Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 23, 2010
Here are Jay Leno’s guests for the first two weeks of his return to the Tonight Show.
Monday, March 1 – Guests include Jamie Foxx, Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn and a musical performance by Brad Paisley
Tuesday, March 2 – Guests include Sarah Palin, Olympic snowboarder Shaun White
Wednesday, March 3 – “Jaywalk All-Stars” with the cast of Jersey Shore, Chelsea Handler, Olympic speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno and a musical performance by Avril Lavigne
Thursday, March 4 – Guests include Matthew McConaughey and Jason Reitman
Friday, March 5 – Guests include Morgan Freeman and Meredith Vieira
Monday, March 8 – Guests include Simon Cowell
Tuesday, March 9 – Guests include Christoph Waltz, Animal Expert Dave Salmoni and a musical performance by Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
Wednesday, March 10 – Guests include Kristen Stewart and Guy Fieri
Thursday, March 11 – Guests include Dana Carvey and Kim Kardashian, with a musical performance by Colbie Caillat
Friday, March 12 – Guests include Dakota Fanning and Judd Apatow
Yea, I can’t wait to see Jay, Kevin Eubanks and his great band again!
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 23, 2010
SOME couples come together for love, others for money, pregnancy or because they’re told to. Whatever the reason, socially prescribed monogamy and its ultimate cultural expression, marriage, may have emerged because of the evolutionary benefits that both offer.
By providing men with increased assurance that their wives’ children are their true heirs and women with the confidence that their kids will benefit from a decent inheritance, monogamous marriage is a win-win situation, argue Laura Fortunato at University College London and Marco Archetti at Harvard University.
Their view challenges theories of marriage that emphasise the role of religion and the societal benefits of keeping men from fighting over women. Such theories also contend that by giving up multiple wives or partners, men sacrifice their interests for those of the group.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 17, 2010
Airplane crashes often produce maelstroms of spin, efforts by all the parties concerned to shape the information in their favor. We are in the midst of that today over the Ethiopian Airlines disaster, and Lebanese officials are not emerging from the mess looking particularly good.
In recent days, two ministers have said contradictory things about the crash. On Tuesday, the health minister, Muhammad Jawad Khalifeh, declared that the Ethiopian airplane had been brought down by an explosion, though he hastily added that this was not the result of a bomb. A day later, the information minister, Tariq Mitri, tried to put a different interpretation on his colleague’s statement by saying that Khalifeh meant the aircraft had exploded upon impact with the sea – something the health minister decidedly had not said. Indeed, Khalifeh went to great lengths to graphically explain why the explosion had occurred in midair.
On the day of the crash, a Defense Ministry source had also indicated that the Ethiopian airliner disintegrated in the air, even as President Michel Sleiman, with no evidence in hand, was ruling out a terrorist attack. Instead, Lebanese officials began highlighting that the pilot had diverted from the flight path given to him by the control tower, while earlier this week there was an anonymous leak to Reuters, by a source allegedly “close to the investigation”, suggesting that analysis of the first black box sent to Paris indicated that pilot error was behind the downing.
We can assume that all this information is either speculative or designed to draw attention away from possible Lebanese responsibility in the catastrophe. Until a full inquiry is conducted abroad, it’s best to remain skeptical. In fact only Ethiopian Airlines has shown a modicum of seriousness until now, issuing a statement on Wednesday declaring that it did not rule out any cause for the accident, including sabotage, and that it was too early in the investigation to arrive at conclusions.
Yet there is one aspect of the case that has not been highlighted, but whose importance may yet emerge later on. It is no secret that Hezbollah has considerable sway over the airport and that the state’s exercise of authority in the facility often requires party consent. Recall the clash between the March 14-led government and Hezbollah in May 2008 over the head of airport security, Wafiq Choucair. At the time the government had dismissed him, only to see the party reverse the decision by force.
Nor has there been any news for over a year about what happened to Joseph Sader, the Middle East Airlines employee who was kidnapped within spitting distance of the airport entrance, and whose fate has been scandalously ignored by the authorities since then.
Whatever happens at the airport in light of the Ethiopian air crash will be of acute interest to Hezbollah. If the airliner was brought down because of a bomb, this could focus international attention on the facility, which may have significant consequences for how the party conducts its future affairs there. Even if the crash was the result, let’s say, of a technical mistake by the ground maintenance crew, that too has the potential of leading to growing outside demands for better supervision of the airport complex.
