"A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of
the world . It was a perfect act". Mahatma Gandhi
Investing in Ethiopia: Frontier mentality Source: The Economist
A new fund attests to the country’s allure—and to the value of connections
LONG benighted, Ethiopia is attracting attention for a better reason. It has become Africa’s fastest-growing non-energy economy (see chart). Investors have noticed. South Africa’s largest consumer-foods firm, Tiger Brands, expanded into Ethiopia last year with a big acquisition. Diageo and Heineken recently paid nearly $400m combined to acquire state breweries in the country.
Ethiopia's Meles Blames African Corruption on Foreign Investor
Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa
VOA News
What is the poison that corrupts many African leaders, no matter how honorable their intentions when they take office? That was the question put to a panel of that included heads of state and government at the World Economic Forum on Africa on Thursday. The question received a surprisingly candid answer.
It was promoted as a conversation on Africa's leadership. Among those on stage were the leaders of Africa's two most populous nations - Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan and Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi.
Geldof urges more tolerance for Ethiopia civil society
(AFP) –
ADDIS ABABA — Aid activist and Irish pop star Bob Geldof on Friday urged Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to be more inclusive and tolerant of civil society groups.
"If they keep saying 'you can't write anything critical,' they're in trouble," Geldof told AFP. "Have them participate, allow the pressure valve to come off," he added.
He said Ethiopia must follow the example of Western nations, which developed only with greater freedom of expression. Unless Ethiopia becomes more tolerant, he cautioned, it could reverse recent economic and social progress.
On the knife's edge in Ethiopia
A vortex of climate change and rising population threatens Ethiopia’s gains in feeding itself Source: Ottawa Citizen
SHASHEMENE, Ethiopia — Abdala Wahilo finds relief from the midday sun under the corrugated metal roof of a warehouse in Shashemene, a town not far from the farm where he tries to support a family of 12 on a single hectare of land. Here, at this emergency food aid distribution centre, he also finds some relief from the hunger that his family has faced in the last few years as repeated droughts have ravaged this region in southern Ethiopia.
Ethiopia Makes 4 Million Hectares of Land Available to Investors
Ethiopia has made more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres) of “fertile and unutilized” land available for agriculture companies that meet government requirements, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said.
About 300,000 hectares has been leased for commercial farming so far, he said at an Ethiopian investment forum today in the capital, Addis Ababa.“There has been a significant flow into large-scale state- type commercial farming in our country and we seek even more in the future,”
It
is probably way past due to examine and investigate the motives of PM
Meles and Co. In every action he took and continues to baffle many
Ethiopians. By now it has become clear to, whether to continue with
wonderment; the stakes are too high for us to stand aloof.We have to stop and see what went on and what is awaiting the
Ethiopian people. We have been apparently sleeping and bickering for
irrelevant issues in the face of this rising threat. We are nearing the
end point of his destructive tasks that being the end of Ethiopia in as
far as his missions make it clear.
Rastafarians face hardship in Ethiopian 'promised land'
By Jenny Vaughan (AFP)
SHASHEMENE, Ethiopia — A ceremonial fire burns as dreadlocked Rastafarians sway to drum beats, chanting "Haile I! Selassie I!" in praise of the former Ethiopian emperor whom they uphold as God incarnate.
Marijuana smoke rises from the crowd, decked out in their trademark red, gold and green -- also the colours as the Ethiopian flag -- as they celebrate the 46th anniversary this month of Haile Selassie's visit to Jamaica
Six African countries to ratify new 'Nile Treaty'
By XINHUA Saturday, April 28 2012
Share EAC to call up new Egypt regime over Nile water
Six African countries including Rwanda have agreed on the ratification of a new treaty on the use of the waters of the Nile river, an official source revealed here on Friday. According to Kenyan minister of Water and Irrigation Charity Ngilu, the commission whose mission is to supervise the equitable sharing of the waters of the Nile has been operational since 1999 following an accord signed in Nairobi, Kenya, by the 10 riparian states of the Nile Basin.
Eritrean
President Isaias Afewerki IS not DEAD Interview 4 - 28 - 2012
Eritrea’s
dictator Isaias Afwerki reappears on state TV on April 28, 2012 to respond
to rumors that he is critically sick or on verge of dying. On his 30
minute interview, he said, he did not pay much attention to the rumors
about his health in the internet. When the interviewer asked him why
he cannot explain about his health, and make appearance to quash the
rumors Isaias explained it is no need to appear on TV whenever the wind of
lies and misinformation fabricated. He is appearing on TV, because the
rumors about his health were continual and that he felt he has an
obligation, “respect for Eritrean people.”
