SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – Icy roads were a contributor to the death of a cab driver when he was on his way to work Wednesday in Burien, a suburb of Seattle.
Friends told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News that Getenet Endeshaw, 28, was driving to work when he lost control of his car on the icy roads.
The Washington State Patrol said his car spun-out on state Route 509 at 128th at about 4:15 a.m. and wound-up facing the wrong direction.
By TODAY’S ZAMAN
ANKARA — Foreign minister of the tribalist dictatorship in Ethiopia has urged the International Criminal Court to postpone a decision on issuing an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for his alleged role in atrocities in Darfur, calling for a political solution instead.
“I certainly believe that this decision should be postponed,” said Seyoum Mesfin in Ankara after talks with his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babacan, late on Monday, when asked about the court’s expected ruling. “The Darfur crisis is a political one. Therefore, it requires a political solution,” said Mesfin, calling for the decision to be postponed for at least one year.
The world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal is expected to announce its decision soon on the warrant requested last year by the court’s chief prosecutor. The announcement comes as talks between the Sudanese government and one of the two main rebel groups in Darfur got under way Tuesday.
“Such a postponement would help Sudan achieve peace. A possible arrest warrant would benefit no one,” said the Ethiopian Woyanne foreign minister.
Babacan, for his part, did not touch on the expected decision from the court, but said Turkey backed the territorial integrity and political unity of Sudan, a veiled statement of support for al-Bashir. “We support the international community’s efforts in Darfur,” he said.
The government has received criticism for supporting the al-Bashir administration despite widespread accusations regarding genocide and war crimes perpetrated against the population of Darfur. The criticism surfaced again recently when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan walked out of a Davos panel after a heated exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres over a deadly Israeli operation in Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead. Hailing his courageous criticism of Israel, critics said, however, Erdoğan would have seemed more consistent had he leveled similar criticism against Sudan as well.
The al-Bashir government has been accused of encouraging Muslim militias to commit atrocities against ethnic Africans in Darfur since a rebellion broke out there early in 2003. UN officials say up to 300,000 people have died in the conflict and 2.7 million have fled their homes.
The African Union is expected to start talks with the United Nations to get the Security Council’s support for a resolution that would delay action on a warrant for a year. Turkey has been a nonpermanent member of the 15-seat UN Security Council since January. Mesfin said African leaders hoped that the UN Security Council would hear their call for a delay on a warrant.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The flower exporters are destroying Ethiopia’s fertile land by using fertilizers that are toxic. It would be good if they all get bankrupt and out of business. Ethiopia’s fertile land need to grow food, not flower.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Income from Ethiopian flower exports has reached only 60 percent of a targeted $298 million over the last 18 months as the global recession hits the sector, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
The Horn of Africa nation earned $177.6 million during the period from the sale of some 1.5 billion stems, Girma Gelelcha, an expert in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, told Reuters.
“Unless the global financial situation shows some improvement, it may also be difficult for Ethiopia to earn the targeted $207 million … in (calendar year) 2009,” he said.
Ethiopian horticulture officials expressed fears at the end of last year that the worldwide economic crisis could hit their industry as European consumers cut back on luxury purchases.
On Tuesday, a source at the state-owned Development Bank of Ethiopia said two Israeli-owned flower farms had been put up for auction in recent weeks after failing to service bank loans.
The source said three more farms were in a similar position and might be put up for sale soon.
The government has offered tax breaks to attract investment in flowers. More than 100 local and foreign firms have been drawn to the sector, and the country hopes exports will overtake coffee within five years to be worth $1 billion annually.
United States Department of States
Public Affairs
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
Question Taken at the February 9, 2009 Daily Press Briefing
February 9, 2009
Question: Any update on the investigation into the death of the Foreign Service Officer in Ethiopia?
Answer: We can confirm that Brian Adkins, a 25-year-old FSO, died in Addis Ababa. The death is under investigation by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and we are coordinating closely with the Government of Ethiopia. We will provide details as they become available.
Question: Has the Accountability Review Board been convened as of yet?
Answer: The investigation into the death of Mr. Adkins has not yet been completed. The facts of that investigation will determine whether there will be the need to recommend that the Secretary convenes an Accountability Review Board.
By Henry Owour and Argaw Ashine | The Daily Monitor
Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA – President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday night openly clashed with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, after the two disagreed over the direction of the formation of a single government for all African states.
According to sources at the summit, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe reportedly helped Mr Museveni take on Col. Gaddafi, who besides mooting the single African government plan, also sought to be bestowed the title “King of Kings”.
Col. Gaddafi reportedly clashed with Mr Museveni over his calls for speeding of the single African government plan. Whereas Mr Museveni calls for strengthening of regional blocs, a position he reiterated in Addis Ababa, Col. Gaddafi wants an immediate fast track to form the United States of Africa.
In what looked like a parliamentary debate characterised by points of order, the two leaders also disagreed on the involvement of traditional leaders by Col. Gaddafi in his pursuit of the United States of Africa dream.
Col. Gaddafi sponsored Mr Museveni’s National Resistance Army guerilla war that brought the Ugandan leader to power in 1986.
Their current disagreements could bring one of the longest political relationships to an end. At the AU summit, Mr Museveni reportedly warned that he would arrest any traditional leader in Uganda who claimed to speak for Col. Gaddafi.
The Ugandan government last month cancelled a summit of traditional leaders across the continent convened in Kampala and funded by Col. Gaddafi, saying the leaders had discussed politics.
