there is this linguistic theory that suggest that the origin of any language is closest to the area inhibited by the largest group of speakers. Clearly that would put the origin of af-Somali deep in the south of those heavily populated centers in the south...

Looool I wonder if there are somali words that end with land too

how many different Somali "ethnicities" are from Las Anod.... Where is my prize?

Somalia’s mighty shilling Hard to kill A currency issued in the name of a central bank that no longer exists Mar 31st 2012 | from the print edition Currency traders at work USE of a paper currency is normally taken to be an expression of faith in the government that issues it. Once the solvency of the issuer is in doubt, anyone holding its notes will quickly try to trade them in for dollars, jewellery or, failing that, some commodity with enduring value (when the rouble collapsed in 1998 some factory workers in Russia were paid in pickles). The Somali shilling, now entering its second decade with no real government or monetary authority to speak of, is a splendid exception to this rule. Somalia’s long civil war has ripped apart what institutions it once had. In 2011 the country acquired a notional central bank under the remit of the Transitional Federal Government. But the government’s authority does not extend far beyond the capital, Mogadishu. The presence of the Shabab, a murderous fundamentalist militia, in the south and centre of the country, makes it unlikely that Somalia will become whole anytime soon. Meanwhile, 2.3m people are in need of edible aid. Why, then, are Somali shillings, issued in the name of a government that ceased to exist long ago and backed by no reserves of any kind, still in use? One reason may be that the supply of shillings has remained fairly fixed. Rival warlords issued their own shillings for a while and there are a fair number of fakes in circulation. But the lack of an official printing press able to expand the money supply has given the pre-1992 shilling a certain cachet. Even the forgeries do it the honour of declaring they were printed before the central bank collapsed: implausibly crisp red 1,000-shilling notes, with their basket weavers on the front and orderly docks on the back, declare they were printed in the capital in 1990. Abdirashid Duale, boss of Dahabshiil, the largest network of banks in Somalia, says that his staff are trained to distinguish good fakes from the real thing before exchanging them for dollars. Others accept the risk of holding a few fakes as a cost of doing business (shillings are often handed over in thick bundles of 100 notes). By this alchemy, an imitation of a thing which is already of notional value turns out to be worth something. Shelling out shillings A second reason for the shilling’s longevity is that it is too useful to do away with. Large transactions, such as the purchase of a house, a car, or even livestock are dollarised. But Somalis need small change with which to buy tea, sugar, qat (a herbal stimulant) and so on. Many staples are not produced domestically, making barter impractical. The shilling serves as well as shells or beads would as a medium of exchange. It also has a role as a secondary store of value. Once a year the economy gets an injection of dollars when goats are sold to Saudi Arabia to feed pilgrims undertaking the haj. Herders need to find ways to save money received then for spending over the next year. The shilling is one of them. The shilling has a further source of strength. Since each party to a transaction is likely to be able to place the other within Somalia’s system of kinship, the shilling is underpinned by a strong social glue. Paper currencies always need tacit consent from their users that they will exchange bills for actual stuff. But in Somalia this pact is rather stronger: an individual who flouts the system risks jeopardising trust in both himself and his clan. Having survived against great odds, the shilling now faces a serious challenge in the form of dollars transferred by mobile phone. Zaad, a mobile-money service, allows users to pay for goods by texting small amounts of money to a merchant’s account, and is proving popular in Mogadishu. But the shilling’s endurance suggests it should not be counted out. If it can survive without a government, it can probably brush off modern technology, too.

Congrats to the Sayid...ps, 5000 is enough, it just means you had meaningful things to say unlike some new comers who already passed 10000

Whenever anyone brings up anything to do with Somali, the topic of Somali pirates comes up. On the one hand, they have helped the marine life of the East African coast. But on there other, they have dragged the Somali name in the mud. Am sure there is a sensible way of protecting Somali waters without criminality. Hopefully, those coast guards being train now can eliminate both evils.

why is it an epic fail? It hasn't even come out yet. Or do you just have your hater hat on as usual

Azerbaijan denies giving Israel air base access (AFP) – 12 hours ago BAKU — Azerbaijan on Thursday denied allegations made by a US magazine that it had granted Israel access to its air bases which could assist in potential strikes against its neighbour Iran. Citing anonymous senior US diplomats and military intelligence officers, the article published in Foreign Policy magazine on Wednesday suggested that cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel was "heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran". The article suggested that access to Azerbaijani airfields near the Iranian border could give Israeli fighter planes logistical advantages in carrying out sorties against nuclear facilities in Iran, which the Jewish state suspects of developing atomic weapons. But the Azerbaijani defence ministry said the claims were untrue. "This information is absurd and groundless," defence ministry spokesman Teymur Abdullayev told AFP. A senior official at Azerbaijan's presidential administration said such speculation was "aimed at damaging relations between Azerbaijan and Iran". "We have stated on numerous occasions and we reiterate that there will be no actions against Iran... from the territory of Azerbaijan," presidential official Ali Hasanov told journalists in Baku. Relations between Baku and Tehran have become increasingly strained in recent months with Iran unhappy about Azerbaijan's friendly links with Israel and its reported purchase of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of weapons from the Jewish state. Tehran last month accused Azerbaijan of working with Israel's spy services and helping assassins who murdered Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years -- a claim rejected by Baku as "slander". Tensions have also flared over a series of recent arrests in Azerbaijan of suspected attack plotters with alleged links to Tehran. Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

this is truly amazing, the future is near.

