Tadias Magazine

December 19, 2016

With electoral college vote, Trump’s win is official

In Florida, a crucial swing state where Trump defeated Clinton by about a percentage point, Trump won all 29 electoral votes. He also earned all 16 votes in Michigan, another state that flipped to Republicans for the first time since 1988.

On the streets of Washington, D.C., two dozen protesters assembled outside Trump’s hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, singing songs such as “We Shall Overcome.” Some held signs, including one that read, “Resist Putin’s Puppet.” The District’s three electors later gathered at city hall, just a block from Trump’s hotel.

In Albany, N.Y., former president Bill Clinton sat in the state Senate chamber as an elector and cast one of the Empire State’s 29 electoral votes for his wife.

“I’ve never cast a vote I was prouder of,” he told reporters after the meeting.

Despite the pleas of Trump opponents, most electors had said for weeks that they planned to cast votes reflecting the will of their home states.

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Related:

In Theory US Electoral College is Not Rubber Stamp for Election Results

Washington state Presidential Electors Levi Guerra and Bret Chiafalo (right) speaking in front of the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington. (AP photo)

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, December 18th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — On Monday, December 19th, the U.S. Electoral College will meet in various states to approve the results of the 2016 presidential election. In the past few weeks the electoral college system has gained international attention as people around the world curiously observe that only in America can a presidential candidate lose the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots and still win the general election. In addition, there is also the brewing high-tech spy scandal in which a foreign power, no less than America’s long adversary, Moscow, clearly messed with this year’s election in favor of the President-Elect, generating an intense public discussion in the United States as to the exact role of the Electoral College, which today is seen as a highly partisan process.

Although it’s unlikely to succeed “pressure on members of the electoral college to select someone other than Donald Trump has grown dramatically — and noisily — in recent weeks, causing some to waver but yielding little evidence that Trump will fall short when electors convene in most state capitals Monday to cast their votes,” the Washington Post reports.

The newspaper features a group known as the Hamilton Electors — whose members include Mark Hersch, a 60-year-old Chicago-based marketing strategist — “who have been organizing efforts to contact electors and change their minds. Rather than persuade an entire country, he and his allies must find 37 Republicans willing to vote for someone else, a tipping point at which the responsibility of picking the president would shift to the U.S. House of Representatives. No one knows for sure how many are considering alternate votes; estimates vary from one to 25.”

One of America’s renowned statesman and founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, once famously explained “The Mode of Electing the President” in the historic Federalist Papers published in 1788, stating that the purpose of the Electoral College is to make sure “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”

Hamilton also argued that another important purpose of the Electoral College was to safeguard against foreign interference in the United States election system and “chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.”

The Washington Post article also quotes a Republican operative and attorney from Massachusetts, R.J. Lyman, as emphasizing that the electoral college was “not intended to be a rubber stamp” and that otherwise “the Founding Fathers would have tasked the responsibility to a clerk or simply used the popular vote as a way of choosing a president.'”

“I’m reminding them of their duty to think about their choice in a way that’s consistent with their conscience and the Constitution,” Lyman told the Washington Post. “So far, Lyman said, he has identified 20 electors who might be willing to vote “other than their party pledge.” He couldn’t name more than one publicly but insisted that more were out there.”

Watch: How the US Electoral College works

According to Hamilton the electoral college was designed so that “we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.”

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Opinion

Photographer Aida Muluneh, Founder of Addis Foto Fest, on Rebranding Africa

December 15, 2016 Tadias Magazine

AFP

December 15, 2016

Ethiopian photographer seeks new portrayal of Africa

ADDIS ABABA – Surrounded by untidy stacks of paper and abandoned half-empty coffee cups, photographer Aida Muluneh chain smokes cigarettes in her Addis Ababa office and rails against the negative portrayals of Africa by foreigners.

The 42-year-old came returned to Ethiopia nine years ago after living in Yemen and Canada and set herself the task of changing perceptions of the continent, replacing the outsiders’ dominant eye with an African one.

The Addis Foto Fest, which she founded and which opens its fourth edition Thursday, is one way of doing this, she said.

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Podcast

Where is Journalist Temesgen Desalegn?

December 14, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The Associated Press

December 14, 2016

Human rights groups to Ethiopia: Where is jailed journalist?

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Human rights groups are asking Ethiopia’s government to immediately disclose the whereabouts of a popular local journalist who has been behind bars since October 2014.

The Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia and DefendDefenders on Wednesday called it “unacceptable” that the government was unwilling or unable to provide Temesgen Desalegn’s relatives with information after two years of detention.

The groups say Temesgen was jailed on “spurious charges.” The journalist is serving a three-year sentence on charges of defamation, incitement and false publication.

The public relations head of the Ethiopian Federal Prison Administration, Gizachew Mengiste, tells The Associated Press he has no information about Temesgen’s whereabouts.

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Podcast

Report: Ethiopia Blocked News Sites

December 13, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The Associated Press

By ELIAS MESERET

Dec. 13, 2016

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Ethiopia’s government illegally blocked social media and news websites during the months of turmoil that led to the country’s ongoing state of emergency, a new report says.

The report by Amnesty International and the Open Observatory of Network Interference also found “systematic interference” with access to political opposition sites and ones supporting freedom of expression and gay rights.

“This raises serious concerns that overly broad censorship will become institutionalized under the state of emergency,” said Michelle Kagari, an Amnesty International deputy regional director. The report says access to WhatsApp and at least 16 news sites was blocked.

Human rights groups and opposition activists have said hundreds have been killed in waves of anti-government protests that began in November 2015, demanding wider freedoms in one of Africa’s best-performing economies and a close U.S. security ally.

Ethiopia’s government declared a state of emergency in October after dozens were killed in a stampede when police tried to disperse protesters at a religious festival. It set to end in April.

The government dismissed the new report as “one-sided, not credible and baseless.”

“There is no internet blackout in Ethiopia,” deputy spokesman Mohammed Seid told The Associated Press, though internet services have been widely affected since early October. “What we have is a certain obstruction on mobile data services. It will be resolved very soon.”

However, a former government spokesman, Getachew Reda, acknowledged the existence of a blackout and said it will be restored “as soon as it no more threatens the proper implementation of the state of emergency.”

Many in Ethiopia are using virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access social media after mobile data was partially restored 10 days ago.

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Featured

Obama: Russia Will Pay for US Hacking

December 13, 2016 Tadias Magazine

December 16th, 2016

Obama says ‘we will’ retaliate against Russia for election hacking

President Obama said the United States will retaliate against Russia over its malicious cyber-activity during this year’s election, in an interview that aired Friday on NPR.

“I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections . . . we need to take action,” the president said. “And we will — at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman responded by suggesting that the president and his aides were casting aspersions on Russia without offering any proof.

In a statement carried by Russian news agencies, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the U.S. government should “either stop talking about it or finally produce some evidence, otherwise it all begins to look unseemly.”

In the interview with “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep the president did not comment on last week’s Washington Post report, later confirmed by other outlets, that the CIA has concluded with high confidence that Russia intervened in the election specifically to help Donald Trump win the White House. Seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies publicly announced in October that they had concluded the theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta was undertaken by hackers working for Russia.

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Related:

A Times Investigation: How Moscow Aimed a Perfect Weapon at 2016 U.S. Election

A filing cabinet broken into in 1972 as part of the Watergate burglary sits beside a computer server that Russian hackers breached during the 2016 presidential campaign at DNC headquarters in Washington. (NYT)

The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.

WASHINGTON — When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to pass along some troubling news about its computer network, he was transferred, naturally, to the help desk.

His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer system belonging to the D.N.C. had been compromised by hackers federal investigators had named “the Dukes,” a cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government.

The F.B.I. knew it well: The bureau had spent the last few years trying to kick the Dukes out of the unclassified email systems of the White House, the State Department and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the government’s best-protected networks.

Yared Tamene, the tech-support contractor at the D.N.C. who fielded the call, was no expert in cyberattacks. His first moves were to check Google for “the Dukes” and conduct a cursory search of the D.N.C. computer system logs to look for hints of such a cyberintrusion. By his own account, he did not look too hard even after Special Agent Hawkins called back repeatedly over the next several weeks — in part because he wasn’t certain the caller was a real F.B.I. agent and not an impostor.

“I had no way of differentiating the call I just received from a prank call,” Mr. Tamene wrote in an internal memo, obtained by The New York Times, that detailed his contact with the F.B.I.

It was the cryptic first sign of a cyberespionage and information-warfare campaign devised to disrupt the 2016 presidential election, the first such attempt by a foreign power in American history. What started as an information-gathering operation, intelligence officials believe, ultimately morphed into an effort to harm one candidate, Hillary Clinton, and tip the election to her opponent, Donald J. Trump.

Like another famous American election scandal, it started with a break-in at the D.N.C. The first time, 44 years ago at the committee’s old offices in the Watergate complex, the burglars planted listening devices and jimmied a filing cabinet. This time, the burglary was conducted from afar, directed by the Kremlin, with spear-phishing emails and zeros and ones.

Click here to read the full article »

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Related:

Did Moscow Install America’s Next President? US Launches Investigations

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded with “high confidence” that Russia hacked the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump win. President Obama has ordered full review. (AP photo)

VOA News

Updated: December 13, 2016

US Launches Investigations into Russian Election Tampering

Intelligence committees in both houses of Congress launched investigations Monday into accusations that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election to boost the chances that President-elect Donald Trump would win.

President Barack Obama also ordered a full review by the intelligence community into the allegations.

“The reason that I’ve called for a review is to really just gather all of the threads of the investigations, the intelligence work that has been done over many months, so that the public and our elected representatives going forward can find ways to prevent this kind of interference from having an impact on the elections in the future.”

The probes amounted to an early rebuke of Trump, who over the weekend said the Central Intelligence Agency conclusion was “ridiculous” that Russia engaged in cyberattacks to help him win. He continued to assail the finding Monday.

Even before he assumes power next month, the Republican Trump’s mocking of the CIA conclusion about Russian interference on his behalf put him at odds with both of the top Republican lawmakers, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan. They endorsed bipartisan probes conducted by the intelligence committees in each chamber of Congress.

WATCH: McConnell on Russia hacking

“The Russians are not our friends,” McConnell said. He added that the investigation should be undertaken with the idea that “the Russians do not wish us well.” Ryan said the House probe “should not cast doubt” on Trump’s victory, but that foreign interference in a U.S. election was “entirely unacceptable” and Russian involvement “especially problematic.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the congressional review “is certainly warranted when you consider the stakes and the consequences.”

But Trump spokesman Jason Miller called the CIA conclusion about Russian interference “an attempt to delegitimize President-elect Trump’s win.”

Clinton camp responds

Trump’s election opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, has been silent about the Russian hacking allegations. But her campaign manager, John Podesta, on Monday demanded that the administration of President Barack Obama declassify and release all the information it has about Russia meddling in the election.

Clinton won the national popular vote against Trump but lost where it mattered, in the state-by-state contests that decide U.S. presidential elections. Podesta called for release of the intelligence data before electors in the Electoral College vote to formally ratify Trump’s victory on December 19.

In a pair of comments on Twitter, Trump questioned why information about the computer hacking was not widely known before the election.

He contended that if Clinton had won the election and Republicans “tried to play the Russia/CIA card, it would be called conspiracy theory.”

He added, “Unless you catch ‘hackers’ in the act, it is very hard to determine who was doing the hacking. Why wasn’t this brought up before election?”

But U.S. officials did in fact publicly accuse Russia of trying to undermine the presidential election in early October, saying intelligence agencies were “confident” Russia directed hacks of the Democratic National Committee that resulted in controversial emails being leaked before the Democratic nominating convention.

Obama spokesman Earnest said, “This was all material that was known by Republican politicians in the Congress that endorsed the president-elect. And how they reconcile their political strategy and their patriotism is something they’ll have to explain.”

Trump: I don’t believe it

Trump’s latest remarks came after he told Fox News in an interview aired Sunday that the CIA conclusion about Russian cyberattacks to boost his chances of winning was “just another excuse” by Democrats to explain his stunning upset of Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state.

“I don’t believe it. If you take a look at what [the CIA] said, there’s great confusion,” Trump said Sunday. “Nobody really knows. They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed someplace.”

President-elect Donald Trump is interviewed by Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday” at Trump Tower in New York, Dec. 10, 2016. (AP photo)

Trump told Fox News that he does not oppose Obama’s order to review cyberattacks the CIA concluded came from Russia during the lengthy presidential campaign, but said, “You should not just say ‘Russia.’ You should say other countries also, and maybe other individuals.” The CIA said it had “high confidence” that Russia sought to help Trump win.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded Russia interfered in the final stretch of the presidential campaign to help Trump win the presidency, and not simply meddle in the U.S. electoral process as previously believed, according to senior Obama administration officials. The conclusion is based to some extent on a finding that Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems, in addition to those of Democratic organizations, but disclosed only embarrassing emails from the Democrats, via WikiLeaks.

Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s pick for White House chief of staff, told ABC News the party was not hacked.

“The entire report is based on unnamed sources who are perhaps doing something they shouldn’t be doing by speaking to reporters or someone talking out of line about something that is absolutely not true,” Priebus said Sunday.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP photo)

Trump’s rejection of the CIA conclusion came as Arizona Senator John McCain, the losing 2008 Republican presidential candidate, and three other senators called for the investigation into Moscow’s interference in the election, saying that it “should alarm every American.” McCain, along with Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrats Jack Reed and Chuck Schumer, said the United States needs to stop “the grave threats that cyberattacks conducted by foreign governments pose to our national security.”

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Featured

Spotlight: Sossina Haile’s Scientific Quest Brings World Closer to Liquid Sun Energy

December 11, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, December 11th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopian American scientist Sossina M. Haile who is Professor of Materials Science & Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University was born in Addis Ababa and moved permanently to the US when she was ten years old. Today, Sossina is one the leading researchers in the United States whose work to find alternative sources of fuel has helped push the worldwide green energy revolution.

“If we are to use the sun as our primary energy source, then we definitely need to develop ways to store its energy for use on demand,” she told Tadias in a profile interview a few years ago when she was teaching at California Institute of Technology. “In my lab we have started to do this by converting the sunlight to heat, and then using the heat to drive reactions that create fuels like hydrogen and methane from water and carbon dioxide.”

In a recent highlight entitled Bottling the Sun: Sossina Haile’s Research Brings the World Closer to Liquid Energy Fueled by the Sun Northwestern University Mccormick School of Engineering’s magazine gives an update on her research explaining that “The solar reactor in Sossina Haile’s laboratory is respiring oxygen. And with its every breath, the world comes another step closer to bringing the vision of liquid solar fuels to life.”

“My lab does not have the total energy solution, but we do have a couple pieces of it,” Sossina told the publication. “I can give you two components that will help you get to the end.”

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Events, Featured

American Jewish Historical Society Hosts ‘Sigd’ – An Ethiopian Celebration

December 9, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, December 9th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Next week the Ethiopian Jewish Holiday ‘Sigd’ will be celebrated at the American Jewish Historical Society in New York City (AJHS). Organized by AJHS in partnership with Chassida Shmella, the event includes “a special evening of music, artifacts, rituals and food on Sunday, Dec. 18th at 5pm in the Forchheimer Auditorium at AJHS (15 West 16th Street).”

“Sigd: An Ethiopian Jewish Celebration will feature a performance by Anbessa Orchestra, a display of items from the AJHS’ American Association for Ethiopian Jews collection, a ritual led by Ethiopian spiritual leaders and a feast of traditional Ethiopian foods” AJHS announced.

As a holiday celebrated by the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) community, Sigd has been recognized as a state holiday in Israel since 2008. “Sigd commemorates the giving of the Torah and the ancient communal gatherings on Mount Sinai,” AJHS notes. In Ethiopia, “thousands of Jews traveled on foot every year from Gonder Province to the village of Ambober, where the joyous celebration included prayer and fasting. Each year, the Sigd celebration offers a unique experience.”

Anbessa Orchestra. (Photo: Joan Roth)

Abay Mengist will perform a song during the celebration. (Photo: Joan Roth)

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If You Go:
WHAT: Sigd: An Ethiopian Celebration
WHEN: Sunday, Dec. 18 5 pm
WHERE: American Jewish Historical Society
15 West 16th Street – Forchheimer Auditorium
New York, NY
Tickets are $25 for general admission, $15 for students, seniors and AJHS members, and $36 at the door.

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Podcast

CIA Believes Russia Helped Trump Win

December 9, 2016 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

CIA Believes Russia Helped Trump Win White House

Updated: December 10, 2016

CAPITOL HILL — President Barack Obama has ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full review of “hacking-related activity aimed at disrupting the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

After his announcement Friday, two leading U.S. newspapers — The New York Times and The Washington Post — reported Russia intervened in the recent U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump win.

The Times reported Russians hacked the computers of both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee, but only released damaging material from the DNC.

The Democrats were plagued with leaked DNC emails as the presidential election drew near. The Times says intelligence agencies “have concluded that the Russians gave the Democrats’ documents to WikiLeaks.”

“We now have high confidence that they hacked the DNC and the RNC and conspicuously released no documents” from the RNC, an unnamed senior Obama administration official speaking about the Russians, told The Times.

The Times reports that individual Russians whom U.S. intelligence officials say are responsible for the cyberattacks have been identified, but none has been punished.

The Washington Post reported the CIA believes Russia intervened in the election to help Trump win. In a story posted on the newspaper’s website Friday evening, The Post quotes an anonymous official who says the goal of the interference “was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected.”

CIA briefers told senators in a closed-door briefing it was now “quite clear” that
electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials. (The Washington Post)

Role of Congress

Pressure is mounting from Democratic and Republican members of Congress, who are calling for a thorough and public investigation into Russian interference in the election.

The Post article says the White House had known about Russia’s interference for months, but could not decide how to best respond before the presidential election without “escalating tensions with Moscow and being accused of trying to boost Clinton’s campaign.”

The Post said, “The reluctance of the Obama White House to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions before Election Day upset Democrats on the Hill as well as members of the Clinton campaign.”

The newspaper says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, doubted “the veracity of the intelligence” gathered about Russia’s interference and told the Obama administration that if it challenged the Russians publicly, he would see that act as partisan politics.

Months later, President-elect Trump chose McConnell’s wife as his nominee for transportation secretary.

Inquiry back to 2008

Eric Schultz, White House principal deputy press secretary, told reporters Friday there has been a pattern of malicious cyberactivity timed to coincide with U.S. elections. He said the investigation will be a “deep dive,” going back to the 2008 presidential elections, when cyber meddling was attributed to China.

Schultz said the investigation would look at any and all foreign interference, and investigators would go wherever the evidence leads them.

Asked about Russia’s role, Schultz said this type of activity is “nothing new for Moscow,” adding that the U.S. has seen Russia do this type of thing for years in Asia and across Europe.

Results of investigation

Schultz said the president has ordered that he be given the results of the investigation before he leaves office January 20. He said the White House would make public as much of the report as it can.

Schultz also explained this is not an effort to change the outcome of the U.S. elections, but to preserve the integrity of future U.S. elections by revealing the scope of what happened.

Trump team responds

President-elect Trump’s transition team released a statement late Friday that said, “These are the same people (the CIA) that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’”

Earlier Friday, White House counter-terrorism adviser Lisa Monaco broke the news of the probe at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

“We may have crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after-action, to understand what has happened and to impart some lessons learned,” Monaco said.

Some U.S. Congress members welcomed the announcement.

Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said in a statement, “The administration should work to declassify as much of it as possible, while protecting our sources and methods, and make it available to the public.”

In October, the Obama administration formally blamed Russia for a cyberattack into the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations. Wikileaks published excerpts from the hacked emails that were potentially damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Trump repeatedly has downplayed any Russian interference in the U.S. election. During one debate, he said the cyberattacks could have been carried out by a “400-pound man sitting on his bed.”

Trump’s campaign said voters should focus on what was in the emails.

Congressional issue

Since Obama has only a few weeks left in office, the report may serve only to establish some facts for Congress to grapple with next year.

Several leading Senate Republicans, including John McCain and Lindsey Graham, say they are preparing to launch a widespread investigation into Russia’s interference in the election and its cyber threats to the U.S. military. Both senators have been critical of Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Graham told CNN, “I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia. I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay the price.”

Putin has dismissed what he called U.S. hysteria over the hacking into Democratic Party organizations, saying it does not matter who hacked into the emails, and Americans instead should focus on their content.

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Podcast

Marcus Samuelsson’s 1st DC Restaurant

December 8, 2016 Tadias Magazine

WTOP

Sneak peek: Inside MGM National Harbor

WASHINGTON — After two years of construction and $1.4 billion, MGM National Harbor is ready to open its doors in Prince George’s County, Maryland, on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 11 p.m.

The 24-story destination includes 15 dining options, 308 hotel rooms, a 3,000-seat theater, a 125,000-square-foot casino and 18,000 square feet of retail.

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect when the doors finally open:

Food and Drink

There are 15 dining options at MGM National Harbor, including several restaurants headed by celebrity chefs. Here are some of the highlights:

Marcus Samuelsson — who is famous for his Harlem, New York, restaurant Red Rooster — will operate the only 24-hour restaurant at MGM National Harbor. Guests can expect live music and an outdoor dining area. Samuelsson is also in charge of in-room dining for the resort’s hotel.

Marcus Samuelsson (Facebook)

Eater Washington DC

Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson plans to “celebrate comfort food” at his new restaurant Marcus, debuting inside the MGM National Harbor this Thursday.

The Ethiopian-born and Swedish-raised chef and restaurateur operates several Harlem eateries. Shrimp and grits, fried chicken, and mac and cheese will be served up to resort guests in a laid-back homey setting designed by New York-based Parts and Labor Design.

