BiLaaL
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Posts posted by BiLaaL
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^ Game theory is just another branch of science, mathematics. I'm sure you'd find plenty of other Somalis interested in the subject. Why the suprise?
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From far flung corners of Africa to the barren slums of Yemen. Sad and improvised Somali faces all around. Masiibo
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Maahmaah Soomaali:
"Labadii xaq-darro ku heshiisaa, xaqa ayey ku diriraan"
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Bruce Bueno de Mesquita uses mathematical analysis to predict (very often correctly) such messy human events as war, political power shifts, Intifada ... After a crisp explanation of how he does it, he offers three predictions on the future of Iran.A consultant to the CIA and the Department of Defense, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has built an intricate computer model that can predict the outcomes of international conflicts with bewildering accuracy.Why you should listen to him:Every motive has a number, says Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. A specialist in foreign policy, international relations and state building, he is also a leading -- if controversial -- scholar of rational choice theory, which says math underlies the nation-scale consequences of individuals acting for personal benefit. He created forecasting technology that has, time and again, exceeded the accuracy of old-school analysis, even with thorny quarrels charged by obscure contenders, and often against odds. (One example: He called the second Intifada two years in advance.)Bueno de Mesquita's company, Mesquita & Roundell, sells his system's predictions and analysis to influential government and private institutions that need heads-ups on policy. He teaches at NYU and is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. -
^ You’ve sank to a new low. How dare you use the plight of poor Somali refugees in Yemen to score a meaningless point against other Somalis?
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MMA, Su'aalaha waa intuu Zack sheegay.
Arin kale oo eey Ardaydu ka xumaadeen waxeey aheed in su'aalaha badanaa eey asxaabiitsa kale ka jawaabeen, iyagoo Sh. Sharif ka filanaayo jawaab.
They also say that he rebuked them for daring to even ask the one question he ended up addressing directly. All in all, the students felt that the Sheikh was being a bit arrogant.
PS - Mahadsanid Zack.
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The allegations in this clip (if true) is a damning indictment on the President. Some of the students' questions obviously touched a nerve. The questions asked were all quite legitimate. His inability to convince simple college students raises serious questions. Given his performance with these students, how on earth is he going to persuade the likes of Sh. Aweys? The guy seems to have lost both his calmness and oratorical prowess.
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An extract from the above article. The official from ASWJ first denies the report outright and then says this?
Sarkaalkan ayaa sheegay inay jirtay in ciidamo ka tirsan Ethiopia oo wada dad shisheeye ah ay kasoo gudbeen xadka Somalia iyo Ethiopia ee Galgaduud, balse ay ku guulaysteen maamulkooda inay si nabad ah uga celiyaan dhulka SomalidaSomething just doesn't add up. ASWJ increasingly appears to be just another sorry outfit bidding on behalf of the Amxaaro. Masiibo :mad:
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Originally posted by Arac:But remember boys, wanting to do it disqualifies you from doing it.Subtle as it may be, Arac has a point. Vague intentions have a way of obscuring and weakening ones resolve over time. The word Arac uses ('wanting') can imply a strong desire but it can also mean a nonexistent or an inadequate degree of resolve. If I'm not mistaken, Arac seems to be alluding to the latter.
Brothers, I don't doubt your intentions but the time for words are over. Action is required.
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Good on him.
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CSIS hosted a Statesmen’s Forum with Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, on “Somalia: Promoting Peace through International Engagement.”President Sharif spoke in Somali with a continuous English translation. He took questions from the audience after his remarks. -
^ I second that. Grasshopper, there are plenty of Somali organizations, spread in the diaspora who aim to do just that. I'm sure you'll find a local one to contribute to or even lend some of your time and ideas to - wherever you may be.
Below are a couple of quotes from the article which I'd like to share.
Along with her intelligence, Fatuma bursts with what Somalis term 'karti'. Very few Somalis today (male or female), do justice to the true Somali character traits of our forefathers. I find her strength and determination at such a young age all the more astonishing!
