Guinea Ebola outbreak over, WHO declares

Yahoo – AFP, Mouctar Bah with Ben Simon in Geneva, December 29, 2015

A health official works at the Ebola treatment centre run by the French red cross
society in Macenta, Guinea on November 20, 2014 (AFP Photo/Kenzo Tribouillard)

Conakry (AFP) - The UN's health agency on Tuesday declared Guinea's Ebola outbreak over two years after it emerged, spreading death across west Africa and pushing the region's worst-hit communities to the brink of collapse.

One of the poorest nations in the world, the former French colony was the host for "patient zero" -- an infant who became the first victim -- and health authorities went on to record some 2,500 deaths.

"The epidemic of Ebola virus disease in Guinea is over," Mohamed Belhoucine, the World Health Organization's local representative, announced in the capital Conakry.

The fever spread stealthily and terrifyingly from December 2013, striking two neighbouring countries, Sierra Leone and Liberia, with sporadic cases also in Mali, Nigeria and Senegal.

People gather for a concert to celebrate 

Guinea reaching the final stages of the

 battle with the Ebola epidemic on 

September 26, 2015 in Conakry 

(AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)

As world health watchdogs struggled to respond, deaths mounted at a dizzying rate, igniting fears in Europe and elsewhere of a virus that transgressed borders and national controls.

Around 11,300 people died out of almost 29,000 recorded cases, according to a WHO tally that many experts believe greatly understates the real impact of the outbreak.

Paying tribute to Guineans for "standing their ground and fighting with courage", Belhoucine also acknowledged the international community's help in battling the outbreak.

"At the peak of the epidemic... the country recorded hundreds of cases per week. The social fabric was severely tested," he said.

The last known case in Guinea was a three-month-old named Nubia, who was born with the disease but whose recovery was confirmed on November 16.

That triggered the countdown to the announcement, as a period of 42 days -- twice the virus's maximum incubation period -- is required to declare a country free of transmission.

'Au revoir, Ebola'

The WHO declared Sierra Leone' epidemic over on November 7, while Liberia discharged its last known Ebola cases on December 3.

President Alpha Conde is expected at an celebration in Conakry on Wednesday, flanked by representatives from donor countries and dozens of organisations involved in the recovery, from Doctors without Borders to the Red Cross.

Guests will pay tribute to the 115 health workers who died fighting Ebola and eight members of an Ebola awareness team killed by hostile locals in Guinea's forested southeast.

A range of top African musicians, including Youssou N'Dour and Mory Kante, will take to the stage for a "memorial" concert -- entitled "Bye-bye, au revoir Ebola" in the francophone country.

Amid the jubilation and hope for a return to normality, experts have sounded a note of caution, as the virus has been shown to persist in the sperm and other body fluids of survivors significantly longer than previously thought.

Shattered economies

Liberia was declared free of human-to-human transmission in May and again in September, but both times the fever resurfaced in small clusters.

"We have to be very careful because, even if open transmission has been stopped, the disease has not been totally defeated," said Alpha Seny Souhmah, a Guinean health technician and Ebola survivor.

The WHO said in a statement from Geneva that Guinea had entered a 90-day period of "heightened surveillance" to ensure any new cases are identified quickly before they could spread.

Guineans battling Ebola have been faced with huge obstacles, not least the country's grinding poverty and a crumbling medical infrastructure.

Frontline workers have also had to combat the rumour mill, entrenched denial, fear of Ebola stigma and resistance to confinement measures deemed authoritarian or unreasonable.

They also had to persuade people to abandon funeral traditions whereby mourners touch the body of their loved one -- a potent pathway to infection.

The epidemic devastated the economies of the worst-hit countries, as crops rotted in the fields, mines were abandoned and goods could not get to market.

Strong recent growth has been curtailed in Guinea and while Liberia has resumed growth, Sierra Leone is facing a severe recession, according to the World Bank, which has mobilised $1.62 billion for Ebola response and recovery efforts.

