NAIROBI, Kenya — It's been almost two decades since U.S troops were forced out of Somalia after the "Black Hawk Down" battle. Troops from neighboring Ethiopia spent more than two years trying to restore order before withdrawing last year. Now, the U.S. is backing a push by African states to add troops to combat Somali militants.

But Somalia experts who have watched violence spin in circles for nearly 20 years are warning that more troops will not bring peace, and will encounter fierce resistance from the dangerous militant group that claimed deadly twin bombings in Uganda last month.

Last week African heads of state who met in the Ugandan capital — the site of the July 11 blasts that killed 76 people watching the World Cup final on TV — pledged to add 4,000 new troops in Mogadishu. Those troops will add to the 6,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi now stationed in Somalia's capital to protect the transitional government there.

Matti Multiplex Edna Mall introduced three-dimensional (3D) films on the big screen on Friday, July 30, 2010, to a full house of by including government officials and well-known businesspeople among the invitation only crowd of moviegoers.

The popular film Avatar graced the theatre for its second run, this time to a hall full of people wearing nerdy, thick rimmed glasses. Anyone not sporting this look would have been missing out on all the lifelike action in 3D. With everything from spears, arrows, and ikrans (flying dinosaur like creatures) to bullets, rockets, and shrapnel seemingly coming out of the screen toward the audience, this was a new experience for filmgoers in Ethiopia, even those who had already seen Avatar.

It is difficult to imagine how a 3D film would look unless one has experienced it. In 3D movies, two images are projected in slightly different ways. Due to the differences in the right and left lenses of the eyeglasses, each eye only sees one image. The images are then staggered. The farther they are apart from each other, the closer the images appear. This is one of the ways that depth perception can be determined and is called stereopsis.

The annual U.S.–Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum — better known as the AGOA Forum — opened August 2 in Washington with U.S. and African officials pledging on the 10th anniversary of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) to make the U.S. trade preference program work even better to stimulate economic growth and development on both sides of the Atlantic.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Amos Muhinga Kimunya, Kenya’s minister of trade, both addressed the opening session. Also on the dais were Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs William Fitzgerald.

Speaking to officials representing 35 of the 38 AGOA-eligible countries along with a host of other African regional trade groups, Kirk first saluted a delegation of 34 African women entrepreneurs who traveled to Washington as part of a U.S. Department of State program to attend AGOA, which this year convenes in both Washington and Kansas City, Missouri. The United States trade representative also mentioned President Obama’s Forum with Young African Leaders, which is taking place in Washington August 3–5, and praised 50 years of independence in some African countries. “This is a great week between the United States and Africa,” Kirk told his audience.

Habesha Brewery SC has attracted 14 European and Asian companies for the bid it floated on July 7, 2010, for the supply of a complete turnkey brewery plant it plans to build in Debre Brehan, 130km north of Addis Abeba.


The international bid, which will close on August 17, calls for the design, procurement, supply, and construction of Habesha Brewery’s plant on 300,000ht of land. The number of companies who have shown an interest in the bid surprised the company’s management.

“We were expecting a maximum of seven companies to respond to our bid,” said Eskinder Desta, vice chairman of Habesha. “So far, 14 have shown interest, with two weeks left on the bid.”

The 14 companies are from eight countries: three from Germany; two each from Belgium, the Czech Republic, China, and India; and one from Italy, Turkey, and France.

Turkey ended the European Athletics Championships on a high note with a late run that secured Turkey's best showing ever at the tournament.

Alemitu Degfa Bekele and Elvan Abeylegesse led Turkey to a one-two finish in the 5,000-meter race in Barcelona on Sunday, only a day after Nevin Yanıt's 100-meter hurdles victory. Earlier last week, Abeylegesse won a gold medal in the 10,000-meter, to take Turkey’s tally to three gold medals.

Turkey finished fifth in the medal standings, making this year a best-ever performance in the European Championships for Turkey.

In fact, Turkey had only won one gold and two bronze medals prior to this summer.

Süreyya Ayhan won Turkey’s first gold in the European Championships with a 1,500-meter victory in 2002, while triple jumper Ruhi Sarıalp won a bronze medal in 1950 and Abeylegesse won a bronze in the 5,000-meter in 2006.

Greetings from Voice of America!

Over recent months we’ve appreciated hearing from you about our Horn of Africa broadcasts to our Ethiopian and Eritrean audiences. For 28 years Voice of America has broadcast uncensored news to both countries, but that service has been recently interrupted by the Ethiopian government. And they have blocked access to our Horn of Africa web site for all who live in Ethiopia.

We value your views and during a crucial time in Ethiopian domestic affairs, we wanted to offer you by e-mail a new way to receive our news and feature programs.

Our broadcasters continue to work diligently to reach many parts of the world with news in Amharic, Afaan Oromoo and Tigrigna, but most listeners in Ethiopia cannot get that news now.

CBE - which has over 200 branches - has signed for the Temenos T24 core platform as well as mobile banking and anti-money laundering technology from the vendor.

T24 replaces seven current systems, including Misys Bankmaster and interfacing technology covering financial messaging and local money transfer, trade service and card banking.

CBE will also use Temenos Arc Mobile to help it tap the potentially lucrative unbanked market, offering m-banking services with advanced cash management capabilities including text alerts, interactive SMS and XHTML browser.

Ethiopian Airlines has been honored as among the World’s Top 25 Airlines, when measured by Net Profit, in a report published by Air Transport World (ATW) magazine. According to the latest data available for Ethiopia’s flag carrier, the airliner made a net profit of $127.7 million, making it Africa’s most profitable airline and 16th most profitable in the world.

The World’s most profitable airline is Dubai based, Emirates, which made a whopping $963.5 million in net profit. Based on operating revenue, the world’s largest airline is Lufthansa Group with a total revenue of more than $31 Billion followed by Air France KLM and Delta Airlines.

Delta is the World’s largest airline by the number of passengers transported, followed by Southwest and American Airlines.

Ethiopian airlines transported nearly 3 million passengers, an increase of 6.3% from prior fiscal year. Its profit for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009 was a 165% increase over the prior year’s figure.

The Knight International Journalism Fellowships program announces fellowship openings for Ethiopia and Nigeria in the field of health reporting.

Project Description: Each fellow will lead a one-year project in partnership with key local media organizations, mentoring and training journalists to improve the quality, quantity, and impact of health coverage. The project will work to create coverage that affects policy and helps save the lives of those threatened by deadly diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. The fellows will help build networks of health journalists that connect with each other to develop sources and resources and serve as mentors for their colleagues. The program also aims to improve business-management practices to make health reporting sustainable.

Countries: Nigeria and Ethiopia

Language Requirement: English.

Skills: Experience as media trainer/manager, background in health journalism.

KAMPALA (Reuters) — Egypt sounded a conciliatory note on Monday in a dispute over how Nile waters should be shared by the countries it passes through at an African summit in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

After more than a decade of talks driven by anger over the perceived injustice of a previous Nile water treaty signed in 1929, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed a new deal in May without their northern neighbours.

The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries — Egypt, Sudan, Burundi and Democratic Republic of the Congo — one year to join the pact but the countries have been torn by behind-the-scenes debate since the signing.

"There are no strategic differences between us," Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told reporters at the summit. "The issue is only on some technical points that need resolution. The purpose of the Nile Basin agreements is development."

United States foreign policy abortion restrictions have often hampered African NGOs’ efforts to reduce deaths and disabilities associated with unsafe abortion procedures. In a positive recent development, however, the fight for African women’s access to safe abortion services took a small but important step forward.

On July 29th 2010 the United States Senate Appropriations Committee passed an amendment to the State and Foreign Operations bill authored by New Jersey Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg that would permanently ban the Global Gag Rule, a U.S. foreign policy restriction that has haunted reproductive rights organizations in Africa and other parts of the Global South on and off for over two decades.

The Global Gag Rule prohibited NGOs receiving any U.S. foreign assistance from engaging in abortion-related activities, including the distribution of information regarding safe abortion, even if the NGOs used their non-U.S. funds for the forbidden services. Now that the Senate committee has passed the Lautenberg amendment, the United States Congress should act quickly to forever eliminate the Global Gag Rule. Women’s lives in Africa and throughout the Global South are at stake.