IAAF, Sunday March 14, 2010. Ethiopia did take another women’s 1500m title, but the gold didn’t go to defending champion Gelete Burka.

Running with the grit and determination of a seasoned veteran, 18-year-old Kalkidan Gezahegne effortlessly kicked past Burka and Spaniard Natalia Rodriguez to become the youngest woman to ever win a World indoor title.

“I was hesitating to attack after falling down in the heats,” said Gezahegne, whose tumble to the track and brave run to victory was perhaps the major highlight on the opening day of competition. “At the end my finish was enough.”

Her spectacular comeback in the heats already displayed to the world the determination of Gezahegne, who at 18 years and 310 days old, outdid a very familiar name as the youngest ever World indoor champion: Gabriela Szabo of Romania who won her first 3000m title in 1995 when she was 19 years and just under four months old. That was a stat, though, that Gezahegne didn’t think about much at all.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said. “That is an excellent feeling.” An excellent feeling to match a finely executed race.

Kenyan Irene Jelagat took the early lead, controlling the tempo ahead of Burka, European champion Anna Alminova of Russia, Gezahegne and Sylwia Ejdys of Poland. With laps in the 33 to 35-second range, the order didn’t change until 700 metres remained, when Burka made her move for the front. 

She was immediately shadowed by her younger compatriot, with Jelagat and Ejdys following single fie just a few strides behind. The boldest move of the race came next when American Erin Donohue, just a 4:12 runner indoors and sitting near the tail end of the 10-woman field, went for broke and made her way to front.

She managed to work her way into second place, but Burka held firm. Donohue couldn’t maintain the rapidly increasing pace for long, and was swallowed up first by Gezahegne, and then Natalia Rodriguez, who took the lead a few steps from the bell. But it wasn’t hers for long.

Burka, who was knocked to the ground and out of contention at last year’s World Championships in Berlin by Rodriguez, retook the lead from the Spaniard as they entered the final turn, with Gezahegne following on the outside. Entering the homestretch it was the teenager who proved stronger, running wide to pass Burka and eventually reach the line in 4:08.14. It was among the slowest performances of the youngster’s career, but certainly the biggest victory.

Rodriguez, who took silver behind Burka in Valencia two years ago, kicked past the Ethiopian over the final 50 metres to successfully defend her silver medal, clocking 4:08.30, 0.09 ahead of Burka.

“I was very tense after Berlin and I really wanted to prove myself,” said Rodriguez, who was disqualified shortly after crossing the line first in Berlin last summer.

Rising Polish star Ejdys was fourth in 4:09.24, while Jelagat just edged Donohue 4:09.57 to 4:09.59, personal bests for both.

But the day belonged to Gezahegne. Perhaps the future, too.

“I’ve been running and training for only three years,” said Gezahegne, who ran to World junior silver in the event in 2008 and reached the final in Berlin last summer. “And already being a World champion is very special. But my career is just beginning.”

Bob Ramsak for IAAF

Saturday, 13 March 2010 , IOL

Addis Ababa - Ethiopia on Saturday slammed the United States for a report that criticised its human rights record, claiming that it demonstrated "serious intellectual deficiencies".

The US State Department released its annual Human Rights Report on Thursday, which cited complaints of illegal detention, torture and killings, as well as violations of press and religious freedom in Ethiopia.

"The authors actually claim to make 'every effort' to verify all the information in the document. If so, they cannot have tried very hard," the Ethiopian foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.

"The report frequently repeats erroneous claims from previous years even when the government has provided detailed evidence to the contrary."

The US report also criticised Addis Ababa's handling of its opposition's political campaigns ahead of May elections.

Opposition groups have accused Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling party of repeated harassment in order to prolong its stay in power.

"The constitution provides citizens the right to change their government peacefully and to freely join a political organization of their choice," the report said.

"However, in practice these rights were restricted through bureaucratic obstacles and government and ruling party intimidation and arrest."

Ethiopia, Washington's main Horn of Africa ally, dismissed the claims.

"This report demonstrates serious intellectual deficiencies and flaws, and most seriously, a fundamental and structural difference over how and where democracy can be encouraged in a country like Ethiopia," it said.

Ethiopia's elections will take place on May 23, the first since 2005 when disputed results sparked violence that claimed some 200 lives. - Sapa-AFP

 Peter Heinlein | Addis Ababa11 March 2010  VOA

The U.S. State Department's annual human rights reports says Ethiopia is holding several hundred political prisoners, including the leader of one of the country's largest opposition parties. Ethiopia has reacted strongly to past U.S. criticisms of its rights record.

The 2009 human rights report says Birtukan Mideksa, president of Ethiopia's opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice party, was held in solitary confinement for the first six months of the year despite a court ruling that it violated her constitutional rights. The 61-page document says there were credible reports that Birtukan's mental health deteriorated significantly during the year.

Birtukan was among scores of political activists sentenced to life in prison following Ethiopia's disputed 2005 election, then later pardoned. She was jailed again in December, 2008 and ordered to serve out her life sentence after refusing to apologize for saying she had not requested the pardon.

The 35-year-old single mother was recently listed by the U.N. Human Rights Council as a victim of arbitrary detention, and by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. But at news conference late last year, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles Zenawi staunchly defended her re-imprisonment, saying it was based on 'elementary notions of the rule of law'.

"She had her day in court, was sentenced by this independent court," he said. "This lady was advised by anybody, everybody who could talk to her, including diplomats, elders and even some members of her party that it would be wrong for her to go to prison simply because she wouldn't correct the wrong statement that she made and expose herself to reinstatement of the court's decision. She refused to do so because she was convinced some human rights organizations abroad, her supporters and sympathizers both abroad and here, would spring her out of prison. We knew that was a very dangerous miscalculation."

The 2009 State Department report alleges numerous violations of press and academic freedom in Ethiopia, as well as what are called restrictions of the people's right to change their government peacefully.

With Ethiopia's next national elections less than three months away, the report noted that the ruling party and its allies had won all but three of the seats contested in the 2008 nationwide local elections. The report also questioned the government claim of a 93-percent voter turnout in the 2008 vote, saying no foreign observers had been allowed.

An Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman said no response has yet been prepared to this year's State Department report. But in answer to the 2008 report, the government published a 68-page booklet calling the allegations 'baseless work of rumormongers and political opportunists'. It said much of the information came from non-governmental organizations and opposition groups which survive on U.S. government funding.

Ethiopia's parliament has since approved a law forbidding any NGO that receives more than 10 percent of its funds from foreign sources from  promoting human and democratic rights.

The acting U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia, John Yates, Thursday defended the contents of the 2009 report. He said the authors make every effort to verify all information in the document.

"We gather information from lots of different sources, then we here in Addis and our people in the United States try hard to examine and verify reports before putting them into the human rights report," said John Yates. "We consult a lot of people, but we don't accept anything at face value until we do our best to verify, and if we can't verify to some degree, it's not included."

The annual State Department human rights report is mandated by Congress. This year's two-million word document covers conditions in 194 countries.

Introducing the 2009 report, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called it the most comprehensive record available on the status of human rights worldwide.

Mail Online  Wednesday, 10 March 2010 

 Bob Geldof branded the BBC World Service a 'rotten old cherry' yesterday for claiming that millions of pounds raised by Band Aid and Live Aid were spent on weapons.

In a vitriolic attack, the singer accused the radio station of a 'total collapse of standards'.

He threatened to take legal action against the corporation after it reported that more than £70million of the money raised to fight famine in Ethiopia was intercepted by rebel fighters.

But Geldof - the mastermind behind the Live Aid concerts in 1985 - faces calls to prove that the BBC report was misleading.

David Davies, Tory MP for Monmouth, said the campaigner should 'carry out his own investigation', adding: 'I am surprised he is so angry at the BBC who have actually alerted the public to a possible catastrophe.'

The row broke out last week after the World Service broadcast a programme in which Aregawi Berhe, a former Ethiopian rebel commander, claimed that in 1985 only 5 per cent of the £75million destined for famine relief in the northern province of Tigray reached the hungry.

The report - by Africa editor Martin Plaut - also carried an allegation from another former rebel that the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front had tricked aid workers into giving them money. 

Geldof refuses to be pacified by the corporation's insistence that the documentary was 'a well researched and carefully argued piece of journalism'. 

In an article in The Guardian yesterday, he called for Mr Plaut, Andrew Whitehead - news and current affairs editor at World Service - and station director Peter Horrocks to be fired.

David Bowie, Linda and Paul McCartney and Bob Geldof take part in a Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium in 1985

'I consider the real story of this sorry saga to be the systemic failure of the World Service, the cherry on the cake of the BBC's reputation,' he wrote.

'It is a rotten old cherry these days. And I am as bereft as a jilted lover.'

The aid agencies which were in Ethiopia during the famine all deny the BBC's allegations, but some privately admit that ensuring help reaches the needy can be difficult amid a civil war.

Andrew Hogg, from Christian Aid, said: 'You cannot run these hugely damaging allegations based on the say so of two former members of the TPLF.

'A simple check on Google will show that you are not dealing with two disinterested individuals.'

An Oxfam spokesman said: 'The programme is misleading and it implies something that did not happen. Lives were saved.'