FB was blocked for a while and so was youtube. Bal yaaney SOL uun naga hidhin

Good move by the authorities

If the Lakers pull this off I will take my hat off to them. Boston all the way. When is game 6??

Originally posted by Ibtisam: Marx: I think waad walaan tahey I havn't been to Cardiff for years! Half Somali distant relatives and all that

^^for her own safety

I bet Serenity is proud of herself now that this thread has gone to 500 pages. Come on S, you can come out and celebrate. We know you're chuffed

Originally posted by NGONGE: ^^ What an original idea! In all my time on these pages I have never laughed out loud at work until today. Thanks! People are talking about me now and taking the mickey!

Originally posted by Ibtisam: ^^^No Why should I?? Maybe inside, that is if you make it inside in one piece. :rolleyes: I could not even think of going anywhere near it, maybe if I dressed as man or something oh lord, that place gives me nightmares. CL lol okay then. Have you tried the one in North London Ocean? Again the service was slow, but that was 2years ago. CL just cook for them.! Thanks JB. Waad xishood badantihiin'e you will surprised at the food quality I tell ya.

CL, Blue Ocean is/was a nice place up in North London. Not sure if still open though.

Originally posted by Ibtisam: BTW JB, WHo is the SL health minister? You should know that :rolleyes:

^^Stop it. Its a great 'family' friendly place.

Best restaurant CL is Taayo in Stepney. Go there for lunch and you will enjoy a nice quiet meal.

^^He needs 'diplomacy' 101

Bolivia's President Eva Morales weighs in with his take on a new EU policy up for vote. Until the end of the second world war Europe was a continent of emigrants. Millions left for the Americas: some to colonise, others to escape hunger, financial crises, persecution, ethnic cleansing, war or totalitarian governments. European citizens arrived in Latin and North America en masse, without visas or conditions imposed on them by the authorities. They were simply welcomed, and continue to be in Latin America. They came to exploit the natural wealth and to transfer it to Europe, with a high cost for the native population. Yet the people, property and rights of the migrants were always respected. Contrast the European "return directive", to be voted on in the European parliament this week. It imposes harsh terms for detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants, regardless of the time they have spent in European countries, their work situation, their family ties or their achievements in integrating themselves into local society. The EU is now the main destination for migrants around the world, because of its positive image of space, prosperity and public freedom. The great majority of migrants contribute to, rather than exploit, this prosperity. They are employed in public works, construction, cleaning, hospitals and domestic work. They take the jobs the Europeans cannot or will not do. Maintaining the relationship between the employed and the retired by providing generous income to the social security system, the migrant offers a solution to demographic and financial problems in the EU. For us, our emigrants represent help in development that Europeans do not give us (few countries reach the minimum objective of 0.7% of GDP in development assistance). Latin America received, in 2006, a total of $68bn sent back from abroad, more than the total foreign investment in our countries. My country, Bolivia, received more than 10% of its GDP in such remittances. Unfortunately, the return directive is a huge infringement of the human rights of our Latin American friends. It proposes jailing undocumented immigrants for up to 18 months before their expulsion. Mothers with children could be arrested, without regard to family and school, and put in detention centres, where we know depression, hunger strikes and suicides happen. How can we accept it? At the same time, the EU is trying to convince the Andean Community of Nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru) to sign an "association agreement" that includes a free trade agreement of a similar nature to that imposed by the US. We are under intense pressure to accept demands for liberalisation of our trade, financial services, intellectual property rights and public works. Under so-called "judicial protection" we are being pressured to denationalise water, gas and telecommunications. Where is the "judicial protection" for our people seeking new horizons in Europe? If the return directive becomes law, we will not be morally able to deepen negotiations with the EU, and we reserve the right to legislate so European citizens have the same obligations for visas that Europe imposes on the Bolivians, according to the diplomatic principle of reciprocity. The social cohesion problems that Europe is suffering now are not the fault of migrants, but the result of the model of development imposed by the north, which destroys the planet and dismembers human societies. I appeal to European leaders to drop this directive and instead form a migration policy that respects human rights, and allows us to maintain the movement of people that helps both continents. · Evo Morales Ayma is the president of the Republic of Bolivia presidencia.gov.bo About this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday June 16 2008 on p27 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 00:04 on June 16 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/16/eu.immigration see the comments

Ma Hubtaa Dabshidow? Anigu waxan odhan lahaa isagaaba dhulka la dhigay’e

Just realised her 2nd name and her constituency (Sheffield). Some research is needed.

