Ethiopia dragged reluctantly back into Somalia - Yahoo! News

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Ethiopia is being sucked back into Somalia to open another front against Islamist rebels battling Kenyan forces but even a military victory is unlikely to end two decades of anarchy unless the country's feuding politicians and clans want peace.

An Ethiopian government official acknowledged for the first time on Friday that a small force had already rolled across the border and was carrying out reconnaissance missions ahead of a full deployment that would last "weeks.

"We are looking at a brief period of time, weeks. We don't want our deployment to be used for propaganda by the extremists," the official told Reuters, declining to be named.

"The aim is to support (Somalia's) Transitional Federal Government troops and their allies to expand their control in the south of Somalia and pull back," he added.

Head of the regional IGAD bloc, Mahboub Maalim, said Ethiopia had promised to "assist in the peace and stabilization activities" ongoing in Somalia.

Kenya has leaned heavily on Ethiopia to send a force to join the assault against the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels.

Ethiopian troops are unlikely to stray far this time, aware their last intervention in 2006-2009 to flush out another Islamist group was a rallying call for the militants, who portrayed Ethiopia as Christian invaders in a Muslim country.

Kenya too has stressed it will leave Somalia once it has dismantled al Shabaab's network and seized strongholds that provide the insurgents a financial lifeline, potentially leaving a void for former warlords to step into.

Somalia is a hotspot in the global war against militant Islam. But in the two decades since warlords and then Islamist insurgents reduced its government to impotence, a string of foreign forces, including American, have failed to bring order.

"The Ethiopians can be none too happy with the state of affairs," said J. Peter Pham, Africa director with U.S. think-tank the Atlantic Council.

"The Kenyans, having foolishly charged in with apparently little thought as to realistic strategic objectives... are now bogged down and need an additional front opened against al Shabaab to relieve the pressure on themselves," he said.

Kenyan forces crossed into Somalia nearly six weeks ago in an incursion designed to dismantle the militants' network.

While they initially advanced smoothly on rebel strongholds in southern Somalia, the Kenyan campaign has stalled as al Shabaab fighters melt into the population, while heavy rains and muddy terrain swamp its forces.

ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY

Ethiopia is reviled across much of Somalia.

With tacit U.S. backing, and at the invitation of the beleaguered Somali government, Ethiopia blitzed its way through Somalia in late 2006 and 2007 to rout another Somali Islamist administration from de facto power.

Washington said the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) had ties to al Qaeda. It now backs a government led by a former ICU boss.

Al Shabaab rose from the broken ICU, its ranks swollen by a deep resentment at the perception of Ethiopia as a Christian invader in a Muslim country.

"The Ethiopians understand all too well that their presence, as a Christian nation, in Somalia could be propaganda for al Shabaab," said an African Union official in Addis Ababa.

"They're not going to repeat that mistake twice," the official said on condition of anonymity. "They will back up ASWJ, equip them, train them and not stray too far," referring to the pro-Mogadishu Sufi militia group, Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, which is also closely allied to Ethiopia.

A second AU official said Ethiopian troops might push as deep as Baidoa, about 250 km (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu with an airport, to stretch rebel lines and cut off some supply routes.

An Ahlu Sunna commander told Reuters the militia expected Ethiopia to train 4,000 fighters.

KISMAYU PRIZE

Kenya boasts it could seize Kismayu, a nerve-center for rebel operations and prized Kenyan target, any time it chooses.

The advance on the port city was still on and the country's navy has blockaded the sea port, a Kenyan military source said. Kenya hopes to starve the militants of huge revenues on inflows of smuggled contraband and charcoal exports to the Gulf.

The lack of a significant blow to the rebels so far, though, has raised questions about Kenya's troops numbers and strategy.

In 2006, against Ethiopia, a military giant in the region, the insurgents squared up to the offensive and suffered.

"This time, they faded among the population ... even as they draw (Kenya) deeper into Somalia, extending their lines of communication and supply and allowing them to get bogged down in the unforgiving terrain," Pham said.

Some Western diplomats believe Kismayu will fall, but acknowledge their are few answers to the question: What next?

"I don't think even within the political and military circles anyone can tell you the end game, the exit plan," Ndung'u Wainaina, head the Nairobi-based think-tank International Center for Policy and Conflict said.

Kenyan troops might seek to switch berets and join an African peacekeeping force. That, though, would require the United Nations to extend the force's mandate beyond Mogadishu and raise the ceiling on troop numbers from the current 12,000.

Western powers -- most likely the United States and European Union -- would also need to stump up more cash.

