Amharic version of Bee Gee’s Stayn’ Alive by Abby Lakew of Ethiopia

The TV report also includes: Lies exposed when Meles Zenawi told his fake parliament that there was no land given to Sudan: CNN reports Ethiopians dire starvation situation; Roads in Ethiopia still in bad condition considering over 25 billion dollars has been invested by donors; Dr Abebe Yirgaw questions Woyane’s claim of 11% growth while people are starving in Ethiopia; A conflict started and enflamed by Woyane pits Benshangul and Oromo ethnic groups in the South; ONLF’s attacks in the last 3 months prove that Woyane’s accusation of wiping them out as baseless; 20 fully equipped Woyanne troops have disappeared leading to a belief that they have joined freedom fighters opposed to Woyane regime… Click below to watch >>

Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia living in Missouri and Kansas are shocked to learn that their friend Berhanu Taye was shot to death on May 24 while on a visit in Washington DC. Police is investigating the crime. Berhanu, who moved to DC about one year ago, is survived by this children and ex-wife Beletu Desta. The family can be reached through the Ethiopian Community Kansas City, Tel: 816 682 8088 (Contact person: Ato Solomon Reta).

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WASHINGTON — D.C. police are investigating a shooting that left one man dead and two others injured in the city’s busy Shaw neighborhood.

Detectives spent hours searching for clues at the scene of the 2 a.m. incident near 9th and T streets.

Police said someone opened fire on the victim, striking him multiple times. Two others suffered graze wounds. They were expected to be fine.

A resident who lives nearby said he heard about 10 gunshots in a row.

The shooting happened in the city’s Shaw neighborhood, near a section of the popular U Street corridor that has seen deadly violence before.

Last June, a man was shot and killed inside a restaurant. And in January 2007, 17-year-old Talisha Ford was fatally shot inside a club.

Her death prompted the city to install police cameras in the area.

A business owner whose flower shop is right next to the shooting scene said police have increased their presence since those earlier shootings. But he would like to see more officers on the streets.

“It’s not like Georgetown or Adams Morgan,” he said. “We’re not getting the same attention but we pay the same taxes.”

City officials said the police camera on 9th Street may show part of the crime, or at least some of the people involved.

Police have not released the victim’s name.

Anyone with information on the shootings is asked to call D.C. police at 1-800-673-2777.

Watch video.

This is a must watch report by DISPATCHES, an investigative program produced by the U.K.-based Channel 4 TV. The report describes the link between U.K. and the ongoing state of terror in Somalia that is currently occupied by the Western-backed regime of Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi.

St. Paul, Minneapolis — (AP) – Being in the same Minneapolis hotel building is about as close as Peter Omot wants to get to Omot Obang Olom, the Ethiopian official he holds responsible for the massacre of more than 400 of his ethnic kin.

Peter Omot, 35, a member of the Anuak ethnic minority, says he won’t enter the room where Omot, the governor of the country’s western Gambella region, will speak to the local community-in-exile on Saturday.

Gov. Omot was in charge of security when, according to human rights groups, Ethiopian troops attacked the local Anuak population in December 2003.

“He prepared the ground,” Peter Omot, who lives in Savage, Minn., said Friday.

The regional governor’s appearance at the community meeting has set off debate in the Anuak diaspora over whether it’s appropriate even to be in the same room as Omot, who is Anuak himself.

The Anuak Justice Council in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has been pushing U.S. and Canadian authorities to arrest and try Omot for war crimes. He is expected to continue on to Canada next week.

But advocates haven’t been able to confirm whether he’s traveling on a diplomatic visa that would grant him wide-ranging immunity.

“He should not be meeting the Anuak in a town hall meeting. He should be meeting the Anuak in chambers — you know, in a court of law,” said Obang Metho, an advocate with the Anuak Justice Council in Saskatoon who is boycotting the meeting.

He added: “He has blood on his hands.”

State Department spokesman Bill Strassberger confirmed that Omot received a visa, but said that because visa records are confidential, he could not discuss the visa application. He also declined to discuss whether Omot had a role in the 2003 killings.

Human rights groups have detailed a campaign of killings, rape, torture and displacement against the Anuak by government soldiers and members of other ethnic groups.

Wholesale attacks started on Dec. 13, 2003, in Gambella town in southwestern Ethiopia. Thousands fled, some to southern Sudan.

An estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Anuak live in Minnesota, in what is thought to be the largest concentration outside Africa, said Akway Cham, who heads the Minneapolis-based Anywaa Community Association in North America.

Obang, the advocate in Canada, said he expects Omot to try to get exiled Anuak to move back and help develop their region, and will say that the region has become safe and democratic.

Akway is at the center of the furor over Omot’s visit because he’s the facilitator of Saturday’s forum. He planned to collect Omot and other Ethiopian officials at the airport Friday.

He acknowledged the stir the visit is creating but said he hopes people will come away with answers to their questions. He said the meeting will focus on the 2003 killings after a similar meeting in April with other government officials left many in the community dissatisfied.

“This guy is the governor, and he was there when the things happened, and people are expecting that he should be able to give some clear answers,” he said.

By Martiga Lohn, and Fred Frommer, Associated Press

Press Release
Ethiopian Teachers Association

For fifteen years the Ethiopian Teachers Association has fought to retain its right to organise as an independent trade union. Its members have faced beatings, sacking, imprisonment, torture and death whether gunned down in the street, dying in prison or being disappeared. Now it is involved in a battle for its very survival.

Only the fighting determination of ordinary union members and the support of international trade unionists have kept the union from being completely smashed. In February of this year an Ethiopian court declared the union illegal, a judgment currently being contested partly through the support of international trade unions, particularly the British NUT and Dutch AOb.

The government has set up a rival union also called the ETA, sequestrated the funds of the legitimate ETA and banned it from operating. Currently the union offices are being occupied by activists in a tense stand-off.

Gemoraw Kassa, General Secretary of the ETA, explains:

“According to this unpopular verdict of the Supreme Court delivered .., the authentic ETA is made to lose not only of its bank assets and properties altogether but also is deprived of its legal status to act as an independent professional association of its one hundred and seventeen thousand members. As of this date, the government sponsored (surrogate) ETA is supposed to be the sole teachers’ “legitimate union” in Ethiopia . This is the real interest of the government aimed at getting rid of an independent ETA (by replacing it by the fake one) from the scene under the cover of court ruling.

We are quite ready to face all in the manner it may come. As to the consequence, you will be kept informed by myself or somebody else.

Finally, we would desperately like to urge EI and its affiliated organizations to continue their support for ETA and exert pressure to all concerned to use their influence on the Ethiopian Government to meet its national and international obligations particularly to respect teachers’ rights to an independent association and freedom of collective bargaining. We believe that your solidarity will make a difference.
Please accept our many thanks for your past and present solidarity without which the viability of the original ETA would have been culminated some 15 years ago.

We need your suppoort now more than ever.”

For further information see Education International