Captain_Mike20
-
Content Count
229 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Captain_Mike20
-
-
Thats my boyz ......alshabab !!!!!
-
xaji you dont have to explain yourself to stateless people saxib, who have only heard about a place were Somali's live. Do not know anything about history.
Enjoy your projects in the u.s., housing estates in the u.k. it looks like you aint going no where anytime soon.
relax as your former state enters another decade of lawlessness, death and misery. As factions splinter, governments fall, innocent people die and starve for another night as African bombs rain on them. As another generation goes without understanding normality or the concept of peace and without education.
say what you like saxib,
Ethiopia or without Ethiopia...Im clever enough to know my interest, use ethiopia as they use me and when i achieve my goal we will see who will dominate.
I have security, Education, healthcare a standing army, growing infrastructure, growing middle class, a strong government foundation, a legal system, police force, prisons force etc.
CAN ANYONE COME CLOSE TO WHAT I HAVE?????
Come on any of you?? in all seriousness??
no, then enjoy your exile and government housing. loooool.
-
you better not man...or else the pirates might just go it alone.
choose DONALD DUCK OR PETTER RABIT for the position of prime minister. I think they would be fine candidates for the job seeing that all those competing against them are less credible candidates...
These people man,
-
Burn it, maybe the people will sober up and wake up to the reality, unfortunately the majority in exile will continue to consume this garbage and exist in the permanent state of delusion.
-
Boliiska Ceerigaabo Oo Qabtay Shixnad Khamri iyo Maxkamadda Gobolka Oo Xukuntay.
Ceerigaabo(OWN)- Boliiska Ceerigaabo ayaa subaxnimadii Salaasada waxay gudaha magaaladaasi ku qabteen shixnad maandooriyaha nooca loo yaqaanno Khamriga, kaasi oo isagoo ku jira caagadaha noocyada kala duwan ee biyaha macaan lagu iibiyo lagusoo qariyey kiintaallo ay ku jiraan midhaha la quuto ee Misirka loo yaqaanno. Waxayna sidoo kale boliisku halkaas ku qabteen laba nin oo sida la sheegay midkood yahay kii sitey maandooriyahan halka kan labaadna yahay ninkii gurigiisa lagu soo dejiyey oo labaduba u dhashay dalka Itoobiya. Waxana boliisku weli ku raad joogaan baabuurkii khamrigan keenay iyo ciddii kale ee arrintan lug ku lahayd.
“Saxaafadda Waxannu u sheegaynaa shalayto in aannu qabannay sagaal kiish oo Misir ah ayna ku jiraan Khamri dhan 116 caagadaha biya-saxada lagu soo shubay oo sida aannu warka ku helnay laga keenay Itoobiya laguna wadey dhinaca Boosaaso(Puntland)”. Sidaas wax yidhi Taliyaha Qaybta Boliiska Gobolk Sanaag C/risaaq Yuusuf Maxamuud (Casayr) oo saxaafadda la hadlayey.
Waxana taliyaha boliisku intaas kusii daray “Farsamada noocani waa mid innoo cusub oo aynaan hore u arag markaa shacabka (gaadiidleyda iyo bulshada kaleba) iyo ciidammada ku hawllan waxannu uga digaynaa in ay ka feejignaadaan oo mar kstaba ka taxaddiraan maandooriye noocan oo kale in loogu qariyo”.
Labada nin ee boliisku kusoo qabteen khamrigaas ayaa maxkamadda gobolka Sanaag/Ceerigaabo isla Arbacadii (shalayto) waxay ku riddey xukunno kala ah hal sano iyo badh ninkii keenay lagu xukumay iyo lix bilood oo ninkii gurigiisa la dhigay lagu xukumay. Waxana Khamrigaas maanta lagu gubey maxkamadda horteeda.
Dhinaca kalena iyadoo xilliyo hore oo noocan oo kale boliisku usoo qabteen maandooriyaha noocan oo kale ah islmarkaasna maxkamaddu xukunno kan oo kale ah ka gaadhey ayaa haddana mar kastaba tallaabada noocan oo kale ee boliisku qaadeen waxay wax badan ka tari doontaa ilaalinta iyo xakamaynta maandooriyayaasha khamrigu ka mid yahay ee laga ganacsado.
Oodweynenews.com/Ceerigaabo.
-
These funny pirates a.k.a Somaliland wannabes, your talking about eggs on your face, i think you have dog crap on yours, considering that what yemen opened in Hargaisa was a political and economic consulate unlike your "commercial office" which in real politik terms means an office were yemeni companies who are mad enough to visit can register themselves in case they get kidnapped,
Do you want me to prove it, and humilate you like i did in the past comment you made about the actual consulate yemen opened in Hargaisa.
enjoy the smell of fish saxib, and your one sentence "news post" if it is real that is, its probably as real as your oil venture.
ha ah ha ha ah ah ah ah
-
stop dwelling on the past, Che - you keep talking about enclaves, its a bit sad as small and weak as they are, these pirates have puntland, what do you have saxib?
