From the hills near Hangingheld Farm—an organic, 110-acre smallholding on the edges of the medieval Welsh hunting grounds known as Radnor Forest—you can just spy Offa’s Dyke, the great historic dividing line between Wales and England. Somewhere on the hills, you can probably spot some of farmer Hamish Wilson’s pacific Lleyn sheep or ginger Highland cows. And if you happen to be up around Hangingheld between April and October, you’re likely to see a massive aqal—a Somali nomad’s tent—pitched around the property. Nearby, groups of British Somalis, both old and young, fry up squishy, fermented laxoox flatbread, play games of shax, and try their hand at milking cows and cleaning the milk pots with the culay technique—a Somali method of scouring that uses heated firebrands. These are the months when Hangingheld transforms into Degmo, a name derived from the Somali term for nomadic families who’ve pitched tents and grouped their herds in the same area. Hamish’s Degmo is a little more than just a slavish recreation of a Somali desert herders’ camp in the Welsh moorlands, though. It’s something of a cultural boot camp. Established in partnership with more than 40 Somali diaspora associations in the United Kingdom, Degmo aims to solve some of the problems of this huge—and often maligned—immigrant community by reconnecting the youth to their cultural heritage and giving them a definition of what it means to be Somali beyond the pirates, warlords, and terrorists they see on the news and in Google search results. In a way, it’s surprising there aren’t more farms like Degmo in the United Kingdom. Back in northern Somalia, city folk and farmers alike would send their children to the countryside every summer to live with nomadic relatives, Saeed Yusuf Abdi told me. Saeed is a Somali immigrant and manager at Maan, a Somali mental health organization in Sheffield. Going into the countryside, he argued, is how children learned what it meant to be Somalis. That process, added Hamish, "created confident young people, proud of who they are." It also "taught them how to behave to each other," as it was where they learned the checks and balances built into Somali traditions and social structures. For many years, the small communities of Somalis who settled as dockhands or laborers in the UK brought that tradition with them, recreating cultural institutions within their tight-knit societies and maintaining strong contacts with their homeland. Cattle herding in Boon, Somaliland. Photo by Mark Hay But in the 1990s, the situation of Somali immigrants the world over changed drastically. With Somalia’s descent into civil war, tens of thousands of Somalis flowed into the UK as refugees. They arrived with few language skills, little support or work prospects, and not nearly enough pre-established communities to help them integrate. Current estimates place the number of Somalis in the UK between 95,000 and 250,000—hazy numbers reflecting the community’s marginalization and misunderstood nature—clustered into urban centers like Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Sheffield. Some families, according to Hamish and Saeed, easily found their way into UK society. But many adults, Saeed said, “feel isolated and abandoned in the strange new environment of Europe.” As Hamish sees it, many of these grown immigrants never quite unpacked—always expecting they might return home or move somewhere better—so they never felt the need to set down roots. According to Hamish, the continued reliance on Somali clan structures and communities—though it’s helped the community in many ways—may be keeping many families from building relationships with the British population at large, bridging the vast gap that can make them seem so distant and other to the native population. Meanwhile, the youth struggle to find their place in British society, and they are so far removed from any connection to their homeland that, as Saeed says, “some sons and daughters of nomads think milk comes from the Tesco grocery store.” Unmoved by fractured cultural lessons delivered by parents who are also trying to navigate in a strange new world, and feeling the pastoral stories and systems irrelevant to their east London lives, many have begun to actively reject their Somali identity. Some give in to total cultural assimilation, Hamish observes. Others, at the worse end, seek community within violent gangs. It was when more and more Somali children started showing up on the police radar that Hamish and the leaders of the UK Somali community took action. A modern-day degmo in Somaliland. Photo by Mark Hay If “Hamish Wilson” doesn’t sound like a particularly Somali name, that’s because it isn’t. But his family has strong ties to Somaliland—the de facto autonomous region of northern Somalia—that stretch back nearly a century. In the 1930s and 40s, Hamish’s father, Eric, fought alongside Somalis in the Somaliland Camel Corps against the Italian Army invading from Ethiopia. Although brutally wounded and believed dead, Eric survived, received a Victoria Cross award for his service, and developed enduring ties to the families of his fallen comrades. Hamish in turn lived in Somaliland, became a camel boy, and even joined the northern resistance during the Civil War—he first met Saeed in Somalia and Ethiopia. Back in the UK, he developed a reputation as a photographer of Somali culture, collector of Somali artifacts, and consultant to local police, schools, media, and human rights groups on Somali traditions and communities. When Saeed and others in the Somali diaspora started kicking around the idea of recreating the nomadic summer experience for dislocated and disaffected youths in the community, they approached Hamish asking to use his farm, tents and tools, and archive of Somali documents. He and his father jumped in enthusiastically with the guidance and financial support of various Somali communities. Hamish and the others knew that they’d never be able to fully recreate the experience of a traditional Bedouin summer retreat. For one thing, camels don’t fare well in the Welsh countryside. They have a tendency to slip on the slick hills, break their legs, and die cruel and unnecessary deaths. A few concessions of modern city life have been made as well, like the access to hot showers and the practice of cooking pizzas rather than fully Somali cuisine. But even the introduction to a British rural setting, with walks along the River Wye, lessons in falconry and ferreting from a neighboring farmer, apple pressing, and canoeing trips, visits to Degmo still offer something of value. For years, many groups have turned up for a two-to-five night stay, with as many as 40 people attending the camp at any given time. Speaking to Degmo’s effectiveness in tackling the cultural assimilation and generational gaps in Somali communities, Saeed recalls a trip of at-risk youths to the farm led by a Sheffield gym coach. Many of the kids had been in borderline-violent encounters with each other, but the camp “had this magical effect,” says Saeed. “Instead of identifying themselves with the Pissmore Gang—I don’t know if that’s what they call themselves really—they were shown pictures of their country and started to talk it out.” That group now saves a pound a week to try to fund a return trip to Degmo. He and Hamish both have dozens of stories of groups or individuals who came with their parents and grandparents kicking and screaming but, after just a few days, left with a new appreciation of their heritage. Saeed talks of the ability of the farm—an abstraction from urban life, but not so shocking as a return to the Horn of Africa—to separate kids from the pressures of their lives and open them up to talking with their elders and working through issues with one other. Hamish thinks it helps with the negative image of Somalis to see a white man rave about the richness of Somali culture. It also wears down the generation gap when kids see their parents or grandparents cry over photos of lost clansmen or artifacts they haven’t seen in decades. At best, Saeed believes they’ve helped hundreds of Somali youth find a way of harmonizing their Somali identity with their British selves and lives. At the very least, Hamish thinks they’ve managed to create a positive Google search result for Somali culture—something a number of youths stumbling across the site online have emailed to thank him for. Over the past two years, though, Degmo has fallen on hard times. The farm came together at the behest of the Somali community in the UK and was funded initially by businessmen like Abdirashid Duale, of the remittance giant Dahabshiil, and sustained by fundraising within diaspora communities. The remoteness of the farm—at least 20 miles from the nearest train station, with no public transit nearby—and the poverty of many Somali communities required a great deal of subsidization and communal funding for each visit. But ever since the financial collapse, it’s gotten harder and harder to raise money within the communities just to keep Degmo alive. The past year has been a particular struggle for Degmo. After several visitors were unable to pay in full, the farm found itself in debt for the first time. Fortunately, Abdirashid Duale, without anyone asking, paid off Hamish’s debts, but the threat of collapse has forced the Degmo team to look into new ways of raising money to subsidize trips for the less privileged and the most at-risk and needy Somali communities. For now, Hamish is booking space and time for a higher number of salaried and well-established families, the sort who have strong ties to the homeland and might even return once a year. He’s even looked into bringing in groups of white visitors at commercial rates, using the higher fees paid by these groups to subsidize visits by those who can no longer fundraise enough for themselves. But He’ll be the first to admit that his efforts at direct fundraising have fallen short of this goal: It's not that’s not a strength of his, and, as a farmer running a cultural training camp in his spare time on a shoestring budget, he has little time to lobby and simper for money. Despite the shortfalls of recent years, Hamish and company seem bent on expanding Degmo out of an honest belief in its power to instill a sense of cultural pride and retention in diaspora youth. After being approached by the Somaliland Ministry of Education, Hamish will be traveling this year to Hargeisa, Somaliland, to look into setting up Degmo International, a version of his farm in a traditional environment to be used by local schools to teach a cultural curriculum and serve as an educational tool for the visiting diaspora. Hamish also believes the Somaliland farm could foster research and popular support for the sustenance and enhancement of rural, nomadic life in Somaliland against the dual specters of mass urbanization and environmental degradation. And if the first international Degmo works out, he’d like to take a shot at expanding the camps to America and Scandinavia as well—anywhere there’s a large Somali population. In part, he hopes that revenue sharing across wealthier communities will help to save the farm in Wales. But more than that, Hamish and the UK Somali community believe in the power of Degmo to transform the lives of the diaspora and save the culture they left behind, and they want to bring that opportunity to Somalis around the world. Source: vice.com http://www.somaliaonline.com/degmo-a-cultural-boot-camp-for-somalis-in-the-welsh-countryside/

The UN Security Council is unlikely to fully restore a decades-old arms embargo on Somalia, despite concerns about the possible diversion of weapons to Al-Qaeda-linked militants, but may extend eased restrictions on government purchases, diplomats said. A year ago, the 15-member council agreed to partially lift the arms embargo on Somalia, allowing the government in Mogadishu to buy light weapons to strengthen its security forces to fight Islamist groups. However, a confidential UN monitors' report obtained by Reuters last week, warned of "systematic abuses" by Somalia's government – which the monitors say has allowed the diversion of weapons that Somali authorities purchased after the Security Council eased the arms embargo last year. "Given the concerns about the way the suspension has been operated, we're thinking of... continuing the suspension but for a more limited period with some very strict criteria," said a senior UN diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. The eased restrictions are due to expire early next month. Instead of extending the move for another year, it may only be renewed until the end of October, which is when UN experts – who monitor the embargo and other sanctions on Somalia and Eritrea – are due to report to council on any violations. "This is not because the international community thinks the Somali government is doing a good job in keeping track of its weapons. On the contrary," said a diplomatic source, adding that new conditions on the government could include further notification and reporting requirements on arms purchases. The UN Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group recommended in its confidential report to the Security Council's sanctions committees last week that either the full arms embargo be restored or at least notification and reporting requirements related to arms deliveries be tightened. Somalia's government last year had asked for the arms embargo to be fully removed and the United States supported that, but other Security Council members were wary of doing that in a country already awash with weapons, diplomats said. The senior diplomat said some Security Council members might "argue that (Somalia's government) had their chance and they blew it and we should re-impose the arms embargo." But he said a shorter extension of the eased restrictions, with tighter conditions, could be seen as a "final warning." The Security Council imposed the embargo on Somalia in 1992 to cut the flow of weapons to feuding warlords, who a year earlier had ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged the country into civil war. Somalia held its first vote since 1991 in 2012 to elect a president and prime minister. The eased restrictions allow sales to the government of such weapons as automatic assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, but leave in place a ban on surface-to-air missiles, large-calibre guns, howitzers, cannons and mortars as well as anti-tank guided weapons, mines and night-vision weapon sights. The UN resolution last year said weapons and equipment "may not be resold to, transferred to, or made available for use by, any individual or entity not in the service of the security forces of the federal government of Somalia." It asked the Somalia government to report regularly on the structure of the security forces and the infrastructure and procedures in place to ensure safe storage, maintenance and distribution of military equipment. There is a 17,600-strong African Union peacekeeping force and a UN political mission in the Horn of Africa country. Source: Reuters http://www.somaliaonline.com/the-un-security-council-is-unlikely-to-fully-restore-arms-embargo-on-somalia-despite-concerns-about-the-possible-diversion-of-weapons-to-al-shabaab/

