The new face of Mercato endeavor - The Reporterarchiveenglish.thereporterethiopia.com/sites/default/files/... The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009 |1 By Birhanu

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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |1

By Birhanu Fikade

Aspiring to become the continent’s top light manufacturing hub, Ethiopia is set to attract globally renowned

apparel, textile, fashion and designing companies to its newly-erected Hawassa Industrial Park, which is to be completed in the coming months. To that effect, top ten leading textile and apparel

sourcing and manufacturing companies are cementing deals to join the Park.

According to sources close to the matter, the government is targeting world-class clothe

makers to come to Ethiopia and is currently negotiating with ten companies from four or five different countries: US, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Hong Kong.

According to the same sources, three are top US-based companies including Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH), owner of popular brands

Vol. XX No. 1009 | January 9, 2016 | ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA www.thereporterethiopia.com

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Price 5.00 Birr

Hawassa Industrial Park attracts renowned appeal makers PVH becomes the latest to join the Ethiopian textile industry

Optimistic endeavor

Mercato – Italian for marketplace – has been referred to for decades as the biggest open market in Africa. It is told that, it is possible to find almost anything in such a big market. That is the trend this market is really known for. If a shopper is

looking for whatever item, what that shopper needs to know is which part of Mercato has shops which will have that kind of item in stock. That’s not it; Mercato is also a place of notable landmarks and more importantly an area where some of

the country affluents transformed from rags to riches. SEE FULL STORY ON PAGE 22

Hawassa... page 9

The new face of Mercato

Ethiopia is endowed with mineral resources. It also has significant untapped

petroleum resources. However, the country has not been able to utilize its

natural resources. The contribution of the mining

sector to the country’s GDP is minimal. Now the government of Ethiopia is committed to unleash the

potential of the mining sector. Tolosa Shagi,

Minister of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas in an

exclusive interview with The Reporter talks about

the challenges and prospects of mining in Ethiopia. SEE

THE FULL INTERVIEW ON PAGE 12

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2| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009

Computer SecretariesBirtukan Abate, Helen Yetayew,

PrintTesfaye Mengesha, Yeyesuswork

Mamo,Gezaghgn Mandefro

Marketing ManagerEndalkachew Yimam

Biruk Mulugeta Biruk Chernet

EDITORIAL

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Tel: 011 6 616180 Editorial011 6 616185 Reception 011 6 616187 Finance

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Website: www.thereporterethiopia.com

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Editor-in-Chief Asrat Seyoum

Sub city: N.lafto, K. 10/18, H.No. 614

Senior Editors Yacob Wolde-Mariam

Dibaba AmensisaMikias Sebsibe

EditorsKaleyesus Bekele

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Published weekly by Media & Communications Center

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Senior Graphic DesignerTewodros Kebkab

Graphic DesignersTsehay Tadesse Fasika BalchaSemenh Sisay

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PhotographersTamrat GetachewMesfen Solomon

WebsiteBezawit Tesfaye

Binyam Hailu

CartoonistElias Areda

Fasil W/giorgis

The campaign of disinformation Egypt launched soon after the announcement of the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has taken another twist recently. The “carrot-and-stick” approach succeeding Egyptian governments employ in their propaganda campaign may change tenor but is essentially the same. although the diplomatic efforts Ethiopia has undertaken so far with a view to maintaining good relations with Egypt are commendable, it has to display astuteness in responding appropriately to changing circumstances.

A fortnight ago Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt agreed in Khartoum that a French firm will join another French company in conducting a study on the impact of the GERD. Egypt still insists that a political dialogue needs to be held on the dam even as it continues to express concerns that filling and operating the dam will reduce the supply of Nile water that reaches it. Accordingly, it wants a firm political commitment from Ethiopia. That is why it is gunning for stoppage of the filling of the dam even before the outcome of the study is announced. In a sure sign that they are participating in this campaign, all Egyptian media outlets reported that Ethiopia has agreed to refrain from filling the dam. There is no doubt that this media campaign is driven from behind the scene by a political force. It is therefore incumbent upon Ethiopia to mount an astute counter-reply.

Egypt was an unwilling participant in negotiations on the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), which was aimed at bringing about the equitable use of the waters of the Nile, and eventually withdrew saying the agreement would reduce the volume of water reaching downstream countries. Nonetheless, Ethiopia took the lead in bringing most of the riparian countries on board the CFA and began construction of the GERD after the agreement legally came into force. The signing by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, the former General who came to power following the Arab Spring, of the Declaration of Principles in March 2015 with the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the President of Sudan in which Egypt is committed to the fair use of the Nile was a great diplomatic coup for Ethiopia. The skill Ethiopian negotiators displayed in convincing Egypt to accept the terms of the declaration is a success which should be replicated in future negotiations.

During the pre-CFA era any Nile basin country was compelled to secure Egypt’s blessing in order to use the river’s water for development purposes. The fact that such a patently unjust state of affairs has come to an end and that Ethiopia’s sovereign right to use its natural resources has been explicitly recognized under the declaration is a major victory. It is through the tireless and indeed astute endeavor of Ethiopia that Egypt came to concede the right of all riparian states to utilize the Nile insofar as they do so fairly

and without causing significant harm to other upstream or downstream nations.

Inasmuch as the provisions of Article 5 of the Declaration of Principles protect Ethiopia’s interest, their implementation is liable to spark a serious disagreement between Ethiopia and Egypt in particular. Article 5 stipulates that Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt should cooperate to use the final findings in the studies recommended by the Tripartite National Technical Committee and international technical experts in order to reach an agreement on the guidelines for different scenarios of the first filling of the GERD reservoir in parallel with the construction of the dam. While Egypt may have acceded to some of Ethiopia’s wishes, it did so in return for something it wants—to exert control over the filling of the dam. The dialogue over this critical phase of the dam’s construction must therefore be handled with extreme caution and astuteness.

The two international companies are due to commence the study at the beginning of February. In the meantime the government of Ethiopia has invited the water ministers and public diplomacy delegations of all three countries to visit the ongoing dam construction with a view to building trust and demonstrate that it has nothing to hide. Nevertheless Egyptian politicians and media are arguing, citing Article 5 of the Declaration, that Ethiopia has agreed to accept the findings of the study and will have to obtain a green light from Egypt before the first filling of the dam. The government of Ethiopia, on the other hand, maintains that this is a propaganda campaign which misconstrues the accord reached by all sides affirming that the construction of the dam will proceed while the study is being conducted. Given that the new propaganda campaign focuses on gaps and weaknesses that are perceived to be advantageous to Egypt, the government has to adopt a smart and yet firm response which deters elements opposed to the dam from derailing its construction.

If history is anything to go by, Egypt has always been adamant that it has priority over all other countries over the Nile and resorts to war rhetoric and other acts of skullduggery against Ethiopia to sabotage the latter’s utilization of the river. The statements coming out of Egypt recently claiming that the first filling of the dam will not commence before an agreement is reached on a guideline based on the findings of the study indeed led to confusion, dismay and a sense of loss among many Ethiopians. We have to keep in mind that Egyptian politicians also stoke controversy over the Nile to deflect attention from infighting or public criticism. Hence, it is imperative for Ethiopia to monitor closely Egypt’s position on the Nile and come up with an astute response which safeguards its interest on the river as well as that of the downstream countries.

Handling astutely the tug-of-war with Egypt



By Asrat Seyoum

Following the cancellation of the limited bid process for the development of the Dire Dawa Industrial Park project, the Association of Ethiopian Class One Contractors has written a letter of complaint to Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn this week opposing the decision taken by the Industry Park Development Corporation (IPDC) asking for an immediate intervention from the PM.

According to the letter addressed to the PM, the corporation’s move to cancel the Dire Dawa Industrial Park bid was motivated by unwarranted bias against local contractor companies and their capacity to successfully deliver such projects. “The procedure that is being followed in connection to Dire Dawa, Hawassa and other industrial parks development projects is worrisome to the association,” the letter read.

Although the complaint makes a specific reference to the cancellation of the limited bid process for the development of Dire Dawa Industrial Park, the concern goes way beyond that. The association stated that it has come to understand the existence of bias against local contractors when it comes to the development of industrial parks. According to the letter, the cancellation of the bid is a direct outcome of this preexisting bias.

Recently, the corporation canceled the bid to develop the Dire Dawa Industrial Park after two companies, one local in joint venture with a foreign company and another foreign firm, was announced to have been selected to progress to the financial evaluation stages having beaten another local firm which was unable to pass the technical evaluation. According to reports, Rama Construction, a local construction firm, was unable to progress past the technical evaluation stages of this highly contested bid.

Nevertheless, one local firm, Teklebrehan Ambaye Construction, and another foreign company, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), which has recently completed the Meiso-Djibouti National Railway

project, were left to progress to the financial evaluation stages. But, the corporation has suddenly announced that the bid process will be canceled and the park will be re-tendered citing ambiguities in the original bid document.

The move has stirred a bit of a controversy among local contractors, who claimed that it was an ill motivated move to get local construction companies out of the park development game.

According to Arkebe Oqubay (PhD), board chairman of the IPDC, the issue

with regard to the cancellation of the bid process of Dire Dawa Industrial Park is rather transparent and that it has nothing to do with marginalizing local contractors from the development project. In an exclusive interview with The Reporter, Arkebe pointed that the Dire Dawa park bid had to be canceled because the original bid document contained clauses which were highly ambiguous and open for interpretation.

“The park development is conducted by foreign financing which the country secured from the sale of Eurobond and hence there is absolutely no room for

error since the country had to honor its debt obligation in time,” he explained. “If we could not have the parks ready for companies in time the country could not generate the forex that it requires to honor its debt obligation,” he argued. It was in this context that the corporation and the government in general are going about the park development activities very carefully, he said. This cautious move, according to Arkebe, led the corporation to note an ambiguity on the bid document which would have dire consequences to the evaluation process.

For instance, he pointed out that the original bid document contained a provision that allowed the participation of joint ventures in the bidding process. “We have come to realize that the document does not specify if the foreign party in the JV is actually based in Ethiopia or if it is currently based abroad,” Arkebe said. He added that time is of the essence and that the country has urgent needs to have the parks going and start generating foreign currency and employment.

He said that the tentative plan is to complete the construction of the industrial parks within 6 to 9 months. And if the foreign party in the JV, for instance, is based abroad it will need 3 to 4 month of mobilization time and that kind of time is not something that we can afford, Arkebe argued.

He also referred to the annual turnover requirement of the project that is unclear in the bid document. According to the original bid document, companies which are going to take part in the project are required to have an annual turnover equal to 55 percent of the project cost. He argued that this requirement has to be clearly stated in case of JV arrangement. “We were trying to make the bid document clearer so that the process could be absolutely transparent,” Arkebe said.

Apart from that, Arkebe also recognized that some of the requirements that are put forward to recruit companies that would take part in park development projects are quite demanding for local constructors; but that it is a must.

HEADLINES


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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2015

Vol. XX No. 1009

IN-DEPTH

Nature has bestowed upon

Ethiopia various mineral

and hydrocarbon resources.

Gold, gemstone, metallic and

industrial minerals are found in

different parts of the country.

Oil seepages are noted in various

regions. However, Ethiopia

has not been able to extract its

mineral and petroleum resources

the way it was supposed to,

writes Kaleyesus Bekele.

Ethiopia is also endowed with a range of industrial

minerals deposits including potash, lime-stones, coal,

and dolomite, among others. Speaking of minerals most

people think that only gold, diamond and oil are the

essential ones. However, industrial minerals also play a

pivotal role in economic development.

A huge deposit of potash mineral has been found in

the Afar region, Dalol depression. During the Italian

potash to Italy via the port of Massawa. But the owners

“The country

spends hundreds

of millions of

dollars to import

products that

could be produced

locally”

Ethiopia is not very much known in the

mining world. Except for the small scale

gold, tantalum and gemstones exports

the country is not in the list of major

mineral exporters in Africa. There are no

large-scale mines in Ethiopia. The only

large-scale mine is operated by MIDROC

Gold in southern Ethiopia. The company

annually produces four tons of gold in the

Lega Dembi mine in the Oromia Regional

State. It mainly exports the gold bullions to

Switzerland. MIDROC’s Lega Dembi Gold

mine is ranked 170th in the world in terms

of value of production in 2012.

The state-owned Ethiopian Minerals

Development SC (EMDSC) mines tantalum

concentrate in the Kenticha mine in the

Oromia Regional State in the Guji zone.

The tantalum concentrate is mainly

exported to China.

In the south, there is also a small state-

owned mine called Adola, where placer

(alluvial) gold has been mined for over half

a century. Placer gold has been mined in

Ethiopia for more than 2,000 years, but a

significant large-scale mining sector has

not been developed yet.

More than one million people are engaged

in artisanal mining primarily focused

on gold. Artisanal miners pan eight tons

of gold every year fetching a significant

amount of foreign currency.

Gemstones, mainly opal, is produced by

artisanal miners. Rough gemstones are

exported to India, Europe and the United

States. The Ethiopian Ministry of Mines,

Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoMPNG)

is encouraging and assisting artisanal

miners. Tantalum is also produced by

artisanal miners. Artisanal miners

generate more than 400 million dollars, the

lion’s share coming from gold export.

The country has a vast geological

formation bearing gold, “Green belt”,

covering a large area in the northern,

southern and western parts of Ethiopia but

little is explored and extracted.

Ethiopia is also endowed with a range of

industrial minerals deposits including

potash, lime-stones, coal, iron ore,

tantalite, field spar, quartz, dimension

stones and dolomite, among others.

Speaking of minerals most people think

that only gold, diamond and oil are the

essential ones. However, industrial

minerals also play a pivotal role in

economic development.

“The country spends hundreds of millions

of dollars to import products that could

be produced locally,” Lemma Bayissa,

Prospects and red-tape

in the mining sectora local mining consultant, says. “For

instance, take glass sheets, glass and

bottles. These products are made of silica

mineral which is abundantly found in

the rift valley. However, since we do not

have the factories, the country annually

spends millions of dollars to imports these

products,” Lemma told The Reporter.

According to information obtained from

the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs

Authority, Ethiopia spends more than

one billion birr only on glass and bottle

imports.

Iron ore is found in Western Wellega,

Oromia Regional State, and the Shire

area in the Tigray Regional State. These

resources have not yet been surveyed

thoroughly and it has not been extracted.

And yet a huge amount of foreign currency

is spent on iron steel imports.

A huge deposit of potash mineral has been

found in the Afar region, Dalol depression.

During the Italian invasion of 1936-1940 the

colonizers used to transport potash to Italy

via the port of Massawa. But the owners

of the wealth have not been able to utilize

the resource to date. Potash is mainly

used to produce fertilizer. The Ethiopian

government spends more than 100 million

dollars on fertilizer imports yearly. While

nature has stored huge coal deposit in

western Ethiopia, factories use furnace oil

imported with foreign currency.

In the past 25 years no new mine was

opened in Ethiopia. The Lega dembi

Gold mine was discovered and became

operational by the former Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics (USSR) when the Derg

regime was in power some 30 years ago.

Ethiopia has a significant petroleum

potential. Oil seepage has been reported

around Gelemsso, Gewane, Jijiga, Bale

and Wereyelu localities. Oil and gas shows

were noted in the exploration wells drilled

in the Ogaden basin. A natural gas reserve

was discovered in the Calub and Hilala

locality estimated at four trillion cubic feet

(TCF). Forty years have elapsed since the

gas discovery was made but the resource

has not been developed for various

reasons.

Why did Ethiopia fail to utilize its

mineral resources?

Ethiopians who watch officials of the

MoMPNG signing mineral and petroleum

exploration agreements on national TV

often ask why they do not see the projects

come to fruition.

Lemma says that mineral and petroleum

exploration and development work takes a

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Vol. XX No. 1009

Q & AEthiopia is endowed with mineral resources. It also has significant untapped petroleum

resources. However, the country has not been able to utilize its natural resources.

The contribution of the mining sector to the country’s GDP is minimal. Now the

government of Ethiopia is committed to unleash the potential of the mining sector. In

the Second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) the mining sector is expected to

significantly contribute to the speedy economic development the country is registering.

Kaleyesus Bekele of The Reporter sat down with Tolossa Shagi, the Minister of

Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas, at his office and discussed the challenges and

opportunities in the mining sector. Excerpts:

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The Reporter: Can you tell us

about the plans outlined in the

first Growth and Transformation

Plan (GTP-I) and the achievements

made in the mining sector? It

is clear that you did not attain

all your targets. What were the

impediments you faced in fulfilling

your plan?

Tolossa Shagi: The planning of

GTP-I was based on our performance

registered until the end of 2010. At

that time the artisanal mining sector

especially gold production was

registering a remarkable performance.

We were working with the National

Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) and the

Ethiopia Geological Survey to control

illicit gold trade and we were tying

to bring in more gold to the NBE.

We succeeded in drawing more gold

produced by artisanal miners to the

central bank.

The government secured better

amount of foreign currency from gold

export. Based on this remarkable

performance we set out our plan for

GTP-I. In the first two years of the

GTP-1 we did pretty well (2010-2012).

The price of gold in the international

market was sky rocketing. The price of

an ounce of gold was more than 1,700

dollars. We benefited from the price

hike. In the wake of the gold market

crash in 2013, our revenue began

declining.

How much did you plan to garner

from mineral export and how much

did you actually fetch?

Our initial projection was attainable;

however, after we evaluated the

remarkable performance of the first

two years, we reviewed our plan and

decided to boost the figures. Our

revised plan was to collect 800 million

dollars yearly from mineral export.

Until 2013 we used to collect more than

600 million dollars. But then the price

of gold in the global market soared

and the amount of foreign currency

we generated declined sharply. The

amount of gold export also plumbed.

Due to this reason we were unable to

attain our ambitious plan set up in the

GTP-I.

Is the price decline the only reason

for missing the targets of GTP-I?

Yes and the main reason is the gold

market crash. Due to the price decline,

companies reduced their produce.

Artisanal miners ,too, slashed their

production. It is not only the price

of gold that went down; the price of

other commodities such as tantalum

also soared. Companies and artisanal

miners were discouraged to produce

more. Consequently, the amount

of gold and tantalum, which were

channeled to the international market,

declined. This is not a peculiar

problem to Ethiopia. Major mineral

exporting countries suffered a lot. We

are beginners but the impact on major

mineral exporting countries is severe.

What is expected from the mining

sector in GTP-II?

The mining sector is expected to

augment the country’s economic

growth. Securing an adequate amount

of foreign currency is a big challenge

for us. So the mining sector is expected

to generate a substantial amount of

foreign currency.

We are striving to attract foreign

mining firms. We are providing the

required assistance for companies

engaged in mineral exploration

projects. We are also approaching

and assisting traditional miners to

boost their production by applying

modern techniques. Though the price

of commodities declined, we should

be able to compensate the lost income

by exporting more products. We

should increase the amount of gold

and tantalum that we export, though

the prices of these commodities went

down.

Moreover, we should identify the red

tapes in the artisanal miners and work

to resolve the problems. The Ethiopian

Geological Survey should be result-

oriented and identify prospective

areas for gold discovery. It should drill

in areas where gold bearing rocks are

found and assist artisanal miners.

With the view of boosting gold

export, we allowed investors and

companies to engage in placer

Relentless effort

to develop the

mining sector

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Vol. XX No. 1009

LIVING & THE ARTS

The holiday season

upon them, Christmas

shoppers have come

out in number to

one of the oldest and

biggest markets

in the capital—

Mercato. Nevertheless,

underneath the

holiday shopping

commotion, Mercato

is exhibiting another

dynamic: a process

that is set in motion by

the drive to transform

Mercato and small

vendors who struggle

to find their place,

writes Henok Reta.

