Ambesse Tolossa wins the men’s division of the Honolulu Marathon for the second straight year.
By Deborah Booker | The Honolulu Advertiser
Ethiopia’s Ambesse Tolossa won the men’s division of The Honolulu Marathon for the second consecutive year, again holding off rival and five-time champion Jimmy Muindi of Kenya.
Tolossa’s unofficial time was 2:17:25.
Tolossa stayed just behind Muindi for almost the entire race.
But Muindi’s stomach started to bother him about halfway through the race.
At about the 23-mile mark, Muindi started to become ill and dropped back.
Muindi’s time was unavailable.
The two battled for the title in last year’s race in which Muindi, 34, accused Tolossa, 30, of bumping him and clipping his heels during the race.
Muindi won the Honolulu Marathon in 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004 and 2005 and placed second or third seven other times since 1995.
(JTA) The Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert opened Sunday’s Cabinet meeting with grave remarks in response to a newspaper expose last week about a religious school in Petah Tikva at which girls of Ethiopian descent are segregated from their peers.
Olmert described “a feeling of general hardship on the part of Ethiopian children and the community as a
whole within Israeli society” and added, “I cannot say that this feeling is divorced from reality or is true only regarding a specific place in the country.”
“There are problems, there are hardships, the sense of wrongdoing is not disconnected from real life, and
ultimately we can and must do something to change this,” Olmert said, adding that the government will put together a comprehensive action plan next month.
Petah Tikva authorities said the school segregation was prompted by differences between the religious
upbringing of the Ethiopian girls and the others. The incident was especially painful for many Ethiopian
immigrants given the reluctance with which many rabbinical authorities recognize them as Jewish.
The Reporter (Addis Ababa)
By Kaleyesus Bekele
The Chinese Oil Company, Zhoungyan Petroleum Exploration Bureau (ZPEB), has refused to resume work on oil exploration projects in the Ogaden basin.
Contracted by the Malaysian oil and gas company, Petronas and South-West Energy, a company licensed in Hong Kong, ZPEB has been conducting seismic survey in the Ogaden region of the Somali Regional State. After the Ogaden National Liberation Front’s (ONLF) attack on the Abole exploration site in the Degehabur zone last April, ZPEB suspended operation. Seventy-four civilians, including nine Chinese workers, were killed in the attack.
The Ethiopian Woyanne Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) demanded the petroleum companies to start work on the exploration projects. However, ZPEB refused to return its oil workers to the Ogaden region. Senior officials of the MME told The Reporter that the parent company of ZPEB, Sino Tech, did not allow it to resume the operation. Petronas is now in the process to hire an Iranian Company called Oil Exploration Operation Company, (OEOC). Representatives of Petronas and OEOC last week visited the Ogaden region. The representatives conferred with officials of the MME on the oil exploration projects in the Ogaden.
“OEOC’s response to Petrona’s request was positive. However, they did not yet sign a contractual agreement,” officials of MME told The Reporter. OEOC is engaged in oil exploration projects in Iran and Uzbekistan. Petronas is also engaged in a similar project in Uzbekistan.
Meanwhile, the Swedish petroleum company, Lundin, recently began to conduct gravity survey in its exploration area in the Ogaden basin. Lundin has four exploration blocks in the Ogaden. Two weeks ago the company launched its airborne survey in the exploration blocks found near Dire Dawa town.
Pexco, another Malaysian company, is also prepared to begin gravity survey next month. Pexco has two exploration blocks in the Ogaden. “All the companies which have exploration blocks want to commence work. But they need sometime to find a subcontractor,” officials of MME said.
The Woyanne embassy in Washington DC will hold a “Nationalities Day” (ye bihereseboch qen) celebration party tomorrow, Sunday afternoon. Several Woyannes and their opportunist supporters are invited to dine and wine with top Woyanne officials at the embassy ground… Some Ethiopian groups are considering of holding a protest rally. Read more at galbeed.com >>
By Aweys Yusuf
NAIROBI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Somali insurgents seized a small town in central Somalia after a brief battle with government troops on Saturday, the government and residents said.
The insurgents took Bule Burte, 220 km (140 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu. It it was not clear if there were casualties, witnesses said.
“It is true that Islamists captured Bule Burte, but they will not last there. The government will fight them and will liberate the town from the enemy,” Yusuf Ahmed Hagar, government chairman of Hiraan province, told Reuters by phone.
The Islamists, who before their defeat by the government and Ethiopian Woyanne troops a year ago had tried to impose Islamic sharia law on Somalia, put sharia into force again in Bule Burte, residents said.
“Islamist fighters seized the town. They fought and easily defeated [Woyanne-backed] government troops. We are now under the rules of the Islamists,” Ali Osman, a resident, told Reuters by phone.
Witnesses said an Islamist who called himself Amin Daad gave a short speech to people of the town after seizing it from a handful of Somali troops.
“You should limit your movements because we are now in operation and when we are finished with our duties, we will meet you,” Daad told the people of Bule Burte.
Islamist insurgents have fought back against the government and allied Ethiopian Woyanne troops in the capital Mogadishu since they were ejected by them a year ago in a lightning war backed by U.S. intelligence.
ETHIOPIANS
Iraq-style car bombings and guerrilla attacks, often met by Ethiopian Woyanne artillery and tank bombardments in retaliation, in Mogadishu and conflict elsewhere in the Horn of Africa nation have sent at least a million Somalis fleeing within the country.
In Mogadishu’s Black Sea and Bar Ubah neighbourhoods, some residents who had fled began returning after Ethiopian Woyanne troops who had occupied the areas for several weeks during sweeps for insurgents left, police said.
Witnesses said jubilant Somalis danced in the streets as the soldiers — from Somalia’s ancient rival — moved out.
“The government told the Ethiopians to go back to their bases after considering complaints from the people and the traders in Mogadishu,” police spokesman Abdulahi Ibrahim Omar said.
Somalia’s interim government is struggling to impose national authority, missing since warlords plunged Somalia into anarchy in 1991 after ousting dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
On Saturday Somalia’s parliament passed a bill requiring licensing for media houses, and also guaranteeing that they not be censored. The law also says media cannot be required to broadcast one-sided reports.
Deputy parliament speaker Mohamed Omar Dalha said the bill was approved by 145 out of 159 legislators present.
This week, independent broadcasters shut down by Mogadishu’s mayor finally went back on the air after they struck a compromise over restrictions he had imposed, criticised as draconian by media houses and press freedom groups. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Mohamed in Baidoa; writing by Bryson Hull; editing by Andrew Roche)
