LEBANNON, PA (LDNews) — Two Ethiopian doctors visited several local medical facilities as part of an ongoing partnership with a Lebanon-based charity.
Since arriving in the United States on Monday, Dr. Abraham Asnake and Dr. Abiye Mulugeta visited the Hershey Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon and Physicians Surgical Center in North Cornwall Township.
“We are really fascinated by the facilities,” Mulugeta said Wednesday during a visit to the Alley Center for the Blind in North Lebanon Township.
Asnake said there are no facilities in Ethiopia like the ones they toured here.
“It’s very hard in our country,” he said. “Hopefully one day.”
Asnake, a general surgeon and administrator of Ras Desta Hospital in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, and Mulugeta, an ophthalmologist and chairman of the ophthalmology department at Ras Desta, arrived in the area Monday. They are scheduled to spend six days in the area as guests of the World Blindness Outreach and Sunrise Rotary Club of Lancaster.
The WBO, which is based in Lebanon, is a humanitarian organization that supports eye missions to treat correctable blindness and preventable eye diseases among indigent peoples throughout the world. Since 1990, the WBO has performed more than 5,000 eye surgeries on 50 missions to 20 countries.
Dr. Robert Alley, a Lebanon ophthalmologist and founder and president of WBO, said he invited Asnake and Mulugeta to come to this country for several reasons.
“I wanted to extend our
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hospitality to them because we have been there three times, and they have extended their hospitality to us, and they made us feel so much at home, and I feel very close to both these gentlemen, so I invited them here as friends,” said Alley, the namesake of the Alley Center for the Blind.
Alley said the goal of the visit was to give the doctors an overview of medicine in this country.
“I would hope they see some things they can apply when they get back home,” he said.
The Lancaster Sunrise Rotary Club has partnered with WBO on three surgical eye missions to Ethiopia in the past six years, during which 600 successful eye surgeries were performed on patients at Ras Desta. Another mission is scheduled for April 2010.
Asnake and Mulugeta were also guests at Monday’s WBO banquet in Hershey. At the banquet, they received awards in recognition of their support for three WBO surgical eye missions to their hospital.
HARTLEPOOL, UK — IMMIGRATION officials are set to join the search for three Africans who went missing during an exchange trip.
The Ethiopian trio disappeared while visiting Hartlepool as part of the Global Xchange programme, which ended on Monday.
The Mail reported how Hartlepool Police joined forces with London’s Metroplitan Police in searching for three men who went missing during a short trip to the capital.
One later got back in touch with trip organisers and was deported before a female Ethiopian guest went missing last week.
Now the UK Border Agency says it will become involved once the missing visitors’ visas run out next Wednesday, September 9.
A spokeswoman for the UK Border Agency said: “We expect anyone coming to the UK to play by the rules and comply with the terms of their visa allowing them to stay here.
“We will seek to remove anyone with no right to be here. In 2008 nearly 68,000 people were removed from the UK or voluntarily departed.”
The Mail previously reported how three Ethiopian men went missing following a tour of the Houses of Parliament on July 15.
Zerihun Weldeyohans Alaro, 24, later contacted organisers after staying with family in London, but was deported.Exchange visitors Habtamu Debella, 27, and Muluneh Tilahun, 21, are still missing.
Konjit Assefa, 22, who was staying on the Headland, was the latest to go missing and has not been seen since Tuesday, August 25.
Programme leaders told the Mail that they will seriously think about which countries they work with in the light of the disappearances.
The Global Xchange programme involves 18 volunteers, nine from the UK and nine from Ethiopia, living in Hartlepool while working for community organisations.
The team has just finished the second part of the exchange, having already spent three months in Africa.
ISRAEL — Dozens of children of Ethiopian origin in Petah Tikva did not begin studies Tuesday as schools appeared to take pains to accept as few such students as possible. Education officials, however, said the latest problems were merely bureaucratic, after the deal Monday night to take all the students in.
Parents and children – many with school backpacks – crowded a narrow corridor on the fifth floor of the municipality’s education department, some waiting 12 hours to hear where their children would be enrolled. Many children arrived in schools throughout the city but were not placed in classes. Instead, they were sent to the library or the teachers’ lounge where they waited two or three hours until they were told to return to the municipality.
“I don’t believe anybody anymore – not the Education Ministry, not the city and not the school. Nobody wants us,” said Nena Balai, whose son was supposed to start first grade.
In the small offices of the municipality’s education department, city officials and the schools seemed to be bargaining over the placement of the children of Ethiopian origin. “Some principals said they would not accept the children until they saw how many were in another school,” said one person close to the situation.
Many parents had stories about children being sent home from school. On Monday night, Balai said that “they called from the city and said we should go to Morasha [a state religious school]. We got there at 8 A.M., but we did not go into the classroom. The boy sat in the teachers’ lounge and was given a piece of paper to draw on. At 11 A.M. they told us to go back to the municipality. The school said it could not accept us.”
According to David Maharat, the head of the Education Ministry’s advisory body on integrating Ethiopian schoolchildren, “this is one humiliation too many. Schools are competing with each other over who will have fewer students of Ethiopian origin.”
The Education Ministry, the municipality, the state religious schools and the private schools all had various explanations for what had happened. The Education Ministry said about 16 “new” students remained to be enrolled.
Tuesday afternoon, Education Ministry director general Shimshon Shoshani said at the Petah Tikva municipality that children had been mistakenly sent to the wrong school, or that student data was unclear. The city said students had gone to schools to which they were not enrolled. The families said there were language difficulties.
Many of the children who did not begin school Tuesday were turned away by state religious schools. These have been at the forefront in recent weeks in the fight against the three private religious schools that had refused to fully comply with Education Ministry directives on enrollment. The head of the parents’ committee of the state religious schools, Nir Orbach, said that “we agreed to accept 40 students [out of 100]. We will not accept more.”
Spokesmen for the three private religious schools said they had accepted all 30 students sent to them, but that the names and ages of the children did not always match those on their lists.
Stratex International PLC (AIM: STI) announced a move into Ethiopia via acquiring a stake in a PLUS-listed company that holds an exclusive exploration license (EEL) in the north of the country and entering a joint venture with its new partner to explore new {www:prospective} targets and licence areas.
So far, Stratex has been focusing on exploring, developing and then joint venturing projects in central and Western Turkey, and is now planning on repeating this in Ethiopia.
Stratex has put up £40,000 to take a 5.6 percent stake in Sheba Exploration (UK) PLC and has signed a binding letter of intent with Sheba to earn-in to an initial 60 percent of the prospective Shehagne project near the northern Ethiopian town of Adwa.
Additionally Stratex and Sheba have agreed a joint venture on a respective 70:30 basis to explore new prospective targets and license areas in northern Ethiopia. The company believes that potential license areas, which currently are under review, have excellent potential for gold and/or copper and massive sulfide occurrences. Under the terms of the new JV, Sheba may earn up to 50 percent of the JV by reimbursing Stratex a further 20 percent of the total exploration costs.
Stratex chairman David Hall said: “The Arabian Nubian Shield, which encompasses areas of Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Yemen as well as Ethiopia, is a region with high discovery potential as shown by Centamin’s Sukari gold mine in Egypt, and Nevsun’s Bisha gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit in Eritrea.
“We believe that Ethiopia offers similar exciting opportunities for rapid low cost {www:discovery} and is not subject to many of the economic and political constraints that neighbouring countries are exposed to, such as product sharing agreements and security issues. Ethiopia is both logistically and financially an easy and cost effective place to explore,” he added.
The company can earn 60 percent in the 50 square kilometre Shehagne EEL by expending £100,000 in the initial three months and a further £250,000 over the subsequent 18 months. It may also earn a further 20 percent by taking the project to completion of a feasibility study.
The Shehagne EEL has already been explored by Sheba and extensive gold anomalism in soil has been identified. The main target to date is the Tsemmetti prospect in the south-eastern part of the EEL where Sheba has defined a large – 100 parts per billion – gold-in-soil anomaly over a three kilometre strike.
