💭 Across Africa, lobbyists, philanthropists and businesspeople are working to open up the continent to GMOs. They argue that GMOs can provide a miracle solution to two of Africa’s biggest problems: famine and malaria.
One of the main supporters of the movement is Bill Gates, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals and founder of the most powerful philanthropic foundation in history. The film shows how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation became the main funder of genetic experiments underway on the continent.
Discreetly and beyond the reach of critical voices, scientists are conducting research on the genetic modification of cassava plants and mosquitoes as a solution to the malaria problem.
The role of the EU here is an ambiguous one: Whereas the bloc was initially skeptical about genetic engineering because of the potential risks to health and the environment, now the EU is working together with the Microsoft founder’s nonprofit conducting experiments that would be banned in Europe.
Genetic modification in Africa is about power, but it is also about money. And this puts the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the firing line: by financing genetic engineering experiments in Africa, the organization is playing into the hands of big western agribusiness.
“Africa, GMOs and Western Interests” shines a light on the brave new world of philanthrocapitalism, where humanitarian aid has a stubborn aftertaste of business, famine programs are often a pretext to introduce GMOs and public investments can serve private interests.
💭 Spokesperson for the TPLF, Getachew Reda congratulating the cruel anti-Christian Oromos for their pagan and superstitions ‘Irreecha’ festival.
This festival is a practice of the heathens. The non-Christian Oromos worship evil spirits and practice blood sacrifices of humans and animals,. That’s why they went to massacre millions of Christians just in the past four years, since they came into power. Right on the eve of this evil devil worshiping festival the Oromos massacred hundreds of non-Oromos in Tigray and Wollega regions of Ethiopia after they covered/painted trees with butter. ‘BLOOD SACRIFECE for IRREECHA’
No wonder they chose to celebrate this anti-Christian festival just a week after Christians celebrated the annual Christian festival of the Meskel (which means “CROSS” in Ethiopic), marking the finding of the “True Cross” on which Jesus Christ was crucified. The festival is one of the major religious celebrations of the Orthodox Church in Ethiopia.
💭 A truce declared last week by Ethiopia to allow the delivery of aid to the northern Tigray region has offered some hope that the 17-month civil war there could be coming to an end.
The region has been totally cut off for many months, leaving millions in desperate need of food and essential supplies. A resident of Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, which is under the control of the TPLF rebels, has managed to tell the BBC what life is like.
Getting hold of the basics needed to survive every day is a source of anxiety.
As a father with two small children, it breaks my heart that I am not able to provide for my family. This is in part because I am unable to use the money I have because all the banks are shut.
Many of us are facing this problem and cash is scarce.
I have not had access to my account since June last year and instead I have been borrowing money from friends and relatives here to buy food for the family.
Relatives abroad have also wanted to help but because all phones lines and the internet have both been cut off it is impossible to arrange this.
On top of this food prices have skyrocketed.
The local staple grain, teff, as well as wheat flour, pepper and cooking oil are becoming harder to afford.
A year ago, 100kg (220lbs) of teff would cost about $80 (£60) but now it will set you back $146.
Those who can afford it are buying a smaller quantity of teff and mixing it with cheaper sorghum and wheat in order to make injera (flat bread), which is an essential part of every meal.
But many others cannot buy teff at all.
We have been told to plant vegetables in our compound and we are working on it. The problem though is that we have to get hold of water.
We used to buy a 200-litre barrel of water to get us through the week, but now we can’t afford it and instead we’re getting water from shallow wells.
New shoes or clothes for the children and eating meat have become luxuries.
Running water and electric power are limited and they come on and off throughout the day – sometimes days can go by without either.
Many people are out of work and the majority of shops and business centres in Mekelle are closed as they are either unable to pay rent for their shops or lack supplies to sell.
As a result, people have started selling off their assets such as cars, furniture and jewellery to buy food. And they are forced to sell at a huge discount.
A 21-carat gold ring, which once cost $64 can be sold for as little as $12. A car can go for $7,000 even though it used to cost $16,000.
Once people have run out of things to sell they have turned to begging and there are so many beggars on streets – the majority are mothers with children.
Medical services have also run out of drugs.
Those with chronic health conditions are dying because of a lack of medicine.
People living with HIV are receiving their antiretroviral tablets intermittently.
Celebrations such as religious feasts and weddings that used to be such a vital part of the social fabric have become a distant memory.
As for what I do every day – before the schools re-opened I used to sleep in late.
