Rebtel: The Honest Alternative to Calling Cards?

Support the tree planting project in Ethiopia by joining thru Dialfund.org: You can talk to family and friends (48 minutes for $10.00) First call is free! www.dialfund.org

Many of the growing number of users of international calling cards to call Africa or the Caribbean from the United States, could be in for a nasty shock, according to research recently published by Swedish based telecommunications company Rebtel.
Their research, conducted during August 2010, revealed some intriguing facts about their customers calling habits and a surprising revelation about the reliability, quality and honesty of using calling cards for international calling.
The figures unveiled by Rebtel revealed that 90.9 percent of respondents, who regularly made calls to the African country of Liberia using calling cards, had actually received far fewer minutes on the card than they had paid for. Unsurprisingly perhaps, less than a third of those questioned felt that international calling cards were a reliable or trustworthy way to contact friends and family in Liberia.
Of course, if these findings were simply an isolated incident for one country, then the results could be dismissed as a statistical anomaly, however further research conducted in August on callers who contacted friends and family in the Ivory Coast and Trinidad and Tobago showed startling similarities.
82.2 percent of those who called the Ivory Coast stated that they had received fewer minutes that they had paid for on a calling card and for those calling Trinidad and Tobago, the figure was around the 75.3 percent mark.
The startling conclusion being that almost three-quarters of customers who had used an international calling card, had received fewer minutes than paid for.
When this amount of money paid for calling cards minutes that are never received, is totalled up the amounts soon add up to reveal stark figures. The average reported loss to a customer who used international calling cards regularly was put at an amazing $125, though there are reports from customers who have lost a great deal more money than that, with several complaining they been cheated out of $500 worth of calls or more and some claiming that the figure was nearer $2000.
These results may well go towards explaining why Rebtel has enjoyed sustained economic growth across its international calling market over the past twelve months. The company sustained increases new customers, high-customer satisfaction rankings and perhaps most importantly of all, the feeling that the customers are not being cheated on the deal and actually receiving a quality, reliable and honest service for their hard-earned money.
Call traffic to Liberia increased 300% from Autumn 2009 to Spring 2010, calls to Trinidad and Tobago have doubled in the past twelve months while Ivory Coast calls have increased by 40% over the summer period alone.
Rebtel also received glowing recommendation from their customer base scoring highly when it came to call quality, (89 percent of Liberians felt Rebtel offered superior call quality than their competitors), call rates (62% of those calling the Ivory Coast felt Rebtel’s rates were better than the competition) and 82.5 percent of those calling Trinidad felt Rebtel’s service was far easier to use than their competitors.
This research was conducted just before Rebtel announced huge cuts in their call rates, with rates lowered by 24% to the Ivory Coast, 40% to Liberia and a staggering 72% to Trinidad and Tobago.
With operational control Mikael Rosengren stating that he hopes Rebtel’s rapid growth can continue from its American base across Europe and into Asia, it certainly looks as if Rebtel is providing a popular, easy-to-use and honest service to their customers and directly appealing to those customers who may have paid over the odds for an unreliable calling card service in the past.

Go to www.dialfund.org and join Rebtel: Your membership contributes to the tree planting campaign in Ethiopia (Friends of Ethiopia)

Today is National Coffee Day : Ask your favorite barista for some Ethiopian coffee!

THE HISTORY OF COFFEE (It all started in Ethiopia)

More than 1,000 years ago, a goatherd in Ethiopia's south-western highlands plucked a few red berries from some young green trees growing there in the forest and tasted them. He liked the flavor and the feel-good effect that followed. Today those self-same berries, dried, roasted and ground, have become the worlds second most popular non-alcoholic beverage after tea. And, as David Beatty discovers in words and pictures, the Ethiopian province where they first blossomed Kaffa gave its name to coffee.




The story of coffee has its beginnings in Ethiopia, the original home of the coffee plant, coffee Arabica, which still grows wild in the forest of the highlands. While nobody is sure exactly how coffee was originally discovered as a beverage, it is believed that its cultivation and use began as early as the 9th century. Some authorities claim that it was cultivated in the Yemen earlier, around AD 575. The only thing that seems certain is that it originated in Ethiopia, from where it traveled to the Yemen about 600 years ago, and from Arabia it began its journey around the world.

Among the many legends that have developed concerning the origin of coffee, one of the most popular account is that of Kaldi, an Abyssinian goatherd, who lived around AD 850. One day he observed his goats behaving in abnormally exuberant manner, skipping, rearing on their hind legs and bleating loudly. He noticed they were eating the bright red berries that grew on the green bushes nearby.

Kaldi tried a few himself, ad soon felt a novel sense of elation. He filled his pockets with the berries and ran home to announce his discovery to his wife. They are heaven-sent, she declared. You must take them to the Monks in the monastery.

Kaldi presented the chief Monk with a handful of berries and related his discovery of their miraculous effect. Devils work! exclaimed the monk, and hurled the berries in the fire.

Within minutes the monastery filled with the heavenly aroma of roasting beans, and the other monks gathered to investigate. The beans were raked from the fire and crushed to extinguish the embers. The Monk ordered the grains to be placed in the ewer and covered with hot water to preserve their goodness. That night the monks sat up drinking the rich and fragrant brew, and from that day vowed they would drink it daily to keep them awake during their long, nocturnal devotions.

While the legends attempt to condense the discovery of coffee and its development as a beverage into one story, it is believed that the monks of Ethiopia, may have chewed on the berries as a stimulant for centuries before it was brewed as a hot drink.

Another account suggests that coffee was brought to Arabia from Ethiopia, by Sudanese slaves who chewed the berries en route to help them survive the journey. There is some evidence that coffee was ground and mixed with butter, and consumed like chocolate for sustenance, a method reportedly used by the gala tribe of Ethiopia, which lends some credence to the story of the Sudanese slaves. The practice of mixing ground coffee beans with ghee (clarified butter) persists to this day in some parts of Kaffa and Sidamo, two of the principle coffee producing regions of Ethiopia,. And in Kaffa, from which its name derives, the drink is brewed today with the addition of melted ghee which gives it a distinctive, buttery flavor.

From the beginning, coffees invigorating powers have understandably linked it with religion, and each tradition claims its own story of origins. Islamic legend ascribes the discovery of coffee to devout Sheikh Omar, who found the coffee growing wild while living as a recluse in Mocha, one famous coffee producing place in Yemen.

He is said to have boiled some berries, and discovered the stimulating effect of the resulting brew, which he administered to the locals who were stricken with a mysterious ailment and thereby cured them.

There are numerous versions of this story concerning the Sheikh Omar, which relate how he cured the King of Mochas daughter with coffee, and another where wondrous bird leads him to a tree full of coffee berries.

Arabic scientific documents dating from around AD 900 refer to a beverage drunk in Ethiopia, Known as ˜buna", and the similarities in the words suggests that this could be one of the earliest references to Ethiopian, coffee in its brewed form. It is recorded that in 1454 the Mufti of Aden visited Ethiopia, and saw his own countrymen drinking coffee there. He was reportedly impressed with the drink which cured him of some affliction, and his approval made it soon popular among the dervishes of the Yemen who used it in religious ceremonies, and introduced it to Mecca.

It was in Mecca that the first coffee houses are said to have been established. Known as Kaveh Kanes, they were originally religious meeting places, but soon became social meeting places for gossip, singing and story-telling. With the spread of coffee as a popular beverage it soon became a subject for heated debate among devout Muslims.

The Arabic word for coffee, kahwah, is also one of several words for wine. In the process of stripping the cherry husk, the pulp of the bean was fermented to make a potent liquor. The Quran forbade the use of wine or intoxicating beverages, but those Muslims in favour of coffee argued that it was not an intoxicant but a stimulant. The dispute over coffee came to a head in 1511 in Mecca.

The governor of Mecca, Beg, saw some people drinking coffee in a mosque as they prepared a night-long prayer vigil. Furious he drove them from the mosque and ordered all coffee houses to be closed. A heated debate ensued, with coffee being condemned as an unhealthy brew by two unscrupulous Persian doctors, the Hakimani brothers, who were known to produce whatever testimony suited the highest bidder. The doctors wanted it banned, for it was a popular cure among the melancholic patients who other-wise would have paid the doctors to cure them. The mufti of Mecca spoke in defense of coffee.

The issue was only resolved when the Sultan of Cairo intervened and reprimanded the Khair Beg for banning a drink that was widely enjoyed in Cairo without consulting his superior. In 1512, when Khair Beg was accused of embezzlement, the Sultan had him put to death. Coffee survived in Mecca.

The picture of Arabic coffee houses as dens of iniquity and frivolity was exaggerated by religious zealots. In reality the Middle Eastern was the forerunner of the European Cafe society and the coffee houses of London which became famous London clubs. They were enlightened meeting places for intellectuals, where news and gossip exchanged and clients regularly entertained by traditional story-tellers.

From the Arabian Peninsula coffee traveled to the East. The Arabs are credited with first bringing coffee to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) as early as 1505. It is said that fertile coffee beans, the berries with their husks unbroken, were first introduced into South-West India by one Baba Budan on his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 17th century.

By 1517 coffee had reached Constantinople, following the conquest of Egypt by Salim I, and it was established in Damascus by 1530. Coffee houses were opened in Constantinople in 1554, and their advent provoked religiously inspired riots that temporarily closed them. But they survived their critics, and their luxurious interiors became a regular rendezvous for those engaged in radical political thought and dissent.

From time to time coffee continued to be banned, the target of religious zealots, and at one time second offenders were sewn into leather bags and thrown into the Bosphorus. But coffee was profitable and finally achieved respectability when it became subject to tax.

Venetian traders had introduced coffee to Europe by 1615, a few years later than tea which had appeared in 1610. Again its introduction aroused controversy in Italy when some clerics, like the mullahs of Mecca, suggested it should be excommunicated as it was the Devils work. However, Pope Clement VIII (1592- 1605) enjoyed it so much that he declared that ˜coffee should be baptized to make it a true Christian drink."

The first coffee house opened in Venice in 1683. The famous Cafe Florian in the Piazza San Marco, established in 1720, is the oldest surviving coffee house in Europe. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries coffee houses proliferated in Europe. Nothing quite like the like the coffee houses, or cafe, had ever existed before, the novelty of a place to enjoy a relatively inexpensive and stimulating beverage in convivial company established a social habit that has endured for over 400 years.

The first coffee house in England was opened in Oxford, not London, by a man called Jacob in 1650. A coffee club established near all Souls College eventually becoming the Royal Society. London's first coffee house was in St. Michaels Alley and opened in 1652. And the most famous name in the world of insurance, Lloyd s of London, began life as a coffee house in Tower Street, founded by Edward Lloyd in 1688 who used to prepare lists of ships that his clients had insured. With the rapid growth in popularity of coffee houses, by the 17th century the European powers were competing with each other to establish coffee plantations in their respective colonies. In 1616 the Dutch gained a head start by taking a coffee plant from Mocha to the Netherlands, and they began large scale cultivation in Sri Lanka in1658. In 1699 cuttings were successfully transplanted from Malabar to Java. Samples of Java coffee plants were sent to Amsterdam in 1706, were seedlings were grown in botanical gardens and distributed to horticulturists throughout Europe.

A few years later, in 1718, the Dutch transplanted the coffee to Surinam and soon after the plant became widely established in South America, which was to become the coffee center of the world.

In 1878 the story of coffees journey around the world came full circle when the British laid foundations of Kenyas coffee industry by introducing plants to British East Africa right next to neighboring Ethiopia, where coffee had first been discovered a 1,000 years before.

Today Ethiopia, is Africas major exporter of Arabica beans, the quality coffee of the world, and the variety that originated in Ethiopia, is still the only variety grown there. Coffea Arabica, which was identified by the botanist Linnaeus in 1753, is one of the two major species used in most production, and presently accounts around 70 per cent of the worlds coffee.

The other major species is Coffea Canefora, or Robusta, whose production is increasing now due to better yields from robusta trees and their hardiness against decease. Robusta coffee is mostly used in blend, but Arabica is the only coffee to be drunk on its own unblended, and this is the type grown and drunk in Ethiopia, The arabica and robusta trees both produce crops within 3-4 years after planting, and remain productive for 20-30 years. Arabica trees flourish ideally in a seasonal climate with a temperature range of 59-75o F, whereas Robusta prefers an equatorial climate.

In Ethiopias province of Kaffa a large proportion of the Arabica trees grow wild amidst the rolling hills and forests of the fertile and beautiful region.

At an altitude of 1,500 meters the climate is ideal and the plants are well protected by the larger forest trees which provide shade from the midday sun and preserve the moisture in the soil. Traditionally, these are the ideal conditions for coffee growing.

There are two methods of processing coffee: the wet and the dry. Commercially the wet method is preferred, but the small producer who picks the cherries wild may save time by sun-drying the beans after picking, and the sell them direct to customers in the local market.

At the Haro Farmers Co-operative near Jimma the husk of the cherry is removed mechanically and the bean then fermented in water for 48 hours to remove the sugar. The beans are the dried on racks in the sun for about a week before being bagged up and sold at an auction. A smallholder, who may have anything from a half to two hectares, sells his beans to the Co-op which processes them and sells them at auction, returning a share of the profits to the farmer.

In the Jimma district alone annual production is approximately 30,000 tons. Nationally the country produces 200,000 tons a year, of which almost half is for domestic consumption, the highest in Africa.

Some 12 million people are dependent on Ethiopias coffee industry, managed by the Ethiopian Coffee Export Enterprise “ ECEE “ formerly the Ethiopian Coffee Marketing Corporation. An independent, profit-making organization, ECEE trades on the open market and controls about 50 per cent of the market following liberalization.

ECEE processes its coffee at five plants in Addis-Ababa with a total capacity of almost 500 tons a day and a plant in Dire Dawa. The organization is also building a new 250-ton a day processing plant for washed coffee.

ECEEs key markets are Germany, Japan, USA, France and the Middle East and is focusing on the US specialty market and Scandinavia. ECEEs major emphasis is on quality products such as premium blends, organic coffee and original un-blended coffees from one specific plantation or farm. Within Ethiopia, there are some distinctive varieties that are highly sought after. The highest grown coffee comes from Harar, where the Long-berry variety is the most popular, having a wine-like flavor and tasting slightly acidic.

Coffee from Sidamo in the south has an unusual flavor and is very popular, especially the beans known as Yirgacheffes. In many ways Ethiopian coffee is unique, having neither excessive pungency nor the acidity of the Kenyan brands. It is closest in character to the Mocha coffee of the Yemen, with which it supposedly shares a common origin, and it cannot be high roasted or its character is destroyed. The best Ethiopian coffee may be compared with the finest coffee in the world, and premium washed arabica beans fetch high prices on the world market. No visit to Ethiopia, is complete without participating in the elaborate coffee ceremony that is Ethiopia's traditional form of hospitality. Invariably conducted by a beautiful young girl in traditional Ethiopian costume, the ceremonial apparatus is arranged upon a bed of long grasses. The green beans are roasted in a pan over a charcoal brazier, the rich aroma of coffee mingling with the heady smell of incense that is always burned during the ceremony. The beans are then pounded with a pestle and mortar, and the ground coffee then brewed in a black pot with a narrow spout.

Traditional accompaniments are popcorn, also roasted on the fire, and the coffee is sugared to be drunk from small hand less cups. Source: Selamta(Ethiopian Airlines Flight Magazine)

They don’t give a dam about development .

Source: Nathalie Rothschild (spiked-online)

Recently, a group of international NGOs has been leading a campaign to stop the building of the Gibe III hydroelectric dam in Ethiopia. They say the dam will disrupt the local ecosystem and the traditional lifestyles of ‘indigenous people’. So why are these groups, normally so vocal about geographical displacement, not up in arms about the tragedy that has unfolded in Ethiopia over the past few weeks? At least 19 people have died and 25,000 have been displaced because of floods.

The UN expects 300,000 to be affected by the floods in Ethiopia this month, and with the ensuing health risks, including malaria and Acute Watery Diarrhoea, as well as the severe damage caused to crops, livelihood assets and infrastructure, the impact of the heavy rains has certainly been devastating. One reason why this hasn’t been big news might be because Ethiopia experiences severe disruptions every year during the rainy season. Over 183,000 people were affected by floods in 2007, and the year before 600 people were killed, with a further 300,000 affected.

So why are NGOs like Survival International and International Rivers, which are spearheading the protest against Gibe III, not focusing their efforts on lobbying for investment in smart, ambitious and truly sustainable solutions to prevent the disastrous, and avoidable, effects of floods which every year displace, kill and plunge thousands into poverty? Why are they opposing large-scale development projects – like dams – that could contain the impact of both droughts and torrential downpours?

The answer is because their interest in preserving the lifestyles of ‘indigenous peoples’ really means that they do not want Ethiopia and other poor nations to modernise and have what we in the West have: industrialisation.

In the case of the anti-Gibe III campaign, NGOs say the dam will disrupt the lifestyles of tribes living along the Omo River, who depend on flood-retreat cultivation to (barely) sustain themselves. They say the dam will ‘end the [Omo] river’s natural flood cycle, on which the downstream communities have depended for growing food, fishing and grazing animals for thousands of years’. But this dependence effectively amounts to river-enslavement, with Ethiopians living at the mercy of nature rather than taming it.

The NGOs’ ostensibly humane impulse to protect ‘indigenous tribes’ in fact represents an abhorrent, paternalistic attitude to Africans, whom they treat in the same way that a zoologist might treat an exotic animal species. They regard these people as belonging to nature rather than to human society, as being part of a fragile ecosystem which should be preserved at the cost of social progress and material development.

International Rivers has described the Omo river as ‘the heartbeat’ of the region, and the floods as ‘nourishing’, providing the people living along the river’s banks with their most reliable sources of food. Yet these people live in abject poverty, with many suffering from chronic hunger. To describe their reliance on precarious flood-retreat farming practices as a sustainable, harmonious lifestyle is deranged.


The floods currently wrecking havoc in Ethiopia have been in the central and north-eastern parts of the country rather than in the southern Omo region. Yet this southern area has experienced devastating floods, too. In 2006, 400 people and thousands of livestock were washed away in the Omo delta and according to the United Nations World Food Programme, the floods there regularly inundate crops and have displaced over 20,000 people.

Ethiopia’s rivers will continue ruining lives unless controlled. Sure, dams are not risk-free and, like any large-scale development project, they force some people to move. Such people should of course be duly compensated. Yet instead of campaigning to halt development altogether, NGOs would do better to focus on ensuring that everyone benefits and no one is left behind. The environmentalists protesting against Gibe III do not seem interested in providing any alternative to people who live in abject poverty, or as they would say ‘who have traditional lifestyles’.

No doubt, a major objective for the investors in Gibe III, which, when completed, will be Africa’s second largest hydroelectric dam, is profit. In addition, however, the dam is expected to extend electricity access to large swathes of Ethiopia, a country where, in the year 2010, 70 per cent of the 80million-strong population still can’t even switch a light on in their homes. In addition, the impact of the droughts is expected to be reduced through new water storage capacities and the dam will regulate the flows of the Omo river, containing the impact of its annual floods.

It is not surprising that Ethiopians themselves find the Stop Gibe III Dam campaign patronising, insulting, irresponsible and dangerous. Some Ethiopians have launched a counter-petition called Stop the Campaign Against the Gibe III Dam of Ethiopia. It might not be the catchiest of campaign names, but anyone who believes that there should be more to life than survival would do well to support it.

Nathalie Rothschild is commissioning editor of spiked.

Yo Yo Ma Playing an Ethiopian Jazz tune....... Mulatu Astatke's (Yegile Tizita)_

Ethiopia: Two Agro Firms Vie for Atekilt Terra (Vegetable Market) Land

Source Addis Fortune

With over 50 years of history, Atekilt Terra is the biggest vegetable open market in the city. However, in the coming years, it faces major changes as two vegetable companies vie for it.

Atekilt Terra, the biggest fruit and vegetable market in Addis Abeba, has two companies, Arada Vegetable Association and Bis Fruit & Vegetable Agro Industry SC, scrambling to be the first involved in its redevelopment.

A newly established company, Bis has been selling shares beginning in July 8, 2010, to construct a twin tower building on an 18,000sqm plot where Atekilt Terra is currently located, which they have yet to secure from the Addis Abeba City Administration. The request Bis made for the land to the city administration manager's office has been forwarded to the land administration department.

However, on April 17, a portion of the land, 2,000sqm, which Bis plans to construct its building on, was given to Arada Vegetable Association, established by vendors who currently work in Atekilt Terra on a lease from the Arada District. The vegetable association received the land on a 50-year lease at 3,327 Br per square metre for a total of around 6.7 million Br. So far, the association has paid 1.9 million Br, which is more than the 20pc that was due.

The latter has until December 2011 to start construction of a 13-storey building, at minimum, which must be completed by the year 2013, according to the lease agreement between the Arada District and Arada Vegetable Association.

"We want to start the construction within six months and will be floating a tender for the design and construction of the building within two weeks," Dirbo Mehammed, vice chair of the association, told Fortune. "We have already chosen the Building Design Enterprise to conduct a soil test."

So far 783 people have bought shares, each priced at 2,000 Br with a maximum of 200 allowed per shareholder, according to Wegderese Melese, general manager of Bis.

They have not formally approached shop owners at Atekilt Terra, Wegderese admits, but some have come forward to buy shares, he says.

"No one in the association is interested in joining them," Hailu Gebre, secretary of Arada Vegetable Association, which has 67 members, told Fortune.

Many of the shop owners in Atekilt Terra, who are involved in the sale of fruit, vegetables, spare parts, and glass, have no idea about the plans by Bis.

"I have not heard of Bis formally, before, just rumours," Behailu Tilahun, who has been selling vegetables in Atekilt Terra for six years in a rented store corridor told Fortune. "It is good to have something of your own, instead of paying rent every month."

The project by Bis is the most viable one as it employs thousands of businesspeople instead of a few dozen, according to Wegderese.

Bis unveiled on August 5, a three-dimensional (3D) image of the twin towers, 18 and 19 storeys high, that they plan to construct once they secure the area. Their plan includes a floor space for the fruit and vegetables shops, a basement for parking, a waste processing unit, and top floors for other shops and offices.

British Council Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by Sam Coley

British Council Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from Sam Coley on Vimeo.

