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Cherry-Picking Loyalty

Dec 28 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3688 Views

Every high-ranking officeholder takes an oath of office which, among other things, requires them to pledge allegiance an...

The Common Good

Dec 21 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      5080 Views

Alexandria, Bangkok, Basra, Mumbai, Shanghai and Ho Chi Minh City are some of the well-known cities in the wor...

A Post-Fact World?

The saying that we are living in a post-fact world is gaining currency. It is not difficult to see why. The hotly debated and fiercely contested issues in the world today are not argued on the basis of fact and provable logic. They are mostly based on emotional attachments to dog...

Dec 14 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      5381 Views

Wash Laundry in Public

This past week was dominated by the news of a seeming rift between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) and his long time ally and friend, Minister of Defense Lemma Megersa. Even though revolutionary comrades parting ways is not new, either on the international scene or closer to home...

Dec 7 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3231 Views

Cloudy With Brilliant Sunrise

I am not a big fan of importing cultural holidays from the West and commercialising them here in Ethiopia. But I also realise in this 21st century globalised world, it is impossible to stop the cross-pollination of cultures. If that is inevitable, the one American traditional hol...

Nov 30 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3863 Views

Innovation and Entrepreneurship: the Way Out

Two events that happened last week need to get more attention, as they may point a way out of Ethiopia's predicament. Both have to do with innovation and entrepreneurship. Ethiopian Minister of Innovation & Technology Getahun Mekuria (PhD) gave a press conference announcin...

Nov 25 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      4819 Views

A Post-Fact World?

The saying that we are living in a post-fact world is gaining currency. It is not difficult to see why. The hotly debated and fiercely contested issues in the world today are not argued on the basis of fact and provable logic. They are mostly based on emotional attachments to dog...

Dec 14 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      5381 Views

Wash Laundry in Public

This past week was dominated by the news of a seeming rift between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) and his long time ally and friend, Minister of Defense Lemma Megersa. Even though revolutionary comrades parting ways is not new, either on the international scene or closer to home...

Dec 7 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3231 Views

Cloudy With Brilliant Sunrise

I am not a big fan of importing cultural holidays from the West and commercialising them here in Ethiopia. But I also realise in this 21st century globalised world, it is impossible to stop the cross-pollination of cultures. If that is inevitable, the one American traditional hol...

Nov 30 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3863 Views

Innovation and Entrepreneurship: the Way Out

Two events that happened last week need to get more attention, as they may point a way out of Ethiopia's predicament. Both have to do with innovation and entrepreneurship. Ethiopian Minister of Innovation & Technology Getahun Mekuria (PhD) gave a press conference announcin...

Nov 25 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      4819 Views

The Case for Economic Emancipation

Studying the history of revolutions all over the world is an exercise in the study of failures. Almost all revolutions, perhaps with the exception of the American and the French revolutions, started with romantic visions of equality and prosperity for all and ended up replacing o...

Nov 16 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3887 Views

Federation not Confederation

The 1994 Ethiopian Constitution has been a bone of contention going on for more than two decades and a half now. Perhaps that should not come as a big surprise and should actually be expected. After all, the country's experimentation with constitutional government is quite young...

Nov 9 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3456 Views

Nuance Needed

It is not that simple. It is not black or white. It is all kinds of shades of grey. That is life. It is hard. But even a casual glance on social media results in a different reality. The back and forth there is straight forward. Everybody knows about everything with absolute c...

Nov 2 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3923 Views

Misunderstanding Civil Disobedience

I have a distinct memory of a conversation I had with a friend many moons ago. He is a few years older than myself and someone we looked up to. He was one of the top leaders in our district of the then-popular political movement the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Party (EPRP). Wh...

Oct 26 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      4049 Views

The Vicious Circle

The dictionary definition of a vicious circle is “a chain of events in which the response to one difficulty creates a new problem that aggravates the original difficulty.” That is a perfect description of the state of Ethiopian politics. For close to half a century now, it...

Oct 19 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      2936 Views

Commendable, Proceed with Caution

On Thursday, October 10, 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) along with several neighbouring heads of state inaugurated Unity Park. As it is a project that is very near and dear to him, something he has been intimately involved with, he has every right to feel satisfied with t...

