What is wrong with what the two guys are wearing! Eeerm, they might have provoked a well connected local gang...stealing their show may be.

Che -Guevara;974791 wrote: Sheekadu dry humping haday gaadhey, it might be above my pay grade. That is classic ya Che :-)

Good stuff, Thanks again Saxib for the resourceful insight. I have high hopes for the educated youth of that region, without exaggeration they hit the highest points in-terms of education and professionalism comparing to other Nomad regions. It is tough to convince Nomads move away in investing speculative sectors, where there is no government guaranteed long-term infrastructure projects. How is the electricity prices per kwh in Garissa? I hope it is not anywhere close to the outrageous prices they charge in Somalia.

nuune;974553 wrote: ^^ Most of them end up working for UN agencies in Nairobi and Dadaab, as this is the most lucrative job in that part of the world, there is no future for them in going back the counties they grew up, waa sad situation and hopeless. Very sad indeed, what a wasted talent. I can see the potential of these kids and their desire to make counties a better place to live, if they choose to come back after graduation.

Horta dadku qaar maxay troll iyo aflagaadada ka helaan? Mise meel bugtoo balbaleysay ku baxnaanshaan.

It is typical "Plato's cave" scenario skillfully excuted. I like this version from the British Museum : http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/knowledge/story/sto_set.html Imagine a group of people sitting in the gloom of a cave. They are prisoners, bound by their hands and feet, unable to move freely. All they can do is sit in a line and look straight ahead at the wall of the cave. Now imagine that you are one of those shackled prisoners. However, you do not know you are a prisoner because you were born in the cave and it is the only life you have ever known. Because of the darkness of the cave, you cannot even see the other prisoners - although you know they are there, because you can talk to each other. Every day on the cave wall in front of you, you see shapes pass back and forth. You and your fellow prisoners recognise these different shapes and give them names such as 'cat' or 'tree' or 'girl'. Amongst yourselves, you see who can be the best at telling which image will come along next. You are satisfied with your life because you cannot imagine anything different. But unknown to you, your life in the cave is not a full picture of the truth. If we look behind you and your fellow prisoners, we can see that a walled roadway passes through the cave. People carry life-sized cut-outs of objects such as 'cats', 'trees' or 'girls' along this path. If we pull back further still, we can see a fire burning away fiercely. This fire creates shadows of the life-sized cut-outs that are carried across in front of it. It is these shadows that you and the other prisoners are watching on the cave wall. What you think is true, is actually only a flat, shadowy copy of reality. Now, imagine you are suddenly freed from your chains. You stand up and turn around for the first time... You cannot understand what you are seeing! A bright light that dazzles you! Clear objects and people that before you had only seen in gloomy shadows! Confused, you walk past the fire and the walled roadway, and towards another light - and you find yourself outside in fresh air and daylight. The darkness of the cave has been left behind and for the first time in this new, outside world, you see colours and shapes. How terrible to have only seen shadows before! Now your eyes have adjusted to the light, you look up and see the sun shining brightly in the sky. You begin to think - if the fire in the cave was responsible for creating those shadows on the wall, then it must be the sun that brings this better world to life. Realising that you have been living a lie and have only been watching a shadow-play, you rush back to the other prisoners to tell them the truth. But they laugh at you and do not believe what you say! How can they? They have never seen anything but the inside of the cave and the shadows projected on the wall. "...So you see my young student, we must strive hard to look beyond what seems obvious at first. Knowledge and truth comes only with effort - like having to clamber out of a rocky cave, perhaps to be dazzled by the light. There are greater truths and ideas still to be found...and once you find this 'outside world,' you will never want to go back to live the lie of life imprisoned in the shadows..."

Warheedhe dadkan SOL wax ku qora maxaa si ka'ah? Laba Somali ah oo maangaabnimo darteed ayagu heshiin waayey, hadana Adis loogu kala dabqaadayo maxaa guuloo ku jirta. War dadaw bal caqliga kashaqeysiiya oo kuwa Bari, Waqooyi, Bartamaha, iyo Koonfur jooga waa dad walaalo, xidid iyo ehel ahe shaydaanka iska naara. Qolyahan qurbaha jooga ee Netka kuwareeray har iyo habeen bal cudurka qabyaalada halaga gubo, hana loo duceeyo inuu Allah caafiyo.

Guys, no half full glass here. It is not even one tenth full and this report needs fully re-written. My information is that, PCCI is a quasi-governmental body and its chairman one of the highest paid positions in that region. So no excuses for this school boy cut and paste report.

Thanks Haatu, I enjoyed watching the doc, huge educated youth potential. I wonder if the top university graduates from NFD ever come back to their counties and share the benefit with their communities not as politicians running for parliament but civil servants and entrepreneurs.

Well done guys, it is better trying in Mogadishu than moaning in London.

Alpha Blondy;974123 wrote: the arts should be accessible to all not just a few expats, NGO workers and elite Qurbo-joogians. Somaliland literature has for far too long been championed by Qurbo-Joogian apologists, whose chronic paternalism has not only completely alienated readers but neutered and emasculated Somaliland based authors. HIBF works with a patronising ‘internationalist’ foggy tokenism, promoting international authors or Qurbo-Joogian authors, whose musings and civilising mission undertones lack context or indeed relevance to the realities on the ground, to the detriment of Somaliland based authors. conscious cultural critics like myself value grass-roots, organically inspired cultural products, products grounded in real life experiences and not some pre-judged culturally distant stereotype informed by the overarching Qurbo-Joogian romanticist mindset. this mindset not only hijacks Somaliland cultural and literary products for its own ends but more significantly constructs a condescending, cultural straight jacket and stereotypical concoctions to self-aggrandising audiences. this dominant milieu or the prevailing Qurbo-Joogian romanticist mindset is the dominant ideology that inhibits Somaliland-based literature from the mainstream, at least here in the nation's capital. what i'm proposing here, in my capacity as a conscious cultural critic, is a 'back to basics' approach, bringing alternative and seldom documented experiences into the cultural mainstream; with the intention of shining a light with the aim of uncovering, and authentically documenting, hard to reach cultures and sub-cultures that exist in the Somali-speaking world and in particular Somaliland. these voices should be organically sourced from their own communities (instead of being white, English speaking, off a Qurbo-Joogian romanticist mindset), given the tools and the encouragement to write books based on their experiences and values rather than having a romanticist Qurbo-Joogian ethno-centric culturally biased world-view forced upon them. the most important point is to realise that this romanticist Qurbo-Joogian ethno-centric culturally abusive milieu is the number one impediment to Somaliland authors and readers alike. This sounds even better than the The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx - I'm with you in the struggle comrade Alpha:-)

