ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) – Ethiopia’s Beijing Olympic double gold winner, Superstar Kenenisa Bekele, has announced that he will start building a US$16 million international sport centre outside the capital Addis Ababa in two months.
Bekele told journalists Tuesday that the multi-purpose sports centre would be constructed in the northern Shewa zone of the Sululta area in Oromia State in phases during a five-year period.
He indicated that the centre would be constructed on 50 hectares of land and would satisfy international standards so as to accommodate various sports competition and training.
The construction of the sports facility would play a great role in producing young athletes from the country, he said.
\”The centre would comprise various international standard competitions and training tracks, recreation centres and other social service providing facilities,\” he added.
Bekele recently won two gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the 5,000m and 10,000m distances, setting a new record in the latter.
John Marshall has spent much of his life helping others. As a police motorcycle sergeant, Marshall said, his motivation has been to protect and serve.
Today, the Corona Police Department officer leaves for Ethiopia to spend 12 days on a journey to help and to minister to villagers in the northern part of the country.
“For me, it’s more of a humanitarian and spiritual effort to reach out to people in need,” Marshall said.
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Corona police Officer John Marshall rides along Fifth Street in Norco with Councilwoman Kathy Azevedo, who offered to give him riding lessons in preparation for his trip to help villagers in Ethiopia.
Marshall, 43, will leave Los Angeles International Airport for a 33-hour flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then will catch a flight to Gondar. From there, he and Mekasha Kassa, a messianic rabbi, will go by horseback from the rolling hills and valleys of the region into the more mountainous areas.
“At that point, we will be in one of the areas with the highest Jewish populations in Ethiopia,” Marshall said.
He put the Jewish population in the area at about 30,000.
“We plan on building wells,” Marshall said. “I want to see what my synagogue can do to help.”
Marshall is making the trip while in training to become a messianic rabbi at the B’rit Avraham Messianic Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in Wildomar. He has been studying for about four years. There is no specific time to complete his studies.
The followers of Messianic Judaism accept that Yeshua, or Jesus of Nazareth, is the Messiah of Israel, Marshall said.
“He’s been quite a surprise,” said Rabbi Joseph Hilbrath, who is instructing Marshall. “We’re grateful that we can train him.”
For the trip, Marshall said he had to undergo a series of vaccinations. They include shots for meningitis, adult polio, yellow fever, typhoid fever and malaria, and he was given antibiotics to prevent stomach disorders.
Marshall also had to learn to ride a horse.
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“I’ve ridden stable horses before, but not one you actually had to control,” Marshall said.
Marshall accepted an offer from Norco Councilwoman Kathy Azevedo for the riding lessons. She knew Marshall had ridden stable horses, but said that experience was nothing like what he would need to know.
She taught him everything from walking and saddling a horse to riding and controlling one to caring for one on the trail.
“You couldn’t ask for a better student,” Azevedo said.
Marshall said he does not know exactly where he will be going when he arrives in Gondar, only that he will be traveling from village to village.
“My whole purpose is to be the guy who came across the world and to get back to the States to get some support for them so they can have a better life,” Marshall said.
Azevedo said she was honored to help him get ready for the trip.
“It’s just an honorable thing to do, a courageous thing to do,” Azevedo said.
Marshall expects that the spiritual nature of the trip combined with his desire to help will change his life.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (IOM) – A group 105 doctors and nurses, many of them members of the Ethiopian diaspora in North America, are this week travelling to Ethiopia to provide vital medical care in four hospitals in the capital, Addis Ababa. They will also share their knowledge with local health care professionals.
A group of 38 health care professionals, members of Operation Heart Beat, composed of Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialists and including members of the Friends of Ethiopia group, have already arrived in the country with state-of-the-art medical equipment.
A second group of 67 medics, members of the Ethiopian North American Health Professionals Association (ENAHPA), will be travelling to Ethiopia later this week.
“These doctors, nurses and other medical professionals are participating in IOM’s Migration for Development in Ethiopia or MIDEth programme, a capacity-building initiative aimed at strengthening the government’s institutional capacities to address some of this country’s acute human resources constraints,” explains Charles Kwenin, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Addis Ababa.
The medics will deliver specialized health services, including cardiac surgery, pacemaker implants, oral and maxillofacial and reconstructive surgery, neurosurgery, ENT surgery and tele-ophthalmology.
The mission will not only reach hundreds of Ethiopians with state-of-the-art medical services, but will also assist the country’s health sector professionals with hands-on training that will improve the standard of health care in major Ethiopian hospitals.