The restaurant sits at the base of MGM’s central glass-enclosed atrium, which rises 85 feet and is bigger than the Bellagio in Las Vegas. In true casino fashion, Marcus’ huge exposed grill is meant to be a “theatrical” experience, he says, and African prints are present as an ode to his Ethiopian roots and D.C.’s large demographic of the same descent.

The family-friendly restaurant caters more to the adult crowd with its back bar called Sammy’s. The speakeasy will pay homage to D.C.’s go-go music scene, with DJs, Gospel brunches, flowing cocktails, and a Las Vegas Rat Pack vibe (the bar’s named after Sammy Davis Jr.). The setup is similar to his Red Rooster Harlem’s downstairs supper club, Ginny’s, he said. Another commonality is The Rooster Burger, which also appears on Marcus’ menu.

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Opinion

Media Under Trump: Advice From African Journalists to US Counterparts

December 8, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Quartz Africa

African journalists have tips for their US counterparts on dealing with a president that hates the press

Last week, Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron voiced great apprehension about press freedom in the U.S. under a Donald Trump’s presidency. “Many journalists wonder with considerable weariness what it is going to be like for us during the next four [years],” Baron said in a stirring speech. “Will we be incessantly harassed and vilified? Will the new administration seize on opportunities to try intimidating us? Will we face obstruction at every turn?”

As America enters the era of a thin-skinned president known for lashing out at press coverage that does not meet his approval, it might be helpful for U.S. news media to draw from the experiences of journalists operating in hostile environments. Many of such environments are in Africa, particularly those countries with long-serving presidents who have been in power for decades.

“There’s a thin line between objective critique of the state with regard to security and being called unpatriotic, a terrorist sympathizer.”

Ugandan journalist Angelo Izama, a former Knight Fellow at Stanford University, commented with sarcasm on the peculiar situation of U.S. journalists. “I was joking with Charles Onyango Obbo [another Ugandan journalist] about being consultants to American journalists who may now face similar challenges with the advent of the African leader Donald Trump.” Izama was probably riffing off Trevor Noah’s comic but profound observation that Donald Trump is just like an African president.

Watch: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah – Donald Trump: America’s African President

One has to only consider the fact that the only other world leader with a habit of snapping at journalists and other critics with angry tweets is Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. The direct comparison between Trump and Kagame probably stops there, but one could also find similarities—in terms of vilification of the press—between Trump and The Gambia’s outgoing Yahya Jammeh or Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni.

“From the outside looking in, I am kind of feeling bad for journalists under a Trump administration,” said Liberian editor Rodney Sieh, who has worked in several U.S. newspapers including the Kansas City Star and The Post Standard in Syracuse, NY. “It is clear to see that American journalists are in for a very tough roller coaster ride.”

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Podcast

Watch: Ethiopians in DC Building Community Through Food

December 8, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Eater Washington DC

Why Ethiopian Cuisine In Washington, D.C. Will One Day Be As Popular As Pizza – MOFAD

Washington, D.C. is home to the largest Ethiopian community in the U.S. Seeking educational opportunities, as well as refuge from political upheaval, three successive waves of Ethiopian immigrants settled in the nation’s capital in the second half of the 20th century. As the community grew, Ethiopian restaurants, markets, and cafes became fixtures of the Shaw and Adams Morgan neighborhoods, and later of Silver Spring, MD and Falls Church, VA.

In this guide, we’ll take you to some of the businesses keeping Ethiopian food traditions alive in the nation’s capital, and share some of the staples of Ethiopian cuisine to try along the way — including tangy fermented breads, vegan vegetable platters, and spicy meat stews.

Watch the video, read the local history, listen to the voices of business owners and community leaders, and taste the distinctive dishes of one of D.C.’s biggest cultural enclaves.

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Featured

Ruth Negga: One of Best Film Stars of 2016

December 7, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Vogue

Loving Star Ruth Negga on Biracial Politics: “I Get Very Territorial About My Identity”

With her mesmerizing performance in Jeff Nichols’s subtly groundbreaking film Loving, the Irish-Ethiopian actress Ruth Negga has become a star for our time.

“I’m a rag of a woman today,” Ruth Negga says in her faint Irish accent. She is pointing to her chipped green nail polish and apologizing for her eyebrows. She cut her hair herself, she says, before asking a professional to tidy it up. Earlier today she went to get her passport renewed. “Maybe . . . you could—blend?” the photographer said, gesturing around his face. She took a look and realized she had been quite slapdash with her bronzer and powder.

By lunchtime, there’s no trace of this—with her huge, doll-like eyes and closely cropped hair, she is as glamorous as a thirties aviator in Paige jeans and an olive bomber jacket—but it’s easy enough to imagine Negga dismissing vanity as a fool’s game. Her gift for self-mockery and her appetite for the craic—an Irish expression for fun or gossip or high jinks—are matched only by her levels of propulsion: Her neat, tiny frame always seems to move forward at great speed.

Ethiopia: Director Jessica Beshir’s ‘Hairat’ Selected for Sundance Film Festival 2017

December 7, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine

Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, December 7th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — The documentary short film Hairat from Ethiopia by Director Jessica Beshir has been selected to be featured at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

“This is a visual and lyrical exploration of the nightly ritual between a man in Eastern Ethiopia and his feral companions,” the Sundance Institute wrote describing Hairat in a press release.

In Hairat Director Jessica Beshir, who was born in Mexico City and raised in Ethiopia, “returns to the city of her childhood to tell the story of one man’s extraordinary ritual that unfolds nightly in the outskirts of the walled city of Harar.” Jessica’s short film is one of 68 works from around the world that will be screened at Sundance from January 19th through 29th, 2017.

“Each year we see more short films from around the country and from more regions around the world, which is exciting as we want to discover new voices to support,” Mike Plante, Sundance’s Senior Programmer, shares. “This year’s crop captures the full spectrum of what short films can be: emotional, hilarious, horrifying and touching — sometimes all at once.”

Jessica Beshir has a Bachelor’s degree in film studies and literature from UCLA, and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. She recently also released the short film entitled He Who Dances on Wood.

“An Imam in Harar spoke to me about the meaning of Hairat at length, but in short it means, ‘You are where you need to be,'” Jessica says.

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Featured, Sports

In Pictures: Almaz Ayana 2016 Female World Athlete of the Year

December 6, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
Tadias Staff

Updated: Tuesday, December 6th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana who set a new world record in the 10,000m race during the 2016 Olympics in Brazil was awarded this year’s “Female World Athlete of the Year” prize last Friday at a ceremony in Monaco.

The 25-year-old long distance runner was accompanied at the event by Haile Gebreselassie who also acted as her translator.

“After collecting her IAAF Female World Athlete of the Year award she was asked at what stage during her gold medal run in the 10,000m final at Rio 2016 she realised the world record was also in her grasp,” IAAF reported.

” ‘When I crossed the line,’ she quipped, through top translator Haile Gebrselassie.”

Below are photos:

Almaz Ayana and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt receive their awards from Prince Albert of Monaco (left) and IAAF president Lord Coe. (Getty Images)

After an incredible year for the sport of athletics, the world’s finest gathered in Monaco for a celebration of all that they gave us in a momentous Olympic year — IAAF. (Photo Usain Bolt and Almaz Ayana at the IAAF Athletics Awards 2016/Getty Images)

Haile Gebrselassie sits alongside Genzebe Dibaba (centre) and Almaz Ayana on the eve of the IAAF Athlete of the Year awards in Monaco. (Photo: IAAF)

Almaz Ayana is the third Ethiopian woman to win “Female World Athlete of the Year” award following in the footsteps of Genzebe Dibaba (2015) and Meseret Defar (2007), according to IAAF.

“I don’t have words to explain my feelings right now, I’m so excited,” said Ayana whose award was presented by International Athletics Foundation (IAF) Honorary President HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. “Really, I’m so pleased.”

Almaz Ayana (Ethiopia), Elaine Thompson (Jamaica) and Anita Wlodarczyk (Poland) earned their spots on the 2016 Female World Athlete of the Year short list in historic fashion, IAAF announced. (Photos IAAF)

Tadias Magazine
Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, November 30th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Almaz Ayana who won Ethiopia’s only gold medal during the 2016 Olympics in Brazil this past summer has been named a candidate for this year’s Female World Athlete of the Year award.

The 25-year-old long distance runner is being considered for the prestigious award along with Jamaican track and field sprinter Elaine Thompson and Polish hammer thrower Anita Wlodarczyk.

“Ayana opened the Rio Olympics with a bang. It was a sight to behold as the Ethiopian broke away early from the rest of the field with a decisive surge,” The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which gives the annual award, said highlighting her accomplishments. “There was no catching Ayana, who powered to a world record 29:17.45, knocking more than 14 seconds off a record that had stood for 23 years.”

Almaz Ayana with teammate Tirunesh Dibaba at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil. (Getty Images)

(Image: IAAF)

IAAF adds: “With one Olympic medal already under her belt, Ayana lined up in pursuit of another just days later. She was again the athlete pushing the pace in the 5000m final, blowing the medal hunt wide open with a break at half way. But her world record effort from a week earlier showed in the end, as Kenya’s Vivian Cheruiyot and Hellen Obiri passed her in the final lap. Ayana finished in third with 14:33.54. It was the only race of 2016 in which she didn’t cross the line in first, and it still earned her an Olympic bronze.”

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News

US Updates Ethiopia Travel Warning

December 6, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Press release

US Department of State

The State Department continues to warn U.S. citizens of the risks of travel to Ethiopia due to the potential for civil unrest related to sporadic and unpredictable anti-government protests that began in November 2015. The U.S. Embassy’s ability to provide consular services in many parts of the country may be limited without warning due to the government’s restrictions on mobile and internet communications and the unpredictable nature of the current security situation. This replaces the Travel Warning of October 21, 2016.

The Government of Ethiopia declared a State of Emergency effective October 8, 2016 that includes provisions allowing for the arrest of individuals without a court order for activities they may otherwise consider routine, such as communication, consumption of media, attending gatherings, engaging with certain foreign governments or organizations, and violating curfews. Additionally, the Government of Ethiopia routinely does not inform the U.S. Embassy of detentions of U.S. citizens in Ethiopia. The full text of the decree implementing the State of Emergency is available on the U.S. Embassy’s website.

Internet, cellular data, and phone services have been periodically restricted or shut down without warning throughout the country, impeding the U.S. Embassy’s ability to communicate with U.S. citizens in Ethiopia. You should have alternate communication plans in place, and let your family and friends know this may be an issue while you are in Ethiopia. See the information below on how to register with the U.S. Embassy to receive security messages.

Avoid demonstrations and large gatherings, continuously assess your surroundings, and evaluate your personal level of safety. Remember that the government may use force and live fire in response to demonstrations, and that even gatherings intended to be peaceful can be met with a violent response or turn violent without warning. U.S. citizens in Ethiopia should monitor their security situation and have contingency plans in place in case you need to depart suddenly.

If you are living in or intending to travel to Ethiopia, please refer to the Safety and Security section of the Country Specific Information for Ethiopia for additional useful information.

Due to the unpredictability of communication in the country, the Department of State strongly advises U.S. citizens to register your mobile number with the U.S. Embassy to receive security information via text or SMS, in addition to enrolling in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP).

Click here for further information »

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Featured

New ‘Ethiopiques’ CD Celebrates Legend Girma Beyene

December 4, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, December 4th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Here comes another historic addition to the Ethiopiques CD series with the upcoming release of its 30th volume next month featuring legendary Ethiopian singer and songwriter Girma Bèyènè.

“After 25 years of silence, the legend Girma Bèyènè is back alongside one of the greatest ethio groups, Akalé Wubé,” the announcement said. “Under the direction of Francis Falceto (director of the famous Ethiopiques series Buda Musique) Girma and Akalé Wubé came together and recorded this album in order to immortalize this renaissance.”

A digital release of Girma’s new album, which is entitled Mistakes on Purpose, is scheduled for January 13th, 2017 by the French world music record label, Buda Musique, while a vinyl release is set for February 3rd, 2017.

Since it was first published 19 years ago the Éthiopiques collection has preserved the works of several prominent singers and musicians including Alemayehu Eshete, Asnaketch Worku, Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu Astatke, Tilahun Gessesse, Ali Birra, Getatchew Mekurya, Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebrou and Kassa Tessema. In addition, songs from Éthiopiques Volume 4 were featured in the 2005 Hollywood movie Broken Flowers written and directed by Jim Jarmusch.

“We are very proud and humbled to be featured side by side such great inspirations like Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu, Girma, Alemayehu and so many others,” the Paris-based band Akalé Wubé said on their website.

Watch: Girma Beyene live in Paris with French band Akale Wube — 2015

Girma used to live in Washington, D.C. for several years beginning in the early 1980’s long before the metro area around the U.S. capital became home to the largest Ethiopian population in America. As The Washington Post pointed out “The great Ethiopian singer, lyricist and arranger first found himself in the District way back in 1981 during a tour in the Walias Band, one of Ethiopia’s most revered jazz troupes. Beyene liked the District enough to stay — but not for good. After many years in the area, he eventually returned to Addis Ababa. It was there, during the 1960s and ’70s, where Beyene had been a major player in one of the planet’s most electrifying music scenes.”

(Ethiopiques Volume 30)

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Events, Featured

NYC Holiday Benefit Supports Boys and Girls Town of Ethiopia

December 2, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, December 2nd, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — The holiday season is officially here. And if you are inspired to make charitable giving this year a benefit event is scheduled next week in New York City “to celebrate and support the youth of Boys’ and Girls’ Towns of Ethiopia.”

The charity, which is similar in concept to the historic Boys’ & Girls’ Towns of Italy, provides assistance to young people in Emdibir, Ethiopia.

“Throughout the night there will be live music, dancing and a short video screening featuring our program in Ethiopia,” the non-profit organization, A Chance in Life, announced. The event will be held on Monday, December 12th at Café Wha? in downtown Manhattan.

“Since the 1950s Café Wha? has been a favorite hot spot cornered in the heart of Greenwich Village,” the announcement said. “Café Wha? was the original stomping ground for artists like Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix.”

The Boys’ & Girls’ Towns of Ethiopia — located in Emdibir of the Gurage Zone in Southwestern Ethiopia and supported by the New York-based non-profit organization, A Chance In Life — is modeled after the first Boys’ & Girls’ Town that was established 70 years ago by Irish priest Monsignor Carroll-Abbing following the end of World War II to assist orphaned children in Europe.

The Boys’ & Girls’ Towns of Ethiopia’s program for youth with disabilities holding a picnic at Ghibe National Park, May 24th, 2016. (Courtesy photo)

Today, in Ethiopia “an estimated 4.6 million children” are growing up without parents, states the organization’s website. “Our towns are vibrant, democratic, self-governing communities run by the young people themselves. These children need the basic necessities to receive a chance in life.”

The towns are designed and organized to empower its members by providing them with basic necessities so they can be “active citizens and productive members of their communities,” explains Gabriele Delmonaco, President & Executive Director of A Chance In Life.

“After [World War II], orphaned and abandoned children all over Europe were shining shoes, panhandling and stealing to survive,” The New York Times noted when the founder of the Boys’ & Girls’ Towns of Italy, Carroll-Abbing, died in 2001 at age 88. “His concept of giving troubled children love and his motto ‘a chance in life’ grew as he organized such shelters all over the country. All told, he was credited with feeding and clothing more than 180,000 children.”

The Boys’ and Girls’ Towns of Ethiopia was launched in 2015 while working closely with the Diocese of Emdibir and currently runs three main programs. The first focuses on resources for orphaned and vulnerable youth, providing academic supplies and financial support to attend school as well as giving medical assistance, food and clothing. The second assists young girls to continue their education and help them stay enrolled in school by providing homes for approximately 100 girls in proximity to their high schools. The girls also have opportunities to hold monthly community meetings and support each other in achieving their academic dreams. Last but not least, The Boys’ and Girls’ Town of Ethiopia also provides entrepreneurship and business development skills for individuals with disabilities who often face marginalization. Youth with disabilities also attend biweekly gatherings and share their aspirations and the challenges faced in an effort to develop a strong social network for greater self-reliance and broader participation in society. There are currently 100 youth participants in this program.

The founder of the Boys’ and Girls’ club once said: “Philanthropy means, very simply, an authentic love for humanity.” Monsignor Carroll-Abbing’s words still ring true today, and giving support to youth-led communities not only provides them with much-needed resources, but also encourages agency and transformation while remaining part of one’s home community.

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If You Go:

Click here to buy tickets

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Podcast

History: US- Ethiopia Complicated Alliance

December 2, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Seeker

The U.S. supports Ethiopia with military aid, monetary assistance and bilateral trade. So what makes their relationship so complicated?

In October, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Ethiopia. The State Department website says this warning is due to “ongoing unrest that has led to hundreds of deaths, thousands of arrests, as well as injuries and extensive property damage.”

Formal relations between the U.S. and Ethiopia stem back to 1903, and in spite of Ethiopia’s instability, the U.S. has maintained relations with them. What are the details of the relationship between these two countries?

Watch today’s Seeker Daily video to find out more.

A Memoir of First US Diplomat’s Meetings With Emperor Menelik

African American and Ethiopian Relations

First Ethiopian Delegation to the U.S. in 1919 Made Headlines

President Obama Becomes First Sitting U.S. President to Visit Ethiopia

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Podcast

Opposition Leader Merera Gudina Detained in Ethiopia After Trip to Europe

December 1, 2016 Tadias Magazine

BBC News

A prominent opposition leader in Ethiopia has been detained after he returned from Europe.

Merera Gudina had violated Ethiopia’s state of emergency by having contact with “terrorist” and “anti-peace” groups, state-linked media reported.

Mr Merera criticised the state of emergency in an address to the European parliament on 9 November.

The government imposed it in October to end an unprecedented wave of protests against its 25-year rule.
More than 11,000 people have since been arrested.

Mr Merera, who is the leader of the Oromo Federalist Conference, was arrested on Wednesday at the airport in the capital, Addis Ababa, after he flew in from Brussels, reports BBC Ethiopia correspondent Emmanuel Igunza.

Several of his relatives who were with him were also detained, local media report.

European parliament member Ana Maria Gomes, who invited Mr Merera, told the BBC she was “extremely shocked” about the arrests.

She said she would push for the European Union take a tougher line against the Ethiopian government.

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Featured, Sports

Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana Named Finalist for World Athlete of the Year Award

November 30, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, November 30th, 2016

The 25-year-old long distance runner is being considered for the prestigious award along with Jamaican track and field sprinter Elaine Thompson and Polish hammer thrower Anita Wlodarczyk.

Almaz Ayana with teammate Tirunesh Dibaba at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil. (Getty Images)

(Image: IAAF)

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Podcast

Ethiopia: Govt Claims 15 Ginbot 7 Members Killed in Foiled Attack

November 30, 2016 Tadias Magazine

International Business Times

Ethiopian security forces claim to have killed dozens of “Eritrean mercenaries” as they foiled a planned terror attack allegedly backed by neighbouring Eritrea. The Ethiopian Ministry of Defense said members of the Ginbot 7 opposition movement – which Ethiopia classified as a terrorist organisation – tried to deploy dozens of its armed fighters into Ethiopia.

It is believed a total of 113 alleged terrorists managed to infiltrate from Eritrea via the Tigray region, in northern Ethiopia. However, Ethiopian forces killed 15 of them, while 73 were captured, officials told the Sudan Tribune. Weapons and military equipment were also seized.

The ministry added the “terrorist plot by Eritrea and the other destructive forces” aimed to destabilise development in Ethiopia.

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Art, Events, Featured

Ethiopia: Composer & Pianist Girma Yifrashewa’s Phenomenal Show in Harlem

November 28, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
Tadias Staff

Published: Monday, November 28th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Last night in New York the Thanksgiving weekend program at Ginny’s Supper Club in Harlem featured a special Ethiopia-inspired dinner menu prepared by Chef Marcus Samuelsson followed by a live performance by classical Ethiopian pianist and composer Girma Yifrashewa.

Girma’s amazing concert on Sunday evening included his original compositions that evoke “Ethiopian melody making,” as he told the audience, “decorated” with sounds of the classical music tradition in combination with Ambassel, Bati, Anchihoye and Tizita based on Ethiopian music’s unique tone scale system.

Watch: Marcus Samuelsson in conversation with Girma Yifrashewa before the show:

Having picked up the kirar as a young child and later discovering piano at the historic Yared School of Music in Addis Ababa during his teenage years, Girma went on to pursue his music and composition studies in Bulgaria at Sofia State Conservatory of Music.

Last night’s piano performance at Ginny’s featured classical pieces by Chopin and Debussy for the first session and his own original compositions fusing the Western classical tradition with Ethiopian sounds for the second part of the evening, which included his playful Chewata, the spiritual Sememen and the joyous Elilta.

Below are photos from Girma Yifrashewa’s Concert at Ginny’s Supper Club in NYC on November 27th, 2016:

Girma Yifrashewa “offers a rare and fascinating example of aesthetic adaptation and convergence,” the New York Times declared three years ago in its review of Girma’s first NYC concert in 2013 at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. In an article entitled From Chopin to Ethiopia, and Partway Back Again, The Times added: “Since returning to Ethiopia in 1995, Mr. Yifrashewa has promoted awareness there of the standard classical repertory, while also writing new pieces that apply European techniques to Ethiopian musical and folkloric sources.”

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Featured

Fidel Castro Dead at 90: Left Mark on Horn of Africa

November 26, 2016 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

Updated: Sunday, November 27th, 2016

One place besides Miami where few tears will be shed over the death of Fidel Castro is Somalia, where his military involvement left a mark.

