His advantage could be as narrow as 7 points, depending on likely voters
PRINCETON, NJ — Voter preferences in the presidential race continue to be generally auspicious for Barack Obama’s election prospects only three weeks ahead of the eve of Election Day. Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 51% to 41%, among all registered voters, according to Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Oct. 10-12.
The percentage of registered voters favoring Obama has been 50%, 51%, or 52% in each Gallup Poll Daily tracking report since Oct. 4. Support for McCain has been a steady 41% to 43% across the same time period. Thus, although the gap between the two candidates has varied from seven to 11 points in recent days, voter preferences have, in fact, been quite stable. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)
Likely Voters
Among typical “likely voters” — the subset of registered voters who appear most likely to vote on Election Day according to their current voting intentions and past voting behavior — Obama’s lead is a slightly narrower seven points, 51% to 44%. This assumes that about 60% of the voting age population will vote, slightly higher than the 55% who turned out in 2004.
Among a more broadly defined likely voter group that only takes into account current voting intentions — not past voting behavior — Obama’s lead is the same 10 points as among all registered voters, 53% to 43%. This group represents approximately two-thirds of the general public, a significantly higher proportion than has turned out in any recent election. — Lydia Saad
(Click here to see how the race currently breaks down by demographic subgroup.)
Ato Sileshi Tilahun, a senior official of the Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF), has arrived in Asmara over the weekend to hold discussions with Ato Meazaw Getu, the chairman, and other leaders of the resistance group. During his two-week stay in the region, Ato Sileshi will also visit the EPPF fighters in the field.
The working visit to Eritrea by Ato Sileshi includes meetings with high-level officials of Eritrea’s Government. The meeting is hoped to pave the way for other Ethiopian political, civic, and religious leaders, as well as artists and journalists to visit Eritrea in the near future in order to solidify the increasingly improving relations between the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia.
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan summoned the Kenyan and Ethiopian Woyanne ambassadors on Monday to protest against what it said were illegal shipments of arms to its semi-autonomous south, state media reported.
Khartoum was protesting over “violations” linked to an arms shipment seized by pirates off Somalia’s coast that Western diplomats said was bound for south Sudan, and a plane-load of weapons from Addis Ababa, state news agency SUNA reported.
SUNA stopped short of accusing Ethiopia and Kenya of directly supplying the arms to south Sudan, which won its own government and the right to its own army in a 2005 peace deal with Khartoum that ended a two-decade civil war.
But it said that “against the backdrop” of the two shipments, the foreign ministry asked both envoys to “inform their governments of its protest at these violations”.
The move raised the heat in a simmering row over the shipment of 30 tanks seized by pirates last month off Somalia that western diplomats said were heading for south Sudan in possible breach of the peace agreement.
The pirates, who are still holding the cargo, said paperwork showed the tanks were heading to south Sudan through Kenya’s port of Mombasa. South Sudan has denied ordering the tanks and Kenya has insisted the machines were meant for its own army.
MILITARY PLANE
Sudan’s foreign ministry also protested about unspecified weapons that it said had arrived in south Sudan’s capital Juba on Friday on an Ethiopian military plane, SUNA said.
Southern officials and army officers on Monday denied the weapons were part of an arms delivery and told Reuters they had been brought in as exhibits in a long-planned trade fair.
Lieutenant General Biar Ajang of the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) said that rumours of an Ethiopian delivery of armaments were “confused”.
“They are coming to show local products, tents, uniforms, armaments, shells … like a shop,” he said.
Ethiopia’s Consul General Negash Legesse told Reuters some of the weapons had been taken to SPLA headquarters for inspection. “They are samples. Some Kalashnikovs. Some others that Ethiopia is producing,” he said.
Sudan’s foreign ministry said it was surprised at the shipments as both Kenya and Ethiopia had backed a 2005 peace deal that ended the civil war between north and south Sudan, SUNA said.
There are currently no global arms embargoes banning south Sudan from buying arms or supplying the SPLA.
But the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement ban both the north and the south from building up arms without the approval of a north-south Joint Military Board.
Activists have repeatedly accused the northern Khartoum government of also re-arming, and of breaching the terms of a U.N. arms embargo covering the warring parties in the separate Darfur conflict.
(Additional reporting by Skye Wheeler in Juba, editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Ethiopian Review makes this Amharic Typing tool available online. It is a great tool for writing short notes and articles in Amharic from anywhere there is an Internet connection.
KHARTOUM, SUDAN (ST) – The Sudanese government revealed today that a militia leader wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been detained and will stand trial for his alleged role in Darfur war crimes.
The Sudanese justice minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat told the Associated Press from Cairo that militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb “is in government custody”.
“Kushayb will be tried in Sudan’s domestic courts. He is under investigation. He will be held accountable” Sabdarat said.
The move come almost three months after the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in mid-July that he requested an arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.
Following that Sudan has been looking into ways that would allow it to avoid confrontation with the international community over the ICC through conducting trials for lesser suspects.
The judges of the ICC issued arrest warrants last year for Kushayb and Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs on 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. But Khartoum has so far refused to hand them over.
Khartoum had long claimed that Kushayb was in custody since November 2006 for investigations into allegations of violations he committed during the peak of the Darfur conflict in 2004.
