Celebration in Liberia slum as Ebola quarantine lifted

September 1, 2014

Ebola quarantine lifted

Monrovia/Conakry, Sep 1: Crowds sang and danced in the streets of a seaside neighborhood in Liberia on Saturday as the government lifted quarantine measures designed to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

Faced with the worst Ebola outbreak in history, West African governments have struggled to find an effective response. More than 1,550 people have died from the hemorrhagic fever since it was first detected in the forests of Guinea in March.

Residents of the impoverished seaside district of West Point in Monrovia were forcibly cut off from the rest of the capital in mid-August after a crowd attacked an Ebola center there, allowing the sick to flee.

The quarantine sparked protests and security forces responded with tear gas and bullets, killing a teenaged boy.

But at dawn on Saturday, the community woke up to find the soldiers and barricades gone.

"I tell God thank you. I tell everyone thank you," said Koffa, a female resident of West Point. Others danced in the streets chanting slogans like "we are free" while others rolled about on the asphalt pavement in celebration.

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a U.S.-educated Nobel Peace Prize winner, has sought to quell criticism of the government's response by issuing orders threatening officials with dismissal for failing to report for work or for fleeing the country, and has ordered an investigation into the West Point shooting.

Liberia, where infection rates are highest, plans to build five new Ebola treatment centers each with capacity for 100 beds, government and health officials said on Saturday.

In neighboring Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koromo dismissed his health minister Miatta Kargbo on Friday over her handling of the epidemic which has killed more than 400 people there.

Her replacement Abubakarr Fofana on Saturday confirmed that a third doctor in the county had died from Ebola, further hampering its ability to respond to the outbreak.

"It is with a deep sense of sadness that we have lost one of our finest physicians in the line of duty at a time like when we need a lot of them to help in out fight against Ebola," he said.

Physician Dr. Sahr Rogers caught the disease while treating outpatients in the same hospital where a doctor died last month and where British nurse William Pooley was also infected.

SPREAD TO SENEGAL

Transmitted through the vomit, blood and sweat of the sick, Ebola has also spread to Nigeria and Senegal, which reported its first confirmed case on Friday - a Guinean student who was lost to authorities in his own country while under surveillance.

"His brother came from Sierra Leone where he was infected and has died. Shortly afterwards, this student left for Senegal," said Dr. Rafi Diallo, spokesman for the Guinean health ministry.

Two other members of his family - his sister and mother - have died from Ebola, Guinean health ministry sources said.

A resident in the suburb of the Senegalese capital Dakar where the student resided said on Saturday that a team of health ministry officials wearing white protective suits and masks came to spray disinfectant at his home and a local grocer's shop.

Many Dakar residents worry that the student could have spread the highly contagious virus in the three weeks since he was last reported in Guinea.

In Nigeria, where an infected traveler collapsed after arriving the Lagos airport, there have so far been 19 suspected, probable and confirmed cases and seven deaths.

"To avoid a situation like Nigeria, they need to be able to follow hundreds of contacts," said epidemiologist Jorge Castilla of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department in Dakar. "Whatever they do, there will probably be a second set of sick people as this guy has been here for some time."

Senegal has since closed its land border with Guinea and halted flights to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, defying advice from the World Health Organization (WHO) that there is no need for travel restrictions.

A note from the WHO and the International Civil Aviation Organization sent to health ministries on Aug. 29 said: "Lives are being unnecessarily lost because health care workers cannot travel to the affected countries, and delivery of life saving equipment and supplies is being delayed."

The World Food Programme said it needs to raise $70 million to feed 1.3 million people at risk from shortages in the Ebola-quarantined areas in West Africa, with the agency's resources already stretched by several major humanitarian crises.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
June 18,2020

Kathmandu, June 18: Nepal's National Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed the Constitution Amendment Bill to update the country's political and administrative map incorporating three Indian territories. 

The new map also includes land controlled by India. It requires President Bidhya Devi Bhandari's approval.

India, which controls the region - a slice of land including Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh and Kalapani areas in the northwest - has rejected the map, saying it is not based on historical facts or evidence.

India has termed as untenable the "artificial enlargement" of territorial claims by Nepal after its lower house of parliament on Saturday unanimously approved the new political map of the country featuring areas which India maintains belong to it.

The National Assembly, or the upper house of the Nepalese parliament, unanimously passed the constitution amendment bill providing for inclusion of the country's new political map in its national emblem.

The bill was passed with all the 57 members present voting in its favour.

The dispute

The latest border dispute between the countries began last month after India inaugurated Himalayan link road built in a disputed region that lies at a strategic three-way junction with Tibet and China.

The 80km (50-mile) road, inaugurated by Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, cuts through the Lipulekh Himalayan pass, considered one of the shortest and most feasible trade routes between India and China.

The road cuts the travel time and distance from India to Tibet's Mansarovar lake, considered holy by the Hindus.

But Nepal says about 19km of the road passes through its area and fiercely contested the inauguration of the road, viewing the alleged incursion as a stark example of bullying by its much larger neighbour.

Nepal, which was never under colonial rule, has long claimed the areas of Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh under the 1816 Sugauli treaty with the British East India Company, although these areas have remained under the control of Indian troops since India fought a war with China in 1962.

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Angry indian
 - 
Sunday, 21 Jun 2020

acche din after deshbakth become ruling party...now even weakist country started conquring indian..what a shame on so0 called 56 inch chest..we need tiger leader not Pm who always speak in air and lie alot..

