Set Political Prisoners Free !

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TYLER STIEM:
LALIBELA, ETHIOPIA — From Saturday’s Globe and Mail

For a moment, as I ponder the mystery of Amda Berhan, the Pillar of Light, and resist the monumental urge to scratch my feet, I feel every bit the pilgrim, at home among the shawl-clad women who cross themselves and file past.
“The history of the world [...]

Share THE CARTER CENTER OBSERVATION MISSION 2005 : FINAL REPORT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Upon the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, The Carter Center observed Ethiopia’s May 15, 2005 elections for the national and regional parliaments. The May elections marked an historic event in the country, as Ethiopia witnessed [...]

SharePeter Heinlein | Addis Ababa:

The U.S. State Department’s annual human rights reports says Ethiopia is holding several hundred political prisoners, including the leader of one of the country’s largest opposition parties. Ethiopia has reacted strongly to past U.S. criticisms of its rights record.
The 2009 human rights report says Birtukan Mideksa, president of Ethiopia’s opposition Unity [...]

ShareJohn Vidal in Juba, Sudan
An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens
We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we [...]

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Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
March 11, 2010

Ethiopia is a federal republic led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition. The population is estimated at 77 million. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the EPRDF won a majority of seats to remain [...]

ShareIn the aftermath of fighting or repression, people are often told to forget things. But in free societies, selective memory cannot be imposed for ever.
THE 15 boxes of bones were wrapped in the red, yellow and purple flag of the Second Republic. Each held the remains of a man whose support for a brief political [...]

ShareBy Andrew Whitehead
An edition of the BBC World Service programme Assignment, alleging that money intended for famine relief in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s was used to buy weapons, has prompted an angry response from aid campaigners.
Andrew Whitehead, Editor, News and Current Affairs at the BBC World Service, explains how the story came about.

Peter Horrocks

A [...]

ShareCiting “concerns about recent media reports,” the U.S. Department of State has made a key change to the process of adopting Ethiopian orphans to the U.S.
The Embassy in Addis Ababa now requires an I-604 or so-called “orphan investigation” into the background and status of every child in the process of getting a visa to come [...]

ShareBy Shepard Daniel with Anuradha Mitta:
In the midst of a severe food and economic crisis, the “land grabbing” trend has grown as an international phenomenon.
The term land grab refers to the purchase or lease of vast tracts of land by wealthier, food-insecure nations and private investors from mostly poor, developing countries in order to produce [...]

ShareBob Geldof upped the ante in the row between Band Aid and the BBC yesterday by demanding the sacking of BBC World Service director Peter Horrocks.  Many say his  move appears more of a tyrant than a dead aid campaigner.
The former musician-who turned himself to become the so called “Dead Aid Campaigner” also called for two [...]

ShareBy Lauren Gelfand :
NAIROBI, Kenya — It’s easy to confuse the interior of Nairobi’s Habesha restaurant with a lost corner of Ethiopia. The smell of frankincense and thick, dark coffee waft through the air as the latest tunes by Teddy Afro vie to be heard over the Amharic-language patter of denizens from Addis Ababa, Lalibela, Mekele [...]

SharePart II, Separating facts from fiction:
By Neamin Zeleke:
“A man should keep learning as long as he is ignorant, as long as he lives” Seneca
“The whole glory of virtue lies in activity”   Cicero
In his latest article, written as a response to my response, Mr. Tibebe continues his exercise of recycling and rehashing fabrications and allegations to [...]

ShareThe most evil bloody tyrant of Ethiopia,  Meles Zenawi,  continues to attempt to fool the Westerners once again. The tyrant Meles Zenawi tells Paul Vallely that the report the Live Aid money was spent on weapons was based on lies. However, Meles Zenawi did not say any thing if some of a $100m donation was [...]

ShareBy ADAM NOSSITER
DAKAR, Senegal — Officials and human rights groups in Nigeria said Monday that about 500 people had died in weekend ethnic violence near the central city of Jos, considerably more than what had initially been reported.
A government spokesman said Sunday that the dead numbered more than 300. The victims were Christians killed by [...]

Share Alemayehu G. Mariam:

If democracy is a government of the people, kleptocracy is a government of thieves.
Last week the secret world of Meles Zenawi’s kleptocracy, famine aid-sharking and money laundering in Ethiopia was exposed by two of his former comrades-in-arms in the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Gebremedhin Araya, a former treasurer and TPLF [...]

Share‘They Want to Drive Us Out, but They Will not Succeed’
The Ethiopian Tyrants Supreme Court today ruled against four independent media houses, forcing them to pay fines that were originally rendered void under a 2007 pardon. The four publishing companies, Serkalem, Sisay, Zekarias and Fasil, must now pay a total of 295,000 Birr (approx. €16,100) [...]

SharePetitions Team
Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights UNOG-OHCHR
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Dear Madam High Commissioner,
No one has ever been brought to justice in Ethiopia for the massacre of 424 Anuak in Gambella, Ethiopia on December 13-16, 2003, and genocidal massacres that killed one thousand more Anuak in 2004. Investigations by Genocide Watch [...]

ShareGeldof, awarded an honorary knighthood for his fundraising efforts to help the gangster-rebels  who are now ruling Ethiopia . The reason for his temper tantrum about the money which  was spent to buy weapons  and run gang related activities by TPLF (Meles Zenawi)  is  just to defend his credibility. He does not give a damn [...]

ShareThe allegations stem from an investigation by BBC Radio 4’s Martin Plaut, who interviewed former rebels and NGO employees involved in aid work during the 1984-1985 famine. According to Aregawi Berhe, at one time a commander of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), only 5% of the $100m (£65m) in aid money went to feed [...]

ShareCongressional Record Statement of March 3, 2008
Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the political situation in Ethiopia. The US-Ethiopian partnership is an incredibly important one – perhaps one of the more significant on the continent given not only our longstanding history but also the increasingly strategic nature of our cooperation in recent years. Ethiopia [...]

ShareBy Martin Plaut [...]

ShareInternational shortwave radio monitors have confirmed that VOA broadcasts in the Amharic language are being jammed. Amharic is the main official language and the language of commerce in Ethiopia.
VOA representatives in Ethiopia have been received complaints from listeners about noise drowning out its Amharic Service broadcasts.  People trying to tune in can hear occasional snippets [...]

ShareSolidarity Committee for Ethiopian Political PrisonersCanada (SOCEPP Canada)
የኢትዮጵያ ፖለቲካ እስረኞች አንድነት ኮሚቴ በካናዳ
(ኢፖእአኮ ካናዳ)
March 04, 2010
CANADIANS AND ETHIOPIANS CANNOT BE DUPED TO SERVE THE CAUSE OF A REPRESSIVE REGIME IN ETHIOPIA
The Canadian Solidarity Committee for Ethiopian Political Prisoners (SOCEPP CANADA) is a non-governmental and non-partisan organization that campaigns for human rights protection and good [...]

ShareBy KENNETH ROTH:
As one would expect from so eloquent a leader, President Obama has brought about a marked improvement in presidential rhetoric on human rights in comparison with his predecessor. In a series of speeches around the world, carefully tailored for each audience, the president has set forth a compelling vision, emphasizing that respect for [...]

ShareAccording to Jason McLure of Bloomberg News — An opposition candidate for Meles Zenawi’s parliament was stabbed to death by six men in his home in the country’s northern Tigray region early this morning, said Negasso Gidada, a leader of the Medrek opposition alliance. Meles Zenawi is one of Africa’s [...]

ShareBy Mary Ann Jolley for Foreign Correspondent
A powerful international adoption overseer is refusing to release the results of its inquiry into the disturbing activities of American adoption agencies operating in Ethiopia.
The inquiry was launched after ABC TV’s Foreign Correspondent exposed deep and dangerous flaws in the system.
The Joint Council of International Children’s Services (JCICS) says [...]

ShareLast week, a couple of interesting political statements grabbed the cyber headlines. One was a truly entertaining piece entitled “Letter from Ethiopia,” by the indomitable Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega. Eskinder’s “Letter” sought to make sense of the power jockeying that is apparently taking place backstage to replace dictator Meles Zenawi. The other was a bombastic [...]

ShareWashington- Ethiopian Americans in DC metro held a monthly candlelight vigil in front of the White House on Sunday evening asking for the release of Ethiopian Democratic Leader, Birtukan Midekssa  and thousands of  political prisoners in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian Americans chanted to President Obama that he supports the struggle for freedom, democracy and human rights in [...]

ShareAddis Ababa – When a small, rag-tag band of terrorists from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray province took up arms against the government in 1975, few thought they could win a minor scuffle, let alone lead a whole country.
But the thugs who call themselves Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) saw its members swell in ranks over time, [...]

