Ethiopia has the ninth highest tuberculosis (TB) burden in the world. Given the country's limited resources, decision-makers need to optimise case detection without overloading the health system. Patients currently have to produce three sputum specimens for testing. Are the second and third sputum tests really necessary?

The United Nations affiliated University for Peace welcomes applications for the position of Director of its Africa Programme. The director will be based in the Addis Ababa office of UPEACE (once launched in 2004), and will be part of a unique university that functions as a global knowledge network, created by a General Assembly resolution of the United Nations two decades ago.

Ethiopia’s Karayu pastoralists have called upon the government to step up its efforts to assist them and protect their rights in consultation with community representatives. The Karayu have lost much of their ancestral pastoral lands to commercial farming interests, agro-industry and for use as nature parks and game reserves, leaving their traditional nomadic livelihoods threatened and offering them little alternative means of survival. Representatives have called for a share in new opportunities and for efforts to ensure the possibility to continue traditional practices and pastoralist lifestyles.

Eritrea has reiterated its opposition to the appointment of a UN special envoy tasked to help break the deadlock affecting the peace process with Ethiopia, the United Nations said last Thursday. Eritrean Brig-Gen Abrahaley Kifle rejected international calls for Eritrean officials to meet newly appointed Special Envoy Lloyd Axworthy, according to the UN. Abrahaley's rebuff came just days after the UN Security Council had urged Asmara to meet the former Canadian foreign minister to try and move the stalled peace process forward.

The Ethiopian government should launch an immediate investigation leading to the prosecution and dismissal of all federal police involved in the recurring practice of torture of people caught up in mass arrests, Human Rights Watch said in a letter addressed to the Ethiopian ministers of federal affairs and of justice. “Failure by the ministers to investigate and prosecute makes them accomplices in torture under international law,” Peter Takirambudde, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Africa Division, said. “It’s time to assign individual blame for allowing repeated brutality.”

UNDP and Ethiopia's ICT for Development Authority have delivered the first batch of 1,500 computers to the Ministry of Education as part of efforts to bring information and communications technology (ICT) to more than 160 high schools around the country. UNDP has provided US$3.5 million for the initiative and is seeking support from donors for an equal amount to enable all high schools to get online. Partners include the Ministry of Capacity Building and the Ministry of Education.

Two of the world's leading press freedom groups, the International Press Institute (IPI) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), have criticised the failure of the Ethiopian government to inform the domestic media, civil society and the international community of crucial amendments to the draft press law, as well as set out a transparent legislative process for the law. According to information provided to IPI and IFJ, the Ethiopian Minister of Information, Bereket Simon, indicated on 27 February that he intended to submit the draft press law to the Council of Ministers by 5 March. As a result, unless the newly amended law is provided for external comment, there will be no discussion of the law until the bill reaches parliament.

UNDP and Ethiopia's ICT for Development Authority have delivered the first batch of 1,500 computers to the Ministry of Education as part of efforts to bring information and communications technology (ICT) to more than 160 high schools around the country. UNDP has provided US$3.5 million for the initiative and is seeking support from donors for an equal amount to enable all high schools to get online. Partners include the Ministry of Capacity Building and the Ministry of Education.

Ethiopia’s human rights group on Wednesday condemned the mass arrests and physical abuse in January of hundreds of university students in the capital, Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) said federal officers had rounded up 349 students belonging to the Oromo ethnic group before transporting them to a detention centre. The students – members of the country’s largest ethnic group – had then been forced to march barefoot or on their knees along a gravel path for several hours, EHRCO stated.

The leaders of two African countries severely hit by HIV/AIDS have agreed to cooperate in combating the pandemic. Botswana President Festus Mogae said the two countries would share experiences in fighting the virus. Botswana has one of the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world - over 35 percent among its 1.6 million people. According to UNAIDS, the epidemic continues to gain ground and, while some successes have been made in a decade-long response, the country has been unable to keep pace. In Ethiopia, according to UNAIDS, the epidemic has progressed to become the 16th-highest prevalence rate globally.

It is an island of tranquillity in an ocean of squalor, poverty and the hustle and bustle of Africa’s largest open-air market. The small garden tucked away in the Merkato market in the capital, Addis Ababa, is a refuge for hundreds of children, many living on the streets or forced into prostitution by poverty. "This is a place where they can escape from it all and just be themselves," said Anania Admasu, who heads the local charity Children Aid Ethiopia (Chad-Et).

Twelve-year old Tizalem stands against the outer wall of her parents’ hut in her village in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. She is getting ready for the neighbourhood hairdresser who will be arriving shortly to braid her hair. It is the day before Tizalem’s wedding to 24-year-old Gegahun. In Ethiopia, and in parts of East Africa, West Africa and South Asia, marriage at the age of seven or eight is not uncommon, making Tizalem older than many brides.

A government ban on the country’s besieged independent journalists' association has been lifted ahead of court action seeking to overturn the ruling, officials told IRIN on Monday. The move came as the former Ethiopian Free Press Journalists’ Association (EFJA) leadership began legal proceedings against the ban. They are also claiming that the government illegally orchestrated their overthrow and helped establish a new leadership for the troubled 13-year-old association.

The Ethiopian government should end its harassment of an association of independent journalists that has frequently criticized the government's repression of the independent press, Human Rights Watch said in a recent letter to Ethiopia’s prime minister. The Ethiopian Free Journalists Association (EFJA), a group composed of journalists associated with the country’s beleaguered independent press, has come under government attack in recent months for opposing a proposed press law that would tighten government oversight of news reporting. “The Ethiopian government is trying to muffle the independent press,” said Peter Takirambudde, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division.

Ten thousand people have fled ethnic fighting in western Ethiopia that has claimed more than 250 lives, according to government officials. Clashes had erupted at a gold mine, in which 196 people were killed in a single day; the killings being one of the worst instances of ethnic violence seen in Ethiopia in recent years, the government said on Wednesday. The fighting flared up just weeks after 60 people were killed in the troubled Gambella region, the federal affairs ministry said in a statement.

G7 creditors, having promised substantial debt relief, have stalled the disbursement of relief, and are doing nothing for Ethiopia; this despite the fact that according to their own commitments and rules she is fully entitled to this relief. “Doing nothing for Ethiopia”, a briefing produced by Jubilee Research at nef (the new economics foundation) in February 2004 argues that this is once again “complicit in murder”. Why? Because if Ethiopia is denied additional debt relief, her government will lose US$1 billion in new money, and be obliged to divert US$35 million to service debt repayments to much richer creditors. This money could instead be used for hospitals, clean water and sanitation.

Scores of people are reported to have been killed in renewed violence in Ethiopia's tense Gambella region. United Nations officials say that up to 40 people died in the clashes, reports the UN's Irin news agency. Last year, some 150 people died in violence between ethnic Nuers and Anyuaks.

Jubilee Debt Campaign says they have learned that the USA and Germany are blocking World Bank-IMF 'top-up' debt relief for Ethiopia and Niger on the basis of a mere technicality. This could cost Ethiopia $35 million per year. They are asking people to visit their website to find out how to take action.

African governments recently faced renewed demands to introduce and enforce tough laws to stamp out female genital mutilation (FGM) and protect the women of their countries. Leading health and human rights experts on the continent called for legislation to end the practice to which 2 million African women and girls in 28 countries are subjected every year.

Ethnic violence has left at least 18 people dead and several hundred homes burnt down in eastern Ethiopia, the country’s human rights organisation revealed on Friday. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (ERCHO) said fighting had erupted between the Somali and Oromo ethnic groups competing for political power in West Harerge.