Where is the Source of the Blue Nile? - Parts 1 and 2 (Amharic)

Random pictures.... Ethiopia....German Restaurant

Sudan’s oil giant set to meet Ethiopia’s annual fuel demand

Sunday 8 August 2010

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

August 7, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA) — Sudan Petroleum Corporation (Sudapet), the state-owned oil producing giant, heads toward becoming Ethiopia’s only Benzene supplier, ending the aged-long fuel imports of the country mainly from the Middle East.

The Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise said today that the Sudanese oil company will begin supplying 100 percent of Ethiopia’s annual benzene consumption as of next month.

An agreement signed five years ago between Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise, a state owned and sole importer of fuel, and Sudan Petrolatum, now Ethiopia’s sole benzine supplier, was to expire this year.

However, Earlier this year, a new benzene supplying agreement was signed between governments of Ethiopia and Sudan, extending their cooperation for another year.

The Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise has planned to import 2,176,188 tonnes of fuel including benzene with projected budget of 1.42 billion USD for the current fiscal year. The volume of the fuel projected to be imported this year exceeds that of last year by 500,000 tonnes.

In the past five years, benzene supplies from Sudan had accounted lessthan 10% of Ethiopia’s annual consumption. Currently, Sudan supplys 82 percent of Ethiopia’s annual benzene consumption

The Horn of Africa country had been spending massive costs for inspection and vessel prices to import Fuel all the way from the Middle East. This makes the benzene that comes from Sudan significantly cheaper.

According to Ethiopia petroleum enterprise officials, Ethiopia saves millions of dollars every year by importing from neighboring Sudan instead of imports of Middle East and other destinations abroad via the port of Djibouti.

Ethiopia spends over 50 % of its total export earnings to meet nation’s fuel demand and Sudan has now become the major source for the fact that it is only next door.

In return, the vast country of Sudan imports agricultural products and livestock from Ethiopia. It actually is one of the biggest importing countries of Ethiopian products.

ST

Ethiopia: Meseret Defar wins 5000m in Sweden

Getty Images 7 hours ago

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - AUGUST 06: Meseret Defar (r) of Ethiopia wins the women's 5000m from Alemitu Bekele (l) of Ethiopia during the IAAF Diamond League meeting at the Olympic Stadium on August 6, 2010 in Stockholm, Sweden.

http://www.daylife.com/photo/0bNY7LZfWBdO3

How Food and Water Are Driving a 21st-Century African Land Grab

The Observer -- We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia's largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches over 20 hectares – the size of 20 football pitches.

The farm manager shows us millions of tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables being grown in 500m rows in computer controlled conditions. Spanish engineers are building the steel structure, Dutch technology minimises water use from two bore-holes and 1,000 women pick and pack 50 tonnes of food a day. Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

The 1,000 hectares of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2bn acquiring and developing 500,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.

But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

An Observer investigation estimates that up to 50m hectares of land – an area more than double the size of the UK – has been acquired in the last few years or is in the process of being negotiated by governments and wealthy investors working with state subsidies. The data used was collected by Grain, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Land Coalition, ActionAid and other non-governmental groups.

The land rush, which is still accelerating, has been triggered by the worldwide food shortages which followed the sharp oil price rises in 2008, growing water shortages and the European Union's insistence that 10% of all transport fuel must come from plant-based biofuels by 2015.

In many areas the deals have led to evictions, civil unrest and complaints of "land grabbing".

The experience of Nyikaw Ochalla, an indigenous Anuak from the Gambella region of Ethiopia now living in Britain but who is in regular contact with farmers in his region, is typical. He said: "All of the land in the Gambella region is utilised. Each community has and looks after its own territory and the rivers and farmlands within it. It is a myth propagated by the government and investors to say that there is waste land or land that is not utilised in Gambella.

"The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands.

"All the land round my family village of Illia has been taken over and is being cleared. People now have to work for an Indian company. Their land has been compulsorily taken and they have been given no compensation. People cannot believe what is happening. Thousands of people will be affected and people will go hungry."

It is not known if the acquisitions will improve or worsen food security in Africa, or if they will stimulate separatist conflicts, but a major World Bank report due to be published this month is expected to warn of both the potential benefits and the immense dangers they represent to people and nature.

Leading the rush are international agribusinesses, investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds as well as UK pension funds, foundations and individuals attracted by some of the world's cheapest land.

Together they are scouring Sudan, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Congo, Zambia, Uganda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Mali, Sierra Leone, Ghana and elsewhere. Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007. Any land there, which investors have not been able to buy, is being leased for approximately $1 per year per hectare.

Saudi Arabia, along with other Middle Eastern emirate states such as Qatar, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, is thought to be the biggest buyer. In 2008 the Saudi government, which was one of the Middle East's largest wheat-growers, announced it was to reduce its domestic cereal production by 12% a year to conserve its water. It earmarked $5bn to provide loans at preferential rates to Saudi companies which wanted to invest in countries with strong agricultural potential .

Meanwhile, the Saudi investment company Foras, backed by the Islamic Development Bank and wealthy Saudi investors, plans to spend $1bn buying land and growing 7m tonnes of rice for the Saudi market within seven years. The company says it is investigating buying land in Mali, Senegal, Sudan and Uganda. By turning to Africa to grow its staple crops, Saudi Arabia is not just acquiring Africa's land but is securing itself the equivalent of hundreds of millions of gallons of scarce water a year. Water, says the UN, will be the defining resource of the next 100 years.

Since 2008 Saudi investors have bought heavily in Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya. Last year the first sacks of wheat grown in Ethiopia for the Saudi market were presented by al-Amoudi to King Abdullah.

Some of the African deals lined up are eye-wateringly large: China has signed a contract with the Democratic Republic of Congo to grow 2.8m hectares of palm oil for biofuels. Before it fell apart after riots, a proposed 1.2m hectares deal between Madagascar and the South Korean company Daewoo would have included nearly half of the country's arable land.

Land to grow biofuel crops is also in demand. "European biofuel companies have acquired or requested about 3.9m hectares in Africa. This has led to displacement of people, lack of consultation and compensation, broken promises about wages and job opportunities," said Tim Rice, author of an ActionAid report which estimates that the EU needs to grow crops on 17.5m hectares, well over half the size of Italy, if it is to meet its 10% biofuel target by 2015.

"The biofuel land grab in Africa is already displacing farmers and food production. The number of people going hungry will increase," he said. British firms have secured tracts of land in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania to grow flowers and vegetables.

Indian companies, backed by government loans, have bought or leased hundreds of thousands of hectares in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Senegal and Mozambique, where they are growing rice, sugar cane, maize and lentils to feed their domestic market.

Nowhere is now out of bounds. Sudan, emerging from civil war and mostly bereft of development for a generation, is one of the new hot spots. South Korean companies last year bought 700,000 hectares of northern Sudan for wheat cultivation; the United Arab Emirates have acquired 750,000 hectares and Saudi Arabia last month concluded a 42,000-hectare deal in Nile province.

The government of southern Sudan says many companies are now trying to acquire land. "We have had many requests from many developers. Negotiations are going on," said Peter Chooli, director of water resources and irrigation, in Juba last week. "A Danish group is in discussions with the state and another wants to use land near the Nile."

In one of the most extraordinary deals, buccaneering New York investment firm Jarch Capital, run by a former commodities trader, Philip Heilberg, has leased 800,000 hectares in southern Sudan near Darfur. Heilberg has promised not only to create jobs but also to put 10% or more of his profits back into the local community. But he has been accused by Sudanese of "grabbing" communal land and leading an American attempt to fragment Sudan and exploit its resources.

Devlin Kuyek, a Montreal-based researcher with Grain, said investing in Africa was now seen as a new food supply strategy by many governments. "Rich countries are eyeing Africa not just for a healthy return on capital, but also as an insurance policy. Food shortages and riots in 28 countries in 2008, declining water supplies, climate change and huge population growth have together made land attractive. Africa has the most land and, compared with other continents, is cheap," he said.

"Farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is giving 25% returns a year and new technology can treble crop yields in short time frames," said Susan Payne, chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, a UK investment fund seeking to spend $50m on African land, which, she said, was attracting governments, corporations, multinationals and other investors. "Agricultural development is not only sustainable, it is our future. If we do not pay great care and attention now to increase food production by over 50% before 2050, we will face serious food shortages globally," she said.

But many of the deals are widely condemned by both western non-government groups and nationals as "new colonialism", driving people off the land and taking scarce resources away from people.

We met Tegenu Morku, a land agent, in a roadside cafe on his way to the region of Oromia in Ethiopia to find 500 hectares of land for a group of Egyptian investors. They planned to fatten cattle, grow cereals and spices and export as much as possible to Egypt. There had to be water available and he expected the price to be about 15 birr (75p) per hectare per year – less than a quarter of the cost of land in Egypt and a tenth of the price of land in Asia.

"The land and labour is cheap and the climate is good here. Everyone – Saudis, Turks, Chinese, Egyptians – is looking. The farmers do not like it because they get displaced, but they can find land elsewhere and, besides, they get compensation, equivalent to about 10 years' crop yield," he said.

Oromia is one of the centres of the African land rush. Haile Hirpa, president of the Oromia studies' association, said last week in a letter of protest to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon that India had acquired 1m hectares, Djibouti 10,000 hectares, Saudi Arabia 100,000 hectares, and that Egyptian, South Korean, Chinese, Nigerian and other Arab investors were all active in the state.

"This is the new, 21st-century colonisation. The Saudis are enjoying the rice harvest, while the Oromos are dying from man-made famine as we speak," he said.

The Ethiopian government denied the deals were causing hunger and said that the land deals were attracting hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign investments and tens of thousands of jobs. A spokesman said: "Ethiopia has 74m hectares of fertile land, of which only 15% is currently in use – mainly by subsistence farmers. Of the remaining land, only a small percentage – 3 to 4% – is offered to foreign investors. Investors are never given land that belongs to Ethiopian farmers. The government also encourages Ethiopians in the diaspora to invest in their homeland. They bring badly needed technology, they offer jobs and training to Ethiopians, they operate in areas where there is suitable land and access to water."

The reality on the ground is different, according to Michael Taylor, a policy specialist at the International Land Coalition. "If land in Africa hasn't been planted, it's probably for a reason. Maybe it's used to graze livestock or deliberately left fallow to prevent nutrient depletion and erosion. Anybody who has seen these areas identified as unused understands that there is no land in Ethiopia that has no owners and users."

Development experts are divided on the benefits of large-scale, intensive farming. Indian ecologist Vandana Shiva said in London last week that large-scale industrial agriculture not only threw people off the land but also required chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilisers, intensive water use, and large-scale transport, storage and distribution which together turned landscapes into enormous mono-cultural plantations.

"We are seeing dispossession on a massive scale. It means less food is available and local people will have less. There will be more conflict and political instability and cultures will be uprooted. The small farmers of Africa are the basis of food security. The food availability of the planet will decline," she says. But Rodney Cooke, director at the UN's International Fund for Agricultural Development, sees potential benefits. "I would avoid the blanket term 'land-grabbing'. Done the right way, these deals can bring benefits for all parties and be a tool for development."

Lorenzo Cotula, senior researcher with the International Institute for Environment and Development, who co-authored a report on African land exchanges with the UN fund last year, found that well-structured deals could guarantee employment, better infrastructures and better crop yields. But badly handled they could cause great harm, especially if local people were excluded from decisions about allocating land and if their land rights were not protected.

Water is also controversial. Local government officers in Ethiopia told the Observer that foreign companies that set up flower farms and other large intensive farms were not being charged for water. "We would like to, but the deal is made by central government," said one. In Awassa, the al-Amouni farm uses as much water a year as 100,000 Ethiopians.

Africa Should Evolve Into "The New Breadbasket of the World"

Reuters -- BAKO, Ethiopia/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - For centuries, farmers like Berhanu Gudina have eked out a living in Ethiopia's central lowlands, tending tiny plots of maize, wheat or barley amid the vastness of the lush green plains.

Now, they find themselves working cheek by jowl with high-tech commercial farms stretching over thousands of hectares tilled by state-of-the-art tractors -- and owned and operated by foreigners.

With memories of Ethiopia's devastating 1984 famine still fresh in the minds of its leaders, the government has been enticing well-heeled foreigners to invest in the nation's underperforming agriculture sector. It is part of an economic development push they say will help the Horn of Africa nation ensure it has enough food for its 80 million people.

Many small Ethopian farmers do not share their leaders' enthusiasm for the policy, eyeing the outsiders with a suspicion that has crept across Africa as millions of hectares have been placed, with varying degrees of transparency, in foreign hands.

"Now we see Indians coming, Chinese coming. Before, we were just Ethiopian," 54-year-old Gudina said in Bako, a small farming town 280 km (170 miles) west of Addis Ababa. "What do they want here? The same as the British in Kenya? To steal everything? Our government is selling our country to the Asians so they can make money for themselves."

Xenophobia aside, a number of organizations -- including the foundation started by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates -- argue that Africa should support its own farmers.

"Instead of African countries giving away their best lands, they should invest in their own farmers," said Akin Adesina, vice president of the Nairobi-based Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). "What's needed is a small-holder, farmer-based revolution. African land should not be up for garage sale."

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Both sides of the debate agree on this much: a stark reality -- underlined by last year's food price crisis -- looms large over Ethiopia and beyond. The world is in danger of running out of food.

By 2050, when its population is likely to be more than 9 billion, up from 6 billion now, the world's food production needs to increase by 70 percent, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

In Africa, which for a variety of reasons was bypassed by the Green Revolution that transformed India and China in the 1960s and 1970s, the numbers are even more bleak. The continent's population is set to double from 1 billion now.

In all, the FAO says, feeding those extra mouths is going to take $83 billion in investment every year for the next four decades, increasing both the amount of cultivated land and how much it produces. The estimated investment for Africa alone is $11 billion a year.

For deeply impoverished Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa's second-most populous nation after Nigeria, even a fraction of those sums is unthinkable.

Yet with 111 million hectares -- nearly twice the area of Texas -- within its borders, the answer, in the government's eyes, is simple: Lease 'spare' land to wealthy outsiders to get them to grow the food. One unfortunate consequence of that thinking is Gudina and his little plot of maize are painted as part of the problem, rather than a potential solution.

"The small-scale farmers are not producing the quality they should, because they don't have the technology," said Esayas Kebede, head of the Agricultural Investment Agency, a body founded only in February but already talking about offering foreign farmers 3 million hectares in the next two years.

"There are 12 million households in Ethiopia. We can't afford to give new technology to all of them," he said, sitting in an office adorned with maps showing possible sites for commercial farms.

Indian agro-conglomerate Karuturi Global, whose involvement in Ethiopia so far has been exporting cut-flowers to Europe, has taken the hint, branching out into food production with a sprawling maize farm in Bako. Unlike with similar land deals elsewhere in Africa, the company insists crops will be exported only after demand is met in Ethiopia -- where 6.2 million people are said to be in need of emergency food aid because of poor seasonal rains.

"Our main aim is to feed the Ethiopian people," Karuturi's Ethiopia general manager, Hanumatha Rao, told Reuters, sitting under an awning at the Bako farm as hundreds of laborers harvested maize in the fields stretching up nearby hillsides. "Whatever we produce will go to the stomachs of the Ethiopian people before it goes to the international market."

