Mo Farah pleads with Barclays not to end remittances to Somalia

Mo Farah, who returns to the Olympic stadium on Saturday, urged a year’s stay of execution for remittances. Photograph: Harry Engels/Getty Images

Double Olympic gold medallist Mo Farah has thrown his fame and weight behind a campaign to stop Barclays Bank withdrawing from Britain's £2bn remittance market, a decision campaigners say will have catastrophic repercussions for some of the world's poorest countries, including his native Somalia.
The runner has sent a direct appeal to the Barclays board pleading with them to step back from its plan to withdraw banking facilities after 12 August from about 250 remittances services sending money transfers to countries in Africa and Asia. Barclays is the last of the major banks dealing with a significant number of the smaller remittance firms but fears its continued involvement could it leave it open to accusations of aiding terrorists and money laundering. Last year, the US authorities imposed a $1.9bn fine on HSBC for poor money laundering controls, prompting that bank to run down its activities in the money-service sector.

Story of a sand dollar, a boy and a grandfather

Here is a very interesting story would like to share with you:

Story goes as a young boy and his grandfather walking down the beach. A big storm had come in the day before and there were hundreds and hundreds of sand-dollars washed up and starting to die in the sun.
As they walked, the grandfather would stop from time to time, reach down, pick up a sand dollar and throw it into the ocean. Finally, the little boy asked, "Grandfather, why are you throwing them back in?" and his grandfather replied, "So that they will live."

How is 786 equal to Bismillah Rahmani Rahim? Find out

Many of us have used 786 to denote the basmallah but do we know how they number is related to it? I remember in my primary school days we always used to write 786 on top of the exam answer sheets to seek blessings and start the exam with Bismillah which is what we are supposed to do when doing something good. I have been intrigued by how the 786 came to equal bismillah. I just found out and thought may be someone else did not know like me. Here is how.
the Arabic letters were divided following a certain numerical values given to each of the consonants. i am sure you must have come across the following words which have no meaning themselves before you started the Quran proper.

:
	أبجد/ هوز/ حطي/ كلمن /سعفص/ قرشت/ ثخذ/ ضظغ

YOUR RAMADHAN SCORECARD

وقال عمر بن الخطاب رضي الله عنه: (حاسبوا أنفسكم قبل أن تحاسبوا، وزنوها قبل أن توزنوا، فإن أهون عليكم في الحساب غداً أن 
 تحاسبوا أنفسكم اليوم، وتزينوا للعرض الأكبر، يومئذ تعرضون لا تخفى منكم خافية
Have you ever sat down and accounted for your deeds; bad or good? May be not but that is what we are exactly supposed to do. Accounting for our deeds will enable us take stock of how well or bad we are doing, it will enable us correct our way and put an end to our bad deeds.It will also enable us to put more emphasis on our good deeds. 
Ramadan started a few days ago and we are now almost midway. I would like you to sit down today and look at your scorecard. Are you achieving what you set out to achieve at the beginning of Ramadan? how far off have you drifted or how far well are you doing?
There is no measure of how much Ibadah we should be doing in this month but I want us to take some minimum measure to evaluate ourselves. The measure is as follows;

Mr President, your guests already had too much on their plates

Dear President,

Last night you hosted a section of muslim leaders for Iftar at state house. This was in the fooststeps of your predecessors' tradition. You espoused to have organised the event in the spirit of Ramdhan and in solidarity with the Muslims. Granted, that was a kind gesture from you . However, I have a number of issues to pick with the whole event.
For your information, Ramdhan is the month of the poor. The faces I saw sitted on the table were the who is who and the cronies of your regime and past regimes. They were people who have taken too much from the poor Muslims. The event would have achieved its desired goal had you invited and hosted a cross sectional of the common poor muslims and the youth. I know those are people you dont want them littering the well maintained lawns of the state house but If that cannot be fathomed, you could as well host them in one of the hotels and the hotel owner would clean after their mess. Had you done that, I would have saluted you more but now you just called your friends for a get together. That is still plausible because you value friends.
Second, The Muslim community has so many problems to be solved by a plate of dinner at state house. The guys you called would not tell you the truth except sing your praises of "mtukufu raise tunakushukuru " Insecurity, lack of basic infrastructure, basic rights violations, poor quality of education, historical injustices, discrimination, blatant abuse and brutality by the enemy as well as the security forces has made many of the people resign to their fate. They question whether they belong here.

you have a blessed guest!

What do you do when you have a very important guest coming your way. I am certain you prepare well to feed and to show your best side to the guest. Some households actually have two sets of household items, the best being reserved for visiting guests.
Believe it or not a very important guest is visiting you from Wednesday;
A guest who comes only for a month in a year.
A guest whose first 3rd is Mercy, second 3rd is forgiveness and the last 3rd is saving from the hellfire.
A guest who will enable you retrain your restless soul,
A guest that will shield you from all bad deeds,

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys flown to Mogadishu 'after split'

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys was seen boarding a plane in Adado with Somali government soldiers

A top Islamist in Somalia, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, has arrived in the capital Mogadishu amid reports of a split in the al-Shabab group.

He was flown from the northern town of Adado, escorted by government security forces, but it is unclear whether he has surrendered or defected.

The United Nations says he gave himself up to government allies after infighting but clan elders deny this.

Mr Aweys is considered a terrorist by the UN and the United States.