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A Somali Islamist hardliner who lives in exile in Eritrea has said the war against the Somali interim government will continue "even if Ethiopian troops withdraw," Radio Garowe reports. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of the Eritrea-based ARS faction, said on Thursday that he is "doubtful" that Ethiopian forces will withdraw from Somalia. "The men who returned to Mogadishu made friends with the enemy, and I believe the enemy is using them," Sheikh Aweys said, while referring to Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chairman of the Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia's (ARS) Djibouti-based faction. He described the enemy as "Ethiopian soldiers...

Religious leaders in Ethiopia on Monday urged lawmakers to amend the country's constitution to ban homosexuality in a move they argue could further strengthen existing codes. At a meeting in the Ethiopian capital, nearly a dozen religious figures, including heads of Ethiopia's Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, adopted a resolution against homosexuality, which they termed as "the pinnacle of immorality." They also blamed homosexuality for the rise in sexual attacks on children and young men. "This is something very strange in Ethiopia, the land of the Bible that condemns this very strongly," said Abune Paolos, the patriarch of Ethiopia's...

eavy fighting erupted today in Mogadishu between insurgents and AMISOM peacekeepers at a base of the African Union peace mission in Somalia, witnesses told the local media. Based on these accounts, a commando fired rocket propelled grenades in the KM4 base, a key crossing in southern Mogadishu. Radio Shabelle reports that it is unknown if there were any casualties. News is also unclear from the Afgoi district, in the Lower Shabelle region that surrounds Mogadishu: according to some local reporters, a blast severely damaged an Ethiopian military truck. Somalia, torn by a never resolved civil war since 1991, is in...

His Holiness Abune Dioskoros, Patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church, who is currently in Europe on spiritual visit, said that the Eritrea people have religions of their own dating back to centuries on the basis of which they have been coexisting in peace and harmony. And as such, they are not in need of any religion from foreigners, he elaborated. During his stay in the Italian city of Milan from December 5 to 8, the Patriarch was accorded warm welcome by heads of the Office of the Eritrean Consul General, the Synod of the St. Mary Church and a...

Somalia: Islamist Leader in Hiran Region Declares 'Jihad On Ethiopia' AllAfrica.com, Washington December 10 2008 The top leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) militia in central Somalia's Hiran region has declared 'jihad' on Ethiopian troops amassing along border towns, Radio Garowe reported Tuesday. Sheikh Abdirahman Ibrahim Ma'ow, the ICU chief in Hiran, told reporters via a telephone press conference that Ethiopia does not support the interests of the Somali people. "I urge the Muslim people of Hiran [region] to join the jihad against Ethiopia, because the enemy of Islam has returned to our (...)

Right Side News previously published a Refugee Resettlement Watch paper exposing the security breach in the P-3 Program which has allowed thousands of illegal aliens from Islamist activist countries like Somalia. Fraud Pervasive in African Refugee Program FairUS.org The State Department has suspended the Africa Priority Three (P-3) Program because of an investigation into the refugee family reunification program that revealed that less than 20% of the African applicants were able to prove familial ties. Since it began in 2003, nearly 36,000 African nationals have come to the United States as P-3 Program refugees. The State Department report also indicates...

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates holding a Saudi supertanker after the largest hijacking in maritime history have reduced their ransom demand to $15 million, an Islamist leader and regional maritime group both said on Monday. The November 15 capture of the Sirius Star -- with $100 million of oil and 25 crew members from Britain, Poland, Croatia, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines -- has focused world attention on rampant piracy off the failed Horn of Africa state. Scores of attacks this year have brought millions of dollars of ransom payments, hiked up shipping insurance costs, sent foreign naval patrols rushing...

