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In Somaliland,
Political Legitimacy Comes From Contributing To Peace |
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The sharp light glimmers through the small opening
in the tinted window, the wind is audible. It is
early morning in Hargeysa, the self-proclaimed
Republic of Somaliland, occupying the north-western
territory of what the international community
defines as Somalia. Somalia and Somaliland could not
be further apart in conflict resolution experience
and relative stability.
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, June 9, 2012 – Young girls in
Tanzania who have been subjected to female genital
mutilation (FGM) are not even aware that their
sexual organs are not as nature intended, reports
the Tanzania Daily News.
Campaigners in the UK have launched a new
initiative which aims to protect young girls thought
to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM).
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By Chris Tatman
IT has been packed with beds, bedding, clothing,
school desks, cutlery, crockery, tools and many
other goodies.
And now the shipping container organized by veteran
peninsula charity worker Hilary Manning and her band
of volunteers is on its way to the needy in
Somaliland.
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Nairobi,
Kenya, June 9, 2012 – Sixteen minutes after armed
pirates had boarded the Sirius Star, a Saudi-owned
supertanker carrying oil, they had seized control of
the ship and its 25 crew members in November 2008.
The pirates anchored the Sirius Star off the Somali
coast and demanded $25 million in ransom, and after
two months, they received $3 million.
Pirate attacks present a major problem for the
maritime shipping industry. While pirates may aim
for vessels carrying a valuable cargo, such as oil,
the strategy of taking hostages for ransom has
become more prevalent, write researchers who
analyzed attacks between 2002 and 2009, with the
goal of finding patterns that might help the
shipping industry address the problem.
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Nairobi, Kenya, June 9, 2012 – A spokesman for a
militia aligned with Somalia's Transitional Federal
Government says troops are moving closer to al-Shabaab's
principal remaining stronghold of Kismayo. The
pro-government militia Ras Kamboni says the militant
Islamist group is trying to rally civilians inside
the port city to defend against the oncoming attack.
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Ankara, Turkey,
June 9, 2012 –Turkey said it sent $50 million in
humanitarian aid to Somalia, which has been wracked
by civil war for more than two decades.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
Thursday that Turkey intends to rebuild Somalia in a
bid to expand its influence in Africa, Voice of
America reported.
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London, UK, June 9, 2012 –Britain's Prime Minister
David Cameron and his Mauritius counterpart
Navinchandra Ramgoolam signed a deal Friday for
suspected pirates caught by the British navy to be
prosecuted on the Indian Ocean island.
Cameron said the agreement signaled that Indian
Ocean states were stepping up the battle against
piracy.
Britain has similar deals with the Seychelles and
Tanzania as part of efforts to protect vital
shipping lanes against Somali pirates.
"Piracy is a violent crime and pirates should be in
no doubt that they will be arrested at sea,
prosecuted in regional states and imprisoned," said
Cameron.
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Somalia. The name alone conjures up images of
unbridled destruction, merciless warlords and
ruthless terror. A place where nobody—children, the
elderly, religious figures—is safe from the
atrocities of war, and where the idea of
“childhood,” where 8 year olds handle AK-47s like
toys, exists in chronological terms alone.
When Forbes magazine recently unveiled their Most
Dangerous Destinations, Somalia, above Iraq and
Afghanistan, topped the list.
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AMISOM commander Lieut. General Andrew Gutti,
left, and Brigadier Paul Lokech, commander
of the Ugandan contingent serving with the
African Union operation, clap their hands as
Ugandan soldiers sing a patriotic song in
Afgoye, Somalia, on June 5, 2012 |
Nairobi, Kenya, June 9, 2012 – TIME's Africa
correspondent writes from the front lines in
war-ravaged Somalia, where an African Union
offensive against al-Shabaab is offering a tenuous
glimpse of progress
We drive west out of Mogadishu, Somalia, in a convoy
of three African Union armored personnel carriers,
mounted with three heavy machine guns. No building
seems untouched by bullet holes; many have
collapsed, thorn trees growing through their ruins,
their stone guts spilling out into the street. On
all sides, in the rubble and on open patches of
ground, are domed brushwood-and-rag shelters in
which 200,000 refugees have lived since fleeing to
the city during last year’s famine.
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Somaliland President
Meets With Governors |
Hargeysa,
Somaliland,
June 9, 2012
(SL Times) –
Somaliland
President
Ahmed
Sillanyo met
in with the
governors of
all the
regions. In
his meeting
with the
governors,
the
president
was
accompanied
by the
Minister of
Interior
Muhammad Nur
‘Arrale (Dur)
and the
minister of
Finance,
Abdiaziz
Samale.
