Worldview : Human Rights Abuses in Ethiopia Ignored by the US

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Also in the news:
[SOMALI INSURGENTS LAUNCH ATTACKS ON ETHIOPIAN MILITARY INSTALLATIONS]
[Testimonies of DR. DADIMOS HAILE, JUDGE WOLDEMICHAEL MESHESHA and DR. MULUALEM TAREKEGN to the EU] - [TIME: Ethiopia receives more food aid than any other nation save Sudan, Yet its still hungry] - [ETHIOPIAN GOVT. CONTINUES TO RIDICULE SIYE ABRAHA] - [2007 IWMF Courage Awardee's Publishing Company Convicted]

International:
[Gaddafi, Mugabe want federal government for Africa] - [U.N. Supports U.S Troops Staying in Iraq] - [Battle for Gaza: Hamas Takes Fatah's HQ, Abbas Mobilizes Elite Guards] - [FBI tries to fight zombie hordes] and more of today's top stories!


(Picture – Ethiopia’s democratically elected parliamentarians, leaders of the opposition party Kinijit. In a politically motivated trial, the dictatorial government of Ethiopia convicted these elected opposition leaders, Monday, June 11, 2007. The trial has been widely condemned by international human rights groups as an attempt to silence Ethiopian government critics.)

[Audio] Worldview, Public Radio : Human Rights Abuses in Ethiopia Ignored by the US (Guest PROFESSOR ALEMAYEHU GEBRE MARIAM)

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Meqdes Mesfin — Physician; Daughter of imprisoned scholar and activist on U.S Public Radio
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ETP Special Edition: Reactions to the Kangaroo court's Ruling
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Ethiopian govt. continues to Ridicule Siye Abraha

(decision has been postponed in his case so many times, for so many comical reasons - that it’s hard to keep count)

Dr. Berhanu Nega in his book "Yenetsanet Goh Siked" has a dedication to Siye which reads as follows:

"To Siye Abraha and Asseffa Abraha - You are living proof of a government that pays lip service to the rights and protection of ethnic groups while only visiting misery, lawlessness and incarceration on those who stand up for those same rights and liberties"

[Why Siye matters]
[Free Siye Abraha!!]

Testimony before the European Parliament

Dadimos Haile, (LL.B, LL.M, S.J.D), Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp
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Honourable Chairs, Mr. Borrell and Madame Flautre, Honourable Members of the European Parliament, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak at this important hearing.

It has been a little less then two years since I first attended a meeting of the Development Committee and listened to the passionate pleas of Dr. Brehanu Nega, the mayor-elect of Addis Ababa, the Honourable Mrs. Gomes and other members of the European Election Observation Mission in Ethiopia.

Dr. Brehanu is in jail since, but the European Parliament has remained one of the few places where he and his fellow prisoners of conscience and other victims of postelectoral repression in Ethiopia are not forgotten. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Mrs. Gomes, Mr. Wijkman, Mrs. Auken, Madame Flautre, Mrs. Morgantini, among many other MEPs and their able professional staff for that.(More...)
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-TESTIMONY BY JUDGE WOLDEMICHAEL MESHESHA TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
-TESTIMONY BY DR. MULUALEM TAREKEGN EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBER OF THE CUDP TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
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Somali insurgents launch attacks on Ethiopian military installations

Insurgents have launched simultaneous attacks on five government and Ethiopian military installations in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

BBC - Insurgents have launched simultaneous attacks on five government and Ethiopian military installations in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. They are the most serious attacks since Ethiopian-backed forces battled Islamists and Hawiye clan fighters in April - the worst fighting in 16 years.

The attacks come a day after proposed peace talks were delayed for a month. The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says that the heavily armed attackers fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at three Ethiopian bases, the main football stadium and the defence ministry.

Mogadishu resident Nuuradin Jama told the BBC that the fighting he witnessed was very intense. "Armed men attacked the Ethiopians and the Ethiopians opened fire indiscriminately into the civilian areas," said Mr Jama.(More...)

Also see:
-Somali gunmen attack Ethiopians
-Somali gunmen target state official
-Suspected insurgents battle Ethiopians in Somalia

2007 IWMF Courage Awardee's Publishing Company Convicted

IWMF - The IWMF is concerned for 2007 Courage in Journalism Award Winner Serkalem Fasil. Her publishing company was convicted June 11 by the Ethiopian High Court - along with two other publishers and four editors - on anti-state charges linked to coverage of the government’s handling of disputed parliamentary elections in 2005.

Fasil, a publisher who owned three newspapers at the time of her arrest in November 2005, could face heavy fines or have her company dissolved, according to CPJ. Fasil was acquitted in April.

Dawit Fasil, brother of Serkalem and deputy editor of one of the company's newspapers, had also been released in April, but he has now been returned to prison. He faces up to three years of imprisonment on charges of “inciting the public through false rumors.” [Source]

Former NSU professor convicted in Ethiopia

Opposition leader, called a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, could face the death penalty.

A former Norfolk State University professor is believed to be among 39 opposition leaders convicted in Ethiopian courts on Tuesday in a trial that has been protested by human rights organizations around the world.

Yacob Hailemariam, who spent 20 years as a business professor at NSU, is one of the top officials in Ethiopia's primary opposition party and was among dozens who were standing trial for instigating and organizing rebellion against the government and other similar charges.(More...)

