The 33rd edition of the Paris Marathon took place Sunday from the Avenue des Champs Elysees. The winner of the 42km run was 21-year-old Kenyan Vincent Kipruto, who came in at a record-breaking 2 hours, 5 minutes, 44 seconds.
The previous record holder for the Paris marathon was another Kenyan, Mike Rotitch, who completed the 2003 marathon in 2 hours, 6 minutes, 33 seconds.
On the women’s side, Ethiopian Atsede Bayisa finished ahead with a time of 2h 24 min 41 sec. Frenchwoman Christelle Daunay came in third in the women’s division, at 2 h 45 min 42 sec.
Marathon de Paris, April 5
THE virtually unknown Vincent Kipruto took an important victory at the Paris Marathon, as he broke away from the Ethiopian debutant Bado Worku just before the 40km point, in a race which produced tremendous depth as six athletes dipped under the 2:07-barrier and eleven under the 2:09-barrier.
Similarly to previous editions of the race, the opening 10km is always fast and today was no exception as a group of approximately 20 athletes braved an opening split of 29:51 and to many people’s surprise, the large phalanx of predominantly East African athletes were still bunched together through halfway in 62:44, which was on schedule for something easily inside the course record of 2:06:33.
After the pacemaker Henry Sugut dropped out at the 30km point, having done a commendable job, the pace slowed in the next kilometre, until Kipruto moved to the front and in the space of two kilometres, the leading group had splintered through 35km (1:44:58), and only seven athletes were in contention for the title and the winning prize of 50,000 euros.
At the 38km point, Kipruto began to markedly accelerate in a similar fashion to last year’s winner Tsegaye Kebede and the 21-year-old, who was only running in his second marathon, set a massive PB of 2:05:47, which improved his debut performance of 2:08:16 when he was third in Reims last October.
Worku, only 20, could not add the Paris Marathon crown to his Paris half-marathon victory but his debut of 2:06:15 was highly laudable.
David Kiyeng, a two-time winner of the Reims Marathon was third in a PB of 2:06:26, whilst the two big improvers were Ethiopia’s Yemane Adhane and Morocco’s Rashid Kisri in fourth and fifth. Adhane, running his fourth marathon in just over five months lowered his PB from 2:10:48 to 2:06:30, whilst Kisri lowered his PB from 2:10:33 to 2:06:48.
David Mandago, second in Chicago last October was sixth in 2:06:53.
In the women’s race, Atsede Bayisa shattered her lifetime best of 2:29:08 by some margin. The 21-year-old pulled away in the final 2km from her compatriot and the pre-race favourite Aselefech Mergia to clock a winning time of 2:24:42, whilst Mergia, the silver medallist from the World Half Marathon Championships made a solid debut (2:25:02.)
There was also a big improvement from the Frenchwoman Christelle Daunay, who improved her national record from 2:28:24 to 2:25:43, courtesy of very even halfway splits of 72:48 and 72:55.
All-time marathon lists
1. Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) – 2:03:59 – Berlin 2008
2. Duncan Kibet (KEN) – 2:04:27 – Rotterdam 2009
= James Kwambai (KEN) – 2:04:27 – Rotterdam 2009
4. Paul Tergat (KEN) – 2:04:55 – Berlin 2003
5. Sammy Korir (KEN) – 2:04:56 – Berlin 2003
6. Abel Kirui (KEN) – 2:05:04 – Rotterdam 2009
7. Martin Lel (KEN) – 2:05:15 – London 2008
8. Sammy Wanjiru (KEN) – 2:05:24 – London 2008
9. Abderrahim Goumri (MAR) – 2:05:30 – London 2008
10. Khalid Khannouchi (USA) – 2:05:38 – London 2002
11. Wilson Kipruto (KEN) – 2:05:47 – Paris 2009
12. William Kipsang (KEN) – 2:05:49 – Rotterdam 2008
Best times for places list
1st – Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) – 2:03:59 – Berlin 2008
2nd – Duncan Kibet (KEN) – 2:04:27 – Rotterdam 2009
3rd – Abel Kirui (KEN) – 2:05:04 – Rotterdam 2009
4th – Patrick Makau (KEN) – 2:06:10 – Rotterdam 2009
5th – Ryan Hall (USA) – 2:06:17 – London 2008
6th – Deriba Merga (ETH) – 2:06:38 – London 2008
7th – Jonathan Kipkorir (KEN) – 2:07:31 – Paris 2009
8th – Shadrack Kiplagat (KEN) – 2:08:11 – Paris 2009
9th – John Kipkorir Komen (KEN) – 2:08:12 – Paris 2009
10th – Daniel Kiptoo (KEN) – 2:08:38 – Paris 2009
11th – Abraham Chelanga (KEN) – 2:08:43 – Paris 2009
12th – Francis Kibiwott (KEN) – 2:09:13 – Paris 2009
13th – James Rotich (KEN) – 2:10:23 – Paris 2008
14th – James Theuri (FRA) – 2:10:39 – Paris 2009
15th – Mikhail Lemaev (RUS) – 2:10:41 – Paris 2009
16th – Deriba Deme (ETH) – 2:10:50 – Paris 2009
17th – Philemon Baaru (KEN) – 2:11:05 – Paris 2009
When the writer is Camilla Gibb and the subject is an Ethiopian doctor who inspired the character with “butter-soft dark skin and bright teeth” in her bestseller, the outcome might be the education of a generation of medical students
Here is the fiction:
“He was different, this man, this Dr. Aziz. He made me feel different: stirred, compelled, vaguely anxious.” With this, Gibb, in her novel Sweetness in the Belly, introduces the erudite and idealistic Dr. Aziz Abdulnasser.
Aziz falls in love with Lilly, a white Muslim woman who lives in the gorgeous decrepitude of Harar, the ancient walled city in Ethiopia. As their love deepens, they are caught in the 1974 overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie. Aziz disappears and Lilly flees to London, where she becomes a nurse, lives with Ethiopian refugees, and pines for the handsome doctor.
Here is the reality:
Gibb, who has roots in London and Toronto, did live in Harar in 1994 and 1995, researching her PhD dissertation on religious practices in Islam. Troubled by an intestinal disorder, she paid one birr (about 14 cents) to be treated at the local hospital.
While there, Gibb, then 25, met a tall, “über-educated,” English-speaking young doctor named Abdulaziz Sherif. They share books – Jane Austen, Dostoevsky – meet in berchas, Saturday gatherings where Ethiopians chew khat (a plant used as a stimulant) and discuss the issues of the day.
“There was a level of comprehension, a whole new level of conversation,” Gibb says. “I could be so much more myself.”
Gibb and Sherif have not publicly discussed their literary and real-life connection, and it’s taken an ambitious project to get them to break that silence. Citing a link between literature and medicine, and Ethiopia and Canada, they want to talk about an academic exchange between the University of Toronto and the University of Addis Ababa spurred in part by Gibb’s book.
It seemed natural to expand a collaboration that had been so effective in psychiatry. Under that program, in which University of Toronto academics volunteered to teach in Ethiopia for a month three times a year, the number of psychiatrists grew from nine to 34.
The new proposal would broaden the program to 10 disciplines, including medicine, nursing, pharmacy and library sciences.
“That would likely not have happened without (Gibb’s) book,” says Dr. Eugenia Piliotis, haematology program director at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
With 1,800 doctors and perhaps 200 specialists for a population of 80 million, Ethiopia has the highest brain drain of doctors in Africa. According to a report by Dr. Clare Pain, a Mount Sinai psychiatrist, some 80 per cent of Ethiopian doctors trained abroad don’t return.
It was Gibb, now 41, who suggested that Pain – who had launched the successful U of T supplemental training program for residents in psychiatry at Addis Ababa University in 2003 – meet Sherif and “start a conversation.”
Sherif himself underscores the need for an academic exchange. Though he is one of Ethiopia’s two haematologists (Toronto has about 70), he has had no formal training in the field. “Perhaps my biggest exposure is the time I’ve spent here.”
Which brings us back to the crossroads of fiction and reality. The two recently met for the first time in 15 years in Toronto, where Sherif is a visiting observer in haematology at Sunnybrook.
Gibb is now a celebrated author. Sweetness in the Belly has been translated into eight languages, won the Trillium Book Award and was a finalist for the Giller Prize. Sherif is an assistant professor at Addis Ababa University and will return to Ethiopia this month. His deeply rooted reserve remains. “Some may not even know I am in the room,” he says.
What happens, we wondered, when someone unaccustomed to public attention finds himself not only a character but also a love interest in a novel? “I saw myself in part of it, yes, but I am kind of shy and low profile and not as outspoken as that guy,” Sherif says. “But compassion, and so on, I think I am kind of like that.”
Now 38, he has close-cropped hair, a moustache and the smooth skin and white teeth of his fictional counterpart. Physical resemblance aside, “This is a fiction,” he says. “Somebody should talk about the character in the book, not me.”
Gibb steps in: “People make the assumption that I’m Lilly. They completely conflate the characters to the extent that I have been at lunch with people who ask if I’m a nurse in London… It’s fiction that takes its inspiration from a real place and real people.”
One of the topics that Gibb and Sherif have never discussed is the fact that the novel includes a sex scene, nor has Sherif discussed his similarity to the Sweetness character with his wife. He doesn’t even know if she has read the book.
As for being asked if the friends ever had a more intimate relationship, the question simply wouldn’t come up in Ethiopia, says Sherif.
“Our community in Harar is very closed and everybody knows everybody,” he explains. “The book has not circulated in the country, so I didn’t have to make explanations.”
JERUSALEM — Israel’s hottest musical export these days is a dreadlocked composer who pioneered a unique blend of Israeli, Ethiopian, Yemenite and Latin music from a makeshift recording studio in his parents’ basement.
Idan Raichel’s musical fusion — catchy melodies mixed with Hebrew and Amharic lyrics sung by artists from Israel’s community of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants — has conquered the charts in Israel and is now making waves abroad.
Raichel has already performed at the Sydney Opera House in Australia as well as in Hong Kong, Mexico City, Moscow and Singapore. He is currently wrapping up a six-city tour of the United States before heading to Europe.
The Idan Raichel Project usually performs with about a dozen people on stage at a time, but the band has some 90 revolving members from various backgrounds, singing primarily in Hebrew, Spanish, Arabic and Swahili and ranging in age from 16 to the 80s.
TRAIN STATION
Besides its singular sound and style, the band is also unique in having, despite its name, no frontman. Raichel calls the project a ”big umbrella,” or a ”train station” for various artists who pass through to collaborate with him. ”I would say it is more a compilation than a band,” he says.
Though Raichel sings some of the project’s biggest hits, on stage he often sits quietly behind his piano. He compares his role to that of a movie director.
”Compare it to Woody Allen,” Raichel says. “Who cares if he is in his own films? You still know if it a movie by Woody Allen. Sometimes he is in it, sometimes not. Every song is a different scene of a film, and you take the lead singer that is the best frontman and actor for every scene.”
Raichel, 31, grew up in the middle-class town of Kfar Saba listening to music and learning to play the accordion. He spent his compulsory military service playing the piano in an army band. Like other soldiers, he was forced to sport a short military haircut. He hasn’t cut his hair since his discharge.
After shedding his uniform, he worked as a counselor at a school for troubled youth where he encountered Ethiopian immigrants for the first time. He immediately connected to their community.
In 2002, the Idan Raichel Project burst onto the Israeli scene. Its self-titled debut album was voted album of the year, and Raichel was selected singer of the year.
One of his biggest hits, Mi’Maamakim (Hebrew for “Out of the Depths”), begins to the tune of Nanu Nanu Ney, a traditional Ethiopian folk song.
Israeli crowds seem to embrace Raichel’s multiethnic, multilingual mix. At a recent concert in Jerusalem, some 3,000 youths cheered wildly through a two-hour performance, jamming against the stage and singing along in various languages.
Raichel’s die-hard international fans include R&B artist India.Arie; Rob Cavallo, the producer of Green Day, and the actress Natalie Portman. He insists his music is distinctly Israeli and calls it the current “music of the streets of Tel Aviv.”
Hebrew music has evolved from earnest paeans to the beauty of the Land of Israel and odes to the military. Today, except for a Mediterranean influence, Israeli popular music is more in tune with contemporary music worldwide.
USES AMHARIC
Raichel has incorporated all of these streams. In many ways, he is a throwback to those early songs — which is why he is regarded by the music establishment as an authentic Israeli voice. He is further distinguished by his use of Amharic — a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia — and other multiethnic influences, an unusual mixture he pioneered.
Music critic Yossi Harsonsky calls Raichel’s work “Israeli music with a universal character.”
”He is one of the Israeli composers most in touch with the history of Israeli music, but it is also very pluralistic, very eclectic,” Harsonsky says. “It has something very poetic, original, unique and rich. There is something very exotic to his music.”
For many Israelis, the Amharic of Raichel’s music is the first they have heard, and his Ethiopian bandmates are the first Ethiopians they have encountered.
In Israel, Ethiopian immigrants have long been neglected, a downtrodden minority plagued by poverty, crime, violence and substance abuse. Raichel is proud that his band has made them cool.
”It is the first time you can listen in the mainstream radio to vocalists from Morocco singing in their own native tongue, to the great vocals of Ethiopia,” he says.
The project includes singers from Sudan, Uruguay, Columbia and Rwanda and also has featured Arab-Israeli singers. One of the songs on Raichel’s recently released third album Within My Walls is in Arabic. He says he hopes to one day perform in Damascus and include Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinians singers in his project.
”Artists in Israel are one of the most important ambassadors,” he says.
Iran has sent a parliamentary delegation to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to attend the 120th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
The current political, economic and social developments, the role of parliaments in restoring peace and security at times of crisis, climate change, human rights, freedom of speech, sustainable development and energy issues will be discussed at the summit.
At the event, the Iranian parliamentary delegation will also call for parliament action to ensure humanitarian aid for Gaza and bring to trial the war criminals of the latest Israeli offensive in the strip.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union serves as a platform for parliaments to share their experiences and contribute to global defense strategies and the promotion of human rights.
Established in Geneva in 1889, the IPU is comprised of parliaments of sovereign states. 143 national parliaments are IPU members, and seven regional parliamentary assemblies are associate members.
The 120th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union will host 3,000 delegates in Addis Ababa from April 5 to 10.
Mihret Debebe, general manager of the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo), told a press conference on Tuesday that after visiting the giant Gilgel Gibe III hydropower project, officials of the African Development Bank (ADB) expressed firm commitment to finance the project. The officials how visited the site of the project two weeks ago.
Gibe III, which will have an installed capacity of 1,870 MW, is the projected to be the second biggest hydro-electric project in Africa. It is one of the five massive hydro-power projects that EEPCo is undertaking. The total investment cost of Gibe III is estimated at 18 billion birr.
“Several international banks were interested to finance the project had it not been for the global credit crunch,” Mihret said. The government of Ethiopia launched the project with its own resource two years ago and 31 percent of the civil work has been accomplished.
From the beginning, the project had faced fierce criticism from environmentalists who have been crying foul. The environmentalists called on international financers not to finance the project. EEPCo has undertaken a comprehensive environmental impact assessment and posted it on its website for 120 days for the public to comment on.
“The first thing the ADB officials did was to assess our impact assessment report. And they found out that it was a sound report. Just two weeks ago they were here and they expressed their commitment to finance the project,” Mihret said.
Annoyed by the BBC documentary film titled “the Dam That Divides Ethiopians” and televised recently, Alemayehu Tegenu, the Minister of Mines and Energy, told reporters that the government of Ethiopia was comitted to eradicate poverty and part of this strategy was to empower Ethiopia.
“There is no development that harms the people. We have consulted the people who live in the Omo basin. There are people who have a hidden agenda. But whatever motive they have they will not distract us from expediting the speedy development program we have embarked on,” Alemayehu said.
In a related news, EEPCo announced that it had started a power shedding program all over the nation. Unable to meet the growing demand for electric power, EEPCo said there will be power outage six days a month for fourteen hours. The corporation said there will be periodic power interruption from 9:00 up to 10:00 six days a month. The corporation said the power deficit has reached 160 MW at peak hours. The country’s total generation capacity is 814 MW. The corporation attributed the power shortage to the fast growing investment projects in the nation and the delay encountered in two (Gibe II and Tekeze) of the five dams under construction.
