Chilada baboons of Ethiopia and studies on social role of imitation in autism.

Chilada/Gelada  baboons (Theropithecus gelada), also called bleeding-heart baboons  live in Northern mountains of Ethiopia. They live in social groups of about a dozen females and fewer males. Each group is lead by a dominant male who has mating privileges with all the females.

Chiladas are highly sociable primates with a relatively large vocal range. The lip-smacking vocalizations of Chilada baboons may provide clues as to how speech originated.

Lip-smacking can be seen in many non-human primates, but only Chilada baboons (a terrestrial, Old World monkey Theropithecus gelada) vocalize while doing it. These vocalizations, known as "wobbles", can sound disconcertingly human - when Thore Bergman (the author of the paper) was observing Chilada in Ethiopia he frequently mistook the sound for someone trying to talk to him, only to find it was Chilada instead. Though other primates are known to make complex sounds, only Chilada vocalizations possess pitch and volume fluctuations similar to speech.

Previous research with macaques revealed that the facial movements involved in lip-smacking were very speechlike, indicating a precursor to speech. However neither macaques nor any other primate ever vocalized during these lip-smacks. The fact that Chilada vocalize during lip-smacks supports this hypothesis as a possible origin of speech (though likely not the only route to speech).

The function of the wobbles is not currently known. A social function seems likely, especially when comparing social complexity between Chiladas and their nearest relatives, baboons. Baboons, who don't vocalize as much or smack their lips, live in smaller and more short-lived social groups. Bergman is curious whether the wobbles allow Chilada to communicate things other monkeys can't.

Chilada baboons might have answer for children with autism, as human mirror mechanism for action understanding and imitation. Always good things come from the Promised Land. Because, everything grows with Love, Ethiopia.

To read the paper:
 http://download.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/PIIS0960982213002091.pdf?intermediate=true
The social role of imitation in autism:
http://depts.washington.edu/isei/iyc/21.2_Ingersoll.pdf

Challenges of women empowerment in Africa. From wooden plane to drone.

I keep passing the same places with names, which to me appear strange (and not just because my Kiswahili is not among the best ones).
This place- a small truck stop village on the highway between Chalinze and Dar Es Salam in Tanzania-I worked out the literal meaning of the name a while ago: ‘’picture of a plane (or bird)’’
Lakini, kwa nini?
According to local Tanzanian the place is named after this little toy plane which the bar owner put up- and now the whole village is named after this.

I took picture of the wooden plane, and I get a glimpse about the following post:

African leaders have reaffirmed their commitments to gender equality, women’s rights and empowerment in both economic and political spheres following the adoption of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, (2003) and The Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SDGEA, 2004). This culminated in the adoption of the African Union (AU) Gender Policy in 2009 and the launch of African Women’s Decade in 2010, reaffirmed with the launch of the Fund for African Women in 2011. African governments have also made commitments through a number of international agreements. Leaders have committed to promote maternal, newborn, and child health and development in Africa by 2015, notably through the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa.
A series of commitments emphasizing gender concerns in social and economic spheres have also been made through AU and regional level sectoral declarations, including on education, health, youth employment, food security and migration.
What results have been achieved?
Education: The majority of African countries are on course to achieve the MDG primary enrolment and gender parity targets in education: 10 out of 27 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and all North African countries have already reached parity. Girl dropout rates remain high, especially in rural areas. This challenge also lies at secondary and tertiary levels, where African governments are under-investing.
Health: Much has been done to scale up prevention and treatment, but the disproportionate impact on women remains a major challenge .Maternal health in sub-Saharan Africa has improved, with maternal deaths per 100,000 live births falling by 26% between 1980 and 2008. The rate, however, remains high compared to North Africa and the rest of the world. Major gains have been made in increasing skilled attendance at birth in Northern Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind, with births attended by a skilled health professional averaging just 46% in 2009, against 42% a decade earlier.
Economic participation: 36% of the sub-Saharan African population in waged employment is women. In North Africa the proportion (outside agriculture) is less than 20%. Women represent half of the agricultural labour force in Africa. Despite their essential contribution, women in Africa have less access than men to productive resources, including land, livestock, labor, education, extension and financial services, and technology. On a more positive trend, the number of African women in legislative, senior or managerial jobs has increased steadily to reach 24.8%, compared to an estimated 28% global average.
Political representation:  In 2011, sub-Saharan Africa had reached 20% female participation in parliamentary representation, slightly above the world average of 19%. North Africa increased to 12%, up from only 3% in 2000. Six countries have surpassed 30% or higher representation in parliaments, mainly due to constitutional quotas and progressive laws. Two of the top three global performers are African, with percentages of women in decision-making positions exceeding 40%. Increased representation of women in decision-making at local government levels is also reported in a number of countries. However, the number of women in parliament has recently declined in some countries, indicating that more needs to be done to ensure equitable political representation.

What are the future priority actions?

• Expedite measures to enhance access to the African Fund for Women;
• Harmonize all programmes that promote health and well being of women and girls including strengthening of anti-retroviral access programmes;
• Continued actions to promote parity in politics and decision-making, including concrete moves towards constitutional provisions.
Development partners
Deliver on Busan commitments to:
• help collect and make full use of data disaggregated by sex;
• integrate targets for gender women’s empowerment in accountability mechanisms;
• promote gender parity in all aspects of development programmes

Sources:
.http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/outlook.
http://www.africapartnershipforum.org.
http://www.africaprogresspanel.com/en/our-work/publications/annual-report-2011.
http://www.bond.org.uk/data/files/ActionPlan_Development_Annex2.pdf.

