October 7, 2015 | Morning Headlines

Main Story

Somalia’s Extremists Vow Violence Against British Troops

06 October – Source: Associated Press (AP) – 124 Words

A spokesman for Somalia’s Islamic extremists says their rebels will fight the British troops that are to be deployed to the country as peacekeepers. Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for Al-Shabaab, said on the the group’s radio Tuesday that their fighters would welcome the British troops with bullets and drag beheaded British soldiers through the streets.
His comments were in response to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge last month that as many as 70 British military personnel could be sent to Somalia to bolster a United Nations-backed mission to support the Somali government against the extremists. It would be the first time Britain has formally joined the international contingent backing the African Union’s long-running efforts against Al-Shabaab, which is linked to al-Qaida.

Key Headlines

Somalia’s Extremists Vow Violence Against British Troops (AP)
Impeachment Caucus MPs Vow Motion Is On As Speaker’s Sanctioned Meeting Starts Tomorrow(Goobjoog News)
UK Expresses Concern Over Anti-President Motion (Wacaal Media)
Young Somali Migrants Deported To Puntland (Goobjoog News)
Somali Woman Raped On Nauru Begs Australian PM For Asylum (Brisbane Times)
Somali Journalists Slam Arrest Of 2 Colleagues (AFP)
Sister’s Hope For Brother In Somaliland Facing Death By Firing Squad (Leicester Mercury)
Illegal Overfishing And The Return Of Somalia’s Pirates (Al Jazeera)

NATIONAL MEDIA

Impeachment Caucus MPs Vow Motion Is On, As Speaker’s Sanctioned Meeting StartsTomorrow

06 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 381 Words

A day before Parliament and the Government meet over the impeachment issue, the pro-impeachment MPs have declared they are still determined to impeach the President warning dialogue does not mean they have dropped their bid. In a seven point statement released Tuesday, the MPs vehemently held to their position that the Speaker violated the Constitution in dismissing the motion and called on him to reverse the decision as it was a recipe for lawlessness and disorder in the country.

“Our consent to dialogue must not be construed to mean end of the motion. The motion can only be terminated when the the court rules against it. Otherwise, the actual procedure is that the motion must be tabled before Parliament for members to cast a vote on it,” read the statement in part. In what has emerged to be a battle between the impeachment caucus and the Speaker, Mohamed Osman Jawari, the lawmakers accuse him of not responding to their queries despite correspondence for clarification on the Speaker’s reference for dismissal of the motion.

“We cannot accept dialogue with the Speaker as long as he holds the view that the motion is dead. The MP’s position is that the motion must be referred to a competent court to decide on it,” said the MPs. Jawaari last week struck down the motion noting that it did not meet the minimum legal threshold. But the MPs have come out fighting accusing him of usurping the powers of court. In his ruling, the Speaker called for a consultative meeting between Parliament, the President and the Prime Minister to find a final solution to the impeachment headache.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud this week in New York told the influential magazine Foreign Policy that the motion against him lacked legal basis. The lawmakers maintain it was illegal for the Speaker to sit on the motion for over two months without tabling it. They noted that the Speaker’s move could jeopardise the functioning of government institutions. “The MPs would like to tell the Somali citizens that the Speaker has acted illegally by keeping the motion for a period of two months without tabling it for debate.”

UK Expresses Concern Over Anti-President Motion

06 October – Source: Wacaal Media – 125 Words

The United Kingdom has expressed concern over the anti-President motion that has caused friction in the country’s power corridors. Speaking in Mogadishu, the UK’s Somali envoy Harriet Mathews said the motion will be an obstacle to efforts to hold free and fair elections as scheduled for 2016. Mathews says the motion may not be resolved any time soon, thereby forcing leaders to spend more time on it than on issues that would foster development in the country. She reiterated her country’s commitment to help Somalia in its reconstruction efforts, formation of a formidable national force among other matters of national good. Mathews added while Parliament has to play its oversight role and hold the administration to account, it was also imperative to safeguard good governance and cohesion.

Young Somali Migrants Deported To Puntland

06 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 335 Words

Tens of young Somalis who illegally crossed over to Neighbouring Yemen in small boats have been deported to Semi-autonomous regional state of Puntland, according to officials.Fourteen boys who paid $ 100 Dollars to reach Yemen, said that they embarked their risky journey from Bari region waters and were ferried to Yemen by smugglers. One of returnees said that during their time in Yemen they suffered a lot and spent a week behind the bars, which forced them to accept repatriation.

Bari police commissioner Abdihakim Yussuf Mohamud said that Puntland government welcomes the 14 young Somalis to home. He once again denied the existence of Puntland youths recruited by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) or better known as its Arabic acronym “Daesh”: “It is lie that Deash recruits youths here, but I can tell you new smugglers have emerged with new route to Sudan” said the commander.

Mid last month Puntland’s coastguard detained people who smuggle immigrants and several immigrants in its waters as they tried to illegally cross to neighbouring Yemen in small boats, officials said on Sunday. The smugglers and immigrants of Somali and Ethiopia origins were caught by the coastguard as they prepared to embark their risky journey from Bari region waters. Bari Governor, Yussuf Mohamed Wa’ays told reporters that they have arrested the smugglers who were taken to custody and might face charges of human trafficking. “Operations against human trafficking will go ahead until we eradicate it from our region,’’ he said. Among the rescued are women mostly in their early-20s and children.

