^I meant China sxb, once Chinese-Somali relations are firmly re-established directly, then the Federal Government's capacity to deliver services and greenlit large scale construction projects will quadruple in no time. You're right about reopening the embassy in Japan, there are Somalis living there as students and entrepreneurs, whom the President met: Somali leader In Japan To Participate International Conference On Somalia Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohmaud and his delegation have arrived in Tokyo, Japan capital on Thursday ahead of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) on Somalia’s recovery and reconstruction which is set to start in Yokohama on Saturday for a three-day run. Mohamud said during a visit Japan on Thursday that he also wants the renew the relationship between two counters Another conference which is also expected to be featured a number of key issues including economic growth, education and stabilization, among others will be held a day before the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). Japan is among many countries that have restored their diplomatic tie with the war-torn horn of Africa nation which is emerging from town decades of chaos and lawlessness, Japan ambassador to Somalia Toshihisa Takata was named earlier this year. Tokyo conference follows the London conference which was hosted by the Britain government on May 7 as another conference on Somali is set to be hosted by the European Union in September. The Somali president is also expected to attend the G8 summit in London on 15 June as this will be the first ever time a Somali president to be invited in this summit. Mohamud office said he also met with Japan businessmen and Somali businessmen and students living in Japan on Monday , the start of the four-day trip, to encourage investment in his struggling country. -- LINK

Welcome to Mogadishu One brightly painted brick at a time, the shelled-out city is coming back to life. Along Mogadishu’s tree-lined drags, shopfronts form a tableau of hope. Outsized poster-paint impressions of burgers, fizzy drink bottles and doughnuts daub walls where bullets once made their mark. Renderings of hairdryers, laptops and pressure pumps advertise the high-tech wares inside. Walls and gates are painted the same bright powder-blue base which matches the sea, the sky and the national flag. But the revival goes beyond shopkeeping. Scaffolding shapes the skyline, livestock and fish markets are back in action and women plunge into the sea from stunning white sands. Surrounded by the crescent of ruins that cradles the old fishing port, I speak to a young fisherman as he smears the hazel sludge of sea lion liver oil over upturned boats. He says he hopes Somalia’s latest government, formed in 2012 in the most legitimate process in years, will last. The turnround is so impressive that the new government predicts the economy will soon be growing at 10 per cent, up from 2 per cent last year. Statistics are hardly the strong point of a country that hasn’t had a functioning government for 22 years, but the World Bank estimates that a robust informal economy – led by exports of livestock – contributes to a GDP of close to $3bn ( BS ). Expatriate remittances, at about $1.6bn a year, have long kept the country going, fuelling a dynamic private sector that has run successful telecoms, energy and construction companies in the absence of state regulation. In the past 18 months, remittances have risen by almost 20 per cent, says Abdirashid Duale, chief executive of Dahabshiil, a Somali money transfer service. “As the security situation improves, more and more people are returning,” he adds. Trade unions talk about a revival in agriculture, hotels and port activity. Their members have battled al-Shabaab threats and imprisonment to turn out regular market data reports, logging the fluctuating prices of camel milk, jerry cans of diesel, goats and imported red rice in Mogadishu’s Bakara market. Today Somalia has more than 52,000 trade union members. One fish processing company, the Somali National Fishing Company, exports to Dubai and Turkey, flying several tonnes at a time. “We plan to export to European, Arab countries,” says Abdirashid Mohamed, standing beside a catch of swordfish lined up on top of deep freezes. “We’ve been speaking with Holland about starting there.” The latter is thanks to the upsurge in commercial flights. In little over a year, the number of aircraft landing a day has risen from three to 12, says Ahmed Ibrahim Iman, a 29-year-old airport manager. Dubai and Turkey both run commercial airlines into the beachside city, and import fish, fruit and meat from Somalia. But it is a costly tale of recovery. Ahmed’s father, Ibrahim Iman Halane, was airport manager before him and was assassinated last year. “He was killed in town – he went to pray and when he left, two al-Shabaab attacked with pistols,” says Ahmed, explaining that his father’s job made him a target. The revival of the airport is, like the functioning courthouse, among the most telling symbols of Mogadishu’s recovery. “Al-Shabaab say it’s about religion but it’s not – it’s politics.” Now Ahmed drives to work with only blacked-out windows for protection. “Maybe Shabaab will attack me,” he says. “I can’t accept to sit at home so I’m working – I’m ready to die like my father.” . . . The city ignores al-Shabaab. The Chamber of Commerce says it has registered 260 companies in the past four months alone, bringing the total to 351 , in sectors ranging from internet services to agricultural exports. “More than 35 per cent are [owned by] diaspora,” says managing director Abdi Dorre, himself a one-time refugee who was taken in by Sweden in the 1990s. Among the returnees – whom the UN estimates at more than 60,000 last year – is twenty-something Guled Garane, who until December lived in London’s Camden neighbourhood, where one street is named “Somali Road”. Garane was a mortgage underwriter, but decided he could probably make more money by returning to the country he left aged nine. “I saw property prices going up and rents going up; land prices have hit the roof. I saw it was time to get in and see it for myself,” he says over a jug of freshly squeezed lemon juice in a heavily guarded Mogadishu hotel. A year ago, a five-bedroom rental was $500 a month, today it is $4,000, he says of one of the world’s more unlikely housing bubbles. “A lot of people are investing – houses in Mogadishu are now fetching $1m, can you imagine that?” Last year, he says, the same properties would have gone for $100,000-$150,000, figures echoed by several playing the property market. “It just went 800 per cent up and there is no economics to sustain it. People have serious money. But you can’t tell yet if it will last or if it’s just speculative.” -- Read More: Welcome to Mogadishu