"Sir, you have done India proud." That was how the anchorman of a television channel in Delhi addressed the Indian navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, on the victorious sea battle by warship INS Tabar with would-be hijackers as dusk was falling on Tuesday evening in the Gulf of Aden. Those words would have made Sir Francis Drake, the 16th-century British navigator and slaver-politician of the Elizabethan era, truly envious. Sir Francis had bigger claims to fame in a life cut short by dysentery while attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1595. Unsurprisingly, the patriotic Indian media dutifully expressed its gratitude...

The article link goes to the article with the comparative images from space. The image below is the full-size picture at quarter-size; click for full-size. At some point in the future I'm sure there will be an expedition to get pictures on the ground, but this is a pretty inhospitable location. The new lava flow is the very dark area spreading northward from the white volcanic peak (Dalaffilla). The article has a labeled image showing where the apparent eruptive fissure was located.

Pirates off the coast of Somalia have seized a Chinese fishing boat and 24 crew including Vietnamese, Philippine and Japanese citizens, Chinese state media reported on Friday. The Chinese vessel was held off the coast of the southern Somali port of Kismanyu late Thursday, the government's official Xinhua news agency reported from Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The agency quoted an unidentified pirate leader as saying on the local Shabelle radio station in Mogadishu that the 24 crew were all "fine." The pirate leader claimed that he seized the vessel 30 miles (48.2 kilometres) off Kismanyu because it was fishing in...

Two very interesting links below. Ethiopia reports record volcanic eruption First paragraph: "A volcano in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region erupted on Monday, researchers said Wednesday, prompting a minor earthquake and record lava flows covering 300 square kilometres (115 square miles)." Meteosat-8 Rapid Scan captures asteroid impact First paragraph: "On 7 October, asteroid 2008 TC3 entered the atmosphere over northern Sudan and exploded. Amazingly, the Meteosat-8 Rapid Scanning Service managed to capture the impact."

The Somali government and the Islamist opposition agreed to implement a dormant ceasefire deal, paving the way for pro-government Ethiopian troops to quit the country. The accord calls for the ceasefire, which was first signed in June, to finally come into force November five, said Susannah Price, spokeswoman for the UN envoy to Somalia. The deal also calls for Ethiopian troops to pull out of areas in Mogadishu and the central town of Beledweyne by November 21, leaving them under the control of African Union troops in Somalia (AMISOM), said Price. The agreement said "the second phase of Ethiopian troop...

Islamists in a town in southern Somalia have imposed Sharia law in line with their vow to bring back Islamic theocracy to areas where they were ousted two years ago, a spokesman said Friday. The Mujahideens of Southern Somalia, a group allied to the radical Shebab movement on Thursday named a 23-member board to enforce the law in Celwaq, about 650 kilometres (400 miles) southwest of Mogadishu. "This administration will govern the town using laws of the Holy Koran," its spokeman Mohamed Osmail Indhobur told AFP. Celwaq, near the border with Kenya, is home to tens of thousands of people,...

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

On the other side of the Red Sea in the south-west corner of the Arabian peninsula, Yemen has natural gas reserves and is trying to lure investment from its wealthy neighbours. But the country suffers from a shortage of fresh water and is beset by economic hardship, a persistent al-Qaeda menace and a Shia rebellion in the north. It takes a leap of faith to believe that a private initiative can raise $200bn for what would be the world's biggest engineering project to link the two countries. Plans are afoot for such a scheme, however. The grandiose project is the...

A roadside explosion in Mogadishu on Sunday killed at least 13 people, most of them women who were sweeping a street, witnesses said. Residents said a remotely detonated device exploded in Waberi district along a main road leading to the presidential palace. Nearly 50 people were wounded... Four people died in the emergency room at the main Madina hospital... Insurgents have launched near-daily attacks on the transitional administration and its Ethiopian military allies. Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991. On Friday a roadside bomb killed a Ugandan member of a small African Union peacekeeping force based...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

That is, Ethiopia has effectively gained the entire population of the United Kingdom since the famine. But at least 80pc of Ethiopian girls are circumcised, meaning that no less than 24 million girls suffered this fate, usually without anaesthetics or antiseptic. The UN estimates that 12pc of girls die through septicaemia, spinal convulsions, trauma and blood-loss after circumcision which probably means that around three million little Ethiopian girls have been butchered since the famine -- roughly the same as the number of Jewish women who died in the Holocaust. So what is the moral justification for saving a baby from...

