No need to wear a ring. This is dhaqan we never had. Why must we follow alien culture? Wearing white dress, throwing the flower bouquet behind you, and wearing a ring and even going to honeymoon..I personally boycotted them all.

Wacdaro!

Five lesbian 'wives' flee Sharia A Nigerian lesbian who "married" four women last weekend in Kano State has gone into hiding from the Islamic police, with her partners. Under Sharia law, adopted in the state seven years ago, homosexuality and same-sex marriages are outlawed and considered very serious offences. The theatre where the elaborate wedding celebration was held on Sunday has been demolished by Kano city's authorities. Lesbianism is also illegal under Nigeria's national penal code. Nigeria's parliament is considering tightening its laws on homosexuality. 'Unhealthy' Kano's Hisbah board, which uses volunteers to enforce Islamic law, told the BBC that the women's marriage was "unacceptable". As defenders of the Sharia laws, we shall not allow this unhealthy development to take root in the state Malam Rabo Abdulkarim Hisbah board The BBC's Bala Ibrahim in Kano says Aunty Maiduguri and her four "wives" are thought to have gone into hiding the day after they married. All five women were born Muslims, otherwise they would not be covered by Sharia law. Islam says a man can take up to four wives if he is able to support them. "As defenders of the Sharia laws, we shall not allow this unhealthy development to take root in the state," the Hisbah's Malam Rabo Abdulkarim told Nigeria's This Day newspaper. Our correspondent says the theatre where the colourful wedding ceremony was held was flattened earlier this week. Several reasons were given for the demolition, including the discovery that it was built on wrongly allocated land. A Kano police spokesman told the BBC that his officers were not actively looking for the women, but would arrest them if need be. The Hisbah group, which is run seperately from the police, receives state government support. Two years ago, a Sharia court sentenced a man to six months in prison and fined him $38 for living as a woman for seven years in Kano. Eleven other states in mostly Muslim northern Nigeria have adopted Sharia law. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/6599437.stm Published: 2007/04/27 12:51:11 GMT © BBC MMVII

It certainly is paying off. I was heartened to see the fruits of our labour May Long it continue.

loooooool@haah Waar miyaad gubatey? Shaahi miyaa kugu daatey?

Where are the hairy feminists? I was expecting a good hiding Maybe we are all raalliyo or future raalliyo.

I shook more than my fist..I can assure you my masculine friend lool Have you ever made a joke, only you got it and fiqda kaa dhamaatey? I do this all the time.

lool I am thinking of changing my name as it has certain conotation that I dont like to convey.. Can you imagine being called Mz Double D as Mr Centurian called me the other day! I am still fuming!

^^ Your name is terribly masculine. Trying to tell us something?

Subhaannallah. This reminded me of when I was in college and were waiting for the lecturer in the class. Before he came, one of my classmate rolled a joint and passed it around the table. Alhamdulilaah I didnt touch it as it smelt. It was easily availabale and it is possible how one can get addicted. I have even noticed how some muslims hated the alcohol but were more accepting drugs. May Allah save us.

I only found out you were ibti yesterday...Maxaad isku key qarisey gabareey?

Nimanyahow xishooda and leave the lady alone. La gurtanka iyo ganbar isku qaadashada ma fiicna.

^ Xawaaldaha shop sell everything from Diana, to Sisin to Photocopying to Sofas and Italian bedrooms.

This shows that some of SOLERS who are dead against the bloke were quite happy to have a president and the potential was there to turn round the fortunes of Somalia. This shows that the opposition of A/Y isnt qabyaalad but for his incompetence and his knack for mass murder.

Back home, we never had worries like this! There is new rule added to the ever-growing book every day.

Relationships nowadays are complex and difficult. The following article--Taken from 13 May 1955 Good Housekeeping--Explains where we are going wrong and how life has changed. The Good Wife's Guide: 1. Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favourite dish) is part of a warm welcome needed. 2. Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so that you'll be refreshed when he arrives. touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. 3. Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him (fishnet stockings come to mind) His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it. 4. Clear away clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before the husband arrives. 5. Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper etc; and then run a dust cloth over the tables. 6. Over the cooler months of the year, you should prepare a light fire for him to unwind by. After all catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction. 7. Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash their hand and faces. Comb their hair. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing their part. At his time of arrival, eliminate noise. 8. Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk to you first. Remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours. 9. Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late. 10. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair. Have a warm drink ready for him. 11. Arrange his pillow and offer to take of his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice. 12. Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment. Remember he is the man of the house. You have no right to question him. 13. A good wife always knows her place. Good God! What a shock! Man, those were the days After discovering this article, it instantly reminded me of Mary Hopkin's Song, "Those Were The Days" (1968). The following are partial lyrics from here song, which I found to be appropriate for this article: Those were the days my friend We thought they'd never end We'd sing and dance forever and a day We'd live the life we choose We'd fight and never lose For we were young and sure to have our way. Those were the days, oh yes those were the days Ok ladies. No hard feelings, right? Now lemme find the Men's list!

Somali Foreign Minister Ismail Mohamoud Hurre said the deaths and violence were a price worth paying to return normality to the country, which has not had a functioning national government for 16 years. "The Ethiopian forces are doing very well, stopping the Jihadist elements from causing instability," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme. "We have to bite the bullet." What a doqon!

Wouldnt it have been less messy if she was to castrate him? Joking aside, I think these ladies have overracted. Leave him, if you dont accept the second marriage. No need inaad dambi gasho and committ murder. When will these women realise that having a co-wife is a blessing and not a burden? It is double his responsibility and halve yours. Win and win situation.

I mostly had problem with Charlie Wolf who used to comes on late at night. He went too far with his pro war and pro Israel views for me. I sometimes dislike James Whale, but e could be funny too. The Whale double act with his engineer is hilarious. I dont have any time for his politics - but the rants can be very entertaining. He just hates all religions despite being friendly with some imams who come on his show. I dont listen talkrport nowadays cos of the bloody adverts. Most of their presenters are those I should dismiss as populist reactionaries. I made my mind up about TalkSport quite some time ago.....i enjoy the football coverage debates etc but give it a very wide berth when it comes to political 'debates'. These 'debates', normally in the morning or late evening appear to consist of telephone callers with views slightly to the right of the BNP agreeing with each other about subjects they have thought very little about...veils, asylum seekers, crime etc. The general consensus of these people tends to be "chuck em out"............******.

Salaam Thank you. I think Oxford is one tiny town and the ignorant people in that gym dont represent the British people in general. In reality, the British people i meet on a daily basis are far from ignorant and have 'live and let live' attitude. But when you read papers, listen to radio shows such as Talksport, you get to hear different point of views (normally right-wing attitude) to muslims in general. It is as if it is the new 'in' thing to make deregotory remarks about muslim woman and her dress. When I see a niqabi sister, I watch out for others' reaction. No one bats an eyelid. But from the papers, youd think these people have nothing better to do than comment on muslim woman's clothes.

Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America This systematic censorship of Middle East reality continues even in schools Published: 07 April 2007 Laila al-Arian was wearing her headscarf at her desk at Nation Books, one of my New York publishers. No, she told me, it would be difficult to telephone her father. At the medical facility of his North Carolina prison, he can only make a few calls - monitored, of course - and he was growing steadily weaker. Sami al-Arian is 49 but he stayed on hunger strike for 60 days to protest the government outrage committed against him, a burlesque of justice which has, of course, largely failed to rouse the sleeping dogs of American journalism in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. All praise, then, to the journalist John Sugg from Tampa, Florida, who has been cataloguing al-Arian's little Golgotha for months, along with Alexander Cockburn of Counter Punch. The story so far: Sami al-Arian, a Kuwaiti-born Palestinian, was a respected computer professor at the University of South Florida who tried, however vainly, to communicate the real tragedy of Palestinian Arabs to the US government. But according to Sugg, Israel's lobbyists were enraged by his lessons - al-Arian's family was driven from Palestine in 1948 - and in 2003, at the instigation of Attorney General Ashcroft, he was arrested and charged with conspiring "to murder and maim" outside the United States and with raising money for Islamic Jihad in "Palestine". He was held for two and a half years in solitary confinement, hobbling half a mile, his hands and feet shackled, merely to talk to his lawyers. Al-Arian's $50m (£25m) Tampa trial lasted six months; the government called 80 witnesses (21 from Israel) and used 400 intercepted phone calls along with evidence of a conversation that a co-defendant had with al-Arian in - wait for it - a dream. The local judge, a certain James Moody, vetoed any remarks about Israeli military occupation or about UN Security Council Resolution 242, on the grounds that they would endanger the impartiality of the jurors. In December, 2005, al-Arian was acquitted on the most serious charges and on those remaining; the jurors voted 10 to two for acquittal. Because the FBI wanted to make further charges, al-Arian's lawyers told him to make a plea that would end any further prosecution. Arriving for his sentence, however, al-Arian - who assumed time served would be his punishment, followed by deportation - found Moody talking about "blood" on the defendant's hands and ensured he would have to spend another 11 months in jail. Then prosecutor Gordon Kromberg insisted that the Palestinian prisoner should testify against an Islamic think tank. Al-Arian believed his plea bargain had been dishonoured and refused to testify. He was held in contempt. And continues to languish in prison. Not so, of course, most of America's torturers in Iraq. One of them turns out to rejoice in the name of Ric Fair, a "contract interrogator", who has bared his soul in the Washington Post - all praise, here, by the way to the Post - about his escapades in the Fallujah interrogation "facility" of the 82nd Airborne Division. Fair has been having nightmares about an Iraqi whom he deprived of sleep during questioning "by forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes". Now it is Fair who is deprived of sleep. "A man with no face stares at me ... pleads for help, but I'm afraid to move. He begins to cry. It s a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realise the screams are mine." Thank God, Fair didn't write a play about his experiences and offer it to Channel 4 whose executives got cold feet about The Mark of Cain, the drama about British army abuse in Basra. They quickly bought into the line that transmission of Tony Marchant's play might affect the now happy outcome of the far less riveting Iranian prison production of the Famous 15 "Servicepersons" - by angering the Muslim world with tales of how our boys in Basra beat up on the local Iraqis. As the reporter who first revealed the death of hotel worker Baha Mousa in British custody in Basra - I suppose we must always refer to his demise as "death" now that the soldiers present at his savage beating have been acquitted of murder - I can attest that Arab Muslims know all too well how gentle and refined our boys are during interrogation. It is we, the British at home, who are not supposed to believe in torture. The Iraqis know all about it - and who knew all about Mousa's fate long before I reported it for The Independent on Sunday. Because it's really all about shutting the reality of the Middle East off from us. It's to prevent the British and American people from questioning the immoral and cruel and internationally illegal occupation of Muslim lands. And in the Land of the Free, this systematic censorship of Middle East reality continues even in the country's schools. Now the principal of a Connecticut high school has banned a play by pupils, based on the letters and words of US soldiers serving in Iraq. Entitled Voices in Conflict, Natalie Kropf, Seth Koproski, James Presson and their fellow pupils at Wilton High School compiled the reflections of soldiers and others - including a 19-year-old Wilton High graduate killed in Iraq - to create their own play. To no avail. The drama might hurt those "who had lost loved ones or who had individuals serving as we speak", proclaimed Timothy Canty, Wilton High's principal. And - my favourite line - Canty believed there was not enough rehearsal time to ensure the play would provide "a legitimate instructional experience for our students". And of course, I can quite see Mr Canty's point. Students who have produced Arthur Miller's The Crucible were told by Mr Canty - whose own war experiences, if any, have gone unrecorded - that it wasn't their place to tell audiences what soldiers were thinking. The pupils of Wilton High are now being inundated with offers to perform at other venues. Personally, I think Mr Canty may have a point. He would do much better to encourage his students to perform Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, a drama of massive violence, torture, rape, mutilation and honour killing. It would make Iraq perfectly explicable to the good people of Connecticut. A "legitimate instructional experience" if ever there was one. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2430125.ece

