Chinese President to Inaugurate New African Union Headquarters

Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to visit Addis Ababa this month to inaugurate a new African Union headquarters financed by China and built largely with Chinese labor.  The project was launched when Moammar Gadhafi was maneuvering to move Africa's diplomatic capital to Libya.

Official African Union and Ethiopian sources confirm that President Hu will be in Addis Ababa January 28 to open what is being called “China's gift to Africa.”  The inauguration ceremony will be held the day before African heads of state hold their January meeting at AU headquarters for the first time.

According to custom, African heads of state meet every January in Addis Ababa. But the summit previously has been held at the city's United Nations conference center because the AU headquarters building was too small.

Construction of new facility began in June 2009, when Addis Ababa's position as Africa's diplomatic capital was in doubt.  The city has been home to the continental body since its founding, largely due to the influence of the late Emperor Haile Selassie, who was one of the driving forces behind creation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963.

But in 2009, the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was the AU chairman, and he made no secret of his desire to build a grand new headquarters in his hometown of Sirte.  That plan was thwarted, however, when China agreed to pay for a $200 million facility in Addis Ababa. It was built by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, largely with Chinese labor.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi toured the new facility last week and hailed the close cooperation with China.  He revealed that he had lobbied Chinese officials to build the new headquarters, donated land adjacent to the old AU campus, and exempted taxes on all imported construction materials. His remarks were reported by Chinese and Ethiopian state media, which were invited to cover the event.

AU Projects Director Fantahun Hailemikael says the new facility will vastly improve the African Union's institutional capacity.

"Almost 48 years after foundation of the OAU (Organization of African Unity), the African Union is now able to have such a big facility that can fulfill its requirement in terms of office and in terms of conference," he said. "The Chinese government generously has given this facility as a gift to Africa and the African Union."

The complex features a 2,500 seat amphitheater and a helicopter landing pad so visiting dignitaries can be flown in from the airport, eliminating the need for motorcades that tie up traffic. The office tower will become home to 700 of the 1,300 African Union staff members.  The other 600 will remain in the old section.

The new facility symbolizes China's growing involvement in Africa, and individually with most of the 54 AU member states.

In 2010, China moved ahead of the United States as Africa's largest trading partner.  The Chinese State Council, or Cabinet, reported trade with African nations reached $114 billion in 2010, as compared to $10 billion in 2000.

Industry experts say 70 percent of the continent's oil exports go to China.

The two-day summit of African leaders is likely to be contentious, featuring a battle for the chairmanship of the AU Commission.  Current chairman Jean Ping's bid for a second term is being challenged by South African Home Minister and former foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.

Veteran AU observers say the race could be close.  Heads of state will make the selection by secret ballot on the first day of the summit, January 29.
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Netsanet Abeyo lead Ethiopian women team to victory at Mumbai Marathon

Mumbai, India – Ethiopian Nestanet Achamo Abeyo clocked an impressive 2:26:12 to take the women’s crown while Laban Moiben of Kenya won in a close finish from another Ethiopian, Raji Assefa, to take the men’s title at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon on Sunday (15).

The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon is an IAAF Gold Label Road Race.

Personal best for Abeyo – women’s race

Unlike the men’s race, the top honours among the women were decided in the early stages.

Nestanet Achamo Abeyo, leading a pack of six of her teammates, crossed the 20k mark in 1:09:19. The fourth place finisher at last year’s Rome Marathon, Abeyo made her kick after the 25th kilometre and was at least 30 seconds ahead of her fellow runners for the major part of the rest of the race. Increasing her tempo on the return journey, she went on to clock a personal best and course record time of 2:26:12 for the women’s crown, more than four minutes faster than the second placed Fatuma Sado (2:30:20).

“I am happy to win here,” Abeyo said at the post-race press conference although it was visible to see the pain on her face, the sign of an all-out effort!

An innocent looking Sado, the pre-race favourite and just 20 years old, vowed to come back for the title next year.  She said a pain in her legs prevented her from keeping up with  Abeyo. Makda Harun was third in 2:30:47.   It was indeed a coup for Ethiopia, with taking the first dozen spots and three more within the top-20.

Both winners went home with USD 36,000 from the pool of USD 340,000 total prize money for this year’s event.

