The linked rings on every Chinese Coke bottle and the leaping athletes on each McDonald's paper bag testify to the power the world's biggest corporations believe this summer's Olympics wields. But having spent huge sums, the companies sponsoring the Games are about to find themselves the targets of a new war on China's human rights record.
Soldiers, insurgents and bandits are routinely attacking Somalian civilians, carrying out murder, rape, and robbery on villagers, and destroying entire districts, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. Gang rape and throat cutting -- referred to locally as "killing like goats" -- is prevalent.
All parties in Somalia's conflict have carried out rights abuses including executions, rape and torture, Amnesty International said on Tuesday, adding there were reports Ethiopian soldiers had slit civilians' throats. Mogadishu's whole population is scarred from witnessing or suffering such abuses, it said in its 32-page report.
Ethiopia criticised Amnesty International on Thursday and said the group's accusations that Ethiopian soldiers killed 21 people at a Mogadishu mosque were "lies" and "propaganda". Amnesty said on Wednesday the soldiers, who are stationed in Somalia to bolster the interim government, had also captured dozens of children.
Amnesty International accused Ethiopian soldiers on Wednesday of killing 21 people, including an imam and several Islamic scholars, at a Mogadishu mosque and said seven of the victims had their throats slit. The rights group said the soldiers had also captured dozens of children during the raid on the al-Hidaaya mosque.
Nigeria's prisons are a "national scandal", filled with thousands of inmates who have never been convicted of any crime while some prisoners wait decades to face trial, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. The human rights group said only about 35% of Nigerian inmates have been convicted in court.
Police in Mozambique are killing and torturing people with near total impunity, according to a report by Amnesty International released on Tuesday. "Police in Mozambique seem to think they have a licence to kill, and the weak police accountability system allows for this," Michelle Kagari, deputy director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme, said.
Zimbabwe raised doubts on Friday over whether President Robert Mugabe would attend an emergency regional summit on the weekend to discuss deepening concern over a post-election deadlock in the country. Officials had earlier said Mugabe was expected to attend the Lusaka summit on Saturday of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community.
A war of words has erupted ahead of election day in Zimbabwe this Saturday, with the opposition saying the government has already rigged the vote. These elections were "never meant to be an even playing field", said Nkosana Moyo, coordinator of presidential hopeful Simba Makoni's campaign, in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