From the age of 12 she "had a dream" of going to a national school in her host country and wasn't going to be put off by naysayers who told her that refugee girls could not go. "It can be done," she says. "I've done it."At first, the young Somali can appear to be shy but that exterior belies an inner strength born of an intense competitive spirit. Asked to test a microphone by saying the first thing that comes into her head, she replies: "Number one."But the refugee girl is not intimidated. "I don't care even if their father is President," she says without aggression. "I know where I came from. I know why I'm here." -
What next? Hizbul Islam teaming up with ASWJ? The nightmare never ends. I feel for the innocent civilians caught in the middle. Soomaaliya ilaahay ha u gargaaro.
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This guys deserves nothing short of the harshest form of punishment available to the authorities in PL.
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Fatuma is yet another example of the differing attitudes to education between Somali Youth back home (as well as nearby African countries) and those in the West.
Somali youth back home are eager to educate themselves, struggle and often exceed all expectations. On the other hand, their counterparts in the West are the opposite. They do not take advantage of the vast opportunities available to them.
A very strange phenomenon.
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^^ This isn’t just about the unlawful looting of wildlife (itself an important issue). These incidents also raise a plethora of other concerns – questions of impunity and wilful transgression of our country’s territorial integrity – just to name a few.
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^ You've misunderstood. My comments above aren't referring to you. You clearly haven't been following this thread closely enough to have realized.
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Fatuma Omar Ismail: A scholar born into squalor270,000 people are marooned in the hopelessness of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp. But one extraordinary Somali girl found a way out.Daniel Howden reportsTuesday, 26 May 2009If Fatuma was an ordinary Somali girl, she might well have been traded for some cows or a couple of camels by now. At 15, she's at prime marriageable age and as the daughter of a poor family, her bride price would be a comparative bargain. Luckily Fatuma is anything but ordinary. Born in the war-ravaged Somali city of Kismayo and raised in the world's largest refugee camp on the border with Kenya, Fatuma Omar Ismail now spends her days in the leafy surroundings of Nairobi's best girls' school, Kenya High.She got there by beating every other student in north-east Kenya.At first, the young Somali can appear to be shy but that exterior belies an inner strength born of an intense competitive spirit. Asked to test a microphone by saying the first thing that comes into her head, she replies: "Number one."In Kenya, access to secondary school depends on your mark out of 500 in an exam sat at age 13 or 14. A mark of 250 or more is considered good. Anything over 300 for a girl, in a system which still favours boys, is exceptional. Fatuma scored 364.Grace Wachuka, an education specialist with the non-government organisation Care International, worked in the refugee camps at Dadaab for five years and has taken a special interest in Fatuma."In Kenya," she says, "for a girl to get over 300 marks means she is very bright. For a girl to do that in Dadaab is outrageous. Fatuma is one in a million."When Fatuma talks of her life-changing exam results, she is a picture of frustration. "I was expecting to get 400-plus," she grumbles. "But the moderators cut some marks I think."Midway through her second term at the Nairobi boarding school, Fatuma's presence here is still a surprise, even to senior members of staff who privately admit that they would prefer the handful of scholarships at Kenya's elite national schools to go to Kenyans.Most of the other pupils in their regimented ranks of red and grey uniforms made it to this imposing school from the comparatively well catered-for suburbs of the capital or places like Central Province.The imposing institution, built under British rule from grey