Kenyan teams continued with their winning streak in the second day of the Africa Zone Five basketball championships in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
National men’s champions KCB Lions narrowly trounced Ethiopia’s Marine 71-69 after a 34-27 lead at half time.
KCB beat hosts Etho- Investment 89-60 in their opening match on Tuesday.
KPA who are the reigning women’s national champions also recorded their second {www:win} in the tournament after a 57-55 win over APR of Rwanda.
KPA were leading by 40-28 points at the breather.
KPA will take on Etho-Investments of Ethiopia in their third match Thursday while the other Kenyan representatives USIU will {www:play} Uganda’s KCC in the women’s fixtures.
KCB Lions will face APR of Rwanda in the men’s matches.
Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi has reshuffled his 15-member cabinet, including key ministries of Defence, Justice and Agriculture.
Zenawi, who returned on Wednesday from an Inter-Governmental Summit in Nairobi, appointed nine new ministers and presented them to Ethiopian parliament on Thursday.
He has appointed Siraj Fergesa, former Federal Affairs Minister, as the new Defence Minister. The position had remained vacant since June when former Defense Minister Kuma Demeksa became Mayor of Addis Ababa.
Information Minister Berhan Hailu now becomes Justice Minister. No replacement was announced for the ministry. The Public Organization Advisor to the Prime Minister Haile-Maraim Desalegn is the new Government Whip.
Former Minister of State for Health, Dr. Shiferaw Tekle-Mariam,was appointed Federal Affairs Minister while Tefera Deribew becomes Agriculture and Rural Development Minister. He replaces Deputy PM Addisu Legesse.
Deputy Chief of the Amhara State Administration, Demeke Mekonnen, is the new Education Minister, replacing Sintayehu Woldemickael.
The Transport and Communication Minister Junedin Sado has been moved to the Science and Technology Ministry.
Diriba Kuma is the new Transport and Communication Minister and Muferiat Kamil is the Women Affairs Minister.
Addressing the Ethiopian parliament, Mr Zenawi said poor performance was the main reason for the reshuffle.
He expressed hope that the appointees would manage to register a good result by discharging the responsibilities entrusted to them.
NAIROBI, KENYA – Somali Prime Minister Nur Hasan Hussein (Nur Adde) has told some Somali MPs that the Ethiopian government Woyanne was causing trouble for the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG)
The prime minister issued this remarks following a meeting with the foreign ministers of IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority for development) chaired by Ethiopia TPLF.
The premier did not explain the Ethiopian Woyanne’s plans and the way they are causing problem between (leaders) of the TFG, but he said will use the parliament to face this issue.
The MPs who received the information from Nur Adde told Mareeg website that the premier appeared to have been discouraged by the meeting between the TFG and IGAD foreign ministers.
Reports also indicate that the premier held a meeting with his advisers over Ethiopian Woyanne’s plans but Mareeg did not get the details of what was discussed in the meeting.
According to informed sources, Ethiopia Woyanne accused some of the leaders of the TFG of violating the interim Charter and being against restoration of peace in Somalia.
Any way, the issues that will be discussed in the summit are not clear and no body can guess its outcome, but it seems that it touched some very sensitive issues
Nearly two million immigrants have come to the United States in the last 30 years. Hundreds of thousands are registered voters who are expected to go to the polls next week to choose a new US president, as well as state legislators and local officials. William Eagle asked some African voters around Washington, DC, about the issues of concern to them this election season.
The concerns of many first-generation African voters in the US are not much different from those of others polled. Their overwhelming {www:concern} is the economy, followed by worries about health care and the war in Iraq.
Leykun Brouk is a financial advisor in Alexandria, Virginia. Brouk, who is originally from Ethiopia, says many of his African clients are worried about job security and the future.
“[The economy] is on everyone’s mind…the news is unprecedented,” says Brouk. “The market is global, and there are no bright signs anywhere. Consumers are tightening their belts to see how far [the market turmoil] will go. On an individual level, people are postponing purchases they had planned, and they are concerned about money they have saved, like bank deposits.”
A Shortage of Loans
Consumers and businesses alike are experiencing a credit crunch, with many banks reluctant or unable to grant loans.
That affects new homebuyers and those who want to renegotiate loans with high interest rates.
Habte Ghebre, originally from Eritrea, is a mortgage broker in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“We generate our business from people who want to purchase properties [or] refinance their existing mortgage,” explains Ghebre. “Our [problem] is we have clients with pending contracts trying to purchase bank properties [such as homes] but for some reason those contracts are not moving smoothly or in a timely fashion. As long as long as our clients are on hold, our business is on hold.”
And, he says customers are not able to renegotiate [refinance] their existing mortgages because falling home prices mean they no longer have enough equity in their property for a new loan.
Food Prices Rising
The global hike in food prices over the past two years has also affected voters. Part of the reason for the rise is the higher cost of fuel to transport food and to the {www:diversion} of grains to make biofuels like ethanol, rather than for human consumption or as livestock feed.
Yared Mamo, who is originally from Ethiopia, is the co-owner of Habesha Market and Carry Out in downtown Washington, DC.
“Each time food prices go up,” he says, “we don’t want to raise the price but it’s becoming hard to survive in this kind of atmosphere.”
The US secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, told the press that food costs are likely to rise over 40 percent this year.
Mamo says he’s been in the United States for nearly 20 years and has never seen such inflation.
“The corn [maize] oil we used last year it was 19 dollars for five gallons, now it’s 42 dollars. The price went up over 100 percent and meat, flour, you name it, ….everything has gone up.”
Mamo says he’s also concerned with the spiraling cost of health insurance, for himself and his workers. He says he and other small business owners cannot afford to buy health insurance for employees. He’d also like an end to the war in Iraq. He says he’s familiar with the financial and human costs of conflict, since in recent years his own country of origin, Ethiopia, has endured a civil war and one with neighboring Eritrea.
What Kind of Change ?
For some of the Africans interviewed, a desire for change mixes with ethnic pride, leading them to support Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama.
But not all. Businessman James Enos-Adu of Annandale, Virginia, favors the Republican Party, which he says is better for business, national defense, and moral values. Enos-Adu, who is originally from Ghana, is the CEO of an information technology security firm, and the former owner of a restaurant and catering firm.
“Being a business owner working 30 hours in a restaurant,” he says, “you go to purchase things and you see someone [buying] food items and at the end, repaying it with food stamps [government subsidized coupons]. And when they walk out, you see them driving a brand new car and wearing bling-bling, gold. If this person is paying with welfare and I’m working 24 hours and barely making it, is it a good system ?”
On the other hand, mortgage broker Habte Ghebre says an Obama win would remind his young daughter that if you work hard, you can do anything in the US, regardless of gender, race or religion.
Restaurant owner Yared Mamo says it’s the candidates’ policies, not race, that’s important.
He says if it were only about electing a black president, he says he could have stayed in Ethiopia.