HIV/AIDS prevention programmes have had a dramatic effect on changing risky sexual behaviour, authors of a five-year study in Ethiopia said last Friday. The study, which was carried out among 1,500 factory workers in Ethiopia and started in 1997, showed a marked drop in casual sex and an increase in condom use. Prevalence rates of the virus also plummeted.

Journalists of the Ethiopian free press, publishers and media professionals have issued a joint statement in protest against a new draft press law.

A measles epidemic is killing children in a camp where families sought sanctuary from the drought, an international aid organisation said on Monday. UK-based Christian Aid said that the crisis in the makeshift camp in Haraghe, in the eastern Oromiya region, is getting worse as more people arrive in search of food and promises of resettlement on fertile land.

Troubled by figures indicating that between 100 million and 130 million women suffered female genital mutilation or cutting as girls, UNICEF has called on governments to abide by commitments they made at the UN Special Session on Children and move immediately to end the disturbing phenomenon by 2010.
Related Link:
* Kenyan girls flee mutilation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/africa/2736317.stm

Malnutrition rates in Ethiopia are gradually increasing despite widespread efforts to help millions of people facing starvation in the country, according to aid organisations.

Four wives of African presidents joined hundreds of women in Addis Ababa on Tuesday to call for zero tolerance to female genital mutilation. The wives of leaders from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali and Guinea condemned the traditional practice as barbaric and called for international action against it.

The UN Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia (EUE) has warned that resettlement programmes can devastate natural environments and threaten indigenous groups. It said "colossal deforestation" and widespread environmental damage almost always went hand in hand with such programmes.

We have concrete grounds for calling on the African Union to focus its attention on the question of the respect of the right to freedom of expression. Journalists in Africa work under particularly hostile circumstances and, because of their important role in building and maintaining democracy, require recognition and protection.

Citizens and residents expelled by both Ethiopia and Eritrea during their 1998-2000 border war should be offered repatriation and the restoration of citizenship, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. The 64-page report, "The Horn of Africa War: Mass Expulsions and the Nationality Issue," recounts the plight of almost one hundred thousand citizens and residents of both countries who were uprooted and deprived of their residence and nationality without a semblance of due process.

The latest figures released by the United Nations indicate that as many as 148,737 refugees are residing in Ethiopia. According to a report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the refugees include 50,906 Somalis, 93,500 Sudanese, 3,871 Eritreans and 460 Ethiopians.

A British conservationist, fighting to save a rare breed of zebra from extinction, has stressed that its future is intertwined with Ethiopia’s food aid dependency. Dr Stuart Williams is battling to save an estimated 500 Grevy's zebras which live in the mountainous areas of southern Ethiopia.

Ethiopia’s federal police have beaten up clergymen and tortured religious demonstrators, the country’s human rights watchdog claimed on Thursday. The Ethiopian Human Rights Council (EHRCO) said the assaults occurred after clashes between police and demonstrators at Addis Ababa's Lideta Mariam Orthodox church on 26 December.

Dozens of people have been killed amid spiralling ethic clashes between rival groups in Ethiopia's western Gambella Region, on the border with Sudan. Although the area has traditionally been witness to tribal violence, the ferocity and scale of attacks are now causing serious concern.

The Ethiopian government is muzzling educators and students with a policy of harsh repression that includes extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and widespread denials of freedom of opinion and association, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.

Among the daunting humanitarian challenges facing Ethiopia is the need to improve and strengthen basic education. The national gross enrollment rate, while on the rise, was 51 percent in 1999/2000, while girls' enrollment stood at 41 percent.

The right of citizens to freedom of expression has, for ages, been brutally suppressed in countries like Ethiopia, where democratic systems have not been established. After the EPRDF (Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front) put the entire country under its control and usurped state power, it accepted and ratified the UN Declaration of Human Rights, approved the charter during the transition period and promulgated the press proclamation. Ever since then, numerous free press publications have been rendering services as alternative sources of information.

When Genet Girma and Addisie Abosie got married in Kembatta, Ethiopia, they did the unthinkable in their community. Genet wore a placard saying "I am not circumcised, learn from me" and her groom wore a matching one that said "I am very happy to be marrying an uncircumcised woman."

UN officials have made their first visit to a troubled refugee camp in western Ethiopia where more than 40 people were killed during ethnic clashes two months ago. Increasing tensions between rival ethnic groups sparked the clashes, which broke out in late November.

A quarter of children in Ethiopia could be orphaned by the HIV/AIDS virus within eight years, experts warned last Friday. The warning came during a conference on HIV/AIDS in Addis Ababa, where it was also revealed that 2.2 million Africans are dying of the virus each year.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is warning that immediate action is needed to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Ethiopia. The Swiss-based organisation says months of drought have left millions of people in urgent need of aid.