Originally posted by Dabshid: Hargaisa is closer to Djibouti than Mogadishu,

Talk about being all over the place LoL @A&T

My tip was and still is Portugal. See my Semi prediction. Thats where I will be crowned the undisputed footy junkie of SOL.

Ngonge's predictions have gone from bad to outright ridiculous

^^He was very canny in not answering the war crimes question. I'm sure he doesn't want them (war criminals) to try and do a runner just yet

Dealing with dangers of war reporting As a new memorial is unveiled to journalists killed while carrying out their work, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen describes how war reporters deal with danger as a routine part of their job. If you asked most journalists whether a story was worth their life, they would say absolutely not. But then I have never met a journalist (and in that I include all varieties of news people) who goes out on a day's work in a dangerous place expecting to die. I am always struck by what is left of a person's last few hours when I see bodies in mortuaries and back alleys and wrecked buildings and all the other places where people end up who have died violently. Small, even trivial thoughts can find their way past the overwhelming and hideous fact that their lives are over. What about their clothes? Did they think they were going to die when they put on their socks? And the knots in their shoelaces, tied by fingers that now are dead. What were they thinking when they were doing them up? Perhaps the day was already going badly. Was fear already pulling at their minds and their guts? Or did they have no idea what was coming? The answer is that when the day began most of them did not expect to die. If, as a journalist in a dangerous place, you worry that you are getting dressed for the last time every morning before you go to work, then you are probably in the wrong business. You need to know the risks, and to take precautions, but to be calm about them too, and even to deny them. That cannot be done without believing that you will make it through the day, and that if you have some close calls you will be able to make jokes about them when you are having dinner. You need to be able to deal with danger, to have had some training and done some planning if you are going to function in the realm of time and fear that James Fenton describes so brilliantly in the poem that was commissioned to go with the new memorial. You have to believe that you will stay alive because you are being careful, or because your experience will see you through, and it helps too if you are young and feel indestructible and the sun is shining and you just know it could not possibly happen to you. When journalists no longer feel at least some of that, they tend to stop covering wars. Listing the dead The chances are that it will be OK. Most journalists who work in wars do not die, and do not get wounded. But some do, and these days more people target journalists, when in the past the main problem was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. With so many risks out there, the unfortunate truth is that surviving in a war, even for the most experienced and best trained, requires a strong element of luck. And peoples' luck runs out. Sometimes they do not have it at all. Journalists need to know that if they go to places where people are getting killed they could get killed too. The area did not seem dangerous, but it was. Abed did not expect to die that day Jeremy Bowen Every journalist who has made a habit of going to wars has a list of dead friends and colleagues, people who did the same stories in the same places until they went to work one day and were killed. The other night a photographer who covered many of the wars of the 1990s told me that about 10 years ago he was one of six ushers at a wedding. All of them were in the news business. Now only two of his fellow ushers are still alive. Permanent memorial My list has more than a dozen names. I only include people who were friends or close colleagues. If I added the names of people who I knew only by sight the list would be longer. The new memorial, Breathing, is dedicated to Abed Takkoush, among others I had to do obituaries for some of them, and everyone who works in news knows how the caravan moves on to the next story. It is good that there is going to be a permanent memorial to our dead friends in the middle of London. My friend and colleague Abed Takkoush had been a driver and fixer for the BBC in Lebanon for 25 years when he was killed by a shell fired by an Israeli tank crew on 23 May 2000. With Malek Kanaan, our cameraman, I got out of Abed's car a few minutes before the shell hit it. He stayed in there because he was on the phone to his son. The area did not seem dangerous, but it was. Abed did not expect to die that day. I could have been in the car with him, because I had been on the phone too. But my call ended as we parked, and his did not. That is the only reason why he is commemorated by the new sculpture, and I am not. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7456018.stm

