Category: Politics

NEW YORK – The U.N. General Assembly voted Friday to give two-year terms on the powerful 15-nation Security Council to five countries.

Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates all ran unopposed for available seats in their regional groups, and each secured the necessary two-thirds majority required of the secret ballots cast.

They will begin their terms on Jan. 1, 2022.

The council deals with issues of international peace and security. It has the power to deploy peacekeepers to trouble spots and to sanction bad actors. New members bring different experiences, perspectives and national interests to the council and can subtly affect dynamics among its members.

The council currently has several Middle Eastern crises on its agenda, including the Israeli-Palestinian situation and conflicts in Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group and a long-time U.N. watcher, says the United Arab Emirates may play a role in those areas and elsewhere.

“The UAE has a lot of influence not only in the Middle East but in the Horn of Africa, and other council members will hope the Emiratis will use their influence to help stabilize countries like Sudan and Ethiopia,” Gowan said.

Gowan notes that Albania is a country that has “seen the U.N. fail awfully in its region in the past.”

The U.N. failed to stop the Balkan war of the early 1990s, leading to NATO bombing in 1995. Then in 1999, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians fought Serbs to gain independence.

“Albania’s main interest on the U.N. agenda is of course still Kosovo, but the Security Council only has very limited influence there now,” Gowan told VOA.

UAE Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh noted that the council’s work does not end when resolutions are adopted.

“The UAE will be part of the coalition that speaks to strengthen the results-oriented nature of the council as much as possible,” she said, adding that the council is most effective when it is united.

But in recent years, diverging views, particularly among its permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — have stymied action on urgent issues.

“The Security Council’s record on recent crises has been pathetic,” Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

“Whether it involves war crimes in Gaza, massive human rights abuses in Myanmar, or atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the most you can usually expect is the occasional statement of concern — and that’s if you’re lucky,” he said.

The countries elected Friday will replace exiting members Estonia, Niger, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tunisia and Vietnam on Jan. 1.

They will join the five other current non-permanent members: India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway, and the five veto-wielding permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

Source: Voice of America

NAIROBI – Kenyan authorities are working to eradicate trachoma, an infectious disease that is a leading cause of blindness in Africa. About 7 million people in central Kenya are at risk for the disease.

As Elizabeth Partoti, sits outside a clinic in Kajiado county in Kenya, she stares, unseeingly, into the dry and brittle spaces outside the health facility. In a few minutes a surgeon will carry out a corrective eye operation and allow the more than 70-year-old woman to see clearly for the first time in over a decade.

She is one of thousands of people in Kenya who have either lost or are gradually losing their sight due to trachoma.

“My eyes have been bothering me because I have grown old,” she said. “The eyelashes are always getting into my eyes, causing me a lot of pain, my granddaughter has been helping, removing them physically with her fingers, but it is very painful.’’

Trachoma is caused by bacteria that attack the inner surfaces of the eyelids.

Dr. Peter Ekwum, an eye surgeon who has been carrying out trachoma surgeries in Kajiado county, says sight loss from trachoma is preventable but irreversible if not treated in time.

“Every time you blink, the eyelashes rub on the cornea and with time they peel off the first layer of the cornea, which results in an ulcer,” he explained. “The ulcer is very painful, but at the end of the day, the ulcer will heal and leaves a scar.”

That repeated scarring of the eye’s cornea eventually impairs vision and often leads to irreversible blindness.

About 7 million people live in 12 central Kenyan counties where trachoma is endemic because of a dry climate and the pastoral and nomadic lifestyle there. Flies in the area help spread the disease.

About 53,000 people are currently infected with the disease.

Like other countries affected by trachoma, Kenya had wanted to eliminate it by 2020, the World Health Organization’s target. The target date has now been moved to 2023. Dr. Ernest Barasa, Kenya’s National Trachoma Coordinator, said, “The way forward for Kenya in the trachoma elimination program is to clear the remaining trachoma trichiasis backlog, which stands at around 5,000 at the moment. That is 5,000 people who require urgent surgeries to avert blindness in the 12 trachoma-endemic counties.’’

To eradicate trachoma, experts say, people in areas prone to the disease must take greater precautions.

Most of the communities at risk are nomadic, sometimes living with livestock.

“The flies breed because of the dung and urine,” Ekwumm the eye surgeon, said, “and now because the flies are breeding, every time they discharge in a child’s face, the bacteria is carried from the children to the mother.”

