Seventeen foreign players did not play in the Ethiopian Premier League second round opening fixtures over the week end. The only two sides that used all their foreign footballers are newly promoted Mekele and Jimma AbaJifar, each fielding four.
Despite a hard earned 1-0 away victory over Sidama Bunna, Ethiopia Bunna supporters were unhappy with two of the foreign players stranded on the reserve bench while the newly signed Boban Zirintusa was nowhere to be seen. The Nigerian Samuel Sannumi’s single strike and goalie Harrison Hesu’s big effort saved the visitors in a nail biting 1-0 win. Where are those big name foreigners? Supporters lauded after the match.
The same thing was true for 1-0 away winners Fasil which shelved three of its five players. Philip Dawzi, Sundau Mutuku and Uganda Hamis Kiza. A miserable and unkind own goal from goalie Zewdu Mesfin gave Fasil a narrow win over Welwalo, which also parked Adengo Richmond on the bench.
In miserable form Saint George returned from Diredawa after a goal less draw. Diredawa had two of their three foreign players in the field. The defending champion Saint George has six foreign footballers on their roster out of which only three have appeared in the lineup. In addition the foreign head coach leads a team that stands at 5th in the league table.
With two foreign players in the rank home side Adama crushed visitors Woldya 3-1. None of Woldya’s four foreign footballers were in the starting line-up but two were on the reserve bench. Hawassa used Sohoho Mensa in goal and parked Laurence Larte at the side line. Bottom of the table Ethio-Electric fielded two of their five foreign footballers yet returned home after a 3-1 demolition at the hands of Mekelakya.
Despite fielding three of their four imported players with one praying at the reserve bench, league leaders Dedebit lost 1-0 to home side Wolayta Dicha a side that boasts Jaco Arafat the only foreigner. This shows that lining-up foreign players does not mean winning the match. But the big question is how come there are many foreign footballers earning six digit salaries blocking the chances of local talents could get away with such privileges.
Imported professionals stranded on reserve bench
Name: Nemany Hailemelekot Teklegiorgis
Education: BA in Marketing
Company name: Iconic Events
Title: Assistant Managing Director
Founded in: November, 2017
What it does: Event Management
HQ: Aynalem Building, 24, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Number of employees: 15
Startup Capital: 75,000 birr
Current capital: Growing
Reasons for starting the business: We wanted to have something of our own
Biggest perks of Ownership: Getting to work with friends
Biggest strength: Commitment to the work I do
Biggest challenge: Rejection and naysayers who think we will fail
Plan: To become the premier event management agency in Ethiopia
First career: Marketing Officer Most interested in meeting: Elon Musk
Most admired person: My Father
Stress reducer: Listening to Music
Favorite past-time: Sunday walks with my Dad
Favorite book: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Favorite destination: Home
Favorite automobile: 2018 Range Rover
For or against globalization?
The past two weeks we looked into the threats of an international trade war as result unilateral hiking of tariffs, while we also looked into protectionism as compared to free trade. We concluded that although the hiking of tariffs by the USA seems to have been made with a WIN-LOSE mentality, most likely all affected by such measure may lose, including sectors and workers in the country that was supposed to gain by the move. Whether we like it or not, we live in a globalized world, in which economies have become interdependent as compared to dependent on each other. There are arguments both for and against globalization, which is often blamed for workers losing their jobs as their input is replaced by cheaper manufacturing elsewhere. Most consumers will not think about this while buying their clothes for example but let us have a closer look at both sides of the globalization coin.
Firstly, globalization makes more goods and services available to more people, often at lower prices. If you have disposable income and you’re buying a product that comes from abroad, you’re benefiting from globalization to some extent. Business owners also benefit by having access to a bigger market for their goods and services.
The argument that globalization has lifted people in developing countries out of poverty is somewhat controversial because opinions differ as to the quantity – and quality – of the jobs created by globalization. But the general thinking is that globalization has increased job opportunities in capital-scarce, labour-rich countries, i.e. emerging economies.
Globalization is also said to have increased cross-cultural understanding and sharing. A globalized society boosts the rate at which people are exposed to the culture, attitudes and values of people in other countries. That exposure can inspire artists, strengthen ties between nations and dampen xenophobia. Globalization might also lead to more cultural homogeneity if people’s tastes converge. If everyone wears jeans, learns English and watches Hollywood movies we may lose precious cultural practices and languages. Some critics of globalization worry that it’s creating a monoculture.
Art and culture aren’t the only things that spread more easily in a globalized society. The same goes for information and technology. As examples, see the rise of mobile banking or the practice of microlending. Civil society organizations can look to other countries for inspiration and good ideas can spread more easily.
On the flip side of the coin we see that when established economies compete with less-developed economies, their big advantage is their access to capital, whereas less-developed economies’ big advantage is their cheap labour.
Globalization increases the returns to capital in rich countries like the U.S. and decreases the returns to labour in those same countries. In other words, low-skill jobs in a developed economy can disappear because of globalization. The result may be a decrease in the inequality between countries but an increase in the inequality within countries.
Globalization can also be an opportunity to spread values and practices like environmentalism and labour rights throughout the world. In practice, that spread is slow and imperfect. For example, rather than exporting the labour protections it abides by in Europe, a company might follow lower standards in, say, Bangladesh.
Some argue that globalization has caused a “race to the bottom” in which companies actively seek the countries with the weakest labour and environmental protections and the lowest wages. And while globalization has increased the flow of goods, services and capital, there are still plenty of tax havens, meaning that much of the value added by globalization is not captured and redistributed by governments.
It is also said that globalization has empowered multinational corporations at the expense of governments and citizens. This reduces state sovereignty and citizens’ ability to hold their leaders accountable for conditions in their countries. It’s another reason that labour and environmental protections are harder to enforce than many critics of globalization would like. Multinational corporations may also lobby for favourable provisions in trade agreements.
In conclusion, supporters and opponents of globalization generally agree that the phenomenon has created winners and losers. Supporters argue that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, while critics want to either improve the conditions of global trade or, in some cases, roll back globalization. What is your take?
Reference: The Pros and Cons of Globalization by Amelia Josephson
Ton Haverkort
The Neglected Solution to the TB Crisis
Though TB can strike anyone, it disproportionately afflicts marginalized and vulnerable populations in places like refugee camps, slums, and prisons. That fact goes a long way toward explaining why 10.4 million people contracted the disease in 2016.
In an age of rapid technological innovation, it is shameful that almost two million people will die from tuberculosis this year because they are too poor to afford treatment. Indeed, the reason why TB continues to take lives is simple: indifference.
This indifference stems from the deadly delusion that TB is a disease of the past – a delusion that has persisted, even as 10.4 million people contracted TB in 2016. TB patients are generally powerless to demand the world’s attention. Though the disease can strike anyone, it disproportionately afflicts marginalized and vulnerable populations in places like refugee camps, slums, and prisons.
Another delusion is that we have ample treatments to fight TB, even as it continues to mutate. But multidrug-resistant TB is a serious threat. It is sometimes called “Ebola with wings”: while the two pathogens have similar death rates, MDR-TB is airborne and spreads more easily. The current treatment for MDR-TB includes a regimen of toxic drugs – some requiring painful, daily injections – that can last for up to two years.
The treatment options for TB have scarcely evolved in decades. Whereas the research and development pipelines for HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C continue to deliver results, the R&D pipeline for TB lags far behind.
But that’s not the whole story. In the last four years, TB care should have been revolutionized. After 50 years without a single new TB drug being developed, two – bedaquiline and delamanid – were approved in quick succession. This should have been an historic moment in the fight against TB, especially for drug-resistant patients.
One would have expected a broad coalition of health authorities, health-care providers, standard-setting bodies, insurers, and manufacturers to rush to the aid of the patients most in need of these new drugs. But no such response emerged.
Instead, the new medicines have mostly gathered dust on warehouse shelves. Since they were approved for use, a paltry 5% of patients in need have benefited from them. The latest figures for delamanid, in particular, are appalling: after four years, a mere 1,247 patients worldwide have been treated with the drug.
We would know, because many of these patients were treated in our programs, and in countries where Médecins Sans Frontières and Partners in Health have been pushing for the registration and uptake of new medicines. In partnership with Interactive Research and Development and with support from Unitaid – which channels funding from a painless airline tax toward addressing neglected health problems afflicting the poor – we launched the endTB initiative to accelerate use of the new drugs in 17 countries facing TB epidemics.
It is a sorry situation when nongovernmental organizations, rather than governments, academic institutions, and drug companies, must push for the use of available new drugs. We took action because cash-strapped national TB programs tend to be conservative about adopting new treatments, and because pharmaceutical manufacturers have little incentive to bring their drugs to market in poorer countries.
The evidence we have gathered so far indicates that when the new drugs are used, hard-to-treat TB patients are likelier to recover, and often do so more quickly. Given the scale of the global TB crisis, endTB’s work is a drop in the ocean. Yet it offers a glimpse into the failing response at large: an appalling lack of political will, imagination, and urgency that leaves millions to die on our generation’s watch.
This September, the United Nations will host its first high-level meeting on the TB crisis. UN member states should use the occasion to pledge a radical increase in funding for TB programs around the world, and to overhaul an R&D model that has proved unfit for purpose. Otherwise, the event will be remembered as yet another meaningless gathering – one that left tens of millions to suffer in the clutches of the world’s deadliest infection.
Specifically, what we need are simpler, quicker, and cheaper ways to test and treat TB, especially in remote and impoverished settings. We need better tools to prevent infections in the first place, and to kill latent infections before they kill us. And, of course, we need a robust pipeline of drugs to ward off TB and its resistant forms.
In the meantime, the governments of TB-stricken countries must use the tools they already have – for example, by doing more to ensure that new treatments like bedaquiline and delamanid are made available to those who need them.
A UN meeting is a golden opportunity to make progress. Although it will not solve the TB crisis overnight, it is a chance finally to elevate TB to the World Health Organization-designated status of a “public health emergency of international concern,” as was done in wake of the Ebola and Zika outbreaks.
The urgency of the TB crisis is well known to medical experts, and certainly to patients and their families. Standard treatments are failing as we speak, and millions of people are silently being infected and falling ill. In the twenty-first century, that should be a source of deep shame for us all.
Joanne Liu is the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières.
Paul Farmer is the co-founder of Partners in Health, Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
