At St Peter TB Specialized Hospital, high in the mountains of Entoto, north of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, a masked Johannes* is suffering from multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and has spent the last month at the hospital. While the doctors are glad he is receiving treatment, they are also worried - Johannes is a bus conductor in heavily populated Addis Ababa, so there is no telling how many people he could have infected before seeking treatment.

Press freedom is now a core value of all humanity, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, but the ‘recent history of the independent press in Ethiopia is a chronicle of brutal crackdowns, arbitrary imprisonments and harassments of local and international journalists, shuttering of newspapers and jamming of external radio transmissions’. The Ethiopian people have the ‘inalienable right to have the information they need to make informed decisions about their form of government, leaders and lives,’ Mariam argues.

While Ethiopia's Meles Zenawi may insist on his country's booming economic performance, the evidence speaks differently, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. With the International Monetary Fund (IMF) strangely indulgent of the Ethiopian financial institutions' statistics, the picture is one of glaring exaggeration and inaccuracy that does a huge disservice to the Ethiopian people, Mariam concludes.

Ethiopia’s premier Meles Zenawi on Tuesday strongly warned opposition parties against any violence ahead of the parliamentary and presidential elections in Ethiopia on 23 May. In a rather harsh parliamentary debate after he presented the government’s annual report to the House, opposition MPs bombarded Zenawi with accusations that his government and party members had continued to intimidate their members.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has damned a recent report by the US Department of State into the country’s human rights practices in 2009 as ‘Lies, lies and implausible lies’. Alemayehu G. Mariam imagines how Zenawi might respond to a sample of the findings included in the document.

While many respected sources have raised serious concerns about the health of Ethiopian political prisoner Birtukan Midekssa, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi alarmingly continues to insist that her situation is one of 'perfect health', writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.

Authorities in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have begun repatriating hundreds of Ethiopian migrants, officials have reported. "These are people who decided they wanted to return but could not afford to do so," said Mohamud Jama Muse, director of the Migration Response Centre (MRC) in Bosasso, Puntland's capital.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Ethiopia to lift all restrictions on Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts after the government summarily jammed the network's broadcasts in Amharic, amid accusations of peddling "destabilising propaganda".

A recent report by the Carter Center’s observer mission to Ethiopia’s 2005 national elections provides a unique academic opportunity to learn how an election is stolen, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. But carrying out the perfect theft is not a task for the faint of heart, says Mariam. Beyond the essential qualities of cunning, audacity and brutality, Mariam shares here the five basic principles an accomplished thief will need to understand, master and apply in order to ‘steal an election in broad daylight’.

This 59-page report documents the myriad ways in which the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has systematically punished opposition supporters. Since the 2005 polls, the party has used its near-total control of local and district administrations to undermine opponents' livelihoods through withholding services such as agricultural inputs, micro-credit, and job opportunities.

The Ethiopian government is waging a coordinated and sustained attack on political opponents, journalists, and rights activists ahead of the May 2010 elections, Human Rights Watch said in a report. On May 23, 2010, Ethiopians will vote in the first parliamentary elections in Ethiopia since 2005, when the post-election period was marred by controversy and bloodshed.

A group of international campaigners has launched an online petition against Ethiopia's huge Gibe III dam project. The group wants to put pressure on Western donors and banks not to fund the dam, saying it would destroy the livelihoods of some 500,000 people.

The Women’s Refugee Commission with support from the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration is conducting a participatory four-day national-level workshop on operationalizing protection into livelihood and household energy programs for displaced populations in Ethiopia. The workshop is aimed at staff from governments, donor agencies, and NGOs working in Ethiopia.

With Meles Zenawi comparing the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic radio service with the infamous Radio Mille Collines in operation during the Rwandan genocide, Alemayehu G. Mariam argues that the Ethiopian prime minister should apologise. Such outrageous, nonsensical accusations represent nothing more than an attempt to divert attention from the recent aid-for-arms scandal, Mariam stresses.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the ruling of Monday, 8 March by the Ethiopian Supreme Court which reinstated the hefty fines which had been imposed by the country’s High Court against four publishing houses which had successfully appealed a judgment of the High Court following the infamous treason trial of 2005.

Ethiopia has admitted it is jamming the Voice of America's (VOA) broadcasts in Amharic, accusing the radio station of engaging in "destabilising propaganda".
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia had been testing jamming equipment, although there had been no formal decision to bloc the US station.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the ruling of Monday, 8 March by the Ethiopian Supreme Court which reinstated the hefty fines which had been imposed by the country’s High Court against four publishing houses which had successfully appealed a judgment of the High Court following the infamous treason trial of 2005.

Two former leaders of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front have alleged in a BBC radio programme that the TPLF leadership – which included Meles Zenawi – used millions of dollars earmarked for famine relief in the 1980s to buy weapons and enrich themselves. ‘The facts are plain to see,’ writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, ‘We know now that these thieves did not stand for the people of Tigrai at the critical hour in 1984. They sure as hell do not stand for the people of Ethiopia today.’

A new initiative to bring environmental and financial benefits to local communities in the impoverished highlands of Ethiopia has been announced in Ethiopia. The Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project is Africa's first large-scale forestry project to be registered under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. It will bring both economic and social benefits to poor communities in Ethiopia as well as environmental benefits as the project will cut an estimated 880,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 30 years.

An Ethiopian opposition politician and parliamentary aspirant was stabbed to death Tuesday and a second one seriously wounded when attackers raided their respective homes in Makalle and Axum in Tigray, 783 km north of Addis Ababa, party officials said.