Medical Experts Fear Congo Ebola Outbreak May Become Worst Ever
By John Hayward
Harried doctors fighting the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) fear it may become the worst outbreak of the deadly disease in the region to date, as an ongoing insurgency slows treatment and accelerates contamination.
“We are absolutely concerned about the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” a senior official with USAID said on Thursday. “It is occurring in an area of active conflict, so physical insecurity is a persistent challenge and complication to the ongoing response efforts.”
On the positive side, the official said the outbreak is “not comparable at this point to the outbreak that occurred in West Africa in 2014,” meaning it does not threaten to spread across an “incredibly large geographic area.”
Ebola cases have been mostly limited to two towns in the North Kivu province of the DRC, but the rate of new cases has accelerated during the past few weeks. USAID and the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) have deployed dozens of experts to work with the DRC Health Ministry since the outbreak began in August.
On Friday, Sky News watched doctors don biohazard suits and struggle to handle the influx of patients to a “ramshackle hospital” made from “wooden huts and temporary tents” in the city of Beni. The hospital only has 60 beds, but Sky News correspondents counted 92 new patients admitted on the day of their visit, among them a pregnant woman and a three-year-old girl.
Doctors reported 308 “confirmed” or “probable” cases of Ebola in the outbreak, approaching the highest total ever seen in the Congo. Thirty of them are children under ten years of age, suggesting the latest strain of Ebola is spreading faster among children than previous strains. So far, 191 patients have died.
International aid workers said local residents are working more smoothly with doctors than some previous populations affected by Ebola, a disease that tends to spread panic and mistrust among its victims. Officials were especially optimistic about the success of “community surveillance” programs designed to track the movements of infected people and quickly identify others who may have been exposed to Ebola. More effective vaccinations were also credited with keeping the death toll down.
The bad news is that CDC Director Robert Redfield warned on Monday the current outbreak may not be containable because it is spreading through an active war zone, making it harder to implement the procedures that have been helpful so far.
The Washington Post augmented Redfield’s warning with some discouraging notes about the difficult situation faced by aid workers:
Dozens of armed militias operate in the area, attacking government outposts and civilians, complicating the work of Ebola response teams and putting their security at risk. Violence has escalated in recent weeks, severely hampering the response. The daily rate of new Ebola cases more than doubled in early October. In addition, there is community resistance and deep mistrust of the government.
Some sick people have refused to go to treatment centers, health-care workers are still being infected, and some people are dying of Ebola or spreading the virus to new areas. An estimated 60 to 80 percent of new confirmed cases have no known epidemiological link to prior cases, making it very difficult for responders to track cases and stop transmission. In late August, the United States withdrew some of the CDC’s most seasoned Ebola experts who had been stationed in Beni, the province’s urban epicenter, because of security risks.
The outbreak is threatening to spread into much less isolated towns, such as the trading port of Butembo, introducing the risk of wider transmission chains that become even more difficult to trace.
Angry rock-throwing mobs have confronted some medical teams when they attempt to secure the bodies of fatal Ebola victims. Experts on the local population explained they are sometimes terrified at the sight of medical teams in hazmat suits, driven by deep distrust of the DRC government, which they blame for keeping them in poverty and allowing armed rebel groups to prey upon them. Some locals apparently believe their government is fabricating Ebola warnings in a bid to frighten them away from their homes.
The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution on Tuesday demanding safer working conditions for medical teams in the outbreak zone, but concerned analysts said the international community has a poor track record of controlling insurgents in the Congo, even lacking reliable information about how many rebel groups are active in the area. Meanwhile, the DRC government has been criticized for abandoning rural areas and shifting its troops into the cities, where the government fears mass demonstrations could break out.
Prominent Vox editor defends Antifa siege of Tucker Carlson, then deletes ALL tweets
After far-left protesters harassed Fox News host Tucker Carlson‘s family in an incident now being investigated as a potential hate crime, a Vox.com writer defended the intimidation – and then ate his words. All of them.
