Meles Zenawi

Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia has told the Financial Times that he is planning to step down as Prime Minister before the next elections are due.

It is said that Ethiopia’s next national election is to be held in one year.  Therefore, it has to be seen, whether deeds follow the words. No doubt that this comes as a surprise and surely it would represent a rare move on the African continent.

During the 2005 elections Ethiopia experienced riots and street demonstrations, which left approximately 200 protesters dead and several opposition leaders arrested.

Since the majority of the people in Mr Zenawi’s ruling party come from the Tigrayan ethnic minority, it does not make ruling Ethiopia easy for him. This can be seen in the growing ethnical tensions within Ethiopia.

He acknowledged that his successor will be from a different ethnic group. This is seen as a move by Zenawi to calm down the tension within Ethiopia.

Mr Zenawi did not give any specific date to the Financial Times about when he plans to step down as Prime Minister. All he mentioned was, that he had enough after 18 years in power and that other leaders should do the same.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister would leave office refusing to accept a legally binding border demarcation with Eritrea, which was set out by an international border commission in pursue of the Algiers Peace Agreement signed by Eritrea and Ethiopia.

The demarcation rule was accepted by Eritrea. However, no international body was able to support Eritrea in getting its legal right and its sovereign land by forcing Ethiopia to adhere to the ruling.

A Maersk aframax tanker laden with crude oil was attacked in the Gulf of Aden on Monday.

There were 24 crew members reported to be on-board the Singapore-flagged 109,571 dwt Maersk Phoenix when it came under fire from pirates early afternoon local time Monday.

Coalition naval forces managed to avert a hijacking, reports said. The vessel was en-route from Sudan to Singapore.

A NATO statement, apparently in reference to the attack, said that “pirates armed with automatic weapons and RPG [rocket-propelled grenades] chased and fired upon a crude oil tanker and general cargo ships under-way.”

“Vessels increased speed, made evasive manoeuvres, zig-zag course, contacted on VHF Channel 16 coalition warships for assistance. Assistance from warships prevented the boarding,” the statement added.

According to Portuguese news agency Lusa it was Portuguese forces which came to the defence of the Maersk Phoenix.

The Corte Real reportedly opened fire on the pirates and arrested eight suspects before later releasing them, Lusa said.

Meanwhile, reports also said a VLCC was attacked in the southern region of the Red Sea last Friday.

Tradewinds quoted a source saying that the unidentified 302,000 dwt Panama-flagged supertanker was attacked in the Bab el Mandeb area in the afternoon local timewhile it was under-way with a cargo of crude oil.

Evasive manoeuvres by the VLCC are said to have averted a hijacking.

Swiss Police

According to World Radio Swiss, a police officer in the canton of Vaud accused of abusing his authority is to be re-tried, following claims he was acquitted thanks to his colleagues committing perjury. The case had been dismissed, but will now be fully re-investigated. 

The substance of the case dates back to New Year’s Eve, 2006. A 16-year-old Eritrean man was stopped on two separate occasions by police in Lausanne.

He claims that on the second occasion, a patrol officer drenched him in pepper spray, and abandoned him near a forest. The man from Eritrea says his attempts to lodge a complaint later that night were rejected.

The case eventually went to court, and the policeman was acquitted, based on testimony by his colleagues. Some months later, however, a fellow officer who’d left the force accused those colleagues of lying under oath, to cover up police brutality. Those accusations are now being investigated, and the previous acquittal has been cancelled.

Now the case will be brought before a higher court, which should investigate what happened on the New Year’s Eve day in 2006. Bringing the case to the next level of courts should assure that justice is spoken and that the risk of fraud within the case is abolished.

The police force or so called “Gendarmerie” from the canton Vaud has already been involved in similar incidents in the past. For example during the G8 Summit in 2003 two demonstrators, were nearly killed by police officers from the canton Vaud.

Steam Train Veterans

Trains which used to be the mode of transport for colonial powers during the beginning of the last century are experiencing a revival in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti.

When Eritrea started to rebuild its infrastructure, shortly after it gained independence from Ethiopia in the early nineties, it realized very quickly the importance of a national rail line for the transport sector.

The self-determination of Eritreans went so far, they would not accept any financial aid or support from western countries to rebuild and maintain the so called “Treni Italiani D’Eritrea”.

The head of the railway rehabilitation project at that time (1996), Mr. Amanuel Ghebreselassie was quoted saying,

”One Italian company said they would do it for $100m (pounds 65m). An American company offered to undertake a feasibility study for $190,000 (pounds 125,000). The British Steel Corporation presented us with an estimate which would have come to pounds 5m just for the rails from Asmara to Massawa. So we decided to do it all ourselves.“

It took hundreds of young Eritreans, while on military service, several train veterans, recalled from their retirement, and other workers to rebuild one of Africa’s most nostalgic rail ways. By 2003, work on the rail line between the capital Asmara and Eritrea’s main port of Massawa was finalized.

The rail route goes from the highlands to the coastal lowlands of Eritrea passing through approximately 30 tunnels, 65 bridges and viaducts. The national rail line owes and operates solely antique trains, locomotives and railcars, which were build by the Italians during Eritrea’s colonial occupation in the early 1920s and 30s.

Despite the age or maybe just because of the age, the cultural as well as economical value of these trains appears to be priceless for Eritrea.