NAIROBI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The Somali government should deploy police officers to protect vulnerable women in camps for displaced people and stop arresting and persecuting rape victims who try to report such crimes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday. There are 369,000 displaced people living in dozens of camps scattered across the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Many women and girls living in these camps have been gang raped multiple times and they rarely seek, or receive, justice. Here are some of the women’s stories, as told to HRW in the report ‘Here, Rape is Normal: A Five Point Plan to Curtail Sexual Violence in Somalia’. All 27 interviewees lived in internally displaced people’s camps in Mogadishu. Most were raped in their shelters at night. Maryam, a 37-year-old single mother of six children, was gang raped twice. The first time Maryam was raped, she was five months pregnant and asleep in her tent in Wadajir district. “The four men all raped me one by one while one of them stood guard outside. I was struggling with the last man and he stabbed me with the bayonet on his gun. I was screaming and no one came out to help,” she said. The next day, the camp “gatekeeper” (manager) took her to the police station where she reported that one of the rapists was wearing a police uniform. “I then started to bleed profusely from my vagina,” she said. “They told me to go home and wash off the blood. But before they let me go, they told me I had to wash the floor where I was bleeding. I sat down, they gave me a brush and I cleaned the floor.” Shortly afterwards, Maryam miscarried. Three months later, she was raped again at night in her tent by a different gang. Hawo, 27, took a bus to Mogadishu with her six children, hoping to find work. While her bus was on the outskirts of town, assailants with Kalashnikov assault rifles and pistols stopped the bus and said they were going to “take all the women off the bus and nobody should try to do anything about it.” The women who resisted were beaten into submission. “They didn’t steal anything from us because none of us had anything of value. They took us to a bushy area and raped us. We could all see each other,” she said. Afterwards, the women got back on the bus and continued their journey in silence. Farxiyo, single mother of seven children, was raped while asleep in her tent. She was unable to leave her home for two days afterwards and relied on neighbours to provide food for her children. “The worst thing is that the rapes push us into poverty because afterwards we cannot do the same work or carry heavy loads. We need money for our kids to live. The government should do something or kids will die of hunger.” Xawo, 34, was a cleaner in her neighbourhood. Four men whose rooms she cleaned took her to a back room, tied her hands, slammed her against a cement wall, broke her fingers, and gang raped her. She did not report the attack because the perpetrators knew where she lived. After she became pregnant from the rape, people close to her told her to throw the baby away. “When a woman faces such difficulties, she knows she can’t go to the government or to anyone. Women are being abused from every angle – from their family all the way to their government,” she said. “Even within your family, they’re telling you not to keep the child or to cover it up and not bring shame. Women are always told to be quiet. When you accuse the military or police of rape, your family says “Even we will beat you if you bring this up.” Source: http://www.trust.org http://www.somaliaonline.com/somali-police-tell-rape-victim-to-wash-her-blood-off-their-floor-and-go-home/

A main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy chairman has submitted a parliamentary question directed at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over Turkey providing direct budgetary support to Somalia. CHP Deputy Chairman Faruk Loğoğlu submitted the parliamentary question asking Erdoğan to provide details of the direct payments, which are a major source of funding for Somalia's government as it struggles to rebuild the country after more than two decades of war. Turkish and Somali government officials told Reuters last week that financial assistance to Somalia had stopped at the end of 2013 and that there were no immediate plans to resume it. After the reports, Turkey pledged to maintain direct budgetary support this year for the war-ravaged East African country. It is not clear how much money Turkey donated to Somalia in 2013. The questions Loğoğlu addressed to Erdoğan were as follows: “What is the amount of direct budgetary aid to Somalia between 2002 and 2013 on an annual basis? How was the direct budgetary support delivered to the Somali authorities? What is the reason for cutting off direct budgetary support to Somalia at the end of 2013? What fund was the direct budgetary support for Somalia allocated from?” Turkey is a key ally of the Somali government. Its vast humanitarian aid effort at the height of the 2011 famine endeared the country to many Somalis, especially as Ankara continues to build hospitals and dispatch aid across the East African nation. Erdoğan has taken a personal interest in Somalia, becoming the first non-African leader to visit in nearly 20 years when he traveled there in 2011. Since then Turkey has poured in aid, much of it from private companies. Somalia's former central bank chief, Abdusalam Omer, had said during his seven-month tenure that financial support from Turkey amounted to $4.5 million a month, paid in boxes full of cash to the central bank. Source: http://en.cihan.com.tr http://www.somaliaonline.com/turkish-parliament-questions-erdogan-over-turkeys-budget-support-to-the-somali-goverment/

Osman grew up in Somalia, where the idea of becoming a jockey was outrageous, he said. Osman fled his native country and became a refugee in Kenya before coming to the United States, and he said survival had been the only thing on his mind at the time. Osman said it was in April 2009, after seeing CALVIN BOREL ride MINE THAT BIRD to a win at the Kentucky Derby, that he had made the decision to go to the Preakness Stakes May 16, 2009, to see firsthand what all of the hype surrounding the second leg of the Triple Crown was about. "Seeing the crowd enjoying the excitement of the races, I was hit with a bug," Osman said. On Oct. 17, 2011, at the age of 30, Osman's dream became reality when he quit his job as hotel manager at the Homestead Studio Hotel in Fairfax, Va., and headed to Cope, S.C., to work as an apprentice jockey at Shuler Stables LLC. "In 2011, I quit my job and went to South Carolina to learn how to break babies," Osman said, "and have been galloping at Pimlico and Bowie since." On Jan. 15, in his second year of riding, the 33-year-old Osman guided PRINCESS BEAU K to victory during the second race at Laurel Park for his first lifetime win. "I was so excited," Osman said, "because after so many races of not winning, I was getting frustrated. Feelings of gratitude swept over me, thinking of all the people who helped me along the way, especially trainer CHARLIE WILLIAMS." Osman rode Princess Beau K to the front, then gave up the lead, but fought back and made it to the finish line 2.5 lengths ahead of FRIENDLY PRINCESS, with a time of 1:30.51. Despite losing the lead during the final stages of the race, Osman said he had been unfazed by the pressure of trying to regain it. "I was relaxed when the other horse came up to us," Osman said, "and I just rode her with confidence." In addition to that victory, Osman has started eight other races this year, finishing higher than fourth in one. In 2013, Osman's first season as a jockey, he started 19 races, and did not finish better than fifth during those races. Although there had been some early growing pains for Osman, he said he continued to go back to the drawing board in an effort to develop his skills. "Going back to work harder and harder, exercising and breezing horses, continuing to improve my skills will help me ride more winners," Osman said. Osman said he had a drive to get back to the winner's circle and would continue to ride as long as his body allowed him to. "Right now, the focus is on riding and winning races," Osman said. "As long as I have my health, my desire will keep me going for many years to come." Source: http://www.pressboxonline.com http://www.somaliaonline.com/mohamed-osman-is-enjoying-second-year-as-a-jockey-in-maryland/

NAIROBI, 14 February 2014 (IRIN) – Somalia’s economy has managed to survive state collapse, maintaining reasonable levels of output throughout the country’s two-decade-long civil war. Now, with political recovery and transition slowly underway, the country’s economy faces new hurdles. Investors have come to Somalia looking to cash in on the rebuilding process and abundant natural resources in areas such as agriculture and livestock, fisheries, and oil and gas. More innovative fields, such as mobile technology, have also been taking off, although they still only impact a minority of the population (22.5 out of every 100 inhabitants have a mobile phone subscription in Somalia, significantly lower than the developing world average of 84.3). It is hoped these developments will lay the groundwork for broader economic growth. The second pillar of the president’s Six Pillar Strategy to stabilize the country is economic recovery. In line with this, Somalia aims to build a transparent, formalized, globally competitive economy that collects tax revenues. But the government faces a number of challenges as it works towards these goals. IRIN looks at some of the most pressing problems. Certification Somalia’s government does not have the capacity to participate in certification schemes or to provide authenticity documentation that would enable businesses to sell goods globally. Firms instead have to find unconventional, and often costly, workarounds. Although sesame seeds are grown in large quantities in Somalia – in 2012 the country was the 12th largest producer in the world – exporting them is a challenge. “Just before the famine, there was a very good season of sesame, and I remember talking with a businessman who explained he was forced to take the sesame in Somalia and nationalize it in some way in Indonesia to sell it to Germany,” said Luca Alinovi, regional director of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) at a recent event in Nairobi on Somalia’s foreign direct investment prospects. “This is quite an inefficient way to deal with it – but the only way if you’re not able to have a proper certificatory regime, a proper EPA [Economic Partnership Agreement] between Somalia and Europe.” Alinovi notes that similar mechanisms are used when it comes to exporting many fishery products. “This means that the government of Somalia loses money,” he said. “We need to have much stronger capacity to support the country and the people to have those regulatory frameworks which help the people do business properly.” Trade difficulties Somalia is not a member of any regional economic blocs, and it has few formal trade deals with other nations. The US and the European Union currently have no trade agreements with Somalia, and the country is not a member of the World Trade Organization, compounding the difficulties local firms face when competing regionally and internationally. In 2012, Somalia exported goods worth US$693 million (509 million euros), according to data from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade. While this represents a significant increase – in 2008, exports were less than half that number – the country still runs a large trade deficit. In 2012, its imports were valued at $1,818 billion (1,335 million euros). It also exports less than other countries: Somalia is the 171th largest exporter in the world, and it has the fourth lowest GDP per capita, according to the CIA World Factbook. Somalia’s biggest export market is to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which takes in more than half its total exports. Just three countries (UAE, Yemen and Oman) account for 82.5 percent of all exports, predominantly in livestock, out of Somalia. Regional partners often impose strict restrictions on Somalia, mainly out of security fears. “Borders sometimes are closed,” said Hassan Noor, CEO of Hanvard Africa, a consultant firm that focuses on East Africa. “People fly from Mogadishu direct to Istanbul. They can fly to Dubai. But they can’t fly to the next-door neighbor.” (There are no direct flights between Mogadishu and Ethiopia, for example, although there are to Djibouti, Kampala and Nairobi.) As a result, businesses have to go to great lengths to trade with other countries. “Businesses register in Dubai in order to get access to finance and the like,” said Nick Haslam of advisory firm Adam Smith International. This also means that businesses are less transparent. “Who is behind certain business sectors? It’s like an onion. Every time you peel some layer, you discover other friends behind it without necessarily being very officially present,” added Alinovi. Currency reform Restoring the credibility of Somalia’s currency will also be crucial to economic development. The Central Bank has identified “the introduction of new and unified currency” for Somalia as one of its strategic goals for the next five years. “There were (and still are) several versions of the same currency (Shilling) in circulation concurrently, and most of them are fake currencies,” the bank notedin its Strategic Plan 2013-2018. Since the early 1990s, no bank notes have been printed officially. “The collapsing of the Central Bank and the banking system left a vacuum for monetary and regulatory control and totally shattered the country’s payment system,” noted the report. This led to “currency substitution and the growth of the parallel currency market,” with warlords and militias issuing their own currency. This means that there is a large black market for currency. Officially, Somalia’s shilling trades at around 1,200 to the US dollar, but it is about 15 times that rate on the black market. In mid-2013, the International Monetary Fund resumed relations with Somalia after 22 years. For now, it will not provide loans to the country, but it pledged to provide technical assistance and highlighted currency reform as a major priority. But the Central Bank is still struggling. Central Bank Governor Yussur Abrarresigned in November after just seven weeks, citing claims of corruption and government interference, and while an interim leader has been appointed, the Bank has yet to find a full-time replacement. “There’s a lack of capacity, and also there’s huge corruption,” said Shirwa Jama, the International Development Law Organization’s Somalia country representative. But he noted that “all these things can really be addressed if the government has the commitment to improve rule of law, to capacitate and work with international partners.” Managing oil deals and revenue Nowhere are the problems and potential of the Somali economy better exemplified than in the oil and gas industry. There are massive reserves, and even before the collapse of government, large firms were exploring the possibility of mining oil and gas. But lack of legislation and political wrangling at regional and national levels impede development in this sector. “There is currently growing hostility between the Federal Government of Somalia and regional administrations that have signed oil deals independently of the government,” a UN Monitoring group on Somalia and Eritrea noted in a Julyletter to the Security Council. Divergence between the 2008 petroleum law – which is invoked by Federal Government petroleum officials – and Somalia’s Constitution is exacerbating this hostility.” Some large firms, including BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips still hold exploration rights dating back to before the civil war and have had discussions with the central government. In August, Soma Oil and Gas, a British firm founded earlier in 2013, signed an agreement with Mogadishu to begin exploring oil – much to the chagrin of the Puntland and Somaliland governments, which have separate deals with other firms. It remains unclear how old contracts will be resolved and who will have the ultimate right to negotiate new deals. “Oil and gas has huge potential, but the current uncertainty surrounding federal and regional states and the lack of agreement over resource sharing and taxation means that it will be very difficult for that sector to take off until those issues are resolved,” noted Haslam. Social engagement There is also a need to ensure that economic growth benefits the people, especially as foreign direct investment grows. Following the collapse of the Siyad Barre regime in 1991, the private sector stepped in to provide most basic goods and services, and has actually performed relatively well throughout this period despite rampant insecurity and lack of infrastructure. “Everything is being provided by the private sector – water, electricity, telecommunications, everything,” said Hanvard Africa’s Noor. “In the absence of a government, in the absence of a regulatory framework, with nobody else coming to provide those services, they had to do what they could do.” “Businesses have created their own informal, enabling environment,” said Haslam. “People form strong networks to overcome [poor] access to finance, for example, relying on customary or Sharia law to overcome disputes, and local knowledge is paramount.” But while a system of customary law and close clan ties worked to support society (through mechanisms such as Zakat – giving a proportion of one’s wealth to charity), some of these networks are now being eroded, argues Alinovi. “Because of a set of changing mechanisms in the inter-clan relations in the last 20 years, a lot of the obligation that the businessmen used to have to the society, for the social fabric surrounding [them], has begun disappearing,” he said. “The businesses in Somalia are becoming less relevant for the society.” With international investment, there are fears that the influx of foreign money will give rise to greater cronyism and corruption. “Risk is for the investor, but also risk is for the local people,” said Noor. “We don’t want to become like Niger Delta.” Source: Irinnews http://www.somaliaonline.com/five-challenges-for-somalias-economic-reconstruction/

