Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.November 19, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – Khartoum disclosed on Sunday that new differences have emerged with Egypt over the findings of a consultative report related to the impact of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

The Sudanese Minister of Water Resources, Irrigation and Electricity Mutaz Musa made his remarks after the failure of a meeting with his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts to discuss the conclusions of a report on the GERD’s impacts prepared by French firms BRL and Artelia.

“Sudan and Ethiopia have reservations on some main points in the preliminary consultative report over the economic, social and environmental impact of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam,” Musa told reporters in Khartoum.

“At the top of these points there is the baseline data from which any study of the dam’s operationalization starts,” he further said pointing that Egypt disagreed with them and made expressed its reservation.

Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia signed a declaration of principles on the dam project that approves the dam’s construction but calls for technical studies to safeguarding the water quotas of the three riparian states.

On 22 September 2014, experts from the three countries agreed to carry out two studies on the dam project: the first one on the effect of the dam on the water quota of Sudan and Egypt and the second one to examine the dam’s ecological, economic and social impacts of the dam on Sudan and Egypt.

Musa said Sudan and Ethiopia have submitted “constructive and objective proposals”, based on the existing agreements, and proposed to demand the consultants to provide further clarifications in order to push forward the negotiations, but Egypt also rejected.

After Ethiopian reassurances that Egypt’s share of the Blue Nile water will not be affected during and after the filling period, Egypt continues to express fears that the power production of the High Aswan Dam would be affected by the reduction of water volume in Lake Nasser when begins the filling of the GERD.

The Italian Salini Construction Private has actually completed 70% of the Ethiopia am which is located at 30 km from the border with Sudan. The GERD is expected to hold 74 billion cubic metres of water.

The minister reiterated Sudan’s its commitment to the scientific means to resolve all the pending issues. Also, he renewed his country’s adherence to the Khartoum Agreement on the principles of bridging the Ethiopian Renaissance and the summit of the heads of the three countries in March 2015.

(ST)

The post Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt diverge over GERD’s impact appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

  Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

The post Eritrean, Ethiopian communities unite to help victims of Sonoma County fires appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.November 19, 2017
by Associated Press

The post Rev. Jesse Jackson Diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.ESAT News (May 18, 2017)

Members of the European Parliament called for the immediate release on bail and dropping of all charges against Dr Merera Gudina, the Chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress party.

Dr. Merera Gudina was arrested upon his return from a visit to the European Parliament on 9 November 2016, where he joined a panel with other opposition leaders and testified against the human rights abuses by the regime.

“Parliament further reiterates its call for a credible, transparent and independent investigation into the killings of hundreds of protesters in 2015 and into human rights abuses against members of the Oromo community and other ethnic groups perceived to be in opposition to the government,” the statement from the EU further said.

“MEPs urge the Ethiopian government to refrain from “using anti-terrorism legislation to suppress legitimate peaceful protest” and to lift restrictions on free expression and association,” the statement further said.

Anti-government protests in 2015 and 2016, especially in the Oromo and Amhara regions, had forced the regime to declare a state of emergency in October 2016. Hundreds of people were killed and tens of thousands remain in jail.
“This violation of human rights in Ethiopia is systematic and aggravated under the state of emergency. Excessive force against peaceful demonstrators, massacres as in Irreecha, brutalizing victims of the garbage dump landslide last March, brutal repression against the Oromo community and other ethnic groups, arbitrary arrests, torture, killings, terrorism charges against those daring to dissent,” Ana Gomes, a member of the european Parliament and a vocal critic of the Ethiopian regime said.
“In this resolution we call on the EU High Representative to mobilize EU Member States to support a UN led international inquiry into the killings in Ethiopia. Commission and Council must stop the pretense that they deal with a respectful government in Ethiopia to justify wasting piles of EU taxpayers money as development aid, security assistance or the ‘migration compact’,” she further said.
“They are in fact assisting a corrupt dictatorship which rules by terror, thus fueling rebellion and insecurity. Ethiopia is, indeed, strategic: when Ethiopians revolt, all Africa will tremble,” she noted.

The post Ethiopia: Parliament calls for release of Dr. Merera Gudina appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Alemayehu G. Mariam

BY ALEMAYEHU MARIAM, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

11/20/17 

In December 2016, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) announced incumbent Robert Mugabe will be its sole presidential candidate in 2018. In February 2017, Mugabe’s wife Grace told supporters that if her nonagenarian husband “dies, we will field his corpse as a candidate.” Mugabe chimed in declaring “there is no replacement, successor who is acceptable (to the people) as I am.” Last month, Mrs. Mugabe warned of a “coup plot.”

The best-laid plans of mice and (wo)men to continue Mugabe’s reign from the grave came to an abrupt end on November 15 when General S. B. Moyo declared Mugabe “and his family are safe and sound” and assured Zimbabweans there is no “military takeover of government,” only the “targeting criminals around (Mugabe) causing social and economic suffering in the country.” A day earlier, General Constantine Chiwenga defiantly warned the military “will not hesitate to step in to protect our revolution.”

Despite this apparently new interest in preserving democracy, for 37 years, the military was an indispensable part of a fossilized oligarchy which betrayed the “revolution” and bankrupted Zimbabwe.

Chiwenga acted because Grace-by-Mugabe-proxy was purging ZANU-PF leaders, particularly longtime vice president, liberation fighter and close Chiwenga ally Emmerson Mnangagwa, nicknamed the “Crocodile” because he is “power-hungry, corrupt and a master of repression.”

Chiwenga cynically invokes the specter of a betrayed “revolution” to legitimize the military’s intervention as a patriotic act in the imagination of Zimbabweans. But the fact remains Chiwenga saw a power vacuum in Grace Mugabe’s power play to replace her husband and filled it with his ally Mnangagwa.

So, is Chiwenga’s soft coup d’etat, “bloodless correction” still a military takeover of government?

The African Union condemned “what seems like a coup” and “demanded an immediate return to constitutional order.” Mugabe’s nemesis and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai condemned the coup as “unconstitutional,” hectoring legitimate change can come only “by the ballot box.”

Mugabe, the world’s oldest leader, is Zimbabwe’s only president since that country gained its independence in 1980. He was dubbed “hero of African liberation” for his role in dismantling white minority rule when Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia.

Mugabe’s tenure in office began with great promise. In his 1980 “Address to the Nation” as Prime Minister-elect, Mugabe declared:

“Only a government that subjects itself to the rule of law has any moral right to demand of its citizens obedience to the rule of law. Our Constitution equally circumscribes the powers of the government by declaring certain civil rights and freedoms as fundamental. We intend to uphold these fundamental rights and freedoms to the full.”

Yet Mugabe’s 37 year-rule was notorious for its flagrant disregard of the rule of law and constitutional governance. In its 2016 report, Human Rights Watch condemned “intensified repression” and “disregard for the country’s 2013 constitution.” The 2017 U.S. State Department Human Rights report lamented Mugabe’s persecution of “non-ZANU-PF parties and civil society activists for abduction, arrest, torture, abuse” and disregard for “the rule of law.”

Mugabe completely destroyed Zimbabwe’s economy inflicting great hardship on that nation of nearly 17 million people. In 2017, Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate is 95 percent. In 2009, Zimbabwe had a hyperinflation rate of 231 million percent. In 37 years, Mugabe transformed Zimbabwe from a bread basket to a basket case with an estimated three million Zimbabweans exiled.

But is Zimbabwe jumping from the frying pan of civilian dictatorship to the open fire of military authoritarianism?

The Zimbabwean military has been an integral part of Mugabe’s kleptocracy and today, according to a Zimbabwe Institute paper, “virtually controls the major institutions of the state and formal policy making structures and processes of the country.” The military’s top leadership “have teamed up with politicians and businessmen to form political and economic interest groups venturing into lucrative business ventures, such as platinum and gold mining.”

The Zimbabwean generals are trying to convince the world that they have not staged a military takeover but seek to rid the government of corrupt criminals and restore constitutional governance. Their hidden agenda is to play kingmaker in a post-Mugabe civilian government.

In just a few days, Chiwenga and his co-conspirators managed to orchestrate a ZANU-PF party leadership call for Mugabe’s resignation. They trotted out Mugabe for first time since the “coup” for a graduation ceremony, only to display him “falling asleep in his chair as his eyes closed and his head lolled,” as Reuters reported. A convenient public relations coup for the military.

They swiftly moved to anoint Mnangagwa as Mugabe’s successor, arrange Mugabe’s expulsion from the party and set a short deadline for him to choose between a dignified resignation and the final coup de grâce.

Oblivious to the fait accompli, Mugabe emphatically announced he will preside at the upcoming party’s congress. The die is cast and apparently he will resign. General Chiwenga and his co-conspirators succeeded in replacing a 93-year old Tweedledee with a 75-year-old Tweedledum, without their fingerprints anywhere on the coup that is, supposedly, not a military takeover.

Zimbabwe’s generals are playing the familiar myth of a “democratic coup d’etat” in Africa. Over the past five decades, 79 out of the over 300 coup attempts in Africa have been “successful”. But Africa’s military have proved to be “no better than civilians when it comes to running governments,” according to Major Jimmi Wangome of the Kenya Army. The military has instead plunged “the continent into further suffering and turmoil.”

