Global Voices Online

“If it works in Africa, it will work anywhere,” says White Africa in his post about Gmail Preview in Africa: “Google realized what slow connections were doing to people’s interaction with their email accounts. So, they sent in a team of engineers to work in cyber cafes in Ethiopia to test out where the bottlenecks were and to come up with a solution.”

What exactly is “Cadre Cola” in Ethiopia?: Cadre Cola is what cadres consume. It is bottled by and for an exclusive clientele of government and quasi-government aid bureaucrats as well as third world dictators and their cronies. The taxpayers who finance it and the oppressed in whose name it is bottled either assume the Cadre Cola business is an obligation or something they can't live without.

Negashi discusses the mistreatment of Ethiopian muslims, “Ever since the coming to existence of what is known as the Solomonic dynasty in the late 13th century, Islam and Muslims have been the prime targets of the leaders of the Christian North. Their southward expansion resulted in total annihilation of the various Islamic civilizations that flourished in large parts of the present day Ethiopia.”

“Hundreds of Addis Ababa University’s Oromo students protested against the sale of a book which they said was a “distorted” history of the Oromos at the book fair being held at Sidist Kilo campus,” writes Ethiopia blogger, Arefe.

Arefe writes about the funeral of Princes Medeferiash Work Abebe in Ethiopia, “The funeral of Princess Medeferiash Work Abebe, the wife of Crown Prince Asfawosen Haile Sellasie, has taken place at the Trinity Cathedral Church this afternoon in the presence of patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Paulos, dignitaries, members of the imperial family, the Rastafarian community and friends.”

A Jewish Heart for Africa is providing Israeli technology in the form of solar power and drip irrigation to needy communities in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. “We are pumping 20,000 liters of water per day — it’s changed the entire economics of the village and the peoples' health,” says founder Sivan Achor-Borowich. In its first year of operation, A Jewish Heart for Africa has improved the lives of an estimated 30,000 people.

An Ethiopia woman who claims to be St. Mary has been thrown out of a monastery in Ethiopia where she started her own sect.

Arefe announces the formation of the Baalu Girma Foundation. Baalu is the famous Ethiopian writer and journalist who was abducted 25 years ago by the Ethiopian military. He has not been heard since that time.

Emannuel discusses the general lack of interest and apathy in the exercise of creating the United States of Africa.