SANA’A, (Saba) — Yemen Ministry of Interior reported that police arrested 277 Ethiopians on Monday, including 18 women, as they tried to illegally to enter the country.

The Ministry quoted security sources as saying that that 202 Ethiopians disembarked at the coast of Abyan Province in south Yemen from a smuggling boat.

In Medi city of the Hajjah Province, additional 72 Ethiopians, including five women, were arrested.

In the City of Mahweet, Yemeni authorities have arrested three Ethiopians aged 18-20 who reached Yemen by smuggling boats.

One of Ethiopia’s most popular singers, Manalemosh Dibo, passed away today from natural causes, according to news sources in Ethiopia.

Manalemosh died in South Africa where she went to receive medical treatment after suffering from intestinal cancer for over a year.

Before going to South Africa Manalemosh was receiving treatment at Tikur Anbessa (Black Lion) Hospital in Addis Ababa. When her condition deteriorated, Tikur Anbessa doctors recommended that she gets treatment abroad. Ethiopian billionaire Al Amoudi covered her expenses to travel to South Africa.

Manalemosh was a young singer who’s popularity grew with each song she released. She is particularly well-known for her traditional songs such as Asabelew, Awdamet, and Minjar.

Below is a video of one of her most popular and Ethiopian Review’s favorite songs:

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Thousands of people have participated in the 9th annual Great Ethiopian Run that was held Sunday in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. World marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe and Ethiopian long distance star Derartu Tulu launched the race as guests of honor.

Today’s overall winner was Tilahun Regassa, while Koreni Jelila won the women’s race. Each received $2,100 award.

The Great Ethiopian Run, which was started by Haile GebreSelassie in collaboration with Toyota Motor Company, is the biggest road race in Africa attracting tens of thousands of runners.

Today’s run was broadcast live for the first time by major international sport channels, according to event organizer Haile GebreSelassie.

Since 2006, the Great Ethiopian Run has been used by Addis Ababa residents to voice their anger and frustration at the Woyanne regime, as they have no other outlet. Public meetings and opposition rallies are prohibited by the U.S.-backed brutal regime of Meles Zenawi.

Today’s event was a little different. The Woyanne regime was not the only target. The 76-year-old opposition party leader Hailu Shawel was the focus of protest. He was condemned by the runners for signing an agreement with Meles Zenawi on the upcoming general election without any tangible change on the part of the Woyanne regime, such as the release of political prisoners, including Birtukan Mideksa, leader of one of the main opposition parties. (Read more in Amharic by Awramba Times here.)

United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, Michele Bond, expresses concern over the sharp increase in adoption from Ethiopia.

QUESTION: Which countries do you see the sharpest increase in children ready for adoption? Is it related to conflict or poverty such as Zimbabwe?

MS. BOND: Well, the – one country that I could point to that had a sharp increase this year is Ethiopia, where the numbers that – it was up about 30 percent, and let me just – the – it was just over 2,200 children who were adopted this year from Ethiopia. That is not related to conflict. By and large, conflict is not one of the issues that tends to lead to a spike in adoptions, because children may be separated from their families but haven’t necessarily permanently lost those families as a result of population movements.

So we are watching adoptions and examining the situation in Ethiopia very carefully, because it’s a very serious concern when you – if you see the number of adoptions start to increase sharply, you want to be sure that the infrastructure if that country is equipped to monitor and carefully vet every one of those cases. Rapid growth isn’t necessarily a good thing.

QUESTION: You are mentioning experiences from other continents. How is the experience here in the Western Hemisphere between Latin American countries and the U.S.?

MS. BOND: When the United States joined The Hague Convention in April 2008, that made us a Hague partner for quite a few countries which prefer to limit their adoption interchanges with fellow – to fellow Hague countries. So there are some countries where we – American are now eligible to adopt that they might not have been before. And developing those contacts and those relationships is not something, again, that happens overnight. But I think that we may see a shift in some countries of more interest in looking for homes for children in the United States if they haven’t been able to have them adopted locally.

More generally, we have Guatemala, which is a country in which new adoptions cannot begin at this point. Guatemala is a Hague country and they are working to establish Hague-compliant procedures —

QUESTION: In Mexico?

MS. BOND: Mexico is a country where there are surprisingly few adoptions to the United States, and that is – it’s surprising in the sense that we have – we share such a long border. But there is a pretty strong reluctance in Mexico to allow children to be adopted by foreign families, even Mexican American families. And so by and large, the majority of the adoptions that we see are intra-family adoptions, not adoptions by people who are unrelated to the child.

QUESTION: On Ethiopia, you’re not entirely clear what’s causing the spike of adoptions?

MS. BOND: Well, I think what’s causing the spike of adoptions is that there are, first of all, many children in the country who are homeless and/or living in institutions and need homes. And there are people who are working to try to identify those children and match them with people in the United States and in other countries who are interested in adoption. Our concern about it is that you can easily find yourself in a situation where it’s difficult to tell the difference between children who genuinely don’t have a family and those who have been documented to look like they don’t.

And unless you have the host government with – well equipped to investigate itself, to document, to lock in the identity of these children, then it can be very hard to prevent the missed documentation of children, and situations where, for example, birth parents are coerced or persuaded to relinquish their children for money or not, but – when it’s something that they wouldn’t have considered doing if someone hadn’t been pressuring them to do it. Obviously, that’s not something that we want.

