As the deadly Ebola virus continues to spread, Liberians are panicking as dead bodies of people who have died from unknown causes continue to dawdle around the city of Monrovia and its environs without the Ministry of Health collecting them. The situation is creating Health hazard as communities worry that Liberia’s Health ministry is incapacitated to cater to the Ebola crisis.

Monrovia - Following the government of Liberia’s declaration of a national health emergency in the face of the deadly Ebola outbreak that has killed close to 130 Liberians and an entire government ministry at risk because of an employee that died of the deadly disease in Nigeria, there have been reports of dead bodies lying around with no effort by the ministry of health to remove them.

(CNN) -- The fear began just after news broke Thursday that a long-range business jet with an isolation pod left the United States for Liberia, where it will evacuate two Americans infected with Ebola.

Twitter exploded with questions about the deadly virus, which according to the World Health Organization is believed to have killed hundreds in four West African nations. And with reaction to news that two infected Americans would soon be on their way back to the United States.

cdc.gov - July 31, 2014

CDC urges all US residents to avoid nonessential travel to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone because of an unprecedented outbreak of Ebola.

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices

The U.S. issued a travel warning Thursday for three African countries hit by an outbreak of deadly Ebola, but the White House said President Obama will go forward with a summit in Washington next week featuring African leaders.

I would like to share the results of my research, thinking and writing with the U. S. Resilience System in the hopes that its viewers can incorporate some of it into their own work.  I also hope to receive feedback so I can improve my ideas.

My background is in city and regional planning.  More recently it has expanded to include futures research.  I believe that the much-needed resilience many of us are seeking can best be achieved if we are working on immediate plans and actions plus long-range plans and actions at the same time.  Immediate or short-term actions are seldom sufficient by themselves.

Resilience to the wide variety of critical problems and uncertainties we expect to face this century requires systemic changes in our country and world.  It requires changes in the way we think, act, organize and communicate, and in what and where we build.  We slowly build our man-made environment to fit our needs and then our man-made environment shapes and controls us for many decades - even after our needs have changed. 

31 JULY 2014 ¦ GENEVA/CONAKRY - The Director-General of WHO and presidents of west African nations impacted by the Ebola virus disease outbreak will meet Friday in Guinea to launch a new joint US$ 100 million response plan as part of an intensified international, regional and national campaign to bring the outbreak under control.

The World Health Organization is launching a $100 million response plan to combat an "unprecedented" outbreak of Ebola in West Africa that has killed 729 people out of 1,323 infected since February.

Nigerian health authorities are in the process of tracing more than 30,000 people who could be at risk of contracting Ebola, after the virus surfaced in Lagos.

The authorities have confirmed that a Liberian man who died in Lagos last Friday tested positive for Ebola, Reuters reported.

After the discovery, the hospital that dealt with Nigeria's first known Ebola victim was closed.

Professor Sunday Omilabu, from Lagos University Teaching Hospital, told Reuters the health authorities are now tracing everyone who may have had contact with the victim.

Liberia has suspended all football activities in an effort to control the spread of the deadly Ebola virus.

There was a risk of infection because football is a contact sport, the football association said.

The number of people killed by the virus in West Africa has now reached 672, according to new UN figures.

A major regional airliner, Asky, said it had halted flights to the Liberian and Sierra Leonean capitals because of growing concerns about the virus.

Bubonic plague bacteria. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

30,000 residents of Yumen are not being allowed to leave and 151 people have been placed in quarantine after man's death

theguardian.com - July 22, 2014

A Chinese city has been sealed off and 151 people have been placed in quarantine since last week after a man died of bubonic plague, state media said.

The 30,000 residents of Yumen, in the north-western province of Gansu, are not being allowed to leave, and police at roadblocks on the perimeter of the city are telling motorists to find alternative routes, China Central Television (CCTV) said.

A 38-year-old man died last Wednesday, the report said, after he had been in contact with a dead marmot, a small furry animal related to the squirrel.

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The sun rises over an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil is extracted using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on March 24, 2014 near Lost Hills, California.  David McNew, Getty Images

cbsnews.com - by Michael Roppolo - July 23, 2014

A new international survey shows that Americans are more divided and doubtful about climate change than people in other leading countries, even as the scientific evidence supporting it keeps piling up.

Ipsos-MORI, one of the largest market research companies in Great Britain, released its new Global Trends 2014 survey covering data from 200 questions with over 16,000 interviewees in 20 countries. . .

. . . When asked if they agreed with the statement, "The climate change we are currently seeing is largely the result of human activity," just 54 percent of Americans surveyed said yes. Although this number indicates a majority, the United States still ranked last among 20 countries in the poll.

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Image: Carving whale shark. Photo: WildLifeRisk

businessinsider.com.au - January 28, 2014 - Chris Pash

An activist group has uncovered what it says is a whale shark factory in China processing up to 600 of the endangered fish each year.

WildLifeRisk, a Hong Kong-based conservation group, says the whale sharks are being processed at the “China Wenzhou Yueqing Marine Organisms Health Protection Foods Co Ltd” in China’s PuQi township near Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province.

The factory is fed by a network of agents who pay fishermen up to $US30,000 for one whale shark which can grow to 12m and weigh 20 tonnes.

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Sierra Leone officials appealed for help on Friday to trace the first known resident in the capital with Ebola whose family forcibly removed her from a Freetown hospital after testing positive for the deadly disease.

Radio stations in Freetown, a city of around 1 million inhabitants, broadcast the appeal on Friday to locate a woman who tested positive for the disease that has killed 660 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since an outbreak was first identified in February.