MEKELLE (IRIN) – The humanitarian situation in the drought-affected north and north-eastern Ethiopia continues to deteriorate as severe drought bites.
“Rainfall in October, which was unexpected, was not of great help to the crops that were planted in May; only the livestock benefited temporarily, now the people are facing a significant crop failure,” a humanitarian worker, who requested anonymity, told IRIN on 23 November.
The area has experienced successive failures of the Belg (short rains ending in May) and Meher (long rains, which start in late July) in the past few years, resulting in low crop yields in some parts and near-crop failure in others.
The aid worker, a member of an inter-agency assessment mission to Tigray in the Eastern Zone in the northeast, said signs were that the situation could deteriorate, with rising malnutrition rates, crop failure, water shortages, population movement to areas where drought was less severe, as well as greater dependency on relief aid.
The findings of the assessment, by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Disaster Management and Food Security Sector, the Tigray Regional Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Department, OCHA, the World Food Programme, the UN Children’s Fund and several NGOs, including Relief Society of Tigray, will be concluded by end-November. These results will determine how many people will require emergency food aid and non-food assistance in 2009.
The Ethiopian government Woyanne and its humanitarian partners issued an update on 14 October, seeking emergency aid for an estimated 6.4 million people across the country.
A multi-agency rapid assessment of the drought situation in Tigray at end-September, and included in the October requirement document, recommended the provision of emergency food aid to an estimated 600,000 in nine “hotspot” woredas (districts) countrywide.
Tigray authorities requested the multi-agency assessment team in November to cover 27 woredas out of 34 in the region, a sign that drought was spreading fast.
Some residents of woredas affected in the Eastern Zone, such as Kilte Awlaelo, Atsbi Womberta and Tse-se Tsada Ambat, told IRIN they were considering migrating to other parts of the country, while others were contemplating selling their livestock, despite falling prices, to survive.
Gebremedhin Gebregergis, a farmer in Kihen Tabia of Kilte Awlaelo woreda, said his one-acre Teff crop had almost failed and he expected to harvest less than one quintal (100kg) and leave the most stunted for his one oxen and one cow.
“To survive, I have to sell some of the livestock, mostly the sheep and goats; but this will not be enough as the animals don’t fetch much on the market,” Gebremedhin, who has eight children, said. “Already I cannot send one of my children to high school even though he has completed Grade Eight because I cannot afford it; the priority is to be able to feed my family.”
Malnutrition rising
A health extension worker in Kilte Awlaelo said malnutrition rates had increased compared with three months ago and the health ministry had intensified efforts to prevent increases in cases of diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea, eye ailments, worm infestation and pneumonia.
“In June, we screened 746 children under-five for malnutrition but the figure dropped to only 415 in October because some of the children had moved to other parts of the country with their parents while others were no longer attending school because of the drought,” the health worker said.
They were now planning to screen the children every month, instead of every three months, to capture those severely and moderately malnourished early. “We were also screening pregnant women and lactating mothers every three months but we will also shift to screening them on a monthly basis.”
Escape by migration
Birizaf Tsegay, 17, a resident of Wukro village in Atsbi Womberta woreda, said the drought had reduced the harvest from her mother’s two-hectare farm to such an extent that migration by some family members was inevitable.
“What we harvested recently is not enough for our family; it may not even last one month,” she said. “I dropped out of school from Grade Three because I was unable to buy exercise books, my elder sister is also out of school, only my two younger brothers are still in school; to survive, some of us, including myself, will have to move to look for work in other woredas so as to send money home.”
In its September Focus on Ethiopia report, OCHA reported that emergency aid in Tigray had been extended to November due to poor food security in the region.
“There is a limited supply of cereals in most markets compared to livestock availability,” OCHA said.
Tiberah Tsehai Tsehainy.com
EthiDolls, established in 2003 and based in New York City, is the maker of the eye catching Queen of Sheba Doll, Makeda. Makeda comes fully dressed in hand-woven hager lebse and even has tattoos on her neck. Patti Gindoff is the Senior Vice President of Marketing for EthiDolls. “My job is to garnish as much exposure as possible. I do that by getting in touch with newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations,” she explains. EthiDolls has been featured on CW11, BET J, Forbes.com, Addis Fortune and The Star-Ledger, Ebony, and Uptown Magazine to name a few. “The two co-founders, Salome and Yeworkwoha, came up with the idea to create dolls because they wanted to tell the world about African women rulers from history,” she says. “They wanted to do something educational and entertaining,” she adds. Salome Yilma is the Chief Executive Officer for EthiDolls and Yeworkwoha Ephrem is the Executive Vice President. Yeworkwoha is also owner of two Ethiopian restaurants, Ghenet, in Manhattan and Ghenet Brooklyn.
An illustrated book and audio book can be purchased along with Makeda, The Queen of Sheba Doll and Queen Mother Yaa Asantewaa of the Asante Doll. “The stories and life journeys of these rulers are told from the point of view of an African American grandfather telling these stories to his granddaughter. Storytelling is an art that is still practiced today,” says Patti.