stone, is the alma mater for daughters of ministers, businessmen and judges.But the refugee girl is not intimidated. "I don't care even if their father is President," she says without aggression. "I know where I came from. I know why I'm here. We sleep in the same beds, we eat the same food."It wasn't always so. Fatuma studied for her exams in a shack built from flattened, empty cooking oil cans provided by the UN's World Food Programme. There were at least 100 pupils to a teacher in her class and almost all the teachers were untrained volunteers.Dadaab is a dust-blown trinity of overcrowded refugee camps, built to hold 45,000 refugees, on the arid plains that divide Kenya from its northern neighbour, Somalia. Today it shelters 270,000 people in conditions Oxfam describes as "conducive to a public health emergency".Some of the best stories have humble origins but few of them emerge from Dadaab. Understandably, Fatuma is a hero in the camps and the sometimes awkward teenager at Kenya High knows that thousands of refugee children are counting on her to blaze a trail for them.When news of Fatuma's scholarship came through there was a rare party in Dadaab's Hagadera camp. The heroine of the hour remembers celebrating with fizzy drinks."School is not a priority at Dadaab – girls don't have an equal chance," says Ms Wachuka. "Fatuma has triumphed in very difficult circumstances."From the age of 12 she "had a dream" of going to a national school in her host country and wasn't going to be put off by naysayers who told her that refugee girls could not go. "It can be done," she says. "I've done it."Her eventual aim is to study medicine and one day return to Dadaab as a doctor. "If there is peace in Somalia," she adds, she would like "to go and help people there where there are not enough qualified people."The teenager understands that she is a role model and has a simple message for other young Somalis."You know education is the key to success. First go to school, work hard and choose a career. Work hard, aim higher and be nice to people."This is almost exactly the advice Fatuma's mother gave her eldest daughter before putting her on a UN flight out of the refugee camp and into a world unknown to either of them. The culture shock must have been immense but has been managed with another maternal tip: "Don't take these things too seriously." The lawns and courtyards of Kenya High are eerily quiet for a school of nearly 850 pupils. The watchword here is discipline.They are certainly a world away from Fatuma's first school in Kismayo. The Somali port is now the stronghold of the radical Islamic militia, al-Shabaab, where last year a 13-year-old girl was stoned to death in a sports stadium after reporting that she had been raped.Fatuma remembers the school she left at age eight as a place you "would hear gun shots and fighting ... You would see people killing each other."After a lifetime of wearing the hijab in front of other people, the most difficult adjustment has been wearing the compulsory uniform of a skirt and a short-sleeved blouse. The awkwardness of the transition is doubtless compounded by being 15 and relatively tall. Fatuma carefully folds her gangly limbs into the smallest space possible but she is far from invisible.She admits that her new life is not always easy. She misses her seven brothers and sisters and speaks to her mother by telephone only once a month. Her scholarship pays for boarding fees and uniforms but nothing more. There was no money to pay for the nine-hour bus ride to Dadaab during the Easter holiday, so she stayed in Nairobi.Faced with the brightest girls in Kenya Fatuma is no longer "number one". In her first term, she lagged behind in the two national languages, English and KiSwahili.But there is plenty of reason to think she will catch up. Remarkably, she came near the top of her class in computer education, having never seen one before; and has taught herself to swim butterfly, having never been in a pool before reaching Nairobi. But it's not enough for her."I don't feel good. In my school I used to be the best," she says. This is followed by a note of polite defiance that lands somewhere between a promise and a warning: "They are not brighter than me. They are just better at the moment." -
Two earlier reports in Aug 2009 and Nov 2008.
