California Funeral Homes Run Out of Space as COVID-19 Rages

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As communities across the country feel the pain of a surge in coronavirus cases, funeral homes in the hot spot of Southern California say they must turn away grieving families as they run out of space for the bodies piling up.

The head of the state funeral directors association says mortuaries are being inundated as the United States nears a grim tally of 350,000 COVID-19 deaths. More than 20 million people in the country have been infected, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

“I’ve been in the funeral industry for 40 years and never in my life did I think that this could happen, that I’d have to tell a family, ‘No, we can’t take your family member,’” said Magda Maldonado, owner of Continental Funeral Home in Los Angeles.

Continental is averaging about 30 body removals a day — six times its normal rate. Mortuary owners are calling one another to see whether anyone can handle overflow, and the answer is always the same: They’re full, too.

In order to keep up with the flood of bodies, Maldonado has rented extra 50-foot (15-meter) refrigerators for two of the four facilities she runs in LA and surrounding counties. Continental has also been delaying pickups at hospitals for a day or two while they deal with residential clients.

Bob Achermann, executive director of the California Funeral Directors Association, said that the whole process of burying and cremating bodies has slowed down, including embalming bodies and obtaining death certificates. During normal times, cremation might happen within a day or two; now it takes at least a week or longer.

Achermann said that in the southern part of the state, “every funeral home I talk to says, ‘We’re paddling as fast as we can.’”

“The volume is just incredible and they fear that they won’t be able to keep up,” he said. “And the worst of the surge could still be ahead of us.”

Los Angeles County, the epicenter of the crisis in California, has surpassed 10,000 COVID-19 deaths alone. Hospitals in the area are overwhelmed, and are struggling to keep up with basics such as oxygen as they treat an unprecedented number of patients with respiratory issues. On Saturday, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers crews arrived to update some hospital’s oxygen delivery systems.

Nationally, an average of just over 2,500 people have died of COVID-19 over the past seven days, according to Johns Hopkins data. The number of daily newly reported cases in that period has averaged close to 195,000, a decline from two weeks earlier.

It’s feared that holiday gatherings could fuel yet another rise in cases.

Arkansas officials reported a record of more than 4,300 new COVID-19 cases Friday. Gov. Asa Hutchinson tweeted that the state is “certainly in the surge after Christmas travel and gatherings” and added, “As we enter this new year, our first resolution should be to follow guidelines.”

North Carolina officials also reported a record 9,527 confirmed cases New Year’s Day. That’s more than 1,000 cases above the previous daily high.

In Louisiana, a funeral was being held Saturday for a congressman-elect who died of COVID-19 complications. Republican Luke Letlow died Tuesday at age 41. His swearing-in had been scheduled Sunday. He leaves behind his wife, Julia Letlow, and two children, ages 1 and 3.

In Texas, state officials say they have only 580 intensive care beds available as staff treat more than 12,480 hospitalized coronavirus patients, a number that has risen steadily since September and has set record highs this past week.

In Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo Nation remained in the midst of a weekend lockdown to try to slow the rate of infection. The tribe late Friday reported another seven deaths, bringing its totals since the pandemic began to 23,429 cases and 813 deaths. The reservation includes parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The number of infections is thought to be far higher than reported because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected with the virus without feeling sick.

Arizona on Saturday reported 18,943 new cases Friday and Saturday, a record for the state in any two-day period. It also reported 46 new deaths Saturday.

Fauci: Vaccinations Are Ramping Up in a `Glimmer of Hope’

By GARY D. ROBERTSON

FILE - In this July 21, 2020, file photo, Darryl Hutchinson, facing camera, is hugged by a relative during a funeral service for Lydia Nunez, who was Hutchinson's cousin at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Nunez died from COVID-19. Southern California funeral homes are turning away bereaved families because they're running out of space for the bodies piling up during an unrelenting coronavirus surge. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

The U.S. ramped up COVID-19 vaccinations in the past few days after a slower-than-expected start, bringing the number of shots dispensed to about 4 million, government health officials said Sunday.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, also said on ABC’s “This Week” that President-elect Joe Biden’s pledge to administer 100 million shots of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office is achievable.

And he rejected President Donald Trump’s false claim on Twitter that coronavirus deaths and cases in the U.S. have been greatly exaggerated.

“All you need to do ... is go into the trenches, go into the hospitals, go into the intensive care units and see what is happening. Those are real numbers, real people and real deaths,” Fauci said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The U.S. death toll has climbed past 350,000, the most of any country, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, while more than 20 million people nationwide have been infected. States have reported record numbers of cases over the past few days, and funeral homes in Southern California are being inundated with bodies.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the pandemic is getting worse in his city as the virus spreads rapidly within households and people let their guard down. “This is a virus that preys off of our weakness, preys off of our exhaustion,” he said.

Experts believe that the real numbers of U.S. deaths and infections are much higher and that many cases were overlooked, in part because of insufficient testing.

Fauci said he has seen “some little glimmer of hope” after 1.5 million doses were administered in the previous 72 hours, or an average of about 500,000 per day, a marked increase in vaccinations. He said that brings the total to about 4 million.

He acknowledged the U.S. fell short of its goal of having 20 million doses shipped and distributed by the end of December.

“There have been a couple of glitches. That’s understandable,” Fauci said. “We are not where we want to be, there’s no doubt about that.”

But he expressed optimism that the momentum will pick up by mid-January and that ultimately the U.S. will be vaccinating 1 million people a day. Biden’s “goal of vaccinating 100 million people in the first 100 days is a realistic goal,” Fauci said.

Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief science adviser to Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccine development and distribution effort, told CBS that 17.5 million doses have been shipped. About 13 million of those have been distributed to clinics, hospitals and other places where they will be administered, according to Fauci.

The 20 million-dose goal hasn’t been reached because local health departments and medical facilities had to stay focused on testing to handle a surge in cases, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said. And the holiday season meant health workers were taking time off, he said.

“I don’t want anyone to think I’m being Pollyannish here. There’s what we delivered, and we hope that those will be translated into vaccinations. That has not occurred to the way that we would like,” Adams said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

On Sunday morning, Trump falsely tweeted that the outbreak has been “far exaggerated” because of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “ridiculous” methodology. He complained, too, that Fauci has been credited by the news media with doing “an incredible job” when Fauci “works for me and the Trump Administration, and I am in no way given any credit for my work.”

Fauci and others are warning that an additional surge is likely because of holiday gatherings and the cold weather keeping people indoors.

“It could and likely will get worse in the next couple of weeks, or at least maintain this very terribly high level of infections and deaths that we’re seeing,” Fauci said.

The worries extend overseas, where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said more onerous lockdown restrictions in England are likely as a variant of the coronavirus has pushed infection rates to their highest levels on record. More than 50,000 new infections have been reported daily over the past six days.

Scientists have said the variant is up to 70% more contagious. While Fauci said the U.S. needs to do its own study, he sought to reassure viewers that British researchers believe that the mutated version is no deadlier or more likely to make people sicker and that vaccines are effective against it.

But Scott Gottlieb, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner who serves on the board of vaccine maker Pfizer, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the variant “really creates more urgency around trying to get this vaccine out more quickly and get more people vaccinated.”

___

Associated Press writers worldwide contributed to this report.

Why Africa’s COVID-19 Outbreak Hasn’t Been as Bad as Everyone Feared

01 JAN, 2021 - 02:01 

A health worker checks the temperature with an infrared thermometer of students on resumption of studies at Access International Schools, in Magboro, Ogun State, southwest Nigeria, on August 4, 2020. - Secondary schools across the country have reopened for studies following partial removal of suspension by the government as a result of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to allow only the exit classes, especially students preparing to write the West African Examination Council (WAEC) examinations which is scheduled to start on August 17, 2020. (Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / AFP) (Photo by PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP via Getty Images)

Aryn Baker

When COVID-19 initially blazed through Asia, Europe and then the United States, global public health experts worried that it could be catastrophic for Africa, with its crowded cities, poorly funded health sector and lack of testing facilities.

The U.N. Economic Commission for Africa in April predicted up to 300,000 deaths this year if the virus couldn’t be contained on the continent. Yet it was the U.S, with its superior health system, that hit that grim milestone first, and so far, Africa has been largely spared the worst of the devastation experienced by the rest of the world.

