Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA (BBC) – Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa has run out of Coca-Cola as the credit crunch takes the fizz out of the economy.

The BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt in the city says she has known African countries to run out of petrol, soap, sugar, batteries or tyres – but never Coke.

The East Africa Bottling Share Company, which produces the soft drink in the region, last week temporarily shut its bottling operation in Ethiopia.

It said they had the Coca-Cola – but did not have the bottle tops.

The firm, which has sent 1,000 workers on compulsory leave, said in its most recent statement that the Ethiopian government had intervened.

The company promised the familiar bottles would start rolling out of the plant again soon.

National emergency?

Our correspondent says it sounds almost as if the Coca-Cola shortage is being treated as a national emergency.

When she visited a local bar she found it had run out of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite and Fanta. Mirinda was the only soft drink on offer.

It has been estimated that around 35,000 outlets throughout Ethiopia will be unable to serve Coca-Cola and sister brands until the shortage is resolved.

Street children have reportedly been collecting the much-needed bottle tops from the streets of Addis Ababa and selling them back to companies to recycle for around $0.2 (£0.13) a kilogram.

Coca-Cola is normally on sale even in some of the most remote parts of Ethiopia and other African countries.

The continent has been largely spared the worst of the global banking crisis, but it is becoming obvious there are problems finding enough foreign exchange to keep Ethiopia’s economy running, says our correspondent.

By Matt Fitzgerald

Well, I can die now. I spent quality time in the presence of Haile Gebrselassie on Tuesday and Wednesday and was even more impressed by his physical abilities and outsized personality than I had expected to be. I came away from the experience thinking of Geb as the Muhammad Ali of running. He’s not quite the figure that Ali was/is, but he generates a similar type of excitement by combining once-in-a-generation athletic performance with infectious charisma. Such people are so very rare. Much more common are the likes of Tiger Woods, who have the once-in-a-generation performance but just a regular personality. The likes of Ali and Geb are unique in that their athletic performance seems to be fed by the same source as their towering personalities, and that is an overflowing lust for life, which to me is perhaps the most attractive of all personality characteristics.

Geb made his first appearance in the lobby of the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica Tuesday evening with no entourage. He had come all the way from Ethiopia alone. The still and video camera crews present went nuts as he walked outside surrounded by a mob of starstruck journalists, including me. Geb then led us on a short, slow jog along the beach, which he interrupted halfway through to conduct a brief session of those crazy calisthenics exercises that Ethiopian runners like to do before workouts. Only two people recognized Geb: a German tourist and an Ethiopian-American cab driver who looked to be enjoying the pleasant surprise of his life as he yelled out, “Haile!”

You would expect the greatest runner of all time to look different from everyone else, and up close Geb most certainly did. I was not struck by his diminutiveness, having known already that his stats were 5′3″, 112 lbs. I was struck by how impossibly narrow his waist was, how short his trunk, and how his thigh muscles seemed to bulge against the tights he wore despite their small girth. As we shuffled along at 9:00/mile I tried to match my cadence to his but could not get it that high. His heels never touched the ground the whole way. Geb is a true, literal forefoot striker.

The next day we took a bus to the Home Depot Center and gathered at the track. Geb was now joined by the other big Adidas track and field stars: Allyson Felix, Tyson Gay, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jeremy Warrner, Christine Ohuruogu, and high jumper Blanka Vlasic. After joining a line-up next to the 6′4″ Vlasic, Geb made a show of standing on his tiptoes and drawing up his shoulders as he stole a glance upward at her head. His audience laughed heartily as the other star athletes stood stone-faced.

Through the morning all of the star athletes demonstrated drills and exercises they do in training. Each did so with the posture and attitude of one fulfilling a contractual obligation–with one exception.

