Kaleidoscope – De Birhan

Ethiopian photographer seeks new portrayal of Africa

chebude22 — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 12:52:55 +0000

By Karim LEBHOUR (AFP) 4 hours ago in World

Surrounded by untidy stacks of paper and abandoned half-empty coffee cups, photographer Aida Muluneh chain smokes cigarettes in her Addis Ababa office and rails against the negative portrayals of Africa by foreigners.

The 42-year-old came returned to Ethiopia nine years ago after living in Yemen and Canada and set herself the task of changing perceptions of the continent, replacing the outsiders’ dominant eye with an African one.

The Addis Foto Fest, which she founded and which opens its fourth edition Thursday, is one way of doing this, she said.

Muluneh left Ethiopia aged five, but developed a powerful nostalgia for home while living abroad.

Her first photography job was with the Washington Post in the United States by which time she was “obsessed” with Africa and irritated by the images of her home country that she saw published in the media, ones that still harked back to the famine of the 1980s.

But Ethiopia had changed, even if portrayals of it had not.

She returned to a country moving at breakneck speed, an Ethiopia “stuck between the past, the present and the future”, where a drought-induced food crisis in the countryside co-exists with a shiny new, highline tram for city commuters, where luxurious skyscrapers loom above shanties.

– ‘False representations’ –

Aida Muluneh founded the Addis Foto Fest to bring black American and African photographers together

Maheder HAILESELASSIE TADESE, AFP

“Ethiopia gives you the full spectrum of humanity. The absolute misery and the absolute joy, and you can see a juxtaposition of all these elements in just a day,” Muluneh said.

While there are foreign reporters and photographers who take a broader look at Africa, Muluneh takes aim at “false representations” of the continent by those who focus too heavily on its troubles.

“Africa is being treated unfairly,” she said, before arguing that a similar racism can be seen in news images of black people elsewhere in the world.

“When you looks at images coming out of the States, when it deals with black people it’s always drug dealers, pimps, killers and so forth. When you look at Africa, again, it’s a negative image of the starving Africans, the war-torn.”

Muluneh founded the Addis Foto Fest to bring black American and African photographers together and to encourage Ethiopian photographers to reclaim their own stories.

“We do not need foreign photographers to tell us our story,” she said, leafing through some pictures she took at Lalibela, Ethiopia’s emblematic tourist site where churches are carved out of rock.

Photographer and founder of the Addis Foto Fest, Aida Muluneh (L) talks to volunteers ahead of the opening of the biannual photography festival in Addis Ababa

Maheder HAILESELASSIE TADESE, AFP

Her black and white photographs capture the details of everyday life, of interiors, faces, and fleeting gestures.

In what is likely Muluneh’s best-known series, “Painted Faces”, she shows young African women, faces painted in blue, white or bright red with the models presented as artistic subjects rather than being reduced to their “Africanness.”

“A lot of my work is about removing time and space. It’s looking at the universality. Some don’t realise it’s Ethiopia… I want to think of the continent in a different way,” she said.

Authoritarian Ethiopia does not make life easy for photographers, and Muluneh bemoans the absence of a photographic culture, in which many are left with no option but to shoot weddings for a living.

Hostility towards photographers is common, from government and security forces to ordinary folk.

“Photography is always looked at with suspicion. I can just be shooting a wall and someone will come and ask me, why are you taking photos of this wall?” Muluneh said.

When she sends her students to Mercato, a large open air market in Addis, the young photographers are frequently harassed by police and traders alike.

“You need authorisation for everything. And an authorisation given by the ministry of communication is not recognised by the police. Which make no sense.”

– More talent –

(LtoR) Aida Muluneh, Lina, Simon Nijami and Andrew Tshabangu, discuss exhibits ahead of the opening of the Addis Foto Fest, a biannual photography festival in Addis Ababa

Maheder HAILESELASSIE TADESE, AFP

Putting on the photography festival in Ethiopia is never easy. Prints have to be made in Nairobi, and sponsors and exhibition spaces are hard to find.

This year is proving especially difficult because of a state of emergency imposed in October after nearly a year of sometimes deadly anti-government protests.

Some have refused to host exhibitions for fear of being associated with what might be construed by the government as political activities.

Despite the challenges, Ethiopian photographers are growing in number and skill: in 2010, there were just four participating in Addis Foto Fest, this year there are 30. And the world is increasingly looking to Ethiopia.

“International visibility is growing. I have seen how talent has changed. It’s well on its way, not only in Ethiopia. It’s happening across the continent,” she said.

