In Ethiopia’s western Gambella region, 540 people–mostly ethnic Amhara–were killed during a massacre that began in the town of Meti, Godere Zone.
The massacre took place September 10, and was not reported until Voice of America’s (VOA) Amharic Service covered the killings last week.
The massacre began after the Ethiopian government began to forcefully evict Mezenger people from their ancestral land as part of a plan to redistribute the land to recently retired TPLF Generals.
In the government program, the land is handed over to the retired servicemen for “investment” purposes. The effect of the plan has included an illegal campaign of selling lands, accompanied by the arrival of hundreds of “Tirgrayans’ as ‘workers’ for the TPLF land developers.
Plans for the world’s tallest twin towers have been unveiled by Emaar Properties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The oil-rich Persian Gulf city will construct the towers as part of its Dubai Creek Harbour project.
The twin towers will be the centerpiece of the project, and will be developed in three phases by Dubai Holding. The design of the towers resembles two rocket launchers.
“The story of Dubai and the history of the creek are intertwined, it really tells us where it came from and which way we’re going,” said Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the company currently building Dubailand and Dubai World Central. “This is the greatest spot in the world and it deserves something creative and special.”
“Planned on an open site, Dubai Creek Harbour will combine the city with the natural contours of the creek,” Emaar said in a statement. “With no legacy ties to infrastructure, this new Dubai will leapfrog many of the world’s other global cities. The master plan is an order of magnitude larger than Downtown Dubai and will support its commercial and cultural development.”
The start date for the construction of the twin towers has not been decided.
“When planning a project like this, you can’t look at 2015,” said Alabbar. “It’s about the fundamentals of the city.”
But the plan has not been impeded by the recent worldwide financial crisis which reached Dubai around 2010.
“I think all the stakeholders in Dubai in this business learnt their lessons and they have matured,” said Alabbar. “What it boils down to is supply and demand.”
The government of Ethiopia is guilty of ethnically targeted human rights violations, according to Amnesty International. The violence is directed against Ethiopia’s largest minority group, the Oromos, and is motivated by political fear. Thousands have been tortured, according the Amnesty’s report.
Amnesty based its report on 200 testimonies gathered in Ethiopia. “We interviewed former detainees with missing fingers, ears and teeth, damaged eyes and scars on every part of their body due to beating, burning and stabbing–all of which they said were the result of torture,” said Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Ethiopia researcher.
The testimonies included extensive reports of torture and abuse, including prolonged detainment, detainment without charge, detention in unofficial military camps, mutilation using bayonets, hot coals, and hanging by wrists. Beatings, electric shocks, mock executions, burning with metal or molten plastic, rape and gang rape were common abuses reported.
The reason for the targeted abuse, according to Amnesty, is political. The government fears political opposition, stemming particularly from the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a regional armed group. Ethiopia will hold general elections in 2015, and Amnesty expects human rights abuses will continue or increase.
“The Ethiopian government’s relentless crackdown on real or imagined dissent among the Oromo is sweeping in its scale and often shocking in its brutality,” said Beston.
“This is apparently intended to warn, control or silence all signs of ‘political disobedience’ in the region.”
Numerous reports detailed arrests without cause or with only suspicion, arrests without charge or without trial, and arrests and retribution against uninvolved family members.
“People are arrested for the most tenuous of reasons: organizing a student cultural group, because their father had previously been suspected of supporting the OLF or because they delivered the baby of the wife of a suspected OLF member. Frequently, it’s because they refused to join the ruling party,” said Beston.
In April and May 2014, ethnic conflict in Ethiopia received international attention after security forces opened fire during a series of peaceful protests, and beat hundreds of protesters and bystanders. Dozens died and thousands were injured.
“These incidents were far from being unprecedented in Oromi,” said Beston. “They were merely the latest and bloodiest in a long pattern of suppression. However, much of the time, the situation in Oromia goes unreported.”
Approximately 5,000 ethnic Oromos have been arrested between 2011 and 2014 for political reasons, according to Amnesty.
Amnesty stated that it believed there was an urgent need for intervention in Ethiopia by regional and international humanitarian organizations that could conduct independent investigations into human rights abuse allegations in Oromia.
“The Ethiopian government must end the shameful targeting of thousands of Oromos based only on their actual or suspected political opinion. It must cease its use of detention without charge, torture and ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, enforced disappearance and unlawful killings to muzzle actual or suspected dissent,” said Beston.
