Asmara

Eritrea has banned the life-threatening practice of female circumcision, the Eritrean Information Ministry said in a statement. Anyone who requests, incites or promotes female genital mutilation will be punished with a fine and imprisonment, said a government statement posted on the internet late on Wednesday.

Former rebels operating in eastern Sudan are to demobilise ”within days” following the group’s official registration as a political party, officials said on Wednesday. Rejecting reports that the movement has split along ethnic lines, Eastern Front deputy chairperson Amna Dirar said a peace deal signed last October is on track.

Eritrea warned the United States on Friday that its involvement in Somalia would ”incur dangerous consequences” following a US air strike in the Horn of Africa nation targeting al-Qaeda suspects. Eritrea has, in a matter of years, gone from being a US ally to one of its staunchest opponents, analysts say.

Eritrea dismissed on Friday reports by Amnesty International that accused the Red Sea state of arresting 500 parents of people who fled the country illegally to avoid conscription. Asmara routinely denies rights criticism from abroad, saying the world has long been prejudiced against it and in favour of the Horn of Africa’s main power, Ethiopia.

Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki this week held talks with a Sudanese government delegation to boost dialogue aimed at ending a conflict in the troubled Darfur region, officials said on Friday. Issaias met the delegation, headed by Sudanese presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie, in the Eritrean Red Sea port of Massawa on Thursday, they said.

Eritrea is calling for an emergency East African meeting to discuss the situation in Somalia, where it and arch-foe Ethiopia have been accused of waging a proxy war, officials said on Thursday. As all-out war, which many fear could engulf the Horn of Africa, looms in the lawless nation, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki urged a crisis meeting.

Eritrea on Monday opposed plans by an independent border panel to demarcate its contentious border with arch-rival Ethiopia on paper, saying the move offers no solution to the simmering row. Instead, Asmara said steps should be taken against Ethiopia, which it has blamed for blocking the implementation of the panel’s ruling.

Eritrea said on Monday it has ordered two more international aid agencies to leave the country, bringing to at least 11 the number of such groups expelled this year. Asmara said the services of the International Rescue Committee and the Samaritan’s Purse are no longer needed.

Arch-foes and Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea tussled on Wednesday over the holding of a meeting to discuss their simmering border dispute, as the fate of the planned talks remained unclear. Asmara said that it would not attend the meeting set for Thursday in The Hague unless Addis Ababa agreed to the terms of a 2002 border ruling.

A rebel group in western Sudan’s Darfur region threatened on Tuesday to scuttle peace efforts in the country’s troubled east if excluded from planned negotiations. ”We do not accept the decision to exclude us from the talks between the Eastern Front and Khartoum,” Khalil Ibrahim, leader of Justice Equality Movement (JEM), told Agence France-Presse.

Arch-rival Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea blamed each other on Friday for the failure of talks aimed at ending the deadlock over their tense border that many fear could spark a new war. The two countries accused each other of holding to longstanding inflexible positions even as mediators attempted to negotiate a breakthrough.

Eritrea on Tuesday for the first time confirmed it would attend talks in London this week aimed at resolving border tensions with its arch-rival Horn-of-Africa neighbour, Ethiopia. The announcement came a day after the United Nations Security Council gave Ethiopia and Eritrea until the end of the month to ease the situation.

The United Nations special humanitarian envoy for the Horn of Africa on Wednesday kicked off a tour of the drought-stricken region in Eritrea where concerns are mounting that food aid may be rotting in warehouses. Since September, Asmara has cut the number of free food aid recipients by 95%, from 1,3-million to about 70 000.

Eritrea has ordered three foreign non-governmental aid groups to suspend their activities despite hunger threatening two-thirds of the population of the Horn of Africa nation. The Ministry of Labour and Human Welfare said they had not ”met the requirements laid down for an operational permit” in letters seen by Agence France-Presse on Thursday.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday reported massive bird deaths in two regions in Eritrea, two weeks after it warned that the Horn of African nation was at risk of bird flu infection. WHO representative Andrew Kosia said that wild fowl had died in the coastal area of the Red Sea region and several chickens had died in the western region of Gash Barka.

