International: [Global Terror Concerns Rise For Holidays] -[8 Marines charged in Iraqi civilian massacre] - [North Korea talks end without agreement] - [The best piece of mathematics seen in a long time] and more of today's top stories
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Ethiopia: Free-press calendar 2007
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Addis Ababa: Police kill a young man escaping round-up
EZ - Federal police shot dead a young man who tried to escape from the round up in Addis Ababa. Abebe Hailemariam who was in early twenties was killed when he refused to accept instruction by the federal police to enter the police garage in front of the Sheraton Addis where hundreds of young men who were rounded up from the streets of Addis were held.
Abebe lived in the neighborhood of the Filwha area where the round up was the most rampant. The EPRDF government had reptile conducted raids in the Filwha and Arogew Kera area in the last two weeks.
Eye witnesses said Abebe was trying to escape what locals call "affessa" when police opened fire and killed him.(More...)
UIC says scores of Ethiopian soldiers killed in the fighting
Authorities of Islamic Courts Union in Somalia capital Mogadishu claimed on Thursday that its fighters had gained victories over the latest skirmishes with the Ethiopian forces near Baidoa city, the base of thetransitional federal government. In a news conference held around 5:00 pm local time in the ex-villa Baidoa (Presidential residence in Mogadishu) which is now headquarter for the ICU, the officials said they had subjected causalities to what they called ‘The Ethiopian invaders’ in the clashes in Daynunay and Idale areas close to Baidoa, the seat of TFG in southwest of Somalia.
Sheik Ibrahim Shukri known as ‘Abu-Zainab’ the ICU spokesman for Juba regions in southern Somalia but currently chosen to be the Islamist spokesman for the war issues, said its combatants have killed 203 soldiers of Ethiopian troops and wounded other more in the latest battles near Baidoa 240km southwest of Somalia. (More...)
Ethiopian tanks roll towards Somali battlefront
BAIDOA, Somalia (Reuters) - Ethiopian tanks rolled to the battlefront on Friday as Somali Islamists and Somalia's pro-government troops pounded each other with artillery and rockets in a fourth day of clashes edging closer to all-out war.The Islamists said they would send ground troops to attack en masse on Saturday, as opposed to fighting from a distance with heavy weapons as the two sides have done so far, ignoring a European peace initiative.
"Our troops have not started to attack. From tomorrow the attack will start," Islamist deputy spokesman Ibrahim Shukri told a news conference.
Witnesses near the fighting on two fronts near the government's encircled stronghold of Baidoa in south-central Somalia said they heard the rumble of armour before dawn.
"I was awakened this morning by heavy sounds of tanks. I woke up and saw seven Ethiopian tanks heading towards Daynunay," Baidoa resident Abdullahi Ali told Reuters.
An Islamist fighter near one of the fronts in Daynunay said the tanks had attacked his unit, and he was awaiting anti-tank weapons to fight back. (More...)
Ethiopia’s government media struggling to sell war with Somalia
The Associated Press
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: Ethiopia's government media barrages the public with justifications for war with an Islamic movement in neighboring Somalia. Many in Ethiopia's capital, though, don't buy it.Exhausted by a war with neighboring Eritrea that ended in 2000 and by election violence last year that saw nearly 200 citizens die at the hands of police, Ethiopians are suspicious of their leader, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
"Meles wants this war," said Abiye Fikre, a shopkeeper in the capital. "The problems are his own creation."
Adds butcher Abebe Belayaneh: "If Meles has his way, we'll make war all over the Horn."
There are questions the war rhetoric is meant to win Western backing for Meles. Some Ethiopians accuse the United States in particular of ignoring Meles's poor human rights record because it sees him as an ally in the war on terror. U.S. troops attached to an anti-terror operation based in nearby Djibouti can be seen from time to time in the Ethiopian capital, fueling rumors. (More...)
OPEN LETTER TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT:
RELEASE SOLOMON ABERRA AND ALL DETAINED ETHIOPIAN REFUGEES
SOCEPP
ETHIOPIAN ASYLUM SEEKER SOLOMON ABERRA is detained under harsh conditions in Britain and facing deportation to Ethiopia where he would surely face torture and possible ”disappearance”. Solomon is nunder medical treatment for cancer. His asylum request has been rejected and he is being detained, along with other Ethiopians, at the Immigrant Deportation Center,Hesler, 2 Dolphine Way,Gosport,Hampshire PO12 2AW.
Forced to sleep on cold floors, Solomon Aberra is depressed and in need of medical care and assurance/security. It is sad to note that the concerned British uthorities have ignored all notions of decency and human rights in their callous treatment of Ethiopian asylum seekers.(More...)
The best piece of mathematics seen in a long time
The most significant scientific achievement of 2006 was, according to Science magazine, the solution of a 100-year-old mathematical problem that had baffled some of the best minds of the 20th century.
Russian Mathematician Grigory Perelman solved this problem in a series of papers he circulated in 2003, and this year the mathematical community officially recognized his solution by offering him the Fields Medal, the most important prize in mathematics.
The Poincaré conjecture, as the problem is known, belongs to the field of math called topology. But the methods that led to Perelman's proof took hints from the physical world, and may have implications for research in theoretical physics, experts say.
The conjecture was stated in the early 1900s by the French mathematician Henri Poincaré. It concerns the shape of three-dimensional spheres -- spheres that have three dimensions, as opposed to the surface of an ordinary sphere, which only has two: latitude and longitude. Mathematically, one way to construct a three-dimensional sphere is by taking the boundary of a four-dimensional ball, which fills out a solid region in four-dimensional space. Mathematically, one way to construct a three-dimensional sphere is by taking the boundary of a four-dimensional ball, which lives in four-dimensional space. (More...)
Related Story - BBC: Maths solution tops science class
Today's Top Stories
-Thousands Flee Fighting in Somalia-Global Terror Concerns Rise For Holidays
-8 Marines charged in Iraqi civilian massacre
-North Korea talks end without agreement
-Gaza's residents rally for peace
-A real Christmas story
