Deportistas solidarios frente al ébola

Estrellas del deporte en campaña contra el Ébola

Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis y Sergey Bubka encabezan el empeño emprendido por la Asociación de Deportistas Olímpicos

Autor: EFE | internet@granma.cu/Edición de codón desastre

22 de octubre de 2014 13:10:03

Al astro de la velocidad, el jamaicano Usain Bolt, entre los comprometidos en la lucha contra la mortal enfermedad. Foto: Ricardo López Hevia

MADRID.— Legendarios deportistas como el jamaicano Usain Bolt, el estadounidense Carl Lewis, el ucraniano Sergey Bubka y la sueca Pernilla Wiberg se han sumado a una campaña emprendida por la Asociación de Deportistas Olímpicos (WOA), siglas en inglés) para recaudar fondos destinados a la lucha contra el Ébola.

Francis Dove Edwin, ex velocista de Sierra Leona, miembro en su país de una comisión presidencial destinada a frenar la propagación de la enfermedad, apeló a la WOA para que colaborase en la recaudación de fondos, de forma coordinada con otras asociaciones como Oxfam.

El seis veces medallista olímpico Usain Bolt ha donado un par de zapatillas con su firma para que sean subastadas. La Asociación de Deportistas Olímpicos ha pedido a "los 100 mil miembros de la comunidad olímpica" que contribuyan en las redes sociales, usando la etiqueta #TargetEbola, a difundir la página abierta para recibir donaciones, www.targetebola.org/donate.

"Todos juntos podemos marcar la diferencia", ha señalado Edwin al anunciar la campaña.(EFE)

Mucho dinosaurio

"Nearly 50 years ago, scientists found bones of two large, powerful dinosaur arms in Mongolia and figured they had discovered a fearsome critter with killer claws. Now scientists have found the rest of the dinosaur and have new descriptions for it: goofy and weird. The beast probably lumbered along on two legs like a cross between TV dinosaur Barney and Jar Jar Binks of "Star Wars" fame. It was 16 feet tall and 36 feet long, weighing 7 tons, with a duckbill on its head and a hump-like sail on its back. It had killer claws, tufts of feathers here and there, and no teeth. And if that's not enough, it ate like a giant vacuum cleaner. That's Deinocheirus mirificus (DY'-noh'-KY-ruhs mur-IHF'-ee-kuhs), which means "terrible hands that look peculiar." It is newly reimagined after a full skeleton was found in Mongolia and described in a paper released Wednesday (Oct. 22) by the journal Nature. (NBC News)

Nature
"Fossils of Deinocheirus mirificus — a pastiche of Greek and Latin meaning 'unusual horrible hand' — were first unearthed in the summer of 1965 in the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia. Along with a few rib and vertebra fragments, the remains included a remarkable set of shoulder girdles and 2.4-metre-long forelimbs, the longest yet found for a bipedal animal of any era (although some flying animals, notably pterosaurs, had longer wings).

Eventually, scientists placed Deinocheirus in a subgroup of theropod dinosaurs known as ornithomimosaurs ('bird-mimicking lizards') — which makes them relatively close kin to fierce predators such as T. rex and Allosaurus, says Yuong-Nam Lee, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources in Daejeon, South Korea, and a co-author of the study.

Michael Skrepnick

The dinosaur in an artist's impression.

Expand

Near-complete skeleton

In expeditions to the Gobi Desert in the past decade, Lee and his colleagues have unearthed the 70-million-year-old fossils of two more individuals of the species from sites near to where the original 1965 specimen was discovered. Together, those remains — along with some bones stolen by poachers before Lee and his team found the fossils, but since recovered from a private collection — account for about 95% of the creature’s skeleton, he notes.

The newer-found bones differ from those of other ornithomimosaurs in several unexpected ways. Most of the spinal vertebrae have blade-like projections that extended upward and served as anchors for a network of ligaments that probably helped to support the immense weight of the creature’s abdomen. The researchers estimate that Deinocheirus was about 11 metres long and tipped the scales at more than 6.3 tonnes.

“This is definitely an unusual animal,” says Thomas Holtz, Jr., a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Maryland in College Park, who wrote an accompanying News & Views piece². “It had more of a ‘beer belly’ than your typical ornithomimosaur,” he suggests.

El imperio eléctrico

Mírenlo bien. Es un modelo de contador de la luz "inteligente". La foto es de "El Mundo". Pero les va tocar pagarlo a todos los españoles/as. Hay noticias sobre las tarifas eléctricas. Malas, por supuesto.

Thank you

Kevin Vickers, instantes después de haber abatido al terrorista en el Parlamento de Ottawa / CBC NEWS

Arte Urbano Global

Arte urbano

Hoy les proponemos acercarnos a esta manifestación artística y social desde diferentes espacios del planeta.

Arte urbano en Alemania. Autores: Jana & JS.

Arte urbano en Almería, España. Autores: Pichi y Avo.

Arte urbano en Atenas, Grecia. Autores: Pichi y Avo.

Chica de Saigón. Autor: Seth.

Arte urbano en Italia: Sqon.

Arte urbano en Comuna de Aubervilliers, región de Isla de Francia. Autor: David Walker.

Arte urbano en Palermo, Italia. Autor: Collettivo FX.

Arte urbano en Valencia, España. Autor: Deih.

Ataque al Parlamento canadiense

Atentado en Canadá es respuesta a guerra en Iraq, según Global Research

Ottawa, 23 oct (PL) El reciente ataque contra el parlamento canadiense es una respuesta al aval legislativo a la participación del país en la guerra contra el Estado Islámico (EI) en Iraq, señala el sitio digital Global Research. Costa Rica lamenta ataque al Parlamento de Canadá Muchos temen que la manipulación que hacen las autoridades de hechos como este, que ocurrió en la mañana de ayer, incremente la islamofobia y la discriminación racial de los órganos represivos de este país, añade el artículo. En el atentado resultó muerto un soldado y uno de los supuestos atacantes cerca de la sede principal del Parlamento, después que la Cámara de los Comunes avalara el despliegue de aviones militares y fuerzas especiales a misiones de combate en Iraq. La medida fue aprobada a pesar de la estrecha mayoría con que cuenta el Gobierno Conservador del primer ministro Stephen Harper en el parlamento, añade el comentario de Global Research. Después de que la Real Policía Montada de Canadá informara sobre el tiroteo, no quedó claro si otros sospechosos aún están en libertad. Pero la verdadera intención de las fuerzas policiales no era precisamente dar datos esclarecedores sino repetirles a los canadienses que deben estar "vigilantes y reportar cualquier actividad sospechosa" Este ataque en Ottawa tuvo lugar dos días después de que un hombre atropelló a dos soldados con su automóvil y mató a uno de ellos en la ciudad de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, provincia de Québec, a unos 40 kilómetros de Montreal. El sospechoso, identificado como Martin Couture-Rouleau, de 25 años fue muerto a tiros por las unidades especiales del orden. La campaña oficial sobre el tema aseguró que el joven "quería convertirse en terrorista", mientras el diario Ottawa Sun señaló que "su familia y las autoridades tratan de averiguar por qué él siguió las órdenes del EI para asesinar", concluye Global Research. pgh/rgh

Canadian Terror Wave

Canadian Terror Wave: a Modern-Day Gladio

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, October 23, 2014

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/canadian-terror-wave-a-modern-day-gladio/5409455

As warned, after multiple staged incidents used to ratchet up fear and paranoia in the build-up to US and its allies’ military intervention in Syria and Iraq, at least two live attacks have now been carried out in Canada – precisely as they were predicted.

The first attack involved a deadly hit-and-run that left one Canadian soldier dead. AP would report in its article, “Terrorist ideology blamed in Canada car attack,” that:

A young convert to Islam who killed a Canadian soldier in a hit-and-run had been on the radar of federal investigators, who feared he had jihadist ambitions and seized his passport when he tried to travel to Turkey, authorities said Tuesday.

The second, most recent attack, involved a shooting in Ottawa injuring several and killing another Canadian soldier on parliament Hill. RT in its article, “Ottawa gunman identified as recent Muslim convert, high-risk traveler,” would report that:

While the name of the Ottawa gunman is yet to be announced, a number of officials told numerous media that the shooter is believed to be Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a recent Muslim convert, allegedly designated as a high-risk traveler.

Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was born in Quebec as Michael Joseph Hall north of Montreal, two US officials told Reuters, claiming that American law enforcement agencies have been advised that the attacker recently converted to Islam.

AP sources also identified the man to be Zehaf-Bibeau. A Twitter account associated with Islamic State militants tweeted a photo they identified as the Ottawa shooter. The Globe and Mail reports that the shooter was designated a high-risk traveler by the Canadian authorities with his passport seized.

Clearly, both suspects were under the watch of not only Canadian authorities, but also US investigators, before the attacks.

Canada’s Attacks Were Predictable – Western Security Agencies are Prime Suspects

It was warned last month after security agencies staged scares in both the US and Australia, that suspects under investigation, being walked through planned terrorist attacks by Western security agencies as part of “sting operations” would inevitably be switched to live terrorist attacks.

In mid-September A Rochester man, Mufid A. Elfgeeh, was accused by the FBI of attempting to provide material support to ISIS (undercover FBI agents), attempting to kill US soldiers, and possession of firearms and silencers (provided to him by the FBI). The FBI’sown official press release stated (emphasis added):

According to court records, Elfgeeh attempted to provide material support to ISIS in the form of personnel, namely three individuals, two of whom were cooperating with the FBI. Elfgeeh attempted to assist all three individuals in traveling to Syria to join and fight on behalf of ISIS. Elfgeeh also plotted to shoot and kill members of the United States military who had returned from Iraq. As part of the plan to kill soldiers, Elfgeeh purchased two handguns equipped with firearm silencers and ammunition from a confidential source.The handguns were made inoperable by the FBI before the confidential source gave them to Elfgeeh.

It was warned that only an inoperable firearm stood between Elfgeeh’s arrest and his successful execution of deadly plans hatched by him and his undercover FBI handlers. This script, written by the FBI to entrap Elfgeeh, would be followed almost to the letter in live attacks subsequently carried out in Canada resulting in the death of two Canadian soldiers. Conveniently, both suspects are now dead and little chance remains of ascertaining the truth of who they were in contact with and how they carried out their deadly attacks.

With both suspects having been on both US and Canadian watch lists – it is very likely undercover agents were involved in either one or both cases. While many possibilities exist, Western security agencies should be among the first suspects considered as potential collaborators.

A Modern-Day Operation Gladio - Inducing Fear, Obedience, and Control

Before Elfgeeh’s entrapment and later live attacks in Canada, US policymakers and pundits had begun in earnest setting the rhetorical stage for eventual staged attacks. With serial beheadings failing to raise Western public support necessary for an expedient intervention in Syria, more insidious provocations appeared to be in the works. Setting the stage, a CBS/Associated Press story titled,Former Deputy CIA Director: I Would Not Be Surprised If ISIS Member Shows Up To US Mall Tomorrow With AK-47, would claim immediately after the initial James Foley ISIS execution video that:

The short-term concern is the Americans that have gone to fight with ISIS and the west Europeans that have gone to fight with ISIS could be trained and directed by ISIS to come to the United States to conduct small-scale attacks, Morell stated. If an ISIS member showed up at a mall in the United States tomorrow with an AK-47 and killed a number of Americans, I would not be surprised.

Morell warned that over the long-term the extremist group could be planning for a 9/11-style attack that killed thousands of Americans.

