^^^^ Tell em atheer. Supporting the resistance is "chest thumping" while supporting the treacherous regime is to be politically savvy? What's wrong with this picture?

Originally posted by Xanthus: Is this state staged or just normal civilian event?? The whole thing is state-staged not just the gathering in the picture.

Originally posted by Tahliil: a character like Gonzales will never leave office...cause if they even fire him, he wont remember it.... lol. Gonzalez is a sleazy character not unlike Geedi but he's really taking much heat for Rove and Chenney. They'll throw him out to the dogs as that is their modus operandi. And if mighty Rumsfeld was shown the door, they'll throw Gonzalez out the window without blinking.

While my mind is with Baashi and my heart with Kashafa, my matako is far too comfortable on a couch in North America.

World Bank head Wolfowitz to quit Paul Wolfowitz is to quit as president of the World Bank following a bitter promotion row involving his girlfriend. After lengthy talks with the bank's board, Mr Wolfowitz said he would quit the global lending body on 30 June. He had faced widespread calls for his resignation after being accused of a conflict of interest over a pay rise given to ex-bank employee Shaha Riza. The White House, which had backed Mr Wolfowitz, said President George W Bush reluctantly accepted his decision. Mr Bush's former deputy defence secretary joined the World Bank in 2005. The bank said it would start an immediate search for his successor. 'Good faith' In a statement, the board of directors said it accepted Mr Wolfowitz's assurances that he had "acted ethically and in good faith" in the handling of Ms Riza's role and remuneration. But it acknowledged that a "number of mistakes" had been made. In response, Mr Wolfowitz said his decision to resign was "in the best interests" of the institution, which has more than 180 members worldwide. The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that by accepting his claim that his actions were honourably intended, the bank has allowed Mr Wolfowitz to leave with, in theory at least, his reputation intact. He has been under severe pressure for weeks, with a number of European politicians calling on him to step down to prevent the Bank's credibility from being eroded. The White House strongly supported Mr Wolfowitz - although experts believed its influence would not be enough to save his position in the face of European hostility. A spokeswoman for the bank's staff association - which had been at the forefront of calls for Mr Wolfowitz's resignation - said: "He has damaged the institution and continues to damage it every day that he remains as its president." Conflict of interest Mr Wolfowitz came under fire after details emerged about his role in securing a pay rise for Ms Riza, who used to work at the bank. When appointed to his post in 2005, he notified the bank of a potential conflict of interest because of his relationship with Ms Riza. He asked to be allowed to recuse himself, or step aside, from any decisions regarding her future. The bank's ethics committee acknowledged a conflict of interest but did not allow Mr Wolfowitz to recuse himself. Mr Wolfowitz then proposed to move Ms Riza to the US state department, where she would be paid and promoted apparently in line with her prospects at the World Bank. The bank accepted and Ms Riza was duly transferred. Her salary rose quickly to about $193,000 (£98,000) - more than the $186,000 that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice receives before tax. A panel of the World Bank later found that Mr Wolfowitz had provoked a "conflict of interest" and broken its code of conduct. The panel found that the salary Mr Wolfowitz arranged for Ms Riza had been higher than her due and that he had acted "in opposition to the rules of the institution". While admitting he made a mistake in his handling of the case, Mr Wolfowitz says he has been the victim of a smear campaign and ought to have followed his initial instinct to recuse himself. The board is made up of representatives of the Bank's leading members including the US, UK, Japan, France and Germany. The bank gave no further details of its agreement with Mr Wolfowitz. BBC

