May 7, 2012 | Morning Headlines.
Crucial constitutional meeting kicks off in Mogadishu
06 May- Source: xinhua- 450 words
A major conference for Somalia top traditional elders and aimed at selecting an assembly that will adopt the newly drafted constitution and a new parliament continued for the second day running.
The gathering brings together 135 key traditional elders who will decide the 825-members constitution assembly expected to debate the new constitution and adopt it in two weeks time, Somali government said.
Somalia’s top leaders, including president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, and Speaker of parliament Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adam attended Saturday’s opening ceremony.
Key Headlines
- Iran names new envoy to Somalia (Source: Radio Mogadishu)
- PM Gaas requests the release of security arrested for Mogadishu bombing (Source: Garowe Online)
- Uganda deploys additional 1700 troops in Somalia (Source: Radio Kulmiye)
- National Constituent Assembly meeting in Mogadishu (Source: Radio Shabelle)
- Explosion in central Somali town injures three (Source: Radio Shabelle)
- Church grenade attacker ‘a known terrorist’ (Source: Capital News)
PRESS STATEMENT
Statement Attributable to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia
04 May- Source: UNPOS- 307 words
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Somalia, Dr. Augustine Mahiga, sends his congratulations to the Somali people and to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) on the inaugural convening of Traditional Elders in Mogadishu on 5 May 2012.
The Elders, representing the full spectrum of the Somalia society, will nominate and select the National Constituent Assembly and a new Parliament, paving the way for the end of the transitional period on 20 August 2012.
“This is a moment of optimism for all Somalis”, Ambassador Mahiga stated, emphasizing the paramount importance of ensuring that “the processing of convening the Traditional Elders now in Mogadishu is accountable, legitimate, transparent, participatory, inclusive and, most importantly, Somali-led.”
“At the same time”, the SRSG continued, “the authenticity and credibility of those chosen will have a profound effect on the constitution-making process and the selection of the new legislative body. I call on all parties to ensure that this is done in a timely, consultative and efficient manner. This is an essential first step on a long path ahead, and it is critical that we get it right.” The SRSG stated.
“I encourage the elders to use this time before the convening of the Constituent Assembly to continue consulting among themselves to ensure general representation of their people.
I urge them to give us the best representatives to both the Constituent Assembly and the Parliament. We from the United Nations and the international community will give our full support to this process for the successful ending of the transition and eventual lasting peace and stability to Somalia”, SRSG Mahiga went on to say.
The SRSG takes this opportunity to pay tribute to the great effort the TFG have put into the process organizing this important meeting, especially the mobilizing and transporting of the Elders from their localities countrywide to converge in Mogadishu.
SOMALI MEDIA
Iran names new envoy to Somalia
05 May- Source: Radio Mogadishu, SONNA, Radio Bar-kulan- 137 words
The Islamic Republic of Iran has on Friday named Makel Hussein Givzad as its newest envoy to Somalia in a colourful event that took place in Villa Somalia. Ambassador Makel presented his credentials to the leader of the TFG Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and assured him of his country’s continued assistance towards Somalia.
PM Gaas requests the release of security arrested for Mogadishu bombing
05 Apr – Source: Garowe Online – 188 words
Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas has requested that some of his security team who are in custody for the Mogadishu Theater blast to be released after authorities failed to press charges.
PM Gaas survived an assassination attempt in the form of a suicide blast by the al Shabaab, last April. Following the blast that killed 4 government officials and injured many more, some members of the PM’s security team were arrested.
Uganda deploys additional 1,700 troops in Somalia
05 May- Source: Radio Kulmiye, Radio Shabelle- 108 words
Uganda has deployed an additional 1,700 troops in volatile Somalia, bringing the total number of Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia to 8,000. Colonel Felix Kulayigye, the spokesman of the Ugandan military, told the media that the troops will be stationed in Mogadishu as their colleagues advance deep into hostile territory.
