About 10 people were killed in the conflict that took place in Assosa, Sherkole and Mao-komo areas in the Benishangul Gumuz regional state.
Dinsa Beyene, head of the regional state’s justice and security administration bureau said that 38 others were injured in the conflict.
About 46 people were arrested on suspicion of inciting the conflict, he said. The areas have now returned to stability, according to Dinsa.
Conflicts in Benishangul Gumuz kill 10 people, injure 38
Trade Wars and De-Globalization
When China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, it was still a developing country. More than 15 years later, its circumstances have changed and it has turned into the world’s second-largest economy. The WTO has served not to discipline China, which is what the United States’ President Donald Trump, and to some extent the European Union, albeit more discreetly, now seeks, but rather to give it global thrust.
President Trump wants to stop China overtaking the United States technologically. Andres Ortega, a senior fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute stated that underlying the trade war unleashed by the current United States President, there is a clash of perceptions. It is said that President Trump sees China as a wealthy country with many poor people, while China sees itself as a poor country with many wealthy people.
According to Andres Ortega, this clash of perceptions extends beyond the United States-China dimension. The Trump Administration views Europe as a group of wealthy countries that the United States defends at its own expense. This is why it is asking the Europeans to spend more on their defense, with the mercantilist catch that they buy United States weaponry.
The European Union will spend more, but predominantly on the European Union member countries’ own systems. If the €13 billion earmarked by the European Commission for the new European Defense Fund is approved, it will be spent on European projects.
The Trump Administration also views Europe through the prism of Germany, even though that country’s trade surplus is first and foremost a concern for Germany’s own partners in the European Union. United States tariff increases are primarily aimed at Germany, with the sword of Damocles hanging over the automotive industry, a fundamental component of German exports.
Beyond Europe and China, the Trump Administration perceives the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico not only as outmoded, but as having benefited its two partners more than the United States side. That is more than debatable. The Europeans, meanwhile, tend to view President Trump more as a cause than a symptom of what’s going on. That yields yet another clash of perceptions that makes it more difficult to find solutions.
From the European Union perspective, it should not be assumed that, even if President Trump were to lose the next presidential elections to be held in 2020, United States trade policy will undergo substantial change. According to American political analysts, it is important to remember that the Democrats do not embrace free trade with any great enthusiasm either. In fact, politically they have been the stronger defenders of the victims of free trade in the past.
According to data published by the Circulo de Empresarios, the main countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit are China (47.1% of the total), Mexico (8.9%), Japan (8.6%), Germany (8.1%) and Vietnam (4.8%). With the European Union as a whole, the figure is 19%.
However, Professor John Hikes of Sheffield University argued that the statistics tend to reflect an outdated model. Digital transactions do not appear in many accounts, nor does a growing and currently crucial component of such transactions, namely the trade in data, which is not covered by the WTO. The rules applied to offline trade are not the same as those applied online.
According to Professor John Hikes, the Trump Administration has used national security as the pretext for its protectionism. But, in point of fact, what does national security have to do with, for instance, importing cars or olives in peacetime? As the German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, likes to point out with more than a hint of irony, United States streets and freeways “are more secure with German cars.”
Moreover, President Donald Trump has deliberately deadlocked the WTO, where trade disputes are supposed to be settled. Financial Times recently reported that for the last year, his administration has vetoed all judicial appointments to the organization’s seven-member appeals chamber, which is charged with resolving trade quarrels.
That said, the WTO is in dire need of in-depth changes. As Pascal Lamy, the WTO’s Director-General between 2005 and 2013, pointed out at the recent Global Solutions 2018 in Berlin, Germany, the WTO is an organization in which its member states rule supreme. In other words, its board and Director-General have little scope for taking the initiative. In this respect, and others, change at the WTO is in order.
Many of these problems predate President Donald Trump. Not everything can be laid at his door. Since 1994, the WTO has achieved little in terms of multilateral trade agreements. Previous United States administrations, including President Obama’s, favored bilateral trade agreements, with the exception of the transpacific (TPP) and transatlantic (TTIP) treaties. The latter was undermined in the 2016 election campaign not only by Trump, but also by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
According to economic analysts, it is also evident that the G7 is not the appropriate forum to start settling these issues. But the G20 is unlikely to be the right forum either. They are useful for expressing disagreements, talking and clearing the undergrowth. But real institutions are needed, a requirement that neither the G7 nor the G20 fulfils.
Are we witnessing a process of de-globalization? As Jorge Arguello of the Argentine think tank Embajada Abierta points out, the costs of de-globalization are much higher today than 20 or 30 years ago.
Empowering Employees
Sheffield University Management School is a leading business school with a world-class reputation for high quality teaching, ground-breaking research and cutting-edge thinking. Now they have developed a toolkit. This free diagnostic toolkit can help you achieve financially sustainable supply chains and excellent employment practices. The toolkit can be used by managers in accounting, HR and supply chain management as a strategy planner, for team building within your company, or for bringing suppliers and customers ‘on board’ with your goals. The toolkit was co-produced by academics and practitioners as part of an international research project funded by the UK Government’s Economic and Social Research Council. It is supported by professional bodies including CIMA, CIPD, FIEP, FIEPE and SABPP. Peter Loadman who is a management consultant in wealth management providing business and individual coaching in the UK and Ethiopia through his company, LYFT talked to Capital about the toolkit he is promoting here. Excerpts;
Capital: How can the toolkit benefit people?