you can't finish an idea of as much as i wish we could, you can only contain it

You are aware that Persia was one of the longest empires, had many different dynasties and use to rule parts of greece and what is Israel today? Timur, before you accuse others of not something, please make sure you yourself know enough besides a glance at Wikipedia.

For the sake of peace, lets hope this is the case and that all they want is reintegration to society in exchange for disarmament

for password security, I too can not share this info, maybe when i change them. My paternal ayeeyo on the other hand has the most boss name ever heard: Culimo Boss lol

lol, the sad thing is that used to be a provence of Iran

I am not sure Western nations can get behind any major military adventures in Somalia after black hawk down. It shouldn't be to difficult to to take out few pirate organizations along the coast but things can get unpredictable and china, as a future super power, will have renounce that nonsense about not interfering in other countries.

its ilaali indeed, be safe and do what you have do

A top Chinese general has suggested a new approach to fighting piracy in Somalia. Caution is warranted. Gen. Chen Bingde’s instincts on how to battle piracy are sound. Hopefully his, and his political superiors’, strategic judgment is equally sound. “For counterpiracy campaigns to be effective,” declared the chief of the People’s Liberation Army General Staff, “we should probably move beyond the ocean and crash their bases on the land.” He wants to lop the head off the snake. “It’s important,” argued Chen, “that we target not only the operators, those on the small ships or craft conducting the hijacking activities, but also the figureheads.” And indeed, taking more offensive, more decisive action makes intuitive sense – so much so that in late 2008, as the international community bestirred itself to combat piracy, the United Nations explicitly authorized member states to act against coastal villages from which corsairs stage sea raids. Of late, the international community has remained mum about carrying the fight ashore. Since 2008, periodic U.N. Security Council resolutions renewing the counterpiracy mission’s mandate have made no mention of it. That’s probably because few political or military leaders are enthusiastic about putting boots on the ground in Somalia. It has no constituency within the Security Council. Why should U.N. ambassadors endure the hassle of negotiating potentially controversial language if no one intends to act on it? If Beijing is serious about offensive action, nevertheless, it can probably convince the council to renew the mandate for land operations. There is precedent. Assailing pirate bases appears lawful, but is it wise? There’s the rub. I’ve urged constabulary forces to stay on the strategic defensive in the Gulf of Aden unless the situation worsens dramatically. That hasn’t happened. Statistically speaking, maritime brigandage remains a nuisance relative to the massive volume of shipping through the western Indian Ocean. There were 27 hijackings, 17 boardings, and 122 foiled attacks last year by the Office of Naval Intelligence’s count. Compare that to the roughly 20,000 ships that transit regional sea lanes each year. NATO, the European Union, a U.S.-led task force, and several independent naval contingents patrol these waters in an effort to keep an “internationally recommended transit corridor” clear of pirate vessels. But the Gulf is so big, the adversary so dispersed, and the number of warships so modest that the multinational squadron is spread thin. Consequently, the best way to protect shipping is for ships to defend themselves. To date no merchantman defended by an armed detachment – usually from a private security firm hired by the shipper – has successfully been hijacked. While defensive measures are wearisome, the offensive strategy Chen Bingde prescribes would entail hazards of its own – which is why careful forethought should go into any decision to attack piracy at its source. Strategic theorist Carl von Clausewitz maintains that the value statesmen place on their political aims should govern how many lives and how much treasure a belligerent expends on an enterprise, and for how long. The higher the stakes, the greater the effort. Clausewitzian cost/benefit logic warns against paying a heavy price for meager gains. Piracy is bothersome but poses too small a threat to justify a prolonged, costly entanglement on China’s – or anyone else’s – part. If the stakes are low but Beijing decides to go ashore anyway, its challenge will be to design expeditionary operations that fulfill its goals at low cost and risk. Chen entertains two basic approaches: assaults on bases and targeted strikes at pirate chieftains. To my mind, the latter makes a better fit for a venture driven by modest political objectives. Vice Admiral Mark Fox, commander of the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet, has proposed applying the counterterror model to Somali piracy. That presumably involves everything from gathering actionable intelligence to unraveling pirate finances to taking down key leaders. Admiral Fox sees such an approach as natural given mounting evidence of collusion between the corsairs and al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror group striving to topple the Somali Transitional Federal Government. “Al-Shabab is responsible for a lot of training activity and camps and that sort of thing in Somalia,” notes Fox. “The pirates use these things. There cannot be a segregation between terrorist activity, in my mind, and counterpiracy.” Counterterrorism is one “economy of force” option, but other low-cost, low-risk alternatives are available as well. Last Friday, the European Union took one commonsense step. In the course of renewing Operation Atalanta, the EU naval contingent off the Horn of Africa, EU defense ministers empowered naval commanders cruising along Somali shores to take boats, fuel dumps, and other targets of opportunity under fire. Chen’s ambitious vision of completely eradicating pirate bases is more problematic. Putting a permanent end to this scourge would seemingly require Chinese soldiers or marines to go ashore – and stay there. Coastal raids would do little good. Villages could be cleared readily enough, but would they stay cleared? In all likelihood the brigands, already a dispersed lot, would simply scatter at the approach of foreign troops and return later. History has been unkind to the come-and-go approach. On the other hand, establishing a sustained presence along the coast would start to resemble a counterinsurgency campaign, with all the hardships and perils that mode of warfare entails. That’s not a choice Chinese leaders should relish. One hopes Beijing undertakes some hardnosed Clausewitzian thinking before seizing the offensive against piracy. James Holmes is an associate professor of strategy at the US Naval War College. He traveled to The Hague in 2009 to brief EU Naval Force commanders on counterpiracy strategy. The views voiced here are his alone. http://the-diplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2012/03/28/taking-the-piracy-fight-ashore/ For inquiries, please contact The Diplomat at info@the-diplomat.com