UK minister for Africa offers condolences after the death of a journalist in Somalia
05 May – Source: Bar-kulan – 143 words
British minister for Africa Henry Bellingham has spoken of the ongoing struggle for press freedom around the world after Somali journalist Farhan Abudlle was killed. He said “this shocking murder tragically underlines the ongoing struggle throughout the world for press freedom” and offered his condolences to Farhan James Abdulle’s family and friends.
Today we have terminated three colonies- TFG minister says
05 May – Source Raxanreeb – 182 words
The Minister of the Constitution and Reconciliation of Somalia’s TFG Abdurahman Hosh Jibril says that Somalia has now crossed from three different colonies that conquered the country for a long time.
“Today we have terminated three colonies which used to colonize the country for a longtime; we have wrapped the colony of al Shabaab, the colony of warlords and the colony of the international community,” the minister said during his opening remarks at the constitutional convention for Somali traditional elders which opened in Mogadishu on Saturday.
http://www.raxanreeb.com/2012/
TFG claimed to have killed a prominent Al-Qaeda-linked militant leader in Mogadishu
05 May- Source: Radio Mogadishu, Somalia Report- 68 words
Somali National Forces shot and killed a a prominent Al-Qaeda linked military leader, Abdulahi Ahmed, when he and other Al-Qaeda linked fighters attacked the national forces base in Warta-nabadda district of Mogadishu on Friday night. The chief commander of TFG security forces in Banadir region, Kalif Ahmed Ereg, displayed the body of the leader to the media on Saturday.
National Constituent Assembly meeting in Mogadishu
05 Apr – Source: Shabelle – 173 words
A National Constituent Assembly of 825 clan-based representatives met on Saturday for the first time in Mogadishu to adopt a new draft constitution for the conflict-ridden horn of Africa nation.
Selected clan representatives from all over the country have been pouring into Mogadishu in the past few days for the approval of the draft constitution at the conference scheduled to take place in Mogadishu’s Abdiaziz district on Saturday, 5th May, in 2012.
Ahlu Sunna delegates ready to attend Mogadishu meeting, officials say
06 May – Source: Bar-kulan – 132 words
Ahlu Sunna administration in central Somalia regions has said it has sent delegates to attend the constitutional meeting in Mogadishu. The meeting, which kicked off in Mogadishu on Saturday, brought together hundreds of Somali elders in an effort to endorse the country’s new draft constitution aimed at winding up the current transitional period.
Explosion in central Somali town injures three
05 May- Source: Radio Shabelle- 114 words
A powerful explosion occurred near the residence of the president of Mudug regional administration in southern Gaalkacyo, central Somalia.
Conflicting reports emerged after the blast. Reports say a businesswoman carried a bomb from the road while other reports say the bomb went off as the woman passed by.
Three women were injured in the blast and one of them is said to be in a critical condition.
Shabelle Media celebrates its 10th anniversary on May 6th
06 May – Source: Shabelle – 135 words
Shabelle Media Network on Sunday has begun celebrating its 10th anniversary. Shabelle Media Network was first set up on May 6th, 2002 in Marka town in the Lower Shabelle region in southern Somalia.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Somali president in Kuwait
05 May- Source: Kuwait News Agency- 107 words
Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed began today a three-day visit to Kuwait.
During the visit the Somali President will hold talks with the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/
Zambia authorities shut Somalia embassy after diplomats’ row
06 May – Source: Africa Review – 121 words
Zambia Police late Friday closed the Somalia embassy in the country after confusion emerged when another diplomat was sent in to take up the appointment without the knowledge of the one serving, local media reported. It was drama at the at the embassy in Lusaka when that country’s ambassador to Zambia, Shirwa Ibrahim, reportedly met the diplomat appointed to take over his job without his recall pre-notice, the privately-owned The Post reported, quoting police sources.
After decades of war, Somalia’s capital enjoys building boom – Land prices soaring, reconstruction underway
07 May – Source: News Kuwait Times – 500 words
Mogadishu, Somalia’s last president before the country erupted into decades of war made an ominous warning: force him from power, and he would leave Mogadishu as he found it, with only one road. The rest he would destroy.