Kenya’s plans to defeat trachoma depend on donors for the money for detection, treatment and prevention programs.

Only with more contributions, Kenya says, will it be able to eliminate the disease.

Source: Voice of America

GAROWE, SOMALIA – Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region has taken a first step toward banning female genital mutilation (FGM) in a country where almost all women and girls are forced to undergo the internationally condemned practice.

Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni and his cabinet this week approved a bill to be submitted to parliament that would criminalize the ancient ritual, a measure anti-FGM campaigners said would boost their efforts to end the practice.

“It will be forbidden to circumcise girls. Girls in Puntland must be left the way they are born. Anyone who performs circumcision in the region will face the full force of the law,” Puntland Justice Minister Awil Sheikh Hamud told reporters.

Justice Ministry officials said the bill includes stiff penalties for those who perform FGM, including hospitals, midwives and traditional circumcisers. No date has yet been set for it to be presented before parliament for a vote.

FGM, which involves the partial or total removal of the female genitalia, is almost universal in Somalia – with 98% of women and girls having been cut, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

There is currently no national law outlawing FGM in the Horn of Africa country.

Both Puntland and the breakaway state of Somaliland have issues fatwas – religious edicts – against the practice in the past, but there is no parliamentary legislation is in place.

FGM affects 200 million girls and women globally and can lead to a host of serious medical problems, according to the World Health Organization.

It can cause long-lasting mental and physical health problems including chronic infections, menstrual problems, infertility, pregnancy and childbirth complications. In some cases, girls can bleed to death or die from infections.

In many communities, girls are married soon after cutting, stifling their progress in education, health and employment. School closures caused by the pandemic could lead to an extra 2 million girls being cut in the next decade, the UNFPA has estimated, hampering global efforts to stamp out the practice by 2030.

In Somalia, where the vaginal opening is also often sewn up – a practice called infibulation – charities have reported a surge in cases as circumcisers offer door-to-door services for girls stuck at home due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Campaigners said legislation banning FGM would boost their fight to end the practice.

Hailing it as a “great milestone,” the UNFPA’s head in Somalia, Anders Thomsen, said the bill would “have a ripple effect in the campaign to end FGM in Puntland” if approved.

“This means girls will be safe from the brutal cut,” he added in a statement.

Somali anti-FGM campaigner Maymun Mahad said she still remembered undergoing the “very painful” practice. “As a young woman, I welcome the move by the cabinet,” she said.

Source: Voice of America

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa has been gripped by the mystery of whether a woman has, as has been claimed, actually given birth to 10 babies, in what would then be the world’s first recorded case of decuplets.

Gosiame Thamara Sithole from the Tembisa township near Johannesburg gave birth to the babies on Monday, according to the Pretoria News newspaper which quoted the parents. The babies — seven boys and three girls — have not made a public appearance or been captured on camera, although they were born prematurely, the newspaper reported.

The South African government said it is still trying to verify the claim.

That’s led to South Africans obsessing on social media over whether the story of the “Tembisa 10” is indeed true.

The father, Teboho Tsotetsi, told the paper his wife had given birth in a hospital in the capital Pretoria. He said it was a big surprise for the parents after doctors only detected eight babies in prenatal scans.

“It’s seven boys and three girls. She was seven months and seven days pregnant. I am happy. I am emotional,” the newspaper quoted Tsotetsi as saying.

The couple already have 6-year-old twins, which would make the total an even dozen kids, if the claim is true.

South Africans are eagerly waiting for proof of what would be a world record. Relatives and neighbors of the couple have insisted the news is true.

“For her to receive 10 blessings at one given time, we thank God for that,” Wilson Machaya, a neighbor of the family in Tembisa, told The Associated Press. “And because we are neighbors we will have to assist in any way possible.”

A Malian woman gave birth to nine babies only last month in Morocco, in what was hailed as the world’s first case of nonuplets.

The Department of Social Development in South Africa’s Gauteng province confirmed tracing Sithole and spokesperson Feziwe Ndwayana said they would make an announcement after meeting with the family. Another local government department said earlier this week that it had no record of the babies’ births in any of the province’s hospitals.

The Pretoria News initially broke the story with an interview with Sithole and her husband, Tsotetsi, at their home, which was conducted nearly a month ago and when they thought they were having eight babies. They requested that the story only be published after the babies were born for safety and cultural reasons, the newspaper said.

According to the report, Sithole went on leave earlier than expected from her job as a retail store manager because she could no longer cope. Tsotetsi is unemployed.

One organization has given $70,000 to the couple to help and other South Africans are being encouraged to donate.

Alongside #Tembisa10, the term #NationalBabyShower has been trending on Twitter.

Source: Voice of America

(Reuters) -U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Thursday pushed for the U.N. Security Council to meet publicly on Ethiopia’s conflict-torn Tigray region, where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from famine.

“What are we afraid of? What are we trying to hide? The Security Council’s failure is unacceptable. We have addressed other emergent crises with public meetings. But not with this one,” Thomas-Greenfield told a U.S. and European Union virtual event on Tigray.

Western council members have been pitted against Russia and China, countries that diplomats say question whether the 15-member body, charged with maintaining international peace and security, should be involved in the crisis in Tigray.

“I ask those who refuse to address this issue publicly: Do African lives not matter?” she said, repeating publicly a question she had asked her council colleagues privately in April.

About 350,000 people in Tigray region are suffering “catastrophic” food shortages, according to an analysis by U.N. agencies and aid groups released on Thursday. U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock said: “There is famine now in Tigray.”

The Ethiopian government disputed the analysis, saying food shortages are not severe and aid is being delivered.

Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti told a news conference the government was providing food aid and help to farmers in Tigray.

“They (diplomats) are comparing it with the 1984, 1985 famine in Ethiopia,” he said. “That is not going to happen.”

The Security Council has been briefed at least five times privately since fighting began in November between Ethiopia’s federal government troops and Tigray’s former ruling party. In April it issued a public statement of concern about the humanitarian situation.

The Security Council is expected to meet on Tuesday on Tigray, at the request of Ireland, but diplomats said it was likely to again be a closed meeting.

The violence in Tigray has killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 2 million from their homes in the mountainous region. Troops from neighboring Eritrea also entered the conflict to support the Ethiopian government.

Reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Howard Goller

Source: Dehai Eritrea Online

“She gave me the strength and courage to get where I am now.” “She is not a teacher but more like a friend to all of us.” “She is a strong woman but yet sympathetic.” “She has always been by our side, especially during the hard times.” “She is not only a teacher but a demonstrative mother”. “She jokes around but yet leaves you with essential tips for life.” These are some of the words of her former students and colleagues at the University of Asmara. I bet you may be wondering who this person is. Please read on.

• I would like to thank you for agreeing to do this interview. Sister Thomas, please introduce yourself?

My name is Sister Thomas Johnston. I was born in 1938 from a working class family. I have a lot of Irish blood in my veins as my mother’s father and mother were of Irish origin. That way I am catholic. Being a nun was never on my mind as I had the dream of becoming a musi¬cian. But God has his own plans. I became a nun after my experi¬ence of being a music teacher at the age of 20. Six years later I set my foot in Eritrea which current¬ly is the country I’m living in.

• How do you characterize your stay in Eritrea?

I came when I was 26 years old in 1964. Now I’m leaving at the age of 82 in 2021. I have lived all this time, at the time of struggle and hardships, along with the people. I literally tried to live the life of the Eritrean people. So I can’t deny the fact that I’m also Eritrean. I started my career at Asmara University which was a difficult duty for me. The rea¬son for that was I was a student myself when I was giving les-sons and teaching the students. But I especially characterize my stay here by the resilience that I found in the people. They passed through difficult times to enjoy their happy lives now. I was in Eritrea when the people were suffering. I’m living proof. I witnessed the good and bad times with the people. This is the special characteristic of the people and I got the opportunity to grab that from them.

• We all go through good and bad times in our lives. Tell us about the happy moments that you remember during your stay in Eritrea?

The inauguration of Asmara Uni¬versity is one of the happiest mo¬ments during my stay here. The other was the first graduation cer¬emony, which was held in 1969. However, nothing can be compared to the moments when Er¬itrean fighters made their way to Asmara. On May 24, 1991, I was literally rejoicing and dancing with the people as if it was the in¬dependence of my own country. That day I felt the freedom and was too happy to handle it. Then I made my presence in the air¬port when the first flight attendants started their job in 1993. Another memorable mo¬ment was my time with the people of Afabet. You have no idea how beau¬tiful my time with them was.

