The Color Orange: Key to More Nutritious Maize?

SeedQuest -- CIMMYT maize scientists and colleagues from national programs in the key countries targeted by HarvestPlus reported significant progress in identifying maize with elevated concentrations of iron, zinc, and pro-vitamins A (chemicals the human body can convert to vitamin A) in their elite maize varieties and germplasm collections. The results of two years of work were presented at the second HarvestPlus Maize meeting hosted by EMBRAPA, the national agricultural research program of Brazil at their maize and sorghum research station in Sete Lagoas.

Maize is a key target crop for nutritional enhancement because it is so widely consumed in areas where high malnutrition—especially vitamin-A deficiency—exists. Scientists working in the HarvestPlus program hope eventually to breed high-quality, high-yielding maize with enhanced pro-vitamins A, iron, and zinc content. These micronutrients in maize will have to be in a form that survives processing and can be utilized by the human body.

The first planning meeting for the maize scientists was held in 2003 in Ethiopia. “We’ve come a long way since we first met two years ago,” says Kevin Pixley, the HarvestPlus Maize coordinator and Director of CIMMYT’s Tropical Ecosystems Program. “But we have also realized that this is a very complex subject with many assumptions that have to be validated.”

CIMMYT maize breeder Dave Beck showed the group results of screening of CIMMYT elite highland and transition zone maize germplasm for enhanced levels of pro-vitamins A, zinc, and iron. HarvestPlus nutritionists have set minimum targets for the concentrations of these micronutrients in maize. The good news is that for zinc, CIMMYT has identified material that was already above the threshold. For iron the picture is less promising as existing lines identified have only 60 percent of the required minimum level for iron. For pro-vitamins A CIMMYT has examined hundreds of lines. The best CIMMYT lines have about 75 percent of the minimum requirement, but sources identified by project partners in the USA have the minimum required level of pro-vitamins A. The CIMMYT team is now breeding to enhance pro-vitamins A concentration for highland, transition zone, mid-altitude, and lowland-adapted materials.

A topic of keen interest at the meeting was how to convince people to adopt any nutritionally enhanced maize varieties that might be developed. In much of eastern and southern Africa, white maize is preferred over yellow maize. Scientists in Zambia and Zimbabwe had conducted studies about the acceptability of yellow maize. Both studies found that yellow maize is associated with food aid and that was one reason people did not want to eat it. Scientists know there is a strong correlation between the color of the maize and the total level of carotenoids. Some of these carotenoids are precursors for vitamin A “pro-vitamins A.” Torbert Rocheford, a professor of plant genetics at the University of Illinois, suggested that the debate should not actually be about yellow maize in many parts of Africa. He said what we should be talking about is orange maize—something new that will not carry the stigma of yellow maize but will have high pro-vitamins A content.

AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED...

1. Meles Defends Genetically Modified Crops
2. Sowing the Seeds of Famine in Ethiopia
3. Are GM Crops the Answer to Food Shortages?
   
4. Ethiopians Urged to Eat Rice...
   
5. First Biotech Institute in Ethiopia

NEWS

IOL -- The majority of South Africans are unaware that 30 percent of the country's yellow maize and soy bean crops are genetically modified.

This is just one of the concerns raised by international author Jeffrey Smith, who is in the country to deliver a series of talks on genetically modified food.

Smith was addressing a group of people on the topic at the Diakonia Centre in Durban on Thursday.

He is also author of the book, Seeds Of Deception: Exposing Industry And Government Lies About The Safety Of The Genetically Engineered Food You're Eating.

Smith said that genetic engineering involved taking a gene from one species and inserting it into another.

Smith said that most South Africans had no idea that the food they were eating had been genetically modified.

"South Africa is the only country in the world allowing its staple food to be genetically modified and as a result, is putting a large portion of the population at risk," said Smith.

He said that 30 percent of the country's yellow maize and soy bean crops were genetically modified, along with 10 percent of white maize crops.

Smith said that the genetically modified maize grown in South Africa is likely to have been inserted with a gene that would make it produce Bt-toxin, which is a pesticide.

"When this pesticide was fed to mice, the mice developed an immune response equal to that of cholera toxin. They developed allergies, abnormal and excessive cell growth in their small intestines, and a greater susceptibility to allergies," he said.

Smith said the GM Bt-toxin in maize was hundreds and even thousands of times more concentrated than the spray form.

"Farm workers exposed to even the low dose Bt spray showed evidence of allergic sensitivity.

"Preliminary evidence found that 39 Filipinos living next to a Bt maize field developed skin, intestinal and respiratory reactions while the maize was pollinating," he said.

Smith said that farmers who fed their cattle 100 percent GM maize had difficulties.

"Twelve cows died on a German farm, and about 25 farmers in North America said their pigs became sterile, had false pregnancies or gave birth to bags of water."

Smith said that South Africans needed to take a stand and demand to know what goes into the food they are eating.

"We need the leadership of this country, the faith-based leadership, the labour leaders and those who protect the lives of those with HIV/Aids to put a stop to these genetically modified foods.

"Leaders have to go to the government and manufacturers, and tell them that we (the public) are going to get our congregations and organisations to stop eating GM foods, and ask for a list for those which are GM and those which are not," he said.

Smith said that only when the word was out and everyone knew what was genetically modified and what was not, would a revolution begin within the industry.

Kenya's Park Threatened By Pollution

allAfrica.com -- Pollution is threatening Lake Nakuru National Park due to poor disposal of solid waste by residents and industries, a don has said.

Outgoing Egerton University Vice-Chancellor, Ezra Maritim, said the waste, especially polythene bags from the surrounding slums, threatened marine life in the lake and the wildlife in the national park.