A city within a city. Better yet, a

community within a community. If

there is one place that can bear this

name proudly in Addis Ababa, it is

Mercato. Once dubbed the largest open

marketplace in the continent, Mercato

has a very important place in the social

fabric of the city. For one, the first thing

that comes to mind when an Addis

Ababa in is planning to do a major

shopping is Mercato.

The area is said to be establish by

segregationist policies of the Italian

occupational government to serve

as a marketplace during the Italian

occupation, when it was called Mercato

Indigino – market of the indigenous.

The intention was to marginalize the

local marketers from the center of the

city, Arada Giorgis, which the Italians

called Piazza and where they opened

shops for their convenience.

They say Mercato is a place where

everything except a human being is up

for sale; and it is the place for the best

price bargain that one can imagine to

get in Addis Ababa.

Business is done uniquely in Mercato.

There are products lying on every

narrow ally and street of Mercato

as much as there are in the big well-

structured shops. Insiders say mostly

there is little difference in quality

between goods on the streets and those

in shops. And there is a small matter of

paying proper taxes and the associated

pricing of the products.

If it is your first time to Mercato,

you would be definitely surprised or

even confused to be asked what kind

of product you buy or if a complete

stranger who has nothing but his phone

on him making you an offer on certain

products. Yes, this is another unique

feature of Mercato, a gang of brokers

and commission agents who are fighting

with street vendors to snatch away

potential customers. In fact, this is the

legal shops’ way of responding to the

stiff competition that is coming from the

street vendors.

Legalities aside, the street sale in

Mercato has been the single most

reason why the market was accorded

the largest open market status. But,

Merctao has been undergoing a major

transformation in the past few years.

A lot has to do with the government’s

push to legalize and control the multi-

million birr trading that is going on in

Mercato on a daily basis. Now, high-

rise malls and marketplaces being

constructed in Mercato are changing

the face of this old market for good.

Amidst holiday shopping spree this

week, The Reporter observed that small

street vendors, although struggling, are

still trying to stay visible in Mercato.

“We can never find a place like Merkato

to sell our goods,” says Engidaw

Melaku, 23, who came from Gojjam in

search of better life.

Engidaw sells household utensils in

several places in the capital. He is

among the group of vendors who don’t

Mercato’s minnows

fighting for a place

in

ng .

is t small

ing, are

rcato.

Merkato

w ojjam in

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He is

s who don’t


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Vol. XX No. 1009

#REPORTERBOOK

R

R

#SaudiMock

Cartoons highlight anger at

Saudi Arabia

Zuckerberg aims to build virtual

assistant

Cartoons taunting Saudi Arabia’s membership of the United

Nations human rights council have gone viral on social media after

the kingdom executed 47 people in one day.

While the regime’s interior minister claimed most of the 47

executed had been involved in the deadly 2003 and 2004 Al-Qaeda

attacks, a prominent Shia cleric, Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, was also put

to death. He was a vocal supporter of the mass anti-government

protests that flared up in the kingdom’s Eastern Province in 2011.

The UN’s top human rights official has strongly criticized the

executions. Zeid Raad al-Hussein says the killing of Sheik al-Nimr

was “a very disturbing development indeed, particularly as some of

those sentenced to death were accused of non-violent crimes.”

In retaliation to the state executions people on social media started

sharing cartoons mocking the Saudi regime’s membership of the

United Nations human rights council. See the cartoons on the right

This year, Mark Zuckerberg wants to be more like Tony Stark.

In a Facebook post Sunday, the social network’s founder and

chief executive said his personal challenge for 2016 is to build an

assistant powered by artificial intelligence to help him at home

and work. “You can think of it kind of

like Jarvis,” Zuckerberg wrote,

referring to the artificial-

intelligence assistant used by

Stark, the fictional main character

played by actor Robert Downey Jr.

in the movie “Iron Man.”

Zuckerberg said he would code

the AI assistant himself and

start by exploring pre-existing

technologies. He plans to train his

virtual assistant to understand

his voice and help guide

responsibilities at his home, such as keeping watch over infant

daughter Max.

“I’ll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they

ring the doorbell,” Zuckerberg wrote in his post. “I’ll teach it to

let me know if anything is going on in Max’s room that I need

to check on when I’m not with her. On the work side, it’ll help

me visualize data in [virtual reality] to help me build better

services and lead my organizations more effectively.”

AI-powered digital assistants such as Apple Inc.’s Siri,

Alphabet Inc.’s Google Now and Microsoft Corp.’s Cortana are

commanding a lot of attention in Silicon Valley. Facebook Inc.

is developing its own artificial-intelligence assistant called “M,”

which is embedded in its Facebook Messenger app. (The Wall

Street Journal)

INSI

DE

Industry park controversy goes to PM office“No time for affirmative action”

Arkebe Oqubay (PhD)

Industry park.... page 9

Arkebe Oqubay (PhD)

Pho

to B

y: R

epor

ter/

Nah

om T

esfa

ye



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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |5Advertisment



By Yonas Abiye

The Minister of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), Tedros Adhanom (PhD), is heading to Belgium next Wednesday to respond to questions from European Union (EU) officials in Brussels regarding the protests in the Oromia Regional State as well as the current drought that has left over 10 million citizens in a critical food shortage.

The EU remains one of the principal partners of the Ethiopian government. Ethiopia has received over EUR 35 billion over the past five years.

However, rights groups, who accuse the Ethiopian government of violating basic human rights, constantly criticize the EU for donating hundreds of millions of euros in direct assistance to the country. During his visit, the Foreign Minister will be meetings with EU officials from European External Action Service (EEAS), European Commission and the European Parliament. Among other political representatives, Tedros is expected to hold discussions with Federica Mogherini, high

representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and vice president of the European Commission.

Mogherini visited Ethiopia a few months ago in October as part of the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of EU-Ethiopia relations. During her visit, she met and held discussions with Ethiopian government and African Union officials.

Particularly, she conferred with Tedros where she noted in the past four decades relationship between Ethiopia and EU “had encompassed humanitarian, developmental and political areas as well as peace and security”.

Apart from the bilateral relations between Ethiopia and the EU, over 60 countries from Europe and Africa had reached an agreement in 2014 and adopted key priorities and areas of joint action including peace and security, democracy and human rights and sustainable and inclusive development.

Tedros is expected to face tough

By Kaleyesus Bekele

Newmont Mining Corporation, an American mining giant considered to be one of the world’s largest producers of gold, has shown keen interest in gold exploration and extraction projects in the Tigray Regional State.

Tolosa Shagi, Minister of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoMPNG), has told The Reporter that Newmont is getting ready to engage in gold exploration and development projects in two concessions in the Tigray Regional State.

“We believe that the mining sector should significantly contribute to the

fast economic development Ethiopia is registering. So we have drafted a new strategy that enables us to lobby and attract giant international mining companies,” Tolosa told The Reporter in an exclusive interview.

Founded in 1916 by William Boyce Thompson as a diversified holding company, Newmont is currently headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado with active mines in Nevada, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Ghana and Peru.

Holdings include Santa Fe Gold, Battle Mountain Gold, Normandy Mining, Franco-Nevada Corp and Fronteer Gold.

Newmont also has many joint venture

relationships. As of the third quarter of 2014, Newmont was the world’s second-largest producer of gold, behind only Barrick Gold and remains to be the only gold company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

The coming of the mining giant is also expected to pave the way for others to join the sector. The ministry is also in the process of bringing in more companies.

According to Tolosa, Ethiopia has not fully utilized its mineral resources. So his ministry has drafted a new scheme that enables it to unleash the country’s mining potential.

So far, MIDROC Gold, KEFI Minerals,

and Ascom are some of the companies engaged in gold exploration in Ethiopia. Back in October 2015 the three companies had completed their feasibility studies to start production in the early years of the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) period.

Apart from large-scale mining, currently, more than one million people are engaged in artisanal mining primarily focused on gold. Artisanal miners pan eight tons of gold every year fetching a significant amount of foreign exchange to the country. Presently, artisanal miners generate more than USD 400 million, the lion’s share coming from gold export.

HEADLINES

NEWS IN BRIEF

Tigray lures American gold mining giant

Foreign Minister to face EU officials

National Bank receives close to 5 bln

birr worth gold

First ATM assembly factory goes

operationalThe National Bank of Ethiopia has received 4.9 billion birr worth gold mined from gold-rich zones of the Tigray Regional State, the bank announced this week.The gold collection comes from 21 districts of the regional state which are rich in the precious mineral.Information obtained from the bank indicated that overall 597.7 tons of gold collection was supplied to the national bank between July 2012 and December 2016.Some 425 legally operating traders were involved in the collection and supply of gold to the bank.The share of last fiscal year alone hit over 903 million birr, obtained from supply of 1.18 tons of gold.The current fiscal year so far saw the collection of 349 kilograms of gold which is worth over 257 million birr.Zekarias Shiferaw, economic affairs advisor and chief administrator of North-West Zone of the state of Tigray told ENA that 7,850 locals are engaged in traditional gold mining, with 1,800 of them being women.(ENA)

The first Automated Teller Machine (ATM) assembly factory in Ethiopia has gone operational.ATM is among the electromechanical products that Mela Electronics Private Limited Company plans to assemble, according to Ethiopian News Agency (ENA). Citing a press release issued by the company, ENA reported that the assembly factory built by Mela Electronics with an outlay of 50 million birr on a 5,000 square meters plot of land is located in Alem Gena of the Oromia Regional State.The factory that has produced trial ATMs is expected to save foreign currency, create jobs and accelerate technology transfer, the company pointed out.Upon going fully operational, the factory has a capacity to produce 1,200 Automated Teller Machines in a year, the press release added.Mela Electronics Private Limited Company has plans to provide its products to local and East African countries, it was learned. Currently there are 18 banks in Ethiopia out of which 16 of them are privately owned banks. (ENA)

Foreign.... page 9Tedros Adhanom (PhD)


The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |7HEADLINES

By Solomon Goshu

Members of the organizing committee of the Ethiopian Media Council (EMC) announced this week that the Council will conduct its establishing assembly on January 12 at the UNECA conference hall.

At a press conference held on Tuesday at the Horn of Africa Press Institute (HAPI), Mimi Sebhatu, chairwoman of the organizing committee, said that both print and broadcast media outlets will pledge to adhere to the code of conduct and professionalism on the “historic day”.

The assembly comes after intense negotiations and fierce debates that went on for over a decade and this is seen as a decisive step forward. The EMC aims to be a self-regulatory body of media practice and discipline of journalists in Ethiopia.

Media council reaches commencement

Media council .... page 28

By YohannesAnberbir

After being defunct for the past eight year, the Export Promotion Agency, a government institution tasked with the promotion and diversification of Ethiopia’s export commodities, is set to be re-established with a similar name and responsibility, The Reporter has learnt.

The agency was survived by a directorate (Export Promotion Directorate General) for the past eight years under the Ministry of Trade (MoT). According to sources in the ministry, currently, the legal

framework that would cater for the re-establishment of the agency as an autonomous entity accountable to the Prime Minister is being drafted.

It was also understood that the legal framework will be finalized and then sent to the Councils of Minister to realize the reestablishment of the agency in a short period of time.

The would-be agency is expected to be mandated to assist local firms which are engaged in exports to diversify their export market destination and expand the market reach in the traditional export destination markets. The move

is also said to be instrumental to meet the ambitious export earnings targets of the government in the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II).

In the meantime, the agency is going to have its own strategy to implement the export market promotion mainly with the emphasis of agricultural products, manufacturing, as well as mining products that are listed as priority areas in the GTP-II.

The agency was first established in 1998 and stayed operational for ten years

Export promotion agency to be reestablished

African leaders to gather in Ethiopia on

immunization

UK-based company invests in Addis

Pharmaceutical Factory

African leaders, including ministers of health, finance, and other line ministries, are scheduled to gather in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from February 24-25, 2016 for the Ministerial Conference on Immunization in Africa – the first-ever ministerial-level convening with a singular focus on ensuring that people across the continent can get access to life-saving vaccines.

Hosted by the World Health Organization Regional Offices for Africa (AFRO) and the Eastern Mediterranean (EMRO) in conjunction with the African Union Commission – the conference is expected to provide a powerful platform for African policymakers and advocates to celebrate progress toward expanding immunization coverage; discuss strategies for tackling the biggest challenges facing vaccine efforts; foster country ownership for sustainable financing for immunization; and advocate for greater engagement with all stakeholders to ensure sustainable demand for immunization.

“The Ministerial Conference is a unique opportunity to secure buy-in at the highest levels for prioritizing immunization across the continent,” Matshidiso Moeti (PhD), WHO Regional Director for Africa, said. (FBC)

54 Capital, a private equity firm focused on investments in Africa, has backed Ethiopia’s drug manufacturer Addis Pharmaceutical Factory with USD 42 million.The firm has made and initial investment of USD 30 million with an option to provide further USD 12m in financing.Saad Aouad, founder and CIO of 54 Capital, said, “Ethiopia’s pharmaceutical sector is one of the most exciting industries in the country and is poised to witness a high level of demand in the coming years.“Through our investment into APF we will be both partnering with EFFORT, an investment group dedicated to transforming the Ethiopian business landscape, and investing into one of the leading companies in the country; marking our recognition of the importance of the sector in Ethiopia and our continued commitment to the country.”Founded in 2013 54 Capital is an Africa-focused asset management firm. Apart from the current deal it has so far invested around $35m into the FMCG sector in Ethiopia since 2014.(AltAssets)

By Yonas Abiye

Dilla town of the Southern Regional State is under heavy security following a bomb blasts inside the campus of Dilla University that killed two students and wounded three. Students have left the campus because of the tense situation with very few remaining.

A female student The Reporter met in Addis Ababa a day after she came from Dilla said, “Since the bomb blast we didn’t find the compound to be safe until the dust settles. So we had to leave for Addis Ababa.” She further said that the situation inside the university compound is scary and the whole area is heavily guarded by federal police.

Similarly, both students and the police commissioner confirmed that a fire blaze which came three days after the bomb blast has caused more panic among students.

This week students have left the university for their homes though there was no official announcement of closure from the university. However, the university issued a notice on Thursday warning students that if they fail to report by Monday they will end up being dismissed.

Earlier on Monday, a fire blaze damaged one block of students dormitory which used to house some 280 students. On Tuesday, the Southern Regional Police Commissioner, Fisseha Assefa, confirmed to The Reporter that the fire has damaged the building but no one was hurt as there were no students in the building. The police commissioner also said that both regional and federal police are investigating the cause of the fire.

Heavy security presences in Dilla as students abandon university compound

Export .... page 9 Heavy securit.... page 9

Amare Aregawi (L) and Mimi Sebhatu, chairwoman of the organizing committee



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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |9Hawassa... CONT`D FROM PAGE 1

questions from EU parliamentarians who usually criticize the Ethiopian government for its human rights record. One of those critics is Ana Gomes, a social democrat from Portugal who is currently a coordinator and spokesperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee for her political group. With 200 members, the Social Democrats form the second largest group within the European Parliament.

on Ethiopia and Ethiopians Ana Gomes is best remembered for her role as head of the EU Election Observation Mission during the 2005 elections, which resulted in post-election violence.

Gomes had a troubled relationship with Ethiopia’s late PM, Meles Zenawi, whom she still calls “a dictator” and says that the 2005 elections were massively rigged.

Foreign... CONT`D FROM PAGE 6

Industry park... CONT`D FROM PAGE 3

“We want companies that have proven track records in developing parks, companies which have strong financial position such that they would not wait for advance payments to kick start the work and those who can have their own forex sources to import critical raw materials,” Arkebe said. He added that since the forex supply could be challenging for firms involved in the park development, it is important to select those which can employ their own alternative. According to Arkebe, all is in favor of time; we have less time to kick-start the manufacturing process and start earning forex.

On the flip side, the contractors association is convinced that these criteria are tailor-made for foreign companies and bitterly oppose the tendency to marginalizing local companies form the scene. Arkebe categorically denies such accusation claiming that he is for and has been deeply involved with local capacity building in the construction sector back when he was the mayor of the city and state minister at the then Ministry of Construction and Urban Development. “Let’s not forget it was these government programs which brought up even the grade one contractors to begin with,” he stressed.

Nevertheless, the capacity building programs in the past were done at the expense of quality and delivery time, he

argued. “We just can’t afford to do that at this time; not in park development and certainly not in the first phase,” he asserted.

“We can have the repeat of the Bole-Lemi project where we have 23 local companies taking part in the development of an industrial park that will employ not more than 5000 people but could not be completed fully in its sixth year now; it is just not possible if we have to nurture our manufacturing base sooner,” he concluded.

before it was decided to incorporate it under MoT at a directorate level.

Formerly, the agency had been directly accountable to the Office of the Prime Minister with an active role not only to directly promote export but also play a coordinating role among producers, exporters and service givers. Since then, the task of export promotion has been carried out in a scattered manner via individual exporters and the ministry.

The move is also believed to be part of the overall desire of the government

to have the ministry focus only on regulating the trading sector in the country. In line with this, the country major export commodity, coffee, was also take out of the ministry and given to the new Coffee and Tea Agency which is established under the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources (MoANS), which itself was recently reestablished taking new responsibilities. Similarly, other export commodities like Pulses and Spices are also taken form MoT and transferred to the new MoANS.

Export... CONT`D FROM PAGE 7

Heavy securit CONT`D FROM PAGE 7

Commissioner Fisseha also told The Reporter that there was a ‘false information’ which rumored around campus claiming that two students were found slaughtered in the compound. “This exacerbated the students’ mood

and left them paranoid,” Fisseha said. However, according to the commissioner, police has found nothing of the sort.

Classes have been interrupted for the second time in a month. A few weeks ago, it was disrupted as students staged a protest in connection with the wave of protests in Oromia. According to sources, security forces were patrolling the town as well.

such as Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, are negotiating to lease sheds in the Hawassa Industrial Park which is expected to be operational in June. Apart from that, top apparel makers from India such as the Raymond Group and Arvind Limited are part of the ongoing negotiations to secure a place at the park.

Fassil Tadesse, president of Ethiopian Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association (ETGMA), told The Reporter that PVH Corp, Ralph Lauren Corporation (RL) and Vanity Fair (VF) Corporation have been associated with Ethiopia’s textile and apparel sector. He specifically mentioned PVH as the single most officially known company to be prepared to open a manufacturing plant in Ethiopia. “PVH is expected to launch production in June,” Fassil confirmed. According to Fassil, if the deal goes through, this would be the first manufacturing plant in Africa for PVH.

However, PVH has been contacting both government officials and ETGMA since last year-and-half and during which time Fassil says, Arkebe Oqubay (PhD), senior advisor minister to the Prime Minister, has been in constant negotiation with the company to come and set its manufacturing base in Ethiopia.

Sources told The Reporter that in addition to PVH, both RL and VF are also in the list of companies that are contemplating to come and join the Ethiopian textile sector. But Fassil says that RL and VF are coming indirectly via their sourcing companies which provide them apparels.

Being one of the seven prospective industrial parks that the government

is developing, Hawassa, if completed according to the timetable, will be by far the quickest. While laying the cornerstone in April last year, Arkebe, who also chairs of the Industrial Parks Development Corporation (IPDC), was noted for saying the first phase of the Hawassa Industrial Park is to be completed by the end of December 2015.

