http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/13/europe/paris-attacks-one-year-on/index.html —  Lanterns, candles and calls for peace illuminated the City of Light on Sunday as Paris mourned 130 people killed one year ago in attacks throughout the city.   November 13, 2015, was like any other day for Georges Salines: Work, a lunchtime swim with his daughter Lola, watching the news on TV, and an early night. He had no idea, until the phone rang, jolting him from his sleep, that his world was about to change forever. "I went to bed ... without knowing what was going on in the streets of Paris," he recalls. "I was woken up by a phone call in the middle of the night, from my eldest son, who knew that his sister was at the Bataclan." Salines' 29-year-old daughter, Lola, had gone to a concert at the Bataclan by US rock band the Eagles of Death Metal. Midway through the show, ISIS-linked gunmen opened fire on the audience and detonated suicide vests; 90 people were killed in the raid, one of a series of coordinated attacks across Paris. Unable to reach her, the family spent hours trying to find out what had happened to Lola, calling emergency help lines and hospitals, even the morgue, but nobody could tell them if she was alive. Then the worst news, delivered in the worst way: They discovered via social media that she had been killed. "I hope she didn't suffer or see her death coming," her father says. French President Francois Hollande unveiled plaques at attack sites in the city -- at the Stade de France, outside the Petit Cambodge restaurant, in the Boulevard Voltaire, and at the Bonne Biere and Belle Equipe cafes. At the Bataclan, the President tore down a French flag to reveal the memorial, as the names of all 90 who perished there were read aloud in solemn ceremony. It followed an emotional performance on Saturday night by musician Sting, a fundraiser for victim support charities at the newly opened Bataclan. He began with the words: "We shall not forget them." The much-loved venue has been renovated to remove all traces of the massacre that took place there. On Sunday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said a state of emergency, first imposed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, will likely be extended. With the country's presidential elections coming in April-May, the prime minister said the government needs to retain the extra powers delegated by emergency laws "to protect our democracy." 'Bloody battlefield' Denys Plaud was also at the Bataclan on the night of the attacks. He credits his survival to the fact that, when the attackers burst in, he was up on the balcony where there was more room to move to the music. "I love to dance, and that saved my life," he told CNN days after his escape from the Bataclan. "It meant I was not in the direct line of fire from the terrorists' machine guns." Plaud hid in a tiny room at the venue with 15 others; they waited as the gunmen got closer and closer, even shooting at the partition that sheltered them: "I thought, 'Oh my God, I hope that wall will stand.'" "For three hours, we had to listen to the shooting," he remembers. "That was terrible. Every time we thought it would end, it was just time for the terrorists to get their weapons reloaded, and then they would shoot again." Eventually, the police arrived and led them to safety across what Plaud calls "the bloody battlefield," urging them not to look at the bodies of their fellow music fans. "But ... it was not a direct path, I had to look where I was putting my feet. ... There was no way but to look at death." A year on, he says, the memories are "very fresh ... it's just like it was yesterday." Artist turns Paris attacks ordeal into graphic novel A nation traumatized By late morning Sunday, the first flowers to remember victims were placed among the autumn leaves at the Place de la République, which became the center of the city's mourning and expressions of national unity after the attacks. For many Parisians, it is an opportunity to begin getting on with life. The year since the attacks has been filled with shock, grief and mourning -- for the relatives of the dead, for those who survived, and for France as a whole: The nation was left traumatized. Extra police and troops have been on the streets of France since January 2015, when terrorists attacked the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people: Armed officers now patrol outside tourist hot spots, schools, government and religious buildings. Operation Sentinel has seen the mobilization of 10,000 soldiers to monitor and protect more than 11,000 locations across the country -- 3,000 of them religious sites, the rest a mixture of key infrastructure, industrial plants and "symbolic" places around the country. And despite all the extra security on the streets, what happened in January and November 2015 -- and other incidents that followed in 2016, in Nice, Rouen and Magnanville -- have impacted the country's morale. Plaud says Paris itself was left "in shock." Anger at these events has been linked to a steep rise in xenophobia; according to the National Commission on Human Rights, or CCNDH, there were 429 reports of attacks on, and threats against, Muslims in France in 2015 -- a rise of 223% on the previous year. This "wave of aggression against Muslims" ranged from assaults on women wearing the hijab to graffiti on places of worship and halal butcher shops. In one incident, the door handle of a mosque was wrapped in bacon. The CCNDH says the majority happened in January and November. The attacks have also damaged France's prized tourism industry: Almost 2 million fewer visitors have come to the country over the past year -- international arrivals are down 8.1% so far in 2016. But Plaud says the country has seen troubled times before, and is sure to bounce back: "I am confident; in Parisian history there have been a lot of events like that -- war, civil war. But Paris has always been able to recover." #ParisResiste Balloons were released into the skies over Paris, and as darkness fell, thousands of lanterns were floated on the waters of the Canal St. Martin, close to the scene of several of the attacks. A social media campaign, #ParisResiste called on people to display lighted candles in the windows of their homes on Sunday evening, to "light up the city" and "brighten the future." Salines concedes the day will be a difficult one for many: "Some families have chosen to take a vacation and go abroad even, because there will be a lot of media attention and there will be a lot of archive footage of last year -- I'm sure it will be painful to see these images again." Plaud suffered flashbacks in the months after the attack that forced him to give up his job as a math and physics tutor, but says he is gradually recovering. This week he returned to the Bataclan for the first time. "I want[ed] to come back to pay my last homage to the victims and people who died there," he says. "It is important even if it is very strong, emotionally, to be here." Both Plaud and Salines say putting pen to paper has helped them through the past 12 months. "I wanted to write in order not to forget," Salines says. "The writing helped me, because it was the only way in the first days that I could think about what had happened ... not without pain, but being able to stay calm and to keep some distance between the pain and my thinking." The idea for his book, "The unspeakable, from A to Z" came, he says, from "the messages I received from friends and family -- lots of them started with the words, 'this is unspeakable,' 'we don't know what to say,' 'there are no words.' They had no words but I had lots! I started to make a list of words and ... little by little it grew and it grew into a book." He says the dictionary-like form his writings took helped reflect the rapidly changing emotions he experienced in the weeks and months after Lola's death. "It was very close to what I was experiencing in terms of the shift between very different moods, even happening all at the same time, within a few minutes, from crying to laughing. When you read you go from one word to another, from emotional feelings ... to very funny." The first entry in the book: A is for absurd. "Because Lola, and I am sure all the other young people who lost their lives that day, were total strangers to the situation, the fight that the terrorists have and it is profoundly unjust." For Plaud, revisiting his experiences to write about them "was very difficult [but] it was therapeutic." "It was a way to exorcise the demons and all the horror I saw that night. It was dangerous because sometimes I had to go deep inside my memories of death." 'Grieving never ends' "The grieving never ends," says Salines. "I am at a stage now where I know that things are relatively stable -- the pain will probably last for the rest of my life but I don't break down in tears three times a day as I was doing at the beginning." Salines is sustained by his work as chairman of one of the support groups for those affected by the events of November 13, and by his memories of Lola. "Her life was maybe short, but it was a full life, full of happiness," he says. A publisher of children's and young adult books, Lola loved to travel and had a passion for roller derby. "She had incredible energy. We didn't know how she could do so many things in a day." "She did a lot of good things in her life, she had a great deal of pleasure, she was very enthusiastic," he says. "She had a good life. Writing about it was maybe a way of convincing myself, but I feel pretty confident that my daughter's life was a good life." Plaud says for him, the time has come to move on. "It's been one year now and I feel like it's the end of my mourning." "It is a good thing that life has come back again," he says. "We have to keep the memory, but you also [must] not be stuck in that horror, [you must] keep on living."

Its always sad when these tragedies occur. We must cohesively find ways to improve this and lessen the chances these attacks occur. I just wonder what we can do though. We have to be able to make a positive change and to be honest the only way to do that is to have stricter laws. These laws would mean less freedom but I am okay with that.


The person is male. Racially, the person is hispanic / latino. The person is 32 years old. The person has a college or university degree. The person earns 35000 dollar per year. According to the Big Five personality test, on a scale of 10, the person has scored 5.0 in openness, 5.5 in conscientiousness, 2.0 in extraversion, 5.5 in agreeableness, and 4.5 in stability.

A humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan as the number of displaced climbs —  KABUL — Abdulhalim fled the northern city of Kunduz this month after militants and security forces had been clashing for days. Now he’s 200 miles away in Kabul, sleeping in a tent and living on aid. He is part of a looming humanitarian crisis aid agencies here are struggling to contain. Before the current crisis, more than a million people had already been uprooted last year. This year, at least another million Afghans are “on the move” inside Afghanistan and across its borders, in what the United Nations warns is an alarming new wave of displaced people. Many, like Abdulhalim, fled violence or conflict; others escaped hardships such as poverty or drought. Still others were forced to return from Pakistan and Iran. Even as the numbers grew, Afghanistan agreed to accept Afghan asylum seekers deported from the European Union. The deal, signed in October, could lead the E.U. to construct a separate terminal for deportees at Kabul’s international airport, and as many as 100,000 Afghans could return. “This sudden increase [in the displaced] has put a lot of pressure on Afghanistan, which has had 30 years of war,” said Nader Farhad, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency in Kabul. “It’s not easy to put together the infrastructure, to provide the services that are required,” he said, adding that the displaced need everything from food and blankets to jobs and health care. “To the European countries, we say: Instead of investing in the return of Afghans to Afghanistan, tackle the root causes,” Farhad said. If the United Nations and other aid agencies fail to provide emergency assistance, “it will be a humanitarian crisis,” he said. Massive displacement has plagued Afghanistan for years, beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979. That conflict kindled two decades of war. When the United States invaded in 2001, some 4 million Afghans were living in Pakistan and Iran. [Europe pressing harder on countries to take back deported migrants] Many of those refugees later returned, driven by hopes for stability and peace. But now, Afghanistan is witnessing some of its worst violence since the United States helped to topple the Taliban. More than 1,600 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2016, according to a U.N. report released in July. That was the highest number of civilian casualties in the first half of a year since the United Nations began keeping track in 2009. The violence has been driven by Taliban assaults on Afghan cities, putting more civilians in the crosshairs. And the clashes have pushed even more people from their homes. “The fighting was intense. There was artillery, rockets, aerial bombardment,” Abdulhalim, 38, said of this month’s days-long battle between Afghan and Taliban forces in Kunduz city. Insurgents briefly seized the city at the same time last year. “My children were screaming, our neighbors’ houses destroyed,” said Abdulhalim, who like many Afghans goes by one name. “We had no option but to leave.” In Helmand province, in the restive south, more than 60,000 people have been displaced this year, according to the United Nations, and militants have fought pitched battles in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. At least 5,000 of those displaced in Helmand were forced out only in the past two months, the United Nations says, and thousands more have fled to neighboring provinces and beyond. “In some provinces, the [armed] groups have more power there, and the government, it is very difficult for us to reach” the affected population, said Sayed Rohullah Hashemi, an adviser to the minister of refugees and repatriation. “We don’t have the capacity to do so, especially in our ministry. The government cannot reach everyone on its own.” In a dusty lot east of Kabul, the U.N. refugee agency has erected a center for the hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees arriving from Pakistan. At least 5,000 refugees cross the border from Pakistan every day. The United Nations gives them a small stipend and vaccinates the children against measles and polio. [Afghan refugees, settled in Pakistan for decades, are being ordered to leave] The influx began after Pakistani authorities announced a deadline for Afghan refugees — of which there were 1.7 million registered with the United Nations — to leave. Many of the refugees had lived in Pakistan for decades, or were even born there after their parents had fled Afghanistan. Jumauddin, 27, was born in Pakistan to Afghan parents. Now he is heading to Kunduz province, to the Khanabad district, where Taliban fighters hold sway. He says he has no choice. “Kabul is too expensive, and maybe in Kunduz I can plow a plot of land,” Jumauddin said. “I know that there was fighting there even last week, but I have no other option.” The government is worried about the return of refugees to areas where insurgents are active. But right now, the Taliban controls more territory than at any time since 2001. “We are facing the return of tens of thousands of Afghans each month. . . . This will add very much to the vicious cycle of insecurity and joblessness,” said Bashir Bezhen, an Afghan analyst and political commentator. Reports have already surfaced of returning refugees clashing with locals over resources and land. The displaced are often rejected, or pushed into squalid camps. They also face the threat of forced eviction and rarely have access to clean water or food. “They are the poorest of the poor. They often live in open air,” the U.N.’s Farhad said. “But they should go back [to their homes] when they feel secure. It has to be voluntary and of their own accord.” In the area where Abdulhalim took shelter, the displaced worried that the government would force them out. The fighting in Kunduz city had subsided, but they couldn’t just pack up and go home. “They want us gone from here, but we don’t have anything, not even the money to get back,” Abdulhalim said. He first fled Kunduz on foot, with his children and the clothes on his back. Bezhen said that the government “is incapable of creating jobs for these people or of improving the economy in the remote places where they live.” He said criminal and terrorist networks will seek out the jobless and displaced youths. “It will push Afghanistan into deeper crisis,” Bezhen said. Sayed Salahuddin contributed to this report.

I feel like as humans we should all feel the need to help them out. I think in cases like these were its a country that has very low resources with violence all around there should be some sort of humanitarian aid for the people. I believe very strongly that anything else is just not that good overall.


Aleppo residents get warning by text message: You have 24 hours to leave —  Residents in war-ravaged eastern Aleppo received a dire warning early Sunday: Prepare for your city to be bombed and evacuate in the next 24 hours.   The warning came via text message, urging the sick and wounded to flee before a "strategically planned assault using high precision weapons occurs within 24 hours." Rebels were also given an ultimatum to lay down their arms and renounce their leadership, or be killed. The message was likely sent by the Syrian government as the regime is likely the only party capable of sending a mass text to the entire population. While there were no reports of a bombardment by Monday afternoon, witnesses told CNN that fighter jets had been spotted in the city, as deadly skirmishes were reported all over Aleppo. Who is left in Aleppo? Russian warplanes have since September last year backed the regime with airstrikes over rebel-held positions, pounding eastern Aleppo, where schools and hospitals have been crushed. The text message warning is seen as a response to Syrian rebels launching an offensive last month to break the regime's siege on eastern Aleppo. Assad: Go back to Turkey, or die Russia is the most powerful sponsor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and its air power has been a key factor in helping the government solidify its control over the city. What would make you care about Aleppo? Assad has insisted that he has no option but to "to clean" Aleppo and press on with the offensive. "You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey ... to go back to where they come from, or to kill them," he said. "It's going to be the springboard, as a big city, to move to other areas, to liberate other areas from the terrorists. This is the importance of Aleppo now." Fresh clashes broke out Sunday, with regime shelling killing at least 11 people in the al-Salehin neighborhood, according to the Aleppo Media Center activist group. Several other neighborhoods were shelled by ground artillery and heavy machine gunfire from helicopters, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said. Rebel factions targeted army positions on the northern front line, causing casualties among Syrian troops, the SOHR said. The Syrian Army accuses rebels in eastern Aleppo -- who they call terrorists -- of using civilians as human shields. Humanitarian crisis The UN warned last week that eastern Aleppo was on the brink of starvation ahead of a "killer" winter. Residents there told CNN that their food stocks were running out, and that markets that once sold fruit and vegetables were now empty. A kilogram of meat, they said, costs around $40, a price that most in Aleppo simply cannot pay. The last significant aid delivery was in July, and the area is extremely low on medicine and much-needed fuel to run hospital generators and ambulances. The city has seen considerable death and destruction wrought by the civil war that has raged for more than five years. About 1.5 million people still live in the regime-held parts of Aleppo, while 250,000-275,000 residents are in the devastated rebel-held east, according to the UN. In July, about 200,000 people fled the city over a two days, according to a UN official, citing the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Turkey eyes Kurdish-held city Turkey has been carrying out airstrikes in northern Syria to back the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is currently moving in on the ISIS-held city of al-Bab. The city lies strategically between Aleppo and the ISIS heartland of Raqqa. The Turkish Army said it hit 15 targets on Sunday, including two ISIS "headquarter" buildings, an ammunition storage and 10 defense fronts. Ankara has said once the city is liberated, it plans to move on to Manbij, stirring sectarian tensions that complicates internationally backed operations to free Syrian cities from ISIS control. Manbij was in August freed from ISIS rule by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab groups. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month said Ankara would not allow the Kurds to hold any territory west of the Iraqi city of Mosul. Manbij is just 40 kilometers south of the Turkish border. Turkey considers some of the Kurdish militia groups in the alliance as terrorists, including the YPG. But the SDF is supported and armed by the US, further complicating the conflict, which has already put Washington at loggerheads with Moscow. The former Cold War enemies, both of which are carrying out airstrikes in Syria, have long feuded over which groups should be targeted. The US supports and arms groups that it considers "moderate rebels," while Russia calls any rebel group that is opposed to the regime "terrorists."

Aleppo has been having these problems for quite a while now. I feel like the bombings are just the top of the cake in terms of letting the world know about what is wrong with them. I feel like they really need to change things and in order to do that they need the help of the world more so than anything else.


Hate crimes against Muslims hit highest mark since 2001 —  Hate crimes against Muslims spiked last year to their highest level in more than a decade - an increase experts and advocates say was fueled by anger over terrorist attacks and anti-Islam rhetoric on the campaign trail.   Law enforcement agencies across the country reported 257 anti-Islamic incidents in 2015, up nearly 67 percent from the year before, according to FBI data released Monday.   That is significant in its own right, but even more so in historical context. The last time the FBI saw more than 160 anti-Islamic incidents was in 2001, when it reported 481. That was the year that radical Islamist terrorists attacked the World Trade Center, killing thousands and sparking a wave of anti-Muslim incidents.   Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that he believed that the anti-Muslim rhetoric that came out of the presidential campaign was to blame and that he feared there will be more hate crimes this year. "Whenever you have one of the nation's leading public figures in the person of Donald Trump mainstreaming and empowering Islamophobia in the nation, it's the inevitable result," he said.   A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not immediately return an email seeking comment.   Hate crimes overall increased about 6.7 percent from 2014 to 2015, but that increase still left such incidents below what they were a decade earlier. Anti-black incidents rose by about 7.6 percent, anti-Jewish incidents rose by about 9 percent, and incidents based on sexual orientation rose by about 3.5 percent during that time frame.   Before and after Trump's election, there were reports of hateful acts across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center, drawing on news accounts, social media postings and direct reports, said it had tallied 201 incidents of election-related harassment and intimidation as of Friday. Last week, a Muslim student at San Diego State University reported that she was robbed by two men who made comments about Trump. Police believe she was targeted because she was wearing a hijab. The week before the election, a black church in Mississippi was burned and spray-painted with the words "Vote Trump." During his campaign, Trump vowed to have law enforcement conduct surveillance at mosques and called for at least a temporary ban on Muslims immigrating to the United States, measures that he suggested might prevent terrorist attacks. Asked on "60 Minutes" about reports of supporters harassing Latinos and Muslims, he said: "I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, 'Stop it.' "   Notably, the data from 2015 does not show an increase in anti-Latino incidents from the year before. Still, advocates say Trump's rhetoric is at least partly to blame for the spike in other incidents.   "I don't think there's any question at all that the Trump campaign contributed and contributed mightily to these numbers," said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.   The data available is somewhat limited, analysts say, because law enforcement agencies provide numbers voluntarily to the FBI, and many did not report hate crimes. Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys show a far greater number of hate crimes than what is reported - hundreds of thousands each year.   The data largely confirms the findings of Brian Levin, a professor at California State University at San Bernardino, who wrote earlier this year about a surge in crimes against Muslims. In an interview Monday, Levin said he attributed the spike to three factors - anger after terrorist attacks like those in San Bernardino, Calif., and Paris; a generally elevated level of prejudice against Muslims; and "the coalescence of a sociopolitical movement that labels Muslims as an enemy."   Levin said he found a spate of anti-Muslim incidents in the weeks immediately following the attacks in San Bernardino and Paris. After Paris, for example, a Florida man threatened violence at two mosques in two anti-Islamic diatribes.   But Levin said he did not expect that those would make 2015 an anomaly. Based on 2016 data in places such as Ohio, Texas, Delaware and New York, he estimated that anti-Muslim hate crimes are "either at or above the levels of 2015."

