Coca Cola might be the world’s most valuable brand but it has a debt problem in Ethiopia, the weekly Amharic paper Ethio-Channel reported. The East African Bottling Company (EABSC), Coca Cola’s maker, reported to the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority it is running in loss and is unable to pay taxes. The paper quoted unnamed sources as saying that the company owes 287.8 million birr to the Authority, and said it could only pay in phases.
Ethio-Channel also indicated that a dispute has occurred between shareholders and the South African Beverage Company (SABCO). EABSC is owned by Coca-Cola Sabco and four other Ethiopian shareholders, Negusse Hailu, Munir Duri, Dereje Yesuwork, and Abinet G. Meskel, close confidants of the tycoon Mohammed Al-Amoudi. 85.37pc of the company is owned by SABCO, the remaining 14.63pc is owned by the shareholders.
Sabco recently appointed three board members from abroad without the knowledge of the existing members, which might have started the dispute, the paper wrote. Some of the original shareholders have appealed to government officials on this “injustice”, Ethio-Channel wrote without giving names. The paper said Sabco declined to comment on the issue. Reached by the Ethiopia Observer, Negusse Hailu, one of the shareholders denied the report and said that he “personally had no problem with SBCO.”

French sportswear retailer Decathlon expects to source clothes from Ethiopia.
Purchasing Director of Decathlon, Benoit Pousset said last week that the company saw good opportunities for buying clothing in sub-Saharan Africa, as it seeks to diversify from relying on Asian sourcing.
He said the company is in the process of establishing an office here in Addis Ababa which will be operational in the next couple of weeks.
Decathlon is also looking to buy footwear from shoe manufacturers. “We looked at some shoe manufacturers and we are very much interested in placing initial orders,” the representative said.
Representatives of Decathlon were part of the 30 French investment companies participated in the third Ethio-French business Forum held last week.
Among the attendants were Mr. Matthias Fekl, French Minister of State in charge of Foreign Trade, who was in town on December 17th in the closing session of the business forum.
The forum, co-chaired by the French Embassy in Ethiopia and Arkebe Oqubay, adviser to Prime Minister, with the presence of the Chairman and CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, Tewolde Gebremariam, was intended to review the Ethiopian government strategic development plan, which has just completed an ambitious five year Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) – and to launch the second for the period 2015-2020 in a bid to foster broad-based development in a sustainable manner. The strategy of industrial parks was presented with a presentation by the Industrial Park Development Corporation.

ADDIS ABABA, Dec 25 (Reuters) – Ethiopian police have arrested two senior opposition members on suspicion of inciting weeks of protests against government plans to set up a new economic zone near the capital that would displace farmers, their party leader said on Friday.
The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) says 87 protesters have been killed by police since demonstrations broke out this month in Oromiya region, in the country’s worst civil unrest for a decade.
On Dec. 15, a government spokesman said police had a list of five people who had died during the protests, but casualties could be higher. Officials have yet to announce an updated number.
OFC chairman Merara Gudina said police rounded up his deputy Bekele Gerba and the party’s assistant secretary Dejene Tafa on Thursday, and both remained in custody.
“They suspect that our party and some of our members are part of the protest movement, that we have been inciting the demonstrations,” he told Reuters, denying that the OFC had incited violence. “We do not know when Bekele and Dejene will be released or be charged for anything.”
Government officials were not immediately available for comment, but Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn told parliament on Friday that “anti-peace forces” had incited violence by spreading false information about the so-called “Addis Ababa Integrated Development Master Plan” to create an investment and industrial zone near the capital.
He said members of “terrorist groups” had infiltrated protesters and that the government would take “unflinching measures” against them.
Addis Ababa has accused the secessionist Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and opposition group Ginbot 7 of involvement in the protests. It labels both groups as terrorist organisations.

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia took a step Tuesday to defuse tensions around Ethiopia’s construction of a dam on the Blue Nile, finalizing the two firms tasked with carrying out studies to conduct further studies to ascertain the likely future impact of the dam on all countries through which the river flows.
Foreign and water resource ministers of the three countries have been conducting a new round of talks in Khartoum, Sudan since last Sunday.Khartoum’s meetings came at directives by the three countries’ leaders to cooperate for the implementation of previously agreed declaration of principles on the dam.
The three countries agreed to replace Dutch firm Deltares, one of the two firms chosen to study the impact of the dam, with French firm Artelia, a firm specialized in engineering, project management, and consultancy. The three countries had initially picked French firm BRL and another Dutch consultancy firm Deltares in April but Deltares later withdrew leading them to replace it with Artelia on Tuesday.
Egyptian media reported that Ethiopia has agreed to not fill the dam with any water from the Nile River until some sort of consensus has been reached between the three countries.
Technical studies will start in February, when the six ministers are due to meet again, and will take between six and 15 months, Sudanese Water Resources, Irrigation, and Electricity Minister Moataz Mousa told Reuters.
Ethiopia launched the works for the $4.2-billion project on the Blue Nile near its northern border with Sudan, four years ago.
Ethiopian authorities have said the dam will be ready to produce electricity in 2017, and will be the largest hydroelectric project in Africa. Some 8,500 laborers are working around the clock to build it, they have said.
Since 1999, a number of African countries—including Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda that are affected by the Nile but under the 1929 agreement have no stakes in it—have been lobbying for a revision of the way the Nile’s waters are shared.

Happy news for Hailemariam Desalegn and First Lady Roman Tesfaye.
According to Ethiopica Link, their daughter, 25-year-old Sosina Hailemariam, is getting married in two weeks’ time.
Sosina, the 25-year old daughter of Ethiopian Prime Minster Hailemariam Desalegn and First Lady Roman Tesfaye, is said to be tying the knot to her long-time boyfriend, young entrepreneur Abel Ayele. The wedding is expected to take place at an Apostolic Church (also known as Hawariyat Church) and unnamed hotel in Addis Ababa.
The 27-year-old Abel works as an export manager at Damota Wolayta Farmers’ Cooperative Union since January 2012. His dad, Ayele Burano and his mom, Elfinesh Abota come from the small Wolayta community in the south, as do Prime Minster Hailemariam and First Lady Roman.
Sosina was born in 1990 a year before EPRDF took power and her father, Hailemariam was in Finland studying for a masters in engineering at Tampere University of Technology. Hailemariam said in a 2010 interview that he came back to Ethiopia because his daughter had been born when he was leaving the country. After returning from Finland, Hailemariam joined the country’s Arba Minch Water Technology Institute and served 13 years in different positions, including as registrar, vice dean, and dean of the institute, before becoming joining politics and becoming prime minster. Hailemariam and Roman have other two daughters since then.

Ethiopian authorities arrested Blue Party’s former public relations head and political activist, Yonatan Tesfaye Regassa.
The party’s spokesman, Yidenekachew Kebede said that Yonatan was at his teaching post as usual on Monday, Dec 28 but disappeared during the day. “On Monday, we tried to find information on his whereabouts with the help of family members but to no avail. But on Tuesday, Yonatan was escorted by police to his home for search,” he said. He is being held at the Central Investigative Office.
Yonatan, a 27-year-old political activist, served as public relations head of one of Ethiopia’s few remaining opposition parties, the Blue Party for three years. He has led a number of peaceful protests against the deteriorating political environment in Ethiopia and called for reforms to the electoral system.
Ethiopian authorities arrested two journalists in the span of one week. Getachew Shiferaw, editor of the Negere Ethiopia online newspaper, was arrested on Dec. 25, following the Dec. 19 detention of Fikadu Mirkana, an anchor at state-run broadcaster Oromia Radio and TV.

Located in the Lake Tana Biosphere Reserve and the little lakeshore town of Gorgora, with views over water that stretches beyond the horizon, surrounded by protective evergreens, Tim & Kim village is an ideal hideaway.
The 65kms road from Gondar to Gorgora is under construction and a rugged one, but well worth the ride. Set in a 3ha, the minimalist lodge, a twenty minutes walk from the main road, currently has six tukul lodges, grass-roofed in the style of local houses. The compound has lots of charms with its terracotta floor, beds under good netting, private balcony. The rooms are minimal, but most importantly, clean and comfortable. Taking inspiration from its proud heritage, the lodge is decorated throughout with coloured fabrics and lavish local designs to match the warm hospitality of the local staff. The A large, open-sided air thatched hut provides a communal diner of organic vegetables and fruit, grown on site and fresh lakes. Egg salad and mixed salad are in the menu.

Accommodation takes the form of individual, comfortable tented-Lodges, each one decorated with unique touches. There are also simple, clean mud houses using common showers and toilets on the campsite.
The lodge illuminate its property with solar-charged generators, including the restaurant’s kitchen and in-room bathrooms. The lodge offers hiking, boat trips, Kano trips, biking, and visits to the village.

Lodges such as Tim & Kim are supporting burgeoning ecotourism, which helps to preserve what’s left. About 180 bird species have been recorded in the area. Bird watching is the order of the day here too, with many guests strolling around specifically to tick off endemic species such has Blacked headed Loiret, or making a pre-dawn trek to view the African paradise flycatcher, The double-toothed barbet.
Staff is very helpful and cooperative, including the Dutch owner Kim and her Ethiopian husband Mebratu photographed below.

TARIFF: Doubles 850 birr, mud houses 400 birr

(Reuters)-A hand grenade attack killed two students and injured six in a university in southern Ethiopia, police said, the second such attack in the country in three weeks.
An attacker or attackers hurled the grenade at students on the campus at Dilla University in the diverse Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region (SNNPR) on Thursday evening, officers added.
They did not give any details on any reasons for the attack in an area, about 350 km (200 miles) south of the capital Addis Ababa, where there have not been any recent reports of significant unrest.
“The blast killed two students and wounded six, of which four were seriously injured,” a police official in the town, Ejigu Shiferaw, told the state-run Ethiopian News Agency.
The outlet said an unspecified number of suspects were in police custody, without giving further details. The attack took place 21 days after a bomb was thrown at worshippers in a mosque in Addis Ababa, injuring more than 20 people.
Officials are yet to disclose details of that attack, and there has not been any claim of responsibility.
Ethiopia says it has thwarted several bomb plots in recent years and blames rebel groups based in other areas of the south and southeast, as well as al Shabaab insurgents from neighboring Somalia. Ethiopian troops have been fighting al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab militants in Somalia since 2011 as part of an African Union peacekeeping mission.

On a Friday in January, Adugna Akal is standing in her unassuming stall, filled with green plastic containers, located in the centre of Lalibela town waiting for clients. The self-employed mother of five children has been selling honey for the past fourteen years, both in crude and pure forms. Adugna, a woman of medium height, with bare forehead, sources her honey from the highland Ayina village, Bugna province, 60 kms south of Lalibela, renowned for its production of natural honey. “The business is not crowded and the income is decent. There are only three recognized traders like me in Lalibela,” she says.
The income she earns from selling honey with her priest husband helps her to provide for her family, even managing to build a house and a souvenir shop. “This year, because of drought, we have less honey coming. The price has also become expensive. But we can’t complain,” she says.
Due to low-capital requirements and a high processing rate, honey production in Ethiopia is rapidly becoming one of the fastest ways to make money. Ethiopia is Africa’s largest producer of honey and the Lalibela area, including Lasta, Bugna and Wag is reputed for its distinctive white and red honey, made from a local blossom of the sage plant family, known as Menteke tree and labiate. The white honey of the region, as that of Tigray, is the most praised in the country and is considered a delicacy. The honey in the region comes straight from the hives, as result it is not smooth and clear, retains all its natural antioxidants, amino acids, enzymes, carbohydrates, even sometimes dead bees. This makes it a difficult item to sell for foreign tourists. But locally, the demand for honey is really high and there is readily available market.
Alebel Shiferaw, who comes from Genete Maryam village, 22kms south east of Lalibela, said, “Beekeeping has become a good way to tackle the poverty and crop failures I encountered this year. Now I am keeping around five hives, and I produce enough honey to sell it in markets.” For Alebel, business is going so well he is now the principal breadwinner for his family. “This business is guaranteed. It requires very little capital. All that is needed is constructing beehive. When the beehive is filled with honey, the honey is then taken out and sold in the weekly Lalibela market on Saturdays.”
Honey has always had a special place in this ancient and historic town. The founder of the town, St Lalibela, a 12 century Ethiopian monarch renowned for the 11 rock-hewn churches he built, had a connexion with bees and honey. Legend goes that, a dense cloud of bees surrounded the Prince Lalibela at the moment of his birth. His mother chose for him the name Lalibela, meaning “the bees recognize his sovereignty”.
Beekeeping has always been an important activity in the area, as it does in the country. It is estimated that it employs up to two million people nationally. However, it remains largely untapped as an export industry. Experts say only ten percent of the potential is being exploited. The sector is affected by climate change, and poor infrastructure inhibiting access to markets. Most of the honey is still produced using traditional hives and many farmers lack modern technologies. Though the existence of some cooperatives, most individual farmers operate on a small scale, and are unable to determine the quality of their product and potential markets. Therefore, most of the honey is traded informally or used to produce tej, a popular alcohol drink in Ethiopia.