China 'picking up the pieces' in Africa - Ethiopian PM Meles Zenawi
Source: China Daily
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi insists China is now coming to the rescue of Africa after a failed Western ideology of the past three decades has let the continent down.
He said the so-called Washington Consensus that aimed to liberalize the economies of developing countries had demonstrably failed and the Chinese were now picking up the pieces.
"The official doctrine among the international financial institutions which in the past determined policy in Africa was that infrastructure would be taken care of by the private sector. Well, we have waited 30 years and nothing much has happened," he said.
Detentions display UN's impotence in Ethiopia
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Ethiopia's government, a favored and oft-praised Western partner, has held one United Nations employee in jail without charges for well over a year, while another is facing prosecution under a notorious anti-terrorism law.
The detentions are a stark indicator of the UN's predicament in the illiberal Horn of Africa nation.
The 27 UN agencies in Ethiopia largely work harmoniously with the government in areas such as funding HIV/AIDS programs, helping care for a quarter of a million refugees, or supporting female education campaigns. UN cash, for example, has helped provide antiretroviral therapy to 249,000 HIV-sufferers from 743 facilities – there were only 3 clinics offering the treatment in 2005.
Ethiopia’s giant dam muddies the waters downstream in Egypt: Fig-leaf for Cairo’s souring or ‘Mubarak-ites’ poking old wound? BY BRADLEY HOPE
ASWAN, EGYPT // About 1,287 kilometers south of this Egyptian city where the Nile river pours into Egypt, construction has begun on a massive dam being built in Ethiopia that could
destabilize Egypt in a way that would make the last year of political upheaval look minuscule, analysts say.
If constructed at specifications revealed last year, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam would result in cuts in electricity, a reduction in agricultural lands and water shortages across major cities in Egypt, new studies say.
If
Martin Luther King Jr. is right that the arc of history is long, but it
bends towards justice. Our generation should not disdain like its
predecessors pushed to the side the courage bravery, sacrifices that was
made to preserve Ethiopian independence by the
King
of Kings, Yohannes IV, Emperor of Ethiopia. Our denial is not merely an
inconvenient fact but it is a major stumbling block to our consciousness
and understanding historical truth. This article isn’t about digging up malice and resentment among the past leaders of
Ethiopia. It’s about examining the deliberate attempt to denial parochial critiques
and reexamines the evidences, by anchoring historical truth on the right track.
Chinese companies bring jobs to Africa
(Xinhua, Washington). A major Chinese shoe manufacturer, Hua Jian, started a factory in Ethiopia just a few months ago, with a plan to invest $2 billion and create 100,000 local jobs over the next decade."We want Ethiopian employees who came from poor backgrounds to use the company as a platform to fulfill their dreams and to help them out of poverty," said Helen Hai, vice-president of Hua Jian Industrial Holdings, during a panel discussion in Washington on Saturday at the Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
Ethiopia: Bedrock of Art and Faith
ON the roads through Ethiopia’s highlands traffic raises a brick-red haze that coats your clothes, powders your skin and starts a creaking in your lungs. Despite the dust people wear white. Farmers wrap themselves in bleached cotton. Village funerals look like fields of snow. At churches and shrines white is the pilgrim’s color.
Ethiopian demonstrators claim double standard on right to protest outside Netanyahu's home
The authorities say Ethiopian Israelis' protest camp near the Prime Minister's Residence is disturbing the neighbors. Funny, they never said that about other demonstrations.
For nearly two years now the sidewalk outside attorney David Hagoel's home in Jerusalem has been blocked. As someone who lives on the corner of Ramban Street opposite the Prime Minister's Residence, Hagoel is used to protesters pitching their tents nearby. It doesn't bother him anymore
Ethiopia: Meles Zenawi accuses Eritrea of kidnappings
By Aaron Maasho
ADDIS ABABA, April 17 (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi accused Eritrea on Tuesday of abducting dozens of Ethiopian miners from the country's northwest, in a potential escalation of tension between the arch-enemies.
Ethiopian troops crossed into the Red Sea state last month and attacked what they said were military bases used by rebels to stage raids, including a January attack that killed five Western tourists in Ethiopia's remote Afar region.
Africa’s Free Press Problem
AS Africa’s economies grow, an insidious attack on press freedom is under way. Independent African journalists covering the continent’s development are now frequently persecuted for critical reporting on the misuse of public finances, corruption and the activities of foreign investors.
