July 4, 2017 | Daily Monitoring Report
President Of South West Administration Speaks About Mukhtaar Roobow
03 July – Source: Garowe Online – 165 words
The President of Southwest administration, Shariff Hassan, said he was very pleased by the decision of the US government to remove the former Al-Shabaab member Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur from its wanted list. He said “to be honest I agree with the decision because Mukhtar Robow is a well known in the region and we will welcome him back if he changes his mind,”
He called upon the Federal Government of Somalia to consider the decision of Muktar Robow to return back and be part of the solution for peace and stability in the Southwest region. While responding to question about the government’s plan to provide assistance to the former Al-Shabaab leader, the Southwest President said security forces must provide some form of protection. He said Al-Shabaab will not attack Robow as long as he is protected by government forces.
Key Headlines
- President Of South West Administration Speaks About Mukhtaar Roobow (Garowe Online)
- Resumption Of Somali Currency Circulation Expected In Guri’el Town (Goobjoog News)
- President Of South West Administration Speaks About Mukhtaar Roobow (Garowe Online)
- Khatumo Calls For Power Sharing Deal With Somaliland (Goobjoog News)
- Daily Mirror Pair Recognised For Reports On ‘Forgotten’ Somalia Famine
- Somali Pirates Are Back. Only A Strong State Can Put An End To Their Activities (The Conversation)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Resumption Of Somali Currency Circulation Expected In Guri’el Town
04 July – Source: Goobjoog News – 141 Words
The usage of the Somali shillings is expected to be back in circulation in the local market in Guri’eel town after it was suspended following alleged entry of fake currency in the market. The re-entry of the Somali shilling in the local market will be under the supervision of the moderate Islamic movement known as Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’ah (ASWJ). Earlier the local business community refused the circulation of the Somali shillings. Yesterday the local administration arrested several business people in Dhusa Mareeb town in Galgadud region in connection with the refusal of the traders to accept Somali shillings as the legal tender for business dealings. In the same breath, local labours and workers in the town demonstrated yesterday demanding overhaul change to the current currency for them to continue with their normal lives.
Khatumo Calls For Power Sharing Deal With Somaliland
03 July – Source: Goobjoog – 145 words
The Khatumo administration which recently agreed a peace deal with Somaliland now says they will only unite with latter only if a power sharing arrangement is put in place. The Speaker of Parliament Mahamud Shiekh Omar said in an interview to reporters that if power is equally distributed amongst the communities living in Somaliland then his government will join that administration. He continued stating that they have initiated the current dialogue with Somaliland after failing to meet their demands with other regions in Somalia.
He stated “we will join Somaliland only if power is shared equally with all communities, since we have been struggling for some time. The federal government didn’t recognize us, the people of Khatumo were denied of their rights and haven’t received any humanitarian support. Therefore, our aim is to look after the interest of our people and we will not just join Somaliland just yet without any changes.”
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Daily Mirror Pair Recognised For Reports On ‘Forgotten’ Somalia Famine
03 July – Source: Press Gazette – 560 Words
Daily Mirror special correspondent Tom Parry has spoken of the personal and professional challenges of reporting from famine-stricken Somalia.The two front-page articles produced by Parry and photographer Andy Stenning have won the International Press category in the annual Premio Luchetta awards in Trieste, Italy. When asked how he balanced his emotions with the need to carry out his job as a reporter Parry said: “I think it’s important when you do a job like this not to become completely hardened and emotionally detached, which it would be quite easy to do.
“Nevertheless you have to think professionally, you have to think about what your editor would be looking for in terms of pictures and interviews and you have to balance the two I guess.“So when we were in the clinics, it’s really horrible to see children in such pain, and right in front of you some of them look like they’re about to die frankly.“So I think of it as partly I’m there just to observe it so that others who are less likely to travel to Somalia can imagine what it might be like.”
Parry felt it important not just to give readers statistics and said: “You’ve got to accurately reflect what’s going on there and try and take it back to the UK and present it in a way that people can relate to.” Parry and photographer Stenning travelled around Somalia with armed escorts and representatives of the charity Save the Children. The East African nation is ranked 167 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“For more than 25 years Somalis have had bigger problems than a few hundred men hijacking foreign ships. Even before the state collapsed in 1991 they had endured widespread corruption, violence and persistent drought and famine. While the absence of state institutions, including active security forces and a coastguard, contributed to the rise of piracy, it doesn’t explain why it only started to accelerate in 2008.”
Somali Pirates Are Back. Only A Strong State Can Put An End To Their Activities
03 July – Source : The Conversation – 1020 Words
The Gulf of Aden has been vulnerable to piracy since 2008 when pirates escalated hijack and ransom attempts on merchant ships. Ransom demands skyrocketed to millions of dollars. But after a robust response from the international community the piracy menace was brought under control. The world heard little about piracy for years but media outlets are this year reporting that the Somali pirates are back. In May and June they hijacked fishing vessels that were sailing off the north-eastern coastal region of Somalia called Puntland. Historically, stopping pirates has always been difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the pirates of the 21st century have proved no exception. Despite an anti-piracy onslaught led by the US and the EU that included naval patrols and criminal prosecution, the international community has been unable to deter young Somali men from taking ships at sea. By 2011 shipowners began to employ privately contracted armed guards at considerable personal expense. The threat of armed resistance reduced the incidence of successful hijacks but didn’t eliminate them.
Piracy continued to thrive because the Somali state had failed to exert control over its citizens. Every effort is made to suppress insurgency was only temporarily effective. The history of piracy demonstrates that it can be managed – but only by a strong state. The pirates that unleashed terror across the English Channel in the 16th century disappeared after a strong push back from the government. And the pirates who disrupted trade off the coast of 19th century Morocco gradually stopped operations as the Sultan exerted greater control over remote regions. But these victories were decades in the making.
Root causes; For more than 25 years Somalis have had bigger problems than a few hundred men hijacking foreign ships. Even before the state collapsed in 1991 they had endured widespread corruption, violence and persistent drought and famine. While the absence of state institutions, including active security forces and a coastguard, contributed to the rise of piracy, it doesn’t explain why it only started to accelerate in 2008. For decades the international community has insisted that Somalia must be rebuilt into a centralised state to be functional. But the country is actually a configuration of multiple, clan-aligned regions with varying levels of control and authority.
This is not to say that Somali clans have not united before. With the backing of considerable resources from the Soviet Union, the military regime of Siad Barre in the 1970s managed to bring the country together under the common goal of unity for communities that had been divided by European colonialism.
TOP TWEETS
@EUNAVFOR: .@EUNAVFOR proud to have protected over 1.5 million tonnes of food & other humanitarian aid for people of#Somalia @WFPSomalia @MeGovernment
@UNmigration: .@IOM_Somalia response teams continue to provide clean #water to communities that depend on livestock:http://bit.ly/2rFFGGH
@wakiilorg: The second regular session of the Upper House of the Federal Parliament will start on Thursday, July 6, 2017#Somalia
@SomaliPM: I and president @akin_adesina agreed on rolling out AfDB’s Enable Youth Initiative that will invest in Somali innovative young entrepreneurs
@HarunMaruf: How al-Shabab and other al-Qaeda groups survived drones, uprisings and ISIS (featuring @azelin,@IbnSiqilli, others) http://www.
@Abukar_Arman: [My latest article] BLACKENED WATERS OF SOMALIAhttp://www.
IMAGE OF THE DAY
PM, Hassan Ali Kheyre meets the President of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina on the sidelines of the AU Summit.
Photo: @Hassan.A.Khaire