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Somaliland Delegation Visits Kenya |
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Nairobi, Kenya, June 9, 2012 (SL Times) – Two
Somaliland ministers visited Kenya and met with the
Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga. The two
ministers were the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr
Muhammad Abdillahi Omar, and the Minister of the
Presidency, Mr Hirsi Ali H. Hasan.
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Somaliland Foreign Minister Says Turkish Deputy
Prime Minister To Visit Somaliland, Turkey To Open
Office In Hargeysa |
Istanbul, Turkey, June 9, 2012 (SL Times) –
Somaliland Foreign Minister, Dr Muhammad Abdillahi
Omar, said Turkey will open an office in Somaliland
and that the purpose of the office would be to work
on Somaliland-Turkish relations. He also announced
that the Turkish Deputy Minister, Bulent Arinc, will
visit Somaliland soon. The Turkish government has
not made any comments on this matter.
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Abdirahman Abdiqadir Criticizes Istanbul Conference
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London, UK, June 9, 2012 (SL Times) – In an
interview with the Somali language newspaper Haatuf,
The former second Deputy Chairman of Kulmiye party,
Abdirahman Abdiqadir, strongly criticized the
Istanbul Conference and said the conference did
great damage to Somaliland’s sovereignty and that
Somaliland gained nothing from attending it. To
support his argument, he provided these three main
points:
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Environment Day
Celebrated In Somaliland |
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, June 9, 2012 (SL Times) –
Environment day was marked in Somaliland with a
celebration at Hargeysa’s Mansoor Hotel. The event
was attended by the Minister of Rural Development
Mohamud Saeed Warsame (Gacamay), the Director
General of the Ministry of Rural Development,
Muhammad Farah Hirsi, the Minister of Agriculture
Beeroole, UN agencies and NGO’s.
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Hargeysa, Somaliland, June 9, 2012 (SL Times) – The
Former manager of Kulmiye Party’s campaign for the
western regions during the last election, Eng. Bashe
Abdi Gabobe published an article in the Somali
language Newspaper Haatuf. The article was entitled
“Hashu Maankeyga Gaddaye Ma Mansaar Bey Liqdey”
which we took the liberty to loosely translate as
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
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Flights to Hargeysa differed as Renovation of Runway
not Complete
Press Release
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 9, 2012 – Ethiopian
Airlines, the fastest growing airline in Africa, is
pleased to announce the start of new flights to
Berbera, the port city of Somaliland, as of July 1,
2012. Ethiopian will fly to Berbera daily using its
Q400 aircraft, with three morning and four afternoon
flights.
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Mogadishu, Somalia, June 9, 2012 – The Islamist
al-Shabaab group that controls much of southern
Somalia has recently suffered several significant
defeats. The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse has been
traveling with Ugandan soldiers in the African Union
force that has been fighting the al-Qaeda-allied
militants and reports from Afgoye, until last month
one their key strongholds.
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Washington, June 9, 2012 – The United States is
offering rewards of up to $7 million for information
leading to the location of seven key leaders of
Somalia's al Shabaab, seeking for the first time to
target top echelons of the al Qaeda-linked militant
group.
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Barack Obama: Europe
Faces Tough Decisions |
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Washington, June 9, 2012 – European leaders must
make difficult decisions to steer the eurozone away
from crisis, US President Obama says.
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Peaceful Interlude In
Mogadishu Raises Hopes Of End To Somalia Violence |
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Mogadishu, Somalia, June 9, 2012 – If there is a
single image that encapsulates Somalia's violent
past, its wary present and its uncertain future, it
may be the view from the gutted shell of the
once-stately Uruba Hotel.
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By J. Peter Pham
In the more than two decades since the collapse of
the last entity that could be reasonably described
as the central government of Somalia, the
Texas-sized territory has become the byword for
state failure, stubbornly resisting no less than 14
attempts to reconstitute a national government. e
current internationally backed effort, the unelected
and ineffectual Transitional Federal Government (TFG),
just barely manages to maintain a presence in a few
of the districts of its bombed-out capital,
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Parents of some British Somalis are sending their
children back to Africa because they fear what might
happen to them in the UK, writes reporter Jamal
Osman.
Hargeysa, Somaliland, June
9, 2012 – Hassan, a 20-year-old man from Sheffield,
is enjoying life in Hargeysa, Somaliland.
Back in the UK he faced so
many challenges. His family was always worried about
him getting into trouble and ending up in jail - or
dead.
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The aid and military support that the international
community offers to Central and the Horn of Africa
may be stifling ‘local solutions to local problems’.
