title: Jason Donovan

text: Jason Sean Donovan (born 1 June 1968) is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap "Neighbours", playing Scott Robinson, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 million records. His debut album "Ten Good Reasons" was the highest-selling album in the UK in 1989, with sales of over 1.5 million. He has had four UK No. 1 singles, one of which was "Especially for You", his 1988 duet with fellow "Neighbours" co-star Kylie Minogue. He has also appeared in several stage musicals, most prominently in the lead role of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in the early 1990s.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Jason Donovan was born on 1 June 1968 in the Melbourne suburb Malvern, Victoria. He is the son of Australian actress Sue McIntosh (née Menlove) and British-born veteran stage and television actor Terence Donovan (who also appeared in "Neighbours") who has English and Irish heritage. Following his parents' separation and divorce, his father was awarded full custody of him in 1973 and brought him up on his own. Donovan has had no contact with his mother since the divorce. He attended De La Salle College Malvern.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan made his first television appearance at age 11 in a guest role on the Australian series "Skyways" in 1980. In the episode, his on-screen sister was played by future "Neighbours" co-star Kylie Minogue. He also appeared in the series "I Can Jump Puddles" (1981) and "Golden Pennies" (1985) before entering the cast of "Neighbours" in 1986 as Scott Robinson (replacing actor Darius Perkins, who had played the role for the first year of the series). His character's story arcs included an onscreen romance and wedding to Charlene Mitchell (played by Minogue), and helped boost the show's popularity with British as well as Australian audiences.


title: Jason Donovan

text: He won his first Logie Award for "Best New Talent" in 1987 and received a commendation in the category "Performance by a Male Actor In a Series" from the Television Society of Australia's Penguin Awards. In 1988 he was awarded the Silver Logie for the "Most Popular Actor" on Australian television.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In addition to his regular role in "Neighbours", Donovan appeared as "Happy Houston" in the 1988 Australian World War II mini-series "The Heroes", based on the historical novel by Ronald McKie. He won the 1990 Logie Award for "Most Popular Actor in a Mini-Series".


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan left "Neighbours" in 1989. Twenty years later, he said that he had been asked to return to tie in with the show's 25th anniversary in 2010, but was unable to do so due to other work commitments.


title: Jason Donovan

text: While he was still appearing in "Neighbours", Donovan followed Minogue (who had already left the series by this point) in signing a recording contract with Mushroom Records in Australia, and with PWL in the UK. Although the production team of Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) initially resisted working with Donovan, fearing recording with a second "Neighbours" star would be "too tacky", the trio quickly warmed to him, recording his first single, "Nothing Can Divide Us", after it was rejected by Rick Astley. The track was released in 1988, reaching number five in the UK and number three in Australia.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan's next single, a duet with Minogue, "Especially for You", was released in late November 1988. While the idea for a duet was at first rejected by SAW, who felt it too commercial, the producers changed their minds when retail chain Woolworths ordered 250,000 copies of the record. After spending four weeks at No. 2 in the UK, it hit No. 1 in January 1989. It was the fourth-highest selling single in the UK in 1988, and 17th in Australia for 1989. The track became SAW's biggest ever hit in the UK, ultimately selling in excess of one million copies. The issue of UK pop magazine "Smash Hits" that featured Minogue and Donovan on the cover to promote the release also sold one million copies. The song was accompanied by a widely-noted image change for Donovan, who shed his trademark "Neighbours" mullet for a contemporary undercut.


title: Jason Donovan

text: His next single, "Too Many Broken Hearts", reached number one in the UK in March 1989. He released his début album, "Ten Good Reasons", in May 1989, which also reached number one (for three weeks). For two weeks, Donovan held the number one positions in the singles chart and the albums chart simultaneously, when his next single, a cover of Brian Hyland's "Sealed With a Kiss", entered the UK charts at number one.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In December 1989, he took part in Band Aid II's version of "Do They Know it's Christmas", which also included Minogue, whose exit from "Neighbours" had by now been shown on screen in both Australia and the UK. His own exit from the show had by this stage been shown on Australian television, although it was not aired on British television until several months later.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan released his second album, "Between The Lines", in May 1990, again produced by Stock Aitken Waterman. Although the album reached Platinum status in the UK, it was less successful than his debut a year before, peaking at no. 2 and selling only a fifth as many copies. Five singles were released from the album, and although they all reached the UK Top 30, they also signalled a decline in his popularity. Between 1988 and 1992, Donovan garnered 16 Top 40 hit singles in the UK.


title: Jason Donovan

text: He embarked on an extensive world tour in 1990, The "Doin' Fine Tour". It covered the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe, Australia, Singapore and other parts of South East Asia. The Dublin concert was recorded and released on VHS in 1990; and released on DVD in 2010.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan continued to act alongside his pop career, and in 1990 he appeared in his first feature film, "Blood Oath" (released in some countries as "Prisoners of the Sun").


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 1991, Donovan accepted the lead role in the restaged London Palladium version of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", directed by Steven Pimlott. Donovan had his third solo UK No. 1 single with one of its songs, "Any Dream Will Do". Donovan left the production in early 1992.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 1992, Donovan launched a libel action against "The Face" magazine which had published allegations that he was homosexual. Donovan won £200,000 in damages and the magazine had to pay a further £100,000 in costs, but the lawsuit created a backlash with people accusing him of being homophobic. Although he had been a mild drug user who had smoked cannabis joints up until this point, in the months after his libel action Donovan began using cocaine. In a 2007 "Marie Claire" interview, and also in his 2007 autobiography "Between The Lines: My Story Uncut", Donovan stated that suing "The Face" was the biggest mistake of his life.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan moved to Polydor Records and released his third album, "All Around The World" (1993). However, the album was unsuccessful, failing to reach the UK Top 20 and was not released at all in his native Australia. His contract with Polydor was not extended and it would be Donovan's last album for 15 years.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan later admitted that by 1995 he had a serious drug problem, taking around three grams of cocaine a day. In early 1995, he attended model Kate Moss's 21st birthday party at The Viper Room in Los Angeles, where he suffered a drug overdose.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Later in 1995, Donovan starred in the Australian TV film "The Last Bullet" with Koji Tamaki, directed by Michael Pattison, which was set in World War II on the Pacific island of Borneo.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 1998, Donovan took the lead role of Dr. Frank N. Furter in the UK touring production of "The Rocky Horror Show," where he met stage manager Angela Malloch. After the pair had a brief relationship, Malloch became pregnant and gave Donovan an ultimatum that he had to kick drugs once and for all if he wanted to be part of their child's life.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In late 1999, Donovan stated that he still used cocaine, saying: "I still have a joint and I still take coke, but not as much as I did two years ago." In 2011, he stated that he has been drug-free since 2000, the year his first child was born.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan's daughter Jemma was born in March 2000. Since then, with his drug problems now under control, he continued to act on stage and television, and had a role in the medical-legal television drama "MDA" (2003–05), on Australia's ABC network. Since 2003, Donovan has also lent his voice to the "Buzz!" series of quiz video games.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In late 2004, he was headlining in the stage musical "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" at the London Palladium. He finished his original run on 13 March 2005, but was then invited back from June onwards to play in the final two months of the show, until its closure on 4 September 2005. Following this, he has toured the UK performing a few gigs and returned to the stage in January 2006 to star in a UK tour of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd". After this, he returned to Melbourne to star in David Eldrige's Australian transfer of the London drama "Festen".


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 2005, Donovan's mobile phone number was circulated around the web in Australia, due to an image that was taken in Sydney. It appeared that Donovan was trying to sell his car, and unwittingly released his mobile phone number to the public. From 10 September, his answering machine had a special message on it, because he was frustrated by the number of calls he was receiving. Virgin placed advertisements in several high-profile Australian newspapers, urging people not to call Donovan, one of their customers. Virgin Mobile later admitted the photos were part of a marketing ploy. Virgin also ran TV advertisements showing Donovan answering prank calls, asking the viewer not to call him, then displaying his number.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan took part in "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" in 2006 and finished in 3rd place. While in the jungle, he became good friends with David Gest and Matt Willis. Donovan also took part in many Bushtucker Trials, which included wearing a helmet full of insects and playing a giant game of "Operation". Donovan lost out on the King of the Jungle Crown to Matt Willis. Despite his loss, during an interview on "The Steve Wright Show" on BBC Radio 2 (January 2008), he claimed that his appearance on "I'm a Celebrity..." had revitalised his career.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan performed a medley of songs from "Joseph" along with other actors who have played the eponymous role (Donny Osmond and Lee Mead) at the Concert for Diana in July 2007.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In early 2008, Donovan had a role in ITV's post-watershed soap opera "Echo Beach"; the series was cancelled after 12 episodes. He also presented "Sunday Night with Jason Donovan", a programme on The One Network of British local radio stations.


title: Jason Donovan

text: On 25 September 2008, Donovan performed in the canteen at the head offices of Tesco in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. He was promoting his forthcoming album, "Let It Be Me", which was released on 10 November 2008. The album, his first for 15 years, reached No. 28 in the UK.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Also in 2008, Donovan performed at the Party In The Park in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, storming off stage after hecklers squirted him with a water pistol.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 2009, Donovan performed as Tick (Mitzi) in the London stage musical production of "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" at the Palace Theatre. Also in 2009, Donovan began appearing in television commercials (with Kerry Katona and Coleen Nolan) for the frozen food supermarket chain Iceland in the UK.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In September 2010, Donovan took part in the BBC television series "Who Do You Think You Are?", tracing his family tree back several generations. Donovan's fifth studio album, "Soundtrack of the 80s", was released in October 2010. The album is composed of cover versions of well known 1980s hits such as "Drive" (The Cars), "I Just Died In Your Arms" (Cutting Crew) and "Sign Your Name" (Terence Trent D'Arby) and several others. The same year, Donovan played the role of The Artilleryman in the 2010–2011 stage show "Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds". The show toured the UK and Europe, starting in November 2010 and finished in Germany in January 2011. Donovan also voiced the part of Toby the Kangaroo in the environmental animated film "Animals United".


title: Jason Donovan

text: In February 2011, Donovan appeared on the BBC series "Ready, Steady, Cook". Later in 2011, he performed on the Here and Now Tour, and also toured in a production of "The Sound of Music" playing Captain Von Trapp. The production co-starred Verity Rushworth as Maria. From September 2011, Donovan took part in the ninth series of the BBC's "Strictly Come Dancing". He was partnered with dancer Kristina Rihanoff and finished third in the competition. Donovan presented a voice-tracked radio show on Heart each Sunday from 10am to 12noon. Donovan temporarily left the station in 2013


title: Jason Donovan

text: In March 2012, Donovan released a new album of covers, "Sign Of Your Love", which peaked at number 36 in the UK Albums Chart. In May 2012, Donovan was interviewed by Piers Morgan on the ITV series "Piers Morgan's Life Stories", in which he talked openly about his career, his past, his former relationship with Kylie Minogue, and his battle with drugs. During the interview, Donovan also admitted that he'd undergone hair transplantation to counteract his thinning hair. In summer 2012, he appeared as a judge on ITV's talent search show "Superstar". In late 2012, Donovan again toured the UK and Europe in a new version of "Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds", this time playing Parson Nathaniel.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 2013, Donovan reprised his role as Tick/Mitzi in the UK national touring production of "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". On 5 May 2013, Donovan was heard narrating Pick TV's budget version of "Rude Tube", entitled "Video Surf". Donovan revealed in January 2015 that he was invited to return to "Neighbours" for the show's 30th anniversary celebrations, but he declined the offer, adding "it's just not something I want to do". However, he agreed to take part in the documentary special "", which aired in Australia and the UK in March 2015.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Since 2015, Donovan has presented Jason Donovan's 80s Rewind (known as All 80s from 2015 to 2017) on Heart Radio, which airs on Sunday evenings from 7pm until 10pm.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 2017, Heart 80s Radio was launched and he began presenting Sunday Mornings from 9am to 12noon in addition to his 80s Rewind Sunday Evening Show on Heart. In December 2017 it was announced that in the new year Donovan would be taking his second break from his radio shows. He has confirmed he will be returning to Heart at some point in the future.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In summer 2019, Donovan returned to the London Palladium in a new production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", this time playing the Pharaoh alongside Sheridan Smith as the Narrator and Jac Yarrow as Joseph. The production was due to return for summer 2020 with Donovan and Yarrow returning, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the production has been postponed to summer 2021.


title: Jason Donovan

text: For Christmas 2020, Donovan was due to make his pantomime debut as The Evil Ringmaster in "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" at the Birmingham Hippodrome, however due to the COVID-19 pandemic the panto was postponed to Christmas 2021.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In 2021, Donavan competed in the thirteenth series of "Dancing on Ice", paired with Alexandra Schauman. However, he withdrew from the competition in week 6 due to a back injury.


title: Jason Donovan

text: In July 2022, Donovan returned as Scott to "Neighbours" for a one-off cameo appearance (alongside Kylie Minogue as Charlene) for the show's final ever episode.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan is married to Angela Malloch, with whom he has three children. They live in West London and Oxfordshire. Donovan's half-sister is former "Neighbours" star Stephanie McIntosh. Although he is estranged from his mother, he is close with his maternal grandmother and other relatives.


title: Jason Donovan

text: Donovan was the subject of an episode of the BBC TV series "Who Do You Think You Are?" on 30 August 2010 in which he discovered he is a descendant of the pioneer William Cox, who built the first road across Australia's Blue Mountains in 1814. Donovan confirmed he is Jewish through his maternal great-grandmother, Eileen Dawson (née Lyons).