In the mid-1970s, Castro and former Soviet leaders were celebrating what looked like the emergence of another socialist leadership following the rise of the Derg regime in Ethiopia. Somalia had already been declared a socialist state and had hosted a large presence of Soviet and Cuban military advisers and trainers.

In early 1977, Castro brought together the leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and southern Yemen to create greater socialist federal states in the region. General Mohamed Nur Galal was the former deputy defense minister of Somalia and the focal point of Somalia’s military contacts with Cuba at that time. He was present at the meeting in Aden in March 1977.

Castro’s vision

“He [Castro] was representing the Soviet Union, although he did not say that at the meeting. He said Somalia and Ethiopia should join up, and said that Yemen will join up, too,” Galal said.

Former Ethiopian Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and Fidel Castro celebrating the 4th anniversary of the fall of the Ethiopian monarchy (Revolution Day) in Addis Ababa. Photo: (Flickr/Solomon Kibriye)

Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam (right): Thousands were killed under the dictator’s “Red Terror” in Ethiopia where he was the chairman of the Derg, the Communist military junta that governed Ethiopia, from 1977 to 1991. (Getty Images)

According to Galal, Castro told them that the merger would create a strategic alliance that would control the Red Sea, Suez Canal, the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Castro also explained to the leaders that setting up the new alliance would bring another benefit to the region: solving the conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia over the ethnic Somali Ogaden region.

“We told him that this is about the self-determination of people, and if this federation is going to unite ethnic Somalis, we are up for it,” Galal said.

The meeting ended without progress. At the time, Somalia was already in an advanced stage of a military buildup to take the Ogaden region, regarded by the Somali government as a territory “occupied” by Ethiopia.

Meeting with Barre

When Castro learned of Somalia’s plans, he flew to Mogadishu and met his counterpart, dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

After the meeting, Castro reportedly said that Barre showed him the territories that he considered part of “Greater Somalia,” including northeastern Kenya, Ogaden and Djibouti, which was still under French control.

Somalia’s Mohamed Said Barre speaks to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Oct. 9, 1974. (AP photo)

Castro reportedly described Barre as a “chauvinist … and someone who thinks he is at the summit of wisdom.”

Two months after Castro’s visit to Mogadishu, Somali tanks were pounding Ethiopian military defense positions.

Somali troops took over Ogaden and moved deep into Ethiopia. The Soviet Union sent military advisers and provided technical assistance to Ethiopia.

Galal said Cuba had members of its Civil Defense System in Somalia and ordered them to go to Ethiopia. Castro also sent thousands of troops to Ethiopia.

Somalis beaten back

By March 1978, Somali troops had suffered heavy defeats and were driven back to where they started the offensive.

The following month, members of the demoralized Somali military officers made a coup attempt in Mogadishu. Barre held on, but the officers who survived the purge escaped to Ethiopia to set up the armed rebels who would overthrow him 13 years later, in January 1991. Somalia has never recovered from the following state collapse.

“I read a book Castro wrote, saying he brought Somalia to its knees. … He was a bad man who hated Somalis,” Galal said.

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Related:
Fidel Castro, Who Defied US for 50 Years, Dies at 90 in Cuba

Fidel Castro, Cuba’s revolutionary leader and dictator who defied U.S. efforts to topple him for five decades, has died. He was 90. (Photo: MSNBC)

The Associated Press

HAVANA (AP) — Fidel Castro, who led his bearded rebels to victorious revolution in 1959, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half-century of rule in Cuba, has died at age 90.

With a shaking voice, President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 p.m. Friday. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Toward victory, always!”

Castro’s reign over the island nation 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida was marked by the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Castro, who outlasted a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died 10 years after a life-threatening illness led him to turn over power to his brother.

Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades he was a source of inspiration and support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa, even as Cubans who fled to exile loathed him with equal measure.

Watch: Former Cuban Leader Fidel Castro Dead at 90

Watch: World Reacts to Castro’s Death (VOA News)

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Podcast

In Ethiopia, Authorities Charge Prisoners for Recent Deadly Fire at Kaliti Prison

November 25, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Newsweek

An Ethiopian court has charged 38 inmates with starting a fire at a prison on the outskirts of the capital Addis Ababa in September in which 23 people were killed.

The charges against the inmates including beating their fellow inmates and causing damages worth 10 million Ethiopian birr ($450,000). The court also charged them with attempting to incite violence and recruit for banned organizations, including Somali militant group al-Shabab and dissident Ethiopian group, the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the state-run Fana Broadcasting Corporation reported on Wednesday.

The fire broke out on September 3 at the Kilinto prison, a high-security facility holding anti-government dissidents. The government said that 21 inmates had died during a stampede and from suffocation caused by the fire, while two others were killed when trying to escape the prison.

Local Ethiopian media reported that gunfire was heard in the prison following the outbreak of the fire. An independent NGO, the Ethiopia Human Rights Project (EHRP), claimed the death toll was actually 67 and that the majority died of gunshot wounds, according to Ethiopian English-language magazine the Addis Standard.

There have been mass protests in Ethiopia over the past year, particularly in the Oromia and Amhara regions, which were sparked in November 2015 by government plans to extend the territory of Addis Ababa, potentially resulting in forced evictions. The demonstrations morphed into general anti-government discontent and have been exacerbated by the response of the security forces. At least 500 protesters have been killed during the protests, largely as a result of clashes with security forces.

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Featured

President Obama On Why a Million Miles of Travel Gives Him Hope for the Future

November 25, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Lonely Planet

By BARACK OBAMA
President of the United States

US President Barack Obama reflects on why a million miles of travel gives him hope for the future

Editor’s Note: Lonely Planet believes responsible travel can be a force for good. It’s a belief shared by President Barack Obama, the first sitting US president to visit Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Myanmar and Laos. On his final foreign trip, he spoke to us about how the optimistic, tolerant and engaged young people he has met around the world give him hope for the future.

During my time as president, I have traveled well over a million miles to every corner of the world. These foreign trips have included international summits and bilateral visits that have been fundamental to the progress that we’ve made – strengthening alliances, engaging former adversaries, renewing the global economy, and forging agreements to fight climate change, stop the spread of nuclear weapons, expand commerce, and roll back poverty and disease.

I leave office more convinced than ever before that international cooperation is indispensable. Without regular consultations with foreign leaders, and institutional coordination between the US and our allies and partners, we cannot overcome challenges that recognize no borders. It took dozens of countries working together to stamp out Ebola. It took coordinated pressure and careful diplomacy to reach a peaceful agreement to roll back Iran’s nuclear program. Nearly 200 countries spent years in painstaking negotiations to achieve the Paris Agreement to protect our planet. Every single day, the US works seamlessly with other countries to share information to prevent terrorist attacks, stop human trafficking, break up drug cartels, or combat corruption.

The president takes a group photo with U.S. students at Dillingham Middle School in Alaska. (© Pete Souza / Official White House Photo)

But while this cooperation is essential, I have always believed that our engagements with other countries must not be limited to governments – we also have to engage people around the world. In particular, we must sustain our engagement with young people, who will determine the future long after those of us in positions of power leave the world stage.

Consider the demographics of our world. More than half of human beings are 30 years old or younger. This is even more pronounced in the developing world – that’s where 90 percent of the global population under 30 lives. These young people are living through revolutions in technology that are remaking life on our planet, allowing for unprecedented access to information and connectivity, while also causing enormous disruptions in the global economy. And while the world’s leaders discuss the pressing issues of the day, it is the world’s young people who will determine whether their voices direct the change that is sweeping our world towards greater justice, opportunity, tolerance, and mutual respect.

President Obama watching performers on the tarmac at Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, July 2, 2013. (© Pete Souza / Official White House Photo)

Read the full article at lonelyplanet.com »

President Barack Obama talked about the United States election results and the
importance of democracy during his last international tour as president. (Reuters)

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Featured

Was 2016 U.S. Election Hacked? Hillary Clinton’s Team to Join Wisconsin Recount

November 25, 2016 Tadias Magazine

[Trump calls recount efforts ‘sad,’ declares: ‘Nothing will change’]

Clinton takes part in Wisconsin recount, with an eye on ‘outside interference,’ lawyer says

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign has been quietly exploring whether there was any “outside interference” in the election results and will participate in the election recount in Wisconsin initiated by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, a Clinton campaign lawyer revealed Saturday.

In a Medium post, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias said that the campaign had received “hundreds of messages, emails, and calls urging us to do something, anything, to investigate claims that the election results were hacked and altered in a way to disadvantage Secretary Clinton,” especially in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where the “combined margin of victory for Donald Trump was merely 107,000 votes.”

Elias said the campaign had “not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology.” But because of the margin of victory — and because of the degree of apparent foreign interference during the campaign — Elias said that Clinton officials had “quietly taken a number of steps in the last two weeks to rule in or out any possibility of outside interference in the vote tally in these critical battleground states.”

He said that the Clinton campaign would participate in the Stein-initiated recount in Wisconsin by having representatives on the ground monitoring the count and having lawyers represent them in court if needed. And if Stein made good on efforts to prompt similar processes in Pennsylvania and Michigan, Elias said, the Clinton campaign would do so there, as well.

“The campaign is grateful to all those who have expended time and effort to investigate various claims of abnormalities and irregularities,” Elias said. “While that effort has not, in our view, resulted in evidence of manipulation of results, now that a recount is underway, we believe we have an obligation to the more than 64 million Americans who cast ballots for Hillary Clinton to participate in ongoing proceedings to ensure that an accurate vote count will be reported.”

Voters waited to cast their ballots in Milwaukee earlier this month. (Getty Images)

NOV. 26, 2016

WASHINGTON — Nearly three weeks after Election Day, Hillary Clinton’s campaign said on Saturday that it would participate in a recount process in Wisconsin incited by a third-party candidate and would join any potential recounts in two other closely contested states, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The Clinton campaign held out little hope of success in any of the three states, and said it had seen no “actionable evidence” of vote hacking that might taint the results or otherwise provide new grounds for challenging Donald J. Trump’s victory. But it suggested it was going along with the recount effort to assure supporters that it was doing everything possible to verify that hacking by Russia or other irregularities had not affected the results.

In a post on Medium, Marc Elias, the Clinton team’s general counsel, said the campaign would take part in the Wisconsin recount being set off by Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, and would also participate if Ms. Stein made good on her plans to seek recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Mrs. Clinton lost those three states by a total of little more than 100,000 votes, sealing her Electoral College defeat by Mr. Trump.

The Clinton campaign had assailed Mr. Trump during the election for refusing to say he would abide by the results if he lost. On Saturday, Mr. Trump responded to the campaign’s decision to join the recount with a statement calling the effort “ridiculous” and “a scam by the Green Party.”

He suggested that most of the money raised would not be spent on the recount. “The results of this election should be respected instead of being challenged and abused, which is exactly what Jill Stein is doing,” Mr. Trump said.

In Wisconsin, Mr. Trump leads by 22,177 votes. In Michigan, he has a lead of 10,704 votes, and in Pennsylvania, his advantage is 70,638 votes.

Mr. Elias suggested in his essay that the Clinton campaign was joining the recount effort with little expectation that it would change the result. But many of the campaign’s supporters, picking up on its frequent complaints of Russian interference in the election, have enthusiastically backed Ms. Stein’s efforts, putting pressure on the Clinton team to show that it is exploring all options.

Was this year’s U.S. presidential election “rigged” as Donald Trump claimed during the campaign? Well, now, Hillary Clinton’s supporters want to find out and are calling for vote recount in battleground states. (AP)

Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote is growing. She is roughly 30,000 votes behind Donald J. Trump in the key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin — a combined gap that is narrowing. Her impassioned supporters are now urging her to challenge the results in those two states and Pennsylvania, grasping at the last straws to reverse Mr. Trump’s decisive majority in the Electoral College.

In recent days, they have seized on a report by a respected computer scientist and other experts suggesting that Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the keys to Mr. Trump’s Electoral College victory, need to manually review paper ballots to assure the election was not hacked.

“Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack?” J. Alex Halderman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan who has studied the vulnerabilities of election systems at length, wrote on Medium on Wednesday as the calls based on his conclusions mounted. “Probably not.”

More likely, he wrote, pre-election polls were “systematically wrong.” But the only way to resolve the lingering questions would be to examine “paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states,” he wrote.

Tellingly, the pleas for recounts have gained no support from the Clinton campaign, which has concluded, along with outside experts, that it is highly unlikely the outcome would change even after an expensive and time-consuming review of ballots. But that has not quieted Mrs. Clinton’s supporters, who see the inequity of her growing lead in the national popular vote, which is now more than two million votes, or 1.5 percent of all ballots cast, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which regularly updates its count as states continue to tally and to certify votes.

CNN: Trump’s foreign policy on Africa is likely to be non-existent

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Why Trump Win is Fueling Divisions in US

November 23, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Reuters

USA: Trump Won With Lowest Minority Vote in Decades, Fueling Divisions

Wed Nov 23, 2016

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump won the U.S. presidency with less support from black and Hispanic voters than any president in at least 40 years, a Reuters review of polling data shows, highlighting deep national divisions that have fueled incidents of racial and political confrontation.

Trump was elected with 8 percent of the black vote, 28 percent of the Hispanic vote and 27 percent of the Asian-American vote, according to the Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll.

Among black voters, his showing was comparable to the 9 percent captured by George W. Bush in 2000 and Ronald Reagan in 1984. But Bush and Reagan both did far better with Hispanic voters, capturing 35 percent and 34 percent, respectively, according to exit polling data compiled by the non-partisan Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

And Trump’s performance among Asian-Americans was the worst of any winning presidential candidate since tracking of that demographic began in 1992.

The racial polarization behind Trump’s victory has helped set the stage for tensions that have surfaced repeatedly since the election, in white supremacist victory celebrations, in anti-Trump protests and civil rights rallies, and in hundreds of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic hate crimes documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks extremist movements. The SPLC reports there were 701 incidents of “hateful harassment and intimidation” between the day following the Nov. 8 election and Nov. 16, with a spike in such incidents in the immediate wake of the vote.

Signs point to an ongoing atmosphere of confrontation.

The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a white separatist group that vilifies African-Americans, Jews and other minorities, plans an unusual Dec. 3 rally in North Carolina to celebrate Trump’s victory. Left-wing and anarchist groups have called for organized protests to disrupt the president-elect’s Jan. 20 inauguration. And a “Women’s March on Washington,” scheduled for the following day, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands to protest Trump’s presidency.

American politics became increasingly racialized through President Barack Obama’s two terms, “but there was an attempt across the board, across the parties, to keep those tensions under the surface,” says Jamila Michener, an assistant professor of government at Cornell University.

Trump’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric “brought those divisions to the fore; it activated people on the right, who felt empowered, and it activated people on the left, who saw it as a threat,” she added.

That dynamic was evident last week.

When Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended the Broadway musical “Hamilton” in New York on Friday, the multi-ethnic cast closed with a statement expressing fears of a Trump presidency. A far different view was on display the next day as a crowd of about 275 people cheered Trump’s election at a Washington conference of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist group with a strong anti-Semitic beliefs.

“We willed Donald Trump into office; we made this dream our reality,” NPI President Richard Spencer said. After outlining a vision of America as “a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” he closed with, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!”

DIVISION BREEDS CONFRONTATION

Though Trump’s election victory was driven by white voters, his performance even among that group was not as strong as some of his predecessors. Reagan and George H.W. Bush both won the presidency with higher shares of the white vote than the 55 percent that Trump achieved.

The historical voting patterns reflect decades of polarization in American politics, but the division surrounding Trump appears more profound, says Cas Mudde, an associate professor specializing in political extremism at the University of Georgia. These days, he adds, “people say they don’t want their children even to date someone from the other party.”

Indeed, voters’ opinions of those on the opposite side of the partisan divide have reached historic lows. Surveys by the Pew Research Center showed this year that majorities of both parties held “very unfavorable” views of the other party – a first since the center first measured such sentiment in 1992.

And the lion’s share of those people believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being,” the center found.

That level of division has spurred activists on both sides of the political divide to take their activism in a more confrontational direction.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, protesters on the left took to the streets by the thousands in cities across the country, in some cases causing property damage.

Much of the agitation was motivated by a belief that Trump’s administration will foster racism and push the courts and other political institutions to disenfranchise minority voters, says James Anderson, editor of ItsGoingDown.Org, an anarchist website that has promoted mass demonstrations against Trump’s presidency, including a call to disrupt his inauguration.

Many on the left have come to distrust government institutions, embracing a breed of activism aimed at directly confronting what they see as condemnable political forces, Anderson says. “The answer now is to organize, build power and autonomy and fight back.”

On the opposite end of the political spectrum, Trump’s election is bringing new hope for right-wing activists who felt abandoned by the major parties.

John Roberts, a top officer in the Ku Klux Klan affiliate planning the December rally to celebrate Trump’s election, says the group is committed to non-violent demonstrations, but he sees Trump’s election as likely to bring a new era of political conflict. And much of the strife, he says, will be centered around racial divisions.

“Once Trump officially takes office, there is going to be a boiling over at some point in time,” Roberts says. “Who knows when that’s going to be, but it’s not going to be pretty.”

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After Ethiopia Drama, Aviators Continue Vintage Plane Flights Across Africa

November 23, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Reuters

Updated: 25 November 2016

Vintage plane rally moves on from Ethiopia

Addis Ababa – Aviators who were detained in Ethiopia while retracing a historic flight route along the length of Africa in 24 vintage planes and support aircraft are now free to continue their journey, organisers said on Thursday.

The Vintage Air Rally crew, flying aircraft that include biplanes built in the 1920s and 1930s, were held at the airport in Gambela, western Ethiopia, after they landed following their arrival from neighbouring Sudan.

They have already flown from Europe and through Egypt and plan to end the tour in South Africa. The oldest plane taking part dates to 1928; the oldest pilot is 72.

“Just been resolved now,” rally organiser Sam Rutherford told Reuters in a brief text message when asked for an update on their situation. “In hotel, Kenya tomorrow!”

The group of 47 people had been held in a building at the airport and had not been allowed to stay at a hotel they were booked at, the group had said in an earlier Facebook statement.

Wesenyeleh Hunegnaw, director-general of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA), had told a news conference in Addis Ababa that the group lacked proper authorisation for their trip and had made an unauthorised stop in Gambela.

There was no immediate official comment about a resolution.

The aviators’ aim is cross 10 countries, making 37 stops in a little more than a month. Kenya is their next planned stop.

Missing British Pilot Found in Ethiopia

British pilot Maurice Kirk, 72, who was reported missing Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016 while flying his 1943 Piper Cub plane, has arrived at his expected destination in Gambella, Ethiopia. (AP Photo)

ITV

UPDATE: Missing pilot confirmed ‘safe and well’ in Ethiopia

A 71-year-old British pilot attempting to fly a 1940s plane the length of Africa has been found “safe and well” after being reported missing.

Maurice Kirk, who has links with the Vale of Glamorgan, was part of a vintage air rally flying from Crete to Cape Town.

Vintage Air Rally, which was organising the event, said Mr Kirk had continued to fly despite being asked to withdraw due to a “mismatch in expectations”.

Organisers had said Mr Kirk was missing somewhere between Sudan and Ethiopia with his 1943 Piper Cub plane.

But on Facebook on Wednesday night they confirmed he was now with the rest of the competitors at the airport in Gambela.

All Vintage Air Rally crews are currently in Gambela where the Ethiopian authorities have elected to allocate them accommodation at the airport rather than permit them to proceed to their pre-booked hotel. The reasons for this are at this time not 100% clear. There is no possibility to communicate with them but all participants, including the hitherto ‘missing’ Maurice Kirk, are safe and accounted for.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office is aware and is negotiating on their behalf.

– VINTAGE AIR RALLY STATEMENT

Mr Kirk, from Bristol, went missing on a three-hour leg of the cross-African flight from southern Sudan into western Ethiopia.

Photo: ITV News

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Related:
British pilot in Africa air rally is missing in Ethiopia

Associated Press

Published November 23, 2016

The organizers of a rally of vintage planes flying across Africa say a British pilot has gone missing while flying a 1943 Piper Cub plane.

Vintage Air Rally said in a statement on Facebook that Maurice Kirk, 72, had not arrived at his expected destination in Gambella, Ethiopia, on Tuesday.

The group said that before Kirk disappeared he had been advised to return to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, after departing Ad-Damazin, Sudan, heading to Gambella. Kirk had withdrawn from the rally before he went missing, it said.

It said Kirk is believed to have made a precautionary landing somewhere in Ethiopia, where a search is on to find him.

The Vintage Air Rally describes itself as a “flying rally across Africa, from Crete to Cape Town,” for early aircraft.

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Model Titi Aynaw, First Ethiopian Miss Israel, Shares 5 Leadership Lessons

November 22, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — The last time we featured Yityish (Titi) Aynaw, the first Ethiopian Miss Israel, was three years ago when she visited New York City a few months after she was crowned the first black Miss Israel in 2013. The beauty queen who served as a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Force had arrived to fundraise for a project located in her hometown of Netanya where she said she was working to build an after school arts-based community center for children from low-income communities.

“I’ve taken the initiative to bring together these children in a community room and help them to learn what they show interest in, whether it’s dance or music. I am fundraising to create these opportunities for them” Titi explained.

This week the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School highlights Titi’s recent visit there to promote “her latest social enterprise, the Titi Project,” noting that the 25-year-old former Miss Israeli is also “a television personality and community activist with 52,000 Instagram followers. And those are only a few of her accomplishments.”

