Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

With Italy's new government in February came a new department, the Ministry for Ecological Transition.

It's got a huge 70 billion euro chunk of pandemic recovery funds to build a greener future for the country.

We examine its plans and its challenges.

And Australia is seeing a rare conservation success.

Humbac whales won't rot to the brink by wailing operations are resurging.

The government thinks it's time to take them off the list of threatened creatures, but conservationists think otherwise.

But first...

Ethiopia is holding a national election today.

Its first since Prime Minister Abiyachmet took office in 2018.

In his final campaign rally last week, Abiy promised the vote would be peaceful.

He said that although the world expected violence, Ethiopia would show them otherwise.

But expectations of violence aren't unreasonable.

For seven months, the Northern Tigray region has been at war as armed groups loyal to the region's former ruling party face off against federal troops and their allies from neighbouring Eritrea.

Homes have been destroyed, harvests ruined, and food aid prevented from entering.

Tigray's population faces imminent starvation.

It had long been hoped that today's election would calm divisions in the country's politics.

But to many observers, it's instead become a further sign that Abiy's promise of free and fair democracy in Ethiopia has been broken.

It's hard to overstate the gravity of what's happening in Tigray now.

I think it's probably not an exaggeration to say it's the most pressing humanitarian crisis ongoing in the world right now.

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