ABYAN, YEMEN (Saba) — Yemen police arrested 25 Ethiopians, including 2 women, who had arrived in Ahwar District in Abyan Province, Interior Ministry has reported.
The refugees, who entered Yemen illegally, were sent to a refugee camp where currently hundreds of other Ethiopians are housed.
Furthermore, 45 Somali refugees, including 4 women and 4 children, have arrived in Ahwar Coast.
GENEVA — A rare historical pocket watch made for an Ethiopian emperor Menelik II has sold to an unknown buyer for £30,000 at an auction in Geneva, Switzerland.
The historically important clock — which is known as ‘The Negus Watch’ and is made from 18K yellow gold — was a gift from Emperor Menelik II to Léon Chefneux in recognition of his contribution to building Ethiopia’s first railway line.
It is thought the watch was probably presented as a welcome gift before the commercial agreement was signed between the emperor and the railway designer.
The watch stands for progress, innovation and modernity and has remained in the same family for over 100 years.
It has a white enamel dial and is paved with rubies and diamonds.
This was the first time it had appeared at auction and it was sold with its presentation case and the original First Class Geneva Observatory Certificate.
Indiana University in Bloomington USA announced today that Ethiopian anthropologist Yohannes HaileSelassie, who found the first fragment of the newly reported Ardipithecus ramidus skeleton nicknamed “Ardi,” will talk about the discovery and its implications at the University’s Whittenberger Auditorim on December 1 next month.
The lecture is sponsored by the Stone Age Institute and Indiana University’s CRAFT Research Center.
Dr Yohannes HaileSelassie is curator and head of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University.
“This is one of the most important fossil hominid discoveries of our lifetime and gives us critical evidence about the origins of upright walking and what our early ancestors looked like,” said Nicholas Toth, co-director, with Kathy Schick, of the Stone Age Institute. “This is a great opportunity for people to hear, first hand, about the circumstances of the Ardi discovery and analysis and get a feel for the rigors and excitement of fieldwork in the Afar region of Ethiopia.”
Dr Yohannes is a member of the research team that discovered and analyzed a 4.4 million-year-old partial skeleton of the early hominid ancestor Ardipithecus ramidus in the Afar Rift region of Ethiopia. Results of the 17-year investigation were published Oct. 2 in a special issue of the journal Science, opening a new chapter on human evolution by extending knowledge to a period only a few million years after the human line diverged from that leading to chimpanzees.
It was Yohannes who, in November 1994, found the first piece — a hand bone — of the female skeleton that would become known as Ardi. The partial skeleton, including the skull with teeth, arms, hands, pelvis, legs and feet, was recovered through excavations between 1994 and 1997.
The research team found a total of 110 hominid fossil specimens representing at least 36 different individuals, along with fossils of dozens of animal and plant species. The results are helping scientists discern in greater detail the basic steps in the evolution of modern humans from ancient apes.
The Stone Age Institute, directed by Indiana University Department of Anthropology professors Schick and Toth, also carries out anthropological field research in Ethiopia’s Afar triangle. In 2005, Institute researcher Sileshi Semaw and colleagues reported the discovery of 4.5 million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus skeletal fossils, including parts of jaw bones, teeth, part of a toe bone and intact finger bones. The fossils were retrieved from the Gona Study Area in northern Ethiopia.
The Stone Age Institute is an independent research center dedicated to the archaeological study of human origins and technological development. It has strong ties with Indiana University, especially CRAFT (the Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology) and the Human Evolutionary Studies Program.
Washington, D.C. — The United States Senate on Nov. 20, 2009, unanimously confirmed President Barack Obama’s nomination of Daniel W. Yohannes, a native of Ethiopia, as the new Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). As CEO, Mr. Yohannes will undertake MCC’s mission to reduce poverty through economic growth.
MCC is an innovative and independent U.S. foreign aid agency that is helping lead the fight against global poverty. Created by the U.S. Congress in January 2004, with strong bipartisan support, MCC is changing the conversation on the delivery of U.S. foreign assistance by focusing on good policies, country ownership, and results.
During his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Yohannes said, “I welcome the opportunity to lead MCC. I will work as a good emissary for MCC to partners around the world, to U.S. Congress, and to all stakeholders, with the input of MCC’s professionals, the Board of Directors, the development community, partner countries, and the private sector. I’m confident that MCC’s anti-poverty partnerships worldwide will generate sustainable economic growth and opportunity, and this is fundamental to enhancing our collective security and common humanity for a more prosperous, peaceful world.”
Mr. Yohannes continued, “We have a lot to accomplish in order to advance our government’s vision to reduce global poverty. It is challenging to replace patronage with partnership to deliver smart aid that matters by encouraging some policies, country-led development, and sustainable results. MCC offers some important lessons on where to start. MCC lays an innovative foundation to address the complex problem of global poverty.”
