God - how many threads like this are there with regard to this subject? Guys - just make a separate corner called - Why We, The One and Only Good Guys, Rock and You, Thou Beastly and Foreign other, Suck. That way - no one even has to see the title let alone content of inane threads like this. :rolleyes:

I'm grateful for my 'wise' tastebuds that have never allowed me to develop a taste for coffee I do love how it smells tho.

^It strikes me as a bit simplistic. Public services are provided for 'free' by organized and responsible governments using tax and other revenues. Most African governments do not score well on this metric. In Somalia - tax systems are rudimentary at best and responsible government is absolutely non-existent - there can be no expectation of free public services. The other problem is the author is comparing apples and oranges. Khat, cellphones and money transfers are all privately provided goods and services. You cannot compare the effectiveness and efficiency of privately provided G/S to the public ones of water and sanitation. An appropriate comparison would be one to the quality of water and sanitation that is privately provided and paid for by the individual consumer and the related efficiency/effectiveness of those systems. Thirdly - institution building with support from the diaspora is happening in Somalia. Universities, schools, hospitals have been built where none existed and old ones refurbished. Far from what's needed and most are not free but require payment but much better than nothing. My question for her and her 'humanitarian aid' ilk is - what have they been doing in Somalia for the last 15 years apart from stop-gap food handouts? What have they done in terms of building self-sustaining institutions to help the public that cannot afford privately provided goods and services?

^People have the right to ostracize, shun and avoid anyone they choose to including converts. If there is violence or threats of violence then the state should and does intervene according to the law. So what is the substance of this programme anway?

Hope everyone had a good start to Ramadan. Looking forward to all the delicious, different food of the season. And other more spiritual things of course

