Saudi Arabia has quietly invited bids for a 550-mile high-tech fence — complete with sensors, night vision cameras, face-recognition software, barbed wire — to seal off its border with Iraq. According to U.S. defense contractor sources, the project will cost several billion dollars and was prompted by fears that growing anarchy and unrest in Iraq will spill into Saudi Arabia. The Saudis stopped work on a barrier along their border with Yemen — made up largely of huge pipelines filled with concrete — after Yemeni complaints three years ago. Another neighbor of Iraq, Kuwait, has already sealed its border with electrified fences, berms and a two-meter deep trench running along the 135-mile (217-kilometer) dividing line, according to a senior Kuwaiti diplomat in Washington. With brethren like these, who needs enemies?

Around Globe, Walls Spring Up to Divide Neighbors by Bernd Debusmann TIJUANA, Mexico - What do Tijuana, Baghdad and Jerusalem have in common? They all have walls that divide neighbors, cause controversy and form part of an array of physical barriers around the world that dwarf the late, unlamented Iron Curtain. There are walls, fences, trenches and berms. Some are reinforced by motion detectors, heat-sensing cameras, X-ray systems, night-vision equipment, helicopters, drones and blimps. Some are still under construction, some in the planning stage. 0502-08.jpg When completed, the barriers will run thousands of miles, in places as far apart as Mexico and India, Afghanistan and Spain, Morocco and Thailand, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. They are meant to keep job-hungry immigrants, terrorists and smugglers out, thwart invaders, and keep antagonists apart. Their proponents cite the proverb “Good fences make good neighbors” but critics say they are a paradoxical result of globalization in so far as goods and capital can move freely but migrants cannot. By an irony of history, the United States — the country that hastened the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 — has emerged as a champion wall builder. The latest wall to divide city neighborhoods went up in Baghdad in April, built by American soldiers using 12-foot (3.7-metre) high grey concrete slabs weighing more than six metric tons each. The 3-mile-long construction separates a Sunni Muslim district from a Shi’ite area. It provoked protests from both communities and Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr termed it “racist.” The wall that snakes through Jerusalem to seal off the eastern (Arab) part of the ancient city from the West Bank is of similar construction and inspires similar charges. In contrast, the people of the Mexican border city of Tijuana have become resigned to the wall of thick, rusty corrugated metal that runs from the surf of the Pacific beach up and down the California hills, separating them from the U.S. city of San Diego. (The official border crossing is the world’s busiest — around 17 million cars and 50 million people a year.) Further inland, the wall turns into a 17-foot (5-meter) fence, with metal mesh so fine prospective climbers cannot get their fingers through, and an overhanging portion to make scaling even more difficult. It stretches east for 14 miles. ARE WALLS EFFECTIVE? The United States is planning to build a 700-mile double-layered fence along part of its 2,000-mile border with Mexico under the 2006 Secure Fence Act. Proponents point to Tijuana and argue that physical barriers are effective in keeping unwanted foreigners out. Since the attacks on New York and Washington of September 11, 2001, anti-immigrant groups in the United Sates have linked illegal immigration with security concerns, and political pressure for tighter border controls grew exponentially. The Tijuana wall stopped the “banzai runs” of groups of up to 50 illegal crossers who swarmed past border guards in the knowledge that at least some would get past. Before the wall was built, arrests totaled around half a million a year, and have steadily dropped to around 130,000 last year. But opponents of walling off the United States point to the unintended consequences: a booming industry in building tunnels under the wall (the longest to date, almost half a mile, was discovered in San Diego last year) and in forging identity documents. And as would-be crossers detoured around the fence and trekked across the Arizona desert instead, the death toll rose steadily, to an average of nine a week. Latin American politicians in general and Mexicans in particular see the border wall as an affront, and a departure from the philosophy that prompted then President Ronald Reagan, standing before Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, to challenge his Soviet counterpart to “open this gate … tear down this wall.” Two years later, the wall fell, and, not much later, so did what remained of the Iron Curtain, the lethal system of walls, fences and minefields that sliced 2,500 miles through Europe and divided countries under communist rule from capitalist democracies. Many of the ruses used when the Iron Curtain was still up — hollowed out hiding spaces in cars, tunnels, hook ladders — are still used now. Then, successful crossers were hailed as heroes of freedom. Now they are seen as a threat or a burden. WALLS TO CEMENT TERRITORIAL CLAIMS While security and immigration control are the most frequently cited reasons for building border walls, politics play a key role in some countries. In others, fortifications serve to translate territorial claims into concrete facts on the ground. That applies to one of the least known but longest border barriers of modern times, built by Morocco in the 1980s to curb attacks by the Western Sahara independent movement, Polisario, on territory it claims for itself. It lies behind a set of walls some 1,700 miles long and 10 feet high made of earth, rock and sand built in the 1980s. The wall is defended by thousands of Moroccan troops and fortified by bunkers and fences, barbed wire and landmines — between 200,000 and several million of them, depending on who does the estimating. To hear Palestinians and United Nations officials tell it, the grey concrete wall that splits Jerusalem from the West Bank and the fences and trenches that run through the West Bank have as much to do with Israeli expansionism as with the stated, and largely successful, purpose of keeping suicide bombers out of Israel. The West Bank berms, barriers and fences are almost twice as long as Israel’s internationally recognized borders and run in a way that make major Jewish settlements in the West Bank a part of Israel. Israelis who oppose the occupation of the West Bank, as well as foreign critics such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, talk of “apartheid walls”. Israel’s wall has been a persistent target of Arab criticism but Arab countries have built or are building walls themselves. Saudi Arabia has quietly invited bids for a 550-mile high-tech fence — complete with sensors, night vision cameras, face-recognition software, barbed wire — to seal off its border with Iraq. CONTAINING IRAQ CHAOS According to U.S. defense contractor sources, the project will cost several billion dollars and was prompted by fears that growing anarchy and unrest in Iraq will spill into Saudi Arabia. The Saudis stopped work on a barrier along their border with Yemen — made up largely of huge pipelines filled with concrete — after Yemeni complaints three years ago. Another neighbor of Iraq, Kuwait, has already sealed its border with electrified fences, berms and a two-meter deep trench running along the 135-mile (217-kilometer) dividing line, according to a senior Kuwaiti diplomat in Washington. There is constant aerial surveillance of the line, across which Iraqi tanks rolled in the 1991 invasion of Kuwait. East of the Arabian Peninsula, ambitious projects are underway to control movement between India and Pakistan; India and Bangladesh; and Pakistan and Afghanistan. Almost invariably, governments that decide on physical separation from a neighbor predict that it would reduce tension but, at times, that remains wishful thinking. In April, for example, a firefight broke out between Afghan and Pakistani troops after the Afghans tried to tear down parts of a fence running through a tribal area. Pakistan started building a fence along part of the 1,500-mile (2,500-kilometer) border under U.S. pressure to close the routes of Taliban fighters heading to Afghanistan to join the war against U.S. and multinational forces. In Europe, two of the most infamous walls — the remnants of the Berlin wall and the “Peace Wall” in Belfast — have become tourist attractions. But Spain has built double fences 10 to 20 feet high and topped with razor wire around its wealthy enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco to keep immigrants out. The fences have had an effect similar to the walls on the border between the United States and Mexico: would-be immigrants from poor countries looked for other ways to reach a rich country. Stepped-up Spanish coastal patrols and better radar systems prompted African migrants to make riskier voyages to the Spanish-owned Canary Islands. Hundreds have drowned. If history is a guide, no border fortification can seal off a country entirely. Even the mother of all walls, the Great Wall of China, at around 4,000 miles the longest border wall ever built, failed to keep out the northern barbarians against whom it was meant to protect. Additional reporting by Robert Birsel and Simon Cameron-Moore in Islamabad, Kamil Zaheer in New Delhi, Tom Pfeiffer in Rabat, Sheikh Mushtaq in Srinagar, Daniela Deasantis in Paraguay and Tim Gaynor in Phoenix Reuters

