The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Tigrayan rebels to immediately release five journalists working for a local broadcaster in war-torn northern Ethiopia.

The five employees of Tigrai TV – a channel linked to Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) – were arrested in May and June this year, the CPJ said on Wednesday.

It cited a former senior manager at the broadcaster, as well as multiple media reports and a source familiar with the matter.

The journalists are accused "of 'collaboration with the enemy' for their alleged work with the Ethiopian federal government and its ruling Prosperity Party, according to those sources," the CPJ said in a statement.

"Convictions for collaboration with any group designated as an 'enemy' can carry up to life imprisonment or the death penalty," the media watchdog said.

"Journalists operating in Tigray should be allowed to live and work freely, without fear that they will be targeted in politically motivated cases," said CPJ's representative for sub-Saharan Africa, Muthoki Mumo.

Held 'for their work'

Two of the CPJ's sources said they believed the five were being held "for their work for Tigrai TV during the time when it was controlled by federal authorities".

The CPJ also urged Ethiopian authorities to end a communications blackout in Tigray, which has been facing dire shortages of food and disruptions to electricity, banking and other essential services.

TPLF, which has been locked in a 20-month conflict with Ethiopia's government, regained control of Tigray in June 2021, overthrowing an interim administration established by federal authorities.

The conflict erupted in November 2020 when the government sent federal troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF, the region's former ruling party, saying it was in response to rebel attacks on army camps.

The TPLF mounted a shock comeback in June last year, retaking Tigray and then expanding into the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara.

Fighting intensified in the second half of 2021 before reaching a stalemate./agencies

Armed bandits have killed 17 people including five policemen in separate attacks in northwest Nigeria's Katsina state in the latest wave of violence in the region, police and a local official said.

A group of around 300 bandits on motorcycles attacked a police post near Gatakawa village in Kankara district, killing five policemen, local police spokesperson Gambo Isah said on Thursday.

"We lost five policemen in (a) gunfight with the bandits in an effort to prevent them from raiding Gatakawa village," Isah said.

The attackers also killed three civilians from the village, he added.

Separately, at least nine people died between Tuesday and Wednesday in attacks on four villages in neighbouring Faskari district blamed on the same gang, local official Musa Ado said.

"Four villages were attacked and a total of nine people were killed, with Ruwan Godiya village losing six people," Ado said.

"A person was killed in each of the other three villages where the bandits looted livestock and other supplies," he added.

Volatile north 

Northwest and central Nigeria are a hub of criminal gangs known locally as bandits who raid villages, killing or abducting residents after looting and burning homes.

The criminals, who maintain camps in a vast forest straddling Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states, were declared terrorists by Nigeria's government in January.

Bandits have intensified attacks in Katsina state, operating from hideouts in neighbouring Zamfara state which is their stronghold.

Although the gangs are motivated by financial gains with no ideological leaning, Nigerian officials are concerned about possible ties with militants making inroads from the northeast where they are waging a 13-year insurgency.

Source: AFP

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants a general agreement reached between Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye and the United Nations on a UN-led plan to resume Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports to be put in writing this week.

"An agreement emerged from the talks in Istanbul last week on the general outline of the process under the UN plan. Now, we want to tie this agreement to a written document," Erdogan told reporters on Wednesday on a return flight from Tehran, where he met Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We hope the plan will begin to be implemented in the coming days," Erdogan added.

Ankara on Monday said that a meeting between the four parties would "probably" be held this week. The Ukraine conflict has sent prices soaring for grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertilizer, stoking a global food crisis.

Russia's February 24 attack on Ukraine and blockade of its ports has stalled exports, leaving dozens of ships stranded and some 20 million tonnes of grain stuck in silos at the Black Sea port of Odesa.

Moscow has denied responsibility for worsening the food crisis, blaming instead a chilling effect of Western sanctions for slowing its own food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine for mining its Black Sea ports.

UN is 'optimistic'

While UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is on vacation, "all day he has been working the phones" and speaking with different leaders, deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Wednesday. He declined to say who Guterres had spoken with.

"He's trying to make as much progress as we can on this right now," said Haq, without giving further details. Guterres told reporters last week, "I'm optimistic, but it's not yet fully done."

Ukraine and Russia are major global wheat suppliers, and Russia is also a large fertilizer exporter, while Ukraine is a significant producer of corn and sunflower oil.

Before the talks a week ago, diplomats said details of the plan included Ukrainian vessels guiding grain ships in and out through mined port waters; Russia agreeing to a truce while shipments move; and Türkiye — supported by the United Nations — inspecting ships to allay Russian fears of weapons smuggling.

US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Wednesday that Washington was encouraging the United Nations in its efforts to broker a deal on Ukraine grain exports.

"But we will also be watching the Russians and hold them accountable for any agreement that they should make with the UN," she said. "We thought we might even hear that an announcement would happen today. So far, it hasn't happened."

Source: Reuters

Amnesty International has called for an investigation into a massacre of more than 400 Amhara civilians in Ethiopia's Oromia region last month, citing eyewitnesses who blamed a local rebel group for the killings.

"These horrific killings in Tole, allegedly at the hands of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) reveal its perpetrators' utter disregard for human life," Deprose Muchena, Amnesty's director for East and Southern Africa, said in a statement on Thursday.

