can continue to direct their concerns and petitions. for decades, king and philosophy is being portrayed as a deeply popular monarch. now the government's being forced to deny reports, he slid the country, his kingdom appears to be in crisis. and sir bryan al jazeera, i've always much one use on our website, al jazeera and dot com, the very latest on all of our time stories on there. i'll just hear a dot com ah hello again. i'm fully back today. with the headlines on al jazeera, pennsylvania's high court has overturned bill cosby sexual assault, conviction, and ordered that he be released from prison. american actor was convicted in 2018. he was accused of drugging and assaulting a woman in his home. cosby had served more than 2 years of a potential 3 to 10 year sentence. millions of people in western canada and

northwest and united states are under heat and very soft record breaking temperatures. at least 65 people have died in the vancouver area alone since friday . in the field to gray in rebels say government troops were forced to withdraw from the regional capital mckelly. the government faced the retreat west strategic it's good and people in liberation front has also rejected the government see fire calling it a joke. catherine has more from they will be prime minister, be ahmed, spoke to journalists not too long ago and re to rated the government position, saying, giving reasons why appeal to this new from some parts of the grant. including mecolas saying that this was a strategic decision that the soldiers need to deal with more. with a more national external threat, he did not say what this threat was or which the external forces were. but in that statement, as in that statement by the government aaliyah,

it said that the 2 grand defense forces are north a priority. not a threat anymore. to former been secret police have been sent in for 12 years in jail after being found guilty of war crimes in the former yugoslavia in the 1990 joe because sanitation, franklin markovich were convicted for their vote in financing and supporting said militias. the death toll in the florida building collapses raised into 16 after formal bodies were pulled from the rubble. almost 150 people are still missing, and russian trays invited me put in fazio poses mandatory cove in 1900 vaccination . despite a search in infections, he also accuses the u. k. and us a fueling tensions in the black sea. after the british navy vessel failed close to russia's illegally amex region of crimea last week. those are the headlines. i'll be back with a news our in under 30 minutes right after inside story on. i'll just stay with this news.

news, news. news, rebels and northern ethiopia, take ry region. take more territory, including the capital. but the federal government denies it losing the battle. those displaced now face the risk of famine. so is it the end or the beginning of a wider conflict? this is inside store. ah, ah. hello and welcome to the program. i'm how the jim john. the fight for e t o. p s t gray region saw a sudden turn this week with rebel forces taking back the provincial capital

mckelly, while the central government declared a cease fire. fighting in the area had intensified in recent weeks. people celebrated as ethiopian and their allied air, retrans forces withdrew. but the 2 gripe people's liberation front has rejected the cease fire as a joke, saying it will keep pushing to recapture the entire region. ethiopia government denies it on the back foot, and army spokesman insist soldiers can retake mckelly in 3 weeks if they wanted. he says, troops were pulled out to deal with an external threats if you will get to our guests in a moment. but 1st, this report from catherine soy in neighboring, kenya. they see open government has issued a statement about what's going on in t gray. and one of the things that stands out the reasons given for the withdrawals of the national. i mean from some areas in that region. the statement says that the reason is that the schools is needs to prepare for

a more national external threat. did not say what threat the feasel which this external forces off. but then the statement did say that the grand defense forces that appear to be on the offensive now not a priority to deal with. and that if need be the army, the military can take over the capital machaela within 3 weeks. so the government saying that the withdrawal is a strategic move and also saying that the declaration of the sci fi was also a political move to because of humanitarian reasons. it says that some as need to go back to their, to plant, to of a farming. now we also talked to the spokesman of t p last, the to grand people's liberation front guitar to read out who says that the fight

that the grand fighters will not rest until every inch of the great ease is liberated. he said, however, the t p less is in principle, happy to hold any kind of talks to be escalate. the situation talks with a government but with conditions. he says that all services, including telecommunications and internet services and so on, must be, must resume. that has been cut off, he says that there has to be accountability of the atrocities that have been committed against the grand people. and all he calls invading forces. all invading forces must leave t gray. so it's going to be interesting in the coming day, the coming weeks to see whether these, these fire will hold already the grand forces. i say that it's a joke and to see how the government, they're re trend government and the myra forces which still control huge chunk of west and west and the guy how all this forces, all this,

what he's going to respond. the fighting has displaced more than 2000000 people since november rights groups have accused all sides of mass killings and rape. 350000 people now face famine, and at least 60000 have escaped across the border to sudan. the u. s. a major ally says it'll take further measures against ethiopia and eritrea. if the situation doesn't improve soon, it is essential. now that all parties commit to the cease fire, allow humanitarian access, protect civilians, there be independent investigations into atrocities. and that there is justice for victims. ethiopia, is it a pivot point to have an inflection point with the parties do now matters and will determine whether there is a better future ahead for what we are sick and fall into gray bears the hallmarks of crimes against humanity. a quite possibly

