Two Ethiopian rebel groups carried out a joint military operation against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (Woyanne) army in the eastern part of the country. A rebel statement alleged 157 soldiers were killed during the attack.
In a joint military operation, the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) and the Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLA) have killed 157 Woyanne soldiers in various places in the Warder zone of the Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia.
According to Voice of Oromo Liberation Front, between 10 and 15 May 2007, commando units of the OLA and ONLA conducted attacks in various places in the zone of Warder killing over 82 Woyanne soldiers and wounding over 75 others.
“The regular troops particularly badly suffered in a battle that occurred at a place called Biyo Daye. Following this battle various types of materiel and many hand grenades and ammunition were captured from the enemy.” The rebel radio said.
OLA, the military wing of the OLF and ONLA, the military wing of the ONLF said they would step up joint military operations against the Woyanne army.
The Ormo Liberation Front (OLF) and Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) are members of an opposition coalition (Alliance for Freedom and Democracy) formed on May 22, 2006. The other members of the AFD are the Sidama Liberation Front (SLF), the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP) and the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF).
In several papers published in the current issue of the British Journal of Health Psychology, scholars from the US and the UK refuted the controversial study of Satoshi Kanazawa that attempted to link health to intelligence.
It may be recalled that Kanazawa’s paper, which was published in the November 2006 issue of the same journal, had trigged a universal uproar, especially for its use of questionable and dubious data about national IQs, including those of Ethiopia and many other African countries, to draw far-reaching conclusions concerning the relationship between intelligence and health.
Among the papers that appeared in the May 2007 issue of the journal is an article by Professors Demissie Alemayehu of Columbia University and Tilahun Sineshaw of Ramapo College of New Jersey, who argued, using extensive citations from evolutionary psychology and inferential statistics, that Kanazawa’s research was “bereft of the rigour” required to address the problem under consideration.
Maintaining that “… critical elements of his [Kanazawa’s] study violate fundamental principles of research methodology…,” Alemayehu and Sineshaw wrote:
“… the validity and robustness of the conclusions of the paper are compromised by fundamental problems, including failure to present competing views with fair balance, use of samples of convenience to draw conclusions about populations, performing tests of significance when there is no theoretical basis to do so and confusing association with causation.” [British Journal of Health Psychology, Volume 12, Number 2, May 2007, pp. 185-190(6)]
With reference to the dubious nature of Kanazawa’s data, the two scholars pointed out:
[T]he source of most of Kanazawa’s “macro-level” data is questionable at the best, and misleading at the worst. … A case in point is the national IQ figure used for Ethiopia which was based on a group of 14-15 year-olds who took the Progressive Matrices Standard (PMS) test one year after they had emigrated to Israel (Kaniel and Fisherman, 1991). Even if one accepts the idea that the PMS test measures what has been dubbed general intelligence, the Ethiopian data set, which Kanazawa claimed had been ‘directly measured,’ cannot be taken as a direct measure of the IQ of Ethiopians. The group of adolescents used in the study came from an isolated and desolate region of the country that had experienced a devastating war and famine at the time, not to mention the trauma of moving to a completely new urban environment and the experience of blatant racism once in Israel (Wagaw, 1993). As Kaniel and Fisherman (1991, p. 26) also acknowledged in their original article, ‘[I]n Ethiopia, Jews generally lived in small villages of 50-60 families, remote from urban centers. …prior to their exodus [to Israel], most had never seen electricity, a telephone, or any technological instruments… In Israel, they must adjust to climatic differences, life in urban centers, a new language…’ By any measure, data from a disadvantaged group of people, who had emigrated from a specific region of a country with the attendant social and physical deprivations, cannot be considered representative of a country of over 70 million people with complex historical, ethnic, linguistic, and socio-economic diversity.”
They further noted:
“…. Kanazawa’s knowledge of the socio-historical circumstances under which the Ethiopian data were produced leaves much to be desired. The historical and sociological situatedness of empirical data and how much this contributes to or limits the accuracy of analyses and interpretations that follow have been well established (Cole, 1996). The fallacy of how the Ethiopian national IQ score was constructed certainly casts doubt on the credibility of the entire data and analysis and, by extension, the conclusions of the paper. Ironically, the data obtained from the Bete Israel, as the Ethiopian Jews like to call themselves, should have yielded, according to Kanazawa’s hereditarian view, an average IQ score closer to the Israel national score, since they are believed to be descendants of one of the lost tribes!”
Understandably, Kanazawa’s paper had generated a lot of discussion, both in the print media and in popular online forums. Among the media that gave the discredited theory much publicity was the UK-based paper, “The Observer,” which in its November 5, 2006 issue headlined, “Low IQs are Africa’s curse, says lecturer.” It would be interesting to see if those same news outlets would now give their readers the benefit of exposure to the opposing views expressed in the current issue of the journal.
Interested readers may get copies of the papers, including the aforementioned study by Demissie Alemayehu and Tilahun Sineshaw, directly from the journal publishers: [email protected]
In several papers published in the current issue of the British Journal of Health Psychology, scholars from the US and the UK refuted the controversial study of Satoshi Kanazawa that attempted to link health to intelligence.
It may be recalled that Kanazawa’s paper, which was published in the November 2006 issue of the same journal, had trigged a universal uproar, especially for its use of questionable and dubious data about national IQs, including those of Ethiopia and many other African countries, to draw far-reaching conclusions concerning the relationship between intelligence and health.
Among the papers that appeared in the May 2007 issue of the journal is an article by Professors Demissie Alemayehu of Columbia University and Tilahun Sineshaw of Ramapo College of New Jersey, who argued, using extensive citations from evolutionary psychology and inferential statistics, that Kanazawa’s research was “bereft of the rigour” required to address the problem under consideration.
Maintaining that “… critical elements of his [Kanazawa’s] study violate fundamental principles of research methodology…,” Alemayehu and Sineshaw wrote:
“… the validity and robustness of the conclusions of the paper are compromised by fundamental problems, including failure to present competing views with fair balance, use of samples of convenience to draw conclusions about populations, performing tests of significance when there is no theoretical basis to do so and confusing association with causation.” [British Journal of Health Psychology, Volume 12, Number 2, May 2007, pp. 185-190(6)]
With reference to the dubious nature of Kanazawa’s data, the two scholars pointed out:
[T]he source of most of Kanazawa’s “macro-level” data is questionable at the best, and misleading at the worst. … A case in point is the national IQ figure used for Ethiopia which was based on a group of 14-15 year-olds who took the Progressive Matrices Standard (PMS) test one year after they had emigrated to Israel (Kaniel and Fisherman, 1991). Even if one accepts the idea that the PMS test measures what has been dubbed general intelligence, the Ethiopian data set, which Kanazawa claimed had been ‘directly measured,’ cannot be taken as a direct measure of the IQ of Ethiopians. The group of adolescents used in the study came from an isolated and desolate region of the country that had experienced a devastating war and famine at the time, not to mention the trauma of moving to a completely new urban environment and the experience of blatant racism once in Israel (Wagaw, 1993). As Kaniel and Fisherman (1991, p. 26) also acknowledged in their original article, ‘[I]n Ethiopia, Jews generally lived in small villages of 50-60 families, remote from urban centers. …prior to their exodus [to Israel], most had never seen electricity, a telephone, or any technological instruments… In Israel, they must adjust to climatic differences, life in urban centers, a new language…’ By any measure, data from a disadvantaged group of people, who had emigrated from a specific region of a country with the attendant social and physical deprivations, cannot be considered representative of a country of over 70 million people with complex historical, ethnic, linguistic, and socio-economic diversity.”
They further noted:
“…. Kanazawa’s knowledge of the socio-historical circumstances under which the Ethiopian data were produced leaves much to be desired. The historical and sociological situatedness of empirical data and how much this contributes to or limits the accuracy of analyses and interpretations that follow have been well established (Cole, 1996). The fallacy of how the Ethiopian national IQ score was constructed certainly casts doubt on the credibility of the entire data and analysis and, by extension, the conclusions of the paper. Ironically, the data obtained from the Bete Israel, as the Ethiopian Jews like to call themselves, should have yielded, according to Kanazawa’s hereditarian view, an average IQ score closer to the Israel national score, since they are believed to be descendants of one of the lost tribes!”
Understandably, Kanazawa’s paper had generated a lot of discussion, both in the print media and in popular online forums. Among the media that gave the discredited theory much publicity was the UK-based paper, “The Observer,” which in its November 5, 2006 issue headlined, “Low IQs are Africa’s curse, says lecturer.” It would be interesting to see if those same news outlets would now give their readers the benefit of exposure to the opposing views expressed in the current issue of the journal.
Interested readers may get copies of the papers, including the aforementioned study by Demissie Alemayehu and Tilahun Sineshaw, directly from the journal publishers: [email protected]
Comments made on EthiopianReview.com are being scrutinized by one of the largest foreign investors in Ethiopia, Al-Amoudi, and his high-powered lawyers, for possible legal action against the magazine’s publisher. Al-Amoudi, A.K.A. the “Sheik”, has embraced the Tigray People Liberation Front (TPLF) economically, socially and politically. Because of this, TPLF-funded media have joined the onslaught against Ethiopian Review. These TPLF media say that no matter what our grievances against the ethnic oligarchy in Addis Ababa, we should always defend Ethiopia against groups such as the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). This advice ignores the goals and history of the TPLF, which have always been the destruction of the Ethiopian nation state. For the last 33 years–17 years from Mount Dedebit and 16 years from the seat of power in Addis–TPLF has consistently been laying the basis for the possible disintegration of Ethiopia.
Was it not the TPLF that, under article 39 of its constitution, gave secessionist groups the right to secede from Ethiopia?
Was it not the TPLF that allowed the OPDO to massacre poor Amhara peasants in Harar and Arsi.
Was it not the TPLF that refused to ensure Ethiopia’s rights to sea ports?
