Daily Ethiopia

The UK Guardian newspaper published an article last Friday entitled "UK tenders to train paramilitaries accused of abuses". The story related to a decision by the UK's Department of International Development to provide training for the special police in the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia, in order to improve the professionalism and accountability of the force and increase security in the region. DfID is going to fund a 13-15 million pound program for this training.

The British oil exploration firm, Tullow Oil Plc, has begun drilling a well, in the concession it has in South Omo, southern regional state. This came at the backdrop of seismic tests the company carried out for a year and half, on an area covering 18,000 square kilometre. The bloc where the drilling started – named after a rare bird in the area, Sabisa (literally translated to heron), – last week. It is the first well in Ethiopia for the British oil company. Petronas, a Malaysian oil giant, was the first to dig wells in the search for oil in Ethiopia, in Gambella Regional State. Oil was not found in any of the wells Petronas dug before its departure from Ethiopia a couple of years ago.

A lot has happened since the passing of the late PM Meles Zenawi last August. While the Eritrean President conspicuously refrained from seizing the opportunity to give a lengthy lecture as would be expected, its ally, Al-Shabaab, hailed it as a game-changer. Though, shortly after, it was driven out of the strategic Kismayou port and other strongholds by AMISOM. A process of forming/strengthening administrative structures in Southern and Central Somalia has been set in motion.

The state telecom monopoly is going to change its latest logo introduced in February 2012, following the decision of the board of directors in favour of a new one that 'better expresses the real work' of the monopoly.

The Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) signed a USD 120 million agreement with Cambridge Industries Limited, a United Kingdom based firm, to develop what was labeled as the first Sub-Saharan Africa Waste-To-Energy facility. The deal signed on January 4, 2013 at Hilton Addis is for a facility with a capacity to generate 50 Mega Watts (MW) power.

President Isaias allowed his official media to ‘interview’ him at the New Year to provide the Eritrean people yet again with his lengthy, meandering and repetitious opinions on a wide spectrum of internal and external affairs. One observer even described the "gibberish and incoherent rumbles of the President" being given subliminal meaning, coherence and passion by the voiceover translation from Arabic to Tigrigna.

Elsa Chyrum, Director of Human Rights Concern- Eritrea, and a prominent human rights activist and advocate for Eritrean refugees all over the world, has been chosen as Woman of the Year 2012 by one of the main Eritrean websites, asmarino.com.

The President of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Guelleh, in his New Year address to the Nation has called once again for the release of the prisoners of war seized by Eritrea during Eritrea incursions into Djibouti when Eritrea attacked Djibouti in June 2008.

In the history of modern Ethiopia the free press is certainly a relatively recent phenomenon. It is only a little over two decades since press freedom was given a constitutional guarantee and Ethiopians were able to air their views openly through written publications and/or electronic media outlets. Press freedom, along with a wide range of other civil and political rights were legally sanctioned by the Transitional Charter in 1991, issued on the heels of the demise of the military dictatorship. This ushered in a new era in the history of the press in Ethiopia and this was underlined four years later when the new Constitution was formally incorporated.

Beedwantee Keetharuth, the newly-appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Eritrea on Friday called on Eritrean authorities to cooperate with her mandate, as required by the UN Human Rights Council.