Navy commandos have recovered the flight recorders from the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed off the coast of Lebanon last month, killing all 90 people on board.
The Lebanese military says navy commandos retrieved the jet’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder on Sunday.
The recorders were taken to a Beirut naval base, where they were given to investigators. The two “black boxes” will be flown to France for analysis.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said searchers also located the cockpit and parts of the fuselage Sunday. Eight more bodies from the crash were recovered, bringing the total to 23.
The Boeing 737 went down January 25 just minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a heavy thunderstorm. The plane was headed for Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
The plane abruptly changed direction shortly after take-off, and officials have said the pilot was unresponsive to appeals to correct its course. But Lebanese and Ethiopian officials have cautioned against blaming the pilot until the flight recorders are reviewed.
The jet broke apart in mid-air, erupted into flames and crashed into the sea.
Ethiopian Airlines is considered one of Africa’s best carriers. It operates regular flights to Lebanon, where thousands of Ethiopians work.
ADDIS ABABA (IPS) — Ethiopia’s regime is building a 240-metre high dam on the Omo River that is intended to end the country’s electricity shortage and supply power to neighbouring countries. Not everyone’s happy.
The Gilgel Gibe III dam will hold back 14.7 million cubic metres of water. Its 1,870 MW generating capacity will be a significant boost for the Ethiopian Electric Power Company (EEPCO) which has plans to extend electricity supply within the country and export power to other countries in East Africa.
A 1.7 billion dollar contract to build the dam has been awarded to Italian multinational Salini Costruttori SPA. But the project’s critics have assembled a damning dossier of problems with it.
Two environmental organisations, Friends of Lake Turkana and International Rivers, are challenging the ecological soundness of the project. They say it threatens biodiversity in the Omo River and Lake Turkana which it feeds. The basin has large populations of Nile crocodiles, hippopotamus, and over 40 different species of fish.
IR and FoLT say changes in the river’s flow will also put the livelihoods of up to 200,000 people who depend on the lake for fishing, herding and irrigation at risk.
The groups have raised questions over the quality of the environmental and social impact studies completed for the project.
Gilgel Gibe III’s opponents also point out that the contract to build the dam was not awarded through a competitive international tender; it was negotiated directly with Salini, in violation of Ethiopia’s procurement guidelines.
Procurement
EEPCO argues that both Ethiopian and international procurement guidelines allowed Gibe III’s contract to be reached without a tender process due to its size and huge financial requirements. EEPCO CEO Miheret Debebe says the project’s opponents are using false allegations to try to stop the project.
However Ken Ohashi, World Bank country director for Ethiopia and Sudan, confirmed that the omission of a competitive tender means the Bank cannot loan the Ethiopian government money for the project. This does not rule out World Bank involvement entirely.
“In a situation like this, there is a possibility for us, in line with our guidelines, to help mobilise financing from the private market to finance the project by providing a guarantee to those interested in financing it,” Ohashi told IPS.
“If decided, we will provide guarantee against certain types of risk of non-repayment to commercial financiers – basically ‘political’ rather than ‘commercial’ risk of repayment,” he said.
Construction on Gibe III is already more than a third complete, but more money will be needed. The Ethiopian government’s task of addressing concerns – environmental, social, technical and financial – in order to secure a World Bank credit guarantee has now been complicated by problems facing an earlier phase of the massive hydroelectric project.
A cautionary tale
Barely two weeks after it was formally opened on Jan. 14, the Gilgel Gibe II hydroelectric power station suffered a collapse in its main tunnel, forcing closure of the new facility while it is repaired.
Gibe II, also built by Salini, has – or had – a generating capacity of 420MW; it relied on water released from the Gilgel Gibe I dam channeled through a 26 kilometre tunnel into the Omo River valley. The terms for this project too were negotiated between the Ethiopian government and Salini without competitive bidding.
According to Italian World Bank watchdog group Campagna per la Riforma per la Banca Mondiale (CRBM), the 490 million euro contract for Gibe II (today equivalent to 670 million dollars) violated Italian and Ethiopian regulations. Italy’s Directorate General for Development Cooperation (DGCS) nonetheless approved the largest single aid credit it had ever granted.
This was against the advice of both Italy’s finance ministry and DGCS’s own internal evaluation unit. Reviewing that advice, CRBM lists the flaws: a no-bid contract, an inadequate feasibility study, the absence of funds for environmental mitigation, and an unrealistic projection for servicing the loan.
The European Investment Bank also loaned the project 50 million euros ($69 million at today’s exchange rate); according to the CRBM accepting Ethiopia’s argument that it faced an emergency electrical shortage in lieu of more complete preparation and procedure.
Construction ran into severe difficulties as the tunneling engineers encountered unexpected mud, sand and aquifers; the project was finally completed two years behind schedule, with the Ethiopian government – and taxpayers – picking up the cost overrun as the contract held Salini liable for any delays due to engineering failures, while these problems were due to an inadequate geological survey.
Returning to Gibe III
In 2009, a group of eight academics and consultants collaborating as the Africa Resources Working Group (ARWG) published a sharp critique of the studies done for Gibe III. The ARWG says that contrary to the findings of the environmental and social impact assessments provided by Salini and EEPCO, the downstream impacts of the dam will likely be devastating.
They predict radical reduction of water flowing into Lake Turkana; the loss of cultivation of seasonally-flooded land in the Omo River delta, and of riverine forest and woodland the length of the river, damaging biodiversity and livelihoods.
“Altogether, more than 200,000 indigenous peoples of the lowermost Omo Basin are dependent on riverside and delta recessional cultivation… This population would face massive economic losses, with widespread severe hunger, disease and loss of life occurring on a regional scale, if the Gibe III dam is completed.”
The authors reject the official studies’ claims that lake water levels are already dropping due to evaporation from uncontrolled flooding, or that using the dam to deliberately increase water flow in the river during the dry season will alleviate drought.
Instead, they explain their view that extensive leakage through fissures in the walls of the eventual reservoir behind the dam, as well as the planned abstraction of water for new commercial agriculture and industrial development just downstream will see water levels in Lake Turkana fall by as much as 10 metres. The ARWG also expresses concern that clay rich soil around the dam could become prone to landslides as it fills up – and to top it off: the dam site is on an active earthquake fault line.
“An accurate assessment of environmental and social processes within the lower Omo Basin indicates that completion of the Gibe III dam would produce a broad range of negative effects, some of which would be catastrophic in the tri-country region where Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya intersect.”
As the World Bank’s review board meets on Mar. 5th, it will have much to consider. At stake is the life of a river, the fate of 200,000 people along its banks, and the commitments to transparent and effective aid made by governments and multilateral institutions alike.
As I sit here reading EthiopianReview.com report that China may be investing in and unfairly influencing Ethiopia, even too much for Ethiopia’s own good, I reflect on my research of 20 years into the ancient Ethiopian investment and importation of goods and technology into ancient Gebts that led to my recent book. Like cheap Chinese-made goods available today in Ethiopia, 5100 years ago it was Ethiopia food crops and goods that were exported to and sold in Gebts by ancient Ethiopian businessmen and women. Not only were crops and goods sold in ancient Gebts markets, but as Chinese are doing in Ethiopia today, 5100 years ago it was Ethiopians investing technology into Gebtsawian infrastructure that led to the very large-scale farming and production, first ever of it’s kind, that called for record keeping that finally became writing — the first written language of business and commerce.
Egyptologists will claim it was Ethiopians who “colonized” ancient Gebts, but far from it was Gebts “colonized” by Ethiopians. As just like with China being handed local Ethiopian commercial opportunities, some might say on a silver platter, it was the Ethiopians 5100 years ago who were handed administration of the ancient Gebts land by whoever controlled that region 5100 years ago, because it was Ethiopians who were providing the food to the Gebts population and that food was increasingly depended on. And with farming and production exported to Gebts shortly after the handover of administration, ancient Ethiopian technology provided the local Gebts people with farming and manufacturing jobs in the ruling Ethiopian farms and factories.
Though I do not get involved in Ethiopian politics, having been born in the USA and never yet having lived in Ethiopia (the land of my grandfather), I find it so interesting how many fear investment in Ethiopia by foreign societies like the Chinese. Especially when 5100 and for the nearly 3000 years that followed, it was Ethiopia that was investing in and influencing the societies of others not only in Gebts, but around the world. It makes me wonder if those foreign ancient societies expressed the same fears of takeover that Ethiopians might really have of the Chinese taking over influence of Ethiopia today.
