Legendary Ethiopian musician Mahmoud Ahmed and Kuku Sebsibie will perform at a concert in Oakland, California, this coming Saturday, September 6, 2008.
The concert is organized by Ethiopian Community in Oakland and San Jose, in association with Abyssinia Entertainment.
Also performing Moges (sax), Mathias (keyboard), Alemseged (bass), and Teferi (drum).
Place: Historic Sweets Ballroom
Address: 1933 Broadway, Oakland CA 94612
Date/Time: Saturday, September 6, from 9 PM – 2 AM
NAIROBI — Muslims today mark the first Friday of the month of Ramadhan with calls for the release of Kenyan youths deported to Ethiopia two years ago.
Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya organising secretary Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa yesterday said that it was time the Government fulfilled its promise to have the youths returned home.
Speaking from Mombasa, Sheikh Khalifa said Muslims were not comfortable fasting when they did not know the whereabouts of their relatives.
“The best gift the Government can give Muslims during this holy month of Ramadhan is to fulfil its promise to have the youth released,” he said.
Sheikh Khalifa also urged the Kenya Revenue Authority to release hundreds of tonnes of dates said to be detained at the port of Mombasa.
He asked the relevant authorities to come up with ways of identifying dates meant for free distribution to Muslims and those being imported by traders.
“Although the Saudi Arabian embassy has not involved us in the negotiations to have the dates released, as stakeholders, we urge the Government to speed up the release of the cargo,” he said.
Kenyan Muslims have for many years relied on relief dates from Saudi Arabia.
According to Islam, one breaks their fast by drinking water or eating a date.
Last week, Saudi ambassador Hatem Al-Ghamdi called on Islamic organisations to intervene and have the dates released.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a good demonstration of the Woyanne regime’s misplaced priorities. The $10 million could have been used to save tens of thousands of children who are dying of starvation. This is a criminal neglect of the most defenseless in our society — the children.
AXUM, Ethiopia (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Ethiopians cheered on Thursday as a 1,700-year-old giant stone obelisk taken to Italy by fascist invaders in the 1930s was restored to its historic site in an ancient northern town.
The national treasure was returned to Ethiopia three years ago by the Italian government and U.N. engineers have helped install it at its original location in Axum, which was once the centre of a powerful trading empire.
“The cooperation to return the obelisk which was looted and taken to Rome by Italy’s fascist government was the right decision,” Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi said as the obelisk was unveiled to roars of approval from the crowd. [Meles and his crime family have looted much more Ethiopian treasures than Italy]
Plundered during Italy’s 1937 invasion, the 24-metre (78-foot), 160-tonne chiselled granite tower had been placed in a Rome square by fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
It was returned in April 2005, but its return to the Axum site was delayed while scientists studied newly discovered subterranean funeral chambers and royal arcades used by several dynasties before the Christian era.
Richard Pankhurst, a British historian who had campaigned for its return, said Thursday’s ceremony was a significant sign of improving relations between Ethiopia and Italy.
The Italian government paid some $10 million in shipping and installation costs.
“Only the return of the obelisk could heal the still festering scars left by the atrocities committed by Mussolini and his fascist hordes,” Pankhurst told Reuters.
He said the Ethiopian authorities should now turn their attention to erecting six other fallen obelisks in Axum.
“While we rejoice at the return of the obelisk from Italy, the challenge now for the government is to re-erect those fallen obelisks,” Pankhurst said.
A thousand years before Christ, Axum was the city of the legendary Queen of Sheba and the heart of Axumite civilisation, one of the greatest in the ancient world. Modern Ethiopians see themselves as the descendants of this Biblical kingdom.
Legend has it that God blessed the city after the queen’s son Menelik I stole the Ark of the Covenant from his father King Solomon in Jerusalem and brought it to Axum, where many Ethiopians believe it remains to this day.
ADDIS-ABABA (AFP) — Two people died on Thursday of their injuries following an explosion that rocked a bar in the Ethiopian capital, bringing the death toll to six, police said.
The explosion took place on Wednesday in Addis-Ababa. Four people were killed and dozens injured.
“No one has been captured and investigations are underway,” police spokesman Demsach Hailu added.
Six people were killed in May when a bomb exploded on a minibus near the foreign ministry office in Addis Ababa, while three others were killed and 18 wounded the previous month in blasts that hit petrol stations in the capital.
A family in Galcha Seke village, Wolayita District
of the SNNPR Region in Ethiopia: Malnutrition
is rampant in the area [Photo: Erich Ogoso/IRIN]
(IRIN) — Martne Harja had prepared her three-quarter hectare piece of land at Galcha Seke village in Wolayita zone of Ethiopia’s Southern Region for the planting season, but her seven children found themselves without food after the rains failed.
“I did not have any other option but to eat the 25kg of haricot bean seed that I had saved from last year,” she said. “I readied my land to plant when the rain came again [but] I knew I would not be able to get any seeds.”
It was the first time in her life that she had eaten her seeds without planting them. Martne is, however, not alone. According to aid workers, many Ethiopian farmers resorted to eating their seeds after unprecedented heavy rains followed by drought last season.
