By Jason McLure
ADDIS ABABA (Bloomberg) — At least 34 people died in Ethiopia following a suspected cholera outbreak, with more than 4,000 sickened in the capital, Addis Ababa, in the past two weeks.
The disease has infected as many as 1,000 people a day in the past week, Dadi Jima, deputy director of the state-owned Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute, said in an interview today. He declined to say the disease is cholera.
The government has not “fully confirmed” the type of illness, Dadi said. “We usually report it as acute watery diarrhea.” The spread of the disease has been exacerbated by heavy rains in the Horn of Africa country, he said.
Cholera, mainly spread through contaminated water and food and poor sanitation, causes acute diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to death. The illness is considered to be endemic in “many countries” and the pathogen that causes the disease can’t currently be eliminated from the environment, according to the Web site of the World Health Organization.
The United Nations humanitarian agency said six cholera- treatment centers capable of treating 180 people a day have been dispatched to the country. The UN has also sent drugs for the treatment of more than 1,500 severe cases and 600 mild cases of acute water diarrhea, as well as water-purification tablets, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in an e-mailed statement.
Of the 34 who have died in Ethiopia, seven fatalities were in Addis Ababa, Dadi said. He didn’t provide figures for the number of people affected nationwide, adding only that the disease had been reported in 31 districts.
If untreated, cholera can kill a healthy adult in as little as five hours, according to the WHO.
(Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at [email protected].)
After disappearing for over a week, which led to talks about his illness, Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi says I am fine by traveling to Equatorial Guinea, a tiny country in West Africa. The Woyanne-controlled Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency (ERTA) released this obscured photo of Meles at Bole Airport, which doesn’t show his face. There wasn’t the usual fanfare and media hype that accompanies his travel abroad. ENA reported the following:
Addis Ababa, (ENA) – Prime Minister Meles Zenawi left for Equatorial Guinea earlier on Wednesday for an official visit.
During his stay in Equatorial Guinea Meles will hold discussions with senior government officials of the country on bilateral and international issues.
Upon departure at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, Prime Minister Meles was seen off by senior government officials, according to the Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency (ERTA).
Equatorial Guinea, located in West Africa, is the 3rd biggest oil producer in Sub Saharan Africa. Its economy is booming rapidly.
Meles’ trip seems suspicious since none of the media in Equatorial Guinea is reporting about it and the Woyanne regime has released only one small, obscured photo. The trip might have been arranged in a hurry at the last minute to stop the reports that are surfacing about his illness.
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopian Airlines has collected 45pc more revenue in the first eight months of the 2008-09 budget year than it has planned according to its officials.
The phenomenal performance has come during the global economic crisis that has put contributed to a loss of 8.5 billion dollars for the aviation industry in 2008 and an anticipated 4.7 billion dollars loss this year. The airline has registered 8.37 billion Br in revenue over eight months, three per cent higher than the 8.15 billion Br plan for the entire year.
Of the gross revenue, 6.12 billion Br was collected from ticket sales for about 1.95 million passengers. This represents 99pc of the planned passengers for the eight months.
Boosting operations with three additional aircraft to its fleet size in the current fiscal year, the flag carrier’s performance in the cargo service has also, equally, gone beyond the plan its executives authored for their operations through the year.
“To facilitate the country’s export sector, the airline has bought a cargo plane for $60 million and rented two passenger airplanes, a Boeing 757 and a Boeing 737-800.” Girma Wake, chief executive officer of the national carrier, said. He was reporting the performance of the Airline to the Infrastructure Affairs Standing Committee of the House of People’s Representative last Wednesday June 3, 2009.
Ethiopian has collected 1.33 billion Br in revenue from transporting 354 million tons of freight overseas. The revenue from the cargo is five per cent higher than the actual plan for the eight months.
It has also collected 850 million Br from payments for extra luggage, training and postage services. Previously, its plan was to collect 570 million Br from these sources.
Its expenditures over the same period were 7.64 billion; representing 96pc of expected expenses. This is a 45pc increase compared with the same period last year.
The increasing oil consumption due to increased operations accounts for 3.39 billion Br of the total expenditure. This represents 44.3pc of its total expense.
“We are astonished by the performance of the airline,” said a member of the Standing Committee as he asked the CEO of Ethiopian Airlines how they managed to achieve such a performance at a time many other airlines are closing or loosing money due to the global financial crisis.
“33 of the 53 flight destinations of the airline are in Africa which has not been hit hard by the financial crisis,” said the CEO.
Conference travellers have also contributed to the performance of the airlines, according to Girma.
“Unlike Ethiopian, many airlines have more leisure travellers who are tourists. Thus, when a crisis like the one besieging the world happens, travelling for leisure is likely to decline. Business travellers, however, have to travel,” the CEO said while explaining the questions raised by the MPs.
“The airline has increased flight frequencies to many of its destinations and a modern airport facility built by the Airports Enterprise increases travellers’ comfort,” Girma said.
Many airlines have faced challenges in continuing their services during the global economic downturn which has decreased business and leisure travel worldwide. Some governments such as the republic of South Africa and China have been forced to inject hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure their airlines are able to continue providing service.
South African Airways, one of the biggest airlines in Africa and one of only two Star Alliance members in Africa, received a 2.8 billion Rand (a little over 348 million dollars) injection from their government while China Southern is set to be the first mainland carrier in China to fly out of the financial turbulence after getting a capital injection of three billion Yuan (approximately 440 million dollars) from their government.
Hit by declining passenger traffic, China Southern lost over 4.8 billion Yuan (a little over 700 million dollars) in 2008.
Similarly British Airways reported 850 million dollars in losses over the same year.
