July 21, 2016 | Morning Headlines
Government Appoints Committee To Address The Disputed Status Of The Somali Capital
20 July – Source: Goobjooge – 128 Words
Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke has appointed a technical committee to determine the fate of the Somali capital’s disputed electoral status, with regard to its political representation in the Federal system.
The 19 committee members, pooled from the existing federal states and Banadir region representatives, are delegated to find a lasting solution to the stalemate surrounding Banadir region representation in the Upper House of the Federal Parliament.
According to the official appointment directive from the Prime Minister’s office, Sharmarke emphasized the importance of the committee in fostering the country’s transition to social justice in the form of equitable political representation. The creation of this committee was agreed upon during the last National Leaders Forum (NLF) consultative talks in Baidoa, with a view to resolving one of the key obstacles surrounding the 2016 electoral process.
Key Headlines
- Government Appoints Committee To Address The Disputed Status Of The Somali Capital (Goobjooge)
- Rally Held In Somali Town To Denounce Somaliland Raid (Shabelle News)
- Somali Embassy In Kenya Promotes Enhanced Access To Financial Services In Somalia (Hiiraan Online)
- Puntland State Parliament Suspends Judiciary Board (Shabelle News)
- Soma Oil Executive Cleared Of “Extremist Links” By UN Investigation (BuzzFeed)
- Stop Calling People Imperialist Islamophobes For Mourning Terrorist Attacks On Their Doorstep More Than Elsewhere (The Independent)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Rally Held In Somali Town To Denounce Somaliland Raid
20 July – Source: Shabelle News – 82 Words
Hundreds of people took to the streets in Somalia’s northern town of Dahar on Wednesday to protest against the military incursion of Somaliland administration forces in Sanaag region.
The demonstrators carried banners with slogans criticizing Somaliland for invading Sanaag, a disputed volatile region in northern Somalia. A protester, who spoke to Radio Shabelle, said several Puntland ministers attended the protest rally to encourage the city’s inhabitants to demonstrate their anger against Somaliland’s invasion. By the time of going to the press, Somaliland administration officials had not commented on the situation.
Somali Embassy In Kenya Promotes Enhanced Access To Financial Services In Somalia
20 July – Source: Hiiraan Online – 275 Words
The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Somalia in Kenya hosted a one day symposium to discuss how to enhance access to financial services in Somalia. The symposium gathered representatives of the Federal Government of Somalia, the Government of Kenya, multilateral development institutions, the Somali private sector and stakeholders involved in the financial sector in Kenya. The symposium – the first of its kind – accorded the Federal Government of Somalia the chance to showcase available opportunities in the country’s financial services sector.
It also hosted a public private dialogue on emerging issues faced by existing and interested operators in that sector. During the symposium, participants notably discussed how to create the enabling legal and regulatory environment, and how to improve interbank operations. Participants also discussed how to set up efficient mechanisms to facilitate an inclusive public private dialogue in this crucial sector.
Gamal Hassan, the Somali Ambassador to Kenya, said during the event that “the financial sector is vital to our country’s economic recovery and expansion. It can only be positive to provide such a forum for the private sector and the Federal Government to come together and discuss how best to structure this sector so it can attract more investment and develop jobs.He added that “ultimately, a forum such as the symposium will benefit our country and our people in the long run.” The symposium was supported by the World Bank Group through its Somalia Investment Climate Reform Program.
Puntland State Parliament Suspends Judiciary Board
20 July – Source: Shabelle News – 83 Words
The Parliament of Somalia’s northeastern semi-autonomous state of Puntland on Wednesday dissolved the committee members of the region’s judiciary system.
The Parliament’s decision came days after Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas extended the mandate-term of judiciary committee by five more months. The office of Puntland President did not comment on the Parliament’s decision. The northeastern administration is hit by political and insecurity crises, including Al Shabaab attacks and fighting between Puntland state forces and former Bari region governor’s militiamen.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Soma Oil Executive Cleared Of “Extremist Links” By UN Investigation
20 July – Source: BuzzFeed – 377 Words
A United Nations panel has cleared an executive at an oil exploration company chaired by former home secretary Michael Howard of having any connections with extremist groups in Somalia.
Hassan Khaire, the company’s Africa director, was the subject of inquiries from the UN monitoring group to the UK and Norwegian governments after the panel began checking for “possible links” between Khaire and Al-Shabaab – as BuzzFeed News revealed in March.
The inquiries into Khaire were part of a wider investigation – believed to be ongoing – into Soma’s activities in Somalia that was set up by the UN Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG), which reports into the Security Council. BuzzFeed News has seen a dispatch from the panel’s coordinator to Security Council officials last month saying Khaire was no longer under investigation.
“The SEMG has investigated links between Mr Hassan Khaire and extremist groups,”it states. “I wish to confirm that the SEMG has not found credible evidence of such links and that, in the absence of any new information received by the SEMG clearly demonstrating such links, we now consider this line of inquiry to have reached a conclusion.”
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a spokesman for Soma said: “We are unsurprised that the investigation by the SEMG failed to find any evidence of links between Mr Khaire and East African extremist groups.
“The allegations were patently ridiculous and were no doubt contrived to cause damage to Mr Khaire and, by extension, to Soma. What is surprising is that the SEMG decided to conduct an investigation in the first place; and that the fact of the investigation was leaked to the press. A spokesperson for the UN declined to comment on the ongoing work of the panel.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Nobody should feel conflicted about putting a French or German flag on their social media page this week. Because we are all united across the world in defence of every life taken by terrorism, wherever they strike. This is a show of global humanity, compassion and strength. Let us all unite against terror in every possible way.”
Stop Calling People Imperialist Islamophobes For Mourning Terrorist Attacks On Their Doorstep More Than Elsewhere
20 July – Source: The Independent – 582 Words
The terrorist atrocity in Nice has already generated the now regular tweets along the lines: you care about France, but where were you for Syria or Bangladesh?, or: Why are you silent on Somalia, Kashmir and Gaza? Those putting a French flag on their Facebook page or Twitter are characterised as imperialist apologists or Uncle Toms who wouldn’t even know the colours of the Iraqi flag.
The inference is that westerners grieve the loss of life on their doorstep, whether it’s Brussels or Paris or Nice, but are indifferent to the carnage wrought in Dhaka or Baghdad. Worse, they are engaging in an Islamophobic narrative that ignores the foreign policy of countries like France and the UK.
Those tweeting these kinds of sentiments tend to be a mixture of Islamist sympathisers and liberal-minded folk. But they are deliberately or unintentionally missing the key point – all the victims of these various attacks from Dhaka to Nice have been killed by people following the same basic ideology. Whether it’s a child mown down by a truck in Nice or a shopper blown up in Baghdad, their killers subscribed to a very similar world outlook.
The terrorist ideology and tactical implementation has gone global. The response from those who oppose terrorist outrages must be similarly globalised through social media, mainstream TV and press and community intervention. Showing support for the victims of the Nice attack is not synonymous with supporting French foreign policy. It is synonymous with supporting the victims of the Ramadan attacks in Baghdad, Medina and Dhaka.