If the economic and human rights situation in Ethiopia is really as rosy as it is painted by the EPRDF government, how come hundreds of thousands of its youthful population are risking their lives to flee the country and die in the deserts of the Sahara, Sinai and Arabia, beheaded by fundamentalist lunatics in Libya and killed in South Africa?

With national “elections” close - periods historically marked by boycotts, corruption and vote-rigging, violence and repression – Ethiopia merits attention. It’s a country characterized by widespread torture, oppression and crackdowns on perceived dissidents.

Ethiopia’s rich heritage in music immortalized in vinyl records is vanishing into the international collector scene alongside other artifacts. There is a need to reclaim and honor the vinyl classics as part of the ancient nation’s cultural memory.

Karuturi has nothing to show for his “investment”, except a humongous debt. Where are the tens of thousands of hectares of oil palm, sugar cane, rice, edible oils and maize and cotton he promised? Where are the 60,000 workers? They exist only in the warped imaginations of the corrupt state fat cats in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia’s already limited space for civil society and human rights defenders is undergoing further contraction, warn CIVICUS, The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project, and the Ethiopia Human Rights Project (EHRP).