title: Jason Donovan

text: The Australian Entertainment Mo Awards (commonly known informally as the Mo Awards), were annual Australian entertainment industry awards. They recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia from 1975 to 2016. Jason Donovan won one award in that time.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy Ahmed Ali (; ; born 15 August 1976) is an Ethiopian politician who has been the 4th prime minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia since 2 April 2018. He won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in ending the 20-year post-war territorial stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Abiy was the third chairman of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) that governed Ethiopia for 28 years and the first Oromo in that position. Abiy is an elected member of the Ethiopian parliament, and was a member of the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), one of the then four coalition parties of the EPRDF, until its rule ceased in 2019 and he formed his own party, the Prosperity Party.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In June 2020, Abiy, in concert with the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE), decided to postpone scheduled parliamentary elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This move prompted criticism, especially from the opposition, and raised questions about the delay's constitutional legitimacy.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In November 2020, simmering ethnic and political tensions, as well as attacks on the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) Northern Command, exploded into the Tigray War between the combined forces of the ENDF and the Eritrean army against forces loyal to the TPLF—an ethnic party which dominated the erstwhile ruling EPRDF coalition during a nearly thirty-year period marked by rapid development alongside increasing interethnic tension—as well as those loyal to significant allied groups such as the Oromo Liberation Army.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy Ahmed was born in the small town of Beshasha, Ethiopia. His deceased father, Ahmed Ali, was a Muslim Oromo while his deceased mother, Tezeta Wolde, was a Christian Oromo. Despite some sources claiming that his mother was an ethnic Amhara, Abiy said in an Oromia Broadcasting Network interview that both of his parents are Oromo and asserted that "no one is giving or taking away my "Oromummaa"." Abiy's father was a typical Oromo farmer, speaking only Oromo, while Tezeta was a fluent speaker of both Amharic and Oromo.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy is the 13th child of his father and the sixth and youngest child of his mother, the fourth of his father's four wives. His childhood name was "Abiyot" (English: "Revolution"). The name was sometimes given to children in the aftermath of the Ethiopian Revolution in the mid 1970s. The then Abiyot went to the local primary school and later continued his studies at secondary schools in Agaro town. Abiy, according to several personal reports, was always very interested in his own education and later in his life also encouraged others to learn and to improve. Abiy married Zinash Tayachew, an Amhara woman from Gondar, while both were serving in the Ethiopian National Defense Force. They are the parents of three daughters and one adopted son. Abiy speaks Oromo, Amharic, Tigrinya and English. He is a fitness aficionado and professes that physical health goes hand in hand with mental health and, as such, he frequents physical and gym activities in Addis Ababa.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy is a Pentecostal Christian, born of a Muslim father and a Christian mother. He was raised in a family of religious plurality. Abiy and his family are regular church attendees, and he also occasionally ministers in preaching and teaching the Gospel at the Ethiopian Full Gospel Believers' Church. His wife Zinash Tayachew is also a Christian who ministers in her church as a gospel singer.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: While serving in the Ethiopian National Defense Force, Abiy received his first degree, a Bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the Microlink Information Technology College in Addis Ababa in 2009.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy holds a Master of Arts in transformational leadership earned from the business school at Greenwich University, London, in collaboration with the International Leadership Institute, Addis Ababa, in 2011. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from the Leadstar College of Management and Leadership in Addis Ababa in partnership with Ashland University in 2013.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy, who had started his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) work as a regular student, completed his PhD thesis in 2017 at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, Addis Ababa University. He did his PhD work on the Agaro constituency with the PhD thesis entitled ""Social Capital and its Role in Traditional Conflict Resolution in Ethiopia: The Case of Inter-Religious Conflict In Jimma Zone State"" (Promoter: Professor Yelom). Abiy published a related short research article on de-escalation strategies in the Horn of Africa in a special journal issue dedicated to countering violent extremism.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: At the age of 14, in early 1991, he joined the armed struggle against the Marxist–Leninist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam after the death of his oldest brother. He was a child soldier, affiliated to the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), which at that time was a tiny organization of only around 200 fighters in the large coalition army of about 100,000 fighters that resulted in the regime's fall later that year. As there were only so few ODP fighters in an army with its core of about 90,000 Tigrayans, Abiy quickly had to learn the Tigrinya language. As a speaker of Tigrinya in a security apparatus dominated by Tigrayans, he could move forward with his military career.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: After the fall of the Derg, he took formal military training from Assefa Brigade in West Wollega and was stationed there. Later on in 1993 he became a soldier in the now Ethiopian National Defense Force and worked mostly in the intelligence and communications departments. In 1995, after the Rwandan genocide, he was deployed as a member of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) in the country's capital, Kigali. In the Ethio-Eritrea War between 1998 and 2000, he led an intelligence team to discover positions of the Eritrean Defence Forces.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Later on, Abiy was posted back to his home town of Beshasha, where he – as an officer of the Defense Forces – had to address a critical situation of inter-religious clashes between Muslims and Christians with a number of deaths. He brought calm and peace in a situation of communal tensions accompanying the clashes. In later years, following his election as an MP, he continued these efforts to bring about reconciliation between the religions through the creation of the Religious Forum for Peace.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In 2006, Abiy was one of the co-founders of the Ethiopian Information Network Security Agency (INSA), where he worked in different positions. For two years, he was acting director of INSA due to the director's leave of absence. In this capacity, he was board member of several government agencies working on information and communications, like Ethio telecom and Ethiopian Television. He attained the rank of Lieutenant colonel before deciding in 2010 to leave the military and his post as deputy director of INSA (Information Network Security Agency) to become a politician.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy started his political career as a member of the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP). The ODP has been the ruling party in Oromia Region since 1991 and also one of four coalition parties of the ruling coalition in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). He became a member of the central committee of ODP and congress member of the Executive Committee of the EPRDF in quick succession. In the 2010 national election, Abiy represented the district of Agaro and became an elected member of the House of Peoples' Representatives, the lower chamber of the Ethiopian Federal Parliamentary Assembly. Before and during his time of parliamentary service, there were several religious clashes among Muslims and Christians in Jimma Zone. Some of these confrontations turned violent and resulted in the loss of life and property. Abiy, as an elected member of parliament took a proactive role in working with several religious institutions and elders to bring about reconciliation in the zone. He helped set up a forum entitled "Religious Forum for Peace""," an outcome of the need to devise a sustainable resolution mechanism to restore peaceful Muslim-Christian community interaction in the region.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In 2014, during his time in parliament, Abiy became the director-general of a new and in 2011 founded Government Research Institute called Science and Technology Information Center (STIC). The following year, Abiy became an executive member of ODP. The same year he was elected to the House of Peoples' Representatives for a second term, this time for his home woreda of Gomma.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Starting from 2015, Abiy became one of the central figures in the violent fight against illegal land grabbing activities in Oromia Region and especially around Addis Ababa. Although the Addis Ababa Master Plan at the heart of the land-grabbing plans was stopped in 2016, the disputes continued for some time resulting in injuries and deaths. It was this fight against land-grabbing, that finally boosted Abiy Ahmed's political career, brought him into the spotlight and allowed him to climb the political ladder.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In October 2015, Abiy became the Ethiopian Minister of Science and Technology (MoST), a post which he left after only 12 months. From October 2016 on, Abiy served as Deputy President of Oromia Region as part of the team of Oromia Region's president Lemma Megersa while staying a member of the Ethiopian Federal House of Peoples' Representatives. Abiy Ahmed also became the head of the Oromia Urban Development and Planning Office. In this role, Abiy was expected to be the major driving force behind Oromia Economic Revolution, Oromia Land and Investment reform, youth employment as well as resistance to widespread land grabbing in Oromia region. As one of his duties in office, he took care of the one million displaced Oromo people displaced from the Somali Region from the 2017 unrest.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: As head of the ODP Secretariat from October 2017, Abiy facilitated the formation of a new alliance between the Oromo and Amhara groups, which together constitute two-thirds of the Ethiopian population.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In early 2018, many political observers considered Abiy and Lemma Megersa as the most popular politicians within the Oromo community, as well as other Ethiopian communities. This came after several years of unrest in Ethiopia. But despite this favourable rating for Abiy Ahmed and Lemma Megersa, young people from the Oromia region called for immediate action without delays to bring fundamental change and freedom to Oromia Region and Ethiopia – otherwise more unrest was to be expected. According to Abiy himself, people are asking for a different rhetoric, with an open and respectful discussion in the political space to allow political progress and to win people for democracy instead of pushing them.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Until early 2018, Abiy continued to serve as head of the ODP secretariat and of the Oromia Housing and Urban Development Office and as Deputy President of Oromia Region. He left all these posts after his election as the leader of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Following three years of protest and unrest, on 15 February 2018 the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, announced his resignation – which included his resignation from the post of EPRDF chairman.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: With the EPRDF's large majority in Parliament, its EPRDF chairman was all but assured of becoming the next Prime Minister. The EPRDF chairman, on the other hand, is one of the heads of the four parties that make up the ruling coalition: Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (SEPDM) and Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Hailemariam's resignation triggered the first ever contested leadership election among EPRDF coalition members to replace him. A lot of political observers made Lemma Megersa (the ODP chairman) and Abiy Ahmed the front-runners to become the Leader of the ruling coalition and eventually Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Despite being the clear favorite for the general public, Lemma Megersa was not a member of the national parliament, a requirement to become Prime Minister as required by the Ethiopian constitution. Therefore, Lemma Megersa was excluded from the leadership race. On 22 February 2018, Lemma Megersa's party, ODP, called for an emergency executive committee meeting and replaced him as Chairman of ODP with Abiy Ahmed, who was a member of parliament. Some observers saw that as a strategic move by the ODP to retain its leadership role within the coalition and to promote Abiy Ahmed to become Prime Minister.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 1 March 2018, the 180 EPRDF executive committee members started their meeting to elect the leader of the party. Each of the four parties sent in 45 members. The contest for the leadership was among Abiy Ahmed of ODP, Demeke Mekonnen, the Deputy Prime Minister and ADP leader, Shiferaw Shigute as Chairman of SEPDM and Debretsion Gebremichael as the Leader of TPLF. Despite being the overwhelming favorite by the majority of Ethiopians, Abiy Ahmed faced major opposition from TPLF and SEPDM members during the leadership discussions.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 27 March 2018, a few hours before the beginning of the leadership elections, Demeke Mekonnen, who had been seen as the major opponent to Abiy Ahmed, dropped out of the race. Many observers saw this as an endorsement of Abiy Ahmed. Demeke was then approved as Deputy Prime Minister for another term. Following Demeke's exit, Abiy Ahmed received a presumably unanimous vote from both the ADP and ODP executive members, with 18 additional votes in a secret ballot coming from elsewhere. By midnight, Abiy Ahmed was declared Chairman of the ruling coalition in Ethiopia, the EPRDF, and was considered as the Prime Minister Designate of Ethiopia by receiving 108 votes while Shiferaw Shigute received 58 and Debretsion Gebremichael received 2 votes. On 2 April 2018, Abiy Ahmed was elected as Prime Minister of Ethiopia by the House of Representatives and sworn in.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 2 April 2018, Abiy was confirmed and sworn in by the Ethiopian parliament as Prime Minister of Ethiopia. During his acceptance speech, he promised political reform; to promote the unity of Ethiopia and unity among the peoples of Ethiopia; to reach out to the Eritrean government to resolve the ongoing Eritrean–Ethiopian border conflict after the Eritrean–Ethiopian War and to also reach out to the political opposition inside and outside of Ethiopia. His acceptance speech sparked optimism and received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the Ethiopian public including the opposition groups inside and outside Ethiopia. Following his speech, his popularity and support across the country reached a historical high and some political observers argued that Abiy was overwhelmingly more popular than the ruling party coalition, the EPRDF.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Since taking office in April 2018, Abiy's government has presided over the release of thousands of political prisoners from Ethiopian jails and the rapid opening of the country's political landscape. In May 2018 alone the Oromo region pardoned over 7,600 prisoners. On 29 May Ginbot 7 leader Andargachew Tsege, facing the death penalty on terrorism charges, was released after being pardoned by President Mulatu Teshome, along with 575 other detainees.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: That same day, charges were dropped against Andargachew's colleague Berhanu Nega and the Oromo dissident and public intellectual Jawar Mohammed, as well as their respectively affiliated US-based ESAT and OMN satellite television networks. Shortly thereafter, Abiy took the "unprecedented and previously unimaginable" step of meeting Andargachew, who twenty-four hours previously had been on death row, at his office; a move even critics of the ruling party termed "bold and remarkable". Abiy had previously met former Oromo Liberation Front leaders including founder Lencho Letta, who had committed to peaceful participation in the political process, upon their arrival at Bole International Airport.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 30 May 2018, it was announced the ruling party would amend the country's "draconian" anti-terrorism law, widely perceived as a tool of political repression. On 1 June 2018, Abiy announced the government would seek to end the state of emergency two months in advance of the expiration its six-month tenure, citing an improved domestic situation. On 4 June 2018, Parliament approved the necessary legislation, ending the state of emergency. In his first briefing to the House of Peoples' Representatives in June 2018, Abiy countered criticism of his government's release of convicted "terrorists" which according to the opposition is just a name the EPRDF gives you if you are a part or even meet the "opposition". He argued that policies that sanctioned arbitrary detention and torture themselves constituted extra-constitutional acts of terror aimed at suppressing opposition. This followed the additional pardon of 304 prisoners (289 of which had been sentenced on terrorism-related charges) on 15 June.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The pace of reforms has revealed fissures within the ruling coalition, with hardliners in the military and the hitherto dominant TPLF said to be "seething" at the end of the state of emergency and the release of political prisoners.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: An editorial on the previously pro-government website Tigrai Online arguing for the maintenance of the state of emergency gave voice to this sentiment, saying that Abiy was "doing too much too fast". Another article critical of the release of political prisoners suggested that Ethiopia's criminal justice system had become a revolving door and that Abiy's administration had quite inexplicably been rushing to pardon and release thousands of prisoners, among them many deadly criminals and dangerous arsonists. On 13 June 2018, the TPLF executive committee denounced the decisions to hand over Badme and privatize SOEs as "fundamentally flawed", saying that the ruling coalition suffered from a fundamental leadership deficit.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In 2018, to expand the free press in Ethiopia, Abiy invited exiled media outlets to return. One of the media outlets invited to return was ESAT (which had called for the genocide of Ethiopian Tigrayans). However, since assuming office in April 2018, Abiy himself had, as of March 2019, only given one press conference, on 25 August 2018 and around five months after he assumed office, where he answered questions from journalists. he has not given another press conference where he has not refused to answer questions from journalists (rather than reading prepared statements).


