NEW YORK Here are the top 25 daily papers ranked for the six-month period ending September 2008 based on a Monday-through-Friday average, according to the new FAS-FAX from the Audit Bureau of Circulations released today. The percent change compares this period to the same period a year ago.
USA TODAY — 2,293,310 — 0.01%
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — 2,011,999 — 0.01%
NEW YORK TIMES — 1,000,665 — (-3.58%)
LOS ANGELES TIMES — 739,147 — (-5.20%)
DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK — 632,595 — (-7.16%)
NEW YORK POST — 625,421 — (-6.25%)
THE WASHINGTON POST — 622,714 — (-1.94%)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE — 516,032 — (-7.75%)
HOUSTON CHRONICLE — 448,271 — (-11.66%)
NEWSDAY — 377,517 — (-2.58%)
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC — 361,333 — (-5.51%)
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — 339,430 — (-7.07%)
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS — 338,933 — (-9.28%)
BOSTON GLOBE — 323,983 — (-10.18%)
STAR TRIBUNE, MINNEAPOLIS — 322,360 — (-4.26%)
STAR-LEDGER, NEWARK, N.J. — 316,280 — (-10.40%)
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES — 313,176 — (-3.94%)
PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND — 305,529 — (-8.58%)
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER — 300,674 — (-11.06%)
DETROIT FREE PRESS — 298,243 — (-6.84%)
THE OREGONIAN — 283,321 — (-8.45%)
THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION — 274,999 — (-13.62%)
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE — 269,819 — (-3.00%)
ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES — 268,935 — (-6.88%)
THE SACRAMENTO BEE — 253,249 — (-4.22%)
Gete Wami, right, and Paula Radcliffe, who edged Wami in the 2007 New York City Marathon. [Photo: Frank Franklin II/AP]By LIZ ROBBINS, The New York Times
One year the marathon fates can be charitable, the next year, crushing. Such is the fickle sport Gete Wami chose for her career when she was a teenager in Ethiopia.
In an intense span of 13 months, Wami, 33, has run the gamut in four marathons. She won Berlin in 2007 and then collected a $500,000 bonus prize after finishing a close second five weeks later in New York.
But in April 2008, she was in the lead pack when she fell hard at a water stop in London. She limped to a third-place finish. Then in August, Wami dropped out after 18.5 miles at the Beijing Olympics with intestinal distress.
“This will be my first marathon since then, and I will run thinking of Beijing and how to make it better,” Wami said demurely in Amharic, as her husband and coach, Getaneh Tessema, translated a telephone interview from Addis Ababa this month.
Wami’s toughest rival, Paula Radcliffe of Britain, understands about finding redemption in New York. Radcliffe, 34, the world-record holder, dropped out of the 2004 Athens Olympic marathon at the 22-mile mark and faced unrelenting criticism from the British news media. She returned to win the New York City Marathon three months later.
Last year, Radcliffe edged Wami in New York after a thrilling duel, and once again is trying to vanquish the demons of an Olympic failure. Radcliffe hobbled to 23rd place in Beijing when seized by leg cramps; injuries curtailed her pre-Olympic training. It was the first time in eight marathons that Radcliffe finished the race but did not win.
Radcliffe and Wami share more than recent painful memories. They have competed against each other 33 times since 1991, from cross-country to the track to the roads. Wami holds a 26-7 record, all her victories coming before 2001.
They are friendly when they see each other off the course, but not exactly effusive.
“I’ve raced Gete so much, I’ve always known how strong she is,” Radcliffe said during a teleconference last month.
Wami said, “Paula is such a strong athlete, I like to run with her.”
Last year, the 5-foot Wami ran in Radcliffe’s 5-foot-8 shadow for 26 miles, even clipping her heels twice, before surging briefly ahead. But Wami’s legs felt like lead from having raced five weeks earlier in Berlin, and her stomach was churning, too. Radcliffe matched the move and stormed to the finish line, but Wami earned an enormous consolation prize.
Wami won the inaugural World Marathon Majors series, a two-year cumulative points series tabulating the elite runners’ best results through the London, Boston, Berlin, Chicago and New York marathons.
Wami is again in position to cash in. She is tied for the lead with Germany’s Irina Mikitenko, the 2008 Berlin and London marathon winner, with 65 points. Wami needs only to finish first or second to collect because Mikitenko, who chose not to run New York, opted not to attempt the back-to-back majors feat.
“Money isn’t everything,” Mikitenko told reporters last month in Berlin. “I’ve already done very well, winning London and Berlin,” she added, saying she wanted to be healthy for next year’s world championships in Berlin.
Wami was 17 when she drew her first monthly paycheck ($14) running for a police club. She sent money to her parents, who own a farm in a village about 75 miles northeast of Addis Ababa.
Wami and her husband have a 5-year-old daughter, Eva, and live in a modest house about a mile from Haile Gebrselassie’s mansion in Addis Ababa.
