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☆ Sudan's Bashir moved to military hospital before fighting, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

DUBAI, April 26 (Reuters) - Sudan's toppled leader Omar al-Bashir was moved from Kober prison to a military hospital in the Sudanese capital before heavy fighting broke out there on April 15, two sources at the hospital said. Both Bashir and Haroun are wanted by the International Criminal Court over alleged atrocities in Darfur. Fighting flared anew in Sudan late on Tuesday despite a ceasefire declaration by the warring factions as more people fled Khartoum in the chaos. But he said that neither party showed readiness to "seriously negotiate, suggesting that both think that securing a military victory over the other is possible." Several more flights were expected later on Wednesday to evacuate the remaining Turkish citizens who had crossed over to Ethiopia from Sudan.

☆ Factbox: Facts about actor-activist Harry Belafonte
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

* Belafonte received a Tony Award in 1954 for his role in Broadway's "Almanac" and became the first Black actor to win an Emmy for a 1959 television variety special. * Belafonte received three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award. * Although Belafonte and co-star Dorothy Dandridge were accomplished singers, their vocals in the 1954 movie "Carmen Jones" were sung by LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne. * Belafonte's movies often had racial themes. * Belafonte produced the 1984 movie "Beat Street," one of the first movies about break-dancing and hip-hop culture.

☆ London Marathon: Sifan Hassan lays claim to being greatest female distance runner with thrilling victory
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( George Ramsay | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

That’s precisely what Sifan Hassan did in the London Marathon on Sunday, though her stunning, chaotic victory in the women’s race was anything but straightforward. Hassan (center left) passes Big Ben on her way to an unexpected victory in London. Rather than making a long-term commitment to the marathon, Hassan thought she would test herself over the longer distance and still race on the track this summer. “I was telling myself that I’m stupid that I decided to run the marathon,” said Hassan. Prior to that, she broke the 23-year-old mile world record at the start of 2019 and won 1,500 and 10,000-meter golds at the world championships a few months later.

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - All U.S. government personnel were evacuated from Washington's embassy in Khartoum, as well as a small number of diplomatic personnel from other countries, U.S. officials said on Saturday, as fighting rocks Sudan. The operation evacuated fewer than 100 people, the officials told reporters. "We evacuated all of the U.S. personnel and dependents assigned to Embassy Khartoum," said Under Secretary of State for Management John Bass. A substantial number of local staff remain in Khartoum supporting the embassy, where Washington decided to suspend operations on Saturday due to the security risks, Bass said. U.S. forces spent just an hour on the ground in Sudan before taking off again, entering and exiting Sudan without being fired upon by the warring factions on the ground, the military said.

☆ Ethiopia to begin negotiations with OLA rebel group
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Dawit Endeshaw | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 23 (Reuters) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said his government will begin negotiations with rebel group the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) in Tanzania on Tuesday. "A negotiation with Oneg Shene will start a day after tomorrow in Tanzania," Abiy said on Sunday, using another name for the OLA. The OLA is an outlawed splinter group of the Oromo Liberation Front, a formerly banned opposition party that returned from exile after Abiy took office in 2018. In October, the OLA and another Oromo group blamed the Ethiopian government for airstrikes they said had killed a number of civilians. The fighting between the OLA and the federal government is separate to the fighting in Tigray, but the OLA forged an alliance with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in 2021.

☆ Sifan Hassan Wins London Marathon in Stunning Comeback
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Andrew Das | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Sifan Hassan, an Olympic track champion from the Netherlands running her first marathon, staged a stunning comeback on Sunday to win the London Marathon in one of the most dramatic and unexpected finishes in the race’s history. In winning, Hassan showed both her stunning range as a runner — she was a triple medalist in three shorter distances on the Tokyo Olympics track two years ago and holds the world record in the mile — but also her inexperience as a marathoner. An Ethiopian-born Dutch athlete better known for her middle-distance success, Hassan fell off the pace about an hour into the race after stopping to stretch her aching left hip, dropped behind the lead group at times and pushed it at others, and even offered drinks to her rivals as they ran. And Hassan, 30, did it all despite training for the race during Ramadan, a month of fasting that left her unable to complete long runs because she could not drink or eat during the day.

☆ Sudan fighting: Doctor describes being stuck with her family in the chaos
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Celine Alkhaldi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Two men are battling for control in Sudan, but stuck in the middle are the country’s people. Since the fighting began last Saturday, CNN has been regularly in touch with Iman Abu Garjah, a British-Sudanese doctor who became stuck while visiting family to celebrate Ramadan. I’m just really, really tired. “[On Thursday] we all just felt really tired, we were still fasting in the midst of all of this, and everybody’s sentiment was Ramadan just has to come to an end. “If we focus on the good stuff, we have oil, we have electricity, we have running water because the water tank is working.

☆ Explainer: Sudan's conflict and what worries neighbours, the U.S. and others
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Five of Sudan's seven neighbours - Ethiopia, Chad, Central African Republic, Libya and South Sudan - have faced political upheaval or conflict themselves in recent years. Smoke rises from burning aircraft inside Khartoum Airport during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and the army in Khartoum, Sudan April 17, 2023. SOUTH SUDAN - South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan in 2011 after a civil war lasting decades, exports its oil output of 170,000 barrels per day via a pipeline through its northern neighbour. Analysts say neither side in Sudan's conflict has an interest in disrupting those flows but South Sudan's government said this week fighting had already hampered logistics and transport links between the oilfields and Port Sudan. THE UNITED STATES AND THE WEST - The United States, like other Western powers, was happy to be rid of Bashir, who was charged with genocide and war crimes by the International Criminal Court over the Darfur conflict.

☆ Fact Check-Video shows protests in Israel in 2019, not migrants in Calais
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

A years-old video showing a group of people, some shirtless and with their faces covered, throwing rocks onto a highway in Israel has been miscaptioned online as showing migrants disrupting traffic in Calais, France. They are throwing rocks to stop trucks so that they can jump on board and sneak into Britain” (here) and (here). The Israeli outlet said the video was captured at Gedera interchange (here). The Gedera interchange is a crossroad where Highways 40 and 7 intersect in the town of Gedera, central Israel. The video shows a 2019 protest in Israel over the death of a teenager at the hands of an off-duty police officer.

☆ Sudan Live Updates: Civilians Feel Strain as Blasts Rock Capital
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Abdi Latif Dahir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

A policeman in 2011 in Abyei, a dividing line between northern and southern Sudan that was the site of a long-running standoff. For decades, Sudan’s military has waged brutal conflicts in the south, east and west of the country. The two sides ultimately negotiated a peace agreement that split the country in 2011 after southerners voted in a referendum for South Sudan to become a new nation. Image Celebrations in Juba, Sudan, on the eve of independence for South Sudan in 2011. Credit... Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesWithin South Sudan, infighting in the government led to clashes in 2013 and ultimately triggered a violent feud between the two biggest ethnic groups. Nuba Mountains conflictClashes between government forces and rebel Nuba fighters in Sudan’s South Kordofan State broke out in the aftermath of South Sudan’s secession, with Nuba fighters supporting South Sudan.

☆ Record-holder Kipchoge headlines stacked Boston Marathon field
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Members of the public fill Boylston Street to watch a dedication ceremony at the finish line on the ten year anniversary of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Brian SnyderApril 15 (Reuters) - World record-holder Eliud Kipchoge headlines a star-studded Boston Marathon field on Monday as the world's oldest 26.2-mile race takes on a somber tone 10 years after a bombing attack near the finish line. Ethiopian Amane Beriso, who produced the all-time third-fastest marathon in Valencia late last year, headlines a speedy women's field with twice major winner Joyciline Jepkosgei of Kenya and Ethiopia's world champion Gotytom Gebreslase. Kenyan Edna Kiplagat will vie for her third Boston title with her fellow former champions American Des Linden and Ethiopian Atsede Baysa also expected to run. The 127th running of the Boston Marathon begins with the men's wheelchair division at 9:02 a.m.

