{"id":259390,"date":"2019-01-02T09:15:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.google.com\/articles\/CBMiZmh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWZyaWNhbmV3cy5jb20vMjAxOS8wMS8wMi9ldGhpb3BpYS1wbS1maXJlcy1mZW1hbGUtcHJlc3MtYWlkZXMtYXBwb2ludHMtbWFsZS1zcG9rZXNwZXJzb25zL9IBAA?oc=5"},"modified":"2019-02-08T11:00:49","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T16:00:49","slug":"ethiopias-prime-minister-replaces-female-spokespersons-with-male-press-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/259390","title":{"rendered":"Billene, Helen to remain aides of Prime Minister Abiy, Nigussu to head press team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed did not dismiss Billene Seyoum and Helen Yosef from their positions as spokespersons, an inside source has told Addis Standard.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier reports said Abiy allegedly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.africanews.com\/2019\/01\/02\/ethiopia-pm-fires-female-press-aides-appoints-male-spokespersons\/\">fired Billene and Helen<\/a> and they were being replaced by Nigussu Tilahun and Kassahun Gofe. However, the insider claims that the\u00a0Ethiopian Premier&#8217;s former aides were never fired.\u00a0 While Nigussu will now head the Press Secretariat Department of the Prime Minister, Kassahun will not be joining the team.<\/p>\n<p>Nigussu will reportedly oversee the Amharic section of Prime Minister&#8217;s press team while Billene will lead the English and online news section.<\/p>\n<p>Abiy&#8217;s appointment of female press aides in November was welcomed as a bold and progressive move. The office of the Ethiopian premier is yet to release an official statement on the recent developments. Bilene&#8217;s appointment had been questioned because of her Canadian nationality.<\/p>\n<p>Abiy, who came into office in April, has made headlines for his peace initiatives and his appointment of women to high-ranking positions. [&#8230;] <a href=\"https:\/\/addisstandard.com\/breaking-billene-helen-remain-at-pms-press-secretariat-kassahun-gofe-not-joining\/\">CONTINUE READING<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ethiopia PM fires female press aides, appoints male spokespersons&nbsp;&nbsp;africanewsBillene Seyoum, who was appointed in November, alongside her female deputy, Helen Yosef, have now been replaced by two men; Nigusu Tilahun and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/photo_2018-11-05_17-46-47-1.jpg?fit=1280%2C848&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-15tI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259390"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259479,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259390\/revisions\/259479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}