Speaking on the panel, Pratap Chatterjee of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (which works out of City University, but is an independent organisation) said that your phone could be used to record and send information about you even when it is in stand-by mode. That data included location, recordings of your conversations and even photographs. This spy software could run on iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows mobile kit. Stefania Maurizi, a journalist from Italy's weekly news magazine L'Espresso, showed documents that suggested that software products could not only read emails and text messages sent from spied-on phones, but could actually fake new ones or alter the text of messages sent. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/01/julian_assange_surveillance/

Although the US embassy denied the story at the time, unnamed US government officials recanted and confirmed the arrests last week. Media reports claim that the intelligence agency has gone so far as to shut down its Beirut bureau after it was compromised by Hezbollah's announcement. The intelligence war playing out in Lebanon is nothing new, however. For decades now, intelligence agencies have been infiltrating the country, with up to 70 suspected spies arrested by the Lebanese authorities in 2009 and 2010 alone. During the 2006 war, engineers at Alfa noticed unusual activity in their servers; the log, which records who logged into the system, both remotely and locally, would restart itself on a daily basis, without any command ordering it to do so. Furthermore, the log would reboot itself before registering where the command originated from. According to Illeik, "the engineers in Alfa were seeing this happen in front of their eyes, and couldn’t do anything to stop it". "If [the spies] gave the root passwords to the Israelis, all bets are off. This would allow the Israelis to log onto the computer systems controlling the networks as administrators," explained Taher. "At that level of control, they can access and modify data, install software programmes, shut down or re-set the different systems, as well as modify or erase any audit logs that would record their actions." http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/11/201111295498547664.html

Carafaat;760320 wrote: I was wondering how to adress Somali girls from diffrent regions. For example; I know in Djibouti they say - Huuno In Somaliland its mostly- Walaalo And in Somalia its - Abaayo How are Somali girls from Kenya adressed- Sisi? And where is Gacaliye used? Can you see the fallacy in your question/argument ?

Many thanks

Thanks ever so much OdaySomali and Abtigiis for your info. Can I conclude from this that the area is politically stable?

My company recently won a contract in Kombolcha, Ethiopia to carry out a PMC work for a rather large steel production site and as we are to embark on our first visit soon, I wondered what the place is like politically and geographically - does anyone know what killil it belongs to (in other words who are the natives, Oromo, Amhara, Affar etc) and whether it's a war zone (like the Somali region) or not. Thanks in advance.

(Reuters) - A television station based in Syria that supports Muammar Gaddafi confirmed on Monday that the deposed Libyan leader's son Khamis had died in fighting southeast of the capital Tripoli on August 29. Khamis commanded an elite military brigade and his death marked the highest-profile pro-Gaddafi casualty since the uprising began that ended Gaddafi's 42 years in power. Arrai television announced Khamis's death, along with that of his cousin Mohammed Abdullah al-Senussi, son of Gaddafi's wanted intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, saying they were killed during a battle with National Transitional Council (NTC) forces in the city of Tarhouna, 90 km (60 miles) southeast of Tripoli. The TV station, which has broadcast audio messages from Gaddafi and his spokesman since the Libyan capital was overrun by NTC forces in August, posted pictures of Khamis and Senussi and broadcast verses of the Koran, the traditional way of mourning. It said Khamis and Senussi died "while confronting the enemies of their homeland" on August 29. NTC military officials had said in August that Khamis was killed in Tarhouna and buried in the city of Bani Walid but there was no confirmation at the time from Gaddafi loyalists. Khamis had been reported dead twice before during the uprising, only to reappear. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the United States could not yet independently confirm Khamis's death but said similar information was being received in Washington from "reliable sources."

Chubacka: Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Juxa: Xalwadu waa sun ee ha isoo marsiinin, ganbarna wuxuu wax tarayaa markaan muran usoo diyaar garoobo, but buskud igu igoow. NORF: There is is good reason for the good mood - London baa maanta ka kulul Dubai baan bilayaa, dabcan kana uumi yar.

Jumca wacan oo wanaagsan Juxa. Qolkan yar ma dad khaas ah baa loogu talagalay mise waa open for all horta?

Hambalyo iyo boogaadin inaadeer (call the translator). Wiil iyo caano, gabadh (for the feminists brigade) iyo caano ayaan ku leenahay.

Malika;743433 wrote: ^Fa inna ma'al usri yusra. Indeed, "Fa inna ma'al usri yusra", a timely reminder. @Somalina: Thank you.

