EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is reported as is by WIC, Woyanne’s own news web site. By proudly reporting about this latest land give away, Woyannes are saying to the people of Ethiopia, ‘go suck your thumb, we’ll do what we want with your land.’
(Walta Information Service) ADDIS ABABA — Saudi Arabia, which is making efforts to provide food security for its nationals, can look up to Ethiopia where huge tracts of unutilized agricultural land are available for growing cereals, according to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
A Saudi ministerial delegation, which visited Ethiopia to explore the prospects of investing in agriculture, is impressed by the country’s huge potential and as a follow up sending a team of experts to conduct specialized studies, said Zenawi who spoke in this exclusive interview with Arab News on a variety of economic issues ranging from rising oil prices and inflation to his country’s bilateral trade relations with Saudi Arabia.
Following are excerpts:
Saudi Arabia is engaged in providing food security. A Saudi ministerial delegation has visited your country in this connection. Could you throw light on this?
Saudi Arabia has evinced interest in investing in agriculture, particularly in production of cereals, and has been looking at various options. One of the countries they are looking at is Ethiopia, which has a lot of unutilized land, particularly in the lowland areas of the country where all sorts of agricultural products can be grown. The Saudi delegation studied the prospects of investing in agriculture in this country. We told them we would be very eager to provide hundreds of thousands of hectares of agricultural land for investment, particularly for cereal production. There is a broad agreement and understanding and this will be followed by visits by Saudi experts to conduct specific studies for investment.
What are the existing Saudi investments in Ethiopia?
Most of the Saudi investments have been in manufacturing and hospitality sectors. This has been the focus so far, but we expect a sizeable increase in the Kingdom’s investment in agriculture as a result of its decision to invest in cereals.
What are the other potential areas available for Saudi investment?
The manufacturing sector is promising, especially textiles, leather, leather products and iron bars. In fact, all sectors of manufacturing are open. Investment in infrastructure is also something we are looking for. Real estate development and particularly the hospitality sector including hotels and tourist places, as well as agriculture and agro processing industries are among the other potential areas.
What is the existing level of trade and investment between the two countries?
Saudi Arabia is one of our top three trading partners. Our trade volume is $1 billion, although much of the trade balance is in favor of the Kingdom. The trade gap is about half a billion dollars. We mostly import oil and petroleum products and export coffee, meat and other agricultural products. About 240 Saudi companies have been given the investment license. These companies including those who are operational are expected to invest $2.5 billion. Saudi Arabia is our very important investment partner. Economically, we have solid and fast growing relations.
What has been the impact of rising oil prices?
The dramatic increase in oil prices has hit Ethiopia very hard. Our oil import bill over the past three years has increased by over a billion dollars. This amounts to 3 percent of our GDP. That has upset our balance of payment very significantly. It has created a huge pressure on our balance of payment and complicated the inflationary issue. We are trying to tackle this problem by increasing our exports so that we can pay for our increased import bill, and improving agricultural production so that we can dampen our food prices. We are importing some food from abroad to check the rising trend of our agricultural prices. We are importing wheat. We are no doubt growing wheat but due to an inflationary pressure we are bringing more wheat from abroad to flood the market so that the rising trend of prices in the country can be checked.
How high-level exchange of business visits has benefited your country?
We have had frequent exchanges by leaders at high levels. My assessment is that these high level visits have contributed a lot to the fast growing economic partnership and contributed a lot to the political understanding that we currently enjoy. I expect such exchanges to continue. We are expecting a high level ministerial delegation to visit us in October. I would expect a similar high-level visit from Ethiopia to Saudi Arabia.
Somalia’s presidential palace was hit by four mortar shells in an assault by suspected Islamist insurgents, an army spokesman said.
The attack occurred at Baidoa, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, earlier today, Colonel Dahir Mohamed Hersi said in an interview. No casualties have been reported, he said, adding that the attack was carried out by the al-Shabaab group. Abdulahi Sheikh Jeesow, a shop owner in Baidoa, said the area around the palace had been evacuated.