New – Young Ethiopian poets in English

chebude22 — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 12:02:34 +0000

BILLENE “BILU” SEYOUM

Source: http://badilishapoetry.com/countries/ethiopia/#

Ethiopia’s ‘Ubers’ are working with little internet, few smartphones and no funding

chebude22 — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 17:53:07 +0000

Tom Gardner

Quartz Africa

Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa has many of the hallmarks of a thriving, outward-looking metropolis: the city boasts sub-Saharan Africa’s first metro outside of South Africa, hosts the UN and the African Union, and is in the grip of an endless construction boom. But its taxi system shines a spotlight on the country’s somewhat Janus-faced encounter with twenty-first century globalization.

While multinationals are being ushered into Ethiopia’s vast agricultural sector, provoking local ire, the transport sector—like banking and telecommunications—remains walled off from foreign competition. The ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) guards the country’s economic sovereignty jealously. This means that while Uber’s African footprint grows ever wider—in June it launched in Dar es Salaam, its 15th city on the continent—Ethiopia remains one of the company’s last major frontiers. This is despite having Africa’s second largest population and, in Addis Ababa at least, swelling ranks of middle class urbanites equipped with the latest smartphones.

Into this gap has stepped three local startups—ETTA, Zayride and RIDE—who are hoping to modernize the capital’s archaic taxi system before the international behemoth opens shop here. All three are developing apps with an eye to local conditions. Zayride’s is designed for slow internet speeds. ETTA is developing one that can do online payment processing—a technology that is still more or less absent in Ethiopia. RIDE, meanwhile, started with SMS—to appeal to the 96% of Ethiopianswithout smartphones—but has since pivoted into app technology. All three have had to rapidly adapt their business models since the government shut down 3G internet as part of a welter of state-of-emergency measures declared last month.

But it has been a struggle. Without internet, tech startups like these are hopelessly hamstrung. They have all been forced to set up traditional call centres, with has drastically inflated costs. And even when 3G is eventually restored, things will remain difficult since another paradox of Ethiopia’s development story is that while the government has made big investments in ICT infrastructure, the country still has one of the lowest rates of internet penetration on the planet. Just 8% of Ethiopians report using the internet, according to the Pew Research Centre. This compares with 40% of Kenyans and 39% of Nigerians. Expanding into cities beyond Addis Ababa will be tricky.

The company founders say the government has been generally supportive. It has permitted duty-free imports of swanky meter taxis in order to expand and upgrade the city’s small, dilapidated stock. But in policy terms “the government is much more interested in big firms that employ lots of labor”, says Kebour Ghenna of the Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry. And Ethiopia’s creaking and poorly integrated bureaucracy makes setting up a business Kafkaesque at the best of times. “No one wants to be accountable,” says Habtamu Tadesse, a cofounder of Zayride. He also says that the ministry of information won’t provide toll-free telephone numbers—so he has to charge his customers each time they hail a cab.

Another problem is finance. RIDE has an angel investor, but that’s rare in Ethiopia, where venture capital is almost unheard of. ETTA’s founders are self-funding, whereas Zayride is crowdfunding. Both Ethiopia’s big state-owned and smaller private banks are wary of risky lending, so startups can’t get much help from them either.

Some people think Ethiopia will join the World Trade Organization within the next five years (it started the application process over a decade ago). If it does, the floodgates to more foreign competition will finally open. But it will probably be a while still before Uber arrives in Addis Ababa. If Uber struggles with legal obstacles in countries like France and Germany, Ethiopia’s government is unlikely to be much more welcoming. ETTA, RIDE and Zayride can at least be comforted in the knowledge that, for now, the battle to be Ethiopia’s Uber will be waged without pressure from the ride-hailing giant itself.

Source: http://qz.com/844574/these-ethiopian-ridesharing-startups-are-trying-to-grow-before-uber-arrives-in-addis-ababa/

Journalist Reeyot Alemu discusses human rights (Western) with Dr. Abadir Ibrahim

chebude22 — Sat, 19 Nov 2016 08:37:38 +0000

Brilliant discussion, proposals by Ethiopian Peacebuilder Professor Hizkias Assefa with Sheger Cafe

chebude22 — Sun, 06 Nov 2016 09:31:46 +0000

6-11-2016

#Ethiopia | Sheger Cafe Part

View on Africa: Eritrea coming in from the cold?

chebude22 — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 12:12:35 +0000

Date: 28 September 2016

Time: 11h00 – 12h00

Venue: Online via VoiceBoxer

Eritrea is slowly restoring relations with countries in Europe and the Gulf, which may bring short-term solutions for its ailing economy. But Eritrea’s future is still uncertain and the country poses serious security concerns for the Horn of Africa. The international community must monitor progress and be ready to develop more sustainable strategies for engaging with Eritrea.

This View on Africa will be presented by Berouk Mesfin, a senior researcher based in ISS Addis Ababa. He will explain Eritrea’s recent foreign policy initiatives and their implications.

About View on Africa

Do you want to know what’s happening in Africa, where it’s happening and what it means for the continent’s many actors? Join the ISS View on Africa weekly briefing every Wednesday from 11h00 – 12h00 CAT. ISS researchers from Dakar, Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Pretoria provide expert analysis of major events and trends in Africa. Introductory remarks are followed by discussions among participants.

How to get your weekly View on Africa

Attend the briefing in person or online via VoiceBoxer on your computer or mobile device. To join the briefing online, simply click on the link above, follow the on-screen instructions and select your language preference.

Before joining the briefing online, be sure to test your system settings by clicking on this link https://portal.voiceboxer.com/check/audience

Instagrammers from India, Uruguay and Ethiopia won this year’s Getty photo contest

chebude22 — Tue, 27 Sep 2016 07:06:39 +0000

Selina Cheng

September 26, 2016

Life in a square. (Getty Images Instagram Grant/Girma Berta)

Ronny Sen (@ronnysen) has been photographing the lives of those who toil on the gigantic coal mine in Jharia, India for the past four years. The Indian Instagrammer and two other photographers recently won $10,000 each from Getty Images Instagram Grant, which supports photographers using Instagram to tell under-reported stories from around the world.

Sen’s story is one common to many rural communities that depend on natural resources extraction, where a myriad of governmental, corporate and local powers have more to gain from aggravating a difficult social problem than from ending it. In Jharia, villagers who reap meager rewards from the mine are also plagued by a raging coal fire that started more than a century ago, for reasons still unknown.

One of the photos from Sen’s project Instagram account (@whatdoestheendoftimelooklike) shows a truck digging a pile of burning coal from the ground. But it is virtually impossible to put out the fire: Because of the sheer size of the mine, the truck would have no choice but to dump the burning coal back onto piles of coal nearby, Sen tells Quartz. As the government continues to expand the mining areas, the fire spreads, forcing locals to flee their homes.

http://qz.com/791384

Dear Swedish Reader: Your Money Ends Up In the Hands of Dictators!

chebude22 — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 20:57:45 +0000

9th September 2016 By Wondemagne Ejigu

I have a humble request of humanity to you regarding doing something about the corruption in Ethiopia. You see, corruption is a disease. It is a cancer that can kill a nation and eventually cause countless human disasters. It is a powerful instrument that keeps dictatorial regimes in power. Corruption is a root of human suffering.

The current dictatorial regime of Ethiopia has tirelessly been looting the nation for 25 years. Revealing and exposing corrupt practices, as well as corrupt authorities, plays a vital role in every attempt to curb or fight corruption. One way of revealing corruption is by asking where the money is coming from. That is where you, dear reader, come in.

I bet that you are wondering what you have to do with corruption in Ethiopia. Nothing, of course. But your money does. I will explain how, by telling you just how rampant the corruption in Ethiopia is, and how the Swedish government is supporting a dictatorial regime. I will also explain what you can do about it. But let me begin by giving you a crystal clear example of the corruption.

Corruption in Ethiopia

On August 18, 2015, a high official or a top level member of the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the ruling regime in Ethiopia), was captured by the British police in possession of a staggering amount of 5 million sterling pound cash (around 59 337 692 Swedish kronor) at Gatwick airport. Based on this incident, I want to ask you if you can imagine this incident happening in Sweden? A political party member squandering or stealing millions of Swedish kronor from the public in such blunt way? I do not think so. It is unthinkable.

Please note that this is just one incident of many others just to show you how the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia is behaving like a mafia through blunt corruption practices. Here follows a few examples of just how serious the corruption is, based on official statistics provided by the World Bank, International Monentary Fund and the Ethiopian government itself.

According to the Global Financial integrity (GFI), which tracks illegal money flowing out of developing countries worldwide, the amount of money that Ethiopia has lost by illegally smuggling cash out of the country totals 16.5 billion USD between 2001 and 2010. This equals more than 1.3 trillion Swedish kronor.
On January 5, 2012, a report from UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) revealed that 8 billion USD (more than 66 billion Swedish kronor) had been secretly taken out of Ethiopia within 10 years period of time.
Another report by UNDP in 2014 states that the money that had been taken out illegally in the same year is estimated to be over 3 billion USD (more than 24 billion Swedish kronor).

Analyzing various independent reports, financial scholars agree that Ethiopia looses around 3 billion USD, approximately 24 billion Swedish kronor, through corruption every year.

The real and untold story is that the dictatorial regime is stealing from the public even while people are suffering and dying from hunger!

In the year of 2012, I started exerting my own effort to expose a corruption scandal of a sugar factory. One of the techniques the dictatorial group uses in its systematic corruption scheme is designing ambitious mega infrastructure projects. These are, however, fake and serve as ways of sustaining the corruption. Building 10 new sugar factories is one of the fake projects undertaken by the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation. The funny thing is that the construction work of building these sugar projects was given illegally to a local government company called METEC. METEC is an engineering company managed under the Ministry Of Defence and all its top level management and most employees are military. It was revealed that the top level management of METEC, who are military generals, actually embezzled 3.8 billion USD (around 24.1 billion Swedish kronor) using sugar cooperation projects as a perfect camouflage.

What enrages me is the fact that there are currently 20 million people living in serious poverty in Ethiopia. The dictatorial regime, embassies, paid foreign lobbyists and benefited sympathizers tells you that the cause of the current hunger in Ethiopia is the so called El Niño, a weather phenomenon which causes serious drought. However, dear reader, do not get carried away by this biased fake propaganda. El Niño affects many other poor countries and none of them have 20 million people starving to death! The untold and true cause of the hunger is the mismanagement of resources, such as finance and land, by the dictatorial regime.

While Ethiopian dictators loot 3.8 billion USD from the public, the United Nations is pledging help for the starving people. The international aid agencies and the UN are struggling to get 1.5 billion USD (around 12 billion Swedish kronor). Do you see the picture? The dictatorial regime in Ethiopia is not failing to feed its own people. The real and untold story is that the dictatorial regime is stealing from the public even while people are suffering and dying from hunger!

A humble request of humanity

Illustration for Untold Stories by Desiree Kellerman

Where do you think all this money, stolen by cruel dictators, comes from? Part of the money actually comes from your pocket. That is right, from your hard earned income. The Swedish Government, with the good intention to help people in Ethiopia, is one of the main financial supporters of the dictatorial regime. Obviously the Swedish Government collects the money from Swedish people, like you, through taxes. This is how your hard earned money ends up in the hands of ruthless dictators. The dictators use the money to stay in power.

How does it feel knowing that your money ends up in the hands of dictators? How does it feel knowing that your money is being used for atrocious acts against humanity? How does it feel knowing that your money is being used to buy armaments and support the regimes structure to oppress innocent people? I know that the Swedish government’s and the peoples generosity is a genuine helping hand. It is an act of pure solidarity between two nations that enjoy historically long and successful diplomatic relations. However, reality remains as sad as it is.

Living in your open and democratic society for a few years, I have come to know the genuine goodness of people in Sweden. I kindly suggest that we set aside politics and do something, at least for the sake of 20 million people starving today. Let us do something for the good of people who are behind bars for daring to tell the truth about corruption and abuse against human rights. You see, we cannot look the other way anymore. Humanity is basically the quality of being a human. It is a concept – a concept of compassion, kindness, consideration, understanding and empathy, that resides in every human being, regardless of race, color or any other possible differences. It is what breaks down barriers amongst humans and it is the essential hope for the whole human race. It is the intricate thread that connects every one of the 7 billion people on planet Earth. I strongly believe that every conflict, war or misfortune can be resolved, if it is handled from the angle of this concept, humanity. Can you imagine what would happen if we, for a moment, disregarded politics, bridged our gap and helped each other with our problems?

This is why I am humbly requesting you to do something. Do not get me wrong. I am not asking you to provide aid. In the eyes of humanity you can do a lot of other things. I kindly request that you say something to your government. Let the unheard voices reach your government through you. Imagine if everyone who reads this article sent an e-mail to the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs – an e-mail where we would ask why the dictatorial regime in Ethiopia is supported. What would happen if we, together, sent thousands of e-mails?

This is what I request of you – and I request it with kindness, compassion, sympathy and solidarity. It is a simple act of humanity, something we can do together for a good cause.

My dear Swedish reader, if you agree to be the voice to the voiceless, go to the following link Margot Wallström and question the Swedish government for supporting a dictatorial regime. Please also forward your e-mail to untoldstoriesonline@gmail.com so that we can keep track of the amount of e-mails.

I sincerely thank you in the name of the voiceless.

Wondemagne Ejigu Kebede. Stockholm, Sweden.

Source: http://www.untoldstoriesonline.com/corruptionethiopia/

The worrying trend of ethical/White hacking

chebude22 — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 12:03:20 +0000

Defecting ex-leader of the brutal secret Force of Ethiopia-n government speaks from exile

chebude22 — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 11:28:01 +0000

30-8-2016

Colonel Alebel Amare, the ex-leader of the TPLF/EPRDF led Ethiopian Government’s brutal secret Force that has been executing protesters since 2005, has now spoken for the first time out.