Internet search giant Google Inc. unveiled a new feature Tuesday for its popular mapping programs that shines a spotlight on the movement of refugees around the world. The maps will aid humanitarian operations as well as help inform the public about the millions who have fled their homes because of violence or hardship, according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is working with Google on the project. “All of the things that we do for refugees in the refugee camps around the world will become more visible,” U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees L. Craig Johnstone said at the launch in Geneva. Users can download Google Earth software to see satellite images of refugee hot spots such as Darfur, Iraq and Colombia. Information provided by the U.N. refugee agency explains where the refugees have come from and what problems they face… Continue reading >>
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – If U.N. peacekeepers abandon the border between Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea, a new war could break out between the two Horn of Africa neighbors, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report.
The U.N. border mission, or UNMEE, has already withdrawn nearly 1,700 troops and military observers who for the past seven years had been trying to prevent Eritrea and Ethiopia Woyanne from resuming a border war they fought from 1998-2000.
The peacekeepers had been stationed in a 15.5-mile (25-km) buffer zone inside Eritrea. But Asmara turned against UNMEE because of U.N. inability to enforce rulings by an independent commission awarding chunks of Ethiopian Woyanne-held territory, including the town of Badme, to Eritrea.
Most UNMEE troops have been sent home temporarily and only 164 peacekeepers are now in Eritrea, Ban said in the report, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday. But those troops are only there to guard UNMEE equipment until it can be evacuated.
There are also a few peacekeepers on the Ethiopian Woyanne side of the border, but Ban said Addis Ababa told him: “Ethiopia Woyanne would find it extremely difficult to accept a long-term deployment of UNMEE limited only to the Ethiopian side of the border.”
UNMEE pulled most of its troops out of Eritrea after the government cut off access to fuel and restricted deliveries of food and other essential supplies. Asmara denies this and accuses UNMEE of enabling Ethiopia Woyanne to occupy its territory.
Ethiopia Woyanne has offered to hold talks with Eritrea but Asmara says Addis Ababa must first withdraw from Eritrean territory.
With Eritrea refusing to discuss the question of UNMEE’s return, Ban said there were several options for the future of U.N. forces on the border, where both sides have amassed troops in recent months. He also said the Security Council must make a swift decision on the fate of UNMEE.
“It is essential that the Security Council makes the necessary decisions as a matter of priority,” he said. In the meantime Ban said he could try to mediate between Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea and the council could also consider sending missions to both countries.
TOTAL WITHDRAWAL
One option is to remove all UNMEE personnel from the area, though this would be a very dangerous move to make, he said.
“The total withdrawal of UNMEE … could result in an escalation of tensions in the border area with the risk of a resumption of open hostilities, despite declarations by the two parties that they have no intention to restart the war.”
One of the problems of withdrawing UNMEE from the border zone is that their presence is required under the ceasefire agreement, which could then be dismissed as invalid.
A better option would be to deploy a small observer mission in the border area, which could try to defuse tensions between Ethiopia Woyanne and Eritrea. This mission, Ban said, could “serve as the eyes and ears of the international community and would continue to report to the Security Council on the situation.”
If one of the countries were to reject this option, observers could be placed on one side of the border, though that “could be perceived by one party as freezing the status quo and serving the interests of the other,” Ban said.
Other options would be for UNMEE to return to its original full deployment — an unlikely scenario given Eritrea’s refusal to discuss the issue — or to establish “liaison offices with civilian and military personnel” in Addis Ababa and Asmara.
Ethiopians for Barack Obama will be making a return trip to Philadelphia on Saturday April 19th from the Washington, DC metro area and returning on Sunday April 20th. The aim of the road trip to Philadelphia is to canvass and reach out to voters in conjunction with the Barack Obama headquarter office in Philadelphia. Additionally, we will be reaching out to the Ethiopian-American community by attending the Kidus Ammanuel Church on Sunday morning.
There are thousands of Ethiopian-Americans who live in the greater Philadelphia area and Pennsylvania as a whole. Barack Obama enjoys an overwhelming level of support within the Ethiopian-American community; the aim is to translate that support into votes. We will be embarking on our trip to Philadelphia on Saturday April 19th at 12:00 PM. The meeting location is going to be at Etete Restaurant @ 1942 9th St NW.
