RE: Counter illuminut with something positive Thanks Farole.
More relevant parts of your article you provided.
Celebrations of a “new Somalia” are a political fraud.
The conference was aimed at shoring up the legitimacy and providing a veneer of respectability to the new government selected—not elected—last September.
The neo-colonial regime has little credibility and almost no authority outside the capital Mogadishu, and even that is limited. The conference was attended by delegations from 50 countries and organisations, including the United States, European Union (EU), Turkey, the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and the African Union. Noticeably absent were delegates from Somaliland, which seceded from Somalia in 1991, and Puntland, which declared itself an autonomous state in 1998. Situated in the northeastern part of the country, both are backed by the Western powers and are in dispute with Somalia over territory and oil exploration rights which the two breakaway states recently sold to international oil corporations.
Last autumn, Kenya’s military forces recaptured the southern port city of Kismayo, supposedly the last stronghold of Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group that formally merged with Al-Qaeda and has received funding from Saudi Arabia.
The reality is that the militants simply withdrew to launch a guerrilla war and attacks on the city. Only two days after Mohamud became president, he faced an assassination attempt by an Al-Shabaab suicide bomber.
Mogadishu is never free from violent attacks. Last month two blasts, including one outside the Supreme Court, left more than 30 people dead. Last week a powerful blast in the commercial and administrative centre of the city killed 11 people.