Fire aboard an Ethiopian Boeing 787 Dreamliner renews concerns

By Michael Martinez and Thom Patterson, CNN

July 12, 2013 -- Updated 1928 GMT (0328 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: News of the fire shakes Wall Street; an ex-DOT official says it could lead to FAA action
• The NTSB says it's sending an expert to help; the FAA says it's in contact with Boeing
• A fire breaks out on an empty Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 at Heathrow airport
• Boeing says it has fixed a battery problem that was blamed for two previous fires

(CNN) -- A fire aboard an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner Friday briefly shut runways at London's Heathrow airport and renewed concerns about the troubled aircraft.

No one was hurt in the fire, officials said, and details were unclear about the fire's cause or location aboard the plane.

The Dreamliner, which has been flying since 2011, has been closely watched since last January, when all 50 of the world's 787s were grounded due to overheating problems in its new light-weight lithium-ion battery system. The planes were allowed to return to service in April after Boeing engineered a solution that satisfied U.S. aviation authorities.

Heathrow reopened Friday evening after it had stopped all departures and arrivals for about an hour, the airport said. Boeing officials were at the airport to analyze the problem, the company said.

Ethiopian Airlines: Bringing the Dreamliner to Africa

It's unknown if the battery system was associated with Friday's incident, but a statement released by Ethiopian Airlines said the jet had been "parked at the airport for more than eight hours" before the fire.

Friday's fire has triggered renewed doubt about the 787 among the aviation community, including former U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General Mary Schiavo.

"If today's Boeing 787 problems are battery related," she tweeted, "the FAA may reconsider its decision to allow them to fly before NTSB identified" what caused the battery troubles.

The NTSB -- or National Transportation Safety Board, the United States' top aviation agency -- tweeted that it was sending an "accredited representative" to the airport to help the investigation. A statement from the Federal Aviation Administration said it was "aware of the situation" and was in contact with Boeing as officials "assess the incident."

The news sent Boeing's stock on Wall Street dropping more than 3%, sending a 0.1% shudder through other companies listed among the Dow Jones Industrials. Hundreds of millions of dollars are riding on the success of the Dreamliner, which represents a new generation of lighter, more efficient money-making airliners.

Dreamliner's lithium-ion batteries were blamed for two overheating instances this year in Boston and Japan. No one was hurt in either incident.

In March, the FAA approved a Boeing certification plan to fix the 787s' problematic lithium-ion battery system and prove the new design is safe. A team made up of experts from Boeing and from outside the company redesigned parts of the battery system in what they called a "robust" fix that included separating the battery cells, integrating a new charging system, and setting the batteries in a containment box that would vent outside the aircraft any smoke from overheating batteries.

The Dreamliner boasts high fuel efficiency because of the lightweight carbon composite materials used in its wings and fuselage.

Currently, United Airlines is the only domestic operator of the Dreamliner in the United States. In an apparent show of confidence in the new aircraft, United announced last month that it was ordering 20 additional Dreamliners, specifically the 787-10 model, a longer version of the plane.

CNN's Richard Quest, Scott Hamilton, Jason Hanna and Richard Greene contributed to this report.

>cnn

Over the Water of the Nile

by SASHA ROSS

July 12, 2013 (Counter Punch) — Last week, Africa took another step towards what could become a terribly bloody war. The government of Ethiopia announced its plans to increase defense spending by 15 percent, claiming that the increase matches economic growth. The militarization, however, comes at a time of rising tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over the water of the Nile.

The origin of the Blue Nile lies in Lake Tana, which sits among the mountains of the Ethiopian Highlands—the so-called Roof of Africa. The Blue Nile descends through the Misraq Gojjam and into the embattled grasslands of southern Sudan, before meeting the White Nile at Khartoum and flowing through the Nubian Desert, Lake Nasser, and Lower Egypt into the Mediterranean Sea. Beyond the crocodiles and impalas, millions of people have, throughout history, lived off the bountiful flood plains of the Nile. However, the river simply cannot sustain development in East Africa.

