Ethiopia's state air carrier Ethiopian Airlines has won an African Aviation Airline of the Year award for 2017 during the 26th Annual Air Finance Africa Conference & Exhibition held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The World’s Oldest Art Studio Was Just Discovered in This Ethiopian Cave The cave was used to process ochre pigment for 4,500 years. When the prehistoric peoples of Ethiopia wanted to make a new cave painting, it appears they knew just where to go: Porc-Epic is a cave that, for 4,500 years, was used to produce ochre, a brownish-yellow pigment often used in prehistoric artwork. The Porc-Epic cave was discovered by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Henry de Monfreid in 1929 and thought to date to about 43,000 to 42,000 years ago, during the Middle Stone Age. At the site, archaeologists found a stash of 4213 pieces, or nearly 90 pounds, of ochre, the largest such collection ever discovered at a prehistoric site in East Africa. Ochre pieces found at Porc-Epic Cave in Ethiopia. © 2017 Daniela Eugenia Rosso of the University of Barcelona and Francesco d'Errico and Alain Queffelec. Ochre pieces found at Porc-Epic Cave in Ethiopia. © 2017 Daniela Eugenia Rosso of the University of Barcelona and Francesco d’Errico and Alain Queffelec. On May 24, researchers Daniela Eugenia Rosso of the University of Barcelona and Francesco d’Errico and Alain Queffelec of the University of Bordeaux in France published a paper, “Patterns of change and continuity in ochre use during the late Middle Stone Age of the Horn of Africa: The Porc-Epic Cave record,” in the PLOS ONE journal. They found that ancient visitors to the site processed the iron-rich ochre stones there by flaking and grinding the raw materials “to produce a fine-grained and bright red powder.” The ochre stones can be used to produce powders of varying coarsenesses, in shades of yellow, orange, red, brown, and gray. (A similar find was discovered in a 100,000-year-old cave in South Africa in 2011.) Daniela Eugenia Rosso of the University of Barcelona and Francesco d'Errico and Alain Queffelec. A map showing the location of Porc-Epic Cave in Ethiopia, and a photo of its surroundings. © 2017 Daniela Eugenia Rosso of the University of Barcelona and Francesco d’Errico and Alain Queffelec. While the paper allows that ochre powder could be used medicinally or for other purposes, its production is “most consistent with symbolic activities, such as body painting, the production of patterns on different media, or for signalling.” A pebble half coated in ochre, for instance, could have been used as a stamp to apply the pigment to soft surfaces. The researchers also compared pieces with long pointy ends to ochre “crayons.” According to the paper, the local community relied on Porc-Epic for its ochre needs for millennia, the cave essentially serving as a studio for artists. Source: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/worlds-oldest-art-studio-discovered-ethiopia-979637

Chinese firms invest 4 bln USD in Ethiopia in 2 decades (Xinhua) ADDIS ABABA, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese companies have invested around 4 billion U.S. dollars during the last two decades in Ethiopia, employing 111,000 Ethiopians on permanent and temporary basis. The statement was made on Thursday by Meles Alem, Spokesperson of Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry, citing Ethiopian and China's deep political and economic relationship. "In addition to those already in Ethiopia, last month Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn had sat down with officials from 17 big Chinese companies requesting their investment in Ethiopia," he said. The prime minister, who attended and spoke at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held from May 14-15 in Beijing, visited several Chinese provinces and signed a 250-million-dollar loan agreement for an industrial park. Desalegn also formally signed Ethiopia's membership to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), making the Horn of Africa nation the 77th member. "Ethiopia hopes with membership in AIIB to facilitate loans for various planned infrastructure projects," Alem said. China is Ethiopia's largest trading partner with in 2015, the two countries trade relation reaching 6.37 billion dollars, while growing at an average 22.2 percent annually for the last several years.