Reality-check: Renaissance dam a fraud? | Ethiopia
There is no explicit reference to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in the 5-year Growth and Transformation Plan(GTP), the opposition media noted shortly after Premier Meles Zenawi launched the dam...
View ArticleWikileaks: Inside EPRDF: Meles Zenawi had lost to Arkebe Equbay?
A leaked Cable of US Embassy Addis Ababa of August 2008, classified as ‘Secret’, speculates about ‘anecdotes’ of rift in the ruling party. The Cable claims that: According to UK citizen Patrick Gilkes...
View ArticleReality check | The Ethiopian Flag qua Politics
Ethiopians are celebrating the National flag day for the fourth time today. The previous three took place on July 5/’08 (Sene 28/’00), on Oct.5/’09 (Meskerem 25/’02), and on Sept.20/’10 (Meskerem...
View ArticleReality-Check: Anti-terrorism Laws in 10 Western Countries
This post provides a bird’s-eye-view of some of the restrictive provisions in the Anti-terrorism legislations of ten western countries. It is extracted from two sources. The first eight – i.e., the...
View ArticleSkype me? Indeed | Text of Ethiopia’s draft Telecom Law
The world wide web was awash with news reports of alleged ban of VOIP services by Ethiopian in the past week. One of those was Al-Jazeera’s news brief that stated: A new law in Ethiopia has...
View ArticleOfficial: ‘Skype and similar activities are not banned in Ethiopia’
"Skype and similar activities are not banned in Ethiopia. There is no law that prohibits or restricts their utilization here in Ethiopia. Nor does the [draft] law aim to prevent IP-related internet...
View ArticleLeaked: RSF’s internal memo insists Ethiopia banned Skype
‘RSF (Reporter sans Frontière/Reporter without Borders) is a cautious organization, this is an exceptional case’, I claimed whenever I bumped into an Ethiopian bureaucrat in the past week. That was...
View ArticleEthiopia still under an Acting PM: Legal and Political questions
The news that the 180-member EPRDF Council will vote on new leaders by the end of next week – with the implication a new Prime Minister will be voted on after that – irked those of us who were hoping...
View ArticleEthiopia-Egypt | A War on Nile Improbable, for now
Yet, posturing aside, officials and scholars in Cairo understand the insistence on monopoly of the Nile waters, with implicit military threats is literally unsustainable. Indeed, the more intelligent...
View ArticlePrinciples governing freedom of assembly – in 10 western democracies
Arguably, Ethiopia suffers from a severe ideological confusion. A sizable section of its educated class believes an unlimited scale of liberty – even more Utopian than the one espoused by John Locke –...
View ArticleGibe is not Gila: Anti-dam activism gone awry
“Dam on Ethiopia’s Omo River Causing Hunger and Conflict”. That was the tittle of Sandra Postel’s alarming piece on National Geographic. Any sane person would (and should) be upset upon reading...
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