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EU gives Ethiopia 23 million Euro food assistance

The European Union (EU) on Monday announced a 23 million Euro food assistance to Ethiopia under its Humanitarian Aid Office.
According to a statement issued here by the EU Delegation to Ethiopia, the money is to be channelled through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to support food assistance for 2.3 million vulnerable people in the country.
“The European Union’s support will cover the food needs of more than 2 million people for one month through the purchase of 31,000 tons of wheat. In addition, 300,000 moderately malnourished children and pregnant and nursing women will receive fortified blended food for three months, which will help improve their nutritional status,” said the statement.
“Ethiopia faces recurring humanitarian challenges. Poor rainfall has led to failed harvests across the country and has led to food insecurity. The new allocation of US$23 million is for immediate humanitarian food assistance countrywide.
“Through this contribution, Europe is demonstrating its deep commitment to ending hunger and improving the lives of the most vulnerable people in Ethiopia,” said Denis Thieulin, head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation to Ethiopia.
The EU is one of the largest humanitarian donors in Ethiopia, which is supporting emergency humanitarian.

UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie appeals for safety in Somalia

nited Nations Goodwill Ambassador and award-winning actress Angelia Jolie is calling for more international attention and assistance for thousands of Somalis trapped in the country’s capital of Mogadishu by some of the deadliest violence to date.
“I am deeply troubled by the complete and utter disregard for human life in Somalia,” said Jolie, echoing recent calls by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres.
“I appeal to those who carry on fighting not to shell and target civilian neighbourhoods,” Jolie added.
Nearly daily fighting between Government forces and its supporters, backed by African Union peacekeepers, and Islamist rebels has killed or injured more than 900 people last month in Mogadishu.
The UN estimates that 100,000 people were displaced from or within the capital city since the beginning of the year, and more than 170,000 in total across the country.
The barrage of bullets and shelling is also limiting aid shipments and services, such as ambulances, that can access parts of Mogadishu.
With 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), some 570,000 refugees in the region and nearly 3 million people dependent on humanitarian aid, Somalia remains one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
In a related development, the top UN official working on the situation in Somalia told Somalis living abroad today that the switch of a rebel group to the Government’s side is a promising sign.
“The move by Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’a to join the TFG (Transitional Federal Government) has been a show of patriotism and dignity that demonstrates, more than any words could, the will to offer some hope to ordinary Somalis,” said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia and head of the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), in his latest letter to the Somali diaspora.
The Special Representative also noted that an “offensive” to address political, security in Mogadishu and job creation is under way, with support from the European Union, the United States and the AU.
Mr. Ould-Abdallah also spoke out against a move by extremists to force 14 radio stations in Mogadishu to stop airing music.
“Intimidating and threatening the public, and the media and aid workers is not in keeping with the Somali heritage or culture and an infringement of basic human rights,” he wrote.
Representatives of some 40 countries will discuss the situation in Somalia on Wednesday at the International Contact Group meeting in Cairo, to be hosted by the League of Arab States.

Anti-Malaria Efforts on Continent Bearing Fruit, but Challenges Remain – UN

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Significant progress has been made in combating malaria in Africa, but more remains to be done as the end of the decade dedicated to making control methods and treatments universally available approaches, the United Nations-led global partnership for coordinated action against malaria said today.
A report on malaria in Africa by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership shows a ten-fold increase in global malaria funding from external sources to nearly $1.8 billion in 2009, a five-fold increase in global production of insecticide-treated nets to 150 million, and a more than 30-fold increase in the procurement of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACT) to 160 million doses.
“Investment in malaria control is saving lives and reaping far-reaching benefits for countries,” said Coll Seck, RBM Partnership Executive Director. “But without sustained and predictable funding, the significant contribution of malaria control towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals could be reversed,” said Dr. Seck.
“Today, with approximately one third of the global investment needed, country programmes are saving a child’s life every three minutes. This is very positive. We cannot afford to relax our efforts,” he added.
Data presented in the report confirms that of the nearly 350 million insecticide-treated nets needed to achieve universal coverage, nearly 200 million were received in African countries between 2007 and 2009, and countries have adopted more effective, but also more expensive, treatment strategies.
However, the proportion of African children receiving an ACT is still very low and data on the use of diagnostics is still largely unavailable. ACT drugs are recognized as the best for the treatment multi-drug resistant strains of malaria.
Relevant Links
• Malaria
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“With strong collaboration, great progress has been made in the battle against malaria,” said Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director. “But more remains to be done as children and pregnant women are still dying of this preventable and treatable disease, especially in Africa.”
Two thirds of all malaria control financing is generated by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, with the United States President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), the World Bank and other bilateral donors making up the balance of external funding.
Most of the funding is directed at Africa, where 90 per cent of global malaria deaths occur.
The report highlights that while total annual global funding reached approximately $2 billion by the end of 2009, malaria funding still falls short of the estimated $6 billion required annually by the Global Malaria Action Plan (GMAP) to ensure universal coverage of malaria control interventions.

