A clash over budget transfers is the latest flashpoint in the bitter dispute between Ethiopian federal authorities and their rivals in Tigray. To avoid the standoff triggering a damaging conflict, both sides should back down and embrace comprehensive dialogue.

What’s new? A clash over budget transfers is the latest flashpoint in a bitter dispute between Ethiopian federal authorities and Tigray region’s government. Addis Ababa sees a September regional election Tigray held despite a federal poll postponement as unlawful and consequently plans to redirect funding away from Tigray’s executive, infuriating regional leaders.

By Kidane Alemayehu

1. Abstract

During most of the first millennium A.D., the Horn of Africa constituted a region that was a superpower in the affairs of northeastern Africa as well as southern Arabia. Its influence and, at times, its authority extended from Egypt to the Indian Ocean and across the Red Sea all the way to Mecca. The capital for its overseas territory in south Arabia was Sanaa in Yemen. It was a major partner with the other superpowers of the time: Persia, Byzantium, and India on matters of trade as well as political and military issues. Like USA today, the Horn of Africa was the place of refuge for people escaping various forms of oppression such as the first followers of Islam who survived the onslaughts by Meccan authorities by residing in Axum, Ethiopia for some 15 years before they were able to return home.

- Seizing a golden opportunity for change in Ethiopia

Aklog Birara (Dr)

Ethiopians are used to “deaf ear and blind eye” with regard to the international community in general and Ethiopian regime “strategic allies,” especially the United States and the European Union with regard to gross human rights violations in Ethiopia. Even under the worst of conditions, including massacres of innocent civilians by Ethiopian federal and security forces, these friends continue to issue innocuous and timid statements. It is time to change.

Aregawi Berhe, PhD

A Summary:

The failure of the Ethiopian political opposition forces and civil society movements to act in unison on common ideals of national interest has enabled the dictatorship of the TPLF/EPRDF regime to persist in power through nearly three decades, thereby prolonging the multi facade misery of the Ethiopian people. The daily events in the entire nation are gripping stories of conflicts, death, destruction, looming famine, fear of disintegration and statelessness. These dismal eventualities, by their nature, are the common concerns of every citizen, and above all of every organized political group and civil movement which aspires for a popular change, but which have refrained so far from tackling the lingering burden, collectively.

Aklog Birara (Dr)

Ethiopia is prepared to share Abbay (the Blue Nile) with its neighbors in a fair and equitable manner. Ethiopia’s primary responsibility is to use it for the service of its growing population and economy. Emperor Haile Selassie, 1964

The continued assertion by Egypt that it has “a historical and natural right” to exercise hegemony over the waters of the Nile is arrogant, unwise, unfair and very dangerous for Africa. Egypt fails to appreciate the notion that the era of colonialism is long gone. Ethiopia and the rest of Sub-Saharan African nations have the right to use their water resources in order to modernize their respective economies and to achieve food security for their growing populations. Their positions are supported by international conventions.

By Prof. Al Mariam

In December 2016, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) announced incumbent Robert Mugabe will be its sole presidential candidate in 2018. In February 2017, Mugabe’s wife Grace told supporters that if her nonagenarian husband “dies, we will field his corpse as a candidate.”  Mugabe chimed in declaring “there is no replacement, successor who is acceptable (to the people) as I am.” Last month, Mrs. Mugabe warned of a “coup plot.”

By William Davison and Martin Davison

Since the Referendum, the liberal élite and their media have largely neglected the societal threats inherent in the rifts exposed, while inadequately addressing the practicalities of Brexit.

Clueless, arrogant, outgunned. The attitude displayed towards the UK's Brexit negotiators in much of the media is derisive. Witness the treatment of July's notorious negotiating table photo opportunity: on one side, the European Commission behind piles of neatly stacked papers and, facing them, David Davis's team, empty table gleaming. Without pausing to consider possible explanations, reporters gleefully proclaimed that this demonstrated UK unpreparedness and the naive expectation that it could fly by the seat of its pants.

By William Davison

Standing on a stage in the east of England next to an imposing blue “Exit from Brexit” placard, former Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff’s message was not what the audience at the regional party meeting wanted to hear.