Nick Hunt is freelance journalist and fiction writer more...
Ethiopia: politics and culture
Ethiopia’s Endangered Democracy
Ethiopia is courted by the west as an outpost of strength and democracy in a chronically unstable region. But Meles Zenawi’s government stands accused of crushing dissent, imprisoning its opponents and stifling the free press. Published in New Internationalist, April 2010.
Promised Lands
Donald Fullwood, a Jamaican Rastafarian, moved to Ethiopia 30 years ago to rediscover his spiritual African roots. Eshetu Mamo, a member of Ethiopia’s ancient population of black Jews, seeks a return to his own spiritual homeland in Israel.
The City of Tolerance
Harar, the walled Muslim city in the eastern badlands of Ethiopia, is a melting-pot of cultures and religions that confounds preconceptions. In a mainly Orthodox Christian country, the fourth holiest city in Islam has become an icon of multicultural friendship. I head into the maze of winding streets to discover some of the city’s hidden treasures.
Eco-tourism on Tana
Tim and Kim Otte left Holland for the shores of Ethiopia’s Lake Tana to start an eco-tourism and community development project. The result, a cluster of grass-thatched lodges with views over copper-coloured waters, provides the local community with an investment for the future, and guests with serenity and natural beauty beside Africa’s third-largest lake.