Day: July 26, 2019

Two-month-old Lahya Kathembo became an orphan in a day. Her mother succumbed to Ebola on a Saturday morning. By sunset her father was dead, too. 
 
They had been sick for more than a week before health workers finally persuaded them to seek treatment, neighbors said. They believed their illness was the work of people jealous about their newborn daughter, a community organizer said, and sought the guidance of a traditional spiritual healer.

The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo is ravaging Beni, a sprawling city of some 600,000, in large part because so many of the sick are choosing to stay at home. In doing so, they unknowingly infect caregivers and those who mourn them.

“People are waiting until the last minute to bring their family members and when they do it’s complicated for us,” says Mathieu Kanyama, head of health promotion at the Ebola treatment center in Beni run by the Alliance for International Medical Action, or ALIMA. “Here there are doctors, not magicians.”

Nearly one year into the outbreak which has killed more than 1,700 and was declared a global health emergency this month, a rise in community deaths is fueling a resurgence of Ebola in Beni. During a two-week period in July alone, 30 people died at home. 
 
Health teams are now going door-to-door with megaphones trying to get the message out.

“Behind every person who has died there is someone developing a fever,” Dr. Gaston Tshapenda, who heads the Ebola response in Beni for Congo’s health ministry, told his teams.

Fear of treatment centers

Many people still don’t believe Ebola is real, health experts say, which stymies efforts to control the disease’s spread.

Ebola symptoms are also similar to common killers like malaria and typhoid, so those afraid of going to a treatment center often try to self-medicate at home with paracetamol to reduce fever. 
 
But Ebola, unlike those other illnesses, requires the patient to be kept in isolation and away from the comfort of family.

Dr. Maurice Kakule, who became one of this outbreak’s first Ebola patients after he treated a sick woman at his clinic, is now trying to make it easier for those who are ill to get help in and around Beni, near the border with Uganda. 
 
He and other survivors, who are now immune to the disease, run a motorcycle taxi ambulance. After receiving a phone call for help they go to homes, reassure the sick and take them for medical care without infecting others.

People’s most common fear is that they will only leave an Ebola treatment center in a body bag, Kakule says.

“Some have heard of the problem of Ebola but there have been no survivors in their family,” he said. “Since they had relatives die at a treatment center, they think people are killed there and that’s why they categorically refuse to go.”

Humanizing care

They fear, too, that they will die alone, surrounded only by health care personnel covered in protective gear from head to toe.

To try to humanize the care of patients in isolation, ALIMA’s Ebola treatment center in Beni places some patients in their own transparent room called a “CUBE,” where they can see visitors from their beds. Others share a room with one other patient and a glass window where loved ones can gather. 
 
While there is no licensed treatment for Ebola, patients in eastern Congo are able to take part in clinical trials. That’s a welcome change from the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa when many patients entered Ebola centers never to come out alive again. More than 11,000 people died.

Still, the measures needed to keep Ebola from spreading remain difficult for many people to accept.

“We cannot be oblivious to the fact that when you’re sick with Ebola you’re put somewhere away from your family, with a 50% chance of dying alone from your loved ones,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders, which is helping to fight the outbreak. “I don’t blame people for not finding this attractive, despite the fact that we have a clinical trial going on.”

The day after the deaths of baby Lahya’s parents, a morgue team in protective clothing carried their carefully encased bodies to a truck for a funeral procession to a Muslim cemetery on the edge of town. 
 
In the background was the sound of workers hammering away as they built more space at the nearby treatment center to accommodate the growing caseload.

Lahya developed a fever but has tested negative for Ebola. The infant with round cheeks and gold earrings is in an orphanage for now, while her 3-year-old sister is being cared for by neighbors who hope to raise them both.

But the sisters will have to wait a bit longer to be reunited — their adoptive father and former nanny both have tested positive for Ebola and are being treated.

‘I lost my entire family’

The fateful decision to avoid treatment centers haunts survivors like Asifiwe Kavira, 24, who fell ill with Ebola along with eight of her relatives.

Health teams came to the house in Butembo, trying to persuade them to seek treatment. Most of the family, though, said they wanted to treat their fevers at home. After three days of negotiations, Kavira finally agreed to seek help, believing she was on the brink of death.

She would be the only one to survive. 
 
Her mother, grandmother, brother and four other relatives all died at home. An older sister joined her at the treatment center, but medical care came too late.

“I tell people now that Ebola exists,” Kavira says, “because that is how I lost my entire family.”

