Addis Ababa — Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday that around 2.5 million people have been exposed to "danger" due to the current drought in the country.

The Premier, who presented a report to the House of People's Representatives on Tuesday ,told the House that, this year, drought in Ethiopia has affected several pastoralist regions, particularlyin the Somali and Oromia regional States where over 30 million people are estimated to live.

"This year, due to the severe danger off drought in several pastoralist areas, particularly in the Somali and Oromia regional State, not les that 2.5 million people have been exposed to danger,"Meles told the parliament.

The premier,in his rather long report to the House about the present day status of the pastoralists' community and the current drought in the country revealed that the problem was exacerbated in the Somali State due to transportation problem "In order to alleviate shortage of drinking water, intensified effort is being exerted to repair water wells, drill new ones and transport water in tankers. The government is firmly convinced that it is possible to eradicate the deep rooted poverty and underdevelopment through hard work and implementing appropriate development plans," he said.

Meles also indicated that in order to mitigate the hardship feared cause on their livestock, efforts have been made to enable the pastoralists to sell their animals in bigger numbers .

The Premier didn't, however, mentionas to how many livestocks t have been sold.

"In order to enable the pastoralists to secure sufficient market for their livestock resource, a common forum comprising the pastoralist regions, supplier associations, entrepreneurs involved in the export of meat and livestock, concerned governmental and NGOs has been established and has started its work, " the Prime minister said.

"In general, even though there are development implementation capacity challenges in the pastoralist regions, the work done this year is by far better that ever before, and the results are encouraging," Zenawi who in his report spoke about the infrastructure in the pastoralist regions, said that 15 of the towns in the pastoralist regions have been provided with digital automatic telephone services, while 43 towns have been provided with semi- automatic and V- Sat telephone service.

"This year's plan to provide all zonal and Woreda towns in these regions with telephone service is being implemented in a satisfactory manner. At the present time, while 45 of the towns in the pastoralists' areas are provided with diesel-generated electricity, 15 towns are provided with hydroelectric power," he said.

The plan to provide this service to 53 towns this year is being implemented "satisfactorily", according to Zenawi.

With regard to the Addis Ababa city administration, Meles proposed a three weeks additional period and other alternatives for the current city administration headed by Mayor Arkebe Equbay.

Accordingly, the current administration will remain in place as of yesterday up to April 18, 2006,Meles Proposed to the Parliament.

"To widen the possibility for the people of Addis Ababa to be administered by their elected representatives and exhaust all avenues in this regard, those elected representatives endeavoring to assume the administration should be given three weeks as of today that will run up to 18 of April.,"Meles said.

He said that if the elected representatives are unable to assume the administration in accordance with the law, the provisional administration in office should be dismissed and a care-taker administration comprised of professionals should be put in place for one year.

'"If the city is administered by a care taker administration, Meles said, " election will be held after a year to ensure that the elected representatives assume their responsibility ,"Meles added.

The house later endorsed the proposal presented by the Premiere to extend the current administration.

Meles also spoke of the border row with neighbouring Eritrea.

Having said Ethiopia was ready to resolve the border row through dialogue, Meles blamed Eritrea for not reaching progress in the recent meeting in London.

"Even though the meeting by itself can be mentioned as a positive step, it did not achieve a breakthrough. Progress that could have been made through this initiative has been blocked by Eritrea's insistence on the implementation of the decision without any dialogue, against international conventional practice.

This emanatted from its (Eritrean government) obistinate nature and lack of readiness to show flexibility,"Meles said.

Meles also said his country would listen, "with an open mind" to proposals coming from peace loving forces that would advance the peace process and resolved his country's problems with Eritrea.

But Meles warned Eritrea of another "round of aggression".

"On the other hand, we will continue to make the necessary effort to deter the government of Eritrea from initiating armed conflict, and in the event that it resort to armed conflict, to ensure a lasting resolution of the dispute," he added.