Datura, astenager-weed

In Ethiopian history prior to examinations, church students often chew and swallow a Datura weed called astenager to enhance memory of biblical quotations. Datura has been a popular poison for suicide and murder in India and some parts of Europe.
When we were kids two of my cousins take a grounded seed of datura, after they lost all their money in a foosball game at holiday eve - Meskel; later that night they start to show violent behaviour and hallucination, where they insanely end up in a hospital for a week. The side effect caused them confusion and memory loss; they both forget the names of their girlfriends and soon break-up.  It was a horrendous, and likely_fatal_experience.

Some are flying  HIGH some are flying LOW!

Job hunting, Google Alerts

How many of you are using Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service. Google Alerts can be a great tool for monitoring any search term you care about—including your own name and other personal information.


For example, you might be seeking a specific kind of job or scholarships/event/news that you wish to be informed before anyone else; or you want to be keeping current on a competitor or industry.
Google make it real. If anything with your interest is uploaded on the web, Google Alerts will instantly update you via your e-mail,

Wish you a speedy hunting in your interests, in a virtual world business.

ማን ጎበኘኝ ፤ በሉል፥ሲታይ (My Visitor Globe)

ሉሏን፥ ይጫኗት

Zanzibar, 02 July 2012

In the 2nd of July 2012, I travelled to Zanzibar.

Zan-zi-barrr the very name evokes mystery, intrigue and exotic, sultry adventure. Stone Town is where it simmers, with its crumbling coral-rag palaces, winding, walled alleyways, and a history steeped in spices.

I would be lying if I told you it was as if time had stood still, the ancient trading hub of East Africa is now a relic of its former past, and it’s a crying shame not more has been done to preserve this UNESCO World Heritage Site. But, there is charm in the cultural melting pot that remains – recessed Persian houses jostle with modern Afro clothing boutiques, a waterfront dotted with old Arabic dhows, rusting 70′s-style ferries, and an Italian owned Gelato shop.
Here are my collections in the magical jumble of Stone Town.

     

wandering in Stone Town

     

Aerial view of Zanzibar, in my flight from Dar to Tanga

Our Ship approaching Zanzibar, view of port town

Leaving Dar Es Selam port

Bites and sea food; Forodhani,  night food market

As the sun sets in Stone Town, locals and tourists alike flock down to Forodhani Gardens on the waterfront, where a nightly food market serves up hot griddles laden with seafood. Quench your thirst with a freshly squeezed sugarcane juice, sample skewers of octopus dipped in tamarind, lobster and crab claw, platters of prawns and Zanzibari pizza (a chapati-type pita bread stuffed with mince meat, egg, mayo, onion & chilli).

Sugar cane juice, Forodhani 

Port Cafe

 Palace Museum
An imposing white-washed building, the once residence of the Zanzibari royalty is now a museum dedicated to archiving the history of Zanzibar’s Sultans. Climb the central staircase and peel off into rooms archiving the sultanate era (1828-1964) with an eclectic mix of leftover furniture, paintings and such like. Each floor represents a different period but make sure to spend time in Princess Salme’s room.

 Spice Tour

Anyone visiting Zanzibar simply must go on a spice tour, admittedly it’s a well trodden tourist trap, but the experience is well worth it. You’ll taxi out to an interior plantation (many of which are no longer commercially functioning) and a local guide will walk you amongst vanilla pod vines, fields of lemongrass, cumin seed pods and turmeric root. Smell, sample, savour – the experience is a sensual journey into the spices that flavour our food.

Vanilla

Screwed Coconut tree

Slave Chamber and Anglican Cathedral
I grope my way down the narrow stairs to the cells. Only two slits in the thick wall allow daylight to come in. When the caretaker switches on one bare bulb I can take in the terror of this confined place. It is here that slaves awaited their lot. The ceilings were too low for them to stand upright nor could they sit down as the place was crammed. As a result many suffocated and only the strongest survived.
In 1873 the slave trade was declared illegal. Consequently the slave market in Stone Town was closed but the slave trade continued until 1918 when Tanganyika became a British protectorate. Exploitation of the former slaves did not stop; they worked for a pittance in the spice plantations. In 1961 when Tanganyika became independent the slave trade stopped for once and for all.
Next to the slave chamber is the Anglican cathedral Church of Christ built in 1873, the year the slave markets closed. The interior of the church is full of reminders of the slave trade. Dr. Livingstone, explorer, doctor, anti-slave activist, is commemorated in a stained glass window. There is also a crucifix made of the wood of the tree under which Livingstone’s heart was buried. It was his explicit wish that his heart should remain in Africa. A red circle next to the altar marks the spot of a post. Slaves were tied to it, then whipped to test their strength and resilience before being sold.

We can all applaud Dr. Livingston for his tireless work in abolishing the legal trafficking of slaves from this part of the world. The sad part is, slavery and human trafficking is NOT over. Instead of importing Africans to work in coffee, cotton and tobacco plantations it’s now occurring for even more sinister uses and mainly women and children.

Ethiopian Restaurant
Later that day I reached at Axum Ethiopian Restaurant, located down Stone town
I gorged with Shiro and Doro wot. But very expensive which cost me around 40000ths, equivalent of 400ETB. The doro is not so good, neither the Shiro; for this home grown boy there is nothing better tasting like mom's Shiro and Doro wot.

                                                               Ethiopian Restaurant

Ethiopia, the birth place of Hurricanes

                                        

In October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy approached the densely populated U.S. East Coast. An estimated 60 million Americans were expected to be affected by rain, wind, snow, or ocean storm surges from the storm 

Backtracking air:

A lot of hurricanes start out over the Ethiopian mountains. Air is steadily flowing over those mountains and they cause waves in the air. This is partly because the Ethiopian Highlands, known as the "African Alps," contain roughly 80 percent of the highest mountains in Africa.

