Originally posted by Suldaaanka: On serious note, why is it that you get flames when Somalilanders comment on Col. Yey's phantom government? Don't you know that old gasbag actually thinks he is my president? LOOL looool He thinks he is the president of a many others.

Originally posted by Hibo: Wijigiisa maka taqaanaa wariiri wees qaadanaayo

^^^^What opposition? Some of us can't distinguish the TfG government from the opposition, can you help Mr Duke Smith?

Originally posted by Baashi: Your enthusiasm and hope to see this president succeed in taming your beloved Somalia has been noted [/QB] Baashi I'm more impressed by Omaar Geelle, how about something to be called Greater Djibouti?

888

For Somalia’s President, There’s Still No Place Like Home Joyce Mulama NAIROBI, June 14 (IPS) - For the moment, it is the homecoming that wasn’t. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf left Kenya Monday to relocate his transitional government to Somalia. However, the flight carrying the head of state was subsequently diverted to Djibouti. Reports indicate that poor runway lighting in the southern Somali town of Jowhar prevented the plane from landing. A far larger threat, however, is posed by the lack of security in Somalia, where central government collapsed in 1991 when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted by tribal factions. The current, interim administration was only established in 2004, after about two years of talks held in Kenya under the auspices of the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). (This regional organisation comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.) Ongoing concerns about the lack of stability in Somalia, which has been divided into fiefdoms by competing warlords, prevented the country’s new parliament from returning home after the election of Yusuf last October. The administration has been operating in exile, from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. However, regional and international pressure for it to take up the challenge of returning home has been growing. "I can confidently report to you today that the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia is relocating to Somalia as of today," Yusuf said Monday at a farewell party for his government, hosted by Kenyan officials. The event, which took place in Nairobi, was also attended by diplomats and IGAD country representatives, amongst others. Afterwards, Yusuf and a seven person entourage of political and economic advisors left for the airport, accompanied by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. "The rest of the ministers will follow tomorrow, and everyone will have gone by Friday," said Yusuf Baribari, a spokesman for Abdullahi Yusuf. "It is a great feeling...At long last we are going back to our country to fulfill our duties." These optimistic statements aside, Somalia’s government is divided over where it should be based. Yusuf and his allies, who enjoy little support in the capital of Mogadishu, have insisted that the administration set up operations in Baidoa – also in southern Somalia – and Jowhar. A move to the capital would take place once Mogadishu was deemed sufficiently secure. This policy has been endorsed by a majority of legislators in the 275-member parliament, who voted for the government to have offices in Baidoa and Jowhar, and a liaison office in Mogadishu. However, a sizeable minority of parliamentarians is said to be pushing for an immediate return to the capital. These legislators include faction leaders who control large parts of Mogadishu. The situation is further complicated by the fact that parliamentarian Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade, who also controls Baidoa, is opposed to having the government relocate to this city – apparently because it may lead to him losing power in Baidoa. Last month, fighting erupted in the city between forces loyal to two ministers, Sheikh Aden Madobe and Hassan Mohammed Nur Shatigadud, and Habsade supporters – claiming 13 lives. Madobe and Shatigadud support the president’s decision to relocate to Baidoa. Reports indicate that Habsade also fears the city’s proximity to neighbouring Ethiopia could be to the advantage of Yusuf, accused by some of being an ally of Addis Ababa. Relations between Ethiopia and Somalia have long been acrimonious. Somalia invaded the ****** region of Ethiopia during the 1970s, and Addis Ababa is said to have supported Somali rebels in later years. In March, Somali legislators voted against a deployment of about 10,000 IGAD peacekeepers in their country, on the grounds that it might include Ethiopian troops. East African foreign affairs ministers apparently decided, later, to avoid deploying soldiers from Somalia’s neighbouring states in any peacekeeping mission to the war-torn country. Addis Ababa has reportedly been accused of providing military support to Yusuf so that he could attack Baidoa – a charge Ethiopian officials deny. Matt Bryden, an analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG) who deals with the Horn of Africa, told IPS that opposing factions in the Somali parliament urgently needed to resolve the dispute over government headquarters. "We need the two sides to come together, talk and reach common ground. With two groups with dissenting views about the capital…we do not have a functioning government in Somalia," he said Monday. The ICG is a Brussels-based think tank. "It looks as though the president is moving independently. It is a real risk if the two groups do not dialogue," Bryden added. "IGAD must advise President Yusuf to reach out to the opposing side in order to reunify the TNG (transitional national government). If this does not happen, it will be the beginning of the end of the government." The need for channels of communication to be kept open was also emphasised by Francois Lonseny Fall, the United Nations special representative to Somalia. "We hope that that the Transitional Federal Government will use this opportunity to further the process of institution building and promoting peace through intensive dialogue on several issues, and in particular on where to relocate to inside Somalia," he said at the farewell party. Under the agreements negotiated in Kenya, Yusuf is to govern Somalia for five years after which a general election will be held. Thousands of lives are said to have been lost during the past decade in Somalia, while many citizens have been displaced or forced to flee their country. (END/2005)

