AJEE, ETHIOPIA — They call it the green hunger. Four-foot cornstalks sprout from rain-soaked earth, and wind billows fields of teff, the staple Ethiopian grain. Goats and cattle are getting fat on lush grasses — but the children are still dying.
“It’s strange to see hunger when everything is so green,” said Wariso Shete, 26, a southern Ethiopia farmer who recently buried his 3-year-old son. “But there is no food. The boy just starved.”
Once again, images of emaciated children are emerging from this Horn of Africa nation, rekindling memories of the 1984 famine that killed nearly 1 million people. This time Ethiopia has been grappling with a double whammy: drought in its traditional breadbasket and a global food crisis that has pushed prices sky high.
Although recent rains and an influx of humanitarian aid have experts cautiously predicting the crisis might be stabilizing in parts of the country, nearly 10 million people will need emergency aid to survive until the harvest in September.
Green hungers are just one oddity of Ethiopia’s long struggle to feed itself. The country, considered the water tower of East Africa because its highlands are the primary source of the Nile, suffers chronic drought. It is Africa’s second-largest corn producer, but requires hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid every year.
An exploding population is one cause. Others point to a socialist-leaning government that’s been slow to embrace market-based policies. And everyone agrees that international donors spend too little — less than 5% of all aid — on long-term development, such as irrigation.
In an interview, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi emphasized that the current crisis masks dramatic progress.
“This emergency is occurring in an environment of spectacular success in agriculture,” he said. “The vast majority of farmers have never had it so good.”
Agriculture production is growing by 10% a year, he said, and as recently as 2006, Ethiopia grew so much corn that it exported surplus to Sudan.
National pride might explain why the government initially seemed to downplay the drought, accusing the United Nations of exaggerating the number of malnourished children. Meles’ exasperation with those who portray Ethiopia as desperate and needy was evident.
“I’m telling those people to go to hell,” he said. “Ethiopians are not hapless. They are not helpless. We are making a real dent in poverty.”
One of the biggest problems is population growth. Ethiopia, with an estimated 80 million people, has doubled in size since the mid-1980s.
Simply put, the nation, in which 85% of people toil as small farmers, has reached a point where it can’t easily grow enough food to meet its needs. Although agricultural production has increased overall, it has declined per capita, according to the World Bank.
Even in a year without drought or crisis, one in 10 people rely on international food aid to survive. More than 400 children die every day from malnutrition. Ethiopia is one of the few African nations with its own factory for Plumpy’nut, a peanut-based paste used to remedy acute malnutrition.
“We have not moved far enough away from the poverty line for us to have enough cushion,” Meles said. “One unexpected weather event can push us over the precipice.”
Some praise Ethiopia’s government for its anti-poverty campaigns, which have reduced child mortality by 40%. New roads have fostered nationwide trade, helping stabilize agricultural markets. The government allocates about 17% of its budget to agricultural development, nearly three times as much as its neighbors.
But Ethiopia’s state-dominated economy is also blamed for the persistent food shortages. The government controls all major industries, and there is no private ownership of land.
Under pressure from Western donors, Meles, a onetime Marxist who preaches the free market, has opened the window to private enterprise, notably allowing private flower farms to export to Europe.
“They talk about free market, but you don’t see it,” said economist Befekadu Degefe, a government critic. “They see the private sector as a threat, as competition, so they try to eliminate it.”
In the agricultural sector, the government controls the distribution of fertilizer and, to a lesser extent, seeds; it sometimes restricts sales, as with a current export ban on cereals; and though farmers are free to grow what they want, 20,000 agricultural advisors keep close tabs, also functioning as tax collectors. “The government hand is still a little too heavy,” said Glenn Anders, USAID’s mission director in Ethiopia.
One of the government’s successes is the Safety Net, a welfare-for-work program in which more than 7 million chronically needy farmers receive cash or food in exchange for labor on new roads, mountain terraces or other public infrastructure. The proactive approach is cheaper than emergency aid, donors say.
“If the Safety Net were not there, this current crisis would have been much worse than it is,” said Viviane Van Steirteghem of UNICEF.
Ethiopia’s emergency food reserve was once seen as a model for the region. With a capacity of 400,000 metric tons of grains, the reserve could have handled the drought. But stocks dwindled over the last two years as the government released grains to ease inflation, now 40% annually.
Ethiopia’s mix of socialism and capitalism doesn’t always work, experts say.
In the 1990s, the government gave fertilizer and seeds to southern farmers, yielding a regional bumper crop. But without functioning, free markets, farmers couldn’t sell their surplus, so prices collapsed by 50% in the area.
“You can’t rely on the government,” said Telenti Kwati, 60, a farmer south of the capital, Addis Ababa. “Sometimes they give you something, then the next year they don’t.”
But farmer Mohammed Kedir, 23, dreams of the day when he can own a plot of land. Though the law allows farmers to pass the land they work to their children, Kedir said local officials nearly seized his family plot after his father’s death.
