January 27, 2017 | Morning Headlines
Opposition Presidential Candidates Call For Fair Play In February 8 Poll
26 January – Source : Goobjoog News – 210 Words
Opposition presidential candidates have called for fairness in the upcoming elections whilst demanding each candidate to be accorded security by the state. In a joint media conference in Mogadishu Thursday, the candidates among them former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed also urged the Presidential Election Committee to ensure the January 30 Presidential debate be aired in the private media alongside the national broadcaster.
Earlier the committee had suggested the debate be broadcasted in the national broadcaster; Somali National Television and Radio Mogadishu. Each candidate should also be given equal debate time and response while at the same time the proportion of attendants to the debate must be equally distributed to ensure each candidate gets equal representation, the candidates urged. During the election on February 8, each candidate must be allowed an equal number of agents, the candidates argued adding all efforts must be deployed to rid the process of any malpractices.
The UN and foreign embassies have on several occasions warned the candidates against any electoral malpractices warning the corruption and voter bribery witnessed during the Upper and Lower House elections must cease. In a letter to the candidates seen by Goobjoog News, the UN early this month warned any cases of corruption will jeopardize the incoming administration’s relationship with the international community. The candidates present during the conference besides Ahmed include former lawmaker Mustafa Duhulow, former envoy to Kenya Abdinasir Mohamed Ali Americo, female presidential candidate Anab Dahir and former PM Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo among others.
Key Headlines
- Opposition Presidential Candidates Call For Fair Play In February 8 Poll (Goobjoog News)
- Elders Set To Intervene In Galmudug Political Crises (Shabelle News)
- Banadir Administration Hosts Welcoming Event For Presidential Hopeful Farole (Garowe Online)
- Hormuud Telecom Donates $600000 To Support Famine Victims (Shabelle News)
- Nine Militants Killed In Foiled Attack In Somalia Town (Xinhua)
- If Trump Really Knew The Somalis Of Minnesota He Would Rethink His Cruel Ban On Refugees (Forward)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Elders Set To Intervene In Galmudug Political Crises
26 January – Source : Shabelle News – 157 Words
Elders hailing from Galmudug state have held a meeting in Mogadishu on Thursday to discuss the standoff between Galmudug parliament and president Abdikarim Hussein Guled. Mohamed Hassan Haad, a prominent Elder attended Thursday’s meeting in Mogadishu said they will travel to Adado city, and hold talks with the MPs and Gulled to discuss the standoff. “It is unacceptable and unfortunate the ongoing deadlock in Galmudug over the leadership. We, as elders will leave no stone unturned to seek solution for the crises in Adado,” he said.
He urged Galmudug state leaders to end their differences through peaceful dialogue and avoid any kind of violence that could annihilate the newly established fragile administration. The standoff emerged after several Galmudug lawmakers have lodged a controversial no confidence motion against the current elected president Abdikarim Hussein Guled. The president and parliament speaker have similarly dismissed the motion by the MPs, and termed it as “illegitimate”, and against the state’s constitution.
Banadir Administration Hosts Welcoming Event For Presidential Hopeful Farole
26 January – Source : Garowe Online – 235 Words
Banadir regional administration hosted a welcoming event for presidential candidate and Senator Abdirahman Mohamed Farole in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Wednesday. Officials from Banadir administration along with parliamentarians from both Lower and Upper Houses of Somalia’s Federal Parliament have attended the event yesterday. During the event, the Mayor of Mogadishu, Yusuf Husain Jimacle, has addressed the crowd and expressed contentment towards Farole’s presidential campaign and noted that Somalia is in critical time and in need of a leader who can tackle troubles facing the country.
On his side, Farole stated that during his past tenures as Puntland President he has supported efforts to restore unity and governance in the country, and will continue to promote stability and reconciliation between Somali people, and pledged that if he is elected a President, his government will be formed based on fairness, integrity and competence. “If we established both Houses of Parliament, implemented federalism and about to elect a leader, the new government should focus on reconciliation and implement the multi-party system to ensure transition from clan-based governance,” said Farole.
