Amiir Nuur – The Islamist website said President Sharif is ordered to immediately return the millions in piracy ransom money looted by the TFG and AMISOM leaders. The news source did not specify who is demanding the return of the ransom payment captured by the TFG-AMISOM in Mogadishu yesterday. (Editor’s Note: this is the $3.6 million ransom reported by Somalia Report yesterday.) Somali Language
SECURITY/AL-SHABAAB
Mareeg – Al-Shabaab is recruiting young men from Bay region by offering them $100 and mobile phones with a camera and then transporting the new recruits to join the Mogadishu frontlines. Somali Language
Somali Memo – Al-Shabaab said the Christian nation of America is directly involved in the recent Mogadishu fighting. The Islamist website claimed that white Americans were driving the AMISOM tanks and their warplanes were flying over the areas controlled by the Islamist fighters. Somali Language
Bar Kulan – Business people of the Elesha area of Mogadishu complained about financial extortion by al-Shabaab, which ordered businessmen to pay $50-300 as financial contributions. Somali Language
Amiir Nuur – The Islamist fighters claimed they captured a spy dressed like woman reporting on 'Christian forces' with his mobile phone. As reported, the captured spy was working for the United States and the Christian African forces in Mogadishu and he will be brought to Benadir Islamist and eventually meted a severe punishment. Somali Language
HUMANITARIAN
All Headline News – The Somali refugees in Italy demonstrated the subhuman living conditions in Florence City. A Somali demonstrator, Fardowa Ighe said, “We are demonstrating here to try to attract the attention of the world so that the international community may have full understanding of the terrible living standards we have.”
MEDIA
CPJ Blog – Exiled Somali journalists in Kenya rally for one of their wounded colleagues, Hassan Mohamed, who is in a Nairobi hospital and highlighted both the toll and risks of the Somali conflict on Somali journalists.
TODAY’S SPOTLIGHT ARTICLE
"Millions in Cash Payments Missing in Somalia"
By Katherine Haureld
AP
Somali politicians are returning from Arab nations with briefcases of cash, and a Somali government watchdog report obtained by The Associated Press found that more than $70 million of it is missing instead of being used to fight terrorism, piracy or hunger."Politicians want to keep the status quo. They're profiting from it," said Abdirazak Fartaag, the head of the Public Finance Management Unit, a Somali government body charged with overseeing the country's financial management. "We have to hold these big shots accountable."
A separate AP investigation established that cash payments from Arab nations continue amid a lack of transparency over how much money politicians accept and what happens with it.
Oil-rich nations like Sudan and the United Arab Emirates have a tradition of cash diplomacy in which visiting officials are handed stacks of $100 bills to take home.