Maritim said this in a speech read on his behalf by deputy Vice-Chancellor, research and extension, Prof S A Abdulrazak, at the weekend.

His speech was to officially open a one-day conference on urban environment organised by the Intermediate Technology Development Group and funded by Japan International Co-operation Agency at Merica Hotel in Nakuru.

He said run-off water from Mau Forest, Menengai and Dundori catchment areas had caused siltation in the lake.

Maritim said River Njoro washed most of the soil into the lake due to sand harvesting and farming along its bunks.

The park is famous as a rhino sanctuary and as an international wetland, besides being home to thousands of flamingos and other birds.

Separately, the Swedish ambassador, Bo Goransson, yesterday urged Lake Victoria stakeholders to make it a resource for health and wealth.

Goransson called on Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to ensure that the fresh water lake improved the health of the local people besides generating income.

"The three countries should ensure the lake resources are used to generate wealth and ensure the health of the people living around it," said Goransson.

He was speaking at Dunga Beach in Kisumu during the official launch of the Lake Victoria Centre for Research and Development 'Osienala'.

Present during the launch were Henry Kook (Global Nature Fund), Nyanza deputy Provincial Commissioner Aggrey Busena, the director of Osienala Obiero Ong'ang'a and researchers from Ethiopia, Japan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Philippine, Germany, China, Switzerland and Australia.

Busena called for unity among eastern African countries in tackling issues touching on the lake.

"Let us not look at ourselves as the Kenyan side of the lake but rather Lake Victoria resources," said Busena.

The researchers are in Kisumu for a three-day conference dubbed: African Living Lakes regional conference ahead of the 11th World lakes conference starting in Nairobi today. President Kibaki will open the conference, which will run up to November 4.It will discuss sustainable management of lakes and the ecosystems.

The conference themed "Management of Lake basins for their sustainable use, Global experiences and African issues will be held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

STATS
Nakuru is the Anglicised form of the Maasai na-kurro, "that which is scraped bare" (grassless), referring to the bare expanse of soda ash of the lake bed and its rocky surrounds. For years it was popularly, but wrongly, assumed to mean "a place of swirling dust devils", from the clouds of soft dust raised by the wind when the lake is low.
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Photo 1 Courtesy: Rhino Rescue Trust

Photo 2 Courtesy: Safarimate

Brad Pitt Narrates PBS Miniseries On Global Health

This April 2005 photo supplied by WGBH and Nova shows actor Brad Pitt with children in Ethiopia. Pitt narrates the upcoming six-hour PBS miniseries 'RX for Survival: A Global Health Challenge.' In the past two years, Pitt has become increasingly involved in fighting poverty in Africa. (AP Photo/WGBH/NOVA,J. Tayloe Emery)

Starting Tuesday night on PBS and ending Thursday (check local listings), Pitt will narrate six hour-long episodes of "RX for Survival: A Global Health Challenge," which follows health care workers and researchers struggling to contain disease among the world's poor.

"I've been involved with the issue of poverty -- I've been studying it for about a year and half now," Pitt told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday from Calgary, Alberta. "I think one of the major causes of that is health, global health."

Pitt has made several trips to Africa in the past two years, including one in July to Ethiopia, where his "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" co-star Angelina Jolie adopted her daughter, Zahara.

While tabloid coverage of Pitt and Jolie has been extensive, the 41-year-old actor told Diane Sawyer on ABC's "Primetime Live" in June that he wanted to redirect some of that attention to poverty in Africa.

"I think it could be one of the major issues of the century," he told the AP. "There are two things at stake here: one is human interest and the other is self-interest. We're finding out that there's no safe haven from infectious diseases. It's a plane flight away."

"The human interest is enough -- the fact that millions are dying from preventable, curable diseases," Pitt said. "But if the human interest isn't enough, then wisdom will tell you that self-preservation is."

He mentioned the Avian bird flu as an example, and said he wondered if AIDS might not have "jumped the pond" if Africa had a proper health infrastructure.

What led Pitt to this interest in poverty?

"I don't know," he said. "To me personally, it goes back to the will to understand and that's what we're lacking most. So I want to educate myself as much as I can to understand the situation, to understand the solutions."

"I've had the luxury of travel and in the luxury of travel, I've seen the detriments of poverty and I've gone on to see how easy the cures can be -- cures that cost cents to the richest nation in the world."

FINDING

Study details disastrous exodus of doctors from Africa and Caribbean

International Press Institute Adds Ethiopia to Watch List

Addis Tribune -- At the Board Meeting of the International Press Institute, held in Warsaw, Poland, last Saturday the Executive Board voted unanimously to add Ethiopia to the IPI Watch List while agreeing that South Korea should be removed. Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe were kept on the IPI Watch List.

Commenting on the Board's decision to add Ethiopia to the list, IPI Director Johann P. Fritz said, "After a recent fact-finding mission to the country carried out by IPI, we have grave concerns about the deteriorating media freedom situation in Ethiopia."

Though the government has expressed its support for diversification of the broadcast media by opening the airwaves to private broadcasters, it has constantly delayed the implementation of this intention and, despite promises to the contrary, there are genuine fears that it will not do so before the next general election in 2005."

Regarding the draft press law, Fritz said, "The government has promised to send a copy of the most recent version of this law to IPI and we hope they do so. However, it is fair to say that the entire process has lacked transparency. Earlier drafts contained draconian measures and I am doubtful that all of these provisions will be withdrawn. This means the Ethiopian media have an uncertain future."

"I am also worried about the apparent lack of an independent judiciary and police force in Ethiopia, which have led to the arrest of journalists for outdated charges. It is damaging to the reputation of Ethiopia to have journalists languishing in jail for a failure to pay excessive bail fees. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to obtain information on arrests of journalists and this reinforces the impression that the government's vocal support for press freedom is not always matched by firm deeds."

Speaking about the IPI Watch List, Fritz added, "While I acknowledge the severe problems in the areas of poverty, education, health and food production in Ethiopia and the pressures these place on the government, the IPI Executive Board felt that the forthcoming elections could lead to greater difficulties for press freedom and access to information and, with this in mind, it was decided that IPI should pay careful attention to the Ethiopian media environment in order to support journalists." During the IPI World Congress, also held in Warsaw, Poland, last Tuesday IPI awarded its "Free Media Pioneer Award 2004" to the Baku-based Central Asian and Southern Caucasian Freedom of Expression Network (CASCFEN).

Ethiopia Warns Opposition Over New Protests

Reuters AlertNet -- Ethiopia's top opposition party has called for new protests over election results it says were rigged, drawing a government warning it would not accept any threat to peace and security.

Bad political blood in Africa's top coffee grower has been increasing since a May 15 parliamentary poll, which triggered opposition claims of fraud and street protests in which police killed 36 people.

The opposition has complained of continuing harassment and intimidation, and on Friday said that about 20 of its members including elected MPs were beaten and arrested by police. Police have denied the accusations.

The main opposition party, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), late on Saturday issued a statement calling on its members to stage a series of protests beginning on Monday across the Horn of Africa nation.

It urged members to hold a stay-at-home strike on Monday, attend peaceful demonstrations on as-yet undecided dates, and refrain from buying products from state-supported businesses and stop listening to or watching state media.

Berhanu Hailu, Ethiopia's newly appointed information minister, described the CUD's action as "a continuation of street action that aims to undermine law and order and disrupt the peace and security of the country."

"It shows that CUD has taken the patience and magnanimity of the government as a weakness. They have been told to refrain from such street action, but the idea of peaceful struggle has not crossed their mind," Berhanu told Reuters.

The opposition has planned other protests in recent months and then called them off, blaming the government for threatening their supporters and violating their constitutional rights.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose ruling party won the disputed poll, has accused the opposition of using the protests to incite violence and topple his government.

Some 109 elected MPs from CUD, which boycotted parliament in protest against election results, have been stripped of their immunity from prosecution.

The political deadlock and reports of arrests prompted the European Parliament earlier this month to warn of possible cuts in development aid to Ethiopia unless the "persecution and intimidation" of opposition groups came to an end.

International observers broadly endorsed the official results of the election five months ago, but they noted some irregularities during the vote.

Ethiopian Israelis Protest Delays in Plans to Bring Over Relatives

Ethiopian immigrants hold up pictures of their relatives still living in Ethiopia during a demonstration outside Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office in Jerusalem October 30, 2005. (REUTERS)

Haaretz -- Thousands of Israelis of Ethiopian origin marched in Jerusalem on Sunday to protest against a delay in plans to bring their relatives to the Jewish state.

The Israeli government decided in February to double the immigration rate of the community known as the Falasha Mura, so as to bring over 20,000 people by 2007, but the number arriving in Israel has actually fallen in recent months.

"Why have they not been brought to Israel, even though the government has made the decision to do so?" said Jerry Faradam, 33, a student activist with an Ethiopian lobby group who said he had not seen some family members in 15 years.

"The answer is that we are poor Africans, not rich Americans. We don't have the money or clout to make it happen."

The Immigrant Absorption Ministry blamed the delay on Ethiopian elections, saying it had been impossible to finalize details sooner.

"Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon has said he will do anything it takes to bring the Falasha Mura to Israel," a spokeswoman said. She said details would be worked out next week to allow the remaining members of the community to be brought to Israel.

Israel is home to more than 100,000 Jews of Ethiopian origin, who trace their roots to the biblical King Solomon and Queen of Sheba. The word Falasha means exiles in Ethiopia's Amharic language.

Many Ethiopian Jews were flown to Israel in airlifts during 1984's famine and the end of Ethiopia's civil war in 1991.

The Falasha Mura, who were converted - sometimes forcibly - to Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries, are eager to migrate to revive their Jewish roots and escape poverty.

Protesters said conditions were worsening for the Falasha Mura community waiting to leave Ethiopia.

"My aunt sold everything she had so she could come to Israel," said Getenat Awoke. "They are now stuck in Addis Ababa living in poverty with no assistance from the Israeli government."

Eritrea and Ethiopia: Backing the Favourite

Economist -- WHAT better way to settle an ugly third-world border dispute than through arbitration? What better example of conflict resolution to press upon two rancorous rivals, Ethiopia and Eritrea, who in 1998-2000 fought a bitter border war that cost 70,000 lives? That is why, as part of the peace deal that ended the war at the urging of America, the European Union and the Africa Union, the two countries asked the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to fix their border. But the court awarded the most hotly disputed piece of turf, the town of Badme, to Eritrea—the smaller nation, with a repressive little regime and few foreign friends. Ethiopia has since refused to accept the court's ruling and none of its powerful foreign allies seems inclined to try to make it change its mind.

As a result, both impoverished countries are armed to the teeth and a costly UN peacekeeping mission is hunkered along the border. And every so often come rumblings of another war, as has happened this month when Eritrea banned the UN from overflying its territory, drawing accusations from Ethiopia that it was shifting troops to the border.

The UN Security Council was due to discuss the crisis on October 27th. It fears for the safety of the 3,300 UN peacekeepers who are deployed on the border and have no mandate, or desire, to intervene in fresh fighting between two of Africa's best-organised armies. The peacekeepers are mostly on the Eritrean side, and have therefore been unable to man almost half of their 40 observation posts since their helicopters were grounded. Some observers—including John Bolton, the American ambassador to the UN—are now asking what purpose the mission serves.

