Saudi Arabia said it has confirmed four more cases of a lethal new coronavirus in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, with the oil-rich region now accounting for half of the total 38 cases confirmed globally in the year-long outbreak. The rate of infection also may be increasing, with more than half of the new cases reported during the past two weeks, heightening worries in Saudi Arabia and internationally about the disease’s spread. The Saudi government says 28 of the total cases confirmed since fall 2012 occurred in the kingdom, and nine people have died.

The virus, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, has spread from the Gulf to France, Britain and Germany. The WHO has called it the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

It is a distant relative of the virus that triggered the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that swept the world in late 2003 and killed 775 people.

The origin of the MERS virus is still unclear. So far, it appears to spread between people only when there is close, prolonged contact.

Continue reading…

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A couple of days ago, I was politely telling some European travellers to not willingly vacation in countries like the United Arab Emirates where thousands of young Ethiopian women are being enticed with the promise of work – only to suffer verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Well, to my disappointment, they were less enthusiastic to acknowledge the sad plight of African and Asian women in that God-forsaken region. Western powers spend trillions of dollars to fight against evil spirits that rule principalities. They send thousands of their sons to Afghanistan, Iraq and co. as a blood sacrifice to the beast. They import millions of the new-barbarians to their countries, give them everything they want, protect and appease them despite the fact that they are the first to jump down their throats when things go wrong. They let these barbarian into their societies so that they could shake the judeo-christian foundation. They let them abuse the system freely. They rape their daughters, kill their young soldiers brutally – yet, they still refuse to learn how to walk in other people’s shoes.

The crimes committed against poor Ethiopian women in the Middle East are indeed horrendous and horrific crimes against humanity that violate the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet, the ‘civilized’ world, the United Nations do nothing to stop these crimes. The UnUnited Nations!

Another Ethiopian ‘Commits’ Suicide in Mount Lebanon

An Ethiopian domestic worker committed suicide in the home of her employer in the Mount Lebanon town of Choueifat last Wednesday, June 12, 2013, a security source said.
The 23-year-old died by hanging using a rope in one of the rooms of her employer, the source said.

According to one report, the worker was pregnant in her sixth month.

Source

Ethiopian dies, Pinay maid survives torture, starvation by UAE employers

A Filipina housemaid in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) survived torture and starvation at the hands of her employers but her Ethiopian colleague did not.

The couple faced the Court of First Instance for the alleged abuse as prosecutors sought life imprisonment for them, according to a report on the Khaleej Times news site on Tuesday.

Charges lodged against the couple included illegal imprisonment, deprivation of freedom with the use of force, physical and mental torture leading to death, and causing bodily harm, the report said.

However, the couple — a 45-year-old public relations officer and her 42-year-old policeman husband — denied the charges against them.

A forensic expert said the Ethiopian maid weighed only 37 kg when she died, while her blood samples contained traces of a pesticide, even as the suspect allegedly tried to bribe one maid with money so she would not talk to the police.

Both the Ethiopian and Filipina sustained severe injuries leading to infection.

On the other hand, the court was told the Emirati policeman merely watched while his wife abused the maids and locked them up in the bathroom.

He allegedly secured his villa in Nad Al Hamar area so the two maids could not escape.

Torture

The Filipina maid, 29, said the torture lasted a couple of months.

She told the prosecutor her employer would beat her and deny her food, and even force her to drink a mix of detergents when she did not like her cleaning.

Also, she said the employer would threaten her with jail and claim she and her husband had connections with the police and immigration.

She would also allegedly threaten to circulate nude pictures of the two. She had taken photos of the two after forcing them to strip.

The Filipina added the Emirati would bang their heads against the wall while they were cleaning the house.

She added the Emirati fed the Ethiopian only a piece of onion, sugar and salt for five days, and fed her better only after the Ethiopian lost consciousness.

But when the Ethiopian’s injuries became infected, the employer would not take her to a hospital for fear the abuse may be discovered.

Witness

The Khaleej Times report said a maid of the employer’s friend testified she herself was abused by the employer, who threw detergent on her face and forced her to sniff her underwear.

Even the employer’s friend, a 35-year-old manager, testified seeing the employer beating the victim with a stick.

However, last Jan. 16, she said she heard the employer beg the maid not to speak to the police and offered her money.

Source

Explicit Details of Degrading Sexual Attack on S. African Reporter Lara Logan in Egypt

Because the Egyptians thought that she was an American and a Jew. She had just been doing her job, as the CBS News foreign correspondent in a country which is hostile to the Christian world — a country that American tax-payers aid to bully Christian Ethiopia

Watch it here

Horrifying: Australian Woman Gang Raped in Dubai – Then Jailed 8 Months for Sex Outside Marriage

Alicia Gali of Australia was excited about her new job in the “desert paradise” of Dubai. American-owned Starwood Hotels, one of the world’s largest hotel groups, even offered to pay for her plane ticket and accommodations as part of the contract that she become a manager.

The United Arab Emirates had been aggressively targeting Australia for tourists when she took the job in 2008, portraying itself as “really progressive and forward-thinking and the ‘new’ Middle East,” Gali said. But when she got there, she found another world entirely.

After being drugged and gang-raped by three of her colleagues, Gali says she found no help from her superiors at the hotel. After she took herself to the hospital, she was thrown in jail for eight months for sex outside of marriage.

Gali’s Australian attorney explained that, as far as she understands, the crime is only considered rape under the country’s strict Islamic laws if there are “four adult, male Muslim witnesses that can provide evidence that the sex was non-consensual.”

Continue reading…

Horrific ordeal of ‘Girl D’ who was raped injected with heroin, branded and sold for sex at £600 an hour

• Mohammed Karrar plied girl with drink and drugs and raped her

• She then became his ‘property’ and a sex slave

• Was loaned out to abusers around the country for up to £600 an hour

The ordeal for one of the victims began after she became desperate for love and attention because she was forced to care for her sick parents.

So when Mohammed Karrar entered her life, bought her perfume and treated her like an adult, she believed in him. But the ‘nicey-nicey honeymoon period,’ as she described it, would last barely a year.

After grooming her, Karrar made sure she was ‘out of it’ on drink and drugs before raping her on his sofa.

Continue reading…

Muslim Gang Raped 100 Teenage Girls in The UK

Watch it here

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The new Egyptian tyrant-Pharaoh, Morsi, pointed out that The Nile belongs to Egypt and only Egypt;

“If a drop is lost from the Nile, our blood will be the alternative. If Egypt is the Nile’s gift, then the Nile is a gift to Egypt.“

But, The Lord says:

“I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, you great monster lying among your streams.

You say, “The Nile belongs to me; I made it for myself.”   [Ezekiel 29: 1-3]

And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.  [Ezekiel 29:9]

U.S. quietly allows military aid to Egypt despite rights concerns

Secretary of State John Kerry quietly acted last month to give Egypt $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid, deciding that this was in the national interest despite Egypt’s failure to meet democracy standards.

Kerry made the decision well before an Egyptian court this week convicted 43 democracy workers, including 16 Americans, in what the United States regards as a politically motivated case against pro-democracy non-governmental organizations.

