city:mogadishu

From Mogadishu to Toronto
▻https://africasacountry.com/2019/06/from-mogadishu-to-toronto

Partway through Hassan Ghedi Santur’s new novel The Youth of God, eighteen-year-old Nuur sits alone in

If Palestinians have 22 states, Israeli Jews have 200

The notion that the Palestinians have 22 states to go to is a blend of malice and ignorance: The Palestinians are the stepchildren of the Arab world, no country wants them and no Arab country hasn’t betrayed them
Gideon Levy
Mar 16, 2019 1

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-if-palestinians-have-22-states-israeli-jews-have-200-1.7023647

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.7023886.1552780116!/image/847907101.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/847907101.jpg

Here we go again: The Palestinians have 22 states and, poor us, we have only one. Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t the first to use this warped argument; it has been a cornerstone of Zionist propaganda that we’ve imbibed with our mothers’ milk. But he returned to it last week. “The Arab citizens have 22 states. They don’t need another one,” he said on Likud TV.

If the Arab citizens of Israel have 22 countries, the state’s Jewish citizens have almost 200. If the prime minister meant that Arab citizens could move to Arab countries, it’s obvious that Jews are invited to return to their country of origin: Palestinians to Saudi Arabia and Jews to Germany.

Netanyahu belongs in the United States much more than Ayman Odeh belongs in Yemen. Naftali Bennett will also find his feet in San Francisco much more easily than Ahmad Tibi in Mogadishu. Avigdor Lieberman belongs in Russia much more than Jamal Zahalka belongs in Libya. Aida Touma-Sliman is no more connected to Iraq than Ayelet Shaked, whose father was born there. David Bitan belongs to Morocco, his birthplace, much more than Mohammad Barakeh does.

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The notion that the Palestinians have 22 states to go to is a blend of malice and ignorance. Underlying it are the right wing’s claims that there is no Palestinian people, that the Palestinians aren’t attached to their land and that all Arabs are alike. There are no greater lies than these. The simple truth is that the Jews have a state and the Palestinians don’t.

The Palestinians are the stepchildren of the Arab world. No country wants them and no Arab country hasn’t betrayed them. Try being a Palestinian in Egypt or Lebanon. An Israeli settler from Itamar is more welcome in Morocco than a Palestinian from Nablus.

There are Arab states where Israeli Arabs, the Palestinians of 1948, are considered bigger traitors than their own Jews. A common language, religion and a few cultural commonalities don’t constitute a common national identity. When a Palestinian meets a Berber they switch to English, and even then they have very little in common.
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The suggestion that Israel’s Arab citizens move to those 22 states is despicable and mean, well beyond its reference to a common language. It portrays them as temporary guests here, casting doubt on the depth of their attachment to their land, “inviting” them to get out. The amazing thing is that the ones making such proposals are immigrants and sons of immigrants whose roots in this country still need to withstand the test of time.

Palestinians are attached to this country no less than Jews are, possibly more so. It’s doubtful whether the hysterical clamoring for foreign passports would seize the Arab community as it did the Jewish one; everybody was suddenly of Portuguese descent. We can assume that there are more people in Tel Aviv dreaming of foreign lands than there are in Jenin. Los Angeles certainly has more Israelis than Palestinians.

Hundreds of years of living here have consolidated a Palestinian love of the land, with traditions and a heritage – no settler can match this. Palestinians have za’atar (hyssop) and we have schnitzel. In any case, you don’t have to downplay the intensity of the Jewish connection to this country to recognize the depth of the Palestinian attachment to it.

They have nowhere to go to and they don’t want to leave, which is more than can be said for some of the Jews living here. If, despite all their woes, defeats and humiliations they haven’t left, they never will. Too bad you can’t say the same thing about the country’s Jews. The Palestinians won’t leave unless they’re forcibly removed. Is this what the prime minister was alluding to?

When American journalist Helen Thomas suggested that Jews return to Poland she was forced to resign. When Israel’s prime minister proposes the same thing for Arabs, he’s reflecting the opinion of the majority.