As of December 29, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting total 2.6 million cases and 63,300 deaths for a population of 1.2 billion. That’s roughly one case for every 500 people, compared to one in 20 in the US.

However, those numbers might not actually reflect the reality on the ground. Overall, testing for COVID-19 cases has been comparatively limited on the continent, which could be contributing to lower case numbers. South Africa, which has the highest testing rate in the region, was only performing 0.68 tests a day per 1,000 people in mid-December, compared to 4.3 in the U.S., according to Our World in Data (Denmark, which has the highest test rate, is currently performing 15.1 tests per 1,000). That might explain why the continent has lower-than-expected reported case rates.

As for COVID-19-related deaths, one way to estimate the true impact of the virus is to look at total excess deaths this year, calculated by comparing the overall mortality figures in 2020 to previous annual averages. Those figures in South Africa point to the possibility of a higher number of deaths from COVID-19 than the official records show. A report by the South African Medical Research Council noted that South Africa saw some 17,000 extra deaths from natural causes between early May and mid-July, a 59 percent increase in excess deaths compared to what was expected over the same period. However, the Africa CDC says there has been no indication that a large number of COVID-19 deaths have been missed.

If official numbers are to be believed, the African continent trails much of the rest of the world when it comes to case fatality rates, and there have been fewer scenes of overwhelmed hospitals and funeral parlors coming from the continent compared to other parts of the globe.

Nevertheless, some countries across the continent are currently seeing increases in COVID-19 cases amid concerns of a second wave. South Africa has seen a sharp increase recently, amid evidence that a new variant has been detected; President Cyril Ramaphosa announced new restrictions on Monday, citing the daily record of 14,790 infections recorded on Christmas Day, which he described as “a cause for alarm.”

Over the weekend, the country’s total recorded cases since the start of the pandemic reached one million at the weekend.

But overall, African countries have largely defied the doomsday predictions. Why that might be the case is unclear. “If the data is reliable—and that is a big question mark for me—there would be multiple explanations for lower numbers, not one solid reason,” says Cape Town-based independent clinical epidemiologist Dr Nandi Siegfried. It could be due to a lower average age, a more favorable climate, solid public health policies or fewer co-morbidities on the continent—each offers an imperfect defense, which taken cumulatively, contributes to an overall protective effect.

Here, we break down some of those reasons.

Preparation is the best preventative

Many African countries have poor medical infrastructure, but they also have longstanding experience with infectious disease. When the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency of international concern at the end of January, doctors and public health officials in countries that already had experience with outbreaks of other infectious disease sprang into action.

“We had to learn the hard way,” Liberian public health expert Dr. Mosoka Fallah told TIME in March, referring to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the three West African countries that bore the brunt of the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic. “Ebola knocked us over, but now we know not to underestimate anything; we know how important it is to prepare.”

Fallah and a team of Liberian public health officials set up a training program after the WHO announcement at the end of January to help doctors and nurses at regional hospitals recognize the symptoms of COVID-19. They brought in testing kits and re-instated the hand washing stands that had been ubiquitous during the Ebola outbreak. They ramped up their contact-tracing protocols and established screening points at airports, even before the first case had been identified in the country.

That experience meant that that when it came to social distancing, many African citizens were already accustomed to the elbow bump, frequent hand washing and the need for masking.

Masks were not politicized

According to the WHO, the single best way to stop the spread of COVID-19 is by wearing a mask. An August 2020 poll by the Partnership for Evidence-based COVID-19 Response found that among respondents in 18 African countries, more than 85 percent said they had worn a face mask in the previous week.

Early shutdowns

Countries like Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria shut down early, and hard. Businesses were closed, borders shut, gatherings were banned, and in-person schooling stopped. Curfews were enforced. The moves were unpopular, and economically destructive, but they also bought time for medical personnel to prepare hospitals, source supplies and learn from treatment innovations perfected elsewhere, such as using oxygen instead of scarce ventilators, and turning severely ill patients on their stomachs. Preventing that spread of the virus through lockdowns while also preparing to treat the sickest effectively is paying dividends now.

A younger populace, with fewer comorbidities

If South African epidemiologist Siegfried could point to one telling factor in the continent’s low COVID-19 mortality rate, it would be that Africa’s median age is 19 years old. “We don’t have many people over the age of 50,” she says, noting that the virus is far more dangerous in older populations. “It seem logical that a relatively youthful population would result in a lower toll.” That, and the fact that diabetes, obesity and hypertension, some of the comorbidities that appear to make COVID-19 more deadly, are also less common among the continent’s population than they are in other parts of the world.

Climate and geography

The COVID-19 virus appears to dissipate more quickly outside, where infectious respiratory droplets and aerosols can be easily dispersed, which is why most public health officials recommend that socializing, when necessary, be done outside. With a few exceptions, Africa’s mild winters mean that much of life can be, and is, lived outside, especially in rural areas. Limited public transport networks, usually a curse in the region, also mean that Africans do not travel as much between countries and cities, minimizing close contact and the risk of exposure.

Hygiene hypothesis

Conversely, people do congregate closely in cities, particularly in Africa’s slums, which are home to half of the continent’s urban population. At the beginning of the outbreak, public health officials feared that COVID-19 would spread like wildfire in Africa’s sprawling informal settlements, where social distancing is impossible and sanitation facilities are limited. But so far, death rates haven’t met those worst-case scenario predictions.

Some epidemiologists suspect that the close contact with other people and regular exposure to different pathogens may in fact make people more resistant to the worst forms of COVID-19. South Africa’s top virologist, Shabir Madhi, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand who is leading a vaccine trial in the country, told TIME in July that one hypothesis is that constant exposure to other coronaviruses, such as those that sometimes cause the common cold, could provide some degree of immunity.

“Maybe our poor living conditions could be working in our favor,” he said, noting that a significantly higher of cases appeared to be mild or asymptomatic, compared to cases elsewhere. “I’m not sure what else would explain the disparity,” he said, while noting that more research needed to be done.

Still, other countries around the world, such as Brazil, have a similar combination of slums, BCG vaccination, warm weather and a younger population, yet still have high COVID-19 infection rates. It could just be that Africa’s early and robust public health response delayed the onset of what may yet be the catastrophe that epidemiologists feared. Case numbers across the continent, already increasing, could continue to rise as the holiday season pushes residents of large cities into remote villages. “That might drive the pandemic,” John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, told reporters in a December online press briefing.

Africa is already recording 10,000 to 12,000 cases a day, inching back upwards to its July peak of 14,000. Many hope the region can hold out for a little longer, at least until vaccines are available in sufficient quantities to inoculate the continent. Madhi warns against that tendency. “Vaccines are not the answer to our problems,” he says, even though he has been running one of Africa’s biggest vaccine trials for the past six months. “Until there’s enough vaccines that can be spread across the globe, our most critical defense is in avoiding mass gatherings and using face masks. In terms of controlling this particular pandemic, the focus still has to be around these nonpharmaceutical interventions.”

- Time

TPLF Leaders Listed Killed in Action as Disclosed by Ethiopian Defense Force

Core TPLF leaders yet to be captured as per information from Ethiopian Defense Force  

Borkena

January 1, 2021

The Ethiopian Defense Force on Friday announced about Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) leaders who were killed during the law enforcement operation. 

One of those killed in action is said to be Colonel Yemane Gebremiechael who is believed to be, according to Ethiopian government position, behind the Maikadra massacre in early November 2020. 

Former State Minister in the Ministry of Transport, Mulu GebreEgziabhier, is among leaders who were taken captive during the operation. 

Brig. General Tesfaye Ayalew, head of the deployment department within the defense force, told Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) there was a joint operation by the Ethiopian Defense Force and the Federal police to capture TPLF leaders. Some are captured live  while those who resisted were killed in action. 

There are, however, TPLF leaders who are not yet captured or confirmed to be dead. The joint operation between the Defense Force and the Federal Police is still undertaking the operation to hunt them down. 

According to Brig. General Tesfaye, some TPLF military and political leaders were captured in a monastic community in north Ethiopia disguising themselves as monks. Others were found in a cave. 

Senior military officers who deserted the army to fight on the side of TPLF have been killed after they declined an offer to surrender during the search operation, General Tesfaye added.  

Military officers killed in Action : 

Colonel Alem Gebremedhin, Colonel Benyan Gebremedhin, Colonel Ambaye, Colonel Maesho, Colonel Yirga Seyoum, Colonel Hadush, Colonel Atsbeha, Colonel Tesfaye Gebremedhin, Colonel Yohannes Kalayu, Colonel Tekle Egziabher, and Let. Colonel Berhane Tola 

Captured :

Hadush Zewge Gezahegne (the region’s audit office head)

Solomon Hiluf Nigussie (Development training office head)

Kidanemariam Gebrekirstos (Attorney general of the region)

Bahita Woldemichael (Education office head)

Hagos Woldekidan Gebremariam, (Development plan coordinator in the office of Economy plan)

Gebreamlak Yihebyo (Mekelle University faculty) 

Also, Ethiopian Defense Force announced that an unspecified number of Tigray region’s special forces and militia surrendered to  government forces. 

Furthermore, the Ethiopian Defense said that “some TPLF leaders who were killed in action were buried after their head is decapitated” to avoid public disclosure of their identity.  

The whereabouts of key TPLF leaders including Debretsion Gebremichael, Getachew Reda, Seyoum Mesfin, Alem Gebrewahid, and Abay Tsehaye  ( among others) is yet to be established. 

About a week ago, Getachew Reda tweeted, presumably somewhere from the Tigray region, that he is alive. 

Last month, Ethiopia offered ten million birr reward for information leading to the capture of TPLF leaders.

Those captured are anticipated to provide reliable clue.

Tigray Gets Extended Time to Change Old Banknotes 

The National Bank of Ethiopia (file)

Borkena

December 30, 2020 

Tigray region of Ethiopia is getting fourteen days of extension to change old banknotes, the National Bank of Ethiopia on Wednesday announced in a statement sent to state media Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC). 

It is effective starting December 30 and banks will be working including weekends for the next two weeks. 

Banknote changes  in the region were suspended following a law enforcement campaign starting November 4, 2020, after Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces attacked Ethiopian Defense Force bases in the region.

Banking service was resumed in the region in the areas where internet and power are restored including Mekelle City. 

All regulations introduced during the banknote change will be implemented in the course of collecting old notes, the Bank also announced. Banks in the region are required to send weekly reports to the National Bank of Ethiopia, according to the report by FBC. 

This time around the maximum amount that people could exchange with the new banknotes is less than 100,000 Ethiopian birr. The reason is that the time given for exchanging amounts up to 1.5 million Ethiopian Birr expired before the law enforcement operation was started on November 4. 

Ethiopia introduced banknotes changes in September 2020 in what was said to be was an effort to combat corruption and illicit trade, and was underway fore three months.

Agitu Gudeta, Ethiopian Businesswomen in Italy, Found Dead in Her Apartment

The life of Agitu Gudeta, Ethiopian Immigrant and successful small-scale farming business in Italy,  is reportedly taken away by her employee.  

The late Agitu Gudeta (Photo: screenshot from DW video)

Borkena

December 30, 2020 

Agitu Gudeta, Ethiopian businesswoman, was found Tuesday dead in her apartment in  Frassilongo ,the Mocheni Valley,Italy. 

Her body was found in her bedroom on Thursday in the afternoon.  Adams Suleimani, said to be originally from Ghana, whom she rehired about two months ago to take care of goat grazing is said to be behind her murder, according to a report by La Republica, an Italian daily newspaper.

Carabinieri ,Italian paramilitary police, stopped the suspect in the evening for an  investigation which was led by the provincial commander Michele Capurso.

He reportedly confessed that he hammered her to death first after hitting her four or five times, and committed sexual violence after her body was lying on the floor of her bedroom. “The man admitted his guilt during the interrogation in front of the police and the magistrate,” said the report by La Repubblica. 

His confession is said to be consistent with the findings from a police investigation.

He is currently in prison in Trento. 

He is said to have told police that there was discussion about unpaid monthly salary.  

Agitu Gudeta was seen as a role model for the integration of immigrants and as an environmentalist. 

Originally from Addis Ababa,Ethiopia, the forty-two years old woman had a farming business in the small Ethiopian community of about 2000 people.  She was raising goats and making goat cheese.  

Before immigrating to Italy, she was in the country as a student and had studied sociology.  She immigrated to Italy as a refugee in 2010. 

It is unclear if her body will be flown to Ethiopia for burial. 

Crimes Against Humanity Committed in Oromo Region of Ethiopia, Says EHRC

It is confirmed that attacks in the Oromo region of Ethiopia were based on ethnicity and religion, constituting crimes against Humanity.  

Daniel Bekele, EHRC Director

Borkena

January 1, 2021

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on Friday  released an investigation report on the  massacre in Oromo region of Ethiopia following the assassination of musician Hachalu Hundessa in June 2020. 

The statement released on Friday said that “The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has found that crimes against humanity was committed by individuals and groups who directly participated in the violence and security crisis that swept through Oromia Region following the death of musician Hachalu Hundessa on June 29th, 2020.”  It is to be recalled that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government linked the assassination and ensuing massacre in the region with Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and unspecified foreign powers. 

The EHRC finding highlighted that 123 people were killed, over 500 wounded and thousands displaced in connection with the attack. EHRC also has verified that the attack was committed based on ethnicity and religion during the “widespread and systematic attack in  different areas over the three days.”

EHRC established that security forces were deployed to reverse the attack but said that the “proportionality of the force employed in some contexts is highly questionable.” 

Furthermore, EHRC said that it had visited over 40 localities where there was human rights abuses in the Oromia region as part of the investigation. 

Attackers were moving in groups from place to place to kill and injure civilians with axes, knives, sticks and other weapons, according to the report. 

Director of EHRC, Daniel Bekele, calls for a government action that addresses the root causes of the atrocity. 

“Given the repeated pattern of atrocity crimes in the country, Ethiopia needs to design and implement a comprehensive national strategy for the prevention of atrocity crimes which aims to address the root causes of the problem,” he is cited as saying. 

Executive Summary and Recommendations from EHRC is available HERE. 

It was reported in July 2020 that Oromo regional state under the leadership of Shimeles Abdissa admitted that some security officials and mayors, in some cases, took part in the attack indirectly, and were removed from their position. 

The regional state is yet to respond to the 59 pages of report from EHRC. 

NMG Journalist Arrested in Uganda While Covering Bobi Wine

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

This is the moment the Nation Media Group journalist, Derrick Wandera, who is attached to Daily Monitor, was led into a police vehicle in Kalangala where NUP presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine was campaigning.

Daily Monitor | Nation Media Group

A journalist with the Nation Media Group Uganda publication Daily Monitor, Derrick Wandera, has been arrested while covering the National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine on the campaign trail.

Mr Wandera was arrested in Kalangala District in Uganda.

His arrest followed that of another Ugandan scribe, BBS TV journalist Culton Scovia, who said she was accused of “giving live updates” before she was released.

Remains unknown

Journalists on the ground say the reason for Mr Wandera’s arrest remains unknown since he was seen on duty capturing moments when Bobi Wine and his campaign team were besieged by police in the same district.

Mr Wandera was, by press time, being reportedly driven to an unknown location in a police van with a team of journalists in hot pursuit.

The journalists were covering the incident where Bobi Wine and his bodyguard were besieged and led away by police at Kalangala.

Death Toll from Storm Chalane in Mozambique Rises to 7

Saturday, January 02, 2021

People stand by damaged houses and fallen trees on April 25, 2019 in Moroni after tropical storm Kenneth hit Comoros before heading to recently cyclone-ravaged Mozambique.

Ibrahim Youssouf | AFP

By Arnaldo Vieira

Angola Correspondent

Nation Media Group

The death toll due to tropical storm Chalane in central Mozambique has risen from four to seven, the National Calamities Management Institute (INGC) said Friday.\

The storm has passed through Madagascar and Zimbabwe.

The three new fatalities in Mozambique, which were due to drowning, were recorded in Chimoio, the capital of Manica province capital.

The first four were in the provinces of Sofala (one), in Manica (one) and in Zambézia (two).

In Sofala, Manica and Zambézia, the storm has left at least 10 people injured, several houses destroyed and a total of 36,000 people affected.

On Sunday, Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi asked the public to abandon risky zones as the storm neared the country. His warning came after a meeting with INGC personnel. 

The INGC forecasted that four million people will be affected and more than 6,000 schools and 550 health facilities in risky zones damaged.

Worst disasters

In March and April 2019, cyclones Idai -- with its epicentre at the port of the country’s second-largest city, Beira, -- and Kenneth, hit Mozambique just a few weeks apart.

The two are the worst natural disasters recorded in the country in the last two decades.

Cyclone Kenneth hit the northern provinces of Cabo Delgado and Nampula, affecting more than 400,000 people.

The cyclones killed at least 1000 people in Mozambique in 2019.

Between April and October Mozambique, is cyclically hit by winds, floods and drought in some parts of the south. 

In 2018, Pope Francis visited Mozambique in the wake of cyclones. In 2017, heavy rains followed a severe drought that saw the Mozambican government declare an orange level alert.

The climatic changes were attributed to the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has been destructive.

Niger Presidential Election Heads for Run-off on Feb. 20

Niamey on December 27, 2020 during Niger's presidential and legislative elections.

By Rédaction 

Africa News

Niger is set for a second round of vote as no candidate clinched the needed majority for a first round win in the December 27 vote.

Former Prime Minister and favorite to win Mohammed Bazoum, of the ruling party, came first with 39.33 percent of the vote.

He will go head to head with former president Mahamane Ousmane, who placed second with 16.99 percent of votes, according to results announced by the electoral commission Saturday.

The right hand man of outgoing president Mahamadou Issoufou, who was hoping for a one-touch victory in the first round, will now have to seek alliances before the second round of polls on February 20.

Voter turnout was pegged at 69.67%, with 5.2 million voters out of 7.4 million registered voters for a population of 23 million. These must be validated by the Constitutional Court.

Former Prime Ministers Seini Oumarou was 3rd , Albadé Abouba, 4th, obtaining 8.95% and 7.07% of the votes, ahead of former Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yacouba, 5th with 5.38% of the votes respectively.

The other former president in contention, Salou Djibo, came in 6th with 2.99% of the vote.

This is the first time in Niger's history that an elected president will succeed another elected president.

A key hurdle for the winner of the February run-off vote will be to stem jihadist’s attacks in the Sahelian country that has killed hundreds of people.

Some 500,000 refugees and others have been displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations.

Algeria: Saïd Bouteflika, 3 Others Acquitted by Military Court

FAROUK BATICHE

By Rédaction 

Africa News

A military court in Algeria on Saturday acquitted Saïd Bouteflika, the brother and former advisor to deposed President Abdelaziz Boutfekila for conspiracy against the army and the state.

Bouteflika and his three co-defendants had been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Following this surprise ruling, Saïd Bouteflika will be transferred to another prison pending trial in other cases relating to corruption during his brother’s 20 year rule, according to a judicial source.

Bouteflika was held in a military prison. Along with Bouteflika, General Mohamed Mediène, Athmane Tartag, and activist Louisa Hanoune, convicted in this case, were acquitted on appeal by the military court of Blida, according to their defense lawyer, Khaled Berghel.

The four defendants were arrested in May 2019 and sentenced in September of the same year to 15 years in prison at a trial before the military court of Blida, near Algiers.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Ex-Malian PM Modibo Keïta Dies at 78

By Rédaction 

Africa News

Former Malian Prime Minister Modibo Keïta died on Saturday at 78, incumbent Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane announced. Keïta’s death comes a day after funeral of Soumaïla Cissé, an eminent opposition figure in the country.

The cause of Modibo Keïta's death is unknown, as the Prime Minister did not give cause for his death. Ouane took to social media to hail the memory of a man ‘’who enshrined our ancestral values of probity, honour and dignity’’.

Modibo Keïta was head of government between 2015 to 2017. He was the third Prime Minister under President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, who was re-elected in 2018.

Modibo Keïta took office against a backdrop of deteriorating security following the 2012 independence and jihadist upsurge in northern Mali. From April 2014 until his appointment, he had been the President's High Representative for peace talks in Algiers between the government and the Tuareg-led rebel groups in the north.

The rebels signed a peace agreement in mid-2015, but jihadist activity continued under the government of Modibo Keïta and beyond, spreading to the center of the country and into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. The crisis resulted in thousands of civilian and military deaths since 2012.

Modibo Keïta had previously served as Transitional Prime Minister from March to June 2002 under Alpha Oumar Konare. Initially a school teacher, he held multiple positions in the administration and government of Mali, as Minister, Ambassador and Secretary General at the presidency.

Sudan Denies Invasion of the Ethiopian Territories

Commander in Chief of the army says no international border was crossed into Sudan as Ethiopia is demanding withdrawal of Sudanese Forces 

When Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan arrived at Bole International Airport in November 2020 (Photo : ENA)

Borkena

January 1, 2021 

Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese armed forces and president of the Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan denied that his forces crossed the international border. 

In his speech on Thursday during the 65th anniversary of Sudanese Independence, he said the Sudanese Forces  “have not and will not cross international borders or attack neighbouring Ethiopia,” as quoted by the Sudan Tribune. 

However, he said “that the Sudanese army had been redeployed along the Sudanese side in the border Ethiopia.”

His denial about the occupation of Ethiopian territories came days after Ethiopian authorities disclosed that they will continue diplomatic efforts to resolve the border issue with Sudan without ruling out the military option to defend the country should the Sudanese Forces continue to control territories. 

Local Ethiopian authorities said earlier this week that the Sudanese forces have crossed the border and occupied territories  in Ethiopia — in some places up to  40 kilometers inside Ethiopia. 

Last week, Sudanese authorities claimed that they have recovered much of the cultivable land that was under “the occupation of Ethiopia.” 

The Sudanese invasion of the Ethiopian territories came several weeks after the Ethiopian troops posted in the area were withdrawn due to the law enforcement operation against Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) which started early November. 

Advancing Sudanese army met with resistance from local militia but was later overpowered by mechanized Sudanese army. 

Properties of more than 50 agribusiness investors were destroyed, according to local sources. Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister, Demeke Mekonen, reportedly demanded the withdrawal of Sudanese forces from Ethiopian territories and compensation for the farmers whose properties were destroyed as a result of Sudanese invasion. 

Disinformation, Misinformation, and Fake News in the Ethiopian Context

By Wondimu Mekonnen

December 29, 2020

Sensational, eye-catching headlines can be so exciting well into the first few lines of a paragraph before one stops to notice that the fancy title is exaggerated, unfounded and unsubstantiated. Imagine the let-down, which was real in the case of the Guardian’s recent “Slaughtered Like Chickens”[1].

It is not a genuine representation of The Guardian as we normally know it, more like a dodgy social media piece from the likes of the digital Tigrayan Peoples’ Liberation Front (TPLF), also known popularly as the better known as the Tigrayan Peoples’ Looting Front. Does the article contain facts about an Ethiopian internal conflict or about an imaginary war between the “TPLF and neighbouring Eritrea”? It takes a while to get through the waffle.

How TPLF is remembered

The more glaring question however is why the TPLF has been so desperate to bring Eritrea into its war mongering charade ever since it instigated the conflict on 4 October? Not one but three unprovoked rocket attacks were launched by TPLF onto Eritrean soil, an obvious and desperate series of attempts to lure the international community into its incitement tactics.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is a master of lies and deceit. To use more formal vocabulary, it is a crafty engineer of disinformation and fake news with experience since its inception in 1974. The Tigray Liberation Front (TLF), predecessor of the TPLF, shared the same values of Tigrayan hegemony over Ethiopia. The two fronts shared identical objectives, met to discuss the modalities of their union, and celebrated an agreement eating, drinking and singing well into the late of the night at a TPLF camp. As custom would have it, TLF leaders retire to bed first as guests of the TPLF. All of them were massacred in their beds in cold blood. Almost the same happened to the EPRP, an opposition group to the Dengue regime operating at  Assimba, in Tigray during the same period.

