News in the Humanosphere: Ebola Spreads to Yet Another African Country?

Credit: AFP

So far, the one Ebola case in Senegal has been imported with no confirmed in-country transmissions. But we are still very much in the incubation period. “Senegalese authorities on Monday were monitoring everyone who was in contact with a student infected with Ebola who crossed into the country, and who has lost three family members to the disease.he 21-year-old left Guinea on Aug. 15, just days after his brother died of the disease, according to Guinea’s Health Ministry. It said that the brother apparently caught Ebola in Sierra Leone… The student traveled by road, crossing into Senegal despite a border closure. He arrived in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, on Aug. 20, according to the World Health Organization, and was staying with relatives on the outskirts of the city. (AP )

Trouble in Lesotho…“Lesotho’s prime minister has asked southern African states to send peacekeepers into his mountain kingdom to restore order after an apparent coup over the weekend, his aide said on Monday. Thomas Thabane fled Lesotho for South Africa early on Saturday, hours before the army surrounded his residence and overran police stations in the capital Maseru, in what the prime minister called a coup by the military. The unrest stems from a power struggle between Thabane, who is supported by the police, and Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing, who has the loyalty of the army, diplomats said.” (Reuters)

The world will fail to meet international targets to eradicate poverty and hunger unless countries improve the way they use rainwater, which billions of people depend on to grow food, leading water experts said. (TRF)

Ebola

Nigeria has a third confirmed case of Ebola disease in the oil hub of Port Harcourt, bringing the country’s total confirmed infections to 16, with around 200 people under surveillance, the health minister said on Monday. (Reuters)

A hospital in the Swedish capital is investigating a possible case of Ebola, Swedish media reported. (Reuters)

Residents of Liberia’s West Point neighborhood are jubilant now that the government has lifted a 10 day-old quarantine of the densely populated borough of the capital, Monrovia. (VOA)

USAID is providing an additional $5 million to help combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The announcement brings USAID’s commitment for the Ebola response to nearly $19.6 million since the outbreak was first reported in March 2014. (FrontPageAfrica)

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has rejected the World Health Organization’s prediction that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people before it is brought under control. (The New Dawn)

Nearly 260 health workers in West Africa have been infected with Ebola, and 134 have died. Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University, who worked with five who died, discusses the devastation in the community, with NPR.

Africa

A grouping of former Seleka rebels in Central African Republic said it had expelled from its ranks several members serving in a new government seeking to stop a cycle of deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians. (Reuters)

A Somali clan leader who fought for years to retake a strategic southern port city he once controlled has laid down arms and joined talks, bolstering government efforts to show it can restore order to a chaotic nation. (Reuters)

Frustrated by a resurgence of intercommunal conflict, Kenya’s top humanitarian official has called on President Uhuru Kenyatta to make good on a threat to deploy the army in perennially restive areas in the country’s northeast. (IRIN)

Extreme poverty drives some Kenyans to scavenge through rubbish dumps for materials to sell for recycling. At the main dump in Eldoret, a town in Kenya’s Rift valley with a population of 280,000, people sift through debris, despite the risks of disease and injury, and the threat of violence. (Guardian)

China aggressively pursues and locks in economic opportunities using, according to analysts, suitcases full of cash when it is needed to close the deal in Africa. Another tactic used by Beijing is the “gift” of building and donating public works projects to African states that have raw materials and other things that China wants access to. (VOA)

MENA

At a time when HIV rates have stabilized or declined elsewhere, the epidemic is still advancing in the Arab world, exacerbated by factors such as political unrest, conflict, poverty and lack of awareness due to social taboos. (IPS)

At least 13 people have been killed and 45 wounded in clashes between Islamists and forces of renegade general allied to the regular army in Libya’s eastern Benghazi city, medics said. (Reuters)

Asia

Protesters carrying sticks and stones clashed anew with police in Pakistan’s capital Monday. The demonstrators have been protesting for weeks, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Despite heavy rain, crowds of protesters tried to break through police lines to push their way to the prime minister’s residence in Islamabad. (VOA)

India’s economy is showing signs of recovery with the rate of growth at its fastest pace in over two years. The government says it expects the trend to continue. (VOA)

A major ethnic group, the Karen National Union, has suspended its membership in the coalition group that has been working with the government of Myanmar on a nationwide cease-fire agreement. (VOA)

A blaze at a vast rubbish dump home to six million tons of putrefying trash and toxic effluent has kindled fears that poor planning and lax law enforcement are tipping Thailand towards a waste crisis.

Japan is urging local authorities to be on the lookout for further outbreaks of dengue fever, after confirming another 19 cases that were contracted at a popular local park in downtown Tokyo. (AP)

The Americas

Cuba restricts the amount of foreign goods that travelers can bring into the country, where locally-made items are scarce and expensive. (BBC)

Parts of Latin America are severely parched. The drought is fueling clashes, forcing rationing, decimating crops and affecting travel through the Panama Canal. (NPR )

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