It is no surprise that bars selling honey wine are popular in Lalibela. One is Kassetch Tej Bar, located in small alley in Lalibela town. The bar serves Tej of varying strength to local customers and the Tej in this place has a kind of mead with a slightly bitter taste. The owner says it is because no sugar is mixed. “Just pure honey,” she says. When making Tej, a plant called Gesho is used which has the same effect as hops in beer, though there are also Tej prepared with no hops. A flask of Tej with hops is 5 birr while the other type is six birr.

There is great demand for honey from high-end restaurants, grocery stores in this much-frequented town. Susan Aitchison, owner of the upscale Ben Abeba restaurant in Lalibela catering mostly for European and American tourists, says she buys around six kilos of honey per week for the restaurant. “We often use honey instead of sugar. Because sugar could be difficult to get as it is government controlled. The sugar here is very course and is more and more expensive,” she says.

Susan says one of the popular products at her restaurant is crepe, which she says is invented at the restaurant, served with fresh banana, and local honey. “We don’t do lots of breakfasts. Because we don’t have accommodation yet. But every day, at lunch and dinner time, we give our clients jam, we give them honey. We also serve British-style scones with jam and honey, people love that. The honey here has a lovely flavour,” the Scottish lady says.
In Lalibela market, a jar of honey can fetch almost 80 birr. One kilo of honey costs around 300 birr. In the Addis Ababa market, however, prices vary with one kilogram of Lalibela and Tigray honey selling for 400 birr and other types being sold for as little as 90 birr. Why honey is so expensive in the region?

Tsegaye Melkayu is head of the Bugna region Beekeepers cooperatives, which has 26 members. He says honey has different varieties, “What bees feed on affects the honey they make. Some varieties are valued more for their taste, and others are harder to harvest and thus are priced higher. Smaller producers have to charge more to cover such as the high transport costs,” he says.
According to Tsegaye, the region’s beekeepers are strict in ensuring the honeys purity and potency. They would not in any way feed the bees with sugary syrup. The region, he says, in general has abundant crops and wildflowers that provide the nectar that bees turn into honey. But the lack of rain this past year has ravaged native plants and forced farmers to scale back crop production, leaving fewer places for honeybees to forage. With changing climate, prime tree growing areas in mountains are getting hotter and plants are suffering. Tsegaye’s concern is that regional governments are yet to acknowledge the threat and act to reverse the trend on the apiculture sector.
He called on the government to care more about Ethiopia’s burgeoning honey industry by increasing marketing activities and supporting beekeepers with training courses to improve the production process. In addition, Tsegaye believes that the high prices of beekeeping materials constrain beekeepers to opt for lower quality equipment to the detriment of the bee’s survival.
The Ethiopian government takes honey as one of the strategic products in the country aimed at increasing exports and has made one decision to improve the quality of the honey product in the country. It is helping to fund a new research institute and museum called the Lalibela Mar (honey) Museum in the town.

The head of project Dagnachew Girma walks me through the site being constructed on 84 hectares of land at the cost of 150 million birr. “The museum would have every collection of honey in Ethiopia,” he says proudly. However, it is not going to be only a showcase. “One of the first project would be to do a genetic analysis of the trees and the honey types. “ The museum expected to be inaugurated next June would house a honey processing and purification plant projected to be the most modern honey processing plant in the country, the project head says.
“The honey processing plant would have production capacity of 8 quintals in an hour and would be equipped with art of up-to-date systems of purification and has complete laboratory instruments for quality control. More than 325 people are working on the project to complete it on time,” he explains.
The museum would also have its research centre, finance and other offices, modern bee hives. The project is all financed by the Amahra regional state and the construction is being undertaken by the state owned Amhara Construction Enterprise. When the construction is completed, the project would be transferred to the Ethiopian Ministry of Animal Resources.
With this project the government is hoping to reclaim some of the lost ground in the sweet global honey market.

This past Sunday, I’ve had the chance to accompany a French couple to the north-east of the Awash National Park, around the Blen Hot springs. Taking the direction of Djibouti, we passed Awash Arba, a popular stopover with truck drivers in the late afternoon. We then passed a sleepy village called Andido, 267km from Addis. A number of low-rise nomad houses could be seen here and there. On the right side, there is a signboard indicating Alledeghe wildlife reserve area. We turned left instead and drove for six kilometres to find Animalia Lodge. The gravel road leading to lodge is in a good state. The area is dense with acacia woodland and savanna but it is extremely dry this year due to a lack of rainfall. El Nino is taking its toll here as it does throughout the country.We saw some animals all the same such as salt’s dik-dik and common warthogs on the way.

