FRANKFURT, GERMANY – The newly reorganized Ethiopian People Patriotic Front’s (EPPF) International Committee has officially launched its campaign to organize Ethiopians in the Diaspora by holding its first council meeting Saturday, Nov. 14.
At the opening of the meeting, the Committee’s head of public relations and former chairman, Ato Zewdalem Kebede, welcomed the members and introduced the new chairman Ato Leul Qeskis and the other officials.
The 20-member council’s first meeting focused on discussing its mission and objectives. The members, who came from several cities in Europe and North America, also introduced each other and shared their ideas on how to rally Ethiopians in the Diaspora around the organization and mobilize humanitarian support to the families of EPPF fighters, according to the Committee’s Head of the Press Office Ato Demis Belete.
Ato Leul Qeskis, on his part, briefed the members about EPPF’s latest activities in the field, including recent military actions against the Woyanne junta in Ethiopia.
The chairman, Ato Leul, and Ato Assefa Haile, head of political affairs, had spent over three months in the field with the EPPF fighters before the leadership sent them to Europe recently to reorganize and lead the International Committee.
Both Ato Leul and Ato Assefa are elected members of parliament from Gondar and Wollo regions of northern Ethiopia. They joined EPPF after witnessing the barbaric killing of unarmed civilians and mass detention of pro-democracy protesters by the Meles regime following the May 2005 elections. Before being elected to the parliament, Ato Leul had served as head of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) in Gondar. Ato Assefa was a Kinijit organizer in Wollo.
Ethiopian Review will interview Ato Leul on Sunday, Nov. 16, about EPPF’s current activities and future plans, particularly its effort to organize Ethiopians in the Diaspora.
The Secret Service is tasked with protecting the President of the United States from assailants; and given that President-elect Obama has already been the target of assassination plots they may have their work cut out after January. But they have more than earpiece radios and armored limos to help them; the Secret Service can call on the very latest technology. Documents from a recent court case indicate that they have advanced directed-energy devices which are highly classified.
You may remember Donald Friedman, who claims that government agencies are misusing non-lethal directed-energy weapons. It’s easy to dismiss him as a crank. But his obsessive digging has turned up valuable information. For instance, one of his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests unearthed a 1998 U.S. Army program looking at a microwave device to beam sound directly into the target’s skull which the rest of us had missed. (The same technology underlies the Medusa non-lethal weapon.)
Now he’s found something else. Friedman’s current court case involves attempts to extract information about any directed-energy weapons such as lasers and microwaves used by the Secret Service. Do they really have anything of the kind? A “Motion for an Enlargement of Time” (in other words, a request for a few more weeks) by the Secret Service’s attorney indicates that they have something, and it’s pretty secret:
“Plaintiff’s FOIA request is for document [sic] concerning directed energy technology that is very sensitive. Some of this documents [sic] pertain to research conducted by divisions within defendant agency that is used to carry out its mandate to protect very high government officials. In fact, in one case, the documents… could not be mailed but had to be hand carried interstate.”
So what is this “sensitive” technology? We don’t know for sure, naturally. But we can sure speculate…
Now, we’ve talked before about the Secret Service’s interest in laser dazzlers as a means of protecting the White House against suicide attacks by light aircraft, dating back to 1998. We don’t know if dazzlers have ever been deployed, but that would certainly explain some of the secrecy.
Portable dazzlers would also be a good way of dealing with potential snipers without the risk of harming bystanders. Other agencies also have an interest in covert dazzlers. Ex MI6 agent David Tomlinson claims a laser strobe was proposed for an assassination attempt on Slobodan Milosevic in 1992 by dazzling his chauffeur at a crucial point and causing him to crash. (Conspiracy theorists claim that a laser dazzler was used to assassinate Diana, Princess of Wales — but any bright flashes more likely came from photographer’s flashguns.)
A portable version of the truck-mounted Active Denial System — the Pentagon’s “pain ray” — might be used to similar effect. It could cause an assailant to flinch for a vital second, giving agents an opportunity to get the President out of the line of fire, without having to shoot into a crowd. Raytheon has been working on a rifle-sized version of the Active Denial System for some years, but nothing has been heard of it recently.
Another likely candidate is a directed-energy device to neutralize suspected improvised explosive devices, or IEDs — something that produces an intense, narrow beam of microwaves to fry the electronics. Tomlinson also claimed that MI6 has “sophisticated radio transmitters that would knock out the electronics of the limo at the press of a button, causing the airbags to inflate.”
Presidential protection is likely to include a range of jammers to stop remote bomb detonation, and possibly remote-controlled aircraft attacks. With all this jamming, interference can occur and make radio communication impossible — if you leave any frequency clear, the bad guys might use it to send a detonation signal. So perhaps the Secret Service may have a microwave voice-transmission system as an emergency backup when radio communication is impossible. This would allow them to beam instructions to agents at a distance. At a pinch it could also be used to distract a would-be assassin — having a voice suddenly booming inside your head should put off most snipers (though they might have a few voices in there already).
