September 27, 2016 | Morning Headlines
Somali Federal Indirect Electoral Commission Modifies 2016 Elections’ Timetables
26 September – Source: Goobjoog News – 201 Words
Somali Federal Indirect Electoral Commission has issued a new timetable for this year’s general elections after three days of closed door meeting in Mogadishu. The elections will be now automatically delayed one extra month as result of this new timetable. As per the new time table Upper house elections will be held on 10 October, while the lower house ones will conducted on 23 November and the presidential elections to be conducted on 30 of November.
Dispute on how to select delegates, delay of regional states to pass the list of Upper-House candidates to the Commission and financing elections necessitated the timetable changes. Mohamed Iidle Ghedi, lawmaker, said that the selection of delegates has caused dispute within the clans and this led the list of the delegates to delay. “No election is going on as the clans have disputes over the selection of the delegates,” said Ghedi.
Opposition parties have accused the outgoing government for using delay tactic to get more time for campaigning. The international community committed to meet 60 per cent of the budget while Somalia would clear the rest through Federal Government purse and candidates fees. Besides the technical aspects of the elections, security remains a key challenge.
Key Headlines
- Somali Federal Indirect Electoral Commission Modifies 2016 Elections’ Timetables (Goobjoog News)
- Southwest State Vows To Push Al-Shabaab Out Of Its Regions (Goobjoog News)
- Ahlusunna Imposes Ban On Cutting Of Trees (Goobjoog News)
- Indian Courts Yet To Pass Verdict On Somali Piracy Suspects- Lawyer (Goobjoog News)
- Two Al-Shabaab Terrorists Killed In S. Somalia (Xinhua News)
- Somali Protesters Urge India To Release 119 ‘pirates’ (Anadolu Agency)
- Proliferation Of Universities Brings Mixed Fortunes (University World News)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Southwest State Vows To Push Al-Shabaab Out Of Its Regions
26 September – Source : Goobjoog News – 220 Words
Somalia’s southwest has ordered its forces to flush out Al-Shabaab fighters from the towns in the State as Al-Shabaab is determined to disrupt Somalia’s election process. Southwest state Deputy Police Commissioner, Mohamed Isack Ara’ase said the forces would launch more attacks on Al-Shabaab controlled areas until the group is eliminated.“We will crush any attempt to disturb peace and development in Southwest State,” said Ara’ase. Ara’ase said that Southwest is committed to consolidating the war against Al-Shabaab fighters in these regions. “We were able to eliminate military bases in the region which Al-Shabaab carried out its subversive operations against the government in the region,” he said.
He added that Southwest State forces will be supported by AMSIOM in order to speed up the operations to flush out Al-Shabaab fighters.“It is very significant to rid off Al-Shabaab elements from the few areas in the country in order stabilize country and avoid further attacks from the group,” he noted. He also said Southwest State would take steps to crack down on those who planned and financed terrorist attacks.Al-Shabaab, which is believed to have hundreds of fighters in its ranks, controls much of Middle Shabelle in southern Somalia and regularly launches attacks in the capital Mogadishu.Al-Shabaab has since resorted to tactics that include suicide bombings and assassinations of government officials.
Ahlusunna Imposes Ban On Cutting Of Trees
26 September – Source : Goobjoog News – 203 Words
Somalia’s moderate Islamist Group in Central Regions, Ahlusunna Waljam’a has banned cutting trees and charcoal burning, a move to save the remaining shrubs in the regions. Speaking to the reporters in Dhusamareeb town, the group’s spokesman, Muhudin Ali said those found cutting trees in the forests will be arrested and charged in court.
Ali says the directive targets people living in Ballihowd and Haraale villages. He said charcoal burning has contributed to the degradation of forest cover in the area. “As Ahlusunna Administration, we have banned charcoal burning due to the decreasing forest cover in the area, Somalia is slowly turning into a desert because more trees are being cut down by charcoal burners,” said Ali.
He said deforestation has resulted in reduction of trees, massive soil erosion and flash floods.In a country with little electrical power, charcoal is the predominant domestic cooking fuel and is now managed by a network of more than 30 local brokers and was also controlled by armed groups such as Al-Shabaab before losing seaports they used to export from. In 2012 the UN banned exports of Somali charcoal, but the ban was not enforced in this in the areas not under the control of the government.
Indian Courts Yet To Pass Verdict On Somali Piracy Suspects- Lawyer
26 September – Source : Goobjoog News – 333 Words
No Somali piracy suspect detained in India has been sentenced to death, let alone a verdict reached, an advocate representing the accused has said. In a statement to newsrooms on Monday, Vishwajeet Singh for the accused said reports circulating in the media that Somali piracy suspects in Indian jails had been sentenced to death by Indian courts following a guilty verdict over piracy in the high seas were false and misleading.“Awarding of sentence is possible only after pronouncement of conviction. In this case, only a voluntary plea of guilt has so far been submitted to the Honorable court on 20th September 2016 and the court is yet to make a decision on the fate of those pleas by all Somali prisoners, except one who has refused to sign the plea,” said Singh. The advocate said the next hearing will come up September 30 this year and only after that shall the court issue its guilty or no guilty verdict.
