Jacpher;951106 wrote: Says a guy hiding behind a keyboard. What is that suppose to mean?:confused:

Chimera;951060 wrote: It means to be a loyal son, a loving grandson, a caring brother, a cherished cousin, a vital pillar of the family. It means striving to be a good husband and an even greater father. +1

Jacpher;951097 wrote: The world wouldn't end because Jubbaland State come into existence. Embrace the constitutional rights of the people under the the federal system. I agree, the world wouldn't end, but it would be a lot better place if we were a bit more honest.

Any region/clan that doesn't want the Central Government in its territory should declared independence, no need for this charade of Federalism. At least Hablolanders are honest .[well almost, if they weren't hiding behind a defunct colonial border] in their endeavour of keeping Villa Somalia off 'their territory'. Kenya managed to keep Villa Somalia out of it's territorial affair, telling any Farax/Halimo that wanted to join Somalia to ship their camels and tents to Somalia proper. Now, what we have is these same folks bringing Harambe House to Somali affairs.

xiinfaniin;951087 wrote: The weak ones always do that , we have seen a pattern to know it If supporting my Government makes me weak then, so be it.:D

xiinfaniin;951082 wrote: Published: September 9, 2011 The narrative stands.:rolleyes:

This article and the last famine of 2010/2011 that has so far claimed 245k Somalis opened up my eyes to what was going on in Somalia...before that I had no interest in Somali politics.

