Ebola's Message: Close the Borders Now! - 0 views
The Ebola Outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone - 0 views
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The Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) created a ‘solidarity fund’ to contain and manage the outbreak, [17] and the World Health Organisation convened an emergency meeting of regional health ministers in Accra to strengthen surveillance operations and facilitate cross-border consultations. [18] The World Health Organisation also opened a Sub-Regional Outbreak Coordinating Center in Conakry. [19] Doctors Without Borders has deployed 300 personnel to assist in health care facilities, and both the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the European Union have provided scientific personnel and resources to assist with laboratory testing and government coordination. [20]
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The World Health Organisation fulfilled its coordinating mission by organising a meeting of regional health officials in Accra in early July—but that was three-and-a-half months after the first report of the disease. WHO’s Sub-Regional Outbreak Coordination Center has the potential to be a useful resource, but it took nearly four months from the outbreak’s beginning until WHO began such operations. Given how quickly Ebola spreads and its virulence, such a delay helped the disease gain a foothold in the region. Arresting the spread of infectious diseases requires quicker action.
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First, the current response needs to be ratcheted up. Opening sub-regional command centers, deploying personnel from governmental and nongovernmental sources, and providing financial resources are all important—but they need to be done in greater number and with greater urgency. The initial efforts are not necessarily failures; they are just too small and slow in response to the overwhelming nature of this unprecedented outbreak.
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Why closing borders won't stop Ebola's rampage - health - 21 October 2014 - New Scientist - 1 views
9 questions about the Israel-Palestine conflict you were too embarrassed to ask - Vox - 1 views
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On the surface at least, it's very simple: the conflict is over who gets what land and how it is controlled. In execution, though, that gets into a lot of really thorny issues, like: Where are the borders? Can Palestinian refugees return to their former homes in present-day Israel?
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Israeli forces have occupied and controlled the West Bank ever since. It withdrew its occupying troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but maintains a full blockade of the territory, which has turned Gaza into what human rights organizations sometimes call an "open-air prison" and has pushed the unemployment rate up to 40 percent.
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Settlers are Israelis who move into the West Bank.
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Israel Kills 3 Top Hamas Leaders as Latest Fighting Turns Its Way - NYTimes.com - 7 views
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But the latest round of fighting appears to have given Israel the upper hand in a conflict that has already outlasted all expectations and is increasingly becoming a war of attrition.
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Israel’s advantage has never looked more lopsided. In contrast to the earlier phase of the war, Israel this week deployed its extensive intelligence capabilities and overwhelming firepower in targeted bombings with limited civilian casualties less likely to raise the world’s ire.
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“There’s a longstanding conventional wisdom that Israel doesn’t do well in wars of attrition,” said Michael B. Oren, an Israeli historian and a former ambassador to the United States. “That overlooks a broader historical view that Israel’s entire existence has been a war of attrition, and we’ve won that war.”
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Night of the Living Wonks - 1 views
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The specter of an uprising of reanimated corpses also poses a significant challenge to interpreters of international relations and the theories they use to understand the world. If the dead begin to rise from the grave and attack the living, what thinking would -- or should -- guide the human response?
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For our purposes, a zombie is defined as a reanimated being occupying a human corpse, with a strong desire to eat human flesh
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Because they can spread across borders and threaten states and civilizations, these zombies should command the attention of scholars and policymakers.
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One Powerful Illustration Shows Exactly What's Wrong With How the West Talks About Ebol... - 4 views
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We can see this clearly on Fox News, where Andrea Tantaros parroted the idea that African countries "do not believe in traditional medical care" and that residents might "seek treatment from a witch doctor that practices santería." Congressman Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) suggested that we should fear migrants because they might carry "deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis," while CNN suggested Ebola is the "ISIS of biological agents." (It's no coincidence that both are "foreign" entities.)
Syria's refugees: fears of abuse grow as Turkish men snap up wives | World news | The G... - 0 views
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Aminah is one of an increasing number of Syrian refugees who opt to marry Turkish men. Women's rights groups are worried: "A lot of women agree to these marriages out of sheer desperation. All they think about is how to feed their family, how to make ends meet. These arrangements might seem like the only way out, and men exploit this," says one activist from Gaziantep, who wished to remain anonymous. "At the same time, local women feel helpless and anxious about their own families breaking apart. Women on both sides of the border become victims this way."
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Turkish authorities put the number of Syrian refugees in the country at nearly 1 million, a figure projected to rise by the end of the year to 1.4 million.
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women and children constitute 75% of refugees in Turkey, with under-18s accounting for 50%. I
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Ukraine Starts Building Wall to Keep Russia Out | News | The Moscow Times - 0 views
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Defense lines will include a 60-kilometer stretch of a "non-explosive barrier," thousands of kilometers worth of trenches for personnel, armored vehicles and communication lines, and 4,000 army dugouts, the statement said.
Obama on Russia: 'Large countries don't bully smaller countries' - CNN.com - 1 views
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We have no interest in seeing Russia weakened or its economy in shambles. We have a profound interest, as I believe every country does, in promoting a core principle, which is: Large countries don't bully smaller countries,"
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Pro-Russian separatists are blamed for the attack on residential areas in the port city, Donetsk regional police chief Vyacheslav Abroskin said on his Facebook page.
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Another 102 people were injured, at least 75 of whom needed hospital treatment, and many suffered shrapnel injuries, Mariupol City Council sai
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Ebola Crisis: Africa Needs More Home-Trained Doctors - 0 views
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One of the worst parts of the crisis is that the countries affected are being abandoned. Several airlines have cancelled flights, non-governmental agencies are calling their personnel home, and neighboring countries have closed their borders. Consequently, even those doctors and nurses recruited by foreign charities have difficulty accessing the countries.
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The Ebola epidemic has overwhelmed its health professionals. With four million people, Liberia has only 200 doctors and 1,500 nurses, most of whom are in and around the capital of Monrovia.
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As with most emergencies in developing countries, it is their health professionals that provide most of the care to their citizens. They are in a better position than the brave volunteers from foreign charities to manage a crisis, since they know the country’s customs, language, and are there for the long haul. However, one of the major problems faced by poor countries is the inadequate number of trained health workers.
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Fight to stop Ebola being lost, World Bank warns - Telegraph - 0 views
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"We are losing the battle," World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim warned, blaming a lack of international solidarity in efforts to stem the epidemic.
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"Certain countries are only worried about their own borders," he told reporters in Paris.
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The East African Community bloc comprising Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania announced it was sending more than 600 health workers to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
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