Valenteenah.;739631 wrote: Just spoke to my sis, who is a police officer in one of the southern boroughs - she was defending Brixton xalaytoo dhan, 6am ayey ka soo baxday. Yaanan meesha lagugu dilin ee iskaga soo carar dheh. Streathamteedii ayaa u dhaantee ku noqo dheh halkaas, atleast fellow Somalis ayaa wax ka celinaya. These virulent rodents tried to get into mosque during taraweeh prayers last night and dear lord did they get a beating or what! recent converts ayaa intay caydhsadeen ka jabiyay every bone in their body, laba kamida iyagoo dhiigayay soo jiideen ooy hor keeneen masaajidka. Good lesson I would say, it will be years before they even think of going back to that mosque or any other for that matter.

Islamophobes have been popularizing the claim that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but (nearly) all terrorists are Muslims.” Despite this idea becoming axiomatic in some circles, it is quite simply not factual. In my previous article entitled “All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 94% that Aren’t”, I used official FBI records to show that only 6% of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005 were carried out by Islamic extremists. The remaining 94% were from other groups (42% from Latinos, 24% from extreme left wing groups, 7% from extremist Jews, 5% from communists, and 16% from all other groups). But what about across the pond? The data gathered by Europol strengthens my argument even further. (hat tip: Koppe) Europol publishes an annual report entitled EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report. On their official website, you can access the reports from 2007, 2008, and 2009. (If anyone can find the reports from earlier than that, please let me know so we can include those as well.) The results are stark, and prove decisively that not all terrorists are Muslims. In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups; a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam. Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups. Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2007 to 2009 could be attributed to extremist Muslims. Here are the official tables provided in the reports… Full article

You can see the full program here: http://stream.aljazeera.com/episode/11109

With famine driving more Somalis to Kenyan refugee camps, social media users rally to financially support victims. But, are the donations really benefiting those in need? As a result of a record-setting drought and mass famine, thousands of Somalis are reportedly admitted daily to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Recently, the United Nations declared a famine in two provinces of southern Somalia with nearly four million people “in crisis.” Humanitarian Coordinator Mark Bowden says the food shortage could spread to all of southern Somalia in two months. However, limited resources are available to people leaving Somalia and seeking aide in Ethiopia and Kenya, and some observers say the aide is inadequate. By some estimates, foreign countries and international organizations send approximately $1 billion in aide to Somalia each year. As famine continues to affect the East African country, some online users are organizing to provide financial support for victims. The money donated is usually intended to develop humanitarian and security projects, but contributors may not be able to track how the money is actually spent. The Associated Press reported on allegations of wasteful spending and corruption among some Somali aide organisations. The news service alleges that Danish Refugee Council staff members paid protection money to armed opposition fighters in conflict with the Somali government. Reports also claim bullets bought by donors and intended for Somali soldiers were sold on open markets. The Stream spoke to The Nation’s National Security Reporter Jeremy Scahill about the current situation and the possibility of alleged mismanagement within aide organisations. Almost 380,000 refugees have sought shelter in camps created to house 90,000 people. Those who are not admitted build huts with sticks and plastic bags in shanties outside the camps. Rioting and rape are common within the camps, and Scahill says some Somali refugees are starting to consider their famine-struck homeland safer than the refugee camps which he described as “abominitions.” On Tuesday’s episode of The Stream, we ask: How are organisations using foreign donations, and are Somali refugees seeing tangible evidence of aide? Jeremy Scahill joins the programme as our studio guest. On Skype, Somali singer and poet K’naan Warsame and Global Somali Emergency Response co-founder Ahmed Farah offer insight on the chaos within the refugee camps and why aide is not reaching people in need. READ MORE

Val, I am not part of the group sis, I don't even know them, but I admire what they are doing hence my posts. http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/survival-backpacks-for-somali-refugees-in-kenya/

