October 25, 2016 | Morning Headlines
Somalia’s Electoral Body Sets New Measures To Prevent Corruption
24 October – Source: Garowe Online – 233 Words
Somalia’s electoral body has raised concerns of alleged corruption in the ongoing electoral process. During a press conference, the Chairman of the Federal Indirect Electoral Implementation team (FIEIT), Omar Mohamed Abdulle, has stated that the election commission will set new rules aimed to prevent vote buying and bribery during the election period. He said the new measures will prevent upcoming parliamentarians from selling their vote or allow MPs to place a special mark against candidate’s name during the casting session.
Abdulle said that mobile phones and camera devices will be banned inside the voting centers, which can be used as proof of vote by MPs who took bribes from presidential candidates. This comes following recent statement by UN envoy to Somalia of corrupt practices and bribery in the Somali elections. The new measures announced amid the conclusion of Upper House elections in some regional states, and were reported that the process was marred by bribery and vote buying, whereas leaders of the Somali government, primarily the President and the Prime Minister who are also presidential candidates are in a race to back allied candidates in the parliamentary elections to secure their winning chances in the forthcoming presidential election.Lately, there were public concerns about the ongoing election process and the possibility that only presidential candidates with financial capabilities will buy vote from parliamentarians in the presidential elections to secure the country’s highest job.
Key Headlines
- Somalia’s Electoral Body Sets New Measures To Prevent Corruption (Garowe Online)
- Galkayo Fighting Claims Another Five Lives PM Calls For Truce (Goobjoog News)
- Top Somali Army General Shot Dead In Mogadishu (Shabelle News)
- Clashes In Somalia Displace 75000 As Rains Threaten: U.N.(Thomson Reuters Foundation)
- One Church Opens For Faithful Catholic Remnant In Somalia (Catholic World News)
- From The US Army To Al-Shabaab: The Man Who Wanted To Live Under Sharia Law (The Guardian UK)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Galkayo Fighting Claims Another Five Lives, PM Calls For Truce
24 October – Source:Goobjoog News – 245 Word
At least five people have been killed and ten injured in the latest round of fighting in clash prone Galkayo as leaders call for end to fighting which has now displaced thousands sparking a humanitarian crisis. Goobjoog News correspondent in Galkayo said forces from Puntland and Galmudug clashed Monday morning in Garsoor village which has been the scene of fighting for the last one week
.Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke who spearheaded talks last December that led to a momentary ceasefire has called on both sides to end the fighting echoing local leaders, elders and religious leaders who have also voiced concern over the fighting. The Premier asked both sides to respect the terms of the truce signed last year. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is yet to respond on the matter even as calls for deployment of the National army in the area intensify.
Former Puntland President and current presidential candidate Abdirahman Faroole Monday asked President Mohamud to visit Galkayo and lead ceasefire talks. “President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud should come here. There are a number of things which need to be addressed. There are suspicions between both sides so the President must come to mediate talks,” said Faroole.An elder, Ahmed Adan Samatar asked both the two factions in the fight to end the vicious killings which have led to losses of lives of many civilians. “At the end you are brothers. Please respect the children and civilians and stop killing each other,” said Samatar.
Top Somali Army General Shot Dead In Mogadishu
24 October – Source: Shabelle News – 118 Words
Armed Al-Shabaab assassins have shot and killed a senior Somali army officer in Mogadishu, the latest in series of targeted assassinations in the East African country. A witness speaking on condition of anonymity said two pistol-wielding men thought to be Al Shabaab members gunned down the officer who was identified as Gen Abdulaziz Araye.The shooting took place in Mogadishu’s Waberi district on Monday afternoon. The gunmen fled the scene shortly after the killing. Somali security forces have subsequently reached the site of the crime and conducted a manhunt for the suspects. The militant group of Al Shabaab said it was behind the murder of the army general. Somali security officials did not comment on the killing.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Clashes In Somalia Displace 75,000 As Rains Threaten: U.N.
24 October – Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation – 270 Words
More than 75,000 people have fled their homes and 18 have been killed during three weeks of clashes in Somalia, the United Nations said on Monday, warning that women and children sleeping in the open will suffer as the rainy season looms.Clashes erupted on Saturday and Monday between forces loyal to the two semi-autonomous regions of Puntland and Galmudug in the town of Galkayo, it said.”The fear that the conflict may last longer than anticipated is driving more people out of their homes,” the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an update.
Most of the displaced are women, children and the elderly who were already living in camps and have now fled for a second time to the outskirts of town, it said.”The onset of the rainy season is likely to affect the displaced especially those spending nights in the open,” it said.Somalis hope that the Dehr rains, which fall between October and January, will alleviate drought which has left five million people short of food.
Galkayo, which is the capital of the north-central Mudug region of Somalia, is divided between clan militias loyal to the two regions.The federal government is working to restore peace, the U.N. said.Somalia has been at civil war for 25 years and clashes between the clan-based militias who control much of the country are common. In the south, forces loyal to the weak U.N.-backed government are also battling Islamist insurgents.There are 1.1 million displaced people in Somalia, around one in ten people, often living in dire conditions.
One Church Opens For Faithful Catholic Remnant In Somalia
24 October – Source: Catholic World News – 200 Words
A Catholic church has re-opened in Hargeisa, Somalia: the only Catholic house of worship in the African country.Bishop Giorgio Bertin, the apostolic administrator of Mogadishu, told Aid to the Church in Need that he had re-consecrated the church of St. Anthony of Padua, which had been shut down for years because of the danger Christians face in the overwhelmingly Muslim country. “Not many people come to Mass—ten at most,” the bishop said; “but nonetheless it is important.”
Bishop Bertin said that he spoke to local officials in Hargeisa last year about re-opening the church. Hargeisa is located in Somaliland, a region that has declared its independence. Although neither the Somali government nor the international community has recognized Somaliland as an independent state, in practice the region is fairly free from control by the provisional government in Mogadishu.Bishop Bertin reports that “there is no possible way of having a presence in Mogadishu.” Although there are a few Catholics still living in Somalia, their lives are in danger if they are identified. All pastoral work is done secretly, the bishop explains, saying: “Even if it has to be silently, it is better to be there than not to be there.”
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Al-Shabaab is one of the world’s most feared Islamist militant groups. Since Craig Baxam’s attempt to live under its control, the extremists have carried out some of the most brutal terrorist attacks in living memory, including the 2013 Westgate mall attack in Nairobi in which at least 67 people were killed,”
From The US Army To Al-Shabaab: The Man Who Wanted To Live Under Sharia Law
24 October – Source: The Guardian, UK – 3499 Words
Craig Baxam was lost. He thought he was in a town in northern Kenya called Marareme, though really he didn’t have a clue. He then got on a bus headed to Garissa, towards the Somali border, but was puzzled by the way the other passengers referred to it as “Arara”.Baxam was far from home, spoke no local language and knew little about the region he was traveling through. If he were successful in reaching southern Somalia, his destination, things would almost certainly get worse for him: the war-torn country, where he planned to live according to his faith, remains one of the most inhospitable and perilous on Earth.
Yet none of that flustered him. All he wanted was to keep on moving towards the border. Find it, cross it and begin a new, better, devout life.Baxam, 24 at the time, had thrown to the winds his comfortable existence in Laurel, Maryland, where he worked for a TV services company. In December 2011 he cashed in his thrift savings plan account (all $3,613.38 of it), gave $1,000 of that to an acquaintance in need, and with the rest bought himself a ticket to Nairobi. He had decided to set out on a hijrah, a migration to a true Islamic land, as he was instructed to do in the Qu’ran.To say that this was all new to Baxam would be an understatement. A black American raised Catholic who had recently discharged himself from the US army after four years of service, he grew up with no connection to the Muslim faith. But five months before his trip, he went through a dramatic and sudden conversion after stumbling on a religious website.
Barely half a year later, he was making his way north through Kenya into the vast unknown.As he travelled, Baxam kept his head down, stopping merely to eat and pray at mosques. He had good reason to be careful: he was heading towards one of the world’s most anarchic conflict zones in a country that had been in the throes of an extreme Islamist insurgency for several years.Once inside Somalia, he planned to live under al-Shabaab – a group designated by Washington as a terrorist organisation which practices a very strict form of Islam under the religious law of sharia.
The stakes were high. US and Kenyan authorities worked closely together to intercept any movement across the border from al-Shabaab members, and Baxam had a taste of those security efforts as he sat on the bus going north. He later told the FBI there were posters all along the route telling people to contact police should they see anyone acting strangely. He must have looked suspicious himself, he said, given what was about to happen.Soon after the bus pulled out, a man boarded and gently began asking Baxam questions. Where was he going? Did he speak the local dialect? Was there family nearby?