Remembering Abebe Bikila

In 1960, Abebe Bikila stunned the world by winning the Rome Olympics running bare foot, to win Ethiopia and Africa its first Olympic gold medal. Abebe also set world and Olympic marathon records. Four years later (1968), the Ethiopian returned for the Tokyo Olympics, this time wearing track shoes. He won the race with relative ease and again set a new world and Olympic marathon record.

More on Bikila.

Sadly, there is no memorial in Ethiopia for Abebe Bikila.

Ruling Party's Business Conglomerate Grosses 4 Million USD

Capital -- Guna Trading House Plc, one of the companies operating under EFFORT (Endowment Fund for Rehabilitation of Tigray), the ruling party’s (EPRDF) business conglomerate, has registered a gross profit of 4 million USD, during the 2006/07 annual operations.

According to a report released on Sunday, July 27, 2008, Guna’s gross profit has increased from 1.22 million USD in 2002/3 to 4 million USD during the aforementioned year, recording a considerable increase of 227 percent.

“Export sales have gone up to 11 million USD during 2006/07 from 3.5 million USD during 2002/03, registering a boost of 214 percent,” the report stated. The endowment company imports and exports industrial and agricultural products respectively. Its’ main exports include sesame seeds, natural gum, coffee, pulses and spices. Products the company imports comprise construction materials, industrial and agricultural inputs as well as distributing local products.

Moreover, the company’s total sales have grown by more than 200 percent as compared to 2002/03 operations, mounting from 14 million to 43 million USD.

In a meeting the management held with staff members last week Sunday, at the Axum hotel, success was attributed to the high commitment shown by the management and staff in delivering product and services; satisfying customers and other stake holders.

Recently the management unveiled plans to raise the amount of hard currency Ethiopia earns by increasing the company’s sesame export to a record 38 million USD, this year, targeting to export 20,000 tons worth 38 million USD, which is more than that of the last five years combined (33.6 million USD). The price of sesame, which was below 900 USD per ton about two years ago on average, has now jumped to 2000 USD.

Guna is a trading company established in 1992, with a paid up capital of 10 million USD and annual turn over of 50 million USD. It administers more than 200 employees, with its head office in Addis Ababa and branches in Mekelle, Shire, Humera, Dessie and Gonder towns. Currently it is finalizing construction of its’ headquarters at a cost of more than 15 million birr.

Sister companies of Guna under EFFORT include Messebo Building Materials Production, Mesfin Industrial Engineering, Ezana Mining Development, Addis Pharmaceutical Factory, Hiwot Agricultural Mechanization, Sheba Tannery, Express Transit Service, Trans Ethiopia, Saba Dimensional Stones, Almeda Textile Factory and Sur Construction.

EFFORT is centrally managed by the Chief Executive Office, former Minister of Revenue, Getachew Belay.

The Bin Laden Bridge of the Horns Connection

Capital -- A project for a multi- billion dollar bridge that would span the Red Sea at an 18-mile-wide strait, connecting the southern tip of Yemen with Djibouti, was launched on Monday, July 28, in Djibouti with the initial stage of the project scheduled to start next October.

The venture is part of a 200 billion dollar, Al Noor Cities Project, to be developed by Al Noor Holding Investment Co. (Al Noor), a United Arab Emirates based company owned by Sheik Tarek M. bin Laden and his two sons, Bandar and Amr, the former being the brother of Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda.

The ‘Bridge of the Horns’ will have a six-lane highway with four light rail lines as well as water and oil pipelines. Connecting East Africa and the Middle East, the project involves the development of two new cities that would eventually be connected by a 28.5 km road and rail bridge between Yemen and Djibouti. It will also comprise suspension bridge structures, with the suspension portion to become the longest in the world. Moreover, to allow large vessels to pass underneath, the bridge would have two main suspension spans, each about 2.7kilometers long.

Speaking at the launching, CEO of Al Noor Mohammed Ahmed Al Ahmed said, “It is a new city and it is happening. Africa is the center of the world with a population of close to 1 billion, while the Middle East North Africa region has a population of 400 million. We have all the ingredients to make this project a reality.”

