Date: Wednesday, 24 May 2017
By Katy Migiro
NAIROBI, May 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Hunger is likely to reach emergency levels in Ethiopia and the number in need of food aid will rise beyond the current 7.7 million, experts said, as drought has decimated livestock, rains have been erratic and aid is in short supply.
Prolonged drought, followed by floods, has pushed millions across East Africa into crisis, with 7 million in neighbouring Somalia also needing aid, the United Nations said as it grapples with the highest global hunger levels in decades.
"Despite enhanced rainfall at the end of April into early May over many areas of Ethiopia, food security outcomes are still expected to deteriorate," the U.S.-based Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said on Wednesday.
Herders in southeastern Ethiopia will be worst hit over the next three months, it said, with hunger reaching the fourth "emergency" level on a five-phase scale, where the fifth level is famine.
"The current marginal improvements in pasture and water are likely to be depleted by early June, which will mean rangeland resources will rapidly decline, and subsequently livestock body conditions," it said, with the next rains due in October.
The number of Ethiopians who need food aid surged to 7.7 million from 5.6 million between January and April.
This number is expected to increase in the second half of the year, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this week.
"Increased funding is needed urgently, in particular to address immediate requirements for clean drinking water, much of which is being delivered long distances by truck as regular wells have dried up," it said.
The Trump administration has proposed to drastically cut U.S. funding for global health and food aid programmes amid opposition from Congress.
(Reporting by Katy Migiro @katymigiro, editing by Alisa Tang. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit news.trust.org to see more stories.)
© Thomson Reuters 2017 All rights reserved
By Aaron Maasho
ADDIS ABABA May 24 (Reuters) - An Ethiopian court convicted a journalist on Wednesday of inciting violence against the state with a dissident group, activists said, a judgement that an international rights group said was a bid to silence critics.
Getachew Shiferaw was arrested in late December 2015 and charged in May the following year with involvement in the operations of the outlawed anti-government group Ginbot 7.
That charge was later dismissed by the court, but he was found guilty on Wednesday of public provocation to commit "crimes against the external security and defensive power" of the state.
Getachew, formerly a freelance writer for several magazines, was also editor-in-chief of the opposition Semayawi Party's Negere Ethiopia publication at the time of his arrest.
He will be sentenced on May 26 and faces up to 10 years in prison.
"Today's groundless ruling is a further slap in the face for justice in Ethiopia and proof of the authorities' continued willingness ... to misuse the criminal justice system to silence dissent," said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's regional director, in a statement.
Ginbot 7 was formed by opposition figures who took part in disputed polls in 2005. They subsequently fled into exile and launched an armed struggle against the government of the Horn of Africa nation.
The government considers it a "terrorist" organisation, a designation is shares with two Ethiopian secessionist groups, Somalia's al Shabaab and al Qaeda.
Critics say Ethiopia, sandwiched between volatile Somalia and Sudan, regularly uses security concerns as an excuse to stifle dissent and clamp down on media freedoms.
Ethiopia's 547-seat parliament does not have a single opposition politician and opposition groups accuse the government of constant harassment and intimidation.
Wednesday's conviction comes a week after the court in the capital Addis Ababa found a former opposition party spokesperson guilty of encouraging terrorist acts for a series of anti-government posts on Facebook.
Yonatan Tesfay's charges stem from a 2009 law that prescribes jail terms of between 10 and 20 years for anyone convicted of publishing information that could induce readers to commit acts of terrorism. (Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Katharine Houreld and Tom Heneghan)
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