This was because I was up at night watching and listening to all the news clips that I had managed to gather.
The latest news is hard to come by.
I don’t have access to the internet. Instead, I go to road-side vendors to record video and audio clips about current events which are sold for about $0.20 each.
At other times I either read books, chat with neighbours or walk.
Unaffordable petrol
Now that my son is back at school I have done a lot of walking. My phone tells me that I normally take 9,000 to 12,000 steps in a day.
I make the 2km (1.2-mile) journey to drop him off on foot most mornings. My wife then picks him up, again on foot, at lunchtime.
I used to go by car, but it has been parked outside my home for more than 18 months because I cannot afford fuel.
You can still buy it but only on the black market. A litre of petrol now costs about $10 when, before the war, it used to cost $0.42 at a petrol station.
Taking a taxi or bejaj (three-wheeled motorised rickshaw) is also out of the question, as a single journey in a bejaj costs $2.
Horse-drawn carriages are now being used for public transport.
More people have started to cycle but even bicycles have become more expensive.
The people here want the conflict to be resolved peacefully and were very happy when news came through of the cessation of hostilities last week.
They had been waiting to see if it was more than an empty promise and after the arrival of the first aid convoy in months on Friday, it seems as though things could be changing.
I am grateful that I am surviving and can share my story but I know there are many in a worse situation than me and some may be dying.
There is perhaps a silver lining to all this: people are still supporting each other.
“Those who eat alone, will die alone” is a saying in our Tigrinya language and people follow that.
They share what they have with others even if it means they will starve tomorrow. There is so much solidarity to surviving together.
💭 The following report is from the Emirati National News:
The UAE has sent a plane carrying 30 tonnes of food items to Mekele, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
The shipment will help more than 7,000 people, including 5,600 women and children.
“The UAE is keen to support the humanitarian situation in the Tigray region, and to meet the needs of the population in light of food shortages,” said Mohamed Salem Al Rashidi, UAE ambassador to Ethiopia.
“The UAE has consolidated its global position in providing support and humanitarian aid. It is at the forefront of extending a helping hand, and taking swift action to provide emergency relief to countries and people that need it.
“The UAE places great value in the importance of supporting countries in need, while putting people at the top of its priorities without discrimination and without any other considerations.”
Last year, the UAE, in co-operation with the World Food Programme, sent eight planes carrying 337 tonnes of relief and food items to Mekele for more than 80,000 people, including 63,000 women and children.
The assistance included 200 tonnes of vegetable oil. The region also received 18.5 tonnes of medical supplies as part of efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 18, 2022
Horrific Video Brings More Pain to New Zealand’s Tigrayan Community
A horrific video which appears to show three people being burned alive in Ethiopia has sparked outrage from the Tigrayan community in Wellington.
The video, which has been shared on social media, appeared to show armed men pushing three people into the flames. The victims are believed to be Tigrayan, according to leaders of that ethnic group.
The Tigray region in northern Ethiopia has been locked in a civil war with Ethiopian federal forces and its allies since November 2020.
“I didn’t want to see [the video] but everyone was calling me and sending it to me,” says Rahwa Hagos, chairperson of Wellington’s 100-strong Tigrayan community.
“Everyone was crying and saying we need to do something. I felt helpless. What can I do?” she says. “They were laughing as they pushed those people into the fire. I can’t believe a human being will do that to another human being. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, a person is a person.”
The Ethiopian Government Communication Service confirmed the incident, although the video has not been authenticated.
The gruesome event, which is understood to have taken place in the northwestern Benishangul-Gumuz region, was further anguish for the Tigrayan community in Wellington, who fear for the safety of their loved ones.
Hagos, who is from Tigray’s third largest city of Shire, came to New Zealand with her family in 2001 as a refugee from Sudan.
Her mother, Shawaynesh, a New Zealand citizen, went back to Tigray in 2017 to look after her elderly mother. They have since lost touch.
“When the civil war started we tried to get her out, but we couldn’t because it wasn’t safe,” she says. “We didn’t hear from her till January 2021 and even then she had to travel miles to find a connection to call to say she was okay. They have no access to communications, banking, electricity, often no water supply, no medicines. She’s been worried about my grandmother not getting her medication.”
Civilians are at the mercy of it all, she says.
In June last year Hagos’ mother, who used to work at Wellington’s Commonsense Organics, was able to make a minute-long call through an aid organisation.
“She had lined up all night long to get her turn. She said ‘We are okay, we are surviving, but we need money.’ She is capable of looking after herself and family but all their bank accounts have been frozen, so she can’t access her own money.”
She was unable to move around freely because she was too scared, she says.
Hagos, who lives in Wellington with her husband, Hancock, and their two young daughters, has taken part in protests to draw the New Zealand Government’s attention to the crisis.
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced in June last year the Government would give $3.25m towards the humanitarian response in Ethiopia adding Aotearoa was “deeply concerned at the worsening humanitarian situation and food insecurity in Tigray”.
Hagos remained frustrated with the United Nations, saying the organisation was “not doing anything apart from releasing statements.
“Statements don’t do anything,” she says. “The atrocities we have seen… It feels like no one is paying attention. People are losing their lives every day just for being Tigrayan. It just blows your mind.
“We want people to know what is happening. We hope people will keep pushing the UN and people who have power [to act].”
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark was one of the few she saw asking the UN to do something about it, she says.
Clark, former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, has said war crimes were being committed in Tigray. Sexual violence had become a weapon of war. In an article published last year in Foreign Policy, co-written with Rachel Kyte, Clark said there was evidence of widespread and systematic sexual violence perpetrated by men in uniform.
She called on the world to “step in now and call the assaults what they are: a war crime.”
Hagos cries every day worrying about her family in Tigray. She can only hope they are safe.
Since that June call there has been only one message from her mother just before Christmas letting them know she was alive. And since then, silence.
Issac Ghebremiskel lives in Wellington with his wife and four children but has grave fears for his family in Tigray’s capital Mekelle.
Hi 63-year-old sister was arrested twice in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa “just for being Tigrayan”, he says. She escaped with civil war and is now living in Aotearoa.
Ghebremiskel and his wife have been unable to make contact with the rest of their family.
“There is no Internet, no phone. It’s blackout. They don’t have any access to banks. We don’t know how they are surviving. We don’t know if they are alive,” he says. “It’s difficult to get [food] aid in to Tigray. The government is using starvation like a weapon.”
Conflict – the fallout
Civil war began after a dispute between Tigray’s regional government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and the Ethiopian Government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Tigray has long fought to self-govern, despite the federal government’s desire for unity. Both sides declared war after Tigray held its own elections in September.
Almost 40 percent of Tigrayans are suffering an extreme lack of food, after 15 months of conflict. Across all three conflict-affected regions of the north more than 9 million people are in need of humanitarian food assistance, according to the World Food Programme.
Killings, looting and destruction of health centres and farming infrastructure have caused humanitarian needs to surge.
In late January, the International Committee of the Red Cross was finally able to make its first delivery of medical supplies since September 2021 into Mekelle.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 20, 2021
💭 UPDATE:
Fresh Ethiopia Air Raids Target Civilians In #Tigray Today, the #Ethiopia|n Air Force has conducted multiple drone and air strikes in Maychew, Korem and, the regional capital, Mekelle. So far eighteen civilians have been reported killed and eleven more injured.
💭 The Tragic drama continues: The Fascist Oromo Army’s Airstrike in Mekelle, today December 20, 2021
❖ [Jeremiah 6:14]❖
“All they ever offer to my deeply wounded people are empty hopes for peace.”
❖ [Ezekiel 13:10]❖
“Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace—and one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar.„
💭 Ethiopia’s Tigray forces announce retreat with view to possible ceasefire
Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said the decision could be a ‘decisive opening for peace’
Tigrayan forces fighting the Ethiopian government have announced their withdrawal from two key regions in the north of the country, a step towards a possible ceasefire after 13 months of brutal war.
“We trust that our bold act of withdrawal will be a decisive opening for peace,” wrote Debretsion Gebremichael, the head of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party controlling most of the northern region of Tigray.
His letter on Monday to the United Nations called for a no-fly zone for hostile aircraft over Tigray, imposing arms embargos on Ethiopia and its ally Eritrea, and a UN mechanism to verify that external armed forces had withdrawn from Tigray.
Mr Debretsion said he hoped the Tigrayan withdrawal, from the regions of Afar and Amhara, would force the international community to ensure that food aid could enter Tigray. The UN has previously accused the government of operating a de facto blockade – a charge the government has denied.
“We hope that by (us) withdrawing, the international community will do something about the situation in Tigray as they can no longer use as an excuse that our forces are invading Amhara and Afar,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters.