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Four Winds: June 2008 |
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By awate monitor -
Jul 01, 2008
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Awate Four Winds: June 2008 (A Very Special edition of the More-Of-The-Same issue)
MAYBE THE UN SHOULD GIVE ENTRANCE EXAM TO AMBASSADORS: Article 27.3 of the UN Charter says that on all non-procedural matters, decisions of the Security Council “shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members.” This gives the US, Russia, China, France and the UK veto power. But Eritrea’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Araya Desta is not impressed: Eritrea believes and humbly requests the Security Council to examine seriously, and to take appropriate measures against, the misguided acts of the US Government..." That means you Vietnam, Costa Rica, Panama...and the other rotating members of the Security Council. The entire speech is here: YOU CAN’T LOSE A RACE IF YOU ARE RUNNING SOLO, is an Eritrean proverb. Dictators, including our very own, don't know that this is an admonishing statement; they think it is a great advice. Including this one.
ZIMBABWE'S LAST CHANCE: Today is election day in Zimbabwe, giving us another excuse to use our favorite quote this year which appeared in the New York Times on May 8, when Mugabe lost to Tsvangerai and was forced into a runoff. “We’re giving the people of Zimbabwe another opportunity to mend their ways, to vote properly,” the Politburo member said. “This is their last chance.” If voters fail to return Mr. Mugabe to office, the Politburo member told a Zimbabwean journalist working with The New York Times, “Prepare to be a war correspondent.” NYT --
OK, THAT WAS QUICK AND CLASSY: "Hi --Thanks for providing the URL -- we had already put the material in quotation marks, but didn't know the URL to link the word "according to reports" to (have now linked, and added Awate). Keep it up." That was an e-mail from innercitypress.com, which corrected its report on Djibouti and attributed a quote to its owner--Gedab News. The new improved report is here.
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GOOGLE MADE STEALING SO PASSE! TO STEAL IS TO BEG TO BE CAUGHT: Dear Editorial [at] innercitypress [dot] com, Your website (http://www.innercitypress.com) is all about “Investigative Reporting From the Inner City to Wall Street to the United Nations.” Your investigations on how to settle the Djibouti-Eritrea dispute led to this reporting: it will happen when Djibouti “takes its hands off the affairs of the Somali opposition, and if the U.S. pressures Ethiopia to vacate Eritrean territories based on the ruling of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission." Readers can learn this in the June 24 issue of innercitypress.com. Or they could have read the exact statement four days earlier in the June 20 issue of awate.com’s Gedab News. Ok, you have been caught. No apologies needed; just correct the story, and attribute it properly. Otherwise, we will have to launch our own investigative reporting from one cubicle to the other cubicle. Signed, Gedab News Editor.
HELICOPTER, NUMBER 8, AND OTHER PFDJ GIFTS TO ERITREA: We don't have Times of Eritrea. So, here is a reminder of the torture tools used by Eritrea's ruling regime, PFDJ, from the Times of Malta.
AFRICA’S ABUNDANCE: YET ANOTHER “ELECT OF god.” God does work in mysterious ways; here he is appointing a brutal atheist to be his apostle: "The MDC will never be allowed to rule this country — never ever," Mugabe told local business people in Zimbabwe's second city Bulawayo, referring to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "Only God who appointed me will remove me — not the MDC, not the British." Source
WHO WANTS TO GO AGAINST THE WILL OF god? Especially when the will of god is to have the supporters of your opponents beat up? [Opposition leader Morgan] Tsvangirai pulled out after 86 people died and 200,000 were forced to flee their homes because of what he called the state's ``violent retributive agenda'' ahead of the June 27 poll. While Tsvangirai won a first round poll on March 29, state-appointed electoral officials said he didn't garner the 50 percent needed to avoid a second round. Source
THE STATE OF THE FAILING STATE: The Horn of Africa has the top two spots. Last year, Sudan was number one and Somalia was number two. This year, they have traded spots. Foreign Policy BLOOMBERG QUOTES GEDAB NEWS: Why is Bloomberg, a news outlet that concentrates mostly on financial news, quoting Gedab News? Why is the reporter, Jason McLure, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia? What does he mean by "Asmara-Eritrea based news agency"? Why was this news reported on a Thursday? We don't know which one we enjoyed better: that awate.com was quoted by Bloomberg or that this will inevitably result in 1001 questions from the usually paranoid lot. -
WOULD YOU BUY AN ALARM CLOCK FROM AN ALARMIST? The International Crisis Group (ICG) is merchandizing: The 30+ page report it issued was accompanied by a press release. Then the interviews, and the excerpts, and the columns by VPs. All likely to drop into a dark hole. Because its chief salesperson, Eritrean Andeberhan Woldegiorgis, has not publicly disassociated himself from the Eritrean regime, with which he was closely associated for decades, including after it dropped all its pretences and revealed itself to be a brutal dictatorship. How is he, with his record of war-mongering and belligerence, and without any contrition, allowed to present himself as an objective expert dispensing impartial advice on securing peace and stability in the Horn? Would ICG hire an unrepentant Tarik Aziz to provide his insights on the Iran Iraq war?
