A little about Ethiopia . . .
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is a country situated in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, and Sudan to the west. It has one of the most extensive known histories as an independent nation on the continent, or indeed in the world. Unique among African countries, Ethiopia maintained independence during the Scramble for Africa, and continued to do so except for a 5 year period when it was under Italian occupation. Ethiopia was historically called Abyssinia. The English name "Ethiopia" is derived from the Greek word. Ethiopian’ traditionally derived from Greek terms meaning "of burnt visage"; however, this etymology is uncertain. The Book of Axum, an Ethiopian chronicle dating from the country's Christian era, states that the name is derived from "'Ityopp'is", a son of Cush, son of Ham who according to legend founded the city of Aksum.
The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is a country situated in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, and Sudan to the west. It has one of the most extensive known histories as an independent nation on the continent, or indeed in the world. Unique among African countries, Ethiopia maintained independence during the Scramble for Africa, and continued to do so except for a 5 year period when it was under Italian occupation. Ethiopia was historically called Abyssinia. The English name "Ethiopia" is derived from the Greek word. Ethiopian’ traditionally derived from Greek terms meaning "of burnt visage"; however, this etymology is uncertain. The Book of Axum, an Ethiopian chronicle dating from the country's Christian era, states that the name is derived from "'Ityopp'is", a son of Cush, son of Ham who according to legend founded the city of Aksum.
Archeologists have found the oldest known human ancestors in Ethiopia, including Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba and Australopithecus anamensis. Originally called Abyssinia, Ethiopia is sub-Saharan Africa's oldest state, and its Solomonic dynasty claims descent from King Menelik I, traditionally believed to have been the son of the queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The current nation is a consolidation of smaller kingdoms that owed feudal allegiance to the Ethiopian emperor.
Hamitic peoples migrated to Ethiopia from Asia Minor in prehistoric times. Semitic traders from Arabia penetrated the region in the 7th century B.C. Its Red Sea ports were important to the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Coptic Christianity was brought to the region in A.D. 341, and a variant of it became Ethiopia's state religion. Ancient Ethiopia reached its peak in the 5th century, then was isolated by the rise of Islam and weakened by feudal wars.
Modern Ethiopia emerged under Emperor Menelik II, who established its independence by routing an Italian invasion in 1896. He expanded Ethiopia by conquest. Disorders that followed Menelik's death brought his daughter to the throne in 1917, with his cousin, Tafari Makonnen, as regent and heir apparent. When the empress died in 1930, Tafari was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I.
Haile Selassie, called the “Lion of Judah,” outlawed slavery and tried to centralize his scattered realm, in which 70 languages were spoken. In 1931, he created a constitution, revised in 1955, that called for a Parliament with an appointed senate, an elected chamber of deputies, and a system of courts. But basic power remained with the emperor.
Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia on Oct. 3, 1935, forcing Haile Selassie into exile in May 1936. Ethiopia was annexed to Eritrea, then an Italian colony, and to Italian Somaliland, forming Italian East Africa. In 1941, British troops routed the Italians, and Haile Selassie returned to Addis Ababa. In 1952, Eritrea was incorporated into Ethiopia.
On Sept. 12, 1974, Haile Selassie was deposed, the constitution suspended, and Ethiopia proclaimed a Socialist state under a collective military dictatorship called the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC), also known as the Derg. U.S. aid stopped, and Cuban and Soviet aid began. Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam became head of state in 1977. During this period Ethiopia fought against Eritrean secessionists as well as Somali rebels, and the government fought against its own people in a campaign called the “red terror.” Thousands of political opponents were killed. Mengistu remained leader until 1991, when his greatest supporter, the Soviet Union, dismantled itself.
A group called the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front seized the capital in 1991, and in May a separatist guerrilla organization, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front, took control of the province of Eritrea. The two groups agreed that Eritrea would have an internationally supervised referendum on independence. This election took place in April 1993 with almost unanimous support for Eritrean independence. Ethiopia accepted and recognized Eritrea as an independent state within a few days. Sixty-eight leaders of the former military government were put on trial in April 1996 on charges that included genocide and crimes against humanity.
Since Eritrea's independence, Eritrea and Ethiopia had disagreed about the exact demarcation of their borders, and in May 1998 Eritrea initiated border clashes that developed into a full-scale war that left more than 80,000 dead and further destroyed both countries' ailing economies. After a costly and bloody two-year war, a permanent cease-fire was reached in June 2000—Ethiopia had the upper hand when the fighting ceased—and a formal peace agreement was signed in Dec. 2000. The United Nations has provided more than 4,000 peacekeeping forces to patrol the buffer zone between the two nations. An international commission defined a new border between the two countries in April 2002. Ethiopia disputed the new border, escalating tensions between the two countries once again. In 2003, the border question was put on hold indefinitely.
In 2003, in an effort to solve its chronic shortage of food and to lessen its dependence on international aid, Ethiopia began relocating 2 million farmers from their parched highland homes to areas with more fertile soil in the western part of the country. The largest relocation program in African history, however, has turned into a disaster. The majority of those resettled are still unable to support themselves, and, most alarmingly, much of the fertile regions where the farmers have been resettled are rife with malaria. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107505.html
Population (2006 est.): 41,236,378 (growth rate: 2.6%)
Largest cities: Omdurman, 2,103,900; Port Sudan, 450,400
Land area: 917,374 sq mi (2,376,001 sq km); total area: 967,499 sq mi (2,505,810 sq km)
Languages: Arabic (official), Nubian, Ta Bedawie, diverse dialects of Nilotic, Nilo-Hamitic, Sudanic languages, English
Religions: Islam 45%–50%, Ethiopian Orthodox 35%–40%, animist 12%, other 3%–8%
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