New York (TADIAS) — Every September for the last fourteen years, rain or shine, the city of San Jose in California has formally honored the heritage of its vibrant Ethiopian American residents with a flag-raising ceremony at City Hall in recognition of the Ethiopian new year festival.
The tradition continues this year in the presence of the city’s Mayor, Vice Mayor as well as City Council members and other officials who are expected to attend the annual commemoration on September 10th.
According to the organizer of the annual celebration, the Ethiopian American Council (EAC), the “ceremony will be followed by a week-long celebration of the Ethiopian New Year with cultural dances and festivities. Throughout the week, individuals who have made significant contributions to the Ethiopian-American community will be recognized for their service.”
In addition, EAC announced that this year’s event will also celebrate the recent peace and reconciliation between the exiled synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the synod in Ethiopia. The churches were reunited this summer after almost three decades of separation.
“Let us use the occasion to celebrate and honor the reunification of the two synods, of one of the world’s oldest Christian churches, and to celebrate the political change in Ethiopia,” EAC stated.
— If You Go:
Monday, Sep 10th at 5:00 PM
Jose City Hall
200 E. Santa Clara St.
San José, CA
ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia will open its logistics sector to foreign investors but cap their participation, the state investment body said on Tuesday in the latest reform to loosen the government’s control of the economy.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has presided over a shake-up of one of the most heavily-regulated economies in Africa since his appointment in April.
The latest move by the Ethiopian Investment Board – a body headed by Abiy and comprised of several ministers and the central bank governor – lifted restrictions on foreign investment in packaging, forwarding and shipping agency services.
Those sectors were previously reserved exclusively to Ethiopian nationals. Foreign firms will now be allowed to take stakes of up to 49 percent in logistics businesses.
The Ethiopian Investment Commission, a government body that handles investment issues such as licensing and promotion, said opening up this sector to foreign investors had become necessary.
This will “improve the provision of high-end logistics services while local firms acquire world class knowledge, expertise, management, and systems by working jointly with globally reputed logistics providers,” it said in a statement.
The ruling EPRDF coalition, in power since 1991, has long supported deep state involvement. But it said earlier this year that Ethiopia needed economic reforms to sustain rapid growth and boost exports amid a severe hard currency shortage.
Abiy, 42, was appointed by the EPRDF after his predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, resigned in February after three years of unrest in which hundreds of people were killed by security forces.
Ethiopian refugee Tefere Gebre was just 15 years old when he arrived in the United States—starting over in a new world alone, without any family by his side.
Over 30 years later, he is executive vice president of the AFL-CIO—the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the largest labor union in the world, representing over 12 million Americans. Gebre is the first refugee elected as a national officer of the organization.
Gebre was still a boy when he was forced to flee Ethiopia, a country that suffered political turmoil and famine during the 1980s. “People were getting murdered on the streets by the government,” Gebre says. “They were just grabbing kids and torturing them if they were suspected of being an anarchist or aiding the opposition. That’s when I knew I had to find a way to get out.”
Photo of Tefere Gebre at age 3. Gebre as a child in Ethiopia: “Refugees leave with nothing,” he says. “But I somehow I found one photo from when I was three years old.” Tefere Gebre first joined a union while working a night job loading UPS trucks in college. In 2013 he became the first refugee elected as a national officer of the AFL-CIO. (Photo: Courtesy AFL-CIO Photo: Courtesy Tefere Gebre)
In 1982, Gebre and four friends managed to escape to a refugee camp in neighboring Sudan, walking through the desert for 93 days. There they applied to enter the U.S. through the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNCHR), taking several written and oral exams in the vetting process.
“When the UNCHR announces who has been accepted to resettle to the U.S., they post the names outside their office,” says Gebre, recalling the jostling crowd pressing against him as he searched the list. “That was like another birth for me, when I saw my name there.” His four friends did not make the cut.
But Gebre didn’t have any family members in America, and he needed a sponsor to support his relocation. His mother remained in Ethiopia. His brother, who had lived in the U.S., had died in a car accident.
That’s when the International Rescue Committee stepped in to help. Currently operating in 27 U.S. cities, the IRC supports newly arrived refugees by providing immediate aid, including food, housing and medical attention.
“I was received in New York by an IRC staff member,” Gebre says. “Then they put me on a plane to Los Angeles and an Ethiopian man who worked at the IRC met me at the airport.”
IRC staff members helped Gebre and three other Ethiopian refugees apply for driver’s licenses, fill out I-9 forms for employment, and complete tuberculosis tests. They helped them move into an apartment (which the IRC sponsors until new arrivals find work), and took them to apply for public benefits. Later, the IRC acted as Gebre’s guardian so he could enroll in L.A.’s Belmont High School.
“There was no way anybody of my status could survive all of that without the IRC being there,” Gebre says.
The IRC continued to act as a lifeline for Gebre in coming years, helping him reconnect with his family in Ethiopia. “I sponsored my mom to come to the U.S.,” he says, “and I did that through the IRC.”
Gebre went on to attend California State Polytechnic University on a scholarship. During his sophomore year, he took a night job loading UPS trucks so he could send money to friends still in Sudan. There he joined his first union—the Teamsters —another turning point in his life.
“The fact that someone was looking after me, that there were real work rules—that I knew what my responsibilities were and what my company’s responsibilities were—I thought everybody should have that,” Gebre says. “Ever since, I have really committed myself to advancing that cause.”
While attending graduate school at the University of Southern California, Gebre became a legislative aide for Willie Brown Jr., speaker of the California State Assembly. He then embraced an even bigger challenge—to become the executive director of the Orange County Labor Federation.
“I did that because Orange County is the most conservative part of the state,” he says. “As a skinny Ethiopian refugee, I wanted to prove myself by organizing Orange County. And I did.”
New York (TADIAS) — What do Mulatu Astatke, The Weeknd, Miruts Yifter and the Pankhurst family have in common? They are all recipients of the Bikila Award.
Named after the legendary Olympian marathoner Abebe Bikila the annual award ceremony organized by members of the Ethiopian Diaspora in Toronto, Canada showcases inspiring achievements of the Ethiopian community from the arts to academia and sports.
The 2018 Bikila Award celebration and dinner will be held on Saturday, September 22nd at Chestnut Residence and Conference Center in Toronto.
Celebrating its fifth year the Bikila Award ceremony “has become one of the most anticipated events in the African-Canadian community calendar,” organizers said in a press release. The event “draws hundreds of attendees from within and outside of the Ethiopian-Canadian community.”
This year the winner of the Bikila Lifetime Achievement Award is philologist and world-renowned scholar of the Ge’ez language Professor Getatchew Haile. In addition, the Bikila Award will honor Dr. Catherine Hamlin, Founder of the Addis Ababa Hamlin Fistula hospital with the Medical & Humanitarian Services Award, as well as Dr. Siegbert Uhlig a distinguished Professor Emeritus of African and Ethiopian Studies at Hamburg University in Germany who will receive the Professional Excellence Award. Professor Uhlig founded the Journal of Aethiopica, and as Editor-in-Chief launched five volumes of Encyclopaedia Aethiopica focusing on Ethiopian studies and involving contributions from hundreds of scholars hailing from approximately 30 countries.
Other 2018 honorees include Bethlehem Tilahun, Founder of soleRebels (Business Excellence Award); Professor Tessema Astatke (Professional Excellence Award) in recognition of his primary research areas that designed linear and nonlinear regression and nonlinear time series modeling; and Benyam Belete (Community Service Excellence Award) as founder of Mekedonia, a philanthropic organization in Addis Ababa that provides services for elderly and mentally disabled individuals.
The Academic Excellence & Scholarship Award goes to students Ednah Negatu, Semir Bulle, Zatty Tameru and Caleb Jara.
Professor Mammo Muchie, a renowned Pan Africanist, currently a Professor of Innovation Studies at the Institute of Economics Research on Innovation at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa is the keynote speaker. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Adama Science and Technology University, Addis Ababa University, University of Gondar and Arsi University in Ethiopia.
The 2018 honorary guest speaker will be journalist, novelist and playwright Jeff Pearce who is the author of Prevail – a book about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Pearce connected with survivors of the Italo-Ethiopian War in the 1930s and 40s and discovered additional records of Britain’s role from the London archives. Prevail is now being adapted into a documentary feature film.
— If You Go:
The 2018 Bikila Award Celebration and Dinner
Saturday, September 22, 2018 at 6:00 PM
Chestnut Residence and Conference Center,
89 Chestnut Street,
Toronto, Canada www.bikilaaward.org
Related: Photos from past Bikila Award Ceremonies:
Previous winners of the Bikila award include Mulatu Astatke, Ethiopian-Canadian pop music superstar Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd), Miruts Yifter, one of the greatest middle distance runners of all-time who died in 2016 at the age of 72, as well as Dr. Taffara Deguefe and the Pankhurst Family who were honored two years ago with the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award. (Courtesy photographs)
New York (TADIAS) — Just like the underground pamphleteers and newspaper editors during the American revolution, independent journalists and social media activists — some of whom were imprisoned or exiled for many years — played a fundamental role in the longstanding movement for change in Ethiopia that recently culminated with the historic inauguration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on April 2nd, 2018.
In one of his first and most memorable acts as the new leader of Ethiopia Dr. Abiy moved swiftly to free jailed reports, bloggers, opposition members and invited those who were exiled to return home. He also unblocked websites run by opposition groups and granted pardons to owners who were charged under the country’s draconian anti-terror legislation that in the past was primarily used to stifle dissent.
Independent Journalism Driven Out
“Critical media was being decimated one way or another, and journalists were leaving the country,” says Tsedale Lemma, the Editor-in-Chief of Addis Standard. “We became at some point, the second-largest country producing journalist asylum seekers.”
Tsedale’s reflection was part of a recent and timely article titled “How Social Media Shaped Calls for Political Change in Ethiopia,” focusing on the new era and “the hopes for ethnic unity, democracy, freedom of speech and media reform,” which was published by Al Jazeera this month. The piece points out that Ethiopia’s “newfound hope was no coincidence; it was the culmination of hard-fought political activism that had forced change upon the authoritarian nation.”
“You cannot imagine this change without social media,” Al Jazeera quotes Jawar Mohammed, the founder of Oromo Media Network (OMN). Jawar is one of several activists who answered PM Abiy’s call and returned to Ethiopia this summer after 13 years in exile in the United States. In another interview with The Guardian Jawar added: “We used social media and formal media so effectively that the state was completely overwhelmed. The only option they had was to face reform or accept full revolution.”
Disinformation on Social Media
Unfortunately, despite Dr. Abiy’s groundbreaking leadership and the good will from the general public, some detractors are misusing social media to spread disinformation, propaganda and hate speech to divide people, sow distrust and incite ethnic-based animosity. Abiy himself admitted in a recent televised comment that rumors and disinformation were largely to blame for the recent ethnically motivated mob violence in several cities particularly in South Eastern Ethiopia leading to a partial Internet shutdown.
According to Reuters: “A surge in ethnic violence, sometimes in the form of mob attacks, has displaced nearly 1 million people in the past four months in southern Ethiopia and is inflaming bad feeling between ethnic groups in other regions. The violence threatens to undermine Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s calls for unity in one of Africa’s most ethnically diverse countries. It also overshadows the popular liberal measures he has announced since coming to power in April.”
This past weekend in his first press conference since taking office Dr. Abiy addressed this issue and emphasized his vision to hold a “free and fair election” in 2020. Elias Meseret at Associated Press quotes PM Abiy Ahmed as stating: “My dream is that doubts about the ballot box will disappear,” and promising a peaceful transfer of power if he loses. He continued: “there are groups that are working in unison to cause chaos in different parts of the country. They are triggering peoples’ emotions to this end.”
PM Abiy Ahmed likewise discussed concerns about the practice of shutting down Internet in Ethiopia following unrests, which was routinely implemented by the previous EPRDF leadership. Per the Associated Press: “Abiy appealed for understanding and said it might have saved lives. “But curbing access to information and cutting the internet is not the way forward,” he added, and urged youth to use it responsibly.”
Moving Forward
It is also worth considering that, from our perspective as journalists, in the long-term the most democratic way to sustain the rule of law and counter the dissemination of unverified news via social media is to strengthen, expand, empower and protect independent, professional and private media infrastructure, which has been severely suppressed. Private media groups should be free of government interference as well as be more representative of the population and not just opposition media.
Last week the 13-member justice reform advisory council, which is tasked to revise the country’s most repressive anti-civil society proclamations, held a public meeting in Addis Ababa engaging stake holders including activists and journalists, some of whom had been victims of these laws, according to Human Rights Watch. “The working groups will conduct consultations and propose amendments – reportedly within 3 months, in time for parliament’s return from recess.”
In the Al Jazeera feature journalist Eskinder Nega who was released a few months ago after six years in prison echoes Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s founding fathers and the main author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson, who went on to serve as the third president of the United States is remembered for eloquently expressing that he’d rather have newspapers without a country than a country without newspapers.
“If Abiy Ahmed does not deliver the promise of democracy, then we’ll be back to social media,” Eskinder says. “I’m prepared to go back to prison again. So, whether there’s democracy or no democracy, it’s back to work. There’s no choice.”
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopia has ousted state-run Metals and Engineering Corporation (METEC) from a $4 billion dam project on the River Nile due to numerous delays in completing the project.
The Grand Renaissance Dam is the centerpiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said at the weekend that the government had cancelled the contract of METEC, which is run by Ethiopia’s military, and would award it to another company.
Italian firm Salini Impregilo remains the main contractor building the dam, while METEC was the contractor for the electromechanical and hydraulic steel structure divisions of the project.
The government has touted the 6,000-megawatt dam project, which is 60 percent finished, as a symbol of its economic reforms.
“It is a project that was supposed to be completed within five years, but seven or eight years later not a single turbine is operational,” Abiy said during a news conference in Addis Ababa on Saturday.
“Salini has even demanded compensation because of the delays. We decided to cancel a contract with METEC and offer companies with experience. Otherwise, it will take even longer,” he said.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed addresses his country’s diaspora, the largest outside Ethiopia, calling on them to return, invest and support their native land. He spoke in Washington, July 28, 2018.
Abiy has presided over a series of reforms since coming to power in April, releasing political prisoners, relaxing state control of the economy and dramatically improving relations with Ethiopia’s neighbor Eritrea.
The government had previously said the dam would be completed within two years, but recently Abiy said it may face a lengthy delay.
An official at METEC, who did not wish to be named, said the company first heard of the cancellation on Saturday.
“Even now our workers are on the site,” the official said
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s prime minister in his first press conference since taking power vowed Saturday to continue with dramatic reforms “at any cost” and said the longtime ruling coalition soon will prepare for a “free and fair election” in 2020.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also said the World Bank “soon” plans to provide $1 billion in direct budgetary assistance, a sign of confidence after years of unrest in Africa’s second most populous nation. Such assistance stopped after the disputed 2005 elections.
“My dream is that doubts about the ballot box will disappear,” Abiy said, saying the vote won’t be delayed and promising a peaceful transfer of power if he loses.
The 42-year-old Abiy took office in April and shocked the country with a wave of reforms including restoring diplomatic ties with neighboring Eritrea after two decades, pledging to open up state-owned companies to outside investment and releasing thousands of prisoners.
The reforms have been praised by the international community and attracted investors interested in one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.
Recent ethnic unrest in various parts of Ethiopia, however, has dampened the initial jubilation and posed a major challenge to the new leader.
“There are groups that are working in unison to cause chaos in different parts of the country,” Abiy told reporters. “They are triggering peoples’ emotions to this end.”
Some 2.8 million people have been displaced by the unrest, according to the United Nations. “But this didn’t happen due to the reforms,” the prime minister said.
He said the unrest in the eastern Somali region has calmed but measures will be taken against former officials, including the region’s former President Abdi Mohammed Omar, who is suspected of orchestrating the chaos earlier this month that led to the destruction of government offices, looting of businesses and burning of churches.
Asked about internet cuts in the region following the unrest, an unpopular tactic widely used by the previous government, Abiy appealed for understanding and said it might have saved lives.
“But curbing access to information and cutting the internet is not the way forward,” he added, and urged youth to use it responsibly.
The prime minister also in recent months has welcomed a number of once-exiled opposition figures and groups back to Ethiopia and invited them to join in the political conversation.
But on Saturday he drew the line at former military dictator Col. Mengistu Hailemariam, who overthrew the last Ethiopian emperor, Haileselassie, in 1974 and eventually was sentenced to life for spearheading a “Red Terror” that killed tens of thousands of people. He fled the country in 1991 as rebels, who now make up the ruling coalition, approached the capital.
Some Ethiopians have called on Abiy to offer Mengistu amnesty after a rare photo of him in exile in Zimbabwe went viral early this month.
“Ethiopia’s constitution clearly stipulates the ‘Red Terror’ crimes cannot be covered under an amnesty law,” Abiy said. “So Col. Mengistu will not … return home. But if the law in the future allows, that may change.”
University of Arizona freshman Josh Brewer was told by many of his high school teachers that college might not be an option for him.
After all, he’d never set foot in a classroom until sixth grade, and academics didn’t come easily to him.
Then again, nothing about Brewer’s life had been easy.
From his days begging for food in his native Ethiopia to the horrific accident that nearly claimed his life, Brewer endured more than his fair share of trauma by the time he was a high school senior, yet his perseverance and drive only continued to grow.
So, when his teachers told him college might not be right for him, he didn’t let it discourage him. He applied to the University of Arizona, where he dreamed of playing basketball.
Brewer starts as a freshman and student-athlete at the UA this fall. A triple amputee, he will play on the UA’s Men’s Wheelchair Basketball team.
Josh Brewer in the UA Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Team’s equipment room at the Student Recreation Center. (Photo: Bob Demers/UANews)
CHELELEKTU, Ethiopia – Shiburu Kutuyu, a 45-year-old Ethiopian maize and coffee farmer, was jolted awake by gunshots one night in June. He told his wife and seven children to flee.
They returned to find their mud-walled home had been burned down, but no sign of Shiburu. Eleven days later, fellow farmers found his body hanging from a tree, his severed limbs strewn on the ground…
A surge in ethnic violence, sometimes in the form of mob attacks, has displaced nearly 1 million people in the past four months in southern Ethiopia and is inflaming bad feeling between ethnic groups in other regions.
The violence threatens to undermine Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s calls for unity in one of Africa’s most ethnically diverse countries. It also overshadows the popular liberal measures he has announced since coming to power in April.
On Thursday, Sorri Dinka, spokesman for the Oromiya Police Commission, said authorities are taking action against individuals suspected of ethnically motivated crimes.
He mentioned the so-called “qeerroo”, a term used to describe young Oromo men involved in the protest movement over the past three years that culminated in former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s resignation.
Some people who fled their homes still feel federal government and local authorities are failing to halt violence against them.
New York (TADIAS) — The first waste-to-energy plant in Africa, headed by Ethiopian Co-Founder & Managing Director of Cambridge Industries, Samuel Alemayehu, was inaugurated in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this past weekend on Sunday, August 19th. Samuel, a Stanford educated engineer, venture capitalist and a 2018 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader told CNN that “having created a facility uniquely for Africa, our goal is to duplicate it in five locations” including in Lagos, Nigeria, Kampala, Uganda, and Nairobi, Kenya to “create a renewable energy source that competes with fossil-fuel based power plants.”
Africa’s first waste-to-energy facility, Reppie, was inaugurated on Sunday, August 19th, 2018 in Addis Ababa Ethiopia (Photo Courtesy:Weforum.org/Alex Stewart)
Hailing the Reppie facility as a first on the continent, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) described Addis Ababa’s sprawling landfill also known as the Koshe dump site as an “urban landscape” that is “the size of 36 football pitches and attracting hundreds of waste pickers who make their living from salvaged trash.” In 2017 UNEP reported that a “landslide on the dump site killed 114 people, prompting the government to declare three days of mourning.”
Now Samuel Alemayehu’s company has envisioned and boldly launched a new, environmentally friendly, and energy efficient way to address both the issue of waste management as well as increased generation of electricity through the Reppie project.
Samuel shares his vision for the Reppie waste-to-energy facility in this brief video below:
Producing more electricity for the national grid in Ethiopia has been a long-standing need as cities across the country continue to face frequent power blackouts. Last year in March Cambridge Industries released a YouTube video describing the capabilities of the Reppie waste-to-energy facility being built in Addis Ababa noting that “through a combustion process that converts 1,400 tons of Addis Ababa’s waste each day” approximately “185 gigawatt (GW) hours of electricity” can be produced each year to meet “30% of the city’s annual demand for household electricity.” The Reppie facility would also help to sort metals for recycling in addition to the production of clean electricity by “utilizing two 25 megawatt (MW) steam turbines.”
According to the UNEP the Reppie waste-to-energy project was developed and launched as a partnership between the Ethiopian Government, Cambridge Industries and a group of additional companies including China National Electric Engineering, and the Danish firm Ramboll.
In a World Economic Forum news article from May 2018 entitled “This African Country is Turning a Mountain of Trash into Energy” writer Alex Gray notes that “Africa is the world’s fastest-urbanizing continent,” which brings with it growing concerns regarding environmental pollution. Samuel Alemayehu told Gray “African cities have seen explosive growth in the past three decades and have outgrown the infrastructures planned for them,” adding that Cambridge Industries seeks to “turn one of Africa’s most challenging social problems, the management of waste, into a source of new wealth.”
A U.S. delegation is heading to Ethiopia on Wednesday to talk about the country’s reform efforts since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in April.
Republican Congressman Christopher Smith, who led the congressional delegation, said he “is cautiously optimistic” about the political reforms in the country.
In an interview with VOA’s Horn of Africa, Smith says he will meet Prime Minister Abiy and Foreign Minister Affairs Minister Workineh Gebeyehu and push for continued reforms, as well as reinforcing human rights issues.
“We are going to meet with him [prime minister] and encourage him and try to get our own sense of how well the reform process is moving,” Smith said.
The congressman is the architect of H.R. 128, legislation condemning human rights abuses in Ethiopia and outlining a number of reforms that Ethiopia must take to promote peace and democracy. The resolution was passed in the House of Representatives earlier this year.
A wake of reforms
Since Abiy took office in April, Ethiopia has instituted reforms including releasing political prisoners, diluting state control of the economy, and making peace with northern neighbor Eritrea after two decades of hostility.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed speaks in Washington, July 28, 2018.
A 41-year-old former intelligence officer, Abiy came to power after his predecessor resigned earlier this year amid protests of abuses by security forces and public anger over perceived ethnic marginalization of many groups in the racially diverse country.
Smith said the delegation plans to press for “the release of all political prisoners, freedom of the press, the history of forced disappearances, accountability for past abuses committed against civilians, and an end to torture and all human rights abuses.”
These reforms, the congressman said, will only strengthen the country, “and we stand in solidarity with the Ethiopian people in pushing to promote these rights.”
Besides top officials, the U.S. delegation will also meet with religious and civic leaders, and journalists. Their talks are to focus on human rights and democracy in Ethiopia.
Smith confirmed to VOA’s Horn of Africa service that the government of Ethiopia has begun amending the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation with input from opposition parties.