From its inception, the Zionist movement dreamed of expelling the Palestinians from this country. At times it fought to achieve this. The people who survived the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the expulsions of 1967, the occupation and the devil’s work in general have remained here and won’t go anywhere. Not to the 22 states and not to any one of them. Only a Nakba II will get them out of here.

Keep it up, Ilhan Omar - Opinion

Neither Hamas nor a black day, but a glimmer of hope on Capitol Hill
Gideon Levy
Mar 07, 2019

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-keep-it-up-ilhan-omar-1.6999623

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6999660.1551927496!/image/3661982762.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3661982762.jpg

Maybe Mogadishu will turn out to be the source of hope. This war-torn city was the birthplace of the most promising U.S. congresswoman today.

Ilhan Omar is not only one of the first two female Muslim members of the House of Representatives, she may herald a dramatic change in that body. “Hamas has entered the House,” Roseanne Barr was quick to cry out; “A black day for Israel,” tweeted Donald Trump. Neither Hamas nor a black day, but a glimmer of hope on Capitol Hill.

Maybe, for the first time in history, someone will dare tell the truth to the American people, absorbing scathing accusations of anti-Semitism, without bowing her head. The chances of this happening aren’t great; the savage engine of the Jewish lobby and of Israel’s “friends” is already doing everything it can to trample her.

The president mentioned removing her from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Congress was set to pass a resolution, the second in one month, against uttering “anti-Semitic expressions,” specifically aimed at Omar’s statements.

>> We support you, Ilhan the heroine | Opinion

When will Americans and Europeans stop running scared every time someone screams “anti-Semitism”? Until when will Israel and the Jewish establishment succeed in exploiting (the existing) anti-Semitism as a shield against criticism? When will the world dare to distinguish between legitimate criticism of an illegitimate reality and anti-Semitism?

The gap between these two is great. There is anti-Semitism one must fight, and there is criticism of Israel and the Jewish establishment it is imperative to support. Manipulations exercised by the Israeli propaganda machine and the Jewish establishment have managed to make the two issues identical.

This is the greatest success of the Israeli government’s hasbara: Say one critical word about Israel and you’re labeled an anti-Semite. And labeled an anti-Semite, your fate is obvious. Omar has to break this cursed cycle. Is the young representative from Minnesota up for it? Can she withstand the power centers that have already mobilized against her in full force?

Maybe it’s important that she knows there are people in Israel crossing fingers for her?

Her success and that of her congressional colleagues, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York, could be the first swallows that herald the coming of spring. This is the spring of freely expressing opinions about Israel in America. Cortez already asked this week why isn’t bigotry aimed at other groups condemned just like statements against Israel are.

>> As an American-Israeli, I am thrilled for the Palestinians and for Rashida Tlaib | Opinion

What, after all, has Omar said? That pro-Israel activists demand “allegiance to a foreign country”; that U.S. politicians support Israel because of money they receive from the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, and that “Israel hypnotized the world.” What is incorrect in these statements? Why is describing reality considered anti-Semitic?

Jews have immense power in the U.S., far beyond the relative size of their community, and the blind support given by their establishment to Israel raises legitimate questions regarding dual loyalty. Their power derives from their economic success, their organizational skills and the political pressure they exert. Omar dared to speak about this.
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Just imagine what Israelis and Jews would feel if Muslim Americans had the same political, economic and cultural power Jews have. Such power, above all the intoxication with power that has seized hold of the Jewish establishment, comes with a price. Omar and her colleagues are trying to collect on it.

Due to the Israel lobby, the U.S. does not know the truth about what is happening here. Congress members, senators and shapers of public opinion who are flown here ad nauseam see only Israeli victimhood and Palestinian terror, which apparently emerged out of nowhere. Islamists, Qassam rockets and incendiary balloons – not a word about occupation, expropriation, refugees and military tyranny. Questions such as where the money goes and whether it serves American interests are considered heresy. When talking about Israel one must not ask questions or raise doubts.