By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER, Associated Press Writer MOUNT HOPE, W.Va. - In his darkest moments, Jack Whittaker has sometimes wondered if winning the nearly $315 million Powerball game was really worth it. The jackpot that was the stuff of dreams turned into a nightmare: His wife left him and his drug-addicted granddaughter — his protege and heir — died. He endured constant requests for money. Almost five years later, Whittaker is left with things money can't cure: His daughter's cancer, a long list of indiscretions documented in newspapers and court records, and an inability to trust others. "I don't have any friends," he said in lengthy interview with The Associated Press. "Every friend that I've had, practically, has wanted to borrow money or something and of course, once they borrow money from you, you can't be friends anymore." Whittaker was a self-made millionaire long before he became a lottery winner, having built a pipeline business worth $17 million. Then he hit the Powerball in December 2002. It was then the largest-single jackpot ever. The prize was worth $314.9 million. Whittaker opted for the lump-sum payout of $170 million — $93 million after taxes. He still has plenty of money. And instead of retiring, the 59-year-old starts his day at 5 a.m., juggling ventures in construction, real estate, used-cars, even movies. Work is the last remnant of his old life. "Nothing else is normal," he said, sounding simultaneously gruff and sad. His appearance has changed little. His blue eyes still twinkle when he tells a joke, his cowboy boots are worn from wear, and his grin remains toothless. He's too busy, he says, to pay attention to looks. Whittaker began working part-time for his father at age 10, pouring cement. At 14, he dropped out of school to work full time. He's owned some kind of business ever since. "I was accustomed to making big money and making my own money, and I never could get interested in school again after that." By his own estimate, he's brought water and sewer service to some 100,000 homes and still does some good by providing 200 high-paying jobs. "Probably the lowest-paid man in my construction company is, I'd say, $36 an hour," he said. "That's a good wage for any part of West Virginia." Whittaker's family never wanted for anything, and he admits they have long been accustomed to a lifestyle most would consider lavish. With every change of the seasons, new wardrobes filled their closets. The paint job on one of his granddaughter's many cars cost $16,000. Even the family's marble mausoleum towers over nearby grave markers in the hilltop cemetery in Jumping Branch. But winning the Powerball was a different kind of wealth that brought instant celebrity status. Whittaker's struggles with drinking, gambling and philandering became public, and tales of his transgressions were retold with relish. His home and car were repeatedly burglarized. At a strip club, thieves broke into his Lincoln Navigator and stole a briefcase stuffed with $245,000 in $100 bills and three $100,000 cashiers checks. The briefcase was later found, with the money. Whittaker was charged twice with driving while under the influence and sued repeatedly, once by three female casino employees who accused him of assault. In all, Whittaker says, he's been involved in 460 legal actions since winning. He recently settled a lawsuit that alleged his bank failed to catch $50,000 in counterfeit checks cashed from his accounts. Whittaker believes he has been unfairly demonized by the media, which he says exaggerated his problems and helped drive his wife away. Jack fell in love with Jewell when he was in eighth grade and she was in seventh. The couple filed divorce papers three years ago but have yet to sign them. "I don't know any normal person who could have a marriage with everything that's been written about me that's not true," Whittaker said. The couple's daughter, Ginger McMahan, has battled cancer for years. The disease is in remission, though she remains in poor health. Before Powerball, Whittaker and his wife went to church together. These days, he seldom does. "It's just aggravating, you know. People come up and ask you for money all the time, tell you some kind of a sob story." Whittaker says he hasn't been stingy. The Jack Whittaker Foundation has spent $23 million building two churches. His family donates food, clothing and college scholarships to local students, "but all the big work with the foundation is completed," he said. Whittaker is also done with boozing — which, on his worst days, involved a fifth of vodka. He says he drank in part because he was worried about granddaughter Brandi Bragg, who shared his independent, headstrong personality and knew from a young age she wanted to run her Paw Paw's businesses. "She was going to inherit everything," Whittaker said. "Everything that we have was built in a way that it went to her on her 21st birthday." She never saw that day, dying at 17 after struggling with drug addiction. Only 14 when Whittaker hit the Powerball, Bragg was in rehab a year later for Oxycontin addiction. Whittaker blames her problems on a kidnapping threat, which led to home schooling, and her decision to run with an older crowd. He says he hired sheriff's deputies to track Bragg, personally hunted down and reported her drug dealers, and repeatedly sent her to rehab. "It wasn't two or three months before she was right back on again, same drugs," he said. He remembers their last conversation, when she was packing up to move to his Virginia home. "I told her, 'I'll come and get ya. I'll come and get ya right now if you're ready to come.'" But she wasn't. Her body was found two weeks later wrapped in a sheet and plastic tarp, hidden in a yard by a boyfriend who panicked when he found her dead. The state's autopsy found Bragg had pills and a syringe tucked into her bra, and died with cocaine and methadone in her system. But the manner of her death is officially listed as "undetermined." "If it would bring my granddaughter back, I'd give it all back," Whittaker said of his jackpot. "But I can't get her back, so might as well keep the money, I guess." He remains devoted to his employees, despite 11 indictments charging his staff with embezzling from his companies. "Jack is an incredible man," said Kathy Shepherd, Whittaker's administrative assistant for the past year. "People who don't know him have a lot of negative things to say about him, but if they knew him, they wouldn't." Whittaker has little doubt as to his own legacy. "I'm only going to be remembered as the lunatic who won the lottery," he said. "I'm not proud of that. I wanted to be remembered as someone who helped a lot of people."

^And where have you been?

I wonder how many people were jailed unjustly, tortured, disappeared or were murdered during the civilian administration. Forget about the atrocities that happened in the late 80s during last parts of Barre's reign. If that is the price of all the progress Jalle Siyad made than count me out.

