![Last year, Ethiopia jumped 40 places up the World Press Freedom Index [James Jeffrey/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/b97ac64e62c743a99ed02abd79a4c929_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Reforms have opened up highly censored media landscape, but gov’t is accused of rolling back some of those freedoms.
![A man and young boy reciting prayers outside the walls of Bet Maryam, one of the larger churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Tradition has it that this was the first church excavated at Lalibela, and today it serves as a particularly poplar shrine with local pilgrims. 'These churches are a place to connect with heaven,' says Kidanemariam Woldegeorgis, an Ethiopian archeologist working with the Lalibela Mission. 'It's their Jerusalem. At Christmas people come from all over Ethiopia to worship here.' [James Jeffrey/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/8f0a2d07b57d4a8fa0757bde7a5933a1_8.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
The much-vaunted rock-hewn churches of Lalibela have lately become the surprising source of protests and local tensions.
![Members of Fort Worth's Como High School band pose for Calvin Littlejohn’s camera in 1958. Littlejohn moved to Fort Worth in 1934 during the Jim Crow era, when mainstream newspapers wouldn't publish pictures of black citizens and white photographers wouldn't take pictures in black schools. Unperturbed, Littlejohn dedicated his career to capturing images of his adopted home and its black community. [Calvin Littlejohn; Calvin Littlejohn Photographic Archive, Briscoe Center for American History]](/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/611ccb4d68c649cbae70f9d5fff4f404_8.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Two photographers captured a different side of the African-American experience during the Civil Rights struggle.
![When KANA launched in 2016, it seized a 40 to 50 percent prime time market share of Ethiopia's estimated 4 million television households [James Jeffrey/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/251aee02b5614dc5bfd99050888d22a4_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
All eyes are glued on KANA TV’s high-stake dramas, which could be sign of more press freedom in a restricted landscape.
![Fifteen Eritrean teenagers and young men, aged from 16 to 20, wait at the Badme entry point to be moved to the screening and registration centre in the town of Endabaguna, 60km west of Aksum, a popular tourist destination. [James Jeffrey/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/c44b2544c1c94406967da50770a27fe4_8.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Relations may be tense between the neighbouring countries but some Eritreans are crossing the disputed border.
![In the centre of Hargeisa, a Somali Air Force MiG jet fighter, which crashed during an aerial bombardment of the Somaliland capital during the civil war at the end of the 1980s, has become an incongruous memorial. [James Jeffrey/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/84c9a0705d58430c9a4cf52ac822ffec_8.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Somalilanders refuse to let the lack of recognition for their state stop them from celebrating its 25th anniversary.
![Families begin their journey home from the Estayesh food distribution site in Denkena Kebele, Meket Woreda, Ethiopia [AP]](/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/49e5e3c377584091bda750d33caaab62_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
This time around Ethiopia is competing with war-torn Syria and Yemen for international funds.
![Ethiopia's Simien Mountains National Park is one of nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the country [Ethiopian Tourism Organization]](/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/68604bc5fb584f468607fc8b216f7f93_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Can Ethiopia boost economic growth and eradicate poverty without ruining the very treasure it wants to promote?
![Taxi driver Grivin Phiri, right, and his son Rabson, 19, in their family home in the township of Tenderer East [James Jeffrey/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/88ea48d22c784bd6a3e8944390aec70c_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Hydroelectric-dependent population hit hard by irregular rain, but some question if precipitation only is to blame.
![An assistant at a khat stall in Hargeisa displays bunches of the narcotic plant [James Jeffrey/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/3791a0a5c2ca456ea36b54f7ab6a7373_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Narcotic plant is a huge tax-revenue earner that bolsters the region’s economy, but also disrupts family life.