Friday, August 29, 2014


News Clips For The Day


https://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/roger-goodell-admits-he-didn-t-get-ray-rice-suspension-right--announces-new-strict-policy-on-domestic-violence-193411459.html

Roger Goodell admits he didn't get Ray Rice suspension right, announces new strict policy on domestic violence
By Ben Rohrbach
August 28, 2014

In direct response to widespread public criticism over Ray Rice's recent two-game suspension, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell accepted blame in a memorandum to all 32 of the league's owners, introducing a new policy with severe penalties for future domestic abuse and sexual assault violations.

While Goodell did not mention the Baltimore Ravens running back by name, his memo was a clear reaction to the controversy surrounding the rather lenient disciplinary action taken after Rice allegedly knocked his then-fiancée Janay Palmer unconscious in an Atlantic City casino elevator this past February.

In the memo obtained by Yahoo Sports, Goodell went so far as to admit, "I didn't get it right."

"Although the NFL is celebrated for what happens on the field, we must be equally vigilant in what we do off the field.

"At times, however, and despite our best efforts, we fall short of our goals. We clearly did so in response to a recent incident of domestic violence. We allowed our standards to fall below where they should be and lost an important opportunity to emphasize our strong stance on a critical issue and the effective programs we have in place. My disciplinary decision led the public to question our sincerity, our commitment, and whether we understood the toll that domestic violence inflicts on so many families. I take responsibility both for the decision and for ensuring that our actions in the future properly reflect our values. I didn’t get it right. Simply put, we have to do better. And we will."

Also in the memo, which can be read in its entirety here, Goodell announced a mandatory six-game suspension for first-time violators of the league's new policy on domestic abuse and sexual assault. A second violation will result in a potential lifetime ban from the NFL.

Effective immediately, violations of the Personal Conduct Policy regarding assault, battery, domestic violence or sexual assault that involve physical force will be subject to a suspension without pay of six games for a first offense, with consideration given to mitigating factors, as well as a longer suspension when circumstances warrant. Among the circumstances that would merit a more severe penalty would be a prior incident before joining the NFL, or violence involving a weapon, choking, repeated striking, or when the act is committed against a pregnant woman or in the presence of a child. A second offense will result in banishment from the NFL; while an individual may petition for reinstatement after one year, there will be no presumption or assurance that the petition will be granted. These disciplinary standards will apply to all NFL personnel.

This is no small concession from Goodell's office, even if it is long overdue. While Rice admitted the incident was "the biggest mistake of my life" and "my actions that night were totally inexcusable" during a press conference, he pled not guilty and ultimately settled into a pre-trial intervention program to avoid jail time, and the NFL initially used that in defense of its two-game suspension.

"The discipline that was taken by the NFL is the only discipline that occurred with respect to Mr. Rice in this case,” Adolpho Birch, the league's vice president of labor policy and government affairs, told ESPN Radio's Mike & Mike show last month. “Were he not an NFL player, I don’t know that he would have received punishment from any other source.

"We believe that the discipline we issued is appropriate. It’s multiple games and hundreds of thousands of dollars (in fines). It doesn’t reflect that we condone the behavior.”

Goodell completely reversed course on that stance Thursday, also announcing expanded educational and support programs for league personnel, youth football players and community members — all of which could have been instituted prior to Rice's two-game penalty.

The memo comes a day after the NFL upheld the one-year suspensionof Cleveland Browns receiver Josh Gordon for a positive marijuana test.




NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell “accepted blame in a memorandum to all 32 of the league's owners, introducing a new policy with severe penalties for future domestic abuse and sexual assault violations.” I am so glad to see this, though to me domestic abuse should be punished by going to jail, rape with life in prison, and a 6 game suspension is still not so very stiff a sentence, especially when one player was punished by a year long suspension simply for smoking marijuana. Which is the worse crime? Surely domestic violence or rape is worse. Nonetheless, Goodell's statement, as quoted in this article, does include some interesting things: “Goodell completely reversed course on that stance Thursday, also announcing expanded educational and support programs for league personnel, youth football players and community members — all of which could have been instituted prior to Rice's two-game penalty.”