WASHINGTON: Paul Wolfowitz was chafing at the Pentagon in early 2005, thwarted in his bid to become defense secretary or national security adviser, while the Iraq war deteriorated. When the World Bank presidency came open, he jumped at the opportunity. It offered him a "second chance" to redeem his reputation and realize his ambitions, a friend says. Months later, another friend ran into the new bank president and asked how he was enjoying the job. Wolfowitz unleashed a torrent of bitter complaints about the bank's bureaucracy, saying it was the worst he had ever seen - worse than the Pentagon. Now, as friends and critics sort through the wreckage of Wolfowitz's bank career, they wonder if it was doomed from the outset. Supporters say that he arrived at the bank, a citadel of liberalism, from a four-year stint at the Pentagon, bearing the stigma of Iraq. He was determined to shake up the status quo by rooting out what he saw as corruption and waste and demanding measurable results from the bank's many aid programs. "The bank leadership didn't like Paul challenging their assumptions," said Robert Holland 3rd, who represented the Bush administration on the board until last year. "They have all been there a long time, and they are used to promoting each other's interests and scratching each other's back." But others think Wolfowitz, in seeking a second chance after Iraq, repeated the same mistakes he made at the Pentagon of adopting a single-minded position on certain matters, refusing to entertain alternative views and marginalizing dissenters. "Wolfowitz unsettled people from the outset," said Manish Bapna, executive director of the Bank Information Center, an independent watchdog group. "His style was seen as an ad hoc subjective approach to punishing enemies and rewarding friends." At the Pentagon, Wolfowitz was an early champion of going to war with Iraq, just a few days after Sept. 11, 2001, and continued his advocacy for regime change in Iraq over the next year. His time at the Pentagon was also characterized by infighting, especially with the Central Intelligence Agency, which he thought underestimated Iraq as a threat to the United States. He clashed with General Eric Shinseki, the army chief of staff, and others who warned - correctly, it turned out - that the United States needed more forces in Iraq. His vision of democracy in the Arab world also ran aground in Baghdad. Despite the administration's aversion to multilateral institutions, many at the World Bank had initially hoped that Wolfowitz - a neoconservative intellectual, former academic dean and ambassador to Indonesia - could help forge a new consensus with liberals on ways to more effectively aid poor countries. But his low-key, intellectual approach to subjects belied a determination to get his way, according to bank officials. These accounts, coming as Wolfowitz was negotiating the terms of his departure, are from friends and current and former colleagues, both at the Pentagon and the World Bank, who have remained in contact with him. Wolfowitz waged his first fights even before he took office, when he demanded provisions in his contract that would allow him to write a book about Iraq and accept fees for public speeches. When these were rejected, he soured on the office of the general counsel, Roberto Dañino, the first official who suggested to him that Shaha Ali Riza, his companion and a bank employee, could not remain at the bank because she would come under his supervision. Recently released bank documents show that Wolfowitz rejected Dañino's advice on Riza and went directly to the bank board's ethics committee in search of a different ruling. He also refused to deal with the general counsel on all other matters. An associate said he called Dañino "incompetent." Dañino, forced to resign last year, told a reporter at the time: "He presumes that anyone who opposes him is incompetent or corrupt." The battle with Dañino laid the groundwork for battles with Ad Melkert, the head of the bank board's ethics committee, and Xavier Coll, a vice president for human resources, over the handling of Riza's case. Coll testified that Wolfowitz had told him to keep the terms of Riza's pay package secret from Melkert and Dañino. Wolfowitz disputed his contention. In early 2006, according to a memorandum from Coll, the bank president lacerated him with expletives, charging that his enemies were leaking details of Riza's pay to the press. The disagreements over the handling of the pay, promotion and transfer of his companion might have faded into irrelevance had Wolfowitz not waged other battles with the bank staff, many bank officials say. Wolfowitz also rankled people by bringing in two close aides from the Bush administration, Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems, and using them not only as advisers but as managers who issued directives to senior officers. Among those with whom he tangled were Christiaan Poortman, a vice president for the Middle East, over Wolfowitz's demand that the bank establish a greater presence in Iraq. Poortman, ordered to transfer to Kazakhstan, resigned instead. Gobind Nankani, a vice president for Africa, also resigned after disputes with Wolfowitz over the size of his staff, according to several bank officials. Another official who left was Shengman Zhang, the top deputy to James Wolfensohn, Wolfowitz's predecessor. Wolfowitz charged that it was hypocritical for bank officials to allow Zhang's wife to work at the bank but to banish Riza. Zhang, now a senior vice president at Citigroup in Hong Kong, was furious, several associates say, because bank rules permit husbands and wives to work at the bank under circumscribed conditions, which Zhang said he followed, but they bar bank employees from having a sexual relationship with a top bank official outside of marriage. "What Paul didn't understand is that the World Bank presidency is not inherently a powerful job," said a Bush administration official, speaking anonymously to be more candid. "A bank president is successful only if he can form alliances with the bank's many fiefdoms. Wolfowitz didn't ally with those fiefdoms. He alienated them." In a dispute with Chad over its use of revenues from a bank-financed oil pipeline, Cleveland ordered a suspension of funding to Chad, according to several officials. "It produced unpleasant negotiations and made people angry," said a bank official. "The approach by Mr. Wolfowitz and Ms. Cleveland was one of confrontation. It positioned us as adversaries rather than partners." A similar decision to suspend funding for a health program in India last year rankled the British, a funding partner in the program. It caused the British development minister, Hilary Benn, to retaliate by withdrawing a nominal amount of funding for another bank program. That matter helped ensure that Benn and his ally, Gordon Brown, chancellor of the Exchequer and expected to be the next prime minister of Britain, have not been in Wolfowitz's corner in the current fight over his future. In his final appeal to the bank board to save his job, Wolfowitz promised to change his management style. His statement was filled with phrases like "I relied much too long on advisers who came in with me from the outside" and "I am aware of the concern that I need to place more trust in the staff." Wolfowitz also said he hoped to continue pressing for programs to stop corruption, combat AIDS in Africa and avian flu in Asia, achieve new records of funding for the world's poorest countries of the world and do more to combat global warming. In the end, however, his supporters said his willingness to resign - the terms for which were still being hammered out Thursday afternoon - came not because he had violated rules over the handling of Riza's compensation, but because his leadership style had impeded progress on these issues. Whether or not the denouement was inevitable, Wolfowitz and his supporters came to see it more as a result of the war within the bank than the one in Iraq. IHT

^^^ True, true. Just send more low value schmucks out there to compensate.

Prince Harry decision causes fury May 18, 2007 12:00am Article from: Herald-Sun Send this article: Print Email PRINCE Harry's military career could be at an end after the British Army decided he would not be sent to serve in Iraq, sparking a public backlash. The decision to keep the prince, 22, home safe has angered the families of other soldiers who say their children deserve the same safeguards. Briton Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon died in a roadside bomb attack, said: "If it is too dangerous for Harry, it is too dangerous for the rest of the troops out there. If he can't go, why are our boys there?" British Army bosses ruled yesterday that Prince Harry, couldn't go to war because plots to kill or kidnap him posed an unacceptable risk to him and his fellow soldiers. The royal was said to be "very disappointed" at the shock decision to stop him flying out next week. Herald

Originally posted by Jacaylbaro: Why Amharic ?? ,,,,,, it is a somaliland passport sxb not Ethiopian What's the difference?

^^^^ I am in denial but not over this. I know you mean well but you need to polish your delivery. Most people ache (at least they should) when they see pictures like these but the realities of their lives often trump far away miseries. If you feel you have what it takes, lead by example. You will quickly have willing audience if you can show others practical and feasible ways to help. If all you plan to do is call out diaspora Somalis as fat, lazy, indifferent and apathetic b*stards, that audience will simply walk away from you. And despite your incessant huffing and puffing, I actually admire your energy and passion for alleviating the misery of, at least, your people. Find better ways to go about it though. These are words for the wise so use them accordingly.

The third time will be the charm. Geedi is one of those people who will not die of natural causes.

Originally posted by Bokero: please don’t lie to yourself… this denial thing is so frustrating and a formula to prolonged destitute life for our ppl… LoL. When you stop this wailing, perhaps we can have another discussion. It's also been my experience that those who scream loudest are those who do the least. Shut up (also grow up) and do what you think is right.