Why this disturbing trend? In the West, cynicism about African democracy has led governments to narrow their development priorities to poverty reduction and stability; individual liberties like press freedom have dropped off the agenda, making it easier for authoritarian rulers to go after journalists more aggressively.
Ex Ethiopian leader's future uncertain in Zimbabwe .
By Janet Shoko The Africa Report
Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who oversaw the murder of several thousands of his countrymen during the "Red Terror" campaign could be living on the edge in Zimbabwe as his future after the demise of his friend President Mugabe is uncertain.
civic society has a firm view on Mengistu, they want him out of Zimbabwe dead or alive. "The nature of his departure, whether dead or alive is not critical. He should just leave Zimbabwe" Albertina Moyo said.
He added that apart from liberation history, little is known of the two countries in terms of bilateral trade
It isn’t only diehard supporters of President Isaias who are complicit in his collapse into the depths of totalitarian debauchery. Some in the opposition seem to believe, perhaps sincerely, that there is still be some saving grace to be found. They laboriously try to find a few redeeming qualities even in an accomplished despot who kills his people without qualms.
When suicide is the only escape
A revolution is needed to push the Lebanese government's hand to make the requisite reforms to its labour laws By Khaled A Beydoun
Washington, DC - For Alem Dechesa, death was the only way out. For thousands of
voiceless Ethiopian domestic workers working in Lebanon, suicide is the only avenue for escaping a nihilistic existence.
I witnessed the range of human rights abuses endured by Ethiopian maids - from both the perspective of a Lebanese insider and a human rights attorney - and found that Dechesa's death was anything but a horrific aberration, but a common consequence of the modern-day slavery industry in Lebanon.
Chicago
Tribune
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Tragic tales of domestic worker abuse in Lebanon are common, but a film showing an Ethiopian maid dragged along a street in Beirut just days before she was found hanged from her bed sheets has rattled Lebanon's conscience.
The domestic worker industry in Lebanon is vast - foreign maids account for more than five percent of the population - and the sector is plagued by archaic labor laws, inhumane practices and dire wages.
Ethiopia resettlement plan falls short on development
By Jenny Vaughan (AFP) –
GAMBELLA, Ethiopia — When the Ethiopian government asked Thwol Othoy if he wanted to be resettled, he agreed, attracted by promises of a better life - a clinic, school for his children and land to farm.
But he now struggles to feed his family. After moving from western Ethiopia to the tiny town of Abobo in the Gambella region, he was allocated less than half his previous two acres on which he used to grow maize.
"The food is not enough," said Thwol, 35, sitting by his thatched hut, barefoot and in tattered shorts with an open shirt exposing his bony chest.
Ethiopia: Promoting Economic Growth
Source: World
bank
Overview
The International Development Association (IDA) is Ethiopia’s largest provider of official development assistance: it has committed over US$7 billion to more than 60 projects in Ethiopia since 1991, most notably for the protection of basic services, productive safety nets, energy and roads projects. IDA has worked to promote economic growth and address systemic poverty challenges across many sectors. Important results include a near two-fold increase in the number of children in primary school between 2001 and 2010, a reduction in child mortality from 204 in 1990 to 109 in 2010, increased rural access to safe water to 65.8 percent in 2010, from only 19 percent in 1990, all the while building local government capacity for service delivery and increased accountability
Ethiopia: UN urges Lebanon to investigate the death of Ethiopian woman
Source: Al Jazeera Alem Dechasa, an Ethiopian national working as a housemaid in Lebanon, committed suicide after being beaten in Beirut.
UN human rights experts urged the Lebanese government to investigate the death of an Ethiopian housemaid who commited suicide a few days after she was beaten by a man in Beirut.
Alem Dechasa, 34, hung herself with a bed sheet on March 14 at a psychiatric hospital east of Beirut, where she had been taken by police after the February beating that was aired on Lebanese television.
"Like many people around the world I watched the video of the physical abuse of Alem Dechasa," said Gulnara Shahinian, the UN expert on contemporary forms of slavery, in a statement on Tuesday.
investors
Shoemaker Huajian is one of the latest Chinese companies to invest in Ethiopia, which the World Bank believes has the potential to produce clothes and footwear for the world.
Huajian is one of the latest Chinese companies to move into Ethiopia. While the government has long leaned on Western support to feed the needy and provide social services, it is increasingly attracting Asian finance and investment for industry and infrastructure.
