Meteorologists tracking Sagar, a relatively rare tropical storm that strengthened as it crossed the entire Gulf of Aden, are expecting landfall on Saturday near the Djibouti-Somalia border. It has potential impacts for Ethiopia too as it reaches the Horn of Africa. Flash floods were reported in the Bari region of…
Asfawossen Asrat is professor of geology, School of Earth Sciences at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Nelson Torto is executive director at The African Academy of Sciences in Nairobi, Kenya. What they have in common – along with 10 other scientists from the Global South – is a concern over…
Senior United States official for African Affairs Ambassador Donald Y. Yamamoto, the country’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, is making a rare visit to the politically isolated Eritrea Monday before moving on to Djibouti and Ethiopia. In Asmara, Yamamoto is meeting with U.S. embassy staff as well as the wider diplomatic…
The African nations on the United Nations Security Council voted in favor Tuesday of Russia’s resolution on the chemical weapons situation in Syria which – along with one introduced by the United States – failed to pass. It was the latest in the long struggle to achieve consensus and act…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Abiy Ahmed, the head of the Oromo Peoples Democratic Organization (OPDO), has been named the new prime minister of Ethiopia and its ruling EPRDF coalition. Abiy’s election was confirmed Wednesday after he received 108 votes from Ethiopia’s ruling council of 180 seats. Forty-five of them come from the OPDO, which…
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of the United States will travel next week to Addis Ababa, where he will meet with the Ethiopian government as well as with leaders of the African Union Commission. Tillerson’s visit is part of a five-nation tour that begins March 6 and runs through March…
Ethiopia declared a three-month state of emergency beginning today, the state Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) announced Friday. The move follows the sudden resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and his departure from the chairman role of the EPRDF party on Thursday. The state of emergency will leave the military in…
The release of Oromo opposition leader Bekele Gerba was met Tuesday with a hero’s welcome in Adama and celebrations across the Ethiopian diaspora as the ailing prisoner arrived at his home. Bekele Gerba and six other high-profile opposition leaders were released one day after the Ethiopian government said they were…
International NGO Amnesty International has welcomed the news that political prisoner Eskinder Nega is listed among 746 prisoners in Ethiopia set to be released as part of a government pardon, yet it joined other democracy and human rights advocates in pressing for an end to all such cases. “It is…
Ethiopia on Monday said it was dropping charges against 528 political prisoners, the first such group since a decision announced earlier this month to release political prisoners. Among them is Merera Gudina, the Oromo scholar and longtime opposition leader. State-owned Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), FANA Broadcasting and other news outlets…
President Isaias Afwerki denied the presence of any Egyptian troops in Eritrea on Sunday, amid heightened regional tensions that have led Sudan to deploy additional troops on its side of the border. Afwerki’s remarks came during a broadcast interview with state media Eri-TV and Radio Dimtsi Hafash. He called the…
Women from Kenya and Nigeria are among five people singled out as everyday heroes by philanthropist Bill Gates in a recent post on his popular Gates Notes blog. “No masks or capes but these heroes are saving the world,” writes Gates before listing Segenet Kelemu and Adaora Okoli among them….
Tensions in the Horn of Africa are drawing attention to the border between Sudan and Eritrea, raising new concerns – and not a little complexity – about regional instability, and the diplomatic and security touchpoints that have implications extending across the Middle East. Sudan announced a border closure in Kassala…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times
Ethiopia’s decision to release all political prisoners and close the infamous Maekelawi detention center is welcome news, but it’s also been met with guarded optimism about what that will mean. “Ethiopia has promised to release all political prisoners, among whom the Oromo are the overwhelming majority, but we can’t take…
There’s one thing readers and viewers can count on as the year winds down, and that’s a deluge of “Year in Review” stories and posts. The political changes, the celebrity news, the economic issues – media outlets contribute their take on what shaped our days and the shared history of…
Laureen is the editor of Africa Times