The bank's group president Jim Yong Kim called for continued support for Guinea and its neighbours, vowing to "do everything we can to help these countries and the world prevent another deadly pandemic".

Guinea Ebola outbreak over, WHO declares, two years after it emerged https://t.co/UOAxqVvXEX pic.twitter.com/hNod6DG2hH

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) December 29, 2015

Malawi teacher accused of trying to sell albino girl for $10,000

Yahoo – AFP, 15 Sep 2015

An albino child stands barefoot next to a teammate during football practice (AFP

Photo/Yasuyoshi Chiba)

Blantyre (Malawi) (AFP) - A Malawian teacher suspected of attempting to sell an albino schoolgirl for $10,000 was arrested Tuesday, police said, as the country battles to stop albino killings fuelled by superstition.

Primary school teacher Phillip Ngulube was with the girl when he was arrested in the northern city of Mzuzu and has been charged with abduction with intent to murder, police spokesman Maurice Chapola told AFP.

Ngulube was "caught by police on his way to selling the girl to an alleged Tanzanian businessman for six million Kwacha ($10,000)," said Chapola, adding it was likely she would be killed for her body parts.

An albino child is presented at the "Maison 

des Albinos" (Albinos house) in Burundi

(AFP Photo/Stephane de Sakutin)

The suspect told police the high school student was his girlfriend.

Albinos have white skin and yellow hair, a result of an hereditary genetic disorder that causes the absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes.

They are killed regularly in some African countries for their body parts — from genitals to bones — which are used in witchcraft rituals.

The plight of people with albinism has worsened in recent years, according to UN and police figures, with concerns that the October election in Tanzania this year will prompt more attacks as politicians seek luck at the ballot box.

A complete albino skeleton is said to be worth as much as $75,000, according to the Red Cross.

Since a surge of attacks against albinos in December, the UN estimates that nine have been killed in Malawi.

In June, Malawi launched a probe to establish the root causes of albino killings and identify who buys the body parts in the country and in neighbouring Tanzania and Mozambique.

The results of the probe have yet to be published.

Several Malawians are awaiting trial in connection with albino-related crimes, including killings, abductions and possession of albino bones.

American Red Cross squandered aid after Haiti earthquake, report alleges

Despite raising nearly half a billion dollars and allocating $170m to ‘shelter relief’, the aid organization built only six permanent homes, an investigation has found

The Guardian, Alan Yuhus, 4 June 2015

An undated American Red Cross handout photo of the aftermath of the earthquake
shows the devastation to homes in Haiti. Photograph: Matt Marek/American
Red Cross/PA

Despite collecting nearly half a billion dollars for Haiti earthquake relief, the American Red Cross has built only six permanent homes and seemingly squandered millions in the country, according to a new report.

A joint investigation by ProPublica and NPR uncovered rampant mismanagement, high overhead costs and deeply rooted acrimony from Haitians toward the aid organization. Among the investigation’s findings was that although the Red Cross apportioned about $170m to the category of “shelter” relief, and although it at first planned to build some 700 houses, it only constructed six permanent homes.

The report charges the Red Cross with consistent misrepresentation of its projects, especially in housing. The authors cite promotional materials that say the Red Cross provided more than 130,000 people with homes, and then note that that total includes people in “transitional shelters”, recipients of short-term rent assistance, and people who had been “trained in proper construction techniques”.

The Red Cross disputes the report and asserts it has “helped build and operate eight hospitals and clinics” and “move more than 100,000 people out of make-shift tents into safe and improved housing”. In a statement, the organization said it is “disappointed” by the “lack of balance, context and accuracy” on the part of ProPublica and NPR.

A major problem for the organization was leadership and staffing, according to the report. Integral positions, including experts for health and shelter, were left vacant for months and sometimes years. The positions that were staffed were predominantly held by expats or by people flown in from the United States, many of whom could not speak French or Creole.

In one 2011 document, Red Cross official Judith St Ford notes that there are “serious program delays caused by internal issues that go unaddressed”, including for cholera relief.

“There is a clear lack of foresight and planning,” she wrote, and “the lack of leadership ability has contributed to poor morale in the field.”

She also urged her superiors to hire more Haitians: “the implication that talented, smart, competent Haitians cannot be found in Haiti has to be dispelled.”

In its statement the Red Cross says 90% of its current staff are Haitians; the organization did not break down the hierarchy or positions of its staff.

“If they were an organization that had a real history in Haiti I think this would’ve gone a lot better,” said Justin Elliott, one of the journalists who co-wrote the report. “The entire Haiti reconstruction effort has been really problematic, but the outside groups that have done better have roots there, have Haitian people working at high levels, have people who speak the language.”

In one 2013 email published by ProPublica, CEO Gail McGovern admitted a project had failed and that she did not know what to do with a $20m remainder. “Now that the Northern project is going bust and we are still holding $20 million of contingency, any ideas on how to spend the rest of this?” she asked, before mentioning a mysterious “wonderful helicopter idea”.

Without Haitians in leadership positions, the Red Cross was particularly ill-prepared to deal with Haiti’s land tenure rules, a system so tangled and unforgiving that it has intimidated USAid and Vatican relief efforts.

Residents of the Jean-Marie Vincent camp for people displaced by the 2010
earthquake, wait for customers outside their tent where they have set up a
stand to sell rice, oil and canned goods in Port-au-Prince on 9 January 2013.
Photograph: Dieu Nalio Chery/AP

“Land tenure is probably the biggest stumbling block,” said Jonathan M Katz, a freelance journalist and author of a book about the earthquake, The Big Truck That Went By. The system has stymied aid organizations for years, and Katz said that for years aid organizations have “thrown up their collective hands and said ‘we don’t really want to deal with this.’”

The Red Cross entangled itself in a web of other organizations, often paying them to do relief work, themselves struggling in Haiti. This outsourcing is commonplace in the international aid industry, Katz said, and leads to inevitable but not necessarily unreasonable overhead costs. But eager to better solicit donations, organizations often try to downplay these costs.

The report notes that overhead charges by the Red Cross and its contractors undermine McGovern’s claim that “minus the nine cents overhead, 91 cents on the dollar will be going to Haiti.”

In one case, Elliott and his co-author, NPR’S Laura Sullivan, found that the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) exacted $1.56m in overhead from the American Red Cross’s payment of $6m, all to help give Haitians rental subsidies so they could leave tent camps. The IFRC said the costs were related to “administration, finance, human resources”.

In another case, the Red Cross commissioned Swiss and Spanish Red Cross societies to upgrade shelters, but still took 24% of the money for the project in additional overhead costs, according to the report.

Where exactly the $488m of the American Red Cross’s Haiti budget has gone is unclear, Elliott said, since “the whole international aid sector is pretty opaque in general. And the spending of the American Red Cross is incredible opaque. You can tell hardly anything from their disclosures.”

He said that the issue of money was particularly sensitive to Haitians who had coordinated with the Red Cross.

“They were furious basically over broken promises,” Elliott said. “About three years ago, the Red Cross told people they were going to build hundreds of new homes in this very hard-hit area, and this thing was just stalled. Over the next two years they had meetings with the community, handed out juice boxes and so on, and nothing happened for a long time.”

The Red Cross is now helping build a road and install solar lights in the area.

Katz said that the problems of the American Red Cross are “typical of the aid industry in general. The Red Cross is sort of the biggest kid on the block. Because they make way more money than anybody else, what they do is magnified.”

The interconnected NGOs and aid organizations of the world, ranging from the many satellites of the Red Cross to Doctors Without Borders to the Clinton Foundation, Katz said, should deserve more skepticism from the public. Reports have traced the 2011 cholera epidemic to United Nations relief efforts, he noted, adding that many organizations operate more like businesses than anything else.

“Even when an aid group is pulling off a project well,” he said, “if it isn’t going to be there forever, if it isn’t going to be accountable for successes and failures, if it isn’t leaving something behind that’s permanent, then it’s still capable of doing damage.”

Last year the Red Cross similarly took issue with another ProPublica report that said the organization had disastrously mismanaged aid relief after hurricane Sandy.

World's first academy for humanitarian relief to be launched

Humanitarian Leadership Academy to train aid workers from over 50 countries in organising rapid responses to disasters and emergencies

The Guardian, Julian Borger Diplomatic editor, Sunday 22 March 2015

Local residents receive humanitarian aid in the city of Debaltseve, Ukraine.
The world’s first academy for humanitarian relief will train aid workers in
responding to disasters and emergencies. Photograph: Sokolov Mikhail/
Sokolov Mikhail/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

The world’s first academy for humanitarian relief is to be launched, aimed at training 100,000 aid workers from over 50 countries in organising rapid responses to disasters and emergencies.

The Humanitarian Leadership Academy, launching on Monday, is a response to the growing number of humanitarian crises around the world, driven by climate change and conflict, combined with a severe and worsening shortage of people with the skills necessary to coordinate the large-scale response required in the critical first days to prevent mass casualties.

The HLA is being set up by a global consortium of aid organisations with initial £20m funding from the UK Department for International Development, out of a target of £50m. The Save the Children charity has paid the startup costing and is hosting the academy’s hub in London.

Further centres will open in Kenya and the Philippines later this year, and by 2020 the plan is to have ten training centres around the world, which would offer both classroom and virtual training for the surrounding regions, in mobilising the rapid response in resources and manpower needed in the wake of a disaster.

Jan Egeland, a former UN head of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, will be the academy’s first chairman. He said the initiative “may revolutionise the entire humanitarian sector”.

“Investment in a new and better trained generation of humanitarian workers closer to where we find the greatest needs will bring development and sustainability to many of the world’s most fragile communities,” Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said.

Last year witnessed a record number of severe global humanitarian emergencies and the highest number of refugees the world has seen since the second world war. 50 million people were forced to flee their countries.

  

Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, said: “If we are to save more lives in some of the toughest places in the world we need to train and support local people themselves to become the humanitarian workers and volunteers of the future. The academy will do this by bringing together an extraordinary and unique coalition of actors to train and share best practice, transforming the humanitarian system.”

The idea behind the establishment of ten national and regional centres around the world is that each should be able to tailor responses to crises in terms of local conditions and local culture. Aid experts have said that previous attempts to increase local and regional capacity to react to large-scale emergencies have foundered because they were seen as impositions of practices developed far away.

The plan is for each centre to provide a common pool of knowledge, the latest technology and examples of best practice, as well as solid career structures for humanitarian workers, with internationally recognised certification for successive levels of achievement, recorded in ‘humanitarian passports’. The end result should be to expand the pool of people available in every region to manage the humanitarian response in the first 72 hours of an emergency.

“This is potentially one of the most transformational projects I have been involved in,” said Gareth Owen, Save the Children’s director of emergencies, who has been working on the academy project since 2007. “It is based on the recognition that many studies of humanitarian disasters and emergencies point to leadership and decision-making as the critical factor. Really by now we should have a global capacity that we can draw on that is far greater and more diverse. We haven’t invested enough in people on the ground.”

Owen said that climate change was adding to the relentless annual toll of humanitarian crises: “We used to have a big natural disaster about once a decade and that has come down to one every two or three years.”

Global funding for emergency relief has largely stagnated. Owen said the $20bn (£13bn) spending on the response to humanitarian emergencies is a third of the amount the world spends on yoghurt, for example, and that there is no comparison with the $1.5tn spent on arms.

“The Humanitarian Leadership Academy will help create a faster and more effective disaster response system by empowering local people in the most vulnerable countries to be the first responders after a disaster strikes,” Justine Greening, the secretary of state for international development, said. “The high quality training and expertise delivered by this academy will mean humanitarian responses not only provide immediate, life-saving relief, but also help build a more secure and resilient world.”

