NIJMEGEN, THE NETERLANDS – Mestawat Tufa and Ayele Abshiro of Ethiopia were the winners of the 25th edition of the Fortis Zevenheuvelen loop (Seven hills run), an IAAF Silver Label Road Race, in Nijmegen.
Tufa won the women’s race in 46:56, missing by a mere second the 46:55 World Record over the distance which was set by Japanese Kayoko Fukushi in Marugame on 5 February 2006.
Tufa was a class of her own. The Ethiopian was after five kilometres already way ahead of her nearest opponents. She passed five km in 15:55, with Martha Komu already nearly half a minute (16:21) back. At 10 kms Tufa clocked 31:31 while Komu passed later in 33:16. Tufa finished 21st overall.
Abshiro clocked 42:16 in winning the men’s race. He was well outside the World record of 41:29, which Felix Limo of Kenya set seven years ago (11 Nov 2001) on the Nijmegen course.
Tufa was well ahead of her nearest opponent, Martha Komu of Kenya, who came home second in 50:06, more than three minutes behind. Abshiro outsprinted Isaac Kiprono of Uganda by four seconds. Hot favourite Kenenisa Bekele finished third in 43:41.
Ankle injury slows Bekele
The Ethiopian Olympic double {www:champion} (5000 and 10,000m) however had an excuse. Two days before the race it became clear that he had an ankle {www:injury}. Although he was advised not to start in the race Bekele decided to start anyway. From the start he was in the leading group of four which further consisted of Abshiro, Kiprop and his younger brother, Tariku Bekele.
Kiprop passed the 5 kilometre marker in 14:08 with the other three two seconds behind. On the way to 10 kilometres Kenenisa Bekele left his opponents and passed 10 kilometres in 27:56, fifteen seconds ahead of Kiprop and 17 seconds in front of the eventual winner Abshiro. But just after 11 kilometres Bekele felt his injured ankle {www:protest}. He decided to calm down and was passed by Abshiro and Kiprop. In the latter stages of the race Abshiro outsprinted Kiprop to take the victory.
Over 31,000 runners took part, running in mild fally conditions.
Wim van Hemert for the IAAF
Leading Results –
WOMEN –
1. Mestawat Tufa (Eth) 46:56, second fastest time ever; 5 km 15:55, 10 km 31:31
2. Martha Kome (Ken) 50:06
3. Gladys Otero (Ken) 50:35
4. Beata Rakonczai (Hun) 50:50
5. Miranda Boonstra (Ned) 51:19
6. Massila Ndunge (Ken) 52:16
7. Paula Todoran (Rou) 52:24
8. Ilse Pol (Ned) 52:30
9. Corine Spaans (Ned) 54:36
10. Nadja Wijenberg (Ned) 55:10 40+
MEN –
1. Ayelech Absihiro (Eth) 42:16 splits: 5 km 14:09, 10 km 28:13
2. Isaac Kiprop (Uga) 42:20 splits: 5 km 14:08, 10 km 28:11
3. Kenenisa Bekele (Eth) 43:41 splits: 5 km 14:11, 10 km 27:56
4. Tariku Bekele (Eth) 44:03
5. Dennis Licht (Ned) 44:07
6. Saji Bouazza (Mor) 44:07 correct
7. Stafano Baldini (Ita) 44:09
8. Simon Munyutu (Fra) 44:14
9. Patrick Stitzinger (Ned) 44:18
10. Nordin Athamna (Alg) 45:18
11. Marco Gielen (Ned) 45:20
12. Larbi es Sraidi (Fra) 45:35
13. Marius Ionescu (Rum) 45:52
14. Neals Strik (Ned) 46:22
15. Dimitri Dubovski (Blr) 46:24
16. Koen Raymaekers (Ned) 46:25
17. Maciek Miereczko (Pol) 46:39
18. Colin Bekers (Ned) 46:43
19. Dennis Licht (Ned) 46:43 correct
20. Ruben Scheurwater (Ned) 46:54
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (APA) – Ethiopian Woyanne Ministry of Justice officials on Sunday said 226 out of the 273 people arrested, have been charged with genocide committed during an ethnic clash in May.
The rest, 47 of them have also been charged with “serious crimes” they committed during an ethnic clash between Oromo and Guji tribes clashes.
Sources say those charged with genocide will possibly face a death penalty “since the crime is very serious.”
In May 2007, an ethnic clash were erupted between the Oromo and Guji over water sources and grazing land and during which a large but unspecified number of people were killed on both sides.
It it the first time that the Ethiopian Woyanne government has charged such a large number of people with genocide crime in the country’s history.
The trial is being held in the Oromia regional state where the incident took place.
Police raids have revealed an alleged network baby “farms” or “factories” in Nigeria, forcing a new look at the scope of human trafficking in the country.
At a hospital in Enugu, a large city in Nigeria’s southeast, 20 teenage girls were rescued in May in a police swoop on what was believed to be one of the largest infant trafficking rings in the west African country.
The two-story building on a dusty street in Enugu’s teeming Uwani district now stands deserted, shutters down.
Neighbors had long found something bizarre about the establishment, where there was virtually no activity during the day, they said.
The doctor in charge, who is now on trial, reportedly lured teenagers with unwanted pregnancies by offering to help with abortion.
They would be locked up there until they gave birth, whereupon they would be forced to give up their babies for a token fee of around $170.
The babies would then be sold to buyers for anything between $2500-$3800 each, according to a state agency fighting human trafficking in Nigeria, the National Agencyfor the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
But luck ran out for the gynecologist, said to be in his 50s, when a woman to whom he had sold a day-old infant was caught by Nigeria’s Security and Civil Defence Service (NSCDS) while trying to smuggle the child to Lagos, the security agency said.
Statistics on the prevalence of baby breeding are hard to come by, but anti-trafficking campaigners say it is widespread and run by well-organized criminal syndicates.
HARARE (Xinhua) — Confusion surrounds the participation of Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC-T in the proposed inclusive government as apparent contradictions have emerged between the party’s national council and some senior officials in the political formation, The Sunday Mail said.
Top council members are understood to be in favour of participation in the new government, but some of their counterparts are stifling progress by seeking to open issues that were concluded during the inter-party talks.
Among the impediments are the allocation of Cabinet posts and the apportionment of other key government positions.
The council, which is the MDC-T’s supreme decision-making organ, met in Harare on Friday and resolved that the party joins the ruling Zanu-PF and MDC-Mutambara under the proposed arrangement.
The opposition MDC-T has reportedly said it will come on stream once the Constitutional Amendment Bill (Number 19), which will give legal effect to key provisions contained in last September’s political agreement, becomes law.
However, the party leader Morgan Tsvangirai did not attend the meeting, casting further confusion around the MDC’s position on the government. It is understood doubts over which side of the line the formation stands heightened within the party as it is still unclear whether or not Mr Tsvangirai supports the council’s decision, The Sunday Mail said.
In apparent contraction to the council’s resolution, MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa said on Saturday that the MDC-T would not be part of the enunciated government.
Chamisa, who would not be drawn to shed more light on the reasons for Tsvangirai’s absence at Friday’s meeting, said outstanding issues such as the allocation of ministries should be resolved first. “The MDC is not participating until the issues have been resolved,” he said.
Chamisa claimed that the council’s resolution had been read out of context. He said his party would not move forward until its demands were acceded to.
Among these are the appointment of provincial governors, senior Government officials such as permanent secretaries and ambassadors. The composition of the National Security Council is another area that needs to be addressed, said Chamisa.
LOME (Reuters) – Togo will start distributing free of charge from November 17 the anti-retroviral drugs that extend the lives of HIV/AIDS patients, its government said Saturday.
“Anti-retroviral medicines distributed by the network of the Central Supply of Essential and Generic Medicines (CAMEG) will be free of charge from Monday 17 November throughout the country,” an official statement broadcast on state radio said.
Around 25,000 people will benefit from the measure, said Augustin Dokla, who represents a network of HIV/AIDS sufferers, up from 8,000 who already have access to the drugs from CAMEG.
Patients who want to receive the free drugs must register with local medical committees.
Anti-retrovirals bought privately cost between 3,000 and 25,000 CFA francs ($47.53) per month. Such treatment can significantly reduce the level of HIV virus in the blood but transmission risks remain, U.N. health agencies have said.
Since 2006, the rate of HIV infection among the Togolese population has been steady at 3.2 percent, according to official figures.
(Reporting by John Zodzi; Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Richard Balmforth)
KIGALI – Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has accused the United Nations of betraying a pledge to combat Hutu extremists in eastern Congo and then blaming his country for the failure of a costly peacekeeping mission to end years of conflict.
In an interview, Kagame dismissed accusations that Rwanda is backing the Tutsi rebel leader, Laurent Nkunda, who has seized swaths of territory in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in recent weeks, committing war crimes and prompting another refugee crisis.
“The international community spends $1.2bn every year on that mission in the Congo. Why would the international community spend so much and say they want to come and deal with the problem and they don’t deal with it?
This kind of simplistic approach has to stop by people who run the world, and they [must] really take the bull by the horns and deal with the issue,” he said.
“That is the reason why people have decided to shift the blame and load it on the shoulders of Rwanda and the Rwandan government just because, in my view, they cannot justify all this. They are in the Congo to support the government to stand on its own feet and solve its own problems. They haven’t been very successful. When the problem that was not resolved keeps coming back, they simply say, let’s blame it on Rwanda.” Rwanda has been accused of providing weapons, soldiers and other backing for Nkunda and his rebel National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) as a means of keeping at bay Hutu extremists who carried out the 1994 genocide of Rwanda’s Tutsis, and then fled into Congo. Nkunda says he is fighting to defend Congolese Tutsis from the Hutu forces.
At his official residence in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, Kagame said that his government’s ties to Nkunda were superficial. “We’re only linked with Nkunda and the CNDP just by accident of history and the fact that these are Congolese who speak Kinyarwanda, and we share borders with Congo,” he said.
But evidence suggests the links go deeper. Nkunda was an intelligence officer in Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front army that in 1994 overthrew the Hutu government that organised the genocide.
The Congolese Tutsi rebel leader also played his part when Rwanda invaded Congo – then called Zaire – in 1996 to clear out the refugee camps that had become a base for the defeated Hutu forces to attack Rwanda, and again two years later for a lengthy war that widened to bring in countries such as Angola and Zimbabwe.
Rwanda’s critics say Nkunda is still acting on Kigali’s behalf. They accuse Rwanda of backing him as a proxy in its continuing conflict with Hutu exiles who set up a rebel group, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which controls about 40 per cent of the two Congolese provinces on Rwanda’s western border.
UN officials also suggest that some Rwandan officials are making tidy sums out of the plunder of minerals in Nkunda-held areas and shipped out via Kigali.
Kagame acknowledged that Nkunda was serving Rwanda’s interests by providing a buffer between its border and the FDLR. But he said that was not a long-term solution. “Does anybody find sense here that if Rwanda is doing the best it can to overcome its own difficulties – only to create problems outside?” asked Kagame.
He said that with Rwanda reorienting itself towards east Africa and the English-speaking world, and trying to build a reputation as a businessfriendly, technologically advanced destination for foreign investment, it was not in Kigali’s interests to perpetuate the instability in Congo.
“As to whether therefore Nkunda would really be looked at as a solution by Rwanda and therefore supported by Rwanda in this respect, that’s not the case. It wouldn’t be our choice to look at Nkunda as a solution to our problem.” Kagame said the solution was for the UN to send a fighting force to replace the world’s largest, and largely ineffective, peacekeeping operation. He wanted that force to fulfil UN commitments to pacify and disarm Hutu rebels and other groups.
“I would be happy if that was the case. Really. In fact I’m intending to speak to President Kabila [of Congo]. As a way of getting this unjustified blame off Rwanda, maybe we should make an approach to the UN and really ask what the UN can do in an effective way to deal with this problem.
“Can they put together a force to actually deal with all these problems that need military force to deal with it – whether it is FDLR, whether it is other groups fighting the government or even actually, dare I say this, even if this government force is killing its own people? This force should act against them and create a sense of peace and stability.” But neither Kagame nor anyone else has much confidence that will happen. Far from resolving the problem, the UN’s failures are helping to escalate it. The Congolese government is bringing in Angolan troops as it did during the 1998-2002 war with Rwanda, potentially widening the conflict again.
Kagame said he would be concerned if the Angolans were there to push back the CNDP and expose Rwanda’s border to the FDLR. But he said he did not foresee circumstances in which Rwanda would again invade Congo.
“While in the old days we crossed into Congo and dealt with the problem, which I think was very signifi cant, the remnants of the group we were fighting and the magnitude of the problem is smaller and wouldn’t warrant us to cross the border. We will deal with it on our side of the border.”