With Japan ranked as only the 27th-easiest place to do business in the world, Tokyo still has a ways to go on critical reforms. Yet, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe already having brought new hope to the nation — as well as, critics might note, perhaps renewed tensions in the region — the third- largest economy in the world still has many a lesson to share with the likes of Yangon and Mogadishu. After all, when it comes to doing business, there are few places worse, it seems, than the likes of Myanmar and Somalia. That’s at least, according to the World Bank, which has Myanmar ranked as worst in Asia — at 182nd of 189 economies — on the ease of doing business. Rounding out the “Top Five” for worst in Asia in “The World Bank 2014 Doing Business” report — the latest annual assessment of the ease of doing business in economies around the world — are Timor-Leste (179th), Afghanistan (164th), Laos (159th) and the Federated States of Micronesia (156th). None of them, though, should take heart in the retort, “Well, at least we’re better than Somalia.” Clearly investing in Somalia is not for the fainthearted. Somalia is quite literally off the charts, as the World Bank report once again skips Somalia completely. Lawlessness and lack of reliable data are no doubt two of the factors why Somalia continues to be absent in the rankings. Yet, just as in the Top Five-ranked economies for ease of doing business — Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the United States and Denmark — there are lessons to be taken even from Somalia on how best to grow economies and address persistent poverty, whether in Africa or in Asia. More than ever, given dwindling government budgets and reduced foreign assistance dollars, the private sector — whether brave entrepreneurs, small- and medium-sized enterprises or well-established and deep-pocketed corporations — can play a critical role in fighting poverty. With well-thought-through partnerships, such efforts can be done in a way that is good for business and more sustainable than aid packages subject to donor fatigue and annual budget cuts. Just ask Alisha Ryu and David Snelson, the two American business pioneers first spotlighted by me in Fortune magazine. The two entrepreneurs are behind a Mogadishu guesthouse and security firm, which employs nearly 40 Somali men and women and, by a conservative estimate, indirectly support another 400 extended family members. Ryu, a former combat journalist, and Snelson, a retired U.S. Army warrant officer, have been living and running their business in Mogadishu full time since 2011. Last year, the U.S. news program 60 Minutes described their role in digging up and returning to the U.S. the remains of a helicopter shot down and made famous in the book and blockbuster Hollywood film “Blackhawk Down.” Both recount the U.S. military raid to capture a Somali warlord. A deadly battle ensued, killing hundreds of Somalis and 19 Americans 20 years ago in Mogadishu this past October. That battle was just one of many tragedies in this restless nation on the Horn of Africa. Since then, Somalia has been by ravaged by clan warfare, and is feared worldwide as a breeding ground for pirates and al-Shabaab militants. Ryu told me, “It was, and still is, our hope that by showing it is possible to do business in Somalia in a smart, knowledgeable way, others will follow our example.” Indeed, whether in Asia, Africa or the U.S., it will be small businesses and entrepreneurs — regardless of nationality — who will drive long-term change and job creation. “Business investments that can make money and simultaneously empower communities at the grass-roots level is key to economic growth and the reduction of poverty-related violence in Somalia and everywhere else in the world,” Snelson says. For nearly four years, I served as U.S. ambassador to and board member of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) — an international financial institution focused on poverty reduction and infrastructure investments, and long presided over by a former Japanese Finance Ministry official. There, too, Ryu and Snelson’s message would have great relevance. (The present governor of the Bank of Japan, Haruhiko Kuroda, was ADB’s last president, before then Japanese Vice Minister of Finance Takehiko Nakao replaced him last year.) While development banks and aid agencies can provide incremental good, it is good governance and a strong rule of law that are crucial to businesses and essential to job creation and long-term growth. The private sector must be a serious partner if we are to sustainably lift people out of poverty. Yet, too often, inept bureaucracy, poor or poorly enforced regulation, interventions by government and endemic corruption get in the way. These challenges of the “little bric” may well be a longer-term constraint to growth and one of the biggest impediments to building better lives for people everywhere, including in the world’s most fragile and conflict-affected states. Few may have the nerve, or the heart, to do what Ryu and Snelson are trying to do in Somalia — building a business that can turn a profit while promoting economic growth. But by creating jobs for three dozen Somalis who would otherwise be prey for pirates and religious extremists, perhaps they offer a bit of hope and an example that a small business can have an impact, regardless of how long or how fleeting, even in the most troubled places in this world. Few Japanese, or people of any nationality, are likely to follow in Ryu and Snelson’s footsteps to Somalia to start a business. But even if they stay home, in the 27th-best ranked economy on ease of doing business, Japan’s own citizens — and particularly its government policymakers — should well consider what it takes to move up the ranks for ease of doing business, and be No. 1, and what that might mean for job creation, economic growth and equality of opportunity. Curtis S. Chin served as U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush (2007-2010). He is a managing director with advisory firm RiverPeak Group, LLC. Twitter : @CurtisSChin. http://www.somaliaonline.com/there-are-lessons-to-be-taken-from-somalia-on-how-best-to-grow-economies-and-address-poverty/

Reuters) - A resignation letter by Somalia's central bank governor sent from Dubai has thrown Western donors into a quandary over supporting a government they need to fight al Qaeda's local allies. Governor Yussur Abrar quit after only seven weeks in the job, alleging she had been pressured to accept arrangements she believed would open the door to corruption. With one email, she sucked President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud into a dispute over the recovery of frozen Somali assets from abroad, embarrassing foreign donors who have pledged billions to rebuild his shattered nation after two decades of chaos. Divisive clan politics have bedevilled Somalia throughout its long civil war and more recent insurgency by the Islamist militants of al Shabaab, the local franchise of al Qaeda. Western governments, determined to avoid another military involvement like in Iraq andAfghanistan, threw their support behind Mohamud, an Indian-educated former university professor and civil rights activist. They also strongly backed U.S.-educated Abrar, a senior international banker, when she became Somalia's first female central bank chief. Now the two have fallen out. Mohamud denies wrongdoing and Abrar provided no documentary evidence to support her complaints in her October 30 resignation letter. Nevertheless, the allegations shocked Western diplomats and United Nations officials who have put so much faith in the president to restore Somalia's stability. Nicholas Kay, the U.N. Special Representative to Somalia, described Abrar's resignation to the Security Council as a "body blow" to donor confidence. It underlined the need for stronger management of public finances, he said. Diplomats said the U.N. Monitoring Group for Somalia, which presents its findings to the Security Council, is now investigating her allegations. Abrar waited until she was in the United Arab Emirates before quitting. In her letter, which Reuters has reviewed, she did not accuse Mohamud of graft. However, she said she had "continuously been asked to sanction deals and transactions that would contradict my personal values and violate my fiduciary responsibility to the Somali people". Without giving names, Abrar said she had been "undermined by various parties within the administration". A former Citigroup vice president, Abrar said she had vehemently opposed a contract with U.S. law firm Shulman Rogers under which it is trying to recover the assets from abroad. This, she said, would "put the frozen assets at risk and open the door to corruption". Abrar also said in her resignation letter that she had been warned by "multiple parties" that her personal security would be at risk if she went against the president's wishes. Sources familiar with Abrar's version of events told Reuters that the pressure on her to sanction the contract had come from the president and his foreign minister at the time. Abrar declined to elaborate publicly on her allegations when asked by Reuters, although she said in an email: "Tackling corruption was vital to create trust with international partners and to move the country forward economically, socially and politically." Mohamud told Reuters he never put pressure on Abrar to sign any contract. "I have a very clear record in government since I came to power," he said on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Ethiopia. A Shulman Rogers representative denied its contract opened the door to graft. "It is as clean a contract and as clean a deal as you can possibly have," he told Reuters. The sources said that according to Abrar, the former foreign minister had also pressed her to open a bank account in Dubai against her wishes. Abrar resigned without opening it. Mohamud told Reuters there had been no time "that I ever asked my governor to open an account in my name". According to Abrar, the assets and money from Middle East donors would be channelled through the Dubai account before transfer to Somalia, the sources said. She believed this account would be controlled by the president, they said, and that money outside the central bank account could not be tracked, leaving it open to corruption and theft. NAIROBI MEETING Abrar resigned only a few months after a conference when governments promised $2.5 billion to help rebuild Somalia, a pledge seen as a collective endorsement of Mohamud's leadership. Four days after she quit, Western ambassadors - who live in Kenya and make only brief visits to Mogadishu as it remains a dangerous city - met in a luxury Nairobi hotel on a Sunday afternoon to thrash out their response. One diplomat who was in the room said many ambassadors who backed Mohamud and the large amount of Western aid for Somalia under his presidency were "extremely angry, feeling betrayed". A few days after the Nairobi meeting, envoys including from the United States and Europe met Mohamud at Mogadishu's heavily fortified airport - the journey to the presidential palace being too dangerous due to the threat of suicide bombers. U.N. minutes of the meeting show envoys made their feelings known in a discussion about Abrar's resignation. "Sweden, Norway, the US and the EU expressed their deep concern about recent events, noting that the confidence and trust in Somalia have been shaken tremendously," said the minutes of the November 7 meeting, reviewed by Reuters. In response, the president said Abrar had given no details of her concerns about the Shulman Rogers contract and that he had never threatened her, the minutes show. Reuters spoke to 12 diplomats involved in Somalia and all said Abrar's version of events was credible. BANK ACCOUNT Abrar's predecessor Abdusalam Omer signed the contract with Shulman Rogers. He resigned in September after a U.N. report said the central bank effectively functioned under his leadership as a "slush fund", with about 80 percent of withdrawals made for private purposes and not for the running of government. Omer rejected the accusations in the report. According to the sources familiar with Abrar's allegations, she said she had come under pressure to approve the arrangement with Shulman Rogers after she became governor. However, the sources said she feared people involved in the search for the frozen assets, but not formally employed by the government or Shulman Rogers, would take a cut of recovered funds. She did not publicly explain the basis for this belief. Shulman Rogers and a presidential spokesman said Somali businessman Musa Ganjab had been involved in the search. However, they denied the law firm or the government would pay him for this work or that he would take an improper cut of the recovered funds. Ganjab did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. According to Abrar, pressure to approve the arrangement came right from the top, including the former foreign minister, Fozia Yusuf Haji Aden, and the president, the sources familiar with her version of events said. "(This) never happened. I never came across it, I never asked, I never heard it, I only heard after she resigned (about) all these things, not before," Mohamud said. Shulman Rogers told Reuters it had spent almost four years searching for the assets, which former governor Omer said included money in private Swiss bank accounts, gold held in foreign central banks, cash and real estate. The sources said the tipping point for Abrar was pressure she says she came under from Aden and other officials to open the Dubai bank account. Saying she believed her safety was at risk, Abrar agreed to co-operate and fly to Dubai to open the account. Instead, when she arrived, she resigned and headed to the United States. Mohamud denied that an account was to be opened in Dubai, adding that he instructed Shulman Rogers to put recovered assets into a central bank account. The U.S. law firm confirmed this and denied the Dubai account plan had existed. Reuters requests for an interview with former foreign minister Aden made through the presidency were declined. However, a presidency spokesman said it was "absolutely not true" that Aden, who lost her portfolio in a January cabinet reshuffle, had put pressure on Abrar over the Shulman Rogers contract or the Dubai bank account. Some diplomats interviewed by Reuters admitted that Western powers were unlikely to hold back aid or military support to Somalia worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year. This, they said, would only destroy the president's authority and boost al Shabaab which wants to overthrow his government. But their trust in Mohamud will be restored only if he gets serious about tackling graft, they said. (Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Addis Ababa; Editing by Richard Lough, Edmund Blair and David Stamp) Source: Reuters http://www.somaliaonline.com/yusur-abrars-resignation-has-thrown-western-donors-into-a-quandary-over-supporting-hassan-sheikhs-goverment/