Peter Loadman: The toolkit is developed by Sheffield University Management School in collaboration with other universities in the UK, including the main professional bodies of personal development and accounts. The university developed this toolkit to enable business of all sizes, all types and all sectors to easily perform an internal audit and determine how they are in different areas of the business, accounting, employee engagement, human resources and a big focus on supply chains making sure that the supply chain and making sure that people believe in your services and goods and have the same business ethics as you do. So, no child labor and no slave labor and actually treating employees in the way we would like to be treated as people. For example, If you have a textile business, you may manufacture the end product the trousers, the suits the shirts and so on but in the supply chain you’ve got to produce the finished fabric and that goes down line and you got the cotton and wool producers so they pass that on to the people who put the material together and the end someone creates the finished product.
So the best way to use the toolkit is if everyone down the supply chain uses it. The toolkit is about 250 questions. In Ethiopia a business would diagnosis itself because it is the actual business that knows what they excel at or need to improve. In Ethiopia we developed a system of scoring based on the Olympic standard; gold, silver and bronze. If you are very good you give yourself a gold and if you are bad you give yourself a bronze meaning you’ve got room for improvement. And should the whole supply chain use it? I think if you want to export the UK or Western world, almost certainly so because there now legislation where retailers for example in UK like months expense have to ensure their supply chain manages their business ethically so that means the people from H&M who buy from a textile factory at Hawassa industrial park has to ensure that the supplier there treats their employees ethically. International companies like H&M or Mark and Spencer, have to make sure the rest of the supply chain is complying with their standards.
Capital: Does it work for the manufacturing industry only?
Peter Loadman: No it works for any business even for the newspaper. If you look at banks, they provide a service but they buy software for their work and they have to make sure that the computers, the software and other materials meet its standards.
Capital: So how can the manufacturing industry benefit from this?
Peter Loadman: The consumer benefits from this because they know they are buying from a business which treats its workers ethically and has integrity and meets quality standards as well. It also brings about transparency in the business. It encourages openness and honesty which helps all of the stakeholders trust each other.
How we treat people is more an issue in the textile sector here than the service sector so what can you say about the service sector?
If you look at employee engagement or human capital inspiration in the time I’ve been here the key focus on employee engagement is you pay people and train them. But there is a lot more to motivating people than just those things. Does the senior management do what they say they will do? Do the people who work for you have a voice? Take advantage of the brains workers have. Employers need to see the capacity their workers have to contribute to the business. How much they empower them is questionable. This comes from insecurity at the top level where people think because they are a manager they should know everything. Well some of these businesses are so big, a manager cannot know everything. So people that work have great ideas as well so business in Ethiopia has a lot of work to do in employee engagement.
Capital: Anyone interested to use your system in the banking industry?
Peter Loadman: I have just started conversations and going to start built some momentum and I am working with a local consultancy to help me.
Capital: Tell us the major benefits of the toolkits.
Peter Loadman: First off it is free Sheffield University gets funding from the European Union to do the research. This is used all over the world and they want to develop it to make it better and better to make an impact. I’m planning on translating it into Amharic. So it increases employee productivity, improves communication between different departments and improves cohesion. It helps develop a more resilient supply chain. Increased engagement, and at the end of the day profits will increase.
the 70th Anniversary of the Lycée Guebre-Mariam (LGM)
In celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Lycée Guebre-Mariam (LGM), a tree planting ceremony on Entoto Mountain is being organized by the alumni of the Lycée Guebre Mariam, “Association des Anciens du LycéeGuebre-Mariam” (AALGM). Planting the trees is just one of the many activities scheduled to take place throughout the year 2018. This activity is organized in collaboration with the Lycée and the Ethiopian Heritage Trust, a local NGO that specializes in endogenous tree planting, hence, contributing to the restoration of the primary forest on Entoto.
Previously, the Lycée Alumni, and the AALGM, have always been as in the past the main organizer of all the events pertaining to the celebration of the school’s anniversaries and keeping alive the memories and heritage of the sole French school in Ethiopia: the exceptional Lycée Guebre-Mariam.
The LGM was founded by His Imperial Majesty Haile-Selassie on March 1, 1948 in close collaboration with the French Government, through the Mission LaïqueFrançaise (MLF).
The LGM has since then been known for its high level quality education and has produced the best Ethiopian elites of national and international caliber. There is no doubt that the LGM has highly contributed to the Ethiopian education and will certainly continue to do so in the far future.
In order to maintain the momentum of the 70th Anniversary celebrations, a dinner party will be organized at the Diamant French Restaurant (National Tower behind Ethiopia Hotel) on Saturday, July 7, 2018 starting 7 pm. The AALGM hasn’t forgotten the football fans and will provide a special space with a huge screen in order for people to follow the quarter finals of the World Cup.
