ISIL claims massacre of Ethiopian Christians in Libya

Video released online shows one group of captives being shot and another group being beheaded on a beach.
A new video from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) purportedly shows the group killing captured Ethiopian Christians in Libya.
The 29-minute video released online on Sunday shows two groups of dark-skinned captives. It says one group is held by an ISIL affiliate in eastern Libya and the other by an affiliate in the south.
A masked fighter delivers a long statement before the video switches between footage of the captives in the south being shot to death and the captives in the east being beheaded on a beach.
The footage released online shows one group of about 12 men being beheaded by armed men on a beach and another group of at least 16 being shot in the head in a desert area.
It was not immediately clear who the captives were.

Mediterranean migrants: Hundreds feared dead after boat capsizes

Hundreds of people are feared to have drowned after a boat carrying up to 700 migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, the Italian coastguard says.
A major rescue operation is under way after the vessel carrying "between 500 and 700 migrants" capsized at midnight local time, in Libyan waters south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.
So far 28 people have been rescued.
Earlier this week, 400 people were feared to have drowned when their vessel capsized north of Libya.
'Biggest tragedy'
Italian ships, the Maltese Navy and commercial vessels are all involved in the rescue operation, 130 miles (210km) off the coast of Lampedusa and 17 miles (27km) from the Libyan coast.
The Italian coastguard's spokesman told the BBC the operation was still focused on search and rescue, "but in time it will be a search [for bodies] only".
Twenty ships and three helicopters were currently involved in the rescue, he added.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said rescuers were "literally trying to find people alive among the dead floating in the water".

Ethiopians Sweep 2015 B.A.A. Invitational Mile

BOSTON —Athletes from Ethiopia took the top spots in today’s seventh annual BAA Invitational Mile on the streets of Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Dejen Gebremeskel and Dawit Seyaum broke the blue Boston Athletic Association finish tapes on Boylston Street just a few meters from the Boston Marathon finish line in 4:04.1 and 4:35.4, respectively. Seyaum’s time was an event record.

               
Gebremeskel, the 2012 Olympic 5000m silver medalist, decided from the starter’s gun that a hard early pace was the best route to victory. After the first of three circuits, he had a small lead on Britain’s Chris O’Hare and America’s Duncan Phillips, but expanded his lead to two seconds by the end of the second lap. In the final circuit, Gebremeskel overwhelmed the field, leaving O’Hare nearly three seconds behind by the finish.

Over 250,000 East African refugees trapped in Yemen

Many refugees and asylum-seekers from Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea say they have nowhere else to go
Tens of thousands of East African refugees and asylum-seekers are at risk of being left behind in Yemen’s roiling violence, deprived not only of safe options for evacuation but also of a home country that might take them in, activists and U.N. officials said this week.
Since pitched fighting between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the ousted president erupted in March, escape from the country has been arduous even for foreign citizens and wealthy Yemenis. Airports are under fire and commercial transportation cut off, forcing the most desperate to charter simple power boats and make harrowing journeys across the Red Sea.
But for the over 250,000 registered Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean refugees and asylum-seekers, the situation is even more trying. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners have a contingency plan to receive 100,000 refugees in Somalia’s relatively stable regions of Somaliland and Puntland, and another 30,000 in Djibouti, but that process will unfold over the next six months. And it is barely underway.

Media Crackdown in Ethiopia

Ethiopia's parliamentary elections are set to be held May 24th, but there is little doubt the ruling party will win an overwhelming majority amidst a crackdown on independent media and political dissidents. This week on Global Journalist, we look at why and how the restrictions on the media in Africa's second-most populous country began, and speak with a journalist who spent more than a year in prison for reporting.
This week's guests include:

• Martin Schibbye, a Swedish journalist and co-author of thebook, "438 Days," chronicling his time in prison.
• Endalk Chala, a co-founder of Zone 9, a group of bloggers advocating human rights and free speech in Ethiopia.
• Leslie Lefkow, the deputy director at Human Rights Watch's Africa division

This week's show is audio-only.

http://kbia.org

Harvard Portrait-Jelani Nelson

Jelani Nelson lights up when he talks about algorithms. The soft-spoken assistant professor of computer science is a rising star in a field made vital as data proliferate exponentially faster than the growth of computational power or storage. Algorithms, well-defined procedures for carrying out computational tasks, speed the way to answers. Nelson has a knack for speed: online, where he is known as “minilek”—a handle chosen in youth when he was growing up on St. Thomas, and derived from the name of an early ruler of Ethiopia, whence his mother hails—he has excelled with equal ease in coding competitions and typing contests (topping out above 200 words per minute). Though he is a theorist now, solving real problems quickly “cements the concepts in your mind,” he says.

Ethiopia terminate the contract of coach Mariano Barreto

The Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) says it is terminating the contract of head coach Mariano Barreto.
The Portuguese, a former Ghana coach, took charge of the Walia Antelopes last year, signing a two year contract.
But a disappointing reign saw Ethiopia finish bottom of their 2015 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying group.
An official statement, sent to BBC Sport, says the EFF will pay an undisclosed amount of money to Baretto for ending the contract early.