"China's presence in Ethiopia is filling a huge gap," says Deborah Brautigam, an expert on the Asian giant's presence on the continent at American University. "The West sees Ethiopia as a country that needs to be saved. The Chinese see multiple business opportunities and a way to 'do well by doing good.'
Fekadu
Bekele
Grab the Land
By
Huffington
Post It's a global trend, and not a good one.
It's called land grabbing, and it's happening on a massive scale -- especially in Africa. For millions of indigenous villagers and pastoralists it means forced relocation, loss of livelihoods, and a death blow to their ancient cultures. Ethiopia is a sad example of the worst of these outcomes.
"Right now, the Ethiopian government is forcing 200,000 indigenous Anuak people off their ancestral farmlands, grazing lands, and forests in the Gambella region," says Paula Palmer, director of the Ethiopia Campaign at Cultural Survival, a non-profit that defends the rights of indigenous people worldwide.
Road to Ethiopia
Arab News.com
By ROBERTA FEDELE & JET VAN EEGHEN | ARAB NEWS
Apr 1, 2012
We wanted to find out more about Islam’s underestimated but distinctive contribution to the formation of Ethiopia’s identity. We were willing to follow an exciting and less traditional journey of discovery through the history of Islamic civilization. Therefore, we decided to start our vacation with a one-day trip to Negash, a village in the northern Tigray region, which is the earliest Muslim settlement in Africa.
As separatists in Ethiopia disarm, a new chapter for D.C.’s Oromo community
Washington
Post
History has not been kind to the Oromo people, whose complaints of subjugation date back to the last quarter of the 19th century, when they were colonized by the armies of Ethiopian emperor Menelik II, said John Harbeson, an African studies lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
Araya Wolde-Giorgis, Ph.D.,
Chairman,
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE U.N. SECRETARY- GENERAL REGARDING THE BEATING AND DEATH OF AN ETHIOPIAN WOMAN, TORTURE, KILLINGS AND PRACTICES OF FORCED LABOR IN LEBANON.
Ethiopia sells off seven state firms, to offer more By Aaron Maasho
ADDIS ABABA, March 29 (Reuters) - Ethiopia has accepted bids worth 2.1 billion birr ($121 million) for seven state-owned firms, part of a plan to privatise dozens of corporations in the next three years, it said on Thursday.
The Horn of Africa nation, whose state-dominated economy ranks among the fastest growing in the world, aims to sell around 40 enterprises, including several large farms, a winery and a big hotel.
Ethiopian Terrorism Trial Hears Journalist Defendant
Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa
VOA News
A dissident Ethiopian journalist on trial for terrorism has categorically denied the charges and warned the court that history would judge its verdict.
A three-judge panel listened Wednesday as journalist Eskinder Nega described himself as a prisoner of conscience and rejected accusations that he had conspired to overthrow the government through violence.
our ability to walk.
It comes from the fossilised bones of a foot that were discovered in Ethiopia and dated to be 3.4 million years old.
The researchers say they do not have enough remains to identify the species of hominin, or human ancestor, from which the right foot came.
But they tell Nature journal that just the shape of the bones shows the creature could walk upright at times.
The fossil haul consists of eight elements from the forefoot - bones such as metatarsals and phalanges.
The specimens were pulled from clay sediments at Burtele in the central Afar region, about 520km north-east of the capital Addis Ababa.
War Over a One-Horse Town By FRANK JACOBS March 27, 2012,
New York Times
In a region steeped in history, Eritrea’s “newness” is used as an
inculpatory
argument
— proof of its artificiality. Eritrea was a European imperialist
creation, the Ethiopian line of reasoning goes, snatched from a united
Ethiopian Empire by Italy’s imposition of the Treaty of Wuchale in 1889.
The deceptive Article 17 of that treaty [4] led to the First Italo-Ethiopian
War, from 1895 to 1896 — and a win for Ethiopia, the only victory of a
native African state over a modern European one in modern history.
Eritrea
- President Isaias Afwerki interview 25-03-2012
Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki accused the United States of plotting cross-border raids by Ethiopian troops, saying the two allies were out to divert attention from a festering border spat in the volatile Horn of Africa.
I
for one do not agree with their innuendos and their incessant harangues,
knowing their background and share in the formation of the TPLF. The TPLF
whether we like it or not was a grassroots’ movement of the Tigrian
masses, which paid an enormous sacrifice for the emancipation of the
Ethiopian masses from the atrocities and massacres of the fascist derg. It
would not be possible to recount the mass killings, terror and the
oppressive measures of the derg in this short notice to rebut their flimsy
and inconceivable attacks in two consecutive articles (February 2012 and
March 2012), entitled “Ethiopia:
37 years of the TPLF and the footprints of Meles
Zenawi,” that appeared in
Ethiopian Observer.