I think its wrong for people to be attacked just because of a select few that make a religion look bad. There are also some bad christians out there and we dont base our whole view on things based on the fact that they were christian. We must learn to differentiate between the two to be honest it makes the most sense.


Man kills two sons, himself, police say —  A man shot his two young sons and then killed himself in an apparent murder-suicide on Saturday, police said.   The father, identified as Christopher Cadenbach, said St. Louis County Police Department's Deputy Chief Kenneth Cox. He was wanted for domestic violence in Franklin County, Missouri, Cox said. As a result, the St. Louis County police had been looking for him. On Saturday afternoon, Cadenbach, 43, visited his mother and his two children. Amber Alert leads police to dad His mother became worried after hearing him say that he wasn't going to be taken alive, Cox said. She alerted police, who then issued an Amber Alert for his two abducted sons, Ethan, 5, and Owen, 4. Later that evening, a park ranger spotted a 2006 Ford Focus matching the Amber Alert description in a local park and alerted police. As soon as the officers arrived, shots rang out, Cox said. "He was apparently shooting his children. We tried to engage him and it appears he took his own life."

I think this man must of been going through quite a bit of problems in his life to do this! I feel like when someone does this we must check and see what was the cause. We don't know the full details of the story yet. I think we must first realize what happened clearly and why it happened to see the truth there.


BREAKING NEWS: Angry Villagers Attack Anti-Poaching Unit Rangers In Mozambique —  Three anti-poaching rangers, two South Africans and a Mozambican, were hospitalized after being beaten by villagers after they apprehended a a poacher.   Sean van Niekerk, of Limpopo, and two colleagues were whipped, stabbed and pelted with rocks by a mob in a small Mozambican town near South Africa’s Komatipoort border.   Van Niekerk, 25, was discharged from Nelspruit Medi-Clinic on Thursday, where he was treated for a minor skull fracture, stab wounds and injuries to his face and back. He said it would not stop him returning to the field to help save wildlife. Van Niekerk said they were called last weekend to assist a ranger who had caught a poacher near Sabi river.   “My colleagues and I, with four Mozambican police officers, were transporting the poacher to the station, which was about 30km away, when he escaped from the vehicle. I chased after the poacher and caught him. I handed him back to the police officer. Suddenly, a mob from the community started moving towards us,” said Van Niekerk. The police officers who were with them ran away.   “We, the rangers, were the targets. I called for help. We were boxed in. We had no weapons so we had to fight back to stay alive until the helicopter arrived. We were hit by about 10 people, who were armed with blunt machetes. I was stabbed with a bottle, stoned and whipped,” he said.   He said it was only when the helicopter arrived that the mob backed off.   Would you please kindly share this and make it go viral, so the incompetent, corrupt police officers are exposed. Thank you.

I feel like something must be done about these poachers. Not only do they oppose the fact that poaching is wrong but they attack people that try and defend these animals. It is just wrong and I am fed up with  it. There must surely be more moral than immoral people in this world and we must act now to save these animals.


The fact that these villagers are placing money they receive from these poachers in order to side with them and attack anti poachers unit of rangers is pathetic. It shows that money really is the root of all evil! I can not believe it to be honest! It makes my blood boil that people do not care for these animals being hurt for profit.


Operation killed Afghan civilians, US military says —  The US military acknowledged Saturday that civilians were likely killed in a joint Afghan-US operation in the northern district of Kunduz Thursday.   Besides the 30 civilians, two US service members were killed in the operation that targeted Taliban leaders planning additional attacks in Kunduz city. "I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives, regardless of the circumstances," Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement Saturday. "The loss of innocent life is a tragedy and our thoughts are with the families. We will work with our Afghan partners to investigate and determine the facts and we will work with the government of Afghanistan to provide assistance." Afghan forces, advised by the US military, conducted the operation Thursday in the village of Boz in Kunduz district, the statement said. It targeted Taliban leaders planning attacks in the city of Kunduz. "During the course of the operation, friendly forces encountered significant enemy fire from multiple locations and defended themselves with ground fire and US air-to-ground engagements," the US military statement said. "Initial reports indicate that several Taliban leaders and Taliban members were killed in the engagement." Civilians, troops killed At least 30 Afghan civilians were killed and 25 others injured in an air-and-ground operation launched in an area known as Bohd Qhandahari, said Sayed Mahmood Danish, a Kunduz provincial spokesman. Four members of Afghan special forces were also killed and six others injured, Danish said. Twenty-six insurgents were killed and 10 others were wounded, he added. The Pentagon identified the dead US service members as Capt. Andrew D. Byers, 30, of Rolesville, North Carolina, and Sgt. 1st Class Ryan A. Gloyer, 34, of Greenville, Pennsylvania. They were assigned to Company B, 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Carson, Colorado. The troops came under fire during what the US military said this week was a mission to train, advise and assist its Afghan partners in clearing a Taliban position and disrupting the organization's operations in Kunduz district. "On behalf of all of US Forces-Afghanistan, today's loss is heartbreaking and we offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of our service members who lost their lives today," Nicholson said in a statement Thursday. US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was saddened by the casualties. "Our service members were doing their part to help the Afghans secure their own country while protecting our homeland from those who would do us harm," he said in a statement. "We will honor their sacrifice by finishing our important mission in Afghanistan." Taliban attack The deaths occurred on the same day that a Taliban mortar attack killed at least seven people attending a wedding party in Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, provincial police spokesman Kareem Youresh said. At least 13 people were wounded. In April, the Pentagon announced that 16 military personnel would be disciplined over a fatal US strike on a Kunduz hospital in October 2015. But the military maintained the strike was not a war crime because it resulted from unintentional human error and equipment failure. The Pentagon said some personnel involved in the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital "failed to comply with the rules of engagement and the law of armed conflict."

The fact that civilians have to be hurt in the process of trying to get rid of the Taliban is mind boggling. Surely there can be better intelligence found that can fix this and honestly the fact that there is not makes me feel like we are not doing it right. We need to find ways to minimize the risk these civilians take by being in the crossfire.


The treatment of Calais camp children isn’t just neglectful – it’s abusive —  The Calais camp lies in limbo, with most of its inhabitants long gone. Those who remain face hardship beyond anything the camp has previously known. Before, there was shelter – now hundreds sleep on the fringes of its dirt tracks. Before, there was at least some sense of ease – now shocked and abandoned refugees live in a state of constant tension. Fire is a constant threat, and the bulldozers are coming.   Volunteers grapple not only with the urgency of the situation, but also with the knowledge that it should – and easily could – have been prevented.     When the French authorities began the registration and resettlement of refugees, those of us involved felt an initial sense of relief. But after three days of relatively smooth action the warehouse where the registration took place closed its doors. It did not open them again. This was despite previous assurances that all refugees would be accommodated. Those left behind had no chance of safely reaching asylum centres. Most minors, registered separately, were confined to a fenced-in yard and housed in shipping containers. The rest were left homeless alongside the adult population of the camp.   Despite being provided with up-to-date and detailed census information from my organisation, Help Refugees, and the local charity, l’Auberge des Migrants, the authorities chose not to take heed of these estimates. The 50-person, four-day census operation identified exact numbers of men, women, and children within the camp, and put the total population at 10,188. Though promised over 12,000 spaces in accommodation centres throughout France, almost 2,000 refugees have been abandoned once again by an uncaring government, and are left behind in the ruins of the Calais camp.   Over two weeks ago Help Refugees warned authorities at a local tribunal in Lille that housing minors in the “container camp” would be tantamount to exposing them to fire, violence, and extreme trauma. My colleague’s words went unheeded, and now seem almost prophetic. There are now approximately 1,500 children subjected to these conditions.   Children housed in the containers report choking on the smoke that blows in from their burning former homes. They say there is no drinking water, that the toilets are never cleaned and the showers are not working. Food is served only from 3pm to 5pm, and there is only one meal a day.   There is no drinking water. The toilets are never cleaned. The showers are not working. There is only one meal a day The authorities have utterly failed to safeguard these young people, and show little to no regard for their wellbeing, health, or mental states. The children in this camp are starved of care and attention, and are in constant danger. Their treatment is not just neglectful – it’s abuse.   The lack of organisation has permeated every aspect of these children’s lives. The crippling hunger pangs reported by many are alleviated only when groups of volunteers are allowed to distribute food. Without an identification wristband, children are not permitted to use the few still-working shower facilities – a fact made worse by the decision of the authorities to register some children without providing wristbands.     The stories you need to read, in one handy email  Read more Arbitrary security measures mean that services such as the Refugee Info Bus – founded by long-term volunteers to provide refugees with WiFi and legal services – are barred from approaching the container camp, cutting the children off from means of communication and legal assistance. With this, and the recent banning of human rights lawyers acting as observers from entry into the camp, it is feared that the mistreatment of the camp’s children will go unchecked.   Volunteers are banned from putting up tents to house the homeless adult and child refugees outside the container camps, in yet another example of the restrictions that serve only to further endanger refugees’ lives. With a large portion of the camp in flames, many are sleeping on the dunes surrounding the camp, exposed to the rain, the cold, and the people smugglers.   Despite desperate conditions and daily heartbreak, the volunteers of Help Refugees and other organisations continue to provide food, water, and some comfort to the refugees who are left. Many volunteers are from the UK, and express their devastation that their country is not answering France’s calls and the refugee children it is failing – at present, it seems unlikely that the UK will take in more than the 274 children it already has. Many other volunteers are French, and must bear witness, distraught, to their nation’s mistreatment of refugees already so weakened by months of subsistence in the camp.   On 1 November charities operating within the camp received notice from the French authorities promising that all children in the container camp would be transferred by bus to accommodation centres across France this week. A representative from the UK Home Office on each bus will ensure that any children legally eligible for asylum within the UK are able to apply for transfer to the UK. It is unknown how long this legal process will take.   This is a testament to the work of the volunteers and legal workers in the camp, and presents an opportunity for these children to leave behind the trauma and misery of life in a refugee camp. However, there are no guarantees, and charities must continue to work to ensure that refugees throughout France are given a far better standard of care than was provided for the children of the Calais container camp.