Your quick to judge but what have you and your people managed to achieve?
???????
You think you can comment on places you have read about even though you have never been? Ive been to pirateland not impressed, mugdisho, long gone saxib, forget that place.
keep making comments, your a man behind a computer with no land, no nation, no government, no nothing saxib. So before you comment become something, then ill consider your proposals.
-
saxib these people dont know what your refering to, none of them have probably even heard of Suldan Timacade even if they had they wont be able to understand his poetry.
looool, notice how all these so called flags and people wearing these flags are all in minnisota or europe or abroad in exile.
The only powerful Somali flags together saxib both have the shahada on it,
They are Somaliland and Alshabab, I see the Somaliland one but no alshabab. That is your new flag saxib, so through away the old KANA SAAR
Keep the blue flag (nazi swastika) in exile.
-
Just one of the many hospitals,
5 major hospitals in Hargaisa specializing in everything from cataract, surgery, heart operations, maternity, bones and more.
But it could always be better.
-
We produce, train and educate our own doctors,
http://somalilandpress.com/somaliland-17-medical-doctors-graduate-17254
SOMALILAND: 17 medical doctors graduate
SOMALILAND: 17 medical doctors graduate thumbnail
HARGEISA (Somalilandpress) — A graduation ceremony was held in Maansor Hotel on Friday for 17 general medical practitioners who graduated from the University of Hargeisa (UoH).
Speaking at the graduation ceremony Dr Bulhan Hussein, the Chancellor of UoH, congratulated the new doctors and their parents.
The Chancellor expressed appreciation for the efforts of the students and for their sacrifice and dedications over the years. The group is the second patch to graduate from the University since it’s rehabilitation after the war with neighboring Somalia.
Dr Edna Adan Ismael and Prof. Mubraik Ibrahim Aar were among many who addressed the attendees. The two stated the importance of having new doctors in Somaliland – a country where basic health indicators are among the worst in the world.
Dr Diriye Ismael Irig, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at university of Hargeisa cited the 17 graduates consisted of 12 males and 5 females.
The faculty was established in 2003 with 75 students with 15 graduating last year.
The students have been undertaking intensive courses in obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatics and psychiatry, urology and general surgery, general medicine and palliative medicine for the past six years.
A number of students are currently under taking advanced medical training including the first ever Somali trained heart surgery in which they collaborating with Addis Cardiac Hospital, the first hospital for cardiovascular diseases in East Africa.
In order to improve the student’s clinical skills, Somaliland universities and medical associations have requested assistance from the international community. So far Somaliland universities have developed partnership with Kings College Hospital (KCH), UK, the Australian Doctors for Africa (ADFA) and a number of other Western institutions.
Somaliland hospitals have as well developed ties with leading organizations in the Arab world including the UAE and Kuwait Red Crescent societies.
Local students: In March 2009 Emeritus Professor David Allbrook, Dr Gary Hastwell and Dr Rod Thelander travelled to Hargeisa - ADFA
A surgical team from the UAE recently donated their time to perform free cataract eye and cochlear implant surgeries through a partnership between Kuwait based Al-Manhal Islamic Societies’ al-Manhal Hospital (ex. Hargeisa City Hospital) in Hargeisa and UAE’s Red Crescent Authority (RCA).
On the same week, the al-Manhal hospital became the venue for the first ever laser surgery in the country which was performed by local and Yemeni doctors to treat gallbladder and internal organs diseases in the liver and intestines of ten patients.
The new recruits is expected to make a difference in Somaliland’s poor health system.
The attendees included Mr Ahmed Nur, Vice-Finance minister, Dr Ahmed Hussein Isse, Abaarso Tech, Eng. Mohamed Hashi Elmi, senior Kulmiye Party member, Mr Adan Mohamed Mire, Vice Chairman of UCID Party, Dr Ahmed Mohamed Gas, Somaliland medical association, Dr Suleiman Abdi Guleid, teachers from Kings College, guests and other dignitaries.
Somalilandpress | Saturday | 24 July 2010
-
This guy reads garowe online as if it was the Quran itself, looooool !
saxib walahi..not kidding, in all truth and seriousness saxib.
i hate destroying peoples dreams, walahi i do, i think every human should have some sence of goal and objective and purpose, that should be a fundamental right.
Im sure you have heard the qoute that "history is written by the victor". Seeing that your uncle threw everything he had at me and i destroyed him and spared and had mercy on your entire population whom i have obsorbed and given to as i would my own people i think i will call the shoots.
Because you can call me what you want, when it comes to face to face, all out war no holds bar, we both know i can take you out.
So as a minor player in Somali politics who has been reduced to the status of 5-6 position under ahlul sunnah wal jamaca, I give you the right to settle in the lands east of my border if you so cross that border your fish smelling villages will taken.
now on your side of the border, continue your cheerleading extravaganza and bru ha ha ha.
If you want my advice dont waste your time on Somali politics, I come in here to have a laugh and express my opinion but in all honousty the best feeling is, being able to have a nation of your own in every sence of the word, traveling back home, the interaction, the majesty of the nation, the people the children etc. So saxib this is not reality, the reality is what is on the ground and no number of articles or opionions can change that, call it what you want God gave me that luxury do you know why??
because unlike you i hate the blood of muslims on my hands, unlike you we Somalilanders have something called greater purpose, islamic purpose, thats why saxib in the streets of hargaisa or borama or burco for that matter every tribe within Somaliland from las canod to borama to zeilla live, trade, marry and work together like ants. Thats a real state.
but your one sub sub sub clan state is no where close saxib, nowhere close.
-
were did you get that from?
wait, let me guess.
Garowe online.
walahi you guys are funny.
-
If its up to the job, im still waiting 25 miles west of your capital Garowe.
COME ON ...
All talk no balls
-
Freedom fighter...loool ! when a man enters into a state of sleep were he loses touch with reality and his only source of comfort is to express how great a two region strip of land who's own people have left and lost on the internet from his American Ghetto project dreaming of lost glory days you know the man is delusional.
1 - 2 - 3
WAKE UP ....
ok now pay attention,
Somalia is the only state in modern history to have failed for such a long period of time, it is over and what we are witnessing is the last fragments disintegrating into various mujahid run areas similar to that of afghanistan.
puntland - a.k.a wannabe Somaliland land, saxib has no real power, no real authority as we have shown,It sits in bosaso and garowe to scared to even cross the border, to the south of it the growing alshabab movement who within a month of capturing mugdisho will most likely restore order and seek to increase there power base using men from the area they will easily take puntland no problem.
so saxib, let these kids talk about federalism, its just another myth sold to them like the one that they will be able to return to mugdisho in peace and create a unified government for all.
-
is that the best you can come up with, do you even know what it means?
PDF Portable Document Format (Adobe Acrobat)
used by most people in universities, or for work, lakin i think you grew up in balideeg thats why its hard for you to understand the only thing they have to write on in balideeg is a peace of wood.
Kulmiye is a racist party filled with some racist people saxib, its a matter of time before Udub or Ucid is back in power, so soak up last 5 years of power you will see in a long time.
-
Kulimye the party of myths and false promises,
Silanyo has been in office for two months..i give him 2 out of 10 so far.
thats what happens when you follow the cult of clan instead of nationhood.
three men ran for president,
one promised a continuation of the old order, security, democracy and private enterprise and getting more funding - UDUB
The other one promised an emphasis on welfare, helping the poor with higher tax on the rich, education and international diplomacy and internal security and enforcing islamic laws into the general society and using more practically - UCID
the third promised,
that he will move the moon and reflect its rays of eastern burco and northern hargaisa and promote a better form of administration and accoutability to those who voted for him eastern burco and northern hargaisa. - useless 75 year demensia suffering president.
RIYALE OR FAISAL would have made great presidents.
I would say after a few more months impeach the guy and hold another election, dad ba ninkan ku shaqaysta and they are not for the national interest they are for clan interest.
dont justify the presidency to cutting a ribbin for an event were old women come and show wood carvings.
-
Sudan set to divide amid Security Council pressure
(AFP) – 9 hours ago
KHARTOUM — Sudan remains on course to break up next year after the UN Security Council put new pressure on the government over a self-determination referendum, but the major powers are still fretting over how to avoid conflict.
Council ambassadors spent four days testing independence fever on the red dust roads of South Sudan and the North's opposition to the breakup of Africa's oil-rich biggest nation.
The envoys left Khartoum on Saturday having warned both sides to make sure that a January 9 self-determination referendum in the South was held on time.
The South is virtually certain to choose secession and many neighbours and western nations fear new violence if the vote is delayed.
Britain's ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said the timetable was now "extremely tight", but that if the political commitment shown by the governments in the North and South was followed up the vote could go ahead on time.
The referendum is part of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended a two-decade-long North-South civil war in which two million people died.
Vote preparations are way behind schedule and tensions are high. North Sudan demonstrators and police clashed with a small group of South Sudan activists in Khartoum on Saturday as the UN envoys met Sudan's foreign minister.
The South's President Salva Kiir asked the Security Council to deploy peacekeepers along the disputed frontier before the vote when he met them in Juba last week, diplomats said. No promise was made however.
Sudan is already the country with the biggest UN peacekeeping operation.
