Cheered on by thousands of spectators on a cloudy Sunday 35,000 runners including the world’s top athletes started the men’s elite race in the world’s largest fundraising marathon event, the London Marathon 2010.

From the beginning of the race the men’s field kept a high speed with a group of  twelve front runners from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kenya leading the masses. Abel Kirui from Kenya and Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede lead the men’s race for a long time until Kebede increased his pace to leave Kirui behind.

Kebede who finished last year’s London Marathon second place is the third Ethiopian to win the London Marathon at 02:05:18. Second place goes to Emmanuel Kipchirchir Mutai from Kenya with a minute away of Kebede and third place goes Jaouaed Gharib of Morocco.

Having finished first at this year’ s Lisbon Half Marathon, Zersenay Tadese was not able to repeat his outstanding performance from Lisbon.

CAIRO, (The National), Mad Bradley – Despite a lack of agreement from Egypt and Sudan, seven of the nine countries that share the Nile River basin will proceed with plans to create a permanent negotiating body for determining the equitable use of the world’s longest river, African water ministers have said.

Water and irrigation ministers from seven up-river African nations said they hope to finalise negotiations on the Co-operative Framework Agreement next month, with or without agreement from down-river nations Egypt and Sudan.

The plans follow failed negotiations last week in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, between the nine countries of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), a World Bank-funded programme that seeks to establish a diplomatic protocol for evaluating the fair use of the river for agricultural and energy projects.

The impasse between up-river and down-river countries has led to more than a decade of delays in forming the framework agreement, which supporters say could become an example of international co-operation for the fair use of water resources in the impoverished and conflict-prone region of north-eastern Africa.

A spokesman for the Ethiopian government accused Egypt on Tuesday of “delaying” negotiations, according to the Bloomberg news agency.

But Egypt, which is where the river flows into the Mediterranean, and Sudan say such an agreement could threaten their “historical rights” to secure sources of water. Their position downstream renders them particularly vulnerable to changes in water availability caused by up-river development projects, they said.

Egyptian water officials said if up-river nations exclude them from the agreement, it could spell the end of negotiations on equitable water-sharing for the entire river basin.

“Egypt’s share of the Nile’s water is a historic right that Egypt has defended throughout its history,” said Mohammed Allam, Egypt’s minister of water resources and irrigation, to a parliamentary session on Monday, according to Agence France-Presse. “If the Nile basin countries unilaterally signed the agreement it would be considered the announcement of the Nile Basin Initiative’s death.”

Egypt and Sudan’s historical claims to the Nile’s water stem from two past treaties that did not include signatures from the other Nile basin states. The latest treaty, which was signed between Egypt and Sudan in 1959, gave the Egyptian government rights over 55.5 billion cubic metres of water annually out of the 84 billion cubic metres that reach Egypt’s High Aswan Dam each year.

Although all of the countries have agreed on most of the terms of the framework, Egypt and Sudan have insisted that the agreement should include guarantees of the “historical rights” to which upper riparian states were never a party.

“We are not party to that agreement and we don’t recognise it,” said Teferra Beyene, the head of trans-boundary river affairs for Ethiopia’s ministry of water resources, of the 1959 treaty between Egypt and Sudan. “We don’t know of such a thing called historical rights. After all this is going to be a new covenant, a new agreement among the riparian countries.”

Egyptian diplomats urged negotiators to proceed directly towards the formation of a Nile River Basin Commission instead of first negotiating the terms of the framework agreement. The commission would act as a deliberative body and would make its decisions by a consensus of all the riparian states.

Egyptian officials say that unlike upper riparian states such as Ethiopia, whose rainy highlands provide an estimated 85 per cent of the Nile’s waters, projects on the Egyptian section of the river have no impact on countries further downstream.

“Our Egyptian water comes from the geography of the river and they can’t control that,” said Abd el Ati el Shafei, the chairman of the Nile Guards and Environment Protection Association.

