Ethiopia is trying to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the global initiative launched by Tony Blair in 2002. EITI advocates the disclosure of revenues earned by mining companies and governments from mining businesses.Member countries are obliged to reveal the amount of royalty income tax, and land lease they collected from each mining company. Mining companies are also required to publish the amount of revenue and profit they earned and all the fees they paid in the form of royalty, income tax and lease payments. Both governments and mining companies have to disclose relevant information to the media.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy last year launched the initiative. Hunde Meleka, head of the EITI’s implementation committee, told The Reporter that the ministry, which is firmly committed to implementing the initiative, has established a national steering committee. The committee has 17 memebers - 5 from the government, 5 from civil society, 5 from mining companies operating in Ethiopia, and two from others. “The initiative forces both governments and companies to be more transparent and the Ethiopian government has a firm commitment to join the initiative,” Hunde said.

Sudan Petroleum Corporation, the Sudanese oil producing giant which currently provides slightly over 80 percent of Ethiopia’s benzene consumption, is set to become the sole supplier of the commodity to Ethiopia. The state-owned oil company will as of next month start providing 100 percent of Ethiopia’s benzene consumption, following an agreement made earlier on between the two governments, Yigzaw Mekonnen, the CEO of the Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise, told The Reporter.

Ethiopia has been importing about 20 percent of its benzene consumption mainly from the Middle East via the Port of Djibouti (before Sudan Petroleum Corporation started supplying the balance five years ago). And the suppliers from the Middle East are big time corporations that make huge profits from the supply. But with the Sudan, the trade entertains a preferential treatment. This makes the benzene that comes from Sudan significantly cheaper.....

Bahrain's Gulf Air has announced plans to launch new routes to Ethiopia, Iraq and Iran, to be rolled out later this year.

Following the recent announcement that it would start services to Aden and Colombo, the carrier said it would add Addis Ababa, Basra and Isfahan to its network.

Gulf Air CEO Samer Majali services to Isfahan would begin on October 30 with three weekly flights while the Basra route would start operations the following day. Addis Ababa will be served from December 6 with five weekly flights.

"The launching of these five new destinations further demonstrates our new strategy to identify and serve niche and under-served markets and, create potentially high yield city-pairs by providing direct service to Bahrain and beyond," said Majali.

The Chinese government has granted scholarship for some 41 Ethiopian students. China's scholarship grants to Ethiopia have now reached 40 to 50 scholarships per year. Over the past years, more than 300 Ethiopian students have benefited from such scholarships.

The students who were granted scholarship to pursue their education in renowned Chinese higher education institutions received their university entrance certificates this week at a ceremony held at the Chinese Embassy in Addis Ababa.

The students who are scheduled to fly to China next month, will pursue their undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral study in fields such as civil engineering, architecture and business management.

During the certificate awarding ceremony, the Embassy’s Cultural Counselor Song Yanqun said that it is a significant step taken by the Chinese government to honor its commitments made at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

It's easy to take the Either/Orchestra for granted. The Boston 10-piece has been around for 25 years, putting out consistently excellent albums on its own Accurate imprint. But it's not an easy slog being in a band this size – it takes patience as well as a flair for scheduling, not to mention some creative accounting to keep the whole thing viable. It also takes a unique individual who is willing to play group parts, perhaps taking a solo only once or twice a night.

Because of these challenges, large outfits tend to have a bit of attrition, and E/O is no different, having such now-established players as drummer Matt Wilson and keyboardist John Medeski (of Medeski Martin and Wood) pass through the band before moving on to lead groups of their own. One thing that stays consistent is the steady leadership of saxophonist Russ Gershon.

"I think it would be hard to maintain a band like this in New York," Gershon points out. "There are too many opportunities for players of this talent down there. In Boston, there are fewer great gigs, so it's easier for me to keep a steady cast. Our band tends to be half people that have a family here and half people who are in school or just out who eventually plan to go to New York, but that's fine. It's kind of nice to have some turnover. It keeps things fresh."

Ethiopian Purchases 10 Pilot Training Jets and a Simulator - 06 August, 2010

Ethiopian Airlines is pleased to announce that it has signed a purchase agreement with Diamond Aircraft Industries GmbH of Austria for ten DA40NG pilot training aircraft and one D-SIM-40 stimulator. The aircraft will be equipped with the new Austro Engine AE300 power plant.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Mr. Girma Wake and Diamond Aircraft Industries' CEO Mr. Christian Dries signed the agreement on July 29, 2010. The total cost of the aircraft and simulator are valued at 3.7 million Euros at list price. The aircraft will be delivered in eight months time from the date of the agreement and the first four aircraft are scheduled to be delivered in November 2010.

According to the CEO Mr. Girma the decision to purchase the equipment was based on the airlines mission statement and core values to provide the highest training standards by investing on world class training equipments. He added, "The recent order will enable us to maintain our on-going training to the highest international level for our cadet flight crews."

Addis Ababa, August 6, 2010 (Addis Ababa) - The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) said the five year national growth and transformation plan would enable the nation to double the agricultural produces and the general economic growth by registering 14.9 percent growth on average.
In a press conference he gave here on Thursday the MoFED minister Sufian Ahmed said the five year plan would sustain the double digit growth of nation registered over the past five years on average.

He said the plan would facilitate for the industry sector to take the lead in the over all development activities in the country.

Sufian said the plan aims at expanding and ensuring quality health and education services towards meeting MDGs targets in the sectors.