So the birthplace of tropical storms is in the Ethiopian Highlands, travelling across the Atlantic Ocean, to the United States. Atlantic hurricanes are often formed as winds over the Gulf of Aden intersect with the Ethiopian Highlands

Thoughts have been storms beginning over the steamy Atlantic waters, which provide fuel for hurricanes as they strengthen and threaten landfall. But it turns out that many storms that affect the westerns start here -- all the way over Ethiopian highlands

How storms began: 

Ethiopia exhibit 6- major climates. Subtropical oceanic highland, humid subtropical, warm desert, warm Mediterranean, tropical savanna and warm semi arid. Subtropical oceanic highland climate dominates the Ethiopian highlands.

Tropical disturbances and tropical cyclones usually comprise of one or more mesoscale convective complexes. Easterly waves may develop downstream of the Ethiopian Highlands as a result of lee trough development within the easterly flow.

Satellite data show that an mesoscale convective complexes begins to develop over the northern Ethiopian highlands, traverses the Sahel of Africa for four to 5- days, and emerges over the eastern Atlantic Ocean to become Tropical Storm.

New models in forecasting:

So forecasters look far beyond the tropical Atlantic for the ingredients of a tropical storm. By the time a storm is strong enough to be named, meteorologists may have been watching it for more than a week.

If they can understand a hurricane's true beginnings, they say, perhaps they can give more precise forecasts so that people have more time to get out of harm's way.

Intensive agriculture and human settlement:

Humans and their ancestors have lived in and around the Ethiopian Highlands for roughly 4 million years. The highland city of Aksum is one of the most ancient cities in the world and is the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. The city of Lalibela is home to churches that were carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century.

Ethiopia has lost 98% of its forested regions in its latest decades. This is the major cause for climate change which resulted in repeated attacks of drought in Ethiopia. In addition it also caused flooding and storm in parts of Ethiopia. The storm is believed to be the beginning of Hurricane. 

Much of the natural soil in the Ethiopian Highlands region has been destroyed due to the farming of coffee and teff. Droughts and famines have plagued the area in recent times.

The future: 

We found that the government of Ethiopia has invested in a number of new agricultural extension colleges with the aim of creating some 50,000 plus agricultural extension workers by 2015. This is expected to boost afforestation.

Afforestation of Ethiopian highlands will save US from hurricanes! 

a friend said, ''If so, we demand NASA to change all the names of the hurricanes with Ethiopians name, at least the future ones. According to the order, they are naming them alphabeticaly, Abbiy , Birhanu, Cherinet, Desalegn, ,,,,Yoseph''.

My prayers go out to everyone having to deal with the storm right now. I'm with you guys♥ & Sandy, go away, 

James Cameron, director of the Titanic, racing Richard Branson, to the Challenger Deep

The Challenger Deep is the deepest known part of the ocean, lying in the Mariana Trench (a subduction zone feature) near Guam. The Mariana Trench is a 1600 mile-long, 43 miles across, formed by subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Mariana Plate.


It has only been visited once before by humans when Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and the Swiss explorer (deceased) Jackques Piccard rode in their submersible, Trieste, to its bottom. In their descent, the outer layer of their porthole cracked when they were about five miles down, and still a mile above their destination.  The Triest was the first wholly self-contained submarine to make the venture. It was a giant, cigar-shaped "balloon" filled with 22,500 gallons of petrol--which is lighter than water--to provide buoyancy. Beneath this ballon was a tiny steel sphere, 7 feet in diameter, holding the two adventurers.  It had nine-tons of iron pellets attached to make it sink. These were then jettisoned on the ocean floor.

There is apparently a high-competitive race going on between Cameron, who has been preparing for this rather secretly for five years, and Richard Branson, who has built an airplane-shaped Virgin Oceanic submarine. The third competitor is Patrick Lahey, the president of a small Central Florida company, Triton Submarines. Cameron's submersible is being built by Australian engineers, and the goal is to film in 3D at the bottom.

Why the race? $10,000,000 will be awarded by the X-Prize Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to inspire radical breakthroughs that will benefit humanity. The Deep is 35,814 feet below the ocean surface, a mile deeper than Everest is high.

What's so exciting about the Challenger Deep? For biologists, it's the possibility of documenting some of the estimated 750,000 species of marine life that we haven't found yet (and this excludes the billion estimated unidentified microbes).

According to a 2010 article in the DailyMail.co.uk, Cameron plans to film parts of an Avatar sequel down there. Let's hope that he's successful!

Ethiopia, Gold and Pyramids

Happy Geologic Map day!! 19Oct. 2012
Gold and Pyramids, man's earliest geologic efforts

The Arabian-Nubian Shield (ANS) was the site of some of man's earliest geologic efforts.
The earliest preserved geologic map was made in 1150 BCE to show the location of gold deposits in Eastern Egypt; it is known as the Turin papyrus.

The Greek name for Aswan, Syene; is the type locality for the igneous rock syenite.
Pharonic Egyptians also quarried granite near Aswan and floated this down the Nile to be used as facing for the pyramids.

ANS is an exposure of Precambrian crystalline rocks on the flanks of the Red Sea. It is the northern half of a great collision zone called the East African Orogen. This collision zone formed near the end of Neoproterozoic time when East and West Gondwana collided to form the supercontinent Gondwana.
ANS includes the nations of Israel, Jordan. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia.

