From Chopin to Ethiopia, and Partway Back Again

Girma Yifrashewa The Ethiopian pianist and
composer played classical fare and his own
works at the Issue Project Room on Saturday night.

Girma Yifrashewa, Pianist-Composer, at Issue Project Room

“Classical music is music without Africa,” Brian Eno bluntly declared in a 1995 interview published in Wired magazine. “It represents old-fashioned hierarchical structures, ranking, all the levels of control,” he said. An art-rock provocateur, Mr. Eno managed to patronize two cultures in a single blow, fetishizing a free-floating independence in African art that he found lacking in rigid European traditions.

Yet if Mr. Eno’s statement oversimplified a complicated global exchange, relatively little evidence indicates that the Western classical tradition has held as much sway in Africa as it has in other parts of the globe, from Venezuela to China. So Girma Yifrashewa, a 45-year-old Ethiopian pianist and composer who performed at the Issue Project Room in Downtown Brooklyn on Saturday night, offers a rare and fascinating example of aesthetic adaptation and convergence.

Disciplinary proceedings opened against three member associations

FIFA can confirm that disciplinary proceedings have been opened against three member associations for each having allegedly fielded an ineligible player in the preliminary competition for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™.

The Ethiopian Football Association allegedly fielded an ineligible player in the match between Botswana and Ethiopia on 8 June 2013.

The Togolese Football Federation allegedly fielded an ineligible in the match between Togo and Cameroon on 9 June 2013.

Disciplinary proceedings were also opened against the Equatorial Guinea Football Federation for having allegedly fielded an ineligible player in the match between Equatorial Guinea and Cape Verde Islands on 24 March 2013, and a decision was recently passed by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee on this matter.

The EQG appealed against the decision to the FIFA Appeal Committee, and the appeal proceedings are on-going.

The disciplinary proceedings against the three associations relate to article 55 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code and article 8 of the Regulations for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil.

www.fifa.com

A radio documentary on the legendary melody and song writer Abebe Melesse

Ethiopia to Accommodate Nations Concerned by Dam on Nile

Ethiopia’s government said it will try to accommodate nations concerned that their water supplies may be affected by the damming of the Blue Nile River, as Sudanese and Egyptian officials met to discuss the issue.
Ethiopia, source of one of the two tributaries of the Nile River, will start filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile at the “end of next year,” Deputy Prime Minister Debretsion Gebremichael said in an interview yesterday. The 80 billion-birr ($4.3 billion) hydropower project may begin generating 600 megawatts of electricity next year and is set for completion in 2017, he said.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
will be twice the size of Singapore.
Source: DigitalGlobe via Getty Images

The schedule for filling the 74 billion cubic meter reservoir is expected to be a “major concern” for the downstream nations of Egypt and Sudan, said Debretsion. Once completed, the power plant will be Africa’s largest with the capacity to generate 6,000 megawatts. Egypt, which relies on the Nile for almost all of its water, has historically opposed upstream projects on the world’s longest river.
“We are not selfish, we are not only looking at our national interest,” said Debretsion, who is also chairman of the state-owned Ethiopian Electric Power Corp. “This is an international river and we will try our best to accommodate their benefits and their interests.”

BBC Hardtalk with US Secretary of State John Kerry at Addis Ababa University

Boosting Ethiopia’s Economy, One Shoe at a Time

AFRICANGLOBE – For Bethlehem Tilahun, the answer to ending poverty in Africa is not aid or sympathy or donations from the outside. It’s shoes.

Specifically, building a successful shoe manufacturing business that creates jobs, empowers employees, like the one she founded SoleRebels, the first ever global footwear company to come out of a developing country.

“You don’t build your economy based on aid, you want to build your economy based on the way SoleRebels built its business, so that it’s sustainable,” Bethlehem said.

SoleRebels highlights how burgeoning enterprises can transform economies across Africa.

By shifting away from a reliance on exporting raw materials to the production of premium products such as shoes, Africa can ease its dependency on aid and slowly move toward industrialised growth.

Prostitutes association congratulates Eagles over Ethiopian victory

…Promises one- week free sex if Nigeria wins AFCON Gold

Prostitutes in Nigeria say they are happy over the victory of Super Eagles against Ethiopia in the on-going African Cup of Nations competition.

The prostitutes under the aegis of Nigeria Association of Prostitutes in a statement urged the Nigerian team to go ahead and win the nations cup. The statement was signed by the association’s secretary Jessica Elvis.