Critics of the law argue it has criminalized dissent, saying the 2009 law’s broad definitions have been used indiscriminately against anyone who opposes government policy. Among its provisions, anyone convicted of publishing information deemed to encourage terrorism could receive a jail term of up to 20 years.
Border issues
The delegation also will discuss border issues between Somali and Oromia states, where thousands are displaced and hundreds have been killed.
The violence is said to be the biggest domestic challenge facing the country’s reformist prime minister. When he took office, Abiy ended a military stalemate with neighboring Eritrea and extended an olive branch to dissidents overseas. However, violence at the border continues.
When you look at Aida Muluneh’s work, it’s clear where her passion lies: Ethiopia. The photographer has been telling the story of Ethiopia long before it started trending this year. The country has undergone tremendous change in 2018, most of which stems from the election of its new 41-year-old Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, one of the most progressive leaders in the country’s history.
Muluneh was born in Ethiopia, a child of the diaspora. As a youth, she lived in Yemen, England and Cyprus, before finally settling in Canada. Her education brought her to the United States, where she graduated from Howard University, in Washington DC. Later, she became a photojournalist with the Washington Post, before finally moving to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, in 2000.
“My work often starts with a sketch, and I approach each image as a film production in which the character, set design, lighting and styling come together,” she said in an email interview. “I utilize face painting as a form in which the inspiration is driven by body ornamentation, not only in my country, but also various parts of the world. I am deeply influenced by various traditional cultures, hence in a sense, I am bringing the past into the future through various forms.”
Jawar Mohammed never travels alone. When the US-based Ethiopian activist returned to his home country on 5 August, he was treated like royalty. A posse of sharply suited young men hovered by him at all times. Jeeps carrying security guards patrolled his hotel in central Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. Supporters from the provinces arrived in droves to pay their respects. Over the course of a two-week visit he held about 25 to 30 meetings a day, according to an exhausted aide.
After meeting with the Guardian in his hotel suite he rushed off to give a lecture at the capital’s main university, entourage in tow.
Nothing demonstrated the breathtaking transformation in Ethiopian politics over the past four months quite like the red-carpeted return of a figure who was once the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front’s (EPRDF) most wanted man.
From a studio in Minneapolis, where he founded the controversial Oromia Media Network, Jawar has spent the past decade agitating over social media for political change back home in Ethiopia, which he left as a scholarship student in 2003. This was his first time in Ethiopia since 2008.
So effective was he as an activist that by late 2016, as anti-government protests billowed across the country compelling the EPRDF to impose a state of emergency, the Oromia Media Network was banned and Mohammed declared a terrorist.
By early 2018 the revolutionary fervour had grown so loud that Hailemariam Desalegn was forced to resign as prime minister, paving the way for his enormously popular successor Abiy Ahmed, a young reformist from Oromia, Jawar’s home and the country’s largest and most populous region.
The Oromia Media Network, along with some smaller outlets and activists, has used social media to devastating effect over the past few years, coordinating boycotts and demonstrations and bringing Ethiopia’s large and often brutal security apparatus close to its knees.
“We used social media and formal media so effectively that the state was completely overwhelmed,” Jawar says. “The only option they had was to face reform or accept full revolution.”…
Few doubt the importance of Jawar in recent Ethiopian history. Perhaps more than any other single individual, he took the once-marginal politics of Oromo nationalism and made it mainstream. Today, Oromos – the country’s largest ethnic group – dominate the highest offices of state, and Jawar enjoys significant personal influence over the country’s new leaders, including Abiy himself.
In a recent interview with local media he claimed – to the dismay of many Ethiopians – that the country now effectively has two governments: one led by Abiy, the other by the Qeerroo. This puts him in a position of extraordinary responsibility, since he is “one of the Qeerroo” and “a significant portion of the country listens to me”, he admits.
New York (TADIAS) — It is with profound sadness that we share the news of Professor Awetu Simesso’s passing on Saturday, August 18th in Addis Ababa. The funeral and tribute celebrating his life took place on Sunday, August 19th at Mekana Yesus in Bishoftu with former president Dr. Negasso Gidada giving the eulogy.
A beloved educator Awetu returned from the United States after 32 years of residence to Ethiopia and contributed his talents in various sectors including working as a Professor at Addis Ababa University at the College of Law and Governance on an ongoing basis since 2010 and Professor of Global Studies & International Relations at New Generation University College (2005-2007). Awetu also served as Strategic Advisor at Development Assistance Group (DAG) advising Western donor governments (2014-2018) and as a Senior Advisor at USAID/Ethiopia focusing on democratic governance, peace and security issues (2006-2013). In 2009 Awetu received Meritorious Honor Awards from United States Agency of International Development (USAID) as well as the United States Department of State for outstanding service in the field of Democratic Governance. As a civic society leader Awetu traveled extensively throughout Ethiopia networking and assisting civic organizations across the nation.
Awetu was not only a beloved scholar, civic society leader, and talented actor but a lifelong friend whose mentorship and support was unparalleled. We first met Awetu while he was part of the Stanford University community where he had pursued a Master’s degree in Communication & Media Studies and a second Master’s in Political Science & Government on his way to a PhD in the same department. While performing in plays and theaters as an actor from 1973 to 2004 Awetu was actively involved in the Ethiopian Diaspora community on campus and beyond and held various leadership positions including President of the East African Relief Organization (EARO), Board Member of Emergency Relief Fund International and United Christian Ministries, member of the Stanford International Development Organization (SIDO) and the Overseas Development Network (ODN), Vice President of the Stanford African Students Association (SASA) as well as founding member and advisor of the Stanford Ethiopian Students Union (SESU).
Awetu Simesso’s contributions were far-reaching and exemplary in the manner that he consistently engaged his peers and colleagues with kindness and generosity. It is difficult to summarize all of Awetu’s accomplishments but the best way is to share reflections and photos from his friends, students and colleagues in the U.S. and Ethiopia. Please write to us at info@tadias.com to share your stories of Awetu Simesso and we’ll keep this page updated.
From Ethiopian American Council
“It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Awetu Simesso. Ethiopia has lost a powerful force for human rights, democracy and freedom. Ethiopian Americans in Bay Area fortunate to have many wonderful memories of Awetu. The passing of Awetu Simesso will be an enormous loss to Ethiopia and Ethiopians he cared so much about. RIP our brother.
From Daniel Gizaw
“I am absolutely stunned to read this sad story. Professor Aweitu was a close friend to me and served as my advisor and my critique during the writing of my books. He was inseparable from the Stanford university campus at the time. His profound intelligence was unmatchable. In the early 1980s, when we started a group called HAAn (Horn of Africa Action Network) consisting American Peace corps volunteers who served in Ethiopia, Aweitu became our lead man. He was a gifted orator and, with that bellowing voice he commanded respect. In the Bay area, we called him the Ethiopian guru. He was wise and patient. I will miss him immensely. May his soul rest in peace.”
From Hundee Dhugaasaa
I am deeply saddened by the death of Professor Awetu Simesso. I know Prof Awetu when he decided to visit Jimma University Students Union with Addis based Diplomats to discuss several issues at a very challenging time, after the troubles of the 2005 election. He was such a brilliant, humble and far sighted person. We lost him at a time we need him the most. RIP Obbo Awetu.
From Filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman
I am writing to share how Awetu Simesso enabled me to take on an almost impossible task. In all of my filmmaking efforts (which began in 1976) I had had connections to help me…friends, filmmakers, foundations and national organizations. With this support, during the decade from 1993 – 2003 I grew significantly as a filmmaker. Activities included five films on PBS stations, an Oscar-nomination and an Emmy.
At that point, I decided to take a bold step forward. I gathered all that I had learned and took up an opportunity: to document the ways in which Ethiopians in Ethiopia were meeting the challenges of HIV/AIDS. It was then that Awetu appeared.
My vision was to speak with professionals, and lay practitioners, as well as people in villages in Ethiopia, doing whatever they could to help each other. I wanted to focus on Ethiopians who were managing their own organizations on the ground, working with a range of their peers.
In order to get started, I put out a call to anyone anywhere in the SF Bay Area who could help me build a core community of Ethiopians who would volunteer to help me organize this project. The one person who responded was Aweto Simesso. He understood what I was daring to do.
Based on his intuition that this was a project worth his time and effort, he called together a dozen Ethiopians. We met in my living room and the project took root. That night gave birth to a cadre of almost 200 people, most of whom were volunteers, who worked with me. Many from the United States, many living in Ethiopia. Working together, they translated Amharic to English, English to Amhari, viewed footage giving input and feedback, logged more than 100 video tapes and much more.
The result? A five film series SEEDS of HOPE: Meeting the Challenges of HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia.
From Fesseha A Atlaw
My friend, you are sorely missed already! You only saw the glimpse of your vision of Ethiopia… But God allowed you to see the promised land from the mountain top.
“…I am a proud Oromo and I am a proud Ethiopian, I don’t see any contradiction between the two…” — Professor Awetu Simesso
American designer Amsale Aberra will be honored posthumously for her contributions to the world of couture by the Harlem School of the Arts at the Herb Alpert Center for the Arts. She will receive the Visionary Lineage Award and is among several high profiled members of the artistic community, whose contributions will be acknowledged during the organization’s 2018 Masquerade Ball and After Party, to be held at the New York Plaza Hotel on October 22nd.
On April 20th of this year, Amsale Aberra lost her battle with cancer at the age of 64, leaving behind her husband Clarence O’Neill Brown, who will be on hand to accept the award on his wife’s behalf; and her daughter, singer-songwriter Rachel Brown, who is herself receiving a Visionary Lineage Award from the organization.
Before illness claimed her life, Amsale had turned a passion born out of necessity into a thriving business; first making a name for herself in the fashion world, with her minimalist, yet elegant wedding gown collection which she sold to Kleinfeld, and later creating the Amsale Group based in New York City with a salon on Madison Avenue.
A graduate of Boston State College, with a degree in political science, Amsale brought her love of design to New York and enrolled at the prestigious Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), earning a degree in fashion design. Her genius lay in an ability to turn understated designs into works of art. She was the true definition of “fashion-forward.” Today, her business has expanded to include her signature bridal collection, a bridesmaid line, cocktail dresses, as well as a line of designer gowns, which have been featured on the red carpet, worn by some of the most glamorous celebrities, among them – Heidi Klum and Salma Hayek. Her designs have also been featured in the pages of the top beauty and fashion publications, in films and television shows.
Her legacy continues under the guidance of her husband Clarence O’Neill Brown, CEO of the company, and her hand-picked successor, Margot Lafontaine, Vera Wang’s former senior studio director. Amsale Aberra was highly regarded by her peers in the fashion industry for her inspiring, straightforward approach to design, and as her husband said, by all who knew her, “…for her infinite goodness.”
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian American Actor and Playwright Antu Yacob is featured in a new film Night Comes On that was released in select theaters across the U.S. earlier this month on August 3rd and is now available on iTunes. Based on a true story written by Angelica Nwandu and Jordana Spiro, Night Comes On starring Dominique Fishback and Tatum Marilyn Hall recounts events following the release of 18-year-old Angel LaMere from a juvenile detention center. In its review of the film the Los Angeles Times states “the passionate feature film debut” is “not business as usual” as it weaves together “two different strands: a revenge melodrama about a determined daughter seeking retribution for her mother’s murder, and the emotional story of two sisters desperate for family closeness and connection but not sure they can trust it.”
New York Magazine’s culture and entertainment site, Vulture.com, compares Night Comes On to Moonlight (2016 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture) and notes: “Like Moonlight, Night Comes On takes much of its soulfulness from la mer and people’s capacity for rebirth in its waters. This is a lovely, inspiring film.” Night Comes On was the winner of the Next Innovator Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Antu Yacob. (Courtesy photo)
Antu, who holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Acting from Rutgers University in New Jersey, grew up in San Francisco and Minnesota. Her acting career includes roles in NBC’s Law & Order: SVU and the recently released Netflix series Gypsy. She played lead roles in the films Eminent Domain (DeepFreeze Media) and Walking In Circles (NYU Film/Elegance Bratton) as well as supporting roles in Conjure (TerraLuke Media) and Fine Art (Shannon Ousley/Zoe Munlyn). Her play entitled Mourning Sun, set in Ethiopia and New York, was performed at the West End Theatre in Manhattan in 2015 and at the 2016 Kampala International Theatre Festival in Uganda last Winter. In June 2018 Antu also recorded a radio play with the BBC based on the novel entitled Shadowbahn.
New York (TADIAS) — The season finale of Marcus Samuelsson’s PBS show, No Passport Required, aired on Tuesday, August 14th featuring Ethiopian food and culture in Washington D.C. The full episode highlighted the inspiring stories of Ethiopian entrepreneurs as well as how to make traditional dishes such as kitfo and ful, and eskista dancing.
Zenebech, who started her injera business as a newly arrived refugee in the United States, invited Marcus into her kitchen and they make the hearty lamb dish of tibs as she recounted the early days of her entrepreneurial journey and then later launching an Ethiopian restaurant in 2010.
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), one of the largest television program distributors in the United States, premiered Marcus Samuelsson’s new show No Passport Required on July 10th, 2018. As host of No Passport Required Restaurateur, Chef and Author Marcus Samuelsson highlighted food, art and culture in immigrant communities across America — from Little Kabul in Fremont, California to the Vietnamese shrimpers in Louisiana, and the Indo-Guyanese community in Queens, New York.
“Chasing flavors has been my lifelong passion,” shared Samuelsson in recent press release. “To now be able to bring viewers on that journey with me to these amazing communities in cities across the U.S. is truly a dream come true. We get to go deep into the markets, pull up to the roadside stands, and be welcomed into homes — all the places where people share and celebrate food together.”
No Passport Required is produced by Vox Media in collaboration with PBS.
Watch a preview of the Ethiopian community episode of No Passport Required below:
To watch the full season finale episode featuring the Ethiopian community in Washington D.C. click here.
Relive 7 iconic Aretha Franklin performances, from Obama’s inauguration to ‘Blues Brothers’
For six decades, the world had countless opportunities to be stunned by the talent and range of the undisputed Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, who died Thursday at age 76 of pancreatic cancer.
Her long recording career was punctuated by iconic performances that could stir a nation, get an ordinary concertgoer out of their seat and dancing and reduce a sitting president to tears.
Here is a look back at just a few of those moments.
The first Obama inauguration (2009)
The Queen had sung already during the inaugurations of two previous presidents (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton), but she brought extra power and symbolism to the 2009 inauguration of America’s first black president, Barack Obama.
Franklin also sang on numerous occasions in the Obama White House.
Bringing President Obama to tears (2015)
When the annual Kennedy Center Honors selected singer-songwriter Carole King for recognition, it was Franklin who stole the show.
King’s jaw dropped as Franklin, in a floor-length fur coat, sat before a piano and belted out the 1967 hit “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” written by King and songwriting partner Gerry Goffin.
President Obama also sat in the audience, awestruck and wiping away tears. As she neared the end of the song, Franklin stood up, dropped her coat to the ground and belted out the final notes. The roaring audience leapt to its feet.
Franklin told the New Yorker it was “one of the three or four greatest nights of my life.”
NEW YORK — Newspapers from Maine to Hawaii pushed back against President Donald Trump’s attacks on “fake news” Thursday with a coordinated series of editorials speaking up for a free and vigorous press — and, not surprisingly, Trump didn’t take it silently.
The Boston Globe, which set the campaign in motion by urging the unified voice, had estimated that some 350 newspapers would participate.
They did across the breadth of the country. The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald said a free and independent press is the best defense against tyranny, while the Honolulu Star-Advertiser emphasized democracy’s need for a free press.
“The true enemies of the people — and democracy — are those who try to suffocate truth by vilifying and demonizing the messenger,” wrote the Des Moines Register in Iowa.
In St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch called journalists “the truest of patriots.” The Chicago Sun-Times said it believed most Americans know that Trump is talking nonsense.
The Fayetteville Observer said it hoped Trump would stop, “but we’re not holding our breath.”
“Rather, we hope all the president’s supporters will recognize what he’s doing — manipulating reality to get what he wants,” the North Carolina newspaper said.
On Thursday morning, Trump took to Twitter to denounce the effort, saying the Globe was in collusion with other newspapers.
He wrote: “THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country….BUT WE ARE WINNING!”
The Morning News of Savannah, Georgia, said it was a confidant, not an enemy, to the people.
“Like any true friend, we don’t always tell you what you want to hear,” the Morning News said. “Our news team presents the happenings and issues in this community through the lens of objectivity. And like any true friend, we refuse to mislead you. Our reporters and editors strive for fairness.”
Some newspapers used history lessons to state their case. The Elizabethtown Advocate in Pennsylvania, for instance, compared free press in the United States to such rights promised but not delivered in the former Soviet Union.
The New York Times added a pitch.
“If you haven’t already, please subscribe to your local papers,” said the Times, whose opinion section also summarized other editorials across the country. “Praise them when you think they’ve done a good job and criticize them when you think they could do better. We’re all in this together.”
That last sentiment made some journalists skittish. Some newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote editorials explaining why they weren’t joining the Globe’s effort. The Chronicle wrote that one of its most important values is independence, and going along with the crowd went against that. Both the Chronicle and Baltimore Sun said that it plays into the hands of Trump and his supporters who think the media is out to get him.
Nolan Finley, columnist and editorial page editor of The Detroit News, spoke up for the press but added a scolding. He said too many journalists are slipping opinion into their news reports, adding commentary and calling it context.
“Donald Trump is not responsible for the eroding trust in the media,” Finley wrote. “He lacks the credibility to pull that off. The damage to our standing is self-inflicted.”
The Radio Television Digital News Association, which represents more than 1,200 broadcasters and web sites, is also asking its members to point out that journalists are friends and neighbors doing important work holding government accountable.
“I want to make sure that it is positive,” said Dan Shelley, the group’s executive director. “We’re shooting ourselves in the foot if we make this about attacking the president or attacking his supporters.”
It remains unclear how much sway the effort will have. Newspaper editorial boards overwhelmingly opposed Trump’s election in 2016. Polls show Republicans have grown more negative toward the news media in recent years: Pew Research Center said 85 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said in June 2017 that the news media has a negative effect on the country, up from 68 percent in 2010.
Olympian in Self-Imposed Exile Will Return to Ethiopia
After winning the silver medal in the men’s marathon at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Feyisa Lilesa spent two years in self-imposed exile in the United States. Now, he’s returning home.
Feyisa will return to Ethiopia in the coming weeks with his wife and children after two athletics groups notified him that he would receive a hero’s welcome upon arriving.
Ashebir Woldegiorgis, the president of the Ethiopian Olympic Committee, told VOA Amharic that the call for Feyisa to return is meant to better the country.
“He can teach his exemplary ways to other athletes and teach strength to our youngsters. That’s the main call, so he can come back to participate in the sport he loves and pass it on by running and by advising to elevate Ethiopia’s sport,” Ashebir said.
Show of protest
Feyisa made international headlines when he raised his crossed wrists above his head at the finish line, and again on the podium, at the 2016 summer games.
Ethiopia has released thousands of prisoners as a new prime minister reverses decades of security abuses. No-one knows how many were tortured.
But some of those torture victims are now talking openly – to the media, to their relatives and to their friends – about what happened to them after they were jailed, in many cases for protesting against the government.
Their stories raise a hard question for the government: how will it address the injustices committed by security forces behind prison walls?
Since coming to power in April, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, 41, has made peace with Eritrea, ended a state of emergency, freed political prisoners and announced plans to sell shares in state-owned firms to promote growth and create jobs.
Abiy acknowledges that many prisoners suffered abuses, which he has denounced as acts of “state terrorism”.
He has not, however, announced plans to investigate abuses committed by the security forces or set up a process for victims to seek redress. But he has preached forgiveness.
“I call on us all to forgive each other from our hearts. To close the chapters from yesterday, and to forge ahead to the next bright future through national consensus,” Abiy said in his inaugural address.
Rights groups that have documented the torture – from psychological torment to the use of water and ceiling hooks – say there must now be a greater focus on justice.
“Despite all the reforms, there have yet to be any detailed commitments regarding investigations into abuses or justice for victims,” said Maria Burnett of Human Rights Watch.
Since late 2015, when protests against ethnic marginalization and inequality began, tens of thousands of people were detained, according to Human Rights Watch.
The attorney general’s office and government spokesman Ahmed Shide did not respond to calls and messages requesting comment.
“WE NEED HELP”
Those who spent years imprisoned and were recently released say they are cautiously hopeful.
Recently released from prison, Ethiopian torture survivor and former political prisoner Keyfalew Tefera, 33, poses during a Reuters interview in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia July 17, 2018. REUTERS/Maggie Fick
New York (TADIAS) — Among the headliners later this week at the 2nd Annual Empower the Community event in Washington D.C. are Alexander Assefa, a Democrat elected to the 42nd district of the Nevada State Assembly, and Nina Ashenafi Richardson, the first Ethiopian-American judge who was re-elected to the Leon County bench in Florida in 2014 after first being elected to the judgeship in 2008.
The program, which was launched last year by the producers of the Helen Show on EBS TV, brings together leaders from diverse professional backgrounds for a day-long session of information sharing and networking. According to organizers the 2018 guest speakers also include Lulit Ejigu, Executive Director in Risk Management at JP Morgan Chase; Dr. Yared Tekabe, Research Scientist at Columbia University; immigration attorneys Yemmi Getachew & Hellina Hailu as well as Almaz Negash, Founder & Executive Director of African Diaspora Network.
The family-friendly gathering combines the broadcast experience of the event’s founder Helen Mesfin, host of the Helen Show, with her professional work in the hospitality industry, and aims to create a space for community members to participate in panel discussions as well as provide resources and information for families. The event is scheduled to be held at the DC Convention Center on Saturday, August 18th.
Below is a summary of parts of the program on August 18th from 11am-8pm at the Washington Convention Center
The Power of Civic Engagement:
Amaha Kassa, Founder and Executive Director of African Communities Together
Semhar Araya, UNICEF USA’s Managing Director for Diaspora & Multicultural Partnership Samuel Gebru, Director of Community Engagement and Partnership, Cambridge Community Center
Alexander Assefa, Democrat elected to the 42nd district of the Nevada State Assembly Tebabu Assefa, Community Leader, Social Entrepreneur
Leadership Panel:
Dr. Senait Fisseha, MD,JD, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Director of International Programs at the Susan T. Buffett Foundation
Judge Nina Ashenafi Richardson , Elected Leon County Judge 2008 & 2014
Almaz Negash, Founder & Executive Director of African Diaspora Network
Science & Technology:
Mark Gelfand, Founder STEM Synergy, STEM-minded financial systems pioneer
Yared Tekabe, Ph.D, Research Scientist at Columbia University Solomon Mulugeta Kassa, Producer & Host of TechTalk with Solomon television (EBS), Author & Consultant at Deloitte
Tsegaye Legesse, CPA, MBA, Accounting Manager at National Institute of Health, Chief Financial Officer of OnePupil, and Board Member at STEM Synergy
Young Trailblazers:
Nate Araya, Brand Strategist, Story Teller at All Creative Degital
Melat Bekele, Founder Habesha Networks
Sam Kebede, Actor
Helen Fetaw, Actively Engaged in community service related to health care
Selamawit Bekele, Co-Founder, Africa Leads
Business Leaders Panel: Getting To The Top: Strategies for breaking through the
Glass Ceiling with successful Ethiopian American and Eritrean American business
leaders.