After I published my book on the ancient Ethiopian involvement in ancient Gebts this past August of 2009, entitled “Amarigna & Tigrigna Qal Hieroglyphs for Beginners” (http://books.ancientgebts.org), now being kicked around like a soccer ball in some Ethiopian circles, Ethiopians regularly ask me what influence the ancient past could ever have on Ethiopian society today. I often answer to beware of the past, because one who forgets the past is doomed to repeat it. And in this case with the Chinese, it looks like the past is repeating itself in reverse, with Ethiopia the one being influenced. Back 5100 years ago when Ethiopia was influencing the world, it was Amarigna that was learned in ancient Gebts and other far away lands, just as Mandarin is said be to taught as part of the curriculum in a Chinese-financed school in Ethiopia, this according to an EthiopianReview.com article entitled “China’s Massive Investment in Ethiopia at What Cost?”
So, while those complain that what my book reports is unbelievable, the Chinese are not sitting on their haunches, but are repeating the very history begun by Ethiopians thousands of years ago in ancient Gebts and spread throughout ancient Europe, India, Asia, and the Middle East. Now the inventors of foreign investment, Ethiopians, whose society and culture is in fear of being unduly influenced this time. Like my book or not, it is our past that we have forgotten and now we might be suffering from, now paying the price according to those who complain about the Chinese investment into Ethiopia. It seems to me I would say to those with such fears to look to the past to capture your future and my book merely is the messenger of what we forgot to remember. After nearly 3000 years of Ethiopians influencing foreign politics, economies, languages, religion, and culture of foreign countries around the world, why are we now not the leaders — at the very least participants — in this very animal that we ourselves invented?
But even if we believe that Ethiopians actually “colonized” ancient Gebts as Egyptologists say instead of it being handed to Ethiopians, as ancient Gebts inscriptions state, it is at least something to think about. This is because if my research reported in my book is true, it is Ethiopians who today have the most to lose, having forgotten itself and its powerful past on its own. With some refusing to believe my account of Ethiopia’s past is true, even willing to try to block my book from ever being read and allowing others to decide for themselves by saying it is garbage or fantasy. But as I posted as a reply to one of these trashing my book and research on a message board thread about my book somewhere in Internetland, “There’s my truth, your truth, and THE truth.” Make sure that ignoring THE truth does not come back to bite you one day.
More information about “Amarigna & Tigrigna Qal Hieroglyphs for Beginners,” along with a sample page from the book, is available at ancientgebts.org, with copies of the book available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and many other booksellers.
Searchers located the black boxes of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed in the sea off Lebanon last month killing 90 people, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Saturday.
“The boxes have been found under the rear part of the fuselage” which was found on Saturday morning, the Lebanese minister told AFP.
“Lebanese army divers have gone down to retrieve them, but this operation will take time,” said Aridi.
“We have to be cautious because we must preserve the data contained in the boxes,” he added.
Aridi stressed special measures would be taken to bring to the surface the flight recorders in a way to avoid any damage that could be detrimental to the information they contain.
The minister also said he had been informed by the Syrian authorities that debris from the plane had been found in the Mediterranean Sea off the western city of Lattakia.
He said earlier that the search vessel, Ocean Alert, had located the rear sections of the aircraft’s cabin.
The sections found were between 10 and 12 metres (33 and 40 feet) long, and at a depth of 45 metres (150 feet) off Naameh, 12 kilometres (seven miles) south of Beirut, Aridi said.
The Boeing 737-800 went down before dawn on January 25, just minutes after take-off during stormy weather from Beirut airport. It was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board.
No survivors were found from Flight 409, and only 15 bodies have so far been recovered.
Aridi said he hoped other sections of the plane would soon be found, along with bodies of the remaining victims still thought to be strapped to their seats.
Of the 15 bodies found, nine were Lebanese, five Ethiopian and one Iraqi. Fifty-four Lebanese were on board the aircraft.
The Lebanese military said on Saturday that “pictures are being taken” of the located section of fuselage with a view to raising it.
Flight recorders are usually placed in the rear of commercial airliners.
Lebanese officials have said the captain was instructed by the control tower to change to a certain heading, but that the aircraft then took a different course.
Experts have told AFP that the stormy weather may not have been the only reason for the crash, and that the aircraft may have had engine or hydraulics problems.
Hanatzeb Ethiopian Art Gallery in Atlanta has invited Adey Gulilat, an accomplished Ethiopian artist and designer, to present her paintings this coming weekend.
