the integration of over 4,000 Ethiopian troops into AMISOM ranks in January 2014, bolstering the number of African Union troops, who were initially from Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti and Kenya, to 22,126 (Garowe Online, January 22, 2014). Within a month of the Ethiopian reinforcements arriving, SNA and AMISOM launched their largest major joint offensive, dubbed “Operation Eagle,” since they had pushed al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu, the capital, in August 2011 (BBC, January 22, 2014; Daily Nation[Kenya], December 1, 2014).

Al-Shabaab Knocked Back The joint offensives, whose ultimate goal was to oust al-Shabaab militants from their strongholds in urban areas and to bring more territory under the control of the Somali federal government, began in eight regions in south and central Somalia. In the initial weeks, Ethiopian and SNA troops were assigned to secure major towns in the three regions of Bay, Bakool and Gedo, leading to their capture of four significant towns: Rabdhure, Hudur and Wajid in Bakol and Burdhubo in Gedo (Sabahi Online, March 10, 2014). These towns, and in particular Hudur, which is about 260 miles southwest of Mogadishu and about 55 miles from the Ethiopia border, had previously changed hands between the militants and the Somali government and its allies frequently over the past six years. In addition, these towns had served at different times as training centers for both al-Shabaab and its predecessor al-Itihad al-Islamiya (AIAI, the Islamic Union) (Sabahi Online, March 23, 2012). AIAI had set up its first training camp, known as al-Huda, in Hudur in the 1990s (Waagacusub, October 1, 2013). Following the demise of AIAI, al-Shabaab, which was founded by members of AIAI’s youth wing, established further training camps for its fighters in the area of the Somalia-Ethiopia border. However, in the face of the 2014 offensives, the group chose not to defend these towns, with the exception of Burdhubo, the second largest town in Gedo which the group had controlled the past six years, and instead retreated as the joint Somali-AMISOM forces advanced (VOA Somali, March 9, 2014). As a result, by March 2014, al-Shabaab, which was once one of the most powerful al-Qaeda franchises in the world, had lost six main towns in Bay, Bakool and Gedo regions as well as the associated territory and resources (Hiiraan Online, March 9, 2014).