Following is Mr. Yohannes’ biography:
Daniel W. Yohannes, Chief Executive Office, Millennium Challenge Corporation
Daniel W. Yohannes, a former banker and active philanthropist from Englewood, Colorado, was nominated by President Obama as Chief Executive Officer of MCC on September 18, 2009.
Since retiring from his post as Vice Chairman of U.S. Bank in 2003, Mr. Yohannes has been a private investor specializing in real estate, financial institutions, and the renewable energy sector. From 1992 to 1999, Mr. Yohannes was President and CEO of Colorado National Bank (part of U.S. Bank), and before this held a number of leadership roles at Security Pacific Bank (now Bank of America).
Mr. Yohannes is active in his community and serves on various boards and civil organizations, including the Board of the National Jewish Hospital, the Denver Art Museum’s Board of Trustees, and the Board of Directors for the University of Colorado Medical School. He was a board member of Project C.U.R.E. (Commission on Urgent Relief & Equipment), which provides medical supplies for needy people around the world, and chairman of the Mayor of Denver’s Greenprint Council, a leadership group focused on improving the environment of cities and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr. Yohannes graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a B.A. in Economics and earned an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he is fluent in Amharic.
“The Education Ministry should educate itself first,” says Gadi Yevrakan, who directs the headquarters for the struggle for social equality for Jewish Ethiopians. “If I hadn’t seen the symbol of the state of Israel on the letter I would have thought it had been taken from the 1950s of the previous century in the US, when there was segregation on buses.”
By Yaheli Moran Zelikovitch | YNetNews
The Education Ministry has sent out a letter to religious boarding schools in Tel Aviv saying there have been reports of misbehavior by “Ethiopian born” students in the city’s central bus station.
The letter obtained by Ynet asks principals to make sure the students take “alternate routes” home in order that they do not disrupt the peace.
The letter is signed by the ministry’s supervisor of religious boarding schools, Shmuel Dukov. It was sent to principals of boarding schools all over Israel as well as their supervisors, just a week ahead of the Ethiopian Jews’ national Sigd festival in Israel.
The letter indicates that the students should ride separate buses from their friends upon returning home from their respective schools in order not to pass through Tel Aviv’s central bus station.
“This letter is outrageous,” says a counselor at one of the schools that received the letter. “I instruct a group of Ethiopian students, and have no trouble with them. They are adorable. What is the meaning of this obtuse language?” He said he had no intention of telling the students they should use alternate routes.
“The Education Ministry should educate itself first,” says Gadi Yevrakan, who directs the headquarters for the struggle for social equality for Jewish Ethiopians.
“If I hadn’t seen the symbol of the state of Israel on the letter I would have thought it had been taken from the ’50s of the previous century in the US, when there was segregation on buses.”
Yevrakan said the ministry had crossed a “moral and educational red line”, and that he hoped Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar would cancel the letter’s instructions.
“The Education Ministry, instead of educating youth, is educating society towards racial stigmatism regarding an entire race,” he said. “Now you can really see the ugly face of education in Israel. We will fight this with all our means.”
The Education Ministry responded to the outrage by stating: “Israel Police has alerted the attention of the ministry to the fact that some of the teens traveling home from their boarding schools for vacation are subjected to violence. For this reason a representative of the Education Ministry has decided to examine alternative ways to secure their safety.”
By Selam Beyene
Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi, who has no respect for fundamental human rights and who has one of the worst environmental records in the history of Ethiopia, has no moral authority to rear his head as a champion of climate change for the people of Africa.
As the rest of the world awaits a successful outcome of the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Ethiopia’s tyrant Meles Zenawi has been honing a Machiavellian gambit to exploit his hard-earned role as a representative of Africa to advance his vicious political and economic agenda.
It is hard to disagree with the notion that industrialized countries have much to atone for with regard to their contribution to the environmental catastrophe in countries like Ethiopia. However, these countries should not exacerbate the hardship their actions have wreaked on the people by handing over in haste compensatory money to dictators who would only use it to buttress their oppressive machinery and to fatten their foreign bank accounts.
Indeed, the environmental and humanitarian damage caused by Meles Zenawi’s autocratic and corrupt regime in Ethiopia is incalculable. Below are a few examples that give a glimpse of the relentless onslaught of the dictator against the fragile environment of the country in his tragic crusade to oppress the people and plunder the wealth of that poor nation.
Massive deforestation, thanks to Zenawi’s insatiable desire to amass hard-currency, has contributed to continued environmental degradation, poverty and famine in the country. According to one report, in the first few years of Zenawi’s repressive rule, “… between 1990 and 2005, Ethiopia lost 14.0% of its forest cover, or around 2,114,000 hectares.” A case in point is his recent campaign to sell the more fertile parts of the country to multinational farmers without regard to the ecological consequences. As reported in the November 22, 2009 issue of the New York Times Magazine [2]:
“Zenawi, a former Marxist rebel who has turned into a champion of private capital, has publicly said he is very eager to attract foreign farm investors by offering them what the government describes as virgin land. An Ethiopian agriculture ministry official recently told Reuters that he has identified more than seven million acres. The government plans to lease half of it before the next harvest, at the dirt-cheap annual rate of around 50 cents per acre.”