ANOTHER AFRICAN REVOLUTION

While many governments have been busy courting foreigners, in most cases from Asia or the Middle East, to increase Africa's food output, small farmers like Gudina are not totally without friends.

An initiative backed by the Melinda and Bill Gates and Rockefeller foundations is aiming to kick-start an African Green Revolution, carefully avoiding the pitfalls that had engulfed previous such attempts.

In particular, Africa boasts a dazzling array of soil types, climates and crops that have defied the one-size-fits-all solution of better seed, fertilizer and irrigation that worked in Asia half a century ago.

Its perennial tendency to corruption and official incompetence has also played its part in keeping average grain yields on the continent at just 1.2 tons per hectare, compared with 3.5 tons in Europe and 5.5 tons in the United States.

AGRA's Adesina says sub-Saharan governments are slowly realizing the importance of small farmers, who account for 70 percent of the region's population and 60 percent of its agricultural output. But he urges governments to make good on a pledge six years ago to raise farm spending to 10 percent of their national budgets.

For its part, AGRA is pouring money into research institutes from Burkina Faso in the west to Tanzania in the east to breed higher yielding and more drought- and pest-resistant strains of everything from maize and cassava to sorghum and sweet potato. Keywords: FOOD/AFRICA

"We've been studying African agriculture for several decades and the message we keep getting back from farmers is: 'It's the seeds, stupid,'" said Joseph DeVries, director of AGRA's seed improvement division. "What you're planting is what you're harvesting."

As yet, the work -- carefully packaged as "Africans working for an African solution" -- involves only conventional breeding techniques, such as cross-pollination and hybridization, as genetically modified seeds remain prohibitively expensive for farmers subsisting on one or two dollars a day.

However, AGRA does not rule out a future role for GM food crops, a stance that has stoked fears it will inadvertently pave the way for U.S. seed companies into the continent beyond South Africa, the only country that allows widespread commercial use. It also accepts a need for chemical soil additives -- a source of concern to environmentalists -- although it stresses the importance of "judicious and efficient use of fertilizer and more intensive use of organic matter."

After 10 years of research, DeVries said, AGRA has developed, among other things, a cassava variety with double its previous yield and a hybrid sorghum strain that is producing 3 to 3.5 tons per hectare, compared with 1 ton before. It is also giving grants to rural shop-keepers to try to create seed distribution networks in countries that remain too small or inaccessible to attract interest from established commercial suppliers.

"There's huge demand for these new varieties, but there's just not nearly enough investment. It's logistics, and it's also capital," DeVries said.

CASH FOR CROPS

As ever in Africa, money -- or, rather, a lack of it -- is a major problem. According to AGRA's Adesina, only 1 percent of private capital on the continent is made available to farming, due to banks' concerns about loan collateral and a reluctance to deal with farmers who in many cases are barely literate.

However, the Green Revolution push has begun to attract some serious financial players.

With AGRA providing $10 million in loan guarantees, South Africa's Standard Bank, the continent's biggest bank, has earmarked $100 million over three years for small farmers in Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. The pilot scheme suggests the bank is buying an argument slowly gaining traction: That Africa, a continent more renowned for war, famine and disasters, could and should evolve into the breadbasket of the world.

With less than 25 percent of Africa's potential arable land under cultivation, according to many estimates, and its current levels of yield at rock-bottom, it is a compelling, if distant, vision.

"The first step is improving the efficiency of small farmers in Africa," said Jacques Taylor, head of Standard Bank's agricultural banking arm in Johannesburg, seat of the gold on which most of South Africa's wealth has so far been based. "Can we get them to increase their yields from just over 1 ton to 3 tons to 5 tons? That's possible. It's not a dream. It's a reality."

LAND-GRABS AND GM'S TROJAN HORSE?

Even though Standard Bank says it is keen to expand the funding, if all goes well, there is a very long way to go before such financing makes a dent in the $11 billion the FAO says has to be invested in Africa each year.

"Do we need more of this? For sure. $100 million is really a drop in the ocean when you look at the funding needs," Taylor said. "But we'd like to think this is a step in the right direction."

As such, it seems inevitable Africa will have to adopt a dual-track approach to its looming food crisis -- rolling out the red carpet for more Karuturis, but also making life easier for Berhanu Gudina and his colleagues in central Ethiopia.

While it is hard to fault the thinking behind either strategy, critics of both abound.

Across the continent, foreign deals have been condemned as "land-grabs" negotiated between barely accountable administrations and outside companies or governments who care little about poverty or development.

In one notable case, in Madagascar, a little-reported million-hectare deal with South Korean conglomerate Daewoo contributed heavily to a successful popular uprising in March against President Marc Ravalomanana.

Elsewhere, from Sudan and its numerous Gulf farmer-investors, to Republic of Congo and a group of white South African commercial farmers, to Ethiopia and its Indians, land has become a hot political potato.

The prevailing view outside governments is that the little guys are being forced to make way for the mega-deal.

"It cannot just descend on them from the sky. It has to be done in consultation with the people who occupy the land," Ethiopian opposition leader Bulcha Demeksa told Reuters. "But the government is not doing that. It is just going ahead and signing agreement after agreement with the foreigners."

Similarly, AGRA's detractors look to unintended consequences of India's Green Revolution -- particularly the environmental damage caused by widespread fertilizer use and drying up of water tables -- to argue Africa should look before it leaps.

Furthermore, says Mariam Myatt of the Johannesburg-based African Center for Biosafety, if India's experience is anything to go by, a Green Revolution would leave Africa's farmers as dependent on banks and seed and fertilizer companies as they are now on seasonal rains.

"The Green Revolution, under the guise of solving hunger in Africa, is nothing more than a push for a parasitic corporate-controlled chemical system of agriculture," she said.

With Bill Gates also pumping funding into biotech research at bodies such as the African Agriculture Technology Foundation, Myatt said, AGRA might end up as the unwitting Trojan horse that eases GM crops -- and Western corporate interests -- into Africa.

"It will go a long way toward laying the groundwork for the entry of private fertilizer and agrochemical companies and seed companies and, more particularly, GM seed companies."

For a graphic to go with this story see: here

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Jim Impoco and Walter Bagley)

Sun Energy Empowers Ethiopian Village

BBC News -- Two years after the installation of a solar power project funded by international aid groups, villagers in northern Ethiopia say the sun's energy has turned their lives around.

Rema, 150 miles north of the capital Addis Ababa, is home to Ethiopia's largest solar project.

Here, every house in the village has electricity powered by solar lighting systems.

This is unique in Ethiopia - 80% of the population live in rural areas where only 1% of the population have access to electricity.

Lighting up the countryside has long been a challenge for African governments. Unlike houses in urban areas, villages in rural areas are often difficult to connect to the national electricity grid.

Solar power has been touted by some as the long-term solution to Africa's energy needs.

Domestic solar panels can provide cheap, clean and reliable electricity.

Light for homework

The village roofs are dotted with solar panels. One panel gives them about four lamps. The energy can also be used for radios and tape recorders.

Solar power has had a significant impact on the lives of people living here.

Elfenesh Tefera, 40, enjoys solar energy at home with her 50-year-old farmer husband Aseged Hailemariam.

"Our kids can do their homework at night now, because there is light. They are very happy," says Ms Tefera.

"We've had solar energy for over a year now. We're very happy because we're saving money. Altogether we have eight children, and for our kids at school the solar energy is great."

Her husband adds: "We're taking care of the panels so that we don't have to spend money replacing them."

A local bar has increased its turnover because of solar energy. With lamps running on solar energy, people stay in the bar after darkness falls.

