Ethiopian govt. to press Ogaden campaign despite criticism

Check back with ETP for more news throughout the day

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Also:
- Today's Top HEADLINES^Updated
- INTERNATIONAL news^Updated
- Special Coverage: Burma Crackdown**
- Picture of the Day
- Tribute to Aleka Ayalew Tamiru (Tewodros Abebe)
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NAIROBI, Aug 23 (Reuters) -The Ethiopian government, facing low-level, armed opposition in most corners of the country, shows no sign of letting up in a ruthless drive against rebels in the remote Ogaden region.

Government soldiers are accused of burning homes, seizing livestock and killing civilians in the toughest crackdown yet on insurgents in this near-forgotten part of the vast Horn of Africa country.

(Picture - Prime Minister Meles Zenawi)

Rights groups say abuses escalated in Ogaden when the government launched its campaign two months ago to root out separatist insurgents who attacked a Chinese-run oil exploration field in April, killing 74 people.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has branded rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) as "terrorists" bankrolled by arch-foe Eritrea.

Shrugging off pressure from the West, which fears the conflict may further destabilise the Horn, Meles asserts his right to rid the region, bordering lawless Somalia, of the ONLF's "cold-blooded murderers". "No stone will be left unturned," he has vowed.(More...)

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ETHIOPIAN AMERICAN CIVIC ADVOCACY (EACA) CALLS FOR A SENATE HEARING ON THE OGADEN

The Ethiopian American Civic Advocacy (EACA) calls upon the international community to demand for the immediate halt to the atrocious and gross human rights abuses taking place against Ethiopian civilians in the Ogaden by the Ethiopian authoritarian regime.(More...)

[Request a Senate Hearing on the Ethiopian Ogaden Crisis]


[AUDIO] NPR'S IN-DEPTH REPORTING ON LUCY’S (DINKINESH) TOUR

The Lucy exhibition has been praised by some as a coup for Texas and denounced by others as the reckless exploitation of one of humanity's most famous ancestors. Renowned paleontologist Richard Leakey even called it a form of prostitution.[Listen]

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Today's Top HEADLINES^Updated

-US Announces Emergency Aid to Ethiopia's Ogaden
-Hugo Chavez to visit Addis Abeba
-Ethiopian govt. upset by U.S. bill
-Statement from the US state department
-Pakistan appoints new envoy to Ethiopia
-Gunmen kill another journalist in Somalia
-Ethio-Eritrea Conflict Fueling Somalia Crisis
-Insurgents Attack Mogadishu Police Stations
-Ethiopian find pushes split back millions of years
-Ethiopia's Dibaba seeks slice of history in Osaka
-Ethiopia's millenium and Chinese technology

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STOCKHOLM: CELEBRATION OF THE ETHIOPIAN MILLENNIUM EVENT SCHEDULE

RESPONSE TO GARY KLEIN OF DLA PIPER
(Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam)

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS^Updated

-Sudan tells EU and Canadian envoys to leave
-Firms Helped US Government's Warrantless Wiretaps
-Ex-Pakistan PM aims to bring down Musharraf
-ETA marks end of ceasefire with car-bomb
-Iran shuts barber shops for 'Western' hairstyles
-Rich Russian tries to buy U.S. bomber at airshow
-Kibaki refuses to sign proposed media law (Admirable!!)

Special Coverage: Burma Crackdown**

-US Condemns Burma's Crackdown - AUDIO
-BBC: Junta break up Burma protests - VIDEO
-Junta squashes more protests in Yangon
-Reuters:BURMA demo crackdown - VIDEO

Picture of the Day^{Posted again by popular demand}

Click to enlarge
(Traditional court in the oromia region where the Oldest Man Serves as Judge. Ethiopia. L Herbert 1966)
Ethiopia, long considered the cradle of mankind, is also credited by scholars as having developed one of the first egalitarian systems in Africa, thanks to the rich culture of the Oromo.

Professor Donald N. Levine writes;

"The institutions of the gadaa system promoted an ethos of egalitarianism in many ways.....Gadaa structures political relations in an anti-authoritarian direction. It does so through the regular circulation of elites, such that no ruling class is in power for more than eight years....In the gadaa system, hereditary and elected leaders serve complementary but separate roles. Leaders are elected for a single term of finite length, with the expectation that they will turn over the reigns of governance smoothly to a properly appointed successor cohort.(OROMO NARRATIVES)”

-Learn more about the 'Gadaa' system

Tribute to Aleka Ayalew Tamiru

(By Tewodros Abebe)



Dear reader, as you probably have heard by now, Aleka Ayalew Tamiru, the renowned theologian and scholar, passed away last Sunday at age 83. Click here to read tribute to Aleka Ayalew by poet Tewodros Abebe.




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