Addis Ababa – Ethiopia launches activities to make Africa’s first mosque -Al Nejashi Mosque – as a tourist destination and a world heritage site by UNESCO in the coming few years. The Ethiopian Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that it is undertaking various activities to make the mosque and the city of King Ahmed Nejashi a tourist destination, which is located in the Tigray regional state, some 900 km north of Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia. “Activities are also underway to register the mosque as a world heritage site by UNESCO,” said the Ethiopian State Minister for Culture and Tourism Mahamuda Ahimed Gaas.
He said that the design works for the construction of a center is underway in the area to make it a tourist destination. The center to be constructed in the town involves 15 projects including a modern hotel and an Islamic university, as well as a research center, the African Press Agency report reported quoting Ethiopian radio. The center has already received 110,000 square meters of land to build the research and other facilities. The mosque is named after Ethiopia King Ahmed Nejashi who welcomed Muslim refugees some 1,400 years ago. The mosque is considered a symbol of religious co-existence in Ethiopia. That action of the king enabled the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) to substantiate that Ethiopia was a country of brotherhood and sympathy.
Islam in Ethiopia date back to the year 615 AD when the first Muslims, among them Prophet Mohammad’s wife came to Ethiopia as refugees and settled in Negash, a small village located 60 km east of Mekele, the capital of Tigray Region. The Quraysh sent emissaries to bring them back to Arabia, but the King of Ethiopia refused their demands. The Prophet himself instructed his followers who came to Ethiopia, to respect and protect Ethiopia as well as live in peace with Ethiopian Christians.
The Negash or Nejashi Mosque is as old as the faith of Islam in Ethiopia. It is the first mosque in Africa. The mosque was built in the 7th century AD and is considered by many as one of the most sacred places of Islamic worship and rightly dubbed by some as “The second Makkah”. Negash has been a place of great historical and religious significance in a sense that it is a symbol of peaceful coexistence between the Muslim and Christian religions. Even though Negash is considered as one of the important places in Ethiopia, there are also other important Muslim places like the Sof Omar Caves and the fourth most important city for Islam Harar with it’s 90 mosques.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (PANA) – Ethiopia, battered by the effects of climate change and exceeding national hunger, launched an appeal on Tuesday for some 4.9 million people on the verge of starvation. State Minister for Agriculture Mitiku Kassa said the government requires emergency cash injections to plug a food gap while sustaining the livelihoods of an additional 7.57 million people on state-run food distribution
The appeal for US$ 454 million will help feed some 4.9 million people across the country, facing renewed threats from famine this year after a series of failed rains and poor harvests across the country.
The money is urgently required to finance the acquisition of cereals, edible oils, foods and non-food items and offering medical help to those in need, the minister said.
The authorities need some 591,000 metric tonnes of food aid.
The humanitarian appeal is meant to help save those facing acute starvation this year while a certain number of the food dependants, numbering about 7.57 million are also receiving funds from the government to meet food needs rise.
The government says some 1.5 million people, who had been reliant on state-run food programs were excluded from this year’s food distribution as a result of improved crop yields in western Ethiopia, where food production increased.
However, those on permanent government-operated food distribution appeared to have surged from 5 million in 2005 to 7.5 million in 2008.
The government says some 35,000 people, however, graduated from this food dependency.
“The only sustainable solution to reduce the emergency dependence is to increase agricultural food production,” the state minister in charge of disaster management and food security said.
The western part of the country produces the food that serves the urban population, including the capital, Addis Ababa.
The highest number of those in urgent need of food aid is in the Somali regional state, east of Ethiopia, where the number of those in need of urgent food aid has been computed at 1.55 million, followed by the Amhara state in the North.
Somali region, mostly inhabited by the pastoralists, has missed good rains for the past three years, leading to acute losses of animals and leaving most animals in poor physical condition, the minister said.
“The food aid distribution in the Somali region was most challenging, but now, we have improved the rate of distribution and 91 per cent of the food is now reaching the recipients,” Kassa told journalists at a news conference here.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (FIFA.com) – FIFA’s Executive Committee will {www:receive} a report on Ethiopian football next month, following a joint FIFA/CAF mission to East Africa between 17-18 February. The Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) is currently suspended from all FIFA and CAF activities.