“Ethiopian Woyanne troops and government soldiers cordoned off the vicinity of the palace,” Jeesow said in a mobile-phone interview. “The roads are empty, the business centers are closed and the tension in Baidoa is high.”
Sheikh Muktar Robow Abu Mansoor, al-Shabaab’s spokesman, didn’t answer his mobile phone when called for comment about the shelling of the palace.
Cease-Fire
Today’s attack is the latest in a series of assaults since the government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia agreed a cease-fire in June. The agreement called for Ethiopian Woyanne troops to withdraw from the country within four months and be replaced by a UN peacekeeping force.
Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, in a speech to commerate the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, said world leaders need to do more to contain the conflict in neighboring Somalia.
“The world, and the United Nations Security Council in particular, must produce a durable solution to the terrible violence and suffering that has devastated the people of Somalia,” Odinga said.
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To contact the reporter on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Johannesburg at [email protected].
ADDIS ABABA — A legal battle in Ethiopia over what constitutes contempt of court is likely to test the boundaries of free speech in a country where the liberty of press has deteriorated over the last three years.
Abiy Teklemariam, managing editor of privately-owned weekly Addis Neger, said in an emailed statement that the paper would appeal the conviction of its editor in chief, Mesfin Negash, for contempt of court at the country’s supreme tribunal.
“The court has in its reasoning set the bar so high that it makes it virtually impossible for a journalist to report about court cases…” the newspaper said in the statement. “We hope that the process and outcome of our appeal will make the scope of liberty of speech and its limitations in the country clearer.”
If accepted by the country’s Supreme Court, the case may determine whether journalists, as the messenger, can be held liable for the message, even when comments are attributed to an identified source. Journalists here are eager for a precedent that might offer legal protection after parliament approved a penal code and press law that media watchdogs say are designed to shackle the press.
“Ethiopian journalists have hostile institutions around them — judges, the government and businessmen,” said Vincent Leonard, Africa director for Paris-based Reporters without Borders. “The law doesn’t protect press freedom but gives weapons to those who want to attack press.”
In a novel use of the contempt of court charge, Federal Judge Leul Gebremariam found Mesfin guilty and sentenced him to a suspended one-month sentence for publishing comments made by the lawyer of an imprisoned pop star. The lawyer, Million Assefa, was also found guilty of contempt of court and sent to Kaliti prison to serve a sentence of one month and 20 days.
Mesfin’s newspaper last month quoted the lawyer as saying he would appeal a decision by the judge, and perhaps file a complaint against him, on behalf of his client Tewodros Kassahun, the singer more commonly known as Teddy Afro, who stands accused of killing a man in a hit-and-run accident.
The judge found both the lawyer and the newspaper guilty, arguing that the article “displays contempt to the constitutional independence of the judiciary” and intends to influence Tewodros’s on-going trial.
The government has been particularly wary of freer media since some private newspapers rallied behind opposition protests against alleged fraud in federal elections in 2005. Thousands were arrested for treason, including 15 journalists all of whom were pardoned or acquitted last year. Thirteen newspapers and magazines were shut down during the crackdown, including three belonging to the country’s largest private publisher, Serkalem Publishing House.
This year, the government has forced two more magazines out of circulation using laws against disturbance to public order. The fashion magazine Enku was one of the two. The magazine’s deputy editor, Aleymayehu Mahtemwork, and three colleagues also spent four days in jail for covering the trial of Teddy Afro. Though Aleymayehu was released, the case against him remains pending and his magazine is yet to be revived.
Thousands of Teddy Afro’s fans have protested the trial, alleging that the charges are politically motivated. Government-controlled radio stations in Ethiopia have banned songs from Teddy Afro’s third album Yasteseryal, which criticizes the failure of governments since the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.
