Ethiopia threw Group Ten wide open on Friday when beating table-toppers DR Congo 1-0 in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopia’s win has lifted them off the bottle of the table
Saladine Said settled the contest with the only goal of the game after 30 minutes.
The win takes Ethiopia off the bottom of the table and into second place.
Their tally of six points is just one behind the Congolese.
However, Libya now have the chance to draw level with DR Congo should they beat Namibia in Windhoek on Saturday.
Congolese preparations for the game were far from perfect with Belgian coach Henri Depireux complaining he has not been paid his whole salary by the federation.
Compounding the Leopards’ problems was the fact that national captain Lomana LuaLua missed the game because of travel complications.
Other England-based players, such as Leroy Lita and Shabani Nonda, were also absent for DR Congo’s first defeat in the group.
Mulu Gebrelassiei, center, grieves the loss of her children in the basement of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church on Thursday. (The Post / Karl Gehring)
Already steeped in anguish over the daughter who drowned Monday trying to save her brother, parents Gezaee Kahsay and Mulu Gebrelassiei made the decision Thursday to remove their son from life support.
For several days, they prayed that a miracle might befall 10-year-old Yacob Gezaee, who has been comatose since paramedics pulled him and his sister Bethlehem, 16, from a pool at the Raintree East townhome complex.
His parents' hopes evaporated Thursday, when doctors at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center told them Yacob's organs were failing.
"Did I bring my children here only for them to die, God?" Gebrelassiei wailed in Amharic, as Teklu Abraha translated her words.
"Why did this not happen in my home country? Who is going to hug me? Who is going to kiss me? Oh, my God! Why do you punish me this way?"
With their heads and torsos shrouded in veils, women literally wrapped themselves around the disconsolate mother as she grieved in the basement chapel of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church near downtown Denver.
Since the discovery of their children's bodies, Kahsay and Gebrelassiei have ensconced themselves at the church. Gebrelassiei sits, and sometimes fitfully sleeps, on an improvised nest made of mattresses, pillows and quilts.
The bed faces a dozen or so pews peppered with mourners.
Some are relatives - members of the family's tribe in Ethiopia, and fellow members of this church that defines their lives. Others do not know the family but come to show their support and grief.
"At a time like this, all of Ethiopia's tribes are connected, those who speak Amharic and those who speak the Tigrigna language," said Laake Ghebre, a family friend.
"At such times as this, all Ethiopians make themselves close as a family."
Women emerged periodically from the church kitchen, bearing trays that held pots of strong Ethiopian coffee, rolls of the Ethiopian flat bread injera, cans of soda and bottles of water.
When Gebrelassiei bursts into new laments - "God, take me in! I will replace my son! I will replace my daughter! Why do I work day in and day out to make a better condition for my family, only to lose them? Why do you punish me?" - the women cosset her like an infant.
"They tell her, 'God will not do as we tell him, but we must do as he tells us,"' Ghebre translated, but acknowledged that this "double tragedy" tries his own deep faith.
"The father, he worked hard. He did the best he can. He worked an average of 18 hours a day to bring his children here. And not a whole year were they here before this tragedy happened."
Donations Sought
A funeral for Bethlehem, left, and Yacob Gezaee is scheduled for 10 a.m. Sunday at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, 574 Pennsylvania St.
The family hopes to return the children's bodies to Ethiopia for burial. Donations for those expenses may be sent to the Yacob and Bethlehem Gezaee Memorial Fund at any U.S. Bank.
IWMF Announces 2007 Courage in Journalism Award Winners
Lydia Cacho of Mexico, Serkalem Fasil of Ethiopia, and the Iraqi Women Reporters of McClatchy’s Baghdad Bureau Win Courage in Journalism Awards from the International Women’s Media Foundation
Peta Thornycroft of Zimbabwe is Lifetime Achievement Winner
Washington, DC – A Mexican journalist who travels with guards because of ongoing threats to her life, a group of women reporters who every day risk their lives to cover the war in Iraq and an Ethiopian publisher who gave birth to a son while confined to a vermin-infested jail cell for her work are the recipients of this year’s International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Awards.
“These women have shown dedication and bravery in reporting and in their commitment to journalism,” said Judy Woodruff, chair of the IWMF Courage in Journalism Awards. “They tell tough stories that need to be told, and in doing so, help defend freedom of the press.”
Winners of the 2007 Courage in Journalism Awards are:
Lydia Cacho, 43, correspondent for CIMAC news agency and feature writer for Dia Siete magazine in Mexico. Cacho, a journalist for more than two decades, has endured numerous death threats because of her work reporting on domestic violence, organized crime and political corruption. In 2004, Cacho published The Devils of Eden, a book based on her research on child pornography among Mexican politicians and businessmen. A year later, she was arrested on libel charges and driven to a jail 20 hours from her home in Cancun, with officers hinting that there was a plan to rape her. In recent years, she has written extensively about pedophiles. In February 2006, a tape recording of a conversation between a businessman and a Mexican governor discussing a plan to have her arrested and raped was obtained by the media. Several years earlier, in 1998, Cacho was raped and beaten in the bathroom of a bus station. She doesn’t know if the attack was related to her work. On May 8, while Cacho was testifying at the trial of a pedophile she has written about, her car was sabotaged. Cacho is also a human rights advocate; she is the founder and director of the Centro Integral de Atencion a las Mujeres in Cancun, a crisis center and shelter for victims of sex crimes, gender-based violence and trafficking.
Serkalem Fasil, 26, of Ethiopia. The former co-owner and publisher of the weekly newspapers Asqual, Menilik and Satenaw, Fasil was one of 14 editors and reporters of independent and privately-owned newspapers arrested after publishing articles critical of the government’s actions during the May 2005 parliamentary elections. The journalists were accused of genocide and treason, charges that could bring life imprisonment or the death penalty. While in jail, Fasil gave birth to and cared for a son, who was premature and underweight due to inhumane conditions and lack of proper medical attention. She was released from prison in April 2007.
Six Iraqi women journalists of McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau: Shatha al Awsy, Zaineb Obeid, Huda Ahmed, Ban Adil Sarhan, Alaa Majeed and Sahar Issa. Constantly under duress, these women dodge gun battles and tiptoe around car bombs to do their jobs in the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. They are targeted for their work, and so are their families. Their homes have been destroyed and they’ve lost family members and friends. Each day they risk their lives just to get to work. They are driven by the desire to report accurately the situation in Iraq, to tell others what is happening in a world that is dissolving around them.
The IWMF also announced that it will present its Lifetime Achievement Award to Peta Thornycroft, 62, of Zimbabwe. Thornycroft has been a journalist for 35 years. One of the few remaining independent journalists in Zimbabwe, she reports on human rights abuses, farm occupation, the state of the country as commodities become scarce and inflation rises, and government repression. A foreign correspondent for British, American and South African news media, she renounced her British citizenship and became a citizen of Zimbabwe after the government ruled that all journalists working in Zimbabwe had to be citizens of the country. Thornycroft has been accused of terrorism and barred from court proceedings, and in 2002 she was arrested while investigating reports of a campaign against members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. At the same time, she has led journalism training initiatives benefiting thousands of southern African journalists.
Created in 1990, the IWMF Courage in Journalism Awards honor women journalists who have shown extraordinary strength of character and integrity while reporting the news under dangerous or difficult circumstances. This year’s awards will be presented at ceremonies in New York on October 23 and in Los Angeles on October 30.
The International Women’s Media Foundation was launched in 1990 with a mission to strengthen the role of women in the news media worldwide. The IWMF network includes women and men in the media in more than 130 countries worldwide.
For more information about the winners or about the Courage in Journalism Awards, visit the IWMF website at www.iwmf.org.
The World Bank approved 225 million U.S. dollars of credit to [the Woyanne warlords in] Ethiopia Thursday to help the African Horn country restore its road network and reduce poverty [actually to help the tribal dictatorship continue brutalizing the people of Ethiopia and Somalia].
Ethiopia will use the fund to improve the reliability of its road transport infrastructure by expanding and maintaining the road network, and strengthening the quality and efficiency of road construction, management and maintenance, said the bank in a statement.
The project will also create conditions conducive for the domestic construction industry to develop in the road transport sector.
“The emphasis will be on facilitating growth, in both the agriculture and industrial sectors, by improving transport corridors as well as better linking emerging regions to the rest of the mountainous country,” said Yoshimichi Kawasumi, World Bank task team leader for the project.
The Ethiopian government has set a target to construct almost 11,000 km of new federal roads and 5,500 km of new regional roads, while maintaining over 4,000 km of federal and regional roads, according to the statement.
Tirunesh Dibaba, the double world champion at 5000m and 10,000m in Helsinki two summers ago, is looking to take a bite out of the Big Apple by attacking Meseret Defar’s world 5000m record at Saturday’s Reebok Grand Prix on Randall’s Island.
At last year’s meet with the track still puddled from heavy rains, Defar mustered a 61.5 second closing lap to cross the finish line in 14:24.53, toppling Elvan Abeylegesse’s world record by 15/100ths of a second. Dibaba, who set the world indoor 5000m record of 14:27.42 at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games last January, would like nothing more than easing aside her compatriot to have both the indoor and outdoor world records next to her name, instead.
“I’m planning to run a fast time for Saturday,” said the still baby-faced Dibaba, now 21 years-old, through a translator. “I can’t say what kind of time, but it will be fast,” she added, trying hard to supress a girlish grin.
Dibaba has been recovering from her silver medal performance at the brutally hot and humid IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, Kenya, last March, and has not competed since then. She made it clear at today’s news conference at the Grand Hyatt hotel that she is ready to get back to competition, and having Defar’s record to chase is providing special motivation.
“In a way it has motivated me,” she said. “This year I’m going to see if I can do it (the record).”
Dibaba faced Defar seven times in 2006, and prevailed four times. Their relationship has been described as contentious, and Defar was curt in describing how the two women get along.
“Meseret, we train together in the international team,” she said. “We also have a good relationship. That is all I can say.”
In her 2007 campaign, she does not plan to race Defar until the IAAF World Championships in Osaka. “Right now there are no plans for us meeting,” she said. “But, we may meet in Osaka.”
* * * * * *
The Reebok Grand Prix 5000m for women will feature 16 other athletes including Kim Smith of New Zealand; Amy Rudolph, Samia Akbar, Lauren Fleshman, Katie McGregor, Missy Buttrey, Renee Metivier-Baillie and Sara Slattery of the United States; Rehima Kedir, Aheza Kiros, Yimenashu Taye and Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia; Megan Metcalf of Canada; and Mary Cullen of Ireland. Korene Hinds of Jamaica and Maria Munan of Serbie will set the pace.
(c) 2007 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission.
PHOTODibaba after winning the 3000m race at the 2007 Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden, (c) 2007 The Final Sprint, LLC
Thu. May 31, 2007 07:15 pm
By Bonny Apunyu SomaliNet
Somalia: Bomb hits Ethiopian army convoy, four killed when a remote-controlled roadside bomb tore into an Ethiopian army convoy in Somalia on Thursday wounding five soldiers, locals and a security source said.
The attack is the latest in a wave of Iraq-style insurgent strikes rocking the Horn of Africa nation.
“An Ethiopian truck was blown up,” resident Osman Adan said by telephone. “The Ethiopian troops immediately opened fire indiscriminately with heavy machine-guns.”
Seven locals were caught in the cross-fire, but local journalist Ali Dahir said he had been able to verify four civilian fatalities, Adan said.
“Two seriously injured soldiers were being removed from the truck. There was a lot of blood at the scene,” Mr Dahir added.
“Nobody knows whether the Ethiopian soldiers died or not.”
Witnesses said Ethiopian soldiers, in Somalia in a bid to help the government fight an insurgency led by militant Islamists, cordoned off the area after the blast and carried out door-to-door searches in nearby streets.
The security source in Mogadishu said one Ethiopian truck was destroyed by an anti-tank mine set off by remote control – a new tactic being used by the insurgents.
Meanwhile, Nato allies are studying a request from the African Union to provide air transport for its troops in Somalia, an alliance official said today.
“We are seeking military advice on how to respond to the request. There is an intention among allies to help,” said the official of an AU request he said Nato received in recent days.
The official said he understood the support would be similar to that provided to AU peacekeepers in Sudan’s Darfur region, where Nato planes have since 2005 helped troop reinforcements and rotations.
The Nato official said he understood the AU wanted help “relatively quickly”.
At present the AU force is made up of just 1,600 Ugandans. Other African nations have been wary of sending more soldiers, especially after four Ugandan peacekeepers were killed two weeks ago by a roadside bomb targeting their convoy.
Nato’s air transport mission in Darfur was launched in July 2005 and was its first operation on a continent previously off limits to the Western military alliance.
It says it has provided air transport to some 24,000 AU peacekeepers and civilian police officers since then.
