Nigeria’s multi-million dollar communication satellite is spinning out of control just 18 months after launch. The Chinese built Nigcomsat at a cost to Nigeria of $340 million. It was expected to provide broadband Internet and communications for government agencies. The government says the situation is under control and the satellite is only experiencing power problems. Critics say the device was a white elephant project that was hurriedly executed by former president Olusegun Obasanjo.
Paul Ceruzzi is curator of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He talked with VOA English to Africa reporter Chinedu Offor about what could be wrong with the Nigerian satellite.
“(The) satellite, once it is placed in orbit, has to be managed so that it points in the right direction, just like driving a car down the road. The antennas have to point to the ground, the solar panels have to point to the sun and they (must) have fuel on board (that) powers tiny rockets that do that or other means of stabilizing it. But sometimes they run out of fuel or Sat system breaks down. Then it stays there in orbit and begins to tumble, if it loses contact with the solar panels or (they are) no longer pointing at the sun, then it losses electrical power. If the antennas are no longer pointing at the ground, then there is no way to communicate with it. So it becomes kind of dangerous piece of junk flying at 17,000 miles an hour; it can be a serious problem.”
Ceruzzi says it is unusual for new satellites to fail. “In the early days of the space program things like that happened a lot, actually, unfortunately, but over the years they have gotten more reliable, but it does happen. It has happened from time to time and the other issue of course is that all satellites, eventually run out of fuel and they potentially can have the same fate unless people do things to actively manage them for that day. But for something to fail so soon after launch is rare today but it does happen”.
Ceruzzi says it is difficult to have an advance warnings of the precise location where a satellite might come down. Scientists may have such a warning “only in the few hours or so before it actually comes down. It could stay up there for months or years even and then atmospheric drag will slowly bring it out of orbit. And then, only at the very last moment, do you really know where it is going to hit.”
Ethiopia’s Jews caught between waiting for imagined heaven and living in daily hell of racism in Israel.
GONDER, Ethiopia – In a makeshift synagogue painted in the colours of Israel’s national flag, thousands of Ethiopian Jews listen as a sermon is relayed live by mobile phone speaker from the Israeli city of Haifa.
“You are all sons and daughters of Israel. God will give you what you deserve,” says rabbi Menachem Waldman in Hebrew as a young interpreter translates into Amharic, Ethiopia’s de facto official language.
“We haven’t stopped our long struggle to bring all of you home,” he adds to passionate nods of approval.
His words offer hope to the 12,000 members of Falashmura — Ethiopian Jews forced to convert to Christianity in the 19th century but who remain closely attached to the Jewish tradition — in Gonder, 600 kilometres (370 miles) northwest of Addis Ababa.
Israel brought home 35,000 Ethiopian Jews under Operation Moses in 1984 and Operation Solomon in 1991. Today the total number of people relocated stands at 100,000.
Two years ago, Israel promised that a final group would be relocated before the end of 2007. That deadline expired, leaving many in areas like Gonder and also around the Israeli embassy complex in Addis Ababa.
The Falashmura say previous relocations split families, leaving one half living in Ethiopia and the other in the fabled Promised Land.
“We have been registered for three years but we are still here separated from our father,” says 22-year-old Abere Yimenu, who along with younger brother Andebet, are students in a rural Gonder hamlet.
“I was shocked when they only allowed our elderly father to leave back then while we, who can contribute more to the country, were left behind.”
Rabbi Waldman supports Aliyah — the Israeli law of return — but his view is not shared by others in Israel where some quarters are accused of racial discrimination against the Falashmura.
“They even allowed Russian Jews to bring their cats and dogs,” says Getu Zemene, a local representative of the US-based advocacy group the North American Conference of Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ).
“Jews here are black so it is a completely different matter,” he adds.
The trigger for the earlier exodus was the 1974 coup that toppled Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and brought in Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. The latter’s Marxist-Leninist dictatorship fanned anti-Semitism in a country with a proud Christian Orthodox tradition and where Jews had long been a target of missionaries.
According to reports from the time, an estimated 2,500 Jews were killed and some 7,000 made homeless in the first weeks of the coup, the start of a bloody reign in which tens of thousands of Ethiopians who were slaughtered or disappeared.
After taking office in 1977, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin asked Mengistu to allow 200 Ethiopian Jews to leave for Israel aboard an Israeli military jet that had emptied its military cargo in Addis Ababa.
Mengistu agreed and that may have been the precursor of the mass exodus.
But times have changed. Despite a favorable government in power in Addis Ababa since 1991, fierce debates among political and religious leaders in Israel over the Falashmura’s Jewishness have delayed, if not hindered relocation.
The debate is nothing new however, Ethiopia’s Jews were only allowed to enter the country in 1975 after the Jewish state’s rabbinate recognised them as members of the lost tribe of Dan.
Until February 2007, 200 people a month were arriving in Israel, according to the Israeli embassy here. But that now seems to have stopped.
But even for those who made it, life has not been easy with many Ethiopians complaining of discrimination and racial abuse.
“We are fighting against discriminations such as school segregation and covert racism in jobs that hinder assimilation of our group into the mainstream Israeli society,” says Getnet Awoke, a 38 year-old preacher who recently returned to Ethiopia to help prepare his fellow Jews for aliyah.
“We’ve had several cases of suicide in the community in Israel. Some have thrown themselves off buildings and some have hanged themselves,” he says.
“Even conscripts serving in the army have shot themselves after being unable to cope with the racial abuse,” he adds.
“They face a world of difference once they arrive in Israel. The younger ones take less time to assimilate but those from the remote areas and the older ones face a massive culture shock,” says Getnet.
But in impoverished Gonder, there is still hope.
“It’s only a matter of time. We will all make it some day to the Promised Land,” says Getu.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia has warned American citizens against taking part in the Great Ethiopian Run because of the threat of terrorism.
Friday’s message says embassy staff and their families should not to take part in the 6.2-mile race set for Nov. 23. The message followed an unspecified terror warning from the Ethiopian government about the race featuring tens of thousands of runners from Ethiopia and around the world. The race is led by distance great Haile Gebrselassie.
The message did not say if the event was named as a specific target but reminded U.S. citizens of deadly bombings this year in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia is fighting insurgent groups and supporting the U.N.-backed government in Somalia.
NAIROBI, KENYA – The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that it is increasing food and other assistance for over 400,000 people displaced by violence in south and central Somalia. As Derek Kilner reports from VOA’s East Africa bureau in Nairobi, the announcement comes as Islamist insurgents continue an advance towards the capital, Mogadishu.
The ICRC’s Somalia relief coordinator, Mathias Frese, said the organization will have tripled its food aid to Somalia from 2007 to 2008. The recent escalation in fighting, along with continued drought, have worsened what U.N. officials had already called Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis.
On Thursday, Islamist insurgents entered Elasha, a settlement of displaced people fewer than 20 kilometers from Mogadishu.
Resident Jama’a Abdirahman told VOA that the Islamists left as Ethiopian troops, retreating from the town of Afgoye to the west, passed through on their way to Mogadishu. He said that members of the government militia that had controlled the town had returned, but that members of the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia, as well as fighters from other Islamist factions were still in the area.
On Wednesday al-Shabab took control of the port town of Merka, to the south. The transitional government, backed by Ethiopian Woyanne troops, remains in control of Mogadishu, and the town of Baidoa, where the parliament is based, and has soldiers in Afgoye. But insurgents now hold much of the rest of south and central Somalia.
[The Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia had agreed to withdraw its forces from urban centers as part of a peace agreement with a moderate faction of the insurgency, but the rebel advance may change those plans. If Ethiopian troops remain, however, their presence will continue to be a major grievance and rallying cry for the insurgency.
Meanwhile, the escalation in fighting has increased the numbers of Somalis fleeing across the border into Kenya. The U.N. refugee agency has echoed calls from Human Rights Watch, for increased attention to the influx. Emmanuel Nyabera, a spokesman for UNHCR in Nairobi, said the organization had asked the Kenyan government to construct a fourth refugee camp at Dadaab, along the border.
“We are extremely concerned about the situation in Dadaab refugee camp, because the camp is extremely overcrowded. The three camps that were supposed to accommodate around 90,000 refugees are currently accommodating around 224,000 people,” said Nyabera. “We are currently receiving around 6,000 new asylum seekers every month. We are not in a position to give services to these people in a dignified manner.”
The fighting has also hampered aid efforts inside the country, where attacks on aid workers have increased in recent months, and both sides have been accused of disrupting aid deliveries. Abdirahman, at the Elasha camp, said that the World Food Program had increased deliveries since Islamist fighters dismantled government checkpoints in the area.
Aid deliveries have also been restricted by insecurity along Somalia’s coastline, which has seen a proliferation of hijacked ships in recent months. On Thursday night, a Chinese boat with 24 crew members was captured off the coast of southern Somalia.
The European Union agreed last week to supply ships for a naval operation to combat piracy off Somalia’s coast.
BELGIUM (AP) – The European Union on Friday banned all Angolan airlines from flying to the 27-nation bloc, citing safety concerns.
Angola joins seven other countries whose carriers are blacklisted from flying to the EU. They are Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Swaziland and Congo.
“The blacklist is essentially a tool that ensures safer skies in Europe,” said Antono Tajani, the European Commission’s vice president in charge of transport.
An October audit by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, found “significant safety concerns” with all Angolan carriers.
The EU also bars more than 150 individual airlines from entering its air space, including North Korea’s Air Koryo, Ariana Afghan Airlines, Ukraine Mediterranean Airways and Cambodia’s Siem Reap Airways.
Airlines from Angola banned from flying to the EU – Instablogs.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US president-elect Barack Obama is to make the first YouTube address to the nation on Saturday, recording a talk not just on radio but also on video, a spokesman said Friday.
“President-elect Obama will record the Weekly Democratic Radio Address on video and radio,” spokesman Nick Shapiro said.
“The address will be turned into a YouTube video which we will post on www.change.gov,” the official website of the Obama transition team, he said.
“No president-elect or president has ever turned the radio address into a multi-media opportunity before,” Shapiro added.
“This is just one of many ways that president-elect Obama will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent,” he said.
US presidents have made weekly addresses to the nation by radio for years with the party in opposition delivering a response afterwards.
Shapiro said Obama will continue to use video for the weekly addresses after he takes office on January 20.
“President-elect Obama will continue to record and make available the Democratic radio addresses on video when he is in the White House,” he said.
Obama relied heavily on the Internet during his successful campaign for the Democratic nomination and the presidency, organizing volunteers and pulling in large amounts of money through online fund-raising.
The Washington Post on Friday quoted transition officials as saying that senior members of the transition team, policy experts and Cabinet selections would also be recording videos to be posted on Change.gov.
