NEW YORK: Gete Wami and Dire Tune of Ethiopia committed on Monday to run in the New York City Marathon on Nov. 2.
Also set to run are Lyubov Morgunova of Russia, first-time marathoner Kim Smith of New Zealand, and 36-year-old Briton Hayley Haining, who set a personal record of 2 hours, 29 minutes, 18 seconds in the London Marathon this year.
Wami, 37, was the reigning World Marathon Majors series champion and runner-up to Paula Radcliffe at last year’s NYC Marathon.
Tune, 23, was the 2008 Boston Marathon champion and two-time winner and course record-holder of the Houston Marathon.
Morgunova, 37, won this year’s Rotterdam Marathon in a personal-best time of 2:25:12.
A two-time Olympian, Smith is one of New Zealand’s top distance runners, holding seven national records. Only two New Zealnders have won the NYC Marathon — Allison Roe in 1981 and Rod Dixon in 1983.
“We Kiwis have a great distance running tradition and I would love to enhance this tradition in New York City on Nov. 2,” Smith said. “I have always wanted to run the marathon distance and now is the right time for me.”
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) today appealed for US$460 million to feed 9.6 million hungry people affected by drought and high food prices in Ethiopia through to March next year.
“The Horn of Africa region is facing the worst humanitarian crisis since 1984, and Ethiopia is caught in the middle,” said WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran. “We know what needs to be done – we just need the funds to go out and do our job, protecting the hungry.”
Around a quarter of those in need – some 2 million people – live in the arid Somali Region of Ethiopia where it has not rained for three years.
Pastoralist communities in the region have already lost half of their cattle herds. People are skipping meals and parents are pulling children out of school so that they can help to beg in towns or scour the countryside for food.
“Millions of people are in extreme distress and urgently need food and nutrition,” said Sheeran.
WFP is facing a similar humanitarian challenge in neighbouring Somalia, where 3.25 million people – almost half the population – have been affected by drought, high food prices and conflict.
Ninety percent of WFP’s food deliveries to Somalia arrive by sea, but attacks by pirates are disrupting supply lines and discouraging ship owners from making the journey.
A Canadian naval vessel that has been escorting ships carrying humanitarian aid will withdraw its support on 27 September, and no nation has yet volunteered to take over this protective role.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Pirates in speedboats hijacked a Greek bulk carrier with 19 crew members off eastern Somalia, a piracy watchdog official said Monday.
Sunday’s hijacking pushes the number of attacks this year in Somali waters close to 60, with pirates raiding ships off eastern Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden flanking the country’s northern coast despite U.S.-led patrols.
Four pirates in three speedboats hijacked the Greek ship, which was flying a Bahamas flag and traveling to Europe, said Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.
He could not say whether the crew members were harmed and declined to say where they were from or what the ship was carrying.
Hours earlier, three pirates in a speed boat fired machine guns at an Iranian crude oil carrier in the same area, Choong said. The tanker escaped after a 30-minute chase, and no casualties were reported, he said.
Last week, another Greek bulk carrier with 25 crew members was hijacked off Somalia’s east coast. A Hong Kong vessel carrying 25 crew was hijacked the same day in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest waterways.
“The pirates have now started to attack ships off the eastern coast again … It’s not good,” Choong said. “The eastern coast of Somalia is an open sea. It’s so wide. It may be more difficult to control, to patrol.”
There have been 59 attacks in Somali waters since January, and 13 ships with more than 300 crew remain in pirates’ hands, Choong said.
The surge in attacks has prompted the U.S. Naval Central Command to establish a security corridor patrolled by an international coalition of warships.
Some 20,000 ships pass annually through the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991. Pirates there are often trained fighters, many of them dressed in military fatigues and typically armed with automatic weapons, anti-tank rocket launchers and grenades.
MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Mortar bombs hit a Mogadishu market on Monday in a second day of fighting that has killed at least 42 people, witnesses said.
Islamist insurgents are battling the Somali government and their Ethiopian Woyanne military backers in a nearly two-year conflict that some are calling Africa’s Iraq.
Fighting worsened at the weekend, even as U.N. officials sought to broker a ceasefire between government and opposition representatives in neighbouring Djibouti.
Somali [puppet] police and the hardline al Shabaab Islamists blamed each other for the attacks.
“Al Shabaab militant group attacked government bases and foreign troop bases. They also threw mortars at residential areas… So al Shabaab is responsible for all that has happened today and last night,” said police spokesman Abdulahi Hassan Barise.
In the biggest incident, shells hit packed Bakara market, horrifying shoppers and killing about 30 people, residents said.
Al Shabaab said government and Ethiopian Woyanne troops had targeted the residential area considered a stronghold of the Islamist insurgents, after rebel attacks on the presidential palace.
“When troops die in attacks they (government troops) target civilians like … at Bakara Market today,” Muktar Roboow, an al Shabaab official told Reuters.
Ali Dhere, chairman of Bakara business committee, said government-fired shells hit the market, which lies in a densely-populated area.
“We don’t know why they are targeting Bakara because this is a market, a public place,” he told Reuters.
Bakara traders described a terrible scene.
“We saw four people die on the spot. Their flesh and bones were scattered into pieces,” said clothes seller Nur Omar.
