Ethiopian Team Tact Floors Farah, Kenya Miss Out

By Timothy Olobulu

Nairobi — A well executed team tact by the Ethiopian athletes in the 5,000m floored home boy and crowd favorite Mo Farah on his final goodbye racing on track for Great Britain, 2012 World Junior Champion Muktar Edris picking gold with Farah coming home second for silver.

Kenya entirely missed out on a medal with the only representative Cyrus Rutto crossing the finish line 13th after losing out on gas in the final two laps of an electric race.

A huge dip of strength by Edris saw him cross the line in 13:32.79 with a striving Farah only managing silver in a time of 13:33.22. Kenyan-born American Paul Chelimo, Rio 2016 silver medalist came through for the bronze just dipping past Kejelcha who was fourth.

A lover of sports who seeks to tell the African story in an African way. Top ten finalist of the Abu Dhabi Sports Media Pearl Awards. Be it on the pitch, court, track, pool or course, the story will be told. Read more here

Two Million Animals Lost to Drought in Ethiopia - FAO

August 12, 2017 - The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) disclosed that two million animals have been lost to a “devastating” drought in Ethiopia. The drought had devastated Ethiopian herders’ livelihoods as it exhausted pastures and water sources. It also said the current food and nutrition crisis in Ethiopia was significantly aggravated by the severe blow to pastoral livelihoods.

“For livestock-dependent families in Ethiopia, the animals can literally mean the difference between life and death – especially for children, pregnant and nursing mothers, for whom milk is a crucial source of nutrition.

“With up to two million animals lost so far in Ethiopia, FAO is focusing on providing emergency livestock support to the most vulnerable pastoralist communities through animal vaccination and treatment, supplementary feed and water, rehabilitating water points, and supporting fodder and feed production”.

FAO stressed that supporting the Ethiopian herders to get back on their feet and prevent further livestock losses was crucial in the Horn of Africa country, where hunger had been on the rise.

“The drought has led to a significant number of animals dying or falling ill, particularly in the southern and south-eastern regions of Ethiopia, as other areas recover from previous seasons’ El Niño-induced drought,” the UN agency warned.

It also said that drought-hit Ethiopian pastoralists were facing reduced milk production, rising malnutrition, and had limited income-earning capacity and severely constrained access to food.

Abdoul Bah, FAO Deputy Representative in Ethiopia, said “Some 8.5 million people – one in 12 people – are now suffering from hunger; of these, 3.3 million people live in Somali Region.

Source:- Nigeria pmnews

Swiss charge Ethiopian imam with inciting violence

ZURICH: Swiss prosecutors have charged an Ethiopian imam with inciting violence and other offenses, they said on Friday, alleging he called in a mosque sermon for followers to kill Muslims who did not pray in the community.
The step by prosecutors in the northern town of Winterthur comes amid heightened sensitivity to the risk of Islamist violence in Switzerland, whose spy agency warned about the threat in May.
Prosecutors did not name the imam, one of four people they said were linked to the local An’Nur mosque and who have been under investigation since November on suspicion of inciting criminal or violent acts.
“In his homily of Oct. 21, 2016, in the An’Nur Mosque, he is accused among other things of calling for expelling Muslims who do not pray in the community, and even burning them and killing them in their homes if they still refuse,” the prosecutors said in a statement.
He was also accused of sharing brutal depictions of killings via Facebook and of working as an imam without authorization.
Prosecutors are seeking an 18-month suspended sentence and expulsion from Switzerland for 15 years for the cleric, who has been held in investigative custody since November.
Efforts to reach the mosque were not immediately successful. A number listed for the An’Nur cultural association that runs the mosque was no longer in service.
Swiss federal authorities say they have identified more than 500 Internet users with Swiss connections who were using social media to spread jihadist ideas.
Concerns about militancy and potential attacks led Swiss voters to back a law last year extending the national spy service’s authority to monitor Internet traffic, deploy drones and hack foreign computer systems.
Switzerland has so far not been targeted directly in an Islamist attack, but it has had several links to attacks elsewhere in Europe last year. Read more here

Father of Ethiopia's tourism", Habteselassie Tafesse, laid to rest

ADDIS ABABA, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- The man known as "the father of Ethiopia's tourism", Habteselassie Tafesse, was laid to rest on Sunday at a funeral held on the premises of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.

Habteselassie, known to have coined the phrase, "13 Months of Sunshine," the country's popular tourism slogan, had contributed hugely to the establishment and development of the tourism industry in the East African country.

Ethiopia last year officially launched its new brand, "Ethiopia, Land of Origins."

Having assumed different government posts, the late has played role in the establishment of various tourism and related institutions, which have immense contribution to the promotion and development of the sector in Ethiopia.

He died at the age of 90 last Wednesday, on August 9, and his funeral on Sunday was attended by senior government officials, representatives of different public and private offices, families and friends of the late among others.

Speaking on the occasion, Hirut Woldemariam, Ethiopian Minister of Culture and Tourism, has hailed Habteselassie's accomplishment in promoting Ethiopia and the country's tourist destinations and products at home, and to international audience.

The minister recalled the prizes awarded to him by the incumbent government in recognition of his achievements and promotion of the country's tourism industry.

She noted that Habteselassie had carried out various activities to promote Ethiopia to the outside world and increase tourist flows to the country, even at times when there were no as such infrastructure development and facilities in the country.

He was showered with various prizes and awards from different governmental and non-governmental organizations for his contribution and achievements of promoting the country's tourism. Read more here

Ethiopia's capital to tackle issue of polluted rivers

A view of a river in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on August 4, 2017. Rivers in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa have become increasingly polluted, but a rehabilitation effort hopes to replenish them.

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

Rivers in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa have become increasingly polluted, but a rehabilitation effort hopes to replenish them.

The capital's six rivers and streams meander across irregular terrain towards the south or southeast, crossing the capital for a total of over 600 kilometers (373 miles).

Too small to be navigable, too polluted to support life, they can be turned into an aesthetically satisfying area of repose, hopes the city administration.

Introduced two years ago, the five-year Rivers’ Rehabilitation Project has already deployed hundreds to work on cleaning the rivers and river beds.

“The project has been designed to turn the rivers into something people would yearn to spend time at,” says Weredeqal Gebrekirstos, senior public relations officer at the project office.

He told Anadolu Agency that the more than $40 million project should see some of the most degraded river banks rehabilitated.

“We have 14 [initiatives] related to the cleaning, greening, rehabilitation of degraded river banks and a comprehensive study to identify what to do next,” Gebrekirstos said.

'Liquid wastes'

A recent study conducted by the Center for Environmental Science of the College of Natural Science at Addis Ababa University has found that rivers in the city have become polluted both due to industrial waste leakages and household wastes.

“Addis Ababa is home to more than 2,000 industries, which comprises 65 percent of all industries in the country and most of them, located along the river banks which are mostly found in the western and southern parts of the city, discharge these effluents directly to the river.

As much as 90 percent of these industries do not have any kind of treatment plant and discharge their solid, liquid and gaseous wastes untreated into the environment,” says the study released in March of this year.

“Depositing solid and liquid wastes and dangerous substances in rivers and riversides has been a common practice in Addis Ababa,” it adds.

The study, which focuses on the Akaki river, further claims that people growing vegetables downstream were being affected by the presence of chemical components.

Indeed, near the river, around 390 hectares of land irrigated for vegetables, such as potatoes, were said to show traces of “toxic elements such as zinc, nickel, mercury, copper, cadmium and chromium”.

"For a long time, it has been known that intake of food that contains high levels of heavy metals, poses risks to human health,” adds the study.

When you are over 40 in Addis Ababa, you fondly remember times spent at various riverbanks to swim, to relax, wash clothes, or contemplate the toads.

'Toxic eyesores'

Now in his mid-forties, Eyob Tadelle, works at the Economic Commission for Africa -- a spacious majestic building complex located near the area where he spent most of his childhood, close to the Bulbula river, which crosses through Addis Ababa before flowing southward.

“I witnessed closely how the relatively clean river Bulbula flanking my village gradually became no better than one of the many open-ditch sewage spillways,” he said, a far cry from the "lush green where I, along with my village peers, played football and other games”.

“I believe I am a living witness to how these rivers drastically turned into toxic eyesores,” he said adding they had been long “abandoned” and “abused”.

“I am still an optimist. Restoration is possible if we could rein in the untrammeled consumerism devoid of ecological sensibilities.”

The rehabilitation project has garnered some successes, namely in the greening areas along the course of several rivers and streams, in building constructing walkways as well as in preventing landslides and further degradation.

“Our priority in addition to re-greening denuded areas has been preventing further degradation and landslides by building gabions [wire baskets filled with rocks] and walkways,” project spokesman Gebrekirstos said.

The magnitude of the problem, he said, “is too big to address by the present effort alone,” suggesting other partners, namely the private sector, should chip in. Read more here