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09/02/10

Haile Menkerios (R) discussed the political stand-off with Mr Mugabe

Haile Menkerios (born October 1, 1946) is a former Eritrean diplomat and currently the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Sudan and the head of the AMIS.

Studying in the United States, Menkerios earned a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and a master’s degree from Harvard University. During the period from 1991 to 2000, Menkerios was Eritrea’s Ambassador to Ethiopia and the Organisation of African Unity, its Special Envoy to Somalia and the African Great Lakes region, and was Eritrea’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Later, as Senior Adviser to Moustapha Niasse, the Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General to the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, he assisted Niasse in the mediation process that led to the Global and All-Inclusive Agreement, which was signed on December 17, 2002 and marked the end of the Congolese Civil War.

At the UN, he was Director of the Africa I Division in the Department of Political Affairs from June 2003 to June 2005.

Haile Menkerios (left) talking to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

On September 26, 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced his appointment as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo; he assumed this post in October 2005. Subsequently, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced his appointment as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs on May 16, 2007, and he assumed this post on July 1, 2007.

On June 5, 2008, the United Nations announced that it was sending Menkerios to Zimbabwe to discuss how the UN could assist in the electoral process leading to the second round of Zimbabwe’s presidential election. At the UN food summit in Rome a few days earlier, Ban had suggested to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe the idea of sending Menkerios to Zimbabwe and Mugabe agreed.

Menkerios was sent to Madagascar in February 2009 to help resolve a political crisis there. He met separately with President Marc Ravalomanana and opposition leader Andry Rajoelina on February 9, and both of them agreed to engage in dialogue

Afrique en Ligue

09/02/10

Haile Menkerios

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has deployed an outstanding Eritrean diplomat, Haile Menkerios, as the new Special Envoy to Sudan, replacing Pakistan’s Ashraf Qazi, who said on Sunday he was leaving earlier for personal reasons.

A top-ranking diplomat, Menkerios, who held the position of the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, will take over the running of the UN Mission in Sudan (AMIS). He would be the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Sudan and the head of the AMIS.

His posting comes just months to Sudan’s multi-party presidential elections in April 2010. A political referendum in Southern Sudan, which could see the semi-autonomous region gain independence, is also due in January, 2011.

‘It is for personal reasons, family reasons, that I have requested the Secretary-General to relieve me of my responsibilities much sooner than I would have wished for because I certainly would have liked at least to see the elections,’ Qazi told a news conference in Sudan.

Announcing his replacement, the out-going Special Envoy, Qazi, said: ‘He is a wonderful individual and is known and is respected in the north and in the south and has huge UN experience â” Haile Menkerios will do an absolutely splendid job and you will all find that out.’

Menkerios travelled with UN chief, Ban, during his last visit to Africa, where both attended the African Union Summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The issue of the referendum in Southern Sudan and whether it might lead to further instability dominated the African

Junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara talks with UN Assistant Secretary General Haile Menkerios (l) in Conakry (Photo: Sia Kambou/AFP)

Union (AU) Summit discussions, both at the Presidential and the Ministerial levels, PANA reports.

Menkerios served as Eritrea’s ambassador to Ethiopia for almost 10 years. He was Eritrea’s best known ambassador to the Organisation of African Unity, now, the AU. Eritrea has not had any diplomatic ties with Ethiopi a following a military confrontation in the late 1990s.

As the UN’s Director in charge of African Division, Menkerios executed some of the key decisions involving the conflicts in Africa during his tenure.

He is best remembered for his involvement in the mediation of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, which led to the signing of an agreement, which was later to see the end of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was then the Senior Advisor to Mustapha Niasse, UN Special envoy to the Inter-Congolese Dialogue.

Menkerios has been involved in the mediation of the conflicts in Africa, taking his last mission as the special envoy to the crisis in Madagascar in February, 2009, where he attempted to resolve the stand-off between Malagasy President, Marc Ravalomanana and would-be coup leader Andry Rajoelina.

He also served as the UN envoy to Zimbabwe following the post-election crisis in the Southern Africa nation.

