Al-Haramain’s Closure to Hit Thousands in Somalia Salad F. Duhul & Agencies JEDDAH, 24 May 2003 — Somali Consul General Muhammad Elmi Omer on Thursday expressed concern over the closure of the Riyadh-based Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation’s office in Somalia. The charity, which the United States suspects of having links to terrorist groups, said in statement that it had decided to shut three of its offices abroad. The Islamic agency closed its doors in Somalia on Saturday after the Saudi government ordered its international staff to leave the country, Nur Alasow a Somali employee of the agency told the IRIN news agency. “I am deeply shocked by the news of the closure of Al-Haramain’s office in Somalia,” Omer told Arab News. “The Foundation has continued to be the only lifeline for the Somali people despite the lack of a functioning government. In a country with no effective government, no formal education system and health care, aid agencies are essential for ordinary people’s social and economic well-being. The absence of these charities directly affects the very survival of many Somalis,” he added. Al-Haramain began its Somali activities in wake of the civil war in 1992. The organization ran a total of eight orphanages — five of them in capital Mogadishu — housing about 3,500 children throughout the country. The other orphanages were in Merka in southern Somalia, and Burao and Hargaisa in the northern region of breakaway Somaliland. It also financed over 100 schools and distributed thousands of tons of foodstuffs annually. “Since the collapse of Somali government, Arab and Islamic aid agencies have focused on providing humanitarian assistance to the needy people in the country,” Omer said. “The Al-Haramain foundation has been one of the largest aid groups in Somalia.” He added that the aid agencies had invested in a series of important welfare projects including the renovation of schools and the payment of salaries for health personnel and schoolteachers. The consul general said the Western allegations that Islamic charities funded local Al-Qaeda cells in Somalia were based on misconceptions about the realities in the country. “The Western countries should study the realities in Somalia. Any misconception can only exacerbate the poor conditions in the country.” The consul general urged the international community to support the present peace talks in Kenya. “What Somalis need is to restore law and order and pacify their country. I urge all concerned parties to revise the decision to close the foundation,” he added. Al-Haramain raises almost $30 million a year in donations for charity work across the world. The foundation’s General Manager Sheikh Aqeel Al-Aqeel denied there was pressure from the US to close the offices. “The current situation necessitated a review of the organization’s geographical spread. There has been no pressure from the American authorities to close the offices in those places. There were some indirect reasons behind the closure,” Al-Aqeel was quoted as saying in a statement. Somali expatriates in the Kingdom expressed their concern at the decision to shut Al-Haramain office. Abdullahi Yakob, an executive of a Jeddah-based company, said: “Al-Haramain has contributed significantly to Somalia’s social services. My seven children in Mogadishu are enrolled in a primary school run by the charity. Before closing it down, the authorities should think what alternative sources there will be.” Huriya Ibrahim, a mother of four children, said: “I am worried about the life of the children at orphanages. After the charity has left, who will take care of these children?” Alasow earlier said that most of the orphans the agency cared for had lost one or both parents in the civil war. “We have no idea what we are going to do now,” he said. “We have enough supplies to last till the end of the month. After that it is up to Allah.”

So it wasnt about oil....... ---------------------------------------------------------------- Iraq to cancel three oil deals By Charles Clover in Baghdad Published: May 25 2003 22:20 | Last Updated: May 25 2003 22:20 Iraq's oil minister announced yesterday that three oil production contracts signed by the previous regime with Russian and Chinese companies would be either terminated or frozen, according to Reuters news agency. The move seems likely to plunge Iraq into complex international litigation, just days after the United Nations voted to end sanctions against Iraq. Thamir Ghadhban, US- appointed oil minister, said a contract with the Russian oil giant Lukoil had been terminated, while another contract with a Chinese company to develop al-Ahdab field had been frozen by "mutual agreement". The fate of the third contract was unclear. French, Russian, and Chinese companies received the lion's share of the services and production contracts under the old regime, as their governments were the most supportive of Iraq on the United Nations Security Council. Phillip J. Carroll, the former Shell executive chosen by the Pentagon to advise the oil ministry, said there was some doubt whether existing foreign contracts "gave the Iraqi people the full benefit of their oil wealth". In an interview with the FT, Mr Carroll said there was scope for renegotiating some existing oil deals with foreign oil companies. "Each one of these contracts will have to be examined, in the first instance, in terms of their legal status and standing. Someone working for the ministry would have to say, 'Do we have an enforceable contract here between Iraq and some other entity or is this merely an incomplete process of negotiation?' " he said. "There were some, but relatively few, fully signed and operative contracts. "Secondly, if the contract is deemed to be incomplete or flawed in some way, they have to then examine the commercial terms - if they are fair to both parties, and if it's something they want to go ahead with. Several of these contracts have cast doubt as being overly generous to one party." While taking aim at Russian and Chinese companies, Mr Ghadhban said he was nevertheless in favour of opening up Iraq's oil industry to foreign investment: "We are going to open the door for foreign investment but in accordance with a formula that safeguards the interest of the Iraqi people." Iraqi production was currently at 800,000 barrels a day of crude oil, he said. Exports could begin within the next few weeks. Mr Carroll confirmed that the former regime had developed a strategic plan to increase production capacity fr om 3m b/d to 6m b/d in six to seven years at a cost of $25bn-$30bn. Such a scheme would eventually enable Iraq to challenge Saudi Arabia as the largest oil exporter in the world. At that point, he said, Iraq would have to decide whether to continue membership in Opec, which puts a cap on production levels, and how to attract foreign investment. Mr Carroll was careful to say that it was up to an Iraqi government to decide both these issues. "It's not something I have any interest in, it is a decision of a sovereign government of Iraq." source; Ft.com

Yep conquest thats where i extracted my Fav qoute

The link is quite detailed thx for posting it, am gonna check it out a few more times before i am done with it I share you view 100% soul searcher. I am a persamistic about somalis chances of survival because having seen what somali's are still dedicating the to here in the year 2003 i find it very hard to belive that we will not fall even further behind the rest of the world especially with these new Regional orders being developed. Unless something quite drastic happens, or some major changes occur i think somalis will simple be replaced and taken over in the years to come, indeed it is has been happening already.

Wlcm to the site am sure u will enjoy it.

Ciro Fererra Juv's greates Center Back

Come on Ppl i would like to see your nominations for the Team of the Season. You can divise your own startin 11 n subs Mine is Plain and simple..........even if it pains me to say it. Juventus from Top to Bottom havin been the best team this year and i hope that they crown it this Wed by winning the Champs league.

By Elizabeth Drew

It is amazing isnt it. They americans need only apply pressure through a few chosen words to get the desired effect, whilst they do not care to address the real issues @ hand that have resulted in the events of the last few weeks. But then we shouldnt be supprised they are indeed puppets, who have grown richer and fatter of the oil. whislt the rest of the muslims suffer world wide from poverty and pursecution.

I didnt know that it was sunnah, although i had my inclinations to believe so. Thx for informing us.

Salam Calayakum Thats a great idea Muraad, lets try and make into reality.

lol Nice one for underdog . A queen am sure u are Lovely, but your right for a 'Real' Woman deserves a 'Real' Man

Thx for posting the pics HA it was interesting to see back in the day ceremonial pics. Wouldnt it be great to have some 2003 pics though huh? of a prosperos somalia..

lol exactly

By Mark Forbes Foreign Affairs Correspondent Riyadh Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Saudi Arabia has halted the unregulated supply of all funds to Islamic charities overseas, believing the money could be funding terrorism. Strict controls will now be placed on the distribution of the hundreds of millions its citizens donate to such charities each year. Any funding to Islamic groups in Indonesia has been frozen indefinitely, following concerns that some of the groups were supporting terrorism. The tough new guidelines were revealed by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal in talks with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. The US has identified Saudi Arabian charities as a major source of funds for al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiah and other terrorist networks and urged this flow be halted. All Saudi Arabian donations to Islamic groups overseas will have to pass through a new Swiss organisation that is transparent and auditable. Donations would only be distributed to organisations approved by the governments of the countries where they were based, Prince Saud told the meeting. He said he was concerned about the use of funds by Islamic charities in Indonesia. He said the funding of fundamentalist schools was very dangerous, as some had "brainwashed" students and turned them into terrorists. Funds were still reaching terrorists from other countries, Prince Saud said, with Saudi dissidents pretending to be refugees collecting funds for al-Qaeda. However, Prince Saud told Mr Downer the May 12 bombings in Riyadh were Saudi Arabia's "September 11" and had galvanised the population against al-Qaeda. A report commissioned by the UN Security Council estimates that Saudi Arabia has transferred $800 million to al-Qaeda over the past decade. Mr Downer said funds were flowing to al-Qaeda through Islamic charities from Saudi Arabia. "Money put into charities financing Islamic boarding schools, including in Indonesia, is finishing up financing terrorist capabilities," Mr Downer said. Indonesian and Australian authorities have identified Islamic charities and schools that supported Jemaah Islamiah and played a key role in the Bali bombings. Several men on trial for the bombings were based at an Islamic school in Java.

