African Union elects Bingu wa Mutharika as new president

The African Union has decided not to confirm the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, as its president for a second year. The position has gone to the president of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika, an economist who first took up office...

African Union considers Haiti resettlement

African leaders considered a proposal by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade to resettle Haitians made homeless by the earthquake on 12 January during the three-day African Union (AU) summit in Addis Ababa from 31 January-2 February. The proposal drew inspiration from...

Ethiopian Airlines plane crashes off Lebanon

An Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying 82 passengers and eight crew members crashed in the sea off Lebanon on 25 January just a few minutes after leaving Beirut for Addis Ababa. So far over 20 bodies have been recovered but there...

Cycling for climate change in Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa’s newly established bicycle courier service Nisir is organising the first ever cycle caravan in the city. The event – which is not a race – is scheduled for 27 December, starting at 10.00 in Meskel Square, and is open...

Zewditu hospital to get outpatients department

Zewditu Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa is to get a new three-storey outpatients department under a project of the Ethiopia chapter of the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The facility will replace the two shipping containers in...

Catherine Hamlin awarded for fistula work

Ethiopia-based Australian doctor Catherine Hamlin has been given the Right Livelihood Award for her work with women suffering from fistula injuries due to obstructed labour. The obstetrician and gynaecologist, who is in her mid 80s, will not be attending the...

Palaeoanthropologists in new early hominid find

Scientists have announced the discovery of an early hominid species, Ardipithecus ramidus, which may put to rest the long-held notion that human beings descend from chimpanzees. In the 2 October issue of Science magazine an international team of palaeoanthropologists describes...

Zenawi to stand for re-election

Ethiopia’s prime minister Meles Zenawi is to lead the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) into the next parliamentary elections, scheduled for May 2010. The 54-year-old, who has been in power since overthrowing the Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in...

NGO registration begins in Ethiopia

Local and foreign non-governmental organisations operating in Ethiopia have three months to register with the newly created Charities and Societies Agency (CSA) under the terms of a controversial new law, the English-language newspaper Capital Ethiopia reports. The NGOs will be...

Alternative income for women firewood collectors

Former firewood collectors and sellers in Addis Ababa are to benefit from an income-generating scheme set up by the oil and gas company Total allowing them to sell fuel. Under the project the 25 members of the Yeka Former...