Ethiopia to Accelerate Land Commercialization Amid Opposition
By William Davison on March 23, 2012
Ethiopia’s government said it plans to clear land and provide
infrastructure for investors to accelerate a commercial farming drive in
the west of the country, amid opposition to the plans that left 19 people
dead. More than 100,000 hectares (247,105 acres) of land in the
Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz states on the border with Sudan will be
targeted in a process managed by the Agriculture Ministry’s Agricultural
Investment Support Directorate, its director, Esayas Kebede, said in an
interview on March 21. “The government is taking that responsibility to
clear the land and to develop the land and then after to transfer the land
with a value addition,” he said in the capital, Addis Ababa. The
government will provide infrastructure including irrigation, electricity,
telephones and drinking water, he said.
Why Ethiopian Inflation Could Hurt the Rest of the World
Brian Weidy
Ethiopia’s month over month inflation rose from 32% in January to 36.3%
in February, according to their latest economic report. As the global
economy sits in a state of disarray, with the potential collapse of the
Greek economy and the domino effect it could cause throughout the world,
the latest news out of Ethiopia spells trouble for the developing world.
Are Ethiopia and Eritrea heading back to war?
By Martin Plaut Africa editor, BBC World Service
Could Ethiopia's attack on alleged rebel bases over the border inside Eritrea herald the start of a new war in the Horn of Africa?
Ethiopia says it carried out a raid on three camps belonging to a rebel group last Thursday.
By Kahsay Berhe and Tesfay Atsbeha
Part two March 2012
Proxy War Stokes Tension Between Ethiopia, Eritrea
Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa
VOA News
Ethiopia's military strike against targets in Eritrea last week has opened a new phase on the proxy war the Horn of Africa neighbors have been waging for more than a decade. Attention is focused on a little-known rebel group that is alleged to have been involved in cross-border attacks.
Tension along the Eritrea-Ethiopia border rose late last week when Ethiopian forces struck what they said were military camps inside Eritrea.
Eritrea is an easy target for Ethiopia
The isolated, friendless regime of Isaias Afwerki will find few
international protectors against Ethiopia's military incursions Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 March 2012
Ethiopia's military incursion into neighboring Eritrea, reinforced by
weekend follow-up attacks, has received remarkably little international
attention – and no outright condemnation, in the west at least. Britain
said it was "deeply concerned" but declined to censure Addis
Ababa. The US piously urged "restraint". Eritrea's demand that
the UN security council punish Ethiopia has been met by deafening silence.
Many people have raised several issues as to why Geez should not become an official language. Regardless of the adequacy, I have tried, in response, to reason out as to why it should. This one too is a follow up to the ongoing debate whether or not Geez deserves consideration. The objection suggests that bigger political and economic issues have to be solved before even people think about Geez if Ethiopia is to eradicate inter-ethnic contradiction. The following is the spirit of their argument summarized:
Ethiopian domestic worker beaten on camera commits suicide
March 14, 2012 By Annie Slemrod The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The Ethiopian domestic worker whose beating outside her country's
consulate was widely publicized on video committed suicide Wednesday
morning, Ethiopia’s consul general in Lebanon confirmed to The Daily
Star.
Alem Dechasa, 33, hanged herself using her bed sheets between 5 a.m. and 6
a.m., Ethiopian General Consul Asaminew Debelie Bonssa said doctors told
him. He spoke to The Daily Star while returning from the hospital
Psychiatrique de la Croix Hospital, known as Deir al-Salib. Police took
her to the hospital after the incident.
African
economies were ill-prepared to face the “free trade imperialism” of
the 1850s. What is astonishing now is that Africa seems to be unprepared
to survive in the global economic order. For example, Africa implemented
the “two-sector growth model,” or “Industrialization by Imitation,”
strategy of Arthur Lewis, which was endorsed by the United Nations.
geophysicists
from Missouri flew to the eastern edge of Africa, strapped on bulky
backpacks and began walking. They were looking for a set of huge stripes
in the Tendaho Graben, a place within the Afar Depression of Ethiopia,
where Africa's continental crust is stretching thin and a new ocean will
eventually form. But the stripes they sought — and eventually found —
aren't visible to the naked eye. They're magnetic stripes, similar to the
ones lining the ocean floor at mid-ocean ridges. David Bridges, a
geophysicist from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, and
his colleagues sniffed them out using a bit of geological detective work,
lots of walking and the hulking magnetometers strapped to their backpacks.