Somalia: Helicopters hunt wildlife, residents say27 Aug 27, 2009 - 9:47:34 AMGara’ad, Somalia:- (Garowe Online) Residents and elders in the Somali Coastal village of Gara’ad have voiced concern over helicopters hunting various types of wildlife, including ostrich and gazelles, Radio Garowe has reported.According to the elders who have made contact with the Puntland-based radio, helicopters have been used to dart the wildlife before taking them onboard.“For the last five days, the hunters have been anesthetizing the animals before taking them onboard to ships based on the high seas” said Tahug Muse Ahmed, one of the elders who made contact with the Radio.He added that local elders have agreed to conserve the wildlife nine years ago and imposed fines on anybody held on hunting after the wildlife in the area was close to extinction.However, it is not clear which country owns the helicopters but international naval powers, including NATO have deployed warships to the waters off Somalia over past years to escort aid-carrying ships bound to Somalia and to protect the maritime trade routes from Somali pirates.Coastal villagers report of helicopters hunting wildlife11 Nov 11, 2008 - 7:03:03 AMGALKAYO, Somalia Nov 11 (Garowe Online) - Coastal villagers in Somalia are increasingly reporting incidents whereby naval forces from unknown foreign countries are actively hunting wildlife in the war-torn Horn of Africa country.A traditional elder from a village in Mudug region, central Somalia, told the BBC Somali Service recently that local leaders are collecting evidence and eyewitness reports regarding the hunting allegations."Three helicopters landed three separate days," said elder Mohamed Hussein Warsame, quoting witnesses and community leaders.Soldiers jumped out of the helicopters and loaded live animals, including deer and ostriches, the he added. The helicopters then returned to a warship off the coast.Mr. Warsame said the foreign soldiers used a technique to subdue the animals, some of which are extremely fast and agile.He indicated that the identity of the warships remained unknown, but that locals have reported seeing the American flag hovering above one of the warships in the distance.Foreign warships from a number of countries, mainly in the West, are patrolling Somalia's waters in an international anti-piracy campaign.Since 1991, when the country's last government imploded, Somalia's long and unprotected coastline became subject to illegal practices including overfishing and toxic waste dumping.Source: Garowe Online -
GAROWE, Somalia Sep 29 (Garowe Online) - Residents in Somalia's Puntland State are frequently reporting of foreign helicopters hunting wildlife in rural and coastal areas, Radio Garowe reports.The reports began in Nov. 2008 and have impacted towns and villages in Puntland's Nugal, Karkar and Mudug regions.On Tuesday, a Somali livestock herder named Osman "Zoppe" Hassan Abdirahman who lives in Nugal region's Godobjiran district reported that foreign helicopters are "terrorizing" local populations."I saw with my own eyes a military helicopter flying overhead with a net full of deer hanging below," Mr. Zoppe said via a telephone interview on Radio Garowe's Good Morning program.He described the military helicopters as "spraying the wildlife" before collecting them in big nets and flying away. "Some of my livestock were killed by the spray," he added, while describing the spray as "a type of poison."Mr. Zoppe said the helicopters mostly "collect deer and pigs in the wild" and said local nomad families are "terrorized" by the helicopter's actions.He said helicopters from foreign naval warships patrolling Somalia's long coast, especially the waters around Puntland State, as responsible for hunting the wildlife.NATO warships are patrolling the Puntland coast in a campaign against pirates, who pose a serious threat to international maritime trade.Puntland is a self-governing region in northeast Somalia. Since 2007, the region has seen a spike in pirate attacks and attracted NATO warships to its shores. -
This guy does not have the intellectual fortitude to appreciate the excellent points many of you have advanced in this thread.
Sadly, some of you have recklessly indulged into and strayed (perhaps unknowingly) dangerously close to disbelief with your replies.
This topic has broken countless rules of debate. No one can possibly argue that any value can come out of its continuation. The time has come to give this topic a rest.
There is certain wisdom inherent in respecting matters beyond your reach.
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Originally posted by Somali09:Do you know what Atheism is?You're the one who failed to answer this very question. Anyhow, why do you keep reviving this thread?
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P. Anwar, Aidid wrote a book in which he spelt out his vision for Somalia and its future governance. I'm not a supporter (i'm yet to find a worthy Somali politician) but one has to admit that some of his goals were sound, at least in theory.
Here's the book: The Preferred Future Development in Somalia, co-edited with Dr. Satya Pal Ruhela
His other book on Somali history is also a good read.
Somalia: From the Dawn of Civilization to The Modern Times
Both books are out of print. It won't be easy to find a copy. Good luck.
In pictures: Somalia's fleeing youth
in Politics
Posted
^ The picture you paint is despairing but true. Arguably, no other people - in recent memory - have come even close to the amount of suffering, dispossession and humiliation that our people have had to endure. Worst of all, there seems to be no end in sight to our misery.
IRIN