Every year, tens of thousands of African migrants risk their lives to try and enter Europe on unseaworthy boats in search for a better life. Many die atrocious deaths – beaten, thrown overboard, eaten by sharks, drowned or asphyxiated in the hold of crowded smuggler boats. Impoverished Yemen is mainly used as a transit country, with African migrants often aiming to move on to neighbouring oil-rich Gulf nations and Europe to find work and better life.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Somali Woman Raped On Nauru Begs Australian PM For Asylum

06 October – Source: Brisbane Times – 518 Words

A 23-year-old “vulnerable and traumatised” Somali woman, who was raped on Nauru, is pleading with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to allow her to come to Australia to have an abortion. The woman, “Abyan” (not her real name) is one of two female Somali refugees who have requested help from Australia after being raped on the island. Last week the ABC’s 7.30 broadcast distressing footage of the other victim, a 26-year-old woman known as “Namja” (not her real name), calling police for help after her rape – she says it took police four hours to answer her plea.

The 23-year-old woman is 11 or more weeks pregnant as a result of her rape and is begging to be allowed to come to Australia for an abortion. Lawyers acting on her behalf wrote to Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton demanding a response by 5pm AEDT Tuesday. George Newhouse, special counsel at Shine Lawyers, has been making representations to the Commonwealth on the woman’s behalf for one week but has had no response.

“Five o’clock has passed, we’ve had no response from the government,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with the system but their failure to respond comes across as cruel and heartless. “Time is quickly running out, this is not a joke, a traumatised and vulnerable woman’s health and safety is stake.” Newhouse called on Turnbull to back his condemnation of violence against women with action. “The Prime Minister wants Australia to be known as a country that respects women, well, we can start with start with this poor soul,” he said. Asked for comment on Tuesday the Prime Minister’s Office referred the matter to the Immigration Minister’s office.

Somali Journalists Slam Arrest Of 2 Colleagues

06 October – Source: AFP – 230 Words

Somali journalists and rights groups on Tuesday condemned the arrest of two colleagues and the closure of a key television station by the government. Security forces raided the independent Universal TV in the capital Mogadishu on October 2, colleagues said, describing how the station was taken off the air a day after it broadcast a debate on the role of foreign forces in Somalia. Regional director Abdullahi Hersi and producer Awil Dahir Salad were both arrested.

“We condemn the way the office of Universal was closed and the journalists arrested,” Somali journalists’ union chief Mohamed Ibrahim said. The internationally-backed government in Mogadishu is protected by the 22 000-strong African Union Mission in Somalia, Amisom, with troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. The force is battling the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab Islamists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on the government to “stop this arbitrary harassment of journalists and respect freedom of the press.” Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries for reporters to operate, and media watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranks it just eight places off the bottom of a list of 180 countries for press freedom.

Sister’s Hope For Brother In Somaliland Facing Death By Firing Squad

06 October – Source: Leicester Mercury – 335 Words

A woman is making a last-ditch attempt to save her mentally ill brother from a firing squad in Somaliland. Abdullahi Ali, 38, was sentenced to death in the East African country in August after shooting a man dead last year. His sister, Faisa Ali, of Highfields, Leicester, wants the Somaliland president Ahmed Silanyo, to intervene to save the father of nine from death row.

She said: “Amnesty International and the UN have both tried to contact the Somaliland supreme court but they’ve had no response.”My brother is mentally ill and has had problems for about five years. “Before this happened he threatened to harm his children and set his wife’s hair on fire. “In April last year there was a row and he somehow got hold of a gun and shot a friend of his. “He’s been in prison ever since and in August this year he was sentenced to death.

“Somaliland receives funding from the UK to pay for mental health services and I want the President to find out about what is happening to my brother and stop this.” Faisa, 27, said the execution of people with mental health problems was a “crime against humanity” and that day-to-day life for Abdullahi was hard in prison. She said: “He’s not getting his medication so he’s shouting a lot and fighting with the guards and then getting badly beaten.

OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE

“Somalis say illegal, unlicensed, and unregulated fishing forced them to turn to piracy 10 years ago in order to recoup their losses. “We got fed up and took guns to the sea,” said one Bosaso fisherman, Mohamed Adan Ahmed.”

Illegal Overfishing And The Return Of Somalia’s Pirates

06 October – Source: Al Jazeera – 1,251 Words

A hundred years ago, it was a bustling port that served the vibrant fishing community living along Somalia’s coastline, the longest on mainland Africa. Now, Durduri is a sun-bleached, wind-swept, white-sand graveyard of stone structures. There is no harbour, no jetty. The drying and smoking house is just a tumble of bricks. This is one of many historical coastal trading towns that have risen and fallen with empires. When the busy trade routes moved away, fishing was one of the few lifelines left.

Talk to locals now and you will find this too has dried up – they say there are no more fish in the sea. They blame not the pirates who brought the attention of international law enforcement to Somalia’s waters, but the foreign fishing boats that have plundered sea-life stocks. And if things don’t change, they say, a return to piracy will be their only way of survival.Ahmed Mohamed Ali walks disconsolately along the beach at Durduri, 100 kilometres west of the port city of Bosaso, perched on the northeastern point of Puntland, Somalia’s semi-autonomous northern state.