This cycle has to be broken as well. It’s not right and it’s not good for the Jews. Omar is now trying to introduce a new discourse to Congress and to public opinion. Thanks to her and her colleagues there is a chance for a change in America. From Israel we send her our wishes for success.

When will the world dare to distinguish between legitimate criticism of an illegitimate Israeli reality and anti-Semitism?

Somali Night Fever: the little-known story of Somalia’s disco era | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/mar/05/somali-night-fever-the-little-known-story-of-somalias-disco-era?CMP=sha
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=313&v=qjnRW6LQ0GM

In the 1970s and 80s Mogadishu’s airwaves were filled with Somali funk, disco, soul and reggae. Musicians rocking afros and bell-bottom trousers would perform at the city’s trendiest nightclubs during the height of the country’s golden era of music. But it was short-lived: a brutal civil war began, musicians fled to all corners of the world and the vibrant music scene came to an end.

Habib and Abdulkadir, two former band mates and best friends, lost touch after the war started, and neither knew if the other was alive. But both kept playing music.

Somali Night Fever tells the story of the people keeping Somali music alive, including these two friends, separated by war but united by the music of the golden era.

Meditating on youth in Mogadishu
▻https://africasacountry.com/2019/01/meditating-on-youth-in-mogadishu

The youth (in Somali: dhalinyaro), as I see them, affect a certain cultivation of maturity far beyond their actual years.

Reporter’s Diary: Heal Somalia’s former child soldiers, heal a nation

Even by Mogadishu standards, late September was particularly violent.

Amino Hussein Hassan, a female law student, was shot dead on her university campus. Yahye Amir, a prominent economics professor and political analyst, escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb strapped to his car exploded, killing his brother. And Ahmed Mukhtar Salah, from the long-marginalised minority Bantu community, was beaten and burnt to death by a mob after his nephew married an ethnic Somali woman.

Violence has been a way of life in Somalia since the outbreak of the civil war in 1991, seeping deep into the nation’s marrow as clan conflict gradually morphed into an all-out war against the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist group #al-Shabab. “The layers of violence that people have had to digest is one of the key problems for building a peaceful and healthier society,” Laetitia Bader, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told me recently.

Most often, those who bear the life-long consequences are the poor, the politically marginalised, and young people. In particular, the thousands of children who must deal with the trauma of years on the front lines.

In May, I travelled to the capital, Mogadishu – as I have done regularly since 2012 – to report on a crisis that, save for some international NGOs and human rights organisations, few seem to talk about: child soldiers.

There, I met Abdi, 16, a former child soldier. Intelligent and eloquent, he had been a star pupil at the Koranic school in his home town, about 55 miles from the capital. In 2009, at the age of seven, his teacher took him and seven other boys to join al-Shabab.

For two years, Abdi lived in a camp with about three dozen other young recruits. By the time he was eight, he had learned how to drive a car and shoot a gun. By nine, he took part in his first raid in the village of Darussalam Mubarak, where he witnessed an assassination: a man killed by three bullets to the back.

As horrific as that experience was, the image that has most haunted Abdi for years is that of the severed head of a young man his al-Shabab camp commander brandished before the recruits as a warning: this is what happens to informants.

“Even now after all these years, I have nightmares,” Abdi told me. “Sometimes I wake up screaming in the middle of the night.”
A disposable front line

While al-Shabab’s use of children as soldiers is nothing new, in the last several years the number of child soldiers has increased markedly.

In al-Shabab’s heyday around 2010, when it controlled vast swaths of the country, including a sizable chunk of the capital, persuasion and indoctrination were enough to ensure a steady supply of young fighters. Since 2016, increased attacks by the Somali national army and US and African Union troops have resulted in a loss of territory for the group. Most recently, on October 16, the US military announced that it had carried out one of the deadliest airstrikes against al-Shabab, killing 60 militants in the Mudug region.