An extortionist group with no regard for humanity

Journalist Martin Plaut discovered, with the help of eyewitnesses and personalities, the deceitful instructions of TPLF seniors in the years 1984/85. Cunning and extortionist, TPLF approached Bob Geldof for a share of the funds mobilized by Band Aid to feed a starving population in the territories it controlled. An entire £25,000,000[2] was diverted to purchase arms and raise interest in foreign banks for a start-up capital of the Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), owned privately by TPLF leaders. Cash payments intending to deliver sacks of grain invested instead in bags of sand facilitated by Mr Gebremedhin Araya, posing below as a Sudanese grain trader counting his money.

Bob Geldof forced BBC World Service[4] to apologise for implicating Band Aid as a participant in the above deception, which was against the purpose of his humanitarian campaign. Martin Plaut’s tweets today give the impression that the TPLF have paid him a fortune to report on their behalf unlike the deadly critics they appear to have silenced such as Patrick Gilks, Cedric Burns and William Davidson. It paid DLA Piper a monthly fee of £50,000 in 2006 and, to another lobby firm called SGR Government Relations a monthly fee of £150,000 to lobby against US Congress and the State Department passing any resolution on Human Rights[5]. The funds were sourced from official international development assistance.  Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based think tank advising on the prevention of illicit outflows said that “In 2009, illicit money leaving the [Ethiopian] economy totalled US$3.26 billion, which is double the amount in each of the two previous years.”[6]

The Guardian, one of UK’s most prestigious newspapers, fails to meet a standard of professional and ethical reporting as it prints a half-backed reporting of facts that support the TPLF machination. The article fails to offer any background of the recent conflict flareup in Tigray region. No mention is made of TPLF officials boasting about “starting the war by blistering attack with lightning speed” on the restive Northern Division of Ethiopia’s National Defence Force. They also begged the international community to “stop the war in Tigray” after starting it[7], a tactic to facilitate the re-instatement of the power they had willingly left more than two years ago.

The article is silent about them slaughtering unsuspecting soldiers of the national army in the middle of the night, stripping the dead naked and leaving them to rot for vultures and wild animals to clear. Reuters reported quoting Lt. Gen. Bacha Debele[8], thousands more were stripped of their clothes live and forced to cross the Eritrean border at a place called Shiraro

Eritrean border guards clothed and fed them. PM Abiy Ahmed Ali and his army generals flew into the Eritrean capital by helicopter and drove to the border to witness that humiliation two days later. The soldiers demanded with valour to return to their post and subsequently forced the release of captured officers by TPLF.

The story, as retold by Alex de Waal in The Guardian, titled: “Slaughtered like Chickens” paints an unsubstantiated picture that implies Eritreans committed the attack on Tigrayans. It failed to mention that TPLF’s Special Force and militia marched to the border of neighbouring Amhara region, vowing to crush the people and capture the city of Gondar by noon, Bahir Dar by evening, and topple the central government in Addis Ababa on the third day. They boasted a quick fight would secure control of the capital city.

Indeed, the National Defence Force was quick to dislodge TPLF from their own regional capital, Makalle  which could not bypass the Amhara Special forces and militias that stood in self-defence until the arrival of the National Defence Force. Losses were minimized as arms seized by TPLF troops from the Northern Division were neutralized from the air. Jointly the National Defence Force and the Amhara Special Force pushed TPLF out including from the territories they had seized and forcefully incorporated into Tigray 32 years ago, namely Raya, Welkait, Tselemt and Humera.

When TPLF realized they were losing their extended territory they orchestrated an unthinkable attack on the residents of Mai Kadra. Alex de Waal does not mention how their retreating troops ruthlessly murdered 600 innocent civilians of non-Tigray origin in a matter of a few hours. It can be safely assumed that the deliberate omission of facts and selective, biased reporting is intended to portray the perpetrators themselves as the victims.

Amnesty International’s interviews with eyewitnesses in the aftermath of the Mai Kadra massacre confirms that TPLF committed the war crime. They clearly identified the perpetrators as TPLF soldiers, militias and Tigrayan youth known as the ‘Samri’.

Interviews with survivors of the massacre on Amharic Ethiopian Television showed victims corroborating the version given to Amnesty International. Other reports indicate that TPLF fighters shed their uniforms and changed into farmer’s clothing before seeking refuge in the Sudan. From there, they continue spreading disinformation and fake news. Such crimes need to be investigated by an independent group and those responsible must be arrested and tried for war crimes against civilians.

A close look at the above picture reveals that there are no women and children among the so-called refugees. Who are they? Mai Kadra mass murderers? TPLF soldiers who committed war crimes and spread disinformation through the likes of Alex de Waal?

The TPLF is no different from the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia or the Communist Party of Albania. They share the same political ideology and brutality. TPLF has perfected its propaganda machine, is lobbying adventurist journalists, and disseminating its disinformation and fake news. This ruthless group need not be forgotten for callous kidnapping of foreigners such as Sunday Times Reporter, Jon Swain, in 1976.

Reporting mechanism for journalism safety but none for disinformation

Alex de Waal needs to know that the defence of the people and law enforcement does not exclusively belong to the United Kingdom. He should be reminded that the British Army was deployed in the Northern Ireland to protect the people from the IRA for several years.  He should also remember PM Margaret Thatcher ordered the British Army into The Falkland Islands in 1982.

Alex De Wall ignored that African countries are watching what the TPLF had done for 27 years in neighbouring countries, as well as to Ethiopia, and what it has been doing over the last 2 and a half years. At the 38th IGAD Extraordinary Summit of Heads of States & Governments of IGAD which kicked off on 20 December in Djibouti, Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa, H.E. Faki Mahamat commended the Government of Ethiopia for its bold steps to preserve the integrity of the country. He also stressed the need to sustain efforts to help solve the issues of affected people in the aftermath of the operation. TPLF disinformation has no place here.

The possibility of civilian causalities in any conflict is evident, however, the Ethiopian Defence Force kept this at an absolute minimum. Alex de Waal claims that Eritrean refugees camped in Tigray are being forcibly “returned“ to Eritrea but his evidence mainly comes from TPLF sympathisers residing abroad. Who is he sympathising with? The Eritrean refuges or the TPLF? He again accuses Eritreans, not the Ethiopian National Defence force, for the killings and lootings in Tigray. Nevertheless, the looters and killers are the TPLF themselves as evidenced from first-hand accounts coming from Tigray.

Alex de Waal claims that aid workers and diplomats have reported that the law enforcement operation involved thousands of Eritrean soldiers undermining a population more than 114 million strong against Tigray’s 7 million amounting to just over 6%. The Ethiopian National Defence Force is well trained and equipped serving an impeccable record beyond sovereign borders and with a capacity to deploy peace keeping missions in Somalia and South Sudan.

The Guardian’s report by Alex de Waal signals a continuing decline of professional and ethical journalism which is an obstacle to widespread understanding of peace building efforts in Ethiopia. It undermines the intense pressure on the ground to reinstate lives and livelihoods to acceptable levels of survival. Recent speculative headlines include “Secret UN report reveals fears of long and bitter war in Ethiopia”, “Ethiopia PM rebuffs mediation attempts as Tigray deadline nears” and the persistent “Diplomats back claims Eritrean troops have joined Ethiopia”.

In conclusion, here is a recent tweet that serves as a reminder, of Mr Herman J Cohen who propelled the TPLF into power in 1991:

 “Abiy needs to unify by delivering on his promise to create a federal system that provides the self-determination each state desires. And the TPLF needs to understand that it can no longer be an important political force, neither in #Ethiopia nor in Tigray.”

FINITO!

Wondimu Mekonnen

https://www.buckingham.ac.uk/directory/mr-wondimu-mekonnen/

Notes :

1. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/21/slaughtered-like-chickens-eritrea-heavily-involved-in-tigray-conflict-say-eyewitnesses

2.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8535189

3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8535189.stm

4. https://archive.org/details/AidForArmsInEthiopia

5. https://ethiopoint.com/blood-lobbying-ethiopian-babies-starve-t-tplf-feeds-lobby-firm-150000-per-month/

6. https://gfintegrity.org/press-release/illicit-financial-outflows-ethiopia-nearly-doubled-2009-us3-26-bln-says-new-gfi-report/

7. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55215431

8. https://uk.reuters.com/article/ethiopia-conflict-attack/inside-a-military-base-in-ethiopias-tigray-soldiers-decry-betrayal-by-former-comrades-idUKKBN28R1I8

Tigray Crisis: How Abiy’s Reform Strategy Plunged Ethiopia into Conflict

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Tigray

When Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, he largely ushered a wave of political reforms.

