Yohannes Woldemariam draws a comparison between Egypt and the 1974 revolution in Ethiopia. Watch out for the army generals and the role of the US, Woldemariam cautions.

Despite opposition from Ethiopia's president and environmental authorities, a rainforest area providing livelihood to an indigenous people has been leased out to make tea plantations. In a rare move, the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) has been able to acquire government documents describing the struggle of the Mazenger and other indigenous people to protect their ancient forest-covered lands along tributaries to the White Nile.

Will the spirit of the Egyptian revolution travel along the Nile to Ethiopia, asks Meraf Nebiyu. Perhaps not immediately, but the conditions for a popular uprising exist.

Local elected officials in southern and western Ethiopia are bitterly opposing the selling away of farm land by the Woyanne ruling junta to foreign investors, reports Ethiopian Review. Some of the local officials who take a stand are receiving threats and being summarily dismissed by Meles Zenawi’s puppets who are installed as regional administrators.

Several African leaders have bought lands in Ethiopia to develop agricultural projects or tourism resorts. They are let to bypass a 2007 ban on export of cereals, still in place for other investors. It has earlier been known that former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasansjo and current Djiboutian President Ismael Omar Guelleh privately have bought up large properties in Ethiopia. Also the Egyptian Prime Minister managed to buy large agricultural land tracts in Ethiopia on behalf of his government. However, a US Embassy cable from February last year, released by Wikileaks, indicates that several of these underreported deals operate in the grey zone of Ethiopian legislation.

Pastoralist communities in two districts of northeastern Ethiopia have outlawed female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), saying it causes serious health problems to the women and is against their culture, a local official said. The two districts are Amibara and Awash-Fentale in Afar region. 'We are very happy to declare the abandonment of this horrible act on women,' the head of women's affairs in Amibara district, Fatuma Ali, said. 'We would like to thank the elders, our community and all our partners.'

An estimated 300,000 to 350,000 people remained internally displaced within Ethiopia in late 2010. There were reported displacements related to violence and human rights violations in Gambella and Somali Regions in 2010. Armed conflicts and localised episodes of violence have continued to cause displacement in various areas. In particular, government forces have continued to fight insurgency groups including the Ogaden National Liberation Front in Somali Region and the Oromo Liberation Front in the south of the country.

The Ethiopian government has unveiled an HIV policy for its transport sector, which has grown significantly in recent years alongside the rapidly expanding road network. 'Various national studies have shown that those working across the transport sector - especially drivers and their assistants - are vulnerable to HIV infection as they spend considerable time away from their families,' said Ethiopia's transport authority director Kassahun Hailemariam.

Around 60 Banyamulenge refugees have been victims of torture and ‘cruel treatment by the Ethiopian police’ and ‘illegally detained with no reasons’, writes Akim M. Hakiza, in to uphold its commitments to refugees under international law.

Up to 80 African migrants are feared to have drowned off the south coast of Yemen after their boats capsized, Yemeni officials say. The migrants, mostly from Ethiopia, were travelling in two boats which were hit by strong wind and waves, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

In conversation with Obang Metho, executive director of the Anuak Justice Council and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, Alemayehu G. Mariam discusses the forgotten genocide of the Anuak, ‘in solemn anticipation of the seventh anniversary’ of the massacres over the period 13–16 December.

Nigist Abebe has grown in confidence over five years on the job. Today she is one of 34,000 rural health extension workers at the heart of Ethiopia’s primary health care strategy. One of her most important functions in Dengo Furda Kebele, the village she was born and raised in, is supporting women through pregnancy and childbirth. An estimated 94 per cent of Ethiopian mothers give birth at home and in 2005, when the Health Extension program started, 720 mothers died per 100,000 live births.

WikiLeaks has helped to shine a light on the web of lies and deceit surrounding US complicity in the 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.

'Land seizures by the Ethiopian regime, with the pretext of modernizing the country, is really intended to tear down the foundation of the Ethiopian society. Today, entire communities in Ethiopia are being forced out of their land and neighborhoods, and pushed into internal displacement and exile. Land and property owners are evicted by governmental decrees, and often paid only a fraction of what their properties are worth in compensations.'

Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian prime minister, has told Reuters that Egypt could not win a war with Ethiopia over the Nile river. In an interview on Tuesday, Meles also accused Egypt of trying to destabilise his country by supporting several small rebel groups, but said it was a tactic that would no longer work. In response, Egypt said it was 'amazed' by Ethiopia's suggestion that Cairo might turn to military action in a row over the Nile waters, saying it did not want confrontation and that it was not backing rebels there.

Home to over half of Ethiopia’s remaining afromontane forest and the centre of origin for the wild coffee arabica, Kafa is a dense tangle of forest, bamboo thickets and wetlands 475 kilometres southwest of the capital, Addis Ababa. Decades of deforestation by smallholder farmers as well as large state and privately-owned farms destroyed 43 per cent of the Kafa rainforest. But the forest is now a model of sustainable forest management.

In its state report to the recent UN Committee Against Torture review, Ethiopia implies that the relevant legislation on torture is thorough and sufficient. But in its concluding remarks, the Committee against Torture points out 27 topics as subjects of concern and makes recommendations to the state party in the following areas: definition of torture, its widespread use, impunity for the authorities, anti-terrorism measures as false pretence for torture, abductions, human trafficking and other areas of the failures of implementing the existing laws.

The Humbo plateau, some 400 kilometres south of Ethiopia's capital, is in the most densely populated part of Ethiopia. It's a dry and dusty district that has experienced frequent drought; average rainfall is 800-900 mm and temperatures routinely rise to 40 degrees. The stripping of trees has made the low-lying areas susceptible to flooding. But a Clean Development Mechanism project initiated by international development organisation World Vision has organised 40,000 people in the worst-affected areas to regenerate and protect 2,700 hectares of forest land.

While the Ethiopian regime uses its power to keep citizens in darkness, a cadre of young journalists are displaying a courageous commitment to the truth. Alemayehu G. Mariam pays tribute.

Bangalore-based Indian company, Karuturi Global, the world’s largest flower producer, couldn’t get enough land in India to compete with rivals. So the company went to Ethiopia early this year and leased 1,200 square miles of land - larger than the State of Rhode Island - to grow flowers. After a few years, the land will become useless due to heavy use of fertilisers. Millions of Ethiopians are facing food shortage and yet the World Bank-financed dictatorship leases huge tracts of land to foreign agribusiness to grow and export flower, reports the Ethiopian Review.