The 246 million dollars Hawassa Industrial Park project will house 37 factory sheds on a 300 hectares plot. The first state-owned Bole-Lemi Industrial Park has consumed some 250 million dollars and 20 sheds which took five years to complete.

According to the information PVH posted on its website, it has amassed some eight billion in revenues last year. The famous brand PVH owns: Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Van Heusen, IZOD, ARROW, Speedo,Warner’s and Olga, as well as numerous licensed brands.

The 117 years old VF on its part has pocketed some 12.3 billion dollars in revenue last year. It runs the Wrangler, Lee jeans wears and the like. Famous for its Polo brands, Ralph Lauren Corporation is the other global player of apparel products the Ethiopian textile and apparel sector is bullying to map Ethiopia to their product souring lists.

The Government of Ethiopia has allotted a hefty sum of some USD 750 million secured from the first Eurobond the country sold in the global market amounting to one billion dollars. Apart from that, USD 250 million secured from the World Bank is also set to go to the construction of the seven industrial parks that the country plans to construct within the coming five years.

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““We can have the repeat of the Bole-Lemi project where we

have 23 local companies taking part in the development of an

industrial park that will employ not more than 5000 people but could not be completed fully in its sixth year now; it is just not

possible if we have to nurture our manufacturing base sooner,”


10| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009IN-DEPTH

Nature has bestowed upon Ethiopia various mineral and hydrocarbon resources. Gold, gemstone, metallic and industrial minerals are found in different parts of the country. Oil seepages are noted in various regions. However, Ethiopia has not been able to extract its mineral and petroleum resources the way it was supposed to, writes Kaleyesus Bekele.

Ethiopia is also endowed with a range of industrial minerals deposits including potash, lime-stones, coal,

and dolomite, among others. Speaking of minerals most people think that only gold, diamond and oil are the essential ones. However, industrial minerals also play a pivotal role in economic development.

A huge deposit of potash mineral has been found in the Afar region, Dalol depression. During the Italian

potash to Italy via the port of Massawa. But the owners

“The country spends hundreds

of millions of dollars to import

products that could be produced

locally”

Ethiopia is not very much known in the mining world. Except for the small scale gold, tantalum and gemstones exports the country is not in the list of major mineral exporters in Africa. There are no large-scale mines in Ethiopia. The only large-scale mine is operated by MIDROC Gold in southern Ethiopia. The company annually produces four tons of gold in the Lega Dembi mine in the Oromia Regional State. It mainly exports the gold bullions to Switzerland. MIDROC’s Lega Dembi Gold mine is ranked 170th in the world in terms of value of production in 2012.

The state-owned Ethiopian Minerals Development SC (EMDSC) mines tantalum concentrate in the Kenticha mine in the Oromia Regional State in the Guji zone. The tantalum concentrate is mainly exported to China.

In the south, there is also a small state-owned mine called Adola, where placer (alluvial) gold has been mined for over half a century. Placer gold has been mined in Ethiopia for more than 2,000 years, but a significant large-scale mining sector has not been developed yet.

More than one million people are engaged in artisanal mining primarily focused on gold. Artisanal miners pan eight tons of gold every year fetching a significant amount of foreign currency.

Gemstones, mainly opal, is produced by artisanal miners. Rough gemstones are exported to India, Europe and the United States. The Ethiopian Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoMPNG) is encouraging and assisting artisanal miners. Tantalum is also produced by artisanal miners. Artisanal miners generate more than 400 million dollars, the lion’s share coming from gold export.

The country has a vast geological formation bearing gold, “Green belt”, covering a large area in the northern, southern and western parts of Ethiopia but little is explored and extracted.

Ethiopia is also endowed with a range of industrial minerals deposits including potash, lime-stones, coal, iron ore, tantalite, field spar, quartz, dimension stones and dolomite, among others. Speaking of minerals most people think that only gold, diamond and oil are the essential ones. However, industrial minerals also play a pivotal role in economic development.

“The country spends hundreds of millions of dollars to import products that could be produced locally,” Lemma Bayissa,

Prospects and red-tape in the mining sector

a local mining consultant, says. “For instance, take glass sheets, glass and bottles. These products are made of silica mineral which is abundantly found in the rift valley. However, since we do not have the factories, the country annually spends millions of dollars to imports these products,” Lemma told The Reporter. According to information obtained from the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority, Ethiopia spends more than one billion birr only on glass and bottle imports.

Iron ore is found in Western Wellega, Oromia Regional State, and the Shire area in the Tigray Regional State. These resources have not yet been surveyed thoroughly and it has not been extracted. And yet a huge amount of foreign currency is spent on iron steel imports.

A huge deposit of potash mineral has been found in the Afar region, Dalol depression. During the Italian invasion of 1936-1940 the colonizers used to transport potash to Italy via the port of Massawa. But the owners of the wealth have not been able to utilize the resource to date. Potash is mainly used to produce fertilizer. The Ethiopian government spends more than 100 million dollars on fertilizer imports yearly. While nature has stored huge coal deposit in western Ethiopia, factories use furnace oil imported with foreign currency.

In the past 25 years no new mine was opened in Ethiopia. The Lega dembi Gold mine was discovered and became operational by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) when the Derg regime was in power some 30 years ago.

Ethiopia has a significant petroleum potential. Oil seepage has been reported around Gelemsso, Gewane, Jijiga, Bale and Wereyelu localities. Oil and gas shows were noted in the exploration wells drilled in the Ogaden basin. A natural gas reserve was discovered in the Calub and Hilala locality estimated at four trillion cubic feet (TCF). Forty years have elapsed since the gas discovery was made but the resource has not been developed for various reasons.

Why did Ethiopia fail to utilize its mineral resources?

Ethiopians who watch officials of the MoMPNG signing mineral and petroleum exploration agreements on national TV often ask why they do not see the projects come to fruition.

Lemma says that mineral and petroleum exploration and development work takes a



long time. “It could take more than ten years to conduct an exploration work on a particular exploration project,” Lemma said. According to him, a sound mining policy, enabling investment environment and peace and stability are of paramount importance.

“Regime change has an impact on the mining industry. When government changes the mining and investment also change. Western companies engaged in mineral and oil and gas exploration projects during the imperial rule were expelled by the Derg. The Russian companies prospecting for minerals and petroleum during the socialist era pulled out when the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) came to power,” Lemma says.

Mineral and petroleum exploration is capital-intensive. Poor countries such as Ethiopia have limited financial resources to invest on mineral exploration projects. Most African countries, including Ethiopia rely in foreign mining firms to conduct exploration, and development work.

In an exclusive interview with The Reporter Tolossa Shagi, the Minister of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas, said that for various reasons adequate exploration work was not carried out. Tolossa claims that giant foreign companies capable of extracting minerals have not come to Ethiopia. “There are various reasons for this. Big foreign companies avoid risks. They do not abruptly enter a country. If they come once they do detailed exploration work. But before they decide to come also they need detailed geological data. Unfortunately, we do not have adequate geological data,” the minister said.

Tolossa explains that the Ethiopian Geological Survey has been collecting geological data with Ethiopian professionals, and limited technology and finance while other African countries were lucky enough to have detailed geological data collected by their colonizers. According to Tolossa, big giant mining firms prefer to go to other African countries that have detailed geological data and simple

mining and investment laws.

Lemma blames the EPRDF-led government for poor performance in the mining sector. “Previously, the EPRDF leadership believed in the concept of what is known as the resource curse and neglected the sector. The government did not allocate adequate budget for the geological survey that enables it to undertake exploration work. The ministry did not have enough budget to promote the petroleum potential of the country,” Lemma said.

He also accused the ministry of sluggish working activity. “The licensing procedure is bureaucratic and non-transparent. It takes unnecessarily prolonged time to respond to exploration license requests. Companies that seek mineral exploration discouraged by the bureaucracy leave for other African countries such as Tanzania.”

Lemma claims that officials of the ministry and the geological survey are appointed because of their loyalty to

the ruling party but not on merit. “Due to the lack of good governance and minimal salary, seasoned experts of the ministry and geological survey have left,” he said.

Tolossa admits that there are problems in handling applications. “There are problems in handling exploration license applications promptly. We are consulting the government to relax licensing procedures. We are encouraging and supporting companies engaged in mineral exploration projects,” Tolossa said.

However, Tolossa said there are working procedures the ministry has to adhere to. “If a company demands to be given an exploration area within two days that is impossible. We are granting a concession up to 1500 sq.km. We cannot do it within two days. We need to check our cadaster system to avoid overlapping. We need to check the company’s profile, its reputation, financial position and know-how. We

IN-DEPTH

has been reported around Gelemsso, Gewane, Jijiga, Bale and Wereyelu localities. Oil and gas shows were noted in the exploration wells drilled in the Ogaden basin. A natural gas reserve was discovered in the Calub and Hilala locality estimated at four trillion cubic feet (TCF).

“Previously, the EPRDF leadership believed in the concept of what is known as the resource curse and neglected the sector. The government did not allocate

it to undertake exploration work. The ministry did not have enough budget to promote the petroleum potential of the country,”

Prospects and.... page 26

Artisanal mining


12| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009Q & A

Ethiopia is endowed with mineral resources. It also has significant untapped petroleum resources. However, the country has not been able to utilize its natural resources.

The contribution of the mining sector to the country’s GDP is minimal. Now the government of Ethiopia is committed to unleash the potential of the mining sector. In the Second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-II) the mining sector is expected to significantly contribute to the speedy economic development the country is registering. Kaleyesus Bekele of The Reporter sat down with Tolossa Shagi, the Minister of

Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas, at his office and discussed the challenges and opportunities in the mining sector. Excerpts:

The Reporter: Can you tell us about the plans outlined in the first Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP-I) and the achievements made in the mining sector? It is clear that you did not attain all your targets. What were the impediments you faced in fulfilling your plan?

Tolossa Shagi: The planning of GTP-I was based on our performance registered until the end of 2010. At that time the artisanal mining sector especially gold production was registering a remarkable performance. We were working with the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) and the Ethiopia Geological Survey to control illicit gold trade and we were tying to bring in more gold to the NBE. We succeeded in drawing more gold produced by artisanal miners to the central bank.

The government secured better amount of foreign currency from gold export. Based on this remarkable performance we set out our plan for GTP-I. In the first two years of the GTP-1 we did pretty well (2010-2012). The price of gold in the international market was sky rocketing. The price of an ounce of gold was more than 1,700 dollars. We benefited from the price hike. In the wake of the gold market crash in 2013, our revenue began declining.

How much did you plan to garner from mineral export and how much did you actually fetch?

Our initial projection was attainable; however, after we evaluated the remarkable performance of the first two years, we reviewed our plan and decided to boost the figures. Our revised plan was to collect 800 million dollars yearly from mineral export. Until 2013 we used to collect more than 600 million dollars. But then the price of gold in the global market soared and the amount of foreign currency we generated declined sharply. The amount of gold export also plumbed. Due to this reason we were unable to attain our ambitious plan set up in the GTP-I.

Is the price decline the only reason for missing the targets of GTP-I?

Yes and the main reason is the gold market crash. Due to the price decline, companies reduced their produce. Artisanal miners ,too, slashed their production. It is not only the price of gold that went down; the price of other commodities such as tantalum also soared. Companies and artisanal miners were discouraged to produce more. Consequently, the amount of gold and tantalum, which were channeled to the international market, declined. This is not a peculiar problem to Ethiopia. Major mineral exporting countries suffered a lot. We are beginners but the impact on major mineral exporting countries is severe.

What is expected from the mining sector in GTP-II?

The mining sector is expected to augment the country’s economic growth. Securing an adequate amount of foreign currency is a big challenge for us. So the mining sector is expected to generate a substantial amount of foreign currency.

We are striving to attract foreign mining firms. We are providing the required assistance for companies engaged in mineral exploration projects. We are also approaching and assisting traditional miners to boost their production by applying modern techniques. Though the price of commodities declined, we should be able to compensate the lost income by exporting more products. We should increase the amount of gold and tantalum that we export, though the prices of these commodities went down.

Moreover, we should identify the red tapes in the artisanal miners and work to resolve the problems. The Ethiopian Geological Survey should be result-oriented and identify prospective areas for gold discovery. It should drill in areas where gold bearing rocks are found and assist artisanal miners.

With the view of boosting gold export, we allowed investors and companies to engage in placer

Relentless effort to develop the mining sector

Pho

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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |13Q & A

We are striving to attract foreign

are providing the

for companies engaged in mineral exploration projects. We are also approaching and assisting traditional miners to boost their production by applying

Though the price of commodities declined, we should be able to compensate the lost income by exporting more products. We should increase the amount of gold and tantalum that we export, though the prices of these commodities went down.

(alluvial) gold production. Previously, we reserved placer gold production only for artisanal miners. Placer gold production requires minimal capital and knowledge; so, ordinary citizens can venture into this sector. But we revised our directive and started licensing companies to engage in placer gold production.

We are encouraging foreign companies to venture into the exploration and production of primary gold. The mining sector should fetch more foreign currency, create jobs by organizing artisanal miners into cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

In the GTP-I the mining sector should

provide inputs to the manufacturing industry and the agricultural sector. Our economy will transform into industrialization so the mining sector should contribute to this transition. We are closely working with the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources on this regard. We are planning in conformity with the needs of the industry and agriculture sectors.

How much foreign currency do you expect to generate from mineral export in GTP-II?

Our plan is ambitious. We hope to raise two billion dollars yearly from mineral export at the end of GTP-II. We plan to generate a total of five billion dollars in the GTP-II term. We have three or four companies engaged in primary gold exploration. They have presented feasibility study to us. We expect at least two of them to start production in the GTP-II term.

Similarly, there are three companies working on potash exploration projects. They have finalized exploration works and have undertaken feasibility studies. Currently, we are negotiating with them to grant them mining license. We hope that at least two of them would commence production. But

we fear that the declining price of commodities may be dragging the projects. Otherwise, we are committed to assist the mining development projects.

Tell us about the contribution of the artisanal miners. Some say that artisanal miners produce more than companies engaged in large-scale mining projects. How far is it true?

The sole company engaged in large scale mining is MIDROC Gold that produces primary gold in the Legedembi Gold Mine. We have no other company engaged in large scale mining. MIDROC yearly produces 3.5 to four tons of gold. It is helping us

fetch foreign currency.

But artisanal miners produce more. When the price of gold was higher artisanal miners used to produce up to nine tons of gold on a yearly basis. Artisanal miners have an immense contribution though their share dwindled with the nosediving commodity price.

Ethiopia has various mineral resources but so far it has not been able to unleash its potential in the mining sector. What is the reason?

We still believe that we have the resources. We have a convenient geological formation. We have the potential. But to unleash the potential there are a lot of works that need to be done. For various reasons, we have not been able to carry out the works that enable us to utilize the resources.

In the first place, big foreign companies – capable of extracting minerals – did not come to our country. There are various reasons for this. Big foreign companies avoid risks. They do not abruptly enter a country. If they come once, they do detailed exploration work. But before they decide to come, they need detailed geological data. Unfortunately, we do not have adequate geological data.

We have been collecting geological data with the limited knowledge and technology we have. Other African countries have better geological data collected during the colonial period. The European colonizers conducted detailed exploration work in many African countries and left the data. Even in the post-colonial period, these countries rely on European countries when it comes to collecting geological data. With the help of international financial institutions such as the World Bank, European experts collected geological data in many African countries and gave them (the countries) an organized data. They also trained geologists in these countries. So when it comes

to attracting big companies, these countries have better comparative advantages than us. So big companies, before they come, know what minerals these countries have.

These countries have simple mining laws that allow foreign mining companies to own vast lands and easily extract mineral and petroleum resources. In our country after the regime change (the downfall of the Derg) big companies approached us and asked us for vast exploration areas. A single company asked to be given the whole of Western Ethiopia (known for rich mineral resources), including Wellega and Benishangul.

We told them that we believe in competition and we want to confer plots of lands for different companies and see which ones perform better. We do not want to give the whole exploration area for two or three companies. Then the giant companies left and did not come back. They went to other African countries where they can secure vast exploration areas as big as a whole country.

Mining giants put preconditions like the World Bank and the International

Relentless... page 17


14| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009COMMENTARY

VIEWPOINT

Infrastructure-led growth has worked well in China up to now because the Chinese government

could control the political environment. This will not be the

case abroad, where instability, conflict, and corruption will

interfere with Chinese plans, argues

Francis Fukuyama

The fight against extremism will require force. But it will require

education, too, so that our citizens and those coming to our countries

understand why our values matter and why we will defend them. And it

will require cooperation – not least in the messy business of real-world

diplomacy, argues

Tony Blair.

The canon of Islamist terrorist activities in 2015 has been long and grim. In any given month, people have been killed in the name of a pernicious ideology.

In January, an estimated 2,000 were massacred in Baga, Nigeria; a car bomb killed 38 in Sana’a, Yemen; and 60 were slaughtered while praying in a mosque in Shikarpur, Pakistan. In June, more than 300 were executed or maimed in attacks in the Diffa Region in Niger, in Kuwait City, and in Sousse, Tunisia. And in November, nearly 200 died at the hands of terrorists in Sarajevo, Beirut, and Paris. Then, as December began, there was the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

This spreading terror is not confined to the atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS); it is a global problem. For that reason, the international community needs a comprehensive strategy to defeat Islamist extremism – one in which force, diplomacy, and development work together to achieve a more stable world.

The most urgent pillar of this strategy is dismantling ISIS, which must be eliminated not just in Syria and Iraq, but also in Libya and everywhere else it operates. The debate about how to do it should not center on whether to put Western “boots on the ground.” All of us must do what is necessary to defeat a group that has seized territory in

five countries and declared a new state ruled by fanatical ideologues. Because ISIS cannot be negotiated out of existence, a broad group of allies – with the right political strategy – must defeat it everywhere.

But victory over ISIS will be only a first, albeit essential, step to a just outcome in Syria, which means a settlement that allows the country to progress and fully respects its minorities – but without Bashar al-Assad remaining in power. Such a result will require leverage at the negotiating table, which is why helping our allies on the ground in Syria is crucial.

Moreover, ISIS is merely the most virulent manifestation of an extremism that has afflicted the world for decades. We must construct an international force able to fight extremists wherever – and whenever – they try to gain a foothold.

For Europe, in particular, this will involve a huge calculation. The security threat from ISIS is not at our door; it is within our home, and we have an overwhelming interest in eradicating it in the short and medium terms. In the longer term, we must recognize that the problem is the ideology of extremism itself. There are relatively few jihadists following ISIS and its ilk – but many more people buy into parts of their worldview.

Islam, as practiced and understood by the great majority of believers, is

a peaceful and honorable faith. It has contributed greatly to human existence and progress. But we cannot keep denying the nature of the problem we face. In many Muslim countries, large numbers of people believe that the CIA or the Jews were behind the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Meanwhile, Muslim clerics with millions of Twitter followers around the world proclaim that non-believers and apostates must be killed, or they call for jihad against Jews.

The Centre on Religion and Geo-Politics at my foundation tracks this extremism every day, and its research makes for fascinating, if alarming, reading. It shows clearly that uprooting this ideology will require digging deep.

To this end, I have advocated an internationally agreed “Global Commitment on Education”: each and every country has a responsibility to promote cultural and religious tolerance and to eradicate cultural and religious prejudice within its education system.

