You might probably know him as a “truthful journalist,” who always reveals the ill doing of EPRDF. Elias Kifle is a blogger who runs one of the biggest opposition websites, ethiopianreview.com. According to a trusted web indexing source, alexa, Ethiopian review is ranked #24,346, which is probably in the top 5 list of all Ethiopian websites. This website has more than 250,000 page views a day with minimum of 30,000 unique users a day. If you do not have knowledge on web stats and making $, let me break it down to you.
Ethiopian Review uses Google advertisement network, which is undoubtedly one of the highest paying networks on the web. Google’s rate per thousand page views range from 20 cents to $2. On average, they pay around $1 per thousand page views for a single ad block placed on a web site above the mid point of the website. This is outside the pay per click Google pays, which is a minimum of 10 cents per a single click. For a big website such as ethiopianreview.com, it can be estimated that they receive around 500 clicks per day from the ad boxes placed on the website. Going through the website, an average of 2 ad blocks are placed above the mid point which easily earn ethiopianreview.com more than $500 from the page views only. Adding the clicks and the ad block revenue below the mid point, one can be confident to say that Ethiopian Review makes more than $600 a day. The numbers you see above are very modest to avoid skeptics. At a shiny day, this number might jump to $800 a day. With an earning of more than $18,000 per month, you can ask only one question; what does Elias Kifle do to maximize his earning every single day?
The answer is simple; traffic is equal to money and traffic comes when you make people interested to come to your website. Reviewing most of the posts added at Ethiopianreview.com, it is evident that they are placed just to stir controversy and maintain the flow of traffic to the website. He has a right to agree or disagree with the politics, but the extreme disagreement on every single issue reveals nothing but his technique to attract a certain demographic group who do not like the Ethiopian government under any circumstances. Why don’t they like the government? I leave the answer to you…

By: Haq

ADDIS ABABA Ethiopia – A theme of this year’s African Union summit here was the shedding of some of Africa’s old stereotypes, such as hidebound corruption and government thievery.
As the African empowerment federation celebrated its 50th anniversary, speaker after speaker praised the rise of new ideals and better business practices. Some welcomed gains toward more transparent, more accountable governments on the continent that is still the world’s poorest.
So what did an ordinary room in the scruffy Hilton hotel run during the weeklong conference? Just under $1,050 a night, plus a 10 percent special “service charge” and a 15 percent government tax. The regular rate is about $250, a slightly embarrassed clerk said.
That didn’t include Internet service, an extra $20, but did include shabby 1970s décor, a crumbling balcony with two bent, rusted aluminum arms chairs and a sign in the bathroom helpfully instructing patrons to put the curtain inside the tub before showering.

Americans journalists traveling with Secretary of State John F. Kerry were charged roughly twice what others checking out of the Hilton on Sunday were paying.
Kerry, who stayed at the plusher Sheraton nearby, spent two days at the AU summit. The entire traveling party was instructed to avoid all produce and fruit and take other precautions against intestinal difficulties best left vague.
It was Kerry’s first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as secretary and was planned as a way to see several African leaders at once while also affording meetings with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Kerry also was supposed to address the gathering early Saturday evening– the closing speaker on a roster of heads of state and diplomats who regularly overran their allotted three minutes. Running more than two hours late, and after a brief power outage, Kerry’s public speech was canceled.
Kerry spoke at a separate, closed-door dinner instead. The State Department tried to get reporters a copy of Kerry’s remarks, but spotty e-mail and text-messaging service in the Ethiopian capital made the effort almost moot.
“The future is being defined by countries like Ethiopia, the future of Africa, which we are celebrating in this 50th anniversary meeting, Kerry said earlier Saturday, as he stood with the country’s foreign minister. “There’s been an enormous transition in the last 50 years. There are many more democracies and many more transitions to democracy, and many more peaceful places than there are violent ones and dictators,” Kerry said.
The apparent price-gouging, massive traffic snarls and poor communications surrounding the AU meeting are not necessarily a mark of corruption, although businesses regularly complain of the hidden or upfront costs associated with doing business in the Horn of Africa.
Ethiopia’s director general of customs and 11 other people were arrested earlier this month on corruption charges. Reuters reported that it was Ethiopia’s largest move against graft for more than a decade.
Transparency International ranked Ethiopia 113 out of 176 nations worldwide in its 2012 perception of corruption index. No. 1 is considered the least corrupt.
Source: Washingtonpost.com