The 9th annual international fashion by Hub of Africa Addis Fashion Week (HAFW), which has become one of the main events in the fashion sector not only in Ethiopia but in all of East Africa, took place in Addis Ababa, from October 9 to 12th 2019.
The HAFW includes the Italian Maison Gattinoni Couture participation for the first time. Under the aegis of the Italian Ambassador Arturo Luzzi and the Italian Trade Agency Office in Addis Ababa, the Maison Gattinoni presents: “Fernanda Gattinoni: Fashion and Stars in the times of Hollywood on the River Tiber”, an exhibition curated by Stefano Dominella, President of the Maison Gattinoni Couture and Vice President of the Textile Clothing and Fashion Section of Unindustria. The exhibition highlights the combination of the great couturière Fernanda Gattinoni, founder of the homonymous Maison in 1946, and the Hollywood divas on the River Tiber and the Dolce Vita.
On Tuesday 8 October, the “tableau vivant” of the Gattinoni Haute Couture Spring Summer 2020 collection, designed by Guillermo Mariotto, creative director of the Maison’s Haute Couture, was presented in the Italian Ambassador’s Residence. Over 200 guests were also able to admire the most elegant evening dresses which have always characterized the unmistakable and irreverent Gattinoni style. The evening was attended also by the major local newspapers and television broadcasters.
On the sidelines of the three days dedicated to African fashion, meetings were organized between the main designers and the Vice President of the Textile Clothing and Fashion Section of Unindustria, as well as representatives of Vogue Italia which have been invited to the event.
Africa Fashion Week
The glorious hour of Brexit
By Isidoros Karderinis
Three years ago, with the referendum of June 23, 2016, the British people decided with a percentage of almost 52% and with 71.8% participation the exit of Great Britain from the European Union. This great result was undoubtedly the first major, painful defeat for the under German-controlled European Union of banks and multinationals.
However, the exit of Great Britain from the European Union, which was scheduled to take place on 29 March 2019, given the fact that exactly two years before had been activated the article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which allows members-states to leave the union, ultimately it did not happen because of a failure to reach an agreement with the Brussels establishment. And no agreement was reached because of the arrogant intransigence of the Brussels conclave, which is trying with abundant overweening to humiliate Great Britain and thus use it as a scarecrow to other countries wishing to escape the German prison of the European Union.
According to statements by new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brexit will happen definitively on October 31, 2019, either with an agreement or without an agreement. And this because an irregular Brexit is preferable to a bad deal that will obviously work against Great Britain and the British people. At the same time, this act of exit, which will liberate Great Britain from the shackles of the European Union, shows, on the one hand, full respect for the will of the British people and on the other hand conflicts with those who are trying in various ways to delay or even cancel the proud Brexit.
It is more than certain that with Brexit is not going to be the end of the world for Great Britain as it did not happen when it chose to stay out of the eurozone. And, as eminent experts say, the British economy after a short problematic period will be significantly strengthened from a competitive point of view. So there is no doubt for any perspicacious observer and analyst that in the medium and long term, Great Britain, which will fully regain the ability to pursue national policy in all areas, will prosper out of an undemocratic and highly bureaucratic plan in which Germany has a dominant role.
However, the supporters of the stay of Great Britain in the European Union essentially want the British people’s will to be annulled and the referendum thrown into the trash following the result of which did not cause any immediate economic crisis as they were warning. So they are constantly sowing terror, assuring that the consequences of Brexit without a deal will be nightmarish and chaotic, much worse than even Hitler’s bombs. So they are talking about developments and events that will even endanger the same the unity of the country, huge deficits in food, medicine and fuel that will lead the British to rush like the crazy people to supermarkets, gas stations and pharmacies, “blackout” at ports and airports of the country, destruction of British businesses, decisive blows to the exports and the financial sector, particularly negative impacts on the tourism industry that will transform travel plans millions of people in a hell of delays, cancellations and bureaucracy etc.