Leading Results: - Marathon

Men -

1. Laban Moiben KEN 2:10:48

2. Raji Assefa ETH 2:10:48 PB

3. John Kyui KEN 2:10:54

4. Gela Hailu ETH 2:11:32

5. Nixon Maschichin KEN 2:11:37

6. Siraj Gena ETH 2:12:33

14. Abdisa Sorri ETH 2:18:17

Women -

1. Nestanet Achamo Abeyo ETH 2:26:12 PB (New Course Record)

2. Fatuma Sado Dergo ETH 2:30:20

3. Makda Harun ETH 2:30:47

4. Ayelu Lemma Geda ETH 2:32:10 PB

5. Roman Gebregessese ETH 2:34:18

6. Fantu Jimma ETH 2:34:27

7. Ehitu Kiros Reda ETH 2:34:50 PB

8. Tadesse Defa Girma ETH 2:36:12

9. Worknesh Tola ETH 2:36:18

10. Marta Markos ETH 2:36:51

11. Aberesh Nesga Bedasa ETH 2:37:17

12. Radiya Adlo ETH 2:37:34

13. Lydia Rutto KEN 2:37:38 PB

14. Galume Chala ETH 2:40:55
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Egypt beat Ethiopia 4-2 in Cairo

Egypt women’s football team will take a two goal cushion to Addis Ababa in the return leg of the 2012 African Women Championship preliminary round match in a fortnight’s time. Home side Egypt emerged victorious in a closely fought encounter with two goals from captain Engi Atia and one each from Salma Tarek and Haiam Abd El Hafiz. Ethiopia replied through Erehima Biza and Shetaye Abaa.

Egypt were quick to settle into the game and forced early corner kicks as forwards Nesma Fekry , Mahera Ali  and Salma Tarek sought to stretch out the Ethiopian defence.  The first corner kick for Egypt had Dagmawet Bekele in goal for Ethiopia parry the ball away from her goal-line with her defenders still finding their feet. The sight of it all was all Engi Atia needed when she lined up the second corner kick which she swung with her left boot and it eluded all in the box to nestle into the back of the net for the opening goal.

A stunned Ethiopia slowly got back into the game and impressed with some short neat passes initiated from the back. Soon Eden Negri was finding her range with passes and linking up with midfielder Birtukan Ware, Biza and Abaa but the final ball and short was largely lacking. Egyptian defence held tightly by Neven Gamal and Yasmin Samir was soon over-working as the Ethiopians dominated play. One well worked out move started by Berktawit Aboye put Abaa through on goal but she shot tamely straight into Fawkia Amry’s hands but the warning signs were flashing for the hosts. As the half time mark beckoned Ethiopia were virtually camped in the Egyptian half leaving the home side chasing the ball. The equaliser eventually came through Biza who headed clinically past Amry from a delightful cross by Abaa after some neat exchanges.  The teams went into the break at 1-1 with Egypt relieved for a change to regroup.

At the start of the second half both coaches introduced substitutes and the new players had immediate impact. Haiam Abd El Hafiz brought some pace and trickery upfront for Egypt. She almost put Egypt in front when she intercepted an attempted pass across the backline by the Ethiopians but her shot sailed over the cross bar. The Ethiopian defence didn’t seem to heed the danger of playing the square passes across the backline and they were to pay for it later.  Abdel Hafiz got onto a through ball but seemed to have had a heavy touch as she raced towards goal. Bekele came off her goal-line and from the ensuing contact with Abd El Hafiz the Egyptians were awarded a penalty. Up stepped Atia to skillfully convert for hers and Egypt’s second goal. The goal brought back the momentum in Egypt’s favour and they went in search for more goals with Sara Abdallah and Salma Tarek making dangerous runs behind the opposition’s defence.  

Egypt carved up a move involving a number of players and it was skillfully finished off by Tarek running onto a ball into space behind the defence and she picked her spot, knocking it past Bekele as she came off her line. Ethiopian was stunned again and it got worse shortly afterwards  when  Ethiopian captain Bezuhan Alemar who up until then had had a good game  was caught in two minds with the ball at her feet . She was robbed of the ball by an alert Abd El Hafiz who ran on goal placed her shot beyond diving Bekele. Egypt sought to play out the game and the visitors encouraged by coach Abraham Teklehymanot went for a late rally to try and reduced the deficit. As urgency crept into the Ethiopian game, Ware’s delicate touch returned and she was again finding the forwards with some fine passes. Abaa made the most of a long ball that was not dealt with by Egyptian defence and she raced towards goal before shooting across Amry for Ethiopia’s second. There final whistle came not too long after that goal and the two teams will battle it out all over again in two weeks in Ethiopia.
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Ethiopia Sale of State Assets Would Raise $7.6 Billion

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Ethiopia’s government would raise 132 billion birr ($7.6 billion) if it sold the country’s five biggest state-owned companies to private investors, Access Capital SC said.

The sale of Ethiopian Airlines Enterprises, sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest carrier, Ethiopian Shipping Lines, Ethio Telecom, the Ethiopian Insurance Corp. and Commercial Bank of Ethiopia would generate funds needed to finance infrastructure projects in the country, the Addis Ababa-based research company said in its annual economic report. Proceeds from 81 other public enterprises earmarked for sale by the government would raise more than $1.9 billion, it said Jan. 9.

“Ethiopia needs cash now and it makes perfect sense to liquidate the net worth held in long-accumulated assets for something as grand as ensuring a transformative change in the country’s economic history,” Access said.

A five-year growth plan unveiled by the government in 2010 calls for 569 billion birr to be invested in projects including roads, dams, sugar factories and railways by mid-2015. Privatization is necessary because Ethiopia doesn’t have the savings to finance the “needed, justified and on the whole appropriate” public spending, Access said. The sale of assets would also boost foreign investment in sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-biggest economy, it said.

The government has no plans to sell its biggest state-owned companies, Communications Minister Bereket Simon said in a phone interview today from Addis Ababa.

‘Arms of Government’

“These are development arms of the government that definitely need to contribute to national development programs,” he said. “That is why the government wants to retain control.”

Privatization would also reduce inflationary pressures and “potentially dangerous external debt” that might result from the government’s need to borrow 422 billion birr, or 14 percent of annual gross domestic product, to finance investments, Access said. Ethiopia sold three state-owned breweries to international firms for $388 million last year.

Ethiopia’s annual inflation rate of 38.1 percent in June was the second-highest in the world last year, Access said. Prices surged partly as a result of a 10 billion-birr increase in central bank lending to the government, while external debt has also tripled in the past five years, it said.

Ethiopia will continue to see “rapid” economic expansion in “coming years” because of the benefits of public investment; transformations in small-holder and commercial agriculture; a “consumer goods revolution”; and the growth of exports including minerals and electricity, said Access.

The economy grew 7 percent to 8 percent annually in the five years to July 2010, according to the International Monetary Fund. Growth may slow to 5.5 percent this year, from 7.5 percent last year, before accelerating again to 6.5 percent in 2016, according to the IMF’s website.

Strike: More Than 600 Nigeria-Bound Passengers Stranded In Addis Ababa

More than 600 passengers travelling to Nigeria from various destinations are now stranded in Addis Ababa following the cancellation of Ethiopian Airlines flights to Abuja and Lagos since Tuesday.

The correspondent in Addis Ababa reports that the cancellation of all flights to Nigeria was as a result of the ongoing nationwide strike against the removal of oil subsidy embarked by the NLC and the TUC.

Passengers were on transit to Nigeria through Addis Ababa from China, Dubai and India among other countries.

Those stranded include men, women and children back from business and medical trips as well as some Nigerian students studying abroad.

Some of the stranded passengers said at Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa on Wednesday that they have been in Addis Ababa since Monday.

They expressed displeasure with the cancellation and many of them complained that they do not have money on them.

“We have been here since Monday, the airline is paying for our accommodation and feeding as provided by our contract with the airline, but we are tired of staying here’’, Mr Moses Aku, one of the passengers said.”

Sen. Hadi Sirika  (CPC-Katsina),  who was among the stranded passengers,  said he was making efforts to re-route his flight and return to Nigeria as soon as possible.

They appealed to the Nigerian embassy to come to their aid as most of them have spent their money before departure.

Efforts to speak to Mrs Wogayehu Terefe, spokesman of Ethiopian Airlines in Addis Ababa was abortive as she did not respond to calls and text messages sent to her.

However, an official of the airline said, the airline decided to cancel its flights to Nigeria because there were no handlers at the airports to attend to the aircraft on arrival.

The official said on Monday one of its aircraft that landed in Lagos was left unattended for more than seven hours because of the strike.

“It is not in our interest to keep the passengers here because it is economically unwise to keep hundreds of people for many days and taking care of their hotel bills and feeding,” the official, who pleaded anonymity, said.

Mr Bulus Lolo, Nigeria’s ambassador to Ethiopia said the embassy would assist the stranded Nigerians.
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Ethiopia's Jufar wins Houston Marathon

HOUSTON (AP) -- Ethiopian runners swept the Houston full and half marathons in record times on Sunday.

Tariku Jufar won the men's marathon in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 51 seconds, eclipsing the previous best time of 2:07.04 set last year by Ethiopia's Bekana Daba. Jufar is the fourth straight men's champion from the African nation, and the fourth straight runner to win in a record time.

Alemitu Abera won the women's race in 2:23.14. The previous record was 2:23.53, set by Ethiopia's Teyba Erkesso in 2010.