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The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it is approving T-Mobile US Inc’s $26 billion takeover of rival Sprint Corp, clearing a major hurdle to a deal that would merge the nation’s third and fourth largest wireless carriers.

The companies have agreed to divest Sprint’s prepaid businesses including Boost Mobile to Dish Network Corp in order to move ahead with the merger, which was announced in
April 2018.

But the deal still faces a significant challenge. A group of U.S. state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York to block the merger on antitrust grounds,
arguing that the proposed deal would cost consumers more than $4.5 billion annually.

T-Mobile Chief Executive Officer John Legere, who will be the CEO of the combined company, said it would deliver a 5G network with lower prices, better quality and thousands of jobs, while unlocking $43 billion in synergies.

“We are pleased that our previously announced target synergies, profitability and long-term cash generation have not changed,” Legere said.

On Friday, the Justice Department and five state attorneys general said they were filing suit to enforce the settlement conditions that also include selling Virgin Mobile and Sprint prepaid and providing Dish with access to 20,000 cell sites and hundreds of retail locations.

Dish has agreed to acquire spectrum in a deal valued at $3.6 billion from the merged firm and pay $1.4 billion for Sprint’s prepaid business that serves about 9.3 million customers. Dish will get access to the combined firm’s network for seven years while it builds out its own 5G network.

Shares of T-Mobile, which is about 63 percent owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, were up 3.7% at $82.90. Shares of Sprint, which is about 84 percent owned by Softbank Group
Corp, were up 6.5% at $7.92.

Prepaid wireless phones are generally sought by lower-income people who cannot pass a credit check.

T-Mobile, the third largest U.S. wireless carrier with about 80 million customers, pursued the deal in order to seek scale to compete with bigger rivals Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc. Sprint has about 55 million customers.

T-Mobile US on Thursday beat analysts’ estimates for second-quarter net new phone subscribers who pay a monthly bill, boosted by the U.S. mobile carrier’s wireless plans aimed at fending off its bigger rivals. The mobile carrier said it added a net 710,000 phone subscribers in the three months ended June 30.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has given his blessing to the merger in principle and said in a statement on Friday he would soon circulate a formal order.

The FCC is expected to give Dish more time to use spectrum it previously acquired but also impose strict penalties if it fails to create a consumer wireless network within a set
timeframe.

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A top Sudanese editor who heads the main journalists’ union has been detained, the union said Thursday, calling on Sudan’s military rulers to free him or put him on trial.

The detention of Sadiq al-Rizaigi came as the military said it had arrested a top general, several security officers and Islamist leaders over a failed coup attempt announced earlier this month.

The Sudanese Journalists’ Union called on the ruling Transitional Military Council to “immediately release” its head Rizaigi, a prominent Islamist and editor of Al-Sayha newspaper, or that he be put on trial.

A senior journalist with Rizaigi’s newspaper told AFP that security forces had taken him away from outside the newspaper’s premises.

“We do not know where he is being held or the reasons for his detention,” said Awad Jad Al-Sayid, news editor of Al-Sahya.

On Wednesday, the military announced several arrests in connection with a failed coup attempt.

It said it had arrested General Hashim Abdel Mottalib, the head of the joint chiefs of staff, and a number of officers from the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) along with leaders of the Islamic Movement and the National Congress Party.

On July 11, the military announced it had foiled a coup attempt without specifying when it took place.

Sudanese media also reported that among those arrested was General Bakri Hassan Saleh, a former first vice president and prime minister and a prominent figure in the 1989 coup that brought now ousted president Omar al-Bashir to power.

Also arrested was Ali Karty, a former foreign minister and Zubair Ahmed Hassan, an ex-finance minister, according to the reports.

During Bashir’s three-decade rule, the press was severely curtailed, according to media activists.

NISS agents cracked down regularly on journalists or confiscated entire print-runs of newspapers for publishing articles deemed critical of Bashir’s policies.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) recorded at least 100 cases of journalists being arrested during the months of protests that finally led to Bashir’s ouster in April.

RSF ranks Sudan 175th out of 180 countries in its 2019 World Press Freedom Index.

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The U.N. refugee agency says up to 150 refugees and migrants are believed to have lost their lives Thursday in a shipwreck on the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya.

If confirmed, the UNHCR says the shipwreak will be the biggest on the Mediterranean Sea since May 2017, when 156 people died off the coast of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

Close to 140 survivors, mainly Eritreans and Sudanese, were pulled from the water.