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By Justin L. Engel | The Saginaw News
Jeff Schrier | The Saginaw News files in 2007, an unidentified man holds a parasol over “His Grace Bishop Frumentius.” A man bearing Frumentius’ name has surfaced in Atlanta, touting a dating service on a Web site.
A man calling himself “His Grace Bishop Frumentius” — a name identical [...]

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ShareOn Tuesday, February 24, Israeli Ethiopian recognized refugee Yonannes Bayu spoke in a lecture at Temple Emanu-El presented by New Israel Fund of Canada.
Bayu spoke about the plight of refugees in Israel – currently, about 20,000 asylum seekers from African countries such as Ethiopia, the Darfur region of Sudan, Eretria and DRC. Bayu, an Ethiopian [...]

ShareBy: John Njiraini

Ethiopia has been plunged into a major power crisis after the water-passage tunnel of a newly inaugurated power plant collapsed.
The Gilgel Gibe II hydropower plant was commissioned last month.
Following the tunnel collapse, Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation has ordered companies to reduce their electricity consumption by half as the contractor tries frantically to |
undertake [...]

ShareBy Paul Raffaele :
“They shall make an ark of acacia wood,” God commanded Moses in the Book of Exodus, after delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And so the Israelites built an ark, or chest, gilding it inside and out. And into this chest Moses placed stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, as [...]

ShareEthio-jazz icon Mulatu Astatke will release a brand new studio album on March 29, Mulatu Steps Ahead.
It finds the veteran pianist and arranger exploring new directions in the fusion of Western jazz and Ethiopian modes, a natural development of the innovative, intoxicating sound that he pioneered in the 60s and 70s. Tracks were recorded with [...]

ShareTime: Thursday  25 February, 2010 at 6:00 p.m.
Location: The Charles Sumner Museum Bl. Washington, DC
1201 17th Street NW
Washington, DC
(@ the corner of 17th & M St. NW (Red bldg) – Faragut North Metro station.) ,
Recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscious, Mrs Birtukan Midekssa has been held without trial in Ethiopia since 2008.
She [...]

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By Nancy Bartley

Seattle Times staff reporter
Abayneh Adefris, the 14-year-old Ethiopian boy brought to the United States by the Snohomish County chapter of Healing the Children, returned to Ethiopia on Monday with a prosthetic arm and new skills for an independent life.
Abayneh, with a Ken Griffey Jr. backpack, heads to the security checkpoint with chaperone Gene [...]

ShareEgyptians continue to shoot  and kill at migrants.  An Ethiopian migrant was shot and killed on Tuesday. The  Egyptians also  injured two others and arrested 10 as they tried to cross to Israeli where immigrants feels more safe. The death is the third this week and brings the toll of migrants killed at the [...]

ShareBy Jane Dutton:
Jane Dutton visits an art deco city, watches women and children being beaten and is told she is “insane”  by the leader she has come to interview.
We hadn’t even arrived in Eritrea when I started to get a sense of the man I had been sent to interview.
Our flight from Dubai airport was delayed.
Nobody told [...]

ShareA European Union exploratory team is visiting Ethiopia to determine whether to send an observer mission to monitor national elections in May. Many Ethiopians say the election has been already won by the ruling tyrants who have been in power since about 20 years.
As part of the sham election process the ruling tribal tyrants are currently [...]

ShareWhen I wrote Part I of “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” nearly a year and eight months ago[1], the heartbreaking and outrageous scandal in the broken adoption system in Ethiopia was a shocking molestation crime committed against two recently adopted Ethiopian children — one barely 2 and the other 4 years old — by [...]

ShareThe Carter Center declined Meles Zenawi’s invitation to  observe the 2010 farce elections. Carter Centers letter sent to the ruling   thugs Ministry of Foreign Affairs states “After careful consideration and with deep regrets, The Carter Center has decided not to observe the 2010 elections in Ethiopia….” .
Political analysts say that the decision not to [...]

Share1. Introduction
A few months ago, Ginbot 7’s research team presented an extensive list of the top military commanders of the Woyane regime including their names, their position in the military and their ethnic background. That meticulously researched study showed how the current military of Meles Zenawi’s regime is totally dominated by one ethnic group where [...]

ShareBy Amanuel Biedemariam:
At this stage there is a clear consensus amongst the people of the Horn of Africa that peace must prevail in the region. Peace must prevail to revive the cultures, way of life and traditional values of the region. There is a consensus that if the effort for peace fails, the region will [...]

