this is new news africa coming up in the next fifteen minutes ethiopia is on a progressive part of reform part of the ministers in the country are now women but while these decisive changes are being made at the top how much still needs to trickle down to the places where cultural biases still persist. and since he's twenty fifteen election with tanzania's president has seen his support slight with these policies seemingly fading how dangerous has he become for his opponents. then we'll take you to head out it weighs involve me and spit farewell to the music icon or leave a tuple to. i'm

christine one bill welcome to news africa i'm glad you're today in ethiopia's prime minister has become a symbol of what a new generation of african villages could be at forty two is the continent's youngest leader and he's proving to be a reform since coming to power last april hundreds of political prisoners have been freed and a facility known for torture related activities has been closed now that's opened the path for renewed international interest german president frank my is currently in the country with a delegation of business leaders. reforms have also extended to government way he's made half of his cabinet female and has brought in a woman president a first for ethiopia but in a country where exulting men over women is largely embedded in the culture just how much father does the reform need to go my colleague fine official filed this report from ethiopia. this campus could be anywhere in the rural but this is the here and

something here is strikingly different. in this eclipse you better so i'm lucky to be here at the university because most girls in ethiopia do not have access to university like this no you need. to know not. and if yes well that's because most girls don't even make it to secondary school hard to believe given the fact that ethiopia made headlines when they was named the country's first female president and there are more women in politics in the countryside where most ethiopians live their men are still confined to traditional roles the opportunities for women are limited it's all about voluntary within families influenced by culture and tradition here in the village it's still men who dominate the life of women. i see girls coming home from elementary school and ask them about their

goals to a doctor. so teacher engineer the almost all children go to primary school these days only thirty percent of girls make it beyond eighth grade the notion that girls do not belong in school preserved in the rural villages and if a family can afford to send a child to school boys usually take precedence. for others believe that although women get an education they will not succeed. most girls drop out of school when they are fifteen like their high she wants to become a doctor but her parents don't have the money to support her she says. you know if you think the status quo should change. and men should come into the kitchen more often than. her reality working in this household for three hundred b. out of about ten dollars a month that she sends to her family in

a village nearby she hopes to find someone who will sponsor her education her employer feels more lucky she can afford to high service as a maid over ethiopian coffee she tells us that her husband encouraged her to work as a nurse instead of staying at home and raising their child because he did it justice me personally i have a good life but growing up i have seen many women facing obstacles. i have witnessed women raped in school have seen women get kicked out by their husband because they wanted to go to school. and i have seen men lying about having kids and taking girls home marrying them. back in the capital back to a different world women here are successfully asserting themselves in society and drays in their voices one of them is how we are a young reporter and host of

a show called women in focus. your good afternoon to do so many focus will take a look at you during your one of cirque bring movements in our own ethiopia today's focus is a movement that fight for gender equality how it tells us the problem is not just with men though most times we talk about issues of women we're talking about the issues do suffer from men but women also we put ourselves down we do not not exactly put ourselves down but we do not realize or put into how sometimes we go along with the status quo so the things that we do to change it's that is the mindset we have towards our own selves that's very crucial if the o.p.'s capital is seeing grubby change on the prime minister ahmed but there's still a long way to go before noticeable progress is made on improving the lives of ordinary women. sonic's story features another

leader who inspired hopes of reform when he came into power that would be john forty times and u.s. president who was elected four years ago but it wasn't long before those hopes were dashed this year human rights watch said this that now go fully has restricted basic rights through repressive laws and to create critical journalists opposition politicians and outspoken civil society activists have faced threats are betrayed detention and harassing criminal charges and there are allegations supporters of the president have gone father opposition leader to leave so was shot sixteen times in an assassination attempt and survived this picture was taken shortly after the attack in twenty seventeen. well to lisa joins me now in the studio welcome to you mr lee so you've since had twenty to secure his how are you feeling today i'm feeling very well i'm feeling very well. after all this years

a year and four months in hospital i'm out now and i'm beginning to you know appear in programs like this one yet you say that the attempt on your life was politically motivated who wanted you dead and why. if you want to know who wanted me dead you have to understand what happened before i was shot. in the one year before i was shot i was arrested and prosecuted in the core eight times for what you said this or that offense of free speech that's a colorful criticizing the government for doing what i'm paid to do as an opposition elements as an opposition political leader. president john mcglynn. he's got a lot of support in tanzania we saw the wave of popularity that he rode into power with back in twenty fifteen he's done things he's he's taken on these big

multinational he's taking on corruption from from way you stand we're talking today about an unprecedented crackdown in the country of opposition etc where have things gone wrong things went wrong almost immediately three months into his administration and the president fully banned all political activity largely of the opposition political parties and not only banning political activity but he lounged this must see brute talk crackdown on opposition political leaders. activists members and what as we speak as we speak today. the leader of the largest opposition party in tanzania who is also the leader of the of opposition in parliament is in prison. force addition for these political or political fences the entire leadership of my party national

leadership of my party is is fessing imprisonment the members of parliament less our officials have been brutally treated people have been murdered and we are i call it murder because that is precisely what it is people have been hacked to death with machetes in broad daylight and all this has happened under full his watch in fact with his encouragement because three months after he was was swanee he declared on the thirty ninth anniversary of his party that he want to see not opposition political party by the year twenty twenty so this is what we are reaping so you're saying this is a president who effectively wants to eradicate the opposition in terms of he those are his exact words openly on on february fifth twenty sixteen i don't want

to see any opposition party by the year twenty twenty ok so you're talking about twenty twenty base going to be an election in the country in twenty twenty do you intend to contest against this man president ford absolutely absolutely make a bit of history because if we don't. then there will be it will mean you have one hundred percent control of parliament ill have one hundred percent control of local governments who will have one hundred percent control of the lowest levels of governance in tanzania he is is his control would be absolute and we are not going to allow him to do that i want to ask you this but before we have to wrap this up the speaker of parliament has essentially threatened just to strip you of your seat because you've been absent from the country so long i want your reaction to that but i also want to know when you intend to return back to tanzania number one. i have been out of the country since september seventh

twenty seventeen because i was shot sixteen times by hired as a scene's who followed me from parliament to my office or residence in order to kill me so i'm not in i'm not in tanzania and have not attended a single parliamentary session since then because i have been sikh fest in nairobi kenya for four months and since then or of last year in belgium with recovering from those sixteen bullets as for going home i have said it solomon a times and i will say it here. i am not in exile. i have not run away from tanzania i am being treated when my doctors say i'm ready to go home a medical a feat out be on the next plane to that asylum ok we'll leave it there that is to lisa opposition leader in tanzania joining us here on news africa thank you say

thank you so much christian. the. money. that was involved in saying to buy the musician all is of too cozy this weekend in zimbabwe we say he was the people's voice and it's fitting that he was declared a national hero that saved bundled up the african and is out if you catch all our stories on our website and our facebook page now would leave you with the music from the great man something about playing. on the mountain.

how to cover more than just one reality. where i come from we have a transatlantic way of looking at things that's because my father is from germany my mother is from the united states of america and so i realized fairly early that it makes sense to explain different realities. and now here at the heart of the european union in brussels we have twenty eight different realities and so i think people are really looking for and move journalists they can trust for them to make sense of. them is not often i work a double.