I feel like the treatment of those children is depressing. What is it about these people that they feel the need to do this? Something must be done but what? The 50 people tha took the census and put the population at 10,188 did a great job and the fact that they say there is no drinking water and the toilets are never cleaned angers me.


This Is What It’s Like on the Front Lines of Nigeria’s Unseen Hunger Crisis —  Millions of Nigerians survived Boko Haram, but now a humanitarian catastrophe is putting their lives at risk again. ABUJA, Nigeria ― After her father died two years ago during a Boko Haram raid on her village in Yobe, Nigeria, 16-year-old Zulyatu, her younger siblings and their mother fled to Biu, a town in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state. A year ago their mother left for another town to get treatment for high blood pressure from a traditional healer, leaving Zulyatu alone to care for her siblings, 12-year-old Abubakar and 8-year-old Amira. Zulyatu said hunger affects every part of their lives. They only eat once or twice a day, and they often feel dizzy from hunger. In their home village, before Boko Haram came, their father was a butcher, so the family always had enough meat to eat. The hunger makes her long for her father, and Zulyatu said that if he were still alive they wouldn’t be having this experience. The focus on their struggle for food also leaves the siblings with little time or access for education. Before they came to Biu, Zulyatu was interested in studying to become a doctor, but they have been unable to attend school since the move. Sadly, experiences of hunger and desperation, like those of Zulyatu and her siblings, are the rule rather than the exception in conflict-weary Nigeria and in the greater Lake Chad Basin area. The hunger has become so strong, that one woman recently told us that she had become so desperate to feed her children that she took to boiling grass. The militant group Boko Haram emerged in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, in 2002, but much of the world first became familiar with the terrorist group when it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in 2014. Years of violence and destruction, combined with widespread and underestimated drought conditions, have created an ongoing crisis here. But as the Nigerian army retakes territory held by Boko Haram, another problem has emerged in the country ― a horrific and massive humanitarian crisis is revealing itself. More than 4 million people are food insecure, not knowing from where their next meal will come. In August, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that in Borno state, where Zulyatu lives, nearly a quarter of a million children are severely malnourished, and one in five will die if they aren’t treated. Mercy Corps, the global organization I work for, is one of the organizations mounting a response to this urgent and largely overlooked humanitarian situation. Our team has accessed remote villages and towns in south Borno state, where regular army checkpoints serve as a reminder of the serious threat Boko Haram still poses. But despite efforts from aid organizations like ours, there are still 2.2 million people living in unreachable areas in northeast Nigeria, with no contact to the outside world ― and no guarantee of safe passage for aid workers. We don’t yet know the full extent of the crisis ― the Nigerian military and humanitarian organizations like Mercy Corps are still trying to push into these parts of the country ― but based on what we’ve seen so far, we fear the worst.  “The carnage becomes more glaring as we gain access to newer areas, and it has become a struggle for those of us in the forefront to comprehend how to help the thousands we come across who need our support,” said Michael Mu’azu, our humanitarian projects manager. “What keeps me going is the fact that I can contribute to making a difference, and because I work with an amazing team of men and women who have dedicated their lives to providing lifesaving assistance, I wake up every day and go to work knowing more people will get to smile.” For now though, many of the people we come across are not smiling. “When I see the people in these communities, I see hunger and suffering in their faces,” Umar Shuaibu, our operations officer, said. In our internal assessments this past July, we found that in the area of Damboa more than 80 percent of shelters were destroyed or partially destroyed, with no roof or doors. Of the people we interviewed, 97 percent reported that they could not afford to buy food in the previous four weeks. Because of continued insecurity, many farmers cannot reach the land where they cultivate food to eat and sell. People in these communities survive by selling foraged firewood and begging or laboring for less than the equivalent of $1 per day. Others have resorted to transactional sex.  The Nigerian military must clear and secure new areas before aid can get in, to make sure humanitarian workers have safe passage and aid does not end up in the wrong hands. And we have also not seen the amount of funding needed to mount a response of this size. Right now, less than one-third of current United Nations appeals for the crisis has been funded, a shortfall of $542 million. As a sovereign nation, Nigeria has a duty to provide for its people. It is ultimately responsible for leading the response to this emergency, establishing strong coordination and allowing for safe and organized access to deliver assistance to people in need. But it is also the humanitarian imperative of the international community to help people in crisis. At Mercy Corps, we are working quickly to meet urgent needs. In south Borno state we have been providing financial assistance, such as cash and vouchers that can be exchanged for food in local markets, as well as grants to jump-start businesses. We are repairing water points and latrines to ensure access to clean water and prevent the spread of waterborne illness. We also provide protection for vulnerable civilians, particularly women and children, and mobilize and train community members to recognize and respond to gender-based violence. We know that the needs are massive, and are going unmet, and we are working as quickly as possible to scale up our operations. Already in the past several months we have shifted to new locations and tripled our financial and staffing resources to reach upwards of 100,000 people. But it is a herculean task for any single organization to tackle on its own, and a risky one because insurgents could attack us unexpectantly. All organizations responding to this crisis in Nigeria face stretched capacity and daunting logistics. But we aren’t giving up. Already we see the benefit of one small act. With the e-voucher she received during Mercy Corps’ first distribution, Zulyatu bought a month’s worth of rice and cooking oil in the local market. When asked what she hopes for the future, Zulyatu said, “I just want to see everyone happy. Everyone would have enough to eat and abundance.” We can make that hope possible, if we act urgently.

Anything fellow human beings are struggling with hunger we as humans must find a way to be able t o  help them out. I feel like if we are starving we would want as Americans someone to step in and help us. It is the right and the only way to do things to be honest. I feel like Nigeria is too corrupt to help itself at this point.


After Traveling More Than 700 Miles, A Young Wolf Was Gunned Down By A Government Sniper —  A young male wolf who was in search of a mate and had travelled more than 700 miles, has been gunned down by a government sniper.   This wolf was a member of the Huckleberry pack which is a family that lives in Washington state and had been saved from extermination by the Center for Biological Diversity as well as it’s allies when the wolf was a pup back in 2014.   The wolf was collared in February and began his journey east, surviving the wolf-killing fields in Idaho.   On Septemer 29th, he was gunned down at Judith Gap, Montana near Wildlife Services which is the deadly federal killing program that had wiped out more than 3 million wild animals just last year.   This was a special collared wolf whose journey was well documented and whose life was carelessly taken away at the hands of trigger-happy exterminators who must be held accountable for their actions.   Wolves often leave their pack in search of a mate and new territory when they come of age. Sadly, in states such as Colorado, Iowa, Wyoming and Utah these wandering wolves end up dying brutal deaths due to acts of cruelty and indifference.   For this reason, the Center for Biological Diversity has lawyers, scientists and activists who are in court, congress and on the streets every day fighting for the lives and safety of wolves.

I think situations like these really make me doubt the world. We really need to do better and I've been saying this for quite some time now but eventually you realize its a crazy world out there. So much wrong goes on in the world that you become numb to it over time. I think that is the worst part of it.


