Year: 2015
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Tripartite Free Trade Area an opportunity not a threat
Sindiso Ngwenya The launching of the Tripartite Free Trade Area on Wednesday 10 June 2015 is a historical milestone that will be remembered for having taken the African continent to another level of integration. The tripartite arrangement of the Common Market for Eastern for Eastern and Southern Africa, East African Community and Southern Africa Development Community (COMESA-EAC–SADC) is thus…
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Farmers in Nekempte get new fertilizer blending facility
The Ministry of Agriculture, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Oromia Bureau of Agriculture, and the Agricultural Transformation Agency, Sunday joined the Gibe Dedesa Farmers’ Cooperative Union to inaugurate a warehouse and one of the first fertilizer blending facilities in Ethiopia. Together, the warehouse and blending facility will help the cooperative to meet farmer…
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Second half of the year to see increased humanitarian need
Insufficient rain during the last short (Belg) rainy season of February to May this year has unexpectedly changed the humanitarian need context in Ethiopia, reports Relief Web, one of the biggest humanitarian portals in the globe. Despite optimistic forecasts at the beginning of the year, increasing water and pasture shortages were reported in parts of the country, leading to deteriorated…
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Waste not want not
From wasted economy to wasted planet: Why changing our consumption patterns is a choice we must make Achim Steiner As we sit down to lunch or dinner on this World Environment Day, it is important to consider this: one-third of all food produced globally each year – 300 million tones – is wasted. This waste costs the global economy…
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Egypt’s dead men walking
Omar Ashour Cairo – Mass death sentences are usually associated with regimes like those of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis or Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. But Egypt’s military rulers have now joined the ranks of such regimes, staging circus-like trials in which the outcome is foreordained. One such trial, in March 2014, produced 529 death sentences; another, in April, yielded 683 death…
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Donald N. Levine: A sociologist at work and in love
Andrew DeCort Professor Donald N. Levine (June 16, 1931 – April 4, 2015), affectionately known to the greater Ethiopian community as Gash Liben Gebre Etyopiya, was a man I was graced to call my professor, and then also a mentor, and finally also a cherished father-friend. It is with immense gratitude and admiration that I offer these reflections on the…
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The tragedy of Ethiopian migrants: This is no ‘get rich or die trying’
Editorial In mid April this year, a group of militants belonging to the Islamic State (IS) released a sickening video of pure brutality: the mass beheading and execution of 30 Ethiopian (and possibly Eritrean) citizens. Now, Ethiopia is mourning and no amount of comfort seems to surmount the sheer grief. Without a doubt IS’s sadistic killing of these…
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Election and the Political Class: Beyond Winning (or Losing) Elections in Ethiopia: Part IV
Tsegaye R. Ararssa 1. Introduction In the last instalments, I have charted out the ‘mood’ in order for us to assess whether there is, in Ethiopia today, the required ‘democratic ambience’ within the context of which Election 2015 is taking place. I have also sought to consider the factors that indicate more despair than hope, more anxiety than anticipation.…
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Court sentenced five individuals in the gang rape & subsequent death of Hana Lalango
Mahlet Fasil The Third Criminal Bench of the Lideta Federal High Court sentenced five individuals found guilty of the gang rape and subsequent death in September last year of Hana Lalango. Accordingly the court sentenced the first and second defendants Samson Sileshi and Bezabhi G. Mariam to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The 3rd, 4th and 5th…
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