Currently, Ethiopia’s government controls the only no-cost TV broadcaster, Internet sites are routinely blocked by the state telecommunications monopoly, and only a few private newspapers exist. Indeed, Ethiopia has one of the most tightly-controlled presses in the world.
Government officials, however, say they are committed to a progressive opening of the private media and point to the licensing of the country’s first private radio stations last year as evidence of progress.
(ABC Channel 7) OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA — Three robbers with at least one gun, moved in on Skyline Pizza on Keller Avenue, just before closing time. “They looked confident, they were not nervous or anything this time, they looked like they knew what they were doing and they had no fear,” said Wondwossen ‘Woody’ Tadesse, owner of Skyline Pizza. See video below.
(BEIJING 2008) — The Ethiopian Olympic Committee (EOC) has a squad of 36 athletes bound for the Beijing Olympic Games, and the group glitters with gold medalists.
Kenenisa Bekele, 10,000-meter gold medalist at the Athens 2004 Olympiad, will be joined by countrymen Sileshi Sihine and Haile Gebrselassie in the same event at the this summer’s Olympics in the Chinese capital.
Haile Gebrselassie won gold medals in the 10,000-meter race at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games. Sileshi Sihine was the 10,000-meter silver medallist at the Athens 2004 Games. Ethiopia’s elite 10,000-meter race team hopes to capture all three podium places in Beijing.
On the women’s side, two-time world 10,000-meter champion Tirunesh Dibaba, who won the bronze medal in the women’s 5000-meter race at the Athens 2004 Games, might attempt an unprecedented double gold in the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter competitions in Beijing, according to the International Association of Athletics Federations. She will be challenged by compatriot Meseret Defar, a 5,000-meter gold medalist in Athens in the 5000-meter event.
All 36 athletes on the Ethiopian Olympic team will compete in mid-distance and long-distance running events at the Beijing Games.
The following is a real story of an Ogadeni woman. She is only one of the many unfortunate women in this region and if Victor Hugo of the nineteenth century was present in the eastern Ethiopian region of Ogaden, right now he would have written dozens, perhaps hundreds of Les Miserables about them!
It is about 01:30 pm local time and it is an unusually windy day in a dusty and dry village in one of Ogadens remotest areas. The temperature seems unforgivingly higher and the sun appears to have moved closer to the earth. The dry season has persisted longer than expected but people never give up looking at the barren sky; day in day out they pray for clouds of hope, clouds of rain. People and animals, and all other living things are competing for survival. Most importantly they are competing for scarce water and shade. Under an old acacia tree, lies a woman in her late fifties on a worn out mattress. She is a woman with a miserable life but with strong faith in God and that is why her smile is full of life and she repeats Alhamdulillaah. I Thank You Allah.
Ardo used to lead a normal nomadic life in one of the remotest and driest areas in the Ogaden. She had a large family consisting of 13 children and husband. They were not rich but compared to their community they were well off for they had a large number of camel herds and about hundred and fifty shoats and the children would at normal times consume milk at least two times a day. As a mother of more than a dozen of children, she had a busy life from taking care of the children, looking after some herds, managing the economy of the household, traveling long distances to the nearest town to sell animal products and buy needed items etc. She is well known in her locality by her hard work and strong sprit that keeps her rolling like a storm. All in al,l she was the engine of her large family.
Throughout her life, Ardo had came across many sad days as she struggled to make ends meet in the troubled land of Ogaden but none was as darker as the day she woke up without being able to see things! It was typical Jiilaal day where the violent temperature could be felt early in the morning. One night, she just came back from the nearby town where she sold two of her best goats to cope with the unforgiving dry season at which time survival of human beings is the biggest objective of every pastoralist in the area. After a long and tiresome journey by foot, she fell asleep late at that night after serving food to her family who depends on her for almost everything. Apart from the fatigue she remembers she had a severe headache which resembles migrin and locally known as Dhanjaf. Imagine if you suddenly wake up without your sense of sight! She could not believe her eyes! Shocked by the incident, she tried to verify that she is awake and not dreaming. She rubbed and rubbed her eyes with her fingers, she tried to reach and touch and feel things that were surrounding her. Yes she could feel things and hear the noise of the livestock just outside her traditional house –aqal Soomaali. But still she could not SEE!!!