At least 4.6 million people, according to the government and aid agencies, are in need of help across the country – although the number may change following recent assessments. Many of these people rely on humanitarian assistance from the government through the Safety Nets Programme, the UN and other non-governmental agencies, such as Concern Worldwide.
“We have to talk about recovery,” said Concern Ethiopia Country Director Aine Fay. “Without a harvest there is no chance of families being able to feed themselves.”
Martne’s is one of the 24 families picked as the poorest by Concern to receive 12.5kg of haricot bean seed in Galcha Seke. “We made the decision to distribute seeds to the most vulnerable farmers in the area where we are working,” Aine told IRIN in Addis Ababa.
The selection was done following a nutrition survey that demonstrated the need to intervene because the failed harvest and low livestock prices had pushed the farmers to a situation where they could not even sell their wealth to buy food.
Zema Tera, another farmer in the area, said he used to farm throughout the year to care for his family of 10. This year, he was bedridden for three months and when he recovered, he could no longer manage to fend for the family.
“I would not afford buying any seed now; it is 8 birr for one kg, which is unbearable for me to think about,” he told IRIN in Galche Seke. “If it was not for this seed Concern is giving me now, heaven knows how me and my family could survive.”
Concern is an Irish organisation that has worked in five areas of Ethiopia since 1984, mainly on emergency and development programmes. In the Southern Region, it is supporting the health ministry’s nutritional programmes as well as distributing supplementary food.
Apart from purchasing and distributing seeds, the NGO also provides sweet potato cuttings to local farmers. Across the country, it is assisting 52,250 children, pregnant women and lactating mothers across Ethiopia, including thousands in the six distri
Zema was positive that more rain would fall and was planning to harvest food in the coming few months “I am hoping to produce four quintals of grain by the end of October,” he said. “I am expecting to feed my family till the coming harvest season – that is February/April 2009. I will make sure that I will also save some seed for the year to come.”
The area has, in the last two months, been pounded by rain and is one of those where aid agencies believe the situation is improving. Already some farmers have started harvesting green maize, teff and beans. Water is also more available.
Many of those who are yet to harvest have, however, been forced to resort to extreme coping mechanisms, including surviving on ‘kocho’, a dough-like food stuff made from the stems and root of the false banana called ‘enset’ that is widely grown in Ethiopia.
The government has admitted food is short, but insists the situation is not out of control. Currently, it is delivering large amounts of food into the Southern Region.
Experts say rising global food and fuel prices, climate change and rapid population growth are some of the reasons that Ethiopia is experiencing serious food shortages.
According to the Famine Early Warning System Network, these factors are compounded by existing levels of extreme food insecurity.
Among the many groups that make up Washington’s diverse community is it’s Ethiopian population. For over 20 years this community has left a unique and culturally enriching impression on the city.
“Ethiopians are adventurous by nature. You will always find an Ethiopian anywhere in the world where there is opportunity,” said Wondimu Assemnew, head of Public Relations and Public Diplomacy at the Embassy of Ethiopia. [The stupid Woyanne cadre at the embassy is lying. Ethiopians are not being adventurous. They are fleeing the terrorist regime in Ethiopia.]
Deeply entrenched in the history and cultural landscape of Washington, D.C. – most noticeably the Shaw area – the Ethiopian community has prospered in small businesses and entrepreneurship.
Through store and restaurant ownership, many Ethiopians have incorporated specific aspects of their culture into mainstream D.C.
“I think the two cultures are interchangeable and they influence each other,” Assemnew said.
In 2005, members of the community petitioned to have a section of the city given the name “Little Ethiopia.”
Although the petition, which was supported by Ward One Council Member Jim Graham, did not pass in council, it stirred up controversy within Shaw’s African-American community.
Assemnew, a diplomat who resides on the city’s Embassy row, said both African-American and Ethiopian cultures work together to represent the District’s cultural identity.
However, in a city whose cultural identity is rapidly changing, the Ethiopian community has managed to keep hold of their businesses throughout the transformation of the District’s physical and demographical landscape – something Assemnew credits to Ethiopian cultural values.
“Ethiopians are successful people in general as a culture, wherever Ethiopians go they bring with them value, culture and identity,” Assemnew said.
Large numbers of Ethiopians began to migrate out of Africa during the 1970s due to war violence.
Many within the Ethiopian Diaspora settled all over the world with a significant number coming to the Washington area.
Assemnew believes it was the city’s African-American community that drew so many Ethiopians to the Washington area.
“I think the amount of economic activity and a level of comfort with the cultural diversity especially the African-American demographic probably had an influence with the Ethiopians that settled here,” Assemnew said.
The Washington area has been speculated to have the largest population of Ethiopian immigrants; however, according to Andrew Laurence, head of the Ethiopian-American Cultural Center, an “exact number for the Ethiopian population cannot be given,” due in large part to a lack of documentation.
What can be noted, however, is the business ownership throughout the trendy shopping district of the U Street Corridor where there are restaurants such as Dukem and Dynasty that have become culinary destinations for many Washington visitors and residents.
