Is Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Tearing the Country Apart?

Plus: Britain’s economic mess; recovering from a happy childhood; and fighting gun violence with fists. View in browser | Update your preferences Tuesday, September 27, 2022 In today’s newsletter, Ethiopia’s brutal war, and then: • Britain’s economic mess • Rivka Galchen on recovering from a happy childhood • Fighting gun violence with fists Is Ethiopia’s Heralded Prime Minister Tearing the Country Apart? After Abiy Ahmed ended a decades-long border conflict, he was celebrated as a unifier and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Now critics accuse him of escalating new, brutal conflicts. Photograph by Alex Welsh The veteran international correspondent Jon Lee Anderson travelled to Ethiopia to untangle several mysteries surrounding Abiy Ahmed, the country’s forty-six-year-old Prime Minister. Are his bold claims of economic reform and development backed by tangible and sustainable results—or are they mere expressions of personal vanity and hype? And, more importantly, exactly what role have Abiy’s government and its allies played in a brutal military campaign in the northern Tigray region which has “involved gruesome ethnic killing, gang rapes, and mass executions”? Through extensive reporting, including several interviews with Abiy himself, Anderson searches for answers. —Ian Crouch, newsletter editor Read the story Don’t wait! Buy tickets today for The New Yorker Festival and enjoy conversations with the recent Emmy winners Quinta Brunson and Jerrod Carmichael, plus Billy Eichner, Ben Stiller, Kumail Nanjiani, and more. See the lineup and buy tickets » From the News Desk Our Columnists A Fine Economic Mess in the United Kingdom With the pound hitting record lows, financial analysts are questioning the competence of Britain’s new government. By John Cassidy Comment When Migrants Become Political Pawns Governor DeSantis appeared to be attempting to troll people whose magnanimity, he seemed to believe, is inversely proportional to the extent to which a given problem has an impact on their own lives. By Jelani Cobb Editor’s Pick Personal History How to Recover from a Happy Childhood Like many children, I didn’t really understand what my parents were like. But I collected clues. By Rivka Galchen Culture Dept. Notes on Hollywood Revisiting Sacheen Littlefeather’s Shocking Appearance at the 1973 Oscars The Academy formally apologized for how Littlefeather was treated after she declined the Best Actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando. By Michael Schulman Photo Booth Fighting Gun Violence, with Fists Bared Brian Finke’s new book centers on an unconventional anti-gun group based in a Virginia back yard. By Brian Dillon Second Read What a Screen Can’t Capture About Fashion A 1956 book is a refreshing reminder that there’s more to clothes than how they look. By Molly Fischer On the Runway Renzo Rosso’s La-Dolce-Vita-on-Viagra Aesthetic When the Italian billionaire who owns Diesel and other big labels brought Marni to New York Fashion Week, Madonna and Kylie Jenner R.S.V.P.’d yes. By Naomi Fry From the Archive The Talk of the Town The Man Behind the Soups Before being immortalized on “Seinfeld,” Al Yeganeh was just a prickly, exacting local chef. “My philosophy is: The customer is always wrong and I’m always right. I raised my prices to try to get rid of some of these people, but it didn’t work.” By Alex Prud'Homme Fun & Games Dept. Name Drop Play Today’s Quiz Can you guess the notable person in six clues or fewer? By Will Nediger Daily Shouts How David Blaine Performs Everyday Tasks Using the Bathroom: David stands upright in a stall for seven days. He consumes only water, and is not allowed to use the toilet. By Eli Grober Crossword A Moderately Challenging Puzzle Group in the name of a New Testament epistle: nine letters. By Wyna Liu Daily Cartoon Tuesday, September 27th By Jason Adam Katzenstein P.S. On Monday, a NASA spacecraft slammed into an asteroid seven million miles from Earth, the successful outcome of what the agency touted as a test of our planetary defenses. So maybe we’ll avoid the fate that likely befell the dinosaurs, about sixty-six million years ago, when an asteroid at least six miles wide hit the planet. Good thing, too. As Douglas Preston recounts, that impact released energy equivalent to more than “a billion Hiroshima bombs,” sending “a gigantic jet of molten material” into the atmosphere that “set fire to everything within a thousand miles.” Things got worse from there. Today’s newsletter was written by Ian Crouch. Thanks for reading. Let us know your thoughts about today’s edition. Plus, browse more newsletters and invite a friend to sign up for The Daily. You’re receiving this e-mail because you signed up for The Daily from The New Yorker. Manage your preferences | View our Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2022. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.