Originally posted by Didi Kong: quote:Originally posted by ThePoint: I doubt all she wants is the acronym spelled out. Unbelievable. I wonder who will win the political correctness award at SOL, you or Che? You are right I'm interested in knowing more than the acronym spelled out. To what extent was this jabhad involved in uprooting Siad's regime by understaking armed rebellions that resulted in civial deaths? Moi? Politically correct? I demand proofs, I say! As to the Somali political scene I will leave to others.

^What does secular have to do with HIV/AIDS? Countries in secular Europe have lower infection rates than the more overtly Chrisitan countries of southern Africa. I don't think these guys know anything about the real prevalence rates in Somalia. But it is clear that more needs to be done to increase awareness.

^Lol K - I doubt all she wants is the acronym spelled out. Unbelievable.

^I don't think he is a Bloody Brit!

LOL adeer - u can if you want to! No - I meant how long did u study, what was ur strategy, what pitfalls should one avoid etc.

^You have the discipline - I think everyone does. It's just a matter of acting on it. I would advise u to establish a schedule and private place of study away from your usual. And then tell everyone about it - ur parents, friends, relatives etc. so that they can reinforce your efforts at staying disciplined. That's why ur idea of group study is good - BTW - have ur tried ur local university or college - they usually have GMAT clubs or some such.

^Can we hear the same pledge from you - red?

Adeer - nothing less than a 700 will satisfy me - thus the delay Sounds like you have some experience - care to share duqa?

^Warya - why u gotta shatter his hopes and dreams Anyway - his kid was 'certified' by a teacher so keep quiet.

^A lot of bravado, hubris and blood-lust on display around on the Politics section for the past while. At the end of the day - one side will get egg on its face. Hopefully - he/she/they will be 'man' enough to admit it.

^Warya Che - tell everyone how hard it goes! I have wanted to take GMAT for the longest time now but keep postponing it. Lotta discpline needed. Good luck M.M. You should allocate 3 months or so if you want to do really well.

^They're Muslims no? Don't see why you oculdn't have a union. You would have to make sure to teach your kids the proper stuff though.

^They wear the chador in Iran - and I think Northerner might be disappointed - since he probably gets enough flesh flashed at him in Dubai.

Originally posted by Northerner: ^^True, there is a healthy Somali community in Damascus by all acounts. I want to go to a place called Shiraz in Iran. My freind (Iranian) advised me to use my 'Somali' passport instead of her majesty's as i wouldnt need to apply for a visa. The carab/muslim tag does have some benefits. Why? Anything exciting in Shiraz that only you know about?

Originally posted by Taliban: On the issue of what you claimed about the "alindi", a hint of Malindi without the "M" suffices to convince anyone of its origin. The very word of "alindi" is Swahili. Since Swahili originated in Tanzania, it's people from Tanzania who settled in Baraawe and brought with them the koofiyad and "alindi." There you go! The Swahili city states on the East coast of Africa were settled north to south, unsuprisingly, since the North was closer to the Middle East and India. Thus, it is conceivable, even likely, that ppl from Baraawe took their "alindi" to Malindi. I don't know why assume people from Tanzania had to come to Baraawe to bring Swahili culture - Mogadishu is widely known as one of the most important city states of the Swahili coast and one of the oldest. And Swahili did not originate in Tanzania - the precise culture and origins of the language are murky - but what is known is that from 1100 AD on - the Swahili coast was reputed to stretch from Mog to Mozambique.

