November 13, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Puntland Government To Host Consultative Meeting In Seven Towns
13 November – Source: Horseed Media – 143 Words
The administration of Puntland State has said it will hold consultative meetings in seven towns to discuss the future of Somalia and the ways to hold election in 2016. The Federal government has in the past revealed that due to financial constraints, the consultative meeting cannot be held in all over Somalia and decided the talks should be held in Garowe, Mogadishu, Kismayo , Baidoa, Adaado and Belet-Weyne.
However, the Puntland government argues that the region it controls is so big and requested the Federal Government to allow the talks to take place in seven of its major towns. In a letter to the the Prime Minister’s office, Puntland, said it will bear the cost of the extra consultative meetings to be held. According to the letter the meetings will be held in the towns of Bosaaso, Qardho, Badhan, Garowe, Bo’ame, Tukaraq and Galkayo.
Key Headlines
- Puntland Government To Host Consultative Meeting In Seven Towns
- Jubbaland Investigates Allegations Of Kenya Encroaching On Somali Land Says IJA interior Minister(Goobjoog News)
- Jubbaland Forces Kill Prominent Businessman In Kismayo (Wacaal Media)
- Somalia Recalls Ambassador To Kenya For Consultation (Radio Dalsan)
- Somalia’s Growth To Accelerate If Peace Prevail Says World Bank (Xinhua)
- More Young Somali-Americans Are Choosing Careers In Education (Minnesota Post )
- Crossed Wires Starve Somalia Of Cash (Bloomberg News)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Jubbaland Investigates Allegations Of Kenya Encroaching On Somali Land, Says IJA Interior Minister
13 November – Source: Goobjoog News – 253 Words
Jubbaland administration has commented on Kenya’s move to build a security wall inside Somali land saying it will not accept Kenya to encroach Somalia.IJA Interior Minister, Mohamed Farah Darwish said that they assigned fact-finding commission led by Jubbaland deputy president to investigate whether Kenya had encroached on Somali land.“We are unpleasant with reports from the border but allegations will be investigated” he said.
Traditional elders in Bulla-Hawa on Tuesday have argued the construction of the security wall is illegal and insisted Kenya had encroached on their land. Elder Idris Adan speaking to Goobjoog news said that Kenya has been carrying out some moves that they are uncomfortable with.“Kenya uses bulldozers to destroy beacons at borders which were erected during colonial period and its troops are chasing Somalis who gathered around there” Idris highlighted that several kilometers of Somali land “has been taken” in the Gedo region along the border.
“We urged Somali government to ask Kenya to move their construction equipment and guarding military hardware from inside our land (Somalia) with immediate effect,” said elder Idris.Kenya is planning to build a 440-mile wall along its border with Somalia in a bid to keep out al Shabab and boost security after a wave of attacks that have claimed scores of lives and provoked severe criticism of the government’s response. The wall, a series of concrete barriers, fences, ditches and observation posts overlooked by CCTV stations, is expected to stretch from the Indian Ocean to Mandera, where both countries converge with Ethiopia.
Jubbaland Forces Kill Prominent Businessman In Kismayo
13 November – Source: Wacaal Media – 89 Words
Jubbaland forces on Thursday afternoon killed a prominent businessman identified as Ali Nur Sharif – Bangaani who was well known in Jubbaland territories. Eyewitnesses told Wacaal Media that a government soldier forced the businessman out of his vehicle before shooting him dead from close range at Via Afmadow estate of the City of Kismayo. The slain trader operated a big wholesale in Kismayo and had several other businesseness in Bangaani location which falls under Jamaame district of Lower Jubba region. Jubbaland government has yet to comment.
Somalia Recalls Ambassador To Kenya For Consultation
12 November – Source: Radio Dalsan – 129 Words
Federal Government of Somalia has recalled its envoy to Nairobi for consultation, Interior ministry has confirmed. Minister Abdirahman Odowa has said that his country concerned about the wall construction move despite assurance from President Kenyatta on the issue days ago in Nairobi during Somali PM visit. Kenyan government has earlier announced that it will continue with wall construction along the border of the two neighbouring states.Nairobi insists the wall is for security purpose meant to prevent increasing armed group Al Shabaab attacks inside its soil but Somalia is opposed to the plan which its says will only catalyze Al Shabaab gruesome attacks. Somalia and Kenya enjoy close diplomatic relations rejuvenated by fight against armed group Al Shabaab that has become a major security challenge to the two states.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia’s Growth To Accelerate If Peace Prevail, Says World Bank
13 November – Source: Xinhua – 298 Words
Somalia’s economic growth could accelerate in the next two years if peace continues to prevail, the World Bank said on Thursday.World Bank Somalia Country Representative Hugh Riddell told a media briefing in Nairobi that the key drivers of the growth will be stronger domestic consumption due to remittances from the huge Diaspora.”However, political process including the upcoming elections represent a significant source of risk that could affect growth,” Riddell said during the launch of the Somalia Economic Update Report.