"This callous massacre, which also saw women and children lose their lives, must be independently and effectively investigated," he added.

Ethiopian authorities have blamed the OLA for a number of massacres targeting Amharas, the country's second-largest ethnic group after the Oromo.

OLA has denied the accusations, saying government-allied militias were responsible for the June 18 massacre in the west of Ethiopia's most populous region, which has seen an uptick in violence in recent months.

The assault began around 9 am [local time] when armed men allegedly belonging to the OLA surrounded villages in Tole Kebele, according to nine witnesses interviewed by the human rights group.

Although the villagers alerted the authorities after the first bullets were fired, government forces, however; arrived hours after the massacre.

The attackers unleashed a campaign of summary executions of ethnic Amhara, while also looting and burning homes, in claims corroborated by satellite imagery which showed evidence of fires breaking out in the area, Amnesty said.

'Dozens of bodies piled up'

The Amnesty statement follows a call by UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet last month urging the Ethiopian authorities to conduct "prompt, impartial and thorough" investigations into the Tole killings.

Hussein, a 64-year-old man, told Amnesty he lost 22 children and grandchildren in the attack and saw dozens of bodies piled up in the area, including a newborn baby.

"They killed 42 people at one place. There was only one adult male among them, the rest were women and children," he said.

Another man told the rights group the attackers "torched the house of my neighbour while the family with his children and grandchildren and others were inside".

"One of them was seven months pregnant and was with her two children. They were buried in the compound since they were completely charred."

None of the witnesses were identified by their real names due to safety concerns, Amnesty said.

More than 300 massacred

No official toll from the massacre has been published, but Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's spokesperson Billene Seyoum said last month that 338 victims had so far been identified.

A local administrative official told Amnesty that at least 450 people were killed in the attack.

Witnesses said they identified the attackers as OLA militants because of their uniforms, their "distinctive long braided hair", and their use of the Oromiffa language.

The gunmen also set fire to houses and looted cattle, cash and other items belonging to the villagers, Amnesty said.

Officials "said they were unable to respond because the road was closed", the watchdog said.

The OLA, a shadowy group that has been fighting the federal government in Oromia since 2018, gained new prominence last year when it struck up an alliance with Tigrayan rebels who have been at war with pro-Abiy forces in northern Ethiopia since November 2020.

Source: AFP

President Biden announces executive actions including $2.3 billion in investments to help build US infrastructure to withstand climate disasters.

"The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake... Our national security is at stake as well," Biden says. (AFP)

President Joe Biden, thwarted by lawmakers and the Supreme Court, has sought to revive his ambitions to tackle the climate crisis as heat waves batter the United States and Europe.

"Climate change... is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger," Biden said on Wednesday, announcing executive actions including $2.3 billion in investments to help build US infrastructure to withstand climate disasters.

"The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake... Our national security is at stake as well... And our economy is at risk. So we have to act."

Biden, delivering a speech at a former coal-fired electricity plant in Massachusetts, said his administration would do whatever was necessary, with or without lawmakers on board.

"Congress is not acting as it should... This is an emergency and I will look at it that way. As president, I'll use my executive powers to combat the climate crisis," he said.

But he stopped short of declaring a formal emergency, which would grant him additional policy powers.

Rocketing summer temperatures have highlighted the growing threat, with 100 million people in the United States currently under excessive heat alerts and devastatingly hot conditions causing misery across Europe.

Repeated setbacks

Biden began his term last year promising to fulfill campaign pledges to tackle the global climate crisis, but his agenda has faced blow after blow.

His first day in office, Biden signed an executive order to bring the United States back into the Paris climate agreement, followed later by an ambitious announcement that he was targeting a 50-52 percent reduction from 2005 levels in US net greenhouse gas pollution by 2030.

But his signature Build Back Better legislation, which would have included $550 billion for clean energy and other climate initiatives, is all but dead after failing to receive the necessary backing in Congress as fellow Democrat Joe Manchin said he would not support the bill in an evenly divided Senate.

And last month, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot issue broad greenhouse gas regulations without congressional approval.

"When it comes to fighting climate change, I will not take 'no' for an answer," Biden said.

"I will do everything in my power to clean our air and water, protect our people's health, to win the clean energy future... Our children and grandchildren are counting on us. Not a joke."

Among the new executive orders was funding to promote efficient air conditioning, and an order to advance wind energy development off the Atlantic Coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Job creation project

The Biden administration has framed climate policies as a job creation project –– and as a national security issue, made more urgent by soaring fuel prices in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The White House said in a statement that Biden was seeking "to turn the climate crisis into an opportunity, by creating good-paying jobs in clean energy and lowering costs for families."

His speech on Wednesday was at a shuttered coal-fired power plant that will be used for a cable manufacturing factory to supply offshore wind facilities.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price this week pointed to the extreme heat wave tormenting Europe this week –– with Britain recording a temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) –– as more proof that climate action cannot wait.

"We are committed to taking advantage of this moment and doing everything we can, including on the world stage," Price told reporters, "to ensure that this decisive decade does not go by without us taking appropriate action."

Source: AFP