Day: November 8, 2021

UNITED NATIONS — The African Union envoy for the Horn of Africa warned Monday that the window of opportunity is closing for a political resolution of the crisis in northern Ethiopia, as the country tips further toward all-out conflict.

“The time is now for collective actions in finding lasting solution to avoid further escalation of the situation, which may have direct effect on the strategic Horn of Africa region as a whole,” said former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is the AU’s special representative for the Horn of Africa.

Briefing the U.N. Security Council from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, where he arrived Thursday, Obasanjo said he has met separately with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and leaders of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), as well as some allied groups, in order to de-escalate tensions and seek the start of talks.

“All the leaders here in Addis Ababa and in the north agree individually that the differences between them are political and require political solutions through dialogue,” he said. “This, therefore, constitutes a window of opportunity that we can collectively tap into to assist the people of Ethiopia to find a lasting solution to the ongoing crisis.”

Obasanjo said he will visit the northern regions of Amhara and Afar on Tuesday, where the TPLF has expanded fighting, displacing thousands of people.

Fighting has escalated in the lead-up last week to the one-year anniversary of the start of the conflict.

Tigrayan forces said earlier this week they were advancing on Addis Ababa and that it could fall within months or even weeks.

The Ethiopian government declared a six-month state of emergency Tuesday and called on residents to defend their neighborhoods if rebels arrived in the capital.

Jaal Marroo, commander of the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), an ally of the TPLF, told Agence France-Presse that the OLA posed “no threat” to ordinary civilians but that Abiy and his ruling Prosperity Party have to be “completely removed and cleared” for reconciliation to begin.

“We will make Ethiopia – not just Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa – a peaceful, very stable place to live in. I am very confident there is not going to be conflict after Abiy Ahmed’s regime,” he said.

Ethiopia’s U.N. ambassador blamed some countries and Western media for encouraging the TPLF.

“It is emboldened to a level that it threatens to unseat a popularly elected federal government and destabilize a nation of 112 million people,” Ambassador Taye Atske-Selassie said of the rebels. “We again reiterate our plea for the support of this group that have been providing it with communications equipment, satellite information, weapons and even fighters to desist from this.”

Civil war concerns growing

The United Nation’s political chief warned that the conflict has “reached disastrous proportions” and if not immediately halted could see Africa’s second-most-populous country engulfed in all-out civil war.

“What is certain is that the risk of Ethiopia descending into widening civil war is only too real,” Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council. “That would bring about a humanitarian catastrophe and consume the future of such an important country.”

DiCarlo said the fighting already threatens regional stability in the Horn of Africa.

“The political repercussions of intensifying violence in the wider region would be immense, compounding the many crises besetting the Horn of Africa,” she added.

“The longer this conflict goes on, the harder the road to peace becomes and the more people will die,” U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield said. “And as you heard from High Representative Obasanjo, the window of opportunity is limited, and time is running out. I urge all parties — all parties — in the strongest possible terms to back away from the brink and lead their people toward peace.”

She added that accusations that the United States is biased toward one side are false.

“Let me be crystal clear: We condemn violence on all sides. We condemn any and all human rights violations and abuses committed by all sides.”

Alice Wairimu Nderitu, U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, expressed concern in a statement Monday at the increase of ethnically and religiously motivated hate speech, ethnic profiling and incitement to violence.

“These all constitute risk factors for atrocity crimes,” she warned.

Intensive diplomacy

In addition to Obasanjo, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths wrapped up a four-day visit to Ethiopia on Monday.

During his mission, he traveled to Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, where the government maintains a de facto blockade on the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The U.N. said no aid has gotten in since October 18, and more than 5 million people are in dire need.

Griffiths also met with Abiy on Friday and with other senior federal government officials.

U.S. Horn of Africa envoy Jeffrey Feltman has also been in the region since Thursday. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Feltman is currently in Addis Ababa.

 

Source: Voice of America

NIAMEY, NIGER — At least 25 primary school children were killed when their thatched-roof classrooms caught fire in southern Niger on Monday, the council of ministers said in a statement.

Fourteen more children were injured, including five in critical condition, the statement said. The school is in the town of Maradi, more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) east of the capital Niamey.

“For the moment we cannot state the origin of the fire,” regional director of education Maman Hdi said.

Classes have been suspended and three days of mourning declared in Maradi, he said.

It was the second time this year that a fire has killed pupils in their classrooms in the West African country. Twenty preschool children were killed in April in Niamey.

The council of ministers said on Monday that following the two incidents, preschool classes must not be held in straw-roof huts.

 

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON — Two different surveys of the COVID-19 pandemic offer grim and sobering analyses.

One says the widely accepted COVID-19 global death toll of 5 million is likely underestimated and was probably reached much earlier than November 1 when the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center announced the figure. The other offers up a harsh statistical analysis of the pandemic, including the fact that 50 million people are being infected with the virus every 90 days.

Reuters puts its analysis into perspective with the reminder that it took almost a year to record the first 50 million COVID-19 cases. The current high rate is due to the highly transmissible delta variant, Reuters reports.

The number of cases in Russia, Ukraine and Greece is “at or near record levels of reported cases since the pandemic started two years ago,” according to Reuters, with new infections continuing to rise in 55 of 240 countries.

On Monday, Germany reported its highest daily number of cases since the pandemic began. The Robert Koch Institute reported 201.1 new cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days, breaking the previous record of 197.6 per 100,000. The French news agency AFP reports that the COVID rate in the eastern German state of Saxony is more than double the national rate at 491.3.

Reuters’ investigation also revealed the statistics of vaccine inequity, including that more than half of the world’s population has not received a single shot of a COVID-19 vaccine and less than 5% of the population in low-income countries has received a single COVID-19 vaccine dose.

The death tolls of some countries may be many times higher than official government reports, according to the Economist magazine. The publication says there are several reasons for the underestimates. Some locations do not include people in COVID-19 death tolls who did not test positive for COVID-19 before dying. Also, hospitals and local governments do not always process death certificates promptly. In addition, people who die at home may not be included in the COVID-19 tally.

A northern California town’s city council has declared itself a “constitutional republic” as a way to express its displeasure with what it considers state and federal overreach in the issuing of mandates, such as for mask wearing, designed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Legal experts say Oroville’s city council’s move, however, does not allow Oroville to opt out of the mandates.

The fully vaccinated in Australia’s New South Wales state are enjoying the lifting of a number of COVID restrictions Monday, including elimination of limits on the number of home visitors.

Health professionals in India are bracing for a surge in coronavirus cases following Diwali, the annual festival of lights, that began Thursday.

Dr. Prakash Singh, a virologist, told The New York Times, “For this Diwali, people almost forgot the virus is still here and killing people.”

Source: Voice of America

Renting an apartment can be a challenge for new college graduates who are facing the hottest U.S. rental market in a decade, along with some unexpected competition from millennials — people aged 24 to 40 — and even baby boomers — the over-57 club.

“You have aging millennials who are creating families who should be moving from rental situations into ownership but, because of the lack of housing supply, that has been stopped in a lot of instances. And so, what you see is the aging millennial population continues to rent,” says Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi-Matrix, a commercial real estate data and research firm.

“It’s not just about millennials, it’s not just about [Gen] Z [people under 24], we also see that boomers are making a transition, he added. “Their percentage of moving into rental properties is growing in the last five years.”

There are a variety of reasons older people are opting for rentals, according to Ressler.

“They’ve lived in a home for so long and they want to be able to reduce their expenses on a fixed income,” he says. “They want to live in a social cohort, like a retirement community, and things like that where it’s much more socially amenable to them.”

The asking price of apartment rentals was up 10.7% in September 2021 compared to last year at the same time, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

“It’s a hot market. We have never seen this market so hot in the last decade,” says Gay Cororaton, NAR’s senior economist and director of housing and commercial research. “The average rent growth, year-over-year, is about 3-to-5%. We’re seeing 11% rent growth now, so, clearly, way above trends we’ve had in the past.”

Renters are feeling the squeeze because the COVID-19 pandemic caused supply chain issues, slowing down home building in the United States. Instead of the usual 5-to-6 month supply of available single-family homes, supply dropped below two months in January 2021. The lack of housing supply means millennials are having a harder time buying a single-family home, which has been the traditional trajectory in the past.

“The whole building industry was beset by supply chain issues,” Cororaton says. “Shipments couldn’t come in, the price of lumber was rising, manufacturing slowed, workers could not come in [to work], so you have shortages of frames, appliances. So, essentially, just a short supply.”

The housing supply got even tighter during the pandemic as more investors put their money into housing, according to Cororaton, while existing homeowners looked for second homes.

“With the pandemic, there was also a big demand for second homes, for vacation homes. Typically, vacation homes accounted for just about 5% [of the market],” she says. “Early this summer they rose to about 8%. So again, strong demand and strong imbalance of demand and supply caused home prices to rise, made them less affordable.”

The hottest rental markets right now are in the West and South. More renters are moving to Dallas and Houston in Texas, followed by Atlanta, Georgia; New York; Los Angeles; Austin, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; and Washington, D.C., according to NAR.

Cororaton expects the coming year to be a little better but says the housing shortage is likely to continue for the next few years.

“You know, the old adage of moving from rentals into homeownership, that whole polemic may be changing,” says Ressler. “The sweet spot was always the millennials, and now the millennials are being replaced by the [Gen] Z’s, but the millennials are staying longer and the Z’s are coming on board, and now you’ve got the demographic of the boomers … What it means is a very profitable and dynamic [rental] market that’s going to continue to grow.”

 

Source: Voice of America