If he owned the land, he said, he might experiment with more-profitable crops.
“But if the government can take my land at any time,” he said, “what’s the point of trying so hard?”
ADDIS ABABA — The state telecom monopoly, Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), has suspended internet services in seven towns of the Oromia, Amhara and Harari regional states, as well as in Dire Dawa town.
The towns that have had internet services temporarily suspended as of July due to over subscriptions are Shashemene, Nekempte, Jimma and Adama (Nazareth) of Oromia, Dessie and Gondar of Amhara, Harar of Harari Regional State, and the entire Dire Dawa town.
A letter that Abnet Asrat, temporary general manager of Broadband Strategic Business Unit (SBU) wrote to Amare Amsalu, chief executive officer (CEO) of ETC and copied to other offices, requested the approval of the suspension of internet services to these areas. The reasons cited for the suspension are over subscription and a jammed bandwidth.
ETC has a maximum of 16 megabytes per second (mbps) link between Addis Abeba and the respective towns of Shashemene, Dessie, Dire Dawa and Adama. Harar and Gondar share the link from Dire Dawa and Bahir Dar, respectively, according to Abdurahim Ahmed, ETC corporate communication division manager.
The reason behind the selection of the mentioned towns over others is that the corporation has already reached the bandwidth limit in those towns. The recent subscription trend and feature in the towns indicate that the total average for internet and data services for three months have shown monthly subscriptions revenue of approximately less than one million Birr.
Thus, ETC will lose close to one million Birr in revenue each month till the end of the suspension, when the towns are back connected to the world. The resumption of the services requires upgrading of the transmission link between Addis Abeba and the regional towns. An ongoing expansion project that is expected to lead to the recommencement of Internet services in the eight towns, would cost more than 916,000 dollars, Abdurahim told Fortune.
The eight towns, half of which are from Oromia, including its capital, will remain disconnected for at least three months till the ongoing internet optimization project Sisco is finalized.
“It is estimated to last for twelve weeks, as per the Sisco company’s plan,” ETC states.
Amhara Regional State has the second highest number of the towns affected. Dessie and Gondar, where people, unaware of the latest move by ETC, will also have to experience the exasperation of seeing, “The page cannot be displayed” dialogue box on their computer screens.
Ethiopia is one of the countries where internet connectivity has not always been reliable, in sharp contrast to the high speed broadband link in developed countries where surfing the web, uploading and downloading are pleasant experiences.
Citizens of Ethiopia and Thailand (we originally said Taiwan here, which is not included) are among the international Web users who will be able to view online content from the Beijing Olympics via YouTube, according to an announcement made by the International Olympic Committee Monday.
While NBC holds the Olympics digital video-on-demand rights in the U.S., rights have not been sold on an exclusive basis in more than 70 countries. In those countries, people can access the specialized YouTube Olympics channel youtube.com/beijing2008, starting on August 6.
The IOC said the Olympic Broadcasting Services will produce the YouTube channel content and will include highlights, news clips, and daily videos of the international games. YouTube, and parent company Google, will also help pull videos that violate the IOC copyrights on Olympics content, The Wall Street Journal reported. YouTube said it would not disclose exact terms of the deal, but that the IOC is “is using our industry-leading VideoID technology to manage and protect its content on the site.”
A YouTube spokesperson also said the site will only sell advertising on the channel to any of the IOC’s 12 exclusive sponsors.
For countries like the U.S., where exclusive rights to content have been bought, YouTube will use geo-blocking, based on a user’s IP address, to prevent access to the channel. However, NBC will also be broadcasting the Olympics on the Web, with more than 2,000 hours of live content available on its Olympics site. NBC paired with Microsoft in its effort to broadcast online videos into homes across the U.S, although some of the most popular sporting events will not be streamed live.
The IOC granted online Web access for some countries beginning with the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics, and 23 territories could view videos online during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, but its YouTube channel can reach the most people yet–about 200 million Web users.
(CPJ) New York — A judge in Ethiopia overseeing the high-profile trial of an imprisoned pop singer jailed the editor of an independent weekly for contempt of court today. The contempt charge came after the weekly published an interview with the singer’s lawyer, according to local journalists.
Mesfin Negash, editor-in-chief of the current affairs weekly Addis Neger, could be sentenced to as many as six months in prison because of a July 26 interview with Million Assefa, singer Tewodros Kassahun’s lawyer, according to local journalists. The newspaper quoted Assefa as saying that he would file a disciplinary action against High Court Judge Leul Gebremariam over alleged bias in his handling of the singer’s case, the journalists said. Kassahun, better known as Teddy Afro, has been behind bars since April, charged in connection with a fatal hit-and-run accident in 2006.
