PHOENIX — Dozens of friends gathered Monday at the Laveen home of an Arizona State University student killed in a traffic collision caused by a suspected red-light runner.
Abel Abebe, 27, an immigrant from Ethiopia, died from injuries he suffered when a 2008 Hyundai coupe broadsided his Honda Civic on Baseline Road as he drove to work in Chandler. Investigators said the Hyundai’s driver ran a red light on southbound 19th Avenue as a police helicopter followed overhead.
“He wasn’t sick or anything,” said Fitsum Sima, 25, a friend and fellow Ethiopian immigrant who attended St. Mary’s Orthodox Tewahedo Church in south Phoenix with Abebe.
“It just happened on his way to work,” Sima said. “It wasn’t his fault.”
Phoenix police patrol officers spotted the Hyundai about 12:30 a.m. Monday after watching a female driver switch seats with a male passenger at an intersection near a store where police said the man stole beer moments earlier. After taking the wheel, the man sped away from an attempted traffic stop near McDowell Road and 55th Avenue, police said.
Abebe, an ASU pharmacy student, worked a graveyard shift as caregiver with mentally-challenged adults before he would head to ASU’s main campus in Tempe for class. He tutored students in math and physics.
Dawit Tessema, 23, said he spent nearly every day of the past four years at Abebe’s side between work, church and pickup soccer games.
“One day he’s here talking to me, the next day he’s gone,” Tessema said. “He was a guy you could count on. The more I think about it, the more I wonder, ‘Why him?’ ”
Phoenix Officer James Holmes, a department spokesman, said the 47-year-old driver of the Hyundai could face charges of felony flight from police and possibly vehicular homicide or manslaughter. The female passenger, 30, is not considered a suspect at this time, he said.
Somalia’s hardline al Shabaab insurgents have agreed to join forces with a smaller southern militia and both groups professed their loyalty to al Qaeda.
The failed Horn of Africa state has not had an effective central government for nearly two decades, leading to the rise of warlords, heavily armed criminal gangs and pirates who have been terrorising shipping off its long coastline.
Western security agencies say the country has also become a safe haven for Islamist militants, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the region and beyond.
In a statement dated last Friday but seen by Reuters on Monday, al Shabaab and the smaller Kismayu-based Kamboni rebel group said they had put their differences behind them.
“We have agreed to join the international jihad of al Qaeda … We have also agreed to unite al Shabaab and Kamboni mujahideen to liberate the Eastern and Horn of Africa community who are under the feet of minority Christians,” the statement said.
“We have united to revive the military strength, economy and politics of our mujahideen to stop the war created by the colonisers, and to prevent the attacks of the Christians who invaded our country.”
In this context, “Christians” is believed to refer to Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia in late 2006 and then withdrew, and to Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers serving with the African Union’s AMISOM force in Mogadishu.
The statement appeared to have been signed by senior rebels including Sheikh Hassan Turki, commander of the Kamboni militia, and the reclusive al Shabaab leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane.
Security experts believe Shabaab’s total manpower is no more 5,000, while there are a few hundred Kamboni militiamen.
In the capital Mogadishu, insurgents fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace overnight, prompting return fire by troops there that killed at least 16 people, medical officials and residents said.
Artillery battles in Mogadishu
Violence has killed at least 21,000 people in the failed Horn of Africa nation since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, helping trigger one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies.
Al Shabaab rebels routinely fire at the white-washed hilltop Villa Somalia palace compound from other parts of Mogadishu. Troops at the palace often launch shells back.
Residents and medical officials said several bombs struck around the city’s northern Suqa Holaha, or livestock market.
“At least 16 people died and 71 others were wounded in four districts of Mogadishu,” Ali Yasin Gedi, vice chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, told Reuters.
At an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital on Friday, Somalia’s Foreign Minister Ali Jama’ Jangeli called for more AU troops to help about 5,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi who are based in the Somali capital.
His Kenyan and Sudanese counterparts backed the call. Djibouti has said it would send 450 soldiers soon.
On Sunday, al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage called on Djibouti to reconsider its decision.
“We warn the Djibouti government and strongly recommend that it not send its troops here, otherwise there will be bad consequences for it,” Rage told reporters in Mogadishu.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The World Bank and Microsoft have announced a new partnership that will seek to reinforce social and economic development in Africa by leveraging information and communication technology (ICT). The two institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the sidelines of the summit meeting of African heads of State on the theme “ICTs in Africa: Challenges and Prospects for Development”.
Under the agreement, the World Bank and Microsoft will develop programs to support several of the World Bank’s core development priorities across Sub-Saharan Africa including: science and technology, increasing ICT access for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), developing the local software economy and local ICT skills, enhancing remittances technology, and building Sub-Saharan Africa’s disaster response capabilities.
