(UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND) — As a child, he spent weekends with his father, a veterinarian and microbiologist, performing necropsies (animal autopsies) in a lab. When his mother, dean of mathematics at San Bernardino College, couldn’t find a babysitter – she brought him into the classroom, and he performed basic math problems in the back. These moments had a considerable amount of influence on his career choice, said Benyam Kinde, but his experience afterward – specifically with University of Maryland Baltimore County’s (UMBC) Meyerhoff Scholars Program – transformed his early fascination into a research career.
“Coming to UMBC was the best decision I could have made for a career as a reseacher,” said Kinde.
Born and raised in Southern California, Benyam Kinde learned about the Meyerhoff Program, which was established to increase diversity among future leaders in science, technology, engineering and related fields, from his brother Isaac Kinde ‘05, now a 5th year M.D./Ph.D. student at the Johns Hopkins University.
Since enrolling in the program, Benyam Kinde has been able to pursue research opportunities he hadn’t imagined – which are now leading him to Germany. This summer, he will attend the 60th Interdisciplinary Meeting of Nobel Laureates. Selected from a pool of more than 20,000, he’ll join 500 young researchers and network with leading scientists in the fields of medicine or physiology, physics and chemistry. Kinde was nominated to attend by Peter Agre, a medical doctor, professor and molecular biologist at Hopkins who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and received an honorary degree from UMBC in 2009.
“I’m excited to have been selected for such intellectual fellowship. This honor is a testament of the research opportunities and academic preparation available for UMBC students,” he said.
Kinde’s experience with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has provided a solid background for his research. Under the guidance of Michael Summers, HHMI investigator and professor of chemistry and biochemistry, Kinde is conducting leading research on HIV, developing protocols that allow for the elicitation (drawing out) from large RNAs (similar to DNA, a molecule called ribonucleic acid). This research provides insight into the life cycle of the virus and an understanding about where the virus spreads.
“Dr. Summers is more than just a powerhouse in the field of NMR spectroscopy; he also finds the time to be a fantastic mentor to his students with an office door that is essentially always open,” Kinde said.
In addition to his research at HHMI, Kinde performs research at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where he studies neurophysiology and the importance of circadian rhythm – which allows us to wake and sleep. He will continue his work deciding between combined-degree M.D./Ph.D. programs and leaning toward Johns Hopkins. Kinde plans to specialize in neurology and continue to conduct research in the field of neuroscience.
Active on the UMBC campus, Kinde belongs to the Golden Key International Honor Society (serving as president), Minority Access to Research Careers Undergraduate Student Training in Academic Research (MARC U STAR) and Getting Everyone to Unleash Potential (GET UP! – founding member). He also volunteers, tutoring genetics in the Department of Biological Sciences, among other activities.
Voice of America said Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi’s comparison of its local-language news service with the Rwandan broadcaster accused of fomenting that country’s genocide in 1994 was “incorrect and unfortunate.”
Meles said yesterday the U.S. government-owned station’s Amharic-language broadcasts “copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda.” He accused VOA, which is overseen by the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors, of “wanton disregard for minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda.”
Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines gained notoriety during 1994 for transmitting broadcasts inciting hardline Rwandan ethnic Hutus to carry out a genocide that left 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead.
“Any comparison of VOA programming to the genocidal broadcasts of Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines is incorrect and unfortunate,” Danforth Austin, director of Washington-based VOA, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
On March 4, VOA reported that its Amharic-service broadcasts to Ethiopia were being jammed. Shimeles Kemal, a government spokesman, called the accusation “an outright lie” and said Ethiopia’s constitution forbids jamming of news broadcasts. Meles said yesterday that the government had been
trying to “beef up” its capacity to interfere with VOA’s signal.
Jamming Capacity
“If they assure me at some future date that they have the capacity to jam it then I will give them the clear guideline to jam it,” Meles said, adding that recent broadcasts may have been unintelligible because “they may have been testing the equipment that they have for jamming.”
VOA, along with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, are the only two foreign broadcasters that provide a news service in Ethiopia’s main language. The Ethiopian government owns the country’s only television broadcaster and domestic radio waves are dominated by government and ruling-party stations.
“VOA deplores jamming as a form of media censorship wherever it may occur,” Austin said in the statement.
