(Press TV) – At least 10 Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers have been killed and 13 others injured in a landmine explosion in south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
The Ethiopian Woyanne troops were killed when their vehicle hit a landmine in Waaberi district on Wednesday, a Press TV correspondent reported from Mogadishu.
Several civilians were also injured in the attack, witnesses said.
Another roadside bomb, targeting Ugandan peace keepers went off near Adan Adde international airport in southern Mogadishu, but there were no immediate reports on the number of casualties, witnesses said.
The streets of Mogadishu are the scene of daily clashes between Insurgents and Ethiopian Woyanne troops, Somalia government forces and African Union peacekeepers.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, U.K. — Nine foreign journalists have been awarded John S. Knight Fellowships for the 2008-09 academic year at Stanford.
The international fellows include two journalists in exile—an Ethiopian online editor who is currently in exile in London, and a Chinese online editor in exile in North Carolina—and the program’s first fellows from Belarus and Iraq.
During their stay at Stanford, the Knight Fellows will pursue independent courses of study and participate in special seminars. In May, the program will announce the selection of 12 Knight Fellows from the United States.
Financial support for the international fellows comes from sources that include the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Lyle and Corrine Nelson International Journalism Fund, and Yahoo! Inc. The 2008-09 program marks the 43rd year that Stanford has offered fellowships for professional journalists.
Following are the new international Knight Fellows and their areas of study:
Federica Bianchi, editor and reporter, L’Espresso, Rome, Italy; international relations, focusing on the effect of China’s rise on U.S. ties with developing nations.
Dionne Bunsha, senior assistant editor, Frontline Magazine, Mumbai, India; the impact of globalization on India’s environment, and the potential for sustainable growth.
Chanda Chisala, president and editor, Zambia Online, Lisaka, Zambia; the impact of the Internet on the future of African journalism, and the philosophy of human rights.
Pedro Doria, technology columnist and writer, O Estado de São Paulo, Brazil (Knight Latin American Fellow); democracy and its pressures around the world.
Abebe Gellaw, editor-in-chief, Addis Voice/Addisvoice.com (London), Ethiopia (Yahoo! International Fellow); creating a vibrant and sustainable media organization.
Joel Gutierrez, news director, Televicentro de Nicaragua/Canal 2, Managua, Nicaragua (Knight Latin American Fellow); lessons of Ireland and similar emerging countries for Latin American developing nations.
Natalia Koulinka, news editor, Radio Station Unistar 99.5, Minsk, Belarus (Lyle and Corrine Nelson International Fellow); news journalism and models of broadcasting by non-governmental radio in a post-Soviet regime.
Watson Meng, chief editor and manager, Boxun News (Durham, N.C.), China; the impact of online citizen journalism in China and beyond.
Isra’ al Rubei’i, reporter, National Public Radio, Baghdad; freedom of the press in post-conflict societies and the development of media in emerging democracies.
AN ETHIOPIAN ASYLUM SEEKER who used a forged document to get a job in a Coventry crisp factory has been jailed for nine months.
Alazar Gebrezgiabhetr, aged 24, of Tarquin Close, Willenhall, pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to possessing a false identity document with intent.
Prosecutor Louise Pierpoint said Gebrezgiabhetr entered the UK in February 2003 seeking asylum and was given a document which prohibited him from working.
But he applied for a job at the Walkers Crisps factory in Baginton, presenting a UK travel document in his name.
It purported to give him Home Office permission to gain employment in the UK, and he began work in July 2007.
He was arrested following a joint immigration and police operation last month.
Gebrezgiabhetr said he bought the forged document for £260 from a man called Daniel, to whom he then had to return it, but claimed he thought it was genuine.
Stephen Crouch, defending, said Gebrezgiabhetr was an Eritrean national who had suffered brutal beatings in Ethiopia, and had flown to Britain with the aid of an agent who purported to be a friend.
As soon as he had entered the country the man took his passport, leaving him with no form of identity.
With few Eritreans in the UK, there was no network to help him and he ended up begging on the streets.
The opportunity then arose to obtain the false document and thereby to get work – and he took it.