Your putting words in my mouth, Somalis replaced the Indian businesses that were directly affecting them. Somalis don't bank at Barclays, they use their Islamic compatible versions. Somalis don't shop at Nakumatt, they have their own malls. That is what I was highlighting. The Indian community is one which I admire, they are today where Somalis in Africa will be in a few decades, if the situation in Somalia were to remain the same. However, Somalia is recovering, and with that reality comes the return of a dozen different business groups and interests driven by the trillion dollar club that will make the East African Business community look like small players. Those are the ones I am more worried about, and the establishment of a 10 year-law that offers incentives for foreign companies to enter into Joint-ventures with local ones, would be a win/win scenario.

That is just scare-mongering Mintid, the Indian community in East Africa works hard, hence their wealth. However Somalis are equally if not more entrepreneurial because they deploy the same family relationship/trust based business tactics. The Indians lost a lot of their hubs to Somali retailers and businesses in the region. Also, in prewar Somalia there were Indian businesses inside the country, and all was well, we should not project the same xenophobia that plagues Somali businessmen in parts of Africa due to their success,

Turkey puts another $10 million in the pot for the Somali Armed Forces at the Yokohama conference. They do this at every conference, a good method indeed. Its much more productive and transparent to do it in phases, because it will prevent corruption, and doesn't scare our neighbours in the process.

Nice update Daqane! nuune;957218 wrote: Excellent thread yaa Chimera , you and I we were saying the other day in our vision for Somalia that the likes of Japan & South Korea can support Somalia in many ways, agriculture being one, and the provision of coast guide equipments, the latter already being discussed which is good news. Exactly, this is why its important to have a superstructure in the form of a country to advance your interests. Japan will assist us in the maritime sector, both military and economic, and they are doing it directly, not through other channels. I would be glad if the president also makes a short visit to South Korea In good time, sxb, in good time. I am more interested in the policies of their biggest neighbour; the Celestial Kingdom.

A few more classics:

Could Baashi tell dear Faroole he and his poker cards are in the wrong venue, the game is in Tokyo, Japan.