Geological map of Ethiopia, 1973. Scale 1:2,000,000

Lucy, Ethiopia. HAPPY FOSSIL DAY! 17 Oct. 2012

Lucy
She was a young Ethiopian, fully mature, adult of about 25 years when she died; of the species Australopithecus afarensis
French geologist Maurice Taieb discovered the Hadar Formation in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia in 1972.
He then formed the International Afar Research Expedition (IARE), inviting three scientists from three countries to co-direct the research.
Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on the November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. They had taken a Land Rover out that day to map in another locality. After a long, hot morning of mapping and surveying for fossils, they decided to head back to the vehicle. Johanson suggested taking an alternate route back to the Land Rover, through a nearby gully. Within moments, he spotted a right proximal ulna (forearm bone) and quickly identified it as a hominid. Shortly thereafter, he saw an occipital (skull) bone, then a femur, some ribs, a pelvis, and the lower jaw. Two weeks later, after many hours of excavation, screening, and sorting, several hundred fragments of bone had been recovered, representing 40 percent of a single hominid skeleton.
Later in the night of November 24, there was much celebration and excitement over the discovery of what looked like a fairly complete hominid skeleton. There was drinking, dancing, and singing; the Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was playing over and over. At some point during that night, no one remembers when or by whom, the skeleton was given the name “Lucy.” The name has stuck.
Under an agreement with the government of Ethiopia, Johanson brought the skeleton back to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Cleveland where it was reconstructed by Owen Lovejoy. It was returned to us, Ethiopia according to agreement some 9 years later. Lucy as a fossil hominid captured public notice, becoming almost a household name at the time.
Using 40Ar/39Ar (Argon-Argon) dating technique of the volcanic ash deposits, Lucy is dated to 3.2 million years old.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds - The Beatles (lyrics)

U.S. Urges Americans to Quit Ethiopia as Rebels Gain. By JANE PERLEZ Published: April 27, 1991

U.S. Urges Americans to Quit Ethiopia as Rebels Gain

By JANE PERLEZ

Published: April 27, 1991

With rebel forces only 65 miles from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, and dispirited Government troops heading back toward the city, the United States advised all Americans today to leave the country as it appeared to be falling into anarchy.

In what seemed to be an act of defiance toward the advancing rebels, the President, Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, shuffled his Cabinet. He dropped his Vice President, Fissehaye Desta, who comes from the same ethnic group as one of the rebel groups, and promoted Foreign Minister Tesfaye Dinka, who has tried to present an acceptable face to Western governments, to Prime Minister.

The rebels have made it clear that they will accept little short of Colonel Mengistu's departure.

The atmosphere in the capital was described by Ethiopians and Westerners as outwardly calm but tense. Those reached by telephone from Nairobi expressed concern about the growing number of arms in the city. Retrained Troops Deploy

Several thousand former soldiers and policemen who were given three weeks of retraining south of the capital this month have now returned to take up positions as a kind of militia against the rebels, a Western official said.

Leaders of neighborhood associations, known as kebeles, that serve as the eyes of the Government were armed long ago. There were reports today that kebele leaders were now passing out weapons to their members.

Also adding to the atmosphere of potential violence was the Government's announcement today of a new campaign center to be headed by a top official of the ruling party. The center is presumably intended to manage the mobilization of all able-bodied men and women over the age of 18 announced in a resolution adopted this week by the National Assembly, Western officials said.

The advice for Americans to leave Ethiopia came after the town of Ambo, 65 miles west of Addis Ababa, fell in midweek to the rebels of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. The front is composed mostly of fighters from the province of Tigre who have been trying to unseat Colonel Mengistu since he came to power in 1977, three years after Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown.

From the town of Ambo the rebels had a virtually a clear ride into Addis Ababa, Western officials said. But they added that it was not clear that the rebels would attack the capital. Rather, they said, the rebels seemed intent on encircling Addis Ababa and forcing either a coup or internal violence that they could use to their advantage.

The American charge d'affaires in Addis Ababa, Robert Houdek, told about 150 Americans at a meeting at the embassy today that the fall of Ambo made the possibility of violence in the city more likely, one of those in the audience said.

The embassy estimates that there are 600 Americans in Ethiopia, most of them humanitarian aid workers and missionaries. The embassy staff has been reduced from 80 to 25 in the last weeks, Mr. Houdek told the meeting.

The worsening situation comes after hope in the last 10 days that some accommodation could be reached between the rebels and the Government to end Africa's longest civil war. Peace Proposal Rejected

Last Friday in a televised speech, President Mengistu rejected a peace proposal by a prominent Ethiopian academic, Mesfin Wolde Mariam, that the Government be replaced by a council of elders representing many groups.

This week, the National Assembly passed a two-part resolution that some thought might lead to negotiations. The Assembly said a transitional arrangement should be worked out in consultation with opposition forces. But the resolution pointedly excluded the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, which has been fighting for 30 years for the independence of Eritrea province.

The second part of the resolution is what the Government now appears to be trying to put into play: the mobilization of all healthy adults. It is doubtful, however, whether the Government has the power to bring about such a move.

Two Washington officials, Irving Hicks, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, and Robert Frasure, a member of the National Security Council, are due in Addis Ababa this weekend. They are expected to meet with senior members of the Mengistu Government and urge the need for a negotiating position that might garner more positive responses from the rebels.

On Monday, Mr. Frasure is scheduled to be in Khartoum, the Sudan, to meet with Issaias Afewerki, leader of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, and Melese Zenawi, leader of the Tigrean People's Liberation Front.

As Rebels Surge in Ethiopia, Its Capital Fears a Harsh Fate. By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times Published: March 23, 1991

As Rebels Surge in Ethiopia, Its Capital Fears a Harsh Fate

By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times

Published: March 23, 1991

An eerie tension has enveloped this city as Ethiopians watch what may well be the death throes of their 16-year-old Government and nervously consider what they fear is imminent: anarchy and bloodshed in the capital.

Startlingly fast rebel victories against Ethiopia's Army, one of Africa's largest, in the last several weeks have put rebel forces 90 miles from the capital and 30 miles from the Government's only remaining port, Assab.

Two of the country's main food-producing provinces, Gondar and Gojjam, fell this month without a fight from the army. The Government's last remaining air base, at Bahir Dar, with direct access to the country's north has fallen. A vital and symbolic bridge over the Blue Nile Canyon was easily captured 10 days ago, and diplomats here are speaking of the army's collapse.