The FBI has a long list of foiled terror plots of its own creation. More disturbingly are the plots they conceived but “accidentally” allowed to go “live.” One might recall the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. FBI agents, according to the New York Times, were indeed overseeing the bombers that detonated a device killing six and wounding many more at the World Trade Center.

In their article, “Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast,” NYT reported:

Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.

The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A. Salem, should be used, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as in a far better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New York City’s tallest towers. The explosion left six people dead, more than 1,000 injured and damages in excess of half a billion dollars.

Considering the 1993 bombing and the fact that the FBI literally oversaw the construction and deployment of a deadly bomb that killed 6, it is clear that the FBI can at any time through design or disastrous incompetence, turn one of their contrived entrapment cases into a live terror attack. One can only guess at how many similar FBI operations are currently taking place within the United States involving ISIS sympathizers – any one of which could be turned into a live terror attack provided the weapons handed over to potential terrorists are functioning, just as the bomb was in 1993 when it was driven into the lower levels of the World Trade Center.

It is very likely that the recent attacks in Canada involved at least one “informant” working for the FBI. Because the FBI uses confidential informants to handle suspects, if a plot is switched ”live,” the informant will be implicated as an accomplice and the FBI’s covert role will remain uncompromised.

Image: The FBI has an impressive portfolio of intentionally created, then foiled terror plots. Its methods include allowing suspects to handle both real and inoperable weapons and explosives. These methods allow the FBI to switch entrapment cases “live” at any moment simply by switching out duds and arrests with real explosives and successful attacks. Because the FBI uses “informants,” when attacks go live, these confidential assets can be blamed, obfuscating the FBI’s involvement.

Everything from a mass shooting to a bombing, and even an Operation Northwoods-style false flag attack involving aircraft could be employed to provide Wall Street and London with the support it needs to accelerate its long-stalled agenda of regime change and reordering in both Syria and across the Iranian arc of influence. Readers may recall Operation Northwoods, reported on in an ABC News article titled, “U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba,” which bluntly stated:

In the early 1960s, America’s top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

In addition to Operation Northwoods, the public must also consider NATO’s Operation Gladio, and its larger “stay behind” networks established after World War II across Europe and at the center of multiple grisly assassinations, mass shootings, and terrorist bombings designed to demonize the Soviet Union as well as criminalize and crush support for left-leaning political parties growing in popularity in Western Europe. It would be determined that NATO’s own covert militant groups were killing innocent Western Europeans in order to effect a “strategy of tension” used to instill fear, obedience, and control over Western populations.

That the FBI and Australian authorities had coordinated staged security operations in tandem on opposite ends of the globe to terrify their respective populations into line behind an impending war with Syria, and now two highly suspicious attacks have been carried out using the very script Western security agencies were using to lead suspects through “sting operations,” suggests a new “Operation Northwoods” or “Operation Gladio” of sorts is already being executed.

Staged executions on cue by ISIS in the Middle East of US and British citizens at perfectly timed junctures of the West’s attempt to sell intervention both at home and abroad, and now live shootings just in time to heighten a new “strategy of tension” reek of staged mayhem for the sole purpose of provoking war. Could grander and ultimately more tragic mayhem be in store? As ABC News’ article on Operation Northwoods and the Military Channel’s documentary on Operation Gladio suggest, there is no line Western special interests will hesitate to cross.

With the West attempting to claim ISIS now has a “global” reach, the US and its partners’ attempts to obfuscate the very obvious state-sponsorship it is receiving will become exponentially more difficult. That the FBI is admittedly stringing along easily manipulated, malevolent patsies who at any time could be handed real weapons and sent on shooting sprees and/or bombings – and now apparently have been – Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and Australians would be foolish to conclude that their real enemy resides somewhere in Syria and not right beside them at home, upon the very seats of Western power.

