Crossroads Music books veteran Philadelphia vibraphonist Khan Jamal and the Debo Band, the first American-based band ever to be invited to play at the Ethiopian Music Festival in Addis Ababa–and for putting them on the same bill. It’s the kind of bold programming that should be much more common.

The vibraphone seems to be an instrument that lots of listeners are drawn to, and Jamal plays with a rare combination of technique and creativity. He’ll be joined on Saturday by drummer Lenny Belasco and a bassist, probably Fahir Kendall.

The Boston-based Debo Band was founded by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen in 2006 as a way of exploring the unique funk- and jazz-influenced sounds that filled the dance clubs of “Swinging Addis” in the 1960s and ‘70s. Its a unique and catchy style of music that has become more well-known to American audiences in recent years, due in part to the Ehtiopiques series of CD reissues.

Belasco/Jamal Trio and the Debo Band at Crossroads Music
Saturday, April 11, 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $10-20

Crossroads Music @ Calvary United Methodist Church
801 S. 48th St, Philadelphia, PA
(215) 729-1028
www.crossroadsconcerts.org

(CNN) — Pirates off Somalia’s coast on Wednesday attacked a cargo ship with a crew of at least 20 U.S. nationals, according to the company that owns the vessel.

It is believed that the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama was subsequently hijacked, according to a statement from Maersk Line Ltd.

The vessel was en route to Mombasa, Kenya, when it was attacked about 500 kilometers (310 miles) off Somalia’s coast, the statement said.

U.S. government sources said the incident happened at about 7:30 a.m. local time. The nearest U.S. Navy warship was about 300 nautical miles away at the time of the hijacking, they said. On Tuesday, the U.S. Navy issued another notice warning mariners that the Somali piracy activity was extending hundreds of miles offshore.

The cargo ship is Danish-owned. No action has been taken so far, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain said.

“There is a task force present in the region to deter any type of piracy, but the challenge remains that the area is so big and it is hard to monitor all the time,” 5th Fleet spokesman Lt. Nathan Christensen said.

The attacks, which took place south of the area patrolled by U.S. and coalition ships, shows pirates are changing their tactics and taking advantage of tens of thousands of square miles of open water where fewer military ships patrol, according to U.S. military officials.

“They [pirates] are going where we are not, they are looking for targets where there is limited coalition presence,” according to a U.S. military briefing document shown to CNN.

Coalition ships mainly patrol in the busy sea lanes of the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and northern Somalia as ships come out of and head toward the mouth of the Red Sea.

“Despite increased naval presence in the region, ships and aircraft are unlikely to be close enough to provide support to vessels under attack. The scope and magnitude of the problem cannot be understated,” according to a news release from the U.S. Navy.

Between January and February, only two pirate attacks were reported off the east coast of Somalia, according to the International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy attacks worldwide.

In March, attacks in the same area spiked to 15, according to the bureau, and the attacks have continued into April.

On Monday, pirates seized a British-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden. Also on Monday, a fishing trawler was hijacked and used to hijack other fishing vessels in the area, the bureau said.

Pirates typically use small boats with a limited range to attack ships just a few miles off the coastline.

The new warning says recent attacks have occurred hundreds of miles off the coast, suggesting that pirates are using more “mother ships” — a practice of using bigger boats with longer range to launch smaller pirate ships from farther out to sea, according to Pentagon officials.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Liaison Office also issued a warning to mariners April 1.

“Recent activity suggests that pirate activity off the east coast of Somalia has increased. Attacks have occurred more than 400 nautical miles offshore,” according to the warning.

The warning suggests ships traveling along the coast of Somalia and Kenya move to the east side of the Seychelles Islands and Madagascar, hundreds of miles east of those coastlines.

Pentagon officials say pirates are holding 15 ships off the Somali coast. And according to U.S. Navy statistics, pirates attacked four ships between Saturday and Monday.

The area involved — off the coast of Somalia and Kenya as well as the Gulf of Aden — equals more than 1.1 million square miles, roughly four times the size of Texas, or the size of the Mediterranean and Red Sea combined. The length of the Somali coastline is roughly the same length as the entire Eastern Seaboard of the United States, according to U.S. Navy statistics.

“We continue to highlight the importance of preparation by the merchant mariners and the maritime industry in this message,” Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of the Combined Maritime Forces, said in a statement.