ShareFebruary 18, 2010 – Gorgeous eye-opening hand painted coins have become more than just collectors items thanks to CuffLinksMan, and with even more additions to their unique and original line, such as the Buffalo Nickel Coin Cufflink, and the Ethiopia Ten Cent Lion Head Coin Cufflink, they have raised the bar even more. It is [...]

ShareEthiopians in Britain will have a second in a series of critical discussions calling for a   re-examination of how British foreign policy towards Ethiopia may be undermining the political freedom, justice and human rights of the Ethiopian people through its support of a corrupt, apartheid and repressive dictatorship.
The meeting is intended to address whether long-term [...]

ShareAccording to BBC, the African Dictators Union (former OAU) has suspended Niger following Thursday’s military coup, in which President Mamadou Tandja was deposed and the government dissolved.
Even though thousands of people took to the streets on Friday in support of the takeover the organisation representing thugs such as Meles Zenawi, Omar Bashir , Muhammar [...]

ShareNAIROBI, Kenya (Compass Direct News) – Prosecutors and police are trying to concoct a terrorism case against an Ethiopian convert from Islam who has been jailed since May without formal charges, Christian leaders said.
Bashir Musa Ahmed, a 39-year-old Ethiopian national, was arrested on May 23 when police found him in possession of eight Bibles in [...]

ShareOver the years many Big Ideas have been imposed on Africa from outside. The latest is that the region should sell or lease millions of hectares of land to foreign investors, who will bring resources and up-to-date technology. None of the blueprints has worked, and African farmers have become increasingly impoverished. It is time for [...]

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ShareEthiopia Opposition Denies the Tigrai Tribal Bandits Claim of Eritrea Alliance
By Jason McLure
Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s main opposition grouping disputed a government claim that political opponents of Meles Zenawi’s ruling party are colluding with the country’s arch-enemy, Eritrea.
State radio reported yesterday that the opposition is “covertly and overtly” collaborating with neighboring Eritrea ahead of [...]

ShareCPJ writes a letter to the Atse  Meles Zenawi  asking the tyrant to  draw his  attention to conditions that undermine press freedom as guaranteed in Article 29 of the Ethiopian Constitution. CPJ states, it  would welcome the tyrants leadership in furthering reform by working for the repeal of draconian provisions in recent antiterrorism and media [...]

ShareEthiopian Adoption Scam?
(CBS)
Videotapes showing poor orphans from third world countries melt the hearts of prospective parents every day in this country.
Three children, sisters from Ethiopia are shown in a video – ages, you are told, 7, 4 and 6. Their mother is dead, their father dying of AIDS. A life of prostitution is all [...]

ShareIt has been said that Africa’s natural resources — oil, diamonds, minerals — have often proven to be sources of woe, suffering and misery than wealth, prosperity and progress for the people of the continent. What should have been a blessing for Africa’s poor has become a curse of corruption, malfeasance and bad governance. Could [...]

Shareby Tom Rhodes:
High numbers of local journalists have fled several African countries in recent years after being assaulted, threatened, or imprisoned, leaving a deep void in professional reporting. The starkest examples are in the Horn of Africa nations of Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, where dozens of journalists have been forced into exile. Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and [...]

ShareTeenager arrested in March 1955 for refusing to yield seat to a white rider
By Phillip Hoose
This essay is excerpted from the Living Book Beyond Dr. King: More Stories of African American Achievement.
The American Civil War ended slavery without ending racial prejudice. In the decades that followed, Caucasian Americans passed hundreds of laws (primarily in the [...]

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ShareWhen black Jews were in Ethiopia their neighbors called them “falasha,” or “strangers.” Now that they are in Israel, many of them still feel like they are the strangers.
It is not that the Jewish state did not do its share to integrate them. It is just that it has not done enough, some argue.
About 120,000 [...]

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By JOHN WAWROW:
The Associated Press
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — When Robel Teklemariam is asked if he has a nickname back home in Ethiopia, the Olympic men’s cross-country skier – yes, you read that right – notes that there’s no word for “snow” in his native language.

So Teklemariam goes by “Beredoe Shartate,” which is loosely translated [...]

Shareby David Smith:
Parliament bursts into song and veterans gather at Paarl jail to honour statesman
His only prison now is a body worn by age. For a moment tonight, however, the long years fell away and Nelson Mandela grinned with a playfulness that was undimmed.
Members of the South African parliament burst into song as he entered [...]

