Camel caravan in Danakil Depression Afar Region, #Ethiopia.Beautiful landscapes in Afar but very hot.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Harar without Hararis

Image
W hat began in the middle of 2018 as nightly chants of “ciao, ciao Adare” (‘goodbye Harari’), pack your bags, and “kinyyaa” (‘this is ours’) culminated with the Harari National League (HNL) surrendering half of the administration of Harar to the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP). Unchecked, this will end in the complete removal of Hararis from Harar—politically and physically.  Hararis are a unique ethnic minority group in Ethiopia, who have now also become a minority in their indigenous home, the ancient city of Harar. While Hararis used to inhabit a much larger area in the past, they have been relegated to behind the walls of Harar (Jugol) and its environs since after the Jugol was erected in the mid 1500s. For centuries, Harar was an important city in Ethiopia: Richard Burton called it “the Timbuktu of the East”; UNESCO  references  it as one of Islam’s holiest cities. During the Italio-Ethiopian war in 1935-36, The New York Times, The Times of India, The Globe, and ot...
Read more

US State Dept. approves UAE’s purchase of F-35 jets, MQ-9 drones

Image
  The U.S. State Department on Tuesday cleared a massive package of F-35 fighter jets and MQ-9 unmanned systems for the United Arab Emirates, making official a potential sale   st ill opposed  by many congressional Democrats. In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo  announced that the package , which comes with an estimated price tag of $23.37 billion, includes up to 50 F-35s worth $10.4 billion, 18 MQ-9Bs worth $2.97 billion, and $10 billion worth of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions. “This is in recognition of our deepening relationship and the UAE’s need for advanced defense capabilities to deter and defend itself against heightened threats from Iran,” Pompeo said. “The UAE’s historic agreement to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to positively transform the region’s strategic landscape. Our adversaries, especially those in Iran, know this and will stop at nothing to disrupt this...
Read more

Two Exuberant Weddings Fusing Ethiopian and Nigerian Traditions

Image
 back on what they wanted most for their big day — and we’ve interviewed hundreds of them over the years — the most common response is “For it not to feel like a wedding!” But in a monsoon of flower crowns and macaron towers, how do you see beyond the usual tropes and actually pull off a non-cookie-cutter affair? For the answer, we decided to interrogate the cool couples whose weddings we would actually want to steal — right down to the tiger-shaped cake toppers. Though we’re living in a moment in which group celebrations are either being called off or adapting to extreme social distancing , in many ways these pre-quarantine parties are just the escape we need right now. Here, we spoke with Katrina and Samson Debela, a couple so dedicated to “the comfort of community and good vibrations” that they created a performance series, the  565 Sessions , for artists, by artists. For their own nuptials, they plotted what might be called a wedding series: a cultural extravaganza c...
Read more