Ethiopia Habtemariam, President of Motown Records, and President of Urban
Music/Co-Head of Creative at Universal Publishing Music Group
Michael Andeberhan, CFA, CAIA is Executive Director & Head of Investment
Consultant Coverage at MSCI in New York.
Lulit Ejigu, Executive Director in Risk Management at JP Morgan Chase
The Event will have the Following Pavilions
Health & Fitness Pavilion
Free Health Screenings provided by Kaiser Permanente, American Kindy Fund,
Med Star Silver Spring Smiles & Pearl Smiles Dental – BMI, Blood Pressure, Blood
Glucose, Dental Screening, Fitness Consultants, ZUMBA, Resources for Families
with Special Needs, Giveaways and much more
Our partner organizations and sponsors are Kaiser Permanente, American Kidney
Fund, Ethiopian American Nurses Association, Silver Spring Smiles & Pearl Smiles
as well as Ethiopian American doctors
Career Pavilion: Career Resources in the Community
Hear high energy career motivational speakers
Learn Career Advancement tips
Participate in Informational Interviews
Receive mini career coaching
Assess your career aptitudes
Partner Organizations: 21st Century Community, YEP – Your Ethiopian Professionals, Alexandria Workforce Development and MBC
Finance Pavilion will cover the following topics:
Raising Money Savvy Kids-Financial Responsibility
Creating Generational Wealth
Dealing with College Debt
Get Your Credit Right
Securing Your Families Financial Future
Home Buying 101
Partner Organization Primerica, CLRA group and Your DMV Team
Kids Corner
Reading Time/Games/Fun Exercises/ Art
Sessions 1
Immigration and Legal Issues with Attorney Yemmi Getachew & Hellina Hailu
Fear NOT, Know Your Rights as Immigrants 11:00 am
Surviving the Stop – How to Engage with Law Enforcement 1:00pm
Teaching Kids & Young Men What to Expect and Know
Session 2
Warrior Moms- Special Needs Parenting
Minding Your Family Relationship
Alzheimer and Dementia and Support for Caregivers
— If You Go:
Saturday August 18, 2018
11am -7pm
Walter E Washington Convention Center
801 Mt. Vernon Place, NW
Washington DC 20001 www.empowercw.com
On April 2, 2018, with Ethiopia on the edge of political collapse, more than 100 million Ethiopians witnessed something different. Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali, an energetic, visionary and unifying figure of mixed Muslim Oromo and Christian Amhara heritage, became Prime Minister. Dr. Abiy’s appointment marks the first time power was transferred peacefully in Ethiopia. But it is also significant because his rise to power can be seen as the manifestation of Ethiopians’ yearning for a dynamic agent of democratic change.
Dr. Abiy was an unlikely candidate. A soldier in the armed struggle against the oppressive Marxist Derg regime, he went on to earn a PhD in conflict resolution, entering politics quietly only a few years ago. As Prime Minister, he has been uncharacteristically outspoken about the problems facing government and strident in his pursuit of justice, both unusual for an official from the ruling coalition, not to mention for an African leader.
In his inauguration speech, Dr. Abiy announced sweeping reforms, which he is implementing at a thrilling speed. He negotiated changes that ended years of divisive protests. He lifted the state of emergency, ordered the release of thousands of political prisoners, denounced human rights violations and removed key figures responsible for perpetrating them.
Dr. Abiy also addressed governance issues for which Ethiopia had become notorious. He removed political opposition groups from a “terrorist” list established to shut down dissent, restored internet access and unblocked hundreds of websites and TV channels. He gave an historic speech on HIM Emperor Haile Selassie, recognizing the need for healing and reconciliation 40 years after the Ethiopian Revolution and the ensuing Red Terror. And critically, Dr. Abiy concluded a costly (human and financial) 20-year conflict with our brothers and sisters in neighboring Eritrea. He is being compared to historic leaders like Obama, Macron and Mandela – after only 100 days in office.
But as optimism dominates the headlines, there are murmurs of concern about Dr. Abiy’s alleged tendency to act unilaterally. Some also question whether things can be this good over the long-term and still others point to the need for consensus among the ruling coalition party.
We have to temper our expectations. One man cannot have all the answers, and in the haste of effecting significant change, he will make mistakes. For example, he is considering a pardon for former Derg officials, even the Chairman and dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam. I support efforts to unite the country. However, to equate the pardoning of Derg officials with pardoning unjustly accused political dissidents, releasing political prisoners and ending a needless war with Eritrea is a false moral equivalency.
Under the Red Terror – a wave of violence, arbitrary incarcerations, torture, and mass killings – an estimated half-million people died at the hands of Derg officials. The Ethiopian Diaspora itself is a result of it. I urge Dr. Abiy to consider Rwanda and South Africa, which teach us that dealing with such trauma is a years-long process that must be managed carefully. People who commit atrocities should not be forgiven until they have first sought forgiveness and made amends.
Despite mild fears and healthy skepticism, there is far more we celebrate – for Ethiopia, and Ethiopians, everywhere. And with such a bold agenda of reforms, Dr. Abiy will need all of our help to realize his vision. The United States is home to an estimated 500,000 Ethiopians and many of us stand ready to support the new administration. Several Ethiopian attorneys and I have organized a lawyers’ association. We avail ourselves to the new administration to help with legislative and institutional reforms, constitutional amendments, and any other legal counsel needed.
The Ethiopian community was joined by our countrymen from across the United States for Dr. Abiy’s historic visit which included trips to Washington, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles where he was greeted with a hero’s welcome. Every Ethiopian I’ve spoken with, including my family, delights at the prospect of rebooting a positive relationship with our government. And it is a great feeling to know the new administration wants to hear from the Diaspora, too. If this momentum and good faith can be harnessed to sustain a unified front with matching substantive reforms, great things can happen. Ethiopia is rising again and ushering in an era of peace, prosperity, and freedom. As we say in Amharic, Yichalal (We can succeed)!
You can read this and other great stories on culture, music, sports, lifestyle, politics, fashion and tech in Africa and the diaspora at trueafrica.co »
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian-American banker Zekarias Tamrat, who was slated to become President of Marathon International, the proposed first ever Ethiopian Diaspora Bank, has resigned amid a heated Board dispute.
In a recent letter titled “Investor Alert” that was shared with Tadias Magazine Zekarias, who previously worked at PNC and Bank of America, said “for the past year and a half, I have been working as the president of Marathon International Bank, setting up the infrastructure, vendor identification, staff selection, feasibility study and worked on a business plan.” Zekarias noted: “So far FDIC sent our application back twice indicating ‘significantly incomplete.'”
According to the American Banker, “organizers did not include all of Marathon’s policies and procedures in their initial application, [Zekarias] said in the interview. The second time, the agency expressed concern that several directors lived in different states and would be unable to come in and run the bank.”
Zekarias reiterates that “there is still a chance to resubmit a new application. However, the FDIC numerously communicated to us that the current board members are not fit to serve. Knowing this would eventually resurface, the Board and its chairman decided to go forward.”
In his interview with the American Banker, Zekarias said that he still hopes the project could be revived, but insisted that the board has to be reorganized from scratch. Zekarias noted that “he would be open to rejoining the de novo if that happens.” The American Banker said it had also reached out to the current chairman of Marathon International, Tekalign Gedamu, a retired economist and former managing director of the Development Bank of Ethiopia, but Tekalign was not immediately available for comment.
“The FDIC is not the problem,” Zekarias told the American Banker. “They are really helping us by asking us to correct our mistakes.”
Zekarias had initially been equally optimistic about the launching of the bank, expressing enthusiastically to the media that Marathon International would be a groundbreaking venture for the Diaspora. “Our vision is to help transform the Ethiopian community into a far more economically engaged, creative and vibrant member of the wider and diverse U.S. community,” Zekarias had said. The aim was “to become a differentiated provider of financial services by leveraging our understanding of the unique financial needs of the Ethiopian American Community.”
The American Banker further points out that “organizers filed an application with the FDIC in mid-January. They plan on raising $22 million to $25 million in initial capital” while “Gregory Garrett, who previously served as president and CEO of Platinum Bank in Lubbock, Texas, was identified in the application as the proposed bank’s CEO. Several prominent Ethiopian-Americans agreed to serve on Marathon’s board.”
New York (TADIAS) — One of New York City’s earliest established Ethiopian orthodox churches, Medhanialem, will be celebrating its 35th year anniversary on September 8th, 2018. The celebration includes traditional dance, fashion show, theatre as well as live entertainment from acclaimed Ethiopian comedian Meskerem Bekele. Organizers state that proceeds of the celebration will go towards the building of a multi-purpose center at their current Bronx location.
Medhanialem Church members purchased their current building five years ago in the Norwood section of the Bronx after having used a rental space in Riverside Church in Uptown Manhattan for the past three decades.
— If You Go:
Medhanialem Church Anniversary Celebration
Date: Saturday, September 8th, 2018
Time: 6pm – 12am
Location: South Hall, Riverside Church
490 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10027
Admission (with dinner)
Adults: $50 advance purchase $60 at the door
Students: $25 (with ID at the door)
Children under 12 get free entrance
Women’s cooperatives boost agriculture and savings in rural Ethiopia
In most parts of the Dodola district, 300 km south of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, slow-moving oxen plowing opens stretches of farmland. But in one field, a red tractor is speedily tilling women’s cooperative owned farmland ahead of the rainy season.
For Kamso Bame, a widowed mother of 12 and owner of 2.5 acres of land, the tractor has shaved off days of grueling labour.
Bame is among more than 2,000 smallholder women farmers involved in a joint UN programme to boost sustainable agricultural production and rural women’s economic empowerment, through training and cooperatives.
After Bame joined the women’s cooperative in her village of Wabi Burkitu, she received a 7,000 Birr (259 USD) loan, which she used to start a cart-transport service. Bame uses her daily average income of 400 Birr (15 USD) to support her children, four of whom live independently. Her membership also enables her to cultivate the land using a tractor owned by the cooperative.
“Before the death of my husband, whenever the rainy season came, I remember him spending three to four days ploughing the family’s land with the pair of oxen we owned. Each day, he and the oxen used to come back home exhausted,” she recalls. “Today, it is different, as I am privileged to farm the same land with a tractor and it takes a maximum of three hours.”
Kamso Bame takes care of her sheep by her grass-roofed house. Among her long-term plans are to build a new roof with corrugated iron sheets. (Photo: UN Women/Fikerte Abebe)
Fast facts on women in agriculture
Women comprise an average of 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, varying considerably across regions from 20 per cent or less in Latin America to 50 per cent or more in parts of Asia and Africa. Less than 20 per cent of landholders are women. Gender differences in access to land and credit affect the relative ability of female and male farmers and entrepreneurs to invest, operate to scale, and benefit from new economic opportunities. Learn more ►
The tractor is used to farm the land owned by the cooperative as a team, as well as each member’s own land. The cooperative also rents it out to other farmers in 26 villages across the district, whose population is more than 240,000. Charging up to 1,500 Birr (56 USD) per hectare, the cooperative currently earns over 6,000 Birr (222 USD) per day, on average.
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian artist and photographer Aida Muluneh — whose work was recently part of the “Being: New Photography 2018” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York — recently collaborated with acclaimed Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara on her new album entitled Fenfo (“Something to Say”) and directed the video for her single entitled Nterini (“My Love”). Fatoumata’s first album was ranked #1 for 6 months on the world music charts in 2011.
Aida Muluneh is the founder of the annual Addis Foto Fest and her photography work is in the permanent collection of several museums in the U.S. including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. Aida’s body painting photography was also featured earlier this year in March in W Magazine.
“In a world of 7 billion people there are 1 billion migrants. This is the story of one man’s journey,” says a statement in the opening of Fatoumata’s music video. The lyrics describe the heartache of two lovers who are separated from each other.
The music video for Nterini was filmed in the Dallol, Afar region in Ethiopia. “The location is a photographer’s dream. I hope you enjoy watching this as much as I enjoyed directing it,” shared Aida on Instagram.
Below is the dynamic video for Fatoumata Diawara’s Nterini single:
New York (TADIAS) — This week the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization announced that it will be honoring the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama with its 2018 Ripple of Hope award.
“My father believed; ‘Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,” said Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights President Kerry Kennedy. “On the 50th anniversary of his historic campaign for the White House, we honor laureates who have sent forth countless ripples of hope to millions of people inspired by their example.”
The former U.S. President will share the accolade along with Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, and Humana CEO Bruce D. Broussard.
“Laureates were selected for their exceptional work toward a more just and peaceful world,” the nonprofit said in a press release.
“Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights founder Ethel Kennedy will award the Laureates during the annual Ripple of Hope Gala at the New York Hilton Midtown on Wednesday, December 12, 2018.”
President Obama said: “Bobby Kennedy was one of my heroes. I first got into public service because I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, believing that my own salvation was bound up with the salvation of others. That’s something he expressed far better than I ever could when he talked about the power that comes from acting on our ideals, those ripples of hope that can ‘sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.’ That’s what I’m determined to help inspire and cultivate over the rest of my career – the idea that anybody can be one of the millions of acts of conscience and voices raised against injustice, the idea that anybody can be one of the ‘million different centers of energy and daring’ who, like Bobby Kennedy, have always changed the world for the better.”
Bobby Kennedy was one of my heroes. He was someone who showed us the power of acting on our ideals, the idea that any of us can be one of the “million different centers of energy and daring” that ultimately combine to change the world for the better. https://t.co/nAiPiGercs
The press release added: “2018 marks the 50th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s historic campaign for the White House, and the founding of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. The Ripple of Hope Gala caps an incredible year of commemoration and activism by celebrating those who work to advance the legacy of Robert F. Kennedy in our challenging modern times.”
Past Ripple of Hope laureates include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bill Clinton, Bono, George Clooney, Robert Smith, Harry Belafonte, Howard Schultz, Joe Biden, Congressman John Lewis, Tim Cook, Tony Bennett, and Robert De Niro.
“Barack Obama served as the 44th President of the United States. Following his roles as a community organizer, constitutional law professor, and U.S. Senator, Obama was elected President in 2008, taking office at a moment of crisis unlike any America had seen in decades. His leadership helped rescue the economy, revitalize the American auto industry, reform the healthcare system to cover another twenty million Americans, and put the country on a firm course to a clean energy future – all while overseeing the longest stretch of job creation in American history. On the world stage, Obama’s belief in America’s indispensable leadership helped wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, decimate al Qaeda and eliminate the world’s most wanted terrorists, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program, open up a new chapter with the people of Cuba, and unite humanity in coordinated action to combat a changing climate. In his post-presidency, President Obama remains committed to lifting up the next generation of leaders through his work with the Obama Foundation.”
Wall Street Journal Profiles Ethiopia’s Nile Dam Engineer the Late Semegnew Bekele
Diminutive and agile, Semegnew Bekele usually wore a high-visibility vest and construction helmet while working on the banks of the Blue Nile on Ethiopia’s side of the border with Sudan, considered one of the world’s most inhospitable construction sites.
Most of his work as project manager of what is expected to be Africa’s biggest hydroelectric dam occurred at night, when the temperatures dropped below 100 degrees. The site teemed with thousands of workers.
ADDIS ABABA: Jawar Mohammad, an online activist and fierce critic of Ethiopia’s one-party government through his outlet Oromia Media Network, returned to the country on Sunday after 13 years in exile.
Jawar is the latest opponent of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) to come home since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in April and announced sweeping reforms.
“It’s good to be here! It’s good to be not a terrorist anymore!” Jawar told a press conference in the capital Addis Ababa.
Through his media outlet OMN, Jawar has promoted strikes and anti-government protests, particularly among the country’s largest ethnic group the Oromo.
Protests that began in late 2015 among the Oromo and then spread to the second-largest group the Amhara left hundreds dead and prompted the government to twice declare a nationwide state of emergency to halt the unrest.
It also played a role in the resignation last February of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn who struggled to appease the protesters.
Hailemariam’s government banned the OMN and last year levied charges of inciting violence against Jawar, who lived in the United States.
Those charges were dropped after Abiy took office.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Jawar said he planned to stay in Ethiopia for good and would focus on expanding OMN’s operations and re-orienting its editorial policies.
“OMN was an activist media until now. We took clear sides with the Oromo protests,” Jawar said. “From now on, we’re going to move to the center.”
Since taking office, Abiy, himself an Oromo, has encouraged anti-government activists like Jawar to return to Ethiopia.
He has also freed jailed dissidents and removed several armed groups from Ethiopia’s list of terrorist organizations, while signing a peace deal with neighboring Eritrea that ended two decades of hostilities.
Through his work with OMN, Jawar has become a controversial household name in Ethiopia, but he swore off seeking elected office.
“I think I have done my share for this country,” he said. “I want to have an advisory role from now on.”
(Photo: Jawar_Mohammed greeting PM Abiy Ahmed and his delegation at Minneapolis International Airport for the final leg of a three-state diaspora tour, Jul 30th 2018/Mohammed Ademo @OPride on Twitter)
Growing up in Ethiopia, Hakeem Abdulwahab thought only guys like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone could live the American dream.
“I’d watch Hollywood action movies and see that it’s clean here, it’s beautiful, everyone has cars,” he said. “But America was like a dream country … impossible to get to.”
With a little luck and a lot of perseverance, Abdulwahab at 36, has achieved his version of the American dream: Once he scrubbed toilets at one of the top children’s hospitals in the country. Now he works there as a nurse.
“If it was cleaning a toilet, cleaning a floor, getting a towel or making a bed, whatever task he was assigned to do at any given moment, he did it with conviction and he did it with heart,” said Tammy Sinkfield-Morey, nursing supervisor at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul.
“Now he’s progressed from one of our lower level positions to one of our most admired positions.”
One of eight children, Abdulwahab grew up in Jimma, Ethiopia, about 220 miles southwest of the capital city of Addis Ababa. Abdulwahab helped his father produce and sell coffee, one of the only ways to make money, he said. Business often was fickle, due to a cholera outbreak and the amount of time — 3 to 5 years — it took for Arabica trees to produce fruit.
“We were so poor then,” he said. “Some days I didn’t eat anything. Basic necessities like food and water were a luxury.”
As a teenager, Abdulwahab’s parents sent him to live with his older sister in Addis Ababa so that he could attend high school.
On his summer breaks, he learned English with the intention of going to college. When that time came, Abdulwahab couldn’t afford college, so he returned home to once again help his family with the coffee business.
“I always hoped to work and send money to my Mom and Dad,” he said. “I will sacrifice my life for them.”
New York (TADIAS) — Below are photographs from Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed’s visit to Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, July 29th, 2018.
The event took place at Galen Center on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC) where a cheerful crowed of thousands welcomed the Ethiopian prime minister to L.A.
Africa’s week in pictures: July 27 – August 2, 2018
August 3rd, 2018
A selection of the best photos from across Africa and of Africans elsewhere in the world this week.
The arrival of the Ethiopian Orthodox patriarch Bishop Merkorios, who’d been in exile for 27 years, is met with harp music and song in Addis Ababa. (Reuters)
Other members of the welcoming musical ensemble in the Ethiopian capital perform on ceremonial horns. (Reuters)
I became a journalist by accident. I was in my twenties. For the first time in Ethiopia’s history, we had independent magazines. I knew we had to venture into freedom of expression and push the boundaries, so I wrote articles criticizing the Ethiopian regime’s abuse of power. My newspaper became the first to be charged under the press law; my editor and I the first to be imprisoned.
I am 48 now. Since 1993, I’ve been imprisoned on nine separate occasions on various charges. I’ve spent almost one fifth of my life in prison—simply for doing the work of a journalist. This year I was released after spending more than six years in prison. Even though I am a peaceful person, the Ethiopian government convicted me on terrorist charges. Throughout the world, such charges are frequently leveled against dissident journalists like me who challenge their governments.
I’ve seen every side of prison life. I have been kept in dark cells, measuring less than two square meters. As I slept it was as though my head was touching the wall and my feet were touching the door. It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand. I was allowed to go to the bathroom twice a day. A shower was out of the question.
Once, when the state had locked me up for my journalism, the authorities tortured me. They beat me on the inside of my feet, the most common type of torture in the world. But I didn’t experience the worst of it.
My son was born in prison. The Ethiopian government had imprisoned my wife and I after the 2005 elections. He had to go and live with his grandmother because the conditions were so bad. My wife and I would meet during court sessions, but apart from that we were not allowed to see each other. My son is 11 now and lives in the United States. I haven’t seen him since I was imprisoned in 2012. The prospect of meeting him is both exciting and terrifying. I am not perfect and I am not the legend he thinks I am. I hope he won’t be too disappointed when he gets to know me.
Ex-Ethiopian dictator Mengistu meets former leader in Harare
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The former Ethiopian dictator Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam has met with Ethiopia’s former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare on Wednesday.
The surprise meeting between Hailemariam, who was Ethiopia’s Prime Minister until he resigned in April 2018, and Mengistu has stunned many in Ethiopia who had a rare glimpse of Mengistu since he fled the country in 1991 as rebels, who now make up the ruling coalition, approached the capital, Addis Ababa.
A photo of the meeting between Mengistu and Hailemariam, who was in Zimbabwe as head of the African Union’s election observers’ mission, was widely shared on social media and many Ethiopians expressed amusement at the former strongman’s appearance.
“Mengistu has gained weight and looks very old. I’m very surprised to see that photo,” Seyoum Teshome, a prominent blogger in Ethiopia, wrote on Facebook.
Others said Mengistu should still face justice in Ethiopia. “Looks like he’s living comfortably in Zimbabwe when he really should be in an Ethiopian maximum security prison or at The Hague. I certainly wouldn’t have met him, let alone taken a photo,” another Facebook user, Samuel Gebru, wrote.
Mengistu was head of the military junta that overthrew the last Ethiopian emperor, Haileselassie, in 1974. He ruled the country in an iron grip for 17 years during which he implemented a crackdown named “Red Terror” in which tens of thousands of Ethiopians were allegedly killed. Some estimates put the number of killed in hundreds of thousands.
“Mengistu is a man with much blood on his hands,” tweeted Martin Plaut, a specialist on East African politics.
The ex-dictator fled to Zimbabwe after losing power and escaped an assassin’s bullet in 1995 while jogging near his Harare home. Former President Robert Mugabe refused Ethiopian government requests to extradite Mengistu, who supported Mugabe’s guerrilla fighters in the war against white-minority rule in Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then called.
Mengistu was put on trial in absentia in Ethiopia where he was sentenced in 2007 to life in prison for genocide.
Calls have been made for the current Ethiopian reformist leader, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, to allow Mengistu to return home without having to go to jail following the release of several political prisoners.
[ADDIS ABABA] Ethiopian scientists have developed a new sorghum variety that could lead to multiple yields annually.
According to the National Statistics Agency in Ethiopia, the country has almost two million hectares of sorghum fields, and harvests about four million tonnes of sorghum grains every year.