'Second Earth' found, 20 light years away Ian Sample, science correspondent Wednesday April 25, 2007 The Guardian Scientists have discovered a warm and rocky "second Earth" circling a star, a find they believe dramatically boosts the prospects that we are not alone. The planet is the most Earth-like ever spotted and is thought to have perfect conditions for water, an essential ingredient for life. Researchers detected the planet orbiting one of Earth's nearest stars, a cool red dwarf called Gliese 581, 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra. Measurements of the planet's celestial path suggest it is 1½ times the size of our home planet, and orbits close to its sun, with a year of just 13 days. The planet's orbit brings it 14 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun. But Gliese 581 burns at only 3,000C, half the temperature of our own sun, making conditions on the planet comfortable for life, with average ground temperatures estimated at 0 to 40C. Researchers claim the planet is likely to have an atmosphere. The discovery follows a three-year search for habitable planets by the European Southern Observatory at La Silla in Chile. "We wouldn't be surprised if there is life on this planet," said Stephane Udry, an astronomer on the project at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. Two years ago, the same team discovered a giant Neptune-sized planet orbiting Gliese 581. A closer look revealed the latest planetary discovery, along with a third, larger planet that orbits the star every 84 days. The planets have been named after their star, with the most earthlike called Gliese 581c. The team spotted the planet by searching the "habitable zone". http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2064843,00.html If you remained unmoved by scientists' excitement at the discovery of a "second Earth" 20 light years away from us then consider this: bookies have now slashed the odds of little green men appearing from 1,000/1 to 100/1.

Originally posted by roobleh: When women say 'No' it sometimes means yes but... So know what she means by saying 'No.' IF she does not want to dance to this song, she may be ready to dance with you in the next song, even if it is a slow dance. So show her you're insisting in a nice way. Waar Roobloow ka joog. Dhirbaaxo ha raadsanine. When a girl says no, walaalo she means no. If she says maybe, you maybe in with a chance. So tread carefully.

When I was in Somalia, I was truly tempted to gather the neighbours of where we built a new house and propose that we have gated community with clean, green surroundings and top-notch security. The problem was most of the owners were living in Europe/US/Arab countries therefore they werent living in their own homes. I think us somalis get jeolous of each other and I will be we'd have number of similar arrangement cropping up everywhere in the country. This way we would have cleaner, safer environment for our families.

