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Ethiopian entrepreneur Bethlehem Tilahun, founder and managing director of soleRebels has been selected as one of the twelve women to watch my Forbes magazine.

Forbes magazine selected twelve up and coming women who are exhibiting the potential to climb to the ranks of the most powerful women in the world in the coming year as supplement to its annual World’s 100 Most Powerful Women list.

The twelve women include Robin Roberts, Co-Anchor of Good Morning America, Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge and Sara Blakely, founder of iconic apparel company Spanx! as well as Bethlehem. 

Ethiopian Airlines embarked on the first inaugural passenger service flight to Addis Ababa within 24 hours of receiving the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner according to Mxi Technologies, a leading aviation maintenance management software.

Ethiopia is committed to the vision of modernizing its fleet and maintenance and the first 787 flight represents this commitment according to Mr. Mesfin Tasew, Chief Operation Officer of Ethiopian Airlines.

Maintenix has allowed the airline to support its historic entry into service with confidence to maintain the next generation aircraft through automatic real-time confirmation of airworthiness in line with OEM guidelines and the maintenance plans of the airline in receiving the airline and embarking on the first flight he said.

The city administration of Addis Ababa is preparing to transfer kebele administered shops and recreational centers to consumer associations in the next six months.

The City Council issued a regulation to enact the transfer of the businesses in July. The establishments to be transferred too consumer associations have a collective capital of 104 million birr and fixed assets of 35.45 million birr and more than 64.85 million birr in cash.

The transfer are expected to resolve challenges allowing the establishments to be managed as publicly responsible, accountable and transparent institutions said Mulugeta Mengistu, Head of the Cooperatives Development Office.

Revenue from flower exports grew to 212.5 million US dollars in Ethiopia in the last financial year. The revenue is fourteen percent higher than the money earned in the previous fiscal year because flower exports has grown to 2.1 billion stems from 1.8 billion stems.

The increase in revenue is attributed to the implementation of newly enacted control mechanisms.

The new mechanisms put in place eliminated the previous system whereby custom officials just counted the stems in selected boxes to estimate exports allowing a loophole for exporters to retain some retain some revenue outside of the country.

Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia died on the night of August 20th from a sudden infection according to a statement released by the Council of Ministers. He was 57 years old.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had been undergoing treatment for a protracted illness abroad for some time and has not been seen in public in the last month.

The city administration of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia assigned 7300 condominium houses to lucky beneficiaries through random lot this weekend.

The houses to be transferred to owners are located in Addis Ketema, Lideta, Bole, Kirkos, Nifassilk Lafto, Yeka, Akaki-Kality and Kolfe Keranyo sub-cities.

The government has invested more than 15.4 billion birr in the construction of housing since it first launched the condominium housing program in 2005 according to Engineer Haile-Meskel Tefera, State Minister for Urban Development, speaking on the occasion.

Ethiopia is to put in place a more modern meteorological information system in the new budget year as part of efforts to support the social and economic development of the country according to the Ethiopian Meteorological Agency.

The agency is working to enhance the quality of the climatology information that it offers from the 93% it currently stands at said Fetene Teshome, Director General of the Agency.

The EMA is planning to upgrade 36 existing level four stations to level three and to install eight communication radios as well as refurbishing 20 major stations and installing one station to detect pollution he said.

The Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority plans to raise more than 101 billion birr in this budget year from domestic taxes, duty taxes, customs and tax revenues.

The projected revenue, although significantly higher than previous revenue, is not over ambitious as it translates to just 11.54% of the Gross Domestic Product according to Melaku Fenta, Director General of ERCA.

The authority is preparing to meet the projection and plans to continue its efforts to broaden its tax-base, enforce the use of cash register machines and improve the capacity of the tax system and of its personnel he said.

Stratex International is showing progress in the development of its gold discoveries according to Christopher Hall Chairman of the company.

The company’s assets in Ethiopia, Turkey and Djibouti are particularly promising said Hall as part of the interim results for the company.

Stratex has had good progress in Africa as it continued work on several exciting and high potential exploration sites he added.

The Blackrock project Ethiopia has been confirmed as showing ‘extensive’ gold mineralization across four of the five key sites identified by Stratex in the area while 1000 meters of drilling work on the Shehagne project has been completed.

Ethiopia is to further promote the different varieties of coffee on the world market according to the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office.

Trademark registrations for Ethiopian fine coffee brands such as Sidama, Harar, Yirgacheffe have received recognition from an estimated 40 countries and 113 companies according to Berhanu Adelo, Director General of the EPO at a forum organized under the theme of 'Ethiopian Fine Coffee Trade Marking and Licensing Initiatives'.

Activities to increase the recognition of Ethiopian coffee varieties on the international market are underway in collaboration with Arnold and Porter and other institutions according to Berhanu.