More than 50 top companies in the world, many of them from the US, are closely associated with the project, which has an estimated price tag ranging from 10 to 20 billion USD and was conceptualized by Sheikh Tarek bin Laden. bin Laden’s company, Al Noor Holding Investment, will be responsible for the projects execution in phases to be spread out across 12 to 15 years.

Mesfin Asfaw, representative of Middle East Development LLC Tarek and Elias Taha, Coordinating Committee of the project both based in Ethiopia, jointly told Capital that Al Noor Alliance, which has already been formed as a group of 50 world class companies, will be responsible for the management of the project.

“The Alliance Program Management Office has been established by the alliance and will staff, develop and manage this program through its entire life cycle,” Mesfin said, “There will be no constraint of funding”.

Present at the launch announcement were Prime Minister of Djibouti, Mohammed Dileita, Shiek Tarik bin Laden and his two sons, Bandar and Amr, several Djiboutian officials and some 200 journalists from nearly 80 countries.

Tarek bin Laden is an elder brother of the world’s most famous terrorist.
The bin Laden family, from Saudi Arabia, has operated a construction empire for decades. In the mid-1990s, the clan cut its financial ties with Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, around the time he declared war on the United States and called for the overthrow of the Saudi ruling family.

Since then, the rest of the bin Ladens -- Osama has 24 half brothers and 29 half sisters -- have quietly gone on with their business. The bridge would be their most ambitious project to date, overshadowing their renovations of Islamic holy sites in the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina.

The Green Hunger

LA Times -- They call it the green hunger.

Four-foot cornstalks sprout from rain-soaked earth, and wind billows fields of teff, the staple Ethiopian grain. Goats and cattle are getting fat on lush grasses -- but the children are still dying.

"It's strange to see hunger when everything is so green," said Wariso Shete, 26, a southern Ethiopia farmer who recently buried his 3-year-old son. "But there is no food. The boy just starved."

Once again, images of emaciated children are emerging from this Horn of Africa nation, rekindling memories of the 1984 famine that killed nearly 1 million people. This time Ethiopia has been grappling with a double whammy: drought in its traditional breadbasket and a global food crisis that has pushed prices sky high.

Although recent rains and an influx of humanitarian aid have experts cautiously predicting the crisis might be stabilizing in parts of the country, nearly 10 million people will need emergency aid to survive until the harvest in September.

Green hungers are just one oddity of Ethiopia's long struggle to feed itself. The country, considered the water tower of East Africa because its highlands are the primary source of the Nile, suffers chronic drought. It is Africa's second-largest corn producer, but requires hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid every year.

An exploding population is one cause. Others point to a socialist-leaning government that's been slow to embrace market-based policies. And everyone agrees that international donors spend too little -- less than 5% of all aid -- on long-term development, such as irrigation.

In an interview, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi emphasized that the current crisis masks dramatic progress.

"This emergency is occurring in an environment of spectacular success in agriculture," he said. "The vast majority of farmers have never had it so good."

Agriculture production is growing by 10% a year, he said, and as recently as 2006, Ethiopia grew so much corn that it exported surplus to Sudan.

National pride might explain why the government initially seemed to downplay the drought, accusing the United Nations of exaggerating the number of malnourished children. Meles' exasperation with those who portray Ethiopia as desperate and needy was evident.

"I'm telling those people to go to hell," he said. "Ethiopians are not hapless. They are not helpless. We are making a real dent in poverty."

One of the biggest problems is population growth. Ethiopia, with an estimated 80 million people, has doubled in size since the mid-1980s.

Simply put, the nation, in which 85% of people toil as small farmers, has reached a point where it can't easily grow enough food to meet its needs. Although agricultural production has increased overall, it has declined per capita, according to the World Bank.

Even in a year without drought or crisis, one in 10 people rely on international food aid to survive. More than 400 children die every day from malnutrition. Ethiopia is one of the few African nations with its own factory for Plumpy'nut, a peanut-based paste used to remedy acute malnutrition.