Mr el Shafei said the Nile water that reaches Egypt only constitutes around five per cent of the Nile River’s total reserves of 1,600 billion cubic metres. And with its large and growing population that dwarfs those of other Nile Basin states, with the exception of Ethiopia, Egypt’s need for water security is particularly acute. “They don’t need the water that runs into Egypt and we didn’t take it from them by force,” Mr el Shafei said.

But as the countries of the Nile basin bicker over who is responsible for the stalled negotiations, the impasse continues to delay the creation of a permanent body that might arbitrate such disputes. Hani Raslan, the director of the Sudan and Nile basin studies programme at the semi-official Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said he does not expect any serious decisions on a co-operative agreement within the next 20 years.

“These countries are small and fragile, they have many crises, and they act with Egypt like maybe they think they are superpowers,” Mr Raslan said. “That is not real. Egypt must have the right to do anything to protect its people.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury has backed calls for Africa to be “blanketed” with bed nets as part of the battle to eradicate malaria.

Dr Rowan Williams said in spite of being preventable and treatable, the blood disease – caused by a parasite transmitted by the mosquito – was still killing nearly a million people every year.

In a message recorded to mark World Malaria Day on Sunday, Dr Williams called on the world to put its “energy and imagination” behind efforts to achieve the goal of getting rid of malaria deaths by 2015.

“One of the things that I was taught when I was growing up was that among the greatest achievements of modern science was the identification of where malaria came from, the great steps that have been made to eradicate malaria from the world,” he said.

“That was many years ago and in the intervening years, tragically the challenge of malaria has grown worse not better.

“Half the world’s population is at risk from malaria, about a million people die because of it every year and not surprisingly the cost is highest among those most vulnerable and the youngest.”

The message was recorded by Dr Williams to support the global coalition United Against Malaria.

Campaigners are working towards a United Nations target of providing bed nets to everyone at risk by the end of this year with the aim of eradicating malaria deaths by 2015.

Ethiopia, Rwanda and Eritrea have been highlighted for their success in reducing malaria deaths by more than a half in just a few years through the use of bed nets, medicines and spraying.

Malaria sufferers experience flu-like symptoms, such as fever, headache and vomiting. Without treatment, the disease can result in permanent brain damage and death. Source: (The Press Association)

ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – Bandits killed a British oil worker and two Ethiopian soldiers in the remote southeastern Ogaden region of the Horn of Africa nation, officials said on Friday.

“It is an attack by some bandits and the Englishman and two Ethiopian service men have been killed,” Ethiopia’s state minister for communication Shimeles Kemal said of the attack on Monday.

The 39-year-old Briton was named as Jason Read by his employer IMC Geophysics International Ltd, which was subcontracted to the Malaysian oil giant Petronas.

“We are deeply shocked and saddened by this tragedy and our sincere thoughts and sympathies are with Jason’s family,” the company said in a statement.

The incident took place in Danot district in Somali region where several separatist groups operate.

“The Ethiopian authorities are carrying out a full inquiry and we are liaising closely with them,” said a Foreign Office spokeswoman said in London.

In 2007, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese oil venture in the Ogaden region and killed 74 people.

Formed in 1984, the ONLF is fighting for the independence of ethnic Somalis in the Ogaden, who they say have been marginalised by Addis Ababa.

Berlin 10000 m

IAAF – The IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz will mark the end of an era, because for the first time since 2001 we will see neither Kenenisa Bekele nor Zersenay Tadese on the medal podium.

Those two titans of cross country running dominated this race throughout the noughties but now Bekele is injured while Tadese – as we saw so spectacularly at the Lisbon Half Marathon – is prioritising road racing. Without this pair, there’s never been a better time for a Kenyan victory in the big race.

Ten championships have now passed since an individual Kenyan man won the long race at the World Cross Country Championships, the blue riband event of distance running. That man was Paul Tergat in Belfast 1999. Now a new Paul might be the one to resume that sequence.