Cold beer is in high demand in Rema - the bar's solar-powered fridge has made it available.

Hirut Kebede, a 25-year old bar worker, says solar panels have changed her life.

"I don't have to struggle with smoke [from the gas lamps] any more. Before we used gas lamps, we had to keep bottles cold by putting them in the sand," she said.

"Now we have more customers and compared to before I sell a lot more than I used to."

Newcomers

Samson Tsegaye, the country director of the solar energy foundation in Ethiopia, says there are currently 300 requests for new solar home systems in Rema.

There are currently 2,100 solar home systems in the village.

Because of its solar power, Rema has become attractive to people from other areas. Paraffin for lamps is often hard to find in rural areas. As a result, newcomers are settling in and building new houses in the village.

A solar technician training school has been set up in Rema where students from technical schools are trained to manage solar energy.

There are currently 33 solar energy technicians who have been trained at the school in Rema, all working in different parts of Ethiopia.

"People are sometimes suspicious of energy coming from the sun," says Mr Tsegaye.

"Some say that it is the devil's work. It was difficult for them to understand at the beginning. But when they have light in their homes, they are really happy.

"They are 24-hour light users, and that is better than the big cities in this country."

Zenawi Building the Largest Dam in the World in Ethiopia Without a Feasibility Study

BBC NEWS -- Deep in the gorge country that falls off the Ethiopian plateau, workers in boots and hard hats are hammering, drilling, blasting and digging their way into the mountainside for the foundations of the vast wall that will, when finished, create the second largest hydroelectricity dam in sub-Saharan Africa.

Teams of workers are blasting out the "keyhole" - the slot in the side of the valley that will hold the dam wall in place.

Others are finishing the concrete lining to the last of three 1,000m long tunnels that have already begun diverting the Omo River waters around the main construction site.

According to the engineers, they are now about a third of the way through the project, and on schedule to finish the Gilgel Gibe III hydroelectricity project sometime in 2012.

By then, the wall will soar 240 metres high - the tallest of its type anywhere in the world; holding back a reservoir 150 kilometres long.

The dam will provide 1,800 megawatts of electricity. That will more than double the country's current generating capacity in one hit, and according to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, solve a national energy crisis.

"We cannot afford not to have Gilgel Gibe III," he said.

"We need that type of mega-project given the increased domestic demand and the requirements of export.

"And secondly, it enables us to store water and regulate the flooding [downstream in the Omo River]."

He rejects fears that some 500,000 people could see their livelihoods destroyed by the dam.

Tall order

The dam will also produce far more electricity than the country is capable of consuming. The vast bulk of it has been earmarked for export to neighbours like Sudan and Kenya.

"That would provide us with valuable foreign currency that will help with our balance of payments," said the prime minister.

So urgent was the need to get the dam built quickly that the government short-circuited the usual internationally accepted procedures for these kinds of massive infrastructure projects.

Usually, a government will first conduct a feasibility study followed by an environmental and social impact assessment to decide whether it really is wise to go ahead with the plan.

Then, it will raise the finance, call for competitive tenders and award the construction contract.

Instead, the government first negotiated the contract directly with Italian civil engineering giant Salini Costruttori.

It then went looking for the finance - a procedure that has left the government with a massive hole in its budget.

The two financial institutions that the government had hoped would back the project - the World Bank and the European Investment Bank - have both refused to get involved because the government broke international and domestic transparency rules by dealing directly with Salini.

"I think quite rightly, we have an obligation not only to do the right thing but to demonstrate very clearly that we are doing the right thing," said Greg Toulmin, the World Bank's country director for Ethiopia.

"In order to do that, we have to go through all these very meticulous processes to check all the aspects of any operation that we provide loan or guarantee to. That's something that takes time."

Standing firm

It's a luxury that Mihert Debeba, head of the Electricity Corporation, said Ethiopia simply can't afford.

He said: "Africa is in the dark. If we have to use very luxurious preconditions we wouldn't develop any hydro-power.

"Give us a choice. Should we stay in darkness? Should we avoid all this development?"

The corporation also short-circuited the environmental and social impact assessment (EIA) process. Instead the study - which gave the project a clean bill of health - was published two years after construction began.

One of the project's staunchest critics, Kenyan ecologist Richard Leakey, suspects the study was produced with one aim in mind.

He said:

"The scientists that I've shown [the EIA] to - some of whom have worked in Ethiopia for years and may have even advised the Ethiopian government at some point - suggest it is fatally flawed in terms of its logic, in terms of its thoroughness, in terms of its conclusions.

"And it looks like an inside job that has come up with the results that they were looking for to get the initial funding for this dam."

More on International Rivers and Friends of Lake Turkana.

Broken Bones and Body Bags: Horrors Facing Ethiopian Domestic Workers

The Daily Star -- At the Ethiopian Consulate in Beirut, a poster declares "Ethiopia: 13 weeks of sunshine" as two officials sit at their desks. The three chairs in the waiting room are usually occupied these days: In just one recent week, the mission heard of one Ethiopian domestic worker who died a suspicious death and another who is in hospital with both legs broken, possibly paralyzed, and can only communicate by blinking her eyes.

The previous week, a woman walked in shaking. When the social officer asked her what was wrong, she replied that her "Madame" - her employer - threatened her with a knife.

It has long been the case that women from impoverished countries like Ethiopia come to Lebanon to work, that many encounter abuse and even violence, and that most find they have nowhere to turn.

Elinore Molla and Victoria Andarge, two Ethiopian women who are involved with the Full Gospel Church in Beirut, have turned an apartment they are renting into a makeshift sanctuary for women who flee their employers after facing some sort of abuse.

"The consulate doesn't have a resting room. Women sleep under the cars [outside the consulate], so many guys come and harass them. They are only 20 years old with a future and destiny. I take the decision in my life to suffer for them," said Molla, 27, who is originally from Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa.

Molla first found out about the women sleeping underneath the cars about a year ago.

"When I was walking I saw the girls," she recalls. "I found four girls ... I was shocked. They said, 'help us.'"

She took them into her home, which today houses about two dozen women at any given time. "I'm Christian, I'm a believer," she told The Daily Star. "Everyday I see my people and my nation, with no one to take responsibility. The idea comes from God - helping protect someone who was abused. I ask the girl when I take her to my home: 'What's the problem with your sponsor?' And she says, 'so many things.'"

The head of the social affairs office at the Ethiopian Consulate, who preferred not to be identified by name, confirmed that women continue to sleep under cars near the mission until this day.

There are several problems with the situation of domestic migrant workers in Lebanon, she explained: "It is not only Ethiopian workers facing problems, but because women from other countries stopped signing contracts, the number of Ethiopians increased."

There is currently no reliable data, but the consulate estimates the number of Ethiopian workers in Lebanon to be between 40,000 and 50,000, a substantial increase since the number of women coming from Sri Lanka and the Philippines dropped off following the 2006 war with Israel - and attendant stories of abuse and neglect. The Ethiopian government officially barred its own women from coming to Lebanon earlier this year, but many are now traveling here through third countries.

The head of the consular section, who also did not want to be named, said that problems frequently begin from the day of arrival. Many sponsors do not adhere to the terms of the contracts, he explained, such as duration, remuneration, and hours of work expected.

What is even more problematic, he added, is when agencies do not take responsibility when a woman files a complaint, paving the way for a volatile relationship between the workers and their employers.

"We are facing a lot of problems," he said. "One problem is by the housemaids, second by the sponsors. Since we are foreigners to this country we have a different culture, so from the beginning it is difficult for her to get accustomed.