Football concerns me in general, as it is a basically violent sport with occasional extra rough actions by some players leading to injury of the other player. One NFL coach in the last six months or so was even accused of encouraging players to hurt their opponents. Head injuries have become a major problem, with ex-football players having debilitating brain damage. The other thing that really bothers me about football is that coaches give the players drugs, from pain killers to keep an injured player on the field, to male hormones that cause players to “bulk up” more, but are known to increase violence in some men. Football players in high school have been involved in more bullying episodes without being punished by the school administation which makes them feel “privileged,” and as adults they have a higher rate of violent crime in general, from domestic violence to robbery. I don't hear the same things about basketball, baseball, tennis, even soccer players.





BENEATH THE SURFACE AT FERGUSON, MO – THREE SOBERING STORIES

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/08/27/ferguson_police_dog_urinated_on_michael_brown_memorial.html

Police Handler Let Dog Urinate on Michael Brown Memorial the Day He Was Killed
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
AUG. 27 2014 

Several hours after Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri, a police dog handler let his dog urinate on a makeshift memorial that had been created on the street where Brown fell, a Mother Jones piece citing "several sources" says:

The incident was related to me separately by three state and local officials who worked with the community in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One confirmed that he interviewed an eyewitness, a young woman, and pressed her on what exactly she saw. "She said that the officer just let the dog pee on it," that official told me. "She was very distraught about it." The identity of the officer who handled the dog and the agency he was with remain unclear.

Police also drove their cars over the top of candles and flowers that Brown's mother had helped spread on the spot that her son fell, the article reports:

Missouri state Rep. Sharon Pace ... joined Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, and others as they placed the candles and sprinkled flowers on the ground where Brown had died. "They spelled out his initials with rose petals over the bloodstains," Pace recalled.

By then, police had prohibited all vehicles from entering Canfield Drive except for their own. Soon the candles and flowers had been smashed, after police drove over them.

St. Louis alderman Antonio French took a picture.

Mother Jones also reports that Pace and another Missouri state representative named Tommie Pierson say they were nearly maced by a Missouri Highway Patrol officer at a later protest.



http://www.mediaite.com/tv/st-louis-police-chief-apologizes-for-officers-embarrassing-comments/

St. Louis Police Chief Apologizes for Officer’s ‘Embarrassing’ Comments
by Matt Wilstein | 7:32 pm, August 22nd, 2014

This week, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar relieved Officer Dan Page of his duty after video emerged of him making an hour-long speech full of hateful remarks directed towards African-Americans, women and President Barack Obama among others. Page also happened to be the officer who was caught on camera physically pushing CNN’s Don Lemon during a live report on the Ferguson protests.

On Friday, Lemon said he personally sent a link of Page’s speech to Chief Belmar, who immediately responded to agreed to discuss it with the host. “As police chief, it’s embarrassing when you find out about stuff like this,” Belmar told Lemon, noting that the video has been on YouTube since April. Because he doesn’t personally use social media, he said these things can be “difficult to unearth at times.”

Asked if Page’s comments adhere to his department’s code of conduct, Belmar said, “Not at all. They are not indicative of the St. Louis County police department, they’re not indicative of the officers that he works beside, and frankly, he’s let them down.”

Belmar apologized to anyone in the community who was offended by Page’s remarks.



http://www.loonwatch.com/2014/08/ferguson-cop-dan-page-relishes-being-a-killer/

Ferguson Cop Dan Page Relishes Being A “Killer”
By Mark Piggot (IBTimes)
 August 23, 2014 in Loon-at-large

One of the police officers tasked with keeping security in riot-torn Ferguson, Missouri has been placed on “administrative leave” after a video circulated in which he appears to rant about Muslims and Barack Obama – and boasts about killing people.

Officer Dan Page, who during the Ferguson unrest was filmed pushing CNN TV reporter Don Lemon and other protesters, was giving a speech to the St. Louis/St. Charles chapter of the Oath Keepers, which according to its website is “a non-partisan association of current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to ‘defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’”

In his talk, which apparently took place on 22 April and was uploaded soon after, Page makes a number of extraordinary boasts, including ones about his being a multiple-killer.

“I personally believe the Lord Jesus Christ is my saviour, but I’m also a killer,” he is seen saying. “I’ve killed a lot and, if I need to, I will kill a whole bunch more. If you don’t want to get killed, don’t show up in front of me.”

In the speech Page, a former Vietnam veteran and military reservist, rails about black people being “little perverts”, homosexuals, and the “four sodomites on the Supreme Court.” He tells someone in the audience: “Policemen are very cynical. I know I am. I don’t trust anybody. I hate everybody. I hate y’all, too. I hate everybody. I’m into diversity – I kill everybody. I don’t care.”

The head of the St. Louis County police department. Jon Belmar. told CNN the video was bizarre and found the boasts about killing particularly disturbing: “As a police chief, that’s something I’m not going to be able to endure.”

A psychiatric evaluation of Officer Page will now take place.

Police in Ferguson have been strongly criticized for the shooting of Michael Brown which sparked the riots, but the events have also seen rising concern over the increasing militarisation of police.

Under the “1033 program” hundreds of millions of dollars of surplus military equipment from Iraq and Afghanistan has been passed on to local police forces across the US including grenade-launchers and armoured vehicles.




“The head of the St. Louis County police department. Jon Belmar. told CNN the video was bizarre and found the boasts about killing particularly disturbing: 'As a police chief, that’s something I’m not going to be able to endure.' A psychiatric evaluation of Officer Page will now take place.” I'm glad to see that this officer is to be examined by a psychiatrist. The amount of unnecessary violence that occurs all across the country makes me think that if police departments would require a psychiatric examination of recruits before they hired them, some would be weeded out at that point.

The other equally disturbing article is about a police dog urinating on the Brown memorial and the officers then driving over it, crushing the candles, and that within hours of the death, was evidence of a wider police department disregard for human relations in their work with the community. Too many police have become totally irresponsible and undisciplined, operating outside the bounds of the law, and this is often without a proper oversight by their supervisors. Either the supervisors don't know everything that is happening or they don't care. Incidents like this with the memorial shouldn't occur, especially without any discipline being administered from above. Also, in one article recently, it stated that the shooting victim Brown's body was left untouched as it lay in the street for several hours. There were witnesses among the people in the neighborhood of these things, and that is thought to be partly responsible for the level of rage that occurred in Ferguson. They definitely have a problem in the police culture there. Hopefully Mr Belmar and others will take action to improve police attitudes to the people they are supposed to be “protecting and serving,” and their human relationships within the Ferguson community in general.

Gone are the days of the “neighborhood cop.” I noticed one article that mentioned a plan to require that police officers live within Ferguson. That would really help. Police officers should be known and trusted by their community. When I was young, it wasn't a full scale war between police and their community, but a much more cooperative interaction. Some police were thought to be bullies, but most were gentlemanly and considered to be friends. . Of course I was in a lily white community. We only had about 10% black people in Thomasville, and most of the blacks were employed. There were no riots.

One last comment -- the members of the Ferguson black community need to form groups among themselves and leaders who will interact with the city government more often and more effectively in order to improve their living conditions. They need to use the power of the ballot to elect a larger number of blacks to the city government. They are simply underrepresented. Three black officers and no blacks on the city council in a city that has a clear majority of blacks in the population is ridiculous.





ISIS recruits fighters through powerful online campaign
CBS NEWS August 29, 2014, 6:55 AM

As many as 3,000 Westerners are fighting alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and other jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq.

Terror analysts say those fighters pose the greatest threat to the United States because of their ability to travel freely and blend in. Many are recruited through a powerful online media campaign, CBS News' Julianna Goldman reports.

"I am your brother in Islam here in Syria. We have safety here for your family and children," said a Western jihadist on video, urging potential ISIS recruits to come join the fight in Syria.

It's all part of a high-tech propaganda machine ISIS has developed to reach out to militants in Europe, Canada and the United States.

The terror group now has its own multilingual media arm, Al Hayat, which is behind the creation and distribution of glossy magazines and highly produced slick videos. ISIS even uses drones and GoPros to appeal to the Western eye.

A "mujatweet," a short promotional video, shows a softer side of jihad. In one such video, a Belgian hands out ice cream to excited Syrian children.

Elliot Zweig is deputy director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, which has been tracking ISIS on the Web.

"You see messages of camaraderie," Zweig said. "The focus of these are much more on 'come and join us', it is not all difficulty and gore and suffering. It is 'come and join us, join me and we'll fight the good fight together.'"

A celebrity culture has even emerged around some of these ISIS fighters, like the French militant who goes by Guitan and a German rapper who goes by Deso Dogg.

"The message is very much, here we are at the beach, here we are eating pizza, the guys, it's pizza night, almost as an aside it says 'death to Jews,'" Zweig said.