(Reuters) - Turkey has stopped direct budgetary support to Somalia, cutting off a major source of funding for a government trying to rebuild the country after more than two decades of chaos. Turkey is a key ally of the Somali government. Its vast humanitarian aid effort at the height of the 2011 famine has endeared the country to many Somali people, especially as Ankara continues to build hospitals and dispatch aid across Somalia. Turkey has backed the Somali government with direct cash aid, in contrast to Western governments who have pledged billions but not in the form of direct budget support. A Turkish foreign ministry official told Reuters direct budget support payments stopped at the end of 2013. It is not clear how much cash Turkey donated to Somalia in 2013, when the government budget totalled $110 million. Somalia's former central bank chief, Abdusalam Omer, said during his seven-month tenure the support amounted to $4.5 million per month, which he said was paid in cash to the central bank. A Somali government official confirmed the support stopped at the end of 2013 but said his government "hopes the payments will be re-started". When asked whether there were plans to restart payments in 2014 or whether talks were taking place over resuming direct budget support, the Turkish official told Reuters in Ankara: "We have no such plans at this stage. It is not on our agenda." An official from TİKA (Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) said its projects in Somalia were unaffected and would continue. Turkey's support for the current government has angered Islamist al Shabaab rebels, who in July raided Turkey's embassy compound in Mogadishu, killing three people and wounding nine others. CENTRAL BANK SCANDAL The government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, which was firmly backed by the West when it came to power in September 2012 amid a wave of optimism, has since become a source of frustration for many Somalis angry with the slow pace of change, insecurity and graft allegations. The government has lost much goodwill from Western donors angry over a scandal sparked by the resignation of central bank governor Yussur Abrar, who said she quit after only seven weeks in the job due to pressure on her to sign shady deals. Somali officials denied the corruption claims. The Turkish official said Turkey's budget support cut was not related to recent developments, saying the support agreement was only in place for 2013 and had expired. Horn of Africa analyst Rashid Abdi said the loss of Turkey's budget aid will "definitely be a disappointment for the current government but I have no doubt they will find another (Middle Eastern) partner who will be happy to plug the shortfall." Western diplomats say they will not be stepping up to fill the budget hole and some shudder at how little oversight Turkey had over its aid. Former governor Omer recalled how once a month he would visit Turkey's Mogadishu embassy to collect $4.5 million in boxes full of cash. "It was always in $100 bills," he told Reuters in Nairobi. Turkey's ambassador to Somalia declined to comment on his government's method of delivering budget support. Analyst Abdi said other countries may be much more secretive over how much financial support they give to Mohamud, an Islamist president with many allies in the Middle East. "Turkey for all its faults was pretty transparent in its budgetary support for Somalia compared to other Muslim countries." Source: Reuters http://www.somaliaonline.com/turkey-stops-giving-somali-government-direct-cash/

UNITED NATIONS: A confidential U.N. monitors' report warns of "systematic abuses" by Somalia's government, which the monitors say has allowed the diversion of weapons Somali authorities purchased after the U.N. Security Council eased an arms embargo on Mogadishu last year. Some of the arms believed to have been diverted in the conflict-torn Horn of Africa nation were earmarked for a leader of the al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group al Shabaab, the monitors said in their report, which was obtained by Reuters. In their 14-page report to the Security Council's sanctions committee, the U.N. Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group recommends either restoring the full arms embargo or at least tightening notification and reporting requirements related to arms deliveries. "The Monitoring Group has identified a number of issues and concerns over current management of weapons and ammunition stockpiles by the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), which point to high-level and systematic abuses in weapons and ammunition management and distribution," the report said. The monitoring group is a panel of independent experts that track compliance with the U.N. Somalia-Eritrea sanctions regime. The council's decision to ease Somalia's decades-old arms embargo last March was a controversial one. Some members of the 15-nation council disagreed with it, although Washington supported the Somali government's appeals for relaxing restrictions to enable it to better arm its security forces to fight al Shabaab. The new report details difficulties the monitors have had in getting access to weapons stockpiles in Somalia and information about the country's growing arsenal. It says the government canceled several inspections of Somali armories the monitors and U.N. officials in Somalia had planned to undertake. The monitors describe how parts of shipments of weapons from Uganda and Djibouti, including assault rifles, rocket launchers, grenades and ammunition "could not be accounted for." The report also mentioned discrepancies about what had happened to arms sent from Ethiopia. "Given the gaps in information ... it is impossible to quantify what the scale of diversion of weapons stocks have been," the report said. "However, the Monitoring Group has obtained other pieces of qualitative evidence that point towards systematic abuses by the (Somali army)." AL SHABAAB The Security Council imposed the embargo on Somalia in 1992 to cut the flow of weapons to feuding warlords, who a year earlier had ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged the country into civil war. Somalia held its first vote since 1991 in 2012 to elect a president and prime minister. For two decades Somalia was virtually lawless. The monitors' report said that it has identified at least two clan-based "centers of gravity" for arms procurement within Somali government structures that are distributing arms to "parallel security forces and clan militias that are not part of the Somali security forces." One of those groups is within the sub-clan of Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who last month said he wanted the U.N. Security Council to extend the partial lifting of the embargo beyond its March expiry because government troops needed more and better equipment to battle al Shabaab. The monitors' report said "a key adviser to the president, from his sub-clan, has been involved in planning weapons deliveries to al Shabaab leader Sheikh Yusuf Isse ... who is also from the President's sub-clan." The report also referred to the role played by a Somali government minister from the Galgaduud subclan in relation to arms purchases from a "foreign government in the Gulf" - a government the report does not identify. "The Monitoring Group has received credible evidence of un-notified weapons deliveries by air from the Gulf state to Mogadishu during the course of October 2013, which would constitute a direct violation of the arms embargo," it said. "Indeed, after delivery, some of the weapons were moved to a private location in Mogadishu," the monitors said. The easing of the U.N. arms embargo has allowed sales of such weapons as automatic assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, but left in place a ban on surface-to-air missiles, large-caliber guns, howitzers, cannons and mortars as well as anti-tank guided weapons, mines and night vision weapon sights. "The trends described above demonstrate that the implementation of the (government's) security policy is being captured by clan and sub-clan politics," the report said. "Weapons distribution along clan lines for the prosecution of clan warfare is ultimately reducing the prospect of a cohesive strategy by the (government) against al Shabaab." The report said private arms markets have popped up in Mogadishu where weapons diverted from the army have been sold. The monitoring group presented eight options for the arms embargo next month when the current easing of weapons-import restrictions expires. The options it offers the Security Council range from lifting the arms embargo altogether to restoring the full embargo and possibly adding new measures. The monitoring group recommends either restoring the full embargo as it was before the restrictions were eased last year or at least keeping it as is and introducing stricter rules regarding notifying and reporting to the U.N. sanctions committee regarding arms sales to Somalia. It also suggests the possibility of beefing up the U.N. mission in Somalia by attaching a verification team to it that would track arms deliveries and stockpiles in Somalia. Source: Reuters http://www.somaliaonline.com/un-monitors-accuse-the-somalia-government-of-distributing-arms-to-parallel-security-forces-and-clan-militias-that-are-not-part-of-the-somali-forces/

Finland’s first Somali author: ’Somalia’s more than war and FGM’ Nura Farah will on Thursday become the first author of Somali background to publish a novel in Finland. Her work Aavikon tyttäret (Daughters of the desert) tells the story of a Somali woman’s life in the desert as she dreams of becoming a poet, and her struggles to overcome traditional gender roles. The central character in the story is a woman called Khadija, who would like to be a poet. In Somali culture, poetry is the domain of men and as a woman, Khadija's daily life revolves around animal husbandry, child care and long journeys to fetch water. "You get a big audience for yourself if you can speak beautifully," says Farah. "In Somali culture people value eloquence." Although the novel is set in the 1950s, the oral poetry tradition remains strong in modern Somalia. Farah is hoping that this tradition will become familiar to Finns, who she hopes will get to know Somali culture. Nura Farah's book is 'the fulfilment of a dream'.Image: Otava "I especially wanted readers to take some poetry from my book, and that they might get to know something about desert life," says Farah. "I hope that it's not seen as simply a story about Somalis. This book isn’t just for Somalis; it can also be for Finns." Farah was born in 1979 in Saudi Arabia, and moved to Somalia as a child. At the age of 13 she emigrated to Finland with her mother and siblings. Her new home was in the grip of a deep recession, and according to Farah there was a fair amount of racism. Fulfilment of a dream At school she was bullied because of her skin colour, and her classmates called her ’Neekeri’ (a racial slur that can be translated as ’nigger’ or ’negro’), rather than her first name, Nura. Now resident in Helsinki and trained as a lab assistant, the first-time author has never lived in the desert. Her inspiration for the book came from the canon of Somali literature and the stories of her relatives in Finland. Eloquence is highly-prized in Somali culture.Image: Yle Uutisgrafiikka Aavikon tyttäret is the first book written by a Somali author to be published in Finnish. It would be a literary event anyway, as books about Somalia are rare indeed. The majority of Somali authors are male, and the country’s literary tradition is still young. "I am the first, but I hope that I will not be the last to do like this," says Farah. "This is the fulfilment of my dream." Sources: Yle http://www.somaliaonline.com/finlands-first-somali-author-somalias-more-than-war-and-fgm/