Related Article:

Ebola report slams slow WHO response

WHO calls for revamp after 'too slow' Ebola response

The head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, has called for reform amid criticism of the body's response to the Ebola crisis. She warned against complacency despite progress in fighting the epidemic.

Deutsche Welle, 25 Jan 2015

A baby receives a vaccine during a routine doctor's visit at the Kuntorloh Community
 Health Centre in the outskirts of Freetown on November 14, 2014. AFP Photo/
Francisco Leong/Getty Images

Chan told a rare emergency session of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva on Sunday that it had been too sluggish in responding to the recent Ebola crisis in West Africa, saying the agency should learn from its mistakes.

"This was West Africa's first experience with the virus and it delivered some horrific shocks and surprises," she said.

"The world, including WHO, was too slow to see what was unfolding before us," Chan admitted, adding that "never again should the world be caught by surprise, unprepared."

Chan went on to say that although the "worst-case scenario" had been avoided and progress in fighting the disease was evident in the three worst-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the world should not let down its guard.

"Cases are clearly declining in all three countries, but we must maintain the momentum and guard against complacency and donor fatigue," she said, warning that cases of the disease could easily surge if bodies were buried unsafely or communities violently resisted attempts at disease prevention.

Zero target

She added that the WHO aimed to reduce the number of Ebola cases in the three countries this year "to zero," while admitting this was "not going to be easy."

Chan said the Ebola crisis
taught many lessons

In her speech, Chan called for a "dedicated contingency fund to support rapid responses to outbreaks and emergencies" and for help to be given to countries so they can maintain their own highly trained teams to react quickly to emergencies.

She also demanded better international coordination and surveillance and improved crisis management within WHO itself.

The director of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Tom Frieden, also pointed out failings in the WHO reponse to the outbreak, calling for "significant changes."

"We have to be frank that too many times the technical is over-ruled by the political in WHO. We have to reverse that. It must be technical, from the selection of regional directors to the establishment of rapid response," he told the meeting.

African dissatisfaction

Sunday's meeting of the WHO executive board was called by several member states critical of the United Nations agency's slow response.

"Countries in the African region feel that building WHO's capacity to respond to emergencies must be a priority activity," said Liberia's deputy health minister Dr. Bernice Dahn, saying the Africa region had "been disappointed by slow progress."

The recent outbreak of Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever transmitted by body fluids, has left at least 8,641 people dead over the past year or so, most of them in West Africa, according to WHO estimates.

tj/bw (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

A medical worker checks the temperature of a man, in quarantine since his daughter

died from Ebola, in Omega town, a suburb of Monrovia, on January 21, 2015.The

World Health Organization said in its latest update that 8,688 people had died,

among a cumulative total of 21,759 cases. AFP Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images 

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Just five Ebola cases left in Liberia
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Just five Ebola cases left in Liberia

Yahoo – AFP,  Zoom Dosso, 24 Jan 2015

Red Cross workers wearing protective suits prepare for the burial of victims
of the Ebola virus in Monrovia, on January 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso

Monrovia (AFP) - The United Nations said on Saturday Liberia was dealing with just five remaining cases of Ebola, in the clearest sign yet that the country is nearing the end of the outbreak.

The worst outbreak of the virus in history has seen the west African nation and its neighbours Guinea and Sierra Leone register almost 9,000 deaths in a year, although experts believe the real toll could be far higher.

The UN, whose health wing the World Health Organization (WHO) collates Ebola figures, said in a statement that the number of confirmed cases now stood at five and had even dropped as low as one earlier this week.

A Red Cross worker prepares to bury

 Ebola victims in Monrovia, on January 5,

2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

"According to the WHO, the five cases are laboratory confirmed cases," Lisa White, a spokeswoman for the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, said.

She added that government figures for Tuesday had shown 21 suspected and probable cases -- but only one lab-confirmed case.

"WHO is supporting the government of Liberia in getting down to zero cases," she said.

"Now is the time to stay vigilant and make sure the good trend continues."

Assistant health minister Tolbert Nyensuwah confirmed the figure, adding that three of the cases were in the capital Monrovia, while the others were in the northwestern counties of Bomi and Grand Cape Mount.

"It means that we are going down to zero if everything goes well, if other people don't get sick in other places."

Need to stay vigilant

At the height of the epidemic in August and September, Liberia was reporting more than 300 new cases a week and overwhelmed aid workers were having to turn people away from swamped clinics, often to die in the streets.

But a huge international response has seen hundreds of US healthcare workers and troops flood into the country to train nurses and set up Ebola units.

A medical worker checks the temperature of a man, in quarantine since his

daughter died from Ebola, in Omega town, a suburb of Monrovia, on January 21,

2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

The WHO said in its latest update on the epidemic that 8,688 people had died, among a cumulative total of 21,759 cases, since the disease emerged in Guinea a year ago.

The agency has recognised significant progress in beating back Ebola but warned on Friday that the crisis was still "extremely alarming".

In a further sign of progress, Sierra Leone lifted quarantine measures on Friday which had been imposed as reports of new cases began to spiral in the summer.

'Steady downward trend'

The nation of six million had restricted travel for around half its population, sealing off six of its 14 districts and numerous tribal chiefdoms.

President Ernest Bai Koroma pointed to a "steady downward trend" in new cases in recent weeks, adding that "victory is in sight".

But the move came as the WHO warned that progress made so far could rapidly be undone unless $250 million was made available to continue the fight over the coming months.

"We are still in a very, very dangerous situation with this virus," WHO number two Bruce Aylward told reporters in Geneva.

Red Cross workers wearing protective suits carry the body of a victim of

Ebola during a burial in Monrovia, on January 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Zoom Dosso)

"Especially now... that we are heading into the rainy season very, very soon. That's going to hit us in April, May, and that will make the response that much more complicated."

The relaxation -- and the progress seen in Liberia -- nevertheless marks huge progress against an epidemic which has seen commerce all but grind to a halt, with restrictions on movement halting crop harvests and sparking warnings of a looming food crisis.

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) said on Friday its candidate Ebola vaccine was expected to arrive in Liberia later in the day.

The batch of 300 vials will be the first to arrive in one of the main Ebola-hit countries and will be used in trials led by the US National Institutes of Health in the coming weeks involving up to 30,000 people.

Around 200 volunteers are already testing the candidate vaccine in smaller-scale trials Britain, the United States, Switzerland and Mali, with initial results showing it to be safe.

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TIME: 2014 Person of the Year: The Ebola Fighters


"Revelations of Darkness" - Oct 1, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“ .. The Role of Gaia in Human Consciousness

One of those times might be frightening for you to know about, since it was a full cooperation with Gaia for your termination, and a pandemic almost wiped humanity off the map. A pandemic! Now, you say, "What has that got to do with Human consciousness, Kryon?" Pay attention, dear ones, because this is the day where the teaching was given by my partner, and he put together the Nine Human Attributes. One of the attribute sets included three Gaia attributes and one of them was the consciousness of the planet. Gaia is related to Human consciousness!

Are you starting to connect the dots? You are connected to this planet in a profound and spiritual way. As goes humanity goes the planet's consciousness. Gaia, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it, cooperates with Human consciousness. If you spend 1,000 years killing each other, then Gaia will do its best to cooperate with your desires! Gaia will look at Human consciousness and try to help with what you have shown you like to do! Did you know this role of Gaia with you? It's a partner with you, fast tracking what you give to it. You may wish to review what the indigenous of the planet still understand. Gaia is a partner!

Pandemic: Don't you find it odd that in the last 50 years, when you have a population of seven billion Human Beings, with up to 2,000 airplanes in the air at any given moment, going between almost every conceivable place, that there has not been a pandemic in your lifetime? There have been five starts of potential pandemics over the last 20 years, yet none became serious. Did any of you put this together? Dear ones, when the world was far less populated a few hundred years ago, with no mass travel to spread a virus, there were still millions wiped out by a pandemic. With the increased population and mass travel, there is far more danger today than before. It doesn't make sense, does it? What happened to stop it?

