Hundreds of thousands of people around the world came together to call for justice in Amnesty International's most successful ever letter-writing campaign, the organization said today

The South Sudanese government and representatives of rebel forces met for the formal opening of peace talks Saturday evening in Ethiopia, part of the diplomatic effort to halt weeks of fighting in the young nation. The two delegations met separately with mediators at a hotel in Addis Ababa to pin down the points they would negotiate. Both sides then gathered with Ethiopia’s foreign minister for a ceremony to mark the official start of the talks, with more substantive bargaining expected Sunday.

Aid agencies have warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe in South Sudan, where fighting continues in spite of the crisis talks currently under way in neighbouring Ethiopia. On Thursday, as the government accused rebel forces of forcibly recruiting civilians for their attempt to march on the capital, humanitarian agencies warned that tens of thousands of refugees were without food, water or shelter.

South Sudanese rebel leader Riek Machar and the nation's president Salva Kiir have agreed to negotiate after two weeks of bitter fighting that has brought the world's newest nation to the brink of an extended civil war. Yet fighting is apparently continuing as government forces under Mr. Kiir were engaged at least up to a deadline designed to trigger military intervention by neighboring African states, backed by the international community.

Rebels in South Sudan have seized some oil wells and captured half of the capital of the main oil-producing region, the government and army said on Thursday as African leaders held talks to avert civil war. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn met South Sudan's President Salva Kiir in the capital Juba in an attempt to end nearly two weeks of fighting in the world's newest state.

Teklai Hagos says he watched in horror as Saudi Arabian police beat Ethiopian migrants protesting against the alleged kidnapping and rapes of Ethiopian women by young Saudi men. “When we said stop, then the police started hitting us,” the 30-year-old former pipe-factory worker in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, recalled in an interview in Addis Ababa.

In a bleak little apartment on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, nearly a dozen men in their 20s take turns trying on a pair of black skinny jeans and watching Project Runway episodes downloaded off YouTube. There's no plumbing, Internet or furniture, but because the space is private, it's paradise.

Stands selling jewelry, embroidery and beer imported from Ethiopia lined the entrance to Tel Aviv’s Habima Theater on Friday, as people waited in line for about half an hour to buy the flat, lemony Ethiopian bread injera at the entrance to the Sigdiada, a festival celebrating the culture and folklore of Israel’s Ethiopian Jewish community.