Ethiopian News

 Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa11 March 2010  VOA

The U.S. State Department's annual human rights reports says Ethiopia is holding several hundred political prisoners, including the leader of one of the country's largest opposition parties. Ethiopia has reacted strongly to past U.S. criticisms of its rights record.

The 2009 human rights report says Birtukan Mideksa, president of Ethiopia's opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice party, was held in solitary confinement for the first six months of the year despite a court ruling that it violated her constitutional rights. The 61-page document says there were credible reports that Birtukan's mental health deteriorated significantly during the year.

Read more: US Rights Report Lists Ethiopian Opposition Leader as Political Prisoner

 March 09, 2010

By Paul Vallely,  The Independent

Furious Band Aid founder calls for director of World Service to be dismissed

Bob Geldof upped the ante in the row between Band Aid and the BBC yesterday by calling for the director of the BBC World Service, Peter Horrocks – who is also the BBC’s director of global news – to be sacked.

The musician-turned-poverty campaigner also called for two other BBC journalists to be fired after various BBC news outlets claimed that 95 per cent of the $100m aid donated, by Live Aid and others, to fight famine in rebel-held northern Ethiopia in 1985 was diverted to be spent on weapons.

Read more: Heads must roll at the BBC, says Geldof after Ethiopia aid report

March 09, 2010

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — Ethiopia’s dwindling Jewish community, known as the Falash Mura, on Tuesday said their living conditions at home were desperate and appealed on Israel to keep its pledge to welcome them.

“We are suffering, people are dying, we have nothing. Three hundred people, at least, died only during the last year because of diseases or malnutrition,” the community’s leader Sisay Berhan told reporters.

Read more: Ethiopian Jews in plea to Israel

 March 09, 2010  | capitalethiopia

Bereket Simon, Addisu Legesse and Tefera Walwa will not seek re-election

Time is up for another heavyweight from the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

Addisu Legesse, Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Chairman of the ruling front, will not run in the upcoming election. Last week, Capital reported that Bereket Simon, Minister at the Office of Government Communication Affairs; Tefera Walwa, Minister of Capacity Building; and Tsegaye Berhe, President of Tigray Regional State, will also not seek re-election.

Read more: Bereket Simon and Addisu Legesse will not seek re-election

Tuesday, 9 March 2010 | THE INDEPENDENT

 Stung by BBC allegations that Live Aid money was spent on weapons, Meles Zenawi tells Paul Vallely that the report is based on lies

The prime minister of Ethiopia has stepped into the row between Sir Bob Geldof and the BBC which has claimed that 95 per cent of the $100m aid raised, by Live Aid and others, to fight famine in rebel-held northern Ethiopia in 1985 was diverted to be spent on weapons.

Read more: Ethiopian PM denies aid was diverted

 March 8, 2010 

The Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF) has announced that it will send a team to the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha in March despite strained diplomatic relations between Ethiopia and Qatar.

Speaking by telephone from Addis Ababa, EAF treasurer Amanuel Abraham said the federation will send a team to Doha as it as an obligation to compete. "The Doha competition is organized not by Qatar government but by IAAF," he said. "As a member of the association, we have an obligation of taking part. So Ethiopia will take part."

Read more: Ethiopia to send team to Qatar despite diplomatic strain

ADDIS ABABA, (AFP) Sunday, 07 March 2010  

Ethiopia inaugurated a museum on Sunday in memory of the victims of former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam's so-called Red Terror purge which killed tens of thousands in the 1970s.

Dozens of family members and government officials attended a sombre ceremony at the memorial in Addis Ababa to remember their loved ones, whose bodies were mostly dumped in mass graves.

The museum took three years to complete and honours the dead with photographs of the 1977-78 campaign of state terror carried out under the orders of Mengistu to wipe out his opponents.

Read more: Ethiopians honour victims of Mengistu purge