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The president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), confirmed on Tuesday the next AFCON match due to take place at Yaounde's Olembe Stadium will now take place at the Ahmadou Ahidjo Stadium in Cameroon's capital.
Abiy's government and the regional one run by the Tigray People's Liberation Front each consider the other illegitimate.
\t There was no immediate word from the three AU envoys, former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano and former South African President Kgalema Motlanthe. AU spokeswoman Ebba Kalondo did not say whether they can meet with TPLF leaders, something Abiy's office has rejected.
\"``Not possible,'' senior Ethiopian official Redwan Hussein said in a message to the AP. ``\"Above all, TPLF leadership is still at large.'' He called reports that the TPLF had appointed an envoy to discuss an immediate cease-fire with the international community ``masquerading.''
\t Fighting reportedly remained well outside the Tigray capital of Mekele, a densely populated city of a half-million people who have been warned by the Ethiopian government that they will be shown ``no mercy'' if they don't distance themselves from the region's leaders.
\t Tigray has been almost entirely cut off from the outside world since Nov. 4, when Abiy announced a military offensive in response to a TPLF attack on a federal army base.
That makes it difficult to verify claims about the fighting, but humanitarians have said at least hundreds of people have been killed.
\t The fighting threatens to destabilize Ethiopia, which has been described as the linchpin of the strategic Horn of Africa.
\t With transport links cut, food and other supplies are running out in Tigray, home to 6 million people, and the United Nations has asked for immediate and unimpeded access for aid.
AP
National Assembly Speaker Jacob Mudenda has revealed that Parliament is contemplating crafting a law that will regulate DNA testing in the country amid revelations that there is no such law. BY SILAS NKALA Mudenda said this during a stakeholders meeting with Matabeleland-based civic society organisations and journalists in Bulawayo. He was responding to concerns raised by the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) officials that the country had no law regulating DNA testing. “I was at Nust and the university raised questions on the issue of secrecy of the DNA results with major focus on how they are handled or publicised. “They said a law must be there to pave way for such a process. “I agree with the university. We shall have a process of coming up with that law,” Mudenda said. “They did not write a petition, but they presented an oral petition during my visit there.” The Speakers’ remarks come at a time the government is working on a law that will guide the process of exhumations of the remains of Gukurahundi victims in Matabeleland and Midlands. Nust is expected to conduct the genetic studies. President Emmerson Mnangagwa tasked traditional leaders to oversee the exhumations and reburial of Gukurahundi victims. The genetic studies will assist in exhumations of Gukurahundi victims buried at undignified places across the country. The Speaker said Parliament would soon have a 24-hour television station dedicated to parliamentary proceedings.
An additional 89 deaths have been reported in South Africa, bringing the total recorded death toll to 21 378.
They threw her new cellphone on the roof of the station house and placed nails under the wheels of her... View Article
The post Black firefighters in NC allege racism amid larger reckoning appeared first on TheGrio.
It was late on the first Tuesday in November, and Captain Hussen Besheir, an Ethiopian federal soldier, was on duty at a guard post outside the military camp in Dansha.
It was close to midnight when he saw headlights approaching.
Ten armed members of the Tigrayan special forces got out of the vehicle and demanded to see the camp's commander.
\"'We're not here for you',\" Hussen recalled them saying. \"'We want to talk to the leaders.'\"
Hussen refused. An argument ensued and gunfire rang out.
They were the first shots in a conflict that has since engulfed northern Ethiopia's Tigray region, killing many hundreds of people and forcing tens of thousands from their homes.
This week AFP visited the Dansha barracks, home to the Fifth Battalion of the Northern Command of the Ethiopian military, after gaining rare access to Tigray, where a near-complete communications blackout has been in place since the fighting began.
Shell casings littered the camp's grounds, and bullet holes were punched in the walls of buildings and sides of military trucks.
A metal sign at the entrance reading, \"We need to protect the constitution from anti-development forces and lead our country to renaissance,\" was so perforated with gunfire as to be almost illegible.