A treadmill had been set up on one edge of the track. As Vlasic demonstrated practice run-ups, Geb began warming up on the treadmill, gradually increasing his pace. By the time we were taken over to him he was running at his world record marathon pace of 4:43 per mile. It was an awesome spectacle to behold. What struck me most was that I could not hear his feet landing on the treadmill, although I stood six feet from him. I am not exaggerating. There was just a slight change in the pitch of the machine’s whirring motor when his foot struck the belt, but the actual impact of the shoe on the belt was totally inaudible. After seeing this, if Geb had asked me if he could run on my chest for a while I would have readily assented, knowing it wouldn’t hurt in the least. The dude is that light on his feet.

Something called a heat camera was trained on Geb as he ran. A video screen showed an image of him with coloring effects that showed how much heat was coming off various parts of his body. The ostensible point of this demonstration was to show off the thermoregulation properties of Geb’s Adidas apparel. As an Adidas rep blathered on and on about this stuff Geb just kept running. Eventually he started jabbing at the treadmill’s control panel. Is he going to slow down? I wondered. No, he was speeding up. Geb’s thighs were now coming up nearly to 90 degrees on each swing-through.

“How fast are you going now?” someone asked. Geb used a hand to create shade over the pace display (it was a hot, sunny morning) and positioned his nose just inches away from it, squinting. “Four thirty-six mile!” he announced with childlike enthusiasm. There were murmers and whistles.

The Adidas rep wrapped up his song and dance and asked Geb if he would like to slow down and step off the treadmill so that he could talk about his shoes, shorts, and singlet. Geb politely refused, saying he could talk as he ran. Moments later he was jabbing at the control panel again, and his pace increased further. He knew what we were really there for, and he was happy–beyond happy–to put on a show.

“How fast now?” someone shouted.

“Four-twenty six!” Geb beamed. His next move was now inevitable. He jabbed his right index finger into the panel repeatedly and his stride opened up wider and wider.

“Four-minute mile!” he shouted with the pride of a motorcycle daredevil taking a bow after leaping over a bunch of school buses. He held the pace for a good solid minute, throwing his arms overhead and pumping his fists in celebration at one point. When at last he stepped off the treadmill, he was given a rapturous ovation.

Then he talked very sincerely about how much he likes his Addidas AdiZero Adios racing flats. Whatever Adidas is paying this peerless ambassador, they are getting their money’s worth.

After lunch I sat down with Geb one-on-one for a 15-minute interview. I will post the full text and a photo tomorrow.

The following is a video about the event at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles:

ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) – At least seven African migrants drowned and more than 20 were injured when their boat capsized off the Yemeni port of Aden on Saturday, official sources said.

The boat was carrying around 100 people, most of them Somalis, a source at the Aden coastguard told Reuters.

The vessel had overturned because it was overcrowded and rescue operations are continuing, the source said.

A local official from Aden told Reuters eight people died when the boat capsized and around 22 people had been taken to hospital. Another 70 were safe, he added.

The boat overturned after its passengers attempted to disembark and reach the shore, the official said.

Earlier on Saturday the French Navy said it had towed a boat carrying around 70 people to the Yemeni coast because it had a broken engine.

There have been a number of fatal incidents this year involving migrants trying to leave the Horn of Africa by sea.

Last year 50,000 people, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, took rickety smugglers’ ships across the Gulf of Aden, which is on the sea route from Europe to the Middle East and Asia via the Suez Canal.

Most are thought to be seeking jobs in the Middle East, or fleeing political turmoil in Somalia or drought and food shortages in Ethiopia. (Reporting by Mohammed Mokhashaf in Aden, Mohammed Sudam in Sanaa and Yves Clarisse in Paris; Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Editing by Jonathan Wright)

An ancient civilization still lives in “Andarge Asfaw: Ethiopia from the Heart.” This Ethiopian-born, Washington-based photographer is exhibiting 44 color and black-and-white images at Howard Community College in Maryland. (See more photos here)

The cultural continuity is seen most overtly in the photos documenting the deeply rooted Christian culture in Ethiopia.

One of the most resonant photos is “Ethiopian Cross.” This tightly cropped shot features a large, ornately detailed metal cross being held in black hands that serve as a human reminder of Christianity in Africa. It’s significant that these hands hold the cross across the person’s face and nearly obscure it, because the cross amounts to the person’s identity.

Churches are among the most frequent subjects in the show. An aerial view of the cross-shaped “Bete Giyorgis Church, Lalibela” reinforces the way in which devotion is stamped onto the very landscape. Interior views include “Inside Genet Mariam Church,” whose cave-like walls are painted with portraits of saints.

The vast, dry landscape is featured in many other shots. One of the photographer’s compositional strategies is to emphasize a single tree dominating its beautifully barren surroundings, as in “Sunrise in Baher Dar” and “Acacia Tree.”

Long shots of villages convey how their thatch-roofed houses and stone walls have an organic connection to the landscape. Similarly, human beings walk paths that have been taken for thousands of years. In “Father and Son Beginning the Day,” those two figures are seen walking away from us and into an enormous landscape. Although the boy turns around to look in the direction of the photographer, he and his father continue to drive their cattle down the road.

The exhibit includes its share of single portraits and also a few gatherings in which you get a sense of social life. Surely the busiest shot in the show is “Tree of Life (Gondar Market).” It features colorfully dressed vendors setting up under the branches of a big tree.

Even with the shade that tree provides, it’s telling that some of the people gathered in Gondar Market hold up umbrellas to provide further shelter from the sun. This scene speaks to the vitality of a very old culture that values the umbrella as well as the cross.

“Andarge Asfaw: Ethiopia from the Heart” remains in Howard Community College’s Rouse Company Foundation Gallery through April 18. There is a reception and gallery talk March 19, 6- 8 p.m. Call 410-772-4189 or go to www.howardcc.edu. Click here to see some of Andarge’s photo on exhibit.

– ExploreHoward.com

ADDIS ABABA, Ethioipa (Reuters) – Ethiopian Airlines’ first-half net profit climbed 9 percent to 515 million birr ($46 million), the airline said in a statement on Friday.

Revenue rose to 6.7 billion birr in the six months ended Dec. 31, a 54.8 percent increase on the same period a year before.

Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Girma Wake said profit increased due to growth in traffic, the introduction of new routes, an augmentation of cargo revenue and streamlining of the airline’s operational and marketing sections.

‘Ethiopian remains optimistic its performance will be sustained going forward considering the strategic cost reduction efforts and improved operating procedures we have in place,’ he said.

The airline carried 1.5 million passengers, a 19 percent increase on the same period last year, and doubled cargo carried to 55,000 tonnes.

The state-owned carrier dropped flights to the United States and China last month as the global financial crisis hit passenger numbers.

(Reporting by Barry Malone; Editing by David Holmes)

J.Crew Catalog’s April 2009 issue features Ethiopian supermodel {www:Liya Kebede}. The catalog has arrived in many of its stores this week.

Liya earlier this month took Paris Fashion Week by storm — and landed opening Balenciaga spot — and now she’s owning in another area. She’s becoming the first model to be the exclusive face of a J.Crew catalog, and the retailer is picking up pieces from her handmade children’s clothing line, Lemlem, to sell in stores and online as part of their children’s Crewcuts line starting in April.

When J.Crew creative director Jenna Lyons and team met supermodel, mother of two, and International Goodwill Ambassador Liya Kebede, a relationship was born. Lyons approached Kebede to appear in the April catalog, but both quickly realized their relationship needn’t end there. The product of their partnership? Not only will Kebede be the first model to be the exclusive face of a J.Crew catalog, but J.Crew’s Crewcuts line will pick up pieces from the model’s handmade children’s clothing line, Lemlem. Lemlem (the name means “to bloom”) was launched by Kebede in 2007, with all of the pieces made by hand from natural cotton in her native Ethiopia. The line will be available at Crewcuts store locations and at jcrew.com beginning in April. – Fashion Week Daily

See more photos of Liya Kebede here.