The players returned late by several 'minutes' and not hours saxib. The papers are making abig deal about it all. Bellamy is crazy i know but nothing else really happened otherwise we would have heard about fines for alot of players. Anyway, didnt see last nights games but by all accounts Arsenal played rubbish and Man Utd had a tough time in France. All eyes on the Camp Nou tonight and i shall be having an early night (7pm) and waking up at 11.45pm to make sure i can catch the game and not be too tired tomorrow IA. Oh yeah Chelsea are playing aswell

^^Why didnt you just sneak a digicam in?

Jaaliyadda Soomaaliyeed ee ku dhaqan wadanka Ingiriiska waxaa lagu wargelinayaa in mudaaharaad balaaran lagu dhigayo cusbitalka uu jiifo dagaal ooge C/laahi Yuusuf maalinta Arbacada ah ee bishu tahay 21 Febraayo. Mudaaharaadk ayaa bilaabmay 10:00 am tobanka subaxnimo, iyadoo halkaa lagu soo bandhigayo sawiro iyo warbixino looga hadlayo khiyaanadda qaran ee uu C/laahi Yuusuf iyo kooxda uu hogaamiye ee tacbanayaasha Tigreega ay qaranka Soomaaliyeed ka galeen. Hadaba waxaa jaaliyada Soomaaliyeed lagu wargelinayaa in ay soo camiraan goobta mudaaharaadka muujiyaana sida ay uga caraysanyihiin ninkan dalkooda khiyaanada qaran ka galay. Goobta mudaaharaadka lagu qabanayo waa Cromwell Hospital Cromwell Road London SW5 0TU

^^He is playing saxib. I havnt heard otherwise. No Eto! the boys,,,,,,,,,

^^Dhs 144,000 for a fully loaded new one saxib or approx Dhs 95,000 for a decent 2nd hand/used one. Not sure how much that is in Aussie terms but its approx 20K in sterling for the new one. Direct imports are alot cheaper.

Originally posted by Faarax-Brown: Lets wait till spring then. Its just Mid winter,Yaa Val. As soon as it hits late Feb, and you actually get to see the sun for an hour or two, its spring saxib

I would love to see the place with all its former glory reconstructed. One day soon without foereign occupation insha Allah

Questioning Bashir Goth, Editor of Awdal News There are two very interesting yet different sides in your writing. In one, it is an internal struggle, where you become the voice of the worsening situation in Somalia and other parts of Africa/Middle East and use your writing to fight against the government. The other seems to be to fight the portrayal of a stereotypical view of the Middle East/Islam/Africa globally (and especially in the West). Comment and explain this dual role. If there is any duality in my writing it could be due to the nature of the issues I try to deal with. On one hand I try to tackle the onslaught of Islamic extremism, which I see as a malignant outgrowth on the healthy body of the Muslim nation, while on the other hand I try to engage the West which loses sight of the real causes of militant Islam and wavers between self flagellation and confusion. At certain times the pundits blame the west for unleashing this evil through their military and political involvement in the Muslim world and at others vacillate and shift the blame onto Islam, seeing it as an inherently erroneous religion, the antithesis to modernity and market-led liberal values. Although I agree with the West on the need to root out Islamic extremism and fight it with vehemence, I see as counterproductive to think ill of Islam as a religion. Islam is a great divine religion, which contains a message of peace, tolerance and great respect for human life. The protracted plight of the Palestinian people and Western involvement in other political hotspots, may have contributed to the growth of the ideology of violence in the Muslim world. But Islamic extremism, in my view, is a homegrown phenomenon whose main targets are Islam and Muslim people before anyone else. My battle therefore starts at home. I speak plainly when I say, let us stop seeing the world as enemies, let us stop gloating about having the only correct path to divine truth and let us stop dividing the world into House of Islam and House of War. What is your conception of the West, religion and the “clash of civilizations”? This is not a question to be answered in few words but I think the question should be reframed with “religion and civilization”. For me, it is religious fanaticism that ripples through societies everywhere in the world. What we need is an international agreement on the secularization of the world. If people learn to leave their religion at home and deal with the outside world on the basis of the UN charter, the world would be a better place to live. However, a war is already raging between the West and Islam. It is not a war of liberation, as many Islamist supporters would like to call it. It is a war between stagnation and development, a war between progress and retrogression. A war between people who see the 14th century as the pinnacle of human civilization and people who live in the computer age of the 21st century; Principally, it is a war between people who see human intelligence, science and progress as a curse and affront to divine power that has to be subdued and those who see the human brain as the only legitimate vehicle for the betterment of man’s life and world. On Africa: believe that the West has through its preoccupation with the Middle East, lost the opportunity of conducting trade with Africa and investing in its infrastructure and developmental projects. Instead the west uses Africa as a confessional where they cleanse their guilt through alms giving and dumping their excess harvest. Africa has become known for the Live8 music charity festivals, HIV/AIDS, malaria, droughts, fratricidal civil wars and celebrity child adoptions. What has been the cost of conflict in Somalia? The cost of conflict in Somalia can be summed up in one word; the death of a country. Somalia doesn’t exist as a nation state. Its name is found in the ledgers of the United Nations, it is mentioned in UN resolutions once in a while, but the country literally does not exist. It is like a fairy tale that everybody knows that happened sometime, somewhere but does not have a physical existence. Somalia is the story of a nation at war with itself for at least the past 15 years, a nation that has committed suicide. But there is that part of former Somalia which has spared itself of the lawlessness and mayhem taking place in Somalia. It is Somaliland, the former British Protectorate, which united with the Italian South after independence in 1960. Somaliland has restored its sovereignty after the collapse of the central government and has since then enjoyed peace and stability and established a democratic state to the admiration of the international community. It only lacks world recognition for its hard won achievements. How do you view Somalia’s membership in regional institutions like the Arab League? The Arabs play a problematic role in Somalia. As they always look at every issue through the prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict, they try to make sure that any force that comes to power in Somalia should fall into and within this strategy. In the past, the Arabs had propped up the dictatorial regime of Siyad Barre. In the aftermath of the civil war, they contributed to prolonging the conflict by busting the UN imposed arms embargo and supporting pro-Arab groups against others. Perhaps the most disastrous Arab influence in Somalia is the ideological and financial support many of the Arab governments and communities provide to the Islamist groups in Somalia. The Union of Islamic Courts, UIC, which until recently dominated large swathes of the country would never have come to prominence without Arab help. If you had to ask one serious question to the policymakers and heads of state what would it be? Why don’t you listen to the cries of the man on the street? Stop living in ivory towers and come down to the ranks of the people who put you up there. How can the gap between real people's hopes and aspirations and governments'/regime’s mandates be bridged? By returning power to the people; making them a part of the decision making; whether it is digging water wells, building hospitals and factories or constructing roads. The local community must have their say. They know what is good for them. Listen to them. What do you think about a new movement, a Renaissance in science, technology and education? There is a great knowledge explosion in the world today and all we need is to embrace it, guide it and adorn it with some ethical values. But ethical values in my view should come from common human values and not from narrow religious canonizations. How do see your role as part of a global blogging community? Blogging gives me the opportunity to scream out, to make my voice count, to reject when my rights are being hijacked by a vocal extremist minority or by the hapless silent majority. A parting message of peace or a piece of advice for the world? Embrace common human values and fight poverty as the number one enemy of humanity and the mother of all evil; make sure that every mother can afford decent food, decent clothing, decent shelter and decent schooling for her children. source

^^it 'was' peaceful dont forget!