'Betrayal'
Hussen and others described hours-long rifle and grenade battles against fighters loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), including special forces and militiamen, joined by some federal soldiers of Tigrayan ethnicity who turned against their comrades.
Echoing a statement from Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Hussen said soldiers \"were killed in their pyjamas\", adding, \"What happened here is even worse than that.\"
\"Betrayal alone wouldn't describe the feeling that I have. These are soldiers who have been eating and drinking with us,\" he said of those former federal troops who allegedly turned their guns against them.
The government in Addis Ababa has claimed the attack on Dansha - and a simultaneous assault on another barracks in the regional capital Mekele - as justification for its military offensive in Tigray since November 4.
It points to an interview on Tigrayan media in which a prominent TPLF supporter, said a pre-emptive strike was \"imperative\".
\"Should we be waiting for them to launch attacks first? No,\" said Sekuture Getachew, in the interview, which Abiy's office has called a \"confession\".
Confrontation between Abiy and the TPLF was a long time coming. The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades until anti-government protests swept Abiy to power in 2018.
Since then the TPLF has complained of being sidelined and scapegoated for the country's woes.
The rift widened after Ethiopia postponed national elections because of the coronavirus pandemic. Tigray went ahead with its own vote, then branded Abiy an illegitimate ruler.
Ethnic forces
Tadilo Tamiru, a sergeant in the government-aligned Amhara special forces, was 50 kilometres to the south with his 170-strong unit, in a small town along the bo
Matabeleland secessionist group Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP) has petitioned Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe and Police Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga over harassment of commuter omnibus operators and malicious damage of vehicles by the law enforcement agents in Bulawayo. BY SILAS NKALA MRP president Mqondisi Moyo handed the petition to Bulawayo Metropolitan Affairs minister Judith Ncube and Police Traffic Section at the Drill Hall in Bulawayo. The petition was directed to Kazembe, Matanga, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Transport minister Joel Biggy Matiza, officer-in-charge of Bulawayo province, Minister Ncube, the Joint Operations Command (JOC) and Bulawayo Transport Operators Associations. The secessionist party complained over acts of barbarisms and terrorism by police officers on private taxis and kombi operators. “This is my second letter to you Kazembe and Matanga. “On August 25, I wrote the first letter complaining about the conduct of your police officers at roadblocks,” the petition read. “I advised you to come down to Bulawayo and rein in on the police officers. I would applaud you for coming down on my insistence, to discuss the issues of concern so that you restore sanity on the roads by immediately stopping the harassment of citizens at road blocks.” Moyo said that he wrote this second petition because another wave of madness by irresponsible police officers has emerged. “On several occasions, I have witnessed your police officers smash windows of emergency taxis in the city and in other places in Bulawayo,” the petition read. “Public safety is now greatly compromised by the very conduct of security members. The attack on the kombis results in motorists disregarding road rules leading to pedestrians being run over as drivers try to save their vehicles from destruction by police officers,” Moyo wrote. “Just a week ago, an old lady was knocked down by a kombi as the driver was trying to escape the brutality of your officers. “We understand that their (police) authority is limited to arresting offending drivers, recording vehicle registration numbers, and even advising on the right conduct without necessarily causing all this damage.” Moyo said he wondered where the police were getting fuel to race after transport operators, when they are failing to respond to genuine reports of theft and murder reported to them by the public claiming they do not have resources. Moyo asked why the police and the Zanu PF government were blocking private transport operators from operating. “We strongly call upon your ministry to treat this as a matter of urgency, as we are slowly losing our patience and faith in your compromised police force,“ he wrote. “We are heading towards effecting citizens’ arrest against your dubious officers. “We are aware that in many instances they make life difficult for transport operators so that they make them to pay bribes. I put it to you that there is no law that was gazetted to stop the private kombis to get into town and that there is no proper gazetted law that prohibits the p
From the first death in December 2019 and world-wide quarantine to the development of vaccine, here are 2020's COVID-19 milestones.