It is a reasonable question: if Eritrea and Ethiopia are intent on fighting and the UN cannot stop them, the blue helmets might as well leave. Yet to blame the UN for the crisis is to miss the point. The peacekeepers were never intended to enforce peace. Rather, they were charged with deterring cross-border scuffles and reporting them when they occurred—and this they have admirably done.

Real responsibility for making Ethiopia and Eritrea honour their agreement lies, first, with their governments and, second, with those powers who urged them to accept arbitration and witnessed their agreement in Algiers in 2000. After all, western countries should have a certain influence in Ethiopia: they give it about $800m a year in development aid, a figure that could double over the next two years. Yet instead of insisting that Ethiopia accept the loss of Badme, America and the EU seem intent on having the country as their friend. For America, Ethiopia is of minor strategic importance, as an ally against Islamist extremists in southern Ethiopia and Somalia. For Britain it represents a test case of Tony Blair's ambition to fight poverty in Africa; Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's leader, is a personal friend of Britain's prime minister, and was a member of Mr Blair's “Commission for Africa”.

Eritrea has no such posh pals. Most of the international sympathy it accrued during a bitter three-decade-long struggle for independence from Ethiopia—which it won in 1993—has since been squandered by its despotic leader, Issaias Afwerki. Last week, an agency that monitors the world's media said that only in North Korea were journalists less free. And yet, in the dispute over Badme, Eritrea is also right; and, as its tenacious independence struggle should suggest, it is unlikely to forget it. Eritrea probably does not want another war. Its economy is still shattered by the previous one, which its conscript army lost. But its bellicose leaders are not beyond sending skirmishers across the border to make their point—and that is precisely how the last conflict began.

Africa Starts to Defuse Pesticide Menace

IOL -- An extensive project to rid Africa of thousands of tons of obsolete, but highly dangerous, pesticides is finally coming into full swing.

The problem has been a subject of growing concern and discussion over many years. Now the Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP), as it is called, will start seeing trained operatives in protective gear entering places where the chemicals are held, to make inventories and set in train the process that will see much of the material exported to incinerators in Europe to be destroyed.

There are no facilities in Africa capable of destroying the chemicals at internationally required standards. They have to be incinerated at temperatures of at least 900°C to limit harmful emissions.

The ASP will include extensive training in the use and safer handling of pesticides to prevent similar build-ups and contamination dangers in future.

It is expected to cost $250-million (about R1,7-billion) and to take up to 15 years to complete. It involves the United Nations and the Global Environment Facility (GEF), governments, non-governmental organisations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and pesticide manufacturers, through their international federation called CropLife. Its first phase, which will include South Africa, was explained at a media briefing in Nairobi on Friday.

Other countries involved are Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco, Tanzania and Tunisia. It will cost an estimated $60-million and take up to six years to complete.

Angela Mwandia, the programme's co-ordinator, said these countries had been chosen to start with because they had made inventories and were more prepared than most to start implementation. They were also participating in the international agreements regarding persistent organic pollutants.

The continent's stockpiles of poisonous chemicals, estimated at about 50 000 tons, have been accumulating over the past 40 years and longer, the result largely of lack of training, weak controls and aggressive marketing by manufacturers who sold countries more than they needed. The chemicals include brands like Dieldron, DDT and a range of organophosphate pesticides used mainly for crop protection.

Dr Jan Betlem, a specialist from Europe in obsolete pesticide elimination, told the Nairobi conference pesticides were normally obsolete after two years. They were then no longer good for the purposes for which they had been manufactured, although they remained poisonous in other respects.

Practically every African country holds quantities of obsolete toxins. South Africa is said to be sitting on an estimated 250 tons. Ethiopia has been one of the worst off, with an estimated 3 000 tons held at more than 900, often practically inaccessible, points. With the help of pesticide manufacturers, however, it has succeeded in getting rid of a considerable portion of these.

The estimates are based largely on stockpiles in government storage. There could be much larger amounts of obsolete pesticides stored on business premises, in farm storerooms and on shelves in urban homes.

Betlem painted a grim picture. He said many stockpiles were found in neglected buildings. Others were found in drums in the veld, under torn tarpaulins and plastic sheets, or buried.

Many of the containers are corroding, adding spillage to the already serious contamination problem of the stockpiles being incorrectly discarded. The toxins seep into the soil and groundwater, contaminating food, drinking water and the air and posing a serious health danger to many communities, especially the poor.

Betlem has often found dead cats, birds, snakes, goats and sheep inside and around buildings where corroded containers have started leaking. And it is not unusual to find children playing in the vicinity of such stockpiles.

The meat of animals grazing in such areas is sold in public markets, adding to the build-up of toxins that inhabitants also get through plant foodstuffs and drinking water.

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation started warning about the wrong and negligent use of pesticides and their danger to the world and to Africa in particular more than a decade ago. The Africa Stockpiles Programme springs from an initiative started in 2000 by the WWF. Its major donors are the World Bank and European governments. It has been endorsed by the African Union's conference on the environment.

Many of the pesticides supplied never had labels other than the name of the product and its manufacture. (photo courtesy: pan-uk.org)

Ethiopian Tells of Migrant Ordeal

BBC News -- An Ethiopian woman has gone public with her harrowing story about being trafficked to work in Bahrain, hoping this will serve as a warning to others.

"I believed the lies of a trafficker and a family friend whom I thought I could trust," says Alem Teklu, 29.

"I ended up being abused, exploited, and held against my will.

"My employer refused to pay my salary of more than six months and wanted me to forcefully marry her brother."

