ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – China proposed to Ethiopia to enhance bilateral relations through expanding joint cooperation and coordinate their positions on world affairs to safeguard their interests.
The offer was made during a visit by the speaker of the Chinese parliament Wu Bangguo to the country from November 8 to 10, the official Xinhua reported.
Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), called on in his meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi that the ruling parties, legislature and governments of the two nations to step up exchange and cooperation.
Wu also proposed the two nations to focus on three key projects that he believed would be vital to foster the bilateral cooperation, referring to an agriculture technology demonstration center, an all-packed economic and trade project including the construction of hydropower stations and the establishment of an oriental industrial zone to attract investment from Chinese companies.
“China encourage its companies to expand investment in Ethiopia and will adopt open policies on technology transfer and as well as training program for the Ethiopian personnel,” Wu told Meles.
Echoing on Wu’s proposal, Meles said the Ethiopia-China cooperation has become an important drive for the country’s development. The cooperation with China is of vital importance to push forward Ethiopia’s development and the Ethiopian government highly values it, Meles noted.
He said the Ethiopia would make its efforts to further implement the projects between the two sides and consolidate the cooperation in fields such as agriculture, infrastructure and human resource.
While the land may be green and crops are growing, there is not enough food to go around in Ethiopia. Though innovations in therapeutic feeding products keep people alive, Susan Braden of Save the Children points out that the underlying conditions of starvation still remain.
Two years ago, I visited northern Ethiopia’s historic trail, which included stops at Lake Tana, Gonder, Axum and Lalibela.
At the time, I was both entranced by Ethiopia’s history as one of the foremost kingdoms of the ancient world — and overwhelmed by its poverty. Wherever I went, I was encircled by visibly malnourished children.
Nothing to eat
Over the past month, I went back to Ethiopia, but this time to the Southern Nations Nationalities Peoples Region (SNNPR) in the Great Rift Valley below Addis Ababa.
Like most African countries, Ethiopia is also a net food importer, and the price of food on the global market has skyrocketed.
What I saw did not differ that much from what I had seen in the north two years earlier.
The area is green, raining at times and crops are growing. Yet, people don’t have enough food to eat. To cope, families are reducing their daily intake of food and selling off their livestock.
Children are migrating to surrounding towns and cities to find work and food. Out of a population of 82 million people, 6.4 million are in need of emergency assistance, and approximately 84,000 children will require therapeutic feeding between now and the end of the year.
Another 7.2 million people are already receiving food assistance from the government’s safety net program. What is going on? Why are so many people going hungry?
Global turmoil and drought
The reasons vary by region, but basically come down to bad weather and high food prices, coupled with high birth rates and poor land management.
The delayed onset and poor performance of the March to May rains, combined with drought conditions the previous two planting periods, have resulted in below normal harvests throughout most of the country.
In addition, although Ethiopia has an agriculturally based economy, like most African countries, Ethiopia is also a net food importer — and the price of food on the global market has skyrocketed.
The reason for the high price of imported food includes bad weather in major food-producing countries, high petroleum prices and therefore rising fertilizer and transportation costs, which are then transferred onto the consumers.
The diversion of grain into biofuels and livestock feed are also factors in the increasingly high food prices globally — as are the trade policies of some countries. The poor are, of course, the least able to bear the increased cost. The average annual income in Ethiopia is $108 U.S. dollars.
Feeding the hungry
Meanwhile, unlike in Ethiopia’s famine of 1984, the international community now has the ability to reverse malnutrition in severely malnourished children almost immediately with a product called “plumpy’nut.”
The area is green, raining at times and crops are growing. Yet, people don’t have enough food to eat.
This is a high protein, high energy food designed by a French scientist in the late 1990s. It comes in a small tinfoil package and is now used in relief operations all over the world.
It is an amazing product because it is easy to transport, use and digest, and it reverses malnutrition in the severely malnourished within two to four weeks.
A child’s future
In one health center I visited, there was a mother with twins, one of whom was healthy and the other starving. If the child in question survives, and the statistics on plumpy’nut suggest it will, the two children could well grow up to be virtually indistinguishable in terms of their overall health.
Yet, how will these children grow up? The overall situation in Ethiopia is not likely to change anytime soon. Families are large. According to the CIA World Factbook, most households have six children. Jobs are scarce. Unemployment among Ethiopia’s youth hovers around 60%.
The land does not produce enough food for everyone to live on, and farmers cannot sell it or use it as collateral to take out a loan because under the Constitution, all land belongs to the state, which provides long-term leases to the tenants. The price of imported food is also likely to remain high because the variables that make them high are not likely to change.
Without any options
So what is Ethiopia to do? What will become
The land does not produce enough food for everyone to live on — and farmers cannot sell it or use it as collateral to take out a loan.