Church grenade attacker ‘a known terrorist’
05 May – Source: Capital News – 200 words
Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere now says Sunday’s grenade attack at a church in Ngara was carried out by a known al Shabaab terrorist. Iteere says the attacker who goes by the alias ‘Amar’ was in Kismayu, Somalia, last year but returned to Kenya early this year.
Police are now circulating his photo and urging Kenyans to volunteer information that may lead to his arrest.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Crucial constitutional meeting kicks off in Mogadishu
06 May- Source: xinhua- 450 words
A major conference for Somalia top traditional elders and aimed at selecting an assembly that will adopt the newly drafted constitution and a new parliament continued for the second day running.
The gathering brings together 135 key traditional elders who will decide the 825-members constitution assembly expected to debate the new constitution and adopt it in two weeks time, Somali government said.
Somalia’s top leaders, including president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, and Speaker of parliament Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adam attended Saturday’s opening ceremony.
Somalia’s capital enjoys building boom
06 May – Source: AFP/ Guardian – 204 words
Somalia’s last president before the country erupted into decades of war made an ominous warning: force him from power, and he would leave Mogadishu as he found it, with only one road. The rest he would destroy. The threat came true: President Siad Barre was ousted in a 1991 coup, and the once elegant, Italian colonial-era seaside town was reduced to a wasteland of ruined buildings in years of bloody battles between rival militias.
Kenyan Police: Militant-trained Kenyan youth a threat
05 May- Source: AP, Daily Nation- 505 words
Hundreds of Kenyan youth who have trained with al-Qaida-linked militants in neighboring Somalia have returned home and now pose a major security threat to this East African nation, a top police official said Friday.
Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere said that a Kenyan man trained by al-Shabab militants in Somalia hurled a grenade into a church last Sunday, killing two people and wounding 15.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“For five years, Uganda and Burundi have battled Al Shabaab, and learnt some useful, albeit painful, lessons — lessons that, one imagines, they have shared with their Kenyan counterparts, and that will be useful in shaping expectations about the outcome”.
War and peace in Somalia: Seven lessons Burundi and Uganda can teach Kenya’s soldiers
05 May- Source: the East African – 1608 words
When you ask Burundi and Ugandan officers serving in Amisom, the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, when all of the country will be under control of the Transitional Federal Government, you will immediately sense that there is an elephant in the room.
That elephant is the question of when the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), which entered the Somali fray last October, will take the key port city of Kismayu.
Ethiopia, which followed Kenya into Somalia a month later in November, quickly moved to capture Baidoa within weeks, doing so on February 22 this year. They are pulling out, and Ugandan troops are already arriving to replace them.
“As AMISOM continues to expand into the countryside, the government must continue to demonstrate its capacity to protect civilians in towns and villages. That way, civilians will gain confidence in the government’s resolve to change the course of history”.
Somalia needs bit of patience
05 May- Source: New Vision- 392 words
Many like Safi a Omar, a resident of Mogadishu will tell you that bombing Somalia’s national theatre on April 4, had robbed her country of a brief sense that things were getting better.Safi a vented out her frustration in a brief interview with Reuters hours after a suicide bomber killed six people in Mogadishu. This kind of frustration is understandable. Safi a, like many other Somalis, is not confident that the current government will deliver on its promises to restore durable peace and stability.
For those of us who work in Mogadishu and have seen progressively, the improving situation in the country since 2007 can only ask Safi a for more patience. Mogadishu is more peaceful today than it has been in the last 20 years.However, such attacks are a reminder to the Transitional Federal Government and AMISOM that it is not over yet. While the insurgents were forced out of Mogadishu last August, a number of them melted into the population bent on instilling fear through suicide attacks.
This calls for extra vigilance not only on the part of the government but also on the population as a whole.
Not once, not twice, the terrorists have demonstrated their ability to sneak through the lines and attack civilians in areas under our control.