J - WHY ARE YOU ******?? Or is it that petty generalizations rule your intellect

Sharks Bay Beach, Mogadishu Crabs Bay, Mogadishu

lol - sensitivity is the byword on this forum these days

In Munich, Provocation in a Symbol of Foreign Faith New York Times By MARK LANDLER Published: December 8, 2006 MUNICH, Dec. 5 — Helga Schandl says she has nothing against Muslims. For three decades, she worked in Munich’s wholesale food market, where many of her colleagues were immigrants from Turkey. “I have experienced integration firsthand,” she said. Yet Mrs. Schandl, a 67-year-old Bavarian, is leading a fierce campaign to halt plans to build a mosque in a working-class district here. “It is a provocation,” she said of the mosque, which would sit across a graceful square from her Roman Catholic church — its minarets an exotic counterpoint to the church’s neo-baroque steeples. “The mosque doesn’t have anything to do with religion,” she said. “It is a power play.” Of the many ways that Christians and Muslims rub up against each other in this country, the construction of mosques has become one of the most contentious. Symbols of a foreign faith, rising in German cities, they are stoking anti-foreign sentiment and reinforcing fears that Christianity is under threat. Why, Mrs. Schandl asked, do the Turks want to build their mosque right here, on a site opposite St. Korbinian? Like churches everywhere in Germany, hers is struggling to survive in a secular society. A few empty churches are being converted into banks or restaurants. For Onder Yildiz, a soft-spoken but intense leader of the Turkish community, the answer is simple: “A mosque next to a church helps intensify dialogue between the religions,” he said. On one level, Mr. Yildiz is right: St. Korbinian church and the city’s mayor have welcomed the mosque, which would be the third, and most prominent, in Munich, the heartland of German Catholicism. But a vocal minority of residents has resisted, holding protest meetings, collecting signatures, and filing a petition with the Bavarian Parliament. “Bavarian life,” the petition declares, “is marked by the drinking of beer and the eating of pork. In Muslim faith, both are unclean and forbidden.” With the support of Bavaria’s conservative state government, the residents have been able to tie up the project in court. Mosques have existed in Germany for decades, but only in recent years has there been a building boom. There are now 150 mosques in Germany, in addition to about 2,000 Muslim prayer rooms in cellars, warehouses and other converted industrial spaces. As Germany’s 3.2 million Muslims put down deeper roots, they are no longer willing to worship furtively. A few of their projects — like a new mosque in the industrial city of Duisberg — have some of the grandeur of great European cathedrals. More than 1,000 people can pray under its soaring domes, which are meant to evoke the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. “Whenever Muslims in Germany come out of their closets or hidden places, the controversy starts,” said Claus Leggewie, a political scientist at Giessen University who has written about mosques in Germany. “The protests begin on technical issues, like parking problems and noise,” he said. “But it has a cultural bias. There is a nationalist minority, which opposes immigration and especially Muslim immigration.” Right-wing politicians pander to these sentiments, Mr. Leggewie said, aided by the specter of Islamic terrorism and by a number of extremist mosques in Germany that have rattled even some open-minded Germans. Muslim groups aggravate the tensions, he said, by not talking to their non-Muslim neighbors. The Munich dispute has an added edge because Bavaria is the most religious and conservative state in Germany. Pope Benedict XVI was born near here, and once served as archbishop of Munich. He delivered his now famous speech, in which he seemed to equate Islam with violence, at the nearby University of Regensburg. “I understood his message,” Mrs. Schandl said, drinking a beer at the market where she used to work. The mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, noted that Protestants had a tough time here, too, until two centuries ago. And then there was the burning of the Jewish synagogue by the Nazis in 1938. “The theme of houses of worship for religious minorities has a long history in Munich,” he said. Munich has between 80,000 and 120,000 Muslims, the bulk of them from Turkey, who constitute nearly 10 percent of its population. The city’s first mosque was built in the 1960s on the outskirts of town, and caused little comment. A second was built in the 1990s, also outside the center, and drew some opposition from the Christian Social Union, the conservative party that has ruled Bavaria for decades. The proposed mosque is to take the place of an Islamic prayer center that is now housed in an old furniture warehouse nearby. As the Turks see it, having a proper mosque is a sign of their maturity as an immigrant group in German society. “Turks are now in their third generation in Germany,” said Metin Avci, the imam of the community in Sendling. “In the first generation, they only wanted to work to earn money. In the second and third generations, they developed a desire to worship in a more visible way.” After a competition, the group chose a local architect, Walter Höfler, who came up with a contemporary design, which he says does not compete with that of the church. The mosque’s minarets, he noted, would rise 134 feet — 46 feet short of the steeples of the church. Each would have a sign, spelling the word Allah, which could be lighted at night. They would also have balconies — decorative rather than functional, because under German law, a muezzin cannot broadcast a call to prayer from them. The mosque would have the capacity to hold 250 men and 150 women. But Mr. Yildiz said it was also designed to accommodate non-Muslims for social and educational activities. “We want to integrate into Germany,” said Mr. Yildiz, who is 40 and has lived here for 25 years. “We want to have a presentable place, where we can invite guests to drink tea.” St. Korbinian and the local Protestant church both seem open to such a dialogue. They have steadfastly supported the mosque. But they say the debate has divided their members. Wolfgang Neuner, a parish counselor at St. Korbinian, said parishioners told him they would not feel comfortable at prayer, knowing that they were near a mosque. Andrea Borger, the deacon at the Protestant church, got a letter asking, “What are you going to say when your daughter isn’t able to walk in this neighborhood without a head scarf?” Such fears resonate with politicians. Speaking in a beer tent last April, Bavaria’s prime minister, Edmund Stoiber, pledged to block the mosque. His Christian Social Union invalidated the preliminary permit that was issued by the Munich government, which is run by a coalition of the Social Democratic Party and the Greens. Mr. Ude, the mayor, who studied in Turkey as a young man and grew a mustache there that he still wears, said the conservatives were exploiting the issue before elections in 2008. He said he was confident that the courts would reinstate the building permit. Fears about mosques are not entirely misplaced, he acknowledged. Munich’s oldest mosque is under police surveillance because of its radical tendencies. But Mr. Ude said the planned mosque — which is linked to Ditim, a moderate Turkish group — would pose no danger. For Turkish residents of Munich, even those who are not religious, the mosque has become a fraught symbol. “This has been a very emotional debate for me,” said Sedef Ozakin, a female member of the city council. “I think, ‘Why should I integrate into this country when it doesn’t even recognize my religious beliefs?’ ”

