Are their databases on which I can search for articles (news and
scholarly) for a living person (as author and as subject) who writes
in or is written about in Amharic (the main language of Ethiopia).
That is: I am interested in tracking a person who now lives in the
United States-- but who writes in Amharic and is written about in
Amharic.  I wish to get citations to articles in Amharic by or about
him published in the US or Ethiopia.  [I cannot find a working link to
the Addis Ababa University Library-- although it is not clear that
would help me anyway since I seek periodical/serial material and not
books.

There is an interesting article here about the use of search engines
in Amharic:

http://www.ethiopic.com/ethiopic/gizsurch.htm

The same site offers this page. I can not tell whether it would be
useful, since I do not read Amharic:

http://www.ethiopic.com/amharic.htm

The Ethiosearch web portal may be of some assistance. I did a search
here, using the English keyword "Amharic," and found several links,
including an Amharic chatroom.

http://www.ethiosearch.com/ethiosearchale/default.asp