Fearful rich keep poor at bay with gated homes and razor wire Uneven economic recovery is polarising society, and Buenos Aires' well-off are seeking peace outside the city Rory Carroll in Buenos Aires Wednesday April 25, 2007 The scenes are idyllic. Children cycle care-free through landscaped neighbourhoods. Parents clink glasses of malbec and polo players saddle up for practice sessions. During the week, workers resume building plush houses with gardens and swimming pools, the designs a kaleidoscope of Tuscan villas, Normandy farmhouses and Spanish haciendas. Touring these estates, which are outside Buenos Aires, it is difficult to imagine that just five years ago Argentina was on its knees, a country battered by an economic crisis that made millions jobless, shattered the middle class and turned one of South America's safest capitals into a hunting ground for muggers and kidnappers. Yet today if you visit any number of neighbourhoods you find new cars parked in driveways, and architects designing home extensions. Argentina's recovery has been remarkable. But there is a catch. These scenes take place in "barrios cerrados", gated communities surrounded by walls, razor wire and uniformed guards toting handguns, assault rifles and walkie-talkies. The country has bounced back but it is different. More than 400 mostly new neighbourhoods have mushroomed on what were swamps and cornfields outside Buenos Aires, hosting some 300,000 people and covering more land than the city they left behind. The posher areas are called "countries", an apt term since outsiders need ID and authorisation to cross perimeters that look and feel like borders. "You can't see the poor here, that's part of the appeal," says Ramiro Figueroa, 30, a polo player and estate agent who lives in Tortugas, a one square mile oasis an hour's drive from the capital. "I love it here. Everything is secure. I leave my windows open at night. The worst that can happen is maybe a bicycle's stolen." The flight into gated communities has also been a feature of post-apartheid South Africa, with the middle classes seeking refuge from crime in what critics dub the "architecture of fear". The fact that this is now happening in Argentina is causing anguished debate about whether the country's society, once considered South America's most "European" and egalitarian, is also becoming polarised along the lines of South Africa and Brazil. Despite the recovery, a shanty town of corrugated tin and wood fringing Buenos Aires is a reminder that 40% of people are still in poverty. Vagrants sleep in doorways next to tourist areas and ragged children beg at traffic lights. These sights are hidden to many of those in the gated communities, says Celina Murga, 34, a film director. "The children growing up in these places are very different from others, they don't know how to behave in the real world." She is making a film, A Week Alone, about youths in a gated community who are left unsupervised. It is more Lord of the Flies than Home Alone. "Instead of trying to build a circle of protection around them we need to build human beings who can deal with the world as it is," says Ms Murga. "I want to show that this is a social crisis." Those outside the fences joke that the children inside think golf carts are mankind's main mode of transport and have no idea what traffic lights are for. Initially, the economic meltdown in December 2001 united the middle class and the poor in rage against the government and financial institutions, which were blamed for the collapse of businesses and wiping out savings. That changed when armed gangs focused on people in well-heeled districts, such as Belgrano and Palermo, creating a perception that crime was out of control. The kidnap and murder of a young man, Axel Blumberg, prompted hundreds of thousands to protest. As the economy began to recover from 2003, the stream of people moving to gated communities turned into a torrent. Tiled roofs and mock turrets now peep over high walls of developments lining the 10-lane motorways out of Buenos Aires. "If it is a bit off the highway and they have to drive through a poor neighbourhood to reach home people do not buy them. They are afraid of kidnapping," says Peter Haller, a property consultant. An incentive to move to gated areas is the prestige, since they are seen as a symbol of success, he said. "It takes you to another social level." The original "countries" were founded 70 years ago as weekend retreats for the polo set, and the sense of exclusiveness endures. Ironically, foreigners are now snapping up apartments in central Buenos Aires, believing the city to be a good investment and good place to live, says Mr Haller. About a third of city centre properties are bought by Europeans and north Americans. The middle-class exodus shows no sign of slowing and lax planning laws give free rein to the development of fresh sites. Newspapers publish weekly supplements for gated community residents and businesses are following their workers and customers. The surge in spending reflects a dramatic turnaround from the dark days of 2002 when Argentina plunged into an economic abyss. A devaluation of the peso and renegotiation of the country's international debt payments caused widespread hardship but did help stop the freefall. A surge in commodity prices, especially of soya, prompted an export-led recovery. Argentina's president, Néstor Kirchner, with financial help from Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, has paid off the International Monetary Fund, boosting the government's popularity and the sense that the nation has recovered its independence. Yet the mood of confidence has not stopped banks, supermarkets and restaurants leaving the city in the same way that South African firms a decade ago quit Johannesburg for Sandton, a gleaming citadel north of the city. Maristella Svampa, a sociologist who has written a book on gated areas, linked the rise of such communities to the psychological impact of Argentina's 1990s privatisations which peeled away the state and the sense that it should be relied on for essential services. Many residents bristle at the notion that they are cut off. Fear of crime and traffic in central Buenos Aires had obliged parents to chaperone children when they left their apartments, so they were the ones inhabiting bubbles, not those in the gated areas, says Connie Burgwardt, a 40-year-old lawyer. She moved two years ago to Santa Barbara, a complex 16 miles north of the city, and her social life has never been better. Her parents and siblings live nearby, as do half her friends, and every weekend there's a barbecue or party. "For £40,000 my choice was 40 square metres in the city - or 160 here. With a garden, a swimming pool and a hammock. You don't think twice. It's like a dream ... I don't go away from here unless I'm dead." Backstory Argentina's default on $100bn of foreign debt in December 2001 triggered massive capital flight and economic and political chaos. Bank savings were wiped out and the middle class joined the poor in angry protests. Unemployment and crime exploded. The economy has since bounced back, profiting from high commodity prices, debt restructuring and financial aid from Venezuela. Growth has surged at 9% over the past two years. However, 40% of the people are poor, confidence is fragile and the middle class fearful of crime. http://www.guardian.co.uk/argentina/story/0,,2064918,00.html