By Tristan McConnell / KismayoNov. 27, 2012 STUART PRICE / AFP / GETTY IMAGES Somali youths pull donkey-drawn water carts past sacks of charcoal by the roadside as a convoy of the African Union Mission in Somalia soldiers of the Kenyan Contingent makes its way through the city of Kismayo, Oct. 2, 2012. On a Monday afternoon in October, in a warehouse in the southern Somali port of Kismayo, I attended a meeting on the future of Somalia. On one side: 20 Somali traders sitting on grass mats and wearing sandals, sarong-like wraps, short-sleeved shirts and embroidered scarves. On the other, in plastic chairs: officers from the Kenyan and Somali armies and the allied Ras Kamboni militia who, fighting under the banner of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), ousted the al-Qaeda-allied al-Shabab from southern Somalia’s biggest city a few weeks earlier. AMISOM’s offensive against al-Shabab, kicking them out of the capital Mogadishu in August last year, then capturing Kismayo, were a body-blow to the Islamists and represent the best chance for peace in Somalia since the collapse of the last central government in 1991. But in Kismayo, as I discovered, as the only Western journalist to enter the city, the joy of victory had quickly soured. At stake at the October meeting, I was told, was nothing less than peace in southern Somalia, and possibly the whole country. And the key? A giant pile of burnt, dead wood. Great progress has been made in Somalia over the last 15 months. Al-Shabab has suffered a series of military setbacks, a new president has been chosen, a slim-line government has been formed, famine has abated and Mogadishu is enjoying a newfound optimism after decades of destruction. The turnaround seems dramatic and it is, given 21 years of war and famine. But the truth is that while those tragedies gave the world an impression of a failed state without hope, the enduring reality of daily life during the fighting for many Somalis – and at the heart of many of Somalia’s conflicts – was always business. Camel trading, mango growing, mobile telecoms and, of course, arms dealing all thrived in the war years. And few businesses were as big or profitable, or as tough, as charcoal. The charcoal business grew exponentially under al-Shabab. While the group did not itself invest directly in charcoal, it levied taxes at every stage of the process, from production to export. U.N. investigators reckoned the group earned $25 million from the trade last year. So in February the U.N. banned charcoal exports in a bid to cut off funding for al-Shabab. Since then, charcoal has been piling up. There are now more than four million sacks of the stuff at Kismayo’s southern entrance, stacked in immense house-sized blocks of dirty burlap bags lining the soot-covered road. Its value is estimated at up to $40 million. A boon to a post-conflict economy, perhaps? Anywhere but Somalia. Matt Bryden, director of the Nairobi-based think tank Sahan and a former head of the U.N. Monitoring Group, which analyzed the charcoal trade, said a handful of traders controlled the trade and all of them had links – commercial, if not necessarily ideological – to al-Shabab. “There’s no question that this is an al-Shabab linked industry and those relationships don’t evaporate overnight,” he said. One Western diplomat with close knowledge of the situation told me that any sale of charcoal, even the relatively small amounts already known to be leaving Kismayo, means “the financial circuit has not been interrupted. The major financing for al-Shabab continues.” All of which might make a resumption of the trade sound like a bad idea. But the businessmen, and some of al-Shabab’s enemies – all of them well-armed – disagree. The city was captured partly with the aid of Ras Kamboni, an ethnic ******i clan militia run by Sheikh Ahmed Madobe. Madobe is a tall, bearded warlord who has himself undergone a remarkable rebirth. Five years ago he was an Islamist commander targeted by American missiles. Today he is a crucial ally in the war on al-Qaeda in Somalia. He wants the charcoal trade re-started. “The economy of this city is 90% charcoal,” Madobe told me. “Businessmen have invested a lot of their money and the U.N. embargo is blocking it. The stockpile cannot be returned to the trees. It should be sold.” The dispute could have ramifications for attempts to install Somalia’s first central government in generation. Negotiations to determine the make-up of a post-Shabab southern administration, underway for a year without resolution, are now on hold, pending resolution of the charcoal dispute. As for attempts by the national government to establish its rule, earlier this month Madobe refused to meet a presidential delegation sent to Kismayo, issuing a scarcely veiled threat that he could not guarantee their safety if they entered the city. Says Bryden: “[This is] about power and resource sharing in the Jubas [the collective name for Somalia’s three southern regions]. People are looking at that big stack of charcoal and they want the profit.” Some discern a nefarious international hand at work as well. Control of Kismayo means control of southern Somalia’s economy – and well-established, lucrative smuggling routes into Kenya, taking charcoal out and sugar in. With elections due in Kenya early next year, some suspect Kenyan politicians and military leaders of re-opening the trafficking routes to feed their political slush funds. During my time in Kismayo, a trip to the port revealed Kenyan and Ras Kamboni soldiers overseeing the unloading of cement from a cargo ship and, from the fat bellies of two wooden dhows, timber, pasta, cooking oil and sugar. The dispute over Kismayo’s mountain of charcoal may endure for a while yet. But in the end, as it [did through two decades of war, there seems little doubt that one way or another Somali business will triumph

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More importantly, can we trust the admin or the process be transparent. His neutrality is in question.

Could one buy or sell votes lool

^That will lead to setuping parties and God forbid throwing politics into this.

I request that I be removed from consideration! Good to see Apo is on there now;) Who complained exactly?

lol@tutu....alright, adios

Che -Guevara;893172 wrote: A Somali will never be Kenyan or Ethiopian even if they see themselves as one. That said, NFD best option NOW is Kenya. You had to make quote myself. Read what I wrote. The man was being reactionary

Your last words before they lynch you or is it burning tyre around your neck. Haatu...Somalia is broke ninyahow,see camal.

I guess you have unfettered acces to their minds and hearts for you to know that..lol

I didn't expect this. Good thing Sarkozy lost election.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20514194

France has confirmed it intends to vote for Palestinian non-member status at the United Nations later this week. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France had long backed Palestinian ambitions for statehood and would vote yes "out of a concern for coherency". The Palestinians are asking the UN General Assembly to upgrade their status from permanent observer to a "non-member observer state". The vote is due to take place later this week. "This Thursday or Friday, when the question is asked, France will vote yes," Mr Fabius told the lower house of parliament. But he cautioned: "It's only with negotiations between the two sides that we demand immediately, without any preconditions, that a Palestinian state can become a reality." Backing international recognition of a Palestinian state was a campaign pledge made by Francois Hollande before he became France's president earlier this year. France - a permanent member of the UN Security Council - is the first major European country to come out in favour of the move. Germany is expected to vote against, while the UK's ambassador to the UN, Mark Lyall Grant, said on Tuesday that London remained undecided. According to AFP news agency, Mr Lyall Grant told reporters the UK thought the Palestinians should delay the application, but was still in talks with the Palestinian Authority and would decide "in due time" how to vote. 'Unilateral steps' An upgrade in status would allow the Palestinians to participate in General Assembly debates and improve their chances of joining UN agencies and the International Criminal Court (ICC), although the process would be neither automatic nor guaranteed. If they are allowed to sign the ICC's founding treaty, the Rome Statute, the Palestinians hope to take legal action in the court to challenge Israel's occupation of the West Bank. The bid follows an attempt in 2011 by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), to join the UN as a full member state, which failed because of a lack of support in the Security Council. Observers say the latest Palestinian application is likely win approval in the 193-member UN General Assembly, as it needs to only a simple majority to pass. According to the PLO, more than 130 countries already grant the Palestinians the rank of a sovereign state. But Israel and the United States are concerned that the move is an attempt by the Palestinian Authority to secure statehood through the United Nations rather than through negotiation, as set out in the 1993 Oslo peace accords. Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Ben Dor told the BBC earlier this month that if the Palestinians, with UN non-member observer status, asked the ICC to resolve disputes with Israel, then Israel would "take unilateral steps to protect its interests". He did not elaborate on what those measures would be. President Abbas has said he does not "want any confrontations with the United States or Israel", adding: "If we can start a dialogue or negotiations the day after the [uN] vote, we will."

I have been blacklisted.

Nin-Yaaban..you are saying, he is lazy.

I am outraged Alpha is included in the list but not Apophis.

These gatherings serve no purpose. The rule in SOL is, everbody is nationalist until they disagree or shoot down my argument.

Haatu and tutu are good examples I guess.

We should know accept that only Somalis can defeat AS instead of 'inviting' with competing interests.

oba hiloowlow;893209 wrote: +1. I support that the government should make up a strategy to engage those regions a bit more. And mind you the reason Puntland wants the Constitution adopted and implemented is to legally define and setup the framework that will address the issue of taxation. Without such framework, Puntland wouldn't simply get lump sum of money from its treasury and hand over to the Government without any qualification or terms of reference. You need a system in place. The best the Government could do now is to setup a system in Benadir and if successful, use it benchmark. In the meantime, the Government should start talking to regional administrations and come to political understanding.

Oba..As far as Puntland is concerned, the Government is only in name, a fact accentuated by the Government's inability to exert itself beyond Xamar. What's more, the Government has no strategy or framework to engage the various regions and setup a formula to collect taxes and distribute the revenues equitably. It's really simplistic to ask why shouldn't Puntland pay taxes considering the Government made no effort to engage it and has no strategy at all.

oba hiloowlow;893193 wrote: the government tax bakaara and Suuqbacaad, the port and the airport. Are you sure? From what I understand the government only collects fees from the ports and I don't think it has the capacity to collect anything from suuqa Bakaraaha or Bacaad. It's worth noting that government doesn't contribute anything to Puntland and has no sovereignty over it, realistically speaking, I don't would expect anything from Puntland.

Does the goverment taxi traders in Bakaaraha and other business. Do house owners pay property tax?

^I would imagine so!

No worries mate.