Somaliland, the self-declared republic, is desperate for someone to find vast mineral reserves under its soil. But without international recognition – and the probability of legal battles in the future – it’s a big risk for any company to take. Somaliland too should be careful. Having dodged the aid curse, will it fall victim to the resource curse instead? By SIMON ALLISON. At the recently concluded Mining Indaba in Cape Town, Somaliland’s energy minister Hussein Abdi Dualeh had possibly the hardest sell of all. It was his job to convince the assembled mining bigwigs that his country was a viable, risk-free environment in which to invest millions and millions of dollars – all on the hope that there might be base and precious metals hidden somewhere under its drab scrubland. He tried hard. “We have also a unique geographical location,” the minister said in his speech at the conference. “If you have a mineral deposit and if you exploit it, it will be very cheap to take to market…it’s definitely much less costly than a really getting fantastic deposit the middle of continent, which will cost you really huge amount of money to export it…even the small deposit is commercially viable considering the logistics involved in taking the minerals to market.” It was a good effort, but will it be enough? There are, after all, a few other factors which mitigate against Somaliland becoming Africa’s next mining hotspot. The biggest problem is that Dualeh’s country is not actually a country. Officially, legally, Somaliland is a territory of the Republic of Somalia. A rogue territory at that, one which refuses to answer to the writ of the central government in Mogadishu. It considers itself independent, and operates accordingly, with all the trappings of sovereignty: the flag, the currency, the national anthem. Dualeh himself is part of Somaliland’s government, which is chosen in free and fair elections every five years (some say Somaliland is the most functional democracy in the Horn of Africa, and there’s substance to this description). This de facto autonomy is no bad thing: while Somalia proper has been mired in civil war and violence for the last two decades, Somaliland has been stable, secure and relatively prosperous; its self-declared independence a conscious attempt to isolate itself from Somalia’s chaos which, by and large, has worked. But as Somaliland seeks to develop, this independence – not formally recognised by anyone else in the world – is also holding it back. As miners contemplate entering Somaliland, they have to first ask and answer some tough questions about whether the government in Hargeisa has the authority to grant exploration licenses in the first place; and, once granted, if those will be honoured if and when Mogadishu is in a better position to assert rights of its own. Already, these problems have crippled Somaliland’s oil sector. For years, oil exploration was dormant as companies fought over ‘legacy contracts’ (those granted in the late 1980s by dictator Siad Barre’s Mogadishu-based regime) and new contracts issued by the Somaliland government. Exploration has now started, but getting to this point was a long and complicated process. Minister Dualeh claims there are no legacy contracts that could influence the mining sector – but that doesn’t mean there won’t be problems in the future between the two competing centres of power. Somaliland’s lack of formal independence has also cut it off from another lucrative source of income: aid money. Almost all international aid to Somalia is all channeled through Mogadishu. With the exception of a few minor United Nations programmes, Hargeisa gets nothing. Not that Hargeisa minds. Dualeh argues that the lack of aid has actually worked in Somaliland’s favour. “That is a blessing in disguise. Aid never developed anything,” he told Reuters’ Ed Stoddard on the sidelines of the conference. “Aid is not a panacea, we'd rather not have it... How many African countries do you know that developed because of a lot of aid? It's a curse. The ones that get the most aid are the ones with the problems.” Intrigued by this counter-intuitive position, the Daily Maverick contacted Minister Dualeh and asked him to elaborate. “There wasn’t really any aid opened to us because we weren’t recognised,” Dualeh explained in a telephone interview. “We’re not like Kenya that gets 40% [of its budget from] aid money; tangible aid hasn’t been coming our way because of our political status. Aid comes with strings attached but we don’t have any of that. We don’t owe anything to anyone.” In practice, Dualeh believes that this leaves Somaliland free to make its own decision, unbeholden to any external backer that might not have the territory’s best interests at heart. “We have our own organic solutions to our problems; we have no outside influence; I think a lot of the good things that have happened to us are because we have found our own solutions.” As an example, Dualeh cites the original decision to break away from the then-Federation of Somalia in 1991. This, he argues, was Somaliland taking its destiny into its own hands. In Somalia proper, on the other hand, decades of foreign meddling has just made the situation worse. “The difference between us and Somalia is that we sat down under the proverbial big tree and we basically stated our independence and tried to find our own solutions through uniting; we found a solution that has resulted in power right now, with no war or conflict.” Somaliland may have avoided the aid curse, but as Dualeh seeks to drum up investment in the mining sector he would do well to recall the lessons of other African countries, where the curse of vast mineral wealth has proved just as devastating. Dualeh dismisses these concerns. “The resource curse is just a cliché. We’re not taking it lightly, we are trying to avoid it by making sure that we have good governance and good legal regimes to make sure that everything gets sorted ahead.” In the Horn of Africa – a part of the world not famed for good governance or tight legal regimes – this might just be the one thing that Somaliland has going for it. Source: dailymavrick http://www.somaliaonline.com/investing-in-a-country-that-doesnt-exist-somalilands-hard-sell/

TUNIS — Tunisia’s government said Sunday that a suspect in the July 25 assassination of an opposition politician was among four men arrested in an overnight counterterrorism raid. A statement by the Interior Ministry described the men as “dangerous terrorists” and identified one as Ahmed Melki, known as “the Somali,” who is wanted in connection with the assassination of Mohamed Brahmi, a left-wing lawmaker whose slaying last summer provoked a political crisis. One of the suspects arrested on Sunday was described as severely wounded after being shot in the face. Three police officers were wounded in the gun battle. Last week, Tunisian forces stormed the house of a suspect in the Februaryslaying of another left-wing politician, Chokri Belaid. All seven militants in the house were killed. Tunisia has been battling extremists with links to Al Qaeda since its 2011 revolution. http://www.somaliaonline.com/tunisia-captures-ahmed-the-somali-who-is-believed-to-be-behind-the-assassination-that-provoked-political-turmoil-in-that-country/ Source: AP

Abdulrahman Elmi has called a group of young Somali-Canadian men to a community centre in the north Toronto neighbourhood of Rexdale. They have a lot of work ahead. The group owes its existence to the now-infamous – yet never publicly seen – video, the one in which Toronto Mayor Rob Ford allegedly smokes crack cocaine from a glass pipe, slurring as he comments on the high school football team he once coached and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. The Somali-Canadian Association of Etobicoke was one of four Ontario organizations that got a share of the $202,000 that U.S. website Gawker raised in a bid to buy the video. The donation, about $47,000, has started to crystallize into a new mentoring program aimed at steering elementary and high school students toward college and university and away from drugs and gangs. “I think something like this is needed in our community because we have a lot of youth issues here. Basically, change is needed here,” said Mr. Elmi, 23, a recent graduate of York University. He was hired in December as the project co-ordinator. The program, slated to start in mid-February, is expected to include as many as 40 youths between the ages of 12 and 16 and about a dozen mentors in their 20s. The group will meet regularly, going over homework, talking about challenges, playing basketball and other games. The program will be open to people of all ethnic backgrounds, but will mainly be geared toward Somali-Canadians. In recent years, murder has touched more than 30 Somali-Canadian families, mostly in Alberta and Ontario. The victims have chiefly been young men, born in Somalia and raised in Canada after their families fled a brutal civil war. Police believe many of the deaths were connected to the drug trade. In mid-June of last year, Toronto police raided homes in Toronto, Windsor and Alberta, seizing guns, drugs and cash as part of a year-long investigation known as Project Traveller. Many of the 60 or so people arrested were from the Somali-Canadian community, living in a cluster of apartment towers in Etobicoke. Police allege that some of the accused were part of the Dixon City Bloods gang and had ties to the mayor. At least three of the men facing charges tried to sell a video of Mr. Ford, according to a nearly 500-page police document. The allegations have not been tested in court. Mr. Elmi said he hopes some good can come from the notorious video that has upended city hall and directed an unflattering spotlight on Toronto’s Somali-Canadian community. “We want to turn something that was a negative into a positive,” Mr. Elmi said. “We want to create role models for the youth.” The prospective mentors, gathered at a community centre about five kilometres north of the Dixon City Bloods’ base, are students of post-secondary schools or recent graduates. Soleman Ahmed, 21, is studying accounting at Ryerson University; Said Mohamoud, 20, is focusing on business management at Humber College; Hanad Jibril, 20, is in George Brown College’s civil engineering program. Another mentor studied professional writing and communication at the University of Toronto. The young Muslim men all understand what it’s like to navigate two worlds: Canada’s multicultural and multifaith society, and their parents’ more conservative Somali traditions. “A lot of youth, especially growing up, they don’t have someone to relate to. At home, their family from back home, they don’t understand each other. And at school, they have to present a different personality,” Mr. Ahmed told the group at a recent meeting. http://www.theglobeandmail.com http://www.somaliaonline.com/somali-group-gets-a-share-of-the-202000-that-u-s-website-gawker-raised-in-a-bid-to-buy-toronto-mayors-crack-video/

When former academic Hassan Sheikh Mohamud became president of Somalia in late 2012, his election was hailed as a sign of progress in a country destroyed by years of war and terrorism. The administration of the one-time university dean was the first in Somalia to be recognised internationally for more than two decades and soon elicited aid commitments worth more than $2bn. But the early hope was overtaken quickly by accusations of corruption, clan politics and a fight over resources including the promise of oil exploration. In the clearest sign yet of the growing frustration among western backers, James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, last week castigated Mr Mohamud’s “weak leadership” and the “persistent political infighting” of his 16-month-old government. “The credibility and effectiveness of the young Somali government will be further threatened by persistent political infighting, weak leadership from President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, ill-equipped government institutions and pervasive technical, political and administrative shortfalls,” Mr Clapper declared But in an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Mohamud fought back, saying: “I don’t know what sources he [Mr Clapper] used but I don’t see any political infighting in Somalia today compared to the past. It is a subjective judgment based on his own [opinion].” The public excoriation from such a senior US official is a blow for an administration that has proved unequal to inflated expectations from the international community. More importantly, it also highlights rising tension between Mogadishu and its western partners over continued instability in a country that has endured more than 20 years of conflict, most recently at the hands of al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda-linked militants who control parts of Somalia. The Islamist group has launched terror attacks throughout east Africa, including the massacre in a Nairobi shopping mall late last year. Mr Mohamud defended Somalia’s “democracy in the making” and issued a challenge to foreigners such as Mr Clapper to “come to Somalia, see the realities on the ground and then make whatever judgment” – a veiled disparagement of western officials who, even if they visit Mogadishu, rarely venture beyond the protected airport enclosure to brave the assassination risk Mr Mohamud faces daily. Yet the US intelligence chief is not the first to question the progress being made by Mr Mohamud and his government. Domestic critics have accused the president of seeking to overcentralise power in a disparate country that desperately needs decentralised federalism if it is to avoid the failings of past dictatorship. Mr Mohamud is about to work with his fourth central bank governor in less than a year, after one was accused of gross corruption by UN investigators, who said last year that $12m had gone missing from the central bank. His replacement fled the country claiming she was asked to sanction bad deals and feared for her safety if she did not heed the president’s wishes. Almost all western donors decline to give aid direct to the government coffers because of traceability concerns. Donors are negotiating a financial oversight committee that would include their own representatives but have yet to hammer out a deal. Mr Mohamud insists he has been “surprised how the donors have been affected [by] this thing [the central bank problems]”. He denies wrongdoing although he does admit that the central bank governor’s signature was requested by his deputy finance minister to validate an account set up in Dubai to channel donations from Arab League members. Problems with the central bank’s proceedings are part of “a trial and error”, he says. But Nicholas Kay, UN special representative for Somalia, says “donor confidence . . . was definitely knocked sidewards by the central bank affair”. “There is a lot of politicking happening at the moment,” Mr Kay adds, a reference to a recent cabinet reshuffle and the government’s failure to determine the constitution.” In his defence, Mr Mohamud points out that he faces a multitude of challenges. Technocrats including enthusiastic diaspora who have returned to help rebuild their country regularly complain that even low-ranking donor officials go over their heads and refuse to deal with anyone but the president, undermining efforts to build the very institutions donors say they want to exist. “There are no institutions set up in Somalia; everything has collapsed and we are starting from scratch,” Mr Mohamud says. There is also the continued threat from al-Shabaab. The jihadist group occupied Mogadishu for several months before UN-backed African Union troops ousted the movement from the capital. But its fighters still control much of the southern rural countryside and mount regular suicide attacks on Mogadishu. An imminent UN-backed military offensive against al-Shabaab may bring some reprieve for the president. Financed by western money, about 22,000 African Union troops from six countries, including Kenya and Ethiopia, are about to stage their first concerted operations since allied forces took control of the key port city of Kismayo in 2012. But no troop-contributing country has come forward to offer attack helicopters, despite a mandate for 12 of them. “For the last one and a half years not much has been gained on the ground,” Mr Mohamud says. “We hope they will reach out where no Amisom [the African Union force] soldiers have reached before. This is a continuous war.” A US drone attack on Somalia last month almost succeeded in killing Ahmed Godane, al-Shabaab’s leader. Instead it killed a group of associates on their way to pick him up. “Godane is both the spiritual leader of al-Shabaab ideology and the political and military leader,” Mr Mohamud says. “Eliminating Godane [would have a] great impact.” Source: Financial Times http://www.somaliaonline.com/the-us-accuses-president-hassan-of-being-a-weak-leader-as-the-central-bank-scandal-takes-its-toll-on-goverments-ability-to-get-money/

