Originally posted by Kool_Kat: what did you expect meesha inuu kaalafooto kusoogalo, isagoo darbisaar sameynaayana interviewga inuu sameeyo? Could you ask your adeero to try break-dancing next time - that will be convincing. On a serious note, the guy is OK, and we shouldn't be bothered. Lets attack on another angle , and say that he has utterly failed in his role and has no prudence to safe this country. It is time he should step down and give others a chance to stir sanity towards this nation - specially the incoming young, vigorous, educated and visionary new cabinet. Axmed Abdisalaan comes into mind. On another note I wish him good health.

I thought the stint last nite in Universal TV will bring an end to the rumor that he is on life support machine. Apparently it didn't.

Originally posted by Emperor: ^Lol, you don't know me, waan ishubaa not only that I actually proved myself, unlike some tiih kuma jirin for almost two decades Not your profile sxb which certainly does not warrant interest - but why the poke?

Originally posted by Emperor: let the young man dream or perhaps hallucinate Yes I got the joke...but why hallucinate ? You of all people, I always thought would be the last person to the take a poke at him

Originally posted by Emperor: ^Althougt I agree it was brilliant , I have the right to refrain, rephrase or reinstate it as and when appropriate, that's not a big problem, we are all humans and thus employ the logic to re-check and re-develop things as other things or factors relate to them evelove ... I stil believe that there was nothing wrong with my attempted joke, however you may take as you wish... You interpretation wasn't to my liking thus I had to act and make it more clearer... What was my interpretation that you did not like?

Originally posted by Emperor: Lol, A joke sxb just see the homour side of things, you need to lighten up a bit, isn't that how they say it on the streets nowadays... stop being thick, lighten up Why? You want to refrain from your brilliantly said comment.

Damn the old man is cheap, he is in PRIMARK.

^^ You dont assume whether such stories are true. You are either sure or not.

Originally posted by Kashafa: ^^ You are the naive one, Mr. Ex-TFG-supporter-magically-turned-'Somalinimo'-proponet. You call Proffesor Ibbi a liar, yet lap up every wishful bone the Xabashis throw at you ? Pity, duqa, pity. Disregarding the rest of your innuendo let me take you up with the 'liar' tag. Agreeing with you the misery of Ethiopian occupation and the need to resist it in any possible form that could lead to their expulssion does not mean that I have to , as you said, stoop so low and believe the rubbish and ignorance tale narrated by IBBI in this clip. Do you really believe that TFG officials what ever rank accomodate the Tigre forces with the pleasures of their wives, do you sxb.? And do you realize how this undermines your case against the occupation. Think and think deep before you use 'Tigres are bedding around Somali women' as a propaganda against the occupation sxb. Hence sxb argue on the basis of the value of the message of Ibbi disregard everything else. Ibbi used this as tool to ignite the anger of Somalis, and as far as you are concerned he has succeeded.

^^ Do you actually believe the rubbish and baseless lies Ibbi is uttering. Sxb you are naive. Illahey SWT uu tobaad keen.

Originally posted by Emperor: ^Lol tell him sxb, thou you should let the young man dream or perhaps hallucinate Indeed, it is nothing more than that.

Originally posted by General Duke: A nation is being rebuilt, from scratch and we need a coilition, international support, local regional support even the most powerful of nations require such a thing. Read that again and notice the lack of coherence and sense. And drop the 'gay' thing it makes you look like as if you are looking for exit strategy.

Originally posted by Northerner: ^^requesting more international troops means you are a strong govnt ya Juje Why would you need foreign troops if you are a stronger government sxb?

Originally posted by General Duke: ^^^lol. The TFG is rebuilding a nation, a difficult task. It knows its limitations. It does not live in fantasy as the secessionists. Who claim one minute to be the orphans of the living Queen and the next hugg Gay activists and invite them to reside in Hargaysa. Thats not us, Nigeria, Ethiopia and other nation state support is one thing we will never ask thatchel and his group to come and give us support. You are loosing the plot - Ithink the TFG are lucky they have nothing to do with you anymore.

Duke Yeah..! I kind of spotted two/three battalions of Nigerian Army on the grounds in Somalia. Do you have a comprehension problem? They were going there for the last one year and they are not yet there. So why keep repeating they are going?

Originally posted by General Duke: They said, the UN would not lift the embargo, that Uganda would not support the AU mission, that said Burundi would not send troops, now do they doubt the Nigerians? They always doubt. Great news indeed. Cant see anyone hanging by your coattails currently - thus don't you think this constant repetitions is actually proving the absence of substance from your story.