Mr Crouch said Gebrezgiabhetr and his wife, who are both devout Christians, married at St John the Baptist church in Willenhall, Coventry, early last year, and his wife is now pregnant with their second child.
Jailing him, Recorder David Pittaway told him: “I have taken into account that you have pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and what has been said on your behalf.
“I have taken into account that you have a son and that your wife is pregnant and that in other respects you have endeavoured to be an honest, hardworking young man.”
He added: “I bear in mind that your wife has indefinite leave to remain and that although your first appeal against the refusal of asylum has been turned down, you have lodged a further appeal.”
The Unity for Democracy and Justice Party (Andinet) has completed its signature collection project this week, according to the party’s North America support group.
Andinet Party had dispatched 70 high level delegates all over Ethiopia last week to collect a minimum of 1500 signatures that are required by the Electoral Board of Ethiopia to be registered as a political party.
It is reported that the delegates have collected some 5,800 signatures — well over the required figure.
The next step is to convene the party’s general assembly and elect its leaders.
Israel’s Council for Ethiopian Jewry is suing the Israeli government as part of a stepped-up effort to help the remaining Jews of Ethiopia get to Israel.
Mount Royal MP Irwin Cotler, right, said the lawsuit is part of a new three-pronged initiative announced last week to raise public awareness about the plight of what Cotler said are some 2,000 Jews in Ethiopia who are on Israeli government lists of people who have applied to come to Israel.
Speaking to reporters last week, Cotler, a founding member of the council, all but used the word “racism” to explain the government’s apparent refusal to use its own established list of 1,400 Jews who are already recognized as qualified to have their eligibility ascertained in court.
But the situation is clearly “discrimination,” he said, “a combination of bureaucratic failure, indifference, and incompetence. The effect is to treat [Ethiopian Jews] differently than anybody else, a denial of equality before the law.”
He said, “One of the most shocking things is that this is a list the government itself accepted in 1999.
“They said there were another 750 [on the list] they could not find, but we went there and found them within a week.
“They’ve withdrawn shlichim [to Ethiopia], they’ve shut the process down, when by their own list there are 1,400 who have not been investigated.”
The result, he said, is that Ethiopian Jews are languishing in Gandar with “young children dying of malnutrition.”
Cotler said there are probably as many as 8,000 “falash mora” Jews who could qualify for entry into Israel, and “90 per cent of that 8,000 would come.”
Besides the lawsuit, Cotler said a group of Knesset-members last week introduced a bill to pressure the government to bring the remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel, and that the Ethiopian Jewish community will “ratchet up” its public advocacy in an effort to make the issue resonate more with the public.
“To use their own words, ‘enough is enough.’ We want our brothers and sisters home as quickly as possible.”
Cotler cited a recent statement by his friend Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School that he felt “ashamed” by the Israeli government’s current policies on Ethiopian Jewry, and Cotler noted that the Israeli government never required proof of “matrilineal descent” in the cases of thousands of Soviet Jews who found safe haven in Israel.
But what started as a commitment on the part of former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s government in 2003 to bring remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel soon changed.
A year later, Cotler recounted, the government “capped’ the potential number of Ethiopian émigrés at 17,000. Then it said there was no “final number.” Then it established a monthly quota of arrivals that dropped from 300 to 150 by June 2006.
By December of last year, “the government said, ‘Aliyah is ending and we withdrawing the shlichim… to stop it all,’” Cotler said.
He quoted former Israeli Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, who is honorary chair of the council, as saying that the Israeli government has no right to take away the rights of Jews.
“He said the right to immigrate belongs to Ethiopian Jews, and it is not the right of the Israeli government to extinguish them.”
Cotler quoted from a conversation he had with Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit in which he said Sheetrit described his government as constituting the “rule of law” on the issue.
Cotler retorted that he has dealt with numerous Israeli interior ministers over the years and that Sheetrit would not be the last.
“I told him: ‘These Ethiopian Jews will come either with your support or without your support.’”
Cotler also hoped the effort to raise the issue’s public profile in Israel would work.
“There are people who don’t seem to know this is happening,” he said. “It is hard to get ‘air time,’ if you will, hard to get it into the public arena.”
