The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP) is establishing an AIDS Resource Center (ARC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This Center will serve as the hub for AIDS information for journalists, health providers, government departments, and HIV/AIDS organisations and programmes.

They are the forgotten victims of the HIV/AIDS virus that is devastating Africa. Amid the terrible social and economic destruction, all too often it is the elderly who are left to pick up the pieces.

Ethiopia may be facing a major meningitis epidemic with up to 31 million people at risk, an official from the ministry of health warned on Tuesday.

Over five million people will need relief assistance in Ethiopia this year, a drop on previous years due to an improvement in the humanitarian situation and relatively good harvests.

One of the world’s largest animal surveys will be launched in Ethiopia next month. For the first time ever, all the animals in the country are to be counted as part of a massive census by the Ethiopian Central Statistics Authority (CSA).

The head of the Ethiopian Orthodox church has warned about the spread of AIDS in a sermon marking the country's holiest day. Patriarch Abune Paulos, in an address to celebrate Ethiopian Epiphany, urged the community to provide support and show compassion to victims of the virus.

This report addresses the overarching question regarding the role of institutions in enhancing market development following market reforms. It uses the New Institutional Economics framework to empirically analyze the role of a specific market institution, that of brokers acting as intermediaries to match traders in the Ethiopian grain market in reducing the transaction costs of search faced by traders. Brokers play a key role in facilitating exchange in a weak marketing environment where limited public market information, the lack of grain standardization, oral contracts, and weak legal enforcement of contracts increase the risk of contract failure. Relying on primary data, it analyzes traders' microeconomic behavior, social capital, the nature and extent of their transaction costs, and the norms and rules governing the relationship between brokers and traders.The study uses an innovative approach to quantify the costs of search and demonstrates that the brokerage institution is economically efficient both for individual traders and for global economic welfare.

Community radio could help revolutionise the lives of millions of people in the Horn of Africa and play a crucial role in their future development, according to a conference underway in Addis Ababa.

Frehiwot Eshetu appears like any ordinary daughter. As a 13-year-old she helps her mother clean around their small, mud-walled home and looks after her youngest brother Tariq. Yet a year ago she was living on the streets with prostitutes, her friends were using drugs, sniffing benzene and begging. Surviving on scraps from garbage she soon became sick, her stomach infested with worms and her skin and hair riddled with lice. But Frehiwot is lucky. She is described as a success story – plucked from the streets of Addis Ababa and re-united with her family.

More than 17 million people have received aid over the last five years, according to an Ethiopian government aid agency. The Ethiopian Social Rehabilitation and Development Fund (ESRDF) says it has set up over 3,000 projects countrywide.

The head of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) has accused the international community of failing the continent. Amara Essy said the refusal to alleviate Africa's huge debt burden "continues to compromise" its development.

The government's anti-corruption commission has filed charges against 54 current and former officials of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), as well as a number of businessmen, according to the private 'Reporter' newspaper.

Eritrea and Ethiopia surprised the world by going to war in May 1998 over the position of their common border, ending seven years of peace. A peace agreement signed in December 2000 brought hopes of a new era of reconciliation and rehabilitation. What challenges now face the two nations and their peoples, the region and the international community? Is peace sustainable?

The largest ever polio vaccination programme in Ethiopia designed to bring about full eradication of the disease suffered a setback on Thursday after five suspected cases of the disease were discovered.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has expressed fears for tens of thousands of Ethiopians in Tigray region who were displaced from their homes during the war with Eritrea, following a decision to withdraw food aid at the end of the month, a WFP spokesman told IRIN this week.

Eritrea on Monday rejected accusations by Ethiopia that it is mobilising troops in the buffer zone between the two countries, and that it is providing support to the Somali radical Islamic group Al-Ittihad.

The border commission charged with reaching mutual agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea on the demarcation of their common border began hearing the cases of the two countries in the Hague on Monday.

The Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association is expressing concern over the alarming increase in the harassment of journalists, who have been summoned to the Central Investigation Office and often sentenced to jail terms by the government.

Opposition political parties have strongly criticised the government's HIV/AIDS programme labelling it ineffective and calling on the government to declare a state of emergency as the only way to combat the spread of the disease.

Maternal mortality is a major challenge to global public health. But it is difficult to measure true maternal death rates at the community level, particularly in societies where most deliveries occur at home. What is the most accurate way to estimate maternal mortality in countries with limited resources and infrastructure?