The Ethiopian People Patriotic Front’s (EPPF) freedom fighters have attacked a {www:Woyanne} regime’s military unit near northern Ethiopian towns of Dansha and Tegede killing 14 soldiers and confiscating several weapons.
According to the {www:EPPF} military communique that was issued this week by the press office, following the attack on Woyanne forces, over 20 residents in the area have joined the EPPF army.
Ethiopian Review sources in northern {www:Gonder} are reporting that the Woyanne regime has sent military reinforcement to the area and house-to-house searches are being conducted in some parts of the region.
For more information, visit EPPF’s official web site: eppfonline.org
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s [dictatorial regime] said on Friday a group led by an Ethiopian-American professor had planned to {www:assassinate} officials and blow up public utilities in a plot to topple the government.
Addis Ababa arrested 40 former and current army personnel and members of a disbanded opposition group last week from a “terror network” it said was formed by Berhanu Nega, an opposition leader now living in the United States.
“Several individuals were targeted for assassination,” Bereket Simon, head of information for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government, told reporters, without saying who were the intended targets.
“They were intending to pave the way for street actions to overthrow the government,” he said, adding that the group had planned to target telecommunications and power sectors.
Some 200 opposition supporters were killed and hundreds arrested following the disputed 2005 parliamentary election.
Berhanu, now residing in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, was elected mayor of Addis Ababa in that poll, but was arrested when the opposition disputed the results. He and other opposition leaders were released in a 2007 pardon.
Meles was initially hailed as part of a new generation of African leaders, but rights groups have increasingly criticized the rebel-turned-leader for cracking down on opposition.
Even though Meles has held power since the early 1990s, the recent arrests show his government is still sensitive to the opposition in the run-up to next year’s parliamentary vote.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country has been eyed by foreign investors in agriculture, horticulture and real estate although it has recently suffered from high inflation and a fall in foreign exchange inflows.
SCURRILOUS
Berhanu’s group called the accusations “baseless”.
“No amount of scurrilous accusations, threats or blackmail by the regime will deter us from pursuing the cause of democracy and freedom,” it said on its Web site www.ginbot7.org last week.
Bereket said those arrested included a general.
The government may ask for Berhanu and others from the United States and Britain to be extradited, Bereket said.
“If a court of law adjudicates that they are {www:criminal}, then as with any criminal we would want their extradition,” he said.
Bereket said the group had received money to buy weapons from Berhanu and other diaspora opposition members.
Berhanu’s organisation “May 15th” is named after the date of the 2005 poll. He had made statements in the United States, where he teaches economics at Bucknell University, saying it wants to violently overthrow the government.
Opposition parties routinely accuse the government of {www:harassment} and say their candidates were intimidated during local elections in April of last year. The government denies it. (Editing by Jack Kimball)
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Senior military officers in Ethiopia, including a general, had plotted to assassinate top government officials, Communications Minister Bereket Simon said Friday, adding that 40 people [including 80-year-old father of an opposition party leader] were under arrest.
“While six of the suspects were army officers on active duty, including one general, 34 of the suspects were ex-army men expelled from the army on grounds of misconduct,” he told a press conference.
Bereket said the plotters belonged to the {www:Ginbot 7} (May 15) opposition group, saying it was linked to the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) headed by {www:Berhanu Nega}, currently living in the United States.
He said the government believed that the “desperado” group was not planning to stage a coup, but intended “assassinating individuals, high ranking government officials and destroying some public facilities and utilities … like telecom services and electricity utilities.
“The police have also found evidence implicating some ex-CUD members released on pardon. With the exception of some three or four of the desperado group who are still at large, the police have arrested almost all members of the conspiracy.”
Berekt told AFP the government knew about the plot from its inception, adding, “If there had been laxity from the government, there would have been problems.”
The mass arrests were reported on Sunday by state media, which said the National Security Taskforce had also found weapons including bombs, computers and communications equipment, military uniforms and documents.
The CUD won an unprecedented number of seats in the May 15, 2005 elections, which the European Union and other observers said fell short of international standards.
Around 200 people died in violence that erupted after the CUD accused the party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of rigging the ballot.
Berhanu, 51, currently a university professor in the United States, was elected mayor of Addis Ababa in the polls. He was subsequently jailed for two years along with other leaders of the CUD, and left the country after his release.
Ethiopia’s next general election is scheduled to be held in June 2010.
In a statement on its website following the initial reports of arrests Ginbot 7 said it “has no desire to engage in a tit-for-tat with the dictators in Addis Ababa, nor the time to waste replying to baseless accusations by a regime that rules Ethiopia by the barrel of the gun.”