I found this article today on yellowtimes.org it was quite interesting. -------------------------------------------------------------- America's favorite conspiracy theory: the moral argument" Printed on Wednesday, May 21, 2003 @ 08:56:08 CDT ( ) By Matthew Riemer YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States) (YellowTimes.org) -- Putting aside the usual lengthy and semi-philosophical discussions that attempt to accurately explain the term "conspiracy theory," let's turn to a brief summation much more useful for the purposes of this essay: A "conspiracy theory" is simply any explanation, reason, or cause that strongly offends or contradicts others' ideologies or historically sensitive political systems and models. And, more generally, it is an explanation for events that seems wildly improbable and elaborate. So to some, the idea that the United States fought a war in Iraq over issues other than weapons of mass destruction -- even though the expert global consensus was that Iraq had either none or very small quantities of WMD and Colin Powell presented forged documents to the United Nations when making his case -- is a "conspiracy theory" because of how they view U.S. foreign policy (this is the first definition). These individuals see the U.S. as a benign, almost naively bumbling, superpower guided only by altruism. Ulterior motives are spirited away by associating them with some kind of exaggerated and paranoid realpolitik. And it is this historical theory, filled with a kind of de facto racism and condescension, which is quickly becoming America's favorite conspiracy theory: the moral argument (this is the second definition). This popular conception's basic assumptions are embodied perfectly in a recent essay by Michael Kinsley in the April 21 issue of Time entitled "The Power of One." In this curious piece, Kinsley, at times, both praises and criticizes Bush rhetorically while offering little of substance in his criticisms. He states that Bush lacks "a certain largeness of character or presence on the stage," but also that he is a "great man." Kinsley immediately qualifies this by indicating that "great" doesn't "necessarily mean good or wise." The author then combines the praise and criticism in a single, equivocal sentence: "Bush's decision to make war on Iraq may have been visionary and courageous or reckless and tragic or anything in between, but one thing it wasn't was urgently necessary." This seems to be a trend among journalists and critics: be just equivocating enough so as not to "take sides" or really say anything substantive while getting in your pot shots and simultaneously calling the butt of your pot shots a "great man." It's later in the article when Kinsley gets into the conspiracies: "Why did Bush want this war? His ostensible reasons were unconvincing. Whatever we may find now in the rubble of Baghdad, he never offered any good evidence of a close link between Iraq and al-Qaeda or of weapons of mass destruction that could threaten the U.S. His desire to liberate a nation from tyranny undoubtedly was sincere, but there are other tyrants in the world. Why this one? On the other hand, the ulterior motives attributed to Bush by critics are even more implausible. He didn't start a war to serve his re-election campaign or avenge his father or enrich his oil buddies or help Israel. The mystery of Bush's true motives adds to the impression of a wizard arbitrarily waving his wand over history." Here Kinsley lays things out fairly clearly. Since the "ostensible reasons" for the need for war were "unconvincing" and those offered by Bush's critics "even more implausible" (he doesn't say why), it must be Bush's (and by association America's, since Kinsley never uses the labels "Washington" or the "U.S." but only "Bush") sincere "desire to liberate a nation from tyranny." Moreover, this is the only possible conclusion one could have as the author likens Bush to a "wizard arbitrarily waving his wand over history" whose "true motives" are mysterious. Such observations are interesting for their notable lack of analysis. As mentioned above, Kinsley gives no explanation as to why theories of why the war was fought advanced by Bush's critics are "implausible," only that they are. So he discredits both lines of thinking -- those of the administration itself and then those of its critics. And in the final analysis, the President is abstractly portrayed as a mysterious wizard, albeit a sincere and morally guided one. Thus we have America's favorite explanation for world events. It's also known as the "bumbling bear theory," which, to reiterate, places the United States in the role of the benevolent benefactor of the global community whose guiding principles are Christian morals and who only unintentionally and accidentally does bad things. Some will even blame Washington's unquenchable desire and exuberance to do good as the reason that things sometimes go wrong. Kinsley's historical construction is finally topped off by a healthy dose of cynicism when he says: "Bush is not the only one who decided rather suddenly that disempowering Saddam had to be the world's top priority. When Bush decided this, so did almost every congressional Republican, conservative TV pundit and British Prime Minister. In polls, a large majority of Americans agreed with Bush that Saddam was a terrible threat and had to go, even though there had been no popular passion for this idea before Bush brought it up. You could call this many things, but one of them is leadership." Either the author is employing some incredibly dry sarcasm or he's very naive when it comes to politics and war in the 21st century. First, the decision was not Bush's. He was simply the man who was president when influential, lifetime politicos such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's long-time geopolitical aims came to fruition spearheaded by the increasingly well-known neoconservative ideology given great stock in Washington these days. These men were calling for the overthrow of the Ba'athist regime in Baghdad when Bush was still Governor of Texas and didn't even know what the Ba'ath Party was. Second, and more importantly, Kinsley attributes the Congress' and public's sudden decision to view the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a top priority to Bush's leadership as well as his "spiritual power over so many minds." There's no mention of a pervasive and propaganda filled media that reached new heights of manipulation even by American corporate media standards. That the BBC openly questioned and even complained about stories coming out of the Pentagon, calling them "disinformation," and said American news agencies were too patriotic is immaterial when it comes to Kinsley's "great man" who is neither wise nor good theory. Implicit in the author's words is the sense that the media is of little influence over what the historically unaware American public thinks and that Republicans in Congress "during a time of war" feel no need to parrot what a Republican president thinks. Michael Kinsley, as well as a host of others, would well benefit from a viewing of the documentary The Trials of Henry Kissinger in which the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor explains that it is impossible for states to interact in the way individual human beings do. Kissinger observes that people are typically guided by some kind of moral system when interacting with one another, but that this is impractical, if not undesirable, for state-to-state relations. The overvaluation of individual's rights and the need to protect the innocent can impede political objectives that have more pragmatic issues as their focus, such as resource security and regional hegemony. But it is critical that this is not how the Bush administration (U.S. administrations for decades have feared this as well) is seen by the general public, so -- to counteract this reality of geopolitics -- the American public is sold the mother of all conspiracy theories: the moral argument. Why delve into obscure and often difficult to understand historical and political topics -- for which most don't even have the time -- when world events can be summed up much more neatly with an us good/them bad, altruistically based explanation? [Matthew Riemer has written for years about a myriad of topics, such as: philosophy, religion, psychology, culture, and politics. He studied Russian language and culture for five years and traveled in the former Soviet Union in 1990. In the midst of a larger autobiographical/cultural work, Matthew is the Director of Operations at YellowTimes.org. He lives in the United States.] -------------------------------------------------------------