the rest http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/28/israel_s_secret_staging_ground

Israel’s Secret Staging Ground U.S. officials believe that the Israelis have gained access to airbases in Azerbaijan. Does this bring them one step closer to a war with Iran? BY MARK PERRY | MARCH 28, 2012 In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department's headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled "Azerbaijan's discreet symbiosis with Israel." The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country's relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: "nine-tenths of it is below the surface." Why does it matter? Because Azerbaijan is strategically located on Iran's northern border and, according to several high-level sources I've spoken with inside the U.S. government, Obama administration officials now believe that the "submerged" aspect of the Israeli-Azerbaijani alliance -- the security cooperation between the two countries -- is heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran. In particular, four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers say that the United States has concluded that Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran's northern border. To do what, exactly, is not clear. "The Israelis have bought an airfield," a senior administration official told me in early February, "and the airfield is called Azerbaijan." Senior U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Israel's military expansion into Azerbaijan complicates U.S. efforts to dampen Israeli-Iranian tensions, according to the sources. Military planners, I was told, must now plan not only for a war scenario that includes the Persian Gulf -- but one that could include the Caucasus. The burgeoning Israel-Azerbaijan relationship has also become a flashpoint in both countries' relationship with Turkey, a regional heavyweight that fears the economic and political fallout of a war with Iran. Turkey's most senior government officials have raised their concerns with their U.S. counterparts, as well as with the Azeris, the sources said. The Israeli embassy in Washington, the Israel Defense Forces, and the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, were all contacted for comment on this story but did not respond. The Azeri embassy to the United States also did not respond to requests for information regarding Azerbaijan's security agreements with Israel. During a recent visit to Tehran, however, Azerbaijan's defense minister publicly ruled out the use of Azerbaijan for a strike on Iran. "The Republic of Azerbaijan, like always in the past, will never permit any country to take advantage of its land, or air, against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which we consider our brother and friend country," he said. But even if his government makes good on that promise, it could still provide Israel with essential support. A U.S. military intelligence officer noted that Azeri defense minister did not explicitly bar Israeli bombers from landing in the country after a strike. Nor did he rule out the basing of Israeli search-and-rescue units in the country. Proffering such landing rights -- and mounting search and rescue operations closer to Iran -- would make an Israeli attack on Iran easier. "We're watching what Iran does closely," one of the U.S. sources, an intelligence officer engaged in assessing the ramifications of a prospective Israeli attack confirmed. "But we're now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we're not happy about it." Israel's deepening relationship with the Baku government was cemented in February by a $1.6 billion arms agreement that provides Azerbaijan with sophisticated drones and missile-defense systems. At the same time, Baku's ties with Tehran have frayed: Iran presented a note to Azerbaijan's ambassador last month claiming that Baku has supported Israeli-trained assassination squads targeting Iranian scientists, an accusation the Azeri government called "a slander." In February, a member of Yeni Azerbadzhan -- the ruling party -- called on the government to change the country's name to "North Azerbaijan," implicitly suggesting that the 16 million Azeris who live in northern Iran ("South Azerbaijan") are in need of liberation. And this month, Baku announced that 22 people had been arrested for spying on behalf of Iran, charging they had been tasked by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to "commit terrorist acts against the U.S., Israeli, and other Western states' embassies." The allegations prompted multiple angry denials from the Iranian government. It's clear why the Israelis prize their ties to Azerbaijan -- and why the Iranians are infuriated by them. The Azeri military has four abandoned, Soviet-era airfields that would potentially be available to the Israelis, as well as four airbases for their own aircraft, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Military Balance 