The rival governments accuse each other of staging a military buildup on the frontier, which has still not been permanently fixed -- one of "the key outstanding issues" that Lyall Grant, co-leader of the UN mission with US ambassador Susan Rice, said has to be decided for the vote to go ahead.
The Security Council also expressed concern over an "upsurge" in violence in Darfur, the western region where at least 300,000 people have been killed since 2003, according to the UN estimates.
Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti told the ambassadors his government did not want "war" over the independence vote, but that it would not accept the result if there was "interference" -- a veiled warning about secession calls by the South's leaders.
Sudan has taken on added importance on the international agenda since US President Barack Obama spoke at a UN meeting on Sudan last month and said a peaceful vote must be held on time.
On top of the referendum, however, much will depend on any final accord over the frontier, the sharing of the major oil revenues and the citizenship of northerners and southerners who live on the other side of the border.
Former South African president Thabo Mbeki is mediating negotiations.
"Mbeki is a kind of divorce lawyer. The North knows what the result of any referendum is going to be so it is holding out for the best deal possible," said one diplomat from one of the UN delegations.
"There seems to be some hopeful commitment by the two sides to make sure the referendum goes ahead. But the problem in the next three months will not be justing keeping the two governments on track," the diplomat added.
"The two armies, the tribes on the borders and the local politicians have all got to be restrained."
While none of the ambassadors says that the south's independence is inevitable, and all say that the result must be respected whichever way it falls, all are preparing for one likely result.
After seeing thousands of new South Sudan police being trained at an academy near the capital, Juba, last week US ambassador Rice told reporters: "All the institutions of state are literally being built from scratch."
The new recruits, many of whom have moved back from northern Sudan, were equally certain of the result.
"This is a vote for our freedom. Our fathers fought the north in the civil war, many of them died. Now this is our right," said David Diine, a former fighter in the south's rebel army and now a sergeant in the South's new police.
-
Kenya and Africa’s latest independent state– South Sudan
Nairobi (SomalilandPress)–Kenya is tapping billions of shillings in new investments from what is emerging as an early harvest of the fruits of the looming birth of Africa’s latest independent state — South Sudan.
East Africa’s largest economy has emerged as the major beneficiary of the expectation that Southern Sudanese will choose independence in January — sparking a race among foreign governments with the financial muscle to develop infrastructure that the new state will require to trade with the world.
South Sudan currently relies heavily on Port Sudan to take its key export, oil, to the global market, raising its exposure to the North in the event of political disagreement between the two after the separation.
Analysts at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) say the South’s search for an alternative transport corridor to reduce its dependence on the North has opened for Kenya an opportunity to attract billions of dollars in fresh infrastructure investment and an advantage in the scramble for foreign direct investments to East Africa.
“As East Africa’s economic powerhouse, Kenya stands to benefit from the emergence of a large new market in South Sudan and major infrastructure that the country will need to engage commercially with the world, including oil exportation,” says ICG in its latest report on the possible impact of Southern independence on neighbouring states.
Kenya has already bagged nearly $5 billion in new investment as Asia’s economic giants Japan and China scramble for a share of the infrastructure that South Sudan will need to secure its trade with the world after independence.
The projects include construction of an oil refinery and sea port in Lamu, a 1,400 kilometre oil pipeline that will link Juba, Southern Sudanese capital to the Lamu port and construction of a new Mombasa-Kampala standard gauge railway line.
Heavy investment is also being made in the 1,130 kilometre road that links Nairobi to Juba to cut the more than 26 hours it currently takes to cover the distance.
The combined cost of the projects is estimated at $10 billion (Sh750 billion) or 34 per cent of Kenya’s Sh2.2 trillion gross domestic product (GDP).
Southern Sudan remains totally dependent on Port Sudan, in the country’s North, to export oil – its main source of revenue that has attracted heavy Chinese and Japanese interest.
Lamu’s deep waters have earned it top marks as the possible location of a new port that the Kenya government has wanted to build since the 1980s with little success in raising the money it needs for it.
It now appears that the emerging geopolitical situation is working to Kenya’s advantage offering the potential to upgrade its infrastructure and create thousands of new jobs.
Japan and China — keen to protect their investments in Southern Sudan— have signed multi-billion shilling contracts with the Kenya government to help finance the projects, setting the stage for execution of the public works with the potential of transforming the country’s infrastructure.
Japan and China have been the most aggressive investors in Southern Sudan pursuing oil and gas they need to drive their economies – which are ranked the world’s second and third largest, respectively.
Sudan’s oil deposits are estimated at 6.614 billion barrels with 85 per cent of it located in the South.
Source:Businessdailyafrica| Sunday, June 6, 2010
-
http://www.economist.com/node/17147828?story_id=17147828&fsrc=rss
When elected to office he said if i can achieve one thing it would be that every brazilian regardless of race eats three meals a day.