Singh also ruled out the likelihood of a death penalty noting the cases were not grave enough to warrant such sentence though he admitted the cases fall within the province of death penalty. He argued neither an Indian citizen was killed nor the offence committed within the remit of India’s territorial waters, both recipes for possible death penalties. Therefore news reports that some prisoners are facing death penalty are false, premature and speculative, warned Singh.
Somali government confirmed last year one of the suspects passed on in jail after contracting tuberculosis. The advocate’s response comes amid reports the Indian court had sentenced the piracy suspects to death. Demonstrations entered the second day today in Gaalkacyo, central Somalia following reports the suspects had been sentenced to death. Somalia has also called on the Indian government to release the suspects noting they should serve jail terms in the country should they be handed sentences.The suspects were arrested between 2011 and 2012 by the Indian navy at the height of piracy in the Indian Ocean.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Two Al-Shabaab Terrorists Killed In S. Somalia
26 September – Source: Xinhua News – 147 Words
African Union peacekeeping mission (AMSIOM) backed by Somali forces killed two Al-Shabaab terrorists on Monday in Somalia’s southern city of Kismaayo.AMISOM said the allied forces conducted a security disruption and clearing operation in Caba village outside the port city of Kismayo, where they killed the militants behind terror attacks in the region.”The forces killed two Al-Shabaab terrorists. Somali and AMISOM troops are working closely to destroy Al-Shabaab and bring peace and security to Somalia,” it said in a brief statement.
The allied forces have intensified their security operations in the Horn of Africa nation, which was scheduled to host its indirect elections on last Saturday but postponed the exercise until further notice.The operation comes after ten people, mostly militants, were on Sunday killed and several others wounded in a deadly fighting between forces loyal to Somalia’s South-West State and Al-Shabaab militants in southern Somalia.
Somali Protesters Urge India To Release 119 ‘pirates’
26 September – Source: Anadolu Agency – 328 Words
Somali protesters have expressed outrage over reports emerging in India that 50 out of 119 detained Somalis suspected of being pirates could face the death penalty at the end of an ongoing trial. The Times of India reported on Friday that 119 Somali pirates nabbed by the Indian coast guard and navy between 2011 and 12 had pleaded guilty to offences brought against them.“This comes at the fag end of the trial that commenced in late 2012 with 70 witnesses deposing and difficulties caused by the absence of several foreign national witnesses. About 50 pirates, booked for murder, could face the death sentence,” Times of India said in its report.
Hundreds of people in Somali towns of Galkio and El Buur in central Mudug region held peaceful protests against the Indian government and condemned the possible death sentences.They urged the Somali government to intervene and make efforts to release their citizens in India.“We are standing here under the boiling sun to tell the world that these people are innocent, they were falsely arrested in India, we need to release our people without any condition,” Hakima Idris, one of the protesters, said.
The Somali Information Ministry in a statement on Sunday disputed the version that its citizens were pirates and termed the proceedings in India a case of “harassment against Somalis”.“Somali government regrets the neglect, injustice and harassment against Somalia youths those who live around the world, especially in India and Kenya,” the statement said.“We called [on the] Indian government to stop the harassment and respect the international law and humanity,” the statement added.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“The boom has given Somalia more universities than its neighbours – Kenya has 58, Tanzania around 47 and Ethiopia 36, despite their being relatively stable, while Somalia’s government does not fully control its own country,”
Proliferation Of Universities Brings Mixed Fortunes
23 September – Source: University World News – 1092
As guns continue to fall silent in Somalia’s waning civil conflict, exponential growth has been witnessed in the higher education sector. But there are mixed reviews of the quality of education offered by the country’s new independent universities.
Before the 1988 civil war and subsequent collapse of the central government in 1991, Somalia had only one state-owned university, Somali National University.The university – established in the capital Mogadishu in 1970 – was forced to close in 1989 due to the instability. It only reopened 25 years later, in 2014. Meanwhile there was a higher education vacuum, bound to be filled.
A 2013 report from the Somali think-tank, the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies, on The State of the Higher Education Sector in Somalia, noted that rapid growth in tertiary education was under way from 2003.Between 2004 and 2014 there were at least 50 institutions in Somalia claiming to be offering higher education and teaching more than 50,000 students. Of 44 surveyed by the think-tank, 34 were established during that period, according to the report.
And growth has exploded in the past two years.“Currently we estimate that there are over 100 higher education institutions in the country,” Mahad Wasuge, a senior researcher at the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies and an education expert, told University World News.More than 60 of the universities are in Mogadishu, according to Abdulkadir Abdi Hashi, the minister of education, culture and higher learning, who spoke to University World News.