The list is endless. Some who seem offended by Ethiopian Review’s stand choose to have amnesia about their advice to the terrorist regime of the TPLF soon after the May 2005 stolen election. The AIGA forum web site, on September 30, 2005, proudly posted a press release from the ”UNION of TIGRAYANS in NORTH AMERICA,” a sister organization of TPLF, in which Meles Zenawi was urged to take whatever action to reverse TPLF’s defeat at the polls. We all know what these actions were. As most Ethiopia watchers remember, the theme of the press release was summarized by the phrase “Decisive Measures” or “YEMAYADAGIM IRMIJJA” to be taken against the opposition. Why do they whine when others take “Decisive Measures”?
Now, TPLF and its supporters are shedding crocodile tears for the people killed in the Ogaden region. Six months ago, when they decided to invade Somalia, they had no sympathy for the civilians of Somalia or anyone in the “Somali Kilil”. None of the noisy Tigrayan and their opportunist allies media condemned the war crimes that were committed by the TPLF in Mogadishu. Let us not forget that even when it comes to the opposition camp, Ethiopian Review does not shy away from exposing corruption while the rest of us were paralyzed by “yelugnta” and fear.
Whatever you feel about Ethiopian Review’s coverage of events in Ethiopia, or the opinions posted on the web site, it is important to distinguish between the TPLF and the “Sheik’s” goal of suffocating anyone who dares expose their greed, corruption and human rights violations, versus those who consistently call things by their proper name, specifically Ethiopian Review.
The TPLF and Al-Amoudi never cared for Ethiopia and its honorable people. In the controversy between Ethiopian Review and the “Sheik”, it will not be difficult to show the connection between money, political favors, profits and human rights violations in Ethiopia. Is it a coincidence that DLA Piper represents the “Sheik” in his quest to silence Ethiopian Review, while the TPLF is represented by the same law firm to lobby against bills in the U.S. congress that call for respect of human rights in Ethiopia?
A couple of years ago it was Tensae radio that was the target of the TPLF’s legal intimidation. This time the target is Ethiopian Review, and the TPLF’s richest and strongest supporter is spearheading the campaign.
Beware of these political and economic alignments before you pass judgment on Ethiopian Review. If the campaign against Ethiopian Review succeeds, there is no telling which web site or political group will be the next target. Remember, money is no object to either Meles or the “Sheik”.
RIYADH: Saudi authorities yesterday beheaded two Ethiopians convicted of killing a Saudi national in an armed robbery and displayed their bodies in public after the execution, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, said Ali Mohammed Ali and Adel Adam Aman were found guilty of fatally shooting and robbing Khaled bin Karim bin Bakhash, the owner of a private telephone services center.
A court ordered their bodies be displayed in a public place after the execution as a further deterrent “because of the hideousness nature of the crime.” The statement said they were executed in Jiddah but did not say specifically where their bodies were displayed. The process of displaying the body of an executed person is usually carried out by the executioners who fix the chopped head to the body and then either hang it from a pole or from a mosque window or balcony for about two hours during the noon prayer.
The beheaded bodies are only displayed when there is a specific court order in cases considered particularly brutal, such as committing murder during an armed robbery. In February, the bodies of four Sri Lankans were strung up and displayed in a Saudi public square after they were beheaded for armed robbery, drawing criticism from Human Rights Watch, which said the kingdom violated international law because they men did not have lawyers.
Separately, the Interior Ministry said in another statement that a Saudi national, Jalal bin Ahmed al-Marhoun, was executed yesterday in the northern city of Al-Jawf, after being convicted of smuggling hashish into the country. Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery can be executed. Beheadings are carried out with a sword in a public square. Yesterday’s executions brought to 70 the number of people, including two women, beheaded in the kingdom this year. The kingdom beheaded 38 people last year and 83 people in 2005.
Also, Saudi Arabia beheaded a Saudi yesterday as it kept up a relentless pace of executions that has seen 77 convicts put to the sword already this year. The Saudi authorities have now carried out more than twice as many executions this year as in the whole of 2006 with more than six months still to go. Last year, 37 people were executed in the conservative Gulf kingdom, while 83 were put to death in 2005 and 35 the year before, according to AFP tallies based on official statements. The spate of executions has sparked mounting concern in Canada, which has two nationals facing possible death sentences for a murder they insist they did not commit.
Mohamed Kohail, 22, of Palestinian origin, was arrested in January and accused of killing a Syrian youth in a vicious schoolyard brawl in Jeddah, Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Tuesday. His 16-year-old brother Sultan is also being held in relation to the death. In an interview by mobile phone from his prison cell, Kohail told the newspaper he had been pushed, slapped and abused, and forced into signing a false confession. Local police told him to admit to hitting the Syrian schoolboy if he wished to avoid a lengthy prison term, unaware the boy had died, he said, but after signing the document, he was charged with the boy’s murder.
Until last year, Kohail had lived with his family in a Montreal suburb, but returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was born, when his sister became ill, he said. Rodney Moore, a spokesman for Canada’s foreign affairs department, acknowledged that Canadian officials are “aware of the arrest of two Canadian citizens in Saudi Arabia.” Consular officials have met with Saudi officials, Kohail and his family, Moore said, but refused to offer details because of Canadian privacy laws. Executions are usually carried out in public in Saudi Arabia, which applies a strict form of sharia, or Islamic law. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty. – Agencies