Continue reading…

Senator Rand Paul: American taxpayers funding war on Christianity

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My Note: Abdel Bari Atwan, who once was on Colonel Gaddafi’s payroll, is urging Arabs to unite behind Egypt to defeat, what he calls, the Afro-Israeli conspirators who are planning to block the river Nile.

This disgraceful editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab daily, “Al Quds al Arabi” — who often appears on the BBC and CNN, has been a big supporter of terror attacks on Israel. His anti-Israel, anti-US and anti-Christian stance is so obvious, yet, the BBC & co give him a prominent platform to spread misinformation and disinformation

He is, of course one of those people who speak differently in Arabic and in English. He once said:

“If you support the Palestinian resistance, you do not consider Bin Laden’s attacks terrorism”Abdul Bari Atwan, a London-based journalist and editor of Al Quds Al Arabi, told Egypt’s ON TV, when asked if Bin Laden was a terrorist, that:“If you support the Palestinian resistance, you do not consider [Bin Laden's attacks] terrorism. But if you are with America, Europe, and Israel, you do consider it terrorism. It depends on your definition of terrorism … Whoever fights America and its enterprise in the region, and whoever fights Israel and the American occupation, is not considered a terrorist by me.”

How this wicked individual has become a regular contributor to BBC Dateline and writes for The Guardian poses a riddle to me.

This’s what he wrote on the Nile issue:

On Tuesday, Egyptians woke up to news from Ethiopia that it intends to complete the ‘Rennaissance Dam’ on the Blue Nile. The river currently supplies 85 percent of downstream Egypt’s water. Such a step would not only affect Egypt’s water supply but would also impede electricity production at the mega, hydro-powered Aswan Dam.

Several Egyptian newspapers used the story of Ethiopia’s planned and its impact on Egypt’s national security to attack Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. They said he must bear responsibility for Ethiopia’s decision, accusing him of ignoring this critical issue, even though it was not dealt with by the previous regime.

Ethiopia began construction of the dam in 2011, at a cost of $4.7 billion, with support from Israel. The plan is to use hydro-power to generate electricity and turn the Renaissance Dam into a major source of energy in Africa.

The main threat to Egypt, however, does not lie in generating electricity or diverting the river. The main problem is that Ethiopia is also building an industrial lake to store 74 billion cubic metres of water, greatly reducing Egypt’s quota of water.

The initial results of such water shortage would lead to the suspension of turbines that generate electricity in the Aswan Dam, in turn having a significant impact on agricultural land.

Egypt’s previous regime lacked a suitable policy for working with Nile Basin countries. Hosni Mubarak’s government was arrogant in its dealing with Sudan for over ten years, a stance which led Israel to intervene, confronting Egypt and paving the way for this threat to its national security and economy.

Israel’s Foreign Minister at the time, Avigdor Lieberman, who had once threatened to bomb the Aswan Dam, led an Israeli delegation comprising businesspeople and engineering experts across five African countries in 2011. The minister said Israel was ready to support dam-building and the diversion of Nile water. The visit led to the signing of Entebbe agreement between Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Congo. Burundi pledged not to sign the agreement, but soon caved in.

Motivated by political and commercial self-interest, Israel’s interference was not surprising – nor was the subsequent involvement of several Israeli firms in the resulting mega-projects, including an agreement to distribute the energy produced by the new dams.

Hosni Mubarak made disastrous mistakes in dealing with the water issue, Ethiopia’s water projects and Israeli threats to Egypt’s security. The government also exaggerated the issue of Halayeb and Shalateen to wage war against Sudan and the regime of President Omar al-Bashir.

Following a failed assassination attempt on Mubarak in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the Egyptian government turned on the Sudanese regime, accusing it of being complicit in the incident. Mubarak opened an embassy for the head of the rebel movement, expressing his support for South Sudan.

Another mistake made by the former Egyptian regime was that it failed to strengthen its relations with Horn of Africa states, including Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti. A number of these countries treat Ethiopia as an enemy due to Ethiopia’s historic occupation of their lands.

Aboud El-Zomor, a senior official from Egypt’s Building and Development Party, has claimed the Ethiopian move to build a dam is “a declaration of war.” He has urged President Morsi’s regime to respond firmly, knowing full well that the current economic conditions in Egypt could prevent such a response.

The Nile water dilemma has been one that previous rulers of Egypt have struggled to deal with. History tells us that Muhammad Ali Pasha established a military force to interfere immediately if Ethiopia or any other country threatened Egypt’s water interests.

Often nations – both civilized and uncivilized states – manage to unite when they face a crisis which affects the whole state; throughout history, government and opposition forces have come together and set their differences aside to confront a potential threat to national security. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Egypt today. Instead, we’re seeing a brutal political and media war that threatens to destroy Egypt’s national unity.

Egypt is an easy target. It is surrounded by potential threats on all sides. Sinai is a semi-failed state in the East. Libya is a failed state in the West. Civil wars have destroyed Sudan from the East, West and South. Israel conspires against all of them in the North, while the Egyptian state has internal problems too.

The sad truth is that Egypt’s strongest supporters in the past were Syria and Iraq. Now the Gulf States have turned against these countries and Egypt faces its problems alone.

I support Egypt and its people, and wish they would confront the conspiracies that target its national security. Egypt’s people face Israeli manipulations in Africa, the collapse of its state machinery and starvation. All of the above, plus the collusion of internal elements with foreign powers to destabilise Egypt are red lines that should unite all political forces in the country.

Egypt needs a strong and wise administration to confront the current crises. A government which gives priority to the national interests of the country. I have confidence in the Egyptian people, their leadership and their military institutions that are loyal to Egypt.

Once united, the Arab nation can never be defeated.

Source

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No denial on the Nile. When an audience of millions overhears pious Egyptian Islamists and well-heeled Egyptian liberals mull classic covert warfare options — such as having Ethiopian rebels sabotage Ethiopia’s new Blue Nile dams or deploying shady political agents to agitate in Addis Ababa — the usual diplomatic salve, plausible denial, isn’t an option.

In point of fact, the Egyptian government’s initial embarrassment has given way to hard-edged declaration. Egyptians will fight Ethiopia for every drop of Nile River water!

For politically fractured and factionalized Egypt, war talk is a unifying tonic and a distraction from Egypt’s endless miseries. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government has simply failed to address the enormous economic and social problems afflicting Egypt.

Solving embedded societal ills requires a national unity of purpose. Morsi has been a national divider. His sharia-based constitution delighted Muslim Brothers but dismayed Egypt’s liberals. His attempt to invoke emergency rule (reminiscent of Hosni Mubarak) splintered Egypt’s Arab Spring revolutionary front. Muslim moderates joined with secular liberals and demanded he resign.

But Nile water sustains all Egyptians. The trite adage, “Egypt is the Nile,” is true. From Aswan north to Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea, the green band bordering the great river is home to 90 percent of Egypt’s population.

Morsi needs a route to national reconciliation. The Nile Water War (temporarily) solves Egypt’s broken puzzle: Us Downstream Egyptians versus Them Upstream Ethiopians.

But Ethiopia’s dams did not suddenly appear. For two decades every nation in east Africa has known Ethiopia intended to build several large hydro-electric dams and become Africa’s biggest power exporter.

