Resilience

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon with actor Leonardo DiCaprio during his designation ceremony as the UN Messenger of Peace. Photograph: EPA

Julian Borger - New York The Guardian
21 Sep 2014 16.55 BST

More than 140 heads of state and government fly in to New York this week for the United Nations general assembly amid apprehension that international order is unraveling at an accelerating pace, while the world's leaders seem ever less willing or able to deal with the proliferating threats.

The UN's humanitarian agencies are in danger of being completely overwhelmed by the multiple crises. Ebola is spreading rapidly across West Africa, swamping rickety national health systems and a thus-far underfunded UN effort to stop its advance. The spread of Islamic State (Isis) extremists in the Middle East, feeding on the destruction of the Syrian civil war and exposing the weakness of the Iraqi state, has similarly outpaced patchy international efforts at containment.

By Elizabeth Cohen - Sep 22, 2014 - cnn.com

Monrovia, Liberia (CNN) -- As I stood in the sweltering heat outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta earlier this week, President Barack Obama whispered in my ear.

Okay, he didn't exactly whisper, and his words were intended not just for me. In one of the most significant addresses of his presidency, Obama declared to the world that he would send 3,000 troops to Ebola-stricken West Africa.

Obama's speech was being piped into my earpiece, and I was about to go on CNN when I picked up my phone and emailed my friend Jake Tapper, the host of the show.

"World knows how to fight this disease," I wrote in the subject line, quoting the words I had just heard Obama speak.

After getting off the plane, Elizabeth Cohen has her temperature taken, since a fever is one symptom of Ebola. Her temperature was normal.

In the body of the email, I wrote to Jake, "Does it?"

And that's why I took an airplane to Liberia. I want to answer my own question.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

reuters.com - Sep 22, 2014

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, unrelated to the epidemic in West Africa, is "almost over" with no new cases detected for several days, Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo said.

The government body coordinating the response to Ebola released data on Monday showing Congo had recorded 68 cases in Equateur province since August. Four previously suspected cases had tested negative, but one new case was added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/22/us-health-ebola-congodemocratic-idUSKCN0HH2KA20140922

By Fred de Sam Lazaro - Sep 22, 2014 - pbs.org

The story of Ebola in Nigeria is an unusual and frankly rare one about things going right somewhere in Africa, albeit with fingers crossed for fear that it could quickly change.

The numbers are remarkable: just 21 cases of Ebola and eight deaths, in a nation of 170 million, according to the latest World Health Organization report. Compare that to Liberia, with a population of just over 4 million, which has suffered nearly 1500 deaths so far.

Nigeria’s achievement truly hits home for a television crew working “in the trenches” of a country the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency describes as “hobbled by … insecurity and pervasive corruption.”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/reporters-notebook-covering-ebola-nigeria-navigating-corruption/