His first few months in office were characterised by the introduction of a series of political reforms which made him be referred to by many as a “reform champion”.

Among his swift reform moves included the release of thousands of political prisoners, relaxing media control and liberalisation.

But a major turn in events came in June 2018 when Abiy announced his country will “fully accept and implement” a 2000 peace pact which Addis Ababa refused to immediately honour under the former EPRDF regime.

Peace deal

A few weeks later, a peace deal was signed between Abiy and Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki, ending two-decade-long hostilities.

The peace deal led Abiy to win the Nobel Peace prize award in 2019.

After the rapprochement, the former rival neighbours resumed diplomatic ties, reopened border crossings allowing separated families to reunite, further enabling people on both sides to resume trade.

However, these windows of hope didn’t last long as border crossings on both sides were shut down a few weeks later for unclear reasons.

Mr Abiy’s popular reform ideas, however, started to increasingly attract serious criticism from political groups, including from Tigray elites whose people were the ones who most sacrificed during the 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea, which claimed the lives of at least 70,000 people.

Two-man agreement

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said the peace deal was a two-man agreement and it doesn’t represent a peace agreement between two countries, hence it was not institutionalised.

Ever since Abiy Ahmed came to power, the Tigray regional government has been at odds with the central government.

Tigray leaders have been defying almost all decisions made by the federal government.

The major driving factors of the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region are generally over differences in the system of governance, electoral disputes and power struggles between TPLF leaders and Prime Minister Abiy.

The war on Tigray has two major elements, ideological and historical, says Abera Negash, a political researcher.

“The ideological side of the war is the contention between those who advocate the federalist state arrangement which embraces regional self-determination and self-administration as its cardinal principle [like TPLF] and those who want a unilateralist and centralised state structure with a strong central government [Abiy’s party, PP]”

A member of the Amhara Special Forces sits next to a machine gun at an improvised camp in Humera, Ethiopia, in November 2020.

Tigray leaders see Abiy's reforms as an attempt to centralise power and attempt to demolish the long-standing federal system which TPLF had embraced since it assumed power in 1991 after toppling the former Marxist Derg regime.

The TPLF, which represents an ethnic Tigrayan minority, dominated the country's national politics and power for 27 years until Abiy came to power in 2018.

The tension between TPLF and Abiy started when the prime minister announced he would dissolve the former TPLF dominated EPRDF ruling party and merge it with his new Prosperity Party (PP), a move TPLF strongly protested against and refused to join the new alliance.

However, “there is an extraordinary background to the war that started immediately after Abiy assumed power,” says a Tigray opposition official who sought anonymity.

“In this respect, the federal government has been taking several measures purposely aimed at sidelining the Tigray region, its leadership and people from the rest of the country”.

“The Abiy government had been selectively prosecuting ethnic Tigray officials over different accusations, including corruption, and further removed them from top government positions. Tigrayan military officials were also fired.”

The opposition official said “the targeted prosecution measures created grievances among the Tigray people and their leaders which escalated into a full-fledged war sooner than later”.

Feud escalated

The feud with the federal government further escalated in September, when the Tigray region held its own elections, defying the central government’s decision to postpone the national polls due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The election was initially scheduled to be held in August 2020.

The region then argued that conducting the election was its constitutional right but its defiance, in effect, undermined the legitimacy of Abiy’s federal government.

Addis Ababa immediately ruled that the election was illegitimate and void. In return, Tigray said it will no longer recognise Abiy’s administration, arguing that Abiy’s constitutional mandate in office had expired.

Tigray leaders accused the Nobel Laureate of deliberately postponing the election to retain his grip on power.

After the regional elections, the federal government reacted by slashing budgets, funds and subsidies to Tigray.

Abiy further ordered all federal institutions to immediately cut ties and communication with the regional government.

Tigray leaders saw the punitive measures as a "declaration of war" against Tigray and its people who make up six per cent of the country's estimated 110 million population.

However, the tension between Tigray and the central government boiled early in November when Prime Minister Abiy accused TPLF forces of attacking a federal army based in the region.

'Red line'

In a televised address, Abiy said Tigray had crossed the "red line" and he officially declared a military offensive against the region on November 4.

He sent ground and air forces in a bid to dislodge the TPLF-led regional force, raising fears of a protracted conflict in Africa’s second-most populous country.

Amare Seyoum, a former army member and resident of Mekelle, explains why TPLF had attacked the North Command Army.

“The federal government wants to restructure the military structure by increasing regional military commands from five to six as an effort to wage war against Tigray from all directions by sandwiching it,” he told the Nation.

Amare said the federal government has also mobilised the military as part of the preparation to wage war against Tigray.

“This has also been a warning sign for TPLF. Cognisant of this move, TPLF has taken pre-emptive measures against the North Command Army and controlled their base and seized all their heavy weapons. They took hostage its leaders as a self-defence mechanism.”

“The attack served as an immediate cause for the federal government to trigger war on Tigray,” he added.

Since early November, the Tigray region remained a battleground.

After the capture of the regional capital Mekelle on November 30, PM Abiy announced that the law enforcement operation against the region was over and what remained is a hunt to arrest TPLF leaders.

However, several sources from the region have confirmed to the Nation that fighting is going on between the Tigray defence forces and the allied forces of ENDF, Eritrean forces, and the Amhara militia in many rural parts of the region.

The war may be arguably over, but there will be sporadic battles.

Sources said TPLF is fighting against joint Federal forces, Amhara regional forces and militias as well as Eritrean soldiers.

“The war may be arguably over, but there will be sporadic battles so long as the political and military leadership of TPLF remains operational,” Metta-Alem Sinishaw, a political analyst on Ethiopia and East Africa, told the Nation.

“The era of political and military dominance of TPLF may be over. However, TPLF still has determined militants, diaspora based radical wings, substantial resources, and exiled members some with strong international tie. It will have a fighting chance for some time, especially if it aligns itself with ethnocentric forces that it cultivated during its heyday,” he added.

Horn region

Considering Tigray’s powerful military, estimated at 250,000 troops, the conflict could be far from over.

Thus, there is a high possibility for the conflict to spill into the Horn region. There are already some signs that the war is attracting other regional actors.

In this respect, Sudan seems to already have become a party to the conflict after Ethiopian forces and the Amhara regional militias entered its territory and ambushed a military unit patrolling inside its own border.

“Sudan has always been ambivalent and may be sympathetic to TPLF.

Egypt may support TPLF either directly or indirectly to destabilise the federal government to undermine its effort on GERD. Also, there are many regional and Gulf actors. Qatar may align with TPLF to counter Abiy’s closeness with UAE,” Metta-Alem said.

Metta-Alem believes Abiy’s “military victory over TPLF” will consolidate the Ethiopian position to continue as a regional security guarantor.

“Despite the new partnership between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, there will be a power vacuum In the Horn region, especially in the short run,'' he said. 

According to the political analyst, the future of Ethiopia requires serious internal reflection and reconfiguration, including engaging the Tigrayan elites.

Ethiopia's Tigray Conflict Revives Bitter Disputes Over Land

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

A shepherd walks in front of an abandoned tank belonging to Tigrayan forces, south of the town of Mehoni, Ethiopia, on December 11, 2020. The town of Mehoni, located in Southern Tigray, experienced shelling resulting in civilian deaths and injuries.

By AFP

As rifle-toting militiamen fired celebratory rounds into the air, young men marched through the streets denouncing the former ruling party of Ethiopia's Tigray region as "thieves."

The party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), is the target of military operations ordered by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, last year's Nobel Peace laureate, that have reportedly left thousands dead since early November.

But the impromptu parade this month in Alamata, a farming town in southern Tigray flanked by low, rolling mountains, was unrelated to any kind of battlefield victory.

Rather it was to hail the release of Berhanu Belay Teferra, a self-described political prisoner under the TPLF whose pet issue, analysts warn, risks becoming Ethiopia's next flashpoint.

In 2018, Berhanu, 48, was detained by the TPLF for advocating that his homeland -- located in an area known as Raya, of which Alamata is the biggest city -- had no business falling under Tigrayan control.

Berhanu argued that the TPLF had illegally incorporated the famously fertile land into Tigray after it came to power in the early 1990s.

He was detained for more than two years -- enduring beatings and long stretches of solitary confinement in a cave -- before pro-TPLF forces, fleeing the government's assault in November, let him go, setting the stage for his triumphant homecoming.

Now reunited with his wife and four children, Berhanu is back to agitating for the transfer of Alamata and its surroundings to Ethiopia's Amhara region, which borders Tigray to the south.

"We don't want to live with Tigray people, who don't know our culture and traditions," Berhanu told AFP a few days after the parade marking his return -- a moment of joy he said was unrivalled by every other event in his life besides his wedding.

Risking 'bloodshed'

Raya is not the only place in Tigray where, since the onset of fighting on November 4, some residents have been clamouring for change.

A similar dynamic is playing out in western Tigray, where activists and politicians also accuse the TPLF of annexing land historically administered by ethnic Amharas.

In both areas, Abiy is, at least for the time being, relying on Amhara special forces to provide security now that the TPLF has been kicked out.

Amhara officials are leading transitional administrations in multiple towns and cities.

And the word "Amhara" has been scrawled on countless abandoned homes and shuttered storefronts like a hastily graffitied claim of ownership.

William Davison, Ethiopia analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG), described what's happening in western and southern Tigray as "unconstitutional de facto annexations" that "set a destabilising precedent for the federation".

Some newly-installed officials make clear they want nothing to do with Tigray, raising the possibility of future conflict over the land.

"First we were forced to become part of [Tigray]. Now by force, this area is liberated," said Alamata's new mayor, Kassa Reda Belay, adding he hoped Abiy would "answer the question of the people" -- meaning place the area under Amhara authority.

"If not, there will be a lot of bloodshed, and there will be a civil war," Kassa said.

Path ahead uncertain

It is not clear what the federal government's long-term plans are for the contested territory.

The Amhara region's president, Agegnehu Teshager, has said Amhara security forces did not get involved in the conflict to reclaim land.

But Zadig Abraha, Ethiopia's democratisation minister and an Alamata native, told AFP that the city could one day fall under Amhara control.

"The people have asked loud and clear to be part of it. There is a possibility for that to happen and we will have to wait for some time," Zadig said.

In the meantime, Abiy's government is working to prop up a caretaker administration in Tigray led by Mulu Nega, a Tigrayan former higher education official.

Yet any attempt by Mulu to exert authority over Alamata is unlikely to go over well.

"If Dr Mulu Nega comes here, there will be two or more demonstrations against it. We don't want him to come. From now on... we want to live with Amhara people," said Kassa, the Alamata mayor.

'I don't feel safe'

That kind of language strikes fear into the hearts of men like Hailay Gebremedhin, a Tigrayan who has owned a clothing shop on Alamata's main street for six years.

In November, when fighting broke out in the mountains around Alamata, he stuffed his sneakers and other merchandise into burlap sacks and ran home, where he huddled for weeks.

Hailay reopened his shop earlier this month because he'd run out of money and food, but he's not sure what kind of life he and his fellow Tigrayans can have in the city.

"I don't feel safe here because there are people going around saying, 'Oh, we've defeated them, we've broken them, now they will leave,'" he said.

The ICG's Davison said, "there is likely to be sustained Tigrayan resistance if territories are taken out of Tigray, in the same way that Amhara activists have long agitated for the 'return' of them."

There are also some activists who believe Raya should become its own region, belonging to neither Tigray nor Amhara.

For now, though, such voices are quiet in Alamata.

Hailay told AFP he's afraid even to speak in Tigrinya, the Tigrayan language, for fear of reprisals from Amhara officials and security forces.

As he spoke, he looked out towards the roundabout where large crowds gathered during the parade welcoming the return of Berhanu, the self-described political prisoner.

Planted in the grass was a picket sign that, to Hailay's mind, read like a threat.

“The Amharas wait patiently," it said, "but they cannot be broken."

Algerian President Signs New Constitution into Law

Saturday, January 02, 2021

File Photo: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune during a press conference in the capital Algiers on on December 13, 2019.

Ryad Kramdi | AFP

Algiers

Algeria's President Friday signed the country's new constitution into law, his office said, after the document was approved in a November referendum on record low turnout as its leader received treatment abroad for Covid-19.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who returned to Algeria this week after two months in Germany, had promoted the new constitution as the "cornerstone of the new Algeria", as he sought to turn the page on the long-running Hirak mass protest movement.

But the document received the backing of less than 15 percent of the electorate, in a November vote overshadowed by the novel coronavirus pandemic and following Hirak calls for a boycott.

The Hirak first launched vast street demonstrations in early 2019 to oppose then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term in office.

Following his resignation that April, the Hirak kept up the pressure to demand a full overhaul of the ruling system in place since the North African country's 1962 independence from France.

The new constitution was pitched as responding to the demands of the Hirak, but keeps in place Algeria's presidential regime and expands the powers of the army, a central pillar of the state.

Tebboune, 75, on Thursday approved Algeria's 2021 budget and is hoping to launch a vaccination campaign against the novel coronavirus, using the Sputnik V jab produced by its Russian ally, as early as this month.

Egypt Clears Police Officers in Italian Student Murder

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Giulio Regeni protest in Italy

Activists demonstrate in Turin, Italy, on January, 2020, marking the fourth anniversary since the disappearance and subsequent murder of Giulio Regeni.

By AFP

Cairo

Egypt's public prosecutor Wednesday cleared five policemen of responsibility in the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni and said he will not pursue the case because the perpetrator is unknown.

The decision announced by state prosecutor Hamada al-Sawy comes nearly three weeks after Italian prosecutors said they planned to charge four Egyptian security officers over the torture and death of Regeni.

The Cambridge University graduate was in Egypt researching trade unions, when he was kidnapped in January 2016 and his mutilated body later found on the outskirts of Cairo.

His death sparked outrage in Italy and strained diplomatic relations between the two countries, with Italy's government accusing Egyptian authorities of non-cooperation.

Sawy, in a statement published Wednesday, said Egypt's public prosecution has no intention of "pursuing a criminal case in the murder, abduction and torture of Giulio Regeni because the perpetrator is unknown".

Investigators would continue to seek the identity of the murderer but the prosecution has "ruled out" any charges "against the four officers and a fifth policeman" in connection with the case, he said.

"Elements of proof"

On December 10, Italian public prosecutor Michele Prestipino told a parliamentary commission in Rome there were "elements of significant proof" implicating Egyptian policemen.

"We are going to ask to begin a criminal action concerning certain members of the Egyptian security services," he said.

"We owe it to the memory of Giulio Regeni," he added.

Regeni had been researching the sensitive topic of labour organisations in Egypt when he disappeared. He had also written articles critical of the government under a pen name.

Since his death, Italian investigators have rejected multiple theories put forward by Egyptian authorities, including that Regeni had been working as a spy, or that he was the victim of a criminal gang.

Late last month, Egypt said it would "temporarily close" its parallel investigation into Regeni's murder, saying Rome's accusations were based on insufficient evidence.

Rwanda 'Built 22,000 Classrooms in 2020 to Achieve Social Distancing'

Thursday, December 31, 2020

In 2020, Rwanda built more than 22,000 classrooms so that students can learn safely while observing social-distancing.

By The East African

At the end of 2019, Rwandan President Paul Kagame was in a jovial mood when he presented the state of the nation address.

“2019 has been a good year for us, and my hope is that 2020 will be even better,” he said, his optimism informed by an economic boom then.

Economic growth had exceeded 9 percent in 2019, driven by large public investments in the National Strategy of Transformation. And according to the World Bank, strong growth was expected to continue throughout 2020.

But a few months later, Covid-19 struck, and Rwanda’s economic growth shrunk to 0.2 percent, with the government requiring significant financial support and debt relief from partners to stay afloat.