ShareBy Boby Kurian & Madhav A Chanchani (VCCircle.com)
Stanchart PE and an arm of Reliance Capital are among the players believed to be in the fray.
Karuturi Overseas Ltd, a subsidiary of world’s largest rose exporter Karuturi Global, is in advanced level of talks with private equity players to raise up to $100 million to fuel its [...]

ShareEritrean and Ethiopian communities around the world are organizing a worldwide protest demonstration calling for the annulment of the ill-advised U.N. Security Council resolution against Eritrea that was passed in December 2009. Eritrea is being victimized for standing up on the side of the oppressed people of Ethiopia and Somalia who are being brutalized by [...]

ShareEthiopia : A Generation and Its Heritage:
There has been much written about Ethiopia’s history. But, only few books are written by Ethiopians that provide enhanced understanding to this great nation’s history.

Tesfaye Mekonnen’s new book with a self explanatory title: “Ethiopia, Tiwoldena Kirsu” or “A Generation and Its Heritage (title translated [...]

ShareBy Sophia Tesfamariam:
In October of 2007, the Washington Post noted that Obama had “fulminated against ‘lobbyists’ and ‘insiders,’ and claimed that (he) will end ‘business as usual’ in Washington if elected president.” Obama said at a 1 October 2008 campaign stop in Wisconsin, “You need leadership you can trust to work for you, not for [...]

ShareLast week, in a piece reporting on the eerie silence of Western diplomats in Addis Abeba on Birtukan Midekssa, the first woman political party leader in Ethiopian history and Ethiopia’s # 1 political prisoner, Xan Rice, a reporter for the Guardian wrote:
That foreign embassies, including Britain’s, which have been refused permission to visit Mideksa, have [...]

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Conference on Good Governance, Peace, Security, and Sustainable Development in the Horn of Africa

Washington DC, April 9 to 11, 2010

The Horn of Africa continues to be extremely fragile. The sub-region’s volatility has increased significantly in the post 9/11 period.  The total collapse of Somalia and the irresponsible and imprudent intervention of outsiders in [...]

ShareA search for allies in a hostile world
Iran’s proclaimed ambitions in Africa are particularly worrying for Israel, which once had a lot of friends on the continent and wants to keep the few that remain
Feb 4th 2010 | DAKAR AND NAIROBI | From The Economist print edition
ARRIVING at the airport in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, you [...]

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SHAKESPEARE knew the course to true love never did run smooth.
And Brighton author Suzy Zail has discovered it still makes a good read.
Zail has published a book of 12 couples’ love tales, Smitten, which has been released in time for Valentine’s Day.
Covering diverse experiences, from gay relationships to open marriage, each couple’s story has a [...]

SharePress Release
A critical water-passage tunnel in the newly inaugurated Gilgel Gibe 2 hydropower project in Ethiopia reportedly collapsed this week.
With a price tag of 374 million Euros and a capacity of 420 megawatts, Gilgel Gibe 2 is currently Ethiopia’s biggest power plant. The project channels the water discharged from the Gilgel Gibe 1 Dam through [...]

ShareHelp the fight against tyranny by refusing to do business with  Ethiopian rulers affiliated organizations or corporations that fund the repression against  your own people in Ethiopia.
Did you know that the corporations listed below can be your boycott targets to help the struggle against tyranny?

By taking simple steps you can impose a major sanction against [...]

ShareOn Jan. 13, Ethiopia’s Chief Bandit Meles Zenawi inaugurated the Gilgel Gibe 2 scheme, the country’s biggest hydropower project. “It is possible to speed up development without polluting the environment,” Zenawi proudly declared as he cut the ceremonial ribbon. Yet this was wishful thinking.
Due to shoddy preparation, the project had already been delayed by more [...]

ShareEthiopia law forces journalists to reveal sources
(AFP)
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia’s  rulers (the Tigrai Bandits) new anti-terror law strips journalists of the right to protect the identity of their sources, a top official said in a statement carried Saturday by the TRigrai Bandits national news agency ENA.
“The anti-terrorism law revoked the rights of journalists not to [...]

ShareIn mid-January, the ailing Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) declared once again that it is in need of rescue fund. The business weekly, Addis Fortune, reported that the bank called on the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) to inject more capital  to refill its empty cash registers.
Though the health of all state banks has been [...]