Ethiopia says its forces have killed 71 Islamist fighters and leaders in Somalia in a joint operation with the Somali government. State media Friday say the joint operation was launched June 29 to stop what it called a "planned terrorist offensive" in the Meteban and Gura'el areas. The reports say 13 of those killed were leaders of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union or the al-Shabab militant group. They say one of those killed was a Canadian colonel whose name is on a list of international terrorists. Reuters news agency quotes Sheikh Abdirahim Issa Adow, an Islamist spokesman, as saying only seven...

The Ethiopian Government has described as a fabrication a statement by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), that six million children need urgent help to save them from malnutrition. In a report last month, UNICEF blamed the malnutrition on poverty in areas of severe drought. The report received widespread international attention at the time and prompted calls for action. But Health Minister Tewodros Adhanom says UNICEF's estimate is exaggerated. "The total affected is 4.5 million population. How can you have six million children out of 4.5 million total affected during drought?" he said. "[This] doesn't make any sense. So...

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopia said on Monday it planned to produce biofuels to cut high oil import bills, but dismissed fears the strategy could hit food production in a country suffering a severe drought. Some 4.5 million Ethiopians need emergency food aid due to failed rains and high food prices, reviving grim memories of the country's 1984-1985 famine, which killed more than 1 million. But the government also faces an annual fuel bill of up to $900 million, and aims to reduce that over time using biofuels. "There is no shortage of agriculture land in Ethiopia for food production,"...

LA JOYA, Texas — Local police are accustomed to dealing with illegal border crossings, but they were astounded by the video of 15 Chinese immigrants unfolding themselves from the back of a red Suburban near this small border town. The vehicle appeared abandoned when police rolled up early on a recent Saturday morning. But when Border Patrol agents arrived and swung open the double rear doors, the Chinese immigrants tumbled out, squinting in the sunlight. "They were in bad shape," said La Joya Police spokesman Joe Cantu. The immigrants were silent, able to communicate only with hand gestures. One man...

HIDALGO - U.S. Border Patrol agents Sunday detained 18 people from the horn of Africa - an uncommon but not unheard of origin for illegal migrants to the United States, officials said. The east African immigrants - 13 from Eritrea and five from Ethiopia - were walking along a road in Hidalgo on Sunday when they were spotted, said local Border Patrol spokesman Daniel Doty. Agents peacefully took the illegal immigrants into custody, Doty said. None of them was carrying drugs or firearms. Doty said illegal immigrants who come from countries other than Mexico either face an expedited deportation hearing...

Hamburg - Archaeologists believe they have found the Queen of Sheba's palace at Axum, Ethiopia and an altar which held the most precious treasure of ancient Judaism, the Ark of the Covenant, the University of Hamburg said Wednesday. Scientists from the German city made the startling find during their spring excavation of the site over the past three months. The Ethiopian queen was the bride of King Solomon of Israel in the 10th century before the Christian era. The royal match is among the memorable events in the Bible. Ethiopian tradition claims the Ark, which allegedly contained Moses' stone...

AMNESTY International has accused Ethiopian soldiers of killing 21 people, including an imam and several Islamic scholars, at a Mogadishu mosque and says seven of the victims had their throats slit. The rights group said the soldiers had also captured dozens of children during the raid on the al Hidaaya mosque in the north of the Somali capital earlier this week during operations against Islamist insurgents. Ethiopia has thousands of soldiers in neighbouring Somalia to bolster a Western-backed government against rebels fighting an Iraq-style insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation.

