June 2012

(AFP)The bodies of dozens of Ethiopians, believed to be illegal migrants, have been recovered from Lake Malawi after their overcrowded boat capsized earlier this week, police said on Thursday. “As of today, 47 bodies have been recovered,” Malawi police spokesman Davie Chingwalu told AFP, adding that they had been buried in mass graves “because the […]

(Pravda) – Last May 24 marked Eritrea’s 21st birthday as an independent nation. It was on May 24 of 1991 that Eritrea finally became a free country after 30 years of protracted war of independence against Ethiopia. On that day, Eritrea’s liberation army marched into Asmara, after defeating Col Mengistu Hailemariam’s army of occupation and

Hindessa Abdul What do AlJazeera, BBC, Le Monde,The Atlantic, African Review, PC Mag,Tech Crunch have in common? Well, they were among the scores of media outlets that reported on the ban of internet telephony in Ethiopia. The Parliament passed the Telecom Infringements Law on May 24, 2012. The bill got scant coverage on the local

(AFP) – An Ethiopian security officer with the United Nations faced up to 10 years in jail after a court in Addis Ababa found him guilty Monday of “participating in a terrorist organisation.” “The defendant has not convinced us that he did not commit a crime… he’s guilty,” judge Mulugeta Kidane said. Abdurahman Sheikh Hassan,

By Salvador Rodriguez (Los Angeles Times) – If you’re heading to Ethiopia sometime soon, I’d like to offer you one small but crucial bit of advice: Don’t get on Skype. The Ethiopian government last month passed a law making it a crime for people to utilize audio or video communication using Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) services, which

(Grain) – Food cannot be grown without water. In Africa, one in three people endure water scarcity and climate change will make things worse. Building on Africa’s highly sophisticated indigenous water management systems could help resolve this growing crisis, but these very systems are being destroyed by large-scale land grabs amidst claims that Africa’s water

It is astonishing to recall that having a television satellite dish was a criminal act in Ethiopia 15 years before. Ironically, even low-cost houses built by the government, dubbed condominiums, are now swarmed by the devices. Similarly, people used to be jailed for bringing in credit cards to the country, which now have become a

By ARGAW ASHINE (Africa Review) The Ethiopian government has passed new legislation that criminalises the use of Internet-based voice communications such as Skype and other forms of Internet phone calling. Authorities have also installed a new filtering system that monitors the use of the Internet in the tightly-controlled Horn of Africa country in a move

The African Union announced its 19th annual summit in July would be Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after Malawi withdrew its bid on Sudanese concerns. ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, (UPI) — The African Union announced its 19th annual summit in July would be Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after Malawi withdrew its bid on Sudanese concerns. Malawi last week withdrew

The New York Times has discovered racism in Israel. (JP) An Israeli response to such a revelation is “Mazal tov. You’ve discovered America.” The meaning does not deal with racism in America, which has been there since Columbus. In modern Hebrew, “You’ve discovered America” means you have said the obvious. What we have known for

By Buri Waddesso (opride) – After convening in the Canadian town of Ottawa, a new diaspora-based Ethiopian opposition outfit, Ethiopian National Transitional Council (Hizbawi Shengo), issued a Draft Transitional Constitution. The gist of the document can be gleaned from the first item in the preamble: ”Determined to live in unity and freedom, and to erase