· October, 2006

Stories about Ethiopia from October, 2006

Ethiopia: clash over trademark

  30 October 2006

Ethan discusses the clash between the Ethiopian government and Starbucks over trademark, “Last year, the Ethiopian government filed trademark applications to protect the names “Sidaro”, “Harar” and “Yirgacheffe” – the hope was to prevent unscrupulous coffee dealers from buying inexpensive beans from other countries and selling them as “Sidaro”, whether...

Ethiopian blogger scoops mainstream media

  27 October 2006

The story broke at 12.42 pm. An Ethiopian human rights activist, another unnamed Ethiopian and two senior officials from the European Commission had been arrested that morning close to Ethiopia's border with Kenya. The report from Ethiopian blogger Ethio-Zagol named the activist as Yalemzewd Bekele and the two European officials...

Ethiopia: this was a massacre

  26 October 2006

The Sub-Saharan Africa Roundtable declares, “This was a massacre,”: “Ethiopia struck me as a story of crucial importance. Parliamentary elections had just been held on May 15, and the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy charged fraud upon the announcement of the results. Anti-government demonstrations transformed into riots, which Ethiopian...

Ethiopia: human rights lawyer arrested

  25 October 2006

“Yalemzewd Bekele, a prominent human rights activist and a lawyer working for the European Commission in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, was arrested on the morning of 19 October by the Ethiopian authorities, while trying to cross the border to Kenya with another Ethiopian,” reports Ethiopian Life, Politics, Culture and...

Africa: using soccer to fight AIDS

  25 October 2006

All African Bazaar writes about a non-profit organization, which uses soccer to fight AIDS in Africa, “Founded by Tommy Clark,MD, Grassroot Soccer became a registered 501(c)3 charitable organization in 2002. Dr. Clark conceived of the idea after having played soccer professionally in Zimbabwe. During that time he witnessed first hand...

Ethiopia's bloggers emerge refreshed after rainy season

  11 October 2006

Ethiopia's bloggers emerged refreshed from their long rainy season with a series of dazzling posts on everything from Somalia to stolen secondhand books. For once there was no unifying theme – because there was just so much to catch up on as the sun came up after four months of...

Ethiopia: publicity war over a port

  11 October 2006

Meskel Square writes about publicity war over a port:”Once upon a time Ethiopia only had access to one port. If you wanted to get your goods delivered in bulk, you had to pack them in containers and send them through Djibouti. Then Ethiopia did a deal with Somaliland and its...

Africa: rice and neo-colonialism

  8 October 2006

What has rice got to do with neo-colonialism in Africa? Mining Exploration has the answer: “Africa is home to 8% of the world’s oil reserves, which has prompted Beijing to spend billions of dollars to secure drilling rights in Nigeria, Sudan and Angola and to negotiate exploration contracts with Chad,...