(APA) Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – One hundred of the 500 city service buses which Ethiopia has purchased from China at an estimated 20 million dollars, have begun arriving in the country, APA observed here on Wednesday.
The buses are intended to help tackle the transport shortage in Addis Ababa where around 5 million people live.
Ethiopian Ministry of Transport and Communication said the remaining buses are expected in the country by next week.
Transport sources say there are currently around 14,000 taxis in Addis Ababa and over 500 city buses.
————————– How much commission did Azeb Mesfin, Meles Zenawi’s wife, and Junedin Sado, the transportation minister, receive from the purchase of these inferior quality buses from China? ER Research Unit is investigating.
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
The White House
President George W. Bush today announced his intention to nominate three individuals and appoint two individuals to serve in his Administration.
The President intends to nominate Mimi Alemayehou, of the District of Columbia, to be the United States Director of the African Development Bank. Ms. Alemayehou currently serves as Founder and Managing Partner of Trade Links, LLC. Prior to this, she served as a Program Manager at the International Executive Service Corps. Earlier in her career, she served as Director of International Regulatory Affairs at the Worldspace Corporation. Ms. Alemayehou received her bachelor’s degree from West Texas A&M University and her master’s degree from Tufts University.
The President intends to nominate Rear Admiral Jonathan W. Bailey, of New York, to be Commissioner of the Mississippi River Commission (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Representative).
The President intends to nominate William Clifford Smith, of Louisiana, to be a Member of the Mississippi River Commission (Engineer), for a nine-year term.
The President intends to appoint Karen P. Hughes, of Texas, to be a Member of the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy, for the remainder of a three-year term expiring 12/30/10.
The President intends to appoint Charles M. Younger, of Texas, to be a Member of the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy, for the remainder of a three-year term expiring 12/30/10.
(New York, March 11, 2008) – The UN Security Council should strongly condemn serious abuses of civilians in Somalia and establish a commission of inquiry to identify individuals responsible for these crimes, Human Rights Watch said. Later this week, the UN secretary- general is due to present his report on Somalia to the Security Council.
Human Rights Watch today also released video footage documenting the consequences of attacks on civilians in Somalia. Shot in Mogadishu in December 2007, the footage shows wounded civilians in hospitals, devastated homes and deserted neighborhoods.
On March 20, 2008, the Security Council is scheduled to debate what action to take in response to the secretary-general’s report. So far, the Council has limited its discussions mainly to political aspects of the crisis in Somalia, neglecting to address the human rights abuses at the heart of the conflict.
“The Security Council has repeatedly failed to take action to end these horrific abuses of civilians in Somalia,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Council should strongly condemn abuses by all the warring parties, and it also needs to establish a commission to investigate and identify those responsible.”
The human rights and humanitarian situation in the capital Mogadishu and south-central Somalia is dire. Thousands of civilians have been killed and injured since the conflict between Ethiopian and Somali government forces and insurgents escalated early last year. All parties to the conflict have been responsible for serious violations of the laws of war that amount to war crimes.
Continuing attacks, threats and violence by the warring parties are provoking ongoing displacement. As many as 700,000 people, or 60 percent of Mogadishu’s residents according to UN estimates, have been displaced from the city.
Somalia’s current crisis has largely gone unreported. The international media presence is minimal. Repeated attacks on Somali media, including the killings of eight journalists last year, have also damaged independent reporting on the situation.
Human Rights Watch called for the Security Council and its member states to clearly support efforts to increase human rights monitoring and ensure accountability. In particular, the Security Council should establish an international commission of inquiry.
“The Security Council needs to send a clear message that crimes committed in Somalia will not go unpunished,” said Gagnon. “Establishing an international commission of inquiry will send that signal to all the warring parties, including the Ethiopians.”
MOGADISHU (AFP) — Stray bullets and molestors are only some of the dangers 11-year-old Abdi Mohamed Abdusamad faces when he chooses a place to sleep in the streets of Mogadishu.
War and poverty have thrown thousands of children into the streets of the Somali capital, leaving them in the crossfire of one of the world’s most brutal guerrilla wars and exposed to disease, drugs and sexual violence.
Abdi spends his days collecting plastic bottles as well as the bags in which khat deliveries arrive several times a day to satisfy the Somali male population’s addiction to the mild narcotic plant.
The children wash them and sell them back, earning enough to buy one or two packs of cigarettes on which they can then make a small profit selling by the stick.
“Sometimes the little money you have earned in the day is taken away by an older street boy… There are also those who want to molest the younger children,” says Abdi.