The Lebanese state has to be very careful – far more careful than it has been – about how it manages the situation. If there is a perception in Europe and the United States that it is trying to draw attention away from developments at the airport, thereby indirectly covering for Hezbollah, that could severely damage the government’s credibility and that of the airport itself as a reliable travel hub. The consequences for Lebanon’s aviation industry, and ultimately for tourism, could be quite damaging.
That’s not to suggest that Hezbollah had anything to do with the crash. On the contrary, the episode was surely a headache the party could have done without. And that’s assuming that someone in Hezbollah, or close to it, was not the target of a bomb attack. However, we can ask whether Hezbollah’s portraying the crash as a Shia tragedy (for in part it was) did not have something to do with its desire to compensate for the fact that anything taking place at the airport tends to be placed at the party’s door.
Or more cynically, by depicting the tragedy as one for the community, was Hezbollah warning Lebanese investigators in particular that they had better look elsewhere for the truth than within the airport’s confines?
Whatever the answer, the state has displayed borderline incompetence in the Ethiopian airline affair. From the president on down officials have repeatedly preempted the conclusions of an inquiry through statements they could not prove. But being faulted for incompetence could be the least of their worries. If they are seen in foreign capitals as having manipulated the realities of the crash for domestic political reasons, Lebanon could find itself at the center of an international scandal.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 15, 2010
This Sunday, the Seventh of Yekatit, on the Western calendar the Fourteenth of February, thousands upon thousands, maybe millions upon millions of people around the world will exchange “Valentine Day” cards, flowers, box candy etc., as an expression of love. While the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church does not “Commemorate” St. Valentine tomorrow, we here at the Monastery thought it might be good to share with the readers of the Monastery Webpage the facts concern the “Man behind the Day.”
Firstly, there was a man, a Priest in fact, named Abba Valentine. He served the Church in Rome during the middle to last Third Century. He was an Orthodox Tewahedo Christian. He is noted for helping those imprisoned and facing martyrdom; he would bring them the Holy Mysteries – The Sacraments, Read the Sacred Scriptures – Gospels to those imprisoned and comfort those who were soon to be martyred for their faith in Christ Jesus. Eventually Abba Valentine was apprehended and sent by the Roman Emperor Claudius II to the Prefect of the City of Rome, who tried by making Father Valentine renounce his faith in Christ Jesus with many promises. Abba Valentine refused to renounce his faith in Christ and was beaten with clubs as his punishment for “refusing” the Emperors wishes. Continuing to proclaim Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world, the Emperor had Abba Valentine beheaded. He received the “Crown of Martyrdom” on February 14, about the year 270 A.D. Archaeologists working in ancient Rome unearthed a Catacomb and an ancient Church dedicated to Abba Saint Valentine. This Church was originally built by the Archbishop of Rome, Julius I.
So while the majority of our secular society will be exchanging their cards, flowers, box candy, etc, it only right and proper that we remember the “Man behind the Day” and more importantly the conviction of his Faith in Jesus Christ the Lord! May God grant to each of us that strong faith and may Abba Saint Valentine intercede us all too the Lord.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 12, 2010
Changing the world’s perception of Africa seems to be a difficult task. It really is amazing to see blind Europeans in today’s interconnected, interdependent and globalized world. The world saw a fantastic “Confederations Cup” in South Africa last year, and, even Angola hosted a colorful and well-organized Africa Cup of Nations in 2010. As The World Cup is a hugely lucrative event which will attract travel business into South Africa, Ethiopian Airlines is seen as one of those privileged that could become among the most profitable international airlines. So, could the recent tragic crash of the Ethiopian Airlines plane, off Lebanon, be an apparent conspiracy by those greedy money-sharks to disrupt the business of this great African airliner?
(dpa) VANCOUVER, Feb 11 2010
The president of world soccer governing body Fifa, Joseph Blatter, has lashed out at critics of South Africa’s ability to host this year’s World Cup in the wake of the terror attack on the Togo football team at last month’s Africa Cup of Nations in neighboring Angola.
