The Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, which hosts the final race of the Formula One season in two weeks’ time will be put to further sporting effort on 7 January 2010, as Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru, and recently crowned four-time World Half Marathon champion Zersenay Tadese have been signed-up for the Zayed International Half Marathon, a race which was last held in 2008.

With $300,000 first prize on offer, a successful run in Abu Dhabi for the 22-year-old Wanjiru will mean winnings of close to one million dollars in a little over two months.

His victory in Chicago last weekend not only won him $175,000, but it also wrapped up the World Marathon Majors’ Jackpot of $500,000, which he will formally pick up in New York in two weeks’ time.

The young Kenyan won the inaugural Zayed International Half Marathon in January 2008, but the race was cancelled in early 2009, while waiting for finalisation of the Yas Marina circuit.

Wanjiru is World record holder for the half marathon, with his 58:33 in The Hague in 2007, and his translation to the marathon has been the most successful in history, with victory in his last four races, including the Olympic Games, in superfast times, between 2:05:10 and 2:06:39.

As his elder statesman colleague, former world marathon record holder, Paul Tergat said last week, “It’s only a matter of time before Wanjiru breaks the marathon world record.”

It won’t be an easy $300,000 in Abu Dhabi however as reigning four-time World Half Marathon champion Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea will also be on the start line, having just blitzed the hopes of many of the world’s best half marathoners on the streets of Birmingham on 11 October.

Also in the field will be this year’s fastest, Kenyan Patrick Makau (58:52) who has twice been World Half Marathon silver medallist on the heels of the Eritrean’s victories in 2007 and 2008.

The women’s race will also feature a stellar line-up.

The world record holder for the Half Marathon Kenyan born Kiplagat, now running for of the Netherlands, who won the last edition of the Zayed International Half Marathon in 2008 is also signed up.

However, there must be serious question marks surrounding Kiplagat’s participation given that she has been sidelined with a knee injury for most of 2009 and recently had to withdraw from the defence of her World Half Marathon title in Birmingham.

But, 27-year-old Mary Keitany of Kenya, who has the top two times in the world this year, including the second best ever, 66:36, and won the World title in Birmingham in the absence of reigning three-time champion Kiplagat has also been secured for the race on 7 January. Source: (IAAF)

Filmon Ghirmai, or “Fili” as the Germans nicknamed him, is Germany’s best 3000 metre steeplechase athlete with origins in Eritrea.

Like many of his colleagues in the athletic sports world Filmon has to keep the balance between being a professional athlete, employee and entrepreneur.

By the age of 17 Filmon used already to draw media attention, because he was perceived as one of the young hopefuls for the national athletic sport.

The 30 year old sprinter was born in Eritrea and knows how it is, having to meet all expectations without loosing a single smile.

In 2007, he sprinted to victory during the European Cup in Athletics in Munich. Early this year he won the 10000 meters as an underdog in a smaller competition, leading to the German Championship in Athletics this summer.

Filmon is always aiming to remain free and independent in what he is doing. No one knows better than Filmon Ghirmai himself, that this sometimes is the tougher road to go for the price of greater freedom.

Intending to keep his career options balanced and free, with a business degree and a half day job at a German company, “Fili” became a one-man corporation.

For many years he used to be trained and managed by Dieter Bauman, who is a former middle- distance runner and Olympic champion from Germany. There is an athletic profile of Filmon Ghirmai at the home page of the German Athletics Federation.

Today the Eritrean born sprinter is his own manager and aiming to qualify for the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics 2009 in Berlin. Therefore, he has to run the steeplechase in 8:23 minutes during the German Championships in Athletics in the beginning of July.

The preparations for these competitions are to 95% done by Filmon himself without any third party coaching. This can mean more than just physical preparations, since someone also has to deal with the commercial management of issues related to such competitions.

As a one-man show, the athlete has to take care of public relation and marketing of his brand, in order to assure that funds and sponsors are coming in.

This has become a very difficult task, especially in times of a financial downturn, such as face right know. So far he has found Asics shoe manufacturer and a local mineral water company as his sponsors. However, Filmon Ghirmai knows that he would not have to worry about sponsors anymore, if he should qualify for the World Championship in Berlin.

Moreover, he seems to have the survival instinct of an Eritrean, because people who know “Fili” say; “If he makes it to Berlin, he will definitely aim for the 2012 Olympics in London.”.

Vancouver, British Columbia: Sunridge Gold Corp. announced today in a press release that an independent preliminary economic evaluation of the Emba Derho copper, zinc and gold deposit in Eritrea was positive. The independent assessment was done by Wardrop Engineering Inc., which is a subsidiary of the Tetra Tech Group.

The experts have estimated that the deposit would provide 4 million tonnes of Ore with a life span of 10.4 years and that it might be possible to extend the mine life. Ore is a mixture of minerals, from which on or more metals such as copper, zinc or gold may be extracted.

Further, it is said that a special plant could process annually 55,000t zinc, 25,000t copper, 20,000oz gold and 0.6moz silver. The rate of return on the investment of $331.8 million with sustaining capital of $67.3 million has been estimated to 21.6% with 4 years payback.

The independent consulting company has suggested that Sunridge Gold moves on to the next stage in the Emba Derho project and possibly considers the extension of the exploration area, due to a big exploration potential in the region.

In addition, Wardrop believes that cost measures such as using the existing Eritrean railway line to transport minerals to the port of Massawa or sharing the costs of port facilities with Nevsun Resources could increase profitability.

The CEO of Sunridge gold believes that the study reveals a big potential of the deposit to become a large base metal producer. He further acknowledges the big support of the Government of Eritrea and the local community.

Moreover, he points out, that an excellent local infrastructure with paved roads, power and water supply as well as the short distance to the port of Massawa will help to move to production in a relatively short period of time.

ATI reports that African carriers, represented by the African Airlines Association (AFRAA), have not escaped the downturn and are likely to suffer heavy losses in 2009.

AFRAA president and LAM Mozambique Airlines chairman Jose Viegas says first quarter profitability has been “quite poor”, after lower fuel costs and capacity adjustments failed to offset falling traffic and yields.

He adds that the world financial crisis will “most certainly hit African airlines during 2009″, causing record operating losses and significant budgetary constraint. “According to IATA research, Africa will be hit by losses of up to $300 million in operating results and $600 million in net profits,” says Viegas.

But the AFRAA president notes that “Africa hasn’t plummeted to the bottom line yet” and traffic volumes are expected to pick up from the third quarter of 2009.

Tourism is a key driver for the region and the 2010 World Cup is expected to boost passenger and cargo revenues in South Africa and neighbouring countries.

Viegas says: “Southern African airlines are facing an unprecedented crisis. In the last 12 months alone, some have filed for bankruptcy. The lack of cash flow has hit the region’s so called ‘big brothers’ too.”

He says the commercial aviation is “under pressure” and “shaky”, creating an urgent need for partnerships. He is backing stronger regional relationships, “energising” of some hubs, flight schedule co-ordination and other commercial co-operation as key ingredients in the recipe for recovery.

Lusaka (Zambia) - The organisation for a common market for Eastern and Southern Africa COMESA, is going to hold the 13th summit of the Head of States 2009 from the 7th to the 8th of June in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

COMESA was established in the 1960s in order to enhance regional economic co-operation between the participating member countries.

Member states are Burundi, Comoros, D.R Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Uganda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Rwanda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The slogan used by the organisation is; “400 million Africans UNITED in ONE market”.

COMESA is expected to announce the launch of a customs union between all member states during the coming summit. Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of Congo have each been chosen to present a COMESA project, which is serving as a testimonial during the summit for the planned customs union .

Eritrea is presenting the EU funded COMESA project ASYCUDA, which is an undertaking in cooperation with the Eritrean Customs Department.

ASYCUDA was launched in five African countries in 2006 with a budget of 3 Million Euros. One of the goals of ASYCUDA is to improve the exchange of transit data between borders through web services.

According to Mr. Haile, the Eritrean Director General of the Customs Department in Eritrea, the project is aiming to modernize the administrative and operational infrastructure of Eritrea’s customs administration, in order to keep up with the global development of computerized systems.