Animalia Lodge is located on a rise overlooking a large area of reed beds to the north. It is owned by Dimitri Assimacopoulos, son of the late Madame Kiki, owner of the Buffet d’Aouache in Awash Saba. Seven bungalows well equipped with private showers are scattered in a big compound and a veranda and a restaurant, is situated overlooking into a vast plain.
At the lodge, we took an Afar scout and took on the direction of Bilen hot springs. The birding is excellent with many interesting species in the nearby wetland, and on the grounds. We saw a flock of Ethiopian swallow and carmine bee-eaters at the springs. We saw an Arabian Bustard from a close distance. Mammals are also good, we saw Gerenuk, a gazelle with very long slender neck as well as commoner species such as Warthog. The surprise of the day was a handsome black-backed jackal, who stood close to our Land Cruiser unafraid for a couple of minutes.

Back at the hotel, we had dinner which combined Greek, and Ethiopian cuisine. Very generous in their servings. We had a pleasant conversation with the owner. Dimitri has very pale skin. He is descended from Greek family, his grandfather having immigrated to Ethiopia during the Emperor Menelik’s time. Soft-spoken and intuitive, he proudly talks how his father, who was born in Dire Dawa, served Ethiopia at the front in the war during the occupation, participating in a battle in Alemaya forest, and later established the Awash National park. Dimitri today is a legal hunter, running a company called Libah Hunting and Photo Safari with his wife Zafi and his son Ioannis. He seemed deeply resentful that the Alemaya administration unfairly took away the hotel that belonged to his aunt.
The following morning we left at dawn to check out the nearby Alledeghe Wildlife Reserve Area, which is a proposed national park. We saw several Soemmering’s gazelle and five Somalia ostriches on the expansive plain. The Gravy Zebra, the largest zebra, is normally elusive, but nearly every local I meet has seen one. In fact the region is considered one of the few places to spot the animal in the wild. Though we don’t see the zebra, I now have a list of reliable “hot spots” to check on a return visit. Luckily, the side-striped jackal, isn’t as elusive this day.

Following lunch in the company of an Afar scout we drove back down the access track to explore some open sandy areas around a waterhole and adjacent thorn scrub. Highlights included a line of 25 beisa Oryx.

On our way back to Addis, we made a stop Buffet d’Awash. Tucked away behind the principal road, away from the snarling traffic of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti road in Awash town, the Buffet d’Aouache (the French spelling of Awash) is a famous landmark. As the author of Bradt Ethiopia Guide observed, the place is an unexpected gem, with its renovated whitewashed colonial architecture draped in flowering creepers.

The owner Madame Angèle Assimakopoulos, popularly known Madame Kiki passed away two years ago. Now the daughter, Spiridoula, is running the place. Buffet d’Aouache was built by the Franco-Ethiopian Railway Company in 1920s along with railway line linking the port capital of Djibouti with Addis Ababa. The restaurant and hotel was later taken over by Madame Kiki and attracted train passengers who relished a hearty dinner. Among prominent personalities who dined at the restaurant and slept at the hotel were Emperor Haile Selassie (Some version has it that Madame Kiki was Emperor’s mistress) General De Gaule, and Tito. The restaurant’s heyday come to an end when the railway fell into despair. But still a less famous crowd, locals, tourists, and office workers take in the atmosphere and the range of food on offer.

With her intense beats and sorrowful-soft voice, Helen Berhe has a natural flair for flow. Her popular tunes have made her a hit at home and the booming community in the Diaspora. The single that made Helen famous, Uzaza Allina may have been a cover, but she added a new line of melody to stand alongside the famous track, by the Sudanese singer Nada Algesa. Her first album contained original tracks, capturing a lush, modern feel, filled with tracks like “Tasfelgeghalh” (I need you) and “Lebe.” Helen’s angst over love, men, also found its ways into slow, evocative hymn-like professionals.
Helen was the type of child who was curious to try everything. She moved a lot in her childhood. Born in Wollega Arjo Gudetu, where she did her primary education, she later moved to Negele Borena where she lived for two years. She eventually headed to Addis Ababa to attend high school at Menen High School. In her youth, she sang, acted, danced. She credits her mom for giving her the music bug from an early age. “She instilled a love of performing on the stage in me, and never discouraged my dreams or goals.”
The career of singer, performer and accomplished dancer Helen Berhe began in earnest few years ago when she did her first tape, Yene Fikir, which was aired on Ethiopian Television. It was a hot tune that showcased her stunning voice and vivacious dance moves. She soon found herself in great demand, being asked to sing at parties, and eventually at clubs around the capital. She was feted by musicians such as Eyob and Shewanday Hailu, who took her on tour to Europe as support artist.
Her debut album, Tasfelegnaleh, was released at the end of 2010, which took three years to complete. Packed with heavy weight musicians like Abegaz Kbrework and Wondimeneh Assefa, the record was a critical favourite and well-rounded pop starter kit. With the release of this album, she threw together soft, melodic beats, with brooding lyricism, combining sound from Eastern and Western music. Many saw Helen perform live, and few came away untouched by her magnetism, wit and warmth of spirit. She was a generous musician, infecting everybody on stage with her effervescence, her charismatic personality, and her sensual dances.
Although Helen isn’t a household name just yet, she’s undoubtedly on her way, with her upcoming full-length second album. Helen told Ethiopia Observer that she’s been stressing about putting the finishing touches on her sophomore album, due in February or March. The album that has been in the making for the past three years and her stage presence is to make her at the top of the game.

Foreign currency shortages will not affect the ongoing construction of Africa’s largest hydro-power dam, Ethiopian government official said. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the blue Nile river, begun four years ago, is feared to be delayed due to current shortages, but Dr. Debretsion Gebremichael, head of the national council for grand renaissance dam told Hibre Beir, the pro-government news magazine that the renaissances dam and Gil Gilgibe III are high priority projects and enough money is allocated to them.
Though admitting that the crunch in foreign exchange provision would pose obstacle for the construction of vital infrastructure projects, Dr. Debretsion said there is no way that the dam would be stopped. He told the Amharic magazine that the dam is half-done and 16 generators are installed to produce 6,000 MW. Though it was initially planned that the two generators would start producing 750 MW, that would not happen because of the expansion activity going on the overall project. “It is hard to predict the time because it depends on how long it would take us to fill the reservoir. To do that we have to see the interest of Egypt and Sudan,” Dr. Debretsion was quoted as saying.
Ethiopia’s decline in foreign exchange reserves has been a prevailing theme for years, despite efforts from various parties to maintain the balance between supply and demand. Reports say the country could be in for intense hardships in the not too distant future as the Ethiopian birr plummet in value. The business weekly, Addis Fortune, reported last week that the foreign currency shortage has now reached unbearable proportions, to the extent of affecting medicine import. The paper wrote that some of the lifesaving prescriptions would be unavailable across the country’s drugstores. Economic experts have argues that the major cause of forex shortages is the imbalance between a strong growing economy—as indicated by the strength of retail spending, construction and other domestic sectors—and a relatively weak export sector that depends on a small number of traditional products whose prices are subject to international trends and pressures.
In another news, Addis Ababa merchants heading to Dubai complained that their properties were confiscated under the pretext of fighting possession of foreign currency. Custom forces have been conducting raids in Addis Ababa airport in search of dollars amid the worsening currency crisis. The raid is aimed at seizing hold of illegal foreign currency tucked away by those engaging in private market commerce, according to custom personnel.

The Selam Festival Addis’ 5th edition held in Addis Ababa this weekend brought music, dancing, and circus to the shaded area at the Ghion Hotel. Despite heavy rain, the festival brought together a number of participants with its offer of buzzing bazaar with merchandise, food, family activities. Among the event that we captured was a group of mere spectators delivering an exciting dance to Yegna, an all-girl Ethiopian acting and pop group, tune. The girl in the group is a rare find.

A hand grenade attack injured eight in a university in western Ethiopia, official said, the third such attack in the country in a month.
An attacker threw the grenade at students on the campus at Jimma University in the Oromia region on Sunday evening, officers added. “The blast wounded eight students and security guards at Kito-Furdesa campus of Jimma University,” an Oromo Peoples’ Democratic Organization (OPDO) official in the town, Getachew Tamrat, told the Amharic Reporter newspaper.
He said some anti peace elements are trying to create chaos and disturbance in an area, about 352 km southwest of Addis Ababa. The paper said two suspects were in police custody, without giving further details.
The attack took place a week after grenade was thrown at students on the campus at Dilla University and another bomb thrown at worshippers in a mosque in Addis Ababa.
Demonstrations by people from the Oromo ethnic group have been sparked by fears that Oromo farmers could be displaced. Human rights groups have estimated that at least 140 people were killed by security forces during the protests.
In a related news, the ruling party in the Oromia region said it was dropping the plan following discussions with local people. The OPDO made the decision after three days of talks, according to reports. The OPDO, along with the Addis Ababa city authority, would have been responsible for implementing the “master plan”.

