New Sea in Ethiopia

Is a new sea forming in Ethiopia? Kind of...but it will take another million years or so for it to fully form.

"A Crack Opens in the Ethiopian Landscape, Preparing the Way for a New Sea"

From Discover

November 4th, 2009 11:07 AM

by Eliza Strickland

In 2005, the earth cracked open in Ethiopia. Two volcanic eruptions shook the desert, and a 35-mile-long rift opened in the land, measuring 20 feet wide in some places. Now a new study adds weight to the argument that the opening of this crack marks the first step in the formation of a new sea that may eventually separate East Africa from the rest of the continent. Says lead researcher Atalay Ayele: “The ocean’s formation is happening slowly, likely to take a few million years. It will stretch from the Afar depression (straddling Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti) down to Mozambique” [ABC News].

The study, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, explains that the seismic movements observed in Ethiopia are very similar to the changes wrought by faults and fissures on the seafloor, where the processes that move tectonic plates usually begin.

Seismic data from 2005 shows that the rift opened in a matter of days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began “unzipping” the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today. “We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this” [LiveScience], says study coauthor Cindy Ebinger.

The active volcanic region in Ethiopia’s Afar desert sits at the boundary of the African and Arabian tectonic plates, which have been gradually spreading apart for millions years; the new study shows that large-scale seismic events can speed up that process. The gradual separation has already formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so [LiveScience].

News from Ethiopia: Ethiopia Coffee Exports May Rebound This Year, Exchange Says

Coffee exports from Ethiopia, Africa’s largest producer of the beans, are expected to rebound to about 171,000 metric tons this year after shipments fell to their lowest level in six years last year, an official with the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange said.

“Early assessments indicate a very good potential for a bumper harvest of coffee,” said Eleni Gabre-Madhin, chief executive officer of the Addis Ababa-based exchange, in an interview on Aug. 29. “We are expecting at least 2007/2008 tonnage.”

Shipments fell from 170,888 tons in 2007/2008 to 133,993 last year after a drought cut production and Japanese importers largely stopped buying Ethiopian coffee after finding high levels of pesticide residues in shipments.

Better rains this year in the main coffee-growing areas will lead to more production during the country’s October to December harvest. Ethiopian coffee trees will also produce more due to their cyclical nature, in which harvests peak every second year, she said.

Prices for premium Arabica beans, though heavily dependent on the world price of coffee, may be higher this year because of a new grading system in Ethiopia introduced in conjunction with the Specialty Coffee Association of America, she said. The system will bring Ethiopia’s grading methods in line with those used by the SCAA.

“Hopefully it will encourage farmers to produce more of these top quality grades,” she said.

The exchange will also begin providing a new direct-buying service for coffee roasters that seek specialty coffee from specific farmers, she said.

U.S.-based specialty coffee roasters complained last year that Ethiopia’s move to trading beans on a commodity exchange made it difficult to trace coffee to specific growers, a desirable marketing feature for specialty roasters.

Ethiopia, which claims to be the home of the coffee tree, has hundreds of native varieties of coffee.

News from Ethiopia: Not ruling out troops return to Somalia

I read up on Ethiopian news every day as

part of my morning routine. I have decided it would be interesting for everyone else to be able to read some news from that part of the world. So I will be posting a news article on the blog every so often (probably once a month). Hope you enjoy this new feature to our blog.

Ethiopia Not Ruling out troops return to Somalia

By Tsegaye Tadesse and Barry Malone (Editing by David Clarke)

ADDIS ABABA, June 25 (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has not ruled out sending troops to Somalia if the situation there worsens, but said there are no plans to intervene for now.

Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement from the capital in which new President Sheik Sharif Ahmed played a role. That sparked an Islamist insurgency which is still raging despite the withdrawal of the soldiers in January this year.

"We do not want to find ourselves in a situation where a so-called Ethiopian horse would be trying to take the chestnut out of the fire on behalf of everybody else," Meles told a news conference late on Wednesday.

"And this horse being whipped by every idiot and his grandmother."

Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, fled into exile after the Ethiopian intervention but joined a peace process last year and was elected in January. His government is now battling hardline insurgents who were once allies in the Islamist movement.

Addis Ababa has said it supports the new government, but is wary of the hardline Islamists, who are seen as a proxy for al Qaeda, because they control large areas of Somalia and have threatened to destabilise neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya.

With reports of foreign jihadists streaming into Somalia, Western security services are worried al Qaeda may get a grip on the failed Horn of Africa state that has been without central government for 18 years.

"We want to wait and see how the international community as a whole responds and then see if there is any need to revisit our position on the matter," Meles said. "We believe the deployment of Ethiopian troops would be unwarranted because we are not convinced there is a clear and present danger to Ethiopia."

Violence from the Islamist-led insurgency worsened this month, with the killing of three officials. The government, which controls little but a few parts of the capital, has declared a state of emergency and appealed to neighbouring countries for military assistance.

The Ethiopian leader played down claims from the speaker of Somalia's parliament that the country's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) risked being overthrown without foreign help.

"Our reading of the situation in Somalia is slightly different from the one of the speaker of the parliament that if there is no foreign military intervention ... the transitional government will collapse," Meles said. "The TFG is facing a very difficult situation with al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam militias supported by hundreds of jihadists, but we don't believe they will be toppled."