Originally posted by BiLaaL: I'm glad that you commenced your reply by referring to regions rather than clans. Equitable revenue sharing can only be accomplished by shifting emphasis from clan-based distribution to a region-based one. Not only would this eliminate the 'resource clannism' that you speak of but it would also ensure that regions lacking oil fields of their own would also benefit. But for the forseeable future, regions in Somalia will be clan based and I don't think that is a bad thing so long as there is a structure and processes and procedures that the region governs itself with. I think the vast majority of Somalis are ready to share natural resources - the devil will be in the details. Resource nationalism thrives on a nationwide emotion - every Somali citizen needs to feel ownership before it can truly take hold. Bringing clans into the management of oil revenue would frustrate this ownership. It would also present foreign oil firms with the opportunity to do deals with and manipulate the different tribal stakeholders. This is the problem - there is little sense of nationalism in Somalia - there is a much bigger sense of clannism. And to overcome will require decades. As to deals - ultamitaly they should be struck with consensus from the particular region and the central government where the central govt represents the non regional constituents. Rather, an inter-regional Council with the Prime Minister as its head would be best suited to carry out the task of allocating oil revenue between regions. Inevitable differences (e.g. geographic location, population size etc) between regions would be taken into account with regards to allocation size. Put simply, oil revenue sharing (considering Somali has oil) is of national significance and as such would require cooperative action between National and state/regional governments. I doubt that many Somalis would have a problem with such a framework. I think that is a decent plan. I would add 2 caveats. 1- The region that has the oil or the natural resources must be allowed to retain a greater percentage of the moneys than a non-producing region. You shouldn't completely equalize wealth. ie. you must let some regions be richer than others within limits of course - otherwise you're looking at adding to the resentments and divisions we already have and it's not quite fair either. 2- The money given to other regions must be spent well - there should be checks and balances. Else why waste on non producing regions if can waste where produced. No single region/state in Somalia is the exclusive territory of any clan. This reality is acknowledged by most Somalis. As such, we should be weary of adopting the views of an ever shrinking minority. This minority has already been given too much credit. We've reached a stage where no facet of life can be examined without throwing the issue of clans into the mix. You have degaans and resources found there will be looked at in a proprietary way. A consensus process and accountability is needed to ensure that this parochial outlook diminshes over time. As overwhelming as tribalism may seem in our society, what out people lack most is due process. An alternative policy with clear guidelines. Its the absence of these guidelines that forces the majority to be dicated to by the minority. So far, we haven't produced men with the intestinal fortitude to quash the idea of tribalism playing a role in the fiscal policies of our country. You're right about the prescription but I think it will be a long slow road for the demise of clannism in Somalia.

Outskirts Town and the Town Church That time of year for livestock and education in the town

^People live together - this is 'ours' business is childish. People who live in Bosaaso already have control.

LOL She would've done so much better just being honest. ie. 'hey - I'm not sure I can locate my state on the map - it just wasn't something that my high school put any emphasis on. We should do something about that.'

^War daa Naden aka Ball Chopper

^We have that resource MC and I'A it will be developed though hopefully it won't be hordes of semi naked people a la Carribean. Damned Albertans - can't even enjoy a little positive.

^I know but a wholesale takeover of your country by foreigners - how is that appealing? Africans should wake up and realize they can do the same or more that Chinese are doing. Why does one need Chinese peddlers when you can import clothing from China and sell them yourself? It's odd. Personally I think the Chinese will prove even more rapacious than the whites were.

More beach pics for MMA and those who don't have Google Earth. We are in the same class or better than Fiji and we got a much longer coastline. South of Kismayo Bajuni Islands Cadale Bari

^What's wrong with the Africans? It seems like the Asian experience all over again.

Entrepreneurs From China Flourish in Africa By HOWARD W. FRENCH and LYDIA POLGREEN Published: August 18, 2007 LILONGWE, Malawi — When Yang Jie left home at 18, he was doing what people from China’s hardscrabble Fujian Province have done for generations: emigrating in search of a better living overseas. What set him apart was his destination. Instead of the traditional adopted homelands like the United States and Europe, where Fujian people have settled by the hundreds of thousands, he chose this small, landlocked country in southern Africa. “Before I left China,” said Mr. Yang, now 25, “I thought Africa was all one big desert.” So he figured that ice cream would be in high demand, and with money pooled from relatives and friends, he created his own factory at the edge of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. The climate is in fact subtropical, but that has not stopped his ice cream company from becoming the country’s biggest. Stories like this have become legion across Africa in the past five years or so, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese have discovered the continent, setting off to do business in a part of the world that had been terra incognita. The Xinhua News Agency recently estimated that at least 750,000 Chinese were working or living for extended periods on the continent, a reflection of deepening economic ties between China and Africa that reached $55 billion in trade in 2006, compared with less than $10 million a generation earlier. Even when Mr. Yang arrived here in 2001, he said, he could go weeks without encountering another traveler from his homeland. But as surely as his investments in the country have prospered, he said, an increasingly large community of Chinese migrants has taken root, and now runs everything from small factories to health care clinics and trading companies. During the previous wave of Chinese interest in Africa in the 1960s and ’70s, an era of radical socialism and proclaimed third-world solidarity, European and American companies held sway over economies in most of the continent. Here and there, though, the Chinese made their presence felt, often in drably dressed, state-run work brigades that built stadiums, railroads and highways, crushing rocks and doing other labor by hand. Today, in many of the countries where the new Chinese emigrants have settled, like Chad, Chinese-owned pharmacies, massage parlors and restaurants serving a variety of regional Chinese cuisines can be found; the Western presence, once dominant, has steadily dwindled, and essentially consists nowadays of relief experts working international agencies or oil workers, living behind high walls in heavily guarded enclaves. At first, this new Chinese exodus was driven largely by word of mouth, as pioneers like Mr. Yang relayed news back home of abundant opportunities in a part of the world where many economies lie undeveloped or in ruins, and where even in the richer countries many things taken for granted in the developed world await builders and investors. Conditions like these often deter Western investors, but for many budding Chinese entrepreneurs, Africa’s emerging economies are inviting precisely because they seem small and accessible. Competition is often weak or nonexistent, and for African customers, the low price of many Chinese goods and services make them more affordable than their Western counterparts. Chinese Expansion You Xianwen sold his pipe-laying business in Chengdu, in southwest China, this year to move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, to join a startup company with a Chinese partner he had met only online. “Back where I come from we are pretty independent people,” Mr. You, 55, said. “My brothers and sisters all supported my decision to come here. In fact, they say that if things really work out for me, they would like to move to Africa, too.” Mr. You said he had considered other African countries before settling on Ethiopia, including Zambia. “Luckily I didn’t decide to go there,” he said, explaining that he had been frightened by the recent anti-Chinese protests in that country. His new business, ABC Bioenergy, builds devices that generate combustible gas from ordinary refuse, providing what Mr. You said would be an affordable alternative source of energy in a country where electricity supplies are erratic and prices high. Mr. You’s partner here, Mei Haijun, first came to Ethiopia a decade ago to work at a Chinese-built textile factory and has since married an Ethiopian woman, with whom he has a child. “When I first came here you could go two months without seeing another Chinese person,” he said. “But it is a different era now. There’s a flight to China every day.” The pickup in air traffic between China and countries like Ethiopia now has Chinese companies scrambling to add new routes, as the Chinese government and big Chinese companies increase their stake in Africa. Much of that activity reflects an intense appetite for African oil and mineral resources needed to fuel China’s manufacturing sector, but big Chinese companies have quickly become formidable competitors in other sectors as well, particularly for big-ticket public works contracts. China is building major new railroad lines in Nigeria and Angola, large dams in Sudan, airports in several countries and new roads, it seems, almost everywhere. One of the largest road builders, China Road and Bridge Construction, has