IOM’s MidEth programme also extends beyond the health sector. Later this month two professors will travel to Ethiopia to teach at Addis Ababa University. One, a business professor, will remain in the country for three months. The other, an information technology specialist, will lead a one-month seminar for PhD students.
IT specialist Dr. Nega Gebreyesus, a senior manager at a US Government agency, says that he always wanted to take part in a knowledge transfer scheme between the Ethiopian diaspora and his country of origin. “The flexible and short-term nature of this programme works well with my work and family responsibilities. These short-term trips can be complemented by remote technology-based engagements,” he says.
IOM is working with the Government of Ethiopia (the Expatriates Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Capacity Building and Ministry of Finance and Economic Development), with financial support from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), to provide travel and other assistance to the experts, who are all based in the USA and Canada.
Ethiopian Airlines is also supporting the initiative, providing discounted airfares and bigger baggage allowances to transport some of the medical equipment.
For more information please contact:
Charles Kwenin
IOM Addis Abba
Tel: +251.115511673
E-mail: [email protected]
In the wake of last week’s Somali pirate raid that nabbed a Ukrainian ship laden with weapons, an international naval flotilla is assembling to protect commercial shipping. But the roughly dozen warships slated to patrol the Horn of Africa in coming months are spread thin. “We’re not always there” when pirates attack, a Navy source told Danger Room.
“We’re encouraging mariners to take necessary precautions,” the source said.
What might that include? Guns are out of the question, said maritime consultant Tim Colton, due to legal problems with arming untrained mariners. That leaves nonlethal weapons as one alternative. Some of the wealthier shipping companies fit their vessels with sonic weapons and high-powered water cannons, as I explain in my new piece for Popular Mechanics. But those devices are “too expensive” for the smaller firms, according to Colton.
Colton said one U.S. admiral floated the idea of putting mercenary teams on commercial vessels to defend against pirate boardings. But this, too, “raises more legal issues than anyone could possibly count.”
In short, there’s no easy seaborne solution to piracy. Experts stress that ending piracy requires law and order on land, where pirates have their bases. But law and order for Somalia, which has lacked a functioning central government since 1991, is no doubt years and years away.
NEW YORK – Rampant piracy off the Somali coast, demonstrated by the latest hijacking of a Ukrainian ship carrying heavy weapons, can be likened to so-called ‘blood diamonds,’ the illicit trafficking in gems used to finance civil wars in West Africa in recent years, the top United Nations envoy for the strife-torn Horn of Africa country said today.
“There is a striking similarity between the actions of these unscrupulous pirates and the activity in blood diamonds in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the civil wars in these countries,” Special Representative Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah declared in a news release.
“No ship, big or small, industrial or commercial, civil or military is spared. With the seizure of the Ukrainian ship a new line has been crossed. This act should not and will not be rewarded.”
Currently some dozen ships are being held by pirates, generally for heavy ransom, and Mr. Ould-Abdallah said piracy had become a multi-million dollar business attracting many Somalis using various political or social covers.
Piracy has driven the price of insurance and subsequently retail prices higher in the whole region, adding to the sharp rise in oil and food costs to make life even harder for the poor, he added. He called on journalists not to allow themselves to be used to broadcast messages from the pirates or help glorify their actions.
“The international community is determined to stop these pirates who are undermining efforts to bring peace to Somalia and maintain stability in the region,” he declared. “This cannot and will not be allowed to continue.”
UN food operations in Somalia have been directly impaired by the pirates who have seized numerous chartered boats carrying supplies for the UN World Food Programme (WFP).
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) – Millions of Ethiopian Muslim are celebrating this year’s Eid-ul Fitr with a mass gathering prayer ceremony at the Addis Ababa stadium.
Around one million Muslims gathered early on Tuesday at the stadium and the surrounding area.
The head of the development and relief affairs of the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council, Hajji Teshale Kero said that the humanitarian activities of the Muslim community during the Ramadan should be strengthened.
He urged the gathered Muslims to remember and care for needy Muslims.
He said he appreciated the tolerance among Ethiopia’s various religions including the Muslim and Christian communities who equally celebrate the other’s holidays.
Addis Ababa mayor Kuma Demeksa told the gathering of Muslims that the government is giving due attention for all religions in the country, which are a symbol and heritage of Ethiopia.
“Ethiopia is a country where tolerance among religions could be an example for others,” he said.
The prayer ceremony was broadcast live on Ethiopian Television.
