ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) — Ethiopians strolling on Jan Meda playing pitches have been shocked for the past few months by what many of them believe to be a group of foreign men locked in a violent brawl.
“‘What kind of people are doing this?’ I thought when I first saw it,” said Dawit Tekle Beyene, a 31-year-old who works at a donkey sanctuary. “They are fighting each other.”
Watchful Welshman David Thomas takes care to approach Ethiopians who stumble across the spectacle to tell them that it is not a fight. The men are playing rugby.
Still viewed with suspicion by many locals — and once moved on by the police for causing a disturbance — the Addis Nyalas Rugby Club have now attracted Beyene and other Ethiopians into their ranks.
The ultimate ambition for Ethiopians — famous for their athletics prowess — is international seven-a-side competition.
“Seven-a-side rugby is a form of rugby which is a lot more accessible to smaller nations and nations which lack the necessary mass of rugby players to play 15-a-side rugby,” said Thomas, a 25-year-old microfinance consultant and president of the club.
The team are using membership fees from foreigners and money raised from an exhibition tournament to water and seed the dilapidated Jan Meda — a public amenity — and pay for health insurance for their Ethiopian players in a country that is still desperately poor.
The Sevens World Cup is taking place in Dubai from tomorrow, but Thomas said international competition was years away for the Ethiopians.
However, he believes, with more young people joining the team’s ranks all the time, the Nyalas — the only rugby team in Ethiopia — are paving the way.
“Realistically for Ethiopian rugby, especially considering the speed and athleticism of some of our players, seven-a-side rugby is a much more feasible form of rugby for us to try and work towards and specialize in,” he said.
The club have now invited teams from Kenya and Ivory Coast to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
An Orthodox Christian church stands in the middle of the playing fields in the hills overlooking the city where, every Saturday, the small band of men scrummaging, rucking and mauling are surrounded by eight or nine soccer matches played by football-mad Ethiopians in fake Premier League jerseys. Street children spin rugby balls from their hands as Ethiopian teenagers learn how to tackle.
The team that started as a hobby for the expatriate community of aid staff and diplomats supplement their growing number of Ethiopian members with players from rugby-loving countries such as Britain, France, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
“Allez! Allez!” comes the cry from one side of the pitch as attacking techniques are taught. “C’mon! Tackle him!” is the shout from the other side of the field, where defensive plays are practised. More languages ring out as a game begins.
“There was a problem with language when we started,” said Daniel Tegene, an 18-year-old student. “But now we are learning the words involved with rugby and so we’ve learned how to communicate with the foreigners and can learn the game.”
The team played in the grounds of a private school for two years and the decision to move to a public playing pitch was made to recruit more Ethiopians. “We’re turning ourselves into an Ethiopian rugby club and not an expats’ rugby club,” said Thomas.
Demes Mamo, a taxi driver, parks his cab at the side of the pitch every week and pulls on one of the new jerseys the team imported from Britain. Each one has an Ethiopian flag on the arm and a crest featuring Ethiopia’s nyala antelope.
“Other taxi drivers think I’m crazy to play rugby,” said Demes, 31. “But I love this game.
“Maybe one day there will be an Ethiopian team. That is my dream,” he said.
MOROGORO, TANZANIA (Guardian) — The Police Force in {www:Morogoro Region} of Tanzania, in collaboration with Immigration officers, have apprehended 10 foreigners believed to be Ethiopians. They said they were on transit to South Africa.
Speaking to journalists at his office yesterday, the Acting Regional Police Commander, Samuel Mpasa, said the aliens were arrested on Tuesday evening after police was tipped off by one of the passengers in the bus they were travelling in. The bus, belonging to Hood company with registration number T903 ARM was Mbeya bound from Arusha.
He said they arrested them immediately after the bus arrived at Msamvu Bus Station in Morogoro municipality.
The RPC mentioned the arrested as Beyene Wasoro (35), Demeke Abebe (29), Gizachew Bekele (22), Tekele Shinde (30) and Girma Otole (35).
Others were Tesfaye Anulo (32), Tafera Eyiso (32), Yaikob Kelbiso (31), Zewude Tumso (29) and Teka Haile (36).
He said after police officers entered the bus, three of them hid under their seats.
The RPC said that during interrogations they said that their aim was to go to South Africa and that they would have just spent a few days in Mbeya.
Mpasa called on the community, especially passengers to inform the police presence of illegal aliens whenever they suspect them.
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir defied an international arrest warrant by traveling to Libya on Thursday to hold talks with leader Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan official said.
Bashir arrived in the Libyan city of Sirte to have lunch with Gaddafi, who is also the current president of the African Union, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The visit is a show of defiance to the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes in Darfur in western Sudan.
Gaddafi said last month that “foreign forces” including Israel were stoking the Darfur conflict and urged the International Criminal Court to stop proceedings against Bashir.
The veteran Libyan leader says Africa can solve its own problems without outside meddling and has made a number of attempts to broker peace between Darfur rebels and the Khartoum government.
A Sudanese presidential palace source and a foreign ministry official had earlier said Bashir, who risks arrest any time he travels abroad, was on his way to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
The trip is Bashir’s third abroad since the ICC issued the arrest warrant on March 4. He also visited neighbors Egypt and Eritrea this week following invitations from those countries for talks on the ICC move.
Experts say at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.7 million driven from their homes in almost six years of ethnic and political fighting in Darfur in western Sudan. Khartoum says 10,000 people have died.
