Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (Daily Monitor) — TWO Ethiopian stowaways have been repatriated from China on Monday, 62 days after they secretly boarded a ship for illegal immigration, according to reports from China.
Frontier police said it was the seventh time one of the stowaways had failed to immigrate illegally, ShanghaiDaily reported citing Oriental Morning Post.
The two men boarded the Belize-registered ship Arbit in Djibouti on June 3, the daily quoted the report as having said. The ship arrived in Shanghai on July 18.
They originally planned to sneak into a European country, but the ship traveled along the Indian Ocean eastward into the Pacific Ocean to transport its shipment of goods, police told the Oriental Morning Post.
Members of Arbit’s crew found the pair five days into the voyage when they left their hiding place to look for food, according to the report. Singapore, India, Yemen and Sri Lanka all refused to repatriate the stowaways, the report said.
“Arbit’s crew treated the Ethiopians well and allowed the pair to watch TV some nights, they told police with the help of a translator.” Police sent the pair to Beijing on August 1 to catch a flight that departed for Ethiopia.
By Yonas Abiye | Daily Monitor
Addis Abeba — Traffic accident is becoming a major public health hazard in Ethiopia, research findings indicated.
Addis Continental Institute of Public Health (ACIPH) organized a half day panel in connection with the latest traffic report on the theme ‘The magnitude of Traffic injury and the role of public heath in reducing the consequences’.
Speaking on the occasion, Director of ACIPH, Professor Yimane Birhan, said the road traffic accidents are among the top ten causes of death in Ethiopia as it is the case in other parts of the world.
The Director stressed that prevention measures against such accidents are largely uncoordinated and unplanned. There is a great need for stakeholders to handle the issue in a comprehensive manner so as to take effective action against the problem rather than acting in isolation, he said and went on to add, “the result has been more deaths and enormous economic burdens on nations, especially in developing countries.” “As in other major public health problems such as HIV/AIDS, the efforts of just one sector cannot produce the desired outcome in traffic accident prevention,” the Director said urging concerned governmental and non-governmental agencies on the need to work together.
According to him the question of traffic accident is one of the major public issues that remained largely unaddressed by the public health community in Ethiopia.
He called upon academic institutions and research organizations to do much more to measure the magnitude and impact of the problem on the highways as well as to come up with appropriate and cost affective intervention recommendations.
Commander Akillu seife from the Federal Police, presenting a paper on the occasion, said about 85,842 traffic accidents have been recorded covering the period from 2004-2008. Over 2,800 people died while about 8,696 suffered permanent injuries, he added.
The Commander indicated that the ratio of people dying in traffic accidents in Ethiopia is 80 out of 10,000 cars and compared it with that of Japan where only one individual dies out of 10,000 cars.
According to Commander Aklilu, 85% of the traffic accidents that occurred in the country in the five years reported happened on new asphalt roads. And Addis Ababa, with the highest traffic flow, claims the lion’s share of these accidents.
Some 68 per cent of the accidents occurred in urban areas while rural areas claim about 19 per cent of it.
Behavioral problems by drivers, luck of efficiency, low level of driving experience, lack of awareness about security, lack of technical fitness of vehicles are mentioned as major causes behind the traffic accidents.
Although traffic accidents are becoming one of the major problems faced by nations across the world, studies indicated that the problem is worse particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Accordingly, by 2020 traffic accident is expected to be the third major killer after HIV/AIDs and TB.
Addis Ababa (ENA — The two day founding meeting of Federation for Women Associations of Ethiopia concluded later on Monday after electing seven executive members and three members of audit commission.The First Lady Witch Azeb Mesfin elected as Chairperson of the federation.
[Azeb, the wife of warlord Meles Zenawi, is the most hated woman in Ethiopia because of her direct involvement, as a member of the central committee of the ruling Tigrean People’s Liberation Front, in the making of policies that brutalize the people of Ethiopia.)
The federation executive committee will have a chairperson, four vice chairpersons, a secretary and a deputy secretary; and the audit commission comprised three members.
The meeting elected Shekuria Ahmed, Gifti Abaseya, Halema Ibrahim, and Abebech Shemeta as vice chairpersons.
Kiros Asebeha and Afeta Umud elected as Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the federation, respectively.
The Federation elected Kedja Ali Audit commission chairperson, Etalemahu Tilahun as vice chairperson and Lemlem Shekuri as member of the commission.
The meeting provided responsibility of approving logo of the federation to the executive committee.The meeting yesterday approved statute of the federation after a thorough discussion on it.
The Washington DC chapter of Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF) is organizing a town hall meeting with the organization’s senior officials and distinguished guests in Washington DC, Sunday, August 9.
Time: 2:30 PM
Place: 1610 Columbia Road, Washington DC
For more information, write to the EPPF Washington DC chapter at [email protected]. See also the poster below.
A PBS documentary film “The Reckoning” follows International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and his team for three years as he issues arrest warrants in Uganda, puts Congolese warlords on trial, shakes up the Colombian justice system and charges Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir with genocide in Darfur. Will the prosecutor succeed? Will justice prevail?
Click below to watch
The Oromo Liberation Front-Change (also known as OLF-C) under the leadership of Generals Kemal Gelchu and Hailu Gonfa is making a stride in its military operation against the Woyanne tribal junta. NTV airs a special documentary about OLF operations inside Ethiopia this month. The following video is a promo of the documentary.