I met a woman in another therapeutic care center who was herself fending off starvation with plumpy’nut.
She was 27 years old, but looked as though she was in her 40s. She worked as a maid in another family’s house and was HIV positive.
When asked about her children, she said she had two, one of whom had been at the center but was now fine.
She paused — and then added that she was looking to give up her children because she could not take care of them.
The historical U.S. election is now over by electing Barack Obama as the 44th President. The landslide victory goes beyond making history. Obama’s administration is set to bring definite change for the entire world. It is a dream comes true for millions of Americans who have never thought to see this day. It is also a hope for so many people and governments around the world who have been devastated by the wars and the economic crisis.
On the other hand, the victory came as a shock for some stone-hearted dictators around the world who have been killing and torturing their own people.
Obama’s victory is a stop sign for brutal leaders like the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who took advantage of the ‘war on terrorism’ to kill and torture his political opponents. While the Bush administration considered Zenawi as a close ally, he is better known for torturing, arresting, and killing his political opponents. In what was called the cruelest and disturbing political techniques of the 21st century, more than 193 people, including women and children were gunned down by the government special armed forces post 2005 election, and more than 25,000 opposition members were arrested.
The Ethiopian government is continually arresting its opponents and journalist that question its act of violence. Several people are still remaining in jail in a systematic arrest including the famous singer Teddy Afro, who criticized the government through one of his prominent music’s.
Like most African dictators, Meles Zenawi has been Ethiopia’s Head of State for more than 18 years. With Obama swearing in, America will have its fourth president since Meles Zenawi became Ethiopia’s head of state.
As President Elect Obama is looking forward to take over the Oval Office on January 20th, the entire world is enthusiastically waiting to see a number of policy changes. The U.S. foreign policy will be one of the new President’s priorities that are set to be changed. Countries like Ethiopia will have to prove their democracy in order to remain as the United States allies. Undoubtedly, time is up for dictators who have been dancing with the stars in the name of the war on terrorism. They like it or not, change is coming.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The people of Ethiopia will stand with the Eritrean army if the Woyanne regime starts another one. Meles Zenawi’s tribalists junta will find that out.
Every morning these Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers inspect the road which connects the town of Badme to the rest of the country. They fear commandos sent by neighboring Eritrea may have hidden land-mines. The threat is real: a few weeks ago three civilians died as their car was blown-up by an anti-tank mine.
Since the withdrawal in July of the United Nation’s Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, the two countries’ armies find themselves in a dangerous face-off. The memory of the 1998-2000 war, which caused the death of about 80,000 150,000 people, is still on everyone’s mind.
Checkpoints, roadblocks, vehicles systematically searched: the Ethiopian Woyanne army is everywhere in Badme. And this despite a UN Boundary Commission’s ruling that Badme belongs to Eritrea. In Badme it is still the Ethiopian Woyanne flag adorning the top of official buildings.
For the local authorities there’s no question: this was and will always be Ethiopia. Tilahun Guebremedhin, President of the Badme district council says: “For all times, Badme has been Ethiopian. It has a massive significance for us Ethiopians Woyannes; it is the symbol of the integrity of our country.”
“I would rather die than to see a portion of my land going to the other side.” [What did you do when Woyanne gave land to Sudan?] The wounds left by the Eritrean occupation are still on everyone’s minds. Many lost a relative or a friend during the surprise attack led by the troops of Asmara in 1998. Many here are afraid of another war, yet they openly back up their army.
Mamite Guebresarkan, a farmer says: “Of course I’m worried. They conduct frequent infiltration missions here. But whatever happens we will remain here, it is our land, our country. Victorious or not we’ll live and die here.”
Negussa Guebreselassie, farmer and member of an Ethiopian a Woyanne militia, says: “We always expect the war to start again. During the war my wife was shot by Eritrean soldiers. She suffered a lot and it was very difficult to have her treated.”
By the time the UN local mission ended its operation here more than six months ago, it no longer had the means to keep up with its peacekeeping initiative: the Eritrean authorities were doing all they could to hinder its action. And despite what it had declared, Ethiopia Woyanne was refusing to acknowledge the new borders. Despite the fact that ten thousand residents before the war now only number 4,000, Badme has resigned itself to endure another war.
Letay Kidane, a shopkeeper [and Woyanne cadre], says: “It’s good if the border problem is solved through a peaceful dialogue. Otherwise, I myself will support and help our soldiers up to the frontline.”
People are psychologically gearing up for war. An entire division of the Ethiopian Woyanne Army has taken position in a nearby fortified hill… Only a few kilometers away, the Eritrean Army is waiting.
Insurgents in Somalia captured a town on the outskirts of the capital, Mogadishu, in at least the sixth incident this week in which the nation’s transitional government was unable to defend territory it controlled.