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Liboi Town 11 am, Monday 18th July 2011 The five of us clutch onto our tools of trade; cameras, pens, paper, mental snapshots. We are desperate to document the things we see, desperate to scratch them with a stick onto the sands of time. What I’ve been seeing seems too big for my eyes, and I tussle back and forth in my mind, trying to find words to put it down. The nomad ahead of us seems to have the same problem with his camels. He tugs and tugs, begging his camels to take the few remaining steps to the water pump. The nomad and his camels have walked all the way from Somalia. They are here to have a drink of water before they take the long walk back. But a few metres from the water pump, the camels decide that they have had it. Enough is enough. Ahmed looks out into the distance, his eyes a chasm through which bits of the past slink. This airfield holds a lot of heavy memories for him. It was once a refugee camp. When he first fled Somalia, the young Ahmed was received here. Now, nineteen years later, he is back, a successful filmmaker eager to see what he can do to help the refugees. Beyond, a group of refugees emerge from the horizon. The little ones are perched on donkeys, the older ones urge the donkeys on. Most are barefoot. The skin over their soles has burst and sand nestles in those crevices, burning, edging closer and closer to their bones. There is no energy to do things abruptly; even drawing to a stop requires deliberate effort. We offer them water, biscuits, some milk for the little ones. They continue to stare at us with their piercing eyes. I wonder, is there a problem? Why won’t they eat or drink? Have they no idea how to open the packaging, or have they simply no energy to do so? We reach over to do it for them, even lift the bottles to the little ones’ lips. A little girl closes her eyes when the drops touch her tongue, screams when I remove the bottle from her lips. Another little girl laughs. She is so happy to see us. The oldest woman in the group holds onto a shrub for support. She can’t stand on her feet anymore. She arches downwards, slowly, slowly. When she sits, she doesn’t seem to feel the thorny twigs digging into her flesh. We ask how old she is. She doesn’t know. What she knows is that they have walked for 22 days. What she knows is that the woman next to her left Somalia with six children. She abandoned two children of them on the road to Kenya; they were weak and she was weak. They were about to die and she couldn’t carry them anymore. Two more children died. She now remains with just two of them. She struggles with the water cork. Abdisalam opens it for her. The little bottle shakes in her hand. “For 22 days we avoided walking on the main roads,” the old woman says. “Today we were desperate. We thought we were all going to die. We walked on the main road and prayed that we would meet someone to give us water.” The sound of car tyres crashing sand grabs our attention. A white SUV zooms towards us. It belongs to an NGO. It slows down. There is surprise in their eyes at the sight of us with the refugees. They are thinking, are these people actually talking to them? The driver hoots in greeting. The passenger waves a hello. They rev up the engine, hoot again and disappear inside a cloud of dust. A truckful of soldiers slows down. The soldiers raise their guns in greeting. They belong to the Transitional Federal Government Forces. They also rev up, disappear into the interior of Kenya. Another truck of Kenyan soldiers greets us and rushes towards the border with Somalia. “Don’t they see these dying people? Why won’t any of them stop?” Matt asks. Deeq always plays the devil’s advocate. He says, “Well, the soldiers are also hungry.” One of the girls stares unflinchingly at me. I look away. When I look back, she’s still staring. Her eyes grip mine like a vice; her gaze jerks me against the donkey cart. I pry my eyes away, look down at the sand. She won’t make it. She is too weak and Dadaab is too far. “Can’t we give her a ride there?” I ask Daud. He shakes his head. “That is smuggling. It is illegal in Kenya.” “But she’ll die!” “Why do all the NGOs focus on Dadaab only?” Deeq asks. “Most people die on the stretch between Somalia and Kenya, before they reach Dadaab. We need to save these people here!” He places his hand over his eyes, looks towards Somalia. “We need to get there,” he says. “There are more of them in Dhobley; we need to reach them.” http://aduunyo.com/2011/07/gser-update-3-on-our-way-to-somalia/

Liboi town: 8.30 am, Monday 18th July 2011. The waiting is so intense, it’s as if we are waiting to start waiting. We sit in the car at Arif Centre, by a structure that reads: Peponi Hotel- For Quick Snacks. A bus is docked a few metres away and veiled women, in single file, climb into it. Mashaallah, the front of the bus reads. A pick-up truck speeds down the road. It has the same sign on it. Mashaallah. An SUV parked across the street reads the same. The people in this town may be poor but everyone has old money stocked up in spiritual currency; they are always hurling God’s blessings at you. Directly across from Peponi Hotel- For Quick Snacks is Tamaz Communications. The Safaricom logo on it looks almost doodled in place, as though painted there as a school project by the little children we saw playing in the fields yesterday. Today, the little children are gone. I only hope they are in the classrooms at the nearby Liboi Primary School. Yesterday, dozens and dozens of them pushed and shoved each other, huddling over our cameras. One woman yielded a long gnarled stick over their heads, herding them off the cameras. “How dare you interrupt important business?” she demanded, slapping the ground with the stick, threatening them with dire consequences should they not leave us alone. Most of the children cowered and ran off. One little boy did not. He staggered on his feet, launched himself at the woman and tore away at her arms with his little hands. His eyes were sunken inside their sockets. They were tiny eyes, jaded by tales I did not know, tales I would never hear. Those little boy’s eyes weren’t just fearless; they were piercing, terrifying. I wondered what would make a nine year old so vicious he would try to beat up an old woman in the street. Deeq stood between the little boy and the woman, turned him away, gently shoved him towards the other children. The children followed us all the way to the field of death. Right then when we stood on it, we didn’t know it was a real graveyard; we thought it was only a place where cows went to surrender their spirits to the cow gods. The field was littered with cows lying in repose on the sand, their flesh long gone. Their rubbery skin, the only thing the marabou storks couldn’t eat, stretched gaunt over the ripples of their spinal discs. The children hijacked Deeq, tossed a soccer ball at him. I wondered what about this renegade soccer player sold him out to the children. He once played for both the Dutch and the Somali soccer teams. Deeq dribbled the ball, wove through the children. They laughed and chased him, laughed and chased. A woman interrupted their squeals of delight. She thought Matt was a doctor. She stood inside the fence of her house, a fence made of thorns and twigs. The sun cast a poignant shadow over her face, and the thorns appeared to be pricking her skin, to be tearing it apart, shredding it. “Please come,” she begged. “They cut off my sister’s breast.” Her sister sat outside their twig house, on a traditional mat. Her chest was half bare, revealing a dark crust that looked like someone had melted several plastic bags on her skin. At her feet was a pair of paper scissors. As she talked to us, she squeezed her fingers beneath the dark crust and cleaned out what remained of her breast. She told us that back in Somalia, she had had a tumour. Everyone advised her to visit a traditional doctor. The traditional doctor cut off her breast and told her to go home. She walked to Kenya to seek treatment but has never been to see a doctor. The dark crust on her chest haunted us. We argued amongst ourselves about what it could be. Was it a tumour? Was it a home-made bandage? Later, Daud explained that it was a concoction of ginger and other home remedies, to stop the tumour from spreading. At breakfast today morning, over very sweet chai and dry bread, Abdisalim told us that he had dreamt of the dark crust on the woman’s chest. None of us said anything. Evidently, we were still haunted by thoughts of that woman, of the mental images of her dark crust. We saw these images even when were not looking, saw them even in the privacy of our thoughts. Liboi is awaking. The driver is here. Today, we hope to drive out all the way to Somalia. Let’s see how much waiting still awaits us. MORE TO COME… http://aduunyo.com/2011/07/gser-trip-monday-830am/

