The Somaliland government's disregard for the law and democratic processes threatens the territory's nascent democracy. The administration of President Dahir Riyale Kahin has committed human rights violations and generated a dangerous electoral crisis.

United States President Barack Obama should use his visit to Ghana on July 10 and 11, 2009 to encourage its new president, John Atta Mills, to take a leadership position in Africa on issues of democracy and justice.

Ethiopia's draft counterterrorism law could punish political speech and peaceful protest as terrorist acts and encourage unfair trials if enacted. The government and members of parliament should amend the draft law, which may otherwise be imminently passed as-is by parliament, to meet international human rights standards.

The EU should have condemned one of world's worst laws on NGOs. Instead, it gave Ethiopia €250 million.

The African Union (AU) should attach top priority to civilian protection and bringing human rights abusers to justice when it meets for its summit meeting in Ethiopia next week. The AU summit takes place from January 26 to February 3 in Addis Ababa.

On January 6, 2009, Ethiopia's parliament enacted a new law on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that criminalizes most human rights work in the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch said that the law is a direct rebuke to governments that assist Ethiopia and that had expressed concerns about the law's restrictions on freedom of association and expression.

Pirates have put Somalia back on the international agenda, but Somalia's people have yet to receive as much protection as the international tankers off-shore. The brutal, widely ignored conflict in Somalia has crept back into the headlines only after spawning a massive humanitarian crisis and Islamist extremism, as well as piracy. But to deal with these issues, the Obama administration will have to break with failed policies that have helped push Somalia into calamity.

Since early 2007 hundreds of thousands of Somalis, including women and girls, have fled their homes in Mogadishu and other locations in fear of their lives. But Somali women also face the risk of rape and other sexual and gender-based violence at the hands of Ethiopian troops, Somali transitional government forces, and unidentified militias who take advantage of the growing lawlessness.