The dictator has banned private ownership of land and used it as a tool for the subjugation of the rural population. As a consequence, he has encouraged unsustainable land utilization and inevitable environmental degradation, as affirmed by the aforementioned New York Times Magazine report.
“This land-tenure policy has made it possible for a one-party state to hand over huge tracts to investors at nominal rents, in secrecy, without the bother of a condemnation process.”
The problem was summed up in the October 26, 2009 issue of the Herald Scotland, which stated:
“Ethiopia’s land, post-Mengistu, still belongs to the state and cannot be sold. ….. One consequence is that state land gets divided and sub-divided among the families who sit on it. Plots become so tiny and the soil so exhausted that it cannot feed the families who work it – even in times of normal rainfall.”
Utilizing famine as a weapon of mass repression, Zenawi has systematically instituted policies that contributed in major ways to the recurrent drought and human tragedy in that country. According to a recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, 35 million Ethiopians or about 44% of the total population are malnourished, and that the country has the largest proportion of malnourished people in the world!
The dictator has instituted draconian laws to restrict the activities of NGOs who work in the field of human rights and other areas that are incompatible with the corrupt and repressive policies of the regime. In particular, the law has severely curbed the ability of environmental NGOs to educate the public at large on climate change issues and to expose the destructive environmental policy of Zenawi’s deceitful government.
Why has Zenawi desperately campaigned to secure invitation at the Copenhagen Climate Conference?
The dictator’s resourcefulness when it comes to hoodwinking donor nations through appearances at major summits has been well documented. At G8 and G20 summits, he has insolently and callously exploited the famine and poverty that he has inflicted on the people as means of shaming wealthy nations into giving him billions of dollars in aid.
Predictably, he has now seen even greater opportunity in the Copenhagen Conference, and has assiduously lobbied corrupt African diplomats to nominate him as an African Union’s chief negotiator. As reported in the November 20, 2009 issue of the Daily Nation, Zenawi, true to form, was quick to ask “…the rich industrialized nations to compensate the less developed Africa for the impact of global warming.”
Having been rejected by the people of Ethiopia in successive elections, another even more sinister motive for his obsession about invitation to major meetings is the desire to earn legitimacy and to divert attention from his appalling human rights records and crimes against humanity. The timing of the upcoming Climate Conference is particularly opportune as the venue is expected to provide much needed visibility at home and abroad while he intensifies his blatant attacks to cripple any potential opposition in the May 2010 elections.
Just a few weeks before the Climate Conference, the dictator gave a deceiving gesture of rapprochement by orchestrating a highly publicized and theatrical ceremony of reconciliation with a prominent leader of one of the opposition groups. He quickly used the occasion to silence international critiques and to appease those donor nations who only needed a pretext to prop up his repressive regime. After an intensive barrage of propaganda to publicize the event to gullible international observers, he has now embarked on an even more terrifying campaign of sniffing out any viable opposition and squashing it ruthlessly. As acknowledged by Karl Wycoff, deputy assistant secretary of state for East African Affairs, after a recent visit to the country, even the US is concerned by the “… reduction in political space and the ability of opposition parties to operate and do what opposition parties should do.”
Thus, in view of the proven crimes of Zenawi and his regime against humanity, his continued assault on the environment and his contempt for good governance and rule of law, the presence of the dictator at a conference of considerable significance to mankind is not only a trivialization of the noble cause for which those concerned with climate change stand, but also an affront to human decency.
We, therefore, call upon industrialized nations not to rush to reward dictators with compensatory money knowing that the money would be used to cause even graver hardship on the people who must be helped.
We also call upon the hosts of the Climate Conference to take extra measures so that the venue would not be exploited by unscrupulous dictators as a cover for their crimes and as a platform to gain visibility.
Ethiopians in the Diaspora are asked to heighten their vigilance and expose the tyrant, as they have admirably done so in Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005; Pittsburgh, PA, in 2009; and in numerous other places over the years. Through effective demonstrations, well-researched publications, and constructive engagement of the Conference organizers, they should expose the depravity of the tyrant and ensure that the dictator does not use the august occasion as a forum to strengthen his repressive machinery and to divert attention from the crimes he is committing against the people.
Albert Camus wrote: “The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.” For almost two decades, Zenawi has used the predicament of the people of Ethiopia to bolster his repressive machinery and to plunder the wealth of the nation. This time, the world must awaken to the vile ruse of the dictator, and stop him before he inflicts more devastating human suffering in the name of development, democracy, and now climate change.
(Selam Beyene, Ph.D., can be reached at [email protected])