Everybody Needs a Dry Cleaner
Mohamed Mahamoud Sheik thought that and has now opened a shop in Mogadishu in Somalia, as reported on the BBC. He is quoted as saying.
When they read ‘Somali Premium Laundry’, they say, ‘wow, is this a real laundry?”
If there was an international business award for the most outrageous start-up he should win it.
Good luck to him!
Paul and Rachel Chandler to Complete Journey
They were on the BBC saying that they will now complete their round the world trip.
They must be mad, after what happened before in Somalia. The Mirror agrees.
Beware of Bulls
I’ve not heard of this quote before.
Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person, is a little like expecting a bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.
It is from the American writer, Dennis Wholey, and is used in a leader in today’s Times, about Khalil Rasjed Dale. The leader says that the Red Cross were right to not pay a ransome.
The paper has two other stories of ransoms in Islamic-controlled territory.
One concerns a holidaymaker, Steven McGowan, held with others in Mali and reported being ransomed in exchange for allowing Abu Qatata to go anywhere he wants.
The other concerns a British mine clearing expert, Chris Fielding, on a UN mission, held with others in Khartoum.
Islam is losing all respect among many people for not imposing Islamic values on thugs, who see Westerners as easy money.
There is also another story about Lloyds of London backing a private force that will act against Somali pirates.
And politicians in the UK and Europe, wonder why people vote for the far-right like the BNP in the UK and the Front Nationale in France.
Mo Farah
Mo Farah is another who delights me and brings a smile to my face.
Over the years, I’ve done business on telephone billing systems with quite a few immigrants of Somali origin. I’ve never had a problem and those that I dealt with were a pleasure with whom to do business. They all seemed to work hard to do the best for themselves and their families. We even put in a joint bid for the billing system for a Somali telephone service, based on redundant analogue mobile phone kit.
Mo was born in Somalia and by hard work, has become our best male middle-distance runner for several decades. Let’s hope he gets a medal in London 2012! I sometimes think, I could have been a good club runner, but I didn’t have the dedication and I was an undiagnosed coeliac.
So why is it, that the Somalis I’ve met and people like Mo are a credit to their homeland, but the country continues to be a total basket-case, with lots of death and piracy?
Paul and Rachel Chandler
Paul and Rachel Chandler are the couple who were seized from their yacht by Somali pirates. This is the last piece of news about them in The Times on the 13th of December.
These two paragraphs admit the truth about the Navy’s non-involvement.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) yesterday admitted that Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, had authorised a Royal Marine unit that witnessed the kidnapping to intervene. But it said it was the ship’s commander who decided it was unsafe to attempt a rescue.
The RFA Wave Knight was within 50 yards of the pirates and had a marine unit and a Merlin helicopter aboard. But Sir Mark Stanhope, the first sea lord, claimed the ship did not have the expertise required for a hostage rescue.
After that nothing has been reported!
Whether or not the commander should have intervened is open to question, as every squaddie I’ve ever met, would have been up to do it.
But perhaps the question that should be asked is why were the Marines on that ship without the equipment and training to intervene in a safe and successful manner?
On a wider point, Somalia is an absolute basket case and is yet another legacy of the incompetent Dubya. Read what was said in The Times yesterday.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Afghanistan and Iraq have monopolised the headlines but Somalia is arguably an even greater victim of George W. Bush’s ill-conceived and lamentably executed War on Terror. America’s interventions have proved so catastrophic that its best hope of salvaging something from the wreckage is a president it chased from power three years ago, who controls a few square miles of a country three times the size of Britain.
It has delivered a people that practised a moderate form of Islam into the hands of religious extremists. Its efforts to combat terrorism have turned Somalia into a launchpad for global jihad. Somalia is now the ultimate failed state whose mayhem threatens to destabilise the region and whose pirates maraud the vital shipping lanes off its shores. Its people endure Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis.
What I find so sad about Somalia, is that in the past I’ve done business with quite a few Somalis over telephone billing systems. I’ve always found them a quiet and mild people, who were a pleasure to work with.
What went wrong?
Let’s hope that the Chandlers get a quick solution to their ordeal.
But I suspect that will not happen as the impass between the British Government and their kidnappers is just too great.
Should we pay a ransom? I’m afraid that I agree with the Government here, in that if we do, then any UK national will then be at risk. And not just in the troubled parts of the world, as there an awful lot of criminals all over the world, who would see kidnapping as a nice little earner.
The Anonymous Widower 