May 3, 2017 | Daily Monitoring Report
Two Soldiers Suspected To Be Linked To Al-Shabaab Detained In Villa Somalia
03 May – Source : Garowe Online – 170 Words
Security forces have arrested two soldiers on suspicion of links to al-Shabaab, inside Somalia’s Presidential Palace “Villa Somalia” in Mogadishu on Tuesday. Sources at the presidency said the compound was temporarily on lock-down, and the security has been tightened after two soldiers who are not members of the presidential guards were spotted. The two suspects were nabbed during a massive security operation by the forces and they have been taken to a secure prison inside the palace, where are they being questioned.
Several other people said to be members of presidential staff were also arrested over Al-Shabaab links, and being aware of the anonymous soldiers entering Villa Somalia, according to the sources. Tuesday’s operation came following an intelligence report by the National Security and Intelligence Agency (NISA) about a suspicious movement by the arrested soldiers within the Presidential compound. There was no official statement from the government security agencies about the development in the country’s Presidential Palace which is protected by both Somali forces and African Union troops (AMISOM).
Key Headlines
- Two Soldiers Suspected To Be Linked To Al-Shabaab Detained In Villa Somalia (Garowe Online)
- Veteran Lawmaker Ahmed Xaaf Wins Galmudug Presidential Seat (Goobjoog News)
- Somali President To Pay His 6th Visit To Ethiopia (Shabelle News)
- How The Real-time Tracking Of Market Prices In Somalia Helps Us Respond To Drought (The World Bank)
- Journalists In Somalia Appeal For Protection Against Violent Crimes (UNSOM)
- Picking Up The Cold War Pieces: Somalia Ethiopia Sudan (Euro Asia Review)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Veteran Lawmaker Ahmed Xaaf Wins Galmudug Presidential Seat
03 May – Source : Goobjoog News – 118 Words
Former Federal Parliament lawmaker and founder of Daallo airlines, Ahmed Duale Geyle popularly known as Xaaf has won the Galmudug presidential seat with a majority 54 votes out of the possible 89.Xaaf maintained a lead in the first and second round losing three votes in the second to emerge winner while his closest competitor Ahmed Sharif Hilowle getting 34 votes. One vote was spoiled.In the first round, Xaaf got 57 votes while Hilowle garnered 24 as Shirwa trailed with seven votes. Both Xaaaf and Hilowle headed for a second round which saw the latter gain ten more votes.Xaaf lost his parliamentary seat in the 2016 elections after serving in parliament for the last 16 years.
Somali President To Pay His 6th Visit To Ethiopia
03 May – Source : Shabelle News – 120 Words
Somalia’s new president, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, is expected to visit Ethiopia on Wednesday following an official invitation from his Ethiopian counterpart Mulatu Teshome Wirtu last week. During his two-day visit to Addis Ababa, President Farmajo will hold a much-anticipated meeting aimed at smoothing over decades of mistrust with President Mulatu Teshome and PM Hailemariam Desalegn.President Farmajo who has been in the Villa Somalia office for three months paid five foreign visits to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kenya, UAE and Turkey before going to Addis Ababa today, Wednesday, May 3. Ethiopia has large numbers of troops in Somalia, some of them serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) helping the UN-backed Federal government in a long-running fight against Alshabab.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
How The Real-time Tracking Of Market Prices In Somalia Helps Us Respond To Drought
03 May – Source : The World Bank – 470 Words
Over half of the 12 million people living in Somalia are acutely food insecure. This adds to the development challenge for Somalia after more than two decades of civil war and political instability. In particular, the urgent need for humanitarian assistance bears the risk of fostering aid dependency. To embark on a sustainable pathway toward development instead, intervention should rely on markets (whenever possible), and react dynamically to changes in market equilibria. Therefore, we started to monitor 14 Somali markets and publish the data in near real-time using something similar to what we use for South Sudan, the innovative survey and analysis methodologies.
The real-time dashboard tracks weekly market prices and currency exchange rates across the 14 urban locations. The dashboard presents a dynamic and rich set of up-to-date prices for a wide range of different types of products and services. The items include livestock, food (cereals, milk), non-food items (clothing, cosmetics), utilities (electricity), and services (such as motor vehicle repair), from both the tradable and non-tradable sectors. It can be filtered interactively or downloaded for analysis in standard programs like Excel. The dashboard provides useful insights into the dynamics of the severe drought that’s affected Somalia this year. In the “Town Prices” tab, prices aggregated to an index using CPI-like weights can be tracked back to early 2016.
These prices were surprisingly stable, despite the onset of the crisis, with no shortages of products in markets. Thus, urban markets are functioning and products available while most of the acute food insecurity is in rural areas. Hence, interventions should utilize the existence and functioning of those markets. The “Product Prices” tab adds an additional nuance: select the product “Cattle meat” and focus on the markets in Mogadishu by selecting (while pressing the Ctrl key) “Bakara,” “Hamarweyne,” “Madina,” “Siinay,” and “Suuq Bucaad.” The market prices for meat steadily declined in those markets from an average of around US$ 4.65 in March 2016, to just over US$3.00 in May 2017. Two factors contributed to the decline in prices: livestock is now in poor condition and, thus, attracts lower prices. More importantly though, pastoralists offer their livestock for sale at lower prices as they need cash for basic goods.
