The government of Japan said it will provide 180 million Birr support to implement safe water units in Raya Azebo Woreda, Southern Tigray Zone.
Japanese ambassador to Ethiopia, Kinichi Komano and President of Tigray, Tsegay Berhe on Wednesday visited rural areas exposed to safe water shortage in the woreda.
[After 18 years of rule and billions of dollars in foreign aid, the Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne) cannot even provide clean water to Tigray.]
Experts of the woreda mines and energy office on the occasion said safe water service coverage stands at 43 per cent at present in the woreda.
The ambassador on his part said the fund will be used to dig water wells, install water pipelines and construct reservoirs.
Tsegay also said the regional government will work together with the Japanese government in the efforts to curb shortage of safe water. (Source: state-owned ENA)
Ethiopia should take urgent steps to curb animal smuggling that is cutting into export earnings worth tens of millions of dollars to the poor country every year, a senior official said.
Livestock exports are an important source of hard currency for Ethiopia, which boasts 50 million cattle, 50 million sheep and goats and more than half a million camels. It made $53 million from exports last year, but Berhe Gebreigziabher, at a top official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said smuggling was slashing revenue.
“A significant number of live animals … are being smuggled to neighboring states to be re-exported to Middle Eastern countries,” he told Reuters on Friday.
“Our animal sector resources are being stolen and taken to other nations. The government must adopt strict policies and control mechanism to stop the illegal trade undermining us.”
Berhe, who heads the ministry’s Animal and Plant Regulatory Department, said the authorities should support economic growth by adding value to their exports, not just selling livestock.
The government has converted tens of thousands of acres in the Oromia, Amhara and Somali regions to rangeland for the leather goods sector, which it hopes will earn $200 million from exports in 2009/10 (July-June), up from $100 million in 2008/09.
The country used to export mostly raw hides and skins to markets in Europe and Asia, generating about $30 million a year in the late 1990s. It has since built dozens of tanneries, shoe factories and other leather-working facilities.
Among the major buyers of Ethiopian-made shoes are Germany, Italy, China, India and the United States. (Reuters)
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia, being the source of 85 percent of the total Nile waters flow, claims that it could self-support its hungry people off foreign food aid if granted to irrigate from the Blue Nile river.
However, a 1929 treaty between Egypt and Britain, the then regional power, awarded most of the Nile’s water to Egypt. Veto power over upstream projects as well.
Despite the fact that Ethiopia generates the lions share to the river, the horn of Africa’s nation uses only less than 1 percent of it because Egypt resists any attempt from Ethiopia to launch any large scale irrigation project and warns that any attempt to adjust the river’s status would be regarded as an act of war.
With devastating drought year-to- year endangering the lives of millions of people in Ethiopia and in the East of African region in general, Ethiopians now strongly argue that it is time that the ’ancient’ treaty must be reviewed.
Binyam Tekle is an Architect and an Environmentalist at a University and a research institute in Ethiopia. He argues that Egypt is a hidden factor to food crises in the east African region.
“Why do we always blame rain short or aid short to food crises in Ethiopia, while next door we have a major contributor to food shortage in Ethiopia-Egypt?” Binyam told Sudan Tribune.
“Unless the old, unfair treaty is soon reviewed by the international community and Egypt accepts to loosen its current rigid stand, once off hand the strain could lead to wrong but dangerous direction,” he added.
In recent years failing rains have constantly made crops in Ethiopia impossible to grow as much as the country needs to outreach the increased food need of its 80 million people, Africa’s second most populous country.
“People in some East African countries entirely depend on Nile water for their annual supply to agriculture when rainfalls luck, so increasing water demand could lead to political tensions in the entire region, unless new compromise is reached for fair distribution” said researcher Endashaw Belay.
“To realize a peace full united Africa, countries must be able to jointly work together to solve own problems and in this case Nile states must have political will to reach comprehensive consensuses despite what past treaties.”
Many analysts say that Egypt is blocking any funds to Ethiopia’s Nile project. Though Ethiopians might be tempted to circumvent the anachronistic arrangement, they can’t. Egyptian officials work behind “closed doors” to block funding for upstream projects, according to David Shinn, former US ambassador to Ethiopia.