Crowned Titi Aynaw crowned as Miss Israel 2013 was born in the Gondar, Ethiopia. (KWHS)

In related news also this week, the Times of Israel reported that Lt. Col. Dr. Avraham Yitzhak made history as the first Ethiopian-born Israeli who was named chief medical officer of the army’s Southern Command on November 21st, 2016 “putting him on the path to becoming the first Israeli of Ethiopian heritage to hold the rank of colonel in the Israel Defense Forces.”

—-
Related
Tadias Interview with Miss Israel Titi Aynaw

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Ethiopia: US-Africa Relations in Trump Era

November 21, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine

By Tadias Staff

Published: Monday, November 21st, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — In an article entitled Trump’s Foreign Policy on Africa is Likely to be Non-existent, which was published by CNN this past weekend, Peter Vale, a Professor of Humanities and the Director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Johannesburg, argues that the African continent will be the least of the incoming administration’s concerns.

At this point it’s all speculation and nobody really knows what exactly the Donald Trump presidency would mean to the U.S. let alone the rest of the world. But it is worth thinking about what US-Africa relations might look like in the age of Trump.

The Brookings Institution’s Witney Schneidman, who advised Clinton on Africa, also penned an article last week entitled Donald Trump and Africa , and agrees that the continent will likely be at the bottom of Trump’s international agenda.

“In fact, there is every reason to expect that, under a Trump administration, the U.S. will be less engaged in Africa especially where it concerns the expenditure of taxpayer resources on economic development initiatives,” Schneidman writes in a blog post on Brookings website.

“AGOA could easily be the first casualty under Trump,” Schneidman states. “While its benefits have been uneven, the legislation has served as a key framework for U.S.-African relations. It has led to trade and investment being at the forefront of U.S. policy in the region. AGOA has encouraged African women in trade and led to the creation of the African Trade Hubs (rebranded as Trade and Investment Hubs under Obama) to help African companies access AGOA. More recently, the Obama administration has been working to develop a new trade architecture based on reciprocity that would ultimately replace AGOA’s unilateral preference regime.”

Professor Vale note that “Trump is also unlikely to have any tolerance for the idea that the African diaspora is part of the “sixth region” of Africa. In addition, I think that he is going to be intolerant and disinterested in issues around the domestic politics of African countries. That is unless — as he was very clear in his acceptance speech — they strongly impinge on American national interests. For example, I don’t think he is going to be very interested in what is happening in Somalia or Ethiopia or in other parts of Africa where there may be conflict. Trump hasn’t got a great capacity for detail, so at best he will live by macro assessments.”

Below are links to both articles:

Brookings: Donald Trump and Africa

Obama Bids Farewell to World, Hails US Democracy in Landmark Speech

Looking Beyond Trump Era: This Woman Could Become 1st Female U.S. President

Ethiopian-American Caucus Founder Rep. Mike Honda Loses Re-election

Update: Ethio-American Friend Colorado’s Mike Coffman Keeps His House Seat

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Rolling Stone: Ethiopian American Aminé Among 10 New Artists You Need to Know

November 17, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Rolling Stone

Why You Should Pay Attention: Adam Aminé Daniel has scored an unlikely hit with the wavy love rap “Caroline” – currently at 34 million YouTube views and counting. The Portland rapper is inspired by Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak and Outkast’s The Love Below, and taught himself to make beats with YouTube tutorials. He also studied business, advertising and marketing at Portland State University (he recently dropped out with 15 credits left towards his degree), and creates his own cover artwork.

Last year, he piqued interest among some influential blogs and websites with his 2015 mixtape Calling Brio, a diverse blend of house, bass drops, African pop and smooth-but-steady flows. When he posted “Caroline” to SoundCloud in June, he generated a fierce bidding war that resulted a deal with Republic Records. By September, Republic pushed the track onto streaming services, and it has soared into the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. He’s recorded over 60 songs for his next project, but he’s unsure if that will be an album or a mixtape. However, he knows that he wants to continue to make feel-good music that’s colorful and bright.

He Says: Aminé has no shortage of opinions on the anti-immigration policy that president-elect Donald Trump used in his recent campaign. “My parents are immigrants to this country,” says the Ethiopian-American artist. “They came to this country for a better opportunity just like everyone else. So if anyone else, whether they’re running for president or whatever they’re trying to do, if they’re bashing the people who are just working hard and just trying to make a better life for themselves by coming to America, I believe that’s completely wrong. To see someone like that do something like that and become president is just a testimony to where we are at culturally in America right now.”

Amine – “Caroline”

CPJ: Ethiopian Newspaper Editor, Bloggers Caught in Worsening Crackdown

November 17, 2016 Tadias Magazine

CPJ

Ethiopian newspaper editor, bloggers caught in worsening crackdown

Nairobi, November 17, 2016-Ethiopia should immediately release all journalists detained amid an intensifying crackdown on the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In recent weeks, Ethiopian authorities have jailed a newspaper editor, as well as two members of the award-winning Zone 9 bloggers’ collective, which has faced continuous legal harassment on terrorism and incitement charges. A fourth journalist has been missing for a week; his family fears he is in state custody.

The crackdown on the media comes amid mass arrests following large protests that led the government to declare a state of emergency on October 9. Security forces have detained more than 11,000 people since the state of emergency was declared, Taddesse Hordofa, of Ethiopian government’s State of Emergency Inquiry Board, said in a televised statement on November 12.

“Silencing those who criticize the government’s handling of protests will not bring stability,” CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal said from New York. “The constant pressure on Zone 9 bloggers with repeated arrests and court appearances is clearly designed to intimidate the remaining independent journalists in Ethiopia.”

Ethiopia’s Supreme Court on November 15 continued hearing prosecutors’ appeal of a lower court’s October 2015 acquittal of four bloggers from the Zone 9 collective-Befekadu Hailu, Natnail Feleke, Abel Wabella, and Atnaf Berhane-on terrorism charges, campaigners reported on social media.

Security forces again detained Befekadu-a co-founder of the collective, which CPJ honored with its 2015 International Press Freedom Award-from his home on November 11, according to news reports. Authorities have not yet announced any new charge against the blogger. The Africa News Agency quoted Befekadu’s friends saying that they believed he may have been arrested following an interview he gave to the U.S.-government-funded broadcaster Voice of America’s Amharic service, in which he criticized the government’s handling of the protests.

Members of the Zone 9 blogging group. (Photo: Endalkachew H/Michael)

An Ethiopian journalist in exile in Kenya, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, told CPJ that Befekadu’s criticism of the government’s handling of protests in the Oromo and Amhara regions of Ethiopia on his blog may have also led to his detention.

When the terrorism charge against the bloggers was dismissed by the judge in October last year, Befekadu was informed that he would still face incitement charges, according to media reports. That case is still before the courts.

Ethiopian Information Minister Negeri Lencho did not respond to CPJ’s calls and text messages seeking more information.

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Photos: Great CNN Feature on Lalibela

November 16, 2016 Tadias Magazine

CNN

From all corners of a nation they come, often walking for hundreds of miles barefoot: Ethiopian Orthodox Christians on a once-in-a-lifetime journey.

Their destination is Lalibela in the north of Ethiopia. A town of approximately 20,000 people, Lalibela’s population swells five-fold in the first days of January, pilgrims converging to celebrate Genna (or Ledet) — Christmas according to the Ethiopian calendar.

What they’re here for is to take a path from darkness into the light; through 800 years of history and enter a “New Jerusalem” — tangible, permanent and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

But most of all, they’re here for God.

The House of St George, Lalibela. (CNN photo)

Pilgrims waiting to emerge from inside a tunnel at the House of St George, Lalibela. (CNN)

A group of pilgrims pray and read their bibles by candlelight around the churches of Lalibela. (CNN)

Ethiopia: Pianist-Composer Girma Yifrashewa to Perform at Ginny’s in Harlem

November 16, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, November 16th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — The acclaimed Ethiopian pianist and composer Girma Yifrashewa returns to New York City this month for a Thanksgiving weekend performance at Ginny’s Supper Club on Sunday, November 27th.

Girma, who was trained at Sofia State Conservatory of Music in Bulgaria, says he got started with his musical career at a very young age playing Kirar while growing up in Ethiopia’s capital city before being introduced to piano as a teenager when he was accepted to the Yared School of Music in Addis Ababa.

Girma Yifrashewa “offers a rare and fascinating example of aesthetic adaptation and convergence,” the New York Times declared three years ago in its review of Girma’s last concert here in 2013 at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. In an article entitled From Chopin to Ethiopia, and Partway Back Again, The Times added: “Since returning to Ethiopia in 1995, Mr. Yifrashewa has promoted awareness there of the standard classical repertory, while also writing new pieces that apply European techniques to Ethiopian musical and folkloric sources. His recital here, one of two American concerts mounted with support from the independent record label Unseen Worlds, was split between canonical works and original music.”

Girma ’s original compositions include Chewata, “meant to evoke an Ethiopian custom of making merry even at times of sadness,” as well as Sememen, “a surging work employing a traditional mode associated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church,” Elilta, “named for the cheery ululation with which Ethiopians greet joyful occasions and filled with tingling trills that imitated that sound.”

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IF You Go:
Girma Yifrashewa: Special Dinner and Performance at Ginny’s Supper Club
Sunday Nov 27, 2016
Show: 6:00 PM
$85
Ginny’s Supper Club
310 Lenox Ave.
New York, NY
Click here to buy tickets

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Obama Bids Farewell to World, Hails US Democracy in Landmark Speech

November 16, 2016 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

Last Updated: November 16, 2016

Obama Hails Democracy in Landmark Speech

LONDON — U.S. President Barack Obama chose, Athens, the cradle of Western-style democracy to deliver his likely final, landmark foreign policy speech on what is his last overseas trip in office, saying the democracy that America upholds and promotes in the world is imperfect, but “better than the alternatives.”

Reflecting on his eight-year presidency, the U.S. leader said his travels around the globe have shown him that while “every country travels its own path,” there is “fundamental desire” for dignity and self-determination. “These flames are universal. They burn in every heart,” Obama said.

The outgoing American leader bids farewell to Washington’s foreign partners at a time when there are big questions on the future of U.S. relations with Europe, its new role in the world, and the image the United States, forever seen as a symbol of Western liberalism, is projecting.

The bitterness and anger displayed by candidates and demonstrators during the U.S. presidential campaign and in the days since have shocked many in Europe.

In his speech Wednesday, Obama sought to reassure the world that American-style democracy is alive, and he emphasized the importance of a peaceful transition.

“We compete hard in campaigns. But even after elections, democracy depends on a peaceful transition of power,” Obama said, without mentioning President-elect Donald Trump by name. “The next American president and I could not be more different … But American democracy is bigger than any one person.”

‘American Democracy Is Bigger Than Any One Person,’ Obama Says

President Barack Obama talked about the United States election results and the
importance of democracy during his last international tour as president. (Reuters)

Topping every conversation of the U.S. leader on this trip are his efforts to reassure Europe the United States has no choice but to remain engaged with the region and committed to its longstanding security partnerships. He said the history of the last two centuries shows democracies are less likely to fight wars among themselves, “Our closest friends are democracies.” NATO, he said, is “an alliance of democracy.”

Obama is using his last foreign tour to reassure U.S. NATO partners who are nervous after President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign remarks in which he called the alliance “obsolete” and suggested the United States might not automatically defend members who are not making their minimum contributions to the alliance and spend the required two percent of their GDP on defense.

“I believe it is practical for the United States to support democracy,” Obama said as he was interrupted by applause. History, he said, shows countries with democratic governance tend to be “more just and more stable, and more successful” and “deliver more prosperity.”

Obama gave the speech after touring Athens’ ancient Acropolis, a symbol of the origins of democracy, which the president described as “the most precious of gifts” for which America is indebted to Greece.

President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House, Nov. 10, 2016. (AP photo)

Close eye on Obama

Observers across Europe are following the visit closely, as E.U. governments await clarification on what the state of the U.S.-partnership will be after Inauguration Day. While President Obama has said on this trip that he is neither defending Donald Trump’s campaign statements nor taking responsibility for what the President-elect says or does, he hopes to reassure partners that core American principles remain unchanged.

“In Athens, the American president poses himself as the defender of the Union,” said a commentary in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro. “Obama wants to reassure Europe on the future of its relations with the United States … It was therefore appropriate to travel to Greece, the birthplace of democracy, for his farewell tour,” it said.

Obama’s next stop is Germany.

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Trump’s USA: President Obama Warns Against Rise of Nationalistic Tribalism

November 15, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Visiting Europe, Obama Warns Against Rise of ‘Crude Sort of Nationalism’

ATHENS — President Obama, in some of his strongest language since Donald J. Trump’s election last week, on Tuesday warned against the rise of nationalistic tribalism, apparently a reference to Mr. Trump’s decision to appoint Stephen K. Bannon, a hard-right nationalist, to a top position.

“I do believe, separate and apart from any particular election or movement, that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama’s remarks came in an hourlong news conference in Athens on his final trip overseas as president. He had come to Greece partly to bolster Greek hopes of further debt relief from its European partners, which will meet on Dec. 5 to consider giving this ailing nation another pass on its mountain of debt.

But Mr. Trump’s election last week subverted Mr. Obama’s top foreign policy priorities, and he seemed to have arrived in Athens in a reflective mood.

DC Fears Setback to Cultural Renaissance as Obama Era Comes to an End

Trump in for a wake-up call when he takes office, Obama says

Watch: SNL Comedians Pull Off the Realest 2016 US Election Night Sketch

Looking Beyond Trump Era: This Woman Could Become 1st Female U.S. President

UPDATE: Obama Meets Trump at the White House

Video: Hillary Wins Popular Vote but Loses Election, for Second Time.

U.S. Election 2016: Trump Triumphs

Ethiopian-American Caucus Founder Rep. Mike Honda Loses Re-election

Update: Ethio-American Friend Colorado’s Mike Coffman Keeps His House Seat

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DC Fears Setback to Cultural Renaissance as Obama Era Comes to an End

November 15, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Read the full article at NYTimes.com »

A Newly Vibrant Washington Fears That Trump Will Drain Its Culture

WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama has burned off her date-night meals at Washington’s new generation of acclaimed restaurants by pedaling at SoulCycle. President Obama has shopped for Jonathan Franzen novels with his daughters at local independent bookstores. Obama administration staff members, their barhopping chronicled in the gossip pages, have hit the 14th Street hot spots hard.

Decades ago, Washington was broke and run by a mayor best known for smoking crack with a prostitute on a surveillance tape. Neighborhoods had not fully recovered from the 1968 riots, and an aging Georgetown elite still set the tone. The administrations of two Bushes and a Clinton in between hardly had an effect on the city.

But Mr. Obama’s arrival in 2009 coincided with an urban renaissance…And the Obama family — African-American, youthful, attractive and urbane — were archetypes of a modern city on the upswing. What the effect on Washington will be when Donald J. Trump moves into the White House is hard to predict. But many Washingtonians fear the worst. Among them is Vincent Gray, the city’s mayor during much of the Obama administration.

Looking Beyond Trump Era: This Woman Could Become 1st Female U.S. President
UPDATE: Obama Meets Trump at the White House, Trump Freezes Out Press
Video: Hillary Wins Popular Vote but Loses Election, for Second Time.
Watch: Hillary Clinton’s Concession Speech

U.S. Election 2016: Trump Triumphs
Ethiopian-American Caucus Founder Rep. Mike Honda Loses Re-election
Update: Ethio-American Friend Colorado’s Mike Coffman Keeps His House Seat

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Ethiopia-Italy Film “If Only I Were That Warrior” Released on DVD

November 14, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
Tadias Staff

Published: Monday, November 14th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — “In 1935, Benito Mussolini wanted to make Italy great again, so he invaded Ethiopia,” The Daily Beast publication noted this summer. The new documentary film “If Only I Were That Warrior” — which chronicles the reactions of the international Ethiopian and Italian community regarding the recent building of a memorial for the Fascist General, Rodolfo Graziani (“The Butcher of Ethiopia”) in his hometown of Affile, Italy — has finally been released on DVD and is also now available for streaming online.

Per the film’s synopsis: “If Only I Were That Warrior is a feature documentary film focusing on the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in 1935. Following the recent construction of a monument dedicated to Fascist general Rodolfo Graziani, the film addresses the unpunished war crimes he and others committed in the name of Mussolini’s imperial ambitions. The stories of three characters, filmed in present day Ethiopia, Italy and the United States, take the audience on a journey through the living memories and the tangible remains of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia — a journey that crosses generations and continents to today, where this often overlooked legacy still ties the fates of two nations and their people.”

While public funding for Graziani’s memorial was suspended by a new administration in Affile in 2013 the monument still remains standing.

Among the Ethiopian activists featured in the film include Dallas resident Kidane Alemayehu who was leading the anti-monument protest through his organization, the Global Alliance for Justice: The Ethiopian Cause. Kidane had also written a letter to Italy’s Foreign Minister regarding the objection against the building of the Graziani memorial.

Kidane Alemayehu, above right, and Mulu, bottom, are some of the Ethiopian activists featured in the documentary.(Images: Awen Films)

Anti-fascist Italian-American activist Nicola DeMarco (Images: Awen Films)

Screenshot from the documentary film ‘If Only I Were That Warrior.’ (Courtesy of Awen Films)

Still image from the documentary “If Only I Were That Warrior.” (Awen Films)

Photo courtesy of Awen Films

Filmed in Amharic, English and Italian and shot on three continents the documentary also captures conversations with citizens and leaders of Affile, as well as Italian Americans and testimonies from Ethiopian elders who witnessed Graziani’s horrific war crimes in addition to the Ethiopian Diaspora’s mobilization against the memorial.

The goal of the documentary includes addressing “examples of revisionism like the monument itself” says Producer Isaak Liptzin, “which is only possible because there is such great ignorance on the topic in Italy, abroad and to a certain extent even in Ethiopia.” In an interview with Tadias this past May Liptzin added: “So the goal is really to bring this back into everybody’s mind and into the public discourse, not in a militant way but in a way that explains how this amnesia came to be.”

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Sports

In Virginia, Runners From Ethiopia Sweep Richmond Marathon

November 13, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, November 13th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Dadi Beyene and Bizuwork Getahun of Ethiopia took first place in the men’s and women’s category respectively at this year’s Richmond Marathon in Virginia on Saturday.

“Beyene finished three seconds ahead of Peter Limo, of Kenya,” reports The Richmond Times-Dispatch. “Bizuwork Getahun, also from Ethiopia, won the women’s marathon in 2:37:51.”

The Times-Dispatch adds: “The winners of the American Family Fitness half marathon this morning were Girma Gebre, of Ethiopia, for the men and Joan Aiyabei, of Kenya, for the women. Gebre ran the half marathon in 1:04:41; Aiyabei finished in 1:12:25.

Girma Gebre wins the Richmond Half- Marathon on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016. (Photo: TIMES-DISPATCH)

Watch: SNL Makes America Laugh Again

November 13, 2016 Tadias Magazine

USA TODAY

On Saturday Night Live, Dave Chappelle & Chris Rock Nailed the Realest 2016 US Election Night Sketch

The stars, whose comedic talents are exceeded only by their sharp insight, joined Saturday Night Live cast members for a sketch set at an election night watch party. In the scene, Chappelle cautions Clinton supporters against celebrating prematurely.

At first, his cynicism just doesn’t add up to the group. But as ballots are tallied and states began to report electoral votes, the group begins to acknowledge the clear division. “Oh my God, I think America is racist,” gasps Cecily Strong.

“Oh my God,” Chappelle replied sarcastically. “You know I remember my great-grandfather told me something like that. He was, like, a slave or something.”

Gripped by disbelief, Aidy Bryant asks: “Why aren’t people turning out for Hillary the way they did for Barack Obama?”

“I mean, maybe because you’re replacing a charismatic 40-year-old black guy with a 70-year-old white woman,” Rock joked. “That’s like the Knicks replacing Patrick Ewing with Neil Patrick Harris.”

Watch: SNL Makes America Laugh Again After Weird 2016 US Election

While the election’s outcome ultimately deflated the majority of the partygoers, Chappelle and Rock remained unaffected. “Don’t worry, eight years are gonna fly by,” Chappelle offered. “Get some rest,” added Rock. “You got a big day of moping and writing on Facebook tomorrow.”

“This is the most shameful thing America has ever done,” Beck Bennett noted glumly.

The jokes wrote themselves there.

U.S. Election 2016: Trump Triumphs
Ethiopian-American Caucus Founder Rep. Mike Honda Loses Re-election
Update: Ethio-American Friend Colorado’s Mike Coffman Keeps His House Seat

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Podcast

European Parliament Holds Hearing on Ethiopia Protests

November 11, 2016 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

BRUSSELS — It is now one year since persistent, sometimes violent anti-government protests started in Ethiopia’s Oromia region. How much closer are the Oromos, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, to achieving their demands for more political freedom and economic inclusiveness? Opposition activists addressed members of the European Parliament this week in Brussels.

Olympic runner Feyisa Lilesa is the most famous supporter of the protests in his native Ethiopia. Feyisa, the silver medalist in this year’s men’s marathon in Rio, drew attention when he crossed his wrists at the finish line, a gesture to show solidarity with the protesters.

Feyisa, who now fears returning to Ethiopia, addressed members of the European Parliament one year after the start of the Oromo protests:

He said it will be disastrous if the current situation continues, adding that because all media is blocked in Ethiopia, he is using his visibility to get worldwide media attention by being a voice for his people.

Diaspora protests

Also at the European Parliament is Berhanu Nega, leader of the anti-government diaspora group Ginbot 7. He was sentenced to death in absentia and labeled a terrorist by the Ethiopian government for trying to overthrow the government.

Berhanu believes the next six months will show which direction Ethiopia is heading. He says international pressure is needed to prevent the current tension from escalating.

“My hope is that at least some of the friends of this regime to talk sense that the path to power through violence in Ethiopia is over. That there must be a way to find an alternative and this alternative, to some kind of a soft landing, must happen quickly before it is too late,” he said.

Demonstrations in the Oromia region started on November 12, 2015 in the town of Ginchi, about 80 kilometers west of Addis Ababa. Students and farmers protested a plan to enlarge the boundaries of the capital city.

Protests continued and spread through the country as demands were no longer only about land grabs but also about ethnic marginalization, political freedom and economic development.

Hundreds of Oromo citizens have died, thousands have been imprisoned, and a six-month state of emergency was declared in Ethiopia last month.

Calls for dialogue

Oromo opposition leader Mulatu Gemechu of the Oromo Federal Congress says that despite a Cabinet reshuffle, a lasting solution is still far away.

“Unless the government comes down to the table and discuss with the opposition parties and the other people who are not happy with the sitting government, and create peaceful dialogue, it is impossible to talk about the improvement of peace and all these things,” said Mulatu.

Professor Jan Abbink of the Center of African Studies at Leiden University says the Ethiopian government should not rely solely on the state of emergency to restore order.

“Create a space for discussion,” said Abbink. We need really internationally supervised structures of discussion and deliberation. That might be a great step forward also to rebuild trust in the country, because that is something which is now seriously lacking. Trust between the government and the population.”

Human rights organization Amnesty International said this week that the current security measures “sweep the underlying issues under the carpet” and “that it is only a matter of time before another round of unrest erupts.”

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Featured

This Woman Could Become 1st Female U.S. President

November 11, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine

By Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, November 11th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — This week, here in America, we may have stunned the world and embarrassed ourselves by electing Donald Trump as our next President over Hillary Clinton, who was arguably the most qualified presidential candidate in the history of the United States. But there were other more hopeful election night victories on Tuesday, November 8th including that of Senator-elect Kamala Harris of California who is already being touted by the media as “the next best hope for shattering that glass ceiling.”

“She’s drawn many comparisons to President Barack Obama, who famously ran for president during his first term in the Senate,” The Huffington Post points out in an article published today entitled Meet Kamala Harris, Who Could Become The First Woman President. “Her background and her polished yet personable approach to politics embody what many think the Democratic Party should aim to look like going forward. And even before her Senate win, her name was floated for roles including California Governor, Supreme Court Justice and Vice President.”

Tadias first met Kamala Harris in 2003 at an event in San Francisco organized by the New America Media (NAM), then called the New California Media (NCM), where Harris had just stopped by to personally pass out fliers and introduce herself as a candidate for District Attorney of San Francisco. We were excited to see her win that election. After serving as DA of San Francisco for two terms she became California’s Attorney General in 2010.

With her recent win we can’t be happier that Harris will be heading to Washington DC as one of two Senators representing the country’s most populous state during the looming Trump era beginning in January 2017.

Here are some things you should know about the woman who could very well challenge Trump in 2020.

DC Fears Setback to Cultural Renaissance as Obama Era Comes to an End

Watch: SNL Comedians Pull Off the Realest 2016 US Election Night Sketch

UPDATE: Obama Meets Trump at the White House

Video: Hillary Wins Popular Vote but Loses Election, for Second Time.

U.S. Election 2016: Trump Triumphs

Ethiopian-American Caucus Founder Rep. Mike Honda Loses Re-election

Update: Ethio-American Friend Colorado’s Mike Coffman Keeps His House Seat

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Opinion

Ethiopia: High Time for Genuine Reform Before Next Unrest Erupts

November 10, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Amnesty International

After a year of protests, time to address grave human rights concerns

Nearly one year on from the start of a wave of protests that has left at least 800 people dead at the hands of security forces, the Ethiopian government must take concrete steps to address grave human rights concerns in the country, Amnesty International said today.

The protests began in the central Oromia region on 12 November 2015, in opposition to the Addis Ababa Masterplan, a government plan to extend the capital Addis Ababa’s administrative control into parts of the Oromia.

“A year after these deadly protests began, tensions in Ethiopia remain high and the human rights situation dire, with mass arrests internet shutdowns and sporadic clashes between the security forces and local communities, especially in the north of the country,” said Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

“It’s high time the Ethiopian authorities stopped paying lip service to reform and instead took concrete steps to embrace it, including by releasing the myriad political prisoners it is holding merely for expressing their opinions. They should also repeal the repressive laws that imprisoned them in the first place, including the draconian Anti-Terrorism Proclamation that has also contributed to the unrest.”

Even after the Addis Ababa Masterplan was scrapped in January 2016, protests continued with demonstrators demanding an end to human rights violations, ethnic marginalization and the continued detention of Oromo leaders.

The protests later expanded into the Amhara region with demands for an end to arbitrary arrests and ethnic marginalization. They were triggered by attempts by the security forces to arrest Colonel Demeka Zewdu, one of the leaders of the Wolqait Identity and Self-Determination Committee, on alleged terrorism offences. Wolqait, an administrative district in the Tigray region, has been campaigning for reintegration into the Amhara region, to which it belonged until 1991.

Just as in Oromia, security forces responded with excessive and lethal force in their efforts to quell the protests. Amnesty International estimates that at least 800 people have been killed since the protests began, most of them in the two regions.

The Ethiopian government’s heavy-handed response to largely peaceful protests started a vicious cycle of protests and totally avoidable bloodshed. If it does not address the protesters’ grievances, we are concerned that it is only a matter of time before another round of unrest erupt.

—
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Featured

Obama, Trump Meet at White House (Video)

U.S. Election 2016: Trump Triumphs
Ethiopian-American Caucus Founder Rep. Mike Honda Loses Re-election
Update: Ethio-American Friend Colorado’s Mike Coffman Keeps His House Seat

Updated: Thursday, November 10, 2016

Donald Trump entered the White House through the South Lawn entrance, avoiding news cameras and the eyes of the president’s staff.

About 45 minutes after Trump’s arrival, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough was seen taking Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and other Trump aides, including Dan Scavino, across the edge of the Rose Garden.

Donald Trump Limits Traditional Press Access On First White House Visit (Huffington Post)

President-elect Donald Trump broke with tradition on Thursday by heading to Washington, D.C., without a “protective pool” of journalists to cover his movements for the larger press corps.

The White House Correspondents Association oversees a rotating pool system so that the president is always covered while traveling, especially in the event of historically significant or life-threatening moment.

Neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton’s campaign had a fully protective pool, as opposed to recent major-party nominees. However, the Democrat’s system was close to the standard used in the White House. Trump didn’t fly with reporters, and sometimes didn’t notify them when he was leaving for events and even mocked them for being late.

Last month, WHCA President Jeff Mason urged both presidential campaigns to agree to have a “protective pool” during the transitional period between the election and inauguration. Not doing so, he wrote, would be a “serious breach of historical precedent.”

Trump’s team hasn’t responded to the letter, Mason told The Huffington Post.

A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond for comment.

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Podcast

Ethiopian-American Caucus Founder Rep. Mike Honda Loses Re-election

Los Angeles Times

Fremont Democrat Ro Khanna has defeated eight-term Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose) in their bitter, intra-party matchup in Silicon Valley.

Honda, a longtime progressive voice in the Bay Area, was believed to be one of California’s most vulnerable congressional incumbents after he received fewer votes than his challenger in June’s primary.

Khanna, who also challenged Honda in 2014, argued that Silicon Valley voters needed a change in leadership.

An ongoing ethics investigation into whether Honda had improperly used his official resources for political purposes, as well as the loss of key endorsements like President Obama’s, clouded Honda’s campaign.

The race quickly became California’s most expensive congressional campaigns and had grown increasingly nasty, with Honda filing a lawsuit in the final weeks of the race, alleging that Khanna’s campaign manager had illegally accessed proprietary campaign data.

A spokesman for Honda’s campaign declined to comment, saying the campaign would be releasing a later statement Wednesday.

—
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Podcast

Update: Ethio-American Friend Colorado’s Mike Coffman Keeps His House Seat

Colorado’s Mike Coffman keeps his House seat in GOP column

Rep. Mike Coffman kept up the apparent Republican winning streak by beating Democratic challenger Morgan Carroll in Colorado’s 7th District on Tuesday night.

With little public polling to speak of, the race between the Coffman and Carroll was widely viewed as a toss-up going into Election Day.

Coffman, who was first elected in 2008, has fought to hold on to the district through his four terms in office. Adaptation seemed to be part of his strategy. After the once-reliably Republican district was redrawn in 2012 to favor Democrats, Coffman took up more moderate causes, supporting the Voting Rights Amendment Act and legislation to curb anti-LGBTQ discrimination. That trend continued into campaign season. He was an early critic of Donald Trump, calling for him to step aside over his vulgar comments about women. And in August, Coffman ran an ad in which a diverse group of supporters said he was “not like other Republicans.”

Carroll contended that Coffman’s evolution was disingenuous and that his previous positions helped pave the way for Trump. She and Democratic supporters accused him of taking a harsh stance against immigration reform and criticized him for questioning President Obama’s citizenship (Coffman later apologized for raising doubts about Obama’s birthplace). Carroll, a lawyer and former Colorado Senate leader, campaigned as a progressive, touting her record of winning bipartisan support for legislation in a divided statehouse.

The race drew attention from high-profile figures in both parties and saw a flood of campaign contributions from outside groups. The Colorado Independent reported that it was the only contest in the country
where Americans for Prosperity, political advocacy group backed by the conservative Koch brothers, was focused on defeating a candidate rather than educating voters.

U.S. Congressman Mike Coffman (center) with Olympic hero Feyisa Lilesa (right) in D.C., Sept. 2016. (Courtesy photo)

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) – Last month Republican Congressman Mike Coffman of Colorado was one of a few U.S. lawmakers in DC who publicly backed the introduction of a bipartisan resolution “supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive government in Ethiopia.” And this past weekend his Ethiopian constituents of the 6th Congressional District in the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area, along with Eritrean and Oromo community associations, held a fundraising dinner at the Aurora Hills Golf Club in support of the GOP Congressman’s re-election efforts.

Ethiopian American businessman Mel Tewahade, who is one of the organizers and a registered Republican, says Congressman Coffman has been a “loyal friend to the Ethiopian community” and the event, which was held on Saturday, October 22nd, was “intended to show our appreciation for his dedication and hardwork.”

Below are photos shared with Tadias Magazine:

Fundraiser for Congressman Mike Coffman at the Aurora Hills Golf Club on Saturday, October 22nd 2016. (Courtesy photo)

(Courtesy photo)

Congressman Mike Coffman speaking during the fundraising dinner at the Aurora Hills Golf Club on Saturday, October 22nd 2016. (Courtesy photo)

(Courtesy photo)

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Featured

Hillary Concedes, Obama Promises Smooth Transition to Trump Admin (Video)

Highlights of Hillary Clinton’s Concession Speech and President Obama’s Remarks

Hillary Clinton publicly conceded the election to Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, acknowledging the pain of the defeat in remarks in New York while calling on her supporters to accept that he would be president and give him a chance to lead with an open mind.

President Obama, speaking in Washington, also said that he would work to ensure a smooth transition to a Trump administration and that, despite their differences, we are “all rooting for his success.”

Speaker Paul D. Ryan proclaimed that Mr. Trump had achieved a political feat and earned a mandate by reaching new voters. Mr. Ryan said that he was certain that they would work well together on a conservative policy agenda.

Global markets swooned overnight but stabilized by midday on the East Coast. News of Mr. Trump’s election was met with a mix of shock, uncertainty and some congratulations around the world.

Clinton calls her loss ‘painful,’ but urges unity.

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Opinion

Is Twitter Hurting Ethiopia?

November 7, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Foreign Affairs Magazine

November 7, 2016

Is Twitter Hurting Ethiopia? Rumor and Unrest in a Fragile Federation

On October 2, police and protesters clashed during a traditional Oromo festival held beside a lake in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, just over 20 miles southeast of Addis Ababa. The stampede that ensued left about 100 drowned or crushed to death. Social media soon pulsed with claims that a government helicopter circling overhead had fired into panicking crowds. A helicopter had indeed been there, but it was dropping leaflets wishing all a “Happy Irreecha”—the name of the festival. Still, social media, and the informal news cycle into which it feeds, whirled on.

The Irreecha incident is but one of many in a year of turmoil in Ethiopia. Protests that began last November, when Oromo farmers objected to government land grabs to expand the capital and clear space for potential foreign investors, have mushroomed into a movement against the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

The Ethiopian diaspora in the United States, which is estimated to number between 250,000 and one million, has been particularly vocal online. Following the Irreecha incident, U.S. overseas activists called for “five days of rage.” Although it is not clear what effect this call may have had, a few days later in Ethiopia, bands of mostly young men attacked foreign-owned factories, government buildings, and tourist lodges across the Oromo region.

In response to the upheaval, on October 9, the Ethiopian government declared a six-month state of emergency, restricting the use of mobile data, increasing Internet blackouts, and blocking social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. At an October 26 press conference Ethiopian government spokesperson Getachew Reda said, “Mobile data will be permitted once the government assesses that it won’t threaten the implementation of the state of emergency.”

Human Rights Watch has condemned the state of emergency for “draconian restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and assembly that go far beyond what is permissible under international law.” Although there is no explicit ban on print media, the government has issued broad statements condemning writing or sharing material that “could create misunderstanding between people or unrest.” Already, the Addis Standard, a well-respected, privately-funded magazine, has announced that it will cease production of its print edition rather than subject itself to self-censorship.

But is the state of emergency truly a heavy-handed tactic by an out-of-touch authoritarian elite? Or is it a necessary step to counter dangerous vitriol coming from the likes of Ethiopian diaspora in the United States, determined to see regime change at any cost? The answer probably lies somewhere between the two.

Colleagues who live in Ethiopia and work in online media told me that activists have called for days of rage in the past, with no result. Overseas activists also have less influence on Ethiopia’s rural population, which often lacks Internet access. Local unrest could have more to do with well-founded anger over longstanding grievances. There are major concerns over whether the government understands the depth of grievances and the resolve of those who feel wronged, as well as whether it even possesses the capacity to enact the meaningful reforms needed for a long-term solutions.

“The oppressed stay silent, but eventually you reach a critical mass and then it boils over,” Yilikal Getenet, chairman of the opposition Blue Party, told me. “Hundreds have been killed but they keep protesting. They go to protests knowing the risks. So what does that tell you?”

Foreign observers, some local opposition, and ordinary Ethiopians who feel that the diaspora has gone too far, argue that the government’s crackdown is necessary to counter the dangerous vitriol coming from the Ethiopian diaspora in the United States that is bent on regime change at any cost. There is also the question of how much influence the diaspora has over those in Ethiopia who live in one of the most censored countries in the world and turn to the diaspora for news.

Lidetu Ayalew, founder of the opposition Ethiopia Democratic Party, explained what happens when they do. “The problem is a lot of things they’d view as gossip, if heard by mouth, when they read about them on social media, they take as fact.” One particularly prominent social media activist based in the United States, Jawar Mohammed, has 500,000 followers on Facebook who absorb the information and footage he posts on the protests, the veracity of which varies from plausible to impossible to substantiate. After the Irreecha incident, Mohammed was one of those who reposted claims about a government helicopter firing into the crowds. (Journalists at the scene reported soldiers shooting rubber bullets and possibly firing live ammunition into the air as a warning.) This is a pattern across much of the diaspora’s social media activity.

“They live in a secure democracy, send their children to good Western schools, and are at liberty to say whatever they want to cause mayhem in Ethiopia,” one foreign politico in Addis Ababa said of diaspora behavior in influencing protestors in Ethiopia. “They call it freedom of speech and they abuse it to their heart’s content.”

This could prove dangerous. In Rwanda, radio programs such as Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines spread much of the toxic hatred that fueled the country’s genocide. Social media appears to be just as effective in spreading untruths and even ethnic barbs in Ethiopia. Many of these have an anti-Tigrayan slant, due to the perception that the EPRDF is run by a Tigrayan elite. To make matters worse, the Tigrayan ethnic group only represents about six percent of Ethiopia’s population, yet it dominates the business and security sectors. That is why much of the protesters’ anger is directed against “minority rule.” One Ethiopian journalist of Tigrayan heritage and who worked for an international wire service was singled out on social media. His reporting was ridiculed and he was called a government lackey. In August, after unrest in the Amhara city of Gondar, there were reports of Tigrayans fleeing the city in fear of their lives.

Diaspora satellite television channels broadcast from the United States, such as Oromia Media Network and Ethiopian Satellite Television, do produce some decent original reporting, but they are clearly one-sided and virulently anti-EPRDF. Their cumulative effect should not be underestimated in a country as diverse as Ethiopia, where historical grudges exist between the main ethnic groups.

For some time now, the diaspora, which numbers two million globally, has maintained a strong cyber presence with the goal of influencing the political process at home. Although they do not have a unified policy platform, they routinely criticize corruption, lack of jobs, and poor administration. The diaspora’s current fixation is to influence protests on the ground, which many see as a pathway for bringing down the government. Many overseas Ethiopians fled their homes after suffering at the hands of Ethiopia’s authoritarian government and have enough reason to wish it ill. But the militancy of some online activists—such as perpetuating wild and bogus claims about government violence—is making it harder for legitimate claims to break through and gives the government an excuse to dismiss unrest as being driven by nefarious external forces.

A major barrier to building a legitimate resistance against the government is that the local opposition in Ethiopia is in shambles. To be sure, it certainly has suffered from government oppression. But the fact the opposition is almost entirely funded by the diaspora, which won’t countenance any cooperation with the EPRDF, also hinders its progress. This mentality has polarized opposition politics and allowed no room for negotiation or compromise.

The clearest example of how this dynamic plays out is Ethiopia’s crucial 2005 election. The opposition won a surprisingly significant number of seats. But following allegations of vote rigging by the EPRDF, the diaspora pressured some opposition members to refuse taking office. The boycott was catastrophic. Had members chosen to work with the EPRDF, the Ethiopian political landscape would likely be hugely different today with a far more influential political channel for angry Ethiopians to voice concerns. Instead, the opposition splintered into disparate groups.

Amidst the tragedy, rage, and intrigue, blocked communications and restricted travel, it is difficult for journalists, foreign diplomats, and the average Ethiopians to understand what is actually going on. Social media can provide and opening for sorting through the noise and confusion. But in Ethiopia, social media is a double-edged sword, capable of filling a need for more information and of pushing the country toward even greater calamity.

—
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Featured

U.S. Election 2016: Trump Triumphs

November 7, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The Associated Press

Trump claims astounding victory as America’s 45th president

Updated: November 9th, 2016

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump claimed his place Wednesday as America’s 45th president, an astonishing victory for the celebrity businessman and political novice who capitalized on voters’ economic anxieties, took advantage of racial tensions and overcame a string of sexual assault allegations on his way to the White House.

His triumph over Hillary Clinton, not declared until well after midnight, will end eight years of Democratic dominance of the White House and threatens to undo major achievements of President Barack Obama. Trump has pledged to act quickly to repeal Obama’s landmark health care law, revoke America’s nuclear agreement with Iran and rewrite important trade deals with other countries, particularly Mexico and Canada.

As he claimed victory, Trump urged Americans to “come together as one united people” after a deeply divisive campaign.

Supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump react as they watch the election results during Trump’s election night rally, in New York, Nov. 8, 2016. (AP photo)

He said he had spoken by phone with Clinton and they had exchanged congratulations on a hard-fought race. Trump, who spent much of the campaign urging his supporters on as they chanted “lock her up,” said the nation owed her “a major debt of gratitude” for her years of public service.

The Republican blasted through Democrats’ longstanding firewall, carrying Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states that hadn’t voted for a GOP presidential candidate since the 1980s. He needed to win nearly all of the competitive battleground states, and he did just that, claiming Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and others.

Global stock markets and U.S. stock futures plunged, reflecting investor concern over what a Trump presidency might mean for the economy and trade.

A New York real estate developer who lives in a sparking Manhattan high-rise, Trump forged a striking connection with white, working class Americans who feel left behind in a changing economy and diversifying country. He cast immigration, both from Latin America and the Middle East, as the root of the problems plaguing many Americans and taped into fears of terrorism emanating at home and abroad.

Trump will take office with Congress expected to be fully under Republican control. GOP Senate candidates fended off Democratic challengers in key states and appeared poised to keep the majority. Republicans also maintained their grip on the House.

Senate control means Trump will have great leeway in appointing Supreme Court justices, which could mean a shift to the right that would last for decades.

Trump upended years of political convention on his way to the White House, leveling harshly personal insults on his rivals, deeming Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers, and vowing to temporarily suspend Muslim immigration to the U.S. He never released his tax returns, breaking with decades of campaign tradition, and eschewed the kind of robust data and field efforts that helped Obama win two terms in the White House, relying instead on his large, free-wheeling rallies to energize supporters. His campaign was frequently in chaos, and he cycled through three campaign managers this year.

His final campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, touted the team’s accomplishments as the final results rolled in, writing on Twitter that “rally crowds matter” and “we expanded the map.”

Clinton spent months warning voters that Trump was unfit and unqualified to be president. But the former senator and secretary of state struggled to articulate a clear rationale for her own candidacy.

The mood at Clinton’s party grew bleak as the night wore out, with some supporters leaving, others crying and hugging each other. Top campaign aides stopped returning calls and texts, as Clinton and her family hunkered down in a luxury hotel watching the returns.

At 2 a.m., Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta told the crowd to head home for the night. “We’re still counting votes and every vote should count,” he said. But she later conceded.

Trump will inherit an anxious nation, deeply divided by economic and educational opportunities, race and culture.

Exit polls underscored the fractures: Women nationwide supported Clinton by a double-digit margin, while men were significantly more likely to back Trump. More than half of white voters backed the Republican, while nearly 9 in 10 blacks and two-thirds of Hispanics voted for the Democrat.

Doug Ratliff, a 67-year-old businessman from Richlands, Virginia, said Trump’s election was one of the happiest days of his life.

“This county has had no hope,” said Ratliff, who owns strip malls in an area badly beaten by the collapse of the coal industry. “Things will change. I know he’s not going to be perfect. But he’s got a heart. And he gives people hope.”

Trump has pledged to usher in a series of sweeping changes to U.S. domestic and foreign policy: repealing Obama’s signature health care law, though he has been vague on what he could replace it with; building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and suspending immigration from countries with terrorism ties. He’s also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and spoken of building a better relationship with Moscow, worrying some in his own party who fear he’ll go easy on Putin’s provocations.

The Republican Party’s tortured relationship with its nominee was evident right up to the end. Former President George W. Bush and wife Laura Bush declined to back Trump, instead selecting “none of the above” when they voted for president, according to spokesman Freddy Ford.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, a reluctant Trump supporter, called the businessman earlier in the evening to congratulate him, according to a Ryan spokeswoman.

Democrats, as well as some Republicans, expected Trump’s unconventional candidacy would damage down-ballot races and even flip some reliably red states in the presidential race. But Trump held on to Republican territory, including in Georgia and Utah, where Clinton’s campaign confidently invested resources.

Clinton asked voters to keep the White House in her party’s hands for a third straight term. She cast herself as heir to President Obama’s legacy and pledged to make good on his unfinished agenda, including passing immigration legislation, tightening restrictions on guns and tweaking his health care law.

But she struggled throughout the race with persistent questions about her honesty and trustworthiness. Those troubles flared anew late in the race, when FBI Director James Comey announced a review of new emails from her tenure at the State Department. On Sunday, just two days before Election Day, Comey said there was nothing in the material to warrant criminal charges against Clinton.

___
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Featured

Clinton Hoping to Crack ‘Glass Ceiling’

November 6, 2016 Tadias Magazine

VOA News

November 06, 2016

Hillary Clinton Hoping to Crack the Ultimate ‘Glass Ceiling’ of Female President

Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton came agonizingly close to winning the Democratic presidential nomination, garnering 18 million votes before losing to freshman Senator Barack Obama.

At her concession speech, Clinton cited her lifelong struggle to overcome barriers to women: “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it … and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.”

This time, Clinton has secured the nomination and is hoping to shatter the ultimate glass ceiling and become president of the United States. But just days before the election, Clinton had failed to hold on to the respectable lead she once had in the polls.

National numbers released by ABC/Washington Post a week before the election put Clinton’s lead nationally at just 1 point — down from a 12-point lead the previous week. Other polls also showed a similar loss of advantage, bringing into question whether she will be able to shatter the glass ceiling she has aimed at for so long.

If she wins [on Tuesday], she will go from first lady to U.S. senator from New York, to U.S. secretary of state, to “Madam President.”

Watch Clinton leads nationally by four points: poll (MSNBC)

Opinion polls show Clinton is both beloved and despised. She is one of the most famous people in the world. Those who know her personally say she is warm and has a great sense of humor in private. Yet, she is guarded about revealing too much of her personality in public.

Some perceive Clinton as untrustworthy; she has been investigated numerous times, most recently for her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state in the Obama administration’s first term.

Cracks in the glass ceiling

Born in a middle-class Chicago suburb in 1947, Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote of a happy childhood in her 2003 autobiography. The daughter of a staunch Republican father, she says she got into politics because of her Democratic mother.

Her own mother, Dorothy Rodham, however, had a very different childhood.

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton takes the stage at a campaign rally at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, Nov. 2, 2016. (Photo: Reuters)

As Clinton has recounted in campaign ads, “She was abandoned by her parents at the age of 8, sent from Chicago to [Los Angeles] to live with grandparents who did not want her. But people showed her kindness, gave her a chance. Like the teacher who saw my mother had no money for food and started bringing her extra from home, whispering, ‘You know, Dorothy, I just brought too much food today.’ ”

As a teenager, Clinton became a young Republican. She attended Wellesley College and grew more active in politics, delivering the women’s school’s commencement speech in 1969.

She went on to Yale Law School, where she completed her transformation from Republican to a progressive Democrat, and met her future husband, Bill Clinton, in the library. She and Bill Clinton married in 1975, and she followed him back to his home state of Arkansas, where he was elected governor in 1978.

‘Smarter’ than Bill

The Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, was born in Arkansas. And it was there that political journalist Ron Fournier first covered the Clintons. He had plenty of access to both of them in Little Rock and, later, at the White House.

Fournier said he thinks Hillary Clinton is even smarter and funnier than former President Bill Clinton. If he could pick one to have a drink with, it would be Hillary Clinton.

“Bill Clinton’s very good about relating a joke, telling a joke, but she’s really good about being funny in the moment. Self-deprecating humor, that laugh that drives a lot of people crazy, I actually find personally very engaging because it is very authentic, earthy. It’s very contagious in person,” Fournier said.

Vice President Joe Biden, right, swears in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a ceremonial swearing-in at the State Department in Washington, accompanied by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea. (AP Photo)

Bob Weiner, former White House spokesman in the Clinton administration, told VOA that Hillary Clinton is smarter at understanding a problem and coming up with a solution than either her husband or President Barack Obama.

Weiner also said Clinton is aware she lacks something they both have: “She knows that she doesn’t have the charisma, and she does not have the charisma, but she’s got the smarts and the governing power, which is enormous.”

Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, joking that he offered “two presidents for the price of one.” Bucking traditional expectations, Hillary Clinton remained active politically as first lady, fighting hard but failing to push through universal health care coverage.

Sex scandals

In the White House, persistent stories of Bill Clinton’s infidelities caught up with him, and lying about the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal got him impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. He was acquitted by the Senate.

The months after the scandal were a painful time, close Clinton associate Weiner told VOA, but the marriage survived. The couple “try to deal with their marital failures privately, but they’ve gotten through them,” Weiner said. “That’s – I’ve been there, and I’ve seen them, and they love each other.”

In this July 14, 2016 photo Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, accompanied by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., speaks at a rally at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va. Clinton chose Kaine to be her running mate. (AP Photo)

But the public humiliation took a toll on Hillary Clinton, according to Fournier: “She’s changed because a lot of the stuff that’s come her way. She built up a lot of scar tissue because of the attacks that have come her way. Some of them are totally unfair.”

Watch: Hillary Clinton Hopes to Make More History as Female President

Fighting back

Hillary Clinton fought her way back, forging her own separate political career. New Yorkers elected her to the U.S. Senate in 2000, and she was re-elected in 2006. In 2008, Obama chose her as secretary of state.

She subsequently visited 112 countries, highlighting women’s rights and the power of diplomacy, dubbed “soft power.”

Both of the president and Michelle Obama are strong supporters of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. During her speech at the Democratic National Convention this past summer, first lady Michelle Obama praised Hillary Clinton’s record and character.

“And look, there were plenty of moments when Hillary could have decided that this work was too hard, that the price of public service was too high, that she was tired of being picked apart for how she looks or how she talks or even how she laughs,” Michelle Obama said. “But here’s the thing. What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.”

Hillary Clinton may need that toughness, as she finds herself, along with her running mate Senator Tim Kaine, in the political fight of her life, running against celebrity businessman Donald Trump. Like Clinton, he is a world famous, but polarizing figure.

Polls show the two are locked in a tight race. Hillary Clinton’s life story suggests she will fight as hard as she can all the way to Election Day on November 8.

—
Related:
In Photos: Hillary Clinton through the years

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Events, Featured

In Pictures: Exhibition Spotlights Girl Runners in Bekoji, Ethiopia

November 4, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, November 4th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — In the highland town of Bekoji, Ethiopia — where some of the country’s best known long-distance athletes and Olympic medalists come from — running is also a matter of survival especially for young girls who face a high prevalence of school interruption due to expected labor to help their rural families make a livelihood. This was the subject of a multimedia experiential storytelling exhibition at VSCO’s New York space in Manhattan on Thursday evening that included a photo journal, movie screening and a panel discussion moderated by writer, runner, and coach Knox Robinson and featuring a Q&A session on Bekoji with Kayla Nolan, Executive Director of Girls Gotta Run Foundation, the only charity operating in Ethiopia that provides academic and athletic scholarships for young women in the country.

Below are photos from the event:

In addition to the studio installation, which was curated by Robinson, a film by Joel Wolpert and a photography essay by Kent Andreasen was shown in large scale format “to consider the life of young women using the inspiration of world class running to escape the cycle of poverty in rural Ethiopia. The work explores running as a source of personal creativity for the young women; as a flashpoint for designing and realizing a self-empowered future — and as an avenue for reaffirming their human rights and redefining gender roles in the process.”

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Sports

Ethiopia: Former NYC Marathon Champ Tesfaye Jifar Longs to Get His Family Out

November 4, 2016 Tadias Magazine

New York Daily News

Friday, November 4, 2016,

The loneliness of the long-distance runner: A former NYC Marathon champion–turned cabbie struggles to get his family out of strife-ridden Ethiopia

When Tesfaye Jifar sits still, his mind drifts to dark places. So he prefers to remain in motion. It’s easier not to think about any of it: The elite athletic career that accelerated with uncommon speed, and then ended almost as quickly. The livery cab that he now drives throughout Boston, sometimes for 16 hours a day or more. The tense situation back home in Ethiopia, where the government — trying to stifle dissent in the city where Jifar’s wife and children still live — declared a state of emergency last month. And most of all, the loneliness.

Sitting in the driver’s seat of his 2007 Lincoln Town Car, Jifar sighs, adjusts his glasses and runs a hand through his close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair. It’s only noon on this October Tuesday, but he has already been driving for more than eight hours. “When I go home,” he says of the bedroom in Cambridge, Mass., where he sleeps in his older brother’s house, “my family, they are not with me. I don’t like to worry, so I prefer to work. When I am here, I feel free. When I go home, I feel bad. For the country, for my family, missing them.” He stops for a moment and sighs again. “Everything.”

We stop at a light, and the car stalls. Jifar turns the key, and the engine coughs before finally revving again. For a moment, it seems like the beginning of another crisis, one he can barely afford, but we are soon back in motion.

I’d met Jifar four months earlier, in this very car, while on assignment in Boston. A few minutes into a ride to Logan Airport, he asked where I was from. “New York,” I told him.

“Do you know about the New York City Marathon?” he said, handing me his smartphone, which showed a photo of a man crossing the finish line with arms raised in the air. I looked at him, then at the picture, then back at him.

“Wait, you won the Marathon?” I rubbed my eyes and saw his face smiling back at me in the rearview mirror. Same lean body as the runner in the picture. Same meticulously trimmed moustache. Same right eye, glassy and half-closed.

“Yes,” he said, pulling up his Wikipedia page on his phone, quickly and without compromising his focus on the road, as if he has done this a thousand times. He passed it back to me.

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Podcast

New Ethiopia Opposition ENM Formed in DC: What’s the Vision, Who Leads It?

November 3, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Thursday, November 3rd, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — A new Ethiopia opposition coalition is being announced at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Friday, November 4th. The new party, which calls itself The Ethiopian National Movement (ENM), was established last week following negotiations between four political groups including Sidama People’s Democratic Movement, Afar People’s Party, Oromo Democratic Front, and Ginbot 7.

In a media release ENM said it will hold a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on Friday to introduce its leadership and explain its vision to Ethiopians and the international community.

Listed speakers include Lencho Leta, ODF President and Co-Chairman of the Council of Representatives (CR) of EMN; Dima Nogo, ODF Vice President & Chairman of the Executive Council (EC) and General Secretary of ENM’s Council of Representatives; Kontie Moussa, Chairman of the Afar People’s Party and Founding Member of ENM; Muluneh Eyoel, Member of the Leadership of Patriotic Ginbot 7 & Member of ENM,; Bekele Wayu, Chairman of the Sidama People’s National Democratic Movement & Founding Member of ENM; Haile-Gebriel Ayalew, Observer based on a special arrangement to have unofficial representation for the Amhara people’s voice in the formation of the National Ethiopian Movement; as well as award-winning activist and journalist Reeyot Alemu.

“ENM envisions a truly federal democratic system that respects human, political and civil rights of all Ethiopians,” the press release stated. “ENM firmly believes in the necessity of creating a peaceful transition to enable citizens to fully exercise their rights and create an all-inclusive government through a democratic process.” ENM added: The coalition is in negotiation with other opposition political groups in a bid to create a larger and broad based movement for democratic change.”

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If You Go:
Friday, November 4, 2016
12:15 pm-2:30 pm
National Press Club
529 14th Street NW Washington, DC 20045
Venue: 13th Floor, First Amendment Lounge
www.press.org

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Podcast

Investors Getting Nervous About Ethiopia

November 2nd, 2016

Investors Shy Away From Ethiopia in the Wake of Violent Protests

ALAGA DORE, Ethiopia — The smell of rotting mango and passion fruit still hung in the air over the blackened shell of a juice factory near this village more than two weeks after the plant was looted and burned by an aggrieved mob.

As employees swept out the empty rooms, Abraham Negusay, AfricaJuice’s production manager, worked on his laptop in the former lab.

“We are evaluating the damage and destruction, cleaning up the factory and doing a cost analysis,” he said, noting that the Dutch company had yet to decide whether to keep its multimillion-dollar investment in Ethiopia.

The assailants, estimated by AfricaJuice farm managers to number in the thousands, descended on the factory in the Upper Awash Valley, about 90 miles southeast of Addis Ababa, on Oct. 4. Wielding axes, spears and some firearms, they overwhelmed the armed guards while workers fled into the nearby forest.

The attack was part of a week-long spasm of violence that followed a deadly stampede on Oct. 2 during Irreecha, a thanksgiving festival held annually by the Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group. That day in the town of Bishoftu, police fired tear gas into crowds chanting anti-government slogans, and in the ensuing panic, dozens died. The opposition put the death toll in the hundreds.

People pass a cargo truck that protesters destroyed in the town of Sebeta last month. The town was one of many where anti-government groups targeted foreign- or state-owned enterprises. (Photo by Zacharias Abubeker/GETTY IMAGES)

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Events

Debo Band Returns to Lincoln Center

Lincoln Center

Led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted by charismatic vocalist Bruck Tesfaye, the Debo Band serves up a bold reimagination of Ethiopian popular music that conjures up 1970s Addis Ababa with “fierce, jagged, complex, and galvanizing music” (New York Times).

This big band doesn’t just cover neglected tracks from around the world, they rearrange them and up the ante. The process can get wildly imaginative, finding flights of fantasy in underappreciated historical moments, be it Duke Ellington’s travels through Ethiopia or the musical impact of Haile Selassie sending Ethiopian soldiers to fight in the Korean War. Earthy dance floor beats merge with psychedelic effects, rock drive, and spot-on brass—injecting vintage tracks with new life and purpose.

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If You Go:
Lincoln Center Presents Debo Band
Thursday, November 3rd, 2016 7:30 pm Free
61 W 62nd St (Broadway between 62nd and 63rd Streets)
New York, NY 10023
212.875.5350
Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis (FREE)
www.lincolncenter.org

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Podcast

The Weeknd: Abel Tesfaye A Rising Starboy (Video)

The Wall Street Journal

As a follow-up to the unstoppable Beauty Behind the Madness, the chart-topping R&B artist (aka Abel Tesfaye) takes a creative leap forward with this month’s Starboy.

ABEL TESFAYE can finally get a good night’s sleep. The biggest R&B star to emerge in recent years, Tesfaye (who is better known as the Weeknd) recently changed his signature hairstyle—multidirectional, thick, spiky dreadlocks, a look inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat. “It was actually very uncomfortable,” he says. “I could only sleep on one side of my face. Now the sleep is amazing, the shower is amazing because I don’t have to spend two hours cleaning it. I didn’t know how much I wanted it until I did it.”

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Events, Featured

2017 Design Week Addis Ababa Announces Open Call

Read the full article at globalvoices.org »

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Since it was founded 130 years ago by Emperor Menelik II Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa has endured many trials and tribulations in the country’s turbulent history while the city itself has gone through its own transformations over time to become the “diplomatic capital of Africa” and host the headquarters of the African Union (AU), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and several other international organizations.

Today Addis is also quickly becoming home to the highly acclaimed annual design event in East Africa: Design Week Addis Ababa (DWAA), which takes place each year in mid-January.

For their upcoming 2017 DWAA exhibition (January 14-21, 2017) organizers announced this week that they have launched “a one month Open Call for interested participants and programming partners” covering various fields including architecture, urban planning, industrial design, interiors, visual communication, food & gastronomy, art, multimedia, technology and fashion.

In September the London Design Festival presented Design Week Addis Ababa as a part of the British Council Arts’ Design Connections initiative. And last month two Ethiopia-inspired furniture by Jomo Design Furniture and Actuel Urban Living were selected as part of winning “design concepts” from Design Week Addis and featured at the 2016 international Dubai Design Week festival in October.

Design Week Addis featured during the 2016 international Dubai Design Week festival in October. (Courtesy photo)

“This multidisciplinary festival covers themes in alignment with UNESCO’s Creative Cities Initiative,” the media release said. “The Design Week Addis Ababa festival aims to further the creative industries in Ethiopia and foster the economic potential of designers, creators, and innovators by showcasing their projects and products directly to the end users and commercial partners.

Through the open call participants can propose an “exhibition, open gallery, studio, or workshop, product launch, pop-up shop or installation, competition, informative workshop, talk, or lecture, film screening, fashion show, concert or live performance, cooking demonstration, food/ beverage tasting, social event, or something totally different.”

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You can learn more about the open call for the 2017 Design Week Addis Ababa at www.designweekaa.org

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Featured

Twitter Reacts Skeptically to Ethiopia Cabinet Reshuffle

November 1, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Tuesday, November 1st, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Twitter is reacting skeptically to Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s announcement of a reshuffled cabinet in Ethiopia today, which apparently is designed to appease a growing and popular uprising calling for land and political reforms as well as an end to corruption at the highest levels of government. According to media reports “among top party officials leaving the government are Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Redman Hussein, Minister of Youth and Sports, and Getachew Reda, Minister of Government Communications.”

On social media people are already expressing their views:

“The question would remain to be can the new cabinet make a new #Ethiopia we want without having a parliament to represent us?,” Zone9 blogger BefeQadu Z. Hailu asked via Twitter.

Zone9 Blogger NYU Research Scholar Zelalem Kibret added: :Ethiopia’s ruling party will make its 4th major Cabinet reshuffle in six years time. That means one new cabinet for every one and half year.”

While BBC News Field Producer Hewete Haileselassie noted: “#Ethiopia cabinet – departure of @DrTedros was expected, as he is a candidate to head @WHO.’

“And #Ethiopia government needs to stop issuing regressive decrees and start negotiations with opposition if they want to avoid tragedies,” tweeted Herman J. Cohen, Former Ambassador, U.S. Asst. Secretary of State for African Affairs. Author, The Mind of the African Strongman.

Per VOA News “the appointees include a new minister of foreign affairs, Workneh Gebeyehu, who replaces Tedros Adhanom, a former health minister who has been one of Ethiopia’s most recognizable public figures in recent years. Adhanom is currently a candidate vying to be the next World Health Organization’s chief. Communications Minister and government spokesman Getachew Reda was ousted and replaced by Negeri Lencho, the head of the journalism and communications college at Addis Ababa University.”

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Featured

HRW: Legal Analysis of Ethiopia’s State of Emergency

October 31, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Human Rights Watch

OCTOBER 31, 2016

Ethiopia: State of Emergency Directive Codifies Vague, Overbroad Restrictions

An Ethiopian government directive under a state of emergency contains overly broad and vague provisions that risk triggering a human rights crisis, Human Rights Watch said today in a legal analysis. The government should promptly repeal or revise all elements of the directive that are contrary to international law.

On October 9, 2016, the government announced a six-month state of emergency following the destruction of some government buildings and private property by demonstrators. Over the past year, security forces have killed hundreds of protesters and detained tens of thousands in two regions where there have been numerous protests over government policies.

“Ethiopia’s state of emergency bans nearly all speech that the government disagrees with anywhere in the country for at least six months,” said Felix Horne, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The state of emergency hands the army new sweeping powers to crack down on demonstrators, further limiting the space for peaceful dissent.”

Under the new state of emergency, the army can be deployed country-wide for at least six months. The implementing directive prescribes draconian restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and assembly that go far beyond what is permissible under international law and signal an increased militarized response to the situation. The directive effectively codifies many of the security forces’ abusive tactics that Human Rights Watch has documented since the protests began.

The directive includes far-reaching restrictions on sharing information on social media, watching diaspora television stations, and closing businesses as a gesture of protest, as well as curtailing opposition parties’ ability to communicate with the media. It specifically bans writing or sharing material via any platform that “could create misunderstanding between people or unrest.”

It bans all protests without government permission and permits arrest without court order in “a place assigned by the command post until the end of the state of emergency.” It also permits “rehabilitation” – a euphemism for short-term detention often involving physical punishment. Many of these restrictions are country-wide and not limited to the two of Ethiopia’s nine regions where most of the unrest took place.

Under international law, during a state of emergency a government may only suspend certain rights to the extent permitted by the “exigencies of the situation.” Many of the measures, including the restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly, and association go far beyond what is permitted under international law.

The government reports that since the state of emergency began, 1,600 people have been arrested, including about 50 for closing their businesses. Human Rights Watch also has received unconfirmed reports of unlawful killings, mass arrests, and looting of houses and businesses by the security forces. There have been some armed clashes between security forces and unidentified groups. Mobile phone access to the internet has been blocked since October 5. Addis Standard, a monthly English language magazine and one of the few independent publications left in Ethiopia, announced on October 25 that it was halting publication of its print edition due to state-of-emergency restrictions.

Large-scale, and mainly peaceful anti-government protests have been sweeping through Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region, since November 2015, and the Amhara region since July 2016. Ethiopian security forces have killed more than 500 people during protests over the last year. These protests occurred in a context of the near-total closure of political space.

Protesters have voiced a variety of concerns, including issues related to development, the lack of political space, the brutality of the security forces, and domination of economic and political affairs by people affiliated with the ruling party. The emergency measures send a strong and chilling message that rather than dealing with expressed grievances and ensuring accountability for violence by both government forces and protesters, the government will continue and probably escalate the militarized response.

On October 2, in Bishoftu, a town 40 kilometers southeast of the capital, Addis Ababa, tensions ignited at the annual Irreecha festival – an important Oromo cultural event that draws millions of people each year. Security forces confronted huge crowds with tear gas and fired shots and scores of people then died during a stampede. Since then, alleged demonstrators have damaged a number of government buildings and private businesses perceived to be close to the ruling party, setting some on fire.

The government has in part blamed human rights groups seeking to document violations of international law for the recent unrest. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called for an independent and credible investigation into the security force response to the protests and to the deaths in Bishoftu.

“Many of the abuses committed by security forces since November 2015 have now been codified under the state of emergency,” Horne said. “Trying to use the legal cover of a state of emergency as a pretext for the widespread suspension of rights not only violates the government’s international legal obligations, but will exacerbate tensions and long-term grievances, and risks plunging Ethiopia into a greater crisis.”

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Opinion

Imagining Ethiopia Post-identity Politics

October 30, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Global Voices

By Endalk Chala

Ethiopia’s Regime Faces Precarious Times As Diaspora Plans for the Future

In November 2015, residents of a small town called Ginchi launched protests against a proposal by Ethiopia’s government to expand Addis Ababa, the capital, into the surrounding farmlands in the Oromia region. The protests have since grown into a movement demanding greater self-rule, freedom and respect for the ethnic identity of the Oromo people, who have experienced systematic marginalization and persecution over the last quarter-century.

In Amhara, the country’s second largest region, protests started in Gonder on July 31 this year, and rapidly devolved from addressing localized identity questions of the Welkait community into a region-wide movement that has spread into numerous other provinces in just four months. Though the large-scale July 31 incident in Gonder marked the first major confrontation between Amhara protest leaders and the Ethiopian government, the dispute between the Amharas and the regime can be traced back as far as the early 1990s, when the Tigrayan-dominated regime redrew the district boundaries of the Welkait community that belonged to ethnic Amharas into Tigray region. Some Amhara activists have described the ongoing Amhara protest as ‘25 years of anger unleashed’. The protesters in Gonder have also expressed slogans of solidarity for the protests in Oromia.

Although the protests in Oromia and Amhara started for different reasons, they both stem from Ethiopia’s complex identity politics. In both regions, demonstrators are challenging the dominance of elites from one group — the Tigray — in Ethiopian politics. The Tigray make up 6% of the population but dominate the ranks of the military and government, while the Oromo are at 34% and the Amhara represent 27% of the country’s population.

Since November, hundreds of protesters have been killed and thousands arrested. Early this month, at least 52 people were killed at a gathering for the Irreecha holiday in Oromia, after security forces triggered a stampede with smoke bombs and live bullets.

The protests’ amazing spread from Amhara to Oromia seemed to represent an important turning point in the year-old movement challenging the 25-year rule of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the ruling political coalition, which is dominated by Tigrayan ethnic minority elites.

For observers and critics alike, these protests represent a watershed moment in modern Ethiopian political history. In mid-October, the government even declared a six-month state of emergency for the first time in 25 years…As the protests gradually eat away at Ethiopia’s basic political and economic structures, the regime appears more wobbly that ever before. Consequently, the Ethiopian diaspora has convened conferences to discuss regime change, constitutional reforms, and others transitional issues. The conferences are organized by a number of diasporic political groups and individuals who are nevertheless divided along various ethno-national and ideological lines.

Of the events happening now in the Ethiopian diaspora, two prominent conferences stand out.

[Oromo Conference for National Consensus, London, UK and Roadmap for Transition and Constitution Making in Ethiopia Washington, D.C.]

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Events, Featured, Reviews

Tadias in Conversation with Marcus Samuelsson & DC Book Signing Pictures

October 28, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, October 28th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — As part of the Tadias Salon Series Tadias Magazine hosted Marcus Samuelsson at SEI in DC on Wednesday, October 26th for a book signing and afterparty celebrating the release of his latest publication entitled The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem.

Below are photos from the event:

“When chef Marcus Samuelsson opened Red Rooster on Harlem’s Lenox Avenue, he envisioned so much more than just a restaurant. He wanted to create a gathering place at the heart of his adopted neighborhood, where both the uptown and downtown sets could see and be seen, mingle and meet – and so he did, in a big way. Ever since the 1930s, Harlem has been a magnet for more than a million African Americans, a melting pot for Spanish, African, and Caribbean immigrants, and a mecca for artists. Named after a historic neighborhood speakeasy, the modern Rooster reflects all of that, from the local art showcased on its walls, to the live music blaring from its performance spaces, to the cross-cultural food on its patrons’ plates and the evocative cocktails in their hands. THE RED ROOSTER COOKBOOK is as lush and layered as its inheritance. Traditions converge in these pages, with dishes like Brown Butter Biscuits, Chicken and Waffles, Jerk Bacon and Baked Beans, Latino Pork and Plantains, Chinese Steamed Bass and Fiery Noodles, Ethiopian Spice-Crusted Lamb, and Rum Cake. Lyrical essays and intimate interviews – including a foreword by New Yorker critic Hilton Als and conversations with unsung neighborhood heroes – convey the flavor of the place. Stunning archival and contemporary photos document Harlem’s past, present, and future.”

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Podcast

Update: Hillary Fires Back at FBI Director’s October Surprise ‘deeply troubling’

October 28, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The Daily Beast

Hillary Clinton calls FBI’s actions ahead of vote ‘deeply troubling’

Hillary Clinton did not shy away from discussing FBI Director James Comey’s October surprise during a rally in Daytona Beach, Florida on Saturday, calling his decision to send an ambiguous letter to Congress pertaining to the investigation of her emails just 11 days before the election “not just strange” but also “unprecedented and deeply troubling.” Clinton added, “Voters deserve to get full and complete facts,” reiterating her call to get everything “on the table” immediately. The Democratic candidate also went after her Republican opponent Donald Trump for spreading “lies” about the letter. “He is doing his best to confuse, mislead and discourage the American people,” she told her supporting. “I think it’s time for Donald Trump to stop fear mongering, to stop disgracing himself, to stop attacking our democracy. We can’t let him get away with this, can we?”

Clinton calls FBI’s actions ahead of vote ‘deeply troubling’ (AP)

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton waves while visiting a homecoming game for Bethune-Cookman University Wildcats in Daytona Beach, Fla., Oct. 29, 2016, on her way to a rally. (AP photo)

Oct. 30, 2016

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Hillary Clinton is lashing out at the FBI’s handling of a new email review, leading a chorus of Democratic leaders who declared the bureau’s actions just days before the election “unprecedented” and “deeply troubling.” Emboldened Republican rival Donald Trump seized on the reignited email controversy, hoping to raise new doubts about Clinton’s trustworthiness.

Rallying supporters in Florida on Saturday, Clinton pressed FBI Director James Comey to put out the “full and complete facts” about the review into a cache of recently discovered emails. Clinton backers panned Comey’s letter to Congress about the new emails as severely lacking crucial details.

“It is pretty strange to put something like that out with such little information right before an election,” Clinton said. She accused Trump of using the issue to confuse and mislead voters in the final leg of the campaign for the Nov. 8 election.

The controversy over Clinton’s email practices at the State Department has dogged her for more than a year. The former secretary of state has often been reluctant to weigh in on the matter — and defensive when she’s been pushed to do so.

But Clinton’s approach to this latest flare-up is markedly different, underscoring worries that the matter could damage her standing with voters in the election’s final days. Clinton advisers have been rallying Democratic lawmakers and other supporters to her defense, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

On Saturday, Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said there was “no evidence of wrongdoing” in the new email review and “no indication this is even about Hillary.” But Comey, who enraged Republicans in the summer when he announced the FBI would not prosecute Clinton for her loose handling of official email, said the new trove appeared to be “pertinent” to the Clinton email investigation. He did not explain how.

A government official told The Associated Press on Saturday that the Justice Department had advised the FBI against telling Congress about the new developments in the Clinton investigation because of the potential fallout so close to the election. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter and discussed it on condition of anonymity.

Justice officials concluded the letter would be inconsistent with department policy that directs against investigative actions that could be seen as affecting an election or helping a particular candidate, the official said.

Landing with a thud, the email issue again threatened to undermine an advantage built by Clinton, the Democratic nominee, over Trump and raised the possibility that the Republican might be able to seize late momentum.

Trump told a crowd in Golden, Colorado, the FBI’s review of Clinton email practices raises “everybody’s deepest hope that justice, as last, can be properly delivered.” His crowd cheered Clinton’s email woes, which Trump has taken to calling the biggest political scandal since Watergate.

—
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Featured, Reviews

Alegntaye: Ethiopian Hip-Hop Artist Teddy Yo in New Africology Video

October 27, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Thursday, October 27th, 2016

New York (TADIAS) – NYC-based music & entertainment company Africology recently released their first music video production entitled “Alegntaye” featuring popular Ethiopian hip-hop artist Teddy Yo and Joe Lox.

This year Africology artists have also been nominated in four categories at the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) in Nigeria. Voting for the nominees closes at the end of this month. Africology’s nominations for 2016 AFRIMA include:

1. Best African Group / Duo or Band – Jano Band – “Darigne”
Link to share to public – http://afrima.org/index.php/voting/continental-categories-2016/continental-categories/best-african-group-duoban

2. Best African Group / Duo or Band [Rock} – Jano Band – “Darigne”
Link to share to public – http://afrima.org/index.php/voting/continental-categories-2016/continental-categories/best-african-rock

3. Most Promising Artist – Anteneh Minalu – “Wayo”
Link to share to public – http://afrima.org/index.php/voting/continental-categories-2016/continental-categories/most-promising-artiste-in

4. BEST AFRICAN ARTISTE /GROUP / DUO / BAND (in African Reggae, Ragga, Dancehall) – Anteneh Minalu – “Wayo”
Link to share to public – http://afrima.org/index.php/voting/continental-categories-2016/continental-categories/best-african-reggae-ragga

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Events

In Colorado, GOP Congressman Mike Coffman Enjoys Ethiopian Support

October 26, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Wednesday, October 26th, 2016

Below are photos shared with Tadias Magazine:

Fundraiser for Congressman Mike Coffman at the Aurora Hills Golf Club on Saturday, October 22nd 2016. (Courtesy photo)

(Courtesy photo)

Congressman Mike Coffman speaking during the fundraising dinner at the Aurora Hills Golf Club on Saturday, October 22nd 2016. (Courtesy photo)

(Courtesy photo)

—
Related:

Rep. Coffman speaks at St. Mary’s Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC) festival to celebrate Meskel/Demera on October 1, 2016. (Photo: Flickr/Mike Coffman)

Republican Congressman Mike Coffman Visits Four Ethiopian Churches in Colorado

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Podcast

Addis Standard Stops Printing Over Draconian Emergency Rules

October 26, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Reuters

An Ethiopian English-language magazine which has been critical of the government has ceased publishing its print edition saying restrictions imposed when emergency rule was declared early this month made it “impossible” to continue.

The Horn of Africa country introduced a state of emergency on Oct. 9 after a wave of protests over land grabs and political rights, which resulted in violent clashes and attacks on both local and foreign businesses.

The emergency measures introduced for six months granted security forces more powers to make searches and arrests, and imposed curbs on the “preparation and distribution of publications that could incite conflicts”.

Tsedale Lemma, editor and founder of the Addis Standard monthly, told Reuters that printers had refused to publish the magazine unless an authority set up to oversee the implementation of the new regulations gave them permission.

“(It is) a proposal we have vehemently refused because it will subject us to submitting our editorial to voluntary censorship by a military command post,” Tsedale said, without saying what the monthly print run was.

Vendors and supermarkets have also pulled the magazine from newsstands in the wake of the announcement, she said.

The magazine continued to publish articles on its website, she added.

—
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Podcast

Ethiopia Unrest Triggers Tourism Collapse

October 26, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Financial Times

A wave of anti-government protests and the imposition of a state of emergency has triggered a collapse in tourism bookings in Ethiopia, underlining the effect the unrest is having on one of Africa’s best-performing economies.

As the demonstrations spread across the country, governments, including the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Ireland, have advised their citizens against all non-essential travel to the country or Amhara and Oromia regions at the centre of the instability.

Hailemariam Desalegn, Ethiopia’s prime minister, has said the death toll from the demonstrations, which began last November and have been exacerbated by the authoritarian regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters, could be as high as 500. Thousands of people have been arrested and the government imposed a state of emergency as it grapples with the biggest threat to the Horn of Africa nation’s stability in years. The protests originally began over land disputes, but the state’s harsh response caused them to spiral into broader protests against the government.

An American woman was killed after being caught up in a protest on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, the capital, this month.

Travel companies said bookings to the country — home to ancient Christian sites and spectacular highlands — have virtually ground to halt as the unrest and travel warnings keep visitors away.

“Things are effectively on hold,” said Jim Louth, owner of Undiscovered Destinations, a UK travel company. “If anyone inquires, our policy is to say people are being advised not to go.”

Tourism has become an important part of the economy, which has been growing at an annual average of about 10 per cent over the past decade as Ethiopia has attracted increasing levels of foreign investment.

The government estimates the sector contributes about 4.5 per cent of gross domestic product, or $2.9bn. The indirect contribution, through investment, is the same, while about 1.5m people are thought to earn their living from the industry.

More than 750,000 foreign tourists visited Ethiopia last year, with the US by far the largest country of origin, followed by China, Britain and Germany, according to government data.

The blow to tourism comes amid rising investor uncertainty as foreign companies, particularly flower farms and textile factories, have been targeted in a string of attacks that have caused tens of millions of dollars of damage.

—
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Events, Featured

DC Book Signing & Afterparty w/ Marcus Samuelsson: The Red Rooster Cookbook

October 24, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Monday, October 24th, 2016

Marcus in conversation with Tadias about The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food & Hustle in Harlem

New York (TADIAS) — Join Tadias Magazine & Marcus Samuelsson at SEI lounge in DC on Wednesday, October 26th for a book signing and afterparty celebrating the release of his latest publication entitled The Red Rooster Cookbook:The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem.

—
If You Go:
DATE AND TIME
Wed, October 26, 2016
9:00 PM – 11:30 PM EDT
LOCATION
SEI
444 7th Street Northwest
Washington, DC 20004
Please RSVP at the following link:
www.eventbrite.com/e/book-signing-afterparty-w-marcus-samuelsson-the-red-rooster-cookbook-tickets

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Art, Events, Featured

Mahmoud Ahmed Brings Down the House at Carnegie Hall Debut Concert – Photos

October 23, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, October 23rd, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Mahmoud Ahmed performed live at Carnegie Hall in New York City last night, becoming the first major artist from Ethiopia to give a solo concert at the world-famous venue.

The 75-year-old Ethiopian cultural icon, who is still one of Ethiopia’s most eminent musicians, played at Carnegie’s Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage.

Below are photos from Mahmoud’s historic appearance at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, October 22nd, 2016:

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Podcast

U.S. Citizens Urged to Defer Travel to Ethiopia -State Department

October 22, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Reuters

WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department urged U.S. citizens on Friday to defer all non-essential travel to Ethiopia because of ongoing unrest that has killed hundreds of people, led to thousands of arrests and prompted restrictions on diplomatic travel.

The Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency on Oct. 8 and issued a decree on Oct. 15 that permitted the arrest of individuals without court order for some routine activities like attending gatherings and engaging with foreign organizations, the State Department said.

An American woman was killed when her car was stoned earlier this month and foreign-owned factories and equipment were damaged during a wave of protests over land and political rights.

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Events

Amnesty Event Spotlights Ethiopia Crisis

October 22, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Saturday, October 22nd, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — An event organized by the Manhattan- based Amnesty International volunteer group, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled on the evening of Monday, October 24th at the New York Society of Ethical Culture to spotlight Ethiopia’s current political and humanitarian crisis.

Steve Latimer, coordinator of the Amnesty volunteer group, says they hope to bring wider attention in the U.S. to the continuing violence and governance issues in Ethiopia. “With the events of the last couple of months, the recent killings during the protest, and the things that has happened since, we are very concerned about human rights violations by the Ethiopian government,” Latimer said. “And this discussion hopes to help educate some people at least in the United States about the situation in Ethiopia, which as you well know not many people in this country are aware of.”

Latimer, who is a retired civil rights lawyer and a human rights activist, told Tadias that Amnesty International will also push at the gathering for the approval of the U.S. Senate resolution on Ethiopia “condemning the lethal violence against protesters, journalists, and others in civil society for exercising their rights under Ethiopia’s constitution.”

The resolution calls for a review of U.S. security assistance to Ethiopia in light of allegations that Ethiopian security forces have killed civilians. It also calls upon the government of Ethiopia to halt violent crackdowns, conduct a credible investigation into the killing of protesters, and hold perpetrators of such violence accountable.

“To use amnesty’s favorite phrase, we just want to shine light on the situation,” said Latimer in a phone interview. “We support the pending Senate resolution about Ethiopia and we are going to be asking other people to write letters and sign petitions because that’s the kind of activity that Amnesty does and they are very good at it.”

The event’s media release states that the panel discussion, which features “scholars and witnesses to the human rights abuses,” is being co-sponsored by the New York Society of Ethical Culture, The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa; The Danbobidu Scholarship and Essential Life Foundation, as well as the Ethiopian Community Mutual Assistance Association (ECMAA), and Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE).

Semahagn Gashu Abebe, a former Ethiopian Public Prosecutor until 2003 who became a human rights activist and the author of The Last Post-Cold War Socialist Federation: Ethnicity, Ideology and Democracy in Ethiopia is a panelist at the event. Other listed speakers are Aklog Birara, President of ABRAW Center for Inclusive Development in Africa; Begna Dugassa, a public health expert and the author of Human Rights and Public Health: Toward Understanding the Root Causes of Social Problems in the Oromia Regional State, in Ethiopia; as well as presenters Obang Metho, Executive Director of SMNE (The Solidarity movement for a New Ethiopia), and former prisoner of conscious Girma Erena. The opening and closing remarks will be made by Adotei Akwei, Managing Director for Government Relations for Amnesty International USA.

—
If You Go
MONDAY, OCTOBER 24 th , 6:30PM-9PM
The New York Society of Ethical Culture
2 W. 64th St. (& Central Park West), NYC.

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Featured

Carnegie Hall Presents Mahmoud Ahmed

October 22, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Updated: Saturday, October 22nd, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — Tonight Ethiopian music legend Mahmoud Ahmed takes center stage at Carnegie Hall in New York City in his first solo performance at the world-famous venue.

Carnegie Hall notes that the Ethiopian cultural icon, who turned 75-years-old this year, “was at the forefront of Ethiopian music’s golden era in the 1960s and 1970s and is still one of the country’s most eminent musicians. His body of work—including landmark recordings like Almaz, Alemye, Ere Mela Mela, and Tezeta re-released on éthiopiques series—have become an essential benchmark of Ethiopia’s musical history and cultural heritage, earning him the prestigious BBC World Music Award in 2007.”

Mahmoud Ahmed. (Photo: by Damian Rafferty)

Carnegie also described Mahmoud Ahmed’s sound as a “yielding some of the most adventurous, passionate, and often surreal sounds heard in free jazz today.” Mahmoud’s historic performance in October is presented as part of Carnegie Hall’s “Around the Globe” program.

Mahmoud Ahmed on the cover of the award-winning Ethiopiques series album. (Allmusic.com)

—
If You Go:
Carnegie Hall Presents Mahmoud Ahmed
Saturday, October 22, 2016 | 8 PM
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
881 7th Ave, New York, NY 10019
Tickets from $12 to $70
Seating Chart (PDF)
BUY TICKETS

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Events, Featured

Girma Beyene in a Rare NYC Concert

October 20, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Thursday, October 20th, 2016

Girma Beyene: Titan of Ethiojazz & Ethiopiques in a Rare NYC Concert

New York (TADIAS) — The legendary Ethiopian singer, songwriter and arranger Girma Beyene will perform live for the first time in New York City next Monday (October 24th) at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. The concert is part of CUNY’s “A Global Music Series” and the singer will be accompanied by the DC-based Feedel Band

Girma, who used to live in Washington, D.C. for several years beginning in the early 1980’s — long before the D.C. metro area became home to the largest Ethiopian population in America — was also in the U.S. capital last week where he gave a live show at Atlas Performing Arts Center. As The Washington Post pointed out “The great Ethiopian singer, lyricist and arranger first found himself in the District way back in 1981 during a tour in the Walias Band, one of Ethiopia’s most revered jazz troupes. Beyene liked the District enough to stay — but not for good. After many years in the area, he eventually returned to Addis Ababa. It was there, during the 1960s and ’70s, where Beyene had been a major player in one of the planet’s most electrifying music scenes.”