a genocide prospect for a durable piece and if you you and it's rhoda, the responsible regional leader. now in question, as is prime minister the abi legacy relations between prime minister abi i met and t guys, leaders worsened after he introduced reforms in 2018 which included dismantling the federal governing coalition, which was led by t p l f. officials from to gripe the t p f, which had dominated if you'll be in politics for decades, accused of a of trying to increase federal power. ave postponed last year's election citing corona virus concerns. but regional leaders in to grey held their own vote in september in defiance of the central government. then in november, the government said t. p l f rebels attack the federal army base in the north and killed soldiers in troops in response. if you will be, as government took control of mckelly in late november and declared victory,

but the fighting continued and the worse and in recent weeks. ah. now, right, let's bring in our guess and others about samuel get a true journalist based in ethiopia. in rome, leticia bader, horn of africa, director of human rights watch, and in the hague. other cassie a bit program officer at the international institute for democracy and electoral assistance. a warm welcome to you all. sammy, let me start with you today. to ryan rebels. they have rejected the governments unilateral cease fire, they have described it as a joke. so where does that leave the overall situation right now? it seems that fighting will continue. there will be lots of people that will be impacted by this. i speak from the humanitarian perspective, the people that i met, you know, they have no connection to the politics of the suburb are mckelly or

t p for the government. so the focus from the beginning us reflected by the un and other organizations has been the impact it's been having on the ground. and you know, many countries, brandy countries, t t o b i, including the bite administration, has been calling for some kind of fire. we're hoping we're going to see this part of this fire have an impact on the ground, but it seems this conflict will go on and again, many people will be impacted. and it organizations continue to, to ask for some kind of you monitor and corridor might not be achieved, but at the end it's everyday people that would be parted by any decision that comes from either be administration or the government that is in mccully at the moment latisha, samuel, there was talking about the humanitarian crisis that's been playing out in the tea

gray region. now, according to the un, hundreds of thousands of people in t gray are facing famine. this is a conflict that has been characterized over and over again by abuses of civilians. they have been widespread reports of massacres, sexual violence, burning of crops and much, much more. how devastating has this conflict been from a humanitarian standpoint? i mean, enormous in terms of the level of atrocities which have been committed which have in many ways directly resulted in the humanitarian crisis. we're talking about right now and both because of the actions of war in parties, in terms of the destruction of civilian infrastructure. in terms of the destruction of the crow, hobbit burning a call, but also the very basic survival of civilians on the ground. and at the same

time, a lot of the actions of the war in parties have also contributed on restrictions on movement of city. so when we're talking about she monetary and access right now, we need to talk about both ensuring that there is in p did access, but she managed very active. but also making sure that all war and party i'm not targeting civilians in need need to reach fixed and immediately. i mean, i think this is where it's important to underline the warning find which are coming out in early june, around the fact that they were already a 3rd, a 1000000 people who was already starving. the clear message there was that if immediate urgent assistance wasn't given, then we were going to be dealing with an even bigger humanitarian atom. you know, when news 1st emerge that mckelly had been retaken by to ryan rebels. many analysts

described this as a stunning turn of events for prime minister, obey ahmed. just how big of a set back is this for him? it is a set buck. at the same time, i think they have realized that this is a one that is and winnable. and it's not really because they lost the war that they are living. i think it's really a grinding is tell me that we have seen. and it seems like the movement of troops, a boat on, on the syrian and joke inside was pre planned and coordinated for the it's not really a defeat that led to the return of the t p l f. and the ticket by defense force back to mckelly. it's a realization on the side of the federal forces that this is an unwinnable war. samuel the t p l f. last territory, not just to, if you open government forces, but also to retrain soldiers and to fighters from the horror region. so how much

territory in all, did they lose? again, you know, like everything and we get all kinds of negations and pops and numbers. and we can never verify what's been happening unless we have access to this. some of the areas that you mentioned, you know, i was able to talk to only some cities and to gray, including mccully. awesome and id got an idea of the but the rest of the guy wasn't even accessible to us or 8 organizations. so it's really, really difficult to verify what's been happening on the ground is no media that has been having such an access for them to make that determination. so it's speculation once again, but they did lose some. we just have to verify the information. and i don't see i