Nile states have sought to re-negotiate the old treaty but Egyptian officials have stalled it for years. (Source: Sudan Tribune)
In his column on the Washington D.C. taxi industry, LL mentioned the name of Solomon Bekele—calling him “almost a mythic figure, a bogeyman, in local taxi circles.”
LL was not able to speak to Bekele — a native of Ethiopia — prior to his Tuesday deadline, but he has since gotten in touch.
In the course of interviewing various figures in the taxi industry, Bekele’s name came up repeatedly— not, mind you, as anyone who is directly involved in the ongoing scandal, but as someone who cuts a wide swath in the taxicab world.
Bekele these days is the proprietor of Crown Captive Insurance Co., one of a small handful companies operating in the city that specialize in taxi insurance, which is quite different from the six-month policy you might buy from GEICO or State Farm. Taxi policies are rarely more than two weeks in duration, and are usually sold to drivers through the taxi companies most affiliate with.
But Bekele’s reputation outgrows merely owning an insurance company—time and again, figures in the cab industry, speaking anonymously, mentioned his name with a mixture of awe and suspicion. Much of that can be traced to his history in Atlanta, where Bekele controlled a large share of the taxi market through companies he owned. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution called him “Atlanta’s taxi king” in 2001.) Still, Bekele says there’s no basis for any suspicions.
Asked about his involvement in stumping for a Atlanta-like medallion system, he says: “None whatsoever. I’m in the insurance business.”
Bekele, a Potomac resident, explains that some people had approached him to inquire about how medallion systems work in cities like Boston, New York, and Atlanta—that’s it; no contact with elected officials or policymakers on the matter. “I have from time to time, when requested by interested cab drivers or companies, expressed my experience in the matter of medallions,” he would write in an e-mail to LL, referring to his advice as “considered opinion.” (That’s not necessarily at odds with what LL reported—that Bekele is a “strong backer” of such a system, which was based on conversations with several anonymous sources, who recall Bekele advocating for a shift.)
So what accounts for all the mentions of his name? “You call this jealousy,” he says. “These are people from the same hometown….These kind rumors are politically motivated.” To wit, connected to his advocacy for human rights and open elections in Ethiopia, not his involvement in the taxi industry.
And regarding his connection to Yitbarek Syume, indicted as a ringleader in the alleged bribery scheme, Bekele says there’s barely any. Syume bought his insurance, he says, and he went to Syume’s garage on 5th Street NE “maybe three to four times a year” to get his cars fixed. “He knows the cars,” he says.
Bekele called LL again this afternoon, saying his mention in the column was unfair. “It’s almost a riot out there,” he declared, saying that the column had only served to stoke suspicions. “You’re flaring up a lot of emotions here!” (By Mike DeBonis | Washington City paper)
MOGADISHU — Several hundred Ethiopian soldiers from the Woyanne army in Ethiopia crossed into neighbouring Somalia over the weekend, arresting dozens of villagers suspected of having links with Islamists, elders and residents told AFP.
The Ethiopian Woyanne forces, accompanied by Somali pro-government clan-based militias, entered three villages west of Beledweyn, some 300 kilometres (186 miles) north of Mogadishu, on Saturday afternoon.
“I saw dozens of armed vehicles belonging to the Ethiopian Woyanne army with some Somali militias, they entered Wagada village and detained several people before getting out of the village this morning,” Husein Farah Gomey, an elder near Beledweyn told AFP by phone.
Mohamed Nur Adan, another elder in a nearby village also said that his cousin was among dozens detained for questioning.
“Hundreds of them entered the area late Saturday, they detained 13 people including my cousin but they later released him after questioning him for several hours,” he said.
The residents said that while the Ethiopians Woyannes let some of their detainees go, they took others with them.
Some of the residents told AFP the Ethiopian Woyanne forces crossed from the border town of Ferfer tracing members from the Ogaden rebel group.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Tens of thousands of people are lined up starting early Sunday morning to buy tickets for Teddy Afro’s concert tonight.
This concert, which will be held at the Addis Ababa Stadium, will be the first one for Teddy since he was released from prison last August.
The popular singer was thrown in jail for 2 years by the Woyanne tribal junta after being falsely accused of hit-and-run accident which claimed the life of a homeless man.
