EDITOR’S NOTE: These flower farms are fertilizer and water intensive, according to experts. Is it a wise policy to grow flower, instead of teff, corn and other edible crops, when millions of our people are facing death by starvation? Would a government that cares for its people do such a thing? The following is a propaganda piece by a Woyanne information outlet >>
Addis Ababa (Walta Woyanne Information Center) — Some 700 hectares of land has been granted to over 10 horticultural investors on the outskirts of Bahir Dar town during the past two months, according to Ethiopian Horticultural Producers and Exporters Association (EHPEA).
Association Chairman Tsegaye Abebe told WIC that the local and foreign investors are making preparations to begin exporting produces early next year.
The Ethiopian Airports Enterprise and Ethiopian Airlines have also begun furnishing Bahir Dar International Airport with various equipment that enable to smoothly undertake the export, Tsegaye added.
The efforts underway to extend the floriculture and horticulture industry to other parts of the country would further be implemented in Diredawa and SNNP State, it was revealed.
Apart from earning foreign currency and creating jobs, the sector would help promote the positive image of the country, the chairman noted.
Ethiopia, as compared to other countries with long-years experience, has been registering encouraging results in the sector, he further said,adding that the production volume of the current Ethiopian year has shown 30 to 40 percent increase as compared to the previous years.
Addis Ababa – Meles Zenawi’s dictatorship in Ethiopia is to bolster its defence budget by $50-million (about 450 million birr) “for stability reasons” amid tension in the Horn of Africa region, according to a draft budget presented to parliament Tuesday by Finance Minister Sufian Ahmed.
“The defence budget for the next fiscal year (beginning in July) will be raised to four billion birr ($400-million) up from 3.5-billion ($350-million) last year,” Sufian said. “We believe that this amount is proportional.”
The budget is to be approved by the end of the month.
The Meles dictatorship is involved in a tense standoff with Eritrea over a border row that has remained unresolved despite the signing of a peace deal that ended their two-year war in 2000.
Its troops are also battling insurgents in Somalia after entering in late 2006 to bolster Somalia’s beleaguered transitional government, in a move supported by the United States.
“We have raised the amount for stability reasons as we are based in the Horn of Africa region,” the finance minister said. “We can only sustain economic development when there is stability in our region.”
– IOL
What a moron! Why doesn’t he hand out some food to the starving children?
Addis Ababa (Walta Woyanne Information Center) – Foreign Affairs Minister Seyoum Mesfin said the pride obtained from the national flag could be maintained by eliminating poverty through ensuring development and good governance in Ethiopia.
Following discussions with stakeholders today, the minister said the national flag is a symbol that reflects the voluntary coexistence of nations and nationalities under a democratic order. Children and the youth should be brought up with love and respect to the country and the flag, he stressed.
According to Seyoum,a decision has been reached to celebrate Ethiopian Flag Day on July 5 so that it could involve all stakeholders. The minister further called on the public and stakeholders to take part in the celebration which would mainly be marked in educational institutions.
A draft proclamation is under preparation to annually dedicate a national flag day, he revealed.
The minister also on the occasion received flags and pins donated by Hayat Real Estate Development Enterprise Manager Ayalew Tessema and passed them to governmental and non-governmental organizations..
The minister handed out 100,000 flags to the Ministry of Defense and 500,000 flags to the Ethiopian Millennium Festival National Council Secretariat.
By Peter Heinlein, VOA
The World Food Program is diverting emergency food shipments to Ethiopia, where officials expect already severe shortages to worsen over the next few months. VOA’s Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports July is likely to be the most critical period, with deteriorating nutrition levels among people already living on the edge.
World Food Program Director for Ethiopia Mohammed Diab says supplies of nutrition supplements intended for elsewhere are being diverted to Ethiopia, where the estimate of people needing food aid has more than doubled, from 2.2 million to 4.5 million.
Diab told reporters the United States is making available a supply of CSB, or corn-soya blend, to ease an expected shortfall of 360,000 metric tons of food over the next three months.
“WFP normally resorts to diverting ships, if it reaches a critical situation where food is not available we ask WFP to contact our donors to ensure that if a consignment ship going elsewhere we divert it here to ensure food is available, we have managed to contact WFP headquarters and with donors to get additional CSB from U.S.,” he said.
Diab cautions that the current estimate of a 360,000 ton shortfall is optimistic. He says people in the heavily-populated Oromia region are already living on the edge. If the current rainy season fails, as the last two have, conditions could get much worse.
“The need in the southern regions and Oromia is enormous. And now the nutrition levels is deteriorating. There is a failure of production in this area, so the population are working on a very thin edge. Any deterioration or delay in rainfall can lead much more serious situation than what we are in here,” he said.
Ethiopia’s disaster prevention agency chief Simon Mechale says even with the expected aid shipments, the months before the next harvest are going to be difficult.
“Unless something is done very quickly, we are going to face a serious problem in July in terms of shortfall. I think this should be very clearly understood. Unless we are provided with sufficient resources, we cannot be blamed that people are suffering, but there is nothing being done. So this should be very clear. July is going to be the most critical month,” he said.
Simon told reporters he does not believe the current food crisis will be as bad as the famine that killed an estimated one million people in the mid-1980s. He pointed out that the 1980s famine spread over the entire country, while the current food shortages are limited mostly to southern and eastern regions.
Of the four and a half million in need of food aid now, the government estimates at least 75,000 are children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Emergency feeding centers have been set up in some regions to help the worst off, but aid workers and health professionals manning the centers say they are losing children every day.
MOGADISHU (AFP) — Insurgents on Tuesday attacked a Mogadishu police station moments after an Islamist leader rubbished a truce deal between rival factions in Djibouti, dealing a blow to the latest UN effort to bring peace to Somalia.
Witnesses said insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns raided the station in the northern Karan district, allowing prisoners to run free, the latest in a series of attacks in the seaside capital.
“The bodies of two dead policemen could be seen strewn across the street near the station while prisoners were running away after being released. Some insurgents were shouting ‘God is Great’,” said Hasan Shikshigo, a grocer.
The insurgents briefly took control of the police station and a district commissioner’s residence, said Mohamed Sheik Muridi.
The violence came a day after Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) chief Sheikh Sharif Ahmed signed agreements at UN-sponsored talks in Djibouti, including a three-month truce which is to come into force within a month.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, an influential radical cleric, has rejected the deal. The sheikh, accused of links to Al-Qaeda by the United States, argued it failed to set a clear deadline for the withdrawal from Somalia of Ethiopian troops.
“I do not believe that the outcome of this conference will have any impact on the resistance in Somalia. We shall continue fighting until we liberate our country from the enemies of Allah,” Aweys told Mogadishu-based Shabelle radio.
“The aim of the meeting was to derail the holy war in the country,” added Aweys, a member of the ARS, an opposition umbrella group dominated by Islamists and based in Eritrea.
Aweys and other hardline Islamists stayed away saying they would not take part unless Ethiopian troops backing government forces pulled out of Somalia.
According to the accord, Ethiopians Woyannes would withdraw after the UN deployed peacekeepers within 120 days of the armistice taking effect.
On May 15, the UN Security Council authorised a gradual return of UN staff to Somalia, possibly leading to the deployment of peacekeepers, but did not set a timetable.
Aweys said the new truce failed to set a deadline for the pullout of Ethiopian Woyanne troops, who deployed at the end of 2006 and knocked out Islamists from south and central Somalia. “It is not clear when they will leave,” he said.
The African Union (AU), the United States and UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed the agreement.
The AU “strongly urges all other relevant Somali actors to join this process and commit themselves to the peaceful and negotiated settlement of the conflict in their country,” the pan-African body said in a statement.
“We call on all Somali stakeholders, whether party to the agreement or not, to abide by its provisions and support its implementation,” US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a statement.
The AU has deployed some 2,600 peacekeepers in Somalia — short of the pledged 8,000 troops — but they have failed to stem violence which rights groups say has killed 6,000 civilians over the past year.
Battle-weary Mogadishu residents said the absence of insurgents still keep peace at bay.
“Do not sponsor peace talks without participation of the Shababs, otherwise it is like playing a tune that has no listeners,” said Abdi Ali Mohamed, a taxi driver. “There are still rough times and more bloodshed ahead. Peace is miles away.”
Since their ouster, the Islamists have waged a guerrilla war, which according to international rights groups and aid agencies has left at least 6,000 civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands.
An uninterrupted civil war has plagued Somalia since the 1991 overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre, defying numerous peace initiatives and truce deals.
On Monday, the Somali rivals also agreed to facilitate the passage of humanitarian supplies to around 2.6 million suffering Somalis, although a similar pledge on May 16 went unheeded.
The UN expects the figure to reach 3.5 million Somalis by year’s end due to a prolonged drought and spiralling inflation.
