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Somaliland: Dahabshiil
Rewards Hargeysa Region Footballer |
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL Times) –
Somaliland footballer and Hargeysa region local,
Mohamud Abdi Hassan, was rewarded with the keys to a
brand new Toyota Crown this week, as part of a
Dahabshiil sponsored initiative for local sports.
Dahabshiil, the largest international
payments Company in Africa, said it donated the car
to Mr Hassan for scoring the first goal in the
Somaliland Youth tournament in Burao two weeks ago.
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Cameron claims failed East African state poses a
direct threat to British interests
By Kim Sengupta
London, UK, December 24, 2011 – Britain plans to
deepen its involvement in Somalia – a land that has
become a byword for instability and violence – in
the new year.
David Cameron describes Somalia as "a failed state
that directly threatens British interests" and will
convene a summit in London in February to bring
together the countries currently active in the Horn
of Africa state. A number of key decisions are
expected to be made there, ranging from humanitarian
aid to military missions.
The Prime Minister's decision to tackle the Somalia
quagmire is seen by some as being fuelled by the
success of the Libyan venture.
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Roma, Italy, December 24, 2011 – An Italian oil
tanker seized by Somali pirates in February has been
set free, according to local report on Wednesday.
Five crew members were also released together with
the ship, according to Ansa news agency.
"Savina Caylyn", an oil tanker owned by a Neapolitan
company, Fratelli D’Amato, was seized by pirates
some 880 miles (1,416 km) off the Somali coast on
February 8, 2011.
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Nairobi, Kenya, December 24, 2011 – A Somali town
elder says three aid workers have been killed in
central Somalia.
Mataban town elder Mohamud Sheik Abdi says the three
Somalis were shot and killed Friday morning as they
returned from a camp for displaced families.
A Nairobi-based security official says two of the
aid workers were working for the U.N.'s World Food
Program and one worked for a local aid agency. The
official was not authorized to be quoted by name.
A WFP spokeswoman said she could not immediately
comment.
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Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA)
soldiers take part in the Pakistan-China
anti-terrorist drill as they wrap up their
two-week military exercise in Jhelum,
November 2011. Little by little China is
forming military links in Africa and in the
Indian Ocean in order, experts say, to
protect Beijing's economic interests in
the region |
By Aude Genet
Nairobi, Kenya, December 24, 2011 — Little by little
China is forming military links in Africa and in the
Indian Ocean in order, experts say, to protect
Beijing's economic interests in the region.
In the past three weeks Beijing has committed to
supporting Ugandan forces operating in Somalia and
to helping the Seychelles fight piracy.
"It is very clear that the Chinese leaders recognize
that military force will play a bigger role to
safeguard China's overseas interests," Jonathan
Holslag, of the Brussels Institute of Chinese
Contemporary Studies told AFP.
"There is willingness, and even a consensus, in
China, that this process will take place."
The Indian Ocean is strategic, Holslag said, noting
that 85 percent of China's oil imports and 60
percent of its exports are routed via the Gulf of
Aden.
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The first African Union contingent from
Djibouti arrives at Mogadishu’s Adan Ade
international airport on December 20, 2011.
Picture: AFP |
Mogadishu, Somalia, December 24, 2011 – The AU force
in Somalia is increasingly taking on a regional and
continental character, offering fresh impetus to
ongoing campaign to stamp out militias who have
stoked terror throughout the East African region.
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Photo: AP
Kenyan army soldiers sit in their armored
vehicles. The Kenyan military says it's
getting ready to push forward with its
offensive against the al-Shabaab insurgents,
December 14, 2011. |
Nairobi, Kenya, December 24, 2011 – Companies and
officials in East Africa are strengthening security
and issuing safety warnings during the Christmas
season due to worries about possible al-Shabaab
attacks in public places. The Kenyan government says
it received a credible threat to assassinate a
Kenyan minister and deputy speaker.
Securex Agencies communication officer in Nairobi,
Brian Sagala, says his company is struggling to fill
the demand for extra guards, dogs, metal detectors
and other equipment.
“We are selling more walk-throughs - those are the
ones when someone just passes [through] it, it
beeps. Most companies that even have our guards are
asking for the guards to be given the hand-held
metal detectors. And we are also having more
queries, people just asking us, which is the right
thing to put in my building to vet people when they
are coming in,“ Sagala stated.
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International Development Secretary Andrew
Mitchell |
London, UK, December 24, 2011 – Somalia is a direct
threat to the UK's security because it is one of the
"most dysfunctional countries in the world",
International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell
has warned.
