WASHINGTON, July 21 (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund on Monday urged “forceful” policy tightening in Ethiopia to reduce inflation, as high oil and food prices also strain balance of payments.
The IMF said a year-long impact of higher oil prices will raise Ethiopia’s oil import bill by about $1 billion, or 3 percent of gross domestic product, over its 2006/07 level.
It projected economic growth in Ethiopia would slow sharply to 8.4 percent in 2007/08 from an average 11 percent since 2003/04.
“The recent signs of growing macroeconomic imbalances manifested as higher inflation and a weakening of the balance of payments suggest that demand is running ahead of capacity expansion,” the IMF said in its annual assessment of Ethiopia’s economy.
“Some supply-side factors may also have driven up food prices and thereby contributed to inflationary pressures,” it said, adding: “At the same time, the surge in world oil prices is placing a large strain on the balance of payments.”
Inflation in Ethiopia was almost 40 percent year-on-year in May 2008, driven largely by rapidly rising domestic food prices, while international reserves have fallen to 1.5 months of imports.
The IMF said restraining spending will be critical for the authorities to adjust to current conditions in Ethiopia, a country which has historically been prone to famine.
“Given the importance of public infrastructure investment, a tighter fiscal stance will require capital expenditure to be aimed at projects that enhance productivity and contribute most to economic growth,” the IMF said. “Restraint on domestic borrowing by public enterprises will be essential,” it added. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Diane Craft)
The head of Ethiopia’s notorious Federal Police, Workneh Gebeyenu, is currently in Washington DC. He has been observed at some Ethiopian restaurants socializing and partying.
Workneh Gebeyehu is a mass murderer who had executed Meles Zenawi’s order to gun down pro-democracy protesters in 2005.
Workneh is personally responsible for the June and November 2005 massacres of pro-democracy protesters in Ethiopia. He was also in charge of building the Nazi-type concentration camps in Zeway, Bir Sheleko, Denkoro Chaka, Shoba Robit and other regions of Ethiopia where close to 100,000 young Ethiopians were rounded up detained by the Federal Police following the May 2005 elections. Many of the detainees have been savagely tortured and exposed to diseases such as malaria.
Ethiopian Review is working to identify the whereabout and travel itinerary of this monster criminal so that appropriate legal actions can be taken against him.
The kangaroo court in Ethiopia today sent popular singer Tedy Afro back to prison after ignoring the forged hospital record that was produced by the prosecutor.
The original hospital record shows that the victim of the car accident, for which Tedy is charged with hit-and-run and manslaughter, had died one day before on the accident occurred.
Instead of dismissing the case, Judge Leul Gebremariam has decided to accept the prosecutor’s version of the document that is signed by a physician who did not even perform the autopsy the accident victim.
Judge Leul Gebremariam ruled that there is enough evidence against Tedy and ordered him to come back to court in October to start defending himself against the charges. Tedy was then hauled back to the filthy, disease-infested jail.
Tedy’s lawyer, Ato Million Assefa, continues to poorly represent the singer, causing the client some times to speak up for himself in the court room. Many of Tedy’s supporters are puzzled as to why Ato Million, a well-known Woyanne sympathizer, is hired as a defense lawyer. Family members who were asked about the defense lawyer said that he was retained by Teddy eight years ago.
At today’s court appearance five women who cried after hearing the judge’s decision to send Tedy back to jail were taken to jail by Federal Police.
The court room was full and that many have been turned away.
Judge Luel is one of the three judged who tried Kinijit leaders.
LONDON (Reuters) – The U.N. food agency urgently needs $222 million to avert a major food crisis in Ethiopia, where millions are struggling to cope with drought and high prices, it said on Monday.
The Ethiopian government and aid agencies estimate that 4.6 million people in the Horn of Africa country need emergency food aid to tide them through to the next harvest in November.
Another 5.7 million who receive food and cash under a regular welfare programme live in areas where drought is biting and need extra help.
“Already for some kids … it’s too late, but it’s not too late for many, many other children who need assistance until the next harvest comes in,” said Sonali Wickrema, who designs programmes in Ethiopia for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).
“We want rapid assistance now in order to prevent large-scale and long-term damage,” she said.
The Ethiopian government says 75,000 children are already suffering from the most severe form of malnutrition.
The government and aid agencies put out a call in mid-June for $325 million to deal with the failure of the shorter of two rainy seasons combined with soaring food and fuel costs.
WFP country director Mohamed Diab said donors had only agreed to provide half of that so far, and urged them to give the rest without waiting for the emergency to become more acute.
“Given the fragile and critical nutritional situation in the country, if such resources don’t come on time … we will see the situation worsening beyond the current level,” Diab warned.
He said food aid would take two to three months to arrive in the country. Due to dwindling stocks, WFP has already cut cereal rations for July by a third.
High prices and a lack of food supplies in Ethiopia are forcing WFP to bring in food aid from outside the country, from places such as South Africa and the Black Sea region.