President Mengistu Haile Mariam, who holds on although he is widely disliked by his people and accused of human rights abuses by Western governments, is reported by Western diplomats to be roaming what is left of his country in a helicopter, trying desperately to revive the morale of his troops. Several weeks ago, diplomats say, he sent his wife and children to Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, where he is said to have bought property.

Government officials say their situation is not nearly as dire as the picture painted by many Ethiopians and diplomats here. But despite this official line, it seems clear that the latest rebel gains are a grave and perhaps final threat to the Government, which already faces a bankrupt economy and the prospects of widespread hunger that the United Nations has said could match the famine of 1984-85.

For Ethiopians there are no sources of information in the Government-controlled press about the collapsed war effort. But piecing snippets together from foreign news broadcasts, seeing foreign diplomats send their families home and deciphering the flood of rumors about a reign of terror by the President in his own Cabinet, Ethiopians say they know things are bad. But they say they do not know how long it will take for a finale, whether weeks or months.

And while the rebel groups are coordinating their military offensive, the postwar cohesion of any government, and indeed of the country, is far from certain.

"The town is loaded with guns," said one Ethiopian, who watched the crumbling of the Government of Emperor Haile Selassie and the bloody takeover of Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu's revolutionaries in 1974. "Everyone who knows how to use a weapon has one. Some have side arms. Others keep bigger weapons at home."

This man and several other Ethiopians said they feared that they would again see something like the "red terror" of 1977, when thousands were slaughtered in Addis Ababa by Marxist extremists -- with the difference that this time other political elements would be involved. "There are a lot of people with a lot of grudges," the man said.

The Mengistu Government has been under pressure from two main rebel groups, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and the Tigrean People's Liberation Front. Talks in Washington last month between the Ethiopian Government and the Eritrean front failed to make progress. Immediately after they ended, the rebel groups began their offensive.

The Eritrean rebels' main goal is the secession of Eritrea, the northeastern province of Ethiopia, a cause they have been fighting for for 31 years. The group controls all of Eritrea except the capital, Asmara, and a bit of land around it.

The Tigrean front, based in the province of Tigre, has been trying to topple the Government since Colonel Mengistu came to power. The group holds the provinces of Tigre, Gojjam, Gondar, most of Wallo, parts of Wallaga and most of northern Shoa.

Western military analysts say the two groups have been coordinating their military actions for the last two years. They are also discussing the shape of a transitional government. Eritrean Leader in U.S.

Diplomats familiar with the discussions say the Tigrean front will probably hold the main positions in such a government, with the Eritrean group dealing with what would then become a separate Eritrea. The leader of the Eritrean front, Issaias Afewerki, has been in the United States for the last month trying to cultivate political contacts.

The political orientations of the groups are not exactly clear. The Eritrean front started with a Marxist outlook that appears to have since been modified. But in their broadcasts, the current leaders of the Tigrean front espouse hard-line Marxism. Last year, one Tigrean leader spoke of Albania as a potential model for Ethiopia.

It is the tough Marxist language and the talk of purges among the current Government bureaucrats that make not only the bureaucrats but also many educated Ethiopians outside the Government nervous. "The T.P.L.F. sounds as bad as this lot," said an Ethiopian who was imprisoned by the present Government. "This is a country without alternatives."

Government officials who are receiving foreign dignitaries insist that a surprise military success is in the works. Foreign Minister Tesfaye Dinka told the French Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, who visited here Thursday, that the Ethiopian Army would prevail, Mr. Kouchner said.

But there seems no avenue for Colonel Mengistu to seek help. The national treasury, which has been spending about 60 percent of its money on the war effort, is empty, Western economists said. Fuel rationing, 18 liters a week for civilians with cars, is in force because the Soviet Union asked Ethiopia to pay for fuel in hard currency.

The last 10-year military agreement with the Soviet Union, which American military experts say pumped about $11 billion in arms into Ethiopia, ended last year. The Soviet Embassy in Addis Ababa is reported to have sent home some of its staff. East Germany, which used to bail the Ethiopian leader out of military crises, is also not available to help this time.

The United States has tried in the last year to encourage the Mengistu Government to negotiate with the rebels, and during the Persian Gulf crisis wooed the Ethiopians for their support in the Security Council. But Washington has shown distaste for the Government and gives it no economic development aid because of Ethiopia's Marxist philosophy -- although Addis Ababa officially disavowed that line last year -- and its human rights abuses.

After Colonel Mengistu halted the emigration of the remaining 20,000 Ethiopian Jews from Addis Ababa several weeks ago, a Western diplomat said he was convinced that the move was an attempt to squeeze aid from Israel. The emigration program resumed last week. Enlisting the Students

Last Saturday, apparently in an effort to shore up the army and remove a source of tension, Colonel Mengistu turned to the 10,000 students of Addis Ababa University. He visited the campus, which is dominated by a vast library opened by Robert F. Kennedy, and told the students that they were being enlisted in the army.

People at the university said the military knew that the students would be hopeless soldiers. But in fact, the sign-up was a way of "getting rid of a tinderbox," a Western diplomat said.

The sudden collapse of the army -- "the endgame," as a Western diplomat put it -- has significantly affected the international humanitarian effort that is trying to deliver tens of thousands of tons of food to avert famine. For a second year, northern Ethiopia has been hit by drought, made worse by the constant fighting. The United Nations World Food Program estimates that 6 million of Ethiopia's 50 million people need food aid this year.

Ethiopia Base and 2 Towns Said to Fall to Rebels. By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times Published: December 28, 1989

Ethiopia Base and 2 Towns Said to Fall to Rebels

By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times

Published: December 28, 1989

In a significant setback for the Ethiopian Government, Tigrean rebels have captured a major military base and two other towns, the rebels and Western diplomats in Addis Ababa said today.