Dadaab Town. Sunday 17th July 2011. 2.30 pm All five of us sit in the shade of a tree. I stare at a sign that says ‘Silence’, right above Matt’s head. I wonder, does it mean we should eat in silence? Is it a reminder to talk less and swallow more food for thought? The team is down in the dumps. We have been delayed at the DC’s office for hours. Abdisalim’s face scrunches into deep furrows. He squints as a gust of warm wind hits his face. “This is our winter,” the DC had said earlier on. As I watch Abdisalim’s face, I am thankful that we came here in ‘winter’, then, when the wind was only warm instead of furnace-hot. Abdisalim takes out his notebook. He begins to write scraps of an intro script for the documentary we shall be doing. “Why don’t things ever go according to plan,” he grumbles, stabbing the paper with his pen. “It’s always this or that.” He is referring to the massive delays we have been facing along the way. We seem to be always waiting for something. Right now, we are waiting for the food to be brought. Before then, we were waiting for the mechanic to fix the car, and before then, we were waiting for the DC to organise security for us (from Dadaab town onwards we have to be accompanied by soldiers). It’s a quick meal; camel meat with rice. We have to be on our way; we can’t waste the entire day. We go back to the DC’s office. To our dismay, more waiting awaits us. This time, we have to wait for the soldiers to join us. News comes that the soldiers are missing. More waiting. We are waiting for two things; the car and the soldiers. We discuss the possibilities of hiring a new car. Ahmed makes a few calls. His face falls. “Can you believe this? They won’t hire their cars to us because the NGOs will pay tens of thousands of shillings per day for them. This is crazy. People are dying, and others are living off the fact that people dying!” “Suffering is a commodity, Ahmed,” Abdisalim says. He is right. Here, the suffering industry is booming. The prices of things have gone up by 200%. Everyone here is some sort of warlord over their own little empire of scraps broken off of the Somalia conflict. The SUV owners will rent you their SUVs only if you pay them 20,000ksh per day like the NGOs pay them, instead of the 8,000 ksh they would ordinarily charge. The police, the soldiers, the UNHCR officers, the hoteliers, they all demand their chunk of the suffering pie. Don’t forget that there is always someone that gives the orders, someone that demands an even bigger chunk of the suffering pie. Like, right now, Ahmed is in talks with a bunch of fat cats. They want their whiskers drowned in a bowl of milk before they can let us go through. These fat cats are from a bunch of local NGOs. They are the middlemen that stand between the journalists and other visitors, and the refugees. They are the top crust of the suffering industry. And they are not pleased that we are here. Our presence here means that we may expose them. It means that we may see beyond their smokescreens. We are not here as journalists per se; we do not have the limitations that journalists have. This means that we may get to see the real Dadaab, not the staged and acted one. Not the Dadaab showed to you with a timer to your face, to remind you that you have to leave before the stage props crumble. The fat cats are also worried that we may be a new NGO. The fat cats are not fond of sharing; they are terrified of it. Thankfully, Abdisalim has identification on him. Whatever that identification reveals about Abdisalim, the fat cats wither upon seeing it. They tumble off their pedestals, apologise and let us through. Next stop: Liboi. http://aduunyo.com/2011/07/update-global-somali-emergency-response-sunday/

Thanks for the link CL