When you know humanity's relationship to Gaia, it makes sense. Gaia is a life-force that is your partner, watching you change the balance of light and dark and reflecting what Humans want. It has polarity, too! Perhaps it's time to start your meditations with thanking your planet Earth for supporting you in the spirituality of your Akash, for always being with you, a life-force that is always present. The ancients started their ceremonies in that way. Have you forgotten?

Ebola

Now, I've just set the stage for the next subject, haven't I? Ebola. Are you afraid yet? Gaia is a life-force that is a part of Human consciousness. My partner put it on the screen today so you could see the connections [during the lecture series]. Now it's time to connect the dots. Dear one, Gaia is in the battle, too, for here comes something scary that you haven't had in your lifetime and you're afraid of it - the potential of a pandemic on the planet.

There's a very famous film that has some dialogue that my partner will quote. Some of you will know it and some of you won't, but here it is: "Have a little fire, scarecrow?" What are you afraid of? Darkness? Gaia is in the battle with you and is actively pursuing solutions through light. The energy of the planet is with you in this fight! The ebola virus is a shock and a surprise. It is propelled by ignorance and fear, so it can flourish. Look at where it started and look at how it gets its ability to continue. It expands its fear and power easily with those who believe it's a curse instead of those who understand the science.

Villages are filled with those who refuse to leave their family members because they believe the disease is a curse! FEAR! Instead of understanding that they should be in isolation from the virus, the family dies together through ignorance and fear. This represents how darkness works. Are you going to become afraid also? Dear ones, ebola will be conquered. Know this and be at peace. Pray for light for those in the villages who are afraid, that they can know more about how to keep the spread of this disease and live to see their families. .”

Kalla Re-elected as Indonesian Red Cross Chief

Jakarta Globe, Novi Setuningsih, Dec 18, 2014

Vice President Jusuf Kalla says he will treat his job as job as chairman of the
Indonesian Red Cross as a "duty for humanity."(Antara Photo/Puspa Perwitasari)

Jakarta. Vice President Jusuf Kalla was re-elected as chairman of the Indonesian Red Cross on Thursday.

Kalla beat Titiek Soeharto — the daughter of former president Soeharto — by a margin of 77 votes at the organization’s national congress held at the Jakarta Convention Center.

Kalla said he would treat the the job as a “duty for humanity” and promised to improve the capacity of the Indonesian Red Cross, known in Indonesia as the PMI.

Our population is growing, so are our health problems,” he said. “We shall try to increase the blood donation. Disasters are also everywhere and come in various ways — that’s why we should be prepared all the time.”

The Red Cross is one of the world’ largest humanitarian and development networks, with a presence in 187 countries. It provides development assistance and support during disaster recovery and response. In Indonesia the organization has provided help to communities hit by natural disasters, such as flooding, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

Addressing the congress Kalla said the Red Cross had started working closer with several hospitals across the country. And the PMI recently signed a deal to offer mutual protection and assistance to the National Police while working in conflict areas.

Food banks in Taiwan launch alliance to share resources

Want China Times, CNA 2014-08-30

Food provided by 1919 Food Bank. (Photo/Kuo Chia-jung)

Six food banks in Taiwan launched an alliance in Taipei Thursday to share their resources and logistics more effectively and to push for legislation that encourages donations to food banks.

The founding of the Cozy Food Bank Alliance in Taiwan is aimed at "saying no to wasting resources," the alliance said in a statement.

Its members include the Taiwan People's Food Bank Association, the 1919 Food Bank, the Andrew Food Bank, the Chinese Youth Peace Corps Food Bank, the Southern Airport's Jen Ji Shiang Food Bank and the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China's Taichung branch, which operates a food bank in the central municipality.