^^^ Mayee dadka qaarkood magaaladaas bidaa ku cuntay. May be there's loot being contested here. Who knows. It's the second or third largest city. It has a port. It wasn't destroyed as Xamar. It's close to the Kenyan border. A lot could be at stake. But it could also be the usual asinine clan rivalries of Somalis.

Originally posted by NGONGE: Good article. But I wonder if his remorse will go far enough as to allow him to accept someone from those clans as a brother-in-law? He probably wouldn't stop "vomiting for several days" if his daughter brought home one of those people. It's easier said than done, even for Bashir Goth. "Minority" Rights Group? :rolleyes:

During the last two weeks of April, armed conflict in Somalia became more intense as the Ethiopian occupiers of the country and the forces of its Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) undertook major military operations against a rising insurgency composed of Islamists, nationalists and militias affiliated with the ****** clan family in Somalia's official capital Mogadishu. Having made taking effective control over Mogadishu the test of its ability to exert authority over Somalia, the T.F.G. was constrained by the pressure of Western donor powers to make good on its project and to secure the city in advance of a planned National Reconciliation Conference (N.R.C.) aimed at reaching a political resolution to the country's conflicts. Having occupied Somalia in December 2006 after a campaign to remove the Islamic Courts Council (I.C.C.) from control over most of the country south of the breakaway sub-state of Puntland, Ethiopia was under domestic and international pressure to withdraw its forces, but could not do so until Mogadishu was stabilized sufficiently to permit the full deployment of an African Union (A.U.) peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) and effective policing by T.F.G. forces. The Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive, which included artillery shelling of and tank incursions into the districts in the north and south of Mogadishu where the insurgency was concentrated, broke the tense stasis between the opposing sides that PINR had noted in its April 12 report on Somalia. As PINR observed then, "when the actors in a conflict are frozen into hostile positions, one of them eventually makes a move to break out with unforeseen consequences." [see: Somalia Seized with Stasis] The operations to crush the insurgency, which began on April 18 and concluded on April 26, appear to have succeeded, at least temporarily, with a cessation of violence and T.F.G. forces in the streets securing key roads and positions. On May 2, AMISOM peacekeepers were patrolling the city for the first time since their arrival. The insurgents, however, have not surrendered, but have drawn back and are reported to be regrouping, promising suicide bombings, targeted assassinations, kidnappings and attacks on hotels housing T.F.G. officials. According to the calculations of the United Nations, local human rights groups and the ****** clan, the offensive resulted in at least 1,000 deaths and drove the total of internally displaced persons from Mogadishu to 400,000. Journalists reported extensive destruction of buildings in the city, hospitals were stretched beyond their limits to care for the wounded, bodies rotted in the streets, aid deliveries to refugees were blocked by the T.F.G. and people fell victim to cholera-like diseases. By the end of April, residents began returning to Mogadishu, aid was beginning to get through and some rebuilding was underway, but conditions were far from normal and were likely to remain severe for the foreseeable future. As the T.F.G. and Ethiopia concentrated their attention on Mogadishu, instability surfaced elsewhere in Somalia. The T.F.G. lost control of the key southern port city of Kismayo in a struggle between two sub-clans of the ***** clan family, armed conflict broke out in the north between forces of the sub-states of Puntland and Somaliland, a crime wave continued in the unpoliced Lower and Middle Shabelle regions, and there was unrest in the transitional capital Baidoa in the south-central Bay region, leading to the imposition of a curfew. The conflict spread to Ethiopia on April 24, when the ****** National Liberation Front (O.N.L.F.) attacked a Chinese oil exploration site in the country's Somali Regional State, leaving nine Chinese workers and 65 Ethiopian workers and guards dead. Although the T.F.G. and Ethiopia have expressed confidence that they have broken the insurgency and are on the way to stabilizing Somalia, the situation on the ground presents a less promising picture. It is far from clear that the insurgency has been neutralized, instability is increasing outside Mogadishu, and low-level conflicts beyond southern and central Somalia are intensifying. There is a genuine possibility that a regional conflict will erupt. A Sense of Crisis In the year that PINR has been reporting regularly on Somalia, the multiple and overlapping conflicts that rive the country have never been as confused and intense as they are now, making grounded predictions impossible, except for the general observation that destabilization is likely to continue. Addis Ababa's removal of the I.C.C. as an aspiring administration left Ethiopian forces supporting the internationally recognized but weak and unpopular T.F.G. as the latter tried to achieve legitimate authority and Somalia's society devolved into clan, regional and local solidarities, precipitating conflicts at all levels. A process of proliferating fragmentation in which the actors are thrown into often hostile relations places the situation beyond the control of any one of them. In this complicated and tangled configuration of power, distrust on all sides has set in, even among seeming allies, creating a sense of crisis that is compounded by humanitarian catastrophe. At the root of the uncertain situation in Somalia is the weakness of the T.F.G., both militarily and politically. The T.F.G. is incapable of sustaining itself without external support, yet its leadership -- President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi -- is unwilling to enter direct negotiations with its political rivals, including conciliatory leaders of the I.C.C., dissident politicians and sections of the ****** clan family, which dominates Mogadishu. The T.F.G.'s planned clan-based N.R.C. has been rejected by the components of its variegated opposition, opening up a power vacuum that is only partially filled by Addis Ababa, which does not have the resources to arrest devolution or to eliminate the T.F.G.'s adversaries. The T.F.G.'s deficit of military power and political legitimacy provides the opportunity for rival power centers to spring up and for hostility toward the T.F.G. to increase due to its reliance on occupying forces, which have now been responsible for significant loss of civilian lives, population displacement and destruction of property. A vicious cycle is in operation, in which the T.F.G.'s efforts to take control create greater opposition to it and its protectors, and allow other actors to try to fulfill their own agendas. The political stasis of mid-April in Somalia has given way to a political collapse, breeding a sense of crisis. External actors -- except for Ethiopia's regional rival Eritrea, which backs the T.F.G.'s opposition -- have committed themselves, often uneasily, to the T.F.G. and have failed to intervene forthrightly as the collapse occurred. Although the future of Somalia's politics depends in part on whether or not the T.F.G. is able to secure Mogadishu, there are too many other destabilizing tendencies present in the country and the region to guarantee that the fate of Mogadishu will determine a new configuration of power. Multiple and Overlapping Conflicts With the latest battle for Mogadishu at an end, the underlying political conflict that caused it remains unresolved. The coalition opposing the T.F.G. and Addis Ababa retains its diverse interests and has not been placated by any concessions. At the heart of the opposition in Mogadishu are the *** and Abgal sub-clans of the ****** clan family, which fears domination by the ***** clan family, from which Yusuf comes and whose members hold key positions in the T.F.G. They were joined in the fighting by the militant wing of the I.C.C., which is uncompromising in its aim of converting Somalia to an Islamic state under Shari'a law and has vowed to wage unrelenting jihad in pursuit of its goal. The armed opposition also included nationalists resisting the Ethiopian occupation and businessmen affiliated with the ****** sub-clans who resist regulation and taxation by the T.F.G. Although their militias were driven back by the Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive, the ****** leadership refused on April 27 to say that the fighting was over. Similarly, the Islamists, spearheaded by the well-organized al-Shabaab militia, promised to continue their campaign and took credit for a suicide bombing of an Ethiopian base. Businessmen at Mogadishu's seaport reached an agreement with the T.F.G. on joint security arrangements with the promise that private guards would eventually be disarmed, and there were reports that the T.F.G. would scale back its tax rates. A lasting agreement with the businessmen, who provide significant financial support to the clan and Islamist militias, would strengthen the T.F.G.'s hand. The ****** have thus far rejected participation in the N.R.C. and have insisted that reconciliation be based on negotiations among political organizations rather than clans. Western donor powers and regional and international organizations have urged the T.F.G. to "reach out" to the ******, recognizing that long-term stability in Somalia depends on their inclusion in a power-sharing agreement. Reluctant to share power, the T.F.G. executive has stuck to its plans for the N.R.C., but suffered a reversal on April 17, when its chairman, ex-president of Somalia Ali Mahdi Mohamed, postponed the conference, which had been scheduled for mid-April, to July 14 due to lack of funding from donors and the "feuds" in Mogadishu. The T.F.G.'s strategy to gain political support became evident when, on April 18, it named warlord Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdid chief of police of Somalia, and, on April 28, it named warlord Mohamed Dheere mayor of Mogadishu. Both Qeybdid and Dheere were leaders of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter Terrorism (A.R.P.C.T.), which had striven to suppress the Islamist movement in 2006 and had been driven out of Mogadishu by its forces. The warlords had been rivals of the T.F.G. and had divided Mogadishu into fiefdoms. By wooing them with positions, Yusuf and Gedi hope to sidestep more comprehensive power-sharing, but that tactic is problematic because the unpopularity of the warlords was a key factor in the rise of the I.C.C. The T.F.G. also attempted to consolidate when, on April 17, the transitional parliament removed its dissident faction of 29 members led by ex-speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, who had broken with the T.F.G. over power-sharing with the I.C.C. and had not participated in parliamentary deliberations. A pattern was emerging in which the T.F.G. executive would attempt to co-opt