Tag: Irish Examiner

Despite food shortages, Ethiopia to grow biofuel crops – Irish Examiner

DIRE DAWA, EASTERN ETHIOPIA — When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most. Weighing only 4.5 kg, Ayaan is among the almost 100,000 children whose lives are at risk across Ethiopia. Just four days before her first birthday, she weighs no more than an average 3 month old baby. This clinic, about 15 miles outside Ethiopia’s second city Dire Dawa, is seeing an increasing amount of such cases over recent weeks. Here land is used to grow the cash-crop narcotic known as khat. In over a dozen villages on the northbound road out of the city, this reporter witnessed groups of mainly young men, but also some women, getting high in the shade on the chewed leaves. Khat is an appetite-suppressant, and local culture means that children often only eat after adults. And that means “if parents are on khat, the whole family goes hungry,” according to a doctor at the clinic.

Pristina recovers after all-night party – The Irish Examiner

PRISTINA — Kosovo’s new capital awoke to a city-wide hangover after its delirious denizens marked independence with an all-night city-wide party. The muezzin’s dawn tannoy-call to prayer was a wake-up call reminder that Europe’s would-be newest state is a Muslim country. But to see the boisterous celebrations rocking the capital streets on Sunday, after a special session of parliament called the Republic of Kosovo into being, it seems that the population looks west to New York and Los Angeles, rather than east to Mecca.