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/ 31 January 2008
African Union heads of state were set on Thursday to begin a three-day summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, focused on the deadly crisis in Kenya and the challenges facing the body’s peacekeeping missions. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was expected to address the organisation and call for a peaceful resolution of the post-poll dispute in Kenya.
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/ 29 January 2008
The African Union starts a heads-of-state summit in Addis Ababa on Thursday seeking to bolster the body’s capacity to solve conflicts such as the crises in Darfur and Somalia. Since its inception in 2002, the pan-African body has lacked the funds and political drive to take effective action on the continent’s flashpoints.
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/ 18 January 2008
The African Union Commission’s chairperson recommended on Friday a six-month extension for a peacekeeping force in Somalia and criticised member states for failing to honour pledges for troops. A 1 800-strong AU Mission in Somalia has been carrying out peacekeeping duties in Mogadishu, where Islamist insurgents have been fighting the interim government.
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/ 5 December 2007
The United States and Africa’s Great Lakes states agreed on Wednesday to rapidly strengthen Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) security forces in their drive against rebel and foreign forces. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave no details when she announced the agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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/ 5 December 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Ethiopia on Wednesday for talks with African leaders aimed at tackling long-running conflicts in the volatile Great Lakes region, Somalia and Sudan. On only her second trip in two years to sub-Saharan Africa, Rice said she wanted to move international efforts forward to resolve those conflicts.
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/ 4 December 2007
Ethiopia has warned that the world’s disinterest in sending peacekeepers to Somalia was dampening hopes of achieving peace in the shattered African nation. Of the 8 000 peacekeepers the African Union pledged to send to bolster President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s weak government, only 1 500 Ugandan troops are actually on the ground.
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/ 27 November 2007
Ethiopia has boosted its defence budget by more than -million to gird for a possible resumption of hostilities with Eritrea over their disputed border, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Parliament on Tuesday. ”Our military budget has been raised proportionally from three billion to 3,5-billion birr [a rise of 16,7%, equivalent to ,3-million],” Meles said.
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/ 6 November 2007
Ethiopia on Tuesday said it had no plans to go to war with rival Eritrea over their disputed border, and again urged Asmara to pull its troops back and begin dialogue over marking the frontier. Ethiopia’s comments came a day after the International Crisis Group warned the two nations could easily slide into a repeat of their 1998 to 2000 border war.
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/ 1 November 2007
There is a settlement in Ethiopia where houses are in high demand, new restaurants and bars open often and nearly 700 people moved in last month alone. But Shimelba is a refugee camp, not a boom town, and its residents — exiles from neighbouring Eritrea whose ranks are swelling at an alarming rate — are uniformly miserable.
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/ 29 October 2007
An Eritrean allegation that Ethiopia planned to invade the Red Sea state in early November was an absurd fabrication, an Ethiopian official said on Monday. Addis Ababa and Asmara have been locked in a bitter border dispute since a boundary commission awarded Eritrea the town of Badme, a flash point of the 1998 to 2000 border war.
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/ 26 October 2007
The African Union on Friday urged all Sudanese parties involved in the Darfur conflict to take part in peace talks due to kick off in the Libyan city of Sirte. In a statement issued by the pan-African body’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, AU Commission chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare appealed to ”all the Sudanese parties to constructively participate”.
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/ 24 October 2007
Ethiopia has started re-erecting its famed Axum obelisk 30 months after it returned to the country from Italy where it stayed for 70 years, a United Nations expert said on Wednesday. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation is overseeing the operation.
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/ 23 October 2007
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on Tuesday dismissed claims that rebels from the restive Ogaden region had defeated the military and caused one of his top aides to flee. Addressing Parliament in Addis Ababa, Meles played down rebel claims that the army had been humiliated by the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
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/ 22 October 2007
R&B star Beyoncé Knowles joined year-long millennium celebrations in Ethiopia on Saturday evening with a spirited concert in the capital of the Horn of Africa nation. About 5 000 adoring fans in Ethiopia — a country normally unimpressed by Western music — turned out to see Beyoncé.
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/ 21 October 2007
Ethiopia’s Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels said they killed 140 government soldiers in a weekend assault targeting a senior official, a statement Ethiopia immediately denounced as false. Both sides routinely claim to inflict large numbers of casualties on the other, but the reports are difficult to independently verify.