President fails to arrive in Somalia, plane diverted 14 Jun 2005 10:03:04 GMT Source: Reuters MOGADISHU, June 14 (Reuters) - The plane carrying Somalia's president had to be diverted from landing in his country, and instead flew to Djibouti after he bade a formal farewell to his government's temporary home in Kenya, officials said on Tuesday. Reuters erroneously reported on Monday that President Abdullahi Yusuf had arrived in the Somali provincial town of Jowhar, after earlier in the day leaving Kenya to set up his government on home soil. Yusuf had been due to land on Monday night in Jowhar and spend the night there, said Dahir Mire, permanent secretary in the office of the president. But the plane was delayed in leaving Kenya, and approached Jowhar after nightfall. "The pilot had to divert the plane to Djibouti because the airstrip in Jowhar has no lights," Mire said. Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, tasked with ending fighting between rival clan warlords, had remained in Kenya since its formation at peace talks last year due to disputes about where inside the country it should be based. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki hosted a farewell party for the Somali government on Monday. Presidential spokesman Yusuf Ismail Baribari said the pilot of the plane decided not to risk the landing and headed for the nearest airport with night landing facilities, in neighbouring Djibouti. "The president really wanted to spend even a night in Jowhar," Baribari said. Officials say Yusuf will return from a planned tour of several Gulf countries, that was to begin in Qatar on Tuesday, in about two weeks. Baribari said the president would begin touring Somalia after his arrival to start his day-to-day work as president. Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi is expected to leave Kenya for Mogadishu on Thursday. Yusuf's government is the 14th attempt to restore effective administration to Somalia since it collapsed into chaos after the overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991. Conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people since then in the country of up to 10 million. (Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Nairobi) web page

Somali president leaves exile in Kenya for home: lands in Djiboutiby Ali Musa Abdi NAIROBI, June 13 (AFP) - After months of delay and unmet pledges to return home, Somalia's government-in-exile finally began to leave Kenya Monday but a new hitch emerged as the president departed, but never arrived on Somali soil. After a lavish send-off ceremony hosted by Kenyan leader Mwai Kibaki, Somali transitional president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed boarded a plane for Somalia but overflew his home country and landed in neighboring Djibouti. An AFP correspondent in Djibouti confirmed Yusuf's arrival there, which Somali officials in Nairobi explained as a technical mishap. The officials blamed darkness and a lack of facilities at the airport in Yusuf's alleged intended destination, the town of Jowhar, and insisted the incident would not compromise the government's long-awaited return to Somalia. "The president was not ending exile in Kenya by going to another country," one official told AFP. "This was purely a technical issue ... there are no political complications as such to his landing in Djibouti." But the development highlighted the difficulties in the relocation of the government which has been based in Nairobi since its creation nine months ago amid a bitter internal dispute over the move home. And it appeared to confirm doubts that Kibaki's Monday good-bye party would not mark the reestablishment of a central authority in the lawless country where anarchy has reigned for the last 14 years. Clashes over where the government should move and intense pressure from its Kenyan hosts to leave have left the penniless administration with no clear base in Somalia yet nowhere else to go. Even before Yusuf unexpectedly arrived in Djibouti, the senior Somali leadership, riven by infighting between rival clans and warlords, was set to settle in different locations, many of them outside their home country. Even if he had landed in Jowhar, Yusuf had planned to spend only several hours there before embarking on an extended tour of Arab nations and had stressed that the government's relocation depended on foreign aid. "Somalia cannot stand alone unless supported by the wider international community and the region," he said, a day after declaring parliament in recess for two months and told lawmakers to be "brave and go home." But Yusuf's dismissal of the legislature was immediately challenged by the parliament speaker and his call for bravery muted by the announcement that he would be visiting Gulf states with no set date to return home permanently. Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi assured Kibaki and others at the reception that the government would indeed be moving home after spending much of the last year holed up in Nairobi hotels. But while Gedi plans to go to Somalia by the end of the week, officials said his current itinerary calls only for a three-day visit to Jowhar and Mogadishu after which he is to depart for locations unknown. About 100 of the 275 Somali lawmakers are now in Mogadishu, including speaker Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden, who said Yusuf had no right to dissolve parliament and announced that lawmakers would meet in the capital on June 25. Aden is one of the main proponents of moving the government to Mogadishu and is fiercely opposed to Yusuf and Gedi's plan to relocate first to Jowhar and Baidoa due to security concerns in the bullet-scarred capital. In a bid to assist the government's oft-delayed relocation, east African governments agreed to send a peacekeeping force to Somalia and at the weekend asked the United Nations to lift a 1992 arms embargo to ease the mission. The seven-member Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Sunday asked the world body "to expedite the lifting of the arms embargo to allow for the deployment" of the force. The first troops in the operation -- to be known as IGASOM -- are to come from Sudan and Uganda but the two countries have recently balked at sending soldiers because of the security situation in Somalia and a lack of funds. The Horn of Africa country has been without an effective government since 1991 when strongman Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled, plunging the nation into anarchy. amu-kh/mvl/sj Copyright © 2005 Agence France-Presse Received by NewsEdge Insight: 06/13/2005 16:52:38 web page

Originally posted by SOO MAAL: C/llaahi Yuusuf oo markii uu ka soo dagay Garoonka Diyaaradaha Jowhar Salaan Sharaf ka qaatay qaar ka mid ah Ciidamada Qalabka sida ee Soomaaliya .....

A senior UN official, who asked not be named , said: “They now have simply got to take the risk of going home.â€

Originally posted by Farah: Baashi, Yes, the British were not so generous as the Italians; .. Was it generosity? This is what Baashi much quoted link says: " However, of the colonial powers that had divided the Somalis, only Italy developed a comprehensive administrative plan for its colony. The Italians intended to plant a colony of settlers and commercial entrepreneurs in the region between the Shabeelle and Jubba rivers in southern Somalia. The motivation was threefold: to "relieve population pressure at home," to offer the "civilizing Roman mission" to the Somalis, and to increase Italian prestige through overseas colonization." source

Originally posted by wind.talker: I suppose you're referring to the Borama article. I didn't write that article and the name change I gave the article was practically a matter similar to the yellow journalism practiced across Somali, and international, media. @ practically a matter similar to the yellow journalism Originally posted by SOO MAAL: This is an internal Puntland matter, and Somaliland doesn’t have room in this particular issue I'm I confusing you with someone or are you the same person who used to claim they were from "the north west"? And, where's your buddy buddy Neyruus these days anyways? If you see him, please do remind him to include the two murdered brothers into his famous body count.