A torn red tee-shirt dangles from his bony shoulders as from a hanger. His face is covered in dirt. “I only get a chance to wash on Fridays,” he says.
In the devastated trading neighbourhood of Bakara — from which most residents have fled — little clusters of children clothed in rags and as young as eight or nine can be seen sniffing glue.
“I’ve lived in the streets of Mogadishu since my parents left the capital for safety reasons. I remained here… to collect bags from the streets and shine shoes,” says Ahmed Mukhtar, another 11-year-old boy.
He says his daily work can earn him between 6,000 and 10,000 Somali shillings, around half a dollar or just enough to buy a meal of rice in a cheap restaurant and a banana.
According to UNICEF and local aid agencies, there are at least 5,000 street children in the war-torn capital.
“Three thousand of them spend the night at the homes of distant relatives or neighbours, but the remaining 2,000 sleep in the streets most of the time,” says Amina Mohamed, a Somali aid worker specialised in child protection.
“They find work in the streets, shoe-shining and also collecting old khat leaves from the market. They sell them to the poorest addicts who can’t afford a fix of fresh bundles,” she explains.
The children’s desperate scramble to find in the city’s litter enough to survive until the next day takes place in some of the worst neighbourhoods of a city often described as one of the most dangerous in the world.
“Besides the humanitarian difficulties, the children are at risk of being hit by stray bullets and rockets more than any other person in the capital,” says Zeynab Mohamud, a volunteer and retired school teacher.
Every child has tales of narrow escapes and sleepless nights sheltering from the daily clashes pitting Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces against Islamist insurgents.
All sides in the street guerrilla war which has further destroyed an already battered city since last year have been accused by rights group of using disproportionate force and failing to protect civilians.
Some of the children populating the streets of Mogadishu’s deserted flashpoint neighbourhoods still have parents in the city but are being used to bring extra income to the household.
“My mother wakes me up in the morning, she says a prayer for me to be safe and gives me breakfast so that I can spend the day in Bakara,” says Ali Sheikh Mohamed, a 12-year-old.
“What money I make I bring mostly back to her so that she can feed my two sisters and brother,” he says.
Ali’s nine-year-old brother also works in the streets. “But he rarely gets much money because he’s working from a new neighbourhood.”
Some aid agencies pay small amounts of cash to guards working in areas where street children sleep in a bid to protect them from child molestors.
“These children were driven here by poverty. I treat them like they were my own but financially I can do nothing for them,” says Mohamed Hassan, a watchman in central Mogadishu’s Hamerweyn district.
Ali says education is a luxury he and his siblings can ill afford since their father was swept away by illness and their mother’s new husband killed by a stray bullet.
In a city which has been turned into a field of ruins by 17 years of bitter civil conflicts, school is low on the list of priorities for many children, who dream of guns and dollars.
“I wish I owned a nice car and had lots of personal guards in vehicles mounted with heavy machineguns,” says Issak Mohamed, a boy of 11 years.
Mustafa Daud, who is one year older, says he would like to become a doctor or a successful businessman with hundreds of people working for him.
“I must be nice to be rich and loved by everyone.”
“I have no intention of jeopardising WFP’s good relations with the government of Ethiopia,” Ms Ingeborg told Abshir. She threw her hands wildly, in frustration. Then, she switched on the intercom in front of her. Gazing at the big map of ‘Somali region’ hanging from the wall, she summoned Captain Shimelis.
Shemelis was employed by the World Food Program-Jigjiga three months ago. He is an ex-fighter of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. She passed the field report submitted by the balding Abshir to the captain. “Please go over it and look for inconsistencies or inflammatory remarks” she told him. She was not finished; “when you are done with it, I will disseminate to our partners.”
A little earlier, she shook her head in disgust, as she read few lines from Abshir’s report. ‘The food security situation of the region is worsening. Nearly one million people are facing acute food shortages. Twice that number is in dire need of water.’ The report said.
It was a scathing field report. “Food is neither delivered to distribution sites, nor distributed to the intended beneficiaries. In most districts, it is hoarded in army stores. And it is the army commanders who decide who gets it.” Although this is a flagrant violation of the UN’s core humanitarian principles, Ms. Ingeborg was unfazed. “After all, who else is in a position to deliver the food?” she openly tells the humanitarian fraternity in meetings.
Deep inside, she fumes; “why would I have to put my work on the line for ‘these people’?” Last night, she watched the news on the BBC. She saw the burning of effigies of world ‘leaders’ and of her country’s flag. By a crowd of overzealous ‘ignorant’ Muslim ‘fanatics’. They were, protesting over the ‘Danish’ cartoons’, depicting Prophet Mohamed as a ‘terrorist’.
She hates all ‘intolerant rabbles’ that are hell-bent on destroying the ‘liberal’ democracies of the ‘heaven’ continents. She is a staunch ‘defender’ of the ‘freedom of speech’. But few yeas back, she was against the release from jail of the British holocaust denier, David Irving. There is no double-standard or hypocrisy here. The two issues are ‘distinctively different’. To her.
Ms Ingeborg knows the ‘people’ she is supposed to feed in Ogaden are not different than the ‘rowdy’ Moroccans ‘wrecking havoc’ all over Scandinavia. Or the ‘terrorists’ elsewhere.
WFP field monitor Abshir reported that food aid is being used by the Ethiopian [Woyanne] army as a weapon of war. That statement desiccated what was left of her little ‘patience’. Not only did she tell him ‘it is not your business’, but she warned him ‘to watch his words’. She never went out to the field to assess and see for herself, but why would she? The trusted Shimelis won’t ‘lie’ to her. And he told her, the army is the most ‘reliable’ deliverer and distributor of food.
Far away, in the village of Gasangas, Lt. Takle was tired. He just finished a gruelling three hour supervision of the food distributions. Of the total five hundred quintals that arrived, fifty were given to the ‘community’. The names of the recipients were supplied by the district administrator. Takle approved the list after ensuring that a) they are not supporters of ‘anti-peace elements’; b) they fought the rebels recently.
Hence, when Basra, a destitute mother of three, angrily demanded food, she ‘crossed the red line’. Takle ordered her arrest. She was taken to the army camp. Few days later, the district head informed Takle that he sold the rest of the food. They shared the ‘loot’.
Ingeborg recalls the firm direction she got from her boss in Addis Ababa: ‘work with the government’. Abshir never understands what that is supposed to mean. But for Ingeborg, it is not in her to indulge in ‘elaborate definitions’. She took it literally.
Yet, just for curiosity, she asked her boss, “what modalities do we have in place at Addis Ababa level to ensure the government trusts us?” she heard his reply, “we have agreed to hire four of their intelligence people as WFP staff.” Ex-combatant Shimelis owes his job to that decision.
Her boss, Mr. Hamad el-Nur, knows what is going on with the food sent to Ogaden. He also knows that speaking out would result in his immediate expulsion from the country. He is not happy with what is happening to his ‘Somali shaqiiq’s (brothers)’. But, first things first; his job is more important.
When he met Ato Simon Machale of the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, Mr Hamad was told to keep up the good work. Ato Simon said, “we are pleased with the conduct of the humanitarian operations in Ogaden. Many thanks to you for the exemplary professionalism your organisation displayed.”
Ingeborg is already thinking of moving on to ‘new challenges’. That is what she told a friend over a dinner sometime ago. “My time here, in Somali region, was intriguing and enchanting” she says. Adding, “I have no regrets.”
“How ironic!” Abshir says. Under her watch, the WFP in Jigjiga has gained reputation for compromising on its mandates, and collaborating in the “food warfare” of the government, he thinks. He knows, lately, some locals made adaptations to the ‘We feed People’ motto of his office. They say it stands for ‘We Fight People’ — with food, of course!
He derisively admits; “one ‘good’ legacy of Ms Ingeborg is that all ‘ludicrous distractions’ from work is stopped.” For instance, the early departure of local staffs for ‘Friday prayers’!
The following note was on Abshir’s diary. “In my entire life, I haven’t witnessed such an abominable dereliction of duty and profanation of the dignity of WFP’s lofty ideals. When the war is finally over, and the dust settles, the criminal ‘failure’ of WFP to assist needy population in Ogaden, will fill history books.”
The part about ‘history books’ is not his words. It is what the father of a malnourished boy told him in Fik.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Nearly 9 million people in Ethiopia’s pastoral regions will need food aid this year despite a projected bumper harvest for 2007/08, a U.S.-funded research group said on Tuesday.
“About eight million chronically food insecure people and an additional 952,503 acutely food insecure people in Ethiopia will require food or cash assistance in 2008,” said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) in a report.
Ethiopia says it expects an overall harvest of 16.5 million tonnes in the current 2007/08 season on good weather and better planting.
The group — funded by the aid wing of the U.S. government — said pastoralists in Ethiopia’s Somali, Oromo and Gambella regions were the worst hit.
The United Nations said earlier this month that more than one million people were suffering from drought in Ethiopia’s Somali and Borena regions.
The network’s report said livestock prices and demand have declined especially for goats and cattle. Livestock exports are a key source of hard currency for the Horn of Africa nation. (Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Jack Kimball)
