Archive for July, 2010
Teff: your next injera maybe made of gluten free teff
Farmers in Kansas seek to expand test plots of Ethiopian grain into marketable fields of teff
By Roxana Hegeman
Raising Coffee in Ethiopia, With Help From Harlem
By Teymaine Lee
From a 542-square-foot office above a bustling intersection in Harlem, the Rev. Nicholas S. Richards is building what he hopes will be a 7,000-mile bridge to the eastern highlands of Ethiopia.
It is a bridge more than 200 years in the making.
In that modest two-room office off East 125th Street, the Abyssinian Fund, the only nongovernmental organization in Ethiopia formed by an African-American church, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, finally has a home.
Mr. Richards, 26, an assistant minister at Abyssinian under the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, is the president of the recently formed Aby Fund, as he calls it, an international aid and development arm of the church. It will soon be joining forces with a co-op of 700 coffee farmers in the ancient Ethiopian city of Harrar, with a mission to improve the quality of the farmers’ lives by helping them improve the quality of their coffee beans. Read further: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/nyregion/27abyssinian.html
Source: New york Times
Assessing Your Weight and Health Risk
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Source: Department of Health
Teza (Morning Dew)-Ethiopian Film Director Haile Gerima
Director: Haile Gerima
Minneapolis Exclusive Engagement
Teza is set in Germany and Ethiopia, and examines the displacement of African intellectuals, both at home and abroad, through the story of a young, idealistic Ethiopian doctor – Anberber. The film chronicles Anberber’s internal struggle to stay true, both to himself and to his homeland, but above all, Teza explores the possession of memory – a right humanity mandates that each of us have – the right to own our pasts.
After studying medicine abroad in Germany for several years, Anberber returns home to Ethiopia only to find his beloved Ethiopia, and soon the quiet of his dreams, stifled and disarrayed by the country’s political turmoil.
Seeking escape from the center of violence, Anberber turns to the solace of his countryside childhood home, but quickly realizes that there is no shelter there. The competing forces of the military and opposition factions usurp the comfort he thought the memories of his youth would invoke. Anberber must determine if he can bear the strain of his reality and piece together a life from the fragments of a complete existence that lie around him.
Teza documents Anberber’s recognition of his own displacement and powerlessness in the face of the dissolution of Ethiopian humanity and social values.
Click Here to watch TEZA trailer
ETHIOPIA, GERMANY, FRANCE · 2008 · 140 MIN · IN AMHARIC, ENGLISH & GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
TEZA Playing at St. Anthony Main Screen #3 – Fri. July 16 thru Thu. July 29 @ 4:15, 7:00 with Fri. thru Sun.
Purchase your tickets online or at the box office.
Ticket Prices:
Matinees before 5:00pm $5.50
General Admission: $8.50
Student/Senior: $6.00
MFA Members: $5.00
Here is a link to Saint Anthony Main Theater:
New Loan Delinquencies on the Rise Again
By: Diana OlickMore Share
Just when you thought things might be turning around, the mortgage crisis takes yet another little dip to the downside.
Lender Processing Services just put out its May “Mortgage Monitor,” and some promising trends aren’t so promising anymore, specifically new delinquencies and cure rates.
While the total delinquency rate rose 2.3 percent, which is not surprising given how much is in the pipeline, the 30-day delinquent bucket jumped 10 percent. That is surprising because the that number had been coming down of late. The LPS data report says that’s because the “seasonal improvement period has expired,” but I’m not sure normal seasonal patterns really apply to this market anymore.
More likely is that home prices are not rebounding at the expected/hoped for pace, prompting more borrowers who are underwater on their loans to choose not to pay. And while the job market isn’t bleeding so much anymore, it’s not adding jobs back at the rate we need, nor is it re-instituting those full time jobs that were slashed to part-time, leaving many borrowers still “underemployed.” So the delinquency rate nationwide now stands at 9.2 percent from this particular data set, and with the rise in new delinquencies, it won’t be coming down any time soon. Read More: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15837671
Good News-Ethiopia’s forest cover triples
ADDIS ABABA — The total forest cover of Ethiopia has tripled in size since 2000 as a result of large-scale reforestation campaigns, the authorities announced on Thursday.
The impoverished Horn of Africa nation, which suffered from chronic droughts and famine in the past, has in recent years undertaken massive tree-planting campaigns to help reduce land degradation and improve its biodiversity.
“Ethiopia was able to increase its forest coverage to nine percent now from only three percent previously,” the agriculture ministry said in a statement.
“The increase… is attributed to the forestation campaign launched all over the country since the last decade,” it added.
Ethiopia covers 1.1 million square kilometres and is sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous country.
“River basin-based… conservation activity carried out in the last 10 years is the major factor for the … increase in forest coverage,” the ministry said.
Ethiopia planted more than 700 million trees in 2007 alone, according to the UN, besting Mexico which planted 217 million and the rest of the world in a drive to combat climate change through new lush forest projects.
The country’s high demand for fuel wood and land for cropping and grazing had slashed its forest cover from about 35 percent of its territory in the early 20th century to just three percent by 2000, environmentalists say.
Experts say trees help absorb carbon contained in the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change.
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
‘No black Ethiopians on my bus’: Driver is sued over racist comments.
By LAHAV HARKOV
An Egged bus driver is being sued for NIS 200,000 after allegedly slandering, insulting, and verbally and physically assaulting an Ethiopian passenger, according to a statement released by Tebeka, an advocacy organization for Ethiopian Israelis.
The Ethiopian college student waited at a bus stop in Rishon Leziyyon, and tried to board the bus, but the driver closed the door in her face, refusing to let her on. She managed to get on the bus anyway, and the driver yelled at her, saying “I don’t let black Ethiopians on my bus,” and “these blacks – who let you into Israel?”
The driver added: “All of these kushim [a derogatory term for Africans] should be sent back to Ethiopia. You are a stupid nation, and you damage our land.”
The passenger asked the driver not to speak to her, and in response, the driver grabbed her skirt, not allowing her to proceed onto the bus.
At a hearing conducted by Egged, the driver did not express regret and did not apologize. He said he stands by his opinios about Ethiopians. Egged fined the driver with one and a half months’ salary. The Ministry of Transportation also pressed charges against the driver and Egged.
Tomer Reif and Hila Ben Harosh, the lawyers representing the student, are part of a Project “My Brother’s Keeper,” in which lawyers represent Ethiopians that turn to Tebeka pro bono.
Source: The Jerusalem Post