What women really want is a guy who'll take the time to try and figure out what she wants...when in reality, most of the time there isn't that much to figure out. I dont think whe have that much free time on our hand. And Mr.M sxb i'v been meaning to ask what the hell is with that avartar of ur's???

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Now that explains why Hamad Kaizier or what ever his name is there, and i think some interesting paraelles could have been drawen with Iraq but allahmdulilah that chalabi guy has been long susset out by everyone as being a Big Puppet of the americAN'S the chosen man of the pentigon.

Well, if it makes any difference.. I, Ameenah still LOVE my brothers, the good, the bad and the ugly... Happy? see we can all.....The good, The Bad, n Ugly live in hope lol

remember..Sports is a unifying Thing! Besides there is scope for disagreeing........i mean i wont kill you if you dont like football italia but will be @ an cultural clash. No Pub teams here plz

I will answer shortly...but do we have a choice? Ou community is structured so that if u want to do something i find that u usually have to go the Clan where whether its actually for a good reason or vice versa. Clearly for me i couldnt careless whether you from somalia somaliland Puntland Eat.my.shorts.land your my Brother, my sister and i have no qaural with you.

We do. wow lakkad didnt know u where so funny bro

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lol who would be the captain Big Boy, better yet who would manage such a team???

That man was tigana the ex fulham coach and ur spot on bro without tigana he would have been even less remarkable.