 

this is how an hindu nation is build ? Bjps cant rule india for more than 10 year...

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News Network
January 3,2020

Islamabad, Jan 3: The United Arab Emirates has extended USD 200 million aid to Pakistan for the development of the small and medium-sized enterprises in the country, Finance Adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan said.

The announcement came after Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan concluded his one-day visit to the country on Thursday.

"The money will be spent on small business promotion and jobs. This support is testimony to the expanding economic relations and friendship between our countries," the adviser, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, on Thursday said.

The Crown Prince directed the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development to allocate USD 200 million in order to assist the Pakistani government's efforts to create a stable and balanced national economy that will help achieve the country's sustainable development, Dawn News reported on Friday.

During the visit, the prince met Prime Minister Khan and held talks on bilateral, regional and international issues.

The UAE is Pakistan's largest trading partner in the Middle East and a major source of investments. The UAE is also among Pakistan's prime development partners in education, health and energy sectors.

It hosts more than 1.6 million expatriate Pakistani community, which contributes remittances of around USD 4.5 billion annually to the GDP.

This is the Crown Prince's second visit to Pakistan since Khan took office in August 2018. He had last visited Pakistan on January 6 last year, just weeks after his country offered USD 3 billion financial assistance to Pakistan to deal with its balance of payment crisis.

The Crown Prince's visit was considered by experts as an attempt to woo Pakistan against the backdrop of recent developments when Saudi Arabia and UAE apparently used pressure to stop Pakistan from attending the Kuala Lumpur summit held last month.

The summit from December 19-21 was seen by Saudis as an attempt to create a new bloc in the Muslim world that could become an alternative to the dysfunctional Organisation of Islamic Cooperation led by the Gulf Kingdom.

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News Network
July 11,2020

Istanbul, Jul 11: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Friday that the Hagia Sophia, one of the architectural wonders of the world, would be reopened for Muslim worship, sparking fury in the Christian community and neighbouring Greece.

His declaration came after a top Turkish court revoked the sixth-century Byzantine monument's status as a museum, clearing the way for it to be turned back into a mosque.

The UNESCO World Heritage site in historic Istanbul, a magnet for tourists worldwide, was first constructed as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

The Council of State, Turkey's highest administrative court, unanimously cancelled a 1934 cabinet decision to turn it into a museum and said Hagia Sophia was registered as a mosque in its property deeds.

The landmark ruling could inflame tensions not just with the West and Turkey's historic foe Greece but also Russia, with which Erdogan has forged an increasingly close partnership in recent years.

'Millions of Christians not heard'

Greece swiftly branded the move by Muslim-majority Turkey an "open provocation to the civilised world".

"The nationalism displayed by Erdogan... takes his country back six centuries," Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said in a statement.

The Russian Orthodox Church was equally scathing.

"The concern of millions of Christians were not heard," Church spokesman Vladimir Legoida told Interfax news agency.

The decision "shows that all pleas regarding the need to handle the situation extremely delicately were ignored," he said.

UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay said she "deeply regrets" the decision made without prior dialogue with the UN's cultural agency.

The move was also condemned by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which said it was an "unequivocal politicisation" of the monument.

Hagia Sophia, which stands opposite the impressive Sultanahmet Mosque -- often called the Blue Mosque, has been a museum since 1935 and open to believers of all faiths.

Transforming it from a mosque was a key reform under the new republic born out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

Sharing a presidential decree which named Hagia Sophia as a "mosque", Erdogan announced its administration would be handed over to Turkey's religious affairs directorate known as Diyanet.

"May we be blessed," he commented. The decree was published on the official gazette.

Erdogan has in recent years placed great emphasis on the battles which resulted in the defeat of Byzantium by the Ottomans, with lavish celebrations held every year to mark the conquest.

Muslim clerics have occasionally recited prayers in the museum on key anniversaries or religious holidays.

"The decision is intended to score points with Erdogan's pious and nationalist constituents," said Anthony Skinner of the risk assessment firm Verisk Maplecroft.

"Hagia Sophia is arguably the most conspicuous symbol of Turkey's Ottoman past -- one which Erdogan is leveraging to strengthen his base while snubbing domestic and foreign rivals," he told AFP.

'Chains broken'

A few hundred Turks carrying Turkish flags gathered outside Hagia Sophia shouting "Chains broken, Hagia Sophia reopened".

Police heightened security measures around the building, according to AFP journalists.

"It's been a dream since we were kids," said Erdal Gencler, an Istanbul resident.

"(Hagia Sophia) finds its true purpose again. We are very excited, proud, and hopeful that there will be beautiful services here," he added.

Fatma, a woman with tearful eyes, said: "Of course I am crying. (Hagia Sophia) belongs to us."

Ahead of the court decision, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul shared a picture of Hagia Sophia on his official Twitter account, with a message: "Have a good Friday."

Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, Erdogan's son-in-law, tweeted that Hagia Sophia would be reopened to Muslim worship "sooner or later", referring to a quote from Turkish poet Necip Fazil Kisakurek.

The Council of State had on July 2 debated the case brought by a Turkish group -- the Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment, which demanded Hagia Sophia be reopened for Muslim prayers.

Since 2005, there have been several attempts to change the building's status. In 2018, the Constitutional Court rejected one application.

Despite occasional protests outside the site by Islamic groups, Turkish authorities had until now kept the building as a museum.

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