“Our goal is to help bring the region into today’s knowledge society and build its own internal resources to support the creation of competitive local economies,” said Obiageli Ezekwesili, World Bank Vice President for Africa. “We greatly value the expertise that our private sector partners like Microsoft bring, in this case a deep understanding of technology as an enabler. Through this partnership we will explore the transformational power of ICT to create new economic opportunities in the region. We look forward to forging similar partnerships with other ICT industry players.”
A select number of programs will be implemented under the partnership and will include feedback, monitoring and evaluation to drive accountability for results. Proposed initiatives include adapting the Microsoft Innovation Center model to offer software development courses in education, business skills and market development training, and youth empowerment programs, serving as the basis for local job creation.
In the education sector, the partners will organize a workshop to share proven practices with other developing countries on supporting African university diaspora research in collaboration with African universities. And in the area of remittances, the partnership will explore developing mobile telephony to ensure quick and smooth remittance services to remote or rural areas, as well as broadening network coverage of telephone services across the region.
Supporting disaster relief solutions through technology will also be an important part of the collaboration. Using Microsoft’s disaster relief solutions, the World Bank and Microsoft will explore developing a Disaster Management Information System for Africa with applications for risk assessment/mitigation, disaster preparedness and sustainable technologies for Early Warning Systems.
“As partners in Africa’s development, we believe that technology can have a long-lasting and meaningful role in addressing many current challenges. Our partnership with the World Bank, and those with other development organizations in the region, including the African Union, African Development Bank, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), is part of our commitment to help unlock Africa’s potential through ICT,” said Frank McCosker, managing director, Microsoft Global Strategic Accounts.
The World Bank and Microsoft have previously worked together around the world on several initiatives. Also in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank and Microsoft have collaborated in an advisory role to support the development of the Rwandan government’s ICT policy which has already constructed a Knowledge Management solution for the country’s cabinet.
The partnership further reinforces Microsoft’s support to drive internally generated and sustainable growth in Africa. The company first began operations in Sub-Saharan African in 1992 and has expanded to 13 offices in 9 countries, with more than 600 employees and over 17,000 commercial partners across the continent.
By Amelia Lawrence ADDIS ABABA , Feb 01 (IPS) Peace in Sudan remains an uncertainty ahead of the country’s first general elections in 24 years, according to the African Union Commission chief.
With two months to go before the decisive presidential and parliamentary elections, the United Nations (U.N.) and the AU want to ensure that elections take place without an eruption of violence between the north and the south, which can also risk instability in the region.
Addressing media before the start of the 14th annual AU Summit in Ethiopia on Jan. 31, AU Commission chairman, Jean Ping, said the prospects for peace appeared unpredictable ahead of the crucial elections.
"We do not pretend that in 2010 there would be no crisis, but Africa hopes to find African solutions to these crises," Ping said. The AU has also declared 2010 as being the year of peace and security for Africa, in addition to focusing on information, technology and communication.
Ping added that the body remained committed to ensuring Sudan’s April elections were peaceful.
"(The) AU will remain active to assist the Sudanese to ensure they have lasting peace."
A recent report from the Enough Project, a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity, warned that there was a risk of a new civil war and that both the nationwide elections and the 2011 referendum (on whether the oil-rich and semi-autonomous south should secede from the Khartoum-led north) would not be free and fair.
The Sudanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Akuei Bona Malwal, said: "Preparations (for the) elections are ongoing, but the (possibility) of insecurity is an issue."
He said he hoped the international community and the Sudanese authorities will ensure proper coordination so that the ‘election will take place in a peaceful manner’.
Malwal warned that ‘the question of security is essential to ensure a peaceful election’.
It has been reported from Khartoum that ‘three presidential candidates, including the only woman, have been rejected’.
This ruling has raised further doubts about the presidential and legislative elections after opposition accusations of fraud during registration and of intimidation and vote-buying by the ruling National Congress Party.
The AU High-Level Panel on Darfur, later known as the AU High Level Implementation Panel for Sudan (AUHIP), noted in Oct. 2009 that a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Darfur needed to be achieved before the April elections.
Headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the AUHIP found that the people of both north and south Sudan are keen to live in peace.
"It is therefore self-evident that the resolution of the conflict in Darfur, like those in south and eastern Sudan, cannot but necessitate the restructuring of Sudan as a whole…" Mbeki said in a speech to the U.N. Security Council in Dec. 2009.
Malwal said that his country has accepted the AUHIP report and the re-appointment of the Mbeki team ‘to ensure the implementation of the plan’.
He said the Mbeki’s team was engaging with all the different role-players like non-governmental organisations, civil society, traditional leaders and government. "Mbeki’s team has a big role to play this year," Malwal added.
United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, attended a sideline discussion on the future of Sudan held alongside the main AU agenda.