Paul Tanui, just 19, will come to Bydgoszcz having won the next toughest race in the world – the Kenyan Championships – by the yawning margin of 30.2 seconds. The progress of Paul Kipngetich Tanui, to give his full name, has been frightening. He was fourth in the junior race in Amman before transferring to Fukuoka where he has thrived in the Japanese corporate system with fast times on the track and Ekiden circuit.

Of course, victory in the trials is one thing, preserving that form to the championships is another and Tanui’s vastly experienced compatriots will know all about that process.

Leonard Komen has finished 2nd-4th-2nd-4th at the past four world championships, as a junior then a senior. Joseph Ebuya was fourth in 2008 and won at Edinburgh in January where Kenenisa Bekele was fourth. Hosea Macharinyang was fifth in 2007. Richard Matelong has Olympic and world steeplechase medals from each of the past three years.

Yet this quartet was all beaten in their trials by Tanui and another 19 year-old, Lucas Rotich. Like Tanui, we know he’s good, but we won’t know just how good until the race unfolds in Bydgoszcz.

Gebremariam leads Ethiopia’s charge

The world cross does not seem to be as much of a priority these days for Ethiopia’s men, yet they still ended up with the champion in 2009 through Gebre-egziabher Gebremariam. He is back, but after four big wins before Christmas he lost both his IAAF Permit races in 2010. One of those was to compatriot Hunegnaw Mesfin who also triumphed at the Five Mills on his 21st birthday and may be ready for a breakthrough in Poland after a disappointing 2009.

Last year’s junior winner Ayele Abshero is on this year’s senior team, but there is no Bekele, Sihine, Cherkos, Fikadu or Jeylan. Ethiopia however may have its own Paul Tanui in Azmeraw Bekele. He was a clear-cut winner of the Ethiopian trial race and won the Marrakech half marathon, but at the time of writing we don’t even know how old he is. Clearly he has minimal international experience and that will be a disadvantage.

If any Eritrean is going to take over Tadese’s mantle on the country, it will be his training partner, the tall Samuel Tsegay. He impressed with his fifth place at the World Half Marathon Championships and looks set to climb much higher than his 16th place finish in Amman. The world will be looking at athletes like him who can crack the domination of “KenEth”, and another in that category will be Uganda’s Moses Kipsirio who was so near to winning in 2009. One more returning from that leading pack in Amman is Chakir Boujattaoui (MAR), who has quietly progressed since his eighth place last year.

One day, a man born outside of Africa will cause a sensation and win the World Cross Country Championships again. Bydgoszcz 2010 may be a bit soon for that, so there will be some interest not only in the first finisher from outside of Africa, but also the first European and the first without African heritage.

One in eight of the entrants for this year’s senior race are migrants or transferees from Africa. In this category are the leading Europeans Alemayehu Bezabeh (ESP) and Mohamed Farah (GBR). Farah worked his way through to 11th in the tough conditions at Mombasa 2007 and is targeting the championships for the first time since then.

One European entered who has already defeated the best of Kenya and Ethiopia this year is another Spaniard, Sergio Sánchez. He was world indoor silver medallist at 3000m in Doha, but surely it’s too much to ask for the same sort of result over four times that distance.

The leading European in 2009 was Spain’s Carles Castillejo in 28th place. He is entered again so it looks as if Spain will be the team to beat for the likes of Australia, Britain, France, Portugal, the United States, Japan and Poland. The Poles have one of the most interesting entries, Jaroslaw Cichocki (38). He last competed in the World Cross Country Championships as a junior in 1990. At a time when the possible winner of this year’s race wasn’t even born.

Junior race – Uganda’s Golden Opportunity

There is a possibility that for the first time since 1991, the gold could go somewhere other than Ethiopia or Kenya. The two men who finished ahead of Uganda’s Moses Kibet in Amman are now seniors. Kibet performed impressively against seniors in Seville and Elgóibar then retained his national junior title. Can he become only the fourth Ugandan to win a world gold?

If not, the title could go to a 16-year-old for the first time in a decade. Apart from Kibet, Japheth Korir is the highest-placed returnee from Amman, having finished fifth in 2009. He was fourth in this year’s Kenyan trial which was won by the experienced Charles Kibet, a junior team gold medallist at the last two World Championships. Kenya has now won the last 10 team titles and 20 of the last 21, losing only to Ethiopia in Marrakech 1998.

In Bydgoszcz the Ethiopian team will be spearheaded by Biftu Gashaw and Woldsenbet Debebe who were seventh and eighth in Amman but just sixth and seventh in their own country’s trial race.

Perhaps Eritrea can again upset the Kenyan/Ethiopian duopoly as they did with their team silvers in 2007. They bring back three top 20 finishers from last year including 16 year-old Goitom Kifle.

The junior race can hold a special level of excitement because individual reputations do not count for so much. There’s no telling how good an athlete might be at this stage of their development, though obviously it helps to come from Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea or Uganda.

There will be a race within a race to see who can be the first finisher from outside this bloc. In 2009 that honour went to the USA’s German Fernandez who was a brilliant 11th. That might be a bit too much to expect of this winter’s US number one Trevor Dunbar who hails from Kodiak in Alaska, so at least he will be unworried by the much colder conditions Bydgoszcz will provide in comparison with 2009. Another used to the cold will be Norway’s Sondre Nordstad Moen, a former cross country ski champion who surely will improve on last year’s top European placing of 50th.

Sadly the number of European entrants in this race is falling. Twenty years ago in?Aix-les-Bains, 73 of the 126 finishers represented countries from Europe. In 2010 the provisional total for Europe is half of that including just five scoring teams compared with 12 in 1990. One of those 12 became the last European junior men’s team to stand on the podium. They were the Italians who were led by 18 year-old Stefano Baldini.

Much better placed to challenge for team medals this time round are Japan. Their great strength in depth may pay dividends as that country fields three sub-29 minute 10,000m runners. Traditionally it has been the Japanese junior women who have grabbed team bronzes but actually their junior men were the first to achieve this feat … in 1987 when the World Championships last came to Poland.

ROME, Italy, March 22 (UNHCR) – The picturesque Calabrian hilltop town of Riace on the sole of southern Italy seems to have a lot going for it; glorious weather, fields of fruit, mountain scenery, great food and the nearby Mediterranean.

Yet, in the 1970s and 1980s, people were leaving the region in droves and heading to northern Italy, other parts of Europe and even further afield, unable to earn a decent living back home. Riace was well on its way to becoming a ghost town. There were hardly any shops, the last bar had closed, nobody was working in the fields and there weren’t even enough children to fill the local school.

Fast forward to today and the town is thriving, its solid stone houses echoing with laughter and happy voices, its mediaeval streets busy with artists, traders and tourists. But many of Riace’s 1,700 inhabitants are not even from Italy.

Much of the credit for the turnaround in the fortunes of Riace goes to Domenico Lucano, who, working with UNHCR, has set an example of how integration can work in a country under fire for its tough immigration policies. Mayor Lucano came up with the brainwave of repopulating the town with irregular migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers from countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iraq, the Lebanon and Somalia.

It’s a story that has enchanted German film director Wim Wenders, who has made a half-hour documentary drama about Riace shot in 3-D. The premiere of “Il Volo” (The Flight) was held in Rome on Friday with the support of UNHCR, whose regional representative, Laurens Jolles, attended. “The film portrays refugees and migrant workers in a much more positive light,” said one person who attended the screening.

Wenders, whose work includes the award-winning film “Paris, Texas” and the “Buena Vista Social Club” documentary, had first come to Reggio Calabria in September last year to film a short fictional story about migration in another nearby town, Badolato.

But he changed his mind after meeting some refugee children – three Roma brothers from Serbia and a nine-year-old Afghan boy called Ramadullah – who were living in Riace. Wenders decided to make something a bit longer, which would tell their story and that of the mayor and his vision for the town.

