Ethiopian Airlines has announced its London to Addis Ababa route will become a daily service from July.

Ethiopian Airlines has announced its London to Addis Ababa route will become a daily service from July.The additional weekly service will start on 8 July with its Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
“We are very happy to finally be able to give daily service to our customers to and from London. Due to the airport congestion at London Heathrow, we were constrained to 6 weekly flights. Now our customers to and from London can enjoy convenient and hassle free daily connections with our state-of-the art B787 aircraft,” said Ethiopian’s CEO Tewolde Gebremariam.

የመረጠውን ህዝብ የሚሰድብ ፒለቲከኛን ምን ይሉታል

The urban hyenas that attack rough sleepers አዲስ አበባ ጅብ ውጭ የሚያድሩትን እየበላ ነው ተባለ

Urban hyenas are becoming a dangerous problem in the Ethiopian capital, where they attack rough sleepers.

It is late evening in Addis Ababa. Stephen Brend, a zoologist with the Born Free Foundation, is driving me to the airport to catch a flight back to London.
"Have you got time for a ten-minute detour?" he asks, as we passed the British embassy. "Of course," I reply.
So he turns off the road and up a dirt track between some rough shacks and a collection of battered old jalopies that passes for a taxi rank in Ethiopia's capital.
"There! Look there!" Stephen exclaims. In the beams of his headlights I see several pairs of eyes glinting in the darkness like tiny mirrors. As we drive closer I begin to make out the shapes of the animals behind those eyes. They are hideous beasts, as large as the largest dogs, with coarse spotted brown fur, elongated necks and front legs much longer than their back ones so their backs taper away from their powerful shoulders.
As we watch, a group of teenagers walks up the track, right past the animals. "They're mad," Stephen remarks. Hyenas have jaws as powerful as those of great white sharks, he explains. They can crush an elephant's leg. They devour every last morsel of their prey - bones included. "I mean - there's nothing left," he says.
London is infested by urban foxes. Delhi is besieged by urban monkeys. Addis Ababa is plagued by urban hyenas who have moved in to the city from the surrounding hills and taken up residence in the capital. In some ways they perform a useful service, keeping the city's growing population of stray dogs and feral cats under control and consuming the carcasses of dead horses and other animals. But there are now reckoned to be somewhere between 300 and 1,000 of them living in the city and they are dangerous.
In 2011 the airport authorities had to call in hunters to shoot a pack of hyenas that was posing a threat to planes landing and taking off. People living near the Ketchene public cemetery have complained of hyenas digging up and eating the corpses of the poor that are buried in very shallow graves. The hyenas tend to hunt in groups, and one night a guard at the British embassy saw a line of 40 running along the back fence of the compound.
Periodically they attack some of the many Ethiopians who sleep rough on the streets of Addis every night. A volunteer at a clinic run by a Mother Teresa mission in the city said that a couple of times a month he has to treat homeless and destitute people who have had fingers and toes gnawed by hyenas while they were drugged or drunk. On one occasion a man was brought in after a hyena had ripped much of his scalp away while he was sleeping, leaving it hanging down over his eyes. Last year a mother camping outside St Stephanos church near the Hilton Hotel had her baby son snatched from her arms and killed by a hyena.
Periodically they attack some of the many Ethiopians who sleep rough on the streets of Addis every night. A volunteer at a clinic run by a Mother Teresa mission in the city said that a couple of times a month he has to treat homeless and destitute people who have had fingers and toes gnawed by hyenas while they were drugged or drunk. On one occasion a man was brought in after a hyena had ripped much of his scalp away while he was sleeping, leaving it hanging down over his eyes. Last year a mother camping outside St Stephanos church near the Hilton Hotel had her baby son snatched from her arms and killed by a hyena.

Kenyans, Ethiopians sweep Tokyo Marathon

Dickson Chumba won the men’s race at the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday in a meet record of two hours, five minutes and 42 seconds as Kenyan and Ethiopian runners dominated the event.
The 27-year-old Kenyan was followed home by Tadese Tola of Ethiopia at 2:05:57 and fellow countryman Sammy Kitwara at 2:06:30.
Chumba broke his own personal best time of 2:05:46 he clocked in winning the Eindhoven Marathon in 2012.
Runners from the two African countries swept the top seven spots in the men’s race and the top five in the women’s.
Ethiopia’s Tirfi Tsegaye won the women’s race in a meet record of 2:22:23.
Fellow Ethiopian Berhane Dibaba finished second at 2:22:30 and Lucy Kabuu of Kenya third at 2:24:16.
Tsegaye, 29, made her marathon debut in 2008 when she won the Porto Marathon. She won the Paris Marathon in 2012 and the Dubai Marathon last year. She set her personal best of 2:21:19 when she finished second at the 2012 Berlin Marathon.
Under cloudy skies, about 36,000 runners took part in the eighth staging of the Tokyo event which was upgraded last year to one of the world’s major marathons, with the others comprising Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York.

Ethiopia: "Co-pilot hijacked plane to expose brutal rule in Ethiopia" - cousin

February 20, 2014 (SEATTLE) — Amid a flurry of government propaganda to label the hijacker of an Ethiopian Airlines plane a mental patient, a family member of the co-pilot says her cousin was an activist who has been resentful of the brutal rule in Ethiopia.

Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn

Speaking to the Ethiopian Satellite TV (ESAT) by phone on Wednesday, a female cousin of co-pilot Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn, who landed the passenger airliner in Geneva early on Monday and sought asylum there, said the act was politically motivated, and nothing else.

"He was living a comfortable life, and was a frequent traveler to the US and Europe. If he had the desire to live in the West, he had plenty of chances. But he was an activist who very much resented the gross human rights violations that the government is committing in the country," she said.

Swiss police said on Monday all 202 passengers and crew were safe as the "act was motivated by the fact that he feels threatened in his country," and wanted asylum.

The woman, who didn't reveal her identity for fear of political retribution, said 31-year-old Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn and she would call each other frequently, and the co-pilot was very much opposed to the government because of lack of freedom, including harassing airlines employees to be members of the ruling party or lose their jobs.

"Many of his friends have been fired because they failed to toe party lines," she said, adding he was also resentful of the brutal measures the ruling party was taking against the Amhara in particular and the entire Ethiopian people in general.

Asked whether she is in contact with family members in Addis, she said the phone lines were blocked with all family members but one. "My uncle is virtually under house arrest as others are under surveillance. We have also learned that Airlines officials have come under fire, being threatened to reveal how come they kept dissidents in the business."

Though in police custody in Geneva, the woman said several calls to her cousin were never answered.

The government in Addis will definitely push the Swiss government to extradite my cousin. If they succeed, there is no doubt that they will cut him to pieces as he would expose their crimes if left free, she said. "All Ethiopians should rally to block any extradition attempts."

The pro-democracy Ethiopian Diaspora is considering to hire lawyers to defend the rights of the co-pilot, who is now hailed as a human rights champion among Ethiopian activists both at home and abroad

Ethiopian Airlines Hijacker Co-Pilot to Stand Trial

Swiss officials have revealed that the Ethiopian Airlines co-pilot, Hailemedhin Abera, who hijacked his own flight on Monday, will be charged for taking hostages.
A Swiss court has reportedly appointed a defense counsel for Abera and ordered that he is held in custody until his trial begins. However, his trial date is yet to be announced.
Reports have emerged that the 5-year employee of Ethiopian Airlines hijacked the flight heading from Addis Ababa to Rome by locking the pilot, who was visiting the washroom, from the cockpit.
Reports further indicate that Abera threatened to crash the plane if the pilot did not stop demanding entrance into the cockpit by knocking on its locked door.
Although earlier reports claim the 200+ passengers and crew of the Boeing 767 flight were largely unaware of the situation in the cockpit, new reports indicate otherwise.
According to reported accounts of passengers, oxygen masks were let down at some point and a distressed male voiced warned “sit down, sit down or I’ll take your oxygen.”
Reports further indicate that the flight attendants continued to hand out refreshments and reassure the disturbed passengers of their safety. All the passengers and crew members were reportedly safe.
On Wednesday, Alemu Asmamaw, an uncle of Abera, revealed to reporters that the loss of a close relative of the airman had made him emotionally distressed.
His family have expressed shock at the news of his terror act, noting that he was a loyal employee of Ethiopia’s national airliner. However, they have also revealed that he had been withdrawn in the past year and reportedly revealed to them that he suspected he was being monitored.
The Boeing 767 plane Abera hijacked has been released to Ethiopian Airlines on Wednesday and everything has returned to normal at the Geneva airport he landed.
Swiss officials say an investigation is ongoing into the incident to create better understanding of the curcumstances surrounding the hijacking.
While pro-government supporters say authorities have been exonerated from direct complicity in the airman’s weird move, other pundits are calling for a revision of security protocols in aircrafts to prevent them from being hijacked with such ease.
Photo by Sudan Tribune.

Swiss Air Force Waited 3 Hours To Respond To Hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Because They Hadn't Started Work

SWISS fighter jets could not be scrambled when a hijacked Ethiopian passenger plane entered the country’s airspace as its air force only works daytime hours.

The country’s jets remained grounded throughout the entire drama because it happened outside normal office hours.

Instead, Italian Eurofighters escorted the plane with 202 passengers and crew on board to the Swiss border, where French mirage jets accompanied it to Geneva airport on Monday morning.

Switzerland’s air force chiefs were alerted to the drama at 4.30am, but did nothing because they do not start work until 8am.

Swiss airforce spokesman Laurent Savary said: “Switzerland cannot intervene because its airbases are closed at night and at the weekends. It’s a question of budget and staffing.”

Ethiopian Airlines flight ET702 from Addis Ababa to Rome was hijacked by its own co-pilot Hailemedehin Abera Tagegn, 31, who locked himself in the cockpit while the captain went to the loo.

He then threatened to crash the plane unless he was given permission to land in Geneva where he wanted to claim asylum.When the plane touched down at 6am, Geneva police arrested Tagegn after he scaled down a rope out of the cockpit window.

Prosecutors have described the chances of his asylum demands being met as ‘slim’, and he now faces a 20-year prison sentence.

Audio was allegedly recorded of the hijacker by Twitter user @matthewkeyslive.In it he says:

"We need asylum or assurance that we will not be transferred to the Ethiopian government."