Geldof returns Twenty years after Live Aid, Bob Geldof spent four months travelling around Africa again. It was an emotional journey, as Paul Vallely, the only journalist to accompany him, reveals 11 June 2005 It seemed a funny place to stop. But Bob Geldof was clear. "Here," he snapped. "Pull over here." At the side of the road was a broad sweeping valley, a green patchwork of fields that stretched out of sight in either direction. It looked indistinguishable from a hundred others we had passed on our long journey through the Abyssinian highlands. We were only minutes away from one of Ethiopia's most antique cultural capitals, the little town of Lalibela which is the site of a breathtaking series of underground churches hewn by hand from the rock of the ancient plateau. So why stop here? Geldof got out of the car and walked over to the side of the road. "This is the place," he said, and then stared silently into the valley for what seemed like an age. It was 20 years since he first came to this spot. The then Marxist government of Ethiopia had wanted to show the place off to him, partly because of its history, but mainly because they had just taken it from the rebel army in what felt like an interminable civil war. It was 1985. The year of Live Aid. "When I first came to this impossibly beautiful place," the rock star campaigner began, and then paused. He spoke slowly and self-consciously, as if he were preparing sentences to be written, weighing each word. "This green landscape was naked brown soil, the earth burned by the remorseless sun which had brought the drought and famine which cauterised this entire land. There were tanks and men with guns everywhere. It felt a menacing place, in many more ways than one. "When we got to this valley it was dusk. Suddenly I became aware, as the darkness grew, of tiny pinpricks of light. They started over there, and then spread, gradually across the valley, and then up the hillside, and on to the top of the plateau. Like little fireflies illuminating themselves in a chain sequence across the whole landscape. Then someone told me what they were." They were fires. And they were being lit by desperate people who had abandoned their homes and trekked for days, and sometimes weeks, to a place where they heard there was food aid to be found. But when the sun fell, and this entire population on the move knew they could not reach their destination for the night, they made camp where they were, drew their thick white woollen blankets around them against the bitter cold of the mountain night, and lit a tiny fire. "The hillside came alive with fires," said Geldof with a curious detachment. "But I knew what each one represented, because I had seen those scenes close-up elsewhere already. Parents giving the last of their food to their f children - some of whom were so weakened that they would die that night. Children who had been left orphaned by the journey. Eight-year-olds carrying three-year-olds. An intolerable vision. Like a painting of hell." And then something bizarre happened. "Just down there, to the right, there must have been an aid workers' camp, because I heard a radio. It was a long way off, but the sound carried. It was the BBC World Service. After a while it began to play the Band Aid single, 'Do They Know it's Christmas?'. I was horrified, at the triteness of our response set against the immensity of this reality. And then, when it got to Bono's line, his voice rang out with utter clarity across the landscape. And as he sang: 'Tonight, thank God it's them instead of you' I started to cry." When I turned from the empty landscape to look at Geldof he was crying again, 20 years on. The eucalyptus trees were in flower as we entered Lalibela, a dusty little place of several hundred mud huts, some of them substantial and a few more than 400 years old. But Lalibela's treasures were hidden from view. Hens clucked in the yards around the doors. Pigeons were cooing. Soft smoke rose gently from the roofs. The warm smell of bread wafted up from the houses lower down the hillside and mingled with the scent of meat cooking caught on the breeze as we moved through the town. The place was about its normal business. A boy of six or seven walked past with a tin of cow manure on his head. Others carried sticks of sugar cane which they had bought with the small coins they had earned from showing tourists the secret churches which become visible to the stranger only when you are literally a few feet away from them. A runaway bullock shouldered its way suddenly through the crowds and made off down a roadside track. "Stop that cow," shouted the hapless man who had just bought it at market and was chasing it - to the laughter, it seemed, of the entire town. In the market there were great piles of grain, though much of it was dusty and some of it the worse for termite attacks. There was coffee: green, khaki and black. There was rock salt for people and salt cakes for animals, brought by merchants hundreds of miles from the Djibouti coast. There were plastic bowls and basins, and trays of cheap watches. There were Muslim weavers selling their produce, alongside traders with colourful fabrics from China; globalisation has tentacles that reach into the remotest mountain fastnesses. There were children selling Jolly Juice, a concoction made from tinned orange powder and dodgy-looking water. There was nothing to remind Geldof of the terrible days of 1984-85. Apart from the flies. One of the most haunting images for a Westerner arriving at the height of the famine was of children too weak to wipe the flies from their faces. But if you arrive today in the Ethiopian highlands at the wrong time of year the flies are there still, and in such numbers that you feel as though you are trapped inside a buzzing black cloud. Even the outsider eventually becomes too weary to ceaselessly swish the insistent insects from your face and arms. May to September is the terrible time, until the frosts come to kill them off in October. But the children seemed unfazed. They carried on happily, busy in their mercantilist enterprises, or happy at play with stones or sticks, hoops made from twisted circles of wire, or kicking a misshaped football. "Isn't it great to see these kids looking so healthy," said Geldof, ruffling the hair of a boy walking beside him who stared up at the gangly whiteman with undisguised curiosity. Twenty years ago he had avoided touching the children for fear a photographer would snap what he called a "White St Bob nurses Sick Black Baby" picture. Things were different now. These children had smiles and chubby cheeks, and a sheen in their hair; they shouted and laughed, tripped up their mums and were shouted at. And yet their very health and vigour conjured up a huge welling sadness at the memory of those who were denied these simple things back in 1985. A curly-haired boy, aged about 12, in a Chicago Bulls T-shirt approached Geldof. "I will be your guide," he said, more in declaration than in request. "Will you now?" said Geldof with a laugh; presumptuousness has, after all, been a classic Geldof trait from his early days as pushy post-punk to his more recent refusals to take No as an answer from prime ministers and presidents. The boy's name was Chombe. By day, he said in remarkably good English, he guided tourists around the churches; by night he went to the monastery, which was the only place with electric light, so he could read. "I want to be a doctor, or a pilot," he said. "This way to the underground churches." There was a funeral ceremony going on in the grounds of The Saviour Of The World, the biggest rock church to be found anywhere on earth. It is an extraordinary