Carlsbad, CALIFORNIA (IAAF) – On a day featuring warm temperatures, blue skies and a slight breeze, Daba Bekana won the Carlsbad 5000 on Sunday, April 6, as Ethiopian men finished 1-2-3 in the 5k road race. Aheza Kiros of Ethiopia won the women’s race, edging out U.S. Olympian Shannon Rowbury.
Bekana made his move with 300m remaining, out-sprinting his countryman Abreham Cherkos, but it was very tight with both finishing in 13:19. Defending champion Margue Zewdie clocked at 13:24 to complete the Ethiopian sweep. Cherkos competed in last year’s Olympic Games in Beijing, finishing fifth in the 5000m.
“The race was good today and I’m happy I won,” said Bekana. “This is my first 5k road race, I was just trying to compete and stay with the leaders.”
American Anthony Famigletti just missed Marc Davis’ 13-year-old American record, finishing in sixth place overall in a time of 13:28.
“It was just too little too late over the last 600 metres,” said Famigletti, competing for the first time in Carlsbad. “This is a fun place to race and the aggressive world class field was one of a kind. Now that I know the course I’ll have a better shot at the record next year. It was a good experience overall and a good start to the outdoor track season.”
In the women’s race, Kiros used a final kick to earn first place over American Shannon Rowbury, by a mere 3 seconds with a time of 15:38. The Ethiopian started to make her move at the final turn and was able to keep a slim lead to the finish line on Carlsbad Village Drive.
“I was confident I could hold her off,” said Kiros, 25, on the final sprint to the finish line.
Kiros and Rowbury were stride for stride over the last 200 meters, but Kiros had more speed in the end.
“It was a sunny day and the crowd was awesome,” said Rowbury, who will race next in Berkley, CA on 25 April.
The Carlsbad 5000 will celebrate its 25th anniversary on 11 April 2010.
An exquisite evening awaits you at the Roblar Winery Cooking School for classes full of wonderful food and excellent wine. Guest Chef Saba Tewolde will start her class with a cooking demonstration and appetizers paired with Roblar wines. After the class, everyone is seated in the beautiful Roblar barrel room for a 4 to 5 course dinner paired with more Roblar wines. Each class is limited to 24 seats and reservations are required. Reserve your seat today.
Saba Tewolde, Ethiopian chef, shares the dishes of her homeland as a private chef, caterer and instructor. Her love of cooking began at an early age. Raised by her grandmother, Saba learned how to prepare traditional dishes as a young girl and loved cooking for her family. At the age of ten, Saba would bake bread in an outdoor wood-burning oven and sell it in the local village. With the proceeds, she would purchase ingredients to prepare traditional family meals.
Saba was born, at home in Ethiopia, the eighth of twelve children. The exact year and date of her birth are not known. She was approximately five years old during the drought of 1984-85, when a million Ethiopians died during what is referred to as “Ethiopia’s Holocaust”.
Saba moved to Saudi Arabia when she was 13 or 14 years old and worked 24 hours a day for a family as a maid before escaping the middle eastern country with a combination of bribes, a false French passport and travels through Romania, Italy and France. Upon her arrival in San Francisco, Saba immediately went to the American Embassy and was admitted to the United States under political asylum five years ago.
Since then, Saba has established herself as a much in demand private chef and caterer in Santa Barbara, preparing Ethiopian cuisine to enthusiastic reactions and rave reviews.
Saba plans to continue her private chef and catering business (she buys only the best organic ingredients; her mother sends spices from Ethiopia) so that she can help her family members financially; but her dream is to open an Ethiopian restaurant in Santa Barbara where she can share her food and culture with others.
“The most rewarding part about cooking is when you see hungry people full and satisfied,” says Saba, “You don’t see it in their tummy, you see it in their eyes!”
The Israeli delegation at an inter-parliamentary conference in Addis Ababa walked out of the event Tuesday in protest of the presence of Hamas officials in the Palestinian team.
