Tadias Magazine

By John Fordham

Nobody fuses the sounds and rhythms of African, American and European music the way Mulatu Astatke does. The Ethiopian multi-instrumentalist balances a songwriter’s seductiveness with a borderless vision and a relaxed faith in left-field improvisers. Much of this Roundhouse gig sounded off the cuff, but the trim, smiling, white-clad 72-year-old at the centre was always tweaking the overview with the lightest of touches on the helm.

Early in the show, Astatke’s Dewel was soon showcasing his talent for rousing free-collective improv exchanges from insistently riffy, bitter-sweet anthems, and rhythmic underpinnings that sometimes float and sometimes throb. Saxophonist James Arben’s blurted free-jazz tenor break, Byron Wallen’s warm flugelhorn sound, the abrupt punctuation of Alex Hawkins’s piano chording, and the combined percussion of the loose-limbed Tom Skinner, the talking-drums of Richard Olatunde Baker and Astatke himself on congas took the piece through constant changes.

Yekermo Sew (a simmering Astatke twister from Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers that sounds like a Latin-jazz theme with a raft of extra bars in it) spurred a shapely vibraphone solo from its creator. Urgent, barking riffs, John Edwards’s volcanic basslines and the drummers’ churning polyrhythms brought a kind of dark, Bitches Brew-like ecstasy to the set. Two female dancers whirled on, shimmied and shuddered amid the slamming riffs, and vanished to roars. The tenderness of Astatke’s Motherland was cherished by the classical poise of Danny Keane’s cello, the spirited London rapper Afrikan Boy clattered out fast-moving monologues against Edwards’s wild bass rejoinders, and the leader’s ruminative closing piano solo became the kind of glowing melody of rich brass sounds, lateral sax prods and deft resolutions to lazily curving themes that typified a truly memorable show.

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2 February 1965: Ethiopia Welcomes England’s Queen Elizabeth

February 2, 2016 Tadias Magazine

From The Guardian Archive

By Clyde Sanger

Published February 2nd, 2016

Addis Ababa, February 1 [1965]
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh came here tonight to a leonine welcome at the start of a week’s state visit to Ethiopia.

Waiting for her at the airport was the Emperor of Ethiopia in field-marshal’s uniform and a lion’s mane helmet. As she drove the two miles to the Jubilee Palace she passed two huge gilded aluminium lions erected in her honour.

Halfway on the journey they changed from a car to a state coach drawn by six white horses. Surrounded by a 100 horsemen of the imperial bodyguard, jogging under heavy lion’s mane helmets, it took more than an hour to drive the two miles through crowd clapping a rhythmic welcome and drums thumping. Horsemen cantered among the crowd with even longer lions’ manes stuck to their hair.

State banquet

Later the Queen was guest of honour at a state banquet in the old palace, where in the gardens the Emperor keeps his pet lions. By then she could be in no doubt that she had come to the land of the Lion of Judah, King of Kings.

The welcome, all the same, was gay and unforced. The traffic jams began two hours before her plane arrived, and it was noticeable how pedestrians who had armed themselves with spears made the best progress.

Her palace looks out upon the handsome African Hall where many times in the past 18 months African leaders have met to denounce the colonial Powers and to plan the liberation of Southern Africa. But a banner strung across the road proclaims “Long live the friendship between Great Britain and Ethiopia.” And behind her palace are roads named after three British generals – Wavell, Wingate, and Cunningham – who helped to liberate Ethiopia from the Italians.

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In Iowa Trump Defeated, Hillary Wins

February 2, 2016 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

By William Gallo

Updated on: February 02, 2016

DES MOINES, IOWA — Senator Ted Cruz defeated billionaire Donald Trump in Iowa’s Republican caucus Monday, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton barely edged Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic contest.

Cruz, a conservative lawmaker from Texas, finished with 28 percent of the vote. That is 3½ percentage points better than Trump, the national front-runner.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio finished with 23 percent, making him easily the leader among establishment Republican candidates.

On the Democratic side, Clinton and Sanders were in a virtual tie until the former Secretary of State was declared the winner Tuesday.

Voter sentiment

The results provided the first concrete look at voter sentiment, after a year of fierce campaigning and endless speculation.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, accompanied by former President Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, arrives at her caucus night rally at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 1, 2016. (AP photo)

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and his wife, Jane, acknowledge the crowd as he arrives for his caucus night rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 1, 2016. (AP photo)

After the results were announced, each candidate tried to spin the outcome in their favor.

Cruz, who came away as the night’s clear winner, sounded upbeat as he gave a victory speech in Des Moines.

“Let me first of all say, to God be the glory,” Cruz said to loud cheers. “Tonight, is a victory for the grassroots. Tonight is a victory for courageous conservatives across Iowa and all across this great nation.”

Subdued

Trump appeared more subdued, even while assuring his supporters he was “so happy with the way everything worked out.”

Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump speaks as his wife, Melania, watches at his caucus night rally in West Des Moines, Iowa, Feb. 1, 2016. (AP photo)

“We will go on to get the Republican nomination. And we will go on to easily beat Hillary or Bernie or whoever the hell they throw up there,” Trump said.

Rubio had his own reason to be optimistic after a better than expected third-place finish.

For months they told us we had no chance,” Rubio said. “But tonight here in Iowa, the people of this great state have sent a great message.”

Democrats

In her post-caucus speech, Clinton seemed to acknowledge there is a tough fight ahead with Sanders, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist who has outflanked her to the left on many issues.

“It is rare that we have the opportunity we do now to have a real contest of ideas,” she said. “I am excited about getting into a debate with Senator Sanders about the best way forward for America.”

For his part, Sanders sounded triumphant, as he pumped his fist in the air at a rally in the capital.

“Nine months ago, we came to this beautiful state, we had no political organization, we had no money, we had no name recognition,” he said.

“We were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America. And tonight, while the results are still not known, it looks like we are in a virtual tie,” Sanders added.

Watch: Iowa Caucuses Set Stage for New Hampshire Primary

Iowa momentum

Iowa’s first-in-the-nation vote is seen as a crucial way for candidates to gain momentum in the U.S. primary election, which will continue to be held state-by-state until mid-June.

The goal is for candidates to win their party’s nomination by securing a majority of delegates, or party representatives, which are handed out based on the result of each state vote.

In Iowa, those delegates are rewarded proportionally rather than on a winner-takes-all basis.

And while Iowa rewards a relatively small number of delegates, the outcome is expected to create crucial narratives that will have a major impact on the race.

In Iowa, those delegates are rewarded proportionally rather than on a winner-takes-all basis.

That meant it was much less likely a clear winner would emerge from Iowa, said Arthur Sanders, a professor of politics at Drake University in Des Moines.

“When you have so many people running, for there to be a simple storyline is more complicated than it is when you only have three people running,” Sanders told VOA.

Next up: New Hampshire

The primary race now heads to New Hampshire, which will vote on February 9. That election will take place with a reduced field of presidential hopefuls.

As the Iowa results were released, GOP contender Mike Huckabee announced on Twitter he is suspending his campaign. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is also dropping his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Kathryn Gypson and Kane Farabaugh contributed to this report.

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US Pledges $97M to Fight Ethiopia Drought

January 31, 2016 Tadias Magazine

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Paul Schemm | AP

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The U.S. has boosted its emergency food aid to Ethiopia by nearly $100 million to combat one of the worst droughts in decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development announced Sunday.

The aid is urgently needed to head off a humanitarian disaster brought on by the El Nino climate phenomenon that has affected seasonal rains, said USAID administrator Gayle Smith.

“The funding for this is not where it needs to be and we are up against very tight timelines,” she said at a briefing during the annual African Union summit. “This is the worst El Nino in history and it has affected the African continent in particular, most dramatically in Ethiopia where 11 million people have been affected.”

The El Nino warming over the Pacific Ocean has been particularly severe this year with spring and summer rains failing in Ethiopia and causing crops to fail and killing livestock.

The $97 million from USAID will include some 176,000 metric tons of food to be distributed to 4 million people. Since October 2014, the U.S. has given $532 million in humanitarian aid to Ethiopia.

The U.N. has issued an international appeal for $1.4 billion in emergency funding for Ethiopia, of which less than half has been met by donors.

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Afar Region, Hardest-Hit by El Nino (AP)

January 29, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Associated Press

By ELIAS MESERET

Drought threatens malnourished children in Ethiopia

DUBTI, Ethiopia — Morbid thoughts linger on people’s minds here. The crops have failed and farm animals have been dying amid severe drought that has left Ethiopia appealing for international help to feed its people.

On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is set to visit some drought stricken locations in Ethiopia as the government and its humanitarian partners seek additional financial support.

Here, in the Dubti area of Ethiopia’s Afar region, one of the hardest-hit regions, the river that runs through is slowly drying up, leaving this normally hot and arid land even worse off. Some worry that children may start dying next.

“My child is severely malnourished to the point that he could no more do breast feeding,” said Fatuma Hussein, a 30-year-old mother who has spent two months at a local clinic trying to get her child treated for malnutrition. Health officials said her child’s condition was serious because the mother had no food left at home and had been sharing the enriched food provided to her weak son with her older children.

“They are asking me to stay at the clinic until my son’s condition improves. But I couldn’t. If I stay here, the rest of my children will die. If Allah choses to take his life then let it be,” she said.

The Ethiopian government and aid agencies say El Nino conditions triggered drought in Ethiopia that has left more than 10 million people food insecure, and it is estimated that there will be at least 400,000 cases of severe malnutrition among children under age 5 in the country soon. Only a third of the $1.2 billion needed for emergency food assistance in the country has been raised.

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Bloomberg Considering White House Run

January 25, 2016 Tadias Magazine

By ALEXANDER BURNS and MAGGIE HABERMAN

Bloomberg, Sensing an Opening, Revisits A Potential White House Run

Michael R. Bloomberg has instructed advisers to draw up plans for a potential independent campaign in this year’s presidential race. His advisers and associates said he was galled by Donald J. Trump’s dominance of the Republican field, and troubled by Hillary Clinton’s stumbles and the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the Democratic side.

Mr. Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, has in the past contemplated running for the White House on a third-party ticket, but always concluded he could not win. A confluence of unlikely events in the 2016 election, however, has given new impetus to his presidential aspirations.

Mr. Bloomberg, 73, has already taken concrete steps toward a possible campaign, and has indicated to friends and allies that he would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his fortune on it, according to people briefed on his deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss his plans. He has set a deadline for making a final decision in early March, the latest point at which advisers believe Mr. Bloomberg could enter the race and still qualify to appear as an independent candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.

Watch the video at BBC.com »

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Women of Africa: Swimwear by Yodit (BBC)

January 21, 2016 Tadias Magazine

BBC News

With 26,000km (16,155 miles) of coastline, Africa is a surfer’s dream. Ethiopian-American entrepreneur Yodit Eklund is hoping to tap into this burgeoning beach culture with her home-grown swimwear brand Bantu Wax.

Ms Eklund founded the company in 2009, and the label went on to gain international attention – with a place on the shelves of Barneys New York, Opening Ceremony and J Crew, and in the pages of renowned fashion magazine Vogue.

But the African market remains the 30-year-old’s main focus, and the company has just opened new stores in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, and surfing hotspot Cape Town in South Africa. A new branch in Morocco is planned for later this year.

All Bantu Wax’s colourful clothing is made on the continent too, its designs inspired by traditional African wax prints.

Women of Africa is a BBC season recognising inspiring women across the continent.

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Human Rights Watch: Government Backs Down, But Will Protests End in Ethiopia?

January 15, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Human Rights Watch

By Felix Horne
Researcher, Horn of Africa

JANUARY 15, 2016

Nine weeks after bloody protests broke out in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, the government has made a major concession to the protestors – halting a plan to expand the municipal boundary of Addis Ababa, the issue that sparked the crisis.

The announcement January 12 by the Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO), the ruling party’s local affiliate in Oromia region, is a rare concession from the government and a hard fought victory for protesters. But it may be too late to calm Oromia.

Initially the protesters said they feared the expansion of Addis Ababa would result in forced displacement of Oromo farmers without adequate compensation. But as security forces responded to the protests with mass arrests, use of live ammunition, and other brutality, the protests have become about so much more. While there have been some violent incidents, most of the protests have reportedly been peaceful. But the government’s heavy handed approach has shifted the focus of the protests towards the brutal crackdown and inflamed historical grievances against the government.

Despite the announcement, the security forces don’t seem to have changed their approach. The daily reports of killings by security forces and mass arrests continue, particularly of university students.

Many protesters say they are skeptical that the government will follow through and halt the plan. But with or without the plan, the displacement of farmers is likely to continue as it has in many parts of Ethiopia, unless the government fundamentally changes its approach to development. Until the government involves communities as meaningful partners in development, respecting their land and other rights, rather than just an obstacle to be removed, protest movements like this are likely to continue to flare up.

In the short term, if the government wants to calm the situation it should start by releasing those arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned. It should commit to establishing a credible, independent investigation into the killings and other violations that have taken place. And last but not least, it needs to listen to and begin to address the longer list of rights violations against Oromo that have fueled these tragic protests.

U.S. State Department, Human Rights Organizations Address Crackdown on Protestors in Ethiopia
Crackdown Turns Deadly In Ethiopia As Government Turns Against Protesters (NPR)
US Concerned About Protester Deaths in Ethiopia (VOA)
At least 75 killed in Ethiopia protests: HRW (AFP)
‘Unprecedented’ Protests in Ethiopia Against Capital Expansion Plan (VOA News)
Ethiopians on Edge as Infrastructure Plan Stirs Protests (The New York Times)
Opposition: More Than 40 Killed in Ethiopia Protests (VOA News)
Violent clashes in Ethiopia over ‘master plan’ to expand Addis (The Guardian)
Protests in Ethiopia leave at least five dead, possibly many more (Reuters)
Why Are Students in Ethiopia Protesting Against a Capital City Expansion Plan? (Global Voices)
Yet Again, a Bloody Crackdown on Protesters in Ethiopia (Human Rights Watch)
Anger Over ‘Violent Crackdown’ at Protest in Oromia, Ethiopia (BBC Video)
Ethiopian mother’s anger at murdered son in student protests (BBC News)
Minnesota Senate Condemns Recent Violence in Ethiopia’s Oromia State
The Brutal Crackdown on Ethiopia Protesters (Human Rights Watch)
Deadly Ethiopia Protest: At Least 17 Ambo Students Killed in Oromia State (VOA)
Ethiopia protest: Ambo students killed in Oromia state (BBC)
Students killed in violent confrontations with police in Ethiopia’s largest state (AP)
Ethiopia: Oromia State Clashes Leave At Least 11 Students Dead (International Business Times)
Ethiopia: Discussing Ethnic Politics in Social Media (TADIAS)

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Addis Ababa Master Plan Canceled

January 14, 2016 Tadias Magazine

By JACEY FORTIN

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The Ethiopian government has canceled a widely promoted plan to integrate the capital, Addis Ababa, with the surrounding region after it touched off protests and violence that has killed scores of people since late last year.

Opposition activists belonging to the Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, called the plan unfair because it threatened the sovereignty of their communities in the Oromia region on the edges of the capital.

