OSAKA, Japan: Kenenisa Bekele needs almost no practice to win at 10,000 meters.
The Ethiopian proved it again Monday in his first race at the distance this season, running 27 minutes, 05.90 seconds to claim his third straight 10,000-meter title at the world championships.
Fellow Ethiopian Sileshi Sihine took silver in 27:09.03 with bronze for Kenyan Martin Mathathi in 27:12.17.
Bekele ran in third place from the start with Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea leading for most of the race.
Mathathi led a break away with three laps to go, the Ethiopians went with him and Tadesse faded.
On the final lap, Bekele edged in behind Sihine and then overtook him with 200 meters to go and swept home to win by a whopping 25 meters.
Sihine, called the “silver man” for finishing second so often to Bekele, was second in the 2004 Olympics and second in the world championships two years ago at both 10,000 and 5,000 meters. Bekele won all those races, too.
The 25-year-old Bekele is peerless at the 10,000. He’s the world record holder, the defending Olympic champion and is undefeated at the distance in eight races over four years.
Bekele picks his spots. This was his first 10,000 race this season and some thought he might be vulnerable. He lost in the world cross country championships in March after 10 wins over five years.
On another hot, muggy night in western Japan, the 25-year-old Ethiopian was far off his record time of 26:17.53 set two years ago in Brussels.
Bekele has never won Olympic or world gold at 5,000 meters, although he’s the world record holder (12:37.35) at the distance. He not expected to run that distance in Osaka.
What do you know about Ethiopia? If you’re like most people, it’s probably not much. But the Mesgana Dance Group wants to change that. Mesgana, which means gratitude in Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, is made up of 11 girls, ages 7 to 13, who are educating people across America about their culture through song and dance. The group will give three performances in northern Utah this week.
“Most kids [in Ethiopia] know traditional songs and dances because their parents taught them. It’s something they do throughout generations,” said Murray resident Norm Perdue, founder of the Utah-based Children of Ethiopia Education Fund.
COEEF, a non-profit organization, was started in 2001 by Perdue and his wife Ruthann after they traveled to Addis Ababa, the country’s capital, with some family friends. It was then that the Perdues sponsored their first child, Kidist Bunde, when they heard her grandmother could no longer afford to send her to school. Since then, COEEF has paid tuition for more than 800 girls to attend private schools.
“We decided to only sponsor girls because they don’t have the same opportunities as boys to go to school,” Perdue said. “Most of the time, if a family has a boy, he becomes the priority because they think he’ll become the breadwinner. And so, girls usually have to drop out in elementary [school].”
Ruthann, a registered nurse, both recently retired to work full time for COEEF. The couple travel to Ethiopia every three or four months. And though the program has become successful in providing girls with a means to an education, the Perdues formed the Mesgana Dance Group two years ago in the hope that it would expand and grow their efforts.
“We held tryouts [for girls in the program], choose 11 and then they started to train for eight hours a week since December, learning dances from different regions of Ethiopia,” Norm Perdue said.
Last year, the Perdues took a small group of girls in the troupe on an American tour during their summer vacation. This summer, an expanded group will visit 17 cities. The troupe arrived in Utah on Tuesday and spent the next day sightseeing, swimming and enjoying a barbecue at a donor’s house in Riverton.
Meskerem Tadesse, 15, is one of the program’s success stories. She consistently places among the top three in her classes, speaks five languages fluently, and recently received a full scholarship to Wasatch Academy in Mt. Pleasant.
“At first I couldn’t believe I could go to school and not have to work,” Meskerem said. “Back home I woke up at 4 a.m. to finish my homework, and then I cleaned the house, cooked breakfast, got my [younger] cousins ready and then went to school.” Meskerem’s favorite subject is biology and she hopes to become a doctor.
Another dancer, Bethlehem Efirem, 11, has been in the program for two years and wants to become a flight attendant.
“I like Keffa [a dance style] best,” said Bethelhem, who visited California during the troupe’s tour last year. “I love Disneyland. Mickey is my favorite and Splash Mountain.”
While the girls obviously love touring, the Perdues stress that the dancing and the tour is secondary to COEEF’s main goal of educating girls.
“Education is the outlet for a better life for these girls,” Norm Perdue said. “So our main focus is and always will be the girls’ education.”
The Mesgana Dance Group will perform Wednesday at 7 p.m. the Murray Park Amphitheater, 296 E. Murray Park Lane, Salt Lake City; Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Capitol Theater, 50 W. 200 South, Salt Lake City; and Sept. 4 at 7 p.m. at the Egyptian Theatre, 328 Main Street, Park City. Tickets range from $10 to $20. For details, visit www.mesgana.com. Sponsoring one year of schooling for one girl is $200; sponsorships that include medical care and personal assistance for the children’s families are also available. For more information, visit www.coeef.org.
The Ferensay Legacion area residents of Addis Ababa have awared the Vice President of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) Bertukan Mideksa a brand new car on Saturday.
Ferensay Legacion is Wzt. Bertukan’s neighborhood. It is also an area that was savagely attacked by Woyanne tanks and Agazi special forces during the Nov. 2005 civil unrest when the residents tried to protect their favorite daughter from being taken away by security forces. To avoid further boodshed, Bertukan surrendered herself to the Woyanne, saving the neighborhood from Mogadishu-like devastation.
Also on Saturday, the Ferensay Legacion residents had organized a luncheon for the Kinijit leaders. Representing the party, Wzt. Bertukan and Prof. Mesfin gave speeches. Kinijit President Hailu Shawel could not attend the luncheon, but he was represented by his son, Shawel Hailu.
(SomaliNet) Somalia’s top Islamist Courts Union leader vowed on Saturday to wage a stronger insurgency in the capital, Mogadishu, until all Ethiopian Woyanne troops withdraw from the war-shattered Horn of Africa nation, AFP reports
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the chief of the executive arm of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), said Somalis must defend their nation against Ethiopian Woyanne forces deployed in Mogadishu to bolster the feeble government.
“Our country was attacked by Woyanne Ethiopia, who are trying to colonise Somalia,” Ahmed said in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, the base of the exiled ICU.
“We have the right to defend our country. We are compelled to attack Woyanne Ethiopia. They will be pushed out from Somalia and we will take back our freedom by force,” he added.
“We have a right to live in peace and in freedom and a right to manage our affairs ourselves … Until we get that point, we will continue the fighting,” Ahmed said.
Since wresting back control of Mogadishu in April, insurgents have switched to guerrilla tactics, carrying out daily hit-and-run shootings, roadside bomb and grenade attacks against government targets.
The Islamists and elders from Mogadishu’s dominant Hawiye clan refused to participate in internationally backed peace talks in Mogadishu, which opened on July 15, marking a key setback to the latest efforts to normalise the paralysed nation.
Instead, the Islamists and other foes of Somalia’s weak President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed are planning on opening parallel 10-day peace talks in Asmara on September 1.
Although Ahmed urged the United Nations and Western powers to support the Islamist initiative, he renewed salvos against the United States, which backed Woyanne Ethiopia in its moves to drive Islamists from Somalia.
“The US is supporting Woyanne Ethiopia, supporting the dictator Meles Zenawi who is killing our people,” Ahmed said. “We appeal to European countries, to the US, to the UN, to support us,” he added.
Ahmed, who is regarded as a moderate in the movement that Western intelligence has said has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda extremists, flatly rejected the claims.
“There are no al-Qaeda members in Somalia and we are not terrorists: we are simply Somalis,” he said.
Somalia, home to about 10-million people, disastrously collapsed after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre paved the way for a bloody power scramble that has defied numerous efforts to restore peace.
OSAKA, Japan: Kenenisa Bekele needs almost no practice to win at 10,000 meters.
Ferensay Legacion is Wzt. Bertukan’s neighborhood. It is also an area that was savagely attacked by Woyanne tanks and Agazi special forces during the Nov. 2005 civil unrest when the residents tried to protect their favorite daughter from being taken away by security forces. To avoid further boodshed, Bertukan surrendered herself to the Woyanne, saving the neighborhood from Mogadishu-like devastation.