We must also support those who confront extremist doctrine. Many brave and serious theologians – like those from Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque or Mauritania’s Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah – are showing how the true teaching of Islam leads to reconciliation with the modern world.

Defeating Islamist extremists in 2016

As 2016 begins, an historic contest is underway over competing development models – that is, strategies to promote economic growth – between China, on the one hand, and the US and other Western countries on the other. Although this contest has been largely hidden from public view, the outcome will determine the fate of much of Eurasia for decades to come.

Most Westerners are aware that growth has slowed substantially in China, from over 10% per year in recent decades to below seven percent today (and possibly lower). The country’s leaders have not been sitting still in response, seeking to accelerate the shift from an export-oriented, environmentally damaging growth model based on heavy manufacturing to one based on domestic consumption and services.

But there is a large external dimension to China’s plans as well. In 2013, President Xi Jinping announced a massive initiative called “One Belt, One Road,” which would transform the economic core of Eurasia. The One Belt component consists of rail links from western China through Central Asia and thence to Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. The strangely named One Road component consists of ports and facilities to increase seaborne traffic from East Asia and connect these

countries to the One Belt, giving them a way to move their goods overland, rather than across two oceans, as they currently do.

The China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which the US earlier this year refused to join, is designed, in part, to finance One Belt, One Road. But the project’s investment requirements will dwarf the resources of the proposed new institution.

Indeed, One Belt, One Road represents a striking departure in Chinese policy. For the first time, China is seeking to export its development model to other countries. Chinese companies, of course, have been hugely active throughout Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade, investing in commodities and extractive industries and the infrastructure needed to move them to China. But One Belt, One Road is different: its purpose is to develop industrial capacity and consumer demand in countries outside of China. Rather than extracting raw materials, China is seeking to shift its heavy industry to less developed countries, making them richer and encouraging demand for Chinese products.

China’s development model is different from the one currently fashionable in

the West. It is based on massive state-led investments in infrastructure – roads, ports, electricity, railways, and airports – that facilitate industrial development. American economists abjure this build-it-and-they-will-come path, owing to concerns about corruption and self-dealing when the state is so heavily involved. In recent years, by contrast, US and European development strategy has focused on large investments in public health, women’s empowerment, support for global civil society, and anti-corruption measures.

Laudable as these Western goals are, no country has ever gotten rich by investing in them alone. Public health is an important background condition for sustained growth; but if a clinic lacks reliable electricity and clean water, or there are no good roads leading to it, it won’t do much good. China’s infrastructure-based strategy has worked remarkably well in China itself, and was an important component of the strategies pursued by other East Asian countries, from Japan to South Korea to Singapore.

The big question for the future of global politics is straightforward: Whose model will prevail? If One Belt,

Exporting the Chinese model

Exporting... page 28

Defeating... page 32


The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |15OPINION

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Some of the biggest risks lie in the emerging economies, which are suffering

primarily from a sea change in the global economic environment. During

China’s infrastructure boom, it was importing huge volumes of commodities,

pushing up their prices and, in turn, growth in the world’s commodity

exporters, writes

Carmen Reinhart.

When it comes to sovereign debt, the term “default” is often misunderstood. It almost never entails the complete and permanent repudiation of the entire stock of debt; indeed, even some Czarist-era Russian bonds were eventually (if only partly) repaid after the 1917 revolution. Rather, non-payment – a “default,” according to credit-rating agencies, when it involves private creditors – typically spurs a conversation about debt restructuring, which can involve maturity extensions, coupon-payment cuts, grace periods, or face-value reductions (so-called “haircuts”).

If history is a guide, such conversations may be happening a lot in 2016.

Like so many other features of the global economy, debt accumulation and default tends to occur in cycles. Since 1800, the global economy has endured several such cycles, with the share of independent countries undergoing restructuring during any given year oscillating between zero and 50 percent (see figure). Whereas one- and two-decade lulls in defaults are not uncommon, each quiet spell has invariably been followed by a new wave of defaults.

The most recent default cycle includes the emerging-market debt crises of the 1980s and 1990s. Most countries resolved their external-debt problems by the mid-1990s, but a substantial share of countries in the lowest-income group

remain in chronic arrears with their official creditors.

Like outright default or the restructuring of debts to official creditors, such arrears are often swept under the rug, possibly because they tend to involve low-income debtors and relatively small dollar amounts. But that does not negate their eventual capacity to help spur a new round of crises, when sovereigns who never quite got a handle on their debts are, say, met with unfavorable global conditions.

And, indeed, global economic conditions – such as commodity-price fluctuations and changes in interest rates by major economic powers such as the United States or China – play a major role in precipitating sovereign-debt crises. As my recent work with Vincent Reinhart and Christoph Trebesch reveals, peaks and troughs in the international capital-flow cycle are especially dangerous, with defaults proliferating at the end of a capital-inflow bonanza.

As 2016 begins, there are clear signs of serious debt/default squalls on the horizon. We can already see the first white-capped waves.

For some sovereigns, the main problem stems from internal debt dynamics. Ukraine’s situation is certainly precarious, though, given its unique drivers, it is probably best not to draw broader conclusions from its trajectory.

Greece’s situation, by contrast, is all too familiar. The government continued to accumulate debt until the burden was no longer sustainable. When the evidence of these excesses became overwhelming, new credit stopped flowing, making it impossible to service existing debts. Last July, in highly charged negotiations with its official creditors – the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund – Greece defaulted on its obligations to the IMF. That makes Greece the first – and, so far, the only – advanced economy ever to do so.

But, as is so often the case, what happened was not a complete default so much as a step toward a new deal. Greece’s European partners eventually agreed to provide additional financial support, in exchange for a pledge from Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government to implement difficult structural reforms and deep budget cuts. Unfortunately, it seems that these measures did not so much resolve the Greek debt crisis as delay it.

Another economy in serious danger is the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which urgently needs a comprehensive restructuring of its USD 73 billion in sovereign debt. Recent agreements to restructure some debt are just the beginning; in fact, they are not even

A year of sovereign defaults?

A year of.. page 28



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Monetary Fund (IMF). They demand the lifting of some regulations.

We were giving exploration licenses for small companies, which had neither the capital nor the knowhow required the execute exploration and development projects. They used to present fake reports. So we used to give and revoke exploration licenses. That cost us a lot and we learned the hard way.

Now we believe that the mining sector should significantly contribute to the fast economic development Ethiopia is registering. So we drafted a new strategy that enables us to lobby and attract giant international mining companies. We recently started working on that. As part of this new initiative, we managed to attract a mining giant called Newmont Mining Corporation that have shown a keen interest in gold exploration and extraction projects in the Tigrai Regional State. This company is getting ready to engage in gold exploration and development projects in two concessions in Tigrai. We are also in the process to bring more companies.

If a company is committed and has the required capital and technology required for mineral exploration and development project we have to be flexible on some regulation issues to convince them to invest here.

Yes we have not fully utilized our mineral resources but now we have drafted a new strategy that enables us to unleash our mining potential. We did not utilize our resources but we have not been looted as it is the case in some African countries.

In a recent interview with The Reporter, Prime Minister Hailemariam Dessalegn said that the mining sector did not grow. In fact, he said the sector grew below zero percent. Was he referring to the foreign currency earning or was he saying that the whole sector recessed?

He may have been referring to the mining sector contribution to the GDP. Maybe he was saying that in connection with the commodity price decline and the dwindling of mining sector’s contribution to the economy. But I do not have adequate information on the matter.

Companies complain that the exploration licensing procedure is bureaucratic with unnecessarily prolonged time to secure exploration license. What is your reaction to this complaint?

There are problems in handling exploration license applications promptly. We are consulting the government to relax licensing procedures. We are encouraging and supporting companies engaged in mineral exploration projects.

But, at the end of the day, there are working procedures we should adhere to. If a company demands to be given an exploration area within two days that is impossible. We are granting a concession up to 1500sq.km. We can not do it within two days.

We need to check our cadaster system to avoid overlapping. We need to check

the company’s profile, its reputation, financial position and knowhow. We cannot simply give licenses to companies that come up with only the money. We learned from our past mistakes.

We also have limitations when it comes to skilled human resource. Professionals leave our ministry in search of better pay and at times it is challenging to promptly evaluate applications. But it is not only our fault. The companies, too, are responsible for the delays in processing licenses. There are information, documents and data we require from them. It takes them a month or two to produce the required documentation.

Relentless... CONT`D FROM PAGE 13

How many companies are currently engaged in mineral exploration? Do you supervise and monitor their activities?

There are about 170 licensed companies. They were more than 200 hundred. But we revoked many licenses as the holders were unable to realize the projects. So now we have about 170 companies engaged in exploration projects in different parts of the country.

We do evaluation and monitoring work but we have capacity limitations due to the dearth of experts. As I said earlier, senior experts leave the ministry in search of better paying jobs. We are also trying to recruit fresh university graduates and train them.

MIDROC Gold is engaged in large scale gold production. Do you monitor its mining activity? Do you check how much they produce?

We evaluate and monitor their mining activity. As per our agreement, we record how much they produce, how much they export or the samples they send abroad. But that is not the problem. MIDROC cuts down its gold export when the price of gold falls down. We are in constant deliberations with them not to decrease production and diminish export in spite of the falling commodity price. That is because we need to compensate the lost foreign currency due to the price fall.

Apart from that, MIDROC Gold has allocated a hefty amount of money and carried out exploration work and made a new gold discovery in the Metekel Zone. It is by far better than most companies that are yet to undertake tangible exploration activities.

A number of companies are engaged in oil and gas exploration projects in Ethiopia. Is there any oil and gas discovery?

Oil and gas exploration has been going on for the past many years. A considerable number of companies have entered Ethiopia at different times and have pulled out. This happens in other countries as well. After undertaking few exploration works, companies leave. They may

face budget constraint and want to avoid risk.

We have a proven natural gas reserves in the Somali Regional State in Calub and Hilala localities. The reserve was confirmed by a Russian company. Several companies took over the concessions but they abandoned the project because of their own reasons. Some of them did not have the required financing and technology to realize the project.

Now, a Chinese company (Poly-GCL) took over the gas fields and is performing well. They are drilling exploration and appraisal wells. They are also collecting seismic data. They are doing pretty well. Other companies are also undertaking exploration works in the Rift System in the south.

The price of crude oil in the global market has nosedived and this has negatively impacted the oil and gas exploration industry. Fortunately, in Ethiopia the oil companies are working diligently. The price fall did not deter them.

There are rumors that claim that Tullow Oil and New Age have suspended exploration works due to the discouraging exploration results they got. How far is that true?

The information is erroneous. As far as we know both Tullow and New Age are still working on their exploration projects. It is true that Tullow drilled four exploration wells but it did not find oil and gas reserve. Our expectation was high but they did not find anything. They spent a hefty amount of money on the drilling. Even then they did not decide to pullout; in fact, they said that they want to revise their seismic data and try to identify other potential areas. They asked for an extension so we extended their license.

New Age found some gas. But they need to drill more appraisal wells. They also want to study the commercialization. Recently, they asked us to extend their license for one year and we have already renewed their license.

Poly-GCL, the Chinese company, has announced its plan to launch gas production from the Calub and Hilala gas fields by 2018. It said it will build a pipeline all the way from the gas field to the Port of Djibouti and a gas treatment plant near the port. The clock is ticking and they are left with only two years without having started the construction of the gas treatment plant. Neither have they commenced work on the pipeline construction. Do you think the project will come to fruition in 2018?

We did not setup the plan. We do not have the experience in gas development so we did not want to set a date for production. We are careful not to be over ambitious. What we know is that the company is doing a good job. We are providing every assistance they need.

The negotiation with the government of Djibouti on the pipeline construction by itself will take time. The pipeline construction would take a prolonged time. It is a complicated project that is why we did not want to set a date. But we hope that it will commence production in the second GTP-II.

There are problems in handling exploration license applications promptly. We are consulting the government to relax licensing procedures. We are encouraging and supporting companies engaged in mineral exploration projects.


18| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009INTERVIEW +

Since July 2014 Professor Louise O. Fresco has been serving as President of Wageningen University and Research, in the Netherlands. She combines a long academic career as a professor in Wageningen and Amsterdam, with

various visiting professorships, and an extensive involvement in policy and development. She is a member of the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences and of four foreign Academies, as well as Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Academy of Sciences of South Africa. She served for nearly ten years as an assistant-director general at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. She received two national prizes – Comenius and Groeneveld – for her work. Professor Fresco serves as a non-executive director of Unilever and is a member of the Council of Advisors of the World Food Prize. She is also involved in many philanthropic and cultural foundations and has twelve non-scientific books published in Dutch, including three novels. She recently visited Addis Ababa as the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Ethiopian

government launched, BENEFIT, an agricultural program that focuses on integrating all projects that have already been implemented in five major regions with high potential for cash crops. Henok Reta of The

Reporter sat down with her for an exclusive interview at Elilly International Hotel during the launch program. Excerpts:

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The Reporter: For how long has the academic and research cooperation between Wageningen and Ethiopia existed?

Lousia O. Fresco (Prof.): It has been almost forty years since academic and research cooperation between Wageningen University and Ethiopia existed. Over the years we have seen many alumni from Ethiopia including the current president of Addis Ababa University, Admasu Tsegaye (Prof.). We are the number one institute in the world to have this significant cooperation particularly with Africa. So far, we have admitted more than five hundred PhD candidates from Ethiopia. For us, it is very important to stay close to Africa. I would also like to mention that we have, so far, accepted more than twelve hundred PhD candidates from Africa.

Ethiopia is a special country for us and we want to remain a great partner for its development in the agriculture sector by offering scholarships in specific fields that have, up to now, produced highly qualified agricultural experts and researchers.

How do you evaluate the impact of this longstanding cooperation?

The cooperation has contributed a lot in terms of offering scholarships for African students. The education they received has help them and their continent realize its massive potential in agriculture. We have always been positive about the potential Africa has in agriculture. However, there are many factors hindering the sector from growing. In fact, most African nations shown their commitment for the sector through a program called CAADP (Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Program) of the Maputo Agreement. Ethiopia and Ghana are the leading countries in taking it seriously and have the willingness to work hard in realizing their potential of becoming strong economies.

I’m pleased to see how things have changed since I first visited Ethiopia in the 1980s. I know a lot of things remain to be done but the start is quite good and changes do not come quickly anywhere. I think the country is doing well in making its economy better and there is progress in the agriculture sector, which is the backbone of the economy.

What specific progress have you noticed

and what are the bottlenecks?

As far as I’m concerned, the sector has a contrasting image particularly when highlighting success stories and the current drought. Agriculture is still rain-fed and subsistence despite the government’s effort to promote investment in the sector. The crop production in some regions has seen positive results due to the strategy the government has put in place in the Growth and Transformation Plan. However, at the same time, more people are leaving their farms to join the construction sector, which is currently booming in cities, or be employed in one of the large commercial farms.

I think the best way to grow is the one that combines both small scale-farming and large-scale farming. Now more people are out of small-scale farming because of various reasons and one reason is their desire to work on mechanized farming, which is owned by private investors. There would be more production on a small plot when you get the best out of it and that is what’s going on in Ethiopia. Access to seeds, fertilizers and modern technology should be fully realized in making the sector better. It requires more effort and time. I think there are problems related to capacity building and perhaps weakness in realizing a holistic approach to managing crop and livestock at the same time. So, there should be a common understanding among the players in the sector. Many developed countries have gone through similar challenges and I think Ethiopia would succeed by putting in place the necessary strategies.

What makes African agriculture students and experts interested in joining Wageningen and are there specific reasons for offering these opportunities?

We do not have a specific western model to teach or train Africans. We standout as the first destination for the candidates because we know each other very well. We come to Africa and Africa comes to us. We know the problems and what the solutions should be. I have been visiting Africa ever since I was a student and in my trips I have acquired important lessons. I have developed a certain type of understanding about Africa’s agriculture. By frequently coming here, we have a lot to provide.

A concerted attempt to excel in agriculture


The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |19INTERVIEW +

Farming is not an easy job. It has its

and restricts all the players. When they get the time and space their contribution will indeed be witnessed. I understand the concern but it has to be understood that the problem is vast.

We have many students from different parts of the world including Africa but we are not here to parachute European solutions to Africa. What we do is assist you in finding your own solutions. For instance, Ethiopia learned about the importance of having agricultural institutions from us and that led to the opening of several agricultural research institutes. That is what we have to bring to Africa; that is beyond knowledge and techniques. I think one of the reasons

why African governments like to work with us is because we spend a lot of time creating linkages between government institutions, members of the private sector and universities. We have managed to work with six universities and several other institutions in Ethiopia alone.

But why is the result lagging behind?

I don’t think the result is something that happens in a short period of time or in a specific period amidst action. You need time to evaluate your procedures and come up with other mechanisms. There must be a comprehensive approach to develop agriculture. The private sector has a great role to play alongside the government because the government can’t always find gold or bake bread. Moreover, you need centers of excellence to prove that you are on the right track ahead of your goals. These centers of excellence are built when you have the exposure and trainings abroad because that is the right platform for interaction and exchange.

More than half of the students we have are from outside of the Netherlands. That will help them discuss their problems and look for a means of tackling it. Ethiopia, in particular, should work on increasing its efforts of solving the problems through capacity building at regional levels as it follows a complex administration structure. It has to be understood that agriculture is the only way to develop. No other

country in the world has become industrialized without agriculture. You need to exert massive efforts to reduce the enormous loss in harvesting, storage, humidity and transportation. Moreover, isolation in some remote areas, where farmers have no access to information on crop price and disease, has to be looked into.

What what is your comment with regard to the criticisms some have towards the government’s policies?

I think the policies have to be exclusive and they should be carved from deep analyses and experience to bring about change. In my experience, the policies would be nothing if they fail to make the private sector vibrant. The private sector is instrumental in attracting investment. The Ethiopian government has been doing good but the gaps that exist with key stakeholders should be thoroughly looked into. We have to know that there is no magic solution elsewhere but the solution is not far away from us. Yes, the yield is very low at the moment and you may need more effort to increase production so by applying the stated recommendations you will be able to find the solution.

Ethiopia is a very diverse country with different weather conditions so you need to have a specific application for every situation. You need to have quality application that go in line with the situation on the ground. The other most important thing is transforming smallholder farmers into entrepreneurs in farming. I have never found a small-scale farmer in my life who wants to remain a farmer and they all told me they want to move up to entrepreneurship. So that is something policymakers should consider.

What contributions have your candidates made so far? Do you follow their progress?

We closely observe some of the progresses the candidates have made in Ethiopia; particularly in solving

the problems of the farmers. However, their work is mostly limited since they do not have well-equipped research centers. They still manage to support the farmers and conduct researches at the universities and other similar institutions. On the other hand, their contributions might not be that noticeable since the problem here is at a national level.

Farming is not an easy job. It has its own difficulties and restricts all the

players. When they get the time and space their contribution will indeed be witnessed. I understand the concern but it has to be understood that the problem is vast. There should be a massive coordinated effort at all levels and the sector has to be demand driven and not a supply driven one. You don’t have to import food while having a tremendous potential of exporting it to the larger part of Africa. You have to know that Sub-Saharan Africa only produces 13 percent of the food with the remaining imported from other parts of the world. I think this has to change and if agriculture is going to take the lead, it should be given due attention from every stakeholder.

There have been arguments from both sides of the aisle over the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in the country. What is your take on this?

That is a global trend happening almost everywhere but there has to be a specific purpose to have these things. For example, you have a crop disease that affects a certain crop in a specific area and you need to develop a gene that can resist the disease or the bacteria. Or, you produce enormous amounts of potato almost every where in the country but a huge loss occurs because of storage and transportation issue again you might need a potato gene that stays longer on a shelf. So, in

A concerted... page 28


20| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009COMMENTARY +

VIEWPOINT +

Most natural-resource-based economies in Africa and Latin

America failed to take advantage of the commodity price boom

underpinned by China’s rise to create a diversified economy; now they face the consequences of depressed prices

for their main exports, writes

Joseph E. Stiglitz.

China imported a huge volume of commodities, thereby bolstering

many African and Latin American economies, and purchased German

cars and machines, enabling Europe’s largest economy to keep its regional

supply chains humming, writes

Ashoka Mody.

Another slow.. page 28

The year 2015 was a hard one all around. Brazil fell into recession. China’s economy experienced its first serious bumps after almost four decades of breakneck growth. The eurozone managed to avoid a meltdown over Greece, but its near-stagnation has continued, contributing to what surely will be viewed as a lost decade. For the United States, 2015 was supposed to be the year that finally closed the book on the Great Recession that began back in 2008; instead, the US recovery has been middling.

Indeed, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, has declared the current state of the global economy the New Mediocre. Others, harking back to the profound pessimism after the end of World War II, fear that the global economy could slip into depression, or at least into prolonged stagnation.

In early 2010, I warned in my book Freefall, which describes the events leading up to the Great Recession, that without the appropriate responses, the world risked sliding into what I called a Great Malaise. Unfortunately, I was right: We didn’t do what was needed, and we have ended up precisely where I feared we would.

The economics of this inertia is easy to understand, and there are readily available remedies. The world faces a deficiency of aggregate demand, brought on by a combination of growing inequality and a mindless wave of fiscal austerity. Those at the top spend far less than those at the bottom, so

that as money moves up, demand goes down. And countries like Germany that consistently maintain external surpluses are contributing significantly to the key problem of insufficient global demand.

At the same time, the US suffers from a milder form of the fiscal austerity prevailing in Europe. Indeed, some 500,000 fewer people are employed by the public sector in the US than before the crisis. With normal expansion in government employment since 2008, there would have been two million more.

Moreover, much of the world is confronting – with difficulty – the need for structural transformation: from manufacturing to services in Europe and America, and from export-led growth to a domestic-demand-driven economy in China. Likewise, most natural-resource-based economies in Africa and Latin America failed to take advantage of the commodity price boom underpinned by China’s rise to create a diversified economy; now they face the consequences of depressed prices for their main exports. Markets never have been able to make such structural transformations easily on their own.

There are huge unmet global needs that could spur growth. Infrastructure alone could absorb trillions of dollars in investment, not only true in the developing world, but also in the US, which has underinvested in its core infrastructure for decades. Furthermore, the entire world needs to retrofit itself to face the reality of global

warming.

While our banks are back to a reasonable state of health, they have demonstrated that they are not fit to fulfill their purpose. They excel in exploitation and market manipulation; but they have failed in their essential function of intermediation. Between long-term savers (for example, sovereign wealth funds and those saving for retirement) and long-term investment in infrastructure stands our short-sighted and dysfunctional financial sector.

Former US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke once said that the world is suffering from a “savings glut.” That might have been the case had the best use of the world’s savings been investing in shoddy homes in the Nevada desert. But in the real world, there is a shortage of funds; even projects with high social returns often can’t get financing.

The only cure for the world’s malaise is an increase in aggregate demand. Far-reaching redistribution of income would help, as would deep reform of our financial system – not just to prevent it from imposing harm on the rest of us, but also to get banks and other financial institutions to do what they are supposed to do: match long-term savings to long-term investment needs.

But some of the world’s most important problems will require government investment. Such outlays are needed in

The great malaise continues

The great... page 29

Last April, the International Monetary Fund projected that the world economy would grow by 3.5 percent in 2015. In the ensuing months, that forecast was steadily whittled down, reaching 3.1 percent in October. But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) continues to insist – as it has, with almost banal predictability, for the last seven years – that next year will be better. But it is almost certainly wrong yet again.

For starters, world trade is growing at an anemic annual rate of two percent, compared to eight percent from 2003 to 2007. Whereas trade growth during those heady years far exceeded that of world GDP, which averaged 4.5 percent, lately, trade and GDP growth rates have been about the same. Even if GDP growth outstrips growth in trade this year, it will likely amount to no more than 2.7 percent.

The question is why. According to Christina and David Romer of the University of California, Berkeley, the aftershocks of modern financial crises – that is, since World War II – fade after 2-3 years. The Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff say that it takes five years for a country to dig itself out of a financial crisis. And, indeed, the financial dislocations of 2007-2008 have largely receded. So what accounts for the sluggish economic recovery?

One popular explanation lies in the fuzzy notion of “secular stagnation”:

long-term depressed demand for goods and services is undermining incentives to invest and hire. But demand would remain weak only if people lacked confidence in the future. The only logical explanation for this enduring lack of confidence, as Northwestern University’s Robert Gordon has painstakingly documented and argued, is slow productivity growth.

Before the crisis – and especially from 2003 to 2007 – slow productivity growth was being obscured by an illusory sense of prosperity in much of the world. In some countries – notably, the United States, Spain, and Ireland – rising real-estate prices, speculative construction, and financial risk-taking were mutually reinforcing. At the same time, countries were amplifying one another’s growth through trade.

Central to the global boom was China, the rising giant that flooded the world with cheap exports, putting a lid on global inflation. Equally important, China imported a huge volume of commodities, thereby bolstering many African and Latin American economies, and purchased German cars and machines, enabling Europe’s largest economy to keep its regional supply chains humming.

This dynamic reversed around March 2008, when the US rescued its fifth-largest investment bank, Bear Sterns, from collapse. With the eurozone banks also deeply implicated in the subprime mortgage mess and desperately short

of US dollars, America and much of Europe began a remorseless slide into recession. Whereas in the boom years, world trade had spread the bounty, it was now spreading the malaise. As each country’s GDP growth slowed, so did its imports, causing its trading partners’ growth to slow as well.

The US economy began to emerge from its recession in the second half of 2009, thanks largely to aggressive monetary policy and steps to stabilize the financial system. Eurozone policymakers, by contrast, rejected monetary stimulus and implemented fiscal austerity measures, while ignoring the deepening distress of their banks. The eurozone thus pushed the world into a second global recession.

Just when that recession seemed to have run its course, emerging economies began to unravel. For years, observers had been touting the governance and growth-enhancing reforms that these countries’ leaders had supposedly introduced. In October 2012, the IMF celebrated emerging economies’ “resilience.” As if on cue, that facade began to crumble, revealing an inconvenient truth: factors like high commodity prices and massive capital inflows had been concealing serious economic weaknesses, while legitimizing a culture of garish inequality and rampant corruption.

Another slow year for the global economy


The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |21OPINION +

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The safety and security of any country is based on the quality and strength

of its defense mechanisms and history has showed us that a country’s

military is an integral part of its development, writes

Gebregziabher Wondaferew.

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Our country Ethiopia has a unique place in history. Having defended our territorial integrity for more than 3,000 years, we Ethiopians have always known what freedom means, thanks to our gallant sons and daughters. Those enemies, who unsuccessfully attempted to invade Ethiopia, were humiliated by our victorious men and women in uniform.

Parallel to most countries in the contemporary world, Ethiopia as well formed its modern army to protect its national borders and sovereignty. Even before the invasion of Italy and the advent Second World War, Emperor Haileselassie was working on having a modern military service. Ethiopian Ground, Air and Naval Forces were formed in the early 1930s, 40s and late 40s, respectively. Members of these modern armed forces – like their forefathers – defended their country over the years with the assistance of the heroic and patriotic people of Ethiopia and will continue to do so for generations to come. Ethiopia has served and is still serving under the UN peacekeeping forces in several countries and have proved to be efficient at all times.

Regrettably, this army – with all the achievements on both national and international missions – has no proper records of its history and veterans in addition to lacking the accolade it deserves. Most of those patriots, who fought courageously in several war fronts, have passed away and the few remaining are in their old ages. They deserve to have their history recorded

and be honored for the sacrifices they made. If not properly recognized, Ethiopian history will lack an essential chronicle and would be an incomplete document. True to form, we have read some books written by individuals and though their efforts are highly encouraged, most of them are based on hearsays. Therefore, a lot needs to be done so that there will not be a big gap in Ethiopian history.

Military personnel, who enlisted to sacrifice their lives for their country and were honorably discharged, must be looked after. Respecting veterans is the responsibility of the society in the civilized world and the societies know the values of veterans. Being an army officer – from the lower-ranking Private First Class to the commissioned General of the Army – means that one has set his/her priorities straight – country before self. They are ready to sacrifice their lives to the security, well-being and development of their country.

That being said, I believe that the Ethiopian Defense Veterans Association (EDVA) should have come into existence since the formation of our modern army in the early 1940s. It was a major setback by the previous two governments, especially the Derg considering the fact the the Derg was a military regime. The Derg should have known the importance of establishing a defense veterans association. In simple terms, respecting veterans, looking after their well-being, sharing their military experiences, assisting them in writing their stories, and facilitating their membership to the global veterans

association would unquestionably add value to our armed forces.

Back in 2005, the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Holleta Military Academy was celebrated at the Armed Forces Officers Club with former president of the republic, Girma Woldegiorgis, attending as the guest of honor. In his speech, Girma said, “It is better to have one Ethiopian Defense Veterans Association than having different associations. This will enable in assisting to efforts to join the global alliance of veterans association.” With this in mind, a group of former army officers from the Ground, Air and Naval forces formed a committee. They elected Jagema Kello (Lt. Gen.) as chairman. However, after three years of direct participation, he became sick and was unable to continue. Therefore, he was replaced but is still an active member of EDVA.

In May 2009, with the attendance of over sixty former army members including Jagema, seven executive committee members were elected. Abebe Woldemariam (Maj. Gen.) was elected as chairman and Abera Hailemariam (Col.) was selected to be vice chairman. Unfortunately, both of them passed away without leaving records about to their military life.

With the motto of “Better To Begin Than Never, we established the association and started to work on the fulfillment of the goals of EDVA.

Honoring the veterans

Honoring... page 29


22| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009LIVING & THE ARTS

The holiday season upon them, Christmas shoppers have come out in number to one of the oldest and biggest markets in the capital—Mercato. Nevertheless, underneath the holiday shopping commotion, Mercato is exhibiting another dynamic: a process that is set in motion by the drive to transform Mercato and small vendors who struggle to find their place, writes Henok Reta.

A city within a city. Better yet, a community within a community. If there is one place that can bear this name proudly in Addis Ababa, it is Mercato. Once dubbed the largest open marketplace in the continent, Mercato has a very important place in the social fabric of the city. For one, the first thing that comes to mind when an Addis Ababa in is planning to do a major shopping is Mercato.

The area is said to be establish by segregationist policies of the Italian occupational government to serve as a marketplace during the Italian occupation, when it was called Mercato Indigino – market of the indigenous. The intention was to marginalize the local marketers from the center of the city, Arada Giorgis, which the Italians called Piazza and where they opened shops for their convenience.

They say Mercato is a place where everything except a human being is up for sale; and it is the place for the best

price bargain that one can imagine to get in Addis Ababa.

Business is done uniquely in Mercato. There are products lying on every narrow ally and street of Mercato as much as there are in the big well-structured shops. Insiders say mostly there is little difference in quality between goods on the streets and those in shops. And there is a small matter of paying proper taxes and the associated pricing of the products.

If it is your first time to Mercato, you would be definitely surprised or even confused to be asked what kind of product you buy or if a complete stranger who has nothing but his phone on him making you an offer on certain products. Yes, this is another unique feature of Mercato, a gang of brokers and commission agents who are fighting with street vendors to snatch away potential customers. In fact, this is the legal shops’ way of responding to the stiff competition that is coming from the

street vendors.

Legalities aside, the street sale in Mercato has been the single most reason why the market was accorded the largest open market status. But, Merctao has been undergoing a major transformation in the past few years. A lot has to do with the government’s push to legalize and control the multi-million birr trading that is going on in Mercato on a daily basis. Now, high-rise malls and marketplaces being constructed in Mercato are changing the face of this old market for good.

Amidst holiday shopping spree this week, The Reporter observed that small street vendors, although struggling, are still trying to stay visible in Mercato. “We can never find a place like Merkato to sell our goods,” says Engidaw Melaku, 23, who came from Gojjam in search of better life.

Engidaw sells household utensils in several places in the capital. He is among the group of vendors who don’t

Mercato’s minnows fighting for a place

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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |23, 2016 LIVING & THE ARTS

Business is done uniquely in Mercato. There are products lying on every narrow ally and street of Mercato as much as there are in the big well-structured shops. Insiders say mostly there is little difference in quality between goods on the streets and those in shops. And there is a small matter of paying proper taxes and the associated pricing of the products.

have specific resting place but they disposed of their goods by roming the inner streets of Addis Ababa. He has done some sort of on-foot, house-to-house sale business, and he has been doing that for the past three years. But, he never goes out of Mercato when a holiday approaches. “Everybody is here in Merkato; so who should I deliver to at home,” he asks jokingly. Despite the transformation that is slowly changing Mercato, small businesses operated by street vendors like Engidaw still have a place to stop and sell their goods. Hundreds of these street vendors or the minnows of Mercato are far from being stable, however. Most of them sell their items at temporary stations that may be under big shopping malls or department stores. Well, that is until they are chased away by security officers wielding black rubber sticks.

These vendors are considered to be illegally snatching the business the tax-paying traders should have made inside the buildings. “They are robbers… they are source of robbery and pick pocketing,” pronounced a security officer. Nonetheless, unlike the officers many people still would like to keep the vendors around, and mostly because of the price of the item they carry. “I usually buy small things like kitchen knives, spoons, chopsticks and plates from these vendors,” Alemye Tsegu, a housewife says.

In fact, the vendors are really minnows compared with multi-million retail and wholes business that goes on in Mercato. They, however, get their fair share of the profit from every single good they sell. Above all, their penny-driven tiny market gives undeniable warmth to the entire market up. Their louder voices calling on buyers in the vast market adds a unique ambiance to Mercato.

Most vendors do this every day for about ten hours. “I don’t get tired. I have been doing this on a daily basis for years, since my young age,” Ahmedin Tugi, 21, a vendor in Mercato told The Reporter. For a young man like Ahmedin, who supports nine members of his family through street vending, life outside of Mercato would be something impossible. “I can’t bring myself to think of it even though I know that we are running out of space here,” he says. In his small insole and shoelace store he set up beneath a building around bombtera (loosely translated to mean bomb market), Ahmedin thrives slowly. “Many people including my relatives and kebele officials, have told me that I

would have no place in Mercato after a while, but I can’t accept it,” he replied boldly.

Although many young people make business in Mercato during the holiday season, there are also considerable number of elders, women and small children chasing after penny as street vendors. From the tiny stores that hold common salt or paper to the bigger one stuffed with butter, cheese and cooking oil, the jumbled market is owned by different individuals who patiently await their fate which would probably kick them out from Mercato.

Around bombtera where beauty products and decorations are usually sold a number of vendor cater to holiday shoppers selling Christmas ornaments and decorations imported from China. With a price ranging from 400 birr to 3500 birr fancy and iconic Christmas trees lead the market attracting many buyers. “I sell this [2 meter long tree]

for 1600, this [desktop tree] for 400 and that [3 meter long tree] for

3500,” explains Shikur, who temporarily placed his

items at the veranda of an old building where

hundreds of shops are rented for prices

as high as 50,000 birr a month. “We pay quite expensive rent for such very small space. Additionally, the outside vendors over the veranda stop many of our visitors entering here,” Momina, one of

the shop owners, says. However,

she feels their significance

presence in making the market spurred

particularly in such a holiday season.

As part of the initiative to make Mercato a modern

marketplace, housing big shopping malls and mega stores, the shabby alleyways and backstreets are being demolished. But this work is never easy as the vast market is complexly intertwined with residential areas. So far, several sloms lined with disfigured and falling houses have been cleared and converted into sites for well-erected buildings with hundreds of rooms inside; but the entire process of transforming the ramshackle surrounding of Mercato into a fashionable and modern marketplace has been slow for various reasons.

According to an official who previously spoke to The Reporter, the land in

Mercato’s... page 29


24| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009LIFESTYLE

By Esete Yeshitla

His white afro hair, lidded but focused eyes makes him appear a bit aged than 62 years old. Quick-witted and optimistic, Tesfaye Temtimé (Lt.) – born in Fiché town of Northwestern Shoa, Oromia Regional State – had served in the military during the time of Emperor Haileselassie and the Derg regime. Tesfaye calls himself fortunate for being able to raise six children and having four grandchildren. With one daughter living in Dubai, UAE and a son in the US, Tesfaye says that all except one are self-supporting.

It is during this time of the year that Tesfaye strolls down memory lane and recalls the merrymaking of the community during the Genna (Ethiopian Christmas) celebrations. He says that back in the day it was mostly youngsters who took part in the various festive activities.

“We used to play Genna Chewata (traditional hockey) with a ball and sticks in remembrance of the shepherds who played the whole night celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ,” Tesfaye says.

The game of traditional hockey was mostly reserved to youngsters and young adults simply because the game requires – among many things – a strong back, stamina and a wee bit of athleticism. So the elders in Tesfaye’s village used to focus on the tradition of Kercha (a holiday custom of slaughtering an ox and sharing it amongst neighbors for equal price).

“But after coming to Addis Ababa, we started celebrating Genna by baking Defo Dabo (traditional homemade bread) and Tella (traditional Ethiopian beer),” Tesfaye says.

Unlike lent season, not everyone fasts during this time and it is mostly the clergymen who do the fasting. “Being

stationed at the war front most of my life, I have never fasted especially during this period,” he says.

Tesfaye also believes that Genna has a special tradition that is being practiced these says. “During the birth of Jesus Christ, the Three Wise Men gave baby Christ gold, representing his kingdom, frankincense representing his holiness and myrrh representing his suffering and death.”

He, however, says that he has never given or received a gift during Genna. “When it comes to our tradition, it is during Buhé (the celebration of small boys, where kids go door to door to sing Buhe song), that we bake Mulmul Dabo (small rounded homemade bread) and take it to our grandchildren as presents.”

In the West, most families and friends celebrate Christmas by giving presents to each other. Children around the world believe in the myth of a Christmas gift bearer named Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas. The mythical man brings gifts to the homes of well-behaved, “good” children on December 24 (Christmas Eve) and the early morning hours of 25 December 25. Portrayed as a stout, joyous, white-bearded man—sometimes with spectacles— he carries a bag full of gifts for children and has been part of the Western Christmas culture for centuries, However, the actual shopping begins a month before Christmas.

For millions of people in the United States, Black Friday is the time to do some serious Christmas shopping. Black Friday is the first Friday after Thanksgiving, and it is the start of one of the major shopping seasons of the year falling anywhere between November 23 and 29.

The term “Black Friday” was coined in the 1960s to mark the kickoff to the

Christmas shopping season. “Black” refers to stores moving from the “red” to the “black” ink, back when accounting records were kept by hand. The red ink indicated loss while the black ink signaled profit. Hence, since it is during this time that profits rise and shops use black ink, the date is referred to as Black Friday.