The so-called master plan was abandoned after the Oromo branch of the governing coalition decided to withdraw its support, according to Getachew Reda, a government spokesman. He added that he did not expect violence to decrease, claiming that the protests have been hijacked by antigovernment elements.

“This is not an attempt to pander to some violent people,” Mr. Getachew said Wednesday. “This is a decision by the ruling party in Oromia, which believes in heeding the call of the people.”

But Merera Gudina, chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress, expressed suspicion as to whether or not the plan would be scrapped for good. “They say they stopped it, but it could be temporarily,” he said.

The estimated death toll of at least 140, he said, was still rising.

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Ethiopia confronts its worst ethnic violence in years (The Washington Post)

Women mourn at the funeral for Dinka Chala, a schoolteacher who family members said was shot to death by military forces during a protest in Holonkomi, in the Oromo region of Ethiopia. (Tiksa Negeri/Reuters)

The Washington Post

By Paul Schemm

January 14th, 2016

WENCHI, Ethiopia — The cows are back in the valley near the village of Wenchi in Ethiopia’s highlands, after being driven out five years ago by the arrival of a Dutch agricultural company.

They returned in the past few weeks, after villagers burned the warehouses filled with seed potatoes that were to be planted on communal grazing lands that authorities had turned over to the Solagrow PLC company.

This attack is among dozens of demonstrations taking place for the past two months across Ethiopia’s Oromo state, which comprises a third of the country.

Protesters from the Oromo ethnic group say the government is trying to take away their lands and use them for everything from industrial development to luxury housing projects.

The response has been harsh, with Human Rights Watch estimating that 140 people have been killed by security forces using live rounds to quell the protests. The demonstrations are threatening Ethiopia’s goal of transforming itself into a new industrial and agribusiness powerhouse for the continent and harming its reputation for stability.

The violence has also earned Ethiopia a rare rebuke from the U.S. government, which considers it a key ally in the fight against terrorism.

“We were protesting peacefully and marching around the town when we heard about the deaths in the other villages, and so we became angry and attacked the farm,” said 27-year-old Drabuma Terrafa, standing near the charred remnants of a Solagrow potato warehouse.

Ethiopia’s federal police and army counterterrorism units have poured into the state. In more than a dozen interviews, people described arbitrary arrests, beatings and killings by security forces.

“I think the strategy is to terrorize people by shooting them point blank,” said Merera Gudina, the chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress party.

Obama’s Final State of the Union Address

January 13, 2016 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

By William Gallo

January 13, 2016

Obama Focuses on Future, Slams GOP Rivals, at State of the Union Address

In his seventh and final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama touted his accomplishments and focused on his vision for the future, in an optimistic speech that attempted to define his legacy as he enters his final year in office.

Addressing a packed House of Representatives chamber Tuesday in the U.S. Capitol, Obama appeared relaxed and his tone was largely positive as he focused on the need to heal the country’s deep political divides.

But the president also took several swipes at his critics, on several occasions offering indirect but harsh criticisms of the Republican rivals who are vying to replace him as president in the ongoing 2016 election campaign.

In particular, Obama slammed “politics that targets people because of race or religion,” a statement seen as a criticism of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, the blunt-talking billionaire who wants a temporary ban on Muslim immigration.

“When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized, or a kid is bullied, that doesn’t make us safer. That’s not telling it like it is. It’s just wrong,” he said. “It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a country.”

Watch highlights of the address:

Economy

Obama also hit out at his domestic opponents on economic issues, saying “anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.”

“The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world,” Obama said. He pointed to more than 14 million new jobs, an unemployment rate cut in half, and growing automobile and manufacturing industries.

“Gas under two bucks a gallon ain’t bad, either,” he said, to applause.

Smoke believed to be from an airstrike billows over the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, Nov. 12, 2015. (AP)

Foreign policy

On foreign policy, Obama acknowledged the threat posed by terrorist groups, including Islamic State, which has carried out a series of high-profile attacks around the globe.

But he cautioned that Islamist terrorists are not an existential concern, warning against those who say the world is sinking into “World War III.”

“Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped,” he said. “But they do not threaten our national existence.”

Obama also vowed to continue the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a campaign many have criticized as being too weak and indecisive.

“If you doubt America’s commitment – or mine – to see that justice is done, ask Osama bin Laden,” he said, referring to the late head of al-Qaida killed by a U.S. special forces operation in Pakistan in 2011.

“When you come after Americans, we will go after you,” Obama said. “It may take time, but we have long memories, and our reach has no limit.”

Obama also cited other foreign policy accomplishments, including stopping the spread of Ebola in West Africa, forging the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, restarting diplomatic relations with Cuba, and sealing the Iran nuclear deal.

More work needed

But more work needs to be done, the president said.

Specifically, he renewed his vow to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. “It’s expensive, it’s unnecessary, and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies,” he said.

Obama also called on fellow lawmakers to join him in efforts to combat global warming, an issue he said was crucial to protecting national security.

“If anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it,” he said. “You’ll be pretty lonely.”

“Because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it,” he said.

U.S. President Barack Obama (L) tours the Kotzebue Shore Avenue Project, an effort to protect against rising sea levels in Kotzebue, Alaska Sept. 2, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

No mention of Iran dispute

Obama’s speech did not mention Tuesday’s incident in which 10 U.S. sailors were detained by Iran, after apparently straying into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf.

Other U.S. officials have attempted to play down the incident, saying Iran has agreed to “promptly” release the sailors.

The incident threatened to become an awkward distraction for Obama, coming hours before the address during which he was to present his Iran policy as a major achievement.

Partisan divide ‘has gotten worse’

The president’s speech was introspective, and at times even apologetic. One of Obama’s biggest regrets, he said, is that he failed to fulfill his campaign promises to help heal the country’s massive political divide.

“The rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better,” he lamented.

Obama acknowledged that the expectations are low for his final year in office, but vowed he will not stop working to achieve his policy goals.

“Fixing a broken immigration system, protecting our kids from gun violence, equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage – all these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done,” he said.

Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Paul Ryan listen as President Obama gives his State of the Union address, Jan. 12, 2016. (AP photo)

GOP response

The Republican response to Obama’s speech was delivered by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who has been rumored as a possible vice presidential choice for the eventual Republican presidential nominee.

Governor Haley accused the president of not living up to his “soaring words.”

“As he enters his final year in office, many Americans are still feeling the squeeze of an economy too weak to raise income levels. We’re feeling a crushing national debt, a health care plan that has made insurance less affordable and doctors less available, and chaotic unrest in many of our cities,” Haley said.

“Even worse, we are facing the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation has seen since September 11th, and this president appears either unwilling or unable to deal with it. Soon, the Obama presidency will end, and America will have the chance to turn in a new direction. That direction is what I want to talk about tonight,” she added.

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The Gambella Farmer Who Took on UK

January 12, 2016 Tadias Magazine

By Ben Rawlence

Tuesday 12 January 2016

One day in late 2010, a farmer – I will call him Opik – woke up in his village in the remote Ethiopian province of Gambella. In this lush lowland area of savanna bordering South Sudan, the semi-nomadic Anuak people have lived for centuries, cultivating sorghum and maize, swimming in the river and gathering nuts, berries and fruits from the trees and wild honey from the forest. “It was paradise,” Opik recalled.

The Anuak have an intimate relationship with their landscape. Their highest traditional authority is a spiritual leader called the wat-ngomi, who must sanction any human intervention in nature. Some trees are deemed sacred and cannot be cut down. Spirits live in certain sites and even the boundaries of their territory are inscribed with religious meaning. Everyone knows where the land of one community ends and that of another begins. This intimacy is reflected in their language: “How are you?” in the Anuak language is piny bede nidi, which literally translates as “how is the earth?” The reply is piny ber jak (“the earth is fine”) or piny rac (“the earth is bad”).

That morning, the earth was bad. Officials from the regional government in Gambella, accompanied by soldiers from the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) had come to tell Opik and the other inhabitants of the village to leave. It was not the first time they had come. Earlier in the year there had been several meetings. The government had arrived with police and militias and informed the residents that they were to be moved to a new location. There was a national plan called “villagisation” and Gambella was in the first phase.

The officials had explained that the purpose of the relocations was to cluster communities together in places where the government promised to provide a new school, a clinic, a borehole and a grinding mill. In time, the new settlements would be better-connected to the rest of the country via new roads, they said. The officials also promised to provide a grader to clear the land at the new site and make it ready for planting.

Read the full article and view the photos at NATAAL.com »

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Insider’s Guide to Shopping in Addis (CNN)

January 12, 2016 Tadias Magazine

CNN

BY Eliza Anyangwe

January 12, 2016

With the headquarters of the African Union located in Ethiopia’s capital city, as well as an award-winning airline and a rapidly-growing economy, Addis Ababa is increasingly recognized as a political and economic hub in Africa.

Now, with its rich cultural and artistic heritage, a new generation of Ethiopians are trying to put Addis on the world’s retail map.

Luxury brands and boutiques

Abai Schulze is one of these entrepreneurs. Her brand, Zaaf, sells a delectable range of handmade leather handbags and accessories. With an online store and stockists in Europe and the US, it’s hard to believe that the business was started just over two years ago, or that Schulze — who is 27– grew up in an orphanage.

Born in remote Gishen in northeastern Ethiopia, Schulze’s life took a very different turn when she was adopted by an American family at age 11. That hard start would give her the desire to make change happen in her native Ethiopia. “I grew up in Texas but always had the desire to come back and start a business,” Schulze says. “I knew I wanted to be in the creative space and create jobs in Ethiopia so Zaaf was a combination of passion and opportunity.”

Today, Zaaf which means tree in Amharic, employs 17 people — 10 of which are artisans — but the team often swells to many times its size. “We outsource when we have large orders,” Schulze explains.

Abai Shculze, founder of Ethiopian accessories brand Zaaf (Photo: CNN)

Amelsa Yazew, (L) founder of baby boutique Little Gabies poses with Tensae who works in the shop. (CNN)

Ethiopia Skate Photo Journal

January 10, 2016 Tadias Magazine

NATAAL

Photography Rudi Geyser
Words by Metasebia Yoseph

The skateboarding crew inspiring the country’s youth to conquer Addis Ababa’s streets

Ethiopia Skate is one of the key organisations responsible for bolstering this fresh scene taking hold of the country’s youth. Although primarily based in Addis Ababa, on an open pocket of concrete originally intended as parking for taxicabs in the Old Airport Sar Bet area, the group also activates skate spots around Ethiopia. Since its inception in 2014, Ethiopia Skate has worked to provide access to skateboarding equipment and spaces where members from a variety of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds can “just skate.” Like Nike’s iconic motto, this minimalist ethos fuels their urban conquests. With each new push, kickflip and ollie, founders and skateboarding enthusiasts Addisu Hailemichael, Sean Stromsoe, and Abenezer Temesgen, hope to build not only confidence and creativity within their followers, but also a deep sense of community.

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Ethiopia’s Ongoing Protests & Crackdown

January 7, 2016 Tadias Magazine

RFI

By Laura Angela Bagnetto

At least 150 people have been killed in an ongoing deadly crackdown against protests in Ethiopia, according to rights activists and opposition groups. Demonstrators in the Oromia region have been protesting for the past six weeks against the government’s plans to extend the boundaries of the capital Addis Ababa.

“I am worried,” says Eyasped Tesfaye, a member of the opposition Blue Party, saying it is taboo to talk about the reported 150 people allegedly killed by Ethiopian security forces in the capital. “The people in the Oromia region are under martial law,” he adds.

Tesfaye is referring to the ongoing protests that have been attributed to Qeerroo, the national youth movement for freedom and democracy, which is protesting against the alleged land-grabbing underway around Addis Ababa.

Oromia, the largest region in Ethiopia with some 27 million people, includes the capital.

Although the government has imposed a near total media blackout in the capital, including confiscating satellite dishes, those protesting have been able to send videos, photos and messages to the diaspora about the alleged brutality. Many of the photos show Ethiopians with their hands raised, their wrists crossed, a sign which has become a symbol of the protests.

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Ethiopia: What If People Were Really Free?

January 4, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The Economist | From the print edition

Ethiopia is poised to take off. But to fly, the government must set the people free

ADDIS ABABA AND LALIBELA — THE Ben Abeba restaurant is a spiral-shaped concrete confection perched on a mountain ridge near Lalibela, an Ethiopian town known for its labyrinth of 12th-century churches hewn out of solid rock. The view is breathtaking: as the sun goes down, a spur of the Great Rift Valley stretches out seemingly miles below in subtly changing hues of green and brown, rolling away, fold after fold, as far as the eye can see. An immense lammergeyer, or bearded vulture, floats past, showing off its russet trousers.

The staff, chivvied jovially along by an intrepid retired Scottish schoolmarm who created the restaurant a few years ago with an Ethiopian business partner, wrap yellow and white shawls around the guests against the sudden evening chill. The most popular dish is a spicy Ethiopian version of that old British staple, shepherd’s pie, with minced goat’s meat sometimes replacing lamb. Ben Abeba, whose name is a fusion of Scots and Amharic, Ethiopia’s main language, is widely considered the best eatery in the highlands surrounding Lalibela, nearly 700km (435 miles) north of Addis Ababa, the capital, by bumpy road.

Yet the obstacles faced by its owners illustrate what go-ahead locals and foreign investors must overcome if Ethiopia is to take off. Electricity is sporadic. Refrigeration is ropey, so fish is off the menu. So are butter and cheese; Susan Aitchison, the restaurant’s resilient co-owner, won’t use the local milk, as it is unpasteurised. Honey, mangoes, guava, papaya and avocados, grown on farmland leased to the enterprising pair, who have planted 30,000 trees, are delicious. All land belongs to the state, so it cannot be used as collateral for borrowing, which is one reason why commercial farming has yet to reach Lalibela. Consequently supplies of culinary basics are spotty. Local chickens are too scrawny. The government will not yet allow retailers such as South Africa’s Shoprite or Kenya’s Nakumatt to set up in Ethiopia, let alone in Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

US Stops Flying Drones From Ethiopia

January 3, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The Associated Press

By Elias Meseret

The U.S. government has shut down its drone operation base in southern Ethiopia, an embassy official announced.

A decision has been reached that the base in Arba Minch, 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Addis Ababa, is no longer necessary, embassy spokesman David Kennedy told The Associated Press by email.

“U.S. military personnel are no longer in Arba Minch,” Kennedy said. “In our ongoing bilateral discussions on defense cooperation, we reached a mutual decision that our presence in Arba Minch is not required at this time.”

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White House: US Wants Journalists Detained in Ethiopia Set Free

December 31, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

The United States has urged Ethiopia to free all journalists detained by the state and stop using its controversial anti-terror law to silence dissent.

National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday the U.S. is “deeply concerned by the recent arrests of other journalists in Ethiopia.” He urged “the Ethiopian government to release journalists and all others imprisoned for exercising their right to free expression.”

In October, Washington welcomed the release of a group of dissident bloggers and journalists, but on Wednesday the White House warned Ethiopia against new arrests.

Price said Washington “has consistently applauded Ethiopia for being a model and a voice for development in Africa.” But he cautioned Addis Ababa that “such gains must rest on a foundation of democratic governance and respect for human rights if they are to be sustainable.”

