Ethiopia dam is 'declaration of war': Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya

Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya mufti, Abdel-Akher Hammad (Photo: Al-Ahram Arabic) Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam and the diversion of the Blue Nile is a declaration of war on Egypt, Sheikh Abdel-Akher Hammad of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Ethiopia began diverting the course of the Blue Nile, one of the Nile River’s two major tributaries, as part of its project to build a dam for electricity production. Speaking on Al-Arabiya satellite channel, Hammad claimed the move would reduce Egypt's water supply and damage national security. "If such a war is forged against us, we are ready to fight and we will embark on it with all...

Read more »

Will Canada’s hard line on Eritrea’s ‘diaspora’ tax apply to the U.S.?

How nice to see Canada taking a very hard line with the government of Eritrea and its attempts to impose a diaspora tax on Eritrean citizens now living in Canada. This country really does have a backbone when it comes to standing up to oppression and injustice. How to explain, then, that while we send the Eritrean consul packing and threaten to shut down the consulate, we let U.S. Ambassador David Jacobsen stay put in Ottawa with nary a word of protest over America’s “diaspora” tax? There are only two countries in the world that levy income tax based on citizenship rather than residence; one is Eritrea and the other is the United States....

Read more »

Eritrea condemns Canada's expulsion of Eritrean Consul General

Press Release Eritrea condemns in the strongest terms the Canadian Government's expulsion of the Eritrean Consul General in Toronto. Eritrea states categorically that the services it renders through its Consulate General are fully consistent with the Vienna Conventions on Consular Relations and do not violate international or Canadian laws. It considers the expulsion as an unwarranted escalation of the Canadian administration's hostility to Eritrea and its harassment of the Eritrean Diaspora community. It is the act of a bully against a small and proud nation and its people and is aimed at denying the Eritrean Community the services that...

Read more »

Canada expelling Eritrean diplomat for using consulate to shake down citizens for ‘national defence’

TORONTO — The Consulate General of Eritrea in Toronto is the African country’s only diplomatic outpost in Canada and it has long been accused of running a collection racket that finances the regime and its armed forces. As recently as Monday, the head of the mission, Consul Semere Ghebremariam O. Micael, denied that. “I was collecting before and I stopped collecting,” he insisted in a telephone interview. “It’s not a problem.” But the evidence showed otherwise and on Wednesday the Canadian government ordered Mr. Micael’s expulsion over his persistent efforts to use the consulate to violate a United Nations military embargo. The expulsion...

Read more »

Hadas Eritrea May 28, 2013

Hadas Eritrea May 28, 2013...

Read more »

‘We don’t force them’: Eritrean diplomat insists consulate is not extorting money from citizens in Canada

The diplomat who represents Eritrea in Canada insisted Monday his office was not extorting money from expatriates but merely providing “information” to those who want to donate to the African regime. “I am not violating the law,” Semere Ghebremariam O. Micael, the Eritrean consul, told the National Post in an interview, his first since the Canadian government began probing the activities of his office in Toronto. The dispute revolves around Eritrea’s efforts to impose a 2% “diaspora tax” and “national defence” fee on Eritreans living abroad — a practice critics call extortion and that has been denounced by the United Nations.The consulate...

Read more »

TD Bank urged to exit Eritrea collection scheme, Bank says it's complying with all applicable laws and is investigating claims

A Canadian chartered bank being used in Eritrea's controversial tax collection scheme is being urged to get out of it, CBC world affairs correspondent Rick MacInnes-Rae reports today from Winnipeg. The UN says Eritrea relies on threats and coercion to extract two per cent of the income from Eritrean citizens in Canada. In Winnipeg, the money is then funnelled to the East-African dictatorship via Toronto-Dominion Bank, documents obtained by CBC News show. Hear Rick MacInnes-Rae's report They show two branches of TD Bank are favoured by the man Eritrea designates to deal with the diaspora. TD Bank is his vehicle for wiring money...