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN Published: September 9, 2011 DHOBLEY, Somalia — Adan Dahir Hassan sits in a bald office, wires dangling from the ceiling, handing out death sentences. Recently installed by an Islamist warlord, Mr. Hassan recalled how he had ordered a soldier who had killed a civilian, possibly by accident, to be delivered to the victim’s family, which promptly shot him in the head. Militiamen led by Sheik Ahmed Madobe, a former member of the Shabab Islamist insurgent group. His forces helped push the Shabab out of a few towns. “It’s Islamic law,” said Mr. Hassan, the professed district commissioner of this bullet-riddled town. “That’s what makes the community feel happy.” For the first time in years, the Shabab Islamist group that has long tormented Somalis is receding from several areas at once, including this one, handing the Transitional Federal Government an enormous opportunity to finally step outside the capital and begin uniting this fractious country after two decades of war. Instead, a messy, violent, clannish scramble is emerging over who will take control. This is exactly what the United States and other donors had hoped to avoid by investing millions of dollars in the transitional government, viewing it as the best antidote to Somalia’s chronic instability and a bulwark against Islamic extremism. But the government is too weak, corrupt, divided and disorganized to mount a claim beyond Mogadishu, the capital, leaving clan warlords, Islamist militias and proxy forces armed by foreign governments to battle it out for the regions the Shabab are losing. Already, clashes have erupted between the anti-Shabab forces fighting for the spoils, and roadblocks operated by clan militias have resurfaced on the streets of Mogadishu, even though the government says it is in control. Many analysts say both the Shabab and the government are splintering and predict that the warfare will only increase, complicating the response to Somalia’s widening famine. “What you now have is a free-for-all contest in which clans are unilaterally carving up the country into unviable clan enclaves and cantons,” said Rashid Abdi, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, which studies conflicts. “The way things are going, the risk of future interregional wars and instability is real,” Mr. Abdi added, “even after Al Shabab is defeated.” More than 20 separate new ministates, including one for a drought-stricken area incongruously named Greenland, have sprouted up across Somalia, some little more than Web sites or so-called briefcase governments, others heavily armed, all eager for international recognition and the money that may come with it. Officials with the 9,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force, the backbone of security in Mogadishu, say they are deeply concerned by this fragmentation, reminiscent of Somalia’s warlord days after the government collapsed in 1991. “What was holding everybody together is now gone,” lamented an African Union official, who asked not to be identified because he was departing from the official line that all is well in Mogadishu. “All these people who came together to fight the Shabab are now starting to fight each other. We weren’t prepared for this. It’s happening too fast.” American officials are struggling to keep up with Somalia’s rapidly evolving — or some say devolving — politics, saying they have lost faith in the transitional government’s leaders and are now open to the idea of financing some local security forces, part of what they call a “dual track” approach to supporting the national and local governments at the same time. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have a local leader with some charisma and grass-roots support,” said one American official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Perhaps no area better illustrates the creeping warlordism than Dhobley, a forlorn little town near the Kenyan border contested by two new militias, one led by a dapper, French-educated intellectual, the other by an Islamist sheik who used to be in league with the Shabab. People are starving here, victims of Somalia’s famine, 70-pound adults and tiny babies with skin cracked like old paint. But there are few aid organizations around. They have been scared off by the hundreds of undisciplined militiamen, who constantly fire off their guns and have killed each other in recent weeks. The gunmen in solid green fatigues belong to Ahmed Madobe, the Islamist sheik-turned-warlord who just a few years ago was hunted down by American forces, wounded by shrapnel during an air raid and then spirited away to an Ethiopian prison. “I wasn’t just in the Shabab; I helped found it,” Sheik Madobe boasted the other day, as he sat in a tent on Dhobley’s outskirts, flanked by dozens of baby-faced fighters. He said he had quit the Shabab because “they’re killers,” though several analysts said it was a more prosaic breakup over smuggling fees. Also prowling around Dhobley, between crumbling buildings and stinking piles of animal carcasses from the drought, are hundreds of gunmen in camouflage fighting for another man, known as the Professor. Mohamed Abdi Mohamed, better known as Professor Gandhi, is a former university lecturer who says he holds two French Ph.D.’s — in geology and anthropology. He has formed his own state, Azania, complete with two houses of representatives and special seats for women, though he is not actually in Dhobley and seems to spend a lot of time in Kenya. “Let’s just say Madobe and I have different values,” Professor Gandhi said from the tearoom of a fancy hotel in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, where he was wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a stylish thick cotton blazer. Professor Gandhi’s and Sheik Madobe’s forces, working simultaneously though not quite together, recently pushed the Shabab out of a few towns along the Kenyan border. The Kenyan military has been backing them up, and according to American diplomatic cables, the Chinese government gave Kenya weapons and uniforms for the Somali militiamen, possibly because there is oil in southern Somalia that the Chinese covet. A similar situation is unfolding near the Ethiopian border, where an Ethiopian-backed militia has defeated Shabab forces and established a narrow zone of control. In central Somalia, another militia, Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a, which also receives Ethiopian weapons, has seized several towns from the Shabab as well. The Shabab seem to be undercut by internal fissures, though they still have thousands of fighters. Several leaders, including Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, have recently been killed, and the Shabab’s policy of blocking Western food aid at a time of famine has meant that hundreds of thousands of people have fled their territory, depleting the militants’ resources and depriving them of recruits. Those who remain are often too poor to tax or too sick to soldier. In August, the Shabab announced they were pulling out of Mogadishu for the first time in years, though some fighters apparently stayed behind to terrorize the population and behead more than a dozen people. The new anti-Shabab forces have differing relationships with the transitional government. Sheik Madobe says he is willing to work with transitional leaders; Professor Gandhi dismissed them as a lost cause. But even the local administrations marginally aligned with the government say they do not get much help from Mogadishu and now want to break away. “Separation, that’s our dream,” said Abdirashid Hassan Abdinur, a local official in Dolo, near the Ethiopian border. As for a name, he said they were still working on that. “All I can say is that we’ll pick it here, not at some foreign hotel.”

Tallaabo;950792 wrote: Nuune also started NG's habit of resurrecting old threads:mad: For a minute or two I read it as if it was a new thread. Damn you maku dhahaa:mad: Because Habrolanders have been reinventing the wheel since 1991.

Miyir;950852 wrote: thanks to Qoslaaye partisan rule we are back to tribal wars. This is what Puntland wanted from day one once they missed out on the PM post. I always thought Mooge's fadhi kudir was harmless, little did I know that it was a universal world view in some corners of our society.

There was no clan reconciliation here, what we got was a warlord backed by Kenya and his 2,000 clan militia getting anointed.