Price did not name the reporters the United States is concerned about, but he spoke amid a harsh Ethiopian crackdown on dissent.

On Saturday, Human Rights Watch reported that Ethiopian security forces had killed at least 75 demonstrators during weeks of regional anti-government protests.

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Ethiopia Opposition: 80 Killed in Protests Against Land Plan

December 23, 2015 Tadias Magazine

The Associated Press

By ELIAS MESERET

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethiopian government forces have killed more than 80 people in the past four weeks in protests in the country’s Oromia region, an Ethiopian opposition party charged Wednesday.

“Trigger-happy government forces have killed more than 80 peaceful protesters in Ethiopia during the past four weeks,” Beyene Petros, president of the party told reporters, adding that hundreds of others were wounded and arrested. “We are still discovering disfigured bodies in various locations. The government has continued its brutal killings so we call on the international community and donors to step in and force the government to stop these inhumane actions.”

Party officials provided names of the alleged victims to The Associated Press.

The government has rejected, for the second time, the opposition party’s request to hold a public demonstration on Dec. 27 to protest the controversial Addis Ababa Master Plan, the opposition leader said.

The opposition party’s charge comes after a report last week by Human Rights Watch that said government forces killed at least 75 people protesting the government plan to incorporate some rural areas into the capital city, Addis Ababa.

An Ethiopian opposition party said more than 80 people have been killed by government forces during massive protests in the past four weeks in the country’s Oromia region, the biggest of the country’s federal states. The Ethiopian Federal Democratic Unity Forum, a coalition of four opposition parties, has blamed the government on Sunday for the killings and has called for a criminal investigation.

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News Anchor Arrested After TV Station Covers Ethiopia Protests (CPJ)

December 22, 2015 Tadias Magazine

CPJ

December 22, 2015

Nairobi -The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in Ethiopia to release news anchor Fikadu Mirkana. Fikadu, who works for the state-run broadcaster Oromia Radio and TV, was arrested at his Addis Ababa home on Saturday morning, according to news reports.

CPJ could not determine the reason for Fikadu’s arrest. It comes as Oromia Radio and TV has, in recent weeks, covered protests against a plan to expand the Ethiopian capital, in a move that campaigners say would displace hundreds of thousands of farmers, according to news reports. Dozens of protesters have been killed during clashes with police during the unrest in the regional state of Oromia, according to a Human Rights Watch report.

“Journalists have a vital role to play in ensuring the flow of information, both from the Ethiopian government and also, critically, from those who will be affected by its decisions,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Sue Valentine in New York. “We call on authorities to release Fikadu Mirkana immediately.”

It is not clear where Fikadu is being held and neither his family nor his lawyers have been allowed access to him, an Addis Ababa-based journalist, who has spoken with Fikadu’s family and who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, told CPJ.

The Ethiopian authorities in Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian embassy in Nairobi did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for details about Fikadu’s arrest.

Tadias to Launch Mobile App

December 15, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Tuesday, December 15th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — Tadias Magazine is proud to announce the upcoming launch of our mobile app in early 2016, which allows our audience to access original Tadias content in audio format. Through the Tadias Audio App you will be able to access interviews, highlights of arts, business and sports-related news, event announcements, as well as breaking news from major international news outlets. Our new audio app provides radio-like experience to our audience as well as make our content more accessible and in line with universal design principles.

In the meantime, you can listen to a few clips on-air by calling 605.475.4444 or on Soundcloud.

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2016 Grammy Awards: The Weeknd

December 9, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, December 9th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) is one of top three music stars who has been nominated in multiple categories for the 2016 Grammy Awards.

The Ethiopian-Canadian artist received seven nominations including the categories of Record of the Year, Album of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance.

The Los Angeles Times reports: “This all comes from artists today who are emboldened, who are fearless and who are not willing, or wanting to be, sort of put in a nice little box with a bow on it,” Recording Academy President Neil Portnow told The Times. “Artists today have the ability to be exposed to multiple kinds of genres in music, and we’ll give credit to the world of technology we live in that gives easy access to whatever direction you want to head in.”

“With more than 400 nominations across 83 categories for 2016, there is plenty more recognition spread out among the music community” says the LA Times.

Last month The Weeknd won the 2015 American Music Awards for favorite album in Soul and R&B.

The 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony will be held on Monday, February 15, 2016 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. ‘

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Ethiopia: Drought Conditions Worsening

December 8, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

By Anita Powell

JOHANNESBURG — Ethiopia is dealing with its worst drought in 50 years. Save the Children has launched an urgent call for food aid but says that is only a temporary fix and world leaders meeting in Paris must act on climate change.

Ethiopia’s government says a staggering 10.1 million people will face critical food shortages in 2016 — and that more than half of those are children. Adding to that, an estimated 400,000 children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition — a condition that can lead to stunting and physical and mental problems.

John Graham, Save the Children’s Country Director in Ethiopia, says this year’s crisis is the result of a cascade of meteorological dominoes — a severe drought related to the El Nino weather phenomenon ruined two major expected rainfalls this year. As a result, the next harvest is not expected to come until June of next year.

Spoking to VOA News from Addis Ababa, Graham said: “So we’re seeing one thing piling on top of another and it’s really affecting the rural population very badly.”

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that around 80 percent of Ethiopians work in the agriculture sector — and most of those are subsistence farmers who rely on rain-fed farming. That is part of the reason that this nation sees food crises time and time again — farmers lack the means and the knowledge to work around weather challenges.

Save the Children is appealing for about $100 million in donor aid from the international community — but he says this year is the slowest response he’s seen to such a crisis in his 18 years in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government has already committed a record sum — $192 million.

Graham says he also wants to see bigger, more meaningful, change coming from world leaders who are currently meeting in Paris for climate change talks.

“I’d say that we should be spending a lot more effort on adaptation of people who are badly affected by climate change, and helping them to transition to new livelihoods, to be able to cope with the impact of climate change,” he said. “Because so much of the focus doesn’t seem to be on that area at all. It’s on other things that are worthwhile, like making sure that there is a reduction in the carbon emissions and so on. But we should also care about those people, especially the poorest people, who are dramatically impacted by these climate changes, and why aren’t we investing more in helping them to adapt?”

This is one of many questions that climate change negotiators are asking this week. Developing countries are pushing to have funding for them to adapt to climate change included in any binding international agreement that comes out of the Paris summit.

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Human Rights Watch: Yet Again, a Bloody Crackdown on Protesters in Ethiopia

December 5, 2015 Tadias Magazine

HRW

By Felix Horne

Student protests are spreading throughout Ethiopia’s Oromia region, as people demonstrate against the possibility that Oromo farmers and residents living near the capital, Addis Ababa, could be evicted from their lands without appropriate – or possibly any – compensation. Social media is filled with images of bloodied protesters; there are credible reports of injuries and arrests in a number of towns; and local police have publicly acknowledged that three students have died so far.

The current protests echo the bloody events of April and May 2014, when federal forces fired into groups of largely peaceful Oromo protesters, killing dozens. At least hundreds more students were arrested, and many remain behind bars. Both then and today, the demonstrators are ostensibly protesting the expansion of Addis Ababa’s municipal boundary into the surrounding Oromia region, which protesters fear will displace Oromo farmers from their land. But these protests are about much more: Many Oromos have felt marginalized and discriminated against by successive Ethiopian governments and have often felt unable to voice their concerns over government policies.

Of the student protesters detained in 2014, some have been released. Those I spoke with told me about the torture they endured as part of interrogations. But countless others remain in detention. Some have been charged under Ethiopia’s draconian counterterrorism law for their role in the protests; others languish without charge in unknown detention centers and military camps throughout Oromia. This week, five students were convicted of terrorism-related offenses for their role in the protests.

There has been no government investigation into the use of live ammunition and excessive force by security personnel last year.

Ethiopia’s tight restrictions on civil society and media make it difficult to corroborate the current, mounting allegations and the exact details of the ongoing protests emerging from towns like Haramaya, Jarso, Walliso, and Robe. The government may think this strategy of silencing bad news is succeeding. But while the fear of threats and harassment means it is often months before victims and witnesses come forward to reveal what happened in their communities, they eventually do, and the truth will emerge.

The government should ensure that the use of excessive force by its security personnel stops immediately. It should then support an independent and impartial inquiry into the conduct of security forces in the current protests – and last year’s as well. Those responsible for serious abuses should be fairly prosecuted. This would be the best way for the Ethiopian government to show its concern about the deaths and injuries inflicted on the students, that it does not condone the use of live ammunition against peaceful protesters, and that those who break the law are appropriately punished.

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AU to Introduce an African Passport

December 5, 2015 Tadias Magazine

This Is Africa

By Arthur Chatora

The African Union has said the continent could soon become borderless with the introduction of an African passport as part of the bloc’s 2063 Agenda. So far, two countries – Rwanda and Mauritius are implementing the plan

The African Union has said the free movement of citizens could be improved with the introduction of an African passport as part of its 2063 Agenda for “a continent with seamless borders”.

AU Commissioner for Political Affairs Dr. Aisha Abdullahi said on Sunday that Africa could soon become borderless and the plan for a single African passport is in progress and so far, two countries – Rwanda and Mauritius – have implemented it, Zegabi reported.

“This would also ensure the free movement of people on the continent,”

“Our people will not have to carry a visa to gain access to other African states. There will be free trade of goods” Dr. Abdullahi said at the #Africities summit.

“We have identified flagship projects, for example, [the introduction] of an African passport to ensure that Africans can move freely to every African state,” Dr. Abdullahi reportedly said.

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Science Behind Current Ethiopia Drought & El Niño Explained (Gro-Intel)

December 4, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Gro-Intelligence

For several months now, Ethiopia has been creeping towards a slow-onset natural disaster. Grain prices have slinked upward, news reports have grown ominous, aid agencies have quietly sounded their internal alarms, and the Ethiopian government has been buying up cereals on the international market.

Now, finally, the severity of the drought has become clear: the United Nations predicts that a staggering 15 million Ethiopians will be in need of food assistance by early 2016.

And as this drought continues to take shape and wreak havoc on the region, it becomes increasingly important to build a complex and comprehensive understanding of what is happening in the country.

El Niño in Ethiopia

For many, the words “drought” and “famine” are unfortunately still closely associated with “Ethiopia”—an association shaped by the 1983-1985 devastation made famous by the likes of Bob Geldof. And while that catastrophe was rooted in natural disaster, it was exacerbated by man-made disasters as well, with conflict and authoritarianism playing significant roles in the severity and longevity of the drought and famine.

Since 1983-1985, Ethiopia has experienced a number of other drought events, most notably in 1988, 2000, again in 2002- 2003, 2006, 2011, and, of course, 2015.

The Story of Walatta Petros: Earliest Known Biography of African Woman

December 3, 2015 Tadias Magazine

By Alison Flood

The earliest known book-length biography of an African woman, a 17th-century text detailing the life of the Ethiopian saint Walatta Petros, has been translated into English for the first time.

Walatta Petros was an Ethiopian religious leader who lived from 1592 to 1642. A noblewoman, she left her husband to lead the struggle against the Jesuits’ mission to convert Ethiopian Christians to Roman Catholicism. It was for this that the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church elevated her to sainthood.

Walatta Petros’s story was written by her disciples in the Gəˁəz language in 1672, after her death. Translator and editor Wendy Laura Belcher, an associate professor at Princeton University, came across the biography while she was studying Samuel Johnson’s translation, A Voyage to Abyssinia. “I saw that Johnson was fascinated by the powerful noble Ethiopian women in the text,” said Belcher. “I was speaking with an Ethiopian priest about this admiration and he told me that the women were admired in Ethiopia as well, where some of them had become saints in the Ethiopian church and had had hagiographies written about them.”

Ten years later, Belcher still remembers how “thrilling” this revelation was. “What? Biographies of powerful African women written by Africans in an African language? And to be able to pair European and African texts about the same encounter? I knew then I wouldn’t rest until I had translated this priceless work into English.”

Read Okayafrica’s Q&A with photographer Daniel Reiter at Okayafrica.com »

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Drought Dries Ethiopia Dams (Bloomberg)

December 1, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Bloomberg

By William Davison

December 1, 2015

Ethiopia may face further power shortages because of low water levels at dams after a poor rainy season, an official said, following two days of sporadic cuts caused by technical faults at hydropower plants.

Unspecified issues at a substation serving Oromia region’s Gibe 1 and 2 plants, which together can produce as much as 604 megawatts, and a shutdown at the 320-megawatt Tana Beles installation in Amhara state, caused the outages on Nov. 28-29, Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy spokesman Bezuneh Tolcha said Monday by phone.

The drought affecting the east of the country that’s left 8.2 million Ethiopians in need of food aid wasn’t related to the outages, though that may change in the coming months unless there’s non-seasonal rainfall, he said.

“There has been a shortage of rain all over country,” he said from the capital, Addis Ababa. “The dams have not collected as much water as they can collect.”

New Album ‘Out Of Addis’ Celebrates Ethiopia’s Diverse Musical Traditions

December 1, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Tuesday, December 1st, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — In complement to the more famous “Ethio-Funk” and “Swinging-Addis” sounds of an earlier era, popularized by the Éthiopiques CD series, a new album called Out Of Addis was released last week by the Ethiopian label Sheba Sound in collaboration with Anglo-Thai company Paradise Bangkok bringing forth an eclectic collection of traditional Ethiopian recordings hailing from the country’s vast rural areas.

“This album is the product of more than six years of music digging, road trips, recordings and events, from the northern rocky expanses of Tigray to the central forested highlands of Oromia to the western sweltering grasslands of Gambella,” Paradise Bangkok said in a press release.

“Ethiopia has over 80 ethnic groups, each with its own deep-rooted language and culture. Contemporary musicians living outside Addis Abeba, the capital, have had few opportunities to record or play their mesmerising sounds for visitors,” the press release stated. “Sheba Sound, a label and sound system collective based in Addis, wanted to redress this by recording and releasing little-known classics to Ethiopian and foreign audiences.”

According to the label: “This album showcases northern-based rhythms such as the Tigray, Amhara and Gurage beat. The song ‘Mal Ameni’ distinguishes itself by coming from the Oromo people.”

“This music touches the tip of the iceberg,” the Thai record company said. “There are so many more unique, intoxicating sounds to be shared, testifying to the diversity that lives on.”

Video: Out Of Addis (Official Teaser)

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Learn more at Paradise Bangkok’s website.

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Audio: Interview With Zone 9 Bloggers Soleyana S. Gebremichael & Endalk Chala

November 27, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, November 27th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — Zone 9 bloggers Soleyana S. Gebremichael and Endalk Chala were in New York City recently to accept the 2015 International Press Freedom Awards on behalf of their colleagues in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian bloggers were recognized with the prestigious media award last Tuesday along with other journalists from Malaysia, Paraguay and Syria.

Below is an audio excerpt from an interview that Soleyana and Endalk gave to Tadias Magazine during the award ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City on November 24th:

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Audio: Filmmaker Mel Tewahade on His ‘Point Four’ Documentary

November 24, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Tuesday, November 24th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur Mel Tewahade was in Washington, D.C. this week for a private screening of his documentary series, Point Four.