Copyright © 2014 Global Research

Médicos cubanos en África

Médicos cubanos en Liberia y Guinea para combatir el Ébola

Los médicos y enfermeros de la Isla dispuestos a ayudar a las víctimas del virus, arribaron a sus destinos y fueron recibidos en ambas naciones por el personal diplomático correspondiente

Autor: SE | internet@granma.cu

22 de octubre de 2014 22:10:33

El avión con médicos y enfermeros cubanos aterrizó en Liberia para ayudar a tratar a las víctimas de Ébola en el país de África occidental, informó la agencia Reuters.

Jorge Fernando Lefebre Nicolás, embajador de Cuba en Liberia, dijo que la llegada está marcada por un fuerte sentimiento de solidaridad de su gobierno con Liberia.La aeronave con los trabajadores de la salud aterrizó en el aeropuerto internacional Roberts de Monrovia. Otro grupo de médicos de la Isla llegó a la vecina Guinea.

Añadió que el compromiso de Cuba se ha orientado hacia la mejora de los vínculos existentes entre ambos países y reconoció que la llegada del personal de salud podría marcar el inicio de la cooperación médica entre Cuba y Liberia, según informó el canal Al Jazeera.

Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, ministro de Rela­ciones Exteriores de Liberia, añadió que espera que los médicos cubanos no solo participen en el enfrentamiento al Ébola, sino también en fortalecer el sector de la salud de su país en temas relacionados con el entrenamiento y el despliegue de personal en otras áreas críticas del sistema sanitario liberiano, de acuerdo con la información publicada en el sitio digital Front Page África.

El Ministro, en nombre del presidente Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf y el Gobierno y el pueblo de Liberia, extendió un profundo agradecimiento y los mejores deseos al General de Ejército Raúl Castro, así como al Gobierno y pueblo cubanos por su ayuda en un momento en que el país africano pasa por una crisis de salud.

El viceministro de salud de Liberia Matthew Flomo, dijo que la brigada médica cubana (epidemiólogos, intensivistas, médicos generales, cirujanos, pediatras, enfermeros de cuidados intensivos y anestesistas, entre otros), podría comenzar pronto a trabajar en las unidades de tratamiento de la enfermedad.

En Guinea Conakry los médicos fueron recibidos por el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, Lounsény Fall; de Salud, Rémy Lamah, y de Cooperación Internacional, Moustapha Kou­tou­bou Sanoh, quienes agradecieron la colaboración para afrontar la epidemia, según reportes del sitio guineenews.

Neurociencia española

Los resultados de la investigación demostraron que los pacientes con una mayor nivel de vocabulario están más protegidos frente al deterioro cognitivo

Autor: Redacción Digital | internet@granma.cu/ Editado por codón desastre.

22 de octubre de 2014 12:10:48

El vocabulario es uno de los indicadores que influyen en la mejora de la reserva cognitiva 

Un equipo de investigadores de la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, en España, realizó un estudio para averiguar qué indicadores influyen en mejorar la reserva cognitiva, esto es, la capacidad cognitiva e intelectual que una persona acumula a lo largo de su vida mediante conocimientos académicos, culturales, lectura, pasatiempos...

Según el sitio digital Muyinteresante.com, esta reserva cognitiva puede calcularse a través de ciertos indicadores que aumentan su capacidad y, por tanto, protegen del deterioro cognitivo y de la enfermedad de Alzheimer, por ejemplo.

La investigación, que fuera publicada en la revista Anales de Psicología, trabajó con una muestra de 326 personas mayores de 50 años, 222 sanos y 104 con deterioro cognitivo ligero.

A lo largo del estudio, los científicos midieron su nivel de vocabulario, los años de escolarización, la complejidad de su trabajo y sus hábitos de lectura. También utilizaron el subtest de vocabulario Escala Wechsler de Inteligencia para Adultos y el test de vocabulario de imágenes Peabody.

“Nos centramos en el nivel de vocabulario, teniendo en cuenta que se considera un indicador de la inteligencia cristalizada (el uso de las habilidades intelectuales ya aprendidas)" , declara a Sinc Cristina Lojo Seoane, coautora del estudio.