Ban said that ‘the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is also in the best interest of the Sudanese people’. Sudan’s first multi-party election in over two decades was agreed to in the 2005 CPA that ended the 21-year north-south civil war.
"They have taken a long time to agree on the agreement and the U.N. has been working very closely with the AU to implement the CPA." (The U.N. partnered with the AU two years ago to establish the African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur.)
Ban said the U.N. will ‘seek to forge consensus among member states on the way forward’. He said the body will ‘stand ready to respect the outcome of the 2011 referendum whatever the outcome’ but added that the most ideal outcome would be one of national unity.
Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir, who is awaiting an International Criminal Court decision on whether he will be tried for war crimes in his country, was recently quoted as saying that Khartoum would cooperate with south Sudan.
Some analysts point out that the comments implied a wish to accept the independence of the south.
Khartoum has been working on ‘making unity attractive’ for the south Sudanese who fought the civil war with the north over access to political power and sharing the massive oil revenue.
Both north and south Sudan’s governments have negotiation an agreement on the conditions of the 2011 referendum, in which the country will vote on whether the south will secede from the north.
"They have the right to choose their own future. We are going through a very crucial time to prepare for election and the referendum next year," Ban said.
Ban said that a strong U.N. presence on the ground in Sudan would remain in place.
Mbeki acknowledged the importance of peace in Sudan in his speech to the U.N.
"As we carry out this work, we will be very mindful of the critical importance of Sudan to its neighbours and the rest of our continent. If is self-evident that Sudan, which shares borders with nine other countries in a volatile part of Africa, should serve as a force for peace, stability and development both in this region and in Africa as a whole," Mbeki said.
By Amelia Lawrence ADDIS ABABA , Feb 01 (IPS) Peace in Sudan remains an uncertainty ahead of the country’s first general elections in 24 years, according to the African Union Commission chief.
With two months to go before the decisive presidential and parliamentary elections, the United Nations (U.N.) and the AU want to ensure that elections take place without an eruption of violence between the north and the south, which can also risk instability in the region.
Addressing media before the start of the 14th annual AU Summit in Ethiopia on Jan. 31, AU Commission chairman, Jean Ping, said the prospects for peace appeared unpredictable ahead of the crucial elections.
"We do not pretend that in 2010 there would be no crisis, but Africa hopes to find African solutions to these crises," Ping said. The AU has also declared 2010 as being the year of peace and security for Africa, in addition to focusing on information, technology and communication.
Ping added that the body remained committed to ensuring Sudan’s April elections were peaceful.
"(The) AU will remain active to assist the Sudanese to ensure they have lasting peace."
A recent report from the Enough Project, a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity, warned that there was a risk of a new civil war and that both the nationwide elections and the 2011 referendum (on whether the oil-rich and semi-autonomous south should secede from the Khartoum-led north) would not be free and fair.
The Sudanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Akuei Bona Malwal, said: "Preparations (for the) elections are ongoing, but the (possibility) of insecurity is an issue."
He said he hoped the international community and the Sudanese authorities will ensure proper coordination so that the ‘election will take place in a peaceful manner’.
Malwal warned that ‘the question of security is essential to ensure a peaceful election’.
It has been reported from Khartoum that ‘three presidential candidates, including the only woman, have been rejected’.
This ruling has raised further doubts about the presidential and legislative elections after opposition accusations of fraud during registration and of intimidation and vote-buying by the ruling National Congress Party.
The AU High-Level Panel on Darfur, later known as the AU High Level Implementation Panel for Sudan (AUHIP), noted in Oct. 2009 that a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Darfur needed to be achieved before the April elections.
Headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the AUHIP found that the people of both north and south Sudan are keen to live in peace.
"It is therefore self-evident that the resolution of the conflict in Darfur, like those in south and eastern Sudan, cannot but necessitate the restructuring of Sudan as a whole…" Mbeki said in a speech to the U.N. Security Council in Dec. 2009.
Malwal said that his country has accepted the AUHIP report and the re-appointment of the Mbeki team ‘to ensure the implementation of the plan’.
He said the Mbeki’s team was engaging with all the different role-players like non-governmental organisations, civil society, traditional leaders and government. "Mbeki’s team has a big role to play this year," Malwal added.
United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, attended a sideline discussion on the future of Sudan held alongside the main AU agenda.
Ban said that ‘the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is also in the best interest of the Sudanese people’. Sudan’s first multi-party election in over two decades was agreed to in the 2005 CPA that ended the 21-year north-south civil war.
"They have taken a long time to agree on the agreement and the U.N. has been working very closely with the AU to implement the CPA." (The U.N. partnered with the AU two years ago to establish the African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur.)
Ban said the U.N. will ‘seek to forge consensus among member states on the way forward’. He said the body will ‘stand ready to respect the outcome of the 2011 referendum whatever the outcome’ but added that the most ideal outcome would be one of national unity.
Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir, who is awaiting an International Criminal Court decision on whether he will be tried for war crimes in his country, was recently quoted as saying that Khartoum would cooperate with south Sudan.
Some analysts point out that the comments implied a wish to accept the independence of the south.
Khartoum has been working on ‘making unity attractive’ for the south Sudanese who fought the civil war with the north over access to political power and sharing the massive oil revenue.
Both north and south Sudan’s governments have negotiation an agreement on the conditions of the 2011 referendum, in which the country will vote on whether the south will secede from the north.
"They have the right to choose their own future. We are going through a very crucial time to prepare for election and the referendum next year," Ban said.
Ban said that a strong U.N. presence on the ground in Sudan would remain in place.
Mbeki acknowledged the importance of peace in Sudan in his speech to the U.N.
"As we carry out this work, we will be very mindful of the critical importance of Sudan to its neighbours and the rest of our continent. If is self-evident that Sudan, which shares borders with nine other countries in a volatile part of Africa, should serve as a force for peace, stability and development both in this region and in Africa as a whole," Mbeki said.
NAIROBI (IPS) The droughts in the Turkana region were less severe when she was growing up, says Laura Letapalel, and pastoralists could still find some grass and water for their animals. Now, she laments, the droughts are longer and there is nothing to eat.
Andrew Mude, an economist with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), says drought is the greatest hazard encountered by herders.
“This is particularly true for northern Kenya, where more than three million pastoralist households are regularly hit by increasingly severe droughts. In the past 100 years, northern Kenya has recorded 28 major droughts, four of which occurred in the last 10 years,” Mude explains.
“In our community the size of one's herd is what signifies his status economically. However, of late we have noticed drastic weather patterns that have left our herds dead, turning once rich men into paupers,” says Letapalel a pastoralist in the Turkana area of Kenya.
Esekon Longuramoe, another pastoralist from Turkana, says erratic climatic conditions have changed his fortunes.
“When we first came here, I saw two beautiful things: there was so much grass and a lot of wild animals. It was a nice grazing place. But now there is no rain, and I have lost 100 sheep and 50 cattle.
“After losing almost all my livestock, I have become so poor that I cannot compare myself to the way I used to be. Even if I wanted to move, I do not have a donkey to carry my possessions, I would have to borrow one,” he says.
The question of how to cushion pastoralist communities against the devastating effects of drought has been a headache for the government of Kenya.
A new project launched by ILRI and its partners promises to help pastoralists.
“Thousands of herders in Marsabit District, a remote, arid area in northern Kenya, will be able to purchase insurance policies for their livestock, based on a first-of-its-kind programme in Africa that uses satellite images of grass and other vegetation to indicate whether drought will put their camels, cows, goats and sheep at risk of starvation,” Mude says.
The programme will use satellite images to assess the state of grazing land. This information will be matched against records of livestock deaths collected over the past decade to calculate stock losses for insurance purposes. This index-based insurance system eliminates the need to verify the individual deaths of animals.
The Marsabit district – adjacent to Turkana – has been divided into two clusters based on risk. It will cost 5.5 percent of the value of livestock to insure animals in Maikona and North Horr divisions; in Laisamis, Loyangalani, Central and Gadamoji, it will cost 3.25 percent.
“We believe this programme has potential because it has the elements insurers need to operate: a well-known risk (drought) and an external indicator that is verifiable and cannot be manipulated, in this case satellite images of the vegetation,” says James Wambugu, managing director of UAP Insurance, which is providing the risk cover.
Sales of the insurance scheme began across the district in January. The premiums can be paid at branches of Equity Bank in Marsabit, or to Point of Sale agents under the Hunger Safety Net Programmes – a scheme that provides regular cash grants to 300,000 vulnerable households in arid districts of northern Kenya and has a presence in most of the major communities in Marsabit.
According to Mude, Marsabit district currently supports about 86,000 head of cattle and some two million sheep and goats which depend on naturally growing vegetation for survival. The livestock in Marsabit alone is estimated to be worth 67 million dollars, though animals are rarely sold or slaughtered.
Given the complexity of the insurance project, a simulation game was developed to help the local communities understand the key features of the insurance policy. Mude says many of the herders who played the game became intensely involved in the simulation.
“The simulation helps them understand how insurance can protect them against losses. They also appear to simply enjoy playing the game itself, which generates a lot of animated discussion,” he explains.
The insurance is valuable even without the deaths of livestock triggering payments.
The policy can be used to obtain credit with which to buy feed or drugs that could help animals survive tough conditions. Expanding herds may also be made easier; private creditors will be more willing to lend if the risk of losing new animals to drought is insured against.
Mude says the pilot project will last three years, during which studies will be carried out to establish the commercial sustainability of the product. If it proves successful, extending it to parts of Uganda, Southern Ethiopia, West Africa and even Asia will also be explored.
