An estimated 374 people will be executed in China during this summer’s Olympic games in Beijing, Amnesty International has claimed. A new league table of the world’s most frequent executioners showed China officially used capital punishment 470 times last year. But some campaigners believe the true figure may be 8,000. The human rights group called on Olympic athletes and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to press for greater openness about executions by the host country. Amnesty’s UK director Kate Allen said: “As the world’s biggest executioner, China gets the ‘gold medal’ for global executions. According to reliable estimates, on average China secretly executes around 22 prisoners every day – that’s 374 people during the Olympic games… Continue reading >>
By Sebugwaawo Ismail, Khaleej Times
RAS AL KHAIMAH — The three children, who reportedly tried to escape from Ethiopia by hiding in a cargo ship’s engine room last month, finally reached the Mina Al Saqr port in Ras Al Khaimah yesterday morning.
The boys, whose nationalities are not known as they do not possess any identification documents, were handed over to the UAE Coast Guards in Ras Al Khaimah who have detained them for interrogation.
Officials from the Coast Guards did not divulge any details about the children citing security reasons.
The children would be handed over to the police who will coordinate with the immigration offices and the Ethiopian Consulate to trace their nationalities and arrange the necessary repatriation formalities.
By Teddy Fikre
The past couple of days have witnessed an incessant maelstrom emanating from the Clinton and McCain camps, seizing on the statements that Barack Obama made about the frustrations felt by many Americans in towns across American. While Senator Obama could have been a bit more artful about his choice of words, the statements he made were nevertheless accurate. It is true that Americans today are more pessimistic than ever about our circumstance and grow increasingly frustrated with the direction of our country. A recent CBS News/New York Times poll revealed that 81% of Americans feel that the country is heading in the wrong direction. While the “uber-riche” might not be feeling the pinch of a sub-primed economy, the overwhelming majority of Americans find themselves more anxious about the economy and a growing disconnect between the rhetoric of Washington, D.C. and the unease felt on Main Streets across America… Continue reading >>
By MATTHEW HAAG / The Dallas Morning News
Sam Ghebreyesus’ father called his son’s cellphone several times Friday night to set a time to pick him up from work at a southeast Dallas gas station and convenience store.
Each time, the phone just rang and rang.
“He never answered,” Mr. Ghebreyesus’ cousin Tesfa Kidane said.
Around 10 p.m., the father drove to the station and found a cluster of police cars. An hour earlier, police said, three men had entered Haskell Food Store, at Haskell Avenue and Dolphin Road, robbed Mr. Ghebreyesus and shot him in the chest.
People walking to the store saw the three men run in different directions, said Joe Lopez, 12, who lives in the neighborhood. The customers called 911 after finding Mr. Ghebreyesus on his back behind the cash register.
Police said they had some leads, though the two security cameras outside the store were inoperable.
“It’s a mystery at this point,” said homicide Lt. Craig Miller.
Joe, who went outside when he heard sirens at the station, saw paramedics roll Mr. Ghebreyesus out on a gurney, his arms grasping his chest.
The 26-year-old Dallas man died later at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.
“We were friends,” Joe said.
He had met Mr. Ghebreyesus last year, and they would hang out and talk at the station. If Joe didn’t have money for a candy bar, Mr. Ghebreyesus would let him pay later.
Around noon Saturday, some of Mr. Ghebreyesus’ family arrived at the station. Yellow crime scene tape blocked the doors, but Mr. Kidane peeked through the thick black bars covering the windows.
“He was a real nice kid,” Mr. Kidane said. “Family-oriented.”
Mr. Ghebreyesus loved his family, never missing a birthday or forgetting a gift, Mr. Kidane said. He said Mr. Ghebreyesus planned to work at the gas station until he could save enough money to attend community college.
Mr. Ghebreyesus also was close to the children of another cousin, Goitom Zeru, especially Mr. Zeru’s 26-year-old son in Washington, D.C.
“He always took them around,” Mr. Zeru said. “He told them to be good and to stay in school.”
