Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 23rd of October twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

Let’s start off with an update on the agreement between Ethiopia and Russia to cooperate on nuclear energy development. Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs was in Russia this week and he met with Sergey Lavrov, his Russian counterpart. They discussed the agreement and other areas of cooperation.

Just a few days after their meeting, Russia’s ambassador to Ethiopia provided some information on the nuclear power plant that Russia will help Ethiopia build. He said the plant will be built based on what he said is a safe and modern technology called VVER-1200. The ambassador also said recently that Ethiopia is one of the frontrunners among African countries to host the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit.

A tragic accident that occurred on Monday the 20th claimed the lives of fourteen people. The accident happened when a train traveling from Dewele to Dire-Dawa, both in eastern Ethiopia, crashed with another stationary train in the Somali region’s Shinile district.

Aside from the fourteen casualties, twenty-nine were hurt, with officials saying the number of deaths could increase because some have been badly injured. According to reports, the railway is over a hundred years old, but ceased operations for twenty-five years before the Council of Ministers decided to allow the Dire-Dawa City Administration to resume service in the twenty twenty-one-twenty twenty-two fiscal year. The railway is over two hundred kilometers or about a hundred and twenty five miles long and transports goods and people twice a week.

Speaking of railways, the Ethiopian Railways Corporation announced on Tuesday the 21st that it had finished conducting a feasibility study for a railway connecting Addis Ababa with Port Sudan. The corporation carried out the study, which cost over two million US dollars, with funds from the African Development Bank.

The railway is expected to be over a thousand and five hundred kilometers or over nine hundred miles long, with the corporation saying the project will be very important for the increase in the money supply of both Ethiopia and Sudan. The corporation added that the next steps will be to look for financing and work on design plans.

Also on Tuesday the 21st, the local private company BEAKA announced at the Ethiopia-China Trade and Investment Forum held in Addis that it will partner up with Chinese heavy-duty vehicles manufacturer Shacman to locally assemble trucks that run on natural gas.

The company’s manager said it plans to complete its assembly plant in just three months and roll out a thousand and five hundred trucks in its first year. He added that the company expects to double this figure in its second year. Even though he spoke to the media, he didn’t respond to inquiries about how much the plant will cost the company or about details of its deal with Shacman. The manager did say that aside from assembling Shacman’s vehicles, the company also plans to import complete, road-ready vehicles.

Meanwhile, the immigration and citizenship service announced that it fined over thirty thousand foreigners who overstayed their visas. The service’s head said her office is working on ensuring that foreigners in Ethiopia respect the country’s laws.

She also said the service has been working to improve the passport issuance process, which has been strongly criticized. She added that there are plans to issue four million passports within a year.

On another note, the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, a state-owned insurance services provider that controls the highest percentage of the country’s insurance market, is undergoing reforms. Its CEO said the government, through its sovereign fund, Ethiopian Investment Holdings, initiated reforms to help the company go public with an initial public offering.

If these plans succeed, the corporation will be the second state-owned enterprise after Ethio Telecom to offer its shares to the public. The CEO also said the reforms are set to prepare the company to compete against foreign companies, which are expected to enter the country’s

market soon.

One aspect of the reform is recruiting new employees to help in the process but current employees aren’t happy with how the new CEO has gone about this, saying some company executives — their former colleagues — have been placed on forced leave or suspended, with them also fearing that this could happen to them as well.

In court news, the Federal High Court has begun hearing witnesses’ testimonies in a controversial criminal case involving employees of the Ethiopia Broadcasting Service, a private TV station.

About six months ago, police detained sixteen individuals, including journalists, following a transmission about the story of a young woman and her stay at a university in the Oromia region. The government said the story was completely made up and aimed to destabilize the country.

The suspects denied the charges and police opened an investigation that has lasted several months and has finally brought its witnesses to court.

Next up, The Addis Ababa Plan and Development Bureau announced on Monday the 20th that it has begun conducting a census of business enterprises in the city in collaboration with the Addis branch of the national statistics service. The census began on Saturday the 11th and is expected to go on for the next four months. The bureau said it will use the data it collected to inform macroeconomic goals and measure the businesses’ contribution to the economy.

The offices said all businesses in the city, regardless of their size or revenue, will be part of the census. The offices have established a task force that will oversee the census with over five thousand workers already recruited and assigned across the city.

The capital is undergoing changes in other fields, as media outlets reported this week that the city has decided to change its flat-rate payment scheme for health insurance. Its cost will be determined based on the resident’s income.

The lowest health insurance fee, following changes, will start at a thousand and five hundred birr, which is around ten US dollars annually. The higher a resident earns, the more they’ll pay, with the highest revised health insurance fee capping out at ten thousand five hundred birr, which is around sixty-five US dollars.

The government is planning to reduce junk food consumption through a new bill announced earlier this month.

If passed, the bill will limit the amount of trans fat commonly present in these foods, force producers to indicate on their labels that their food products are high in sugar or salt, and ban junk food ads on TV, billboards and social media.

This bill might be one of the most aggressive bills of its type on the continent.

In sports news, the Oromia Broadcasting Network (or OBN) has emerged as the holder of the rights to broadcast the Ethiopian Premier League for the season that just began and for the next one. The network got the rights after winning a tender that the league put out.

For the past few seasons, SuperSport held the rights in what was a lucrative deal for the league. But the South Africa-based broadcaster didn’t renew its deal and the league has since failed to attract offers from other international broadcasters and had to settle for OBN, which the Oromia regional government owns.

This season began this past weekend with the league’s most anticipated game, the Sheger Derby between Ethiopian Coffee and Saint George, ending in a victory for Saint George.

And for our final update, an obituary. Mufti Haji Oumar Idris, former president and one of the founders of the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, passed away on Sunday the 19th. Many were heartbroken to hear of his passing, including Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Both during and after his time as the president of the council, Haji Oumar made numerous calls for peace and unity. He had also received an honorary doctorate degree from the Addis Ababa University in twenty nineteen.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

This past Saturday, we held a trial of a new kind of gathering. Highly structured but radically equal, very wild. No keynote speakers, no talking heads. Those who join decide who they talk to, but without knowing the identity of who they will meet, they propose and decide what they will discuss. Like we said. Wild, interested in what it was, check the show notes and if you’re interested, we can help you hold one in Ethiopia.

Ciao!