I have something else in mind, your idea needs millions in investment, before you make a dent. However when you create something new and unique, the market is yours. You have a scary mind Nuune, brilliant but scary, some ideas you should keep close to your chest.

The value of Twitter How much is Twitter worth? Close to $10 billion according to GSV Capital Corp, which is an investor in the microblogging outfit. GSV owns 1.9 million shares in Twitter and values them at $35.2 million, or about $18.50 a share. On a share count of almost 530 million, that makes the company worth some $9.8 billion. While CEO Dick Costolo has stated that management isn’t concentrating on an IPO, Twitter is widely expected to sell some shares to help it fund expansion, and enable early investors to make financial gains on their holdings, reports Bloomberg. -- LINK

Wadani;961435 wrote: It's hard to put it aside, as it's central to this discussion. But yes, I do agree that Somali society is biased towards in men in certain ways. And I have no qualms in addressing these issues or 'flaws'. These issues will never be addressed or fixed, if every single time the mention of women's rights is brought up, we put our fingers in our ears and yell "don't want to hear radical feminism", its a disservice to any Somali man with female relatives, or daughters.

Wadani;961432 wrote: Ur arguing on the premise that men and women are equal and that men aren't the natural leaders of society, so I disagree on that basis. Put the "natural leaders of society" bit to aside for a moment, I care not for such a discussion. The configuration that makes up Somali society is flawed, and heavily biased towards men, do you agree? If yes, then changing this flaw should not be the cause of alarm, or knee-jerk reactions of imminent "radical feminism". You should give Somali women more credit, the likes of Ayaan are the exception not the rule. We know from prewar Somali women's movements that their efforts have always been extremely understanding and thoughtful of Somali society, culture and history, be it female nationalism, or anti-FGM, they did it in concert with male groups, politicians and societal leaders. Compare this to the various ideologies Somali men dropped on the heads of their women and children, in the last two decades, with no concern to their wishes, or standards of living.

Wadani;961424 wrote: Should women get an excellent education? Yes. Should they be able to work and vote? Yes. Should they have equal access to all state services? Yes. Yes to these and to a plethora of other rights...no man in his right mind would deny half the population their rights. We just don't want the horrible excesses of the west in the name of gender equality being exported to Somalia. That's all. The fact that we have the power to deny them all of that is the issue. Only in a scenario where women can impose the same ideals of what their menfolk should be like, and instead of emulating [ - insert Western/Eastern import - ], then you have a fair case. However, what we have now is us men discussing how women should dress, how they should talk, how they should behave and actually enforcing this through the cloak of society, and traditional gender roles, or fears of what they might become. Yet we adopt any philosophy, culture and dress-code we please, and never ask the opinion of the other 50+ % of this so-called society. When you then say, but I'm perfectly okay with women going to school, eating cake, breathing air, you're being condescending, even if not on purpose That is not equality, its pity. The day we have lost the ability to deny them these rights, is the day those rights are actually owned by them.

Kacaan attitudes towards women should be revived in modern Somalia, they were present in high numbers on the workplace, the military and the student-body, and all walks of life.

tutu;960871 wrote: Somalia greener than Kenya and UGANDA? Could you substantiate that. Fact! Where are those pics above taken? I am doubting your pics, Chimera Mission accomplished, and NGONGE called them pointless, lookie here a person whose perception of Somalia has been forced to change, evendo he still refuses to believe those pics were actually taken in that country. ...like that oil refinery you posted the other day purporting to be in Somalia, but wouldn't tell me exactly where it is when I asked. Truthfully I felt sad for you, the fact that you couldn't even recognize the rig as Shabeel 1 situated in the Dharoor Valley of Somalia, was evidence enough that you had been living under a rock the last five years, and there was no point in continuing the discussion. Worst of all was your chest-thumbing of Kenya's potential barrels of oil at the expense of Somalia, as if any of the revenues would ever reach the region you hail from. A region the size of the UK yet can only boast as much miles of paved road as the British Silverstone racetrack. Pity.

Compare North Africa and Somalia, the former is majoritely desert, the latter is evenly divided, with most of the South lush and green, and the north being home to mountainous regions that are some of the greenest photogenic parts of the country. This is without the commercial farming, and massive tree-planting projects that have occurred in most European countries, (and our neighbours) in the last 50 years, and despite the hideous deforestation of the last 20 years. EDIT: You know what, I couldn't care less, Somalia is 120% desert, I'm going to work.