Two people pulled in front of the gas station a few minutes past noon Saturday and placed flowers on the ground below the yellow tape. Mr. Zeru, who had just made a phone call, stood with his back to the store and cried.
“I just told my son,” he said.
By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz
ADDIS ABABA – Holoager Kasa gathers her older children around her. Subalo is 7 and Bainchjlem is 5. The three-month old, Dastayo, is fastened in a carrier on her back. They are dressed for the final stretch of their voyage.
In the last 10 days, Kasa has been staying with some 50 other Ethiopians in a small compound near the Israeli Embassy in Addis Ababa. In two hours they will board the bus that will take them to the airport.
Her husband, Tafso, is out making last-minute purchases. Holoager’s delicate face registers incomprehension when asked how she obtained a permit to go to Israel. “I have two brothers and sisters and an uncle in Israel,” she says. “One of them applied for me, and five years ago I was called to Gondar for an interview.”
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She does not know where her Israeli relatives live or where she is supposed to stay once she arrives, but they told her it was near Jerusalem. She doesn’t speak a word of Hebrew and the only thing she knows about Judaism is Sabbath, but she knows that in the past her family was Jewish.
Tafso is Christian, but his wife says that he agreed to covert to Judaism in Israel, and this made their trip possible. Asked what she expects in Israel, she says, “I don’t know. I just want a good life.”
She will miss nothing from her life in Ethiopia.
Kasa’s family is one of the last to leave Ethiopia for Israel. Only 474 Falashmura with permits to immigrate to Israel remain in Gondar – eight more flights. The Jewish Agency office in Addis Ababa is to be shut at the beginning of June. More immigrants to Israel have passed through this office in recent years than through any other Jewish Agency office in the world – 300 a month, 4,600 a year.
“However, throughout 2007 we brought only one woman to Israel,” says Jewish Agency envoy Uri Conforti.
He says that 95 percent of the immigrants to Israel in recent years have been Jews according to the halakha, while the rest have Jewish parents or grandparents. The former receive a blue immigrant card on arrival, and that is replaced by an identity card a few days later. The others receive a green immigrant card, and only after a year and a half are they eligible for citizenship, after converting to Judaism. Then they also receive their Israeli housing grants and be eligible to vote.
The Ethiopians are a calm, reserved people. Unlike immigrants from the West, they don’t sing Hebrew songs, wave flags, kiss the holy soil and weep when they arrive. They have already been through a complex process to get to this point. They have waited for a long time, sometimes years, before receiving a date to report to the Jewish Agency’s compound at Gondar. They are photographed for the travel card, interviewed about their medical condition, briefed about travel arrangments to Addis Ababa, the capital, and receive an allowance for expenses and lodging on the way. Every Sunday a busload of immigrants, accompanied by paramedics and an armed guard, leaves the compound.
The immigration candidates are sent to a private hospital for x-rays of their lungs, to make sure they don’t have tuberculosis. If they do, their trip to Israel is delayed for preliminary medical treatment. In a clinic operating out of the embassy compound, the immigrants are vaccinated against various diseases. Their medical files will be sent to an Israeli health maintenance organizations (HMO).
The would-be immigrants are shown films to prepare them for life in Israel. They learn what a toilet bowl, refrigerator, stove and disposable diapers are, as well as how to open a bank account and what an HMO and absorption grants are.
At the airport’s entrance, they are briefed about regular stairs and moving stairs, the latter of which they are warned not to use, to avoid accidents. They sit quietly by the gate. Nobody goes to shop in the duty free. The immigrants are afraid to use the toilets on the planes and the Jewish Agency envoy makes sure they all go to the airport toilet before the flight.
On the Ethiopian Airlines plane they are seated in the back, by the galley. Holoager and Tafso are enjoying every moment of this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Once they have landed at Ben-Gurion airport, the mothers are led to a diaper-changing corner. The rest are ushered into small rooms, sign for immigrant cards and receive their first immigrant grant, based on the size of their family.
