ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – In a move that came as a surprise to many watchers, Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi announced the dissolution of the Ministry of Information and made a reshuffle in his cabinet. The dissolution of the ministry was announced on Thursday by the PM while addressing parliament.
Meles did not give any specific reason for dissolving the ministry but said in general that it is not due to a particular reason.
The dissolution of the ministry, some legal experts say, raises some questions as regards who would assume the mandates that the ministry used to have such as licensing newspapers and regulating the media.
So far, nothing has been said as to the fate of the different government media outlets and the Broadcasting Agency, which were accountable to the ministry.
It is not clear so far to which government institution the Ethiopian Television and Radio Enterprise and the state-owned newspapers will be accountable in the future.
While the Ministry of Information was dissolved, a new Ministry of Science and Technology came into existence. Parliament voted to accept the establishment of the ministry less than a month ago.
PM Meles also reshuffled his cabinet and appointed new ministers and reassigned some of the ministers to other ministries.
Junedin Sado, who was the Minister of Transport and Communications, now has become the first minister of Science and Technology.
Tefera Deribew takes over the ministerial portfolio for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development from Deputy Prime Minister Addisu Legesse, who was heading the ministry.
Diriba Kuma replaces Junedin Sado as Minister of Transport and Communications while Muferihat Kamil, the only female amongst the newly appointed ministers, takes the place of Hirut Dilebo as Minister of Women’s Affairs.
The Ministry of Defense, which was without a minister for over five months, has now Siraj Fegessa as its new minister. The position has been vacant since the former minister, Kuma Demeksa, left to become the mayor of the Addis Ababa City Administration nearly five months ago.
Dr. Shiferaw Teklemariam now heads the Minister of Federal Affairs in place of Siraj Fegessa, who is now the defense minister.
The Ministry of Education too has a new minister, Demeke Mekonnen, in place of Dr. Sintayehu Woldemichael. The former information minister, Berhan Hailu, was appointed as the new Minister of Justice ousting Assefa Kesito.
The government’s whip in parliament, Shiferaw Jarso, was also removed from his position and replaced by the former president of the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State Hailemariam Desalegn.
In response to EDUP-Medhin party chairman Lidetu Ayalew’s inquiry as to why the government decided to reshuffle his cabinet, Meles said that in some ministries like the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, a full-timer minister was needed as the deputy prime minister also headed that ministry. He said that due to lack of time. the deputy prime minister could not give his full attention to the ministry.
Meles also said that the Ministry of Defense needed a new minister as the former minister left his position to become mayor of Addis Ababa.
Parliament approved the minister’s nominated by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi by a majority vote of 309 to 14 while 50 MPs abstained.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Reuters) – Ethiopia said on Monday an opposition leader had been arrested for working with insurgent groups opposed to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government.
The Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) confirmed its general secretary Bekele Jirata was picked up on Thursday as he was going to his Addis Ababa office in what it called an abuse of rights.
“He was working hand-in-glove with terrorists,” Bereket Simon, special advisor to Meles, told Reuters.
“It is proven he had links with groups like the OLF.”
One of various rebel movements in the huge Horn of Africa nation, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has been fighting for independence for the southern Oromo region since 1993.
The Ethiopian government routinely accuses arch-foe Eritrea of backing the rebel group with training and financial support.
Opposition groups say they are constantly harassed by the government despite operating within the law.
“At this time, we are unable to have any meaningful dialogue with the authorities who ordered the detention,” OFDM chairman Bulcha Demeksa told Reuters in an e-mail.
“The constitution and other human rights laws would have been our guarantor, but…this is not the case in Ethiopia.”
The OFDM in April accused the government of intimidation as voters went to the polls for the first time since post-election violence in 2005 killed 199 civilians.
The party said most of their candidates in the April local elections had been threatened and forced to pull out of the race. They ran less than two percent of their originally proposed candidates.
In a separate incident, Amare Aregawi, editor of Ethiopia’s well-known Reporter newspaper, was attacked by two men as he left a parent-teacher meeting at his son’s school in Addis Ababa on Friday, colleagues said.
“They jumped him from behind and hit him with rocks,” said a senior editor at the Reporter, who asked not to be named.
“They tried to kill him. We knew there had been death threats but we never thought it would come to this.”
Amare was arrested in August after a large brewery brought a libel complaint against the newspaper but was released five days later on payment of bail.
The Reporter is one of Ethiopia’s largest circulation publications and its editorials are often critical of Ethiopian government policy.
Amare was in hospital being treated for serious head injuries after he was knocked unconscious by his attackers.
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders demanded an investigation, saying a show of firmness would convince others tempted to use “violence to settle scores with the press that such behaviour would not go unpunished.”
Local media said two men had been arrested for the attack, one assailant and a taxi-driver used for a getaway. Police were not immediately available to confirm that. (Editing by Jon Boyle)
The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in over 120 countries, strongly condemns the 31 October 2008 attack on Amare Aregawi, editor-in-chief of the Ethiopian bi-weekly newspaper The Reporter.
“IPI denounces this assault on Amare Aregawi in the strongest possible terms,” said IPI Director David Dadge. “Given that Aregawi has been targeted for his work in the past, IPI is concerned that this attack was linked to his journalism. IPI calls on the authorities to not only bring those behind this brutal act to justice, but to also do everything in their power to ensure that Ethiopian journalists are free to carry out their profession without fear of attack.”
According to information before IPI, Aregawi was assaulted at approximately 16.30 on 31 October by two assailants, while leaving his son’s school following a parent-teacher meeting. Aregawi was struck on the back of the head, and left bleeding and unconscious on the ground. His assailants were apprehended shortly afterwards and Aregawi himself was brought to a local hospital by school employees, where he is currently being treated for head injuries.
Aregawi has previously been singled out for his writing. In August of this year, he was detained by authorities for a period of five days following the publication of articles addressing criticism of a local brewery and a government office. This most recent incident follows a series of editorials in The Reporter criticising members of the local business community, leading local sources to believe that the attack was also linked to his work as a journalist.
Sen. Barack Obama enters Election Day with a solid, though narrowing, lead over Sen. John McCain as both men sprint to the finish line of their long presidential race.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds the Democrat with an eight-percentage-point advantage, down from the 10-point edge he held last week. The Republican was still hoping he could gain further traction in the campaign’s closing hours with now-familiar charges that Obama is too liberal and not ready for the job.
Obama’s lead, reflected in other national and battleground state polls as well, has been in place since September, when the financial crisis reset the presidential contest. McCain’s advisers were gunning for a come-from-behind victory, noting that he did it before to capture the Republican nomination.
The new Wall Street Journal poll, conducted Saturday and Sunday, found 51% of likely voters favored Obama, versus 43% who favored McCain. Six percent remained undecided, with a third of those saying they were leaning toward a third-party candidate. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
“The poll shows some slight movement for McCain. But with just 48 hours left, it’s going to be a challenge to make up the rest of the difference,” said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who conducts the survey with Democrat Peter D. Hart.
“This poll has all the earmarkings of an electorate that has reached an opinion that Barack Obama would be a good president,” Mr. Hart said. “The uncertainties [about Obama] that were so prevalent early in the year have just melted away.”
OBAMA, JAPAN (Reuters) – Dancing, singing and playing the guitar, residents in the sleepy Japanese fishing port of Obama are readying to party for Barack Obama before Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election.
Around 50 men, women and children wearing “I Love Obama” T-shirts practiced hula dancing over the weekend for the Honolulu-born Democratic candidate, hoping he will win the vote and one day visit the town as U.S. President.
“I’m 85 percent confident that Obama will win,” said hotel owner Seiji Fujiwara, who heads a group backing Obama in hopes that the town, with a population of 32,000, can share his fame and attract more visitors. “I think he’ll be alright.”
Shops in the town have been selling everything from T-shirts, fish burgers and steamed cakes to chopsticks bearing Obama’s name.
“We’ve been dancing for Mr. Obama for more than six months,” said Yuko Shirayama of the local “Obama Girls” hula dancing group, created to cheer on Obama. “So I hope he wins.”
Her group traveled to Hawaii to celebrate Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic nomination for U.S. president earlier this year and the dancers hope to go to Obama’s inauguration ceremony if he wins.
“If Mr. Obama becomes president and gets a chance to visit Japan, we would like him to visit our city,” Mayor Kouji Matsuzaki told Reuters.
Obama has drawn popularity not only in the town sharing his name, but also across the rest of Japan.
In a survey of 3,500 readers by the Asahi Shimbun daily, 73 percent said they would choose Obama if they could vote, while only 7 percent said they would pick Republican rival John McCain.
The town’s residents will hold their breath as they watch the election results together on television, but they plan to dance and party regardless of the outcome.
(Reporting by Toshi Maeda; Editing by Alex Richardson)
TIPP, the most accurate pollster in 2004, shows serious movement in McCain’s favor, with the overall margin at 2.1 points. To me it looks like the poll may be weighted just a tiny bit too heavily in favor of self-described conservatives, but still, I think directionally they are on to something and this is one poll definitely worth watching. I think the best thing to do is not look at the Real Clear Politics poll average, even though RCP is usually invaluable, but instead to understand that RCP includes nutty outliers like Newsweek. Instead, if you take an average of just four polls with good records, I think you might be onto something. Those four are, to the best of my discernment, TIPP (Obama +2), Rasmussen (+5), GWU/Battleground (+4), and, on the advice of the Examiner’s brilliant Chris Stirewalt, WSJ/NBC — but WSJ hasn’t done a poll since Oct. 20. Just for now, then, I substitute in Fox News (which may be wishful thinking), at +3, and the average margin for Obama right now is 3.5 points, with all the movement in McCain’s direction. I then add a point and a half to Obama because of his superb organization and because of the rampant vote fraud in his favor — and I firmly believe this will be the most fraudulent election in history — which means I think Obama is up by 5 points, effectively.
Two more days of momentum for McCain and, one can hope, another good day on Wall Street on Monday, could get it within 2 points. And if it is within 2 points nationwide (which means half a point if you don’t buy my organization-plus-vote-fraud theory), then the distribution of the votes might, just might, allow McCain to pick the Electoral College lock even while losing the popular vote. The key, as I wrote about ten days ago, will be Pennsylvania. I still think that as Pennsylvania goes, so will go the nation — and I still think McCain has a decent chance at winning Pennsylvania.
In short, McCain needs everything to break right. But he doesn’t need everything to break miraculously right, but only for everything within the mid-ranges of reason to break his way. The good news is, therefore, that a victory for him is within reason. The bad news is that he needs every variable within reason, and with so many variables at play, the combination of all of those together does, indeed, push his chances to the outer edges of — but not beyond — yes, reason.
