Ethiopia: Dying regime with curious supporters (Biddho)

The US Administration, through its representatives at the State Department, and most vocally through Jendayi E. Frazer, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, has gone out of its way to publicly and aggressively defend and protect the minority regime in Ethiopia, as it violates international law, rejects the Final and Binding decision of the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), refuses to allow for the unconditional demarcation of the Eritrea Ethiopia border, invades and occupies sovereign territories of neighboring states, violates the human rights of the Ethiopian and Somali peoples, commits genocides, rapes and untold international crimes against humanity, tortures political detainees and employing Menghistu's scorched earth policies, uses food as a weapon of war against the people of Ethiopia...Full text

FEATURE-Ethiopia's Ogaden refugees recount horrors of conflict (Reuter)

Osman Omar Abdi's journey from the Ogaden district of Jarar began in May after, he says, his wife was shot dead in front of him, his six children scattered, and his house burned during a chaotic morning raid by foot-soldiers.

"The Ethiopians say that all the Ogaden people are part and parcel of the ONLF, they don't differentiate, so they kill everyone," he said, displaying a scar on his hand that he described as a bullet-wound.

"I heard the grandparents got three of my children. I don't know about the others," added Abdi, revealing at the end of an interview that he had been a "member of the ONLF resistance."....more

Ethiopia 'bombs' Ogaden villages (BBC)

n separate interviews reported by the Reuters news agency, the Ogadenis claimed Ethiopian soldiers had been entering villages over and over again to kill, rape and burn in a campaign to flush out ONLF rebels....more

European parliament calls for war crimes probe in Somalia (AFP)

The UN secretary general's special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said Tuesday that war crimes suspects in the shattered African nation should be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court to end impunity.

In April, a European Union envoy to Kenya, Eric van der Linden, asked Brussels to investigate whether Ethiopian and Somali forces had committed war crimes in their recent crackdown on Islamist and clan insurgents in Mogadishu...more

Ethiopian opposition to brief media today in DC before heading home (Ethiomedia)

WASHINGTON DC - The Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (CUDP) delegation to the United States is giving a press conference at 3:00 PM Eastern Time today November 15, 2007 on the premises of the Ethiopian Television Network (ETN)..more

Who is in power? On the horns of a dilemma (Ethiomedia)

The official word from the Ethiopian government is that they have violated the terms of their release. They are accused of abusing the government’s gesture of good will in releasing them from prison. They have been talking to Congress. They said there is no democracy in Ethiopia . They have been badmouthing the government in the international press. They said there are gross human rights abuses in Ethiopia . They are consorting with the enemy. They are working with the OLF and ONLF. Reportedly, Meles held a recent video conference with the so-called regionanl council presidents, asking them to petition the federal government to charge the Kinijit leaders with treason for their support of H.R. 2003......more

Unjustly bullying and intimidating Kinijit leaders(Ethiomedia)

Important Video Clips (Ethiopian Mdia)

Toronto and Calgary's ceremonies for CUDP leaders)

Big Marathon Payday Becomes More Than a Dream (Newyork Times)

By FRANK LITSKY

Published: November 6, 2007

Gete Wami remembered the first time she earned prize money for running.

“I went to Italy and won $500,” said Wami, a 33-year-old from Ethiopia. “I took the money and built a two-room adobe back home.”

Robert Cheruiyot remembered the poverty of his youth, when he was limited to one meal a day at age 4 and had no shoes until he was 10 or 11.

“I got my first prize money when I went to Brazil, and they gave me $5,000,” said Cheruiyot, 29, from Kenya. “I went home and gave it to my mother.

