Ethiopia, in the midst of a severe drought, could run out of food by May, triggering another deadly famine. Can these people ever catch a friggin break??? Help them out, if you can.

As part of an experiment to determine if a human being thrown into a lava lake would sink or float (??), a team of super-serious science guys tossed a 66lb. bag full of organic trash from approximately 260 feet up straight into the basaltic lava lake of Ethiopia's Erta Ale shield volcano.

In 2005, a 37-mile-long, 26-foot-wide crack opened up in Afar, Ethiopia, over the course of ten days. Turns out, it's a brand-new ocean. You just have to wait about 10 million years.

An Ethiopian aircraft has plummeted into the sea, mere minutes after its takeoff from Lebanese capital Beirut. The Lebanese army and U.N. Interim Force are searching the coast. Among those aboard was the wife of France's ambassador to Lebanon. The flight was en route to Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. [CNN]

Ethiopia doesn't have the world's most sterling reputation. Many people think of "famine" and "drought" when the country's name is mentioned. But the Ethiopians are lucky, in the sense that Starbucks has forged a connection between the parched and war-torn nation in northern Africa and yuppie coffee swillers across America who just adore the subtle fruity undertones of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe blend. So the country went to a branding firm to come up with a logo to stick on all of its coffee, to make people think of it as more of a luxury item. The logo is pictured. It looks like it should be in lime green on the side of can of a new and exotic type of energy drink. Instead, it's on the oldest energy drink ever. The kind that comes from Ethiopia (and is not qat)! We wish the country well in its yuppie-swindling mission, but we would have gone with a logo that's a little more cutting edge, with both hipster appeal and a strong connection to Ethiopian history. Like this: