Mahlet Fasil
In what a Norwegian diplomat involved in the negotiations said was “just the first and important of many steps to come” to end the bloody conflict that engulfed the world’s youngest nation South Sudan, representatives of the government and the rebels have signed the cessation of hostilities agreement on Jan. 23rd here in Addis Ababa.
Tesfaye Ejigu
A city,where the government has built no new hospital for the last 22 years, is struggling with its few outdated and under supplied state run hospitals
Around end of October 2013, the online version of Addis Standard published an opinion piece discussing an eight hour power outage and a dysfunctional power generator at Tikur Anbessa (Black Lion) Hospital, a state run hospital in Addis Ababa. Written by Fitsum Tilahun (MD), it revealed what might have happened during that fateful moment at the hospital. “You can expect a lot of bad things to happen when you go to any hospital in Ethiopia…but what you don’t expect is to see your new born baby die from hypothermia or see your patient who is in life support machine die because of power outage,” wrote Fitsum. Many of our readers said it was “unacceptable,” “outrageous,” and “irresponsible.” They were right.
Dear Editor,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and your team for bringing out to your esteemed readers the suffering of our citizens in the brutal hands of Saudi Arabia’s police forces (Governing by crisis: a labor migration gone terribly wrong, Dec. 2013). Especial recognition for your courage in exposing that “lack of timely and effective labor inspection by MOLSA means most of these agencies were running their businesses at a massive scale and manner no different than trafficking itself.”