Oct 12 , 2019      |      By Tibebu Bekele      |      3713 Views


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Editorial

Mistaking Development Theatre for Public Trust Has a Cost

May 30 , 2026

Tomorrow, millions of Ethiopians are expected to vote in the seventh national electio...

Tax Push Tests How Much Pain Taxpayers Can Bear

May 23 , 2026

An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team has spent weeks in Addis Abeba conducting t...

T-Bills Trap Begins in the Federal Government's Own Budget

May 16 , 2026

The federal budget tells a troubling story about inflation, debt and reform. The prob...

Every Encounter with the State Should Not Become an Invoice

May 9 , 2026

The Ethiopian state appears to have discovered a fiscal instrument that is politicall...

Sunday With Eden

When Ordinary Lives Rewrite Poverty

There are moments in life that leave people changed forever. A few days ago, I attended a conference at a religious inst...

A Ball, A Father, A Life-time of Memory

Football was never merely a game in our household. It was ritual, language and affect...

Life Matters

Beyond the Scoreline, How Foreign Football Becomes Local Identity

The recent celebrations in Addis Abeba following Arsenal's success were, to put it bl...

When Problem-Solving Fails Because the Shape Looks Different

We like to think of ourselves as pattern-recognition machines. From the moment the da...

Agenda

Ethiopians to Vote Under the Shadow of a Foregone Outcome

May 31 , 2026 . By NAHOM AYELE and YEABSIRA TAYE

Kassahun Follo's plan to keep an eye on the national polls set for Monday, June 1, 2...

When Bread Becomes Too Costly for Breakfast

May 23 , 2026 . By HELINA HADGU

For Helen Mekonnen, 45, bread has become the measure of how far a household income ca...

Quiet Campaigns Speak Loudly

May 17 , 2026 . By NAHOM AYELE

Genene Gedebu reached Kucha after the campaign season for the upcoming national elections opened, expecting to do what candidates do. The Pr...

Period Poverty Crisis Forces Women to Pay For Dignity

May 9 , 2026 . By HELINA HADGU and MASTEWAL ZEMENE

Luladay Abraham treats the arrival of her menstrual cycle less as a private inconvenience than as a month...

Gallery

Parliament Approves New Cabinet Members

Oct 6 , 2021

Parliament Approves New Cabinet, Incorporates Opposition Leaders Lawmakers have approved today the nominations of 22 ministers, including three opposition leaders. Two MPs have voted against, while 12 abstained...

2020 in Posterity

Jan 5 , 2021

TIGRAY VOTES DESPITE "NULL & VOID" THREAT

Sep 9 , 2020

IN-PICTURE: LAUREATE'S RECEPTION  

Dec 14 , 2019

PM Abiy Ahmed (PhD) at a Gala Dinner Called for the Awarding of the Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize

May 6 , 2019

Faces, Voices of Addis Abeba

Apr 26 , 2019

Commentaries

The Political Class Bet on Mega-projects, Pushed State Banks to the Brink

Ethiopia's developmental state experiment was less a model of economic discipline tha...

Taking Women Farmers Seriously

As the war in Iran disrupts fertiliser supplies and undermines food security around the world, the need t...

Fineline

Leaders of the National . . .

Leaders of the National Election Board are in a charm offensive mood, of a sort. Last week, they organised a rare tour for members of the me...

When the country’s most. . .

When the country's most senior diplomats and envoys return back to their posts after two-week debriefings, they leave behind a point or two...

Fortune news

Addis Abeba Vote Ending Peacefully Despite Pressure on Polling System

Jun 1 , 2026

By the time the last light faded over Addis Abeba, the pressure at some polling stati...

Electoral Board Extends Voting Past Deadline as Manual System Bottleneck Strands Voters

Jun 1 , 2026

The order came as dusk settled over most polling stations, turning what should have b...

Civil Society Monitor Finds Polling Broadly Accessible Across the Country

Jun 1 , 2026

Kassaw Amsalu (MD) stood in the dust outside the Yeka Health Centre, on Fikremariam A...

Logistical Triumphs, Bursts of Violence Shadow as Voters Head to the Ballot Box

Jun 1 , 2026

Inside the gleaming and high-ceilinged ballroom of the Skylight Hotel, on Africa Aven...