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WE COULDN'T STOP THE CRIME BUT, MAN, DID WE HEAP INSULTS ON THE CRIMINALS! And other examples of crying over spilt milk: "Six hundred asylum seekers have been sent back to Eritrea this week and 600 others are about to be expelled," Mustafa Abul Hassan, of the Hisham Mubarak Centre human rights association, told AFP. "We have told the Egyptian government that if they are expelled to Eritrea, they risk being arrested or tortured," said Abul Hassan, who heads the centre's Aswan office in southern Egypt…. Eighteen Egyptian non-governmental organisations sent a letter to Interior Minister Habib el-Adli on Thursday to express "their opposition to massive expulsions of Eritrean asylum seekers," according to a copy received by AFP.
THE STORY OF ANY COUNTRY, AFRICA: Both regimes came to power in military coups; both oppress their civilian opponents and both have recently discovered and exploited significant quantities of oil which have made their elites rich....Mr Deby accused Sudan of being behind the attack. Ironically, President Deby is reported to have received Sudanese support for his original coup d'etat against former Chadian President Hissene Habre in 1990. BBC
IT IS A BREAKTHROUGH: ERITREA, ETHIOPIA AND SOMALIA REACH AN AGREEMENT. They (their leaders) agree they don't like Aljazeera. When Meles Zenawi broke Ethiopia’s diplomatic relation with Qatar in April 08, part of the reason he gave was his unhappiness with Aljazeera. When Isaias Afwerki was interviewed by Aljazeera in May 08, he was so unhappy with the questions, he asked if the interviewer received them from Langley (the CIA.) Now, June 08, Somalia’s turn: President Yusuf was interviewed by Aljazeera and this is what he had to say: I want to tell the government of Qatar that the day will come when the Arab people hold accountable all those who helped destabilize Somalia. “The Qatari Government can rectify its policies towards us, and [t]his includes the hostile rhetoric used in its media outlets, starting with Al-Jazeera” Yusuf irately said. -
MEET THE NEW TEAM; SAME AS THE OLD TEAM: Obama says that a John McCain presidency would be like the third term of a Bush presidency. Judging from Obama's National Security Team, which includes Warren Christopher, Madeline Albright, Anthony Lake, Wesley Clarke and Susan Rice (we dare you not to yawn!), it looks like Obama's presidency will be the third term of Bill Clinton. Hopefully, without the blue dress. -
A FAILING GRADE: CAN I RETAKE THE EXAM? Egyptian security forces detained a schoolboy for several hours after he wrote in an exam that President Hosni Mubarak was a tyrant who ruled over cowards, an Education Ministry official said on Monday. Safwat Hassan, 17, wrote in his end of high school exam in the southern city of Luxor that Mubarak was "a tyrannical leader" and Egyptians were "a cowardly people," the official in Luxor told AFP…. Hassan was questioned for several hours by local security forces and "might be charged with defamation…." Source --
Can you see the connection between the news item above and the news item below? "MONTHS IF NOT YEARS." Egypt is continuing large-scale secret deportations of Eritrean asylum seekers despite objections by the U.N. refugee agency, which fears for their safety, Egyptian security sources said on Wednesday….UNHCR said it had been able to visit only about 140 Eritrean asylum seekers and want the deportations to end. "We are concerned because there are serious human rights violations in Eritrea and ... when people are forcibly returned they face detention for long, long periods of time. Months if not years. And they face torture," Etefa said. Reuters CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC? THROW OPTIMISM TO THE WIND: Fighting between Islamist-led insurgents and allied Somali-Ethiopian troops has killed at least 17 people, residents said on Wednesday, underlining the lack of impact of a U.N.-brokered peace agreement. Source KISSINGER, WHEREFORE ART THOU? Ethiopian officials told our delegation [International Crisis Group] they would respect the border after normal relations were established with Eritrea. Eritrean officials said the reverse – once Ethiopia recognizes the border and Eritrean sovereignty over disputed land, normal relations will follow, including agreements on access to ports and cross-border development. Source