Americans adopted this South Korean man when he was 3. Now 41, he’s being deported. —  Adam Crapser was born in South Korea, but, when he was 3 years old, an American couple adopted him.   Until recently, he lived in Vancouver, Wash., with his daughters and his pregnant wife. He has a son by an ex-girlfriend. He used to own a barbershop, but decided to become a stay-at-home dad, sometimes playing guitar and ukulele and watching a rescue dog.   But that will all soon change — Crapser is being deported back to South Korea, away from his family, away from the place he’s spent 37 of his 41 years of life.   He’s being held in an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Wash.   “He will be deported as soon as Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes the necessary arrangements,” Crapser’s attorney Lori Walls told the Associated Press. “Adam, his family, and advocates are heartbroken at the outcome.”   [They grew up as American citizens, then learned that they weren’t]   Crapser’s deportation is a sad denouement to a life in the United States that’s been anything but easy.   After being abandoned near Seoul, Crapser and his older sister were adopted by an unnamed couple. All he brought with him across the ocean were a pair of green rubber shoes, a Korean-language Bible and a stuffed dog.   That couple, as the New York Times magazine noted in an extensive profile of Crapser, abandoned the children to the foster system after many episodes in which they forced Crapser to sit in the dark basement as punishment.   He and his sister were split up, and after several foster homes, he found himself adopted by Thomas and Dollar Crapser, who had adopted two other children and were also caring for several other foster children.   According to Crapser, that family was more abusive than the first. They would slam children’s heads on door frames, tape their mouths shut with duct tape and hit them with 2-by-4s. Eventually, they would be convicted in 1992 of several counts of criminal mistreatment and assault.   Before that, though, they kicked Crapser out of the house after an argument. It happened so quickly, he left his Bible and rubber shoes — the last remnants of his birth country — in the house. He was caught breaking into that house, trying to retrieve the items and pleaded guilty to burglary. Twenty-five months in prison followed.   In the years following, Crapser committed a number of infractions. He was found guilty of unlawful firearm possession and, later, assault after getting into a fight with his roommate. In 2013, he called his son by an ex-girlfriend despite a protection order she had taken out against him.   “I made a lot of mistakes in my life, and I’m not proud of it,” Crapser told the New York Times magazine. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons the hard way.”   In the past few years, he’d been working to put his life back on track by getting married and focusing on family.   Now, that’s over.   Difficult as his life here has been, he followed the court’s ordered punishment for his crimes. Returning to a country that the AP described as “completely alien to him” was not a punishment handed down from a judge.   But that’s what’s happening.   He ended up on the radar of federal immigration officials after he applied for a green card in 2012. They dug into his background and found a criminal record, which as the AP noted, makes him eligible for deportation.   In fact, it’s a circumstance created by the very parents who adopted, then abandoned, him in the first place. No family that adopted him, nor the adoption agency, ever registered the boy for U.S. citizenship.   Simple paperwork left undone.   Dae Joong Yoon, executive director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, told the AP this isn’t uncommon — as many as 35,000 intercountry adoptees don’t have U.S. citizenship, through no fault of their own but that of their parents and the agencies that handled their adoptions.   The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 fixed part of this problem by automatically granting citizenship to children adopted by U.S. citizens, but, as NBC noted, it only applied to those under the age of 18 at the time of its passing.   Crapser and many others, thus, were left in their strange limbo. Currently Congress is considering the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2015, which would grant citizenship to all children who have been adopted by U.S. citizens.   But it’ll be too late for Crapser, who still hopes it will pass.   “While I am disappointed in the judge’s ruling and worried about my family’s future, I hope that what has happened to me will further demonstrate the importance of passing the Adoptee Citizenship Act,” Crapser said in a statement obtained by NBC.   Emily Kessel of the Adoptee Rights Campaign finds his deportation “appalling.”   “We do not choose our families,” Kessel told NBC. “But the U.S. does choose to bring adoptees into the U.S. with a promise of placing these children in safe homes to grow up like any other American … Adoptees are not disposable. We urge the community to call members of Congress and underline the need for a legislative fix now.”

This is ridiculous! This man is American through and through. He is about as South Korean as me. He was born in this country and he is a citizen more so than most Americans as far as I am concerned. He should be allowed to come back no doubt about it! Its quite infuriating to be quite honest with you!


Celebrity jeweler's surrogate son, second man arrested in gruesome stabbing of Manhattan partygoer —  Bloody evidence, a burned body buried under a foot of earth and a botched coverup led authorities to charge two men with various crimes in the stabbing death of a guest after they partied at a luxury East Side apartment.   But neither is charged with killing Joseph Comunale. Investigators have no doubts Comunale was murdered, but did one of the suspects — or both — do it? That's the question they are working to answer.   James Rackover, 25, a Florida ex-con who became a surrogate son to celebrity jeweler Jeffrey Rackover, was charged Thursday with hindering prosecution, tampering with evidence, and concealing a corpse in the slaying of Comunale, 26. Prosecutors also hit Lawrence Dilione, 28, of Jersey City, with the same charges.   Police said the victim was stabbed in the chest 15 times. His bludgeoned and partially burned body was found in a foot-deep grave along the Jersey Shore, police said.   "One or both of these people committed a murder," Assistant District Attorney Antoinette Carter said during an arraignment late Thursday for Rackover Dilione. Both men were ordered held on $3 million bond.   "We're treating this case as a homicide. Both of these defendants were seen in the basement adjusting the surveillance camera. Dilione is the last person who saw Joseph Comunale alive.” The bloodthirsty pair used a luggage rack to cart the body from the ritzy address, drove an hour south and tried to torch Comunale's bruised and broken corpse, according to sources. Cops are still looking to question at least one other person, sources said.   Friends of jeweler-to-the-stars Jeffrey Rackover — whose client list includes Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington and incoming First Lady Melania Trump — said he was devastated. "You can't talk to him — he starts to cry," said longtime pal Bo Dietl, an ex-NYPD detective. "You know the old expression: No good deed goes unpunished. This is the perfect frigging example."   James was the son Jeffrey never had, Dietl said.   The younger Rackover's blood-spattered E. 59th St. home provided damning proof, as police recovered 32 pieces of evidence from the gory crime scene, said NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. There were bloodstains on the wall, and cops pulled the victim's clothes, along with sheets and towels, from trash bags tossed down a garbage chute.   The killers tried unsuccessfully to bleach the blood from Comunale's outfit, Boyce said.   The motive for the gut-wrenching attack remained under investigation, although sources indicated the killing occurred after Comunale rejected the sexual advances of one of the men inside the apartment. Both men clammed up after Dilione told cops where to find the body, prosecutors said. The pair are due back in court Monday.   The gasoline used in the attempt to burn Comunale's body was found as well, and the shallow grave where the Stamford, Conn., man was dumped is 1 mile from Dilione's old residence in Oceanport, N.J.   Boyce said officers were cutting down weeds in the remote wooded area where the body was found in hopes of turning up more evidence. An autopsy was performed at the Monmouth County coroner's office.   Comunale’s father Pat told NBC News late Thursday, “It's horrific that another person can do this to an individual, and take a guy who was the most charismatic, funny guy — always the life of the party — never did steroids or anything else. And his friends can all attest to the type of individual he was.”   A solemn-faced Rackover, his head down and his pompadoured hair just perfect, was led from the 13th Precinct stationhouse in handcuffs Thursday afternoon. The suspect, who spent two days in custody before being charged, ignored questions shouted by reporters.   Rackover, dressed in a finely tailored blue suit, wearing loafers with no socks, and Dilione in a grimy designer hoodie with leather quilted sleeves both looked down throughout the arraignment.   Maurice Sercarz, Rackover's lawyer, insisted the case had “serious problems.” “I can't downplay the brutal nature of what happened to that body in New Jersey,” he said. “These charges are just a place holder. I look forward to conducting our own investigation. I intend to vigorously contest these charges.”   Sercarz said Rackover has worked at an insurance underwriting firm for the past year, and insisted he didn't flee.   James Rackover was home with friends beginning Saturday night watching the Ultimate Fighting pay-per-view event before going out to a Meatpacking District nightclub. Comunale met his killers at the lounge and arrived at the apartment with three other men and three women around 4 a.m. Sunday.   Rackover was known as James Beaudoin when he was busted for a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., burglary in January 2009. He did time from 2012 to 2013 on the burglary rap before starting his new life in Manhattan.   Dietl said the Fifth Ave. jeweler met Beaudoin three years ago in a Manhattan gym and the two became fast friends.   "They go out and have dinner, and the kid says, 'You know what? My father left me. I never had a father,'" said Dietl. "And Jeffrey starts talking about he never had a son, he always wanted a son."   Father figure Jeffrey agreed to let James legally take his last name and helped the younger man find a one-bedroom apartment in his posh East Side high rise, Dietl said.   He even subsidized the rent and found Rackover a job with global management consultants Willis Towers Watson. James celebrated Passover Seders with Jeffrey's parents in the elder man's apartment, according to Dietl.

When crimes like this happened it is always good that the perpetrators are caught quickly because they can strike again at anytime. I feel like in this case the bloody evidence was good even if the body was burned so that just tells me that these criminals were not as smart as they thought which led to them being caught.


Help Demand That Nosey The Elephant Be Rescued From Decades Of Abuse —  Nosey, a 34 year old female African elephant has been held captive and forced to live in solitary, for almost 3 decades. Nosey has been bound by chains and compelled to perform for public entertainment in circuses and forced to give rides to adults and children in between performances across the United States, for most of her life. This causes major stress to her health as well as to her psychological well being. Much of Nosey’s life has been spent in confinement inside of an inappropriately sized trailer and she is crated from one location to the next, receiving little exercise and no socialization which goes against the highly social nature of her spices. She has been seen to exhibit stiffness in her joints, indicating that she has arthritis which has likely been formed due to her years of longterm confinement. Since 1993, her owner, Hugo Tommy Liebel, has been cited by the the USDA over 200 times and has made 30 direct violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Regardless of these violations, Liebel’s license is still approved for renewal each year. Despite complaints being filed by numerous citizens and organizations looking to seek freedom for Nosey, there has been little or no response from the USDA. The department refuses to order a comprehensive medical exam for nosey after evidence has shown that she is suffering from chronic, untreated health problems and lives everyday in physical and psychological pain. The USDA has the power under the AWA as well as the responsibility to the animal’s well being to respond to complaints made by citizens to stop the repeated violations made by Nosey’s owner to confiscate her and release her into a true elephant sanctuary. Action must be taken NOW to stop the daily abuse to this animal.

it is quite depressing to see what this elephant has had to go through throughout his life. I feel like this female elephant being held captive for 3 decades is enough to depress me. Not only does it get worse than that, it still has no signs of changing. We as humans need to stand up and do what is right.


