ETHIOPIA: HIV testing numbers rising steadily
HIV testing has been expanding
ADDIS ABABA, 6 June 2012 (PlusNews) – Successful HIV testing campaigns in Ethiopia are showing a ten-fold jump in the number of people testing each year since 2005.
“Currently, 36 percent of women and 38 percent of men have ever been tested and received their test results,” the latest Demographic and Health Survey noted. ”Twenty percent of women and 21 percent of men have been tested for HIV and received their results in the 12 months before the [latest] survey,” published in March 2012.
“HIV testing has increased ten-fold since the 2005 EDHS [Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey], when just 2 percent of women and men had been tested and received their results in the 12 months before the survey.”
First launched in 1999, HIV counselling and testing has been expanding – more than 2,300 sites now provide counselling and testing services across the country. Ethiopia uses both client- and provider-initiated testing, as well as community outreach testing and facility-based testing. Read more…
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Norway, Ethiopian refugees: why brazen solution?
by Keffyalew Gebremedhin
June 6, 2012 (Transforming Ethiopia) – For several decades, Norway has been known internationally as one of the pillars of United Nations efforts in ensuring respect for fundamental human rights nationally and internationally. In that respect, its important contributions towards alleviation of the refugee problem both through the evolution of the normative processes within the United Nations system, such as the development of international instruments, and its steadfastness in giving protection to asylum seekers within its territory have been widely acknowledged.
Therefore, if Norwegians feel special pride in their country’s human rights records, it has been duly earned. When people from across the globe have paid through the years their great respect to that record, it has also been a recognition duly deserved.
Nonetheless, since 2009 the Norwegian government’s implementation of the so-called ‘assisted returnees’ program, without adequately ensuring returned refugees would not be exposed to dangers once they are back in their home countries have continued to give rise to serious concerns. Read more…
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Has Saudi Star learned right lessons from deadly anti-’land grab’ attacks on its Ethiopian farm?
by Chido Makunike
June 6, 2012 (African Argriculture) – Major agricultural investor in Ethiopia, Saudi Star, has bigger problems there than it might have expected.
Negative publicity regarding Ethiopia’s aggressive drive to attract foreign investors into its agricultural sector has been relentless in recent years. The government is accused of brutally relocating communities to make way for the foreign investors, a charge it denies.
But now the local resentment has boiled over. In recent weeks there have been a number of reports of fatal armed attacks against Saudi Star. Ethiopian employees and Pakistan sub-contractors of the company are said to have been killed by groups thought to be opposed to the land give-aways, the government, or to both.
In a statement in response to what it said was the killing in late April by armed men of at least six Pakistanis and four Ethiopians, the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) summarized the reasons for ill-will against Saudi Star and other big investors, and against the government. Read more…
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Ergamtoota Diinaa 6 fi Konkolaataa tokko irratti Ummanni Tarkaanfii Fudhate
Gabaasa Waxabajjii 06,2012 | Qeerroo | Giddaa Ayyaanaa
Waxabajjii 5, 2012 Onaa Giddaa Ayyaanaa Bakkaa Qaaqaro Adaree jdhamutti konkolaataa basastonnii wayyaanee qabatee sakkata’insaa sabboontotaa Oromoo FDG dhosan jedhamaniif bobba’an irraatti tarkaanfiin sabboontotaan fudhatameen luukkelee diinaa namootaa 6 madeesuun konkolaataan isaan ittiin deemaa turan guutummaatti hojii ala taasifamee jira.
Lukkeeleen diinaaf ergamuun sabboontota Oromoo adamsuuf bobba’anii karaatti tarkaanfiin warraaqsaan rukutaman kuniin keessaa.
Categories: Oromia Tags:
Ogaden Refugees Face Torture and Degrading Treatment in Puntland Jails
Bosaso, June 6, 2012 (Ogaden News Agency)–There are currently a large number of refugees from Ogaden region who are miserably languishing in jails in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland regional administration.
The Puntland authorities have not yet provided any concrete evidence of wronging on the part of these illegally arrested refugees who are tortured in their jails except to regard them, by virtue of running away from persecution in their home country, as potential anti- Ethiopian Ogaden rebels who might constitute a threat to the security of Puntland. Some of these detainees are businessmen, elders and youth who have been residents in Puntland for a long time while others were simply refugees passing through their territory.
The Puntland administration has been engaging in this criminal practice, which violates international laws and conventions concerning the rights of refugees and contravenes the domestic constitution of Puntland, for a long time. Read more…
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Ethiopia: Security Forces Raid University Campus
HRLHA Urgent Action
June 5, 2012
Peaceful Demonstration Needs Democratic Solution Not Violence
The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) is highly concerned about the Ethiopian Government-sponsored violence against its citizens in worship places and workplaces in general and in the academic institutions in particular. A very recent case is the Ethiopian security forces stormed dormitories at Haromaya University in Eatern Hararge, Oromia, to break up a peaceful demonstration and arresting many Water Engineering Faculty students from their dormitories. In this violence which occurred on June 1, 2012, up on the demand of students for the improvement of academic condition in their Faculty, all students of 2-5 years courses of Water Engineering Faculty were taken out of their dormitories by force and kept in open air for two days in the campus without food and shelter surrounded by the security forces. Among them many students were severely beaten and some were taken by the security forces to unknown destination. In solidarity with the demand of their fellow friends, all the students of the other faculties at the Haromaya University quitted to enter into classrooms on Monday June 4, 2012, and teaching – learning process was interrupted since the incidence until this urgent action was compiled. Read more…
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