By Ashton Balaigwa

MOROGORO, TANZANIA (Guardian) — The Police Force in {www:Morogoro Region} of Tanzania, in collaboration with Immigration officers, have apprehended 10 foreigners believed to be Ethiopians. They said they were on transit to South Africa.

Speaking to journalists at his office yesterday, the Acting Regional Police Commander, Samuel Mpasa, said the aliens were arrested on Tuesday evening after police was tipped off by one of the passengers in the bus they were travelling in. The bus, belonging to Hood company with registration number T903 ARM was Mbeya bound from Arusha.

He said they arrested them immediately after the bus arrived at Msamvu Bus Station in Morogoro municipality.

The RPC mentioned the arrested as Beyene Wasoro (35), Demeke Abebe (29), Gizachew Bekele (22), Tekele Shinde (30) and Girma Otole (35).

Others were Tesfaye Anulo (32), Tafera Eyiso (32), Yaikob Kelbiso (31), Zewude Tumso (29) and Teka Haile (36).

He said after police officers entered the bus, three of them hid under their seats.

The RPC said that during interrogations they said that their aim was to go to South Africa and that they would have just spent a few days in Mbeya.

Mpasa called on the community, especially passengers to inform the police presence of illegal aliens whenever they suspect them.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir defied an international arrest warrant by traveling to Libya on Thursday to hold talks with leader Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan official said.

Bashir arrived in the Libyan city of Sirte to have lunch with Gaddafi, who is also the current president of the African Union, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The visit is a show of defiance to the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Darfur in western Sudan.

Gaddafi said last month that “foreign forces” including Israel were stoking the Darfur conflict and urged the International Criminal Court to stop proceedings against Bashir.

The veteran Libyan leader says Africa can solve its own problems without outside meddling and has made a number of attempts to broker peace between Darfur rebels and the Khartoum government.

A Sudanese presidential palace source and a foreign ministry official had earlier said Bashir, who risks arrest any time he travels abroad, was on his way to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

The trip is Bashir’s third abroad since the ICC issued the arrest warrant on March 4. He also visited neighbors Egypt and Eritrea this week following invitations from those countries for talks on the ICC move.

Experts say at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.7 million driven from their homes in almost six years of ethnic and political fighting in Darfur in western Sudan. Khartoum says 10,000 people have died.

The Sudanese government said shortly after the ICC decision that Bashir would defy the warrant by traveling further afield to an Arab summit in Qatar next week.

But Sudanese officials have released statements raising questions over the wisdom of the trip, prompting speculation Sudan may send another representative.

Qatar’s prime minister has said the Gulf state was coming under pressure not to receive Bashir, though he did not say from whom.

(Reporting by Andrew Heavens; Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

EDITOR’S NOTE: Is there any thing Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi and his tribal juna that are in charge of the Ethiopian regime can do right? What does the dumb dictator, whose only expertise is killing people to stay in power, know about the coffee market?

By Oliver Schwaner-Albright | The New York Times

In the latest scrimmage in the battle to control Ethiopia’s coffee trade, the government has suspended the licenses of the country’s largest coffee exporters, it is reported today. Until things get sorted out, no coffee is leaving Ethiopia.

The government accuses the exporters of keeping coffee off the international market until prices rise. Coffee is Ethiopia’s number one export and the beleaguered country’s primary source of foreign currency.

This is the latest twist in a saga being watched closely by both the specialty coffee community and those concerned about alleviating poverty in the developing world.

In 2006 the Ethiopian government trademarked “Yirgacheffe,” the name of the country’s most celebrated coffee-growing region, hoping to use its cachet to help all their coffee exports. Then in December, the government mandated that all coffee growers sell their crops through the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, to insure that all beans fetched an adequate price. Some antipoverty groups thought this would help all Ethiopiain coffee growers.

It meant, though, that coffee roasters in the United States and other coffee importing nations would not be able to buy from specific growers whose beans they prize the most. It effectively ends direct trade for single-origin and microlot coffee.

George Howell of Terroir Coffee, a respected roasting company near Boston, Also points out that the government’s efforts might cheapen the brand. He wrote in his newsletter:

“What scares me is that the trademark route in no way guarantees that the coffee even comes from the particular ‘designated’ region (ironically while Yirgacheffe now becomes a trademark, any coffee lover thinks of it immediately as a region). It is merely a trademark, without any guarantee of origin or traceability.”