"We have not moved far enough away from the poverty line for us to have enough cushion," Meles said. "One unexpected weather event can push us over the precipice."

Some praise Ethiopia's government for its anti-poverty campaigns, which have reduced child mortality by 40%. New roads have fostered nationwide trade, helping stabilize agricultural markets. The government allocates about 17% of its budget to agricultural development, nearly three times as much as its neighbors.

But Ethiopia's state-dominated economy is also blamed for the persistent food shortages. The government controls all major industries, and there is no private ownership of land.

Under pressure from Western donors, Meles, a onetime Marxist who preaches the free market, has opened the window to private enterprise, notably allowing private flower farms to export to Europe.

"They talk about free market, but you don't see it," said economist Befekadu Degefe, a government critic. "They see the private sector as a threat, as competition, so they try to eliminate it."

In the agricultural sector, the government controls the distribution of fertilizer and, to a lesser extent, seeds; it sometimes restricts sales, as with a current export ban on cereals; and though farmers are free to grow what they want, 20,000 agricultural advisors keep close tabs, also functioning as tax collectors. "The government hand is still a little too heavy," said Glenn Anders, USAID's mission director in Ethiopia.

One of the government's successes is the Safety Net, a welfare-for-work program in which more than 7 million chronically needy farmers receive cash or food in exchange for labor on new roads, mountain terraces or other public infrastructure. The proactive approach is cheaper than emergency aid, donors say.

"If the Safety Net were not there, this current crisis would have been much worse than it is," said Viviane Van Steirteghem of UNICEF.

Ethiopia's emergency food reserve was once seen as a model for the region. With a capacity of 400,000 metric tons of grains, the reserve could have handled the drought. But stocks dwindled over the last two years as the government released grains to ease inflation, now 40% annually.

Ethiopia's mix of socialism and capitalism doesn't always work, experts say.

In the 1990s, the government gave fertilizer and seeds to southern farmers, yielding a regional bumper crop. But without functioning, free markets, farmers couldn't sell their surplus, so prices collapsed by 50% in the area.

"You can't rely on the government," said Telenti Kwati, 60, a farmer south of the capital, Addis Ababa. "Sometimes they give you something, then the next year they don't."

But farmer Mohammed Kedir, 23, dreams of the day when he can own a plot of land. Though the law allows farmers to pass the land they work to their children, Kedir said local officials nearly seized his family plot after his father's death.

If he owned the land, he said, he might experiment with more-profitable crops.

"But if the government can take my land at any time," he said, "what's the point of trying so hard?"

"It's strange to see hunger when everything is so green"
-Wariso Shete, 26, a southern Ethiopia farmer

Ethiopian Officials Give Djibouti Land to Grow Wheat

Reuters.com -- Land-locked Ethiopia has given Djiboutian President Omar Ismail Guelleh large tracts of land for wheat farming and a lakeside holiday home, officials said on Tuesday.

The Red Sea state has been Ethiopia's major outlet to the sea since Addis Ababa lost the ports of Assab and Massawa when Eritrea won independence in 1991.

Ethiopia gave Guelleh 7,000 hectares of land some 400 km (250 miles) south of Addis Ababa, where government officials say he will grow wheat.

"A team of experts has already started preliminary work to set up a modern and mechanized farm," said the officials, who spoke on the condition on anonymity.

Guelleh, who was in Ethiopia last week with his wife and a ministerial delegation, was also given 10,000 square metres of lakeside land some 45 km (30 miles) east of the capital on which to build a holiday home, the officials said.

Guelleh already owns a $5 million presidential residence in Ethiopia's eastern town of Dire Dawa, they said.

Djibouti's port earns about $300 million a year from handling some 4.6 million tonnes of Ethiopian goods, and recently said it would raise its tariffs on port services, prompting Ethiopia to send its trade minister to Djibouti.

Last month Djibouti accused Eritrea, which is also at loggerheads with Ethiopia, of starting clashes on their border in which 12 Djiboutian soldiers were killed and 55 wounded.

Eritrea denied its troops had crossed the border and rejected Western criticism that it had started the fighting.