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By: John Njiraini

The Ethiopian rulers are  preparing their case to attempt to convince the World Bank to fund a mega- hydropower project in the Horn of Africa country.
World Bank president Robert Zoellick was due to arrive in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, last week, amid some tension following revelations that the bank was considering withholding [...]

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Sylvia in 1915, photographed by Malcolm Arbuthnot. Image reproduced by courtesy of the International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam

Born in Manchester in 1882, Sylvia was the second daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the Women’s Social & Political Union; the movement known as the Suffragettes which campaigned to get women the vote. Sylvia’s father [...]

Share(CNN) — Judges at the International Criminal Court ruled Wednesday that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir may be charged with genocide for his role in a five-year campaign of violence in western Sudan’s Darfur region.

Al-Bashir, who remains in office, has already been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had the genocide [...]

Share All Man, No Myth
Hans Larson:
Teddy Yo, a young, vibrant rapper, has been making the local magazine headlines for sometime now. The rapper’s innovation in blending the Gurage melody and beat with a contemporary hip-hop beat has been appreciated by many. His trademark music, Guragetone (including a track by that name), was a hit three [...]

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President Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next US ambassador to Ethiopia pledged on Tuesday to press the government in Addis Ababa to improve human rights, free political prisoners and make upcoming elections fair.
Donald Booth said the United States had “complex interests” in Ethiopia, and that the two nations, while differing in tactics, saw largely [...]

ShareRetiree’s photos reveal struggles for equity, justice in Israel. 
by Leslie Berliant, Contributing Writer: 
The first thing you notice about photographer Irene Fertik is her long, gray hair, which flows well below her waist. Although she usually wears her hair up, Fertik has left it down today, because when she does “the lioness comes out.” 
It’s hard to [...]

ShareXAN RICE
At noon every Sunday an old Toyota sedan donated by supporters of Ethiopia’s most famous prisoner pulls up near a jail on the outskirts of the capital.
A 74-year-old woman in a white shawl and her four-year-old granddaughter — the only outsiders the prisoner is allowed to see — step out for a 30-minute visit.
Most [...]

ShareLast week, there was a great deal of teeth-gnashing, knuckle-cracking and gut-wrenching by Ethiopia’s dictators over Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) 2010 report. The dictators belched out much sound and fury that signified nothing. Their fury had to do with HRW’s conclusion that “Ethiopia is on a deteriorating human rights trajectory as parliamentary elections approach in [...]

ShareThe identity of the alleged Saudi Princess given secret asylum in the United Kingdom early last year has now been revealed. The young woman, who is in her late 20s is reported to be Sarah Mohammed Al-Amoudi, originally from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and now living in London. Sarah Al-Amoudi told British authorities that she is [...]

ShareBy JOSEPH FEIT, For The Bulletin

In Tuesday’s Jerusalem Post, Ruth Eglash, reporting on the aliyah (immigration to Israel) conference in Ashdod, noted that, “ braving the pouring rain … hundreds of immigrants from the local Ethiopian community gathered outside to protest the government’s failure to approve for aliyah some 9,000 Falash Mura still waiting in [...]

ShareThe West has provided hundreds of millions of dollars of food aid to Ethiopia in the past several years. However, donor countries have placed few monitoring and accountability mechanisms to ensure that the aid provided is delivered to the target populations.
As a result, the ruling party has been able to effectively use relief aid to [...]

ShareSome images are etched in our minds—whether we experienced them first hand or because they are part of a collective memory—Abebe Bekila dashing barefoot to victory through old Rome. Richard Nixon, as he was boarding the plane, turning to face America and giving the country that infamous farewell…wave; Rosa Parks’ mug shot when she was [...]

SharePeter Heinlein | Addis Ababa
An Ethiopian opposition group says the international community is ignoring the plight of its jailed leader, who is listed by an arm of the United Nations Human Rights Council as a victim of arbitrary detention.
Ethiopia’s Unity for Democracy and Justice Party (UDJ) held a candlelight vigil Thursday to mark the 13th [...]

ShareLast year Madagascar cancelled a controversial agreement with South Korean company Daewoo Logistics that would have allowed the firm to produce corn and palm oil on 1.3 million hectares, around half of the country’s arable land. Public anger over the deal contributed to the collapse of the Madagascar government.  In Ethiopia, however, the  Tigrai bandits [...]