Eritrea on Monday denied accusations by Ethiopia that it was behind three separate explosions that rocked Addis Ababa last week and wounded four people. Yemane Gebremeskel, director of the president’s office, said that the weekend accusations by Addis Ababa were meant to shift "attention from their own domestic problems".

Eritrea has rebuffed suggestions for fresh talks over the border stalemate with arch-foe Ethiopia, calling such proposals ”deviations” from the 2002 independent border ruling. Asmara was reacting late on Monday to proposals last week by observers to the 2000 peace deal that ended the Horn of Africa countries’ border war.

Eritrea on Thursday reacted coolly to a United States pledge at the United Nations to pursue diplomatic initiatives in a bid to resolve the tense border stalemate between it and arch-rival neighbour Ethiopia. Asmara said the time has come for Ethiopia to be forced to accept a four-year-old border demarcation.

The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) said on Thursday that a small group of Ethiopian soldiers had breached a de-militarised buffer zone inside Eritrea amid soaring border tensions. A day after the UN Security Council threatened to slap sanctions on both Addis Ababa and Asmara if either resumes hostilities in the long-running dispute, UNMEE said the Ethiopian troops had been in the zone for five days.

The United Nations has ordered the families of all its staff in Eritrea to leave the country amid soaring border tensions with arch-rival Ethiopia that have raised fears of a new war, senior UN officials said on Monday. The move comes as a result of a weekend UN decision to raise the security-threat level throughout most of Eritrea.

Eritrea on Wednesday denied a charge that it fuelled street violence that rocked Ethiopia early this month, claiming at least 48 lives, by supporting rebels who want to overthrow the Addis Ababa government. ”We deny this accusation,” Eritrea’s Information Minister Ali Abdu said.

Eritrea on Monday denied reports by the United Nations that it has been moving troops near its tense border with Ethiopia, a move that has increased tension between the Horn of Africa foes. ”It is not true at all that there is an Eritrean troop movement,” Information Minister Ali Abdu said.

The United Nations has urged India and Jordan, the top contributors to the UN peacekeeping force in Ethiopia and Eritrea, not to withdraw their troops over restrictions imposed by Asmara. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked the two countries to delay any decisions about staffing the UN mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea in the hope that a stalemate over the Eritrean restrictions can be resolved.

Five years after Eritrea fought a border war with Ethiopia, the tiny Horn of Africa nation has increasingly isolated itself, showing anger towards the international community and intensifying its sabre-rattling. This nation on the western banks of the Red Sea has been facing a litany of condemnation over its record on human rights and press freedom.

Eritrea on Wednesday denounced as ”toothless, meaningless [and] pathetic” the latest United Nations Security Council resolution on its festering border tensions with neighbouring Ethiopia. On Tuesday in New York, the Security Council voted unanimously to urge the nations to implement a 2002 boundary ruling.

Eritrea’s decision to bar the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) from operating in the impoverished Horn of Africa nation is ”irreversible,” the country’s national development minister said on Wednesday. ”We are uncomfortable with the operations of the USAid office in Asmara,” said Woldai Futur.

Eritrean Foreign Minister Ali Said died of a heart attack on Sunday, Eritrean Minister of Information Ali Abdu said. ”It’s a great loss for this country,” he said on Sunday in Asmara, the Eritrean capital. In 1965, Said, the son of a Muslim shepherd, received medical and military training in Syria before joining the Eritrean Liberation Front.

Eritrea has ordered a United States aid group operating in the country to halt its activities saying it was ”uncomfortable” with the group’s continued presence. Scott DeLisi, the US ambassador to the Horn of African nation said that Asmara had called on the United States Agency for International Development to wind-up its operations.