From Africa to the Caribbeans hunger caused revolts;why not in Ethiopia?

By Ankober

7-9-10

Devaluation- cum - hunger-valuation

The devaluation of Ethiopian Currency against dollar and other currencies by 20 percent last week led to the increment of food prices in some hotels,markets and commodities in Addis Ababa.The price of commodities and imported materials also hit the sky.To send a pin into the already impoverished and debilitated scar, the regime's devaluation measure last week,has put our society into further hopelessness.With some three days away from the Ethiopian New year, Ethiopians can't even sense the aroma and blessing promise of the new year (2003).

Aimed at encouraging remittance and regimenting the much needed foreign currency, the Meles led regime in Ethiopia took this new devaluation measure all of a sudden, pundits in Addis reveal.

"In a very bold and unexpected move, Ethiopia’s central bank devalued the Birr by 20 percent on September 1, 2010. The magnitude of the adjustment is a big surprise, not least because most macroeconomic indicators did not show a need for a sharp devaluation at this particular time.'' said Access Capital, the Addis Abeba based equity firm. Most possibly, in just few months the already fluctuating inflation is projected to staggeringly head up, worsening the harsh living condition.Increase in food prices and lack of enough production added with the political and inhuman governance should lead to a protest,oppositional rally of some kind.

Food/hunger sparked protests/revolts

Merara Gudina(Phd) ,Ethiopia's political scientist and opposition leader once said quoting another political scientist ''hungry people will eat their governments''. Ethiopia seems to be the only country within such polities where the above saying doesn't hold water.

Two years after food riots around the developing world toppled governments in Haiti and Madagascar and claimed hundreds of lives, 10 more people died in street clashes in Mozambique last week. ''Could this be a harbinger of another round of the same unrest? Russia’s decision in recent days to extend its ban on the export of wheat, introduced in response to the destruction wreaked by recent fires, has compounded international market jitters over wheat output forecasts in some major producers. In Germany and Canada, the fear is that rain and floods will hit harvests while drought is the problem in Argentina and Australia. '' a commentator posits.

This same commentator explains that in Egypt there have been protests over food price inflation this month as escalating meat costs, up by as much as a third over the summer, hit the traditional Ramadan festivities. In Saudi Arabia – like Egypt – the price of wheat is up by more than half, and barley has doubled. The kingdom imports 70 per cent of its grain from the Black Sea region – Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, each of which has implemented its own official or unofficial curbs on exports.

The causes of the rioting in the Mozambique capital Maputo included a 25 per cent rise in the price of bread, 30 per cent in water and electricity and sharp rises in the prices of fuel and cement. The government blames the soaring global wheat prices but the extent of the surge is partly related to the fact that it suppressed prices artificially ahead of an election last year.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), world food prices rose five per cent in August and its food index hit a two-year high, although still more than a third below the June 2008 peak. Importantly however, the price increases are not so much to do with overall supply issues as with market worries over supply interruptions and hoarding, and – crucially – a long-term rise in demand. The FAO and other food policy experts say global food stocks remain healthy and that declining production in some countries is likely to be offset by larger harvests elsewhere.

More worrying is the long-term trend underlying short-term fluctuations. Increasing wealth and populations in the developing world, not least in the vast markets of India and China, are fuelling the surge in demand for meat and proteins. The FAO estimates that by 2050, while the world’s population (one in six of whom is currently under-nourished) will have increased by half, demand for food will be up 70 per cent.

Exemplary Mozambicans protested all sorts of rise in food and basic requirements from food prices to electricity. A year ago,fellows in Madagascar toppled their government due to land sale deals with foreign commercial land grabbers.

Ethiopia a good case in this matter has undergone all these, food price has quadrupled in the past few years,lots of land was sold to foreign developers, power was cut inconsiderably,and by all standards and forms every adverse legislation,policy or decision was made by the power that be.All these amendments have degraded the status and life of the populous.Nevertheless, interestingly, there has never been a fractional second where ,Ethiopians have asked their rulers '' why all this?''. We never protested any of the above.Do we enjoy living impoverished, dilapidated and dehumanized?

Tell me guys why aren't we Ethiopians asking our totalitarian rulers ''why all this?'' in mass?

