ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (The Reporter) — The Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) party dismissed its plan to hold a public meeting at Meskel Square on Saturday, 23 May 2009, as it was not able to secure permission to hold the event from the City Government of Addis Ababa.
In a letter issued by Markos Bizuneh, officer of Peaceful Demonstration and Public Meeting Notification of the City Government, the party was told that it can only hold its meeting in halls of the party’s choosing.
Dr. Hailu Araya, UDJ’s public relations head and vice president, said that the demonstration notification office told them that they can only make facilities available for the party to hold its meetings in a hall.
Although the party notified the city administration on Monday, the response came after three days which, according to him, contravened the law.
Article 6 (2) of Proclamation No. 3/1991 which provides for the establishment of the procedure for peaceful demonstration and political meeting says, “Where the municipal or Awraja administrative office is of the opinion that … it is preferable for the peaceful demonstration or public political meeting to be held at some other time or place, it shall so notify the organizers by giving reasons, in writing, within 12 hours of the time of submission of their notice.”
”We submitted our request on Monday but they responded on Thursday. Here you can see the law had been breached,” Dr. Hailu said.
Denying the party a space to hold its activities has its own danger, Dr. Hailu said.
“In many places, especially in Amhara and Oromia regions, many of our offices have been closed, party members detained and intimidated,” he added.
Despite the problems that the party is facing, they will continue the peaceful political struggle, according to him.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopian coffee exports will fall by 30-40 percent in 2009/2010, but the country hopes to become the world’s biggest sesame seed exporter this year, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) boss said on Friday.
Ethiopian officials have blamed bad weather for near total crop failure in some southern growing zones this season, and ECX chief executive Eleni Gabre-Madhin said the global economic slowdown was also hurting overseas sales.
“This year we’re likely to see a 30 to 40 percent shortfall in coffee export earnings relative to last year,” she told Reuters in an interview at her office in Addis Ababa.
“But we are projecting to export 225,000 tonnes of sesame, earning about $250 million, which is likely to make us the world’s largest exporter.”
The ECX began trading sesame for the first time last month and potential investors in the sector from China and India have already visited the Horn of Africa nation, Eleni said.
Africa’s biggest coffee exporter is also the world’s fourth-largest sesame exporter after China, India and Myanmar, exporting 124,291 tonnes of sesame last year.
Eleni said Ethiopia could set the benchmark price for sesame in the future. “It’s a big ambition for a little country, but we have that potential,” she said.
Coffee accounted for some 60 percent of Ethiopia’s foreign exchange revenue in the 2007/2008 (June/July) season, when it earned more than $525 million from exports of 170,888 tonnes of mostly high quality arabica beans.
But Eleni said the cash-strapped nation would only make about $300 million from its biggest hard currency earner this year, partly due to the global economic slowdown.
“It’s not insignificant that some of the higher-end premium coffee outlets are scaling back,” she said. “Starbucks closing 600 stores around the world has implications for demand for the type of premium coffee that Ethiopia exports.”
Ethiopia has been suffering from a shortage of foreign currency as commodity prices have fallen worldwide and demand for its mostly agricultural exports has slipped.
DIRECT IMPACT ON EARNINGS
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi warned last month reserves stood at just $850 million versus a target of at least $1.2 billion.
The government has said it expects economic growth of 11.2 percent in 2009. The International Monetary Fund has predicted growth of 6.5 percent for Ethiopia this year.
“The global coffee market has had a direct impact on our foreign exchange earnings and our economy is having to face that at the moment,” Eleni said.
The ECX was set up to replace a murky auction system. But some Ethiopian exporters have been reluctant to sell their beans through the new exchange, which began trading coffee in December.
The government seized 17,000 tonnes of the crop in March and revoked the licences of six exporters it accused of hoarding their stocks and waiting for prices to rise.
When a state-owned body then exported the seized stock, some in the industry accused the government of nationalising its most valuable export business. The government denied that.
“It was a one-time corrective action,” Eleni said. “An attempt to send the signal that we have to keep export earnings going because the country is in a crisis.”
Exports have also been shaken by Japan’s insistence on testing Ethiopian coffee beans on arrival after it found some last year that were contaminated with pesticides. That effectively halted exports to a country that once bought about 20 percent of Ethiopia’s beans.
Ethiopia prides itself as the birthplace of coffee. Some 15 million smallholder farmers grow the crop, mostly in the forested highlands in the huge country’s west and southwest.
SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND (ABC News) – A Silver Spring hair salon owner has been arrested for sexually assaulting a 23-year-old female employee, Montgomery County Police say.
Adane Mekonnen Ali, 33, of University Boulevard in Silver Spring, was arrested and charged with second-degree sex offense, first-degree assault and false imprisonment.
According to investigators, the victim was working at the Addis Hair Salon at 11429 Grandview Avenue on May 6 when she was told by Ali to stay after hours to assist a customer. When the salon was empty the suspect allegedly locked the door, turned off the lights and removed her cell phone. He told the girl he wanted to talk, but she refused. That’s when the assault allegedly took place before forcing the woman into a car and driving her home.
Ali, an immigrant from Ethiopia, is being held at the Montgomery County Detention Center on $250,000 bond.
Police are asking anyone with additional information is asked to call the Major Crimes Division, Homicide/Sex Section at 240-773-5070 or the police non-emergency number at 301-279-8000. Callers may remain anonymous.
Abebe Gellaw, the 2008-09 Yahoo! International Fellow at Stanford this year, is an example of how one person with a great idea can make a difference.
Abebe is an Ethiopian journalist, but the regime in his home country is too repressive to allow true journalism, so he is in exile. He had been in London for years before coming to the U.S. as the Yahoo! International Journalism Fellow at Stanford.
The Yahoo! fellowship was specifically established for people like Abebe, journalists from countries where there are strong challenges to a free press. Yahoo! and the Knight Fellowships agreed that supporting journalists who were directly or indirectly under attack should be at the top of the to-do list, and so we created the Yahoo! Fellowship in 2006, with a generous gift from Yahoo!.
Abebe is the third Yahoo! Fellow, following Imtiaz Ali, from Pakistan, and Violet Gonda, of Zimbabwe. Like Abebe, Violet was in exile, too. Abebe’s great idea is Addis Voice, a London-based website devoted to independent news about Ethiopia. It has become a trusted source of news and commentary for the Ethiopian diaspora. Here’s an interview with Abebe:
Abebe’s fellowship is ending, and we are ready to welcome Nadia Trinidad of the Philippines, one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world. Nadia is a senior correspondent for ABS-CBN Brooadcasting Company in Manila. She will study the psychological and sociological aspects of corruption in the media. She will arrive in August.
Journalists are under attack around the world, and organizations like the Committee To Protect Journalists make sure that those attacks are brought to light. It makes me feel proud that the Knight Fellowships and Yahoo! have teamed up to provide a fellowship at Stanford every year for someone who is bearing the brunt of those attacks.
(Jim Bettinger is Director of John S. Knight Fellowship for Professional Journalists, Stanford University)
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Boxing icon Evander Holyfield will fight in desperately poor Ethiopia for an undisclosed fee in a bout to raise money for HIV/AIDS charities.
Organisers hope the clash in July between the four-time world heavyweight champion and little-known local pugilist Sammy Retta will bring in between $5 million and $10 million.
“I continue to strive to be the very best but what got me to come here is the AIDS,” Holyfield, wearing a green safari suit, told reporters in Addis Ababa late on Tuesday.
“If we don’t find a cure to this, we’ll be extinct.”
Everton Boland, chief executive of promoters Golden Globe, said a substantial percentage of the money raised would go to charity, but he declined to discuss the fighters’ purses.
“If you want to talk about money, we ain’t up to that part yet,” Boland said. “Ain’t no boxer fighting for free.”
Organisers said a group set up by 22 African First Ladies to fight HIV/AIDS is the only charity chosen so far to receive funds from the fight, but that they are considering others.
Holyfield’s manager Ken Sanders said the 46-year-old, who some in the sport have argued is too old to still be fighting, plans to have another world title fight in September, possibly against WBA champion Nikolai Valuev.
The huge Russian won a majority points decision against Holyfield in December in Zurich, ending the American boxer’s hopes of becoming the oldest ever title-holder.
Retta — a 35-year-old based in Washington DC — left the Ethiopian capital for the United States at 16 and has since won 18 professional fights and lost three.
He compared the planned July 26 bout against Holyfield in Addis Ababa with 1974’s legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” clash in Kinshasa between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.
“I feel so tremendous,” Retta told the news conference. “Fighting Evander is like Ali fighting in Africa.”
SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND (