Ethiopian authorities have turned down a strong demand by Kenyan lawmakers to stop the construction of the controversial Gibe III hydro-electric power dam, terming it 'unthinkable'. The massive dam, that is expected to cost $1.7 billion, has come under sustained criticism from mainly western rights groups over what they say are the negative environmental and social impacts and the threat it is said to pose to the livelihoods of an estimated 500,000 people living in Kenya. Kenyan Members of Parliament last week demanded the Ethiopian government stop all construction until an independent environmental impact assessment was done, saying that communities living around Lake Turkana would be affected.

While millions in East Africa are caught in the cobweb of a devastating drought that has spread its tentacles across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the government in Addis Ababa is snatching some of Ethiopia's most productive farmland from local tribes and leasing it to foreign companies to grow and export food. A Survival International investigation has uncovered shocking evidence that vast blocks of fertile land in the Omo River area in south west Ethiopia are being leased out to Malaysian, Italian and Korean companies. Vast stretches of land are also being cleared for huge state-run plantations producing export crops, even though 90,000 tribal people in the area depend on the land to survive.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi recently dismissed a question from an MP representing his ruling EPRDF about comments made by Ken Ohashi, former country director of the World Bank to Ethiopia. Ohashi believes Ethiopia’s economy has deeply structural flaws in competitiveness and is trapped in a low productivity quagmire. He concluded his four-year tenure in Ethiopia last month. He was known for his scepticism on the viability of the administration’s signature plan outlined in the Growth and Transformation Plan.

The Human Rights Committee of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reviewed Ethiopia's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recently, including its press freedom record. Peppered with questions about an indefensible record of abuse - jailing the second largest number of journalists in Africa and leading the continent in Internet censorship - representatives of the Ethiopian government responded with cursory talking points and bold denials in contradiction of the facts, says the Committee to Protect Journalists.