Thorny Business: Ethiopian Rose Exports To Europe
Pratap Chatterjee on March 5th, 2012
Delivering Ethiopian roses to European consumers on Valentine’s day has
earned an Indian businessman the title of honorary consul for the East
African country. Sai Ram Karuturi of Karuturi Global was appointed to his
post last week at a formal ceremony conducted by Muktar Kedir, the
Ethiopian cabinet affairs minister in Bangalore. The “villagization”
program of the Ethiopian government gives farmers displaced by these land
deals access to replacement land and also claims to provide them with
better access to clean education, health and water.
Tomorrow
is International Women's Day and who better to celebrate this with than
Sylvia Pankhurst, whose campaigns and politics exemplify the original
spirit of the day. Originally organized as a day of international
solidarity for women and men demanding freedom and equality for all, it is
a day with a history worth revisiting. On International Women's Day (March
8, 1914), having been expelled from the Women's Social and Political
Union, by her mother, Emmeline and sister Christabel for her support for
Irish freedom, opposition to the war and belief in a working class
campaign for the vote, Sylvia launched her paper the Women's Dreadnought.
World's
first illustrated Christian bible discovered at Ethiopian monastery
By Daily Mail Reporter
The world's earliest illustrated Christian book has been saved by a
British charity which located it at a remote Ethiopian monastery. The
incredible Garima Gospels are named after a monk who arrived in the
African country in the fifth century and is said to have copied them out
in just one day.
Somalia conflict: Visiting
al-Shabab fallen stronghold March 4, 2012
The Ethiopian army - along with Somali pro-government troops - has recently captured the key al-Shabab stronghold of
Baidoa. The BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross was one of the first journalists to visit the town since its seizure from the Islamist militants.
The dark red berets of the Ethiopian army are back in Baidoa. At the airstrip, there was plenty of military might on display: hulking tanks, heavy artillery and dozens of alert troops.
We are told Somali pro-government soldiers were backed by the Ethiopians as they seized the town from al-Shabab but it is clear who is the dominant partner in this relationship.
By Nichita Gurcov, Amnesty International Moldova
Fleeing the civil war in his native Sierra Leone 13 years ago, John Onoje
hoped for a better lot in his newly-adopted home – Moldov.
Last Sunday John Onoje was beaten up in a toilet in an underpass in the
country’s capital Chisinau. He tried to call the police, but the three
who bundled him into the toilet just grinned at him: “Don’t bother, we
are the police.” The day before Moldova’s ex-President Vladimir
Voronin told his supporters who had gathered for a rally in the centre of
the capital: “They [the ruling parties] brought here a Negro, who’d
just climbed down from a tree, and now he’s doing politics for them.”
Migrants
facing unlawful arrests in South Africa
By IRIN Posted Sunday, March 4, 2012
On a recent Friday, three cells at Musina Police Station contained 106
migrants, of which 102 were men held in just two cells. Among them were
Zimbabweans, Ethiopians, Somalis, Bangladeshis, Congolese and one
Tanzanian, Cassim Mustapha, who had attempted to enter the country via the
Beitbridge border post. "I'm claiming asylum because of my
sexuality," he told IRIN. "I had a paper from the UN but they
just said, 'Where is your passport?' and when I didn't have it, they
arrested me."
Ethiopian immigrants earning 30%-40% less than Arabs
Ethiopian immigrants without work experience are worst-paid group, unseating Arab Israelis, a new study finds. By Hila Weisberg
Ethiopian immigrants without work experience have unseated Arab Israelis for the title of the lowest-earning group in Israeli society, a new study has found.
The research, conducted by Dr. Erez Siniver, chairman of the School of Economics at the College of Management, Academic Studies and Prof. Gil Epstein of Bar-Ilan University, is based on Central Bureau of Statistics data from 2010. It compares earnings data for people with 12 years of schooling or less.
Your Land is My Land: Relocating 1.5 Million in Ethiopia by Ellyn Schwaiger March 1, 2012 By Nickolas Johnson, The Oakland Institute
More than 1.5 million residents of Ethiopia
have begun or will begin relocating away from their ancestral lands in a
program called villagization. Ethiopia has a long and controversial
history with resettlement, as it was a major element of the Derg’s
socialist agricultural policies. By 1989,
Derg’s
villagization program had resettled more than 13 million people;
international disapproval, degrading security and dwindling of resources
caused the program to slow down.
