ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Xinhua) — Madagascar’s major political parties would continue their negotiations in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia at the weekend in an effort to get the country out of the current political crisis.
Media reports said here on Friday that more than 50 representatives from all political camps of the island country would go to Addis Ababa to discussed and, if agreed, to sign the transitional charter prepared by international mediators last month.
The mediators, including special envoys from the United Nations, the African Union (AU), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the International Organization of French- Speaking Countries have met separately since Tuesday representatives of four Madagascan presidents, namely the current president Andry Rajoelina, who is the president of the High Transitional Authority, and his predecessors Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Zafy Albert.
However, they have not reached any agreement during the talks due to insistence of each president on his own conditions.
While Ravalomanana’s representatives insisted on the return of their leader, Ratsiraka asked amnesty for all political prisoners, who have been living in exile, and Rajoelina totally rejected the return of Ravalomanana.
This is the third round of political talks between the big four and the international mediators following Rajoelina’s take- over as president of the Indian Ocean island country on March 21 this year.
Vowing to “wipe out all traces of Marc Ravalomanana in the country,” Rajoelina described his predecessor as a corrupt president and a dictator.
A sentence for Ravalomanana is scheduled on Friday by a Madagascan court allegedly for Ravalomanaana’s killing of dozens of Rajoelina’s supporter in clashes between anti-Ravalomanana demonstrators and the armed troops guarding at the downtown presidential palace on February 7, when Rajoelina led his followers to try to enter into the palace to take over the presidency.
On Wednesday, the first instance court sentenced Ravalomanana to four year in jail and a fine of 70 million U.S. dollars for his misuse of public money to buy a Boeing 737-300 jet as his special presidential aircraft.
Ravalomanana, who has insisted that he is still president of Madagascar, rejected the verdict, saying that the court has no power to sentence a president still in power.
Observers here said that the verdict is likely a plot by the transitional government to ban Ravalomanana’s return to his country.
One day after the sentence, Ravalomanana told his supporters through telephone from South Africa that he would be back with foreign peacekeepers to celebrate Madagascar’s national day on June 26.
Asking Madagascan armed forces to lay down their arms, he claimed that he has the support from South African president Jacob Zuma, who has promised to send armed peacekeepers for his return, reports here said.
(GBN ) — The European International Bank (EIB) has announced it will not fund the construction of the Gibe 3 Dam in Ethiopia, a press release from International Rivers, an NGO has said.
International Rivers, which is leading a coalition of environmental NGOs who are opposed to the construction of the dam in Ethiopia considers the EIB’s withdrawal of funding for the project as a breakthrough in their campaign to stop the construction of the dam.
In the release which was copied to ghanabusinessnews.com International Rivers said “the 1.55 billion Euro hydropower dam would devastate the ecosystems of Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana, and affect up to 500,000 people.”
International Rivers which said the announcement has been hailed by Friends of Lake Turkana, and Italy’s Reform the World Bank Campaign called on the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Italian government to refrain from funding the dam. The AfDB is the major funding agency of the dam.
The release indicated that the Gibe 3 Dam is being built by Italian construction company Salini, which received the huge contract without competitive bidding.
It added that the EIB financed the Gibe and Gibe 2 dams, conducted a pre-assessment of the Gibe 3 Dam, and funds the project’s Economic, Financial and Technical Assessment. The no-bidding contract, International Rivers say, violates EIB’s procurement policy.
In March 2009, Friends of Lake Turkana, a group of affected people in Kenya, urged the EIB not to fund Gibe 3 because the affected communities “could not withstand any more pressure on the little resources that we have”.
A meeting between the EIB and Friends of Lake Turkana was scheduled in Nairobi for next week, but on Wednesday June 3, 2009, the head of the EIB complaints office cancelled the meeting and informed the group that the Bank’s President had decided not to fund the project.
During the AfDB’s annual meeting in Senegal, Dakar May 13 to 14, 2009, the coalition of NGOs mounted their campaign against the construction of the dam calling instead on the AfDB to “in the meantime, help Ethiopia drought-proof its energy sector, diversify its energy mix, and tap its abundant renewable energy resources.”
(Addis Journal) — There was an important musical happening in Addis this past week- an operatic soprano performance by musicians from Italy.
A soprano soloist Enrica Mari made her Addis debut at the National Theatre on Wednesday evening, June 3, in an event organized to mark the Italian National Day.
A chance to hear musical interpretations of Europeans opera masters such as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti don’t happen often yet the evening was one of those grand exceptions.
With the meteoric appearance of Encrica Mari, Ethiopian audiences were able to hear what these extraordinary sopranos had sounded like.
