May 29, 2006 • 2:31 pm 0
What a relief! People's Daily reported: " The oil exploration well in Ethiopia's west state of Gambella has turned out dry, it was learned in Addis Ababa on Saturday."
I think it was Tom Friedman who observed, in the majority of the cases, there is an inverse relationship between democracy and oil wealth. By that to mean, those that have vast oil wealth don't let their people choose their leaders.
Thank God, they haven't yet found oil in Gambela.
Filed under: News and Politics
May 28, 2006 • 6:53 pm 0
People’s daily:”Britain on Friday joined the World Bank in announcing a new aid package, saying Britain was to resume its aid to Ethiopia.”
As the commies put it here, quoting the Brit government official, they don’t want the poor to suffer. In other words, they don’t expect the current government to be able to deal with its problems. That is a bit of an insult if I were Ato Meles. Ok, that may sound a bit naive given the magnitude of the problem. Nevertheless, it is an insult.
Wouldn’t it be nice, Ato Meles, to talk to the Brits or the other rich donors, we’re thankful for all your generosities, but what we would like most from you is to let us sell our goods and services to you. That would be a proud way of going about it if, indeed, your government, Ato Meles, is investing on education, infrastructure, tranforming the government to be efficient and honest, and leading the way to change the peoples overall attitude. I understand, politics is taking much of your time, but wouldn’t be nice to spend some of your precious time on development, and install your legacy. Yes, legacy. I sure think you would want to be remembered as a person that contributed positively than being part and instigator of the many problems.
Filed under: News and Politics
May 22, 2006 • 6:11 pm 0
BBCNews:"The new Alliance Freedom and Democracy (AFD) says it will focus on peaceful struggle against the government but the armed groups will still stage attacks."
This doesn't strike me as a pro Ethiopian move. The big boys don't seem to have the patience to wait for peaceful resolution of issues, rather, they're going to resort to sending young, poor, and disadvantage Ethiopians to kill and be killed. So sad.
Filed under: News and Politics
• 1:33 am 0
Scotsman:"Mengistu Haile Mariam, accused of a 17-year reign of terror in Ethiopia, faces a long-awaited genocide verdict on Tuesday in a sign of Africa's new resolve to bring ex-leaders to account for past abuses."
Filed under: News and Politics
May 16, 2006 • 4:04 am 0
The Times:"MELES ZENAWI, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, once hailed as one of Tony Blair’s “new breed” of African leaders, has turned on Britain for freezing millions of pounds in aid to his impoverished nation."
Filed under: News and Politics
May 15, 2006 • 5:49 am 0
Hey Ato Meles,
Almost all the writings that I have read so far, I just don't see much support for you. I can't say I keep track all of them out there but the ones that I saw are pretty damming towards you and your policies and actions you have been a part of.
There are a number of facts (as were reported by number of papers) that kind of make me wonder about you. The time you went ahead and gave up our access to the sea – I would say, that was a pretty devastating move; A pretty major strategic mistake.
Although I'm no political scientist or anything, it just doesn't seem right dividing people up along ethnic lines. I have a hard time seeing what sort of benefit that would bring to the ordinary folks by being told they are this or that ethnic identity. From what I have read, the exports seem to think that such a policy is a recipe for disaster.
About the killings, that just isn't nice, to say the least. I understand that you are the head of a pretty big bureaucracy and can't make real time decisions on all matters for all people that work for you, but from personal experience, people do understand and tend to follow a certain tone a leader sets. Here, I'm thinking of the killings that occurred during the protest, right around the election. I don't think you are unaware of the reports of pretty disgusting tactics the foot soldiers were using, for instances cohercing family members to sign certain affidavits as a precondition to fetch corpses of their loved ones. That is pretty low. Wouldn't you say?
There may be some disputes as to these facts, but I suspect most of them have some truths in them. As you have said in one of your BBC interviews, a single death is one too many. I hope you meant it and still do.