Ethiopia has been waging a steady diplomatic campaign asserting its rights to Nile water. Ethiopia’s case is as passionately essential as Egypt’s. One word defines the basic case: famine. Water in reservoirs is a hedge against famines induced by drought. Electrical power sums Ethiopia’s expanded case.

Ethiopia contends the traditional division of Nile water distribution rights are based on an antiquated colonial artifact that unfairly favors Egypt. The 1929 Nile Waters agreement (engineered by Great Britain) gave Anglo-Egyptian Egypt 90 percent of the Nile’s annual flow. Egypt could also veto upstream water projects. In 1957 Ethiopia announced it would utilize Nile water resources within its territory. The Blue Nile and its Ethiopian tributaries generate 75 to 85 percent of the Nile’s annual flow. The White Nile, from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, generates the rest.

A war between east Africa’s two most powerful nations would be a disaster for both. That’s so obvious I’ll wager even Mohammed Morsi knows it. The war options Egyptian leaders vetted included buying new long-range strike aircraft. Egypt’s air force can handle border conflicts, but hitting the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a long-range operation. Sudan separates Egypt from Ethiopia. One parliamentarian thought credible strike aircraft might give Ethiopia political pause. Ethiopia’s already credible air and ground forces should give Egyptian sword rattlers pause.

In April 2011 StrategyPage.com reported that Ethiopian diplomats had proposed an interesting win-win solution. Ethiopia would sell Egypt a partnership interest in its dams. Egypt would have ownership input in the operations. Ownership guaranteed Egypt reliable hydro-electric power. Egypt would also split the profits from selling electricity throughout Africa. Hey, Cairo. For the dams to generate electricity, water must flown downstream.

Ethiopia’s proposal at least creates the possibility of a win-win political deal. In time cool heads in Cairo should accept it.

Source

[Isaiah 19:3-7]

The Egyptians will panic, and I will confuse their strategy. They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead, from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians.

I will hand Egypt over to a harsh master; a powerful king will rule over them,” says the sovereign master, the LORD who commands armies.

The water of the sea will be dried up, and the river will dry up and be empty.

The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will trickle and then dry up; the bulrushes and reeds will decay, along with the plants by the mouth of the river. All the cultivated land near the river will turn to dust and be blown away.

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የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተክርስቲያን ፓትርያርክ ርዕሰ ለቃነ ጳጳሳት፡ ብፁእ ወቅዱስ አቡነ ማትያስ በፊታችን ሰኞ፡ ሰኔ ፲ በግብጽ አቅደውት የነበረውን የአራት ቀናት ጉብኝት መሠረዛቸውን በመስማቴ እፎይ! ብያለሁ። እግዚአብሔር እንደሚጠብቃቸው ብተማመንም፡ የአባይ ወንዝ ማዕበል በተነሳበት በዚህ ቀውጢ ወቅት ወደ “ጅቦች ዋሻ” ለመሄድ እንዴት ፈቃደኛ ሆኑ? አማካሪዎች ምነው ዝም አሉ? የሚል ስጋት ነበረኝና። የኢትዮጵያ ከፍተኛ ባለሥልጣናት ወደ ግብጽ ባይሄዱ ጥሩ ነው፡ ፕሬዚደንት ሙርሲም ከሁለት ሣምንታት በፊት አዲስ አበባን ሲጎበኙ ከፍተኛ ባለሥልጣናት በቦሌ አቀባበል ስላላደረጉላቸው ተገቢና በጣም ጥሩ ነገር ነው ብያለሁ።

ይህ የበላይነት ስሜት ሳይሆን፡ በእውነት ለመናገር፡ ግብጾች በጣም የሚናቁ ከኢትዮጵያውያንም ልዩ አትኩሮት የማይገባቸው ሰዎች ናቸው። ፈጠነም ዘገየም፡ ሞኝነታችንን ትተን እነዚህን ሕዝቦች ወደታች የምንመለከትበት፡ እስካሁንም ዝም ብለን በመታለላችን የምናፍርበት ዘመን እንደሚመጣ እርግጠኛ ነኝ። ኢትዮጵያ፡ በደቡብ ግብጽ የሚገኙትን የቀድሞ ግዛቶቿን ከማስመለስ፡ ኢትዮጵያውነታቸውን እንዲክዱና እንዲወድቁ የተደረጉትን ኑብያውያን እንዲፈወሱ ከማድረግ በቀር ከግብጽ የምትፈልገው አንድም ነገር የለም። ስለዚህ፡ የበላይነቱን የያዙት፡ ቅዱሳኑ ተራሮች ላይ ያሉት ኢትዮጵያውያን መሆናቸውን እያንዳንዱ ኢትዮጵያዊ ሕሊናው ውስጥ በማስቀመጥ፤ ለዘንዶው መስገዱን በፍጥነት ማቆም ይኖርበታል።

አቡነ ማትያስ በኢየሩሳሌሟ የኢትዮጵያ ገዳም ለረጅም ጊዜ ቤተክርስቲያናችንን ያገለገሉ አባት ስለሆኑ የግብጻውያኑን ሁኔታ በደንብ ያውቁታል የሚል እምነት አለኝ።

ባለፈው የካቲት ፳፩ አቡነ ማትያስ መንበረ ጵጵስናውን ሲረከቡና የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተክርስቲያን ፮ኛ ፓትርያርክ ሆነው ሲሾሙ የግብጹ ኮፕት ኦርቶዶክሳዊት ቤተክርስቲያን ጳጳስ አቡነ ቴዎድሮስ በቦታው አልተገኙም ነበር። ግን፡ አቡነ ቴዎድሮስ ባለፈው ወር ላይ በ ቫቲካን እና በአውስትርያ ጉብኝት ማድረጋቸው ይታወቃል። እህታማ የሆነችው የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ቤተክርስቲያን ፓትርያርኳን ስትመርጥ እሳቸው አዲስ አበባ ባለመገኘታቸው ሲያሳዝነን፡ የመጀመሪያ ጉብኝታቸውን በአውሮፓ፡ ያውም በቫቲካን ማድረጋቸው ግን ግራ የሚያጋባ ሆኖ ነው ያገኘሁት። ወደፊት፡ አባይን አስመልክቶ ወደ አዲስ አበባ የሚመጡ ከሆነ ማን አስገድዷቸው ሊሆን እንደሚችል ከ1300 ዓመታት ግብጻዊ ልምድ በኋላ መገመት የሚያዳግተን አይመስለኝም። አቡነ ማቲያስና አቡነ ቴዎድሮስ በ ተክለ ሐይማኖት ቀን ነበር ለፓትርያርክነት የበቁት።