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: According to the NGOs Human Rights Watch, Committee to Protect Journalists and Amnesty International, Abiy's government has since mid 2019 been arresting Ethiopian journalists and closing media outlets (except for ESAT-TV). From the international media outlets, his government has suspended the press license of Reuters's correspondent, and issued a warning letter to the correspondents of both BBC and Deutsche Welle for what the government described as "violation of the rules of media broadcasting".


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In June 2018, the ruling coalition announced its intention to pursue the large-scale privatisation of state-owned enterprises and the liberalization of several key economic sectors long considered off-limits, marking a landmark shift in the country's state-oriented development model.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: State monopolies in the telecommunications, aviation, electricity, and logistics sectors are to be ended and those industries opened up to private sector competition. Shares in the state-owned firms in those sectors, including Ethiopian Airlines, Africa's largest and most profitable, are to be offered for purchase to both domestic and foreign investors, although the government will continue to hold a majority share in these firms, thereby retaining control of the commanding heights of the economy. State-owned enterprises in sectors deemed less critical, including railway operators, sugar, industrial parks, hotels and various manufacturing firms, may be fully privatised.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Aside from representing an ideological shift with respect to views on the degree of government control over the economy, the move was seen as a pragmatic measure aimed at improving the country's dwindling foreign-exchange reserves, which by the end of the 2017 fiscal year were equal in value to less than two months worth of imports, as well as easing its growing sovereign debt load.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In June 2018, Abiy announced the government's intention to establish an Ethiopian stock exchange in tandem with the privatization of state-owned enterprises. As of 2015, Ethiopia was the largest country in the world, in terms of both population and gross domestic product, without a stock exchange.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In May 2018, Abiy visited Saudi Arabia, receiving guarantees for the release of Ethiopian prisoners including billionaire entrepreneur Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, who was detained following the 2017 Saudi Arabian purge.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In June 2018, he met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo and, separately, brokered a meeting in Addis Ababa between the South Sudanese president Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar in an attempt to encourage peace talks.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Since taking power Abiy has pursued a policy of expanding landlocked Ethiopia's access to ports in the Horn of Africa region. Shortly before his assumption of office it was announced that the Ethiopian government would take a 19% stake in Berbera Port in the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland as part of a joint venture with DP World. In May 2018, Ethiopia signed an agreement with the government of Djibouti to take an equity stake in the Port of Djibouti, enabling Ethiopia to have a say in the port's development and the setting of port handling fees.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Two days later a similar agreement was signed with the Sudanese government granting Ethiopia an ownership stake in the Port Sudan. The Ethio-Djibouti agreement grants the Djiboutian government the option of taking stakes in state-owned Ethiopian firms in return, such as the Ethiopian Airlines and Ethio Telecom. This in turn was followed shortly thereafter by an announcement that Abiy and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta had reached an agreement for the construction of an Ethiopian logistics facility at Lamu Port as part of the Lamu Port and Lamu-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) project.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The potential normalization of Ethiopia-Eritrea relations likewise opens the possibility for Ethiopia to resume using the Ports of Massawa and Asseb, which, prior to the Ethio-Eritrean conflict, were its main ports, which would be of particular benefit to the northern region of Tigray. All these developments would reduce Ethiopian reliance on Djibouti's port which, since 1998, has handled almost all of Ethiopia's maritime traffic.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Upon taking office, Abiy stated his willingness to negotiate an end to the Ethio-Eritrean conflict. In June 2018, it was announced that the government had agreed to hand over the disputed border town of Badme to Eritrea, thereby complying with the terms of the 2000 Algiers Agreement to bring an end to the state of tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia that had persisted despite the end of hostilities during the Ethiopia-Eritrea War. Ethiopia had until then rejected the international boundary commission's ruling awarding Badme to Eritrea, resulting in a frozen conflict (popularly termed a policy of "no war, but no peace") between the two states.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: During the national celebration on 20 June 2018, the president of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, accepted the peace initiative put forward by Abiy and suggested that he would send a delegation to Addis Ababa. On 26 June 2018, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed visited Addis Ababa in the first Eritrean high-level delegation to Ethiopia in over two decades.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In Asmara, on 8 July 2018, Abiy became the first Ethiopian leader to meet with an Eritrean counterpart in over two decades, in the 2018 Eritrea–Ethiopia summit. The very next day, the two signed a "Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship" declaring an end to tensions and agreeing, amongst other matters, to re-establish diplomatic relations; reopen direct telecommunication, road, and aviation links; and facilitate Ethiopian use of the ports of Massawa and Asseb. Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts in ending the war.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In practice, the agreement has been described as "largely unimplemented". Critics say not much has changed between the two nations. Among the Eritrean diaspora, many voiced disapproval for the Nobel Peace Prize focusing on the agreement with Eritrea when so little had changed in practice. In July 2020, Eritrea's Ministry of Information said: "Two years after the signing of the Peace Agreement, Ethiopian troops continue to be present in our sovereign territories, Trade and economic ties of both countries have not resumed to the desired extent or scale."


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In a speech to assembled Ethiopian ambassadors in January 2019, Abiy Ahmed made a prescient remark regarding sexual violence in war.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Alluding to the role of soldiers during the battle of Adua in 1896 and later, during the Eritrean war, Abiy said: “This hasn't been researched, but it's obvious. From the battle of Adwa during the time of Menelik, to the later wars, many people from central Ethiopia – Oromos, Amharas – have been going to Tigray to fight. They were there for the war with Eritrea, and there's been a military presence in Tigray for the 30 years since. So, if you're wondering what the proportion of Oromo in Tigray is, leave it for DNA to find out. [Hilarity in the audience] It's probably wrong to say this, but: those who went to Adwa, to fight, didn't just go and come back. Each of them had about 10 kids.” [Loud laughter of the audience and applause]. Jan Nyssen and colleagues consider this as “an open acknowledgement, even an endorsement, of military tactics and strategy that holds, as its central pillar, the use of rape in war”


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In June 2021, representatives from multiple countries called for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Abiy to be re-considered because of the war crimes committed in Tigray. In an opinion piece, Simon Tisdall, one-time foreign editor of "The Guardian", wrote that Abiy "should hand back his Nobel Peace Prize over his actions in the breakaway region".


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: A person on a petition organization called Change.org launched a campaign to gather 35,000 signatures for revoking his Peace Prize; as of September 2021, nearly 30,000 have been obtained.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has become a national preoccupation in both countries. Abiy has warned: "No force can stop Ethiopia from building a dam. If there is need to go to war, we could get millions readied."


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: After the murder of activist, singer and political icon Hachalu Hundessa ignited violence across Addis Ababa and other Ethiopian cities, Abiy hinted, without obvious suspects or clear motives for the killing, that Hundessa may have been murdered by Egyptian security agents acting on orders from Cairo to stir up trouble. An Egyptian diplomat responded by saying that Egypt "has nothing to do with current tensions in Ethiopia". Ian Bremmer wrote in a "Time" magazine article that Prime Minister Abiy "may just be looking for a scapegoat that can unite Ethiopians against a perceived common enemy".


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Ethiopia is a country of various religious groups, primarily Christian and Muslim communities. Both inter-religious and intra-religious divisions and conflicts were a major concern, where both the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Ethiopian Islamic Council experienced religious and administrative divisions and conflicts. In 2018, he was given a special "peace and reconciliation" award by the Ethiopian Church for his work in reconciling rival factions within the church.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In June 2018, Abiy, speaking to senior commanders of the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) declared his intention to carry out reforms of the military to strengthen its effectiveness and professionalism, with the view of limiting its role in politics. This followed renewed calls both within Ethiopia and from international human rights groups, namely Amnesty International, to dissolve highly controversial regional militias such as the Liyyu force. This move is considered likely to face resistance from TPLF hardliners, who occupy much of the military high command.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Notably, he has also called for the eventual reconstitution of the Ethiopian Navy, dissolved in 1996 in the aftermath of Eritrea's secession after an extraterritorial sojourn in Djibouti, saying that "we should build our naval force capacity in the future." It was reported that this move would appeal to nationalists still smarting from the country's loss of its coastline 25 years prior. Ethiopia already has a maritime training institute on Lake Tana as well as a national shipping line.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 7 June 2018, Abiy carried out a wide-ranging reshuffle of top security officials, replacing ENDF Chief of Staff Samora Yunis with Lieutenant General Se'are Mekonnen, National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) director Getachew Assefa with Lieutenant General Adem Mohammed, National Security Advisor and former army chief Abadula Gemeda, and Sebhat Nega, one of the founders of the TPLF and director-general of the Foreign Relations Strategic Research Institute Sebhat's retirements had been previously announced that May.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: A large peaceful demonstration was organized in Addis Ababa at Meskel Square on 23 June 2018 to show support for the new prime minister. Just after Abiy had finished addressing the crowd a grenade was thrown and landed just 17 metres away from where he and other top officials were sitting. Two people were killed and over 165 were injured. Following the attack, 9 police officials were detained, including the deputy police commissioner, Girma Kassa, who was fired immediately. Questions were asked as to how a police car carrying attackers got so close to the prime minister and soon after the car was set alight destroying evidence. After the attack the prime minister addressed the nation on national TV unhurt by the blast and describing it as an "unsuccessful attempt by forces who do not want to see Ethiopia united". On the same day the prime minister made an unannounced visit to the Black Lion general hospital to meet victims of the attack.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In the parliamentary session held on 16 October 2018, Abiy proposed to reduce the number of ministries from 28 to 20 with half of the cabinet positions for female ministers, a first in the history of the country. The new cabinet restructure included the first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde; the first female minister of the Ministry of Defense, Aisha Mohammed Musa; the first female minister of the new Ministry of Peace, Muferiat Kamil responsible for the Ethiopian Federal Police and the intelligence agencies; the first female press secretary for the Office of the Prime Minister, Billene Seyoum Woldeyes.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: According to NGOs like Human Rights Watch and NetBlocks, politically motivated Internet shutdowns have intensified in severity and duration under the leadership of Abiy Ahmed despite the country's rapid digitalization and reliance on cellular internet connectivity in recent years. In 2020, Internet shutdowns by the Ethiopian government had been described as "frequently deployed". Access Now said that shutdowns have become a "go-to tool for authorities to muzzle unrest and activism." His government will the cut internet as and when, "it's neither water nor air" have said Abiy.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 21 November 2019, upon approval of EPRDF ruling coalition, a new party, Prosperity Party, is formed via merging of three of the four parties that made up the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and other five affiliate parties. The parties include the Oromo Democratic Party (ODP), the Southern Ethiopian People's Democratic Movement (SEPDM), the Amhara Democratic Party (ADP), the Harari National League (HNL), the Ethiopian Somali Peoples Democratic Party (ESPDP), the Afar National Democratic Party (ANDP), the Gambella Peoples Unity Party (GPUP), and the Benishangul Gumuz Peoples Democratic Party (BGPDP). The programs and bylaws of the newly merged party were first approved by the executive committee of EPRDF. Abiy believes that "Prosperity Party is committed to strengthening and applying a true federal system which recognizes the diversity and contributions of all Ethiopians".