Ok, now, given all these missteps, various opposing parties are pouncing on you every little chance they get. The thing that kind of saddens me (may be I shouldn't be) is that, I feel like a good number of your adversaries seem to be after your job. That is no crime, of course. But most comments I have heard so far are a whole bunch of demonizing comments that just don't serve any real purpose. My point is, I just don't hear alternative ideas as to how they can be better than you in areas that would have direct impact on the average people. That is the stuff I'm interested about. I don't care if you or anyone else is in power. I care more about the quality and workability of policies that do attempt to solve real problems.
Seeing the utter poverty that is out there, why would anyone be engaged in bashing you or your supporters bashing the opposition. That is politics, I suppose. Wouldn't it be nice if we hear actual policies, alternatives ideas that could possibility changes peoples lives to the better? Let's hear about what our leaders intend to do so that every child, man and women will have three meals a day; let's hear about your ideas that would land us on our feet so that we will no longer beg for genetically engineered, steroid pumped sacks of wheat from anyone ever; let's hear your ideas that will build us clinics to treat our sick; let's hear your approaches how you would be able to build the infrastructures, roads, factories, and the likes so that we will be able to create value and improve our standard of living; let's know your policies that would allow every children classrooms, desks, books and capable teachers so that we will be able to change for the better.
Those are the things I'm interested about, the final outcome that makes a positive difference to lives of regular people on the streets.
Oh, one more thing, jailing opposition party leaders just doesn't look good. You might want to do something about that. Don't you think?
Filed under: News and Politics
May 13, 2006 • 3:26 am 0
Reuters: "Eight explosions tore through the Ethiopian capital on Friday, killing four people and injuring at least 43 in the latest of a series of mysterious blasts to strike Addis Ababa this year."
NYTimes: "Nine bombs exploded across Ethiopia's capital Friday, killing four people and wounding dozens in what police said was a coordinated attempt to discredit the government."
BBCNews: "At least four people have been killed and 40 injured in a series of explosions in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, police say."
Filed under: News and Politics
May 9, 2006 • 3:02 pm 0
Last night on Apprentice, Michael got the boot for one little bitty silly mistake, even though Trump seems most to focus on actions that had an impact on the overall result. In this case, he just didn't like Michael, I think, and gave him the boot.
If I were him, would I have taken the same decision? It was a tough one. Although Michael's mistake, tempting to share the cheerleaders with the other team (which was overruled by Lee and the Brit), was so stupid but it didn't have anything to do with the final result. The other team won because they focused on their goal, which was to sell, sell, sell. Lee's team had the girls and crowd, yet failed to outsell their competition. Shouldn't the leader that set the direction be responsible for this? I would have given Lee the boot.
Filed under: Culture, Economy & Business
May 8, 2006 • 5:59 am 0
There was a nice panel discussion, moderated by favorite Ted Koppel, formerly of Nightline, between Stiglitz and Friedman on Globalization (the official discussion title is some derivative of that). Friedman’s main argument was – due to the coming of Personal Computers, the Internet, and enabling software, the global playing field has been flattened so that more people are enabled to collaborate, compete, and innovate – regardless of proximity. And he further argues, this collaboration, competition, and over all ‘flattening’ of the world has been good for all involved, and directly responsible for lifting up a significant number of people’s standards of living, and overall economic output of the country.
Stliglitz seems to think that this is just a simplified way of looking at things, and actually seems to infer that it is just a load of crap, especially Tom’s correlation of technological advances to people’s standard of living. He points out the fact that the gap between the rich and poor are increasing, Africa has doubled its poor say ten years ago, India’s greater majority is dirt poor, China is suffering from numerous rural unrests stemming from land confiscations without adequate compensations. He argues that the world has actually become more unflattened, pointing the barriers that are there for the poor to join the middle class.
They both agreed on one thing. For a country, such as Ethiopia, to get ahead, it needs three things. It needs to: 1) education its people , and 2) build its infrastructure, and 3) have a good governance. Obvious recommendation?
Filed under: Economy & Business, News and Politics