I love how people ignored the comment I was replying to, and went straight after Chimera, even the heckler is present, greetings dear NGONGE. :cool: Safferz;960853 wrote: Huh? There are green parts, but for the most part Somalia has a harsh, dry landscape with not much arable land. Somalia has more forests and woodlands than Kenya and Uganda combined, more than multiple European countries combined, and millions of hectares of arable land, (VAST majority uncultivated) which are more than enough to sustain our population several times over. If there is a defect to the Somali population its most definitely not the fault of their homeland, considering the vast potential.

warsamaale;960809 wrote: People are products of the land, Somalis inhabit the nastiest, most inhospitable real estate on this beautiful planet. hence the hot headed war like nature. If geography was the determining factor we should be mahfah'kin ELVES, Somalia is greener than the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands COMBINED:

Abdinasir had two sons, aged 7 and 9. Tragic.

OdaySomali;960432 wrote: I wholeheartedly agree. Egypt (and many other counties) watched Somalis suffer as crisis after crisis and conflict afte conflict was instigated by our neighbouring countries. They have shown no reason for Somalia to support Egypt. Having said that, we should use them and take what we can get from them. One such thing is using Egypts influence with the the petro-rich GCC countries to get more developmental funding. Egypt is in no position to help anyone to be honest, they are still reeling from a messy revolution, and they are forced to borrow from foreign finance institutions. If you look at the video Guzel posted, their re-engagement with Somalia is not in our interests, but theirs. What they can give us, we can get from Turkey and Japan at a much higher quality, without falling prey to regional conflicts. Somalia is already on the radar of the GCC countries, and there is no doubt in my mind had we not plunged ourselves into this silly civil-strife many GCC billion dollar projects would have been constructed in Somalia already, the 200 thousand barrels of oil-refinery(largest in the region) planned by Iraq right before the war is a good example 22 years ago. The biggest supporters of the Federal government are the UAE and Qatar. We have a far greater interest in working more closely with Ethiopia for our common interest. Somalia is in no place right now where is can fight another country's battles and get burnt in the process. Yes, which is why creating a pact that makes a stable Somalia neutral in the water-crisis is to our interest and theirs. If they refuse and the country gets burned, at least it fought for its own future generations and their water security, rather than a foreign country. Ethiopia spend much of her resources fending off Somalia from the 60s to the early 90s, while nothing went to developmental projects, they have no interest in going back to such a situation. (The Somalia I'm using in this discussion is the one between 2016-2025, which is when the water-politics probably will affect Somali farms directly). I made a post on a similar topic a week ago on what Somalia could do to accomplish water-security and not find themselves like the Egyptians with their pants down: Chimera;956545 wrote: ^A future Somalia has many options to counter the impact of Ethiopia's plans: 1) Halt the plans through legal means via the UN 2) Entice Djibouti into an agreement. 3) Free port access, on the condition that any plans are scrapped. 4) Rain-harvesting 5) Desalination plants 6) Wind-farms along Somalia's coast = exporting surplus energy to countries around the region, and undercutting Ethiopia's destination for revenue, making any future loans and bonds-sales to foot the bill for any new dam project highly unlikely, and not worth it. 7) Military confrontation (not today, in the future), in the form of a naval blockade of Ethiopian goods. A combination of the first five options would secure Somalia's national interests, and we are lucky that we have a sizable population whose food/water security quota can be secured by 10 desalination plants, and mega storage tanks strategically positioned across the country for maximum accumulation, unlike either Egypt or Ethiopia's whose populations are becoming unsustainable. This would be a Somali energy plan totaling $15 billion in the span of 20 years, with 2 new plants constructed every four years. There are 13 thousand desal plants in operation around the world, and it takes 1/3 the time to build one compared to a dam.