The security situation inside Somalia remains unstable and dangerous. Terrorist operatives and armed groups in Somalia have demonstrated their intent to attack Somali authorities, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), and other non-military targets. Kidnapping, bombings, murder, illegal roadblocks, banditry, and other violent incidents and threats to U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals can occur in any region of Somalia. In addition, there is a particular threat to foreigners in places where large crowds gather and westerners frequent, including airports, government buildings, and shopping areas. Inter-clan and inter-factional fighting can flare up with little or no warning. This type of violence has resulted in the deaths of Somali nationals and the displacement of more than one million people. While some parts of south/central Somalia are now under Somali government control with the military support of African Union forces, al-Shabaab has demonstrated the capability to carry out attacks in government-controlled territory with particular emphasis on targeting government facilities, foreign delegations’ facilities and movements, and commercial establishments frequented by government officials, foreign nationals, and the Somali diaspora. In February 2012, al-Shabaab announced that it had merged with Al-Qaida. Al-Shabaab-planned assassinations, suicide bombings, and indiscriminate armed attacks in civilian populated areas are frequent in Somalia. On January 1, 2014, al-Shabaab carried out a bombing against a popular hotel in Mogadishu. On September 7 and November 8, 2013, al-Shabaab executed attacks on a popular restaurant and hotel in Mogadishu, killing nearly 30 people and injuring many more, including several government officials and foreign nationals. On July 27, al-Shabaab executed a deadly attack against the Turkish housing compound in Mogadishu. On June 19, Islamist militants carried out a deadly assault on the main UN compound in Mogadishu killing at least 17 people. African Union (AU) soldiers restored order after a 90 minute gun battle. On May 5, an attack on a government convoy carrying foreign diplomats killed eight bystanders. On April 14, a combined suicide bombing/armed assault by al-Shabaab gunmen killed 29 and wounded 58. In addition to larger attacks, assassinations, grenade throwing, and kidnappings remain a daily threat in Mogadishu and elsewhere. In addition to the high profile attacks above, al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for other terrorist attacks in the region. Pirates and other criminals have specifically targeted and kidnapped foreigners working in Somalia. In January 2012, a U.S. citizen was kidnapped while on work related travel in Somalia, and in October 2011, a U.S. citizen aid worker living in Somalia was also kidnapped. In both cases, as well as in recent kidnappings of other westerners, the victims took precautionary measures by hiring local security personnel, but those hired to protect them may have played a role in the abductions. A strong familiarity with Somalia and/or extensive prior travel to the region does not reduce travel risk. U.S. citizens contemplating travel to Somalia, including Somaliland and Puntland, are advised to obtain kidnap and recovery insurance, as well as medical evacuation insurance, prior to travel. Additionally, U.S. citizens are urged to avoid sailing close to the coast of Somalia as attacks have occurred as far as 1,000 nautical miles off the coast in international waters. Merchant vessels, fishing boats, and recreational craft all risk seizure by pirates and having their crews held for ransom in the waters off the Horn of Africa, especially in the international waters near Somalia. Somali pirates captured and killed four U.S. citizens aboard their boat on February 22, 2011. If transit around the Horn of Africa is necessary, it is strongly recommended that vessels travel in convoys, maintain good communications contact at all times, and follow the guidance provided by the Maritime Security Center – Horn of Africa (MSC-HOA). You should consult the Maritime Administration’s Horn of Africa Piracy page for information on maritime advisories, self-protection measures, and naval forces in the region. U.S. citizens who choose to travel to Somalia despite this Travel Warning are strongly urged to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) in order to receive the most up-to-date security information and be included in our emergency communication system. Travelers to Somalia should enroll with the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. U.S. citizens traveling by sea to the area of high threat are urged to inform MSC-HOA by emailing POSTMASTER@MSCHOA.ORG, with the subject line 'Yacht Vessel Movement.' The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi is located on United Nations Avenue, Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya; telephone (254)(20) 363-6000; after-hours emergencies (254)(20) 363-6170. The mailing address is P.O. Box 606 Village Market 00621, Nairobi, Kenya. U.S. citizens should also consult the Department of State's Country Specific Information for Somalia, the Worldwide Caution, and the International Maritime Piracy Fact Sheet, which are located on the Department of State's website. Travelers may obtain up-to-date information on security conditions by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the United States and Canada or on a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444 from other countries. Stay up to date by bookmarking our Bureau of Consular Affairs website, which contains current Travel Warnings and Travel Alerts. Follow us on Twitter and the Bureau of Consular Affairs page on Facebook as well. Source: http://travel.state.gov/ http://www.somaliaonline.com/us-warns-its-citizens-to-avoid-all-travel-to-somalia-the-security-situation-inside-somalia-remains-unstable-and-dangerous/

NAIROBI, 5 February 2014 (IRIN) - On paper, federalism appears to be central to today’s Somalia. “Federal Republic” is part of its official name. It is run by a “federal national government”. “Federal, sovereign and democratic” are the country’s defining characteristics, according to Article 1 of the 2012 provisional constitution, a document in which the word “federal” appears 710 times. But in the wake of more than two decades of civil war and state collapse, Somalis disagree about whether federalism is a recipe for sustainable peace - and even whether such a system is practicable. This briefing examines the issues. What does federalism mean in Somalia? Federalism is an ambiguous notion, involving relationships between central and peripheral power structures that vary widely from country to country. In Somalia, the constitution outlines the connections between the central government and future “federal member states,” but the precise roles and responsibilities of each level of government are not specified. Article 54 states: “The allocation of powers and resources shall be negotiated and agreed upon by the Federal Government and the Federal Member States” pending their creation, except in the areas of foreign affairs, national defense, citizenship and immigration, and monetary policy, which are all under the purview of the central government, based in the capital, Mogadishu. The federal member states will be represented in parliament through the Federal State’s upper house of parliament, which has yet to be created. “My own feeling is that the nature of Somali federalism remains far from agreed,” Michael Walls, senior lecturer at University College London and a leading expert on Somalia, told IRIN by email. Is federalism new in Somalia? “Somalia has tried many systems of governance since its independence,” Abdulkadir Suleiman Mohamed, a writer and political analyst, told IRIN. After independence, the country followed the British model of a parliamentary system, until the 1969 coup d’état, when the military government installed a “scientifically Socialist” state. Since 2004, the country has moved toward a federal system, not because it is inherently better, Mohamed said, but because, “Somali people don’t trust each other.” “Resource-sharing, power¬-sharing, political representation - all have been abused by certain people in the higher ranks of the government. Welfare services have never been delivered. Local constituents never received their share of national resources. So federalism was proposed a way forward in Somali politics,” he said. Abdi Aynte, director of the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), agreed that Somalia has come to see federalism as a viable solution to restoring peace. “Due to the prolonged civil war and the resulting trust deficit, Somalis are yearning for local control of their politics. Decentralization, or any other form of federalism, is the answer to their quest,” he told IRIN by email. “Federalism will disperse power among the states, and will thus reduce the concentration of power on central hands. It is the best form administration we can implement today in Somalia,” Mohamed Nurani Bakar, a member of parliament, told IRIN. The “unitary system of governance has brought us a lot of problems that are still with us today,” he said. Who creates the federal member states? The process of creating most federal states has been fraught with delays, contestation and confusion. Under the provisional constitution, all federal states must be built from among the 18 regions that existed prior to the civil war. “Two or more regions may merge to form a Federal Member State,” according to the constitution. But an independent boundaries and federation commission, responsible for determining the number and boundaries of federal states, has yet to be formed by parliament’s lower house, leaving regions unsure of their legal status under the provisional constitution. The commission was meant to be appointed 60 days after the new Council of Ministers was formed following the passage of the draft constitution in 2012, but that never happened. “The creation of Federal Member States proved to be a very controversial issue during the constitutional conferences leading to this Draft Provisional Constitution,” noted a guidebook created by the UN Political Office for Somalia. For this reason, the constitution specified that the process of deciding federal member states will be carried out by the independent commission comprising representatives from all of Somalia and international experts. Officially, no federal member states exist yet, and the government has until elections in 2016 to create them. It is widely believed that Puntland is the closest to achieving federal state status, and could be a model for other states. Jubaland and Galmudug also have state-building efforts underway, although there is a lot of in-fighting at the local level. Jubaland has two rival talks going on while Galmudug has three or four. What’s the importance of Puntland? Puntland has described itself as a semi-autonomous entity since 1998 with varying relations with Mogadishu. A recent presidential election, won by Abdiweli Gaas, seems to have put an end to a period of animosity. Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud reacted in a statement: “I extend my personal congratulations to Abdiweli Mohammed Ali Gaas and I look forward to working closely with him as the government continues to build a federal Somalia. “Puntland is a model for the rest of the country and what happens there matters very much.” Gaas’s predecessor, Abdirahman Mohamed Faroole, “used the conflict/tension with Mogadishu to shore up his domestic - i.e., Puntland - support base, whereas Abdiweli Gaas draws his strongest support from international actors and many in Mogadishu,” said Walls. “To that extent, I would expect the relationship between Puntland and Mogadishu to improve under Abdiweli’s presidency, and he did underline his desire to see such an improvement in his inauguration speech.” “I do not think that a strongly centralized federal system is likely to be accepted by most Somalis,” he said, adding: “Puntland is therefore very important as an expression of what a loosely federated state might look like.” What is happening in Jubaland? There are two separate processes taking place in Jubaland. One is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development-brokered talks between a delegation led by the Ras Kamboni movement (a paramilitary group opposed to Al-Shabab) leader Ahmad Madobe, and the SFG. In August, they signed an agreement in Addis Ababa, creating a Juba Interim Administration led by Madobe that will be in place for two years. The talks say that during this time, “subject to the constitutional process, a permanent Federal Member State will be established.” The crucial port of Kismayo and the airport will be managed by the national government during this time. Photo: AU UN IST/David Mutua Dignitaries at the official launch of the Interim Juba Administration, which has a mandate for two years. The formation of Jubaland in southern Somalia was initially met with opposition from Mogadishu, which accused a conference of stakeholders in February 2013 of being unconstitutional because it was “carried out without reference to the federal government.” Politicians in the Juba and Gedo regions, areas within the proposed borders, also protested that the Jubaland leadership would not be representative of all of the clans living in the region. A separate bid to join regions in Jubaland is also progressing. The Baidoa conference is attempting to join together Lower Juba, Middle Juba, Lower Shabell, Bay, Bakool and Gedo. The conference has been ongoing for over a year, with some support from the federal government, despite the SFG having signed the Addis Agreement. Tensions are running high between the rival state formation talks. Last week, reports emerged that troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia had attempted to take over the conference hall where the Baidoa conference was taking place, to stop the meeting. Nicholas Kay, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia, said that it was important that stakeholders continue to meet in Baidoa, noting that “nobody should risk taking steps that spoil peace-and-state-building processes.” He also asked that “all parties remain calm, committed to dialogue and support reconciliation efforts.” Jubaland will have significant regional importance - the Kenyan government would view it as a vital buffer zone between Somalia and northern Kenya, offering protection against Al-Shabab. Ethiopia would also see it as a vital shield to its territory, provided Jubaland’s leadership was not sympathetic to the Ethiopian rebel group Ogaden National Liberation Front. What are some of the other challenges facing federalism? Civic education, distribution of resources between state and national governments, and the status of Mogadishu are also major challenges. Aynte of HIPS recommends the creation of a body responsible for national civic education on federalism. Most people are not aware how diverse federalism is or the options available for decentralization. There also needs to be national dialogue on the role of national and local authorities in controlling revenues from natural resources, he believes. “One area where there is real potential for revenue, the exploitation of natural resources, has been postponed to an unspecified time due to the controversy it has already raised between Puntland and the TFG [Transitional Federal Government - the former name for the SFG],” said Issa Mohamud Farah, director general of the Puntland Petroleum Minerals Agency. “In a country where agriculture is marginal, manufacturing is non-existent and the service sector is limited, the potential importance of revenue from petroleum and mineral resources is not to be underestimated.” This is likely to be an area of conflict between the federal states and central government, which would want greater control of oil revenues, Farah believes. Somalia President Mohamud also acknowledged that this is a major difficulty. “We don’t have resource-sharing, we don’t have revenue-sharing, we don’t have many, many more things to share,” he said at an event at London’s Chatham House in February 2013. “If we do not put those tools and instruments in place then federalism will create more problems.” Third, the issue of the status of Mogadishu has yet to be discussed. It could occupy the place of a special city outside of the federal states system, like Washington, DC, or Canberra. Analysts believe that this debate will be likely to come to the fore once federal boundaries have been negotiated and delineated. “In a post-conflict environment, the process of state-formation normally leads to conflict,” Aynte noted, indicating that to expect the system to work immediately would be naïve. “Federalism will continue to be a source of both harmony and contestation. And that’s to be expected. In the interim, it’s going to be difficult, but eventually it will work out.” Are there any opponents to federalism? Yes, some. Opponents of the federal project worry that it could lead to fragmentation and clan violence. “Federalism is a destructive force for Somalia, and it will continue to remain one whose woes will haunt Somalia,” Abdulkadir Sheikh Ismail, former chairman of the parliamentary committee on constitutional affairs, told IRIN. If “regional state interests take prominence over the national interest, the common interest is lost as a result, and that could set a dangerous precedent,” he added. Mohamed Hassan Haad, a well-known traditional elder, is also skeptical. “Somalis do not understand what federalism is. It does not serve the interest of Somali people and will remain an intractable problem in the long run. It is going to set one clan against the other,” he told IRIN. “Somalis have been fighting over clan and religious issues for two decades, and federalism is nothing but a new source or cycle of conflict over land and ownership.” Asked about what he thought of federalism, 23-year-old Ayuub Suleiman Jama, who grew up experiencing years of clan clashes and religious fanaticism, responded without hesitation. “Division,” he said. “The establishment of a federalism of the clan, rather than a regional one” is a serious risk, according to Marco Zoppi, a freelance political analyst. “The current distribution of the clan already lends itself to a phenomenon of this kind.” Most people in Somalia, however, recognize that there has to be some form of power-sharing, and that is best done through a form of federalism. But Farah warned, “Without a strong commitment from the federal government, federalism will not flourish in Somalia.” aps-amd/am/rz Source: irinnews.org http://www.somaliaonline.com/can-federalism-work-in-somalia/

