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Dr. Susan Young got to know about Hargeisa and Somaliland through friends in Bristol and she became interested in trying to help improve the situation of the Somaliland people.   Dr.  Susie Young Thursday, February 19, 2015 The rows of listening students, the laptop and power point slides, may have been the familiar pattern of my last 20 years of life as a university lecturer.  But partway through explaining some finer points of theory I was surprised by the amplified sound of a child’s voice coming from a nearby house reciting verses from the Koran.  I’d grown used to the cockerel who crowed regularly outside the window, but this new voice was a sure reminder that Hargeisa University in Somaliland is a far cry from my Universities in England.  Here I was, then, in the warmth of January sunshine and Hargeisa hospitality, offering my services to the University School of Social Work as a volunteer lecturer. The university, by comparis...

“Whoever says that all music is prohibited let him also claim that the songs of birds are prohibited.” - Imam Abu Hamid Al Ghazali. by Bashir Goth Tuesday, February 17, 2015 While Daesh was burning the Jordanian pilot alive, Boko Haram creating killing fields in the villages and towns of Nigeria and neighboring countries, and Al Shabab was executing Somali women by firing squads for committing no other crime than being the weakest and most defenseless members of society, a group of Somali Mullahs itched to do something equally dramatic but fortunately less earthshaking due to circumstances could find no better cause than waging a jihad against Somali music in North America and Europe. It seems these Mullahs, most of whom live in the West and enjoy the freedoms guaranteed to them by the secular laws of their adopted countries could not see the barbaric and heinous crimes committed in the name of Islam by the terrorist groups as repulsive actions that deserve their wrat...

By Chris Hedges  February 09, 2015 " ICH " - " Truthdig "- We fire missiles from the sky that incinerate families huddled in their houses. They incinerate a pilot cowering in a cage. We torture hostages in our black sites and choke them to death by stuffing  rags down their throats . They torture hostages in squalid hovels and behead them. We organize Shiite death squads to kill Sunnis. They organize Sunni death squads to kill Shiites. We produce high-budget films such as “American Sniper” to glorify our war crimes. They produce inspirational videos to glorify their twisted version of jihad. The barbarism we condemn is the barbarism we commit. The line that separates us from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is technological, not moral. We are those we fight. “From violence, only violence is born,”  Primo Levi  wrote, “following a pendular action that, as time goes by, rather than dying down, becomes more frenzied.”  The burning of ...

by Dr. Abdirahman Dualeh Beileh Thursday, February 5, 2015 As a proud Somali, it has been quite an honour to have been provided with the opportunity to represent my nation on the international stage for the last 12 months. Indeed, serving ones nation at such a high level, is an honour and a privilege bestowed only on a few people and, hence, the burden of responsibility is even greater than one can ever imagine. Somalia is a proud nation of homogeneous and talented people, in a wonderfully diverse part of Africa. However, Somalia has experienced one of the worst and prolonged civil wars in modern history. The disastrous civil war destroyed all our key institutions, terribly disrupted lives and scattered our population across the world as refugees and vagabonds. Somalia, for a long time, has been labelled, not a less developed country, not as a fragile country but indeed, as a failed state synonymous with violence and self-destruction.  I am sure most of you he...

By Fred Reed February 08, 2015 " ICH " - This column contains everything there is to know about economics. Hereafter it will be possible to shut down university deprtments and stop talking about Keynes and the Asutrian School, to the great relief of mankind. In gratitude you can send me your childrens'college funds. In 1850 people all lived on farms and grew food, which they ate. Eating was really important to them. They liked eating. There was in 1850 tremendous demand for refrigerators and cars, but people didn’t know they wanted these things because they hadn’t been invented. Anyway, they didn’t have any money to buy them with. Yet the demand was there, crouched to spring. Much demand for almost everything, but little supply. Then farming automated and people all went to cities to work in factories to make refrigerators and cars, which had been invented. These weren’t as important as food, but they were pretty important. People had a little money now, an...