The new sorghum variety is expected to produce yields two to three times a year with continuous water supply and at least once when there is water scarcity, said Gethaun Mekuriya, Ethiopia’s minister of science and technology, during the release of the new variety in Ethiopia last month (28 June).
“The benefit of this new variety is … that once you sow it, you don’t need to till the land for up to five years.” — Talegeta Loul, Re-nature Eternal Life Agro Processing SC
Talegeta Loul, general manager of Ethiopia-based Re-nature Eternal Life Agro Processing SC, said that the national average yield for sorghum is about 2,400 kilograms per hectare, but the new variety could increase yields fivefold.
One of the new variety’s unique characteristic, according to Loul, is that it can produce yields for seven to ten growing years without the need for ploughing.
Loul, who led the research team to produce the new sorghum variety, told SciDev.Net: “We have struggled enough to give an output for this country where the majority of the people depend on agriculture for food and livelihoods.”
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia The 4th Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Merkorios, returned to his country on Wednesday after spending 27 years in exile in the U.S.
Merkorios arrived in the capital Addis Ababa together with the high-level Ethiopia delegation led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed — who was on an unofficial visit to the U.S., where he achieved his target of unifying Ethiopians in the diaspora and turned their attention to social, political and economic activities in Ethiopia.
The patriarch was expelled during the 1991 change of government in what many perceive as an undue political intervention in the affairs of the church. An echelon of the clergy opposing the purge went out of the country and declared themselves as retaining a Synod in exile.
It was mainly the question of legitimacy and ensuing claims and blames that resulted in mutual excommunications of the two Synods.
In a fast-paced reconciliation spearheaded by the Ethiopian prime minister, the two Synods agreed to reunite and rescinded their mutual excommunications.
According to the agreement reached in Washington D.C., Patriarch Abune Mathias will serve as an administrative patriarch and Patriarch Abune Merkorios will serve the Church’s spiritual functions on equal authoritative footing.
Since coming to power on April 2, 2018, Ahmed has created a wider political space by releasing political prisoners and calling home exiled dissidents.
Higher government officials, the clergy, eminent personalities and artistes welcomed the prime minister Abiy and the homecoming patriarch.
—
Pictures: His Holiness Abune Merkorios arrives in Addis Ababa — FANA BROADCASTING
(Courtesy @fanatelevision/Twitter)
Ethiopia’s prime minister found a patient and exuberant audience of about 10,000 on Monday afternoon at Target Center in Minneapolis.
Abiy Ahmed, 41, took office in April and has moved quickly to promote peace and diplomacy in East Africa.
He has warmed relations with neighboring Eritrea, released thousands of political prisoners, ended a state of emergency in the country and moved to privatize Ethiopia’s state-owned enterprises.
A member of the Oromo ethnic group, which claims a third of Ethiopia’s residents and an estimated 40,000 in the Minnesota diaspora, Abiy received a rock star’s greeting in the third city of his bridge-building U.S. tour.
Four hours after the event was slated to begin, Abiy took the podium amid hundreds of waving flags of both Ethiopia and the Orono Liberation Front.
Dursito Roro, an Ethiopian citizen living in Fargo, N.D., said she had to be here for the event. She poured out praise for a leader who kept a low profile until earlier this year: He respects women. He is making peace with other countries. He wants to unify their nation of rival tribes.
“He smiles. That’s the most amazing thing,” she said. “African leaders don’t smile.”
College student Murkata Gata made the trip from Chicago to see Abiy speak.
“He is changing a lot of things in our country, so we’re trying to support the idea of what he’s doing,” he said. “He’s trying to unify everyone.”
Hours before the event began, young men waved a banner on the stage reading “Qeerroo rules,” celebrating the Oromo youth movement that pushed Abiy’s predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, out of office.
Abiy shared his speaking time with Jawar Mohammed, founder of Minnesota-based Oromia Media Network. A Qeerroo supporter, Mohammed faced terror-related charges in Ethiopia until Abiy had them dropped.
New York (TADIAS) — With PM Abiy Ahmed’s tour in DC ending with a public gathering at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and a town hall meeting on Saturday, July 28th followed by a visit to Los Angeles, CA, he is now scheduled to greet the Ethiopian Diaspora community in Minneapolis, MN.
The Mayor of Washington, DC Muriel Bowser has proclaimed July 28th, 2018 as “Ethiopia Day in DC” in celebration of PM Abiy Ahmed’s visit to the U.S. capital, which is a sister city of Ethiopia’s capital city Addis Ababa. “Now, during this new climate of goodwill and unity, we look forward to reaffirming the Sister City relationship between our two capital cities,” Mayor Bowser said. Organizers of the Los Angeles event have also shared that an “Ethiopia Day” proclamation was presented on behalf of the City Council on July 29th, 2018.
Below are images from PM Abiy’s address at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday, July 28th as well as the evening town hall meeting.
New York (TADIAS) — PM Abiy Ahmed visited the United States in July 2018 meeting with members of the Ethiopian Diaspora community in Washington D.C., Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
During his successful three city tour PM Abiy also met with religious leaders and took part in the peace and reconciliation conference in DC between the exiled synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the synod in Ethiopia. The churches were reunited after almost three decades of separation.
In Washington, DC PM Abiy’s busy schedule included a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence at the White House on Friday, July 27th. In addition he met with International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
The Mayor of Washington, DC Muriel Bowser proclaimed July 28th, 2018 as “Ethiopia Day in DC” in celebration of PM Abiy Ahmed’s visit to the U.S. capital, which is a sister city of Ethiopia’s capital city Addis Ababa. “Now, during this new climate of goodwill and unity, we look forward to reaffirming the Sister City relationship between our two capital cities,” Mayor Bowser said. Likewise in Los Angeles an “Ethiopia Day” proclamation was presented on behalf of the L.A. City Council on July 29th at Galen Center on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC) where a cheerful crowed of thousands welcomed the Ethiopian prime minister to California. And in Minnesota as the TwinCities.com website notes over 10,000 gave PM Abiy Ahmed “a rock-star greeting” at Target Center in Minneapolis on July 30th.
Below are pictures from PM Abiy Ahmed’s US Tour:
PM Abiy Ahmed’s DC Convention Center Gathering & Town Hall Meeting
PM Abiy Engages Diaspora Business Community & Political Orgs in DC
First Photos of PM Abiy Meeting With Ethiopian Diaspora in U.S.
‘He’s a hugger . . . so I want to hug him’: Ethiopian exiles greet new prime minister
Hulgize Kassa, a 52-year-old from Raleigh, N.C., earned his spot at the front of the line.
The father of two camped outside Walter E. Washington Convention Center starting at midnight Friday, watching as Ethiopians from as far as Colorado and Texas arrived with boxes of food, speakers and selfie sticks. By 7 a.m. Saturday, thousands had gathered in the streets spanning Mount Vernon Place to N Street, honking car horns and sharing food. Most wore T-shirts emblazoned with the face of their homeland’s newly minted prime minister, Abiy Ahmed.
In the three months since his rise to power, the 41-year-old politician has introduced sweeping changes to Ethiopia, lifting a state of emergency, brokering peace with neighboring Eritrea and releasing hundreds of political prisoners. These dramatic steps toward liberalization have sparked “Abiy-mania” within the Ethiopian diaspora in the United States, which, for decades, stood among the fiercest critics of the ruling party’s autocratic regime.
Abiy is in the United States to visit and speak to members of the diaspora. The Washington area is home to some 300,000 Ethiopians, making it the largest community outside the African country.
“I want to hug him. He’s a hugger, I know, so I want to hug him,” said Kassa, a researcher at North Carolina State University. When Kassa first came to the United States in 2000, he never thought he would go back to his homeland. But Abiy’s ascension has changed his mind, he said. He plans to visit his home in the Amhara region next year, and bring his children, 12 and 14, with him.
Abede Yimenu, a former major in the Ethiopian army, said he is also thinking of going home after having been away for 17 years.
New York (TADIAS) — Wrapping up the first leg of his three-city U.S. tour that kicked off in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, July 26th, Ethiopia’s PM Abiy Ahmed is now headed to the West Coast to speak at the Ethiopian Diaspora Conference in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, July 29th.
The LA event is scheduled to take place at Galen Center on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC).
Organizers say the City Council of Los Angeles will hand an ‘Ethiopia Day’ proclamation to the PM during the gathering.
The event is free and first-come-first-serve until it is filled to capacity.
— If You Go:
Ethiopian Diaspora Conference with remarks by Ethiopian Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed
Sunday July 29th, 2018
Doors open at 12:00 PM (Noon)
Program begins at 2:00 PM
Galen Center at USC
A3400 S Figueroa St
Los Angeles, CA 90089
Condolences flooded social media from journalists, businessmen academics, ambassadors and even flag-carrying Ethiopian Airlines after it was reported that Mr Simegnew’s body was found in a car in the capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday.
We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of the heroic professional, Engineer Simegnew Bekele. We Ethiopians will always treasure his heroic deeds and his legacy will live on. pic.twitter.com/DgySh5TAUf
The police are investigating the circumstances of his death. He died as a result of a bullet wound and a hand gun was found in his car, which was parked in Meskel Square in the city centre.
By the afternoon, hundreds had taken to the streets in the capital, as well as Mr Simegnew’s hometown of Gondar, with protesters demanding “justice” for the late engineer.
To understand why a project manager has managed to elicit such shock and widespread mourning – normally seen in other countries after the death of royalty, celebrities or politicians – one has to look at what the Grand Ethiopian Dam has come to represent.
New York (TADIAS) — On Friday, July 27th Ethiopia’s PM Abiy Ahmed continued his U.S. tour and met with members of the Ethiopian Diaspora business community as well as individuals representing political organizations in Washington D.C.
PM Abiy is culminating his East Coast visit with a free public address to greet the larger Ethiopian Diaspora in the D.C. metropolitan area later this afternoon at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
Earlier in the week on Thursday, July 26th PM Abiy Ahmed had taken part in the peace and reconciliation event between the exiled synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the synod in Ethiopia upon his arrival in Washington DC. The churches were reunited after almost three decades of separation.
In addition, Dr. Abiy who is also scheduled to travel to Los Angeles, CA on July 29th and Minneapolis, MN on July 30th, met with Vice President Mike Pence at the White House on Friday, July 27th. Pence tweeted: “Honored to meet with Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia today at the @WhiteHouse. I applaud his historic reform efforts, including improving respect for human rights, reforming the business environment, and making peace with Eritrea.”
The Mayor of Washington, DC Muriel Bowser has proclaimed July 28th, 2018 “Ethiopia Day in DC” in celebration of his visit to the U.S. capital, which is a sister city of Ethiopia’s capital city Addis Ababa. The Mayor said she will join Prime Minister Abiy at the Convention Center on Saturday. “The Ethiopian community is such a valued part of our city, and our Ethiopian neighbors have played a critical role in building the diverse, inclusive, and vibrant Washington, DC that we live in today,” Mayor Bowser said in a statement. “Now, during this new climate of goodwill and unity, we look forward to reaffirming the Sister City relationship between our two capital cities.” The Mayor’s proclamation highlights that “since assuming office in April of 2018, Dr. Abiy has focused on improving human rights, ending the war with Eritrea, pursuing political and economic reforms, and eliminating corruption, that will move Ethiopia toward a more democratic society.”
The Mayor added on Twitter: “We are honored to welcome @PMOEthiopia, Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali to Washington, DC. I look forward to joining thousands of Ethiopians from across the region tomorrow as we proclaim July 28, 2018 as “Ethiopia Day in DC.”
In the meantime below are sounds and images from PM Abiy’s visit on Friday, July 27th as he engaged with the Diaspora business community and political leaders:
New York (TADIAS) — The Mayor of Washington, DC Muriel Bowser has proclaimed July 28th, 2018 “Ethiopia Day in DC” in celebration of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s visit to the U.S. capital, which is a sister city of Ethiopia’s capital city Addis Ababa.
Mayor Bowser said she will join Prime Minister Abiy at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Saturday. Thousands are expected at the venue as PM Abiy holds his first public address greeting the Ethiopian community in the DC metropolitan area.
“The Ethiopian community is such a valued part of our city, and our Ethiopian neighbors have played a critical role in building the diverse, inclusive, and vibrant Washington, DC that we live in today,” Mayor Bowser said in a statement. “Now, during this new climate of goodwill and unity, we look forward to reaffirming the Sister City relationship between our two capital cities.” The Mayor’s proclamation highlights that “since assuming office in April of 2018, Dr. Abiy has focused on improving human rights, ending the war with Eritrea, pursuing political and economic reforms, and eliminating corruption, that will move Ethiopia toward a more democratic society.”
The Mayor added on Twitter: “We are honored to welcome @PMOEthiopia, Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali to Washington, DC. I look forward to joining thousands of Ethiopians from across the region tomorrow as we proclaim July 28, 2018 as “Ethiopia Day in DC.”
Meanwhile, PM Abiy who is on three city tour of the United States, also met with Vice President Mike Pence at the White House on Friday, July 27th.
Pence tweeted: “Honored to meet with Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia today at the @WhiteHouse. I applaud his historic reform efforts, including improving respect for human rights, reforming the business environment, and making peace with Eritrea.”
New York (TADIAS) — PM Abiy Ahmed met with members of the Ethiopian Diaspora community at a reception held at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C. on Thursday, July 26th as he started his three city tour of the United States this week that will take him to Los Angeles, CA on July 29th and Minneapolis, MN on July 30th as well.
Earlier in the day PM Abiy met with religious leaders and took part in the peace and reconciliation event between the exiled synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the synod in Ethiopia during his visit to Washington DC. The churches were reunited after almost three decades of separation.
When PM Abiy arrived at the embassy there was a lone protester holding the Ethiopian flag. The prime minister approached the protestor, inquired about his concerns and insisted that he will not go inside unless he joins him. It’s not clear what the person was protesting, but he was later seen having a good time at the reception inside.
Ethiopia’s prime minister is further expected to encourage investment from the diverse Ethiopian Diaspora community to continue to boost Africa’s fastest-growing economy. As Bloomberg’s Samuel Gebre notes “Abiy Ahmed’s first U.S. trip since taking office in April comes as he shakes up orthodoxies at home, promising a multi-party democracy and to privatize state monopolies, while making peace with long-time foe and neighbor Eritrea. He will hold meetings in Washington D.C. with the Ethiopian business community, religious leaders, think tanks and the public until Saturday, before heading to Los Angeles and Minneapolis, according to Ethiopia’s embassy.”
Thousands are expected on Saturday, July 28th at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C. as PM Abiy hold his first public address greeting the larger Ethiopian community at a free event open to all individuals.
Below are photos of PM Abiy’s first meeting with the Ethiopian Diaspora in America:
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The project manager of a $4 billion Ethiopian dam was found shot dead in his vehicle in Addis Ababa on Thursday, police said, prompting scores of people to take to the streets in the capital and his home city calling for justice.
People in the crowds said they believed Simegnew Bekele had been murdered, though there was no immediate confirmation from the authorities, or details of any motive.
“We have confirmed that engineer Simegnew Bekele was shot dead … He had a bullet wound behind his right ear,” the head of Ethiopia’s Federal Police Commission, Zeinu Jemal, told reporters.
Zeinu said a Colt pistol was found in the vehicle in the city’s Meskel Square – a massive road junction and open space usually packed with vehicles and pedestrians during daylight hours.
Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was “saddened and utterly shocked” by the death, his chief of staff said in tweet.
Simegnew was the public face of the Grand Renaissance Dam project on the River Nile – the centerpiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s biggest power exporter.
Ethiopia has been pushing on with the project in the face of opposition from Egypt which fears it will affect the flow of the Nile, its main source of water. In June, the leaders of Ethiopia and Egypt vowed to iron out their differences peacefully.
Crowds in Addis Ababa marched to the state television station’s headquarters chanting “No to killings” and “Justice for Simegnew”.
Hundreds also packed the streets of his birthplace, the northern city of Gondar. “Amongst our requests is the repatriation of his body back to his own city,” said one protester, who only gave his name as Geremew.
A Reuters photographer saw blood stains along an arm rest inside his vehicle – a gold Toyota Land Cruiser – before an ambulance took away the body.
The dam is currently only half complete, but the government says it is designed to churn out 6,000 megawatts (MW) of power on completion.
The changes are nothing short of seismic, proof that nothing remains the same forever.
In just over 100 days, Ethiopia’s new prime minister Abiy Ahmed has taken radical steps aimed at dismantling the country’s troubled past and paving the way for a new future. After years of protests, state killings, ethnic violence, internet shutdowns, and emergency rules, the Horn of Africa nation has made an astonishing and promising turnaround for the better.
Abiy, Africa’s youngest leader at 41, has overseen all this, taking a sledgehammer’s approach in order to establish quick and lasting change on both the local and foreign levels. Domestically, Abiy’s administration announced it would loosen its monopoly on several key economic sectors, including aviation and telecoms. This has reportedly prompted Kenya’s Safaricom to negotiate the entry of its dominant mobile money service M-Pesa in the country. Politically, in a nation where all parliament seats are held by the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, Abiy has urged the nation to pursue multiparty democracy.
Abiy’s administration also freed prominent opposition leaders and journalists, including Andargachew Tsege, a British citizen who was seized during a stopover in Yemen in 2014.
But it’s Abiy’s work across the east and Horn of Africa region that have brought a sharp focus to his reformist politics. In June, Abiy went to Egypt to assure president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi— in Arabic nonetheless — that Egypt won’t cut its share of the Nile waters. The hugs and smiles that followed the meeting showcased a significant step to breaking the deadlock over who controls the world’s longest river. On his flight home, Abiy brought with him 32 Ethiopian inmates freed from Egyptian prisons.
After decades of political and military impasse, Abiy also announced Ethiopia would accept a 2000 peace deal with Eritrea. That announcement cascaded in a series of events that ended the hostility between the two nations and captured the world and storytellers’ attention. These include the reopening of embassies, the resumption of trade, and the reunification of friends and family after the first commercial flight from Ethiopia crossed into Eritrean airspace this century last week.
Abiy also presided over the first meeting in two years between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his bitter rival, Riek Machar, in an effort to end the five-year civil war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
With his youthful popularity, Abiy has also become a sort of consigliere of cool, appearing at a concert with Eritrean strongman Isaias Afwerki, and scheduling a dinner date with the famous humanoid robot, Sophia, some of whose software was developed in Ethiopia. He has also appeared at rallies wearing a t-shirt with a Nelson Mandela fist-clinched photo above a slogan that read, “No one is free until the last one is free.”
While many challenges await Abiy after this honeymoon period is over, the reformist politician is proving to be the bearer of good news for now, not only Ethiopia but the region and Africa at large. This week, he will take this message of hope and unity to the diaspora in the United States, where many, including marathoner Feyisa Lilesa, remain hopeful about the change of guard in their home nation.
Addis Ababa (TADIAS) – As one of the world’s oldest continuous nation states Ethiopia upkeeps and exports a particular image to the rest of the world — a never-colonized, cradle of life that remains superior to European dominance. The culture is ancient and native with its indigenous national language, music and dress traditions considered sacrosanct. Ethiopia grows at its own pace, and looks inward.
In 2018, Ethiopia has one of the fastest growing national economies in the world and is nested in global networks of wealth, yet the perceived influence of foreign ideas are regarded warily. In a guarded and proud culture social change at the national scale is slow and painstaking. And in spite of generations of evolving global discourses focused on women’s rights, the subordinate position still held by women remains largely undiscussed.
Within this cultural context, how do we make language for an Ethiopian women’s movement? What do we call it? What have we called it in the past? And how do we define, grow, and adapt it? A younger generation of women has grown unsatisfied with the culture’s precedent for male hegemony in both public and domestic spheres. How do we redefine the role of women with liberation, leadership and sisterhood in mind? The greatest challenge facing an Ethiopian women’s movement today is how to fashion a homegrown language, which catalyzes change. How do we elevate consciousness within culture so committed to its customs, traditions and social structures that tends to place women on its margins?
From political participation and property ownership to healthcare access and education the social and legal lag of gender equality is evident here. Most acts of daily violence and domestic abuse go legally unchecked and garner little public outcry. Openly sharing one’s story of gender-based violence remains a taboo. Only a very slim portion of cases of sexual assault in the home and/or workplace are reported and even fewer cases make it to the courts. Media continues to perpetuate and dictate stale ideologies of the Ethiopian woman’s image, responsibility, and behavior. The daily catcall is as common as ever, and can easily escalate to physical violence. How do we raise a generation of women and men who no longer internalize and normalize sexism and violence?
Although a language around women’s rights is largely absent from national discussions, Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, is home to a burgeoning women’s movement. The city is witnessing growing activity including the first openly declared feminist group called Setaweet. Setaweet (the Amharic term for ‘of woman’) is the brainchild of Dr. Sehin Teferra, and it started essentially as a meeting, which later morphed into ‘The Setaweet Circle.’ It was, and still is, a safe space for Addis Ababa women to convene. Gathering together from all walks of life women involved with Setaweet speak candidly about their experiences in the workplace, home, city. From these gatherings the ‘Setaweet Open Sessions’ were born, and a free forum open to the public was developed to invite guest speakers, authors, and historians to tackle subjects concerning women’s issues. Here, everything is laid bare — even topics of Ethiopian culture that elsewhere are off limits. Topics such as the all-male clergy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, patrilineal family structures, as well as male privilege and entitlement are discussed. In addition, the Setaweet PLC provides a variety of services and custom designed trainings for public schools, corporate offices, and agencies on women’s leadership, sexual harassment, and gender-based violence.
Setaweet has organized various campaigns throughout the city, often with the support of their partner groups such as the Ethiopian Women’s Lawyers Association (EWLA), and The Yellow Movement — a group founded by Addis Ababa University law program faculty and students. Some of the projects include #AcidAttackEducationCampaign (2017); #PagumeActivism initiated by the Yellow Movement to create a platform for sharing incidences of everyday sexism on social media; #AriffAbbat (2017), a collaboration between the Embassy of Sweden and Setaweet to host a photo contest to celebrate and encourage engaged fatherhood; and #NothingforGranted (2018), a collaboration with the European Union Delegation to celebrate the contributions of Ethiopian women through photography.
However, it’s not so much ‘Setaweet,’ but the term ‘feminism’ that has become the trigger word. One of the greatest obstacles and complications of this particular word is that it signals a western import and a foreigner’s ethics onto Ethiopia. It pulls with it a connotation that it has ‘arrived’ to contaminate local customs and religious practices, and the ever-so-cherished Ethiopiawee Bahil. Even though the country has integrated many Western ideals in the past — from clothing, to architecture, to films, music, and food — feminism has not received an easy welcome. Surely, feminism is not new. Although Setaweet is the first to openly identify as a ‘feminist’ collective there have been organized women’s groups that have inched the needle forward for women’s health, legal reforms, social and economic participation.
Ethiopia has not generally witnessed waves of feminism (as we have seen in the West) or properly recorded or historicized organized women’s movements, however, Setaweet has had to sustain criticism that it is ‘too western, radical, hip’ or that the need to champion women as a culture pales in comparison to more nation-pressing issues of prosperity, security, and peace.