sight. On a flat area of solid red volcanic rock, 13th-century masons - some 40,000 of them, archaeologists estimate - hewed down to shape a great block of natural stone. The biggest is 33 metres long, 23 metres wide and just under 12 metres high. This was then hollowed out, like a gigantic architectural sculpture, with 72 pillars of the rock left for support. Small wonder that it and the 11 other churches have been called the Eighth Wonder of the World. Oddly enough the church itself was empty, apart from a handful of pilgrims and tourists, whom Geldof joined to get his chest, back, head and hands blessed by a priest wielding the enormous 800-year-old silver Cross of Lalibela (which the Ethiopian government recently paid $25,000 to get back from some nimble-fingered Belgian who had dubiously acquired it). The centre of the action was all outside, in the church grounds. A group of priests wearing gold-embroidered cloaks were assembled around an empty bed. Though they gathered beneath the shade of a grove of thorn trees they carried fringed parasols of pink and silver, red and yellow, black and gold. They were chanting mournfully to the slow, deliberate beat of two different-sized drums, as the family of the deceased wailed on the ground beside the dead man's bed. All around street traders sat, observing and discreetly carrying on their business. Goats and sheep were sold by men in low voices. Bundles of grass for spreading on the floor of homes were hawked by wordless women who had walked in that morning from the outlying rural areas. Others sold sugar cane and the huge leaves of the false banana plant to cook bread on. The interaction between the market and the place of worship seemed as old as religion itself. "The paradox is," said Geldof, "that I discovered this oasis of peace in the midst of famine, war and death." In fact the paradox was even greater, for Lalibela was created in such circumstance. Different parts of the town go by biblical names: the River Jordan, the Mount of Olives, Mount Tabor. "It is a mini Holy Land set up in the days when the pilgrimage to the real Jerusalem was too dangerous," explained the guide-boy Chombe. "A new Jerusalem was ordered to be built here by King Lalibela, and he ordered that the churches should be built by digging down, rather than building them into the sky, to keep them undetected by invaders and marauders." So it was in the 13th century, and so it remained in 1985 when Bob Geldof found a profound sense of peace in the midst of war. That sense of transcendent tranquillity remains today. "It is," he said, "quite simply one of my favourite places in all the world." "Can I have that?" asked a shepherd boy who had appeared from nowhere when we stopped to take in the view of the vast Abyssinian plateau, from which gorges fell thousands of feet precipitously without warning. "What?" said Geldof. "That," he said, pointing to the empty plastic water bottle which Geldof had been about to throw among the rubbish in the back of the vehicle. "Sure," said Geldof. The boy beamed and went off proudly cradling his new treasure. "Some of us need so much," said Geldof, "and some people are happy with so little." Africa is everywhere a place of paradox. Geldof's trip across it, of which Ethiopia was merely the first leg, was to last almost four months, and take in 11 countries. It was to throw-up paradoxes aplenty. Some of them were iconic - like the satellite dishes emerging from the thatched roofs of mud huts, the monument to Soviet MiG fighters now used to give shade to donkeys pulling water carts, or the beggar with deformities which would have looked medieval were it not for the two pairs of flip-flops he wore on his knees and hands. All these tell us things which are both expected and unexpected about the relationship between Africa and the developed world. It is shot through with irony. "Look at that," Geldof pointed out in one market town, as a boy passed by wearing a T-shirt with the legend: I Am Not A Tourist. "Post-modern or what?" Of course, some apparent paradoxes are really just our Western prejudices in disguise. Nowadays even the smallest and dustiest African village seems to have an internet café powered by a noisy old generator and a satellite phone. "And why not," said Geldof. "We so often unthinkingly suppose that there is a linear progression from tradition to modernity. We see progress as the rest of the world 'catching up' with the West. Yet part of the genius of Africa is its ability to take what it sees as good, but to hang on to what it sees as better." Nowhere was that more clear than in a hospital in Hargeisa in Somaliland. It was an unprepossessing place: tatty, unpainted, badly lit. But the doctor in charge there, Dr Hussein Adan, had been trained as both a traditional African healer and in Western medicine. By fusing the two he had developed a way of replacing shattered limbs with a technology that involved the implantation of camel bones into the legs of men and goat bones into the heads of children. It was all sterilised with a mixture of camel's milk and paste from the bark of desert shrubs - and then treated with antibiotics. Here Geldof met an 18-year-old girl. Her head was crushed in a car crash. "Her brain came out on the road," the doctor explained. "We brought her in, removed the stones and grit from her brain, and then used a mixture of frankincense and camel milk to clean it. Then we covered the hole in her head with a piece of goat bone." The girl was sitting up in bed. "She's not well but she's improving." Camel bones and goat bones, frankincense and antibiotics, and camel milk with everything. It sounds preposterous. But, like so much else in Africa, amazingly, it works. "And the striking thing," said Geldof, "is that tradition and modernity were not opposites, or a starting and a finishing point. They are something which fused to make a singular African solution." Geldof saw that in politics too. Under the shade of an acacia thorn he came across a group of elders from one of the clans which traditionally governed Somalia. They rule under an ancient system known as the Tol, under which responsibility for crime lies not with an individual but with his clan. "What they told me," explained Geldof after drinking camel-milk with the elders, "is if a man steals a camel his clansmen will say: 'Where did you get that?' Social pressure forces him to tell them, whereupon they reply: 'Take it back, or else his clan will come to us and demand compensation.' For centuries the system worked." But then as warlords took over control in post-colonial Somalia they abolished the system of elders. Anarchy ensued. By contrast in the breakaway area known as Somaliland it has not only been retained but has been elevated to the status of the second chamber of parliament. Few there doubt that this is one of the key factors in the relative stability of Somaliland. "This odd mix of African and Western systems of governance clearly works," Geldof said. "The evidence on the ground is that tradition does not inevitably precede modernity. It is the interaction between the two that in Africa will bring change and progress." It was early in the morning. Bob Geldof was back in Ethiopia, on the road between Somalia and Harar, the city to which the French romantic poet Rimbaud fled Europe to end his days as an African merchant. As we passed through a little town we stopped to have a look at the market. There were traders selling all the usual stuff, minute amounts of potatoes, tomatoes or onions, piled carefully in tiny pyramids by way of display. But in the middle of the space there was something more frenetic. Once the farmers in this market