• So tell us about your stay in Afa¬bet?

I stayed in Afabet from 1996 till 2012. I really had a good time in Afabet. The people have got a lot of space in my heart indeed. I was so happy among them feel¬ing like I’m one of them. They are simple people, in a good way. They are kind and lovable. The unique thing that you can get in every Eritrean is there with them too. I’m Christian while major¬ity of the people there are Mus¬lim. They warmly allowed me to blend just like any Eritrean and made me part of their society. I consider this a national treasure that you can never find in any other country. That alone was good enough to make me fall for their charms and warmth. Let me tell you this. I once wore a scarf which they call “shash”. That specific shash (white with black stripes) is only worn by men. The women there saw me wear¬ing that specific shash and were surprised and told me that it is supposed to be for men. I liked it and tried to explain my self by telling them that I’m also a man because I’m a nun. They simply laughed and allowed me to have it my way because they noticed that I loved that specific scarf. The more I started to spend time with the people the more I fell in love with them.

• You must have enjoyed your time there. Any moments that saddened you?

I have been in Eritrea for the past 56 years. This means I was there when their history was made; so, of course, there were a lot of sad moments that broke my heart and other moments that shocked me. To tell you some, back then my students used to love school and studying. Their ambi¬tion for education and knowledge was really incredible, motivating me to teach them more and more. They attended classes regularly and were always busy studying despite the war and chaos that was going around. There was this specific moment that really broke my heart and that was when a stu¬dent showed up in my office after class alone. They would come and whisper, “Sister, I’m leaving my bike here in the university” or they would go like this, “Sister, you might not see me tomorrow.” Those moments were very hard to endure. You couldn’t hold back your sadness to see such kids leaving their studies and going to the front for they were too des¬perate to bring freedom and live a peaceful life. At moments like that, you really can’t be neutral because you are already attached to them.

• Those must be some of the moments that made you sad. How about the shocking part?

It was on February 1, 1975. The previous day we went to Massa¬wa as we had some work to do there. It was a one-night trip. We came back with one of the Las¬salle brothers. As we entered that around the world, rural areas and remote, hard-to-reach populations frequently have worse social-, economic-, education-, and health-related outcomes and are frequently underserved, overlooked, and undervalued. Unfortunately, they remain almost forgotten and basically an afterthought.

Moreover, social justice is also reflected in the fact that the recently opened schools will offer lessons to students in accordance with the country’s mother tongue policy, which sees education made available in the various languages used across Eritrea. Accordingly, this will help to allow the local communities to preserve their rich heritage and culture, and also means more equitable access for all ethnolinguistic groups and improved enrolment, retention, and comprehension. Ultimately, these schools and policies will help to ensure that more children, irrespective of background, distinction, or status, have the opportunity to enroll in education, become literate, maximize their potential, and transform their lives.

Asmara we heard shooting and he drove me to the university where I used to stay. That night I had already arranged an extra evening class for the students and not more than 15 students were waiting for me in the university while some of them had already left. They waited for me there till I arrived. I couldn’t send them back to their homes as the shooting was overwhelming the city. So, I took out a mat and we all stayed the night in one classroom sleeping on the mat, not knowing the worst was yet to come in the morning. The next morning we woke up and the shooting had already ceased. How¬ever, it started again in a frightening way and we could feel that the shooting was getting closer and closer. Suddenly, some soldiers from the enemy [Ethiopian army] came to the classroom with their weapons and all and ordered us to bring the shabia soldiers who were attacking from the roof of the university with a sniper or we take the fall. I then noticed that the university was surrounded by soldiers. We didn’t even know that there were soldiers with snipers right above us. They searched and searched but couldn’t find them. Finally, they let us off the hook in the evening hours. That mo¬ment, being surrounded by soldiers with their guns aiming at you, was really terri¬fying. It was a bit dangerous for me and I went to Sidamo, an Ethiopian province. But I made my way back to Eritrea after a couple of months. That’s what I learned from Eritreans–resilience. In 1976, we started classes again.

• What a story! Any final thoughts?