The Ugandan Constitution bars traditional leaders from participating in partisan politics. In Col. Gaddafi’s proposal for the single government, Africa is to have a president, a vice-president and secretaries handling various portfolios such as foreign affairs, research and the battle against pandemics.
However, with much opposition from the other African leaders, Col. Gaddafi stormed out of the meeting at about 2am and a few minutes later, all the leaders filed out.
Asked why Col. Gaddafi had stormed out, Tanzanian Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Membe said Gaddafi ‘’may have felt unwell”.
The summit ended yesterday with no concrete agreement on the way forward over a single government.
Col. Gaddafi said a special meeting of the group’s Council of Ministers would meet in three months’ time to iron out what powers its newly created African Union Authority should have.
This came after the 53-member group’s marathon talks that failed to agree on ways to transform the current Africa Union Commission into an authority, a process that will end with the creation of the “United States of Africa.”
Yesterday, at a meeting with journalists, Col. Gaddafi struck a conciliatory figure, talking of his vision for a “continent that relies on itself and which is a key player in world affairs.’’
He added that the continent has adopted a “step by step’’ approach to “this historic effort’’ on a single government. But, AU Commission chairman Jean Ping said ‘the whole process may take years.’’
According to Mr Ping, amending the AU Charter is not a simple task and two thirds of the 53 states must accept to proceed with the amendment.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have completed the first high-resolution CT scan of the world’s most famous fossil, Lucy, an ancient human ancestor who lived 3.2 million years ago.
Lucy is in the United States as part of a world premiere exhibit organized by the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
John Kappelman, professor of anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts, led the scientific team that conducted the scan of Lucy, whose remains include about 40 percent of her skeleton, making her the oldest and most complete skeleton of any adult, erect-walking human fossil.
“By examining the internal architecture of Lucy’s bones, we can study how her skeleton supported her movement and posture, and compare that to modern humans and apes,” Kappelman said. “Because Lucy is so complete, she is one of the few fossils that permit us to compare how she used her arms versus how she used her legs. These new data will allow us to examine the theory that she climbed about in the trees, as well as walked on two legs when she was on the ground.”
Although Lucy is small (about one meter tall), her contribution to science has been large. She represents a distinct species of human ancestor, known as Australopithecus afarensis, or “southern ape of Afar,” in reference to where the bones were found.
Prior to the 1974 discovery of Lucy, some theories of evolution suggested human-like intelligence evolved before upright posture (bipedalism). But the existence of ancient bipeds like Lucy refutes this theory because their brain is not significantly larger than that of a modern chimpanzee.
The Ethiopian government entrusted Lucy to Kappelman and Richard Ketcham, associate professor of geological sciences in the Jackson School of Geosciences and director of the university’s High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography Facility, one of the world’s premier labs for this work.
Scientists at the facility have scanned thousands of delicate fossils and biological specimens, including irreplaceable items such as the brain case of Archaeopteryx (one of the oldest and most primitive birds known). Because CT allows scientists to see inside fossils without doing any harm, it has become one of the most powerful tools for studying precious, one-of-a-kind specimens.
“We have more experience scanning natural history objects and dealing with the issues that can arise in scanning natural material than any other lab in the world,” Ketcham said. “The equipment is constantly updated and we’ve created a large, specialized toolkit to process the scan data and to extract the maximum amount of information from it. There’s no other place the Ethiopian government could have sent Lucy to get better imagery or to acquire it more safely.”
For 10 days the university team worked around the clock to scan all 80 pieces of Lucy’s skeleton. The scientists created custom-built foam mounts to safely hold the specimens in the scanner. And each piece was carefully examined before and after scanning to ensure that no damage occurred during the project.
The successful completion of Lucy’s scan means that the specimen is now safely archived in digital format, another of the reasons behind the scanning.
“These scans will ensure that future generations are familiar with Lucy,” said Jara Mariam, director general of Ethiopia’s Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, “and will know of Ethiopia’s central contribution to the study of human evolution. A virtual Lucy will be able to visit every classroom on the planet.”
“In some ways, scanning Lucy was the easy part,” Ketcham said. For the next several months, the research team, consisting of scientists from all around the country, will be reviewing and processing the data and generating images to analyze Lucy’s skeleton and begin to answer important questions ranging from whether she climbed among the tree branches to how she chewed.
This ancient hominin, whom Ethiopians call “Dinkenesh” (“You are beautiful”), is the feature attraction in the exhibit, “Lucy’s Legacy: The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia,” which is touring the United States. More than a quarter million people viewed the fossil at Houston Museum of Natural Science during 2007 and 2008. After the brief layover in Austin for the scan, Lucy moved to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle where she is on exhibit through March.
Kappelman said the university’s scanning project represents a model for future collaborations between public educational programs and scientific research.
“There is an understandable tension between museum curators, who like to display fossils, and scientists who want to conduct research on the specimens,” Kappelman said. “Our project demonstrates these goals are not mutually exclusive—but mutually beneficial. The museum exhibit that features Lucy offers a once in a lifetime opportunity to introduce millions of people to the actual evidence for human evolution, and seeing the real fossil is so much more meaningful than viewing a plastic replica.”
“Having Lucy here also means that scientists can conduct research that asks new questions about the fossil and this knowledge feeds back into the ongoing exhibit and continues to educate,” Kappelman said. “Lucy may be old, but she still has lots of new secrets to tell.”
Source : University of Texas at Austin