Time will tell if Zimbabwe will be able to escape this burden of African history. Chiwenga and his co-conspirators are manifestly more concerned about preserving the special privileges of the liberation revolutionaries than the promises of the anti-colonial revolution. Mnangagwa’s anointing is proof positive that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Sadly, any post-Mugabe civilian government could only exist if it makes a Faustian bargain with the military.

Alemayehu (Al) Mariam is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, a constitutional lawyer and Senior Editor of the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies.

The post Mugabe is out, but don’t cheer because Zimbabwe’s military is in – Al Mariam appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.By Chris Bianchi

In today’s highly partisan political landscape, crossover votes are becoming less and less common. But one Colorado congressman has successfully navigated political polarization and redistricting to successive victories, despite representing a district that typically favors a party different from his own at the presidential level.

Colorado is home to one of the only 35 congressional districts (out of 435) that voted for a congressman or woman of one party and voted for a different party at the presidential level in the 2016 election. That Colorado district is the 6th, where Republican Mike Coffman is serving his fifth term. He’s won re-election there three times since CO-6 shifted into a much more favorable environment for Democrats in 2011 after redistricting.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the district by almost 9 percentage points, but Coffman turned around and defeated Democrat Morgan Carroll here by over 31,000 votes, or by almost 8 percent. That means somewhere around 17 percent of the district’s voters, or nearly one in five, voted for both Clinton and Coffman.

Where are these voters coming from?

That question is hard to answer in a district with more than half a million registered voters, but Coffman’s outreach to immigrant communities has likely contributed greatly to his electoral success. Coffman is a regular at events from a variety of different cultures, frequently spending time with the local Korean and Vietnamese communities. His Latino community efforts include regular appearances on local Spanish television (speaking Spanish) and radio and owning a Spanish-only Twitter account.

But perhaps one group more than any other can offer a glimpse into CO-6’s high crossover votes for Coffman. Ethiopians, now Colorado’s second-largest minority group, constitute a significant (and growing) proportion of the vote in CO-6, which includes Aurora, where most of the state’s Ethiopian community resides. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but most estimates place the state’s Ethiopian community at around 30,000 to 40,000 strong, with the majority living in Aurora. Well-educated, entrepreneurial, diverse and increasingly politically active, Ethiopia’s Colorado community includes Christians, Muslims and Jews.

Aurora’s Ethiopian Community May Be the Key to Mike Coffman’s Success
Courtesy of Rep. Mike Coffman
Coffman’s efforts since the 2011 redistricting have concentrated on the Ethiopian community, efforts that have been well received.

“On the issues that matter to us, Mike Coffman is standing with the Oromo people and the people of Ethiopia in general. He stands against injustice,” says Jamal Said, president of Ethiopia’s Oromo Community of Denver. “[Coffman] is very popular not just here, but wherever the Oromo community is in the United States. He is a household name.”

By all accounts, Coffman’s efforts in the Ethiopian community extend far beyond glad-handing for cameras. From offering citizenship-test classes at campaign offices to speaking out against the current Ethiopian government to even learning a few words of Amharic (“He butchers it,” laughs Coffman campaign spokesman Tyler Sandberg), Coffman has developed a strong bond with the Ethiopian community.

“Mike is the only person showing up, and the leaders are very appreciative,” Sandberg says. “He is so accessible out there in the community. For the Ethiopian and the Latin American community, he’s there. He’s showing up to Senegalese Independence Day [celebrations], he’s helping swear in new American citizens each month. Half the battle is just showing up, and he shows up.”

The first waves of Colorado’s Ethiopian community came to the States in the 1970s during the so-called Red Terror, when a Marxist military group known as the Derg killed an estimated 500,000 people in Ethiopia. The military group is widely blamed for exacerbating the effects of the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s that killed hundreds of thousands more.

As a result, Ethiopians are by and large averse to voting left of center because of their disdain for left-wing ideals like communism.

“A lot of Ethiopians are capitalists at heart,” says Yonas Ayalew-Mengistu, a local Ethiopian-American youth organizer who voted for Trump. “We had communists.”

While Ethiopians overall are unlikely to share most Republicans’ views on immigration, they are likely to support the party’s view on fiscal and social issues, such as health care.

“Typically, a lot of the folks that voted for [Coffman] are Democrats, but it’s a community that values relationships, and it’s also a community that has conservative values,” says Neb Asfaw, a community spokesman and co-founder of the Taste of Ethiopia festival. “There’s a perception that all minorities are Democrats, but that’s not the case, to my knowledge.”

Still, President Donald Trump is highly unpopular in the local Ethiopian community. Particularly upsetting to local Ethiopians is Trump’s recent call to end the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) Program, under which many Ethiopians arrived in Colorado in the 2000s. Trump’s discontinuation of the DACA program hit home for others as well.

“Overall, the Ethiopian community is terrified of Trump,” Asfaw says. “We don’t have a lot of illegal immigration, so we haven’t been affected by DACA or some of the other stuff that Trump is doing, but nevertheless, they are terrified of him.”

“We do believe that DACA is very, very important,” Said says. “Children that don’t make their own choices — I hope that he will reconsider his stance on the DACA program. Whatever color they are, kids are kids. They deserve an opportunity.”

Will Trump’s unpopularity in the community affect Coffman’s chances next fall, when he is up for re-election? Perhaps, say some, but Coffman’s consistent support of the community and his heavy condemnation of the current Ethiopian regime will likely retain these voters.

But that support is contingent on Coffman maintaining a degree of distance from the commander-in-chief.

“It’s one thing when you care about people in the news,” Asfaw says. “I think [Coffman] genuinely likes the Ethiopian culture. He genuinely seems to enjoy being at the community events and coming to church. I have a great deal of respect for him. I don’t agree with him on all the issues, but [I appreciate] the effort that he’s done, and it’s been consistent. During election time, during off times, it’s been very consistent. I think that’s very admirable and respectable.”

The post Aurora’s Ethiopian Community May Be the Key to Mike Coffman’s Success appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Somalia’s parliament, the House of the People, says the government’s formal handover of a Somali national to neighbouring Ethiopia was illegal.

The parliamentary body set up to probe the circumstances surrounding the transfer of Mr. Abdikarin Sheikh Muse of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) presented its report with the conclusion that the government of President Farmaajo was wrong in the matter.

The team of 15 legislators – from both houses of the parliament – was constituted on September 18, 2017 from the office of the Speaker of the House with the sole objective of reporting back on the circumstances surrounding the handover.

Mogadishu’s detention and subsequent transfer of the ONLF leader to Ethiopia in August 2017 sparked outrage in the country. The action was described as a breach of Somali and international laws – which decries refoulement.

The parliament was on recess at the time the action took place, most lawmakers had gone on the annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. The Upper House met but deferred to the Lower Chamber to deal with the matter first. The current decision is one issued by the two houses, reports indicate.

The ONLF group in a statement confirming the handover of its top official expressed worry about the possible mistreatment that Sheikh Muse was likely to face.

“The Somali government has forcefully transferred a political refugee to Ethiopia which is known to torture and humiliate its opponents. It has been intimated that Mr. Abdikarin was sacrificed in order ti get political support from the Ethiopian regime,” their statement in August read.

It condemned the Somali regime and called for the release of Muse – who Ethiopia insists holds an Ethiopian passport and opted to return voluntarily. That claim has been roundly rejected by the family and the group which he belonged to.

ONLF describes itself as “a national liberation organisation that struggles for the rights of the Somali people in Ogaden and has no involvement whatsoever in Somalia’s multifaceted conflict at all.”

The post Somalia illegally surrendered citizen to Ethiopia – parliamentary report appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

ESAT Latest Ethiopian News November 20, 2017

The post ESAT Latest Ethiopian News November 20, 2017 appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, one of Ethiopia’s biggest investors, among those arrested in Saudi anti-corruption campaign

As news spread of the detention of Saudi princes and business moguls in Riyadh earlier this month, alarm bells were ringing in another capital more than 1,000km away: one of Ethiopia’s most important investors was under arrest.

It remains unclear why Saudi authorities arrested Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, an Ethiopian-born dual citizen who is reportedly the second richest Saudi, behind Prince al-Waleed bin Talal.

Yet while Talal – and his investments in everything from Citigroup to Twitter to the Savoy – may have gained the most media attention worldwide, Amoudi’s arrest is significant for its potential to disrupt the economy of an entire country.

‘They are just freaking out left and right’

– Henok Gabisa, Ethiopia researcher

Amoudi – or “the Sheikh”, as he is known – has invested in nearly every sector of the country’s economy, including hotels, farming and mining – so much so that American diplomats once questioned how “nearly every” privitisation in Ethiopia since 1994 had involved Amoudi’s companies.

“The Sheikh’s influence in the Ethiopian economy cannot be underestimated,” according to a diplomatic cable from 2008 released by Wikileaks.

