Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Billions of Locust Invade Madagascar Capital
Billions of locusts swarmed Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo on Thursday, prompting residents and tourists to share photographs of the sudden insect invasion on Twitter, while experts worried about the effect on the country's food supply.
In the past five years, swarms of giant locusts have
First Case of Ebola in Senegal
The West African state of Senegal became the fifth country to be touched by the world’s worst Ebola outbreak on Friday, while riots broke out in neighbouring Guinea’s remote southeast where infection rates are rising fast.
A French volunteer working for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Liberia has contracted the Ebola virus
This is the first confirmed case of a French national catching the disease in the current outbreak. The volunteer was put in quarantine on Sept.16 when the first symptoms of the illness appeared.
She will be evacuated to a specialised treatment centre in France.
ICC Investigation of CAR
International Criminal Court prosecutors have opened an investigation into allegations of murder, rape and recruiting of child soldiers in the Central African Republic over the past two years.
Megachurch members ‘prevented rescue efforts’ at Lagos accident site
Nigerian Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Friday that lives were lost as a result of church officials preventing workers from rescuing people trapped inside the multi-storey shopping mall and hotel in the port city.
NEMA's spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye told the Associated Press that the building collapsed at 12:44pm on September 12, but emergency responders did not get full access to the site until two days later.
Described as a megachurch, the building was linked to Temitope Balogun Joshua, better known as TB Joshua.
The wealthy preacher has claimed to have miraculously cured people from illnesses, including HIV, and foreseen the untimely death of pop start Michal Jackson.
Church Collapse kills 67 South Africans
The guest house, under construction in the compound belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations, headed by “Prophet” T.B. Joshua, collapsed on Friday while three extra stories were being added to its existing two floors.
Local emergency services put the total number killed in the collapse in the Ikotun neighbourhood of Lagos at 61 on Tuesday.
“This is a particularly difficult time for South Africa. Not in the recent history of our country have we had this large number of our people die in one incident outside the country,” Zuma said in a statement.
“The whole nation shares the pain of the mothers, fathers, daughters and sons who have lost their loved ones.”
T
Sierra Leone will impose a four-day, countrywide lockdown starting Sept. 18, as efforts to halt the spread of Ebola across the West African country escalate, a senior official in the president’s office said on Friday.
The move underscores the radical steps West African nations are being pushed to take, over six months into an outbreak that is the worst on record and shows no sign of easing having already killed over 2,100 people since March.
Citizens will not be allowed to leave their homes between Sept. 18-21 in a bid to prevent the diseasefrom spreading further and allow health workers to identify cases in the early stages of the illness, said Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, a presidential adviser on the country’s Ebola task force.
“The aggressive approach is necessary to deal with the spread of Ebola once and for all,” he told Reuters. As of Friday, Sierra Leone has recorded 491 of the total of suspected, probable and confirmed Ebola deaths, according to UN figures.
Kargbo said 21,000 people would be recruited to enforce the lockdown. Thousands of police and soldiers have already been deployed to enforce the quarantining of towns in Sierra Leone’s worst-hit regions near the border with Guinea.
Organizations from across the world are rushing funds and equipment to West Africa, but Ebola is spreading faster than ever and experts say the lack of trained staff in weak health systems is a major obstacle to the response.
French development secretary Annick Girardin will be “the first” European minister to visit the west African region worst hit by the deadly Ebola virus when she touches down in Guinea on Saturday.
During her visit to the Guinean capital Conakry, the junior minister is scheduled to visit Ebola units and meet with healthcare workers to discuss France's contribution in the battle to halt the epidemic which has so far claimed almost 2,400 lives in the three nations worst hit by the fast-spreading virus: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
“I’m the first European minister to set foot” in the region since the start of the epidemic, Girardin told FRANCE 24’s sister station RFI in an interview ahead of the trip. “France can be proud,” she exclaimed.
Girardin's visit follows a call from the World Health Organization (WHO), urging the international community to respond more quickly to stop the epidemic from spiraling out of control.
"I'm going to Guinea first to say that France is with them. And that's not an insignificant message," she told a news conference in Senegal's capital, Dakar, on Friday.
"It's also an important message to say that there are behaviours to adopt, that there are health systems that are resilient and that can take on this Ebola virus," Girardin said.
"This is the case here in Senegal, it is the case in Ivory Coast and, unfortunately, not the case in Guinea, where health systems have proved less resilient to this virus, this epidemic," she said, adding that Guinea desperately needs an overhaul of its health infrastructure, but noted "for that we need resources".
The French government announced the minister’s visit last week to "show France's support in the fight" against Ebola. The announcement came after international medical agency Doctors without Borders (MSF) warned that the world was "losing the battle" to contain Ebola.
"We have heard the call from MSF," Girardin said.
Girardin will be accompanied by UN Ebola coordinator David Nabarro and the pair are due to discuss the crisis at a European Union meeting in Brussels on Monday.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Possibility of Airborne Ebola
Econometrics expert Francis Smart has predicted that if the Ebola virus does mutate into an airborne form, 1.2 million people will die from the disease.
CAR Religious Fighting
As inter-religious fighting continues to plague the Central African Republic (CAR), the African Union-led peacekeeping force, MISCA, officially ceded control of its mission in the country to the United Nations on Monday.
al Queda breach on Kenya's Capital
One year after a branch of al Qaeda laid siege to a shopping mall in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, an astonishing number of crucial questions remain unanswered.
What is known is that at least four armed men perpetrated an attack that began shortly after noon on Saturday September 21, when the up-market Westgate mall was heaving with weekend shoppers and families.
Church Collapse
The guest house, under construction in the compound belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations, headed by “Prophet” T.B. Joshua, collapsed on Friday while three extra stories were being added to its existing two floors.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Central African Republic
The situation in the Central African Republic has deteriorated significantly since President Francois Bozize was overthrown in a coup in March 2013.
The Seleka rebel coalition took over the capital and vast swathes of the country’s hinterlands in a vicious campaign of violence between January and March 2013. But after Bozize was driven out of the country and Seleka loyalists looked to consolidate their power, a counterattack was being
prepared. Statistics
The Seleka rebel coalition took over the capital and vast swathes of the country’s hinterlands in a vicious campaign of violence between January and March 2013. But after Bozize was driven out of the country and Seleka loyalists looked to consolidate their power, a counterattack was being
prepared. Statistics
What is Ebola?
The Ebola virus disease is a viral hemorrhagic fever that was first discovered in Africa in the 1970s.
The current outbreak in West Africa, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone worst hit, is the largest in history. It has sickened more than 5,300 people and killed more than 2,600.
With a death rate of up to 90 percent, Ebola is described as "one of the world's deadliest diseases" by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
The current outbreak in West Africa, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone worst hit, is the largest in history. It has sickened more than 5,300 people and killed more than 2,600.
With a death rate of up to 90 percent, Ebola is described as "one of the world's deadliest diseases" by Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Coup in Lesotho
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)