"It's difficult to see how that could happen anytime soon given that the salaries of the soldiers are paid for by the West. There's no stomach for giving any more money to AMISOM," said a Western diplomat working in the region.

Even if Kenya and its regional allies crush the rebels, military force at best provides breathing space.

Critical is political reform, but Somalia's government has done little to convince its neighbors it is capable of extending its sphere of power beyond the capital.

The unelected government's legitimacy is already battered by internal power struggles and corruption. Its reliance on yet another foreign incursion might damage its credibility yet further if there is no swift political follow up.

"There is a very real danger that al-Shabaab gets defeated only to be replaced by nothing better than a collection of warlords whose depredations gives rise to yet another insurgency, renewing the cycle of conflict and prolonging once more the sufferings ordinary Somalis," said Pham.

(Additional reporting by Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Barry Malone and James Macharia in Nairobi and Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa; editing by David Clarke and Philippa Fletcher)

Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt Adopting 2011 - Ethiopian Baby | Gossip Cop

Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt Life & Style Zahara

12:27 pm, November 24th, 2011

(GettyImages.com)

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are preparing to adopt another child, reports Life & Style.

The tabloid claims the couple is actively looking to expand their family to seven children, “primarily looking in Ethiopia, where their daughter Zahara was born.”

“They are excited about it,” a so-called “pal” tells the magazine. “Seven has always been Brad’s lucky number, and he and Angelina think it would bring them luck and happiness.”

For proof, Life & Style points to a recent interview Pitt gave in Australia in which he said of his brood, “I don’t know that we’re finished. I don’t know yet.”

Ooh! The very revealing I don’t know!

In any case, the “friend” claims the reason Pitt said he didn’t know in the interview is that the adoption process is fraught with last-minute delays and complications.

“He and Angie made a promise to Zahara years ago that they would adopt another child from the region she came from, so she could have a sibling to relate to,” explains the tab’s source.

The remainder of the article is devoted to discussing how busy Jolie and Pitt already are with their careers and other commitments, and how adding the new baby will “only add to the craziness.”

OK, let’s slow down.

As Gossip Cop has reported over and over, Jolie and Pitt are not actively preparing to add to their family.

Jolie herself recently said, there are no current plans to get pregnant or adopt again.

There’s a (very real) chance the couple will adopt – from Ethiopia or elsewhere – at some point in the future.

But as a source close to the family again tells Gossip Cop, that is not happening right now.

Follow @GossipCop on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Sign up for Gossip Cop's daily newsletter.

LITTLE ETHIOPIA in Washington DC - CNN

CNN visits LITTLE ETHIOPIA in Washington DC - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Ethiopia land dream shattered - News - JamaicaObserver.com

Stephen Golding discovers that Haile Selassie’s 500-acre Shashemene offer no longer exists

Sunday, October 02, 2011

THE dream of many people, especially Rastafarians, to take up an offer made more than 60 years ago by Emperor Haile Selassie I to settle on 500 acres of fertile land in Shashemene, Ethiopia has been shattered by political changes in that east-central African country.

According to Steven Golding, president of the Marcus Garvey-founded Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) Kingston Chapter who visited Ethiopia in May this year, the land offer no longer exists.

Rastafarians living in Shashemene with Steven Golding (right), president of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) Kingston Chapter. 1/4

"Going there, we found in actuality, there is not a land grant offer to take up," Golding, whose father, Bruce, is Jamaica's prime minister, told the Sunday Observer.

In fact, according to the younger Golding, persons who actually took up Selassie's offer many years ago have lost some of the land and are now living in unacceptable conditions.

Shashemene gained international attention in the African diaspora when 500 acres of its fertile land was granted to the 'Black People of the West' in 1948 by Selassie, the Ethiopian emperor at the time. It was a gesture of appreciation for their massive support to Ethiopia during the Italian occupation of 1935-1941.

Over the past 40 years, the global Rastafari community established a community at Shashemene with several individuals and families settling on the land, some raising children and grandchildren.

However, problems arose during the reign of Haile Mariam Mengistu who became head of state in 1977, three years after Selassie was deposed and the country's new military rulers declared it a Socialist state.

Mengistu's military dictatorship — known as the Provisional Military Administrative Council or the Derg — encouraged Ethiopians to capture land occupied by supporters of Selassie. The situation deteriorated further under the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who assumed office in 1995, and more land has been taken from the settlers.

Golding recalled that after Selassie visited Jamaica in 1966, a number of people, particularly among the Rastafarian movement, began sending people to Ethiopia to take up the land offer.

