Glad i dont have that problem,,,, ps whats going on in Eastenders?

We have had loads of cut and pastes recently, much of it from Somali news sources, most of whom i distrust (including any SL media). Which leads me to the following questions. Is the media getting it right? What does balanced reporting mean? What are the differences between Somali & international media? And has your media changed your views? The media is vital and yet dangerous tool which will shape the minds of people into that of it's own agenda(s).

Thank you very much Mr Oodweyn served in Suez from 1953-1955, and I asked then."What are we the British doing here." And I was told that we where there to safeguard British interests.When I asked who was these British people who's interest we where safeguarding, I was told I was a trouble maker, and to get on with it..Egypt, In my opinion had the right to the Suez canal, for it was in their country after all, so why should we invade again to take it back. If Egypt had invaded and taken over the running of the river thames..Would we have sat back and let it happen...Not bloody likely, so why should we complain about them running their own Canal in their country. Terry, St Helens.lancs It is interesting that the BBC brings up the topic of the Suez crisis at the moment. Britain, France and Israel were in it together from the beginning. Israel's job was to invade Egypt and start a war. The plan then was for France and the UK to come in as a sort of peace keeping force to separate the two armies. Of course this was just a pretext to occupy the area. Many people in the Arab world must be thinking that something similar is being planned for the Lebanon. Steven Martin, United Kingdom The Suez Canal crisis has completely defined my country, despite our distance and the relative unimportance of Egyptian-Canadian relations. Our future Prime Minister, and at the time, Foreign Minister, Lester B. Pearson, proposed the idea of an international peace force. To this day, the myth of Canada being an honest broker and a peacekeeping nation continues. What is forgotten is Nasser's insistance on removing the peaceforce and its inability to stop conflict. Today, even as Canada fights in Afghanistan under NATO, people here still want Canada under the UN regardless of the mission's mandate. The Canadian myth continues... Eric Hovius, Ontario, Canada The more things change the more they remain the same. Fifty years ago as a young soldier in the British Army I was part of the Anglo / French invasion during the Suez canal crises.The British Government announced that when Nasser nationalized the canal he threatened our links with our empire.We were told we were fighting for our country.It was only later that we found out that our government was in total collusion with Israel whose troops also attacked Egypt.The real goal was to topple Nasser and strangle Pan- Arabism. I learned much during this period.I learned that the British government- my government was capable of duplicity and deceit. Nothing has changed.To wit: Iraq and Lebanon. James MacDonald, Manitoba, Canada I was in Cairo at the time, a child of just 7 years old. Life seemed one of confusion - what was going on? Blackouts at night, school down in the bedrone (cellars), aircraft overhead, bombs dropped, air riad sirens, and more air raid sirens - I only have to be watching film that contains that siren and it all comes pouring back - that prickle on the soles of my feet, fear in my soul, tension, please make it all come right again. The guards on the hospital gate where my parents worked and we lived. Every day another day of fear and lack of understanding. Local people who were our friends, were also it seemed not our friends. Finally driving out the gatewith our small bags, all we were allowed chris hillman, Thropton, Northumberland source

You look at TV in the west today. There are hardly any programmes one could benefit/learn from.

I was in the UK recently and the thing was unavoidable. Everywhere, newspapers, adverts BB this and BB that. Its a digusting show where a bunch dumb and wierd people are put together for all to view. Add some alcohol and games then you have what the viewers want. The topic of conversation in offices up and down the country is BB :rolleyes:

^^lol, a character he was. I think that was back in 2003.

Come on people, i'm sure there are more pics to share.