Yunis;950819 wrote: waryaada, Macallin iyo Gabbal ease up this none sense of name calling… Macallinka you have said 'locals alone carved up this admin and have chosen him...' I am not advocating for war and it should be avoided at all cost, but how did you come up with that statement. Yesterday a former warlord/jihadist decided he had opportunity and enough muscle to take over. The start of the election wasn't announced yet, there was separate meetings taking place all over the city and issues of voter cards and oversight committee arrangements were happening when at high noon during lunch hours Madoobe's dashed for the conference hall, Mainly his own M^Subeer in toe, none of the candidates that hail from Gedo were at this sham election. How does one claim they received 485 out 500 votes when none of the 180 Gedo delegates plus their 20 seats from Kismayo were vacant from the election hall. He managed to pay ex MP Thug Hilowle who was not either a member of selected delegate or a candidate to the hall and claim everyone was there. Candidates like Magan, Ali Madoobe, Bashir and the traditional leaders were all blind sighted by Madoobe’s little coup d'etat. To call this a farce election is not to drum up a war, but for you to call this a free and fair election couldn’t further from the truth. If anything, it was Madoobe’s actions of yesterday that gave Bare the opportunity he so desired, and thus responsibility of this fiasco lies with Madobe. This is why you need the central government plus independent election commission to supervise this sort of arrangements, what we have here are unilateral undertakings by two warlords.

nuune;949933 wrote: As well as ambassador for Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan, and growing, shows how insignificant Canada is to the world or the world to Canada!! As the consequences of September 11, is that Canada has sub contracted it's foreign policy to the US. This once bastion of liberalism and human rights, now shares the same policy on drones and Gitmo with it's bigger neighbour, thanks to the likes of David Frum and co, who imported neo-con politics to Canada.

^ You could add the fact that Africa will double it's population in the next 40 years from 800 million to 1.6 billion people. All these people will need their energy met as they get richer and become middle class. Even if we don't export any oil at least we will become hydrocarbon self- sufficient.

Safferz;949929 wrote: lol he's going to be ambassador to Somalia without leaving Nairobi? Damn. I'm afraid that will be the case until Al Shaabab are eradicated and HAG and SAHAL warlord-ism stops threatening our fledgling government. I believe he's an ambassador for both countries.

Canadian Press, 14-May "13 OTTAWA - A longtime Canadian diplomat will become the country's first ambassador to Somalia in more than two decades. The announcement of David Angell's appointment marks a restart of diplomatic relations between Canada and the east Africa country. Canada hasn't had an ambassador accredited to Somalia since 1990 but had signalled it wanted to rekindle relations following presidential elections in the country last year. Angell was appointed Canada's ambassador to Kenya last fall and he'll continue to live in Nairobi while carrying out his new duties. His appointment was formally announced Tuesday by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird during a visit to Kenya. It had been approved by the Privy Council Office last week as part of a broader diplomatic shuffle which also saw Canada's ambassador to Mali receive responsibility for Niger. Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/John+Baird+appoints+Canadas+first+ambassador+Somalia/8383851/story.html#ixzz2TJLhpLcO

As minister for natural resources in a dysfunctional country divided by a continuing war, he has to oversee a bulging portfolio that includes water, agriculture, the environment and livestock. As if that were not enough, his brief now also includes hydrocarbons just as Somalia We need to break-p this super ministries. I would like to see new ministries in the next reshuffle. A stand alone Ministry of :- 1. Education 3 .Health 3. Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. 4. Culture,Youth and Sports. 5. Religious Affairs and Endowment. A maximum of 15 ministers will be enough to run an efficient government, imo.

Safferz;949881 wrote: Oh those poor men, having to go to jail for rape Although Burahadeer is an atheist he reminds me of those 'Islamist' who prosecute victims of rape and blame them for being victims. Believers or not, I think we must accept the fact the we are a misogynistic society. InshaAllah, in a near future, I will like to see our women [mothers, sisters, daughters...] feel secured, in their homes, work places, streets, place of recreation...

Che -Guevara;949516 wrote: How much money have they collected since 1991 and would that money go to the Somali Government or was it all used to pay salaries and office overhead? Probably ended up in UN and Kenyan coffers.

Saalax;949519 wrote: What can the federal government do? You seem very naive Haatu. They are holed up in Mogadishu and protected by mercenaries. He who controls the land matters.

