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[The Conversation Africa] Ethiopia is holding parliamentary elections at a time of immense domestic turmoil and foreign pressure. This is due to, in particular, the Tigray conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic and other ethnic-based violence.
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
[Nation] Diplomatic sources on Friday said that the Ethiopian government has summoned, Eshetu Dessie, its ambassador to Ireland, after outraged by the actions of the Irish government in connection with crises in the troubled northern Tigray region.
[Nation] Somalia is largely an oral society where word of mouth spreads like fire.
Police in Ethiopia's Oromiya region have arrested 503 people on accusations they planned to cause violence during an annual thanksgiving festival this weekend and seized guns and hand grenades.
[Addis Standard] Addis Abeba -- Somaliland held its 7th elections, an election to elect national parliament representatives as well as local district councils. While the international and regional observers even from neighbouring Somalia wait on results to determine whether or not these elections were fair and free, close to nothing is known about the self declared republic, its political system and its relation to its neighbors.
[Nation] The Ethiopian government on Monday refuted claims of planned talks with the Tigray People's Liberation Front, mediated by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala.
[New Frame] Mahmood Mamdani argues that colonialism created the nation-state by defining categories of people, including the so-called 'native' and the settler in South Africa and America.
Madagascar lies in the Indian Ocean off the southeast coast of Africa opposite Mozambique. The worlds fourth-largest island, it is twice the size of Arizona. The countrys low-lying coastal area gives way to a central plateau. The once densely wooded interior has largely been cut down.
Multiparty republic.
The Malagasy are of mixed Malayo-Indonesian and African-Arab ancestry. Indonesians are believed to have migrated to the island about 700. King Andrianampoinimerina (1787–1810) ruled the major kingdom on the island, and his son, Radama I (1810–1828), unified much of the island. The French made the island a protectorate in 1885, and then, in 1894–1895, ended the monarchy, exiling Queen Rànavàlona III to Algiers. A colonial administration was set up, to which the Comoro Islands were attached in 1908, and other territories later. In World War II, the British occupied Madagascar, which retained ties to Vichy France.
An autonomous republic within the French Community since 1958, Madagascar became an independent member of the community in 1960. In May 1973, an army coup led by Maj. Gen. Gabriel Ramanantsoa ousted Philibert Tsiranana, president since 1959. Cdr. Didier Ratsiraka, named president on June 15, 1975, announced that he would follow a socialist course and, after nationalizing banks and insurance companies, declared all mineral resources nationalized. Repression and censorship characterized his regime. Ratsiraka was reelected in 1989 in a suspicious election that led to riots as well as the formation of a multiparty system in 1990. In 1991, Ratsiraka agreed to share power with the democratically minded opposition leader, Albert Zafy, who then overwhelmingly won the presidential elections in Feb. 1993. But Zafy was impeached by Parliament for abusing his constitutional powers during an economic crisis and lost the 1996 presidential election to Ratsiraka, who again became president in Feb. 1997.
The Dec. 2001 presidential election between incumbent president Didier Ratsiraka and Marc Ravalomanana, the mayor
South Africa, on the continents southern tip, is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and by the Indian Ocean on the south and east. Its neighbors are Namibia in the northwest, Zimbabwe and Botswana in the north, and Mozambique and Swaziland in the northeast. The kingdom of Lesotho forms an enclave within the southeast part of South Africa, which occupies an area nearly three times that of California.
The southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas, located in the Western Cape Province about 100 mi (161 km) southeast of the Cape of Good Hope.
The San people were the first settlers; the Khoikhoi and Bantu-speaking tribes followed. The Dutch East India Company landed the first European settlers on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, launching a colony that by the end of the 18th century numbered only about 15,000. Known as Boers or Afrikaners, and speaking a Dutch dialect known as Afrikaans, the settlers as early as 1795 tried to establish an independent republic.
After occupying the Cape Colony in that year, Britain took permanent possession in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, bringing in 5,000 settlers. Anglicization of government and the freeing of slaves in 1833 drove about 12,000 Afrikaners to make the “great trek” north and east into African tribal territory, where they established the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold nine years later brought an influx of “outlanders” into the republics and spurred Cape Colony prime minister Cecil Rhodes to plot annexation. Rhodess scheme of sparking an “outlander” rebellion, to which an armed party under Leander Starr Jameson would ride to the rescue, misfired in 1895, forcing Rhodes to resign. What British expansionists called the “inevitable” war with the Boers broke out on Oct. 11, 1899. The defeat of the Boers in 1902 led in 1910 to the Union of South Africa, composed of four provinces, the two former republics, and the old Cape and Natal colonies. Louis Botha, a Boer, became the first prime
[DW] Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said the government will launch more military attacks on the Tigray region. His announcement comes amid international calls for an end to hostilities.
In April 2007, about 35 people were killed and hundreds wounded when suicide bombers attacked a government building in Algiers and a police station on the outskirts of the capital. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist group struck again in December, killing as many as 60 people in two suicide attacks near UN offices and government buildings in the capital of Algeria. The bombings occur within minutes of each other. It was the worst attack in Algeria in more than 10 years.
In June 2008, President Bouteflika replaced Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem with Ahmed Ouyahia, who had served twice as premier.