Nuune, my suggestion is simple, put the right person on the right job, install institutions with checks and balances and outsource things that they have no capacity to manage. I wonder if anyone with basic investment report writing bothered to read/review the report before publishing. USAID don’t give a dead rat about the quality of this report, so it should be the job of the ministry of commerce and other institutions concerned to take the lead.

Saxib, I would love to be positive but this report doesn’t have any substance other than cut and paste of unreliable data from NGOs and few poorly chosen photos. The institutions should perform like proper institutions not like the one drafted this report. For God’s sake, the title of the report is Puntland Investment Guide and knowing the importance of Investment it shouldn’t come to this mediocrity.

It is poorly drafted piece by the incompetent PCCI. They should have hired an investment expert to do the trick for them. 79% of the fishing boats in Bosaso are Non-operational! - This figure only can scare any potential investor. What is the point of putting personal email ‘saidciid@gmail.com’ in the report next to his formal email ‘chairman@puntlandchamber.com’ - someone should have mentioned mail forwarding option! Can’t they find a better picture than this one! - Came on, Common sense please!

For the sake of not abusing the intelligence of the fast majority of SOL community - both active and readers - and keep this forum beacon of health discussions. Someone, somewhere at the forum’s (admin) moderators should do something concrete about the continuous downslope of this forum. The political section of SOL has not only become teenage (qabyaalad barad) bragging but obnoxious and tool for inciting hatred against whole regions and sections of the society. It is Ramadan and hence will not be very critical but to give individuals like - Dr_Osman‎, GAROODI and few others – a free passage to start their endless sinister topics is disgrace to the majority of SOLers who I’m sure are equally disgusted and agree something needs to be done. If the moderates are powerless to do something then, there should be ‘abusive button’ where readers report and refer posts/topics to the admin, if this hit certain number - open appropriate procedures. SAVE SOL FROM THE DOWNSLOPE!!!

my secod favourite AUN Sheekh Mohamud Khalil Alhusari - the undisputed Sheekh of any Somali who learnt Tajweed before the Nineties: أصوات من السماء الشيخ الحصري

I like the old school recitation - One of the best documentery ever made about the old school Qurra, Aljazeera's 'Voice from the Heavens' series أصوات من السماء Here is AUN Sheekh Abdulbasit Abdulsamat halaqa:

It seems this pattern of signing mercenaries is the only continuity successive Somali politicians cannot fail to miss. Instead of starting the hardwork of rebuilding capable marine force, their incompetence falls for quick fixes. WHO BENEFITS FROM THOSE CONTRACTS? I remember 2005 the time when Yusuf's TFG was not even in control of any coastal areas, they had the creativity to sign a contract with Topcat Marine Security inc - $50m contract has been awarded by Somalia's transitional government. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4471536.stm Number of similar contracts have been signed since by Sharif's TFG, Puntland and Somaliland.

It looks both Arafat talking to late Sheikh Zayed and Hassan Guled to Fahad are still in the final stages of concluding their begging sessions. A lesson to today's rulers that wealth and power are not enough to save them from DEATH.

The few success stories some can see in Somalia today are largely down to the return of these graduates. Imagine how many engineers/accountants/managers are part of the telecommunication sector and in lesser numbers the finance sector. How many doctors and other health professionals running both the main hospitals and private clinics. How many academics are teaching at colleges and are part of the recent explosion in University numbers. Having said that, there are some obstacles in attaining the full benefit of these graduates in Somalia: They are not cheap - the wage demand from these bright gratuates is high and that is why they will either get well paid position $500+ probably in International NGOs or few big Somali companies or emigrate. No chance for either small companies or local governments - they simply can't afford them. They are headhunted from the west - I don't know how to phrase it or even why, but the number of these graduates married to Somali in the West is staggering. -I bet some of you have already had some thoughts when looking at the pics above- :-)

Mad_Mullah;970159 wrote: Somaliland/Puntland or Somalia? Was he working for a Somali company or western/Turkish? One work for UN organisation in country wide role. The other for Somali private company and rotates in their Somaliland-Puntland offices.

To speak about personal experience: I had four students in my family who studied in the above named countries. • Three graduated and one never succeeded to graduate. • Two of the graduates returned back to Somalia and managed to find jobs in their respective areas of study earning well. • The third graduate settled in Europe, after many years of looking never managed to find job or even Postgraduate position with the degree earned in Asia and finally settled for non-skilled labourer position. • The non-graduated one also made to Europe.

d/p

Good start and if there are any faults in the figures it should be corrected in the future reports. Actually I like the promo video of the SHD 2012 report.

Cambuulo iyo bun;966276 wrote: I like the expression made by the guy wearing hat and the brown Futashari right of the picture - Waryaada Gaardiska ciyaarta ka daaya :-) By the way nice pics and big improvement in both cameras and the costumes used.