Mr Mitchell has also announced that Britain will
provide more than 9,000 tonnes of food supplies and
medicines to drought-ravaged regions in the Horn of
Africa this Christmas.
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The sky blue-clad national women's
basketball team from war-ravaged Somalia
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By Teo Kermeliotis
Doha, Qatar, December 24, 2011 – It's just a few
minutes after the final whistle has blown and the
shiny basketball court of the Al Gharafa Sports Hall
in Doha is filled with shouts and cheers.
The sky blue-clad national women's basketball team
from war-ravaged Somalia has just beaten Qatar, the
host nation, at the 2011 Arab Games, in a
hotly-contested match that ended 67-57 to the East
African country.
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Head Of Religious
Party Arrested |
Hargeysa,
Somaliland,
December 24,
2011 (SL
Times) –
Sheikh
Mohamoud
Abdillahi
Geele, the
head of a
group that
declared
last week
the
formation of
a religious
party was
arrested.
The police
had been
searching
for him the
last few
nights after
the ministry
of interior
issued an
arrest
warrant for
him. After
his arrest,
he was
transferred
to the CID
for
questioning.
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Iranian Doctors Treat The Sick In Somaliland |
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL Times) –
A team of Iranian doctors arrived in Somaliland’s
capital, Hargeysa this week.
The 10-member team which included male and female
doctors was welcomed at the airport by the Director
of the Ministry of Health, Abdi Ahmed Nur.
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Business
Fair Ends |
Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL Times) –
Somaliland business fair ended this week. The fair
took place at Mansoor hotel and went on for five
days. It was successfully concluded with a
celebration which was attended by the Minister of
Commerce Abdirizaq Khalif Ahmed, the Minister of
Fisheries Abdillahi Osman (Geeljire), legislators,
singers and members of the public.
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Suldan
Dakir Urges Somalis To Stop Discrimination Against
Minorities |
Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL
Times) – Sultan Dakir Hasan Khalif, one of the
sultans of the minority Gabooye clan urged all
Somalis and particularly the Isaq clan to end
their discrimination against the Gabooye clans.
Sultan Dakir Hasan Khalif said this at the
ceremony for the official declaration of a new
sultan of the Makahil, Sa’d Muse clan, which
took place at Abaarso, western Hargeysa.
Muse clan, which took place at Abaarso, western
Hargeysa.
Sultan Dakir Hasan Khalif said, unlike the
sultan that spoke before him, he could not say
at this point that the Gabooye and other Somali
clans are relatives who share bonds of blood,
because there are no intermarriages between the
Gabooye and other Somalis, especially the Isaq
clan.
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Horseed Compliments
Hargeysa Athletes And Dahabshil |
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Hargeysa,
Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL Times) – Horseed
organization sent a congratulatory message to the
people and athletes of Hargeysa for their sweeping
win in the three categories of soccer, basketball
and running.
The message, signed by the organization’s President,
Alawi Abdi Gaboobe, also commended Dahabshil Company
for the excellent role it plays in Somaliland’s
development and for its gift of a crown car to Mr.
Govinda in recognition of his superb athletic
skills.
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL Times) –
An Upper House Committee questioned the Peace
Academy officials about their role in the efforts to
resolve the Kalshale and Erigabo conflicts. The
Committee was responding to accusations by some
Upper House members that the Peace Academy had
usurped the duties of the Upper House and was
involved in parallel initiatives.
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL Times) –
In a ceremony organized by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations office, which was
held at the Ambassador Hotel in Hargeysa on Monday
19th December 2011, the Minister of Agriculture,
Honorable Farah Elmi Mohamoud did officially
launched the following three FAO Projects, to be
implemented in Somaliland, along with the Ministers
of National Planning Dr Saad Ali Shire & Development
and Livestock, Dr Abdi Aw Dahir Ali:
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 (SL Times) –
Hargeysa region won the regional competitions which
took place in Buro, Togdheer, in the three
categories of soccer, basketball, and running.
Hargeysa Region won the soccer final game against
Hawd region by a goal which was scored by Abdi Riyad
in the first half of the game. It was a lively game
and Hawd region put up an excellent show but the
game ended 1-0 in favor of Hargeysa.
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By Mark Anderson, Hargeysa
Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 24, 2011 – Ethiopian
asylum seekers in de facto independent Somaliland
are increasingly feeling unsafe in their host
country. But returning to Ethiopia is not an option.
