BULLDOZED! Buffet De La Gare. Alas, it is no more!

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It used to be the hangout for the ultra-hip of Addis. The place to see and be seen. Afework Tekele described it as “a small international café with all the trimmings that you find in such similar places, be it in Hong Kong, Paris or New York…You meet all kinds of people from all spectrum[s] of life. I think it is a kind of melting pot.” It was the centre of city life and “the hipster place of Addis Abeba in the 1970s and 80s.” Buffet De La Gare. Alas, it is no more! A casualty of development, it was bulldozed yesterday to make way for the La Gare Eagle Hills development.

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In-Picture

FROZEN FOCUS

A man and woman, cast in bronze outside Menelik II School in Arat Kilo, inhabit separate worlds, he buried in ink-stained pages, she captivated by the glow of a screen. Side by side yet divided by decades, their silent conversation bridges time, technology, and habit. The sculpture captures humanity's attachment to what's immediate, a nod to scrolling and screens, while quietly celebrating the near-vanishing ritual of reading. It's a frozen meditation on focus, distraction, and the delicate danc...

RECYCLING LEGACY

Lelise Neme, Director General of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), and Helen Debebe, State Minister at the Ministry of Urban & Infrastructure, take a closer look at recycled packaging displayed by Mador Packaging during the Circular Economy Hotspot Ethiopia 2025 at the Science Museum in Addis Abeba. The event showcased innovations in recycling and sustainable products, linking the green legacy ambitions with the practical realities of circular economy solutions...

CHAINED MEMORY

The marble gentleman of Addis Abeba, Piazza area stands eternally pensive, hand to chest as if swearing loyalty to an invisible audience. In reality, he is the statue of Abune Petros, the Ethiopian bishop executed by Italian forces in 1936 for resisting the Fascist occupation. Today, he gazes over a city jammed with traffic, bureaucracy, and high-rise ambitions, holding a broken chain that once symbolised defiance but now competes with satellite dishes and billboards. History wanted him rememb...

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