Africa

Nation bids farewell to the late Prime Minister

Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam pledges state will be back to work ‘as of tomorrow”

Tsedale Lemma

As a lengthy national mourning period came to an end today thousands of Ethiopians, more than a dozen African serving and former heads of state, U.S and EU diplomats and leading business people including Bill Gates and Nigeria’s self-made billionaire Aliko Dangote, and other prominent people from around the world gathered at Meskel Square to pay their last respect to the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who died of a sudden infection from an unspecified illness on August 20^th.

Africa

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi dies

State TV says he died at 11:40 last night

Two months after he was admitted to an undisclosed hospital abroad for a yet undisclosed ailment, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, 57, has passed away on August 20, the council of ministers announced.

Africa

Her hard and unenviable job

The first female boss of the AU is taking a job that may taste the limits of her ability as a seasoned technocrat

Tsedale Lemma

The 19^th AU head of states and governments summit held in July in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia was under the theme “Boosting Intra-Africa trade,” but hardly anyone, from the media to international observers, seemed to have paid a fraction of attention to it. The election of a new chairperson, the second attempt in the history of the continental body, was what stole the weight off the theme.  The result caught everyone by a big surprise as South Africa’s Interior Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma materialized as the first woman, and South African, to win the top position of leading the continental body for the next four years.