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PM chairs opening ceremony of 15th Arab Sports Games.
On behalf of the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the Prime Minister, Aimene Benabderrahmane chaired the opening of the 15th Arab Sports Games organized by Algeria from on 5-15 July at Mohamed-Boudiaf Olympic Complex in Algiers, with the participation of nearly 2,000 athletes representing 22 Arab countries.
The opening ceremony of the 15th Arab Sports Games hosted by Algeria (July 5-15) started Wednesday in the Mohamed Boudiaf Olympic Complex in Algiers, in the presence of Prime Minister Aymen Benabderrahmane, members of government and guests from various countries and organizations.
Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick has been the mayor of a district of the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott for 14 years. She is living proof that women can make it to the top even in conservative Muslim societies. Elisa Rheinheimer introduces a courageous Mauritanian.
Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick has a warm, maternal demeanour and a firm handshake. Keen eyes sparkle behind her glasses. A petite woman in a traditional flowing robe and a blue headscarf decorated with pink flowers, she doesn’t look like a politician in charge of a 60,000-strong community – at least not to Western eyes.
She is mayor of a district of the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott – and has been for 14 years. That makes her not only a pioneer in her own country, but also a role model for many African women. “I never actually wanted to go into politics,” she says with a laugh, “but I have a very social vein and it was a kind of calling. I wanted to change things in my city for the better.”
Now 57, she originally studied computer science in Belgium. It was during her time there that her eyes were opened to women’s opportunities. Years later, in 2001, she ran for mayor in a district in her home city of Nouakchott – and won at the first attempt. During her first period in office, she was still the only woman mayor in the country. “216 men – and me,” she says, her voice betraying well-earned pride.
Opening the door to politics for other women
In Tevragh-Zeina, the district of the capital of Nouakchott for which she is responsible, everyone knows her. She has achieved a great deal there, improving school education – particularly for girls – reforming the administration, reorganising refuse disposal and investing in infrastructure. Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick wanted to build car parks, playgrounds and football pitches – and she did.
It sounds so easy when she talks about it now, but it certainly wasn’t quite that simple: “To begin with, I found the responsibility and the expectations people placed on my shoulders a burden,” she says. “After all, I had to be successful so as to open the door for other women and enable them to get into politics.”
She has had some success in this respect. There are now three other women mayors in Mauritania. She herself has never felt uncomfortable in her country’s male-dominated political arena. “Women have a very good status in our society,” she explains, “that made it easier for me.”
Development and religion hand in hand
And religion? What role does faith play in her life? Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick looks rather perplexed, cocking her head in surprise as if she considers the question superfluous. “A very important one,” she says after a pause, “I am a Muslim.”
Development and religion, she says, are not mutually exclusive but belong together. She rejects the idea that Islam oppresses women and makes it hard for them to have a career of their own. In the Mauritanian religious tradition, she says, Islam virtually demands that women play an active role in society.
A mother of three grown children, Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick is not only a local politician but also president of the Network for Locally Elected Women of Africa. She is invited to conferences and panel discussions all over the world, flying from one continent to the next. “Being up in the air is perfectly normal for me,” she says. Sometimes 24 hours are not enough to get everything done that she wants to do.
Raising awareness of environmental issues in Mauritania
One reason for that lack of time is that she also feels responsible for environmental protection and catastrophe management in her country. Mauritania has to deal with water shortages, sandstorms and desertification.
She organises workshops in schools, for instance, to raise awareness of environmental issues among children and young people. She has launched campaigns for the protection of dunes, planted date palms in the city with women’s groups, and called on local people to clean up the country’s beaches.
Her calm, relaxed demeanour is certainly part of her recipe for success. Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick was recently re-elected for her third term in office, and has enough plans and projects in mind for the next 20 years. Mauritania is at No. 158 on the Human Development Index, close to the bottom of the ranking.
This hardworking mayor has a lot of work ahead of her. She currently has more than 3,000 fans on Facebook; in real life, there are no doubt many more than that.
While winning an Olympic medal is a personal goal for thousands of athletes, for 24 nations it is a dream that has only ever come true once. Tokyo2020.org looks at the glorious moment and the impact it had on the lives of the athletes who achieved it.
The background
Sudan made its Olympic debut at Rome 1960 and since then the country has participated in most of the Olympic Games.
Despite its nearly 50 years of participation in the Olympics, Sudan’s first medal on the world’s greatest sporting stage didn’t come until Beijing 2008, when Ismail Ahmed Ismail won silver in the men’s 800m.
