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Eritrea says attacked by Ethiopia

AFP

ADDIS ABABA — Eritrea accused arch-foe Ethiopia on Sunday of launching attacks along their disputed border but said its troops had driven off the assault, killing 10 Ethiopian soldiers and capturing two.

The Eritrean foreign affairs ministry said soldiers from Ethiopia's ruling Tigrai People's Liberation Front (TPLF) had attacked on Friday in the Zalambesa area. Ethiopian officials denied the claims.

"In the early morning hours of January 1st 2010, TPLF soldiers launched successive attacks in the Zalambesa front and were swiftly driven back," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Zalambesa lies in the centre of the contested frontier, over which neighbours fought a brutal war in the late 1990s.

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The Case of Eritrea’s Missing Football Team

ABC's Dana Hughes reports from Nairobi:

Eritrea's officials admitted today that the national soccer team is officially missing, after failing to return home from a tournament last week in Kenya. The plane carrying the 12 players and coach to Nairobi, returned to Eritrea with only…the coach. It sounds like an intriguing mystery, but the truth is those young men, who Kenyan officials are now looking for, are just some of the thousands of Eritreans who try to defect from the country every year. An Eritrean government official simultaneously said the country would “welcome” the players home, while acknowledging they had “betrayed” their country.

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Eritrea has become one of the most unapologetically repressive countries on Earth

As thousands flee regime, Eritrea goes it alone

Facing the prospect of U.N. sanctions and increasing 'brain drain,' young nation's authoritarian president chooses defiance

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 14, 2009

ASMARA, ERITREA -- With the threat of U.S.-backed sanctions looming over this isolated Red Sea nation, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki recently summed up his defiant attitude toward the United States, and indeed most things he deems foreign -- a free press, certain religions, electoral democracy, political parties, global warming.

"Leave us alone," said the commandingly tall former guerrilla leader who became Eritrea's first and only president in 1993, after a 30-year struggle for independence from Ethiopia. "We don't want to be pushed around."

Over the past year, the United States and other nations have accused Eritrea of sending money and weapons to al-Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels in nearby Somalia, and a draft resolution calling for sanctions is now circulating at the U.N. Security Council.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Isaias, 63, dismissed the charges as "fabricated," blamed the United States for pursuing years of failed policies in the region and said of the threatened sanctions: "It will be a regrettable move if it's meant to blackmail or intimidate Eritrea."

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Eritrea is Focus of Brussels Meeting

By Lisa Bryant
VOA News

Paris
09 November 2009

International experts and politicians are in Brussels for a two-day meeting on ways to harmonize European and American policy on Eritrea and other parts of the Horn of Africa.

The meeting is sponsored by Europe External Policy Advisors, a Brussels-based research group. It is being held amid mounting international concern about Eritrea's human-rights policy and allegations the Eritrean government supports Islamist insurgents in neighboring Somalia.

In August, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned the Eritrean government would face sanctions if it continued aiding Somalia's al-Shabab insurgent group, which allegedly has ties to al-Qaida. Eritrea denies arming the group.

Horn of Africa conference spokesman Abdulrahman Sayed says he hopes it will forge a consensus between the U.S. policy on Eritrea and the European Union one, which he describes as more open to dialogue with the Eritrean government.

"What we hope this conference [will] accomplish is to at least produce a guideline with some concrete recommendations by both the United States and European Union policy makers as well as other players like legislators and commissioners and also allow the civic society and political opposition figures in the diaspora to be engaged with those parties in the U.S. and the European Union to direct and influence their policy in Eritrea," said Abdulrahman Sayed.

While Eritrea is the focus of the conference, participants from neighboring Horn of Africa countries have been invited. Eritrea's internal problems, including widespread allegations of human-rights abuses, are spilling across its borders. Sayed says tens of thousands of Eritreans have fled to Sudan and Ethiopia. Others seek refugee status in Europe and the United States.

Conference participant Woldeyesus Ammar wants clearer from Europe and the United States. Ammar is chair of the Joint Leadership Committee, an umbrella organization of Eritrean opposition groups that plans to form a political party by the end of the year.

"Any action against the regime has not been cohesive," said Woldeyesus Ammar. "They [Europe and the United States] have been pointing fingers against the regime, but not doing more than that. It has been always talk, but no action. We want them to do some action now."

Organizers hope the Brussels talks will lead to a more active international policy toward Eritrea that possibly includes targeted sanctions against the government.

Elen Negasi speaks to reporters outside the Edmonton courthouse Tuesday. Her father, Tesfai Negasi, is charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of her mother, Selamawit Negasi. (CBC)

Eritrea - 'You killed my mom,' daughter shouts at father in court

The daughter of a slain Edmonton woman who police believe was killed by her husband let out a blood-curdling scream in a courtroom Tuesday as her father made a brief appearance before a judge.

"You killed my mom," Elen Negasi, 27, shouted at Tesfai Negasi, 52, who is facing charges of second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a dead body in the death of his wife, Selamawit Negasi, 46.

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Edmonton man charged with murder faces daughter’s outrage

EDMONTON — A horrifying scream pierced an Edmonton courtroom Tuesday morning when a man charged last month with killing his wife made an appearance.

“You killed my mother, you .... piece of ....,” shouted Ellen Negasi at her father, Tesfai Negasi, her voice rising above other screams in the courtroom.

Family members tried to calm the young woman before she was escorted out. Other supporters in the courtroom put their hands to their faces and wept.


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