“This New Year is unlike any other New Year,” he said. “This is the new Millennium, Ethiopia is seven and half years behind the western world calendar and we believe something significant is going to happen, it is for I&I to watch and see.” On the day of the New Year, September 11, Ras Phillip said that a gathering will be held at the Botanical Garden in Tabernacle where there will be teachings and information given out about the day.

The gathering is expected to start around 12 p.m. Meanwhile in the centre of Addis Ababa, everything is stamped "2000". From plastic bowls and key rings to packets of crisps and vases of plastic flowers, all are marketed as millennium specials. Everywhere else it is September, 11, 2007. But in Ethiopia, which follows the Coptic calendar, it is a far more auspicious day.

In Ethiopia, government officials hoped that the opportunity to celebrate the dawn of a new millennium for a second time would persuade hundreds of thousands of tourists to descend. Tourism chiefs expect a large amount of visitors, and encouraged those returning from Ethiopia's vast diaspora to stay with family so that the hotels could fit in all the visitors. A massive concert in a brand new venue in Addis Ababa is planned with Black Eyed Pease headlining.