"I think when I visited there the eldest person had been there since 1973. Not eldest in age, but in terms of time being in Ethiopia," Golding said.

"We know, of course, that in 1974-75 there was the military overthrow of the monarchy in Ethiopia, which then brought up some questions for those who had taken up the land grant offer as to what was going to happen to them. And the members who had been there now, coming up to 20 years, were forced to sort of lose parts of the land that they had occupied to development being brought by the government," said Golding. "That is what affected the first set of groups when it came to the land grant, and why they will tell you, according to them, there is no longer any 500 acres."

Golding said that during his fact-finding mission, he learnt that Government policy now forbids the sale of land in Ethiopia. However, Ethiopians are selling buildings on their properties "for the purpose of having a legal transaction to the Africans from the diaspora who are coming there to take up this offer".

"So you are buying a small hut... not at the value of the hut, but the value of the land. Even though legally they can't sell you the land, they sell you the hut for the value of the land, you can then knock down the hut and build a permanent structure which you can get a title to. That is what has been happening, and it is not restricted to just Shashemene. You can do this wherever you are in Ethiopia," he explained.

Golding's trip had its genesis in an appeal made a year ago by the Shashemene-based Ethiopian World Federation Incorporated to the Jamaican prime minister in his capacity as the then chairman of Caricom to investigate the matter of the settlers of Shashemene and to look at establishing a Caricom Embassy in Ethiopia.

The appeal was contained in a document presented to the prime minister's son at a meeting of the UNIA by Barbara Blake-Hannah on behalf of the Rastafari Think-Tank.

Golding's trip, which also took him and his fiancée Empress to Kenya and Tanzania, was a re-enactment of sorts of the 1961 original back-to-Africa fact-finding mission to several African nations by a local delegation sent by Norman Manley to discuss repatriation.

That delegation comprised representatives from a number of organisations, including the Ethiopian World Federation, the local Rastafari Movement, as well as the UNIA. The mission emerged from a study on the Rastafari movement in 1960 undertaken by a team of University of the West Indies professors, led by the late Rex Nettleford and including MG Smith and Roy Augier.

"The idea was to recreate the trip and to reinvestigate what has happened in the past 50 years," Golding told the Sunday Observer. "I found out coming now, 50 years after, you cannot appear in Ethiopia and present yourself saying, 'I am a black person. I am an African from the diaspora. It was written in your constitution at one point, this land grant, and I am here to take up the offer'."

Golding also used his trip to help organise branches of the UNIA on the continent. "We organised a group in Nairobi, we organised a group in Arusha, Tanzania. And also we re-strengthened our group in the United Kingdom," he said.

"I must say this is not that I went to Africa and created these divisions. These divisions were already sort of creating themselves. I was just fortunate being the president of the first division formed here in Jamaica in 1914 to go and give them some direction and to plug them into the wider international network," he said.

"There were already Garveyites there. Now we have UNIA divisions there. So they are aware that they are not alone and that there are other divisions organised around the world that they can now count as part of their fraternity," Golding told the Sunday Observer.

"Before going over to Africa we did canvas our people on the ground. Marcus Garvey is very popular and he has followers everywhere," said Golding. "So what we were able to do in East Africa was to bring them together, share with them the constitution of the UNIA, re-energise them and put them back on the right path towards organising themselves and functioning as a constitutional part of the global organisation."

— Basil Walters

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Ethiopia-land-dream-shattered_9779729#ixzz1Zfh7FCCX

Rising star Ruth set for BBC drama - Entertainment - Limerick Leader

Actress Ruth Negga

By Alan Owens
Published on Wednesday 17 August 2011 12:44

ETHIOPIAN-born actress Ruth Negga, who grew up in Limerick, has been cast in an iconic role as the lead in new BBC drama ‘Shirley Bassey: A Very British Diva’.

The rising star, who recently appeared in RTE’s Love/Hate and previously had roles in BBC’s Criminal Justice and E4’s Misfits, will play Bassey in the film, which is set “against the backdrop of mixed-race Britain from the Thirties to the Sixties” and charts the singer’s journey from poverty to global stardom. It will air in the autumn.

Negga said she was “thrilled” with the casting, saying it was “an absolute honour to be playing her in such an intimate story of her life”.

The striking actress, seen as a serious star in the making in Irish film circles, has also appeared in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast On Pluto and Ciaran O’Connor’s Trafficked.

Born in 1982 in her father’s native Ethiopia, Negga lived there until she was four, before moving to Limerick, from where her mother’s family hail. Ruth’s father died in a car accident when she was just seven.