A recent study by Yale University has found that isolating Ebola victims within four days of symptom onset could achieve disease elimination in Liberia. Setting out to determine how to best use scare resources to combat the Ebola outbreak overwhelming West Africa, and after analyzing the incidence and case fatality of the outbreak, the team concluded that the best hope for ending the spread of Ebola was isolation of Ebola victims very early in the progression of symptoms–although the time window suggested by the research was smaller than current time to hospital reporting in West Africa.
“The Ebola outbreak in Western Africa is spiraling out of control. The need to determine how to deploy scarce resources to end this crisis is urgent,” Dr Dan Yamin, Postdoctoral Associate in Epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the report, framed the study.
Dr Dan Yamin, lead researcher on the study
The goal of the study was to “evaluate the contribution of disease progression and case fatality to transmission and to examine the potential for targeted interventions to eliminate the disease,” according to the report.
The team used both clinical and epidemiological data–incidence and case fatality records–from the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and found that secondary infections occurred during the infectious period of an Ebola victim at an average rate of 1.73. That is, each infected person passed on Ebola to 1.73 healthy individuals.
Distribution of secondary cases per infected individual among survivors and nonsurvivors
Ebola victims who did not survive passed the disease on to 0.66 people, while nonsurvivors passed the disease on to 2.36 people. Survivors of Ebola, the study found, infected at least one healthy person in 32 percent of cases. Nonsurvivors infected at least one healthy person with a 67 percent probability rate.
“Consequently, nonsurvivors, who made up 63% (CI, 60% to 64%) of the population, were responsible for 86% (CI, 63% to 98%) of transmissions,” the researchers found.
Left alone, “the number of newly reported cases will be doubled every 20 days,” Yamin told The Speaker, pointing out that the number of newly reported cases should not be misconstrued to be the total number of cases.
The conclusion reached by the team was that isolation of infected individuals offered a chance of eliminating the disease. Isolation of 75 percent of nonsurviving infected individuals within four days after symptoms began created a 74 percent chance of disease elimination. Isolation of all infected people offered a marginal reduction beyond the 74 percent. Isolation of asymptomatic people, however, made no practical sense, the researchers found.
“There is no medical sense in quarantining asymptomatic people,” Yamin told us. “All evidence shows that asymptomatic people (and people that were exposed and are in the “incubation period”) can’t transmit.
“Isolating all individuals before symptoms onset is not practical,” said Yamin, noting that, of course, it “would obviously lead to disease elimination.”
Average number of secondary cases per day of symptomatic disease
The most pragmatic way to actually combat Ebola in West Africa, Yamin told us, was isolation of only those people who were already symptomatic.
“In the absence of sufficient isolation units, our model emphasizes that targeted isolation of those who are mostly responsible for transmission may be the most efficient way to contain Ebola. Specifically, because infectiousness increases greatly with disease progression we found that that isolating 75% of infected individuals (particularly, the more severe cases) within four days of symptom onset has a high chance of eliminating the spread of the disease.
The researchers found that the current average period from symptom onset to hospitalization in Liberia was approximately 5 days–significantly beyond the requirements suggested by the study.
The researchers also evaluated the effectiveness of self-quarantine–a pragmatic strategy in areas where there were not sufficient isolation units. Self-quarantine of 75 percent of all infected could eradicate Ebola with 78 percent probability.
“Effectively, we tested self-quarantine by contact reduction of an infected person beyond what was currently reported,” Yamin told us. “The data provided by the Liberian Ministry of Health suggests that, an infected individual contacts, on average, with 6 people–this
Probability of disease elimination for different intervention strategies and coverages
number seems to be substantially lower than the number of contacts of a healthy person.
“Our results suggest that to achieve 78% for elimination, additional 60% reduction in contacts should occur following the first day from symptoms onset. Practically, implementing even this strategy seem to be challenging, which highlights the importance of increasing isolation units in Liberia.”
The conclusion of the researchers was that the massive international support directed at helping in West Africa “should be directed towards expanding the capacity of hospitalized case isolation.”
“Targeted isolation may offer the best hope of ending the Ebola epidemic.”
The report, “Effect of Ebola Progression on Transmission and Control in Liberia,” was authored by Dan Yamin, PhD; Shai Gertler; Martial L. Ndeffo-Mbah, PhD; Laura A. Skrip, MPH; Mosoka Fallah, PhD; Tolbert G. Nyenswah, MPH; Frederick L. Altice, MD, MA; and Alison P. Galvani, PhD, was published in Annals of Internal Medicine, and was funded primarily by the National Institute of Health.