ከሁለት ሳምንታት በፊት በካይሮ የኢትዮጵያን ባንዲራ እንዲያቃጥሉ እንዲሁም ኢምባሲውን ለማጥቃት ብሎም ኢትዮጵያውያን ስደተኞችን ለማደን ሲንቀሳቀሱ የነበሩት አንዳንዶቹ ድርጅቶች የኮፕቶችን ስም የያዙ ነበሩ። በአገራቸው እንደ ሁለተኛ ዜጎች የሚታዩት ኮፕቶች የሚያሰቃዩቸውን የሙስሊም ወንድማማቾችን ፍላጎት ለማሟላት ሲሉ ጸረ-ኢትዮጵያ የሆኑ ተቃውሞዎችን እንዴት ከሁሉ ቀድመው ሊያሰሙ በቁ? አዎ! ኮፕት ክርስቲያኖች ግብጽ አገራቸውን ይወዳሉ፡ እንደ ኢትዮጵያ፡ “ጠላት“፡ ለሚሉት የውጩ ወገንም ተቃውሟቸውን በካይሮ መንግዶች ላይ ያሰማሉ። በኢትዮጵያ ያሉ ሙስሊሞች ደግሞ የኢትዮጵያን ደህንነት ለማናጋት እንደ ግብጽና ሳዑዲ ከመሳሰሉ ጠላቶች ጋር በማበር የአዲስ አበባ መንገዶችን ያቆሽሻሉ። የግብጽ ክርስቲያኖች እና የኢትዮጵያ ሙስሊሞች በጥቂቱ ለማነጻጸር ይህችን ደብዳቤ እንይ።

ከዚህ ጋር በተያያዘ ሊወሱ የሚገቧቸው አንዳንድ ነገሮች አሉ፦ የግብጽ ኦርቶዶክሳዊት ቤተከርስቲያን ፓትርያርክ፡ አቡነ ቴዎድሮስ 118ኛው የግብጽ ፓትርያርክ በመሆን ባለፈው ጥቅምት ፳፭ በዓለ ሲመታቸው ሲከናወን የግብጹ ፕሬዚደንት መሐመድ ሙርሲ በዚህ ታላቅ ስነሥርዓት ላይ ለመገኘት አሻፈረኝ ብለው ነበር። በሌላ በኩል ግን እባቡ የግብጽ ፕሬዚደንት ሙርሲ፡ ከ ዓመት በፊት፡ በሐምሌ ፱ ፪ሺ፬ ዓ.ም ወደ አዲስ አበባ ተጉዘው ከቀድሞው የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ቤተከርስቲያን ፓትርያርክ፡ ከብፁእ ወቅዱስ አቡነ ጳውሎስ ጋር ተገናኝተው እንደነበር የሚታወስ ነው። የአገራቸውን ፓትርያርክ ‘እንኳን ደስ ያለዎት!’ ለማለትና ለማነጋገር አሻፈረኝ ያሉት ፕሬዚደንት ሙርሲ የኢትዮጵያን ፓትርያርክ ለመጎብኘት በቁ! ፎቶዎቹ ላይ እንደምናየው። አቡነ ጳውሎስ ፕሬዚደንት ሙርሲን ከጨበጡ ከ1ወር በኋላ ከዚህ ዓለም በሞት ተለዩን።

አንድ የግብጽ ፕሬዚደንት ወደ ኢትዮጵያ የተጓዘው ከ 17 ዓመታት በኋላ መሆኑ ነው። አቡነ ጳውሎስ መታመም የጀመሩት ፕሬዚደንት ሙርሲ ጋር ከተገናኙ፡ (June 16) (መስቀል ኢየሱስ July 17 ነው) ከ17 ቀናት በኋላ ሲሆን፡ ማረፋቸው የታወቀው ደግሞ በ17ኛው ቀን፡ ልክ በ July 16 ነው (መስቀል ኢየሱስ)። የቀድሞው የግብጽ ኦርቶዶክስ ቤተክርስቲያን ጳጳስ፡ አቡነ ሸኑዳ lllኛውም ያረፉት እ.አ.አ March 17, 2012 ዓ.ም ነበር። (በ ቅዱስ ማትያስ ዓመታዊ በዓል)

ባለፈው ዓመት፡ ፕሬዚደንት ሙርሲ፡ ለአፍሪቃ መሪዎች ስብስባ ወደ አዲስ አበባ ከማምራታቸው በፊት በፕሬዚደንትነት ለመጀመሪያ ጊዜ የጎበኟት ሳዑዲ ዓረቢያን ነበር። ወደ አዲስ አበባ ከማምራታቸው ከሦስት ቀናት በፊት በሳውዲ ቆይታቸው ከሳውዲ የልዑላን ቤተሰቦች ጋር ተገናኝተው፡ ከጥቁሩ ድንጋይም አስፈላጊ ነው የሚሉትን ጂሃዳዊ ቅመም ተቅብለው ነበር። የሳዑዲ ዜጋ የሆኑት ሸህ ሙሐመድ አላሙዲ በወቅቱ ሳዑዲ እንደነበሩ ይነገራል፡ ታዲያ አቡነ ጳውሎስ እና ጠቅላይ ምኒስትር መለስ ዜናዊ ባረፉባቸው ቀናት ከኢትዮጵያ ራዳር ተሠውረው የነበሩት ሸህ አላሙዲ በሙርሲ የሳዑዲ ቆይታ ከግብጹ ፕሬዚደንት ጋር ተገናኝተው ይሆን?

ፕሬዚደንት ሙርሲ ወደ አዲስ አበባ እንደሚያመሩ ሲገለጥ፡ ኢትዮጵያ ውስጥ የሚገኙ ሙስሊሞች “መሪያችን መጣ!” በሚል መንፈስ ጩኽታቸውን ለማሰማት በየጎዳናው ሲወጡ ታዩ። ይህን ድርጊት ተመሳሳይ በሆነ መልክ በመድገም ከዓመት በኋላ ባለፈው ግንቦት ፪፭ በሙስሊሞች የተመራ የተቃውሞ ሰልፍ በአዲስ አበባ መንገዶች ላይ ታየ። የሙስሊም ወንድማማቾች መሪያቸውን፡ የሙርሲን መምጣት በናፍቆት ሲጠባበቁ የነበሩትና በኢትዮጵያ የግብጽ ተጠባባቂ ሠራዊት አባላት የሆኑት እነዚህ ቅጥረኞች አሁንም አጋጣሚውን ተጠቅመው ህውከትና አለመረጋጋትን ለመፍጠር ሞከሩ፤ እግረ መንገዳቸውንም የግብጽ፣ የሳዑዲና ካታር አርበኞች እነማን እንደሆኑ እራሳቸውን በግልጽ አሳወቁ።

ፕሬዚደንት ሙሐመድ ሙርሲ፣ ፕሬዚደንት ባራክ ሁሴን ኦባማ እና ሸህ ሙሐመድ አላሙዲ፡ ስለ አቡነ ጳውሎስ እና ስለ ጠቅላይ ምኒስትር መለስ ዜናዊ ሞት ምን የሚያውቁት ነገር አለ?

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This small Ethiopian Orthodox Christian church was burned by 500 Muslim students supported by local Muslim police. This happened four days after local Muslim authorities ordered demolition of the building. They poured gasoline on the building and burned it in broad daylight. The most alarming and disturbing thing is that this is done by the ‘normal’ inhabitants who had lived together with tolerant Christians for many years. It’s disturbing to see men, women, children and elderly come out of their homes to celebrate the burning down of Saint Arsema Orthodox Tewahedo Church

This hateful barbaric act happened in the particular region of Christian Ethiopia where the followers of Islam are in a majority. As predictable as it’s the larger the number of Muslims in the area, the more hostile are Muslims to the non-Muslims living there, so those non-Muslims are forced to move away. More and more Muslims move to the area until it becomes, for all intents and purposes, a small Muslim state. As one Ethiopian Christian victim said with his eyes watering with tears, “They were our friends, our neighbors with whom we shared everything. I never thought that this day would ever come.”

Now, we all ask how this is happening in Ethiopia, a country that is 70% Christian and only 25% Muslim? How could this happen to the land of Ethiopia where Muslims were welcomed and got refugee during their days of trouble and desparation? This is called “biting the hand that feeds you,” and pretty much everyone agrees that’s the worst, most ungrateful form of behavior in existence.

Ethiopian Christians, who have been dominant in their country since the 4th century, are in a state of shock due to the “religious hatred and violence” of their Muslim neighbors.

Christian Ethiopians never retaliate to fight back the Islamic aggression by hating the Muslim population or attacking its mosques. Whereas, Saudi, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey supported Islamists never stop to undermine and destroy Christian Ethiopia by all means.

The black horse of Saudi Arabia maltreats Ethiopians in every Arab Muslim country, their Trojan horses in Ethiopia murder Christians, their religious and political leaders, they set fire to their churches and drive out Ethiopians in their own country.

When they persecute Christians in „their“ 53 Muslim majority countries, we remain silent or say, well, those are their countries they are allowed to do whatever they want, even the United Nations and the Medias may show their indifference – but in one small country of the Ethiopians nobody has the right to bring things that are unEthiopian or anti-Christian. Ethiopians have no other country but Ethiopia, Ethiopians don’t impose their Religion, ideology or culture on others, so, others, specially those who don’t belong to Ethiopia must stop imposing their way of life on Ethiopians

Christians & Jews: Middle East Genocide

“We do nothing as Muslims eradicate the last vestiges of Christians and Jews from nation after nation….even the dust cries for justice, and we look away”

But all they possess does not suffice for Islamist fanatics. Israel must be blotted from the earth, and the last Christians must be driven out.

This is an old, old story, nearing its end. We shroud it in lies to excuse ourselves from taking a stand, even accepting the preposterous Arab claim that Muslim failures today are the fault of the Crusades, a brief interlude when Christians occupied a coastal strip hardly larger than Israel. In fact, it was the Mongols, then the Muslim Turks, who shattered Arab civilization. And as for conquests, Muslims occupied Spain in all or part for 800 years — and brutalized the Balkans for half a millennium. The Crusades were hardly a burp.

We also accept extravagant claims that “civilized” Arabs rescued the classical texts that formed our civilization. That’s utter nonsense. The Arab hordes that burst out of barren Arabia in the 7th century were composed of illiterates. Conquering at a time when the warring Byzantine and Persian empires had exhausted themselves, the new rulers found that tribal practices didn’t suffice to run provinces. So they took over the existing bureaucracies, staffed by Greek-speaking Christians and Jews. It was those officials who saved the Greek classics for Europe’s future Renaissance — and their descendants designed Islam’s greatest monuments.

Yes, some Arab rulers came to value learning — but the Arab world never produced a Homer, Plato, Sophocles or Thucydides whose appeal transcended their culture.

Islam was a religion spread by war. It was only a “religion of peace” where it had conquered. True, Islam sometimes proved more tolerant of minorities than Europeans, but that was at the zenith of the faith’s power.

There’s yet another illusion of ours — that Islam is gaining strength. Islam is on the ropes. What we’ve seen in the pogroms and outright genocides over the last 150 years has been the spleen of a once-triumphant faith whose practices and values can’t compete in the modern age.

Consider today’s Middle East, apart from Israel. Despite the massive influx of oil wealth, there isn’t one world-class university. Nothing of quality or technological complexity is manufactured between Morocco and Pakistan. Not even Saudi Arabia has first-rate health-care. Research is nil. Patent applications are statistically zero. Women are regarded as lesser beings, wasting half of the region’s human capital. Not one Arab society’s a meritocracy. And corruption cripples all.

A handful of glitzy hotels and shopping centers do not make a civilization (especially when the merchandise is all imported). Should Islamist fanatics succeed in driving all minorities from the region, they’d be left with a human wasteland of comprehensive failure, seething with hatred and uncontainable violence. The self-segregation of the Islamic heartlands would be a tragedy for humanity — but, above all, for Muslims.

Continue reading…

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The result will almost certainly lead to an increased level of insecurity in the strategic Red Sea/Suez sea lane and in the upper Nile riparian states, such as South Sudan, with some impact on global energy markets. Certainly it promises to see greater instability in the Horn of Africa at a time when Western media portrayals hint at a return to stability in, for example, Somalia.

Significant, mounting public unrest in Egypt during May and June 2013 (with more promised), expressing discontent with the economic and social policies of the Ikhwani Government of Pres. Mohammed Morsi caused the President to search for a major foreign distraction — a perceived threat to Egypt — to turn public attention away from the worsening domestic social and economic climate. The campaign includes a major media offensive at the alleged threat, and also included the commitment of major political, intelligence, and military resources to a trenchant reversal of Egypt’s brief period of rapprochement with Upper Nile riparian states, particularly Ethiopia.

This amounts to a full — even expanded — resumption of the indirect war to isolate Ethiopia politically and economically and to ensure that it cannot attract foreign investment and political support. It also attempts to ensure that Ethiopia’s main avenues for trade, through the Red Sea ports in Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somaliland, become closed to it. This, in particular, means that the Egyptian campaign to prevent recognition of independent Somaliland (former British Somaliland) has been reinvigorated, and military aid given to Somalia (former Italian Somaliland) to help overrun the Republic of Somaliland, thus cutting Ethiopia’s trade link through Somaliland’s port of Berbera.

The discontent in Egypt — and Morsi’s search for a foreign distraction — coincided with the start of work on Ethiopia’s major Great Millennium Dam (aka the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam), which some Egyptians have claimed, without evidence, would take Nile waters away from Egypt. The coincidence of the timing has proven explosive, although the Morsi Government had already initiated discreet steps to re-escalate indirect hostilities against Ethiopia.

The Egyptian military knows that Egypt is not in a position — even allied with neighboring Sudan — to take direct military action against Ethiopia, but Pres. Morsi had begun returning to the confrontational approach with Ethiopia which had characterized the former governments of Pres. Hosni Mubarak. The move away from this approach, which had failed to gain any traction against Ethiopia or other upstream riparian states, began under the post-Mubarak military Government of Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi with an initiative aimed at achieving negotiated results.

Pres. Morsi, on assuming power in Egypt, discovered during his visit to Addis Ababa for an African Union summit in 2011, that the Great Millennium Dam project would proceed, although Ethiopian officials assured Egypt that this would not interfere with the flow of water to Egypt. The dam was expected to produce 6,000 megawatts of power, and its reservoir was scheduled to start filling in 2014.

