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LOOKING GLASS


LOOKING GLASS

A public phone around the Gofa Mebrat Hail area evokes memories of a bygone era when access to a global network was not a mere dip into one’s pockets. Telecommunication was introduced in 1894, with network interruptions during Italy's invasion. Ethiopia re-organised the Telephone, Telegraph and Postal services in 1941 and formed the Imperial Board of Telecommunications (IBTE) in 1952. Ethio telecom which has been divorced from the communications authority since 2010 currently has more than 74 million mobile subscribers.

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In-Picture

DIG ZONE

A fleet of heavy-duty excavators, bulldozers, and dump trucks lines the muddy banks of a river near the German Square area. The concentrated presence of machinery signals the scale and speed driving the city's Corridor Development Program. The aggressive infrastructure push is reshaping the capital's urban form, but the intensity of earthworks at the river's edge also exposes a fragile tension. Rapid transformation and environmental protection sit side by side, each pulling against the other...


In-Picture

BROKEN LIN

A heavily damaged utility pole lies across a pedestrian sidewalk in the Gofa Camp neighborhood, with loose wiring exposed and a crushed metal sheet fence nearby. The scene points to a disrupted urban landscape where basic infrastructure repair has lagged behind visible damage. The lingering wreckage underscores growing concerns over delayed responses to hazardous public property failures...


In-Picture

VEST WAIT

Revenues Bureau personnel, identifiable in branded vests and body cameras, stand in a dense commuter queue at the Qera taxi terminal. Their roles are rooted in field enforcement and policing the informal economy, yet their off-duty reality looks no different from the citizens they regulate. The capital's strained public transport system turns routine commuting into a shared struggle, where municipal employees and the wider workforce wait side by side, exposed to the same delays, congestion, a...