Africa

 

Somalia has taken a step toward electing a new president after a committee overseeing the          war-torn country's transition to a replacement government named more than 200 parliamentarians, a committee member said.

"We have 202 members readied now and we are working on the reviewing of 40 others that were passed today and we hope the first parliament session will be held around [Monday]," Halimo Yarey, who co-chairs the committee, said on Saturday.

"The rest of the list is still pending because of inter-clan argument and other reasons related to a lack of fulfillment of the conditions," she told reporters.

The legislature is due to elect the next president on Monday under a UN-backed agreement, putting an end to eight years of Somalia's graft-riddled, Western-backed Transitional Federal Government, or TFG.

The Horn of Africa nation has lacked a stable central government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Siad Barre in 1991, which unleashed a bloody civil war and two decades of chaos.

But while the government until recently controlled only a few blocks of Mogadishu, African Union and other troops have since made key territorial gains in their fight against al-Shabab fighters.

With better security, members of the Somali diaspora have returned to invest in their battered homeland, and many now hope that a new government will help the war-torn country stabilise and recover.

Selection committee

In that process, a "technical selection committee" - charged with ratifying new MPs from a list chosen by a group of 135 traditional elders - published the names of the first of 275 new legislators late on Friday.

The committee rejected some 70 nominees because they did not meet the requirements to serve in parliament.

Legislators must be Somali citizens of sound mind, have a high school diploma and be free of ties to warlords or links to
atrocities committed during the country's civil war.

The transition process is also laden with inter-clan tensions. Under the agreement, each of Somalia's four main clan families - the Darod, Dir, Hawiye and Rahanweyn - named 30 members to the group of elders nominating the members of parliament.

The remaining 15 were drawn from a coalition of minority groups.

Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the country’s current president, told Al Jazeera in an interview in Mogadishu that the technical selection committee should not overstep their mandate.

"The technical selection committee was given certain criteria to vet names presented to them. They don't have a right arbitrarily, to choose those on the list and who to reject," he said on Saturday.

"If there's a problem, members of the technical committee should go back to the council of elders, but it is unacceptable for them to overstep their mandate."

The new parliament - comprising a 275-member lower house and a yet-to-be-launched upper house with a maximum of 54 members - is tasked with electing the president, the speaker and two deputy speakers.

It will be allowed to go ahead with voting Monday if a quorum of more than two-thirds of the lower house - 184 members - is present.

The new president will then appoint a prime minister, who in turn will form a council of ministers.

 

 

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somalia's president has dismissed a UN report that accuses senior officals of corruption as he campaigns for re-election in a landmark vote.

Sharif Ahmed denied on Friday that large portions of state funds had been misappropriated in recent years as he defended his record in the run-up to an election that would end a succession of UN-backed transitional governments, in place since 2004.

Western and regional states have given millions of dollars in aid to the country's transitional federal government [TGF], and sent African troops to help crush al-Shabab fighters.

Fraud allegations

The United Nations' Somalia monitoring group said in July that it had found that, out of every $10 received by the transitional federal government [TFG] between 2009-2010, $7 never made into the state's coffers.

The report also said that in 2011 almost a quarter of the government's total expenditure - more than $12 million - was absorbed by the offices of the country's three top leaders.

Ahmed, who took over as head of the transitional government in 2009, denied that funds had been misappropriated, saying they had been spent to lift Somalia, which has been devastated by decades of conflict and a series of droughts, out of its severe state of crisis.

"We regret this report. It is a fabricated report and a lie. Those people who compiled it are intent for Somalia to stay as it is," Ahmed told Reuters on Thursday in the plush garden of Villa Somalia, his official residence in Mogadishu.

"If money had been seized, Somalia would never have reached the stage it has today," Ahmed said, citing progress in security conditions.

Privately though, Somalia-focused diplomats in Nairobi say Ahmed has failed to deliver on security gains and basic public services.

International observers say it is too difficult to predict who will win the election in the country.

Deadly Kenyan attack on al-Shabab

Meanwhile, Kenyan security forces assisting the Somalian army killed 73 al-Shabab fighters in an attack at the remote Somalian region of Fafadun, a military source said on Thursday.

"There was an attack in Somalia at a place called Fafadun. Seventy three Al Shabab were killed and there are two KDF [Kenyan defence forces] casualties," the source said.

Three other Kenyan soldiers were wounded in Thursday afternoon's attack.

"It was a very violent confrontation because the Al Shabaab militants were heavily armed and ready for war. Forty AK-47 rifles were seized from the slain militants," another source said.

Source: Aljazeera

People are dying in large numbers in a refugee camp in South Sudan, Medecins Sans Frontieres has warned.

The medical charity says as many as four young children die at the Batil camp every day - twice the established emergency threshold.

The rainy season makes it impossible to bring food in by road, and the only way to deliver aid is by air.

Some 120,000 refugees have fled to camps in South Sudan from Sudan following fighting north of the border.

"What we are seeing here in this camp in nothing short of a humanitarian catastrophe," MSF's medical co-ordinator Helen Patterson said.
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The majority of those who have died in the camp are children under five, and the MSF says that diarrhoea seems to be the biggest cause.

It adds that malnutrition is a contributing factor, calling for urgent help.

One man, Ibrahim, says his mother died after reaching Batil.

Osman, another refugee, says he has already lost his nephew, and is worried that the baby boy's father will soon die too.

Refugees - many of whom walked to weeks to get to camps - say they were forced from their homes in South Korofan and Blue Nile State by ground and air attacks by the military.