Elasha Biyaha, 17 kilometers (11 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, was seized late yesterday by members of al-Shabaab, the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union, Faadumo Khali Siad, a resident, said by phone today. The town is strategically important because it is situated on a route that connects Mogadishu to Baidoa, seat of the nation’s parliament.
“Our forces took control of Elasha Biyaha last night after we received complaints from residents about insecurity there,” Sheikh Abdi Rihin Isse Adow, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts, said in a mobile-phone interview today. “We removed a checkpoint in the area from the regional administration.”
Yesterday, al-Shabaab captured the port of Marka, 90 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu. The town is used as an entry point for humanitarian agencies, such as the World Food Programme, that provide assistance in the country. The UN estimates as many as 3.25 million people, or 43 percent of the population, will need food aid until the end of 2008.
Towns Captured
On Nov. 11, the towns of Koryoley and Buulo Mareer, near Marka, were seized by al-Shabaab. Yesterday, the town of Janaale, 90 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu, was captured by the militia, Salad Ibrahim Muhiden, a local elder, said by phone. Awdheegle, 80 kilometers south of Mogadishu, was captured by Jabha al-Islamia, a faction of the Islamic Courts, Elmi Shino Farey, a local elder, said by phone from the town.
“Clearly the transitional federal government doesn’t have the capacity to defend its territory on its own,” Roger Middleton, Africa researcher at Chatham House, a London-based research group, said by phone today.
The transitional government, or TFG, was created in 2004 with a mandate to create a central administration. Last month, it completed a peace agreement with a splinter group of the Islamic Courts, known as the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia. The accord, which calls for power sharing between the two sides and for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops, has been rejected by al-Shabaab.
`Lack of Capacity’
The government “has exhibited, since its creation, a lack of capacity in terms of defending territory and ability to establish itself as a significant force in Somalia,” Middleton said. “The government hasn’t brought stability, it hasn’t brought development.”
Al-Shabaab will impose Shariah in Marka, Sheikh Abubakar, a spokesman for the group, said in remarks broadcast today on Radio Shabelle. Shariah is a system that operates under a code of Islamic principles first established in the Arab world by the prophet Muhammad in the seventh century.
“From now on, you have to close all business centers at prayer time,” Abubakar said. “We have to modify the behavior of the youth in the town.”
Ethiopia’s Woyanne Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahde Belay said the withdrawal of troops from Somalia would be done in accordance with last month’s peace agreement, which was signed in neighboring Djibouti.
“We will stick to the Djibouti agreement,” Belay said by phone from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. “There is not any change of policy on our side.”
Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi said in October his country would support any government that could bring stability to Somalia, as long as it didn’t include al-Shabaab.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Nokia said Ethiopian market is strategic and promising to the company. “As Ethiopia is one of the strategies and promising market of Nokia, we will continue to enhance our customer service and a 12 month warranty that is all part of Nokia’s strategy,” said Gerard Brandjes, Nokia’s General Manager for East Africa.
Brandjes indicated that his company is planning to negotiate with Ethiopian authorities on tax issues in order to connect as many people as possible with affordable prices. He was speaking to journalists Thursday at the Sheraton Addis in Ethiopia during the launching of three new products of Nokia, which are especially designed to meet the needs of African market.
Nokia 5000 with 1.3 mega pixel camera, Nokia 1680 Classic and Nokia 7070 Prism are the three products that the company introduced to Ethiopian market with e-mail, video and radio service features. Before subsidies and taxes currently the company is selling Nokia 5000 model for $95, Nokia 1680 Classic for $65 and Nokia 7070 Prism for $60.
Mentioning the zero tax rate of Ghana on mobile phones as a good indicator of the correlation between mobile connectivity level and business growth, Brandjes hopes that the fact that the more people connected through mobile phones, the more people get the opportunity to do business or enhance and grow their existing business will also applies in the case of Ethiopia.
Nokia, which recently increased the number of its products distribution agent in Ethiopia from one to two, is the only company to introduce mobile phone with national language of Ethiopia- Amharic, a year ago. Currently, the company is selling nine Amharic Nokia mobile phone models.
With the industry’s largest portfolio of mobile phones and support for more than 80 languages, more than one billion people worldwide currently use a Nokia device. Brandjes declined to reveal the exact share of Nokia mobile apparatus users in Ethiopia. He indicated that the majority of Ethiopians prefer Nokia mobiles over other brands because Nokia is the pioneer to introduce apparatuses with Amharic language, integrated video camera and flash light features.
Currently there are a total of around two million people in Ethiopia connected through mobile phones. But, the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation, which is the government monopoly telecommunication, is working on its plan of adding six million new mobile users within one year.