Fifty years ago the Suez Crisis erupted over the Egyptian president's decision to nationalise the Suez Canal. The first of a series of articles marking the anniversary looks at how the conflict spelled the end of the British Empire. The Times pronounced not only on Anthony Eden's life when he died in 1977 but on the life of Britain when it wrote of him: "He was the last prime minister to believe Britain was a great power and the first to confront a crisis which proved she was not." The conventional verdict on the Suez operation is given by historian Corelli Barnett, who wrote about Suez in his book, The Collapse of British Power. "It was the last thrash of empire," he told me. "A last attempt by a British government to do the old imperial thing in defence of far-off interests. It was a complete folly." It is not easy these days to cast back 50 years to 1956. Britain still had an empire. Memories of World War II were fresh and English schoolboys were taught that Britain (England more like) had won the war. There was some understanding that the Americans had come in, but at a late stage and almost no mention of the Soviet Union at all. We were told: "British is best." Underneath, though, all was not well. Although Britain kept naval ships east of Suez, the end of Empire was at hand. Some places it knew would go - Ghana (the Gold Coast), Nigeria. Some had already gone, India mainly. Elsewhere (in Kenya, Cyprus, Malaya) it was battling to put down revolts and uprisings. Click here to see the strategic importance of Suez In Cyprus, a British minister announced that the island could "never" be independent. And at home, while prosperity was growing, Britain was still much weakened after the war. Yet it still had pretensions to sit at the top international table. It had just taken part in the Korean War, though its reduced role should have rung alarm bells about its real power. Eden himself rejected the idea that it should join the then young and continental "Common Market". He declared grandly: "Our horizons are wider." He was looking back to an age that had been and not to the age to come. Influence of the Thirties Eden had been brought up politically in the 1930s. He was against appeasement and was particularly hostile to Mussolini. In 1938, he resigned as Neville Chamberlain's foreign secretary when Chamberlain wanted to open negotiations with Italy. Herein lay the origin of the Suez crisis. When in 1954 a new type of political leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, a strong Arab nationalist, emerged as leader of Egypt, Eden did not understand that the world had changed. Instead he looked and saw another dictator, another Mussolini. Gamal Abdel Nasser represented a new type of political leader in Egypt Eden could not accept that Egypt should run the Suez Canal, even though he had previously accepted that British troops should leave the Canal Zone. The canal had lost some of its strategic importance for Britain, but not all. And it had acquired a new importance, as a passageway for oil to get to Europe. When, therefore, Nasser announced that he was nationalising the Suez Canal Company (partly, he said, to pay for the Aswan dam that the West refused to finance) in which Britain and France had controlling interests, Eden was alarmed. He told his government colleagues that he would not allow Nasser to "have his thumb on our windpipe". The secret plot And so Eden concocted a secret tripartite plot with France and Israel. France was hostile to Nasser because Egypt was helping the Algerian rebels, and attached to the canal for historical reasons. After all, a Frenchman built it. Israel was longing to have a go at Nasser anyway because of Palestinian fedayeen attacks and the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran. The ruse was that Israel would invade Egypt across the Sinai peninsula. Britain and France would then give an ultimatum to the parties to stop fighting or they would intervene to 'protect' the canal. And so it played out. The Israelis even had to moderate their attack in case they won before the 'intervention' forces could arrive. But the British and French went in to 'save' the canal. There was only one thing wrong. Eden had not told the Americans. And President Dwight Eisenhower, concerned about wider relations with the Arab world and horrified at such an adventure anyway, was not amused. "Our closest ally pulled the plug," says Corelli Barnett. "We acted on the back of a struggling economy and there was a run on the pound. "Macmillan, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, told the cabinet that the only way to save the situation was for an IMF loan backed by the United States. "The Americans refused to back it. We were told by them to go no further and to evacuate promptly. So we did. It was a complete fiasco." British and French troops left Egypt by December 1956. Eden left office early the next year. The aftermath The fallout was huge. For a start, it got the Soviet Union off the hook, as it was brutally crushing the Hungarian uprising at the same time. But it also meant that no longer could Britain - or France - act alone on the world stage. They did however draw different conclusions. Harold Macmillan, who succeeded Eden, decided that in future Britain had to side with America. He made good friends with President John F Kennedy and even persuaded Kennedy to let Britain have the Polaris nuclear missile. Since then, Britain has been reluctant to oppose any US policy. Even during Vietnam, the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson forbade criticism of the US while shrewdly refusing Lyndon Johnson's request to send a token force. French disconnection France on the other hand went its own way, led in due course by de Gaulle. It left the military command structure of Nato and turned to leading Europe alongside a newly prosperous Germany. Just as Britain always thereafter tended to side with the US, so France tended to oppose it. Modern revisionist theories hold that the mistake was really made by President Eisenhower, in that he showed a weakness that the Soviet Union exploited. Whatever one's views of that, there is no doubt that Suez represented the end of a long phase of British imperial history. Suez Canal opened to traffic in November 1869 It was built by Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps using Egyptian forced labour; an estimated 120,000 workers died during construction It stretches 192km (120 miles) between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea It is 300m (984ft) wide at its narrowest point By 1955 approximately two-thirds of Europe's oil passed through the canal The waterway closed 1967 due to the Six Day War, reopened 1975 About 7.5% of world sea trade is carried via the canal today Receipts from the canal July 2005 to May 2006 totalled $3,246m In 2005, 18,193 vessels passed through the canal Source

