Ethiopia
Feed the World?
Forty years after “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” cast Africa as a place “where nothing ever grows,” Ethiopia’s prime minister declared the country self-sufficient in wheat, and even ready to export. But in Oromia, farmers tell another story — of shrinking plots, costly reforms and a risky plan for collective farming.
The Red Sea on the Edge
Tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea have risen again as the leaders of both countries face internal pressures. Neither side wants a full war, but politics, pride and proxy battles are pushing the Horn of Africa closer to conflict.
Haile Selassie’s Band of Armenian Orphans
Armenians the world over remember their close link with Ethiopia, symbolized by the royal adoption of 40 orphan musicians. The legacy of this act endures: Ethiopian music, exported around the world, still reflects this Armenian influence.
Solace and Community in a Tigray Spice Mill
For the matriarchs operating a spice mill in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the ancient work brings comfort in the aftermath of war, an act of resilience that is helping preserve their social and cultural identity.
Haile Selassie’s Refuge in Britain
In the 1930s, as Ethiopia fell to Mussolini’s troops, Emperor Haile Selassie went into exile in Bath, England, where he rallied global support against the Italian invasion of his country.
In Search of Ethiopia’s Garima Gospels
The Garima Gospels were penned at a moment when time stood still — the sun held high in the sky by a less weary God. More than 1,500 years later, the Garima community is learning to live with myriad absences — the Gospels, their saint and their loved ones.
In the Holy Land, Six Christian Faiths Jockey for Power at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Landlord quarrels do not tend to be resolved through the archaic, brute force methods of our ancestors but, in this case, such fistfights seem oddly fitting. This is because the two churches are, in fact, embroiled in perhaps one of the longest-running property disputes in history.