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The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency on Sunday described President Obama's Middle East policy as one of "willful ignorance," saying the administration needs a clearer strategy for dealing with conflicts emerging across the region. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said during an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that recent developments in the Middle East are moving in a bad direction for the United States, with Iran "clearly on the march" to influence events in a "regional sectarian war." “At the end of the day, we have just this incredible policy confusion — never mind what our strategy is to...

NEW YORK – A fragment of jaw bone dating back 2.8 million years is evidence that the first humans evolved more than 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, scientists reported Wednesday. The fossil, which was uncovered in the Afar region in northern Ethiopia, is dated very close to the time that the human, or "Homo" genus, or group, split away from more ape-like ancestors like Australopithecus afarensis, best known for the fossil skeleton Lucy discovered in 1974.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The bulldozers, tractors and cranes are busy day and night, paving new roads, building tall glass buildings and constructing a new light rail system to stitch together the city’s ends. In less than five years, the city’s skyline has changed drastically. Above the dust, in a seven-story building overlooking Meskel Square, sits Abiy Gebeyehu, a real estate development manager at the Sunshine Construction Company. He is going through files and figures, looking down at the spot where Ethiopia’s former communist dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam, once smashed to the ground three bottles of what was supposedly blood...

More Than 500,000 In U.S. Could Be At Risk Of Female Genital Excision Preliminary data shows that up to 507,000 women and girls in the United States were at risk of female genital excision in 2013. By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS A new study finds that nearly 507,000 women and girls in the U.S. could be at risk of female genital excision There is anecdotal evidence of U.S. girls being sent to their parents' home countries for 'vacation cutting' Nearly 507,000 women and girls in the United States could be at risk of female genital excision, including 57,000 in California, a new...

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, 90, fell down steps from a podium after speaking to supporters upon his return from Ethiopia, say witnesses. Mugabe appeared to miss a step and toppled when he left the raised lectern at the airport Wednesday afternoon, according to several witnesses, who insisted on anonymity because of security concerns. His aides quickly helped him up and escorted him to his limousine which sped away, they said. […] Zimbabwe, a once-prosperous nation of 13 million people in southern Africa, has struggled since Mugabe’s government began seizing white-owned farms in 2000. Mugabe is accused of using widespread violence...

The construction of a huge dam in Ethiopia and the introduction of large-scale agricultural businesses has been controversial - finding out what local people think can be hard, but with the help of a bottle of rum nothing is impossible. After waiting several weeks for letters of permission from various Ethiopian ministries, I begin my road trip into the country's southern lowlands. I want to investigate the government's controversial plan to take over vast swathes of ancestral land, home to around 100,000 indigenous pastoralists, and turn it into a major centre for commercial agriculture, where foreign agribusinesses and government plantations...

Europe Should Learn Ethiopia’s ‘Islam Lesson’Posted By Raymond Ibrahim On December 17, 2014 @ 12:40 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments Originally published by VIE.Yet another Christian church was destroyed by Muslims in Ethiopia—this time by local authorities.Heaven’s Light Church, which served some 100 evangelical Christians, was demolished last November 28.  The church had stood and functioned in the Muslim-majority city of Harar for five years.  In the days preceding the destruction, officials forcibly removed the church’s exterior sign and warned believers not to worship there, citing complaints by a local Muslim.  Officials further told church members who had...

For once we have riots that are not by anti-white black protesters — to whose violence Ferguson, among others, has accustomed us — but by indigenous Europeans defending their land against invaders. In Rome, on the night of 10–11 November, a group of residents of the Tor Sapienza suburb living in public housing attempted to assault the local centre for refugees and asylum seekers incongruously named “Il sorriso” (The Smile), throwing stones and bottles and setting dumpsters on fire, amidst broken glass and screams of “We want to burn you”. The reception centre houses over 40 youths — Gambians,...

The Houthis, Iranian backed rebels have taken control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. The comparison to Hezbollah is apt as Reuters is reporting that the Houthi are blocking the appointment of Yemen’s president. So what’s Iran’s interest in Yemen? It was spelled out by Michael Segall of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs two and a half years ago. A couple of Segall’s observations are sobering: "Iran regards Yemen in general, and its Shia northern part in particular, as a springboard for subversion and for creating a tangible threat to Saudi Arabia, its main religious-political rival in the region. Iran also...

Posted: 10/09/2014 9:18 pm EDT Updated: 10/09/2014 11:59 pm EDT CYLVIA HAYES Share 111 Tweet 29 Email 7 Comment 0 The fiancée of Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) admitted on Thursday that she accepted $5,000 nearly two decades ago in exchange for marrying an Ethiopian man to help him obtain residency in the U.S. Cylvia Hayes, who got engaged to Kitzhaber over the summer, used the money to pay for a laptop and school expenses,

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Oregon First Lady Cylvia Hayes regularly speaks about her hardscrabble background—a childhood in poverty, her struggle to get through school, and her two marriages before meeting Gov. John Kitzhaber, to whom she is now engaged. On Wednesday, WW published a story about the private consulting work Hayes, 47, has performed while first lady. In the story, we reported Hayes had actually been married and divorced three times. That’s a small detail that might seem otherwise unremarkable. In 1997, King County, Wash., marriage records show, Hayes married a teenage Ethiopian immigrant 11 years younger than her. Obtaining residency or citizenship for...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN 6) — Oregon First Lady Cylvia Hayes admitted she had a third marriage to an Ethiopian man to help him get his citizenship, and said Gov. John Kitzhaber had no idea about this event in her life until Wednesday afternoon. At a press conference Thursday, Hayes, 46, apologized to “John, the person I love above all others.” She said she needs to take some “personal time to reflect and look at my relationship with John.” Kitzhaber, 67, and Hayes announced their engagement earlier this summer. A Willamette Week story questions whether the marriage to the Ethiopian man...

A fire station was quarantined and a police station evacuated Friday evening after a man claiming to be from Africa showed up at the Baton Rouge Police precinct on Highland Road ill. Police said, given the current situation with Ebola across the globe and the events in Texas, they decided to take precautionary measures. The measures included calling medical responders, HAZMAT and evacuating the police station between downtown and LSU. Officers said they were concerned because the man was obviously ill, a spokesperson said. The fire station near the North Gates of LSU was closed Friday night and fire fighters...

Meskel Square Intersection Never complain about traffic again. Here's a day in the life of one of the most ridiculous intersections in the world - Meskel Square, Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia.

It's not just the comic - but in reality tragic - waste of public money from both the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Legal Aid system. It's also the umpteenth confirmation that the money given to Third World countries as foreign aid helps local tyrants to better oppress their people. And it's one of those very people now who is saying it not only in words but also in actions, so convinced he is of it as to be prepared to sue Britain. "Ethiopian farmer gets legal aid... To sue us for sending aid to Ethiopia: Case...

Navi Pillay said Tel Aviv's two-week onslaught on Gaza - which has cost more than 650 Palestinians lives - would be thoroughly investigated. Ms Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the attacks have destroyed houses and hospitals and killed civilians. "These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. "Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated." According to Gaza officials, 475 houses have been destroyed and 2,644 damaged, while 46 schools, 56 mosques...

GENEVA, July 23 (Reuters) - The United Nations on Wednesday launched an international inquiry into human rights violations and crimes that may have been committed by Israel during its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The U.N. Human Rights Council condemned the Israeli assault which it said had involved "disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks", including aerial bombing of civilian areas, collective punishment, and the killing of more than 650 Palestinians. At the end of an emergency session, the 47-member forum adopted a resolution presented by Palestinians by a vote of 29 states in favor, 1 against (the United States) with 17...

Meanwhile In Ethiopia Goat riding man for a change.

“WHAT?” I thought. “Where is this?!” And so began my research into the fantastic rock-cut underground churches in Lalibela. In the twelfth century, King Lalibela, a member of the Zagwe dynasty which had seized the throne of Ethiopia around 1000 A.D., sought support from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. To garner support, he commissioned a series of twelve extraordinary churches in the small town of Roha (now renamed Lalibela). He hoped to create a New Jerusalem, a pilgrimage site for Christians who could not make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.