Stratex intends to undertake regional sediment sampling of the entire concession and complete systematic exploration of prospects already defined.
Ethiopia’s mineral resources’ potential is high – gold copper zinc and potash are the major minerals mined in Ethiopia, the company said.
WINDSOR, CANADA (Windsor Star) — A former Windsor truck driver has pleaded guilty to attempting to smuggle 165 kilograms of khat into Canada but received a suspended sentence Thursday because he was trying to raise money to visit and help his ill father in Ethiopia.
Daniel Kassa, 45, was given a suspended sentence by Superior Court Justice Steven Rogin Thursday and was also given three years’ probation.
In May 2007 Kassa, an immigrant from Ethiopia, was driving a tractor-trailer into Canada at the Ambassador Bridge and was stopped by Canada Border Services Agency officers even though at the time he had a FAST pass.
Inspectors uncovered the khat, with an estimated street value of $82,000, hidden on the trailer.
Khat is a schedule IV narcotic under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It can be possessed for personal use, but cannot be imported or sold.
Khat is a green-leafed plant native to east Africa which, when chewed, releases the chemicals cathine and cathinone, which produce an effect similar to amphetamine.
It creates a euphoric and excited state in users.
Khat is not banned in many European countries including the United Kingdom.
Kassa’s lawyer Andrew Bradie told court that Kassa was born in Ethiopia and lived there until the age of 14, when he was pressured to join the military and was later forced to flee with family members to Rome.
Kassa eventually made his way to Canada but he now has family members scattered across the globe.
Bradie said Kassa’s ethnicity is a source of friction in his homeland.
Kassa has no criminal record and since his FAST pass was voided upon his arrest he has been employed in West Lorne.
“He has had no further difficulties with the law,” said Bradie, adding that Kassa lives with a common-law wife and a child.
In dispensing sentence Rogin rationalized the profit-making motive for the smuggling.
“I accept the profit motive is an aggravating factor,” said Rogin.
“That is somewhat diluted by the fact that rather than a sense of greed, it was motivated by a desire to visit his father, who had a stroke.”
The maximum sentence for importing khat under the Controlled Drugs and Substance Act is three years.
Rogin said the fact that Kassa was using a FAST pass to smuggle a controlled substance across the border was an extremely aggravating factor.
Rogin gave Kassa an opportunity to speak.
“I’m very sorry,” said Kassa. “This will never happen again.”
ADDIS ABABA (Daily Nation) — Ethiopia’s government ruling tribal junta has defended its plan to offer 2.7 million hectares of farmland to foreign companies despite millions of citizens who need food aid from the international community.
According to Ethiopia’s Agriculture Ministry officials, the country delineated around 2.7 million hectares of land, available for foreign companies from Middle East and East Asia countries.
The government will hand over 1.7 million hectares of arable land to the foreign investors before the coming harvest season.
World’s top oil producing countries including United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and giant economies like India, China and South Korea are queuing in Addis Ababa to start big commercial farming to feed their own people.
The competition among “land grabber” states has become fierce, with the overall number of companies applying for land in Ethiopia reaching 8,000. However, only 2,000 foreign companies, including medium size agricultural projects, have already secured farmland.
India leads the “land grabbing” race and so far Indian agricultural investment has been more than $2.5 billion. India’s total investment in Ethiopia was $300 million three years ago and has now grown to $ 4.3 billion. It is double the amount of Western aid offered to Ethiopia.
Departing Indian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Gurjit Singh, believes Indian investment will reach eight to 10 billion dollars in the coming few years.
“I don’t think this is the end of the story, but just the beginning,” he added.
Currently, more than 5.2 million people need emergency food aid from the international community in the southern and eastern parts of the country. Another eight million rural poor are being supported through a regular productive safety net aid scheme.
Esayas Kebede, Director of Agriculture Investment Support office argued that large scale foreign commercial farming is a way to end poverty and hunger.
“We have abundant land and labour but we don’t have a finance and technology to feed our people” Esayas said.