His posting to Sudan comes as the world’s attention shifts to the country’s multi-party elections.

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ADEN, Yemen (Reuters)

09/02/10

Refuge seekers

Somalis fleeing war have long found refuge in Yemen, seen as a way station to Saudi Arabia, but fear of al Qaeda infiltration has cooled their welcome.

“Because we are Somali refugees, we’re suspicious,” complained Ali Mohamed Othman, an unemployed man in the dusty Basateen slum in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden.

Yemeni authorities have been on alert since Somalia’s hardline Islamist rebel group al-Shabaab, already battling an interim Somali government at home, said last month it was ready to send fighters to help al Qaeda in Yemen.

“After the (Shabaab) remarks we’ve taken several measures such as to limit refugees’ movements to other provinces,” said Major Ahmed al-Humaiqani, head of Basateen police station.

Refugees now get fingerprinted and their pictures registered in a central computer to help track their movements.

A failed December 25 attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner, claimed by an al Qaeda group in Yemen, heightened Western and Saudi fears that militants will exploit state weakness in the impoverished southern Arabian country to prepare new attacks.

Yemen, which has traditionally had close ties with Somalia, has given prima facie refugee status to all Somalis escaping the clan strife and famine that engulfed the Horn of Africa country after warlords toppled President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

It has offered no such favors to a growing influx of Ethiopians and Eritreans, often detaining them on arrival and deporting them, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

Yemen hosts 171,000 registered refugees, mostly Somalis, according to UNHCR figures for December, up from 140,300 a year earlier. Many more unregistered Somalis are thought to roam there, most of them hoping to move to richer Gulf countries.

After surviving a two-day voyage across the Gulf of Aden in a small boat, Shafir Abdullah dreams only of work in Saudi Arabia, which shares a 1,500 km (937 mile) border with Yemen.

“I don’t have a job, but I wash cars sometimes,” said the 25-year-old from the anarchic Somali capital Mogadishu, as he sat with friends in Basateen. “I am saving for Saudi.”

Yemen itself is mired in poverty. With more than 40 percent of its 23 million people living on below $2 a day, it has few resources to cope with the human tide from the Horn of Africa.

QUEST FOR BETTER LIFE

Yemen: Risking for refugees

“Many come to try to move on to other Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia,” said Mohamed Deriya, Somali community leader in Basateen where 40,000 Somalis and Yemenis with Somali ties live in makeshift houses, many made of wood or corrugated iron.

Some in Basateen’s unpaved streets say police hassle them.

“We have received a number of reports by refugees who have been harassed by the local population and by authorities,” said Rocco Nuri, a UNHCR spokesman in Aden.

Since al-Shabaab offered to send fighters to Yemen, four Somalis have been detained on suspicion of having links to al Qaeda, said Hussein Mahmood, Somalia’s vice-consul in Aden.

“They are now being interrogated,” he said.

Yemeni has also accused some Somalis of joining so-called Houthi rebels in the north, saying 30 had been arrested there, but diplomats say they have no evidence to substantiate this.

Houthis might force some Somalis to join them as they head for the Saudi border, said Mahmood, the Somali diplomat.

Others say Somalis might fight for a while if offered money or the prospect of a border crossing later. “They are desperate, they need money,” said Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee.

Abdullah Ali, a Somali living in Sweden who was visiting relatives in Basateen, agreed: “Some might be willing. All the boys here don’t have a job. They want money, a car, a living.”

Yemen’s Western and Arab donors hope to save the country from replicating Somalia’s fate of chaotic breakdown.

“Yemen has the advantage to have a government that wants to work with us,” said Pauline Baker, head of the Washington-based Fund for Peace which does research on failed states.

“Somalia is a failed state, whose transitional government controls just some blocks in Mogadishu,” she said.

Somalis desperate to flee their homeland pay smugglers up to $150 depending on the sea route, and are totally at their mercy.

“Smugglers are ruthless people who don’t care about the well-being of those being transported. They might be thrown over board, they might be beaten up,” said the UNHCR’s Nuri. “Many cases of rape happen before, during and upon arrival in Yemen.”

Most Somalis in the urban squalor of Basateen are focused on survival, not on al Qaeda militants or Houthi rebels.

“I have no job. I don’t know what to do,” said Yurub Wase, a refugee depending on U.N. aid who arrived with her four-year-old son in November after paying $150 to smugglers for the voyage.

“I feel sick but I can’t afford medicine,” she said.

Khadija Sheikha Ahmed, a mother of five, agreed: “Our life is a mess. I would go anywhere else.”

(Editing by Alistair Lyon)

05/02/10

Source Madote News

Dr. Lisa Masterson

Dr. Lisa Masterson, an American doctor and co-host of the popular TV series program “The Doctors” said that at a time when a number of developing countries are suffering from lack of enough medical doctors and in which their citizens are falling victim to various diseases, the fact that Eritrea manages to nurture doctors on the basis of internal resource attests to the country’s bright future.

She made the remarks in an interview she conducted with ERI-TV during the recent graduation ceremony of the first graduating Eritrean doctors from the Medical College in Asmara.

Noting that she has a long work experience in a number of countries, Dr. Lisa explained that the majority of the developing countries put aside the action plan they mapped out, especially as regards the development of the health sector due to managerial inefficiency, internal crisis and corruption, as well as the absence of clear vision and strategy. On the contrary, Eritrea with its prevailing peace, clear vision and program, as well as a dedicated leadership could be categorized as a model for others in managing to establish its own medical college and graduating the first Eritrean doctors domestically, she elaborated.

Expressing admiration to the country’s development endeavors and the achievements so far registered, Dr. Lisa stated that she has visited Eritrea many times and that she is highly impressed with the prevailing peace in the country and the hospitality of the Eritrean people.

As regards the competence of the recently graduated Eritrean doctors, she said that they deserve admiration for their competence, intelligence and dedication. In this respect, Dr. Lisa said that their contribution to the development of the health sector is not to be viewed lightly. Such success would not have been achieved short of the full cooperation of the people and the Government, particularly that of the dedicated role of the martyred fighter Minister Saleh Meki.

Dr. Lisa Masterson, Co-host of “The Doctors” TV series program and founder of the International Maternal Fetal Care Organization visited Eritrea with a team of surgeons 4 years ago to provide professional service, and ever since she has been collaborating in the development of the health sector.

Asmara, 3 February 2010

shabait.com

Hundreds of thousands of Eritrean nationals around the world, including Europe, USA and Australia would stage demonstration denouncing the US sanctions resolution adopted in the name of the Security Council, besides reinforcing the national resistance drive.

In the demonstration scheduled to take place on February 22 under the theme: “Annul the Unjust US Resolution”, Eritrean nationals from the US, Europe, Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Africa would participate, according to the Coordinating Committee.

Noting that the demonstration aims at expressing bitterness over the vicious resolution and above all highlighting the Eritrean people’s ardent patriotism and the nation’s united resistance, the Committee called on Eritrean citizens everywhere to back up the national resistance drive.

Voicing feelings of deep anguish over the repeated US hostile acts against Eritrean dating back to the 1950s, a number of nationals residing abroad underlined the need to strengthen unity of ranks among all sections of the Eritrean society towards rebuffing such vicious enemy conspiracy.

February 3, 2010 (ADDIS ABABA)

Sudan Tribune

African leaders have collectively condemned Eritrea for its “unfolding destabilizing nature” in the East African region.

The leaders in the final day of their AU summit, on Tuesday said that the Eritrean government is still busy of its negative roles in destabilizing regional peace and security.

The governments of Djibouti and Somalia yesterday told AU summit that, despite the imposed sanction on Eritrea, the Red Sea nation, in defiance to the UN resolution, has continued to sending insurgents via their territories.

The two countries urged AU and the international community to establish strong organization to the enforcement of the sanctions to block the defiant acts of the Eritrean government.

On Saturday, one day before the AU summit kicked off, the Eritrean government urged the African Union that, country’s related agenda’s shouldn’t be discussed in the Addis Ababa’s gathering – calling on the union to respect its AU membership.

