Ethiopian Airlines plane plunges into sea off Beirut, rescuers fear all dead

Lebanon

At least 24 bodies have so far been pulled from the sea off Beirut after an Ethiopian Airlines plane went down minutes after take-off. Rescuers fear all 90 people aboard are dead after the Boeing 737-800, which was heading for Addis Ababa, went off the radar during a thunderstorm and plunged into the Mediterranean. Lebanese authorities don’t suspect foul play and speculate the aircraft may have been struck by lightning. Rescue efforts continue, but bad weather is making that difficult. Most passengers were Lebanese or Ethiopian, with others from France, Turkey, Russia, Canada, Iraq and Syria. The wife of the French ambassador in Beirut was among those on board. Ethiopian is one of Africa’s most trusted airlines, flying to Europe and the US, when many continental carriers are banned from these markets.

Photo: A Lebanese commando pulls a body from the water into a helicopter above the area where an Ethiopian plane crashed as an UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) vessel (R) searches for survivors at Khaldeh, south of Beirut, January 25, 2010. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Read more: AP, BBC, Reuters

Key witness in Bennett trial turns against state, judge invalidates testimony

Zimbabwe

A Zimbabwean judge has dismissed the testimony of arms dealer Peter Hitschmann after he said he’d been tortured into implicating senior Movement for Democratic Change politician Roy Bennett in an alleged plot to kill President Robert Mugabe. Bennett, who was supposed to be sworn in as a deputy agriculture minister and is an ally of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, denies the charges. His lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, says the case is pure political persecution. The charges against Bennett include terrorism, insurgency, sabotage, banditry and the overthrow of Mugabe’s government. Hitschmann was initially implicated along with Bennett, but was eventually convicted on lesser charges of possessing illegal weapons. He’s supposed to be the state’s star witness, but his confessions have now damaged the prosecution’s case. The judge found the easiest way to deal with Hitschmann was to invalidate his testimony, so Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party can continue to keep Bennett on trial for his life and out of politics, while damaging the reputation of the MDC, with whom it is supposed to share power.

Read more: BBC, Sapa-dpa, CNN

EU to set up Ugandan military mission to assist Somalis against Islamist rebels

Uganda

The EU will set up a military mission in Uganda to train Somali government forces to battle an Islamist insurgency in the anarchic Horn of Africa country. This should provide Somalia’s radical al-Shabaab group with all the excuse it needs to carry out its threat to attack Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Uganda and Burundi (whose capital al-Shabaab also threatened to attack) make up the bulk of some 5,000 African Union peacekeepers protecting Somalia’s fragile UN-backed government in a few blocks of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab controls Mogadishu and much of the south and central regions of Somalia. The EU mission is expected to involve some 100 troops from Spain, France, Britain, Slovenia, Greece and Hungary. Somalia hasn’t had a central government since 1991, and Western countries fear it’s become a foothold for al-Qaeda in East Africa.

Read more: Reuters, Afrique en ligne, Agence France-Presse

Shoe thrown at Sudan’s president

Sudan

A man was arrested in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, after he gave President Omar Hassan al-Bashir the same treatment that George W. Bush once got in Iraq, by throwing a shoe at him in a public place. The act is deemed to be highly insulting in Arab culture, although it’s not immediately clear why the unidentified man threw the footwear, which missed its target. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes in Sudan’s western Darfur region. But there could be many other reasons why the man hurled his shoe ahead of an increasingly shaky April election that may lead to the secession of the oil-rich south of the country. The insult occurred during a conference on planning for governing Sudan in future. Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party recently passed legislation giving greater powers to the country’s feared security services during the build-up to the poll, so tensions are rife and many have reason to grumble.

Read more: Reuters, Agence France-Presse, BBC

Somali speaker tells absent MPs to return home and face the music

Somalia

Somalia’s parliamentary speaker has demanded that legislators living abroad return to the country’s anarchic capital, Mogadishu, within two weeks, or face disciplinary action. That’s hardly likely to get the errant lawmakers scuttling back home. About half of Somalia’s 439 members of parliament are residing elsewhere in the world to avoid the deadly violence at home. Kenya recently arrested 12 Somali MPs and other government officials in Nairobi during rioting over the arrest and deportation of a radical Muslim cleric. A former Somali legislator says some 47 of the country’s sitting MPs are seeking asylum in Europe, and that this has paralysed parliament, with the officials still receiving salaries and allowances. Somalia’s radical Islamist al-Shabaab group regularly attacks African Union peacekeepers who protect its weak UN-backed government in Mogadishu – which is limited to governing only a few blocks of the capital.

Read more: Mareeg Online, Ethiopian Review, Inter Press Service