Abdi Nur Hassan, who runs an electronics stall, said two missiles landed nearby. “I have seen six people die, some of them missing legs and hands. We collected their bodies, but it is difficult to separate them,” he said.
As well as the presidential palace, the Somali rebels also attacked two bases of African Union (AU) peacekeepers, and shelled the city’s main airport on Monday where a commercial flight defied a ban by the al Shabaab group to land.
Residents also said at least a dozen people had died in fighting on Sunday. “A missile hit a neighbour’s house and killed nine people in the same family,” one resident, Farhiya Abdullahi, told Reuters of the worst incident.
After being chased away from their power base, Mogadishu, Islamists launched an insurgency in early 2007 that has killed nearly 10,000 civilians and an unknown number of combatants.
They have become increasingly bold in the last two months, stepping up attacks in the Somali capital and capturing the strategic southern port of Kismayu.
Al Shabaab is on Washington’s terrorism list, and Western security services say the Islamists have close links to al Qaeda. Rebel leaders, however, depict themselves as nationalists fighting an unwanted occupation by Ethiopia Woyanne.
During lulls in the fighting, Mogadishu residents rushed their wounded to the city’s few clinics. Staff at Madina hospital said they had admitted 65 wounded people since Sunday.
(Additional reporting by Abdi Mohamed, Abdi Sheikh)
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Somalia’s warring sides pounded the capital with mortar rounds and gunfire Monday, killing 30 people — including a family of seven — as insurgents who want to topple the government gain significant power.
Monday’s fighting pitted insurgents against government forces and their Ethiopian Woyanne allies, who come under regular attack in Mogadishu, one of the most violent cities in the world. The violence left bodies in city streets. When the blasts calmed, young men ventured out to transport the gravely wounded to hospitals in rickety wheelbarrows.
“There is blood everywhere, and human flesh on the walls,” Abshir Mohamed Ali, a shop owner at Bakara market, where much of the fighting was centered, told The Associated Press.
The fighting began after Islamic insurgents fired mortars at the capital’s main airport and the presidential palace, said Ali Mohamed Siyad, who chairs Bakara market traders’ association. Soon after, government forces and their Ethiopian Woyanne allies retaliated with mortars and gunfire.
In the past, government officials have suspected insurgents use Bakara market as a base.
Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaida have been fighting the government and its Ethiopian Woyanne allies for control since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an Iraq-style insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians to date.
In recent weeks, the militants appear to be gaining strength and sidelining the fragile government. The group, known as the Council of Islamic Courts, has taken over the port town of Kismayo, Somalia’s third-largest city, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. They also effectively closed the Mogadishu airport by threatening to attack any plane using it.
“We keep recruiting new fighters to prepare them for the holy war against Ethiopian Woyanne troops in our country and their Somali stooges,” said Sheik Muhumed, a commander with al-Shabab, the group’s military wing.
The United States considers al-Shabab a terrorist group, raising fears Somalia could become a haven for al-Qaida.
The Western-backed Somali government, meanwhile, has failed to deliver any basic services and comes under daily attack. The administration had no immediate comment on Monday’s bloodshed.
Among the dead in Monday’s attacks were seven members of one family — a mother, grandmother, four children and an uncle — when a mortar round landed near their home. The one survivor was a 2-year-old boy who escaped with minor injuries.
“This boy will remain a reminder of this sad story,” said Safiya Mohamed Dahir, the children’s uncle.
He said the eldest child, a 12-year-old girl, had amassed years of heartbreaking knowledge growing up in Mogadishu.
“One thing I will always remember is how she could tell the difference between the sounds of gunfire, bombs and mortars, at her young age,” Dahir said. “She would yell, ‘Explosion! Mortar! And gunfire!’ And now she’s gone.”
Dr. Dahir Dhere of Medina Hospital said at least 60 were wounded, including nine children.
Siyad said he and other workers had counted about 30 bodies. Other witnesses described at least 19.
The African Union has sent about 2,000 peacekeepers to Somalia, but they generally are confined to the airport because security is so bad in Mogadishu. The U.N. has tried to push peace talks between the government and the opposition, but a recent deal with a more moderate faction of the Islamic group seems only to have worsened the violence.
Al-Shabab, the driving force behind much of the violence, denounced the talks and did not participate.
Besides near-daily fighting in the capital, foreigners, journalists and humanitarian workers are frequently abducted for ransoms in Somalia. Earlier Monday, Somali forces opened fire on kidnappers to free a German man and his Somali wife, said Muse Gelle Yusuf, governor of the northern port of Bosasso.
In Berlin, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner said the couple were doing well.
(AP Writer Elizabeth A. Kennedy contributed to this report from Nairobi, Kenya.)
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — A U.N. official says the number of Ethiopians needing emergency food aid has more than doubled.
World Food Program spokesman Barry Came says 9.6 million people need emergency food. This is more than twice the estimate of 4.6 million people released in June.
Came says the rise in Ethiopians needing food aid includes people not accounted for in previous assessments.
He said Monday that the increase comprises about 2 million residents of Ethiopia’s southeastern Somali region. The figure also includes 3.2 million people who had been covered by a plan intended to stave off chronic food shortages but now need emergency food aid.
Aid workers say this year’s drought is the worst since 2003.
