The Ethiopia and Sudan Border Issues Committee has issued a statement today denouncing the latest lie by Meles Zenawi who told the fake parliament in Addis Ababa that no body was displaced because of the border re-demarcation. Until this week all Woyanne regime officials, cadres, and opportunist supporters were denying that there was a land give away deal with Sudan. Finally, after the VOA and DW radios interviewed the displaced people at the border, Meles was forced to admit that there was in fact a border agreement with al Bashir’s regime in Sudan. The fake parliament was not informed about the agreement, proving that every one of those members of parliament are no better than potted plants. Read the Committee’s statement here [Amharic, pdf]
Meles Zenawi’s pack animal (donkey) Kuma Demeksa has been named mayor of Addis Ababa by the fake city council on Tuesday. Kuma is a person without conscience. He would sell his own mother for the highest bidder. According to ER sources, these days Kuma is busy working on multi-million-dollar real estate deals. He is building several condos. He will not have time to run the city. Even if he has the time, he is too dummy to run any thing except carry load for Meles.
The legitimately elected mayor, Dr Berhanu Nega, has the legal and moral authority — and obligation — to issue a directive outlawing Kuma’s fake mayorship. As a matter of fact, it is appropriate for Dr Berhanu to warn any one from engaging in any type of long terms deals, such as construction projects, with Kuma’s illegal city administration. This will freez a lot of activities by opportunist businessmen who will be scared that they will lose their investment after Woyanne is gone — which will not be too far.
MIDLAND, IRELAND — Supporting business development in Ethiopia will be the subject of a breakfast meeting hosted by Connect Ethiopia, to take place in Mullingar in June.
Businesses from across the Midlands who are interested in learning how they can offer direct training or mentoring to their Ethiopian counterparts are invited to attend the breakfast meeting, which will take place on Tuesday June 10 in the Mullingar Park Hotel.
Connect Ethiopia is a business initiative established in 2005 to develop trade and business partnerships between Ireland and Ethiopia. The initiative also encourages trade and investment in Ethiopia by Irish investors.
The objective of the forthcoming breakfast meeting is to engage with businesses interested in travelling to Ethiopia to share their skills, business knowledge, and possibly set up a partnership in business initiatives with similar companies. Connect Ethiopia plans to bring a delegation of business people to Ethiopia in November.
According to Brody Sweeney, one of the founders of Connect Ethiopia, “most businesses are interested in corporate social responsibility, but want to know that in engaging in such activities, they can achieve rewarding and tangible results, including new business opportunities. This is at the heart of what Connect Ethiopia is trying to achieve.
“Our focus on Ethiopia comes at a time when the Government there has prioritised efforts to grow the economy and provide a more conducive environment for business growth and development. This represents our third year of bringing missions to Ethiopia. Previous missions included delegates from the banking, insurance, textile retail, and coffee retail sectors. As a result, ongoing business support and mentoring has continued and trade has now opened up in a number of areas.”
The Connect Ethiopia breakfast meeting takes place on Tuesday June 10 at 8am in the Mullingar Park Hotel.
Those wishing to attend should contact Sandra O’Sullivan, Connect Ethiopia at (087) 4171809 or email [email protected]
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Despite a U.N. arms embargo, arms shipments to Somali militants have not stopped and Somalia’s security situation is getting worse, South Africa’s U.N. envoy told the Security Council on Thursday.
South African Ambassador to the United Nations Dumisani Kumalo, chairman of the U.N. Security Council’s Somalia sanctions committee, also reported to the 15-nation body that corruption in the lawless Horn of Africa country was rampant.
Kumalo said the committee had received worrying reports that “elements” of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM, and Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) were involved in arms trafficking activities, which have the potential to undermine the peace process.
Some Ethiopians Woyannes are also creating problems, he said.
“Eighty percent of ammunition available at the Somali arms markets was supplied by TFG and Ethiopian Wjoyanne troops,” Kumalo said in the written text of his remarks to the Security Council.
He said his committee viewed the “continued presence of Ethiopian Wjoyanne troops on Somali territory as a violation of the arms embargo” on Somalia, where warlords, Islamist insurgents and Ethiopian-backed Somali government forces clash almost daily.
The monitoring committee received details of some 25 military flights by Ethiopia into Somalia and knew that Ethiopian Wjoyanne troops had brought military equipment into the country to arm “friendly clans,” Kumalo said.
Arms and military hardware are mainly transported to Somalia by boat and airplane, but traffickers also use horses and donkeys, making shipments difficult to track, he said.
Kumalo said boats often came from Yemen “with goods for general trade and with weapons, (and) … arms shipments were reaching Somalia at points along the entire coast.”
‘GREAT PROFITS’
Kumalo told the council the security situation in the northeastern region of Puntland was worsening and the conflict there expanding. He also said Somalia’s “business community was profiting as well from the general situation of lawlessness.”
“Somalia is affected by a war economy, with great profits made by military commanders, who therefore have little incentive to change the status quo,” he said.
The committee is also probing possible links between piracy and arms trafficking, as well as allegations that Somali port officials were actively supporting piracy, he said.
Kumalo said the Somalia sanctions committee backed the idea of independent investigations of Somalia’s TFG, the Ethiopian Wjoyanne government and AMISOM. He said “only some elements in AMISOM and TFG” appeared to be responsible for such illegal activities, not the institutions themselves.
The committee is also exploring measures to strengthen the arms embargo.
Earlier this month the Security Council passed a resolution opening the door to a stronger U.N. presence in Somalia and the possible deployment of U.N. peacekeepers there.
While all 15 council members agree the situation is dire, most remain reluctant to send U.N. peacekeepers to Somalia.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — It is nearly 11 p.m. one night last week in Addis Ababa, and large parts of the Ethiopian capital are bathed in darkness, the result of increasingly frequent power shortages in recent months.
Father and Son enroute to the Promised
Land (Photo: Michael Freund)
Soldiers and policemen stand guard on the road in front of the Israeli Embassy, as Kalashnikov rifles hang precariously across their chests. As they adamantly turn away traffic from both directions, a large bus pulls up and is waved through, before parking on the dusty thoroughfare.
While its noisy engine takes a much-needed respite, Israeli officials review an assortment of paperwork as they prepare the vehicle’s prospective passengers for the short ride to the airport. It is from there that they will board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to complete the millennial-old journey home to the land of their ancestors, the Land of Israel.
Meanwhile, inside a neighboring compound, 42 Falash Mura (descendants of Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity in the 19th century) sit quietly and patiently on wooden benches, waiting to board the bus. Their features betray a silent dignity, but little else. There is no trace of excitement or exhaustion on their faces.
Only Yossi, a charming three-year old with an infectious grin, dares to beam with enthusiasm, as though he can sense the momentous nature of what they are about to undertake.
Ten days ago, Yossi and the others arrived in Addis Ababa after a two-day bus journey from Gondar in Ethiopia’s north. After recuperating from the arduous trip, they were put through an intensive mini-seminar by Israeli officials to familiarize them with the ins and outs of aliya.
This group, which numbers 38 adults, two children and two babies, is among the last batch of Falash Mura that the Israeli government plans to bring to the Jewish state. According to embassy officials, another 300 or so Falash Mura will be brought to Israel by the end of June, and then the operation will be complete.
Embassy staff have already begun seeking employment elsewhere, as rumors of impending cuts in personnel make the rounds. It is the end of an era, one official says, proudly adding that the ancient community of Ethiopian Jewry has at last found its way home.
Activists in Israel and the United States disagree, saying that there are at least 8,700 Falash Mura in the Gondar region whose eligibility for aliya has not even been reviewed by the Israeli government, which they accuse of wanting to shut down the process in haste.
And they vow to press on until every last member of the Falash Mura who wishes to return to Judaism and the Jewish people is allowed to do so.
But such disputes seem far from the minds of everyone present, as the group of would-be Falash Mura immigrants noiselessly makes it way to the bus after getting the go-ahead from the organizers.
Even the most cynical of observers cannot help but be moved by their solemnity and poise, as they leave behind everything they know and head off in Abrahamic fashion into the uncertain future that beckons them.
Upon reaching the airport, they disembark from the bus, calmly helping one another. A mother carries a baby, gently rocking her to and fro as she settles into a peaceful slumber. An elderly woman, barely able to see or walk, is escorted across the parking lot by two young men as she determinedly makes her way to the terminal.
Behind her, a man on crutches struggles along, keeping up with the group, each tedious step bringing him closer to his goal of reaching Jerusalem.
Watching the scene unfold, the verse from Jeremiah (Chapter 31) quickly came to mind: “and I shall gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child; a great assembly shall return here.”
Indeed, it is easy to imagine that this is how the Exodus from Egypt must have appeared, as these remnants of Ethiopian Jewry walk out of the pages of history, and head to the Promised Land.
There are those who see the Falash Mura as economic migrants, or even hitchhikers taking advantage of the Zionist dream. After all, say the critics, their motivation is simply to improve their lives and escape to the West. But all the cynicism in the world can’t take away from the fact that these precious souls, these “lost Jews,” are at last returning to their people and their land.
It is surely a cliche, but what other country would go to such efforts? At a time when America is clamping down on Mexican migration, and France and Spain battle to contain a flood of North Africans, little Israel reaches out across kilometers of desert and centuries of travail to bring thousands of black Africans in as equal citizens.
As they make their way through Ethiopian airport security, with their meager belongings in hand, one cannot help but see in the fulfillment of their dreams that of ours, too.
A disagreement has erupted within the government of Puntland, in Somalia’s northeast, during Thursday’s regular weekly Cabinet meeting, inside sources told Garowe Online.
Gen. Adde Muse, the Puntland leader, chaired the meeting in the port city of Bossaso, where issues including security, finances, exploration agreements and an extradition program to Ethiopia were heatedly discussed.
Vice President Hassan Dahir Afqura left his office in Garowe, the region’s administrative capital, to participate at the Cabinet meeting.
President Muse offered a brief review of his nearly two-month-long trip aboard, where he visited the capitals of the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.
The Puntland leader told his Cabinet that, while in Addis Ababa, he signed an agreement with Ethiopian government officials to “hand over” any individual who is a “threat” to Ethiopia’s national security.
The Cabinet meeting erupted in discord immediately after President Muse’s revelation, with many Puntland government ministers expressing their opposition to the extradition program, a Cabinet source who did not want to be named in print told Garowe Online.
Since April 22, a handful of Somalis have been arrested by Puntland security forces and extradited to neighboring Ethiopia, a country that human rights groups accuse of torturing domestic dissidents.
Further, Cabinet ministers discussed the nonpayment of the regional government’s civil servants and members of the security forces. According to the Ministry of Finance, Puntland government employees have not received their regular salary for the past five months.
President Muse announced that he had appointed a committee to investigate the Ministry of Finance and the continued lack of payment for government employees, a development that reportedly angered Finance Minister Mohamed “Gaagaab” Ali.
Mr. Gaagaab defended himself by arguing that 80% of revenue managed by the Ministry of Finance was used directly by President Muse and Vice President Afqura, “for operations or other purposes.”
However, the Finance Minister did not detail exactly how those funds were allegedly used by the President and his deputy, according to our sources.
People familiar with President Muse’s governing style told Garowe Online that the Puntland leader’s announced investigation into the Ministry of Finance is nothing more than lip service, adding that such bold statements are aimed at regaining public confidence.
During the Cabinet meeting, the Puntland leader was specifically asked how money donated by foreign exploration companies was used.
At one point during the heated debate, a Cabinet minister accused President Muse of spending public funds “like a store he personally owns.”
The comment angered the Puntland leader, to which he replied by threatening to “fire” Cabinet ministers, although he did not mention any specific names.
When Garowe Online asked one of our Cabinet sources why Puntland government ministers are now bold enough to question Muse, he replied: “Less than one year remains for this government, so there is no fear.”