Rita Katz is the co-founder of SITE, an intelligence group pushing for social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to crack down on jihadi postings.

"They are serving here terrorist material," Katz said. "There are very inspiring images, very inspiring individuals, individuals that were followed that were celebrities in the West, now they are celebrities of jihadist. They are all over Twitter, inciting for killing others."

Twitter had no comment but has shut down official ISIS accounts. Even so, tweets show how easy it is for Jihasits to skirt the system and get their message out.

"At the end of the day, they don't need big numbers," said Frank Cilluffo, director of the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute. "They're trying to appeal to small numbers, which unfortunately in the terrorism business is all it takes."

When it comes to policing these social media sites, sources say the intelligence community is divided. On the one hand, jihadists use them as recruitment tools, but ISIS postings also help track these militants and teach us about their activities when intelligence on the ground is limited.




“The terror group now has its own multilingual media arm, Al Hayat, which is behind the creation and distribution of glossy magazines and highly produced slick videos. ISIS even uses drones and GoPros to appeal to the Western eye. A 'mujatweet,' a short promotional video, shows a softer side of jihad. In one such video, a Belgian hands out ice cream to excited Syrian children.... 'You see messages of camaraderie,' Zweig said. 'The focus of these are much more on 'come and join us', it is not all difficulty and gore and suffering. It is 'come and join us, join me and we'll fight the good fight together.' A celebrity culture has even emerged around some of these ISIS fighters, like the French militant who goes by Guitan and a German rapper who goes by Deso Dogg. 'The message is very much, here we are at the beach, here we are eating pizza, the guys, it's pizza night, almost as an aside it says 'death to Jews,'" Zweig said. … Twitter had no comment but has shut down official ISIS accounts. Even so, tweets show how easy it is for Jihasits to skirt the system and get their message out.”

This article uses a term I have never seen before, and which is not defined anywhere on the Internet – Jihasits. While it seems to be a specific group of radical Muslims (it is capitalized here), if it has a more specialized meaning I am unable to find it. I did pull up four or five references using the word in a sentence, but without seeing a definition. It may, on the other hand, be a slang term that is popular at the moment.

For such grotesquely violent people as ISIS to sugar coat their organization's goals and activities in this way is really obscene. People who are very young and who don't read the news very much can be lured by the promise of a good time – a party almost – into what will become battlefield horrors the very first time they are required to participate in the mass killing of several hundred villagers. I can't believe that many of them won't want to run away within weeks. Those who enjoy it must be crazed or intensely cruel individuals.

Of course, they are probably “brainwashed,” as a part of their training. The problem for Western countries is that these young men who are being lured in won't find out the truth about the organization until they're already in Syria, and I imagine that a recruit who wants to go home again will be threatened with his life. I'm glad that I never felt the pull to join some religious cult, which underneath its warlike goals is what ISIS is. When I was young it was “the Moonies.” Some insecure and lonely types were drawn to the group to have a “purpose” in life and a substitute family. ISIS offers the same thing, it just isn't non-violent. Those who want to fight for a “cause” are drawn to it. I was glad to learn yesterday that the US government has begun to arrest young men who are trying to link up with them and sneak across the border from Turkey into Syria. I'm glad we're not being caught off guard as we were with 9/11.





Forced switch? Drug cos. develop maneuvers to hinder generic competition
By JONATHAN LAPOOK CBS NEWS August 28, 2014, 8:40 PM

Fifty-four-year-old Michael Hitch of Maryville, Tennessee, has early onset dementia and says he is helped by an Alzheimer's medication called Namenda. The drug is due to go generic next year.

But Forest Laboratories, the company that makes Namenda, plans to stop the sale of the version that Hitch takes at least six months before a less expensive, generic product could become available.

"They have no excuse whatsoever to stop making that drug available. None," Hitch said.

The company is telling doctors to transition patients to a newer form, one that has additional patent protection and is unlikely to go generic for years.

Industry critics believe this is an example of a "forced switch."

The purpose of a forced switch is "to get patients over to this new product as fast as possible," said David Maris, a stock analyst with BMO Capital Markets who covers pharmaceuticals. Thus, when the patent ends on the old product, "patients are already on the new product and there's no existing product left."

"All of a sudden you don't have that cliff, you don't have a drop off in sales like you would otherwise," Maris said.