“Ginbot 7 remains committed to work for the establishment of democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law in Ethiopia. No amount of scurrilous accusations, threats or blackmail by the regime will deter us from pursuing the cause of democracy and freedom,” it added.
Bereket said evidence showed the plotters aimed “to create conducive conditions for large scale chaos and havoc. ”
“Assassinating people was intended as a preliminary measure” to street actions similar to those of 2005, he charged.
“Berhanu Nega is the mastermind, he’s deeply involved in it, and he’s not anyway vehemently denying it. Nega has been saying that anything that can be done to bring down this government is welcome.”
The minister said some of those arrested were “disgruntled” at reforms launched in the army.
“Our army is in a very good shape,” he asserted, saying it was “based on democratic and constitutional values.”
Bereket said preparations were under way to prosecute the “suspected terrorists” and a court hearing was planned for May 11.
For about half the world’s population, malaria remains one of the greatest threats to public health. It is a disease that causes poverty, disrupts the livelihood of families, and far too often, steals the future of Africa’s children. In tropical Africa, the disease kills nearly 3,000 people each day with young children and pregnant women at greatest risk.
World Malaria Day is observed April 25 to call attention to the disease and to mobilize action to combat it. On behalf of the American people, the U.S. government has taken extraordinary steps to curb the spread of this preventable and curable disease.
The President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), led and implemented by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with the assistance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), represents a historic $1.2 billion, five-year expansion of U.S. government resources to fight malaria in Africa.
The strategy is straightforward. First, prevention: PMI supports indoor residual spraying to keep deadly mosquitoes at bay, the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets to provide personal protection from malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and preventive malaria treatment to expectant mothers during pregnancy. Second, treatment: PMI distributes new and highly effective medicines and trains health workers on the proper use of those medicines. Working with national governments, international donors and other stakeholders, PMI has helped to rapidly scale up these malaria prevention and treatment measures across 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
During the third year of PMI implementation, the United States reached more than 32 million people with malaria prevention and treatment measures in Africa. In 2008, PMI procured more than 6.4 million long-lasting mosquito nets for free distribution to populations at risk of malaria and a total of 15.6 million anti-malarial drug treatments. Indoor residual spraying activities covered 6 million houses and protected nearly 25 million people at risk of malaria.
In Rwanda, Zambia, and Tanzania we are beginning to see signs of major reductions in the proportion of people infected with malaria. In Rwanda and Zambia, there has been a striking reduction in deaths among children under the age of five. On the isles of Zanzibar in Tanzania, we have seen malaria infection rates drop to less than 1% throughout the population of 1 million. Malaria prevention and treatment measures are associated with and can contribute to these reductions. Regional and district-level impact has also been reported from Mozambique and Uganda.
Ethiopia was announced as a PMI focus country in December 2006 and started PMI program implementation last year, investing approximately $71 million over three years to help Ethiopia reach its goal of eliminating malaria by 2020. PMI-supported activities, planned in close collaboration with the Government of Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Health, are primarily focused on the Oromiya Region which bears the brunt of the country’s malaria burden. With support from the American people, PMI has helped spray over 1.7 million houses with insecticide, protecting 5.9 million Ethiopians from getting malaria. USAID is currently in the process of distributing nearly 590,000 insecticide-treated bed nets. We have also distributed 600,000 anti-malarial drugs to health facilities in the Oromiya Region.
Sustainability of malaria control programs is a critical goal of U.S. efforts. We are focusing on building capacity within host countries by training people to manage, deliver, and support the delivery of health services, which will be critical for sustained successes against infectious diseases such as malaria.
As a result of the support and progress in these critical areas, national malaria control programs are becoming more effective and accountable.
Partnerships with host country governments, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the World Bank Booster Program for Malaria Control, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and others have made these successes possible.
Successful partnerships with faith-based and community organizations are bringing tremendous value to malaria control efforts because of the credibility these groups have within their communities, their ability to reach the grassroots level, and their capacity to mobilize significant numbers of volunteers. PMI has supported more than 150 nonprofit organizations, over 40 of which are faith based.
Across Africa, children and their families are sleeping under bed nets; local groups are teaching mothers to take anti-malarial drugs when they are pregnant and seek proper treatment for their sick children. In schools and villages, community centers and places of worship, clinics and hospitals, optimism is growing that we can and will succeed in controlling malaria. We share that optimism. On World Malaria Day, the United States will continue to galvanize action and spur grassroots and private sector efforts to control the disease.
EMF reports that Dr. {www:Berhanu Nega}, Chairman of {www:Ginbot 7} Movement for Justice Freedom and Democracy, an Ethiopian opposition party, will be traveling to Europe at the end May for talks with officials of European governments about the ongoing political turmoil in Ethiopia.