Alem's story has been turned into a picture story by the International Organization of Migration in order to end the silence which has surrounded the plight of trafficked Ethiopians.

Yitna Getachew, the head of IOM's counter-trafficking programme in Ethiopia, says the booklet is being distributed for free in the department of immigration, when people go to pick up their passports, as well as by various organisations around the country.

Ethiopia has for a long time been a source of men, women, and children trafficked for forced labour and sexual exploitation.

Every year thousands of young Ethiopians are trafficked for involuntary domestic labour to the Middle East, particularly Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

'Pure hell'

"Sexual harassment by male members of the family I worked for were a commonplace. But I wasn't treated as badly as other Ethiopians, maybe because I used the Muslim name of Mumina while working in Bahrain.

"It was pure hell for me and my friends. When I ultimately fled back home it was like coming out of prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment."

Charles Kwenin, IOM's chief of mission in Ethiopia, says Alem's decision to go public with her story was very courageous.

Alem is now a successful graphic designer

"We are grateful that she has shared this very personal story so that others can learn from her experience. We hope that 'Alem's Story' inspires others to seek out legal channels when travelling for work abroad," he said.

Alem said she went to Bahrain hoping to earn enough money to send back to help her family.

"But this was not to be. Three years after leaving my country, I came back poorer than when I left.

"It is sad that up to now not much information is available to young girls being trafficked and that is why I thought I should stand up and tell my fellow Ethiopians flocking with their dreams to the Middle East what lies ahead."

Alem, who is now a successful graphic designer in Addis Ababa, says she bitterly regrets the three years she wasted working as a domestic servant in Bahrain.

Alarming increase

But it is not only in the countries of their destination that Ethiopians being trafficked face problems.

They can endure severe hardship and even death on their arduous journeys to the Middle East.

Many believe that trafficking is being fuelled by the abject poverty facing many Ethiopians.

In a recent report, the Federal Police Commission confirmed that illegal immigration and human trafficking activities in Ethiopia were increasing at an alarming rate.

This year alone, the police commission says it has investigated more than 500 cases of human trafficking - a 46% increase from last year's figures.

Ethiopia Moves Troops to Eritrean Border

CNN.com -- Ethiopia's prime minister said on Saturday he had moved more troops to the border with Eritrea since December to prevent any "miscalculation" by its old foe in an escalating border row.

In a sign of rising tensions, a tough-talking Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his army had reinforced Ethiopia's already heavily defended border with Horn of Africa neighbor Eritrea as a precautionary measure.

Eritrea imposed a ban on U.N. reconnaissance flights over the disputed 1,000-km (620-mile) border on October 5, fuelling fears the tiny Red Sea state was trying to hide troop movements to prepare for a new war against Ethiopia.

"We have taken measures and beefed up our defense capabilities around the border since December to prevent any miscalculation by the other side," Meles told reporters.

It was his first public comment on the border dispute since Eritrea imposed the flight ban.

It was unclear whether the military build-up Meles referred to was over and above the 48,000 soldiers his army deployed last December.

That move was criticized by the United Nations, although U.N. peacekeepers said on October 6 they had seen no sign of fresh troop deployments on either side of the border.

Defending national pride, Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war over a border of scrubby plains and dusty villages in 1998, sending soldiers to die in World War One-style trench warfare. By the time the conflict ended in 2000, 70,000 people were dead.

Asked by reporters if he was willing to meet Eritrean President Isayas Afwerki, Meles said: "I have no problem talking to anybody so long as it helps the purpose of peace."

He said Eritrea's restrictions on U.N. flights violated a cease-fire agreement signed by the two countries in 2000 and urged the U.N. Security Council to enforce it.

"We are still hopeful that the other side (Eritrea) will not miscalculate," he added.

Under a 2000 peace treaty, both sides agreed to accept an independent commission ruling on where the border should be as "final and binding".

After first rejecting the decision which awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea, Ethiopia said late last year it accepted the decision in principle but first wanted dialogue with Eritrea about the root causes of the conflict and how to implement the boundary decision.

Eritrea refused and last month warned the United Nations it may rekindle war with Ethiopia if the world body failed to resolve the deadlock.

Bono Convinced Where The Streets Have No Name Is His Best

Contactmusic.com -- U2 star BONO is convinced he'll never write a better lyric than WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME, which he scribbled on the backs of sick bags during a life-changing journey to Ethiopia.

The Irish rocker claims he came close to God during the post-Live Aid trip to Ethiopia, where he and his wife ALI HEWSON witnessed the devastation of the poverty-stricken African nation.

He recalls, "We lived in a little tent. The camp was surrounded by barbed wire. Woke up in the mornings as the mist lifted, and watched thousands of Africans, who had walked all night with the little belongings they had, coming towards us to beg for food and their life.

"We saw the everyday despair. People would leave their children in rags, some would be alive, some wouldn't. For a couple of kids from the suburbs, it was a very overwhelming experience."

And the experience left him so inspired he was compelled to write on all available surfaces.

He adds, "I wrote those things on Air India sick bags and scraps of paper, sitting in a little tent in a town called Ajibar in northern Ethiopia."

"No matter how c**p a U2 show gets, we can be sure the gig will come off if we play this song."

Gulf States Treat Ethiopian Workers as Slaves

Reuters.com -- Ethiopian women and girls who travel to the Middle East in search of work are often treated like slaves and abused sexually, the International Organization for Migration (IMO) said.

"Ethiopian women and girls who migrate to Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia suffer from maltreatment, physical, sexual and emotional abuses," the IMO said in a report based on interviews with 443 women returning from the region.

Some 130,000 Ethiopian women and children have migrated to the Gulf States and other parts of the region looking for work, the organization said the report, which was issued on Wednesday.