“The arrest of our colleague Mesfin Negash is an example of how authorities will find justification to detain journalists who cover sensitive issues, and criminalize independent reporting,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “We call on the authorities to release our colleague immediately. The editor of Addis Neger has been arrested just because he was doing his job.”
Today’s arrest follows the release last week of a magazine impounded over similar coverage of the outspoken singer’s trial.
At 10 a.m. this morning, two plainclothes police officers presented a summons at the paper’s office in Addis Ababa that ordered Negash, Managing Editor and lawyer Abiy Teklemariam, and Deputy Editor-in-Chief Girma Tesfaw to appear before Judge Gebremariam, Teklemariam told CPJ. Teklemariam and Tesfaw were released after four hours.
Addis Neger journalists have been summoned and questioned by police over four separate stories in recent weeks, according to Teklemariam. The contentious stories included investigative reports into an alleged secret erotic massage parlor, alleged inadequate infrastructure at an elementary school, and alleged corruption by a church priest, he said. Addis Neger reporter Abraham Begiizew was recently detained for five hours and warned by Judge Gebremariam because he gathered reactions of fans and supporters of the singer following a court hearing, he added.
CPJ recently protested a pending media bill in Ethiopia that would, among other things, allow prosecutors to summarily impound any print publication deemed a threat to public order or national security. Meanwhile, three independent journalists acquitted and set free last year remain blocked from launching new newspapers, and two Eritrean journalists remain held incommunicado.
CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.
Kangaroo court judge Leul Gebremariam has ordered the arrest of Teddy Afro’s lawyer, Ato Million Assefa today. On the judge’s order, and publishers of AddisNeger newspaper, Ato Mesfin Negash and Ato Girma Tesfaw, have also been arrested today in Addis Ababa, according to Ethiopian Review sources.
Judge Leul ordered the arrest of the lawyer and the newspaper publishers after they published a report last Saturday that Ato Million was about to lodge a complaint against the judge and the translator for Menilik Hospital to the board of judicial administration.
Publisher Mesfin Negash and Deputy Publisher Girma Tesfaw were picked up by police in the morning and brought before Judge Leul for hearing in the afternoon. After answering some questions, the judge released the deputy publisher, but ordered the chief publisher to return to jail and come back to court tomorrow.
The lawyer, Ato Million Assefa, was arrested later tonight local time.
Ato Million is a Woyanne sympathizer who is also said to be one of authors of the new restrictive press law that was recently passed by the rubber-stamp parliament.
Teddy Afro’s friends and fans are puzzled why Million was hired to represent the popular singer. Legal expert say that Million has so far done a poor job of representing Teddy in and outside of the court.
EDITOR’S NOTE: You are crossing into the Twilight Zone.
(KBC) – Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Monday said Kenya may import power from Ethiopia [where the capital Addis Ababa goes dark several times a week] following the current national shortage of hydro-electric supply.
Mr. Odinga said plans to transmit power from South Africa fell through this year after the country began experiencing a power shortage.
The PM who was holding talks with the IGAD Secretary-General Mr Mahaboub Mohammed in his office said the body had been central in promoting peace in East African region and Horn of Africa but must now meet its regional mandates of economic growth, food security and infrastructural development.
The PM said with over 14 million people in danger of perennial famine and food insecurity in the region, IGAD must urgently share information on weather patterns.
“IGAD should work in close co-operation with farmers and give meteorological expertise to stop crop failure and the rising costs of food”, said the PM.
The PM said the development agency must revitalize its regional integration plans and hasten the upgrading of infrastructure to expand the economy. “Regional road networks and communication must now be opened on the Northern Corridor through Mombasa, Uganda, Rwanda, DRC and Burundi”.
He said Ethiopia had already constructed their part of the Great North Road from Addis to Khartoum and that the route through Juba, Isiolo, Merille, Marsabit, Kitale-Lodwar, Loki and Juba must now be completed.
He said plans for the construction of the Garissa-Wajir-Mandera route that links Kenya with Ethiopia and Somalia and -major networks and the railway plan from Lamu, Addis-Juba-Uganda and Rwanda were underway.
Mr Mohammed who earlier briefed the PM on IGAD’s status and the regional political dynamics said Eritrea which had suspended its membership to the body had now agreed to rejoin.
He appealed for Kenya’s support to mobilize resources and to undertake staff rationalization in conjunction with UNECA.
Mr. Mahaboub said he would seek for the support of the Council of Minister meeting in Addis later in the month.
“The blue print on regional integration is ready and we’ve asked EU to partner with us for cross-cutting infrastructure”.
IGAD has managed conflict management and largely controlled raids on livestock in the last two years.
It has also intervened in volatile areas in Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti and made a political transformation in the region.
Somalia however, remains a serious challenge with the unrest there affecting the entire sub-region, especially Kenya.
Citizens of Ethiopia and Thailand (we originally said Taiwan here, which is not included) are among the international Web users who will be able to view online content from the Beijing Olympics via YouTube, according to