picked up where the solidarity brigades of an earlier generation left off. The company, which is owned by the Chinese government, has 29 projects in Africa, many financed by the World Bank or other lenders, and it maintains offices in 22 African countries. On a recent Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Beijing brimming with Chinese contractors, workers from Road and Bridge and other companies swapped notes on the grab bag of countries they work in, and debated about the difficulties of learning Portuguese and French in places like Mozambique and Ivory Coast. Africans view the influx of Chinese with a mix of anticipation and dread. Business leaders in Chad, a central African nation with deepening oil ties to China, are bracing for what they suspect will be an army of Chinese workers and investors. “We expect a large influx of at least 40,000 Chinese in the coming years,” said Renaud Dinguemnaial, director of Chad’s Chamber of Commerce. “This massive arrival could be a plus for the economy, but we are also worried. When they arrive, will they bring their own workers, stay in their own houses, send all their money home?” In Zambia, where anti-Chinese sentiment has been building for several years, merchants at the central market in Lusaka, the capital, said that if Chinese people wanted to come to Africa, they should come as investors, building factories, not as petty traders who compete for already scarce customers for bottom-dollar items like flip-flops and T-shirts. “The Chinese claim to come here as investors, but they are trading just like us,” said Dorothy Mainga, who sells knockoff Puma sneakers and Harley Davidson T-shirts in the Kamwala Market in Lusaka. “They are selling the same things we are selling at cheap prices. We pay duty and tax, but they use their connections to avoid paying tax.” Although Chinese oil workers have been kidnapped in Nigeria and in Ethiopia, where nine were killed by an armed separatist movement in May, the growing Chinese presence around the continent has produced few serious incidents. Misunderstandings are common, however, and resentments inevitably arise. Africans in many countries complain that Chinese workers occupy jobs that locals are either qualified for or could be easily trained to do. “We are happy to have the Chinese here,” said Dennis Phiri, 21, a Malawian university student who is studying to become an engineer. “The problem with the Chinese companies is that they reserve all the good jobs for their own people. Africans are only hired in menial roles.” Another frequent criticism is that the Chinese are clannish, sticking among themselves day and night. In Addis Ababa, in what is a typical arrangement for most large companies, the 200 Chinese workers for the Road and Bridge Corporation live in a communal compound, eating food prepared by cooks brought from China and receiving basic health care from a Chinese doctor. “After a day off you wonder what you’re doing here, so we like to keep working,” said Cheng Qian, the country manager for the road-building company in Ethiopia. He added that his family had never visited him during several years of work here. African Ambivalence Sometimes, the Chinese approach has created serious frictions with African workers. At a leading hotel here in Lilongwe, breakfast guests stared as an agitated Chinese traveling salesman, sweating profusely, screamed at his staff minutes before his pitch on nutritional supplements was set to begin. “You say it is not your fault, but the way you are doing things is just ******, ******,” the man sputtered before a clutch of African assistants, who looked humiliated. “You people are unbelievable.” When the salesman finally left the room, members of the restaurant staff gathered near the door and vented their disgust. “We don’t need people like that to come here and colonize us again,” one said. After nearly seven years in Malawi, Yang Jie, the ice cream maker, seems to have learned better. Greeting his workers at the ice cream factory, he begins the day by asking, “How did you sleep last night?” One quickly replied, “Very well,” sounding a bit formal. “Don’t tell me a lie,” Mr. Yang answered with a sly, friendly smile. “It’s O.K. to tell me your worries.” ----------------------- Source Other articles in the series

^I'm not sure we will be able to acheive oil 'nationalism' if we have no process for for the sharing of revenues within regions, between regions and with the central government. What you will get is oil clannism or resource clannism unless fair agreements can be worked out that have responsibilities attached to them.

They're everywhere. Camels & Somalia - a never ending relationship.

^WHOA guys - War is celiya. MMA is gonna crack open a can of whupass if you don't kiss and make up. And retract a few choice(or rather un-choice) words. After all, "Chimpanzees kiss and embrace after fights, and other nonhuman primates engage in similar "reconciliations." Courtesy of ME.

^No itch. Was giving Oodweyne sincere advice albeit with a little dig. This wouldn't be SOL without that

^Who are you talking to Argentinean?

^I usually find needlessly lengthy verbosity tends to obscure any points one was making if one was making valid points to begin with.

^LOL. The trick is not to take you all that seriously. If I may be so bold as to say - your interests are better served using less gratuitously verbose and pompous language.