To have lived my life in Eritrea is simply a gift that God himself gave to me. I can’t deny the fact that I’m Scottish but I can’t deny that I am Eritrean, too. I spent many years here. Spending my youth and my lat¬er ages with warm people, Eritreans at that is really a big deal for me. Looking at those who once were your students as successful adults and many of them with families also brings me satisfaction. Finally, I am glad I brought joy by taking my life journey with such kind and courteous people. It indeed is making me sad to leave now after spend¬ing those beautiful years with the people.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

On the cover page of its 17th edition, the Defense Ministry’s magazine quoted President Isaias Afwerki as saying: “There are two things we need to achieve through hard work … we need to create wealth and distribute wealth.” The development pilot projects at Logo and Misilam dams, like other development projects nationwide, are good illustrations of how Eritreans intend to create and distribute wealth. Definitely

Many dams have been built over the years in the country to serve as hubs of social transformation. As we have seen in previous editions of #UnderstandingEritrea, the construction of Logo and Misilam dams has resulted in the empowerment of communities who live in villages around the dams. The communities now have access to potable water and have made a transition from traditional to modern farming and animal breeding, all of which have raised their standards of living.

“Creating and distributing wealth” is the mantra guiding the future development path of the nation. But who generates the wealth? The youth, of course! The Government of Eritrea’s scheme of national development heavily relies on its human resource, and the overwhelming majority of the Eritrean population is made up of the youth. With access to free education from primary school all the way to higher education, it is not difficult to imagine the prospects of Eritrea as a nation that is endowed with a lot of educated and skilled youth, who work in a variety of capacities as prime movers of change. During our visit to the Logo and Misilam development projects, we saw firsthand young college graduates and trainees on-site engage in activities that contribute to the social transformation of Eritrea.

For example, the Logo Dam plant has five metal workshops that cater to the construction and assembly of water tanks nationwide. Each unit, composed of hundreds of welders, covers specific geographic areas, allowing the four units to deploy their workforce to different locations simultaneously.

Mr. Semere Tareke, the supervisor whom we met in Metal Workshop 1, said the unit was formed in March 2015 with 80 students from the 27th round in Sawa, who were given intensive vocational training in metal works. Since then the unit has been recruiting every year graduates from the vocational school in Sawa. They leave their trademark in the work they have done even far from the Logo Dam area where they began as amateurs before they became skilled professionals who contribute immensely to Eritrea’s national development.

Mr. Semere told us that some members of the unit who had been his students at the project have become trainers while others have become experts in making and installing water tanks in other parts of the country. He says that he is gratified to see his former students leave the unit after having learned important skills. He expressed his appreciation for their enthusiasm and endurance working in the open air under a scorching sun.

Mr. Semere is currently supervising the training and performance of 180 students who joined his unit not long ago. So far his unit has overseen the development of 600 young Eritreans who engage in metal works. They all learned while being extremely productive. In fact, works related to water distribution operated by the youth from Metal Workshop 1 have been deployed from Adi Halo to Adi Ke, Gherghera, Laguyen, Aitiabir, and others. In Asmara, their water tanks can be seen at the hills in Arbaete Asmara and Mai Chehot. The youth from Metal Workshop 1 has also worked at infrastructures for water distribution systems in the Northern and Southern Red Sea regions, including Gahtelay, Massawa, Assab, Wia, and Laite.

The workshop at Metal Workshop 5 is slightly different from the other four as it includes wood, plastic, and designing works. It is the most recent establishment in the Logo project and has 556 students and college graduates, equipped with the latest technologies.

Logo and Misilam projects have become youth training centers and hubs for social transformation. As we’ve seen in previous editions of #Understanding Eritrea, we have witnessed the youth working hard everywhere we went. At the community farms, we met agronomists who assist farmers in making the transition from traditional to small-scale commercial farming, and as part of the awareness-raising campaigns, we have seen college graduates travel village to village to teach the communities public health and modern farming. We have also seen how the youth made solar farms and generate power to be supplied to villages. At Misilam dairy project, we met veterinarians and animal science graduates working hard to multiply imported cattle breed by thousands so that they could be given to farmers all over the country and boost milk production.

Overall, in the journey we made to “understand Eritrea,” we have come to realize that after building dams and collecting water, one of the grand goals of the Eritrean government is empowering the youth by creating opportunities for learning and developing skills to assist the nation reach its development goals that put the peoples’ interest first. Indeed, there is no question that by arming the youth with the needed knowledge and skills Eritrea is poised to multiply its potential to generate and evenly disseminate wealth.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea