^Indeed

http://radiomuqdisho.net/daawo-sawirrada-ciidammo-ka-tirsan-booliiska-soomaaliyeed-oo-tababar-uga-furmay-dalka-turkiga/

^^ MaashaAllah! Keep up the good work, MMA.

The-freeman;848125 wrote: I hope people do not misunderstand the discovery of the “God" particle means their deity has been scientifically proven. It is the opposite. God is the originator of heavens and earth. Atheist and polytheist since time immemorial have given divine power to natural phenomena, no different here.

^Lol

^ Nin-Yaaba, There is exception to the rules, Islam is not black and white. If their's good reason for suspecting foul play and we have the means to verify any poison or unnatural cause of death then there is no sin or crime in investigating...that is my understanding of Islam. Remember, everything is Halal, unless stated otherwise.

Lest people forget what we are celebrating. This nation and this flag are the reason we are rejoicing!! :D

Maaddeey;847844 wrote: Sxb, su'aasha ka jawaab haddaad karto, haddii kale tororogta igala tag!. Any one?. Maaddey, I seem to have a feeling you are the type that will throw acid on a woman's face just because she is not wearing hijab or condemn her to hell. It's actions from groups like yours that a lot of people will leave Islam or not enter Islam. You don't own this deen, it belongs to Allah. I think its time you came down from your 'elevated station' and be a humble servant. And the servants of (God) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say "Peace!" (Quran25:63)

Xaaji Xunjuf;847888 wrote: Did they accept the Italian and Anglo border with Kenya and the Italian Abyssinian border with Ethiopia in the new constitution? The 2 Somaliland were dissolved 52 yrs ago. It's now called the Somalia Republic...and that is the land that is covered by the new constitution.

The-freeman;847867 wrote: If the temporary constitution gives away land or sea belonging to the Republic then it is treacherous and should be opposed. There is nothing in the constitution to suggest any such things will happen.If you have any evidence (a paragraph from the Dastuur, for example) to support your argument please present it. Regarding the Somali brothers in other countries, I think they should decide what they wish to do. Fight or integrate. I think they should fight but I will not fight for them neither should the Republic. This idea of 'lost lands' has been an unbearable burden on the Somali republic. Somalia should welcome any Somali to its territory and treat such person like a citizen but it should never again allow its armies to be destroyed outside its borders. +1

Maaddeey;847739 wrote: Elpunto, raggeedii. Diinta maxay ka qabtaa? Maaddey, leave the dead in peace, you can teach people the in and out of tawheed without destroying graves.

There is no justification for the destruction of graves whether of saints or otherwise, if these 'militants' want to eradicate ignorance then they could do no better than build schools and educate people about their Deen. This is an intellectual issue, mindless violence and vandalism will only make matters worse.

Guleid says Nairobi is “extremely vital” for al-Shabaab, and warns against heavy-handed tactics that fuel xenophobia. “If Eastleigh goes out of control, if they’re intimidated, if you push them to the wall, that will be good fodder for al-Shabaab,” he says. Human Rights Watch says police round-ups and extortion of money from those who cannot produce Kenyan identity cards have long been a regular feature of Eastleigh life. Mohamed Amin, 21, is one of many Somali refugees who fled home and made his way here without legal papers. “We can’t leave Eastleigh at night. The police ask for ID so it is so difficult for us,” says Amin, who arrived in 2000 and today earns 40 cents an hour selling TVs and mobile phones in a small kiosk. Yet Kenya’s high Somali population may also keep it safe, forcing al-Shabaab to look elsewhere rather than risk any harm to Somalia’s financial hub. And while Kenya’s parliamentarians complain a shirt in Eastleigh sells for far less than downtown Nairobi, thanks to tax evasion, economic gain helps overcome long-term enmity. “Just about everything the Kenyans say about Eastleigh is wrong. Alongside the Somali money that undoubtedly does go into Eastleigh, there’s much more Kikuyu [the most populous Kenyan ethnic group] money as well,” says Prof Anderson. Standard Chartered’s Etemesi argues Eastleigh’s property boom and thriving economy may be fleeting – a store of value for Somalis who one day want to return home as the failed state begins to put itself back together. “They’re not going to put their cash in Mogadishu for now, they certainly can’t put it in the west, and it’s just too complicated because of money laundering laws to put the money in a bank. So they buy or put up property, but it’s not because they want to own it,” says Etemesi. Already diaspora Somalis are going back, following military gains against al-Shabaab over the past year. “If things ever come right in Somalia, we’ll see a lot more business shift. When the time comes, they’ll flog everything and take their cash back to Mogadishu,” Etemesi says. For now, though, Eastleigh’s boom days are far from numbered. The Financial Times Limited 2012: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d4979b30-bf98-11e1-bb88-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zQA7JHmw