Asmara rather requested that own agenda’s must be deferred to next summit that is routinely held in a different country.

“should Ethiopia refuse to agree, Eritrea calls on the AU to stop holding further summits in Addis Ababa” Eritrean government statement said.

The statement accused rival Ethiopia of obstructing Eritrea’s rights to take part at AU summits and other AU meetings that held in Addis Ababa.

Last December, the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Eritrea for illegally supplying arms to the suspected Al-Qaeda linked Islamist insurgents, who are battling the internationally recognized transitional government of Somalia.

The UN resolution demands that Eritrea stops training, arming and supporting armed groups of Somalia.

The sanction has also laid travel ban and an asset freeze to Eritrean military and government officials

By Jeremy Clarke

01/02/10

ASMARA (Reuters) – An impending mining boom in Eritrea will challenge oil-rich neighbours to make it easier for foreign companies to prospect across a massive geological structure in the region rich in base metals and gold, analysts say.

Eritrea set the government’s stake in any mining project at 10 percent stake in 2008 with an option to buy a further 30 percent, a small claim compared to other countries in the area like Egypt which mandates a 50 percent stake or Sudan at 60 percent, according to industry experts.

The relatively liberal mining terms have led more than a dozen foreign companies to get licenses to explore in Eritrea which analysts expect to accelerate dramatically in the next five years and provide a lifeline for the impoverished economy.

Advanced projects are at Bisha, run by Canada’s Nevsun Resources Ltd, with gold production expected by the end of the year, and at Zara, run by Australia’s Chalice Gold Mines and expected to start producing a year later.

“In the next ten years other nations in the region will look at Eritrea’s mining boom and they will want in. They will relax their laws and it will become a regional boom,” Timothy Strong, Eritrea manager for British company London Africa, told Reuters.

“If you look at the geography, Eritrea is a relatively small nation compared to African giants Sudan and Egypt, but it has many more foreign mining companies than the others combined. Geologically speaking, they are just as prospective as Eritrea.”

The companies are attracted to Eritrea because it sits on a patch of the Arabian Nubian Shield, a geologic feature that stretches from Saudi Arabia and Yemen in the east to Sudan and Egypt in the west.

PRESSURE ON THE NEIGHBOURS

Tucker Barrie, an economic geologist and an expert on the Arabian Nubian Shield, says neighbouring countries have already taken note that foreign companies are now prospecting nearby.

“It is not going to wash with any foreign company if Khartoum keeps asking for 60 percent of gold mining projects. That’s why even though it’s 50 times the size of Eritrea, there is only one foreign company mining there,” he said.

“However Khartoum is well aware it needs to revise its mining law. In fact, they asked me to show them a copy of Eritrea’s mining law. The bottom line is, these are poor countries and they should take as much as they can of their own resource, but it’s a balancing act, they still need to invite foreign companies into their country.”

EL-ARISH, Egypt (Reuters)

04/02/10

Egyptian border police shot dead two African migrants trying to slip into Israel, security sources said, pushing the number of African migrants killed this week at the sensitive border to four.

A 26-year-old Eritrean was shot dead on Thursday, while in a separate incident late on Wednesday a 27-year-old migrant of unknown nationality was killed, the sources said.

Another migrant, a 20-year-old from Eritrea, was critically injured by police during Wednesday’s attempt to reach Israel.

Security sources and analysts say increased violence at the border is partly due to the increasing popularity of the route, seen as safer than risking passage by sea from Libya to Europe.

At least 19 migrants, mostly unarmed Africans seeking work or asylum in Israel, were killed by Egyptian border guards last year, while five have died this year.

Police detained another five Eritreans and three Ethiopians who tried to slip into Israel on Wednesday, the sources added.

Monthly migrant arrests by Egypt at the border surged as 2009 progressed, from just six in January to 160 in July.

Egypt has come under pressure from Israel to stem the flow, while Egypt also fears the unfettered movement of migrants in the politically sensitive Sinai border region where Islamist militants sometimes take refuge.