But all this logically will not be the case because the responsible government of Boris Johnson for the future of the British economy and the British people, I believe it will take the appropriate measures with prudent and decisive action, drawing up a well-coordinated exit plan that will minimize any negative effects of Brexit. This is also confirmed by the statements made on 1 August 2019 by the Minister of Finance of Great Britain Sajid Javid: “Our economy is fundamentally strong, so today we can make many choices. We can choose to both invest in our schools, our hospitals, our fantastic police, for example, but we can also prepare to exit the EU. And, if that means leaving with no deal, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
At the same time, Brexit will not only have negative impacts on Great Britain, but also on the European Union. Brexit undoubtedly threatens the unity of the union and creates an example of secession that other countries are likely to follow in the future (Domino Effect), while the lack of Great Britain financial contribution (around ten billion annually) will significantly affect the community budget. At the same time the Great Britain’s major trading partners (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Belgium) will be significantly affected, while the European Union as a whole will cease to have the largest share of world GDP and be the largest trading power internationally, giving its position in the US and China.
The blow for the European Union from Brexit, and indeed without an agreement, and given the USA’s solidarity that accompanies it and translates into a major privileged bilateral Great Britain-USA trade agreement, is much more than crucial and can prove fatal for the European Union and the Eurozone, at a time when the latter is experiencing a prolonged economic and political crisis, which has been on the rise lately.
So in the face of heightened power competition between world powers (US, China, Russia, EU) it is more than obvious that the Donald Trump government and the American deep state have decided to curb German influence in the area of the western camp and prevent decisively the enforcement of German wills in European space.
Today’s vision against the rotten, totalitarian and highly neoliberal German European Union, which is the most failed experiment of economic and political union between different nation-states in history, can only be the equal co-operation of free European peoples and sovereign independent democratic countries from one end of Europe to the other.
In closing, I would like to stress emphatically that any short-term negative effects of Brexit can in no way stand an insurmountable obstacle in the face of the will of the British people, who have been trained many centuries with the democratic traditions and with the precepts of freedom and independence, to liberate his country from the iron shackles of the European Union. Those who, moreover, rejoice at the parliamentary hurdles and difficulties that lie ahead of proud Brexit or are calling for a second referendum in order to emerge what they want, that is, actually to blackmail democracy, have to know that the ultimate winner will be the sovereign people and the decision they took three years ago.
Isidoros Karderinis was born in Athens in 1967. He is a novelist, poet and columnist. He has studied economics and has completed postgraduate studies in the tourism economy. His articles have been published in newspapers, magazines and sites worldwide. His poems have been translated into English, French and Spanish and published in poetry anthologies, in literary magazines and literary sections of newspapers. He has published seven poetry books and three novels. His books have been published in USA, Great Britain, Spain and Italy. The writer can be reached at skarderinis@hotmail.gr.
Girma Worku
Name: Girma Worku
Education: BA in mathematics
Company name: Outlook Computer Engineering
Title: Owner
Founded in: 2011
What it does: Computer maintenance and training
HQ: Piassa
Number of employees: 9
Startup apital: 50,000 birr
Current capital: 1.5 million birr
Reasons for starting the business: Financial freedom
Biggest perk of ownership: Economic freedom
Biggest strength: Customer handling
Biggest challenging: House rent
Plan: To excel computer training
First career: College teacher
Most interested in meeting: Betelhem Tilahun
Most admired person: Betelhem Tilahun
Stress reducer: Watching funny videos
Favorite past-time: Chilling with family
Favorite book: You can Win
Favorite destination: Paris
Favorite automobile: Bugatti
“Trumpists” and the issue of globalisation
Three years ago, Donald Trump rode his “anti-globalist, America First” campaign message all the way to the United States presidency. In essence, Trump declared anything and anybody who was not blatantly an American nationalist a “globalist.” A number of political analysts adamantly stressed that the key reason why Donald Trump and his message mavens deployed the term in that manner was to shield the candidate against predictable charges that it was preposterous for a billionaire, and one truly given to the gilded lifestyle, to get to the White House by pretending to save the common folk.