We know that the Air Force has looked at microwave sound as a non-lethal weapon, and long-range acoustic systems like LRAD are already in use by the military and others. So a Secret Service microwave sound system is not totally, completely out of the question.
Donald Friedman may yet manage to get more information about secret directed-energy weapons. All we know so far is that they exist… Unless anyone out there can tell us more?
CAIRO, EGYPT – The Egyptian government warned Sudan that its stance on the International Criminal Court (ICC) is “weak” and will not protect president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir from prosecution.
“I thoroughly examined the ICC Statute to look for something that could aid Sudan’s position. Even though Sudan is not a state party this will not prevent the ICC jurisdiction in these cases and dropping all immunities” the Egyptian State minister for Legal and parliamentary affairs Mufid Shihab said during a forum at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo.
The Egyptian official stressed that the only way out for Sudan and its president is to take “concrete and concise steps” and that there is no point of taking extreme positions on rejecting the ICC.
The ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo Ocampo announced in mid-July that he requested an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir on 10 counts of war crimes and genocide. In early October ICC judges have officially started reviewing the case in a process that could possibly drag on to next year.
The statements by Shihab mark a radical shift in Egypt’s position which has backed Sudan in position against the ICC.
The Egyptian minister, who is an international lawyer expert, has previously said in August that Khartoum is not bound by the ICC since it is not a member of the court and emphasized that Al-Bashir enjoys immunity as a head of state.
Shihab’s remarks come days after the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak paid a surprise and brief visit to Khartoum where he held private talks with Al-Bashir believed to have mainly focused on the ICC row.
Cairo backed an Arab League resolution last July which described the ICC’s prosecutor position as “unbalanced”.
The Arab League’s 22 foreign ministers decided in a resolution adopted on Saturday to show “solidarity with the Republic of Sudan in the face of any schemes aimed at undermining its sovereignty, unity and stability and not to accept the unbalanced position of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court at the request contained in a case submitted to the ICC (pre-trial Chamber)”.
The Arab minister further said they adopt this position to emphasis on their rejection to any “attempts meaning to politicize the principles of international justice or to use it to erode State sovereignty, unity, security, stability and national symbols”.
The Arab League devised a plan containing a series of steps to help Sudan avoid Bashir’s prosecution which included conducting internal trials for Darfur war crimes suspects. Following its implementation the UN Security (UNSC) could be requested to suspend the ICC move by invoking Article 16 for a period of 12 months that can be renewed indefinitely.
But the Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Ismail was quoted by the daily Al-Hayat newspaper at the time as telling reporters in Cairo after meeting with Arab League Secretary general Amr Moussa “that there are some parts of the plan that need more discussions”.
Ismail also insisted that the Sudanese judiciary is capable of looking into the Darfur war crimes and noted the recent appointment of a special prosecutor for Darfur by Sudan’s justice minister.
Shihab downplayed the Arab efforts on the ICC issue describing them as “rhetorical and emotional”.
“This will not avert the disaster” the leading figure in Egypt ruling National Party cautioned.
The French-Libyan born counsel Dr. Hadi Shalluf commenting on Shihab statements said that Cairo position on ICC “are contradictory”.
“The Egyptians do not have a fixed legal opinion. One time they say the ICC has no jurisdiction and then later they say no they do” Shallluf told Sudan Tribune by phone from Paris.
“This is the nature of the Arab politics. Legal opinions are variable depending on political positions. Arab justice ministers are politicians They don’t understand in law. They are simply policemen” he added.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the UN Security Council (UNSC) triggered the provisions under the Statute that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Talks on forming a new government in Somalia in a bid to end nearly two decades of bloodletting have failed, Ethiopia’s Woyanne foreign ministry announced on Saturday.
Somalia’s President Abdullah Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein “still fail to agree over a cabinet,” the ministry said in a communique.
At a summit last month in the Kenyan capital Nairobi the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which Ethiopia currently chairs, set a deadline of November 12 for the feuding sides to agree on a new transitional government.
The Somali president and prime minister arrived in Addis Ababa on Thursday for a 24-hour working visit to discuss how to implement the Nairobi declaration with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin.
“The talks centred specifically on the formation of the cabinet,” the ministry communique said.
“According to the timelines agreed at Nairobi, these should have been finalised on Wednesday this week. However no agreement has yet been reached on the membership of the cabinet,” it said.
It noted that the prime minister had presented a list to President Yusuf in London last week but he found the names “unacceptable”.
It warned that under the Nairobi declaration, “if any of the parties defaulted on the timelines for any of the agreed decisions,” IGAD would have to call a new summit.
Ethiopian {www:Woyanne} troops entered Somalia in late 2006 and helped oust Islamist militants who had taken control of much of the country.