Street sweep truck sucks up dog A street-sweeping truck has sucked a dog up through its bristles on a New York street, leaving its horrified owner holding nothing but the lead. Robert Machin, 57, had just finished walking his two Boston terriers in the Bronx and was about to load them into his car when the truck appeared. He recalls being whipped around, only to glimpse Ginger meeting her end in the sweeper's round brushes. City sanitation officers described the dog's death as "rare and unfortunate". But Mr Machin, a retired public transport worker, questioned whether the driver had been observing proper procedures. The truck, he said, seemed to have been barrelling through the street at an unsafe speed. Truck chase "It happened so fast," he told the New York Daily News. "It spun me around, and as it spun me around, I caught a last glimpse of her. "I was devastated. I was completely dumbfounded and shocked. I mean, I just witnessed my dog sucked up into a street sweeper." He said he had chased the truck for about two and a half blocks, shouting for the operator to stop. The driver eventually came back but refused to turn off the whirring brushes that had crushed Ginger, until he arrived, the paper adds. The Department of Sanitation offered its condolences to Mr Machin and his family but added: "It is important for all New Yorkers to remember to maintain the safety of their animals while walking city streets." Ginger's master who, according to the New York Daily News, plans to contact the Humane Society and hire a lawyer, said his lost dog had been like family to him. "My children are all grown up," he said. "These two dogs, they're my life," he added, choking back tears. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7456051.stm

Images back Ethiopia abuse claim ( The town of Labigah pictured in 2005 (top) and 2008 (bottom)) US scientists say satellite images confirm reports that the Ethiopian military have burnt towns and villages in Ethiopia's Somali region. The American Association for the Advancement of Science says the images back up a Human Rights Watch's report The US-based group says the troops are systematically ill-treating civilians in their counter-insurgency campaign. Ethnic Somali rebels have been fighting for more autonomy for two decades in the region, also known as the ******. HRW also accused the United States and the European Union of ignoring widespread abuses there. The Ethiopia government has described the report as "unfounded and baseless". 'Confused' HRW cites evidence of extrajudicial detentions and killings, beatings and rapes in military custody, forced displacement of the rural population and the collective punishment of communities suspected of helping or sympathising with the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels. "We found that over the last year the Ethiopian army has been killing, raping, torturing and systematically displacing civilians in the ****** region of Ethiopia," HRW's Georgette Gagnon told the BBC's Network Africa programme. She said there was no doubt about the identity of those carrying out the abuses. "All the victims and eyewitnesses that we interviewed clearly identified the Ethiopian army and soldiers as those who had raped them, for example, who had summarily killed people by strangling, and who had forcibly displaced them and burned their villages." According to the AAAS, eight "before" and "after" satellite images identified by HRW as possible locations of abuses bore signs of attacks described. These were primarily in villages and small towns in the Wardheer, Dhagabur, and Qorrahey Zones, the AAAS said. Propaganda One recurrent scenario was of the army's response to ONLF activity in a neighbourhood; they would call the inhabitants together and demand that they hand over the culprits, HRW says. Failure to do so resulted in village elders and others being arrested, beaten, sometimes killed. Young people, both boys and girls, were arbitrarily arrested and accused of being ONLF sympathisers; they were routinely beaten in custody and women often raped, HRW says. The apparently arbitrary nature of many of the arrests was explained to HRW by a former judge in the region who said the army could not tell the difference between rebels and civilians, he said they were confused as to who was who. The report concludes that the army is engaged in a deliberate policy of terrorising the local population; that the abuses are far too systematic and widespread to be considered simply the acts of rogue commanders. But Bereket Simon, special adviser to Ethiopia's prime minister, said that HRW had based its findings on ONLF propaganda. "Human Rights Watch is engaged in misinforming the public based on the information of the ONLF, whose forces have been destroyed by the actions of the Ethiopian government," he told AFP news agency. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7450533.stm