Nearly 10 years later, it’s hard to put a dollar figure on Amoudi’s total investments in Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest countries, yet one of the fastest growing in Africa.

His PR team does not comment on external figures and cautions against third party figures. One analyst put a $3.4bn value on his investments – or 4.7 percent of Ethiopia’s current GDP.

Another said his companies employ about 100,000 people which would account for 14 percent of Ethiopia’s small private sector, according to country’s latest Labor Force Survey conducted in 2013. However, World Bank analysts cautioned that these figures will have increased significantly over the past four years as the sector has grown.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Amoudi has dominated the front pages of Ethiopia’s top magazines since his arrest. News agencies have covered developments in his detention – including rumours on social media – as breaking news.

“They are just freaking out left and right,” said Henok Gabisa, a visiting academic fellow at Washington and Lee University in Virginia who researches Ethiopia.

Days after Amoudi’s arrest Ethiopia’s prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, felt compelled to hold his first news conference in two months and answered questions about Amoudi. The government, he assured, did not think Amoudi’s investments in Ethiopia would be affected.

An official at the Ethiopian Investment Authority dismissed the idea that Amoudi’s arrest would panic his government. “The country’s economy can never ever sustain itself by a single investor – it’s a 100 million population for heaven sakes,” he said. “How can it just depend on a single investment? It’s just funny.”

Amoudi’s UK-based spokesman, Tim Pendry, said in a statement: “The overseas businesses owned by the Sheikh remain unaffected by this development.”

‘He is someone whose presence and absence can make a difference in the economy of the country’

– Awol Allo, law lecturer

Yet while acknowledging that the Chinese – who are investing heavily in Ethiopia – now have a much greater stake than Amoudi, analysts and informed sources say even if the government isn’t panicking, there will certainly be concern over how a struggle within the Saudi palaces of power could have far-reaching consequences.

“He is someone whose presence and absence can make a difference in the economy of the country,” said Awol Allo, a law lecturer at Keele University.

“He is consequential, with all of the problems associated with his involvement in the country, he is a very consequential figure.”

Right place, right time

Amoudi was born in 1946 in Dessie, Ethiopia to an Ethiopian mother and a Saudi father. In 1963, he emigrated to Saudi Arabia to work with his relatives, according to his website.

His big break came in the late 1980s when the kingdom, trying to strengthen its security during the Iran-Iraq war, offered tenders on a series of underground oil storage facilities.

When Swedish contractors ABV Rock Group and Skanska grew concerned with the risks, Amoudi, according to a promotional video on his website, “stepped up… and offered to take over the challenge”.

Over the course of three decades, Amoudi has spun the success of that project into a vast network of investments – including in Sweden’s largest oil refinery – which Bloomberg estimates to be worth nearly $10bn.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.A statue of Lenin is toppled in Addis Abab in May 1991, days after the departure of pro-communist strongman Mengistu Haile Mariam (AFP)

Amoudi then turned his attention to Ethiopia at an historic moment: after the devastating famine in the 1980s and the 1991 coup that saw the end of the brutal, 17-year-old Derg regime, Ethiopia was slowly moving from a Marxist to a free-market economy.

The state today still controls economic key sectors, such as energy and telecoms. But in the early 1990s, the government began a process of privatising state-owned enterprises.

While the majority were sold to employees or individual Ethiopians, companies acquired by Amoudi, according to the diplomatic cables, were worth 60 percent of the entire dollar value of all of the companies sold.

The enterprises awarded to Amoudi’s companies covered a wide range of industries – leather, pickling, paint, coffee and tea, meat, bottling, mining and tourism.

“The Sheikh has cherry-picked the best of the companies sold to date,” the cable said.

‘The Sheikh has cherry-picked the best of the companies sold to date’

– American diplomats in 2008 cable

“There are no indications of impropriety in the bidding process, and the Sheikh is likely the wealthiest entity to have a significant interest in the Ethiopian economy,” the cable continues. “However, Amoudi is known to have close ties to the ruling PLF/EPRDF regime, and rumors persist of favourable treatment.”

‘Heart not head’

Today, according to an Ethiopian journalist who has followed his business deals over years, Amoudi is thought to have as many as 77 companies in the country. The same journalist said he is the second largest employer next to the government, a fact which MEE could not confirm by the time of publication.

His projects have not only enriched his fortune, say observers, but have made their mark on the country: his flagship Sheraton Addis, opened in 1998, changed both the landscape and the reputation of the capital, putting Ethiopia on the African diplomacy map.

But as well as making a fortune, Amoudi has repeatedly stated his intentions are more benevolent. in 2007 he reportedly told Donald Yamamoto, then US ambassador to Ethiopia, that he was led “more by his heart than by his head”.

Both the cables – which show Amoudi offering the Americans advice and encouragement to invest in Ethiopia – and analysts paint a picture of someone who is as much an investor as brand ambassador and one-man relief agency.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.After a landslide at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Addis Ababa killed 113 people this March, Amoudi reportedly gave over $1mn to families of those affected (AFP)

“Every time there is a major crisis, he does help individuals,” said Allo, the law lecturer at Keele University. “There is almost an expectation: how much did Amoudi give for this and that crisis?”

There are rumours that he has loaned foreign currency to the government when it fell short. More recently, he was the first investor to donate funds to the country’s Renaissance Dam campaign, reportedly giving $88m to the project.

‘We built that’

Amoudi’s arrest comes at a difficult time for Ethiopia. The government’s determination to push forward a Chinese-style, state-driven economic development programme to create a middle-income country by 2025 has led to widespread protests among many who feel they have been left on the scrapheap.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.In 2015, passengers line up to ride Ethiopia’s new Chinese-funded tramway in Addis Abada (AFP)

In the past decade, as the Ethiopian government has ploughed forward in the spirit of former leader Meles Zenawi, a Sinophile who pushed development over democracy; the economy has become its “ultimate source of legitimacy”, Allo said.

“Economic development became everything in the context of Ethiopia and the government points to the number of hospitals and schools built,” he said. “Whatever the underlying social sustainability problems, they can turn around and say, ‘We built that’.”

“As far as democracy is concerned, as far as elections are concerned, it’s just a ritual that they go through every five years,” he said, noting that in the last two elections in 2010 and 2015, the same party – the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) – has won almost all of the seats.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.In February 2016, demonstrators chant slogans while flashing the Oromo protest gesture during Irreecha, the thanksgiving festival of the Oromo people, in Bishoftu town, Oromia region, Ethiopia (Reuters)

And increasingly, as the government’s economy-over-democracy strategy has come under fire, Amoudi has become a lightning rod for criticism, fair or not, say observers.

“The things he’s been associated with aren’t all gleaming skyscrapers and five-star hotels – the more the rubber hits the road and the hard choices have their impact, he’s been on that edge of things as well,” said Jason Mosley, associate fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House.

One of Amoudi’s projects which has garnered criticism links back to Saudi Arabia. In 2007, when prices for staple crops doubled and food scarcity became a worldwide concern, the Saudi government launched a programme offering subsidies for those who invested in foreign farmland that would eventually export crops to the kingdom.

Starting up Saudi Star Agricultural Development in 2009, a rice-farming operation in Ethiopia’s Gambella region run by MIDROC Africa, Amoudi responded to kingdom’s concerns by investing in his home country “to develop poorly utilised land to the benefit of both countries”.

‘Why do we do it in Gambella with no roads, no electricity, no skilled workers? Because if we don’t, no one else will’

– Jemal Ahmed, Saudi Star CEO

“While contributing to the food security of the kingdom, the project will provide enormous benefits to Ethiopia in terms of foreign investment, job opportunities and food,” his website said. “Around half of the increased production is expected to remain in Ethiopia for local consumption.”

All land in Ethiopia is owned by the government and, according to an FT report last year, Saudi Star leases at least 14,000 hectares and will have invested $200m into the development by next year.

But the project has moved at a snail’s pace, said one local journalist, annoying Ethiopians who see the government allowing land grabs that fail to provide sufficient return. For the Saudis, the project has so far proved fruitless – the FT reported in 2016 that no rice has been exported to the kingdom since the project began.

“He’s known in Ethiopia for acquiring so much land, but many are not cultivated,” the journalist said.

In the FT article, Saudi Star officials acknowledged that there were problems early on with managers and consultants, but underlined that the company wasn’t only focused on the bottom line.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Employees of Saudi Star rice farm work in a paddy in Gambella, Ethiopia, in 2012 (AFP)

“If I had invested $200m in Thailand, we could easily have produced more rice,” Jemal Ahmed, Saudi Star’s CEO told FT. “Why do we do it in Gambella with no roads, no electricity, no skilled workers? Because if we don’t, no one else will.”

Amoudi’s operations in Ethiopia’s restive Oromia region have also come under fire. In March, regional administrators stopped work at a MIDROC pumice mine, and demanded local youths be hired to operate the facility. According to Gabisa, the Ethiopia researcher at Washington and Lee, many locals felt MIDROC’s gold mine in the region hadn’t brought the social benefits they expected.

“Oromo people feel like they were exploited,” he said. “If you go and see that area, they don’t have schools, clinics, nothing.