"The Somali Telecom company Telsom is looking to hire qualified men (women need not apply) to staff its office in the capital. Since the Ethiopian "mop up" operation has just ended, many former employees have either been killed or have left the city for no apparent reason. Candidates are advised no qualifications or linguistic skills are necessary. The only qualifications are a demonstrable relationship to the president, the honorable Abdillahi Yusuf, and two (2) functioning brain cells. Candidates must be able to count to ten on their own and must submit to a DNA test to prove kinship to the president. There are many positions available and compensation is commensurate with the degree of genetic closeness to the president. All applications accepted but only chosen candidates will be contacted for an interview."

^^^ Don't worry, atheer. The reconciliation conference will take care of all of this. Anyone who is not of Yey's clan and has the nuts to show up with grievances (of nepotism, exclusion, occupation, etc...) will be quickly and quietly rendered to Ethiopia (then later to the CIA) as an "unlawful combatant". He or she will never be heard from again. And good riddance too. How else can those who are left behind in the conference reconcile when you have whiners, losers, insurgents, terrorists, defeated lots and members of ignoble clans wanting a piece of the country for themselves. Do they not know that uncle Yey prostituted himself to the Ethiopians for 40 years? How dare they want to share the loot when they've not sacrificed anything? You try living in an Ethiopian gulag for 7 years making Injeera for a 6' 8" Ethiopian dude serving a life sentence. I still cringe at the thought. And they want to reconcile and share with us? Not while atheero is alive.

^^^ Not yet, he doesn't but he is hoping though when the Ethiopians, Ugandans and Americans have cleared the way for him that he might grow a belly like Cadde does.

'nolander' eh? I love it. I'm a nolander alright.

"Prince Harry is very disappointed that he will not be able to go to Iraq with his troop deployment as he had hoped. He fully understands and accepts General Dannatt's difficult decision and remains committed to his army career. Prince Harry's thoughts are with his troops and the rest of the battle group in Iraq. " LOL. I guess it's not dangerous enough for the other stiffs sent there every day. Channel 4

Threats end Harry's Iraq mission Story Highlights • Britain's Prince Harry will not be sent to Iraq, says the Ministry of Defence • Top UK general says "specific threats" on prince are behind decision • Risk to prince and those around him too great, says general • Harry, third in line to throne, has said he is serious about an army career LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain's Prince Harry will not serve in Iraq as a troop commander because of "a number of specific threats" against him, the UK's top general says. A spokesperson for the 22-year-old prince says he is "very disappointed" by the decision. Chief of the general staff Sir Richard Dannatt said Wednesday: "I have decided today that Prince Harry will not deploy as a troop commander with his squadron. "I have come to this final decision following a further and wide round of consultation, including a visit to Iraq by myself at the end of last week," Dannatt said "There have been a number of specific threats, some reported and some not reported. These threats exposed him and those around him to a degree of risk I considered unacceptable," he said. Wednesday's announcement reverses a statement made in February by the Ministry of Defence and the royal family, which said that Harry would be sent to Iraq with his regiment. Dannatt commended the prince on his determination. "Let me also make quite clear that as a professional soldier, Prince Harry will be extremely disappointed. "He has proved himself both at Sandhurst and in command of his troop during their training. I commend him for his determination and his undoubted talent -- and I do not say that lightly. His soldiers will miss his leadership in Iraq, although I know his commanding officer will provide a highly capable substitute troop leader." A statement issued by a spokesperson for the prince said: "Prince Harry is very disappointed that he will not be able to go to Iraq with his troop on this deployment, as he had hoped. He fully understands and accepts Gen. Dannatt's difficult decision, and remains committed to his army career. Prince Harry's thoughts are with his troop and the rest of the Battle Group in Iraq." Harry would have led a troop of 12 men in four Scimitar armored reconnaissance vehicles, each with a crew of three, in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. He is a 2006 graduate of Britain's prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and has been actively seeking the posting in Iraq. Harry's older brother William -- while also a military officer -- is not eligible for combat service because he is the second in line to the British crown. Harry has repeatedly said that he wants to be deployed with his men, but ministry officials have expressed concern that he could become a target for Iraqi insurgents, endangering himself and those serving under him. Royal commentator Robert Jobson told CNN that it would be a "disaster" for the British Army if Harry was targeted by militants. Jobson said he did not believe Harry would quit the army, despite being kept out of Iraq. Harry would have been the first member of the British royal family to serve in a war zone since his uncle, Prince Andrew, flew as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands conflict with Argentina in 1982, The Associated Press reported. CNN

