PAMBAZUKA NEWS 209: IMF - New tool for bag of tricks

Ethiopia’s national elections were heading to a stormy conclusion this week as the country’s two largest opposition groupings refused to accept provisional results showing that the ruling party had held on to power. The main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) threatened to boycott the next parliamentary session and hold protests if its claims of irregularities in 139 constituencies were not investigated properly.

South African police have arrested 33 people after housing protests in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades to disperse the protesters who had set up burning barricades and threw stones at passing vehicles. Grievances over housing shortages and poor services have prompted demonstrations in four Cape Town neighbourhoods in the past two weeks.

Senegalese opposition leader Abdourahim Agne has been charged with threatening state security after urging peaceful demonstrations against the president. The authorities said a recent speech he made was an incitement to rebellion. Mr Agne, who was arrested on Saturday, could be sentenced to five years in prison if convicted.

At least 41 people are dead and many other wounded after renewed fighting in western Ivory Coast, the army says. The fighting took place near Duekoue, in a cocoa-producing region near the Liberian border. Local officials and witnesses spoke of shootings and stabbings, and said homes had been set on fire.

Anti-corruption campaigners have condemned Nigeria's senate for refusing to ban the acceptance of "gifts", in its new code of ethics. Auwal Rasanjani, head of the Nigerian branch of lobby group Transparency International, told the BBC that these "gifts" open the way to corruption. Senators argued that accepting gifts was part of Nigerian culture and that bribery was already illegal.

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