THEY ARE BAAAACK! November 2007 was a bad month for the prophesy industry, including the International Crisis Group, which predicted an imminent war. The Eritrean ministry of information cried wolf about four times, about how Ethiopia would declare war on Eritrea within days (all chronicled by Four Winds in November 07.) Nothing happened in November 07--resulting in ICC pushing a revised report and Shabait moving on to its chronicle of the working visits of Isaias Afwerki. Now the ICC is back, warning of another war. We don’t know much about the ICC except for one small thing: it employs Ambassador Andeberhan Woldegiorgis, who is apparently the author of this latest analysis (which, among other classics, tells us that the Eritrean Alliance was formed in 2005.) Andeberhan has made the transition from serial exaggerator and chronic apologist for the Eritrean dictatorship to respectable analyst for a prestigious think tank without pause. Check out his bio here.
-- ISAIAS ISSUES A ONE-POINT PLAN FOR DEALING WITH A PROBLEM: IGNORE IT & IT WILL GO AWAY. In a telephone call with Yemeni President President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Monday, Afeworki said Eritrea would "by no means engage" in any diplomatic activity with its neighbour. "It has no desire whatsoever to be dragged into the current diplomatic and media tit-for-tat designed to further aggravate the fabricated problem," the statement said. AFP MAN OF STEEL IS RUSTING: In November 2006, Eri-TV had a one-hour show paying tribute to Isaias Afwerki, whom it called The Man Of Steel, as he and his entourage drove from Massawa to Djibouti. This may be a good time to re-run that show so that Man of Steel can dust off the rust, retrace himself and make peace with Djibouti. Then Eri-TV can have a 3-hour documentary of his visit. It is a win win. MAN MIMICS MAN OF STEEL: One man's attempt to have his documentary on his road trip from Eureka to Tijuana to be televised by a media mogul.
HANG IN, CHAD: Ndjamena Or Bust: The rebels are advancing, the UN/AU are condeming, the government is dimissing and the French are promising neutrality. Welcome to Chad. Rebel forces claimed to have seized another city in eastern Chad Monday, as the United Nations condemned the deteriorating security situation and the US began to evacuate staff. With government reports of heavy clashes near the town of Biltine, some 750 kilometres (470 miles) east of the capital Ndjamena, the United States announced it was pulling out non-vital embassy staff whilst the UN Security Council and African Union both denounced the rebel assault. AFP
WE ARE NUMBER ONE! WE ARE NUMBER ONE! (FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF COUNTING BACKWARDS) CNNmoney.com had a story meant to make Americans feel good about how little they pay for gasoline, compared to some other countries. Countries like Norway, UK, Netherlands...and Eritrea. Source FOR EGYPT, IT IS ORDINARY RENDITION: Egypt has returned hundreds of Eritreans to the one place--Eritrea--that the UN says Egypt shouldn't. But a country like Egypt, which tortures its dissidents, must see nothing wrong with the Eritrean government wanting to torture its dissidents. The Egyptian government has agreed to give the United Nations access to Eritreans seeking political asylum in Egypt for the first time since February, the U.N. refugee agency said on Sunday. But the agreement coincided with large-scale deportations of Eritrean migrants by the Egyptian authorities and it was not clear whether the United Nations will have time to save many of them from forcible repatriation. Reuters
HOW TO HAVE A HANGOVER WITHOUT CONSUMING ALCOHOL? HAVE THE SAUDIS THROW ANOTHER PARTY: The Saudis threw a party when Somalis had a reconciliation meeting and signed a treaty, without the ARS, in September 2007. Bloodshed and mayhem ensued. Now the Saudis will throw a party for the reconciliation meeting between the government of Somalia and half of ARS (the Djibouti version.) Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah regards a Somalia truce deal reached last week as a "breakthough" and will invite rival factions to an official signing ceremony as soon as possible, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday. AFP
I BANISHED THE SHARIF, BUT I SWEAR IT WAS IN SELF-DEFENSE: Zakariya Mahmud, ARS deputy chairman, has revealed that the ARS will hold a meeting next week to make a decision to dismiss ARS chairman Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad from his post and appointo [sic] a replacement to him. In a statement by telephone from Asmara, Mahmud said that "the ARS Central Committee will meet next week to put an end to Sheikh Sharif's betrayal of the ARS principles, cancel the unilateral decisions he has made, and reject the stances he has taken, which are opposed to the ARS policy…. He also levelled sharp accusations at Eritrean President Isaias Afworki of attempting to control the ARS and to use it to serve his country's interests in the Horn of Africa. Shabelle
ET TU, IGAD? The UNSC, including Libya, condemned Isaias. So did the AU. So did the Arab League. And now: When leaders of six out of seven member states of the East African development agency (IGAD) met Saturday, it was the missing member that got most of the attention….At a summit that lasted only three hours Saturday, the other IGAD members condemned what was described a "military attack by Eritrean troops" along the border with its tiny neighbor Djibouti. The U.N. Security Council condemned the attacks earlier in the week. VOA A DASH OF DOUBTFUL WITH A HINT OF HOPEFUL: The editor for The New York Times' correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman, must be tired of reading the same stories filed on different countries. SO, he is giving them the same heading. Gettleman's story on the peace treaty in Somalia is called "Hope And Doubt Greet Peace Deal." His story on Benin is entitled "After 15 Years, Hints of Peace in Burundi." Be cautiously optimistic, or optimistically cautious: It is not clear how long the precarious harmony will last. This patch of Africa is littered with worthless peace treaties. Take Congo, where the government and various rebel groups signed what was billed as a breakthrough accord in January. Since then, fighting has erupted several times. This month, rebel fighters, belonging to a group that did not sign the treaty, opened fire on a refugee camp in eastern Congo and killed six civilians….However, people here say this time feels different. All the leaders are in the same place, with Mr. Rwasa out of hiding. And there is a reinvigorated international effort, led by South Africa and Tanzania, which are putting considerable pressure on both sides.
BOTH PARTIES BUT PARTICULARLY THAT PARTY: The UN prefers the language of neutrality and complexity and it is always calling on "both parties" to do something. But even the UN is exhausted, and it passed a resolution which is the equivalent of, "listen here, jackass...": The U.N. Security Council joined the United States Thursday in condemning Eritrean military action this week that left nine Djiboutians dead. A statement approved by the 15 council members urged both sides to refrain from a troop buildup and singled out Eritrea to show "maximum restraint" and withdraw forces from the border along Red Sea shipping lanes. AP
FRIENDLESS IN TRIPOLI: Despite all the "working visits" that His Excellency Isaias Afwerki travels on, and despite the fact that many countries share his skepticism of US motives, here he was friendless again when the UNSC Resolution was passed unanimously. All 15 member states approved of the motion. None voted against or abstained. In 2008, the SC is made up of China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, Indonesia, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Italy, Viet Nam, Costa Rica, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Croatia and Panama. MEANWHILE, EIGHT YEARS LATER: The international Committee of the Red Cross (ICRO) [sic] said on Wednesday it repatriated 400 persons from Eritrea to Ethiopia. The ICRG [sic] has assisted people affected by the 1998-2000 armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea regaidhig [sic] their repatriation since June 2000 and strives to ensure compliance with the rules and principles of International Humanitarian Law; in particular, the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Source
