Originally posted by Juxa: i have since found out what happened and how the sun obtained the story. lets just say odayga was tricked badly and the newspaper distorted the truth. cant say more That much I could predict. Glad more details are coming out. The more we learn the more sense things make. Raising children on benefits is self-defeating in the end. Sometimes to have none appears to be the better option.

However hard one tries, sometimes acceptance comes with complete assimilation.

Afternoon folks... It's elections time folks. And those of you who are in political campaigns would know that this is much bigger than Somali families. We're in the process of manufacture of public opinon and consent and the campaigners need their 'Public Enemy No1'. The Somalis are it - but it's Labour that is the real target. And the wind blows. All it needs a little 'truth' current to start it. We might think the truth is the commodity sought here but it isn't. The truth is being used as an instrument to bring people on board. We know the truths within out community itself but when we decide to wash our laundry in public, even our slight rightful expression of unease is assured to become evidence for a convincing politcal research. Our negative expressions actually translate s hard currency for those who's expression would normally be percieved as 'biased'. You'll see them claiming 'even the Somalis themselves admit it, this is about immigration (covert racism), vetting (segregation) and -God forbid- fertility control (forced sterilization - who took place in the states), etc etc' soon. Let's start our own campaigns to educate our community. Let's know better than this please. Because if we don't do anything and simply talk down at them, who will do the changing? A miracle, I would hope. It's tough work but it must be done sooner or later by those who think they know the better way. phew!

Originally posted by Malika: ^ ,naa nenda kalale. ,cry me a river,so emotional! @ Paragon Really? How did you come to that conclusion then? And be logical, alright?

Now now, who's emotional? Me or CL? CL Oh is that why? I was thinking in monetary terms. Hmmm.

^Maxaa dhacayna?

[edit] Che, it's a legal case sxb. And the verdict is already out. Originally posted by Malika: Hmmmm..Where are the defenders?? Qoftan tol uuma joogto miya,kuwii meyeen macawistaa kaa dacdaceyee illa xaleytoo?..Lool Paragon ,what is your take on the issue of fraud at this scale? I mean where by,someone can deny their marriage,call their children *******s only so to acquire 'money',that is someone else sweat and blood? Malika, qof weyn hadduu qofku yahay inuu tartiibsado ayaa ku habboon. Anigu iyo ragga kale ee meesha xalay ka hadleyna si muumuus leh ayaan u hadalney. All we have said is only: hubsiino hal baa la siistaa. Balse waxaa ayaan darra ah in dad Soomaalinimo sheeganayo dad kale oo Islaameed in laga celceliyo. Dad shishiiye ah la garey inuu cid kale afxumeeyaan, but why should we defend a so-called Somali from other Somalis who are not present to make their case? For that reason, I would rather give the Somalis involved in these matters the benefit of the doubt in what is 'legal' cases and not 'moral'. Having said so, just like yesterday, we must exercise caution in all matters. But as for this case of this Somali woman, the law has delivered its justice and pardoned her from imprisonment. The judge concerned, even as a non-Somali, has found the logic and compassion to punish this women as he saw fit. And despite the nature of the crime committed and the newspapers spate of Somali bashing, the judge, being a rational and of wise council, restores my hope in humanity. Humanity will be lost if it's justice depended on some in SOL. Alxamdulilaah. Yesterday was an opener for many of us in SOL and we have come to learn alot about folks (in just in one thread) than in all the years we have spent on SOL. It's one thing expressing moral indignation at a supposed crime or shame that was committed but the way in which some delved into defiling others (in hot non-Somali attack as it is) was highly unbecoming. Humans are always caught in circumstances that are sometimes favourites, or times unfavourable but in rare times, scandalous. Somalidu waxay oran jirtey 'dad ceeb heshey laguma digtee hadalka waa loo dadaa'. We know the reality (atleast some of us do more than others), marka iska yeel yeel iyo marmarsiyo raadis waxba tari mayso. The community needs awareness and education but blanket generalization of vilifying others doesn't help. Unless such is needed for reasons known to those who behave thus. When tomorrow the limelight is on kuwa maanta la aamusiin la'yahay for whatever reason, I'll still be here to advice caution and consideration. That much should be expected from me. But in the meantime, we need to find ways of solving the issues brought to light. Wabillaahi towfiiq.

