LONDON — Pomp, pagentry and the hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas accompanied Ethiopia’s celebration of its entry into the third millennium, seven years after the rest of the world but in line with the Coptic calendar of the Horn of Africa nation. But with the exchange of fiery rhetoric threatening to upset a fragile peace with neighbor Eritrea, new broadsides in the internal conflict raging in the Ogaden region on the country’s border with Somalia, and dissatisfaction with progress toward improved social welfare, Ethiopia has entered the 21st century much the way it wrapped up the 20th: divided and poor. [...]
WASHINGTON — The hybrid war crimes tribunal set up by the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations achieved what international observers described as a major milestone in July when it delivered sentences of 45 and 50 years to three men convicted of committing war crimes during Sierra Leone’s late-1990s civil war. The ruling at the Special Court for Sierra Leone marked the first-ever conviction of an African warlord for using child soldiers, and it came just a few weeks before a second round of convictions, on Aug. 2, in which two other former militia leaders were found guilty [...]
RABAT, Morocco — Elections in Morocco that were projected to hand large gains to a moderate Islamic party on Friday ended with a record low voter turnout and only incremental changes to the parliament’s makeup. The Justice and Development Party (PJD), Morocco’s largest opposition party, was expected to increase its representation from 42 seats to as much as 80 in the 325-seat parliament, but only managed to win 47 seats, despite competing in more districts than in the previous election. The record low voter turn out was widely interpreted as a sign that Moroccans are dissatisfied with the current government [...]
