* Captain Habtamu Benti Negasa
* Co-pilot Alula Tamerat
* Flight Attendant Seble Gebretsadik
* Flight Attendant Helen Addissie
* Flight Attendant Netsanet Yifru
* Flight Attendant Gelila Gedion
* Flight Lead Attendant Seblewengel Seyoum
R.I.P.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The ruling Woyanne junta in Ethiopia is hosting some 4,000 African heads of state and ministers looters and murderers in Addis Ababa for the African Union summit this week.
ADDIS ABABA (APA) — Ethiopia’s regime said on Friday that around 4,000 guests and African leaders across the continent are expected to come for the AU summit, due to be held this week end at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said here.
The 14the African Union Summit is being held under the theme “Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Africa : Challenges and Opportunities for Development.”
The Ministry said nearly 40 leaders are expected to attend the Summit, which will begin officially this Sunday. The Acting Director of the African Affairs department of the Ministry, Azanaw Tadesse said that expansion of ICT is significant to speed up the desired development and register economic growth in Africa.
State media reports that the summit is expected to elect the President of Malawi, Dr Bingu wa Mutharika as Chairman for 2010.
According to Ethiopian radio reports, the agenda on the establishment of the United States of Africa will not be discussed in this summit.
But will instead be discussed during the summit to be held in Kampala, Uganda in July.
The executive committee of the NEPAD African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) will present a report to the Summit.
This summit will instead discuss the current situation in African countries in particular in Djibouti, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the current European Union President, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick as well as representatives of various international organizations, among others, will attend the Summit.
NDJAMENA (AFP) — An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet which made an emergency landing in Chad due to a radar problem took off again today, but 120 of its 150 passengers refused to board, airport authorities said.
The plane, a Boeing 737 en route from Dakar in Senegal to Addis Ababa via Bamako in Mali, “left this morning at 5:00 am (0400 GMT),” said an airport official, as well as airport police.
The incident comes days after another Ethiopian Airlines 737 with 90 people on board crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a raging thunderstorm on Monday. There were no survivors.
Of the 150 passengers on the African flight, “120 refused to leave on the Boeing,” an airport official said. “They have been put up in different hotels. A large plane will come to collect them.”
Contacted by AFP, an Ethiopian Airlines spokesman in Ndjemena declined to comment and said that an “information office” had been opened by the company in Addis Ababa.
On Thursday, the Boeing 737 “circled around N’Djamena for one hour before making an emergency call. There was a radar problem, so it landed,” an airport official said.
An airport source said the plane, which had made a stopover in Bamako, Mali, was dumping its fuel before landing.
The same plane had already experienced electrical troubles when leaving Dakar earlier Thursday, and had had to return, passengers said.
The housing market bubble in Ethiopia is about to burst as mortgage holders, including many of those in the Diaspora, fail to make payments to the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), an investigation by the Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit reveals. CBC is now sitting on over 200 billion birr unpaid principal balance. The Woyanne junta has recently ordered the banks not to foreclose any house until after the election in May 2010… details later
Ethiopian families mourn for their loved ones who died in Monday’s plane crash (video)
By Dalila Mahdawi and Wassim Mroueh | The Daily Star
As investigations continue into the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash on Monday, relations between the Ethiopian and Lebanese communities seem to be under strain.
Ethiopian Airlines flight ET409 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea just minutes after taking off from Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport during a heavy thunderstorm early morning. Some 90 passengers were aboard, including 54 Lebanese and 30 Ethiopian nationals, seven of whom were crew members. No survivors have been found, though a number of bodies have been pulled from the water.
Officials from both countries have remained diplomatic in the face of the disaster, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Health Minister Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh paying their condolences at the Ethiopian Consulate. But not everyone has been so courteous.
After Lebanon’s Transport and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi suggested Tuesday pilot error could have caused the crash, several Lebanese media outlets carried stories inferring Ethiopia was to blame.
“The aviation discipline is such that when there is an accident, you don’t rush to conclusions, you have to wait for the investigation to be completed,” Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake told reporters on Tuesday following Aridi’s comments. “Rushing remarks, I don’t think … helps anybody.”
Message boards on Lebanese and Ethiopian websites have seen a flurry of activity, with tersely-worded accusations being hurled on either side. One commentator on the Al-Arabiya website said they believed “the Lebanese government is looking for a scapegoat” to cover up for poor airport safety.
On Monday night a regional broadcaster conducted a live interview outside the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, where bodies of the passengers are being taken. A bereaved Ethiopian who accidently walked into shot was quickly dragged out of view by the television crew.
At the hospital grounds Thursday, a group of Ethiopian women gathered to wait for news of their friends. They initially said they had been treated well by the Lebanese following the plane crash but later said they were being ignored. “There are too many problems here,” said one woman who wished to be identified as Kelile. “Many of our friends aren’t being allowed to come to the hospital. The employer of one of our friends didn’t even tell her that her sister had been onboard.”
There are around 20,000 Ethiopian migrant workers in Lebanon, mostly women who work as live-in house-keepers or nannies. According to many of those gathered outside the hospital, many of those who perished on Monday were workers who were returning home after finishing their contracts in Lebanon. Others were escaping abusive employers. “The friend I had on the plane was just released from prison,” one woman told The Daily Star, declining to identify herself or her friend. Her friend spent nine months in prison because her papers were not in order.
Pathologist Ahmad al-Muqdad told OTV the Lebanese would accept DNA samples from the Ethiopian Consulate in Beirut to help identify Ethiopian victims on board, but did not say whether genetic data would be sent to Ethiopia.
“I had friends on the plane,” said Ethiopian freelance worker Desta (not her real name). “They worked hard in Lebanon and some weren’t treated well by their employers. It makes me so sad to think how much they suffered here and then, on their way home, to have this happen.”
Desta said she’d heard from other members of her community that relatives of Ethiopian passengers were put in a separate waiting room at Beirut’s international airport following the crash. “It’s as if we’ll contaminate them [the Lebanese],” she said. “But everyone is suffering. Don’t the Ethiopian families deserve respect too?”