http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zjkmkrWHtPw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen> Fear has gripped residents of Garissa Town ahead of a police operation targeting sympathisers of Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants, who have been blamed for the recent spate of killings in the town. On Monday, some residents started fleeing areas where deadly attacks occurred recently to settlements on the outskirts of the town in fear of the impending operation. Hundreds of policemen from the General Service Unit and the Rapid Deployment Unit, Administration and regular police have arrived in the town in readiness for the operation. More police and administration officers have also been interdicted for allegedly helping al-Shabaab sympathisers to carry out atrocities in the country. On Sunday, the head of Criminal Investigations Department in Garissa was sent home together with nine other government officials after being linked to al-Shabaab activities. More officers, including police and customs officials who work at entry points on the vast Kenya-Somalia border, were also interdicted to pave the way for investigations. Inspector-General of Police David Kimaiyo said several letters directing the officers to stay out of office had been written and would be delivered to them with the authority of the National Police Service Commission. Volatile region “Whoever is involved will go home irrespective of the rank. Investigations are going on to establish the officers who were compromised,” he said. Internal Security permanent secretary Mutea Iringo revealed new measures aimed at improving security in the volatile region. In a statement, the PS announced a reward of up to Sh100,000 for any person who gives information leading to the arrest of suspects. On Sunday night, a contingent of regular and Administration police carried out a swoop that resulted in the arrest of 80 people. Most of those arrested did not have national identity cards or any other valid identification or travel documents. The suspects were later taken to the Garissa Law Courts and charged with being in the country illegally. A curfew has also been imposed in the town with boda boda operators and taxi-drivers allowed to operate between 6am and 6pm. Garissa county commissioner Mohamed Maalim said the Kenya Defence Forces had closed the Kenya-Somalia border to prevent criminal elements from fleeing to Somalia ahead of the crackdown. “Every effort is being done to crackdown on them,” Mr Maalim said. He further called on the residents to co-operate with security forces. http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Residents-flee-ahead-of-swoop/-/1056/1755738/-/8vj774/-/index.html

FuelFix Monday, April 22, 2013 Somalia plans to sign 30 oil and gas production-sharing contracts this year, starting with companies that operated in the country before its government was toppled more than two decades ago, an official said. “All prior holders have been contacted and three are ready to continue,” including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Eni SpA (ENI), and ConocoPhillips ©, Hussein Ali Ahmed, managing director of the state-owned Somalia Petroleum Corp., said in an interview on April 18 in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. BP Plc (BP/) has indicated an interest in returning, while Chevron Corp. hasn’t formerly answered the Somali government’s call to come back, he said. Somalia is one of the last frontiers for oil and gas in eastern Africa as it recovers from a two-decade civil war that shattered the economy and left the nation as one of the world’s least developed. In the region, companies including Eni, BG Group Plc (BG/) and Statoil ASA (STL) have discovered more than 100 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in Mozambique and Tanzania, while London-based Tullow Oil Plc (TLW) has found oil in Uganda and Kenya. Somali lawmakers in September elected Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud as the country’s president, marking the 16th attempt to establish an effective central government since 1991, when the former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown. The country’s security forces, backed by regional peacekeepers, are still battling al-Qaeda-backed Islamic militants who control parts of southern and central Somalia, after fleeing the capital, Mogadishu, in August 2011. Exploration Blocks Somalia plans to increase the number of oil and gas exploration blocks to 300 of 5,000 square kilometers (1,931 square miles) each, after sub-dividing the existing 25 areas, according to Ahmed. Some blocks are currently as big as 200,000 square kilometers, Ahmed said. “We want to sub-divide because they are too big to award to single companies for exploration in good time,” Ahmed said. Shell had five blocks before Barre’s government fell, he said. The area available to explore for oil and gas in Somalia is equivalent to about one third of the country’s surface, Ahmed said. The country expects to complete legislation under which oil and gas activities will be managed within in months. “We had drafted a law in 2008, but the new government asked to review it, and we expect they will send in to parliament soon, and the whole process should be complete in a few months,” Ahmed said. [Where does this put the signatories of PSA's, exploration agreements since 1991?]

*ANWAR*;941877 wrote: way do they have Italian writing?? on the wall Seriously?