Originally posted by General Duke: ^^^During the Clan Courts era journalist were killed in broad daylight. Remmeber the Swedish Cameraman and the BBC reporter? No one is holier than thou - yes the Swedish was one 'very' unfortunate incident. As for the BBC , it was not 'Wadado' era. Now since you raised this issue mind giving us the tally for TFG era - and hey you can include 'xuubsireed' heis a 'saxaafi' after all innit?

^^ Saxiibo arrintan maad ka joogtid dan kugu ma jirte. How did it go, something like this I think Someone in a glass house should not throw the first stone. Hadhow ha oran layma digin.

Canadian risks 'everything' to make a better Somalia TORONTO STAR Tuesday, January 15, 2008 Ahmed Abdisalam New Minister of Information Mr. Ahmed Abdisalan Adan- Aug 2007/HOL/File NAIROBI, Kenya–Normally when one is named a cabinet minister one can at least count on a euphoric reaction from friends and family thrilled by the prospect of good things to come. Not for Ahmed Abdisalan Adan, who is noticing a tone of ominous condolence in the hundreds of voicemail messages arriving on his cellphone from Somalis the world over. Back this week in his broken ancestral home in a new role as Somalia's minister of information, the 47-year-old Somali Canadian is under no illusion of safety. Some people, quite possibly, will want him dead. But in many ways, says Adan, the danger is no greater than it has been since he abandoned his comfortable middle-class life in Ottawa eight years ago to pioneer Horn-Afrik, Mogadishu's first truly independent radio station. Seven of his colleagues were assassinated in that span, including the bombing death last August of Somali Canadian Ali Sharmarke, with whom Adan co-founded the station. "When I listen to my phone messages I can hear people praying for me," Adan told the Star in an interview in Nairobi last week in what may well have been the last day of his life without a bodyguard. "It is not like in Canada, where becoming a cabinet minister is an upgrade, economically, socially and politically. In Somalia, becoming a cabinet minister means you are taking a huge risk with your reputation, with your life, everything. But it also means you have a chance to actually do something to make it better." Home for now will be the south-central town of Baidoa, where the fledgling United Nations' backed Transitional Federal Government clings to a foothold, readying to negotiate its way into renewing its grip on chaotic Mogadishu. There, Adan hopes to instil in government the same sense of national unity that earned HornAfrik the 2002 Canadian Journalists for Free Expression award for exceptional courage, a citation that recognized the difficulty of telling the truth despite threats and intimidation from rival militia warlords. "When things are this bad – and there is no doubt this past year was the worst ever for Somalia – I believe there is also a new opportunity for hope," said Adan. "The international community and the regional players are beginning to show an interest again, understanding that you can't just step aside and watch dirty wars play out. And among Somalis, there is a level of fatigue that suggests a readiness to try things a different way. It is time to create opportunity for a better life, because that is all that 95 per cent of Somalis want in this world." Adan and his colleagues already managed this on a microscopic level, bringing unprecedented opportunity to an estimated 300 young Somali journalists who passed through HornAfrik's training program since it erected its first signal tower in Mogadishu in 1999. The results put the station on the map, giving Somalis a taste of national identity that had nothing to do with tribal politics. "The goal was to put all the voices in the Somali tent on the air and we succeeded, against all odds. We were challenged, we got shut down, we got shot at. We lost good people. But we also proved something profound – we proved that the clan was simply a place that people retreated when they were in trouble," said Adan. "When people had another opportunity, they immediately stepped out of their tribal identity and simply became Somalis. HornAfrik became a magnet for hundreds of desperate young Somalis who knocked on our door, aching for a chance to join us." In the face of at least two separate proxy wars threatening his country – one pitting the regional interests of Ethiopia and Eritrea, a second involving the U.S.-led campaign against global terror – Adan says the re-establishment of a functioning state is the key to progress. To that end, he hopes to encourage greater involvement of the Somali diaspora, including the expat community in Toronto, where Adan got his first glimpse of Canada when he arrived as a refugee in 1989. "Every Somali in Toronto talks about the situation every day. And they send money – last year, an estimated $1 billion came into Somalia from the extended family around the world," he said. "But that is not enough. We have to reverse the brain drain – we need more Somalis from Toronto, from London, from everywhere, to bring their skills and expertise back to Somalia to help put things back together," said Adan, who ran an innovative employment centre for the Ottawa-Carleton Municipality after taking his Masters in public administration at Hamilton's McMaster University. "That is my message to the diaspora: you can sit there in Toronto and continue to criticize all the things that Somalia lacks. Or you can come back and actually try to do something about it. Your country needs you now." Source: Toronto Star, Jan 15, 2008

^^

^^ These kind of repetitions getting to much now days in SOL politics. For heavens sake Nigeria committed troops to Somalia long before Geedi was sacked, it is just didn't materialize yet. Thus no need to post it unless Germany, Japan and New-Zealand are pledging troops to Somalia.