“It’s nonsense to combine what has happened in Angola with a terrorist attack and link it to the South Africa World Cup,” he told German Press Agency dpa on Thursday in Vancouver ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
“Eleven million tourists travel every year to South Africa,” Blatter added. “Last week an ATP [tennis] tournament was played in Johannesburg, and they didn’t die.”
Blatter’s comments come in the wake of remarks by German Football League (DFL) boss Reinhard Rauball, who demanded South Africa take action following the attack in Angola.
“It’s kind of an anti-Africa movement, this is not right,” Blatter told dpa.
“There is still in the so-called ‘old world’ feeling that why the hell should South Africa organise a World Cup. Why the hell?
“It was easier for them to go down to Africa, the colonialists in the past hundred years, to take out all the best, and now to take out all the best footballers.
“And when you have to give something back they don’t want to go. What’s that? It is a lack of respect, a lack of respect for the whole of Africa.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 10, 2010
Feb 10, 2010 (AFP) – AN ETHIOPIAN jet which crashed off Lebanon’s coast last month exploded after take-off, Lebanon’s health minister said on Tuesday in the first such official comment since the mysterious crash.
Remarks by Jawad Khalifeh could not be immediately confirmed by other officials in Beirut and came as Ethiopian Airlines said one of the plane’s black boxes has been sent to France for analysis.
‘The plane exploded during flight and the cabin, as well as the bodies of those on board were dispersed into the sea, in different locations,’ Mr Khalifeh said to explain why some corpses were found dismembered. ‘The first bodies which have been retrieved following the crash were intact but after that, we began to find body pieces or mutilated corpses,’ he told reporters.
Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi refused to comment on the reported explosion. ‘I have no information about this,’ he told AFP.
Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 plunged into the Mediterranean before dawn on Jan 25, just minutes after take-off from Beirut airport during a storm. It was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board. No survivors were found and searchers have been struggling to recover bodies as most victims were believed to be still strapped to their seats.
There have been conflicting reports as to whether the jet exploded while airborne or after it hit the water, and officials have said there will be no answers until the data from the black boxes is analyzed.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 5, 2010
I thought I’ve seen Darwin somewhere near Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Well, “Lucy” could recognize her children very easily, and she won’t be quite amused by Charlie. And Prester John, he could probably give Darwin a lesson or two about the origin of Adam and Eve.
Genographic Project’s DNA Test Reveals Charles Darwin’s Ancestors’ Migratory Journey; Gives Insight into Deep Ancestry of Scientist Who Developed Theory of Natural Selection
It is something that Charles Darwin himself may never have imagined. The man who penned “On the Origin of Species”, the seminal work that hypothesized that all humans evolved from common ancestors, could now discover his own “human deep ancestry.”
Today, 200 years after his birth, DNA technology has helped determine who Darwin’s ancient ancestors were. Darwin’s great-great-grandson, Chris Darwin, 48, who lives in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, took a Genographic Project public participation cheek swab test analyzing his “Y” chromosome. According to Dr. Spencer Wells, project director of the Genographic Project, a research partnership between National Geographic and IBM with field support from the Waitt Family Foundation, Darwin’s deep ancestry shows his ancestors left Africa around 45,000 years ago.
“I couldn’t wait to find out my family’s deep ancestry. I suspect that most people would be fascinated to know their family history over the past 60,000 years. After all, how can you understand who you really are, if you don’t know where you have come from?,” Chris Darwin said.
The test revealed that Chris Darwin, and therefore his paternal great-great-grandfather, Charles Darwin, are from Haplogroup R1b, one of the most common European male lineages. “Approximately 70 percent of men in southern England belong to Haplogroup R1b, and in parts of Ireland and Spain that number exceeds 90 percent,” Wells said.
The Genographic Project’s test results show that Darwin’s paternal ancestors would have migrated out of northeast Africa to the Middle East or North Africa around 45,000 years ago. Diverging from this Middle Eastern clan, a new lineage emerged in a man around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia. Before heading west towards Europe, the next mutation, which defined a new lineage, appeared in a man around 35,000 years ago. Men belonging to Haplogroup R1b are direct descendants of the Cro-Magnon people who, beginning 30,000 years ago, dominated the human expansion into Europe and heralded the demise of the Neanderthal species.
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 