Negga went to school in Limerick - attending primary in Scoil An Spioraid Naomh in Roxborough, Ballysheedy and the Mount for a time - later moving to London with her mum when she was 18, where she is currently based.

Speaking in an interview last year, Negga said that, although she missed out on a relationship with her father, she felt part of a large, loving group while living in Limerick, where she “had a very, very close-knit family”.

“My mum has a lot of brothers. My family is quite boy-heavy actually, so I had a lot of male input in my life,” she explained.

She added that she didn’t experience any racism while growing up in Limerick, “probably because black and brown people were an unknown quantity then. My auntie used to take me down to the Crescent shopping centre and people used to stare. I was definitely a sort of fascination.

Hundreds of Ethiopian Refugees Flock Through Zimbabwe-RadioVop Zimbabwe

Font size:

By Ngoni Chanakira, Juru Growth Point, July 18, 2011 - More than 25 shabbily dressed and visibly hungry refugees from Ethiopia are passing through Zimbabwe almost daily using the Juru Growth Point Highway.

The refugees, old men, women and children, say they are en-route to South Africa where they "hope" to settle soon, investigations reveal.

A trip accompanying the refugees on parts of their long journey by Radio VOP, showed that the individuals come from very "poor families in Ethiopia are unemployed and are political individuals who have virtually nothing to lose from their quick departure".

They cannot speak English and use a translator whom they pay about US$2 daily in each country travelled through. The Zimbabwean translator was known simply as "Billy".

Billy, it later emerged after asking several questions, comes from a broken home in Mozambique.

The witty boy had "falsely" informed the refugees that he could speak English and, therefore, could take them "safely" across Zimbabwe to South Africa where he would pass them over to yet another translator based there.

Little did they know that for "witty" Billy this was full time work since he is unemployed in Mozambique.

"They share everything they can get their hands on," Billy told Radio VOP in an exclusive interview when the refugees had stopped for some water at Blue Ridge Shopping Complex along the highway.

Blue Ridge Shopping Centre is owned by fugitive business tycoon, James Makamba, a former ZBC Disk Jockey (DJ), who became an overnight millionaire in Zimbabwe and began his own television station rivalling the monopolistic ZBC TV.

Makamba, owner of a huge farm behind Blue Ridge, is understood to be in London in the United Kingdom (UK) where he fled Zimbabwe allegedly fearing political persecution from State Security agents after he had been specified by the Government of President Robert Mugabe. Makamba has since been de-specified.

Last night we only managed to get some packets of maputi (popped maize) when we passed through Juru Growth Point," Billy said. "We got these after we had begged some businessmen there. They then also gave us water to drink and hoped us well on our trip to Harare.

"But I am not stopping in Harare. In fact I am taking them to Bulawayo and then finally to Beitbridge where I will leave them for another translator in South Africa. It is a very long trip," he said, sometimes speaking to this Reporter in Shona, a major language also used in poor Mozambique.

Billy revealed that food was very difficult to come across especially at night on the long trip.

He said, in an interview, that the refugees had fled starvation and alleged poor governance from the current government in power.

Billy said the refugees "thought" that since their former President, Mengistu Haille Mariam, was given shelter in Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe, they could also receive the same.

Some pilots flying the national carrier Air Zimbabwe and the Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ) led by Perence Shiri, were trained in Ethiopia before Independence in 1980.

"They say they want to see President Megistu Haille Mariam when we get to Harare," Billy said in the interview.

But Mengistu is nowhere to be "easily" seen in Harare. He is housed under close State Security agents in the plush Gun Hill suburb in Harare's Northern Suburbs near The Harare Mayor's Mansion built by the late Harare Executive Mayor, Solomon Tawengwa.

However, investigations by this Reporter show that the road leading to where Mengistu used to reside is now quite easily accessible even by gardeners and house maids working in Gun Hill.

The Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) soldiers guarding the road are sometimes "nowhere" to be seen because they would have gone shopping for cigarettes at Sam Levy's Village in Borrowdale suburb, about five kilometres away from the mansion secured for the "former dictator Megistu".

Mengistu was given refugee status in Zimbabwe by his political friend Zanu (PF) boss, Mugabe. The 87-year-old Mugabe agreed to keep him in this country until the political and economic clouds hovering over Ethiopia had cleared.

Nothing has been heard about Mengistu's whereabouts.

The last time information was gathered from State Security agents was that he had been given a lucrative commercial farm somewhere in the plush Mazowe farming area - the area reserved mainly for prominent top army bosses where "grabbed commercial farms" from white commercial farmers were dished out by President Mugabe.