Since then, the insurgents have waged a guerilla war, saying they would only meet the government for peace talks after Ethiopian Woyanne troops pull out of the country.
Founded in 1986, IGAD has six active members: Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.
EDITOR’S NOTE: These are opportunist cowards. Why don’t they speak up when the Meles dictatorship is turning the country into a vast prison camp for Oromos?
By Tsegaye Tadesse
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – An Ethiopian rebel group must listen to its people and start talks with the government to end a 15-year insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation, elders from the Oromo ethnic group said on Saturday.
Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi, the main U.S. ally in the turbulent region, is opposed by a range of rebel groups from remote regions, including the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) which has fought for autonomy for its southern homeland since 1993.
“We strongly demand that the OLF leadership heed the genuine desire of the Oromo people and enter into negotiations with the Ethiopian government without further delay,” a group of 125 Oromo elders said in a statement.
It said the guerrillas should respect a pact with Meles’ administration dictatorship reached in the Netherlands in January under which the rebels agreed to accept Ethiopia’s constitution in principle and start talks.
The government blames the insurgents for several bomb blasts targeting the capital, Addis Ababa, in recent years, and last week it said its forces had killed a senior OLF commander after luring him to a farmer’s house in the west of the country.
Ethiopia {www:Woyanne} accuses arch-foe Eritrea of backing the OLF and other rebels. Asmara denies it, and accuses Meles of oppressive policies that have triggered resistance movements. From 1998 to 2000, the two nations fought a border war in which 70,000 people were killed.
(Writing by Jack Kimball; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
By Dorothy H Crawford
Professor of medical microbiology
Edinburgh University
WHEN Aids first struck an unsuspecting American population in 1981, no-one had a clue what caused this lethal new disease, or where it came from.
As the disease spread at an alarming rate, scientists hurried to identify the cause. Two years later, French scientists Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, isolated a virus, later called the human immunode ficiency virus – HIV – that proved to be the cause of Aids. And just last month, more than 20 years after the event, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their monumental discovery.
By the time the French scientists identified HIV, thousands were suffering from Aids and, we now know, an epidemic of unprecedented magnitude was already under way in sub-Saharan Africa. But where did the virus come from? And when did it first infect humans?
HIV is very prone to mutation, meaning that it evolves rapidly – up to a million times faster than animal DNA. This allows the virus to foil attempts by the body’s immune system to eliminate it. It also allows the virus to develop drug resistance, and has so far prevented us making an effective vaccine. But the mutations are useful for tracking the virus back to its roots. By following the trail of genetic changes HIV has accumulated over time, molecular detectives traced it to west-central Africa, pinning down its launch pad to Kinshasa (previously Léopoldville), capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they found viruses with the greatest genetic diversity. Just one of these HIVs, carried by a single individual, jumped from Kinshasa to Haiti, and from there to the United States, thus spawning the pandemic in the US and Europe.
But where did the ancestral virus originally come from? For several years scientists searched for HIV-like viruses among captive African primates without success, but then a team headed by Beatrice Hahn at Alabama University found a chimpanzee (called Marilyn and trained for space flight by the US air force) of one particular subspecies, Pan troglodytes, the common chimpanzee, which carried a virus similar to HIV.
They suggested that HIV jumped from chimps to humans in Africa, perhaps during the bloody process of killing and butchering chimps for bush meat. To prove this they needed to isolate viruses from wild chimps, but these animals are reclusive, endangered and live in remote jungle areas, so taking blood samples was out of the question. Instead, scientists resorted to collecting chimp faeces from the forest floor at ten sites in south-east Cameroon known to be chimpanzee territory. After air-lifting some 600 samples to the US and analysing them for chimp subspecies as well as viruses, they pointed the finger unequivocally at chimpanzees in Cameroon as the origin of HIV.
Another part of HIV’s complex history fell into place last month when a group of US scientists compared the genetic material of two HIVs rescued from human samples taken in Léopoldville and stored since 1959.
The differences between them showed that even 50 years ago, HIV had been around long enough to accumulate a substantial number of mutations, and dated HIV’s transfer to humans to the beginning of the 20th century.
Now two questions remain: why did a chimp virus from Cameroon first appear in Léopoldville, 700km to the south-east, about 100 years ago? And if HIV first infected humans in the early 1900s, why did it go global only in the 1970s?
Firstly, in the early 1900s, rivers were the main thoroughfare out of the Cameroon forests, and since rivers in south-east Cameroon form part of the Congo River basin, all eventually lead to Kinshasa. So, spread by sexual contact, the virus must have travelled down-river, perhaps painstakingly slowly, from one village to the next, before it finally reached the city. Secondly, HIV spreads rapidly only in concentrated city populations. Thus the growth of Léopoldville in early 20th century colonial Africa was the key to its dissemination, giving the virus the opportunity to transform from a local to a global player that still kills 10,000 people every day.