The agency says the cost of white maize, the staple food for most poor Ethiopians, has risen more than 150 percent on Ethiopian markets in the past year, and grain has become so scarce that prices for most domestically produced cereals are higher than imported supplies.
Aid agencies have warned about similar problems in nearby countries dealing with the overlap of drought and high global food prices — Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and parts of Uganda.
In addition, Ethiopia has used most of its emergency food reserves to feed around 3 million poor people in urban areas over the past 18 months, according to WFP.
Wickrema said the failure of the March-May rains had begun to cost lives in Ethiopia. She said WFP did not have an accurate death toll, but it had probably not yet reached the hundreds.
The longer of the country’s two rainy seasons has now started in some areas, but some aid agencies fear it will not be enough for a good harvest.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — The African Union on Monday asked the UN Security Council to delay a decision by the International Criminal Court on whether to indict Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on war crimes charges.
“The African Union requests the UN Security Council to defer the process initiated by the ICC, taking into account the need to ensure that the ongoing peace process is not jeopardised,” Nigerian Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe told reporters.
“We are asking for a delay within the rules of the Rome Statute,” he said at the end of AU’s Peace and Security Council meeting in Addis Ababa.
The UN Security Council can pass a resolution to defer for a period of 12 months any investigation or prosecution by the ICC and the delay may be renewed by the council under the same conditions.
“The AU invites the (AU) commission to take all necessary steps for the establishment, within the period of 30 days of this meeting, for a high-level panel made up of distinguished Africans to examine the situation,” Maduekwe added.
“We urge the Sudanese government to take immediate steps in investigating human rights violations in Darfur,” he said.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accuses Beshir of personally instructing his forces to annihilate three non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, masterminding murder, torture, pillaging and the use of rape to commit genocide.
Last week, Moreno-Ocampo asked ICC judges to issue a warrant for Beshir’s arrest. If granted, which could take several months, it would be the first issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state.
Arab League ministers have rejected the court’s move and on Sunday the group’s Secretary-General, Amr Mussa, held talks with Beshir in an attempt to stall possible war crimes charges.
In Nairobi, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki warned any bid to put Beshir on trial would prove counter-productive.
Kibaki said international efforts would be better expended on seeking a lasting solution to the violence in Darfur, rather than bringing Beshir before courts “that may not have an understanding of the conflict.”
“Any isolationist policy against the sitting government of Sudan will be counter-productive,” Kibaki said in a statement released after talks here with Beshir’s special envoy, Bonal Malual.
Sudan Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabdarat welcomed the AU position adding that Khartoum will never be intimidated and was capable of prosecuting crimes itself.
“Sudan does condone impunity and we would prosecute crimes of all sorts. Sudan is not governed by the law of the jungle, it is a responsible state with an independent judicial system,” he told the council.
The United Nations says that up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the conflict erupted in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.
It began when African ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.
According to the ICC statute, if credible trials of alleged war criminals are held domestically the court’s own charges are dropped.
Sudan’s two other ICC indictees, current cabinet minister Ahmed Harun and Arab militia leader Ali Kosheib, had both been set to face trial in Sudanese courts on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Kosheib’s trial was indefinitely suspended in March 2007. Harun was briefly detained and released last October for lack of evidence.
Sudanese diplomatic efforts now focus on persuading the UN Security Council to freeze any prosecution of Beshir for 12 months, renewable, warning that peace prospects would be severely undermined.
(AFP) — Mogadishu – At least seven civilians were killed when Somali insurgents attacked a joint convoy of Ethiopian Woyanne and Somali troops, sparking deadly clashes, witnesses said on Monday.
Fifteen others were wounded in the clashes that erupted on Sunday in northern Mogadishu’s Towfiq district and spread to others residential zones in the volatile coastal capital, they said.
“Five civilians, including four children, were killed in Gupta neighbourhood when they were hit by an artillery shell. Four of them died in the spot while the fifth one passed away later,” said Abdifatah Mohamed Nur, a resident.
Another resident Muktar Bile said stray bullets killed two other civilians in Sinay area, bringing the death toll to seven.
“Two young men died after they were hit by stray bullets in our neighbourhood. I know one of them, he was a footballer,” added Colonel Hassan Artan Warsame, a police official.
Another police official confirmed the clashes but declined to give details on the civilian casualty.
“The terrorists attacked our forces, but we repelled them. They fired heavy rockets and we responded, but I can’t tell the casualties,” added the official, who requested to remain unnamed.
Insurgents spokesman Sheikh Abdirahin Ise Ado said they killed nine Somali forces and Ethiopian allies in the fighting. “We killed nine of them in Towfiq junction.”
They have launched attacks almost daily since then, in which many government fighters – and civilians – have been killed.
The latest clash came days after a July 9 deadline for the implementation of a truce, which in June was initialled by the federal government and top leaders from the main Islamist-dominated opposition movement in Djibouti.