Originally posted by Emperor: ^You would say that won't you, pick and on comment the messenger rather than the message, very much expected of you... As usual you are on a pre programmed setting unable to comprehend neither question the reasons.

Ngonge the propaganda conveyor belt has run out of material - so issues are being recycled : like who pays the salary and the countless countries who support the TFG. So don't be surprised if you soon come across as a topic the results of Embagathi/Nairobi conference. There is noithing new or visionary. As far as this topic is concerned my response would be same as it was yours months ago :

Europe takes Africa's fish, and migrants follow By Sharon Lafraniere Monday, January 14, 2008 KAYAR, Senegal: Ale Nodye, the son and grandson of fishermen in this northern Senegalese village, said that for the past six years he netted barely enough fish to buy fuel for his boat. So he jumped at the chance for a new beginning. He volunteered to captain a wooden canoe full of 87 Africans to the Canary Islands in the hopes of making their way illegally to Europe. The 2006 voyage ended badly. He and his passengers were arrested and deported. His cousin died on a similar mission not long afterward. Nonetheless, Nodye, 27, said he intended to try again. "I could be a fisherman there," he said. "Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here anymore." Many scientists agree. A vast flotilla of industrial trawlers from the European Union, China, Russia and elsewhere, together with an abundance of local boats, have so thoroughly scoured northwest Africa's ocean floor that major fish populations are collapsing. That has crippled coastal economies and added to the surge of illegal migrants who brave the high seas in wooden pirogues hoping to reach Europe. While reasons for immigration are as varied as fish species, Europe's lure has clearly intensified as northwest Africa's fish population has dwindled. Last year roughly 31,000 Africans tried to reach the Canary Islands, a prime transit point to Europe, in more than 900 boats. About 6,000 died or disappeared, according to one estimate cited by the United Nations. The region's governments bear much of the blame for their fisheries' decline. Many have allowed a desire for money from foreign fleets to override concern about the long-term health of their fisheries. Illegal fishermen are notoriously common; efforts to control fishing, rare. But in the view of West African fishermen, Europe is having its fish and eating them, too. Their own waters largely fished out, European nations have steered their heavily subsidized fleets to Africa. "As Europe has sought to manage its fisheries and to limit its fishing, what we've done is to export the overfishing problem elsewhere, particularly to Africa," said Steve Trent, executive director of the Environmental Justice Foundation, a research group. European Union officials insist that their bloc, which has negotiated fishing deals with Africa since 1979, is a scapegoat for Africa's management failures and the misdeeds of other foreign fleets. They argue that African officials oversell fishing rights, inflate potential catches and allow pirate vessels and local boats free rein in breeding grounds. Pierre Chavance, a scientist with the French Institute for Research and Development, said both foreign fleets and African governments allowed financial considerations to trump concerns for fish or local fishermen. "One side has a big interest to sell, and the other side has a big interest to buy," he said. "The negotiations are based upon what people want to hear, not the reality." Overfishing is hardly limited to African waters. Worldwide, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 75 percent of fish stocks are overfished or fished to their maximum. But in a poor region like northwest Africa, the consequences are particularly stark. Fish are the main source of protein for much of the region, but some species are now so scarce that the poor can no longer afford them, said Pierre Failler, senior research fellow for the British Center for Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources. The coastal stock of bottom-dwelling fish is just a quarter of what it was 25 years ago, studies show. Already, scientists say, the sea's ecological balance has shifted as species lower on the food chain replace some above them. In Mauritania, lobsters vanished years ago. The catch of octopus — now the most valuable species — is four-fifths of what it should be if it were not overexploited. A 2002 report by the European Commission found that the most marketable fish species off the coast of Senegal were close to collapse — essentially sliding toward extinction. "The sea is being emptied," said Moctar Ba, a consultant who once led scientific research programs for Mauritania and West Africa. In a region where at least 200,000 people depend on the sea for their livelihoods, local investments in fishing industries are drying up with the fish stocks. In Guinea-Bissau, fishermen who were buying more boats less than a decade ago now complain they are in debt and looking to get out of the business. "Before, my whole family could live on what we caught in one pirogue," said Niadye Diouf, 28, whose Senegalese family sold their pirogue for $500 to pay for an illegal — and ultimately unsuccessful — voyage to Spain. "Now even five pirogues