Accounting Degree Review explains, 89 million shoppers braved the crowds on Black Friday 2012, up from 86 million in 2011. 247 million shoppers across the US over the weekend of 2012, up from 226 million in 2011. Total spendings of consumers on Black Friday in 2010 was USD 45 billion, USD 52.4 billion in 2011 and USD 59 billion in 2012.

It is during this period that stores in the US stack their shelves with the latest consumer goods ranging from electronic products and toys to household appliances and cater to a multitude of customers.

For Bethel, a business woman, and a mother of one, the celebration of Genna includes small present exchanging among family members. “Christmas is one of the most enjoyable holidays in our family. In addition to buying extra presents for our son, we make a list of the names of people who we would give presents on Christmas morning; until then it remains a secret,” Bethel says smiling.

“A week before Christmas we go to the various shopping malls and Christmas bazaars in town and buy presents that fit our budget,” she says, adding that most of the items are a bit pricey.

So, on Christmas morning, after exchanging their presents, Bethel and her family visit parents with presents such as cake, whiskey or wine along with Christmas cards. “It is our son who hands over the presents to his grandparents.”

During this period, businesspeople strive to make the highest sales. Zewdnesh is a salesperson in one of the biggest shopping malls around Bole that sells children’s apparel and toys. She says that even if they announced a 50 percent discount during the New Year’s shopping season, sales was not that good; however, Christmas sees the most profitable season.

“During Christmas red apparels sell like hot cakes and most customers want different items like books and diaries,” she says. “We usually don’t make discounts for this holiday season. However, for the New Year, we have a discount of 50 percent on the various merchandises as we have new arrivals.”

For Aseged, owner of a silversmith in the same shopping mall, his experience is the exact opposite. He says that their season peaks not during Christmas but New Year. “When compared to recent years, this year is the slowest,” he says.

“In our line of business, it is the New Year that brings us a hefty profit. Nonetheless, I can say that this Christmas season is exceptional – business is literally dead,” he says in wonderment. “For instance, today I sold as low as 400 birr. It maybe because business is sluggish all around the country or the reconstruction of Bole Road forced our customers to shift to other malls in town,” he adds.

In fact, it is not just Aseged who believe that businesses off Bole Road have felt the pinch because of the reconstruction of the avenue. Urbanites say that the lack of parking space have forced them to move to other venues to do their shopping.

On the flip side, Aseged says that those who are engaged in the business of selling Christmas accessories could be

The shopping side of Genna

Christmas shopping

The shopping... page 32



By Henok Reta

Christmas heralds the onset of the most fascinating festival season in Ethiopia which includes Ethiopian Christmas to be followed by Epiphany, and the most distinct weddings season across the country. Music remains an essential ingredient in all this since Ethiopians especially enjoy their music around the holidays. It has also become something of a trend for many prominent Ethiopian musicians to release their new albums so close to the holiday season. In fact, Ethiopians await the release of new music singles or albums to come around every holiday. On the other hand, many up-and-coming artists prefer to “drop” their debut albums so close to the holiday season for they know that they would face a better chance of selling their album around holiday times. It is almost as if music has managed to find its way into the long holiday shopping list of Ethiopians over the years.

However, it looks like this trend has been shifting slightly in recent times as people are becoming more interested in watching music-videos than listening to audio files. And it is all about setting the right mood for the holiday celebration; videos look to be in a position to offer more in this regard. This was indeed caused by the technology advancement as many would like to watch video clips that have both the motion and the audio altogether. However, some still argue that this is a trend caused by the declining quality with those newly-released music albums, even those released by prominent artists. Nonetheless, some of the artists are still keeping their faith in the music-loving community and are coming up with new music around holidays yet with a slight marketing touch that is uniquely featuring the album with at least one track about the holiday.

Interestingly, a couple of musicians have recently released their latest albums after decades. Halima Abdurahman and Wondimu Jirra were known to be amongst the phenomenal Ethiopian young musicians when they came up with their debuts albums more than ten years ago.

For many Ethiopians who live abroad, a new music released on the eve of a holiday is a superb gift that brings life to their detachment from large family which they have left back home. “I remember those new music albums released on the eve of Ethiopian New Year’s Day and Ethiopian Christmas way back when I was in Italy,” Zemzem Neguise, a diaspora returnee says. In those eleven years she spent in exile, Zemzem had some fresh memories of how Ethiopians celebrated holidays just like how they did back home largely thanks to those new music albums released so close to holidays.

Nevertheless, it has never been easy to get timely access of Ethiopian music abroad as there was no distributor, promoter or agent in many countries except the US Ethiopian communities abroad were able to get access to new albums

months after their release. And it was only via postal messages or hand delivery that music reached Ethiopians abroad.

These days, however, one Ethiopian music app is expanding

its reach in many countries where Ethiopians and Ethiopian music fans can be found. The app, which is named “ArifZefen”, literary translated to mean “nice song”, is keeping music fans up-to-date on Ethiopian music. “We targeted the Ethiopian community in the U.S. at first; but now we are able to reach more than half a million regular listeners around world,” Befikadu Ayenew, developer of the app told The Reporter. According

to him, Ethiopian music has difficulty in reaching those in exile although the demand has always been there. It had always been important for diaspora

to keep connect with their homeland,

particularly during the holiday season; and music is no doubt a prominent instrument to do that.

Nonetheless, this was not possible until the internet era started to dominate

the world. Now, every internet and cell phone user can listen to both old and contemporary Ethiopian music easily, he says. Speaking to The Reporter, Befikadu said that the app is ready to feature streaming music media on a cell phone. Over the past four years, the app has been used as an ultimate choice for Ethiopian music collection and it has served millions

across the world. “With 18 stations available on the app, users also have

the option of selecting a particular genre of Ethiopian music from the categories,” he explained. The app has

some five categories that feature traditional

Ethiopian songs from all

generations, contemporary Ethiopian songs, holiday songs,

instrumental songs and liturgical songs. Moreover, it categorizes and sends the most liked songs to users to ease one’s selection problem or assist with listening of the new and upcoming releases.

In addition to helping music fans get tuned into the radio to listen to new music, the app also promotes artists especially those willing to release only one or two songs for free as promotion. More importantly, it will facilitate online sale for Ethiopian artists who have been frustrated in search of dependable local online service to promote their music. He also said that the app is free to download on Iphone but it will soon get it available for other android cellphones. Furthermore, Ethiopian music fans living here could download the app offline when the internet is down to increase the number of users in Ethiopia. “We have a very low number of users inside Ethiopia due to low internet coverage,” he said.

According to Mieraf Tekle, marketing head of app which they claim to be this first ever online Ethiopian music collection, negotiation is under way with some artists to get them to be compensated in accordance with the royalty fee law for the work of arts and entertainment. But, she says the cyber theft on music is still unsolved to come up with universal agreement. “We have given trainings on online music sale and compensation for some artists in Ethiopia. We want and will remain to be an honest partner to them (musicians),” she said. According to Hailay Tadesse, Ethiopian Audiovisual Producers Association (EAPA), the app will indeed help the music industry to get digital access like any other music worldwide when it finds a common ground to stand on with musicians, producers and promoters, avoiding any possible copyright infringement.

ENTERTAINMENT

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These days, however, one Ethiopian music app is expanding

its reachin many countries where Ethiopians andEthiopian musicfans can be found. The app, which isnamed “ArifZefen”,literary translated to mean “nice song”, is keeping music fans up-to-date on Ethiopian music. “We targeted the Ethiopian community in the U.S. at first; but now we are able to reach more than

homeland, the internet era started to dominate the world. Now, every internet

and cell phone user can listento both old and contemporary Ethiopian music easily, hesays. Speaking to The Reporter, Befikadu said that the app is ready to feature streaming music media on a cell phone. Over the past four years, the app has been used as an ultimate choice for Ethiopian music collectionand it has served millions

acaccacroc ss the world. “With 18 stationsavailable on the app, users also have

the option of selecting a particular genre of Ethiopian music from the categories,” he explained. The app has

some five categories thatfeature traditional

Ethiopiansongs from all

generations, contemporaryEthiopian songs, holiday songs,



ENTERTAINMENT IN BRIEF

CONT`D FROM PAGE 11

Alemayehu Biratu’s “Café in Addis”

exposition @ Alliance Ethio-Française

Selam Music Festival @ Ghion Hotel

Having been temporarily closed because of the holiday season, Alliance Ethio-Française is back with Alemayehu Biratu’s Café in Addis exposition being the first event to be held in the year 2016.

Alemayehu Biratu was born in 1985 in Addis Ababa. In 2008, he graduated in Sculpture from Addis Ababa University’s School of Fine Arts and Design. He participated in group exhibitions in both Addis Ababa and Hawassa.

Alemayehu is highly inspired by the power of nature and the strong varied feelings it evokes. His presentations and works mainly focus on the café atmosphere: people feeling, people waiting, discussions, meetings and thoughts inside the thousands of café in Addis.

Since cafés have become the main spot for discussing issues that range from the political spectrum to the socio-economic aspects of lives, the exposition is expected to illustrate the cafés as being the most interesting and integral part of peoples’ everyday lives.

The exposition will be opened on Thursday 14th, January 2016 at 6pm.

The fifth edition of the highly anticipated musical event, Selam Music Festival, will be held on 9th and 10th of January, 2016 at Unity Park of Ghion Hotel.

The launching ceremony of the festival took place at the residence of the Ambassador of Sweden on Friday January 8 in the presence of members of the diplomatic corps in Addis, participating figures, members of the media and other invited guests. The Embassy of Sweden is one of the partners of the event.

This is the fifth edition of Selam Festiva and will feature several solo performers and groups from across the world.

Mahmoud Ahmed, the prominent figure of the event and the upcoming new singer and winner of Balageru Idol, Dawit Tsige are amongst the local entertainers while American musical prodigy Yasiin Bey a.k.a. Mos Def will be presented as a phenomenal guest of the festival. Other musical bands from Sweden, Uganda, Mali and Cameroon will also be playing along with local groups such as the Krar Collective.

can not simply give licenses to any company which comes up with only money. We have learned from our past mistakes,” he said.

Tolossa admits that the ministry is facing dearth of skilled labor. “Professionals leave our ministry in search of better payment and at times it is challenging to promptly evaluate applications. But it is not only our fault. The companies, too, are responsible for

the delay in processing licenses. There are information, documents and data we require from them. It takes them a month or two to produce the required documentation.”

The minister rejects the accusation of appointments. “We do not appoint unqualified personnel. If it is believed that we are incapable and there is a better leadership we are willing to vacate our seats.”

Last year the World Bank assessed the Ethiopian mining sector. The report released by the bank in October 2014 highlights the hurdles in the Ethiopian mining sector. According to the World Bank, inadequate promotional work, inefficient licensing procedures, dearth of trained professionals, low productivity, and border conflicts (disagreements related to land use) are some of the red-tapes in the mining sector. The report states that there was

lack of trained professionals and high staff turnover at the MoMPNG and Ethiopian Geological Survey (GSE). “While considerable competence exists in particular among many MoM and GSE long-term employees, the overall capacity at the ministry and GSE for proper promotion, supervision and regulation of the sector is limited,” says the report. According to the report, there are critical capacity constraints at the MMPN licensing department.

Prospects and...



Goethe Institut assigns new director

in Addis Ababa

New documentary on Ethiopia @

African Diaspora Film FestivalGoethe Institut of the German cultural association, which is present in more than 159 countries worldwide, has assigned its new director to Ethiopia.

According to the organization, the newly assigned director is Julia Settler (PhD) arrived in Addis Ababa in the beginning of the New Year to replace her predecessor Irmtraut Hubatsch who served as a director for a long period of time.

The Goethe Institut in Addis Ababa was one of the first to be set up in Africa, back in January 1962. On its 50th anniversary, the Goethe Institut in Addis Ababa can rightfully say of itself that it has contributed to a deeper understanding between the peoples of both countries (Ethiopia and Germany).

It has launched, directed and/or coordinated a great many projects and programs on German and Ethiopian history, sociology, culture and language, in the course of which it has consistently made a point of working closely together with Ethiopian cultural institutions, private initiatives and the broader public.

A new documentary on Ethiopia entitled “If Only I Were That Warrior” is to be screened at the 23rd Annual African Diaspora Film Festival in New York City on the 9th of January 2016.

The film was shot in Ethiopia, Italy and the United States and narrates personal stories from the 1936–1940 Italian occupation of Ethiopia.

The film was was inspired after the director Valero Ciriaci and producer Isaak Liptizin attended the 2013 panel discussion at New York University concerning the recent unveiling of a statue in Italy honoring the fascist war criminal Rodolfo Graziani—Benito Mussolini’s top enforcer in Ethiopia during the occupation in the late 1930s.

The 1937 “Yekatit” massacre is the main part of the film featuring the 91 years old Megabi Woldetensae, who back then was an eyewitness at the monastery of Debre Libanos, which is located some 112 km north of the capital, Addis Ababa. More than 30,000 residents of Addis were brutally massacred by the Italian viceroy.

The way forward

The Ethiopian government wants to change the gloomy picture and enhance the contribution of the mining sector to the country’s economic development.

A total of 170 companies are engaged in mineral exploration. In 2011-2012 the mining sector earned 618 million dollars from mineral exports – 2\3 coming from artisanal mining. The revenue dropped to 340 million dollars following the global gold market crash. However, the government still hopes to boost the foreign currency earning from the sector. The mining sector is expected to generate two billion dollars by 2024 employing 8,000 citizens.

The Ethiopian government aims at building and developing an essentially

new economic sector – a large-scale mineral sector. The current policy framework envisions the mineral sector to be the backbone of the industry sector by 2020-2023.

In the second Growth and Transformational Sector (GTP-II) the government hopes to generate a total of five billion dollars from mineral exports. The World Bank made a bold project of five billion dollars annual revenue from the sector. This can be achieved if the government succeeded in developing a robust large-scale mining industry, according to the bank.

Currently, a number of foreign mining firms are proposing to establish large-scale mines. Four companies engaged in primary gold exploration projects have finalized feasibility studies. These

companies have asked the ministry to be given large scale mining licenses.

Similarly, three companies working on potash exploration projects have submitted their feasibility studies to the ministry. A total of seven companies are negotiating with the ministry to launch large-scale gold and potash mining. Tolossa hopes five of them would venture into the projects. However, he fears that the declining commodity prices may drag these projects.

Tolossa said that the ministry is striving to bring in giant mining companies. “We are holding talks with leading global mining giants. We need to relax the laws and we have to be flexible to attract these companies,” he said.

The ministry also expects the Chinese firm engaged in oil and gas exploration and development project in the Ogaden basin to commence gas production in the GTP-II period.

The World Bank believes that the collection of new high-quality data and the subsequent marketing of these data through a long-term strategy for investment promotion assume vital importance. “The existence of a modern and well-functioning mining cadaster and registry system and clear rules for awarding licenses are key features for the promotion of investments in the mining sector.” The bank stressed the need to have a clear legal framework both to attract investors and to facilitate regulation of the industry.



One Road meets Chinese planners’ expectations, the whole of Eurasia, from Indonesia to Poland will be transformed in the coming generation. China’s model will blossom outside of China, raising incomes and thus demand for Chinese products to replace stagnating markets in other parts of the world. Polluting industries, too, will be offloaded to other parts of the world. Rather than being at the periphery of the global economy, Central Asia will be at its core. And China’s form of authoritarian government will gain immense prestige, implying a large negative effect on democracy worldwide.

But there are important reasons to question whether One Belt, One Road will succeed. Infrastructure-led growth has worked well in China up to now because the Chinese government could control the political environment. This will not be the case abroad, where instability, conflict, and corruption will interfere with Chinese plans.

Indeed, China has already found itself confronting angry stakeholders, nationalistic legislators, and fickle friends in places like Ecuador and Venezuela, where it already has massive investments. China has dealt with restive Muslims in its own Xinjiang province largely through denial and repression; similar tactics won’t work in Pakistan or Kazakhstan.

This does not mean, however, that the US and other Western governments should sit by complacently and wait for China to fail. The strategy of massive infrastructure development may have reached a limit inside China, and it may not work in foreign countries, but it is still critical to global growth.

The US used to build massive dams and road networks back in the 1950s and 1960s, until such projects fell out of fashion. Today, the US has relatively little to offer developing countries in this regard. President Barack Obama’s Power Africa initiative is a good one, but it has been slow to get off the ground; efforts to build the Fort Liberté port in Haiti have been a fiasco.

Exporting... CONT`D FROM PAGE 14

adequate to rule out an outright default.

It should be noted, however, that while such a “credit event” would obviously be a big problem, creditors may be overstating its potential external impacts. They like to warn that although Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, not a state, its failure to service its debts would set a bad precedent for US states and municipalities.

But that precedent was set a long time ago. In the 1840s, nine US states stopped servicing their debts. Some eventually settled at full value; others did so at a discount; and several more repudiated a portion of their debt altogether. In the 1870s, another round of defaults engulfed 11 states. West Virginia’s bout of default and restructuring lasted until

A year of... CONT`D FROM PAGE 15

CONT`D FROM PAGE 20

These problems are now being compounded by the growth slowdown in China, the fulcrum of global trade. And the worst is yet to come. China’s huge industrial overcapacity and property glut needs to be wound down; the hubris driving its global acquisitions must be reined in; and its corruption networks have to be dismantled.

In short, the factors that dragged down the global economy in 2015 will persist – and in some cases even intensify – in the new year. Emerging economies will remain weak. The eurozone, having enjoyed a temporary reprieve from austerity, will be constrained by listless global trade. Rising interest rates on corporate bonds portend slower growth in the US. China’s collapsing asset values could trigger financial turbulence. And policymakers are adrift, with little political leverage to stem these trends.

The IMF should stop forecasting renewed growth and issue a warning that the global economy will remain weak and vulnerable unless world leaders act energetically to spur innovation and growth. Such an effort is long overdue.

Ed.’s Note: Ashoka Mody is Visiting Professor of International Economic Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a visiting fellow at Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank. The article was provided to The Reporter by Project Syndicate: the world’s pre-eminent source of original op-ed commentaries. Project Syndicate provides incisive perspectives on our changing world by those who are shaping its politics, economics, science, and culture. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter.

Another slow....

The US should have become a founding member of the AIIB; it could yet join and move China toward greater compliance with international environmental, safety, and labor standards. At the same time, the US and other Western countries need to ask themselves why infrastructure has become so difficult to build, not just in developing countries but at home as well. Unless we do, we risk ceding the future of Eurasia and other important parts of the world to China and its development model.

Ed.’s Note: Francis Fukuyama is a senior fellow at Stanford University and Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. His most recent book is Political Order and Political Decay. The article was provided to The Reporter by Project Syndicate: the world’s pre-eminent source of original op-ed commentaries. Project Syndicate provides incisive perspectives on our changing world by those who are shaping its politics, economics, science, and culture. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter.

these situations you need to have GMOs to reduce loss. In specific cases and for specific purposes it’s important despite being a complicated issue not only here but in many countries as well.

I think your government appears to be reluctant and there is lack of understanding amongst the politicians. Issues related to this are awaiting political decisions by African governments and that is excluding the continent from the rest of the world. It

has been exactly 20 years since GMOs were introduced in the world and I have never heard of any noticeable problem with it. Cassava – a popular African food for five hundred million people – has a couple of diseases that could be treated either through GMOs or hybridization. The concept of hybridization is also known in Africa for about seventy five years so why shouldn’t GMOs be considered. Again, I would like to say that it has to be applied in a specific way for specific

A concerted... CONT`D FROM PAGE 19

purposes.