0:54:41 look at the facial expression when the guy asks who did somaliland get independence from looool

By Lillian Aluanga She was once the tiniest and youngest pupil in class, but today stands tall among her peers. While Ambassador Amina Mohamed is tall, in a literal sense, (over five foot ten) her appointment as Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) also gives her a vertical boost in one of the world’s top international organisations. Under her new posting, which she took up two weeks ago, Mohamed will also serve as an Assistant Secretary General at the UN, making her the senior-most Kenyan at the organisation. The new posting has seen Mohamed leave her perch as Permanent Secretary at the Justice Ministry, as well as relinquish her seat as president of the Conference of State Parties to the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime. But these aren’t the only bodies she has headed in a career spanning 25 years. In 2002, Mohamed made history as the first woman and first African to be elected chair to the Council of the International Organisation for Migration. Three years later, she became Chairman of the General Council of the World Trade Organisation between 2005 and 2006. Not only was Mohamed the first woman to do so, but her performance quickly earned her a reputation at the organisation as one who ran things with "a steel fist inside a velvet glove". More on her: http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000040774&story_title=From-tiny-schoolgirl-to-Unep-big-boss

Oodweyne;941833 wrote: In this article you will find all the evidence you need to know the sheer bogus notion in which "Somalinimo" was from the get go of our recorded history. In this snippet of evidence you have a group of Somalis claiming that the leaders of Kenya and Ethiopia are far more in tune of what is good for Somalia than her sitting president. And the evidence they brought forward for this assertion is that the president may wish to replace these countries forces with some others. And to boot their evidence is that Kenya and Ethiopia agree with the formation of Jubbaland and since president of Somalia disagree with that then he must defer to these countries since they care far more for the well being of Somalia than he does it. Hence in this little letter you will get all you need to know about the miserable charade in which this Somali nationhood was all along.

Renovated Central bank of Somalia offices.

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Maaddeey;941741 wrote: Lool, suaasha weli waa taagantahay, maxaa magaca Alle looga fujiyey meesha pm xataa iigu sheeg!. haddii kale thread-kaga dhan waa report-gareynaa!. This is not the thread for that question intaas miyaad fahmi karta? is oba the civil engineer of that project? misee all he did is upload a photo publically available? Perhaps you thought that since this thread is one of the most popular on somali forums, being disputatious will make it seem that the adherents of your cult can still support an argument....start another thread. simple as that.

Daqane;939963 wrote: Yaa CHE how does it feel having bombs go off in your general vicinity? Did it give you the rush as you always imagined it after supporting al-qaeda and shabaab tactics in somalia, was the frission of delight as good as you imagined it when you saw the info on the ticker tape machine? Yup it is a laughing matter...

Relations with Ethiopia are quite good they have left the ASWJ militia to be swallowed up and have left the lead on jubbaland to the legitimate Somali government [you notice that people are no longer talking about the IGAD project but the kenyan one] they have whole heartedly stepped back from dictating to the SFG on issues of district governments e.t.c, the issue now is money and that is between them and the I.C they have refused to join AMISOM [so as to maintain operational independence/flexibility], and are now squeezing the I.C as they know how and that's by threatening evacuation of Somali areas they control, even that is less of a threat as days go by.

At the very least they provide alternatives that was not had in the past!

Yaa CHE how does it feel having bombs go off in your general vicinity? Did it give you the rush as you always imagined it after supporting al-qaeda and shabaab tactics in somalia, was the frission of delight as good as you imagined it when you saw the info on the ticker tape machine?

