Battle of the Nile:Egyypt and Ethiopia clash over mega-dam !

 

Today i am in ethiopia which it is going start nile river ! exactily i am ther right now !!!

The Picture is of river Nile, which actually begins in Ethiopia. A while back I resided there and therefore know the historic here is the history . Egypt and Ethiopia remain at loggerheads over Addis Ababa’s plan to build a $4.2 billion, 6,000-megawatt dam on a major tributary of the Nile River that Cairo says will greatly reduce the flow of water that is Egypt’s lifeline.Tension between the two African states rose sharply in January after Ethiopia rejected Egypt’s demand it suspend construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the 4,130-mile river, the world’s longest. Egypt has vowed to protect its “historical rights” to the Nile “at any cost” and says it could lose 20 percent of its water if the giant dam in northwestern Ethiopia, one of several hydroelectric projects planned by Addis Ababa, is completed. “It would be a disaster for Egypt,” Mohamed Nasr Allam, a former Egyptian water minister, lamented to the Guardian daily of London in 2013. “Large areas of the country will simply be taken out of production.” Despite Cairo’s tough declarations, and Addis Ababa’s insistence on pressing ahead with the massive dam — which it denies will damage Egypt to any critical extent — there’s little likelihood of the two states going to war, if only because the vast distance that separates them. But the dispute is swelling into a major diplomatic wrangle in Africa that could have consequences on other continents as the planet faces water shortages in the decades ahead. Ethiopia’s Chinese-backed dam program will, if completed, produce abundant supplies of electricity that could transform the economies of the regional states long mired in poverty. Egypt’s position has been seriously weakened by the December defection of Sudan, its southern neighbor and longtime ally, in the Nile dispute with Ethiopia and other upstream African states. That has left Egypt isolated in a long-running dispute with those states, which all want a greater share of the Nile water than they are accorded under British colonial era agreements that gave Egypt, and Sudan to a lesser extent, the lion’s share of the river’s flow. Despite political turmoil in both Egypt and China-backed Ethiopia in recent months — the July 2013 military coup in Cairo that ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president, and the 2012 death of longtime Ethiopian strongman Prime Minister Meles Zenawi — both sides have dug in their heels over the Nile crisis. Egypt, with 82 million people, is the most populous and the most militarized state of the 11 riverine states along the Nile, which rises in the highlands of Ethiopia. But with Sudan now “so squarely in Ethiopia’s camp, Egypt could not stage a ground attack on the dam,” observed Hassen Hussein, a leader of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, in an analysis on al-Jazeera Thursday. An airstrike on the dam, 20 miles from Sudan’s southern border in the vast Blue Nile gorge, “is still possible, but fraught with risks. “To Egypt, water security equals national security,” Hussein noted. “To Ethiopia, the dam has become a matter of national pride. “An airstrike could turn the clock back on the dam. Although Ethiopia lacks the means to respond to such an attack in kind, Egypt risks earning the international community’s wrath and seeing its relationships with sub-Saharan Africa strained.” But these relations are already strained over Egypt’s claim that it has rights to 87 percent of the Nile’s waters that were guaranteed under British-inspired treaties in 1929 and 1959 that also gave Cairo veto power over dam-building by upstream states. Egypt was allocated 55.5 billion cubic meters a year of the Nile’s flow rate of 84 billion cubic meters. Sudan, then Egypt’s ally, got 18.5 billion cubic feet. The Blue Nile joined the White Nile at Khartoum, capital of Sudan, to flow northward to the Mediterranean. In 2010, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya signed an accord, the Cooperative Framework Agreement, to negotiate a more equitable water-sharing arrangement. They were later joined by Burundi , the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and South Sudan. These upstream African nations, former colonies of the 19th century European powers, all say they need greater access to the Nile’s flow to meet swelling demographic and industrial demands from a waterway that has sustained civilizations for millennia. Much depends on how the current dispute plays out. Right now, an estimated 238 million people depend on the Nile to some extent.

 

 

 

Ethiopia is going from sunshine towards hell ! why ?

