Dead bodies seen ‘everywhere on the streets’ of town in Afar region as Al Jazeera gains exclusive access to front line of escalating conflict.
Ethiopia’s state-run broadcaster has said government forces were in control of the town of Chifra in Afar region, their first major seizure since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said earlier this week he would head to the front lines to lead federal troops against fighters from the northern Tigray region.
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions displaced since the war between Ethiopian federal and allied troops, and the Tigrayan forces, broke out in November 2020. The conflict has also caused a massive humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people facing famine.
The Tigrayan forces captured Chifra, on the border between the northern Afar and Amhara regions, after fighting intensified last month.
“Ethiopian Defense Forces and Afar Special Forces have controlled Chifra,” the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation said on its Twitter account on Sunday, without providing further details.
There was no immediate comment by the Tigrayan forces.
Much of northern Ethiopia is under a communications blackout and access for journalists is heavily restricted, making battlefield claims difficult to corroborate. Al Jazeera, however, was able to gain exclusive access to Chifra, the first international news organisation to do so.
Reporting from “the heart” of the town, Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent Mohammed Taha Tewekel said the Tigrayan forces “were driven out of this strategic area” by pro-government militia from the Afar region, but also noted “gunfire could be heard from all directions” for hours.
“It [Chifra] has been the epicentre of military operations during the past 40 days,” Tewekel said during a live broadcast, with gunfire ringing in the background.
“The scenes we witnessed are very appalling. Dead bodies everywhere on the streets. It is living proof of the ferociousness of the fighting. There are clear signs of the lack of humanity in this conflict. The town’s commercial shops were totally destroyed, even the mosques were not spared. All the residents have fled for their lives and the town has turned into military barracks for the Afari fighters,” he added.
The Afari fighters “have seized the city” and are now advancing towards the towns of Bati and Kombolcha, the correspondent said.
Chifra is west of the town of Mille, which Tigrayan forces have been trying to capture for weeks, because it lies along the highway linking landlocked Ethiopia to Djibouti, the Horn of Africa’s main port.
State-affiliated Fana Broadcasting reported on Friday that Abiy was on the front line with the army fighting the Tigrayan forces in Afar.
“The morale of the army is very exciting,” he said in the remarks broadcast on Friday, promising to capture Chifra “today”.
After months of tension, Abiy in November 2020 sent troops to Tigray to remove the region’s governing party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in response to what the government said was an attack on federal army camps. The TPLF, which dominated the federal government for nearly three decades until Abiy took office in 2018, said federal forces and its allies launched a “coordinated attack” against it.
The prime minister promised a swift victory and government forces seized Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, in late November. By June, however, the Tigrayan forces had retaken most of the region and pushed into the neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions.
The Tigrayan forces recently reported major territorial gains, claiming this week to have seized a town just 220km (135 miles) from the capital, Addis Ababa.
International alarm about the escalating conflict has deepened, with several foreign countries urging their citizens to leave as mediation attempts by the United Nations and the United States have so far failed to yield any results.
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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby has pushed the pause button on a contentious bill that would have allowed the province to recover health care and other costs attributed to the marketing of risky products in B.C.
Two dozen business and industry groups had called for the New Democrats to put the bill on hold, claiming it was so broadly drafted that it could be used to go after producers, distributors and retailers of every kind.
“It is safe to say that we got the attention of these major multinational companies,” the premier told reporters on Tuesday, citing the deal with Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and X, the major players in the field.
“They understand our concern and the urgency with which we’re approaching this issue. They also understand the bill is still there.”
The New Democrats maintain that the legislation was never intended to capture the many B.C. companies and associations that complained about it.
Rather it was targeted at Facebook owner Meta and other social media companies and the online harm done to young people. A prime example was the suicide of a Prince George youth who was trapped by an online predator.
Still, there was nothing in the wording of Bill 12, the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery Act, to indicate its application would be confined to social media companies or their impact on young people.
Some critics wondered if the bill’s broad-based concept of harms and risks could be used to prosecute the liquor board or the dispensers of safer-supply drugs, products with proven harms greater than any sugary drink.
Perhaps thinking along those lines, the government specifically exempted itself from prosecution under the Act.
This week’s announcement came as a surprise. As recently as Monday, Attorney General Niki Sharma told reporters the government had no intention of putting the bill on hold.
Tuesday, she justified her evasion by saying the talks with the social media companies were intense and confidential.
She said the pause was conditional on Meta and the other companies delivering a quick response to government concerns.
“British Columbians expect us to take action on online safety,” she told reporters. “What I’ll be looking for at this table is quick and immediate action to get to that better, safety online.”
A prime goal is addressing online harassment and “the online mental health and anxiety that’s rising in young people,” she said
“I want to sit down with these companies look at them face to face and see what they can do immediately to improve the outcomes for British Columbians.”
Meta has already committed to rectifying Eby’s concern that it should relay urgent news about wildfires, flood and other disasters in B.C. Last year, those were blocked, collateral damage in the company’s hardball dispute with the federal government over linking to news stories from Canadian media companies.
Eby says he was very skeptical about the initial contact from the companies. Now he sees Meta’s willingness to deliver emergency information as a “major step” and he’s prepared to give talks the benefit of the doubt.
Not long ago he was scoring political points off the social media companies in the harshest terms.
“The billionaires who run them resist accountability, resist any suggestion that they have responsibility for the harms that they are causing,” said the premier on March 14, the day Bill 12 was introduced.
Given those characterizations, perhaps the big, faceless billionaires will simply direct their negotiating team to play for time until the legislation adjourns as scheduled on May 16.