The Ethiopian peasant farmer and his wife shuffled painfully into the orphanage. They were in the last stages of AIDS and had only weeks to live. However, they were happy. They had heard the Franciscan nuns had found a home for their three children and had come to say farewell.
“I am so happy, they are going to stay together,” the father, Solomon, whispered as he embraced a middle-aged Mormon couple from Salt Lake City, Utah. “Now, I can die peacefully. They will go to school in America and have a future. It is good they leave here.” As they embraced their two daughters, aged 8 and 6, for the last time the tears ran freely. Their four-year-old son did not appreciate the significance of the moment and ran off to play with friends.
Sister Luthgarder, a seasoned veteran of such heart-rending adoptions, explained: “It is sad, but it is so rare they are kept together and so I am happy.” Only a week previously a brother and sister were separated: one going to Norway, the other to Canada. “The new parents said they would take them to see each other every year, but inevitably they will grow apart,” she said.
Only a fraction of Ethiopia’s burgeoning population of orphaned children, now put at five million, find their way to Kidane Meheret Children’s Home. Even fewer leave and they are certainly the lucky ones.
A few miles away, dozens of children sleep in drains at night and beg by day at the sprawling central bus station. They face constant dangers.
“Some are forced into prostitution, some are sold by relatives after their parents die, they are kept as maids and often abused,” said Dagmawi Alemayeau who runs an organisation, Forum on Street Children, which tries to fight trafficking. Most of an estimated 50,000 children on the streets of the capital, Addis Ababa, at some stage pass through the bus station where he has his office.
“Traffickers go to the rural areas … there are places where you can even buy a baby for as little as $1,” he told The Times. He always keeps an eye open at the international airport where so-called “uncles” can often be spotted boarded planes to Gulf states with teenage girls.
Across the rest of Africa, a combination of soaring populations, growing poverty and the HIV-Aids epidemic has led to a huge increase in orphans.
A UNICEF report estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa alone there will be more than 20 million by 2010.
Cash-strapped governments on the world’s poorest continent are overwhelmed. They can afford only a handful of government run agencies. Despite an increase in foreign adoptions, some well-publicised like those of Madonna and Angelina Jolie, who has adopted from Ethiopia and Cambodia, only a tiny fraction of these children find new homes overseas.
Organisations like UNICEF and the UK’s Save the Children Fund are opposed to foreign adoptions, advocating instead that the children be placed in extended families or locally adopted so they grow up within his or her own cultural identity.
They encourage would be parents to send money instead to help look after the children in the country of origin. But they are often accused of a head in the sand approach to the abuse the child may face and ignore the fact that by so doing they often condemn the child to a life of grinding poverty and no education.
“Adoption is sad, very sad but the whole issue is sad, a life of neglect, and abandonment, grinding poverty and abuse is sad, adoption is often the lesser evil especially as the people who come here are good and very carefully checked,” added Sister Luthgarder who finds at least one new born baby a week on her doorstep.
This point was made by Malawi’s president Bingu wa Mutharika with disarming frankness earlier this week. “I wish someone had come and taken 10,000 Malawian children because then I would know that 10,000 Malawians would have better education and opportunities,” he told The Times.
The 33rd edition of the Paris Marathon took place Sunday from the Avenue des Champs Elysees. The winner of the 42km run was 21-year-old Kenyan Vincent Kipruto, who came in at a record-breaking 2 hours, 5 minutes, 44 seconds.
When the writer is Camilla Gibb and the subject is an Ethiopian doctor who inspired the character with “butter-soft dark skin and bright teeth” in her bestseller, the outcome might be the education of a generation of medical students
JERUSALEM — Israel’s hottest musical export these days is a dreadlocked composer who pioneered a unique blend of Israeli, Ethiopian, Yemenite and Latin music from a makeshift recording studio in his parents’ basement.
The Ethiopian peasant farmer and his wife shuffled painfully into the orphanage. They were in the last stages of AIDS and had only weeks to live. However, they were happy. They had heard the Franciscan nuns had found a home for their three children and had come to say farewell.