“I realized I was more attracted to the children’s stories than to the one I was shooting,” said Wenders, adding that real “people are always more important than fiction.” The result is a moving documentary drama that could help people to understand the reality of immigration and how foreigners can contribute to Italian society.

Lucano, the courageous mayor, recalled how the transformation of Riace began 12 years ago. “A boat carrying some 250 Kurds [men, women and children] was brought by the wind to our shores,” he said, referring to a boatload of people who had probably set off from North Africa in the hope of reaching Europe. “At the time, Riace was dying,” he added.

The Kurds had landed close to the spot where a scuba diver in 1972 discovered the so-called “Riace bronzes” – two exquisite full-size statues of bearded Greek warriors – and briefly put the area on the map. “The wind has brought us a special cargo, and who are we to turn it away,” Lucano thought at the time, reasoning that the refugees were simply following in the footsteps of Greeks, Arabs, Normans and other past visitors.

Lucano set up an association, Città Futura (City of the Future), which began offering migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers free board and lodging as well as electricity in Riace’s empty houses so long as they agreed to work for a living and learn Italian. “The Kurds [eventually] went to Germany, but left their mark,” Lucano noted. “Riace opened its doors to Eritreans, Ethiopians, Afghans and schools were able to reopen.”

The newcomers have been repaying the faith shown in them by helping to revive the fortunes of Riace. The women make handicrafts while their men are involved in construction and opening shops; both are helping to bring in the tourists, who can now stay in renovated town centre buildings.

Today, about 250 of Riace’s 1,700 citizens are foreigners. They include many Palestinian refugees resettled recently in Italy with the help of UNHCR after spending years living in dusty Al Tanf camp in the no-man’s land between Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, Laura Boldrini, UNHCR’s spokesperson in Italy, said the refugee agency was happy to support the example being set in Riace and other nearby towns. She also praised Wenders’ film, saying that Il Volo was “a tremendous tool for awareness-raising that upholds a model of cohabitation based on exchange and mutual interest, both for refugees and for the development of local communities.”

DJIBOUTI, March 21 – Martina Fuchs (Reuters) reports that the president of Djibouti Ismail Omar Guelleh signalled in an interview that he was prepared to run for a third six-year term if lawmakers amend the constitution in the small Horn of Africa nation.

The national assembly is expected to decide next week on an extension of presidential terms in office and speculation has surrounded his plans to run for a third mandate.

“This is a demand from our population and this will be next year. Let us wait for the outcome of the national commission that is working on the subject,” Guelleh said in an interview on Saturday at the 19th century French colonial presidential palace on the shores of the Indian Ocean.

Asked if he would accept the parliament’s decision to approve a third term, he said: “If it’s God’s will.”

Guelleh took office in 1999 and his second mandate expires in April 2011.

Djibouti, a former French colony which separates Eritrea from Somalia, hosts France’s largest military base in Africa and a major U.S. base. Its port is used by foreign navies patrolling busy shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia to fight piracy.

Guelleh said he believed the situation in Somalia was improving.

“I think the situation is better than before. There is some sort of fed-up (mood) among the Somali people especially of Mogadishu’s citizens which suffer from this opposition. I think that (President) Sheikh Sharif (Ahmed) will prevail,” he said.

Since 2007, fighting between pro-government militia and the Islamist al Shabaab group — which Washington sees as al Qaeda’s proxy in the region — has killed more than 21,000 Somalis and driven 1.5 million from their homes.

Ahmed joined a Western-backed peace process and was voted president of Somalia in January 2009 in an election which took place in Djibouti.

Guelleh said he was not planning to send more troops to Somalia on top of the 450 Djibouti has pledged to boost a 5,000 strong African Union force there.

Relations between Djibouti and neighbouring Eritrea under President Isaias Afwerki remain hostile.

The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea in December, accusing it of destabilising the region by providing funds and arms to Islamist insurgents in Somalia. Eritrea has denied the allegations.

“We are now in the process of implementation of the resolution which we hope will make this guy more flexible to the international community,” Guelleh said, referring to Isaias. “He must abide by international law.”

Guelleh said he expected Djibouti’s 2010 gross domestic product (GDP) to come in above a 5.4 percent estimate by the International Monetary Fund.

“We have not so much been affected by the financial crisis. We hope that there will be an influx of foreign direct investment which will boost our economy. We hope that we will achieve 5.7 or even 6 percent,” he said.

Chinese will be Djibouti’s biggest investors next year and in 2012, Guelleh said. “The Chinese will help make the port of Djibouti the biggest hub in this region. That will cost nearly half a billion U.S. dollars,” he said.

“We’ll have an electrified railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa — also by the Chinese. And we’ll have geothermal energy. And we are in discussions with French investors (about) wind farms.”

(Reporting by Martina Fuchs; Additional reporting by Abdourahim Arteh; Editing by Noah Barkin)

March 20, 2010 (WASHINGTON) — Washington criticized its key ally in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia, for jamming Voice of America’s local Amharic language service, saying it is a clear violation of the freedom of the press.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi Thursday admitted to jamming the US government-funded VOA Amharic service, describing it as Radio Mille Collines in Rwanda which had broadcasted racist and hatred programmes before the 1994 genocide.

“We have been convinced for many years, that in many respects, the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in engaging in destabilizing propaganda,” Meles said.

However the US State Department condemned the comparison to the infamous Rwandan station and urged Ethiopian government to respect the freedoms of press and expression as guaranteed by the constitution.

“The prime minister may disagree with news carried in Voice of America’s Amharic Service broadcasts; however, a decision to jam VOA broadcasts contradicts the Government of Ethiopia’s frequent public commitments to freedom of the press,” State Department spokesperson Gordon Duguid said today.

“Comparing a respected and professional news service to a group that called for genocide in Rwanda is a baseless and inflammatory accusation that seeks only to deflect attention away from the core issue.”

VOA said in a statement it had not had talks with the Ethiopian government for more than two years. “Any comparison of VOA programming to the genocidal broadcasts of Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines is incorrect and unfortunate,” it said.

Next May Ethiopia will hold elections. Addis Ababa is accused of restricting the activities of the opposition parties and imposing severe control over the journalists. Source: (Sudantribune)

Video

Extract from State Department Special Briefing:

AMBASSADOR COUSIN: Thank you very much, Ambassador Carson. I’d also like to thank the members of the press for your presence and interest in covering these important issues related to Somalia. As Johnnie Carson stated, the Somali people have suffered tremendously during the more than 20 years of conflict in their country.

The Somalia Monitoring Group, more commonly known as the SMG, submitted their report to the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee this past week. This SMG report – the SMG reports directly to the Security Council on implementation of the Somalia and Eritrea sanctions regimes. We take the work of the Somalia Monitoring Group very seriously and we are studying its recommendations.

Next week, the Security Council will meet and receive the regular 120-day report from the Chair of the Somalia Sanctions Committee that will include a briefing on the committee’s discussion of the SMG’s final report. The Somalia Monitoring Group report contains a number of recommendations, including those regarding the work of the World Food Program in Somalia. We at the U.S. Mission to the UN agencies in Rome are active members of the executive board of the World Food Program. This board regularly examines the work of the World Food Program and the perils its dedicated staff face around the world, particularly in places like Somalia.

In December of 2009, the World Food Program presented a briefing on the – its Somalia program to the World Food Program executive board. After the December board meeting, WFP did take internal measures to address the concerns raised in this internal report. Some of the same types of allegations were raised in the Somalia Monitoring Group’s report. So this morning, the executive board recognized that regardless of the process mandated by the SMG, the board has a responsibility for oversight and governance of the WFP operations. Consensus was reached by the board to ensure that all practices of the WFP in – WFP team in Somalia are in line with the organization’s policies and procedures.