At least 43 people were killed in August 2008, when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into a police academy in Issers, a town in northern Algeria. The next day, two car bombs exploded simultaneously at a military command and a hotel in Bouira, killing a dozen people. No group takes responsibility for the attacks, but Algerian officials said they suspected Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was behind the bombings.
In November 2008, Parliament approved constitutional changes that allow President Bouteflika to run for a third term. The opposition criticized the move, calling it an assault on democracy. Bouteflika went on to win reelection in April 2009, taking more than 90% of the vote.
The oppositions hope for gaining influence and a voice in government were dashed in parliamentary elections in May 2012. A coalition of moderate Islamist parties were optimistic that they could ride the wave of change and reform that has swept the region since the Arab Spring of 2011. But the coalition won only 48 out of 463 seats, and accused the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN), which took 220 seats, of fraud.
[DW] Hundreds have died in the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region and thousands more have fled. As the TPLF and Ahmed trade jabs, thousands of refugees are in dire need of humanitarian assistance in Sudanese camps.
In 1993 Sister Souljah (born Lisa Williamson), a Bronx-born rapper, earned national notoriety thanks ironically to then Presidential candidate Bill Clinton who denounced her comments about the 1992 Los Angeles Riots as “hate driven and racist.” Sister Souljah responded with her own criticism of the economic and political system that kept millions of blacks and other people of color in what she saw as permanent bondage. She outlines her views in a speech given at Cheyney State University in Pennsylvania in 1994.
I REALIZE THAT most of you have become acquainted with me through a 30- second sound bite, or a 3-second sound bite on the news, and there have been a lot of confusing things that have been said. And so what I am hoping will happen this evening is that we will have an opportunity to dialogue with one another, so that I can hear some of the questions that are on your mind, and I can answer them as responsibly as possible.
Whenever I speak at a University the first thing that I try to clarify is who I am, because I cannot allow the American media to define you to me, or me to you. I am Sister Souljah, and that is spelled S-O-U-L-J-A-H. Soul meaning the essence of all things, and Jah, meaning God. Sister Souljah meaning a spiritual warrior for that which is right and correct for our people.
I was born in the Bronx, in New York City, and have been involved in a lot of the government programs that were produced for African people in this country, whether it was the welfare system, the section 8 housing system, the free lunch, free cheese, free breakfast, forced bussing, all of the programs that came out of the so-called great society which emerged in the late- 60S early 70s.And the reason why I say that is because a lot of brothers and sisters have emerged from families that have been trapped in the welfare system, or in the cycle of poverty, but we have a habit of, when we get to college we try to front like we dont know anything about that stuff. So, when I say that I was a part of the welfare
The National Identification Authority (NIA) has asked the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to report the state agency to the police if the party has any evidence to back its election rigging allegations made against the Authority on Thursday, 14 May 2020.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), at a press conference, raised fears that the decision of the Electoral Commission to compile a new register of voters using passports and the NIA's Ghana card as proof of eligibility may give undue advantage to the governing New Patriotic Party and President Nana Akufo-Addo and also help the incumbent to rig the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2020.
According to the biggest opposition party, over 10 million Ghanaians are unable to retrieve their Ghana cards from the NIA several months after they were registered, a situation which the Chairman of the party, Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, said will make it impossible for them to be captured on the new electoral roll.
At a counter-press conference on Friday, 15 May 2020, the Executive Director of the NIA, Prof Ken Attafuah, said it was a \"disturbing allegation that the NIA, in consent with the Electoral Commission, embarked on an election-rigging agenda in order to benefit the New Patriotic Party, and most disturbingly, to disenfranchise a significant portion of the Ghanaian populace from their rights to exercise their franchise\".
\"I want to assure the good people of this country that the NIA is not involved in any such criminal design or enterprise with the EC, with the government of Ghana or any with any person or entity whatsoever described.
June 10: Speaker Keria replaced
\tEthiopia’s upper parliamentary chamber, the House of Federation (HoF), on Wednesday elected a new speaker following the resignation of Keria Ibrahim.
June 8: Speaker of Ethiopia’s upper parliament quits over postponed polls
\tKeria Ibrahim, speaker of Ethiopia’s upper parliamentary chamber, the House of federation, has quit her position citing a looming constitutional blank with postponed elections.
Privately-owned Addis Standard said Keria’s resignation was on the outcome of a Council of Constitutional Inquiry on deferred elections.
The former speaker belongs to the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, TPLF, a former coalition partner of the now defunct Ethiopia Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front, EPRDF; which brought Abiy to power in 2018.
TPLF is currently the ruling party in the northern Tigray region but technically in opposition with the federal government.
Dear Editor,
The small loggers of Region 10 would like to congratulate the Government of Guyana and particularly the Minister of Natural Resources, Mr.
The article Region 10 small loggers happy with budget appeared first on Stabroek News.
Former President David Granger yesterday accused the current government of persecuting public servants and described as inhumane the decision by the Guyana Police Force (GPF) to keep embattled Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo in custody for 144 hours.
The article Granger slams police treatment of Mingo appeared first on Stabroek News.
[East African] The Tigray conflict could have been prevented if the continent acted on early signs, according to a report by the African Union released to mark the end of the four-year term of commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat and his eight departmental commissioners.
Just one day after putting out a dire emergency warning, Ethiopia's federal government has agreed to allow the United Nations "unimpeded" humanitarian access to parts of the northern Tigray region, according to a UN spokesperson.