Read more »

One Million Years old new fossils of Homo found in Eritrea

The team Italo-Eritrean operating in the region of Buya, in the African country, led by paleoanthropologist prof. Alfredo Cup of the Department of Environmental Sciences of the University La Sapienza of Rome, led to the discovery of new fossils of Homo , dating back to about a million years ago, located at the site of Muhuli Amo, which means "sanctuary of the tonsils." Italian scholars, along with fellow Eritreans, already work in the area, which has always been one of the most important places for the research and study of the remains of early hominids appeared on Earth. At a depth slightly lower than that of artifacts unearthed in...

Read more »

African Civil Society Calls for AU Action On Eritrea

OPINION In a petition, the organisations say the ongoing widespread and systematic nature of human rights violations in Eritrea underlines the need for continued and urgent action by the African Union To: Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Africa CC: Permanent Representatives to the African Union; Permanent Representatives of African States to the UN Human Rights Council 21st May 2013 RE: African Civil Society Call for Action on Human Rights Situation in Eritrea EXCELLENCIES, We, the undersigned representatives of African civil society, present our compliments and congratulations on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the African Union and the Organisation of African Unity. Reflecting the overall theme of 2013 as the year of Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance,...

Read more »

Sunridge Gold defines sixth mineral resource at Asmara project

Sunridge Gold Corp. (CVE:SGC) has added more good news to an already auspicious month with the completion of a mineral resource estimate for the Kodadu target on the company’s Asmara project in Eritrea, the sixth such mineral resource defined by the Vancouver-based exploration and development company on the property. The announcement regarding the NI43-101 and JORC compliant estimate comes exactly a week after the mining junior released a feasibility study for the project that succeeded in bringing initial production forward by almost a year. The freshly-defined resource includes an inferred mineral resource of 990,000 tonnes with an...

Read more »

Hadas Eritrea May 23, 2013

Hadas Eritrea May 23, 2013...

Read more »

Ethiopia Refuses to Cooperate With World-Bank-Funding Probe

Ethiopia’s government said it won’t cooperate with a probe into whether the World Bank violated its own policies by funding a program in which thousands of people were allegedly relocated to make way for agriculture investors. Ethnic Anuak people in Ethiopia’s south western Gambella region and rights groups including Human Rights Watch last year accused the Washington-based lender of funding a program overseen by soldiers to forcibly resettle 45,000 households. The Inspection Panel of the World Bank, an independent complaints mechanism, began an investigation in October into the allegations, which donors and the government have denied. Ethiopia, Africa’s most-populous nation after Nigeria, has made 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) of land available to agriculture companies....

Read more »

Hadas Eritrea May 21, 2013

Hadas Eritrea May 21, 2013...

Read more »

Eritrea, Committed to Qatari mediation, and Djibouti provoking the border crisis.

The Eritrean embassy in Riyadh said in a statement published in the newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat in response to the dialogue that took place with the President of Djibouti, Ismael Guelleh, “Eritrea did not occupy Djibouti soil.  The borders of Eritrea are those which were drawn when Italy was occupying Eritrea. This is in accord with the colonial agreements of the Italian government with Ethiopia during the reign of the Ethiopian king Menelik II, and with France which was occupying Djibouti, and with Brittan which was colonizing Sudan, in the period from 1900 to 1908. Therefore the borders of Eritrea with all its neighbors, including...

Read more »

Zersenay Tadese Wins Gold at Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon Japan

World record holder Zersenay Tadese (Eritrea) took down defending champion Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) at Sunday's Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon, getting away early to set a new course record of 1:00:31. Leading a pack of six through a 14:14 opening 5 km split, Tadese dropped a 14:04 over the next 5 km to take the race out of the competition's comfort zones and go ahead alone. With a 37-second lead over the chase group of Mathathi, Jacob Wanjuki (Kenya/Team Aichi Seiko) and Cyrus Njui (Kenya/ Team Hitachi Butsuryu) at 15 km Tadese backed off to a 14:34 split from 15 to 20 km, but despite Mathathi and Wanjuki picking it up and...

Read more »

Hadas Eritrea May 17, 2013

Hadas Eritrea May 17, 2013...

Read more »

UN chief appoints veteran diplomat Haile Menkerios as the new UN envoy to the African Union

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed veteran diplomat Haile Menkerios as the new U.N. representative to the African Union. U.N. deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey said Friday that Menkerios will also continue his current assignment as the secretary-general's special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan. He will have the rank of undersecretary-general. Menkerios, a longtime Eritrean diplomat who is now a South African citizen, will replace Zachary Muburi-Muita of Kenya who completes his assignment on June 30. Del Buey said Menkerios brings to his new position extensive experience in African issues and with the United Nations, where...

