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Ethar relief: Good News
“ The Mercy” Project carried out by Ethar Relief, continues at the refugee Camp of Um Gherghour. About a year ago Ethar Relief started the project to build a secondary school for girls in Um Ghergour. However the project was not initiated due to lack of sufficient funding at the time. We would like to…
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Unfiltered Notes: “I Am Thinking Now”
After a fulfilling career at Microsoft, Patrick Awuah returned to his native Ghana to start Ashesi University with the goal of cultivating ethical leadership and innovative thinking for a new Africa. A month after starting the project, he received an email from a student which he says almost moved him to tears. The student’s email…
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In Memory Of Chinau Achebe: “Things Fall apart.”
Chinua Achebe’s “Things fall apart” is a milestone of African literature: Starting in the 1950s, Achebe was central to a new Nigerian literary movement that drew on the oral traditions of Nigeria’s indigenous tribes. Although Achebe writes in English, he attempts to incorporate Igbo vocabulary and narratives. Other novels include: No Longer At Ease (1960),…
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“Massacre At Wekidiba”: A Survivor’s Book Review
A review of a new Book by Dr. Habtu Gebreab (Aka, Fr. Athanasius) Some events are destined to be part of the collective psyche of a nation. No time or healing can blot out the indelible imprints they leave behind. They remain an integral part of a society either in their physical, cultural or psychological…
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Forto 2013: A Matter of Perspective
There has recently been a spate of articles about the recent rare phenomena that occurred at Forto Baldisera, the building that houses the Ministry of Information of the current ruling class, the PFDJ. The stories are varied and many and variously categorize the incident as an “attempted coup d’etat”, “A putsch”, “a supplication to the…
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Eritrea’s Dismal Human Development Report
The United Nations has published its 2013 Human Development Report (HDR) and Eritrea ranks number 181 in the world, that is, 7th from the bottom. With a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.351, Eritrea is ahead of only 6 mostly war-torn African nations: Niger, Congo, Mozambique, Chad, Burkino Faso and Mali. The HDI is a…
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Perspective On Forto 2013
Eritreans For Democracy, Justice and Equality (EDJE) There is no doubt that the event of January 21, 2013 in Asmara will remain one of the most important and most controversial in the Eritrean political arena for a long time to come. This is due to its uniqueness, quantitatively by the involvement of a far greater number…
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Operation Forto: A Prelude To A Final Showdown?
If you return to awate after a few weeks or even a few days it is hard to catch up but skimming quickly through some of the discussions that passed, the most outlandish was that triggered by Yosief Ghebrehiwet who unabashedly declared that the struggle for independence had been useless! Yosief writes eloquently and cleverly…
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Isaias Afwerki Deals With His Regime’s Suicide Note
The goal of all authoritarian leaders is to create a state that does not have alternative power centers or breeding grounds for a leader to emerge and to challenge them. In Eritrea, the institutions which incubated emerging leaders were traditional, religious, civil society, and the military. After a 50 year-long assault by secular fundamentalists, social…
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Eritrean Women, March 8 And NUEW
March 8, the International Women’s Day is approaching. Invitations for numerous upcoming events have been published in “governmental” and opposition websites. International Women’s Day is celebrated since the mid seventies (in ELF and EPLF areas) and was established as a public holiday after independence of Eritrea. On SHEMONTE MEGABIT (March 8) many Eritreans top styled with their…
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Waiting For An Eritrean Spring Or Making It
Between waiting for the Eritrean spring and making it: An attempt to find a new approach to change in Eritrea Preface: More than two decades after the liberation of Eritrea, it seems that the chances of change in the Eritrean political scene is diminishing, not because there are significant new conditions in favor of the regime…
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Reviewing the Reviewers: In Defense of Bereket Habte-Selassie
For their Christmas present, Dr. Bereket Habte-Selassie’s colleagues received a 48-page “book review” of his books. The reviewers, Asaminew Ewnetun and Aradom Fedai Haqi, took 48 pages to say: this colleague of yours whom you know as a scholar, a professor of African and Afro-American studies, a Pan African and with a resume as varied as…
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Forto 2013 – The Covert Angle
Much has been said about the January 21 event – now better known as the “Forto – 2013” operation, in which the PFDJ regime was shocked to its core, despite its typical and desperate tactics of playing down threats and feigning normalcy. Not only did the event scare the pants out of the cowardly dictator,…
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Just Tickling!
This article is exclusively intended to acknowledge and congratulate developments that took place while I had no idea they did. Please read each in its totality and do not dwell on the details. What I feel right now is no different than what the Seven Sleepers felt the day they woke up. Please help! The…
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Human Rights And Challenges In The Horn Of Africa
1. The Hon. Adam Bandt Federal MP, Cr Grant Miles, Maribyrnong council, her excellence representative of Botswana Ms. HEDDIE GOLDBERG, his Hon. Consul General Of the federal Republic of Somalia, Yanis Hashi; Mr. Chin Tan, Chairperson, VMC; Assistant commissioner Commander Ashley Dickinson Vic Police; Commander Scott Lee AFP; religious and African community leaders and invited…
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Lessons Of January 21
Nothing sours the mood of dictators like the appearance of not being in control. A total loss of control is preferable just as a quick death is to a slow death. According to the logic of dictators the fear of government is the beginning of security. History amply attests that when fear is eliminated, dictatorial…
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Team Eritrea Granted Political Asylum In Uganda
(picture courtesy of BBC) The 15 Eritrean football players who had asked for political asylum in Uganda in December following their losing match to Rwanda have been granted political asylum, according to BBC. Of the 15 (including the team doctor) who were granted asylum, 2 returned to Eritrea, adds the report. This is the latest…
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Epic Fail: Isias Afwerki Tries To Diminish “Forto 2013”
The news that members of the Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF) took over the Ministry of Information building (located at Forto, Asmara) on January 21; announced on air their demand for constitutional government and release of political prisoners, and occupied it for nearly 8 hours was so huge that, within days, there were no fewer than…
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Isaias Afwerki Dismisses “January 21 Incident”
Eritrean strongman Isaias Afwerki dismissed the January 21 military takeover of his Ministry of Information as a minor incident orchestrated by “a handful” of individuals, an incident that he and his ministers, who were in a meeting within the confines here [presidential palace], discussed “all day.” The disclosures were made on February 14 in an…
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Under Pressure, Sudan Admits Its Human Trafficking Problem
Last month, Sudan’s Minister of State, Mebrouk Selim Mubarek, declared that human traffickers are active in Eastern Sudan and they number in the hundreds. That was the first time a Sudanese official openly acknowledged that it has become a hub for human traffickers. Mebrouk, who owes his position to Eritrean strongman Isaias Afwerki, is himself…