“Even the road his car travels on is not pavement. He didn’t build his own road. That’s how much people feel like he’s stingy.”

These critics, Gabo said, have watched Amoudi’s detention in Saudi with satisfaction. “They asked, when is he going to get prosecuted in Ethiopia?” he said.

They asked, when is he going to get prosecuted in Ethiopia?

– Henok Gabisa, Ethiopia researcher

But are roads, schools and hospitals Amoudi’s responsibility, asked Allo at Keele University.

“I’m sure there are a lot of people who have grievances and see his contribution to Ethiopia as a negative, but it’s important to look at it a bit more broadly,” he said.

“It’s not Amoudi’s responsibility to build hospitals. That’s the government’s responsibility to make sure that people who are in these areas where large-scale investments are taking place will have the social benefits that comes from their land.”

Mysteries and consequences

It remains unclear why specifically Amoudi was picked up in the Saudi arrests.

A source familiar with Amoudi’s business activities said many were surprised when he was in the list of those arrested because, unlike many others, he had made efforts throughout his career to adhere to Islamic banking tenants.

His detention, the source said, suggested that the arrests were solely focused on seizing assets for a kingdom challenged by dipping oil prices and a growing, young population.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Amoudi is thought to be detained in the Ritz Carlton in the Saudi capital (AFP)

MEE asked a spokesman with the Saudi embassy in the US why Amoudi had been picked up and whether particular projects or businesses were under question, but had not heard back after repeated contact.

While it is too early to know exactly how Amoudi’s arrest will affect Ethiopia, it is nevertheless apparent that Addis Ababa be watching developments in Riyadh for the foreseeable future.

“It’s not clear how this will actually play out in terms of the MIDROC group in Ethiopia,” said Mosely, “but it’s certainly an odd situation for Ethiopia to be in.”

The post The Sheikh of Ethiopia: How Saudi purge could disrupt an African country appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

BY ROSA HOEKSTRA

For two weeks in September 2010, I sat with a team of Ethiopian mental health experts inside a hotel in Addis Ababa, drafting materials for a new health and education training program for rural community health workers. The program would provide community health workers with an additional year of training: The workers would be trained in mental health and developmental conditions, including autism, for the first time.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Gathering data: Graduate student Dejene Tilahun interviews a community health worker about the Health and Education Training program.

As the rain poured down outside, we discussed what the program should include and how best to deliver it. What do rural health workers with no prior training in mental health or developmental conditions need to know? What skills and expertise are most helpful when providing basic health services in communities where no specialist is available?

My impulse as a researcher from a wealthy Western country (I am based in the United Kingdom) was to teach what we know about the causes of autism. I instinctively rejected spiritual explanations and treatments, even though spiritual explanations for autism are common in Africa.

But my Ethiopian colleagues explained this might not be a fruitful approach. In Ethiopia, where biomedical services are scarce and most families first seek help from traditional healers, it is much more effective to work with traditional institutions than against them. Harmful treatments should be discouraged, of course. But many spiritual or religious rituals cause no harm and can be helpful coping strategies for families.

These discussions fundamentally changed my outlook on autism. I used to confidently write statements such as, “The heritability of autism is around 80 percent,” oblivious to the fact that they are based purely on data from high-income countries. In fact, about 90 percent of the world’s children live in low- and middle-income countries, but only a fraction of research is conducted in these places. Even in North America and Europe, where the vast majority of autism research is conducted, ethnic minorities are sorely underrepresented¹.

As a result, our understanding of autism — its behavioral features as well as genetic and environmental risk factors — is likely to be incomplete and biased².

Since my first trip to Addis Ababa, I have been working with academics in Ethiopia and the U.K. to publish the first articles on autism in this African country. Using surveys, in-depth interviews and stakeholder workshops, we have identified several barriers to diagnosis and care for children with autism and other developmental conditions in Ethiopia. The education program for community health workers helps to start overcoming these barriers in hopes of reaching more children with these conditions.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Touching base: A research coordinator for the Health and Education Training program talks to a community health worker outside a clinic where local children receive checkups.

Hidden at home:

One important barrier is stigma. Many caregivers of children with autism in Ethiopia say they are worried about other people finding out about their child’s condition³. Some parents feel the need to keep their child hidden at home.

Many caregivers provide spiritual explanations for their child’s condition — for example, attributing autism or developmental delays to a curse on the family or a punishment from God. Spiritual explanations for autism are by no means unique to Ethiopia, but acknowledging them is key to understanding the treatment parents seek^4,5.

Perhaps more unique to a low-income setting such as Ethiopia are the severe unmet needs of families. The country has a population of 99 million people, of which 50 percent are children. But there are only two state-funded child mental health clinics where a formal diagnosis can be made. Both clinics are in Addis Ababa — inaccessible to most Ethiopians, who reside in dispersed rural communities⁶. The few autism schools that exist each have long waiting lists, meaning that most children with autism are without appropriate education. The vast majority of children with autism remain undiagnosed, with no access to intervention or appropriate education.

In 2003, the Ethiopian government launched the Health Extension Program to address the severe shortage in health services. Through this program, more than 40,000 community health workers received basic health training and were subsequently deployed throughout the country. The program has had some notable successes, including a marked increase in childhood vaccination rates and an increased uptake in the use of bed nets to prevent malaria.

But an evaluation of the program highlighted some gaps in training. Most importantly in the context of our work, the initial program did not include any training on mental health and developmental conditions.

At that hotel, we developed materials for the Health and Education Training (HEAT) program, which the government launched in 2011. Upon completion of the one-year program, community health workers gain a more senior title and a small pay raise.

The program provides the workers with two weeks of training in mental health, including some limited coverage of developmental conditions. In 2012, our team surveyed more than 100 workers from the first enrolled group. The workers were generally positive about the training but said they still felt ill-equipped to address developmental conditions⁷.

In response to those results, we produced five short videos illustrating how to identify developmental conditions and how to provide support to families. We also produced a mental health ‘pocket guide’ — an introduction to mental health, including sections dedicated to developmental conditions. Workers who completed the program, and particularly those who received the videos and pocket guide, have fewer negative beliefs about children with autism than workers who did not receive the training. They also are less likely to want to maintain a social distance from families with a child who has autism⁸.

These findings suggest that brief training in mental health and developmental conditions has a positive effect on beliefs and attitudes toward children with autism and their families. The HEAT study materials are open educational resources and free to be used or adapted for use elsewhere.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Play time: The Nehemiah Center is one of four schools for children with autism in Ethiopia. The school has a garden and play area.

Courtesy of Andy Shih

Going global:

I believe there are lessons from this work that apply beyond the borders of Ethiopia. Culture and socioeconomic circumstances can have a profound influence on autism families. We need a better understanding of these influences before we can truly serve autism communities around the world. Although research from wealthy countries can inform interventions, adaptations to local culture and context are essential to make sure interventions meet the needs of local families and work in low-resource health systems.

Over the past five years, I have had to adjust my preconceptions time and time again when designing a new study, developing an intervention or interpreting results. It is thanks to my Ethiopian colleagues that our research team has avoided embarrassing and costly mistakes.

For instance, my initial proposal to evaluate the impact of our training program was to conduct a postal survey. Google ‘reliability postal service Ethiopia’ to understand why that was a bad idea.

We need broad collaborations that include local researchers as well as parents of children with developmental disorders and representatives from governmental and non-governmental organizations. It is only through such partnerships that we can ensure our research is grounded in local culture and addresses the urgent needs of these communities.

Working with local researchers and students is also the only way to build local capacity for research. If we are serious about addressing the autism research gap in non-Western and resource-poor countries, we need to build a sustainable research base in these settings. Only by doing this can we work toward a truly global understanding of autism.

Several teams are deploying important autism research initiatives in low-resource, non-Western settings — for example, in Pakistan, India, South Africa and Kenya^5,9,10,11. By advancing and expanding these initiatives, we can extend autism research globally and address scientific questions that reflect the needs of the autism population worldwide.

Rosa Hoekstra is lecturer in psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychologyand Neuroscience at Kings College London.

The post How to address autism in Ethiopia and other low-income nations appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Amhara regional state President Gedu Andargachew and Oromia regional state president Lemma Megerssa (Both seated center)

addisstandard 2017-11-22

The post Transformation from within: hope or mirage? The OPDO-ANDM alliance and the prospect of reform appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

ESAT Breaking Newsews Nov 22 2017

ESAT special news Nov 22 2017

ESAT Daily News Amsterdam November 22,2017

The post Police commander shot and killed in Bahir Dar – ESAT Breaking Newsews appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

by Abdel Haq Noor

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Martin Luther King once remarked that: “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. The Somali region of Ethiopia is by far the unfortunate land of the 21^st century but yet unknown to many due to media blackout that obscures the actual state of things. Being in periphery coupled with ethnic affiliation with Somalia did not help but made matters even worse for Somalis in Ethiopia.