“Our goal is clear, it’s activism. The cultural specificity of a city like Addis Ababa is not lost on us,” says co-founder Sehin. “We have declared ourselves feminists. Perhaps other organizations who work to champion women’s rights may not use the word due to the stigma that is associated with the word here. We understand the banner of feminism originally responds to the challenges faced by women in the English speaking world. Yet, work needs to be done here, so fighting for gender equality at home means finding language specific to the challenges facing women in Ethiopia, and how we can raise consciousness to confront Ethiopia’s most closely held cultural ideals. Part of that includes teasing out when and where the Amharic language and media imaging are giving way to harmful and/or sexist attitudes towards the Ethiopian woman.”
Setaweet moves forward still growing and expanding its breadth. The role and need for it is undeniable. In four short years its following has increased while the responsibilities have broadened tremendously. Setaweet has become somewhat of a hotline for the city and community to share, unload, and call out injustices from all over the country – from sexist advertisements in pop-culture to cases of gender-based violence in universities and households. Anything and everything concerning women’s issues is circled through their main channels on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Perhaps, Setaweet’s most fundamental goal and achievement is that it is fostering an environment for conversation, and in return creating a space for language to evolve within the culture’s context.
Ethiopia and Eritrea set for first match in 20 years
Addis Ababa — The Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) and its Eritrean counterpart have come to an agreement to stage an historic friendly game in August.
An exact date for the match is yet to be decided but looks set to be played in the Eritrean capital Asmara.
The two nations have been avoiding games against each since the start of a border war in 1998.
In recent weeks peace has returned to the area with diplomatic ties being resumed.
Ethiopia boycotted games against Eritrea in 2000 and refused to take part in the east and central African regional under-20 event organised by Cecafa.
For their part Eritrea have also failed to take part in the 2015 Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup and forfeited a 2014 African Nations Championship (CHAN) qualifier against Ethiopia.
Newly appointed Ethiopia coach Abraham Mebratu is looking into the best date for the game as he will use it to help prepare for September’s 2019 African Cup of Nations qualifier against Sierra Leone.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia has “no option” but to pursue multi-party democracy, the reformist new prime minister said Sunday, again shaking up Africa’s second most populous nation that for decades has been ruled by a single coalition.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s chief of staff announced the remarks on Twitter, saying they were made during a meeting with leaders of more than 50 national and regional parties, including ones from overseas, who demanded reforms in election law.
A multiparty democracy would need strong institutions that respect human rights and rule of law, Abiy said, according to chief of staff Fitsum Arega.
The 42-year-old prime minister has announced sweeping reforms since taking office in April, including the release of opposition figures from prison and the embrace of a peace deal that led to the surprising restoration of diplomatic ties this month with longtime rival Eritrea.
Just months ago Ethiopia, a nation of more than 100 million people, faced widespread anti-government protests demanding wider freedoms, with the U.N. human rights chief and others expressing concern over hundreds of reported deaths and tens of thousands of people detained. The economy, one of Africa’s fastest-growing, suffered.
Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, which has been in power since 1991 and along with affiliated parties holds every seat in parliament, came up with Abiy after former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn stepped aside early this year. Notably, Abiy doesn’t come from the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, a party in the ruling coalition that has been the dominant force in government for most of the past 27 years.
Since taking office the new prime minister has surprised Ethiopians by openly acknowledging past torture by security forces, announcing the opening-up of the state-run economy and suggesting that his own position should have term limits.
While the government in the past has called its elections democratic, election observers and human rights groups have reported alleged intimidation and vote-rigging.
“Electoral reform, yes. It must be the top priority. Only speedy transition to electoral democracy will save the country,” Jawar Mohammed, a prominent Ethiopian activist based in the U.S., said Sunday on Facebook.
The recent removal of three groups from Ethiopia’s terror list, yet another of the new reforms, means the Oromo Liberation Front and Ginbot 7 could challenge the ruling coalition in next year’s elections. Their delisting, Abiy’s chief of staff said at the time, “will encourage groups to use peaceful political discourse to achieve political ends.”
While many in Ethiopia have cheered the changes, the dramatic shifts in the country’s long-entrenched government have caused some unrest. A grenade attack last month on a huge rally in the capital, Addis Ababa, shortly after Abiy addressed the crowd killed two people and hurt more than 150.
The ruling coalition blamed “desperate anti-peace elements” and vowed to continue with the reforms.
New York (TADIAS) — The Ethiopian Embassy in Washington D.C. held a press conference yesterday evening to provide more details on the PM Abiy Ahmed’s upcoming visit to Washington D.C. on July 28th, 2018. The press conference was shared live on a newly launched official Facebook page (PM Abiy in DC #መደመር) designed to promote this event.
Details of the public event provided during the press conference include location and time information, transportation recommendations as well as security details for the gathering as follows:
PM Abiy will greet Ethiopians at a free event hosted at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington D.C. on Saturday, July 28th, 2018. There is no registration or payment requirement for the event.
PROGRAM SCHEDULE & LOCATION:
Walter E. Washington Convention Center 801 Mt Vernon Pl NW, Washington, DC 20001
9:00AM: Doors Open
1:00pm: Official Program Commence
5:00pm: Program Concludes
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION & PARKING INFORMATION:
Metro information:
Yellow/Green line: Mt Vernon Sq/7th St-Convention Center
Red/Green Line: Gallery Place-Chinatown wmata.com for weekend schedule. It is recommended to use public transportation to arrive to the convention for this event.
Parking Information:
There are over 3,000 parking spaces in a three-block radius of the facility. These spaces are available on a first come, first serve basis.
VOLUNTEER INFORMATION & TRANSPORTATION:
Close to 500 volunteers in uniform will be assisting attendees with entrance into the venue. Three volunteer cab companies will be transporting attendees from various locations to the venue. Please pay attention for marked taxi vehicles.
SECURITY INFORMATION:
It is highly recommended that attendees do not bring large bags or metal objects. Everyone is subject to security protocol and metal detector screening. In addition, it was advised at the press conference that event participants refrain from bringing their children to the convention center.
ADDITIONAL PROGRAMS
In addition to the public event at the Walter E. Convention Center a smaller town hall event comprising of 1,500 individuals represented from various sectors and civic organizations have been invited to meet with PM Abiy Ahmed during his visit to Washington D.C.
PM Abiy Ahmed also plans to take part in the peace process event to be held among the exiled synod of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church and the synods in Addis Ababa during his visit to Washington DC.
Following the Washington DC event PM Abiy Ahmed will travel to Los Angeles, CA on July 29th and Minneapolis, MN on July 30th to meet with members of the Ethiopian community. The Minneapolis event is scheduled to be hosted at the Target Center (600 N 1st Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55403).
Additional information for all events related to PM Abiy Ahmed’s visit to the U.S. can also be found on the following social media platforms:
ADDIS ABABA/NAIROBI — Kenya’s Safaricom (SCOM.NR) is in advanced talks with the Ethiopian government to introduce its popular M-Pesa mobile money service, a major step towards establishing a toe-hold in the market of 100 million people, two sources said on Tuesday.
M-Pesa could transform Ethiopia’s economy, as it has done in Kenya, by allowing people to sidestep a decrepit and inefficient banking system and send each other money and make payments at the touch of a button.
As such, it could bolster the bold political and economic reform drive of new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed against opposition from hardliners in the ruling EPRDF coalition.
Started in 2007, M-Pesa has around 20 million active users in Kenya and has become the principal driver of profit growth for the dominant telecoms provider in East Africa as revenue from traditional voice and text services has flattened off.
Over the last decade, it has evolved from a basic money transfer service to a financial platform offering savings, loans and insurance products in conjunction with local lenders.
The deal could also give Safaricom and its parent companies, South Africa’s Vodacom and Britain’s Vodafone (VOD.L), a head-start when the Ethiopian government follows through on its stated intention to open up its telecoms sector to foreign companies.
“This is an important milestone for Safaricom,” said Eric Musau, head of research at Nairobi-based Standard Investment Bank.
Vodafone will license the use of the M-Pesa brand to an Ethiopia-based bank while Safaricom will host the servers in Nairobi, one Kenyan telecoms industry source told Reuters.
Ethiopia’s state telecommunications monopoly, Ethio Telecom, will carry the service, the source added.
Obama decries ‘utter loss of shame among political leaders’ in high-profile Mandela address
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — In his highest profile speech since leaving office, former U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday denounced the policies of President Donald Trump without mentioning his name, taking aim at the “politics of fear, resentment, retrenchment,” and decrying leaders who are caught lying and “just double down and lie some more.”
Obama was cheered by thousands in Johannesburg’s Wanderers Stadium as he marked the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth by urging respect for human rights, the free press and other values he said were under threat.
He rallied people to keep alive the ideals that the anti-apartheid activist worked for as the first black president of South Africa, including democracy, diversity, gender equality and tolerance.
Obama opened by calling today’s times “strange and uncertain,” adding that “each day’s news cycle is bringing more head-spinning and disturbing headlines.”
“We see much of the world threatening to return to a more dangerous, more brutal, way of doing business,” he said.
A day after Trump met in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Obama criticized “strongman politics.”
The “politics of fear, resentment, retrenchment” are on the move “at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago,” Obama added.
“Those in power seek to undermine every institution … that gives democracy meaning,” he said.
The first African-American president of the United States spoke up for equality in all forms, adding: “I would have thought we had figured that out by now.”
Obama praised the diversity of the World Cup champion French team, and he said that those countries engaging in xenophobia “eventually … find themselves consumed by civil war.”
He noted the “utter loss of shame among political leaders when they’re caught in a lie and they just double down and lie some more,” warning that the denial of facts could be the undoing of democracy.
But Obama reminded the crowd that “we’ve been through darker times. We’ve been through lower valleys.”
He closed with a call to action: “I say if people can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.”
The crowd gave him a standing ovation in the chilly South African winter.
“Just by standing on the stage honoring Nelson Mandela, Obama is delivering an eloquent rebuke to Trump,” said John Stremlau, professor of international relations at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.
He called the timing of Obama’s speech auspicious — one day after Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin — and said the commitments that defined Mandela’s life are “under assault.”
“Yesterday, we had Trump and Putin standing together; now we are seeing the opposing team: Obama and Mandela.”
This was Obama’s first trip to Africa since leaving office in 2017. Earlier this week, he stopped in Kenya, where he visited the rural birthplace of his late father.
Obama’s speech noted how Mandela, who was imprisoned for 27 years, kept up his campaign against what appeared to be insurmountable odds to end apartheid, South Africa’s harsh system of white minority rule.
Mandela, who was released from prison in 1990 and became president four years later, died in 2013 at the age of 95. He left a powerful legacy of reconciliation and diversity along with a resistance to inequality — economic and otherwise.
Since leaving the White House, Obama has shied away from public comment on the Trump administration, which has reversed or attacked his notable achievements. The U.S. under Trump has withdrawn from the 2015 Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal while trying to undercut the Affordable Care Act or “Obamacare.”
Obama’s speech drew on his great admiration for Mandela, a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner whom America’s first black president saw as a mentor.
When Obama was a U.S. senator, he had his picture taken with Mandela. After Obama became president he sent a copy of the photo to Mandela, who kept it in his office. Obama also made a point of visiting Mandela’s prison cell and gave a moving eulogy at Mandela’s memorial service in 2013, saying the South African had inspired him.
Many South Africans view Obama as a successor to Mandela because of his groundbreaking role and his support for racial equality in the U.S. and around the world.
Stremlau, who attended the speech, called it “a tough, strong condemnation of Trump and all that he stands for.”
“Obama hit out at lying, insecurity and putting down others. Obama said he can’t believe it is necessary to once again speak up for equality and human rights,” Stremlau said. “He pulled it together in a carefully worded, measured speech, which urged all to live up to Mandela’s standards and values.”
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — In this strategically vital nation of 100 million, a charismatic young leader is delivering shock therapy to one of the world’s most entrenched one-party systems.
In the four months since Abiy Ahmed—a 42-year-old former army officer—emerged as prime minister from an opaque power struggle in Ethiopia’s ruling party, he has riveted this East African nation with announcements that have shattered political taboos.
The premier has smiled, hugged and glad-handed his way across the country, calling for national reconciliation in the midst of violent ethnic discord, ordering the release of thousands of political prisoners and legalizing opposition groups long classified as terrorists.

He has conceded that Ethiopia’s ruling EPDRF coalition—in power since overwhelming the communist junta in 1991—is tainted by corruption and accused the powerful security services of conducting “terrorism” against their own population. He has angered hard-liners by launching a fast-track end to the two-decade conflict with Eritrea, removing a barrier between neighbors that came to be known as Africa’s Berlin Wall. Mr. Ahmed recently visited Eritrea to sign a peace agreement and he hosted Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, who formally reopened Eritrea’s embassy in Addis Ababa on Monday for the first time in more than two decades.
Mr. Ahmed has also pledged to liberalize Ethiopia’s tightly controlled economy and partly privatize state-owned enterprises, including Ethiopian Airlines, one of the world’s fastest-growing carriers. Market analysts expect him to tighten commercial and investment relations with the West over China, which has so far dominated the Ethiopian economy and owns most of the country’s massive debt load.
The outcome of Mr. Ahmed’s breakneck overhaul agenda could fundamentally reshape politics across the Horn of Africa, a strategic coastline perched on one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and site of mounting geopolitical competition between the Gulf monarchies, Iran, China and the U.S. His agenda has been supported by U.S. policy makers hoping to move a crucial counterterrorism partner closer to Washington and away from Beijing.
Mr. Ahmed’s message—and his telegenic delivery—has won him adulation from young and marginalized voters in a country where the median age is 18. Taxi buses in this traffic-choked highland capital are plastered with stickers of the premier smiling or holding his arms aloft. Souvenir shops sell T-shirts bearing his image.
But his sharp rhetorical shift comes with significant risks, lifting the veil on Ethiopia’s existential challenges. “It’s difficult not to be carried away by the euphoria about Abiy,” said Rashid Abdi, an analyst with Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group. “But he’s still struggling with significant pockets of discontent internally, and the frenetic pace of reform is upsetting his conservative critics.”
Behind the headlines, Ethiopia’s challenges are immense. Lauded internationally for sky-high growth rates, the economy has amassed unsustainable debt to fund an infrastructure spree, while many of its people still face hunger and extreme poverty. A crippling shortage of foreign currency has slowed production in factories and marquee construction projects including the $4.2 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile, which has been only temporarily alleviated by a $1 billion cash infusion from the United Arab Emirates.
Analysts say Mr. Ahmed’s pledge to sell stakes in two of Ethiopia’s largest state-owned enterprises—Ethio Telecom and Ethiopian Airlines—has more to do with resolving the currency crisis than a damascene conversion to free market capitalism. Auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers are valuing the assets of EthioTel, and Deloitte, Ernst & Young and others will help advise on the share sale. McKinsey is advising Ethiopia’s government on regulatory overhaul in preparation.
Ethiopian Airlines Group has shelved plans to establish a fleet of smaller jetliners as gains in demand suggest that the routes where they’d be deployed would be better served using larger planes.
Africa’s biggest airline had been looking at Bombardier Inc.’s C Series aircraft — since taken over by Airbus SE and renamed the A220 — together with Embraer SA’s E195. An order, which had been mooted as likely at this week’s Farnborough air show, is now off the agenda, Chief Executive Officer Tewolde GebreMariam said in an interview.
“We have decided to suspend the evaluation of the 100-seater regional aircraft acquisition project, since the market size of the selected regional routes is growing faster than we expected,” he said. Boeing Co. 737 jets from the current fleet will instead be used while the airline studies passenger trends.
Tewolde also said there’s no prospect of an order for the Airbus A350-1000 wide-body or Boeing’s rival 777X at the Farnborough expo, with Ethiopian still evaluating the two planes for its latest long-haul requirements. A purchase of more of the U.S. company’s current-generation 777s or the 787 Dreamliner remains an alternative, he said.
The CEO said that privatization plans, sanctioned by Ethiopia’s ruling politburo last month, are more likely to see foreign involvement in various operating units than an outright stake sale, given that Ethiopian Air already makes a significant economic contribution to the nation while being efficient, competitive internationally and able to raise capital for growth.
Of the group’s seven or eight business units, some will be “very attractive” to investors and could also benefit from outside involvement, he said. He cited the airline’s hotel business, airports and aerospace manufacturing division where negotiations are underway with companies including Boeing, Airbus and Bombardier. The carrier’s logistics arm, which has a venture with Deutsche Post AG’s DHL brand, could be transformed into a joint holding giving the German company a 49 percent stake “within weeks.”
The flags of the two nations flew bright and sharp. The two leaders waved at the happy crowds. The formal meetings overran, amid ostentatious displays of bonhomie. Even the hatchet-faced security officials appeared relaxed.
The meeting of Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s 41-year-old prime minister, and Isaias Afwerki, the 71-year-old president of Eritrea, in Addis Ababa on Saturday left seasoned Africa observers gasping for breath.
“The pace of this is simply astounding,” said Omar S Mahmood, of the Institute for Peace and Security Studies in Ethiopia’s booming capital.
The meeting between Abiy and Isaias concluded an intense bout of diplomacy that appears to have ended one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts. “Words cannot express the joy we are feeling now,” Isaias said, as he had lunch with Abiy. “We are one people. Whoever forgets that does not understand our situation.”
Many Ethiopians expressed their exhilaration on social media. “The events of these past … days between Ethiopia and Eritrea are like the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only amplified 1,000 times,” Samson Haileyesus wrote on Facebook. The reaction in Eritrea has been equally ecstatic.
Analysts say such hyperbole may be justified. The bid for peace with Eritrea is just the latest in a series of efforts that may bring revolutionary reform to Africa’s second most populous nation, transform a region and send shockwaves from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope.
Since coming to power in April, Abiy has electrified Ethiopia with his informal style, charisma and energy, earning comparisons with Nelson Mandela, Justin Trudeau, Barack Obama and Mikhail Gorbachev. He has reshuffled his cabinet, fired a series of controversial and hitherto untouchable civil servants, including the head of Ethiopia’s prison service, lifted bans on websites and other media, freed thousands of political prisoners, ordered the partial privatisation of massive state-owned companies, ended a state of emergency imposed to quell widespread unrest and removed three opposition groups from a list of “terrorist” organisations.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki said on Saturday history was being made as he started his first visit to Ethiopia in more than two decades, days after the two neighbors declared an end to their “state of war”.
Arriving for three days of meetings, Isaias was greeted warmly at the airport by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and thousands lined Addis Ababa’s main thoroughfare Bole Road, sporting T-shirts emblazoned with the pictures of both leaders.
The visit comes just days after Abiy visited Eritrea and signed a pact with Isaias on resuming ties, a move that ended a near 20-year military standoff after a border war.
“Words cannot express the joy we are feeling now. History is being made as we speak,” Isaias said during a lunch hosted by Abiy.
“Lives have perished but we are lucky to observe today … We are one people – whoever forgets that does not understand our situation.”
Abiy introduced Isaias to guests attending the lunch as an “esteemed and missed guest”.
Eritrea formally seceded from Ethiopia in 1993 after a long battle for independence, but the two went to war in 1998 over a border dispute. Though a peace deal was signed two years later, Ethiopia refused to implement it, saying it wanted more talks.
Reconciliation between Ethiopia and Eritrea could change politics and security in the volatile Horn of Africa region, which hundreds of thousands of young people have fled in search of safety and opportunities in Europe.
During the lunch, Abiy presented Isaias with a gold ring, while a painter handed Isaias a giant portrait of the Eritrean leader.
Ethiopia’s government spokesman said Isaias and his delegation would visit an industrial park in the southern Ethiopian town of Hawassa later on Saturday. Isaias was also due to give a speech in Addis Ababa on Sunday.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have so far agreed to open embassies, develop ports and restart flights.
Eritrea is due to reopen its embassy in Addis Ababa on Monday for the first time since 1998.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Meskel said on Twitter Isaias was accompanied by several ministers and other senior government officials.
Abiy, who is also trying to bring stability to a country that has been torn by protests since 2015, survived a grenade attack last month.
Q&A: How Timnit Gebru Brought Diversity to Artificial Intelligence
Meet Timnit Gebru. Born and raised in Ethiopia, Gebru immigrated to the US at 16 to earn her PhD from Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and just finished her year as a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research in New York. While she was still a PhD student, she co-founded Black in AI, an organization fostering collaboration and discussing initiatives to increase the representation of Black people in the field.
Was there a moment where you questioned your path?
All the time. I mean, when I first did analog circuit design, I was very much into hardware and that was my main focus while at Apple. Then, I went back to school to get my master’s in hardware. After I took many classes in device physics and did research with device physics for over a year I ultimately decided that device physics wasn’t for me. At first, I was a bit hesitant to change paths, but I was trying to see what I was interested in.
Do you follow your passion with everything?
Sort of. When I was doing research, I didn’t know what I wanted to focus on. I changed from device physics to a completely different thing, optics. It was still applied physics, but I didn’t know as much about optics. Learning something new like optics or image processing sparked a new interest in how my research could change the world for the better — for instance, how could I think of new ways of doing low-cost image processing from a phone for developing countries, because I am also from a developing country. I’m always thinking about that in whatever I do. I found myself really interested in computer vision. At the end of the one year in research, I decided, you know what? This is not for me. I’m just not going to do a PhD. So, I left, and worked on a startup instead. Eventually, I left that too, pursued Hacker School just for fun, and eventually asked myself, what am I doing with my life?
I had to do a lot of soul searching. I really enjoyed computer vision, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to spend my time doing something I wouldn’t still be passionate about. I was so confused. Am I a software person or am I a hardware person? Should I go back to Apple? Should I interview for jobs? What should I do?
If you work so hard on something and you put so much investment in your education, to not feel like you have a path can feel very defeating.
I think it’s important for people to understand that you have difficult times. Even successful people. In Ethiopian culture, not 100% of your identity is based on your achievement or work. I think it’s dangerous when that’s the case, and I think at that point too much of my identity was tied to what sort of career I was doing.
New York (TADIAS) — The Ethiopian community in Washington D.C. and metropolitan area in collaboration with the Ethiopian Embassy has announced a public gathering on July 28th to greet PM Abiy Ahmed at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The event is free and open to the public and is scheduled to take place in the afternoon from 1pm-4pm.
Dr. Abiy will also be traveling to Los Angeles, California on July 29th and Minnesota on July 30th to meet the Ethiopian Diaspora community.
Artwork by Solomon Asfaw
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia the trip is “aimed at boosting the involvement of all Ethiopian Diaspora living in the U.S. in the ongoing reforms, development, and democratization in their country of birth.” Organizers emphasize that all Ethiopians are “invited to participate in the meeting, regardless of their political ideology, religion, and ethnic background.”
PM Abiy Ahmed’s upcoming trip to the United States, follows in the heels of a successful and long-awaited peace summit between Eritrea and Ethiopia that officially ended the decades-long protracted border war between the two nations. PM Abiy Ahmed has also called for the formation of a Diaspora Trust Fund encouraging Ethiopians abroad to invest a dollar a day to support current reform initiatives, assist in development projects, and support innovative ideas in all fields to help Ethiopia accelerate its mission of becoming a more peaceful, democratic, united and free society.