Sarlo
Distinguished Professor of Sustainable International Economic Development
Dominican
University of California
Abstract
With
the emancipation of the Rio Conference of 1992 and the Johannesburg
Conference of 2002, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been
regarded as the key component of implementing sustainable development.In particular, the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET)
for entrepreneurs has been identified as a vehicle for the implementation
of education for sustainable development.To assess the effective integration of ESD in TVET, four of the six
case studies undertaken by UNESCO in 2009 in Eastern and Southern Africa(i.e., Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, and Mauritius) were reviewed by the
author to solicit information as to whether the objectives of ESD have
been achieved by the TVET programs.
TRANSCRIPT: Rahmato: There is no provision in any
of the contracts signed by the government and investors – there
is no provision for food security, local food security, at all. And
if there are people starving there, it’s not their concern.ct is
generating a lot of income. It can really bring a kind of revolution
in food production, as well as uplifting the social conditions of
the people around.
Reporter: But Ethiopians don’t
typically eat rice, and many question the move to grow crops for
export when Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa have a long history of
periodic hunger caused by war and weather problems.
Danish navy frees hostages off Somalia, 2 killed
Tue Feb 28, 2012
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Two people held hostage by suspected Somali pirates were killed during a rescue operation by the Danish navy that succeeded in freeing 16 other captives off the horn of Africa, the navy said on Tuesday.
The Absalon, a Danish warship serving in NATO's counter-piracy mission Ocean Shield, fired on the suspect boat, a traditional dhow, after it disobeyed orders to stop, the navy said. Seventeen suspected pirates were arrested."Two hostages were found seriously wounded, and even with speedy assistance from the Absalon's doctor, their lives could not be saved," the navy command said in a statement.
Saudi Billionaire to Invest $3.4 Billion in Ethiopia in 5 Years By William Davison
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Derba Group, an amalgam of three Ethiopian
companies owned by Saudi billionaire Mohammed al- Amoudi, said it plans to
invest 59 billion birr ($3.4 billion) in seven industrial projects over
the next five years.
The company, formed last month, has already invested 12 billion birr of a
planned 71 billion birr in agriculture and cement in the Horn of Africa
country, Chief Executive Officer Haile Assegide said today by phone from
Derba Midroc Cement Plc’s plant near Chancho, about 70 kilometers (44
miles) northwest of Addis Ababa, the capital. Ethiopian-born al-Amoudi is
ranked by Forbes magazine as the world’s 63rd-richest person and was
worth $12.3 billion in March. The 66-year-old is close to the Saudi royal
family and his construction company, Midroc, built the $30 billion
underground oil storage facility in the kingdom in the late 1980s,
according to the magazine.
OPINION
WHY LANCASTER IS NOT THE SOLUTION TO SOMALIA.
Following the just concluded resolutions at Lancaster, London at which the major western powers together with their former colonies in Uganda, Ethiopia and others sat,
trying out many a solution to Somalia's instability. The question that rings hard in my mind is the history of the venue, going by history that it is this very venue where former colonies of Britain met with their then chief executives to demand and debate the question of independence and constitutional governance. It is not by coincidence that the same venue has hosted this time African countries involved in efforts to pacify Somalia with the big Capitalist countries in Britain and the US , who had for long neglected the Somalia but due to trans-Atlantic route that links the West to the horn and great lakes countries in Africa being unsafe due to piracy and out of the very neglect. There was no way the West was going to run away from the Somalia and not even her neighbors were safe.
European Court censures Italy over African migrants
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Italy violated the rights of Eritrean and Somali migrants by sending them back to Libya.
The 13 Eritreans and 11 Somalis were among a group of about 200 people who left Libya on three boats in 2009. Two of the 24 have since The court ordered Italy to pay each migrant in the case 15,000 euros (£13,000; $20,000) in damages.
Last year Italy suspended a 2008 deal with Libya on sending migrants back.
2012 Black Engineer of the Year Award Winners and Special Recognition Honorees
By USBE&IT Magazine
Black Engineer Magazine honors Ethiopian Engineer Negus Adefris Ethiopian engineer Negus Adefris has been recognized by Black Engineer magazine as one of its 2012 Black Engineer Award winners. The Ethiopian engineer was recognozed for his work at 3M that led to the invention of Cubitron II abrasive belts used in cylindrical grinders and anywhere else you need an abrasive belt or sanding equipment to take on tough materials. Below is the profile by
Black
Engineer magazine.Negus Adefris, Ph.D. Senior Product Development Specialist 3M
Meet the face behind a 3M invention: Negus Adefris, Ph.D is helping to shape the future. He developed a key component in the new Cubitron II abrasive belts used in cylindrical grinders and anywhere else you need an abrasive belt or sanding equipment to take on tough materials. Thanks to the breakthrough technology, belts average faster cutting on hard-to-grind metals, cut cooler, and last up to four times as long as conventional ceramic aluminum.