had grown the best coffee in the world. But prices on the world market dropped by over 70 per cent after countries like Vietnam and Indonesia began to grow coffee. Ethiopia found it was losing its primary cash crop. In years of famine, places like this, which once had been rich enough to buy in cereals from elsewhere, found that their people were beginning to starve, just as their countryfolk in the north have done for generations. But now the local people have found a solution. They went to the hillside terraces where they had carefully intercropped coffee and maize and ripped up the coffee bushes. In their place they started growing a drug, khat. "Khat makes you lazy and then crazy," a local aid worker, Fatimah, told Geldof. "The men sit and chew, and talk and brag, and build castles that have no doors. And if the khat comes late they go wild." That was why in the market men were running down the hillside with freshly cut bundles of khat, wrapped in far bigger leaves to keep them moist. As soon as they arrived these leaves were stripped away (to be eaten by goats nosing among the discarded wrappers) and the produce was swiftly stacked in far bigger bundles. These were then wrapped in plastic sheets made from old food-aid sacks for the journey. The men work with vigour and great speed. "Who says there is no dynamism in African economies," laughed Geldof, as the stuff was hurled into pick-up trucks which roared off as quick as they could, leaving huge columns of dust whirling in the air behind them. That is why the vehicles leave the market at such speed. Addicts - who now number 80 per cent of the population in parts of eastern Africa - need to get their fresh delivery or else they get very agitated. "Not all change that the outside world forces upon Africa is progress," Geldof observed. The mighty cataracts of the Blue Nile Falls were once known in the local language as The Water That Smokes. A waterfall nearly half a kilometre wide cascaded across a massive outcrop of hard rock as one of Africa's greatest rivers began its long descent to the Mediterranean. So impressive were the falls that the Ethiopian people featured them on the obverse of their nation's primary unit of currency, the 1 birr note. "Look at them now," said Geldof as we disembarked from the Ethiopian military helicopter, "they look more like a domestic plumbing problem rather than the thunderous roar of triumphant nature." Indeed water the colour of milky drinking chocolate flowed placidly to the cliff edge and trundled across an area reduced from over 400 metres to 40 feet. It was not the only disappointment. Geldof, whose attitudes to Africa oscillate as wildly as the flow of water across the falls, was in one of his White Man in Africa moods. In the steps of the Great Explorers and all that. But the local villagers who soon ran to the helicopter spoiled all that. "Where are you from?" they asked, in perfect English. "England." "Ah," they replied, "David Beckham." One even produced a current Premiership fixtures list. "Do you mind," Geldof laughed. "Here I am trying to pretend that I am in this hugely and adventurously remote part of the world that no one has ever been to and you keep crapping on about David Bloody Beckham." "He missed goal in Euro 2000," said one villager, rounding off the humiliation. Geldof turned back to the falls and Ethiopia's great dilemma. What is a minus for tourists is a plus for local industry. A dam has been built upriver from the falls so that even the mighty Nile can be turned off and on like a tap. Exactly when, and how often, is desirable is a matter of keen debate in Ethiopia. Added into which are the views of those who think the government should just abrogate an agreement reached between Sudan and Britain in 1888 which allows the Sudanese to claim sovereignty of the actual water preventing the Ethiopians using it for irrigation. "Change and progress," mused Geldof. "In the case of the price of coffee, it is change the Ethiopians cannot control. At least with these decisions it is Africans themselves who must decide, rather than accepting priorities imposed by outsiders, as they have to in so much of life." The past few months in Africa have been something of an epiphany for Bob Geldof. At the beginning of last year he persuaded Tony Blair to set up the Commission for Africa because after visiting Ethiopia again in 2004 it appeared that 20 years after Live Aid nothing had improved; indeed things had got worse. "Africa is ****ed," were his exact words to the prime minister, apparently. His travels across the continent have changed his mind. "Yes, of course Africa is still plagued by drought, famine, hunger, disease, ignorance, witchcraft, corruption, bad government, bureaucracy, war, Aids, death," he told me. "But the problems Africa faces are not intractable, which is what the pessimists suggest." On the contrary, what Geldof has now experienced on the ground is a sense of flux, and of opportunity. "There is dynamism in the air, and change. Africa today is very different from the place I first visited 20 years ago at the time of Live Aid. Over the past five or so years the signs that change is beginning have swept like a tide across the continent. When I first came here two decades ago there were about 20 wars going on across the continent; today there are just four. Then half of all African countries were dictatorships; today more than two-thirds of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa have had free-ish and fair-ish multi-party elections. Some have even produced changes of government. "Of course, creeps like Mugabe hang on in Zimbabwe. But new political leaders, like Prime Minister Meles here in Ethiopia - a really smart guy - are emerging, many of whom show a new commitment to the common good of their peoples. They are setting up new institutions - like the African Union, which might just work. Almost half of all African countries had economic growth of more than 5 per cent in 2003. There's the start of what could be a real momentum for change." We stayed up too late, and drank too much, on our last night in Lalibela. Just before dawn I staggered to the bathroom, glancing out of the window on the way. What I saw made me bang on the wall to wake Bob in the room next door. Out of the window was the other end of the same valley we had encountered when we first arrived. A light flickered on the far hill. Then another and another, in an eerie echo of that desperate trek of 20 years before. But this time the cause was different. It was the feast of Meskal, the second holiest day in the calendar of the Ethiopian Coptic Church, of which most of the population are adherents. As we looked out from our balconies the whole valley slowly lit up with individual families lighting fires and illuminating the insides of their homes with burning brands in blessing. Sounds of rejoicing filled the air. Children shouted excitedly, provoking dogs to bark, donkeys to bray and cocks to crow before their time. As the pinpricks of light spread, the valley filled with that most African sound of celebration as the women let rip a strange ululating sound from the back of their throats. Bob Geldof watched and listened, this time his eyes aglow with joy. The fires of despair had given way to the flames of hope. 'Geldof in Africa', directed by John Maguire, can be seen on BBC1 on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7.30pm from 20 June to 6 July. A book, also called 'Geldof in Africa', from which some of our photographs are taken, is published by Century at £20. To buy the book for £18 (including p&p), call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798897 ------------

