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Opening ceremony lights up Paris in unique style

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The 2024 Olympics opened in Paris in spectacular style with thousands of athletes sailing along the River Seine past lively performers on bridges, banks and rooftops in an ambitious take on an opening ceremony.

Swapping a stadium for a waterway for the first time to open the “greatest show on Earth”, the near four-hour spectacle culminated in French judo great Teddy Riner and sprinter Marie-Jose Perec lighting a cauldron shaped like a hot air balloon that rose high into the Parisian sky.

Blue, white and red fireworks had raised the Tricolore above Austerlitz Bridge before 6,800 athletes from 205 delegations travelled on 85 boats and barges past some of the French capital’s most famous landmarks.

There were surprise performances through the ceremony, including a cabaret number from US singer-songwriter Lady Gaga, as well as an emotional return of Canadian icon Celine Dion.

The day had started with major disruption when the French train network was hit by arson attacks and heavy rain in the evening put paid to the original plan by artistic director Thomas Jolly to use the Parisian sun to “make the water sparkle”.

The lashing rain may have forced athletes to add rain ponchos and umbrellas to their planned outfits but it did not detract from the lively journey through French history, art and sport told by some 2,000 musicians, dancers and other artists.

The last two boats to parade – first the US as the next hosts for Los Angeles 2028 and then France – had the largest numbers of athletes on board, while other barges carried several delegations together.

Rower Helen Glover and diver Tom Daley were Great Britain’s flagbearers in Paris, which is hosting the summer Games for a third time and the first time in 100 years.

In opening the 33rd summer Olympics, which are taking part against a difficult international and domestic political backdrop, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach told athletes they were now “part of an event that unites the world in peace”.

More than 10,500 athletes will compete across 32 sports at the Games, which will close on 11 August.

Paris pulls off an Olympic first

When organisers first revealed plans to hold the opening ceremony along the river in the heart of the city, rather than in a stadium as is usual, there were some raised eyebrows and questions over how they would manage such a huge security operation.

The Seine itself had been under scrutiny for water cleanliness, while simply the logistics of transporting thousands of athletes along a six-kilometre stretch of river without a dress rehearsal seemed ambitious.

But on Friday evening, backed by a security operation involving tens of thousands of police, Paris pulled off its plan in dazzling fashion.

At times it was bizarre – one moment Lady Gaga surrounded by pink and black feathers was singing in French, the next Bangladesh’s athletes were being introduced on their boat.

A lot of the time it was brilliantly frenetic and occasionally emotional.

Given the miserable weather after what had been a sunny week in Paris until now, it seemed fitting that the storyline at the start of the ceremony was about the arrival of the Olympic flame in Paris not going according to plan.

The torchbearer did not get the memo about it not being in the Stade de France, and then Zinedine Zidane’s metro train broke down while he was transporting the torch.

There followed ballet, cancan, opera, famous artwork coming to life and even Minions – and every so often a masked torchbearer was shown running across rooftops and even zip-lining, while the flotilla made its way from Austerlitz Bridge to Pont d’Iena.

The boats with flag-waving athletes passed landmarks like the Louvre museum, Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais and Arc de Triomphe and were treated to 12 artistic segments.

One segment focused on rebuilding Notre Dame, which was damaged in a fire in 2019. A large troupe of dancers were accompanied by music composed using sounds captured from the iconic cathedral’s reconstruction.

Another explored French history, with costumed singers performing music from Les Miserables and a choir of headless Marie Antoinettes accompanying French heavy metal band Gojira.

French-Malian R&B star Aya Nakamura – the world’s most-streamed French-language artist – was among the musical acts.

The ceremony ended in the Trocadero, where the nearby Eiffel Tower lit up, with the flame – which had been on an elaborate journey with a masked torchbearer and a mechanical horse – being passed back to Zidane, who handed it to Rafael Nadal, Nadia Comaneci, Serena Williams and Carl Lewis.

The quartet carried the flame on a boat towards the Louvre, where a series of French athletes and para-athletes past and present – including 100-year-old gold-medal cyclist Charles Coste – carried it and eventually handed it to Riner and Perec.

And just when you thought the ceremony could not get any more beguiling, the pair lit the 30-metre high hot air balloon that now looks like it is floating above the city.

But there was one more magical moment to come, with Dion thrilling the crowds at the Eiffel Tower with a powerful rendition of Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne a l’amour in her first performance since revealing a serious neurological condition in December 2022.

