Photo by Ghanaelections2008

With this as a backdrop, the Presidential election in Ghana is seen by some as a test for democracy on the continent. Military coup leader Jerry Rawlings was democratically elected twice, and surprised critics by stepping down - as he was constitutionally mandated to - in 2000. John Kufuor of the opposition NPP was elected, and served two terms. The first round of Presidential elections took place on December 7 2008, and ended with NPP candidate Nana Akufo-Addo leading NDC's John Atta-Mills by a small margin.

The runoff election took place yesterday, December 28, and early results suggest that NDC is likely to return to power after an eight year absence. The vote has been extremely close, though some reports suggest that turnout was not as strong as in the first round of voting.

As Elia Varela Serra reported earlier this month, Twitter has become the tool of choice for breaking news around the election. Ghanaelections, a Twitter feed maintained by the African Elections Project, has been streaming news and provisional results throughout. A recent Twitter update noted:

EC to declare results of the Presidential Run-off on on Tuesday December 30 at 12:00 GMT

And a few hours ago:

Provisional Results from 226 out of 230 constituencies: NPP-4,365,158 (49.48%) NDC-4,456,538 (50.52%)

Other Ghanaians are also using Twitter to report on the mechanics of voting and on the reactions of partisans to the results.

Edlynne, visiting Ghana from Toronto, reported on December 26:

Saw police intervene in rally of opposing party supporters in Dwtn Accra 2day. Riot shields & guns. Hope election will be peaceful in Ghana

AfricaTalks is monitoring the media coverage, noting that local radio and television is dominated by analysis of the events. He reports:

big celebration around the NDC head office off Ring Road central in Accra. For an old clip see http://tinyurl.com/a46yrg

It's clear that the runoff election has not proceeded as smoothly as the parliamentary election. CODEO, the non-partisan Coalition of Domestic Election Observers, reports 34 cases of missing election materials and 24 cases of disorder, intimidation or violence at poling places. Despite these troubling reports, an official statement from CODEO confirms the validity of the electoral process:

As with the presidential and general elections of December 7, CODEO observers reported many lapses in the voting process in the presidential runoff election of December 28, including setting up and opening of polling stations, voting and vote counting. However, the problems reported by CODEO observers do not fundamentally undermine the integrity of the overall process.

CODEO is asking the Electoral Commission of Ghana to allow voting to continue in the Tain district of the Brong-Ahafo region. Voting did not take place at some polling stations, and the political situation in the region has been very tense, with the local Electoral Commission office set on fire a few weeks ago. Given the close results, votes from this district could determine the outcome of the election. Kwabena Akuamoah-Boateng wryly notes on Twitter:

has the brong-ahafo retained the title ‘chameleon of ghana politics'?

With the election still undecided, and current victory margins within a percentage point, the situation between political party representatives at the Electoral Commission is understandably tense. But very few Ghanaians are panicking on Twitter feeds or the message boards on sites like GhanaWeb. Quite the contrary, as expressed by Kwabena's enthusiastic update as the counting was underway in several polling stations:

went around some polling stations in sunyani. we're on course. Ghana has already won!

KwameOh, watching from London, is an exception with his sceptical update about the first results:

something smells at EC, figures from god knows where arriving at EC, do not let your mandate be stolen…We call on the International community, to help us at this time, if not there will be bloodshed in Accra tonight we beg

Most observers are far less worried and more philosophical. Ghanaian blogger Nubian Cheetah, in Accra for the holidays, writes:

The populas have spoken in Ghana. They want change!

mawulitse agrees:

change is good, and change will come to Ghana

also noting:

Accra is calm but anxious

AndKofucious simply can't wait for the final results tomorrow:

The 30th??!! come on this is not good! I am not pro-NDC but if they are leading as of now, let them win so they can setup their cabinet

As the results are announced and the implications of the election become more clear, it's likely that we'll see detailed analysis in Ghanaian blogs. Writing before the runoff, Mighty African offered a provocative set of ten questions for Ghanaian voters to consider, the first one of which was:

Don’t you think we need to change ourselves for us to move forward or change, etc?

He also offered ten questions each for the NPP and the NDC.

Omanba, writing on the GhanaThink message boards, offers a breakdown of Ghanaian voters, including categories of supporters like “the swaying swaggermaniacs” and “the deaf, blind and dumb votes”. One can only hope for such colorful analysis of the cabinet picks of an incoming administration.

Any analysis of the 2008 Ghanaian elections will need to look closely at the role of technology in both campaigning and monitoring the vote. Katrin Verclas, twittering at mobileactive, reminds us that the election monitors have been using a sophisticated SMS-based system:

Codeo Ghana also conducted a parallel vote tabulation using SMS for data delivery to ensure that results compiled by the EC are reliable.

Using a rigorous statistical sampling method, the observers have confirmed the closeness of the run-off election and are helping assure domestic and international audiences that the second round has been a valid vote.

Oluniyi David Ajao, a Nigerian blogger living and working in Ghana, reported another novel use of mobile phones in the election:

When I saw a call on my cellular phone from a number +233 10 0000, my heart missed a bit. And why not? This was a very strange phone number that I know does not exist but I still answered the phone, albeit cautiously. Lo and behold, it was the voice of the ruling NPP's Presidential candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, speaking in Twi and essentially asking me to vote for him. The message lasted exactly 45 seconds.

I could tell that it was a recorded message. This must be one of the last minute campaign strategies by the New Patriotic Party, to sway the floating voters. I can see that we are indeed moving forward with technology in Ghana.

Akufo-Addo wasted his call, as David reminds us, since as a Nigerian, he can't vote.

Ivan Sigal, Georgia Popplewell. Both photographed at the Global Voices 2008 summit in Budapest by Global Voices board member, Joi Ito.

Global Voices has been searching for an Executive Director for the past year, transitioning the management of the project from co-founders Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman. In February, we promoted Georgia Popplewell, formerly our managing editor, to Managing Director, where she manages the day to day operations of our international community. Ivan will be working closely with Georgia, focusing on the long-term strategy of the project, on partnerships, fundraising and sustainability of the organization. We're thrilled to have the chance to work with someone so passionate about the potential of citizen media and knowledgeable about the global media environment.

Ivan is an award-winning photographer, currently working on a book on Central Asia. At our recent summit in Budapest, his workshop for bloggers on photography was one of our more popular events. Ivan has been blogging at Ivonotes, and we're looking forward to reading what he thinks about his new role, which he'll begin in mid-August.

Welcome to Global Voices, Ivan - we're glad to have you here.

This is likely to be an extraordinarily challenging task, but for the right person, it's a terrific opportunity to help our community reach new heights. The job description follows below - please feel free to share it with anyone you think might be helpful to us.

Global Voices is seeking an Executive Director to oversee the Global Voices Online, Rising Voices, Global Voices Advocacy projects and the community that supports these endeavors. Global Voices is a multinational virtual organization, supported by the paid and volunteer efforts of over 100 people on every continent. Our executive director must possess a wide range of professional and personal skills to help our project reach its potential as the leading international citizen media community online.

The Executive Director will be responsible for the following:

- Management oversight of Global Voices major programs, including direct management of team leaders for the website, language translation, advocacy and outreach projects
- Draft and manage operating budgets for the organization
- Fundraising responsibility, which includes grant writing and creating networks to increase funds
- Maintaining relationships with past, current and future foundations and corporations in order to maintain and increase funding base
- Financial management of the organization
- Maintaining relationships between a governing board, advisory board, paid staff and volunteer staff
- Overseeing PR/media relations for the Global Voices network of projects
- Extensive travel in the course of representing Global Voices

Specifically, we are seeking a director with

- Strong leadership skills
- Experience managing a multilingual, multicultural team
- Experience supporting nonprofit or commercial projects through corporate and foundation fundraising
- Experience working with mainstream news outlets and journalists
- Experience with or strong understanding of citizen media, including blogging, podcasting, and videocasting
- Experience managing substantial ($1m+) budgets
- Strategic planning experience, preferably in a nonprofit or media context
- The ability to work independently and be able to produce results

To work effectively with our community, we would prefer that candidates:
- Have experience living and working internationally, or have traveled extensively in the developing world
- Are active bloggers or creators of online media
- Are multilingual, with fluency in English and at least one other language
- Have experience working in diverse, multicultural environments.