“Somalis have a very different code in terms of how they run business – a handshake means a lot more than a signed piece of paper: ‘I need to trust you and know the clan that you come from, because if you screw me or shaft me, I know where to find you; the clan will know where to find you,’” says Etemesi, adding that his first Eastleigh branch failed until they replaced the bank manager with a Somali. Standard Chartered is just one of several international banks whose shiny facades clash with the detritus around them. Edward George, head of soft commodities research at Ecobank, a pan-African bank, says so far banks have only had a tiny share of Eastleigh’s business but are eager to grab a larger and more formal slice. The neighbourhood is thought to reach $3m a day in black market currency trades alone. George says Somali traders also dominate soft commodity movements throughout the region, in everything from rice to sugar and flour. “Most of this trade takes place off the radar, using a complex web of hawala lenders, local traders and businessmen. They operate in cash, outside the global banking system, channelling goods into east Africa and beyond,” says George. “Given the sheer volume of goods passing through Eastleigh, it is natural that commercial banks want to get involved in what is a very lucrative trade.” The area has plenty of money to play with. Somalia receives more than $1bn a year in remittances, which have helped transform Eastleigh’s economy. In addition, a proportion of piracy ransoms, worth up to $400m a year, has provided seed money for transport start-ups, says Guleid. A property boom paid for by laundered money has also boosted prices. The area’s reputation as a Somali enclave has led to problems, not least because of historic suspicion between ethnic Somalis and other Kenyans. “There’s a deeply rooted Kenyan problem that … stigmatises the Somali as separatist and not part of the national story,” says David Anderson, professor at Oxford university’s African Studies Centre, who is researching Eastleigh. The mutual enmity dates back to a long-running war against Kenyan Somali secessionists that began in the 1960s. Despite recent efforts to suppress census results, it was eventually revealed that, since 1989, the number of ethnic Somali Kenyans has risen dramatically, to 2.3m. “They are easily demonised as a threat to Kenyan identity and stability, and perceived to have business practices that are discreet and exclusionary,” he says. Kenya’s unprecedented invasion of Somalia last year, alongside a series of grenade attacks in Kenya linked to supporters of al-Shabaab, the militant Somali Islamist group, has raised tensions further. Kenya’s assistant minister of internal security, Orwa Ojode, said last year that al-Shabaab had its tail in Somalia and its head in Eastleigh, promising “the mother of all operations” against the area. “We will kill those who stay in Eastleigh, those al-Shabaab,” said one man, speaking after a grenade attack in downtown Nairobi earlier this year. “They’re all the same. As long as they are not citizens, they should be ferried back.”

The regional trading hub does not just attract Somalis; buyers come from as far as Burundi and Rwanda for clothes and electronics. “You can get anything you want here,” says Paul Kioko, a non-Somali Kenyan who works in the area. “Eastleigh is like the headquarters of east and central Africa as well as the headquarters of the Somali people.” Along downtrodden streets, low-rise shopping malls named Emirates, Bangkok and Hong Kong are testament to far-flung trading partners. Shiny new hotels filled with chandeliers and restaurants selling fancy cakes display the time in Dubai, Beijing and London. “Eastleigh is at the centre of a network of trade that connects the Arabian peninsula, Somalia, Kenya and east and central Africa, with the Somali business community as the common thread,” said Farah Abdulsamed, an analyst at Chatham House, the UK think-tank, in a report last year. Goods are flown tax-free from Dubai via Eldoret in western Kenya and trucked to Eastleigh, or imported by sea to Mombasa or Somali ports and trucked onwards. Such is the intoxicating mix of formal and informal, that despite the area’s reputation for smuggling and tax evasion, Standard Chartered has never received a counterfeit banknote at its Eastleigh branch. “It’s a bit of the Wild West. You’d expect there to be some fraud [or] robbery, but strangely enough, no,” says Etemesi. Business in Eastleigh operates on the hawala system of money transfer. Built on total trust and fear of reprisals, Somalis abroad entrust their money to agents, whose corresponding agents – often family members – pay in the cash at the other end, believing they will be repaid in cash or goods at some point in the future.