The retail price of Namenda is more than $300 a month. When generic companies compete, the price of a drug usually drops 70 to 80 percent. Namenda generates about $1.5 billion in annual sales. So loss of patent protection could translate to more than a billion dollars in lost revenue in a single year.

When patients are forced to switch from one form of a product to another, "almost everyone stays" once they've switched, Maris said. "The reason drug companies do these forced switches is that the switches are sticky. So in most drugs it's only about 10 percent to 20 percent ever go back to the generic."

The newer version, Namenda XR, is taken once a day, unlike the older version which is taken twice a day. Hitch has tried Namenda XR and says it doesn't work for him.

"They are yanking the rug right out from under me," Hitch said. "And that is not fair play."

There will still be a liquid version of Namenda. Actavis, the parent company of Forest Laboratories, declined an interview but CBS News asked via email why the company decided to discontinue the sale of the twice-daily Namenda tablets and if the transition to Namenda XR is a forced switch.

The company responded: "We believe that the Namenda XR extended-release capsules have significant advantages over the twice-a-day Namenda tablets that are particularly meaningful for the Alzheimer's patient population and their caregivers.”




“The company is telling doctors to transition patients to a newer form, one that has additional patent protection and is unlikely to go generic for years.” Industry critics believe this is an example of a "forced switch." Anything to make a buck! The fact that poor people depend on generic drugs in order to get the medications they need is not a big drug company's problem, of course – just the patient's – and the fact that Actavis won't get top dollar anymore is a genuine hardship on the company. Despite the fact that they already get a certain number of years at top price and without competition as a compensation for their R & D costs, apparently the drop in profits when a drug goes to generic is really problematic. “'All of a sudden you don't have that cliff, you don't have a drop off in sales like you would otherwise,' Maris said. The retail price of Namenda is more than $300 a month. When generic companies compete, the price of a drug usually drops 70 to 80 percent. Namenda generates about $1.5 billion in annual sales. So loss of patent protection could translate to more than a billion dollars in lost revenue in a single year.”

This “forced switch” is clearly not illegal, but it does border on being unethical, as it is keeping the cost of medications high, which will make Medicare and Medicaid have to pay out more. That seems to me to be a reason for the government to make laws preventing companies from doing these switches.

There was one article within the last year about doctors being courted by drug companies to get them to prescribe certain things, even giving them gifts or paying them fees to give talks about the drug at medical meetings and, of course, prescribe them for their patients. My doctor prescribes generic forms for me. Of course, if the company literally doesn't make the drug in that form anymore, it can't be bought for any price unless another company does. A doctor can still prescribe another drug which is still available in generic form, though. I ran into a problem just recently when my insurance company isn't covering the generic form of the old drug, and I am having to pay for it out of pocket. It's not $300.00 a month, of course, so I'm going to keep getting it.





http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/Newark-Memorial-High-School-Teacher-Tweets-Land-Her-in-Hot-Water-273074771.html

Bay Area Teacher Tweets About Wanting to Stab Students
By Damian Trujillo and NBC Bay Area Staff
August 29, 2014

A teacher in California's Bay Area has been reprimanded after she reportedly tweeted that she wanted to stab some students and that her "trigger finger is itchy."

The Oakland Tribune Newark Memorial High School administrators disciplined teacher Krista Hodges with a written reprimand, but she remains in the classroom as the new school year begins. The tweets, which were sprinkled with obscene language, were posted before the end of the last school year, in June.

Some parents said they found the posts insulting. One tweet allegedly insinuated that Hodges wanted to dump hot coffee on some of her students.

“I have a student here. He was expelled when he was a freshman for saying something to a teacher. They kicked him out of school. So now this is going on with this teacher, and I don’t feel it’s acceptable," parent Angela Newell said. “I feel that she should be able to receive the same punishment he did – get expelled from the district.”

Hodges told the newspaper she has apologized, saying she was only kidding, and realizes she acted unprofessionally.

The district had no comment on the issue, but one parent told NBC Bay Area on Thursday that she plans to start a campaign to get the teacher fired.

"I know the kids love her, but I think she should be fired," parent Vanessa Chavez said. "She should not work in the school -- it's not OK, it's unacceptable."

On Twitter, fittingly, Hodges appeared Thursday to be getting some support from students, including one who wrote that the "tweets were blown up into a bigger deal than what it was. Everyone vents."