An independent panel of experts concluded that the dam would not significantly affect downstream Sudan and Egypt, but Younis Makhyoun (Zakaria Younis Abdel-Halim Makhyoun), leader of the ultraconservative Salafist al-Nour party, said on June 3, 2013, that Egypt should back rebels in Ethiopia or, as a last resort, destroy the dam. The Morsi Government, in fact, had already begun that action, using the allied Sudanese Government of Pres. Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir to support Ethiopian radical Islamist leaders sitting in exile in Khartoum. These leaders prompted major anti-Government demonstrations to take place in Addis Ababa in the first days of June 2013. One, on June 1, 2013, involved some 10,000 demonstrators, mostly Muslim, calling for increased religious freedom, the release of political prisoners, and so on. [Reports claiming that there were 100,000 demonstrators dramatically overstated the reality.]

What was significant was that the demonstrations attracted the support of urban, Christian youth, who saw the demonstration as a chance to protest against the Government. But it was the extreme Islamist elements which, with considerable Egyptian backing through the Khartoum connection, made the protests significant. The rally was formally organized by the secular Semayawi (Blue) Party, which received official permits for the rally, but the event was co-opted by the Islamists, making it just the event which Cairo had sought.

Not coincidentally, a senior Egyptian Ministry of Defense delegation arrived in Mogadishu, Somalia, on June 4, 2013, officially to begin discussions on an Egyptian project to rebuild the headquarters and offices of the Ministry of Defense of Somalia. However, the Egyptian delegation made it clear to its hosts that it also intended to equip, train, and rebuild the Somali Armed Forces, with the intent to support a Somalian move to assume control of the Republic of Somaliland, to its North. The independent and internationally-recognized Republic of Somaliland had joined with the former Italian Somaliland to create Somalia, on June 1, 1960. Following a massive brutalization of Somaliland by southern “Somalian” forces, Somaliland on May 18, 1991, withdrew from the union.

The Egyptian Government, however, has, since that time, ensured that the African Union (AU) and Arab League did not recognize the return to independence of Somaliland, largely in order to ensure the isolation of, by now, landlocked Ethiopia, and to limit Ethiopia’s economic viability and therefore its ability to engage in major projects on the Blue Nile headwaters. Egypt’s pressure within the (then) Organization for African Unity (OAU), later the AU, the Arab League, and on its US ally, ensured that no bid for recognition of Somaliland made headway.

That process was beginning to be reversed when elections in Somaliland on July 26, 2010, installed Pres. Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo and the Kulmiye party. Significantly, Silanyo, beset by advanced diabetes and probable dementia, has relied increasingly on Minister of Presidency Hersi Ali Haji Hassan (Somali: Xirsi Xaaji Xasan), who is essentially an ally and front for the salafist jihadi movement, al-Shabaab. He has essentially taken control of the Government. Thus, progress by the outgoing Somaliland Government with the governments of the US, Britain, and Germany for de facto recognition ended.

Egypt, then, is now advancing on several fronts in its campaign to isolate Ethiopia: through Somalia; through Sudan; through its sponsorships via a number of channels of Ethiopian Islamist and other opposition movements (including the Oromo Liberation Front: OLF); and via Eritrea (although the Eritrean option has become limited because of the paralysis of the Government there, under the ailing President, Isayas Afewerke).

Significantly, Cairo actually has no real national security case on which to base its new war. There is no evidence that the Ethiopian dam would constrain Nile water flow to Sudan and Egypt, and, anyway, there is little Egypt could do, either legally or militarily if the flow was threatened: other than to bring Ethiopia into a state of chaos.

But the major reason for the Egyptian initiative was, according to sources in Cairo, to mobilize Egyptian public opinion around Pres. Morsi. Significantly, however, by posing such a threat to Ethiopia, Egypt risks actually galvanizing Ethiopian public opinion around the Government in Addis Ababa, and perhaps creating a reason for Ethiopia to consider using water flow as a weapon against Cairo.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn, who was elected as a stop-gap leader following the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in mid-2012, has only a modest power base of his own. But his one option now may be to do what Meles had been dissuaded from doing before: to formally recognize the sovereignty of Somaliland. Hailemariam, in May 2013, promised in Parliament to defend Somaliland. Other African states have promised to recognize Somaliland, but did not want to be the first. Somaliland’s senior military officials, meanwhile, flew to Addis for talks on June 5, 2013.

The war has begun, but it may not save Pres. Morsi from the collapsing Egyptian economy, even bigger demonstrations of unrest, and even opposition to his policies of antagonizing upper Nile states

Source

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T

The original Egyptians are not Arabs, but the dominant Egyptians of today, just like Libyans, Tunisians, Algerians and Moroccans, are a transplanted Arab population who occupied African lands. Arabs don’t belong in Africa! Historically speaking, Arabs brought more pain and suffering to the African continent than the Europeans. The Arabs have been enslaving Africans since prehistoric times, and the slave trade in Saudi Arabia wasn’t abolished until the 1960s. An underground traffic in slaves continues to this day, particularly in Sudan, Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. African men were often killed and boys were castrated. Many of them died as a result. The women were used and discarded. They disappeared and another generation, fresh from Africa, replaced them as though they had never been. The atrocities continue to this days.

Egypt – which exists at the mercy of Ethiopia because of the river Nile – repeatedly demonstrates its ungratefulness by insulting Ethiopia and treating Ethiopian refugees in a cruel and inhuman way. Please read this heartbreaking report. Even the Ottoman Turks who occupied Northern Africa, the Middle East and the Balkan didn’t force their culture and language on the native populations. After 500 years of Turkish presence, the native populations of those countries were spared to speak the Turkish language. On the other hand, the Arabs force on others their unculture, religion and language. Even Ghaddafi acknowledged Arab atrocities against Africans two years before he was brutally killed by the same Arabs I am talking about:

„I regret the behavior of the Arabs… They brought African children to North Africa, they made them slaves, they sold them like animals, and they took them as slaves and traded them in a shameful way. I regret and I am ashamed when we remember these practices. I apologize for this.”

Three days ago, Egyptian Politicians meeting with Egypt’s president proposed hostile acts against Ethiopia, including backing rebels and carrying out sabotage, to stop it from building a massive dam on the Nile River upstream.

Yesterday, Dr. Amr Hamzawy, a political science professor said the following, in an interview with the Doha-based media channel Al-Arabiya.

“Egypt should not even consider entering into negotiations with Ethiopia until the Ethiopians halt all construction on the dam,, “Egypt should not be forced to sacrifice even one drop of water. Ethiopia must respect Egypt’s interests.”

When I study the history of Egypt since the arrival of Arab Muslims in the country during the 7^thcentury, when I think of how much Misery Egyptian leaders brought to the Ethiopian nation the past 1000 years, when I observe the current generation of Arab Egyptian leaders displaying so much hatred and ignorance towards the country and people of Ethiopia, I am forced to ask myself, what has changed with the mentality and behavior of Arab and arabized people since Samuel Johnson characterized them in his book, ‘Rasselas‘ back in the year 1759? Nothing!