One remarkable phenomenon is that without major marketing or advertising campaigns abroad, many foreign train spotters have identified the trains as an exclusive attraction. Each year rail enthusiasts flock to Eritrea from different parts of the world to enjoy a rail package holiday in the Red Sea State.

This only adds another attraction to Eritrea’s vast potential as a tourism destination. South Africa for example has the luxury Rovos Rail line, which takes tourists starting from US$2600 on a four night one-way trip from Victoria Falls to Cape Town.

Despite the purpose of serving tourism, the trains can be a cost efficient way to transport cargo between Asmara and Massawa for overseas shipping. Eritrea is due to become a mineral exporting country with first gold explorations to begin in 2010 and international mining companies lining up to get into business with Eritrea.

A study to Michel Hopely the President and CEO of Sunrigde Gold, one of the mining companies in Eritrea acknowledged that the railway might be of use to transport mining products to the port of Massawa.

In this respect, the effort and sacrifice by the Eritreans to rebuild the railway on their own is starting to pay off and makes Eritrea to a front-runner in the region. The BBC announced today that neighbouring Ethiopia is planning to rebuild its railway line from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa in Djibouti, after having neglected the line in favour of road transport for years.

In contrast to Eritrea, Ethiopia will not be able to accomplish rebuilding its rail network without financial help from the European Union, due to the huge distance from the Ethiopian highlands to the lowlands of Djibouti. For Ethiopia, this is a long way to go and as the BBC puts it, “At the moment the new network is still a dream…”

An old recipe can still make a dish and accordingly, the Horn of Africa revives an old idea to gain economic momentum in the future.

Yemeni Prison

HADRAMOUT, June 19  – Yemen says it had seized two fishing boats carrying a huge stash of drugs hidden in 162 bags. The two boats were apprehended 13 nautical miles off the port of Sher city in the western Hadramout province.

Two Africans were seized on one of the boat and five Yemenis were seized on the second boat. The Africans were a Tanzanian and a Kenyan, ages 35-36, while the five Yemenis were aged 19-52. Read the full story

CAIRO,  June 18 (Reuters) – Egypt’s food exports to Libya and Sudan will face increasing barriers after the introduction of new import duties and transport restrictions, the head of Egypt’s Food Industries Export Council said on Thursday.

Hany Berzy told Reuters Libya’s decision to impose a 10 percent import duty on Egyptian food commodities and Egypt’s decision to prohibit transfer of food products to Sudan via land was a double blow to the sector.

“Unfortunately, everyone is trying to introduce extra taxes to protect their local industries despite the fact that we have an Arab free trade agreement,” Berzy said, adding he did not know the exact reason Egypt restricted land transportation for commodities bound for Sudan. Read the full story

Hannah Pool is a British woman with origins in Eritrea. She was adopted by a British  family as a baby child and taken to England.

She recently published a book called “My Fathers’ Daughter”. In the book she writes about growing up as a black girl in a white family, with many questions regarding her identity, until she finally travels to Eritrea.

In her latest venture for the guardian, Hannah made a video together with Kaleab Hiskays, the manager of Zigni House restaurant in London, where she explains how to make Injera.

Now, this is a good thing to do, because many of us rely on their mums to get the yearly ration of Injera, which an Eritrean needs to survive. Most of us have never learned or tried to take the art of Eritrean cuisine with us when we left our parent’s home to live our own lives.

How often do young Eritrean men come across the warning by their parents, which sounds like this: “You will see what you get, if you do not marry an Eritrean girl, who takes care of you and knows how to make Injera!” Here we go; in most of the cases our parents were right.

Therefore, we appreciate the little introduction given by Hannah Pool into the art of making Injera. There is also an article in the guardian, which gives additional insight into Hanna’s culinary excursion to the Horn of Africa. Watch the Video on The Guardian

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – The International Finance Corporation (IFC) will almost double its African agribusiness investments to $400 million by 2011, one of its senior investment officers said on Tuesday.

The IFC is the investment arm of the World Bank.

“We have 7.1 percent of our portfolio in agribusiness in Africa and we are looking to increase it significantly,” Washington-based Anup Jagwani told Reuters on the sidelines of an African agribusiness conference in Cape Town. Read the full story

Massawa Harbour

Each year the IMF is publishing data on trade between countries in a report called “The Direction of Trade Statistics”. Just recently the IMF brought out the report for 2009, which is covering approximately 200 countries around the world.

The data of the study is based on information received from participating nations about exports and imports made between them and other countries.

Therefore, the accuracy and full picture of the data depends on what those countries provide to the IMF. Many countries do not deliver any data at all. For example, there are no figures available from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which have certainly important trade relations with Eritrea. Read the full story

Saudi Border

Todays Zaman, Turkey: Held up by rigorous customs procedures at the Saudi Arabian-UAE border, hundreds of Turkish trucks have joined in long queues waiting at the Al-Ghuwaifat border gate to enter Saudi Arabrabia

One of the biggest problems the truck drivers face is the hot weather, exceeding 50 degrees Centigrade and above seasonal norms. By last week, trucks in the queue numbered in the thousands.

The delays at the border have reportedly been happening for the past month; it is taking drivers up to 16 hours to move just two kilometers. Many say they have almost run out of food and drink and that they are finding it difficult to stand the heat. Read the full story