New York (CPJ) — Two Ethiopian journalists were thrown in prison on Monday after a judge convicted them under an obsolete press law in connection with coverage of sensitive topics dating back several years, according to local journalists and news reports.

Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, editor of the weekly, Muslim-oriented newspaper Salafiyya, and Asrat Wedajo, former editor of Seife Nebelbal, a now-defunct weekly that was banned amid the 2005 government crackdown on the press, have begun serving one-year sentences at Kality Prison, outside the capital, Addis Ababa. Wedajo did not have a lawyer, but Ali’s lawyer, Temam Ababulgu, told CPJ he would appeal the verdict.

Federal High Court Judge Zewdinesh Asres convicted Ali and Wedajo on several charges under Ethiopia’s criminal code and its now-obsolete Press Proclamation of 1992, according to Ababulgu. The 1992 media law was reformed as the Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation, which officially took effect in December 2008, according to CPJ research.

“Prime Minister Meles Zenawi assured CPJ in 2006 that his government would end the practice of sending journalists to prison on charges dating back several years,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “But independent journalists continue to be charged and intimidated using obsolete media laws.”

Wedajo was charged in connection with a 2004 story alleging human rights violations against the ethnic Oromos, the largest ethnic group in the country.

Ali was charged in connection with a piece written by a guest columnist and published in 2007, criticizing the Ministry of Education‘s proposal to restrict headscarves for female Muslim students at public education institutions, according to Ababulgu. In 2008, the editor spent nearly two weeks behind bars, along with Al-Quds Publisher Maria Kadim and Editor Ezedin Mohamed for reprinting postings from the Web site EthiopianMuslims that criticized the ministry’s proposal to restrict religious practices in public schools. A magistrate acquitted Kadim but fined Mohamed 10,000 birrs (US$800) in July, according to local journalists. Mohamed told CPJ he is returning to court in September to face more charges over coverage of religious issues.

The Ethiopian government has had a longstanding practice of reviving years-old criminal cases, some of them seemingly dormant, as a way to silence critical journalists. The practice has persisted despite Zenawi‘s pledge, made to a visiting CPJ delegation in March 2006, that the government would reconsider the practice. Pending criminal charges or the possibility of criminal prosecutions now hang over at least eight more editors of Amharic-language newspapers for their coverage of political and public affairs, according to CPJ research.

Ethiopia is one of the world’s worst backsliders of press freedom, a steady decline made worse by a recent draconian anti-terror legislation.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (AP) — An Ethiopian village is taking pride in a Purdue University professor who won this year’s World Food Prize for his efforts to feed hundreds of millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa.

Gebisa Ejeta says hundreds of people lined up to see him during a recent visit to his childhood village.

The distinguished professor of agronomy developed drought- and disease-resistant forms of sorghum, which is an African diet staple.

The food prize is considered the Nobel Prize of the food and agricultural world. Ejeta will receive the $250,000 award Oct. 15 from the Iowa-based World Food Prize Foundation in Des Moines.

The prize was created by Iowa native Norman Borlaug to honor efforts to solve global hunger problems.

Addis Ababa (EthioPolitics) — The business English weekly, Fortune, disclosed that Ethiopia’s Woyanne ambassador to the United States, Dr. Samuel Assefa, has been ordered to return home, after only serving one term.

The paper in its Gossip column wrote that the office in Washington D.C will soon be vacant and awaiting new replacement. The Ambassador was seen in Addis Ababa two weeks ago, perhaps on his way from the AGO summit held in Nairobi, according to Fortune.

The paper hinted that the increasingly tough lines adopted by the Obama administration towards the Ethiopian government Woyanne might have forced it to think of another “well-groomed and highly experienced diplomat.” The paper didn’t say who that might be.

Dr. Samuel, who became ambassador in early 2006, was the former vice president of the University of Addis Ababa.

JUBA, Sudan (IPS) – In the war-devastated South Sudan, a region with a population of over eight million people, Yeneneh Mulugeta is the only permanent ophthalmologist.

Dozens visit the eye clinic in the semi-autonomous region’s capital every day from across the South trying to have their sight restored, mostly old and silent, waiting their turn with a helper. The Ethiopian doctor has performed hundreds of cataract operations – removing the protein build-up that covers the eye – that miraculously bring back sight.

Reversible cataract is probably responsible for half the cases of blindness in the South, but Mulugeta and government officials in the health sector know there are thousands who have no access to treatment. They also know – although no comprehensive studies have been done – that many thousands are at risk from two of the world’s leading blindness-causing infectious diseases; river-blindness and trachoma.

“South Sudan looks to be the worst. Maybe two percent of the population is blind,” Mulugeta, who works with the Christian Blind Mission, said. This estimate is an extrapolation of numbers from neighbouring Ethiopia where 1.6 percent of the population is visually impaired but where there are far more public health services and infrastructure.

The Director of Eye Health at South Sudan’s health ministry, Ali Yousif Ngor, oversees the South Sudan part of an Africa-wide attempt to combat river blindness, also known as onchocerciasis (O.V). It is a disease spread by the black fly that carries larval forms of a worm parasite. These worms grow and breed, releasing thousands of larvae that move all over the body causing intense itching and blindness.

River blindness is prevented by widely dosing communities in affected areas with a drug called ivermectin. For the last two decades ivermectin has been provided free of charge by a U.S. pharmaceutical company in an attempt to eradicate the disease in endemic countries, mostly in Africa.

It was only at the end of the 22-year civil war in Sudan in 2005 that international health organisations and government officials were given a chance to reach many rural communities. “It is so hard to get everyone to take the drug at the same time, twice a year. That would really hit the transmission of the disease,” Ngor said.

Part of the problem is that officials like Ngor simply do not know how widespread the disease is. Ngor said that the government does not even know if O.V is more or less common than trachoma, another major cause of blindness in the South. Trachoma occurs when untreated, repeated infections of the eye by bacteria eventually causes scarring so extensive the eyelid partially turns in on itself. The lashes scratch the cornea causing intense pain and often first reversible and then irreversible blindness.

Ngor described one small village where the arrival of a mobile ophthalmologic team prompted 400 blind or partially sighted people to turn up in the hope of treatment. “But it was too late for many of them,” he said.

Even within Juba city, lack of knowledge about diseases mean patients often do not go to the clinic early enough to save their sight. But outside the city the situation is far worse; there are no ophthalmologists or even an optometrist to fix disabling short or long sight with a pair of spectacles. Glasses were desperately rare even in the capital until last year. During the 22 years of Sudan’s bloody north-south war the only way to get glasses was to travel to Khartoum, North Sudan, or to the neighbouring countries of Kenya or Uganda.

Levi Sunday is thin, smartly dressed and blind. As his stick tip-taps the ground uneven with tree roots and rain gullies, he moves faster than the average Juba citizen in the hot and small town.

He is Chair of the Equatorian Union of the Blind that has some 800 members. It is a comparatively large organisation by the South’s standards but Sunday said they are finding it hard to draw attention to the problems the blind and partially-sighted experience, including issues of poverty and stigmatisation.

“The union was formed in 1984 … to combat begging, train the blind in handcrafts like basket weaving so they can depend on themselves,” Sunday explained. Classes in other income-generating skills have also been put in place but in reality, Sunday said, many blind are begging.

The union also organises classes to help the blind learn to use a stick and has close connections to the blind school where Braille is taught. “Many of the blind are not educated because of the poor quality of education in the South, there is nothing for the blind – except here in Juba. Now we have Braille machines here so they can type their notes in Braille and read books in it,” Levi said.

Five former students are now enrolled at Juba University, a cause of some pride. The union is also responsible for dozens of marriages between Juba’s blind. Macho South Sudanese society is still too narrow-minded for blind men to easily marry girls with sight, Sunday said.

“There is great ignorance in the south. People do not consider the blind as human. They are seen as powerless. Sometimes they are not helped, even with food. The blind in the south can die because of a lack of support. Blind children are undermined,” Sunday said.

His chairmanship got off to a rough start earlier this year. The union spilt into those supporting Sunday and those supporting his predecessor (who established the union in 1984) over differences over the constitution and personal politics. Feelings ran so high a policeman was put outside the run down union building after someone punctured the wheels of the body’s ancient Suzuki (they have a volunteer part-time sighted driver).

Too much politics everywhere seems like a curse of the South. Even in peacetime life in the region is fraught for many. Southerners are still holding their breath for a 2011 referendum promised under the peace deal that will give them a long-awaited chance to vote for separation from north Sudan. But many worry that tense North-South Sudan relations will worsen in the run up to elections next year and the referendum vote. In the meantime tribal violence has intensified this year, with hundreds killed including women and children.

With these problems perhaps it is not surprising that the blind are side-lined. The four-year-old government has not yet met the poor standards of garrison times when the blind were provided free transport and educational support. Experienced blind teachers were recently threatened with dismissal, because they were deemed unfit to teach, a deep blow to the union’s confidence, although the threat was later retracted.

“Since the peace, I myself have not seen a change in the lives of the blind. People now (in power) are not cooperating with blind people… before the peace when Juba was under Khartoum at least we had free transport cards. Now there is nothing like that,” Sunday said.

For experts in the sector the problem is extremely worrying. The Carter Centre, an American non-profit that has trained surgeons to do trachoma surgery in rural areas, says that in Sudan some 5 million people could be at risk from river blindness.

“Early blindness is early mortality in South Sudan,” Dante Vasquez from the Carter Centre said. The blind tend to have poorer nutrition and are isolated so they die younger.

The Carter Centre has performed well over 4,000 trachoma surgeries, a procedure which involves cutting and re-sewing the eyelid in a way that turns the eyelashes back outwards, in the South and has treated hundreds of thousands of earlier-stage cases with antibiotics. Though Vasquez believes the true scope of the disease is unknown; and the centre could be just scratching the surface. In Ayod county the Carter Centre found 15 percent of the population affected, and three percent of children. Trachoma infection in more than one percent of the population is usually considered a serious health risk.

Children with the disease are stigmatised, not least by the pain that renders them unable to perform everyday duties. They also become a burden; as Ngor pointed out. He explained that every blind person also needs another to help them, thus creating a drain on family resources.

Children blinded by the disease are especially worrying as loss of sight follows repeated infection, normally only occurring by the time they are adults. “We’re seeing it in younger and younger populations. This is an indicator of how acute the problem is,” Vasquez said.

By Jason McLure | Bloomberg

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Power outages, shortages of foreign exchange and limits on bank lending resulted in Ethiopia’s business climate deteriorating over the past four months, the chairman of the country’s largest business association said.

The Horn of Africa nation’s manufacturing industry has probably contracted during the past year and profit at banks and insurance companies has been hampered by inflation and government restrictions on lending, said Eyessus Work Zafu, president of the Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Association.

“The private sector definitely is in a very sad state,” Work Zafu, said in an interview today at his office in the capital, Addis Ababa. “Manufacturing is already on its knees. Small as it may be I would say it would have shrunk because of the power outages.”

Manufacturing accounts for about 5 percent of Ethiopia’s output, according to the World Bank.

Supply shortages led the state-run Ethiopian Electric Power Co. to begin blackouts in February and since June, the utility has provided power to customers only every second day. At the same time, Ethiopia’s central bank has been rationing foreign exchange in an effort to defend its currency, the birr. The resulting shortage of foreign currency has cause delays in imports of raw materials and consumer goods.

The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has also capped lending and increased reserve requirements for banks in an effort to slow inflation, which peaked at 64.2 percent in July 2008. Consumer prices declined by 3.7 percent last month, the country’s Central Statistical Agency said Aug. 11.

Tax Collections

A government initiative in the past year to collect more tax from the business community has also hurt growth of the country’s private industry, Work Zafu said.

While government and business leaders had initially believed the global financial crisis would have little impact on Ethiopia’s “relatively isolated” economy, “experience has shown that we were not entirely correct in that,” he said.

Remittances from Ethiopians living abroad and aid from foreign donors has been affected by the economic crisis, he said.

Ethiopia’s economy may be strengthened if the government negotiates a financing deal with the IMF, Work Zafu said. The IMF and Meles’ government are currently discussing a package to help the country cope with the global economic crisis.

A deal would improve Ethiopia’s foreign currency reserves and encourage other international lenders to provide financing to the country, Work Zafu said.

The IMF projected Ethiopia’s economy would grow by 6.5 percent or less in the fiscal year ending July 7, 2009.

By Roger Bate | American.com

Ethiopia’s [dictator] Meles Zenawi has always been shrewd in his courting of world leaders and deflection of his own failings. By talking tough over Somalia and terrorism he has won over many hawkish conservatives, who have been happy to gloss over his oppressive domestic record in order to have an ally in the Horn of Africa. He has done little to improve property right ownership in his country and so kept the likelihood of famine ever-present and himself in power, while managing to blame others for the poverty of his people. And now his regime is hosting a meeting on climate change in order to further his Western and African credentials.

Regardless of the stated aims of this meeting—to provide an African coordinated position on climate change—it is more of the same; deflection of the causes of famine and poverty and holding out a begging bowl to the West, which will be further used to undermine Ethiopian democracy. He and his African Union colleagues will once again use our largess to suppress their masses—and all in the name of climate change.

And of course Western leaders will love pressure from Africa on why they need to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Expect more of this tragic drivel in the run up to Copenhagen’s December climate jamboree.