"We are just stopping here for water," Billy said in the interview. "I think Harare is near now because they tell me that it is only about 20km from here (Blue Ridge Shopping Centre). We will get there by tonight."

Billy and his new found poor and hungry friends once they arrive in Harare they will be faced with yet another task - this time the more than 420km gruelling trek to Bulawayo - the City of Kings.

Senior CPC official vows to boost cooperation with Ethiopia

BEIJING, Jun 30, 2011 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- A senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) pledged on Thursday to increase cooperation with the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

Wang Gang, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made the remarks while meeting with a delegation headed by Shiferaw Tekle-mariam, a member of the EPRDF executive committee. Shiferaw is also Ethiopia's federal affairs minister.

Wang talked about China-Ethiopia relations, saying cooperation in the areas of trade and investment, culture, education and public health was expanding, and the two countries were working closely together on international and regional affairs coordination.

"The China-Ethiopia relationship, under the framework of the Sino-Africa Cooperation Forum, has set an example for South-South cooperation," Wang added.

The CPC and the EPRDF have forged a close partnership over the past years, he said.

"We are willing to step up exchange and cooperation with the EPRDF on the basis of the four principles for party-to-party interaction, and continue seeking new means of exchange and cooperation in order to inject fresh vitality into the China-Ethiopia All-round Cooperative Partnership," Wang said.

The four principles include "independence, complete equality, mutual respect, and non-interference in each other's internal affairs."

Ethiopia arrests 9, including 2 journalists, on terrorism charges, government official says - The Washington Post

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — An Ethiopian official says nine people were arrested last week on suspicions of organizing a terrorist network and planning attacks.

Government spokesman Shimeles Kemal said Wednesday that two journalists were among those arrested. He says they were involved in planning attacks on infrastructure, telecommunications and power lines. Shimeles says two other suspects are members of an opposition party.

0

Comments

• Weigh In
• Corrections?

Shimeles says the suspects were supported by Ethiopia’s archenemy Eritrea and by an international terrorist group, which he did not name.

International media rights groups have been calling for the release of Reeyot Alemu, a columnist for the independent weekly Feteh, and Woubshet Taye, deputy editor-in-chief of the weekly Awramba Times newspaper.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Ethiopia-Sudan Mineral explorations

Trend Lines | Global Insider: Ethiopia-Sudan Relations: "Global Insider: Ethiopia-Sudan Relations
BY THE EDITORS | 20 JUN 2011
Sudan and Ethiopia recently reached a initial agreement to explore and develop mineral resources along their shared border. In an email interview, David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia and a current adjunct professor of international relations at George Washington University, discussed Ethiopia-Sudan relations.

WPR: What is the recent history of relations between Ethiopia and Sudan?

David Shinn: Ethiopia and Sudan have a long history of alternating periods of conflict and cooperation. Following the outbreak of war between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1998, Ethiopia's relationship with Sudan shifted from hostile to cordial as Ethiopia sought to ensure peace on its other borders. The relationship has remained positive ever since. Ethiopia improved its main road connection to Sudan and now imports Sudanese oil. It plans to build additional dams on Nile tributaries and sell electricity to Sudan. It recently agreed to send two battalions of Ethiopian troops to the contested Abyei region between north and south Sudan in order to help ensure the Republic of South Sudan has a peaceful birth on July 9. Ethiopia also has a good relationship with the new government in south Sudan.

WPR: What is the significance of the agreement to jointly develop resources in their border region?"

Ethio Kenyan |Border raids bad for EAC The East African: - Editorial

EDITORIAL

Border raids bad for EAC

SHARE BOOKMARKPRINTEMAILRATING

Posted Sunday, June 12 2011 at 13:06

It is about time Kenya and Ethiopia ended the incessant raids occurring at their borders. Key among the causes of these raids is poverty and climatic change that has affected the livelihoods of pastoral communities that occupy the region.

It is encouraging that the two governments have realised there is a need to address the conflict arising from shared resources. The Turkana in Kenya, Toposa in Sudan and Merille in Ethiopia come from the same stock. But the struggle for survival occasioned by the harsh environment in which they live in has led to unending feuds between communities, with dire consequences.

The East African Community cannot sit quietly and let such age old malpractices as cattle rustling persist with impunity. The the continued conflict will only lead to the proliferation of small arms as each community desperately tries to protect itself.

The two countries have recognised the need to strengthen bilateral relations and cooperation. This is particularly important to Kenya that is spearheading the regional economic integration. Experience has proved that cross-border trade and social interaction is the antidote of ethnic prejudices.

flashad