We will continue to work to ensure that the generous contributions of the American people to support the work of the World Food Program are managed in an accountable and transparent manner. We express our gratitude to the WFP staff for their commitment to meet humanitarian needs in the most difficult of circumstances. The United States remains strongly committed to meeting the humanitarian needs of the people of Somalia. We continue to seek ways to ensure that the Somalian people receive the assistance they require.

I’ll end here, Assistant Secretary, and look forward to any questions from the media. Thank you.

MR. DUGUID: Before we get to the questions, I would like to make a correction for the record. I described Ambassador Cousin’s – one of her official duties rather than her official title, which is – Ambassador to U.S. Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome is her official working title.

As we call on you, please identify yourself and which ambassador you would like to speak to.

Matt.

QUESTION: Matt Lee with AP. Ambassador Carson, you mentioned at the very top – you were talking about a number of recent press reports. Can you be specific about what these reports said? I’m not asking you to identify whatever organization they were responsible. But what did they say? And what is wrong – what was wrong with them?

Secondly, you said that the Djibouti process was supported by IGAD, the AU, and all the countries of the region. But that’s not entirely true, is it? I mean, there is one country that doesn’t support it. Or has Eritrea changed their position? And then –those two very briefly – but then on the military aid that you talked about the several tons of weapons that have been provided to the TFG. Are there any concerns that those weapons may be leaking out in the same way that the food aid was described as leaking out to insurgents?

AMBASSADOR CARSON: Let me say, the most prominent article was one that appeared approximately a week ago in The New York Times, written by Jeff Gettleman, and I think co-authored by one of his colleagues, which asserted or carried the assertion that the U.S. Government had military advisors assisting and aiding the TFG, that the U.S. Government was, in fact, helping to coordinate the strategic offensive that is apparently underway now, or may be underway now, in Mogadishu, and that we were, in effect, guiding the hand and the operations of the TFG military. All of those are incorrect. All of those do not reflect the accuracy of our policy, and all of those need to be refuted very strongly. I think my statement clearly outlined what we are doing and why we are doing it.

You indicated that one state in the region has not joined in, and that is absolutely true; that is Eritrea. But Eritrea, in fact, stands alone. What my statement said was that all key states in the region, all the important states in the region – and I would include among them Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and other members of IGAD –

QUESTION: You’re not planning to meet up with President Isaias anytime soon, are you?

AMBASSADOR CARSON: Whenever an opportunity presents itself to engage President Isaias in a conversation that will lead to peace and a cessation of Eritrean support for spoilers in the region, I will do so.

With respect to military weapons, we try as best we possibly can to ensure through a number of mechanisms that any assistance, any assistance that we give to the TFG, directly or indirectly, is accounted for and audited through mechanisms that we believe are very good.

By Barry Malone

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said he is willing to meet Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki despite more than 10 years of bitter words and a bloody border war.

Eritrea last month accused Ethiopia of blocking its participation in African Union (AU) summits in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa — seat of the 53-nation body.

Responding to questions, Meles denied the claims and said Isaias was welcome in Ethiopia.

“If the Eritrean government is eager to send any person, whether the president himself or any person, and participate in meetings they will be treated exactly like any other delegation,” Meles told reporters late on Thursday.

Meles said it was Addis Ababa’s obligation as AU headquarters.

The 1998-2000 war between two of the world’s poorest countries killed at least 70,000 people. An independent border commission in 2002 awarded the flashpoint town of Badme to Eritrea but Ethiopia still occupies the territory.

“I am prepared to talk to anybody on matters that help peace in the neighbourhood,” Meles said. “So as I have made it very clear on many occasions we are ready to talk to them at any level, at any time, any place.”

Meles did not say whether he was willing to discuss the border issue. ”I have no obligation to meet him at the airport,” Meles added.

In December, the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea, accusing it of backing rebel groups in Somalia, where at least 21,000 people have been killed in violence since the beginning of 2007.