Bodies of Ethiopian troops dragged through streets of Mogadishu By Mohamed Sheikh Nor, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOGADISHU, Somalia - Islamic insurgents clashed with Ethiopian troops in Somalia's capital today in battles that killed 12 people and wounded 10 others. Witnesses say jubilant supporters of the insurgents dragged the bodies of four dead Ethiopian soldiers through the streets Mogadishu. Eight civilians were also killed in the fighting.

Somalia's foreign minister says his government will ask the U.N. Security Council to send a multi-national force to his country to take over from African Union peacekeepers who are currently trying to help bring stability to Somalia... Ali Ahmed Jama told reporters at the United Nations Tuesday that his government will use this week's two-day meeting at U.N. headquarters of African leaders and Security Council member states to press for an international force to take over security in Somalia... The current African Union force, known as AMISOM, is made up of about 2,300 troops from Uganda and Burundi. Jama said...

Suspected Islamist insurgents dragged two British nationals and two Kenyans out of their home in a Somali town and killed them, witnesses said Monday. The four victims were all from an English school in the town of Beledweyn. They were a British-Somali female teacher, another dual national who was the school's headmaster and two Kenyan teachers, according to witnesses and relatives. A group of heavily armed gunmen attacked the home where the four teachers lived and dragged them out, Abdihakin Mohamoud Hassan, a cousin of the deceased headmaster told AFP. The two Kenyans were shot dead in front of the...

Almost a year ago, a buried church was unearthed in Ethiopia.The church has invaluable historical and cultural value. Striking is that the unearthing is initiated by a man with a dream, as Africanews reporter Tedla Desta found out. However, he had to persue his mission and walk from the upper to the lower official’s chest of drawers but to no avail until finally he went to journalists (the 4th estate). It was then that he realized that media has actually the power to bring about change. From this time onwards the ears and eyes of the executives, congregates and the...

Ethiopia has ordered its world champion marathon runner to compete in this summer's Olympics in China. Haile Gebrselassie, who suffers from exercise-related asthma, announced that he will not run the 42.195-kilometer race because the air pollution in Beijing is a possible threat to his health. IOC president Jacques Rogge has said the long-distance events at the Games could be rescheduled if conditions are too bad. A BBC report quoted Gebrselassie as saying he would consider running the marathon if the venue were changed. Now his country's sports federation says he can't opt out of the marathon and must follow Ethiopian...

The price of real gold is currently soaring Ethiopia's national bank has been told to inspect all the gold in its vaults to determine its authenticity. It follows the discovery that some of the "gold" it had bought for millions of dollars was gold-plated steel. The first hint that something was wrong reportedly came when the Ethiopian central bank exported a consignment of gold bars to South Africa. The South Africans sent them back, complaining that they had been sold gilded steel. An investigation revealed that the bank had bought a consignment of fake gold from a supplier, who...

Airport Arrest Turns Up Nuclear Info Nov 16 9:36 AM US/Eastern A man was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after officials say they found him carrying more than $78,000 in cash and a laptop computer containing information about nuclear materials and cyanide. Sisayehiticha Dinssa, an unemployed U.S. citizen, was arrested Tuesday after a dog caught the scent of narcotics on cash he was carrying, according to an affidavit filed in court. When agents asked him if he had any cash to declare, he said he had $18,000, authorities said. But when agents checked his luggage, they found an additional $59,000....

Christians in Ethiopia have long claimed to have the ark of the covenant. Our reporter investigated "They shall make an ark of acacia wood," God commanded Moses in the Book of Exodus, after delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And so the Israelites built an ark, or chest, gilding it inside and out. And into this chest Moses placed stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, as given to him on Mount Sinai. Thus Jews came to revere the ark as an earthly manifestation of God. The Old Testament describes its enormous powers—blazing with fire and light, halting rivers,...

