THE $200 million new headquarters of the African Union – a gift from China – is another confirmation of the continent’s inability to get things done by itself. Almost 50 years after the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, OAU, the AU’s forebear, the continent could not afford the AU’s new edifice that has cast a permanent role for China in Africa.

Disgraced Libyan despot Moammar Gadhafi could be largely thanked for the new building. As AU Chairman in 2009, he was planning to move the AU’s headquarters from Addis Ababa to his native Sirte. The Ethiopians, who have been close to China, secured the AU headquarters with the offer from China, which built and furnished it.

Addis Ababa has been Africa’s diplomatic capital since the formation of the OAU in 1963. The choice of Addis Ababa was mostly because of the influence of the late Emperor Haile Selassie, one of the driving forces behind creation of the OAU.

THE national women soccer team, Twiga Stars coach, Boniface Mkwasa was delighted to learn that his team next opponents in the Africa Women Championship (AWC) qualifiers would be Ethiopia, but said they will not underrate them.

Ethiopia cruised to the next round and booked a corresponding date with Twiga Stars after dispatching Egypt on Sunday. The Horn-of-Africa ladies nicknamed 'Dinkinesh' defeated their Egyptian counterparts 4-0 in the return leg match to advance to the first round on a 6-4 aggregate score.

They lost the first leg away in Cairo 4-2. And, Mkwasa insisted on Tuesday that the objective is to make it to the finals in Equatorial Guinea, saying further that he is confident Twiga Stars can get that far despite the problems that had faced the team in the past.

School as he arrives for a ceremony to open the new library. UN Photo/E. Debebe
31 January 2012 –
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon celebrated the benefits that books can bring to young people as he opened a library at an Ethiopian primary school that has been established under an innovative United Nations scheme.

At a ceremony yesterday in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, Mr. Ban took part in the hand over of a “Thank You Small Library (TYSL),” which will now be used by the roughly 1,200 pupils attending Keykokeb primary school.

Ban Ki-moon said “confronting discrimination is a challenge”
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged African leaders to respect gay rights.
Discrimination based on sexual orientation had been ignored or even sanctioned by many states for too long, Mr Ban told an African Union summit.
Homosexuality is illegal in many African countries – a situation which has drawn increasing criticism from activists and the West.

President John Evans Atta Mills at the weekend unveiled the statue of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President at the forecourt of the new African Union (AU) building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

He was assisted by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, out-going Chairman of the AU, and Dr Jean Ping, Chairman of the African Union Commission, moments after the building was inaugurated.

The building stands at the former site of Ethiopia’s maximum security prisons.
President Mills was the Guest of Honour at the ceremony, which was performed in the presence of a number of African leaders attending the 18th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the AU.

President Goodluck Jonathan who flew out of Nigeria Friday to attend African Union’s 12th Session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia appears set to emerge Chairman of the AU, a position already zoned to West Africa.

Feelers from Addis Ababa indicate that other members of the Economic Community of West African States where Jonathan is already its head are routing for him to emerge the next Chairman of the union in an election that will form part of the major highlight of the Summit.

The global trade in khat is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year and in one Ethiopian town daily life centres almost entirely around the drug.

Drive along any road between Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia and you are likely to see pick-up trucks, piled high with bundles of fresh green leaves, hurtling past you at terrific speed, horns blaring, lights flashing.

A bit like ambulances. Or fire engines.
Land at any airport and you will see planes stuffed with the same green leaves, being unloaded at a frenzied pace.
Whether there is war, drought or famine, the leaves get through. The khat industry booms.

African leaders have started arriving here for the 18th African Union (AU) Summit that will discuss measures of boosting intra-African trade amidst growing global economic uncertainty.

Equatorial Guinea President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo who is also the AU chairman on Saturday opened the 26th Summit of the New Partnership for Africa's Economic Development, Africa's blue print plan to fast track economic development.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame also attended the meeting that was opened by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.

Towering above the Ethiopian capital, cloaked in urban smog, the new Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is a bold symbol of China’s rapidly changing role in Africa.
Once seen as strictly interested in extracting raw resources and investing in infrastructure, China has interests on the continent that are increasingly shifting to investing in institutions and governments, experts say.
“China has always been seen as less good at dealing with regions and continental bodies,” said Alex Vines, Africa director of Britain’s international affairs think-tank Chatham House.

Deaths during childbirth in Ethiopia are expected to be halved thanks to a $43 million investment from the Australian government.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd on Friday signed an agreement promising the money over four years to help Ethiopia reach its millennium development goal targets on child health.

The cash is expected to dramatically increase the number of trained midwives from 2002 to 8635 and boost attended deliveries from 18 to 62 per cent.
The number of women who die during childbirth is expected to drop by half from 590 to 267 per 100,000 births, while infant deaths should fall from 59 to 31 for every 1000 births.

Petrol is already beyond the price range of many Africans while surging population levels should force governments in Asia to limit car use, political and business leaders said Wednesday.

While economic gloom in the Eurozone is the most immediate concern of delegates gathered here for the annual Davos forum, the challenge of feeding and powering an ever expanding planet is the main long-term headache.
As tensions with Iran and Nigeria once more raise fears about oil supplies -- and Japan's Fukushima disaster undermines the appeal of nuclear energy -- titans of politics and industry admit it is time for a radical reappraisal.

Former expat Charlotte Coleman-Smith reunited with old friends to take part in an Ethiopian charity run

We lived in Dublin for six months short of 10 years. During that almost-decade I made so many good friends that when we returned to the UK, at the end of August 2011, it was heart-wrenching.

My friends had watched our three children grow from babies to young boys, had been with me through so many milestones: first days at school, birthday parties, nativity plays, summer camps and moments of triumph and tears on the touchline of muddy pitches.

The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia on 25th January 2012 signed a membership agreement, making Ethiopia the 36th African country to join ACBF. The signing of this membership agreement reiterates the confidence of African nations about ACBF and signifies the political commitment of Africans to capacity development as the best endeavor to pull Africa out of poverty.

The Federal High Court third criminal bench today sentenced five defendants from life to 14 years imprisonment and fines after being found guilty of terrorism. The court passed life imprisonment on Elias Kifle, Editor-in-Chief of the Washington DC based Ethiopian Review website; who is tried in absentia.

Aid is ineffective. By some estimates, more than $2-trillion has been spent fighting poverty since the 1950s, with little direct impact. The stories of failure are illustrated with hydro dams that never worked, crops that never grew and roads that went nowhere.

Entrepreneurs, however, are changing the world. Since 2005, an estimated half-billion people or more have been raised out of poverty, mainly by small business, trade liberalization and gains in productivity. In China, Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria, booming local economies, oblivious to the latest schemes of aid programs, are creating millions of jobs.