And so it kicks off! -------- source Dutch mother posed as penniless Somalian immigrant to claim £70,000 benefits By James Tozer Last updated at 5:20 PM on 01st December 2009 Comments (39) Add to My Stories . Guilty: Leyla Yusuf, 31, who stole £70,000 in benefits using a bogus identity, leaving Manchester Crown Court today A mother who claimed asylum under a bogus identity in order to conduct a £70,000 benefits fraud has been told she would have been sent to prison if it weren't for her five children. Leyla Yusuf posed as a penniless Somali immigrant who needed state help to raise her and her family, but in reality she was a Dutch national with a comfortable lifestyle including property in Dubai. The 31-year-old put in an asylum claim under the false name Leyla Hassan and was given a national insurance number enabling her to make claims for child and housing benefit, council tax help, income support, tax credits and community care grants. Despite the fact that her alter ego had her real year of birth, phone numbers, and some children with the same names, the audacious fraud went undetected for seven years. Yusuf was only rumbled when suspicious investigators called her in for an appointment - and fixed a second interview up for 'Leyla Hassan' on the same day. She turned up for both and was arrested and charged with committing £70,000 worth of benefit fraud. Yesterday, however, she was back at her terraced house in Manchester with her taxi driver husband after a judge spared her a prison sentence for the sake of her children. More...Afghan family STILL living in £3,000-a-week house funded by taxpayers - a year after ministers pledged to throw them out Yusuf, who is of Somali origin, arrived in Britain on a Dutch passport in 2002, settling here with her husband and two of her children. A court was told she consulted a British-based Somali lawyer, paying him £1,500, and was told the only way for her to claim benefits here was to create a fictitious identity. So she invented Leyla Hassan, using as an address an empty property a few streets from her home in Moss Side, and put in a claim for asylum. While it was processed, the couple went on to have two more children, earning around £10,000-a-year in benefits despite the fact that her husband was working. She was finally trapped earlier this year when fraud investigators arranged appointments for Yusuf and her alter ego. Yusuf - who now has a fifth child aged just six weeks - admitted falsely claiming £70,000. A further four counts relating to £30,000 she obtained by lying that she lived apart from her husband were left to lie on file. Sentencing her at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Anthony Hammond said she had perpetrated a 'well-executed' and 'cynical milking of the system'. 'You have defrauded this country of over £70,000 by a deliberate and cynical manipulation of the system,' he told Yusuf. 'You richly deserve to go to prison and your husband is lucky he's not in the dock with you.' But he added: 'You have five children, the youngest only six weeks of age and the next youngest two years of age. 'Were I to send you to prison, it's going to be very difficult for someone to look after the two-year-old, and the youngest would go with you into prison.' Instead she was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years with supervision, plus 300 hours unpaid work after admitting six counts of false accounting and one of failing to declare. Yusuf has been ordered to repay the money, and investigators from the Department of Work and Pensions may try to recoup it by going after her property in Dubai. An investigation is also expected to be carried out into her claims that a lawyer advised her to carry out the fraud. Judge Hammond commented: 'There are one or two dubious practitioners in that area making an awful lot of money.'

^Loooool. War adeer waxba isla waayi meynee samada waxba isbaaro ha ii dhigin. Bir ku qabatay illeen waa mucjisee?

^He is Somali. That much he is guilty of.

nuune inuu aniga i sii dhaco ayaan ka baqayaa oo wixii yaraayeen soo biirbiiriyey iga furto. Jb isagu inuu Udub faraha ii geliyo oo isna sidaa igu furto ayaan ka baqayaa. Marka nimanyahow isma naqaan balse isma garan weyno. Ordoo idinku iskiin u qaraabta.

^Insulting Somalis at will is ilbaxnimo these days, Che. War caay caay aad reer Magaal noqotide. Che, being Somali for me is independent from negative public opinions. Af caytama qofkiisuu ku yaal. Mine is deep rooted and understands all kind of circumstances, but some mistake circumstance for their Somali identity. Cayda Somalida waxba uma dhinto weligeedna waxba uma dhimin balse qofka caaytamay ayeey weligeed wax u dhintaa.

Why is Che protecting the Somali people all over sudden? Complicated, indeed sxb.

^nuune, waxba adeer. *Checks the coordinates of Harardheere and flight plan* Waxba, nuune, absolutely waxba.

Somali sea gangs lure investors at pirate lair Tue Dec 1, 2009 6:25am EST By Mohamed Ahmed HARADHEERE, Somalia (Reuters) - In Somalia's main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate. Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorized shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia through the Red Sea. The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from ransoms and a deployment by foreign navies in the area has only appeared to drive the attackers to hunt further from shore. It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations -- and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments. One wealthy former pirate named Mohammed took Reuters around the small facility and said it had proved to be an important way for the pirates to win support from the local community for their operations, despite the dangers involved. "Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 'maritime companies' and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking," Mohammed said. "The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or useful materials ... we've made piracy a community activity." Haradheere, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Mogadishu, used to be a small fishing village. Now it is a bustling town where luxury 4x4 cars owned by the pirates and those who bankroll them create honking traffic jams along its pot-holed, dusty streets. Somalia's Western-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed is pinned down battling hard-line Islamist rebels, and controls little more than a few streets of the capital. The administration has no influence in Haradheere -- where a senior local official said piracy paid for almost everything. "Piracy-related business has become the main profitable economic activity in our area and as locals we depend on their output," said Mohamed Adam, the town's deputy security officer. "The district gets a percentage of every ransom from ships that have been released, and that goes on public infrastructure, including our hospital and our public schools." RISK VS REWARDS In a drought-ravaged country that provides almost no employment opportunities for fit young men, many are been drawn to the allure of the riches they see being earned at sea. Abdirahman Ali was a secondary school student in Mogadishu until three months ago when his family fled the fighting there. Given the choice of moving with his parents to Lego, their ancestral home in Middle Shabelle where strict Islamist rebels have banned most entertainment including watching sport, or joining the pirates, he opted to head for Haradheere. Now he guards a Thai fishing boat held just offshore. "First I decided to leave the country and migrate, but then I remembered my late colleagues who died at sea while trying to migrate to Italy," he told Reuters. "So I chose this option, instead of dying in the desert or from mortars in Mogadishu." Haradheere's "stock exchange" is open 24 hours a day and serves as a bustling focal point for the town. As well as investors, sobbing wives and mothers often turn up there seeking news of male relatives missing in action. Every week, Mohammed said, gang members and equipment were lost to the sea. But he said the pirates were not deterred. "Ransoms have even increased in recent months from between $2-3 million to $4 million because of the increased number of shareholders and the risks," he said. "Let the anti-piracy navies continue their search for us. We have no worries because our motto for the job is 'do or die'." Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. "I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation," she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. "I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the 'company'." (Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Jon Boyle) http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USTRE5B01Z920091201

Interesting, Norf & Abu-Salmaan. TheAwakener, it's good to see you again brother. Interesting opinion there.

Originally posted by ThePoint: ^Anything and everything! So what conclusion did the discussion participants come to? Feasibility research should be carried out.

Originally posted by ThePoint: quote:Originally posted by Mr.Paragon: ^ThePoint, I am not making claims. http://operationblackvote.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/the-sun-is-accused-of-giving-comfort-to-racists/ Clearly there are inaccuracies and it is appropriate to point them out. The Labour/Conservative angle is not in the article though. But you think the family has made no mistakes whatsoever? I think that is where your argument falls down. But what is the crime of the family exactly, ThePoint? That they have children? That they don't work? BTW the father is a butcher (the Sun itself stated that). That they accepted the system to allocate it this particular property? Or that let in the Sun? Do you really see any sane person going out of his/her way and give to the Sun a call to inform them of their good fortune or government policy failure? Blessed, I know I know. But I hope the case here was simple. Qeylida orgiga ka weyn weey sa nagu qaldayaan. Che, according to Somalis who know the family.

^ThePoint, I am not making claims. http://operationblackvote.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/the-sun-is-accused-of-giving-comfort-to-racists/

PS: I forgot to mention that this particular house was vacant for the last few years and was built during th property but not occupied. One more fact: the property isn't in the West End or anywhere near it. Again according to those who are familiar with the area, such as former councillors, there are no properties worth 1.8 million pounds in the area. In fact that perticular property is not one that can be described 'nor can it be called desirable given it directly backs onto the Marylebone flyover.'

oh never mind

^Lol@cabaayaa laga heesayaa.

^What do you want to know about my knowledge in the subject? That I am addicted to it is not enough knowledge? PS; about bariis planting in Somaliland, I think I have some brief knowledge in the field of green revolution (in double/tripple monocropping of rice) in SE Asia. Atleast I remember writing an essay on it many years ago. It's possible that it'll work in Somaliland but I wont be too enthusiastic.

Originally posted by Norfsky: quote:Originally posted by Xaji_Xunjuf: Bariis bay 2009 beereyan kuwaas na waan la yaaba Ma sheekadii udub weyaan ma midhihi bariiska lugu beereye ba imika la hellay Ya usheega the climate is not for rice (constant humidity and constant rain) True say. I was part of a discussion yesterday with regards to planting tea in the Somali highlands. That sounded more reasonable.

Pirates in Somalia are a necessity for bigger (highly benefiting) projects to global powers and even less powerful ones. Without pirates, they'll be no gain for those in Somalia's offshores. Hence why the so-called pirates are captured, treated and released. While some cry with fakery about some Somali family in the UK out no fault of their own, alot is being gained at the expense of Somalia.