ADDIS ABABA, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Ethiopia has indefinitely banned 35 athletes - including Olympic men's 5,000 and 10,000 metres champion Kenenisa Bekele - from competition in a row over training, the technical director of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation said on Friday.

The body, angry over flagging results in the past few years, summoned 200 athletes to a training camp two months ago ahead of the World Indoor Championships in March and the London Olympics in July and August.
But Bekele and other athletes including Olympic women's 5,000 and 10,000 gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba ignored the call-up, technical director Dube Jilo said.

NAIROBI: Ethiopian telecommunications company Ethio Telecom has reduced calls from landlines across zones. According to a statement on the company’s website, the rates were cut two-thirds to 83 cents per minute during peak hours and to 35 cents in off peak hours, a reduction of some 230 percent.

The move has left Ethiopian customers excited about the possibility of using their phone more often without extra costs. “I am very excited because I live in Addis [Ababa] and my son lives outside our zone, so to call them will be a great opportunity now,” Hallelujah Tharen, a mother of three, told Bikyamasr.com via telephone.

Ethio also hopes that the move will increase users and more phone calls being made throughout the day. To offset the cost reduction, the company is expecting more usage across the board.