Sideway made the suggestion to start a topic in the general forums on the steady recovery of Somalia. I will keep posting new developments.
Mogadishu (RBC) As FIFA is giving more priority to the development of football in Somalia, the country’s football Federation SFF has revealed that the world football governing body has approved two main development projects for the country, Somali Football federation secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab announced in a press statement issued here at the SFF headquarters here in Mogadishu on Friday.
“This year FIFA has approved another artificial turf project for Somalia which will be fitted with the Somali University Stadium, where we have been using since 2010” Somali Football Federation Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab said in his press statement.
The facility is an open ground that hosted many competitions and in a bid to make it an international standard stadium the Somali Football federation requested FIFA such great artificial turf installation project for the ill-equipped facility that has already been approved by FIFA.
“Today Friday the 1st of November 2013 Somali football Federation is happy to announce that such tangible victory has been achieved with all assistances from FIFA” Somali Football Federation Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab noted in his press statement on Friday.
“FIFA has also approved the second goal project for Somalia to build headquarters and technical centre for Somali Football Federation at the Somali University—we are fully grateful to FIFA under the leadership of President Joseph. S. Blatter for its continued financial and moral support assistances to Somalia “the secretary Genera mentioned in his press statement.
The statement expressed that earlier this year, authorities of Somali National Universities donated the university field to Somali Football federation in an agreement that was jointly signed by the civil service development ministry, the SFF and SNU.
“The civil service development ministry and the SNU are praiseworthy and their generosity shows how Somali government and its institutions are committed to the promotion of football in the country—on the behalf of SFF I declare here with a loud voice that we couldn’t achieve such progress without a government” Somali Football Federation Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab insisted.
The statement said that an international construction company the GREEN COVER contacted SFF earlier in October in a bid to send a delegate to try to visit the Somali University stadium where FIFA accepted to install with artificial Turf as the company is weighting to achieve the FIFA contract to rebuild the facility.
“An official from GREEN COVER contacted me on the matter relating to the arrival of a delegate from them and we assured to the company that Somalia was happy to receive their representative here in Mogadishu where we have extended a warm welcome to Mr. Per Morgan Jagervall who arrived in Capital on Monday 28th of October on the invitation of Somali Football federation” Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab said in his press statement.
During his stay in Mogadishu Mr Jagervall explained to Somali Football Federation that the main objective of his visit to Mogadishu was part of the efforts by his company to win the contract from FIFA who approved two main projects for Somalia early this year.
“I am fully thankful to Somali Football Federation for the warm welcome they extended to me from the day of my arrival up to the moment—I visited many places including the lido Beach resort of Mogadishu where I have had a lovely stay” Mr Jagervall” said at the end of his four day stay in Somali Capital on Friday.
However, Somali Football federation Secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab declared that the SFF was welcoming all international construction companies who are in contract agreements with FIFA to the country.
Travelport – the leading distribution services and e-commerce provider for the global travel industry – has continued to expand its footprint across Africa with the launch of business operations in Somalia.
Travelport has appointed Euro Africa Services – an established regional travel operator – as its distributor in the country, making this the latest milestone in its expansion in Africa. Travelport is now present in 48 African countries, with more in the pipeline.
Under the terms of the new agreement, Euro Africa Services will have exclusive rights to distribute Travelport’s Galileo technology and services in Somalia, providing travel agencies in the region with access to extensive global travel content, leading edge technology as well as customer support and training.
“The new operations in Somalia form a key part of our continuing Africa expansion strategy,” said Mark Meehan, Managing Director for Travelport Africa. “Somalia has a major growth potential and we feel that this is the right time to make a significant investment in this region.
“I am confident that the appointment of Euro Africa Services as our partner, who share our passion and commitment for the development of the regional travel industry, will ensure choice and exceptional service for travel agents in Somalia.”
Travelport will bring a new dimension to the travel and tourism industry in Somalia,” said Liban Warsame, Managing Director, Euro Africa Services. “As a new GDS provider, we will create a competitive advantage that will benefit the travel agents who are looking for choice. We are passionate about our business and look forward to bringing the industry-leading Travelport offering to the travel industry in Somalia.”
BBC - Police in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have launched an emergency police telephone service for the first time in more than 20 years. Residents can call the emergency number - 888 - and the authorities say a police car will be sent out. Police spokesman Mohamed Yusuf Madaleh told the BBC it was part of efforts by international donors to revamp the country's police service.
Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Information Technologies between The Foreign Ministries of Turkey and Somalia was signed in Ankara
Ambassador Naci Koru, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and Mohamed Nour Gacal, Minister of State of Somalia Responsible for Foreign Affairs signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Information Technologies between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Somali Federal Republic on September 26, 2013 in Ankara.
Within the context of the Memoradum of Understanding, a project has been prepared for the information technologies infrastructure of Somali’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. At the first stage, it is envisaged to establish the information technologies infrastructure of Somali’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Somalian missions abroad through a data center that will be installed in Somalian Embassy in Ankara. Under the project, all kinds of hardware, software and training requirements will be met by Turkish Foreign Ministry.
The aforementioned support to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Somalia in the field of Information Technologies is assessed to ensure a long-term concrete contribution to the works of the said Ministry, to strengthen the cooperation between the two Ministries and to consolidate the position of Turkey in terms of being a leader country in supporting Somalia.