Read more »

UN human rights expert calls for close scrutiny of Eritrea

The United Nations special rapporteur on Eritrea, Sheila B. Keetharuth, said the human rights situation in the reclusive Red Sea nation remained “unacceptable”, calling for the country to be closely monitored. Keetharuth made the comments following a visit to Ethiopia and Djibouti as part of her mission to assess the human rights situation in Eritrea. Keetharuth was forced to carry out her mission by talking to Eritrean refugees being sheltered in neighbouring countries, after authorities in Asmara refused her entry into the country. During a 10-day visit to Ethiopia and Djibouti, Keetharuth collected first-hand information directly...

Read more »

Sunridge brightens Asmara's economics

Sunridge Gold (SGC-V) has outlined stronger economics in the feasibility study for its prized Asmara copper-zinc-gold project project in Eritrea, outshining last year’s prefeasibility study (PFS). The latest study envisions mining Asmara’s four deposits— Emba Derho, Debarwa, Gupo Gold and Adi Nefas— as a single integrated operation with a central processing facility near Emba Derho. At that facility, the company will process gold and silver from Emba Derho, Debarwa, Gupo via heap-leaching, as well as copper and zinc from Emba Derho, Debarwa and Adi Nefas by milling and flotation. All the deposits, except for Adi Nefas, will be mined using...

Read more »

Hadas Eritrea May 16, 2013

Hadas Eritrea May 16, 2013...

Read more »

Eritrea: UN expert stresses need to improve human rights

Ms. Sheila Keetharuth New York, US - Ms. Sheila Keetharuth, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea, on Tuesday urged the international community to keep Eritrea under “close scrutiny”, stressing the need to fundamentally transform the East African nation’s “current culture of rights denial”. Ms. Keetharuth made the call at the end of her 10-day mission to Ethiopia and Djibouti to collect first-hand information directly from Eritrean refugees on the human rights situation in their country. A UN statement issued at the end of the visit, and made available to PANA in New York, quoted the UN expert as saying...

Read more »

Australia's South Boulder strikes Eritrea Potash deal

May 15 (Reuters) - Australia-based South Boulder Mines has handed the reclusive state of Eritrea an increased stake in its Colluli potash mine under the terms of a new joint venture agreement, the miner said in a statement. South Boulder, which had held a 90 percent stake in the potash project, said it and the Eritrean Mining Corporation (ENAMCO) would now each hold a 50 percent stake of a newly formed company, Colluli Mining Share Company. South Boulder said last year the asset held 1.08 billion tonnes of 18 percent grade - or 194 million tonnes of contained potash. In a statement dated May 14, the miner called the agreement a "major milestone" which would help advance discussions with potential investors. No-one from the firm was available to comment. Long starved of foreign...

Read more »

South Boulder Mines signs milestone JV for Colluli Potash Project

South Boulder Mines (ASX: STB) has reached a major milestone in the development of its Colluli Potash Project in Eritrea with the signing of a binding term sheet agreement with the Eritrean National Mining Corporation (ENAMCO). Importantly, the agreement provides significant certainty as to the economic and fiscal basis under which the project can be developed, assisting the company in its ongoing discussions with potential strategic investors. “The signing of a binding term sheet with ENAMCO is a significant milestone for STB,” South Boulder chief executive officer Paul Donaldson said. “The agreement establishes clear terms for a...

Read more »

Hadas Eritrea May 11, 2013

Hadas Eritrea May 11, 2013...

Read more »

Travel Warning U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs Eritrea

The U.S. Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Eritrea and strongly recommends U.S. citizens defer all travel to the country. This replaces the Travel Warning for Eritrea of November 29, 2012, to update information on additional travel restrictions, and to remind U.S. citizens of ongoing security concerns in Eritrea. The Eritrean government continues to restrict the travel of all foreign nationals. These restrictions require all visitors and residents, including U.S. diplomats, to apply 10 days in advance for permission to travel outside Asmara’s city limits. Permission is rarely granted. As a result,...

Read more »