By Katrina Manson in Nairobi On a visit to a bank in Eastleigh, a Nairobi neighbourhood, Richard Etemesi was taken aback by the appearance of a customer. “He had dollars all over his body – in his socks, his belt; he was just piling out cash, half undressed in the branch manager’s office,” says the chief executive of Kenya’s Standard Chartered bank. Such are the informal and unexpectedly wealthy ways of Eastleigh, a dishevelled neighbourhood built on trade, tax evasion, smuggling and regional connections. It is home to a number of Kenya’s unofficial bank balances generated by traders whose cash is stuffed under flowing robes. Since the political collapse of neighbouring Somalia more than 20 years ago, traders from that country have made their second home in what was once an Asian residential estate. So strong is their trading network that this area in the heart of the Kenyan capital is better known as “Little Mogadishu” It hardly looks wealthy. Women in long veils pick their way through rutted roads filled with rubbish and hawkers. Street sellers guard bags of charcoal piled up in the mud, and containers double as high-end shop fronts offering smuggled goods. But despite the puddles and the rubbish, bankers joke that Kenya’s currency rates are not determined until Eastleigh turns in its daily numbers. Hassan Guleid, chairman of the Eastleigh Business District Association, says the neighbourhood turns over more than $100m a month. “The whole Somali economy washes out in Eastleigh,” adds Etemesi, who is also chairman of the Kenya Bankers Association. The success is down not only to illegal practices, but a different notion of wealth. Somali businessmen have no truck with costly showrooms or expensive credit, often plumping for scale over profit margins. “Somalis are business-minded people,” says Abdi Wali Abdullahi, a former army captain who entered Kenya as a refugee in 1991. Now 50, he imports spaghetti from Turkey and Dubai, and sugar from Mombasa, storing everything in a big warehouse in Eastleigh. “We get a lot of facilities. Since I came here, I got education for my children. We are working, have our businesses here,” says Abdullahi. “It’s free of charge in Somalia,” he adds in a nod to the informal business environment that makes imports cheap. “We pay no taxes or customs.”

Lol, This was not unknown unknown but known known!

Maadeey, you should listen to XX!

Friday, June 22, 2012 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Somalia's political leaders have approved a draft constitution the U.N. says was almost seven years in the making. Somalia is undergoing several political transitions over the next two months, including the adoption of the constitution by an assembly of elders, the voting in of a new parliament and the election of a new president by the lawmakers. Those steps must take place before Aug. 20. Somali leaders on Friday approved the draft constitution. The president, prime minister and four other leaders signed the document at a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali said the constitutional is only provisional until Somali citizens can vote on it. The country's security situation doesn't yet allow for such a nation-wide vote. Source: AP

I thought you and Somaliland are buddies now, with all this joint military adventures. I believe the dislikes between you two is only for the camera..

^ Did you have Dr Farole in mind?

England, my darkhorse are marching on... I said they will be the Chelsea of the tournament [ an abysmal team grounding out results and lady luck singing for them], it will be hard against the impressive Italy, this one will be close call. Italy will not be as toothless as Ukraine so England needs to score 3 to progress. France, my pick for the tournament, will have a tough game against Spain but maybe todays defeat will take away any complacent when the two meet, the winner of this tie will go on and take the cup. Mexes's suspension will help France, Kosceliny and Rami will be a better partnership imo.

Macallinka;843204 wrote: ^Adigu if you don't see the word of Puntland in any development in the rest of the country u will consider it rubbish and shaqo'lan. Waryaa wax iskula har . All these links are positive and we are enjoying reading them, for so long we have been bombarded with gloomy news so now lets enjoy the positive news that is coming from our country please. Hear Hear!

NAIROBI — Years of civil war has largely taken Somalia off the map as an investment destination. It also didn’t help that the capital Mogadishu had been branded as the most dangerous city in the world. Perceptions are, however, changing with relative calm in Mogadishu, and Somalis from the diaspora trooping back home to rebuild the nation. One of them is businessman Liban Abdi Egal, the founder and chairman of First Somali Bank, a new commercial bank, which began operations in Mogadishu in May 2012. He talked to Dinfin Mulupi about the challenges that lie ahead and the emerging opportunities to do business in Somalia. How did you start First Somali Bank (FSB)? I lived in the US for 24 years. I went to college there and invested in a few businesses like grocery stores, gas stations, real estate and home improvement. I came back in 2008 and started a few businesses in Kenya as well. One of them is Utech Wireless, which provides wireless broadband internet. My interest shifted to Somalia and I started Data & Resources Solutions (DARS), which does research and data collection and has offices in Mogadishu and Nairobi. We will be opening a new office in Djibouti next month. We have been collecting data in Somalia, and one of the things we realised was the lack of formal financial institutions. This led us to start thinking of opening a bank in Mogadishu. Together with other partners we set up FSB, which opened its doors in May this year. We also run Somali Wireless, the largest broadband provider in Mogadishu. How much did you invest in the bank as initial capital? We have put in a lot of money in creating rules and operational procedures, training and hiring staff, installing software and putting up the physical infrastructure. Six of the top level executives are Somalis. We have partnered with investors in the diaspora and Kenya as well as friends and family. We have put in approximately US$2 million. Describe the response so far? In the last one month we have opened 200 accounts. We have not given any loans yet because there are a lot of obstacles around banking in Somalia. There are no contract laws and courts to enforce the law. I am glad that [Kenya's] Equity Bank is planning to go to Somalia as well. I have been telling this story for eight months, but people thought I was crazy. Equity Bank’s announcement proves that other people are now seeing what I have been seeing all along. Somalia has never had a private owned commercial bank. Before the civil war all banks were government owned. In the last twenty years informal money transfers acted as banks. We have to do a lot of teaching about how banks operate and why the country needs it. A lot of people from the diaspora are coming back and they understand these systems. I think we will break even sooner that we earlier thought. How do you expect business to be in the coming months? There is no regulatory authority that can give us legal assurances to lend money. Even if we have a lot of capital we have to be selective in lending. We are thinking of doing trade financing – lending to importers of sugar, cement and other commodities. These are basically people that have money and can repay loans. We have a relationship with Kenya’s ABC Bank, which will help us in this. As a bank we are very conservative at the moment. We take risks but measured risks. We are studying the market. I don’t think things like micro-finance and group lending can work in Somalia. I don’t think 20 people will want to be responsible for one person’s loan. Our focus is not on individuals at the moment but rather on businesses. What about issues around security, piracy and money laundering? That is why it is difficult to get corresponding banks. Our Central Bank is not fully functional and we only have a transitional government. When we get an elected government, then institutions like the Central Bank will be able to address these issues. There are things that need to be addressed by the government like giving people identity cards. I hope in six months these things will be addressed. As a bank we have put in place a lot of checks and balances. When opening an account with us you must have an ID, we will take your biometric fingerprints, we have to visit your business and you need two people who know you. We are trying to show the world that we are following the norms of international banking. Is Mogadishu safe for investments? I was just there two weeks ago. We are working hard to change the perception that Somalia is all about war. Business has been going on in the last two years. There is one thing I always tell people and they get surprised, the GDP of Somalia is higher than that of Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Somalis are very enterprising. There are opportunities and as things improve there will be even more. [Militant group] al-Shabaab has lost important areas like Mogadishu and it is only a matter of time before they are pushed out completely. Somalia is safe and it will get even better. Any more FSB branches in the pipeline? We are rolling out agency banking. We will open the first agency next month. We expect to have five agencies within two months after that. Our plan is to have more agencies not physical branches. http://somalilandpress.com/somalia-despite-security-fears-free-enterprise-thrives-in-mogadishu-30513

June 18th, 2012 Six African nations are in the top 10 of an annual failed-state index, including Somalia, which heads the list for the fifth straight year after continued struggles with lawlessness and piracy. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/18/somalia-tops-failed-states-index-for-fifth-year/