March 2010

By Peter Heinlein | VOA ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Ethiopian Airlines officials are closely following a report that a captured terrorism suspect has told of a bomb aboard a plane that crashed off the coast of Lebanon in January. Investigators have not determined the cause more than two months after the crash. A report on a […]

By Jim Fisher-Thompson | American.gov Key U.S. lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, have expressed concern for political conditions in Ethiopia, citing authoritarian tendencies by its government as well as human rights abuses such as the continued detention of a prominent opposition leader. Leading off a March 24 hearing on U.S. policy toward Africa, Representative Donald

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) — Ethiopian opposition politicians were barred from visiting their jailed leader, Birtukan Mideksa, Saturday after a U.S. State Department human rights report said her mental health has deteriorated. Eight opposition politicians asked for access to Birtukan at the prison. They were met by prison head Abebe Zemichael and, after a heated argument

By Sioum Gebeyehou The Problem: The “Kilil” politics kept the peoples of Ethiopia residentially, occupationally, and culturally apart. A body of shared values did not emerge to weld the disparate peoples into any sort of coherent community. Indeed, the ethnic elements grew to distrust each other and were systematically manipulated by the ruling party into

(The Economist) — THE United States, the richest and most powerful nation on earth, is also the most generous donor to one of the poorest, Ethiopia. America says it gives $1 billion in aid every year to Africa’s second-most-populous country, which also happens to host the African Union’s headquarters. Yet Barack Obama’s administration has barely

By Yilma Bekele “Opposition UDJ party president Birtukan Mideksa, whose pardon was revoked and life sentence reinstated in December 2008, remained in prison throughout the year. She was held in solitary confinement until June, despite a court ruling that indicated it was a violation of her constitutional rights. She was also denied access to visitors

By Yilma Bekele I am sure you are familiar with all the big numbers thrown around when it comes to the number of Ethiopians in the US. Hundreds here thousands there add up to make an impressive amount. My travels the last few years have taken me to different parts of the Country. To tell

By Jason McLure | Bloomberg Voice of America said Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi’s comparison of its local-language news service with the Rwandan broadcaster accused of fomenting that country’s genocide in 1994 was “incorrect and unfortunate.” Meles said yesterday the U.S. government-owned station’s Amharic-language broadcasts “copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille

WASHINGTON DC (VOA) — Ethiopia’s Prime Minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi says he is prepared to order jamming of VOA broadcasts in Amharic, the country’s main official language. Mr. Meles compared VOA Amharic to the hate media that incited the Rwanda genocide. The Ethiopian leader dictator denies having authorized the interference VOA Amharic listeners have been experiencing since February

(BBC) — Ethiopia’s ruling junta, Woyanne, has admitted it is jamming the Voice of America’s (VOA) broadcasts in Amharic, accusing the radio station of engaging in “destabilising propaganda”. Prime Minister Warlord Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia his regime had been testing jamming equipment, although there had been no formal decision to bloc the US station. The Amharic Service has