Due to shocks of famine caused by climate change-induced drought along with land speculation, the entire region has seen widespread revolt. In spite of the revolt, the government of Ethiopia seeking capital investment over popular consent is driving people from house and home throughout the countryside to make room for vast infrastructure projects to become Africa’s number one energy producer. One of these projects is called the Renaissance Dam, which would divert the flow of the Nile in order to provide hydroelectric power and the irrigation necessary to enhance agricultural development in Ethiopia.

The Renaissance Dam would serve the GDP, but not the people of Ethiopia. The dam would provide electricity to Ethiopians while also enabling Ethiopia to sell excess electricity to Egypt and Sudan (a promise that rings tinny in the ears of Egyptians who have always relied on the steady flow of the Nile). At the same time, Ethiopia’s agricultural development calls for greater irrigation as part and parcel to the New Alliance forged between the US, multinational corporations such as Monsanto and Yarra, and several other African countries. The plan may wind up sourcing water for monocrop plantations dedicated strictly to food commodities for export, while also generating a huge amount of electricity.

Still, the government of Ethiopia has held fast against threats from downstream Egypt, which worries that it may lose valuable water to the Renaissance Dam. Relying on accords from the colonial era and beyond (1929, 1959), 90 percent of the Nile’s water is siphoned off for use in Sudan and Egypt. The latter country receives over 90 percent of its water from the Nile. In 2011, however, upstream Nile countries such as Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan and Kenya signed a Cooperative Framework Agreement to enfranchise a Nile Commission that will divvy up the water more democratically. Egypt not only refused to sign on to the agreement, but has even threatened war should a drop of water be taken without its consent.

In 2010, a diplomatic cable uncovered by Wikileaks suggested that Egypt intends to put a military base in Darfur, Sudan, so that it can strike Ethiopian dams at will, if need be. Egypt vehemently denied the report, but major Egyptian politicians were caught on tape shortly thereafter discussing the possibility of air strikes and even proxy war using Ethiopian rebels as saboteurs.

Morsi would admit in early June that Egypt did not want war, but “would keep all options open.” He warned, “Our blood will replace any decrease of the flow of the river waters, even a single drop.” Within three weeks, it was Morsi himself who would be replaced. That the Egyptian military remains in power does not necessarily bode well, however.

As minister of water and irrigation Mohamed Nasr El Din Allam explained “The dam would lead to political, economic, and social instability. Millions of people would go hungry. There would be water shortages everywhere. It’s huge.” The major concern is not only that the dam would “regulate” the flow of the Nile, but that the water withheld from the natural stream would evaporate rapidly due to climate change (and may also be utilized for irrigation purposes if Ethiopia’s government so desires).

It was Mubarak’s military that in 2010 had already raised the ire of Ethiopia. Although Sudan has come out in favor of the Renaissance Dam, since it will inhibit siltation from compromising its own dams, Egypt’s bellicosity will likely not subside with Morsi’s decline.

The Nile is a large part of Egyptian nationalism. In 1979, the putatively peaceable Anwar Sadat exclaimed, “We depend upon the Nile 100 percent in our life, so if anyone, at any moment, thinks of depriving us of our life we shall never hesitate to go to war.” Even Boutros Boutros Gahali, as the Egyptian Foreign State Minister, prophesized that “the next war in our region will be over the water of the Nile, not politics.”

The Deputy Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Khalid Bin Sultan, joined in the fray in March, declaring that “There are fingers messing with water resources of Sudan and Egypt which are rooted in the mind and body of Ethiopia. They do not forsake an opportunity to harm Arabs without taking advantage of it.” While it is not clear exactly whose fingers the Prince sees messing around with Ethiopia’s water (even the World Bank refuses to finance the dam), the Saudi ambassador to Ethiopia disavowed the Prince’s words, opening up a kind of empty rhetorical space of international hegemony.

On June 12, 2013, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, tried to even out the situation: “Both countries need to use the Nile and I think it is important to just have discussions that are open… not in the context of colonial power, but in context of pan-Africanism and African renaissance.” Yet the notion of sharing the Nile may completely alter the Egyptian water plans, requiring vast bureaucratic adjustments that will prove all but impossible in the interim years between revolution and the brass ring of stability.

According to a Cairo University study written by the Group of Nile Basin, Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam project “in the eyes of the majority of Egyptians amounts to a flagrant assault on all the basic fundamental laws and the international norms.”