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By Andrew Stern
Photo: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Russia launched a Progress 57 Cargo Ship from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan Wednesday, bound for the International Space Station. The ship was launched just three hours after the failed launch of the American rocket Antares, which exploded over Wallops Island, Virginia. The Russian ship is expected to rendezvous with the International Space Station later Wednesday.
The Russian ship, a Progress M-25M space freighter, was launched on a Soyuz-2.1a from Baikonur space center Wednesday, according to Russian space agency Roscosmos.
“The launch was made at 10:10 AM Moscow time, Wednesday. All pre-launch operations and the launch of the space freighter by a new rocket were conducted as scheduled,” said Roscosmos.
The successful launch took place just three hours after the failed launch of the American Cygnus commercial cargo carrier Antares, which exploded after crashing back into the ground in Wallops Island, Virginia.
The Progress M-25M is expected to dock with the space station’s Pirs docking compartment exactly six hours after liftoff.
The Progress is carrying almost 5,200 pounds of food, fuel and supplies for the six-person International Space Station crew, including 1,322 pounds of fuel, over 100 pounds of oxygen, 925 pounds of fresh water, and 2,828 pounds of dry cargo.
Wednesday’s launch was Russia’s first using a Soyuz-2.1a rocket. Previous space freighters were launched atop Soyuz-U rockets. The 2.1a is a modernized version of the older launcher, and uses updated electronics, a digital flight control system, and is capable of lofting 300 more kilograms (660 pounds) to the International Space Station’s orbit, according to Roscosmos.
The upgraded rocket also uses less foreign parts than the Soyuz-U, which depended more heavily on components from Ukraine.
A team of researchers from Washington University School of Medicine has converted human skin cells directly into brain cells. This breakthrough research is complimented by other landmark findings within the study–including that the cells were able to form neurological connections, both axonal and dendritic. The research holds promise for sufferers of neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s disease.
“Our study shows that the transplanted human cells derived by direct conversion of skin cells could actually behave like normal neurons,” Dr Andrew Yoo, assistant professor of developmental biology at the Washington University School of Medicine and lead researcher on the study, told The Speaker.
Dr Andrew Yoo
“We have evidence for both dendritic and axon growth,” Yoo told us.
“For dendritic growth, we found the transplanted cells could elicit spontaneous postsynaptic potentials, meaning that the cell were wired into the existing neural circuit and receive inputs from neighboring cells.”
The transplanted cells also formed axonal projections from the transplanted skin cells. “These cells are known to extend projections into certain brain regions. And we found the human transplanted cells also connected to these distant targets in the brain. That’s a landmark point about this paper,” said Yoo.
The team used a particular combination of microRNAs and transcription factors to reprogram the skin cells to become a particular type of brain cell known as medium spiny neurons.
Human skin cells (top) can be converted into medium spiny neurons (bottom) with exposure to a combination of microRNAs and transcription factors
Yoo’s team had found in previous research that exposing skin cells to two small RNA molecules–miR-9 and miR-124–could transform the cells into different types of brain cells.
The team is not certain how the transformation takes place, but has hypothesized that the two small RNA molecules open up the DNA inside the cells. That DNA holds the instructions for making brain cells. The team achieved transformation of a skin cell into a particular type of brain cell by adding molecules called transcription factors that the team knew were present in the region of the brain where medium spiny neurons are abundant.
“They are priming the skin cells to become neurons,” said co-author Matheus B. Victor of the small RNA molecules. “The transcription factors we add then guide the skin cells to become a specific subtype, in this case medium spiny neurons. We think we could produce different types of neurons by switching out different transcription factors.”
The spiny neurons produced by the team are the main type affected by the neurodegenerative disease Huntington’s disease, an inherited disease that causes a gradual decline of mental ability, accompanied by involuntary movement.
The team plans to achieve further understanding of how their results could help people suffering from Huntington’s disease.
Yoo lab
“We are currently doing experiments to figure out how these transplanted cells send out axons to proper sites,” Yoo told us.
Next for the team is research that will use cells from patients with Huntington’s disease. Whereas the current research transformed human skin cells into mouse brain cells, the next step will aim to convert skin cells from humans with Huntington’s into mice with the same disease, again trying to create medium spiny neurons.
“For any future implications of using reprogrammed cells for cell replacement-based therapeutic approaches, it is imperative to show that the human neurons directly converted from fibroblasts could integrate into the brain circuit,” Yoo told us.