Meanwhile, the Newark Police Department is taking the incident seriously and investigating.

"I think the concern is safety of everybody -- the admin, students, teacher, faculty," Cmdr. Mike Carroll said. "Concerned about everybody's safety. It doesn't matter where the threat is coming from."




Of course this teacher has apologized and said she was “just kidding,” but it's a lot like going up to a guard in the airport and saying you have a bomb. It won't be taken as a joke. I have no sympathy for this teacher. Her choice of words was alarmingly violent, which indicates to me that she actually had those thoughts, whether she would act on them or not. I hope the school system requires her to get psychiatric help if they don't fire her.

Personally, I wouldn't want to be responsible for teenage kids because they are too often real problems, and I think I might feel like swatting them with a ruler, as teachers used to do before all the clamping down on how educational institutions operate. In the 1950s and 60s when I went through, there were numerous teachers who used corporal punishment, especially principals. In fact, letting your kids get out of hand could get you fired sooner than not teaching well. Even then, though, no teacher did more than paddle or use a ruler in the hand, and certainly nothing as twisted as pouring hot coffee on a student.




Ukrainian Prime Minister Says Government Will Seek NATO Membership – NPR
by EYDER PERALTA
August 29, 2014

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says his government has sent parliament a bill that allows Ukraine to open a path toward membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"The main and only goal of Ukraine's foreign policy is to join the European Union," Yatsenyuk said in a statement.

Remember, it was the rejection of a trade deal with the European Union that sparked the protests that ultimately led tounrest and a new government in Ukraine.

And this is all happening, of course, just as NATO announced that about 1,000 highly-trained Russian troops had been deployed in eastern Ukraine. The Russian army, NATO said, is fighting alongside pro-Russian separatists.

NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow toldMorning Edition that the thinking is that Russia is trying to create a land passage along the southern part of Ukraine into Crimea, which it annexed earlier this year.

Russia has denied that it is taking any direct involvement in Ukraine.

Vershbow said NATO would continue to support Ukraine with its defense reforms and its to pursuit professionalize its military.

Morning Edition's David Greene asked Vershbow if there were more options for NATO.
Vershbow said that at this point, it will be up to individual members of NATO to decide how they want to help Ukraine. The new appeals for help from Kiev, he said, "will require some serious decision-making in NATO capitals."

David asked him if that included military action.

Vershbow said that President Obama had ruled out "direct NATO military involvement."



NATO Chief Rasmussen: Russian Troops Are Fighting Inside Ukraine – NBC
- F. Brinley Bruton
Reuters contributed to this reportedly
August 29, 2014

Russian troops are involved in "direct military operations" inside Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday. "Despite Moscow’s hollow denials, it is now clear that Russian troops and equipment have illegally crossed the border into eastern and south-eastern Ukraine," he said in a statement. "This is not an isolated action, but part of a dangerous pattern over many months to destabilize Ukraine as a sovereign nation."

Also on Friday, Ukraine said it would work towards becoming part of the U.S.-led security alliance, a move that looked set to inflame tensions with Russia. Prime Minister Minister Arseny Yatseniuk also said that his country still sought to become a member of the European Union. The toppling of pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovich by protesters calling for closer ties with the West earlier this year helped precipitate the current crisis, with separatist forces besieging much of the east of the country and the Crimean peninsula being annexed by Russia. Ukraine has accused Russia of bringing tanks, artillery and troops to support separatists in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow denies.




“Also on Friday, Ukraine said it would work towards becoming part of the U.S.-led security alliance, a move that looked set to inflame tensions with Russia. Prime Minister Minister Arseny Yatseniuk also said that his country still sought to become a member of the European Union.” Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen accuses Russia of sending its troops into Ukraine, saying it is a part of a “dangerous pattern over many months to destabilize Ukraine as a sovereign nation.”

I hope this mean that NATO is going to add Ukraine to its group of nations and send in troops to protect Kiev against the Russians. NPR's article states that, according to Yatsenyuk, Ukraine's “main and only goal” is membership in the EU, with joining NATO as being secondary. Also, the various NATO nations are of differing opinions about military intervention in Ukraine, the US in particular being against it at this point. I hope Western Europe doesn't just watch from a distance while Russia gobbles up Ukraine. I was so glad when the wall was knocked down under Gorbachev, and then Russia and the US cooperated in a number of ways. Now we're back to the Cold War again. This is not only disheartening and depressing, it is boring.