“Getting this check here, I wasn’t expecting in my life to get this.”..Full txet

Students Protest Beyonce's Ethiopia Trip (Washington Post)

By ANITA POWELL

The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 6, 2007; 12:03 PM

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Students at Ethiopia's top religious college are protesting the close ties between the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the government, alleged restrictions on their speech _ and Beyonce's recent meeting with their patriarch...full text

Ethiopia, Eritrea on Verge Of Border War, Report Says (Washinton Post)

Ethiopia also has been building up its air force and jamming Eritrean radar, according to a U.S. government source, who speculated that Ethiopia may strike by air in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, hoping to topple the government there....more

VOA reports on the killing of Ethiopians in Kenya (Ethiopian review)

VOA report about the recent kidnappings and killings of Ethiopians in Kenya by Woyanne gunmen. Click here to listen

10 Ethiopian students killed, 4 journalists attacked in Kenya(Ethiomedia)

A recent report in Abyotawi Democracy, an Amharic-language organ of the ruling party of Mr. Zenawi, informs its readers that the most organized opposition forces tainting the “good image" of the government in Addis are the powerful Ethiopian Diaspora in North America and Europe, the US-based Ethiopian-American group campaigning for HR 2003 (i.e. a human rights and democracy bill pending US Senate approval), and exiled journalists and other Ethiopians based in Kenya....more

Clan elder accuses Ethiopia soldiers of killing 3 civilians (Garoweonline)

Mohamed Hassan Haad, leader of an anti-Ethiopia Hawiye elders' council, said the dead bodies of the three civilians were found today near Stadium Mogadishu, a major base for Ethiopian forces.

One of the dead victims was an old man who worked as a security guard for the independent HornAfrik radio...full history

Ethiopia rebels say killed 270 more troops (Reuter)

In its latest "military communique", the ONLF said "large numbers" of its fighters had engaged government troops in five places between Oct 26-Nov 1 due to "summary executions, detentions of nomads and senseless shooting of livestock". ...more

Coming of Age in America: Ethiopia in the Diaspora (The Ethiopian American)

By Alemayehu G. Mariam

Scattered by the Winds of Oppression

Perhaps with the exception of those Ethiopians who arrived in the U.S. in the early 1970s, most who came to the U.S. over the past three decades partly did so for political reasons. Whether it is the militarized terror of the Derg or the wanton violence of the current regime, politics remains a principal cause of Ethiopian refugees throughout the world. For obvious reasons, the U.S. remains a preferred destination for the majority of Ethiopian refugees, as it was the preferred educational venue for the earlier arrivals....Ful Text

Eritrea accuses Ethiopia of invasion plans again(Reyter

Ethiopia has threatened to pull out of the peace agreement ending the 1998-2000 war based on what it says were repeated violations by Eritrea. Asmara, in turn, accuses Addis Ababa of violating the pact...more

Dr. Berhanu Nega on Chicago Public Radio (Host: Jerome McDonnell) (KinijitEthiopia)

My encounter with Berhanu Nega - Elias Kifle( Ethiopian review)

A brittle Western ally in the Horn of Africa (The Economist)

The reasons for this economic crawl are not hard to find. Beyond the government-directed state, funded substantially by foreign aid, there is—almost uniquely in Africa—virtually no private-sector business at all. The IMF estimates that in 2005-06 the share of private investment in the country was just 11%, nearly unchanged since Mr Zenawi took over in the early 1990s. That is partly a reflection of the fact that, despite some privatisation since the centralised Marxist days of the Derg, large areas of the economy remain government monopolies, closed off to private business.

...This is where Ethiopia misses out badly. Take telecoms. While the rest of Africa has been virtually transformed in just a few years by a revolution in mobile telephony, Ethiopia stumbles along with its inept and useless government-run services. Everywhere else, a plethora of South African, home-grown and European providers has leapt into the market to provide Africans with an extraordinary array of cheaper and more efficient services, now used even by the poorest of farmers, for instance, to check spot prices for agricultural goods in markets miles away. And the mobile-phone revolution has created thousands of new livelihoods; at times it seems as if every boy on a street corner is hawking a top-up card. Not in Ethiopia.

...The Ethiopian government's efforts at political control are supported by a wide network of informers and secret police. Critics say it is exploiting the jihadist terror threat to link many legitimate opposition campaigners and supporters with terrorist groups and take them off the streets. The threats from Eritrea, where a new border war could erupt at any time, and the Islamists in Somalia are real. But at this rate, argues Mr Demeksa, “the ethnic groups are on a collision course.”...Click here to read more