Ethiopia has been a key ally of the U.S. in recent years. U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, occupying Mogadishu for two years and assisting the U.S. in pursuit of suspected al-Qaeda members. The U.S. trains Ethiopia’s military and American aid to the country topped $850
million last year.
Political tensions in Ethiopia have been rising ahead of elections scheduled for May 23.
Violence
On March 2, an opposition candidate for parliament from Meles’s home region of Tigray was stabbed to death. Two other opposition candidates were beaten that week, and opposition leaders have accused the government of responsibility. The government has said the violence was not politically motivated.
In February a newspaper columnist was jailed for criticizing Meles and at least a dozen Ethiopian reporters fled the country in 2009 citing government harassment, according to a statement from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Ethiopia has “several hundred” political prisoners, according to a U.S. State Department report released earlier this month. They include opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa, who has been jailed under a life sentence since 2008 and whose “mental health had deteriorated significantly,” the State Department said.
Meles has called the State Department allegations “lies” and said the U.S. was opening itself to criticism by reporting false allegations of human rights abuses.
WASHINGTON DC (VOA) — Ethiopia’s Prime Minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi says he is prepared to order jamming of VOA broadcasts in Amharic, the country’s main official language. Mr. Meles compared VOA Amharic to the hate media that incited the Rwanda genocide.
The Ethiopian leader dictator denies having authorized the interference VOA Amharic listeners have been experiencing since February 22. But speaking to reporters Thursday, he acknowledged ordering preparations for jamming, and said as soon as the equipment is working properly, he would give the go ahead.
“We have to know before we make the decision to jam, whether we have the capacity to do it,” said Meles Zenawi. “But I assure you if they assure me at some future date that they have the capacity to jam it, I will give them the clear guideline to jam it. But so far there has not been that formal decision to jam.”
Mr. Meles said what listeners may have been experiencing for the past four weeks is testing of the jamming equipment.
The prime minister dictator compared VOA’s Amharic Service to Radio Mille Collines, which broadcast hate messages blamed for inciting the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
“We have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in its wanton disregard of minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda,” he said.
Voice of America Director Danforth Austin issued a statement Thursday saying, “any comparison of VOA programming to the genocidal broadcasts of Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines is incorrect and unfortunate.”
He added, “the VOA deplores jamming as a form of media censorship wherever it may occur.”
The statement said VOA’s Amharic Service is required by law to provide accurate, objective and comprehensive news and information and abide by the highest journalistic standards.
Austin also noted that “while VOA is always ready to address responsible complaints about programming, the Government of Ethiopia has not initiated any official communication in more than two years.”
VOA language service broadcasts to Ethiopia have been jammed in the past around election times. The next election for parliament is just over two months away. But in past instances, the government denied being responsible for the jamming.
Monitors say the recent jamming has only been aimed at Amharic broadcasts, but has not affected Afan Oromo and Tigrinya language service transmissions to Ethiopia. They are heard on the same frequencies before and after the Amharic broadcast.
The Voice of America is a multi-media international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. Government. VOA broadcasts more than 1500 hours of news and other programming every week in 45 languages to an audience of more than 125 million people.
In the northern Ethiopian town of Humera, fire has caused major damage, including the displacement of 3,500 residents and burning down of 816 homes. Last October, I was at the border of Humera, across Tekeze river. Click here to see the video. It is a place stolen by the ruling Woyanne junta from the people of Gonder and given to Woyanne loyalists. – Elias Kifle
The Reporter presented news of the Humera fire as follows (in Amharic):
Presenting a report covering the past decade, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership said a jump in financing had helped to contain the disease but more needed to be done.
“In all the countries where there is sufficient financing, we are reaching our goals,” said Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the partnership, which is backed by the World Health Organization.
Total annual global funding was about $2 billion at the end of 2009, far short of the estimated $6 billion required annually to expand the campaign, the partnership said.
Coll-Seck said malaria remained a leading cause of child mortality in Africa. The partnership said last year the disease was claiming a life nearly every 30 seconds. In worst-hit countries it consumes 40 percent of public health spending [ID:nSP459775].
“Financing has a very swift impact,” said Michel Kazatchkine, director of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “In some countries, the number of malaria cases had fallen 50 percent over the past two years.”