The U.S. government program Point Four, which was eventually replaced by the current United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was a foreign policy initiative launched during the era of President Truman. Mel points out that in the 1950’s and 60’s the program helped establish Ethiopia’s first agricultural high school in Jimma, known as the Jimma Agricultural and Technical School (JATS), and later the Harar and Debre Brehan Teacher Training Institutes as well as the Alemaya Agricultural College (now Haramaya University).

Point Four also assisted in setting up the Ethiopian Highway Authority and Malaria Control Agency. USAID still funds many programs there, including projects related to population control, tuberculosis prevention, family planning, reproductive health, newborn care, water sanitation, primary education, teacher training, scholarship for young girls, and strengthening good governance.

In the following interview with Tadias conducted over the phone on Monday morning Mel, who resides in Denver, Colorado, discusses the screening of his Point Four documentary.

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Ethiopia Seeks Help to Survive Drought

November 22, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

By Marthe van der Wolf

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — Drought has ruined this year’s harvest for many Ethiopian farmers. In a country where 85 percent of the people are farmers, millions are in need of aid.

The government has purchased nearly 1 million metric tons of wheat at a cost of about $280 million to get through the next three to four months.

Government spokesman Getachew Redda said the government is in control of the crisis, but is also focused on measures that will reduce the impact of future droughts.

“From a strategic point of view,” Redda said, “the government will continue to further enhance its efforts to develop underground water resources and develop irrigation mechanisms which do not have to depend on the varieties of weather.”

Experts believe the reduction in rainfall is due to the El Nino weather phenomenon. While cycles of drought are expected every 10 to 12 years, the frequency of droughts and erratic rainfalls is expected to increase because of global climate change.

Wagayehu Bekele, climate director at Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Agency, said getting better information to farmers so they can adjust their schedules is a priority.

“Farmers have traditional wisdom,” Bekele said. “They know when to sow, they know when to harvest, when to cultivate. But the problem now is that traditional wisdom is not working anymore. The problem is, even if the rain starts early, they don’t start sowing or planting. Why? They say it’s not the normal time to plant.”

Modernizing traditional practices is part of a short-term solution. Wagayehu thinks that focusing on sustainable ways of farming is just as important.

Agriculture makes up almost half of Ethiopia’s gross domestic product. The lack of rain has severely affected the lowlands and livestock.

Araya Asfaw, director of the Horn of Africa Regional Environment Center and Network, said not enough information about the effect of climate change on Africa is available.

“The model for Africa is not as good because we don’t have enough data, meteorological data, to predict what will happen,” Asfaw said. “We need to have more meteorological stations all over the place.”

Drought and hunger have been sensitive topics in Ethiopia since the infamous famine in the early 1980s that killed over 400,000 people. The government says that the current drought has not killed anyone yet, but that about 8 million people need assistance. The United Nations estimates that number will nearly double in the coming months.

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How Bad is the Drought in Ethiopia?

November 19, 2015 Tadias Magazine

IRIN NEWS

November 19th, 2015

Alarm bells are ringing for a food emergency in Ethiopia. The UN says 15 million people will need help over the coming months. The government, wary of stigma and therefore hesitant to ask for help, has nevertheless said more than eight million Ethiopians need food assistance. Extra imports to stem the crisis are already pegged at more than a million tonnes of grain, beyond the government’s means. Inevitably, comment and media coverage compare the current situation with 1984 – the year Ethiopia’s notorious famine hit the headlines. Reports suggest this is the worst drought in 30 years. One declares it a “code red” drought. So how bad actually is it?

The country of close to 100 million people is huge, spread over an area of more than a million square kilometres that ranges from semi-desert to swamp to mountain ranges and fertile farmland. The weather systems and agricultural patterns are diverse and complex. Even within the higher-altitude areas of the country, the most densely populated, the typical rainy seasons vary and crops are grown at different times of the year. This year, the weather has been prone to even greater variation due to the global climate phenomenon El Niño, last seen in 1997-1998.

The weather is only one part of the equation in whether people go hungry. Politics, economics, the availability of seeds and fertiliser, conflict, trade and labour markets, population pressure, social habits, and a host of other factors matter too.

Zone9 Blogger Zelalem Kibret Prevented From Leaving Ethiopia to Accept Award

November 19, 2015 Tadias Magazine

RSF

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is worried about a travel ban imposed on the blogger Zelalem Kibret, which prevented him from flying to France to receive this year’s RSF Press Freedom Prize in the citizen-journalist category on behalf of the Zone9 blogger collective.

As Zelalem Kibret was about to set off for Paris on 16 November, the Ethiopian authorities confiscated his passport and prevented him from boarding his plane. Immigration officials said he could not leave Ethiopia because he and other Zone9 members had previously been arrested.

RSF has repeatedly tried to obtain more information about the travel ban from the Ethiopian authorities in Addis Ababa and Paris, but without success.

“We are surprised and disturbed by the travel ban imposed on Zelalem Kibret,” said Clea Kahn-Sriber, the head of RSF’s Africa desk.

“No restriction was placed on his movements when he was released in July, and the rest of the collective was cleared of all terrorism charges in October. We do not understand why his passport has been confiscated and we urge the relevant authorities to quickly restore his rights.”

When Kibret complied with instructions to go to the police the next day, he was told that an investigation was under way and that his passport would not be returned until it was completed.

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Watch: Ethiopian Uber Driver Attacked by Passenger Who Mistook Him for a Muslim

November 18, 2015 Tadias Magazine

The Grio

North Carolina Uber driver from Ethiopia was attacked by a passenger on Sunday morning when the passenger claimed the driver was Muslim.

“He asked me if I was a Muslim. I said I was not a Muslim,” said the victim, Samson Woldemichael. “I was driving and he hit me while I was driving.”

Woldemichael explained that the drive itself had been peaceful but that when they arrived at the drop-off point, the passenger became belligerent.

He said he’s gonna shoot me right in the face. He’s gonna strangle me,” Woldemichael told WBTV. “I asked him why. He was calling me too many bad word names… insulting me. He told me I was a Muslim.”

“I told him in the first place I was not a Muslim. It’s not right to generalize people and do that,” he said.

After the passenger threatened to kill him, Woldemichael asked the passenger to leave the car, but the man refused. Woldemichael then began to drive around.

Watch: Ethiopian Uber driver attacked by passenger who mistook him for a Muslim (WBTV 3 News)
WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC

Ethiopian Airlines to Fly All-Female Operated Flight on Addis-Bangkok Route

November 17, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Tuesday, November 17th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian Airlines says it will fly an all-female operated flight to Asia this week to publicize its diverse workforce, which the company states is made up of 30% women employees.

The airline’s flight scheduled for November 19th on the Addis Ababa – Bangkok route “is aimed at crystalizing Ethiopian corporate conviction of ‘Women Empowerment for a Sustainable Growth’ and it is the first of its kind in Ethiopian 70 years of service,” the press release said.

“This historical flight will be operated by an all-female crew led by female flight deck, crew members and senior female executives onboard that flight.”

The on-ground flight preparations will also be conducted by an all-female crew including in “Cabin Operations, Airport Operations, Ramp Operations, On-board Logistics, Aviation Safety & Security, Ticket Offices, Catering, and Global Call Center” as well as those working as “Flight Dispatcher, Load Controller, and Air Traffic Controllers.”

Selam Bekele, an Oakland Afrofuturist

November 16, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Monday, November 16th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — Last year we highlighted Ethiopian multimedia artist and experimental filmmaker Selam Bekele who was awarded a creative grant by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to create a collection of work that deals with belonging and migration for the East African Diaspora in the San Francisco Bay Area.

For the project Selam — who had recently graduated from the University of California in Davis with degrees in Visual Communications and Film Production — made her first short film entitled Prince of Nowhere, based on her personal reflections about the exiled life and death of Prince Alemayehu Tewodros, the son of Emperor Tewodros who was taken to England after the death of his father.

Since then the artist, who now lives in Brooklyn, has exhibited her work in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle.

“Now I am working on a whole new series incorporating many Ethiopian folktales and concepts,” Selam tells Tadias.

Her new body of work, which was featured on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Art Beat program last week, is called “Afrofuturism.”

“Bekele described Afrofuturism, a growing artistic movement, as a mix of science fiction and social justice,” PBS notes. “The movement uses elements of fantasy and magical realism to examine narratives from the African Diaspora and construct stories of the future.”

“I’m seeking to break through definition and break through time.. to find stories that go beyond that and speak to the human spirit,” Selam told PBS.

“Afrofuturism is especially prevalent in the Bay Area, and I think that it’s a response to lack of place and lack of belonging for the Black community,” Selam said. “I think what I’m trying to do creatively is to create platforms of home and remove the stigma of not necessarily being in one place in one time, and not necessarily having one place to call home.”

Watch: Selam Bekele, an Oakland Afrofuturist | KQED Arts

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This is no ordinary year in Ethiopia, The Drought is a ‘Code Red’

November 15, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Thomson Reuters Foundation

Author: John Graham, Save the Children’s Ethiopia Country Director

This is no ordinary year in Ethiopia; this is a ‘code red’ and it needs to be treated like one

On the dusty plains outside Erer in Ethiopia’s east, the rotting carcasses of cows, goats, donkeys and camels bake under the hot African sun, fodder for hungry vultures and stealthy hyenas.

Until recently 40-year-old Jama and his family called these lands home, and had done for generations.

But about a month ago Jama, his wife, mother and their 10 children made the difficult choice to sell their possessions and abandon these lands and their pastoral life. They were forced out when all but 10 of their 450 goats and cattle died from the drought.

Now they live in a small shack in one of the newly-minted informal settlements in town and rely on support from the government and Save the Children to survive.

“This is the worst drought in my life, my father’s life, even my grandfather’s life,” Jama said. “No one can remember anything like this before, we weren’t prepared for it.”

Livestock are the lifeblood of these arid low-lands, their milk providing a vital source of nutrition, while the animals themselves are a commodity for trade. Here wealth is defined by the number of cows and goats one owns rather than money.

So far this year, hundreds of thousands of livestock have perished from the drought in Ethiopia according to local government officials, with many more expected to die before year’s end.

Jama and his family couldn’t have seen this coming. At the beginning of 2015 rainfall forecasts showed a relatively normal year ahead. It was only in May after the smaller Belg rains failed that an El Nino weather pattern was declared, which is now predicted to be the strongest on record.

This failure of the Belg meant the planting season was limited, and when the typically strong Kiremt rains between July and September were poor too, in some areas for the first time since 1984, the alarm bells well and truly sounded.

As a result, the rate of severe malnutrition is increasing rapidly, particularly among children, with more than 350,000 children expecting to need life-saving therapeutic treatment this year alone.

By January the United Nations (UN) have predicted that 15 million Ethiopians will need food aid.

Such is the magnitude of this emergency, the Ethiopian government has revised up its emergency funding appeal from US$237m in August to US$600m to the end of 2015.

Time is running out to procure enough food to meet these needs, let alone actually putting hand in pocket and paying for it.

And this is before fully measuring the humanitarian impact of the poor Kiremt rains – the worst in 30 years for much of the Ethiopian highlands, which produce 90 percent of the nation’s crops.

In these fertile lands, which stretch north from just outside Addis Ababa and cover an area roughly the size of New Zealand, farmers are staring at empty fields instead of harvesting crops like teff, wheat, barley and sorghum.

Ethiopia’s global request for help couldn’t come at a worse time, as other large scale humanitarian crises unfold in places like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Nepal and South Sudan. But we cannot turn our backs on Ethiopia – we must learn from the region’s history books.

You need only look back to the Horn of Africa drought in 2011, which affected 13 million people and saw more than 250,000 die from hunger in Somalia.

Back then the early warning signs began to emerge a full year before, yet the international community took till the peak of the crisis to act at scale.

But it was too late, much of the damage had been done.

In the years that followed this scandalous failure of the international system, a range of preventative measures were put in place to ensure history did not repeat, including the implementation of large-scale drought resilience programs and strong policy commitments from donor countries.

But here we are again. This drought is now forecast to be the strongest in Ethiopia in 30 years, yet funding commitments from international donors are worryingly low.

The Ethiopian government has responded resoundingly, unlocking US$192 million in funding and showing real leadership. They expect to be able to handle most of the impact of the emergency themselves.

Aid agencies are helping too. Save the Children is on the ground in 101 out of 142 of the worst-affected districts providing support including food, water, medicine and nutrition supplements for children suffering from malnutrition.

The international community must heed the warning and act urgently.

This is no ordinary year in Ethiopia; this is a ‘code red’ and it needs to be treated like one.

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Over 9,000 Ethiopians Waiting for Years in Gondar and Addis Ababa to Move to Israel

November 14, 2015 Tadias Magazine

THE JERUSALEM POST

By SAM SOKOL

Updated: 11/16/2015

The cabinet on Sunday unanimously approved an Interior Ministry proposal to resume aliya from Ethiopia, which was suspended in 2013.

Around 9,000 people have been waiting in Addis Ababa and Gondar transit camps for the past several years in the hopes of making their way to the Jewish state. However, Jerusalem closed its doors in 2013 following a ceremony at Ben-Gurion Airport at which officials declared the “end” of Ethiopian aliya.

The fate of the prospective immigrants has been a matter of some debate, with Ethiopian-Israeli activists protesting what they saw as the breaking up of families.

Ethiopia Starts Distribution of Food & Cooking Oil to People in Drought Hit Areas

November 12, 2015 Tadias Magazine

ASSOCIATED PRESS

By ELIAS MESERET

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s government has started distributing rations of wheat and cooking oil to people facing hunger in the northern and northeastern parts of the country.

The government is now supplying 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of wheat and a half liter (1.3 gallons) of cooking oil per adult in the areas hit by drought conditions, Mitiku Kassa, secretary of the Ethiopian Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Committee, told the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate Wednesday.

More than 8 million people require urgent food assistance and the Ethiopian government says there is enough food aid to feed them through December. The government recently appealed to the international community for $596 million in food assistance.

The food insecurity is fueled by the failure of Ethiopia’s spring rains that resulted in poor crop yields.

The U.N. says the scale of the developing emergency exceeds resources available so far.

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When Will Ethiopia Lose Its Famine Image?

November 10, 2015 Tadias Magazine

BBC

By Amelia Butterly

“There will not be famine of any sort, let alone anything remotely like the magnitude of that of 1984,” says the Ethiopian Embassy in London.

For people aged over 30, that sentence, coming from Ethiopian officials, holds a special kind of meaning.

Because those people saw the TV reports in the 1980s showing thousands of children and adults starving to death.

Now, three decades on, the United Nations is warning that 15 million Ethiopians will need food aid by 2016.

This week’s BBC report has been described as “sensational” by the Ethiopian Embassy.

In it, one man who lived through the famines of the 1980s says he expects the same thing will happen to Ethiopia again in the coming months.

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Ethiopia’s Diaspora Remittances Growing

November 3, 2015 Tadias Magazine

TVC NEWS

The World Bank says remittance flows to Kenya and Ethiopia from the diaspora has significantly increased compared to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Central Bank of Kenya says the 12-month cumulative inflows from the diaspora to August increased by more than 9 % to 1.5 million dollars, from the 1 million dollars it recorded in the same period last year.

The National Bank of Ethiopia says the official receipt of remittances hit one and half billion dollars about 88 % jump over its value in the previous year.

Global remittances sent home from some 250 million migrants are projected to grow by about one percent to $ 588 billion.

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Ethiopia Tries to Avert Another Famine

November 2, 2015 Tadias Magazine

The Economist

Nov 2nd 2015

NORTH WOLLO — JUMPING a fence of prickly pears, Gumat Hussain, a local chief in the driest district of North Wollo, Ethiopia’s most drought-prone province, walks gloomily through his sorghum. “The crops have not produced grain. They are useless even for the animals,” he sighs. “My oxen and goats will soon die. Our people will wait only for the government to respond.”

In many lowland parts of North Wollo, a day’s drive north of Addis Ababa, the capital, the annual midsummer rains lasted for under a week. This was because of a particularly strong El Niño effect, which this year made swathes of Africa drier than usual, along with a longer-term drying of Ethiopia’s climate, especially in the north and east. Now it is harvest time and the tall, green crops belie their fruitlessness.

Ethiopian officials say that this failed harvest is as bad as the catastrophic droughts that befell Ethiopia in 1965-66, 1972-73 and 1984-85, killing more than 1m people in all. But a sophisticated food-security system means that poor Ethiopians these days can cope much better with drought than before.

“Many, many people died in the past. But we now have early-warning systems and programmes to mobilise grain from areas of surplus to areas of scarcity,” says Mohammed Yasin, head of Disaster Prevention and Food Security in North Wollo, a province whose name was once synonymous with famine. “We will avoid this problem without evacuating areas.”

Photos: Addis Ababa’s Skate Community

November 1, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Okay Africa

In January, Berlin-based photographer Daniel Reiter fell in love with the growing skate community in Addis Ababa. It was there that he teamed up with the grassroots youth skateboard movement known as Ethiopia Skate. Soon, Reiter found himself documenting the city’s skatelife and collecting skateboards and streetwear for donations.

Reiter’s pictures–over thirty of which were featured in his debut art exhibition this month in Vienna–encapsulate the hopes and dreams of young skaters in Addis Ababa. Now, with a crowdfunding campaign recently launched and a trip back to Ethiopia on the horizon, the photographer looks to take his Ethiopiaskate series worldwide.

Okayafrica caught up with Reiter to learn more about his work photographing Addis Ababa’s skate community and the wider impact of skateboarding in Ethiopia.

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How Marcus Samuelsson Prepared for the New York City Marathon

October 31, 2015 Tadias Magazine

By JEANINE CELESTE PANG

This Sunday, some 50,000 international runners will cross the finish line at the New York City Marathon. Marcus Samuelsson, the Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised New Yorker who has cooked for everyone from Cindy Crawford to Barack Obama, plans to be one of them. For the past two months, the Michelin-starred chef has been training with Nike+ Run Club coach Knox Robinson, running the 6.1-mile Central Park loop. He uses the northernmost tip of the park as home base — just a quick sprint from his lauded restaurant Red Rooster and closer yet to the $3 million Harlem townhouse he shares with his model-slash-philanthropist wife, Maya Haile.

“Here’s some real history,” Samuelsson, 45, told Robinson on a sunny afternoon earlier this week, gesturing towards two towers looming above Malcolm X Boulevard. “The Central Park Five lived right there in the late ’80s. And now, when I run in here and see families — that’s progress. It’s not just some la la.”

Robinson laughed. “I came in here, I was just trying to talk about running and make sure his shoes were tied the right way, and he just goes off. We kind of have a vibe of our own —”

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UN Raises Eyebrows in Electing Ethiopia to Its Human Rights Council

October 30, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Newsweek

BY LUCY WESTCOTT

A number of countries criticized by rights groups for serious human rights abuses against their citizens were elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday, weeks after a Saudi Arabian representative was elected head of a key human rights panel amid international outcry.

Eighteen countries—Belgium, Burundi, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Georgia, Germany, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Panama, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Switzerland, Togo, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela—were elected by the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday for three-year terms on the council, which begin on January 1, 2016. The Human Rights Council is “responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing the situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them,” the U.N. said in a statement released Wednesday.

U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based group that monitors the U.N, said it considers only nine of the 21 countries that were candidates for election to the council as eligible, based on their human rights record. A number of the countries elected, including Burundi, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates, have authoritarian regimes. Human rights records of other elected countries include violence against women, human trafficking and limits on freedom of expression and assembly, U.N. Watch said in a report published ahead of the elections on Wednesday.

The Stunning Sites That Made Ethiopia ‘The World’s Best Tourist Destination’

October 24, 2015 Tadias Magazine

CNN

By Sophie Eastaugh

Ethiopia has been named as the world’s best destination for tourists in 2015 by the European Council on Tourism and Trade. What makes the country unique?

The country is home to 9 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Semien National Park. Massive erosions over the years on the Ethiopian plateau has created one of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, with jagged mountain peaks , deep valleys and sharp precipices dropping some 1,500 meters.

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The International Fashion Industry Starts to Look Towards Ethiopia for Inspiration

October 22, 2015 Tadias Magazine

CNN

By Pete Kowalczyk

Chencha, Ethiopia — At first glance, Chencha, Ethiopia — an isolated hamlet of bamboo houses situated 300 miles south of the capital of Addis Ababa — doesn’t look like it’s the center of anything. It certainly doesn’t look like a major player on the world’s fashion stage. But then, looks can be deceiving.

The town is home to the Dorze people — an ancient community of weaving specialists whose designs have reached catwalks as far afield as New York and Tokyo.

When Tsehynesh Tara, a weaver who originally hails from Chencha, sees pictures of her fabrics on the backs of supermodels, she gets giddy.

“When I first saw the photos I was so excited. I said: ‘Did I really make that? Did I make that fabric!?'” she recalls.

Tara is one of several weavers employed by Addis-based fashion designer Mahlet Afework. The 27-year-old designer employs female weavers from Ethiopia’s rural areas. In return, weavers teach her about the history of her country and the meaning behind its fabrics.

“Every season I try to tell these stories with my collections — I try to learn more about Ethiopia and its beautiful culture,” says Afework.

“It’s where we come from, it’s in our blood.”

Mahlet Afework started her career as a model and rap artist before shifting to fashion. Self-taught via Google and YouTube videos, she’s gone on to collaborate with cult UK designer Markus Lupfer and has exhibited at London college of fashion. In a TED talk last year she told a global audience that Ethiopian fashion is not just about paying homage to its ancestors — it can actually lift women out of poverty. “In Ethiopia we have more than 500 underemployed female weavers in each village. We have a responsibility to give them a job — and then show their work to the world.”

CNN on Islam’s Early Days in Ethiopia

October 20, 2015 Tadias Magazine

CNN

By Colin Hancock and Daisy Carrington,

Tigray, Ethiopia – Ethiopia is often overlooked as a top destination for spiritual pilgrimage. This is an unfortunate oversight.

The country is not just the cradle of civilization, it has played a significant role in the formation of many of the world’s top religions. It is not only the location of the biblical kingdom of Sheba, it is currently believed by some to house the Ark of the Covenant. Scroll through the gallery above for a list of the country’s top religious sites.

Other religions can trace their origins to Ethiopia. Watch the video below to uncover some of Islam’s earliest artifacts.

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Ethiopia, a Nation of Farmers, Strains Under Severe Drought

October 19, 2015 Tadias Magazine

By JACEY FORTIN

MIESO, Ethiopia — Every day, Yasin Mohammed Aliye stakes out a spot on his small farm to chew khat leaves, a stimulant, and guard against intruders.

The khat, he explains, helps to dull the hunger.

“We got just one day of rain each month during the rainy season,” Mr. Yasin said, referring to the days from July through September. “It should have been raining every other day. Now my harvest has failed.”

The green hills and full fields around here belie an alarming fact: This is the worst drought Ethiopia has experienced in more than a decade.

The stream bordering Mr. Yasin’s farm has run dry, and the trenches he dug to irrigate his land never filled. He has sown seeds three times this year, each time anticipating rains that never came. His corn and sorghum stalks are stunted and will yield no harvest. He has sold four of his eight cows at a steep discount in order to buy corn at nearly double last year’s market prices.

Mr. Yasin, 50, now regularly skips meals. He worries that the animals he has left to sell will not be enough to sustain his family until the next harvest season. If all else fails, he will move west, where the rains have been more reliable.

Read the Q&A at Vogue.com »

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Julie Mehretu on Helping to Make the Powerful Ethiopian Film Difret (Vogue)

October 18, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Vogue Magazine

By DODIE KAZANJIAN

A number of internationally acclaimed visual artists these days are deeply engaged with social issues. Julie Mehretu, who was born in Ethiopia and lives in New York City, is one of them. She was so struck by the true story of a 14-year-old Ethiopian victim of the ancient and cruel tradition of marriage-by-abduction that she sold a major painting to finance and produce Difret, a powerful and moving film based on the girl’s experience. Mehretu, who is currently working to make the issue of abduction a U.S. foreign policy priority, spoke with Vogue.com about helping to make the film, which premieres in New York City on October 23.

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Ethiopia’s Government Makes International Appeal for Food Aid After Poor Harvests

October 14, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Associated Press

By ELIAS MESERET

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s government is calling for international assistance to help feed 8.2 million people after erratic rains devastated crop yields.

Climate shocks are common in Ethiopia and often cause poor or failed harvests that lead to acute food shortages.

The government has allocated $192 million for food and other aid and is appealing for $596 million in assistance from the international community for the remainder of 2015, said Mitiku Kassa, secretary of the Ethiopian Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Committee.

More than 300,000 children are in need of specialized nutritious food and a projected 48,000 more children under 5 are suffering from severe malnutrition, according to a government assessment conducted in September.

The situation is “incredibly serious,” said John Aylieff, an official in Ethiopia with the U.N.’s World Food Program, who said Ethiopia needs the international community to help remedy the worst effects of El Nino conditions.

The conflict in South Sudan is also exacerbating the food insecurity situation, said Dennis Weller, the USAID mission director in Ethiopia. Since the outbreak of violence in South Sudan in mid-December 2013, hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese refugees have fled to Ethiopia and are living alongside local communities.

“We are seeing malnutrition rates go up in some of the host communities. We are looking at ways of reducing the stress levels to the host communities in Ethiopia by providing supplementary feeding that could bring the malnutrition levels down,” he said.

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Zewede Retta: Author, Diplomat Dies at 81

October 8, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Ethiopia Observer

By Arefayné Fantahun

Outstanding Ethiopia historian, journalist and diplomat Zewede Retta passed away yesterday in London at the age of 81, Ethiopia Observer has learnt. Zewde who was considered a great historian of modern Ethiopia, and a political commentator was on vacation in the United Kingdom. He was taken to hospital by ambulance, after he fell down on the street in London. He died at the hospital.

Ethiopian Ambassador to Italy and Tunisia, wrote important books on the life and times of Haile Selassie and the question of Eritrea.

Born in Addis Ababa, Young Zewde went to French Lycée Guebre-Mariam, where he completed his primary and secondary education. According to his biography in Amazon, he began his professional career at the Ministry of Information in 1952 and became the youngest news correspondent for Ethiopian radio as well as press correspondent to the Emperor’s palace. “He then spent four years at the school of journalism in Paris where he graduated in 1959. Soon after he became editor in chief for the newspaper The Voice of Ethiopia and for Menen magazine,” the bio reads.

Throughout the 50’s and 60’s he held numerous positions including deputy information minister, chief director of the Ethiopian news agency and President of the Pan African News Agency.

In Ethiopia Only 1.7% Have Internet Access

October 7, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, October 7th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — In Ethiopia only 1.7% of the country’s 96 million people have access to the Internet according to a Fortune magazine report that quotes data from Internet Live Stats showing eight of the world’s least connected countries are located in Africa.

In addition to Ethiopia, the American Business Magazine also highlights neighboring Eritrea as having the worst Internet penetration rate in the world with only 0.91% of its residents having digital access.

Other countries with less than 2% Internet availability include Burundi, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Niger, Guinea and Congo.

On the positive side Fortune says: “Last week, Google announced that it would be bringing Google Link — fiber optic cables to enhance the reliability and speed of internet connections — to Ghana after a successful pilot in Uganda. The program is designed to improve Internet access across Africa, a service that is needed on that continent more than any other.”

New Metro Keeps Ethiopia on Growth Track

September 29, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Reuters

A novelty for many in Ethiopia’s capital, a new trainline stretching nearly 20 miles in Addis Ababa. The country was already achieving growth of eight percent. With a new metro that can carry up to 60,000 passengers a day that could soon be even higher. (Reuters)

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Business and Bureaucracy: Ethiopia Entrepreneurs Overcome Hurdles

September 27, 2015 Tadias Magazine

AFP

By Karim Lebhour

Addis Ababa – The large open plan office with staff behind sleek computers looks like any newly-started modern business.

But Ethiopia’s first online restaurant delivery service, Deliver Addis, must contend with major hurdles that would stall many entrepreneurs in more developed nations.

Setting up any business is a challenge, but in Ethiopia, those range from daily operating headaches such as on-off Internet — stalling the highly time-sensitive orders on which it depends — to even more fundamental business challenges.

As the country’s banking and payments systems are still in their infancy, electronic payments are impossible, thus creating a huge hurdle for growth.

“The Internet goes out a couple of times a week — when that happens, there is not much we can do but rely on phone lines to take orders,” said Feleg Tsegaye, manager of Deliver Addis.

But he also believes the Horn of Africa nation — the second most populous on the continent — offers enormous opportunities.

Tsegaye was born and brought up in the United States but moved to Ethiopia, the homeland of his parents, hoping to tap into a still largely untapped but swiftly growing market he believes is one of the most promising on the continent.

“The IT sector is still in its infancy — typically in these markets there is a way to transfer money very quickly and very easily, but here that doesn’t exist quite yet,” he added.

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In Oakland, Ethiopian Refugee Begged to Return Home Before Fatal Police Encounter

September 25, 2015 Tadias Magazine

San Francisco Chronicle

By Rachel Swan

A man shot and killed by an Oakland police officer in August left behind only a small pile of luggage and a few family photographs, one of which had a phone number scrawled on the back.

The number belonged to the 30-year-old man’s mother, Genet Alemu, who sells injera bread to support a family of seven in Ethiopia. She last heard from her son, Yonas Alehegne, several months before his death.

CASE HISTORY

Police are seen at the scene of a police involved shooting at MacArthur Boulevard and Van Buren Avenue in Oakland, Ca. on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015. The incident left the involved police officer in the hospital and the suspect dead at the scene. Man shot dead by Oakland cop had violent past. An officer was injured and a suspect was shot by police in Oakland on Thursday morning. Oakland cop shoots suspect dead after chain attack.

“I feel like I’m dead,” Alemu said from her village in Dire Dawa, where she lives in a house that her other son, Habtamu, describes as “almost a tent.” Alemu was reached by phone Sept. 12 — the day of the Ethiopian new year. Dawn had broken and a rooster crowed insistently in the background.

Remembering “Yonas,” Alemu wailed.

“He was my first son,” she said, speaking through an interpreter in Amharic, the language spoken in Ethiopia. “He came to the U.S. to help us.”