☆ Facebook depends on local partners to flag hateful content. In Ethiopia, those partners say they were ignored.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Tekendra Parmar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +31 min

Trusted partners say warnings were ignoredInsider spoke with six current and former trusted partners from Ethiopia who said that Facebook routinely ignored their pleas to take down content that they deemed hateful or likely to incite violence. Some of the trusted partners declined to be named because they've faced death threats and fear for their own safety. Multiple trusted partners in Ethiopia said hate speech is still proliferating on the platform. Rafiq Copeland, a senior adviser at InterNews, one of Meta's longest-standing trusted partners globally, told Insider that the core complaints of trusted partners in Ethiopia have come up in other Rest of World countries. Even in Addis Ababa, it seemed that everyone knew about the Facebook posts, and many people now saw him as a traitor.

☆ Factbox: The struggle for power in Sudan
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The following outlines the struggle for power in Sudan in recent years:WHO HAS BEEN IN CHARGE IN SUDAN? Sudan began its halting transition towards democracy after military generals ousted long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir amid a popular uprising in April 2019. Under an August 2019 agreement, the military agreed to share power with civilians ahead of elections. That arrangement was abruptly halted by the 2021 coup, which triggered a new campaign of mass pro-democracy rallies across Sudan. The military has been a dominant force in Sudan since independence in 1956, staging coups, fighting internal wars, and amassing economic holdings.

☆ In southern Ethiopia, drought kills livestock amid fears of what comes next
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Dawit Endeshaw | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/5] Roba Galgalo, 26, walks next to his emaciated cows at Kura Kalicha camp for the people internally displaced by drought near Das town, Oromiya region, Ethiopia March 7, 2023. REUTERS/Tiksa NegeriKURA KALICHA, Ethiopia, April 6 (Reuters) - After three years of failed rains, the animals in the southern Ethiopian village of Kura Kalicha are dying. Like its neighbours Somalia and Kenya, southern Ethiopia is enduring the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades. “Collectively, as communities they have run out of coping mechanisms,” said Kate Maldonado from international aid agency Mercy Corps, who recently visited southern Ethiopia's Somali region. The population across much of southern Ethiopia's lowlands relies overwhelmingly on its livestock, with diets supplemented by basic crops like maize.

☆ IMF team in Ethiopia for talks on new funding programme -Bloomberg News
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 27 (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund officials are in Ethiopia this week doing technical work to prepare for a potential IMF-supported program for the East African country, an IMF spokesperson said on Monday. This week's technical discussions follow ongoing discussions between the IMF and Ethiopian authorities on how to best address humanitarian and economic challenges, the spokesperson added. Bloomberg, which first reported the IMF visit, said officials from the global lender were expected to stay 10 days. Progress on the IMF program and Ethiopia's request for debt relief under the Group of 20 Common Framework had been stalled due in part to the conflict in Tigray. Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Stephen CoatesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

LONDON—In a small windowless room in the basement of the British Museum sit some of the holiest relics of the Ethiopian Orthodox church: 11 small wooden plaques called Tabots that are considered by Ethiopian Christians to contain God’s presence. Each is meant to represent the biblical Ark of the Covenant. So holy are the pieces that they cannot be publicly displayed—Ethiopian Orthodox believers say only priests should look at them—and not even the director of the British Museum can view them. Covered in pieces of cloth, the 14-inch tablets with carved inscriptions have hardly been seen since they were looted from an Ethiopian fort in 1868 by invading British forces.

☆ Ethiopia scraps bid to end UN-ordered Tigray abuses probe early - sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Emma Farge | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

GENEVA, March 23 (Reuters) - Ethiopia has dropped a draft motion that sought to bring an early end to a U.N. mandated investigative probe into the Tigray war, diplomats and observers told Reuters, after pressure from Western countries. The International Commission on Ethiopia, the only independent probe into the two-year conflict which pitted Ethiopia's army against forces in the northern Tigray region, has already found reasonable grounds to believe that all parties have committed war crimes. The U.S. also determined this week that all sides including the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies had committed war crimes - allegations they both reject. But five diplomats and human rights sources said Ethiopia had since backed off amid pressure. Ethiopia has opposed the investigation from the outset, calling it politically-motivated and trying to block its funding, preferring national accountability efforts.

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - The United States has determined that all sides committed war crimes during the conflict in northern Ethiopia that killed tens of thousands of people, left hundreds of thousands facing hunger and displaced millions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday. Members of the ENDF, Eritrean forces, and Amhara forces also committed crimes against humanity, Blinken told reporters, including murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence and persecution. Members of the Amhara forces committed the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer and committed ethnic cleansing through their treatment of Tigrayans in western Tigray, Blinken said. "In terms of what happens next in Ethiopia, including what process they establish to provide for justice, for accountability, we'll see. The United States was outspoken in its criticism of alleged atrocities by Ethiopian forces and their allies from Eritrea and the Amhara region during the Tigray war.

☆ Boeing lawyers argue 737 MAX crash victims didn't have time to feel pain as plane slammed into the ground
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Legal disputes are ongoing to determine what damages Boeing might owe families of crash victims. Boeing attorneys say they don't have to pay for pain felt by passengers because they crashed too fast to feel pain. Boeing's lawyers said in the filing that under Illinois law, damages can only be paid for crash victims "conscious pain and suffering" if there is verifiable evidence that suffering occurred. People walk past a part of the wreckage at the scene of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. "We are deeply sorry to all who lost loved ones on Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Flight 302," Boeing said in a statement to Insider.

☆ Ethiopia's Tigray region appoints new interim leader - Tigrai TV
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Dawit Endeshaw | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) fought Ethiopian forces and their allies in a war that killed tens of thousands of people. If Getachew's nomination, which was reported by the TPLF-controlled Tigrai TV, is approved by the federal government, he would replace TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael, who has led Tigray since 2018. It is not clear when the federal government might weigh in on Getachew's nomination or when the interim administration will be set up. The lack of an interim government has been hampering the humanitarian response across Tigray, where millions are in dire need of assistance, according to aid workers. During that visit, Blinken discussed with Getachew and Ethiopian officials the importance of setting up the interim administration.

☆ Boeing, Families Argue Over Pay for 737 MAX Victims’ Suffering
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Andrew Tangel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A memorial protest outside Boeing’s Virginia headquarters last week marked the four-year anniversary of the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Four years after a second 737 MAX crashed, Boeing Co. and attorneys for families of the dead are arguing over whether the plane maker should have to pay for the victims’ suffering. Boeing attorneys say the crash victims died instantaneously when the Ethiopian Airlines jet slammed into the ground. They argue in court documents that any pain and suffering they may have felt before impact aren’t legally relevant for calculating damages.

☆ Did MAX 737 Victims Suffer Pain? The Latest Litigation Issue for Boeing and Crash Victims’ Families
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Andrew Tangel | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The four-year anniversary of the Ethiopian Airlines crash was marked with a memorial protest outside Boeing’s Virginia headquarters last week. Four years after a second 737 MAX crashed, Boeing Co. and attorneys for families of the dead are arguing over whether the plane maker should have to pay for the victims’ suffering. Boeing attorneys say the crash victims died instantaneously when the Ethiopian Airlines jet slammed into the ground. They argue in court documents that any pain and suffering they may have felt before impact aren’t legally relevant for calculating damages.

☆ Blinken meets Ethiopian leader to repair ties damaged by war
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Daphne Psaledakis | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/11] U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 15, 2023. "We have agreed to strengthen the long standing bilateral relations between our countries with a commitment to partnership," the Ethiopian leader said. While the peace deal has allowed humanitarian aid to flow into Tigray, needs remain immense after the conflict left hundreds of thousands facing starvation. Eritrean troops remain in several border areas while militia from the Amhara region, which neighbours Tigray, occupy large areas of territory in contested parts of western and southern Tigray, humanitarian workers said. A spokesperson for the Amhara regional government said it and the people of Amhara were "always ready to co-operate with peace deal process and activities".

[1/3] An Ethiopian boy who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray region, gestures in the Hamdayet village, in eastern Kassala state, Sudan December 15, 2020. The Ethiopian government's two-year conflict with forces in the northern Tigray region ended last November with thousands dead and millions uprooted. Though the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council has never ended a probe before its mandate, Addis Ababa has circulated a draft version of a resolution calling for the Tigray inquiry to stop some six months early. AFRICAN OPPOSITIONThe war pitted the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) against federal troops, who were also backed by fighters from nearby Amhara region and Eritrea. Reporting by Emma Farge, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber; Additional reporting by Dawit Endeshaw in Addis AbabaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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