Name: Rasmisker Hailu

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Education: 12+4

Company Name: Ras Synergy

Title: CEO

Founded in: 2016

What it does: Student ID solution

Headquarters: Addis Ababa

Startup capital: 500,000 birr

Current capital: Growing

Number of Employees: 8

Reason for Starting the Business: To support students and schools

Biggest Perk of Ownership: Freedom

Biggest Strength: Hope

Biggest Challenge: People who give false hope

Plan: I want to build digital Ethiopia

First Career: Musician

Most Interested in Meeting: Those who are older

Most Admired Person: Emperor Haile Selassie

Stress Reducer: Listening to spiritual music

Favorite Book: Firker Eske Mekabir

Favorite Pastime: Playing music

Favorite Destination: None

Favorite Automobile: BMW

FAKE EVERYTHING

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Modern governments invariably lie and intentionally mislead their citizens at the various junctions of modernity’s tightly organized existence! In fact, many of the policies of governments that are implemented on a daily basis are borne of lies. Without blatant lies, camouflaged as progress, development, nationalism, patriotism, internationalism, blah, blah, politicos running the global show, always via the instrument of governments, wouldn’t have been able to have monopolistic hold on state power! If truth be told, many of the foundations of modern societies are fake, ill-conceived and unsustainable. Yet and thanks to deeply entrenched lies prevailing in all societies, myriad unsustainabilities keep marching on!
When human societies or nations-states, to be more precise, try to build their reality on the conception of ‘infinite growth on a finite planet, it is obvious they are preaching a dangerously ‘fake narrative’. When states pronounce the rate of climate change to be according to their whims rather than the unpredictable imperatives of natural laws, it is clear governments are teaching ‘fake science’. When productive and sustainable works are demoted while phony money, which is created out of thin air and on a continuous basis, tramples hard work, it is obvious humanity is wallowing in a swamp of ‘fake economics’. Currently, even the once humbling hard sciences are made to bow down to the shallow interests of bureaucrats and their handlers, so that taxpayers’ money is swindled/diverted to benefit ‘deep state’ operators! The gullible sheeple (human mass) systemically indoctrinated to accept almost everything that is spewed out by the deep state, is made to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution!
In the realm of the sciences, such fantastic fictions as intergalactic travel, or the colonization of planets that lie several light years away, (a light year is 9.46 x 1012 km) have become part and parcel of the ongoing ‘fake narratives’ regarding the cosmos. Let us illustrate some easy ‘facts’, obtained from our ever-changing knowledge. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has an average width of about 100,000 light years, i.e., a distance of 946,000,000,000,000,000 km. Let us say we can miraculously come up with a technology that can propel us a billion km per hour, that is 1,000,000,000 km per hour. To bring it down to earth, this is like going around our planet 25,000 times an hour! With this mighty speed it takes us over 100,000 years just to escape the confines our own average size galaxy. We can only say ‘go figure’, just like the perplexed teenager! The delicate creature that came about unknowingly, certainly outside of its flimsy perception and conception, has convinced itself to be potentially capable of travelling billions of kilometers per day into the outer space where there are plenty of unknowns, radiation, etc. (think Van Allen radiation belt) to inhabit or colonize, (to use the sickening word of the establishment) entities that can support what we know as life! Human’s fragility, always demands the continuous supply of oxygen in order to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, etc. This is not an organism that is built for space travel, despite the insinuation of the deep state, via its propaganda machines that includes the movie industry, perforce!
We can hardly maintain life on the planet that was given to us on a silver platter, let alone think of roaming around the mighty cosmos as if it were some kind of Disney land! Like it or not, indoctrinating rather than enlightening is the core ideology of the so-called modern nation-states. If their sheeple becomes enlightened then realistic questions will be raised as to why we are leading such a decisively suicidal existence, here on our rare blue planet! At this point we believe, one has to realize the evil-minded amongst us. There are a whole lot of people who are not interested in the continuation of life after them. In the lingua of modern psychiatry, they are called sociopaths/psychopaths. All they are interested in is temporal gratifications that always come with costly attendant consequences. Take the case of nuclear energy. There is no doubt there is a very real risk associated with all sorts of nuclear power. This is a proven fact, however much the ‘deep state’ tries to hide this reality. Yet the peddlers of nuclear power plants/arsenals still want to push nuclear power based technologies, as if they were very safe and almost risk free. As a result, everybody and his uncle (Middle East, Africa, etc.) think it is a worthwhile project to pursue!
The burning issue then becomes, how to change our fake narratives? For a start, independence from the so-called indoctrination machines is a must. Unfortunately, this includes distancing the global citizenry away from the so-called institutions of ‘enlightenment’. They have become quite toxic, at least as they are constituted today! Secondly, one has to recognize the Main Stream Media (MSM) is at best noxious, if not deadly poisonous, particularly when it comes to reflective and critical thinking. Look at the tragedy-comedy-the case of the wealthy pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Not long ago, he was revered as a successful ‘billionaire’, even though nobody knew how he actually made his money. The mainstream media has stopped questioning the very processes of acquiring wealth, so long as the person in question is a stooge of the deep state, just like the numerous cases of criminal accumulation in our part of the world. It is only when things start to get hot, the dubious characters in question attract some attention, good or bad!
For better or worse, humanity survived because it had to do what it had to do, mostly by critically and continuously examining its evolved reality within the broader realm of the natural environment. The human animal did not ‘ascend’, so to speak, again for better or worse, not by the state of quackery and fakery! Yet, when it comes to the world of politicos and their affairs, the mantra still remains.

Mafi Fashion Academy makes its debut, aiming to transform African fashion industry

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Ethiopia has welcomed a new beacon of fashion excellence with the official launch of the internationally renowned Mafi Fashion Academy and Laboratory. This cutting-edge institution is set to elevate Africa’s fashion talent, offering a platform for aspiring designers to build successful global brands and emerge as top-tier fashion professionals.

Founded by the celebrated Ethiopian designer Mahlet Afework, the Mafi Fashion Academy and Laboratory promises to be a game-changer in the region’s fashion landscape. During the grand opening ceremony, it was highlighted that the academy stands out for its commitment to providing world-class fashion education and high-value industry exposure.

The academy aims to empower young designers and entrepreneurs, fostering innovation and research within Africa. By offering top-notch education and connecting students with valuable industry networks, Mafi Fashion Academy is poised to become a significant player in shaping the future of fashion on the continent.