Fighting escalated in the Ethiopian civil war last week, after talks between the Tigrean People's Liberation Front and the Government ended in Rome. The talks made some progress on procedural issues but were obstreperous in tone and are not scheduled to begin again until March, diplomats said.

The Tigrean military gains were in two provinces, Gondar and Shoa, the latter being particularly significant because it is the province that includes Addis Ababa.

The rebels said they had overrun Debra Tabor, a military base near the city of Gondar. The base is thought to have about 10,000 Ethiopian troops. If the base remained in rebel hands, the Tigrean rebel group would have direct access to Gondar, an ancient Ethiopian city famed for its many churches. An attack on Gondar by the rebels would represent a major psychological as well as material blow to the Government of Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam. Soviet-Trained Unit Defeated

In northern Shoa, the rebels said they overran Rabel and Mahel Meda, where diplomats estimated the rebels either captured or killed about 1,500 troops.

The rebels, a group based in the province of Tigre, is one of several insurgencies battling the 15-year-old Marxist-Leninist Government. For the last 14 years, it has been seeking to overthrow Colonel Mengistu and replace him with its more rigid version of Marxism-Leninism.

The Tigrean rebels have made remarkable military gains this year, successfully driving the flagging Ethiopian Army out of the province of Tigre. Several months ago, the crack, Russian-trained 102d Airborne Division was rushed to the Tigrean front, only to be defeated.

The Government is also hampered because Soviet military advisers have been withdrawn from key military installations as part of the general downgrading by the Soviets of the importance of Ethiopia. Albania as Model for Ethiopia

But the Tigrean rebels have not been doing so well on the political front. In a recent interview with the BBC, Haile Tilahun, a political commissar of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Movement, which is part of the Tigrean rebel group, described President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union as a revisionist. He held up Albania as the model for the Ethiopia that his movement would strive toward.

The Tigrean rebels have made similar statements on their radio programs, which residents of Addis Ababa can monitor. In the last month, Colonel Mengistu, one of the most hard-line Marxist rulers left in the world, has been able to make much of the Tigrean rebels' political intentions, to his own advantage. Recent propaganda in the state-run press has implied that if Ethiopians - the poorest people in the world, according to World Bank statistics - think they are badly off now, they would be worse off under the Tigrean rebels.

Colonel Mengistu, whose popularity was thought to be at an all-time low two months ago, when diplomats said there were two assassination attempts against him, has been able to shore himself up because of the threat of the Tigrean rebels, several diplomats and Ethiopians said. Ethiopians, who tend to be very nationalistic, have responded to the calls by Colonel Mengistu in the last month that the rebels should not be allowed to destroy Ethiopia and its Amharic culture, they said.

Residents in Addis Ababa say they expected a counteroffensive by the Ethopian Army soon. A half-million-strong peasant army is being formed and residents report seeing training on the outskirts of the city, with conscripts being taught how to march and given target practice. Eritrean-Rebel Offensive Seen

At the same time that the Government is said to be preparing for a counteroffensive, the other major rebel group, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, which is also Marxist, is believed to be preparing for renewed fighting.

That group is expected to make a decision at its Central Committee meeting, now in session, on when and whether to attack the remaining part of the province of Eriteria they do not yet hold. The front, which is seeking secession for Eritrea from Ethiopia, holds about two-thirds of the province.

ETHIOPIA'S LEADER REGAINING CONTROL. By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times Published: May 21, 1989

ETHIOPIA'S LEADER REGAINING CONTROL

By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times

Published: May 21, 1989

As residents of the Ethiopian capital nervously resumed their daily routines after an unsuccessful coup attempt this week, it appeared that the President, Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, had regained his grip on authority.

Nine generals involved in the failed coup have been executed, according to official announcements, seven of them after Colonel Mengistu's hasty return from East Germany to put down the mutiny. About 300 to 400 officers, almost the entire staff of the Ministry of Defense, are reported to be under arrest. Other generals are believed to have been killed and there are expected to be widespread retributions within the military.

But Western and Ethiopian analysts said that as Colonel Mengistu goes about consolidating his power, he will find himself in a considerably weaker position. They said his position could be analagous to that of Emperor Haile Selassie, who never completely recovered from a coup attempt in 1960, while he was in Brazil, although it took another 14 years to dislodge him.

''Mengistu, in order to preserve his power, will end up weakening the army and the state structure,'' said Abdul Mohammed, an Ethiopian who with Christian and Mulsim religious leaders in the region is establishing a Peace Resource Center for the Horn of Africa. Warnings From Moscow

In the aftermath of Tuesday's coup attempt - which the State Department initially thought might succeed -many of the most competent military officers have been arrested or executed or have fled, according to diplomats in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. The tally will probably be much higher by the time the purge is finished, they said.

Even before the coup attempt, the Soviet Union, Colonel Mengistu's most generous but increasingly reluctant arms supplier, was warning him about the unlikelihood of a military victory against rebel forces in the northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre.

A Soviet diplomat in Addis Ababa, in a scathing assessment of Colonel Mengistu's direction of the war, said in an interview in March that the rebels were more efficient in using the Soviet-made arms that they captured from Ethiopian troops than the army.

The effort to overthrow Colonel Mengistu, rumored in Addis Ababa a few months ago but the first in his 12-year tenure as President, was set off by an increasing sense of humiliation and frustration among senior military officers. For 18 months, and particularly at the beginning of the year, they have suffered severe defeats at the hands of the rebels in Eritrea and Tigre.

Eastern and Western diplomats say that ever since the army was routed by the rebels early last year at Afabet, in Eritrea, senior officers have been advising Colonel Mengistu that the war against the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and the Tigre People's Liberation Front was unwinnable. The army high command complained bitterly its troops were ill-trained teen-age conscripts and that the officers were too often overruled on the battlefield by political cadres in the army. New Vigor for Rebels

The senior officers' argument for a negotiated settlement, joined in increasingly urgent tones by the Soviets, was reinforced after the army was expelled by the rebels from the entire province of Tigre with casualties put in the tens of thousands.