Meetings have been scheduled in France, Norway, Brussels, Sweden, Germany and The Netherlands.
Dr Berhanu will also meet Ethiopians in European cities to discuss on current issue. Details of the tour will be posted soon on Ginbot 7’s web site.
The worsening political crisis in Ethiopia is creating a serious concern among the governments of Western countries. According to EMF sources, the US state department has contacted Dr. Berhanu Nega last week for discussion. The British authorities have contacted Ato Andargachew Tsege, Ginbot 7 high ranking officials, for talks.
Meanwhile, the Woyanne tribal regime in Ethiopia continues its witch-hunt against non-Tigrean members of the armed forces. Several officers with different ranks are being rounded up suspected of supporting Ginbot 7.
This coming Sunday, May 3, Ginbot 7 will hold a town hall meeting in Washington DC. Visit ginbot7.org for more information.
As I was waiting for the results of my AIDS test, the health lecture from my counselor, Anthony, was calm, explicit and informative. The five bodily fluids that can transmit the HIV virus. The proper way to open a condom package to avoid rips.
An AIDS clinic in Washington, D.C., a new ground zero in the American AIDS crisis, is no place for the squeamish.
The test itself looks like a pregnancy test, in its small, white, plastic momentousness. The swab at the end is run across the gum line; no blood is drawn. The results take about 20 minutes and are 99.1 percent accurate.
I was visiting Unity Health Care in Ward 7, an outpost of tidy medical professionalism in a poor section of the city. Here the talk of epidemics has nothing to do with swine flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes a health epidemic as “severe” when more than 1 percent of people in a geographic area are infected. The HIV infection rate in Ward 7 is at least 2.4 percent — higher than in Ethiopia, Ghana or Burundi. Among 40- to 49-year-olds in the District of Columbia, 7.2 percent are HIV-positive.
If 7.2 percent of all 40-somethings in America were infected with anything, there would be no other topic of national discussion — every alarm would ring, every clock would stop. In this case, the victims are geographically isolated, often poor, and thus largely invisible.
Unity Health Care provides services from dermatology to ophthalmology. Because of the stigma, few would come to a clinic that dealt exclusively with HIV/AIDS. Gebeyehu Teferi, the medical director of HIV services, sees the AIDS crisis in every form — intravenous drug users, prostitutes, men who have sex with men, and middle-aged women shocked by their diagnosis and the infidelity of their partners. “There are late, full-blown cases coming into the emergency room,” says Teferi. “People who say, ‘I don’t use drugs, or even drink.’ They forget about the sexual part of it.”
The staff at Unity recommends three changes to confront the epidemic. First, AIDS needs to be discussed at home. In prevention, there is no substitute for uncomfortable frankness. Neither self-interest nor morality is aided by ignorance.
Second, they argue for treating AIDS more routinely as an infectious disease. A positive syphilis test, for example, is reported directly from the medical lab to the local Department of Health. “If it is syphilis,” says Teferi, “there is a knock on their door to get them into treatment. If it is HIV, no one talks to them.”
Third, testing needs to be broader. People who know their positive status are more likely to change their behavior and get treatment for opportunistic infections. Early treatment also can reduce the virus to a nearly undetectable level in the body, drastically lowering transmission from mothers to children during childbirth and between couples in which only one partner is HIV-positive.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says an AIDS vaccine remains unlikely in the short term. But what if we were to begin treatment with AIDS drugs as soon as someone is diagnosed with HIV instead of waiting, as we now do, until later stages? Lower viral loads would inhibit transmission. “Treatment,” he says, “would be prevention.” According to the mathematical model Fauci has reviewed, the testing and treatment of 90 percent of those at risk could eventually eradicate — not just control, but eradicate — the disease in a geographic area.
The obstacles are immense. Would people take AIDS drugs when they are still feeling well? Would any community help promote testing on such a massive scale? Would it be cost-effective?
But even the attempt would have many good effects. It would encourage early care and effective prevention. And if everyone were tested, the stigma surrounding AIDS testing might decrease. It takes only 20 minutes.
The Ethiopian People Patriotic Front’s (EPPF) freedom fighters have attacked a {www:Woyanne} regime’s military unit near northern Ethiopian towns of Dansha and Tegede killing 14 soldiers and confiscating several weapons.
EMF reports that Dr. {www:Berhanu Nega}, Chairman of {www:Ginbot 7} Movement for Justice Freedom and Democracy, an Ethiopian opposition party, will be traveling to Europe at the end May for talks with officials of European governments about the ongoing political turmoil in Ethiopia.