By Jenny Higgins

Lalibela, Ethiopia – On the afternoon Feb. 21, I was catching up on some work in the office, when I was distracted by a man dressed in white rushing past the window, closely followed by Hafte, the guard’s son. I thought he was coming into the office, but when he didn’t, I didn’t think anything of it and simply carried on with my work.

A few minutes later he did come into the office – a tall Ethiopian man wrapped in a gabi, wearing a hat, and carrying a ‘cow tail’ stick which people swish around to get rid of the flies. He came over, shook my hand and said a lot of things to me in Amharic, while Hafte sniggered behind him. I’m used to random people coming up and speaking to me as if I am fluent in Amharic, so I went along with it, shaking his hand, saying hello etc. A totally normal part of my day!

Then he grabbed me and tried to pull me out of my chair, which is not so normal. I managed to rip my tee shirt out of his grip, and I pushed him away, more shocked that anything, while Hafte tried to guide him out of the office, telling me he’s got mental health problems (I believe the phrase was ‘he’s crazy’). Okay, I can deal with mental health stuff, no problem. So when he refused to leave the office and instead sat down at the desk opposite me, chattering all the while, I just got on with my work and left Hafte to deal with him.

Then he started to grab things – my bottle of water, my roll of tissue paper, and then my bag …

This is when it started getting a little silly. Hafte was holding my bag, stopping him from running off with it, and the man had stuck the bottle of water between his legs so we couldn’t get it (well, we could, but this man has thighs like a vice!). Hafte had stopped him running off with my bag, but the man was now refusing to leave the office, just sitting at the desk causing as much havoc as he could considering Hafte was pinning him to the chair.

Now, this was a bit of an inconvenience for me, in the sense that I wanted to get on with my work and the mad man sitting opposite me wasn’t helping, but I didn’t fear for my life or my things. He’d hurt me a bit when he grabbed me, but I guessed Hafte would stop him from disappearing with all my stuff, and other than that he was just annoying. I managed to move my laptop out of his reach and take my passport, money and phone out of my bag, though, just in case.

However, he didn’t leave (with or without my bag) and he started to get more and more aggressive, throwing a punch at Hafte and screaming about ‘faranjis’ – I didn’t ask for translation. So I went to get some help from my project manager’s house, thinking a few men would be able to lift him out of the office. Unfortunately, only H, his girlfriend was there. She went to get the police, while a merry band of people gathered around my office – the female teachers from our school, who had just come back from market, Yeshimembit, the woman who bakes injera for me, and a little girl who simply appeared from nowhere.

A little while later, as Hafte continued to hold this man and stop him from stealing my things, one of A’s friends arrived, closely followed by a policeman. Okay, I thought, they’ll get him out. I mean, all they have to do is lift him out of the office – there are two of them and one of him, right?

I moved out of the way, while the policeman asked the man to move out of the office. He obviously didn’t particularly want to go, and a few minutes later I saw him thrown out of the office by the two of them.I thought it was over, then the policeman smacked him round the head and pushed him so hard he fell to the floor. In a split second before it happened, I saw what was coming – the policeman kicked the man, hard, in the head. Then he did it again. I cried out – the man was out of the office, he was lying on the floor, he wasn’t doing anything. Stop it!

Nobody else thought this was a problem. They all stood there and watched as the policeman kicked and beat the man who was lying on the floor, posing no threat to anyone. I tried to stop the policeman myself, but Aman’s friend pulled me back, telling me to leave it. The policeman took two seconds to tell me ‘it’s no problem’, then pulled the man to his feet and started to push him down the stone stairs.

What could I do? I didn’t want the man hurt, I just wanted him out of the office and to stop trying to hurt me and Hafte, or trying to take my stuff. The man is sick, not bad. Instead, I stood by, helpless (apart from the noise I made), while he was beaten and then dragged off to a prison, where he is likely to be beaten again.

As everyone stood around, totally unconcerned, telling me ‘it’s normal in Ethiopia’ and ‘it’s no problem’, I shut myself in my office and sobbed.

It’s not seeing the physical violence that upsets me; I’ve seen dead children lying in the road in Addis Ababa, and I was there as a man drowned in front of his devastated daughter in Blackpool. What really affects me is the casual cruelty that Ethiopians are capable of inflicting on anyone who doesn’t conform.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen this here. I now refuse to go to John Café in Lalibela (which is a considerable sacrifice considering the size of this town!) after I saw the way the owner treated another mentally disabled man. My loud protests stopped her from hitting him in this instance, but she humiliated and treated him worse than a dog, and I refuse to give my money to someone who does that.