The UN becomes a creature of Bush and The Pentagon in Somalia The UN becomes a creature of Bush and The Pentagon in Somalia Tony Logan, February 20th, 2007 As the second US aircraft carrier moves into the Persian Gulf threatening to attack Iran and while Ethiopia is bombing civilians in Mogadishu, the UN is busy rubber stamping the joint Ethiopia/ US invasion and occupation of Somalia. UN troops are being organized to go and occupy Somalia for Dubya. Like the UN occupation of Haiti, the United Nations Security Council has again demonstrated that it is in fact a creature of Washington DC and the Pentagon, and not the world’s nations. Far from bringing democracy to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration and its Democratic Party loyal ‘opposition’ are spreading mayhem and terror throughout the world. Who would have thought that after decades of the US Right Wing screaming that ‘we’ need to get out of the UN, that in fact they would actually go on to make the UN into a tool of neocon reaction? But it has happened. The only just thing that American peace activists can call for, is removal of all foreign troops out of Somalia, including those of the UN, US, Ethiopia, and all troops from other African countries bought and mobilized by the US. This onfolding chaos in the Horn of Africa due to the US oil-grabbing war on Islam, illustrates the dangers of calling for US intervention into Darfur/ Chad/ Sudan as some liberal do-gooders are doing. We need to call for European and US troops out of Africa, and not for them to go into countries there with their imperialist troops. That is just common sense. source

^^and a dodgy liver

Ethiopian Brutality Publication time: 16 February 2007, 19:14 Fighting between the Resistance and Ethiopian troops which erupts almost every middays and nights caused scores of civilians dead. The Ethiopian troops using heavy artillery fire against the civilians population every day for the last 4 days. Residents say that the Ethiopians are too scared to come into the neighborhoods and fight the resistance hand the hand and they are only using heavy fire which is only killing innocent civilians. One artillery round fired by the Ethiopians from the sea port area landed on the beach and killed 1 boy and injured 3 of his friends (picture) after a barrage of mortars from the resistance inflicted casualties on their troops . The "government" are appearing to loose control of the city and only holding the presidential palace , the sea port and the airport which comes under daily attack. The ambushes by the resistance are being conducted during the morning times as well as the nights since there is hardly any police forces on the streets, many towns have lost authority since the Islamic courts withdrew from the area, and mostly controlled by clan gunmen and local gangs. KC source

Good luck to the youngster. The day i see a Somali in the premiership i will be proud!

Sorry for jumping the gun ya JB. I totally missed your footnote TWICE! It was probably due to the article’s ‘revelations’ and constant put-downs. Apologies on my part. Nowadays , The average Muslim has became more receptive to anything that any person who claims to be Muslim and dislikes the " West" has to coin as the alleged " conspiracy against Islam ". Mostly ,this receptiveness drives its narration from the failures of westren politics or from the walls of the Vatican, but sometimes the sources of a Muslim tragedy is nothing less than the fabrication of a dishonest Muslim. Had i not know Atheer Nuradin Farah in person, had i been sold the idea that he is an anti-Islam writer by people who are at war with the world from allegedly an Islamic point of view. I shall return with my take on the above god willing

Heavy shelling in Somali capital Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops have shelled areas of Somalia's capital Mogadishu after their positions came under fire from insurgents. At least 10 people were killed in the exchanges - the heaviest since the government took Mogadishu from an Islamist group late last year. Unknown gunmen launch almost daily attacks in the city. Some Islamists, who last year were in control of much of southern Somalia, have vowed to start a guerrilla war. The government blames the attacks on Islamist fighters and on Monday set up a special unit to target "terrorists". Dozens of people have been killed during attacks this year. Horror-filled night Insurgents attacked the city's main sea port, the presidential palace known as Villa Somalia and two government and Ethiopian military barracks with mortars during the night, says the BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu. Troops responded with artillery leaving at least 10 civilians dead, including women and children, and at least 40 others wounded, witnesses and local residents said. We spent the whole night under this concrete wall because I did not know where to run Ruqiyo Madobe Ahmed Mogadishu resident and mother of four Several houses were also destroyed, although details are still emerging. "Four people including my four-year-old son have died, when four mortars hit our area," said southern Mogadishu resident Mohamed Abdi Farh. Doctors and nurses at two of Mogadishu's main hospitals said more than 40 people were taken to hospital only on Tuesday morning. "About 33 people, six of them children, were brought here, all of them this morning because they had no access to the hospital in the night," said Medina Hospital director Sheikh Doon Salad Ilmi. Hundreds of Mogadishu residents poured onto the streets in search of concrete buildings for cover as the pop of artillery gunfire and the boom of explosives echoed across the capital, our correspondent said. "We spent the whole night under this concrete wall because I did not know where to run," said Ruqiyo Madobe Ahmed, 34, a mother of four. "From 2000 (1700 GMT) to dawn this morning, we have remained alert, fearing that the attacks could escalate," said southern Mogadishu resident Jamaal Abdi-nasir. Residents say it was the most horrific night they had had since the government troops took over control of Mogadishu. "In terms of the extent of the explosion and the number of attacks, I think we have experienced the worst violence," said Hodan Wali Nuure, a mother of a six-year-old boy, who was wounded by shrapnel from a nearby explosion. AU peacekeepers The African Union is planning to send a peacekeeping force to Somalia to replace the Ethiopian soldiers who have started to withdraw after helping the government oust the Islamists. After 16 years without an effective national government, Mogadishu is awash with weapons. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6377941.stm