2011. The U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials told me they believe that Israel has gained access to these airbases through a series of quiet political and military understandings. "I doubt that there's actually anything in writing," added a senior retired American diplomat who spent his career in the region. "But I don't think there's any doubt -- if Israeli jets want to land in Azerbaijan after an attack, they'd probably be allowed to do so. Israel is deeply embedded in Azerbaijan, and has been for the last two decades." The prospect of Israel using Azerbaijan's airfields for an Iranian attack first became public in December 2006, when retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Oded Tira angrily denounced the George W. Bush administration's lack of action on the Iranian nuclear program. "For our part," he wrote in a widely cited commentary, "we should also coordinate with Azerbaijan the use of airbases in its territory and also enlist the support of the Azeri minority in Iran." The "coordination" that Tira spoke of is now a reality, the U.S. sources told me. Access to such airfields is important for Israel, because it would mean that Israeli F-15I and F-16I fighter-bombers would not have to refuel midflight during a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but could simply continue north and land in Azerbaijan. Defense analyst David Isenberg describes the ability to use Azeri airfields as "a significant asset" to any Israel strike, calculating that the 2,200-mile trip from Israel to Iran and back again would stretch Israel's warplanes to their limits. "Even if they added extra fuel tanks, they'd be running on fumes," Isenberg told me, "so being allowed access to Azeri airfields would be crucial." Former CENTCOM commander Gen. Joe Hoar simplified Israel's calculations: "They save themselves 800 miles of fuel," he told me in a recent telephone interview. "That doesn't guarantee that Israel will attack Iran, but it certainly makes it more doable." Using airbases in Azerbaijan would ensure that Israel would not have to rely on its modest fleet of air refuelers or on its refueling expertise, which a senior U.S. military intelligence officer described as "pretty minimal." Military planners have monitored Israeli refueling exercises, he added, and are not impressed. "They're just not very good at it." Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, who conducted a study for a think tank affiliated with the Swedish Ministry of Defense of likely Israeli attack scenarios in March 2010, said that Israel is capable of using its fleet of F-15I and F-16I warplanes in a strike on Iran without refueling after the initial top-off over Israel. "It's not weight that's a problem," he said, "but the numbers of weapons that are mounted on each aircraft." Put simply, the more distance a fighter-bomber is required to travel, the more fuel it will need and the fewer weapons it can carry. Shortening the distance adds firepower, and enhances the chances for a successful strike. "The problem is the F-15s," Gardiner said, "who would go in as fighters to protect the F-16 bombers and stay over the target." In the likely event that Iran scrambled its fighters to intercept the Israeli jets, he continued, the F-15s would be used to engage them. "Those F-15s would burn up fuel over the target, and would need to land." Could they land in Azerbaijan? "Well, it would have to be low profile, because of political sensitivities, so that means it would have to be outside of Baku and it would have to be highly developed." Azerbaijan has such a place: the Sitalcay airstrip, which is located just over 40 miles northwest of Baku and 340 miles from the Iranian border. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Sitalcay's two tarmacs and the adjacent facilities were used by a squadron of Soviet Sukhoi SU-25 jets -- perfect for Israeli fighters and bombers. "Well then," Gardiner said, after the site was described to him, "that would be the place."

Beentu cadi bey noqatay Meeshan

Taas wax ka dadici aya loo bahan yahay

Oddly enough it's you two who are making such claims, the funny thing is your own evidence aya ku qarxisay. You bring anaga iska leh bs with pictures of other people. Isku xeeshoda walayaal, Internet forums dhul laguma yeesho, if that was the case, all the arguments in you have killed endless amount of time would suffice...

Since this is in the political section, let me say that the girl in the pic u posted is a maakhiri looooooool, seriously

Waa ruunta Lakin dinacayga dadku relaxed bey noqdan summerku marku soo dowaado lol, carry on though, ana mid ban so qoraya: mujahidka sharifika hogamiyaha sheekha qaranka Jamhuuriyada dimuqardiga Soomaaliya lol

Warya oba, I don't have an issue with shariif, why are people so so defensive lately? The only thing I was trying to say was that the use of qaranka was superfluous. Just say president rather than the national president. Nevermind I guess.