have conflicting information. so i mean, i don't know, like, you know, i've seen a lot of reports now that people are hopeful that aid will be able to eventually get in to trigger i region. but from your vantage point, what are the implications of what has happened? do you believe that humanitarian agencies will be able to get unfettered access to, to gray region? and how soon do you expect that that might happen? well i think it's a cycle just mentioned, i mean we, we don't really know right now there is a communication shut down again in the region and i mean it's absolutely urgent. adamant that the therapy and government needs to ensure that the communication is restored, the electricity has been shut down again. i mean, this is both making it impossible for organizations like for the media to report in

real time to understand it's making it incredibly difficult to manage, carrying actors to inspect the tracks from the ground. they need information to be able to understand the security situation. but this is also critical for the communities on the ground. they need to know what's going on. they need to know what they can receive right now. and so the communication shut down, it's just terrible. i mean, i'm for that very reason right now. it is urgent for the messaging which has been coming from the international community around funding, monetary and access around monitoring over system, which is being distributed in the region in terms of ending restrictions on humanitarian action. but also in terms of ending what has been the deliberate attacks on to be and in the way this will have been conducted is just getting the berkeley and direct me can contribute to the humanitarian crisis. we're dealing with right now. so the messaging and pressure needs to continue right now would

actually be adam. a spokesman for to ryan rebels said that they will stop at nothing to liberate every square inch of t gr i, and that they will pursue the forces that they had been fighting against, into eritrea and into the horror region if need be, how much has the specter of a wider conflict grown as a result of all of this i'll get to that, but just to added to the 2nd issue of about a period access. i think the, the fact that the open government federal force have now withdrawn. and also the fact that most of the rebounded area and provisions were actually coming from europe and sources. and now that the departure could actually worse than the gap in humanitarian provisions. so work has to be done to ensure that there is, there is an increase in, in him, out of here to provision. that's what a come from the gap that's been created in terms of the communication block out. i

think we need to check whether the black culture is actually, you know, because of infrastructure problems within the area that to, to go out for some control. if that is the case, i think it would have to be fixed there. but we also have to check whether the block out, you actually are the result of external measures from, from the federal government. so we need to see the exact 3 reasons to be able to fixed up on the, on the claim that the defense forces will pursue while the computer, our enemy forces. i suspect that it is more propaganda tool and i'll get to have a desire to continue on the momentum. but i am afraid that considering the depleted military capabilities that they have. and also considering that if they engage in an offensive, it will be more than a traditional wasn't, which was very much like what happened in early november. and i'm not sure if they have the capabilities that they had at the time to actually defeat the festival.

and i'm her and other forces. so my says is that they will stay where they are. and if they attempt to engage in an offensive, they may, they may suffer ctv or casual it is samuel, where do things go diplomatically from here? i mean, do we expect to see, for example, african emissaries playing a role with the un be more involved? what about the us? i mean, who could play the kind of role that is needed right now to de escalate the situation? for the most part, the african union has been very powerless and has been mute when it comes to this kind of issues within the continent. they've been sending delegation, head, so state for my head, so states and to speak to the leadership both you feel that you has been coming back and forth, including the for a minister of finland,

who may have missed spoken according to that you feel inside by saying there is a genocide, but i think countries that are respected traditionally in terms of piece building are perhaps the swedish norwegians, even canada. they have a brand respected. they have this gift of soft power. they can use to try to bridge the gap. because you know, again within the african continent, because we see all this kind of disasters, we have this tendency to mation numbers. 91 percent of the population are facing food emergency for example, or millions of people starving or 500 people having some kind of disaster. so when people begin to see the thesis behind the number, i have been, some of us have been to the degree region. we begin to understand the impact. this

is having, i've never been to a society that is desperately in need of leadership and impacted by a conflict that has nothing to do with everyday people. done the people i met and the to great region unless there is an international leadership. does respected by both, especially by your side. this caught that this conflict will continue and one just be on the bend matter. it's would become a region on matter basin. and you guys are heading to this to done. there are chance starting bold from the northern countries, and this refugees will soon be heading to europe. so this is becoming a worldwide international affair, and we should take years to the tisha. i saw you nodding along to quite a lot of what samuel was saying there, did you want to jump in and add to the point he was making? yeah, i mean not for new. the i do want to just come back to the discussion about the communication blockhouse as well. i mean, i think some of the arguments here we heard in the 1st few months that the

communications would down the course of action by the federal government. but it does seem that the communications but down in most of the day right now. so it is difficult to see how the federal government would not be responsible for the capable of shutting down the communications on such a group scale. and i think we just underlining then again, we have seen repeated shocking all of communications when they have been periods of significant fighting and instability in, in particular region. and each time when the communications have been restored, we have documented areas, atrocities. so you know, again why it's important to keep the message about the need to restore communications immediately in terms of the international community. i think we have repeatedly fed, but it is shocking that conflicts and crises of such magnitude and gravity is not on the agenda, but the human right council engineer has not been stopping like some only a gender security council in new york. it is essential with the secretary general

to use a range of power, but the patch to publicly course for the international community play cpa appear on the agenda. security council. now it's not the time to back down as we were saying . and i mean, coming to the point samuel was raising, i mean, here we're talking about a community and it is very difficult to see right now sections of a, but you get to pick a population that have been left on gave by the abuses and what is essential is that that needs to be independent investigators who are able to access all throughout the region right now to ensure the preservation of evidence. this is a very big concern. we've been reading since the beginning to enable one day for that to be true. accountability and want which also the community is going to see as a credible form of accountability and latisha. if i could just follow up with you when you talk about these rights abuses, these atrocities that you,

your group and other rights groups have been documenting. it's all of the parties to the conflict who have been accused of committing these atrocities, correct? i mean, we have definitely documented more abusive from the size of the era trend government forces on the i'm had a regional postage. we have documented also significant abuses against the error tray and refugee population also buying the militia office in the early stages of the complex, the trying refugee population, which had in some way forgotten in more recent months. one targeted by woodside, including by the train, $42.00 destroyed the 2 era tri refugee camp in the region. adam, when he took office 3 years ago, prime minister ob, a promise to unite ethiopia, is the country more fractured now than it was then i ask this because it seems like

it's been a, a huge fall from grace for, for prime minister. obey. and i mean, he was a, he was a darling, especially of the west, you won the nobel peace prize. and now there, there are some countries and humanitarian actors that essentially consider him to be a pariah. so i mean, how does this impact him? and is the country more divided now after 3 years of his leadership than when he would then when he took the reins, i don't think the country is more divided. i think we, we should, we should not underestimate that. the fisher that divides in the country. what inherits it? we can argue, arguably, i think that the way he pursued the process of transforming the ruling party is at the root of the conflict that we see in integrates. and also some of the taishan in, in romeo bow. he's not the only actor that contributed to this particular problem, and i'm glad i think you asked about the atrocities earlier. are committed by or

locked us. i think this is, this is obviously as a leader of a country, he is partly responsible for it, but to pin it's only on him. i would be unhelpful to finding a more, more sustainable, a peaceful way of resolving the, the issue that, that with us today. so yes, he is reputation or suffered and it must it's, it's understandable because all these things are happening under his watch are the same time we should recognize about the these are complex disputes and everybody had a role. i think the miscalculations about lead to the war in november will not be repeated now, particularly, i also hope that the, that the, that the grand defense forces would be more deliberate, more reflective of what has happened in this, in the last 2 or 3 days. and take a more conciliatory approach, rather than engaging him in moral sense. you've tactics that could ultimately be more damaging to a population that has already suffered

a lot. samuel did the prime minister did not have any other viable options available to him at the moment. other than declaring this unilateral cease fire. oh, well, he needed to. there was lots of pressure for instance, from other international countries, including donors, us 8 being, you know, usaid has spent close to half a $1000000000.00. and the guy conflicts trying to help older spectrum's. the surprise recapture mckelly might say the road. but again, there is a world wide understanding of what's happening in the field. it's in the open social media. there are people activist. that's how i've been debating this and talking about this for since last november. and i mean, it was, i think it was time to listen and also listen to the victims on the ground. what i

mean, even the job in human rights commission has been saying it, a queen was human rights watch list. international has been saying from the get go, i think there was lots of pressure not just from donations, from, from all of us again, because the impact, the thesis. i mean, i mean, they just have to be accounted for too many of them. all right, well we have run out of time, so we're going to have to leave the conversation there. thank you so much to all of our guests and we will get you the tisha better and adam cassie abbey. and thank you to for watching. you can see this and all of our previous programs again, anytime by visiting our website, algebra dot com and for further discussion, go to our facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash ha, inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter or handle is at ha, inside store. for me, how much room in the whole team here, bye, for now, the

i lose lose. can image represent the truth or merely mimic the perception of the beholder behind the camera. preconceptions, one sided imagery, reclaiming narrative, and the trauma of colonialist ation. and it lingering legacy, delicately addressed as a weapon to make a scene in the democratic republic of congo, film, and not a witness documentary on out. you know, what's happening in our region. we know how to get to places that others can all i

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