The South Sudan blood bath and Kiir’s perfidious power consolidation act

President Salva Kiir

December 24, 2013

The Horn Times Newsletter

by Getahune Bekele, South Africa

Already castigated as another flop in tyranny prone Africa, the impenitent would-be-tyrant who is leading a corrupt and militarized autocracy, President of South Sudan Salva Kiir Mayardit is no longer sporting his trademark 10-gallon black cowboy hat he imports from the US state of Texas, some 7,000 miles away.

He first saw the hat in July 2006 when then President of the US, the peremptory George W Bush offered him one as gift at the White House during his first visit there. According to reports, Kirr wears the hat ever since in honor of President Bush who played an instrumental role in the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement, a measure that gave birth to the world’s youngest nation in 2011.

Witness for Ethiopia’s Semayawi (Blue) Party By Prof. Al Mariam

Why I support Semayawi party as a political party

In the days leading up to my speech at the first Semayawi (Blue) Party town hall meeting in Arlington, VA, just outside of Washington, D.C., on December 15, I was peppered with all sorts of questions. The one recurrent question revolved around my unreserved support for Semayawi Party after so many years of staying neutral and unaligned with any Ethiopian political party or group.

As I explained in my interview on ethiotube.com, my support for Semayawi Party should be viewed as an expression of my total confidence in the power of Ethiopia’s young people to change the destiny of their country and their readiness to struggle for peaceful change. The percentage of Ethiopia’s population under the age of 35 today is 70 percent. The vast majority of the victims of human rights violations in Ethiopia today are young people. The targets of political persecution and harassment, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, abuse and maltreatment in the prisons are largely young people. Young Ethiopians are disproportionately

‘Mandela was not trained by Israelis’

\December 21, 2013

by SAPA

Johannesburg – The Nelson Mandela foundation on Saturday quashed reports that the former president received training from Israeli agents in 1962.

“Media have picked up on a story alleging that in 1962 Nelson Mandela interacted with an Israeli operative in Ethiopia,” the foundation said in a statement.

“The Nelson Mandela Foundation can confirm that it has not located any evidence in Nelson Mandela’s private archive…..that he interacted with an Israeli operative during his tour of African countries in that year.”