“Famine & Foreigners Ethiopia since Live Aid” - Peter Gill’s New Book

By Ankober

Title: Famine & Foreigners Ethiopia since Live Aid
Author: Peter Gill
Pages: 280
Genre: academic non fiction
Year: 2010
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Key themes: hunger, poverty and foreigners
Price: 14.99 £

This book by Peter Gill is one of the recently mushrooming books from Ethiopian and non Ethiopian writers on Ethiopia. From an Ethiopian perspective, readers who want to gain new investigative facts or information, it might not suitable but for an international audience to grasp know-how of the recency of the country, it is one of the recommendable ones.

In a more general and simple fashion, the book touches upon issues ranging from the history of Ethiopia, famine, politics, aid and the economics of famine in four distinct parts.

Discussion: As an Ethiopian reader, I found this book as I said earlier, capable of influencing Western societies, policy makers and states because it is written by a credible Western writer and style of writing. Albeit, it still fails to give us the other side of Ethiopia i.e. the rich, the wealthy, especially those who have monopolized the wealth of the nation, it still is a good source.

Though a nation of low economy and cash wealth, there is an Ethiopia and Ethiopians that is/are equal and of the same standard and richness as the West, a necessary truth to have been singled out. This reality is neither broadcast nor analyzed in cases in such books and the media. Famine & Foreigners Ethiopia since Live Aid is a lexically significant book written in practically understandable English.

It also makes a reference of various materials and interviews with different key informants including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the opposing Ginbot 7 Movement Chairman, Dr.Berhanu Nega and references scholars such as Alex de Waal.
There were good number of facts that got me stunned in some cases while in others filled me with anger and contempt. Some of them were:

Tracing the famine years, in the first unit, he describes the neglect and lesser attention given to the 1984 Ethiopian famine especially by the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher in quickly responding to the human suffering,

'' As the famine and the overwhelming public response continued, the prime minister herself was under pressure. In the commons she was asked why she couldn't organised relief shipments to Ethiopia in the way she had commandeered troop shipments for the Falklands War, and Bob Geldof got the better of her in an exchange about Europe's butter mountain. Mrs. Thatcher told Geldof that butter didn't do much good in Africa ..." ibid.

It strikes a big question why the then UK government and the Prime Minster preferred inaction. The writer in the other unit of its book based on few grassroots cases that he himself witnessed in Northern Wollo, infers that aid does really work in third world countries.

"visits to the countryside also provided one response to vexed academic debate as to whether to the third world actually works .Viewed from the ground level, the answer is that of course it does ,often triumphantly " ibid.

This inference actually contradicts from the basic facts that exist in the country and elsewhere. Aid has in fact made receivers dormant and was not able to bring any change let alone triumphant due to administrative failures, abuse, dependency, distribution issues and the model itself. Though, the researcher was able to witness firsthand few active and successful projects here and there the aggregate reality of aid is rather the opposite.

However, in this same chapter Peter bangs Meles for failing to take his leadership on Ethiopia's doubling population issue.

Peter Gill is not restricted to the issue of famine and hunger in this publication, he traces and endeavors to analyse his topic area from other angles too.He allocates chapters on freedom of expression (though i didn't like his unrepresentative sample in this case as he only took the contentious editor of The Reporter, Amare Aregawi), freedom of assembly, civil societies,pastoral matters, Chinese investment and the like.

In the third Chapter he deals with the 2005 election and its aftermath. I found this acclaimer quote out of the interviews he made with Ana Gomes, EU Parliamentarian and the then election observer, which I hope most Ethiopian readers have not heard it from her mouth. Ana Gomes admired Dr.Berhanu, the opposition leader, as much as she distrusted the Prime Minster: "He really impressed me. He caught the imagination of the people. He was the one who emerged with a strategy, a vision and a coherence".

The above take also shows that the writer wasn’t biased from highly positioning his reports and focuses on the ''intellectual'' and so forth type of Prime Minister that he depicted in the first chapters of the book, Meles Zenawi.

Summation: Although this book to be taken as an academic book lacks plausible explanations and arguments against commonly held and researched theories, it is a good reference for those studying international development, Western policymakers and ordinary readers.

The blurb of Famine & Foreigners Ethiopia since Live Aid contains the reviews of Bob Geldof, Michael Buerk,Jonathan Dimbleby and Alex de Wall. One important lesson that I have got from the book was that Western scholars, writers are changing their ways of summary approval and are even being critical of governments in Africa.

This write up was also short of socio-cultural matters that could have been dealt as a separate chapter or included in one of the units. If this issue was integrated, the book would have given a more elaborate and detailed perspective of the nexus between famine and its socio-cultural causation.

Still I recommend you to inform yourself and enjoy the rest of the analysis by reading the book. (newbusinessethiopia.com)

Emperor HaileSellasie's grandson back in action?

ISSA President Gregory Copley (left) with His Imperial Highness Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie Haile-Selassie outside the new International Strategic Studies Association headquarters building in Alexandria, Virginia, in the Washington, DC, area. Prince Ermias, an ISSA Senior Fellow, was one of the first visitors to the new facility.

The International Strategic Studies Association has moved into its own headquarters building in the Washington, DC, area after decades of using leased space. “This is a major step forward for the security and future of ISSA,” ISSA Director Pamela von Gruber said. “We are now able to begin organizing our physical and electronic libraries and research facilities the way we want, and have already embarked on a significantly upgraded computer capability for the Association.”

One of the first visitors to the new facility was His Imperial Highness Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie Haile-Selassie, a Senior Fellow of ISSA, and President of the Crown Council of Ethiopia [see photo, left].

Prince Ermias, accompanied by ISSA President Gregory Copley, in May 2008 visited Jamaica, where Prince Ermias made an historic speech at the University of West Indies, echoing the visit to Jamaica, and the speech there, by his late Grandfather, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I, in 1966. Prince Ermias also met in Kingston with the Governor-General of Jamaica, Sir Kenneth Hall, and other Jamaican officials.(strategicstudies.org)

Below is some background information about the Crown Council and Prince Ermias's involvement.The Crown Council,which is little known both to the Ethiopian readership and foreigners has some interesting facts and responsibilities.

The Crown Council of Ethiopia is the Constitutional Body which advises the reigning Emperors of Ethiopia and, during an interregnum (such as now), actually acts on behalf of the Crown. The Council’s members are initially appointed by an Emperor, and subsequently (during an interregnum) sustained in their posts or replaced under the direction of the President of the Council.

You can read details about the Crown Council here: http://ethiopiancrown.org/

Abbreviated Generation

It is nothing new that every generation praises its time for positive achievements and blames the preceding one for its faults, denying its own role in creating current problems.

From generation to generation down the line of succession, the cultural cord that links parents and children gets thinner and thinner as the generation’s outlook becomes fused with foreign cultures. This is more so among the urban community, which has more exposure to external influences.

The parent to child link in urban areas is often adulterated so much that it becomes almost unrecognisable. Globalisation is blamed for the creation of this “inverted” generation. Yet, psychological problems are sometimes caused by the lack of cultural identity, according to experts in the field.

The parent to child link during the forefathers, time was based on parental respect and was stronger than in the present day. Even the naming of children was meant to express the aspirations and desires of the parents and to convey messages to friends and foes.

Names illustrating this include Ashenafi (winner), Gizachew (rule them), Getahun (be a master), Belachew (beat them), Belletech (she excelled), Assegedech (she made them bow), and Chaltu (better than others).

However, over the years, these expressive names have gradually lost ground to abbreviated forms of themselves. Amakelech became Maki while Taddesse turned into Ted. Elizabeth became Elsa and Zewdineh became Zed.

There was a time when people could trace the origins or whereabouts of a person by his name. Azbit or Debella would be from a rural background while Joseph or Samy were names of urbanites.

The question of names aside, a change in the culture of celebrating holidays is emerging. The way certain holidays were celebrated by children in former times, in comparison to now, reveals how loose the cultural cord has become in the face of so much change.

Celebrations for Buhe, Enkutatash, and Meskel traditionally included chants sung by children, bonfires, and gifts of loaves of bread and flowers from little girls who went around the neighbourhood chanting “Abeba Yehoy” or “Enkutatash Abeba.” In the evening before the holiday, boys started forming groups and singing “Hoya Hoye” with sticks, while little girls got dressed up to the best of their parents’ financial abilities and did their hair in elaborate fashions.

As soon as schools were closed for the rainy season, boys would turn their attention towards the preparations for the celebration. Many knitted grass or strips of tree bark and made special jirafs (whips) with which they snapped to produce a popping sound that echoed and reverberated across valleys, heralding the coming of Buhe, also considered the last chapter in the rainy season.

In the evenings during the holiday, children organised themselves into small groups and went door-to-door chanting congratulatory and well-wishing songs in the spirit of the holiday. In turn, the neighbourhood enjoyed the songs and gave the children loaves of mulmul (homemade bread) or money.

The children would then chant felicitous songs of praise and blessing, a rite which was carried out as a gesture of appreciation and celebration. However, if they were denied a gift, they had lyrics of mockery to annoy the subject with.

The trend seems to have been reversed in recent years. Present-day children do not appear to have much interest in celebrating any holiday, be it Buhe or another, at least not in the traditional fashion. Only a few children get together and roam around houses chanting lyrics that have little to no bearing on the holiday. Some of the messages conveyed by these lyrics are very naïve or even offending. “Here is one can / there is another can / my father Girma is an Arsenal fan,” goes one, making one wonder about the relevance of being a Gunners supporter for the master of ceremonies of Buhe. It is absurd, and the main motive seems to be begging for money under the pretext of celebrating a holiday. Most of the children in Addis Abeba and in other towns are being influenced by the advent of communication and information technology, either in the form of videos, play stations, or televised soccer games, the mentioning English football clubs in Buhe lyrics shows. Perhaps, the cultural traits are intact in the countryside. One can only hope that the relevant ministry will send experts and cameramen to document it, so that it can be used to preserve the cultural practises of holiday celebrations and instil their heritage in the minds of children who are like blank pages that display any stain, be it from constructive or destructive influences. There are other factors contributing to the blame of the present generation. Traits like chauvinism, double standards, selfishness, being inconsiderate, and a lack of commitment, are some of the characteristics defining the abbreviated urban generation.

BY Girma Feyissa ,AddisFortune

‘authoritarian developmental state Vs authoritarian stagnant

By Ankober

These two phrases : ‘authoritarian developmental state Vs authoritarian stagnant' 'came into my sight while reading a recent research done by Dr Monika Thakur for The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) on Sino-Africa relations in Africa (Ethiopia). It presents Ethiopia following the Chinese model of 'authoritarian developmental state' with an increasing repressiveness on dissent while showing little economic progress.While it also shows the use of Chinese resources for this purpose (Eg. ESAT TV) can lead Ethiopia to a state of 'authoritarian stagnation' than the former.Effectively, Ethiopia is currently in an 'authoritarian stagnation'.Due to China’s policy of non-interference, the incumbent

regime in Ethiopia is using Chinese assistance to avoid changes in the direction of the

rule of law, democratisation, accountability and human rights hence creating authoritarian stagnation.

Many states are there in Africa that are authoritatively stagnant :Sudan, Zimbabwe, Eritrea and Uganda are few to name.

Dr Monika Thakur, in this study entitled ''Building on Progress? Chinese Engagement in Ethiopia'' ,July 2009 states that the real economic benefits of Chinese investment in Ethiopia is '' still unclear'' and concludes that the country's economic growth fully rests upon the Ethiopian government.

The writer in finality warns '' The lack of censure by China and the international community of the current Ethiopian regime’s stalling of the democratisation process, human rights violations and closing up of political space may have troubling long-term political implications.''

What do you say then?

Is China's engagement with Africa a blessing or curse in the economic development of the latter?

Is Ethiopia now an '' authoritarian stagnant '' nation? Have your say.

The full research report can be accessed here :

http://saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/occasional_papers/saia_sop_38_thakur_20090723_en.pdf

Ethiopia at an internet crisis

Israel Endale owns and operates Blue Broadband, an Internet café on the second floor of Friendship City Center on Bole Road. He provides Internet connections on 12 computers through a 256 kilobytes per second (kbs) connection he subscribes to from the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) for 4,000 Br a month. He is among the many businesspeople who have opened up Internet cafés in Addis Abeba but are complaining about the persistent problem in connectivity over the last couple of months. “I used to earn on average of 500 Br a day, which recently dwindled to 200 Br, due to bad connection,” he said. “As a result, I am only making 6,000 Br a month, which is half of the 12,000 Br I pay for rent.” The connection problem is not only limited to fixed line broadband; people who use ETC’s wireless CDMA network are also complaining. Amnon Teshome, 23, has been running an Internet café for the past six years. He recently moved his business to Little Mogadishu, on Rwanda Street, an area where a lot of Somalis reside. He also changed his connection to EVDO, one of the services offered through the CDMA network but has recently found the connection problem to be too costly to run his business. “I moved here because I thought I could get a lot of business as most of the Somalis who live here constantly keep in touch with their families and friends through the Internet,” Amnon told Fortune. “EVDO is too expensive just to have if I do not make money with it from the café.” Dialup Internet, let alone broadband, was a luxury 10 years ago. Only organisations like the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the then Organisation for African Unity (OAU), and a few non-governmetnal organisations (NGOs) with their own satellites had access to the Web. In January 1997, Ethiopia, through the state monopoly the ETC, joined the world of the Internet. Since then, a slew of customers, albeit slowly at first, have subscribed to the 56kbs connection, and gradually the broadband connection. Even this was limited to people who had businesses and owned computers. Since 2002, when ETC started allowing the establishment of Internet cafés, access to the Internet has been made available to the public from 10 cents per minute of use, depending on the establishment. Israel has been involved in Internet cafés in various locations, and even in Dire Dawa, for a number of years. He has upgraded from a dialup connection to a fixed line broadband connection in order to attract customers by offering a reduced price. He is not the only one who has moved from using dialup to broadband. Many new and existing customers of ETC have migrated to its new CDMA broadband connection that was implemented by the Chinese telecom company, Zhong-Xing Telecomunications Equipment (ZTE). In 2007, ETC and ZTE signed a contract to implement the CDMA network, which was made available to the public in 2009. “The subscription rate for the CDMA 1x and EVDO services is too fast and it has gone far beyond both ETC’s and our expectations when we signed the contract in 2007,” said Zhang Yanmeng, chief executive officer (CEO) of ZTE. Like the fixed line broadband, CDMA users have also been experiencing trouble getting the bandwidth they paid for. ETC offers two types of connections: CDMA 1x and EVDO, through CDMA. The 1x service promises on average of 70kbs, while EVDO offers a 300 to 700kbs connection. Subscribers use the 30 base transmission stations (BTSs) for the CDMA network located around the capital to share the 3.1 megabytes per second (mbs) connection available on each. “The CDMA BTS, constructed according to the original expectation, became far too little to carry so many customers,” Yanmeng told Fortune in his office, located on Sevita Building on Bole Road. “Here at the office, around 30 people use the BTS located at the Bole Airport. If you add that to the other customers currently connected through that, the connection becomes very slow.” The connection on one of the computers using EVDO at the office, which is supposed to get at least 300kbs, was connected at 56kbs - equal to what one would get on a dialup connection. By July 2010, subscribers to EVDO increased to 6,679 and CDMA 1x to 47,073 from 304 and 2,359 subscribers, respectively, a year ago, according to data obtained from ZTE. “ZTE and ETC have agreed to construct more CDMA BTSs to solve the bottleneck,” Yanmeng said. “We are sure that CDMA customers will feel much better after the BTS expansion.” At the moment, owners and customers are far from feeling good. Internet cafés used to be a somewhat profitable business but depends on providing uninterrupted use of the service to customers. However, many owners who pay for fixed line and wireless broadband have recently been suffering due to the lack of dependability of the connection. Many of the owners have to deal with a loss of revenue, not only from the lack of connection, but the loss of their frequent customers who, being unable to get their usual service, move on to other centres. “My monthly expense is 3,000 Br but my income has been below 2,000 Br,” said Amnon, who tries to make up for the loss by doing PC maintenance, selling software, and designing some advertisements and promotions. “Had it not been for these, I would not have stayed in the Internet café business.” Unlike Amnon and Israel, Alemtsehay Solomon, owner of Sunshine Business Center, located around Mexico Square, does not have to worry about rent because the place she uses for her business is owned by her family. “My brother used to have a similar business a little farther from here, but he had to close the shop because he could not pay his rent and nor a profit due to the connection problem,” Alemtsehay, whose only expense is the 4,070 Br she pays to ETC for an EVDO connection, told Fortune. The state owned telecom monopoly has long been under fire for the voice and data services it offers customers. Over the years, it has contracted different international vendors to lay down both its mobile and Internet connections. Since 2007, ZTE has been constructing and implementing its network. ETC’s network for data and voice, which was running on Cisco’s network, whose capacity was almost used up, has been replaced with a new network called Internet Protocol Next Generation Network (IP NGN) by ZTE. This has enabled ETC to offer more services and add new customers in the past couple of years. Bottlenecks in the access layer and Internet gateway are still not solved, one reason for the complaints from customers in the speed of and access to the Web. Like the CDMA network, the fixed line broadband offered by ETC has bottleneck problems, among others. The Internet connection from Ethiopia connects to the international gateway through fibre optic cables laid to Djibouti and Sudan as well as one satellite. Although the cables have a capacity to transfer 10mb of data and voice per second, the bandwidth that ETC bought has only 2x622mb on the sea cable from Djibouti and 3x155mb on the cable from Sudan, while the satellite connection has 80mb. “Although the IP core fibre optic cable has a huge capacity, the connection from the customer to the core fibre and from the core fibre to the Internet is still narrow,” Yanmeng, who has been overseeing ZTE’s project in Ethiopia, said. The narrowness of data transmission capability on both sides has been unable to meet the demand from customers as the connection, which was established mainly to check emails, evolves. Many people, empowered through Internet cafés and ownership of PCs, are now constantly browsing the Web. Social network sites like Facebook, My Space, and Hi5 and informational ones like Wikipedia and soccer web sites are among the most popular ones outside of yahoo, hotmail, and gmail, according to the Internet café owners. Daniel Asrade frequents Sunshine Business Center to keep in touch with his girlfriend who lives in Canada. He uses Facebook to chat and Yahoo to email her. He complains that the connection problem usually has him sitting in front of the computer without an uninterrupted or fast connection. “There are times that I pay 20 to 30 Br without even having talked to my girlfriend as much as I would like to,” he told Fortune. “Even though the connection is terrible, I always insist on paying, but the owners do not let me as I am a frequent customer.” However, not all the Internet connection problems are caused by narrow bandwidth as there is an interruption in connection whenever the fibre optic cables are cut. “The cables are not buried as deep as they should be,” Yanmeng said about the fibre optic cables that were laid by a previous vendor which he claims are only buried as deep as 50cm. “The one going out to Sudan through Bahir Dar is constantly being cut by road constructions. We had to replace 200km of that cable ourselves and bury it 1.2 metres deep.” Some of the connection problems related with speed would be solved once the copper cable connections to the new IP NGN network are migrated from the previous Cisco network, according to Yanmeng. Unless the bandwidth to the international gateway is increased, the same problem might persist, he said.

By HAILU TEKLEHAIMANOT and ADERAJEW ASFAW, FORTUNE STAFF WRITERS.

Ethiopia to Register 45,000 Officials' Wealth

Editors Note:In a hectic and wider move,the regime in Ethiopia is gonna start registering the wealth of its own officials hierarchically to the bottomladder of the leadership.Who would be arrested among these 45 thousand officials for '' amassing illegal wealth cum corruption''? What prognosis will this registration process have on the planned officials reshuffles(comprehensive re organisation) of the Party/regime?

Speaking on a discussion forum this morning (August 20, 2010) with the media, the Commission’s Ethics Education and Communication Affairs Director, Birhanu Assefa, noted that the registration at federal level will begin in November 2010.

“The commission has been working with a foreign consultant firm and we are now finalizing the preparation to start the registration,” he said. Birhanu who stated that registration process includes verification of the wealth of individuals, which will be registered, said the registration will take place every two years.

It was in March 30, 2010 that Ethiopian Parliament has passed the wealth registration proclamation, which has been the pipeline for several years.

According to Girma Worku, the Commission’s Head of Legal Services, all civil servants are not expected to get registered their wealth. “We only focus on the civil servants who are in positions of making decision on resources of the country,” he said.Girma in his presentation indicated that other than the high-level government officials and ministers, the commission will register wealth of lawyers, prosecutors, traffic polices and other decision makers in different government offices.

All individuals whose wealth will be registered by the commission are also expected to notify income source of their families during the registration.

Individuals who tip to the commission about the hidden wealth of government officials, employees and constituencies, the tipsters will be rewarded 25 percent value of the hidden and found property if the tips are found to be true, according to the proclamation.

The annual report of the commission for the fiscal year 2008/09 (July 8, 2008 to July 7, 2009) indicated that it has received a total of 2286 corruption related complaints (787 less than the previous year) out of which 1212 were reports within the commission’s mandate.

Although the number of reports during the reporting period dropped, the proportion that comprises corruption matter increased to 53% compared to 41% the previous budget year.

“This may be an indicator of increasing public awareness and understanding of the commission’s jurisdiction,” the report assumed. The Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission was established in May 2001.

(www.newbusinessethiopia.com).

Happy Birth Day Emyeee Menelik II

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KING !!! TO ME EMYEEE MENELIK IS THE MOST EXCEPTIONAL KING IN OUR HISTORY.MAY OUR LORD BLESS HIS SOUL AND SEND US HIS REPLICA!!!

Emperor Menelik II GCB, GCMG, (Ge'ez ምኒልክ) baptized as Sahle Maryam WAS BORN ON 17 August 1844 ,in Angolela AND DIED ON 12 December 1913. He was Negus/King of Shewa (1866-1889), then Nəgusä Nägäst of Ethiopia from 1889 to his death.

Is Huntington the source of our mess?

Samuel P. Huntington

By Ankober

How many of you know Huntington?

Samuel Phillips Huntington (April 18, 1927 – December 24, 2008) was an American political scientist who gained wider prominence through his Clash of Civilizations (1993, 1996) thesis of a post-Cold War new world order. He graduated with distinction from Yale University at age 18, served in the U.S. Army, earned his Master's degree from the University of Chicago, and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University where he began teaching at age 23.

The Clash of Civilizations is a theory, proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world.This theory ended up being a book in 1993,96.

The theory was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled "The Clash of Civilizations?", in response to Francis Fukuyama's 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

This guy had consulted many regimes in the world in how to draft their constitutions,polices and legislations.From Brazil to Ethiopia.In the 1970s, Huntington applied his theoretical insights as an advisor to governments, both democratic and dictatorial. In 1972, he met with Medici government representatives in Brazil; a year later he published the report "Approaches to Political Decompression", warning against the risks of a too-rapid political liberalization, proposing graduated liberalization, and a strong party state modeled upon the image of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). After a prolonged transition, Brazil became democratic in 1985.

But his advisory sounds to have brought an obliteration in our case.

As to Abiyu Geleta(2000)In a study sponsored by the USAID-Ethiopia in May 1993 to assist preparation of TPLF's constitution for Ethiopia, Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington advised the regime that "a dominant party democratic system" "might be possible and would be desirable" to maintain the regime in power. A reminder included in the Machiavellian advice by the professor was that "constitutions and the institutions they create do make difference. They have a decisive influence on the allocation of power and resources, who gets what, when and how." What the advice did not mention is that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is an internationally recognized duty of a government. Evidently, what USAID does in Ethiopia directly serves US foreign policy goal. The Agency's budget for this FY is about US$50 million, out of which about US$2 million is to assist TPLF democratization effort. It should be mentioned that, according to USAID sources, Harvard Institute (sic) of International Development is a contractor for the project implementation.

Huntington was apparently in one way or the other advising his calculated US hegemonic divide clinical political diagnosis to then confused newcomer guerrilla fighters,TPLF's in power. The dominant party democratic system that he advised (Awra Party) ,which is now endorsed by the EPRDF's executive committee meeting held just after the 2010 election and that of ruling on a difference based constitution have so far been fully implemented.

In the 1993 Foreign Affairs article, Huntington writes:

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

This prognosis' finality came out to be his highly sold book,The Clash of Civilizations.For sure ,like other so called researchers and advisors ,he used Ethiopia as a litmus test for his book , research and US governments foreign policy.Huntington argued that the trends of global conflict after the end of the Cold War are increasingly appearing at these civilizational divisions. Wars such as those following the break up of Yugoslavia, in Chechnya, and between India and Pakistan were cited as evidence of inter-civilizational conflict.This is what he advised Meles in 1993 to apply it at a national level;unarguably the Awra Party system and the difference based(cultural, language and civilization) institutions and constitutions have been deeply rooted and showing their ''down-hardening'' effect.