^^Its the result that counts and not the performance. Deep in thought

When a man is known more for his medical problems more than he is known for his achievements then your in trouble!

Hiking anyone? Potential to make abit of money from the 'adventurer' boy and gals ya Rocko. How many hikers can say i did Somalia?

Ahh, the ‘comprehension’ escape route is very convenient at times ya JB. You posted an article critical of Muslims and their affections for the Prophet (peace be upon him) disguised as ‘unfunny’ comedy. It portrays Muslims as lagging behind in terms of ‘enlightenment’. In other words they are backward – see the numerous references to the 7th century etc. If people wish to love a 7th century preacher more than their own families, that's up to them, but nobody else is obliged to take it seriously . .. Except that if you don't take it seriously and accord it proper respect you are physically threatened, on a scale that no other religion has aspired to since the Middle Ages. This (these type of articles) I’m afraid ya JB is being repeated across many shores as we are in the Muslim/Islam bashing years. To a man without religion this may be nothing but to a Muslim it implies backwardness. This I have touched on in my previous post referring to it the west’s ‘superiority’ complex in it’s perceived notion that it’s ‘modern’, ‘progressive’ ‘open minded’ etc. I have not addressed the cartoons as this article proves nothing. The damage has been done and I don’t remember the paper stating that it did not ‘publish’ the cartoons (regardless of who produced them). I remember an apology if my mind serves me correctly. The article is disguised as some sort of reprieve for the Jyllands-Posten with accusations towards Muslims that are yet to be proven. However, one cannot help but notice the ‘dig’ at Islam and Muslims in general in the following paragraphs. The first paragraphs describe the aftermath of the cartoon controversy (most of it unproven by the way) and in the last paragraph we hear what Igbal Sacranie said about Salman Rushdie in the late 80s! Then you have the comment I referred to earlier about Muslims/Islam being backward. This makes the whole article a pile of, well, xashish! The motives of the article are plain to see ya JB which is why i asked those questions.

^^You better live in the same building as your office. No public transport here mate. There are cab companies who charge less for morning and evening pickups. Should still cost you less than what you curently pay on the tube (assuming you pay)

^^Come on now. You've seen the way people drive here. A combination of Arabs and Indians (you know how they drive in East London) is a very bad one. I no longer say thanks to people who let me change lanes but i do usually force the issue

Lucky i'm not a sufferer. Very dusty and windy today

We should catch up over a game of football (preferably a Liverpool game) thats assuming your a fan of the beautiful game? ps not in Deira though!

Northner, saaxiib ma iga shakkiday Ha ninyo, you seem to know more about UAE life. Dabshidna waa 'undercover'. The guy is in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah on the same day

Edit Bloom you still need a residence visa. The sponsor will be your employer. If you leave your job within a year you will get a 6 month ban not to work in UAE. Driving test is passable but not sure about the quality of the teaching. Let me know if you decide to come over for a visit. Hunguri, whats your profession?