EPRDF’s constitution remains a mirage not only for the Somali region but the rest of the country. Hence, the main reason for the current unrest in the country. It’s plausible to suggest that the change of strategy used by EPRDF to root out the insurgency is partly attributable to the invasion of Somalia from 2006-2009. The main lesson drawn from the invasion was that to eliminate ONLF one should use the Somalis themselves. Hence, the creation of Liyu- Police.

The change of strategy not only helped the incumbent government to eliminate groups like ONLF but also succeeded in taming the people due to outright fear of their own sons and brothers-the Liyu Police. One might ask why the people couldn’t rise against the Liyu Police as they have done with the military in the past. Several reasons abound but two reasons stand out from the rest. These are: (a) the rule of engagement has significantly changed since the advent of the Liyu-Police. The Liyu-Police don’t abide by any rules whatsoever. They kill, rape, imprison, torch and displace entire villages at will and face no consequence for their deeds. This does not mean that the military is immune from doing such heinous crimes. They do. But not in such scary scale; and (b) the military is considered an alien force that came to subjugate the people. Hence, a rallying point for the insurgents to fight them. But the Liyu Police is different. Though the leadership mainly come from one sub clan, they still considered as part of the community. Rising up against them will bring intra and inter community conflict.

Abdi Iley encouraged by the praise of the generals exercised his power in the many incursions he made into the territory of Somalia proper and Somaliland and killing innocent people including elderly and children. Did the EPRDF regime cared and thus put in place mechanisms to regulate his absolute power?  Not at all! The regime thought that as long as he tamed and subdued the people, it does not matter the human cost and suffering involved. As a result, while they opt to condone his actions, they also hid the atrocities he is committing from the rest of the country and the world.

To give you a picture who Abdi Iley is, one should read the below two statements in conjunction. The first one is a saying of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) and the second one is that of Lord Acton. The Prophet (PBUH) said:” Among that which reached the people from the words of the earlier prophethood: if you feel no shame, then do whatever you wish.” (Bukhari). Lord Acton also said “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

The former saying of the prophet is not a license for people to do whatever they want. But rather it constitutes a threat and a warning for the shameless person. Secondly, it will also tell us that whoever feels no shame will do whatever they wish and thus descend to low moral standing. Similarly, Lord Acton has warned us about giving a person absolute power without any check and balance.

Abdi Iley is both shameless and a man bestowed with absolute power. Now have you got a picture? Let me illustrate both in examples. Long before he came to the circles of power, Abdi used to be an electrician with elementary schooling, grade 8 to be specific. One day his wife accused him of sodomizing her to the Sharia court. He acknowledged doing it but said that it was not intentional but a slip of his shaft. He also used to beat his mother in the market place. This is the guy the EPRDF generals brought him to climb the ladders of power and assume the presidency of the regional state.

Abdi Iley neither has the education nor the experience to lead people. So, power enters into his head and corrupted him absolutely. One clear indication of this is the way he portrays himself. He wants to be referred as “Aabbe” meaning “father” and the best leader in the whole of Africa (not sure if he considers Somali region as a country). Some even went to the extent of calling him “Nabi” (i.e. prophet) and “ Tinishu Egziabher (i.e. Junior god in the Amharic language) since he has absolute power in everything except bringing rain and changing the course of the sun. He can kill, imprison, make you extremely rich or poor overnight, displace an entire village and of recent entire Oromo inhabitants of the region, but to mention few of his crimes.

Since some of his supports gave him some deity characteristics and /or prophethood and yet he claimed to be the vanguard of Islam, I want to put him to Islamic litmus test to see if he is what he claimed to be. This test is to see if he fulfills the-main-objective-of-the-Islamic Sharia. The primary objective of the Islamic law is to preserve and maintain the five necessities. These are: protection of religion, protection of human life, protection of the mind, protection of progeny, and protection of property. I will explain each one of them in relations with Abdi Iley’s action.

Protection of Religion: Abdi Iley have taken Ethiopian government blatant intervention against the religion of Islam in contravention with its constitution (Article 11 (3) that reads “The State shall not interfere in religious affairs; neither shall religion interfere in the affairs of the State”, to another new level. He is not only satisfied with the imposition of the new “version of Islam” better known as Al Ahbash but went to imprison all the prominent sheikhs, closed the Quranic schools, and stopped any religious sermon in the mosques including the commentaries of the Quran, Hadith, and Sirah (i.e. the prophet’s autobiography).

Protection of Life: Life is Allah’s gift to human, and no one has the right to trespass it, even the person himself. Human being is dignified and thus has a right to lead a decent life not only having the basic needs but also protected from humiliation, annoyance, and harm. But in Abdi Iley’s world, life loses its meaning. Mass killings and displacement are committed because certain groups belong to a clan that allegedly support ONLF. Prisons are full beyond their capacities. Prisoners die from both their injuries due to the constant beatings and starvation. What’s more, the entire region is food insecure. As a result, IDPs camps are pervasive in the region and 3.3 million (50% of the total population) are in dire need of emergency food!

Protection of the Mind: Descartes said “I think; therefore, I am”. The ability to reason, the ability to understand are properties of humanity. Islam encourages us to use our mind to discover the truth and not to blindly follow. Here in this part of Abdi Iley’s world, everyone is expected to delegate thinking to “Aabe-the father”. Non-conformity causes one to lose not only his life but also to place the life of his family in jeopardy. Let alone to become an active opposition which can cause your life or that of your family members (if you are outside the country), not posting Abdi Iley’s picture will be considered a grave mistake punishable by loss of job, contracts, or imprisonment. Civil servants are compelled to register their close family members living abroad in order for them to attend rallies organized by Abdi Iley.

Protection of Progeny: Sexual reproduction is the means that keeps human species in existence, and for that reason humans are instructed to keep their progeny by forming families through marriage. The marriage institution is considered sacred and thus protected by law. However, as explained above, Abdi Iley is not a person to respect marriage institution even before he seized the power. Coming to power only increased his lust and carnal desires. Wherever he goes, girls of all types are brought to him to satisfy his sexual needs and those of his dignitaries. Credible sources tell us that Abdi Iley has got a department within his palace that are responsible in bringing girls and women of all types to entertain his guests. What’s scary is that those guests of honor will be recorded while having intercourse. Some of the girls brought to the guests were trained in love-making skills and will guide their innocent guests to commit perversion. Abdi Iley will use the recording to blackmail these individuals as they commit obscene things. Is this one of the reasons no one from the federal government and the generals afraid to speak against Abdi Iley and his crimes against the Somalis and Oromos? Furthermore, the main prison of Jijiga better known as Jail Ogaden is a typical example of how base Abdi Iley is. Girls and women ended up in that notorious prison will end up gang-raped and as a result will come out either having babies or pregnant. Men are also said being raped in that prison a copycat crime that resembles Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Protection of Property: Islam encourages work, production, and earning money and other property by lawful means. In the world of Abdi Iley, only few of his family members are allowed to trade as they controlled most of the trade in monopoly. For instance, bottled water, construction materials, such as cement and gravel, sugar and other food items are all under his brother, sister and brother in law’s control. The unfortunate thing is that your property will not be safe if you happen to be an opposition or have said wrong things about him. For instance, one of a former regional official traded insult with Abdi and Jigjiga city council found a way for paving a new road that passes via the home of this formal official, demolishing it to the ground with no compensation paid.

Do you have the picture of Abdi Iley now? Is he a guardian of Islam and humanity as he and his supporters portray him or a shameless man corrupted by absolute power? Or even more apt description is to call him a “Capo”. Victor E. Frankle in his famous book titled “Man’s Search for Meaning” aptly described Capos and how they are selected.  Capos were selected based on their level of inhumanity in treatment of other prisoners, the lower they are willing to go, the better their chance of being elected as capos. Inhumanity is the quality needed in the selection process and in case they still have shred of humanity, they are demoted quickly. Well, I think TPLF tried different “Capos” for leading Somali regional state and demoted them quickly, in maximum of two years, when they couldn’t find in these candidates what it takes to be a “capo” in Somali regional state. They found their candidate in Abdi Iley, and stuck with him for last 8 years now, and counting.

Capos and their sponsors in Hitler’s Germany were finally put to rest with the help of allied forces that recognized the risk of having such a menace in the world to their security and the all-time-truism that “injustice somewhere is injustice everywhere”. The tormentor-in-chief of Somali regional state has confined his tormenting business to Somali region or other Somali speaking areas of the horn. Naturally, finding no meaningful resistance in these parts, he needed to extend his reach, the closest target he found was Oromia regional state and Oromo nationals. If he succeeds here, others will follow. Hence, it is high time for Ethiopians to recognize tyranny anywhere in the republic is tyranny everywhere and will come back to haunt us all and jointly establish a kind of “allied forces” to resist and subdue Abdi Iley’s hand and his sponsors.

Abdel Haq Noor  is a political commentator from the Somali region of Ethiopia and he can be reached at abdelhaq.noor@gmail.com 

The post President Abdi Mohamud of Somali Region: The Capo of Our Time appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

(OPride) — Emails between senior Ethiopian government officials, obtained exclusively by OPride, shed new lights on the state-run Ethio Telecom’s abrupt decision to halt the text-to-give campaign launched by Oromia State in September. The disclosures also pinpoint the key government officials behind the action.

“Help rehabilitate our people displaced from the Ethiopian Somali region by texting “O” to 700 to give 5 birr,” Addisu Arega, the spokesperson for Oromia State, announced on Sep. 28, 2017 via Facebook and Twitter. “We thank Ethio Telecom for their huge support in setting up the campaign free of charge.”

However, the campaign that was meant to raise relief funds for the more than half a million Oromos displaced from the Somali Regional State lasted a mere five hours.

Two days later, Addisu was forced to confirm the abrupt cessation of the SMS campaign after donors reported trouble with the system. In a long Facebook post, Addisu characterized Ethio Telecom’s decision to take down the fundraising campaign as regrettable.

“The text-to-give SMS 700 campaign was one of the ways we hoped to raise money to rehabilitate our people,” he wrote in a tone that betrayed his disappointment.

“This effort failed. Ethio Telecom has informed us discontinuing the SMS 700 campaign and that all the funds raised so far will be refunded to the donors.”

But Addisu vowed that efforts by Oromia State to raise relief money will go on regardless. A few days later, on Oct. 3, he stated Ethio Telecom’s decision was unacceptable and that Oromia was trying to revive the effort.

After the campaign ended abruptly, the question on the mind of would-be donors was: Why did Ethio Telecom block us from helping our displaced compatriots in dire need?

The outrage on social media was swift and sweeping. Addisu urged the aggrieved public not to dwell on the ending of the text campaign but to seek creative ways to redouble their fundraising efforts.

State-owned Ethio Telecom, the sole internet and phone provider in Ethiopia, later admitted ending the SMS fundraising without giving reasons.

An email chain from the Chief Executive Officer of Ethio Telecom, Andualem Admassie Abate¹, viewed exclusively by OPride, give the most comprehensive account of how the agency handled the decision.

The CEO sent the emails to Ethiopia’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Debretsion Gebremichael, who has direct oversight of the telecom provider. He was reportedly on a visit to South Korea at the time of the SMS debacle.

Andualem, 42, has been with Ethio Telecom since 2010. He took over as the CEO in June 2013. From December 2012 to June 2013, he served as the Chief of Human Resources officer and Chief Internal Audit officer in Ethio Telecom, with France Telecom, Sofrecom and Orange, according to his LinkedIn page.

From the emails seen by OPride, Andualem comes off as a subordinate who takes orders without questioning them. In fact, during the exchange, he sounded petrified and rushed: His emails contained several typos and grammatical errors. At one point, he seems to have attached the same document three times. Andualem, who like Debretsion is a PhD holder, signs off every email reply to his boss as “with great respect,” a salutation he doesn’t seem to use for other colleagues. The exchanges show the asymmetrical power relationship between the two officials and offer insights into the inner-workings of Ethiopia’s power élite, where officials of Tigrean ethnic origin are accused of being the overlords of all others.

In his emails, Andualem seems to suggest that Ethio Telecom made the decision to halt Oromia’s SMS campaign in order to avoid “creating competition” between the two regional states. However, the involvement of senior officials, who had no direct oversight responsibility on the telecom giant, points to an undue pressure from the Somali region and its benefactors, particularly the head of Ethiopia’s military intelligence.

“The moment we sent the bulk SMS, the first call was from H.E. Ato Abdi [Mohamoud Omar] (Ethiopia Somali State’s President) and he requested to create the same short code and to do for them as well,” Andualem wrote.

“I also received a call from H.E. Ato Demeke [Mekonnen] and Ato Kebede [Chane]. I had a call from General Geberdela.”

While Demeke is a Social Cluster Coordinator with the rank of Deputy Prime Minister, Kebede Chane is the Minister of Federal Affairs and Pastoral Development. Like Andualem, Demeke and Kebede are senior leaders of the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), the junior partner in the ruling coalition and the governing party of the Amhara Regional State.

“Our conversation was all about the content of the SMS, which creates [sic] a big complain [sic] from different stakeholders,” Andualem wrote referring to the phone call he had with the two ANDM officials. He added, we agreed, “it is better to suspend [the SMS campaign] and ask an excuse [sic] via SMS.”

OPride could not independently confirm the text of Ethio Telecom’s SMS announcing the decision or whether such a message was ever sent. The agency did not post any statements on its website.By far, it is Gen. Gebre Dela’s involvement in the decision-making process that is quite intriguing and eyebrow-raising. As head of the powerful Military Intelligence Department, Gen. Gebre wields considerable power in crisis-ridden Ethiopia, particularly in the last three years. He is widely seen as the power behind Abdi Omar, a former intelligence officer and the current chief of the Liyu Police, which has waged war against adjoining Oromia districts — killing hundreds of Oromo civilians and displacing hundreds of thousands.

Abdi Omar is implicated in horrendous human rights violations in the Somali state that he rules with an iron-fist. Gen. Gebre is credited not only with Abdi Omar’s meteoric rise from an informant to head of security for the Somali region and then to its president but also for protecting the embattled warlord.

The leaked emails show Ethio Telecom’s susceptibility to influence and partiality in handling the situation. For example, whereas Abdi Illey had a fair hearing and seems to have galvanized allies in the federal government to lobby on his behalf, Andualem’s emails suggest Oromia was only informed of the decision — verbally — after Ethio Telecom suspended the campaign.

The crisis along the Oromia-Somali border was unprecedented. It’s the largest internal displacement of civilians in recent memory. But it did not generate a national outrage or campaign to resettle the victims.

This raises a lot of pertinent questions for Ethio Telecom: First, How is creating two campaigns a competition? Surely, there were Somali-Ethiopians who were displaced during the crisis. Even if the campaign was deemed controversial, for whatever reason, why didn’t Ethio Telecom consult with the two parties and launch a new NATIONAL campaign (as it did with the Koshe case)?

The SMS message in Afaan Oromo was short, factually correct and straightforward: “Text “O” to 700 to give 5 birr for the rehabilitation of our citizens displaced from Ethiopian Somali region.”

The telecom company didn’t have problem with the content. Why? Because they took it online. The language passed Ethio Telecom’s internal approval and fact-checking process. What exactly did ANDM officials find objectionable? Who are the stakeholders that allegedly complained to them about the content of the SMS message? What about the message? Based on the email disclosures, this argument simply doesn’t hold water, which lends credence to the question of external influence.

Tigrayan domination

The SMS debacle also corroborates many earlier complaints by former officials of the ruling party, who have since defected, that Tigrean underlings routinely overruled non-Tigrean principals from the other three coalition members of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), which has single-handedly ruled Ethiopia for 26 years.

It’s also a classic example of how important decisions, which affect the livelihood of the Ethiopian people, are arbitrarily made at the highest echelons of power.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.The total domination of the country’s political, economic, social, and security structures by the party that Debretsion heads as Deputy Chairman, the TPLF stoked widespread protests in Oromia starting in April 2014. The protests later spread to the Southern and Amhara states. This prompted a declaration of a state of emergency in October 2016. However, protests resumed immediately upon the lifting of emergency rule. Moreover, the ruling party in Oromia, the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), the second most junior member of EPRDF, embraced the demands of the protesters and openly expressed its commitment to respond positively to popular grievances.

In what opponents describe as a desperate bid to contain the growing crisis, the top leaders of the TPLF remain deadlocked on the way forward. Its central committee has been in meetings since early October. Debretsion is widely expected to takeover as the chairman of the powerful Marxist-Leninist party. He was part of the armed struggle that toppled the previous military junta in 1991. He has held many senior government positions, including as the Deputy Head of Intelligence and Deputy Prime Minister.

Debretsion is seen as the power behind Hailemariam, who is dismissed only as a figurehead and a placeholder exercising nominal control over key security and power ministries. He once publicly lamented not receiving intelligence briefs and being reduced to making decisions on hearsay. Debretsion is said to be the person who in fact supplies the prime minister with his talking points, including on the recent security directive, which opponents call a backdoor reimposition of the state of emergency, announced through the National Security Council, a body that lacks the legal and constitutional basis to do so.

A day in the life of SMS campaign

Andualem’s explanation of his agency’s handling of the Somali region’s complaint reinforces suspicions of undue external pressure on Ethio Telecom and suggests a later decision not to leave any paper trail. “We didn’t communicate [our decision to] them via a letter when it [the campaign] was stopped,” he wrote in a haste.

The leaked emails show the process of initiating the SMS campaign was fairly straightforward. No one from Ethio Telecom objected to Oromia’s request seeking a waiver of the standard 40 percent share the agency typically retains. The agency approved the request within four business days.