Kenya deports South Sudan opposition official, despite threats against him —  The Kenyan government on Friday deported a senior South Sudan opposition member as tensions rose over its peacekeeping efforts in its war-scarred neighbor.   Kenyan authorities have reacted angrily to a U.N. decision this week to dismiss the Kenyan general in charge of the peacekeeping force there, for failing to protect civilians during a recent spasm of violence. Kenya has been an important force for stability in South Sudan, contributing about 1,000 troops and absorbing refugees.   James Gatdet Dak, the official deported Friday, has served as a spokesman for the main South Sudanese rebel group led by former vice president Riek Machar. Since December 2013, that group has fought on and off against government forces led by President Salva Kiir. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more.   Some Kenyan officials suggested that Dak’s deportation was related to a Facebook post in which he expressed support for the removal earlier this week of Lt. Gen. Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki, the Kenyan top officer in the U.N. mission in South Sudan, known by the acronym UNMISS.   In the post Wednesday, Dak wrote: “We welcome the change in the UNMISS Force Command in South Sudan. The peacekeepers failed to protect civilians during the crisis right in the capital, Juba, and in other parts of the country.”   A U.N. report this week blamed Ondieki for a “lack of leadership” and a “chaotic and ineffective response” to the surge of violence in Juba in July. During that fighting, dozens of South Sudanese civilians were raped and killed, mostly by government forces. Several foreign aid workers were also brutally raped.   In a statement Friday, Machar said he told the Kenyan government that Dak “should not be deported to Juba due to profound fear for his life.” It said Dak had been “arrested from his residence” in Nairobi.   With government forces controlling Juba and bitter tensions between the two groups, human rights experts say the threat to Dak is very real.   “In colluding with South Sudan and deporting James Gatdet Dak, Kenya has exposed him to a serious risk of persecution,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch.   After Ondieki’s dismissal, Kenyan officials threatened to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from South Sudan, calling the deployment “no longer tenable.” Kenya’s contingent is important because of its size and because it has proved difficult to recruit soldiers in the rest of the world for the mission. There are 16,000 U.N. peacekeepers in South Sudan.   The Kenyan Foreign Ministry said Ondieki was fired unfairly and used as a scapegoat for the mission’s institutional failings.   “Regrettably, instead of addressing these shortcomings directly, the United Nations has instead opted to unfairly attribute them to a single individual,” the ministry said in a statement.   The row between the United Nations and the Kenyan government underscores the often tense relations between the world body and the countries that deploy troops to peacekeeping missions. While U.N. officials say they have a responsibility to dismiss poorly performing soldiers, they are often reluctant to do so, for fear of alienating the few countries willing to send forces to far-flung missions.   Kenya also hosts tens of thousands of South Sudanese refugees, mostly in its Kakuma camp. Earlier this year, Kenya threatened to shutter the camp. Though the government later withdrew that plan, its threat was enough to rattle the humanitarian community.   Since July, when battles between the forces of Kiir and Machar broke out in the capital, fighting has resumed across much of the country, even as Machar and other opposition leaders fled the country. Machar is in South Africa.   The United States and other Western intermediaries have lobbied futilely for the restoration of a peace agreement that was only tenuously enforced before the July fighting.

This angers me to know stuff like this still goes on in 2019. The fact that another country has to help another with troops shows that we aren't in better times like some people say. Kenya  deported an official knowing he was most likely to die when he arrived back in Sudan. This is cold blooded and Kenya should be ashamed of themselves for this.