By Fawzia Sheikh
Both Central and the Horn of Africa secure regular
spots in the headlines, but not for coveted reasons
– simmering violence, religious radicalism and
piracy are among the biggest draws.
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By Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
On May 11, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
released a position paper, “Ethiopia’s policy
towards Somalia,” which defines where Addis Ababa
stands in the current conflicts in the territories
of post-independence Somalia.
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Somaliland Government Needs To Mend Its Foreign Policy |
Whether one
checks the internet or talks to ordinary Somalilanders, it
is difficult to miss the widening concern about Somaliland’s
foreign policy. The criticism that is being leveled at
Somaliland’s foreign policy is of two kinds. There are those
who blast it simply because they are opposed to the current
government. It is not hard to spot this type of criticism
because it is continuously negative, at times even
irrational, and seeks to find fault at every corner. But
then there are those who actually want the government to
succeed but are disturbed by what they see. The danger for
the current government is that the number of people in the
latter category is increasing.
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Somalia Must Seize Its
Chance To Break Sterile And Corrupt Mould Of
Nation-Building |
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By Ahmed M.I. Egal
The impending expiry of Somalia's Transitional
Federal Government (TFG) has occasioned an unseemly
rush to establish a 'permanent', and therefore
'legitimate', administration in the country. This
forms a severe test for the Somalia Policy of the
Western Powers.
That is, if we can use the term 'policy' to describe
the alternating bouts of inertia/neglect and
hyperactivity focused upon ill thought-out
conferences at which donor representatives deliver
bromides exhorting Somali 'ownership' of the
'transition process' and engage in earnest
hand-wringing at the suffering of the people. The
salary men TFG officials (paid by the donor
countries) nod obediently and promise to deliver
governance, even as they jockey for position at the
trough of donor contributions.
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The Rainbow Of Hope |
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Over the last 20 years, war of ugliest kind has been
fought in Somalia. Somali people wherever they are
spoiled their true identity. Don’t panic. This is a
choice Somalis made themselves! Today what-so-called
Somali Republic is shattered into pieces and exists
just in dreams. The ‘Somali’ name has been labeled
with all sorts of evils of today’s world- terrorism,
piracy, extreme poverty, to mention but a few. The
average common man in all across the world- black
and white, Muslim and non Muslim, will slap you with
the reality that Somalis are senseless, violent and
some more dreadful manifestations. It means Somalis
are comfortable with disunity despite the fact that
there are many factors that can bind them together.
However, in this piece of writing, I intend to urge
Somalis to put aside their grievances and find a way
to live together.
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Federalism Will Not
Work In Somalia, Unlike Ethiopia |
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By
Mohamud Aden Samatar
Somalis are a homogeneous society, and have one
religion and a common language, Somali. And it would
be very difficult a constitution based on federalism
to work in Somalia, unless the states that the
Federal Government would be constituted of are based
on clan or tribal, since the people of Somalia are
only divided on clans or tribal and current existing
states like Puntland, Gal-mudug and Azania are all
based on clan or tribal.
Unlike Ethiopia where there are different ethnic
groups , like Somali, Oromo, Tigre , Amhara, Afar
and many more with different religions , cultures
and languages.
Federalism is working today for the Ethiopians,
after it was implemented by the current rulling
party, EPRDF, Ethiopian People's Revolutionary
Democratic Party, led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
Today in Ethiopia each ethnic group has its own
locally elected government or state and have the
luxury to practice their own relgion, speak and
write own languages.
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Do The Recent Somali
Conferences Differ Than The Once Failed Conferences? |
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By
Ahmed Mohamed Diriye (Toorno)
During the last two decades, the International
community sponsored about 17 Somali reconciliation
conferences, including the recent London and
Istanbul Conferences; which equivalent to one
reconciliation conference in every 15 months; but
all failed. The question is why those conferences
ended without substantial outcome? Number of factors
could be the sources of these failures.
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SOMALIA 2012: Ending The Transition? |
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Knox Chitiyo and Anna Rader
This Paper comes at a vital period in Somalia’s
troubled history.
In less than three months’ time, the mandate of the
transitional federal government will expire. Key
components of the political roadmap for Somalia have
yet to be delivered, not least a new constitution,
but there are grounds for optimism. The extremist
group Al-Shabaab has declined in strength, local
governance is gradually expanding and last year’s
famine is technically over. The various accords
brokered in 2011/12 also suggest that the
international commitment to bringing Somalia’s
endless transition to a close and helping to
liberate its people from the constant menace of
violence and chaos has never been stronger. Will
2012 mark a new beginning in the country’s future or
simply another false dawn?
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