Global News

By Clement Bonnerot Reuters Congo’s AFC/M23 rebels have used a small Ebola outbreak in territory they control to showcase their ability to govern, mounting a response largely separate from authorities in Kinshasa and supported in part by neighbouring Rwanda, according to response teams and official documents. The response has highlighted how the rebels have extended ‌parallel administrative structures into areas captured during a lightning advance last year. Analysts, however, say the war-torn country’s fragmented response could complicate containment efforts should the outbreak spread further. Reuters reviewed documents ‌from Congo’s Health Ministry and spoke to eight sources involved in the Ebola response in rebel-held areas, including one AFC/M23 official, two members of the technical coordination committee for the response and five aid workers, most of whom spoke on condition ​of anonymity because they feared being seen as legitimising the rebel group...

By ANTON L. DELGADO and JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI, Associated Press  A huge fire tore through a music bar in Bangkok overnight, killing at least 27 people and leaving 25 hospitalized in critical condition in the Thai capital’s most deadly blaze in 17 years. Photos from the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar in a northern part of the Thai capital showed people fleeing as flames shot out the single-story building and thick black smoke billowed into the sky. Shoes lost and scattered as their owners sought to flee could be seen in pictures from the aftermath of the tragedy. Bangkok city officials said the fire broke out shortly before midnight Sunday, and it was about half an hour until firefighters brought it under control. By daylight Monday morning, the site had been cordoned off as dozens of Thai forensic officers combed through the burned remains for clues about what caused the fire. The building’s street-facing windows had been blown out and debris littered the sidewalk, in...

By Associated Press | Posted by TOE Typhoon Bavi  weakened to a severe tropical storm after making landfall in eastern  China’s  Zhejiang province but was still bringing strong winds and heavy rain to eastern China on Sunday. It weakened early Sunday with maximum sustained winds of around 101 kph (63 mph) near its center, according to China’s national weather center, and is expected to move northwestward across eastern China. Bavi passed north of  Taiwan  on Saturday but did not make a direct landfall. Taiwan’s fire department said at least 134 people across the island were injured as of 7 a.m. Sunday, some sustaining injuries while riding motorcycles or bicycles under strong winds or due to slippery road surfaces. Strong winds and heavy rain are expected to impact many eastern Chinese cities on Sunday, China’s National Meteorological Center said. Shanghai evacuated more than 290,000 people from at-risk areas, state media reported. ...

 By Associated Press | Posted by TOE An islandwide blackout struck  Cuba  on Friday for the  second time this week  as the nation of nearly 10 million people grapples with a crumbling power grid and fuel shortages stemming from a U.S. energy blockade. While total blackouts have become increasingly common in the Caribbean country, it’s unusual for back-to-back ones to hit just days apart. Cuba’s Electric Union confirmed the outage on X. Authorities in Cuba said the cause of the blackout was a “fluctuation in the parameters” following a failure in a line connecting the provinces of Santa Clara and Sancti Spíritus. The electrical grid in Cuba is particularly fragile, both due to the lack of maintenance of its aging infrastructure — some power plants are over 30 years old — and the scarcity of the fuels on which it depends. “It has been another very difficult week under the impact of the energy blockade: two disconnections of the National E...

By AFP | Posted by TOE The Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo is the “fastest growing” ever, African health authorities said Thursday, as the World Health Organization said it had killed 600 people. Updated numbers issued by the UN health agency showed there have been 1,759 confirmed cases in DR Congo since the outbreak was declared in mid-May, including 600 confirmed deaths. “This is the fastest growing Ebola outbreak ever, not only among the previous Bundibugyo outbreaks, but all the different viruses that are causing Ebola,” Wessam Mankoula, head of emergency preparedness and response for the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) told reporters. The deadliest Ebola outbreak — in 2013-16 in West Africa — had 994 cases in the first six weeks, compared to 1,596 in the current one, he said.  “Unfortunately the virus is still ahead of our response. It’s moving faster than deployi...

By Humeyra Pamuk, Gram Slattery and Tala Ramadan Reuters | Posted by TOE Iran says it attacked “US bases and strategic centres” in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar after the US bombed Iranian cities for a second consecutive night. The US attacks have killed 14 people and wounded 78 over two days with blasts reported in Iranian cities along the Strait of Hormuz, including Bushehr, Chabahar, Bandar Abbas, and Sirik. The U.S. military said on Wednesday it launched fresh strikes on Iran to keep the Strait of Hormuz open to shipping, triggering Iranian attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain in the latest escalation to derail efforts to end the war. The latest round of attacks, which the U.S. said was carried ‌out in response to Tuesday’s assault on three cargo ships transiting the strait, came hours after President Donald Trump said he believed an interim ceasefire with Iran to be “over.” “U.S. Central Command ‌forces have started conducting additional strike...