Born in a Darfur farming tribe, Ismail was introduced to athletics at school. Surprisingly, instead of 800m, he started as a 3,000m runner and participated in 1,500m races as well. After watching his performance in long-distance races, the then national athletics coach Omer Khalifa advised him to move down to 800m. So he did and went to win the National Junior Championships.
In 2002, Ismail participated in the World Junior Championships in Kingston, Jamaica and finished fifth in a time of 1:47.20. Two years later, he had his first Olympic experience at Athens 2004, where he made to the 800m final after a personal best in the semi-final. But he would go on to finish last in the final.
In an interview with IAAF in 2008, Ismail explained that he was not optimistic at the prospect of winning at the Games and was exhausted in the final.
“I just wanted to do my best,” he said.
History in the making Al though Ismail continued improving his performance in 800m, since Athens he had been troubled by injuries and only took part in a few races throughout 2007. But he did not allow this setback to seize his dreams on the track.
“I knew I was going to come back. My coach (Jama Aden) was the one talking to me. I ran in the African Championships (2008, in Addis) and I was 2nd. I know I can do it again,” he said in the IAAF interview.
Somali-born Jama Aden is an Olympian himself and had coached Abdi Bile to a world title in 1987. He saw great potential in Sudanese runners like Ismail.
Aden’s confidence became a driving force behind the athletes, who trained on a land troubled by conflicts and poverty. According to a report by The Christian Science Monitor back in 2008, Ismail and his teammates had to use old paint cans filled with concrete for weight training and would run at the track at the never-completed athletics stadium surrounded by rubble. They also had to finish training before sunset as there were no floodlights.
Thanks to a rebound in early 2008, Ismail made it to Beijing 2008 together with another home favourite Abubaker Kaki, who ran a world junior 800m record of 1:42.79 at the Oslo Bislett Games in June 2008.
But a small injury stopped Kaki in the 800m semi-final in Beijing with Ismail making the final. This time, he did not let the chance go.
Placed at lane eight, Ismail had a relatively slow start but then he sped up on the second lap to pass reigning world champion Alfred Yego of Kenya. He kept the momentum until the finish line to finish behind Wilfred Bungei of Kenya. Clocking 1:44.70, he won Sudan’s long-awaited Olympic medal, a silver.
Life-changing impact
Ismail’s historic win in Beijing has another huge significance on the world outside sport. His success came in a time when Sudan was facing an unprecedented political crisis. To him and his teammate, Beijing was a chance to show people the positive side of Sudan.
After securing the country’s first Olympic medal, according to AP, people in Sudan hailed Ismail as a national hero and the picture of him wrapped in a Sudanese flag landed him on the front pages of the country’s newspapers.
Quoted by the Sudan Media Centre, Ismail said, “I can’t find words to express my joy. This is an achievement for my country first and then for me. I was able to achieve this honour because of a lot of hard training.”
With his achievement at the Beijing 2008 Games saw Ismail became the flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony of London 2012. However, in London he failed to make the 800m final.
At Rio 2016, no Sudanese athlete participated in the men’s 800m.
Scrolling through Sudan’s Olympic record, one could easily notice that athletics has been their major field of competition. Among the 81 Olympic participants, 33 of them are in athletics, followed by 17 in boxing. With Ismail’s historic breakthrough, there is a fair reason to expect Sudanese athletes to mark another milestone in the future.
Egyptian-Scottish classical duo the Ayoub Sisters are scheduled to perform at King Charles III’s coronation in Edinburgh on Wednesday.
“We are delighted to share that we have been invited by HM King Charles III to perform at his coronation in Edinburgh next week,” wrote the Ayoub Sisters on Facebook on Saturday.
“The ceremony is part of Royal Week, with the King and Queen undertaking several engagements in Scotland, and will be broadcast live on BBC One. Tune in on Wednesday 5th July at 1:30pm to watch the celebration unfold,” they added.
The Ayoub Sisters have taken the international music scene by storm since their debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2016. Laura Ayoub plays the violin – performing on an 1810 J. Gagliano – and Sarah Ayoub masters the cello. Both play the piano.
The internationally renowned duo were discovered by producer Mark Ronson.
Their young, albeit sparkling, career has led them to sign a contract with Decca Records, one of the UK’s biggest record labels playing at the BRITS and the BAFTAs. Their album topped the Official Classical Artist Albums Chart.
The duo explore many musical genres, starting from classical music to Scottish traditional repertoire, topping it with captivating arrangements of pop, funk, and world music.
Their virtuosity and creativity have taken them to many prestigious halls in the UK (the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, London Palladium) and the rest of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