Here is the timeline:

• On September 20, 2017, Birhanu Feyissa, head of the Office of President of Oromia Regional State, sent a letter to Ethio Telecom requesting creation of bulk SMS and auto-reply, as well as a waiver of the agency’s standard 40 percent charge.
• The letter was sent to Ethio Telecom’s Corporate communication department for comment from the CEO office.
• The same letter was forwarded to the Corporate Social Responsibility and Events section for a comment and the section supported Ethio Telecom’s sponsorship (waiving the 40 percent cut it usually collects as a fee to aid in the rehabilitation efforts) and the department sent the letter to the office of the company’s CEO for final approval.
• The CEO office approved the request on September 25 and sent it to the Enterprise division for implementation.
• The Enterprise division asked the Oromia President Office for the content of the SMS messages.
• Oromia sent the requested content via a letter; the content was checked at Enterprise Officer level (as per the agency’s standard operating procedures).
• The campaign went live on September 28, 2017 around 3:00 PM local time.
• Ethio Telecom officers, presumably the CEO, spoke to Abdi Illey, Demeke Mekonnen, Kebede Chane, and Gen. Gebre Dela shortly after the campaign was officially launched.
• The SMS campaign was stopped (through verbal order) the same day at 8PM local time.
• A total of 117, 090 birr was collected from unnamed donors.

1.  Debretsion Gebremichael is Minister of Communication and Information Technology and until recently a Deputy Prime Minister and Finance and Economy Cluster Coordinator. He is also the Board Chair of Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation. Debretsion was previously Director General of the Ethiopian Information and Communication Technology Development Agency. In addition to his senior party position as a member of the Executive Committee of TPLF, Debretsion is currently  the Board Chairman of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

The post Leaked emails show Abdi Illey and senior Ethiopian officials pressured Ethio Telecom to halt Oromia’s SMS campaign appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Immediately Release Mamushet Amare, officially elected Chairman of the All Ethiopian Unity Party (AEUP), and the 122 other AEUP members.
Mamushet Amare has been wrongly and deliberately accused of terrorism based on the Tigrye People Liberation Front (TPLF) government’s fabricated accusation of him.

Sign the Petition

The post PETITIONS – Demand the Ethiopian government, to release Mamushet Amare, immediately ! appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.For immediate release
Internet Society

New Internet Society report highlights how Africa can benefit more from the Internet economy

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – 23 November, 2017 — Many African countries have made significant progress towards creating an Internet sector, with broad reforms that focus on increasing broadband availability.  There have been further successes within countries in developing online platforms, fostering growth of local companies and increasing the incentive to go online– says a new report launched today by the Internet Society, a global non-profit dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet.

“Promoting the African Internet Economy” (insert link) highlights how greater use of the Internet and digitization of the traditional economy will spur economic growth in Africa.

The report further examines Internet adoption and use by companies and governments throughout the region, identifying barriers that must be overcome in order to create an Internet economy that delivers innovative services, job opportunities and income growth across the continent.

Both businesses and citizens can benefit from an Internet economy.  Businesses across all sectors gain access to a global marketplace of billions of people, and citizens in both rural and urban areas benefit from enhanced educational and training opportunities and access to new job possibilities.

The report also outlines what needs to be done for Africa to take full advantage of the digital opportunity offered by the Internet. It highlights local successes as well as broader challenges, offering recommendations for policymakers in Africa to adopt.

“The Internet economy presents a major opportunity for Africa.  However, Africa needs a secure and reliable Internet infrastructure that users trust in order to bringing large and small businesses online, along with governments and other social services,” explains Dawit Bekele, Africa Region Bureau Director for the Internet Society.

The Internet Society in collaboration with the African Union recently introduced

Internet Infrastructure Security Guidelines for Africa to help AU member states strengthen the security of their local Internet infrastructure through actions at a regional, national, ISP/operator and organizational level.

In Kenya, the Internet economy already represents 3.6% of the country’s GDP and in other developing countries 1.3% of GDP comes from the Internet economy. The McKinsey Global Institute predicts that in addition to contributions to GDP, the Internet will deliver productivity gains across Africa.  These productivity gains across six key sectors:  financial services, education, health, retail, agriculture and government are projected to be valued at between US$148 billion and $318 billion by 2025.

However, a thriving Internet economy in Africa could be put at risk by the increasing number of Internet shutdowns in the region. In 2016 alone, there were at least 56 shutdowns of the Internet around the world. These shutdowns affect individuals and organizations that depend on the Internet for their daily lives and have negative effects on the economy.

“In addition to the economic costs, Internet shutdowns also affect trust. If people don’t know whether they will have connectivity, they can no longer rely on that connectivity to build Internet-based businesses. This will affect entrepreneurs in greatest need of digital-led innovation for their own future, and the future of the Internet economy in Africa,” added Bekele.

About the Internet Society

Founded by Internet pioneers, the Internet Society (ISOC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet. Working through a global community of chapters and members, the Internet Society collaborates with a broad range of groups to promote the technologies that keep the Internet safe and secure, and advocates for policies that enable universal access. The Internet Society is also the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Media Contact:

Allesandra deSantillana

Internet Society

desantillana@isoc.org

The post Secure, Trusted Internet Critical to Advancing African Economy appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

NOVEMBER 23, 2017 08:59 AM

UPDATED NOVEMBER 23, 2017 09:00 AM

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

In this Oct. 6, 2017 photo, boats sail on the Nile River in Cairo, Egypt. Tensions between Egypt and upstream Nile basin countries Sudan and Ethiopia have flared up again over the construction and effects of a massive dam being built by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, the waterway’s main tributary. Egypt fears the dam will reduce its vital share of the river’s waters and accuses Addis Ababa of not sufficiently cooperating on containing the dam’s effects. Amr Nabil AP Photo

Tensions between Egypt and upstream Nile basin countries Sudan and Ethiopia flared up again Thursday over the construction and the effects of a massive dam being built by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile, the waterway’s main tributary.

A mostly desert nation of some 100 million people, Egypt fears the dam would reduce its vital share of the Nile waters and accuses Addis Ababa of not sufficiently cooperating on containing the dam’s effects. Egypt and Sudan have historically been allies, but a dispute over ownership of a border strip has poisoned relations, with the Egyptian media now routinely accusing Khartoum of taking Ethiopia’s side in the dispute over the dam.

Differences over the Ethiopian dam, which is 62 percent complete, is potentially destabilizing and could add a new and dangerous layer to the turmoil already ravaging the region. Military action by the Egyptians to halt the construction of the dam is unlikely, though not impossible, but if the three nations don’t closely cooperate to limit its effects, their relations would be fraught with tension and distrust for many years to come.

Seeking to portray Egypt as a bullying neighbor, Sudan’s foreign minister this week said Cairo was only unhappy about the dam because it would stop it from using some of Sudan’s own share of the river’s waters.

“It’s high time Egypt pays what it owes and for Sudan to get its full share,” said Ibrahim Ghandour, the minister.

Egypt responded late Wednesday, with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry dismissing as inaccurate his Sudanese counterpart’s comments. The timing of his comments, said Shoukry, was suspicious given the negative fallout from the failure by the three Nile-basin nations to endorse a technical report prepared by an independent company on the likely effects of the dam.

“You cannot talk about water relations between two countries in terms of credit and debt … and it seems suspicious to raise this issue at this point of time,” Shoukry told Egypt’s official MENA news agency.

On Thursday, Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry responded to a recent comment by Egypt’s president that the river’s water is a matter of life and death to his country. The “Renaissance Dam” meant life or death to its country, too, said the ministry.

“We will continue to work with Sudan and Egypt for a fair and equitable use of the Nile water. This water source is the key to alleviating hunger and reach a level of development that other countries have reached,” the Ethiopian ministry said, seeking to reassure the Egyptians.

Egypt publicly recognizes Ethiopia’s developmental needs and the value of the dam to the east African nation, but it maintains that “water is a matter of life or death” for it. To Egypt, the most alarming effect of the dam is the length of time it would take the Ethiopians to fill the large water reservoir behind it. Egypt wants this to be a gradual process that would not dramatically reduce the volume of water reaching it.

“No one can touch Egypt’s share of water,” Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said last week in a thinly-veiled threat to Ethiopia. A week earlier, he made a stern warning to the Ethiopians. “We are capable of protecting our national security and water to us is a question of national security. Full stop,” he said, but did not elaborate.

 

The post Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia tensions over dam flare up again appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.BBC

Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to respond with “the utmost force” after 300 people were killed at a North Sinai mosque during Friday prayers.

The al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed was bombed and fleeing worshippers were then gunned down.

The Egyptian military has said it has conducted air strikes on “terrorist” targets in response.

No group has yet claimed the attack, the deadliest in recent memory.

After bombs were set off, dozens of gunmen waiting outside the mosque opened fire on those trying to escape.

The assailants reportedly set parked vehicles on fire in the vicinity to block off access to the building, and fired on ambulances trying to help victims.

Thirty children are among the dead and at least 100 people have been wounded.

“What is happening is an attempt to stop us from our efforts in the fight against terrorism,” Mr Sisi said in a televised address hours after the attack.

“The armed forces and the police will avenge our martyrs and restore security and stability with the utmost force.”

Egyptian security forces have for years been fighting an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, and militants affiliated with so-called Islamic State (IS) have been behind scores of deadly attacks in the desert region.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Image copyrightEPA

Who was targeted?

Locals say the al-Rawda mosque is used by the local Sawarka tribe, which is known to cooperate with the security services against militants.

It is also known to be popular with worshippers of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam that is condemned by some jihadist groups.