ShareBy MICHAEL POWELL
Published: January 28, 2010
Howard Zinn, historian and shipyard worker, civil rights activist and World War II bombardier, and author of “A People’s History of the United States,” a best seller that inspired a generation of high school and college students to rethink American history, died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87 [...]

SharePresident has set different tone to Bush, but failed to end abuses, says Human Rights Watch
By Chris McGreal in Washington:
America’s leading human rights organisation has said that Barack Obama is falling far short of his rhetoric by continuing some of the abuses of George Bush’s war on terror and by shielding foreign allies responsible for [...]

ShareDear friends and brothers,
We, the Somali media freedom and human rights activists received with great concern the annoying news about the recent meeting in Addis Ababa Between Omar Faruk Osman, the head of National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) and the most brutal dictator in Africa Mr.Meles Zenawi, its really shocking and embarrassing to see a [...]

ShareThe human rights movement can look back on 2009 with some satisfaction in exposing abuses almost anywhere in the world. By shaming, diplomatic and economic pressures, the human rights movement is making it more costly for abusive governments to violate fundamental human rights, according to Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of New York-based Human Rights Watch [...]

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Even though there were nine nationalities aboard the Boeing 737 jet which burst into flames and crashed into the sea minutes after taking off in a violent thunderstorm on Monday morning, the Lebanese, naturally enough, only concerned themselves with one.
54 Lebanese, almost all from the country’s predominately Shiite southern region, are probably dead and the [...]

ShareSun Jan 24, 2010 9:52pm EST
BEIRUT, Jan 25 (Reuters) – An Ethiopian Airlines [ETHA.UL] plane with 85 passengers on board crashed into the Mediterranean sea shortly after taking off from Beirut international airport in the early hours of Monday, airport sources said. The plane, said to be a Boeing by one source, disappeared off the [...]

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Alemayehu G. Mariam

Since the dawn of African independence from colonialism in the early 1960s, African liberation leaders and founding fathers qua dictators, military junta and “new breed” leaders have sought to justify the one-man, one-party state — and avoid genuine multiparty democracy — by fabricating a blend of self-serving arguments which converge on [...]

ShareThe Irish Times – Monday, January 25, 2010
The inherently Shameless Tyrant Says  ‘If push comes to shove, we can survive on our own’

ETHIOPIA’S MELES ZENAWI, like Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, was among a new generation of African leaders who came to power in the early 1990s whose role in kicking out murderous regimes and commitment to [...]

ShareToday, Ethiopian American students from San Diego State, UC Riverside & UCLA demonstrated in Little Ethiopia, Los Angeles against the tyrannical rule in Ethiopia. The students gathered to rally against dictatorship , the wrong foreign policy of the USA and to demand the release of political prisoners in Ethiopia including the pro democracy [...]

ShareADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s year-on-year inflation rose to 7.1 percent in December from 0.6 percent in November on the back of rising fuel, food and construction material prices, the statistics office said on Friday.
Inflation in the vast Horn of Africa nation hit a high of 64.2 percent in July 2008. It then entered a [...]

ShareBy Africa Action and FPIF Staff

The year 2010 will be critical for U.S. policy toward Africa, from Sudan to Somalia and the Congo to Zimbabwe. President Barack Obama should use the fast-closing window of opportunity to begin a new era in U.S.-Africa relations characterized by a people-centered development strategy and respect for human rights, the [...]

ShareJangling nerves
Meles Zenawi will probably win the election. But that may not bring calm
“Unlike the Economist, Ethiopians know that the 2010 election  is another sham ritual supported by the Westerners.”
Jan 21st 2010 | ADDIS ABABA
From The Economist print edition

WORRIES about Ethiopia’s election, due in May, are growing. Aid-giving Western governments hope it will pass off [...]

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TED: Dambisa Moyo’s new book is drawing new attention to the question of aid in Africa, andher thesis is quite like yours, but aimed at a mass-market audience, as she said on Charlie Rose.
Do you think it is risky to sensationalize the issue?
AYITTEY: I don’t think Dambisa is sensationalizing the issue strong enough. Americans were [...]

ShareBy George Ayittey:
The foiled attempt by young Nigerian extremist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day has baffled many Africans and sent them scrambling for an explanation. This is not the stereotypical poor and desperate young man usually associated with violence on the continent. For one, Abdulmutallab is the [...]