QUESTION: So there are some suspicions maybe that there’s a racket going on or –

MS. BOND: It’s something that the Ethiopian Government is carefully looking at and so are we and so is every other government whose citizens are adopting there. Ukraine, as it happens, is another country where we saw a 30 percent increase in adoptions last year. In the case of Ukraine, however, that’s not – it’s not something that we see as a trend. The numbers tend to go up and down a bit. So it can be hard to know whether you’re definitely seeing a movement in one direction or the other.

QUESTION: Let me just follow on quickly, if you don’t mind, please. What we want to know clearly, not just from one particular country (inaudible), let’s say from around the globe. As far as criteria for – like it’s a conflict or poverty or what causes or brings those children for adoption basically to the U.S.? Is it the regional conflicts? You are saying (inaudible) or elsewhere, war or homeless or the parents are dying and that – I mean, what are the major causes of the adoption of people (inaudible) of people, or children coming here?

MS. BOND: All right. The question is what are the typical reasons that children are placed for inter-country adoption. And when you talk about countries around the world, including the United States, which also has children that are adopted by foreign families and leave here to go and live in a foreign country —

QUESTION: Yeah. I’m sorry, let’s say India or let’s say sometimes they say – they seek asylum. What’s the difference between asylums or other adoption for children, let’s say? Are there children also in that category or for —

MS. BOND: Okay. Let me get to that question in a moment, if I may. The reasons that children are available for adoption by foreign citizens vary in different countries. In China, typically the reason has been that there were children, little girls, who were born and placed for adoption by families who were hoping that they might have a son.

And the fact is that – there was a reference in one question to age requirements and other requirements being imposed on adopting parents – the number of children available for adoption in China has diminished. And the number of people who are interested in adopting in China is much higher than the number of children that are – that need homes. And that’s one reason that the Chinese Government imposed the changes and the requirements for adopting parents. They were simply trying to reduce the pool of all well-qualified people who were applying to adopt. They had many more than they could vet and many more than they needed.

In some other countries, the children are in care because of local poverty. But what’s important is that in some countries, children may be placed in institutions by their families because the families know that’s a place where the children will be fed and cared for and educated. And there are countries where the families then anticipate that the children will return home when they’re a little bit older, maybe 10 or 12, old enough to contribute to the family and help their parents.

And so that’s one of the things that we have to be on guard against. The fact that a child is in an orphanage and has been there for some time doesn’t make him an orphan in the sense – well, in any sense, he’s not a child who needs a home. He has a family.

I think – I hope that that’s helpful in terms of the —

QUESTION: Yeah, only about asylum, if – if you had any case of the child or somebody had asked asylum for a child rather than adoption.

MS. BOND: The question is about whether children also come into the United States as asylees, as people who are seeking asylum from our government as opposed to adoption. Getting asylum is a very different sort of process. And in order to apply for asylum, a person has to show that he is facing some sort of persecution or threat in his own country. Typically, unaccompanied children would not be likely to apply for asylum. That would be rare.

MR. TONER: We have time for just one more question.

QUESTION: Can I just ask very quickly for you to speak in a little more detail about your comment that some other countries are approaching the United States about adopting American children? Who are those countries and how many American kids are adopted overseas?

MS. BOND: Since we joined The Hague, so since April of 2008, there are 71 American children who have been adopted by foreign families. Thirty-seven of those were adopted under The Hague, so that means that they were adopted to Hague partner countries and the adoption began after April 1, 2008 – the work on it, because as you know, it takes months to complete these things. So we’re still at a stage where the majority of outgoing adoptions are non-Hague, but we anticipate that they’re going to be primarily Hague.

The typical countries – Canada, Western Europe, Australia, countries that are our Hague partners and where local adoption opportunities are very limited, they’re very – relatively few children available for adoption. To their credit, several of the governments that have approached us have said that they are particularly interested in identifying waiting children in foster care as candidates for adoption by their citizens. They are not trying to compete for healthy newborn infants.

MR. TONER: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

QUESTION: Thank you.

(The above is part of the briefing by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond on National Adoption Day on November 20, 2009. Read the full transcript here)

Except one, all members and officials of Lidetu Ayalew’s Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP) in Tigray have resigned en mass protesting the deal Lidetu signed recently with Meles Zenawi on the conduct of the May 2010 general elections in Ethiopia.

In an interview with the VOA, Ato Tekle Bekele, chairman of EDP in Tigray and member of the party’s central committee, said that EDP has turned itself into a supporter of the TPLF/EPRDF regime, instead of a genuine opposition party.

Click here to listen: [podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.com/audio/voa-november-20-2009.mp3[/podcast]

Ato Tekle said that he and his comrades decided to take a stand and resigned after repeated discussions with the party’s leadership failed to bring result.

Lidetu is not the only surrenderist who is facing rebellion inside his organization over the traitorous deal with Woyanne. Ethiopian Review sources in Addis Ababa are reporting that trouble is also brewing for Hailu Shawel inside his All Ethiopian Unity Party. Two weeks ago, a senior member of AEUP, Major Argaw Kabtamu, has resigned after expressing disgust over the agreement of surrender to the Woyanne tribal junta.