^^ The shock of my bad verse or the shock of qarxis? War hadalkaaga caday dee.

^^ War the imposter is gone. He is not coming back now.

N.O.R.F;682016 wrote: Ngonge, you keep believing his excuses. The man can't handle pressure. Simple as that. Nothing to do with believing any excuses. The man did not have many of his star players for the six months he was at Inter (FACT, as he would say if he were ranting). He was promised money by Morati but did not get it (FACT). He lost Balotelli before he even started(fact). And, finally, he lost his job because he dared question the owner (the same as his time with Liverpool). Still, the man's record speaks for itself. He won La Liga with Valancia in a country where giants like Madrid and Barca play. He got Liverpool to TWO CL finals. He constantly made it to the CL and almost won the EPL (not to mention the impressive number of points he got that season). He had ONE bad season and people like you decided to forget all his history and ability and come up with rubbish about not handling pressure. War the man is in the top five managers in the world, if not the top. Bahasha baro.

Like the Abkhazians, the Somalilanders are as helpful as they are hapless, as I found from the moment I stepped into their small representation office in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. At most African embassies, the diplomats regard visa applicants as captive sources of revenue. But rather than a droopy-lidded kleptocrat, the Somaliland office produced a slim, energetic young man with an endearing eagerness to show off his country. He came out to stamp my passport and sat down next to me to sketch a map of the complex land journey between Addis and Hargeisa. "They grow the best khat here," he said, referring to the mildly narcotic chew popular in the region. His index finger traced a proud little circle on an area just on the Ethiopian side of the border. For $20, he pressed into my passport a full-page visa, as official-looking as any in Africa. On the journey he described, there was an emphatic lack of officialdom, a studied denial by Ethiopia that any border existed at all. At Jijiga, 10 hours from Addis and the last big town before I would cross into the nonexistent country of Somaliland, I had to hunt down a police officer to get him to inscribe my passport with a note confirming I had exited Ethiopia legally. This was a border that existed only by request. Once on the Somaliland side it took about two hours of off-road driving -- through hills of desert scrub, past herders crouching in huts made of discarded U.N. and usaid flour sacks -- before I met anything resembling a sign of government. At the edge of Hargeisa, a hilly town whose lights were the one glowing dot on the horizon as I drove, two men with machine guns intercepted the car to demand my papers. This, I thought, would be my cue to do what one does at so many other African borders, which is to wink and offer smokes and a small bribe in exchange for safe passage. But before I could phrase my tentative offer, they found the inky blue stamp in my passport and waved me through, asking only that I register with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the next day. Unlike Abkhazia, Somaliland did not exactly enchant me as a place beautiful enough to die for. Perhaps it was the heat -- well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with nothing to drink, due to strict enforcement of the Ramadan fast -- or perhaps the buggy eyes and green-flecked teeth of the khat-chewers outside my hotel room each night. The standard meal, spaghetti and ground camel meat, eaten with the hands, made clear why I had never been to a Somali restaurant outside Somalia. The Somalilanders, of course, had already done quite a bit of dying for their land and for their spaghetti, and they missed no chance to tell me how cynical and cruel the international community had been by not recognizing their state. At the foreign ministry satellite office set up to stamp in the rare tourist, two excitable Somalilanders pointed out that Somaliland had multiparty elections, a free press, and an anti-terrorism policy that the government enforced with zeal. It had done all this without recognition and without help from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or any other agency that requires an international rubber stamp to operate. If this was illegitimacy, other African governments should try it. And in any case, what was the alternative? A reconstituted Somalia would require reconnecting Somaliland with what may be the world's most spectacularly failed state. Where Somaliland has a fledgling coast guard, Somalia has flourishing pirates, and where Hargeisa has a form of democracy, Mogadishu has howling anarchy punctuated by fits of sharia law. Yet this is the alternative urged by nearly everyone in the region. Arab states are reluctant to see Somalia, a fellow Arab League member, sliced up and leased to predominantly Christian Ethiopia. The African Union worries