So, desperate for more foot soldiers, al-Shabab has turned to the abduction and forced recruitment of minors. Accurate numbers are difficult to come by. Child Soldiers International calculates that there has been a 269 percent increase in the number of children within the ranks of armed groups in Somalia between 2015, when there were 903 documented cases, to 2017, with 3,335 cases. Meanwhile, according to a May report on children and armed conflict presented by the UN secretary-general to the General Assembly, 1,770 children were recruited as soldiers in 2017 alone, with al-Shabab doing the vast majority of the recruitment. The overall number is likely even higher: UNICEF Somalia estimates that as many as 6,000 children and youths are part of armed groups in the country.

In a single military operation carried out by the Somali National Army and US troops in January on a base near the town of Baledogle, 70 miles northwest of Mogadishu, for instance, 36 child soldiers between the ages of eight and 13 were rescued.

Often untrained and ill-equipped, these child soldiers make for a disposable front line on the battlefield, protecting older, more experienced fighters. This makes them more likely to suffer physical wounds and psychological trauma.
Young defectors

I first met Abdi and other boys through a man I’ll call Hussein. I am not using his real name, or identifying his location, since in addition to running an orphanage he manages a centre that works with young al-Shabab defectors. About 120 boys now live there, two hours’ drive from the capital, but at one point it housed as many 520.

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Mogadishu’s Tipping Point | Warscapes
▻http://www.warscapes.com/opinion/mogadishus-tipping-point#sthash.u9r6HdOz.gbpl

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To better understand the political and security implications of last Saturday’s massive attack in Mogadishu, I reached out to Dr. Afyare Abdi Elmi, a Somali-Canadian academic who teaches international politics at Qatar University in Doha. “The security approach that has been used for the last ten years has not worked,” Dr. Elmi said emphatically. “If Al Shabaab can pick and choose their targets, attack government military posts and drive a lorry full of explosives into the busiest area of Mogadishu and kill hundreds, then this means that for the government, regional forces and the U.S, there is a need for a new security strategy.”

One thing that the deadliest terrorist attack in Somalia’s history has made crystal clear is the utter failure of the hyper militarized counterterrorism strategy of the past decade. Ultimately, the Shabaab conundrum is a political one, and not a purely military problem. The time has come for Somali leaders and the international community to think outside the box and try a new approach instead of continuing with the same failed strategy. Negotiations with willing Shabaab members was one such proposed idea but it has not been pursued in any meaningful fashion.

There have already been some high profile defections from the group, most recently that of Mukhtar Robow who surrendered to the government in August of this year. And proponents of the negotiation strategy contend that more members would be willing to defect if they are offered credible promises of amnesty. Dr. Elmi asserts that in the past, negotiating with Shabaab has been a redline for Western donor nations, especially the United States which wants nothing less than total defeat of the terrorist group.

Saturday’s attack is likely to become a turning point. Years from now, we might view the fight against Shabaab in terms of before and after October 14, 2017. There is something new in the way Somalis are talking about it that makes it seem like this reached a tipping point. There is so much anger on the part of the public. There has also been so much support and goodwill toward Somalia from all over the world. The magnitude of attack has put the vast majority of Somalis on the same page in terms of how they view Shabaab and its crimes against humanity. And it is this shift in opinion that appears to be unprecedented. Somali leaders must take advantage of this moment. This is the time to come up with long-term political solution to the Shabaab question.

Mogadishu bombing: parents’ grief for medical student killed in blast | World news | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/mogadishu-bombing-fathers-grief-for-medical-student-killed-in-blast

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On Saturday morning, Maryam Abdullahi Gedi made breakfast for her family, packed her books and laptop and set out across Mogadishu, the battered capital of Somalia, to see her supervisor at Banadir University about her thesis. She was excited about the prospect of her graduation as a medical doctor this week.

Her father – who flew in from the UK to attend the ceremony – found himself at her funeral instead. Gedi, 24, was among more than 300 people killed in a massive bombing in the centre of the city on Saturday afternoon.

