Human Rights Watch: Letter to Ethiopian Ministers on Human Rights Violations Against Students

Check back with ETP for more news throughout the day

Also in the news: [EZ: Ambassador Yamamoto genuinely interested in finding a solution to Ethiopia’s political crises]

[100,000 LETTERS IN TEN DAYS campaign gaining momentum] - [ION: More Ethiopian diplomats defect] - [Somalia's hopes for peace fade] - [680 dead in Ethiopia in suspected cholera outbreak]

International: [Gambian President Says Green Paste, A Bitter Drink, And Banana Can Cure AIDS] - [Protest ban in Zimbabwe capital] - [Obama, '08 candidates head to California] - [Britain, Denmark announce withdrawal of its troops from Iraq] and more of today's top stories!

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[THE SECOND BATTLE OF AMBAALAGI, THE LAST ITALIAN STRONGHOLD IN THE NORTH. RAS SEYOUM SEEN HERE ADDRESSING HIS RESISTANCE FIGHTERS BEFORE THEY WENT INTO ACTION, MAY 1941]

Feb. 19 (Last Monday) was Martyrs' Day in Ethiopia. After the attempt on the life of Italian Viceroy Rodolfo Graziani (19 February 1937), there followed the Addis Ababa massacre in which thousands were killed. The massacre motivated many to join the resistance movement. How did it start? The story of Abraha Deboch, Moges Asgedom and Simeon Adefres.(More...)
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100,000 LETTERS IN TEN DAYS Campaign Gaining Momentum

In a press release to major Ethiopian news media groups, Kinijit International has officially endorsed the 100,000 LETTERS campaign.

KIL stated this effort should remain non-partisan and promised the participation of Kinijit support groups all around the world in making the campaign a success. KIL has provided different sample letters Ethiopians can employ in this endeavor.

Yesterday Prof. Alemayehu G. Mariam in association with the coalition for HR5680 called on Ethiopian Americans and Ethiopians throughout the world to begin a campaign to deliver 100,000 letters in the next 10 days to the White House.

The campaign aims to promote human rights in Ethiopia. Those who would like to participate can send their own letters, sample letter from Kinijit’s website or endorse Prof. Alemayehu’s letter with their signature and send. Visit: 100,000 LETTERS IN TEN DAYS Campaign site

Human Rights Watch: Letter to Ethiopian Ministers on Human Rights Violations Against Students

Human Rights Watch wishes to draw your attention to several incidents of human rights violations allegedly committed by federal police officers against students in the towns of Dembi Dollo and Ghimbi in western Oromiya State in the past weeks.

In sum, we have learned that one student, and perhaps two, died as a direct result of police beatings and that other students were severely injured and hospitalized in Dembi Dollo. Between 30 and 50 have been detained and remain detained without charge in the central Dembi Dollo jail and in two district police stations. In Ghimbi, local police and militia members deputized by local officials are reported to have shot and killed two high school students—cousins—in January.

We urge you to investigate these incidents promptly and to prosecute police officers and others responsible for these serious crimes. At the same time, we strongly urge you immediately to release students detained without charge in Dembi Dollo. If there is substantial evidence that any student has committed a serious crime, they should be promptly charged, brought to court, and released pending trial.(More...)

EZ: Ambassador Yamamoto genuinely interested in finding a solution to Ethiopia’s political crises

On the topic of the current meeting between CUD family members and Ambassador Yamamoto, Ethio-Zagol writes

“...According to the sources, neither Ambassador Yamomoto nor the two Ethiopian mediators acted on bad-faith. "There was an urge and want to help. Yamomoto did not comment a lot. He listened. Haile and ambassador Bekele also talked about saving the country and reconciliation," one source said.

Ambassador Yamomoto has thrown himself on solving the current political crisis right from the first date of his arrival. American embassy staff said his attitude and approach has been quite contrasting with the former charge d'affaires, Vicki Huddelstone who was acting as Meles's messenger” {read EZ’s report}

ION: More Ethiopian diplomats defect
Indian Ocean Newsletter N° 1208 17/02/2007

More Ethiopian diplomats have defected, bringing the total that has decided to leave the diplomatic service to seventy three.

The latest to ditch the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and ask for political asylum in the United States is Ambassador Tayework Tilahun, who was his country’s consular attaché in Kuwait.

Recently a staff member of the Ethiopian embassy in Ottawa (Canada), Dereje Ejigu, decided to do likewise. Several employees of embassies in London, Geneva, Stockholm and Paris, have defected the last few years.

Somalia's hopes for peace fade

Mogadishu - Clutching a handful of possessions, Yonis Nor fled the Somali capital with his eight children and hundreds of other families, seeking safety from the daily onslaught of mortar and rocket attacks that have left dozens dead.

Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops exchanged heavy fire overnight with insurgents, leaving 15 dead and another 45 injured in the heaviest fighting so far this year in Mogadishu.

Among those killed in the clashes on Tuesday were a four-year-old boy and a pregnant woman. A 12-year-old girl lost both her legs in a blast, doctors said. (More...)

680 dead in Ethiopia in suspected cholera outbreak, say aid groups

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - More than 680 people in Ethiopia have died in a suspected cholera outbreak that has also affected neighbouring countries, officials said Wednesday.

Some 60,000 people have been infected, but the country's Health Ministry is resisting pressure to declare an emergency despite a UN warning that the disease is an epidemic.

"The fact that it is spreading to new areas in the country is cause for serious concern," said Paul Hebert, head of the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia. "The full extent of this needs to be addressed."

The UN has not officially declared the outbreak, which began nearly a year ago, to be cholera. But UN officials speaking privately because of the sensitivity of the issue are saying it is cholera, something local officials continue to deny. (More...)

Somali insurgents warn against peacekeeping deployment
Associated Press

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somali insurgents warned Wednesday against the impending deployment of African peacekeepers in the war-ravaged country, as families began burying their dead after some of the heaviest violence to hit the capital city.

Just hours after the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to authorize an African Union force to help stabilize Somalia, one insurgent leader said they will fight any foreign troops who are sent into the country.

”The U.N. should keep its hand off our country because the Islamic forces are ready to fight any foreign troops whether they are blue helmet or black helmet,” said one insurgent leader identified only as Osman.(More...)

Gambia's AIDS 'Cure' Claim Causes Alarm
Gambian President Says Green Paste, A Bitter Drink, And Banana Can Cure AIDS

From the pockets of his billowing white robe, Gambia's president pulls out a plastic container, closes his eyes in prayer and rubs a green herbal paste onto the ribcage of the patient — a concoction he claims is a cure for AIDS.

He then orders the thin man to swallow a bitter yellow drink, followed by two bananas.

"Whatever you do, there are bound to be skeptics, but I can tell you my method is foolproof," President Yahya Jammeh told an Associated Press reporter, surrounded by bodyguards in his presidential compound. "Mine is not an argument, mine is a proof. It's a declaration. I can cure AIDS and I will." (More...)

Today's Top Stories

-Protest ban in Zimbabwe capital
-Obama, '08 candidates head to California
-Britain announces withdrawal of its troops from Iraq
-Denmark to withdraw from Iraq
-Italian Patients Given Organs With HIV
-Fighting surgeons leave patient in the lurch






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Urgent call to support the Ontario Child Benefit

Write a letter to the Toronto Star supporting the Ontario Child Benefit.

Yesterday’s lead Toronto Star editorial (see below) strongly endorses a new Ontario Child Benefit as a necessary poverty reduction tool in Ontario. The Daily Bread Food Bank is recommending as many people as possible write a letter to the Star today to demonstrate support for the OCB. Resources and letter-writing tips here.

BOLD STEPS NEEDED ON CHILD POVERTY
Toronto Star Editorial - February 19, 2007

All children in low-income families deserve a fair and decent start in life, whether their parents struggle in low-wage jobs or are forced by circumstances to rely on welfare to make ends meet.

But in Ontario, unlike many other provinces, children in welfare families are unfairly punished by a provincial policy that denies their families a small amount of money – just $122 a month for each child – that would go a long way to help buy food, clothing and pay the rent.

Now, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has a golden opportunity to right this wrong in his coming provincial budget, expected in April or early May, by taking the bold step of introducing an Ontario Child Benefit as part of a comprehensive and realistic poverty reduction strategy.

Sorbara said earlier this month he is looking at a "basket of tools" to address widespread poverty in this province.

In the Star's view, that basket should include raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour from $8 and bringing in a new Ontario Child Benefit to help both those on welfare and the working poor, a move that could then lead to the elimination of Ontario's current clawback of the National Child Benefit Supplement, which the Liberals pledged to do in the 2003 provincial election campaign.

Ontario's clawback of the national supplement was one of the most odious moves by the former Conservative government of premier Mike Harris. The supplement was designed to help parents who earn less than $36,000.

However, in Ontario, the provincial government claws back, or reduces, monthly benefits to people on welfare by an amount equal to 75 per cent of the federal benefit. That amounts to $122 a month per child.

Growing numbers of progressive policy planners are convinced that a more equitable way of helping both working poor families and those on welfare is to dramatically restructure the social assistance programs and de-link income support directed at children from the system entirely.

That is what is starting to happen in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland where all low-income families receive a separate, income-tested child benefit, regardless of whether their parents are working or are relying on welfare.

If adopted in Ontario, a provincial child benefit could be fully indexed, income-tested and provide needed funds to all low-income families with children up to the age of 18.

By extending the benefit to low-income working families, it would ensure that parents who try to move from welfare to the workforce are not penalized. Right now, the so-called "welfare wall" means many parents on social assistance cannot afford to take a job because it means giving up needed medical and dental coverage for their children that is currently paid by the government as long as the parents are on welfare.

When combined with Ottawa's child benefit supplement, the Ontario Child Benefit would insulate all children from their parents' financial ups and downs and ultimately lessen the reliance of many poor families on food banks to feed their children.

But the new Ontario benefit must not simply combine old programs into a new program with a different name. It must result in more money in the pockets of poor families. And it ultimately must provide enough money to raise the living standards of all low-income families.

If fully implemented in one step, such a program could cost up to $1 billion a year. If a provincial program was combined with the national plan, a single parent with one child, for example, would get $1,254 a month in assistance. Under the existing structure, the assistance is $1,132 monthly.

To ease the financial impact on the coming budget, the Ontario Child Benefit could be phased in, possibly over a three- to four-year period, with much of the benefit coming the first year. For instance, $60 a month might be instituted immediately, followed by an extra $31 a month in the each of the next two years, bringing the total to $122 month per child. Such a phased-in approach could mean Queen's Park would have to budget $300 million to $500 million in the first year, rather than $1 billion.

While some taxpayers may balk at the government spending such sums of money, all Ontarians have a vested interest in addressing poverty because a healthy, well-educated and more prosperous workforce will help drive the provincial economy into the future.

In the end, helping children grow up in the best possible environment is not only a sensible goal, but also the right thing for Sorbara to do.

p.s. Don't forget to participate in the Federal Government's online pre-budget consultation before Feb 28, 2007. The site asks you to rank your priorities, and then lets you comment on each one. It's pretty limited but you can select “Spending” and “Other” as your top priorities, and then on the next page write comments detailing your thoughts. It only takes a minute. (more info)

Ten out of Ten Bears Prefer Beef Fat to Menstrual Blood

They also prefer to dine on corn and garbage. So women, feel free to go hiking at any time of the month.

The death of two menstruating women attacked by grizzlies in Glacier National Park in 1967 apparently prompted the government to print brochures warning women to avoid bear country during periods of active menstruation.

Although some sites, like this one caution "women may want to avoid the backcountry during their menstrual period", there is little or no reason to be concerned about hiking during menstruation.

The examination of factors surrounding hundreds of grizzly and black bear attacks produced neither evidence that supported a causal relation between human menstruation and attacks nor revealed any published records concerning black bear responses to menstrual blood. The U.S. Forest Service conducted a series of experiments (Rogers et al., 1991) which tested the responses of both male and female black bears to human menstrual odors. The first experiment involved the spin-cast introduction of 15 used tampons (in clusters of 5) to adult male black bears foraging in a garbage dump. Each presentation, therefore, gave the bears a choice between the garbage and tampons. If the bears ate (like they did the garbage), closely sniffed, or rolled on the tampons, then they were considered to have paid attention to the tampons. Of 22 presentations, the bears ignored the used tampons 20 times (twice casual sniffs were observed), effectively preferring the garbage in every instance. In a second experiment, seven bears feeding on piles of corn were offered groups of six used tampons. Six of the bears sniffed the tampons and then returned to their piles of corn. A yearling male tasted one of the tampons, quickly dropped it and returned to the corn.

A third experiment placed four used tampons, an unused tampon, a tampon soaked in non-menstrual human blood, and a tampon containing rendered beef fat in the middle of a heavily traveled bear path with the used tampons interspersed among the others. Ten out of ten bears ate only the tampons soaked in beef fat. In a fourth experiment, women on different days of their period accompanied and contacted bears who were accustomed to human interaction and were known to investigate attractive odors. Eleven encounters involved women wearing tampons and one crazy woman wearing clothing through which her menstrual blood was soaking. Of the twelve encounters with the women, the ten bears did not pay any attention to the lower torsos of the women. Another woman wearing external pads during two of her menstrual cycles hand-fed four female bears and walked within two meters of adult male bears during bear mating season and did not receive any attention. Rogers et al. (1991) concluded that the lack of interest of the bears to menstrual odors does not prove that such odors are never attractive to bears (similar experiments resulted in tampon feasts by polar bears lacking attractive buffets); however, menstrual odors essentially were ignored.

(SOURCE)

More references here, here, and here. Original inspiration from a friend who heard about this on a radio programme on CKLN.

More than you'll ever want to know about menstruation from the Museum of Menstruation.