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Ethiopia

Ethiopia inflation accelerates to 29.6% in march

Posted on , Updated on by Elias Kifle

By Jason McLure

(Bloomberg) — Ethiopia’s annual inflation rate increased to 29.6 percent in March, the highest in over a decade, as rising food costs continued to push up consumer prices.

Inflation expanded from 22.9 percent in February, the Addis Ababa-based Central Statistical Agency said in a report today. Food prices climbed 39.4 percent on an annual basis, from 30.2 percent in February, according to the report.
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To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via the Johannesburg bureau at [email protected].

Woyanne soldiers killed in Somalia rocket fire

Posted on by Elias Kifle

MOGADISHU (Garowe Online) – Ethiopian Woyanne troops bolstering Somalia’s weak interim government were targeted in a rocket attack Thursday in the capital Mogadishu, witnesses said.

An insurgent rocket propelled grenade hit a convoy of Ethiopian Woyanne army trucks transporting water to a military base in north Mogadishu located near the ex-pasta factory.

Three Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers on board one of two water trucks were killed immediately after the truck exploded, according to eyewitness accounts.

Ethiopian Woyanne army reinforcements rushed to the scene from their base at the former pasta factory.

A 20-minute skirmish ensued, pitting the Ethiopian Woyanne troops against suspected insurgents.

One of the insurgents was shot and killed by the soldiers, a witness told Garowe Online by telephone.

The remaining group of attackers was forced to flee the scene after the Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers outgunned them.

The exploded water truck was towed away while the second water truck, which was unharmed, was escorted back to base under heavy guard.

Minister’s car bombed

In a separate incident, the personal car of Somali Information Minister Ahmed Abdisalan was targeted in a landmine explosion that wounded the driver and a bodyguard, witnesses said.

Mr. Abdisalan, who also holds the post of Deputy Prime Minister, was not in the car when the landmine exploded. But his personal driver and a bodyguard were wounded, according to the driver who spoke to local media afterwards.

No group has claimed responsibility for planting the landmine, but security sources linked the attack to insurgents fighting to topple the country’s secular government.

Mogadishu police spokesman Abdullahi Shasha told reporters today that no government soldier was hurt in an overnight insurgent attack.

Locals reported that heavy fighting erupted overnight Wednesday along the Maka-al-Mukarama Road. But the situation was calm as of Thursday morning, with hundreds of Ethiopian Woyanne and Somali soldiers patrolling the street.