The Poverty of Dictatorship (Project syndicate)

Despite the economic advances they registered, Tunisia, Egypt, and many other Middle Eastern countries remained authoritarian countries ruled by a narrow group of cronies, with corruption, clientelism, and nepotism running rife. These countries’ rankings on political freedoms and corruption stand in glaring contrast to their rankings on development indicators. Read more...

Group plans to beam free Internet across the globe from space (Raw Story)

"We believe that Internet access is a tool that allows people to help themselves - a tool so vital that it should be considered a universal human right," the website for Buy This Satellite stated. "Imagine your digital life disconnected. Without access to the 100 million man-hours that have been put into Wikipedia, how much do you actually know?".Read more...

How to bring down Meles Zenawi (Addis Voice)

By Abebe Gellaw

TPLF is a house of cards. It is fundamentally weak as it is founded on the ideologies of oppression, injustice, exploitation, domination, discrimination, corruption, thievery and fraud driven by a greedy colonialist mindset. The only reason why it is still riding roughshod over our people is because those who have stepped forward to be leaders of the freedom march have been preoccupied with their own infighting.

The time for self-promotion, empty promises and bravados must come to an end. Leaders as well as followers must focus on the real issues that really matter to ordinary Ethiopians. People who have resolved to change their destiny no longer need undemocratic leaders that preach about democracy and freedom. It is impossible to bring liberation without a clear vision. To be free of tyranny and oppression is a simple and powerful vision that can mobilize anyone suffering under the boots of Meles Zenawi and his cronies. Read more...

A Declaration in Defense of Human Rights in Ethiopia (Huffington Post)

In the history of oppression, tyrants have spared no effort to erode the natural courage of their people and force upon them a life of cowardice and submission, debilitate their natural instincts for bravery and valor and intimidate them into accepting servility, replace their yearning for liberty with false hopes and pretensions of freedom, trick them into bartering their desire to live in dignity for a life of shame and fear, subvert their natural sense of honor, duty and patriotism for vulgar materialism, and corrupt them into selling their fidelity to truth at the altar of falsehood....Read more..

RSS Feeds RSS Feed Ethiopia Says 2.8 Million People Need Emergency Food Aid (VOA)

"Two-point-eight-million still require relief food assistance," said Owusu. "And we also know an additional 956,000 require targeted supplementary feeding. An estimated 107,000 children may continue to require treatment for severe acute malnutrition, and 3.3 million people will require screening for more nutrition and Vitamin A supplementation."...Read more..

What about farting to protest? (Afrik)

A wind of change is blowing in many countries and encouraging a real people’s Revolution that augurs badly for tyrants. The fall of Saleh as well as the separation of South Yemen could be in the making. But above all, one hopes that whole process educates the oppressed African about the power of her or his voice. This is an opportunity to take our destiny into our own hands, rather than allowing those autocratic leaders the luxury of taking time off their plundering sessions to enact pathetic laws and edicts that compromise our self respect as individuals, nations and continent....read more..

America's Other Most Embarrassing Allies (FP)

Hosni Mubarak has plenty of company.

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | JANUARY 31, 2011

ETHIOPIA

Leader: Meles Zenawi

Record: The 2010 election, in which Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's party won a remarkable 99.6 percent of the vote, was the culmination of what Human Rights Watch called "the government's five-year strategy of systematically closing down space for political dissent and independent criticism." This included attacks and arrests of prominent opposition figures, the shutting down of newspapers and assaults on journalists critical of the government, and doling out international food aid as an incentive to get poor Ethiopians to join the ruling party.

In addition to attacks on domestic media and NGOs, the government also jammed broadcasts by Voice of America and Deutsche Welle in the run-up to the elections. The U.S. NGO Freedom House downgraded Ethiopia to "Not Free" for the first time in its annual Freedom in the World survey this year.more....