Authentic food, costumes and music are planned at a Jan. 22 fundraiser for Corvallis' sister city in Gondar, Ethiopia.

Proceeds will benefit educational projects in Gondar, including teacher training, a computer lab to enhance learning, a science lab, school libraries, and a mobile library with connections to the Benton County Mobile Library.

The Ethiopian Cultural Dinner and Auction is set to begin at 5 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, at the First Congregational United Church of Christ, 4515 S.W. West Hills Road in Corvallis.

More than 600 passengers travelling to Nigeria from various destinations are now stranded in Addis Ababa following the cancellation of Ethiopian Airlines flights to Abuja and Lagos since Tuesday.

The cancellation of all flights to Nigeria was as a result of the ongoing nationwide strike against the removal of oil subsidy embarked upon by the NLC and the TUC.
The passengers, Sen. Hadi Sirika (CPC-Katsina), were on transit to Nigeria through Addis Ababa from China, Dubai and India among other countries.

African countries are too often lumped together as one big composite of grave statistics and chronic epidemics. Because of this, it’s especially important that the global development and reproductive health communities recognize and amplify those success stories that can be told. Especially when these stories are designed and driven by local efforts.

Less than 20 years ago, contraceptive use in Ethiopia among married women of reproductive age was a measly 3 percent, and maternal mortality rates were among the highest in the world. Today, contraceptive use is at 29 percent, double that of just five years ago and higher now than the level of contraceptive use in Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. It’s an exponential increase in record time. Maternal deaths have also dropped, and now occur at less than half the rate they were just a few decades ago.

Africa's musical influences continue to spread, even to Switzerland. When the Geneva-based trumpet-player Raphael Anker started listening to the Ethiopiques series of recordings, many of them from the 60s and 70s, he decided to begin playing his own versions. He's not the first musician to be impressed by the jazz, soul and funk of Ethiopia's golden age; it has inspired some great music from the likes of Dub Colossus and the Heliocentrics.