Brazil's presidential election
Lula's legacy
Life is better for Brazilians than it was eight years ago. But Lula is leaving unsolved problems for his chosen successor, who lacks his personal magnetism
Sep 30th 2010 | BRASÍLIA
Still a lot left for Dilma to do
THE “best president ever” is how Sandro, a flower-seller in São Paulo, describes Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Who will he vote for in the presidential election on October 3rd? “Dilma, for sure.” Why? A shrug and a laugh: “Continuity. And because Lula chose her.” His reasoning is echoed across Brazil, especially among the rural poor and migrants to the big cities. The economy is growing strongly. Jobs are being created, and incomes are rising. The man who presided over this is barred by the constitution from running for a third term. Who better to succeed him, voters ask, than the woman he endorses?
A year ago pundits agreed that Lula’s vast popularity was strictly personal, and could not be passed on at will. He had tried without success to get allies elected as state governors or mayors of big cities. That may be why José Serra of the opposition Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, a seasoned politician who long led the opinion polls, barely started campaigning until it was too late. He seemed to think that Lula’s choice, Dilma Rousseff, a colourless technocrat who was Lula’s chief of staff but has never held elected office, would be easy to beat.
He was wrong. Lula’s popularity, it turned out, could be transferred—but only on his going and only to his chosen successor. If the polls are right (see chart), Ms Rousseff will be Brazil’s next president. That is despite several brewing scandals. The most serious concerns Erenice Guerra, a longtime associate of Ms Rousseff who took over from her as chief of staff when she stepped down to start campaigning. Last month allegations surfaced that people linked to Ms Guerra, including her sons, had extracted bribes in the form of retainers and success fees from businesses hoping to win government contracts. Ms Guerra was quickly defenestrated. No evidence implicating either the president or his candidate has come out.
Related items
Interview with Brazil's president: Lula on his legacy
Sep 30th 2010
The opposition has tried to get voters to worry about this (Ms Rousseff is either incompetent or complicit, Mr Serra claimed). But few seem to be listening. The affair has knocked only a few points off Ms Rousseff’s commanding lead.
Instead, Brazilians are revelling in a golden moment. A country that used to fall over whenever the world economy wobbled was one of the last to go into recession in 2008 and one of the first out in 2009. Median earnings are rising and, despite a minimum wage at its highest in real terms since 1979, so is employment.
Since 2003 some 20m Brazilians have emerged from poverty and joined the market economy. These new consumers buy everything from cars to cookers and fridges to flights. To this burgeoning domestic market, add China’s appetite for Brazilian iron ore, meat, soya and more, and in economic terms this is probably “the best moment in the entire history of Brazil,” says Marcelo Neri of the Fundação Getulio Vargas, a university.
Brazil according to Lula
Lula’s remarkable life story—the child of dirt-poor migrants who became a metalworker and trade-union leader—and personal magnetism have helped him to sell “brand Brazil” around the world: a coming power, a profitable place to invest and a tolerant democracy where a man like him could become president. These qualities also mean that most Brazilians give him most of the credit for the improvement in their lot. Are they right?
In a recent interview with The Economist at the presidential palace in Brasília, Lula set out some ways in which Brazil has become a better place during his terms in office. “We are starting to lay steps so that the poorest begin to rise up to the lower-middle class and then to the middle-middle class,” he says. With national self-esteem rising and inequality falling, Brazil is poised under the next president to fulfil his dream of becoming “a country in which the great majority are middle-class” with high purchasing power and access to better education and health. Lula understands from personal experience what matters in helping poorer Brazilians get ahead. He is proud that, although he is the first president of Brazil without a university degree, he is the one who created the most universities and technical schools.
“Wherever you go in Brazil you will see work financed by the federal government,” he says, highlighting railways, power stations and basic sanitation. After 25 years in which the country failed to maintain its infrastructure, let alone build any more, it is “reacquiring the capacity to carry out the grand infrastructure works that Brazil needs.”
For many of the poor and working-class Brazilians who are his most ardent supporters, Lula’s crowning achievements have been big rises in the minimum wage and pensions, and the Bolsa Família programme, which gives 12m families small but life-changing amounts of cash in return for having their children vaccinated and keeping them in school. By boosting domestic demand, these policies have also contributed to economic growth.
Many better-off city dwellers agree that Lula deserves praise for bringing into the Brazilian mainstream the once-novel idea that reducing poverty is a proper aim of government (though others sneer snobbishly). But when asked what Lula has done for his country, such people also point to the policies he inherited from his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
As finance minister under Itamar Franco in 1993-94, Mr Cardoso tamed Brazil’s persistent hyperinflation with the Real Plan. As president between 1995 and 2002, he put in place policies that have given the country stability and growth. “Lula inherited sensible macroeconomic policies and was clever enough to realise it,” says André Villela of the Fundação Getulio Vargas. That involved ignoring the socialist economic ideas of his Workers’ Party (PT). Early in Lula’s presidency, his finance minister, António Palocci, saw off fears of default by tightening fiscal policy and repaying foreign-currency debt. Henrique Meirelles, a former international banker who has run the Central Bank for all of Lula’s presidency, has guaranteed monetary orthodoxy. Because of Lula, says Luiz Felipe Lampreia, who was Mr Cardoso’s foreign minister, “there is now a national consensus against macroeconomic foolishness.”
A mightier state
But the consensus breaks down on two issues. His critics argue that, given his popularity, Lula could have done more to fix some of Brazil’s deep-rooted problems. They also say that in his second term he allowed the state to become over-mighty.
The last time The Economist talked to Lula, in early 2006, he was emerging from a scandal that engulfed his first administration and almost ended his political career. In a scheme known as the mensalão (roughly, “big monthly stipend”) the PT had bought votes of congressmen from allied parties. Lula said then that in a second term his priority would be tax, political, labour and pension reforms. These are sorely needed: the tax system is multilayered and burdensome, politics prone to corruption and gridlock, labour laws rigid and anachronistic and pensions for public employees absurdly generous. Yet none of these reforms happened, despite (or perhaps because of) Lula’s soaring popularity.
Not for want of trying, is Lula’s response. He talks up his efforts to reach consensus on most of these issues, and blames “hidden enemies” in Congress who refused to match verbal support with votes. Indeed, when asked what he has learned about his country during eight years as president, Lula speaks of the difficulties of getting things done, especially public-investment projects. A president can find that by the time he has cut through red tape and persuaded state and local governments to co-operate, his four-year term is over. A big infrastructure project—and Brazil needs many, from roads, ports and airports to sewage works and power plants—could easily take “five years to solve all the problems, and two years to get the job done”. In Brazil, he concludes, “the president cannot always do what he wants, he does what he can”.
Not good enough, retort critics, who see Lula as having surfed the commodity boom on Mr Cardoso’s unpopular, but necessary, liberalising reforms. They accuse Lula of using the recession as an excuse to expand the state’s grip on the economy, either directly (with oil) or indirectly (through loans by state banks). They worry that he has strayed from the path of fiscal rectitude. The government has lost control over day-to-day spending on pay and pensions, says Marcelo de Paiva Abreu, an economist at the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, losing its chance to boost investment in infrastructure.
The increase in public spending in 2008 shortened the recession, but much of it has not been reversed even as the economy roared back to life. Some of it involves printing money, disguised by accounting tricks: while the government’s net debt is falling its gross debt is rising, and its deficit helps to keep Brazil’s interest rates high (though they are lower than a decade ago). “Such pro-cyclical spending makes no sense,” says Mauro Leos of Moody’s, a ratings agency. “When times are bad—and bad times always come—Brazil will be sorry it hasn’t been putting money aside.”
Lula agrees that the expanded role of the state should be temporary. “I don’t want the proprietorial state,” he insists, adding that “I respect the workings of the market.” But the lesson of the financial crisis is that the state should regulate better and be prepared to intervene when the market fails, as well as “inducing” private investment and acting “for the sake of the people who need it the most”.
Rather than reforms, opponents say that Lula has given priority to cementing his party’s grip on government. The past eight years have seen an “unprecedented” increase in the award of government jobs to political clients, according to Maria Celina D’Araújo, a political scientist at Rio’s Catholic University. Almost a quarter of senior managers in the federal administration are PT members, her research shows, and 45% are trade unionists. Under Mr Cardoso 40% of managers of state pension funds were trade unionists; under Lula, more than half are.
Although Brazil is far from one-party hegemony, there are other signs that Lula and the PT increasingly conflate what is good for the country with what is good for them. One party leader responded to revelations of corruption by warning of the perils of “too much” press freedom, while Lula complained that some publications “act as if they were a political party”.
Asked about fears that Brazil’s democracy could be threatened by an extension of these trends, Lula says this is “unthinkable”. But if such fears are among the most commonly mentioned reservations about his legacy, that is because they are amplified by the huge deep-sea oil reserves (known as pré-sal, since they lie beneath a volatile layer of salt) discovered a few years ago. If these can be brought to the surface and to shore they will turn Brazil into an oil power. But oil has a nasty habit of bringing corruption with it. The fund Lula wants to set up with oil revenues could, as he says, help Brazil to overcome poverty, low standards in education and limited investment in science and technology. Or it could provide a lucrative way to reward loyalty to party and president.
Lula makes light of the risks in lifting the oil. The recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by the “irresponsibility” of a private company which tried to extract oil in the “cheapest and quickest way possible”. Standards in Brazil, he insists, are higher. He dismisses the idea that the state is counting its barrels before they are pumped. His government decided to grant sole operating rights in unallocated fields to Petrobras, the national oil company, rather than grant concessions, as before, because “you offer risk-sharing contracts when there is risk. In the case of the pré-sal oil, we are sure.” It is a strange way to talk of the most technically demanding oil-extraction project on the planet.
The government has used a huge ($67 billion) new share issue by Petrobras, launched on September 23rd, to raise its stake in the company from 40% to 48%. It is paying for this partly by selling oil deposits to the firm and partly by more accounting sleight of hand involving the National Development Bank (BNDES). In all, state bodies bought 60% of the offered shares.
But it must also raise finance, either private or public, for its grand infrastructure plans, made more urgent by hosting the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Since Brazil’s savings rate remains low, foreigners will have to pay for most of the projects. At the moment they seem keen to. The current-account deficit has reached 2.4% of GDP so far this year. But capital inflows help to make the real stronger, which is hard on exporters.
What next?
“Dilma is going to surprise the world,” says Lula. That is a near certainty, given how little is known about her. In the 1960s she was a Marxist revolutionary; in the 1970s she was jailed and tortured by Brazil’s military regime. More recently, as Lula’s energy minister and then chief of staff, she has been a competent manager, though with a notoriously short fuse. She was not an obvious successor to Lula. He chose her partly for lack of alternatives: the PT’s more prominent leaders were caught up in the mensalão or other scandals.
Asked whether he will remain the power behind the throne, Lula starts with flat denial. “You can be sure of one thing: I’m leaving,” he says, adding that he has no plans to run for election in 2014. “If I get Dilma elected and she is good, she’ll have to be a candidate for re-election.” But then ambivalence creeps in. “I’m a politician, and I’ll continue to be politically active,” he says, musing that when he steps down he may find it easier to talk about tricky political matters. “I will start by convincing my own party to accept political reform as a priority.” In practice, Ms Rousseff may have to govern in Lula’s long shadow.
Since she has spent much of her political life behind the scenes, little can be said about her ability to cope with the limelight. She lacks Lula’s faith, rooted in his trade-union background, in his ability to negotiate a deal, whatever the circumstances. At home that helped him to dominate his party and coalition. Abroad, it led him to assert Brazil’s right to join the best talking shops, such as the United Nations Security Council. He believes passionately in the power of personal diplomacy. “If I could give one piece of advice to the world’s presidents, it would be: ‘don’t outsource politics’.” But many would say he overestimates its possibilities. His most serious misstep came in Iran, when his attempt (with Turkey) to persuade Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to play by the world’s nuclear rules was spurned by the UN.
Ms Rousseff may feel the lack of such dealmaking abilities, as she tries to run a party and government no longer dwarfed by their leader, and perhaps in less favourable economic circumstances. She is likely to do less of Lula’s globetrotting while she feels her way at home.
What kind of government would she run? Plans for tightening fiscal policy have appeared in the press, attributed to sources close to her. So have predictions that Mr Palocci, who ran such a tight ship in Lula’s first term, might become her chief of staff. But also in that fight are people like José Dirceu, the architect of the mensalão, who plays an important role in her campaign. In September he told a group of PT members that the party would be more powerful under Ms Rousseff, since she represented the party project, whereas Lula was “twice as big as the party”. Luciano Coutinho, president of the BNDES and architect of the government’s industrial policy, might get the job of finance minister.
Then there is the PT’s main electoral ally, the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB), a coalition of regional bigwigs with a voracious appetite for patronage. In August the PMDB’s leader, Michel Temer, who will be vice-president if Ms Rousseff is elected, told party members to campaign hard for her, saying that in return they would partake in what he described as the “sharing out of the bread”.
Where Ms Rousseff herself stands nobody bar her closest associates knows. Her early appointments and announcements will be scrutinised with unusual eagerness. Will she surround herself with austere economists, or party hacks, or believers in the state’s power to boost growth? Or a mix of all three? Does she plan to trim the budget deficit—or does she, like many on the left of her party, believe that growth makes such tedious rectitude unnecessary? Will she take some steps that Lula shirked, because of a desire to smooth her path to the throne, such as inviting private companies to run Brazil’s overstretched state-owned airports?
Ms Rousseff may have cause to wish that her predecessor had been bolder. But she is inheriting a better Brazil than he did, and that is in good part because of him. If one of Lula’s finest moments came right at the start of his presidency, another will come at the end, when he stands down after two terms, rather than changing the constitution to allow himself a third. “A popular left-winger but not a populist,” concludes Carlos Melo of Insper, a São Paulo business school. “This is something completely new and an example to the rest of Latin America.”