^War hedhe - I was talking to ME :rolleyes:

The Point, you are not doing hard reasoning here brother---you are merely singing Puntland’s official line! As far as we know Courts have not attacked Puntland—and yes Bandariidley is not a part of Puntland. Another piece of information is that the majority of Puntlanders don’t see this threat for which Ethiopians are called in to deal with. In the Mudug region, Cadde’s argument for a fight with the Courts failed to convince the elders to rally behind his war cries! One reason Ethiopia’s lackeys have argued that this ‘extra help’ was needed since Galkacyo’s residents lacked foresight to see Courts coming threat! I sing no one's official line. If mine and theirs agree so be it. Never said Banda was part of Puntland - but ICU actions speak for themselves regarding territorial expansion. No need to surmise or ruminate at length on that. I don't know the exact state of folks in Galkacyo but to say no one's sees any threat is pushing it in my opinion. It's not a claim you can independantly verify - it's based on limited hearsay. As such - a reasonable man would stay away from it. Brother Ethiopia hardly needs an invitation from Puntland to come in. We all know that. But the reason they hastily come now is because Puntland’s internal conflict is so strong to the extent that those who run the show now were forced to seek help from the Tigre boys! Tigre boys are not your typical clansmen---they come to serve their country’s national interest--they are not there to merely tip the balance of this nomadic squabble that you are having in Mudug! As for ceding Galkacyo’s authority to them, that’s hardly in dispute. Their presence is felt everywhere in the city---they are in the airport and manned checkpoints! I can’t believe that you are willing to argue that Ethiopian troops just come to serve Puntland’s interest and will act as a guest while they are there! It just doesn’t work that way brother! No it doesn't need invitation since they are stronger - but Ethiopia has enough Somali land without desiring to permanently occupy Galkacyo. I think those who run the show geniunely fear ICU expansionism and wish to hem them in. Caade and co are corrupt, inept etc but I doubt they want to cede land to Tigre. I don't know about any internal conflict - whatever it may be - Ethiopian troops long-term presence certainly won't engender warm feelings to those who brought them in. It seems to me self-defeating for any internal Puntland conflict. I have no doubt that Tigre is working for Tigre interests but where Tigre and my interest overlap - I have no hesitation of using Tigre to my advantage. These ICU guys wish to take over all or so it seems - having Tigre there for some time may deter them. Who knows. As for them being in charge of Galkacyo - I would love to see independant verification of that prior to believing it. It seems that once again you're present claims as proofs etc. Did you not say something about doing the hard reasoning

^I guess like federalism weakened Canada, the States, Germany etc etc :confused:

^Mental derangement has been rather unfortunately common with Muslims these days - and they are the loudest and most sure ones :eek:

^Sad - especially when the murders were done because of suspicions rather than any confirmation. Both Ethiopian and Eritrean communities are better behaved than Somalis though. Given numbers that rival or exceed Somalis in NA - their communities are rarely in the press.

^It's funny that Egypt of all countries is recommending democratic elections. Funny :eek: