Days after the Israeli government did an about-face and agreed to continue evaluating Ethiopia’s Falash Mura population for eligibility to make aliya, a new school opened in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar to help prepare thousands of Falash Mura children for a future life in the Jewish homeland.
The school, which was established with the full support of the Ethiopian government, is being funded by a collection of American-Jewish organizations, headed by the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry (NACOEJ), which receives some of its funding from the United Jewish Communities (UJC).
The facility, which will teach Hebrew, religion and Jewish culture, will cater to an estimated 10,000 Falash Mura – Jews whose ancestors were forced to convert to Christianity a century ago – who are currently waiting in Gondar to find out if they are eligible to immigrate under a special clause in the Law of Entry.
In the meantime, the debate over whether Israel should let them in continues, as does the debate over whether the UJC, which is the chief fundraising arm of American Jewry, should continue providing financial support and other essential aid to the families, most of whom have no other form of income outside of the donations made by North American Jewry.
On Sunday, the Israeli government decided that Interior Ministry representatives in Ethiopia should continue checking the eligibility for aliya of some 3,000 Ethiopians, whose names originally appeared on 1999 census known as the Efrati list. However, many Ethiopian community leaders and their supporters insist that there are between 8,000 and 10,000 people who still need to be considered.
On Thursday top UJC officials met to discuss whether to continue funding projects for the Falash Mura in Ethiopia.
In January, UJC President and CEO Howard Rieger sent a memo to executives of the 19 largest federations saying that funds raised in a special campaign dubbed Operation Promise, which was intended in part to help Ethiopian Jewry, had run out and that the UJC was halting its funding of aid programs in northern Ethiopia.
MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somalia’s business community on Thursday expressed concern over the closure of Mogadishu airport by a radical Islamist group, arguing the move was tantamount to self-inflicted sanctions.
Somalia’s Al-Shebab movement earlier this week warned that all flights should cease as of September 16, arguing that the airport was an instrument of Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s military occupation of Somalia.
Commercial activity at the airport has since been frozen but Somali traders in Mogadishu as well as among the diaspora in Nairobi are concerned that the measure will only further stifle an already agonising nation.
“It’s disastrous, a black era for the people of Somalia because the airport is a facility that serves everybody, not only the foreign forces as the Shebab say,” said Muktar Adan Sanka, a trader who sells medicines in Mogadishu.
The Shebab did not elaborate on the action they would take if flights continued but their decree came amid intelligence reports that the militia received a new delivery of surface-to-air missile.
“The airport is generating money that helps Ethiopian Woaynne troops get revenue, the premise is under the direct control of Ethiopian troops,” the Shebab said in a statement posted on the Internet on Saturday.
The airport is used for both commercial and military flights but is also the main base for the Ugandan contingent of the African Union peacekeepers, who were reinforced by Burundians earlier this year.
“How dare they close this airport, which everyone uses, including those who made that decision? We must not keep silent otherwise we will let them destroy our livelihood,” said Abas Mumin, another trader.
“They took this fateful decision at a time when traders were reviewing the maritime option because of the surge in piracy,” he explained.
Attacks by marauding pirates off the coast of Somalia and rogue checkpoints dotting the country’s ragged roads further complicate trade and the much-needed delivery of food aid.
A large Somali diaspora lives in Nairobi, where many of those who could afford to leave the war-torn country have settled and started businesses.
“Since Tuesday, we’ve been unable to fly or send commercials goods to Mogadishu. The airport is not operational despite the Somali government pledge it would remain open,” Nairobi-based trader Ahmed Aydarus complained.
“Direct flights to Mogadishu from Nairobi and Dubai were the most useful ones, people get food and medicine from there,” he said.
“If there was a nearby airport through which people could bring their shipment it would be okay, but the nearest airport we can safely use is in Berbera or Hargeisa” in Somaliland, said Amina Hassan Bilan, another trader.
Abdi Moalim Abdulahi, another Nairobi resident, said he resented the presence of foreign troops in his country as much as the Shebab do but argued that closing the airport was self-defeating.
“Unfortunately, the airport closure simultaneously punishes the occupying force and increases the Somali people’s suffering,” he said.
The government in Mogadishu has attempted to convince traders and commercial airlines that the airport could still be used.
“The Shebab have no powers to stop flights as they are not in control of the airport. They only used the media to terrify people,” presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamud Mohamed Hubsired told AFP.
But his reassurances fell on deaf ears in Nairobi, where the business community argued it would be foolish not to take the Shebab seriously.
“We know that three planes were shot down by Somali insurgents last year and they might do it again. Hubsired shouldn’t say such things,” said Sirad Haji Hassan, who is in the import-export business.
“People should not be used as target practice for the insurgents’ new missiles,” she added.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – The United States expressed concern on Thursday over an Ethiopian bill that could restrict the activities of foreign aid groups and sounded alarm bells over the food situation in the country.
The draft bill allows more government interference in the affairs of foreign NGOs and bans them from working on issues related to ethnicity, gender and children’s rights.
“We take the law seriously. We’re concerned about it, and donors have raised the issue to the government,” USAID assistant administrator for democracy, conflict and humanitarian issues Michael Hess told reporters in Addis Ababa.
The bill was unveiled earlier this year and slightly watered down in June, but it continues to spark concern among the aid community. It now is due to be submitted to parliament after the new session opens in October.
Hess said Washington, Ethiopia’s staunchest international ally, was urging Addis Ababa to reconsider the bill.
“We’re in discussions with the government about the law. I think they’ll continue refining it,” he said. “We have a healthy relationship with the government and Ethiopia is a strategic partner to the United States.”
Hess, who is on a four-day visit, also expressed concern over food delivery delays in Ethiopia’s restive Somali region, where almost half of the population requires food aid.
“We estimate that only 41 percent of distribution in July reached affected areas (due to delays). We want to make sure that 100 percent reaches the beneficiaries,” he said.
In early September, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes called on Ethiopia to grant aid agencies more access in the conflict zone.
Hess said there was unfettered access in most areas, but stressed that some difficulties remained.
“There are still tough areas but in the past few weeks there has been an improvement,” he added.
Ethiopia’s military launched a bruising military crackdown last year after the Ogaden National Liberation Front, an ethnic-based separatist group, attacked a Chinese-run oil venture, killing 77 people.
The United Nations says 4.6 million people in Ethiopia need emergency assistance while another eight million require food relief due to the latest drought.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The party conventions and the Sarah Palin surge behind them, Barack Obama and John McCain are neck and neck again in their race for the White House — with the momentum and the political environment tilting toward the Democrats.
Upcoming televised debates provide the next likely opportunity for someone to take control.
In recent days, Democrat Obama has seemed to regain his footing amid Wall Street’s chaos and a renewed focus on the economy, a Democratic strength with a Republican in the White House. Also, McCain’s late-summer boost, credited to his choice of Palin as his running mate, has appeared to dissipate.
A flurry of national polls now show Obama even or slightly ahead of McCain depending on the survey. The race to reach 270 Electoral College votes, however, remains extraordinarily close in Ohio, Florida and other key states.
“The tide came in, but the tide has gone back out. We’re back to where we were” in early August, said Alex Castellanos, a GOP operative and veteran of President Bush’s re-election campaign. “Republicans are in for a tough week.”
If not six.
By most indicators, this is an election year made for Democrats.
Most people think the country is headed the wrong direction, and they are very sour on Bush. The nation is at war and in economic straits. History shows voters are reluctant to keep a political party in office for three straight terms, and people are hungry for change.
Even so, Obama has struggled to stake out a significant lead. He has been fighting to reassure voters who can’t see him — a first-term senator from Chicago with a foreign-sounding name, black skin and a liberal voting record — as president.
Despite that, Obama spent much of the summer driving the campaign agenda.
Then, McCain likened Obama to a celebrity who offered little but soaring rhetoric, and rolled out hard-hitting TV ads against him. Democrats fretted that their guy was too slow to respond, and some questioned whether Republicans were right.
During a party-unifying Democratic convention, Obama went after McCain with fervor.
One day later, McCain shocked the political world — Obama’s campaign included — by naming Palin his vice presidential nominee, making her the first woman on a GOP national ticket. Then, he gave a convention speech emphasizing his reformer streak as he sought to free himself from the albatross that is the unpopular Bush.
McCain entered the fall having energized the party’s conservative base and wielding a message of change. Polls showed an uptick in overall support as women swung toward the Republican team.
Obama’s campaign appeared unsure how to respond as questions of character and personality dominated the dialogue. Party insiders openly urged Obama to return to the one issue that Democrats have had an edge on for months — the economy.
Then, financial institutions began failing and the stock market tumbled.
“It allowed Obama to bring the dialogue back to where he expected it to be and where he wanted it to be, after a few personality driven weeks,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster and former Hillary Rodham Clinton adviser.
Obama embraced the shift.
He blamed Bush policies and argued McCain would offer the same. He empathized with a smarting public.
“Unlike Sen. McCain, it didn’t take a crisis on Wall Street for me to understand that folks are hurting out on Main Street,” said Obama, finding his stride as he talked more in soundbites, less in soaring rhetoric.
McCain, meantime, has stumbled — at, perhaps, the worst possible time.
As markets nose-dived, the Arizona senator made his oft-repeated assertion that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Democrats called him out of touch and just like Bush.
McCain, who has acknowledged that economics is not his strongest suit, also called the chaos “one of the most severe crises in modern times.” He’s spent the days since trying to explain, let voters know that he feels their pain and distance himself from Bush, saying he would fire Securities and Exchange Chairman Christopher Cox — appointed by Bush in 2005 — if he were president.
Meanwhile, Palin’s personal and professional lives have undergone intense examination, and it’s left her a tad worse for the wear.
She struggled to answer foreign policy questions in her first televised interview, was parodied on “Saturday Night Live” as lacking substance and has been the subject of a spate of negative news stories about her brief tenure as Alaska governor and as a small-town mayor.
Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, called it a “stretch” to say she has the experience needed to be president if needed and added: “She doesn’t have any foreign policy credentials.” And, while he didn’t question her qualifications, Bush’s former political guru Karl Rove labeled Palin a “political pick” and said excitement over her will subside.
Perhaps it already has.
(Liz Sidoti covers the presidential campaign for The Associated Press and has covered national politics since 2003.)
‘Leader-less People’ by Teshome Mitiku from his previous album ‘Deluge’
[podcast]http://freedownloads.last.fm/download/104868492/Leader-less%2BPeople.mp3[/podcast]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The party conventions and the Sarah Palin surge behind them, Barack Obama and John McCain are neck and neck again in their race for the White House — with the momentum and the political environment tilting toward the Democrats.