There was a certain patent right saga a couple of years ago between Ethiopian experts and a Dutch company on Teff – an endemic Ethiopian crop. Do you have any information on that?

Actually, I don’t know more about it but I heard something and I just want to say a patent right in agricultural products has its own methods to deal with. For example, there is a Monsanto patent right working in many countries worldwide and at the same time countries may have their specific patent right procedure and I think Ethiopian lawyers have the knowledge and understanding to deal with the matter.

1919.

Some of the biggest risks lie in the emerging economies, which are suffering primarily from a sea change in the global economic environment. During China’s infrastructure boom, it was importing huge volumes of commodities, pushing up their prices and, in turn, growth in the world’s commodity exporters, including large emerging economies like Brazil. Add to that increased lending from China and huge capital inflows propelled by low US interest rates, and the emerging economies were thriving. The global economic crisis of 2008-2009 disrupted, but did not derail, this rapid growth, and emerging economies enjoyed an unusually crisis-free decade until early 2013.

But the US Federal Reserve’s move to increase interest rates, together with slowing growth (and, in turn, investment) in China and collapsing oil and commodity prices, has brought the capital inflow bonanza to a halt. Lately, many emerging-market currencies

have slid sharply, increasing the cost of servicing external dollar debts. Export and public-sector revenues have declined, giving way to widening current-account and fiscal deficits. Growth and investment have slowed almost across the board.

From a historical perspective, the emerging economies seem to be headed toward a major crisis. Of course, they may prove more resilient than their predecessors. But we shouldn’t count on it.

Ed.’s Note: Carmen Reinhart is Professor of the International Financial System at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The article was provided to The Reporter by Project Syndicate: the world’s pre-eminent source of original op-ed commentaries. Project Syndicate provides incisive perspectives on our changing world by those who are shaping its politics, economics, science, and culture. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter.

CONT`D FROM PAGE 7

Media council...

The Code of Conduct and the Articles of Association of the Media Council are both expected to be endorsed at the meeting.

The issue of legal registration remains unresolved as the Charities and Societies Agency said that it is not within its mandate to register the Media Council. However, members of the organizing committee said that the government has promised to look into the matter.

The Council hopes to get its finance from three main sources including membership contributions, donations from domestic sources and fundraising activities.

Regarding the issue of external source of finance – including that of the government –the organizing committee indicated that they might use the democratic fund upon the approval of the general assembly.

According to the final draft Articles of Association, publishers, broadcasters, professional journalists’ associations as well as private and public journalism schools can become members of the council on a voluntary basis.

By establishing an independent Media Council, the industry avoids a possibility of having a mandatory statutory media council which the government warned it would promulgate.

“It should be noted, however, that while such a “credit event” would obviously

be a big problem, creditors may be overstating its

potential external impacts. They like to warn that

although Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, not a

state, its failure to service its debts would set a bad

precedent for US states and municipalities.



infrastructure, education, technology, the environment, and facilitating the structural transformations that are needed in every corner of the earth.

The obstacles the global economy faces are not rooted in economics, but in politics and ideology. The private sector created the inequality and environmental degradation with which we must now reckon. Markets won’t be able to solve these and other critical problems that they have created, or restore prosperity, on their own. Active government policies are needed.

That means overcoming deficit fetishism. It makes sense for countries like the US and Germany that can borrow at negative real long-term interest rates to borrow to make the investments that are needed. Likewise, in most other countries, rates of return on public investment far exceed the cost of funds. For those countries whose borrowing is constrained, there is a way out, based on the long-established principle of the balanced-budget multiplier: An increase in government spending matched by increased taxes stimulates the economy. Unfortunately, many countries, including France, are engaged in balanced-budget contractions.

Optimists say 2016 will be better than 2015. That may turn out to be true, but only imperceptibly so. Unless we address the problem of insufficient global aggregate demand, the Great Malaise will continue.

Ed.’s Note: Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, was Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s

Council of Economic Advisers and served as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. The article was provided to The Reporter by Project Syndicate: the world’s pre-eminent source of original op-ed commentaries. Project Syndicate provides incisive perspectives on our changing world by those who are shaping its politics, economics, science, and culture. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter.

The great... CONT`D FROM PAGE 20

The purpose of the association is:

To assist members socially and economically;

To conduct researches and launch a war study center;

To give advice on military missions and conflict resolutions and assist in strengthen the profession;

To give lectures at higher learning institutions about the profession, missions and combat operations;

To prepare journals, and books on the accomplishments of our armed forces with the consent of the Ministry of Defense, Intelligence and Indoctrination Department and give 3-4 copies to the Department;

To have a library, a recreational center, sports club, and make members physically and mentally fit so that they can live a happy life;

To be a member of the global military association and share experiences and take part in different development projects.

So, with the ball rolling, we faced our first challenge in the form of finding an office space where we can execute our tasks. For a short period of time, the owner of Rocky Valley Safari, Negussie Esheté (Col,), together with his assistant Lemma Legesse (Col.) (both have passed away) allowed us to use their offices. Soon after, owner of Delight Tour and Travel, Binyam Gebregziabher, provided his office for permanent use. After that, we got the opportunity to work full-time with members visiting us on a regular basis. Those who are

Honoring... CONT`D FROM PAGE 21

unable to come got information via phone calls. Foreign military attachés based in Addis Ababa visited us regularly and shared ideas.

Eventually, we prepared the necessary documents and a memorandum of association. We also included 20 additional members from Addis Ababa and 15 new members from five selected regions (three members from each region) adding a total of 35 new members. Finally, after two years of hard work, we submitted our application to the Ministry of Justice, Charities and Societies Agency.

Our application was approved and we received our Certificate of Registration and License as of October 18, 2010. The Ethiopian Defense Veterans Association, bearing the number 2048, has been registered and licensed by the Agency as an Ethiopian society in accordance with the Charities and Societies Proclamation No.621/2009. The Agency distributed the letter of registration notifying all government Ministries that EDVA is registered and have all legal rights to work, according to the proclamation and procedures of the Agency.

It is important that all Ethiopians know about the objectives of EDVA. The safety and security of any country is based on the quality and strength of its defense mechanisms and history has showed us that a country’s military is an integral part of its development. In addition, it goes without saying that past history will be a lesson for the next generation.

November 11 is marked by the US as Veterans Day and President Barack Obama two months ago made a remarkable speech in honor and respect of veterans. “Without those veterans America will never be great,” he said. We have the Ethiopian Patriots

Association, which was formed by the patriots themselves while they were fighting fascist Italy in North Shoa. Later on, it was acknowledged by Emperor Haileselassie, to assist those who fought in that particular war only. The only living member is Jagema Kello (Lt. Gen.) who also was the first chairman and a member of EDVA.

Since the creation of the Ethiopian Armed Forces, the defense veterans association should have existed in order to keep records and fulfill the above mentioned purposes. Ethiopian Armed Forces throughout history have continued to serve in wars such as, the Korean War, the Congo War, the Somali Invasion and the Eritrean War. Peacekeeping missions in Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, Liberia, Sudan and South Sudan are the ones in recent memory. With that in mind, the EDVA – with its mission – will strive to be a permanent veterans organization and accomplish its vision and values for generations to come.

In the past several years, some of the executive members have passed away, while some are unable to come for meetings because of health complications. Likewise, a number of our members went abroad for different reasons and never came back. These and other factors have hindered us from calling a general assembly. However, we are ready to call one soon. On the whole, I would like to thank members of the former Ethiopian Navy, who for the past several years until now, allowed us to use their club for our weekly meetings.

Ed.’s Note: Gebregziabher Wondaferew (Lt. Col.) is secretary general of the Ethiopian Defense Veterans Association (EDVA). The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].

Mercato’s...Mercato is regulated as per the urban land lease regulation and, for ten years now, the government is working on transforming the traditional market system into a modern marketplace. This requires transferring the land to the investors who will develop it on lease, says Yidenek Andualem, compensation estimation and replacement clerk at Addis Ketema District Administration Land Development Management Office. Then those who have to relocate will be compensated as per the estimation on their properties.

Yet the renewal process has another problem to tackle since many people who have been trading in the shanty districts are unwilling to leave their settlement which they have inherited from their forefathers. According to an old woman who sells sieves, leaving her plot even for better location is unthinkable.

Home to hundreds, who make a living by selling every item they can get their hands on, from a used good to newly made or stolen ones, Mercato is also a place where many blacksmiths, potters and weaver base their entire operation and livelihood. It is safe to say that for many in Mercato, who are facing relocation, compensation is not the only issue.

The administration, on the other hand, states that when decisions are made to renew trade centers like Mercato, things like the standard of services required, the nature of trade and customers, and the image of the place

CONT`D FROM PAGE 23

are considered. When one loses his or her land because of renewal, they have the right to get 25 square meters as replacement in the same locality.

Given that people are willing to be transformed with the market, Mercato, some have a mixed feeling about the whole thing. For a person like Alemye, a shopper, these are the people who make Mercato what it is. She says the street vendors are the ones who make the market look alive, unique and this holiday season is the perfect observe of that, she concludes.

“The obstacles the global economy faces are not

rooted in economics, but in politics and ideology.

The private sector created

environmental degradation with which we must now reckon. Markets won’t be

able to solve these and other critical problems that they

have created, or restore prosperity, on their own.

Active government policies are needed.

“Home to hundreds, who make a living by selling

every item they can get their hands on, from a used good

to newly made or stolen ones, Mercato is also a place

where many blacksmiths, potters and weaver base

their entire operation and livelihood.

“It is important that all Ethiopians know about

the objectives of EDVA. The safety and security of

any country is based on

of its defense mechanisms and history has showed us

that a country’s military is an integral part of its

development. In addition, it goes without saying that

past history will be a lesson for the next generation.



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CONT`D FROM PAGE 14

This alliance with Muslim leaders who are prepared to lead the fight against the perversion of their faith is crucial. We sometimes regard the Middle East as a mess to avoid. But – as if we needed another reminder – the November 13 carnage in Paris showed the futility of a hands-off approach.

Instead, we should think of the Middle East and Islam as being in a process of transition: the Middle East toward rule-based and religiously tolerant societies, and Islam toward its rightful place as a faith of progress and humanity. Seen in this way, this is not a mess to avoid, but a life-and-death struggle in which our own fundamental interests are at stake.

Accordingly, we should promote those working for an open-minded future for the Middle East and Islam. The Gulf States, Egypt, and Jordan are our allies: where they face the challenges of modernization, we should stand ready to help.

Finally, we must recognize in the coming year the crucial importance of resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is not only important in its own right; it would also contribute to good international and interfaith relations – and powerfully reassert the principle of peaceful coexistence on which the international order rests.

We need to forge a foreign policy that embodies the lessons of the period from 9/11 to today. Such a policy

would recognize the need for active engagement – refined, rather than incapacitated, by our experience.

The fight against extremism will require force. But it will require education, too, so that our citizens and those coming to our countries understand why our values matter and why we will defend them. And it will require cooperation – not least in the messy business of real-world diplomacy.

But it is a fight that we will win. Islamist fanatics who want to end our civilization are corrupting their religion. They will succeed at neither. The overwhelming majority of people around the world wish to coexist. With their support and determination, the spirit of peace – above ideology, politics, or religion – will prevail.

Ed.’s Note: Tony Blair was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Since leaving office, he has founded the Africa Governance Initiative, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and the Faith and Globalization Initiative. The article was provided to The Reporter by Project Syndicate: the world’s pre-eminent source of original op-ed commentaries. Project Syndicate provides incisive perspectives on our changing world by those who are shaping its politics, economics, science, and culture. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The Reporter.

Defeating...

“We need to forge a foreign policy

that embodies the lessons of the period from 9/11 to today.

Such a policy would

active engagement –

incapacitated, by our experience.

the most profitable during this season since most households decorate their homes with artificial trees during Christmas.

Well, Aseged seems to know what he is talking about as the business of Christmas accessories is relatively doing good. Nejat, who was selling Christmas accessories at one of the Christmas bazaars during the week, says that though business is bit sluggish this year, she is happy with the overall outcome.

“I am still satisfied. Christmas trees, lights and other accessories are being bought by many customers,” she says.

Two of the trendy gifts item these days are smartphones and tablet computers. And during Christmas shopping, consumers usually get the best bargains for TVs, computers, smartphones tablet computers and electronic accessories. Normally, consumers in the West either buy the products online or wait in long queues to have the benefit of buying products with low prices.

But for Lewam, who works at a smartphone retailer in Addis, the effect of holiday shopping does not matter for their sales. She says that people with better living standards buy presents for their close families – like a husband for his wife and vice versa – at any time of the year.

“For us, Valentine’s Day and Christmas are better when compared to other holiday seasons. For the New Year, most people have expenses such as school fees and other expenses. Thus, people prefer to buy such lavish presents on Valentine’s or Christmas,” she says.

Ed.’s Note: Esete Yeshitla is a lifestyle contributor.

The shopping... CONT`D FROM PAGE 24

“ Two of the trendy gifts item

these days are smartphones and tablet computers.

And during Christmas shopping,

consumers usually get the

best bargains for TVs, computers,

smartphones tablet computers

and electronic accessories.

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By Daniel TeshomeTOUCH &

go

Ed.’s Note: Daniel Teshome is a current affairs commentator for The Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].

They say - to the optimist, the glass is half-full, and to the pessimist, half-empty. Neither is correct, however; it is just that the glass is twice the size it needs to be. In a similar vein, some people call our world wretched and point, not without some relish, to all the suffering for evidence; this are the pessimists. The almighty has abandoned us for our sins; he is punishing us for our transgressions – are some of their common refrains, as if what we really needed was more divine intervention. To the contrary, our world is too blessed; that is the optimistic view, if you will. The world is, in fact, too blessed that we do not have enough fingers on our hands and enough toes on our feet to count the number of places that are ruled by demigods who are only answerable to themselves or to a figment of their imagination - that chief with white beard looking down from his remote perch upstairs. (It’s always an elderly fellow, isn’t it?) Iran and Saudi Arabia are just two places like that.

These two, the world’s foremost Islamic theocracies, have been calling each other terrorist and all sorts of other names in the past week, following the execution by beheading (What is it with this people and beheadings?) of the Sheik Nimr al-Nimr – a cleric with some acclaim among the adherents of Shiism in eastern parts of Saudi Arabia as well as Iran.

Some people in Iran reacted by torching the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The Saudis, on the other hand, mobilized their co-religionists in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and beyond to denounce Iran; Sunni Arab governments, including Bahrain – a majority Shia country but with a minority Sunni government, have been expressing their solidarity with the House of Saud. The Emiratis obliged by reducing their embassy staff in Tehran, whereas some others like Bahrain, Kuwait, Sudan and Djibouti complied by suspending their diplomatic relations with Iran altogether. There are more than a few things to be said about all of these.

Most importantly, although they may differ in their favored methods (Iran by hanging and Saudi Arabia by beheading or shooting) both countries routinely execute dissidents. Moreover, both are states that sponsor terrorism; Hezbollah, the state within the Lebanese state, and the so-called moderate Islamists in Syria are just some of Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s terrorist proxies,

respectively. And should more evidence be needed to demonstrate either state’s involvement in atrocities, each can produce the necessary evidence on the activities of the other. So, it is not at all surprising each should lend the other a name most familiar to itself.

And whether the Iranian state instigated the anti-Saudi demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities and the attacks on the Saudi embassy makes little difference: the two have been, by virtue of their different views on Islamic history, and by virtue of their conflicting cultures before that, adversaries as long as anyone can remember; naturally, whenever there is a misstep by Saudi Arabia, Iran is always ready to jump at the smallest opportunity it can exploit to its advantage, and vice versa.

Despite Amnesty International’s contention that Iran executes more dissidents than Saudi Arabia, it still presents itself as a spokesperson for the Shias in Saudi Arabia whose symbolic leader the country just killed. Parenthetically, according to Amnesty International, Iran has executed a minimum of 2635 people between 2007 and 2014, whereas the minimum number executed by Saudi Arabia for the same period is 671. Even if you triple the last number to adjust for the population size of Saudi Arabia, which is about one-third of Iran’s, it comes short by some six-hundred executions. In simpler terms, Iran lacks the integrity to play the victim in this saga.

The sheik was officially charged, convicted and executed for “breaking allegiance with the ruler”, among other things. This charge is nothing short of the criminalization of thought, something tantamount to censuring what is illusory like what goes on in someone’s mind. And like the rest of the judicial process - if we may call it that, was no doubt unrigorous, even by Ethiopian standards; they dispensed with judicial niceties and simply executed a man they arrested for his opinions.

By the way, the sheik was not the only person to be executed by Saudi Arabia; close to fifty individuals were dispatched on this occasion. But the others in the batch were Sunnis and their execution did not result in any harsh diplomatic exchange between the exclusively Sunni government of Saudi Arabia and the Shia-dominated government of Iran.

Furthermore, the Saudi authorities timed the executions, as some are now suggesting, to coincide with the Christmas and New Year celebrations in Western capitals so as to present the latter with a fait accompli and avoid any uncomfortable conversations on the subject. It is not too difficult to imagine what the Saudis might have hoped for – any delay in the expectedly negative reactions from their major oil buyers who are hypocritical enough to always insist on due process of law.

Having said that, Iran is to the Middle East what Brazil is to Latin America; this parallel was drawn by the political scientist Samuel Huntington. Portuguese-speaking Brazil cannot help standing out in Spanish-speaking Latin America; and Farsi-speaking Shia Iran cannot help standing out in Arabic-speaking Sunni Middle East. This explains the continued efforts by Sunni governments to isolate Iran from the region.

That matters little, however, as cultural separateness from the region does not detract from Iran’s greatness; cultural separateness is, in fact, the foundation for Iran’s greatness. Certainly, the 1979 Islamic revolution has been trying to drag the country back to the moronic days of past. But those efforts always fail because Iran existed even before the Arabic hordes set out to impose an intolerant belief system so contrary to a tolerant Persian nature.

Parenthetically, we shall only remark on Iran’s greatness; we shall not take any trouble to make any comments whatsoever in regards to Saudi Arabia’s greatness at this time, nor at any other time in the future; hinting, even slightly, that the thousands of years of Persian cultural contributions to human civilization may equate in any way to anything the camel-herding lot of Hijaz ever came up with is an assault on everything that is even remotely honorable in the works of man. Excepting some of the important religious sites, there is no city in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia that can hold a candle to Isfahan or Persepolis. No. We are never going to be talking about Saudi greatness, what greatness??

To go back to the topic we were discussing before the digression, the Saudi Arabian government, to the extent it has managed to prevail upon its Sunni allies to help it isolate Iran, has asserted itself vis-à-vis the same. And previously, not too long ago, Saudi

Neither party is stupid enough Arabia formed a 34-nation Islamic coalition to fight the Islamic State group (IS). Another way to look at it would be: if a mentor trains his mentee so well that the mentee becomes independent of the mentor, but the mentor wants to keep mentoring, so, the mentor is forced to quash his mentee while he continues to mentor others until such time those other mentees should renege and be quashed in like manner. The Saudis are the intellectual forefathers, and I use the term intellectual very loosely, to IS and other Jihadi groups. The 34-nation coalition is nothing short of an attempt to rein in unruly pupils. This coalition as well as the execution of Sheik Nimr al-Nimr seem to indicate a certain determination on the part of Saudi Arabia to emerge as the region’s only powerbroker.