Radical Muslims Attack Christians in South West Ethiopia International Christian Concern - 10/31/07 Ethiopia (International Christian Concern) - In mid October 2007, radical Muslims attacked houses belonging to Christians, burned down a church http://www.persecution.org/suffering/ICCnews/newsdetail.php?newscode=6344&title=radical-muslims-attack-christians-in-south-west-ethiopia

Somali troops arrested the manager and newscaster of a Mogadishu radio station on Thursday after they broadcast an Islamist leader's claim of responsibility for a suicide bomb, journalists said. Sheikh Mukhtar Robow spoke to Radio Simba on Wednesday night saying Islamists waging jihad against the Somali government and its Ethiopian military allies were responsible for the blast in Baidoa that killed three and injured several others... Robow is believed to be the No. 2 in the military wing, or shabab, of the Islamic Courts movement that ruled Mogadishu and most of south Somalia for six months in 2006 until it...

Ethiopia's 'secret war' forces thousands to flee By David Blair in Gode Last Updated: 2:32am BST 09/10/2007 Ethiopian troops have been deployed to crush Somali rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front Few places are more desolate than southern Ethiopia, where the barren plains suffer hunger and poverty even when the rains fall. Yet one of Britain's closest African allies is waging a brutal military campaign in this bleak region, burning villages and forcing thousands to flee their homes. Ethiopia, the recipient of £130 million of British aid this year, is fighting a virtually unknown guerilla war on the borderlands...

PARIS (AFP) - Nordic countries take the greatest care of their environment and their people, according to a ranking published on Thursday by the publication Reader's Digest. An aerial picture shows the port in Helsinki in 2006. Nordic countries take the greatest care of their environment and their people, according to a ranking published on Thursday by the publication Reader's Digest.(AFP/File/Pekka Sakki) Finland comes top of the 141-nation list, followed by Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and then Austria, Switzerland, Ireland and Australia. At the bottom of the list is Ethiopia, preceded by Niger, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Chad. The...

The Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin accuses Norway of supporting "terrorist groups" in Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan. "False allegations," replies Norwegian Parliamentary Secretary Raymond Johansen.

The Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin accuses Norway of supporting "terrorist groups" in Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan. "False allegations," replies Norwegian Parliamentary Secretary Raymond Johansen. Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin lashes out against Norwegian peace-keeping. Parliamentary Secretary Raymond Johansen says the allegations are unwarranted. "Norway tries to build a peace-keeping image, but cannot do so at the expense of the peace on the Horn of Africa," said the Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin in an exclusive interview with newspaper Aftenposten. His statements mark the ongoing diplomatic crisis between the two countries. In late August, Ethiopian authorities expelled six Norwegian diplomats...

The US has issued Eritrea with its strongest warning yet over its alleged support for terrorism. A senior US official said the presence of an exiled Somali Islamist leader in Asmara this week was further evidence Eritrea gave sanctuary to terrorists. The gathering of further intelligence could lead to Eritrea being named as a state sponsor of terrorism - followed by sanctions, the official said. The Eritrean government has accused the US of deliberate distortion. A full scale war of words is now going on between Eritrea and the United States. The US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs,...

Volcano erupts in Ethiopia, two missing August 16, 2007, 05:00 A volcano has erupted in north-eastern Ethiopia's Afar region, leaving two people missing. Hundreds others have fled. The Disaster Prevention Agency has dispatched investigators and relief supplies to the area that lies northeast of the capital, Addis Ababa. It is also near the frontier with Eritrea and Djibouti. The eruption released a thick blanket of ash and plumes of smoke. It has caused the displacement of more than 50-thousand Afar nomads and the death of hundreds of livestock.

The Eritrea Consulate's office in downtown Oakland was shuttered to visitors Tuesday after U.S. State Department orders, the latest salvo in an escalating diplomatic conflict with the impoverished East African country state. The State Department informed Eritrea last week that the consulate must be shut down by Nov. 8, citing restrictions imposed on diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Asmara, including travel curbs, the refusal to grant visas to U.S. officials, and the non-delivery of diplomatic pouches, which is in violation of international protocols. By Tuesday morning, however, the Consulate Office in the Tribune Tower on 13th Street in downtown...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - After 3.2 million years in East Africa, one of the world's most famous set of fossils was quietly flown out of Ethiopia overnight for a U.S. tour that some experts say is a dangerous gamble with an irreplaceable relic. Although the fossil known as Lucy had been expected to leave the Ethiopian Natural History Museum this month, some in the nation's capital were surprised the departure took place under cover of darkness with no fanfare Sunday. "This is a national treasure," said Kine Arega, a 29-year-old attorney in Addis Ababa. "How come the public has no...

Israeli minister in Ethiopian racism row By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 1:42am BST 03/08/2007 Israel's interior minister faces accusations of racism after he suggested suspending the policy of allowing Ethiopians with Jewish ancestry to move to the country. While rabbinical authorities judge the so-called Falash Mura to be sufficiently Jewish to qualify for Israeli citizenship, Meir Sheetrit said they were not really Jewish and had been let in only because of "political correctness". In remarks that incensed the large Falasha community already in Israel, he implied that Ethiopians were fleecing the state by leaving the economic hardship of...

An Ethiopian court sentenced 35 opposition members to life in prison on Monday, rebuffing a prosecution request that they be executed for trying to overthrow the government, treason and inciting violence.

Ethiopia unveils new find of ancient fossils Tue Jul 10, 2007 12:13PM EDT ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian scientists said on Tuesday they have discovered hominid fossil fragments dating from between 3.5 million and 3.8 million years ago in what could fill a crucial gap in the understanding of human evolution. Ethiopian archaeologist Yohannes Haile Selassie said the find included several complete jaws and one partial skeleton and were unearthed in the Afar desert at Woranso-Mille, near where the famous fossil skeleton known as Lucy was found in 1974. "This is a major finding that could fill a gap in...

Ethiopia's prime minister says he is strengthening his army in preparation for an attack by long-time foe Eritrea. "Our defence forces have the capacity to deter aggression and to repulse it if it occurred," Meles Zenawi told MPs. An Eritrean minister said Mr Meles was "paranoid" and trying to divert attention from his domestic problems. He denied backing Ethiopian rebels

DESE, Ethiopia -- Rumors were spreading up and down the narrow streets here, in front of the Noah pharmacy and Millennium Cafe, through the rectangular mosques and domed Orthodox churches of this northern Ethiopian city. Muslims were said to be training to attack Christians. Christians were said to be stockpiling weapons for an assault on Muslims. Fears of an all-out religious melee became so rampant last year that the archbishop of the Orthodox Christian church sent spies to a mosque thought to be harboring Islamic fighters. "They were saying through the loudspeakers that 'the soldiers of Allah are brave' and...

China said on Thursday it was evaluating the safety of its workers abroad after an attack in Ethiopia that killed nine of its citizens but would continue encouraging Chinese businesses to operate in Africa. Ethiopian officials have said gunmen belonging to a rebel group, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), on Tuesday killed 65 Ethiopians and the Chinese at an oilfield about 100 km (60 miles) south of the regional capital Jijiga. China has condemned the killings, which underscored the risks of Beijing's eager push for investment and natural resources in Africa, sometimes in risky areas where Western multinationals fear...

Ethiopian tanks pound Mogadishu More than 300,000 civilians have fled the violence in the capital Ethiopian tanks are pounding parts of the Somali capital, stepping up a week-long campaign against insurgents and fighters from the Hawiye clan. Heavy shelling is also taking place near the presidential palace - guarded by Ethiopian and African Union troops. And about five people were killed in a suspected suicide bomb attack near a hotel frequented by officials. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's prime minister has said the number of civilian casualties has been exaggerated. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called for an end to clashes in which...