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Awol Allo argues that when Abiy came to power in 2018, two irreconcilable and paradoxical vision future created. Central of these ideological vision often contradict historical narrative of Ethiopian state. Abiy's undertook major reforms in the country and the liberation suspected to worsen the relationship with TPLF members. The following lists detail civil conflicts and war during Abiy's premiership.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 22 June 2019, factions of the security forces of the region attempted a coup d'état against the regional government, during which the President of the Amhara Region, Ambachew Mekonnen, was assassinated. A bodyguard siding with the nationalist factions assassinated General Se'are Mekonnen – the Chief of the General Staff of the Ethiopian National Defense Force – as well as his aide, Major General Gizae Aberra. The Prime Minister's Office accused Brigadier General Asaminew Tsige, head of the Amhara region security forces, of leading the plot, and Tsige was shot dead by police near Bahir Dar on 24 June.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Starting in June 2019, fighting in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region in Ethiopia has reportedly involved militias from the Gumuz people. Gumuz are alleged to have formed militias such as Buadin and the Gumuz Liberation Front that have staged attacks. According to Amnesty International, the 22–23 December 2020 attacks were by Gumuz against Amhara, Oromo and Shinasha, who the Gumuz nationalists viewed as "settlers".


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In October 2019, Ethiopian activist and media owner Jawar Mohammed claimed that members of the police had attempted to force his security detail to vacate the grounds of his home in Addis Ababa in order to detain him the night of 23 October, intimating that they had done so at the behest of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The previous day, Abiy had given a speech in Parliament in which he had accused "media owners who don't have Ethiopian passports" of "playing it both ways", a thinly veiled reference to Jawar, adding that "if this is going to undermine the peace and existence of Ethiopia... we will take measures."


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The murder of Oromo singer Hachalu Hundessa led serious unrest across Oromia Region, Addis Ababa and Jimma from 30 June to 2 July 2020. The riots lead to the deaths of at least 239 people according to initial police reports.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In early November 2020, an armed conflict began after 4 November Northern Command Attacks by TPLF security forces, prompting the ENDF to engage in war. The ENDF is supported by Eritrean Defence Force, Amhara and Afar Region special force with other regional forces, while TPLF was aided by Tigray Special Force and Tigray Defense Force.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Hostilities between the central government and the TPLF escalated after the TPLF rejected the central government's decision to postponing August 2020 elections to mid-2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, accusing the government of violating the Ethiopian constitution.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The TPLF carried out its own regional elections, winning all contested seats in the region's parliament. In response, Abiy Ahmed redirected funding from the top level of the Tigray regional government to lower ranks in a bid to weaken the TPLF party.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The central matter of the civil conflict, as portrayed by Abiy and as reported by Seku Ture, a member of the TPLF party, is an attack on the Northern Command bases and headquarters in the Tigray region by security forces of the TPLF, the province's elected party; though such a claim is contested.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The Ethiopian government announced on 28 November 2020 that they had captured Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, completing their "rule of law operations". However, there are reports that guerrilla-style conflict with the TPLF continues.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: About 2.3 million children are cut off from desperately needed aid and humanitarian assistance, said the United Nations. The Ethiopian federal government has made strict control of access to the Tigray region (since the start of the conflict), and the UN said it is frustrated that talks with the Ethiopian government have not yet brought humanitarian access. These include, "food, including ready-to-use therapeutic food for the treatment of child malnutrition, medicines, water, fuel and other essentials that are running low" said UNICEF.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 18 December 2020, looting was reported by EEPA, including 500 dairy cows and hundreds of calves stolen by Amhara forces. On 23 November, a reporter of AFP news agency visited the western Tigray town of Humera, and observed that the administration of the conquered parts of Western Tigray was taken over by officials from Amhara Region. Refugees interviewed by Agence France Presse (AFP) stated that pro-TPLF forces used Hitsats as a base for several weeks in November 2020, killing several refugees who wanted to leave the camp to get food, and in one incident, killed nine young Eritrean men in revenge for having lost a battle against the EDF


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: In his premature victory speech delivered to the federal parliament on 30 November 2020, Abiy Ahmed pronounced:


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: "Related to civilian damage, maximum caution was taken. In just 3 weeks of fighting, in any district, in Humera, Adi Goshu, ... Axum, ..., Edaga Hamus, ... The defence forces never killed a single civilian in a single town. No soldier from any country could display better competence."


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: On 21 March 2021, during a parliamentary session in which Abiy Ahmed was questioned on sexual violence in the Tigray War, he replied: "The women in Tigray? These women have only been penetrated by men, whereas our soldiers were penetrated by a knife”.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: The public image of a Nobel Peace Prize winner is being rapidly re-assessed by international media as increasingly grisly reports of atrocities emerge. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken has been quoted as saying that he had seen "very credible reports of human rights abuses and atrocities," and that "forces from Eritrea and Amhara must leave and be replaced by 'a force that will not abuse the human rights of the people of Tigray or commit acts of ethnic cleansing'." In December 2021, Declan Walsh reported in "The New York Times" that Abiy and Isaias had been secretly planning the Tigray War even before the former's Nobel Prize was awarded, in order to settle their respective grudges against the TPLF.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy has been described as a "liberal populist" by the academic and journalist Abiye Teklemariam and the influential Oromo activist Jawar Mohammed. Alemayehu Weldemariam, a U.S.-based Ethiopian lawyer and public intellectual, has called Abiy "an opportunistic populist jockeying for power on a democratizing platform." On the other hand, Tom Gardner argues in "Foreign Policy" that he's not a populist, but more of a liberal democrat. However, Gardner acknowledges that Abiy has "occasionally used language that can be read as euphemistic and conspiracy-minded", and might have "exploited the system's vulnerabilities, such as a pliable media and politicized judiciary, for his own ends."


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Abiy's government was accused of authoritarianism and restricting press freedom, especially since the start of the Tigray War. Numerous watchdogs and human rights groups accused Abiy's government of "increasingly intimidating" the media as well as harassing opponents to propel unrest. In 2019 World Press Freedom Index, Ethiopia improved the rank by jumping forty positions from 150 to 110 out of 180 countries. In 2021, 46 journalists were detained, making Ethiopia the worst jailers in Africa. Journalist Gobeze Sisay was arrested by unknown plainclothes officers in his home on 1 May. On 3 May, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released statement about Gobez Sisay's whereabout. Similarly, the founder of Terara Network was arrested in Addis Ababa on 10 December 2021 in allegation of "disseminating misinformation", which was transferred to Sabata Daliti police station in Oromia Special Zone. He was released on 5 April 2022 with bail of 50,000 Ethiopian birr.


title: Abiy Ahmed

text: Getachew Reda, a senior official of the elected government of Tigray Region, mocked Abiy Ahmed in a tweet on the day of the general elections, saying the Tigray Defense Forces had captured hundreds of ENDF soldiers as a gift for Abiy's coronation as the "Naked Emperor of Ethiopia".


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The Strait of Gibraltar (; , Archaic: Pillars of Hercules), also known as the Straits of Gibraltar, is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The two continents are separated by of ocean at the Strait's narrowest point between Point Marroquí in Spain and Point Cires in Morocco. Ferries cross between the two continents every day in as little as 35 minutes. The Strait's depth ranges between which possibly interacted with the lower mean sea level of the last major glaciation 20,000 years ago when the level of the sea is believed to have been lower by .


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The strait lies in the territorial waters of Morocco, Spain, and the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, foreign vessels and aircraft have the freedom of navigation and overflight to cross the strait of Gibraltar in case of continuous transit.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The name comes from the Rock of Gibraltar, which in turn originates from the Arabic (meaning "Tariq's Mount"), named after Tariq ibn Ziyad. It is also known as the Straits of Gibraltar, the Gut of Gibraltar (although this is mostly archaic), the STROG (STRait Of Gibraltar) in naval use.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Another Arabic name is (), meaning "Gate of the West" or "Gate of the sunset", and furthermore "Gate of the Maghreb" or "Gate of Morocco". In the Middle Ages it was called in Arabic (), "the Passage" and by the Romans (Strait of Cadiz).


