Something extraordinary is happening in Ethiopia. Under new prime minister Abiy Ahmed, authoritarianism and state brutality appear to be giving way to something resembling democracy. A country that began the year crippled by anti-government protests is now being lauded as a model for the region. One of Africa’s most autocratic ruling parties, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), is today led by a man who professes to believe deeply in freedom of expression.

In the capital, Addis Ababa, huge crowds have been welcoming home exiled dissidents. Residents who once feared speaking publicly about politics now talk of little else. Flags and symbols long banned by the EPRDF blossom across the city.

But it is also a time of deep anxiety. The unprecedented loosening of state control has been accompanied by an upsurge in ethnic violence and widespread lawlessness. Hate speech thrives on social media. Groups with starkly contrasting visions for the country have clashed on the streets of the capital. On 19 September the government began its first clampdown, arresting thousands of people suspected of orchestrating violence.“Abiymania”, as it has become known, may not last forever.(theguardian)…[+]

British diplomatic links to Turkey will come under pressure this week as a dispossessed media proprietor faces extradition to Ankara for financial offences allegedly related to a military coup.
Akın İpek, whose newspapers and TV stations have been confiscated by Turkish officials for criticising President Recep Tayip Erdoğan’s regime, will appear alongside two other men at Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday. The case against İpek and his co-accused follows demands for the UK to send back fugitives supposedly involved with the Fethullah Gülen movement, which the Turkish government claims was responsible for the 2016 uprising against Erdoğan.

In November, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, met the British prime minister, Theresa May, and asked her to extradite those supposedly associated with the failed coup.Tens of thousands of Turkish lawyers, journalists, civil servants, judges, soldiers and others have been imprisoned or lost their jobs since 2016. MPs on the foreign affairs select committee have accused Erdoğan of exploiting the failed coup to purge opponents and suppress human rights.

The case is expected to put further strains on relations between fellow Nato members at a time when the UK is courting business partners outside the EU. Recent extradition requests from Turkey have been refused on the grounds that the country’s prison system is unsafe.(theguardian)…[+]

Bill Cosby is facing prison time as he is sentenced this week for sexual assault, capping a stunning fall from grace for a man who was once one of America’s most popular entertainers. Cosby is due in court for a two-day sentencing hearing beginning on Monday, where Judge Steven O’Neill will decide his fate at the Montgomery county courthouse in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

More than 60 women have accused the 81-year-old Cosby – a once-beloved actor and comedian known as “America’s Dad” – of sexual assault, but it’s a single case, the only one to result in criminal charges, that could land him behind bars.Cosby was convicted in April on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 2004.

He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each charge, but state guidelines recommend a sentence of about one to four years. Constand, who had gotten to know Cosby when she was managing the women’s basketball team at Temple University, testified that the TV star gave her three blue pills, which caused her to pass out. She awoke to find Cosby digitally penetrating her, touching her breasts, and placing her hand on his genitals. The trial – his second, after the jury in a first trial failed to reach a verdict – was the first of a celebrity accused of sexual assault since the beginning of the #MeToo movement.(theguardian)...[+]

A famine inflicting “huge loss of life” could strike at any time in Yemen, as food prices soar and the battle rages over the country’s main port, the UN humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, has warned. Lowcock said that by the time an imminent famine is confirmed, it would be too late to stop it. Accelerating economic collapse has caused prices of staples to increase by 30% at a time many millions of Yemenis were already finding it hard to feed their families.

Meanwhile, fighting over the port of Hodeidah has limited its capacity, shut down its grain mills and closed the main road inland towards the capital, Sana’a, threatening a lifeline that has allowed aid agencies to reach 8 million people and stave off famine so far this year.

“One of the things about what happens in famines is there’s a sudden collapse of which you get no notice,” Lowcock, the UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, told the Guardian on the eve of a UN general assembly meeting on Monday to discuss the Yemeni crisis. “When the collapse happens, it’s too late to do anything. There’s a huge loss of life very, very quickly. So that’s the issue we’re flagging.”(theguardian)...[+]