CARL AZUZ: It's Flannel Friday on "CNN 10,"
and that's pretty awesome.
I'm Carl Azuz.
Last show of the week takes us to Eastern Africa, where
the nation of Ethiopia is being torn apart by civil war
and the nations around it are calling for a cease fire.
Ethiopia is no stranger to strife,
poverty, political struggles, ethnic tensions.
They've been problems in this nation for decades.
A group called the TPLF, the Tigray
People's Liberation Front, it ruled
Ethiopia until a few years ago.
On one hand, the TPLF brought relative stability and
economic growth to the country.
On the other, it limited Ethiopian
civil and political rights.
A popular uprising forced its leader to resign in 2018,
and a new prime minister named Abiy Ahmed was appointed.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring reforms
to Ethiopia and to end a long-running conflict it
had with Eritrea, its neighbor to the North.
But political tensions remained between his government
and the TPLF.
And last year, after the group held elections
in the northern region of Tigray without
the central government's permission,
back and forth retaliations between the two
sides led to armed conflict.
Thousands have died.
More than two million Ethiopians have been
forced to leave their homes.
The United Nations says famine conditions have set
in for hundreds of thousands.
And though prime Minister Abiy said civilians weren't being
harmed at the start of the conflict,
evidence started coming out early this year
that numerous atrocities, including
mass killings of civilians, have occurred in Ethiopia.
All sides involved have been accused
of committing war crimes.
Some of them have been linked to Ethiopian soldiers.
Some have been linked to groups from Eritrea.
That nation says it's not involved in the atrocities,
and Ethiopia's government has promised
to investigate any wrongdoing.
The fighting has spread beyond the region of Tigray.
And analysts say Ethiopia's civil war
threatens to cause instability throughout the horn of Africa.
- Through a year of bloody conflict,
Ethiopia's crisis was centered mostly
here in Tigray, the far north.
That's changing fast.
Tigray Defense Force rebels shown in Dessie this week,
just 250 miles from Addis Ababa.
They are threatening to move on the Capitol.
And in an unlikely alliance, they've
joined up with the Oromo Liberation
Army, that has links to the country's largest ethnic group.
ABIY AHMED: [non-english speech]
- United against this man.
Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize
winner Abiy Ahmed promised the conflict would be swift.
Now, he's asking citizens to take up arms to defend Addis,
and the nation is in a state of emergency.
ABIY AHMED: [non-english speech]
- But this conflict has embarrassed Abiy
and threatens the very makeup of Ethiopia,
a key US ally in the region.
The US has sent a senior diplomat to try
and stave off a collapse.
NED PRICE: We are gravely concerned
by the escalating violence, by the expansion of the fighting
that we've seen in Northern Ethiopia
and in regions throughout the country.
We are concerned with the growing risk to the unity
and the integrity of the Ethiopian state.
- The conflict has been marked by allegations
of awful human rights atrocities and indiscriminate killings,
highlighted by CNN's reporting.
And the government is accused of withholding
food aid to desperate Tigrayans facing
famine, something they deny.
MICHELLE BACHELET: We have reasonable grounds
to believe that during this period,
all parties to the Tigray conflict
have committed violations of international human rights,
humanitarian, and refugee law.
Some of this may amount to war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
- Abiy came into power, promising to unite Ethiopians
under a new national identity.
He squeezed the Tigrayans out of political power.
But Ethiopia is a fragile collection
of regions, often with their own ethnic loyalties and militias.
And Abiy's military strike on Tigray after their attempt
to break away from federal control
set up this titanic struggle.
On Wednesday, the Capitol was calm.
People going about their business, as usual.
An Ethiopian government official blamed the international media
for an alarmist narrative.
But the sight of these rebels calmly walking
through a major city, far from Tigray,
gives no doubt that Abiy is under threat.
CARL AZUZ: 10-Second Trivia.
An invention of the 1950s called Unimate
was the world's first what?
Electric typewriter, robot, computer, or coffee maker?
American inventor George C. Duvall
devised the first programmable robot in 1954.
Though they've been around a while,
robots have not taken over all the jobs in America.
Looking toward the future, financial news
site Business Insider says there's going to be demand
for nurse practitioners, information security analysts,
construction managers, industrial engineers,
and all of these professions can pay more than $85,000 a year.
There's also extraordinary demand for factory workers,
people in manufacturing.
The industry reported this spring
that it had more than 500,000 job openings nationwide.
And in some cases, you don't even need experience
to get your foot in the door.
CHRIS WYNNE: Across America, efforts
are underway to build a skilled workforce of the future
as the country faces a labor shortage.
JAY TIMMONS: Our job is to create a solution
to fill that skills gap.
CHRIS WYNNE: That's why the National Association
of Manufacturers and its nonprofit workforce development
and education partner, the Manufacturing Institute,
have launched a nationwide campaign called Creators
Wanted, which includes multiple tour stops and online learning,
all aimed at encouraging young Americans to explore careers
in modern manufacturing.
JAY TIMMONS: All roads lead back to manufacturing.
Those high-skilled, high-technology jobs
are what enable us to make the world a better place.
CHRIS WYNNE: A study by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute
found that the manufacturing skills gap in the US
could result in more than two million unfilled jobs by 2030,
and potentially cost the economy up to $1 trillion.
SANJAY JAIN: We should definitely be going around
with them in a very systematic manner
to build up the skill level of workforce to compete.
And other countries are going back.
CHRIS WYNNE: Manufacturing executives
say some people are reluctant to work in factories, in part,
because of fears about robots taking over
and jobs getting shipped overseas.
But educators say programs, like the Creators Wanted tour,
could help put students at ease.
CINDYE RICHBURG-COTTON: Young people
can engage in those hands-on experiences to teach them
and to expose them to the various careers that
exist within any profession.
CHRIS WYNNE: A chance for some of our nation's
youth to consider jobs that they never knew could be theirs.
TYMIR LOWMAN: Manufacturing is more than what
everyone thinks it is.
CHRIS WYNNE: Tymir Lowman recently took part in the tour
and plans to eventually start his own clothing line.
TYMIR LOWMAN: They gave me a different look on everything,
give me something I can think about with the rest of my life
with my business or any other business.
CHRIS WYNNE: Providing students with skills
that could help them succeed in the 21st century.
In Washington, I'm Chris Wynne.
CARL AZUZ: Usually, the idea on Halloween
is that kids show up to collect candy.
These 3 to 5th graders in Rhode Island dropped it off.
Homeowner Kristen Wells had left out a bowl with one of those
take one or two signs.
But when the boys got there, there
was nothing left in the bowl.
So thinking that other kids who trick or treated here
would be disappointed to find it empty,
they each took out some of the candy they had gathered
and filled the bowl back up.
Now that's sweet.
Oh, sure, some trolleys may Snicker about it
and say the Three Musketeers were Nerds or Yorkie's, or call
the whole candy idea corny.
But that's rude, baby, rude.
Betwixt you and me, it takes mounds
of good and plenty kindness, a Starburst,
and a whopper of Almond Joy to make other Ranchers
feel jolly now and later.
They went beyond what is reasonable
and some might even say, they're life savers.
I'm Carl Azuz.
And before we skittle-daddle, we want to give a shout out
to Chester Area High School.
Our viewers watching from Chester, South Dakota.
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