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: In Latin it has been called , based on the name from antiquity "Pillars of Hercules" (), referring to the mountains as pillars, such as Gibraltar, flanking the strait.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: On the northern side of the Strait are Spain and Gibraltar (a British overseas territory in the Iberian Peninsula), while on the southern side are Morocco and Ceuta (a Spanish autonomous city in northern Africa). Its boundaries were known in antiquity as the Pillars of Hercules.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Strait of Gibraltar as follows:


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The seabed of the Strait is composed of synorogenic Betic-Rif clayey flysch covered by Pliocene and/or Quaternary calcareous sediments, sourced from thriving cold water coral communities. Exposed bedrock surfaces, coarse sediments and local sand dunes attest to the strong bottom current conditions at the present time.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Around 5.9 million years ago, the connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean along the Betic and Rifan Corridor was progressively restricted until its total closure, effectively causing the salinity of the Mediterranean to rise periodically within the gypsum and salt deposition range, during what is known as the Messinian salinity crisis. In this water chemistry environment, dissolved mineral concentrations, temperature and stilled water currents combined and occurred regularly to precipitate many mineral salts in layers on the seabed. The resultant accumulation of various huge salt and mineral deposits about the Mediterranean basin are directly linked to this era. It is believed that this process took a short time, by geological standards, lasting between 500,000 and 600,000 years.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: It is estimated that, were the Strait closed even at today's higher sea level, most water in the Mediterranean basin would evaporate within only a thousand years, as it is believed to have done then, and such an event would lay down mineral deposits like the salt deposits now found under the sea floor all over the Mediterranean.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: After a lengthy period of restricted intermittent or no water exchange between the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean basin, approximately 5.33 million years ago, the Atlantic-Mediterranean connection was completely reestablished through the Strait of Gibraltar by the Zanclean flood, and has remained open ever since. The erosion produced by the incoming waters seems to be the main cause for the present depth of the Strait ( at the narrows, at the Camarinal Sill). The Strait is expected to close again as the African Plate moves northward relative to the Eurasian Plate, but on geological rather than human timescales.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The Strait has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because of the hundreds of thousands of seabirds which use it every year to migrate between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, including significant numbers of Scopoli's and Balearic shearwaters, Audouin's and lesser black-backed gulls, razorbills, and Atlantic puffins.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: A resident orca pod of some 36 individuals lives around the Strait, one of the few that are left in Western European waters. The pod may be facing extinction in the coming decades due to long term effects of PCB pollution.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Evidence of the first human habitation of the area by Neanderthals dates back to 125,000 years ago. It is believed that the Rock of Gibraltar may have been one of the last outposts of Neanderthal habitation in the world, with evidence of their presence there dating to as recently as 24,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence of Homo sapiens habitation of the area dates back years.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The relatively short distance between the two shores has served as a quick crossing point for various groups and civilizations throughout history, including Carthaginians campaigning against Rome, Romans travelling between the provinces of Hispania and Mauritania, Vandals raiding south from Germania through Western Rome and into North Africa in the 5th century, Moors and Berbers in the 8th–11th centuries, and Spain and Portugal in the 16th century.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Beginning in 1492, the Strait began to play a certain cultural role in acting as a barrier against cross-channel conquest and the flow of culture and language that would naturally follow such a conquest. In that year, the last Muslim government north of the Strait was overthrown by a Spanish force. Since that time, the Strait has come to foster the development of two very distinct and varied cultures on either side of it after sharing much the same culture for over 500 years from the 8th century to the early 13th century.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: On the northern side, Christian-European culture has remained dominant since the expulsion of the last Muslim kingdom in 1492, along with the Romance Spanish language, while on the southern side, Muslim-Arabic/Mediterranean has been dominant since the spread of Islam into North Africa in the 700s, along with the Arabic language. For the last 500 years, religious and cultural intolerance, more than the small travel barrier that the Strait presents, has come to act as a powerful enforcing agent of the cultural separation that exists between these two groups.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The small British enclave of the city of Gibraltar presents a third cultural group found in the Strait. This enclave was first established in 1704 and has since been used by Britain to act as a surety for control of the sea lanes into and out of the Mediterranean.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Following the Spanish coup of July 1936 the Spanish Republican Navy tried to blockade the Strait of Gibraltar to hamper the transport of Army of Africa troops from Spanish Morocco to Peninsular Spain. On 5 August 1936 the so-called Convoy de la victoria was able to bring at least 2,500 men across the Strait, breaking the republican blockade.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The Strait is an important shipping route from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. There are ferries that operate between Spain and Morocco across the Strait, as well as between Spain and Ceuta and Gibraltar to Tangier.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Discussion between Spain and Morocco of a tunnel under the strait began in the 1980s. In December 2003, both countries agreed to explore the construction of an undersea rail tunnel to connect their rail systems across the Strait. The gauge of the rail would be to match the proposed construction and conversion of significant parts of the existing broad gauge system to standard gauge. While the project remained in a planning phase, Spanish and Moroccan officials met to discuss it occasionally, including in 2012. Those talks led to nothing constructive happening but in April 2021 ministers from both countries agreed to a joint intergovernmental meeting to be held in Casablanca in the coming months. This was in order to resume discussions on a tunnel. Earlier, in January 2021, the UK government had studied plans for a tunnel to link Gibraltar with Tangiers that would replace the Spanish-Moroccan project that until then had had no tangible results after over 40 years of discussions.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The Strait of Gibraltar links the Atlantic Ocean directly to the Mediterranean Sea. This direct linkage creates certain unique flow and wave patterns. These unique patterns are created due to the interaction of various regional and global evaporative forces, water temperatures, tidal forces, and wind forces.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Water flows through the Strait more or less continuously eastwards and westwards. A smaller amount of deeper saltier and therefore denser waters continually work their way westwards the Mediterranean outflow, while a larger amount of surface waters with lower salinity and density continually work their way eastwards the Mediterranean inflow. These general flow tendencies may be occasionally interrupted for brief periods by temporary tidal flows, depending on various lunar and solar alignments. Still, on the whole and over time, the balance of the water flow is eastwards, due to an evaporation rate within the Mediterranean basin higher than the combined inflow of all the rivers that empty into it. At the Strait's far western end is the Camarinal Sill, the Strait's shallowest point which limits mixing between the cold, less saline Atlantic water and the warm Mediterranean waters.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: The Mediterranean waters are so much saltier than the Atlantic waters that they sink below the constantly incoming water and form a highly saline ("thermohaline", both warm and salty) layer of bottom water. This layer of bottom-water constantly works its way out into the Atlantic as the Mediterranean outflow. On the Atlantic side of the Strait, a density boundary separates the Mediterranean outflow waters from the rest at about depth. These waters flow out and down the continental slope, losing salinity, until they begin to mix and equilibrate more rapidly, much farther out at a depth of about . The Mediterranean outflow water layer can be traced for thousands of kilometres west of the Strait, before completely losing its identity.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: During the Second World War, German U-boats used the currents to pass into the Mediterranean Sea without detection, by maintaining silence with engines off. From September 1941 to May 1944 Germany managed to send 62 U-boats into the Mediterranean. All these boats had to navigate the British-controlled Strait of Gibraltar where nine U-boats were sunk while attempting passage and 10 more had to break off their run due to damage. No U-boats ever made it back into the Atlantic and all were either sunk in battle or scuttled by their own crews.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Internal waves (waves at the density boundary layer) are often produced by the Strait. Like traffic merging on a highway, the water flow is constricted in both directions because it must pass over the Camarinal Sill. When large tidal flows enter the Strait and the high tide relaxes, internal waves are generated at the Camarinal Sill and proceed eastwards. Even though the waves may occur down to great depths, occasionally the waves are almost imperceptible at the surface, at other times they can be seen clearly in satellite imagery. These "internal waves" continue to flow eastward and to refract around coastal features. They can sometimes be traced for as much as , and sometimes create interference patterns with refracted waves.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Except for its far eastern end, the Strait lies within the territorial waters of Spain and Morocco. The United Kingdom claims around Gibraltar on the northern side of the Strait, putting part of it inside British territorial waters. As this is less than the maximum, it means, according to the British claim, that part of the Strait lies in international waters. The ownership of Gibraltar and its territorial waters is disputed by Spain. Similarly, Morocco disputes Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta on the southern coast. There are several islets, such as the disputed Isla Perejil, that are claimed by both Morocco and Spain.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, vessels passing through the strait do so under the regime of transit passage, rather than the more limited innocent passage allowed in most territorial waters. Therefore, a vessel or aircraft has the freedom of navigation or overflight for the purpose of crossing the strait of Gibraltar.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: Some studies have proposed the possibility of erecting tidal power generating stations within the Strait, to be powered from the predictable current at the Strait.


title: Strait of Gibraltar

text: In the 1920s and 1930s, the Atlantropa project proposed damming the Strait to generate large amounts of electricity and lower the sea level of the Mediterranean by several hundreds of meters to create large new lands for settlement. This proposal would however have devastating effects on the local climate and ecology and would dramatically change the strength of the West African Monsoon.


title: Phoneme

text: In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.


title: Phoneme

text: For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west of England, the sound patterns ("sin") and ("sing") are two separate words that are distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, , for another phoneme, . Two words like this that differ in meaning through the contrast of a single phoneme form a "minimal pair". If, in another language, any two sequences differing only by pronunciation of the final sounds or are perceived as being the same in meaning, then these two sounds are interpreted as phonetic variants of a single phoneme in that language.