UNHCR spokesman Charlie Yaxley says the latest tragedy comes weeks after more than 50 people were killed when a detention center in Tajoura, on the outskirts of Tripoli, was hit in an airstrike.

“In addition to the shipwreck … a further 87 people were brought back to Libya by the Libyan coast guard, and 84 of them were transferred to Tajoura,” Yaxley said. “The total population in Tajoura now numbers nearly 300. This is completely unacceptable, and we call for their immediate orderly release.”  

There were no search-and-rescue boats operated by nongovernmental organizations in the sea Thursday when the migrant boat ran into trouble, as hard-line governments such as Italy prohibit them from conducting these life-saving missions.

Yaxley says the crucial role of NGO boats must be acknowledged, and their efforts in saving lives must not be stigmatized nor criminalized.  

“There also must now be a return of EU state search-and-rescue vessels to the Mediterranean,” he said. “We reiterate once again that no return of refugees and people rescued on the Mediterranean should be to Libya because it has no ports of safety.”  

The UNHCR is calling for more action to arrest and prosecute smugglers and traffickers who profit from people’s desperation by facilitating their doomed voyages. 

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ISLAMABAD — A key presidential candidate in Afghanistan urged President Donald Trump on Friday to test the U.S. military power against Russia instead of threatening the “oppressed” Afghans. 
 
Politicians and the public in the war-ravaged country continue to express their anger at Trump for claiming his military plan, if executed, could win the Afghan war within 10 days, killing 10 million people and wiping Afghanistan “off the face of the Earth.” 
 
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a presidential hopeful and former anti-American warlord, denounced Trump’s assertions while addressing thousands of his supporters in Kabul. The crowd of fewer than 10,000 chanted “Death to America, Death to Trump” during the speech. 
 
“We ask Mr. Trump that if you have the courage and strength, and you believe in your military power, then test it against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and not the oppressed Afghans,” Hekmatyar said. 
 
“The same Putin who is said to have meddled in America’s election, enabling you [Trump] to reach the White House to become the president,” Hekmatyar went on to mock Trump. 

Ghani government criticized
 
He also criticized President Ashraf Ghani’s coalition government for seeking “clarification” from Washington rather than denouncing Trump’s remarks. Hekmatyar and his fighters fought alongside the Taliban against U.S. and NATO forces until two years ago, when he entered into a peace-and-reconciliation deal with the U.S.-backed government in Kabul. 
 
Trump, while speaking Monday to reporters at the White House together with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, explained why he needed Islamabad’s help “to extricate ourselves” from Afghanistan. 
 
“I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. It would be gone. It would be over in, literally, in 10 days. And I don’t want to do — I don’t want to go that route,” Trump remarked. 
 

Most Afghan presidential candidates and former President Hamid Karzai also have slammed Trump for his controversial statement. Karzai told VOA the American president’s statement came from a “criminal mindset” and showed “contempt” toward Afghanistan and the Afghan people. 
 
Hekmatyar, who heads his Hezb-e Islami political group, called for all Afghan stakeholders to accept “all reasonable” demands by the Taliban for ending the war. 
 
“Foreigners and the government they have installed [in Afghanistan] must both accept their [Taliban’s] demands. … Hezb-e-Islami is determined not to compromise on peace, and if we are forced, we will alone find a settlement with the Taliban,” Hekmatyar cautioned. 
 
The United States is engaged in direct talks with the Taliban, and they are said to have come close to signing a peace deal. 
 
The insurgents say they are seeking a troop withdrawal timetable from Washington in exchange for assurances that Taliban-controlled areas will not become a sanctuary for international terrorist groups. U.S. officials, however, say a final agreement also would require the Taliban to engage in intra-Afghan peace negotiations, including representatives of the Kabul government. 
 
The insurgent group remains strongly opposed to any talks with the Ghani government, dismissing it as illegitimate and a U.S. puppet. 

Defense of U.S. efforts
 
When asked for her comments about Afghan outrage over Trump’s remarks, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said Thursday that she would remind Afghans about the large number of fighters from the U.S. and NATO allies who have been killed in Afghanistan. 
 
“Not just the number of lives lost but the billions of dollars that have spent there. … So I think that the people of Afghanistan should know that for almost 20 years, Americans have lost their lives and have spent their hard-earned taxpayer money to see the people of Afghanistan have a choice for their own future,” Morgan told reporters. 
 
“And that commitment has not been a small commitment. That has been a vast and sweeping commitment by the American people,” she emphasized. 
 
The conflict aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan — the United States’ longest foreign military intervention — has cost Washington an estimated $1 trillion and more than 2,400 lives. 
 
The U.S. is still paying about $4 billion annually to Kabul, mostly for salaries and training of Afghan security forces battling the Taliban. 

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The thigh bone of a giant dinosaur was found this week by French paleontologists at an excavation site in southwestern France where remains of some of the largest animals that ever lived on land have been dug up since 2010.

The two-meter long femur at the Angeac-Charente site is thought to have belonged to a sauropod, herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks and tails which were widespread in the late Jurassic era, over 140 million years ago.

“This is a major discovery,” Ronan Allain, a paleontologist at the National History Museum of Paris told Reuters. “I was especially amazed by the state of preservation of that femur.”

“These are animals that probably weighed 40 to 50 tons,” he said.

Allain said scientists at the site near the city of Cognac have found more than 7,500 fossils of more than 40 different species since 2010, making it one of the largest such finds in Europe.

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CARACAS — A proposal to modify U.S. oil sanctions on Venezuela to allow crude exports to be bartered for food has divided the country’s opposition between those who say the move would stave off famine and those who predict President Nicolas Maduro would abuse it. 
 
Henri Falcon, the former governor of western Lara state, said Thursday that he wrote to the United Nations and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs requesting such an exemption for food and medicine imports. 
 
Falcon attained international prominence last year when he broke a boycott to challenge Maduro in a vote many opposition parties deemed a sham. He faces an uphill battle to convince the United States and other opposition politicians of the merits of the program. 
 
The U.N. implemented a similar program in Iraq, another oil-dependent economy, from 1996 to 2003 to help citizens cope with U.N. sanctions after former leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. 

Through early 2019, the United States was Venezuela’s largest crude importer. State oil company PDVSA got cash from the oil it sent to U.S. refiners, while it used exports to other major customers like China’s CNPC and Russia’s Rosneft to pay off debt.  
 
But since the Treasury Department sanctioned PDVSA as part of the Trump administration’s bid to pressure Maduro to step down amid a hyperinflationary economic collapse, PDVSA’s shipments to the United States have disappeared, and Venezuela’s crude production has fallen to around half of last year’s levels. 
 
That has reduced the government revenue available to import food and medicine, in short supply for years. Defenders of the sanctions argue that any oil sale proceeds are more likely to be embezzled than used to import humanitarian goods. 
 
Maduro remains in power despite the sanctions and a six-month campaign by Juan Guaido, the president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly, to get the South American country’s armed forces on his side. 
 
“While politicians are seeking to distract attention exclusively, in some cases, toward the political element — but without results, without effect — people are still dying of hunger,” Falcon said in a news conference, arguing that Venezuela was “at the doors of a famine.” 
 

‘Not viable’ 
 
But Guaido’s allies argue the best way to resolve the humanitarian crisis that has prompted more than 4 million to emigrate is to focus on ousting Maduro. 
 
Maduro long rejected offers of humanitarian aid, and recent shipments he has allowed from the Red Cross have not been enough and have been subject to insufficient controls, said Manuela Bolivar, a lawmaker from Guaido’s Popular Will party.  
 
“This program would not guarantee that the people would receive food because you have a structure of incentives to steal,” Bolivar said in a telephone interview. 
 
The U.S. Treasury on Thursday sanctioned 10 people and 13 groups involved in a food distribution program that it said had lined the pockets of Maduro and his family. 
 
Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the proposal. The government blames a U.S. “blockade” for its economic woes, though no U.S. sanctions prevent food and medicine imports. 
 
A senior Trump administration official said Iraq’s program was plagued by “enormous corruption” and called the proposal “not viable” in Venezuela. A U.N. investigation found that companies paid $1.8 billion in kickbacks to Iraqi officials for supply contracts. 
 
Still, Falcon’s Progressive Advance party has taken steps to make its case in Washington. Francisco Rodriguez, chief economist at New York-based Torino Economics and an adviser to Falcon’s 2018 campaign, spoke in favor of an oil-for-food program in front of a bipartisan congressional commission this week. 
 
The party has retained Canadian lobbying firm Dickens & Madson to promote its efforts, according to a July 18 filing with the U.S. Department of Justice. 
 
A separate July 15 filing said the lobbyist “intends to pursue Henri Falcon’s election as president of Venezuela.” 
 
Falcon on Thursday called that filing “false” and attributed the filing to an administrative error. He added that authorities would ensure that the program would not be plagued by corruption like Iraq’s. 