Fahma Mohamed first heard about female genital mutilation (FGM) when she was 13. Educated, open-minded and strong willed, she didn't know what the term meant, so she asked. Told that the removal of a woman's outer sexual organs was something that had been carried out in her culture – among many others – for hundreds of years as a way of preparing girls for adulthood and assuring their virginity, she was horrified. "My first reaction was disbelief. I thought it was something that happened in [her mother's] time, that happened in Somalia. I didn't think it would be happening to girls who are my age, or in the UK," she says. "But then I found out that it was. All I can remember thinking was – why hasn't anyone tried to stop this before?" Fahma is one of nine daughters in a Somali family that moved to Britain when she was seven. Now 17, she is part of a new generation of anti-FGM campaigners determined to make politicians sit up and listen, and finally end female genital mutilation. A trustee of the charity Integrate Bristol, which fights against FGM, she has now become the face of the Guardian's campaign to help end the practice. She puts it simply: "I want to help these girls who don't have a voice." In a classroom in the City Academy Bristol – one of the few schools in the country running a dedicated anti-FGM project – she joined a spirited group of teenagers, many of them wearing headscarves, to practice a song composed for the UNs FGM zero-tolerance day on Thursday. Calling themselves the #FDL or Female Defence League – with some of the cheekier older girls substituting the word "fanny" for "female" – the girls belted out a song that, as they put it, is "sayin' no to bullshit oppression". In a rapped section, one of them spits out her contempt of politicians, such as the education secretary, Michael Gove, whom she accuses of shirking the issue: "I'm sorry, Mr Micky, if you still don't get it / Then David Cameron oughta say, beat it, Gove, beat it!" Confidence in the group has not always been so high. Lisa Zimmermann, a teacher who co-founded the organisation, says she became conscious of FGM when told that 11 of 12 girls in a group she was taking on a trip had undergone cutting. At first the group was limited to four girls, who wrote anonymous poetry. Soon more joined, but when the girls made a film, Silent Scream, about FGM, it met fierce opposition and critics descended on the school. "We were accused of making a porn film – people said we'd forced the girls to be in it and didn't want the film to be shown," says Zimmermann. After some of the girls' mothers met police to ask for support, the screening went ahead and since then the group has grown to more than 100 members, who have appeared on television, taught at other schools and on the UN's FGM zero-tolerance day will host Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales. "Proud does not begin to describe it," says Zimmermann. Fahma says she is sick of people citing cultural tolerance as a reason not to tackle FGM, adding that many do not realise what a serious issue it is. "I definitely know people it has happened to: girls who have been taken home, or who have had it here. For some of these mothers it's a lot cheaper and easier to get them done here. I know these girls, and it just fuels my passion. I want to get their voices heard." The consequences for her friends are severe. "FGM is a terrible thing. Not only physically […] I think people don't think about how traumatic that would be, how it will mess her up emotionally. People don't understand that this is something they live with every day of their lives, not just physically but emotionally." She is directly appealing to Gove to write to every headteacher in the UK before the next"cutting season" – the summer holidays; when girls are cut in order to give them time to recover without it being noticed by teachers – asking them to train schools and parents about FGM. "A girl's high school years are when she grows up, learns about her body, goes through puberty … School students need to know about FGM and they need to know that it's wrong," says Fahma. Asked if she thinks the famously intractable Gove – who has faced down repeated attempts to get sex and relationship education made compulsory in the school curriculum, and has ignored requests for meetings from other FGM activists – will listen, she smiled. "We are not going to be quiet, we are not going to shut up," she says. "It has taken us this long just to get people talking about it, we don't care how long it takes." Source: theguardian http://www.somaliaonline.com/young-british-somali-women-fight-fgm-with-rhyme-and-reason/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JntqpqDTvjsVICE News followed the khat trail, from the farms of Meru, central Kenya to the suburbs of west London, meeting businesspeople, users and community members all keen to have their say. With exclusive access to a London khat warehouse and khat cafes in the English capital and Nairobi, we explored the industry and the implications of a ban at home and abroad. Smugglers are happy, the youth of Kenya are not.Source: http://www.vice.com http://www.somaliaonline.com/khat-power-vice-magazine-goes-to-eisleigh-marfishes-and-the-place-of-shisha-and-mirra/

(Reuters) - The breakaway territory of Somaliland cannot access foreign aid because it has not yet been recognized internationally as a state, and that suits it just fine. "That is a blessing in disguise. Aid never developed anything," Hussein Abdi Dualeh, Somaliland's minister of energy and minerals, told Reuters on the sidelines of an African mining conference. "Aid is not a panacea, we'd rather not have it ... How many African countries do you know that developed because of a lot of aid? It's a curse. The ones that get the most aid are the ones with the problems," he said. Dualeh is in Cape Town trying to woo junior mining companies to come and explore for minerals in Somaliland, which Dualeh described as Africa's "land mining frontier. Almost completely unexplored". That might be a hard sell as even raising capital can be difficult for projects in a state that is not recognized internationally but Dualeh said Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991, showed that an African country could fend for itself with no outside help. Somaliland has enjoyed relative stability compared with the rest of Somalia, which has been racked by decades of civil war, and has held a series of peaceful elections. "We've been left to our own devices. We are our own people and our own guys. We pull ourselves up by our own boot straps," said the U.S.-educated minister who speaks English with an American accent. He also said that while the country could not access international capital markets it also had no debt as a result, adding to its narrative of self-reliance. "We owe absolutely nothing to anybody. We would not change hands with Greece today. We have zero debt," he said. He said the country's national budget was around $250 million, funded completely by its own resources. Its economy is largely based on selling livestock - goats and cattle - to Arab countries, while it also relies heavily on the remittances of its diaspora community. "Remittances from overseas prop up the economy to the tune of about a billion dollars a year," Dualeh said. Source: http://www.reuters.com http://www.somaliaonline.com/somaliland-minister-of-energy-mr-dualeh-rails-against-foreign-aid-calls-it-a-curse-on-the-continent-and-something-somaliland-would-rather-not-have/

Imagine a Megopolis rising, Atlantis-like, from the sea.An urban development similar in size to Manhattan that boasts thriving business and residential districts helps transform not just a city but an entire country. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction. But the Eko Atlantic project in Lagos, Nigeria, is real and has become one of the most dazzling and most discussed construction developments in the entire world.One hundred years ago, the area of land on which the new city will be built was beach, but time and Mother Nature had erased all but a trace. The coastal erosion had become so serious that Victoria Island, a suburb of Lagos, was in danger of serious flooding, and it was feared that those who lived near the water’s edge would be forced to leave their homes. Steps were taken to protect the shoreline, but then a grander plan emerged: to reverse the erosion, reclaim 10 square kilometers (4 miles) of land and build a clean and eco-friendly city that would help ease the burden on Lagos, the biggest city in Africa’s fastest growing economy, and offer employment and opportunity to its 17 million citizens.Work began in 2006, dredging the first few thousand of what will eventually be approximately 140 million tones of sand making it currently the biggest land reclamation site in the world. Soon the foundation for the first buildings will be sunk, and by 2015 the skyline will start to change.To ensure the Atlantic Ocean does not return for what it ones stole, the developers have designed an 8km-long (5-mile) barrier to keep the sea at bay. This has become known as the Great Wall of Lagos and is being built on the same place as the water’s edge 100 years ago.Each day for the past two years, a fleet of more than 150 vehicles, 50 of them Volvo trucks, have driven the 161km (100-mile) return journey between the job-site and granite quarry at Ibadan from dawn to dusk to deliver 700,000 tonnes of stone. These are piled 15 metres (42ft) high and topped with concrete accropodes, huge geometrical objects designed to resist waves on coastal structures.The scale of the work is staggering. So much concrete is needed that the site has its own factory to produce it, and the project employs more than 1,200 staff directly linked to the construction of the project to operate and maintain the excavators, haulers and other machinery.By far the biggest supplier of machines, with more than 40 on site and several more at the quarry digging and moving rocks, is Volvo. At Eko Atlantic, there are excavators digging trenches for drainage and sewage, haulers moving rocks and sand, even a motor grader to maintain the roads on the site.The operators and other staff have to work in searing beat, with temperatures often topping 40 degrees centigrade (104oF). This can cause choking clouds of sand and dust, though a specially adapted A25 hauler fitted with a water tank helps dampen and cool the sand to prevent such build-ups. Then, in the rainy season, they have to work in lashing rain and torrential storms. It is tough work, but thanks to their efforts the shape of a new land has emerged where once there was water.When Volvo spirit visited the site in April, the wall was almost 4,000 meters (13,123ft) long, growing by three meters each day. At its furthest point, where the road ends and the waves lash against the rocks, a sole EC460BLC Volvo excavator’s battle with nature, tasked with settling the stones that form the wall’s core. This remarkable machine, which has carried out 5,400 hours of work in two years without any unplanned downtime, has a claim to be the toughest working excavators in the world.George Tawk, the group plant manager at Eko Atlantic, is full of praise for the performance of his Volvo fleet and the EC460BLC in particular. “Where that machine works is a very difficult area. You have to deal with rocks, sand, salty water and salty air. All these factors create lots of damage to a machine. But with good support and a thorough maintenance schedule, that machine has coped.“The EC406BLC is a fantastic machine. It is very smooth and agile, and it works quickly and efficiently.” Working in Africa, in the extreme heat and dusty environments, present special challenges for all machines, but Volvo machines are equal to the task. “In Africa you need a customized, tropicalized engine that can handle the heat and the weather. Volvo machines have those engines. It is rough handling here,” George adds.The machines have been supplied by the Volvo dealer in Nigeria, ATC-Nigeria. “We use Volvo machines because in Africa, support is absolutely crucial, and I get that support from Volvo. When I need that support, wherever I might need it, I get it. Believe me, you can use the best machine in the world in Africa, but if you don’t have support then it doesn’t matter- you are nowhere. You need a dealer and a company that stands by you when you need them and gets you the parts that you need and the machines that you need, even in the remotest of places. Volvo and ATC-Nigeria give us that.”With Volvo’s help the busy, cramped city of Lagos is getting a development of which it is rightly proud, a stunning new district that will provide work and housing for generations to come in this city on the sea.Source: http://www.ekoatlantic.com/ http://www.somaliaonline.com/eko-atlantic-nigerias-super-city-under-construction-has-become-the-most-discussed-african-construction-project/