that the Somaliland example will persuade separatist movements that if they just fight hard enough, they'll eventually get their own U.N. seats. Somaliland, of course, retorts by pointing out that Somalia is being used by foreign states just as surely as Ethiopia is using Somaliland. Moreover, Somaliland asks whether peaceful and responsible democracy isn't something worth incentivizing, regardless of whether the peaceful and responsible democracy is being practiced by separatists. For now, even Ethiopia, Somaliland's closest regional ally, hasn't bestowed recognition, and there is no sign it intends to. Critics charge Limbo Worlders with having things backward, even practicing a form of cargo cultism. Just as New Guinean tribes built crude airstrips to lure planes bearing valuable cargo, quasi-countries build crude foreign ministries in the vain hopes of luring ambassadors bearing credentials from London, Paris, and Washington. These critics say Limbo World countries are fatally misled about how independence is supposed to work: Recognition precedes, rather than follows, the creation of an actual state. The list of Limbo World alumni -- countries that gained independence by acting like independent states first, and then getting recognition -- is small, and the few examples of partial success (Kosovo is stuck on 63 recognizing countries, Taiwan on 23) suggest Limbo is a permanent condition when it is not a fatal one. Indeed, once Limbo World countries have reached a certain level of development, many of them start considering the possibility that independence isn't the brass ring it once appeared. Abkhazia might have entered that phase. After Georgia suffered an embarrassing defeat trying to reclaim South Ossetia (the other quasi-state within its borders) in 2008, Abkhazia became emboldened and developed its trade and infrastructure significantly with Russian backing. It expanded its sea trade, despite a blockade vigorously enforced by the Georgian navy. (Occasional Turkish merchant vessels break the blockade by sailing to the Russian port of Sochi and then skirting the coast until they reach Sukhumi.) Some in Limbo World are at least temporarily content with this ambiguity. In his Sukhumi office, Maxim Gundjia pointed out that being Russia's pawn is no less embarrassing than being America's pawn, like Saakashvili. And in any case, recognition is overrated, as long as the quasi-state's economy is poor. "What's the use of being recognized like Afghanistan?" he asked. "They have the first flag at the U.N. square, but who wants to live there?" That evening, as I limped along the Black Sea boardwalk (gingerly, to keep my leg from tearing back open), it was easy to see his point. Indeed, it wasn't obvious why Abkhazia was pursuing recognition so fervently, when even if it achieved legitimacy it would probably have to rely on Russia for most everything, including security. For now, a glance at the shore showed that Abkhazia had more than most real countries: the beauty of a moonlit sea, and the beginnings of prosperity from a flow of tourists glad to disgorge their rubles to buy fancy hotel rooms, cheap wine, and rich Caucasian pastries. The Russian holiday-makers who walked past me were a constant reminder that the desire for true independence, from Georgia and from Russia, was not a realistic one, no matter how hard Abkhazians worked to achieve it. But as I looked out on the scene, the moonbeams caught a ship in the distance, and the uncertainty over whether that ship flew a Georgian flag made me understand, for a second, what keeps them trying.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/limbo_world?page=full Abkhazia, along with a dozen or so other quasi-countries teetering on the brink of statehood, is in the international community's prenatal ward. If present and past suggest the future, most such embryonic countries will end stillborn, but not for lack of trying. The totems of statehood are everywhere in these wannabe states: offices filled with functionaries in neckties, miniature desk flags, stationery with national logos, and, of course, piles of real bureaucratic paperwork -- all designed to convince foreign visitors like me that international recognition is deserved and inevitable. Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian separatist enclave within Azerbaijan, issues visas with fancy holograms and difficult-to-forge printing. Somaliland, the comparatively serene republic split from war-wasted Somalia, prints its own official-looking currency, the Somaliland shilling, whose smallest denomination is so worthless that to bring cash to restock their safes, money-changers need to use draft animals. These quasi-states -- which range from decades-old international flashpoints like Palestine, Northern Cyprus, and Taiwan to more obscure enclaves like Transnistria, Western Sahara, Puntland, Iraqi Kurdistan, and South Ossetia -- control their own territory and operate at least semifunctional governments, yet lack meaningful recognition. Call them Limbo World. They start by acting like real countries, and then hope to become them. In years past, such breakaway quasi-states tended to achieve independence fast or be reassimilated within a few years (usually after a gory civil war, as with Biafra in Nigeria). But today's Limbo World countries stay in political purgatory for longer -- the ones in this article have wandered in legal wilderness for an average of 15 years -- representing a dangerous new international phenomenon: the permanent second-class state. This trend is a mess waiting to happen. The first worry is that these quasi-states' continued existence, and occasional luck, emboldens other secessionists. Imagine a world where every independence movement with a crate of Kalashnikovs thinks it can become the new Kurdistan, if only it hires the right lobbyists in Washington and opens a realistic-looking Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its makeshift capital. The second concern is that these aspirant nations have none of the rights and obligations of full countries, just ambiguous status and guns without laws. The United Nations is, in the end, binary: You are in or you are out, and if you are out, your mass-produced miniature desk flag has no place in Turtle Bay. My tours of Limbo World over the last few years have taken me around the full spectrum of these enclaves, from the hopeless chatter of virtual Khalistan, a Sikh separatist state that talks a big game and has a president in exile, but not a postage stamp of actual land, to the earnest dysfunction of Somaliland to the slick-running, optimistically almost oil-state of Kurdistan. Each of these would-be countries is, in its own way, an object lesson in the limits of statehood. They are also ghosts of war-zones future -- most have enemies keen to take back the breakaway territory -- and past. They represent the wars that time forgot, frozen in unresolved crisis because it is either too convenient to keep them that way or too problematic for the Real World countries on their borders to come to a more lasting solution. Limbo, it turns out, is useful because it lets actual countries punish each other by proxy and allows them to exact loyalty and tribute from the quasi-countries dependent on their patronage. If Limbo status didn't exist, someone would invent it. Unfortunately for these states, winning the full Rand-McNally, General Assembly treatment is more difficult than merely hiring a professional-quality printer to start cranking out the passports. Carving land from other countries is nearly always bloody and in most cases leaves borders that bleed for decades. Somaliland and Abkhazia have existed for almost 20 years, with little indication that widespread recognition is imminent. Indeed, the rare successful cases these days of countries making the leap from troubled enclave to independent nation have pretty much bypassed Limbo entirely. Think East Timor and Kosovo, which jumped from brutal occupation to U.N. administration to independence to become two of the first new countries of the 2000s. The Limbo countries tend to start with violence and then get stuck in the next stage: a path that leads on and on and on, apparently to nowhere. Encouraging states like Abkhazia to flourish and proliferate has created precisely the kind of second-class statehood, with uncertain rights and responsibilities in the international system, that diplomacy was designed over the last several centuries to avoid. The Peace of Westphalia established an international order of fixed boundaries in 1648 and made no provisions for the existence of functionally independent enclaves in Brandenburg-Prussia, say, that France could use for leverage. The whole point was to come to conclusions about what was sovereign territory and agree to knock off the warfare and ambiguity. That was in part for the welfare of those enclaves, so they were not trapped in uncertainty and used as proxies -- or worse, neocolonies -- by first-class states. But Limbo World suffers that exact fate today. Ethiopia, smarting from the loss of its actual colony Eritrea two decades ago, effectively adopted an unofficial second one on the northern edge of Somalia, called Somaliland. Somaliland was among the most noisome and rebellious areas in Somalia under the dictatorship of Muhammad Siad Barre. In the late 1980s, Siad Barre killed hundreds of thousands in bombings of its main city, Hargeisa, and the countryside. When Siad Barre fell, Somaliland rapidly asserted itself as an independent state, and it is now approaching 20 years of relative peace. The coastline that Ethiopia lost in Eritrea it has effectively gained back in Somaliland, with the port of Berbera now a key trade valve into the Gulf of Aden. Ethiopia's support for Somaliland also represents a perpetual outrage to the Somalis of Mogadishu. While continuing to fight among themselves for nearly two decades, most factions agree that Ethiopia is a mortal external threat, especially because it invaded Somalia proper in 2006.

