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By CARA ANNA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia's government says its security forces shot at and detained United Nations staffers as they tried to reach part of the embattled Tigray region. Senior official Redwan Hussein told reporters that the U.N. staffers were to blame because they 'broke' two checkpoints to go to areas where 'they were not supposed to go.' He said the staffers have since been released. The shooting occurred amid soaring frustration among humanitarians as aid is still not freely reaching the Tigray region more than a week after the U.N. and Ethiopia's government signed a […]
The post Ethiopia's forces shoot at, detain UN staffers in Tigray appeared first on Black News Channel.
Announcement of the death of former President Rawlings pic.twitter.com/7ext0fp4sd
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) November 12, 2020
Watch our report:
At least 20 Million Could Lose Coverage Stacy M. Brown | NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent The Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as “Obamacare,” is on the line, and so is health insurance for millions of Americans as the U.S. Supreme Court will review the law on Tuesday, November 10. With a 6-3 conservative […]
The post Supreme Court Scheduled to Hear Arguments That Will Determine the Fate of the Affordable Care Act appeared first on Voice and Viewpoint.
Ethiopia on Friday appointed a new head of Tigray region, one week after parliament voted to remove the executive Addis Ababa deems rebellious.
Mulu Nega's appointment was announced by PM Abiy Ahmed via Twitter.
On the basis of the decision of the House of Federation and the Council of Ministers Regulation "Concerning the Provisional Administration of the Tigray National Regional State", Dr. Mulu Nega has been appointed as the Chief Executive of the Tigray Regional State. 1/2
— Abiy Ahmed Ali 🇪🇹 (@AbiyAhmedAli) November 13, 2020
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.
Prime ministers of Sudan and Ethiopia have agreed to resume negotiations on the filling and use of the Grand Renaissance Dam [GERD], signalling a partial end to tensions over the Nile waters.
Prime Minister Hamdok assured Sudan's readiness to continuously communicate with the two countries to reach an agreement that would guarantee full agreement between the three parties.
Ethiopian Prime Minister affirmed his country's readiness to cooperate with Egypt and Sudan to reach a final agreement for the interests of the three countries and supports cooperation between the peoples of the region.
Recent negotiations facilitated by the US government and the World Bank saw Ethiopia and Sudan reject a draft agreement fronted by Washington in February.
The Ethiopian Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy Seleshi Bekele said on Wednesday that the construction of the Renaissance Dam in his country has reached 73 per cent, indicating that the initial mobilisation of the dam reservoir will begin in July.
As talks over the Nile waters resumed on June 10, Egypt continued to defend its objections to Ethiopia's plan to start filling the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in July.
In an interview with The EastAfrican, Egyptian ambassador to Kenya, Khaled ElAbyad, said the impact of the water shortages in Egypt caused by the dam project could be catastrophic.
Ethiopia went ahead to announce that it was planning to store 4.9 billion cubic metres of Nile waters in the reservoir of the dam in July, while Cairo insists on adhering to the Washington talks on filling and operating rules for the mega project, as well as to the declaration of principles signed between the three countries in 2015.
The agreement reached in Washington guarantees that Ethiopia will fill the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and generate at least 75 to 80 per cent of hydropower.
These rules also include mitigation measures that ensure the sustainable generation of hydropower from the mega project while assisting downstream countries to minimise the impact of droughts.
The Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity Against Covid-19 is a joint initiative between the People's Republic of China, the Republic of South Africa in its capacity as the Chair of the African Union (AU), and the Republic of Senegal in its capacity as the Co-Chair of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).
We recognize the importance of public health issues to global peace and security and the well-being of people around the world, particularly the fact that Africa is extremely vulnerable to the ravages of this virus and needs solidarity and support, including resources from various parties to bolster its response to the pandemic and to support its economic and social development.
We welcome the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution on Covid-19 response, which expresses deep concerns about the negative impacts and consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, emphasizes the importance of global collaboration, and calls for intensified international cooperation, unity, solidarity and joint efforts to contain and mitigate the pandemic, and to pay particular attention to the needs of people in vulnerable situations.
China commends the solidarity and support extended by African countries, the AU and other regional organizations for China's Covid-19 response and appreciates the establishment of the AU Covid-19 Strategy and the appointment of Special Envoys to mobilize international support for Africa's efforts to address the economic challenges faced as a consequence of the pandemic, and further commends the resilience African countries have demonstrated and the positive results thus achieved in curbing the spread of the virus by adopting preventive measures.
We fully recognize the positive role of China-Africa investment and financing cooperation in promoting development and improving people's lives in Africa, and call on the international community to work in solidarity and collaboration, share best practices, and provide more material, technical, financial and humanitarian support to help African countries overcome the impact of Covid-19 and achieve independent and sustainable development.
[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.
By MICHELLE R. SMITH and SEAN MURPHY Associated Press School systems in Detroit, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and suburban Minneapolis are giving up on in-person classes, and some governors are reimposing restrictions on bars and restaurants or getting more serious about masks, as the coast-to-coast resurgence of the coronavirus sends deaths, hospitalizations and new infections soaring. The crisis deepened at hospitals, with the situation so bad in North Dakota that the governor this week said nurses who test positive but have no symptoms can still work. Idaho clinics struggled to handle the deluge of phone calls from patients. The virus is blamed […]
The post Virus surge: Schools abandon classes, states retreat appeared first on Black News Channel.
May 29: Amnesty accuses Ethiopia of extrajudicial killings
\tEthiopian security forces in the Oromia region have executed 39 opposition supporters and arrested thousands of others accused of being members of an armed group, Amnesty International said on Friday.
The rights group said in a report that victims were accused of being supporters of the Oromo Liberation Army, the breakaway armed wing of the Oromo Liberation Front, which the government had previously declared a terrorist movement but which has been unbanned by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
“Security forces have continued to violate human rights despite reforms introduced by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and this is due to widespread impunity and lack of accountability for those violations,” Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher Fisseha Tekle said.
“The report is further proof that the new administration has not parted ways with the practice of forcefully stifling dissent, committing egregious human rights violations and carrying out extrajudicial killings,” the Oromo Liberation Front and the Oromo Federalist Congress, an opposition party, said in a joint statement, calling on the government to investigate the findings.
Based on interviews with 80 victims or direct witnesses of violence, Amnesty’s report said the Ethiopian army and regional security forces in Amhara and Oromiya were involved in inter- ethnic killings, mass arbitrary detentions and rape.
The year two thousand and twenty has been an ongoing saga of life-altering events. Many of the adorned, traditional celebrations, trips, and gatherings were canceled, rescheduled, or modified for the safety of humankind. As the holiday season approaches, COVID-19 restrictions have once again forced us to make drastic changes to holiday family gatherings, but there … Continued
The post The Upside of Downsizing Your Holiday Season appeared first on Chicago Defender.
narvikk/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, EMILY SHAPIRO and IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News (NEW YORK) - A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1.2 million people worldwide. Over 51.5…
BY PATRICIA SIBANDA EPIDEMIOLOGY and disease control director in the Health and Child Care ministry, Portia Manangazira, has emphasised on the need for the unification of traditional and conventional medicines in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing a workshop in Bulawayo on Wednesday, Manangazira said there was need to ensure the maximum use of locally available medicines and herbs in the supportive care and management of COVID-19 patients. She said her ministry had harnessed traditional medical practitioners, conventional medical practitioners and their communities together so that dual intervention is done to mitigate COVID-19. “So we must start, we should have continued and furthered that, and today, we would be having even a large manufacturing plant which we say, it's our marula tree or some other nutritious shrub,” she said. “Sometimes we end up having healthy animals and malnourished people and we haven’t really explored that. All I am saying is, we are living and failing to utilise our locally available medicines.” She said it was worrisome that the ministry had not taken traditional medicine on board. “We do have a lot of herbs and they form raw materials for the pharmaceuticals. If I heard correctly, the International Traditional Healers Association leader said uMsuzwane has got some anti-ceptive properties, a bit disappointing is that we have not taken our traditional medicine a step further so that we describe and display the content and the ingredients in the market places.” Manangazira said the late former Health minister Herbert Ushewokunze attempted to introduce the system, but died before his ideas were adopted. “I think we are also in the right place because at some time, we had a former Minister of Health, the late Herbert Ushewokunze. He operated the Marondera Clinic here in Bulawayo and that clinic was unique. It would treat you for modern medicine if you so wished or for traditional medicine and he had labels on his containers, but he died and that practice also died with him,” she said.
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.
[Ethiopian Herald] For Ethiopians, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has a special meaning that goes beyond the purpose of ensuring development and improving living standards. The Dam has an intrinsic value in that it is yet another event in the country's history and assures Ethiopia's continuous existence as a unified state. In relation to this, its significance has also to do with the country's sovereignty.
