By Dan Morse and Aaron C. Davis | Washington Post
Yonatan Getachew, 18, was arrested Tuesday, April 28. Charges against him include attempted first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree arson.
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WASHINGTON DC — Two Montgomery County teenagers have been charged with arson and conspiracy to commit murder in an alleged plot to kill the principal at their White Oak high school in Maryland with a nail-filled bomb and then trigger a major explosion inside the school, authorities said yesterday.
The Springbrook High School students — juniors ages 18 and 17 — are suspected of having set three fires at the school, including one Tuesday before the discovery of the plot that led to their arrests, police said.
According to police, the students planned “in the near future” to throw the bomb into the principal’s office, and then puncture a gas pipe in the school’s auditorium and use an incendiary device to set off an explosion.
Montgomery Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said investigators think the students “really had an intention of doing this.”
“They were surely doing things that made one believe they were going to try,” he said.
Over the past month, the students “constructed and experimented with several different incendiary devices,” said Lt. Paul Starks, a police spokesman. They had also attempted to puncture pipes in the boys’ locker room to determine whether they were gas lines, he said.
Police identified the teens as Yonata Getachew, 18, of the 11500 block of Sutherland Hill Way in White Oak (a native of Ethiopia) and Anthony N. Torrence, 17, of the 13500 block of Greencastle Ridge Terrace in the Burtonsville area. Torrence has been charged as an adult.
Each is charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, three counts of first-degree arson and other offenses. They are scheduled to appear in court for bond hearings today.
Acting on search warrants obtained Tuesday night, investigators searched both students’ homes. They found flammable liquids and materials used to make “chemical reaction bombs,” police said in a statement. They also found “notes and plans written by Getachew and Torrence about preparations and the physical design of the school building.”
Other students at Springbrook, just north of Silver Spring, said in interviews that Getachew and Torrence kept a low profile.
“He’s a quiet boy,” senior Jared Mohammed, 18, said of Torrence.
Another 18-year-old senior, Yomi Kolawole, said of Torrence, “I didn’t think he would do something like this.”
In a letter to parents, Principal Michael Durso described the situation as serious.
“We learned yesterday of plans being made that could have resulted in damage to the building as well as potential harm to students and staff,” he wrote.
Officials said they knew of no motive.
“There doesn’t seem to be any precipitating event,” said Jerry D. Weast, the county’s school superintendent. “That is one of the mysteries that we want to solve.”
He praised a police officer assigned to the school for knowing one of the suspects well enough that the student ultimately confided in him. “It’s truly about relationships,” Weast said.
The alleged plans came to light Tuesday when the two were stopped while leaving the school, allegedly after setting a fire in a hallway near an ROTC room. Torrence gave the school police officer extensive information about the plans, police said.
According to police, Torrence said the two planned to beat a female guidance counselor with a bag containing rocks and nails. They also planned to maximize harm from a fire they would start by stuffing paper into air vents and disabling the school’s sprinkler system, Torrence allegedly said.
In an interview, Torrence’s mother said her son has a learning disorder and was manipulated by Getachew into doing things he would not have done otherwise.
“He’s a sheltered child,” Andrea Torrence, 48, said of her son. “He has his problems when it comes to understanding things, but he’s never been in any trouble before in his life.”
No one answered the door yesterday at the red-brick townhouse in White Oak where Getachew lives.
Andrea Torrence said her son told her that Getachew was teaching him to shoplift and had forced him to type a threatening letter to a school staff member. At the school Tuesday, she said, Getachew showed her son how to spray lighter fluid onto the ceiling. At one point, she said, Getachew set fire to lighter fluid on the floor, and her son stomped the fire out.
In the past month, the two students twice set fires in bathrooms at the school, police said.
About 2 a.m. yesterday, Andrea Torrence said, seven or eight officers in SWAT gear arrived at her two-bedroom apartment. Police searched her son’s room and took his computer, cellphone and a letter addressed to him from a hobby store, Torrence said.
At the school yesterday, several students spoke highly of Durso, the principal, and Camille Basoco, the guidance counselor.
“The targets are very surprising . . . seeing as though Ms. Basoco is known for her kindness and personality, as well as Mr. Durso,” said junior Ebony Turner, 16.
(Staff writer Daniel de Vise and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.)
By Desalegn Sisay | Afrik.com
A new consultancy firm that recently took administrative control of the Ethiopian capital, {www:Addis Ababa}, has expressed concern over a looming water related epidemic. The outbreak, which is expected between now and 2013, could hinder the achievement of the capital’s five-year strategic plan put together by the new consultancy firm. Meanwhile, {www:Kuma Demeksa} has outlined a 40 billion {www:birr} plan to address the city’s main problems during his tenure as the city’s mayor.
One of the major financial concerns of the draft strategy is to alleviate the housing and employment challenges facing the city’s 2.7 million residents. The plan includes the construction of 200,000 condominiums as well as the creation of 69,077 new jobs between 2011 and 2012. About a third of the city’s residents are currently unemployed.
The draft outlines a strategy to reduce unemployment by at least 51 per cent through a further development and encouragement of micro and small business enterprises. To achieve this set goal, the city intends to set aside 1.9 billion birr geared towards the creation of a lending mechanism in which small businesses could easily access financial support.
Waterborne diseases
Though the draft outlines a strategy to curb some of the major challenges affecting the development of the city, it also foresees the high improbability of reaching set targets owing to financial constraints and a possible outbreak of waterborne diseases.
According to their recent assessment, 25 per cent of Addis Ababa’s solid waste is not properly discharged while 25 per cent of the overall residential houses lack adequate lavatories. Out of the 800,000 cubic meters of the city’s daily waste only 10 per cent (that is, 8,024 cubic meters) was properly discharged last year, the document indicated.
Cases of contamination
The most alarming part of the findings indicate that the city’s poor sewerage system is bedded close to one of the main fresh water systems that supplies 37 percent of Addis Ababa’s water needs. There have been cases where residents were reportedly exposed to polluted water supply.
Meanwhile, the city is noted as lacking health institutions with only 10 hospitals. The federal government owns six of them. According to a World Health Organization requirement, a medical doctor is expected to treat a 10,000 patients while one nurse is to serve up to 1,000, however, a medical doctor in Addis Ababa treats 29,470 patients against 4,356 for a nurse.
By Utubo
I think the count down to Woyanne’s demise has just started if the coup attempt, that, they claimed has occurred is to be believed, and that should be something that we Ethiopians have to be proud of and should be supported by the international community, rather than being averted.
What options has {www:Woyanne} left for Ethiopians to exercise their right of electing their leaders, except by coup? It has stolen the 2005 election, vowed to remain in power on the ground of building a developmental state, is stage-playing to conduct a sham election for 2010, and has already started jailing prominent opposition leaders in the country.
Woyanne is a government without a constituency in Ethiopia, just clinging to power by sheer force. Its confidence on its sheer force has reached such an arrogant proportion that it considers itself that it cannot be challenged and can rule with impunity. On their own account, we are now witnessing that they had an inflated perception of themselves. That they are weak and vulnerable.
For a people that has been demanding its freedom, and that has been denied all options of exercising its right, a coup could be an alternative route. Thus the effort of the Ethiopian military to stage a coup is the right step that has to be encouraged and facilitated, not averted by the international community.
The Ethiopian people, the horn of Africa region and the wider intentional community would be better off if the Woyanne regime is deposed from power by all means. This is a regime willing to play all the cards to spread terror in the country and the region if it sees any threat to its power.
As evidenced, after the alleged coup incident, the Woyanne regime has been calling the US government to hand him over, the leader of {www:Ginbot 7} as the culprit, and is threatening to destabilize the region if its question is not answered. They shamelessly reveal their desire to hold America hostage to their sinister motive of staying in power.
It is high time for America and the democratic world to draw the red line. It is time to encourage the military to harness the benefit out of a coup. There is no sovereignty to be lost by doing so. Woyanne is an illegitimate and unpopular regime that deserves to be deposed by a strategic coup, before the country is engulfed by a more costly civil war where the international community pays even more price.
Kenya (KBC) – The government has launched investigations into reports that heavily armed militias from Ethiopia have been sighted in Merti division of Isiolo district.
District Commissioner Waweru Kimani confirmed claims that some 60 members of the {www:Oromo Liberation Front} (OLF) militia from Ethiopia had pitched tent within Nyachise strategic grazing reserve for the last two days.
Kimani, however, assured residents that there was no cause for alarm because appropriate measures have been taken to ensure their safety.
Kimani who is also the chairman of the district security and intelligence committee said a security team had been dispatched to the area to join another one headed by Merti District Officer.
The presence of the suspected militias has created tension among hundreds of herders who now want the government to intervene and have the heavily armed OLF militias removed.
Residents say the militias comprising of 10 women and 50 men who are in their late twenties accessed the remote Merti area after sneaking into the country through Moyale district.
Herders are reportedly leaving Nyachise grazing fields in droves with their livestock for fear of an attack.
Local OCPD Marius Tum said investigations were on into the motive of the militias, how they made their way into the country and also arrest them and confiscate their weapons.
Last week militias from Somalia threatened to invade the country and annex the North Eastern Province, putting security personnel along the borders of Kenya and her neighbours on high alert.
ADDIS ABABA, (Reuters) – Health officials from seven African countries are discussing a response to swine flu at a conference in Ethiopia, organisers said on Wednesday.
The conference, involving Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania, was planned six months ago to talk about Africa’s poor response to pandemics.
“It’s really fortuitous that this is going on in the context of an international emergency,” Gregory Pappas, pandemic coordinator for U.S. charity Interaction, told Reuters.
“Most African countries haven’t done extensive planning, and this meeting is about helping those countries.”
No cases have been reported on the continent.
Germany and Austria became the eighth and ninth countries to confirm cases of the virus on Wednesday and the United States reported the first death outside Mexico.
Health experts have expressed concern about sub-Saharan Africa’s capacity to deal with a pandemic, given the poor state of health infrastructure on the world’s neediest continent.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for assistance for poorer countries vulnerable to the crisis which may need drugs, diagnostic tools and other help.
Since 1994, South Africa underwent three national elections with remarkable success free from incidents that often mar elections in much of Africa.
In spite of the fact that the country was under a peculiar form of racialist tyrannical rule before the coming to power of the democratically elected Government in 1994, it has managed to surprise the rest of the world by the way the citizens continue to express peacefully and with strong civic engagement and expression their democratic rights by going to the polls by standing for long hours in long lines with discipline and calm decency to express their voices, make choices and to cast their secret ballots to vote with record numbers.
On April 22, 2009, for the third time, they did it again! They expressed their voices. They made their choices. Finally they cast their ballot papers and voted after hearing spirited campaign debates, discussions and even heated exchanges that would lead in other places to diversionary cantankerous personalized quarrels including possibly leading to bouts of violence… [MORE]