elements of the opposition with narrow interests in positions and to ward off changes in its representative basis. The political opposition to the T.F.G. also coalesced during the battle of Mogadishu. From April 10-17, the reorganized conciliatory wing of the I.C.C., the dissident parliamentarians and the T.F.G.'s deputy prime minister, warlord Hussein Aideed, met in Eritrea to form an alliance aimed at countering the N.R.C. with a political rather than a clan-based reconciliation program. In a joint communiqué, the emerging opposition bloc called for the immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia on pain of "all-out war" and condemned the United States for supporting Addis Ababa's intervention and AMISOM for failing to take measures against Ethiopian "war crimes." On May 1, the opposition alliance scaled up its rhetoric, calling for more sophisticated armed resistance against Ethiopian and AMISOM forces. The meeting in Asmara was noteworthy because it indicated unprecedented coordination among opposition groups and a shedding from the T.F.G. The maneuvers of the T.F.G. and the opposition caused Mohamed Elmi, a partner in Mogadishu's Radio HornAfrik, to comment to the Toronto Star on April 29 that "all the political agendas are merging." For Elmi, this is a sign of polarization and constitutes a worst-case scenario. In PINR's judgment, consolidation might cut the other way and set the stage for eventual power-sharing, although that eventuality is currently less likely than Elmi's projection. The confused political picture surrounding the military conflict in Mogadishu indicates a volatile situation in which political collapse has engendered efforts at coalition building among disparate interests that could harden or come apart depending on the moves that the various actors make. Neither the militant Islamist faction nor the T.F.G. executive is likely to shift, but the other players will calculate their opportunities and act accordingly. The devolutionary tendencies of Somalia's politics were nowhere more evident than in Kismayo, the hub of the country's deep south. The city, from which the Ethiopians had withdrawn -- leaving it controlled by an administration dominated by Yusuf's ********* sub-clan of the ***** clan family -- erupted in violence on April 23, when the militias of the ******* sub-clan of the ***** drove out T.F.G. forces. Led by T.F.G. Defense Minister Barre Hirale, who had been the major warlord in the deep south before the rise of the I.C.C., the ******* resented ********* domination and Hirale had earlier distanced himself from the T.F.G. ******* members of the T.F.G. forces were reported to have defected to their clan militias during the fighting. On April 29, the T.F.G.'s interior minister, Mohamed Gamadheere, attempted to mediate the dispute, but failed when T.F.G. commanders refused to return to the city unless the ******* militias disarmed, and ******* leaders said they were not ready to accept a T.F.G. presence. The events in Kismayo support PINR's judgment that Somalia is devolving into clan-based solidarities and signal a weakness in the T.F.G., which is more a loose coalition of local warlords than a functioning administration. During the second half of April, armed conflict also surfaced in the north of Somalia between the formerly relatively stable sub-states of Puntland and Somaliland, which have ongoing border disputes in the Sanaag, Sool and Togdheere regions. As events unfolded in the south, the administrations of both sub-states sent armed ministerial delegations to the disputed regions in attempts to firm up and expand control. Fighting erupted in the town of Dahar in the Sanaag region over attempts by Puntland to set up a district council there and ended on April 16, when Puntland militias drove the Somaliland forces back. Both sides were reported to be massing their forces in areas under their respective control, setting up a tense confrontation. Somaliland, which has declared its independence, but is not internationally recognized, claims the territory of the former British Somaliland, which includes the disputed regions. Puntland, which has declared provisional autonomy from Somalia pending reconciliation, controls parts of those regions and bases its claims to them on the fact that they are populated by members of the *****-********* sub-clan of the *****, which is dominant in Puntland; Somaliland is dominated by the Issaq clan family. In the incidents at Dahar, ***** members of Somaliland's forces were reported to have defected to the Puntland militias. Somaliland has a clear interest in filling out the former colonial territory since its slim chance of gaining international recognition evaporates if it fails to do so. Its current push is motivated by its fear that a *****-dominated T.F.G. -- Yusuf's power base is Puntland, which supplies much of the T.F.G.'s security forces -- will be able to counter the independence project if the T.F.G. becomes a functioning administration. Puntland, in turn, is determined to resist Somaliland's efforts to "reach the border." That Puntland and Somaliland have come into play is another indication of Somalia's destabilization and devolution to clan-based solidarities. A war between the sub-states is now a genuine possibility. Beyond Somalia proper, Ethiopia experienced the impact of widening conflict on April 24, when the O.N.L.F., which seeks independence or greater autonomy for the ethnic-Somali ****** region (Ethiopia's Somali Regional State) launched a major attack on an oil exploration site run by China's Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, a division of the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation. Although it had issued warnings in the past to foreign corporations operating in the ******, the O.N.L.F.'s attack was the first time it had made good on its threats. The ****** Online website, which speaks for the O.N.L.F., claimed that the operation, which overran the site and resulted in the deaths of 74 workers and guards, was aimed at "helping" local pastoralists resist displacement from their grazing lands to make way for resource exploitation. Addis Ababa blamed the attack on "terrorists" financed by Eritrea and local officials claimed that the attackers wore Eritrean uniforms. In a further sign of the vulnerability of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's administration, on April 29, the opposition bloc -- United Ethiopian Democratic Forces -- called for the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia, observing that "interfering in others' business will be a heavy burden" and criticizing the government for "making a bad choice of allies." Ethiopia's April offensive in Mogadishu was motivated by Zenawi's need to put an end to the Ethiopian occupation by eliminating armed opposition to the T.F.G. The longer the occupation lasts, the more Ethiopian resources will be drained and the more vulnerable Addis Ababa will be to domestic insurgency and to falling popular support. Yet although Western donor powers are anxious for Ethiopia to pull out of Somalia, they also fear a power vacuum if Addis Ababa leaves the T.F.G. alone. Zenawi is in a compromised position and faces a deteriorating political situation that works to the advantage of his opposition and of Eritrea, with which Ethiopia has a smoldering border dispute. An Ethiopian withdrawal depends on the substitution of Ethiopian forces by AMISOM, which thus far has deployed 1,200 Ugandan troops out of the projected 8,000 member multi-national African force. Other African states that have pledged troops -- Nigeria, Burundi, Ghana and reportedly Benin -- have delayed deployment due to the violence in Mogadishu and inadequate donor support, leaving the Ugandans overwhelmed and mainly confined to their bases until the beginning of May. Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, has begun to face domestic pressure to withdraw the AMISOM contingent from Somalia. The opposition Conservative and National Freedom parties have called for a pull out, citing the danger of mounting casualties. On the ground, AMISOM spokesman Captain Paddy Ankunda called for greater help from the international community and said of Mogadishu on April 25: "Everywhere you go, there is a threat. Everywhere you are, the situation is hostile." Given the experience of the Ugandan contingent, it is unlikely that the other African states that have pledged troops will be quick to deploy or that new states will sign on to the mission. Even Kampala's continuing participation is coming into question. As stasis has ceded to collapse in Somalia, diplomatic initiatives by external actors to stem the slide have been hampered by divergent interests. The last major conference on Somalia was held on April 13 -- before the Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive -- in Kenya under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (I.G.A.D.), the regional organization including Somalia and its neighbors. The communiqué issued at the end of the meeting expressed "concern over extremist armed militia elements," condemned all forces that undermine the T.F.G., welcomed the deployment of AMISOM and urged potential contributors to the mission to honor their pledges, supported "inclusive dialogue" through the N.R.C., and expressed "appreciation to Ethiopia for its sacrifices in promoting the common position of I.G.A.D." The communiqué marked a diplomatic victory for Addis Ababa and Washington, and provided a green light for the offensive in Mogadishu, but at the cost of alienating Asmara, which objected to the paragraphs on extremist elements and endorsement of the Ethiopian occupation. On April 22, Eritrea suspended its membership in I.G.A.D., citing "a number of repeated and irresponsible resolutions that undermine regional peace and security," and refusing to be "party to developments that hold one accountable both legally and morally." The split in I.G.A.D. was mirrored by a rift between the United States, which has increasingly backed Ethiopia and the T.F.G., and the European Union, which has made support of the T.F.G. contingent on the latter's undertaking political reconciliation, and has condemned the shelling of residential neighborhoods by Ethiopian forces. Conclusion The Ethiopian-T.F.G. offensive in Mogadishu has broken the stasis, but has not stabilized Somalia and the Horn of Africa. Divisions and tensions are surfacing and deepening within and between actors at all levels, making further conflict and fragmentation likely. The actors do not appear to have the political will to surmount their differences. International and regional paralysis is partly due to the support of the T.F.G. by external actors and partly to the fact that Somalia is lower on the agenda of the Western powers than other issues. By leaving Somalia to collapse, however, Western powers are inviting its instability to spread beyond its borders. Washington, in particular, has staked its wager on Addis Ababa, which might turn out to be a "bad choice of allies." With splits running from the intra-clan to the inter-state levels, the conjuncture of powers and interests enveloping Somalia is out of any single actor's or group of actors' control. The sense of crisis is not delusory. Report Drafted By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein PINR

