^^ Give us your opinion, what is she[he] trying to say, in what points do you agree with? As for me, I see a hopeless man trying to impersonate as a Somali lady. What a shame. Is that what some people are resorting to thesedays. cajiib. Anyways, whom is the calaacal addressed to? The UN, EU, Arab League or AU? Not that they can stop or change Somaliland's course, I am just wondering.

MOSCOW -- In Sicily, a reception was held recently to launch the Italian translation of a controversial book written by Saparmurad Niyazov, dictator and "president for life" of Turkmenistan. In Amsterdam, a Dutch translation of the book was unveiled at a party in a historic 17th-century house. The various releases this month of the two-volume "Book of Spirit" -- "Ruhnama" in Turkmen -- are part of an international drive to boost the book's circulation as well as what the government-controlled Turkmen media call a "victorious march around the world" by the author-president, 65, also known in his country as Turkmenbashi the Great. The book contains Niyazov's moral code as well as his philosophical and historical musings. Its translation into 30 languages and publication outside Turkmenistan have been underwritten by international firms doing business in the natural gas-rich Central Asian republic, according to Turkmen media reports, exiled opposition groups and a number of the companies involved that were contacted by The Washington Post. Human rights groups say the book is at the center of Niyazov's cult of personality and is ravaging educational and cultural life in his country. Almost everyone in Turkmenistan is compelled to study the book and pass exams about it, and the country's libraries have largely been emptied to leave little but the Ruhnama and Niyazov's collections of poetry. This month, Niyazov ordered most libraries in Turkmenistan closed, according to Russian news reports. "If the Ruhnama were a benign text, like the memoirs of a U.S. president, this would be harmless, but the Ruhnama is the principal instrument for indoctrination and brainwashing in Turkmenistan," said Erika Dailey, a specialist on the country at the Open Society Institute in Budapest. "Companies cannot ignore that and they have to be called to account." Those involved in the translation and publication of the book, however, described their efforts as philanthropic. "We sponsored it for inter-cultural understanding," said Arantxa Doerrie, a spokeswoman for Zeppelin Baumaschinen, a German machinery company that translated the second volume of the book and presented it to Niyazov this month. The company plans to distribute the book in Germany, she said. "In principle, yes, it is a dictatorship," Doerrie said, "but simultaneously we see that very much is being done to help the people there -- for the infrastructure with the building of streets, for example. That is what we understand. We sell building equipment, so yes, there is a market for us there, but we see our contribution as a way to help the people there." Niyazov, who allowed the United States to use his country's airspace during the war in Afghanistan, has been in power since the collapse of the Soviet Union. He tolerates no dissent and has turned the country of 5 million into a monument to himself. The president's image adorns vodka bottles and is shown constantly in the top right corner on national television. A 36-foot-tall, gold-leaf statue of the president rotates atop a 250-foot base to follow the sun. The streets of the capital, Ashkhabad, are shut down when he chooses to whiz around town in one of his cars. And he has renamed months of the year after himself, his mother and his book. Niyazov appeared in a 90-minute live broadcast from one of his palaces last September to read from his new poetry collection, "The Spring of Inspiration." He also interrupts government meetings to recite his poems, including a session last May when he told his military leadership that he had some verse about the dangers facing the country: Be vigilant and be cautious, that is my request to you Even when you and your country are facing luck And you are as mighty as King Solomon And when you feel yourself strong Be aware, for there are many traitors with traps to set Foreign distribution of the Ruhnama began several years ago. "Dear Mr. President," wrote a director of the Finnish electricity concern Ensto in a letter last year. "The publication of your book will undoubtedly serve as a stimulus for the development of relations between our countries. It will allow for close acquaintance with the culture and national traditions of your people, and the political principles of Turkmenistan. . . . The international industrial concern has an important role in the manufacture and maintenance of energy grids." The company's chief executive, Seppo Martikainen, said in a telephone interview that the company now planned to translate the book only for its employees. "The situation has changed," he said. "We had discussion on how far we should go with this, and it's only for our own use." The Irish firm Emerol, which has contracts in Turkmenistan worth tens of millions of dollars, published the book in Lithuanian -- one of its directors is Lithuanian, according to company registration documents filed in Dublin. DaimlerChrysler, the automobile giant based in Stuttgart, Germany, and Auburn Hills, Mich., sells ambulances and other vehicles to the Turkmen government. The firm published the first volume of the Ruhnama in November 2003. "I can tell you that employees of DaimlerChrysler translated the book," said Ursula Mertzig-Stein, a company official. "A contract was signed and the book was presented to the leader." She said the company did not otherwise publish books but noted that "there are, I believe, not many other heads of state who are authors." She declined to be quoted on the human rights situation in Turkmenistan. When a translation is complete, the book is launched abroad with coverage in the Turkmen media. "Millions of readers whose mother tongue is Italian are looking forward to an opportunity to [get in] touch with the great history of the ancient Turkmen," reported the State Information Agency of Turkmenistan after this month's reception in Sicily, which was attended by local schoolchildren. A sales representative for an Italian water company with major contracts in Turkmenistan organized the Italian translation. Turkmen opposition leaders say they are dismayed by what they see as a cynical quid pro quo -- books for business. "Having millions of copies of his nonsense in various languages is immoral when children in school have no textbooks," said Khudaiberdy Orazov, a former deputy prime minister under Niyazov. He is now in exile in Sweden, where he leads the opposition group Watan. "For these companies, who should know better, it's unforgivable," he said. A spokesman for the Turkmen Embassy in Moscow said the companies were under no obligation to publish the president's work and acted on their own initiative. "Who can prohibit this if they wanted to do it of their own free will?" said Grigory Kolozin, the embassy spokesman. "The Turkmen leadership approaches the issue of making contracts with foreign companies on the basis of pragmatism." "We felt it was only polite to do it," said Imre Sesztak, head of the gas industry firm Turbo Team in Hungary, which paid for the publication of 1,000 copies of the book in Hungarian in October. "People know very little about Turkmenistan, so we feel we're spreading information." Russian news media reported recently that the energy giant Gazprom, which has been involved in a dispute with Niyazov over huge natural gas contracts, is behind a recent proposal by a number of renowned Russian poets to translate the president's poems into Russian. The offer kicked up a literary storm. Alexander Tkachenko, general director of the Russian PEN center, condemned the offer as a "disgrace and a shame." He also said that Niyazov's "gibberish is impossible to translate." A Gazprom spokeswoman said the report was untrue. One of the poets, Mikhail Sinelnikov, would say only that "a sponsor with business interests," whom he declined to identify, had suggested that they write to Niyazov offering to translate his work. The poets, who had planned a volume of classical Turkmen poetry, now suspect they were hoodwinked into a second project. "We made ourselves targets by signing this in haste," said poet Yevgeny Rein, who co-signed a letter to Niyazov that read, "Your verses about mother, moral purity, about family and statehood have become secular prayers in the life of Turkmens. Their publication in Russian would raise the significance of poetry." Special correspondents Shannon Smiley in Berlin, Stacy Meichtry in Rome and Kriszta Fenyo in Budapest contributed to this report.

