Is this not in violation of international human rights law? Were Somali refugees in Kenya consulted before drafting the agreement? What does "voluntary repatriation" even mean, and how will it be implemented? I'm interested to know what resettlement and reintegration plan will be in place to prevent the refugees in Kenya from becoming internally displaced people... I'm not sure whether the conditions in Somalia can even accommodate large scale returns.

No I don't, Mooge. Classified;985234 wrote: ^ According to her, wearing the Hijab isn't compulsory. It's a matter of interpretation. According to her, a woman can wear whatever she wants, from Niqab to a bikini in [islam]. According to her and I'm paraphrasing it, we can bend Islam to fit into our choosing. Fascinating, because that's news to me. If I've said any of those things, I'd love for you to quote me directly. This is a forum, there's a written record after all.

Blackflash;985213 wrote: I've just finished watching it. It's an excellent watch for anyone who doesn't know all the particulars of this scandal so far. I was a bit surprised that the "community organizer" would broadcast his charges and the details surrounding them while his case is still before the courts. I just watched it as well, really interesting documentary but certainly more of a synthesis of what we already know rather than new investigative journalism. I'm also surprised Mohamed Farah decided to reveal himself and I'm not sure why it was necessary at this point. I wish the CBC had gone further into the Anthony Smith murder and examine other evidence of Rob Ford's implication in criminality... they hinted at some of the activities Toronto police ignored but sort of left it at that. I'm sure everything will come out, though.

The Broker: In His Own Words Long before the Toronto Star labeled me the 'broker' as part of their story about a video of Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, I was helping young men in my community negotiate a future that did not involve a life of crime. For more than a decade I’ve been a broker of sorts in a struggle for survival among young and vulnerable Canadian born Somali men who live in the Dixon community. I am proud of that accomplishment and I hope to continue serving in a similar capacity long after the Rob Ford story disappears from the headlines. Our community, made up of Canadians born in Somalia or to Somali immigrants, has been marginalized both by politicians elected to help them and by the police assigned to protect them. The media are never in our neighbourhood when families celebrate their children’s many accomplishments. Instead, cameras and live satellite trucks are everywhere on the morning of a raid or the day after a tragedy. By then, we are too busy worrying about our safety or grieving for a lost one to offer intelligent commentary on our social condition. The Toronto Sun profiled me ten years ago and describing the services my friends and I were providing to the community through the Dixon Youth Network, dubbed me the “Peacemaker.” Shortly after the Sun’s profile, my best friend at the time was attacked and hit over the head with an iron bar. Some misinformed thugs apparently did not like what we at the DYN were trying to do. My friend, Mohamed Omar, a budding math genius, survived the attack, but the head trauma left him with difficulties learning and remembering new information. Incidents like these are too frequent and they send a chill down the spine of anyone who wishes to help make a difference. The police was not there to protect Omar when he was attacked and yet today as young Somali men are murdered across the GTA and Alberta, Toronto Police and the RCMP has the gall to say the reason they can’t solve these murders is because no one in the community is willing to cooperate with their investigations. People who don’t share our experience are often quick to judge us and dismiss our young men as drug dealers and gangbangers. For the record, I’ve never been a member of a gang nor have I ever possessed or sold drugs to anyone. I have tried my best to be a role model to young people by becoming a contributing citizen of this wonderful country of ours. I am still burdened by an incident that took place in 2011. A young man approached me asking for my help with a problem in his life. I was apparently too busy with my own affairs to help him. A few days later 24-year-old Abdikadir Khan was killed in one of the Dixon high-rise buildings. The fact that I could have helped him and didn’t has haunted me and since that day I have made it an unwritten policy never to turn my back on anyone who reaches out to me for help. When I was approached by a young man in Dixon earlier this year to find a buyer for a video showing Mayor Ford smoking what was described to me at the time as crack cocaine, I asked to see it before agreeing to do anything. I thought it was a hoax, a skit or a prank. Unfortunately, it was none of the above. I asked him what he hoped to gain by selling it. He told me he had two videos that would be of public interest and he thought the video with Mayor Ford had a monetary value and with it he could perhaps get a head start on a new life somewhere other than Dixon. I believed he was sincere. The intense media coverage of what transpired in the days and week after the story broke has been the cause of much distress to me and many in my neighbourhood. Then came the Project Traveler raids. I too was arrested and charged with gun possession and yet I have never owned a gun in my life. I plan to defend myself against these charges in court in the months to come. In the eyes of our elders the raids were connected to reports of the crack video a month earlier. The real ‘trauma’ of the video, to invoke Bill Blair’s descriptive term, was experienced by mothers and grandmothers in Dixon on the morning of June 13 when hundreds of law enforcement officials descended on Dixon as if it was a shanty town infested with gangsters. Yet again, the Dixon neighborhood was making headlines around the world for all the wrong reasons. Now that Mayor Ford has ‘fessed’ up to his actions and more videos are beginning to surface of behavior deemed unacceptable for an elected official, my community still has to carry around the negative label of being a ‘hood’ where gangs thrive. I don’t hold out much hope for change. I expect our youth will continue to struggle to get jobs even when they have excellent qualifications. Unemployment in Dixon is about four times the national average. High school drop-out rates for Canadian born Somali teenagers will likely continue to hover just under 40 percent if action is not taken soon to reverse the trend. The lack of resources and facilities for our women, elderly and youth will continue to go unaddressed if politicians refuse to intervene and help alleviate the situation. My intention for coming out and telling my story is to shed light on the hypocrisy of a system that punishes the vulnerable for minor misdemeanors while the rich and powerful are protected by the same laws for crimes that are much more egregious. Has the time not come for our elected officials to take action that would lift my community out of a state of distress and give our youth a chance to prosper? Mohamed Farah

I hate having a good hair day and no plans to go out. My original plan tonight was to stay in and read/catch up on work, but because my hair looks great and I can't waste a good hair day like that, I shall go out.

Thanks Blackflash, video does work here in the States. I'll watch the episode sometime tomorrow. Americans have been asking me what the hell is going on in Toronto all week. Embarrassing that this is international news at this point.

Alpha Blondy;985141 wrote: with this post, i'll have reached my 10,000 post. caajib. i will no longer be posting on SOL. see y'all around. Al. This song takes me back to my emo teen years lol

Classified;985153 wrote: Yeah, no thanks. I'll leave that to you. If you quote my initial post, you'll see the links. Good luck. The links don't work, that's my point. You can fix your thread on your own.

Looks like the website blocks hotlinking so pics don't show... can you try saving them to your computer and uploading via a site like tinypic.com? That should do the trick.

Haatu;985078 wrote: It's on the decrease. People are more aware nowadays especially the ladies who were the supporters of this practice in this past. It should have died out by my kids' generation inshallah. Nothing to get alarmed over. Wish we could say the same about Somalia and Ethiopia.

So this is the song my af-xabashi class will be dancing to. My eskesta is pretty good! I just don't want to do it in front of an audience

Interesting, I wonder how it has fared so far. Banning/suppressing female circumcision has a long history in Kenya and it has always had the effect of intensifying the practice. I think the only effective route is to educate people about the problems, rather than make them defensive and feel their cultures are under attack by the government.

Ahmed Samatar is an embarrassment to academics, his analysis is always shaped by his political ambitions, and to me that's the worst form of academic dishonesty. Our intellectuals should be above this. I don't know how anyone can take his opinions seriously anymore.

SP, context? Where is that law supposed to be enforced?

Khayr;984930 wrote: Shuukansi class 202....Alpha has some lines So when is the big day? Alpha is the only single man with white teeth in Sland. No date yet, just a strong possibility we'll elope when I'm in Hargeisa again next summer I'm surprised no one is trying to discourage me dee, does this mean we have SOL's blessings?

This is the funniest thing I've seen all year:

Reposting because Toronto Star removed it from YouTube...

Saalax;984978 wrote: Well done our fellow Somalilander. Safferz Adigu ciid ku diiday citizenship maleh laakin waxad aad uu jeceshay reer Koonfureedka ku hoos nool tangiiyaada Uganda iyo Burundi. Tasa laga diidaay. Qofkii jecel AMISOM, Xamar ha deego. I like all Somalis, wherever they live.

LayZie G.;984975 wrote: ^^lol http://youtu.be/y2hN8y9vD2k " frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> Thanks LayZie, Toronto Star hadn't posted it on YouTube yet when I posted the article

It's the gift that keeps on giving... wish I could embed it here, but the Toronto Star just posted a leaked video with Rob Ford talking about wanting to kill someone, although the context is unclear from the video. Rob Ford caught in video rant Rob Ford has been caught on a new video staggering around an unknown living room ranting gibberish and acting wildly. By: Kevin Donovan Investigations, David Bruser News Reporter, Jesse McLean Published on Thu Nov 07 2013 Rob Ford , the mayor of Canada’s largest city, has been caught on videotape staggering around an unknown living room ranting gibberish and gesticulating wildly. “I’m gonna kill that f**king guy. I’m telling you, it’s first-degree murder,” Mayor Rob Ford rages as someone in the room secretly uses a cellular phone to film the chief magistrate’s addled tirade. The target of the mayor’s anger is not in the room and is not known to the Star. “I’ll rip his ******* throat out. I’ll poke his eyes out. . . . I’ll make sure that mother******’s dead,” Ford says, then hitches up his pant legs as if bracing for action. His ire appears to be directed at someone who has called him, and brothers Doug and Randy, “liars, thieves.” Wednesday, Ford’s chief of staff Earl Provost said he could not speak to the Star about the video. “I am sorry I cannot talk to you about this,” Provost said. Also on Wednesday, the Star sent a transcript of the video, a description of the video’s contents and an offer to show it to the following people in the mayor’s circle: Ford, his brother Councillor Doug Ford, Provost, deputy chief of staff Sunny Petrujkic, spokesman Amin Massoudi, and to Ford’s lawyer Dennis Morris. The Star invited all of them to view the video, either at their office or the Star’s office, and provide an explanation for Ford’s behaviour. None of them took the Star up on its offer as of Thursday. Last week, Police Chief Bill Blair announced that investigators recovered two video clips relevant to extortion charges laid against the mayor's “close friend” Alexander “Sandro” Lisi. One of those videos is of the mayor smoking what appears to be crack, which two Star reporters viewed in May. There is no suggestion that this video is the second video Blair referred to in his press conference. The Star purchased this video.

Khayr;984970 wrote: Working out twice a day and sipping lattes and working on a 10 yr Thesis. That is a great life. I am so jealous. Are you being sarcastic Khayr? :mad: Working out is great for stress management and gives me time away from work, so it's something I try to do each day. Unfortunately I'm better at keeping to my work out schedule than following through on the other tasks I plan to do in a day lol. And I have 3ish years left, inshaAllah 10 year dissertations are now a thing of the past, most schools in the US try to have their students out by year 6.

Tallaabo;984960 wrote: It is good to satisfy your cravings once in a while. I do indulge in deep fried chicken take away sometimes Agreed, I did full body weights this morning and I'm doing an Insanity DVD later this afternoon. I deserve that piece of cake, dammit.

I don't even feel guilty about having that iced lemon cake with my coffee at Starbucks

A drop of caano geel in my tea is enough to make me throw up

Congrats to Nin-Yaaban. What's up next in the SOL court? And is it wong that I think of this less like a respectable supreme court and more like a TV show similar to Judge Judy or Divorce Court?