According to Internet Worlds Statistics, Internet usage in Ethiopia is the lowest in Africa and the world.
While countries in Africa and around the world enjoy unprecedented growth in information technology (IT) and telecoms growth and reaping the benefits, Ethiopians are thrown in to dark ages by a regime that is terrified of free flow of information between the people of the country.
In this competitive world the actions of the Meles Zenawi’s regime is arresting the development of generation of Ethiopians by depriving them the necessary tools to succeed in the 21st century.
In Somalia, a country that has no functioning goverment, Internet usage is higher than in Ethiopia.
The person who is in charge of suppressing the growth of information technology in Ethiopia is DebreTsion GebreMichael, chairman of the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation, who is Meles Zenawi’s right hand man and a member of the ruling Tigray People Liberation Front (Woyanne).
An illiterate care of the ruling Woyanne, DebreTsion’s primary duty as the head of ETC is to make sure that the people of Ethiopia have as little access as possible to information technology such as the Internet.
Greenland 92.3%
Netherlands 90.1%
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Morocco 21.3%
South Africa 11.6%
Zimbabwe 10.9
Nigeria 10%
Egypt 8.6%
Sudan 3.7%
Kenya 3.0%
Equatorial Guinea 1.3%
Somalia 1.0%
Mali 0.8%
Ethiopia 0.4%
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) — The food crisis in Ethiopia and other countries in the Horn of Africa region is severe and could rapidly turn into famine, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned Thursday.
Calling the crisis “the worst … in 10 years”, IFRC secretary general Bekele Geleta said: “After March, it could be a famine situation”.
“Usually, people start responding when they see emaciated children on their screens. If assistance is not given, in a few months, they could start seeing that, there could be famine,” due to poor harvest because of drought and high food prices, he said.
The IFRC will launch an appeal late next week to assist one million needy people, of which 600,000 live in Ethiopia, and the rest in Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia.
Geleta said 80 to 100 million Swiss francs (52 to 65 million euros, 67 to 83 million dollars) were needed for the IFRC operation in the region.
Speaking on the sidelines of UN climate talks in this Polish city, Geleta said global warming was “definitely” a contributing factor to the crisis in the Horn of Africa.
“What we are seeing in the Horn is floods and droughts and the frequency has increased enormously,” he said.
“New areas that did not know droughts and floods are being affected now. It may not be conclusive, but definitely it is a contributing factor.”
Alemitu Girma Hailu’s father Mamo Kacha and mother Sale Mankocha were finally able to give their daughter a proper funeral. The maid’s body was kept at a morgue for 62 days after her sponsor refused to bear the repatriation costs.
Dubai, UAE – The family of an Ethiopian woman whose body lay in a Ras Al Khaimah morgue for over two months, said they were grateful to Gulf News readers for helping send their daughter’s body home.
The body of 19-year-old Alemintu Girma Hailu lay in the morgue of a Ras Al Khaimah hospital since September 9. It was finally sent home to Ethiopia on November 11.
Hailu’s family, which lives in a remote area in Ethiopia, said they suffered a lot during the two-month ordeal as they did not have the financial means to get her body back from the UAE.
Hailu had come to work for a family in Ras Al Khaimah, but fell ill after a few days of her arrival due to heat stroke.
She spent two months in the hospital in a coma before she died on September 9. Unfortunately, her body was left at the morgue for 62 days because her sponsor refused to shoulder the cost of visa cancellation and repatriation.
Gulf News readers stepped in to help after the maid’s story was reported in the newspaper.
Hailu’s father Mamo Kacha and her mother Sele Mankocha are very grateful.
In a letter sent from Ethiopia, Kacha said: “We are poor and were not able to offer her any help. But Gulf News readers extended a helping hand to us at this difficult time.
“Though we are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved daughter, we have no words to express how grateful we feel for all the financial and other support we received.”
The letter adds: “Though the unfortunate loss of our daughter abroad was hard to bear, we are deeply touched by the support extended by everyone who empathised with us like close family members.
“We thank you all for your assistance in getting our daughter’s body to us and arranging the funeral in her homeland.
“Words are not enough to appreciate all the generous comforting we received. It has truly helped us cope with our loss. May Allah repay you for your kindness and may our daughter rest in peace,” said the father.
Hailu’s mother said that like any mother she spent long sad days and nights while her daughter was ill in hospital and when her body was abandoned in the morgue.
“I just wonder how humans sometimes have no feelings, and can be cruel and heartless. We just wish her sponsor would tell us why he allowed her body to be kept in morgue for 62 days. Why no one helped my little daughter…” she said.
She said Gulf News readers came as a blessing from God to wash away their tears and doubts. “They brought my daughter home and made me understand that Allah never abandons his creatures, no matter how long they suffer.
“Despite my pain, I am forgive those who let our daughter suffer in life and in death,” Sele said.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia’s population has risen by a staggering 23.4 million people over the past 14 years, to its current 76.9 million, according to a census approved by parliament Thursday.
The census dates from May 2007 and includes a projected annual growth rate of 2.6 million people, after delays in the verification process.
“We carried out a census in May 2007 and it shows that there were 73,918,505 people at that time,” Central Statistics Agency chief Samya Zakarya told AFP.
“But based on a projection of an annual growth rate of 2.6 percent, Ethiopia’s population up to this month is 76,947,760.”
UN estimations of Ethiopia’s population are higher, at more than 81 million.
Ethiopia’s population stood at 53.4 million when the last census was conducted in 1994.
The new census shows the capital, Addis Ababa, with a population of 2.7 million.
Nearly 62 million people, or 83.8 percent, live in rural areas, with the central Oromiya and Amhara regions growing by 3.2 million and 2.4 million respectively.
Muslims increased by 1.1 percent in the traditionally Christian-dominated nation to number more than 25 million, up from 17.4 million 14 years ago.
The Christian population rose to more than 46 million, or 62 percent of the population, up from 32.7 million in 1994.
The census highlights a decrease in the number of Orthodox Christians, traditionally the dominant church in Ethiopia. They now comprise 43.5 percent of the population, as against just over 50 percent in 1994.
The erosion is mainly due to the rising influence of Pentecostal churches in the country. Membership of Protestant churches as a whole has increased from 5.4 million to 13.7 million.
This Honolulu Advertiser announcement of Barack Obama’s Aug 4, 1961 birth was published August 13, 1961 on page B-6. It is available only on microfilm in Hawaii libraries. The announcement is 4th from the bottom of the left hand column. Click here.
Despite the evidence, some conspiracy theorists in the blogsphere continue to argue that Obama was born in Kenya. Right before the election, a group of individuals took the matter to court to disqualify Obama’s candidacy. The court dismissed the case. A few days before the electin, Hawaii’s top health official tried to stop the rumor, which continues even now.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – [The Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia has agreed to a brief delay in its troop pullout from Somalia to allow the international community time to organize a replacement force. VOA’s Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports the African Union is issuing an urgent appeal for manpower and funding to strengthen its badly understaffed AMISOM peacekeeping mission.
African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping and Peace and Security Commission chief Ramtane Lamamra were in Cairo for talks with leaders of the League of Arab States.
Commissioner Lamamra is to fly on to New York later this week to consult with the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The hastily-arranged trip is aimed at generating financial support for a rapid increase in the size of the AU AMISOM peacekeeping mission. AMISOM has worked alongside Ethiopian troops to prop up Somalia’s fragile U.N.-backed transitional government.
In a letter sent to potential donors this week, Commissioner Lamamra said Uganda and Burundi, the two nations that supply almost all the 3,400 AMISOM troops in Somalla, had each offered to supply an additional battalion of 850 troops. Military analysts said such a manpower surge would just about make up for the departing Ethiopian contingent of about 2,000.
AU officials said one country, Norway, has given a tentative positive response, while others promised to have an answer within a day or two.
An Ethiopian A Woyanne foreign ministry official, who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly, said Addis Ababa the Woyanne tribal junta has agreed to push back its self-declared December 31 troop-withdrawal deadline by, at most, a few weeks, to allow time for the AMISOM replacements to arrive.
But the official emphasized that Ethiopian Woyanne policymakers are losing patience with the international community’s seeming lack of concern at the possible collapse of Somalia’s fragile transitional government, and the likelihood it would be replaced by an administration led by religious extremists hostile to the West.
Ethiopia Woyanne and other regimes in the East Africa regional group IGAD have also expressed frustration at the failure of the transitional government’s leadership to settle internal feuds that are undermining stability in the Horn of Africa.
Last month, IGAD ordered sanctions against anyone considered an obstacle to peace. The order did not name anyone, but officials said it was clearly aimed at transitional president Abdullahi Yusuf.
Ethiopia Woyanne sent troops to Somalia in December, 2006. They drove out an Islamic group that had imposed Sharia law over much of the lawless Horn of Africa nation, and installed a U.N-supported government. But in the two years since, the troops have become bogged down in fighting with an increasingly potent mix of Islamist and clan-based militias. The transitional government, meanwhile, has been unable to extend its authority outside of parts of the capital, Mogadishu and the central town of Baidoa.
An agreement signed in Djibouti in October between the transitional administration and an opposition faction called for a ceasefire that would pave the way for Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s withdrawal. But violence has continued, along with a surge in piracy off Somalia’s strategic seacoast.
The United Nations describes Somalia as possibly the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The U.N World Food Program estimates 3.2 million people, or 40 percent of the country’s population are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance.