the warlords decide upon the issue of their territories by giving the profit while they give them the space to kill as many of the Somalis as possible It is an open secret, Col. Yey is the only warlord with known links to Italian underworld mafia that dumb the deadly toxic waste on the shores of Puntland.

i am sure w. somalians aint call him uncle no more!! Did you mean Og@deniyans?

^^^ lol lets just hope this old and ailing warlord learns new tricks.

AYOUB_SHEIKH, You heard that right bro. Laakin, I am still waiting... I mean for that email... loooooooool @Ameenah and Lander Waan ka helaa the dacaayadda between reer Hargeisa iyo rer Burco, it cracks me up. There was this reer Burco guy the otherday, who said: Horta kuwiinan reer Hargeysa, meydaan xishoonayn, maxaad inanta keeshali ugu iibin weydeen. Guess what he was refering to? Hargeisa's Naasa-hablood hills. lol UNICEF looks forward to join hands with everybody in that effort and particularly to the leadership of the Minister of Education. Hadal lagu diirsado ayuu ninkaas unicefta ka socdaa sheegay... It seems the ball is in our court now. Waa in imika a huge campaign la bilaabo oo Hal-abuurka iyo Heesaaga Dalku waa inay sameeyaan suugaan cusub iyo hal ku dhegyo walidiinta iyo caruurta lagu dhiirinaayo inay dugsiyadda u diraan caruurta. This is something we excell in, we are more than capable of that kind of campaigns. We need to milk this new change of heart from the Unicef. ~~~Waanada Macallinka~~~ Waxan ahay waadiga dugsiyada Waxaan ahay waanada macallinka Waagii beryaba Ubax laga waraabshoo Waxaan ku werweraynaa Waddankiina wax u barta Oo ogaada waajibkiina Wahsan mayno Ka waaban mayno Warwareegi maynoo Weecweecan maynee Guul wacan Nolol wanaagsan Iyo barwaaqo Nabad lagu wadaagoo Ha ku waaro waddankeenu Waddankeenu waa Wadnihii jidhkeena Waraabinaayey dhiigoo Waan ku wardiyeynaa ... ... ...