Journalists In Somalia Appeal For Protection Against Violent Crimes
02 May – Source : UNSOM – 480 Words
The umbrella organization for Somali journalists today urged the government to protect its members from violent crimes to enable them to work without fear or favour. Speaking at a workshop held in Mogadishu today, Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, the Secretary General of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), described the dangerous conditions under which members of the news media must work. “Thirty-four journalists have been killed in Somalia since 2012 while exercising their freedom of expression. Three journalists were assassinated last year; over 80 journalists have also been jailed in various regions of the country. You can imagine the challenges that exist, and Somalia is one of the hostile environments for journalists,” he said.
The Committee to Protect Journalists ranks Somalia as one of the deadliest countries to work in, alongside Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Libya. The workshop was attended by more than 30 journalists and sponsored by the United States Mission in Somalia. It kicked off a series of activities that will commemorate World Press Freedom Day, which is observed annually on 3 May. Somali Federal Member of Parliament (MP) and Chairperson of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Media Affairs, Khalid Maow Abdulkadir, stressed the importance of upholding freedom of expression, which he described as the basis for all forms of liberty.
“Freedom of expression is the basic principle of all freedoms that exist in life. If there is no freedom of expression, the person cannot express himself. Freedom of expression, on the other hand, is not an open field, there are limitations,” Mr. Abdulkadir told participants. The MP’s observations were echoed by the former Chairman of the Federal Indirect Electoral Implementation Team (FIEIT), Omar Mohamed Abdulle, who stated that freedom of expression is a prerequisite for democracy and good governance. “Freedom of expression will ensure that the people managing the country are competent and honest and also possess the experience to do the job,” Mr. Abdulle observed.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Somalia, a country of 12.3m, has one of the most illustrious histories among Muslim states, prosperous for thousands of years as a trading nation perched on the strategic Horn of Africa, an early convert to Islam. As with all of Africa, it went into sharp decline in the late 19th century, after the Berlin conference of 1884,”
Picking Up The Cold War Pieces: Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan
03 May – Source : Euro Asia Review – 1405 Words
In 2016, Somalia was declared the most fragile state in the world – worse off than Syria. Drought struck yet again in 2017, compounded by President Trump’s attempt to ban Somalis from entering the US. But for the first time since the 1991, when Somalia collapsed along with its one-time ally the Soviet Union, Somalia now has functioning political institutions.Dual US-Somali citizen Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo became president in February 2017, approved by the US, refugees are returning from the US, Canada and Europe, and remittances from them buttress the economy. Just to make sure Farmajo knows who’s really in charge, Trump ordered an airstrike on suspected militant bases in April 2017, near the Bab el-Mandeb strait chokepoint separating Yemen from Eritrea, boasting it killed 150 Shabab fighters.
The 1980s were a monstrous decade. We are still living out the disasters that the Cold War and the US war to prevent ‘the advance of socialism’, which had been on the books since the end of WWII, and was reaching its logical conclusion by then. After two world wars, everyone expected peace, and the vast majority — socialism. No such luck. Hundreds of coups in the 1950–60s orchestrated by the CIA kept most countries toeing the imperial line. But after Vietnam, for a few shining moments in the 1970s, there was a shift by a slightly sobered America.The world breathed a sigh of relief. Somalia was prospering, free of British shackles, not yet embraced by the US. Ethiopia had a Nasser-like military coup in 1974 promising socialism next door. Sudan was at peace and pursuing a Nasserist policy under Colonel Gaafar Nimeiri. But the region was beginning its ‘time of troubles’, soon experiencing the fallout of its century of imperialism with a vengeance.
TOP TWEETS
@HarunMaruf: Officials in Jubbaland admin say 11 Al-Shabab militants defected to the govt side since April 20 following new amnesty offer by pres Farmajo
@Abdi_AlSheikh: Shabaab recruits from Lamu killed in Somalia – The Star, Kenya http://dlvr.it/P33PjQ #Somalia
@omabha: Africa Live: South Korean warship sails to Somalia, Malian soldiers killed in ambush – BBC News http://dlvr.it/P33blv #Somalia
@HassanIstiila: #UPDATE Former federal MP Ahmed Duale Geyle Haaf elected as Somalia’s Galmudug president after he got 54 votes out of 89. #Somalia
@AbdurahmanShar :Somali Civil Society Leaders received awards all over the world. Time to reward & champion them in #Somalia #NabadIyoNolol#
@ADirshe:#Somalia – Let’s prepare for next year’s drought by investing in water management systems and in social protection programs.#SmartChoices
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo leds other senior government officials in donating new tents to Internally Displaced Person in Sayidka camp in Mogadishu.
Photo: Radio Muqdisho