The report, “Generation of Human Striatal Neurons by MicroRNA-Dependent Direct Conversion of Fibroblasts,” was authored by Matheus B. Victor, Michelle Richner, Tracey O. Hermanstyne, Joseph L. Ransdell, Courtney Sobieski, Pan-Yue Deng, Vitaly A. Klyachko, Jeanne M. Nerbonne, and Dr Yoo, was published in Neuron Magazine, and was funded by various bodies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The third Orbital Sciences cargo mission to the International Space Station was set to launch Monday, but was prevented by a stray boat which had entered restricted waters southeast of the launch pad in Wallops Island, Virginia. The launch was postponed until Tuesday due to public safety concerns, according to officials.
The Monday launch window was just 10 minutes long, restricted by the orbit of the space station.
The sailboat carried a single passenger without a radio, reportedly.
The Antares exploded seconds after launch Tuesday.
The Antares carried over 5,000 pounds of supplies for the space station, including 32 mini research satellites, a meteor tracker, crew provisions, and a tank of high-pressure nitrogen to replace that used by astronauts during spacewalks. It also carried, according to the launch director, some high-priority “classified crypto equipment” thought to be for secure communications.
The Antares suffered “a catastrophic anomaly” a short distance above the launch platform, lost power, fell back to the earth and exploded on contact with the ground.
“Parts were sent flying everywhere, and then the vehicle fell back to the pad, exploding in an even larger fireball, setting the entire area on fire,” commented eye-witness Robert Pearlman, editor of the space history news website collectSPACE.com.
The cause of the explosion is not known, according to NASA officials.
A letter, penned by former-Beatle John Lennon to radio and television host Joe Franklin and praising the music of Yoko Ono, has sold for $28,171. The two-page handwritten letter was dated December 13, 1971, and was written in an attempt to get Ono onto Franklin’s New York TV show.
“I know you’re a musician at heart!” Lennon writes in the letter. “And especially I know you dig jazz. Well, Yoko’s music ain’t quite jazz but to help you get off on it, or understand it, please listen to a track on the Yoko/Ono/Plastic Ono Band, called ‘AOS,’ which was recorded in 1968 (pre Lennon/Beatles!) with Ornette Coleman at Albert Hall London, you could call it free form, anyway Yoko sits in the middle of avant-garde, classic, jazz—and now through me and my music—rock ‘n’ roll!”
The songs referred to by Lennon were on Ono’s solo album, “Fly.”
The letter also included a thumbnail sketch Lennon drew of himself and Ono, and was written on official Apple Records letterhead–the label started by the Beatles in 1968.
The letter was successful, reportedly.
“Yoko was on my show nine times,” Franklin commented recently on the events of 1971. “John Lennon was on three times. Yoko was only with him one of those times. Part of his whole thing was to convince her to be confident enough to do it on her own.”
The letter sold for $28,171–far above its presale estimate of $15,000-20,000–at the RR Auction in Massachusetts.
The Western African nation of Niger is experiencing an outbreak of cholera. To date, 51 people have died of the disease this year–deaths are on the rise, with 38 deaths taking place in September alone.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported that 1,300 people have been infected with cholera so far this year in Niger. The high rate of infection has been caused in part by the heavy flooding which has existed in Niger since June.
The outbreak involves four of Niger’s eight regions, and UNOCHA is taking steps to contain the illness and prevent it from appearing in new places, according to officials.
Cholera is a food- and water-borne disease, like salmonella, polio, hepatitis A, e. coli, and transmissible spongiform enephalopathies–although cholera is a particularly aggressive infection–and is prevalent in Asia, Africa and South America.
The ingestion of food or drink contaminated with human waste is the common means of cholera transmission. Symptoms include diarrhoea and dehydration, and death can result within 24 hours if the disease remains untreated.
The world is currently experiencing its seventh recorded cholera pandemic. Each has been devastating.
There are currently 100 active strains of cholera in the world, which makes development of an effective vaccine difficult, as each vaccine can only target one version of the bacterium.
The current outbreak in Niger involves the special concern of 105,000 refugees from Boko Haram and the Nigerian army have settled in Diffa, southeastern Niger. Many of these refugees have settled on the islands of Lake Chad where there is limited access to drinking water and hygiene and sanitation are precarious.
The Ebola Virus and the related Marburgvirus have been diverging for over 16 million years, according to a recent study by the University of Buffalo. Although filoviruses were once thought to date back only 10,000 years, new research using more reliable dating methods has shown that the origins of the virus go much deeper than the beginnings of large-scale human agriculture.
“An understanding of the timescale of evolution is critical for comparative virology but remains elusive for many RNA viruses,” wrote the authors of the report.
Experts had at one time believed that filoviruses came about around 10,000 years ago, and coincided with the rise in human agriculture.