A nine-year-old schoolgirl has become one of the world’s youngest mothers after giving birth to a 6 lb baby by caesarian section.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
03 Feb 2010

The baby was delivered on January 27 at a hospital in Changchun, in the North Eastern Chinese province of Jilin, when the girl was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, according to a local newspaper.

The City Evening News reported that the girl and her child were both well, but that her parents have lodged a complaint to the police.

Under Chinese law, intercourse with a child under the age of 14 is statutory rape.

A nurse in the ward told the newspaper that the girl’s family was from Songyuan, a nearby city of around three million people, and that she “looked very mature” but it was unclear how she had become pregnant.

The hospital declined to comment on the case.

China has launched a nationwide campaign to preserve the innocence of its children, banning any sexual content from the internet. Secondary school pupils are often suspended or expelled if they are suspected of having sexual relationships.

However, critics point out that there is a need for proper sexual education in order to combat the fast-rising number of teenage abortions. According to statistics from one hospital in Shanghai, almost a third of abortions are carried out on school pupils.

Last year, a clinic in the central city of Chongqing was criticised after advertising half-price abortions for anyone with a student card.

Advertisements for “Student Care Month” showed a schoolgirl wearing uniform, saluting and saying: “I am a student, I have special rights”.

The youngest girl ever to have given birth is thought to be Lina Medina, of Peru, who gave birth at five-years-old in 1939.

During press conference Israeli Coalition for Refugees presents data according to which government approved import of 120,000 work immigrants – 25 times amount of refugees who infiltrated through Egyptian border

Yael Branovsky

Published:

02.02.10, 12:27 / Israel News

//

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently warned of an overflow of refugees entering Israel, however it appears that the government simultaneously approved the import of 120,000 migrant workers – 25 times the amount of refugees infiltrating via the Egyptian border (amounting to 4,787).

The data are based on information relayed by the State to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and were presented during a press conference held Tuesday by the Israeli Coalition for Refugees. The coalition represents the Association for Civil Rights, Kav LaOved (Worker’s Hotline) and the Hotline for Migrant Workers.

The organizations claim that the Israeli government is trying to intimidate the public in order to prevent the Sudanese and Eritrean refugees from being given an asylum in Israel.

Attorney Oded Feller of the Association for Human Rights said at the press conference, “Not a single refugee from Eritrea or Sudan has undergone an evaluation of their eligibility to receive refugee status,” and added that the State of Israel is meant to evaluate them, but in reality “it doesn’t deport them, but it doesn’t evaluate them either.”

The Knessest’s Internal Affairs Committee will discuss a bill regarding infiltration prevention on Wednesday, which passed in first reading at the previous Knesset.

According to the aid groups, an approval of such a bill would amount to Israel’s violation of the UN’s Refugee Convention of which it is a member.

According to the proposal, the infiltrators will be subjected to prison terms lasting five to 20 years and will be deported back to their countries. Should the pill pass it will render the aid groups lawbreakers.

The organizations called on the government to withdraw the bill and form a protective policy of asylum seekers in accordance with the UN convention of which Israel is a member.

Professor Rafi Walden, President Shimon Peres’ son-in-law, also spoke at the press conference and spoke of how as a doctor at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, he recently treated a refugee from Sudan whose village was burnt and who was shot in Egypt.

“If this law passes, I will become a candidate for a five-year prison sentence,” he said, “This is a shame on the Jewish people and the State of Israel, which was established as a shelter for refugees. The State must defend its borders, but anyone who really is a refugee, must be helped.”

Singer Alma Zohar, who volunteers to assist refugees and labor immigrants, said, “This law is dangers and threatens all human rights activists. The State has crossed the line into dark territory.”MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) said in response to the data presented, “It seems this is a negligent, dangerous and dark proposal, which is based on a distortion of reality and intimidation of the Israeli public.”

He added: “It is particularly serious since the bill proposal on infiltration is the Israeli government’s first statement on forming a proper policy on refugees. It is a dark statement, which is dangerous and anti-democratic.”