HARGEISA, May 2 (Reuters) - The leader of the self-declared breakaway enclave of Somaliland ruled out reuniting with battle-scarred Somalia If only it were up to him.

^^^ It seems like a great book that Chavez would keep on his nightstand. I listened to the author on the radio describing some of things he did and they would be very hard to believe if they weren't true.

The sheer obscenity of this figure and the trail of blood it leaves behind are overwhelming. We bear witness to our own ignominy. Price Tag for War in Iraq on Track to Top $500 Billion by Ron Hutcheson WASHINGTON - The bitter fight over the latest Iraq spending bill has all but obscured a sobering fact: The war will soon cost more than $500 billion.That’s about ten times more than the Bush administration anticipated before the war started four years ago, and no one can predict how high the tab will go. The $124 billion spending bill that President Bush plans to veto this week includes about $78 billion for Iraq, with the rest earmarked for the war in Afghanistan, veterans’ health care and other government programs. Congressional Democrats and Bush agree that they cannot let their dispute over a withdrawal timetable block the latest cash installment for Iraq. Once that political fight is resolved, Congress can focus on the president’s request for $116 billion more for the war in the fiscal year that starts on Sept. 1. The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to $564 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. What could that kind of money buy? A college education - tuition, fees, room and board at a public university - for about half of the nation’s 17 million high-school-age teenagers. Pre-school for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country for the next eight years. A year’s stay in an assisted-living facility for about half of the 35 million Americans age 65 or older. Not surprisingly, opinions about the cost of the war track opinions about the war itself. “If it’s really vital, then whatever it costs, we should pay it. If it isn’t, whatever we pay is too much,” said Robert Hormats, author of “The Price of Liberty,” a newly published book that examines the financing of America’s wars. Before the war, administration officials confidently predicted that the conflict would cost about $50 billion. White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey lost his job after he offered a $200 billion estimate - a prediction that drew scorn from his administration colleagues. “They had no concept of what they were getting into in terms of lives or cost,” said Winslow Wheeler, who monitors defense spending for the Center for Defense Information, a nonpartisan research institute. Bush and his economic advisers defend the growing cost as the price of national security. “It’s worth it,” Bush said last May, when the tab was in the $320 billion range. “I wouldn’t have spent it if it wasn’t worth it.” For war opponents, the escalating cost is a growing source of irritation. A Web site showing a running tally of the war’s cost, http://costofwar.com/index.html, attracts about 250,000 visitors a month, according to the National Priorities Project, the site’s sponsor. “It comes down to the question, how do you want to spend a half trillion dollars? Do you want to spend a half trillion dollars on this or would you rather spend it on something else?” said economist Anita Dancs, the organization’s research director. “It’s all a matter of costs and benefits.” As wars go, Iraq is cheap. World War II cost more than $5 trillion in today’s dollars. Korea and Vietnam each cost about $650 billion in today’s dollars, but spending on those wars took a much bigger share of the economy when they were fought. “For the average American, there’s really been no economic consequence of the country being involved in a war,” said Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (International). “It doesn’t have as much impact on the economy as those previous wars did.” But the painless approach to financing the Iraq war could cause problems in the future. Hormats worries that the decision to cut taxes and increase domestic spending while fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will complicate efforts to deal with the financial strains that threaten to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare. Calling for sacrifice now, in a time of war, would give Americans more of a psychological stake in the long war on terrorism and prepare them for the sacrifices that will be needed to shore up Social Security and Medicare, he said. “When you go into a war, you have to figure out how you’re going to pay for it and be candid with Americans about it,” Hormats said. “You can’t have business as usual.” Common Dreams