Whatever dreams and ambitions Alehegne had when he arrived in the United States in 2012 were soon replaced by distress and desperation.

New York Warmly Welcomes Pope Francis

September 24, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

September 24, 2015

Three days into his historic first visit to the United States, Pope Francis shifted his attention from the nation’s political capital to its economic heart.

Francis left Washington, D.C., Thursday afternoon and flew to New York City where the 78-year-old pontiff was met with huge cheering crowds as he continued his jam-packed itinerary.

Thursday evening, he led an evening prayer service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan.

On Friday, Francis is scheduled to address world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, then join in a multi-faith service at the National September 11 Memorial where the World Trade Center once stood.

He’ll visit a Catholic elementary school in the heavily Hispanic and black neighborhood of East Harlem. In the evening, he’ll celebrate a Mass at Madison Square Garden before an estimated 20,000 worshipers – and will sit on a chair primarily built by day laborers.

The pope plans to leave Saturday morning for two days in Philadelphia, his final U.S. stop for the Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families. On Sunday, he will celebrate an outdoor Mass, which is expected to draw nearly 2 million people.

In New York, Francis is expected to focus on climate change, migration and immigration in his U.N. address. The organization on Friday starts a three-day summit to adopt new goals aimed at ending poverty and inequality and combating climate change.

Pope Francis waves to huge crowds gathered in Manhattan as his motorcade drives along Fifth Avenue in New York, Sept. 24, 2015. (C. Presutti / VOA)

Embracing the people

Earlier in the day, when the motorcade stopped at the cathedral where throngs cheered and yelled greetings at the pontiff. He shook hands with people, and met with assembled New York brass as he made his way into the vast and grand cathedral that recently underwent a $177-million renovation.

His flight departed Thursday afternoon from Washington’s nearby Joint Base Andrews and landed at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in the late afternoon.

Pope Francis engages well wishes as he kisses a child after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Sept. 24, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

He spoke with gathered schoolchildren after getting off the plane, and they gave him a book of prayers written by students. He gave each child a pat on the head, and laughed when they handed him a bobblehead version of himself.

The 78-year-old pontiff continues a jam-packed itinerary in New York.

Francis incorporated themes of ending poverty, inequality, giving, combating climate change and sacrifice into his speech Thursday to Congress, the first ever by a U.S. pope.

Rich nations have a moral obligation to aid the vulnerable, Francis suggested in discussing “the creation and distribution of wealth.”

“The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements” of an inclusive, sustainable economy, he continued.

Environmental focus

Referencing his recent encyclical on the environment, “Laudato Si’,” Francis called for “a courageous and responsible effort to ‘redirect our steps’ … and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.”

As for coping with the worst refugee crisis since World War II, Francis urged compassion, not hostility.

“We must not be taken aback by [migrants’] numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation – to respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal,” he told Congress.

After the speech, Francis went onto the Capitol balcony to address thousands gathered below. Speaking in Spanish, he said, “I’m so grateful for your presence. The most important ones here, children, I’ll ask God to bless them.”

Standing next to him, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief, overcome with emotion.

Francis concluded his remarks in English, saying, “Thank you very much and God bless America.” The crowd erupted in boisterous cheers.

After leaving the Capitol, Francis spoke to roughly 400 people at St. Patrick’s Church in downtown Washington, addressing parishioners, people served by Catholic Charities and choirs from two local high schools.

He called for charity and compassion toward the homeless and the least fortunate. And he said there is no social or moral justification for a lack of housing for the people.

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VOA’s Carolyn Presutti contributed to this report from New York.

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11 Questions With Aberash Bekele (Time)

September 23, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Time Magazine

By Belinda Luscombe

The subject of Angelina Jolie’s new movie talks about her life as a child bride who killed her would-be husband

In 1997, when you were 14, you killed a man. Can you explain why?

I was abducted, and I was trying to go home. I shot not at him but to keep him away.

Why had he abducted you?

Read the full interview at Time.com »

DIFRET release trailer from Tambay A Obenson on Vimeo.

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Rice Warns China to Quit Cyber Spying

September 22, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice warned China on Monday that Beijing-sponsored cyber espionage is a major stumbling block to U.S.-China relations, saying that such spying must stop.

Rice spoke in Washington, three days ahead of a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Analysts say this Friday’s meetings between Xi and President Barack Obama are expected to be blunt, focusing in large part on cyber spying, the global economy and China’s territorial ambitions in the South China Sea.

“This isn’t a mild irritation,” Rice said of numerous incidents linking Beijing to large-scale cyber theft. “It’s an economic and a national security concern” that places “enormous strain on our bilateral relationship.”

She told her audience at George Washington University that espionage targeting personal and corporate information “for the economic gain of businesses undermines our long-term economic cooperation.”

She also said Obama will use the meeting to address U.S. concerns on Beijing’s human rights record, and will insist on maintaining navigation and commerce through crowded sea lanes in disputed areas of the South China Sea.

Rice’s comments on cyber security echo those of the president, who last week told U.S. business leaders that China’s theft of trade secrets is an “act of aggression that we must stop.”

U.S. officials have suggested imposing sanctions on China, and the president said Washington is preparing “a number of measures” aimed at showing Beijing that “this is not just a matter of us being mildly upset.”

Ahead of the Chinese leader’s arrival in Washington, he is holding meetings with U.S. and Chinese technology executives in the West Coast city of Seattle.

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Attitude About Child Marriage Slowly Changing in Ethiopia

September 21, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

By Marthe van der Wolf

September 21, 2015

GONDOR, ETHIOPIA — Thousands of girls in the Horn of Africa are forced to marry although they are underage. The local government in Gondor, Ethiopia, and UNICEF are organizing large awareness campaigns to change the attitude of rural communities.

Sixteen-year-old Hibste Abebayehu, from the town of Gondor, was about to be married to a 28-year-old man when she was just 13. Last year, her parents tried again to marry her to another man.

Hibist said her parents did not even tell her about the marriage, but her friends overheard the arrangements and informed her.

She said when she heard, she immediately reported it to the school principal and to the lead teacher of the girls’ club. They spoke to the police. After they negotiated with her parents, they managed to cancel the marriage arrangements.

Sixteen-year-old Hibste Abebayehu has battled against being married to older men since she was just 13, and she is continuing her education, in Gondor, Ethiopia, Septmber 2015. (M. van der Wolfe / VOA)

Awareness interventions

The girls club that Hibste joined in school is a place where information is provided to girls about child marriage through awareness interventions. Especially for rural communities, child marriage is the social norm. The local government says that raising awareness and changing the attitude of the community is the biggest challenge.

The police, religious leaders and development partners such as the United Nations Children’s Fund are involved in trying to change the mindset about child marriage and eliminate all forms of child marriage by 2025.

UNICEF program worker Zemzem Shikur said child marriage has several consequences for the girl’s life.

“The first one is, easily they are forced to drop out from school, which shapes their destiny to be a housewife or to be in a very vulnerable situation,” said Shikur. “The other one is the health consequence. They do not get treatment easily, and they may not have information on where to get services.”

One in five girls in Ethiopia are married before the age of 18. In Gondor, a northern region, almost half of the underage girls are married, even though the legal age is set at 18.

Changing attitudes

Hibste feels lucky to have been rescued. She said many of her friends already are married. She said the thinking in the community is to marry off children at a very early age, since they do not see why girls should get an education or how they can become somebody.

One of the awareness campaigns in Gondor features an afternoon of musical performances on the main square. The event attracts large crowds and the message appears to get through to the audience of mostly boys. They say they agree girls should not get married before the age of 18.

Solomon Assefa is one of them. He said girls first need to be physically ready to get married, and that they then have to be educated so they can work toward what they want to become.

Hibste is now in 8th grade. She hopes her parents will allow her to attend university if she keeps receiving good grades.

Fourteen-year-old Abebe Ayele was less fortunate. She lives in a village an hour outside Gondor, was forced into a marriage last year and now has a six-month-old baby. She said it is difficult to deal with the new attitude from her peers.

She said everyone was gossiping about her when she was pregnant and it gave her psychological problems.

Abebe has registered for school again, but is not sure she can attend, as she does not have the funds to look after herself and her baby.

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Kerry Says US to Boost Migrant Quota

September 21, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration will increase the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States to 100,000 annually in 2017, as Europe grapples with its largest influx of migrants since the end of World War II.

Speaking Sunday in Berlin, Kerry called the U.S. decision a “step in keeping with America’s best tradition as a land of second chances and a beacon of hope.”

Under the new plan, the U.S. limit on refugee visas — currently capped at 70,000 annually — would jump to 85,000 in fiscal 2016 and then rise to 100,000 the following year.

Kerry also said Washington would explore ways to boost the limit beyond the 100,000 ceiling in future years.

Kerry did not say how many of the additional refugees would be from Syria but pledged that the U.S. was ready to help.

EU meeting

The announcement comes ahead of an emergency summit meeting planned for Tuesday of European Union leaders to address the flood of refugees that has overwhelmed the region.

Earlier Sunday, Austria said 11,000 migrants crossed into the country from Hungary in the 24-hour period that ended at midnight Saturday, and was expecting another 7,000 migrants Sunday at the main Nickelsdorf crossing, east of Vienna.

Most of the migrants had made the grueling journey across the Balkans into western Europe, with Croatia saying 21,000 had entered its territory in the past four days.

Hungarian and Serbian interior ministers also jointly reopened the Horgos-Roszke 1 crossing, which had been closed since last Monday, which led thousands of migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa to try to find other routes to western and northern Europe, where most want to start a new life.

Most flooded into Croatia, which within days announced that it could not cope with the flow and began to redirect the migrants back toward Hungary or toward Slovenia.

Meanwhile, Austrian ministry officials were meeting with charity organizations Sunday to try to find temporary shelter for the new arrivals, many coming from countries unable or unwilling to cope with a desperate human tide fleeing war and poverty.

Razor-wire border fence

After lashing out against Croatian officials, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto is now trading barbs with his Romanian counterpart over a razor-wire border fence that Hungary is building between the two countries to keep out migrants.

Hungary’s erection of fences is deeply straining its ties with neighboring countries, who feel the problem of the huge flow of migrants is being unfairly pushed onto them. After completing a fence along the border with Serbia, Hungary is now building fences along its borders with Croatia and Romania.

Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu on Saturday called the border closure an “autistic and unacceptable act” that violated the spirit of the European Union.

On Sunday, Szijjarto said, “We would expect more modesty from a foreign minister whose prime minister is currently facing trial.” That was a reference to corruption charges filed recently against Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta.

A migrant man reacts as he is surrounded by Slovenian police at the Slovenia-Croatia border crossing in Rigonce, Slovenia, Sept. 19, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

Szijjarto added: “We are a state that is more than 1,000 years old that throughout its history has had to defend not only itself, but Europe as well many times. That’s the way it’s going to be now, whether the Romanian foreign minister likes it or not.”

In Germany, police are investigating an asylum-seeker on suspicion that he fought for the Islamic State group in Syria, newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported Sunday.

The suspect is a Syrian national and lives in an asylum-seeker shelter in the northeast region of Brandenburg, the newspaper reported, quoting security sources.

Alleged accusations

The man was secretly filmed with a mobile telephone, allegedly telling other migrants in the center that he had fought for the Islamic State group and killed people.

The video led to the probe.

Migrants pull a boy through a train window at the station in Tovarnik, Croatia, Sept. 20, 2015. (Reuters)

Investigators are now trying to determine if the Syrian was indeed a member of the Islami State group, the newspaper reported.

A spokeswoman for federal police declined to confirm or deny the report.

Despite the case, federal police do not believe that Islamists are infiltrating Germany through the influx of refugees.

Elsewhere, thousands of migrants arrived Sunday morning in the Macedonian village of Gevgelija, on their way to Serbia.

They made their way to a temporary camp near the railway station, and some were able to board a train to take them onwards in their journey with the end goal of western Europe.

The bulk of the migrants are fleeing the war in Syria, with the European Union receiving almost a quarter of a million asylum requests in the three months to June.

Germany alone expects up to 1 million asylum-seekers this year, but Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the European Union should in the future take a finite number of migrants, while sending the rest back to a safe country in their home regions.

Rift among EU members

The continent’s biggest migratory flow since the end of World War II has dug a deep rift between western and eastern EU members over how to distribute the migrants.

The crisis has raised questions over the fate of the Schengen agreement allowing borderless travel across most countries within the 28-nation bloc, with several of them imposing border controls.

Migrant whose boat stalled at sea while crossing from Turkey to Greece swim to approach the shore of the island of Lesbos, Greece, Sept. 20, 2015. (AP photo)

Meanwhile, 26 migrants were feared missing Sunday off the Greek island of Lesbos, one of the Greek islands that has seen a heavy influx of refugees from war-torn Syria via Turkey.

More than 2,600 people have died among the nearly half a million who have braved perilous trips across the Mediterranean to reach Europe so far this year.

Altogether, Greece has seen more than 300,000 refugees and migrants enter the country this year, most of them passing through to other European countries.

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Material for this report came from AFP, Reuters and AP.

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French Industry Give Ethiopian Film Boost

September 19, 2015 Tadias Magazine

France 24

By James JEFFREY

Ethiopian movie gets a boost from French film industry

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s first success at the Cannes Film Festival tells a simple tale, but the film’s director has set his sights on the world stage thanks to support from the French film industry.

Having successfully premiered “Lamb” in the director’s home city of Addis Ababa earlier this month, the filmmakers have turned their attention to their next important release: in France on September 30.

Earlier this year, “Lamb” became the first Ethiopian film selected for the Cannes Film Festival. It tells the story of a young boy, Ephraim, who is sent by his father to live with his extended family far from home. Ephraim’s only friend is a lamb called Chuni, but his uncle wants to slaughter it for a forthcoming religious festival, setting the clock ticking for this unlikely cinematic pairing.

From the earliest days of scriptwriting to the final days of post-production, this thoroughly Ethiopian cinematic rendition has overcome numerous challenges – thanks to the French film industry.

“When I first read ‘Lamb’ it was obvious to me there was an audience for such a film in France,” said Ghanaian producer Ama Ampadu, who lives in Paris and studied in France. “French audiences have developed a taste for African cinema through the works of African directors like Abderrahmane Sissako, director of ‘Timbuktu’. And when you delve into how these films came about, you will find a French component – it could be the financing, the crew, the world sales agent [or the] producers.”

“It’s not a commercial film, which I like,” said 33-year-old filmgoer Daniel Meles after the Addis Ababa premiere. “For my generation, it’s the first film to take us into the countryside, beyond Addis Ababa.”

Ethiopia Successful in Preventing Al-Shabab’s Attacks

September 18, 2015 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

By Marthe van der Wolf

September 18, 2015

ADDIS ABABA — Over the past five years, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti and the self-declared republic of Somaliland have all been attacked by Somalia-based Al-Shabab militants.

Ethiopia, which invaded Somalia in 2006 to fight Al-Shabab, has since evaded a large-scale attack.

According to Tewolde Mulugeta of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country’s secret to preventing attacks is public involvement.

“We know what lack of peace means, so the importance is well understood by our people,” he said. “They don’t want anybody to distract that. Whenever they are going to come across any anti-peace element, any anti-peace force, terrorist force, they are going to expose them, they are going to fight them head on.”