“We wanted to have it familial with an extended African American family; so we decided it would be nice to have a grandfather of African descent tell the story to his granddaughter.” As the story of Makeda is being told, krar, an ancient Ethiopian stringed musical instrument, plays in the background….Read More
Source: CNN
Pirates have hijacked a Saudi-owned oil tanker with 25 crew aboard off the coast of Kenya, the U.S. Navy and the British Foreign Office confirmed on Monday.
he Sirius Star — a crude “super tanker” flagged in Liberia and owned by the Saudi Arabian-based Saudi Aramco company — was attacked on Saturday more than 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, Kenya. The crew includes British, Croatian, Polish, Filippino and Saudi nationals.
U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet Cmdr. Jane Campbell said the super tanker weighs more than 300,000 metric tons and “is more than three times the size of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.”
Oil industry insiders say a tanker of this size can carry up to 2 million barrels of oil. A U.S. Navy spokesman said the tanker was carrying some oil, but it was not known how much.
A multinational naval force including vessels from the U.S., the UK and Russia has been patrolling the Indian Ocean waters seas near the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, following a sharp increase in pirate attacks in the region.
“It was attacked more than 450 nautical offshore of Mombasa. This means that the pirates are now operating in an area of over 1.1 million square miles. This is a measure of the determination of the pirates and … a measure of how lucrative piracy could become,” Campbell said.
Campbell said the Navy does not expect to dispatch a vessel to aide the super tanker because it does not have dangerous weapons aboard like the MV Faina, a Ukrainian ship loaded with arms that was seized by pirates on September 25.
The UK Foreign Office confirmed two Britons were aboard and said it was seeking more information about the incident.
U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen of the U.S. 5th Fleet told the Associated Press the pirates holding the Sirius Star are nearing an anchorage point at the Somali town of Eyl — a haven for pirates where a number of other ships are still being held.
South Korean officials said on Sunday that armed gunmen hijacked a Japanese freighter and its 23-member crew off the coast of Somalia. The hijacking came as the Korean government was considering sending a warship to join those of other countries to combat piracy in the area.
A Russian patrol ship also thwarted an attack on a Saudi vessel.
Eleven vessels are currently being held by pirates hoping to secure ransoms for their release, according to The Associated Press. They include the MV Faina, which was hijacked along with 200 crew and a cargo of weapons and T-72 tanks.
Ninety percent of ships transiting the perilous seas are using a guarded corridor and there have been no hijackings inside the zone since it was set up on August 22, Danish Commodore Per Bigum Christensen told AP last week.
Around 20,000 oil tankers, freighters and merchant vessels pass along the crucial shipping route each year.
“Our presence in the region is helping deter and disrupt criminal attacks off the Somali coast, but the situation with the Sirius Star clearly indicates the pirates’ ability to adapt their tactics and methods of attack” said U.S. Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of the Combined Maritime Forces.
“Piracy is an international crime that threatens global commerce. Shipping companies have to understand that naval forces can not be everywhere. Self protection measures are the best way to protect their vessels, their crews, and their cargo.”
By Mike Baker and Barbara Rodriguez
(AP) – President-elect Obama won North Carolina on Thursday, a triumph that underscored his political strength as he turned nine states that President Bush won in 2004 to Democratic blue.
The Associated Press declared Obama the winner after canvassing counties in North Carolina to determine the number of outstanding provisional ballots. That survey found that there are not enough remaining ballots for Republican John McCain to close a 13,693-vote deficit.
North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes brings Obama’s total to 364 — nearly 100 more than necessary to win the White House — to McCain’s 162. Missouri is the only state that remains too close to call, with McCain leading by several thousand votes.
Obama’s win in North Carolina was the first for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter won the state in 1976.
Of Bush’s 2004 states, Obama captured Virginia, Florida and North Carolina in the South, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa in the Midwest and Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico in the West. All total, Obama has won 28 states and the District of Columbia, McCain 21.
Obama ran an aggressive general election campaign in North Carolina after his wide primary victory in the state over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested he could win a trove of electoral votes that most assumed would belong to McCain.
The Obama campaign’s focus on the state’s two-week early voting period was critical. Obama won more than 1.1 million early votes, giving him a 180,000-vote advantage heading into Election Day — a gap too great for McCain to overcome.
McCain spent months watching North Carolina from afar during the summer as Obama visited regularly, but the GOP nominee returned to the state in the campaign’s final few weeks as polls suggested an Obama victory was possible.
Obama spent millions of televisions ads that were buttressed by hundreds of staff members in dozens of offices to take advantage of North Carolina’s rapidly changing demographics and a large bloc of black voters galvanized by his bid to become the first African-American president.
North Carolina’s growing population includes a booming urban corridor from Charlotte to Raleigh along Interstate 85, while retirees from northern states — who are more willing to vote for Democrats — are filling the state’s coast and mountains.
Exit polls also showed that some 30 percent of voters considered race a factor in their decision, with the numbers split evenly among voters who backed McCain and Obama. Nearly one in five voters considered race an important factor.
The economy also played a role — with 60 percent of voters considering it the top issue, with those voters breaking slightly to Obama. The state’s manufacturing industry has been devastated by competitive imports, and the state’s banking economy centered in Charlotte was struck by economic turmoil that led to the downfall of Wachovia Corp., in the weeks before Election Day.
Obama’s win completed the party’s sweep at the top of the North Carolina ticket. Beverly Perdue was elected the state’s first female governor, while Kay Hagan unseated one of the GOP’s most respected figures in Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
