Ethiopia

For the second time in two weeks, the United Nations mission monitoring the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea has reported movements of troops on both sides of the border on Friday, despite an earlier order from the UN Security Council to pull back or face sanctions.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) disclosed on Friday it is extending 100% relief on all outstanding debt owed it by Ethiopia prior to January 1 2005, a write-off amounting to about -million. The write-off includes assistance the IMF extended to the country under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative.

The Ethio-Eritrea Claims Commission has found Eritrea liable to compensate Ethiopia for damages incurred during attacks and occupation of Ethiopian territory in border regions during the conflict, the ministry of foreign affairs disclosed on Wednesday. The commission found Eritrea responsible for the two-and-a-half-year border conflict.

Ethiopia on Tuesday accused arch-rival Eritrea of deliberately ratcheting up tension along their border and said it will take deterrent measures to dissuade Asmara from starting a new conflict. ”The Eritrean government is making efforts to worsen the situation around the border,” Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told lawmakers.

Eritrea has ordered the expulsion of United States, Canadian, Russian and other European staff of the United Nations peacekeeping mission that monitors the tense border with neighbouring Ethiopia, United Nations officials said on Wednesday. In a letter sent to the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, the staff were told that they have 10 days to leave the Horn of Africa nation.

Ethiopian police are still holding about 5 400 people detained during deadly street riots early this month over alleged electoral fraud in May’s legislative elections, the country’s police chief said on Tuesday. Federal Police Comissioner Workneh Gedeyhu explained that 3 858 people were released on Monday.

The United Nations mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (Unmee), monitoring the disputed border between the two countries, reported on Thursday that the buffer zone along the border ”remained tense and potentially volatile”. Recently imposed restrictions on Unmee’s activities have also ”considerably increased” during the week.

Businesses and schools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, remained closed on Monday and public transport was at a virtual standstill as workers shied away from the city in the aftermath of last week’s clashes that killed at least 40. Streets were deserted, with taxis and minibuses still not back in operation.

Residents of Addis Ababa largely stayed home on Friday in a fifth day of renewed protest over the results of May elections the opposition calls fraudulent. There were reports of more scattered gunfire and rioting in parts of the capital. Diplomats said they had reports of police continuing to round up suspected opposition leaders overnight.

Police shot and killed two people and wounded 12 others on Thursday, the fourth day of protests against Ethiopia’s disputed parliamentary elections, doctors said. The renewed violence came a day after police shot dead at least 29 people and wounded dozens more.

Clashes between police and protesters erupted in gunfire and grenade explosions on Wednesday, with police killing at least 33 people during a second day of renewed demonstrations against Ethiopia’s disputed elections, a rights group said. At least 81 civilians also were wounded in Wednesday’s clashes, including children.

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council (PSC) on Thursday extended by three months the mandate of its protection force in Sudan’s war-ravaged region of Darfur amid escalating violence. The PSC adopted the decision to renew the mandate of its African Union Mission in Sudan until January 20, 2006.

Ethiopian children are being sold for as little as $1,20 (about R7,90) to work as domestic workers or prostitutes, the International Organisation for Migration said on Wednesday. Up to 20 000 children, some 10 years old, are sold each year by their parents and trafficked by unscrupulous brokers to work in cities across Ethiopia.

The European Parliament on Friday called for an end to harrassment of opposition groups in Ethiopia and warned of possible aid cuts to the impoverished Horn of Africa nation if it did not stop. The Strasbourg-based legislature deplored the government’s treatment of the opposition since disputed May elections that European Union observers said failed to meet international standards.

Authorities in north-eastern Ethiopia have advised 50 000 people to evacuate from a remote region following a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, an official said on Wednesday. A thick layer of volcanic ash has spewed from the volcano has covered grazing grounds.

About 50 000 nomads in Ethiopia’s Afar region were displaced as a result of last week’s eruption of a volcano, officials there said on Monday. Mount Arteale, about 1 000km north-east of Addis Ababa, erupted on September 26 after an earthquake measuring 5,5 on the Richter scale.

Ethiopia’s main opposition parties said on Monday that preliminary talks with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi aimed at defusing tensions in the wake of controversial elections were cordial and fruitful. The talks focused on the opposition’s differences with the government over charges that the ruling EPRDF Party fraudulently won the country’s mid-May elections.

Côte d’Ivoire rebels holding the north of the country said on Friday they want a ”bold decision” from a West African regional summit in Nigeria to end the mandate of embattled President Laurent Gbagbo. They accused Gbagbo of failing to implement measures called for in the three-year-old, French-brokered peace deal.

Ethiopian police have arrested 43 opposition supporters for allegedly plotting violent subversion ahead of a weekend demonstration called to protest disputed May elections, the official Ethiopian News Agency reported on Monday. An opposition spokesperson, however, rejected the accusations as false.

Indian drug firm Kadila Pharmaceutical is building a factory in a suburb of the Ethiopian capital at a cost of 75-million birr (,65-million) that is expected to be operational early next year, its Vice President Ajai Agrawal disclosed on Monday. The factory, under construction at Akaki, 20km south-east of Addis Ababa, is expected to produce drugs mainly for tuberculosis and malaria.

Members of Ethiopia’s Jewish community in Addis Ababa complained on Friday that police had prevented them from continuing a hunger strike to press their demand that they be taken to Israel. Members of the Bete Israel community, the so-called Falashas or Ethiopian Jews, had been on hunger strike for three days.