“The legislation is not being pulled and we’re not backtracking,” said Sharma. “We can always come back and bring legislation back.”
The government could schedule a quick makeup session of the legislature in late May or June or even in early September, before the house is dissolved for the four-week campaign leading up to the scheduled election day, Oct. 19.
More likely, if the New Democrats feel doublecrossed, they could go back to war with the faceless billionaires with a view to re-enacting Bill 12 after a hoped-for election victory.
Even if the New Democrats get some satisfaction from the social media companies in the short term, they have also framed Bill 12 as a way to force the marketers of risky products to help cover the cost of health care and other services.
B.C.’s attorney general says the province can bring the online harms legislation back but it will first seek remedies through negotiations with social media companies.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The British Columbia government has agreed to shelve proposed legislation that would have allowed it to sue social-media companies for online harms after Meta, TikTok and others agreed to work with the province to put voluntary protections in place.
The social-media companies have not agreed to anything other than talks, but Attorney-General Niki Sharma credited the proposed legislation with bringing the key players to the province’s door.
“Our bill was able to get the attention of some pretty big companies out there and get them to the table with us, and I’m pleased with that,” she told reporters Tuesday.
The government can bring the bill back, she said, but it will first seek remedies through negotiations. “We could be locked in litigation for years, but at this stage it’s my obligation to see if we can come to some kind of improvements,” Ms. Sharma said.
Premier David Eby said the agreement was hammered out after Meta reached out to the province. A spokesperson for the company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Danielle Morgan, a spokesperson for TikTok, said her company is committed to developing new safeguards. “We look forward to joining Premier Eby and working with industry counterparts … to discuss best practices towards our shared goal of keeping young people safe online.”
The province introduced Bill 12, the Public Health Accountability and Cost Recovery Act, in March with the promise that it would allow government to recover costs associated with the promotion, marketing and distribution of products that are harmful to adults and children in the province.
But while the bill received the support of researchers who study the impact of some platforms on mental well-being, particularly in teenagers, the broad scope of the legislation alarmed business leaders who warned it could be used to target companies well beyond social-media platforms.
“The net spread so widely, it could capture just about anything you could imagine,” said Bridgitte Anderson, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. She said the provincial government heard the concerns of many different sectors when it withdrew the bill from this spring’s legislative agenda. “We’re delighted the government is going to hit pause on this.”
The B.C. bill was tabled just weeks after Ottawa introduced Bill C-63 to create a new Online Harms Act, which is meant to hold tech platforms accountable for the content they host.
Kaitlynn Mendes, a professor of sociology at Ontario’s Western University, is an expert on the impact of online harms on youth, including sexual exploitation, self-harm, anxiety and anti-social behaviour.
She said the B.C. government is being optimistic in thinking it can bring social-media giants into line without a legal cudgel.
“I think that is wishful thinking. Industries don’t want to be governed. They’d rather have codes of conduct but that relies on them being good faith actors – ultimately, they are going to act in their best interests. I’d be skeptical that it’s going to change anything,” she said in an interview.
“I really hope the Canadian government doesn’t try to rely on deals. We need to have structures in place to hold these companies accountable.”
Mr. Eby issued a joint statement on Tuesday with representatives from Meta, TikTok, Snap and X, saying they have reached an agreement to work to help young people stay safe online through the new BC Online Safety Action Table.
“Digital platforms are powerful tools, which can connect family members and loved ones and are places where we find like-minded people. Places where community is built and sustained. But the internet is also a place where criminals and scammers are constantly seeking new ways to find and extort potential victims,” the joint statement said.
Mr. Eby championed the pursuit of tackling social-media harms after meeting with the grieving parents of Carson Cleland, a 12-year-old who killed himself last October after being sexually victimized online.
“Carson was deceived by an online predator, tormented and sexually extorted. He took his own life before his parents were aware of what was happening,” the statement continued. “Premier Eby made a promise to Carson’s parents that his government would find ways to make sure Carson left behind a legacy that will help protect other young people.”
The province will place Bill 12 on hold while the parties meet to discuss how to protect youth from online harms before they happen.
Ms. Sharma said there are three areas B.C. wants addressed: sexual exploitation of youth online; rising mental-health issues and anxiety among young people; and online harassment and bullying.
B.C.’s bill was modelled on its efforts to seek damages from major tobacco companies over tobacco-related health costs. The province was the first Canadian jurisdiction to launch such a lawsuit, in 1998, but that case is not yet resolved – underscoring the lengthy process involved in reaching a resolution.
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.
Opening arguments began in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial on Monday, with much of the news media coverage homing in on as many details as possible about the proceedings.
Jon Stewart called the trial a “test of the fairness of the American legal system, but it’s also a test of the media’s ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way.”
Jimmy Kimmel’s sidekick, Guillermo Rodriguez, took the stage with Madonna in Mexico City over the weekend.
The economist Stephanie Kelton will chat with Jordan Klepper and Ronny Chieng, the guest co-hosts, on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”
In “Under the Bridge,” Hulu’s chilling new series, Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone investigate the murder of a teenager.
Remnants of bird flu virus found in pasteurized milk, FDA says
Mayor's youth advisory council seeks submissions for art gala – SooToday
"Hi, It's Me": NASA's Voyager 1 Phones Home From 15 Billion Miles Away – NDTV
Some Canadians will be digging out of 25+ cm of snow by Friday – The Weather Network
Bird flu virus found in grocery milk as officials say supply still safe
Jon Stewart Slams the Media for Coverage of Trump Trial – The New York Times
Taxes should not wag the tail of the investment dog, but that’s what Trudeau wants
Peel police chief met Sri Lankan officer a court says ‘participated’ in torture – Global News