Matt Yglesias, prominent editor of Vox.com, tweeted in support of Smash Racism DC, an Antifa group whose members swarmed Carlson’s front yard and carried signs with his home address written on them in retaliation for Carlson’s supposed role in “spreading fear.”
Writing as if the only reason anyone could have for opposing the protesters’ actions was that they didn’t understand the intent behind them, Yglesias said scaring the Fox host’s wife into hiding was an OK thing to do – just bad tactics.
The response from social media was swift and vicious, and Yglesias – who has over 414,000 followers – has now deleted all his tweets.
The Antifa group Smash Racism, known for harassing their political opponents in public, encircled Carlson’s house late Wednesday night, chanting “Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night.” While Carlson was not home – he was preparing to go on the air – his wife was, and she locked herself in the pantry out of fear of the angry mob outside.
READ MORE: Antifa protest at Tucker Carlson’s home investigated as possible hate crime
While it’s uncertain why he deleted his tweets, and whether it was because of the backlash, or anticipation thereof, Twitter wasted no time in speculating…
TU
…and offering advice.
Leader of Spanish populist party aims to become ‘new Trump’
As we’ve reported earlier, something is happening in Spain, a country with a mostly socialist tradition. The VOX political movement, a populist right-wing party, is gaining momentum and has seen rapid growth in Spain.
“We stand for the same law-and-order and social conservative causes as Trump,” Santiago Abascal, the leader of the movement says in an interview.
To adopt Trump’s success and of the populist parties that are sweeping through Europe, Abascal has even consulted Trump’s former campaign strategist Steve Bannon.
By adopting Trump’s policies and consulting his former strategist, Vox could be aiming to become a Trump style party, with a Trump style leader.
Italy’s Interior Minister and leader of the largest party in the polls, Matteo Salvini, has already showed how that can work out really well.
According to the leader of Vox, Bannon’s advice was used to help setting up connections with related parties. An organisation like the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists was used for that goal.
Spain, which has seen a change of government lately, is one of Europe’s new migrant hotspots. An import factor in that is the country’s socialist government implicitly invites migrants by offering welfare and even voting rights.
Like in most countries, the rise of the right comes with governments that ignore their citizen’s wishes. We will definitely hear more of Vox as it can even gain seats in the European Union’s parliamentary elections next year.
Slovenia Arming Border Amid Migrant Surge
By Dan Lyman
Slovenia is strengthening its southern border, deploying more armed patrols to combat an increasing flow of migrants through the Balkans, according to local media.
The tiny Central European nation, which lies at the frontier of the Schengen Area, is facing a potentially catastrophic situation as Hungarian and Austrian officials have issued warnings that tens of thousands of migrants are working to burst the borderbetween Bosnia and Croatia in an effort to invade the EU via Slovenia or Hungary.
Joint Croatian and Slovenian forces have carried out at least 635 border control missions this year, Il Giornale reports, but some practices have come under fire from left wing media and activists.
Slovenian newspaper Dnevnik recently publicized an internal police memo directing border guards to reject all migrants attempting to enter the country illegally, prompting open borders advocates to slam Ljubljana for violating the human rights of ‘asylum seekers.’
“The right to asylum is cancelled. This is what is happening at this time on the border between Slovenia and Croatia,” La Stampa reported. “The policemen from Ljubljana, who patrol along the anti-migrant barbed wire, were ordered in an internal circular, never made public but discovered by the newspaper Dnevnik, to repel refugees beyond the border, ie Croatia.”
Dnevik also reportedly released video of armed Slovenian border police repelling migrants and directing them to return to Croatia, sparking controversy.
Hungary recently announced the mobilization of 2,300 troops prepared to deploy to their southern border on short notice, warning that some 70,000 migrants have amassed in the Balkans and are preparing to swarm Europe.
