with my kenyan friends and we're talking about Kenyan security apparatus and i've just been informed of the Wagalla massacre. this occurred on the 10th of February 1984. 5,000 somalis were mercilessly massacred on Wagalla airstrip. our thoughts and prays are with them. will inform you of the outcome of our conversation.

First stay in the USA In 1973 Seydou moved to New York (also briefly Texas), where he studied English at Hunter College in New York, and later in the Columbia University American Language Program. He majored in English because he wanted to become an English teacher. He had to work part-time, and sometimes at night, and became ill. In New York he met Rastafarians for the first time, and was also able to see concerts by Jamaican artists such as Burning Spear. At this time he was recording Christian music but never stopped writing his own songs. Eventually he got into various scrapes in New York and returned to the Ivory Coast, where he got into even more trouble until he met up with one of his childhood friends, Fulgence Kassi, who had become a noted television producer. This was the beginning of his real career as a singer, and he began to use the name 'Alpha Blondy'.[3]

hi all. i go to the park today.

Quett Ketumile Masire (born 1925) was a leading nationalist politician during Botswana's transition to independence. As the nation's first vice-president he played a key role in making his country a model of economic development in Africa. From 1980-1997 he served as Botswana's president. Quett Masire was born on July 23, 1925, at Kanye, the capital of the Bangwaketse Reserve, Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana). Son of a minor headman, he grew up in a community where male commoners, such as himself, were expected to become low-paid migrant laborers in the mines of South Africa. From an early age Masire set himself apart through academic achievement. After graduating at the top of his class at the Kanye school, he received a scholarship to further his education at the Tiger Kloof Institute in South Africa. During school breaks he supported himself by selling refreshments at local football matches. Despite continued good grades, his ambition to attend university was frustrated by financial and health constraints. In 1950, after graduating from Tiger Kloof, Masire helped found the Seepapitso II Secondary School, the first institution of higher learning in the Bangwaketse Reserve. He served as the school's headmaster for five years. During this period he clashed with Bathoen II, the autocratic Bangwaketse ruler. Resenting Bathoen's many petty interferences in school affairs, Masire, working through the revived Bechuanaland African Teachers Association, became an advocate for the autonomy of protectorate schools from chiefly authority. In 1957 Masire earned a Master Farmers Certificate and established himself as one of the territory's leading agriculturalists. His success led to renewed conflict with the jealous Bathoen, who seized his farms as a penalty for the supposed infraction of fencing communal land. When Masire challenged this decision, the chief went further by threatening his banishment. By now the public, as well as leading members of the colonial administration, looked upon Masire as an articulate critic of the dominant role of chiefs over local politics. In 1958 Masire was appointed as the protectorate reporter for the African Echo/Naledi ya Botswana newspaper. He was also elected to the newly reformed Bangwaketse Tribal Council and, after 1960, the protectorate-wide African and Legislative Councils. Although he attended the first Kanye meeting of the People's Party, the earliest nationalist grouping to enjoy a mass following in the territory, he declined to join the movement. Instead, in 1961 and 1962, he helped organize the rival Democratic Party, serving as its secretary-general. From the beginning the Democratic Party was dominated by Seretse Khama, its popular leader, and Masire, its chief organizer. One of the principal reasons for the party's early electoral success was Masire's energy; in one two-week period in 1964, for example, while campaigning in remote areas of the Kalahari desert, he traveled across some 3,000 miles of sandy tracks to address 24 meetings. Besides spreading his party's message, he used such junkets to build up a strong network of local party organizers, many of whom were teachers and/or master farmers. He also was the editor of the party's newspaper, Therisanyo, which was the protectorate's first independent newspaper. In 1965 the Democratic Party won 28 of the 31 contested seats in the new Legislative Assembly, giving it a clear mandate to lead Botswana to independence. The following year Masire became the new nation's vice-president, serving under Seretse. Until 1980 he also occupied the significant portfolios of finance (from 1966) and development planning (from 1967), which were formally merged in 1971. As a principal architect of Botswana's steady economic and infastructural growth between 1966 and 1980, Masire earned a reputation as a highly competent technocrat. However, his local Bangwaketse political base was eroded by his old nemesis Bathoen. During the initial years of independence the Democratic Party government moved decisively to undercut many of the residual powers of the chiefs. As a result, in 1969 Bathoen abdicated, only to reemerge as the leader of the opposition National Front. This set the stage for Bathoen's local electoral victory over Masire during the same year. However, the ruling party won decisively at the national level, thus allowing Masire to maintain his position as one of the four "specially elected" members of Parliament. With the death of Seretse in July of 1980, Masire became Botswana's second president. His leadership was subsequently confirmed by Democratic Party landslides in the 1984 and 1989 general elections. Under his leadership Botswana continued to enjoy its remarkable post-independence economic growth rate of some 10 percent per annum, one of the highest in the world. Most of this growth came from diamonds, the nation's leading export earner. Expanded revenues allowed Masire's administration to expand social services considerably, particularly in the areas of education, health, and communications. Perhaps the greatest tribute to Masire's leadership was the award he received in 1989 from the Hunger Project in recognition of the improvement in nutritional levels throughout the country between 1981 and 1988, despite the onset of severe drought. Despite Botswana's enviable record of development during the decade of the 1980s, many problems remained. Although most citizens benefited from the nation's prosperity, the gap between the small but growing middle class and the much larger number of unemployed or underemployed poor posed a significant challenge. Throughout his career Masire sought to create jobs and wealth through the promotion of a strong private sector, but heretofore the economy has been dominated by a handful of capital-intensive parastatal companies. Another continuing challenge was relations with South Africa. Botswana consistently championed the cause of majority rule there but, while granting asylum to refugees from apartheid, refused to allow its territory to be used as a base for guerrilla attacks against its powerful neighbor. Despite this stand, the 1980s witnessed an upsurge in South African acts of aggression against Botswana. Contacts between Afrikaners and anti-apartheid groups within the country in the early 1990s, however, underscored the potential of Masire's efforts to help mediate a negotiated end to white minority rule there. Yet this was not the only problem he faced during the turbulent 1990s; he had his people's hunger, education and welfare problems. In 1996, the United States agreed to give $203 million in aid over three decades. In September, 1995 AID (Agency for International Development) had shuttered its bilateral mission in Botswana, asserting the nation had "graduated" from foreign assistance. According to Masire, it was a rite of passage the nation had been preparing for all along. "We used to say to our donors, 'Help us to help ourselves, and the more you help us, the sooner you will get rid of us,"' he recalled. The U.S. funds paid for more than 300 business owners to bone up on finance, marketing and other subjects. For the smallest and neediest, AID helped set up the Women's Finance House, offering training, savings accounts and loans of up to $1,700 to poor female entrepreneurs. For an example, a seamstress turned to it when she received an order for 101 outfits for a large wedding. The fabric alone cost three times what she made in most months. With a $400 loan, however, she completed the order. Masire was the 1989 Laureate of the Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger, and was cited for his sustaining efforts to develop nutrition, health, education and housing.

Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 – October 15, 1987) was a Burkinabé military captain, Marxist revolutionary, Pan-Africanist theorist, and President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987.[1][2] Viewed as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution, he is commonly referred to as "Africa's Che Guevara."[1][3][4][5] Sankara seized power in a 1983 popularly supported coup at the age of 33, with the goal of eliminating corruption and the dominance of the former French colonial power.[1][6] He immediately launched the most ambitious program for social and economic change ever attempted on the African continent.[6] To symbolize this new autonomy and rebirth, he even renamed the country from the French colonial Upper Volta to Burkina Faso ("Land of Upright Men").[6] His foreign policies were centered around anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nation-wide literacy campaign, and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles.[7] Other components of his national agenda included planting over ten million trees to halt the growing desertification of the Sahel, doubling wheat production by redistributing land from feudal landlords to peasants, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents, and establishing an ambitious road and rail construction program to "tie the nation together."[6] On the localized level Sankara also called on every village to build a medical dispensary and had over 350 communities construct schools with their own labour. Moreover, his commitment to women's rights led him to outlaw female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy; while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.[6] In order to achieve this radical transformation of society, he increasingly exerted authoritarian control over the nation, eventually banning unions and a free press, which he believed could stand in the way of his plans and be manipulated by powerful outside influences.[6] To counter his opposition in towns and workplaces around the country, he also tried corrupt officials, counter-revolutionaries and "lazy workers" in peoples revolutionary tribunals.[6] Additionally, as an admirer of Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, Sankara set up Cuban-style Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs).[1] His revolutionary programs for African self-reliance as a defiant alternative to the neo-liberal development strategies imposed by the West, made him an icon to many of Africa's poor.[6] Sankara remained popular with most of his country's impoverished citizens. However his policies alienated and antagonised the vested interests of an array of groups, which included the small but powerful Burkinabé middle class, the tribal leaders whom he stripped of the long-held traditional right to forced labour and tribute payments, and the foreign financial interests in France and their ally the Ivory Coast.[1][8] As a result, he was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d'état led by the French-backed Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987. A week before his execution, he declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas."[1]

jb, saxib they're still here. why am i being disrespected? do i look stup!d?

i am annoyed because there are four middle-aged women (30s) in my office. they have no respect and are shouting n screaming like little girls.

living in a refugee camp.....

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away Now it looks as though they're here to stay

*ANWAR*;785895 wrote: can not wait 2 go back go back to what? a polluted beach? and years of toxic dumping. a recent survey commissioned by the world beach regulatory authority advises caution against lido beach. AMISOM clearing landmines in lido beach

i bet lido beach would fail if the world beach regulatory authority did a test. its not impressive! i wouldnt want to swim in that, what if i was bitten by a three-eyed fish. no thanks.

well... its all gibberish isn't it?

^ god! the two of you should get a room. some kinky shukaansi going on eh?

the both of you! when you come to hargeisa make sure you come by arafat! hargeisa is swamped with xamaris anyways. they have the bad reputations the xamaris of destroying the houses they rent. it could literally be an ice-breaker in any awkward convo..... even when donkey cart man was pouring me water the other day, he informed me that my house was once rented by xamaris and they used his services too.... he said 'they were loud' and that he heard child sacrifices rituals being performed. i suspect there is some truth in this.

how bad is the situation there? hopefully by the end of march it will be nice and warm.

you're all welcome to join me for a cup of somali tea. juxa dont forgot to bring a bit of xamar with you from london. i miss the xamaris in my area, they were funny - not because they cracked silly jokes and i laughed with them but they were literally funny for reason i cant explain lol.

i'm assuming there are no road safety standards becos that 'limo' is not road worthy.

apart from cabdicasiis jarmel, they're all bad!

a rather poor attempt at being a 'film critic'. you're not mark kermode so please delete this thread before your wacky and poor taste in 'cinema' gets out of hand.

oh... is that right?

Carafaat;783812 wrote: never thought about that. But I would defintely would like to be cushitic. maybe Masai, Turkana or Samburu . maybe you are.... you bantu!

i remember not too long ago, i was forced into round of introductions, you know the type where you introduce yourself to your peers and colleagues and you talk about good and great you are. this was when i lived in the uk, not the best time of my life but then somaliland was recovering from war and instability. so.... everybody introduced themselves and when it came to me, i said.....'my name is ***** **** and I am somali. i just couldn't say from 'somalia' or say i was 'british' or from 'london'...it just wouldnt come out. i didnt want to be fake... you know, so i'm proud to be somali.

Childhood First son of a family of 9 children, Seydou Kone was raised by his grandmother, growing up in what he described as "among elders", which later was to have a big impact on his career. In 1962, Alpha Blondy went to join his father in Odienné, where he spent ten years, attending the Sainte Elisabeth high school, and getting involved in the Ivory Coast students movement. Here he formed a band. But, this hobby affected his schooling and Alpha Blondy was expelled due to poor attendance. His parents then sent him to study English in Monrovia in the neighboring country of Liberia in 1973. He spent thirteen months there and then moved to the United States of America to improve his English.

i didn't understand a word of that!

Alpha Blondy (born January 1, 1953)[1] is a reggae singer and international recording artist. Alpha Blondy was born Seydou Koné in Dimbokro, Côte d'Ivoire. He sings mainly in his native language of Dioula, in French and English, and sometimes in Arabic or Hebrew. His lyrics convey serious political attitudes and a sense of humor.