The aviation industry experienced losses in 2008 due to the increasing price of oil. In July 2008, oil reached 147 dollars per barrel. The aviation industry lost 8.7 billion dollars. Now, with oil prices decreasing to their current price of approximately 66 dollars, the aviation industry still continues to suffer from losses. The CEO’s report also included speculation of industry experts that this year, the aggregate loss is will reach 4.7 billion dollars.
Despite a daunting global context where profitability has become rare, Ethiopian Airlines has managed to surpass its plans.
“We found the performance of Ethiopian Airlines impressive,” Wubneh Emiru, chairperson of the Infrastructure Affairs Standing Committee, told Fortune. “We cherish the achievements of the airline.”
But not surprising is the performance for experts in the industry.
“The achievements of Ethiopian are expected,” Zemedenen Negatu, managing partner of Ernst & Young, who has been consulting the airline since 2004, told Fortune.
He attributes the success of the airline to an efficient management system and the visionary leadership pursued by its management and board.
Nevertheless, its domestic operations seem to have enjoyed less attention. The CEO was asked to explain the contrast.
“It is a fair criticism,” Girma said.
But there are plans in the making to improve the domestic services.
“We have bought eight Bombardier Airplanes from Canada,” he said. “We will buy four or more planes from the same company next year.”
Ethiopian is also working to upgrade its pilot training institution at a cost of 30 million euro (45 million dollars) with financing through a loan from French Bank. With the finalization of the expansion, the training institution would be upgraded to an Aviation Academy, according to the CEO.
As part of its preparation for membership in the Star Alliance, it has also signed a code share agreement with Singapore, Thai and United airlines of Singapore, Thailand and United States, respectively.
It has also bought 25pc equity share in the establishment of ASKY airline in Togo in collaboration with the government of Togo and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional block of 16 countries founded in 1975.
Ethiopian will be responsible for maintaining the air crafts and management of airline operations.
Togo will serve as the airline’s West African hub, according to the CEO, though Nigeria offers the largest number of passengers for Ethiopian in the continent.
– Addis Fortune
By Barry Malone
ADDIS ABABA, (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s tribal junta on Monday charged 32 people with planning to kill government officials and blow up public utilities to provoke street protests and bring down the government, relatives of the accused said.
“They appeared in court today and were officially charged,” a relative, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters. “Next Monday they will appear again to discuss bail.”
The regime says the accused, arrested more a month ago, are mostly former and serving military officers from a “terror network” formed by Berhanu Nega, an opposition leader who teaches economics at a university in the United States.
Berhanu has called the accusations “baseless”.
“The charges can be summed up as conspiring to kill government officials and demolish public utilities,” the Ethiopian government’s head of information Bereket Simon told reporters last week.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had been hailed as part of a new generation of democratic African leaders after coming to power in 1991, but rights groups say the former rebel is increasingly cracking down on opposition.
Opposition parties routinely accuse the government of harassment and say their candidates were intimidated during local elections in April last year, which the government denies. Ethiopia will hold national elections in June 2010.
The regime has identified only two of the prisoners despite calls by international rights groups that it give the names of all 32. Another 14 people, some resident in the United States and Britain, have been charged in absentia.
The assassinations and bombings were supposed to provoke street protesters to march on state buildings and try to overthrow the government, Bereket said.
Security forces killed about 200 protesters after elections in 2005 when the opposition disputed the government’s victory.
Berhanu was elected mayor of the capital Addis Ababa in that ballot, but was arrested and accused of orchestrating the street protests. He was pardoned and released in 2007.
Berhanu’s May 15th organisation is named after the date of the 2005 poll. He has made statements in the United States saying it wants to overthrow the government.
The Woanne regime says the plotters received money to buy weapons from Berhanu and other diaspora opposition members.
(Editing by David Clarke and Andrew Dobbie)
CHANTILLY, VIRGINIA (Fox News) — Federal authorities say they’ve discovered a stowaway who arrived at a Washington-area airport in the cargo hold of a flight from Ethiopia.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Steve Sapp says ground personnel at Dulles International Airport were pulling baggage from Ethiopian Airlines Flight 500 when they noticed an arm sticking out.
Sapp says the stowaway was an Ethiopian man who was exhausted and dehydrated. He was taken to Reston Hospital Center and is now being held at a federal detention center.
Sapp says the man has been charged with being a stowaway and will be deported, but is not a security threat.
He says the flight departed from Addis Ababa and stopped in Rome before landing at Dulles shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday.
U.S. to send back stowaway on plane from Ethiopia
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A stowaway on a flight from Ethiopia was being detained in Washington and will be sent back, The Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Baggage handlers discovered the man, described as in his late 30s, in the luggage compartment of an Ethiopian Airways Boeing 767 that landed at Dulles International Airport on Saturday, the newspaper said.
The stowaway was dehydrated and exhausted but a Customs and Border Protection spokesman said he did not appear to present a threat, the Post reported.
Customs spokesman Steve Sapp told the newspaper the man, who was not identified, would face an administrative charge and would be sent back on an Ethiopian Airways plane.
A U.S. Customs official did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Chairman of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO), Ato Abebe Workie, has been arrested, according to Ethiopian Review sources in Addis Ababa.
Ato Abebe is a renowned Ethiopian attorney and one of the founding members of EHRCO, along with Prof. Mesfin Woldemariam.
The reason for Ato Abebe’s arrest has not been made public yet.
Meanwhile, the Woyanne regime propaganda chief Bereket Simon and his assistant, Ermias Legesse, are on their way to Washington DC to meet with the Voice of America officials and lodge a complaint about VOA’s Amharic program, which they deem is too critical of the tribal junta in Ethiopia.