Ethiopia's Ashegoda Wind Farm starts generating 30 MW in test
Ethiopia's Ashegoda Wind Farm Technology starts generating 30 MW in a test mode. The farm, located about 760km north of Addis Abeba in Tigray Regional State, is set to have a total electricity generation capacity of 120MW.
Foreign jihadists sighted sailing from southern Somalia port By ABDULKADIR KHALIF in MogadishuPosted Friday, February 24 2012
Reports from Kismayu, 500km south of Mogadishu, indicated that upto eight boats docked at the port in the last 48 hours.
The boats are reportedly on a mission to transport foreign fighters, known locally as Al-Mujahedeen Al-Muhajereen (migrant jihadists) to other destinations.
The foreigners are said to have been in Somalia to fight alongside Al-Shabaab militant, against the forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its allies such as Amisom peacekeepers, and Kenyan and Ethiopian troops.
Sources following the events in Kismayu suspect that a number of boats sailed with at least 100 jihadists to Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden.
Hamas ditches
Assad, backs Syrian revolt By Omar Fahmy and Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO/GAZA | Fri Feb 24, 2012 12:56pm EST
CAIRO/GAZA Feb 24 (Reuters) - Leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas turned publicly against their long-time ally President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Friday, endorsing the revolt aimed at overthrowing his dynastic rule.
The policy shift deprives Assad of one of his few remaining Sunni Muslim supporters in the Arab world and deepens his international isolation. It was announced in Hamas speeches at Friday prayers in Cairo and a rally in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas went public after nearly a year of equivocating as Assad's army, largely led by fellow members of the president's Alawite sect, has crushed mainly Sunni protesters and
rebels.
Atse
Yohannes IV of Ethiopiacrowned January 12 Born
the son of Mercha the Shum of Tembien and his wife Woizero Silass Dimtsu (Amata
Selassie) of Enderta, Dejazmatch Kassai could claim Solomonic
blood through the line of his paternal grandmother
Right
on the heels of our time with Surf
Is Where You Find It author Gerry Lopez, we have more good
book news to share with you this week.
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King
of Kings, Yohannes IV, Emperor of Ethiopia. Our denial is not merely an
inconvenient fact but it is a major stumbling block to our consciousness
and understanding historical truth. This article isn’t about digging up 
our ability to walk.
It comes from the fossilised bones of a foot that were discovered in Ethiopia and dated to be 3.4 million years old.
The researchers say they do not have enough remains to identify the species of hominin, or human ancestor, from which the right foot came.
But they tell Nature journal that just the shape of the bones shows the creature could walk upright at times.
The fossil haul consists of eight elements from the forefoot - bones such as metatarsals and phalanges.
The specimens were pulled from clay sediments at Burtele in the central Afar region, about 520km north-east of the capital Addis Ababa.
argument
— proof of its artificiality. Eritrea was a European imperialist
creation, the Ethiopian line of reasoning goes, snatched from a united
Ethiopian Empire by Italy’s imposition of the Treaty of Wuchale in 1889.
The deceptive Article 17 of that treaty [4] led to the First Italo-Ethiopian
War, from 1895 to 1896 — and a win for Ethiopia, the only victory of a
native African state over a modern European one in modern history.
trying out many a solution to Somalia's instability. The question that rings hard in my mind is the history of the venue, going by history that it is this very venue where former colonies of Britain met with their then chief executives to demand and debate the question of independence and constitutional governance. It is not by coincidence that the same venue has hosted this time African countries involved in efforts to pacify Somalia with the big Capitalist countries in Britain and the US , who had for long neglected the Somalia but due to trans-Atlantic route that links the West to the horn and great lakes countries in Africa being unsafe due to piracy and out of the very neglect. There was no way the West was going to run away from the Somalia and not even her neighbors were safe.
Born
the son of Mercha the Shum of Tembien and his wife Woizero Silass Dimtsu (Amata
Selassie) of Enderta, Dejazmatch Kassai could claim 
Vertical
Ethiopia: Climbing Toward Possibility in the Horn of Africa