Addis Journal — The Holy Synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is set to hold an emergency meeting Monday, Addis Neger reported.
[ER sources say that Azeb Mesfin, Meles Zenawi’s wife, is backing the move by the Synod to strip most of Aba Gebremedhin’s authority (formerly known as Aba Paulos).]
The Synod is expected to look at recent actions taken by Patriarch, Abune Pauols such as ‘disbanding the recently formed executive committee, suspending the bishop the Addis Ababa Dioceses and other unlawful hiring and dismissal of church leaders’.
Chair of the Executive Committee, Abune Timoties was said to have written letter to the Federal Police asking special protection and safety to the session.
In the last Holy Synod session from May 14 -21, a landmark resolution affecting the administration of the Church endowment was passed. It was decided that the hitherto administrator, Abune Paulos, was to hand over administrative power to the committee made up of seven bishops. But the committee was disbanded by the Patriarch weeks later.
By Jonathan Clayton and Tristan McConnell | Times Online
Barack Obama, Kenya’s most famous son, may have a deep attachment to his ancestral homeland but he is not letting emotions rule his head. On his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since his election, he has snubbed his father’s birthplace by choosing to go to Ghana.
The Kenyan Government and its notoriously corrupt and quarrelsome ministers are not happy. On the other side of the continent in West Africa, however, Ghanaians are jubilant that America’s first black President has chosen their country for what they see as his first real visit to Africa, dismissing his recent speech in Cairo as a staged event for the Middle East.
When President Obama touches down in Accra, the capital, today the country will erupt in one party. Posters of the President and his wife, Michelle, hang from every lamppost and advertising hoarding, and street vendors are doing a brisk trade in wristbands, T-shirts, flags and posters.
“Everyone is very proud,” said Joseph Agyiri, an IT specialist. “The streets will be packed and our best drummers and dancing groups will be there. We will give him a welcome like nowhere else in the world has done.”
Kenya has been left to ponder what might have been. In the heady days of Mr Obama’s ascent to the White House, politicians — particularly those from the Luo tribe of his late father — had envisioned an African-style “special relationship”.
Kenya’s elite whispered of preferential trade and investment deals, increased business opportunities and an image-boosting first visit to their country by an incumbent US president. Instead, relations have deteriorated, with Kenya receiving regular dressing-downs for its failure to follow reforms recommended by an international inquiry into a flawed poll in 2007, which led to the deaths of about 1,500 people in post-election violence.
In May, Jakaya Kikwete, the President of Tanzania, Kenya’s neighbour and regional competitor, had the honour of becoming the first African head of state to be received in the Oval Office. Raila Odinga, the Kenyan Prime Minister, who once joked that if a Luo failed to make “State House, we will still get White House”, was received only by Administration officials. Yesterday Kofi Annan, the former UN SecretaryGeneral and the mediator of Kenya’s poll crisis, handed over a list of key suspects in the post-election violence to the International Criminal Court. It is known to include several top politicians and allies of the President and Prime Minister.
Last week President Obama spoke of his worries about recent developments in Kenya. “I’m concerned about how the political parties do not seem to be moving into a permanent reconciliation that would allow the country to move forward,” he said.
He will be the third consecutive US President to visit Ghana, which has just had a peaceful transfer of power after a close presidential election. In contrast, the Kenyan crisis has its roots in decades of high-level graft, mismanagement and exploitation of tribal tensions. President Obama has made it clear that historical ties count for little compared with his aim of encouraging political reform and rewarding good governance, democracy and accountability.
Not all Kenyans are put out by his decision. In Nairobi, Charles Analo, a 53-year-old chef, said: “Here, what the common people chose was not what we got. Everyone expected him to come to Kenya first. Now our politicians are feeling ashamed that he is not coming.”
A resident from Ethiopia was shot and killed by two men as they tried to hijack his car in Esigubudu in Nongoma on Wednesday, KwaZulu-Natal police said.
“The man was attacked by two men who tried to hijack him. When they failed to move his car, they shot him and he died on the scene,” said Captain Vusi Mbatha.
A second Ethiopian managed to escape. The Ethiopian men were selling clothes in the area when they were attacked, he said.
“No arrests have been made. Police are working hard to track down the criminals,” Mbatha said.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Agency for International Development announced today the swearing in of Thomas H. Staal as its new Mission Director for Ethiopia. Counselor to the Agency Lisa Chiles presided at the event and administered the oath to Staal.
As director for USAID’s mission in Ethiopia, Staal will oversee a program totaling $800 million annually to help Ethiopians strengthen their democratic institutions, promote economic growth and improve education and health services, including the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Ethiopia is one of the largest USAID missions worldwide.
Staal has spent most of his career working overseas in international development. He has worked for USAID since 1988, beginning in Sudan as an emergency program officer. In the early 1990s, he worked in USAID’s regional office in Kenya, managing food aid and doing project development throughout eastern and southern Africa. From 1996 to 2002, he worked in USAID’s West Bank and Gaza program, providing assistance to the Palestinians, focusing on water supply projects, as well as local community development. He worked in Iraq from 2003-2004, serving as USAID’s regional representative for Southern Iraq, overseeing all USAID projects in that part of the country. He also served a year as the deputy director of the Food For Peace Office in Washington, D.C., and spent a year studying at the National War College. Most recently, Staal was the director of the Iraq Reconstruction Office in Washington, D.C.
Before joining USAID, Staal worked for World Vision International as their representative in Sudan in the mid-1980s. He also worked for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970’s and the early 1980’s in their government relations department.
Staal has a Master’s Degree in Comparative Politics (Middle East focus) from Columbia University, and a M.Sc. in National Strategic Security Studies from the National Defense University. Born to missionary parents, Staal grew up in Iraq and Kuwait and attended boarding school in India.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia’s [rubber-stamp] parliament on Tuesday adopted a new anti-terrorism bill despite criticism by rights groups that the legislation violates civil liberties.
The law, proposed last year after a string of bomb attacks in the capital, comprises 38 sections and paves the way for arrests and searches without court warrants.
The legislation championed by Prime Minister tribal dictator Meles Zenawi [who is accused by international human rights groups of committing war crimes] was voted for by 286 lawmakers in Ethiopia’s 547-seat parliament, 91 against and one abstention, an AFP correspondent reported.
“Whosoever writes, edits, prints, publishes, publicizes, disseminates, shows, makes to be heard any promotional statements encouraging… terrorist acts is punishable with rigorous imprisonment from 10 to 20 years,” it says.
Several opposition members, while insisting they were committed to the fight against terrorism, also criticized the law for being prone to abuse by security forces.
“The law itself terrorizes citizens. We are strictly against it,” former president and now opposition MP, Negaso Gidada, told AFP.
Last week, the US-based Human Rights Watch said the law broadly defined terrorism, risked muzzling political speech and encouraging unfair trials.
The law is also meant to counter the activities of some separatist groups, who have been blamed by Addis Ababa for carrying out “terror attacks” throughout the Horn of Africa nation.
In recent months, Ethiopia’s parliament has passed a series of laws tightening up on the activities of non-governmental organizations, associations and the local media, while most political opponents are in prison or living in exile.
Elections are due in June 2010, five years after disputed polls led to the death of nearly 200 people.
GABORONE (Nation) — Botswana has said that it does not agree with the African Union (AU) decision to denounce the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to refuse to extradite Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to stand trial for genocide.
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir over genocide in the strife-torn Sudanese region of Darfur but the AU has snubbed the court on the matter.
“The government of Botswana does not agree with this (AU) decision and wishes to reaffirm its position that as a State Party to the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court (ICC) it has treaty obligations to fully cooperate with the ICC in the arrest and transfer of the President of Sudan to the ICC,” a statement from the Botswana Foreign Affairs Ministry said on Sunday.
The statement said the ICC was established specifically to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community by prosecuting those suspected of committing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
“The people of Africa and Sudan in particular have been victims of these crimes. Botswana strongly holds the view that the people of Africa, including the people of Sudan, deserve to be protected from the perpetrators of such crimes. This is why a majority of African countries, numbering thirty (30) are State Parties to the Rome Statute,” the statement added.
Even before the AU made its decision, Botswana President Ian Khama has previously indicated that when he gets the opportunity, he would arrest Al-Bashir and hand him over to the ICC. Khama said he will arrest Al-Bashir during a visit by Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete early this year.
Botswana vice-president, Lt-Gen. Mompati Merafhe and Foreign Minister Mr. Phandu Skelemani are expected to hold a press in Gaborone today (Monday 6, July 2009) on the AU decision to rebuff the ICC. Lt-Gen Merafhe and Mr Skelemani attended the AU summit in Sirte Libya.