The sanctions, adopted in December and backed by 13 of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, include an arms embargo, travel restrictions and asset freezes for some of the country’s top officials.

Asmara says the Security Council is a proxy for the United States and says the multi-state body continues to ignore the fact that their territory is being occupied by Ethiopia, Washington’s strongest ally in the Horn of Africa.

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

Copyright © 2010 Reuters

African Union chief, Jean Ping, dismissed accusations that Ethiopia has blocked the right of Eritrea to establish an office for its mission to the AU in Addis Ababa.

Asmara said in a letter circulated during the 14th AU summit Eritrea has been banned for the last 10 years from its right to participate in African Union summits and other meetings in Addis Ababa by Ethiopian refusal to extend proper diplomatic and security guarantee.

Eritrea also called on the African Union to stop holding its summits and other meetings in Addis Ababa.

In his reply to the Eritrean Foreign Affairs Minister, Osman Saleh, the Chairperson of the African UN Commission said that “Ethiopia should never been accused for Eritrea’s denial using its rights to take part in AU deliberation,” the official ENA reported on Thursday.

Ping said the commission had discussed the issues with government of Ethiopia at highest level and has accepted a categorical assurance that the Eritrean government is free to establish a mission to the AU in Addis Ababa.

Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a bloody war between1998-2000 which killed 80,000 people. The conflict between the two countries started when the two neighbors disputed over the small border town of Badme.

Ping said the former chairperson had also informed Eritrea that it has the right to participate in AU sessions in Addis Ababa.

The AU chief was referring to a letter by the former Chairperson Alpha Omar Konare to the Eritrean government that its mission will be accredit only to the African Union, will not have or carry out bilateral activities and the staff will operate from Addis Ababa only where the AU headquarters is located.

The 14th African Union Summit voiced support to UN imposed sanction and condemned Asmara to its negative roles in regional stability.(Sudan Tribune)

IGAD: A communiqué devoid of any legality

The IGAD Council of Ministers has issued a communiqué on Somalia and Eritrea following a meeting convened in Ethiopia this weekend. Apart from its ill-advised content which can only exacerbate the crisis in Somalia and hamper the objectives of peace and security in the Horn of Africa, the IGAD Communique is devoid of any legality for the following procedural and substantive reasons:

i) Four members of IGAD, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda are direct protagonists in the conflict in Somalia in one form or another. Ethiopia is culpable for a flagrant invasion of Somalia in December 2006 under the instigation of the United States and the intermittent incursions thereafter. The other countries have not only endorsed Ethiopia’s invasion of an IGAD Member State but have also sent troops to Mogadishu in contravention of UN Security Council resolution 1725(2006) that barred neighboring countries from involvement in any eventual peacekeeping force in Somalia.

ii) Somalia’s seat in IGAD had remained vacant for most of the 19 years since the country was sadly embroiled in the crisis that continues without let up. It appears that the TFG has now been accorded a seat in IGAD. But in view of the political realities in Somalia(the entities in Puntland, Somaliland etc and the situation in Mogadishu), this short-sighted decision does not only provoke issues of legality but does not augur well for a healthy process of nation reconciliation in Somalia.

iii) As communicated to the government of Eritrea by Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail, the Special Advisor to the President, the government of Sudan does not support UN Security Council Resolution 1907 imposing sanction on Eritrea.

iv) Eritrea suspended its membership in IGAD in early 2007 in the wake of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia and the moral failure of IGAD to condemn the acts of aggression against a fellow Member State.

v) As is well known, Ethiopia continues to occupy sovereign Eritrean territories in violation of international law and its treaty obligations.

vi) In light of these facts, any decision of those States in respect of Somalia does not have validity, as they cannot cast their votes as impartial or neutral parties. In the same breadth, these countries cannot indict Eritrea on account of events in Somalia. These countries, which shoulder primary responsibility for the cause and exacerbation of the crisis in Somalia do not indeed have moral, political or legal authority to indict or punish Eritrea.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Asmara

3 February 2010