would not be enough." Fishermen like Diouf argue that Africans should have first priority in their own waters — an idea enshrined in a 1994 United Nations treaty on the seas that acknowledges the right of local governments to sell foreigners fishing rights only to their surplus stocks. But that rule has been repeatedly violated along northwest Africa's nearly 2,000-mile coast. Studies dating to 1991 indicated that Senegal's fishery was in trouble. In 2002, a scientific report commissioned by the European Union stated that the biomass of important species had declined by three-fourths in 15 years — a finding the authors said should "cause significant alarm." But the week the report was issued, European Union officials signed a new four-year fishing deal with Senegal, agreeing to pay $16 million a year to fish for bottom-dwelling species and tuna. Four years later, Mauritania followed suit. Despite reports that octopus were overfished by nearly a third, in 2006 Mauritania's government sold six more years' access to 43 European Union vessels for $146 million a year — the equivalent of nearly a fifth of Mauritania's government budget. "I don't know a government in the region that can say no," said Chavance, the French scientist. "This is good money, and they need it." Sid-Ahmed Ould-Abeid, who leads a Mauritanian association of small fishermen, said: "The EU has the money, so it has the power. It is easier to sacrifice the local fishermen." Those sacrifices are multiplying in Mauritania. One of the few countries with a private industrial fleet, most of it jointly owned with the Chinese, it has lost one-third of roughly 150 trawlers since 1996. Ahmed and Mohamed Cherif, whose family owns PCA, a fish exporting firm in Nouadhibou, say they have lost money for two years running. Their two new orange trawlers spend weeks docked in Nouadhibou's rough-hewn harbor. "We can't compete with the European Union," Ahmed Cherif said as he strolled past row after row of idle pirogues. "The government should have kept this resource for Mauritanians. Let these people work." Europe is just one foreign contributor to fish declines. Countries from Asia and the former Soviet Union also dispatched ships to ply northwest Africa's seas. But often those fleets stay for shorter durations and without the same promises of responsible fishing and local development. In fact, little development has taken place since the European Union signed its first fish deal with a West African nation in 1979. The huge economic benefits that come from processing and exporting the catch remain firmly in European hands. African governments either misspent or diverted the funds earmarked for development to more pressing needs, while the Europeans sometimes made only token efforts on promised projects. Nouadhibou harbor, for instance, remains littered with 107 wrecked fishing trawlers eight years after the European Union promised to clear them to help develop the port. In their defense, European officials say they moved to reform their fishing agreements in 2003 to address criticism that ship operators were overfishing and were undercutting local fishermen. Fabrizio Donatella, who heads the European Union unit that negotiates fishing deals, says the new agreements are models of responsible fishing and transparency. "One cannot say we are not fishing the surplus or that we have not respected scientific recommendations," he said. Ultimately, African governments must protect and manage their own resources, he said. Examples of mismanagement abound. The number of pirogues in six northwest African countries exploded from 3,000 to 19,000 in the last half-century, but Senegal and other nations have only recently begun to license them. Guinea-Bissau, a nation of 1.4 million people, is a prime example of how not to run a fishery. According to Vladimir Kacyznski, a marine scientist with the University of Washington, no one has comprehensively studied the nation's coastal waters for at least 20 years. For two years, Sanji Fati was in charge of enforcing Guinea-Bissau's fishing rules. When he took the job in 2005, he said, his agency did not have a single working patrol boat to monitor hundreds of pirogues and dozens of industrial trawlers, most of them foreign. An estimated 40 percent of fish were caught without licenses or in violation of regulations, and vessel operators routinely lied about their haul. Government observers were mostly illiterate, underpaid and easily bought off. Fati tightened enforcement, but said he still felt as if he was waging a one-man war. A few months ago, he left in frustration. That bleak picture did not stop Guinea-Bissau and the European Union from agreeing last May to allow European boats to fish its waters for shrimp, fish, octopus and tuna. Over the next four years, the agreement will pump $42 million into a government that is months behind in paying salaries and still emerging from civil war. Daniel Gomes, Guinea-Bissau's 12th fishing minister in eight years, said he had tried to be conservative in how much access to grant foreigners, despite paltry scientific data and severe economic pressures. Still, asked whether his nation would end up with empty waters, he replied: "This prospect is not out of the question. This could happen." Fishermen in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. Overfishing has depleted once-bountiful African waters Source