 

from Mr.Endalkachew guluma

In future Ethiopia is going from sunshine to the darkest/worst  time ! why ?  let me talk about it ! Human Rights Watch is gravely concerned by increased restrictions used to limit human rights activities in many countries. The Ethiopian authorities continue to severely curtail basic freedoms including freedom of expression and association. Human Rights Watch shares the concerns raised by the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association both in his annual report and in his observations report on the government’s increased use of restrictive legislation to quash dissent and independent voices. Since June 2011, the government has arbitrarily arrested and prosecuted members of the media and political opposition under its vague and overbroad Anti-Terrorism law.  journalists and opposition members have been convicted under the law including on charges of support to terrorism for engaging in the peaceful exercise of freedom of expression journalists, at least some opposition members, and  others are currently on trial facing politically motivated terrorism charges. Similarly, dozens of leaders and members of registered Oromo opposition parties have been detained since August 2011 and are on trial on terrorism-related charges. The 2009 Charities and Societies’ law has been used to strictly curtail the legitimate work of civil society organizations, especially those working on human rights, both in terms of staff numbers and field of work. Several key Ethiopian human rights groups have been forced to significantly reduce their operations due to the restrictions on foreign funding imposed by the law or arbitrary enforcement by the new agency established to regulate nongovernmental activity. More recently, the government has attempted to further curtail the rights to free expression and information by systematically blocking media, human rights and political opposition websites, through a new “agreement” by the largest government printing house in Addis.  This arrangement allows printers to censor material prior to publication.  Additionally, a new law further criminalizes the use of telecommunication networks such as Skype. In his observation report, the Special Rapporteur on the freedom of association also warned that a series of measures taken by the Chinese authorities in respect of the Tibetan Buddhist Kirti monastery, including security raids and surveillance, with police presence inside and outside monasteries to monitor religious activities, seriously impeded the exercise of the right to association of members of the monastic community. Since the immolation by two Tibetans outside Lhasa’s Jokhang temple Human Rights Watch has documented other restrictions on freedom of association and assembly. Security forces in Lhasa have been carrying out sharply increased identity checks on the streets of the city. Tibetans from areas where protests have recently taken place, in eastern Tibet, have been ordered to leave not only the capital, but the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) as well. Those expelled are not known to have been accused of any wrongdoing and there are no reports to date of non-Tibetans being expelled. In addition, Lhasa authorities have imposed a ban on public gatherings of more than three people in the city. Human Rights Watch believes that the progressive denial of rights to Tibetans is likely to further exacerbate tensions in the region, and urges the Chinese government to uphold its obligations on the freedom of association.

 

 

Ethiopia when opportunists fall in the Hall-of-Shame !

politics-From From  Mr.Endalkachew guluma

The recent interest in Jawar Mohammed’s rant on Islamic Forum isn’t new and should not consume too much of our precious time. It should remind us the cost of opportunistic tribal and religion peddlers on our people survival.Jawar has been preaching the same thing in similar forums before. Only after he became full adult a few years ago and started appearing in the international Media as young ‘political analyst’ to make his next opportunistic move people in large number noticed him. In fact, the late Melse said and done far worst things peddling tribalism at the same age with no one noticing.Jawar is the new generation tribal opportunist coming to age. Like many opportunist of our time he is a moving target; running loss without much challenge. He began his journey in isolation from the real world; fixated by tribalism to get his wants. As an ‘Oromo’ he ranted about victimization of the ‘Abyssinians’ Empire that didn’t get him much traction beyond his circle. As self appointed spokesperson of the ‘the oppressed Nation and Nationality’ of Ethiopia, he crossed Woyane drawn regions to form solidarity with other ethnic ‘victims’ of his imagination, that didn’t get him anywhere either. In exile, he became African-Black-Oromo-Ethiopian American to put his tribe aside in solidarity with his race as victim of ‘American racism’; that wasn’t even a blimp on the radar to be noticed.  As youth ‘victim of the old’ he went back generations and talked about the youth victims as a force in the democratic movement of the Arab Spring model to come in Africa (except Ethiopia he preserve to liberate his Oromia). He is a classic opportunist peddler of the new generation.The only people he skipped in his opportunistic victim rant are the women of Ethiopia or in his case Oromia. Whether he forgot women because they don’t serve his opportunistic agenda or he feels they don’t count as victims because he is the male species that ‘victimize’ them, nobody knows. But, when he runs out of victims that would serve his agenda and crossed regions and borders to look for Muslims as his next ‘victims’ to seek solidarity and mix it with his ‘Oromia’ ambition is when he exposed his true nature as a genocidal tribal peddler driven by some unknown force with a bigger agenda than freedom and liberation, just like the late Melse Zenawi.  Give him an audience and stir him up enough he is allover the world map at the service of what his audience want to hear while he is pushing his main agenda by all means necessary.His problem began when he is forced to break loss of tribalism to appear as ‘political analyst’ in the world Media a few years back. He completely put aside his tribal agenda to be all-he-can-be for one-and-all of the world audience; pimping universal suffrage to get platform. When he returned back and forth peddling his tribal agenda is when everything broke loss.In reality, Jawar is a manifestation of the ‘Woyane Doctrine’ that prevailed after Marxism ideology bit the dust and left the field open to be filled by tribal opportunist in a cover of Ethnic Federalism. He will be around as long as there are confused and uninformed audience (a meal ticket for opportunist) to manipulate his way in-and-out of the world audience and tribalism until he is no more. It seems the only thing opportunist of our time need to get platform these days is to wave their educational credential and a sharp mouth without doing practical anything.Jawar, like his mentors before him is stuck in his tribal prism that brought us today’s Revolutionary Democracy of Woyane; fueling his ambition. Thus, like Melse he is trying to maneuver his way in-and-out of his tribal cage to test the diversity of the world and the complexity of democratic governance that demands the truth: to-be-or- not-to-be a leader or a pimp.  The pressure is so much so tribal Jawar and universal Jawar are in collusion course.His political ambition was born on ‘Oromia’ like the late Melse was on Tigray. The only hope tribal opportunists had to have traction is preaching confined audiences of their tribe.  But, when he found out he can be a leader of the world with Ivy League education and the attention of the world Media on the top of the universal President Barak Hussein Obama ascendency to the pinnacle of world power the poor kid got caught up between a tribal peddler and the possibilities of universal leader. His tribal upbringings (thanks to Woyane and OLF) to his new fantasy of wanting to be universal without putting a penny to earn it became incompatible. He ended up fallen in Hall-of-Shame just like Melse Zenawi tried and fail to go back where he started.  As far as Ethiopians are concerned Jawar is damage good as a leader or political analyst with no redemption value. Therefore, searching for solidarity with anybody he can find to push his main agenda is the only thing left for him.When they say leaders are born not made they aren’t kidding. It is because leaders see the possibilities when opportunists see the impossibilities.   Leaders seek democracy to empower people for the possibilities but opportunists seek tribalism to stay alive. That is why Ethiopia is full of opportunities in the position of power or aspiring to be.Jawar ambition to learn political science to be an Oromo leader didn’t do him good. The more he learned the Science the more confused he become from his original tribal sin. His inconsistency from the old tribal Jawar to the new universal Jawar began to show, just like his old mentor Melse Zenawi that moved away from the old tribal Zenawi to the new opportunist universal Zenawi to end up having none.  That is why tribal opportunists go ballistic when rejected and return back to their safe house of tribalism; blaming everybody but themselves.Ethiopians are way civilized than what tribal opportunist at the bottom end offer. What we should ask ethnic opportunists is to stick with their primitive tribalism than wondering around where they don’t belong. The problem with Jawar as it was with Melse is they go in-and-out of tribalism and ended up to be no good for their ‘tribes’, the people of Ethiopia and humanity as a whole thus, democracy and individual freedom.Jawar went further in his recent rant; dragging religion in tribalism. That, my friends is when tribalism hit the bottom. Like Woyane dragging religion when minority tribalism hit the bottom Jawar greed to drag religion in his Oromia took him where no tribal peddler has gone before. There is no end to tribal opportunist journey to nowhere. Only Ethiopians can stop them on their tracks before they cause more chaos more than what they already did to stay alive.In a sprit of Ethiopiawinet tribalism is a dead end as Jawar proved us beyond reasonable doubt when he peddles the Muslim audience. One thing people didn’t notice is he was speaking, not in English, Arabic or Oromigna but in Amharic to tell the Muslim audience how ‘majority Muslim Oromia’ can save the Muslim religion itself; insulting his audience more than one way. Frankly, Ethiopians Muslim can save the lost soul before he goes further and turn in to an Imam and claim he is the messenger of the Prophet himself.

 

Today, I touch upon human rights, torture and freedom in Ethiopia !