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Islamic State’s West Africa branch on Thursday claimed responsibility for kidnapping six aid workers in northeast Nigeria.

International aid agency Action Against Hunger said that a staff member and five others kidnapped in Nigeria last week had appeared in a video released on Wednesday evening and that they were “apparently in a good condition of health.”

Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA), which split from Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram in 2016, claimed responsibility for the kidnap in a tweet published by the SITE monitoring group.

The group has carried out a number of attacks in the northeast over the last few months, including on military bases.

It killed a kidnapped aid worker nine months ago.

Action Against Hunger said in a statement that the people were abducted last week near the town of Damasak in northeast Nigeria, where the insurgents were active.

“Action Against Hunger strongly requests that our staff member and her companions are released,” said the agency.

The video was published by The Cable, a Nigerian news organisation, and showed a woman sitting on the floor who identifies herself as “Grace”. Five men sit around her, some with their heads bowed.

Behind them is a sheet with the logo of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.

“We were caught by this army called the Calipha,” she said, before asking that the Nigerian government and Action Against Hunger secure their release. “We don’t know where we are.”

Separately, the Nigerian presidency said in a statement that the government was negotiating for the release of the kidnapped aid workers.

A source told Reuters that a driver was killed during the kidnap and that all six abductees were Nigerians.

…

The U.S. House on Thursday approved legislation aimed at protecting thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States from deportation by granting them Temporary Protected Status.

The measure was adopted on a 272-158 vote after a debate that required a simple majority for passage. The same bill failed earlier this week when 154 Republicans voted against it under a procedure for quick passage that required approval from two-thirds of the 435 House members. All 158 votes against the bill Thursday were Republicans, while 39 Republicans voted in favor.

Similar legislation has not moved forward in the Senate since it was introduced in February.

Arguments for, against

Temporary Protected Status is usually granted by the Department of Homeland Security to people from countries ravaged by natural disasters or war and lets them remain in the U.S. until the situation improves back home.

Rep. Doug Collin of Georgia, the top Republican on the House judiciary panel, said he opposed the bill because recent court rulings have blocked the Trump administration from terminating the TPS designation for some countries.

“We should not ensure renewal is automatic,” Collins said. “If we do not do that, we can continue the same broken TPS designation process.”

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, a Republican who was a co-sponsor of the measure, urged other members of his caucus to support the bill.

“This is not to be confused with issues dealing with immigration,” Diaz-Balart said. “This is to deal with a specific case of the Venezuelans who are struggling under this oppressive regime and we should not return people back.”

200,000 Venezuelans

The Trump administration was one of the first to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of the South American nation, a step that has been taken by more than 50 other governments. Those countries contend President Nicolas Maduro’s re-election in 2018 was fraudulent.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates 200,000 Venezuelans currently living in the United States could receive TPS. Under the measure, Venezuelan nationals would be eligible to get migratory relief and work permits valid for 18 months if they have been continuously present in the U.S. since the bill’s enactment and apply paying a $360 fee.

Stuck in the Senate

Rep. Darren Soto, a Florida Democrat and sponsor of the bill, said after the vote that “we want this to be as bipartisan as possible because it gives us a better chance in the Senate.”

The TPS legislation is the fourth Venezuela-related bill adopted by the House so far this year, but none has made it yet to the Senate floor.

“Our hope is the vote today will really light a fire in the Senate to get going on the Venezuela bills,” said Rep. Donna Shalala, also a Florida Democrat.

The United Nations estimates that at least 4 million Venezuelans have left their country in recent years because of a chronic scarcity of food and medicines and a hyperinflation that reached 130,000% last year.

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British Airways, part of International Airlines Group, will resume flights to Cairo following a week-long suspension over security concerns, the airline said Friday.

“Following a thorough assessment of the security arrangements, we are pleased that our service to and from Cairo will resume from Friday July 26,” a British Airways spokeswoman said in an email.

No details were given about the airline’s security review.

British Airways had suspended flights to Cairo on Saturday for seven days “as a security precaution” as it reviewed security at the Cairo airport.

An executive of Egypt’s state-owned EgyptAir said earlier this week that British Airways’ decision was “without a logical reason” while Egypt’s aviation minister, Younis Al-Masry, also expressed “displeasure” at the decision.

Egypt’s aviation ministry said on Sunday that British Airways took the move without consulting Egyptian authorities.

Germany’s Deutsche Lufthansa AG also suspended flights to Cairo on Saturday but resumed them a day later.

Other airlines continued to operate flights to Cairo.

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