Happy Thanksgiving/መልካም የምስጋና ቀን

Ethiopia Seeks Tech Companies to Share Chinese Mobile Contract

Ethiopia Seeks Tech Companies to Share Chinese Mobile Contract

Ethiopia will give other companies parts of a telecommunications project it awarded to ZTE Corp. (000063) after a contract dispute with the state-owned Chinese company, Communications and Information Technology Minister Debretsion Gebremichael said.

The government has held talks with Helsinki-based Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) and Ericsson AB of Sweden about them taking over segments of the contract, which seeks to double mobile-phone network capacity in the Horn of African country and expand 3G coverage nationwide by June, Debretsion said.

“We’ve already started negotiations with Ericsson and Nokia,” he said by phone yesterday from the capital, Addis Ababa. “We didn’t sign as we have to close the issue with ZTE before getting into any other major contractual agreement.”

Neither ZTE nor Nokia immediately responded to e-mails seeking comment. Ericsson doesn’t comment on “rumors or speculations,” spokeswoman Elisabeth Mansi said by e-mail.

Ethio Telecom, the state-owned monopoly provider, in July 2013 signed deals worth $1.6 billion with ZTE and China’s Huawei Technologies Co. to improve Internet and phone services. In line with a previous ZTE contract, the companies agreed to provide most of the financing themselves from Chinese lenders.

ZTE’s work has been delayed by at least six months after it rejected a “mandatory” provision to upgrade existing infrastructure at no extra cost as it expanded networks, Debretsion said. Although the company has now agreed to the condition, other firms need to be involved to make up for lost time, he said.
Completing Work

Ethiopia to deploy 210 volunteers to Ebola-hit countries within two weeks

Nov 26,2014

ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopia on Tuesday announced that it will be deploying about 210 volunteers to Ebola-hit West African countries in two weeks.

Responding to the call of the African Union (AU) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in the country's commitment to the African solidarity, Ethiopia earlier pledged to provide support to the Ebola-affected West African countries by deploying health professionals, said Ahmed Imano, Director of Public Relations and Communication at the Ministry of Health.

Ahmed said the East African country had also pledged to provide

financial support amounting half a million U.S. dollars to support the intervention in addressing the epidemic.

To implement the pledge, Ethiopia has recruited the 210 volunteers out of the 1,100 registered volunteers, according to the director, who was speaking to the press in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

The volunteers would be deployed in the three most affected countries -- Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

Ethiopia Hopes to Set World Record for HIV Tests

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Nov 25, 2014, 1:24 PM ET
Associated Press

Ethiopia is attempting to set a world record for the number of HIV tests carried out in one day.

The country's health officials said Tuesday they hope to break the record this coming weekend in honor of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The previous record for number of HIV tests carried out in one day occurred in Argentina in November 2012, when 1,380 people were tested. Ethiopian officials hope to carry out 2,000 tests.

The Ministry of Health said the tests would occur in the country's Gambella region, where 6.5 percent of residents have HIV or AIDS.

Dr. Warren Naamara, who is with UNAIDS, said some 800,000 Ethiopian have been infected with HIV since the outbreak of the disease in the 1980s. A quarter of those infected were children.

No Commnent (preaching goes wild ) ፓስተር ዳዊትና የገንዘብ ሰበካ አጋንንትን እያባረርሁልህ70ሺህ ሲያንሰኝ ነው

Post by Admas Keadmas.

ጥቁሩ ወንድማችንን የገደለው ነጭ ፖሊስ በነፃ ተለቀቀ/A St. Louis County grand jury has brought no criminal charges against Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown

CLAYTON, Mo. — A St. Louis County grand jury has brought no criminal charges against Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, more than three months ago in nearby Ferguson.

The decision by the grand jury of nine whites and three blacks was announced Monday night by the St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, at a news conference packed with reporters from around the world. The killing, on a residential street in Ferguson, set off weeks of civil unrest — and a national debate — fueled by protesters’ outrage over what they called a pattern of police brutality against young black men. Mr. McCulloch said Officer Wilson had faced charges ranging from first-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter.

Ethiopian to partner South Sudanese government in new carrier

Ethiopian Airlines (ET, Addis Ababa) has reportedly reached an agreement with the government of South Sudan over the establishment of a new national carrier there. CEO Tewolde Gebremariam told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that his airline will hold a 49% stake in the airline with Juba holding the remaining 51%.

Following a tender process in 2012, Atlasjet Airlines (KK, Antalya) was selected as the preferred partner for a new South Sudanese carrier only to pull out of the project in early 2013.

Since independence in 2011, South Sudan has seen a variety of start-ups with South Supreme Airlines (JUA, Juba), owned by local tycoon Ayii Duang Ayii, the most prominent.

For its part, the establishment of a carrier in Central Africa is in line with Ethiopian's strategy of setting up subsidiaries in Africa's West, South and Central/East regions to provide feeder services to its Addis Ababa intercontinental hub.

Thus far, Ethiopian's regional operations include ASKY Airlines (KP, Lomé) based out of Togo and Malawian Airlines (3W, Blantyre) based out Malawi. Ethiopian has also announced plans to develop a carrier based out of Kinshasa N'Djili though the status of that project is currently unknown.