España apoyó a Videla

España entrenó a militares de la dictadura argentina

Según materiales difundidos en el diario español Público, la asistencia policial y apoyo económico de este gobierno a la dictadura del general argentino Jorge Videla 

Autor: Prensa Latina | internet@granma.cu

22 de octubre de 2014 21:10:54

La dictadura argentina se extendió desde 1976 hasta 1981. Foto: La Tercera

MADRID.—El gobierno español dio asistencia policial a la dictadura del general argentino Jorge Videla (1976-1981) además de dar apoyo económico, coordinar ac­ciones internacionales e intercambiar distinciones militares.

De acuerdo con nuevos materiales difundidos por el diario Pú­blico el miércoles, el gobierno de Adolfo Suárez autorizó a utilizar armas a funcionarios argentinos, quie­nes montaron un servicio de espionaje con sede en la embajada de Madrid y los consulados de Bar­celona, Bilbao y Cádiz.

En la red participaron funcionarios de las representaciones en Es­paña y militares enviados bajo la excusa de realizar cursos de formación en instalaciones del ejército y la marina española, aseguró en su investigación el periodista Danilo Albín.

De acuerdo con el reporte, uno de los primeros en cumplir esas funciones fue el teniente coronel Antonio Deimundo Piñeiro, quien durante el curso 1976-1977 asistió a la escuela del Estado Mayor del Ejército en Madrid.

Piñeiro, quien tenía autorización del Gobierno español para portar un revólver Colt calibre 38, coordinó a su regreso a Argentina la represión en la provincia de Misiones, en el norte del país.

De acuerdo con los listados oficiales, afirma Público, 33 militares argentinos pasaron por dependencias militares españolas de 1976 a 1983, siete de ellos en un cur­so de Estado Mayor de la Es­cuela Su­perior del Ejército y otros en la Escuela de Guerra Naval.

Entre estos últimos figuraba el marino Carlos Pazo, uno de los torturadores del campo de concentración de la Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA), uno de los principales centros de exterminio.

Otros torturadores que cur­sa­ron estudios en España fueron iden­­tificados como el teniente Nés­tor Savio y Ricardo Araujo, acu­sado luego por haber formado par­te del plan ilegal para secuestrar, torturar, asesinar y propiciar la de­sa­parición de personas.

España apesta

España registró 23,67 por ciento de desempleo en tercer trimestre Si uno imagina el Reino de España como un/a paciente, no puede menos que describir su estado de salud con un "pronóstico reservado". Un poco de mejoría en las cifras del paro. Pero no como para lanzar las campanas al vuelo, vamos. Y un olor intenso a corrupción que tira pa´tras. Nombres ilustres, casi venerables, se relacionan con chanchullos, tarjetas negras, mordidas varias. Rato, Acebes, Bárcenas, son algunos de los presuntos del PP. El Honorable Jujolet, ese catalán de pro, su mujer y su numerosa y emprendedora prole. El Reino apesta. Y el personal empieza a estar hasta las narices. Luego descalifican las protestas, manifestaciones e iniciativas ciudadanas. El Reino de España apesta. Nadie dimite. Nadie da la cara. O es que tienen la cara muy dura.

Madrid, 23 oct (PL) El número de desempleados españoles registrados en el tercer trimestre del año fue de cinco millones 427 mil 700 personas, 23,67 por ciento de la población activa, informó hoy el Instituto Nacional de Estadística. Según la Encuesta de Población Activa, el número de parados disminuyó respecto al trimestre anterior en 195 mil 200 personas, aunque entre los jóvenes de 16 a 24 años subió en 27 mil 100 para alcanzar la cifra de 867 mil 600. Entre julio y septiembre, la tasa de paro de los jóvenes menores de 25 años fue del 52,39 por ciento, algo menor que la del trimestre anterior cuando se estimó en 53,12 por ciento. En total el número de españoles ocupados es de 17 millones 504 mil, mientras la población activa se redujo en 44 mil 200 personas y se estimó en 22 millones 931 mil 700. Asimismo, el número de hogares con todos sus miembros en paro es de un millón 789 mil 400, pese a una disminución de 44 mil 600. El desempleo se redujo en 122 mil 300 entre las personas que perdieron el empleo hace más de un año, pero subió en 39 mil 700 entre quienes buscan trabajo por primera vez. tgj/ml

Real-World Testing of Ebola Vaccines

An effective vaccine would still not in itself be enough to stop the outbreak but could protect the medical workers who are central to the effort. More than 200 of them have died of Ebola.