^LOL, Pingu

Japan’s Energy Needs to Top Agenda at Africa Meeting By Mitsuru Obe TOKYO—Japan is set to announce a series of agreements with African countries to facilitate better access to their fuel and minerals amid intensifying competition with China to tap into the continent’s natural resources. The agreements will be reached during this weekend’s African development conference, an event Japan hosts with heads of state from the continent every five years. The focus of the event will be business and energy, as Japan looks, in particular, for new fuel sources to keep its economy running following a widespread nuclear-power shutdown following the 2011 Fukushima accident. But Japan finds itself behind China in terms of building cooperative ties with African nations, as corporate Japan takes a hesitant stance on entry into the African market due to its sometimes harsh environment, political instability and risks of war and terrorism. The Tokyo International Conference on African Development, the fifth meeting since its launch 20 years ago, will take place in Yokohama June 1-3, attended by 51 of the continent’s 54 nations, including 40 heads of state. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will stay for the duration of the event and intends to meet all the visiting leaders as he tries to drive home the message that African leaders can count on his administration for developing long-term partnerships in contrast to the last six years of constantly changing prime ministers. In 2011, Japanese direct investments in Africa stood at $460 million against China’s $3.1 billion, while Japan’s trade with Africa totaled only $30 billion, less than a fifth of China’s $166 billion, according to the Japan External Trade Organization, a government-backed trade promotion body. The number of Japanese living in Africa, meanwhile, totals only about 8,000, compared with China’s 150,000. Rather than try to compete with Beijing, several senior government officials said Tokyo may find it more advantageous to work with China on gaining access to resources and building cooperation with African nations. “Working with China in Africa is very much a possibility in the future,” said Katsumi Hirano, an expert of Africa for the government-affiliated Institute of Developing Economies. Mr. Hirano believes such cooperation is especially likely in resource development, as natural gas has been discovered off the coasts of Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya, all located on the continent’s eastern seaboard, an area convenient for shipments to Asia. But Japanese businesses remain cautious about investing in Africa. “We do not think we have to have an office in Africa,” said Takashi Suzuki, who is responsible for overseas business development at Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp., a major buyer of coal from Mozambique. Mr. Suzuki said his company is still looking into whether it actually needs a comprehensive African strategy. A terrorist attack in Algeria in January, in which 10 Japanese were killed, including employees of plant engineer JGC Corp., has only added to the cautious mood. Africa itself doesn’t wish to be torn between some kind of resource competition between Japan and China, two of its largest aid donors. “There’s no point in Japan competing with China,” said Stuart Comberbach, Zimbabwean ambassador to Japan. “Africa was a victim once before of big power rivalry, between the West and the East. We paid a heavy price for that in terms of proxy wars fought on our continent. We have no willingness at all to get involved in any kind of geo-strategic rivalry.” During the coming meeting, Japan will sign an investment accord with Mozambique and will likely agree to launch negotiations for such an accord with Kenya, Tanzania and Ghana, Japanese trade officials said. The agreement is aimed at preventing appropriations of assets and arbitrary changes in business rules. To ease concerns about piracy along key shipping lanes connecting Japan and Africa, Tokyo will agree to train coast guard officials, and provide patrol boats, for east coast countries including Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya, they said . The Wall Street Journal 3 of those Hayabusa class patrol ships would do the trick, Mr President, bring them home!

^The Dutch had something similar:

Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha they destroyed the studio Sikhs :cool:

I would always run home during school break and watch this while eating a lunch of cheese and jam sandwiches prepared by hooyo lol (old cartoons had the catchiest song intros)

Welcome. Post some more.

They need to make a movie out of this one, Samuel L Jackson as Bulletproof:

Anyone remember Mojo Jojo looool or the Gangreen Gang and HIM, ohhh this cartoon was messed up (Creepy as hell) LOOOOOOOL

Haatu;956990 wrote: I used to love Johnny Bravo. To think he was only what 8? lol There used to be this other cartoon that I used to watch in the mornings (around 7am) on the weekends. I can't remember anything from it except I loved it and it had a talking book Pagemaster? I think that was a film.

This one I loved dearly, early 90s I had the same nintendo and orange gun: Simon Belmont's depiction is blasphemy though.

He was my rolemodel lol

This one has aged well:

LOOOL flashbacks of Supercow

I used to love this song's accent :

After the Taxi episode, I'm keeping my cards and ideas close to my chest, sxb.

^In the immediate term, this agreement will open the door for large funds, which is what the Federal Government needs at the moment, to prop up its financial and national institutions, such as the Central bank and military.