 

FROM  MR.ENDALKACHEW GULUMA

Freedom of expression

A number of journalists and political opposition members were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on terrorism charges for calling for reform, criticizing the government, or for links with peaceful protest movements. Much of the evidence used against these individuals consisted of examples of them exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association.The trials were marred by serious irregularities, including a failure to investigate allegations of torture; denial of, or restrictions on, access to legal counsel; and use of confessions extracted under coercion as admissible evidence.In January, journalists Reyot Alemu, Woubshet Taye and Elias Kifle, opposition party leader Zerihun Gebre-Egziabher, and former opposition supporter Hirut Kifle, were convicted of terrorism offences.In June, journalist Eskinder Nega, opposition leader Andualem Arage, and other dissidents, were given prison sentences ranging from eight years to life in prison on terrorism charges.In December, opposition leaders Bekele Gerba and Olbana Lelisa were sentenced to eight and 13 years’ imprisonment respectively, for “provocation of crimes against the state”.Between July and November, hundreds of Muslims were arrested during a series of protests against alleged government restrictions on freedom of religion, across the country. While many of those arrested were subsequently released, large numbers remained in detention at the end of the year, including key figures of the protest movement. The government made significant efforts to quash the movement and stifle reporting on the protests.In October, 29 leading figures of the protest movement, including members of a committee appointed by the community to represent their grievances to the government, and at least one journalist, were charged under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation.In both May and October, Voice of America correspondents were temporarily detained and interrogated over interviews they had conducted with protesters.The few remaining vestiges of the independent media were subjected to even further restrictions.In April, Temesgen Desalegn, the editor of Feteh, one of the last remaining independent publications, was fined for contempt of court for “biased coverage” of the trial of Eskinder Nega and others. Feteh had published statements from some of the defendants. In August, he was charged with criminal offences for articles he had written or published that were deemed critical of the government, or that called for peaceful protests against government repression. He was released after a few days’ detention and the charges were dropped.In May, the authorities issued a directive requiring printing houses to remove any content which could be defined as “illegal” by the government from any publications they printed. The unduly broad provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation meant that much legitimate content could be deemed illegal.In July, an edition of Feteh was impounded after state authorities objected to one cover story on the Muslim protests and another speculating about the Prime Minister’s health. Subsequently, state-run printer Berhanena Selam refused to print Feteh or Finote Netsanet, the publication of the largest opposition party, Unity for Democracy and Justice. In November, the party announced that the government had imposed a total ban on Finote Netsanet. A large number of news, politics and human rights websites were blocked. In July, Parliament passed the Telecom Fraud Offences Proclamation, which obstructs the provision and use of various internet and telecommunications technologies.

Human rights defenders

The Charities and Societies Proclamation, along with related directives, continued to significantly restrict the work of human rights defenders, particularly by denying them access to essential funding.In October, the Supreme Court upheld a decision to freeze around US$1 million in assets of the country’s two leading human rights organizations: the Human Rights Council and the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association. The accounts had been frozen in 2009 after the law was passed.In August, the Human Rights Council, the country’s oldest human rights NGO, was denied permission for proposed national fundraising activities by the government’s Charities and Societies Agency.It was reported that the Agency began enforcing a provision in the law requiring NGO work to be overseen by a relevant government body, severely compromising the independence of NGOs.

Torture and other ill-treatment

Torture and other ill-treatment of prisoners were widespread, particularly during interrogation in pre-trial police detention. Typically, prisoners might be punched, slapped, beaten with sticks and other objects, handcuffed and suspended from the wall or ceiling, denied sleep and left in solitary confinement for long periods. Electrocution, mock-drowning and hanging weights from genitalia were reported in some cases. Many prisoners were forced to sign confessions. Prisoners were used to mete out physical punishment against other prisoners.Allegations of torture made by detainees, including in court, were not investigated.Prison conditions were harsh. Food and water were scarce and sanitation was very poor. Medical treatment was inadequate, and was sometimes withheld from prisoners. Deaths in detention were reported.In February, jailed opposition leader, Andualem Arage, was severely beaten by a fellow prisoner who had been moved into his cell a few days earlier. Later in the year, another opposition leader, Olbana Lelisa was reportedly subjected to the same treatment.In September, two Swedish journalists, sentenced in 2011 to 11 years’ imprisonment on terrorism charges, were pardoned. After their release, the two men reported that they were forced to incriminate themselves and had been subjected to mock execution before they were allowed access to their embassy or a lawyer. Between June and August, a large number of ethnic Sidama were arrested in the SNNP region. This was reportedly in response to further calls for separate regional statehood for the Sidama. A number of arrests took place in August around the celebration of Fichee, the Sidama New Year. Many of those arrested were detained briefly, then released. But a number of leading community figures remained in detention and were charged with crimes against the state.There were reports of people being arrested for taking part in peaceful protests and publicly opposing certain “development projects”.

FROM Ethiopia  MR..ENDALKACHEW GULUMA