— If You Go:
Public Convention to Meet PM Abiy Ahmed
Date: Saturday, July 28th, 2018
Time: 1pm – 4pm
Location: Walter E. Washington Convention Center
801 Mt Vernon Pl NW, Washington, DC 20001
New York (TADIAS) — “Diaspora, here is a call to you. A dollar a day to help children get an education, our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers get health service, and above all, consider this as ‘paying back’ to your people who gave you future while they had no one,” said PM Abiy Ahmed in a recent comment while defending Ethiopia’s 346.9 billion Ethiopian birr ($12.71 billion) budget and inviting fellow Ethiopians who reside overseas to become part of the solution.
As we prepare to welcome Dr Abiy here in the United States in a couple of weeks we encourage our readers not only to heed his call to establish a “Diaspora Trust Fund” to support the ongoing reform initiatives to take root and to assist in other development projects, but also to think outside the box and offer fresh and innovative ideas in all fields to help the country accelerate its mission of becoming a more peaceful, democratic, united and free society with a prosperous economy that respects the natural human rights of all its citizens.
It’s remarkable that so much has changed in Ethiopia in such a short time that it almost feels like we are living through one of those rare moments that take place once in a blue moon in Ethiopia’s ancient and mystical history, such as the building of Lalibela in the 13th century; the founding of the cities of Harar in 1216 and Gondar in 1635. Or for that matter the victory at the Battle of Adwa in 1896 and the triumphant return of Emperor Haile Selassie to Addis Ababa in 1941 from exile to reclaim Ethiopia’s throne after the defeat of the occupying fascist Italian forces during World War II. And we can’t be more happier than to be part of this incredible time in 2018.
Just barely five month ago — during a desperate period in Ethiopia amid relentless unrest, a deafening chorus of skepticism, talk of civil war and gloomy predictions of an imminent collapse of the Ethiopian state — we wrote a brief and hopeful editorial titled Seize the Moment Ethiopia in hopes of encouraging our generation to rise to the occasion and “assure the continuity of Ethiopia’s long history as well as our shared and sovereign culture” and noting that “building a true democracy requires transparency, a responsible and free press, and the maturity to think about the common good, beyond our own selves and group interests, both at the grassroots and leadership levels.”
Today, thanks to Dr. Abiy and his team, events of the past three months have exceeded our wildest imagination. As President Obama would say: “We are the generation we have been waiting for!”
We are delighted that Ethiopia has a confident, good-hearted and educated leader who fully understands that he serves at the will of the people and for the people. More importantly Dr. Abiy is open to new ideas, open dialogue, free press, constructive criticism and debate, which are all the basic foundations of a working democracy. Now we are optimistic that “Ethiopia is on the right track to a more democratic society.”
Below is a media round up of the latest developments from Ethiopia including the historic peace deal with Eritrea and the announcement that Ethiopian Airlines is preparing to resume flights to Asmara next week.
Ethiopia and Eritrea Declare End of War (BBC)
The leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea have signed a declaration saying that the state of war between the two countries is over. A peace deal ending the 1998-2000 border conflict has never been fully implemented and there has been tension between the neighbours ever since. The countries have also agreed to re-establish trade and diplomatic ties. The declaration came at a landmark meeting between the two countries’ leaders in Eritrea’s capital, Asmara. The summit between Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed marked the first time the neighbours’ heads of state had met for nearly two decades. Read more »
Ethiopian to Resume Flights to Asmara Next Week (FANA)
Ethiopian Airlines will resume flights to Eritrean capital Asmara next week. Ethiopian will also purchase a 20 percent stake in Eritrean Airlines, Dr Workneh Gebeyeu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, told journalists today, following Prime Minister Dr Abiy Ahmed’s visit to Eritrea. During the visit the two countries have signed a number of agreements to resume diplomatic relations. According to the Foreign Minister, the two countries have established a technical committee tasked to follow up on the implementation of the agreements reached between them, including use of ports and air links. Flights to Asmara are scheduled to resume next week. Read more »
Ethiopia Fires Prison Officials Over Human Rights Abuses Amid Torture Report (The Washington Post)
Ethiopia’s attorney general announced the dismissal of five top prison officials for alleged human rights violations, hours before the Thursday release of a Human Rights Watch report on torture in one regional prison. Berhanu Tsegaye said the top prison officials “were relieved of their post for failing to discharge the responsibilities and respect prisoners’ human rights,” according to the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting late Wednesday. The announcement came hours before the release of a harrowing report by Human Rights Watch describing systematic torture in Jail Ogaden, a prison in Jijiga, the capital of Ethiopia’s Somali region. Read more »
PM Abiy Ahmed to Travel to Washington D.C. & Los Angeles on July 28-29
Dr. Abiy Ahmed, will be traveling to Washington D.C. on July 28th and Los Angeles, California on July 29th, 2018 to meet the Ethiopian Diaspora in the United States. “The objective of his trip is to hold face-to-face meetings with Ethiopian Diaspora in the U.S., according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia,” reports Fana Broadcasting Corp. “It is also aimed at boosting the involvement of all Ethiopian Diaspora living in the U.S. in the ongoing reforms, development, and democratization in their country of birth.” According to the announcement all Ethiopians are “invited to participate in the meeting, regardless of their political ideology, religion, and ethnic background.” Read more »
Just a few months ago, Ethiopia — a vast country of 100 million people — was still mired in dictatorship and war. But dramatic shifts are taking hold and they appear to be moving the country in the right direction: toward freedom.
This week, Ethiopia’s democratically elected prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, signed a peace treaty with Eritrea, its long-standing enemy. The news was one more sign that the change promised by the new government is real.
Ethiopia still has a long way to go. But Eskinder Nega, a leading Ethiopian journalist and former political prisoner, recently told me that he sees democracy as the inevitable destiny of his homeland. Now, he said, it’s “Ethiopia’s turn.”
He doesn’t make such claims lightly. Nega has spent a total of nine years in prison, most recently serving a 6½-year stint on a terrorism conviction for supposedly inciting violence against the government and having ties with the West. In reality, of course, the government targeted him because he was a vocal advocate for democracy, demanding an end to years of one-party rule.
Amid growing protests, he and several other political prisoners were released in April in a bid to “foster national reconciliation,” authorities said at the time.
In the months since, Ethiopia has been undergoing rapid reform, with Ahmed promising greater freedoms. For Nega, though, the only acceptable outcome is a representative democracy respecting the rights of all people.
Frehiwot Negash picked up the phone and called a random number.
The Ethiopian finance manager was trying to test if indeed she could now place a call to Eritrea after 20 long years of being cut off from the neighboring country in the aftermath of a bloody border war.
The person on the other line answered. It was a hotel.
Negash, 33, told CNN: “The receptionist picked up. So I said ‘I’m calling from Ethiopia.’ Then I passed the congratulations message to her, and I told her that I am very happy and she also said ‘I am happy too.”
Negash says she now plans to visit Eritrea later this year.
After it was announced on Monday that phone lines would be restored between both countries, Ethiopia’s telecoms company, Ethios, sent text messages to its 57 million subscribers, saying they could now call Eritrea.
Negash was one of the people who quickly picked their phones to check if it was true. She and others in Ethiopia spent the day placing calls to friends and long-lost family members in Eritrea.
And the occasional stranger too.
“Oh gosh, I am so excited over this EthioEritrea thingy, I just called on a random number in Asmara and had a nice chat with a lady named Frtuna and she speaks Amharic,” Twitter user Henok Karvonen posted.
It has been 20 years since a war led to a shutdown of communication between the two countries.
But a diplomatic breakthrough was reached this week following a two-day summit between Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, 41, and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, 71, in Eritrea’s capital, Asmara.
The two leaders delighted their citizens after declaring an end to the war between both nations on Monday.
FOR DECADES, AMERICANS have accepted rule by a mendacious and meretricious elite. Today we have reason to believe that our situation is worse than ever. Our president is a hate-mongering bully who promotes foreign wars, the destruction of our natural environment, the further enrichment of the rich, and the impoverishment of everyone else. Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress are cynical money-grubbers who grovel before corporate power. The Supreme Court twists the Constitution to promote the most anti-democratic forces in our society. Founders of our republic would howl in anguished rage if they could see how fully our political leaders have defiled their liberating vision.
The decline of democracy in the United States might logically lead us to conclude that our political system has failed — that democracy is intrinsically unable to resist the power of those who profit from undermining it. That view, however, is contradicted by what other democracies have recently achieved. With hardly any notice in the American press, three very different countries have recently produced leaders who are unapologetically pursuing policies that benefit their people and the world. They are magnificent examples for the United States — unless they lead us to weep in envy…
Just one day after Alvarado was inaugurated in Costa Rica on April 1, another exemplar of democratic will became prime minister of Ethiopia. Abiy Ahmed, 41, comes from the country’s Muslim minority and also from a persecuted ethnic group, the Oromo. He took over a country that has long been ruled by repressive tyrants, is divided along ethnic, religious and regional lines, and has been in constant conflict with neighboring Eritrea. “Expect a different rhetoric from us,” he said upon taking office. “If there is to be political progress in Ethiopia, we have to debate the issues openly and respectfully.”
In just three months as prime minister, Abiy has cut a radical swath through Ethiopian politics. He fired five senior officials who were known for corruption and brutality. Then he announced that he would accept the ruling of a border commission as a way of making peace with Eritrea, even though it requires handing over territory that many Ethiopians consider theirs. He ordered the release of more than 1,000 political prisoners. When a member of Parliament protested that his order was unconstitutional, he replied: “Jailing and torturing, which we did, are not constitutional either. . . Does the Constitution say anyone who was sentenced by a court can be tortured, put in a dark room? It doesn’t. Torturing, putting people in dark rooms, is our act of terrorism.” On June 25 Abiy’s enemies tried to kill him in a grenade attack. “The people who did this are anti-peace forces,” he said afterward. “You weren’t successful in the past and you won’t be successful in the future.”
Over the brief history of the United States, Americans have shown ourselves ready to seize anything we covet, anywhere in the world. If we could maintain that tradition, we might now arrange an “extraordinary rendition” operation to kidnap Jacinda Ardern, Carlos Alvarado, or Abiy Ahmed so one of them could be installed in the White House. Lamentably, that is impossible. The alternative is to concentrate on encouraging homegrown leaders who share their humanistic vision. Americans once believed that we could inspire and lead the world. Now we can only hope to catch up with New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Ethiopia.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — With laughter and hugs, the leaders of longtime adversaries Ethiopia and Eritrea met for the first time in nearly two decades Sunday amid a rapid and dramatic diplomatic thaw aimed at ending one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts.
Ethiopia’s reformist new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed arrived in Eritrea’s capital and a live broadcast by Eritrean state television showed President Isaias Afwerki greeting him at the airport in scenes unthinkable just months ago.
“A brotherly embrace,” Eritrea’s information minister said on Twitter, sharing photos .
Crowds danced and sang for the leaders, and Asmara’s streets were hung with Ethiopian and Eritrean flags. Abiy and Afwerki traveled across the capital in a large motorcade as people wearing T-shirts with the images of the leaders cheered. The leaders then met one-on-one, with a smiling Abiy leaning toward Afwerki under a wall hung with their portraits.
The visit comes a month after Abiy surprised people by fully accepting a peace deal that ended a two-year border war between the two East African nations that killed tens of thousands. Ethiopia and Eritrea have not had diplomatic ties since the war began in 1998, with Abiy himself fighting in a town that remains contested today, and the countries have skirmished since then.
Abiy’s chief of staff, Fitsum Arega, said on Twitter that the visit aims to “further deepen efforts to bring about lasting peace.” He shared photos of the leaders’ meeting and said Abiy, 42, was “very warmly received” by the 72-year-old Afwerki.
“Our two nations share a history and bond like no other,” he said. “We can now overcome two decades of mistrust and move in a new direction.”
Ethiopia’s foreign ministry called the visit “part of efforts to normalize relations with Eritrea” and said Abiy was expected to talk with Eritrea’s leadership about “how to mend fences.”
One Eritrean diplomat, the ambassador to Japan Estifanos Afeworki, said on Twitter that “no leader has received such a warm welcome like today in Asmara in the history of Eritrea.”
Ethiopians expressed a welcome shock at the meeting, which was shown live by Ethiopia’s state TV.
“Historic … the beginning of the end. The glass ceiling has been broken,” one resident, Shewit Wudassie, wrote on Facebook. Another Facebook user, Djphat Su, wrote: “Am I dreaming or what?”
The decision to fully accept the peace deal was the biggest and most surprising reform yet announced by Ethiopia’s prime minister, who took office in April and quickly set off a wave of reforms, freeing journalists and opposition figures from prison, opening up the state-run economy and unblocking hundreds of websites after years of anti-government protests demanding more freedoms.
Eritrea’s Afwerki days after the announcement noted “positive signals” from Ethiopia and sent the first official delegation in two decades to “gauge current developments directly and in depth” to plan future steps. Ethiopia used the visit to announce that the flagship Ethiopian Airlines would soon begin flights to Eritrea, and already Abiy has expressed interest in landlocked Ethiopia having access to Eritrean ports.
While Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous nation, with more than 100 million people, and one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, tiny Eritrea, with 5 million people, is one of the world’s most closed-off nations, ruled by Afwerki since gaining independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after years of rebel warfare. But the two countries share close cultural ties.
Eritrea has become a major source of migrants fleeing toward Europe, Israel and African nations in recent years as human rights groups criticize its harsh military conscription laws. Observers of the diplomatic thaw have asked whether peace with Ethiopia would lead Eritrea to loosen up and drop its long defensive stance.
“Reconciliation would deprive President Isaias of an excuse for maintaining his country in a permanent state of military readiness” that has blocked Eritrea from developing any form of democracy, said Martin Plaut, author of “Understanding Eritrea” and a senior research fellow with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London.
Abiy’s move broke a long stalemate between Afwerki and the long-dominant Tigrayan party in Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. “Abiy represents the majority of Ethiopians rather than the Tigrayan ethnic group” and is not beholden to it, Plaut said, adding that Afwerki accepted the peace gesture “since it allowed him to portray it as a triumph over his Tigrayan rivals.”
Not everyone has welcomed Ethiopia’s embrace of the peace deal, with some residents in the northern Tigray region bordering Eritrea holding protests.
— Related: Pictures: PM Abiy arrives in Asmara
A warm welcome to Ethiopian Premier in Asmara, Sunday, July 8, 2018. (Photo: Fana Broadcasting @fanatelevision via Twitter)
(Photo: Fana Broadcasting @fanatelevision via Twitter)
Asmara, Eritrea, Sunday, July 8, 2018. (Photo: Fana Broadcasting @fanatelevision via Twitter)
“It is possible that the human auditory system actually evolved to hear music, because it is so much more complex than it needs to be for language alone,” said Ethiopian American musician Meklit Hadero during her 2015 talk at a TED Fellows retreat. A senior TED Fellow, she was paraphrasing a theory from California neuroscientist and musician Charles Limb. “And if that’s true,” she continued, “it means that we’re hardwired for music, that we can find it anywhere.”
Professionally known simply as Meklit, the Ethiopia-born artist has a career that goes far beyond cutting albums and touring. Now based in San Francisco, she’s a cofounder of the Nile Project, a multifaceted organization focused on East African society. It seeks ways to use music to answer questions related to cultural identity, resource sharing and the trajectory of human existence.
and pan-global styles. Her latest album, When the People Move the Music Moves Too, features collaborations with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and acclaimed singer-songwriter Andrew Bird. The album’s Grammy Award-winning producer, Dan Wilson, made those connections.
Meklit will perform on Thursday, July 12, at ArtsRiot in Burlington. Seven Days caught up with her by phone.
New York (TADIAS) — The government affiliated media organization Fana Broadcasting Corporation has announced on July 4th that Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, will be traveling to Washington D.C. on July 28th and Los Angeles, California on July 29th, 2018 to meet the Ethiopian Diaspora in the United States.
“The objective of his trip is to hold face-to-face meetings with Ethiopian Diaspora in the U.S., according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia,” reports Fana Broadcasting Corp. “It is also aimed at boosting the involvement of all Ethiopian Diaspora living in the U.S. in the ongoing reforms, development, and democratization in their country of birth.”
According to the announcement all Ethiopians are “invited to participate in the meeting, regardless of their political ideology, religion, and ethnic background.”
ADDIS ABABA (The Washington Post) — Ethiopia’s attorney general announced the dismissal of five top prison officials for alleged human rights violations, hours before the Thursday release of a Human Rights Watch report on torture in one regional prison.
Berhanu Tsegaye said the top prison officials “were relieved of their post for failing to discharge the responsibilities and respect prisoners’ human rights,” according to the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting late Wednesday.
The announcement came hours before the release of a harrowing report by Human Rights Watch describing systematic torture in Jail Ogaden, a prison in Jijiga, the capital of Ethiopia’s Somali region.
Report author Felix Horne said federal and regional authorities never responded to letters in April and May conveying the group’s findings. The report calls for a probe into the alleged abuses as well as criminal charges against those responsible.
Girl slain in Boise stabbing “loved pink and Disney princesses”
BOISE, Idaho — The three-year-old Idaho girl who died from her wounds two days after a mass stabbing at her birthday party Saturday has been identified as an Ethiopian refugee “who loved pink and Disney princesses.” CBS Boise affiliate KBOI-TV reports Ruya Kadir is the victim who lost her battle to survive.
The station cites The International Rescue Committee, an organization providing support for the families involved in the stabbing.
IRC President and CEO David Hillbrand said in a statement, “Our caseworkers describe Ruya as a child who always sparkled when she walked into a room. She was her mother’s princess, always the center of attention, and loved pink and Disney princesses. She had just turned three years old Saturday, and according to our IRC colleagues in Boise, was the epitome of sweetness.
“Ruya and her mother are Ethiopian refugees. They arrived in the U.S. in December 2015 and settled in Boise. Her father is in Turkey. Ruya’s parents are enduring every parent’s worst nightmare, which is made doubly cruel by the fact that they fled to America to escape conflict in Ethiopia. IRC had resettled the Kadir family in Boise. Our local team is doing everything possible to support the family – and the other refugees injured on Saturday – in this moment of extreme distress and fear.”
Authorities say a man invaded the birthday celebration and attacked nine people with a knife.
Timmy Kinner is accused of stabbing a group of children and the adults who tried to protect them at the party at an apartment complex that is home to many refugee families.
Word of the child’s death came at Kinner’s first court appearance, where Ada County Magistrate Judge Russell Comstock told him that he was charged with first-degree murder and other felonies in connection with the attack.
Comstock told Kinner he was “an extreme danger to the community” and ordered him held without bond.
Kinner is American, and the victims are members of refugee families from Syria, Iraq and Ethiopia. Boise Police Chief William Bones said the evidence doesn’t suggest the attack was a hate crime.
The suspect had recently stayed at the apartment complex but was asked to leave Friday over bad behavior, Bones said.
Three of the stabbing victims were adults, the others children: the 3-year-old girl who died, two 4-year-olds, a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old and a 12-year-old…
Monday evening roughly 1,500 people turned out at a vigil honoring members of refugee families targeted in the stabbing.
People wept, sang and shouted their support for the refugee community, and many brought bouquets of white flowers intended to symbolize peace. By the end of the rally, hundreds of bouquets filled dozens of baskets on the steps of Boise’s City Hall.
But community leaders told the crowd that what the survivors really need is money to cover rapidly growing medical bills and space at home to try to overcome the constant sense of unease they’ve experienced since the attack. Boise Mayor Dave Bieter and others urged community members to do what they can to help.
Signs were dotted throughout the crowd, some reading “love wins” and “we are all immigrants.”
Younis Kamel, a 16-year-old who moved to Boise from Iraq, and his 23-year-old sister Zuzu Kamel held up a more poignant sign:
“I will never forget seeing my friend getting stabbed in front of me,” the sign read. Younis Kamel was at the apartment complex the night of the attack.
Another woman held a sign reading “Justice for Teeba,” with a photo of a young child in a hospital bed, a breathing tube obscuring part of his face with half a dozen other tubes and medical devices connected to his body.
New York (TADIAS) — The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), one of the largest television program distributors in the United States, will premiere Marcus Samuelsson’s new show No Passport Required on Tuesday, July 10th, 2018.
As host of No Passport Required Restaurateur, Chef and Author Marcus Samuelsson will be highlighting food, art and culture in immigrant communities across America — from the vibrant Ethiopian restaurant scene in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area to Little Kabul in Fremont, California and the Vietnamese shrimpers in Louisiana.
“Chasing flavors has been my lifelong passion,” shared Samuelsson in recent press release. “To now be able to bring viewers on that journey with me to these amazing communities in cities across the U.S. is truly a dream come true. We get to go deep into the markets, pull up to the roadside stands, and be welcomed into homes — all the places where people share and celebrate food together.”
No Passport Required is produced by Vox Media in collaboration with PBS.
The press release adds: “Chef Samuelsson — co-owner of New York’s critically acclaimed Red Rooster Harlem — embodies America’s extraordinarily rich cultural diversity. Born in Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, and a proud resident of Harlem, he’s inspired by this global background to infuse his culinary experiences with diverse elements of music, history, culture, and the arts. Today, he is a celebrated award-winning chef, restaurateur, author, philanthropist and food activist. Samuelsson’s accolades include earning five James Beard Awards, being named the youngest chef ever to receive a three-star review from The New York Times, and having the honor of cooking for the Obama administration’s first state dinner. He is an ambassador for UNICEF, co-founder of the Harlem EatUp! Festival, and the co-chair of the board of Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP).”
Watch conversation with Marcus Samuelsson about No Passport Required below:
Learn more about Marcus Samuelsson’s new PBS show No Passports Required here.
Injera, Ethiopia’s staple food, was invented by a Dutchman in 2003.
That’s according to the European Patent Office, which lists the Netherlands’ Jans Roosjen as the “inventor” of teff flour and associated food products. Teff is a plant endemic to Ethiopia, and the grain is used to make [injera] that Ethiopians eat with their meals.
Roosjen also has a patent for the “invention” in the United States — though he is patently not the inventor of a product that has been around for millennia.
Ethiopians are nonplussed.
“For someone from Europe, from across the ocean, in a different continent, to come and say we patented teff and the copyright is ours …” Kassahun Gebrehana, owner of the Little Addis Café in Maboneng, Johannesburg, shakes his head…
Superfood
The story of how Ethiopia lost the intellectual property for teff and its associated products in Europe began in the early 2000s, with a bright idea: If Ethiopians love teff so much, why wouldn’t the rest of the world? The tiny grain — the world’s smallest grain, in fact — is gluten-free and rich in nutrients, beloved by hipsters and dieticians alike. It was, and remains, perfectly poised to take advantage of the global health food trend. Teff could be the next kale or quinoa.
Dutch researchers formed a company, which eventually became Health and Performance Food International, to explore options to market teff in Europe. Roosjen was a director. After many negotiations with different government entities, the company reached a deal with Ethiopia to plant and distribute teff in Europe. In return, it would send a hefty slice of the profits back to Addis Ababa.
These details are all courtesy of researchers Regine Andersen and Tone Winge, who in 2012 published a comprehensive paper on the subject for the Fridtjof Nansen Institute.
At the time, the deal was hailed as ground-breaking: for once, an African country was actually going to benefit from its precious natural resources. But not everyone was impressed: in 2004 the Coalition Against Biopiracy gave the Dutch company its award for the “most outrageous” deal: “The company appears to be oblivious to the fact that they are seeking to monopolise teff varieties that were developed over millennia by Ethiopian farmers and community plant breeders,” reads the citation.
In 2003, Ethiopian officials boxed up 1 440kg of teff seeds and shipped them off to the Netherlands. From there, it was supposed to find its way into kitchens all over Europe. Ninety-one Dutch agrarian entrepreneurs started growing teff, and that year 620 hectares were harvested.
But things did not go according to plan. The demand for teff never materialised, and the much-lauded deal earned the Ethiopian government a mere pittance: just €4 000 in total. In 2009 the Dutch company went bankrupt, meaning in effect that the contract was terminated.
But Health and Performance Food International had already applied for and been granted patents for the production and distribution of teff in Europe, and these did not lapse when the company went bankrupt. These patents are incredibly broad, covering most forms of teff flour, as well as all products that result from mixing teff flour with liquids. These include bread, pancakes, shortcake, cookies, cakes and, of course, injera.
New York (TADIAS) — The first Ethiopian food truck in New York City aptly named Makina Cafe is owned by Eritrean-American entrepreneur Eden G. Egziabher who was born in Ethiopia from parents of Eritrean descent and was raised “amidst a vibrant mix of Ethiopian, Eritrean and Italian cultures.”
“At the bright yellow Makina Cafe truck, which has been plying the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens since last summer, the injera is..delivered fresh every morning to the truck before it sets out for lunch service,” The New York Times highlights in a review published today. “The identity of its maker is a prized secret. Eden Gebre Egziabher, the truck’s owner and chef, said simply, ‘I have a lady. She’s the best.’”
During the height of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in the late 1990s, Eden’s mother who was visiting friends in the U.S. at the time was prevented from returning to Ethiopia. Eden told NYT: “One minute everyone was living together. The next, families were ripped apart.”
The newspaper adds: “While she fled with her father and older sister to Kenya, her mother applied for asylum in the United States. A year later, they were reunited in Charlotte, N.C.”
“Now, Ms. Gebre Egziabher hopes to turn the food of her childhood into an American staple — “to bring my culture to Main Street,” she said…For her menu, she intentionally chose dishes whose ingredients would not be intimidating to diners unfamiliar with the cuisine.. as in fossolia, a gingery simmer of string beans and carrots, and tikel gomen, cabbage gently broken down with carrots and potatoes — although not too much, so it keeps a memory of crunch.”
Adding to Morgan’s growing number of Fulbright Scholarship recipients representing the University, Getachew Metaferia, Ph.D., a professor of political science in the College of Liberal Arts, will be next to engage in learning abroad. Dr. Metaferia will serve as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University in Israel. His research will focus on the Bete Israel community of Ethiopian Jews. During his time in the country, Metaferia will examine the community’s fast-growing population and its contributions to Israel’s social, economic, and political spheres.
This will not be Dr. Metaferia’s first visit to Israel. In 2017, he traveled to the country as a member of Academic Partner for Peace: Conflict, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding in the Context of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Dr. Metaferia will be taking a sabbatical leave for the Fall 2018 semester and during his upcoming teaching stint in Israel, he will look to establish collaboration between Morgan and Tel Aviv University.
Morgan is among the nation’s top producers of Fulbright scholars and the leader among HBCUs. To-date, 140 students and 70 faculty/administrators have received scholarships to study and teach abroad in more than 41 countries, including India, China, Brazil, and Jordan. Recently, Dr. Omar J. Khan, an associate professor of Marketing and International Business in the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management was awarded the Fulbright to teach and perform research at the University of Jordan.
The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. government, is the nation’s flagship international educational exchange program designed to increase mutual understanding between American scholars and people of other countries. The program operates in more than 140 countries worldwide. The Fulbright Program at Morgan was instituted when Dr. Sandye Jean McIntyre, II (Distinguished Professor of Foreign Languages and Honorary Consul of the Republic of Senegal) was appointed campus Fulbright Program Director in 1951. Dr. McIntyre was the longest serving Fulbright advisor in history. In 1968, Dr. Carleen S. Leggett, who would go on to become Morgan’s Fulbright program director, joined him in his efforts to aid student applicants.
New York (TADIAS) — Following the historic, large rally in Ethiopia in support of PM Dr. Abiy Ahmed this past weekend, the Ethiopian Diaspora in Washington DC and metropolitan area held a support rally on Tuesday, June 26th in front of the State Department.
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed had told the nation in his inaugural address that “Democracy is unthinkable without freedom. Freedom is not a gift doled out to people by a government. Rather a gift of nature to everyone that emanates from our human dignity.”
Dr. Abiy Ahmed’s message of peace, love, forgiveness and unity has resonated with Ethiopians both at home and abroad, and in a televised address on Saturday the prime minister vowed to continue his agenda for democracy in Ethiopia.
Below are photos and videos shared on Facebook from the Washington DC support rally:
At Washington DC Support Rally for PM Abiy Ahmed on Tuesday, June 26th, 2018. (Photo: Matt Andrea/Facebook. Artwork by Solomon Asfaw).
Event poster for Washington DC Support Rally for PM Abiy Ahmed on Tuesday, June 26th, 2018. (Photo: Matt Andrea/Facebook).
Below are additional images and artwork by artists made for the rallies: (By artist Yadesa Bojia)
How Ethiopia Habtemariam Became Universal Music Group’s Most Powerful African-American Woman: ‘I Love Proving People Wrong’
The highest-ranking African-American women at Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group are, respectively, Motown Records president Ethiopia Habtemariam, Epic Records president Sylvia Rhone and Atlantic executive vp Juliette Jones. Here’s how Habtemariam got to where she is today. (Find links to the other women’s stories below.)
When, at age 16, Ethiopia Habtemariam wrote her first fan letter, it wasn’t to one of her favorite artists.
She was trying to connect with Sylvia Rhone, then Elektra Entertainment Group chairman/CEO (and today, president of Epic Records). “I wanted to introduce myself because it was incredible to hear that the label’s chairman was a black woman. I’d never heard of anything like that before,” recalls Habtemariam. Back then, she was interning at Elektra’s Atlanta office. Today, she’s president of Motown Records, and she recently received a fan letter of her own. It was written by a female student attending Dominguez High School in Compton, Calif., and participating in the inaugural Bonus Tracks program this spring. Designed to introduce students to career opportunities in the music industry, the after-school program is a partnership among Capitol Music Group, Dominguez and the Compton Unified School District.
“I was in awe of how much you are a boss,” the student wrote to Habtemariam — who also recently served as president of urban and creative affairs for Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) — after meeting her at a Bonus Tracks session. “It was exciting to be in the presence of a BLACK WOMAN of your status. Coming from where I come from, I rarely get to see that.”
That’s something Habtemariam is intent on changing from her Capitol Tower office. “It’s on [music executives] to be vocal and active in creating opportunities,” she says. “Real initiatives need to be put in place. If the people working on a project don’t look like the people you’re trying to touch with your records, there’s a problem.”
Eritrean, Ethiopian Officials Hold Landmark Talks on Peace Deal
Eritrean and Ethiopian government officials held talks about a stalled peace deal for the first time since a conflict between the two countries ended almost two decades ago.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is seeking to normalize relations with neighboring Eritrea as part of a broader program of reforms he’s initiated since taking office two months ago. He’s also announced plans to open up the Africa’s fastest-growing economy to foreign investors and also lifted a state of emergency imposed after the snap resignation of his predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, in February.
“The new developments in Ethiopia augur well for the resolution of the frozen boundary conflict and durable peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia,” Andebrhan Welde Giorgis, a former member of Eritrea’s ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice and now an independent analyst, said by phone from Brussels. “At the same time, the winds of change blowing in Ethiopia could also cross over and usher in a new democratic dispensation in Eritrea.”
Officials including Yemane Ghebreab, an adviser to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, and Foreign Minister Osman Saleh, arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Tuesday afternoon, Shamble Tillahun, a spokesman for the Ethiopian government communications office, said by phone from the city. Images published by the Fana Broadcasting Corp. showed the officials holding talks with Abiy.
New York (TADIAS) — Former U.S. President Barack Obama will return to his father’s homeland of Kenya next month on his way to South Africa, where he is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech at Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday anniversary.
“Obama will visit Kenya from July 15-16, where he’ll attend the inauguration of a youth sports center founded by his sister, Auma Obama,” CNN reports. “The vocational center in Siaya County aims to provide educational and economic opportunities to help young people serve their communities, and shares a similar mission as President Obama’s foundation.”
“Given that his own mission under the Obama Foundation is to inspire and empower people to change the world, his attendance at this event at our ancestral home, where our father was laid to rest, is of great significance to me,” Auma Obama said.
In Kenya, Obama will also meet with President Uhuru Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Since leaving office America’s ex-President has purposefully kept himself out of the limelight and away from the tumultuous political environment in the United States, which seems to have been further exasperated in recent days due to the fallout from his successor’s tragic family separation policy.
In a much talked about article published this week titled Where Is Barack Obama?, New York Magazine notes that “the most popular American…has, for now, virtually disappeared from public life.” Former White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says: “He’s recognizing that the party and our country will benefit from other voices having an opportunity to weigh in, and that opportunity would be all but completely obscured if he were regularly sharing his opinion on these issues.”
Obama, who is also a talented writer, has been working on his upcoming memoir. Per New York Magazine: “No one close to Obama expects the finished product to look anything like other White House memoirs, given his history as a writer. “He is engaged in reflection, and he also cares about writing,” says Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator and an Obama friend. “I would be surprised if it’s just a standard chronological accounting of his last eight years.”
In addition Barack & Michelle Obama have partnered with Netflix to produce media content including films and documentary series for the online streaming service giving the former first couple a powerful and unprecedented platform to shape their post-White House legacy. “Under the name Higher Ground Productions, the Obamas will have hands-on involvement in producing content and will appear personally in some of the shows while curating others,” a person familiar with the deal told Reuters last month.”
New York (TADIAS) — In a television address, shortly after a grenade attack aimed at the Prime Minister during a large support rally in Addis Ababa on Saturday, Dr. Abiy Ahmed vowed to continue his agenda for democracy in Ethiopia.
Dr. Abiy addressed the nation stating “Love always wins. Killing others is a defeat. To those who tried to divide us, I want to tell you that you have not succeeded” reports The Guardian. According to AP Ethiopia’s Health Minister Amir Aman also confirmed that 1 person has died with 153 injured and 10 in critical condition.
The U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia tweeted: “We extend our deepest condolences to the victims of the explosion in Meskel Square and their families and wish the injured a quick recovery. Violence has no place as Ethiopia pursues meaningful political and economic reforms.”
And the European Union said via Facebook: “Heartfelt condolences from the European Union Delegation to Ethiopia to the Ethiopian people and the Ethiopian Government for the victims of today’s cowardly attack in Addis Ababa.”
Prior to the explosion scenes of jubilation pervaded the large support rally for Ethiopia’s new and popular prime minister who addressed the crowd wearing a t-shirt with the image of Nelson Mandela and the words “No one is free until the last one is free.”
In his inaugural address shortly after becoming Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed had told the nation: “Democracy is unthinkable without freedom. Freedom is not a gift doled out to people by a government. Rather a gift of nature to everyone that emanates from our human dignity.”
Another rally in support of Dr. Abiy Ahmed is scheduled on Monday, June 25th in Washington D.C.
Below are a few photos shared on Facebook:
At Meskel Square in Addis Ababa on Saturday, June 23rd, 2018. (Photo: Facebook).
(Photo: Facebook).
The crowd at the support rally for PM Abiy Ahmed at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa on Saturday, June 23rd, 2018. (Photo: Facebook)
Dr. Abiy Ahmed at the rally at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa on Saturday, June 23rd, 2018. (Photo: Facebook)
Aerial view of the crowd at the support rally for PM Abiy Ahmed at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa on Saturday, June 23rd, 2018. (Photo: Facebook)
Below are images and artwork by artists made for the rally:
ADDIS ABABA – The United States will send FBI experts to Ethiopia to help investigate a grenade attack at a rally for new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, state-affiliated media said on Monday.
A grenade exploded on Saturday moments after Abiy had finished addressing the crowds, who had turned out to back his push for radical political and economic reforms, including a peace deal with arch-enemy Eritrea.
Thirty people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack that killed two and wounded 156 in Addis Ababa’s packed Meskel Square. Nine police officers have also been detained over the security lapse, officials said.
“The U.S. government said it is sending FBI experts,” the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporation reported.
U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Gilbert Kaplan made the offer while talking to Ethiopia’s minister of foreign affairs, Workneh Gebeyehu, on Monday, Fana added.
There was no immediate confirmation from the U.S. embassy in Addis, or from Washington. Ethiopia is one of Washington’s main allies in the region, particularly in the fight against militants in neighboring Somalia.
Security officials have not said publicly who might be responsible for the attack.
Abiy took office in April, pledging to bring more transparency to government and reconciliation to a country that has been wracked by political unrest since 2015.
Ethiopia has released thousands of jailed dissidents since the beginning of the year. Major policy shifts include the partial privatisation of Ethiopia’s state-run telecoms monopoly and state-owned Ethiopian Airlines, loosening the government’s grip on the economy.
New York (TADIAS) — At the 2016 Olympics in Brazil Ethiopian marathoner, Feyisa Lilesa, was thrust into the spotlight as he crossed the finish line in second place while holding his arms over his head in a political gesture of solidarity with non-violent protestors back home. He boldly repeated the protest on the podium as well as during a subsequent press conference. The gesture forced him to seek refuge unable to return home without fear of repercussions.
(Photo credit: Eshetu Homa Keno)
Now settled in the United States in Arizona with his family, Feyisa is showing his strong support of Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed, who has taken radical steps to enhance the nation’s political stability, free political prisoners, encourage telecom privatization and free press, and address issues of government corruption.
In a recently posted photo via his Facebook page, Feyisa states “We Support Our Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed!” as he stands holding up signs with his family. Back in April Quartz Media had shared the Olympian’s thoughts on the change in leadership, and like many Ethiopians at home and abroad Feyisa responded that he’s following Abiy’s actions adding that he is “hopeful that he will change things,” and “at least some things will be better than the past. However, this won’t happen overnight. I think it is better to give him some time and see what he does.”
On Monday, June 25th supporters of Dr. Abiy Ahmed in the United States have organized a rally in Washington D.C. in front of the State Department.
Ethiopia has unblocked 264 websites and TV broadcasters, a senior official has announced.
Fitsum Arega, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s chief of staff, announced the move on Twitter, saying “freedom of expression is a foundational right”.
Since coming to office in April, Mr Abiy has embarked on sweeping reforms.
The previous administration was accused of restricting access to foreign-based media platforms during the height of anti-government protests.
The government was accused of human rights violations – including torture and extrajudicial killing of political dissidents.
US-based television stations, Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT) and Oromo Media Network (OMN), were among the outlets barred and charged in absentia for inciting violence and promoting acts of terror by the government, BBC Amharic editor Ashagre Hailu reports.
Many journalists were given prison sentences for stories they had written, while others fled the country.
This environment seems to be changing under Prime Minister Abiy, our correspondent says.
When he took office in April, Mr Abiy pledged to open up the airwaves, even calling on foreign-based opposition TV broadcasters to open offices in Ethiopia.
A few weeks ago, charges were dropped against ESAT and OMN.
Mr Abiy has also announced the part-privatisation of state-owned enterprises, is attempting to stabilise Ethiopia’s rocky relationship with neighbouring Eritrea, and ended a state of emergency put in place by the previous administration.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Eritrea’s president announced Wednesday he is sending a rare delegation to neighboring Ethiopia for peace talks, days after Ethiopia’s new prime minister took a major step toward calming deadly tensions with its decades-long rival.
This is the first such delegation since 1998, when a border war erupted between the countries.
Eritrea’s longtime President Isaias Afwerki noted “positive signals” in recent days from Ethiopia and said the delegation will “gauge current developments directly and in depth” to plan future steps. He spoke during a Martyrs Day celebration in the capital, Asmara.
Ethiopia early this month announced it will fully accept the terms of a peace agreement with Eritrea signed in 2000 to end the two-year border war that killed tens of thousands. The countries have skirmished a number of times since then. Ethiopia had refused to accept the deal’s handing of key locations, including Badme, to Eritrea and continues to control that town.
The decision to fully accept the peace deal was the biggest and most surprising reform yet announced by Ethiopia’s young new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. “The suffering on both sides is unspeakable because the peace process is deadlocked. This must change for the sake of our common good,” Abiy’s chief of staff, Fitsum Arega, said at the time.
Eritrea shortly after the announcement replied that it had always accepted the peace deal.
On Wednesday, Fitsum on Twitter said Abiy had “thanked and congratulated” Eritrea’s president for the positive response and “expressed his readiness to welcome warmly and with considerable goodwill” the Eritrean delegation.
Eritrea’s ambassador to Japan, Estifanos Afeworki, on Twitter said the delegation will pursue “constructive engagement.” Eritrea’s ambassador to Kenya, Byene Russom, called it a “new chapter of peace and reconciliation between the Eritrean and Ethiopian people.”
Tiny Eritrea is one of the world’s most closed-off nations, ruled by Afwerki since gaining independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after years of rebel warfare. Eritrea has become a major source of migrants fleeing toward Europe, Israel and African nations in recent years as human rights groups criticize its harsh military conscription laws.
New York (TADIAS) – Ethiopian-American entrepreneur Alexander Assefa has won a primary election on his way to become a state legislator representing Nevada’s 42nd assembly district.
“Thank you everyone who came out to celebrate my election with us,” Alexander said via Facebook. “It’s been quite a road.” He added: “Now it’s time to get to work and build a community that is inclusive and one that capitalizes on the richness of our diversity. Stay with me, fight with me & help me. Let’s do this TOGETHER, as one people.”
Alexander is set to replace Democratic Representative Irene Bustamante Adams after the 2018 November elections. Members of the Nevada State Assembly serve two-year terms.
According to the Nevada Independent “the small business owner and Ethiopian refugee who defeated two primary challengers was endorsed by the Assembly Democratic caucus, and received 55.3 percent of the vote. Assefa is the only candidate who will appear on the November ballot since no Republicans or third-party candidates filed to run for the seat.”
Below is Alexander Assefa’s bio courtesy of his campaign website:
ABOUT ALEXANDER ASSEFA
Alexander Assefa is a Democrat running for the Nevada State Assembly from the 42nd district. Alex was born and grew up in Ethiopia. While still a teenager, he was subject to life as a refugee in Kenya. In Nairobi, he had the opportunity to root himself in the Christian faith while he lived where refugees are not necessarily welcomed, often faced persecution and intolerance. Harbored in his church family, he avidly studied the bible. He then went on to serve his fellow refugees in various roles in the church, including in the choir and as a bible study leader at several locations in Nairobi.
In the year 2000, Alex immigrated to the United States and was resettled in Alexandria, VA. He learned English as his 3rd language and attended TC Williams High School. He then moved to Columbus, OH, where he graduated from high school. Alex attended flight school at Averett University in Danville, VA and became a pilot. He continued his education to earn a Political Science degree.
Alex moved and permanently settled in Las Vegas in 2006, where he met his wife Zenash. He is a small business owner, who has created jobs for many working families in the Las Vegas area. He is actively involved in his community, serves in his church and is a strong participant in the Clark County Democratic Party. Alex is a member of the Las Vegas Urban Chamber of Commerce.
Alexander Assefa is the founder and Chairman of the Clark County Democratic Party, Transport and Tourism Workers Caucus. In his role as a leader, he tirelessly advocates for working families and relentlessly fights for those who are marginalized and left voiceless in the political system. His participation in politics took root while he was in college, where he founded the college’s first Democratic Club. Alex also served as a Treasurer and Senator in the Student Government Association. He went on to serve as a volunteer during every presidential election since 2004 and various other local campaigns.
Alexander Assefa currently serves on the Board of Advisors at the ECDC African Community Center, in the organization’s mission to impact lives by resettling refugees from every part of the world. Prior to joining the Board of Advisors, Alex volunteered in this important organization by helping with job placement of newly arriving refugees in Southern Nevada. He is also community organizer in the East African community of southern Nevada, advocating for greater participation in the electoral system and active engagement in the affairs of his community.
New York (TADIAS) – Ethiopian hip-hop artist Teddy Yo is performing for the first time in New York City this weekend.
Teddy Yo is being hosted by the music & entertainment company Africology in collaboration with Bunna Cafe in Brooklyn on Saturday, June 16th, 2018.
The evening includes music by DJ Sirak and Sierra Leonean beats from Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew.
Teddy Yo is one of the first artists in Ethiopia who successfully gained widespread popularity for his fusion of hip-hop and Ethiopian folk music. The blending is not just in the sounds but mixing traditional dance movements with hip-hop as well.
Around 2009 Teddy Yo made a name for himself by creating a new sound no one had tried before,” states the Africology Facebook site. “He had created a local Hip-Hop genre called Guraggetone, a Hip-Hop style of music that embodied a Gurage (an Ethnic group in Southern Ethiopia) style beat with witty Amharic rhymes and modern dance moves. Today, he has reached new levels of popularity in the Horn, and has helped spawn a budding hip hop movement in the country.”
In 2016, Africology produced and released Teddy Yo’s music video entitled Alegntaye, which continues to garner the artist wide acclaim.
Teddy Yo released his second album, Arada, Vol.2 earlier this year.
—
IF YOU GO:
Date: Saturday, June 16th, 2018
Time: 11pm to 4am
Location: Bunna Cafe, 1084 Flushing Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11237
When Eritrea gained independence in 1993, Ethiopia suddenly found itself without a coastline and so it took the logical step of disbanding its navy. Now, it is reconsidering its decision and its latest manoeuvres in the region suggest it could be shopping around its neighbourhood to find a naval base it can use.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed recently said on state TV: “We built one of the strongest ground and air force in Africa… we should build our naval force capacity in the future.”
His comments revealed the country’s naval ambitions but his plans for how to achieve this goal have not been made public. However, Ethiopia’s latest push to enter into deals with its coastal neighbours signals something is afoot.
What is behind the move?
State-linked Fana Broadcasting Corporate quoted Mr Abiy as saying the military reforms should “take into account current fast changing world, socio-economic and political situation in Ethiopia”.
After Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a bitter border war from 1998-2000, there was little chance that Ethiopia could carry on using Eritrea’s ports as it had done previously. So it had to find alternatives.
Ethiopia recently signed a deal to take a stake in the port of Djibouti, which now handles roughly 95% of all its exports and imports.
It is also connected to its small neighbour by a new 472 mile (759 km) railway line – opened last year – which links the capital Addis Ababa to the port of Doraleh, an extension of the port of Djibouti.
The railway line has increased the movement of cargo volumes to and from the port to such an extent that at least 70% of all its activity is now Ethiopian trade.
Roba Megerssa Akawak, head of the state-owned Ethiopian Shipping & Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE), told Bloomberg that Ethiopia was concerned that Djibouti was controlled by foreign naval forces. US, China, Japan and France all have military bases there.
“We are afraid perhaps in the future that even Djibouti may not have its own say to really decide on its own fate. This is quite a threat to Ethiopia,” Mr Roba said.
He added that a navy would also help protect the 11 Ethiopia commercial ships in a “very volatile” Red Sea area where Ethiopia has other economic interests “and there are conflicting political interests”.
Futurists in Ethiopia are betting on artificial intelligence to drive development
“I don’t think Homo sapiens-type people will exist in 10 or 20 years’ time,” Getnet Assefa, 31, speculates as he gazes into the reconstructed eye sockets of Lucy, one of the oldest and most famous hominid skeletons known, at the National Museum of Ethiopia. “Slowly the biological species will disappear and then we will become a fully synthetic species,” Assefa says.
“Perception, memory, emotion, intelligence, dreams—everything that we value now—will not be there,” he adds.
Assefa is a computer scientist, a futurist, and a utopian—but a pragmatic one at that. He is founder and chief executive of iCog, the first artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Ethiopia, and a stone’s throw from the home of Lucy. iCog Labs launched in 2013 with $50,000 and just four programmers. Today, halfway up an unassuming tower block, dozens of software developers type in silence. Their desks are cluttered with electronic components and dismembered robot body parts, from a soccer-playing bot called Abebe to a miniature robo-Einstein. An earlier prototype of Sophia, a widely recognized humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics (she appeared with late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon last year) is here too. Arguably the world’s most famous robot of her kind, Sophia’s software was partly developed here in Ethiopia’s capital.
In stark contrast to the famine-stricken images that linger in the minds of many Westerners, Addis Ababa has, in recent years, become a hub for international business and diplomacy. Glitzy new office blocks and hotels continue to rise across the sprawling capital, and while Ethiopia is still ranked among the world’s poorest countries in terms of GDP per capita, it is also among the fastest growing.
Assefa hopes to place artificial intelligence at the heart of Ethiopia’s rapid development, but he receives little backing from the government, which has been encouraging investment in the manufacturing sector. “They think that advanced technologies are a luxury,” he sighs, as we sit in the Lucy-themed restaurant next door to the museum. “It’s not a luxury, it is crucial.”
New York (TADIAS) — There’s no better way to spend a summer evening outdoors than to paint or learn how to paint while listening to great music. Last year we featured such as an event at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. hosted by Beteseb Center and Feedel Band.
For a second year in a row Beteseb Center is once again collaborating with the Smithsonian African Art Museum to organize an “evening of painting and Malian music under the summer skies” on Saturday, June 16th. The theme for this year’s gathering is “Africa Beteseb (Family) Portrait Day.”
The Beteseb art program was launched by two Ethiopian artists in DC three years ago as an alternative venue for young people in the area to create art while spending quality time and a night out with friends and family.
“Start by getting inspired during a guided tour of World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian Ocean,” the Smithsonian announced. “This exhibition particularly highlights the personal, including home architecture and gorgeous articles of adornment. A wide range of fun studio photography demonstrates the cross-cultural influences in Swahili cultures and the incredible diversity of the Indian Ocean region. Then, head out to the Enid A. Haupt Garden to make your very own portrait! Use your portrait to consider questions of identities, nationalities, and how we represent ourselves to the world.”
— If You Go:
Africa Beteseb (Family) Portrait Day
Sat, June 16, 2018
6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
950 Independence Avenue Southwest
Washington, DC 20560 Click here to RSVP
New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian Airlines launched a new flight from Addis Ababa to Chicago this past weekend on June 9th. The three-times-per-week flight aboard a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner departs Chicago on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, while the flights out of Addis Ababa en route to Chicago make a stop in Dublin, Ireland.
Chicago is Ethiopian Airlines’ fourth destination in the United States after Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, California and Newark, New Jersey.
US Ambassador to Ethiopia Michael Raynor attended the innaguration ceremony. (Photo: Ethiopian Airlines Facebook)
“Day by day we are witnessing new successes at Ethiopian Airlines. Two days back, we celebrated the 100th aircraft milestone of Ethiopian Airlines and today we are inaugurating flights to Chicago,” said Michael Raynor, Ambassador of the United States to Ethiopia. “The US Government and the American Embassy in Addis Ababa will continue to support the growth of the airline.”
Group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, Tewolde GebreMariam added: “Chicago is the main hub of our Star Alliance partner, United Airlines and the flight will be operated together with United to avail the best product for travelers from all over the US connecting to 58 destinations in Africa. The flight will further boost the growing economic and people-to-people relations between the US and Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular by enabling greater flow of trade, investment and tourism.”
Ethiopian Airlines is the largest Aviation Holding Company in Africa and a SKYTRAX certified Four Star Global Airline.
New York (TADIAS) — CNN’s internationally renowned TV host Anthony Bourdain had visited Ethiopia three years ago as host of the acclaimed television program, Parts Unknown.
“Ethiopia is a big, diverse place,” he wrote at the time while traveling and exploring Ethiopia’s rich culture and cuisine. “I learned a lot about a beautiful country while making this episode, and enjoyed doing it.”
CNN announced yesterday that Bourdain had died on Friday, June 8th with the cause attributed to suicide. He was 61. The company said Bourdain was in France working on an upcoming episode when his friend discovered him unresponsive in his hotel room.
“On his award-winning series, Parts Unknown, Bourdain brought the world home to CNN viewers,” the network said. “Through the simple act of sharing meals, he showcased both the extraordinary diversity of cultures and cuisines, yet how much we all have in common.”
During his 2015 visit to Ethiopia Bourdain was accompanied by his friends Ethiopian-born chef, restaurateur and author Marcus Samuelsson and his model wife Maya Gate Haile.
“It’s always good to have a friend with a close association and personal history in a country, so we’re going to take a very personal look at that place,” Bourdain had said. “Marcus and Maya come from two very different, distinct regions: different topography, different cuisine, different languages. They both left Ethiopia at different times in their lives — and under very different circumstances. So, watching the two of them experience Ethiopia in their own ways, and yet also together, was fascinating.”
On twitter Marcus Samuelsson said: “Maya and I are so sad to hear the news of our dear friend today. You will be missed terribly.”
Below are photos from Anthony Bourdain’s visit to Ethiopia courtesy of Maya Haile:
CNN’s Anthony Bourdain in Addis Ababa with Marcus Samuelsson and Maya Haile. (Courtesy photo)
Image from the Bourdain’s Ethiopia episode showing food preparation. (Courtesy photo)
Anthony Bourdain also highlighted the burgeoning skateboarding scene in Addis as part of his Ethiopia segment. (Courtesy of Maya Haile)
Worldwide outpouring of sympathy
Bourdain’s tragic death generated a worldwide outpouring of sympathy on social media. Former President Barack Obama shared a photo via Twitter with Bourdain in Vietnam while Obama was on a trip through Asia in 2016. According to CNN the encounter was “captured in a Parts Unknown episode that year.”
“He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We’ll miss him.” — Barack Obama. (Photo by Pete Souza)
Journalist Christiane Amanpour tweeted: “My heart breaks for Tony Bourdain. May he rest in peace now. He was a friend, a collaborator, and family. A huge personality, a giant talent, a unique voice, and deeply, deeply human. My heart goes out to his daughter and family, and his longtime partners and friends at ZPZ.”
CNN added: “The news of Bourdain’s death was met by profound sadness within CNN, where Parts Unknown has aired for the past five years. In an email to employees, the network’s president, Jeff Zucker, remembered him as an “exceptional talent.”
“Tony will be greatly missed not only for his work but also for the passion with which he did it,” Zucker wrote.
We were not surprised. It is a continuation of a series of positive major policy changes that have taken place in Ethiopia in the past few weeks fueling optimism both at home and abroad since the new PM Abiy Ahmed took office in early April.
The lifting of the State of Emergency follows the government’s recent announcement that it has dropped charges against two Ethiopian media associations based in the United States, ESAT and OMN, as well as granting pardons to several high-profile opposition leaders, journalists and political activists – some whom are set to speak in New York today (June 8th) at an Amnesty International USA conference focusing on the state of human rights in Ethiopia.
“Ethiopia is undergoing remarkable political transformation never seen in the country’s recent history,” says Awol K. Allo, a lecturer at Keele University School of Law in England, writing in a recent opinion article featured on CNN. “Since coming to power just over two months ago, the new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, has taken a series of radical steps that are transforming the political map and restoring trust in public authority.”
Awol adds: “On Tuesday (June 5), the government made three major and politically consequential announcements. It lifted the state of emergency imposed shortly after former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn resigned, announced plans to liberalize the economy and declared it was ready to fully comply with and implement the Algiers Agreement that ended Africa’s most deadly conflict [with neighboring Eritrea].” Awol then asks: “Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister has had a stellar two months, can he keep it up?”
The Economist, which has dubbed Abiy ‘the Reformer-in-Chief,’ notes : “The exiled opponents have been invited home. Representatives of dissident media outlets based abroad have been encouraged to set up shop in Addis Ababa, the capital. Terrorism charges against dozens of activists have been dropped, including against a British citizen, Andargachew Tsige, who had been on death row.”
The question still remains, will Ethiopia likewise pull off its first ever truly multi-party election in 2020? The answer might as well be PM Abiy’s long lasting legacy.
In the last questionable election, which was held in 2015, the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia declared a 100% vote victory for the ruling party. The unrealistic results certainly contributed to the resentment that ignited the three-year popular unrest leading to the abrupt resignation of the former prime minister.
The next election season in 2020 is not that far away, but given what has already been accomplished in a mere 8 weeks under PM Abiy who knows how Ethiopia may yet again surprise the world. In the end, however, what is not in doubt today is that this generation has answered the call of our time and has seized the moment to assure the continuity of Ethiopia’s long history and culture, while at the same time placing the country on the right path to a more peaceful and democratic society.
THE speed of events caught Ethiopians off guard. When Abiy Ahmed took office as prime minister on April 2nd he did so as the head of a deeply divided ruling coalition. The inexperienced 42-year-old, who came from the Oromo wing of the ethnically based coalition, was viewed with deep suspicion by many of his establishment colleagues. He was taking charge of a country under a state of emergency after more than three years of anti-government protests and ethnic unrest. Few expected him to achieve much soon.
The past few weeks have pleasantly surprised. After an inaugural address in which he called for unity and apologised for the government’s killing of protesters, the former army officer toured the country to muster support. At mass rallies and town-hall meetings he adopted a strikingly different tone from that of his two most recent predecessors. Hailemariam Desalegn, who resigned in February, was timid and aloof. Meles Zenawi, who ruled as a strongman from 1995 to 2012, was stern and cerebral. Mr Abiy, by contrast, presents himself as a friend of the country’s young protesters. “We want to work hand-in-hand with you,” he told cheering crowds in Oromia, the centre of unrest.
Exiled opponents have been invited home. Representatives of dissident media outlets based abroad have been encouraged to set up shop in Addis Ababa, the capital. Terrorism charges against dozens of activists have been dropped, including against a British citizen, Andargachew Tsige, who had been on death row.
Mr Abiy says he plans to amend the constitution and introduce term limits for his position. On June 2nd his cabinet said the state of emergency would be lifted two months earlier than planned. Then, on June 5th, the politburo of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), said it would at last implement a peace agreement, signed in 2000, that would hand over disputed territories to Eritrea and put a formal end to the war the two countries fought (and Ethiopia won) from 1998 to 2000. That could pave the way for reconciliation and, perhaps, give Ethiopia renewed access to Eritrea’s ports.
Ethiopia’s surprise announcement that it will abide by a 2002 border ruling raises the prospect of a final end to what was Africa’s deadliest border war and peace with its long-time rival, Eritrea.
Tens of thousands of people were killed in the two-year conflict and Eritrea remains on a war footing, demanding that Ethiopia withdraws from the “occupied territory”.
How genuine is this peace offer?
It seems pretty genuine.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signalled in his inauguration speech in April that a major policy shift could be in the offing – he called on Eritrea to resolve their differences, saying the two neighbours were “not only intertwined in interests but also in blood”.
Now, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has announced it will fully accept and implement the peace deal that ended the war.
Mr Abiy said soldiers deployed to the contested town of Badme had experienced “psychological effects”, according to the state-linked Fana Broadcasting Corporate.
“We should end this suffering, and fully return to peace,” the prime minister is quoted as saying.
Ethiopia’s previous leaders always said they accepted the 2002 ruling but they never actually implemented it.
Mr Abiy’s announcement is especially significant as it comes after the release of thousands of jailed politicians, activists and protesters, including British citizen Andargachew Tsege who was being held on death row, and the promise of wider reforms.
What does Eritrea say?
Eritrea has not commented on Ethiopia’s announcement but Information Minister Yemane Gebre Meskel had previously told the BBC that relations could not be resolved until Ethiopia withdrew “from the occupied territories”.
“The ball is now in Eritrea’s court,” Tesfalem Araia from the BBC’s Tigrinya service says.
“Eritrea has been on a war footing and the justification for forced conscription into the army has been the conflict with Ethiopia,” he adds.
That forced conscription is the reason given by most of the thousands of Eritreans who flee the country, making the perilous journey to Europe.
Beginning in 2035, the number of young people reaching working age in Africa will exceed that of the rest of the world combined, and will continue every year for the rest of the century. By 2050, one in every four humans will be African. At the end of the century, nearly 40 percent of the world’s population will be African. Yet, instead of preparing to build a relationship that can grow with the continent, based upon diplomatic cooperation, the United States is doubling down on more than a decade of reliance on its military as the primary vehicle of engaging with Africa. The consequences, as one might expect, are overwhelmingly negative.
The impending demographic dividend will only add to Africa’s economic importance. Since 2000, at least half of the countries in the world with the highest annual growth rate have been in Africa. By 2030, 43 percent of all Africans are projected to join the ranks of the global middle and upper classes. By that same year, household consumption in Africa is expected to reach $2.5 trillion, more than double the $1.1 trillion of 2015, and combined consumer and business spending will total $6.7 trillion.
Africa’s rapid change also presents challenges that will not be contained within the continent. Indeed, the persistently high absolute number of people in poverty, the underdevelopment of infrastructure, ongoing conflicts, and continuing problems with democratic governance are already combining to make Africa the world’s largest source of emigrants.
Many other countries have taken note of both the potential and the challenges in Africa’s anticipated transformation, and have mostly decided to increase their engagement. Plenty has been written about China’s growing presence, and the European Union has also been deepening its links to the continent. But there is also a growing list of other countries pursuing stronger ties — including India, Brazil, Turkey, Japan, and the Gulf states.
In contrast, the United States’ relationship with the continent has, since 9/11, been increasingly defined by the militarization of U.S. foreign policy. In 2003, the George W. Bush administration established the first permanent U.S. base on the continent in Djibouti. In 2007, the U.S. Africa Command was created.
The Barack Obama administration solidified this policy approach by increasing military spending and deploying more troops. President Trump is following the lead of his predecessors; over the past year, the number of U.S. forces in Africa has increased by nearly 1,500, bringing the total to around 7,500, not including Special Operations forces. The United States now has 34 status of forces agreements (or similar treaties) with African countries — 14 of which were signed or upgraded in the last decade. U.S. Special Operations forces are also often deployed in countries without such agreements. In 2017 alone, U.S. troops were deployed to 50 out of Africa’s 54 countries, many on clandestine missions.
ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia’s parliament approved on Tuesday the government’s decision to lift a six-month state of emergency two months earlier than planned, state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting reported.
The government imposed emergency rule in February to clamp down on unrest sparked by a planned development scheme for the capital Addis Ababa which some fear will lead to land seizures in the nearby Oromiya region. The matter led to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to step down.
On Saturday, Ethiopia’s cabinet had met to assess the security situation and “noted that law and order has been restored”, setting the stage for Tuesday’s vote in parliament.
Abiy Ahmed, a former army officer who replaced Hailemariam as premier, has travelled around Ethiopia, promising to address grievances strengthen a range of political and civil rights.
Authorities have pledged to push through a raft of reforms that have included the release of thousands of prisoners.
New York (TADIAS) — The Aslan Project – an organization that focuses primarily on providing access to treatment for pediatric cancer patients in Ethiopia — will be holding their annual fundraiser this year in New York City at Red Rooster Harlem on June 4th, 2018.
A few years ago two children from Ethiopia, Temesgen Gamacho and Eyoel Fanta, were pediatric cancer patients at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. when the unthinkable happened for their parents and loved ones. Both children did not survive their illness. Eyoel had been diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukemia, which was one of the most curable pediatric cancers. The loss of these two children drove their physician, Dr. Aziza Shad, who was Chief of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Georgetown Hospital at the time, to launch The Aslan Project in Ethiopia in 2012 and jumpstart a large-scale commitment to set up a world-class cancer treatment program for children in Ethiopia.
Today the Aslan Project has built an innovative and large international network of volunteer pediatric cancer specialists in collaboration with parents of pediatric patients to support Ethiopia’s pediatric hematology/oncology programs at Tikur Anbessa (Black Lion) Hospital in Addis Ababa as well as at Jimma University Hospital. The program in Addis Ababa is now being managed by Dr. Daniel Hailu Kefeni, one of the first graduates of the pediatric cancer fellowship set up by The Aslan Project five years ago at Tikur Anbessa Hospital.
In a 2016 interview with Tadias from Washington, D.C. Julie Broas, Executive Director of The Aslan Project, shared that “in addition to giving children a chance to survive a curable cancer the organization’s mission was to provide equitable access for families in low-resource settings to high standard local treatment.” Broas added: “What we chose to do in Ethiopia is to focus on medical education and training of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, because that’s how you would build a comprehensive program that’s locally supported and sustainable.”
(Photo: Courtesy of the Aslan Project)
Dr. Tenagne Haile-Mariam, who works in the Department of Emergency Medicine at George Washington University Hospital as well as a board member of the The Aslan Project, reiterated that “the key is to create a whole system that’s linked to locally existing initiatives, not a situation where you can just send a doctor and say ‘go at it’ because they will fail,” she said. “This is why The Aslan Project is a catalytic program, because in order to implement it you have to put into place not just the right people, but you have to put them in a system where they can work in order to ensure sustainability.”
ATLANTA — The first Ethiopian superhero comic is fusing the various parts of African history and culture into one contemporary and relatable story. “Jember” from Etan Comics was written and created by Beserat Debebe and tells the story about a recent college graduate on a job search in Addis Ababa who comes across extraordinary powers. Amanuel Tilahun is transformed into Jember and readers can grab issue #1 to discover who the hero really is, where the powers came from and how they’ll transform Tilahun’s life.
“Amanuel’s story shows that a hero is not defined by where he/she comes from, or what he/she has accomplished, or his/her (super) abilities, Debebe told OkayAfrica Tuesday, May 15. “Heroes are defined by the choices they make, their will and desire to do what is right, despite the difficulty of circumstances and irrespective of the recognition they might get.”
Setting the plot apart, Debebe used African history, culture and mythology to tell Jember’s story. The Kingdom of Punt, an ancient East African civilization, plays a major role in the book’s creation.
“Our mission with Etan Comics is to entertain, empower, and educate our fans. We hope to entertain our audiences with fresh fantasy stories based on African history and mythology, and set in present-day African countries,” Debebe explained. “We want to empower the current and future generation of Africans and challenge them to expand their imagination by showing them we strive to portray superheroes that rise from African cities and stand as the symbol for justice, peace, equality, hope and love for their community and the world. We aim to broaden our readers’ perspectives about Africa by depicting a narrative that encourages everyone to learn more about the continents rich history, culture, and innovative day to day life.”
The first issue of “Jember” is on sale now and is available in English and Amharic.
Did Obama Come Too Early for America? New Book Reveals He Wondered So
May 31st, 2018
New York (TADIAS) — In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. election President Barack Obama was said to have wondered aloud if he had come a bit too early for America.
In response his advisors sought to uplift his spirits emphasizing that the vast majority of young people understood him better than the older generation; this was according to a new book by Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser Benjamin J. Rhodes.
“His aides reassured him that he still would have won had he been able to run for another term and that the next generation had more in common with him than with Mr. Trump,” the New York Times notes citing Rhodes’ book. “Mr. Obama, the first black man elected president, did not seem convinced. “Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,” he said.”
As the Washington Post’s Eugene Scott reminds us “Obama’s vision of America was rooted in uniting those who often process politics and policy differently because of their different identities.” Obama famously articulated this during his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech in Boston that catapulted him to international stardom.
However, Scott also points out: “More than a decade later, as the first black president was ending his historic time in the White House, Obama was faced with acknowledging something that perhaps he had not previously — America was far more divided than many people realized. It’s fair to say, more than a year after President Trump entered the White House, Obama was wrong about one thing: just how many people bought into his vision of an inclusive America where diversity is fundamental to the country’s — and the world’s — success. Very often after a racist, sexist or other discriminatory comment or incident captures national headlines, some politicians and other cultural influencers head to Twitter to say: “This is not who we are.” The frequency with which these episodes happen is proof that that’s not true.”
Scott adds:
Obama often called on Americans “to appeal … to our better angels.” This is a line he borrowed from Abraham Lincoln, who had to challenge Americans to do the same thing more than a century and a half ago. While Obama may have underestimated just how tribalistic the country had become during his presidency, and the role he may have played in it, the idea that most people bought into the vision of America that Trump promoted is also unsupported by the data. A majority of the electorate voted against Trump.”
TSIDE ZEWIDE has lived in the shadow of the national palace in Addis Ababa for more than 50 years. Since her husband died four years ago the 73-year-old has cared for three orphans, the grandchildren of her late sister, alone in a rundown government-owned shack. She has no pension and, until recently, had no income. “I relied on the kindness of my neighbours,” she sighs.
Last year Mrs Zewide’s fortunes changed. She and some 80 of her neighbours rise at dawn to sweep the streets of the Ethiopian capital for three hours a day. For this she is paid 1,200 Ethiopian birr ($44) a month, a fifth of which she is required to save. “It’s good for me psychologically,” she says. “It keeps me busy, and now at least I can tell people I have a job.” Her teammates nod in agreement.
They are participants in Ethiopia’s Urban Productive Safety Net Project, which was launched in 2017 and is among the largest social programmes in sub-Saharan Africa (outside South Africa) designed specifically for urban areas. About 400,000 poor Ethiopians in 11 cities are already enrolled. The government hopes it will eventually help 4.7m people in almost 1,000 towns. Beneficiaries are selected by a neighbourhood committee based on how poor and vulnerable they are. In addition to the paid work, they also receive training. Those who want to start their own businesses are given grants…
Ethiopia’s programme is a step towards building a national social-security system that will, in time, replace a hotch-potch of small ones. It builds on Ethiopia’s flagship rural safety-net, which is the largest of its kind on the continent and covers some 10m poor people in the countryside (out of a total population of about 102m). The government has committed $150m to fund the new scheme and the World Bank has stumped up the remaining $300m needed for the first five years. Ethiopia hopes that within ten years it will no longer need help financing the programme.
