Hello Faheema Marx, I'm not out of touch saxib nor am I knocking our do gooder brothers and sisters. I know of quite a few people (incl some SOLers) who are doing their bit without all the fan fair. I'm a believer in starting at home with your family members and kids in your localilty. The saying 'think global, start local' comes to mind. The intentions are always good but a little bit more focus and I'm sure a lot more could be achieved. I've never been part of any Somali organisation (I hated the idea to be honest) but I do keep in touch with kids who I mentored through school and uni and are now graduates. Thats the way things should be done. Keep it simple. There will always be specialist groups (for prisoners, gang members etc) and that is a good thing. My idea? Localise the whole thing whereby people focus on their own back yards through homework clubs, advice, pen pal, email etc at school level. Ng, Lee Sharpe was a Man Utd and even worse a Leeds player saxib :mad:

A Facebook group is the most over-rated thing since Lee Sharpe saxib! I have declined 9 out 10 times when invited because they are usually a waste of space! The Main Purpose of this group is to connect Somali people all over to create awareness of the issues affecting our youth all over the globe; recently we have been branded a hard to reach community with bad publicity. So its time to use the media, to the advantage of our community, to not only improve peoples perspective about us but to build a new and improved Somali Community! You build an improved Somali community by starting with the local kids and not a Facebook group!

@hurling abuse I have nothing against doing good for the community saxib. Its the events that usually turn out to be 'hello how and you doing' gatherings.

Apparently the PM's cosying up to and with the opposition in his reconciliation efforts (like he was assigned to do) has means the President feels threatened. So he gets his allies in the house to resign and accuse the PM of taking money!! The mayor’s dismissal and re-appointment was also a flash point. Let us see how this one plays out.

Its another Yeey vs PM battle Somali ministers quit as government rift deepens Sat 2 Aug 2008, 10:53 GMT [-] Text [+] By Mohamed Ahmed BAIDOA, Somalia, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Two thirds of Somalia's cabinet ministers resigned on Saturday, officials said, widening a rift between the president and prime minister that threatens to wreck the country's interim government. The 10 ministers who quit were all allies of President Abdullahi Yusuf, who has appeared increasingly at odds with Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein. This week, Yusuf revoked an order by Hussein sacking Mogadishu's powerful mayor. "I have resigned because the government has failed to implement its programmes and has gone against the charter," Khadija Mohammed Diriye, the former family affairs minister, told Reuters in Baidoa, where parliament sits. She said 10 of her colleagues tendered their resignations, four of them from overseas. Somalia had 15 ministers. It was not immediately clear what effect the move would have on the work of the interim government, which has struggled to impose its authority on the chaotic Horn of Africa nations since coming to power at the start of last year. One Somali member of parliament who asked not to be named said one group of lawmakers were calling on Hussein to resign over alleged financial irregularities in his administration. At the centre of growing tensions between Yusuf and Hussein is a former warlord and close Yusuf ally, Mohamed Dheere. This week the prime minister sacked Dheere as mayor and governor of the capital, accusing him of allegedly mis-using public funds and blaming him for mounting insecurity. On Thursday, Yusuf revoked the order, officials said. Dheere's fighters have been battling Islamist rebels waging an Iraq-style insurgency of roadside bombs, mortar blasts and assassinations against the government and its Ethiopian allies. On Friday, a roadside bomb killed a Ugandan soldier serving with a small African Union peacekeeping force. The political rift came as mediators tried to capitalise on a truce signed at U.N.-hosted peace talks in Djibouti in June between the government and some of the opposition. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. special envoy for Somalia, expressed concern and urged all parties to work together. "The Somali people knew there would be challenges on the path to peace and they should not be discouraged," he said in a statement on Saturday. "The authorities should remain focused on peace and I hope to see them shortly ... We must keep moving forward to ensure the agreement is fully implemented as soon as possible." The country's interim administration is the 14th attempt at forming a functioning central government since warlords toppled a military dictator in 1991, plunging the nation into crisis. The latest violence has killed more than 8,000 civilians since early last year and driven 1 million from their homes. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Nairobi; Writing by Wangui Kanina; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Mary Gabriel) (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL2459597.html

Originally posted by -MARX-: Sxb! cut the cynicism, alot was achieved yesterday. Even though i wasnt spewing my usual tirades of self-opinionated bile, alot of postive things were proposed. I was particualy impressed by the recognition afforded to us by DFID. the very fact that a British ministry is willing listen to us is a cause for celebrations. Dont give up! Remember SOLers: The worst form of anger is apathy. Saxib, every other week there is some sort of event and everyone pats themselves on the back for a job well done. This one sounds no different I'm afraid.

Wonder how much Dukey received that day? I guess he is still counting

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of Somalia's Islamist opposition, has called for a halt to the killing and kidnapping of aid workers stationed in the war-torn country. A total of 19 aid workers have been killed in Somalia this year, while 13 others have been abducted, according to the United Nations. "The Somali people need humanitarian assistance - food and medicine which they cannot afford," Aweys told the AFP news agency from Asmara, the Eritrean capital on Wednesday. "Killing and abduction of aid workers must stop." Aid groups have scaled down operations in Somalia due to increased insecurity, with at least 2.6 million Somalis facing hunger because of acute food shortfalls spurred by prolonged drought, insecurity and high inflation. Aweys claimed the leadership of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS), an umbrella opposition group, on Tuesday. He expelled Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a former head of the Union of Islamic Courts, the predominant movement fighting government forces. UN force needed His comments came as the foreign minister representing the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia asked the UN Security Council for the deployment of a peacekeeping force. "We are hoping that the [uN Security] Council will make a decision in the coming weeks ... [and that] the UN will order some kind of international presence, either a peacekeeping force or an international stabilising force," Ali Ahmed Jama said. Fighters opposed to the government have carried out roadside bombs, mortar attacks and assassinations against the administration and its Ethiopian allies since early last year. However, the fighters have blamed government hardliners for the wave of attacks targeting humanitarian staff. The African Union force currently deployed in Somalia has said is no longer capable of bringing stability to the country and has also called on the UN to help. The AU mission, known as Amisom, says it lacks funding and logistical support, making it impossible to carry out its mandate on the ground. Amisom has been in Somalia since March 2007 and is currently made up of 2,600 Ugandan and Burundian troops. Jama also said that once the UN-brokered truce deal arranged in Djibouti on June 9 by the Somali government and the opposition went into into effect, "we are hoping that violence will go down and a climate conducive to deployment will be created". He said he expected the Djibouti accord to be formally signed "within three weeks at the most". The Djibouti agreement has been initialed by the Somali transitional government and several top leaders from the main opposition alliance. However, other leading opposition leaders and military commanders, including Aweys, have rejected it, insisting that Ethiopian troops supporting the Somali government leave before peace talks can start. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2008/07/2008724143228919407.html

Originally posted by Daalibul 'ilm: you remind me of this comedian, who said in abu dubai, people commit fornication, gamble, drink, but when you bring them pork, they tell you it's haraam Very fitting

These Somali events are usually just a social gathering. What was achieved?

Is this localised? Londoners only? Under 25?

^^I will be a long distance smelly from next year (I have put it off for a year). Ibti, nice rant

^^Maanta

What do smelly students care?

Originally posted by NGONGE: North, You got to Dubai too late or you would have met the and only Xareef Magaalo. I think I have heard that name. What about 'ka carar'

Originally posted by Geel_jire: I dont recall any female naanays ... but this girl told me her name was miino (Bomb) i used to think it was a nickname for the longest time. Waar iska ilaali!

UN peacekeepers 'at breaking point' By Steve Bloomfield, Africa Correspondent Monday, 28 July 2008 United Nations peacekeeping forces are over-stretched, under-funded, and increasingly unable to protect the people they have been sent to help, a senior official has warned. And as UN operations, particularly in Africa, become ever more stretched, those sent to protect some of the world's most vulnerable people are increasingly preoccupied with safeguarding themselves. In the past few days, Sudan's government has said that it cannot protect the UN and African Union force operating in Darfur (Unamid) following the genocide indictment laid against its President, Omar al-Bashir. That was followed by a warning from the new hardline leader of Somalia's Islamists, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, who threatened to attack UN peacekeepers if the Security Council agrees to a request from the Somali government to deploy up to 27,000 military personnel in the war-ravaged country. A threadbare AU force in Somalia faces attacks almost every time it ventures out of its compound. The threats came as the UN's outgoing head of peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, warned that the world body is reaching the "outer limit" of its peacekeeping capacity. In the eight years thatM. Guéhenno has been in office, the number of peacekeepers deployed has trebled; 90,000 are deployed in 17 missions, eight of which are in Africa. Critics argue that the Security Council appears to have little problem sanctioning peacekeeping missions but finds it difficult to stump up the resources to carry out their mandate. Almost one year after the Security Council called for the deployment of 26,000 personnel in Darfur, there are still no more than 10,000 on the ground – most are part of the African Union force that the UN replaced. The decisions on sending troops are taken by the five permanent members of the Security Council but most of the fighting is done by troops from developing nations. One third of all peacekeepers come from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. China and France provide fewer than 2,000 each, while the United States and Britain, which have other military commitments, tend to supply a handful of senior officials. As the number of missions, and troops, has increased, so, too, has the cost. UN peacekeeping missions now cost about £3.7bn a year – with the missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur taking almost half the budget, and officials on the ground there regularly complain that they do no have enough funding to carry out their mission. Any mission in Somalia would be similarly expensive. Western leaders had hoped that the African Union, launched in 2002, would begin to take control of peacekeeping missions on the continent. But its first two missions – to Darfur and Somalia – have not been successes. In Darfur, the UN stepped in to form a joint UN/AU force. In Somalia, the fragile government wants UN peacekeepers to replace the AU mission. Sending peacekeeping missions when there is no peace to keep, as has happened in Darfur and could happen in Somalia, is a "risky business", said Jan Eliasson, who was until recently leading the Darfur peace talks. "There are physical dangers," he said. Unamid has already suffered nine losses this year. Peacekeepers have been criticised for not doing enough to protect civilians, but UN officials argue that the mandates which the Security Council grants often do not allow peacekeepers to offer that protection. Nowhere was this more evident than in Abyei, in central Sudan, which was razed in May while 200 peacekeepers remained in their base. The US envoy to Sudan accused them of failing to protect civilians. UN officials have admitted that lessons have been learned from the incident but dispute the notion that their troops could have stopped the violence. "In a crowded marketplace, you can't shoot back without the risk of killing civilians," said Chris Johnson, the head of Unmis, the body monitoring Sudan's civil war ceasefire, in Abyei. "Sometimes, people want there to be an easy answer. But there isn't." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/un-peacekeepers-at-breaking-point-878704.html

Just remembered I have an uncle called 'madinte' :eek: istaakhfuruallah!

A&T here Do you want to know Ngonge's nickname?

LooL Good stuff A&T

Sahan danbe? :confused: Bari danbe? :confused: I guess my afsomali needs to improve

Apologies to reer Borame

Ibti, we have the day off here and have just returned from here :cool:

Hargaisa will be the diplomatic capital Berbera will be the commercial capital (ala Dubai) Burco will be the education capital Sheikh will be the cultural capital Ceerigabo will be the IT capital Dabshidow

Looking good Red. Makes me want get on a plane and go there now.