Good for Venezuela. Unfortunately, we have neither the natural nor the human resources necessary to achieve this sort of feat in our lifetimes. Maybe in a hundred years.

Venezuela to take over refineries Venezuela is to take control of the massive Orinoco Belt oil projects as part of President Hugo Chavez's nationalisation drive. Many of the world's biggest oil companies have agreed to transfer operational control to the government. The May Day takeover comes one year after Bolivian President Evo Morales seized his country's gas fields. Mr Chavez has also said he wants to pull Venezuela out of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The president said he had ordered Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas to begin formal proceedings to withdraw from the two international bodies. President Chavez has spoken of his ambition to set up what he calls a Bank of the South, backed by Venezuelan oil revenues, which would finance projects in South America. Compensation not guaranteed The four projects to be taken over in the Orinoco Belt can refine about 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Mr Chavez said he would take control of at least 60% of the projects, which were previously owned by ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, Statoil and Total. Negotiations are continuing about ongoing shareholdings and the possibility of compensation for the refineries. Venezuela has only considered agreements based on the book value of the projects rather than their much larger current net worth. Oil minister Rafael Ramirez has said that there may not be compensation at all in some cases. More surprises There will be more surprises from Bolivian President Evo Morales in his May Day address, one year after he shocked international investors by seizing control of the energy industry. "It's going to be series of surprise measures, and if we were to announce them the day before it'd no longer be a surprise," Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said. Local media reports have suggested that the measures could involve nationalising the mining industry. The government had hoped to finish nationalising the telecoms industry by May Day, but talks with Telecom Italia - which owns half of the biggest telecoms company - are currently stalled. Telecom Italia said last week that it was considering seeking international arbitration over the sale of Entel after Bolivia issued two decrees aimed at renationalising the company. BBC