The project was launched three years ago, aiming to computerize the whole Eritrean customs operation in order to enhance statistical processing, accounts management , declaration processing, goods release and report generation.

In 2007 the first implementation of ASYCUDA was finalized at Asmara Airport. In the following year 2008 Asmara Railway customs station, the port of Massawa and the port of Assab customs stations received their ASYCUDA upgrade.

Mr. Haile states, that the initial project scope did not include the post station and the airport passenger terminal in Asmara. However, the system modernization was also implemented at these facilities. Future plans aim to extend the project to Tesseney customs station on the border to Sudan.

The planned COMESA customs union is intended to facilitate trade between the member countries and reduce bureaucratic barriers in order to improve productivity.

When travelling in Eritrea, there is a big chance that the bus line from Asmara to Massawa is operated with a Toyota Coaster (see pictures below).

Most visitors to Eritrea will notice that Toyota is a quite well established brand in the country, because a variety of models such as land cruisers, lorries or buses are dominating the streets of major towns. Toyota has in recent years specialized on producing cars made for road conditions such as in Africa or the Middle East.

There are two manufacturing sites on the continent, one in South Africa and the other in Kenya, which combined with overseas imports assure the supply to the market. The distribution is managed by associated partner companies in 27 African countries, which then take care of the marketing, sales and maintenance of Toyota cars .

In Eritrea Toyota is marketing the following models:

The associated partner of Toyota in Eritrea is the Anberbeb Share Company ASCO) in the capital Asmara. The company is also running a garage, which next to general dealer activities, offer a leasing and rental service for vehicles. Eritrea belongs to one of the small markets such as Toyota in Djibouti, with annual car sales remaining below 1000 cars and therefore, has been excluded by Toyota from the statistic below. The biggest markets in terms of car sales are South Africa, Algeria and Egypt according to the Toyota Regional Report 2005 (see graph).

ASMARA, May 7 (Xinhua) — Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki on Thursday underscored that stability is the most important factor to promote economic and social development in the African country. Isaias made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Xinhua ahead of the upcoming 16th anniversary of the founding of the State of Eritrea.

“Many may underestimate the importance of stability, but talking about achievements, you have to talk about the preconditions for achievements, and we believe stability is a basic requirement. Without stability, it is very difficult to talk about achievements in the economy, achievements in social programs and other sectors,” the Eritrean president noted.

He added that his country has been able to consolidate the stability based on the long political tradition in Eritrea, in spited of the regional and international challenges.

Isaias also mentioned the achievements in the infrastructure in the past years since independence as his government has adopted a strategy to guarantee the development of infrastructure in the sectors of mining, agriculture, tourism and industry among others.

Eritrea is “in the right track of putting in place a viable infrastructure that will create a conducing framework for investment and then development”, taking consideration of the timespan and the limitation of resources, he noted.

Isaias also explained that his country started from nothing in the field of social service, including healthcare and education, while such service is currently being provided to the Eritrea people in the above fields.

On the recent development of the bilateral ties with China, the Eritrean president said that the strategic partnership between the two countries has developed at a high speed, which was successful in many fields, as the relation between the two countries went beyond the establishment of diplomatic ties on the exact day of Eritrea’s independence.

He expressed the intention of his country to expand cooperation with China in critical economic sectors with priorities on mining, infrastructure and agriculture, as well as service.

On the implementation of the eight major moves China would take to develop relations with Africa, which was announced at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2006, Isaias said the Forum boost the strategic partnership between China and Africa to a higher level.

The president said that many countries in the Africa see the fruits and achievements, with the understanding that China will bring changes to Africa, promote the economic development in the continent.

He also expected China and Africa to grasp the opportunity during the current global economic crisis to strengthen the bilateral cooperation, as African countries appreciate the investment style of “mutual benefit and common development” initiated by China in Africa as a “two-way cooperation.”

African countries should boost coordination to adopt realistic polices to meet the challenges facing the continent and the Sino-African cooperation and benefit from the Chinese investment and the strategic partnership, Isaias noted, calling for more efforts to develop Africa as a viable market.

