Number of Ebola Cases Surpasses 10,000 in W/Africa: World Health Organisation

The World Health Organization has said in its new report that the number of cases in the Ebola outbreak has surpassed 10,000 and the death toll has reached 4,922 in West Africa.

The reports said that Liberia remains the worst affected country with 2,705 death cases while Sierra Leona and Guinea had 1,281 and 926 fatalities respectively.

According to the BBC, Nigeria has recorded eight deaths and one in Mali and one in the United States. Mali became the latest nation to record a death wherein a two year old girl died.

The WHO said that the number of cases were 10,141 but the figure could be much higher. The treatment centers in West Africa are also getting over crowded due to which many families were keeping the patients at home, said the WHO.

A Nigerian Drug Trafficker Left to Die Over Ebola fears

A Nigerian drug trafficker has died at a Spanish airport after cocaine bags inside his stomach split open and airport staff did not touch him over Ebola fears.

The man, who had arrived at Madrid-Barajas airport on a flight from the Turkish city of Istanbul on October 18, succumbed to the symptoms of a cocaine overdose and started shaking on the floor, Russia Today (RT) reported on Saturday.

However, nobody approached the man for at least 50 minutes as he was thought to be an Ebola patient.

 

Airport officials reportedly called medical specialists who found the man “unconscious with a weak pulse and suffering breathing difficulties.” Minutes later, it turned out that the man was not infected with the virus, and finally, he was taken to hospital. It was, however, too late and he died 25 minutes after arriving at hospital.

His wife said the Nigerian had not travelled to his homeland in the last four years. Ebola is a form of hemorrhagic fever whose symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding. The virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat.

It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the deadliest Ebola epidemic on record has infected 10,141 and claimed 4,922 lives so far.

Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have taken the brunt of the spread of the disease, which is running amok in West Africa. The media hype over Ebola comes at a time when thousands of people in Africa and other parts of the world die every day from hunger and preventable diseases.

Mainstream Western media, however, pay very little attention to such issues

What a news!!!
 

D'Banj Sets to Plan First Musical Movie in Nigeria to Celebrate His 10th Year Music Career

This year, 2014, will make D'banj's 10th year in the Nigeria's music industry and he's preparing to celebrate it big!

First he revealed that Don Jazzy will be producing some tracks on the upcoming album to mark the feat.

Now, the Kokomaster will be dropping Nigeria's first ever musical movie and we are already excited about it because we can't wait to see what it looks like.


To bring that to life, he has a deal with Apple which involves making a musical movie about his 10-year journey as a musician.

 

D'banj who called from Los Angeles, revealed this to Beat FM presenters, Olisa Adinua and Maria, : ‘Most people have the wrong impression that Dr Dre was the one that signed me, but the contract I have says ‘APPLE’ and to take it further, my management, DKM Media in conjunction with Apple is working on a musical movie.

I’m going to act in the movie and play the role of D’banj’, he said. D’banj is currently taking acting lessons in preparation for the role; ‘Yes o, I’m currently taking acting lessons, initially, I didn’t know I would need acting lessons to play myself in the movie but they want to make it very professional and very well done.’

CREDITS : Daily Times

South African Pastors Welcome T.B Joshua's Donation

According to a South African new source, Nigerian preacher TB Joshua's pledge to donate R50 000 to the families of the victims of his church's collapse is welcomed, the Mahikeng Ministers Fellowship (MMF) said on Saturday.

 

“Mahikeng Ministers Fellowship has welcomed the donation of over R4-million announced by the Synagogue Church of All Nations to assist families of victims of the church building collapse in Nigeria meet funeral expenses...,” chairman of MMF Zandisile Mpame said in a statement.

“The announcement of aid to the families that lost their loved ones during the tragic incident does not come as a surprise to those of us in the church who are familiar with Prophet TB Joshua's global humanitarian and philanthropic activities which have contributed over US200 million over the years towards various causes to alleviate the plight of those in need.”

On Friday Joshua's church released a statement saying a R50 000 donation would be paid towards funeral expenses of each family of the victims of the church building collapse.