I am personally quite convinced that if Egyptians and Ethiopians switched countries and Egypt had become the source of the river Nile, Egyptians would have exterminated Ethiopians long time ago by spewing their usual abracadabra venom on the waters of the Nile

Let’s ask the Egyptians what they would do if the source of the Nile came from Egypt

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My Note: This article, which describes how genetically modified seeds granted as “food aid” was instrumental in triggering famine. It was first published in The Ecologist in September 2000.My previous post on the subject Here

Ethiopia’s Famine courtesy of GM seed Laundering

The “economic therapy” imposed under IMF-World Bank jurisdiction is in large part responsible for triggering famine and social devastation in Ethiopia and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, wreaking the peasant economy and impoverishing millions of people.

With the complicity of branches of the US government, it has also opened the door for the appropriation of traditional seeds and landraces by US biotech corporations, which behind the scenes have been peddling the adoption of their own genetically modified seeds under the disguise of emergency aid and famine relief.

Moreover, under WTO rules, the agri-biotech conglomerates can manipulate market forces to their advantage as well as exact royalties from farmers. The WTO provides legitimacy to the food giants to dismantle State programmes including emergency grain stocks, seed banks, extension services and agricultural credit, etc.), plunder peasant economies and trigger the outbreak of periodic famines.

Crisis in the Horn

More than 8 million people in Ethiopia – representing 15% of the country’s population – had been locked into “famine zones”. Urban wages have collapsed and unemployed seasonal farm workers and landless peasants have been driven into abysmal poverty. The international relief agencies concur without further examination that climatic factors are the sole and inevitable cause of crop failure and the ensuing humanitarian disaster. What the media tabloids fails to disclose is that – despite the drought and the border war with Eritrea – several million people in the most prosperous agricultural regions have also been driven into starvation. Their predicament is not the consequence of grain shortages but of “free markets” and “bitter economic medicine” imposed under the IMF-World Bank sponsored Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).

Ethiopia produces more than 90% of its consumption needs. Yet at the height of the crisis, the nationwide food deficit for 2000 was estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at 764,000 metric tons of grain representing a shortfall of 13 kilos per person per annum.1 In Amhara, grain production (1999-2000) was twenty percent in excess of consumption needs. Yet 2.8 million people in Amhara (representing 17% of the region’s population) became locked into famine zones and are “at risk” according to the FAO. 2 Whereas Amhara’s grain surpluses were in excess of 500,000 tons (1999-2000), its “relief food needs” had been tagged by the international community at close to 300,000 tons.3 A similar pattern prevailed in Oromiya, the country’s most populated state where 1.6 million people were classified “at risk”, despite the availability of more than 600,000 metric tons of surplus grain.4 In both these regions, which include more than 25% of the country’s population, scarcity of food was clearly not the cause of hunger, poverty and social destitution. Yet no explanations are given by the panoply of international relief agencies and agricultural research institutes.

The Promise of the “Free Market”

In Ethiopia, a transitional government came into power in 1991 in the wake of a protracted and destructive civil war. After the pro-Soviet Dergue regime of Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam was unseated, a multi-donor financed Emergency Recovery and Reconstruction Project (ERRP) was hastily put in place to deal with an external debt of close to 9 billion dollars that had accumulated during the Mengistu government. Ethiopia’s outstanding debts with the Paris Club of official creditors were rescheduled in exchange for far-reaching macro-economic reforms. Upheld by US foreign policy, the usual doses of bitter IMF economic medicine were prescribed. Caught in the straightjacket of debt and structural adjustment, the new Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE), led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) – largely formed from the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (PLF) – had committed itself to far-reaching “free market reforms”, despite its leaders’ Marxist leanings. Washington soon tagged Ethiopia alongside Uganda as Africa’s post Cold War free market showpiece.

While social budgets were slashed under the structural adjustment programme (SAP), military expenditure – in part financed by the gush of fresh development loans – quadrupled since 1989.5 With Washington supporting both sides in the Eritrea-Ethiopia border war, US arms sales spiralled. The bounty was being shared between the arms manufacturers and the agribusiness conglomerates. In the post-Cold War era, the latter positioned themselves in the lucrative procurement of emergency aid to war-torn countries. With mounting military spending financed on borrowed money, almost half of Ethiopia’s export revenues was earmarked to meet debt-servicing obligations.

A Policy Framework Paper (PFP) stipulating the precise changes to be carried out in Ethiopia had been carefully drafted in Washington by IMF and World Bank officials on behalf of the transitional government, and was forwarded to Addis Ababa for the signature of the Minister of Finance. The enforcement of severe austerity measures virtually foreclosed the possibility of a meaningful post-war reconstruction and the rebuilding of the country’s shattered infrastructure. The creditors demanded trade liberalization and the full-scale privatization of public utilities, financial institutions, State farms and factories. Civil servants including teachers and health workers were fired, wages were frozen and the labor laws were rescinded to enable State enterprises “to shed their surplus workers”. Meanwhile, corruption became rampant. State assets were auctioned off to foreign capital at bargain prices and Price Waterhouse Cooper was entrusted with the task of coordinating the sale of State property.

In turn, the reforms had led to the fracture of the federal fiscal system. Budget transfers to the State governments were slashed leaving the regions to their own devices. Supported by several donors, “regionalization” was heralded as a “devolution of powers from the federal to the regional governments”. The Bretton Woods institutions knew exactly what they were doing. In the words of the IMF, “[the regions] capacity to deliver effective and efficient development interventions varies widely, as does their capacity for revenue collection”.

Wrecking the Peasant Economy

Patterned on the reforms adopted in Kenya in 1991 (see Box 9.1 ), agricultural markets were willfully manipulated on behalf of the agribusiness conglomerates. The World Bank demanded the rapid removal of price controls and all subsidies to farmers. Transportation and freight prices were deregulated serving to boost food prices in remote areas affected by drought. In turn, the markets for farm inputs including fertilizer and seeds were handed over to private traders including Pioneer Hi-Bred International which entered into a lucrative partnership with Ethiopia Seed Enterprise (ESE), the government’s seed monopoly.7

At the outset of the reforms in 1992, USAID under its Title III program “donated” large quantities of US fertilizer “in exchange for free market reforms”:

[V]arious agricultural commodities [will be provided] in exchange for reforms of grain marketing… and [the] elimination of food subsidies…The reform agenda focuses on liberalization and privatization in the fertilizer and transport sectors in return for financing fertilizer and truck imports…. These program initiatives have given us [an] “entrée” …in defining major [policy] issues…

While the stocks of donated US fertiliser were rapidly exhausted; the imported chemicals contributed to displacing local fertiliser producers. The same companies involved in the fertilizer import business were also in control of the domestic wholesale distribution of fertilizer using local level merchants as intermediaries.

Increased output was recorded in commercial farms and in irrigated areas (where fertilizer and high yielding seeds had been applied). The overall tendency, however, was towards greater economic and social polarisation in the countryside, marked by significantly lower yields in less productive marginal lands occupied by the poor peasantry. Even in areas where output had increased, farmers were caught in the clutch of the seed and fertilizer merchants.

In 1997, the Atlanta based Carter Center – which was actively promoting the use of biotechnology tools in maize breeding – proudly announced that “Ethiopia [had] become a food exporter for the first time”.9 Yet in a cruel irony, the donors ordered the dismantling of the emergency grain reserves (set up in the wake of the 1984-85 famine) and the authorities acquiesced.