The head of IS’s “religious police” in Sinai said last December that Sufis who did not “repent” would be killed, after the group beheaded two elderly men reported to be Sufi clerics.

The number of victims is unprecedented for an attack of this type, says the BBC’s Sally Nabil in Cairo. She adds that this is the first time that worshippers inside a mosque have been targeted by militants in North Sinai.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

How has Egypt responded?

An army spokesman said “terrorist spots”, where weapons and ammunition were reportedly stocked, had been bombed by air force jets on Friday in response.

The official also said that several vehicles used in the attack had been located and destroyed.

Three days of national mourning have been declared.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Can Sisi curb a stubborn insurgency?

By Orla Guerin, Cairo correspondent

This is a major challenge to the Egyptian state.

If this was IS, it is always worth considering the broader regional dimension. In the last few months, IS has had massive territorial losses in Iraq and across the border in Syria.

If IS was behind this, this could be an attempt to remind supporters around the world that they are still here, still relevant and can still inflict terrible damage on their enemies.

What we don’t know right now is if the Egyptian security establishment, if President Sisi, has anything else in the arsenal to try.

He has already tried the hardline military approach – there has been a massive military operation going on in the Sinai peninsula for years. It has not delivered results that time and time again the Egyptian establishment has promised.

But it is unclear if they have something new they can try to attempt to curb this very stubborn Islamic insurgency which has inflicted such terrible damage in this attack.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Which militants operate in the area?

Militant Islamists stepped up attacks in Sinai after Egypt’s military overthrew Islamist President Mohammed Morsi following mass anti-government protests in July 2013.

Hundreds of police, soldiers and civilians have been killed since then, mostly in attacks carried out by the Sinai Province group, which is affiliated to IS.

Sinai Province has also carried out deadly attacks against Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority elsewhere in the country, and said it was behind the bombing of a Russian plane carrying tourists in Sinai in 2015, killing 224 people on board.

It has been operating mainly in North Sinai, which has been under a state of emergency since October 2014, when 33 security personnel were killed in an attack claimed by the group.

Sinai Province is thought to want to take control of the Sinai peninsula in order to turn it into an Islamist province run by IS.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Image copyrightREUTERS

Journalists, including from state-sponsored outlets, have not been allowed to report from North Sinai in the last few years.

Correspondents say that the frequency of attacks raises doubts about the effectiveness of military operations against militants.

What has the reaction been internationally?

Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit condemned the attack as a “terrifying crime which again shows that Islam is innocent of those who follow extremist terrorist ideology”.

Governments in the UK, US, France, Russia, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have deplored the massacre.

The post Egypt attack: President Sisi pledges forceful response appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Boeing 787-9 at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport

Ethiopian Airlines, the largest Aviation Group and SKYTRAX certified Four Star Global Airline, is pleased to announce that it has taken delivery of its second Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner fleet on November 21, 2017.

In less than a span of a month since Ethiopian took delivery of Africa’s first Ethiopian B 787-9, the 2^nd B787-9 aircraft has joined its youngest fleet totaling its operating fleet to 95 among which 21 are from the Dreamliner family. As a global airline, Ethiopian names its fleet after notable landmarks situated in the cities it operates to; hence, the new fleet has been named after the city of London.

Since its delivery in October, Africa’s first Ethiopian B787-9 has made its debut flight to major cities like; Kilimanjaro, Zanzibar, Kinshasa, Mombasa, Abuja, Madagascar, Dubai and Delhi. Customers have enjoyed its unique features such as biggest windows in the sky, high ceiling, less noise, distinctive lighting, and higher air humidity.

About Ethiopian

Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopian) is the fastest growing Airline in Africa. In its seventy plus years of operation, Ethiopian has become one of the continent’s leading carriers, unrivalled in efficiency and operational success.

Ethiopian commands the lion’s share of the pan-African passenger and cargo network operating the youngest and most modern fleet to more than 100 international passenger and cargo destinations across five continents. Ethiopian fleet includes ultra-modern and environmentally friendly aircraft such as Airbus A350, Boeing 787, Boeing 777-300ER, Boeing 777-200LR, Boeing 777-200 Freighter, Bombardier Q-400 double cabin with an average fleet age of five years. In fact, Ethiopian is the first airline in Africa to own and operate these aircraft.

Ethiopian is currently implementing a 15-year strategic plan called Vision 2025 that will see it become the leading aviation group in Africa with seven business centers: Ethiopian Express & Ancillary Services; Ethiopian International Services; Ethiopian Cargo Services; Ethiopian MRO Services; Ethiopian Aviation Academy; ET In-flight Catering; and Ethiopian Ground Services. Ethiopian is a multi-award winning airline registering an average growth of 25% in the past seven years.

Source: Ethiopian Airlines Press Release

The post Ethiopian Airlines Receives a Second Boeing 787-9 Fleet appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.

Members of the House of People’s Representatives (HPR) are seen leaving parliament on Thursday November 23, 2017 after a surprising low 50 percent plus one attendance was recorded for the day’s session. This is the first time in history, since the ruling EPRDF took office, that the number of representatives attending a regular session in HPR almost failed to constitute a quorum.

25 November 2017
By Yonas Abiye

• House regular session narrowly meets quorum

In what seems to be an unprecedented state of affairs, the House of People’s Representatives (HPR) is conducting its regular session in visibly low attendance. On Thursday the House barely met the required quorum of 50 percent plus one or the 275 threshold in the 547-member Ethiopian parliament.

Since early October, after President Mulatu Teshome (PhD) inaugurated the joint session of the two Houses, one too many regular sessions have been skipped in the lower House, although the various Standing Committees have been meeting regularly.

In fact, the level of attendance has shown a marked decline since parliament commenced this year. Even when Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn defended the motion presented on the President’s speech, light attendance was observed.

According to Article 58 (1) of the Constitution, the regular sessions should be conducted provided that more than half of the member representatives are in attendance there by constituting a 50 percent plus one quorum requirement.

However, thus far, there was no incident where the House had failed to fulfill the required quorum. Even this year, in spite of the clear decline in attendance of regular House sessions, there has not been any time where the lawmaking body has struggled to meet the threshold (quorum).

But, Thursday’s session was unprecedented in the sense that it was held with the lowest attendance ever recorded in recent history. In fact, the meeting barely escaped the minimum quorum level.

The meeting was called to deliberate on two agendas – one was a question and answer session with the minister of Trade, Bekele Buladu (PhD), and the second one was to deliberate on a draft proclamation (concerning nationwide integrated master plans) which was eventually referred to the House of Federation (HoF).

The draft legislation was presented to the House last month originally before it was referred to the Urban Development and Construction Affairs Standing Committee for review. However, upon reviewing the draft law for more than three weeks, the standing committee has brought it back to the House this week for consideration and if possible voting.

But, this was not to be. In fact, the House decided to re-refer this piece of legislation to the HoF for the reason that two of its articles could be potentially contradictory to the Constitution. Hagere Minale, member of the responsible Standing Committee, told the House that two of the proposed provisions would in fact need Constitutional interpretation.

On Thursday, the Standing Committee’s report and the resolution of the House did not attract the usual debates or questions from the MPs as most of the notable figures in the House were absent. Hence, the House voted for the bill to make its way to the upper House for further constitutional interpretation.

Soon after the conclusion of the day’s session, The Reporter tried to solicit the reaction of Deputy House Speaker, Shitaye Minale, regarding the gradual decline of the number of MPs in the House. However, Shitaye refrained from offering details and said; “most of the members are away from Addis Ababa on field supervision work while some of them are engaged in separate meetings that day”. But, she did not offer further details.

Shitaye took over the gavel from Abadula Gemeda – still formally House Speaker but announced his resignation days before the opening of this year’s parliamentary term – and has presided over all except two of the regular meetings so far this year.

Thus far, no official statement was issued from the government regarding the absence of MPs from parliament in recent days.

In terms of presentation, constituencies in Oromia region have the highest number of seats accounting as many as 178 while Amhara comes in second with some 134 seats. Whereas, other constituencies such as those from the South, Tigray and Addis Ababa have served seats of 108, 37, and 23 seats, respectively. The remaining 20 seat are designated for other parties which are currently occupied by affiliate parties of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), who have won constituencies in regions namely Somali, Afar, Gambella and Benishangul Gumuz.

In fact, in most cases, the regular House sessions are not necessarily attended by 100 percent of its members. In some special cases senior government official who are responsible for key government offices are allowed to miss regular sessions in relation to the weight of their mandates. But in most cases, their absence does not seem to affect overall attendances of the House.

In the current parliamentary term, over 20 MPs sit on the cabinet of Prime Minister Hailemariam holding ministerial positions while over 30 of them are in state ministerial capacity. Yet again, there are a considerable number of people serving in diplomatic missions residing abroad and are not be expected to attend most of the regular sessions.

Considering the past six regular sessions, most of the meetings are observed to be attended by less than 300 members sparking question as to why over 200 MPs are consistently absent from their lawmaking duties.

*****

Source: Reporter

The post Where are the legislators? appeared first on Satenaw: Ethiopian News|Breaking News: Your right to know!.