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US might be first to Recognize Somaliland 01 oct 2012 Monday Read More (gabileyonline) A surprise candidate, Sheikh Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, has won Somalia’s first freely contested presidential election. The bigger surprise will be if his government proves any less corrupt or incompetent than the one it is replacing. Somalia is the world’s premier basket case, with a stranglehold atop Foreign Policy magazine’s annual Failed States Index. It’s home base for the pirates of the Indian Ocean, an intermittent haven and recruiting ground for al-Qaeda, and the cradle of al-Shabaab, a jihadist sect that kills aid workers, conscripts children and until recently controlled the capital, Mogadishu, and most of the south of the country. Somalia is also a place with great promise. It stands at a crucial trade crossroads, the portal between Arabia and East Africa (there’s a reason for those pirates). Despite the lack of a functional government for two decades, it has a bare-bones agricultural eco