EVEN SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY IS POWERLESS TO CHANGE A POLICY BASED ON DENY, DENY, DENY: Human rights advocates on Thursday said that Ethiopia has been committing “crimes against humanity,” including the torture, murder, rape, and forced eviction of civilians, in its crackdown on insurgents in the country’s isolated eastern Ogaden desert region…. “The Ethiopian authorities frequently dismiss human rights reports, saying that the witnesses we interviewed are liars and rebel supporters,” Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “But it will be much more difficult for them to dismiss the evidence presented in the satellite images, as images like that don’t lie.” NYT
IT IS JUNE, SO IT IS SUDAN'S TURN: Reuters has a timeline of the reconcile, fight, reconcile again, fight again, reconcile again, fight again relationship between Chad and Sudan since 2004. In May, Sudanese rebels backed by Chad (Chad denies it) made it all the way to Umdurman. So, in June, Chad rebels backed by Sudan (Sudan denies it) are trekking to the presidential palace in N’Djamena. Reuters
THE BROTHER LEADER'S UNSOLCITED ADVICE TO HIS "KENYAN BROTHER": "The statements of our Kenyan brother of American nationality Obama on Jerusalem... show that he either ignores international politics and did not study the Middle East conflict or that it is a campaign lie," he said. "We fear that Obama will feel that, because he is black with an inferiority complex, this will make him behave worse than the whites." "This will be a tragedy," Gaddafi said. "We tell him to be proud of himself as a black and feel that all Africa is behind him." BBC GOLIATH & GOLIATH SPEAK: Eritrea and Djibouti have been in a staring contest since mid April. Curiously, the US which has bases in Djibouti, and France, which has bases and a Djibouti-defense pact, have been silent. Until now. The US has condemned Eritrea for "military aggression" after deadly clashes on the border with Djibouti….The French foreign ministry has said it is highly concerned about the border clashes. BBC
SIGNED. SEALED. BUT UNDELIVERABLE. The faction that signed the deal does not include influential leaders like Sheik Aweys or the Shabab, a separate militant group responsible for much of the current fighting. The group seems to be gaining strength, with government troops defecting to it and Shabab fighters seizing town after town. Much of south-central Somalia is now under the control of the Shabab or other Islamist groups. NYT UNDERREPORTED NEWS: Kenyans voted peacefully on Wednesday for five legislative seats that will decide who holds a majority in Parliament, in a test of stability after widespread election-related violence last year. The vote was the first balloting since the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki in December, which set off ethnic violence that killed least 1,300 people and displaced more than 300,000. NYT.
PERCHED ON THE HORNS OF AN ETHICAL DILEMMA: Israel has offered to pay African states to absorb the thousands of Sudanese refugees from Darfur and other environs who have crossed into Israel recently, Army Radio reported on Thursday….the Foreign Ministry has turned to several African countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel: Ethiopia, Uganda, the Ivory Coast and Benin. The amount of monetary compensation for the refugees has not yet been set, as talks are still at a preliminary stage. Haaretz WHEN THREE DECADES ARE NOT ENOUGH. Police said Zimbabwe's No. 2 opposition official would be charged with treason, a potential death penalty charge that marked a dramatic escalation of a government crackdown ahead of a presidential runoff….Party officials said separately that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, — who faces longtime leader Robert Mugabe in the June 27 presidential runoff — was detained again at a roadblock and taken to a police station. He was released soon after and resumed campaigning, the party said. Reuters.
FINALLY THEY MET: Mr Ould Abdallah told the BBC the deal was reached after the two parties held their first face-to-face talks. "It took eight days to attend workshops, to live in the same hotel, but avoiding each other. Finally they met... Confidence resumed slowly, and we have to support and nurture that renewed confidence," he said. "The cessation of armed confrontations shall come into force 30 days from the signing of this agreement throughout the national territory," the text of the deal said. BBC RED BEARD IS NOT HAPPY: Insurgents on Tuesday attacked a Mogadishu police station moments after an Islamist leader rubbished a truce deal between rival factions in Djibouti, dealing a blow to the latest UN effort to bring peace to Somalia. AFP IN A POLL, 65% OF YOU SAID THIS WAS NOT LIKELY: Two Djiboutian soldiers were killed and 17 wounded after troops from the tiny Red Sea state clashed with neighbouring Eritrea along their common border, a Reuters witness said….The Djiboutian army says nearly 75 percent of its troops are now stationed along its boundary with Eritrea. reuters “WORST SINCE 1984”: Aid groups say the crisis in Ethiopia was the worst since 1984, when a famine captured the world's attention and killed around one million people. The current drought, in a country where more than 80 per cent of its 79 million people live off the land, has been compounded by global food price rises. Monday night's announcement of a £10 million contribution - in addition to a £5 million pledge last month - came as John Holmes, the United Nation's top humanitarian official, said despite international aid, Ethiopia was again facing hunger on a mass scale. Telegraph DEJA VU 1996: Remember the Hanish Crisis about "borders" was reportedly about both Eritrea and Yemen wanting to have a casino/resort built in the islands to attract rich tourists from the Gulf? Now that Djibouti and Eritrea are having a "border dispute" it is a good time to look for the real reason. Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co., a unit of the Gulf state's sovereign wealth fund, may start its first project in Djibouti to tap trade flows across the Red Sea between the Gulf and Africa. Qatari Diar will decide in about a month whether to proceed with draft plans to develop a 300,000 square meter (3.2 million square foot) mixed-use site in Djibouti, Senior Development Manager Virgilio Renato Reffo told reporters in Doha today. Bloomberg The same company entered into an agreement with Eritrea in 2007 to develop a resort in the Dahlak Islands. Source DEJA VU 1996 SQUARED: The army explained that Eritrean military officials posted on Mount Gabla then issued an ultimatum for Djibouti to turn in all 30 Eritrean deserters on its soil or face armed action."At 6:40 pm (1540 GMT), under the cover of darkness and prayer time, Eritrean troops opened fire on our soldiers," the statement went on."In the face of this attack, our military struck back... As this statement is published, the fighting continues." afp SOMALIA UNCLEAR: Somalia's interim government and some opposition figures signed a peace deal on Monday that called for the rapid deployment of a robust United Nations force. It was the latest in a series of such agreements. Opposition members in exile and insurgents in Somalia had dismissed the United Nations-led talks here in Djibouti, so it was unclear what effect it might have on the ground. IHT SOMALIA VERY CLEAR: Somali Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein… shook hands with ARS chairman Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in the first face-to-face contact between the two delegations during two rounds of talks in Djibouti. "It is an historic agreement ... it gives back hope," an ARS spokesman said. But Sheikh Hassan Abdullah Hersi al-Turki, who along with Aweys is on U.S. and U.N. lists of al Qaeda associates, said those who signed did not represent those fighting the insurgency against the government and its Ethiopian allies. "There will be no talks, there will only be bullets and mortars until we recapture our country by force," Turki told reporters in Mogadishu via radio phone. "We will continue ... until we bring back sharia law." Reuters Lesson 1: Bray. Lesson 2: Kick. Lesson 3... Some members of the Eritrea-based Somali opposition Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) have agreed to participate in the peace-reconciliation talks held in Djibouti. Others are opposed. Now the language of those who are opposed is adopting the tone and mannerism of the regime of the host country: The deputy chairman of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia Zakariya Mahmud Haji Abdi has strongly condemned the leaders of the alliance [Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad and Sharif Hasan Sheikh Adan] for committing treason against the alliance....He said the move is a violation and high treason against the alliance and the Somali people. And, by the way, the deputy chairman has decided to drop the word "deputy" from his title. Source -
Numerology: Today is 06.07.08. How special. Unless you are in Europe, which would make it 07.06.08. Or in Ethiopia, which celebrated the millenium on September 12, 2007. Or in old China, where it is now year 4705. Or the Jewish calendar, which, counting since Creation and using a lunar calendar, says this is not the year 2008 but the year 5768. And Muslims, using Hijra, say this is 3 Rajab 1429. See how silly numerology and astrology are? -
Mengistu's Fate: "We don't want dictators in our land," said Chamisa, hinting Mengistu may be extradited if Tsvangirai wins next month. He added: "Of course we do not condone killing or the death sentence as MDC, but we want justice to be delivered to the victims and to the perpetrators so that there's restoration. "It only takes a dictator to hang around fellow dictators. They are birds of the same feather. This is why ZANU-PF is clinging on to Mengistu. We don't want dictators in our land. The people of Ethiopia suffered for such a long time." Harare Financial Gazette -
"President Isaias Visits Different Agricultural Plants..." Why did he visit the plants? And did he take flowers and cards for the visit? Shabait explains
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Ain't. Gonna. Happen. Toby Harnden (Daily Telegraph's US editor) explains/predicts why Hillary Clinton cannot, should not, will not, must not be Obama's Vice President by outlining a nightmarish scenario: Imagine it is January 21st 2009. You are President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is your vice-president. She's already demanded her old office back in the West Wing. You've learned from CNN that Bill Clinton is on a jet with Ron Burkle heading for Kazakhstan. Drudge has a flashing siren up beside a report from a British tabloid about a mystery blonde who emerged from the former president's apartment in at his library in Little Rock just before dawn last week. The blonde is promising a full interview tomorrow. Continued
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Culture Shocks: Obama and his wife did the Fist Bump on Tuesday night. Cool, as far as the stale campaigning of presidential campaigns go. But not as memorable as his dirt-off-my-shoulders-move of April 2008. Not as funny as Dave Chappelle’s [video, mature content] interpretation of the George Bush presidency: “UN, you have a problem with that? You know what you should do? You should sanction me. Sanction me with your army….oh, wait a minute, you don’t have an army! I guess that means you need to shut the @*&( up!” Classic.
We warned you that this is would be our quote of the year: “We’re giving the people of Zimbabwe another opportunity to mend their ways, to vote properly,” the Politburo member said. “This is their last chance.” If voters fail to return Mr. Mugabe to office, the Politburo member told a Zimbabwean journalist working with The New York Times, “Prepare to be a war correspondent.” NYT
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You Can’t Make This Stuff Up. It Reminds Us That It Is Illegal To Have More Than 7 People Congregating In Eritrea, Too: Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader who placed first in Zimbabwe's March elections and now faces a runoff with President Robert Mugabe, was detained by the police for nine hours on Wednesday and charged with drawing a big crowd, his party said. He was released late in the evening. IHT Correcting The Corrector: It Is Not The Church's Fault EITHER. It Is The Government's Fault: Recent religious repression has meant Eritrea is wrongly portrayed as a Muslim state that persecutes Christians. In reality, it is the Orthodox Church’s antipathy towards new evangelical groups that has inspired much of the persecution. Timesonline Instant Monster: Just Add Power: "The people have learned the hard lesson that liberators can turn into monsters," said Balhbi Malk, a one-time member of Eritrea's university student movement who now lives in eastern Canada. "The people are compelled to live under the worst dictator in Eritrean history. The gross violations of human rights, socioeconomic and physical exploitations, oppression, lawlessness and horror have reduced the people to extreme poverty, hopelessness and exile." Source
Sudan Closes Down Eritrean Opposition: Following the signing of Comprehensive Peace Agreement by the Sudanese government and the former rebel SPLM in January 2005, Sudan and Eritrea started a timid rapprochement under the initiative of the former ally of Asmara, the SPLM. The Eritrean mediation to end the eastern Sudan conflict in October 2007 strengthened the bilateral ties between the two countries. Since the closure of the opposition radio station, Al-Sharq in November 2006, Eritrean opposition forces moved its activities to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Actually, Sudan since 2005 refused to allow it to hold a conference in Khartoum. Sudan Tribune Another Day, Another Border, Another Dispute (ADABAD): "He did not even mention what he was doing until we exposed him," said Abebe. "In some places, they have given up about 50 miles inside Ethiopia and in other places, about 30 miles. There is going to be a big backlash. This is going to be impossible for any Ethiopian to accept this type of situation."The Ethiopian government has not said why it decided to demarcate the border with Sudan at this time. VOA Biniyam Mohammed Is An Ethiopian, and a Brit. Guess Who Is Fighting For His Rights? His attorneys say Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and taken by the CIA to Morocco where he was beaten, hung from poles during long interrogation sessions and cut in his genitals by a scalpel, the Times reported. "The least the British government can do is insist that no British resident be charged in a kangaroo court on evidence tortured out of him with a razor blade," said Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve director and attorney. UPI
“Sheik Sherif Waves Hand Back Asmara.” You have to read the article in Somalia's mareeg to understand the heading. mareeg
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