According to the research of Professor Derek Taylor and others at the University of Buffalo, the viruses date back to the Miocene Epoch–16 to 23 million years ago.
“Filoviruses are far more ancient than previously thought,” said Taylor. “These things have been interacting with mammals for a long time–several million years.”
The science of measuring the age of diseases is still developing. Previous dating relied on mutation rates.
“Age estimates based on mutation rates can severely underestimate divergences for ancient viral genes that are evolving under strong purifying selection,” the researchers wrote in their report.
“Paleoviral dating, however, can provide minimum age estimates for ancient divergence, but few orthologous paleoviruses are known within clades of extant viruses.”
“For example, ebolaviruses and marburgviruses are well-studied mammalian pathogens, but their comparative biology is difficult to interpret because the existing estimates of divergence are controversial.”
The researchers looked at the paloviral elements of two genes in the ebolavirus family, and found that ebolavirus diverged from marburgvirus in the early Miocene.
The scientists searched within the viral genes in rodents preserved through fossilization.
“These rodents have billions of base pairs in their genomes, so the odds of a viral gene inserting itself at the same position in different species at different times are very small,” Taylor said. “It’s likely that the insertion was present in the common ancestor of these rodents.”
The knowledge may help scientists create better vaccines for Ebola victims. It could also help create programs that better identify emerging pathogens by providing insight into which host species serve the virus as “reseviors” for related pathogens.
“When they first started looking for reservoirs for Ebola, they were crashing through the rainforest, looking at everything–mammals, insects, other organisms,” said Taylor. The more we know about the evolution of filovirus-host interactions, the more we can learn about who the players might be in the system.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Florida have filed suit against Miami-Dade County and the Florida Department of Corrections, seeking a permanent injunction against a housing ordinance that, the ACLU alleges, makes normal life extraordinarily difficult for former sex offenders, and actually causes the former offenders to become and remain homeless, a violation of their constitutional rights.
“As public policy, the Miami-Dade ordinance is a disaster,” said Brandon Buskey, Staff Attorney at ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, of the 2010 ordinance that has made finding normal accommodation a challenge for former sex offenders. “It has created a homeless population living outdoors in squalor, while doing nothing to serve public safety.”
“Disease, exposure to the elements, no drinkable water–these conditions make it extremely difficult to find and maintain stable employment and psychological treatment, which are the only two factors proven to reduce the likelihood of reoffending. We know from decades of research that housing restrictions like Miami-Dade’s have no impact on reoffending and, are more likely to increase it,” said Busky.
The ACLU says that the ordinance has left about fifty former offenders with nowhere to live besides an outdoor area along railroad tracks on the outskirts of Miami-Dade county.
The railroad tracks are frequently recorded by probation officers as the “address” of the former offenders, the ACLU says, because finding affordable housing for former offenders is futile.
“Sending someone just out of jail into homelessness makes no sense, not for the person and not for the public. The Miami-Dade ordinance is not just unworkable, it’s unconstitutional,” said Nancy Abudu, Legal Director of the ACLU of Florida.
The ordinance is unconstitutional, according to ACLU, because the housing ordinance makes it so difficult for former sex offenders to obey without becoming homeless.
The ordinance prohibits former offenders from living within 2,500 feet from any building that the county labels a “school.” The category has been used to include shelters and other buildings, in addition to actual institutions of learning. The label has been used arbitrarily, according to ACLU.
The ACLU and the ACLU of Florida are seeking a permanent injunction against what they allege is an unconstitutional housing ordinance, and have directed their suit against Miami-Dade County and the Florida Department of Corrections.
China is expected to send 100,000 troops into its restless western province of Xinjiang to reinforce the People’s Armed Police force already there, according to a Hong Kong based rights group. Hundreds of people have died in recent months in Xinjiang’s ethnic unrest.
The Chinese Communist Party’s 18th Congress discussed a number of problems facing the government in its ongoing Fourth Plenary Session. The problems were both internal and external, and included the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, problems associated with the ouster of former security chief Zhou Yongkang, and the recent ethnic violence in the western province of Xinjiang.
Several bomb attacks and riots have left hundreds dead in Xinjiang over recent months.
According to Hong-Kong based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, the Chinese government is to deploy 100,000 troops to Xinjiang to assist local police already there.
The decision to send the troops is expected to be made at the ongoing Forth Plenary Session.
In the government program, the land is handed over to the retired servicemen for “investment” purposes. The effect of the plan has included an illegal campaign of selling lands, accompanied by the arrival of hundreds of “Tirgrayans’ as ‘workers’ for the TPLF land developers.
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