Ethiopian Airlines increases direct flights to China

ADDIS ABABA - Ethiopian Airlines has increased its weekly direct flights to China to 34 with the opening of thrice weekly flights to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

Speaking at a ceremony starting the flight to Chengdu on Sunday in Addis Ababa International Airport premises, Liu Tao, Counselor at the Chinese embassy in Ethiopia said with Chengdu being an economic and culture hub for inland part of China the new route has great potential to enhance the agricultural, trading, tourism cooperation with the outside of the world with Ethiopian acting as bridge.

"The enhancement of people to people exchange is also a result of the cooperation between these two great civilizations in all areas including trade, investment, cultural education and agriculture vice versa with the booming of cooperation between these two countries bringing more and more people to exchanges," he said.

Busera Awol, Chief Commercial Officer at Ethiopian Airlines, said the new route is just the latest manifestation of both countries' deep bond ever since 1973 when the national carrier opened its first route to Beijing.

"We shall offer the best and fastest connectivity with a total 34 weekly flights to China," he said.

"With this new flight to Chengdu the major hub for Air China, which is our ally and star alliance partner, passengers from Ethiopian Airlines' vast and growing network, will be able to connect to dozens of cities in China, including Shenzhen, Kunming, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Changsha and Urumqi, similarly Chinese travelers will enjoy faster travel and connection to more than 54 countries and further to Sao Paulo, Brazil and the US with minimum layover in Addis Ababa Hub," explained Awol.

As part of its commitment, Ethiopian plans to utilize its latest fleet, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus 350 airplanes, emphasizing how it values its share in the world's largest air travel market.

Ethiopian Airlines was the first African carrier and the fourth in the word to fly to China back in 1973. In addition to the Already launched three weekly flights to Chengdu, Ethiopian Airlines currently operates daily nonstop flights to Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hongkong. Read more here

US 'disappointed' Taiwan not at WHO assembly

The Latest on the annual World Health Assembly in Geneva (all times local):

6 p.m.

President Donald Trump's top health official says the United States is "disappointed" that Taiwan wasn't invited to the World Health Organization's most important annual meeting.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price says the U.S. "remains committed that Taiwan should not be excluded from WHO" and will work to enable all countries to help prevent, detect, control and fight outbreaks.

Price alluded to the past eight years when Taiwan was invited as an observer to the World Health Assembly, whose 70th edition opened Monday.

China has blocked the participation of Taiwan, accusing its year-old government of not accepting the "One China" principle.

Price also said the United States was looking forward to working with whoever becomes WHO's director-general in Tuesday's election.

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4:55 p.m.

About 200 people in Geneva are waving flags and banners to protest a former Ethiopian health minister's bid to lead the World Health Organization.

The rally Monday against Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus outside U.N. offices came at the start of a 10-day meeting of the World Health Organization's governing body, which will elect its next director-general on Tuesday.

Ghebreysus is competing against Britain's David Nabarro and Sania Nishtar of Pakistan for the five-year post. Dr. Margaret Chan is leaving after a decade in the job.

An Ethiopian human rights task force distributed fliers accusing Ghebreysus of being an "agent" of "one of the most brutal repressive regimes in the world."

The demonstrators shouted "Tedros is a killer!" and other chants. One demonstrator shouted his opposition from a balcony inside the hall before Chan was to speak.

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4:10 p.m.

Devi Sridhar, a professor in global public health at the University of Edinburgh, has described the yearly $200 million travel costs of the World Health Organization as documented by the Associated Press as "extremely high."

Compared with the considerably lesser amount that the U.N. health agency spends on major diseases including AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, Sridhar said that "budgets reveal priorities" and warned that donors not happy with WHO's spending habits could simply go elsewhere.

Sridhar said there is likely an organization-wide problem at the U.N. that isn't exclusive to the WHO.

"People know these U.N. jobs can be cushy and come with perks, that you get to travel business class and stay at nice hotels," she said. Sridhar said that lack of scrutiny at U.N. agencies is a problem and that the organizations should be subject to independent auditors and freedom of information laws.

While Sridhar said that banning business class travel and five-star hotels might enrage WHO staffers, the agency's next director-general, who will be elected Tuesday, shouldn't shy away from making such radical changes.

"It would send a powerful signal from the top," she said.

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3:30 p.m.

Dr. Margaret Chan has given her last address as director-general of the World Health Organization at its annual gathering of member states in Geneva.

Chan said that despite criticism of the U.N. health agency in recent years — most notably in its fumbled response to the 2014 Ebola disaster in West Africa — the agency remains relevant. Chan said she was "personally accountable" for the agency's failures during the outbreak.

During her speech to the representatives of WHO's 194 member states, Chan said the world was fortunate other new diseases like Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome and bird flu are not spreading easily between people, but they have the potential to do so.

Chan said the initiatives she most wants to succeed are those aimed at eradicating polio and guinea worm.

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12:05 p.m.

Taiwan's health minister says China has "unfairly blocked" the island's government from taking part in the annual meeting of the World Health Organization's governing body.

Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung spoke Monday to reporters in Geneva moments before the start of the 10-day World Health Assembly, insisting that Taiwan had contributions to offer and accusing Beijing of playing politics with health.

Taiwan isn't a U.N. member state but was granted assembly "observer status" between 2009 and 2016 under an arrangement on the "One China" principle favored by Beijing. But China has accused the year-old government of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen of reneging on that principle.

As the assembly began, China and Cuba spoke in favor of Taiwan's exclusion, while St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Palau defended Taiwan's bid. Read more here

As Ethiopian Seeks to Head WHO, Outbreak at Home Raises Questions

WASHINGTON — 

Ethiopia is battling an outbreak of acute watery diarrhea (AWD) that has affected more than 32,000 people. At the same time, Ethiopia's former minister of health, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is a candidate to lead the World Health Organization.

The two facts are linked in that critics of Tedros say he has tried to minimize the outbreak by refusing to classify it as cholera, a label that could harm Ethiopia’s economic growth.

The WHO's 194 member states will gather in Geneva for a 10-day assembly starting Monday. One of their first tasks is to choose the organization’s next director-general.

Tedros is one of three top contenders for the position, along with candidates from Britain and Pakistan.

Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, told The New York Times that Ethiopia has a long history of downplaying cholera outbreaks, and the WHO could “lose its legitimacy” if Tedros, who is also a former Ethiopian minister of foreign affairs, takes over the leadership of the organization.

“Dr. Tedros is a compassionate and highly competent public health official,” he told the Times. “But he had a duty to speak truth to power and to honestly identify and report verified cholera outbreaks over an extended period.”

But others have risen to Tedros’ defense. Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the controversy over naming the outbreak is overblown. “During the time that Tedros was health minister, it would have not made any difference,” Frieden told VOA.

Cholera vs. acute watery diarrhea

Ethiopia has been accused of covering up three cholera outbreaks during Tedros’ tenure as health minister.

Declaring cholera would not have changed Ethiopia’s response to past AWD outbreaks, according to Frieden. In fact, he says, avoiding the cholera label has not been irresponsible but rather a necessary compromise.

“It allowed public health to respond rapidly," Frieden said.

The literature on AWD and cholera shows that treatment is the same. It calls for hydrating the patient, chlorinating water and improving sanitation. In fact, the WHO uses the terms interchangeably in their teaching materials on how to deal with an outbreak.

FILE - People wait for food and water in the Warder district in the Somali region of Ethiopia, Jan. 28, 2017. The consumption of contaminated water from shallow wells and ponds meant for cattle, poor nutrition and unsafe hygiene practices have led to outbreaks of cholera and acute watery diarrhea in the impoverished African country.

Lately, the development of cholera vaccines has brought the value of identifying the bacterial disease to the fore, said Frieden. “At this time, all African countries that report acute watery diarrhea should be rapidly doing lab confirmation and, if it's cholera, considering the use of cholera vaccine in the response,” he said.

In the current outbreak, Ethiopia’s Somali region has been hit the hardest, with 768 deaths since January, according to a WHO report published May 12. Almost 99 percent of the deaths and 91 percent of cases are in the same region.

The WHO representative to Ethiopia, Dr. Akpaka Kalu, says the government is right to call it AWD because regional health centers do not have the capacity to test every case.

If all cases are treated as cholera, the disease has the potential to spread more quickly when children who do not have it are brought into cholera treatment centers, Kalu said.