The problem, Mr Gadiid, is that there is no strong accountable clan or subclan authority in place as was in Somaliland in those days. The elders or clan leaders are not as effective as they are in Somaliland. I bet Egal would not have taken one step forward had it not been our elders clearing the way for him. It was the clan structure and its associated mechanisms which remained virtually unhindered and strong in our society that helped Somaliland overcome it. And the other thing is that, the problem in South Somalia has many dimensions to it, not just clan side. There are the religious zealous, the business syndicates, the warlords, the freelance melitias and then comes the clan dimension and also many other interest groups whom are all vying for supermacy and influence. It is a lot harder than many of you think. And if Col. Yey thinks that with foreign troops he can triumph, he is wrong. America with its state of the art weapons and more than 100,000 thousand troops couldn't dare to take Falujah from an ilequiped melitiamen. I think the foreign troops will only add one more deadly dimension and will seriously complicate the matter. What Col. Yey needs to do is to appraoch the problem in traditional Somali way, "SHIR - GEED HOOSTII" and follow the painstaking process of solving one problem at a time. But that is highly unlikely since he is a man who had got used to solving things with the barrel of the gun. Well, if that is the case, then as they say: geelow daaq, daaq oo markaad ciin daaqdo ayaa laguu yaaba... and one more thing, I don't know if you guys heard Abdiqasim's interview by the BBC when he said: "Kursi musbaar leh ayay ii dhigeene, haday kii Afweyne oo kale ii dhigi lahaayeen miyaanba ciil qabi lahaa" - or something to that effect. Well, now that Col. Yey is on that same chair, and let me add, with some extra nails on it (by you know who)... lets hope he is enjoying it.

Also, It must be my familiarity with the warm reception some northerners have for the Ethiopians for reasons you are aware of. Well, that is one of the symptoms of that disease sxb... no need to hide it, you can be honest and open, let it all go. Iska nafis sxb. Seriously, Somaliland's policy is to be friendly to ANYONE that is friendly to its cause, which from now on includes you . So, I see no particular favour here... The only links we may have with Ethiopia is nation to nation links (e.g. politics, security and of course trade). Compare that to your neck of the woods? Where it meddles with your internal affairs, where it makes and destroys warlords by her own will and even worse it occupies and intrudes parts of Southern Somalia. I don't think you are one of those il-informed chaps that blindly argue that Ethiopia is the brainchild behind "Somaliland", they couldn't be far from the truth. Somaliland was there and alive before Senawi even came to Addis Abeba. Somaliland is a local idea, born and bred by its people. Kuwa cudurka ka qaba, well what can I say: Gafuur cadho nimuu ku yaalo ayuu dhibaa. ... the caravan will march on. certainly, the only people that can make or destroy Somaliland are its own people, NO ONE ELSE. Ninkii meelahaas ka cabaada, alaylehe, wuxu ka dhiganyahay, "GUDCUR MAGANGOOYO, NIN INDHA CADEEYEY, ISAGAA ISKA CADEEYEY".

anagana waxaa waajib nagu ah inaan xal u aragno la dagaalanka Ethiopia iyo Kenya si aan u helno midnimo iyo isku duubni Is this a desperate stun by Duke's camp? lol

^^ tanag yuu ina ader How have you been lately btw? Northerner and Qudhac lol It seems everybody loves Burco for some reason. Looma kala hadhin, here DownUnder.

^^^ lol Sxb I was talking about the ICG Laakin, as they say nin walba halkii buktaa isagey belbeshaa.

