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THE CONVERSATION  by Meera Inglis (affiliated with the Green Party of England)     Jan. 20, 2015

                                                  Ebola has wiped out a third of the world’s gorillas.

THE CONVERSATION  by Meera Inglis (affiliated with the Green Party of England)                       Jan. 20, 2015

There is a side to the Ebola crisis that, perhaps understandably, has received little media attention: the threat it poses to our nearest cousins, the great apes of Africa. At this moment in time Ebola is the single greatest threat to the survival of gorillas and chimpanzees.

The virus is even more deadly for other great apes as it is for humans, with mortality rates approximately 95% for gorillas and 77% for chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Current estimates suggest a third of the world’s gorillas and chimpanzees have died from Ebola since the 1990s.

BALTIMORE SUN     by Scott Dance                                                   Jan. 20, 2015

In the year since Ebola began spreading across West Africa, the virus has mutated in more than 600 ways that change it slightly from versions studied in labs and used to develop treatments, according to researchers at Fort Detrick. And 10 of the mutations could make some drugs used to treat the virus ineffective, they wrote in research published Tuesday.

The "genomic drift," as the scientists called it, could make agents similar to the experimental drug ZMapp unable to bind to the virus anymore.

While the changes affect only a tiny fraction of Ebola's genome, they offer new lessons about the virus that might not have been learned because of the wide scope of the outbreak, larger than all others combined
Read complete story.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-hs-ebola-mutation-20150120-story.html

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cnbc.com - by Matt Clinch - January 20, 2015

CLICK HERE - 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer

A rash of unforeseen events in 2014 has left trust in global institutions at six-year lows, according to a new survey released on Tuesday.

The 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer - released to coincide with the beginning of the 2015 World Economic Forum in Davos - surveyed 27,000 people from 27 countries using 20-minute online interviews.

The results of the annual survey - which is now in its 15th year - revealed an "alarming evaporation" of trust across governments, businesses, media outlets and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Students block a street as they clash with national guards during a protest against the government in San Cristóbal on Wednesday. Photograph: Reuters

As President Nicolás Maduro tours the world in search of financing, the most conciliatory opposition leader says the time has come to mobilise on the streets

theguardian.com - by Sibylla Brodzinski - January 16, 2015

Even Venezuela’s most conciliatory opposition leader has had enough.

Amid sky-high inflation, an absent president, snaking queues outside supermarkets, and plummeting oil prices, Henrique Capriles said this week that the time was ripe to try to force a change.

“We are in a state of emergency,” he said on Monday. “This is the time to mobilise in the streets.”

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)