Joanna Lumley OBE talks with Mulugeta Asrate Kassa Ethiopian embassy official

By Mefkereseb G. Hailu (PhD) Editorial Forward Part 2 of Mefkereseb G. Hailu’s four-part series…

the author notes, “sovereignty is not merely a legal status but an actively maintained condition” (p.1). MGH then reframes the Abraham Accords as the institutional scaffolding of Trump‑era transactional geopolitics, designed to align Gulf states behind Israeli strategic primacy while isolating Iran. The article highlights how the Accords evolved into a multi‑layered security, intelligence, and economic network one that has already extended into the Red Sea–Horn corridor through Israel’s recognition of Somaliland and the emerging Israel–UAE–India–Ethiopia axis.

The press conference that never happened spoke louder than any speech. In the days leading up to the release, Teddy Afro was reportedly prevented from holding a press conference. He did not protest publicly. He did not issue a statement. He simply announced that the album would drop on YouTube at 2 p.m. The message was clear: if the physical stage is denied, the digital stage remains.

This essay examines the historical and cultural origins of the “ape” insult as applied to racialised groups, tracing a line from the misappropriation of Darwinian evolutionary theory through 19th-century scientific racism to the visual propaganda of the present day. The author’s inquiry is prompted by three concurrent incidents: a social media post by the US president deploying primate imagery against a Black former head of state and his wife; a legal complaint in Sweden over educational material depicting marginalised youth as apes; and the persistent reality of monkey chants directed at Black footballers in European stadiums.

How Ponzi schemes have evolved from Wall Street to Addis Ababa and why Ethiopia is their latest frontier. It always begins with a promise. The details vary electric vehicles in Addis Ababa, cryptocurrency tokens in Dubai, certificates of deposit in the Caribbean but the underlying architecture is identical. You give someone your money. They give it, quietly, to the person before you. They pay you from someone else’s deposit. And for a while, sometimes a long while, everyone appears to be getting rich. This is the Ponzi scheme: the most durable financial fraud in human history, named after Charles Ponzi, a Boston-based Italian immigrant who in 1920 raised $15 million in eight months by promising 50 per cent returns in 45 days. The promise was impossible. The returns were paid entirely from incoming investors’ capital. When the flow of new money slowed, the structure collapsed overnight, ruining thousands. Ponzi went to prison. His name entered the dictionary.