At its Executive Committee meeting in Tokyo between 19-20 December, FIFA accepted an {www:invitation} extended by the Minister of Sport Mrs Aster Mamo to {www:discuss} the implementation of a roadmap for the return of the EFF in the football family.
Two core elements to the {www:progression} of such a roadmap as outlined by FIFA and CAF were:
* the return of the Ethiopian Football Federation’s headquarters to EFF President Dr Ashebir Woldegiorgis; and
* the immediate convening of a General Assembly, upon the return of the EFF headquarters.
In order to ensure that the views and opinions of the myriad of stakeholders involved in Ethiopian football were {www:able} to be expressed, the FIFA/CAF mission met with the State Minister of Sport, the State Minister for Foreign Affairs, as well as with the EFF President, members of football clubs, the Coaches Association and the Referees Association. These meetings included discussions with stakeholders who oppose the current EFF President.
FIFA was represented by Associations Committee {www:member} Harold Mayne-Nicholls, who is the President of the Chilean Football Federation, while CAF was represented by its Executive Committee member Adoum Djibrine. They were accompanied by FIFA’s Director of Member Associations and Development Thierry Regenass.
The FIFA Executive Committee will next meet at the Home of FIFA in Zurich on 19 and 20 March 2009.
Yemen (Yemen Times) – The rich but under-explored history between Yemen and Ethiopia dates back to ancient times. Cultural relations between two countries can be traced back to the birth of the Aksum Kingdom in Ethiopia as an extension of the Sabaean and Himiarite Kingdoms in Yemen. Modern political relations date back to the 1930s when the first bilateral agreement was signed, paving the way for diplomatic ties between both countries.
Currently, about 20,000 Yemenis live and work in Ethiopia. Similarly, an estimated 275,000 Ethiopians are officially registered as living in Yemen, where they work as technicians, drivers, technical experts, businessmen in both the governmental and private sectors. Geographical proximity and exchange migration have led to social, cultural, and economic similarities between the two countries.
Recently, Addis Ababa hosted the 12th African Union Summit, which twenty-two states attended. Dr. Tawfik Abdullah, Ethiopian Ambassador to Yemen, spoke to Khaled Al-Hilaly about bilateral and regional issues.
What kind of activities do Yemenis carry out in Ethiopia? What facilities does the Ethiopian government offer them?
To begin with, the relationship between Yemen and Ethiopia is deep rooted and goes beyond thousands and thousands of years. There was a very large Yemeni community living throughout Ethiopia engaged in different trade and business. Their children attended the Ethiopian schools as native citizens. Currently there are less numbers of Yemenis who engaged in different sectors of investment. The Yemenis enjoy living and working in Ethiopia. There is a Yemeni Community School that was established over fourty years ago and is still active. Recently the Ethiopian government allotted a big piece of land for the expansion of this school in Addis Ababa.
What about Ethiopians in Yemen?
There are quite a large number of Ethiopians in Yemen and many are engaged in different sectors. There are also few number of students studying in different universities and colleges.
Why do many of the Ethiopians that come to Yemen have to be smuggled and not come via official means?
Many Ethiopians coming to Yemen are victims of “human trafficking” destined to the Gulf States in search of better economic benefits. Human trafficking is a lucrative business and the dealers convince and brainwash economically impoverished citizens and dwellers for gorgeous economic gains. They smuggle them through the sea, with catastrophic tragedies at times, and never reach their destination.
Many come to claim political asylum, saying that they are escaping insecurity or other political reasons. What do you say?
Ethiopia is a federal state with over eighty nations and nationalities enjoying a wide range of democracy and self-administration. However diversified Ethiopia is, with its various nation and nationalities, it is very much united as never before. There is no room for suppression and oppression in Ethiopia. It will not be astonishing or come a surprise if some of those claiming political asylum are using this as a pretext to gain privileges and special treatment; otherwise their claims and allegations cannot be substantiated.
What are examples of how the African Union is succesfully reducing conflicts in the African continent?
The African Union (AU) has regional organizations such as The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and The Southern African Development Community (SADC) among others, with its own summits in which the organizations resolve conflicts and disputes. The AU covers issues relating to peace and the Security Council also engages in resolving disputes and conflicts. Thus all the approaches of the AU and other regional organizations engage in maintaining peaceful co-existence between and among African countries, and resolve disputes and conflicts should they occur.