The church's spokesman Kirsten Nematandani said they had done a full audit of each family's financial needs and assisted with various household expenses as many of the deceased were breadwinners. He said household expenses varied from rent money to school fees and groceries.

It is believed 85 people from South Africa were among those killed when a multi-storey guesthouse attached to the church, run by Joshua, collapsed in Lagos on September 12.

On Thursday, Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe announced that DNA samples of the 116 victims had arrived at a laboratory in South Africa for analysis.

The DNA process was in the hands of the Nigerian authorities, who had appointed a laboratory in Stellenbosch, Western Cape, to do the analysis.

Nematandani said the church had travelled to all provinces in the past few weeks to visit, counsel and assess families' financial needs and assist where possible.

What is your view on this?

 

Liberia's Gay Population Is Being Blamed For Ebola, And Punished With Violence

Anti-gay discrimination has reared its ugly head again, this time in Liberia, one of four countries currently stricken with Ebola. Why this time, you ask? Well, for causing Ebola, obviously.

Local Christian leaders have said that Ebola is God’s punishment for homosexuality, and since then, members of the community have been harassed, physically attacked, and even had their cars destroyed.

Reuters reported that Liberian LGBT campaigner Leroy Ponpon said he stays at home, fearful of both catching the deadly virus and being attacked for his sexual orientation:

Since church ministers declared Ebola was a plague sent by God to punish sodomy in Liberia, the violence towards gays has escalated. They’re even asking for the death penalty. 

We’re living in fear. In a July meeting of the Liberian Council of Churches, religious leaders put out a statement that said “God is angry with Liberia,” adding: Ebola is a plague.

Liberians have to pray and seek God’s forgiveness over the corruption and immoral acts (such as homosexualism, etc.) that continue to penetrate our society.

An Amnesty International representative in West Africa, Francois Patuel told Reuters that there were reports of threats and violence against the LGBT community in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, since Christian leaders weighed in on the Ebola outbreak. He said,

 

Amnesty has received pictures of cars that reportedly belong to gays with their windows smashed as well as reports that gays have been forced from their homes and had to go into hiding.

  According to BBC World, Liberia is the country worst hit by the Ebola epidemic — about 50 new cases are reported everyday in Monrovia. With its healthcare system in shambles in large part due to the virus outbreak, Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, Liberia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, told Reuters that the country “entered the epidemic with only about 50 doctors for 4 million people” — a imbalance so stark that it actually made me gasp.

Back in 2012, Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, sent shockwaves throughout the international community when she said in an interview that she would not decriminalize homosexuality, citing the preservation of traditional values in their society. President Sirleaf is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Africa has not been kind to the LGBT community. Jay Michaelson at The Daily Beast reported that of the 78 countries that ban homosexuality, “almost all anti-gay laws are a vestige of European colonialism, and date back approximately 150 years.” Funnily enough, anti-gay leaders in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone have denounced gay rights and homosexuality as a “Western” concept that must be opposed to preserve “traditional African values.”

  

Uganda gained notoriety a few years back for a video of one Pastor Martin Ssempa denouncing gay sex as his research showed him that it involved, among other things, eating the “poo poo.” Seriously. The video has garnered over eight million views, and was subject to ridicule and criticism when it came out. Ironically, Pastor Ssempa was recently accused of promoting “gayism” through his lectures and gay porn screenings at churches.
The rise of anti-gay sentiment in Africa is in large part due to the spread of American evangelism. Kapya Kaoma, a priest and human rights activist, wrote in an LA Times Op-Ed of the homophobia exported from the U.S.:

In recent years, millions of dollars have been funneled from anti-LGBTQ evangelical conservatives to Uganda, funding local pastors and training them to adopt and mirror the culture-war language of the U.S. Christian right. 

And of course, trust the Christian right to convey a similar hate-filled, discriminatory narrative on the Ebola outbreak back here in the U.S., too. In August, conservative radio host Rick Wiles said in his talk show that there was a silver lining to the epidemic:

Now this Ebola epidemic can become a global pandemic and that’s another name for plague. It may be the great attitude adjustment that I believe is coming. Ebola could solve America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion.

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