By Brad Plumer, VOX Over the past year, scientists have been keeping a close eye on an important swath of the Pacific Ocean, just along the equator. When conditions here get just right, an El Niño can form — wreaking havoc on weather patterns across the globe. Now it looks like we’re in for a monster.…
By Tom Hale, IFLScience photo credit: Cameron Beccario Maps are one of those things you can lose yourself in for hours. Since their humble origins as scribbles in the sand thousands of millennia ago, maps have been useful companions during the development of human culture and society. Now, in an age of seemingly endless information, maps are more abundant, advanced…
Newly-released documents show that in 1985, the PM wrote to the Foreign Office seeking action on the Marxist and pro-Soviet regime in Ethiopia. BY MARTIN PLAUT , Newstatesman Towards the end of 1985, at the height of the worst famine in modern Ethiopian history, Margaret Thatcher contemplated helping to topple the Ethiopian government. The documents – marked Top…
Herald Scotland THE UK Government has been urged to provide assurances of “strict scrutiny” over the export of material which can be used to manufacture nuclear weapons to a country with defense links to North Korea. Data shows that in January this year, the UK approved the export of £1,193 of deuterium compounds to Ethiopia…
By Allison Miller, Historians Asked how she came to translate the life story of Walatta Petros, a 17th-century Ethiopian woman saint, Wendy Belcher jokes that the story takes a while to tell. She’s right. Just published by Princeton University Press,The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros, written by a monk in 1672, which Belcher…
By South Front The Emirati Armed Forces has started to use actively the Eritrean ports. According to our information, at least, three landing craft belonging to the United Arab Emirates were docked in the port of Assab on September 16. A diplomatic row between Djibouti and UAE took precedence of these developments. On 28 April…
Image copyright AFP BBC Hailemariam Desalegn’s party won a landslide victory in May’s elections Ethiopia’s prime minister has told the BBC he is not afraid of criticism from journalists, despite the country’s reputation for stifling free speech. “Free media is very essential for the democratic process and… development,” Hailemariam Desalegn said. He insisted some bloggers and…
By Sally Hayden, Vice It’s been nearly 25 years since Ethiopia’s Soviet-backed Derg regime was ousted. As a coalition of rebel forces approached capital city Addis Ababa on May 27, 1991, four senior ministers — accused of ordering mass killings — used the darkness of night to creep into the Italian embassy. What followed is a…
by FRANK JACOBS Maps have many fathers. One of them is the genie of omission. So beware of the map that is too straightforward and simple. It may very well be obscuring something. For also in cartography, this general rule applies: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. An interesting point…
Business Insider The conflicts between Shia and Sunni Muslims go back to the seventh century and the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Yet a spotlight has been shone recently on the differences between the two branches of the religion as the number of clashes between both groups has intensified. The vast majority of the 1.6 billion Muslims…