Would you highlight the Somalia conflict? What are you expecting from Sheikh Ahmed, the new Somali President?
Somalia’s transitional government was established in Kenya in 2004 under the auspices of the AU and the UN. There was commitment from the international community and other countries to support the weak transitional government in establishing and structuring itself. However, few countries lived up to their commitment and the transitional government was brought back to Somalia from Kenya after two years in exile there. Initially the Transitional Government was based in Juhar and later in Baidowa. Very few countries engaged in providing crucially needed assistance to the Transitional Government, which helped the War Lords and Islamic Courts Union (ICU) to gain the upper hand. The Transitional Government was at the verge of collapse when they asked for assistance from the Ethiopian Government. The ICU had seized and controlled Mogadishu and repeatedly claimed war “Jihad” on Ethiopia and also engaged in terrorist activities in Ethiopia. The call for assistance from the Transitional Government of Somalia and the immediate threat of war on Ethiopia by the ICU was the reason for Ethiopia to get involved in Somalia. The Ethiopian forces swept away the ICU and brought temporary peace and security in Somalia while dealing a big blow to the ICU.
The Transitional Government should have built upon the temporary peace and security achieved by the Ethiopian force. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia were busy in a power struggle among themselves and were after individual benefits that let down the prevailing peace and security. It should be noted here that it is the Somalis themselves that could bring, maintain, and sustain peace and stability in Somalia. The AU, IGAD, etc. thus can only have a supporting role. Ethiopia has committed itself and its resources to achieve these goals; it has trained tens of thousands of police forces and civil servants. The international communities, the UN, the EU, Arab League and the AU, with the exception of a few countries, were very reluctant to help in bringing and maintaining peace in Somalia.
Somalia was abandoned and little attention was given. Ethiopia bears the burden mostly alone and it cannot and must not bear all the burdens by itself. That is why we pulled out of Somalia. We had achieved our objectives; the Somalia issue is not Ethiopia’s issue only. The Djibouti agreement led to the formation of expanding the parliament and participation of opposition parties and groups, and even individuals. It laid the base for establishing a broad-based government of unity in the interest of building Somalia again. That is how President Sheikh Sherif was elected. It is upon all countries and especially organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the Arab League and the AU to support the current broad based government to stand on its own two feet.
How has the global financial crisis affected Africa, specifically Ethiopia?
It is sure that the global financial crisis has a negative effect on developing countries, including Ethiopia. But what affects us the most is the global economic crisis. First, the price of many commodities, raw materials, and the agricultural products has fallen so there is less revenue from exports. Secondly, remittance income from natives in foreign countries has decreased as there are huge lay-offs of employees. And thirdly, financial aid and loans for developing countries has decreased. These are the main negative effects of the current global economical crisis affecting the developing countries.
Tell me about the Sana’a Forum summit that recently took place in Khartoum.
At the end of 2008 the Sana’a Forum for cooperation held its summit in Khartoum, Sudan. It should be recalled that the Forum was established in Yemen in 2002 and included countries of the South Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. The Forum has achieved tangible results in the political, economical, social, and cultural fields. The Summit in Khartoum appreciated the achievements and pledged for better achievements especially in the economic trade and investment sectors.
Recently, nine countries signed an agreement in Djibouti to cooperate in fighting piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Do you expect that this agreement will help reduce piracy?
The previous Djibouti agreement and the late “Regional Maritime Security Conference” held in Sana’a will help in minimizing the piracy and will allow safer passage of ships through this very important see trade route. However, the root cause of the piracy in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden is the political, social, and economical problems in Somalia. The ultimate solution and remedy for the piracy is solving the problem in Somalia. The regional countries, the international community, the AU, the EU, the Arab League, and the UN should coordinate their efforts to bring a stable functional government in Somalia. The Somalis should sort out and solve their problems; they are the only ones who could bring peace and stability in Somalia. The others can only assist and extend help, but it is only the Somalis that can and should bring about this change. Having said this, I want to stress the fact that piracy should be dealt with and there should be free and safe passage for ships, but we should not be obsessed with this and drift into a corner; we have to be engaged in resolving the current chaos in Somalia.
Does the embassy support the Yemeni-Ethiopian friendship association?
The Yemeni-Ethiopian Friendship Association was established a long time ago. It includes members from Yemenis of Ethiopian origins and those Yemenis who studied or grew up in Ethiopia. The Association still exists and activating it will be one of our missions in the near future.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Given this opportunity, I would like to inform to all that Ethiopia has the largest livestock capabilities in Africa. Fishery and forestry resources are also significant. Considerable opportunities exist for new private investment in the production and processing of agricultural products. In addition, there are good prospects for producing cotton and investment opportunities are potentially attractive for modern commercial livestock breeding, the production and processing of meat, milk, and eggs. Investment opportunities of significant potential are also available in other areas as well.
With some 3.3 million beehives, Ethiopia is the leading honey and beeswax producing and exporting nation in Africa. This offers excellent prospects for private investment in apiculture.
Major manufacturing opportunities offering attractive potential benefits to prospective investors exist in the textile and garment, food and beverages, leather and electronic, building materials and non-metallic mineral, and metallic industrial sub-sectors as well.
Given its unique cultural heritage, magnificent scenery, pleasant climate, rich flora and fauna, important archaeological sites, friendly and hospitable people, and the recent growth in the inflow of tourists, Ethiopia’s potential puts it among the leading tourist destination in Africa. There are, therefore, great opportunities for private investment in hotels, lodges and international restaurants.
(CNN) — Smugglers carrying a boatload of migrants forced their passengers to jump overboard in deep water off the coast of Yemen, causing up to 17 to drown, the United Nations said Tuesday.
The 52 Somali and Ethiopian passengers in one of seven boats crossing the Gulf of Aden were made to jump after the smugglers spotted police and refused to sail closer to shore, the U.N’s refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement.
It said 35 people made it to land, six drowned and 11 others were missing presumed dead.
Almost 10,000 people have made the perilous journey across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen this year. Forty-seven people have died, with 23 bodies buried and 24 missing at sea, the UNHCR said.
Last year, more than 50,000 people crossed the gulf into Yemen.
Many are fleeing the war in Somalia, but recent months have seen an increase in the number of refugees from Ethiopia.
Yemen is a common destination for Somalis fleeing economic hardship and war because of its proximity. It is also an attractive location because Somalis receive automatic refugee status in the fellow Muslim country.
But according an article in the Yemen Post newspaper last year, the country is just a stopping point for most of the refugees, who then travel on to the wealthier Persian Gulf states, Europe or the United States.
In 2008, Yemen’s coast guard stepped up patrols of its coastline to deter the smugglers. Some of the boats seized by Yemen’s coast guard are given to Somali fishermen who suffered losses in the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
As part of a $19 million operation, UNHCR operates shelters and reception centers for the refugees in Yemen and has increased its efforts to discourage people from making the illegal sea crossing. It has also sponsored training programs for coast guard personnel and other officials.
The plight of the refugees has been overshadowed by the dozens of pirate attacks off Somalia’s coast that have grabbed international headlines in recent months, according to the aid group Doctors Without Borders.
“A lot of attention has been paid lately to tackling the issue of piracy in the waters off the Horn of Africa,” the organization’s Yemen mission leader Francis Coteur said in November.
“Unfortunately, little attention is paid to the drama of the refugees crossing the same waters in horrific conditions. Much more needs to be done to address this issue.”
LONDON (AP) — A former British resident who claims he was brutally tortured at a covert CIA site in Morocco has been freed from Guantanamo after nearly seven years in U.S. captivity — an ordeal that could come back to haunt the U.S. and British governments.
Binyam Mohamed was en route to Britain on Monday.
“I am so glad and so happy, more than words can express,” said Mohamed’s sister, Zuhra Mohamed.
The 30-year-old Ethiopian refugee has few remaining links to Britain. His brother and sister live in the United States. His parents are said to be back in Ethiopia. And his British residency that he obtained when he was teenager has since expired.
“I hope you will understand that after everything I’ve been through, I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment on my arrival back to Britain,” Mohamed said in a statement released through his attorneys. “I hope to be able to do better in days to come when I’m on the road to recovery.”
Upon his arrival, Mohamed will have to submit to a police interview and apply for temporary right to remain in Britain. A Home Office spokesman, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, said he expected Mohamed’s interview process would be brief.
“His biggest challenge will be to get someplace quiet before he makes any decisions about anything,” said his defense lawyer, US Air Force Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley.
Mohamed’s case is raising uncomfortable questions for President Barack Obama — who has promised a new era of government accountability — and for Britain, America’s closest partner during its war on terror.
Lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic are suing for secret documents they say prove the United States sent Mohamed to Morocco where he was tortured and prove that Britain knew of the mistreatment — a violation under the 1994 U.N. Convention Against Torture.
Britain’s Attorney General has opened an investigation into whether there was criminal wrongdoing on the part of Britain or a British security agent from MI5 who interrogated Mohamed in Pakistan, where he was arrested in 2002.
Two senior British judges, meanwhile, have reopened a case into whether 42 secret U.S. intelligence documents shared with Britain should be made public. The judges say they ruled to keep documents — which detail Mohamed’s treatment — secret last month because of a British claim it could hamper US intelligence sharing.
Several other lawsuits are underway in the United States against a Boeing subsidiary that allegedly supplied planes for rendition flights to Morocco and for the disclosure of Bush-era legal memos on renditions and interrogation tactics.
Any revelations from the lawsuits could be particularly damaging for the British government, which unlike the Obama administration, doesn’t have its predecessors to blame. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party has been in power for more than a decade.
“I assure you that we have done everything by the law,” Brown told reporters last week when faced with questions over Mohamed’s case.
Mohamed’s family came to London from Ethiopia in 1994. They applied for asylum following the ouster of Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam’s ouster but they were only given temporary residency. Mohamed’s residency was to be renewed in 2004, the year he arrived in Guantanamo.
Schooled in West London, Mohamed worked as a janitor and later became a student of electrical engineering before converting to Islam in 2001.
Shortly afterward, he said he went to Pakistan and Afghanistan to escape a bad circle of London friends and experience an Islamic society. But he was detained in the Pakistani port city of Karachi in 2002 for using a false passport to return to Britain.
For three months, he says he was tortured by Pakistani agents, who hung him for a week by a leather strap around his wrists. He says at least one MI5 officer questioned him there.
He claims he was handed over to US authorities in July 2002, and then sent to Morocco where he was tortured for 18 months. According to his account, one of his foreign interrogators slashed his penis with a scalpel.
Many of the estimated 750 detainees who have passed through Guantanamo prison camp since it opened in January 2002 have reported mental and physical abuse, but few have detailed such sustained physical and mental abuse at an alleged CIA covert site.
Mohamed claims he eventually confessed to an array of charges to stop his abuse — a confession that laid the groundwork for his transfer to another CIA site in Afghanistan, where he said he was starved and beaten before being sent to Guantanamo in 2004.
The United States refuses to account for Mohamed’s whereabouts for 18 months but has previously denied sending terror suspects to countries with track records of torture. British authorities, such as former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, have said they depended on those US assurances.
Mohamed will be met by a doctor and his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith and Gareth Pierce.
“He is a victim who has suffered more than any human being should ever suffer,” Stafford-Smith said.
In May of 2008, Mohamed was charged with conspiring with al-Qaida members to murder and commit terrorism. He was also accused in a “dirty bomb” plot to fill U.S. apartments with natural gas and blow them up.
But then in October all charges were dropped — only months after his lawyers filed a lawsuit in Britain for the disclosure of the 42 secret documents.
Two other former British residents remain in Guantanamo.
Saudi-born Shaker Aamer, 37, came to Britain in 1996. Married to a British woman, he was captured in 2001 after he went to Afghanistan.
Algerian Ahmed Belbacha, 39, was a professional soccer player who came to Britain in 1999. A laundry worker and waiter, he was denied asylum was given residency but it expired after he was captured in Pakistan.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (FIFA.com) – FIFA’s Executive Committee will {www:receive} a report on Ethiopian football next month, following a joint FIFA/CAF mission to East Africa between 17-18 February. The Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) is currently suspended from all FIFA and CAF activities.