After parliament dominated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Progress Party lifted the state of emergency on 15 February UN Secretary General António Guterres said efforts to end the civil war were making progress (AC Vol 63 No 2 After concessions rival armies fight on)...

Qalbi Dhaga was imprisoned in Ethiopia after his expulsion until Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power and released him (AC Vol 59 No 6 Mogadishu fires broadside at UAE)...

But Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government said it would not push further into Tigray...

Less clear is the state of the putative alliance between the OLA and the Tigray Defence Forces which briefly flowered when both were in the ascendant and marching on Addis Ababa (Dispatches 16/8/21 A nightmare scenario for Premier Abiy Ahmed as regional opponents coordinate against the federal government)...

The differing responses to the federal government's initiative – praise from western governments and international organisations hostility from Amhara politicians and indifference from Tigray – show the contradictory pressures on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and how ephemeral this latest political opening could prove...

PREMIER ABIY JUGGLES FOREIGN INTERESTS The visit of the new United States Envoy to the Horn of Africa David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee to Addis Ababa on 19 January will attempt to build on US President Joe Biden's call with Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on 10 January following the release of some political prisoners in the previous week...

The day before the release of political prisoners was announced on 7 January the US outgoing US envoy Jeffrey Feltman visited Addis Ababa at the request of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed...

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed starts the year having seized the initiative through extensive use of Chinese Turkish and Iranian drones and sees no need to be conciliatory...

But after war broke out between Ethiopia's loyalist army and the rebel Tigray Defence Forces Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has relied on Amhara special forces and militias to shore up his administration...

6% of the Global Partnership for Ethiopia consortium that won a 15-year national telecoms licence with a $850m bid in May – would be a major blow to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (AC Dispatches 14/5/21 Abiy Ahmed's government may rethink its telecoms reforms amid market jitters on security & 15/9/21 Safaricom and Vodafone get EU's green light for mammoth telecoms investment with Addis Ababa)...

The instability in the Horn is worsening as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed takes his country to the edge of the abyss (AC Vol 62 No 15 Khartoum's fractious neighbours)...