While it isn’t clear how many prospective attacks Ethiopian security forces have prevented, one bomb did exploded inside a central Addis Ababa house in 2013. Police believe the attackers were preparing it for a large football match taking place that day.

Strong security forces

Although Ethiopia’s military is considered among the strongest in the region, independent security expert Sunday Okello says Ethiopian security forces are strong because Al-Shabab is just one of several threats to the country.

“Ethiopia knows its threats to security, and you can’t sleep and kind of forget that there is a threat coming from Eritrea, that there is a threat coming from Somalia, there is a threat coming from maybe South Sudan,” he said. “And from that effect, Ethiopia has managed to build its security network very strongly.”

Ethiopian forces continue to fight al-Shabab in Somalia, working in conjunction with African Union troops. The AU troops have made significant gains but the militant group remains one of the biggest security threats to the East African region.

Read the full article at VOA News »

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Ethiopia Fireworks Usher in 2008, But Rising Commodity Prices Damp Festivities

September 13, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Anadolu Agency & Diplomat News Network

Addis Ababa , Ethiopia – Ethiopians marked the New Year “ENKUTATASH” on Saturday with traditional celebrations, although skyrocketing commodity prices put a damper on festivities.

Ethiopia’s unique calendar is comprised of 12 30-day months and a thirteenth month consisting of only five days, which become six every four years — as is the case this Ethiopian leap year.

The first of Meskerem — the first month in the Ethiopian calendar — fell on Saturday, September 12.

In capital Addis Ababa, fireworks lit the midnight sky Friday night, even though, according to prominent theologian Daniel Kibret, “counting down to 00:00 hours doesn’t tally with the Ethiopian system of counting days”.

According to Kibret, the day — under the traditional system of counting time — technically begins at 6 a.m.

Dr. Zerihun, another scholar in the field, told Anadolu Agency that Ethiopia “maintains the ancient Julian Calendar, which corresponds with the Egyptian Coptic calendar”.

“Calendars outside Ethiopia and Egypt underwent two revisions,” he explained. “In the second revision, Pope Gregory added eight years to it.”

“Until 530AD, the same Julian Calendar system was used,” he added.

Inflation

This year’s New Year celebrations, however, were accompanied by soaring commodity prices.

According to Ethiopia’s official statistics agency, the inflation rate — particularly for food — rose to 14.7 percent in August from 13.9 percent in July.

Many of those who visited Shola Gebeya, one of the busiest New Year markets, said food prices — especially prices for meat — had increased markedly compared to the same period last year.

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US Spotlights Women Ethiopian Prisoners

September 6, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, September 6th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, launched a one-month campaign last week called #FreeThe20 that will highlight 20 women from around the world who are political prisoners, including three female members of Ethiopia’s Semayawi (Blue) Party: Blen Mesfin, Meron Alemayehu, and Nigist Wondifraw.

According to the campaign, which will last through September 2015, the Ethiopian trio will be the focus of attention on day 4-6 this week.

“Blen Mesfin, Meron Alemayehu, and Nigist Wondifraw were among a number of opposition party members and others arrested and charged with inciting violence during anti-Islamic State in Libya (ISIL) demonstrations in Addis Ababa in April 2015, which were organized by the government of Ethiopia following the killing of 26 Ethiopians by ISIL,” states the campaign’s website humanrights.gov.

During a Q&A session with the press following her announcement of the campaign last Tuesday, a reporter asked Ambassador Power regarding the women from Ethiopia: “You’ve got three from Ethiopia on here,” the journalist said. “I’m curious – the President, our President, was just in Ethiopia, where he made some comments praising its democracy. I’m just wondering if you see a discord there?”

In her response Ambassador Power said: “As President Obama said on his trip to Ethiopia, the full potential of Ethiopia will not be unleashed and unlocked until journalists are able to report on what’s going in the country freely and opposition – credible opposition candidates are able to participate in elections.”

Humanrights.gov adds: “Blen, Meron, and Nigist are leading members of Ethiopia’s Blue Party, which advocates peacefully for democratic principles and has faced numerous obstacles in exercising freedom of association and assembly both in the build-up to May 24 parliamentary elections, and thereafter. All three were arrested in Addis Ababa in the days following the April 22 protests and charged with inciting violence at the rally. They remain behind bars to this day.”

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Jeb Bush Says He Helped Save Ethiopian Jews, But Here’s What Really Happened

September 3, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Mother Jones Magazine

By Stephanie Mencimer

His campaign claims he convinced the Reagan administration to join a major airlift operation called Operation Moses. Not exactly.

Did Jeb Bush help launch a covert mission to airlift thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in the 1980s, saving them from starvation?

He says he did. Twice in the past week his campaign has posted blog posts on its website making this claim in order to tout Bush’s record on Israel and to show his foreign policy chops. One reads:

In the 1980’s thousands of members of the Jewish community had fled their homeland due to famine for a refugee camp in Sudan. Jeb, hearing of the conditions in the camp and the persecution these Jews were suffering, suggested to Reagan-Bush officials that the United States had a duty to support a massive airlift. The resulting effort, Operation Moses, made history when Israeli planes, with American support, brought these Jews to the homeland of the Jewish people, the State of Israel.

But Bush’s campaign boast is false. Bush, then 31 years old and a fledgling developer in Miami, had nothing to do with with Operation Moses, the secret operation that rescued nearly 8,000 Jews in Africa. And he played no role in triggering the rescue effort by prodding the Reagan-Bush administration to take action. However, he—and several other Americans—did play a bit part in a subsequent effort to rescue about 900 Ethiopian Jews left behind when Operation Moses was halted abruptly in early 1985.

Here’s what happened:

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The Weeknd Interview: Abel Says Grew Up Listening to Aster Aweke & Mulatu Astatke

August 31, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Pitchfork

BY Anupa Mistry

AUGUST 31, 2015

All of the lights are off in the Weeknd’s apartment. It’s 49 floors up, high above the long shadows of Toronto’s financial district, and the clouds outside make everything in this sparse and tidy condo look monochrome. There is a white leather sectional stationed on a white rug so plush it would be disrespectful not to take your shoes off before walking on it. Platinum records for his 2012 mixtape collection Trilogy hang on the walls. A massive window reveals Lake Ontario, which has been a blueish boon to winter-weary city folk all summer; on this evening in late August, it’s grey, a precursor to the grim season ahead.

Abel Tesfaye strolls into the room and sits down at a long, dark, smoked-glass dining table. He’s in house clothes: a black Miami Heat mesh short-sleeve with fitted black jersey-blend pants and white house slippers. A child of immigrants who was raised in the bustling, brown suburb of Scarborough, he wears a filigreed Ethiopian cross around his neck—it’s the kind of token that stays hidden beneath clothing, but never comes off. His hair, the subject of so much curiosity and so many memes simply because he does whatever he wants with it, is there on his head as it should be. Mugs of green tea are set down on a folded paper towel, in lieu of coasters. Tesfaye smiles easy and often and is comfortable locking eyes, except when challenged to speak at length on his music. Then, he furrows his brow and speaks in clichés; his eyes swerve to the left; he stares at the iPhone set between us that is recording his thoughts; or he picks at an invisible blemish on the crook of his left arm. Otherwise, he asks questions. He seems eager to please, if not a bit nervous. When we say goodbye, Tesfaye’s last words are: “Write good things about me!” This is not the Weeknd I expected…

Pitchfork: You retweeted a recent Pitchfork piece about how your East African roots are reflected in your music, what did you think of it?

AT: It’s the first time any writer has really dove into that part of me and my music, but it’s always been there. That’s how I was raised. My mother, my grandmother, my uncles would play Ethiopian artists like Aster Aweke and Mulatu Astatke all the time in the house. They would drink coffee, eat popcorn, and listen to the music. It’s such beautiful music, but I didn’t realize how beautiful it was until I left that head space. That’s why I feel like my singing is not conventional. I mean, if you look at technique, I’m not a technical singer; I know I get bashed by R&B heads 24/7. I’m not here to do Luther Vandross runs. I can’t do what Jennifer Hudson does. But the feeling in my music and in my voice is very Ethiopian and very African and much more powerful than anything, technically. There are songs like “Gone” where I don’t even know what I’m saying—I let my voice do all the talking. I’ll probably do an album like that one day where it’s not lyrics at all, just melodies and great production. Maybe the next one, I don’t know. That’s the Ethiopian side of me. I didn’t know what [the musicians] were saying when I was younger: Just because you speak it doesn’t mean you really understand what they’re saying. Ethiopian poetry is a different language. I can speak and understand [Amharic], but I can’t understand their poetry. When my mother would translate—it’s the most beautiful thing ever. I’ve never been back home to Ethiopia, but when I do go I’m going to make it very special.

Read the full interview at Pitchfork.com »

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‘Hungry Ethiopians’ Headline is Back Again

August 28, 2015 Tadias Magazine

AFP

Sharp rise in hungry Ethiopians needing aid: UN

Addis Ababa – The number of hungry Ethiopians needing food aid has risen sharply this year to 4.5 million due to poor rains and the El Nino weather phenomenon, the UN has said.

With rains poorer than predicted, “food insecurity increased and malnutrition rose as a result,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

The number needing food aid has now risen to 4.5 million people, OCHA said, in what is a 55 percent increase on the 2.9 million projected to require food assistance during the year.

“The absence of rains means that the crops don’t grow, the grass doesn’t grow and people can’t feed their animals,” said David Del Conte, OCHA chief in Ethiopia.

Hardest-hit areas are Ethiopia’s eastern Afar and southern Somali regions, while pastures and water resources are also unusually low in central and eastern Oromo region, and northern Tigray and Amhara districts.

The US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) warned of “many emaciated livestock” in its latest report.

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40 Years Later, Haile Selasse Still Debated

August 28, 2015 Tadias Magazine

RFI

By Michel Arseneault

On 27 August 1975 a French reporter phoned the Ethiopian imperial palace, which had been overrun by Marxist army officers the previous year. Haile Selassie I came to the phone. On a poor line, speaking good French, the “king of kings” sounded calm and composed, not suspecting he had only a few more hours to live.

“I am well as before,” said the 83-year-old man some revered as a god. “The soldiers are gone. I am well and so are my people.”

Forty years later, his death remains shrouded in mystery – and the subject of debate. Official sources spoke the following day of his “respiratory failure” but many believe the “lion of the tribe of Judah” was assassinated by revolutionaries determined to overthrow a centuries-old monarchy.

His imperial majesty, emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, was a leading figure in both African and world history in the 20th century.

Under his stewardship Ethiopia remained an independent country, the only one in Africa to never have been colonised even though it was occupied by fascist Italy – an invasion he condemned before the League of Nations in an historic speech in 1936.

Convinced that countries must cooperate to solve international problems, the emperor championed the cause of multilateralism.

Ethiopia was a founding member of both the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union), whose headquarters were established in Addis when it was created in 1963.

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NPR Interview With Professor Bekele Gerba

August 27, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Bekele Gerba visited Washington, D.C., to bring his concerns about Ethiopia to the State Department. The photo was taken when he came to NPR Radio interview With Professor Bekele Gerba

NPR

By Michele Kelemen

Listen to the Story

Just a few months ago, Bekele Gerba was languishing in a high security Ethiopian jail, hearing the cries of fellow prisoners being beaten and tortured. Now, the 54-year-old foreign language professor is in Washington, D.C., for meetings at the State Department. His message: The Obama administration should pay more attention to the heavy-handed way its ally, Ethiopia, treats political opponents — and should help Ethiopians who are losing their ability to earn a living.

Gerba is a leader of the Oromo Federalist Congress, a political party that represents one of the country’s largest ethnic groups. With estimated numbers of about 30 million, the Oromo make up about a third of Ethiopia’s population.

In 2011, Gerba was arrested after meeting with Amnesty International researchers and sent to prison on what he calls trumped up terrorism charges, often used in Ethiopia against political dissidents. In court he made remarks that have been widely circulated in Ethiopia and beyond: “I am honored to learn that my non-violent struggles and humble sacrifices for the democratic and human rights of the Oromo people, to whom I was born without a wish on my part but due to the will of the Almighty, have been considered a crime and to be unjustly convicted.”

Gerba was released from jail this spring in advance of President Obama’s July visit to Ethiopia. A soft spoken man, who seemed exhausted by his prison ordeal and his numerous appearances at U.S. universities and think tanks, Gerba tells NPR that Obama’s trip sent all the wrong messages.

“He [Obama] shouldn’t have shown any solidarity with that kind of government, which is repressive, very much authoritarian and very much disliked by its own people,” Gerba says.

Since Ethiopia’s ruling party and its allies control all of parliament, his party doesn’t have a voice, he says. What’s more, he says, his people are being pushed off their land by international investors.

“The greatest land grabbers are now the Indians and Chinese …. there are Saudi Arabians as well,” he says, adding that many families are being evicted and losing their livelihoods.

Gerba says those who do get jobs are paid a dollar a day, which he describes as a form of slavery. He is urging the U.S. to use its aid to Ethiopia as leverage to push the government to give workers more rights and allow people to form labor unions.

DC: Vigil Held for Emebet Kebede

August 26, 2015 Tadias Magazine

WJLA

BY WJLA STAFF

LANHAM, Md. — Hundreds gathered Wednesday evening for a candlelight vigil to remember the life of Emebet Kebede.

Kebede was walking across Southern Avenue heading toward the Metro Friday evening when she was struck by a car and killed.

The incident occurred in front of the United Medical Center.

Police say the vehicle that hit Kebede was a late model black Chevy Tahoe

The Metropolitan Police Department is asking anyone with information about this case to call the police at (202) 727-9099. Additionally, anonymous information may be submitted to the department’s TEXT TIP LINE by text messaging 50411.

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Friends and Family Remember DC Hit and Run Victim Emebet Kebede — WJLA TV

August 25, 2015 Tadias Magazine

WJLA

BY ROZ PLATER

Lanham, Md. — Dozens of friends and family gathered in Lanham Sunday evening to mourn the sudden loss of Emebet Kebede.

“I don’t know what to say… I lost my partner of 31-years… my wife my best half a wonderful person,” said Kabede’s husband, Habte Michael.

Now her family wants to see justice served.

Police say Kebede was struck and killed Friday evening, by a hit and run driver.

Kebede’s relatives say she had just crossed Southern Avenue and was headed toward the metro when she was hit.

The accident happened right in front of United Medical Center.

Police released a photo of a person of interest in the case. They say they vehicle that hit Kebede was a late model black Chevy Tahoe.

Anyone with information is asked to call D.C. Police.

Video: Friends and family remember hit and run victim Emebet Kebede

Suspect Sought in DC Hit and Run Death of Physician Assistant Emebet Kebede

WTOP

By WTOP Staff

WASHINGTON — The Metropolitan Police Department is seeking the public’s assistance in identifying the perpetrator in the hit and run fatality of a 56-year-old Lanham woman who was walking on the street Friday in Southeast Washington.

Police say the woman, identified as Emebet Kebede, was struck by a newer model black Chevrolet Tahoe at approximately 6:10 p.m. Friday on the 1300 block of Southern Avenue, SE. She was transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.