After all her efforts were dashed by an undeniable fact, that she became blind, it was finally time to seek help. She called the names of some of her children. Her eldest daughter was the first to arrive at her mother´s side. When she learned what happened to her mother she could not help stop crying for the whole day. Indeed this was the saddest day on earth for the whole family. Her younger brother knew that something had to be done to save his mother´s sight. The first possible and less costly thing they would try was to call someone who could heal their beloved mother traditionally, but this proved to no avail. Sooner it was obvious that Ardo had to be checked by an eye specialist doctor.
The nearest hospital in the area lies in Godey, about 450 km from their vicinity and even if they can reach there, the Hospital is the best example of the extreme underdevelopment in the region as it lacks even the most basic equipment and supplies, it has no surgical ward or surgeon. People arriving in critical need of surgery are therefore unlikely to survive. In the Hospital, there is only one doctor –himself being medical practitioner –and no eye care center. By the way there is no a single Ophthalmology center in the whole Ogaden Region (or Somali Region –whatever you call it) and those who can afford the costs travel either to Dire Dawa or to neighboring Somalia for ophthalmologic and other treatments.
After some preparations Ardo and her family decided that she should travel to Dire Dawa where she had a sister whom she could rely on when traveling for medication. So her only hope was to contact her sister so that her sister could arrange accommodation and doctor appointments. Despite droughts and poor livestock market prices, they were forced to sell the best of her shoats and some camels to get enough cash for the costly journey and treatment. Two of her children followed her to Dire Dawa. Finally it was time to meet an Ophthalmologist but unfortunately, it was too late to help Ardo!!! After a long investigation the doctor finally informed Ardo through an interpreter that nothing could be done to restore her sight because the optic nerves of both eyes were dead!!! The only thing Ardo could say was Innaa Lillaahi wa Innaa Ilayhi Raaji´uun –We belong to Allah, and to Him we return.
Though her sister promised her to care for her, Ardo decided to go back to her isolated and remote home, yes nothing like home. Since she lost her sight Ardo´s life was complicated by insecurity and vulnerability. As if this was not enough, Ardo´s tragedy was to continue as those who would help her were themselves victims of natural and man made disasters. The last time she heard about her man was when he was imprisoned with four other men for an unknown reason and since then no one knows if he is alive or not! The eldest of her boys was arrested by Puntland army in Gaalkacyo and handed him over to the Ethiopian Army in Wardheer. Also his whereabouts is unknown to her. The second boy who was attending education in Jigjiga is now mentally ill and because of this he is chained by relatives in fear of harming himself or others. The only Mental Hospital is Amanuel Hospital in Addis Ababa –more than a thousand km distance. The latest and perhaps the worst tragedy Ardo heard is that of her daughter (who was the most helpful to her) who has passed away because of pregnancy complications, like her younger sister, when she was about to give birth to her third child. Her smile and content would make you think as if she is the happiest being in this universe in spite of losing the most important things in life: her sight, her family, her wealth (livestock) etc.
This is just a summary of the story but one thing is clear: There are thousand like her in the Ogaden whose lives could have been saved by a simple clinic or health post. However, TPLF´s war against civilians, economic blockade, expulsion of NGOs, lack of Basic health and other infrastructure facilities, recurrent droughts, media black-out, etc complicate the fate of Ogadeni ordinary people like Ardo.
(BEIJING 2008) — The Ethiopian Olympic Committee (EOC) has a squad of 36 athletes bound for the Beijing Olympic Games, and the group glitters with gold medalists.