^^^ Boy! I should called it Pastime Paradise, huh! Since you don't want me to 'sully' this topic I'll comment further after the holidays, deal? Just to please you, here's a poem by Cabdi Iidaan from hoygasuugaanta.com Gabaygan waxa abwaanku tirshey habeenkii Calan-saarka. Ayadoo abwaanno badani oo Timacadde ka mid yahay ay habeenka goobjoog ahaayeen, gabaygan wuxu Cabdi ku qaatay kaalinta kowaad. Calan Saar - Cabdi Iidaan Geeraar baan awalkiisiyo Anbaduu ka bilaabmiyo Halka uu ku idlaadiyo Sida loogu Ishaadiyo Aakhirkiisa hayaaye Indhaweyd iska daayee Akhyaartiinan Golaa bal maydiin akhriyaa Eray wayga Salaan Erayna wayga duco Halna waa ururkeenna Erayna waa Calanka Eray wayga salaane Waa araarad maqnaynoo Waa ashqaalo magaaloo Ammintanaannu haleelnee Ereygawgu horreeya A-Salaamu-Calaykum Erayna wayga duco Ilaahow ururkeenna Inta loo denbi dhaafee Ummaddii Nebigiiyee (NNKH) Ehlul-Khayra ka yeel Ilaahow arligeennana Mid ammaan lagu joogoon Abaaroobin ka yeel Ilaahow aduunkeennana Mid ibtiisa la maaloo intifaacleh ka yeel Ilaahow Oodda dhexdeenana Soomaaloo idilkeeda Midday uurka ku hayso Mid Ilaah ka daweeyoo La Illoobo ka yeel Ilaahoow eraygaygana Mid aammiin la yidhaahdoo La ajiibo ka yeel Ilaahow udubkeenna Istiqlaalka la siiyey Afarteenna bahoodee Hareeraa kaga oodan Isu keen wada keenoo Mid adkaada ka yeel Erayna waa Calankeenna Uumigii milicdii iyo Asqadii dhaxantii iyo Afduubkii xadhiggii iyo Adduunkii lacagtii iyo Ibtilooyin kaleetiyo Eed wixii nagu gaadhay Adaan kaaga qabawnayoo Kolkii uu araggaagu Iiftiinkii ugu deeqayba Axdabtii? laga raystayoo Dad aqoon daran miihinoo Maanta meel laga ooyiyo Oheey way iyo ciil iyo Uurku-taallo ma joognoo Ilaahbaa mahaddaa leh Oo abaal loogu qabaa NFD-ii ninka joogiyo Kan Amxaaradu laysiyo Obokh meel la yidhaahdiyo Labadaa ku arkaaya Sidii Aaranka geeloo Inta uu ul ku goosmay Intaad ooho tidhaahdo Ururiyoo dul sudhnaw oo Isticmaarka fogeeyoo Ardigaaga xoreeyoo Insha-Allaahu hagaagoo Adkaw oo ha nuqsaaminoo Ishii Cawri taqaanniyo Kuwa uurka dabaayiyo Afka layska habaaro ILaahay idamkii Kuma soo ag maraan Albaqraa iyo Weyluniyo Arbacuunka Quraankiyo Idaajaa kugu deyrey Halna waa ummadeennee ururshow ururshoow iyo Ma kii loo irkaadaa iyo Waa kan kii araggiisa Indhuu noogu baxeen iyo Alloow yaan ka fogaaniyo Intanba yawga dhawaadiyo Yaa agtiisa ku waariyo Oggolaannay dhahaaya oo Amranaa ku xigsiiyoo Qof walooba agtaadiyo Aqalkaaga hortiisa Albaabkaaga ku joojiyoo Ilaaliyoo ha ka jeesan .......... Yesterday

^^^^ The question should've been addressed to those who arrested and murdered those two men. wind.talker: I responded by highlighting the fact that these dead men (alaha u naxaristo) can't be "from Somaliland" because they were part of Puntland security services. Excuse me but average Somalilanders have been known to moonlight as judges and Ministers in Puntland. Classic case was the Education Minister who chose to upgrade himself back to Somaliland last year. What makes you think the militia is immune to piss-takers? wind.talker: Unlike Somaliland, Puntland (the people and the government) has dignity. Is that so? Well, how comes wherever the Dogfather of Puntland (Colonel Yusuf Yey) goes, he is always hounded by widows and orphans mourning the people his 'security' forces murdered? I find it strange to say the least you chose this topic of all places to make that claim. PS Stop protesting YOU HAVE on previous occasion been caught posting articles after making changes to them, haven't you?

^^Give me the post code and door number and I'll deliver (signed and sealed of course )

Yesterme Yesteryou Yesterday

Oops! Looks like SOL censorship won't allow the link to be posted, you all just have to take my word for it.

14 March 2005 High Court Outcome

WARQADII DACWADA AHEYD EE UU SOO DIRSADAY RIISH OMAR OLAD

^^^ gona luv this.. Maradona: Liverpool Feat Better Than Brazil 1970 Side Diego Maradona admits he was astonished by Liverpool’s comeback to win the Champions League final against AC Milan, saying even the Brazil 1970 World Cup winning side – widely considered the best the world has ever seen – would not have been able to achieve it. Liverpool were trailing Milan 3-0 at half-time in Istanbul before three goals in six minutes saw the Reds draw level. Rafael Benitez’s side then won on a penalty shoot-out to claim their fifth European title and deny Milan a seventh. Maradona, speaking to Italy’s Sky channel, said: “Even the Brazil team that won the 1970 World Cup could not have staged a comeback with Milan leading 3-0. “I am disappointed as anyone who has played in Italy would be,†said the former Napoli and Argentina favourite. “At 3-0 Milan were convinced that no-one could come back. “But what has happened has happened. Milan never stopped playing and (Andriy) Shevchenko could have won it in extra-time (when Liverpool goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek made a double save). “I have seen comebacks like that in football but never against a team that so clearly was superior as Milan were.†PA International -------------------

Government to start moving home... How many topics threads like that before I can accuse you of crying Yey