The Sudanese government said shortly after the ICC decision that Bashir would defy the warrant by traveling further afield to an Arab summit in Qatar next week.
But Sudanese officials have released statements raising questions over the wisdom of the trip, prompting speculation Sudan may send another representative.
Qatar’s prime minister has said the Gulf state was coming under pressure not to receive Bashir, though he did not say from whom.
(Reporting by Andrew Heavens; Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Turin, ITALY – Ethiopian-born Alemitu Bekele caused a major shock by winning Turkey’s first ever European Indoor title and destroy Russian Anna Alminova’s hopes of winning a 1500m and 3000m on Sunday, March 22.
Alemitu controlled the race from the front for much of the 15-lap race before a searing burst of pace on the last lap secured a comprehensive win in a national record of 8:46.50.
Portugal’s Sara Moreira powered through in the home straight to earn a silver medal in a personal best of 8:48.18 swith Ireland’s Mary Cullen rewarded with the bronze – after taking up the pace four laps out – in 8:48.47.
Alminova, who won yesterday’s 1500m final and was competing in her fourth race in three days, simply had no answer over the final 400m and faded to a modest sixth place finish.
Few would have picked the previously unheralded Alemitu, 31, as a potential gold medallist before the competition yet she claimed victory like she belonged to the big stage.
The Ethiopian-born Turk, who transferred to her current country in 1998, failed to qualify from the 3000m heats at last year’s World Indoor Championships but hinted at her potential by finishing seventh in the Olympic 5000m final behind Tirunesh Dibaba in Beijing last year.
Italy’s Silvia Weissteiner took the field through the opening few laps before Alemitu hit the front just three-and-a-half laps into the race, closely tracked by the waif-like Alminova.
The Turk continued to set a healthy pace with Spain’s Nuria Fernandez charging through from her mid-pack position to second with more than seven laps to go, followed by Moreira, Cullen and Alminova.
Alemitu passed 2000m in 5:58.33 but with just over 800m to go it was Cullen who hit the front and gradually wound up the pace with a series of consistent 34-second laps.
With 400m remaining Cullen led a lead group of six, which included Alminova, Bekele, Fernandez, Moreira and Weissteiner and at the bell the half-dozen all had a chance of victory.
Yet within a few strides it was Alemitu who hit front and with a dramatic burst of acceleration and destroyed the rest of the field to stride out a decisive winner.
Behind, Moreira kicked past a fading Cullen down the home straight to earn silver from the Irishwoman.
Fernandez finished a frustrating fourth in 8.48.49 – but at least had the consolation of setting a personal best. Weissteiner in fifth set a season’s best of 8:50.17 with Alminova having to settle for sixth in 8:51.17 – a brutal four race schedule in three days proving too much.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (APA) – Ethiopia on Tuesday bade farewell to its athletes who will take part in the 37 International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) world cross country championship scheduled to be held beginning 28 March in Amman, the Jordanian capital.
The 33 member Ethiopian delegation will leave for Oman on Tuesday evening.
This year’s cross country championship will be held for the first time in the Middle East where over 60 countries and around 700 athletes are expected to attend starting on Saturday.
The head of the Ethiopian athletics team to Jordan Tadele Tola told journalists that the Ethiopian national team, which comprises 24 athletes, is expected to repeat its victory at this year’s cross country championship.
Some of the athletes, Gelete Burka and two-time bronze medallist Meselech Melkamu,Genzebe Dibaba (Tirunesh Dibaba’s youngest sister), Gebregziabher Gebremariam who won two silver medals in the 2004 edition of the championships, Tadesse Tola, seventh in Mombasa two years ago, Feyissa Lelisa, 14th in the junior race last year, and World Indoor 3000m champion Tariku Bekele are among others to represent Ethiopia at the championship.
However, it was reported that Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba, who recently won two gold medals each at the Beijing Olympic will not participate in the race due to injury problems.
Their absence from the championship created confusion among the Ethiopian sports fraternity to repeat their performance as in the previous years.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (APA) – Ethiopia flower exports are expected to earn $280 million in 2009, though current global financial crisis is expected to have some impact on the exports.
Tsegaye Abebe, head of the Ethiopian Horticulture Development Association, told journalists on Tuesday that the country it is seeking new buyers for its fresh flowers because the global economic downturn is cutting sales in its main market, the Netherlands.
The Netherlands imports over 50% of Ethiopia’s flower exports and the country is seeking new flower market in Dubai, Asia, Scandinavia, Russia and the USA, fearing the recession in Europe will affect its flower exports.
Flower exports are becoming the main foreign earner in Ethiopia after coffee and it is expected that flower exports will overtake coffee and be worth $1 billion annually within five years.
Ethiopia earned $178 million last year from the sale of some 1.5 billion stems and employs over 100,000 people, mostly women, on its flower farms.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (Reuters) — Ethiopians strolling on Jan Meda playing pitches have been shocked for the past few months by what many of them believe to be a group of foreign men locked in a violent brawl.
Speaking to journalists at his office yesterday, the Acting Regional Police Commander, Samuel Mpasa, said the aliens were arrested on Tuesday evening after police was tipped off by one of the passengers in the bus they were travelling in. The bus, belonging to Hood company with registration number T903 ARM was Mbeya bound from Arusha.
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir defied an international arrest warrant by traveling to Libya on Thursday to hold talks with leader Muammar Gaddafi, a Libyan official said.
Alemitu controlled the race from the front for much of the 15-lap race before a searing burst of pace on the last lap secured a comprehensive win in a national record of 8:46.50.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (