The truce talks have "returned to the starting point," a Hamas leader said Sunday night ahead of the current ceasefire ending Monday at midnight - a ceasefire he threatened would not be extended again.
Abbas Heads To Qatar To Push Hamas On Ceasefire Deal
The Times of Israel is liveblogging events as they unfold through Monday, August 18, the 42nd day of Operation Protective Edge. A five-day truce, which began at midnight Wednesday, is set to expire on Monday night unless Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agree to extend it, or finalize a long-term deal.
Liberia Quarantine Creates 'Plague Villages' At Ebola Epicenter
In the ramshackle coastal capital Monrovia, which still bears the scars of the brutal 14-year civil war that ended in 2003, officials say controlling the situation in Lofa is crucial to overcoming the country's biggest crisis since the conflict.
With her country under threat, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has imposed emergency measures including the community quarantine and a "cordon sanitaire" -- a system of medical roadblocks to prevent the infection reaching cities, widely used against the Black Death in Medieval times.
Troops have been deployed under operation "White Shield" to stop people from abandoning homes and infecting others in a country where the majority of cases remain at large, either because clinics are full or because they are scared of hospitals regarded as 'death traps'.
A crowd attacked a makeshift Ebola quarantine centre in Monrovia on Saturday, throwing stones and looting equipment and food, and, according to one health worker, removing patients from the building.
"There has to be concern that people in quarantined areas are left to fend for themselves," said Mike Noyes, head of humanitarian response at ActionAid UK. "Who is going to be the police officer who goes to these places? There's a risk that these places become plague villages."
Aid workers say the virus reminds them of the forces roaming Liberia during the civil war, making it a byword for brutality."It was like the war. It was so desolate," said Adolphus Scott, a worker for UN child agency UNICEF describing Zango Town in the jungles of northern Liberia, where most of the 2,000 residents had either died of Ebola or fled.
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Hamas Deputy Leader Moussa Abu-Marzouk, part of the delegation in the Cairo truce talks, claimed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rejected the Egyptian truce proposal and submitted Israeli amendments that returned talks to the starting point, reports Channel 10.
Amendments submitted by the Hamas, Palestinian Authority (PA) and Islamic Jihad delegation were revealed on Monday. They includeimportant changes on several major issues that were slipped in, such as the release of terrorists.
"Netanyahu is captive to internal contradictions. He went to war and lost, and didn't achieve the goals he set for himself. There are 24 hours left in the ceasefire agreed upon, and it will not be renewed for a third time. The Palestinian delegation will not give up on any of the rights of our people," said Abu-Marzouk.
While Israel has called for a disarmament of the terrorists in Gaza, truce proposals have not addressed that demand, leaving it to be discussed in talks a month after a truce deal when Hamas demands such as a sea and airport are to be discussed as well.
Apparently this point of disarmament is what Abu-Marzouk referred to in terms of the goals that haven't been achieved. The Israeli public has overwhelmingly been calling for the government to finish the job in Gaza, as seen in a 10,000-strong rally in Tel Aviv last Thursday.
A member of the Palestinian Arab delegation to Cairo told AP that the gaps between the sides remain significant, and that it is unclear if an agreement will be signed before the ceasefire ends.
"We are even less optimistic than in the past," said the official.
‘No dramatic developments’ in Cairo talks, official tells BBC
The two sides reconvened earlier today to make a last-minute effort to reach a long-term agreement to end the conflict that has raged for over a month.
The five-day truce agreed upon last week is set to expire at midnight tonight.
Ashdod, Ashkelon close beaches ahead of truce’s end
Ahead of the possible breakdown of the truce between Israel and Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist groups, Ashdod and Ashkelon’s city halls announce that their beaches will be closed tomorrow, according to the Israel Hayom daily.
Earlier the train route from Ashkelon to Sderot was closed ahead of the possible recommencement of hostilities between the two sides.
Abbas, Mashaal to meet in Qatar
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will travel to Qatar and meet with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal to discuss the ceasefire negotiations with Israel, Israel Radio reports. An earlier report indicated that the two were going to meet in Cairo, where the talks are taking place.
To try to control the Ebola epidemic spreading through West Africa, Liberia has quarantined remote villages at the epicentre of the virus, evoking the "plague villages" of medieval Europe that were shut off from the outside world.
With few food and medical supplies getting in, many abandoned villagers face a stark choice: stay where they are and risk death or skip quarantine, spreading the infection further in a country ill-equipped to cope.
In Boya, in northern Liberia's Lofa County, Joseph Gbembo, who caught Ebola and survived, says he is struggling to raise 10 children under five years old and support five widows after nine members of his family were killed by the virus.
Fearful of catching Ebola themselves, the 30-year-old's neighbours refuse to speak with him and blame him for bringing the virus to the village.
Aid workers say that if support does not arrive soon, locals in villages like Boya, where the undergrowth is already spreading among the houses, will simply disappear down jungle footpaths.In the ramshackle coastal capital Monrovia, which still bears the scars of the brutal 14-year civil war that ended in 2003, officials say controlling the situation in Lofa is crucial to overcoming the country's biggest crisis since the conflict.
With her country under threat, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has imposed emergency measures including the community quarantine and a "cordon sanitaire" -- a system of medical roadblocks to prevent the infection reaching cities, widely used against the Black Death in Medieval times.
Troops have been deployed under operation "White Shield" to stop people from abandoning homes and infecting others in a country where the majority of cases remain at large, either because clinics are full or because they are scared of hospitals regarded as 'death traps'.
A crowd attacked a makeshift Ebola quarantine centre in Monrovia on Saturday, throwing stones and looting equipment and food, and, according to one health worker, removing patients from the building.
"There has to be concern that people in quarantined areas are left to fend for themselves," said Mike Noyes, head of humanitarian response at ActionAid UK. "Who is going to be the police officer who goes to these places? There's a risk that these places become plague villages."
Aid workers say the virus reminds them of the forces roaming Liberia during the civil war, making it a byword for brutality."It was like the war. It was so desolate," said Adolphus Scott, a worker for UN child agency UNICEF describing Zango Town in the jungles of northern Liberia, where most of the 2,000 residents had either died of Ebola or fled.
In recognition of the region's inability to cope, the World Health Organization this week declared Ebola an international health emergency - only the third time in its 66-year history it has taken this step.
Neighbours Guinea and Sierra Leone have placed checkpoints in Gueckedou and Kenema, creating a cross-border quarantine zone of roughly 20,000 square kilometres, about the size of Wales, called the "unified sector."
The main health care centre in Lofa is "overwhelmed" by new patients, a health ministry report said. A total of 13 health care workers have already died from Ebola in the county while its surveillance office lacks computers to manage cases.
Liberia's Brown also acknowledged the risk: "We can establish as many checkpoints as we want but if we cannot get the food and the medical supplies in to affected communities, they will leave."
Even if the resources arrive, help might be chased away.
A new U.S. Geological Survey report indicates a slightly greater earthquake hazard in the Greater Yellowstone region of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho than previously thought, a geophysicist says.
"The new maps show how Yellowstone has had a relative increase in the hazard," University of Utah geophysicist Bob Smith said. "It's not a lot — it's like 5 to 10 percent of peak acceleration."
The USGS map of seismic hazards also shows that the region is as seismically hazardous as anywhere in the United States.
"It's an area of well-above-normal earthquake hazard," Smith said. "And now with all the population going in — all the new roads and dams — also high risk."
A seasonal Moose resident, Smith was an advisory review member for the USGS report.
The nationwide USGS hazard maps and adjoining documents were last updated in 2006, he told the Jackson Hole News & Guide (http://bit.ly/1m2XQZ7).
The federal document has more real-world implications than most scientific studies because it is used to determine building codes and dictates how robustly buildings must be constructed.
1 comment:
Hi All-
I wondered if this constant activity with (IS) is something that can draw all nations in like a vacuum? One in which they did not anticipate the evil of this kind, but since it's spreading so rapidly that some type of action will need to be taken by some other nation just to subdue it? Could it be the trigger surrounding Israel? I am so confused these days and appreciate the thoughts.
God Bless!!
GG
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