Ethiopia
More hard-to-verify battlefield news from Ethiopia. The government, which over the last couple of weeks faced the prospect of Tigrayan rebels marching on the capital Addis Ababa, says it has retaken several key towns. Shewa Robit, just 135 miles from the capital, and Lalibela, a UNESCO World Heritage site, are reported to be among the towns captured. As territory exchanges hands, it appears both sides are bent on military victory, which means the prospect of negotiations looks bleak. And that means that things will remain bleak for the millions of Ethiopian caught in the middle.
More from Al Jazeera here.
Argentina
Argentina’s former president Mauricio Macri was today charged with ordering illegal surveillance of the families of 44 sailors who died when a military submarine sank in 2017. The families said they were followed, wiretapped and intimidated so that they would not pursue claims against the government. "The significance of the information gathered, the intention behind it, and the systematic nature of the documents analyzed in this case allow us to state that this illegal intelligence was put together for one person: Mauricio Macri," Judge Martin Bava wrote in an indictment.
More from the Buenos Aires Times here.
China
The Women's Tennis Association today said it was suspending all tournaments in China over fears for Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai. Shuai last month wrote in a social media post that a former top Communist Party official sexually assaulted her. The post was swiftly deleted and the 35-year-old went missing for three weeks. She later made a video call to Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, saying that she was well. The WTA, though, is not buying it and its chief executive, Steve Simon, says the video call provided “insufficient evidence” that Shuai was safe. "If powerful people can suppress the voices of women and sweep allegations of sexual assault under the rug, then the basis on which the WTA was founded - equality for women - would suffer an immense setback,” he said in a statement. "I will not and cannot let that happen to the WTA and its players."
More from BBC here.