Infowars Europe has been reporting extensively on the mounting crisis in the Balkans and will continue to monitor events as they unfold.
Hungary PM: Europe “Doomed to Fail” If it Follows Liberal Media
Without its nations, Europe would lose its spiritual and cultural identity, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, addressing a European People’s Party (EPP) congress in Helsinki on Thursday.
“Europe will either be a Europe of nations or it will cease to exist,” Orban told the congress ahead of a vote on the lead candidate for the post of European Commission president. The “accession of central European nations have made Europe more peaceful, stronger and richer,” he said. The continent’s strength has always been based on strong nations, he said.
Orban accused the liberals, socialists and greens of wanting a rootless Europe devoid of its spiritual and psychological identity. “Our vision is a Europe with 27 faces, one that is Christian and democratic simultaneously,” he said.
Orban called the EPP “a party of victors” which preferred keeping its feet on the ground rather than championing world-redeeming ideologies. “By now, however, the situation has changed,” he said. Over the past few years, the EPP has given the leadership of Europe, so it has to take responsibility for “failure to keep Britain in the union and the migrants outside it.” While in 2011, sixteen member states were governed by EPP parties, now that number is down to six, he said. “No wonder our confidence has been shaken.”
“To return to the path to victory,” the EPP should restore its unity, find its roots again and proclaim the “renaissance of Christian democracy”, the prime minister said. “Absurdities like praising Fidel Castro or Karl Marx should be forgotten,” he added.
Orban warned that the EPP should not heed its adversaries and should not accept the standards of the left and the liberal media, he said. “If we try to live up to their expectations, we are doomed to fail,” he said.
The prime minister emphasized that the EPP should appreciate its successes. “Those who do not value their victors deserve failure,” he said. As the European elections are won in the member states, “the EPP as a victors’ party needs victorious prime ministers,” he said.
The key to success is to take the side of the people, Orban said. “Let’s protect them from illegal migration, terrorism, crime and economic hardship,” he said. “Let us once again put the old slogan on the banner: [a government] of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Orban said that ruling Fidesz backed Manfred Weber, EPP’s incumbent parliamentary leader, as lead candidate for EC president. He thanked Weber for visiting Hungary during its election campaign earlier this year. “We respect you as a man who knows when it is time for controversy and when for unity,”he said.
Orban noted that Friday will be the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. “We, the states thrown into the claws of the Soviet Union . knew that we can only regain our freedom in a united Europe,” he said. The Fidesz party was born in the fight for that reunification, in 1988, and invited to the European People’s Party by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, “who understood that members of a family are always united, even if they disagree,” Orban said.
You can read this article as it originally appeared at Hungary Journal here.
Trump signs order denying asylum to illegal migrants, as caravan approaches US
President Trump has signed an immigration order requiring asylum seekers to make their claim at their point of entry to the US, and barring illegal immigrants from requesting asylum.
“We need people in our country but they have to come in legally and they have to have merit,” Trump told reporters on Friday, before departing for Paris.
The order comes after weeks of Trump promising to crack down on illegal immigration, as a caravan of several thousand migrants makes its way toward the US’ southern border from Central America. The caravan is currently around 600 miles from the United States.
The directive is a temporary measure, and circumvents current laws that state anyone who applies for asylum in the US is eligible to have their case heard, no matter whether they arrived legally or illegally. As such, it is likely to be challenged in federal courts.
Those denied asylum under the new order will still be able to apply for ‘withholding of removal’ – a limited form of asylum that doesn’t allow for green cards or family members to join the applicant; or asylum under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. In both cases, the applicant has to demostrate a credible threat if they were to return home.
It forms one part of the president’s latest efforts to tighten border security and clamp down on immigration. Before the midterm elections, Trump mulled ending birthright citizenship – the policy that ensures all children born on US soil are automatically citizens – by executive order.
“We’re the only country in the world where a person comes in and has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits,” Trump told Axios. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.”
Any executive order ending birthright citizenship would likely provoke a Constitutional debate and be challenged in the Supreme Court, as birthright citizenship is currently guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
In addition to policy changes, Trump has also beefed up the physical security of the US’ 2,000-mile border with Mexico.
Over 5,200 US troops have been sent to the border to erect razor-wire fences and provide surveillance and logistical support to the National Guardsmen and Customs and Border Patrol agents already there.
The president said last week that “anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel” may be deployed to the border, if the current contingent is not enough.
Trump also underscored that anyone who does cross the US border illegally will be detained in “tent cities” and other immigration detention facilities, as “we’re not doing releases” anymore. Trump has been a long time critic of the Obama administration’s ‘catch and release’ policy, under which apprehended immigrants would be released and asked to return for a court hearing at a later date. Unsurprisingly, many do not.
ITALY: Afghan Migrant Beat Baby Daughter, Tortured Wife – Because He Wanted a Son
By Dan Lyman
An Italian court has convicted an Afghan migrant of a variety of crimes stemming from extensive physical abuse inflicted upon his newborn daughter and wife, local media reports.
“He wanted a boy but fate brought him a baby girl, and he decided to beat his newborn daughter and kick, punch and strangle his wife, whom he married in Pakistan when she was 15-years-old,” Leggo reports.
The 30-year-old Afghan has received an “abbreviated” sentence of three years, eight months in prison.
The man slapped his baby daughter on multiple occasions because she wasn’t a boy, according to court filings.
“Several times, he threatened his wife by saying, ‘If you call the police I kill you,’ and ‘I throw you off the balcony,’ and even in the presence of the younger daughter, beat her with kicks and punches, with the battery charger and with a strap of a purse, and several times forced her not to look up from the ground.”
He also injured his wife with a knife, and forcibly raped her on at least three occasions, according to the court.
Additionally, he was convicted of kidnapping, as he had locked his wife in the house on multiple occasions to prevent her from leaving.
The story was shared on Twitter by Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who wrote, “Monstrous. No integration for those in 2018 who mistreat and humiliate women and children. #ZeroTolerance”
The woman and her daughter are now living in a shelter community.
FACEBOOK DELIVERS FOR DEMOCRATS: Erased 2 Billion GOP Page Views in Purge, Eliminated Conservative Content to Suburban Females
By Jim Hoft
“What big tech has done to conservative and other undesirable publishers is nothing short of a digital Kristallnacht.”
— Andrew Marchs, filmmaker
On Tuesday night, after the votes were counted, Democrats took control of the US House of Representatives.
Wealthy suburban voters and women are being credited for the win.
At least 35 Republican lawmakers lost their seats on Tuesday night.
Democrats have a huge advantage over Republicans with their partners in the media complex, Hollywood, and academia.
And, unlike 2016, this year Democrats can also can give a huge amount of credit to Tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter.
Suburban voters and women no longer were reading conservative articles on Facebook. Facebook eliminated at least 1.5 billion links to conservative articles since 2017. If you add additional websites like The Gateway Pundit, Infowars, Young Cons, Right Wing News, etc. the number tops 2 billion easy. And it likely made a difference on Tuesday night. 80% of women age 18-49 have Facebook accounts. These are the women who get their news from Facebook. Facebook knows this and eliminated conservative content on their platform so their would be no repeat of 2016.
It’s no secret that the Silicon Valley tech giants discriminate against conservatives and conservative content.
In August President Trump warned Google about it’s biased practices against conservatives and conservative content in their search feature.
Facebook has been shutting down traffic to conservative websites since the 2016 election.
The Gateway Pundit recently spoke with two of the top conservative publishers in America.
Floyd Brown is a conservative author, speaker and media commentator. In 2008 Floyd launched Western Journalwhich quickly became one of the top conservative websites in America. By 2016 Floyd’s organization of Western Journal and other conservative websites under his umbrella had more than a billion page views. Since 2016 Floyd’s organization lost 75% of its Facebook traffic.