^^^^ There's so much competition to fight terror in the Horn of Africa that one must beat Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, Kenya and the TFG to even qualify. These countries are experts in fighting the war of terror. Headway was being made, Duale added, citing Somaliland's healthy trade ties with Ethiopia , which he was visiting. LOL. Ethiopia would be the last to bestow recognition on Somaliland. If Somalilanders don't know that by now, they will never know.

^^^ It's just a generic term describing round and sexy bellies like the one Cadde has.

Originally posted by Bokero: I don’t have answers or cure to all our ills but I have the commitment and will to overcome them with.. join me in generating momentum and passion, for this goal… lets liberate ourselves from the slavery clannish politicking to a higher goal of emancipation from poverty and a prosperous Somalia at peace Take the lead and see who follows. Inform people on the plight of others and show them how to make a difference. There are over 30 million refugees in the world the overwhelming majority of whom is non Somali. And unless one is in a refugee camp, most people are often more occupied with their kids' homework and paying rent than with what goes on in refugee camps. Rightly or wrongly, these are simply facts of life. In your own way, you may succeed in making a difference in the world with your enthusiasm and hard work but you won't get very far screaming at the public on why they're so apathetic and what not.

Originally posted by Naxar Nugaaleed: i am starting to believe preisdent Cade Muuse's idea of economic imrovement is to sale the state, from menirals, gas, Oil and livestock to coral reef. Why do you think Meles and the West like him so much? The softness of his beer belly? The dude is in with the program like Yey and Riyaale are.

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu) NEWS 16 May 2007 Posted to the web 16 May 2007 By Aweys Osman Yusuf Mogadishu Mogadishu mayor, Mohammed Dheere, has on Wednesday given the order to impose a curfew on Heliwa district in north of the Somali capital. The order was given in a decree issued from his office amid bombings still rage in the volatile city. The curfew starts at 6:00 pm local time and lasts 6:00 am on Thursday morning. The curfew came after an unidentified gunman threw a hand grenade at a police station in the district while its governor, Abdulahi Sheikow, was killed right outside his home in south of Mogadishu, a day earlier. Mr. Dheere, who was visiting the scene where a roadside bomb blast killed at least five Ugandan troops Wednesday, said he imposed the curfew on the neighborhood to improve security. Government police vehicles could be seen patrolling throughout Heliwa last night. Several bomb explosions took place in Mogadishu since the Somali transitional government claimed victory over the remnants of the Islamic Courts fighters early May. Dheere, former warlord, was known to have controlled Jawhar, the main town of Middle Shabelle province, south-central Somalia, with hard fist. After he was inaugurated as Mogadishu mayor and governor, he promised to restore law and order in the gun-infested city.

^^^^ You're trying too hard, awoowe. Few people want this misery to continue. Period. The TFG has to go and they can keep their reconciliation conference. The very people who incite clan rivalries cannot be trusted with clan reconciliation. How difficult is that to understand? Originally posted by xiinfaniin: ^^I am sure you are not equating Good Baashi’s prudence to G. Bush’s pretense! No parallel there yaa Castro ! Not at all but you can't escape the similarity of the words.

^^^ Right on, Xiin. Hiiraale is made of the same cloth Caydiid, Geedi, Yey, Dheere, Yalaxow and others are made of: amoral, opportunistic and cowardly.