Environmental health officers call for smoking ban in playgrounds —  Zoos and anywhere children play should become no-smoking zones, says Chartered Institute of Environmental Health   Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers. Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up. Smoking has been illegal in enclosed public places such as bars, nightclubs and restaurants, as well as public transport and work vehicles, across the UK since 2007. But the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health said on Monday it wants local councils to designate any place where children play or learn as a smoking exclusion zone, although adherence would be voluntary, not statutory. Banning it in those locations would also protect children from secondhand smoke, it says. A new YouGov poll commissioned by the CIEH shows that 89% of 4,300 adults surveyed back a ban on smoking in children’s play areas, while 57% want it to end in public parks. “It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of people would support restrictions on smoking in children’s play areas. We would like to see smoking being stubbed out wherever children play or learn,” said Anne Godfrey, the CIEH chief executive. “This would not only include children’s playgrounds but could see no-smoking zones extended to public parks, zoos and theme parks. Children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without seeing someone smoking and thinking this is normal behaviour,” she added. Some councils have already moved to try to stop people smoking in some outdoor places. For example, Coventry city council has asked parents not to smoke outside the gates of its 82 primary schools. The policy has gone down well with parents and headteachers, the council said. Advertisement Wrexham has also decreed that playgrounds, school gates and bus shelters should be regarded as smoke-free places, while Nottingham city council seeks to ensure that all its outdoor attractions are smoke-free for the six weeks of the school summer holidays. “Public opinion – and not just among parents – has swung heavily in favour of protecting children from exposure to tobacco smoke and from the behavioural cues children pick up from seeing adults smoking. This is a real opportunity to make it easier for children to grow up healthy,” said Jim McManus, the director of public health at Hertfordshire county council. “Parents and children, when given the choice, are overwhelmingly supportive of smoke-free playground. Local voluntary schemes have been popular. It’s time to give parents what they are asking for. You might feel like this is the nanny state – you’d be wrong,” McManus added. Forest, the smokers’ rights group, called to the plan “Orwellian”. Its director, Simon Clark, said: “Extending the smoking ban to outdoor parks and play areas would be a gross overreaction. There’s no evidence that a significant number of people smoke near children in outdoor areas, nor is there evidence that smoking outside is a threat to anyone else’s health.” Clark added: “Public parks are for the enjoyment of everyone, including smokers. Most smokers use their common sense and smoke accordingly. They don’t need government dictating how they behave. The idea that children should be protected from the sight of someone smoking is Orwellian. Adults can’t be expected to be perfect role models for other people’s children.” The owners of zoos and theme parks, because they are private businesses, should be allowed to decide whether smoking is banned, Clark said. It became illegal last October to smoke in a car in England or Wales carrying anyone under the age of 18. New figures last week showed that the proportion of adults in England who smoke had fallen to a record low of 16.9%. Deborah Arnott, the director of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “While the ban on smoking in indoor public places resulted in significant health benefits, thousands of children are still exposed to smoke in the home and elsewhere. Growing up in a smoke-free environment is one of the best ways of ensuring that they are not attracted to smoking and lured into a lifelong addiction and ill-health.”     Article Title:‘Mouse droppings were everywhere’: a day in the life of a food inspector   Article URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/25/day-in-life-food-safety-inspector-newham-east-london-hygiene   Article author(s) Kate Lyons   Article date: Sunday 25 September 2016 17.57 EDT Last modified on Monday 26 September 201609.26 EDT   News source: theguardian    Sharon Nkansah has worked on the food safety frontline in Newham, London, for 10 years, and seen the good, bad and the ugly   When you’ve been a food safety inspector for as long as Sharon Nkansah, you know how to smell a rat. “Last month, there was a place I inspected [where] I walked in and you could smell it,” she says. “You can smell mouse activity. They had droppings in fridges, where they have their sauces, where they have their cutlery; the droppings were everywhere. So I just said: ‘Pull the shutters down’.” You also learn tricks to catch out wily business owners. The best time to inspect a suspect business is in the morning, she says, before staff have had a chance to sweep up anything nasty deposited overnight. Nkansah has worked as a food safety inspector for Newham borough council in east London for 10 years. As we move between businesses throughout the day, she is fun and chatty, talking about her children and her recent holiday, but as soon as she’s in a kitchen, her bright patterned dress is covered with a white coat and her braids are tucked under a hairnet. She becomes brisk, businesslike, at times tough. Her repeated refrain, delivered to staff at the takeaways she inspects who ask her for food hygiene advice, is: “I am not here to train you, I am here to enforce.” A firm approach is needed in Newham. A Guardian analysis of Food Standards Agency data found that the borough has the lowest food hygiene scores in the country: 26% of its food businesses fail inspections, rising to 50.4% for takeaways. Far from being embarrassed by these numbers, Matthew Collins, a principal environmental health officer at the council, and Nkansah’s boss, sees them as a point of pride. “I think it’s an indication that we’re out doing our jobs,” he says. Nkansah began her career as a chef, but wanted a job with more child-friendly hours after having children, so did a one-year degree in food hygiene and began working as an inspector in Newham. Advertisement Cuts to local government funding have meant the number of food inspectors has declined in recent years. The ratio of food safety inspectors to businesses has dropped from 4.2 full-time inspectors per 1,000 food businesses in 2012-13, to 3.7 per 1,000 in 2014-15. This figure is dragged down considerably by England, where there are only 3.2 officers per 1,000 businesses, compared with 5.7 per 1,000 in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The job, says Nkansah, is satisfying, but it comes at a cost: she has seen what goes on in the back rooms of takeaways, cafes and restaurants. Before going to a new restaurant, Nkansah says she always looks up its food safety rating. When asked if she would eat somewhere that scored zero, one or two, Nkansah is appalled. “Absolutely not,” she says. On a good day, Nkansah can inspect three establishments. On a bad day, if she visits businesses where standards are very poor and the management is either belligerent or impossible to track down, she can spend half a day trying to evaluate one. KFC: High Street North, East Ham Nkansah starts at KFC on the high street. She is expecting big things here: large chains often do well with food safety and at its previous inspection in March 2014, this KFC branch was given the highest possible score of five. Inside the KFC kitchen, the first thing Nkansah does is wash her hands. “It’s a way of testing if they have adequate hand-washing facilities. If they don’t, that’s not a good start,” she says. KFC’s hand-washing station passes muster and Nkansah then works her way through the kitchen, starting at the entry point for deliveries, before moving on to the tills. Nkansah is happy with everything – the general cleanliness of the kitchen, the way food is stored and the waste management system. The temperature of the freezer and fridges are good, and she is pleased to see a designated raw chicken preparation area. “They’ve got good separation,” Nkansah says approvingly of the way the fridges are organised: raw chicken is stored on the left, while other products, such as milk, salad and Pepsi, are on the right. “They will maintain their five stars as long as their paperwork is in order,” she tells me as we wind up. When we leave the kitchen, two customers sitting down to chicken wraps and a large serving of chips look up at us, with our white coats and hairnets, in a concerned manner. “Is it all right in there?” one man asks, voice lowered. “Yes,” we assure him. “Looks good.” They nod and tuck into their meal. King’s Peri Peri Chicken: High Street South, East Ham Next is a visit to King’s Peri Peri Chicken. The inspection is a follow-up after the shop was given a score of zero, the lowest possible, in March. Nkansah is back to see if it has made improvements. What were the issues at the last visit? “Oh, everything,” she says. Most significantly, there was no hand-washing station, meaning that employees were either washing their hands in the large washing-up sink or not at all. Today, Nkansah is pleased to see that a hand-washing sink has been installed. The manager is not in, so a staff member shows us around the property, starting with the food preparation area, which is in a basement below the shop. It is small and dark, and the floor is slippery with oil, but quite cool, which Nkansah says is a point in the restaurant’s favour. On the bench is a large plastic crate full of flour in which the raw chicken is tossed before being taken upstairs to be fried. There are two other containers on shelves below the work surface, each holding flour, bits of which are stuck to the sides of the container with, Nkansah assumes, chicken juice. She worries that the same flour is used to coat chicken day in and day out. The chef, who has been working at the shop for two weeks, struggles to understand Nkansah’s questions about how often they are cleaned, first saying they were cleaned every week, then every day and then every two days. It is unclear how much of this is a language barrier and how much is his uncertainty about the details of the cleaning schedule. “I’ve been in this business for a long time,” says Nkansah, gesturing to the crates. “This is not today’s flour.” Storage is also a problem: food should be kept on shelves off the ground. But a bag of rice and a sack of chicken breading mix, both open, and a bag of bread rolls, are on the floor. A large rice cooker sits in the corner of the kitchen next to cleaning chemicals. Nkansah looks into the fridge, which she says is kept at a good temperature, and pulls out large open tins of jalapeños and olives, as well as a large uncovered saucepan of sticky sauce meant to go on rice. “This is one of my pet hates,” says Nkansah. “I wouldn’t even do this at home, putting the whole pot in the fridge.” She orders the staff to throw out the contents of the saucepan and both tins. Nkansah revisits the shop a week later when the manager is in. He shows her the food safety paperwork. Because the shop had taken some measures to improve standards since the March inspection, it is rated up from a zero, meaning “urgent improvement necessary”, to a two, signifying “improvement necessary”. As we leave the shop, we pass a long queue of people waiting to buy chicken and I wonder whether they would keep standing in line if they knew the store’s food safety rating. There is evidence that forcing businesses to display their food hygiene scores improves quality. When Wales made it mandatory for businesses to publicly display their ratings in November 2013, the proportion of places with a zero rating fell from 0.6% to the current rate of 0.2%. Northern Ireland will introduce a similar mandatory display policy on 7 October, but publicly displaying ratings is not mandatory in England or Scotland. Agraba Grill: Barking Road, East Ham The final visit for the day is supposed to be to a chicken shop, Peri Peri de Griller, which Nkansah shut down in July. She is back to see if it has improved conditions and can be allowed to reopen. Instead, we find that the shop has been sold and a new store, Agraba Grill, has opened in the same location. It is in its second week of operation. The business is a Turkish takeaway, advertising kofta, kebabs and falafel wraps, but it still seems to sell a lot of fried chicken. Again, the manager is not in, so someone who says he is a friend of the manager shows Nkansah the premises. Walking through the kitchen, the problems are immediately evident. The food preparation area, covering half of the kitchen, has no lights. “Can I tell you one thing?” Nkansah says. “You cannot be running this food business in this darkness, it will not help you.” She moves on to the other problems, among them the ceiling, which has a large hole, and an open drain. “You see, all these holes is where you can get cockroaches,” she says. There are large piles of junk in the back of the kitchen – an old cooker, bags of rubbish and stacks of boxes. “If pests come in, they’re going to live in there and breed, so all the boxes and things you don’t need, they need to go,” Nkansah says. There are other problems. There is no basin in the staff toilet – “So where do you think they’re washing their hands?” Nkansah asks, with a raised eyebrow – and she is unimpressed to find an ashtray in the kitchen. “If someone is smoking back here, they need to stop, it’s illegal,” she says. Nkansah is immediately reassured that no one does. Mostly, she is frustrated that conditions have not improved since the previous business was shut down. Places that are closed down cannot be reopened without being reinspected, but they can be sold on. Owners of a new food business are required to register it with the council 28 days before they start operating, which leads to a food safety inspection, often within a month of operation. But this direction is frequently ignored and Collins says he knows of just one instance of a successful prosecution of a business for failing to register with the council. Nkansah and Collins are adamant that the way to combat this problem is to introduce licences for food businesses, which would require owners to show proof of food safety training before they start serving customers. Checking back with the council two weeks later, Collins tells me that the business has been sold again – the shop now has its fifth owner in nine months. The new proprietor is working with the council on improving standards at the premises before opening. Back in the office, inspections done for the day, the food safety team are deciding where to go for a late lunch. But with the morning’s inspections playing on their minds, they opt for a safe bet: McDonald’s on the high street, food safety rating five.   Article Title:Greeks Appeal for Aid After Fire Damages Refugee Camp   Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/europe/refugee-camp-greece-fire.html?ref=europe Article author(s) NIKI KITSANTONIS Article date: SEPT. 20, 2016 News source: nytimes ATHENS — Thousands of people were left homeless after a fire tore through a refugee camp Monday night on the Aegean island of Lesbos, and the Greek authorities appealed on Tuesday to the European Union for more support in managing the migration crisis. The fire, which started in the island’s main Moria camp, destroyed 50 prefabricated homes and dozens of tents, driving 4,400 migrants into nearby fields, according to humanitarian aid workers. Footage aired on Greek television showed the bulk of the camp in flames. About 100 unaccompanied children were the first to be resettled to a hostel Monday night, and about half the families had returned to the Moria camp by midday on Tuesday. The Shipping Ministry said it would send a vessel to anchor at the island, providing temporary accommodation for about 1,000 of the migrants. “Things are very difficult,” an Interior Ministry official, Nikos Toskas, told Greek radio. “The Europeans must send real, genuine aid,” he said. He condemned European countries that “build fences and then send blankets,” an apparent reference to Balkan states that closed their borders to migrants this year, leaving thousands trapped in Greece. The cause of the blaze remained unclear. Local news media said clashes had broken out between different ethnic groups in the camp amid rumors that large numbers of migrants would be sent back to Turkey. The police detained nine camp residents. Earlier in the day, residents protested, calling for the migrants to leave the island. In the wake of the unrest, Mr. Toskas said, two riot police units would be sent to the island. A spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said frustrations had frequently bubbled over into clashes in camps, as many migrants have been living in poor conditions for months amid uncertainty about their future. “These people gave up everything to seek a better life months ago, and now they’re stuck,” said Roland Schoenbauer, the agency’s representative in Greece. He said frustrations and tension were being fueled by the slow pace at which the Greek authorities were processing the migrants’ asylum applications, and a sluggish European relocation program that has moved 3,700 people to other countries from Greece over the past year, far short of the target of 66,400. If the pace does not pick up, “it will take several years to resolve the problem,” Mr. Schoenbauer said. “This is not going to go away,” he continued, adding that economic migrants who do not merit asylum should be repatriated “in a humane and dignified way” to free up space at the camps. More than 60,000 refugees or asylum seekers are in Greece, the vast majority in camps across the country, most of them cramped and dirty. Over 5,700 are on Lesbos, which has borne the brunt of the migrant influx into Greece. Arrivals from neighboring Turkey have dropped since the peak of the crisis this time last year, when thousands made the short, perilous journey across the Aegean Sea aboard rickety boats, many drowning in the attempt. An agreement in March between the European Union and Turkey to curb human smuggling across the Aegean reduced the arrivals to virtually zero. However, there has been a significant uptick since July, after the failed coup attempt in Turkey. Now scores, sometimes hundreds, are arriving daily. The increase in arrivals and rising tensions in the camps have fueled protests in some communities close to state-run camps where many residents are fed up with the growing migrant populations. Last week, residents on another Aegean island, Chios, protested. The upheaval has been exploited by members of far-right groups who have also protested, often clashing with more moderate demonstrators. Mayor Spyros Galinos of Lesbos said the protests were being “guided by certain circles, far-right circles who are being supported by members of other parties that have found the opportunity to boost their following, and all this is a dangerous climate that can become explosive.” Addressing a United Nations summit meeting in New York on Monday, the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, called on other European Union countries to take in more refugees from Greece and emphasized the risk of giving “space to nationalistic and xenophobic forces to show their faces.”

I feel like they are doing the right thing. These animals and children at the zoo should not be taking in this second-hand smoke. I feel like the correct thing to do is fix it and try and get these smokers out of there as soon as possible. I think  children should be protected and this is the correct way to do it.