The real-world testing in west Africa will go forward only if the vaccines prove safe and trigger an adequate immune-system response in volunteers during clinical trials that are either under way or planned in Europe, Africa and the US. The preliminary safety data is expected to become available by December.

One of the vaccines that Kieny mentioned, Okairos AG, is being developed by the US National Institutes of Health and GlaxoSmithKline from a modified chimpanzee-cold virus and an Ebola protein. It is being made in Rome, according to GSK, with clinical trials under way in Britain and Mali.

“We have other vaccine facilities around the world and we are seeing what we can do to ramp up production to commercial scale,” said Mary Anne Rhyne, GSK’s US director of external communications.

The second frontrunner, developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and known as VSV-EBOV, has been sent to the US Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland for testing on healthy volunteers. It would also be tested shortly among volunteers in Switzerland, Germany, Gabon and Kenya, Kieny said.

Separately, the Canadian drugmaker Tekmira Pharmaceuticals announced on Tuesday it had begun limited manufacturing of a therapeutic product targeting the Ebola-Guinea virus.

Tekmira said on Tuesday that the new product, part of its TKM-Ebola programme, would be available by early December. But it did not specify how many doses it was making, or whether it was a drug or vaccine. Its TKM-Ebola programme is aimed at developing a treatment to stop the virus replicating in an infected person.

The European Medicines Agency said on Monday it was ready to offer Ebola treatments and vaccines the benefits of “orphan” drug status – including extended market exclusivity – in a bid to encourage their development.

Mapp Biopharmaceutical – which gave its experimental Ebola treatment ZMapp to US medical workers Dr Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who recovered after contracting Ebola in Liberia, and to at least one Spanish priest, who died – said it had begun manufacturing the drug using conventional methods that would produce greater quantities for more human testing.

The outbreak in west Africa has killed more than 4,500 people, mostly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, since it began 10 months ago. Experts have said the world could see 10,000 new cases a week in two months if authorities did not take stronger steps. (AP and Reuters information)

Experimental Vaccines against ebola

• Staff and agencies
• theguardian.com, Wednesday 22 October 2014 09.45 BST
• Jump to comments (197)

A volunteer recieves the ebola vaccination at the vaccines centre in Bamako, Mali.Photograph: Alex Duval Smith/dpa/Corbis

The World Health Organisation has announced it hopes to begin testing two experimental Ebola vaccines in west Africa by January and may have a blood serum treatment available for use in Liberia within two weeks.

The UN’s health agency said it aimed to begin testing the two vaccines in the new year on more than 20,000 frontline health care workers and others in west Africa – a bigger rollout than previously envisioned.

Separately, a senior Red Cross official said he was confident the epidemic could be contained within four to six months.

Elhadj As Sy, the secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday that the outbreak could be contained if there was “good isolation, good treatment of the cases which are confirmed, good dignified and safe burials of deceased people.”

Dr Marie Paule Kieny, an assistant director general at the WHO, said the first tens of thousands of Ebola vaccines could be distributed in the first months of the new year. Kieny acknowledged there were many “ifs” remaining and “still a possibility that it [a vaccine] will fail”. But she sketched out a much broader experiment than was imagined only six months ago.

“These are quite large trials,” she said. (AP and Reuters information, "The Guardian")

¿U.S. DOD Responsible of Ebola Outbreak?