To support its accelerated development, the Ethiopian government has given goodwill undertakings to attract foreign, mainly American, investors, currently conspicuous by their absence, the Indian Ocean newsletter (ION) wrote.According to the Paris-based ION, they are currently working on an amendment to allow the establishment of foreign chambers of commerce in Ethiopia. “The government wants to show its commitment to foreign entrepreneurs that it is listening to some of their demands – evidenced by the efforts of the Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom. He recently persuaded the Justice Minister Getachew Ambaye and the director of the Ethiopian Investment Agency (EIA), Fitsum Arega, that that Ethiopia should review its legal framework to facilitate the business environment,” ION reported. This initiative follows the official visit on 28 July 2015 by US President Barack Obama. He had then informed Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn that before US corporations can establish in Ethiopia, he should pass laws to give a legal status to business organisations and ensure their independence vis-á-vis the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce, according to ION. Barack Obama also made improved intellectual property protection a condition for the establishment of US companies. “He did not appreciate seeing in Addis Ababa counterfeit versions of large US chains such as Intercontinental, KFC and Starbucks Coffee,” the ION stated.

The Ethiopian government dismissed media reports that country is negotiating with neighbouring Sudan on the long-standing border issue between the two countries. The Sudan Tribune reported last week that the technical committee tasked with redrawing the border between Sudan and Ethiopia said it would complete its work on the ground during this year. However, the Ethiopian government communication Affairs office told the weekly Addis Admass that the Ethiopian government is not aware of any border deal taking place. Representative of the communication Affaires office, Ato Mohammed said despite some biased Sudanese media reports and official discourses, there is no such thing as border negotiations taking place with Sudan. “We are not negotiating behind closed doors and the reports were baseless,” he said.
However, the Sudan Tribune wrote last week Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and Sudan’s President Omer al-Bashir instructed their foreign ministers to set up a date for resuming borders demarcation in November 2014. The Paris-based Web site quoted the head of the technical committee Abdalla al-Sadig as saying that the border demarcation between Sudan and Ethiopia doesn’t face any problems and the process of demarcation is proceeding properly. The length of the border with Ethiopia is about 725 km and farmers from two sides of the border between Sudan and Ethiopia used to dispute the ownership of land in the Al-Fashaga area located in the south-eastern part of Sudan’s eastern state of Gedaref. Al-Fashaga covers an area of about 250 square kilometers and it has about 600.000 acres of fertile lands. Sudan’s foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour reportedly said that Ethiopia is committed and acknowledges that Al-Fashaga is a Sudanese territory. Ghandour told the Qatar-based Aljazeera TV that Sudan and Ethiopia are working together to curb the activities of Ethiopian gangs inside Sudanese territory.

A magnitude-4.3 earthquake struck the lakeside city of Awassa, the southern region’s capital, on Sunday evening.
The earthquake that shook Awassa town Sunday evening was felt in the nearby towns such as Shashemene, Alaba Kulitu and Yirgalem, according to various reports. The earthquake lies at a depth of 10 km, said the GEOFON program.
The earthquake knocked items off shelves and walls in Awassa, jolting the nerves of residents in this earthquake-prone region.The town experienced intense and prolonged tremors, according to some version, five times, causing panic in areas. “The quake was felt very strongly for two seconds,” a business owner in the town said. “Residents panicked and rushed out of their homes.”
As of writing, no official reports of significant damages to infrastructures or any reports of casualties and injuries have surfaced. However, local residents told Ethiopia Observer that ambulance sirens were heard throughout the town, especially transporting injured students from the Awassa University main campus. A lecturer at the University told Ethiopia Observer that a number of students were hurt following a stampede while trying to escape the dormitories and libraries occasioned by earthquake. Mayor of Hawassa town, Tedros Gelil, told state media that about 100 students sustained minor injuries.
There were reports of scattered power outages in Awassa and surrounding towns last night.
Awassa, 275km south of Addis Ababa and 25km south of Shashemene, is situated on the main Ethiopian Rift Valley, which is a hotbed of tremors and active volcanoes.
Experts say the Ethiopian Rift Valley contains evidence of recent and ongoing geological activity in the form of young volcanoes, fresh fault scarps, steaming vents, pulsing hot springs and occasional earthquakes.

