EDITOR’S NOTE: How long Ethiopians will continue to suffer such wretchedness and dishonor, even at the hands of the people whom they helped to liberate from colonialists??
NAIROBI, KENYA — Eighty-nine Ethiopians charged with being in Kenya illegally on Thursday caused a stir when they started praying after pleading guilty to the charge.
Soon after pleading guilty, the foreigners bowed down and started saying prayers. They appeared before Kibera senior principal magistrate Grace Nzioka.
“That is enough respect, please stop praying now,” the magistrate told them.
Mrs Nzioka sent them back to the police after the prosecutor, chief inspector Francis Ndiema, told the court that he had no facts of the case.
“I have no facts of the case. I pray that the case be mentioned tomorrow to enable me to read the facts,” the prosecutor said.
The magistrate wondered how the police could take the accused before her without the facts.
“Do you want me to take the accused back to the police station? The accused are supposed to be told what offence they allegedly committed and how they entered into the country.
They should go back to the police station for the facts to be prepared and made available in court tomorrow (Friday),” said the magistrate.
Ethiopian Review has been the subject of constant harassment by Al Amoudi and Meles Zenawi lawyers that are based in Washington DC, the “capital of free speech.” One of Al Amoudi’s lawyers, Mary E. Gately of the DLP Piper law firm, this week has sent a threatening letter to Hostgator, the company that is hosting Ethiopian Review demanding that we remove articles that refer to her billionaire client Sheik Ato Al Amoudi. DLP Piper’s strategy was to go after a softer target — Hostgator — instead of taking me to court, which I welcome. Understandably, Hostgater did not want to spend thousands of dollars defending itself in court, so the management asked us to remove those articles. But, we were not about to suffer defeat. We created a mirror web site in Vanderland — a country out of DLP Piper’s reach — and transferred the articles there. Click here to view the mirror site.
On Wednesday, police in Kenya’s capital Nairobi arrested some 90 Ethiopians who were crammed in a single house. Authorities believe the Ethiopians, most of them without travel documents, were on their way to South Africa. The World Bank-financed Woyanne junta led by Meles Zenawi has turned Ethiopia into a hell on earth for most Ethiopians. That’s what these poor Ethiopians are trying to escape from. Watch the gut-wrenching story below.
Leader-less people by Teshome Mitiku
[podcast]http://www.ethiopianreview.info/music/TeshomeMitiku/TeshomeMitiku-Leader-less-people.mp3[/podcast]
Today is the 3rd anniversary of the passing away of Ethiopia’s preeminent Orthodox Church scholar and religious father. His absence is deeply felt these days as Ethiopians are left with few leaders who dare to speak the truth and take stand against evil.
Click here to read a message from Aleqa Ayalew’s family and his brief biography.
Please also visit the web site his family has launched to make information about him accessible to every one: aleqayalewtamiru.org It contains some of the published and unpublished documents of Aleqa Ayalew.
Aleqa Ayalew was engaged in a running battle with Aba Gebre-Medhin (formerly Aba Paulos) over fundamental teachings of the Church. He had served as chairman of YeLiqawnt Gubae (council of scholars) until he was forced out by Aba Gebre-Medhin, the gun-totting illegitimate patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Woyanne uses this money to fuel its machinery of repression. It should be one of the opposition parties’ target if they want to break Woyanne’s backbone.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) — Remittances by Ethiopians in the Diaspora has reached $780 million in the past ten months, the Ethiopian National Bank said here on Tuesday.
According to the bank, this year’s earnings from remittances exceed that of last year by about nine per cent.
The bank said that the amount of remittances Ethiopia is getting each year is on the rise, especially since the past three years.
“We have enforced a new legislation allowing the Diaspora to have saving accounts in US Dollars, which is encouraging many citizens to do so,” said the bank.
However, according to available information, Ethiopia is getting lower remittances than other neighbouring countries, such as Kenya and Egypt.
In 2007, Kenyans in the Diaspora had sent home nearly 1.6 billion dollars, achieving a per capita remittance of 42 dollars.
Ethiopians on the other hand sent home only 359 million dollars, with a per capita remittance of only 4 dollars, according to a United Nations report for 2009.
However, 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion dollars was remitted to Ethiopia through the non-banking system.
Ethiopia is expecting the remittances to rise to around one billion in the next few years.
