LoooooooooL@Puuja....I will see you tonite dear.

^^^^LooooooooooL...I thought you were gonna ask how's her kissing!

LooooooooooL...Hard at work in trying to convince us everything is OK eh. Atleast your persistance is admirable.

^^^^Nobody is angry duqa, I just don't like duplicity. You can appeal to his senses without throwing his lot into the mix. If every body from his region agreed with his stance, your comments would have been justified, but that's not the case here.

Roobleh...do you need manual for everything?

^^^Why don't the president of Somaliland condemn the Ethio Invasion? I heard Siilaanyo from the oppoistion party , but the head of the state along with the parliament are silent? And by the way, what does attacking Sanaag has to do with Ethio invasion of Xamar? Either you agree with the Sland aggression on the eastern tribes or you don't. Their stance on Xamar events is beside the point.

^^^^^Knowledge is gained through experience Zaf. These books are useless.

Rageedii dheh...LoooooL Those guys from Hargeysa get nothing on this woman.

Finger clamp Souadou’s fingers are often clamped between two sticks, a frequently-used instrument of torture. This, her grandmother explains, will stem her urge to vomit by distracting her with some local pain. Officially, force-feeding is said to have disappeared after government health campaigns pronounced it wrong, but the message has yet to reach some remote areas of Mauritania. Bulimia The girls' stomachs are stretched to the limit, prompting violent pain and vomiting. Souadou vomits a lot. "I’m afraid of losing my ability to stand," she says, "of becoming a cripple." She is right to be afraid. Another few years and she could find herself in hospital. web page

It seems wherever they are, women and girls are getting the wrong end of the deal. I use to think Somalia dishes out most abuse to women, but some cultures out there are amazingly worse, and frightening. As Mauritanian nomads drift to the city, modern life is beginning to challenge one of their most cherished traditions - the force-feeding of young girls. Under a patchwork tent in Kiffa, on the western edge of the Sahara desert, a nomadic woman called Braika crossed two sticks around my ankles and squeezed the ends together with rope until I yelped in pain. She was showing me how she forced her daughters to swallow litres of milk and mountains of couscous for days on end until they developed wings of fat hanging from their arms and their skin was traced with silvery stretch-marks - attributes considered the height of feminine beauty in Mauritania. "They eat and eat, and drink and drink, and when they can't eat anymore we pinch them and sometimes they vomit," Braika said. "When they vomit on purpose, we make them eat the vomit to teach them not to do it again." Braika proudly wobbled her flabby arms and showed off her own stretch-marks. She did not feel guilty about force-feeding her daughter. She assured me that once the ordeal was over the girls were grateful, because nicely fattened up they could take their pick of husbands. "A thin girl could be blown away in the wind, people think she is a stick and she will never find a husband," she said. Nomads believe a fat girl is a healthy girl. But in reality, obesity has reached epidemic proportions among Mauritanian women and it is killing them. Barely into their 40s, fattened women are dying from obesity-related diseases such as diabetes and heart failure. Government warnings Mounina Mint Abdalla is a health consultant who worked for years with the government trying to stamp out force-feeding. But she acknowledged that government radio sketches warning women of the dangers of obesity have had little effect on a society where fatness is revered as a symbol of nobility and good breeding. Nonetheless, force-feeding and the nomadic way of life is fast disappearing, said Mounina. "The country has been hit by years of drought and we simply don't have that kind of quantity of milk now, or the time it takes," she added. Zeid, a nomad in the market town of Aleg, said he was thinking of trading his last remaining goats and camels for a passage to the city. "We are in deep crisis," he said. "The price of the food is becoming so high, that we can't afford to feed ourselves, and for this reason we cannot feed the animals. "The only thing we can do is move to the city." Quick fix Women come to the market to buy steroids for their daughters In the market in the capital Nouakchott, Mounina pointed to all the women working in the stalls selling everything from brightly coloured veils to fake Chanel sunglasses. "Just 15 years ago, women didn't work at all but now all these women are working because life in the city is very expensive," she said. But despite this, women are still finding ways of fattening themselves up. A pill-seller said he could not count the number of women who buy steroids meant for cattle. "Some come and buy 20 boxes in one go," he said. But if force-feeding creates problems for women in later life, the cattle steroids can be an instant killer. Side-effects include renal failure and heart attacks. Dr Maagouiya, the general surgeon at Nouakchott's main hospital said that without autopsies - which are not permitted in Mauritania - he cannot be sure how many lives the steroids have claimed but he believes the figure is high. Yet mothers still come to him to request pills for their daughters, believing that thin girls are shameful because they look "sick". To be "sick" is often a euphemism for having HIV/Aids in Africa. The message is getting through to some Mauritanian women, like Mounina's nieces who have started exercising around the stadium as the sun goes down. But they seemed to be doing it reluctantly and said they were trying to lose weight purely for health reasons, not because it would make them more attractive. Dr Mougiya said he encounters the same attitude when he holds seminars trying to persuade obese women to slim down. "They tell me that if they lose weight their husbands will leave them because everyone knows that in Mauritania men prefer a fat woman." Global influences One thing is finally beginning to shake up popular attitudes to fatness - the explosion of Arab satellite channels obliterating the monopoly held until recently by the state channel. It was a big moment in Mounina's house when I visited - it was the final of Star Academy, the talent music show by the Lebanese music channel LBC. Mounina's teenage daughters told me they do not want to be fat like their cousins who are only a few years older then them. They said they want to be "a normal size" like the Lebanese pop stars. "Now Mauritanian men are looking at Lebanese singers and starting to compare them with us," said 19-year-old Aicha. "They look at their wives and say 'why aren't you like those singers?' There are some who've got divorced because of those Lebanese singers. "The men say to their wives 'why are you fat, why aren't you like Britney Spears?" The lifestyle in Mauritania is changing fast - donkey carts and fruit stalls in Nouakchott are giving way to fast-food restaurants. In "Burger Hot" I met a group of men who were not sure that Mauritania's love affair with thin men and fat women is completely over. "If you're an overweight man, women make jokes about you. They say that you look like a woman. "But if you tell them to lose weight they don't believe you. "They say you are out of your mind, that you are trying to trick them because they know men here don't like thin ladies." But another man said that no matter how many images of slimmer women are beamed into Mauritanian living rooms, former nomads are too set in their ways to ever fully accept a foreign standard of beauty.