Mari’s performance combined recitals in number of languages-Italian, English and French and music by diverse musicians such as the arias of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi and jazz-derived melodic of the American George Gershwin.
Mari was able to impress a large number of expatriate and local audiences with her stage presence, warmth of her voice and her skill in a wide range of vocal effects.
She was accompanied by Chiara Migliari’s piano which expressed a depth of feeling and a skill with a capacity to touch the listener profoundly.
In a two-hour performance with brief pause, she also did interpretations of Tosti, Kosma, Gastaldon, Porter, Tagliaferri, Cardillo.
When singing in English, audiences might have smiled at her accent, but they were quick to realize the amazing singing actress was a unique and impressive impressionist.
She has made it possible for Ethiopian audiences to investigate and succumb to the glorious beauties of romantic Italian and European opera.
The works were well received and the musicians called to the stage for several bows.
Hurrah to the Italian Cultural Institute for organizing such wonderful event and bringing operatic music to an increasingly appreciative Ethiopian audiences.
(EthioPolitics.com) — Ambassador of France to Ethiopia Jean Christophe Bellard on Wednesday handed back the sacred St. Yared’s Cross to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
The cross, which was stolen at gun point in the early 90s, was returned by a French citizen who had kept for 18 years in Paris.
The cross belongs to the centuries-old treasury of the Tana Tcherqos church.
The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Paulos said several artifacts of Ethiopia are still being held in various European countries.
“All Ethiopians should strive to return the heritages to their country,” he said.
Speaking at the Ethiopian parliament on Wednesday, as he presented the airlines’ eight-month performance report, Girma Wake, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, said that after an agreement signed between the Ethiopian flag carrier and Bombardier Aerospace to purchase eight Q400 NextGen turboprop airliners in November 2008, four additional aircrafts, Bombardier Q400 NextGen turboprop, have been ordered to strengthen its local fleet.
According to Girma the recent decision to add four extra Q400 aircrafts is to enable the Ethiopian flag carrier meet its set local flight target. Bombardier Aerospace’s excellent range, payload capability as well as their low operating costs contributed to their being selected by the airline.
The first order would cost the Ethiopian Airlines a total sum of $ 242 million and an extra $124 million for the four aircrafts. The agreement signed for the additional aircrafts is conditional, Girma told MPs, “It is an agreement made as an option, we could go on with the agreement or we could terminate it”.
Last year, Grima Wake told journalists “the planes we are buying now are for 2010, we have no more problem of financing at the moment, we know the financial banks will be strict but the interest from buyers would be limited, so we can negotiate.”
Last year’s projected passenger traffic within the Ethiopian Airlines network was expected to increase significantly to three million, up from the 2.5 million the airline posted that same year.
Revealing his company’s astonishing performance despite the industry’s market slow down, Wednesday, Girma Wake indicated that within the last eight months the airlines made $78 million in profits, a 53 percent growth against the last Ethiopian fiscal year.
Using graphs to illustrate his administration’s struggle with the current global situation, Girma said the airline industry lost some $ 8.5 billion in 2008 due to the financial and economic crisis. He also indicated that some $ 4.7 billion is expected at the end of 2009.
In November last year, Ethiopian Airlines projected its earnings to soar to US$ 1.2 billion with a profit margin of more than US$ 50 million anticipated for the full fiscal year as the airline maintained a stable outlook despite the financial turmoil in Europe and the United States, which also badly hit the African aviation industry.
In a report late last year, the International Air Transport Association (AITA) warned that Africa would not be spared by the effects of the global financial downturn. Africa, which was emerging as a major power of aviation growth saw an 8.9 per cent traffic slow down, as African flights to Europe recorded a 7-10 per cent decline as a result of the global financial crisis.
Gen. Asaminew Tsige is one of the 46 suspects charged by Ethiopia’s tribal junta
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia’s tribal junta on Thursday charged 46 people, most of them ex-military, of plotting to assassinate government officials, a government spokesman said.
“The charges can be summed up as conspiring to kill different government officials and conspiring to demolish public utilities,” Communications Minister Bereket Simon told reporters.
“The prosecution presented the charges to the court today,” he said, more than a month after their arrest.
Authorities are holding 32 out of the 46 suspects with the rest believed to have fled to the United States, Europe, Eritrea and Sudan.
Ethiopian authorities in April said they had unearthed a plot by senior serving and former military officers aligned with the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) to kill top government officials and attack key infrastructure.
The group has been detained and held in communicado for more than a month.
Bereket denied accusations that detaining the men for over a month without charge violated regulations, saying national anti-terrorism laws allowed police to hold suspects without charge for as long as in necessary.
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