[The president fought for this new approach for a while and seems after weathering the expected lords of poverty hue and cry the SFG has built up enough of a coalition to make this happen!] Somalia the yardstick in new deal for conflict-affected countries Somalia will present a challenging case but Mogadishu has enthusiastically embraced the state-building framework somalia is emerging as a litmus test for the new deal for fragile states as officials gather in Washington on Friday to discuss how the approach can be incorporated into the development agenda when the millennium development goals expire in 2015. The new Somali government has enthusiastically embraced the new deal and created a taskforce, bringing together the government, lead donors (the US, UK, EU, Norway and Denmark), the World Bank and civil society. One of the taskforce's first jobs is to assess the causes and features of fragility and conflict. This is more than an academic exercise. On Sunday, at least 35 people – including two human rights lawyers – were killed in the deadliest Islamist militant attack in years in Mogadishu, the capital. Such a fragility assessment is supposed to be inclusive of the Somali population, but the existence of al-Shabaab, the insurgency group, will pose tests for inclusiveness, though there are some early signs that the national army is beginning to deliver security. Somalia is the ninth developing country to adopt the new deal since it was endorsed at an aid effectiveness conference in Busan, South Korea, in 2011. The new deal, put forward by the g7+ group of 19 conflict-affected countries, is supposed to put developing countries in the driving seat on development strategy. At its core are five peace-building and state-building goals: legitimate and inclusive politics; security; justice; economic foundations (jobs); and revenues and services (managing revenue and delivering accountable and fair services). The thinking behind the new deal is that unless aid focuses on peace, money will go to waste. Ahead of the meeting in Washington, Sierra Leone's finance and economic development minister, Kaifala Marah, said progress on the new deal has been sluggish. A common complaint – in addition to declining aid flows – from developing countries is that donors remain reluctant to shed the old approaches, including using their own consultants and foreign advisers, instead of using recipient country systems. The use of parallel systems – which duplicate existing resources, are expensive and do not build expertise in developing countries – boils down to a lack of trust, especially as donors are under domestic pressure to show value for money in aid budgets. Adopting systems in recipient countries does not necessarily mean handing over money for general budget support. Other measures include discussing budgets in parliament rather than deciding them in the donor country, using countries' own measurement and evaluation systems instead of sending in consultants to serve only donors' needs, and donors making information on aid figures readily available. "The question is how the systems are used, how the risk is managed, how quickly problems can be identified and addressed, and seeing the development of systems to deliver, track, hold to account, monitor and evaluate public monies and public policies as a development aim in itself," an aid expert said. "Mismanagement and corruption also happens outside of country systems – and in addition, the systems are not strengthened either – as was so evident in Afghanistan with the use of consultancy firms that were accountable, in the end, to no one." Somalia will present a particularly challenging case for the new deal, given its reputation as the world's most fragile state, but donors are positive about the new government in Mogadishu. "We strongly support the new deal and are working to support governments implementing it in countries like Somalia, which is shaping up to be a good example of new deal implementation," a spokeswoman for the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) said. "The UK government is committing 30% of our bilateral spend to fragile and conflict-affected states." This year, DfID is providing £80m in aid to Somalia as part of a £267m package in 2011 to 2015 (pdf). Somalia is a key focus of the G8 group of industrialised countries under the UK's presidency this year. There will be another Somalia conference in London next month, which will officially endorse a public financial management (PFM) action plan. PFM, a basic building block in managing a country's finances, is a priority for the Somali government and donors, and will be a subject of a meeting in Washington on Saturday, chaired by DfID and the World Bank. An agenda for the meeting says: "Improving basic PFM systems and capacity will be key to building government legitimacy and public and international trust. Currently, there is little effective control over the sources of domestic revenue and little transparent management over expenditures in most of the country … Establishing these basics will help facilitate transparent revenue and expenditure management." Whatever the risks of aid leakage in using country systems, experts argue that they are worth taking. "Ultimately, we aren't going to wake up and find that the shoemaker's elves have built Somalia a state-of-the-art PFM system overnight. We have to work with them, and if they can build a system their population can trust, that will help build the peace," the aid expert said. After London, Somalia's new deal is expected to be formalised at a conference in Brussels in September. The Somalia compact will set out mutual commitments and priorities between the government and donors. The EU has been appointed lead donor and has recruited Philippe Gourdin, as the donor co-ordinator, to work with Somalia's new deal team. The process has not, however, been all plain sailing. The UK was keen that Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991, should attend next month's conference. Somaliland initially declined the invitation on the grounds that President Ahmed Mahamoud Silanyo would not be given equal status to his Somali counterpart, President Hassan Sheikh. It took the personal intervention of David Cameron, the British prime minister, to persuade Silanyo to send a ministerial delegation. Whether or how Somaliland – and Puntland, which declared autonomy within Somalia in 1998 – will be part of the new deal will be yet another matter for donors to grapple with. Human rights experts are adopting a cautious approach. "It is too early to know if all the positive rhetoric will convert into concrete change to improve human rights in Somalia," Laetitia Bader, a researcher for Human Rights Watch's Africa division, said. "The months after the London conference will be the real test. The government and its international supporters should use the conference and later discussions on the new deal to commit, financially and politically, to create a more rights-abiding security force and a functional justice system."

Djibouti to Deploy Additional Troops to Somalia SABAHI Friday, April 19, 2013 Djibouti will send additional troops to Somalia to join its contingent serving under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), Speaker of Djibouti's Parliament Idiris Arnaud Ali announced Wednesday (April 17th). "Djibouti will reinforce its troops in Somalia soon to boost the security and stability there," Ali said, according to Somalia's RBC Radio. "Our forces are there to lend a hand to the rebirth of Somalia, and we are proud of that. Somalia is not alone since Djibouti is there." The deployment of Djiboutian troops is intended to prevent a security vacuum after the possible withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, which are not part of AMISOM. In March, al-Shabaab recaptured two towns after Ethiopian and Somali troops vacated them. Source: SABAHI