The delegation was lead by Likud’s Silvan Shalom and Kadima’s Shlomo Molla.
Shalom said that he could not sit in a conference with a terror group and that Hamas’s participation was no different to the attendance of Taliban or al-Qaida representatives.
During the conference, the Palestinian and Iranian delegations held up photos of Palestinians killed during the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead and scenes of destruction from the Gaza Strip.
In a related development, Arab, Iranian MPs walk out of meeting during a speech by the delegate from Israel
[Ma’anImages]
(Ma’an) — Palestinian, Arab, and Iranian members of parliament walked out of a meeting of the Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) during a speech by an Israeli politician on Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Acting Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Ahmad Bahar, claimed to have announced his departure from the hall during a speech by the Israeli. Representatives of Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen also walked out of the meeting hall raising pictures of Gazan children killed during Israeli offensive in December and January.
Israeli Knesset member Silvan Shalom responded to the walk-out by denouncing Hamas and its parliament members as “terrorists.” Syria’s representative replied to Shalom’s comments by telling that Hamas is a Palestinian resistance movement elected by the Palestinian people, and accusing Israel of terrorism.
Shalom told Israeli media a different version of events, in which he blocked an Iranian effort to raise a critical discussion of the Israeli war on Gaza during the meeting.
Ghanaians recently went to the polls to elect a new President to succeed outgoing president Kufuor. This was the second time under the country’s nascent democracy, that one political party was handing over to another without violent dispute. Ghana can be said to have redeemed Africa’s electoral image after the carnage the world witnessed during the Kenyan and Zimbabwean elections.
However, barely three weeks into his adminstatration, Ghana’s new President, Prof. John Atta Mills is setting the pace for another rare political commodity on the continent- small government.
Unlike his predecessor John Kufuor who suggested that the complexity of running a government, (the African way of course), demanded an expansion in the size of government, Ghana’s new President, John Atta Mills is demonstrating that it is possible to have a leaner administration.
The President has reduced the number of ministries from 27 to 23, not a significant feat, but relative to his predecessor’s penchant for extravagance and in keeping with one of many campaign pledges, the good old Professor President appears to be serious.
Even if it was for scoring political points, such a reduction in government is necessary because it saves the ordinary tax payer expense on thousands of free fuel, hundreds of expensive corporate and luxury cars and millions of dollars which otherwise would be spent on salaries, allowances, per diem and pensions and ridiculous end of service benefits. It is estimated that 40 per cent of fuel usage in Ghana is freely taken up by government ministries, departments and agencies.
It was not surprising to learn that government spending under the immediate past administration was in a deficit to the tune of 14 per cent of our GDP, with spending exceeding 670 per cent of budgeted expenditure for 2008 alone. It is important not to continue on the path to wastefulness, else we risk accelerating our poverty to the post-independence days.
Even though it is an over used example, it is important to be reminded that in 1957 Ghana and South Korea had about the same GDP per capita, but fifty years on South Korea grew and Ghana stagnated. The difference in the political destinies of the two countries is that, they had separate brands of governance. South Korea may have had some form of benevolent dictatorship, but it was no match for Ghana’s occasional experimentation with military adventurism that toyed with the economy.
The Ghanaian economy has started to grow in recent years and may be on the right track. But it is about good institutions and government that is relatively small and allows the private sector to grow.
While we acknowledge this rare achievement on a continent where government is the largest employer, it is possible to effectively rule Ghana with only fifteen ministries if politicians recognize the need to appoint professionals who can multi-task and efficiently delegate functions within their respective jurisdictions. Mere political party loyalty without requisite skills should not be the yardstick for appointment to a high office.
Economy in government is one element in that story, and President Mills has taken a small but significant step in that direction.
Franklin Cudjoe is editor of African Liberty and Executive Director of IMANI, a policy think tank in Ghana.
(Franklin Cudjoe is editor of African Liberty and Executive Director of IMANI, a policy think tank in Ghana.)
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Madagascar’s ousted president Marc Ravalomanna was in Addis Ababa for talks with Ethiopian authorities and African Union officials, an Ethiopian official told AFP Tuesday.
“Mr Ravalomanana arrived on Monday evening in Addis Ababa for talks with Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi and the AU commission president Jean Ping,” a senior foreign ministry official told AFP on condition on anonymity.
“The prime minister has met him. He should be leaving Addis Ababa on Wednesday after the talks,” added the official.
Ravalomanana was forced to resign on March 17 after months of protest by then opposition chief Andry Rajoelina who was backed by the army.
His whereabouts had been unknown after he fled the country to Swaziland.
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – A group of private Saudi investors plans to invest 375 million riyals ($100 million) to plant wheat, barley and rice in Ethiopia, one of the investors said.
The three investors met Ethiopia’s dictator Meles Zenawi late last month, Mohamed al-Musallam, who chairs Dar Misc Economic and Administrative Consultancy firm, told Reuters.
“They approved to lease us the farm land. They will exempt us from paying taxes and lease fees in the first years of production and they will allow us to export all our production,” Musallam told Reuters.
Food security has topped the policy agenda in the Gulf Arab region following rampant inflation in 2008 that underscored the peninsula’s dependence on imports and forced countries to invest abroad to ensure supplies of staples like rice and wheat.
The three investors are setting up a company that will lead the investment. “We have opted for rice, barley and wheat because they are among the crops covered by the (Saudi) government’s strategic food security programme,” he said.
“We plan to start within one year. We are in the process of assessing best areas and ratios for each crop,” Musallam added.
The other investors involved in the project are Yassine al-Jafri and Khaled Zeiny.
“Some of the financing will come from us and … we can secure some of the financing from private financial institutions or from the Islamic Development Bank,” he added.
Saudi Arabia has urged companies to invest in farm projects abroad after deciding last year to reduce wheat production by 12.5 percent per year, abandoning a 30-year-old programme to grow its own, which achieved self-sufficiency but depleted the desert kingdom’s scarce water supplies.
State-owned Saudi Industrial Development Fund is granting financing facilities to firms exploring agricultural investments abroad.
Saudi investors have launched agricultural projects in Indonesia worth $1.3 billion last year, Mohamed Abdulkader al-Fadel, who chairs Saudi Arabia’s Commerce and Industry Chambers Council, said earlier this month.
The world’s largest oil exporter said in January it had received the first batch of rice to be produced abroad by local investors as part of the King Abdullah Initiative for Saudi Agricultural Investment Abroad.
Carlsbad, CALIFORNIA (IAAF) – On a day featuring warm temperatures, blue skies and a slight breeze, Daba Bekana won the Carlsbad 5000 on Sunday, April 6, as Ethiopian men finished 1-2-3 in the 5k road race. Aheza Kiros of Ethiopia won the women’s race, edging out U.S. Olympian Shannon Rowbury.
An exquisite evening awaits you at the Roblar Winery Cooking School for classes full of wonderful food and excellent wine. Guest Chef Saba Tewolde will start her class with a cooking demonstration and appetizers paired with Roblar wines. After the class, everyone is seated in the beautiful Roblar barrel room for a 4 to 5 course dinner paired with more Roblar wines. Each class is limited to 24 seats and reservations are required. Reserve your seat today.
The Israeli delegation at an inter-parliamentary conference in Addis Ababa walked out of the event Tuesday in protest of the presence of Hamas officials in the Palestinian team.
Ghanaians recently went to the polls to elect a new President to succeed outgoing president Kufuor. This was the second time under the country’s nascent democracy, that one political party was handing over to another without violent dispute. Ghana can be said to have redeemed Africa’s electoral image after the carnage the world witnessed during the Kenyan and Zimbabwean elections.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – Madagascar’s ousted president Marc Ravalomanna was in Addis Ababa for talks with Ethiopian authorities and African Union officials, an Ethiopian official told AFP Tuesday.