^^ "Aqooni Waa Iftiin" -- Abdilaahi Qarshe (Alaaya Raxma)

African Sky Sxb, I you are not telling me you actually believe this? Of all things, an unknown IP voilating bogus website is gonna turn that part of africa into little Dubai? lol Good luck sxb

At last the so called UN who dine and wine in Nairobi's lavish game parks are doing something meaningful for the Somali people. Haddaba, UNICEF iyo Wasaaradda Waxbarashada ee Jamhuuriyadda Somaliland , ayaa maanta kaga dhawaaqay magaalada Hargeysa bilowga mashruuca dhismaha in ka badan boqol School oo loogu talo galay in ay wax ku bartaan caruur dhan 33 kun oo arday 100 iskuul oo laga dhisayo Somaliland Somaliland oo laga hirgelinaayo Boqol iyo Sadex Dugsi Dhexe/Hoose In laga Dhiso

Mogadisho is a city of stark contrasts, with many perspectives, depending on which angle you viewed it from. It is the only place on earth where a tremendous economical development and lawlessness and anarchy run side by side. One has to take his hats off to the many ordinary men and women that run this city despite the many daily problem they face. Mogadishu waa Magaalo midabbeysa oo maalinba nooca, Muuqeedu gelinkiiba waa muunad goonniyahe Miisaanna ma saari karo nin iska maleeyaa a slightly changed Qasim's Macaan iyo Qadhaadh poem... PS Welcome back Rahima.

lol@ Sheikh Muhammed bin Awad No pun were intended in my post bro. I only asked if you could point the differences between the links I posted and the HAFZA thing. Besides the repeatation of the term "Puntland State" over ten times in one page, I saw not a difference. Copyright voilations I might add.

^^^ The key word there, is "Somalis"

The African Union (AU) needs to avoid sending peacekeeping troops from neighbouring states with a history of involvement in Somalia, the US-based International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned the continental body. I thought they were based in Brussels/EU... :confused: Contrary to what some say in here, these guys know the Somali problem better than a lot of people. Isn't it a pitty, the dictator's club (AU) is the least to give a damn about the Somalis.

Too good to be true... This looks like a one man show. Fishy in many ways. If he could have just said one or two e.g. Xaafuun for that matter, we could have given him the benefit of the doubt. Can you check the similarities between HAFZA and DAFZA and Shannon Free Zone. But I like the name HAFZA, good dreams mate. although you spent too much money and time on it.

lol@Northerner I tell you man, kabaha sii diyaarso. India Iknow, that is what I was wondering myself. Maybe, it is an off shore field or something. We don't know. But there could be a reason why the government doesn't want to say anything about this. There were a couple of funy deals they made with bogus and sometimes non-existent companies previously, so maybe they want to be more sure before they anounce anything here. Who knows...

Duke There is no question of "if" here, this is what he believes. Listen to the audio posted in the other thread and what he says there, although, he is trying to be more cautious this time. This is what he said: "...shir ayaan ka qayb galay Cali Samatar lagu taageerayay. Cali Samatarna wuxu ka mid ahaa maamulkii dalka Somaliyeed dadka madaxda ka ah ama janan bu ka ahaa .... janan walba oo aduunka ka midi dee maamulkiisa wuu daafacaa ." Basically, he is saying that was Cali Samatar was one of the high level Generals that defended the dictatorial regime of Siyad Barre, even if that means the destruction of Hargeysa. And he makes clear his unreserved support for the known warcriminals. Does it need to be any more clearer?

Financial Mail:Tokyo Sexwale's group commits to ambitious African expansion Willcox says Mvela has oil and gas projects at various stages of negotiation in Libya, Gabon, Nigeria, Somaliland and Guinea. "The only operation where we are drilling is in Ibuhezi on SA west coast and in Somaliland ," says Willcox [Mark Willcox]

"I think it is an open secret that the Egyptians have troops that are specialised in jungle warfare . Egypt is not known for its jungles. So if these troops are trained in jungle warfare, they are probably trained to fight in the jungles of the East African countries.... ...And from time to time Egyptian presidents have threatened countries with military action if they move. While I cannot completely discount the sabre-rattling I do not think it is a feasible option. If Egypt were to plan to stop Ethiopia from utilising the Nile waters it would have to occupy Ethiopia and no country on earth has done that in the past." Meles Senawi Nile restrictions anger Ethiopia

Hafun: Former Capital City of Somalia Somalia?? I am sure you didn't take Mugo Njeru's ( Kenyan journalist) confusion for real. Hafun was the old city of Mijertenia region (currently Puntland). Just like Shiekh or Zeila were once the capitals of Somaliland. Althought you can say Zeila was in fact the first capital of the Islamic state of Ifat.

This will expose the fact that Col. Yey is the only one that can not go back to Mogadishu. Among other reasons, being a big time killer with over 20 years of "khaarajin" experience, he is in no hurry to take chancs himself. Dhagar qabe dhulkaa u dhaqdhaqaaqa.