On December 21, when President Kagame presented the 2020 State of the Nation address, it was with a more sombre tone.

This year, he warned against complacency, saying that the sacrifices and gains made amidst the coronavirus pandemic need to be viewed with cautious optimism.

“We have had to make many sacrifices this year. It has not been easy. Even as we speak, things have not gotten back in order. That includes the need for families to avoid congregating during the festive season. But, without these sacrifices, it will end up costing us much more,” he said. “Together, we will recover and return to the path of growth and continue expanding the well-being of all families.”

Achievements

He noted some important government achievements in 2020, including the construction of over 22,000 classrooms across the country, which enabled schools to restart while observing social-distancing measures.

Agricultural productivity maintained a good pace regardless of the pandemic, and more than $400 million was earned from agricultural exports.

From the country’s reserves, over 5,000 tonnes of food were distributed to impoverished families during the total lockdown.

Also, about 500 post-harvest facilities were built across the country to help reduce farm losses.

Some 200,000 new households were connected to electricity, and “soon all sectors in the country will have access”, the president promised.

In the health sector, the government built three new hospitals, established an emergency heart treatment facility, and acquired a new MRI machine.

The national referral hospital, King Faisal Hospital, is also undergoing significant upgrading at a cost of about $20 million.

“We have also invested a lot of resources in upgrading King Faisal Hospital, looking for doctors with skills in treating different kinds of illnesses, and having highly knowledgeable personnel. We were able to find some but we are also still looking for others. Those illnesses and diseases that are hard to treat will be amongst those treated at King Faisal. We will also have the capacity to help treat our fellow East Africans who will be able to come in Rwanda instead of travelling to other nations far away, which is very expensive,” President Kagame said.

His biggest frustration was with regional neighbours and cross-border trade.

Efforts to improve bilateral ties with Uganda, and Burundi are still not fruitful due to lingering disagreements over espionage and support to rebels.

Rwanda's borders with Uganda have been closed to travellers for two years: Ugandan goods have also not been allowed to cross into Rwanda.

Borders with Burundi have also been inactive for over five years, with mushrooming rebel activities affecting border communities in both countries.

“We worked with our neighbours to address regional security issues. Among the small issues we still face, there is our border with a brotherly nation, Burundi. We are still engaged in talks towards finding a fitting solution,” the president said.

“To the north, there are still some issues, but we all agree on the fact that we all want peace and security, and none of us wants to compromise the security of the other.”

In contrast, President Kagame lauded Rwanda’s relationship with its neighbours Tanzania and DRC.

Optimistic

His reasons for optimism in 2021 are an expected economic recovery and the coronavirus vaccine.

According to the International Monetary Fund, with the resumption of economic activities, Rwanda’s economy is now projected to recover and grow 5.7 percent next year.

The country also secured 172 new investment projects valued at $1.2 billion in 2020, expected to create more than 22,000 jobs once operations resume.

Rwanda is also gradually restarting tourism, events, and meetings, which are key strategic sectors.

“Despite the shock of Covid-19, and the many adjustments we have had to make, I want to reassure Rwandans that the state of our nation remains strong,” President Kagame said.

At Least 25 Killed in East DR Congo, ADF Militia Blamed

Friday, January 01, 2021

By AFP

At least 25 civilians have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo's troubled east, local officials said Friday, blaming the attack on the notorious ADF militia.

The army was chasing ADF fighters on Thursday when they found the bodies of 25 civilians, who had been "taken by surprise in their fields on New Year's Eve," Donat Kibuana, the administrator of  Beni territory in North Kivu province, told AFP.

The massacre took place in the village of Tingwe, about eight kilometres (five miles) from the town of Eringeti.

The head of the civil society organisation in Tingwe, Bravo Mohindo Vukulu, said at least 30 had died.

"People had gone to their fields to prepare for New Year's Eve, the ADF picked them up one by one," he said.

"We had alerted our forces that the ADF had passed through from the east to the northeast of Eringeti. They did not react quickly," he added.

Vast country

The ADF, which originated in the 1990s as a Ugandan Muslim rebel group, is one of dozens of militias that plague the eastern provinces of the vast country.

It is blamed for the deaths of around 800 civilians over the past year in North Kivu province, which borders Uganda.

The group makes money notably through wood trafficking and DR Congo officials suspect some military are complicit in the violent raids.

The ADF has never claimed responsibility for attacks. But since April 2019, several of its assaults have been claimed by the so-called Islamic State's Central Africa Province, without providing proof.

The United Nations said in July the group's attacks could constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Central African Republic President Touadera Heading to Election Victory, Says Party

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Photo: Central African President Faustin-Archange Touadera.

By AFP

Central African Republic President Faustin Archange Touadera is on track to win last weekend's elections, his party said on Thursday, a day after the opposition called for the vote to be annulled.

"Trends... point to a first-round victory by Professor Touadera, reflecting the renewed legitimacy that the people have conferred on our candidate," his campaign director, Simplice Mathieu Sarandji, told a news conference.

A powerful coalition of opposition groups said Wednesday the vote in the violence-torn country had been badly flawed, and called for its "cancellation, pure and simple."

Sarandji said the electoral and judicial bodies could be trusted.

"No candidate has any right to go through non-official channels to call for the elections to be cancelled and to be held again," he said, speaking at the headquarters of Touadera's United Hearts Movement (MCU) party.

The elections, staged last Sunday for the presidency and the legislature, are widely seen as a key stability test for the CAR.

The landlocked country is one of the poorest in the world and among the most volatile, suffering a string of coups and wars since gaining independence from France in 1960.

Muslim coalition

In 2013, it spiralled once more into bloodshed when then president, Francois Bozize, who had himself seized power a decade earlier, was overturned by a mostly Muslim coalition called the Seleka.

Touadera, who was elected in 2016 after a turbulent transition following the coup, is the frontrunner in the crowded field of 16 candidates.

But his government controls only about one-third of the country, with militia groups that emerged from the conflict in 2013 controlling the other two-thirds.

On Wednesday, the Democratic Opposition Coalition (COD-2020), an alliance of political and other groups, said the elections "were not fair and inclusive and are in no way the expression of the people's will".

Condemning an "electoral farce", it claimed widespread ballot stuffing and complained of a lack of observers.

According to official figures, voting did not take place in 29 of the country's 71 sub-prefectures (sub-divisions of large administrative districts), and only partly so in six others.

In many areas, militia groups hampered the organisation of the elections and intimidated voters, according to local leaders and UN workers who asked not to be named.

In addition, thousands of people were prevented from voting or never received their voting cards because of the lack of security.

Provisional results are expected from January 4, but no final results are expected before January 18. A runoff will be held on February 14 if there is no outright winner in the first round.

Uganda Presidential Candidate Bobi Wine Arrested - Reports

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Daily Monitor reports that efforts are currently underway to have the NUP candidate airlifted to Kampala from Kalangala Island.

Derrick Wandera | Nation Media Group

By Nation Reporter

Nation Media Group

Uganda’s National Unity Platform (NUP ) presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, has been arrested.

Mr Kyagulanyi was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and was being driven to a police station in Kalangala Island area, according to the Daily Monitor.

The official Twitter account of the singer-turned-politician also announced the arrest.

“Bobi Wine and his entire campaign team arrested in Kalangala! Media blocked – Admin,” read a tweet on the handle.

The Monitor reports that efforts are currently underway to have the NUP candidate airlifted to Kampala from Kalangala Island.

However, police spokesperson, Fred Enanga said Mr Kyagulanyi was being transferred to his home in Magere, Wakiso district.

“Part of his advance team, captured on CCTV cameras and several video footages while deflating tyres of police motor vehicles, inciting violence, obstructing police officers on duty, violating the health and safety protocols and various traffic offences, have been arrested for further statement recording,” it further stated.

Bobi Wine had travelled to Kalangala Islands for his electoral campaign visit to the area. Earlier in the day, Police paddy wagons were seen being loaded onto the MV Ssese headed for areas around Kalangala.

The arrest comes 15 days to January 14, 2021, the day when voters go to the poll to vote for who will be Uganda’s next President.

The election pits Bobi Wine and nine other opposition candidates against ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate and incumbent president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni who has been in power for close to four decades.