“International naval forces alone will not be able to solve the problem of piracy at sea. Piracy is a problem that starts ashore,” he said.

This year, the U.S. Navy started Combined Task Force 151, a multinational coalition that uses naval ships to fight piracy in the Gulf of Aden region. Navy officials say about 12 to 15 coalition ships are patrolling in the Gulf of Aden and the off the coast of Somalia.

Negotiations targeting to reach a code sharing agreement is underway between the flag carrier Ethiopian Airlines and Europe’s emerging giant Turkish Airlines (THY), Capital has learnt.

Boosting its presence in Africa THY has split its route from Addis Ababa to Istanbul via the Sudanese capital Khartoum into two independent routes mid last year. The four times a week THY direct flights from and to Addis Ababa Istanbul were first upgraded to five times a week and has just become daily on regular schedules as of last Monday March 30. Ethiopian is not currently flying direct to Istanbul, Turkey’s business capital.

THY is aggressively promoting this 109th route as part of a bigger plan in an effort to make Istanbul Europe’s new hub for passengers fleeing to the continent.

Temel Kotil (PhD), President and CEO of THY had first hinted in November last year interest in partnering with Ethiopian.

If inked, the agreement will enable both carriers to jointly market and benefit from routes they will agree on. According to industry experts, most major airlines today have code sharing partnerships with other airlines and the arrangement is a key feature of the major airline alliances. Previously Ethiopian too had sealed such agreements. Signed a year ago, one is with the German Lufthansa Airlines to instigate a daily code share services between Addis Ababa and Frankfurt.

Another is with Brussels Airlines for the daily Brussels – Addis Ababa flights which is operated by Ethiopian. This agreement was signed by the two carriers in May last year. “Such partnerships and growing interest from Europe’s big carriers is due to Ethiopian’s decades of reputable operations in Africa particularly in West African profitable routes,” the expert explained to Capital.
Staying strong in the face of economic downturn that hard hit the aviation industry as well, Ethiopian recently announced a strong mid year profits and late last week it announced new flights to be commenced.

Effective from June 2, the flag carrier will have three weekly flights to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea’s capital. The three weekly flights will be operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and will provide fast and easy connections between Malabo and most major cities in the Middle East and Asia including Dubai, Kuwait, Beirut, Bombay, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Beijing.

Another three weekly flights to be operated on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays with return flights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, is also announced to commence by June.

Sabrina Yohannes | IAAF

Gebregziabher Gebremariam’s thrilling sprint victory and Genzebe Dibaba’s repeat junior gold medal at the World Cross Country Championships in Amman were inspired by their absent double Olympic champion compatriots Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba, albeit in different ways.

Gebremariam was fueled by the expectation of the world, and rivals Kenya in particular, that Ethiopia could lose the senior men’s title in Bekele’s absence; while Genzebe Dibaba felt her 2008 senior World champion sister’s presence throughout her stay in Jordan, receiving encouraging long distance calls from her on her mobile phone even as she warmed up at the venue on race day. The younger Dibaba hopes to follow in her elder sibling’s footsteps again, this time on the track, at the World Championships in Berlin 15-23 August.

Overcoming a critical absence and drama on the golf course

Moments after sprinting away from the lead pack on the final uphill of Amman’s grueling Bisharat Golf Club course to snatch victory two seconds ahead of Uganda’s Moses Kipsiro and Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadesse, a breathless but excited Gebremariam tried to convey his emotions. “Until I reached the tape, I wasn’t sure,” he said. “I didn’t expect it – not by a miracle. I just can’t express my feelings, because there was something that happened earlier.”

After the team had warmed up at the venue in their track suits, they had found that the racing outfits of two members, Tadesse Tola and Habtamu Fikadu, were missing. With insufficient time to wait for the junior men to finish racing before the seniors headed towards the start, the two men had actually been persuaded by Gebremariam and others to compete in the outfits of two junior women who had raced earlier wearing full length vests (instead of the midriff-baring vests others wore). Gebremariam, the team’s senior member, had feared the incident might affect everyone’s morale.

“He was concerned,” said Fikadu, who eventually placed fifth, while Tola finished 17th, and the squad took team silver behind Kenya after a tie-breaking rule was applied to decide the title.