Given popular animus against the Renaissance Dam, as well as Ethiopia’s steadfast pursuit of the project, there is worry that the current military government of Egypt will see a fight as a chance to rally a politically tumultuous climate. It is in fact very possible that Eastern Africa is on the brink of war over the same resource that brought life to the first humans—the water of the Nile.

Sasha Ross is a moderator of the Earth First! Newswire, the coordinator of the Earth First! Journal—Cascadia Field Office, and an activist with Bark. His recent writings can be found in continent., The Singapore Review of Books, and Life During Wartime (AK Press 2013). He is also the editor of the forthcoming anthology, Grabbing Back: Resistance Against the Global Land Grab (AK Press 2014). This article is also being published at newswire.earthfirstjournal.org.

–CounterPunch

>ayyaantuu

Ethiopia as One ‘Killil’ in the Federation of Nation States

Baran Bahan | July 11, 2013

Ethiopia, a name of now a country in East Africa, is a Greek word which means ‘burnt face’. The word originally referred to all black or dark colored people who lived south of the Sahara. A close look, however, indicates that the word is charged with negative connotations. One, for instance, might  ask a question, ‘why Greece chose ‘burnt face’ to refer to people with black or dark color, although for sure they had a more neutral and even a better word that can describe the people who lived south of the Sahara?  The funny thing is that, except the Habeshas, no people or country in the region used the word or made it part of their lexicon. For Habeshas, however, ‘burnt face’ is not only the name of their country, but also their religion and identity.

Not only Habeshas adopted this taboo word happily and unconditionally, they also boast for being ‘burnt face’. They believed in it as a religion although this ‘religion’ does not have followers among other nations. Unlike other world main religions this ‘burnet face’ religion, does not have a dogma, or any common sense that can guide the ‘believers’. The fanatic and core believers of this ‘religion’ have tried to impose it on other people such as Oromos, Somali, Sidamas, Afar, etc. They tried hard to baptize them in schools, churches and other institutions, although they did not manage to get many converts despite their century long attempts. Who on earth can join a ‘religion’ without any dogma or common sense and which was named after a Greek derogatory word?

I have no any objection if anyone can take up anything and make it the name of their religion, country, or identity and so, I do respect Habeshas right to pick ‘burnt face’ to tattoo it all over their bodies if they want. I also understand the arbitrariness of languages. What I can not comprehend, however, is why they keep trying to impose it on others while they know very well that people of other nations resisted and have continued to resist it. Why do they make a bray noise when people of other nations rightly tell what their identities are.  We all know the rising dust among the Habeshacrowds following the recent statement by Jawar Mohammed on Aljazeera in which he said, “I am Oromo first” and eloquently explained why he and Oromos identify themselves as such. They are working hard on different websites and social media to create the impression that Jawar has a ‘hidden OLF agenda of disintegrating Ethiopian unity’. Which unity?  What else they think Jawar should have said?  Ethiopia—the burnt face?  Really! That is a dead hat!

It sometimes makes me think that these people (habeshas) must live in a different planet. They apparently do not know that what Jawar said was not new, but just what all Oromos are saying. What makes Jawar different is that he exposed the truth on international media. Otherwise, people like Ali Birra, Kemer Yesouf and many others reached millions through their well resonated songs. Our elders advised; teachers taught; religious people preached; and scholars wrote about it over and over and over again. So, it is no wonder, today, that even Oromo kids in elementary school proudly tell that they are Oromo first, and Ethiopia is imposed on them.

Rejection of Ethiopia as identity, of course, also holds true for other nations such as Somali, Afar, Sidama, etc. Obviously, this puts the Habeshas in the minority camp. The question many people ask, however, is this: Can different nation states come together and build a common country?  I think it can be still tried through give-and-take, or win-win situations. My suggestion is that let every nation state keeps its own identity and Ethiopia be the identity of those who want to keep it, Amhara ‘Killil,’for instance. Hence, Oromia, Ogadenia, Afar, Ethiopia, Tigray, Sidama, etc. can negotiate on how to build a country of federation of nation states. Of course, the success of this depends on the agreement between these nations states. If this does not work, of course, the only option will be: Ethiopia go your way, and we will go our way to hoist our flags at the AU and the Hague.

>ayyaantuu