Where do you find leaders like this? Instead, we have to settle for Yey, Geedi and their likes. Uff. Mark Tran and agencies Tuesday May 1, 2007 Guardian Unlimited The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, today severed ties with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In doing so he distanced Caracas further from what he described as Washington-dominated institutions. The populist leader, who took office pledging to pursue radical political reform and an economic "third way," said yesterday that Venezuela no longer needed institutions "dominated by US imperialism." Speaking at a May Day event, Mr Chavez said: "We don't need to be going up to Washington... We are going to get out. I want to formalise our exit from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund." Article continues Venezuela has been loosening its ties to the IMF and the World Bank since Mr Chavez took office in 1999. Venezuela recently repaid its debts to the World Bank five years ahead of schedule. In doing so it savied $8m (£3.99m) and cleared all its debts to the IMF shortly after Mr Chavez was elected. The IMF closed its offices in Venezuela late last year. Mr Chavez intends to set up a new lender run by Latin American countries called the Bank of the South. He has pledged to support it with Venezuela's booming oil revenues. Venezuela has cut its dependence on the multilateral lending institutions on the back of its oil resources - the world's largest outside the Middle East. The petroleum sector dominates the economy, accounting for 50% of central government revenue and 70% of exports. The Venezuelan economy has experienced 10 consecutive quarters of sustained high growth. This is due in large part to high public spending and private consumption, fuelled by high oil prices and historically low interest rates. Mr Chavez is nationalising huge swathes of the economy this year and was today scheduled to lead a rally to mark the takeover of operations belonging to some of the world's largest companies. US companies ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and France's Total have agreed to obey a decree to transfer operational control to Venezuela. Mr Chavez said the takeover marked the end of an era of Washington-dictated policies and returned Venezuelan resources under the state's control. "The wheel has turned full circle," he said. Guardian

Originally posted by Nayruus: a real nationalist and political figurehead that has the interest of Somali Republic at heart will visit the second capital city of the country without invitation from anyone and without the assistance of a third party. But the question is, will that be Yey?? Yeey has nothing of value to offer Hargeiysa. Access to seaways? They got it. Peace? Had it for a few years now. Part of a federal government? Why take only a part when they have their own thing. Meles Zenawi, in bed? Been there, done that. There's just no value to offer the leadership in Hargeiysa. They have all that Yeey wants and a shorter flight to Addis. You really can't beat that.

Yeah, who is "we" Tahliil?

This debate is fast becoming a joke with a 'rebuttal' from you of that 'quality'. Too bad this has turned into a joke but I can't decide which is the bigger culprit here: my presumed faulty logic or your gamba-yar like insolence.

^^^^ I wouldn't give the UN much weight saaxib. This organization is dominated by the US and many of its resolutions are pathetic attempts at legitimizing the illegal and imperial ambitions of the US and its allies. We can't even sue the bloody Ethiopians for violating the Geneva convention on the rules governing conflicts.

^^^^ And conveniently so. The fig leaf, also known as UNSC resolution 1744, was dated 2/20/2007 and 1725 was dated 12/6/2006. You will note the official invasion occurred in late December (though unofficially it had been ongoing since at least July) of 2006, making it an illegal invasion. That 1744 came after the fact in an obviously lame effort to legitimize the illegitimate is clear to anyone who is paying attention.

^^^^ Does rejecting the TFG equate to embracing anarchy and statelessness? It's not a trick question.

"Reiterating its insistence that all Member States, in particular those in the region, should refrain from any action in contravention of the arms embargo and related measures, and should take all actions necessary to prevent such contraventions" UN Resolution 1725

You're more like a fight-seeker than a wisdom seeker tonight. Who said the anti-TFG crowd is right? We're just as rabid, if not more so, in our opposition as they are in their cheering. Some of them are principled (though it is the wrong principle, I believe) and some are just along for the ride. But history will prove only one of us right and that is little or no consolation to those who lost their lives and those who continue to suffer. We can pontificate from the comfort of our living rooms but more often than not, the events we argue over are a matter of life and death for some. Allow sahal.

Originally posted by Wisdom_Seeker: A regime America supports is a regime which isn't for the best interest of its people. Any Arab or South American could have told you that.

By its own making the TFG is already dead for all practical purposes, once and for all. Its supposed incumbents have miserably failed to serve the nation in the last three years and can never be accepted as national leaders by the Somali people. They are not even acceptable to an overwhelming Somali majority to play any more future role in the national crises, because they have become the marked cause of these immediate crises and cannot be part of their solutions. They have become pariahs and not many Somalis will ever want to sit with them on the same table. Indeed.

^^^^ Puntland is the one doing the asking.

^^^ The undisputed lyrical champion of SOL.

Originally posted by Dabshid: quote: The devout Muslim says that Barre wept when he offered forgiveness for Barre imprisoning him in a 3m by 4m cell for six years, suffering physical and psychological torture. waw I'm just curious how a devout Muslim could call his fellow countrymen (and supposedly brothers in Islam) terrorists. Either they really are terrorists or the word "devout" should sue Al-Azhari for being associated with him.

^^^^ Let's not get carried away now. It's actually the Ethiopian army that deserves these accolades. I'm sure they'd like to hear a poem of appreciation from our resident sergeant-poet extraordinaire. Won't you drop some mad lyrics on your Tigray homeboys?