Senegal Confirms Its 1st Case of Ebola – ABC
By Babacar Dione AP
August 29, 2014

A man infected with Ebola traveled to Senegal, becoming the first recorded in this country of an outbreak that has hit four other West African countries and has killed more than 1,500 people, the Ministry of Health said Friday.

The infected person is a university student from Guinea who sought treatment at a hospital in Senegal's capital, Dakar, this week, Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck told reporters. The young man said he had had contact with Ebola patients while he was in Guinea and was immediately put under quarantine, she said.

Tests from the Institut Pasteur have confirmed that he has Ebola, and the World Health Organization has been alerted.

The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa began last year in Guinea. Since then, the disease has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. At least 3,000 have contracted the disease, which is spread by bodily fluids and for which there is no known cure.

The arrival of the dreaded disease in Senegal, which is a tourist destination and whose capital is a major transportation hub for the region, underscores that the outbreak is not under control, despite efforts by the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders and other organizations.

WHO on Friday said the past week has seen the highest increase of cases — more than 500 — since the outbreak began.

It is not clear how or when the young man came to Senegal, which has closed its border with Guinea. But Seck said that this week an epidemiological surveillance team from Guinea alerted Senegalese authorities that they had lost track of a person who had had contact with the sick. The team said this person may have come to Senegal.

Seck said authorities have determined that the young man now in quarantine is one who fled.

WHO, which is the U.N. health agency, has warned that the disease could eventually infect 20,000 people, and unveiled a plan Thursday to stop transmission in the next six to nine months.

But a top official from Doctors Without Borders, which is running many of the Ebola treatment centers, said the agency wasn't doing enough.

"The World Health Organization can't handle" the outbreak, Mego Terzian, the group's president for France, told France Inter radio. "I don't see how with the current measures how we're going to control the outbreak and stop the outbreak."

He called for a far greater response from the international community, saying the U.N. Security Council should take up the matter and noting that there are countries with military medical units that could be useful.

In a detailed report Friday, WHO said more than 500 cases were recorded over the past week, by far the worst toll of any week so far. The week before, around 400 new cases were reported.

Most new cases are in Liberia, but the agency said it was also the highest number of cases in one week for Guinea and Sierra Leone. Nigeria has recorded a small number of cases.

"There are serious problems with case management and infection prevention and control," the report said. "The situation is worsening in Liberia and Sierra Leone."

Neither of those countries has enough space in treatment centers to handle the tremendous and increasing number of cases, it said.




“The infected person is a university student from Guinea who sought treatment at a hospital in Senegal's capital, Dakar, this week, Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck told reporters. The young man said he had had contact with Ebola patients while he was in Guinea and was immediately put under quarantine, she said. Tests from the Institut Pasteur have confirmed that he has Ebola, and the World Health Organization has been alerted.... The arrival of the dreaded disease in Senegal, which is a tourist destination and whose capital is a major transportation hub for the region, underscores that the outbreak is not under control, despite efforts by the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders and other organizations.”

No, it is definitely not “under control,” and the fact that Dakar is a tourist hub is even more frightening. Of course most people will have enough common sense not to travel to Africa for a vacation at this time, but every time someone slips out of the area after becoming exposed, there is the threat of a new site for the virus to pop up. The trouble with a virus that doesn't manifest itself for several weeks is that these people don't know they've been exposed in many cases, and until they are suddenly very ill indeed, they don't know they have it. One African nation was in the news recently for closing its borders, and it seems to me that they all should.

The US government is making noises now about putting a rush order on human trials for vaccines, and it just seems to me that they should have done that several months ago when it became obvious that the epidemic was spreading more widely than in previous years and killing many people. I cynically have thought that if such large numbers of white people in the US or Europe – important people, in other words – were to die of a disease there would be a vaccine for it much sooner. After the prior epidemics which were just as frightening, though relatively short-lived, there should have been serious work under way already on getting a treatment for it, as it showed signs then of being a grave threat to people in Africa. One article said that drug companies hadn't shown as much interest in making it because the need for it seemed to be limited, and thus the income from the sales would be less. So, okay, the major companies didn't want to make it, but the government should have done research on it due to its threat level as a matter of public health. Thank goodness, Canada's government did do that, and has a vaccine in the making now which may be out soon.