Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia wins the gold medal in the men’s 10,000 meters today out sprinting his competitors at the last lap. His compatriot Sileshi Sihine won silver. Haile Gebreselassie did not get medal.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Garowe Online) — Interim Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has accused the Ethiopian Woyanne army’s top commander deployed in Somalia of “taking bribes” from local business groups, inside sources tell Garowe Online.

In private talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi, President Yusuf said Gen. Gabre has “connections” with insurgents and other anti-government groups, the sources added.

Somalia’s president and the Prime Minister, Nur “Adde” Hassan Hussein, are in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa where the Ethiopian leader dictator is helping mediate the growing rift between them.

According to Garowe Online sources, President Yusuf called for Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Zenawi to “replace” Gen. Gabre with a new commander for troops deployed in southern and central Somalia.

The Ethiopian Woyanne general was accused of allowing Mogadishu’s Bakara Market traders to establish a private security force, which is independent of the government, the sources in Addis Ababa said.

Further, the Somali President said Gen. Gabre is “responsible” for the Islamist rebels’ ability to gain strongholds in Hiran and Middle Shabelle regions.

By Shlomit Sharvit, ynetnews.com

JERUSALEM — Mass demonstration held in front of Prime Minister’s Office for 8,700 Falash Mura members who were promised aliyah in 2005, yet remain in Ethiopia; nine protestors arrested.

Taish Tafaka, a 29-year-old mother of two, has been in Israel for four years. Her father, brother and sister are in Gondar, Ethiopia and are presently forbidden from immigrating to Israel.

“Why are they separating us?” Tafaka asked on Sunday morning alongside 5,000 people in a protest in front of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, in which some people were arrested.

“We are in contact by telephone and it is very hard on them. They don’t have food and we send them money; giving what we can,” said Tafaka, who is in Israel with her four brothers.

“We go to the Interior Ministry every day and ask them to bring them here; we don’t understand why it isn’t happening. I am a Jew, so my mom is a Jew, why are they separating us?”

Some 8,700 Jewish people are waiting in the Gondar community as the government refuses to look into their right to immigrate to Israel, despite a promise made in 2005.

In light of this same promise, they left their homes in their villages and cities in Ethiopia; some of them have been waiting there for eight years.

In 2005, the government promised to bring 17,000 Falash Mura members to Israel but the last official flight arrived two weeks ago and the capacity has been filled.

The Prime Minister’s Office emphasized that immigration from Ethiopia will not stop but that the active search for Jews will not continue. Nonetheless, the government will look into all requests made by people wanting to come to Israel.

A PM’s Office official said, “There is no commitment to a specific number of Falash Mura members that will immigrate to Israel, but there will not be one Ethiopian Jew who has the right to immigrate to Israel based on the Law of Return, who won’t immigrate.”

The protesters held the pictures of parents, children, relatives and others from which they have been separated. Notat Bargahano stood in the scorching sun with tears in her eyes and a picture of a little girl and a baby who remain in Ethiopia.

In a new immigrant’s Hebrew, she explained that she is alone in Israel, waiting while they wait to move to Israel alongside her brother in Gondar.

Ethiopian community leader Avraham Nagusa said in the demonstration that “Chief Rabbi Rishon Lezion Shlomo Amar determined that they are Jewish. I call upon the government to listen to the former President of the Supreme Court Meir Shamgar and reach the right decision to bring the rest of Ethiopia’s Jews to Israel.”

‘Good deed to bring Falash Mura to Israel’

Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar wrote a letter on the subject to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

“I was sorry to hear that the Jewish identity of our Ethiopian brothers called Falash Mura is being doubted again…it is a hugely good deed to bring them to the land of Israel as Jews and save them from complete physical and emotional impurity… it is a huge honor for the nation of Israel and for the entire Israeli government,” wrote Rabbi Amar.

Knesset Member Michael Eitan (Likud) initiated a bill that passed in its initial reading (43 in favor vs. one against, Housing Minister Ze’ev Boim) in which all those waiting in camps will be brought to Israel as part of Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

“The real 60th celebrations will be bringing Ethiopian Jews to Israel,” said Eitan at the protest.

“This country was established in order to gather Jews from the entire world and bring them to Israel. Since the establishment of the country, no government told Jews preparing to immigrate to Israel, not to immigrate.