“So we were driven by some added determination to overcome that, but I didn’t expect to win,” said Gebremariam. “On the downhills especially, it’s a very challenging course. It’s hard; it has many downhills and uphills. We were a bit apprehensive about it. But we entered the race with a certain amount of resolve. The six-time champion Kenenisa isn’t here, and though we may not be as strong as him, we have prepared to the best of our ability, but the others will have come mentally very well-prepared. They always think ‘if Kenenisa isn’t here, we can win’ as if the rest of us aren’t here. So today we entered the race determined to take his place, and praise God, that goal has been achieved.”

“I am very happy about this race,” said Gebremariam, the husband of 2003 World Champion Werknesh Kidane. “This is my second time to get a gold medal [at the World Cross]. I got a gold medal in 2002 in Dublin as a junior, but this is my first gold as a senior.”

The 2002 World Junior 10,000m gold- and 5,000m bronze-medallist Gebremariam had taken World Cross Country bronze in 2003 and double silver in 2004, but had not medaled on the global stage since, although his results at national and other championships at home have often been impressive, with several track and cross country titles to his name. Last year, the two-time All Africa Games medallist Gebremariam led an Ethiopian sweep of the African Championships 10,000m in Addis Ababa.

He was asked by journalists in Amman if his World Cross victory signaled a new phase in his career, and to comment on his sprint finish. “Yes, you can say I’m in good shape. However, I was feeling tired during the middle of the race, but it ended very well,” he said. “I have a good finishing kick, but it’s not new. If you run a tough race, if it’s a very fast race, you don’t have a strong finishing kick anywhere … But I had a good finishing kick here.”

Gebremariam does indeed have a history of strong come-from-behind victories such as the national trials in February where he won ahead of 2007 national champion Tola, Tariku Bekele and others; the 2005 national track championships where he sprinted to victory over both 5000 and 10,000m; and the 2002 Great Ethiopian Run 10K where he won beating Bekele and Sileshi Sihine. Although he may become a more marked man as he proceeds on his comeback, the element of surprise was on Gebremariam’s side when he reproduced that kick on the global stage in Amman. Even his compatriots watching back home were surprised and delighted by the results.

“I was overjoyed,” said African 5000m bronze-medallist Ali Abdosh, who, along with officials and other athletes including the big stars, greeted Gebremariam and the Ethiopian team at Addis Ababa’s Bole airport upon their return from Jordan. “Since Kenenisa wasn’t there, we didn’t even expect to win. It wasn’t just me, but all of Ethiopia. But he won and he defended Kenenisa’s title; and the youngsters defended their titles.”

Genzebe Dibaba – as good as money in the bank

Edinburgh World Cross Country Championships junior medallists Genzebe Dibaba and Ayele Abshero also did the nation proud with their Amman gold medals, Dibaba retaining her 2008 title shortly after taking a call on her mobile phone from her sister Tirunesh, the one-time junior and multiple senior gold-medallist.

“She urged me to repeat my performance from last year,” said Genzebe, whose first name means “my money” in Amharic, and who proved to be as good as money in the bank when she followed through and became the first Ethiopian woman to successfully defend the junior crown. “I have done as she has asked of me,” she said.

Genzebe was second behind Sule Utura in the national trials at Addis Ababa’s Jan Meda venue, but led her squad to team gold in Amman with her victory over Kenya’s Mercy Cherono and Jackline Chepngeno. “At Jan Meda, I was experiencing some pain,” said Genzebe, who explained the problem had since been resolved. “My knees were giving me trouble then, and I couldn’t manage. Here, it was God’s will that I should win.”

After watching the Amman race live from Europe, Tirunesh called her sister again that evening. “She was very happy,” said Genzebe, who had been accompanied by Tirunesh in Edinburgh where both took gold and received continuous encouragement from her in Amman despite the physical distance separating them. “She was always there for me,” said the 2008 World Junior 5000m silver medallist Genzebe, who hopes to emulate the 2003 and 2005 World senior champion Tirunesh’s success in that event as well.

“From here on, I will be preparing to attain a qualifying time for the World Championships team,” said Genzebe, who has a personal best of 15:02.41 but faces a strong contingent of Ethiopians vying for those slots on the Berlin squad. Six of her countrywomen ran faster in 2008, including her sisters Tirunesh and Ejegayehu. “I won’t be focusing on any other competitions,” said Genzebe.