The fund, set up in 2002, aims to raise government funding for 2011-2013 in the next few months.
One of Roll Back Malaria’s aims is to distribute more insecticide-treated mosquito nets and replace old ones — a cheap, simple and effective way to prevent the disease.
Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Ethiopia and Senegal have used 40 percent more mosquito nets between 2003-2005 and 2007-2009, the report said. This has helped to cut malaria cases dramatically.
In Zambia, for example, the number of deaths from malaria fell by 66 percent between 2001-2002 and 2008, according to the report. The number of children hospitalized with malaria fell 55 percent over that period.
The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said earlier this month that malaria could be eliminated as a public health problem within a decade in most states where it was endemic so long as funding was secured.
Statement from Oxfam, Christian Aid and CAFOD, 17 March 2010
Aid money sent to Ethiopia in the mid eighties saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The British public should feel justifiably proud of the very generous contribution they made to this.
Assertions made by a TPLF former commander in a recent BBC investigation that the majority of aid money to Tigray in 1985 was used for arms or political purposes are incorrect. When Ethiopia was struck by one of the worst famines in history amid heavy conflict twenty-five years ago, agencies including Oxfam, Christian Aid, CAFOD and others sought to save the lives of distressed and starving people under difficult circumstances.
We are confident that aid got to millions of people who needed it. It would be wrong to claim that no money was ever diverted in such a situation of active conflict. However, the uncorroborated allegation, made by a former rebel leader in the BBC report, that 95 percent of $100 million aid for famine victims in Tigray in 1985 was misused is grossly inflated. There is no credible evidence that this figure – or any figure remotely close to it – is accurate.
We welcome public scrutiny of aid distribution and media investigations including those by the BBC. The public can and should always demand that aid reaches the people who need it, that responses are faster and more coordinated and ultimately that the international community put maximum effort into preventing such emergencies from happening in the first place. In 1984-5 and today, we are fully dedicated to uphold these standards in our mission to end poverty worldwide
Oxfam’s activities in Ethiopia in 1984-1985
In 1984/5, Oxfam itself spent over £5.6 million on aid for Tigray, which was then controlled by rebels, as well as more than £10.3 million in government-controlled Ethiopia. Oxfam’s monitoring system at that time consisted of spot checks on aid distributions made by REST (the humanitarian arm of the then rebel group in Tigray), interviews with people who had fled the region and had little sympathy for REST political affiliations, and more than a dozen major assessments of the rebel areas in Ethiopia. Oxfam took all these steps to minimize the possibility of aid relief being abused for military or political purposes. Most aid was given as food, seeds and tools, rather than cash, which also reduced the risks of abuse. Oxfam’s monitoring teams found no systematic or wide scale diversion of aid but it would be impossible to say that no aid was misused in such difficult circumstances.
The humanitarian aid sector continues to improve its standards and accountability. When Oxfam operates in war zones and conflict areas to help people in great need, we insist on stringent monitoring and evaluation of all our work to ensure that we make the best possible use of money given to us. We constantly work to improve our effectiveness. Large scale aid projects are subject to an independent review to ensure value for money and to learn lessons that will improve our future programmes. Our monitoring and evaluation policy and results of our reviews are in the public domain (www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/evaluations/)
There is more to be done in Ethiopia to overcome the underlying causes of suffering and hunger but progress has been made. As in every country in the world, aid agencies should always be vigilant to ensure that all their aid is used effectively to reduce poverty and meet urgent humanitarian needs. In the recent Global Hunger Index of all developing countries, Ethiopia was shown to be in the top five performers in alleviating hunger since 1990 in absolute terms. The proportion of children completing primary school has more than doubled since 2000. There are many challenges, but, supported by the generosity of the British public, things are improving and they will continue to do so?”
(UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND) — As a child, he spent weekends with his father, a veterinarian and microbiologist, performing necropsies (animal autopsies) in a lab. When his mother, dean of mathematics at San Bernardino College, couldn’t find a babysitter – she brought him into the classroom, and he performed basic math problems in the back. These moments had a considerable amount of influence on his career choice, said Benyam Kinde, but his experience afterward – specifically with University of Maryland Baltimore County’s (UMBC) Meyerhoff Scholars Program – transformed his early fascination into a research career.