"Extreme cases of physical trauma, death and suicide had also been reported as consequences of physical, emotional and sexual abuses of young girls and women who migrated to the Gulf states," the IOM said.

The study urged the Ethiopian government to create more jobs locally or give legal and diplomatic protection to Ethiopian migrant workers, who are estimated to be remitting around $78 million a year to families at home.

The United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) said in a separate report that Ethiopia had an estimated 4.6 million orphans, more than one quarter of them orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Twenty percent of the orphans are engaged in child labor, mainly as domestic workers, for more than 40 hours a week and 6.1 percent of them are forced to beg, the UNICEF report said.

A survey conducted in 1996 estimated that there were some 150,000 street children in the country, and that the number was increasing by as many as 5,000 every year, UNICEF said.

It said 6,000 street girls between the ages of 13 and 16 were engaged in commercial sex.

Ethiopia has a population of 72 million and is one of the world's poorest countries.

Ethio-Jazz with Mulatu Astatqé and the Either/Orchestra

radioopensource.org -- Some shows seem obscure until you start to work on them, and then all of a sudden there’s something perfectly natural — familiar, even — about them. The music of Mulatu Astatqé fits that bill perfectly. He’s a sort of national musician of Ethiopia, an instrumentalist (on piano, organ, vibes and percussion), composer, and arranger whose work spans decades and whose collaborations span oceans.

So a quick primer on the music we’ll be talking about this hour, in case it’s not yet familiar to you:

It’s patchwork music, a music of forced migrations and atmospheric borrowings and continental cross-pollinations. It is, basically, a couple hundred years of history in musical form. It’s West African rhythms and melodies travelling on slave ships to the Americas, where they eventually morphed into African-American spirituals and blues and jazz and samba and soul (and on and on). And then it came back to Africa — East Africa — to Ethiopia, where, during the short, magnificent flowering — the “Golden Age” — of popular music that lasted for the decade or so prior to the country’s 1974 Stalinist military coup, all of these Western sounds with African roots (think Duke Ellington and James Brown and Tito Puente) combined with the traditional Semitic-like melodies and modes of the nearby Middle East.

That, in a nutshell, is the pedigree of Mulatu Astatqé, who studied Western music in London and Boston before returning to Ethiopia to brew up the “Ethio-Jazz” movement in front of international audiences in the “Swinging Addis” clubs of the late 60s and early 70s.

It’s thirty years later — we’ll find out about those intervening thirty years during the show — and in Astatqé’s recent collaborations with Boston’s Either/Orchestra, African music comes full circle, and then across the Atlantic again for another go around.

We’ll be talking to Astatqé and Either/Orchestra founder and bandleader Russ Gershon about their cross-generational, cross-cultural, cross-linguistic, cross-everything musical parternship, one that, like their dovetailing traditions, makes a lot more sense the more you hear.

Ethio-Jazz with Mulatu Astatqé and the Either/Orchestra

Stream live at 7pm ET

Listen on local public radio

Listen live on XM channel 133

For more information or to comment on the show, go to radioopensource.org.

In Ethiopia, Honoring the Witnesses

Christian Monitor -- Honoring the example of earlier witnesses became part of official Christianity in its early centuries - "so great a cloud of witnesses" as St. Paul described them in his letter to the Hebrews. Pictures and statues of witnesses became objects of veneration and contemplation.

In the Middle Ages, some reformers felt the need to define the purposes of such a practice. For instance, one article in the Augsburg Confession (the primary document of Lutheran Protestantism) reads: "It is also taught among us that saints should be kept in remembrance so that our faith may be strengthened when we see what grace they received and how they were sustained by faith. Moreover, their good works are to be an example for us, each of us in his own calling."

This statement was written in 1530, close, as it happens, to the time when 80 paintings of prophets, apostles, and disciples were featured in an obscure Ethiopian gospel book.

This book will be in an exhibition, "Art of Ethiopia," opening in New York next Tuesday. It is a remarkable example of the originality of monastic illuminated manuscripts painted in the northeastern African country.

Ethiopia is an ancient Christian civilization. Its art has long given visual expression to this fact through processional crosses, painted wooden icons, murals, and illuminated manuscripts. Beginning in the 1530s, when Ethiopia was overrun by Islamic armies, Christian culture retreated to remote regions for a period. Monasteries obedient to the Stephanite order were concentrated in rugged mountains in the northeast part of the country. Artists in these monasteries were noted for illuminated manuscripts such as the one shown here. They are bold, colorful, and intricate. There is a strong tendency toward pattern and abstraction.

The saintly "portraits" also are ordered in a rich pattern of interlocking colors and shapes. Each figure is nevertheless individual, with different attributes and slightly varying facial expressions. They celebrate the Christian idea of "one body," but with each believer being a particular "member" of that body.

• "Art of Ethiopia" is presented by Sam Fogg, a London dealer specializing in medieval art, at PaceWildenstein in New York, Oct. 18-29.

Climate Change and the Poor

Daily Times -- While it is still not possible to calculate what percentage of climate change has been induced by human activities, there is evidence that rising greenhouse gas emissions, for example, exacerbate it... There is need to help poor communities adapt to the climate change that has already occurred

Determining the exact cause of climate change is not easy. Nonetheless there are visible changes in local climate patterns the world over, which are disturbing human populations and disrupting the environment.

No country or region of the world is safe from climate change. In 2003, Europe experienced the most intense heat wave on record. It caused more than 15,000 deaths. Climate change is even more serious for developing countries. The United Nation’s Environmental Programme has estimated that on average 13 times more people die per reported disaster in countries with low human development indicators than those with high indicators.

Developed countries have greater capacity to cope with adverse climate changes. But poor people in developing countries are dependent on the natural environment and more vulnerable to climate change that alters their surroundings; they have few resources for adapting to the changes.

Tearfund, an international relief and development charity organisation, has recently gathered and published findings from over a dozen countries across Africa, Asia and South America. These depict the havoc climate change causes in poor communities, providing compelling evidence that decision makers should pay attention to climate change and not just address its potential causes but also help the poor cope with its impact.

Many countries in Africa are experiencing longer and more frequent droughts, as well as more flash floods. Droughts have affected the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa with increasing frequency. It is estimated that a third of African people now live in drought-prone areas. Crop production in counties like Ethiopia has been declining by the year. In the Boricha area of southern Ethiopia, the number of people affected by food shortages has increased from 20,000 to 60,000 between 2001 and 2004.

It is not uncommon for some African countries to experience droughts and floods in the same year. In Malawi for example, heavy rains on the upper plateau caused flooding in the lower plateau. However, record indicates that on average precipitation has been declining across Africa since the late 1970s. Fewer rains are causing a decline in water availability for people and livestock and for sustaining the environment.

As water sources dry up, the poor cannot afford to dig and maintain deeper wells and are forced to walk for kilometres for water, which often turns out to be contaminated. This compounds their hardships.

In Asia, floods, droughts and monsoon patterns are becoming more unpredictable. About 75 per cent of the world’s major hydro-meteorological catastrophes, such as cyclones and flooding, occurring between 1970 and 1997, affected developing countries in Asia and the Pacific region. As mountains have been denuded of forests, the upper riparian areas of the Himalayan countries — India, Bhutan, China and Nepal — are experiencing excessive flooding. This results in erosion of river banks and causes silting of dams and canals. The unpredictable climate also leads to crop failure, threatening livelihoods.

Of the 800 million undernourished people in the developing world, almost two-thirds are in Asia, with nearly 30 percent in India alone. Water-borne diseases are reported to be increasing, as well as skin, eye and chest problems. It is ironic that while the Asia and Pacific region accounts for about 36 per cent of global run-off, the region has the lowest per capita availability of freshwater. Several countries including India, Pakistan and Bangladesh already suffer from water scarcity or water stress. The situation will become more serious as populations and consumption increase.

In Bangladesh, population growth and land scarcity has compelled more than 10 million people to migrate to neighbouring states in the past two decades. Such migration is driven by floods and droughts, which damage crops, houses, and infrastructure. Isolated and shelterless people are then threatened with starvation.

Floods, droughts and storms are becoming more prevalent on the South American continent. Temperatures are rising and dry spells are getting longer. In Central America and southern Mexico, tropical cyclones and associated heavy rain and landslides are becoming more frequent.

In several South American countries, seasons are becoming less distinct and less predictable. In the Mosquitia region of Honduras what used to be the rainy season is now dry and the dry season is becoming wetter. In other places productivity has been affected due to too much rain.

South America also has the highest urbanisation rates in the world, with large groups of people migrating within the countries from drought-prone rural areas or poverty-stricken communities to overcrowded cities.

These widespread effects of climate change highlight the need for more effective action. While it is still not possible to calculate what percentage of climate change has been induced by human activities, there is evidence that rising greenhouse gas emissions, for example, exacerbate it. But besides moving forward to evolve a consensus on, and implement, agreements like Kyoto protocol, there is need to help poor communities adapt to the climate change that has already happened.

The poor need assistance to safeguard their livelihoods, food security and health which are threatened by climate change. Governments of poor countries should also build their own meteorological data gathering systems as this will bolster attempts to increase pressure at the global level for protecting and rehabilitating the environment.

The author is a development consultant and an international fellow of the Open Society Institutes network. He can be reached at syedmohdali555@yahoo.com

First Biotech Institute in Ethiopia

FRIENDS, BE VERY AFRAID...

Checkbiotech.org -- The first biotechnology institute in Ethiopia, Africa is currently being constructed. Made possible through a World Bank loan, the research complex will do research on both crops and animals. Aside from research laboratories, the institute will also house offices, staff living quarters, and guest houses.

Yohannes Gojjam, Manager of the Holeta Agricultural Research Center, said that the research complex will be operational next year. Meanwhile, senior research personnel have completed intensive training and foreign experts are expected to provide assistance when the buildings are ready for use.

Additional details may be obtained by emailing Dr. Tilahun Zeweldu, regional coordinator of the Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project II East and Central Africa Advisor, Uganda at either tila@apepuganda.org or zeweldu@msu.edu.

Previous Posts:
Meles Defends Genetically Modified Crops
Sowing the Seeds of Famine
Status of Biotechnology in Ethiopia
South African Farmers Clean Up with "Green Sugar"
Canada Refuses Visa to Ethiopian GM Foods Expert

Friends of the Earth:
GM won't cure hunger in Africa

Ethiopia Coffee Farmers to Hold Talks with Nestle

Sudan Tribune -- Ethiopia’s biggest coffee cooperative union said on Tuesday it expects to start discussions in December with Nestle for higher prices for its beans under a Fairtrade system.

Desalenge Jena, the deputy manager of Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperatives, said a representative of Nestle recently visited one of its cooperatives in the south of the country to assess the situation.

"We expect officials from Nestle in December to discuss coffee purchase procedures under fair trade," Desalenge said.

Oromia represents over 70,000 peasant farmers who produce high quality arabica coffee. Ethiopia is Africa’s biggest producer of coffee.

Desalenge said Oromia Coffee Cooperatives Union had exported a total of 1,871 tonnes of premium coffee under fair trade system to Europe, the United States, Australia and Japan and earned a total of $5.7 million in 2005.

Officials said on Friday Fairtrade coffee, which up to now has mostly been marketed by small groups trying to give impoverished farmers a bigger cut of the pie than food giants like Nestle, would land in British supermarkets with the Nestle brand in two week’s time.

The "Partners Blend" instant coffee made from Arabica grown by smallholders in El Salvador and Ethiopia will have the Fairtrade certification guaranteeing certain developmental, employment and environmental standards and a premium paid for the farming community.

Coffee farmers are just emerging from a crisis caused by oversupply and a slump in prices to a 30-year low in 2001.

With Fairtrade they are protected from the fluctuations in the world market by a minimum price of 121 cents a pound plus a 5-cent premium. Arabica currently trades.

Egypt Takes Part in Financing Dam on Upper Nile in Ethiopia

Arabic News -- The Ethiopian government intends to build the biggest ever dam in the country with investments amounting to 800 million dollars.

The Ethiopian Herald newspaper said that the big dam is one of several dams to be built during the coming years.

The newspaper said that the dam falls within the framework of an agreement signed in 2001 by Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.

According to the newspaper, Egypt and Sudan will shoulder part of the dam construction costs.

Feasibility studies of the dam are expected to be completed by mid 2006.

Previous Post: The Destruction of the Blue Niles Falls

Quake Triggers Volcanic Eruption in Ethiopia

IOL -- An earthquake, measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale, jolted northern Ethiopia on Tuesday, triggering another eruption of the previously dormant Mount Arteale, which has been spewing lava for several days, geologists said.

The quake, which struck the remote region of Afar, about 980km north-east of the capital, is the 11th temblor to rumble across the region since last month, they said.

"A quake, measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale, occurred in Teru (in Afar) and was followed by volcanic eruption," said Manahlo Belachew, an expert in the seismology department of Addis Ababa University.

"Quakes and eruptions have been monitored since September 18 at a small scale," he added.

On September 24, a quake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale caused the same volcano to erupt.

The earthquakes have damaged roads in the region's Teru and Dubti districts, making transportation difficult in a region largely inhabited by salt-mining Afar pastoralists, Ethiopian News Agency reported.

The only active volcano in Ethiopia has been largely dormant for the past six decades, but has been spewing molten lava since a series of earthquakes began rattling the region on September 18.

Large portions of Mount Arteale's slopes and its surrounding areas are covered in a thick blanket of ash and plumes of smoke, resulting in the displacement of more than 50 000 Afar nomads and the death of hundreds of livestock.

"This may complicate the plan for relocation and resettlements of affected people as the quake and volcano eruption is expanding or stretching further in all directions," Manahlo added.

Experts have said the tremors and eruptions are being caused by the expansion of tectonic plates under the Great Rift Valley, an area considered to be highly susceptible to earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Photo Credit: AFP

Previous post: Expedition Heading to the Erta Ale Volcano

Talks Defuse Political Crisis

The Australian -- AFTER a tense week of antagonism and threats, Ethiopia's government and opposition leaders held their first face-to-face talks in months overnight in an internationally-mediated bid to defuse a volatile political fracas.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi agreed to meet the Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) and the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) after the two parties undertook to abide by the constitution and withdrew their appeal for a three-day strike to start today in protest against a ban on a demonstration scheduled for Sunday.

"The meeting, which was explanatory, was cordial and open," EUDF Chairman Beyen Petros said, saying the talks lasted four hours.

"It was very fruitful. I am optimistic things will be on the right track," he added, saying more talks would be held over the coming days.

Earlier in the day, government spokesman Berket Simon ruled out any possibility of talking about the opposition's number one demand: that the ruling coalition step down and agree to the formation of a government of national unity.

"As the opposition has accepted to work within the constitution and the rule of law by renouncing violence, the government will meet them this afternoon to discuss as how we are going to work in the parliament and other similar issues," he said.

"It is a meeting on how to implement constitutional rule," he said.

The government had justified banning the opposition demonstration by claiming it would be used to violently overthrow the regime, a claim the opposition denied.

The UEDF and CUD withdrew their strike call following discussions with diplomats acting as mediators with the government.

"We have been in continual contact with several ambassadors and they have also been in contact with the prime minister," the EUDF leader said earlier, adding that this mediation led the strike threat to be dropped.

The groups have not made clear, however, whether they still planned to boycott parliament as part of their protest of May elections they claim were rigged in favour of Meles's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.

Parliament is due to reopen on October 10.

Still, diplomats regarded the developments as an unexpected breakthrough.

"On Saturday morning opposition leaders were still wondering where to hide to avoid being jailed," said one, asking not to be named.

More than 150 of their followers have been arrested over the last week, according to official sources.

"Everyone probably realised that a strike would lead to serious confrontation, perhaps even riots, large-scale arrests and certainly violence," mused another diplomat.

At least 37 people were killed in the capital in June when police opened fire on demonstrators protesting about the May elections, the most controversial in the country's history.

Parcel Bomb Kills 1

News24 -- Ethiopian police were searching for clues on Friday behind the first-ever reported incident of a parcel bombing which killed one person and wounded seven persons the day before.

Among the seven wounded were five policemen as the parcel went off at a police station while a bomb expert was trying to defuse it, the government daily The Ethiopian Herald reported.

The report said the parcel had been addressed to Mesfin Lemma, the local district head of the state telecommunications corporation in the Saris district of southern Addis Ababa.

The paper said the parcel, wrapped in gift paper, was delivered by an unidentified person at Lemma's office. Lemma became suspicious and immediately notified the police in the area.

The parcel was taken to the Saris District Police Station where it detonated, killing the bomb expert trying to defuse it, and seven other persons nearby.

Police said it was the first criminal act of its kind in the country and search has been mounted to track down those behind it.