The ideal candidate must have a passionate commitment to the values and goals of Global Voices, they will be joining a well established team of editors and authors who are dedicated to amplifying the voices of world. There is no geographic requirement associated with this position - Global Voices has no office, headquarters, etc. - but substantial travel is expected. Candidates must have access to broadband internet connectivity and comfort working in a wholly virtual environment. We strongly welcome candidates from outside North America and Europe and encourage people currently working on the Global Voices project to apply.

To express your interest, please send a cover letter and CV to “edjob AT globalvoicesonline DOT org” by December 7th.

Suitable candidates will have a strong understanding of the international blogosphere, journalism or technical writing experience, excellent management and leadership skills, and strong experience as a public speaker or technical trainer. Strong spoken and written English is a must - skill in other languages is a strong plus. We are very unlikely to consider candidates who are not active bloggers - links to the blogs you participate in are a key portion of a cover letter or resume for this position. Active involvement in the Global Voices community is a strong plus.

Global Voices expects that the Outreach Director will focus 40-50 hours per week on the position, with a great deal of schedule flexibility. Some international travel is required as part of the position, including attendance at the Global Voices annual meeting (travel funding will be provided.) The Outreach director reports to the acting managing director of Global Voices, and later to the executive director - she or he will be an active part of the Global Voices senior management team.

This position does not require relocation. All Global Voices jobs are virtual - people work from their home countries and connect with other Global Voices staff via the Internet. This job is open to residents of any nation. Salary will be based on experience.

To apply, please send a letter of interest along with CV or resume to ethan@globalvoicesonline.org

Suitable candidates will have a strong understanding of the international blogosphere, technical understanding of the mechanisms of internet filtering and circumvention (proxies, Tor, anonymizing techniques), and journalism or technical writing experience. Active involvement in developing world anticensorship efforts is a strong plus, as is active involvement in the Global Voices community.

Global Voices expects that the Advocacy Director will focus 20-25 hours per week on the position, with a great deal of schedule flexibility. Some international travel is required as part of the position, including attendance at the Global Voices annual meeting (travel funding will be provided.) The Advocacy director reports to the acting managing director of Global Voices, and later to the managing director - the advocacy director will be expected to participate in the Global Voices editorial process, serving alongside regional editors, translation editors and our human rights video editor, and to contribute advocacy-related posts to the Global Voices website.

Update Several people have asked if this job requires relocation. It does not. All Global Voices jobs are virtual - people work from their home countries and connect with other Global Voices staff via the Internet. This job is open to residents of any nation.

We are able to offer an annual salary of $25-30,000 USD for this position, based on experience. To apply, please send a letter of interest along with CV or resume to ethan@globalvoicesonline.org

Portnoy Zheng leads a project to translate articles from Global Voices into Chinese. His reason for launching the project was a sense that it was very hard to get relavent international news in the Taiwanese mainstream media. He began translating with a story from Indonesia on Global Voices, talking about a plane crash caused by overloading a plane with durian which killed a number of Indonesian politicians (Durian is an inherently funny fruit, which may explain why Portnoy felt compelled to provide a pan-Asian translation.) After translating about 100 posts, he met Rebecca in Taiwan and decided to formalize the project. There's now a site - maintained by about 10 translators - which translates a subset of Global Voices articles. There's no clear guidelines to which ones are included - usually posts that talk about China or north Asia, and often articles about controversy in the Middle East, which Portnoy feels don't get covered closely enough in Chinese media.

David points out that Global Voices currently translates only a small subset of the languages of the blogosphere - we translate content from Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili, French, Arabic, Persian, Mandarin, Russian and occasionally Serbian and Ukrainian. In other countries, we neccesarily misrepresent the local conversation, showing off only a few people in the country who happen to be bilingual. He points us to a recent blog post titled “Africa, Global Voices y el anglocentrismo cool”, which argues that if you don't speak English, you don't show up on global voices. David's looking for ways to turn critique like this into involvement - what would be involved with getting the author of this post to help translate GV into Spanish and translate Spanish posts on GV?

David starts outlining some of the questions we're facing in dealing with translation on GV:
- How do we encourage blogger translation? How do we get more people doing this?
- Do we need permission from bloggers before we start translating their work?
- Should we translate non-English comments into English to encourage conversation?
- Should we let people translate all our posts, using the Indymedia model which allows people to click a tab, choose a language and offer their own translation?

This last question raises the issue “Why isn't everything put onto the site also put into MediaWiki, letting people translate on the fly?” The simple answer: maybe it should be - we've not spent enough time thinking through how to making the site translatable. One of our community editors points out that we have to make very careful decisions about what we translate - it's an editorial choice as much as the stories we select for the site.

Two suggestions that got widespread applause and enthusiasm:
- finding a way to reward volunteer translators, perhaps with Amazon Rewards dollars or other currency
- making it possible for people to offer their reading of GV posts in translation from a link on the site.

The goal of the demonstration is to draw attention to online censorship in the thirteen nations RSF terms “Internet black holes” - by clicking on a map of these nations, users register their protest against Internet censorship and for the release of over 60 cyber-dissidents currently under arrest for writings on their blogs.

The protest takes specific aim at Yahoo!, inviting users to record messages for the company's founders. Yahoo! is a special target for RSF because the company's has cooperated with Chinese authorities in investigations of journalists, supplying information that helped lead to the arrest of Shi Tao, a journalist serving a ten year sentence for “divulging state secrets abroad.”

RSF is also inviting visitors to the site to start blogs hosted by the organization - RSF will feature opinions from these blogs on in a weekly section titled “The Blog View of the World”. Finally, RSF will be launching a version of their site in Arabic, complementing the current versions in French, Spanish and English.

We're very grateful for the hard work that RSF does to promote online freedom and openness. Please visit their site today and show your support for their efforts.

We'd hoped that media pressure would lead to Hu Jintao to release Hao prior to his upcoming meeting with President Bush. Unfortunately, this looks increasingly unlikely. So today we're launching a letter-writing campaign and a petition to ask for Hao's immediate release.

Rebecca launched the letter writing campaign earlier today, and we're encouraging readers to write to their national governments, to the Chinese ambassadors in their nation, to their local newspapers, and to Chinese President Hu Jintao. Her post offers key pieces of information to include in letters or op-eds as well some useful addresses.

We've also launched an online petition, demanding that President Hu Jintao release Hao immediately.

The text of the petition reads:

We, the undersigned concerned citizens of the world, protest the detention without charge of Chinese filmmaker and blogger Wu Hao and call on the Chinese government to release him immediately.

Mr. Wu, a Chinese citizen and U.S. permanent resident alien known in the United States as “Hao Wu”, recently returned to live in China and produce independent documentaries. He was detained on February 22nd without being charged with any crime. Authorities have not given Wu Hao's family an explanation for the detention despite numerous inquiries. According to China’s own Code of Criminal Procedure, a person cannot be held without charge or arrest for more than 37 days. His detention has substantially exceeded that period of time.

It is our understanding, based on speeches by China's own leaders, that China aims to be a country governed by the rule of law. The detention of Mr. Wu without charge, and without access to a lawyer, would appear to be highly inconsistent with that aim.

If Mr. Wu has indeed broken the law, a country that respects the rule of law should uphold Mr. Wu's right to legal procedure. His continued unlawful detention is a clear violation of his universally recognized human rights. We ask for his immediate release.

We'd ask anyone reading this post to please sign the petition and pass the URL onto friends who might be inclined to sign it as well. Your email address is required to sign the petition, but it won't be published. If you're able to translate the petition into another language, please let us know - we'd like to make the document available in as many languages as possible.

Thanks for your support and thanks for caring about our friend.

Yesterday Reuters announced a major contribution to the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, where Global Voices is based. This contribution has allowed us to hire our managing editor, Rachel Rawlins, to continue supporting our outstanding team of regional editors and to bring on translators, to provide better coverage of content in languages like Arabic and Russian. Support from Reuters will also allow us to do more outreach and training in parts of the world where there are currently few bloggers. Reuters' generosity allows us to expand the range and quality of information we make freely available to anyone who cares to use it.

We're especially excited about the relationship because we see a great opportunity to help Reuters - and the global media community as a whole - to understand blogging better and the impact of Citizen's Media on the world of journalism. We believe that the information, opinions and perspective that bloggers share complement conventional journalism and that bloggers and journalists can work together to give us a more accurate and representative picture of events and opinions around the world.

You can already see some of the fruits of our work together. Global Voices worked with Reuters on their recent Iraq Newsmakers event, where bloggers from the Middle East participated in a conference in New York via streamed video and IRC, asking journalists tough questions about whether media coverage of Iraq has been fair. In the near future, you'll see content by Global Voices editors and contributors appearing on Reuters websites, providing additional information and context to some Reuters newswire stories.

Global Voices Online is possible through the generosity of two groups: the editors and contributors to the site, and sponsors who make the site possible. We're grateful to everyone who has made Global Voices possible so far and we thank Reuters for making it possible for us to make this site even better.

Our South Asia editor Neha Viswanathan and contributor Dina Mehta are featured, talking about their work on the Southeast Asia Tsunami Help blog, and the video captures some of the spirit and excitement of our December conference in London.

For anyone interested in how media thinkers are viewing our efforts, it's worth reading reports from Noëlle McAfee and Martin Lewis offer their views as media analysts of our December conference and the possible role of Global Voices in the larger world of media and journalism.

Lisa Stone of Surfette was on the jury that chose our blog for the DW honor. Her blog post about judging the contest is incredibly flattering regarding our work. Evidently she advocated for Global Voices to win the Best Weblog prize - which Argentine blog “Más respeto, que soy tu madre” won - but because two judges (Hossein Derakshan and Julien Pain) were Global Voices contributors, there was a perception of conflict of interest. In her post, Stone says:

In my opinion, Global Voices is the most important blog in the English speaking world, bar none. This site is more than an up-to-the-minute guide and encyclopedia of the international blogosphere. Global Voices Online is a mega-blog the covers free speech by a global citizenry–and covers it well. It's so important at a time when so many international voices are denied free speech by their governments and, in the United States, a very few, English-speaking, first-world media conglomerates dominate and determine the ownership, distribution and content of news.

Thanks, Lisa, and thanks to everyone at Best of the Blogs for honoring us with this wonderful award. And thanks to everyone on the Global Voices team for making this site worthy of recognition.

We've posted pieces about Suleiman's detention previously, as Justice for Abdolkarim and Egyptian Blogger Taken in Detention.

At 3 a.m. on October 26, plainclothes security agents arrested Abdolkarim Suleiman from his home in the Muharram Bek district of Alexandria, which had been the site of deadly sectarian clashes over the two previous weeks. The security agents, who produced no warrant, searched Suleiman's house and confiscated printed copies of his online writings. Suleiman, who studies Islamic jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, has published blog posts and articles against honor crimes, the imposition of the niqab (full veil), female genital mutilation, and against the Egyptian government. He became active in the Kifayah movement in August 2005. On October 22, when rioters in Suleiman's neighborhood clashed with police, Suleiman posted an account of the riots, criticizing the rioters and Islam. Days later, his family says, Abd al-Karim was attacked and beaten up by young neighborhood men. Suleiman's brother, Abd al-Hady, believes Alexandria Security was operating on a tip from neighborhood youths.

Repeated attempts by family members and Alexandrian human rights lawyer Mohammed Khaled Al-Tunsi to get more information on Suleiman's case from Alexandria Security have met with no success. On Nov. 6, security agents returned to Suleiman's house and told his family that he was being held in an unspecified detention center for political prisoners. They did not specify on what charges he was being held. On Nov. 8, Al-Tunsi again telephoned contacts in Alexandria Security to inquire about the case. His contacts said they would get back to him, but as of 11 p.m. on Nov. 8, they had not.

Since Security agents visited the Suleiman house a second time, the Suleiman family have been less willing to talk about the case. (We — bloggers Mohammed Morsi and Malek Moustafa, lawyer Al-Tunsi, and I — spent most of last night trying to cajole them into talking. Al-Tunsi had some success with the mother, but she added nothing new to what she had already said. We set an appointment with Abd al-Karim's older brother for 11 p.m., but he never showed up, though his mother said he had left the house at 10:45 p.m.)

Suleiman is either unlawfully detained or has been detained under the Emergency Law. Had Suleiman been lawfully arrested for violating the Penal Code, police from the Muharram Bek precinct would have made the arrest. They would be required to transfer him to the prosecutor within 24 hours. The prosecutor would then interrogate him and request a court date.

Alexandria Security now has two options: They can either detain Suleiman under the provisions of the Emergency Law that allow detention without charge of individuals deemed to be a threat to public order, or they can charge him with defaming religion or
exciting sectarian strife under the terms of Article 98F of the Penal Code (Law no. 29 of 1982 allows for sentences of between six months and five years or fines of between LE500 and LE1000 for “exploiting and using religion in advocating and propagating by talk or in
writing, or by any other method, extremist thoughts with the aim of instigating sedition and division or holding in contempt or disdain any of the ‘heavenly religions' [i.e. Islam, Christianity, or Judaism] or the sects belonging thereto, or prejudicing national unity or social peace”). Suleiman's defenders grant that his October 22 post held Islam in contempt and, given the background of sectarian strife in Alexandria, could be read as “prejudicing national unity and social strife.”

The latter option would play better in Egypt, where the Emergency Law is unpopular and Islam is popular, but would risk turning him into a cause celebre abroad, particularly among religious conservatives in the United States. Detaining Abd al-Karim under the terms of the Emergency Law carries its own risks: In his campaign for reelection this summer, President Hosni Mubarak promised to suspend the Emergency Law in favor of a counterterrorism law and to pass legislation reinforcing citizens' right to a fair and speedy trail. Invoking the Emergency Law, particularly in such a high-profile case so soon after the election, would give lie to these promises of reform and would also surely raise eyebrows abroad.

Nowhere did Suleiman call for violence against Muslims. Nor did any such violence follow his post. There is little to suggest that his blog was widely read in Muharram Bek, a working-class neighborhood where economic constraints make Internet use rare. Suleiman himself does not own a computer and maintained his blog from a local Internet cafe. Suleiman was not responsible for the violence in his neighborhood, nor will his detention solve the problems that led to it.

The question of the legality of Suleiman's detention aside, Egyptian officials conducting a cost-benefit analysis of Suleiman's continued detention must conclude that it's not worth it. His detention has already attracted significant attention from local and international
human rights groups and media. Particularly on the eve of the World Summit on the Information Society, where Egypt has the opportunity to present itself as a regional leader in attempts to foster an information society, Suleiman's case has the potential to cause more trouble for the government than it's worth.

Doctors rush a man injured in the Addis riots into Black Lion Hospital. Photo by blogger Andrew Heavens.

The protests concern May's parliamentary polls, which opposition supporters assert were rigged by Meles Zenawi's ruling party. On Monday, a group of taxi drivers were arrested and stripped of their taxi licenses after protesting the polls. This, combined with the detention of top opposition officials on charges of treason, has apparently inspired street protests by supporters of the CUD (the leading opposition party.) Police and military reaction to these protests was swift and violent - doctors at Black Lion Hospital report that most victims were shot in the chest, and eyewitnesses accuse police and troops of firing indiscriminately.

Nazret, an aggregator of news and blogs from Ethiopia, has opened a special section for eyewitness reports from Addis - they're checking IP addresses to confirm that posts are coming from computers in Ethiopia. Some excerpts from the Nazret reports:

Mimi writes:

I was shopping in Merckato with my friend, all of a sudden I heard people screaming and runing around me. I was in a state of panic for a while and my friend started to pull me towards her. Then we started running as fast as we can with live bullets fling past us, with the confusion I lost my friend. Now I don't know where she is, all I can do is pray for her and every one in Ethiopia. This government is refusing to give us our freedom, they shot us like mad dogs, I am in tears as I wright this. GOD help us and pray for us

Massa suggests that the weapons being used are heavy ones, not semi-automatic rifles (Kalashnikovs):

My dear freinds I couldn't identify what king of weapons are shoooting at Ferensay legasion but I'm shure it is not clashinkove. the voice of the weapon is very heavy. I have seen dead bodies at long distance but the soldiers wouldn't allow to get close to the fighting place…

Netsanet offers this report shortly after noon yesterday in Addis:

The Situation in Addis is as follows: 1. No News papers At all 2. Every young group is arrested 3.Gun fires heard everywhehere in Addis to shot people coming out to streets demanding the release of innocent political leaders 4.Most shops are closed 5. Everybody asking the release of innocent political leaders 6. People are waiting instructions from CUD substitutes to take more actions Netsanet.

As the violence has continued, the comments thread turned to a debate between CUD and EPRD (the ruling party) supporters. But eyewitness reports continue to come in today. “yasteseryal” reports:

The clash continued for a third day in Addis, around Mexico Area. It's only learned that they killed one person. As he (Victim) was trying not to get in to their car, one of the force shot him in his chest.

And yesterday midnight, forces were intruding homes. They took and throw to jail more than 2000 teenagers and early twenties guys from their home. In some part of the city, they just checked ‘Kebele' ID-Card.

As today is Muslim's Eid Mubarak, the people seem to calm down not to disturb the Muslim community. However, the tense is getting higher and there is no transportation service nor any market opened.

Many of the most moving photos coming from Addis are shot by Andrew Heavens, a freelance photographer (currently shooting for Reuters), who regularly blogs at Meskel Square. It's understandable that he hasn't had time to write about the events of the past two days yet, though his blog will be one to watch as things cool down a bit. Nazret has posted a collection of photos of the protest, shot by Heavens and others in Addis. Andrew's Flickr photos give a good overview not just of the riots, but of life in Addis in general.

Un ferengi à Addis, a French-language blog subtitled “Le blog d'une expat ou la chronique déplaisante d'une dictature ordinaire” (”the blog of an expat, or the unpleasant journal of an ordinary dictatorship”) offers a great deal of context for the violence and opposition leaders' arrests (all in French.) She returned this morning to Addis, and has a moving post about the aftermath of the violence:

Ce matin vers 8h30, toute trace du carnage était nettoyée. Enfin, la carcasse d'un bus carbonisé n'avait pas encore été enlevé de la ring road (le périph adissois) et deux voitures brûlaient encore. On pouvait deviner des traces d'incendie, de pneus brûlés çà et là, vagues vestiges d'une violence volatilisée.

Ce n'est qu'une impression bien sûr. Les taxis ne roulent pas, les boutiques sont fermées, les bérêts rouges armés jusqu'aux dents patrouillent et achèvent leur boulot de fossoyeur, quelques policiers fédéraux sont nonchalamment assis sur les pelouses de Bole Road, principale avenue d'Addis.

(Rough translation) As of 8:30 this morning, almost all traces of the carnage were removed. The shell of a burned bus had not been removed from the ring road and two cars still burned. One could see traces of fire, tires flaring here and there, vague vestiges of volitile violence.

It is only one impression, of course. The taxis do not run, the shops are closed, the red bérêts - armed to the teeth - patrol and do the job of gravedigger. Some federal police officers nonchalantly sat on the lawns of Bole Road, the principal avenue of Addis.

Sokari's earlier post on the riots has generated a number of comments, largely critical of the Meles government and international lack of interest in the events in Addis. Selam writes, “How the wes claim to have a democracy while waching inocent people gundown in Ethiopia and elseware. actualy the west, specialy the US and UK are the main supporter of tyrant, muderer meles chenawee. They shuld take equal responsibility for the inosent blood speeled in Addis Ababa and elswher in ethiopia.”