Sudan’s former Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told a news conference in Khartoum in February 2007 that “Ali Kushayb, along with two other individuals, was sent for trial. He was detained as a suspect, questioned, his statements were evaluated and witness statements recorded, and then the decision was taken to refer him to court”.
But in March 2007 Kushayb’s trial was delayed when the defendants filed an appeal with the Justice ministry after which Abu-Zeid told reporters that Kushayb’s appeal was denied that there is “sufficient evidence to proceed with the case”.
Shortly afterwards the Sudanese justice ministry ordered a ban on publishing reports or details relating to criminal cases on Darfur conflict and many observers at the time voiced skepticism over Khartoum’s seriousness to try perpetrators of crimes in the war ravaged region.
In October 2007 Sudan’s former foreign minister Lam Akol told the pro-government daily Al-Rayaam from New York that Kushayb was freed “due to lack of incriminating evidence against him”.
However Al-Mardi issued a quick denial to the Al-Rayaam report describing it as “false” without directly commenting on Akol’s statements.
The former Justice Minister was asked again by Al-Rayaam last November on the whereabouts of Kushayb and he reiterated that the militia leader was “never released” before saying that he refrained from commenting on the issue “because it is under investigation”.
In April the spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in London, Khalid Al-Mubarak was quoted by Voice of America (VOA) as saying that Haroun and Kushayb were not prosecuted “because there is no evidence against them”.
Again in June Amin Hassan Omar, a leading figure in the National Congress Party (NCP) and a state minister also confirmed Kushayb’s release.
Sabdarat did not say on what charges will Kushayb be prosecuted despite earlier assertions that he has been cleared from any wrongdoings.
The ICC Statute prevents investigation into crimes that were looked into by local judiciary under the concept of “complementarity”.
Sudan must prosecute Haroun and Kushayb for the same accusations brought against them by the ICC in order for the latter to lose jurisdiction over their cases.
Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statute, but the UN Security Council (UNSC) triggered the provisions under the Statute that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.
(New York) – Ethiopia’s parliament should reject a draft law that would criminalize human rights activity and seriously undermine civil society groups, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on donor governments to speak out publicly against the bill, which is expected to be introduced in parliament this month.
The Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO law) would provide the government a potent tool to intimidate and weaken Ethiopia’s long beleaguered civil society. Although the bill has been revised twice since May 2008, the current version retains many of the most alarming provisions.
“The only reason to have such a repressive law is if it would be used to strangle Ethiopia’s few remaining independent voices,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Donor governments should make clear to Ethiopia that enacting this law will threaten future funding.”
The CSO law would bar both foreign and Ethiopian organizations that receive more than 10 percent of their funding from abroad from undertaking any activities in human rights, gender equality, children’s rights, disabled persons’ rights, conflict resolution, and strengthening judicial practices and law enforcement, among related activities. The law would also exclude groups that are largely funded by Ethiopians living in the diaspora from working on these issues. The law would carry severe criminal penalties for violations, including three to five years of imprisonment for minor administrative violations.
The draft law would establish a Charities and Societies Agency that would have enormous discretion to “regulate” civil society organizations, with few procedural safeguards and virtually no right of appeal of most of its decisions. Agency officials could arbitrarily refuse to register an organization, order organization staff or leadership suspended, and make onerous demands for documents and other information.
The proposed law violates Ethiopia’s obligations under its own constitution, regional African treaties, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Ethiopian officials claim that the law is intended to create “improved mechanisms to monitor nongovernmental organizations,” but the bill presents a far more intrusive regulatory framework than legislation adopted by many other countries, including Malawi, Tanzania, and South Africa.
“Ethiopia claims the civil society law would promote accountability, but other countries achieve this without banning human rights activity,” said Gagnon. “As the seat of the African Union, Ethiopia should be at the forefront of efforts to promote good governance instead of a leader in civil society oppression.”
Independent or critical voices, including those of political opposition, already face increasing pressure in Ethiopia. The country’s human rights situation has markedly deteriorated since the disputed 2005 elections, when security forces killed scores of demonstrators during street protests and arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands of others.
The government detained dozens of human rights defenders, opposition leaders, and journalists in November 2005 and tried them on treason charges. More than 100 of these people, including 25 journalists and publishers, were finally acquitted in April 2007, and 38 people, mostly opposition leaders, were pardoned in July 2007 after pleading guilty. Two civil society activists who were arrested in the same round-up and refused to plead guilty were finally released in March 2008 after spending more than two years in prison and being convicted on baseless charges of incitement.
Ethiopia’s bilateral donors provide more than US$1 billion in aid each year to what is one of the world’s poorest countries and an important ally in regional counterterrorism efforts. Key governments, including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, have quietly pressed the Ethiopian government to amend the most repressive provisions of the proposed law, to little apparent effect.
Donor governments have refused to condemn serious human rights abuses in Ethiopia publicly, claiming that quiet pressure achieves more impact. Over the past two years, though, Ethiopian security forces have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, both within Ethiopia and in neighboring Somalia, without being called to account for their actions.
“Quiet diplomacy has failed to convince the Ethiopian government to address serious abuses,” said Gagnon. “Donors need to say loud and clear that continued repression will have financial consequences.”