Also see:
-State Dept. says ex-NSU professor was convicted in Ethiopia
-Loved ones await word on former NSU professor in Ethiopia

Ethiopia: Two Editors Could Face Death

IFEX - Two Editors Could Face Death After High Court Convictions
Four editors and three publishing houses in Ethiopia were found guilty on 11 June of links to deadly 2005 protests against alleged poll-rigging, report the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF).

Sentencing is next month and two of the editors could face the death penalty. The exiled Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association (EFJA) is calling for urgent action from the international community to save their lives.(More...)

Also see:
-Journalists face prison sentences or, in two cases, death penalty

TIME: Ethiopia receives more food aid than any other nation save Sudan, Yet its still a desperately hungry place

Food Aid: Hungry For Change
HANNAH BEECH

TIME - Once in a while, we kids growing up in a Washington suburb would try to save the world. Our idealism often took the form of a "can drive" in which we would rescue dusty tins from the back of kitchen cupboards to feed the hungry.

I don't recall where the cans went exactly, but world starvation had a very specific face for us: a wide-eyed, big-bellied, fly-covered Ethiopian. Even in our American bubble, we knew that the 1984-85 famine had killed some 1 million Ethiopians. We would do our part by sending them cans of cream of mushroom soup, gefilte fish and Hormel Chili. I never once wondered whether the average Ethiopian owned a can opener.

The Ethiopians waiting for their food rations in the Meskan District of the arid Great Rift Valley look just as I'd imagined: wide-eyed and covered in flies. Many of the children are big-bellied from malnutrition.(More...)

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears

A poignant novel, by an Ethiopian native, set in DC about immigration, gentrification, and assimilating to the new amid memories of the past

Worlds collide in Dinaw Mengestu’s debut novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. In this poignant story of what it means to be a stranger, Mengestu—a native of Ethiopia and a former District resident—draws a parallel between gentrification and immigration, highlighting the subtle similarities between being new to a neighborhood and being new to a country.

“We all essentially wanted the same thing,” says Sepha Stephanos—the novel’s middle-aged protagonist and narrator, an Ethiopian immigrant who owns a corner store in DC’s changing Logan Circle neighborhood—“which was to feel that we had a stake in shaping and defining what little part of the world we could claim as our own.”(More...)

Ethiopia up 13 to 86th in FIFA rankings

FIFA World Football rankings issued on Wednesday witnessed major changes and climbers. After over 100 matches in the past four weeks including Euro 2008 qualifiers as well as continental qualifiers, more changes are expected among the top 10 in the upcoming months.

While World Cup champs Italy remained in the top spot, former champs Brazil dropped to third as France climbed to second place. Germany went up to fourth, as Argentina dropped to fifth followed by Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

Ethiopia is amongst the biggest climbers along with Armenia up 48 spots to 80th, Canada up 38 to 56th, Bosnia up 20 to 28th, Uganda up 15 to 91st, Eritrea up 14 to 125th, USA up 13 to 16th, Lithuania up 13 to 79th and Morocco up 12 to 35th.[FIFA rankings]

Gaddafi, Mugabe want federal government for Africa

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and visiting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe want African leaders to agree next month to unite Africa under one government to help it solve its own problems, state media said on Thursday.

(Picture - Gaddafi and Mugabe at an African Union summit. (AP photo)

The two men, both among the world's longest serving leaders, agreed in talks in Tripoli on Wednesday that the 53-nation African Union (AU) should be turned into an embryonic federal government at an AU heads of state summit in Ghana on July 1-2.

"They consulted on the upcoming African Union summit due to be held in Ghana, and in relation to this they emphasized the establishment of the African Union government," Libya's official Jana news agency said.(More...)

Battle for Gaza: Hamas Takes Fatah's HQ, Abbas Mobilizes Elite Guards

abcnews - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the first time Thursday ordered his elite presidential guard to strike back against Hamas militants bent on besieging his Gaza City compound.

Palestinian militants from Hamas celebrate their capture of the Preventive Security headquarters in fighting from Fatah loyalist security forces in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, June 14, 2007. (AP Photo/Eyad Albaba)

Previously, Abbas of Fatah had told the guard to maintain a defensive posture at his house and office in Gaza.Abbas was in the West Bank town of Ramallah when he handed down the order. This is a breaking news update. Check back soon for further information.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) Hamas, having wrested control of nearly all of the Gaza Strip, focused its firepower Thursday on the battle's top prizes Fatah's security and political command centers in Gaza City.(More...)

Also see:
-Hamas Nears Total Control Of Gaza
-Hamas says won't accept Gaza international force
-Palestinians weigh life under Hamas rule in Gaza

Today's Top International Stories

-Somali conference postponed again
-U.N. lauds Darfur pact
-U.N. Supports U.S Troops Staying in Iraq(Security Council Agrees to Iraqi Request to Extend the Mandate of U.S.-Led Multinational Force)
-Day of Mourning in Lebanon After Bombing
-Breakthrough In North Korean Nuke Deal($20M In Frozen Funds Transferred From Macau Bank)
-FBI tries to fight zombie hordes (The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals)
-Bill Clinton reports $10 million from speeches last year
-"Sopranos" creator defends ending






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