World’s biggest gas exporters meet to cut glut

Many of the world’s biggest gas exporters gathered in Algeria on Monday in search of a plan to boost gas prices without causing further pain for any members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).
Energy ministers from Europe’s three biggest external gas suppliers — Russia, Algeria and Qatar — hope the diverse group of gas exporters can find a mutually beneficial way to stem a flood of gas that has slashed their profits for over a year.
But what the countries currently competing to sell fuel into a saturated market, largely because of a surge in alternative gas production in North America, can agree to remains vague ahead of the ministerial meeting in the Algerian port of Oran.
“A new model of cooperation is to be devised, beneficial to all. I think we should work towards a stable international gas trade through efficient use of world energy resources,” Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil told reporters before the meeting.
“The elements we should discuss today could constitute the basis for the definition of all possible options for implementation of all appropriate strategies for their achievement.”
The GECF members account for about 70 percent of the world’s conventional gas reserves but are suffering in a global market where demand for their product has been dampened by slow economic growth and an unexpected surge in alternative gas supplies in former imported gas guzzler the United States.
“The forecast for the next five years is rather worrying as it displays only weak growth that will bring the demand level in 2013 back to 2008,” Khelil, whose country supplies about 20 percent of Europe’s gas, said on Monday.
Algeria said earlier this year the forum’s member countries should agree coordinated cuts in spot market supplies in a bid to reverse the slump in gas prices in Europe in particular.
The forum has been dismissed by many energy analysts as a talking shop that cannot hope to emulate the power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
It has made no attempt to coordinate supply policy before and the gas market is seen as harder to manage because most natural gas is delivered under long-term contracts, therefore producers do not have the flexibility to influence prices by adjusting output.
As the U.S. market has lost some of its appetite for imported LNG, tanker gas suppliers like Qatar and Trinidad and Equatorial Guinea — all GECF members — have been forced to look for other markets for some of their cargoes, which have often ended up in Europe, driving down prices and hitting Algerian and Russian pipeline sales.

Somalia’s al-Shabab militia ‘improving security’

Somali al-Shabab Islamists have brought greater stability to parts of Somalia, but at a huge cost to the local population, Human Rights Watch says.
A report by the US-based group details killings, repression and harsh Sharia law punishments, including amputations.
“The price that people had to pay for that relative degree of security was really just incredible,” the report’s author Chris Albin-Lackey told the BBC.
Somalia has been wracked by civil conflict since 1991.
In recent years, hardline Islamists have taken control of large parts of southern Somalia.
The main al-Shabab group says it is fighting the weak UN-backed government to make Somalia an Islamic state.
The transitional government – which controls only parts of the capital with the help of African peacekeepers – also wants Islamic law imposed, but al-Shabab’s interpretation of Sharia has been very strict.
Correspondents say Somalis have traditionally practised a moderate and tolerant form of Islam.
‘Draconian’
“People from many parts of southern Somalia did give the al-Shabab authorities credit for bringing about a kind of stability that many areas had not known for many years,” Mr Albin-Lackey told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.
Offences can lead to punishments ranging from flogging to imprisonment, even to the possibility of being executed

HRW’s Chris Albin-Lackey

Somali justice – Islamist-style

The Islamists have wiped out “banditry and freelance militias that have plagued people” but that stability has often come at the price of justice, he said.
“In many places al-Shabab authorities have put in place incredibly draconian interpretations of Sharia law and have enforced those in ways that offer people really no kind of due process.”
Offences ranging from men wearing their hair too long to women venturing out without the right kind of dress, he said.
“All of these offences can lead to punishments ranging from flogging to imprisonment, even to the possibility of being executed.”
Last week, al-Shabab banned teachers in one town from using bells in school as they sounded too much like Christian church bells.
The hardline Islamists also disapprove of music and have shut down cinemas and banned the watching of football matches.
Another group, Hizbul-Islam, banned music from radios in Mogadishu earlier in April.

New Blog is launched by Haaraa News Authors

Haaraa News authors launched a new blog, which gives much News coverage of African News, by giving much emphasis on East African news. The Address or URL of the site is (http://gadaawalisoo-tl.blogpost.com).or The title is (Gadaa Walisoo)

The Authors invite you to visit the site on daily basis, for current news and events.