OdaySomali;960431 wrote: I disagree. Just look at the conflict in Kismaayo which centers around the creation of just one 'federal state'. See the political disagreements and the extent of foreign involvement in domestic Somali politics that is evident there; many more 'federal states' are yet to be formed and they will present the same problems and setbacks. Federalism is out next big quagmire. And since our so-called 'political differences', when put in simple terms, is just clanism, Ethiopia will easily be able to manipulate the various political 'blocks' within Somalia as it did in the past. Our national unity, political system, economy and security forces are extremely fragile and will continue to be so for the next few years. And if Ethiopia's recent involvement in Somalia ia anything to go by, it has shown that it has every appetite to be politically and militarily involved in Somalia - alas, Ethiopia currently has troops inside Somalia. Even where our neighbour chooses not to be directly militarily active inside our county, it is still very much active through its proxies. I do concede that Ethiopia's ability to interfere in Somalia's domestic affairs without impunity is slowly diminishing. And in that same stroke of fortune, Somalia's ability to ward of Ethiopian political, military and diplomatic sabotage and interference is slowly improving. The only reason why the bolded part is increasingly becoming the case is because of the establishment of a permanent government, and immense international back coming from Turkey, Britain, US, and Qatar. The situation in Kismayo is not going to reverse the gains, the international interests pushing for the stability of Somalia are too great, and this is to our long-term benefit. There is no country in Africa that is not suffering insecurity, rebellious regions and foreign interference. However the difference between them and us over the last twenty years was a permanent government. India has a dozen liberation fronts inside its territory but you wouldn't know because it has its centers of power in order, same with Ethiopia. The same is steadily happening for Somalia, the Turks are helping immensely in building up the government's capacity, what should have taken decades, will take us 5 years due to this un-official Marshall-Plan that will reconstruct our battered cities, economy and armed forces. Any previous transitional government would have collapsed by now if this was still the 00s, but the Federal government is steadfast and united, this is a very significant step forward in creating a superstructure that can project power, or fend off malicious interests. Well said. I think that the Ethiopian regime has acted to rashly with this dam as even if their decision does not result in direct action from Egypt, it puts Egypt, Sudan, The Arab League, among others, on edge and negatively predisposed towards Ethiopia. Having said that, these infrastructural projects are an indication of where the Ethiopian regime wants to go in the future. They want to make their county a regional superpower by exporting the electricity from their dams at cheap rates and making their neigbouring countries dependent on Ethiopia for their electricity as well as undercutting their neighbours domestically produced electricity. In a similar way they have sought to influence Djibouti by exporting to it cheap electricity and potable water as well as allowing Djibouti to own swathes of fertile land in Ethiopia to produce agricultural produce. They are playing a tactical long-game. Ethiopia has its business in order, no doubt about that.

Xabad, what do you dispute? Much of what is happening today is because Egyptians were too busy laughing at the notion that Ethiopia could ever recover from famine, civil-war and regional conventional wars, evendo the writing was on the wall. You think in minutes and days, I think in years and decades, how's that for honesty?

Currently no, but by 2016 most definitely yes. The Somali Armed Forces will be operational, a lean but well-armed military, so Ethiopia will have no appetite to attack Somalia now that there is a standing army on the other side of the border. Our political differences will have significantly died down, or disappeared outright with the establishment of federal states and a fully reconstructed Mogadishu as the capital generating wealth and attracting FDI. The Federal government by then has a tax-system in place, with a functioning central bank and a large national budget, all of which will be achieved in 2014/2015/2016. Since there are no immediate Ethiopian plans for 1000+ MW dams that could threaten the Shabelle or Juba rivers of Somalia, the country has nothing to worry about in the next five years. After that, Somali planners need to prepare, or they will find themselves in the same situation as the Egyptians and Kenyans, witnessing unstoppable infrastructural projects that will affect the future generations of those countries. Many rivers have their source in Ethiopia, and it would be national suicide to dam all of them and draw the ire of every country in the region. Ethiopia survived this long due their diplomatic efforts, and refraining from threatening the water security of a recovered historic arch-enemy would ease the pressure. They need the dam on the Blue Nile, but they don't necessarily need prospective dams on the Somali rivers. The civil war was such a waste, a stable Somalia today would have been in a excellent bargaining position, even the recent arrival of Egyptian officers in Mogadishu send alarm bells in Addis Ababa. PS - Somalia should not allow itself to be dragged into this crisis, if our rivers are secure. The Egyptians watched us languish in the last 20 years, they were silent during the 2006 invasion, and absent during the drought in 2011, they're not our friends or allies. We must be very cold to countries that ignored us when they had it good, but suddenly remember us when things are going bad for them. A foreign policy similar to those of Turkey or Malaysia should be adopted, and less of this pseudo-brotherhood nonsense.