“Girma Beyene is one of the most influential Ethiopian musicians from the ‘Golden Age’ of the 1960’s and 1970’s, which combined African rhythms with American R&B, soul, funk, and big band jazz,” states the announcement from CUNY. “Beyene made a handful of recordings as a vocalist, but it was as an arranger, pianist, and composer that he made his mark.”

Mulatu Astatke & Girma Beyene. (Photo: Horizon Ethiopia)

His best known hit song Enken Yelelebish/Ene Negne By Manesh, which has been redone many times by subsequent generations of artists, including Jano Band in 2013, tops Girma Beyene’s classics that have been preserved in the Éthiopiques CD collection.

According to The Washington Post, “After co-founding the Alem-Girma Band alongside the great vocalist Alemayehu Eshete, Beyene became a highly esteemed arranger, generating more than 65 songs during what many consider to be the golden years of Swinging Addis. (Among those tunes: the deeply beloved and consummately funky “Muziqawi Silt,” popularized by Hailu Mergia, another giant of Ethiopian song who still lives in the Washington area.)”

—
If You Go:
CUNY Presents Girma Beyene
October 24, 2016: 7:00 PM
The Graduate Center/CUNY
Elebash Recital Hall
365 Fifth Ave. (at 34th St.)
New York, NY 10016
ADMISSION: $25, $20 Members (free to CUNY)
Click here to get Tickets

Video: Girma Beyene live in Paris with French band Akale Wube — 2015

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Podcast

Thousands Held Under State of Emergency

October 19, 2016 Tadias Magazine

BBC News

Updated: Thursday, October 20, 2016

The Ethiopian authorities have detained more than 1,600 people under the state of emergency, a government minister has told the BBC.

A statement, quoted by state-affiliated FBC website, lists arrests in the Oromia and Amhara regions, which have recently seen massive demonstrations.

This is in addition to Monday’s arrests of 1,000 people near the capital.

The current unrest is the biggest to hit Ethiopia in more than two decades. (Photo: Reuters)

A six-month state of emergency has been declared in the face of a wave of unprecedented anti-government protests.

Under the emergency measures, people can be detained without an arrest warrant for the duration of the state of emergency.

FBC reports that a total of 1,683 people have been arrested in at least five places, including in Shashamene, 250km (155 miles) south of the capital, Addis Ababa, where 450 people have been detained.

It describes most of those arrested as “suspects in the recent violence” and adds that a large number of looted weapons had also been handed over.

Some business people have been detained for closing their shops, as have three teachers for “abandoning school”.

There is no mention where the people are being held.

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Featured

Debate: Trump Not Sure He’ll Accept Vote Results, Hillary Calls Him Putin’s ‘Puppet’

October 19, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Associated Press

Trump won’t say he’ll accept election result

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Threatening a fundamental pillar of American democracy, Donald Trump refused to say Wednesday night that he will accept the results of next month’s election if he loses to Hillary Clinton. The Democratic nominee declared Trump’s resistance “horrifying.”

Trump has spent the days leading up to third and final presidential debate warning voters that the election will be “rigged.” Asked whether he would accept the outcome if Clinton emerges victorious, he said, “I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense.”

That contradicted pledges by his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, as well as his daughter, Ivanka.

Wednesday’s contest quickly shifted from a calm, policy-focused faceoff into a bitter and deeply personal confrontation. Trump repeatedly called Clinton a “nasty woman,” while the Democrat panned him as “unfit” to be commander in chief.

Clinton, who began the debate with a lead in nearly all battleground states, forcefully accused Trump of favoring Russia’s leader over American military and intelligence experts after the Republican nominee pointedly refused to accept the U.S. government’s assertion that Moscow has sought to meddle in the U.S. election.

She charged that Russian President Vladimir Putin was backing Trump because “he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”

Trump denied any relationship with Putin and said he would condemn any foreign interference in the election. But he notably declined to back the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia was involved in the hacking of Democratic organizations. The Clinton campaign has said the FBI also is investigating Russia’s involvement in the hacking of a top adviser’s emails.

Watch: Trump on Accepting Election Results: ‘I’ll Look at it at the Time’

Watch Clinton: Putin Would ‘Rather Have a Puppet as President’

The 90-minute contest in Las Vegas came just under three weeks before Election Day and with early voting underway in more than 30 states. Trump has struggled to expand his support beyond his most loyal backers and must reshape the race in its closing days if he hopes to defeat Clinton.

The candidates clashed repeatedly over their drastically different visions for the nation’s future. Trump backed Supreme Court justices who would overturn the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling, while Clinton vowed to appoint justices that would uphold the decision legalizing abortion, saying, “We have come too far to have that turned back now.”

The businessman entered the final debate facing a string of sexual assault accusations from women who came forward after he denied in the previous contest that he had kissed or groped women without their consent. That Trump denial followed the release of a video of in which he’s heard bragging about exactly that.

Trump denied the accusations anew Wednesday night, saying the women coming forward “either want fame or her campaign did it.”

Clinton said Trump “thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth.” She avoided answering a question about her husband’s infidelities.

Trump pressed Clinton on immigration, accusing her of wanting an “open borders” policy, a characterization she vigorously disputes. The Republican, who has called for building a wall the length of the U.S.-Mexico border, said that under a Clinton presidency, “People are going to pour into our country.”

Clashing on trade, Trump said Clinton had misrepresented her position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, noting that she had originally called it the “gold standard” of trade agreements. Clinton shot back that once the deal was finished, it didn’t meet her standards. “I’ll be against it when I’m president,” she said.

On foreign policy, Clinton reasserted her opposition to sending a large-scale U.S. troop presence to the Middle East to defeat the Islamic State. She’s backed a no-fly zone in Syria, which would mark an expansion of the current U.S. strategy.

For Trump, the debate marked one of his final chances to reshape a race that appears to be slipping away from him. Clinton’s campaign is confidently expanding into traditionally Republican states, while Trump’s narrow electoral path is shrinking.

Clinton has struggled throughout the campaign to overcome persistent questions about her honesty and trustworthiness. In the campaign’s closing weeks, she’s begun appealing to Americans to overcome the deep divisions that have been exacerbated by the heated campaign, saying on stage Wednesday that she intended to be a president for those who vote for her and those who do not.

Clinton faced debate questions for the first time about revelations in her top adviser’s hacked emails that show her striking a different tone in private than in public regarding Wall Street banks and trade. She quickly turned the discussion to Russia’s potential role in stealing the emails.

Underscoring the deep discord between Trump and Clinton, the candidates did not shake hands at the beginning or end of the debate.

—
Related:

Obama Tells Trump: Stop ‘Whining’ and Trying to Discredit the Election

—
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Podcast

Amnesty: Draconian Measures Will Escalate Ethiopia’s Deepening Crisis

October 19, 2016 Tadias Magazine

Amnesty International

Heavy-handed measures by the Ethiopian government will only escalate a deepening crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 800 protesters since protests began in November 2015, said Amnesty International today after the government issued a directive imposing wide-ranging restrictions as part of a state of emergency.

The directive authorises arrests without warrants, as well as rehabilitation measures. When such measures have been used in the past, they have led to arbitrary detention of protesters at remote military facilities without access to their families and lawyers.

“These emergency measures are extremely severe and so broad that they threaten basic human rights that must not be curtailed even under a state of emergency,” said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.

“These measures will deepen, not mitigate, the underlying causes of the sustained protests we have seen throughout the year, which have been driven by deep-seated human rights grievances. These grievances must be properly addressed by the authorities. Further crackdowns and human rights violations will only make the situation worse.”

In a public statement issued today Amnesty International recommends that instead of further curtailing human rights, the government should seize the moment and recommit itself to respecting, protecting and fulfilling them, in line with its regional and international obligations.

“It is the government’s failure to constructively engage with the protesters that continues to fuel these protests. It must now change course,” said Muthoni Wanyeki.

“The government must ensure an end to excessive and arbitrary use of force by the security forces against demonstrators and release all protesters, opposition leaders and supporters, as well as journalists and bloggers, arrested for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”

At least 600 protesters have been killed in Oromia and 200 in Amhara since November last year.

—-

Background

Protests began in November 2015 when ethnic Oromos took to the streets fearing possible land seizures under the government’s Addis Ababa Masterplan, which aimed to expand the capital’s administrative control into Oromia. The protests continued even after the Addis Ababa Masterplan was scrapped, evolving into demands for accountability for human rights violations, ethnic equality and the release of political prisoners.

Protests later spread to Amhara, a region that has long complained of marginalization.

The worst incident involved the death of possibly hundreds of protesters in a stampede on 2 October at Bishoftu, about 45 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa, during the Irrecha religious festival. Protest groups say the stampede was caused by the security forces’ unnecessary and excessive use of force. The government has denied this, instead blaming the deaths on “anti-peace forces.”

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Podcast

Ethiopia: Opposition Media Say Gonder on Strike in Response to State of Emergency

October 18, 2016 Tadias Magazine

International Business Times

October 18, 2016

People in northern Ethiopia have started a three-day strike in response to a nationwide state of emergency declared earlier this month. The strike is taking place in the city of Gondar, Amhara region, where schools, businesses and transportation were shut down on Monday 17 October.

Organisers said the strike also aimed to shed light on the recent massacres and alleged human rights violations being perpetrated across Ethiopia, mainly in Amhara and Oromo regions, the independent website ESAT, banned under the state of emergency, reported.

Ethiopia declared the state of emergency, supposed to last for six months, earlier in October following months of anti-government protests in Oromia and occasionally in Amhara.

Members of the opposition, activists and rights groups repeatedly claimed protests have resulted in the death of more than 500 people since November 2015.

Protests in Oromia and Amhara have been labelled as the biggest anti-government unrest Ethiopia has witnessed in recent history.

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Featured

To First Lady Michelle Obama, With Love

October 18, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The New York Times Magazine

By Gloria Steinem:

Michelle Obama came into my life in stages. I knew that, like her husband, she was a Harvard-educated lawyer, but that unlike him, she had grown up on the South Side of Chicago, with parents who had not gone to college. When Barack Obama was a summer associate at her Chicago law firm, they met because she was his mentor. After his successful campaign for the U.S. Senate, I noticed that she chose not to go to Washington. Instead, he commuted to their home and two daughters in Chicago where Michelle had a big job as head of community affairs for a hospital.

But she really entered my imagination once she became first lady, a tall, strong, elegant and seriously smart woman who happened to live in the White House. She managed to convey dignity and humor at the same time, to be a mother of two daughters and insist on regular family dinners, and to take on health issues and a national food industry addicted to unhealthy profits. She did this despite an undertow of bias in this country that subtly questioned everything she did. Was she too strong, physically and intellectually, to be a proper first lady?

After a decade under a public microscope, she has managed what no other first lady — and few people in any public position — have succeeded in doing: She has lived a public life without sacrificing her privacy and authenticity. She made her husband both more human and effective as a president by being his interpreter and defender, but also someone we knew was capable of being his critic. Eventually, she spoke up about the pain of the racist assumptions directed at her, but she waited until her husband could no longer be politically punished for her honesty. And she has always been the best kind of mother, which means insisting that fathers be equal parents. All of this she has done with honesty, humor and, most important, kindness.

Watch: Michelle Obama Redefines First Lady Surrogate Role

—
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Podcast

United Nations’ Chief on Ethiopia Crisis

October 17, 2016 Tadias Magazine

United Nations

The ASSOCIATED PRESS

Oct 17, 2016

UN Head Calls for ‘Calm and Inclusive Dialogue’ to Resolve Ethiopia Crisis

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging the Ethiopian government to ensure “the protection of fundamental human rights” following its imposition of stringent rules under its state of emergency.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday that Ban has been following developments in Ethiopia “with concern” following the imposition of the state of emergency effective Oct. 8. The new rules announced late Saturday include a ban on any contact with groups that are labeled as “terrorist.”

Dujarric said Ban “reiterates his call for calm and restraint and calls for inclusive dialogue to resolve all grievances.”

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Podcast

7 Things Banned Under Ethiopia’s State of Emergency

Read the full list at BBC News »

BBC News

Updated: October 17th, 2016

Ethiopia’s government has declared a six-month state of emergency in the face of an unprecedented wave of violent protests.

Activists in the country’s Oromia region has been holding demonstrations since last November, and protesters from the Amhara region have also joined in.

The deaths of at least 55 people at an Oromo religious festival on 2 October triggered fresh unrest, including the targeting of some foreign-owned businesses.

Rights groups say that at least 500 people have died during the protests overall and last week Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said that could be an accurate estimate.

The emergency was announced earlier this month but the government has now made clear what this means in practical terms.

Here are some of the things that are restricted:

1. Social media

You cannot use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to contact what are called “outside forces”. In fact, any attempt to communicate with “terrorist organisations and anti-peace groups designated as terrorist” is banned.

2. Broadcast Media

You cannot watch the TV channels Esat and OMN, which are both based outside the country. The government has described them as “belonging to terrorist organisations”.

3. Protests

You cannot organise a demonstration at your school or university, neither can you be involved in a political campaign that is “likely to cause disturbances, violence, hatred and distrust among the people”.

4. Gestures

You cannot make a political gesture, such as crossing your arms above your head, or communicate a political message to the public “without permission”.

—
Related:
Ethiopia Government Unveils Rules for State of Emergency (AP)

A security guard sits near a gate in Addis Ababa on October 10, 2016. Ethiopia is under state of emergency, the first in a quarter-century as grassroots anti-government protests continue. (AP photo)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

By ELIAS MESERET

Oct 16, 2016

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The Ethiopian government has unveiled stringent rules for its state of emergency which the opposition says is meant to curb a wave of protests, sometimes deadly, in the Oromia region and other areas.

Hundreds have been killed in anti-government protests in the past year, according to human rights groups and opposition activists. The protesters have been demanding wider freedoms in one of Africa’s best-performing economies.

On Oct. 2, more than 50 people were killed in a stampede after security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters during a religious festival in Bishoftu, southeast of the capital. The incident sparked more violence in Oromia leading the government to announce the state of emergency. The government has also enforced an internet blackout.

Ethiopia doesn’t need a state of emergency said Yilikal Getnet, chairman of the opposition Blue Party, Sunday. People have only been expressing their dissatisfaction with the government, he said.

The rules announced late Saturday restricts the movement of diplomats 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside of Addis Ababa without official permission. The emergency prohibits anyone from making contact with groups that are labeled as terrorist and from watching media channels like Oromia Media Network and Ethiopian Satellite Television and Radio, according to a statement issued by Siraj Fegessa, Ethiopia’s minster of defense and head of the Command Post set up to oversee the state of emergency law. Those who break the terms of the emergency risk jail terms of three to five years.

The emergency also outlaws rallies and public meetings without permission from authorities and gives security forces the right to detain and search suspects without a court order.

Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, began protesting almost a year ago when the government proposed annexing some of their land into the capital, Addis Ababa, as part of a drive to transform this largely agricultural nation into a regional manufacturing power. While the government later abandoned the idea, the protests broadened into demands for more rights and for the release of detained activists, opposition figures and journalists.

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Featured, Profiles

Azmara Asefa’s Fashion Collection

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, October 16th, 2016

Azmara Asefa’s Fashion Collection Supports Women’s Refugee Commission

New York (TADIAS) – Earlier this year we featured a profile and interview with Azmara Asefa, an Ethiopian American architect turned fashion designer, whose impressive technology-inspired clothing and accessories (Spring/Summer 2016 collection) were featured last year at Phoenix Fashion Week. Dubbed as one of 13 best emerging designers in the United States Azmara has launched a kickstarter campaign for her next set of designs which she calls “the apocalypse ready collection” blending “form and function in a collection that empowers women to take on whatever the day throws at them.”

Azmara, who was born in Ohio to immigrant parents from Ethiopia, and worked as an architect in London, Ohio, Atlanta, and Los Angeles before embarking in her new venture as a fashion designer says, “We all know that feeling. Those times in your life when it seems like the odds are stacked against you. For women who are bravely taking on apocalyptic obstacles big or small, whether you’re pitching in a difficult client meeting, or dealing with a boss who is being a total zombie all while fighting the sub zero chill of office AC, or losing a job or a loved one and making it on your own, the Apocalypse Ready collection of clothing and accessories melds modern form and function so you feel empowered strong and confident enough to take on the day.”

Azmara Asefa showcased her futuristic designs at Phoenix Fashion Week in 2015. (Photo: AZ Tech Beat)

The kickstarter campaign notes that “as the daughter of an Ethiopian refugee, Azmara is inspired by world cultures, resilient people, and the generosity of the human spirit, which is why 10% of the brand’s future sales will go to the Women’s Refugee Commission.”

View the campaign video below and support her upcoming collection:

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You can learn more about Azmara Asefa’s design work at www.azmaraasefa.com and about the campaign at kickstarter.com.

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Events

Photos: Hub of Africa Addis Fashion Week

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Sunday, October 16h, 2016

New York (TADIAS) — This year’s Hub of Africa Addis Fashion Week (HAFW), which celebrated its 5th anniversary, was held last week at the Millennium Hall in Ethiopia’s capital. According to the event’s press release the 2016 runway show featured “designers, stylists, hair & makeup artists as well as models from all across the African continent to promote African Fashion on an international stage.”

Among the local Ethiopian designers highlighted included works by Hirut Gugsa (MELA), Lemlem (LALI COLLECTION), Aynalem Ayele (AYNI’S DESGIN), Mahlet Afework (MAFI), Fikerte Addis (YEFIKIR), Samrawit Mersiehazen (SAMRA Luxury World Class Leather), and Haile Garment by Jackie Mota (RATATOUILLE).

HAFW was held in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Addis Ababa as well as the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, while Senior Editor of Vogue Italia, Sara Maino, “directed a talk show for industry stakeholders on becoming the next vogue talent at Millenium Hall.”

Since its inception HAFW has featured over 50 African designers and the organizers note that “opportunities that designers have gained include showing during New York African Fashion Week, connecting with international buyers and media, and projecting their brands to the international market.”

Below are images courtesy of HAFW organizers.

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Featured

Latest Poll Show Hillary Clinton Heavily Favored to Win U.S. Election

Reuters

NEW YORK — After a brutal week for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Democrat Hillary Clinton maintained a substantial projected advantage in the race to win the Electoral College and claim the U.S. presidency, according to the latest results from the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project released on Saturday.

If the election were held this week, the project estimates that Clinton’s odds of securing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency at more than 95 percent, and by a margin of 118 Electoral College votes. It is the second week in a row that the project has estimated her odds so high.

The results mirror other Electoral College projections, some of which estimate Clinton’s chance of winning at around 90 percent.

For the Trump campaign there are a handful of states the Republican candidate must win if he is to cobble together enough states to win the White House.

Among them is Florida, but numerous recent visits to the Sunshine State by Trump and his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence did little to dent Clinton’s advantage in the contest for the state’s 29 Electoral College votes. She leads by 6 percentage points, about the same lead she enjoyed last week.

Still, the race tightened in Ohio, another important state for Trump. Both Ohio and Nevada were leaning toward Clinton last week but are now toss-ups.

However, Clinton’s support grew in North Carolina and Colorado, both of which moved from toss-ups to leaning Clinton.

In the last week, the Trump campaign struggled to respond to allegations from several women that Trump had groped them or made unwanted sexual advances over several decades. Trump said the reports were lies and part of a media conspiracy to defeat him.

All of the allegations came after The Washington Post disclosed a video from 2005 of Trump describing how he tried to seduce a married woman and bragged in vulgar terms how his celebrity allowed him to kiss and grope women without permission.

The accusations overshadowed what might otherwise have been a difficult week for Clinton. Her campaign manager’s email account was apparently hacked and thousands of his emails were released by Wikileaks. U.S. officials say the Russian government sanctioned the electronic break-in.

The emails have been trickling out for two weeks. Included in the hacked emails were undisputed comments that Clinton made to banks and big business in a 2014 speech. In those comments, Clinton said she supports open trade and open borders, and takes a conciliatory approach to Wall Street, both positions she later backed away from.

Since that release, waves of other emails have been released, among which were some that suggested Clinton had inappropriately received questions in advance of a debate with Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries.

Without Trump’s own woes, the Clinton emails may well have become the central issue in the campaign. Yet with just over three weeks to go until the Nov. 8 election, Trump does not have much time to turn the race around.

According to the project, Trump trails by double-digits among women and all minority groups. Among black voters he trails by nearly 70 points. To a large extent his support is almost entirely dependent on white voters. And while Trump’s support among white men is strong, among white women his lead is negligible.

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Related:
Donald Trump vs. a Free Press

Watch: Pres. Obama ties Donald Trump to Republicans (MSNBC)

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Podcast

In Ethiopia’s War Against Social Media, the Truth is the Main Casualty

October 14, 2016 Tadias Magazine

The annual U.N. General Assembly meeting provides an unparalleled opportunity for world leaders to take to the bully pulpit of the U.N. chamber and trumpet their country’s achievements or slam their enemies.

Last month, presidents, kings and prime ministers talked about the dangers of climate change, progress made in development goals, the threats of terrorism or their responses to the global immigration crisis. But when Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn took the podium Sept. 21, the global challenge he had in mind was perhaps unexpected: social media.

There were many other things he could have discussed, including Ethiopia’s impressive investments in infrastructure like hydroelectric dams and its high growth rates — or even a devastating drought that the government and its international partners have confronted this past year.

“We are seeing how misinformation could easily go viral via social media and mislead many people, especially the youth,” he said. “Social media has certainly empowered populists and other extremists to exploit people’s genuine concerns and spread their message of hate and bigotry without any inhibition.”

The state has singled out social media as being a key factor in driving the unrest now gripping the country. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are now largely blocked in the country, as is Internet on mobile phones, which is how most people in this country of 94 million find their way online.

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Opinion

Donald Trump vs. a Free Press

October 14, 2016 Tadias Magazine