Ethiopia and its press The noose tightens (The Economist)

A RANKING that countries do not aspire to ascend is the one compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based group. It reckons that Ethiopia is Africa’s second-worst jailer of journalists, ahead only of its ultra-repressive neighbour and bitter enemy, Eritrea. Cementing its lamentable reputation, on August 4th Ethiopia briefly resumed the trial of ten journalists and bloggers, nine of whom it has kept in prison since April; one is being tried in absentia. The court proceedings are to start again in earnest on August 20th.

The ten are accused of several offences, including breaches of the country’s controversial anti-terrorism laws. These include having links to banned opposition groups and trying to cause instability via social media. The government says the journalists and bloggers are connected to two groups that it deems terrorist organisations: the Oromo Liberation Front, a rebel outfit that seeks a better deal for Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, which predominates in the south; and Ginbot 7, a leading opposition movement formed after widespread protests following Ethiopia’s general election in 2005.
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The arrests are part of a broader clampdown on the opposition and the media. In June Andargachew Tsigie, Ginbot 7’s exiled secretary-general, was detained in transit through Yemen and flown to Ethiopia. He had previously been sentenced to death in absentia in two separate trials.

On August 4th Ethiopia’s ministry of justice upped the ante by filing fresh charges against five magazines, a newspaper and their publishers, alleging that they were “engaging in incitements that could undermine national security” and promote discord. Readers view the five popular magazines, which have criticised government policies, as an alternative to the rosy narratives of state media. With a general election due next year, this seems to be making the ruling party twitchy.

Ethiopia, Egypt differ on Nile dam statement

"Egypt wants to discuss all the seven points of the communiqué but Ethiopia insists on discussing the 4th point alone," Fekahmed Negash, director-general of boundary and trans-boundary rivers at Ethiopia's Water Ministry said.

World Bulletin / News Desk
A 7-point statement issued following a June meeting between Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi on a controversial Ethiopian dam on the Nile is a new source of contention between Addis Ababa and Cairo.
While Egypt wants to discuss the seven points of the statement, Ethiopia insists on discussing only the fourth point about the resumption of the tripartite talks.
"Egypt wants to discuss all the seven points of the communiqué but Ethiopia insists on discussing the 4th point alone," Fekahmed Negash, director-general of boundary and trans-boundary rivers at Ethiopia's Water Ministry, told Anadolu Agency on Thursday.
Negash said that "Ethiopia will discuss only this point because the rest are related to bilateral relations between Ethiopia and Egypt and they need to be considered separately."
Set up in 2011, a tripartite technical committee was tasked with studying the impact of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the two downstream states.
The committee's activities, however, were suspended in January amid mounting tension between Cairo and Addis Ababa. But Addis Ababa, Cairo and Khartoum agreed to resume the tripartite talks on August 26.
In recent years, tension has marred relations between Ethiopia and Egypt over the former's construction of a major dam project on the upper reaches of the Nile River, which represents Egypt's primary water source.
Ethiopia says the dam is necessary for its national development plans. It insists the project won't impact Egypt's traditional share of Nile water, which has long been determined by a colonial-era water-sharing treaty that Addis Ababa has never acknowledged.

Ethiopian public cover 26 percent of cost

Some 26 percent of the total cost needed for the construction of a multi-billion dollar hydro-electric dam on the Nile are being covered by the Ethiopian public, an Ethiopian spokesman said Thursday.
"The public, including children, are showing interest to put their fingerprints on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD)," Fekadu Ketema, spokesman for the office of the National Council for Coordination and Public Participation for the Construction of GERD, told Anadolu Agency.
"The bond sale is well in progress and additional fundraising mechanisms including SMS and lottery awards are put in place side by side with the bond sale with a view to enabling all segments of the society to provide financial support to the dam construction," he said.
Ketema said that the fourth round of a bond purchasing program has already been launched.
"There is no shortage of money at all and such schemes are designed just to fulfill the interest of all Ethiopians to put their fingerprints on the dam," he said.
He went on to say that even Salini Construction Company, the Italian firm which is building the dam, has confirmed that "there is no financial shortage for construction of the dam."
Ketema expected that the 4.8-billion-dollar dam – of which 35.8 percent of its construction has completed – will be operational as scheduled.
Some 8750 employees are engaged in the construction of the dam with 2200 different types of machinery deployed to the site.

ጅብ ከሄደ ውሻ ጮኽ! WHAT? Ethiopia arrive in Brazil for two week tour

ይህ ዜና ተረት ይመስላል። የ አለም ዋንጫ ባለቀ በወሩ ዋሊያዎች ብራዚል ደረሱ። ለምን እንደሆን ዋናውን ዘገባ አንቡት
by Collins Okinyo 08 August 2014, 00:28
Ethiopia's Walia Ibex arrived safely in Brazil for a two week preparation tour ahead of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers where they are grouped with Malawi, Mali and Algeria.
The East Africans will play five friendly matches with local sides that include AC Anapolina Club Do Remo at the Arena Baenao Gama, Brasiliense at the Boca do Jacare stadium and the last friendly will be against Itubiara at the 30,000 seater JK stadium.
While in Brazil, the national team will stay at Hotel San Peter and will be training at one of the training centers that was used by the Brazilian national team during the World Cup.
Coach Mariano Barreto, his assistant Daniel Tsehai, team doctor Dr. Terefe Tafa, Physio Behailu Abera have landed in Brazil.
Jemal Tassew, Sesay Bancha, Ephrem Ashamo, Mesud Mohammed, Shemeles Tegegn, Andaregachew Yelake, Thok James, Abebaw Butako, Behanu Bogale, Mintesinot Adane, Akilu Ayanaw and Dawa Hottesa are some of the players already in Brazil.
Players leaving Addis Ababa on Saturday for Brazil include Minyahile Teshome, Asrat Megersa, Salahdin Bergecho, Shemelis Bekele, Fikru Teffera, Natnael Zelleke, Fitsum Gebremariam, Behailu Assefa, Adane Girma, Gathoch Panom, Fasil Tekalegne, assistant coach Haileselaise Georgis goal keeping coach and Yosef Tesfaye who is the team leader.
Teixeira who has 15 years’ experience working in football also helped organise last week's Ethiopia Walia Ibex International friendly that they lost 1-0 to Angola away in Luanda. He has also organized more than 250 football events around the world the last one of which involved taking Italian Seria A team Hellas Verona to make a stage in Brazil.
"It has taken a lot of effort to organise the friendlies for Ethiopia in conjunction with the federation. I have catered for all the expenses while the federation will only pay for the tickets to and from Addis Ababa. I am trying to help Ethiopia under their new coach Mariano Barreto to meet their objective of once again qualifying for the 2015 Afcon in Morocco."

US To Commit $800m To Ethiopia’s Economic Development

VENTURES AFRICA – The United States is committing $800 million to assist Ethiopia with issues of economic development, education, capacity building, health, among others.
Secretary John Kerry made this known on Tuesday when he met Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn before their meeting in Washington DC.
“Our relationship is strong and productive, and we’re very, very grateful for their leadership most of all at a difficult time in some difficult places,” said Kerry, who noted that Ethiopia has been at the forefront of helping to move the peace process in Sudan and South Sudan.
Desalegn also said Ethiopia was working assiduously to pacify the region, which, according to him is the “basis for all the engagements and economic development that take place.”
He noted that the East African country is seizing the opportunity presented by the US-Africa Summit and business forum to speak to investors as it seeks to attract investments into Ethiopia.
The country is also working very hard to fight terrorism and extremism, Desalegn says.
Ehthiopia’s economy has experienced strong growth over the past decade, averaging 10.9 percent per year in 2003/04 – 2012/13 more than double the regional average of about 5 percent, according to the World Bank.

The country is expected to continue its economic growth as it attracts investments from the US as it has from emerging markets, notably China, Turkey and India.
“However, in order to convert these interests into actual investments, Ethiopia must be more competitive by considerably reducing logistics cost and time,” noted Guang Zhe Chen, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia in a recent World Bank Group report.

እራሱ በራሱ ፎቶ ያነሳው ዝንጀሮ ጉዳይ የይገባኛል ጥያቄ ውዝግብ አስነሳ

የዚህ ፎቶ ግራፍ ባለቤት ማን ነው?
1ዝንጀሮው
2የካሜራው ባለቤት
3 ህዝቡ

።  የቦ ዶት ካም የቦ የጉዞ ወኪል

This photo was taken with the camera of nature photographer David Slater, and in any other situation, we’d have to pay serious money for the use of it. However, we’re using it for free — that’s right, we are paying no dollars for it — because that monkey stole Slater’s camera and took his own photo, therefore holding the copyright and releasing the photo into the public domain. Slater, however, doesn’t see it that way, and recently filed a suit against Wikipedia for freely distributing the monkey selfie.

Wikipedia’s Creative Commons contains thousands of free images, and in the past three years since the monkey selfie was published, its editors have kept uploading the macque’s photo under the argument that the monkey is the original copyright holder “because it was the one that pressed the shutter button,” The Telegraph reports. And unless the monkey suddenly becomes litigious, the image will remain in the public domain. (Most countries would agree with this interpretation, with many outright stating that photos must be created by humans in order to receive copyright protection.)

However, Slater’s spending nearly £10,000 on a lawsuit against Wikipedia, arguing that the viral nature of the photo caused him to lose a lot of money in royalties, and we mean a lot:

“That trip cost me about £2,000 for that monkey shot. Not to mention the £5,000 of equipment I carried, the insurance, the computer stuff I used to process the images. Photography is an expensive profession that’s being encroached upon. They’re taking our livelihoods away,” he said.
“For every 100000 images I take, one makes money that keeps me going. And that was one of those images. It was like a year of work, really.”

When asked for comment, the black crested macque hurled its feces into the air.

UPDATE — 9:02 p.m. ET: We received an email from the Wikimedia foundation clarifying who, exactly, holds the copyright for the selfie:
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A photographer left his camera unattended in a national park in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. A female crested black macaque monkey got ahold of the camera and took a series of pictures, including some self-portraits. The pictures were featured in an online newspaper article and eventually posted to Commons. We received a takedown request from the photographer, claiming that he owned the copyright to the photographs. We didn’t agree, so we denied the request.

Why we didn’t agree:

We don’t agree that the photographer in question has copyright over the images. That doesn’t mean the monkey owns the copyright: it just means that the human who owns the camera doesn’t.

For example, under US copyright law, copyright claims cannot vest in to non-human authors (that is, non-human authors can’t own copyrights) — and the monkey was the photographer. To claim copyright, the photographer would have had to make substantial contributions to the final image, and even then, they’d only have copyright for those alterations, not the underlying image

Ethiopia Establishes Anti-Ebola Committee

The Public Health Institute has announced that Ethiopia has set up a National Committee to put in place a plan to prevent and contain any possible outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, which is currently spreading in West Africa.

A spokesperson for the Institute, Abel Yeshaneh, said the National Committee would draw up guidelines to prevent and contain Ebola and these guidelines would be made official shortly. According to information from the Institute, the Committee members will be from the Ministry of Health, Ethiopian Airlines and other stake holders.

Ethiopian Airlines, which operates an extensive flight network connecting West African countries to other parts of the world, has already announced it has put in place "precautions in connection with the outbreak of the disease in some parts of West Africa."

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