According to The Washington Post, Kebede worked as a physician’s assistant at the United Medical Center, which is located in the block where she was killed.

Police are looking for his man in connection with a Friday hit-and-run in Southeast D.C. (Metropolitan Police)

The crash remains under investigation. The Metropolitan Police Department is asking anyone with information about this case to call the police at (202) 727-9099. Additionally, anonymous information may be submitted to the department’s TEXT TIP LINE by text messaging 50411.

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Ethiopia: Need for Food Aid Surges

August 24, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Reuters

By Aaron Maasho

ADDIS ABABA — The number of Ethiopians who will need food aid by the end of this year has surged by more than 1.5 million from earlier estimates due to failed rains, United Nations agencies said on Monday.

Ethiopia needs an extra $230 million from donors to secure aid for a total of 4.5 million people now projected to require assistance this year, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said in a statement.

The country of 96 million people is one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, but failed rains have devastating consequences for food supplies.

“The belg rains were much worse than the National Meteorology Agency predicted at the beginning of the year. Food insecurity increased and malnutrition rose as a result,” said David Del Conte, UNOCHA’s acting head of office in Ethiopia, referring to the short, seasonal rainy season that stretched from February to April.

Areas normally producing surplus food in the Horn of Africa country’s central Oromia region were also affected by shortages, the statement said, adding lack of water had decreased livestock production and caused livestock deaths in other pastoralist areas.

Meteorologists have warned that the El Nino weather phenomenon, marked by a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, is now well established and continues to strengthen. Models indicate that sea-surface temperature anomalies in the central Pacific Ocean are set to climb to the highest in 19 years.

The El Nino can lead to scorching weather across Asia and east Africa but heavy rains and floods in South America.

The United Nations cautioned that the anomaly could further affect Ethiopia’s “kiremt” rains that stretch from June to September.

“A failed belg followed by a poor kiremt season means that challenges could continue into next year,” said John Aylieff, WFP’s Ethiopia representative.

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From The Guardian Archive, 24 August 1974 Ethiopia’s Fallen Aristocrats

August 24, 2015 Tadias Magazine

By David Ottaway

Monday 24 August 2015

Addis Ababa, August 23, 1974
They are crowded into three long army barracks, sleeping on simple army cots, their heads shaven as if they are condemned men, their food brought to them three times daily by wives already dressed in black for mourning.

These were once the high and mighty of Ethiopia – princes, imperial courtiers, provincial nobility, aristocratic landlords, blue-blooded ministers, and much decorated generals. They ruled entire provinces, owned enormous estates, and commanded private armies and could boast of belonging to royal families tracing their ancestry 2,000 years to the founding of the Ethiopian monarchy.

Today they are the humbled captives of young and unknown military officers, members of a mysterious Armed Forces Committee that has set out to bring revolution to this ancient mountain kingdom of feudal lords and a once all-powerful Emperor.

Officially these prisoners of the revolution number only around 150, but it is said the total number of those arrested is about 350.

The fallen aristocrats are being kept in rundown buildings near the city centre that serve as the Fourth Army Division’s headquarters. Three times a day the road outside the compound is the scene of traffic jams as families come with food and messages (the army will not feed the prisoners).

Their crimes, according to the military, include corruption, abuse of power, maladministration and misappropriation of State funds and lands, a cover-up of the disastrous drought afflicting the country, and, above all, obstruction of badly-needed reforms.

Their fate is uncertain. Theoretically, the prisoners are awaiting the outcome of an investigation by a 15-man committee of inquiry into the alleged misdeeds of the old regime, a process expected to take two years.

But relatives of the prisoners feel they have become hostages of the military committee and that they will be the first to die if any attempt is made by Emperor Haile Selassie to overthrow the reform movement.

Students protest in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 17, 1974, against the military committee that seized political power last week. (Photograph: AP)

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Can Engineering Education Lift Ethiopia?

August 19, 2015 Tadias Magazine

University of Michigan

Making a Middle Class: Can Engineering Education Lift Ethiopia?

By Brad Whitehouse & Marcin Szczepanski

Netsanet Hailu, a young woman in her 20s, shuts her laptop where she is working on differential equations. As a master’s student in biomedical engineering at one of Ethiopia’s oldest and best universities, Netsanet hopes to one day design and engineer medical devices that save human lives.

“You have a brain that works. If you cannot use it to do better, to do something for the society, for yourself, then why do you have it?” she asks.

Netsanet says she thinks of her family as rather poor – which reflects the good fortune of her upbringing. Her father, Hailu Gurmu, sees it differently.

“I consider myself middle class,” he says.

Hailu did not grow up in this house, with its indoor plumbing and four-wheel drive Toyota pickup in the courtyard. He was born on the other side of this vast city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. And he was not so close to his family then. Like his wife, he was given up for adoption.

The family’s rise has mirrored the rise of the city and nation. The country is still transforming, and Netsanet the engineering student is a product of its economic and academic explosion.

Today, Ethiopia, located in East Africa and just above the equator, has an expanding middle class and the fastest growing millionaire class in Africa. According to a 2013 report by the consulting firm New World Wealth, the nation had the most rapidly surging GDP in Africa – with 93 percent growth from 2004 to 2009. And its projected expansion for the 2014-15 fiscal year is another 11.4 percent. That said, it’s still in the early stages of a turnaround. It ranks 174th out of 187 countries on the United Nation’s human development index.

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7 Quick Facts About Ethiopia’s Population

August 18, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Mail & Guardian Africa

18 AUG 2015

ACCORDING to projections released Tuesday by the United States’ Population Reference Bureau in Washington, Africa will claim three of the world’s 10 most populous countries in the world in 2050.

That, we know. It is also not a surprise that the largest of the three will be Nigeria, which will be will be just 1 million people shy of the USA’s size. Ethiopia, currently with 99 million people according to one United Nations model, will also enter the list of the world’s 10 most populous countries, according to the Population Reference Bureau.

It is just one of some forecasts about the country’s population. While a lot of reporting is done about Nigeria’s population, Ethiopia’s gets less attention. What are we missing?

1- According to the UN projections, Ethiopia is one of nine countries that will account for half of the world’s population growth over the next 35 years. In 2050, it will have 188 million citizens, and would be the fifth most populous country, ahead of Tanzania, the US, Indonesia and Uganda, and just behind India, Nigeria, Pakistan and the DR Congo.

2- In 2100, Ethiopia is projected to have some 243 million people, and would be the ninth most populous nation in the world, and fourth largest by population in Africa after Nigeria, DRC and Tanzania. What is interesting about this is that while today Ethiopia is the second largest African country with a population of 99 million, DRC is fourth with 77 million and Tanzania has 53 million today, placing it sixth – so they will be overtaking Ethiopia.

3- The country has a sex ratio of 100 males to the same number of 100 females, amongst its projected 2015 population of 99.3 million, outstripped only by Nigeria’s projected 182 million people. The West African country however does not manage to keep things equal as well—it has 104 males for every 100 females.

4- Four in every 10 Ethiopians (41.4%) are aged under 14 years, but just 5.2% are aged over 60 years. The majority of the population (53.3%) are under 60 years. But going forward an interesting thing will happen: in 2050 just 25% of Ethiopians will be aged under 14, and in 2100 this will fall to 16.2%, as more Ethiopians move into the working age, setting it up for a major demographic dividend, and more economic growth.

5- Indeed, Ethiopia’s life expectancy at birth was 48.1 years just 20 years ago, now it stands at 63.1 years. In 2050 it will be 74.5 years, and 81.3 in 2100, as investments in health pay off handsomely, with some 7.2% of Ethiopians clocking over 80 years by 2100. Infant mortality, at 114 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1995, has now been halved to 50, and will fall further to 20 by 2050.

6- The number of children who make it past their fifth birthday is regarded as a key indicator of a country’s development. In 1995, Ethiopia had 190 deaths for every 1,000 births. That is now at 74 deaths, which is still on the higher side, but in 2050 it will be at 25.5 deaths, and fall to 13 at the end of the century.

7- Currently, an Ethiopian woman has an average 4.59 children in her lifetime, a fall from 7.18 children in 1980. But this is falling further—in 2050 she will have 2.28 children on average, and just 1.79 children in 2100—comparable with European fertility rates.

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Genzebe Dibaba Ready for Beijing Games

August 14, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Reuters

BY IAN RANSOM

Born into athletics royalty in Ethiopia, middle distance runner Genzebe Dibaba is poised to win more glory for her illustrious family at the world championships in Beijing after years of indoor supremacy.

The younger sister of three-time Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba and Ejegayehu Dibaba, who won the 10,000m silver at the 2004 Athens Games, Genzebe stormed to a 1,500 meters world record at Monaco last month, eclipsing a 22-year-old mark that many thought might stand forever.

The dazzling run added to her four indoor world records, having set new marks in the 1,500m, 3,000m and two-mile events in an astonishing 15-day tour of Europe last year before adding the 5,000m in February.

Already boasting two world indoor titles, the Laureus sportswoman of the year would seem a certainty to finally clinch a long-awaited outdoor title, having long failed to meet expectations without a roof above her head.

Dibaba won her first world indoor title in 2012, with victory in the 1,500 at Istanbul, but has had more humble results outdoors and finished eighth in the final at the 2013 world championships.

“I wanted to train more for the outdoor season than the indoor season, so I changed my training totally,” Dibaba, 24, said prior to her record-setting win at Monaco. “I already have natural speed which I don’t need to work on, so in training I’ve been working more on my endurance. Now I think I can run faster outdoors than I previously thought I was capable of.”

Ethiopia Stowaway Gets to Sweden in Airliner’s Hold — BBC

August 14, 2015 Tadias Magazine

BBC News

An Ethiopian man hoping to get asylum in Sweden has been found in the hold of an airliner after a flight from Addis Ababa to Stockholm.

He was handed over to Swedish police after a medical check at Arlanda airport. His health is said to be good.
The hold of the Ethiopian Airlines jet would have got very cold during the long flight. There was a stopover in Rome, but he is believed to have come all the way from Addis Ababa.

Such cases are rare, officials say.

According to Radio Sweden, the man is an Ethiopian, born in 1991, and intends to seek asylum in Sweden. The plane landed at 06:53 local time (04:53 GMT).

“When the staff were going to unload the baggage, they found the man. He was in good shape, but we made him see a nurse,” said Henrik Klefve, spokesman for airport operator Swedavia.

Swedish police officer Anders Faerdigs said “he says he works at the airport in Addis Ababa and he had a badge with him.

“That’s how he had been able to move freely around the airport, reach the plane and get in the cargo hold.”

The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) to Guest Star in TV’s Hottest Hip-Hop Drama ‘Empire’

August 14, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, August 14th, 2015

New York (TADIAS) — Vogue Magazine’s September issue features the stars of Empire — Fox network’s TV hip-hop drama — along with the series creator Lee Daniels and Ethiopian-Canadian musician The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) who is said to be a guest star in the second season this Fall.

The Weeknd who has been dubbed the “next face of R&B” continues to dominate the Artist 100, Pop, R&B and Hip-Hop Billboard charts while the world awaits his newest album, Beauty Behind the Madness, scheduled to be released on August 28th.

The second season of Empire starts on September 23rd. “Part of what makes the show so much fun to watch is that it is a brilliant mash-up — part Sopranos, part Glee, part Dynasty — bursting with allusions to the last 50 years of popular culture: Berry Gordy, Good Times/The Jeffersons, American Idol, the Jacksons, GoodFellas, Rihanna and Chris Brown, just to name a lot,” Vogue says. “At the same time, Empire does not shy away from sociopolitical issues. But the show also rattles the chandeliers because it isn’t afraid to let rip with all of those dark, delicious tropes of Greek tragedy and eighties nighttime soaps—power, greed, betrayal, lust, hate, shame—all of it poured into the fresh container of urban black upward mobility. A hip-hop King Lear, as it were.”

The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye), far right, joins the cast of “Empire” in this high-fashion spread for Vogue magazine. (photograph by Mario Testino).

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Ethiopia Jails 18 Muslims Over Alleged Terror, Supporters Say Trial Was Unfair

August 3, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Associated Press

Published August 03, 2015

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – A court in Ethiopia has handed jail terms ranging from seven to 22 years against 18 Muslims who were convicted on terror charges, including allegedly attempting to establish a religious government.

The sentencing on Monday attracted outcry from Muslim activists who opposed the trial.

Four of the suspects were sentenced to 22 years in prison, while the rest were given shorter jail terms.

Dimtsachin Yisema, a group lobbying for the release of Muslim detainees, said the sentences were “unjust” and called the Federal High Court a “kangaroo court.”

The convicts, who were tried under Ethiopia’s controversial anti-terrorism law, include Muslim leaders and activists who were arrested in July 2012 following six months of public protests in Addis Ababa and other towns over alleged government interference in religious affairs.

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To This Ethiopian American Singer, ‘Home is Always in Flux’

July 25, 2015 Tadias Magazine

Public Radio International

To This Ethiopian American Singer, ‘Home is Always in Flux’

By MONICA CAMPBELL

Like a lot of immigrants in the United States, Meklit Hadero’s family arrived to a place unknown, with a single connection drawing them. For Hadero, that place was Iowa, where her dad knew a professor.

It was the early ‘80s, and Ethiopia was still feeling the aftermath of the 1974 revolution.

“There was a lot of kindness and community,” says Hadero, a singer and songwriter now based in San Francisco. “We were adjusting to living in this country. At the same time it was very challenging. There weren’t many immigrants at all, let alone immigrants from East Africa or Ethiopia.”

In fact, she remembers, there was one other Ethiopian family in town. “They heard through the grapevine that we had moved there and people said, ‘Oh, they live in that apartment complex.’ And they knocked on every door until they found us and we’re still friends today.”

Her parents were physicians who had to redo their residencies in the US in order to work. It took a long time. Five years. And the jobs they got brought the Hadero family to Brooklyn.

She returned to Ethiopia when she was 21 with her mom, carrying with her a body of stories, those highs and lows her family had talked about for years regarding life back in Ethiopia. Hadero says when she got to Ethiopia, she started to “see the holes” in her parents’ memories.

“I started to see the people who were maybe only hinted at filled into whole three-dimensional personalities,” she says. She also remembers her mom shifting between what she called “home” or “back home,” toggling between Ethiopia and the United States.

“Home is always in flux,” Hadero says.

Those journeys, and discovering more about Ethiopian music, have influenced Hadero’s music and can be heard in “We are Alive,” her latest album. It includes “I Like Your Afro,” Hadero’s modern twist on a traditional Amharic-language Ethiopian love song called “Kemekem,” which means “the perfect Afro.”

“This is a very flirtatious love song, where the lyrics say, ‘Oh, my dear, with the perfect Afro, you live at the top of the hill, I live at the bottom of the hill, just roll on down and meet me there.’”

She calls it her version of a “countryside song that, at the core of it, is something that people all over the world can connect with.”

She also sees how people don’t always know how to classify her. “When I play my music for the world music, they say, ‘Well, this is too jazz.’ When I play it for the jazz people, they say, ‘Well, this is kind of pop.’ And when I play it for the pop people they say, ‘What is this?’”

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Learn more about the artist at www.meklitmusic.com.

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UN Demands Andargachew Tsige Release

July 4, 2015 Tadias Magazine