^^ wyre, muxu isu daaya dee? Nin dhintay ayaan la tartamaya saaxib. (now sayid will claim I didn't mean it again).

^^ I've been had! Ma caleesh, awil ba waji loox ban iska ahaa. Horta curyaanka cadhooday wuxu yedhi ma maqashay? "Hadanaan ku deli karin, dee candhuuf uun ba kugo tufi". Hoo, tan wajiga ka masax.. Sayiidow la is af gran wa, luqadee la gu ciyaarye Quraan iyo loox na la iima dhigin, buug ban ku bartayey Lix jir ban skool ku galay, ima gaari karta..err.."ye" La xawla ban iska idhi, laacib is moodayey Leen dhanankagaan madhan, dacar igu ridayey Alam tara waxaan kuu qoray, macalin isku sheegayay? La uqsimo intaanaan ku odhan, orodo meelaha ka b... (No proof reader this time).

Waskhyahow Sharka doortay, shaydaan baad tahaye Shaqalka anoo qaloociyay, wana kuu jawabayaye Shuruud hadanay meesha jirin, waan iska wadanyaye Burco sheekadiida daa, sharaftiida la yaqiinye Qardho shay kuma gaadho, waana dhul shiishiisaye Shaacir ma tihid saaxiibo, shuush iska dheh. (Xiin will cringe at my buraanbur again but that's all your effort deserves dee).

Heh. I saw nothing in that which would make me "reel", saaxib. I would also never ask A&T to translate your meager offerings there (I am more than capable of getting the overall picture on my own). I’ve already penned a reply, just awaiting the go ahead from my “proof reader”. Want a private preview?

Sayid*Somal;681745 wrote: Afka Cas? who is that - not another one of your imaginary Burco Bad Boy - is it? Remember what I said to you last time - in case you forgot here it is: Wiilyahow shareecadu midkay, shuuftay baad tahaye Shiqiyahow waxaa lagugu nacay, sheeka xumadiiye Shaqfad li'idu waa waxaad u tidhi, shuun saraan ahaye Adoon shaato kaa foofahayn, sharaf ma laacdeene Burco kaa sheexayana, uma sharaaddeene Soomaali waa midaan shidiyo midaan shiddeeyaaye Adiguna Shirshooraad u tahay, shirada maantaaye Shiil baan wadnaha kuugu ridi, shuuqda weligeede Inaan sheemo weerarana waa, shuqul falaadkay e Inkastoo shareer lagu wadiyo, shucubadii Hawdka Shaanshaanka buuraha haddii, sheedda laga saaro Shifa ma laha geelaan nin lihi, ila shaqaynayne Maxaa haatan laga sheelayaa, saadambaan shabine :D I did not see this gibberish earlier but I promise to reply in kind, as soon as I work out the beat and rythem of your booto there.

Malika, it sounds like Nitsu was a nymphomaniac. Here is a picture of A&T and her..

^^ You make it sound like she killed herself!

Gabbal;681912 wrote: Immaturity concerning international and standing is missing in this forum and has been missing for some time. In hindsight, I should have said this when the Puntland oil talk was its peak but the reality is Chevron, Conoco (or ConocoPhillips now), and Mobil own most inches of Somalia for exploration from the southern regions to the Guban area in the northwest. Under international law, as achieved with the legitimate Somali government at that time, they are the legally binding holders of concession under the hydrocarbon laws adhered to by the international community. No illegitimate entity in Somalia can give away what is theirs and no international country, whether China or Russia even, can contest the manpower if any of those individual companies were to seriously assess intrusion on their rights of concession in Somalia. In 2007, Conoco said it has no plans to go into Somalia any time soon but has a special branch for protecting their interests there in this current climate. Where do you entertain impoverished tribal regions of a failed state will contest what is already claimed by companies more powerful and wealthier then majority of the world's nations? Big Oil is a world superpower itself. That as maybe but Oil companies (Africa Oil & Range Resources) are ignoring it all and getting on with the job of digging for oil in PL. I once had an investment analyst strongly advising me to buy shares in Africa Oil because of the PL link (and these boys do not make such recommendations lightly).