In 2006, Tesfy Assefa fled Ethiopia after having
been accused of supporting the Oromo Liberation
Front (OLF), an organization deemed a terrorist
group by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary
Democratic Front.
His father had been killed and his mother beaten in
front of him. Leaving Harar in the middle of the
night, he found a ride to Jijiga and then caught a
minibus to Wojale, the border town between Ethiopia
and Somaliland, before arriving in Hargeysa, the
Somaliland capital.
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Sports Personality Of
The Year 2011 Top 10: Mo Farah |
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Mo Farah knew something had to change if he was to
become world champion so he made the decision to
move to the United States to train.
It paid off within six months as he won 5,000m gold
at the World Championships in Daegu to prove his
credentials as one of the best distance runners in
the world.
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Pakistan Army Chief
Denies Force Wants To Oust Gov't |
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Pakistani Prime Minister Raza Yousuf Gilani,
gestures to members of Pakistan's Muttahida
Qaumi Movement (MQM) during a meeting in
Karachi, Pakistan, Friday, Jan. 7, 2011. (AP
Photo/Fareed Khan) |
Islamabad, Pakistan, December 24, 2011 — Pakistan's
army chief denied accusations that the military is
working to oust the country's civilian government
amid tension over a secret memo sent to Washington
earlier this year about an alleged coup, the
military said Friday.
The memo scandal has heightened long-standing
tensions between the army and the government at a
time when the country is struggling to deal with a
violent Taliban insurgency, a faltering economy and
deteriorating relations with its most important
ally, the United States.
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Photo: AP
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright delivers a speech during the state
funeral of former Czech President Vaclav
Havel in Prague, Czech Republic |
Washington, December 24, 2011 – Kim Jong Il and
Vaclav Havel died one day apart, strange timing for
two such different lives.
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By
Elizabeth Royall – Part III
The Unlikely Success Story of Local Governance in
Somaliland
The territory of Somaliland has everything against
it. Yet it found an endogenous solution to common
postconflict problems. Meanwhile, between 1991 and
1995 there were seventeen foreign-led efforts at
national reconciliation—none were successful --“the
world's foremost graveyard of externally sponsored
state-building initiatives.”
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(From left to right) Dr. Claudia Paz y Paz
Bailey, Sihem Bensedrine, Louise Arbour,
Shukri Ismail, and Sima Sama; Courtesy of
ICG 2011 |
Written By Casey L. Coombs
The International Crisis Group’s (ICG) annual In
Pursuit of Peace award dinner broke with convention
this year in big ways. Rather than patting the backs
of politically powerful men like George H.W. Bush,
Bill Clinton, and George Soros, as in years past,
the Stephen J. Solarz prize went to four
comparatively unsung women, who have advocated for
rights in some of the most forbidding parts of the
world, where women, in many cases, cannot even
participate in political life, let alone shape it.
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China does not want to engage in governance and has
a noninterference policy when it comes to the
politics or internal affairs of countries it does
business with in Africa. Or so we keep hearing. This
noninterference is only partly true because as
recently as the Libyan crisis, China did abstain
from using its veto power on the no fly zone. This
resulted in the passing of the resolution making
China a participant, an “interferer”, of the
domestic politics of Libya.
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Transitional government challenged to assert control
over the country.
Tristan McConnell
MOGADISHU, Somalia — In the latest bout of political
feuding Somalia’s Speaker of Parliament was ousted
Dec. 13.
Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, a wily politician and
wealthy businessman who has himself engineered the
downfall of numerous political challengers in the
past, lost a vote of confidence conducted while he
was abroad.
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Canadian Journalist Amanda Lindhout was
kidnapped in 2008 while working in Somalia
and held hostage for 15 months. |
Amanda Lindhout admits she had to swallow her fears
when she landed back on Somali soil this past
summer.
"There was a lot of memories that came back," said
Lindhout, recalling the moment on CTV's Canada AM.
"There was a sense of fear and panic. But I knew
that I was doing the right thing."
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Somaliland Government Takes The Right Steps |
Since we
criticized the government for what we saw as lack of action
in dealing with the issue of Hizbullah, now that the
government has acted, it is only fair that we compliment it.
The government action sends two important messages:
1-Somaliland will not accept the manipulation of people’s
religious and clan feelings and the stirring of clan wars,
or religious wars, as a vehicle for attaining political
power.
2- Anyone who wants to participate in the political process
must adhere in word and deed to Somaliland’s constitution,
one of whose pillars is Somaliland’s independence.