Ethiopia 'seizes new Somali town' Ethiopian troops have reportedly moved into another town in south-western Somalia, two days after entering the country to protect the weak government. Eyewitnesses say about 200 Ethiopian soldiers took control of the airstrip outside Waajid early on Saturday. There is no confirmation from either the Ethiopian or the Somali government. The Union of the Islamic Courts (UIC), a militia which controls the capital and much of the south, has vowed to drive out Ethiopian troops. The Ethiopians moved into Somalia on Thursday and have been seen in Baidoa, where the beleaguered interim government is based. 'Holy war' Eyewitnesses quoted by the Associated Press news agency say Ethiopian soldiers seized the airport at Waajid, about 70km (43 miles) to the north, before dawn on Saturday. The town had been controlled by a local militia. It is unclear whether there was any fighting. Other residents told Somali media that they had seen Ethiopian soldiers in the town centre. The UIC has pledged to wage a "holy war" to drive out Ethiopian troops. The Islamic militia drove the warlords from the capital, Mogadishu in June, saying they wanted to restore law and order. The UIC has since consolidated its power over many parts of southern Somalia. But Ethiopia is strongly opposed to the militia and has repeatedly warned that it will send its army into Somalia if the government is attacked. Ethiopia has been a long-term ally of President Abdullahi Yusuf. UIC leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has accused him of being "a servant of Ethiopia". A UN report earlier this year said that Mr Aweys had been getting significant military aid from Ethiopia's rival, Eritrea - a claim Eritrea has denied. Mr Aweys has denied US accusations that he and the UIC have links to al-Qaeda. bbc.co.uk

I am behind the UIC 100%. When (not if) the TFG succumbs this will signal the end of unity based on support for warlordism and a quilty conscious and the start of a 'new' Somalia. The UIC has more in common with the people of Somaliland than it did with the warlords. They just want peace and stability for people to eat. Allahu aclam what the future holds but i'm quite sure it will not be bloody (Insha Allah).

I dont know about Vietnam, but each to his/her own. Thierry, welcome back saxib and Congrats! Recently had the chance of going to Jerusalem but didnt work out as couldnt take the family with me but thats another one for the future.

^^You are right, the whole of Asia is not worth it apart from the countries you mentioned plus Maybe Pakistan/Kashmir. Its easier for some to just get up and leave :rolleyes:

^^brothers? :confused:

Do you think there are more than two (Ethio/TFG & UIC)players in this card game?

Published: 07/20/2006 12:00 AM (UAE) Roots of Saudi-Syrian clash By Marwan Al Kabalan, Special to Gulf News For 50 years, at least since the establishment of the Baghdad Pact in 1955, Syrian-Saudi relations have been fraught with fear and suspicion. The case has never been as clear as it appeared last week, when the two countries took completely different positions on the current Israeli attack on Lebanon. During the Arab League emergency meeting in Cairo, the foreign ministers of the two countries traded barbs over whether Hezbollah bore any responsibility for the escalation in violence that followed its capture of two Israeli soldiers. The Saudi foreign minister was quoted as saying that Hezbollah's actions were "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible". His Syrian counterpart, Walid Al Muallem, lashed back, asking, "How can we come here to discuss the burning situation in Lebanon while others are making statements criticising the resistance." These different interpretations of the ongoing crisis in Lebanon are not unexpected in the light of the many differences between the two countries. Syria and Saudi Arabia have two different political systems; different historical experiences and different domestic conditions. They deal with different threats and hence they pursue different foreign policy objectives. Close ties Saudi Arabia is a conservative oil-rich country that has always maintained close ties with the US and relied on it for security. Syria, by contrast, is ruled by more radical leftist elite; and given its bitter experience with European colonialism, has always had difficult relations with the West. These differences were crystal clear since the 1950s and up until the 1980s; wherein Syria and Saudi Arabia took different sides during the Iran-Iraq war. Despite these differences, however, the two countries have always tried to keep a minimum degree of understanding. The end of the Cold War and subsequent Middle Eastern events helped bring them closer together. In 1990, Syria surprised many when it joined the US and Saudi Arabia in a broad coalition to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait. In 1996 the two countries, alongside Egypt, formed the so-called "tripartite axis" to face the challenges to peace posed by then rightwing Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The tripartite axis survived until after the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation force from south Lebanon and the death of Syrian president Hafez Al Assad in June 2000. Since then differences between the two countries floated on the surface and Lebanon and peace in the Middle East were key to them. Saudi Arabia supported the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, whereas Syria supported his principal rival president Emile Lahoud. The Saudi peace initiative, announced during the Beirut Arab summit, caused further tension between the two countries. At the time Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz offered normal diplomatic and economic relations with Israel in exchange for full withdrawal from the 1967 occupied Arab territories. The conflict between Syria and Saudi Arabia became open only after the assassination of Rafik Hariri. The Saudi government suspected a Syrian role in the elimination of Hariri and joined forces with France and the US to expel the Syrians from Lebanon. The two countries took also different sides in the power struggle in the Palestinian territories. Syria supported Hamas wherein Saudi Arabia supported Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, calling upon the Islamic movement to recognise Israel and join the peace process. The two countries differed also in dealing with Iran and Iraq. Despite that Saudi Arabia and Syria have both opposed the US invasion of Iraq; their policies widely diverged after the collapse of the Saddam regime. Riyadh accepted the US occupation as a fact; Syria rejected it and supported the Iraqi resistance. Disagreement On Iran, the two countries are in even more disagreement, caused by their geopolitical interests as well as their ideological stand. Geopolitically, Saudi Arabia is more concerned about Iran?s regional ambitions and its quest for nuclear weapons. The fear that Iran might use Saudi Arabia?s large Shiite community as a Trojan horse to destabilise the Saudi royal family is also a matter of great concern. Besides, the revolutionary nature of the Iranian regime, reinvigorated by the ascendance of Iran?s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has caused panic in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has also complained about Iran?s endeavour to establish a Shiite-dominated government in Iraq and is seen largely as a key oil-exporting rival. By contrast, Iran is Syria?s major and only ally in the region. Given its geopolitical location, Syria does not seem to be concerned about Iran?s nuclear and regional ambitions. Syria fears Israel more than Iran and the alliance with it is seen by Damascus as fundamental to its national security and wellbeing. Syria does not seem also to be bothered by the so-called Shiite crescent or Iranian revolutionary expansionism. In the light of all these differences, Syria and Saudi Arabia are bound to take different sides and the latest episode of violence in Lebanon was only the tip of the iceberg. Dr Marwan Al Kabalan is a lecturer in media and international relations, Faculty of Political Science and Media, Damascus University, Syria. Source

