ADDIS ABABA, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Ethiopia opened a $21 million electronic commodities exchange on Friday that will trade six crops including coffee, wheat, maize and sesame.
“The exchange system will contribute a lot to create healthy relations between producers and buyers of Ethiopian commodities,” Addisu Legesse, deputy prime minister and agriculture minister, said at the inaugural ceremony for the system which cost $21 million to instal.
“It will create a new marketplace to serve all market forces, including farmers, traders, exporters and consumers.”
The exchange, ECEX, will trade goods weighed, graded and certified at warehouses around the country, which is Africa’s biggest coffee producer.
“ECEX also provides a secure system of handling offers and bids, a risk-free payment and goods delivery system to settle transactions,” said Eleni Gabre-Medhin, ECEX programme manager.
Ethiopia expects to export 220,000 tonnes of coffee worth $500 million in the current 2007/08 season. It expects overall production to rise to 370,000 tonnes in 2007/08 from 330,000 tonnes in the previous season, the agriculture ministry says.
The ministry said Ethiopia was also ranked second on the continent as a maize producer.
(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; editing by Michael Roddy)
IAAF – World Junior 5000m champion Tariku Bekele and fellow Ethiopian Abreham Cherkos Feleke will both contest the 5000m national title against Australia’s 2005 Worlkd Championship bronze medallist Craig Mottram at Melbourne’s Olympic Park, one of the feature events on the timetable at the IAAF World Athletic Tour meeting on Thursday 21 February.
Both Bekele and Feleke come to Australia boasting impressive credentials – the Ethiopians have run faster than Mottram over 5000m. Tariku Bekele, 21, the younger brother of Kenenisa Bekele, is the 2006 World Junior 5000m champion. Tariku Bekele and Mottram have had some epic battles on the track, in particular, last year’s two mile event at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon, and at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava when he was out-sprinted by Mottram in the final stages.
Cherkos Feleke, at just 18, was the world’s second fastest junior over 5000m in 2007, with his season’s best of 13.05.83 set when finishing third behind Mottram and Bekele at the Golden Spike meeting.
The Ethiopians will be looking to gain a mental advantage over Mottram in this Olympic year by defeating him on his home soil.
“I’ve had some good battles against Bekele and I’m looking forward to racing against him again,” Mottram said. “I’m really pleased that he’ll be coming to Melbourne as it gives me yet another opportunity to race against world class opposition in front of a Melbourne crowd.
“It’s always a challenge racing against the Ethiopians anywhere in the world, but being in Melbourne, where I’ve had so much support in the past, just brings an extra edge to the competition for me and hopefully for the fans. I’d love to see Olympic Park packed out for the Ethiopians and we get another night similar to what we had in Melbourne at the Commonwealth Games when I ran against the Kenyans two years ago.”
Mottram has just completed another block of altitude training at Falls Creek, and will head to the United States tomorrow, where he will prepare to defend his 3000m title against Commonwealth Games champion Nick Willis at the Boston Indoor Games (January 26), and prevent reigning world 1500m and 5000m champion Bernard Lagat from collecting his sixth Wanamaker Mile victory at the 101st Millrose Games in New York (February 1).
“After my three good blocks of training at Falls Creek, I feel ready now for world class competition,” Mottram continued. “I really enjoyed racing in Boston and Millrose last year against some very good fields, so I’ve decided to go back there again this year.”
“After racing Lagat in New York, and then Bekele in Melbourne, I will get a very good indication as to where my preparations are at.”
IAAF – World Junior 5000m champion Tariku Bekele and fellow Ethiopian Abreham Cherkos Feleke will both contest the 5000m national title against Australia’s 2005 Worlkd Championship bronze medallist Craig Mottram at Melbourne’s Olympic Park, one of the feature events on the timetable at the IAAF World Athletic Tour meeting on Thursday 21 February.
Both Bekele and Feleke come to Australia boasting impressive credentials – the Ethiopians have run faster than Mottram over 5000m. Tariku Bekele, 21, the younger brother of Kenenisa Bekele, is the 2006 World Junior 5000m champion. Tariku Bekele and Mottram have had some epic battles on the track, in particular, last year’s two mile event at the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon, and at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava when he was out-sprinted by Mottram in the final stages.
