U.S. Delegation to Funeral includes Gayle Smith, Person who brought Meles to power.

August 31, 2012

(Ethiopian Review) — The U.S. is sending a delegation consistinig of junior officials to Meles’ funeral. It is led by Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and includes Johnnie Carson, assistant secretary of state for African Affairs and Gayle Smith, director of African Affairs in the National Security Council.

Tagadalay Gayle Smith is known also to have spent time in the deserts of Tigray fighting along side the TPLF. Read more…

Kefelegn Alemu Worku, Ethiopian Torture Suspect, Arrested In Denver, Colorado

Note: There are a number TPLF torturers also who live peacefully in foreign countries today.  Time will come  when they will also be hunted down like Kefalegn Alemu, Dergue era torturer.

Aug 31, 2012, DENVER — Federal agents in Denver have arrested an Ethiopian immigrant, saying he tortured political prisoners in his home country.

Prosecutors said Friday that three former Ethiopian political prisoners identified the man they arrested last week as Kefelegn Alemu Worku (kah-FEH’-lun ah-LEE’-moo WER’-koo), saying he beat and tormented them and others in the late 1970s. They say all three picked him out of a photo lineup. Read more…

Africa’s last empire shaken by death of Meles Zenawi

Death of an autocrat: What comes next for Ethiopia?

Tens of thousands of mourners gathered ins Addis Ababa to pay their respects to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, who died on August 20. (Carl De Souza / AFP / Getty Images / August 30, 2012)

August 31, 2012 (LA Times) – Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, who died last week after a long illness, liked to portray his country’s leadership as collective. But there was never any doubt about who was in charge.

Ethiopia: Mohammed Aman stuns Rudisha

ZURICH, August 30 (Capitalfm)- Ethiopian teenager Mohammed Aman trumped world and Olympic champion David Rudisha of Kenya in emphatic style in the men’s 800m in the Diamond League meeting here on Thursday.

This race, Rudisha’s only outing since he won gold in London earlier this month in a new world record of 1min 40.91sec, had been billed as another chance for the 23-year-old Kenyan to better his own mark.

But no one had counted on the kick of 18-year-old Aman, who finished sixth at the Olympics but who importantly last year became the first and last man to defeat Rudisha since 2009. Read more…

Gold mining promises big boost for Ethiopia’s development

Exploiting Ethiopia’s gold reserves should increase exports and diversify the economy – if the industry is properly regulated 

An engineer gives instructions to a drilling machine operator in the Lega Dembi gold mine in southern Ethiopia. Photograph: Sven Dumelie

By Matthew Newsome

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 August 2012

The outlook for many people in Ethiopia seems less than bright following the sudden death of the prime minister Meles Zenawi last week, yet as far as the country’s natural resources are concerned, the outlook is golden. Gold reserves could be a source of greater development for the country.

British firm Nyota Minerals is about to become the first foreign company to receive a mining licence to extract gold from an estimated resource of 52 tonnes in western Ethiopia. Its chief executive, Richard Chase, was involved in Tanzania’s gold boom in the 1990s. He believes Ethiopia has similar potential. “There are huge areas of relatively underexplored and unexplored prospective ground, and the infrastructure is not too dissimilar [to Tanzania], although the availability of cheap electricity is a definite plus,” he says. Read more…

Ethiopia must improve its human rights record to be a credible candidate for election to the Human Rights

Written statement to the 21st Session of the UN Human Rights Council (10 – 28 September 2012)

Summary

August 30, 2012

Restrictions on freedom of expression and association in Ethiopia have severely limited Ethiopians’ ability to scrutinise the human rights situation in the country and to report or comment on government policy and practice, including its compliance with its international human rights obligations. These restrictions have created a context in which silence and impunity are the norm in response to human rights violations. In this context, human rights violations including torture, arbitrary detention and forced evictions are widespread but seriously under-reported, accountability for perpetrators of violations is rare and victims of violations are deprived of assistance. Read more…

Ethiopia: What Might Desalegn’s Premiership Bring?

Supported by the US but less popular with the TPLF, it is unclear if Ethiopia under Hailemariam Desalegn will see a continuation of Meles-style governance.

Hailemariam Desalegn at the World Economic Forum on Africa in 2011. Photograph by World Economic Forum/Matthew Jordaan.

Aug 29, 2012 (Think Africa Press) – Ethiopia is moving into an uncertain new era. With the death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi who had ruled the country since 1991, the country is moving into the realm of the unknown with regards to politics and leadership, and internal divisions within the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – the main part of Ethiopia’s ruling coalition the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) – are already revealing themselves.

Hailemariam Desalegn, the relatively unknown deputy prime minister, has taken over the reins of power in the interim. The United States is reportedly advising the TPLF to support the premiership of Desalegn, a Wolayta from southern Ethiopia, but it is believed that some TPLF loyalists would prefer the leadership to remain in the hands of a Tigrayan. Read more…