The Liquid Telecom Group has built the first fibre optic link into Somalia connecting the country to its neighbours, the rest of the world and the undersea cables by fibre for the first time.
The new fibre link connects across the Kenya Somalia border and then directly into the fibre network of Hormuud Telecom Somalia Inc. (HORTEL) for local termination.
Hortel’s fibre network will provide Liquid Telecom’s customers – fixed and mobile operators, wholesale carriers and enterprises – with reliable, robust and fast connectivity in southern and central Somalia.
Meanwhile, HORTEL’s customers now have access to Liquid Telecom’s award-winning pan-African fibre network which spans more than 17,000k across Botswana, DRC, Kenya, Lesotho, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and provides connectivity onto the five main subsea cable systems landing in Africa; WACS, EASSY, SEACOM, SAT3 and TEAMs. The Liquid Telecom Group is also the first wholesale carrier to connect the East African capitals of Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Kigali on a single fibre network.
Nic Rudnick, CEO of the Liquid Telecom Group, said: “We will be providing the people of Somalia with access to the global internet at higher speeds and with more capacity available than ever before. Our goal is to connect every person and business in Africa to the internet and to each other. We are an agile and entrepreneurial company which is investing heavily in building our pan-African fibre network”.
Hormuud Telecom Chairman & CEO Ahmed Yuusuf said: “The connection of the HORTEL network to Liquid Telecom’s international fibre network is a landmark for Somalia and will provide our customers with the fastest and most cost effective communications speeds available. This is a significant accomplishment for both companies.
His Excellency Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon and Cabinet were today briefed government plans to rebuild and reopen Somali National University at the weekly Cabinet meeting. The plans were unanimously supported by the Cabinet. Somali National University was established in 1974, consisting of 13 faculties, 700 staff and educating over 15,000 students. The physical structure of the National University campus has been heavily damaged, it is estimated it will cost $3.6m to refurbish the university.
"Education must be at the heart of every civilised country's agenda and Somalia is no different. Through education we fight poverty, illiteracy and ignorance and we promote social development,” the Prime Minister said.
"Now that peace is returning to Somalia, we urgently need to re-establish our education system, which has been devastated by two decades of fighting. The Ministry for Human Development and Public Services has already launched the ambitious Go 2 School campaign, which will see $117 million invested over three years, with the aim of getting one million more children into schools.
"We must now focus on reviving our state higher education system. Reopening Somali National University will allow our brightest and most talented pupils to once again aspire to attend university in Somalia
Hormuud has 2,000 sites across central and southern Somalia and has laid a terrestrial fibre network in Mogadishu to speed up connections. It is now part of international terrestrial links connecting to neighbouring Kenya through a cable.
Hormuud expects call and data costs to drop by 50 percent once that link is fully functional, which is expected to happen soon. The company, which already offers 3G connections, will start trials on a 4G network in 2014 and expects data charges to be only $0.03 per megabit, a third of the current cost. - Source
None of the Telecoms Companies want to be left behind. Competition is beneficial for consumers when it works well and in the Telecoms industry it seems to be working well. :banana:
- Dalkom Somalia has announced that it is investing in a fibre optic capacity through the EASSY cable.
- TeleSom is investing in fibre optic and is working with O3b Networks (owned by Google and HSBC)
SomCable is investing $35m in a fibre optic network.
And lastly, Hormuud is also investing in fibre optic.
Africa carrier WIOCC, in conjunction with local shareholder Dalkom Somalia, is set to launch fibre connectivity to and from Somalia via the EASSy cable in the first quarter of 2014.
The connection will offer services directly from Mogadishu to the rest of the world in addition to improving access to the internet with capacity between 2Mbps and 10Gbps.
HumanIPO reported on Tuesday Liquid Telecom had launched the first fibre optic cable into Somalia, connecting the country to the undersea cables by fibre for the first time, as well as to neighbours Kenya.
Dalkom Somalia is currently building a 1,000sqm data centre to host equipment for all Mogadishu operators and internet service providers (ISPs) to facilitate direct connection into the international fibre network.
Chris Wood, WIOCC chief executive officer (CEO), said: “Until now, Somalia has been served exclusively by satellite – with high costs and limited bandwidth severely restricting the rollout and uptake of internet access and advanced services. WIOCC and Dalkom will be the first into commercial operation with international fibre-optic connectivity direct into Mogadishu.”
Wood said he expected it to drive lower cost internet and broadband, to boost mobile penetration from its current 60 per cent and to dramatically increase the development and use of internet-based services and applications.
“We operate an open access policy and encourage all local operators and ISPs to take advantage of the new infrastructure we are bringing to our country,” said Wood.
Mohamed Ahmed Jama, CEO of Dalkom Somalia, said just as with other African countries over recent years, access to affordable, high-speed, international connectivity has a significant impact on economic, political and social development.
“To complement the new connectivity to EASSy, Dalkom Somalia is building a fibre-optic metropolitan area network that will extend connectivity to customers within Mogadishu,” said Jama.
“This entire initiative will greatly benefit the growing number of international organisations and local business entrepreneurs there, as well as the people of Somalia.”