Yemen is another test case for Saudi Arabia which is leading the fight to oust Houthi rebels from Sanaa and, interestingly enough, altogether from Yemen. Where they intend the Houthis to go, who by the way are Yemenis after all, the Saudis didn’t say. That war, like any other proxy war, is less about those who do the actual fighting and more about those who remain on the sidelines and support the fighting. The significant support Saudis are lending to what they insist is the legitimate government of Yemen led by Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the substantial aid Iranians are giving to what they insist are oppressed and marginalized Shia Houthi rebels, amply demonstrate both nations’ ambitions to intimidate the other and encroach upon the other’s sphere of influence.

Consequently, and because Iran and Saudi Arabia hold very different views about the world and in respect to themselves, it is unlikely the current diplomatic conflagration between them would subside any time soon; it is likely they would keep slinging insults at one another for a considerable time to come. But neither party is stupid enough – at least let’s be optimistic they are not stupid enough – to venture beyond words and battle each other directly.


34| The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009#REPORTERBOOK

R

R

#SaudiMockCartoons highlight anger at Saudi Arabia

Zuckerberg aims to build virtual assistant

Cartoons taunting Saudi Arabia’s membership of the United Nations human rights council have gone viral on social media after the kingdom executed 47 people in one day.

While the regime’s interior minister claimed most of the 47 executed had been involved in the deadly 2003 and 2004 Al-Qaeda attacks, a prominent Shia cleric, Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, was also put to death. He was a vocal supporter of the mass anti-government protests that flared up in the kingdom’s Eastern Province in 2011.

The UN’s top human rights official has strongly criticized the executions. Zeid Raad al-Hussein says the killing of Sheik al-Nimr was “a very disturbing development indeed, particularly as some of those sentenced to death were accused of non-violent crimes.”

In retaliation to the state executions people on social media started sharing cartoons mocking the Saudi regime’s membership of the United Nations human rights council. See the cartoons on the right

This year, Mark Zuckerberg wants to be more like Tony Stark.

In a Facebook post Sunday, the social network’s founder and chief executive said his personal challenge for 2016 is to build an assistant powered by artificial intelligence to help him at home and work.

“You can think of it kind of like Jarvis,” Zuckerberg wrote, referring to the artificial-intelligence assistant used by Stark, the fictional main character played by actor Robert Downey Jr. in the movie “Iron Man.”

Zuckerberg said he would code the AI assistant himself and start by exploring pre-existing technologies. He plans to train his virtual assistant to understand his voice and help guide

responsibilities at his home, such as keeping watch over infant daughter Max.

“I’ll teach it to let friends in by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell,” Zuckerberg wrote in his post. “I’ll teach it to let me know if anything is going on in Max’s room that I need to check on when I’m not with her. On the work side, it’ll help me visualize data in [virtual reality] to help me build better services and lead my organizations more effectively.”

AI-powered digital assistants such as Apple Inc.’s Siri, Alphabet Inc.’s Google Now and Microsoft Corp.’s Cortana are commanding a lot of attention in Silicon Valley. Facebook Inc. is developing its own artificial-intelligence assistant called “M,” which is embedded in its Facebook Messenger app. (The Wall Street Journal)



R

R Twitter announced an update to its rules that clarify what the social media company considers “abusive behavior

and hateful conduct.”

14-Year-Old Girl Accuses Tyga Of Pursuing Her On Social Media

#HolidayVibe

#REPORTERBOOK

Megan Cristina, Twitter’s director of Trust and Safety, made the announcement Tuesday in a post that said the company will not tolerate behavior designed to harass, intimidate or silence another user’s voice through fear.

“As always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs — but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse,” Cristina wrote.

The updated rules explicitly state that users cannot promote violence or directly

attack and threaten people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. Accounts that violate this and other rules may be immediately suspended.

The update is the latest in a series of revisions of Twitter’s much criticized abuse policy. In February, Dick Costolo, the former CEO of Twitter, wrote in an internal memo that he was “frankly ashamed” of how the company dealt with trolls and harassment on its platform.

In March, Twitter provided users with new tools for reporting and blocking abusive tweets, including a “quality” filter that can remove threatening comments from a person’s timeline. That feature, however, was available only to verified users.

In April, the company changed its policy to prohibit acts that promote violence against others. In the past, it previously only banned direct and specific threats.

The newest addition to the rules were underwhelming to some who argued on Twitter that the company doesn’t do enough to enforce them, didn’t make a substantial change or remains tone deaf in the way it treats the issue of cyber harassment, bullying and violence.

“I began to feel uncomfortable when he asked me to FaceTime with him,” the girl says.

A 14-year-old girl represented by Gloria Allred says that Tyga communicated with her on social media, according to a video posted by TMZ.

In December, OK! published a story that said Tyga and the girl were in contact.

“I’m very upset that a story about Tyga, Kylie Jenner and me was published in OK! Magazine and I want people to know the truth,” the 14-year-old girl represented by Gloria Allred says in the video. “The truth is that Tyga contacted me first. He direct-messaged me on Instagram. I knew who he was, but I was surprised that he was contacting me. I thought that it could possibly be about my music but he did not mention that in his initial communication. I thought that was strange but I was thinking he would bring it up in his next message to me. However, he didn’t mention in the next message.”

The girl says that her feelings about the communication changed.

“I began to feel uncomfortable when he asked me to FaceTime with him,” she says. “He asked me to FaceTime three times but I didn’t do it. Because of my discomfort with why he wanted to communicate with me, I quickly stopped responding.”

The girl says that the information OK! magazine published did not come from her.

“I never sent the communication between Tyga and me to OK! Magazine and I don’t know how they obtained them,” she says. “I would never have allowed OK! Magazine or any other magazine to use them.

“It is also upsetting to me that OK! Magazine never even contacted my mom or me to check the facts to see if what they’re publishing was true,” she adds. “I’m speaking out today because I don’t want what happened to me to happen to any other young girl.” (hiphopdx.com)

R Facebook blocks Little Mermaid over ‘bare skin’

A Danish politician who tried to post a photo of Copenhagen’s iconic Little Mermaid statue on Facebook was told it could not be

published because of nudity rules.

Social Democrat MP Mette Gjerskov wanted to post a link to her blog, which included a shot of the bronze statue, when she received a rejection notification from the site, the Ekstra Bladet website reports.

The message, which Ms Gjerskov shared on her social media accounts, said the Little Mermaid image contained “too much bare skin or sexual undertones”. It added that the rules applied even if an image had “artistic or educational purposes”.

Gjerskov described the decision as “totally ridiculous”, although in a later update she said Facebook had subsequently relented and approved the image. In March 2015, the site clarified its rules on nudity and said that it does allow photos of paintings, sculptures and other art that depicts nude figures.

The Little Mermaid isn’t the first piece of Danish art to encounter problems. In September, Facebook blocked a Danish tourism organization from posting an image of C.W. Eckersberg’s 1841 painting Woman Standing in Front of a Mirror,before later admitting the decision over the famous nude work was an “error”. (BBC)



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S.No

1

3

5

6

7

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promoting trade, investment and other productive activities in Africa.

Eames Consulting are exclusively supporting the appointment of the Chief Underwriting

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Please apply to [email protected] or call Kerren Leach on +44 207

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By Leyou Tameru

&

Ed.’s Note: Leyou Tameru is a graduate of Georgetown and Addis Ababa University Law schools, specializing in International Legal Studies. Born and raised in Addis Ababa, she seeks to understand

the impact of economic, political and social issues on everyday lives. She can be reached at @anchihoye

@anchihoye

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This week I visited a place that reminded so much of home but was in Southeast Asia. I was in a city called Siem Reap, located in the northern part of Cambodia. My visit there had one major goal: to visit Angkor temples.

Angkor is the name of the capital of the Khmer Empire which flourished from the 9th to the 15th century. Derived from Sanskrit, the word Angkor means “Holy City”. The Angkorian period began in AD 802, when the Khmer Hindu monarch Jayavarman II declared himself a “universal monarch” and “god-king”, and lasted until the late 14th century. It was then invaded by Ayutthaya causing the abandonment of the city which was deserted except for some of the temples which were inhabited by Buddhist monks. Some of the temples were previously Hindu, but they are now all used by Buddhist monks. The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand ranging from very small ones to one of the largest religious structures in the world. Angkor was very much a lived city until its abandonment in the 15th century. At its peak, the city occupied an area greater than modern Paris and its buildings use far more stone than all of the Egyptian structures combined and had an estimated one million population.

So why did this experience remind me so much of Ethiopia? Mainly because of our very own Lalibela Churches. There are multiple commonalities. To begin with both are holy cities that were built and thrived around the same time, Lalibela churches in Ethiopia are estimated to have been built between 12th and 13th century. Both structures are registered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The similarities go even deeper. One of the wonders of Angkor temples is its water system. According to researchers, “it had a complicated water management network, which was used for systematically stabilizing, storing, and dispersing water throughout the area.[6] This network is believed to have been used for irrigation in order to offset the unpredictable monsoon season and to also support the increasing population.” Interestingly Lalibela also has a similar feature, all for the churches “are all associated with water (which fills the wells next to many of the churches), exploiting an artesian geological system that brings the water up to the top of the mountain ridge on which the city rests.”

Both structures are made of rock-cut architecture. I am no engineer but you can recognize similar architectural techniques being used to keep the rocks together in Lalibela and Angkor. In addition, the carvings are exquisite and it is beautiful to see that they have survived for hundreds of years. One of the temples of Angkor known as Angkor Wat, and a church in Lalibela known as Bete Medhanialem, share a legend. There is a myth that they were both built in one night, however likely or unlikely this may seem, I suspect that it has a lot to do with their connection to religion and divinity. Angkor Wat is said to be the world’s largest single religious monument and Bete Medhanialem is believed to be the largest monolithic church in the world.

Both Lalibela and Angkor are major tourist attraction for their respective countries. However, it is estimated the Angkor temples attract over 2 million tourists while Lalibela Churches do not attract half that number. In fact according to government numbers, Lalibela attracted between 80 to 100 thousand foreign tourists in 2013. What I noticed from my day or running around and discovering Angkor temples was that most of the tourists, if not all, were foreigners. Local tourists were not really there. However, in Ethiopia’s case, the largest number of tourists in the country are Ethiopians. I think that this is very important. Domestic tourism should be encouraged because it is a guaranteed way of teaching history to the people.

Other than these phenomenal architectural structures and empires and a troubling socialist past, Cambodia and Ethiopia do not share much commonalities. Ethiopia is six times bigger in size and in population from Cambodia but only has 3 times the gross domestic product. Nonetheless, it was wonderful to be reminded of home miles away. This only makes me want to discover historical similarities and ties between Africa and Asia, something I previously have not given much attention.

Angkor and Lalibela



US officeBox

C r o s s w o r d

Your Zodiacs (astrology-online.com)

Ku

nch

o K

omm

ents

ACROSS1. Defensive nuclear weapon

12. After B13. Regretted14. Communication

18. Coating for wood or metal19. Soil21. Services23. __ Camacho, former Mexican President

29. Attaches to something or holds something in place

32. Whines33. Sun up in New York34. Cloisonne36. Low, sideless cart

38. Spoken in Sulu archipelago

42. __ Karsavina, Nijinski’s partner

48. Cause

54. Compartments55. Beam outDOWN

glands of the skin

4. French river5. Skilled in deception or skillful in deceiving6. Clear7. Romantic interlude8. Act

20. Cereal22. Trade

24. Queen of Sparta

26. The extent of a 2-dimensional surface

27. Sudden sharp painful emotion28. Gave off

35. Just36. Fallow deer39. Gnawers41. Uterus43. Attar

46. Cloth47. __ Ling, Chinese mountain range

regions

SPO

T TH

E D

IFFE

REN

CES

Can you spot the 12 differences between the two pictures? Solution Solution

1 Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2 Daddy’s Home

3 The Hateful Eight

4 Sisters

5 Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip

6 Joy7 The Big Short

8 Concussion

9 Point Break

10 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

Hey Kuncho, I have one question I need

to ask you.

Do you have any idea what global warming

is?

Come on dad! Everybody knows

what that is.

Ok smarty pants. What is the reason for that?

Sure dad, I just hope it is not one of the

silly ones.

LEISURE

Aries For the next couple of weeks you need to drive within the speed limit or you may end up with a costly ticket. This is especially true over next weekend. Be careful what you commit to writing because it could cause you trouble later and your reputation could suffer. On Monday and Tuesday you could be very charming in order to get your own way or to get a price break on something you want.This week lucky numbers are:81, 5, 9, 64, 7

Taurus You will feel as though a burden has been lifted. Certainly there should be a lessening of responsibilities this week. Now you need to pay attention to income and perhaps some long term investments. Extra money coming your way this next weekend. A family gathering is in the offering and you may surprise everyone and actually enjoy it.This week lucky numbers are:79, 14, 13, 83, 54

Gemini You have to adjust your schedule to accommodate others this week but if you do so with a good heart, your popularity could soar. Invitations are coming from unexpected sources and not surprisingly, you will have a good time. Most things are out of your hands right now but your enthusiasm will carry you throughout it all. A gathering next weekend could introduce you to someone important.This week lucky numbers are:76, 81, 61, 38, 86

Cancer You have to accommodate some family members this week and may be called on to help throughout the month. You are spending a little more than you planned on gifts, etc. so shop around for better prices. You have a social obligation this next weekend that you really do not want to

be surprised at how much you will enjoy yourself.This week lucky numbers are:49, 27, 13, 3, 62

Leo The pace is still a little hectic even for you but you are loving every minute of it. More family visits are still around the corner so keep your energy up to par. Meeting new people seems to be on the agenda for next weekend with a cookout or party planned. (Could be a family reunion). Introductions to new family members are at hand also and you will make a good impression.This week lucky numbers are:40, 39, 17, 42, 14

Virgo Family gatherings are being planned and you are right in the middle of it all. Looks like you have thought of everything and everyone will have a good time. You are going to make an excellent impression on all your relatives, especially those from a distance. You may start thinking of building an addition onto your home and this year seems the best time to have it doneThis week lucky numbers are:41, 61, 72, 87, 17

Libra If you put some extra effort into whatever you do this month you should be successful. You have some good ideas now and once cleared with the boss they should be put to use. Your success for the next year is going to depend solely on you. This means if you do not try, you cannot succeed. You will have to make your own chances.This week lucky numbers are:45, 22, 7, 78, 80

Scorpio If you have been waiting to meet “Mister or Miss Right”, this weekend should prove interesting. You may not realize he/she is the one until later so take notes and phone numbers. Act enthusiastic even though you do not feel like it. That way at least you will leave a good impression for later. You are going to be building something permanent this year.This week lucky numbers are:49, 36, 65, 19, 17

Sagittarius The lifting of an obligation or responsibility should make you feel more light hearted now. Some accommodation still has to be made to these old duties but still, everything lightens up for you now. An entertaining weekend is coming up with friends but you seem to be the one doing all

This week lucky numbers are:57, 40, 98, 73, 61

Capricorn You are soon going to be taking a good look at your life to see what new direction you wish to take. This is a rather sobering experience as you realize just how important your decisions over the next two years are going to affect you. Meanwhile new friends are important so get out of the house and meet them! The weekend should bring you into the orbit of someone exciting to accept all invitations and keep your eyes open.This week lucky numbers are:43, 69, 11, 1, 38

Aquarius Visits to and from family members keeps you going this month even though you feel less than enthused this week. Next week is better. You feel irritated this week and may feel like picking an argument with anyone around you. This is not a good time to gamble or take a chance. Be careful driving because you tend to go too fast this month and could

This week lucky numbers are:43, 49, 42, 36, 85

Pisces New responsibilities are headed your way. Be careful of what you take on, these new duties will last approximately two years. Get out and about as much as possible and keep your eyes open, you could

next weekend when you are invited to a special occasion. Something colorful will put you in the right mood.This week lucky numbers are:37, 6, 8, 89, 48

That’s obvious. It’s nagging people.



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their application with non returnable CV and copies of supporting documents in person with in Seven (7) working days on the following address personaly.

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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |41Advertisment Vacancy Announcement

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The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016Vol. XX No. 1009 |43THE REPORTER SPORT

Horsemen to face Al Merrikh,

Gor Mahia in friendlies

By Dawit Tolesa

The Ethiopian national team, the Walias, are scheduled to play a friendly game against the Niger national team, a.k.a. Menas, today at the Addis Ababa Stadium.

Having failed to reach the final but managing to finish third in the Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CEFAFA) tournament by beating Sudan on penalties, the Walias and their coach Yohannes Sahile have now turned their focus on the 2016 African Nations Championship (CHAN) competition. So as a warm-up to the CHAN tournament, the Walias will play the West African lightweights today.

With his 23-man squad, coach Yohannes is resolute to withstand challenges posed by other teams and is keen in driving his team to success. Senior players, including Alula Girma (Saint George), Tesfaye Alebachew (Saint George), Tafesse Tesfaye (Adama City) and Tadele Mengesha (Arba Minch City), are now part of the squad that will be traveling to Rwanda while Zekariyas Tuji (Saint George), Ferew Solomon (Defense), Michael George (Adama City) and Bulcha Shura (Adama City) have all been axed from the national team.

“We have tried to select better players and I can say that we have hand-picked 90 percent of best available talent out there,” Yohannes said at a press conference.

The Saturday exhibition match is believed to be an important preparation for both teams ahead of the 2016 CHAN.

The two teams met back in 2012 at the Addis Ababa Stadium with the Walias defeating the Menas. Though the home team played dominantly they lacked the finishing touches. The only goal of the match came from former Dedebit FC forward Getaneh Kebede.

The Walias are now drawn in group B

with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Cameron and Angola. The first match will be played on January 17 against the DRC at Stade Huye, Butare Stadium. Niger is drawn in group C with Tunisia, Nigeria and Guinea. Their first match will be on January 18 at the Stade Régional Nyamirambo, Kigali.

Walias to play Menas

By Dawit Tolesa

Saint George FC will face Sudanese top-flight club Al-Merrikh FC on Sunday January 10 and Kenyan side Gor Mahia on Thursday January 14 at the Addis Ababa Stadium in friendly matches. The Sudanese side had arrived here for the game on Thursday.

The horsemen, who were crowned champions of the Ethiopian Premier League (EPL) for a record 26th time and sit second in the current EPL table trailing Adama City by three points, are expected to use the friendlies to build on their recent resurgence and in celebration of the club’s 80th anniversary.

Both Gor Mahia and Al-Merrikh of Sudan were invited to play the 26-time Ethiopian Premier League champions as a culmination of yearlong activities celebrating the milestone. The invitation was accepted by both teams.

Al-Merrikh – a Sudanese football club based in Omdurman, Sudan – is one of the oldest football clubs in Africa. It has won the Sudanese Premier League title 20 times and are winners of the Sudan Cup 24 times. The club shares fierce rivalry with Al-Hilal, the games between them regularly selling out, as well as being the only other realistic challenger to the league crown.

After the Al-Merrikh friendly match,

the horsemen will play against the Kenyan side. Gor Mahia FC has won the Kenyan Premier League a record 15

times, two more than their arch-rivals AFC Leopards it has also won the FKF President’s Cup a record 10 times.

Saint George FC



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The new face of Mercato endeavor - The Reporterarchiveenglish.thereporterethiopia.com/sites/default/files/... The Reporter, Saturday, January 9, 2016 Vol. XX No. 1009 |1 By Birhanu