Still a lot left for Dilma to do
-
-
EDL protesters clash with Unite Against Fascism supporters in Coventry
Oct 10 2010 by Edward Chadwick, Sunday Mercury
RIVAL protesters fought running battles in the street after a demonstration in the Midlands erupted in violence.
The English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism staged protests in Leicester yesterday, prompting the city’s largest policing operation in 25 years.
About 1,000 EDL members and 700 UAF supporters were estimated to have descended on the city by 2.30pm and were involved in hurling bricks, bottles, smoke bombs and fireworks at officers.
A total of 13 men were arrested, the majority for public order offences.
One policeman was taken to hospital after he suffered injuries and the windows of the International Arts Centre, in Humberstone Gate East, were smashed when rocks were hurled.
Police had tried to marshall the rival groups, who were penned in by metal barriers in Humberstone Gate East, but violent clashes broke out away from the demonstration between EDL supporters and members of the local black and Asian community.
The EDL supporters ran away from the pre-arranged protest site to a nearby main road where they confronted gangs of local youths. Sporadic fighting broke out between the two sides at 4pm while riot police sought to maintain control.
Five people had been arrested by 5pm – one on suspicion of drugs offences, two for possession of an offensive weapon and two for minor public order offences.
EDL members said they were demonstrating against what they say is radical Islam – but have been branded racist by rival UAF supporters. Many members of the right wing group carried placards bearing slogans such as “Sharia laws will destroy Britain and all our British values”.
There were fears that the protest could spread to other cities after the EDL was banned by Home Secretary Theresa May from marching through Leicester.
Officers were on standby in Coventry after EDL spokesman Tommy Robinson posted a video on Youtube, claiming that the group was planning to travel there after the Leicester protest.
Chief Inspector Mark Markham, from West Midlands Police, confirmed the protest did not continue in Coventry. He said police had followed coaches carrying EDL supporters along the M69, onto the M6 and passed the exits for Coventry.
Leicestershire Police said: “Officers dealt with minor disorder among the EDL supporters on Humberstone Gate East. A number of protesters were detained for possible public order offences.
“In line with the policing plan for the protests, further officers in protective clothing have been mobilised and are supporting the police already stationed in the protest area. The disturbance is within the EDL supporter group, not directed at the counter protesters.”
Last week Home Secretary Theresa May authorised a blanket ban on marches in Leicester, but the groups were still permitted to hold static demonstrations.
Previous EDL protests in Dudley and Stoke-on-Trent have ended in violence.
-
the source is from:
The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published by The Washington Quarterly
so its not a somali source, serious political source.
-
PDF are journals saxib i developed a liking for them in uni like most people do, but be serious and comment what do think about this topic i am interested in seeing what people have to say, oh i forgot you live in hargaisa right.
you don't have to comment.
anyone else?
-
Lets change the subject in relation to Somali (garbage) politics for a moment, I am a PDF man and i read quiet a lot and this something that has been interesting over the last few months the rapid growth of Islam in Western Europe and the muslim youth of western Europe forsaking western culture for their own islamic culture and ideals. Thinkers are arguing that only in 50 years, the number of Muslims in Western Europe will move from 20-30 million to 100 million of at least 25% of the overall population.What do you guys think, or is it me, i see alot more white muslims in London then i did previously.
http://www.twq.com/04summer/docs/04summer_savage.pdf
As it has historically, the world of Islam may do more to define and shape Europe in the twenty-first century than the United States, Russia,
or even the European Union.1 The Islamic challenge that Europe faces today is twofold. Internally, Europe must integrate a ghettoized but rapidly
growing Muslim minority that many Europeans view as encroaching upon the collective identity and public values of European society. Externally, Europe needs to devise a viable approach to the primarily Muslim-populated volatile states, stretching from Casablanca to the Caucasus, that are a central focus of the EU’s recently adopted security strategy “A Secure Europe in a Better World”2 and its nascent “Wider Europe—New Neighborhood” initiative. Recognizing that “the Union’s capacity to provide security, stability,
and sustainable development to its citizens will no longer be distinguishable from its interest in close cooperation with the neighbors,” the New Neighborhood initiative seeks to define a new framework for relations with 14 states or entities—Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco,the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and Russia—and their 385 million inhabitants now along the EU’s eastern and southern borders following its May 1 enlargement.3 The Muslim factor is adding contours to Europe’s domestic and foreign policy landscape in more than just demographic and geographical terms. The European-Islamic nexus is spinning off a variety of new phenomena, including the rise of terrorism; the emergence of a new anti-Semitism; the shift of established European political
parties to the right; the recalibration of European national political -
-
Popular Contributors
Dhusa Mareb: Al Shabaab enter town through heavy fighting
in Politics
Posted
Take Southern Somalia already and mugdisho, and this mans port village of hobyo and bosaso...Hope to see you guys on the border of Garowe by mid next year.