NEW YORK TIMES By GARDINER HARRIS               May 4, 2015

AWOKO.ORG   by  Berry Milton                             May 4, 2015

Getting ebola  to zero and staying zero is very crucial at this time, it is because of this that the women of Sierra Leone have taken the lead in the Yellow Ribbon Campaign, an initiative by the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) now led by Women in the Media Sierra Leone (WIMSAL).

Given a background to the campaign which was launched about three months ago, SLAJ President Kelvin Lewis said the aim was to inject new energy into the drive to get zero ebola cases as people are tired and frustrated not seeing the ending of the virus, “even though the figures were going down ebola was fighting back.”

He said the campaign is a personal commitment to be made by people which is very important as it means safe and dignified burial, to keep all sick people away from others and to speak out by calling 117 if they know of any sick person and contacts must stay in one area with food and water.
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http://awoko.org/2015/05/04/sierra-leone-news-more-work-and-engagement-for-women-to-end-ebola/

BIOPREPWATCH                                               May 4, 2015

Peter Jan Graaff, during his first week as the secretary-general’s acting special representative and head of the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, declared his commitment to stopping the Ebola outbreak.

“We have made great progress in fighting the virus, but we are not done yet,” Graaff said. “The rainy season is fast approaching, which will complicate efforts to contain the disease. We have a very small window of opportunity, and that window is closing fast. We can’t risk falling behind the virus again. We need to stay ahead of it and eliminate it before it is too late....”

If no cases present themselves by May 9, Liberia will be declared free of Ebola.

“Until we reach zero cases in every country, Ebola still poses a threat to the region, and to the world,” Graaff said. “We must keep up our efforts over the next few weeks to trace and treat every last case.”

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http://bioprepwatch.com/news/head-of-u-n-ebola-response-stresses-importance-of-stopping-virus-before-rainy-season/341712/

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO by Linda Poon                                                         May 3, 2015

Liberia is nearing a milestone. On May 9, its Ebola outbreak will be officially declared over, assuming no new cases between now and then.

But what happens when an outbreak of Ebola ends?

 

Dr. Peter Piot (left) meets with Sukato Mandzomba, a nurse who contracted Ebola during the 1976 outbreak. Mandzomba now runs a makeshift hospital lab in Yambuku. Courtesy of Dr. Heidi Larson

Image: Governer Jerry Brown.

huffingtonpost.com - April 29th 2015 - Kate Sheppard

California Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order Wednesday directing the state to cut is greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, the toughest proposed cuts of any state in the nation.

The 2030 target will ensure that California can meet its emissions target for the middle of this century, which calls for an 80 percent cut by 2050, Brown said. The state is already on pace to meet its goal of bringing heat-trapping emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020, a target set under a 2006 state law.

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huffingtonpost.com - April 17th 2015 - Charlotte Alfred

A group of Dutch citizens headed to court this week in a bold effort to hold their government accountable for its inaction over climate change.

The case, which opened at The Hague on Tuesday, was first filed by the Urgenda Foundation, a sustainability group, and 900 co-plaintiffs in the Netherlands in 2013.

The plaintiffs' lawyers argue that the current policies of the Dutch government are insufficient to halt climate change, and that the government is thus illegally endangering its citizens.

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Image: The American pika lives in rocky mountain areas and boulder-covered hillsides. In recent years, it  has been retreating to higher elevations. Since the 1990s, some pika populations along the species’ southernmost ranges have vanished. Credit Science Source

nytimes.com - April 30th 2015 - Carl Zimmer

Climate change could drive to extinction as many as one in six animal and plant species, according to a new analysis.

In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, Mark Urban, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut, also found that as the planet warms in the future, species will disappear at an accelerating rate.

“We have the choice,” he said in an interview. “The world can decide where on that curve they want the future Earth to be.”

HUMANOSPHERE  by Tom Murphy                                                                          May 1, 2015

ELMINA, Ghana – Each evening the fishermen set out in their hand-carved wooden boats. By nightfall, the horizon is dotted by a long row of small lights, their own constellation. Fish are caught, the haul is sold in markets and life continues. But one group is noticeably absent from Elmina and other towns along Ghana’s coast – tourists.

The near-empty Elmina Bay Resort. (Credit: Tom Murphy)

Thousands of college students embark on a trip to see the world and do a bit of learning through the Semester at Sea program. The West African countries of Senegal and Ghana are usually on the itinerary, bringing a steady flow of tourism to the two countries. But the countries are not destinations for three consecutive semesters due to concerns about Ebola.

community.apan.org/pacom-hadr/nepal_hadr

The All Partners Access Network (APAN) is the Unclassified Information Sharing Service (UISS) for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).

In response to the devastating earthquake on 25 APR 2015, APAN has created the Nepal HADR Community. Join this public community now to collaborate and share information with other members supporting the response effort, including members of the U.S. Department of Defense, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), other government agencies, and non-governmental organizations.

CLICK HERE - Nepal HADR

(ALSO SEE RELATED INFORMATION IN THE LINK BELOW)
https://community.apan.org/hadr/default.aspx

submitted by Santosh Dahal

cfe-dmha.org

The CFE-DMHA Disaster Information Report provides a daily analysis of various information sources reporting on the 2015 Nepal Earthquake effort.   

CFE's Disaster Management Reference Handbooks provide a baseline of information regarding countries most prone to disasters. A standardized assessment methodology with an operational perspective provides readers a general understanding of a nation's disaster management capability and vulnerability.

CLICK HERE - Disaster Information Reports and Reference Handbooks - Additional Information

For more information on the response effort, go to the Nepal Earthquake HADR Community on APAN

Image: Three out of four hot days could be due to climate change (Image: Guy Corbishley/Getty)

newscientist.com - April 28th 2015 - Aviva Rutkin

If climate change was a game, we'd have racked up quite a score. A fresh study suggests that humans are responsible for a hefty number of today's extreme hot days and rainstorms.

Weather extremes, such as a Russian heatwave in 2010 and a drought in Texas in 2011, have been blamed on climate change before – but the attribution of individual events to it is still hotly debated.

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WALL STREET JOURNAL BY Betsy McKay                     May 1, 2015

MONROVIA, Liberia—Dorbor Sirleaf thought his ordeal with Ebola was over in October, when he walked out of a treatment unit, having overcome the ruinous disease.

Instead, the 29-year-old father of four is suffering from symptoms he says he never had before he had Ebola. His legs and other parts of his body ache. Worse, he has trouble seeing, particularly distances. His eyes itch, hurt and often water up. “Sometimes my tears can be rolling,” he said.

More than 15,000 people have survived Ebola in West Africa, and more than 10,800 died, in the largest epidemic of the disease by far in history—one that has yet to be extinguished. But many have emerged with an assortment of mysterious physical ailments, including joint pain, fatigue and a particularly worrisome and common complaint: vision loss. Some, like Mr. Sirleaf, say their eyes hurt. Others report blurred vision or say they can’t see at all.

ASSOCIATED PRESS by Mike Stobbe                                                                    May1, 2015

NEW YORK, N.Y. - Health officials now think Ebola survivors can spread the disease through unprotected sex nearly twice as long as previously believed.

Scientists thought the Ebola virus could remain in semen for about three months. But a recent case in West Africa suggests infection through sex can happen more than five months later.

Based on the case, officials are now telling male Ebola survivors to avoid unprotected sex indefinitely. They had previously advised using condoms for at least three months.

A CDC report released Friday detailed the case of a 44-year-old Liberian woman whose infection likely came from a 46-year-old man who had Ebola symptoms last September. She fell ill in March, a week after sex with him, and died. Another woman he had sex with around the same time tested negative.

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http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Report+Liberian+woman+likely+Ebola+through+with+illness+months/11020962/story.html

Possible Sexual Transmission of Ebola Virus — Liberia, 2015