Objectively, these are isolated instances where two people have been cruel and violent towards someone they see is worth less than them. It’s not unusual in any country. The thing that distresses me, though, is how ‘mainstream’ this attitude is. This afternoon, educated people who would tell you that they believe everyone is equal, and human rights apply to all, stood around and watched as a policeman kicked a man in the head simply for being mentally ill — and more than that, thought it was the right thing to do. In the café, a crowd of people which included the town’s bank manager and members of local government, sat around and laughed at the spectacle. All of these people call themselves committed Christians. Didn’t Jesus say ‘what you do to the least of my people, you do to me‘?

‘He’s not normal’ is often offered by way of explanation. Anyone who is different is not considered a human being and not worthy of the protection everyone else expects. To be honest, it’s not usual here to argue against a policeman – I can get away with it, because they know I’m protected by my British Passport in ways the average Ethiopian is not. But even after the policeman had gone, my tears were seen as something bewildering. He’s not normal, you see, the policeman did what anyone would have done.

I know I am tired and shocked, but it is afternoons like these that make me want to pack up and head home. Why on earth should I have given up all my home comforts, my friends, my life and my job to come and help people who treat others this way?

(Click here for more on Jenny Higgins work in Ethiopia)

Turin, ITALY – Ethiopian-born Alemitu Bekele caused a major shock by winning Turkey’s first ever European Indoor title and destroy Russian Anna Alminova’s hopes of winning a 1500m and 3000m on Sunday, March 22.

Alemitu controlled the race from the front for much of the 15-lap race before a searing burst of pace on the last lap secured a comprehensive win in a national record of 8:46.50.

Portugal’s Sara Moreira powered through in the home straight to earn a silver medal in a personal best of 8:48.18 swith Ireland’s Mary Cullen rewarded with the bronze – after taking up the pace four laps out – in 8:48.47.

Alminova, who won yesterday’s 1500m final and was competing in her fourth race in three days, simply had no answer over the final 400m and faded to a modest sixth place finish.

Few would have picked the previously unheralded Alemitu, 31, as a potential gold medallist before the competition yet she claimed victory like she belonged to the big stage.

The Ethiopian-born Turk, who transferred to her current country in 1998, failed to qualify from the 3000m heats at last year’s World Indoor Championships but hinted at her potential by finishing seventh in the Olympic 5000m final behind Tirunesh Dibaba in Beijing last year.

Italy’s Silvia Weissteiner took the field through the opening few laps before Alemitu hit the front just three-and-a-half laps into the race, closely tracked by the waif-like Alminova.

The Turk continued to set a healthy pace with Spain’s Nuria Fernandez charging through from her mid-pack position to second with more than seven laps to go, followed by Moreira, Cullen and Alminova.

Alemitu passed 2000m in 5:58.33 but with just over 800m to go it was Cullen who hit the front and gradually wound up the pace with a series of consistent 34-second laps.

With 400m remaining Cullen led a lead group of six, which included Alminova, Bekele, Fernandez, Moreira and Weissteiner and at the bell the half-dozen all had a chance of victory.

Yet within a few strides it was Alemitu who hit front and with a dramatic burst of acceleration and destroyed the rest of the field to stride out a decisive winner.

Behind, Moreira kicked past a fading Cullen down the home straight to earn silver from the Irishwoman.
Fernandez finished a frustrating fourth in 8.48.49 – but at least had the consolation of setting a personal best. Weissteiner in fifth set a season’s best of 8:50.17 with Alminova having to settle for sixth in 8:51.17 – a brutal four race schedule in three days proving too much.

– European-Athletics.org

By Peter Greste | BBC News, Ethiopia

Deep in the gorge country that falls off the Ethiopian plateau, workers in boots and hard hats are hammering, drilling, blasting and digging their way into the mountainside for the foundations of the vast wall that will, when finished, create the second largest hydroelectricity dam in sub-Saharan Africa.

Teams of workers are blasting out the “keyhole” – the slot in the side of the valley that will hold the dam wall in place.

Others are finishing the concrete lining to the last of three 1,000m long tunnels that have already begun diverting the Omo River waters around the main construction site.

According to the engineers, they are now about a third of the way through the project, and on schedule to finish the Gilgel Gibe III hydroelectricity project sometime in 2012.

By then, the wall will soar 240 metres high – the tallest of its type anywhere in the world; holding back a reservoir 150 kilometres long.

The dam will provide 1800 megawatts of electricity. That will more than double the country’s current generating capacity in one hit, and according to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, solve a national energy crisis.

“We cannot afford not to have Gilgel Gibe III,” he said.

“We need that type of mega-project given the increased domestic demand and the requirements of export.

“And secondly, it enables us to store water and regulate the flooding [downstream in the Omo River].”

Tall order

But the dam will also produce far more electricity than the country is capable of consuming. The vast bulk of it has been earmarked for export to neighbours like Sudan and Kenya.

“That would provide us with valuable foreign currency that will help with our balance of payments,” said the prime minister.

So urgent was the need to get the dam built quickly that the government short-circuited the usual internationally accepted procedures for these kinds of massive infrastructure projects.

Usually, a government will first conduct a feasibility study followed by an environmental and social impact assessment to decide whether it really is wise to go ahead with the plan.

Then, it will raise the finance, call for competitive tenders and award the construction contract.

Instead, the government first negotiated the contract directly with Italian civil engineering giant Salini Costruttori.

It then went looking for the finance – a procedure that has left the government with a massive hole in its budget.

The two financial institutions that the government had hoped would back the project – the World Bank and the European Investment Bank – have both refused to get involved because the government broke international and domestic transparency rules by dealing directly with Salini.

“I think quite rightly, we have an obligation not only to do the right thing but to demonstrate very clearly that we are doing the right thing,” said Greg Toulmin, the World Bank’s country director for Ethiopia.

“In order to do that, we have to go through all these very meticulous processes to check all the aspects of any operation that we provide loan or guarantee to. That’s something that takes time.”

Standing firm

It’s a luxury that Mihert Debeba, head of the Electricity Corporation, said Ethiopia simply can’t afford.

He said: “Africa is in the dark. If we have to use very luxurious preconditions we wouldn’t develop any hydro-power.

“Give us a choice. Should we stay in darkness? Should we avoid all this development?”

The corporation also short-circuited the environmental and social impact assessment (EIA) process. Instead the study – which gave the project a clean bill of health – was published two years after construction began.

One of the project’s staunchest critics, Kenyan ecologist Richard Leakey, suspects the study was produced with one aim in mind.

He said: “The scientists that I’ve shown [the EIA] to – some of whom have worked in Ethiopia for years and may have even advised the Ethiopian government at some point – suggest it is fatally flawed in terms of its logic, in terms of its thoroughness, in terms of its conclusions.

“And it looks like an inside job that has come up with the results that they were looking for to get the initial funding for this dam.”

Before any large project can go ahead, Ethiopia’s Environmental Protection Agency first has to give its approval.

TewoldeBerhan Gebre heads the agency, and he dismisses critics like Mr Leakey as misguided.

“Leakey’s a big name but I don’t know what he’s based his arguments on. I don’t think he’s right,” he said.

“My experts have also examined it. They have studied the environmental impact statements. They have visited the site and I know them.

“I don’t know you. I trust them and I don’t care for what you say.”

Still, Mr Leakey’s criticism echoes that of another collection of European, American and East African academics calling themselves the “African Resources Working Group”, headed by University of Montana Geography Professor Jeff Gritzner.

The group has released a commentary on the environmental research, which asserts: “The document rests on a series of faulty premises and it is further compromised by pervasive omissions, distortions and obfuscation.

“The downstream EIA is laced with tables and figures with multiple types of ‘quantitative data’, creating the illusion of a scientific work.

“While this practice is well known to increase the likelihood of approval by development, finance and oversight agencies, it is fully unacceptable.

“The quantitative [and qualitative] data included in virtually all major sections of the report were clearly selected for their consistence with the predetermined objective of validating the completion of the Gibe III hydro-dam.”

The commentary goes on to insist that rather than being beneficial to the river valley as the government insists, the dam will “produce a broad range of negative effects, some of which would be catastrophic” to both the environment and the indigenous communities living downstream.

The science is still very much in dispute – a factor that Mr Leakey believes is reason enough to invoke the precautionary principle and stop the project before it is too late.

For if the Ethiopian government is wrong, those communities living along the lower Omo River Valley all the way down into neighbouring Kenya will pay a heavy price.