The Eritrean president also praised the successful handling of the serious earthquake in Wenchuan in China’s southwest province of Sichuan in May 2008, which made China more prepared to deal with natural disasters in the future.

On the upcoming 60th founding anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in October, Isaias sent congratulations to the Chinese people as China has developed into a major world economic power in the past years and made contributions to world peace and prosperity.

“We, not only here in Eritrea, but along the continent in everywhere, would wish the Chinese people to continue along the same path so that we see more of positive change and cooperation between China and other peoples, ” he concluded.

Eritrea, which currently has a population of about 5 million, formally announced its independence from Ethiopia in 1993.

Chinese News Agency Xinhua reports that Chinese Ambassador to Eritrea Shu Zhan is expecting trade and cultural relations with Eritrea to be strengthened further.

Shu points out that China has already aided a hospital, two schools and one human and social science institute to Eritrea and that trade volumes of China with Eritrea have reached $31 Million in 2008, which was a 7.6% increase compared to 2007.

The statements of the Ambassador follow previous steps taken by China and African countries to improve bilateral trade relations. For example, in August 2008 the China Development Bank signed a credit agreement worth $50 Million with PTA Bank, which stands for Eastern and Southern African Development Bank.

The shareholders of the PTA Bank are Eritrea, Burundi, Comoros, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

The credit was supposed to support industrial sectors, which require heavy investment such as mining, telecommunication and infrastructure and was a result of the Bejing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in 2006.

China is also involved in the gold mining projects in Eritrea with companies such as Donia Resources & Co (capitaleritrea).

Having worked in East Europe for several years and as an Eritrean, I came across a quite unique and somehow familiar experience of life. It reminded me of my childhood in the early 80s, when my parents migrated to Germany during the liberation struggle in Eritrea.

Eritrean families used to be rather huge in size at that time. The German authorities settled us far out from every civilisation in a small village near the boarder to France. Hence, the villagers were quiet curios’ and astonished about the newcomers, which I did not understand at that time.

We were the only black family within a radius of 31 miles from the place we were living. No wonder that we were an attraction in many ways for the local people.

Some of the locals felt sorry, and tried to make life easier for us by inviting us to their home or helping us with formalities. I just remember one funny occasion, when our whole family was invited to a nights out at our neighbours place. When we arrived at the place there were many friends and relatives of our neighbours.

To my surprise they had placed three or four African drums at the middle of the living room and expected us to play them. In astonishment we looked at each other not knowing how to avoid disappointing our neighbours. So we started drumming the typical Eritrean “gualia” rhythm, which is no major science to do.

Honestly, no one of us new how to get African vibes and beats out of these drums. To our relieve people got bored quiet soon and the hosts changed the venue to the hobby room in order to show dia slights of their last holiday.

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In a recent Wall Street Journal report, Mr. Chernin (Board of Directors Fight against Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis) is explaining that the fight against Malaria has been a success story in countries such as Eritrea and other Horn of Africa nations. As Malaria is said to cost 1.3% of the GDP to those countries who do not progress in the fight against the disease, it shows that it can pay out for a nation to invest in getting Malaria under control. The Wall Street Journal report highlights that it would be possible to eliminate Malaria completely from the earth, if governments and nations act swiftly. Read more from the Wall Street Journal Report. In another news cast by Reuters the Lutheran World Federation claims that Malaria was a major problem for Eritrea during the 90s causing most deaths for adults and children above the age of five. Techniques introduced by the authorities in Eritrea such as:

• Sufficient Health care for Patients
• Introduction of insecticide treated nets in Eritrean rural areas such as villages
• Intensive participation of the community in draining Mosquito breading sites
• Public relation and mass media to create awareness

have helped Eritrea to nearly eradicate the disease.

On this day in 1993, after a long history of foreign rule and decades of war, the small East African country of Eritrea began three days of voting on a referendum to make official its independence from Ethiopia. The struggle for independence went on over generations of families and lasts until today in the minds of the people of Eritrea.

Egypt's health ministry says a six-year-old boy has died of bird flu, bringing the number of Egyptians killed by the virus to 24.The ministry Tuesday said the boy was from the outskirts of the Egyptia…