title: Phoneme

text: Phonemes that are established by the use of minimal pairs, such as "tap" vs "tab" or "pat" vs "bat", are written between slashes: , . To show pronunciation, linguists use square brackets: (indicating an aspirated "p" in "pat").


title: Phoneme

text: There are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are and how a given language should be analyzed in "phonemic" (or "phonematic") terms. However, a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set (or equivalence class) of speech sounds ("phones") that are perceived as equivalent to each other in a given language. For example, the English "k" sounds in the words "kill" and "skill" are not identical (as described below), but they are distributional variants of a single phoneme . Speech sounds that differ but do not create a meaningful change in the word are known as "allophones" of the same phoneme. Allophonic variation may be conditioned, in which case a certain phoneme is realized as a certain allophone in particular phonological environments, or it may otherwise be free, and may vary by speaker or by dialect. Therefore, phonemes are often considered to constitute an abstract underlying representation for segments of words, while speech sounds make up the corresponding phonetic realization, or the surface form.


title: Phoneme

text: Phonemes are conventionally placed between slashes in transcription, whereas speech sounds (phones) are placed between square brackets. Thus, represents a sequence of three phonemes, , , (the word "push" in Standard English), and represents the phonetic sequence of sounds (aspirated "p"), , (the usual pronunciation of "push"). This should not be confused with the similar convention of the use of angle brackets to enclose the units of orthography, graphemes. For example, ⟨f⟩ represents the written letter (grapheme) "f".


title: Phoneme

text: The symbols used for particular phonemes are often taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the same set of symbols most commonly used for phones. (For computer-typing purposes, systems such as X-SAMPA exist to represent IPA symbols using only ASCII characters.) However, descriptions of particular languages may use different conventional symbols to represent the phonemes of those languages. For languages whose writing systems employ the phonemic principle, ordinary letters may be used to denote phonemes, although this approach is often hampered by the complexity of the relationship between orthography and pronunciation (see below).


title: Phoneme

text: A phoneme is a sound or a group of different sounds perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example is the English phoneme , which occurs in words such as cat", kit", "scat", "skit". Although most native speakers do not notice this, in most English dialects, the "c/k" sounds in these words are not identical: in , the sound is aspirated, but in , it is unaspirated. The words, therefore, contain different "speech sounds", or "phones", transcribed for the aspirated form and for the unaspirated one. These different sounds are nonetheless considered to belong to the same phoneme, because if a speaker used one instead of the other, the meaning of the word would not change: using the aspirated form in "skill" might sound odd, but the word would still be recognized. By contrast, some other sounds would cause a change in meaning if substituted: for example, substitution of the sound would produce the different word "still", and that sound must therefore be considered to represent a different phoneme (the phoneme ).


title: Phoneme

text: The above shows that in English, and are allophones of a single phoneme . In some languages, however, and are perceived by native speakers as different sounds, and substituting one for the other can change the meaning of a word. In those languages, therefore, the two sounds represent different phonemes. For example, in Icelandic, is the first sound of , meaning "cheerful", but is the first sound of , meaning "riddles". Icelandic, therefore, has two separate phonemes and .


title: Phoneme

text: A pair of words like and (above) that differ only in one phone is called a minimal pair for the two alternative phones in question (in this case, and ). The existence of minimal pairs is a common test to decide whether two phones represent different phonemes or are allophones of the same phoneme.


title: Phoneme

text: To take another example, the minimal pair tip" and dip" illustrates that in English, and belong to separate phonemes, and ; since both words have different meanings, English-speakers must be conscious of the distinction between the two sounds.


title: Phoneme

text: Signed languages, such as American Sign Language (ASL), also have minimal pairs, differing only in (exactly) one of the signs' parameters: handshape, movement, location, palm orientation, and nonmanual signal or marker. A minimal pair may exist in the signed language if the basic sign stays the same, but one of the parameters changes.


title: Phoneme

text: However, the absence of minimal pairs for a given pair of phones does not always mean that they belong to the same phoneme: they may be so dissimilar phonetically that it is unlikely for speakers to perceive them as the same sound. For example, English has no minimal pair for the sounds (as in hat") and (as in "bang), and the fact that they can be shown to be in complementary distribution could be used to argue for their being allophones of the same phoneme. However, they are so dissimilar phonetically that they are considered separate phonemes.


title: Phoneme

text: Phonologists have sometimes had recourse to "near minimal pairs" to show that speakers of the language perceive two sounds as significantly different even if no exact minimal pair exists in the lexicon. It is virtually impossible to find a minimal pair to distinguish English from , yet it seems uncontroversial to claim that the two consonants are distinct phonemes. The two words 'pressure' and 'pleasure' can serve as a near minimal pair.


title: Phoneme

text: Besides segmental phonemes such as vowels and consonants, there are also suprasegmental features of pronunciation (such as tone and stress, syllable boundaries and other forms of juncture, nasalization and vowel harmony), which, in many languages, change the meaning of words and so are phonemic.


title: Phoneme

text: "Phonemic stress" is encountered in languages such as English. For example, there are two words spelled "invite", one is a verb and is stressed on the second syllable, the other is a noun and stressed on the first syllable (without changing any of the individual sounds). The position of the stress distinguishes the words and so a full phonemic specification would include indication of the position of the stress: for the verb, for the noun. In other languages, such as French, word stress cannot have this function (its position is generally predictable) and so it is not phonemic (and therefore not usually indicated in dictionaries).


title: Phoneme

text: "Phonemic tones" are found in languages such as Mandarin Chinese in which a given syllable can have five different tonal pronunciations:


title: Phoneme

text: The tone "phonemes" in such languages are sometimes called "tonemes". Languages such as English do not have phonemic tone, but they use intonation for functions such as emphasis and attitude.


title: Phoneme

text: When a phoneme has more than one allophone, the one actually heard at a given occurrence of that phoneme may be dependent on the phonetic environment (surrounding sounds). Allophones that normally cannot appear in the same environment are said to be in complementary distribution. In other cases, the choice of allophone may be dependent on the individual speaker or other unpredictable factors. Such allophones are said to be in free variation, but allophones are still selected in a specific phonetic context, not the other way around.


title: Phoneme

text: The term "phonème" (from , "sound made, utterance, thing spoken, speech, language") was reportedly first used by A. Dufriche-Desgenettes in 1873, but it referred only to a speech sound. The term "phoneme" as an abstraction was developed by the Polish linguist Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and his student Mikołaj Kruszewski during 1875–1895. The term used by these two was "fonema", the basic unit of what they called "psychophonetics". Daniel Jones became the first linguist in the western world to use the term "phoneme" in its current sense, employing the word in his article "The phonetic structure of the Sechuana Language". The concept of the phoneme was then elaborated in the works of Nikolai Trubetzkoy and others of the Prague School (during the years 1926–1935), and in those of structuralists like Ferdinand de Saussure, Edward Sapir, and Leonard Bloomfield. Some structuralists (though not Sapir) rejected the idea of a cognitive or psycholinguistic function for the phoneme.


title: Phoneme

text: Later, it was used and redefined in generative linguistics, most famously by Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle, and remains central to many accounts of the development of modern phonology. As a theoretical concept or model, though, it has been supplemented and even replaced by others.


title: Phoneme

text: Some linguists (such as Roman Jakobson and Morris Halle) proposed that phonemes may be further decomposable into features, such features being the true minimal constituents of language. Features overlap each other in time, as do suprasegmental phonemes in oral language and many phonemes in sign languages. Features could be characterized in different ways: Jakobson and colleagues defined them in acoustic terms, Chomsky and Halle used a predominantly articulatory basis, though retaining some acoustic features, while Ladefoged's system is a purely articulatory system apart from the use of the acoustic term 'sibilant'.


title: Phoneme

text: In the description of some languages, the term chroneme has been used to indicate contrastive length or "duration" of phonemes. In languages in which tones are phonemic, the tone phonemes may be called tonemes. Though not all scholars working on such languages use these terms, they are by no means obsolete.


title: Phoneme

text: By analogy with the phoneme, linguists have proposed other sorts of underlying objects, giving them names with the suffix "-eme", such as "morpheme" and "grapheme". These are sometimes called emic units. The latter term was first used by Kenneth Pike, who also generalized the concepts of emic and etic description (from "phonemic" and "phonetic" respectively) to applications outside linguistics.


title: Phoneme

text: Languages do not generally allow words or syllables to be built of any arbitrary sequences of phonemes. There are phonotactic restrictions on which sequences of phonemes are possible and in which environments certain phonemes can occur. Phonemes that are significantly limited by such restrictions may be called "restricted phonemes".


title: Phoneme

text: Some phonotactic restrictions can alternatively be analyzed as cases of neutralization. See Neutralization and archiphonemes below, particularly the example of the occurrence of the three English nasals before stops.


title: Phoneme

text: Biuniqueness is a requirement of classic structuralist phonemics. It means that a given phone, wherever it occurs, must unambiguously be assigned to one and only one phoneme. In other words, the mapping between phones and phonemes is required to be many-to-one rather than many-to-many. The notion of biuniqueness was controversial among some pre-generative linguists and was prominently challenged by Morris Halle and Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s and early 1960s.


title: Phoneme

text: An example of the problems arising from the biuniqueness requirement is provided by the phenomenon of flapping in North American English. This may cause either or (in the appropriate environments) to be realized with the phone (an alveolar flap). For example, the same flap sound may be heard in the words "hitting" and "bidding", although it is intended to realize the phoneme in the first word and in the second. This appears to contradict biuniqueness.