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The End Of Somalia:
Scenario Of Partition |
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By Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar
“A sheep” says a Somali adage “sees the sky only
when it is being slaughtered”. The proverb has
anticipated the fate of the Somali people... The
butcher has arrived. The knife is sharpened. The
Somali is about to see the sky for the first
time. This paper is about epiphanies the Somali
will behold at the moment of truth, at the edge of
the event horizon from which nothing ever returns,
just before the riding whip of slavery bites his
naked backside. It is a near-funeral situation; we
should ponder what follows in a sombre manner, with
thoughtfulness and grief.
The Epiphanies
I: The objective of those who fund the Somali wars
is not to rescue Somalis. It
was, and remains to be, about limiting Al Shabaab’s
freedom of action, degrading its capacity and
containing it progressively to smaller and smaller
territory. The era of America’s great wars is
over. This is the diktat of contracting economics of
the time. Wars will now have to be fought cheaper
and smarter; with the help of allies, with predator
drones in the sky and expendable proxies on the
ground. The strategy has succeeded beyond
expectations in the Somali theatre. That the Somali
people have become victims of a permanent war in the
process is the collateral damage and truly
unfortunate in the eyes of the funders. But it is
neither here nor there. War is ugly. The weak perish
in it.
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State And Society In
Somalia: The Social Impact Of Siyadist Bequest |
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By Mohamed Haji (Ingiriis)
Reading Richard Dowden’s piece ‘Don’t Force
Statehood on Somalia’, posted on the website of the
Royal African Society recently, stimulates me to
reflect on an insight, largely drawn from my
examination and understanding of Somali society as a
direct and participant observer. In his analysis,
Dowden states that the nomadic tradition renders
Somalis ‘a very self-sufficient, individualistic
society bound by complicated codes of loyalty and
rivalry’, which heretofore he comprehends the Somali
state, not as a type of concerted concord inspired
by a shared version of Somaliness, but a permanently
fragmented pattern that he recommends to the
international community to ‘leave it that way’ since
‘it suits Somali society’. He contends that ‘any
attempt to create a powerful Somali state will
ensure’ the continuation of the previously
aggravated Somali clan wars. By constructing his
argument as such, Dowden visualizes the Somali state
in a Eurocentric form to which he recommends that
‘the model for Somalia is Switzerland’.
Unlike Dowden, Saadia Touval, writing in 1963,
prophesied in his book Somali Nationalism:
International Politics and the Drive for Unity in
the Horn of Africa, that Somali clan-based statehood
would be a ‘potential threat to the peace of the
Horn of Africa and with international involvement,
even to world peace’. Touval was prophetic in his
prognostication.
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Marginalization Of The
Somali Intellectual Class |
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Abukar
Arman |
By Abukar Arman
In every society there is a small group of people
who possess adequate authority to influence positive
(or negative) change.
This group—often referred to as The Elite—could come
from any sector of a society from military,
economic, political, social, spiritual, to the
intellectual.
In one way or another, every one of these circles of
authority has participated in the failure of the
Somali state. However, none has rejected that notion
more than the Intellectual Class, whether religious,
secular, or in-between.
Of course, contrary to the common misconception, not
all intelligent persons, high achievers, or
academically credentialed people who become experts
in one field or another are intellectuals.
Unlike the segment often referred to as experts and
technocrats whose function is often focused on the
micro level of structure and governance,
intellectuals, by and large, focus on the macro.
They produce ideas that influence powers that be and
shape history by moving societies towards one
direction or another.
With few exceptions, the civil war has divided the
Somali Intellectual Class into four categories:
First, the Diffident Lot who could not muster the
confidence and the will to consolidate their mind
power against the might of the gun. Second, the
Aloof Lot, who, due to self-interest, intellectual
narcissism, or a subservient aim to please foreign
interest groups derail peace processes by their
actions or lack thereof. Third, the Co-opted Lot who
unabashedly carry the banners of their clans’
chauvinistic agendas. Fourth, the Reformist Lot who
try to influence from within and without the system.
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Somaliland : My
Blessings For The New Year And A Call To The Younger
Generations |
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Photo: Myself and Professor Richard Ford of
Clark University conducting a Rural
Appraisal workshop in Dararweyne (2001). |
By: M.Ali
Another new year is on the horizon as usual with
little change as to how my people live and the
progress made in the overall development and the
infra structure in the country . I may have done
little but have tried my best for the last 35 years
to contribute towards this cause.
Time is now ripe for the younger generations of
Somaliland to get very much involved in the hard
work that is needed to make this country a success.
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