“No Israeli government can come and say to people who are waiting to immigrate to Israel that we are closing the doors and we don’t care where you are.”

A few dozen protesters requested to deviate from the procession track and block a junction on the Begin Highway. A police force put them back on track and the procession continued as planned on Kaplan Street. Nine protesters were arrested.

The Falash Mura’s hope is also in the hands of State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss who asked to freeze the decision to halt the Falash Mura immigration to Israel until the special report he wrote on the issue comes to light.

He also decided to assess the issue as a result of a request made by the Knesset’s State Control Committee in November.

NEW YORK (nycgovparks.org) — Ethiopia’s Mahmoud Ahmed and Alemayehu Eshete will perform with Extra Golden at New York’s Lincoln Center Out of Doors on Wednesday, August 20, 2008, at 6:00 PM.

Extra Golden’s songs combine propulsive Kenyan benga music with American rock. Mahmoud Ahmed, one of the most beloved singers of Ethiopia’s “golden era,” and the “Ethiopian James Brown,” Alèmayèhu Eshèté, collaborate with the fearless Boston-based big band The Either/Orchestra.

Ethiopian saxophone giant Gétatchèw Mèkurya, whose musical style Shellele originates from a war chant, shares the stage with The Ex, Holland’s legendary avant-improv-world-punk band.

Admission to this event is free and there are no tickets required.

For more information about this and other Lincoln Center Out of Doors events, visit http://www.LincolnCenter.org or call (212) LINCOLN.

Location: Damrosch Park

West 62nd Street (between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues)
Manhattan

Contact Number: (212) 546-2656

By Simon Wroe, Camden News

AN art student with a history of mental illness killed himself less than a week after doctors discharged him as a low-risk patient with a “sunny disposition”, an inquest heard.

Henock Legesse Eshete, 32, was discovered hanged at his home in the Burmarsh estate on Marsden Street, Queen’s Crescent, last October.

A suicide note ending with the words “Nobody will find me OK” was found near his body.

Staff from the Grove Centre, near the Royal Free Hospital, managed by the Camden and Islington Mental Health and Social Care Trust, told St Pancras Coroner’s Court on Thursday that Mr Eshete’s mental state had “considerably improved” in the months before his death and that the student, who fled civil unrest in Ethiopia in 1993, had been “optimistic”.

But during the inquest a picture emerged of an intensely private man, disturbed by a diagnosis of mental illness.

Yared Eshete, his brother, said being taken away from home had been a “big issue” and Henock had felt stigmatised by neighbours because he was “in and out of hospital” so frequently.

An argument with neighbours about the volume of Mr Eshete’s music, culminating in an alleged stabbing, led to him being sectioned under the Mental Health Act in July, the court heard.
Mr Eshete had been on the centre’s books since an attempted overdose 10 years earlier.

Despite known suicidal tendencies, psychiatrist Dr Philip Harrison Reid told the inquest that concerns surrounding his release were “focused on the protection of others” and that the patient had showed no signs of suicidal thoughts during the two months in his care.

He said: “When I saw him he was occasionally angry about his psychiatric illness, but most of the time his disposition was sunny.”

Lucy Keating, a psychiatric nurse at the centre, said: “He was quite chaotic in his behaviour.”
Yared added: “I’ve never known Henock to harm anybody. He did not want to affect others with his problems.”

Doctors were in the process of carrying out a full risk assessment when Mr Eshete died.
He was last seen eating in the ward the day following his discharge. The alarm was raised four days later when he failed to keep a psychiatric appointment.

Returning a verdict of suicide, Coroner Dr Andrew Reid said: “It was his intention to take his own life. This was in the context of enduring mental illness.”

NEW YORK (tadias.com) — A federal judge in New Jersey has declined to stop the new immigration rule that extends the optional practical training duration from 12 to 29 months for students with F-1 visas.

This is good news for foreign students. Opponents of the new rule had argued that extending the duration of the optional practical training (OPT), the period in which international students are allowed to work in the U.S., was another tactic to give foreign workers entry into the United States.

Annually more than 560,000 international students enroll in U.S. universities and about 40,000 are from sub-Saharan Africa. Ethiopia ranks sixth from the continent with 1,129 F-1 visas issued to Ethiopian students up until 2005… Read more >>