In Somali drought, women fighting sexual predators as well as hunger

The reported cases of rape and sexual violence in drought-affected areas are on the rise, in what UNICEF calls another troubling consequence of the crisis.

Between November and March, UNICEF and partners responded to about 300 cases of rape, sexual assault and gender related violence on average each month. In June, however, the number tripled, with 909 reported cases. So far, that’s the highest number of reported cases in a single month in 2017.

According to Lokenga, displacement means women travel long distances to find food and other necessities in towns such as Mogadishu or Baidoa.
Traveling and in some cases, lack of a permanent residence, make them vulnerable to gender-based violence, even from the people meant to protect them during a time of food insecurity.

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#Somalie #viols #violences_sexuelles #eau #sécheresse #femmes #alimentation #nourriture

Amid Drought, Somali Pastoralists Watch Their ‘Sources of Life’ Perish

With 17 million people crippled by drought in the Horn of Africa, Samuel Hall researchers and photographer #Ashley_Hamer explain the realities of climate-induced displacement in Somalia on World Refugee Day.

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Trump administration announces new military operation in Somalia - World Socialist Web Site

▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/04/18/soma-a18.html

On pensait Clinton comme une guerrière, c’est finalement Trump qui est sur tous les fronts...

Trump administration announces new military operation in Somalia
By Eddie Haywood
18 April 2017

The Pentagon announced the deployment of dozens of US troops to Somalia last week, the first deployment of regular infantry since 1994, to assist the Somali military in the fight against Al Shabaab militants. Coincident with the announcement of the US deployment, a combat contingent from Uganda arrived in Somalia’s capital city Mogadishu on the weekend.

The Ugandan military contingent, which is one part of a multi-country cooperative offensive, replaces a group of Ugandan forces after that group’s one-year tour of duty ended. The Ugandan troops are to augment the US-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) against the Islamist militants.

#Little_Mogadishu. Eastleigh, Nairobi’s Global Somali Hub

This portrait of Somali life in Nairobi counters much of the recent media hype about Eastleigh’s role as a safe haven for Al-Shabaab and focuses instead on its function as an African economic hub.

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Somali pirates hijack first commercial ship since 2012 | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-somalia-hijack-idUSKBN16L0EW

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Pirates have hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew on board, Somali authorities said on Tuesday, the first time a commercial ship has been seized in the region since 2012.

Security forces have been sent to free the Aris 13, a regional police official said late on Tuesday.

“We are determined to rescue the ship and its crew. Our forces have set off to Alula. It is our duty to rescue ships hijacked by pirates and we shall rescue it,” Abdirahman Mohamud Hassan, director general of Puntland’s marine police forces, told Reuters by phone.

Puntland is a semi-autonomous northern region of Somalia. Alula is a port town there where pirates have taken the tanker.

Pirates demand ransom for oil tanker captured off coast of Somalia | World news | The Guardian

▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/14/pirates-demand-ransom-for-oil-tanker-captured-off-coast-of-somalia

Les affaires reprennent au large des côtes somaliennes

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AP in Mogadishu

Tuesday 14 March 2017 22.44 GMT

Armed men are demanding a ransom for the release of an oil tanker they have seized off the coast of Somalia and the crew is being held captive, the European Union anti-piracy operation in the region announced late on Tuesday.

An EU naval force statement said the operation had finally made contact with the ship’s master, who confirmed that armed men were onboard the Comoros-flagged tanker Aris 13.
’We had to eat rats,’ say sailors held by Somali pirates for four years
Read more

Monday’s hijacking was the first such seizure of a large commercial vessel off Somalia since 2012. It came as a surprise to the global shipping industry as patrols by the navies of Nato countries, as well as China, India and Iran, had suppressed Somali pirate hijackings for several years.

#piraterie_maritime #somalie

Ingenious : Jonathan Berger - Issue 38 : Noise
▻http://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/ingenious-jonathan-berger

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I was electrified by Jonathan Berger’s music before I knew he wrote about music. His chamber works arise out of a lightning storm of modernist angles, dramatic and startling, though anchored to melodies that sail like a swallow, as one of his string quartets is called. His one-act operas Theotokia and The War Reporter, performed together in concert, match taut musical brocades to the hallucinations of, respectively, a schizophrenic, hearing voices of various mothers, and a photojournalist, based on Paul Watson, who won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for his image of the corpse of an American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. A few years ago, I read some of Jonathan’s academic writing about music, which had a sharp focus on neurology and acoustics. He is a professor of (...)

For The First Time, A Team Of Refugees Will Compete At The Olympics

In an Olympic first, 10 members of an unusual team will be competing at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro: a squad made up entirely of refugees.

▻https://espminetwork.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/gettyimages-524133038-a0bb71b353be95639181a674bc52d585
▻https://espminetwork.com/2016/06/07/for-posting-19
#jeux_olympiques #réfugiés #asile #migrations #post-national #post-nationalisme #sport

An Olympic Dream, Shattered

The life of Somali sprinter #Samia_Yusuf_Omar came to a tragic end on the perilous Mediterranean sea crossing from Libya to Europe.

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Mali: Three years after the music ban | Freemuse

▻http://freemuse.org/archives/11511

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When the religious music ban in the northern part of Mali was lifted in 2013, Andy Morgan wrote the book ‘Music, Conflict and Culture in Mali’. Here is his account of what has happened in the country since then.

By Andy Morgan

One of the accusations often levelled at the West is that distance has numbed it to the suffering caused by terrorism and religious intolerance in faraway places. The Paris attacks of 13 November 2015 bought many feelings home to roost and gave France a bitter taste of what people in Baghdad, Mogadishu or Maiduguri have experienced with horrific regularity. The murder of so many innocents at the Bataclan, one of Paris’ best-loved and most revered music venues, was ‘justified’ by ISIS / Daesh in a statement which declared that the venue was hosting a “profligate prostitution party” that night. This misjudgement bought home a new flavour of extreme religious hatred that had never been expressed with anything like the same violence in Europe before, at least not since the 17th century: the hatred of music and all its sensual by-products.

#mali #censure #musique

Where is the fastest growing city in the world? | Cities | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/18/where-is-the-worlds-fastest-growing-city-batam-niamey-xiamen

The fastest growing city in the world is Batam in Indonesia … or Niamey in Niger … or maybe Xiamen in China. It all depends on who you ask.

Batam is the fastest-growing city in the world by population, according to US-based consultancy Demographia, which bases its annual Demographia World Urban Areas ranking largely on the United Nations’ 2010-20 world population forecasts – but only includes cities with a population of 1 million or more. Batam is close to Singapore and operates as a transport hub and industrial area, while a free-trade zone boosts trade with the island city-state. Batam had a population of 1.1 million in the latest estimate, with an annual growth of 7.4%.

Second on Demographia’s ranking is Mogadishu in Somalia, with a population of 2.1 million, growing at 6.9%. Mogadishu’s growth is driven by its improving security situation and economic prospects after decades of civil war – many Somalis have returned from abroad.

#démographie #mégapoles #urbanisation

116 Somali refugees from Kenya land in Mogadishu, spearheading new phase of voluntary repatriation

The arrival at Mogadishu International Airport today of 116 Somali refugees from Kenya marks a new chapter in the voluntary return process. Earlier in the morning, the two planes took off from Dadaab in Northeastern Kenya, the largest refugee settlement in the world, still hosting 333,000 Somali refugees. This is the result of efforts by the Tripartite Commission formed by UNHCR and the Governments of Kenya and Somalia, to step up support for voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees.

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Somalia’s first cash machine opens in Mogadishu

Some people are confused about how the machine works because they have never used one before

▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29519877

#ATM

German-U.S. reporter held in Somalia freed after 2 years | The Salt Lake Tribune

▻http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/58445939-68/somalia-held-moore-somali.html.csp

German-U.S. reporter held in Somalia freed after 2 years

By ABDI GULED

| The Associated Press
First Published 5 hours ago • Updated 5 hours ago

Mogadishu, Somalia • A German-American journalist who was kidnapped in Somalia more than two years ago was freed Tuesday, according to a Somali police official and a leader of the Somali pirates who held the journalist.

The journalist, identified by the German weekly Der Spiegel as 45-year-old Michael Scott Moore, was immediately flown to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, after being freed, Somali police official Mohamed Hassan said by phone from the town of Galkayo in north-central Somalia.

#piraterie #piraterie_maritime #somalie

Alors que les États-Unis envoient 3000 militaires en Afrique de l’Ouest, une compilation d’articles sur #Ebola et la réponse internationale

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What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/what-were-afraid-to-say-about-ebola.html

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done. (...)

There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.

The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. (...) What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu — or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?

The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air.

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The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It | WIRED
▻http://www.wired.com/2014/09/r0-ebola

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Nishiura-curves.jpg

I’ve spent enough time around public health people, in the US and in the field, to understand that they prefer to express themselves conservatively. So when they indulge in apocalyptic language, it is unusual, and notable.

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BBC News - Ebola outbreak ’threatens Liberia’s national existence’
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29136594

[Defence minister] Brownie Samukai Samukai warned on Tuesday that the disease was “devouring everything in its path” in Liberia.

The country’s weak health system was already overwhelmed by the number of cases, he said.

Mr Samukai told UN Security Council members that Liberia lacked “infrastructure, logistical capacity, professional expertise and financial resources to effectively address this disease”.

“Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence. The deadly Ebola virus has caused a disruption of the normal functioning of our state,” he said.

Separately on Tuesday, the UN’s envoy in Liberia said that at least 160 Liberian health workers had contracted the disease and half of them had died.❞

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‘Ebola’ Draining Economy - Min. Konneh - The New Dawn Liberia | Truly Independent
▻http://www.thenewdawnliberia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12673:ebola-draining

According to him, some concession companies have already scaled down operations, as expatriates depart the country for fear of contracting the Ebola virus. He said productivity in the various sectors of the economy was adversely affected, resulting in lower revenue performance, and increased expenditure demands, threatening the post- conflict recovery process of sustainable, inclusive and proper growth.

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Poor will die of hunger, not just Ebola, say Sierra Leoneans
▻http://www.trust.org/item/20140915104032-w7rs4?

FREETOWN: Supplies of food are running so low in Sierra Leone that residents fear many could die of hunger if the Ebola virus is not contained soon, reports humanitarian organisation Plan International.

Freetown residents say food prices are soaring out of control due to the lack of cross-border trade.

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Ebola’s Hard Lessons | The CSIS Global Health Policy Center
▻http://www.smartglobalhealth.org/blog/entry/Ebolas-Hard-Lessons

In the acid words of one observer, Ebola is to WHO what Katrina was to FEMA in 2005. MSF is at its limits and cannot possibly continue to shoulder the lion’s share of responsibilities. In the meantime, staff on the ground are becoming steadily more vulnerable – to infection and to violence – requiring greater investments to ensure their protection.

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The Ebola War
▻http://haicontroversies.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-ebola-war.html

Although there are clearly downsides, experts from Peter Piot to MSF leaders to Mike Osterholm are calling for military involvement. 

The need for such involvement is based simply on the scale of this disaster—WHO, CDC, non-governmental groups like MSF, no group has anything close to the logistical capability of the military to quickly deploy personnel and supplies almost anywhere in the world. If, as MSF suggests, military assets are “not…used for quarantine, containment, or crowd control measures”, which have backfired (particularly in Liberia), such a response could help bring essential capacity where it is needed most. The chart below provides a comparison of the total budgets for the US military, CDC, WHO and MSF.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZP4TYpakerY/VBWxIgVZfxI/AAAAAAAABCY/ryAcZMqH0jQ/s1600/budgets.jpg

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Ebola outbreak an avoidable tragedy, say UK MPs | Global development | theguardian.com
▻http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/sep/12/ebola-outbreak-avoidable-tragedy-uk-ministers-mps

“The devastating ongoing Ebola epidemic in west Africa has served to emphasise the importance of establishing strong health systems,” it said. “The apparent hesitancy and lack of coordination in the international response suggest that the global health system and emergency plans have failed.”

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Ebola – the World’s Katrina | Molecules to Medicine, Scientific American Blog Network
▻http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/molecules-to-medicine/2014/09/09/ebola-the-worlds-katrina

the world’s response has been incomprehensibly and seemingly irresponsibly slow. Why is this the case? Likely because of disparities in the power and wealth of people affected by the epidemic.

The Washington Post has a good backgrounder, “The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place,⁠” by professors Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne. They note the racism of the European colonizers, and how that led to “othering” of Africans, attributing inherent flaws to the people and their societies rather than to cultural differences, without any true basis or understanding. And they cite the “persistent association of immigrants and disease in American society.”

The impact of such “othering” was first really brought home to me in a provocative lecture by Eileen Stillwaggon in 2006, at a Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases⁠ conference. She spoke of the perception that AIDS was more prevalent in Africa because of different sexual mores⁠—hypersexuality⁠ and promiscuity. Then she ripped this apart with eye-opening evidence of the links between helminth (worm) infections, schistosomiasis, malaria, and AIDS, effectively demonstrating that the parasitic infections strongly increase the susceptibility to HIV, explaining the difference in HIV rates between Africa and industrialized countries.

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Ebola highlights slow progress in war on tropical diseases | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/11/us-health-ebola-neglected-analysis-idUSKBN0H60TA20140911

[until this crisis] the absence of economic incentives for drugmakers to develop and supply medicines for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has long been highlighted by health campaigners, but it rarely gets on to the political radar in the West. (...)

It is not that scientists don’t have ideas for new drugs and vaccines but, until now, they have lacked the industry buy-in needed to take experimental products through the costly late stages of clinical development.

BIOWEAPON FEARS IN WEST

Significantly, much of the funding for Ebola has been driven not by concerns about sporadic outbreaks in Africa but by a biodefence strategy in the United States and other countries fearful of the potential to weaponize the virus.

Mogadishu: evolution of an African capital – in pictures

A new exhibition by Somali-British architect Rashid Ali and British photographer Andrew Cross presents contemporary images of the battle-ravaged Somali capital alongside rare archive images that document Mogadishu under Italian colonial rule

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/2/26/1393437826869/Governors-Palace-009.jpg

▻http://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2014/feb/28/mogadishu-somalia-photography-city-exposures#/?picture=430817219&index=0

#photographie #colonialisme #Mogadiscio #Somalie #photographie_historique

cc @albertocampiphoto

Saudi Arabia : 12,000 Somalis Expelled

Saudi authorities have deported more than 12,000 people to Somalia since January 1, 2014, including hundreds of women and children, without allowing any to make refugee claims. Saudi Arabia should end the summary deportations, which risk violating its international obligations not to return anyone to a place where their life or freedom is threatened or where they face other serious harm.

Seven Somalis recently deported from Saudi Arabia told Human Rights Watch researchers in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, that the Saudi authorities had detained them for weeks in appalling conditions and some said Saudi security personnel beat them. None had been allowed to speak with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to discuss possible refugee claims before being deported. UNHCR said in mid-January that “south central Somalia is a very dangerous place.” UNHCR also said the Saudi authorities have denied its staff access to detained Somalis in the country.

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/scale-300x/media/images/photographs/IMG_2161c.jpg

▻http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/18/saudi-arabia-12000-somalis-expelled

#Somalie #Somaliens #Arabie_Saoudite #expulsion #migration #renvoi