Officials in Khartoum deny that civilians are being targeted.

 

Ethiopia's prime minister is "recovering well," a spokesman said Wednesday, amid frenzied speculation about the health of the usually visible leader, who has not appeared in public for two months.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, 57, came to power two decades ago and is considered a strong force in the frequently volatile horn of Africa.

He has not appeared in public since June, and the secretive nation has released little information about his whereabouts, prompting rumors and opposition claims that he is dead or facing a life-threatening illness.

After weeks of speculation, the government held a news conference last month and announced he got treatment for an unspecified illness.

Zenawi is "recovering well, resting and performing his duties as prime minister and head of state," government spokesman Bereket Simon reiterated Wednesday. He declined to give exact details on Zenawi's whereabouts or the nature of his illness.

His absence has been a hot topic in the nation, with bloggers launching a counter of the number of days he's been missing. Citizens have taken to social media to discuss his whereabouts and exchange conspiracy theories.

Searches for Zenawi are at their highest since 2004, according to Google trends.

"Ethiopians are a bit confused," said Endalk Hailemichael, 30, of Addis Ababa. "In Ethiopia, there are traditions of secrecy and hiding the whereabouts of leaders. People are afraid, there is a lot of uncertainty looming. A lot of rumors and unclear information going on."

Hailemichael said the disappearance has sparked a lot of questions, including who would succeed him in case of a power vacuum. But most people are discussing it with fear of repercussions, he said.


CNN reached several people in the nation who expressed their concerns about his whereabouts, but did not want to be quoted for fear of retribution.

"People are afraid to talk about it. This is a police state," Hailemichael said. "They are talking about it, but they are looking over their shoulders. In bars, in taxis, coffee shops, that's all people are talking about. But they are afraid."

His absence was more evident last month when Ethiopia hosted an African Union summit in its capital of Addis Ababa. Zenawi, a key player in talks on the tensions between Sudan and its rival neighbor South Sudan, did not attend.

"Some people are worried, some people are crying," said Jomanex Kassaye, 30, who lives near Addis Ababa. "While some people are worried about the instability that might occur ... others are happy that he may be gone."

Kassaye said, while he is not a fan of the leader, he wants him to leave through a democratic process.

"I need him to go because there is no democracy, no freedom of speech, no food, no justice, no accountability," he said. "But not like this. If he leaves like this, we will have another dictator who will take over power and stay for too long."

Ethiopia, which is a key Western ally often lauded for effective use of aid money, is surrounded by unstable nations such as Somalia and Sudan. Zenawi has been credited with working toward peace and security in the region.

The Ethiopian army has sent peacekeepers to battle Islamic extremist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia. More recently, the prime minister was working to broker a peace deal in the negotiations between Sudan and South Sudan, which split last year but still have unresolved issues.

In an attempt to quash the rumors, the government censored a newspaper that tried to report information about his health, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"This weekend, the government ordered the state-run printing company not to produce the latest edition of the weekly Feteh, which was to have carried front-page coverage of Zenawi's condition," the media advocacy group said on its website.

Zenawi, a former guerrilla leader, is part of a group that toppled dictator Haile Mengustu Mariam in 1991. The shrewd politician is credited with economic progress and maintaining peace in the nation surrounded by volatile countries.

However, human rights groups have accused his government of a heavy hand and a series of abuses, including limiting press freedoms and cracking down on opposition political parties.

Last year, Ethiopia found two Swedish journalists guilty of supporting terrorism and sentenced them to 11 years.

A festival held during Muslim Eid celebrations has been cancelled in northern Nigeria, a region hit by a wave of militant Islamist attacks.

It is the first time in more than 200 years that the three-day durbar, or horse parading ceremony, in Kano has been called off.

Officials said it was being cancelled as the Emir of Kano was in poor health.

Last week, a devotional retreat that takes place towards the end of Ramadan was cancelled due to security concerns.

The ritual is referred to as "i'tikaf", when some people spend the last 10 days of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in seclusion praying in mosques.

Analysts say another reason for the durbar's cancellation may be continued concerns about security and the campaign of violence being waged by the Islamist group Boko Haram.

 

Galloping horsemen

In a statement, palace official Abbas Sanusi said the Emir, Alhaji Ado Bayero, could not go ahead with the durbar festival, known as Hawan Sallah, because of his "fragile" health.

The emir's palace said the public should pray for his recovery and for peace to return to Kano state.

Yusuf Yakasai in Kano city says it is not clear from what illness the emir is suffering.

The traditional ruler, who has been on the throne for 49 years, had been to the UK in July for medical treatment, our reporter says.

Thousands of people - mainly Muslims from the Hausa ethnic group - normally attend the durbar, a parade performed by galloping horsemen during Eid, which is due to take place at the weekend.

The emir is expected to ride a horse for three days, as the durbar honours the power and heritage of the Hausa community - one of the largest in Nigeria.

The cancellation has caused much disappointment in Kano, our reporter says.

While most people accept that the emir's illness caused the cancellation, a few people suspect that security concerns also led to the decision, he says.

Kano residents say security at the durbar has increased in recent years.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has carried out a spate of bombings in northern Nigeria, targeting government buildings and religious sites.

The group, which wants to impose strict Muslim law across Nigeria, adheres to a strain of Islam that outlaws any kind of activity linked to Western culture.

It killed at least 160 people in attacks in Kano in January.

Nigerian troops have killed 20 suspected members of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in the north-east of the country, the army says.