Everyone agrees we need to fight cholera. No one can agree on how —  The clinics were overwhelmed. Over just a few days in 2010, cholera had swept through the chaos of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Violently ill patients were packing wards, slumping in tents, and dying within hours of showing their first symptoms. Dr. Louise Ivers, an infectious disease specialist, needed help. She and other medical professionals were working without sleep, besieged by a stream of weak patients struggling into the clinics. There was a vaccine available. Although the cache was not nearly large enough — and still not fully approved by the World Health Organization — Ivers and others appealed to Haitian officials to allow them to distribute the drug. The government said no. “This was a missed opportunity to save lives,” Ivers, who ran a clinic in Haiti for the nonprofit Partners in Health, recalled in a recent interview. Today, the epidemic is seen as a pivotal moment in a dispute over the best way to counter cholera. On one side are public health advocates, backed by the powerful Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, who have been galvanized in their enthusiasm for vaccines. Those vaccines, they believe, can be used to make major strides against a disease that is thousands of years old, easily treated, and entirely preventable. On the other are public health officials who argue that the vaccines are not effective enough and are a Band-Aid diverting attention from the water and sanitation issues that are at the root of cholera. “This is a disease of poverty,” said Shafiqul Islam, director of the Water Diplomacy Program at Tufts University. “There is a group of people who think vaccines will solve the problem. I don’t think it will.” Experts on both sides acknowledge the disagreement has undermined unity in the fight against cholera. The WHO has tried to straddle the divide by supporting both approaches, without settling how to pay for both. Caused by bacteria, cholera is spread through contaminated water, and it kills by massively dehydrating victims’ bodies through diarrhea and vomiting. The WHO says about 100,000 people die worldwide from cholera each year. It is a rough estimate: Some countries do not report cases, and victims often die in isolated rural communities, the cause of their deaths unrecorded. The disease roars seasonally into India, Bangladesh, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and made appearances last year in 32 countries. Outbreaks typically center on Africa, South Asia, and, recently, the Middle East. There are year-to-year fluctuations in the number of cholera cases, but the overall incidence does not seem to be dropping. Two oral vaccines exist, and the most useful, called Shanchol, was available in limited supplies when the epidemic began in Haiti. It had been administered widely in Vietnam since 1997, but at the time of the Haitian crisis — which came as a handmaiden of death after the country’s earthquake and ultimately killed 9,000 people — the WHO was awaiting the results of a larger study and had not signed off on international distribution. Since then, the WHO has approved the vaccine and the Gates Foundation — the source of major public health funding — has weighed in forcefully to promote its use. Among other steps, the foundation has pumped about $20 million into Shanchol and helped jumpstart manufacturing of the vaccine in India. As of mid-2013, public health officials had at their disposal a stockpile of 2 million doses that can be moved quickly to an area of need. The vaccine was used successfully in rural Guinea in 2012 and again in refugee camps in South Sudan in 2013. Some 500,000 doses have been sent to Iraq, where continuing violence has helped fuel the emergence of more than 2,000 cholera cases. Helen Matzger, senior program officer at the Gates Foundation, said the decision to promote the vaccine made sense. “When you look at the amount of money it would take to make infrastructure improvements, that’s well outside what a foundation could do,” she said. But the vaccine has drawbacks: It must be administered in two doses, two weeks apart, a daunting task in an emergency. And it is far from perfect clinically — it cuts a person’s risk of contracting the disease by an average of 50 percent to 65 percent over two years. After that, a recipient’s immunity drops even further. More to the point, critics noted, reliance on a vaccine does not address the underlying causes of cholera. “You are really only going to solve this with an investment and infrastructure and maintenance of the infrastructure,” said David Olson, deputy medical director of Doctors Without Borders. He advocates a focus on assisting the 900 million people worldwide without clean water and the 2.5 billion people without good sanitation. Ivers, now senior health and policy adviser for Partners in Health, does not dispute the importance of that goal. “Nobody is saying [a vaccine] replaces water and sanitation,” said Ivers. “But there are still those who say spending $1 million on vaccines is $1 million we don’t have to spend on water and sewer.” Cholera has likely been around as long as man. As societies became urbanized, epidemics were swift, massive, and deadly. More than 14,000 died in London in an 1849 outbreak. Thousands more died when cholera reached New York that year. President James Polk was a victim. The breakthrough against this disease is medical legend. Dr. John Snow, a London physician, rejected the belief that the disease was spread by “bad air,” and began meticulously plotting cholera deaths on a map of Soho in 1854. His plots revealed a key crossroads around a water pump on Broad Street. He got the pump handle removed, stopped the epidemic, and proved contaminated water is the source of the disease. “It has always inspired fear because it is so sudden and horrifying,” said Eric Mintz, a cholera expert at the CDC. “We really have made significant progress in understanding how cholera spreads, evolves, how it can be prevented and how it can be treated.” Though naturally present in tropical, brackish waters, cholera may surge into an epidemic when human waste from a sick person contaminates water used by others for drinking, bathing, or growing crops. Without treatment, cholera can drain victims’ bodies of so much fluid in just six hours that their bodies can no longer pump blood. Death follows immediately. Children can succumb even faster. The separation of sanitation and water systems in cities following Snow’s revelation have largely eliminated cholera in developed countries. And doctors have learned how to effectively treat it. Quick infusion of large quantities of a simple saline solution of water, salt, and sugar — either by drinking or through an IV infusion — works. Such a solution can convert a deadly bout of cholera into an illness from which patients can recover quickly. In countries where cholera is endemic, a regular occurrence, people know to act fast. “I’ve had it several times,” said Maimuna Majumder, an engineer who works regularly in Bangladesh. “Everybody gets it every year. Everybody knows what it is.” But the deadliest outbreaks occur unexpectedly. Haiti was never known to have cholera, despite its poor water and sewer infrastructure. After the earthquake, however, a United Nations peacekeeper likely brought the bacteria from Nepal, a UN investigation found. Latrine runoff from a UN camp apparently reached a major river used for drinking and washing, and the epidemic erupted within days. Ivers recalled being at a meeting and getting a message from a colleague that 100 patients had arrived overnight at a rural clinic with severe diarrhea. “We were all afraid to say the word,” she recalled. “Everybody was taking a deep breath, saying, ‘Oh, please, no.’” Because cholera was unknown in Haiti, people did not recognize it and doctors were not used to treating it. Oral saline solutions and IVs were not there in the numbers needed. The sick crowded wards or slept in tents tended by family members, with few controls to stop further infection. “It was chaotic and fearful,” said Daniele Lantagne, who was on the UN team sent to investigate the outbreak, and is now on the faculty at Tufts University. “Haiti had absolutely no idea what it was. They literally thought it was voodoo, the curse of god.” Ivers and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, urged the government to improve sanitation and to buy the 200,000 available doses of Shanchol — enough for 100,000 people — and rush it into use. But the government rejected the appeal. “There’s a lot of criticism about the decision,” said Olson, of Doctors Without Borders, who was on the ground in Haiti soon after the outbreak. “But at the time, if you had to figure out who are you going to give 100,000 doses to out of 10 million people, how do you do that?” “The vaccine would not have prevented the exponential spread of the disease,” said Lantagne. “It could have blunted the curve, yes, but it would not have prevented the epidemic.” Ivers, who finally got approval to administer the vaccine to 45,000 Haitians as the epidemic stretched into its second year, said the results of her experiment — a 65 percent reduction in cases — proved the vaccine’s worth. “Even if they only had 200,000 doses in the bank, we could’ve bought those and got started,” Ivers said. “We could’ve told the manufacturers we will buy 5 million doses, so ramp up the manufacture. We could have started. We could have done it.” Ivers envisions a strategy, mostly embraced by the WHO, in which the vaccine could be used to treat the elderly and children in areas in which the disease is endemic, such as Bangladesh, before the predictable spring and fall outbreaks, and could be rushed in to try to isolate an unexpected outbreak in places like Haiti. But mobilizing vaccinations when an outbreak emerges is tough. “Cholera makes fools of epidemiologists. It’s just so hard to predict,” Olson said. “It will almost always move faster than you can move resources. We are just trying to warn people, ‘don’t get too caught up in vaccinations because you are going to have patients at any case.’” Added the CDC’s Mintz: “Vaccines are not the hydrogen bomb in this war.” A younger generation is injecting new voices — and new ideas — into the debate. Majumder, a doctoral engineering candidate at MIT, is seeking to link texting on mobile phones, rapidly becoming ubiquitous in the world, to the fight against cholera. She believes that if communities can begin reporting evidence of the disease sooner to medical providers, public health officials would have a head start in rushing resources to address emerging epidemics. “If we can identify the hot spots, that would be great,” she said of her effort, known as the Village Zero Project. Another freshly minted researcher, Faith Wallace-Gadsden, has helped start a project in Haiti to mobilize women to sell cheap chlorine water sterilization tablets. It’s a simple idea, but one she believes could work. Wallace-Gadsden contends that the dispute over vaccinations is too narrow. “The thing that is mind-blowing is the amount of money that has been spent, and it hasn’t worked,” she said. “The idea that people are still dying in 2015 of cholera is outrageous.”

I feel like in order to fight Cholera correctly we have to understand it. Its a good sign that no one agrees how to do it in my opinion because that just means that we need to find better ways to fight it. IT also means people are trying to agree just can't. That is a good sign because people are willing to talk about a solution.


I feel like this is a problem not just with this Cholera situation but with humanity in general. WE can never just come together and form a common agreement we always seem to end up on the wrong side of things and disagreeing.. We tend to never agree on things and this causes disagreements like this. If we just worked things out correctly we would be better off.