^^^LoooooooooooL That explains why my subclan is not the terrorist list. Reer Gedo was close though. Is Afgudac gonne be part of the TFG that comes back?

Originally posted by General Duke: Che, how are reer Gedo not my Kinsmen? As for Mogadishu it has been deliverd from the hands of the looters inc. Duke...Whoever opposes you politically is not your kinsmen.

LoooooooooooooL......I didn't know reer Gedo was your kinsmen. I guess that explains why Xamar got the wrong end of the deal. But I am glad useless tribal war was averted!! Thanks for the link

Fair and balanced...Dear Duke...Where is Gedonet on all this?

^^^LoooooL...I didn't like him then, but I did want the Somali goverment to work, and so it looks many that oppose him today.

^^^I don't have to clarify anything just like you don't have to justify Somaliland's existance to me.

Duke...Dagaalka Fagax iyo Towfiiq oo dhaafi la, yahay.I doubt conventional armies will have any success any insurgency with well trenched trenched native militias.

You are wrong, the SSC issue is between your secessionist faction and my Country Somalia, it’s a national issue, unless you are confused and don’t know what you talking about Thank You! Badacas......Your self-rightious attitude is getting boring saaxib.

War Duke...This is not the catwalk Zenawi thought it was going to be. Looks real bad for the TFG.

Originally posted by Xanthus: ^^^OUCH. that almost made me laugh... Garaad Caanood, i don't hate dear (well unless you are a criminal, murder, rapist) Glad I could humor you, but how's that funny?

Badacas....Be on your way with your Somaliland, but respect those that don't come on your little adventure. Let southerners figure their own problems since you are not part of Somalia.

^^Ladies first....the faraaxs later

what is happening to them is punishment from Allah Ma,adaa Ilaahey kasoo wariye. And what's with all the pessimism.

LooooooooooL@Xiin...Oootay Aw

When did you change teams Horn?