International: [Saddam's Half Brother, Top Aide Hanged] - [Trial Begins For U.K. Bombing Suspects] - [Olmert, Rice to hold talks with Abbas] - [Woman Dies After Water-Drinking Radio Contest] and more of today's top stories!
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January 15: Dr. Martin Luther King Day
From the time he first emerged as a civil rights leader, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. lived with the threat of death, but he never wavered in his commitment to non-violence.------------------------------------------------------------
Implementing lessons from Ethiopia's EPRDF: government of somalia shuts down independent Radio and TV Stations
Mogadishu 15, Jan.07 ( Sh.M.Network) -At least three FM radios and a TV Station Were ordered to close their stations. A decree issued by the security department of the Somali government ordered the Shabelle Media Network, Horn Afrik, IQK and Aljazeera TV stations in Mogadishu to be shut down.
The decree says, “From today 15 January, 2007 the above mentioned radio and TV stations to halt their broadcasting operations as soon they receive this decree. The managements of the media are being informed to come to the government security department that lies in Bar FIAT in Mogadishu on Tuesday”.
All radio stations including Shabelle Radio instantly went off air.The news comes as all local and foreign journalists were busy covering the events in Somalia. (More...)
Also see:
-BBC: Somalia shuts down broadcasters
-Somali Government Shuts Down Local Al-Jazeera Office, 3 Radio Stations
-IRIN: Somali Government silences media groups
Deadly clashes in Mogadishu as Ethiopia seeks African help
MOGADISHU (AFP) - At least three people were killed when Somali gunmen battled government and Ethiopian troops in the heaviest fighting in Mogadishu since the ouster of hardline Islamists last month, residents have said.
At least two people died Monday in a gunbattle between forces and rebels in southern Mogadishu, the Islamists' traditional stronghold, while a policeman was gunned down when a gang raided a cache of weapons he was guarding.
The deaths underscored the scale of the task facing Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's weak interim government, which was only able to supplant the Islamists with the aid of the Ethiopians.
As many Somalis seethe at the presence of Ethiopian troops on their streets, Addis Adaba tried to explain its intervention to other African states and urge them to help make a planned peacekeeping force a reality.
Witnesses said rockets and mortar shells as well as machine-gun and anti-aircraft fire were used in the overnight battle.(More...)
EACA: Georgetown University Insulting Dr Martin Luther King's Dream
Learning the Georgetown University Presidents announcement to honor the "John Thompson Legacy of a Dream Award" to the Organization of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS for its leadership and service toward the ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King was unbearably painful and very embarrassing to those men and women who are living every day the Dr Kings dream at various African jails and in Diaspora.
Unlike the Georgetown University Presidents knowledge or perception of those who may have nominated those honoree, neither of the dictators' wife's has the courage and determination to promote "compassion and create social change" in the way Dr. Martin Luther King envisioned. Rather, the honoree played significant role to the misery of millions with and with out HIV, and contributed that many others end up in catching infections at various concentration camps that are owned by their husbands. The Georgetown University honoree and their husbands daily exercise their unlimited power to incarcerate their opponents, torture, and murder their fellow country men and women instead of bringing positive social change and promoting compassion.
For instance Azeb Mesfin of Ethiopia, who has taken the self appointed first lady status in a country of 72 million people since almost two decades is Chairwoman of the Social Affairs Standing Committee, a Member of Parliament as well as the a multi-million dollar monopolist in a country where opposition figures, civic society representatives and journalists are currently facing trial for treason and genocide for demanding democratic changes. The nomination by the Gorge Town University to honor the self appointed first lady of Ethiopia, Azeb Mesfin, who is a major player in escalating the destitution in the Horn and making Ethiopia to rank 170th out of 170 countries in development; 92nd out of 95 countries in poverty, and 137th out of 144 countries on gender-related advancement, and a center to harbor over 3.5 (5%) million people with HIV along over a million orphans, is a disgrace to the institution and an embarrassment to the Gorge Town University community.
Georgetown University action insults Dr King's legacy by supporting the social injustice, human right abuse the struggle for freedom in Ethiopia and Rwanda through honoring dictators' wives who are also self appointed first-ladies. If Dr King and John Thompson were still alive, they would have been at the Kennedy Center with many Ethiopian Americans and freedom loving people, protesting and denouncing against the Georgetown University announcement to honor the "The New Emperor's or Dictators' Wives" on the behalf of their legacy.
The action taken by George Town University not only insults Dr Kings and John Thompson's legacy but it also undermines the peaceful democratic movement in the entire Africa and all over the world.
Kassa Ayalew, M.D., M.P.H., Chair
Ethiopian American Civic Advocacy (EACA)
Phone: (703) 665-4042
PO.Box 1292
Lorton , Virginia 22199-1292 USA, eacadvocacy@gmail.com
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Ethiopians risk life and limb across desert and sea to make Gucci bags
Sief Jamel, desperate to leave his war-torn home in Ethiopia for the prospect of a job in Italy's fashion industry, braved desert and sea for the chance to sew a handbag.Jamel says he paid smugglers $3 200 (about R23 460) for passage from Addis Ababa, crossing the Sahara in a Land Rover with people clinging to the hood and hanging off the roof. In Libya he had to elude Muammar Qaddafi's police.
In the final leg, he squeezed on to a boat less than half the size of a city bus with 41 other migrants for a week-long voyage to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa. "I hoped I might find work in fashion," says Jamel, a skinny 28-year-old whose scarred hands reveal a life of manual labour.
Jamel's reward for his odyssey of almost two years was a temporary sewing job in a factory that makes leather bags for Bulgari, Gucci Group, Tod's and other luxury brands. His stint at the Pelletteria RC plant lasted two months. "It was good work," he says, adding that he worked legally with papers police issued for humanitarian reasons when he arrived in 2004.(More...)
Bole2Harlem: Hearing Ethiopia in New York
Day to Day, January 15, 2007 · In the 1970s, the Ethopian capital of Addis Ababa was awash in a hypnotic blend of Ethiopian rhythms, American jazz and European pop, concocted by military and police band members moonlighting in the clubs and hotels of the metropolis. When the ruler Haile Selassie died, so did the music scene, as the dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam took power and many fled the country in the ensuing "Red Terror" of the late 1970s.
Now, 30 years and 7,000 miles later the Ethiopian cafe society sound has returned. At the New York city restaurant L'Orange Bleue, African expatriates and others began swapping ideas in informal jam sessions. (More...)
Today's Top Stories
-Facing violence, King never abandoned non-violence-Saddam's Half Brother, Top Aide Hanged
-Trial Begins For U.K. Bombing Suspects
-Olmert, Rice to hold talks with Abbas to boost peace process
-Nepal Maoists take seats in new parliament
-Woman Dies After Water-Drinking Radio Contest