His group has not been able to touch a more attractive block, Nugaal, because it lies in a controversial zone. In fact, Puntland draws its border with Somaliland to accommodate the Nugaal block. “Puntland came up with this creative imaginary boundary to entice oil and gas companies,” says Hussein Abdi Dualeh, Somaliland’s energy minister. He himself faces similar claims from Mogadishu, which says Somaliland has no right to make oil contracts of its own. Mr Dualeh says the earlier claims in Somaliland have lapsed. He has kept up the pressure by bringing in new companies. Two weeks ago Somaliland signed over a block to Norway’s DNO International. Ophir Energy has an interest in two blocks that overlap former BP blocks. Genel last year took a stake in two other onshore blocks – one of which overlaps a former Conoco block – and is conducting a seismic survey. “Ninety-five per cent of who has legality is whoever controls the territory,” says Mr Dualeh of Nugaal. “No oil and gas company in their right minds would come in willy-nilly and start doing things.” But the situation is looking even more complex. The area around Nugaal, Khaatumo, last year declared independence from both Somaliland and Puntland, highlighting the risk that oil could rupture the country. Mr Mohamed admits there are fissures. He wants to change the constitution – crafted at great expense by Somali lawmakers and UN legal experts – to accommodate an amended version of the 2008 petroleum law, which stipulates that the central government will determine oil deals. “We want oil companies to come into the country . . . but companies are taking huge risks, some of them deliberate.” Development: A tangle of converging foreign interests In recent years, foreign involvement in Somalia has been characterised as part of an effort to combat terrorism. But now Somalis are quick to identify a new set of self-interested motives. “Of course it’s all about oil,” says one senior Somali adviser about Norway’s growing interest in his country. Norway, whose state oil company Statoil is exploring off east Africa, has made various commitments to Somalia. Oslo has installed solar-powered lamps on the streets of Mogadishu and is setting up a special $30m finance facility. Last month a Somali parliamentary delegation visited Oslo to discuss co-operation, development and the management of natural resources. Most critically, these talks included discussion of a triangle of water disputed between Kenya and Somalia. The Somali parliamentarians rejected a 2009 agreement by the previous transitional government to sign away the triangle to Kenya. That has raised the political stakes surrounding the status of Jubaland, a proposed Somali region neighbouring Kenya that would hold sway over the disputed offshore zone. Diplomats say that Kenya, whose peacekeeping troops guard Kismayo, the port at the economic heart of Jubaland, is keen to assert influence there, against the wishes of the new Mogadishu government. This tension between Somalia and Kenya matters to western oil interests. Somalia has already warned Statoil, along with Total and Eni, not to accept any oil concessions offered by Kenya in the disputed triangle. Oslo lobbied hard for a Norwegian to become UN envoy to Somalia. That job instead went this month to a diplomat from the UK, which last week hosted an important conference on Somalia. The attendees at the conference revealed the range of interests converging on Somalia. Qatar, for example, is an investor in Shell. Turkey has led a diplomatic charge for Somalia by setting up an embassy outside the secure airport compound and delivering prominent support, such as a camp for displaced people, a technical college and scholarships. In the cold war, the Soviet Union and the US competed for influence in Somalia. But the competing forces are now eminently more complex. Source: Financial Times

Energy companies scrambling for reserves risk opening up dangerous fault lines Monday, May 13, 2013 After an absence of more than 30 years, Abdirizak Omar Mohamed has returned to Somalia, the country of his birth. Last year he gave up his job as a civil servant in the housing sector in Canada to take up a position as one of only 10 ministers in Mogadishu’s new, slimline cabinet. As minister for natural resources in a dysfunctional country divided by a continuing war, he has to oversee a bulging portfolio that includes water, agriculture, the environment and livestock. As if that were not enough, his brief now also includes hydrocarbons just as Somalia – and east Africa more broadly – has become one of the most attractive frontiers in oil exploration for leading companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips. “The president and I have discussions every day about oil,” says Mr Mohamed in his office that looks out at the Indian Ocean across the tumbledown city of Mogadishu. Late last year, Somalia caught the attention of foreign oil companies by announcing it intended to auction some of 308 newly delineated oil blocks this year. The world’s leading oil companies are increasingly accepting that their quest for new reserves will take them into challenging new territory. In regions such as the Arctic, the problems are technical. Around the Horn of Africa, companies must calculate whether political and security risks will put too heavy a burden on their production costs. This is hazardous territory in which to operate. A chunk of Somalia is still under the control of al-Shabaab, jihadi militants allied with al-Qaeda. Its wa-ters are the hunting ground of pirates, who since 2005 have earned close to $400m by ransoming 149 vessels. The politics is also messy, internecine and riven by militias. Oil companies in the race for contracts find themselves unsure whether the power lies in Mogadishu or in semi-autonomous regions such as Puntland or self-declared states such as Galmudug. Somaliland to the north, bordering Djibouti, has declared itself a fully independent republic. Attempts to carve up oil blocks before the Mogadishu government even controls the whole national territory are undermining efforts to bring peace and stability to a state that has been shattered by 22 years of war and that exports terrorism. The race to lay claim to resources risks triggering wider conflicts: regional authorities have been hostile to central government since the 22-year military dictatorship of Siad Barre. When he was deposed in 1991, warlords carved up the country – and several clan-based militias still hold sway, sometimes cutting deals with al-Shabaab. The danger is that the race for oil will feed a destabilising rivalry between Mogadishu and other regions – some still influenced by former warlords – just as the international community is celebrating progress. UK ambassador Matt Baugh says the situation remains “very, very fragile”. Rival administrations have issued several companies rights to a clutch of overlapping oil blocks, redrawing the political map of Somalia in line with their own interests. On an international level, disagreement between Kenya and Somalia over their maritime boundary has also created what one diplomat terms a “triangle of confusion” reaching across 120,000 square kilometres. Kenyan troops defend the port of Kismayo, south of Mogadishu, notionally in support of the Mogadishu government, but Somali officials worry Kenya is keener on securing oil rights. “The biggest conflicts right now among Somalis are all about oil rights . . . oil is the main player in all of this mess,” says Mohamed Nur of Dissident Nation, a lobby group. “But it’s also a force that allows all sides to have bargaining chips and have an equal role in the future of the nation.” Indeed, seven months into the job, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called for a consensus, saying he has not yet signed any oil deals. He has also called on international oil companies not to cut their own deals with regional authorities because “that will block their future engagement in Somalia”. “Resources should not be used as a pretext for new conflict,” he told the Financial Times. It is a short drive from the president’s office to the well-guarded steps of the resources ministry. From behind the window of his bulletproof vehicle, Mr Mohamed points out the recent additions to Mogadishu’s scars: a car bomb here; a suicide attack there. “We should wait until we have the right laws in place . . . we are not ready yet,” he says, before heading home for a lunch of chips, camel steak, spaghetti and cumin-infused rice. Such a culinary hotch-potch offers a reminder that the former Italian colony has long had to contend with foreign influence and interests. But oil companies are not proving as patient as Mr Mohamud – or as patient as he would like. A quarter of a century ago, BP, Chevron, Conoco, Eni and Shell bought oil blocks and started ambitious exploration programmes. By 1991 they had all put them on ice, declaring force majeure as civil war took hold. Now several companies want them back. The Somali government has already started discussions with two previous concession holders – Eni and Shell – that want to reclaim their pre-1991 blocks and enter into production sharing agreements, says a senior government official. He adds that Conoco is also ready to reclaim its stake and that BP is considering the idea. While the companies have not presented concrete plans, oil executives say they are interested in Somalia should force majeure be lifted. But hazardous faultlines between competing authorities are beginning to erupt. In February, PetroQuest Africa, an affiliate of US exploration company Liberty Petroleum, signed a deal for a block with the regional government of Galmudug, a self-declared state to the north of Mogadishu. The move shows how quickly tensions can be inflamed because Liberty’s concession overlaps an offshore block also claimed by Shell. In a letter of April 24, Shell asked the Somali authorities to take action to safeguard its “exclusive rights” to the block. Mr Mohamed is quick to defend Shell and the pre-eminence of his weak, donor-backed Mogadishu government: “Galmudug should not ever offer any block to any company let alone the Shell block; it should not be signing contracts . . . there’s only one president.” In Galmudug itself, they see things differently. The president there is Abdi Hasan Awale Qeybdiid, a former warlord portrayed in Black Hawk Down, the film of the disastrous 1993 US mission when Somali militants downed US helicopters and dragged US corpses through the streets. He told the FT that he believed his agreement with Liberty was in line with the new provisional, federal constitution. “We are not feeling any guilt for this kind of thing,” he says. “If there is a problem between the government and Galmudug we need to discuss, including Shell and Liberty and everyone, let them come to court.” Phoenix-based Lane Franks, president of PetroQuest and Liberty, co-founded by his brother and US Congressman Trent Franks, suggests Shell should buy them out if the company wants to avoid stoking violence in Somalia. “Shell could still maintain its operatorship by compensating PQ with a modest royalty and reasonable fee to acquire all the PQ rights,” said Mr Franks in a letter to Shell executives on April 9. “Shell would also avoid potential rebellion or backlash from the autonomous states [that could reignite] ... at worst, another civil war.” Abdillahi Mohamud of the East African Energy Forum, another lobby group, warns that such frictions show the stakes are high: “If we see a scramble for petroleum concessions before a political settlement between the federal states and Mogadishu is reached, we can definitely see a new conflict.” In 2005, when Marcus Edwards-Jones, now non-executive board director of Aim-listed Range Resources, went to Puntland – a semi-autonomous state of northern Somalia – he took a Ukrainian charter plane from Yemen, lured by the promise of data left over from when Conoco conducted surveys there. “It was a no-go area in those days – humanitarian planes didn’t even land, they would just drop aid out the back of a plane,” says Mr Edwards-Jones. Undaunted, he went on to raise $40m from London fund managers to explore throughout Puntland following an agreement with the government. Range and its partners have put more than $100m into the zone. In addition to drilling two wells, they built an airstrip and deployed 250 troops, led by South African security contractors, to counter al-Shabaab. Mr Mohamed insists that any contracts signed with Puntland since 1991 are “null and void”, and ConocoPhillips wrote in 2007 that it had “not relinquished its rights in Somalia”. But Puntland’s government countered in February that the Mogadishu government was interfering “illegitimately on resource exploitation”. Both Range’s wells were dry, hitting the share price and making it harder to raise money for the next well. But Mr Edwards-Jones says the area is so vast he would need to drill 15 wells before he gave up hope. “We did find traces of hydrocarbons down there; you can miss it by five feet,” he says.

Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar;949392 wrote: I knew some xildhibaano were seeking impeachments/vote of confidence against not only Shirdoon, but against madaxweynaha iyo shirguddoonka baarlamaanka. That was weeks ago. So this dude Faroole waa dambeeyaa, I guess. Not to mention his followers. Eniwey, those who are seeking this useless vote of confidence waa kooxo kala kadisan, all united by their respective qabyaalad reasons. Some xildhibaano are against guddoomiyaha baarlamaanka because tolkiisa meesha lagu qadiye. Same reason they are against madaxweynaha for not nominating fairly the ambassadors, saraakiisha ciidamada, et cetera. Ditto to wasiirka koowaad. Then there are other xildhibaano from Reer Sool and Sanaag who are against madaxweynaha's meeting with Siilaanyo. Kuwa kale iyagana soo haray wanting to have a vote of confidence against ra'iisul wasaaraha. These xildhibaano waa kuwa kasoo jeedo Jubbada Hoose, because ra'iisul wasaaraha's lukewarm to maamulkaas beenaadkaas loo dhisooyo Jubbooyinka. And finally waxaa soo haray kooxda qashqashaadoonka. Qas meesha u joogo iyo inay ka faa'ideystaan. Waa kuwii dowladihii hore ku jiray. I hope Jawaari doesn't allow any of this nonsense. + 1

Safferz;949409 wrote: Not quite... I met the head of Somaliland aviation at Berbera airport last summer who was also on his way to Canada, but for an aviation conference where he was part of a committee representing Somalia. Somalia has full sovereignty over its airspace, and at the moment that includes Somaliland. You are the one who is lacking neutrality Alpha, nuune is reporting the facts.