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Alemayehu G. Mariam, CSUSB political science professor, warns of effort to dismantle reforms in EthiopiaDehai News (Ethiopia)March 1, 2019 In a commentary on the latest political developments in his native Ethiopia, Alemayehu G. Mariam, professor of political science at CSUSB, wrote: “The jackal in sheep’s clothing is back! “The latest strategy by the bosses of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) hunkered and bunkered down at the Axum Hotel in Mekele is to bring together elements of the Arena Party, Amhara National Movement and Oromo Liberation Front to wage a scorched earth opposition against the nonviolent change that is taking place in Ethiopia today and take over power. … “The singular aim of the TPLF bosses in bringing elements of the three entities is to create a fake Amhara-Tigray-Oromo coalition behind which they can hide as they wage a scorched earth strategy to destroy what has been described as the Oromo-Amhara alliance, which resulted in the TPLF’s ouster.” Read the complete article at “EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about the TPLF’s latest strategy to return to power and restore ethnic apartheid in Ethiopia.”
Hate crime hoax and foiled white nationalist’s terrorist plot analyzed by CSUSB hate crime expert and othersChristian Science MonitorFeb. 28, 2019Two arrests last week – of Christopher Hasson and Jussie Smollett – had a Christian Science Monitor reporter examining both hate crime and hoax statistics. Both the plot and the hoax, criminologists including CSUSB’s Brian Levin say, arose in an atmosphere of growing distrust of “others.” The article said, “ … criminologists say a hoax [such as one allegedly carried out by Smollett] should not be used to dismiss the atmosphere that prosecutors say Mr. Smollett sought to manipulate. Hate crimes increased for the third year in a row in 2017 – up 17 percent, according to an FBI report released in November. Some 60 percent of victims were targeted because of their race or ethnicity, and the largest increase was in anti-Semitic crimes, which jumped 37 percent in one year. “Seen that way, the hoax and the plot [by Hasson] each became ‘a cudgel that political pundits have used to sling anecdotes at each other [and] where actual national security and criminological findings are drowned out,’ says Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, in an email. That comes, he adds, ‘at an inflection point where the risks [posed by] political violence have shifted.’” And further in the article: “But Professor Levin says he counted just 49 fake reports between 2016 and 2018, making such reports less than 1 percent of an estimated 20,000 total hate crimes reported over the same period. “We also found an increase in hate homicides [in 2018] and an increase in far-right and white nationalist incidents, separate from hate crime data,’ Levin adds. ‘What we found has been a collapse in violent jihadist plots and homicides and an increase in far-right and white nationalist plots and homicides.’ “‘What is so dreadful and fascinating is how the Smollett case has not become a springboard for understanding about the actual prevalence of the minuscule number of false reports and the rise of hate crimes and violent extremism, particularly by white nationalist and related extremists,’ says Levin.” Read the complete article at “A tale of two hate crimes: a hoax unraveled and a plot foiled.”
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