Outgoing Ethiopian President Girma Wolde-Giorgise accused Eritrea on Monday of disregarding attempts to peacefully resolve a border impasse and putting the Horn of Africa neighbours on the path to war. ”Our government has persistently expressed its unwavering desire to engage in a relationship with Eritrea based on the principles of peace and non-interference,” he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on her first visit to sub-Saharan Africa, called on Thursday for more democratic opening in Ethiopia, a key ally of the West now under scrutiny over rights issues. On the first leg of a five-day tour, the German leader urged Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to provide greater space in Ethiopia for both political opposition and the media.
The African Union denied on Tuesday that troop-contributing nations had threatened to pull their forces from a mission to Darfur after a rebel attack on an AU peacekeeping base. The AU says 10 soldiers were killed and 10 others wounded after the weekend raid — the worst assault on AU forces since 2004 when the 7 000-strong mission was deployed.
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/ 22 September 2007
Ethiopia is showing its citizens there is more to coffee than just its robust, mild or medium taste. A precedent-setting deal with coffee giant Starbucks this year was the most renowned Addis Ababa has had in a push to promote the names of its coffee-growing regions worldwide.
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/ 12 September 2007
Ethiopia entered the third millennium seven years after the rest of the world on Wednesday, amid lavish celebrations, religious fervour and messages of hope from the troubled country’s leaders. As the giant countdown board in central Addis Ababa flashed the year 2000, thousands of faithful gathered in churches.
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/ 11 September 2007
Gebre Alemayu hopes to achieve one goal for Ethiopia’s millennium: to be able to run 5km in less than 14 minutes. The 18-year-old runner was on Tuesday taking a break from his practice at central Addis Ababa’s Meskel Square, which was draped in posters and banners celebrating the Ethiopian millennium.
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/ 3 September 2007
As they prepare to mark the year 2000 seven years after the rest of the world, Ethiopians are torn between pride in a unique culture and uneasiness at the extravaganza planned to mark the occasion. Concerts by, exhibitions and other events are expected to shine an unusually positive light on a country mired in poverty and conflict.
Thousands of homeless people will be moved from the capital to the countryside before next month’s millennium celebration and provided help with food, shelter and medicine, a development group said on Tuesday. Homelessness is a huge problem in Addis Ababa, a city of five million where an estimated 90 000 live on the streets.
More than 100 000 people have been affected by floods in Ethiopia and 17 have died of waterborne disease, the United Nations said on Tuesday. ”Approximately 103 000 people have been affected by floods,” UN humanitarian agency Ocha said in a report following days of heavy rains.
Ethiopian security forces have foiled an attempt by Eritrean-sponsored insurgents to assassinate officials and destroy public institutions, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency reported on Wednesday. The two Horn of Africa nations have been at loggerheads since a 1998 to 2000 border war that killed 70Â 000 people.
A volcano has erupted in Ethiopia’s remote Afar region, leaving two people missing and forcing hundreds to leave the area, the state news agency said on Wednesday. People living on the mountain range fled their homes after hot lava began flowing in different directions along valleys at the weekend, Ethiopia News Agency said.
The African Union on Friday voiced its concern over the deepening crisis in Burundi, where the peace process is floundering and tribal tensions are resurfacing. ”We express deep concern over the stalling of the implementation of the agreement signed by the Burundi government and the National Liberation Forces,” the AU said.
Ethiopia said on Wednesday it had killed more than 500 rebels and captured 170 in the past two months during an offensive in the volatile but energy-rich Ogaden region bordering Somalia. The Ogaden National Liberation Front dismissed the statement as an attempt by the government to lull oil companies interested in the region into a ”false sense of security”.
Ethiopia’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday said government troops had killed 200 rebels and captured hundreds in the restive predominantly Somali southern region of Ogaden over the past month. "Over 200 anti-peace elements have been killed by the military," the ministry said in a statement, adding that militants had "been destroyed" in a successful operation.
One civilian was killed and eight wounded in two bomb blasts in Ethiopia’s remote Ogaden region, officials said on Monday, as Ogaden rebels and the government blamed each other for the explosions. ”Two suspects have been arrested,” said a spokesperson for Ethiopia’s Information Ministry, who declined to be named.
Five African nations pledged on Thursday to send peacekeepers to a mission in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region that was approved this week by the United Nations Security Council, a top African Union official said. Said Djinnit, the AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, said member states had responded positively during talks.
The African Union met Thursday to encourage member states to put more troops into the Darfur peacekeeping mission approved by the United Nations Security Council. Ambassadors to the pan-African body gathered at its Addis Ababa headquarters to discuss the force, which faces the daunting task of stabilising the war-torn western Sudanese region.