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Ethiopia's new leader Hailemariam Desalegn, expected to assume power following the death of the longtime prime minister, readied for the post on Friday after holding talks with US President Barack Obama. But Hailemariam, 47, a relatively little-known politician overshadowed by his mentor Meles Zenawi, who died on Monday, faces tough challenges both internally and across the volatile Horn of Africa region. Obama, who telephoned Hailemariam late Thursday, urged him to "use his leadership to enhance the Ethiopian government's support for development, democracy, human rights and regional security," the White House said. Hailemariam has also met with South Sudan's foreign minister...

Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia's long-time ruler who held tight control over this East African country but was a major U.S counterterrorism ally, died of an undisclosed illness after not being seen in public for weeks, Ethiopian authorities announced Tuesday. He was 57. Meles died Monday just before midnight after contracting an infection, state TV said. Hailemariam Desalegn, who was appointed deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs in 2010, became acting prime minister and will be sworn in as prime minister after an emergency meeting of parliament, said Bereket Simon, the communications minister. Parliament is controlled by Meles' ruling party...

Ethiopian authorities arrested Sunday six Saudis on suspicion of terror financing. Saudi Gazette said, the six Saudi nationals were distributing charity to Muslims in the Ethiopian capital. A senior official at the Saudi Embassy in Addis Ababa told Al-Watan Arabic daily over telephone that all six Saudis were detained while distributing donations. A lawyer appointed by the Saudi Embassy is following up with investigations and trying to get the Saudis released, the paper said. Last Saturday, Ethiopian police clashed with scores of Muslims protesters complaining that the state is interfering in their religion, witnesses and officials said. The protesters, some...

Five-and-a-half million textbooks destined for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders in Ethiopia are being provided through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which today revealed that it awarded a $5.9 million contract to a South African company for the material. Kadimah Education, an affiliate of the Cape Town-based Kadimah Trading Corporation, within 90 days must deliver the books -- whose covers and inside jackets are to be adorned with the Ethiopian flag as well as the logos of USAID and AAMU (Alabama A&M University). AAMU in 2009 received a separate $13 million grant for an Ethiopian literacy project, which...

Clues to the origins of the Queen of Sheba legend are written in the DNA of some Africans, according to scientists.Genetic research suggests Ethiopians mixed with Egyptian, Israeli or Syrian populations about 3,000 years ago. This is the time the queen, mentioned in great religious works, is said to have ruled the kingdom of Sheba. The research, published in The American Journal of Human Genetics, also sheds light on human migration out of Africa 60,000 years ago.According to fossil evidence, human history goes back longer in Ethiopia than anywhere else in the world. But little has been known until now...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his ministers to accelerate efforts to deport citizens of South Sudan, the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Ethiopia who are living in Israel illegally on Sunday. Speaking at Sunday's cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that while it is not possible to expel citizens of Eritrea and Sudan, whose lives would be at risk in their home countries, holding facilities for them must be built in the Negev as quickly as possible. (Snip) Sudan is classified as an enemy country, another reason that infiltrators can't be returned there, he said, while Eritrea, though it has diplomatic relations with

The waters of the Blue Nile have for millennia flowed down from the Ethiopian highlands enriching the countries on its banks. The rocks that make up its riverbed have been eroded by Ethiopia's past and now that the construction of Africa's largest hydro-electric dam has begun, these same rocks are helping to build the country's future. The Grand Renaissance Dam project was announced last year by the Ethiopian government, in a unilateral move that is not sitting very well with its upstream neighbors. Egypt and Sudan say Ethiopia is threatening their greatest natural resource. If construction stays on schedule the...

Improving "private sector competitiveness" as well as increasing access to financing will help drive "sustainable economic growth" while reducing poverty, according to the Obama Administration. Consequently, it is launching the Finance and Business Services (FaBS) Project to achieve such goals -- in Ethiopia. The U.S. must step in to help because of the global economic downturn and the restrictive economic policies enacted in response to those changes, according to Solicitation #SOL-663-12-000013: Despite impressive growth over the past 5-7 years, Ethiopia’s private sector continues to struggle as a result of an inefficient business climate as well as a number of firm/industry...

Swiss hold 8 over Saudi suicide bombs Alison Langley in Zurich, and Brian Whitaker Saturday January 10, 2004 The Guardian The Swiss authorities have arrested eight people in connection with suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia. The arrests on Thursday were part of a national operation by 100 police officers who raided homes in Geneva, Bern, Zurich, Vaud and Aargau and questioned about 20 suspects. Those arrested are suspected of providing logistical support for a series of attacks by Islamic militants on housing compounds in Riyadh last May which killed 35 people, including nine assailants. Officials said all the suspects were...

Ethiopia attacked an Eritrean military base Thursday over the killing of five European tourists on its territory this year, accusing its neighbour of training "hit-and-run terrorists". Amid international appeals for restraint, government spokesman Shimeles Kemal threatened further attacks against its neighbour as long as it posed a threat to its security and warned Eritrea against any retaliation. "Early this morning Ethiopian defence forces attacked a military post inside Eritrea," Shimeles told reporters, accusing Eritrea of using the base to train and arm "hit-and-run terrorists". "These groups are operating in the Afar area in Ethiopia. "We know for certain that the...