The event comes amid ongoing political campaign of several other candidates in the capital Mogadishu ahead of the presidential polling next month. Yesterday, the Federal Parliament has announced the new date for the presidential ballot on February 8, following series of delays since last year. New lawmakers will pick the new President in secret ballot in Mogadishu.
Hormuud Telecom Donates $600,000 To Support Famine Victims
26 January – Source : Shabelle News – 138 Words
Hormuud Telecom announced on thursday that it has donated hundreds of thousands of US dollar to the drought-affected families in the famine stricken regions in Somalia. The humanitarian assistance, which is worth $600,000 USD, will be channeled through its charity organization “Hormuud Foundation”, according to the telecommunication firm.
Hormuud, which is one of the largest telecommunication operators in Somalia is known for helping people during the droughts and other disasters in the conflict-riddled country. Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed Yusuf, chairman of Hormuud said their aid package will contribute to the efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of biting drought affecting millions in Somalia. Somalia is slipping back into famine, the United Nations said last week, as worsening drought left millions of people without food, water or health care in a country which is affected by decades of civil war.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Nine Militants Killed In Foiled Attack In Somalia Town
26 January – Source : Xinhua – 149 Words
The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) says nine Al-Shabaab militants were killed in a foiled attack on a police post on Wednesday evening. The AU mission said Thursday that Al-Shabaab militants had attempted to attack the police post in Afgoye, a town about 30 km south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, but were repulsed. Nine militants were killed in the fighting.
According to AMISOM, improvised explosive devices which had been planted by the militants were identified and removed. It said the joint forces were currently continuing with security operations to flush out the insurgents out of the restive town, which has seen fighting between the AU troops and the militants in the past week. The Wednesday evening incident came hours after twin car bomb blasts claimed by the Al-Shabaab extremist group struck a hotel near Somali Parliament in Mogadishu, killing at least 15 people and injuring 51 others.
OPINION, CULTURE & ANALYSIS
“I could not walk 50 feet through the campuses of the University of Minnesota or Augsburg College without passing young Somali women in hijab on their way to class. I could not take an Uber without winding up in conversation with a Somali driver who invariably had a degree from overseas in engineering or accounting or education.”
If Trump Really Knew The Somalis Of Minnesota, He Would Rethink His Cruel Ban On Refugees
26 January – Source : Forward – 867 Words
On the last Sunday before the presidential election, Donald Trump swooped into the Minneapolis airport for a typically inflammatory rally. At a transit hub with hundreds of Somali employees, in a city with about 25,000 Somali residents, the Republican candidate fed his audience fear, rage, and resentment. “Everybody’s reading about the disaster taking place in Minnesota,” he declared. Then he added ominously, “You don’t even know who is coming in. You have no idea. You’ll find out. You’ll find out.” I happened to be living in Minneapolis last fall while on a research sabbatical from Columbia University, and I ascribed Trump’s words to nothing more than his bullying, bigoted nature. Minnesota was a blue state, after all, and Hillary Clinton was safely ahead, and in a few days Trump, I assumed, would be defeated and discredited.
Like the rest of the chattering classes, I was completely wrong, and in Trump’s first full week as president, he made clear he meant every racist, nativist, and Islamophobic thing he said about immigrants and refugees during the campaign. Anyone who is expecting the gleefully compliant Republicans in Congress to moderate our homegrown fascist-in-chief is delusional. The Jewish experience gives us plenty of reasons to oppose Trump’s wall on the Southern border and his recently announced executive order, a de facto ban on Muslim immigrants and refugees. The American racists of an earlier era essentially barred Jewish and Catholic immigrants under the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 by disfavoring their nations of origin in the quota system. Trump is doing the same by quarantining Muslim-majority countries, including Somalia. And the specter of the United States shutting its golden door to refugees from Syria’s civil war, with its massive scale of atrocities, cannot help but remind us Jews of the United States’ failure to accept more than a token number of Jews fleeing Hitler.
For the moment, though, I will leave it to others to push those arguments. What’s on my mind is a more personal sense of anger and disgust, very much rooted in my recent five months of living among the Somalis. If you know of Minnesota’s Somali community only at a distance, only through the media filter, then you probably know only one thing about it: the scattered examples of radicalization.