Date: Saturday Feb. 6 and Sunday Feb 7, 2010
Time: 4:00 PM on Saturday and 2:00 PM on Sunday
Address: 49-B Bennett Street, Atlanta GA 30309
More info: 404 352 4373 or 404 838 8433 hanatzeb.com
On Januar 13, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister [genocidal dictator] Meles Zenawi inaugurated the Gilgel Gibe 2 scheme, the country’s biggest hydropower project. “It is possible to speed up development without polluting the environment,” Zenawi proudly declared as he cut the ceremonial ribbon. Yet this was wishful thinking.
Due to shoddy preparation, the project had already been delayed by more than two years. And less than two weeks after the inauguration, the project’s core component, a 26 kilometer-long tunnel, collapsed partly. Power generation had to be stopped for several months. Ethiopia’s hydro sector demonstrates that there are not shortcuts to sound infrastructure development. Cutting corners does not “speed up development,” but produces costly mistakes.
Gilgel Gibe 2 has a price tag of 374 million Euros and a capacity of 420 megawatts. The project works without a reservoir, but channels the water discharged from the Gilgel Gibe 1 Dam through a long tunnel and a steep drop directly to the valley of the Omo River. The undertaking was plagued by shoddy management from the beginning. In violation of Ethiopian law, the government negotiated the project contract with the Italian construction company Salini without competitive bidding. No-bid contracts for public works projects are a big red flag of corruption. The Gilgel Gibe deal was awarded without a feasibility study, and construction started without the legally required environmental permit.
In violation of Italian law and against the recommendation of its own evaluators, Italy’s Ministry of Development Cooperation awarded 220 million Euros of aid money for Salini’s no-bid contract. Gilgel Gibe 2 was “the biggest development fund released to a single project in the history of the Italian Cooperation,” the Ministry says proudly. The European Investment Bank, which is notoriously weak in appraising power projects, contributed another 50 million Euros, and the Ethiopian government funded the remaining 104 million Euros.
Gilgel Gibe 2 was supposed to be completed in Dec. 2007. Yet the poor preparation soon took its toll. Deficient geological studies had overlooked sandy soils and aquifers in the rock. The tunnel boring equipment got stuck in the mud, and the engineers had to redesign the tunnel’s path. As we heard, the aqueduct collapsed only 12 days after its inauguration, nine kilometers inside the mountain.
Who pays the price for such development failures? The dubiously negotiated contract for Gilgel Gibe 2 exempts Salini from geological risks, so the Ethiopian electricity consumers and tax payers ended up paying for the cost-overruns. Salini will certainly try to shift the blame for the tunnel collapse to Ethiopia once again. In the meantime, the country’s poor remain without electricity, and the environment gets spoilt for nothing.
Italy’s Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale has documented the numerous legal problems and shortcuts of the Gilgel Gibe 2 project in detail. The Campagna’s Caterina Amicucci comments that aid projects like Gilgel Gibe 2 “not so much address a country’s urgent development needs, but subsidizes a major Italian company.” The Campagna and International Rivers have asked that the bill for the latest disaster be paid by Salini and not Ethiopia’s taxpayers.
Gilgel Gibe 2’s dodgy deal is the rule, not the exception in Ethiopia’s hydropower sector. The contract for the slightly smaller Tekeze Dam was awarded in 2002, and power generation was supposed to start in 2007. Yet in this case, the ground on which the dam was being built was too weak — a fact which a proper feasibility study would have found in advance. Landslides caused further delays, and the project was commissioned two years late in 2009.
The story doesn’t end with Gilgel Gibe 2 and Tekeze. In July 2006, the government awarded a $2.1 billion contract for the Gibe 3 Dam — its biggest infrastructure project ever — to Salini through direct negotiations. Again there was no competitive bidding. Again project construction started without an Environmental Impact Assessment and an Economic, Financial and Technical Assessment. If built, the Gibe 3 Dam will devastate the fragile ecosystems of the Lower Omo Valley and Lake Turkana, on which 500,000 poor farmers, herders and fisherfolk rely for their livelihoods. Even though the project violates Ethiopian law and their own safeguard policies, the African Development Bank and the World Bank are currently considering support for the project.
Will the collapse of the Gilgel Gibe 2 be a wake-up call for the World Bank and the African Development Bank? Latest news indicates that the financiers, who refused to get involved in Gilgel Gibe 2, may yet shy away from the dodgy Gibe 3 deal. They know that their credibility is on the line.