Cherkos Feleke, at just 18, was the world’s second fastest junior over 5000m in 2007, with his season’s best of 13.05.83 set when finishing third behind Mottram and Bekele at the Golden Spike meeting.
The Ethiopians will be looking to gain a mental advantage over Mottram in this Olympic year by defeating him on his home soil.
“I’ve had some good battles against Bekele and I’m looking forward to racing against him again,” Mottram said. “I’m really pleased that he’ll be coming to Melbourne as it gives me yet another opportunity to race against world class opposition in front of a Melbourne crowd.
“It’s always a challenge racing against the Ethiopians anywhere in the world, but being in Melbourne, where I’ve had so much support in the past, just brings an extra edge to the competition for me and hopefully for the fans. I’d love to see Olympic Park packed out for the Ethiopians and we get another night similar to what we had in Melbourne at the Commonwealth Games when I ran against the Kenyans two years ago.”
Mottram has just completed another block of altitude training at Falls Creek, and will head to the United States tomorrow, where he will prepare to defend his 3000m title against Commonwealth Games champion Nick Willis at the Boston Indoor Games (January 26), and prevent reigning world 1500m and 5000m champion Bernard Lagat from collecting his sixth Wanamaker Mile victory at the 101st Millrose Games in New York (February 1).
“After my three good blocks of training at Falls Creek, I feel ready now for world class competition,” Mottram continued. “I really enjoyed racing in Boston and Millrose last year against some very good fields, so I’ve decided to go back there again this year.”
“After racing Lagat in New York, and then Bekele in Melbourne, I will get a very good indication as to where my preparations are at.”
The commercial department of the Yemeni embassy in Ethiopia has failed in preparing a Yemeni commercial exhibition in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, sources said.
According to these sources, mismanagement of preparations surrounding the commercial exhibition caused the embarrassment of the Yemeni commercial cultural delegation. The delegation consisted of the Minister of Industry and Trade, the Minister of Expatriate Affairs, deputies of the Ministry of Culture and the Secretariat-General, in addition to a large number of businessmen and educated people. More than $200,000 was spent on the effort.
The Yemeni componenet of the exhibition was prepared by the commercial attaché in Addis Ababa, Abdul-Rahman al-Samt, in cooperation with a private company.
The delegation’s program was meant to include the opening of the exhibition in the Ethiopian capital to strengthen the commercial exchange between businessmen from the two countries. The Yemeni cultural, commercial and industrial delegation found itself in a bad situation when it arrived at the International Addis Ababa airport where there were no Ethiopian officials to receive them, the sources said. Mohammed al-Gharbi Amran, deputy of the Secretariat-General, has called for an investigation of the scandal.
The same sources said that the delegation contained a number of businessmen, craftsmen and artists who came after previous cooperation with the Yemeni commercial attaché in Addis Ababa to activate a Yemeni cultural week and establish a commercial and handicrafts exhibition. However, the cultural week was already finished, while the commercial exhibition proved to be an elusive one.
“The Yemeni delegation discovered when they arrived that the activities were false ones since the Ethiopian authorities had no idea about them,” sources said. The Yemeni ambassador denied having any relation to this scandal. However, sources confirmed that all preparations which the commercial attaché undertook occurred at the Yemeni embassy.
“The picture of Yemen has been defaced because of what happened. Participants in the commercial and handicrafts exhibition have paid their money which amounted to $200,000, in addition to travelling expenses. However, what really shocked them is that participants came to see that elusive exhibition,” said Amran.
Goods meant for this exhibition are being retained in Ethiopian customs because they included other products which were not going to be displayed at the exhibition. According to Ethiopian law, taking these products out of customs required more time than what was allowed for the exhibition.
The company is not able to return these goods to Yemen because of the cost, and it does not want these products to enter Ethiopia because the exhibition is already finished, according to a source from the company.