Likewise, we spoke with Jared Vallorani from Klicked Media. Jared traveled to Washington DC with The Gateway Pundit and website owners at 100%FedUp in June to discuss Facebook targeting against conservative publishers with Republican lawmakers. Jared told The Gateway Pundit his organization Klicked Media, which hosts over 60 conservative websites, lost 400 million page views from Facebook in the last six months if you compare the traffic to a year ago. Jared said, “We lost 70% to 80% of our traffic if you compare January to May 2017 vs Jan to May 2018.”
If you combine the total number of page-views lost by just these two conservative online publishers you are looking at a loss of over 1.5 billion page-views from Facebook in one year.
These are numbers from just two of the top conservative publishers in America. This does not include the thousands of other conservative publishers across the country who lost all of their traffic coming from Facebook. Here at The Gateway Pundit our Facebook traffic has been effectively eliminated after we were ranked as the 4th most influential conservative publisher in the 2016 election.
The fact that Facebook is targeting conservative publishers should not be a surprise to Gateway Pundit readers.
We have been reporting on this for several months now. In July we released a study where we looked at several top conservative websites and discovered that the publishers had lost an average of 93% of their Facebook traffic.
This is a bloodbath. Facebook has wiped out conservative content to American subscribers.
This influence map below by Columbia Journalism Review shows the top influencers during the 2016 election.
And here is that same map showing the conservative publishers who have been targeted by Facebook since 2017.
Facebook has eliminated content from a vast majority of top conservative publishers since 2017.
In 2016 suburban voters and women would check their Facebook pages and get conservative news. That is no longer the case. And on Tuesday these voters chose Democrats.
Facebook has wiped out conservative publishers. Americans will no longer see articles from conservative websites even if you follow them. Facebook took advertising dollars from all of these businesses and then changed their business plan after the 2016 election.
Facebook wants to pretend this was not a political decision. Yet, several top liberal activist groups: Media Matters, Share Blue, CREW and American Bridge, made it a priority in early 2017 to work with the liberal tech giants to undermine President Trump and ensure that liberals gain control of Congress and the presidency in 2020.
The tech giants did just that.
DEMOCRAT RASHIDA TLAIB DANCES WITH PALESTINIAN FLAG AT VICTORY PARTY
Tlaib is one of two Muslim women elected to Congress on Tuesday
By Joel B. Pollak
Democrat Rashida Tlaib danced wearing the Palestinian flag at a victory party in Tuesday evening, after she won a largely uncontested race for the open seat in Michigan’s heavily Democratic 13th congressional district.
Tlaib is one of two Muslim women elected to Congress on Tuesday, along with Ilhan Omar, who replaced outgoing Rep. Keith Ellison in Minnesota’s 5th congressional district. Ellison was the first Muslim elected to Congress. Both Tlaib and Omar have extreme anti-Israelviews. Tlaib is the first Palestinian-American elected to Congress.
In the video, Tlaib delivered a victory speech in which she acknowledged her family watching from abroad in the Palestinian Authority-administered West Bank. She dedicated her victory, in part, to the Palestinian cause: “A lot of my strength comes from being Palestinian,” she said.
After Tlaib won her primary race in August, she published several anti-Israel tweets, and re-tweeted a fan who declared that Tlaib’s “first fight was for Palestine, always Palestine.”
Tlaib explicitly supports the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel and its replacement of a unitary Palestinian state. That position caused her to lose the endorsement of the far-left group J Street — which, while often adopting anti-Israel positions, nominally supports a two-state solution.
One other Palestinian-American was on the ballot on Tuesday: Ammar Campa-Najjar, the grandson of a Palestinian terrorist who was Yasser Arafat’s deputy and was involved in the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, lost in California’s 50th congressional district.
Tom's Blog 