^^carryon saxib, condemn the traitors

Islamists vow war against Ethiopian troops Agencies Mogadishu: Islamists on Thursday vowed a "holy war" against Ethiopian troops crossing into Somalia, heightening fears of a new war in the country. Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, threatened to "crush" any attack while around 20 military vehicles from Ethiopia crossed into Somalia at Dollow on Wednesday. Analysts believe Addis Ababa has sent up to 5,000 troops into Somalia, and is massing many more on the border. "God willing, we will remove the Ethiopians in our country and wage a jihadi war against them," said Shaikh Mukhtar Robow, a senior Islamist in charge of defence. Nominal Christian Ethiopia, which condemns the Islamist leaders as "terrorists", fears having a hardline Muslim state on its doorstep. Somalia's government and Ethiopia were on high alert after Islamists advanced on Baidoa city on Wednesday. The militants also took the capital Mogadishu from US-backed warlords last month. Ethiopia supports the government of Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, based in Baidoa, because it lacks the strength to move into Mogadishu. GN

Islamic militia leaders in Somalia have threatened to wage what they called a holy war against Ethiopia unless it withdraws its troops from Somalia. Ethiopia has denied reports its forces crossed the Somali border on Thursday but a BBC reporter has seen Ethiopian troops patrolling the town of Baidoa. The transitional government of Somalia is based there. Ethiopia has repeatedly warned it will intervene to protect Baidoa against any attack by Islamist militiamen. The militiamen are loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) movement, which last month took control of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. BBC

^^how do you differentiate between a coward and one not so when they are both not in Somalia? Does one who thumps his chest from a distance make him a worthy soldier?

^^u shouldnt txt while crossing the road!

^^You are both in the UK saxib and not back home, remember that!

NG The brother, like all Somalis, is a dreamer. He’s got all his priorities mixed up. Why, I ask you, does he get hot under the collar at the prospect of an Ethiopian invasion? Is he scared that it will bring more (and worse) destruction? Is he worried that it will humiliate people? Could it be because these Ethiopians are not Muslim and, he, as a Muslim cannot accept such non-believers defiling his Muslim lands with their hooves? What should his priorities be saxib? ME, jumping the gun has become a bit of a sport for your lately hasnt it? Calling people cowards and threatening to kill them before they have fully expressed their point is little childish dont you think?

^^Given the opportunity, one should travel and see the world, experience other cultures etc. The far east (Malaysia) is my list of to dos.

Gas tank next to the stove? Who the hell designed your house? My thoughts exactly. What is the gas tank for? or do you mean boiler?

Once set a plush 6 bedroom villa on fire, this was a long time ago in the KSA. I put a plastic camera on the electric cooker without realising it was on then went off to sleep. Next things i know i'm being awakened by family and i had run outside wearing nowt! :eek: Lucky it wasnt their house