{{Ethiopians are currently tense as there is no clear information about the whereabouts of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. <\/p>\n
This follows days of rumors and unconfirmed reports that Zenawi was gravely ill, or even deceased. }} <\/p>\n
Rumors and unconfirmed reports began last week and gained momentum when Zenawi did not attend a meeting of the African Union in Addis Ababa as expected.<\/p>\n
However, on Monday, Ethiopia\u2019s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Hailemariam Desalegne, confirmed that Meles was indeed ill, but refused to elaborate or say what the illness might be. The speculation increased again.<\/p>\n
The Ethiopian government had promised to clarify the situation at a news conference on July 18.<\/p>\n
It was also reported that Meles Zenawi who was allegedly being treated at Saint-Luc University Hospital in Belgium having failed to appear at the AU summit his country was hosting over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Apart from speculations, no credible source has so far said what his actual ailments are. Some sources claim he is suffering from a blood cancer possibly Lymphoma or Leukemia and others say his actual illness is a malignant form of brain tumor.<\/p>\n
Zenawi\u2019s hand-picked deputy, Desalagne said \u201cThere is no serious illness at all.\u201d He said Meles would \u201creturn soon,\u201d but did not talk about the nature of the illness or where the nation\u2019s leader was receiving treatment.<\/p>\n
He (Zenawi) had been scheduled to open a New Partnership for Africa\u2019s Development in Addis on Saturday, Senegal, Macky Sall, took his place and announced that Meles could not attend due \u201cto health conditions.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meles also failed to appear on Sunday at the opening of an African Union summit of more than three dozen African leaders at the Addis Ababa headquarters, where the prime minister usually plays host. <\/p>\n
Critics of Zenawi within Ethiopia claimed that government bureaucrats were scrambling to collect medical documents that include invoices of the Prime Minister\u2019s foreign medical expenses from the various bureaus and ministries in an apparent effort to dampen the speculation.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of July, Zenawi rescheduled important parliamentary sitting to debate and vote on next years budge. <\/p>\n
He is constitutionally required to present a report on the state of the republic which should have happened before July 7. <\/p>\n
A prescheduled award ceremony at the Science and Technology Ministry where he was slated to be the guest of honor was postponed indefinitely.<\/p>\n
Zenawi was expected to attend the one year anniversary of the independence of the South Sudan Republic where his Kenyan and Ugandan counterparts attended.
\nThe Ethiopian delegation was led by the Deputy PM Hailemariam Desalegn.<\/p>\n
During his current term Zenawi has launched major development programs in Ethiopia such as foreign investment in large commercial farmlands and the construction near the Sudanese border of the massive Grand Millennium Dam on the Abay River, which is a major source of Nile waters. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Ethiopians are currently tense as there is no clear information about the whereabouts of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. This follows days of rumors and unconfirmed reports that Zenawi was gravely ill, or even deceased. }} Rumors and unconfirmed reports began last week and gained momentum when Zenawi did not attend a meeting of the African […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2742"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}