ASHKELON, Israel -- Israel is closing the books on a rare millennia-old Jewish tradition. Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia's ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel's rabbis are now working to phase out the community's white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism. The effort has added to the sense of discrimination felt by Israel's 120,000 Ethiopian citizens. These sentiments boiled over this month after a group of landlords in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi refused to accept Ethiopians as tenants.The move has prompted large...

American Jewish liberals can congratulate themselves – finally, the boycott of Israel has gone mainstream with Montgomery County, MD, deciding to drop its “Sister City” agreement with the Israeli town of Beth Shemesh. The reason for this unprecedented decision to stick it to a poor Jewish township within the “green line” has to do not with the Palestinians, but with the internal affairs of the Jewish state – namely, the recent spate of ugly attacks against women by some members of a local ultra-Orthodox sect. Celebrating this “brave” decision by his hometown, Marc Tracy pointed out in “Tablet” that Montgomery...

Ethiopia says Eritrea-trained gunmen killed touristsTue, Jan 17 2012By Aaron MaashoADDIS ABABA | Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:10am EST ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Two Germans, two Hungarians and an Austrian were killed by gunmen in an attack on tourists in the remote Afar region of northern Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government said on Wednesday.Government spokesman Bereket Simon said a Hungarian and an Italian were wounded while two Germans and two Ethiopians had been kidnapped in the Tuesday attack, that happened in an area prone to banditry and where separatist rebels have operated.

The AU wants Africa to manufacture and export finished products to its trading partners rather than just selling them the raw materials as it does now. She cited China, India, the EU and US and other rising stars in trade with the continent, including Turkey and Latin America, and said the AU had held talks on the new breed of partnerships with some of them. The AU also wants Africa to have a veto-wielding seat on the UN Security Council, and a place at the G20 negotiating table, Ali said. The peace and security that have eluded Africa for decades...

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Worthy News)– More than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church in the village of Qoto Baloso, Ethiopia, on Nov. 29. The students screamed "Allahu Akbar" as they set fire to St. Arsema Orthodox Church, which was built on land used by the Christian community for more than 60 years. According to Inspector Mustefa Bashir of Silte Province, police had already ruined the roof after a court ruled that the church was built without a permit, but as for the razing of the church by students, we are investigating to determine those responsible.

The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote today (Monday) on whether to impose sanctions against Eritrea. A UN report earlier this year accused Asmara of plotting to bomb an African Union summit in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. The UN said most of those arrested in the plot received training and orders from Eritrean officers. The UN also says its Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea has documented evidence of Eritrean payments to individuals linked to the Islamic radical al-Shabab rebels in Somalia... The Security Council refused to delay today's planned vote after Eritrea asked for an extension to...

(Reuters) - New convoys of heavily-armed Ethiopian troops have crossed into Somalia and are heading for central areas, residents said Sunday, days after Addis Ababa said it planned to send troops to help Somali and Kenya forces fighting Islamist insurgents. Ethiopia, which intervened in Somalia between 2006 and 2009, said Friday that it would deploy troops inside Somalia again for a "brief period. An Ethiopian government official also acknowledged Friday that a small force was already there on a reconnaissance mission. Ethiopia had previously denied scores of military trucks and armoured vehicles had entered Somalia on November 19 and 20....

Ethiopia is being sucked back into Somalia to open another front against Islamist rebels battling Kenyan forces but even a military victory is unlikely to end two decades of anarchy unless the country's feuding politicians and clans want peace. A small Ethiopian contingent rolled across the border on November 19 and 20, although Addis Ababa has publicly denied its troops are there. They have revived bases used during its ill-fated 2006-2009 campaign to rid the anarchic country of hardline Islamist rebels. Regional leaders were meeting in the Ethiopian capital on Friday to discuss ways of supporting Kenya's campaign. Mogadishu has...

Ordinary measures are not warranted anymore for I have overcome for you and in Me you reside in the heavenlies. So cast off your flesh when it distracts you from My Will of virtue and Righteousness and "Remain" in "MY" Loyalty for I AM all you need to KNOW! John 15:9 (AMP) 9I have loved you, [just] as the Father has loved Me; abide in My love [[a]continue in His love with Me]. Acts 17:28 28For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his...

Ethiopian troops have crossed the border into Somalia in significant numbers, eyewitnesses say. They say they saw at least 20 vehicles carrying Ethiopian troops. A few hundred soldiers were seen in Gurel town in Galgudud region and there were other sightings around Beledweyne. Ethiopian authorities have denied the incursion. Their soldiers have not been in Somalia in large numbers since 2009 when they withdrew after a controversial three-year presence. These reports come as Kenyan troops continue their efforts to defeat fighters of the Islamist group al-Shabab in the south of Somalia.