Hargeysa, May 18, 2005 (Haatuf) Ugaas Cismaan Ugaas Doodi Ugaas Rooble oo ka mid ah Saldanadaha Qadiimka ah iyo madaxdhaqameedyada waaweyn ee gobolka Awdal ayaa markii u horaysay ka hadlay xaaladda siyaasadeed ee dalka, wuxuuna waraysi uu wargeyska Haatuf xalay kula yeeshay gurigiisa oo ku yaala magaalada Hargeysa kaga waramay arimo badan. Laakiin waxa uu ku bilaabay hadalkiisa “Waxan doonayaa inaan si kooban u uftiimiyo xaaladaha maanta dalku marayo, dalka Somaliland waa dal marxalado badan soo maray oo leh taariikh dheer oo soo jireen ah, waxaana dalka lagaga dhaqmaa sharcigii Islaamka Xeer Soomaaliga iyo sharcigii gumaysigu inoo keenay, waxaana loo baahan yahay in lays waafajiyo saddexdaa oo ahmiyada la siiyo shareecada Islaamka iyo ku dhaqankeeda. Maanta marka la eego xaaladaha xagga garsoorka ee maxkamaddaha in lagu jaah wareeray jago keliya oo taladeedii la furi la yahay, iyadoo aynu og nahay xeer soomaaligii inay jirtay xeer beegti oo ay waxyaabo ka waaweyn fur furi jirtay. Maanta inagoo tirsanayna inaynu horumar gaadhnay oo aynu qabanay doorashooyin oo dastuur samaysanay oo doonayna inaynu doorashooyin kale galo, waxa nasiib daro ah iyadoo dedaal badan la soo sameeyay oo shacbiga iyo madax dhaqameedku kaw ka yihiin, iyadoo aynu ognahay dalkan bur-burkii iyo dagaaladii soo maray ee sokeeye iyo kuwii taliskii Siyaad Barre, waxay ummaddu filaysay, ama ay filaysaa haykalkaa dawladnimo iyo nabadgelyadaa la sii xoojiyo oo qofkii dhaliil ka sheega maamulka maanta jira ee aynu dooranay uu cadow yahay. Soomaalidu waxay ku maah maahdaa Nimaam run kuu sheegini Run kuguma hooyo, waxa jira waxyaabo badan oo ummadda loo balanqaaday, hadaan soo qaadano xagga horumarka dalka madax dhaqameedyadu maaha oo keliya inay ku jiraan dib u heshiisiin iyo xaalad dagaal ee waqtiga nabaddana waxay ku leeyihiin kaalin. Madaxweynahana waxa loo baahan yahay inuu ku xidhnaado. Marka aan tusaale usoo qaato madax dhaqameedyada gobolka Awdal kuma xidhna madaxweynhu, waxaana loo baahan yahay inay ku xidhnaadaan madaxweynaha oo marba xaalada ka jirta uga waramaan oo xog ogaal u yihiin oo ay kusii xidhnaadaan iyaguna madax dhaqameedyadii kale ee Dalka. Siyaasiyiinta gobolka Awdalna kuma xidhna madaxweynaha inta ku xidhanina maaha in ummada kalsooni ka haysata ama ku xidhan bulshada, waxaana loo baahan yahay inay madax dhaqameedyada iyo siyaasiyiintu isku xidhnaadaan oo albaabka madaxweynahu u furnaado, markaa ka dibna lagu xidehnaado siyaasiyiinta kale iyo madax dhaqameedka kale ee Somaliland oo aanu madaxweynuhu noqon nin keligii taliye ah oo uu qaybiyo awooda ay ummadu siisay ku takri falkeeda, ama hanti ha noqoto ama awooda uu madaxweynaha ku yahay ha noqotee, waana mid meesha taal sidii loo sixi lahaa, maadaama uu madaxweynuhu yahay ninkii u horeeyay ee nin aan aqoon u lahayni ugaga riday foodka laas-caanood ilaa Saylac. Waxa kale oo jirta in Somaliland doonayso citiraaf, mana aha citiraafku mid debeda inta diyaarado loo qaato laga doonayo ee wuxuu yaalaa dalka gudihiisa, waxa ina dhex jooga Hayado iyo dad kale oo ajinebi ah oo ay arkayaan xaqiiqada iyo cadaalad darada taalna ay maalin walba warbixin ka dhiibayaan aynu iska hor imaad isku samayno oo caalamka tusno inaan meesha waxba ka jirin, wax la qabtay way jiraan laakiin waa in sideeda loo qaato oo aan loo arag haduu mucaarid yahay iyo haduu madax dhaqameed yahayba inuu dalka duminayo ee ay tahay toosin, maamulkana inagaa dooranay, waxaan wadnaana maaha wax dumin iyo mucaaridad ee waa wax toosin. Citiraafkana waxan ku heli karaa marka ay is keenaan waxa dalka gudihiisa ka jira iyo warbixinta lagaa bixinayaa. Marka aad soo qaadato maanta waxa dalka ka dhacay dhibaatooyin ka dhashay daadadkii, waxa jirta dawlad, shicib iyo ganacsato, haday wadaninimo jirto cashuurta maalin keliya la qaado jaadka ayaa lagu dhisi kari lahaa Biriishkaa Hargeysa ee daadku gooyay, mana aha in la dafiro xaqaaq’iqa noocaa ah ee jira maanta ee waa inay wax iska bedelaan xaaladaha maanta jira ee aynu arkayno. Waxaana munaasibada maanta ee 18May salaan u dirayaa Ummada Somalilanda, meel kasta oo ay joogaan.â€[/b ] Ugaadka oo la weydiiyay sababta uu waqtigan ugu beegay hadalkiisa iyo dhaliisha uu xukuumada u jeediyay, waxa uu yidhi “way jirtay inaan mar ka mid ahaa madax dhaqameedyadii ka hor yimi Marxuum madaxweyne Cigaal, balse waqtigaa waxa jirtay inaan ugu badheedhay khayriyada Boorama inaan idhaahdo haloo codeeyo UDUB, anigoo aan xisbi ahayn, anaguna mansab doon maanu ahayn oo ina Cigaal Mansab kama aanu doonayn ee wax toosin ayay ahayd. Maantana waxa la marayaa sannadkii saddexaad, marakaa waxan filayaa inay ku fulan tahay mudaa Daahir Rayaale inaan xaq ugu leeyahay inaan u sheego wixii khalad ah inuu ka leexdo.Mana jiraan wax gaar iigu yimi aniga ee waxan wax la qabaa madax dhaqameedyada Somaliland. Laakiin dareenka aan muujinayaa ee I kiciyaana waa kaa shacbiga Somaliland †Ugaaska oo la weydiiyay sida uu u arko dhaq dhaqaaqa nabad raadinta ee arinta Sool iyo waxa keenay in aanu arimahaa oo ay lug weyn kuy leeyihiin madax dhaqameedku ka dhex muuqan, waxa uu yidhi, “waxaad moodaa ragga maamulka hayaa in marka ay dan leeyihiin ee doorashooyin iyo wax jiraan ay u yeedhaan, marka ay hawshooda dhamaystaana ay ka kaaftoomaan. Aniguna is amaani maayo oo in badan oo ila mid ahina way jiraan, waana run oo kama muuqdo, waxayna jirtaa isaga iyo xukuumadiisa cida ay u yeedhayaan, laakiin madax dhaqameedyadu aniga waxay iga mudan yihiin salaan iyo sharaf. Soolna waa gobol Somaliland ah oo madax dhaqameedyadoodu ku jireen heshiiskii Beelaha ee laga soo gudbay maanta oo ay heshiis ku ahaayeen inay Somaliland yihiin, waana dad walaaleheena. Waana in loo daayo arintaa xalkeeda madax dhaqameedyada.†Mar la weydiiyay ujeedada hadalkiisu inay tahay in xukuumadu wax ka qabato dhaliilaha loo soo jeedinayo, waxa uu yidhi “waxa jira dhaliilo aan dafiri karin. Dadkana hanti ma wada gaadho ee cadaalad ayaa wada gaadha, waxaana jira waxyaabo aan qarsoomi karin oo ay ka mid tahay taa Biriishku, waxaana ku filkan qof muwaadin ah oo la yidhaahdo wax ka qabo. Aniguna waxaan ka turjumayaa dareenka shacabka.†....................... What can I say but hear hear!

On the serious note: Who designs Morgan's clothes?

^^ The man called to find out if the 'coast is clear' i.e if hubby's out of town Here's sililar one: Nude couple are in bed smoking when the phone rings. The woman answers and smiles after speaking to the caller. The man in bed with her asks who the caller was and she replies: "It was my husband" The man asks "is he nearby?" She answers "He said he's still playing cards with you".