Afrophobia, defined as hostility towards people with a background from sub-Saharan Africa, is soaring in Sweden, according to the researchers who compiled the government-commissioned report. They wrote on Monday in the opinion pages of the Dagens Nyheter newspaper (DN) that it was time society took these statistics seriously. Between 2008 and 2012, the number of reported hate crimes against Afro-Swedes, defined as anyone with African heritage living in Sweden, rose by 24 percent, while hate crimes in general during the same period decreased by six percent. Between 2011 and 2012 alone, the number of Afrophobic hate crimes rose by 17 percent, the researchers explained. A prominent and recent example includes that of a 32-year-old Ghanian man who was attacked with his toddler son on a bridge in Malmö. The unprovoked incident was labelled a hate crime because the attackers used racial slurs as they dangled the man over the bridge. Sweden's African community is also discriminated against when it comes to housing and employment opportunities, the researchers noted. Sweden is currently home to an estimated 180,000 Afro-Swedes. Around 90 percent of them have roots in sub-Saharan Africa, with the remaining ten percent hailing from North and South America, and the rest of the world. Forty percent of Afro-Swedes were born in Sweden and have at least one parent from sub-Saharan Africa. Researcher Samson Beshir said one of the reasons behind the spike in hate crimes was the dehumanization of Africans. "Take the portrayal of Africans in school material for example, Africa is only referred to as an object in connection with colonization," he told the TT news agency. The researchers called for several measures to break the trend and to put an end to Afrophobia in Sweden, including a state-funded investigation, an increase in public education about Sweden's role in the slave trade, and more generous compensation for victims of discrimination. Sweden's Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag agreed that the matter must be taken seriously. "I am especially concerned about the situation for the Somali-Swedes," he told TT. "This is the group that has been exposed to the most stereotypes in this debate during the past few years." He added that the new report would be reviewed, but expressed his reservations about some of the proposals, including one calling for affirmative action. Source: http://www.thelocal.se http://www.somaliaonline.com/afrophobic-hate-crime-is-on-the-rise-in-sweden-and-the-somalis-bear-the-brunt-of-it/

Somalia Online – Former Prime Minister of Somalia, Abdirisak Haji Hussein passed away in Minneapolis at the age of 90. Mr. Hussein who was hospitalized at Fairview Hospital in Minneapolis, died of pneumonia. “Abdirizak Haji Hussein is one of the two most distinguished Somali political figures since World War II” said Professor Ahmed Ismail Samatar in an interview with Minneapolis based TV Kare 11. Mr. Hussein who was born in Galkayo and became active in the Somali Youth Club at an early age, served as Minister of Interior, Minister of Public Works and Communications before becoming Somalia’s prime minister in 1964. New Snippet http://www.somaliaonline.com/former-prime-minister-of-somalia-abdirisak-haji-hussein-passed-away-in-minneapolis/

Nairobi, Kenya, September 21, 2013—Gunmen from Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group born in Somalia in 2006 and now linked to Al-Qaeda, attack the Westgate shopping mall and kill at least sixty-seven people. Confusion reigns in cyberspace, as some speak of dozens of attackers. In reality, there are only four. A Twitter message claims that two of the assailants might have been raised in Minnesota, home to some 120,000 Somalis, the largest such community in the western world, ahead of cities like Toronto, London, Stockholm and Copenhagen. The rumor on Twitter is enough to magnetize the media. In a snap, cameras surround Cedar-Riverside, the Minneapolis neighborhood also known as "Little Mogadishu,” after the Somali capital. The tweet, however, was wrong—one of the gunmen had spent several years in Norway but there is no confirmation about any attacker originating from the Twin Cities. The diaspora’s leaders condemn the violence, but not before a new harsh light has been turned on this community. Nobody can ignore the fact that since 2007, up to fifty young Somalis and Somali-Americans have left Minnesota for Mogadishu to join Al-Shabaab—whose name translates from Arabic as “The Youth”—and which was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 2008. Enhancing its marketing techniques, Al-Shabaab circulated a YouTube video last August specifically targeting young Somalis in Minneapolis—the city where the first known suicide bomber with American citizenship, the Somali-born Shirwa Ahmed, resided. On October 29, 2008, Ahmed drove a car loaded with explosives into a government compound in the north of Somalia, killing more than thirty. The YouTube video, “The Path to Paradise from the Twin Cities to the Land of Two Migrations”—which has been removed—featured three youngsters from Minneapolis, two Somalis and an American convert to Islam, who have since died in East Africa, martyrs for the cause. On the forty-minute-long video, the latter, Troy Kastigar, tries to attract supporters, laughing: “If you guys only knew how much fun we have over here, this is the real Disneyland! You need to come here and join us.” Such videos shocked Mohamed Amin Ahmed, a thirty-eight-year-old Somali who arrived in the United States twenty years ago with his parents and siblings. “I got frustrated,” says Ahmed. “I’ve got tons of nephews and they kept asking me: Is that our religion?” Ahmed, who fled the Somali civil war when he was eighteen, often wears a sorrowful look on his face, although in reality he is a happy husband and father-of-three living in a thick-carpeted home in suburban Minneapolis. In the nineties, Lutheran charities from Minnesota opened their arms to Somali refugees, two decades after they had welcomed the Hmong people from Southeast Asia. Far from Africa, Somalis discovered frosty weather, but also housing subsidies and jobs in significant numbers, mostly in slaughterhouses and on assembly lines. After opening his own grocery in Minneapolis’s suburbs, Ahmed sold it and became the manager of a gas station, with the hope of one day achieving his American dream: to build a family-owned snack food factory. “It takes an idea to kill an idea,” he loves to say. “And I’m full of ideas.” To deter children from martyrdom and provide an alternative to Al-Shabaab’s propaganda, Ahmed created his own website, Average Mohamed, where he posts short animated videos in English and Somali, explaining that suicide bombing is clearly against Islam. Abdirizak Bihi, director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center based in Minneapolis, welcomes the initiative. “We reached a momentum,” he says. “But we need to redouble our work to make sure that people know Al-Shabaab for what it is. We have to continue our awareness program and find resources. Above all, we need to eliminate the vulnerability of these young people by fighting poverty and unemployment, because Al-Shabaab takes advantage of them.” Bihi’s own life has been rocked by this radicalization. His nephew, Burhan Hassan, who landed in the United States at the age of four, was one of the young Minnesota residents who became taken with Al-Shabaab. It wasn’t until after Burhan had left that the family noticed warning signs. Bihi describes subtle changes he noticed in his nephew and the other young men who left for Somalia. “We all found out that [in] the last three to six months, they all had changed. Every mother reported that they were not eating the food; they would be lying in their bed [staring at] the ceiling for hours. They had changed their appearances; they had cut off from their friends. They had stopped playing or watching their favorites games: hockey, basketball or football. They had completely shut down.” Hassan returned to Somalia in November 2008 and joined Al-Shabaab along with five other Somalis from the Twin Cities. As soon as the family realized that Burhan had flown back to Somalia, they phoned some relatives in Kenya, where the teenager was supposed to connect flights. "We missed him by only ten minutes at Nairobi’s airport," says Bihi. Eight months later, Burhan called his mother and told her he wanted to go back home. He never did. When Al-Shabaab fighters found out he wanted to quit and return to his family in Minneapolis, they killed him with a bullet to the head. For the past six years, the jihadist threat has been the FBI’s top priority in Minnesota, with an ongoing investigation dubbed “Operation Rhino.” “The FBI,” explains Kyle Loven, chief division counsel for the Bureau in Minneapolis, “became aware of the radicalization problem in the fall of 2007, when we were approached by people within the Somali community with respect to the disappearance of young men from the Twin Cities area. We believe the number to be somewhere between twenty and forty individuals.” A number of factors seem to have caused this exile, most linked to a general disaffection with American society. “[it’s] difficult to be proud of who you are when you watch the way Islam is treated on the news,” says Shirwa Hersi, twenty-seven, a Somali-born U.S. Marine who writes poems about this intractable challenge. For many, lack of employment, the absence of a paternal authority figure—two-thirds of the Somali homes in Minnesota are single-mother households—and the general feeling of isolation seem to have played a role. Others saw the fight in Somalia as a religious duty, or a calling to protect their homeland. As Imam Hassan Mohamud of Minnesota’s Da’wah Institute, and one of the community’s religious leaders, explains, “Before, in 2006, Al-Shabaab was part of Islamic courts, and not only that, but there was an invasion by Ethiopian forces, and Al-Shabaab played an important role to free the country of that invasion. At that time, they were accepted.” After turning to terrorism and suicide bombings, “now they are against the Somali people itself.” While some, like Bihi, accuse certain Minnesotan mosques of actively recruiting young jihadists on behalf of Al-Shabaab, Hassan Mohamud swears to Allah that “no imam, even in the past, supported our young people in America to join any destructive group.” In fact, last September he flew to Mogadishu with other scholars and issued an Islamic fatwa condemning Al-Shabaab. While some connections between Minnesota Somalis and Al-Shabaab have been identified—in 2012, the janitor of the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center of Minneapolis was sentenced to twenty years in prison for aiding the terrorist group—the FBI has found no evidence of a genuine link between the mosque's leadership and Al-Shabaab. Many would like to portray the Somali community in Minnesota as a haven for extremists. But time spent in the Twin Cities meeting with the diaspora in Somali mosques, malls, schools, businesses and hookah bars tells a different story. For more than twenty years now, Somali refugees have worked hard for a slice of the American dream and Minnesota has been able to integrate these outsiders much more effectively than cities in Europe. “We still don’t do good enough,” acknowledges former Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, who now runs the Center for Somalia History Studies, although he stresses that in other countries like Sweden, home to 44,000 Somalis, the unemployment rate among them is as high as fifty-five percent. Source: http://narrative.ly http://www.somaliaonline.com/saving-little-mogadishu-when-al-shabaab-starts-recruiting-in-minneapolis-somalis-spring-into-action-to-save-their-youth/

The methodology used in the ranking is below http://www.worldwatchlist.us/about/ranking-methodology/ Source: worldwatchlist.us http://www.somaliaonline.com/somalia-is-ranked-among-the-top-of-countries-persecuting-christians/