Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 2nd of October twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

For our first story, we’ve got news from Russia as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, along with top government officials, headed to Moscow last week for the Global Atomic Forum, a panel to discuss nuclear energy, held on Thursday the 25th of September. On the sidelines of the forum, Ethiopia and Russia signed a deal which will see Russia helping Ethiopia develop a nuclear power project.

PM Abiy and President Vladimir Putin and the head of Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy corporation, attended the event. Putin and Abiy both underscored the enduring bilateral relations between the two countries that began well over a century ago. The deal comes about a week after PM Abiy said the government has plans to generate power using nuclear energy.

From Russia to the US now, as Massad Boulos, the US Senior Advisor for Africa, said on Thursday the 25th that the US is supporting and will continue to help Ethiopia build its massive new airport in Bishoftu in the Oromia region, central Ethiopia.

He said that the project is estimated to cost ten billion US dollars and is expected to be the largest airport in Africa and one of the biggest in the world. Two weeks ago, in a stakeholders meeting that Ethiopian Airlines organized to discuss the project, the airline revealed that it expects numerous partner countries, including Japan, China, the US and England, to provide funding. The airport is expected to harbor two hundred and seventy aircraft at a time and reduce the airline’s carbon emissions by fifteen percent.

In more foreign affairs, the EU is reportedly considering postponing its environmental regulations, which ban member countries from importing agricultural products that were grown on deforested land. The regulation worries many Ethiopian exporters as it might close off an important destination market, especially for coffee, as thirty-five percent of the coffee the country exports is bound for the European market.

However, Jessika Roswall, the European Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, submitted a plan last week to the EU Parliament to have the regulations postponed for one year, citing infrastructural limitations that make it hard to verify whether imports are complying with the regulations.

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Speaking of trade, the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration said on Monday the 29th that Ethiopia will begin exporting goods under the African Continental Free Trade Area (or AfCFTA) framework next week with the first batch heading for Kenya on Monday the 6th of October.

The Minister said that the plan was to begin exporting last week but there was a slight delay due to negotiations to become a member of the World Trade Organization. The ministry also revealed that Kenya will lift the fifteen percent tariffs it used to levy on certain goods from Ethiopia, starting on Monday the 6th.

Let’s put a hold on business news for now and head to northern Ethiopia, to the Tigray region as its health bureau announced on social media on Monday the 29th that over four hundred cases of Cholera have been reported in ten districts across the region. The bureau also said eleven people have passed away. One of its officials told the media that it is hard to get the outbreak under control because about eighty percent of those infected don’t show any symptoms.

The Ethiopian Public Health Institute said the outbreak was a result of the lack of hygiene in the region’s gold mines. He added that there are efforts to get it under control and that it is highly unlikely that it will spread to neighboring regions.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a statement it released on Thursday the 25th that law enforcement personnel are arbitrarily detaining citizens in unstable parts of the country. The commission added that officers are also not bringing detainees before court within forty-eight hours of their arrest, as the law requires.

The commission also said that officers keep detainees in custody even after a court acquitted them of any alleged wrongdoing.

Speaking of courts, Oromia regional courts were in recess for the past two months. On Thursday the 2nd of October, the region’s judicial administration office announced its reopening and that it has officially begun reviewing cases.

The office said that it has renovated and expanded court spaces on top of completing the construction of a new building for the region’s supreme court in Addis Ababa.

Going back to PM Abiy for a bit, he also tended to local matters. On Wednesday the 1st, he went to the capital of the Somali region, Jigjiga, along with the first lady and his deputies.

Upon his arrival, state media said he would visit various development projects in the region. On Thursday the 2nd, along with Aliko Dangote, the richest African man, the PM laid the foundation stone for the planned construction of a fertilizer plant.

On another note, several major buildings have been constructed over the years, but in a meeting with contractors on Thursday the 25th, the Construction Authority said construction accidents are increasing in both number and danger.

The authority’s deputy director general said the police aren’t receiving accident reports because those involved in the accident privately settle compensation. Still, he said that the number of accidents has reached a concerning level and that, because of the lack of reporting, the authority can’t even exactly say how many people are victims of these accidents.

Back to business news, as Ethio Telecom, which provides financial services via its Telebirr app, warned customers who took out loans through the app but haven’t paid back their borrowings, that it will sue them if they don’t repay soon. The company’s PR head told the media that over eight million have taken out loans through Telebirr and that only a small percentage of borrowers didn’t pay the company back, although he refused to say the actual number.

He also didn’t exactly say when the company would sue after the customers received the warning. However, lawyers say that suing many people at once could pose practical challenges, even for a company as big as Ethio Telecom.

More on business as Wegagen Capital, one of the two investment banks in the country, presented a report on Tuesday the 30th about how it did in the last four months. The bank said it lost over ten million birr, which is almost seventy thousand US dollars. However, the bank’s leadership didn’t sound disappointed with this figure as its board’s chair said a loss was expected, given that the investment bank has been in operation for only six months.

He added that the bank is focused on building a strong foundation for sustained growth. The CEO said there are plans to increase the bank’s paid-up capital by almost two hundred percent. She also said the bank has managed to land fifteen clients from different sectors, including commercial banks, insurance and real estate.

And for the last update of this episode, let’s talk about Irreechaa, a cultural celebration of the Oromo ethnic group. The celebration takes place in early October every year. However, it has its roots in a traditional religion called Waqefana, where followers would give thanks for the passing of the winter season since the rainy season starts in June and ends in early October in most parts of Ethiopia, including the Oromia region. It has recently shifted towards a celebration of Oromo culture in general.

The media reported that there are efforts to have Irreechaa registered as an intangible cultural heritage at UNESCO.

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

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