"Is it possible that the United States Department of Defense (DOD) and other Western countries are directly responsible for infecting Africans with the Ebola virus?

Foto: prensalibre.com

Dr. Broderick claims that the U.S. government has a research laboratory located in a town called Kenema in Sierra Leone that studies what he calls viral fever bioterrorism, It is also the town where he acknowledges that is the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Is it a fact? Is Dr. Broderick a conspiracy theorist? He says that there is urgent need for affirmative action in protecting the less affluent of poorer countries, especially African citizens, whose countries are not as scientifically and industrially endowed as the United States and most Western countries, sources of most viral or bacterial GMOs that are strategically designed as biological weapons. He also asks an important question when he says It is most disturbing that the U. S. Government has been operating a viral hemorrhagic fever bioterrorism research laboratory in Sierra Leone. Are there others?

Well, Mr. Brodericks claims seem to be true. After all, the U.S. government has been experimenting with deadly diseases on human beings for a long time, history tells us so. One example is Guatemala. Between 1946 and 1948, the United States government under President Harry S. Truman in collaboration with Guatemalan President Juan José Arévalo and his health officials deliberately infected more than 1500 soldiers, prostitutes, prisoners and even mental patients with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea and chancroid (a bacterial sexual infection) out of more than 5500 Guatemalan people who participated in the experiments". 

Raúl Castro y el ébola

Declaraciones sobre la epidemia del ébola de Raúl Castro Ruz, presidente de la República de Cuba, en la reunión del ALBA, en La Habana, Cuba. (Extracto de la versión taquigráfica del Consejo de Estado de Cuba. Edición de codón desastre)

Raúl Castro y Obama. Funeral de Mandela.

Raúl Castro: "Cuba está dispuesta a trabajar codo con codo con todos los países, incluyendo los Estados Unidos".

"África y Cuba están unidas por entrañables lazos. Más de 76 000 colaboradores cubanos han prestado sus servicios de salud en 39 países. Se han formado 3 392 médicos provenientes de 45 naciones, de manera totalmente gratuita.

En la actualidad, más de 4 000 cooperantes cubanos de la salud laboran en 32 países africanos y como explicará nuestro Ministro de Salud Pública, se incorporan todos al esfuerzo preventivo contra el Ébola.

El pasado primero de octubre, respondiendo a la solicitud realizada por la Directora General de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, doctora Margaret Chan, y el Secretario General de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas, señor Ban Ki-moon, una brigada médica especializada de Cuba viajó a Sierra Leona para participar en el enfrentamiento a esta epidemia y mañana martes 21 de octubre partirán rumbo a Liberia y Guinea otras dos brigadas, cuyas avanzadas ya se encuentran en ambos países.

Las numerosas alertas y preocupaciones sobre la insuficiencia de recursos aportados y el ritmo de las acciones, expresadas en días recientes, reflejan una creciente conciencia universal sobre la necesidad de actuar con urgencia a fin de evitar una crisis humanitaria de impredecibles consecuencias.

Tengo la convicción de que si esta amenaza no se frena y resuelve en África Occidental, con una respuesta internacional inmediata, eficaz y con recursos suficientes, coordinada por la Organización Mundial de la Salud y las Naciones Unidas, puede convertirse en una de las pandemias más graves de la historia de la humanidad.

Ese noble y urgente objetivo reclama el esfuerzo y el compromiso indispensables de todas las naciones del mundo, según las posibilidades de cada una.

Consideramos que debe evitarse cualquier politización de este grave problema que nos desvíe del objetivo fundamental, que es la ayuda en el enfrentamiento a esta epidemia en África y en la prevención en otras regiones.

A partir de lo que le expresé al Secretario General de la ONU el pasado 5 de septiembre, orientamos a nuestros representantes que participaron en eventos realizados en la Organización Mundial de la Salud y las Naciones Unidas, ratificar que Cuba está dispuesta a trabajar codo con codo con todos los países, incluyendo los Estados Unidos".