2013 June 03 archive at Tadias Magazine

Archive for June 3rd, 2013

Ethiopian Official Labels Egyptian Attack Proposal Over Nile ‘Day Dreaming’

Published by Tadias Magazine June 3rd, 2013 in Podcast. Closed

Egyptian politicians - including president Mohamed Morsi - have been caught live on air discussing plans to sabotage the Ethiopian Renaissance hydroelectric dam project. (ABC News)

By Associated Press

Updated: Wednesday, June 5th

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Egyptian officials tried to cool tensions with Ethiopia Wednesday over the new Nile River dam project by highlighting its “neighborliness” as the Ethiopian prime minister’s spokesman insisted that nothing would stop the dam from being completed upstream from Egypt, which is wholly dependent on Nile River water.

Egypt fears a diminished flow from Africa’s largest dam and hydropower station but Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi said Egypt respects Ethiopia and will not engage in any aggressive acts against the East African nation. Egyptian politicians had suggested the country should sabotage the project in a meeting with the president Monday.

Getachew Reda, a spokesman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, said late Tuesday that Egyptian leaders in the past have unsuccessfully tried to destabilize Ethiopia.

Read more at The Washington Post.

FOX News: Egyptian politicians caught on air threatening, taunting Ethiopia
Daily Nation: Egypt warns ‘all options open’ on Ethiopia dam
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Egypt Presidential Aide Apologizes After Ethiopia Remarks Caught on Live TV (VOA News)

June 04, 2013

Egyptian politicians have proposed ways to sabotage an Ethiopian dam project in talks that were televised live without the politicians’ knowledge.

An aide to Egypt’s president apologized for failing to tell the politicians they were on the air Monday during the meeting with President Mohamed Morsi in Cairo.

The aide said on Twitter that a decision was made at the last minute to air the meeting live, due to the importance of the topic.

Ethiopia has angered Egypt with its plans to construct a massive hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile, a key Nile River tributary.

During Monday’s meeting, an Islamist party leader suggested Egypt support Ethiopian rebels to exert pressure on Addis Ababa. A liberal politician suggested spreading rumors that Egypt was buying military planes for possible airstrikes.

The Associated Press reports President Morsi did not directly react to the suggestions. He did warn that he would not allow Ethiopia’s dam project to reduce his country’s share of water from the Nile.

Last week, Ethiopia began diverting water from a Nile tributary to allow for construction of the nearly $5 billion dam. The country’s water minister has said the dam poses no threat to Egypt or Sudan, which both depend heavily on the Nile for their water supply.

More than two-thirds of the Blue Nile tributary originates in Ethiopia. But colonial-era treaties gave Egypt and Sudan the majority of the Nile’s water.

Ethiopia began constructing the dam two years ago with the goal of producing power for itself and nearby countries.

ABC News: Egyptian politicians caught discussing plan to sabotage Ethiopian dam
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Egyptian Cabinet Caught On Camera Telling President Morsi To Sabotage Ethiopia

Associated Press

Published: June 3rd, 2013

CAIRO – Politicians meeting with Egypt’s president have proposed hostile acts against Ethiopia, including backing rebels and carrying out sabotage, to stop it from building a massive dam over the Nile River.

Some of the politicians attending Monday’s meeting with President Mohammed Morsi appeared unaware it was being carried live on TV. Morsi did not directly react to the suggestions. Morsi called the meeting to review the impact of Ethiopia’s dam on Egypt’s share of the Nile’s water.

Watch: Communications Minister Bereket Simon on the Nile issue (Al Jazeera English)

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Emahoy Sheet Music Project Launched

Published by Tadias Magazine June 3rd, 2013 in Featured and Interviews. Closed

Mary Sutton and Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou in Jerusalem, April 2013. (Courtesy photo)

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Updated: Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

New York (TADIAS) – Mary Sutton who studies piano performance at Portland State University in Oregon came across the work of the legendary pianist and composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, having listened to volume 21 of the Ethiopiques CD series released in 2006, which featured 16 of the Jerusalem-based Ethiopian nun’s original pieces.

Mary grew up playing piano and is a graduate of the New England Conservatory. She recently told Tadias that she was immediately drawn to Emahoy’s “unique” sounds before realizing that there was no published sheet music of her compositions available for other pianists to play. That was prior to her trip to Israel in April to meet with Emahoy, who gave her the permission to create one.

“Initially I tried to get in touch with Emahoy by email,” Mary recalled. “She wrote me back, but at the time she was having computer problems so her reply came back blank.” She added: “I followed up with a letter without knowing she would receive them.” Eventually the two were able to connect via Skype and meet in person. “I was introduced to her by an Israeli journalist,” Mary said.

Returning to Jerusalem this summer to begin the process of readying the manuscripts for publication, Mary shared that she is currently raising funds on Kickstarter for the project. “This Kickstarter is just the beginning of a lifetime of a work which has fallen into my hands,” she noted via the online platform. “And as all of Emahoy’s music serves a charitable purpose, I will not be getting paid.”

Emahoy, who was ordained a nun at the age of 21 at the Guishen Mariam monastery in the Wollo region, moved to Jerusalem in 1984 at the height of the military Derg regime in Ethiopia. However, that was not her first forced exile from her country. According to the Emahoy Music Foundation, she was taken as a prisoner of war by the Italians in 1937 and deported along with her family “to the island of Asinara, north of Sardinia, and later to Mercogliano near Naples.”

Emahoy was born “Yewubdar Gebru” in Addis Abeba on December 12, 1923 to a privileged family; her father was Kentiba Gebru, mayor of Gonder and vice president of Ethiopia’s first parliament under Emperor Haile Selassie. Her mother was Kassaye Yelemtu. “Yewubdar was sent to Switzerland at the age of six along with her sister Senedu Gebru,” the foundation notes on its website. “Both attended a girls’ boarding school where Yewubdar studied the violin and then the piano. She gave her first violin recital at the age of ten. She returned to Ethiopia in 1933 to continue her studies at the Empress Menen Secondary School.”

After the war she resumed her musical studies in Cairo, under a Polish violinist named Alexander Kontorowicz. Later she returned to Ethiopia accompanied by Kontorowicz and she served as administrative assistant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Imperial Body Guard where Kontorowicz worked as the director of the band. Her first record was released in Germany in 1967.

It was five years ago this summer, on July 12, 2008, that Emahoy, then 85-years-old, gave a rare public presentation at the Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C., playing live for the first time in 35 years. “Her extraordinary performance was viscerally and emotionally moving,” wrote Makeda Amha, her great niece, in an article published in Tadias Magazine following the concert. “Her astounding ability as a classical pianist and her skill to warmly express “Reverie,” was a pleasure to listen to, as was “Presentiment,” a sweet, poetic Sonata in B-Flat Major.”

Below is a video of Emahoy playing Presentiment filmed by Omer Gefen in April 2013 at the Ethiopian monastery in Jerusalem where she currently lives.

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To learn more and support Mary Sutton’s project, please visit: www.kickstarter.com.