March 7, 2012 | Morning Headlines.

Main Story

Al Shabaab claims responsibility for death of journalist assassinated in Galka’yo

06 Mar – Source: Raxanreeb, Radio Andulus – 213 words

Al Shabaab has for the first time announced that some of its members were behind the assassination of late journalist Ali Ahmed Abdi who was killed in Galka’yo town, central Somalia on Sunday night. The radio aired a three minute voice by al Shabaab militant claiming that senior security officer was murdered in Galka’yo on Sunday, the same night the journalist was killed.

Key Headlines

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia visits Burao town in Somaliland (Radio Bar-Kulan)
President Sharif consoles the family of fallen legislator Noor Matan (Radio Bar-Kulan)
Al Shabaab militants arrest 10 women in southern Somalia town (Shabelle)
Somalia applies to join EAC bloc (Capital News)
Somali pirates want prisoner swap for ship (Reuters)

SOMALI MEDIA

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia visits Burao town in Somaliland

06 Mar – Source: Radio Bar-kulan, Hadhwanaag Times – 116 words

UN’s Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, on Tuesday visited northern Somalia town of Burao to open a new UNDP office in the area. Bowden who is leading a group of UN officials is also expected to officially open the first UNDP Offices in Burao later in the day and oversee other UN developmental projects in the district.

TFG officials visit Garbaharey town, Gedo region

06 Mar – Source: Radio Bar-kulan, Radio Mogadishu, Shabelle – 82 words

A TFG delegation from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Tuesday visited Garbaharey town, Gedo region, to assess government institutions in the district. The delegation headed by Somalia’s Defence Minister, Hussein Arab Issa will also assess security situation and government’s anti-al Shabaab drive in the region.

Al Shabaab claims responsibility for death of journalist assassinated in Galka’yo

06 Mar – Source: Raxanreeb, Radio Andulus – 213 words

President Sharif consoles the family of fallen legislator, Noor Matan

06 Mar – Source: Radio Bar-kulan – 97 words

Somalia’s President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on Tuesday sent his condolences to the family and friends of the fallen MP, Noor Matan, who died in his hospital bed in Kenya. The president said Matan was a national leader who played a great role in liberating some parts of the country from Al-Qaeda network. He said the country lost a devoted citizen, saying that Matan was a pillar in the country’s struggle against extremist elements trying to create havoc in the country. The legislator, Noor Matan, died in a hospital in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi last night, where he was undergoing cardiac treatment.

Al Shabaab militants arrest 10 women in southern Somalia town

06 Mar – Source: Shabelle – 141 words

Al Shabaab fighters in militant-held Afgoye town, Lower Shabelle region of Somalia have on Tuesday arrested at least 10 innocent local women after accusing them of unknown charges, witnesses said. “Militants who covered their heads to hide their identities deployed in the town and arrested 10 women arbitrarily, these women have been commencing sending dried lemons from Somalia to the Gulf of Arab nations and they were arrested on their way to Awdhegle town in Afgoye,” a resident told Shabelle Media on condition of anonymity.

REGIONAL MEDIA

Somalia applies to join EAC bloc

06 Mar – Source: Capital News – 211 words

The Republic of Somalia has placed an official request to be admitted to the East African Community. The request was made on Tuesday in a letter to President Mwai Kibaki, who is the current chairman of the EAC. The letter was delivered to Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula by Ambassador Abdi Hakim Ali Yasin, the special envoy of Somalia’s TFG President Sheikh Shariff. Receiving the letter, Wetangula assured the people of Somalia that the request would be considered by the necessary EAC organs and forwarded to the EAC Summit during its next meeting.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Somalia: First International Flight in 2 Decades Lands in Capital

06 Mar – Source: New York Times /Reuters – 94 words

Turkish Airlines says it has started twice-weekly flights to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, which because of civil war and insurgency has not had passenger service from an international carrier in more than 20 years. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag of Turkey announced the development on Tuesday after arriving in Mogadishu on a flight from Istanbul Ataturk Airport. Somalis can now travel the world again, he said.

Somali pirates want prisoner swap for ship

06 Mar – Source: Reuters – 243 words

Somali pirates holding a Panama-flagged vessel hijacked last month with goods destined for Somaliland have called for fellow pirates in jails in the breakaway enclave to be freed in return for the ship’s release. Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has enjoyed relative stability compared to the rest of Somalia but remains unrecognised internationally.

7/7 bomber’s widow linked to al-Qaeda is sought in Somalia

07 Mar – Source: Scotsman News – 220 words

Kenyan police say that pregnant British woman Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of 7 July, 2005 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, has fled the country for Somalia, where she is believed to have connections to an al-Qaeda-linked militia. A senior police official said Lewthwaite, 28, and originally from Aylesbury, is part of a group of British citizens and other foreign nationals who arrived in Kenya last year to plan a bomb attack on the Kenyan coast over Christmas and New Year. Lewthwaite was in charge of finances for the planned attack, he said.

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

Ambassador Mahiga: Shoud he resign or be declared as Persona Non Grata? ‏

06 Mar – Source: Heegan TV – 468 Words

After insulting the President of Somalia, members of the parliament, the former Prime Minister Daljir political Party, and the entire Somali people in his interview with the Somalia Report last week – Ambassador Augustine Mahiga must resign from the position of United Nations Special Representative and head of the UN political Officer for Somalia, which he was appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on June 2010.

This is the first time that he openly insulted the people of Somalia, but he has been doing this sorts of meddling since the day one and previously over stepped his mandate so many times. It is widely known that he is weak to lead the political mandate of the UN at this moment in Somalia it is also known that he don’t want peace in Somalia, because he come from a country that have a bad diplomatic relations with Somalia historically. Mahiga misled the International Community in the matter of Somalia and he is the one who created the whole mess and in fact his strategic intention is different from peace and security, because he is benefiting the ongoing Somali dilemma.

Everyone can now see how he and the heads of other UN agencies (the Mafia Network) in Nairobi have divided the Somali people by creating more than 10 Somali autonomous states in a short time. But Far worsen than that – is the Federal System on Somalia that he proposed and the so-called Constitutional Draft, which will for sure lead to the country into new clan based conflicts and catastrophic consequences, in terms of demarcations and the resources. The Mafia Network have always been trying to split Somalia into five building blocks to create feuds fighting among themselves.

As reported, he also tried to fend off and to shut down the new window of opportunity for the Somalia peace and stability that Turkey opened and the London conference, which was a cohesively coordinated International effort on solving Somali problems, but the leaked information from his office in Nairobi said that he failed to stop this efforts. Next week a fifteen pages report on the corruptions and bribery which he is involved will be released by independent monitoring group, more important his relationship with the Pirates and Puntland president who gave him 2.5 million dollars two weeks ago and the assassinations of the Somali journalists and intellectuals.

It is the time for him to step down from this position and to to shut up and to stay away from our internal affairs, before his resignation, or do you thin he wants to plunge the country into another political crises? But actually substantially, the best is that Somali government to declare and considers that Ambassador Mahiga is “Persona Non Grata” to pay the price for his drunk behavior and by speaking undiplomatic language.

“With Ali’s passing, Somali journalism community lost a young brilliant correspondent, and the young generation lost an icon and mentor. Ali set the gold standard in every way: personal and professional. His reporting and writing were thorough, fascinating, and honest — he was brave, promoting peace and advising the youth in Puntland not to join the pirates and terrorist groups. As a person in his age, Young Ali was clever, sympathetic, and generous with his time and Knowledge.”

Remembering slain journalist Ali Ahmed in Somalia

06 Mar – Source: Bosaso Press – 1024 Words

Journalism is an especially dangerous profession when it takes the reporter into zones of war and conflict, and Somalia is more, more, more, hazardous. The Committee to Protect Journalists records that in Somalia since 2007 30 journalists were killed while carrying out their duties. Many of them harassed and forced to flee the country. Some of these were reporting conflict others were on assignments covering crime and corruption, telling truth to power can easily get you killed, beaten or banged up. Journalists get criticised a lot by we scholars, and often for good reason. They can be bad characters, for sure, but they can also be heroes, when they lay down their lives in the pursuit of the truth.

Five years after he start working radio Galkayo in hopes of making a difference in his hometown, prominent, intelligent and a young brave journalist Ali Ahmed Abdi was assassinated in Galkayo, in the semi-autonomous Galmudug region of Somalia Sunday 4th of march, in what colleagues said was an attempt to silence the regions’ independent media.

“This view seems operationalized through the New Deal of Engagement with Fragile States adopted by the Conference. In a blatant contradiction to the statement that “decisions on Somalia’s future rest with the Somali people,” which is true, the London Conference on Somalia decided for Somalia and stripped Somalia of its indivisibility, sovereignty and polity.”

Somalia’s indivisibility, sovereignty and polity

06 Mar – Source: International Policy – 748 Words

The Communiqué coming out of the February 23 Conference on Somalia falls far short of all expectations. The promised new approach by the international community to tackle the root causes of insecurity and lack of a functional government responsible for Somalia’s inexorable decline over the past 20 years did not materialize. Further, nothing in the Communiqué responds to possible solutions for the dreadful situation in Somalia, a country suffering from years of war and natural disasters. The reasons are a matter of conjecture.

The Communiqué listed operational tasks before a national polity capable of pursuing the interests of the Somali people. Prof. Stephen D. Krasner, in his paper, “Troubled Societies, Outlaw States and Gradations of Sovereignty”, argues that alternative institutional arrangements, such as trusteeship and shared sovereignty must be legitimized if international threats are to be reduced and the prospects for individuals in troubled societies improved.