Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 17 April 2003 — Page 10

age 10 • The Muncie Times • April 17, 2003

AFRICAN BRIEFS

ETHIOPIAN ATHLETE IS DOUBLE WORLD CHAMPION TWO YEARS RUNNING By Gabriel Packard Laussane, Switzerland, March 31 (GIN) - Ethiopian runner Kenenisa Bekene set a new record at the World Cross Country Running Championships in Switzerland this weekend by winning both the long and the short distance titles for the second year in a row. Bekene, who is just 20 years old, said that as a boy he was inspired by world-champion Ethiopian runner Haile Gebreselassie. “When I saw Haile running,” Bekene told the BBC, “I thought that perhaps one day I could be like him.” And now, even at this early stage in his career. Bekene is in a strong position to ascend to the heights of success reached by Gebreselassie, arguably the world’s greatest ever distance runner. Last month Gebreselassie said that when he retires from athletics he is going to enter Ethiopian politics. Bekene’s two wins elped Ethiopia to finish oint winners of the .•ompetition along with Kenya - both countries won six events. KENYA: PUBLIC OUTRAGED BY MPS’ MASSIVE PAY HIKE

By Gabriel Packard Nairobi, March 31 (GIN) - Kenya’s people and its media have condemned a parliamentary vote in which members of parliament elected to award themselves about $43,000 each to import duty-free personal vehicles. The vote Wednesday came about one month after the government agreed to a massive pay rise fox Kenya’s 223 MPs. This so-called “mobile indulgence” was presented to the House by Minister of Finance David Mwiraria, who was “blackmailed” into doing so by the Mps, according to a report in Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper. According to the Daily Nation, the MPs threatened to block Mwiraria's bid to increase the government’s budget to pay for free healthcare and primary education - both of these measures were election promises made by Mwai Kibake, who since being elected President in December has worked to reduce corruption in Kenya. The national media has categorically condemned the car allowance, which comes at a time when Kenya’s economy is ailing, its teachers and other public workers are underpaid, and its national debt stands at about $5.3 billion.

EGYPT: ARCHEOLOGISTS FIND OLDESTKNOWN MUMMIES by Gabriel Packard Cairo, March 3 1 (GIN) n Inside a 5,000-year-old wooden coffin archeologists have found the mummified or preserved remains of a person who lived under Egypt’s first dynasty - between 3100BC and 2890BC. “This is...the oldest evidence of mummification in Egypt,” said Zahi Hawass, Egyptfs Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiques. The discovery was made in one of more than 20 mud-brick tombs, once owned by officials during the first dynasty, in the desert near what is now Egypt’s capital city Cairo. “We are continuing our excavations to reveal more about the tombs of the officials who ruled Egypt under the kings of dynasty one,” said Hawass. The ancient Egyptian civilization was highly advanced and had technologies in medicine, construction and astrology thousands of years before modem science. ZIMBABWE: OPPOSITION WINS TWO BYELECTIONS AND CALLS FOR REFORM

Harare, Apr. 1 (IRIN) - As Zimbabwe's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), celebrated two by-election victories in the capital on Monday, the country's security forces were setting up road blocks ahead of an opposition deadline for the government to meet demands on political reforms. Delighted over winning the Harare seats of Highfield and Kuwadzana at the weekend, MDC information director Nkanyiso Maqeda told IRIN: “We couldn’t be happier. This is a victory over oppression. The people have shown their resilience against all odds. They have had enough of the hunger and intimidation that has become part of their daily lives.” Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) spokesman Thomas Bvuma told IRIN that in Highfield, MDC candidate Pearson Mungofa won 8,759 votes against his closest rival ZANU-PF's Joseph Chinotimba's 4,844. In Kuwadzana, the MDC's Nelson Chamisa scooped 12,548 to ZANU-PF's David Mutasa's 5,022 ballots. The seats were seen as a crucial test for the MDC who had lost a string of recent byelections to the ruling ZANU-PF. Losing seats in their urban stronghold would also

have allowed ZANU-PF to inch closer to the twothirds majority required to make constitutional amendments. The conduct of the elections were also seen as crucial for the future stability of the country. The police and the ESC said their investigations into complaints of violence and intimidation had not turned up any evidence. But Bidi Munyaradzi, national director of the human rights NGO ZimRights, which had been among the poll monitoring groups, disagreed. He said his organisation would release a report on Tuesday. Among those arrested was MDC vicepresident Gibson Sibanda, who was picked-up on Monday in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo. Assistant Commissioner of Police Wayne Bvudzijena told IRIN that although he was not yet in a position to provide details, Sibanda’s arrest was related to alleged activities in an MDC-run general strike on 18 and 19 March. SA: ANTI-WAR PROTESTERS CALL FOR EXPULSION OF US & UK AMBASSADORS By Gabriel Packard Cape Town, Apr. 1 (GIN) - More than 10,000 South Africans protested continue on page 11.