"But I want to turn to the sponsors' problem," he added. "There are a lot of problems from sponsors, they don't pay salaries on time, they treat them aggressively, they don't get enough food, and they don't provide shelter."

According to the consulate, some 70 percent of employers who employ Ethiopians don't pay their employees on a monthly basis.

"Sometimes they close the balcony and make them sleep on the floor," added the head of the social affairs office, "and they beat her to make her understand. That's why she becomes aggressive toward agencies, the consulate and herself."

Most troubling of all, the mission says it has been sending a record number of corpses back to Ethiopia.

The consulate estimates that 150 women have died in a little more than a year, and there is no accountability.

In one recent case, Mekdes Tesfaye Tefera's corpse was found with a noose around her neck. But the consulate has doubts that this was a self-inflicted death and has filed a police report.

"They always say, 'she killed herself,'" the social affairs officer said.

In the case of Zebiba Kedr, who is currently hospitalized, the consulate is working on having charges laid against the woman for whom she was working. The employers have stated that Kedr fell from the 12th floor of their building, but the head of the consular section said that when he went to see her in the hospital and asked her "Madame" had pushed her, she indicated 'yes' by blinking her eyes.

Stories like these make the unofficial shelter run by Molla and Andarge even more essential. Andarge said the agencies were the main problem, accusing them of "playing a game" with people's lives. The government needs to get involved, she added, and make sure the agencies take responsibility for the women and how they are treated.

The consulate representatives said they had an agreement with all the agencies that said the latter were to be responsible for the women they bring to Lebanon, and that this is why mission does not have a shelter.

The nongovernmental organization Caritas offers a safehouse for workers who are flee their employers' homes, but Molla said that these spaces are usually reserved for those who are very sick or have psychological problems.

Molla is one of the lucky ones. She came to Lebanon when she was 17 years old and says she has always been well treated by her employer.

"She is like my mom, she is Lebanese, and she supports me. I love her," Molla told The Daily Star.

But since she regards her own experience as the exception rather than the rule, she discourages other Ethiopian women from traveling to Lebanon for work - a process which she described as getting easier by the day.

"The Lebanese name is collapsing everywhere," she said, explaining that in Addis Ababa, Lebanon's reputation is causing fewer and fewer would-be migrant workers to sign up.

To compensate, she added, the recruiters have started concentrating on women from remote villages.

Molla said she tells women in Ethiopia "what is going on" in Lebanon, "and that it's better to stay in your country, because you still have hopes there. Here there are no hopes."

Nonetheless, a young woman now staying at the makeshift safehouse said she would like to stay here and support her family back home - if her employers here were to treat her well.

Andarge believes there is hope to change the situation and has already noticed changes in public opinion and awareness. New York-based Human Rights Watch recently conducted a hard-hitting campaign on the plight of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon, and last month the American University of Beirut hosted a conference and roundtable discussion on the issue. Some of the students were appalled at what they heard, she said, and their reaction was a pleasant "surprise."

"It will be changed," Andarge said with tears in her eyes. "We just need strong people."

Read more Electronic Lebanon.

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.

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

Iceland Helps Ethiopia to Explore Geothermal Power

Addis Fortune -- Following the signing of a bilateral relation agreement between Ethiopia and Iceland on January 2008 to explore geothermal power potential in the rift valley region, a team of experts from Reykjavik are to engage in a bilateral geothermal survey.

It would be too early to talk about the project cost, said Sendeku Araya, public relations division Head at the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporations (EEPCo).

“Ethiopia has an estimated potential of 1000mw of power from geothermal energy located in the rift region,” ambassador Svavar Gestsson, especial envoy to the ministry of foreign affairs, told Fortune. He said the exact potential would be known after the actual study is conducted.

The preliminary agreement between Ethiopia and Iceland is expected to be reached in a month time, according to the ambassador.

Iceland’s Minister for Industry, Energy and Tourism Osur Scarper Dinson (PhD) visited Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on April 11, 2008 and agreed on the technical support that Ethiopia could get from the geothermal energy production.

The feasibility study has to be carried out first, though a prior study conducted by Ethiopian Geological Survey hinted that geothermal possibilities have already been detected in Afar, in the Fentale and Aluto Langano areas of the rift region.

“If the project starts as scheduled, it would be completed in three years as the country is using fast-track approach,” Alemayehu Tegenu minister of Mines and Energy (MoME) told Fortune.

The fast-track approach is extending the working hours to 24 a day from the normal eight hours of operation.

The experts coming from Iceland will give technical assistance to Ethiopia, including maintenance of obsolete drilling plants at EGS, according to Alemayehu Tegenu.

Iceland is also searching for geothermal sources in Djibouti, where the feasibility was completed with the whole project expected to be ended by 2011. The potential there was discovered to be 50 mw.

Iceland, which has many years of experience using geothermal energy, gets about 27pc of its power from geothermal sources, which is renewable, clean and environment friendly, according to energy experts.

The project will be executed by the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCO) with the support of the Ethiopian Geological Survey (EGS), which is equipped with drilling plants.

Geothermal drilling requires digging three kilometres down.

Ethiopia has the largest portion of the rift system that stretches 1500kms, and the potential of geothermal power is expected to be even more than previously thought, according to the minister.

The current utilization of geothermal energy in the country is around 17mw.

The government of the United Nations and government of Iceland recently trained twenty three Ethiopian engineers for six months in Iceland, covering most aspects of geothermal exploration and sustainable development.

Iceland is one of the leading countries in the world in terms of geothermal energy use. Iceland generates nearly all of its electricity from renewable sources: about 73pc from hydropower and virtually the remainder from geothermal power. Geothermal sources are also used to heat 87pc of the households in Iceland.

The Miseducation of Ethiopia

Barack Obama Delivers Speech on Race Relations

Hillary Clinton, John McCain - you're up next!

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Everybody Wants Obama!

Asharq Alawsat -- Suddenly Barack Obama, the candidate for the democratic presidential nomination for the US 2008 elections, has become everybody’s favourite topic of discussion and an example of a political success story.

In the Arab world, there is the famous following saying: “Everybody claims to be Laila’s love,” [Al kul yad’i hob Laila] and today everybody claims some kind of association with Barack Obama. Amongst all the chatter, several stories are being circulated about Obama. For example, some people claim that Obama’s forefathers immigrated from Quraish to Ethiopia and from there they settled and spread across the countries of the Horn of Africa until they arrived in Kenya!

In these discussions, people mention that Obama’s full name is Barack Hussein Obama, emphasising his middle name (which was his Indonesian stepfather’s name). During these conversations, people say that the name “Barack” is derived from “Baraka” [an Arabic word meaning blessing] and that blessings are undoubtedly on their way to shower us and our loved ones.

The people of Africa are in search of a legendary hero from amongst them to rule the world’s superpower, and in Africa Obama’s popularity has soared to a similar level of popularity enjoyed by pop stars and footballers.

Amongst the Afro-Americans however, there are mixed feelings; some of them believe in Obama and believe that he is “one of them” whilst others consider him different since his mother is white. In terms of coffee, they compare him to a “Cappuccino” or a “Latte” but not an “Espresso” in reference to his mixed heritage. The disease of ethnic purity has even reached them!

Barack Obama is a rising star and he, the son of a Kenyan migrant, entered Harvard University and graduated from the prestigious Harvard Law School. The rise of Obama continued in the political field until he became the only Afro-American currently serving in the US Senate.

Until Barack Hussein Obama reaches the presidential office and leads the United States, the fictitious stories about him will continue. Even the Chinese, the Indians and the Eskimos will demand their share in Obama’s upcoming glory.

Barack Obama is a phenomenon and represents the political craze that is occupying the entire world. Let us sit back and enjoy the race.