Now, in the wake of the coup and the purges to follow, Colonel Mengistu is certain to face an even more demoralized army and one whose senior officer corps and largest unit, the Second Army based in Eritrea, is ''wrecked,'' in the words of one diplomat.

The Government radio station in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, which has been off the air since Thursday evening, is believed to have been destroyed in fighting between loyalists and mutinous troops. 'Pressure From the War'

''The original cause of the coup remains and is now exacerbated,'' said Mr. Mohammed. ''The pressure from the war in the north will intensify with new vigor and enthusiasm from the rebels.''

Mr. Mohammed said that now that the Second Army revolt had been all but squelched, it was likely that the ever more confident Eritrean People's Liberation Front would retract the cease-fire it announced three days ago. The cease-fire was intended to win members of the Second Army over to the rebel cause. Four days after the start of Tuesday's coup attempt, the Eritrean rebels were offering safe passage to soldiers in the Second Army who had shown sympathy for the coup.

Ethiopia Leader Tells of Execution of Coup Figure. By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times Published: May 19, 1989

Ethiopia Leader Tells of Execution of Coup Figure

By JANE PERLEZ, Special to The New York Times

Published: May 19, 1989

President Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia, who rushed home from East Germany to put down a coup attempt, announced tonight that the leader of the largest rebellious army unit had been executed.

Western diplomats in Addis Ababa reported that Gen. Demessie Bulto, apparently a key figure in the coup attempt on Tuesday, was killed by junior officers in the Second Army stationed around Asmara, in the northern province of Eritrea.

The coup attempt against President Mengistu, a lieutenant colonel, was the first since he emerged as leader of the rigidly Marxist-Leninist state in the horn of Africa after the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

Less than 24 hours after he cut short a state visit to East Germany and returned to Addis Ababa, the capital, Colonel Mengistu went on television and radio tonight to declare, ''Our revolutionary army has liquidated the traitors collaborating with the secessionists.''

But in Asmara, which was retaken from the rebellious Second Army officers by loyalist soldiers on Wednesday, the Government radio went dead tonight, leading to speculation among Western diplomats that there was serious fighting within the unit. The Second Army, with about 175,000 men, is the largest unit in the Ethiopian military and is stretched through a large swath of Eritrea.

After the Government announced on Tuesday night that two leaders of the uprising had been killed and the coup put down, senior officers of the Second Army, which has been bearing the brunt of the civil war against the rebel Eritrean People's Liberation Front, announced they supported the coup attempt. In radio broadcasts from Asmara, the rebellious officers continued to call for the ouster of Colonel Mengistu, a negotiated settlement to the 28-year civil war and the introduction of a provisional government.

Ethiopia's main patron, the Soviet Union, has been pressing the Mengistu Government to concede that its fight against rebel movements in Eritrea and Tigre is militarily unwinnable and seek a settlement. Army Unit and Rebels Reconcile

Diplomats in Addis Ababa said by telephone that the unit had reached a reconciliation with the Eritrean rebel front, which has been fighting for the territory's independence. At the same time as the officers' announcement, the rebel group said they were starting a two week cease-fire.

Such an agreement between the largest unit in the Ethiopian Army and the rebels posed an almost intolerable threat to Colonel Mengistu's hold on power, knowledgeable Ethiopians in exile said.

The Government radio in Addis Ababa announced earlier today that another coup leader, Industry Minister Fanta Belai, a former commander of the Air Force, had been arrested.

Diplomats in the capital said Colonel Mengistu's fortunes fluctuated during the day. But by evening, with the announcement of the execution of the head of the Second Army and the President's television appearance, his standing had improved.

Businesses and schools reopened today in Addis Ababa and Government officers reported to work, diplomats said. But the international phone lines were cut for part of the day and the airport remained closed.

Yoseph Hadden. Hadden, my nickname

In the year 2000 I was a freshman in Addis Abeba University; my room mate Haileyesus Genet called me after the mysterious and secretive billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden, in the the movie Contact.

Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film. S.R. Hadden is the coolest character ever!

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Nile messenger_Abeba Getu

the picture depicts blasting along the dam axis on the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Nile Messenger_Abeba Getu

The preparations for my upcoming field trip to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, added with this Essay Competition for NILE MESSENGERS made me to glimpse deeply about the role that international summit and interactions among peers at the national level play in determining the future of the relationship among countries that share rivers.

In the past few years’ news started coming out that the downstream Nile riparian countries were strongly opposed to the development of hydro power plants on the Nile River. In the arid lands of the Arab, water is a precious resource. Whenever Arab leaders hold summit meetings much anxious talk is devoted to what they like to call “water security”. In the past year such talk has taken on a special urgency. Arabs feel that their access to three of the region`s life-giving rivers-the Euphrates, the Jordan and the Nile-is being threatened by the non-Arab countries upstream. As long as Hydro Electricity or Irrigation on potential rivers is concerned, Socio-Environmental issues are always the concern. Shared waters could be either a source of conflict or a source of cooperation and prosperity.  Today, the growing need for water resources for development has brought intense political and economic tensions among the countries that share rivers that flow across two or more countries.

The Nile river is the longest river in the world and the total area of the river basin is more than 3,349,000 Km2 and the basin is a home to around 160 million people (with in the boundaries of the basin). In the ten countries that share the Nile’s water, about 300 million people are living (UNESCO, 2006).

Addressing the challenge of moving towards greater cooperation and joint development has been central to the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), a riparian-led process of joint decision making and cooperative development that emerged during the 1990s. NBD (Nile Basin Discourse) is a network of civil society organizations from the 10 countries of the Nile Basin:  Burundi, DRC, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. This network seeks to achieve positive influence over the development of projects and programs under the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) and other Nile-related programs. 

I believe that the riparian states in the Nile Basin should work for “benefit-sharing” rather than “water-sharing” and this should be the basis for their transboundary cooperation.  If we see Studies made on this regard at present, more than 55 percent of the World’s population lives in internationally shared river basins.  We can cite examples of successful transboundary water cooperation where political and economic problems such as upstream-downstream relations, diverging economic development etc., could be wisely solved. These include: the Rhine River cooperation, the Columbia River cooperation and the Senegal River cooperation. 

My point of argument is still there is a challenge of creating a more cooperative environment for the management of Nile waters, still the region characterized by poverty, instability, rapid population growth, and environmental degradation and still  some  of the Nile Basin states are among the world’s poorest countries. I would like to say today we must lift the consciousness of the people, the wind is rising and the rivers flowing, times are getting hard and we can't let it happen anymore. Nile is the 'river god' or ‘Sissay’ in Amharic is the hope for the highly growing population of the region and for the intermingling of cultures which has always characterized the area. 

Due to the political and economic nature,   the issue has been hold by the government level; we youths are mostly not the concern.  But I believe that we shouldn’t view transboundary socio-environmental issues and impact of youth organizations as two separate movements. Youth is a most people in any nations, because they will build the future, so a chance should be given to show what we have. Social dialogue be improved to ensure young people participate in the process of policy formulation and implementation

The youth is networked more than ever, in recent years we have witnessed the powerful political impact of young activists in this region of the Nile. And I believe together with NBD, by reinforcing environmental education and awareness; and support funds to activist youth organizations, this same youth can build better economy with better ecosystem. The youth can improve today’s awareness of “water-sharing” which is focused only on protection and will initiate and accelerate progress with protection! 

With transboundary youth network like NBD, we will be informed to choose the future.  Researching youth should be supported to publish their findings; this will help us to develop confidence and trust. The water problems of our world need not be only a cause of tension; it can also be a catalyst for cooperation....If we work together, a secure and sustainable water future can be ours. By organizing Cultural shows  like music, myths, documentary videos and blogging experiences in social networks; the youth will be fully informed and be able to develop mutual understanding and will be motivated to enforce decision makers to implement management of resources  equitably for sustainable development.

Survival of the sickest.

If a child cannot live on its own without a machine or medication, then it is not evolutionarily fit.

Due to advanced technology and medicine first world people alive who otherwise would not have survived. This has led people to question where the human race is going in evolutionary terms, and to wonder if  stopped evolving completely. Though the Third World is behind  in healthcare, adaptations may give a clue for our species' future. These diagrams show how the selection pressure of malaria is making a faulty gene more common.

When a person inherits two copies of this faulty gene (which affects the haemoglobin molecule and plays a part in the shape of red blood cells) they have sickle-cell disease. This disease causes problems in carrying oxygen round the body and blood cells become stuck in small blood vessels more easily. However when a person only inherits one copy they have a different condition, known as sickle cell trait - and sickle trait offers protection against malaria.

This hypothesis - known as "the malaria hypothesis" - has been around for more than 50 years and is supported by population and lab studies. But it was only in 2010 that a full map was created to show the frequency of this gene compared with the spread of malaria. The first and second diagrams show the spread of the "sickle cell gene" while the third shows the spread of malaria. The geographical evidence shows the relationship is very strong in Africa, where those with sickle cell trait have an advantage in the struggle against malaria. Natural selection has kept this otherwise disadvantageous gene in the gene pool.

Mosquito Heart

Malaria’s impact worldwide is still an issue, particularly in developing countries. Research is ongoing to study the carriers of malaria, mosquitoes, and how they carry and transmit the disease and other pathogens. That’s why the 2010 winning image by Jonas King is so important to the life science community.

Anopheles gambiae (mosquito heart) was captured at 100x magnification. Jonas works out of Vanderbilt University’s Hillyer Lab, which studies the interactions between mosquitoes and their pathogens, along with salivary components and how they interact with the vertebrate host’s immune response.

The image details the structural organization of the mosquito heart and provides insight into how mosquitoes move blood to all regions of their bodies. Jonas notes, “Mosquitoes remain one of the greatest scourges of mankind. Malaria infects hundreds of millions of people annually and is believed to have a major impact on the economies of endemic regions.”

The Like, Send and how many Likes buttons_Yoseph

Enemies! My Kenyan Experience_Yoseph

Last week, end of May 2012, I had a flight from Dar Es Selam to Nairobi . A week before on 28 May 2012, there was a blast in Nairobi. The blast tore apart a shopping complex on Moi Avenue at lunchtime. Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said the blast had a terrorist link. Militant group al-Shabab has repeatedly threatened to stage revenge attacks after Kenya sent troops to Somalia. When the Immigration Officer find out I have an Ethiopian Citizen, things get serious. I was grilled, screened and search fully. I understand, I kind of fits suspect list as potential abettor even if I don't look Somalia or Muslim. Searched me all over again. They had the faxes and by one glance I could tell, the chief officer faxed my screening data and requested them to search me again to make it double sure. I just smiled and co-operated without complaint, just about 35 minutes of delay; No hurries! They thanked me and waved me on after they were done. I was quite angry that my group had their bags much earlier.
Some Country’s law requiring police to check the immigration status of anyone stopped or arrested when there is “reasonable suspicion” the person is there unlawfully. I don't believe such random checks are legal!!

I was flying in a group with 8 Israeli colleagues; One of them told me ''If they had the resources, they should follow the Israeli approach to airline security, wherein no one is profiled on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, or gender. Rather, the Israelis attend only to a person’s behavior at the airport. “Behavioral profiling” is logically and empirically distinct from other sorts of profiling, and Kenyans should practice it alone''. My father told me that.

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one. NELSON MANDELA.