Manfred Steger in his book titled “Rethinking Globalism” stated that at its most basic level, globalism is very simply a philosophy dedicated to bringing people closer together all over the world. It is fundamentally about learning from each other’s successes or failures and promoting cooperation as well as prosperity. Self-styled “anti-globalists” have tended to flatten the definition conveniently into something more specific – in the sense of defining it as whatever it is that they oppose in the world.
On the left, anti-globalism has focused on trade deals and the abuses of hypercapitalism by a wealthy few individuals and multinational corporations. On the right, especially in the United States, anti-globalists run the gamut from Americanists, who would prefer a world led and dominated by the United States, to libertarians or small-government conservatives. They all like to misconstrue globalism as a movement for a “world government.”
Manfred Steger noted that there are also far-right critics who view globalism through the lens of conspiracy theories that purport to identify shadowy cabals pulling the strings of world events. These conspiracy theories, over the centuries, have at various points been anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic, anti-Semitic or all of the above. It is difficult to tell where exactly on the conservative-to-far-right spectrum President Trump himself places his anti-globalism. To be sure, his anti-globalism bears little resemblance to the left’s anti-globalism, not least because his administration is filled with the plutocrats they abhor. He also very much seeks to project the U.S. hegemony they abhor as well. But again, none of these anti-globalist definitions of “globalism” truly capture the spirit of the philosophy at its root.
It is true that international cooperation doesn’t equal world government. The pursuit of international cooperation and the attempt to shape an equitable form of global governance do not equal world government. There are problems to solve that are bigger than any one sovereign state. And as regards global governance, one can have a de facto version of it, traditionally called imperialism, or a more enlightened, better balanced one. That is the one the democratic world is struggling to establish today.
Quinn Slobodian in his book titled “Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism” stated that any constructive vision of globalism, which we have always embraced, simply means finding ways to bridge the cultural and political, even civilizational, divides between governments on areas of common need or concern. To bridge those gaps, this inclusive kind of globalism dispenses with the belief that any one area of the world is by nature superior to the others and that it has all the right answers. It also militates against the Trumpian notion that nothing positive can be gleaned from other cultures or governing styles.
Quinn Slobodian noted that in the 20th century, this kind of globalism saw a shift toward flexible supra-national forms of cooperation and alliances. Extending that arc of cooperation goes well beyond the oft maligned EU. The 21st century is seeing a plentiful rise of city and other sub-national governments as global actors.
John Ralston Saul in his book titled “The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World” stated that in contrasts to the zero-sum worldview of the “Trumpists”, there is no upward or downward transfer of power in globalism. There are simply ever more actors at the table to work with and learn from each other. And there are many more stages to act on. According to him, our globalism is also, contrary to the narrowly defined leftist version of the critique, far from the multinational hyper-capitalism of today and the heinous colonialism of the preceding era.
The constructive, non-elitist form of globalism people seek aims to re-focus economics on people. Wealth should not be concentrated in the hands of a few individuals and corporations or squirrelled away in tax havens and real estate shells. In fact, those “taxing” games which many billionaires and multinational corporations continue to play need to be rooted out if democracy is to have a prayer of surviving.
Likewise, trade deals should not take away the sovereignty of the people or enhance the prosperity of a few at the expense of the many. International trade and economic cooperation should be for the benefit of all, not for exploiting workers in one country and consumers in another country. This also involves a sustainable increase in the standards of living of all of humanity to a basic level of comfort and material security. That, after all, matters far more than GDP rises alone.
In short, the reason why people resist the by now instinctive but over-simplified critiques, assumptions that turn globalism into a piñata or easy scapegoat, is not related to the name of the brand. Rather, it is that they call on everyone to recognize that for all people to have a shot at shaping the future of the world in a constructive direction requires a simple admission. To make a real impact, all of us must first and foremost resist the impulse to go blame-gaming and refrain from making every relationship into a zero-sum game. Understanding “the other” is the core of globalism. It is what we must ardently pursue to secure the peaceful survival of humankind.






