By Indrias Getachew

SHEBEDINO, Ethiopia, 5 August 2008 – The rainy season is well underway in much of Ethiopia, but while the rains bring hope to rural communities, they also create ideal breeding conditions for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Over twenty million insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) have been distributed to more than ten million households in malaria-prone areas of Ethiopia since 2005. The nets have only a three-year lifespan, however, so those that were distributed early in the campaign now need replacement.

Mulunesh Musse shares one such treated bednet with her four children in Shebedino District. The bednet is now ripped along one side and has a gaping hole in front, so it no longer fully protects her and her family from malaria.

Female health workers

Medhanit Tilahun and Bezunesh Bekele are two of more than 24,000 female Health Extension Workers deployed at the village level to bring preventative health care to rural communities.

© UNICEF Ethiopia/2008/Tibebu

Villagers from outlying parts of Sedeka Village in Shebedino District, line up to receive insecticide-treated nets at the village health post.

They are part of a major pillar in Ethiopia’s strategy to control and eradicate malaria. The workers go door-to-door, inspecting protective bed-nets and educating the community.

Ms. Tilahun and Ms. Bekele help Ms. Musse take down the ragged net hanging over the bed she shares with her four children. They replace it with a brand new one.

“When I started working, a lot of people in this community were sick with malaria,” said Ms. Tilahun. “You would find two or three members of the same family sick at the same time. There were times when we buried two or three persons who had died from malaria in one day.”

The female health workers form the core of the ambitious Health Extension Programme launched in 2005 by the Federal Ministry of Health and supported by UNICEF.

“I am very happy with what we have accomplished,” said Ms. Tilahun. “First, I have protected myself from getting sick. I use myself as an example to teach others to transform their lives.”

Preventing a lethal combination

Drought-related malnutrition can leave a weak immune system open to attack from malaria. It can also worsen the effects of existing malnutrition through diarrhoea and anaemia.

“If a malnourished child catches malaria it is prone to complications and has a higher risk of dying,” says UNICEF Ehtiopia’s Health Project Officer Dr. Tersit Assefa. “We are distributing insecticide-treated bednets there because there are a large number of children who are malnourished.”

To prevent the lethal combination of malaria and malnutrition,140,000 ITNs, purchased with funds donated to UNICEF by the Government of Japan, are being distributed in drought-affected districts. There have been no major outbreaks of epidemic malaria since the campaign began.

The campaign is supported by UNICEF, the Global Fund, World Bank, donors like CIDA and the Government of Japan.

(CPJ) – NEW YORK — Ethiopian police in the capital, Addis Ababa, threatened on Monday to block distribution of an independently owned newspaper if it continues its leading coverage of a new political opposition movement, according to local journalists.

The Amharic-language weekly Awramba Times reported today that it had received two separate phone warnings from top police officials to stop any coverage of “anti-constitutional organizations,” Editor Dawit Kebede told CPJ. The warning referred to the paper’s extensive coverage of the activities of the Netherlands-based Ginbot 7 movement.

Named after the May 15 date in the Ethiopian calendar (the date recalls election day in the 2005 disputed general elections), the movement headed by leading opposition figure Berhanu Nega calls for “all kinds and means of struggle” to challenge the government, according to CPJ research. In its July 29 edition, Awramba Times reported Ginbot 7’s launch of a radio program broadcasting into Ethiopia via satellite and the Internet, according to Kebede.

“In a country that claims to embrace democratic ideals, police have no business telling newspaper editors what political coverage they can and cannot run,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “The authorities must stop these crude attempts at intimidation and censorship and allow Awramba Times to publish the news it wants.”

Local journalists said Awramba Times was preparing to issue a special edition this week celebrating its first six months since obtaining a publishing license as one of the first independently owned political publications since the government banned more than a dozen critical newspapers in a brutal 2005 crackdown on the press and political dissidents. Kebede spent 21 months in prison and was released only last year on conditional pardon. Kebede was imprisoned with Nega, who was one of dozens of political dissidents jailed during the crackdown.

CPJ recently protested a pending media bill in Ethiopia that would, among other things, allow prosecutors to summarily impound any print publication deemed a threat to public order or national security. In 2007, the Committee to Protect Journalists named Ethiopia the world’s worst backslider on press freedom.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.

Despite what has been reported by some media, it seems the current split in the leadership of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) has been caused by disagreements over how fast to bring change in the organization… As things stand now, if the revolutionaries, who have the full backing of the Eritrean government, solidify their control of the organization, OLF can be a leading force in bringing an end to the Woyanne rule in Ethiopia within a short time… more details later

Ethiopians for Obama will hold our next meeting at Bahir Dar Waterfront Gourmet Ethiopian Restaurant in Old Town Alexandria. The entire second floor has been reserved for Ethiopians for Obama and Obama’s African-American Virginia Constituency Director will be in attendance.

We will discuss ways that we will be working with the campaign to ensure a massive Ethiopian-American turnout in the state of Virginia. There is an unbelievable amount of enthusiasm for Senator Obama within the Ethiopian community–we need to turn this enthusiasm into action. Our turnout–our vote–could be powerful in helping to elect Senator Obama our next president. Please plan on attending and taking part in this historical campaign.

Event Details:
Place: Waterfront Gourmet/Bahir Dar Ethiopian Restaurant
Address: 5 Cameron Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
(On the waterfront in Old Town Alexandria)
Phone: 703.518.5106
Date: Sunday, August 10th
Time: 5:00 PM

If is vital that we have a large turnout for this event, please take an hour out of your weekend to attend. Conference call in number will be provided for those who want to dial in from those who are not near the DC metro area.

Email [email protected] and request dial-in number if you would like to participate via conference call.

(JTA) — The era of large-scale Ethiopian aliya is over, the Jewish Agency for Israel said. The last official airlift of Ethiopian Jews was scheduled to land in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, bringing to an end a state-organized campaign which began almost 30 years ago and brought in around 120,000 immigrants from the east African nation.

The Jewish Agency said its emissary to Addis Ababa had been recalled, though Jerusalem officials could still be sent out to help an estimated 1,400 Falash Mura, or Ethiopian crypto-Jews, apply to immigrate as part of efforts to reunite them with relatives already in Israel.

“But we will no longer be seeing anything on the scale of Operation Moses or Operation Solomon,” agency chairman Zeev Bielski told Israel Radio, alluding to major missions to bring in Ethiopians by air and sea in the 1980s.

He called on the government to reinvest its energies in helping the Ethiopian community in Israel, many of whose members live in poverty and complain of inadequate social integration.