October 15, 2012 | Morning Headlines.

Main Story

Dlamini-Zuma takes over AU office

15 Oct – Source: Daily Nation – 90 words

Former South African Home Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Monday began a four-year tenure as the head of the African Union’s executive arm. Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma arrived in Addis Ababa over the weekend. A hand-over ceremony is set for the AU’s headquarters where she will take over from Gabonese Jean Ping, whom she ousted in July after a bruising six months of battle that exposed internal bloc rifts.

Key Headlines

Gov’t plans crafting regional admin for Juba regions soon says minister (Bar-Kulan/Radio Risaala)
Police officers undergo crime investigation course in Mogadishu (Radio Mogadishu/Bar-Kulan)
Gangs kill elder in Dadaab refugee complex northern Kenya (Markacadeey/Shabelle)
Demos held in Gedo towns in support of new PM (Bar-Kulan/Universal TV)
Horn of Africa to benefit from $38m European Commission boost (Africa Review)
Kenya coast tourist numbers fall on Islamist security fears (Reuters)

SOMALI MEDIA

Gov’t plans crafting regional admin for Juba regions soon, says minister

15 Oct – Source: Bar–kulan/Radio Mustaqbal/Radio Risaala – 125 words

The government has announced that it will soon establish a regional government for the recently taken Juba regions following the withdrawal of al Shabaab militants from the port city of Kismayo late last month. Trades and Industrialization minister Abdiwahab Ugas Hussein told Bar-kulan that an inclusive regional administration will be established in these regions soon, hoping that locals will welcome the move.

Police officers undergo crime investigation course in Mogadishu

15 Oct – Source: Bar-kulan/BBC Somali Service/Radio Mogadishu – 79 words

Forty Somali police officers on Monday commenced a ten-day long training at Gen. Kahiye police academy in Mogadishu to further their career in the force. The officers, 30 male and 10 female, were drown from the criminal investigation department and various police stations in the city. Officers from the African Union Police Component will be offering the necessary skills to the Somali trainees.

Gangs kill elder in Dadaab refugee complex, northern Kenya

15 Oct – Source: Markacadeey/Bar-kulan/Shabelle – 97 words

Unknown gunmen on Monday shot and killed a prominent elder in Ifo refugee camp, one of the camps forming the world’s largest refugee complex in northern Kenya near the border with Somalia. Reports say four hooded gunmen attacked the elder, Mahad Said Du’aysane, at the area’s main market. Du’aysane was also a member of local security committee.

Demos held in Gedo towns in support of new PM

15 Oct – Source: Bar-kulan/Universal TV- 103 words

Hundreds of people Monday took to the streets of Garbaharey, Beled-Hawo and Luq towns of Gedo regions to voice their support for the newly appointed Prime Minister designate Abdi Farah Shirdon. The demos was organised by the local administration in the region. Participants chanted slogans meant to welcome Shirdon’s appointment as the new Somali PM.

REGIONAL MEDIA

Dlamini-Zuma takes over AU office

15 Oct – Source: Daily Nation – 90 words

Former South African Home Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will on Monday begin a four-year tenure as the head of the African Union’s executive arm. Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma arrived in Addis Ababa over the weekend. A hand-over ceremony is set for the AU’s headquarters where she will take over from Gabonese Jean Ping, whom she ousted in July after a bruising six months of battle that exposed internal bloc rifts.

Horn of Africa to benefit from $38m European Commission boost

15 Oct – Source: Africa Review – 141 words

An estimated one million people in Ethiopia and Somalia are expected to benefit from the $38 million increase in aid from the European Commission, officials said. According to a press statement, the money from the Commission’s Emergency Aid Reserve (EAR), will mainly be used in the provision of humanitarian assistance and to help build the resilience of the vulnerable communities from future disasters. Though the Horn of Africa region has seen an improvement in food security, more than two million people in Somalia depend on food aid.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Kenya coast tourist numbers fall on Islamist security fears

15 Oct – Source: Reuters – 137 words

The number of tourists visiting Kenya’s coast fell by 22 percent in the first eight months of this year compared to 2011 due to concerns over Islamist violence and the cost of landing rights in the traditional tourist hot spot, tour operators said. Alongside tea and horticulture, tourism is one of Kenya’s major foreign currency earners and raked in 98 billion shillings ($1.18 billion) last year, just shy of its 100 billion shilling target, and up from 74 billion shillings in 2010.

Kenya’s Kenyatta University opens its doors to Somali refugees in Dadaab

15 Oct – Source: Guardian – 128 words

Mohamed Bashir Sheik has a new reason to hope. The 25-year-old Somali, who came to live at the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab,Kenya, when he was just four, is planning to apply for a place at a university that is due to open next year near to the settlement. Kenyatta University is setting up a campus in Dadaab, which is home to a sprawling complex of camps housing around 470,000 refugees, mainly Somalis who crossed the nearby border to escape the cycles of war and drought in their homeland.

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

“There are a number of reasons; primarily the use of armed guards on merchant vessels–no ship protected by armed guards has ever been taken. The Naval forces have got better at reacting to events and at interdicting pirate attack groups. Ship owners now route their vessels further east and north, therefore avoiding the main pirate hunting grounds. Owners order their vessels to travel at maximum speed in the HRA (high risk area), which makes them harder to board. And every ship transiting the IOR (Indian Ocean region) has physical protection–barbed wire, electric fences, etc, etc.”

All of a sudden, Somali pirates are losing the fight for the sea

15 Oct- Source: Quartz-370 Words

Somalia seems to be emerging from the two-decade-long chaos that made it a poster child for everything that could go wrong in a country. The number of ships seized by Somali pirates has recently plummeted, as seen in this chart by the US Office of Naval Intelligence.