The Horn of Africa nation has lacked a strong central government since 1991 when the government was toppled. Riddell said that the horn of African nation has remained resilient despite two decades of conflict.Riddell said persistent conflict has fragmented the country and slowed down economic growth, noting that the Federal Government of Somalia spent 45 percent of its income on security and another 41 percent on administrative services.”In order for Somalia to accelerate economic development, it will have to increase spending in social services such as health and education,” he said.
More Young Somali-Americans Are Choosing Careers In Education
13 November – Source: Minnesota Post – 1,012 Words
In recent years, Said Garaad has seen an increasing number of Somali-Americans in Minnesota who are choosing careers in education. Most of those joining the field are young people who grew up in Minnesota and received their first taste of education in urban classrooms filled with immigrants and refugees learning the English language, said Garaad, School Success Program Assistant at Minneapolis Public Schools. “These educators know what it means to learn in urban schools,” noted Garaad, who has been working with Minneapolis Public Schools for more than 10 years. “They’re now coming back to work in the same school system they left some years ago.”
Many are getting their licenses in teaching, while others are becoming school counselors and social workers, explained Garaad, who is currently pursuing his master’s degree in school counseling at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. He said that he’s also aware of other Somali-Americans who are attending education programs in universities throughout Minnesota, training to join the 69,529 licensed staff in the state’s education system.
The number of Somalis resettling in Minnesota has more than tripled in recent years, according to various reports, and as a result, school districts are seeing streams of Somali students. While many of these students — whose parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1990s and 2000s — are American-born, others are coming from refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. Abdirashid Saney, a counselor at Higher Ground Academy in St. Paul, has one explanation for the reason more Somali-Americans are joining the education workforce: the demand in Minnesota for licensed teachers who are also competent in the Somali culture.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Relief groups including Oxfam America have pleaded with regulators at the U.S. Department of the Treasury to relax the rules on money transfers to Somalia on humanitarian grounds, as has the office of Representative Keith Ellison (D), whose Minneapolis district is home to about 25,000 Somalis, the largest concentration in the U.S.”
Crossed Wires Starve Somalia Of Cash
12 November – Source:Bloomberg News -659 Words
Liban Gaal is one of an estimated 1.5 million Somalis living abroad who are helping the economy back home stay afloat. The owner of the Somali Restaurant in Windsor, Ont., says he sends $300 each month to a sister-in-law in Mogadishu whose husband died in 2008 on a smugglers’ ship that capsized in the Mediterranean. Without Gaal’s contribution, she and her four children wouldn’t be able to get by. “When you go to Somalia, if you see people begging on the street or living in the bush, that usually means they don’t have someone from the diaspora sending them money,” says Gaal.
Remittances from expatriate Somalis total about $1.3 billion annually, according to the humanitarian group Oxfam International, which estimates as many as 43 percent of households depend on the transfers. That lifeline is getting squeezed as some countries step up enforcement of anti-money-laundering laws as part of a crackdown on terrorist groups. Merchants Bank of California, the last U.S. bank handling large volumes of money transfers to Somalia, stopped in January. Financial institutions in the U.K. and Australia have also ceased the transfers. Banks in Canada continue to process them.
Laws in most countries require banks on each side of a cross-border transaction to check the customer’s background and to report suspicious activity. Somalia’s two surviving banks are struggling and not up to the task of due diligence. Neither is the central bank equipped to police the industry. (It doesn’t set interest rates either.) “When I was governor, there wasn’t even a single computer in the whole building,” recalls Yussur Abrar, who briefly served as central bank chief in 2013. Many foreign banks prefer not to do business with Somali financial institutions, lest they get caught inadvertently funneling funds to local groups such as al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab, which the U.S. has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
TOP TWEETS
@Abdi_AlSheikh: #AlShabab laid an ambush for a group of fighters recently joined #ISIS in #Somalia, killing 5 of them near#Sakow.
@Daudoo: BREAKING: #AMISOM troops from #Burundivacates #Fidow town in #Somalia‘s Middle Shabelle region.#AlShabaab retakes the town – Residents.
@inaabdullahi: The Kenya-Ethiopia Defence Pact: Is Somalia a pawn? #Somalia #Kenya #Ethiopia #Ogadenhttp://newafricanmagazine.com/
@LavoroDomestico: The Ministry of Labor opens door to recruit Somali #domestic #workers https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.
@Codka_Bulshada: #Ethiopia is destabilising East Africa. Finally, a report that states facts. #Somalia #Eritrea#HornOfAfrica http://www.hiiraan.com/news4/
@allafrica: #BringBackOurKids Trends as Somali Children Taken Away in Canada http://allafrica.com/view/
@MSudaani: Mama Nasra is the only female CEO in #Somalia, Head of @NLINKTelecom is on the Stage #StartupGrindMog#StartupGrind
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Deputy Prime Minister of Somalia meets Minister of International Development and Cooperation for Sweden.
Photo: @engyarisow