Top stories from DAWNS Digest
Ebola Outbreak in Uganda
One of the deceased was transported to Kampala and her body was not handled with appropriate caution, which is causing some panic. “The world’s first major outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever since 2009 has killed at least 14 of 20 people infected in a remote area of mid-western Uganda. International health officials are rushing to respond to the outbreak, which erupted at the beginning of July but was identified as the deadly Ebola virus only on Friday, meaning it potentially spread substantially before being caught. A team of responders from the Ugandan government, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was dispatched Friday to the affected region—the Kibaale district, a forested area about 125 miles west of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and near the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” (WSJ http://on.wsj.com/Qqrugb)
200,000 Residents Flee Fighting in Aleppo
The battle for control of Aleppo rages on. Pro-Assad forces say they have re-captured a key neighborhood and rebel stronghold, a claim the rebels contest. Meanwhile, a humanitarian emergency looms “Rebel-held areas of Aleppo visited by Reuters were almost empty. Fighters were basing themselves in houses. Cars entering one Aleppo district came under fire from snipers and a Reuters photographer saw three bodies lying in the street. Unable to move them to hospital for fear of shelling, residents had placed frozen water bottles on two of the corpses to slow their decomposition in the baking heat. A burnt out tank lay in the street, while nearby another one had been captured intact and covered in tarpaulin. Burnt cars could be seen in many streets, some marked with “shabbiha” – a reference to pro-Assad militiamen. Near the centre of town, most shops were shuttered, some with “Strike” painted over them. The only shop doing business was a bakery selling subsidized bread, where the queue stretched around the block. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said 200,000 people had fled the fighting in and around Aleppo in the last two days, and the violence across Syria made it hard for humanitarian agencies to reach them. ‘Many people have sought temporary shelter in schools and other public buildings in safer areas. They urgently need food, mattresses and blankets, hygiene supplies and drinking water.’” (Reuters http://reut.rs/Qqp0hN)
Hundreds of Millions of Indians Suffer from Power Outage
A massive grid failure in India has cut electricity (and water) to a massive number of people. “Tens of millions of people in North India were without power and early morning commutes in Delhi were thrown into chaos Monday after a massive electrical grid failure. Water supplies may be seriously disrupted this evening, because of the power problems, officials said. “We are presently busy at restoring the grid,” said S.K. Soonee, chief executive of Power System Operation, part of state-run Power Grid, which manages the transmission grids in the country. He said it’s difficult to say what caused the outage. “Things should be looking up soon,” he said, but added he didn’t want to give a specific time frame. Power was out in the entire state of Rajasthan, population 67 million, for several hours Monday morning after the grid failure, which happened around 2:30 a.m. Other states affected included Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. An estimated 360 million people were affected by the outage.” (NYT http://nyti.ms/PbvTwN)