Ban welcomes new arms pact between Russia and the United States

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed today’s agreement reached between Russia and the United States to reduce their arsenals, hailing it as an “important milestone” in global efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Negotiations between the two nations on a successor agreement to the 1991 Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, better known as START, wrapped up today.
According to media reports, the new pact will require both sides to cut their deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and launchers. It will also re-establish a verification mechanism to replace the one that expired with START last December.
Congratulating Russian and US presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on the agreement and for the leadership they have displayed, Mr. Ban voiced hope in a statement that “this new treaty can be ratified without delay so as to allow its expeditious implementation.”According to media reports, the new pact will require both sides to cut their deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and launchers.
The Secretary-General called on both nations to press ahead with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons, encouraging other nuclear-weapon States to follow their example.
He also expressed optimism that today’s announcement will give “significant impetus” to this May’s review conference of the United Nations-backed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which forms the foundation of the world’s nuclear non-proliferation regime and marked the 40th anniversary of its entry into force earlier this month.
Parties to that pact will meet in New York in May to review its operation and how to further its full implementation and its universality. Under the provisions of the treaty, review conferences are held every five years.
Mr. Ban has characterized the last review meeting in 2005 as “disappointing.”
At the end of that meeting, Sergio Duarte, the President of the last Review Conference and currently UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said the gathering ended having accomplished “very little” amid widely diverging views on nuclear arms and their spread. It wrapped up without any substantive agreement having been reached by nations.
In 2008, the Secretary-General put forward a five-point action plan to reinvigorate the international push towards disarmament.
It begins with a call for the parties to the NPT to pursue negotiations on nuclear disarmament, either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification.
In addition, it is based on the following key principles: that disarmament must enhance security; be reliably verified; be rooted in legal obligations; be visible to the public; and must anticipate emerging dangers from other weapons.
Source: UN news Centre

Ethiopia: Challenging the Gibe Dam is anti-development in Africa

From Ethiopian African, Business, Featured, News, World Mar 26, 2010

The Gilgel Gibe III dam will hold back 14.7 million cubic metres of water. Its 1,870 MW generating capacity will be a significant boost for the Ethiopian Electric Power Company (EEPCO) which has plans to extend electricity supply within the country and export power to other countries in East Africa.
Ethiopian News | Salini Costruttori: Those Challenging the Gibe Project do not want development in Africa
“The campaign against the construction of the Gibe plant in Ethiopia is merely another initiative without a technical and scientific basis”, states a note published by Salini Costruttori SpA.
“We are dealing with an irresponsible campaign, based on critical statements founded on blatant factual errors and mainly due to elementary arithmetic and technical mistakes. These statements have already been assessed and denied by authoritative international organizations, such as EIB and the African Development Bank (ADB).”
One case is that of the change in water level in Lake Turkana caused by the project, which the critical organizations are claiming has fallen by 12 metres, with disastrous effects. In truth, the claimed fall in water level is non-existent and is based on a blatant overestimate (15 times!) in the calculation of the volume taken over by the dam.
Salini Costruttori has stated its full willingness to discuss the matter in meetings, as long as they are based on accurate and scientifically provable elements and not merely on sterile ideological prejudice, but also believes that the following should be pointed out:
• the work on the Gibe system in terms of effects on the local people, the use of the soil for producing plants and food and on biodiversity has been subjected to impartial and accurate evaluations which have not identified any negative impacts, highlighting the positive effects on the people and the area, especially from a health perspective;
• fishing, which is the main activity in the region, will also benefit from the project and the creation of an environment compatible with the continuing development of the fishing industry;
• the water supply in Lake Turkana will not be decreased, but may even increase due to less water evaporation, which is now considerable due to the large wetlands periodically inundated by the floods along the Omo river, that are now uncontrolled, dangerous and destructive.
Salini Costruttori has also stated that the Gibe project is fruit of the work of hundreds of engineers of worldwide renown in the sector and that thousands of technicians and workers of different nationalities are involved in the project, which has been submitted for approval by authoritative Ethiopian and international organizations.
Those who are opposing the Gibe project in various ways and under various guises are merely fuelling a needless and damaging campaign, based on ideological prejudice – in the hope of gaining fame and notoriety – while nullifying the appreciation of the work expressed in international circles.
Salini has reiterated its policy of full disclosure to the public of all information on its work, and the use on its own blog and website of open areas for discussion and criticism, also announcing that it will continue to defend its image from further unmotivated and defamatory attacks, which are causing serious damage not only to the Company and the dignity of its technicians and workers, but also, especially, to the development of the Horn of Africa.
The Gibe projects will guarantee the production of the same amount of renewable and clean energy as that of two average size nuclear plants, and this will enable the sustainable development of one of the most depressed areas in the world.(Ethiopian News.com, March 26, 2010)

New Blog is launched by Haaraa News Authors

Haaraa News authors launched a new blog, which gives much News coverage of African News, by giving much emphasis on East African news. The Address or URL of the site is (oromiatoday-teshome.blogpost.com).or The title is (Gadaa Walisoo)

The Authors invite you to visit the site on daily basis, for current news and events.