title: Phoneme

text: Phonemes that are contrastive in certain environments may not be contrastive in all environments. In the environments where they do not contrast, the contrast is said to be neutralized. In these positions it may become less clear which phoneme a given phone represents. Absolute neutralization is a phenomenon in which a segment of the underlying representation is not realized in any of its phonetic representations (surface forms). The term was introduced by Paul Kiparsky (1968), and contrasts with contextual neutralization where some phonemes are not contrastive in certain environments. Some phonologists prefer not to specify a unique phoneme in such cases, since to do so would mean providing redundant or even arbitrary information – instead they use the technique of underspecification. An archiphoneme is an object sometimes used to represent an underspecified phoneme.


title: Phoneme

text: An example of neutralization is provided by the Russian vowels and . These phonemes are contrasting in stressed syllables, but in unstressed syllables the contrast is lost, since both are reduced to the same sound, usually (for details, see vowel reduction in Russian). In order to assign such an instance of to one of the phonemes and , it is necessary to consider morphological factors (such as which of the vowels occurs in other forms of the words, or which inflectional pattern is followed). In some cases even this may not provide an unambiguous answer. A description using the approach of underspecification would not attempt to assign to a specific phoneme in some or all of these cases, although it might be assigned to an archiphoneme, written something like , which reflects the two neutralized phonemes in this position, or }, reflecting its unmerged values.


title: Phoneme

text: A somewhat different example is found in English, with the three nasal phonemes . In word-final position these all contrast, as shown by the minimal triplet "sum" , "sun" , "sung" . However, before a stop such as (provided there is no morpheme boundary between them), only one of the nasals is possible in any given position: before , before or , and before , as in "limp, lint, link" (, , ). The nasals are therefore not contrastive in these environments, and according to some theorists this makes it inappropriate to assign the nasal phones heard here to any one of the phonemes (even though, in this case, the phonetic evidence is unambiguous). Instead they may analyze these phones as belonging to a single archiphoneme, written something like , and state the underlying representations of "limp, lint, link" to be .


title: Phoneme

text: This latter type of analysis is often associated with Nikolai Trubetzkoy of the Prague school. Archiphonemes are often notated with a capital letter within double virgules or pipes, as with the examples and given above. Other ways the second of these has been notated include , and .


title: Phoneme

text: Another example from English, but this time involving complete phonetic convergence as in the Russian example, is the flapping of and in some American English (described above under Biuniqueness). Here the words "betting" and "bedding" might both be pronounced . Under the generative grammar theory of linguistics, if a speaker applies such flapping consistently, morphological evidence (the pronunciation of the related forms "bet" and "bed", for example) would reveal which phoneme the flap represents, once it is known which morpheme is being used. However, other theorists would prefer not to make such a determination, and simply assign the flap in both cases to a single archiphoneme, written (for example) .


title: Phoneme

text: Further mergers in English are plosives after , where conflate with , as suggested by the alternative spellings "sketti" and "sghetti". That is, there is no particular reason to transcribe "spin" as rather than as , other than its historical development, and it might be less ambiguously transcribed .


title: Phoneme

text: A morphophoneme is a theoretical unit at a deeper level of abstraction than traditional phonemes, and is taken to be a unit from which morphemes are built up. A morphophoneme within a morpheme can be expressed in different ways in different allomorphs of that morpheme (according to morphophonological rules). For example, the English plural morpheme "-s" appearing in words such as "cats" and "dogs" can be considered to be a single morphophoneme, which might be transcribed (for example) or , and which is realized phonemically as after most voiceless consonants (as in "cats) and as in other cases (as in "dogs).


title: Phoneme

text: All known languages use only a small subset of the many possible sounds that the human speech organs can produce, and, because of allophony, the number of distinct phonemes will generally be smaller than the number of identifiably different sounds. Different languages vary considerably in the number of phonemes they have in their systems (although apparent variation may sometimes result from the different approaches taken by the linguists doing the analysis). The total phonemic inventory in languages varies from as few as 9–11 in Pirahã and 11 in Rotokas to as many as 141 in !Xũ.


title: Phoneme

text: The number of phonemically distinct vowels can be as low as two, as in Ubykh and Arrernte. At the other extreme, the Bantu language Ngwe has 14 vowel qualities, 12 of which may occur long or short, making 26 oral vowels, plus six nasalized vowels, long and short, making a total of 38 vowels; while !Xóõ achieves 31 pure vowels, not counting its additional variation by vowel length, by varying the phonation. As regards consonant phonemes, Puinave and the Papuan language Tauade each have just seven, and Rotokas has only six. !Xóõ, on the other hand, has somewhere around 77, and Ubykh 81. The English language uses a rather large set of 13 to 21 vowel phonemes, including diphthongs, although its 22 to 26 consonants are close to average. Across all languages, the average number of consonant phonemes per language is about 22, while the average number of vowel phonemes is about 8.


title: Phoneme

text: Some languages, such as French, have no phonemic tone or stress, while Cantonese and several of the Kam–Sui languages have six to nine tones (depending on how they're counted), and the Kam-Sui Dong language has nine to 15 tones by the same measure. One of the Kru languages, Wobé, has been claimed to have 14, though this is disputed.


title: Phoneme

text: The most common vowel system consists of the five vowels . The most common consonants are . Relatively few languages lack any of these consonants, although it does happen: for example, Arabic lacks , standard Hawaiian lacks , Mohawk and Tlingit lack and , Hupa lacks both and a simple , colloquial Samoan lacks and , while Rotokas and Quileute lack and .


title: Phoneme

text: During the development of phoneme theory in the mid-20th century phonologists were concerned not only with the procedures and principles involved in producing a phonemic analysis of the sounds of a given language, but also with the reality or uniqueness of the phonemic solution. These were central concerns of phonology. Some writers took the position expressed by Kenneth Pike: "There is only one accurate phonemic analysis for a given set of data", while others believed that different analyses, equally valid, could be made for the same data. Yuen Ren Chao (1934), in his article "The non-uniqueness of phonemic solutions of phonetic systems" stated "given the sounds of a language, there are usually more than one possible way of reducing them to a set of phonemes, and these different systems or solutions are not simply correct or incorrect, but may be regarded only as being good or bad for various purposes". The linguist F. W. Householder referred to this argument within linguistics as "God's Truth" (i.e. the stance that a given language has an intrinsic structure to be discovered) vs. "hocus-pocus" (i.e. the stance that any proposed, coherent structure is as good as any other).


title: Phoneme

text: Different analyses of the English vowel system may be used to illustrate this. The article English phonology states that "English has a particularly large number of vowel phonemes" and that "there are 20 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 20–21 in Australian English". Although these figures are often quoted as fact, they actually reflect just one of many possible analyses, and later in the English Phonology article an alternative analysis is suggested in which some diphthongs and long vowels may be interpreted as comprising a short vowel linked to either or . The fullest exposition of this approach is found in Trager and Smith (1951), where all long vowels and diphthongs ("complex nuclei") are made up of a short vowel combined with either , or (plus for rhotic accents), each comprising two phonemes. The transcription for the vowel normally transcribed would instead be , would be and would be , or /ar/ in a rhotic accent if there is an in the spelling. It is also possible to treat English long vowels and diphthongs as combinations of two vowel phonemes, with long vowels treated as a sequence of two short vowels, so that 'palm' would be represented as /paam/. English can thus be said to have around seven vowel phonemes, or even six if schwa were treated as an allophone of or of other short vowels.


title: Phoneme

text: In the same period there was disagreement about the correct basis for a phonemic analysis. The structuralist position was that the analysis should be made purely on the basis of the sound elements and their distribution, with no reference to extraneous factors such as grammar, morphology or the intuitions of the native speaker; this position is strongly associated with Leonard Bloomfield. Zellig Harris claimed that it is possible to discover the phonemes of a language purely by examining the distribution of phonetic segments. Referring to mentalistic definitions of the phoneme, Twaddell (1935) stated "Such a definition is invalid because (1) we have no right to guess about the linguistic workings of an inaccessible 'mind', and (2) we can secure no advantage from such guesses. The linguistic processes of the 'mind' as such are quite simply unobservable; and introspection about linguistic processes is notoriously a fire in a wooden stove." This approach was opposed to that of Edward Sapir, who gave an important role to native speakers' intuitions about where a particular sound or group of sounds fitted into a pattern. Using English as an example, Sapir argued that, despite the superficial appearance that this sound belongs to a group of three nasal consonant phonemes (/m/, /n/ and /ŋ/), native speakers feel that the velar nasal is really the sequence [ŋɡ]/. The theory of generative phonology which emerged in the 1960s explicitly rejected the Structuralist approach to phonology and favoured the mentalistic or cognitive view of Sapir.


title: Phoneme

text: Phonemes are considered to be the basis for alphabetic writing systems. In such systems the written symbols (graphemes) represent, in principle, the phonemes of the language being written. This is most obviously the case when the alphabet was invented with a particular language in mind; for example, the Latin alphabet was devised for Classical Latin, and therefore the Latin of that period enjoyed a near one-to-one correspondence between phonemes and graphemes in most cases, though the devisers of the alphabet chose not to represent the phonemic effect of vowel length. However, because changes in the spoken language are often not accompanied by changes in the established orthography (as well as other reasons, including dialect differences, the effects of morphophonology on orthography, and the use of foreign spellings for some loanwords), the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation in a given language may be highly distorted; this is the case with English, for example.