Superman in action..Well done.

Thank You for summing up in one post everything that is wrong with Somalia today. ^^^You are most welcome, I must be a genius to have summarized the plight of Somalia in one line. Moving on from that nonsense, again you are just displaying nothing more than clan sentiment, Faroole has shortcomings, and its up to the state electorate to decide what comes of his ambition. However to simplify everything with the mere mention of “Ethiopia” as if that poor backward state is the answer to all our failures I think only belittles your intelligence. Faroole as shown by the display above has achived a great deal. He has so far maintained the political unity of the state and has brought together a fine cabinet made, finalized the flag and state seal. He has also put in place the transition to multi party election and a move away from the current system. He has put his case to the international community with a good deal of success. This what we are talking about, you are dwelling on the hearsay of a few clanists, who’s rebel groups are now dancing with the Tigray, they told all of us they hated so much. This is raw politics lad not a Johnny Gil love song.

Originally posted by rudy-Diiriye: is that the pirate flag!! lol Now you are insulting millions of Somali's, young, old and of both genders, by calling them Pirates. But you lose your head when I call your uncle Xasan Dahir Aways a pathetic leader,. what gives, Rudy and who is the clanist?

^^^ what was the map for??? lol It was to insult you no doubt.

^^^lool. Now you are losing it lad. No one insulted you and no the Duke. Thanks for keeping the thread alive..

Originally posted by rudy-Diiriye: quote:Originally posted by General Duke: ^^ So says a fan of Xasan Dahir Aways, a pathetic loser. Plz stay away from calling people names like you call me above. Debate about the subject matter but no name calling...kabiish! So Rudy you would have us belive you are Xasan Dahir Aways? No one called you names lad, learn how to read..

^^^lool. the people of Puntland gave you & your fake religious clan nonsense the middle finger adeer.

^^ So says a fan of Xasan Dahir Aways, a pathetic loser.

^^^ Are you happy? Do you think the plight of the poor couple held in Galgaduud helps your credentials for recognition? Poor secessionist, you are even more despeate than usual.

Tuujiye, your last post was perfect. Well done sir. The rest go on as you were.

Do you think the PM will ever read an email sent from, DR_Kahin@hotmail.com ? Give us a break lad.

Wonderful stuff, Aalia keep up the good work sis.

^^^Yeah right, adeer that argument does not wash anymore since even those who waged "jihad" on the Ethiopians are making deals. Faroole has ensured the survival of the state and for that one is satisfied. The rest we shall see inshA Allah.

AfricaOwn, our very own Berther. Adeer you can cry all you like, Puntland has better leaders than the secessionist enclave led by Dahir Riyaale who got his degree from Jale Siyad Bare University.

^^^Nassir I agree with you here. Faroole great skill has been to surround himself with talent. Gen Abdullahi, Dr Farah, Dr Ali Warsame and others. And yes Puntlanders do give great credit to the Minister of interior for his hard work.

^^^lool. The US recognised Kosovo, so did the EU, stop comparing a real country, Kosovo to the Somali NW region. Well dont to Djibouti for recognising their Muslim sister nation of Kosovo.

^^^He has done far better than expected and the team around him are the most capable in history. However he needs to do more.

Newsweek must be a Somali site... source A Somali leader talks about what his government will need to deal with the bandits. How are your relations with the United States? We have met the American ambassador to Kenya and his special envoy for Somalia. We discussed a lot of issues and got good feedback from them. We will work in partnership in every sector including security, development and humanitarian sectors. You studied in New York, is that right? I studied a degree program, an M.B.A., at the State University of New York [at Albany]. Did you like it? It was a good city, a small city. I didn't know that Albany was the capital of New York state

Faroole got an MBA from New York State University. He has more education than, Egaal, Tuur & Riyaale put together. And yes he worked in Australia to provide for his children, while Seelanyu and Waraabe were taking dole in London & Helsinki respectively. Good article never the less, well done to Garoweonline.

Has anyone ever read this book? I am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolf

Xasan Dahir is a coward, he was the first to flee to Asmara instead of facing the fire. Today he hides in the homes of those he made into refuges outside of Mogadishu. A historic coward who was once a warden for Siyad Barre, and who has never extablished a single functioning entity. A failure who has been kicked out of every grou he created. Al Itixad, the clan courts, Al Shabaab & now Hizbul Islam has become him and a few Guriceel bodyguards. Shame.