The establishment of the Yemeni-Ethiopian businessmen’s council was announced during this visit in the presence of the Minister of Industry and Trade, Dr. Yahya al-Mutawakel, the Minister of Expatriate Affairs, Dr. Saleh Sumai and representatives from Ethiopian commercial affairs.
The base of the Yemeni Culture Center project, which will be built on 22,000 cubic meters, has been laid last week in the capital of Ethiopia. It is the first Arabic cultural center in Ethiopia.
OGADEN, Ethiopia, Jan 22 (Reuters) – Mariam Qorana had worried about getting caught between the Ethiopian army and separatist rebels even before a bullet flew through the wall of her hut and hit her below her right breast 10 days ago.
“I was afraid,” says the mother of 10, struggling to speak to foreign journalists who have arrived at her bedside in the remote Gode Hospital in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region.
The 24-year-old low-level insurgency in the vast, ethnically Somali area flared in April, when Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels killed 74 people at a Chinese-run oil field and warned foreign companies not to invest.
Ethiopia responded with a swift offensive, and accused the ONLF of being “terrorists” sponsored by arch-foe Eritrea. Both sides accuse each other of human rights abuses, which both deny.
Qorana has no idea which side shot at her hut.
Taking journalists — accompanied by government minders — on the first tour of the region since the flare-up, the Ethiopian government says the conflict is over, development is on the rise and Ogaden is tasting real peace.
“The situation is very calm now. We have completely destroyed [the ONLF],” Regional President Abdullahi Hassan told journalists on the recent trip.
The ONLF denies that, and there is little doubt armed conflict and suffering have not gone away.
Zelalem Eshetu, the doctor treating Mariam at Gode Hospital, said he has admitted 12 people with gunshot wounds in the last three months, mostly civilians.
Aid groups have said the fighting is blocking vital trade routes and creating refugees and that as a result of conflict and bouts of flooding and drought, some 953,000 people need aid.
Around the hospital, several women sit cradling their severely malnourished children. Reporters crowd around one two-year-old whose emaciated face stirs memories of the 1984 famine that briefly brought Ethiopia world attention.
Under international pressure, the government last year licensed 19 groups to work in the region and let the United Nations open three relief offices.
‘I HATE THEM BOTH’
The government took journalists to irrigation projects, dams, roads under construction and nomad settlement projects. Development officials are enthusiastic in explaining their work.
But many locals say development has been hampered by fighting and that the vital trade in animals is still affected.
At the Gode animal market, nomadic herders, the majority of the Ogaden’s population, arrive to trade goats, sheep and camels, many having travelled long distances on foot.
Those interviewed through official interpreters say there are no problems, prices haven’t risen in the last year, trade routes have not been blocked and they’ve seen no fighting.
But one young man walks close to the group and whispers that he speaks English.
“Business is very difficult for us,” he told Reuters. “Because there is fighting between the government and the ONLF we can’t move our animals. We are stuck.”
He starts to walk backwards, his eyes darting around the watching faces in the crowd.
“Government soldiers are here,” he says. “And people who talk are thrown in prison or killed.”
These fears are repeated right across the sandswept region whenever people are approached by foreigners or catch sight of the ever-watchful government guides, one of whom wears a hat bearing the slogan “Our dreams, our future.”
In Dega Habur town, men sit lazily chewing narcotic khat leaves in the searing afternoon sun, while soldiers armed with AK-47s stroll around, some also chewing the drug.
“My sister was raped by three government soldiers,” says an old woman who refuses to give her name. “They burned her village and she had to run far away.”
The government is not the only source of fear. Locals say the ONLF steals food and forces people to fight by killing those who refuse. Elders in the regional capital, Jijiga, blame the ONLF for assassinations and regular grenade attacks in town.
“They slaughter livestock, burn farmland and make people miserable,” says Salub Abdallah Mohammed, a 50-year-old elder.
At Gode Hospital, a young man who has come to visit his sister is in no doubt who is to blame for the Ogaden’s plight.
“I hate them both,” he said, refusing to give his name. “The government and the ONLF. They should take their fighting far into the desert and continue with it until they are both gone. Then we can stop being frightened.”