In the men's half marathon, Feyisa Lelisa won in a personal-best 59:22. That eclipsed the course and American record set by Ryan Hall in the 2007 U.S. Half Marathon championship (59:43).

Belaynesh Oljira won the women's half marathon in 1:08.26, breaking Shalane Flanagan's record time of 1:09.41, set in 2010.

The races were held one day after the city hosted the U.S. Marathon trials, run on a different route. Meb Keflezighi won the men's trial and Flanagan was the first woman across the finish line.

The weather on Sunday morning was ideal, with a clear sky and a temperature of 52 degrees. A total of 8,249 runners started the marathon, and another 9,409 started the half-marathon.

The early lead pack, made up of three Kenyans and four Ethiopians, reached the 5-kilometer mark in just under 15 minutes. The group was down to five runners after eight miles and each of the splits were under five minutes to that point.

The Ethiopian trio of Demessew Tsega, Debebe Tolossa and Jufar steadily widened their margin with each mile. They covered Mile 20 in 5:05, and Jufar moved in front by himself by Mile 24.

Abera kept pace with the men for a while, opening an early 11-second lead on the rest of the women's field.

Running stride for stride with a male pacer, Abera was more than a minute ahead of her closest competitor at the 10-kilometer mark. The 26-year-old Abera had three top-three finishes in marathons in 2011, winning in Istanbul last September.

Lelisa set the tone for the Ethiopians, breaking away from the pack early in the half marathon. He rounded the final turn and finished in a full sprint.

Oljira fought off a challenge from 2011 Boston Marathon champion Caroline Kilel in the final strides, winning by two seconds.

Tolossa finished the men's marathon in 2:07.41 and Tsega was third in 2:11.13. Benita Willis was second in the women's race, and her time (2:28.24) was good enough to earn her a spot on the Australian OIympic team headed for London this summer.

The marathon is sponsored by Chevron, and the half marathon is sponsored by Aramco.
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Ethiopia to train Ghanaians on Commodity Exchange

Training for stakeholders involved in the setting up of the Ghana Commodity Exchange is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2012, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Hanna Tetteh has disclosed.

She told the Daily Graphic in an interview that a team tasked with the preparation of regulations for the commodity exchange was almost through with its work.

Officials from the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, the most successful such exchange in Africa, would be in the country to assist in training the stakeholders  and personnel who would man the exchange, she added.

“We believe it is an important vehicle to encourage the cultivation of staple food crops and enable farmers to look at farming as a thriving business and agribusiness that has an easy market. We are hoping to start with staples; maize, rice and soya sorghum,” the Trade and Industry Minister explained

The implementing team from the trade ministry will work with the National Buffer Stock Management Agency, Ghana Grains Council and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create another specialised trading platform for agricultural commodities.

That will go down as something that has brought a transformational change in agricultural trade in the country, she said, adding it would contribute to making agriculture an economically viable venture in the country.

“We are quite hopeful that if we are able to adhere strictly to the timetable set for ourselves, we should be able to get this done and operational by the end of 2012,” Ms Tetteh told the Daily Graphic.

The minister had told the Daily Graphic earlier that the exchange was expected to be in place by September 2012. The trade ministry, which is spearheading the setting up of the Commodity Exchange, is receiving support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which helped to set up a similar infrastructure in Ethiopia.

The SEC has already conducted extensive feasibility study on the exchange, which the trade ministry is now pushing into a reality.

Besides guaranteeing ready market and income streams for farmers, the exchange would also serve as an employment avenue for many along the agricultural value chain. For example, the exchange in Ethiopia which trades in only two commodities – coffee and sesame seeds – is on record to be trading about $50 million a week, a feat far in excess of the average of $2 million that the Ghana Stock Exchange currently trades a week.

The exchange would be modelled after the Ethiopian exchange which operates on the Warehouse Receipt System fused with a Trading Platform.

This is where there are warehouses in different parts of the country into which grains from farmers associations or individual farmers are received, graded according to quality and assigned weights which would be used to price the products. The farmers are thereafter issued with receipts indicating that they have a certain amount of products in the warehouse available for trading.

When the commodities are traded, they are aware of the amount of grains available countrywide and the types of grades, where the buyers (licensed dealing members) could buy or sell.

To help determine the prices of commodities, the exchange would make use of technology, where farmers in any part of the country could send text messages to designated short codes to instantly access prevailing prices.

The price information would also be in voice messages in local dialects to take away the illiteracy challenge.

Some of the advantages of the warehouse receipt system include assurance of quality and quantity because of the proper system of storage and ascertaining the value.

Source: Daily Graphic