Lea Lisa Westerhoff

Ethiopians are awaiting a verdict in the marathon genocide trial of former dictator Mengistu Haile Miriam, who is accused of a plethora of brutal atrocities during his 17-year regime. Ethiopia’s Federal High Court is expected to deliver its ruling on Tuesday after a more than a decade of what has been one of Africa’s longest criminal proceedings.

The African Union on Monday gave two hold-out Darfur rebel groups a 24-hour deadline to sign a peace deal with Khartoum or face United Nations sanctions. AU commission chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare said the pan-African body would ask the UN Security Council to slap sanctions on the the two groups unless they signed the deal by Tuesday.

At least two people were killed and 21 injured on Friday when four blasts, described by police as "criminal acts", rocked Addis Ababa, the latest in a series of mystery explosions in the country. Two people died and seven were hurt, five seriously and two slightly, when a device exploded at a cafe in the capital’s north-west Mercato district.

At least five people were shot dead and more than 28 were wounded on Tuesday when Ethiopian police fired on and beat crowds in the capital amid new tensions over disputed May elections. Doctors at four Addis Ababa hospitals said five people had been killed by gunfire and another 28 were being treated for bullet wounds along with an unknown number of others who appeared to have been assaulted by the police.

Heavily armed Ethiopian police clashed with stone-throwing rioters in the capital on Tuesday amid soaring new tension between the government and opposition over disputed May elections, witnesses said. Shots were heard as about 250 riot police deployed in the downtown Mercato area where angry mobs had erected barricades of rocks and burning tyres in the streets.