Maré is a singing Azmari (wandering minstrel, or praise-singer to be precise). He lives in Abergina, one of the rare villages high in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia. He, like many of the farmers in the region, has to scrape a living from his steep and sometimes unfertile patches. He raises his five children cultivating barely in this hostile and eroded terrains. To supplement his income, he trudges along quite creeks and hollows in search appreciative audiences, carrying his masenko (single-stringed fiddle). When he finds one, he quickly delivers his ready-made lyrics using the time honoured Semina ena work (wax and gold) technique to compliment his spectators. He improvises lyrics about the beauty of this rugged and beautiful scenery and the rare animals that are found such as Abyssinian wolf and Walia Ibex, making references to mountain peaks such as Imet Gogo, Sanka Ber, Amba Ras.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The drought relief effort in Ethiopia needs about $500 million to fund programs beyond the end of April to support 10.2 million people facing critical food shortages this year, the U.N. World Food Programme said on Thursday.
Ethiopia is battling one of its worst droughts in decades that in parts of the country eclipses the 1984 crisis, when rain failures and conflict caused famine that killed an estimated 1 million people.
This time, the Horn of Africa nation is at peace and has an economy that has grown rapidly for more than a decade, helping the government put in place agriculture, health and social programs to build resilience against lean periods.
But the scale of this drought, blamed on the El Nino weather phenomenon, is even overwhelming those measures.
“We are really on the cliff’s edge as we speak,” WFP Country Director John Aylieff told Reuters, saying the $500 million had to be raised by the end of February so resources could be in place by the end of April.
“It’s a really tall order for donors to suddenly mobilize the immense amount of resources needed for the Ethiopian crisis this year. I would also say it is a tall order for the mother in the highlands of Ethiopia to watch her children waste away.”
The government, WFP and a group of charities such as Save the Children are working on the relief effort. The government is already spending about $300 million and other funds have come from the United States, Canada, European states and others. About $38 million was committed this week, the WFP said.
But more is needed when international aid budgets are stretched by crises such as the Syria conflict.
An estimated $1.4 billion is expected to be spent in 2016 to cover relief food and other requirements in Ethiopia. But some experts say that estimate may prove inadequate, after rains failed in 2015 and with the 2016 outlook unclear.
Ethiopia has tried to prepare for such times, given 80 percent of its people rely on farming, mostly rain-fed.
One initiative is the Productive Safety Net Programme, which helps about 7.9 million people deemed to be chronically food insecure by providing food or cash transfers in return for community works. Now an additional 10.2 million are struggling.
The government has dug into strategic food reserves, but the cost of the effort is a major burden for a nation which is still one of the poorest per capita in Africa despite a fast growing economy.
Aylieff said the relief effort had stabilized the situation from August when there was a spike in new cases of malnutrition, with 43,000 children admitted for treatment for severe acute malnutrition in a single month.
“Unless we can sustain a solid relief response in Ethiopia, we risk going back to a situation of spiking severe acute malnutrition,” he said.

Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Health Minister Tedros Adhanom is running for the World Health Organization’s top post. Tedros, who served as Ethiopia’s health minister from 2005 to 2012, is campaigning for director-general of the United Nation’s public health agency to replace departing head Dr Margaret Chan who will leave office in June 2017. The Executive Council of the African Union today approved the candidature of Dr Tedros for the post.
The nomination won backing from the US and UK, according to reports.The backing from the US and UK is significant because Dr Tedros might face competition from Senegalese’s health minister, Awa Marie Coll Seck whose profile was boosted after her country’s success against Ebola.Senegal voted against the candidature of Tedros.
Dr. Tedros took up foreign affairs post in November 2012. He gained national prominence when, as minister of health, instituted a number of popular programmes and oversaw the introduction of the 30,000-strong health extension worker programme that focuses on child and maternal mortality. It has brought about a 40 percent reduction in the under-five mortality rate during the past five years.
In 2011, he was the first non-American recipient of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award. In March 2012 he received the 2012 Honorary Fellowship from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
As a researcher on malaria, Dr. Tedros has co-authored numerous articles on the subject in prominent scientific publications, including Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, The Lancet, Nature and Parasitologia. One of his key contributions to this field was a study of malaria incidence among children living near dams in northern Ethiopia which was published in the British Medical Journal in 1999.
Dr. Tedros holds a doctorate of philosophy in community health from the University of Nottingham in 2000. He obtained a master of science degree in immunology of infectious diseases from the University of London in 1992 and completed his undergraduate studies in biology at Asmara University in 1986.