Category: Awate Team
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Cry Me A River (Nile): Egyptians Embrace Their Inner-African
On June 3, Egyptian president Mohammed Mursi convened Egyptian dignitaries—opposition party leaders, clerics, civil society—to evaluate his report and to discuss Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam and what Egypt’s response should be. The meeting was televised (live, according to a recording by Egypt Radar); apparently, some of those attending the meeting did not appear to be aware
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UN Eritrea Special Rapporteur: Conclusions And Recommendations
Editor’s note: the following is an excerpt from the Eritrea Special Rapporteur report (dated May 28, 2013) which was submitted to the UN on June 4th, 2013.To read the entire (20 pages, pdf) report, visit here. Following the report by the Special Rapporteur, the Government of Eritrea (GoE) was given the right of rebuttal. The
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Human Trafficking & the Single Focus on Its Inhumane Aspects
Since 2001, Eritreans have added new words to their exile vocabulary. They have new words for new destinations and new graveyards: Lampedusa, Italy. Calais, France. Almeria, Spain. Tel Aviv, Israel. They have new entry points to further destinations: the Tijuana-San Diego border. The Quebec-Vermont border. The Buffalo-Ontario border. They have traveled to countries no Eritrean
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Eritrea’s Dismal Human Development Report
The United Nations has published its 2013 Human Development Report (HDR) and Eritrea ranks number 181 in the world, that is, 7th from the bottom. With a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.351, Eritrea is ahead of only 6 mostly war-torn African nations: Niger, Congo, Mozambique, Chad, Burkino Faso and Mali. The HDI is a
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Reviewing the Reviewers: In Defense of Bereket Habte-Selassie
For their Christmas present, Dr. Bereket Habte-Selassie’s colleagues received a 48-page “book review” of his books. The reviewers, Asaminew Ewnetun and Aradom Fedai Haqi, took 48 pages to say: this colleague of yours whom you know as a scholar, a professor of African and Afro-American studies, a Pan African and with a resume as varied as
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Team Eritrea Granted Political Asylum In Uganda
(picture courtesy of BBC) The 15 Eritrean football players who had asked for political asylum in Uganda in December following their losing match to Rwanda have been granted political asylum, according to BBC. Of the 15 (including the team doctor) who were granted asylum, 2 returned to Eritrea, adds the report. This is the latest
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Isaias Afwerki Dismisses “January 21 Incident”
Eritrean strongman Isaias Afwerki dismissed the January 21 military takeover of his Ministry of Information as a minor incident orchestrated by “a handful” of individuals, an incident that he and his ministers, who were in a meeting within the confines here [presidential palace], discussed “all day.” The disclosures were made on February 14 in an
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Operation Forto 2013 Impacts Operation Fenkil 2013
The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) waged Operation Fenkil on February 8, 1990. By February 10, 1990, the military operation had achieved its mission: to liberate the port city of Massawa and to evict the occupying Ethiopian force– which lost about 8,000 soldiers in the 3-day battle. The anniversary of Operation Fenkil is marked every
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Behind Isaias Afwerki’s Crocodile Tears About Human Trafficking
Eritrea’s self-declared president sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to complain that Eritrea has been the “target of malicious and concerted practices of human trafficking” for the “past ten years or so” and since Eritrea has “statutory obligations as well as universal morale [sic] and humanitarian responsibilities” to put an end to
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What Did Bashir And Isaias Discuss?
On February 2, Sudan’s Omar Al Bashir was in Asmara for a one-day “working visit.” This was, as we reported, the first visit to Eritrea by a foreign head of state since the developments of January 21, when members of Eritrean Defense Forces occupied Eritrea’s Ministry of Information for a day and announced their demand
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PFDJ Dictionary Hooligan: A Citizen Who Demands His Civil Rights
PFDJ Dictionary If you are an Eritrean living in Africa or the Middle East, you have to go to the Eritrean embassy to renew your passport, which you will need for your residency permit. If you are an Eritrean living in Europe, North America, Australia, etc, you can go to the Eritrean embassy to pay
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We Are Back (Kinda)
Thanks for your patience… awate.on-forge.com is back..however, as you can see, we are missing a few articles, some articles, actually a whole lot of articles (April 2012 – December 12) that we are in the process of reconstructing. We have been through this before: it will take us a little time, but we will reconstruct
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Rectification of Names
It is that time of year when we review the past and make pledges for the future. To take stock, to assess, to evaluate and then to act: to realign, to repurpose and redirect. Eritrea is not a business and this is not a management course so we owe you plain talk: once in a
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Remembering The Forgotten
An interview with Sultan Omer, Executive Director of RTHAR Relief, an NGO that caters to the needs of Eritrean refugees. The interview was conducted by Abdulkerim of Eri Adal television of Sweden. Part 1 Part2
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Awate’s Legacy: ELF 1977-78 Video (indexed)
The great service that youtube and social media provide is to facilitate the dissemination of history. Unfortunately, because the videos are sometimes not properly titled, tagged, described or indexed, they appear and then disappear without impact. Here’s a video documentary that French documentary-makers recorded over a two year period in Eritrea in 1977-78. These years marked an
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Statement from the Council of Ministers of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Statement from the Council of Ministers of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Aug 21, 2012) Honorable Peoples and Friends of Ethiopia; The Council of Ministers of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, with deep sorrow and grief, regrets to inform the Peoples of Ethiopia that, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has led our country
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awate.on-forge.com v. PFDJ
1. On January 4, 2008, Sophia Tesfamariam, an Eritrean-American who has written many hit pieces against anyone whom she, or the tyrannical Eritrean regime she supports, identify as “enemy of Eritrea”, wrote an article that we consider excessive even by her standards. 2. The article, which was published in americanchroncile.com (in addition to the usual
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US: Eritrea Among World’s Worst In Human Trafficking
This month, the US State Department issued its annual “Trafficking in Persons Report” and Eritrea is classified as Tier-3 (the worst of the worst). Tier-3 countries are, according to the State Department, countries “whose governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s [Trafficking Victims Protection Act] minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to
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Help Refugees In Sinai: Sign Petition
Over the last few years, our youth has been subjected to cruel treatment at home and extortion, murder and destitution in places to which they fled. The least we can do is publicise their plight and make concerned international entities aware of the situation in the hope thet they would take neccessary steps to protect the victims. This
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Second Fundraising Report
Dear Friends of awate.on-forge.com, In our second report we would like to inform you that as April 5, 2012, you have donated a a total of $5,138.00 (five-thousand, one-hundred and thirty-eight dollars less 3.95% fee for donations made through paypal.) The donations are as follows: Europe ($1,480); Australia/New Zeland ($953); North America ($1,724); Middle East ($300); Unspecified Addresses