Instead of replenishing the country’s emergency food stocks, grain was exported to meet Ethiopia’s debt servicing obligations. Close to one million tons of the 1996 harvest was exported, an amount which would have been amply sufficient (according to FAO figures) to meet the 1999-2000 emergency. In fact the same food staple which had been exported (namely maize) was re-imported barely a few months later. The world market had confiscated Ethiopia’s grain reserves.

In return, US surpluses of genetically engineered maize (banned by the European Union) were being dumped on the horn of Africa in the form of emergency aid. The US had found a convenient mechanism for “laundering its stocks of dirty grain”. The agribusiness conglomerates not only cornered Ethiopia’s commodity exports, they were also involved in the procurement of emergency shipments of grain back into Ethiopia. During the 1998-2000 famine, lucrative maize contracts were awarded to giant grain merchants such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and Cargill Inc.

Laundering America’s GM Grain Surpluses

US grain surpluses peddled in war-torn countries also served to weaken the agricultural system. Some 500,000 tons of maize and maize products were “donated” in 1999-2000 by USAID to relief agencies including the World Food Programme (WFP) which in turn collaborates closely with the US Department of Agriculture. At least 30% of these shipments (procured under contract with US agribusiness firms) were surplus genetically modified grain stocks.

Boosted by the border war with Eritrea and the plight of thousands of refugees, the influx of contaminated food aid had contributed to the pollution of Ethiopia’s genetic pool of indigenous seeds and landraces. In a cruel irony, the food giants were at the same time gaining control – through the procurement of contaminated food aid – over Ethiopia’s seed banks. According to South Africa’s Biowatch: “Africa is treated as the dustbin of the world…To donate untested food and seed to Africa is not an act of kindness but an attempt to lure Africa into further dependence on foreign aid.”

Moreover, part of the “food aid” had been channelled under the “food for work” program which served to further discourage domestic production in favour of grain imports. Under this scheme, impoverished and landless farmers were contracted to work on rural infrastructural programmes in exchange for “donated” US corn.

Meanwhile, the cash earnings of coffee smallholders plummeted. Whereas Pioneer Hi-Bred positioned itself in seed distribution and marketing, Cargill Inc established itself in the markets for grain and coffee through its subsidiary Ethiopian Commodities.12 For the more than 700,000 smallholders with less than 2 hectares that produce between 90 and 95% of the country’s coffee output, the deregulation of agricultural credit combined with low farmgate prices of coffee had triggered increased indebtedness and landlessness, particularly in East Gojam (Ethiopia’s breadbasket).

Biodiversity up for Sale

The country’s extensive reserves of traditional seed varieties (barley, teff, chick peas, sorghum, etc) were being appropriated, genetically manipulated and patented by the agribusiness conglomerates: “Instead of compensation and respect, Ethiopians today are …getting bills from foreign companies that have “patented” native species and now demand payment for their use.”13 The foundations of a “competitive seed industry” were laid under IMF and World Bank auspices.14 The Ethiopian Seed Enterprise (ESE), the government’s seed monopoly joined hands with Pioneer Hi-Bred in the distribution of hi-bred and genetically modified (GM) seeds (together with hybrid resistant herbicide) to smallholders. In turn, the marketing of seeds had been transferred to a network of private contractors and “seed enterprises” with financial support and technical assistance from the World Bank. The “informal” farmer-to-farmer seed exchange was slated to be converted under the World Bank programme into a “formal” market oriented system of “private seed producer-sellers.” 15

In turn, the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute (EARI) was collaborating with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in the development of new hybrids between Mexican and Ethiopian maize varieties.16 Initially established in the 1940s by Pioneer Hi-Bred International with support from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, CIMMYT developed a cosy relationship with US agribusiness. Together with the UK based Norman Borlaug Institute, CIMMYT constitutes a research arm as well as a mouthpiece of the seed conglomerates. According to the Rural Advancement Foundation (RAFI) “US farmers already earn $150 million annually by growing varieties of barley developed from Ethiopian strains. Yet nobody in Ethiopia is sending them a bill.”

Impacts of Famine

The 1984-85 famine had seriously threatened Ethiopia’s reserves of landraces of traditional seeds. In response to the famine, the Dergue government through its Plant Genetic Resource Centre –in collaboration with Seeds of Survival (SoS)– had implemented a programme to preserve Ethiopia’s biodiversity.18 This programme – which was continued under the transitional government – skilfully “linked on-farm conservation and crop improvement by rural communities with government support services”. 19 An extensive network of in-farm sites and conservation plots was established involving some 30,000 farmers. In 1998, coinciding chronologically with the onslaught of the 1998-2000 famine, the government clamped down on seeds of Survival (SoS) and ordered the programme to be closed down.

The hidden agenda was to eventually displace the traditional varieties and landraces reproduced in village-level nurseries. The latter were supplying more than 90 percent of the peasantry through a system of farmer-to-farmer exchange. Without fail, the 1998-2000 famine led to a further depletion of local level seed banks: “The reserves of grains [the farmer] normally stores to see him through difficult times are empty. Like 30,000 other households in the [Galga] area, his family have also eaten their stocks of seeds for the next harvest.”21 And a similar process was unfolding in the production of coffee where the genetic base of the arabica beans was threatened as a result of the collapse of farmgate prices and the impoverishment of small-holders.

In other words, the famine – itself in large part a product of the economic reforms imposed to the advantage of large corporations by the IMF, World Bank and the US Government – served to undermine Ethiopia’s genetic diversity to the benefit of the biotech companies. With the weakening of the system of traditional exchange, village level seed banks were being replenished with commercial hi-bred and genetically modified seeds. In turn, the distribution of seeds to impoverished farmers had been integrated with the “food aid” programmes. WPF and USAID relief packages often include “donations” of seeds and fertiliser, thereby favouring the inroad of the agribusiness-biotech companies into Ethiopia’s agricultural heartland. The emergency programs are not the “solution” but the “cause” of famine. By deliberately creating a dependency on GM seeds, they had set the stage for the outbreak of future famines.

This destructive pattern – invariably resulting in famine – is replicated throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. From the onslaught of the debt crisis of the early 1980s, the IMF-World Bank had set the stage for the demise of the peasant economy across the region with devastating results. Now, in Ethiopia, fifteen years after the last famine left nearly one million dead, hunger is once again stalking the land. This time, as eight million people face the risk of starvation, we know that it isn’t just the weather that is to blame.

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Million Belay: Ethiopia doesn’t need or want Bill Gates

Ecological campaigner Million Belay talks about why protecting Ethiopia’s biodiversity is so important and why he opposes the intervention of philanthropists like Bill Gates

Ethiopia’s culture and forests are gradually being eroded. The younger generation is taught to admire western consumer-driven culture and to ignore the traditional heritage of their birthplace.

As director of the Movement for Ecological Learning and Community Action (MELCA) Million Belay works with local communities to protect their local biodiversity and lifestyles

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Two Million March Against Monsanto in Worldwide Protest of GM Foods

On Saturday, May 25, an estimated two million protesters turned out in 436 cities in 52 countries to protest genetically-modified (GM) foods and their primary developer, Monsanto Company, Inc. This far exceeded anything Tami Canal could have imagined when she created a Facebook page entitled “The March against Monsanto” back in February.

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