“We know, biologically, malnutrition causes diarrhea. Now, if you admit that child into a cholera treatment center, you've actually turned that center into a cholera transmission center,” he said, speaking by phone from Addis Ababa.

Current response

Over the past six weeks, the response to AWD in Ethiopia appears to have been effective.

Kalu said his team, along with regional leadership and government officials, have focused on prevention and intervention. They have instituted community-based surveillance to monitor the regional drought in general and AWD in particular, and there has been a drop in reported cases.

“We have evidence the average number of cases [dropped] from over 600 a day to about 54 a day,” he said.

Kalu argues that early interventions are getting results and doesn’t think that vaccinating 6 million people in the Somali region is feasible.

He says Ethiopia is now preparing to prevent outbreaks from spreading to other parts of the country such as the Afar and Amhara regions as the rainy season approaches.

“We need to enhance preparedness because, as the rains come, usually what happens is the rains wash and enter the water bodies including where there is open defecation,” he said. “That’s how water bodies get contaminated and people use the water and become sick. So there is a need, our focus is to build capacity to be able to detect and contain so that it doesn't spread.” Read more here

State involvement in Ethiopian killings probed

From ADANE BIKILA in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, (CAJ News) – RIGHTS groups are confident justice will prevail after the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for a United Nations-led independent investigation into the killing of hundreds of protesters in Ethiopia.

A parliamentary committee reported more than 600 people were killed between November 2015 and October 2016 as security forces responded brutally to anti-government protests. . Independent groups report as many as 800 have been killed.

Last Friday, a European Parliament resolution called on Federica Mogherini, the continent’s top diplomat, to mobilise European states to urgently pursue the setting up of the UN-led international inquiry head of the Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland next month.
It is hoped that implementing the resolution could help address the pervasive culture of impunity in Ethiopia.

Felix Horne, Human Rights Watch Senior Researcher for the Horn of Africa, said the resolution reiterated the European Union’s recognition of the importance of justice to ensure Ethiopia’s long-term stability.

“To the many victims of Ethiopia’s brutality, a UN-led inquiry could at least begin to answer pleas for justice that too often have gone unheard.”

Apart from reported deaths of protesters in the East African country, an overly restrictive state of emergency has been in place for the past seven months, and tens of thousands people been detained under it.

Thousands of Ethiopians have fled since the protests and sought asylum in neighbouring countries.
Read more here

Ethiopia slams EU call to free opposition politicians

Addis Ababa, May 21, 2017(GSN) - Merera Gudina detained last November for allegedly meeting in Europe with leaders of Ethiopian group dubbed 'terrorist'

Ethiopia rejected Friday a European Parliament resolution calling for the release of "all arbitrarily detained persons" including prominent opposition politician Merera Gudina.

Although Thursday's resolution commended Ethiopia's role in regional stability, it opposed the detention of opposition political figures and handling of human rights in the country.

"Though this resolution underlines the role of Ethiopia in stabilizing the region and the improvement of the economic situation of the population, it lacks some understanding of the situation in the country on topics such as the state of emergency, the human rights and the arrest of Dr. Merera Gudina," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Gudina was arrested on November 30, 2016 on the claim that while in Europe he met with the leaders of an Ethiopian organization dubbed by the government as a "terrorist" group.

The statement said Gudina "exceeded the rights of political opposition by allegedly meeting with the leader of an Ethiopian armed group at the European Parliament".

By meeting with the leader of Ginbot 7 between Nov. 7 and 9, 2016, the opposition politician "…deliberately violated the state of emergency" that was imposed on October 9, 2016 for six months and later extended by four months, it added.

The Foreign Ministry also responded to criticism of Ethiopia’s handling of human rights.

"It can only be hoped that the European Parliament will find ways to positively support the Ethiopian Parliament and other Ethiopian government institutions," it said.

Ethiopia is under a Martial Law since last October after violent anti-government protests spiraled when an annual Oromo public festival at the central town of Bushoftu turned into a riot and caused the death of hundreds in a stampede that followed security forces firing tear gas and bullets into the air.

In April, an Ethiopian Human Rights Commission released an investigation report saying that 669 people were killed in the anti-government demonstrations that began in November 2015 in the restive regions of Oromia and Amhara – the most populous regions in the country.  (AA News). Read more here