Emergence of a Statesman In June/July of 2009, President Farole led a government delegation to Washington, D.C., and London. Many people consider this significant trip to be the moment when the international community finally awakened to an undeniable truth in Somalia: there exists a reasonable voice calling for a sustainable national solution for Somalia. The tyrannical tirades by Mogadishu's megalomaniacal anarchists and the emotional rants by Somaliland's secessionists were at once silenced by the judicious and practical voice from Puntland. Indeed, a statesman has emerged! During his Congressional testimony, the President of Puntland said: "Somalia cannot be reinstituted or re-imagined in the old way. This is a country whose citizens have brutalized each other for the past 20 years. The wounds of war are still fresh in the hearts and minds of many. Our duty is not only to rebuild the Somali nation-state, but it is to re-stitch together the fabric of Somali society and restore trust. Perhaps, this is the most daunting of all challenges." In London, while addressing the prestigious Chattam House think-tank, the President said in his speech, " Puntland is a Reconciliation Model for a New Somalia": "There are limited options for dealing with extremist and terrorist threats in Somalia. The international community must support stable regions (for example, Puntland) and offer long-awaited development incentives…The Puntland Government is determined to effectively address the above challenges and find a lasting solution to the instability and criminality posed by the pirates. But we cannot do it alone. The cost of helping Puntland will be far less than what is currently being spent on expensive naval patrols." Nearly a year later, Somali pirates continue to seize foreign-owned vessels far from home, from shores near the Seychelles Islands, Oman, and other countries. The international community has failed to heed President Farole's strategic vision to save Somalia from the ruins of war, pirates, and Al Qaeda. The doomsayers, the haters, and the ignorant have had their heyday. At first, they said the 2009 election would destabilize Puntland. That did not happen. Then, knowing fully well that they control nothing on the ground, they began the Internet campaign through fancy names such as "International Crisis Group" and the "UN Monitoring Group" to launch a new campaign of misinformation against Puntland, its people, and its leadership. Yet, despite this massive campaign of misinformation, Puntland remains a united, strong, and an example for the rest of Somalia. There is even a popular 2009 song entitled, "Ku Dayo, Puntland" ("Mimic Puntland"). The hard truth in the form of continued stability and development in Puntland did not stop them. They sought to defame President Farole's statesmanship credentials with accusations of piracy. But the man stood tall – even taller than what most expected. In the face of a wave of unprecedented bombings and targeted assassinations, the President of Puntland urged calm, restraint, and respect for civil liberties. It was the President's charismatic voice that halted the Puntland clans from carrying revenge attacks against suspected extremists hiding among the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) – who fled their homes in Mogadishu and other parts of south-central Somalia, as Col. Aweys and his extremist allies (Al Shabaab) continue their relentlessly violent campaign to seize power by force. The IDPs were welcomed to Puntland to find peace and protection from the extremists. Yet, the people of Puntland have paid a heavy price for their generosity and tolerance. The people who transformed Puntland through hard-work from the old days of insults such as "Gaari-waa" (a reference to a road-less, remote Puntland neglected by Somalia's successive central governments) to today's model-state for a future federal Somalia were the first displaced victims of the Somali civil war who survived Gen. Aideed's clan pogroms. They did not seek revenge, but some fled Somalia altogether and most returned to their ancestral homelands to begin a new life from scratch. Certainly, Puntland clans (and the larger ***** clan-family) were victimized and expelled from Mogadishu by ****** clan militias, who have been savagely slaughtering and robbing each other ever since, whether or not they magically transform into religious factions, such as Hizbul Islam under its Fascist insurgent chief, Col. Aweys. Let us remember: current TFG President Sheikh Sharif and Col. Aweys were the twin leaders of the ******-dominated ICU movement in 2006. Today, they are arch-enemies. Comparatively, President Farole's closest election challenger, Gen. Abdullahi Ahmed Jama (Ilkajir), is today's Puntland Minister of Internal Affairs. The distance between Puntland's democratic system and Mogadishu's cutt-throat politics can be separated by the all the world's oceans combined! The Somali conflict is intertwined so intricately that it is sometimes impossible to differentiate who's right from who's wrong. This is partly due to the fluid nature of politics – and more so, Somali politics. Also, this fluidity has contributed to the international community's overall ignorance, confusion, and lack of insight of the realities in Somalia. In the Somali saga, for the first time in 20 years, there has emerged a heroic statesman and so all the groups feel threatened: starting with the foreign-based war industry, as well as the Somali war profiteers, anarchists, secessionists, and pirates. Mr. President, H.E. Abdirahman Mohamed Mohamud (Farole), truly is the Pride of Puntland. But can the Somali people and the international community swallow this liberating remedy? Garowe Online Editorial

World's misplaced priorities The international community's obsession with Somalia-based piracy is suggestive of the underlying tone of self-interest and egotism that has nothing to do with pirates – and everything to do with economic and geopolitical interests. We can safely say that all the "big boys" have dispatched warships to fight Somali pirates – how astounding, that a few hundred rag-tag sea bandits require the combined muscle of the United States, the European Union, Russia, China, Japan, and Australia, only to name a few! The international community has failed miserably to intervene in a justified, robust, and coherent way to end the Somali crisis. The catastrophic misadventures of U.N. and U.S. interventions in the 1990s, which suddenly transformed from "food protection" to "nation-building" overnight, must remain a bloody stain on the world's conscience. More catastrophic disasters were to follow, including the Ethiopian army's two-year occupation of Mogadishu (which sparked today's insurgency) and the African Union's current peacekeeping mandate that is limited to Mogadishu's airport, seaport and the Villa Somalia presidential palace, where former ICU chief and suspected Al Shabaab sympathizer Sheikh Sharif Ahmed sits as President of the UN-endorsed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia. The international community's two-fold priority for Somalia can be summarized as follows: defeat/contain the terror groups, such as Al Shabaab's suicide bombers; and eradicate Somalia-based sea pirates. Viewed solely through this prism, one would mistakenly think that Somalia's complex problems begin-and-end with "combating terrorism and piracy." This is a false view, perpetrated and driven by geopolitical interests, seeks to benefit from the misery of the Somali people. The hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars spent annually to dispatch naval warships to Somali waters could be much better spent investing directly in a Somali political settlement. This means that, the world's misplaced priorities must be re-shifted considerably by recognizing that "terrorism" and "piracy" in Somalia are products/symptoms of civil war and political collapse – but not the problem itself. Somalia needs a comprehensive political settlement if the international community genuinely wants to see an end to threats such as terrorism and piracy emanating from this war-ravaged country. But being genuine is not considered a policy priority in the realm of geopolitical considerations. This point is best demonstrated by the status quo policy of "combating terrorism and piracy" – instead of assisting the Somali nation to overcome divisions and to rebuild institutions based on national consensus. This point can be demonstrated another way: President Farole, Puntland's elected leader, was recently accused of having links to Somali pirates. This absurd claim, with no evidence except for hearsay by politically motivated persons, was published in March by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia, which reports to the UN Security Council. The report alleges that "pirate money" was used in Puntland's historic 2009 election. This homegrown election process, which saw a military general peacefully transfer power over to a civilian banker after an election, marked a moment of pride and joy for the people of Puntland State of Somalia. Those that suggest that piracy money was involved in the Puntland election are either wholly ignorant of realities on the ground, or bitter about the successful election, or they are individuals with a personal stake in Somali politics. Add the fact that the UN report's primary author is a Canadian national who actively campaigned for Somaliland recognition in past work, and one gets the full picture. There is documented evidence of this fact, and not simple hearsay. American and French naval warships have regularly transferred captured pirates to Puntland authorities for prosecution. This close collaboration is clear testimony that the U.S. and French governments recognize Puntland as a key partner in the anti-piracy campaign. However, neither the Americans nor the French have funded any anti-piracy project in terms of creating employment opportunities, funding the Puntland government's plan for a 600-strong Coastal Task Force, or supporting prison and court services. Yet, cash-strapped Puntland has assumed the courageous task of doing it alone because piracy is a threat to Puntland's economic development. This is the reason why Puntland’s successive governments have always opposed ransom payments. If the international community (i.e. the UN, in this case) is genuine about the prospects of peace for Somalia, more recognition and support would be offered to grassroots peace movements in Somalia where the local people have established their own self-government – as opposed to waiting for a foreign-imposed solution. Instead, today's paradigm is a repetition of old failures: finance a foreign-backed "national government" in Mogadishu (the doomed-to-fail top-down approach), which further polarizes the Somali nation, and contributes to the radicalization of Somalis as far as Europe and North America. This is the same "national government" whose parliamentarians were arrested and expelled from Kenyan hotels, where they used to hide from Al Shabaab mortars and targeted assassinations. Even worse, this is the same "national government" whose leader – President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed – is personally guarded by Ugandan soldiers! Can the world take some responsibility – or will the world continue to blame Al Shabaab and pirates for Somalia's woes?