We have contacted the Barack Obama headquarters in Philadelphia and they are looking forward to any and all help they can get to encourage people to vote on the April 22nd Pennsylvania Primary. This is our chance to make a big difference; Barack Obama lost New Hampshire by less than 8,000 votes. A robust turnout from the Ethiopian-American community in Pennsylvania could be a decisive factor.
If you want to join the Ethiopians for Barack Obama roadtrip to Philadelphia, please email [email protected] Please put “Trip to Philly” in the subject header, and include your contact information. A follow up-email will be sent with hotel and trip accommodations. Please forward this information to all family and friends who want to be a part of this historic campaign.
Police Intercept Container With 155 Illegal Immigrants
(Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique) Maputo — The Mozambican police on Sunday intercepted a truck carrying a container in which 155 foreigners, from Ethiopia and Somalia, were traveling, reports Wednesday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”.
One of these illegal migrants had already died of asphyxiation, and a further 50 were in a severely weakened condition, and required medical care.
The truck had entered Mozambique from Malawi, and was driving through Tete province en route to the port city of Beira, where the clandestine migrants would have been unloaded.
The police stopped the truck at a police checkpoint at Matambo, in Changara district, some 20 kilometres south of Tete city. They could hear screams from inside the container, of passengers apparently complaining that they were suffocating to death.
When the truck driver realized that the police knew what he was carrying, he sped away, with the police in pursuit. After a further 20 kilometres, the driver abandoned the truck. The police opened the container and found 68 young Somalis and 87 Ethiopians. The health authorities were called in to revive those who were seriously ill.
The passengers had travelled for many hours from a refugee camp in Malawi inside the windowless metallic container, without any food or drinking water.
The Tete police told reporters they hope to deport the group back to Malawi on Wednesday.
This is the second group of illegal foreigners to be repatriated to Malawi in less than a week. Another 98 were caught crossing the border at Zobue, also in Tete, in another truck on Friday.
In both cases, the police confirmed that the drivers, both of Malawian nationality, managed to run away, but the companies for which they are working have provided the necessary information to have them arrested, and have offered to cooperate with the police.
The owners of those companies, though admitting that the trucks are theirs, deny any involvement in the business of transporting illegal immigrants, and promise to cooperate with the authorities and give all the necessary information.
April 9 (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s annual inflation rate increased to 22.9 percent in February led by rising food costs, the Central Statistical Agency said.
Inflation expanded from 19.4 percent in January, the Addis Ababa-based agency said in a report today. Food prices climbed 30.2 percent on an annual basis, from 28 percent in January, according to the report.
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To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via the Johannesburg bureau at [email protected].
MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Insurgents in Somalia seized a strategic town north of Mogadishu on Wednesday for the second time in two weeks, a spokesman for the insurgents said.
Jowhar is the most significant of several towns the rebels have captured in recent months, highlighting the inability of the Western-backed interim government to impose its authority despite support from Ethiopian Woyanne and African Union (AU) troops.
The insurgents briefly seized Jowhar on March 26. Then early on Wednesday, they did it again.
“No fighting took place because the enemy troops had abandoned the town by midnight when they heard we were coming,” the insurgents’ spokesman Abdirahim Isa Adow said by telephone.
The rebels freed prisoners in Jowhar, which served as the government’s temporary base in 2005, Adow told Reuters.
Local Somali broadcaster Shabelle said the rebels wore turbans and chanted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest). Residents said they later left the town.
In recent months the insurgents have seized towns from local administrations that often amount to little more than militias, only to give them up and melt away — or be routed by Ethiopian Woyanne or Somali government forces who arrive later.
As the rebels step up their attacks, a spokesman for Burundian troops serving with the AU peacekeeping force in Mogadishu said one of their soldiers was killed on Tuesday by a suicide bomber who rammed a car into the gates of an AU base.
Witness Fahom Mohammed said four civilians also died.
“A refugee woman and her three children were cut to pieces by the blast while they were queuing outside the Burundian compound waiting for water,” she told Reuters.
Elsewhere in Somalia’s rubble-strewn capital, at least two Ethiopian Woyannen troops were wounded on Wednesday when a remote controlled roadside bomb tore through their convoy.
“I saw two Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers bleeding heavily and lying in the road,” said local man Ahmed Shine. “The Ethiopians Woyannes blocked off the whole area where the incident happened.”
