Politics

Ethiopian Airlines terminates its service to Eritrea

Published

2 weeks ago

September 3, 2024

Ethiopian Airlines announced on Tuesday that due to a frozen bank account, it had halted flights to neighbouring Eritrea.

Mesfin Tasew, the CEO of the airline, announced at a press conference that money transfers from Ethiopian Airlines’ bank account in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, had been banned by the Eritrean Civil Aviation Authority.

At the end of this month, Eritrea had already declared that it would stop all Ethiopian Airlines flights.

Following a peace agreement and the restoration of diplomatic ties between the two neighbours, which earned Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, flights from Ethiopia to Eritrea were restored in 2018 after a 20-year hiatus.

“We couldn’t continue in such a situation and we have decided to suspend the flight as of today,” Mesfin said.

Ethiopian carriers had stated in a statement late on Monday that they would attempt to provide refunds or rebook impacted passengers on other carriers at no additional cost.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Ethiopia is the biggest airline in Africa in terms of both revenue and profit.

Sources quoted by Reuters claimed the flight suspension indicated that Asmara and Addis’s relations had seriously deteriorated, but that a war was unlikely at this time.

When a two-year conflict broke out over their disputed boundary, the two nations cut their diplomatic ties in 1998.

In the battle that broke out in November 2020, Eritrea fought alongside Ethiopia against forces from Ethiopia’s Tigray area. However, the relationship deteriorated again when Asmara was left out of the peace negotiations that put an end to the conflict two years later, and because some of Eritrea’s troops stayed in Tigray.

A request for the response was not immediately answered by Yemane Gebremeskel, the Eritrean Minister of Information.

Related Topics:Eritrea Ethiopia Featured

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Politics

Ghanian opposition protests, demands audit of voters register

Published

10 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Ghana’s major opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party protested statewide on Tuesday, seeking an independent forensic audit to clean up the voter register for free and fair elections.

NDC leaders said the election commission secretly relocated voters to various voting sites, undermining the register.

In red and black, thousands of supporters marched through Accra’s main streets, blasting reggae and campaign music and calling on international bodies, Ghana’s peace council, and religious and civil society groups to intervene. Protest leaders petitioned parliament and the Accra electoral agency. Ghana’s other 15 regions also saw protests, local media said.

Protester Kwame Acheampong, 68, told Reuters in Akan that his registration had been moved from the capital to Tamale. He asked, “How can I vote in Tamale?”

Meanwhile, the electoral commission claims the flaws were fixed. It suspended a northern Pusiga district director in August for “using his credentials to transfer voters without their knowledge.” Ghana is one of Africa’s most stable democracies, although eight people died in the last election, which was marred by opposition claims that the government unjustly influenced the vote, which it rejected.

Allegations of irregularities tarnish the electoral authorities. Afrobarometer’s July survey found Ghana’s election commission’s trust at an all-time low since confidence polls began in 1999. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC chairman, told demonstrators he wanted “transparent elections.”

Ghana will have general elections for president and parliamentarians on December 7, 2024. President Nana Akufo-Addo cannot run again due to term limits after eight years. Old NDC president John Dramani Mahama will face New Patriotic Party Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia in the election.

The President of Ghana is elected in two rounds, while 275 MPs are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting.

Politics

South Sudan ready to resume pumping oil through Sudan

Published

15 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

According to South Sudan’s finance minister and the president’s office, progress has been made in getting South Sudan and Sudan to resume supplying crude oil through a pipeline that goes to a port in their neighbourhood.

South Sudan depends heavily on its oil exports for its income, and Sudan keeps a portion of the oil as a transit fee.

The devastation resulting from a fight between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces forced the closure of the major pipeline that transported oil from South Sudan via Sudan for export in February. According to observers, the stoppage has caused food prices in Sudan, where millions of people suffer from acute hunger, to rise. The damage is likely to cause major environmental degradation.

“Sudanese engineers have accomplished the necessary technical preparations for the resumption of oil production,” South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s office said in a statement late on Monday after a meeting in Juba between Kiir and Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

“Engineers from South Sudan are expected to visit Sudan in the coming weeks to familiarise themselves with the readiness of the facilities to jump-start production.”

“There has been a breakthrough, and (news of) it will come to the public very soon,” South Sudan’s Finance Minister Marial Dongrin Ater told a news conference late on Monday.
Burhan’s office said the two sides would develop an operational plan to restart oil flows.

Due to intercommunal violence, South Sudan’s economy has been under strain recently. Since the civil war that lasted from 2013 to 2018, revenue from crude oil exports has decreased, and more recently, export disruptions have occurred because of the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.

Following its independence from Khartoum in 2011, South Sudan began exporting roughly 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day through Sudan, following a formula that took the majority of the country’s oil production with it.

Before the civil war, South Sudan produced between 350,000 and 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day at its highest point.