Abuu, since you're a Torygraph reader I believe you and CL will get on like a house on fire. I assumed you were a Somali sort of 'Abu' not a fairy tale one (though who is to say the Somali ones themselves are not fairy tales, huh?). I am NGONGE, the one above me is Malika and you already met CL. Our combined knowledge of Somali is similar to that of a ten year old living in the homeland. How about you?

^^ If she kept up the rate of her hospitable welcoming to all needy gentlemen (and school kids) she is, probably, dead by now. I can't relate to your story because I, unlike you, went to an all boy school. We had no Nitsu in those Arab schools but Egyptian Fatxi did (according to all the deviants) make a tolerable substitute. (You realise that this has suddenly become a "strictly for boys" thread).

^^ I can see you are new. So, welcome. Now, before we give you coffee or muffins can you tell us a bit about yourself. The name "Abuu" on a Somali website does not really sound that encourging. What are your political persuasions and do you ever see yourself agreeing with CL (the one above you)? (morning CL).

Legend of Zu;681865 wrote: Rafa, killed Inter.... from trible winners to the six position in Seria A and losing to Spuds in CL. Mourinho showed how better he is than Rafa. embarrassing stuff. Liverpool are still suffering from Rafa's mismanagement. Rubbish. When Mourinho was given the job he was given money to go out and buy the players he needed. Rafa was promised money but got nothing. He even lost some of the players Mourinho had (see the boy that went to Man City?). He inherited an ageing and injury prone team (47 injuries since he took over). He actually did the right job by challanging Morati after winning the Club World Cup (saying "this is what I can win for you, now back me or sack me"). He was sacked but only on his terms. Now lets hope the Liverpool American owners can see sense and re-hire one of the greatest football managers of recent times. It will certianly give red nose a heart attack. Kubbada barta.

Hail Nitsu the teenagers' refuge. On a serious note, nicely done story despite the intentional lewdness.

Abtigiis;681746 wrote: LST, adeeroow waa maxay dagaalka hoose ee igu socdaa. Everyone else has a grey mark under the title 'Senior nomad'. I am alerted by concerned SOLers that I am the only person with 'red'. Maxaa la ii calaamadeeyey sidii nin toogasho ku xukuman? Can you please explain. Mise waa 'danger' ee iska ilaaliyaad u jeedaa? Anyway, you owe me an explanation. Waxaan moodayey in arimihii Faroole la xidhiidhay ee aan isku khilaafnay dhamaadeen. And I have strong suspicions General Duke has got something to do with the marking of me. I wonder who these troublemaking "concerned SOLers" were? Well, at least they got to fix the rep button.

^^ Afka cas dee.

^^ Caps mean that you're shouting. You're shouting in red! War yaa afka kaa feedhay?

Aftermath Have you forgotten yet?... For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways: And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go, Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. But the past is just the same-and War’s a bloody game... Have you forgotten yet?... Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget. Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz– The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets? Do you remember the rats; and the stench Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench- And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain? Do you ever stop and ask, ‘Is it all going to happen again?’ Do you remember that hour of din before the attack– And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men? Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back With dying eyes and lolling heads—those ashen-grey Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay? Have you forgotten yet?... Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget. Siegfried Sassoon

^^ Did you put another youtube video on? Dee naga daa.

^^ Only Fools & Horses? War ileen you've been away for far too long.

^^ War waa shaydaanka user note-kaaga ku yaal dee.