CAIRO, EGYPT – The headquarters of the Egyptian opposition party Al-Ghad went up in flames following an exchange of firebombs by followers of Gamila Isma’il, wife of imprisoned oppositionist and former party head Dr. Ayman Nour, and of followers of Nour’s political rival Musa Mustafa.
Mustafa’s followers were holding a rally in front of the headquarters.
In response, Dr. Nour said that he had warned about the event, but that Egyptian security forces had taken their time in dealing with it.
Source: Al-Masri Al-Yawm
Ghana (Greenpeace) — The latest place where we have discovered high tech toxic trash causing horrendous pollution is in Ghana. Our analysis of samples taken from two electronic waste (e-waste) scrap yards in Ghana has revealed severe contamination with hazardous chemicals.
The ever-growing demand for the latest fashionable mobile phone, flat screen TV or super-fast computer creates ever larger amounts of obsolete electronics that are often laden with toxic chemicals like lead, mercury and brominated flame retardants. Rather than being safely recycled, much of this e-waste gets dumped in developing countries. Previously, we have exposed pollution from e-waste scrap yards in China and India. Nigeria has also been identified as a dumping ground for old electronics. Watch the documentary below by Reuters:
By Hayal Alemayehu | The Reporter
Export revenue secured during the first quarter of the current Ethiopian fiscal year fell sixteen percent short of the government’s ambitious target, it was learnt.
A total of close to USD 352 million was obtained from nearly 44,000 tonnes of various exports shipped to the world market during the first quarter of the fiscal year, while the target had stood at USD 416.6 million.
The export earnings, however, increased by some 22 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
Coffee exports, as usual, fetched the highest amount of foreign currency, USD133.3 million, during the reported quarter followed by oilseeds and khat, which, earned USD 45.3 million and USD 33 million respectively.
Khat turned out to become the fourth major foreign currency earner during the reported period, where close to USD 27 million was secured from the export. Only a couple of years ago, earnings from flower exports were not that significant compared to the major export items, including leather and leather products, which, during the reported period, fetched USD 25.5 million, an amount lower than flower export revenues secured during the same period.
Coffee export earnings during the review quarter registered close to 22 percent increase against that of the same period of the previous year. Likewise, earnings from the other major exports item registered significant increase.
Revenue secured from flower exported showed a marked growth of over 25 percent, the increase being the most noticeable compared to the other major export commodities.
Despite a slowdown observed in leather exports and leather products, shoe exports particularly showed a major increase, fetching over USD two million during the quarter year. Export earning from the same items during 2006/2007 was less the amount secured during the reported quarter year.
There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Africa’s Children
Author: Melissa Fay Greene
Edition: 1
Format: Bargain Price
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 472
There Is No Me Without You is the story of Haregewoin Tefarra, a middle-aged Ethiopian woman of modest means whose home has become a refuge for hundreds of children orphaned by AIDS. It is a story as much about the power of the bond between children and parents as about the epidemic that every year leaves millions of children, mostly healthy themselves, without family.
Originally a middle-class woman with a happy family life, Haregewoin fell into a deep depression after the death of her recently married daughter. But then a priest brought her two children, AIDS orphans, with nowhere to go. Unexpectedly, the children thrived, and Haregewoin found herself drawn back into daily life. As word got out, an endless stream of children began to arrive at her door, delivered by dying parents and other relatives who begged for her help, and, pushing against the limits of her home and bank account, she took more and more in.
Today, Haregewoin runs a school, a daycare system, and a shelter for sick mothers. Without medication for her charges some HIV-positive, some uninfected, and some infants trying to fight off the virus, but almost all of whom come to her terrified and malnourished forges on, caring for as many as she can handle.
Increasingly, she also places them for adoption with families like that of journalist Melissa Fay Greene, who has two children adopted from Ethiopia.
In Haregewoin Tefarra’s story, Greene gives us an astonishing portrait of a woman fighting a continent-wide epidemic.
More information …
See this amazing collection of newspaper headlines about the election of Barack Obama on November 4, 2008. Compiled by Goeff. Click here to see.
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