"We hope to send the supplies to people in need in the fastest and most efficient way," Lawrence Liu, president of the Taiwan People's Food Bank Association and the first secretary-general of the alliance, said at a press conference.

Members of the alliance will share resources, information and logistics with each other, and cooperate in disaster relief assistance, community development and care services, Liu said.

They will also push for legislation that gives tax breaks to individuals and companies that donate to food banks, allows food banks or the public to purchase excess farm produce at discounted prices to give to the needy, and better ensure the safety of the food being distributed, Liu said.

He said Taiwan wastes 2.75 million tons of food each year, enough to feed 260,000 low-income households for 20 years.

Anthony Kitchen, manager of network programs with the US-based Global FoodBanking Network, stressed that food banks create a "win-win" situation for all involved.

In addition to helping people in need, food banks benefit businesses and organizations that have a problem with surplus food, which could otherwise cost time and money to deal with, he said at the press conference.

A food bank collects and distributes surplus food to people too impoverished to adequately feed themselves and their families. The first food bank was established in the United States in 1967.

The Taiwan People's Food Bank Association became the 24th member of the Global FoodBanking Network in 2012.

Related Article:

First 'boycott tomatoes' arrive at Dutch food banks

Guinea Ebola outbreak under control

Yahoo – AFP, 14 April 2014

Members of the Guinean Red Cross post information concerning the

 Ebola virus during an awareness campaign on April 11, 2014 in Conakry

(AFP Photo/Cellou Binani)

Pretoria (AFP) - Guinea's Foreign Minister Francois Fall on Monday said the west African country has brought the spread of the deadly haemorrhagic Ebola virus under control after more than 100 people have died.

"We are pleased to say we have controlled the spread of the epidemic," Fall told reporters after a meeting his South African counterpart Maite Nkoana-Mashabane in Pretoria.

"We have even managed to cure some of those infected."

The outbreak is one of the most deadly, with 157 people infected and 101 deaths in Guinea alone.

"We benefitted from help from the international community to stop the spread of the epidemic," he said.

International aid organisations last week launched a series of emergency measures in Guinea and across west Africa in a bid to contain one of the worst ever outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus.

The outbreak began in the impoverished country's southern forests, but has spread to Conakry, a sprawling port city on the Atlantic coast and home to two million people.

Graphic fact file on the deadly Ebola virus (AFP Photo/Adrian
Leung/John Saeki)

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described west Africa's first outbreak among humans as one of the most challenging since the virus emerged in 1976 in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"It is the first time we have faced this epidemic," said Fall adding that despite acting "very quickly" to stem the tide of the epidemic, "sadly there were a hundred people dead."

Fall said strict measures are being taken to prevent it spreading. Everyone entering or leaving Guinea is checked for Ebola.

In neighbouring Liberia, there have been 21 cases, including 10 deaths.

The virus known as Zaire Ebola, has had a fatality rate of up to 90 percent in past outbreaks, and there is no vaccine, cure or even specific treatment.

New Red Cross website for families scattered by crises

Google – AFP, 12 November 2012 

People searching for their missing family members can soon put a request

on the new website (AFP/File, Guillermo Legaria)

GENEVA — The Red Cross is preparing to launch a new website to help reunite families ripped apart by conflicts and natural disasters all around the world, it said Monday.

"War, disaster and migration separate thousands of family members every year," the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement ahead of Tuesday's launch of its "Restoring Family Links" website.

People searching for their missing family members can soon put a request on the new website, and "dedicated specialists ... will provide personal follow-up on enquiries," said Olivier Dubois, the deputy head of ICRC's Central Tracing Agency and Protection Division.

Relying on a vast network of volunteers already on the ground, integrated into communities basically all over the world, the ICRC and national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies is able to actively search for the missing people, he said.

While the website is the first focused on crises worldwide, the ICRC has previously launched a total of 23 websites focused on specific crises -- the first one during the Bosnian conflict in 1996, and most recently after last year's earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.