The minister said the plan has also targeted to register fast and sustainable economic growth in which the industry sector would play significant role.

As populations grow and urbanize and demand for animal products increases, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization projects that the global meat and milk market will double by 2050. A number of developing countries are seeking to expand and industrialize their livestock sectors to compete in the international agricultural economy. Ethiopia is poised to join the race.

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It is reported that the premises of the former Eritrean Embassy in Addis has been given for two groups: one national and another inter -regional groups .It is said both groups are in a good relationship with the ruling party, EPRDF.

According to Sendike local Amharic weekly The Ethiopian government gave the two storey premises for the Ethiopian Youth Federation and for the Sana’a Forum respectively. The latter is an inter-regional forum comprises of: The Sudan, Yemen, Djibouti, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Concerning the forum, Eritrea accuses it as a club planning to topple the Asmara’s government by force. However, member countries denied the accusation and say it is simply a cooperative form of peace and stability in the region. The youth Federation that was established one year ago claimed ownership of the Embassy’s compound. The same compound used as head office of...

Coffee and khat exports earned Ethiopia close to 737 million dollars, which was 36.9pc of the total foreign exchange of two billion dollars that the country earned in the 2009/10 fiscal year with 36.5pc, 729.1 million dollars, coming from China.

Ethiopia’s foreign exchange income from exports for the year increased by 37.9pc to two billion dollars from last year’s 1.45 billion dollars, surpassing the 25pc the government had planned for.

Revenue generated by coffee and khat exports far exceeded that of last year, showing an increase of 40pc and 51.5pc respectively, while exports of leather and leather products plunged by 25.4pc.

The revenue from coffee, which was approximately 376 million dollars, increased to approximately 526 million dollars while the quantity increased from 134tn to 172tn. On the other hand, revenue from leather and leather products, which was 75.7 million dollars, went down to 56.5 million dollars.

The Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (ETC) was claiming to launch its GPRS services across the nation enabling the subscribers to receive as well as send text, visual, and audio-video massages from the Internet using GPRS Enabled Mobile Apparatus. According to the report 2.146 million customers are expected to get the service accommodation. Any yet, no triumphant signals are coming out of Tele.

Different mobile apparatuses have different kind of configuration system as their manufacturing companies vary. Here is a configuration for NOKIA, but for further GPRS configuration you are advised to visit etc.com.

Nokia configuration
Menu-setting-connectivity-chosen-packet data GPRS-packet data setting-edit activate access point or edit
Then Write APN as “etc.com” and activate.

Let me take you through a recent journey I had. As I was purchasing some coffee at a local bakery, I see who I assume to be an Ethiopian lady at the counter. Living in the DC area, this is not really a revelation, if I go a day without seeing an Ethiopian or an Eritrean would be a shock to the system these days. As I approached the counter to purchase my coffee, almost instinctively, I said “Selam” to her. Maybe it is because I lived in America for such a long time or the fact that I probably said Selam in my distinctive Americanized Amharic, whatever the queue, she looked up with almost a look of surprise and said “Habesha neh?”

At that exact moment, I paused. I wanted to answer in the affirmative, but I was once again caught off-guard with her word selection. Really, I should not be, the word Habesha is ubiquitous these days—almost everyone uses it right? However, reflexively, I resist that word as if I was a child forced to eat spinach. I wanted to say “No I am not Habesha, I am Ethiopian”, but of course the more diplomatic side of me answered “Yes, I’m Ethiopian”. I never denied her question about being Habesha, but in my own way, I revolted from that word and answered her question to let her know that I am in fact Ethiopian.

Here are your Top Chef previews for this week courtesy of Bravo, and while Wednesday's episode may not be as patriotic as the last few, it looks equally as entertaining (and delicious!).

The remaining chefs must tackle exotic Ethiopian cuisine for their Quickfire where Ethiopian-born –and Top Chef Masters 2 Winner– Marcus Samuelson will be at the helm to judge who gets it “right”.

For the elimination, the chef’testants are tasked with creating a dish based on one of the foreign embassies in D.C. where established chefs, ambassadors and dignitaries representing each country will all lend a hand in the judging.

With the competition coming down to the wire, the pressure is on to present a perfect representation of each country’s cusine –will the chefs follow through or fall short?‪

Washington DC (IANS / AV) US President Barack Obama has asked youngAfrican leaders to follow the example of Mahatma Gandhi and change themselves first if they wanted to bring about real change in the continent.

The first of its kind, Obama’s African Young Leaders Forum, August 3 to 5, is attended by 115 young African leaders including four Ethiopians. The four, Mahlet Eyassu, Salsawit Tsega, Meron Getnet and Yohannes Mezgebe were selected by the US embassy in Ethiopia.

‘Back in the 1960s, when your grandparents, great-grandparents were obtaining independence, fighting for independence, the first leaders, they all said they were for democracy,’ he recalled at a meeting Tuesday with 40 young leaders from across Africa.

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‘And then what ends up happening is you’ve been in power for a while and you say, well, I must be such a good ruler that it is for the benefit of the people that I need to stay here,’ Obama said at the White House meeting of Young African Leaders Forum.

APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) A prison building has collapsed in western Ethiopia, killing at least nine prisoners, while injuring dozens, Ethiopia police said here on Wednesday.

The prison collapse was attributed to the heavy rainfall in the area. It is reported that there were over 30 prisoners in the collapsed cell.

The current heavy rains in Ethiopia are causing a lot of damage in several parts of the country.

A few weeks ago, lightning killed three people and their livestock.