Kooxo Hubeysn oo Maqaayad ku taalla Degmada Gaarisa ku toogtay dad fara badan kuwo kalena ku Dhaawacay Jimco, Abriil 19, 2013 (HOL) — Kooxo hubeysan ayaa xalay dad badan ku toogtay magaalada Gaarisa ee gobolka Waqooyi-bari ee Kenya, iyadoo lix ka mid ah ay goobta ku geeriyoodeen, halka saddex kalena ay dhaawacyo soo gaaray u dhinteen. Booliiska Gaarisa ayaa sameeyay baaritaanno ballaaran sameeyay kuwaasoo ay ku qabqabteen dhowr qof, iyadoo aysan jirin cid sheegatay inaysan ka dambeyn weerarkaas iyo koox lagu eedeeyay intaba. Sagaal qof oo kale ayaa ku dhaawacmay weerarkaas oo ahaa kii ugu xumaa ee ka dhaca degmada Gaarisa tan iyo markii ay ciidamada Kenya soo galeen gudaha Soomaaliya dhammaadkii sannadkii 2011. “Kooxo ku hubeysnaa qoryaha fudud ee AK-47-ka ah ayaa weerarka ku qaaday maqaayadda Kwa Chege, rasaas ay ku fureen dadkii maqaayada ku jiray oo qaarkood cunteynayay halka kuwo kalena ay qaxweynayeen, lix qof ayaa isla markiibta goobta ku dhintay, dad kale oo badanna dhaawacyo ayaa soo gaaray,” ayuu yiri maqaayadda ku sugnaa. Goobjoogaha ayaa sheegay in dad fara badan ka baxsadeen goobta, iyadoo weerarka uu dhacay xilli ay dadku daawanayeen warka telefishinnada dalka Kenya ka baxayay fiidnimadii xalay. Taliyaha booliiska gobolka Waqooyi-bari ee dalka Kenya, Charlton Muriithi ayaa sheegay inay socdaan howgallo lagu baadi-goobayo kooxihii weerarka ka dambeeyay, balse ma jirto cid uu si gaar ah ugu eedeeyay. Horraantii bishan ayay ahayd markii weerar noocan oo kale ah uu ka dhacay degmada Gaarisa, kaasoo lagu dilay arday, halka lagu dhaawacay saddex qof oo kale. Waxaana weerarkaas uu ka dhacay suuqa weyn ee magaalada Gaarisa. Sidoo kale, isla bishan Abriil ayaa lagu dilay Gaarisa laba sarkaal oo ka tirsan booliiska Kenya, mid kalena waa lagu dhaawacay, iyadoo kooxaha weerarka geystay ay ka baxsadeen goobtaas. Tan iyo markii ay Kenya ciidammo u soo dirtay Soomaaliya sannadkii 2011 dhammaadkiisa si ay Al-shabaab ula dagaalamaan, waxaa gudaha dalka Kenya ka dhacayay weerarro ay dad badan ku dhinteen. Maxamed Xaaji Xuseen, Hiiraan Online maxuseen@hiiraan.com Muqdisho, Soomaaliya

Kenya: Nine shot dead in Garissa Town By Cyrus Ombati Friday, April 19, 2013 Garissa, Kenya: Police in Garissa Town have launched a major operation after gunmen shot dead nine people. Several others were wounded in the Thursday evening attack. An unknown number of hooded gunmen stormed Kwa Chege hotel off Jamia Mosque road and opened fire at close range with AK 47 rifles, killing six on the spot. Three people later succumbed to gunshot injuries. Police say the gunmen escaped soon after the attack and motive of attack is yet to be established. Witnesses said the attack happened at 7.30pm as revellers were glued on a TV set watching news. North Eastern PPO Charlton Muriithi while confirming the attack said that an operation was underway. Earlier this month, a student was shot dead and three people injured in an attack by gunmen said to have targeted a kiosk dealer in the town. Similar attacks have occurred in the town in North Eastern part of Kenya, many of them however targeted police officers on duty. Still in April, two police officers were shot dead near the local Post Office by gunmen whom police say seemed to have been stalking on them. In this incident, witnesses said the attackers first threw a grenade at nine officers who were in a group before shooting at them. Source: Standard Digital

A good exercise in parliamentary democracy.

Haters gonna hate

AfricaOwn;939662 wrote: How is Siilanyo able to dictate him like this? Where do you think his power is coming from? Is Siilanyo a man with deep pockets? comes from a strong influential clan? What makes you say what you say Xiin? Hahaha

He deserves this accolade but there is still a very long way to go, today we have a realleader alhamdulilah