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Ethiopia

Events of 2009
Ethiopia is on a deteriorating human rights trajectory as parliamentary elections approach in 2010. These will be the first national elections since 2005, when post-election protests resulted in the deaths of at least 200 protesters, many of them victims of excessive use of force by the police. Broad patterns of government repression have [...]

ShareSaudi Arabia has attempted to compete for regional influence in the Horn by funding a massive proselytization of Ethiopians [ the money launderers at Sheraton are funded by the larger body than what many Ethiopians  think]   to increase the numbers of Muslims over the historically Orthodox Christians there, in stark disavowal of the Prophet Mohammed’s [...]

ShareReinventing Ethiopian Politics
Aristotle wrote that “man is a political animal” to suggest that the defining characteristic of human beings is involvement in the civic life of their communities. Today, many Ethiopians across the board are strangely disengaged and alienated from Ethiopian politics. For the “alienated majority”, the disengagement is justified. They liken Ethiopian politics to [...]

ShareBy Coretta Scott King
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. We commemorate as well the timeless values he taught us through his example — the values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that so radiantly defined Dr. King’s [...]

Shareby Samuel Kinde, PhD
March 2002
According to a report published in 1999, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake, which seismologist say could happen in areas of close proximity to Addis Ababa, the country’s major city, could cause as many as 4000-5000 deaths, 8000-10,000 injuries and a displacement of as many [...]

ShareFrantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was a psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and author from Martinique. He was influential in the field of post-colonial studies and was perhaps the pre-eminent thinker of the 20th century on the issue of decolonization and the psychopathology of colonization.[1] His works have inspired anti-colonial liberation movements for [...]

ShareA conference in situ took place in Gondar, Ethiopia from 5-8 Nov. 2009 in co-operation with the University of Gondar. The opening ceremony took place on Thursday Nov. 5, 2009 at the University in the presence of Mengesha Admassu, President of the University, Habtamu Tedla, Mayor of Gondar, Ambassador Oded Ben-Hur, Ambassador of [...]

ShareOn January 12, Freedom House released its findings from the latest edition of Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the survey’s findings, 2009 marked the fourth consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline—the longest consecutive period of setbacks for freedom in the nearly [...]

ShareMonday, January 11, 2010
Today Ethiopian Americans held a successful demonstration across the street from the State Department in Washington where they expressed their outrage and concerns regarding the continued incarceration of the prominent political leader Mrs. Birtukan Mideksa and thousands of political prisoners in Ethiopia.
The protesters asked the US government and Secretary of State Hillary [...]

ShareJanuary 12, 2010
The President of the United States of America
The Honorable Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20501
Dear President Obama:

I am writing this to you on behalf of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE), a grassroots social justice movement whose mission is to mobilize Ethiopians in the Diaspora and within Ethiopia [...]

Share Alemayehu G. Mariam :
“Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, the novelist and poet. Is there “famine” in Ethiopia, or not? Are large numbers of people “starving” there, or not? Is convulsive hunger a daily reality for the majority of Ethiopians, or not?

No one [...]

ShareOn June 11, 1964, at the conclusion of the sham trial, Mandela, like Birukan Mideksa was found guilty on charges of sabotage and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He began his sentence in the notorious Robben Island Prison, a maximum security prison on a small island off the coast near Cape Town.
IF YOU WANT TO [...]

ShareLife sentence for Unity for Democracy and Justice leader casts shadow over May elections
At noon every Sunday an old Toyota sedan donated by supporters of Ethiopia’s most famous prisoner pulls up near a jail on the outskirts of the capital. A 74-year-old woman in a white shawl and her four-year-old granddaughter – the only outsiders [...]

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Looking Through the Glass, Brightly
“Ethiopia is the country of the future,” Birtukan Midekssa would often say epigrammatically. Ethiopia’s No. 1 political prisoner is always preoccupied with her country’s future and destiny. Her deep concern for Ethiopia is exceeded only by her boundless optimism for its future. For that reason, her maxim [...]

ShareBy Alemayehu G. Mariam:
″Birtukan Midekssa condemned to life in prison by a vengeful dictator, but unconquered.
Birtukan thrown into the dungeon of wrath and tears, but defiant.
Birtukan beaten, bludgeoned and bloodied, but unbowed.
Birtukan mocked, ridiculed and disrespected, but gracious.
Birtukan denounced, vilified, strong-armed and manhandled, but unafraid.
Ethiopia under the crushing boots of soldiers of fortune.
Birtukan, Invictus!
Ethiopia, Invictus!”

I [...]