The couple has done nothing with her 2007 earnings yet. Wami said last November that she planned to build an orphanage in Ethiopia, but Tessema explained that “she is still concentrating on her career now.”
Wami has an Olympic silver medal and two bronze medals on the track, but no gold in the marathon, her specialty the last six years. “She was so emotionally decimated by the Olympics that I had been concerned it would be hard for her to come back,” said Mary Wittenberg, the New York Road Runners chief executive, who was in Beijing to watch the race.
“That Olympic gold in the marathon,” Wittenberg added, “would have cemented her at the top of the list as one of the most accomplished female distance runners.”
Wami said she thought she could still make that list. On Oct. 3, as a warm-up to New York, she ran a personal-best half-marathon time (1 hour 8 minutes 51 seconds) to win the Great North Run in Newcastle, England. She injured a hamstring, but has been training steadily since, hoping to find more than just a consolation prize this year.
“You have good times, you have bad times,” Tessema said. “In London she falls down, in Beijing she had the stomach. The only thing you can do is go on with your life.”
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) – Beijing Olympics double gold medal winner Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia has married fallow athlete Sileshi Sihine, with thousands of people gracing the colourful occasion held in the capital Addis Ababa on Sunday.
Those attending the public wedding including officials from the IAAF, the world wide athletics governing body.
The weeding started early Sunday morning with various activities, including a big public ceremony where Dibaba and Sihen greeted the public while riding a chariot.
The occasion was officially dubbed the “Wedding of the Millennium.”
The 23-year-old Tirunesh, also known as “the baby-faced assassin”, won gold in both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the Beijing Olympics last August, while Sileshi finished second behind compatriot Kenenisa Bekele in the 10,000m race.
Tirunesh Dibaba also broke the Beijing Olympic record in the 5,000m. She is the holder of 10,000m world record in other international race.
Sileshi Sihine, known as a silver man in athletics, also won silver during the Athens Olympic four years ago.
The couple traveled to Milan, Italy, to choose their clothing and rings as well as other essential items for their big day.
The weeding was estimated to have cost them around US$100,000, a fortune by the standards of the local economy.
Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge attended the weeding together with a good number of Ethiopian international athletes.
It’s been six months since Ginbot 7 Movement for Freedom and Democracy in Ethiopia was formed. In June 2007, EthiopianReview.com wrote (read here) that the new movement has less than 6 months to prove itself. Did it prove itself to be a viable opposition party? What did it accomplish so far and what is it currently doing?
Ethiopian Review will pose these and other straightforward questions to Ato Andargachew Tsege, a senior official of Ginbot 7, in a live interview Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008, at 2:00 PM Washington DC time.
The interview will be broadcast live via Ethiopian Review Radio Network and Ethiopian Review Paltalk Room.
A highway linking the capital cities of Sudan and Ethiopia has been completed. The land transport will help promote trade, increase economic exchange and investment opportunities between them. The highway will also enable them to begin a road transportation service to and from the countries.
Currently, many Sudanese investors are investing in Ethiopian leather and leather products as well as in the meat and fishery sectors and this have created job opportunities to several Ethiopians.
Sudan exports oil, gas and other commodities to Ethiopia and imports coffee, leather and leather products, tea and other agricultural products as well.
Such joint projects would help to overcome the potential tension in the region and boost existing social ties between the two countries despite the tension in the joint border because of farmer disputes or the sporadic activities of the armed Ethiopian opposition.
Recently trading activities have increased across the borders of the two countries and many arrangements are underway to transmit electricity from Ethiopia to Sudanese towns and villages. The cooperation and collaboration between the two East African countries will have huge economic significance for the two peoples.
Wetherby News
WETHERBY, UK – A dedicated volunteer from East Witton, England, has been commended for her work with an international sight charity.
Michele de Vaal, 54, received an outstanding contribution award from Vision Aid Overseas, which provides free eye tests and glasses to people in some of the world’s most deprived areas.
As well as making 10 trips to Ethiopia, where she has fitted thousands of people with spectacles, Michele also raised the charity’s profile by taking late TV presenter Richard Whiteley’s glasses to the African country – a project covered by BBC’s Inside Out programme.
Michele, who works as an optician’s assistant in Ripon, said she was delighted to have received the award.
“It’s just a total shock,” she said.
“I’m thrilled. We all work really hard for the charity and it’s nice to be appreciated and to know you are doing the job right.”
She received the award on Saturday night at Birmingham’s Aston Business Centre.
Michele has worked with Vision Aid Overseas since 1998, and organises its projects in Ethiopia.
“I was invited to be the country leader because I was getting to know – and love – the place through my trips there,” she said.
“We have clinics there where we dispense spectacles. I take three or four thousand pairs of glasses and then when optometrists have tested people’s eyes, I match the glasses to the patients.”
