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Ethiopia obtains over 1 bn Euro grant, loans in six months

APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)

Ethiopia has obtained over one billion Euro grant and loans in the past six months, a higher amount compared to previous years, APA learnt here on Tuesday.

The grant and loans, according to state media report by Ethiopian radio, was secured from various development partners and donor communities.

Over 650 million Euro was obtained in the form of grant while the remaining was in form of loans.

The figure shows a 163 per cent increase compared to the previous same period, reported the radio.

Netherlands, Italy , Norway , Finland , Japan , China , Ireland , USA and UK along with various UN agencies and international donor communities and partners are among others extended the money for Ethiopia .

Ethiopia is currently undertaking multi billions investments on telecommunications infrastructure, roads, and hydro electric projects.

Pilot error behind Ethiopian jet crash - source

BEIRUT (Reuters)

- Pilot error caused the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane off the coast of Lebanon last month which killed all 90 people on board, a source familiar with the investigation into the accident said Tuesday.

"The investigation team has reached an early conclusion that it was pilot error, based on the information from the black box," the source told Reuters.

An investigation team involving Lebanese, French and Ethiopian officials had headed to France Monday with the flight recorders, commonly known as "black boxes," for analysis.

The Boeing 737-800 plane crashed minutes after taking off from Beirut in stormy weather on January 25, plunging in a ball of fire into the sea.

The pilot had failed to respond to the control tower's request to change direction even though he acknowledged their demands. The plane made a sharp turn before disappearing off the radar, the Lebanese transport minister said at the time.

The eight-year-old plane, carrying mostly Lebanese and Ethiopian passengers, last had a maintenance check on December 25 and no technical problems had been found. It was bound for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Since retrieving the flight recorders from the Mediterranean Sunday, Lebanese and international search teams have also located parts of the plane's fuselage, where most of the victims' bodies are believed trapped.

The bodies of at least 23 victims have been recovered so far.

Ten thousand male and female condoms were used in the fashion shows Photo DKT

ETHIOPIA: Condom creations grace the catwalk

ADDIS ABABA, 9 February 2010 (IRIN) - The whimsy of fashion collided with some of life's harsher realities when, during a recent fashion show in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, condoms were the fabric of choice on the catwalk.

At the Condom Clothes Fashion Show - held in January and organized by social marketing group DKT with the Zalef Fine Art and Fashion Design Institute - 10 spectacular dresses made exclusively from 10,000 male and female condoms of all colours, shapes and sizes were on show.

"In Ethiopia, condoms have a bad image; people are afraid when they want to buy condoms at the supermarket - they even try to hide the condoms quickly after they have bought them," Emebet Alemu, designer of the dresses and organizer of the shows, told IRIN/PlusNews. "We wanted to change that by using an art event; [maybe] the show will open people's minds a little ... maybe it will make them [condoms] seem more normal for people."

The latex garments were later modelled at four shows - all held under the theme, "Abstain, Be faithful and use Condoms" - at the Hilton Hotel in Ethiopia's capital; there is also a plan for the event to be taken to Adama, a major regional city.

The fashion initiative is the latest move by DKT to try to break the stigma associated with condom use in Ethiopia; in 2009, it set up a condom café in Addis, and ran a two-month campaign to distribute condoms and kerosene to house helps in the capital.

Condom stigma

Despite such campaigns, however, condoms remain highly stigmatized in Ethiopia; a 2008 study [http://ejhd.uib.no/ejhd-v22-n3/226%20Which%20factors%20influence%20North%20Ethiopian%20adults'%20use%20of%20d.pdf] in Adwa town, about 1,000km north of Addis Ababa, found that 46 percent believed that people who used condoms were promiscuous.

"Instead of teaching one-to-one relationships, they promote condoms," Gelila Ejigu, 24, said of the condom fashion shows. "When people see it they will think they should have the type of relationships where they must use a condom."

However, Emebet Abu, DKT Ethiopia's head of communications, explained that the condom fashion campaign was tailored to the youth, with a view to highlighting condoms as an additional option and not a replacement for abstinence or fidelity as methods of HIV prevention.

"The idea of the show was to target young people, who like fashion and design," he said. "We also teach abstinence and to be faithful, but some young people will not abstain or be faithful; they may have more than one partner already so they must use condoms."

Ethiopian plane 'exploded' after take-off - Lebanese Official

BEIRUT (AFP) – An Ethiopian jet which crashed off Lebanon's coast last month exploded after take-off, Lebanon's health minister said on Tuesday in the first such official comment since the mysterious crash.

Remarks by Jawad Khalifeh could not be immediately confirmed by other officials in Beirut and came as Ethiopian Airlines said one of the plane's black boxes has been sent to France for analysis.

"The plane exploded during flight and the cabin, as well as the bodies of those on board were dispersed into the sea, in different locations," Khalifeh said to explain why some corpses were found dismembered.

"The first bodies which have been retrieved following the crash were intact but after that, we began to find body pieces or mutilated corpses," he told reporters.

Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi refused to comment on the reported explosion. "I have no information about this," he told AFP.

Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 plunged into the Mediterranean before dawn on January 25, just minutes after take-off from Beirut airport during a storm.

It was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board. No survivors were found and searchers have been struggling to recover bodies as most victims were believed to be still strapped to their seats.

There have been conflicting reports as to whether the jet exploded while airborne or after it hit the water, and officials have said there will be no answers until the data from the black boxes is analysed.

Lebanon has ruled out sabotage, blaming the bad weather for the tragedy, and officials have said the captain was instructed by the control tower to change to a certain heading but then the aircraft took a different course.

Experts have told AFP that the stormy weather may not have been the only reason for the crash, and that the aircraft may have had engine or hydraulics problems.

Witnesses have said they saw a ball of fire as the plane plunged into the sea and a defence ministry official said on the day of the tragedy that the plane broke into four pieces before crashing in the Mediterranean.

Lebanese army divers retrieved one of the plane's two black boxes on Sunday and Ethiopian Airlines said it has been sent to France for analysis.

"We cannot say when we'll have news because it is a process and there is an investigation," spokeswoman Wogayehu Terefe told AFP in Addis Ababa.

Wogayehu said more bodies had been retrieved but said they were still waiting for an exact figure. Twenty three bodies had been found by Sunday.

The probe into the mysterious crash is being carried out by a Lebanese commission with support from a French body responsible for technical investigations of air accidents.

US and Ethiopian investigators are also involved.

Ethiopia dispatches team to France for black box analysis

APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) Ethiopia dispatched a team to France, Paris to know the details of the flight recorders belonging to an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed off the coast of Lebanon last month killing all 90 people aboard,officials told APA on Tuesday.

Two weeks ago, Ethiopian airlines with 90 people on board, including nine Ethiopian crew members, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut , Lebanon, the first such incident by the Ethiopian airlines.

“Investigation on the flight data recorder hopes to unlock the secret of what caused the crash on the Ethiopian airlines. A three member Ethiopian team was dispatched to France on Monday,” Wegayehu Terefe, public relation head with the Ethiopian airlines told APA.

However, it is not known how many days will take to retrieve details on the flight data recorder, which Ethiopia awaits eagerly since the incident.

A team is still on the ground searching for the second flight recorder, which will also be sent to France.

Terefe told APA that rescue team have so far identified the bodies of five Ethiopian whose repatriation to their home is underway.

The bodies of several passangers, including Ethiopians are still unidentified.

On Sunday, more bodies reported to have been found, and investigations are currently underway to know their identity.

Over 50 passengers from Beirut , 23 Ethiopian and other citizens died in the plane crash that occurred on 25 January.

The Ethiopian airlines, flight ET 409 was on its way from Beirut to Ethiopia.