Anthrax vs Ebola

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~5,000 people have died from Ebola. I don't think that video conveys much information regarding this recent Ebola outbreak.

Global Ebola cases pass 10,000 as Mali becomes latest nation to record a death

dont believe everything you hear and read* is all i'm saying

* = unless authorized by ricecrackers

somebody's pride is bruised :-({|=

It's hilarious that you believe that anyone here is doing anything but laughing at you.

[size=8]ISIS eyes using Ebola as bio weapon – Spain[/size]
Published time: November 01, 2014 05:56
Edited time: November 01, 2014 21:57 Get short URL
AFP Photo/Tony Karumba/Al-Furqan MediaAFP Photo/Tony Karumba/Al-Furqan Media
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Ebola outbreak, Islamic State
Health, Spain, Terrorism

The Spanish government said it is concerned that terrorists could use the Ebola virus as a biological weapon against the West. A close eye is being kept on online chat rooms, where such attacks are reportedly discussed among jihadist groups.

Extremists connected to the Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS) have been considering using Ebola as a weapon against the West, Spain’s State Secretary for Security, Francisco Martinez, said in an address to the parliament.

Martinez stated that this type of activity serves as further proof that the internet is an “an extension of the battlefield” for the Islamic State, which uses cyberspace for “threatening enemies through propaganda, preparing operations, exchanging information, ideological training, recruiting new members and acquiring finance.”

There are “many examples” of online terrorist chat logs discussing the use of biological warfare against the West, Spain’s RTVE public broadcasting corporation reported.

AFP Photo/Tauseef MustafaAFP Photo/Tauseef Mustafa

The most recent talks took place in a “jihadist chat room,” related to the Islamic State, in mid-September. “The use of Ebola as a poisonous weapon against the United States” was the topic of conversation, Martinez said.

There were also a number of tweets that talked about the use of “deadly chemical products from laboratories,” he added, stating that terrorist organization Ansar al-Islam was involved.

Despite increasing evidence of biological attacks on the West, US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson denied allegations of the Islamic State’s plans to use biological weapons. “We've seen no specific credible intelligence that [the Islamic State] is attempting to use any sort of disease or virus to attack our homeland,” Johnson said earlier in October.

Canada imposes visa ban
The latest cases of Ebola in Spain and the US have sparked fears of an even bigger outbreak, prompting Canada to step up its border security so as to limit the risk of infection spreading into the country.

Navy Cmdr. (Dr.) James Lawler (C), an infectious disease physician, talks to team members during a training event at the San Antonio Military Medical Center on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in this handout picture taken October 25, 2014. (Reuters/Department of Defense)Navy Cmdr. (Dr.) James Lawler (C), an infectious disease physician, talks to team members during a training event at the San Antonio Military Medical Center on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in this handout picture taken October 25, 2014. (Reuters/Department of Defense)

The federal government announced on Friday it is suspending the processing of visa applications for residents and nationals who have been in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in the last three months. The same goes for permanent residence applications.

"New precautionary measures [are] to protect the health and safety of Canadians,” the government said in a statement, adding that the move does not affect Canadians in West Africa helping to contain Ebola, adding that health workers will be permitted back in the country.

Canada has become the second country after Australia to deny visas to foreign nationals from the three affected West African countries.

So far, about 5,000 people have died this year in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, in the worst Ebola outbreak ever recorded.

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Danish and Swedish Jews Say They Won't Be Forced to Israel
BY ELISABETH BRAW / FEBRUARY 17, 2015 12:15 PM EST
Shneur Kesselman
Shneur Kesselman and his family are not planning on leaving Malmö, despite having to endure anti-Jewish sentiment in the city. ANDRÉ DE LOISTED

FILED UNDER: Culture, Europe, Jews in Europe, Israel
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Immediately following the killing of a Jewish security guard at a bar mitzvah celebration in Copenhagen, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called on all European Jews to mass-emigrate, explaining “Israel is your home”.



But neither then, nor when Netanyahu issued similarly urgent pleas after the attacks in Paris last month, did rabbi Shneur Kesselman pack any bags. “To many Jews it’s a comfort knowing that they can move to Israel, especially after the Paris attacks when all these calls came, ‘Come to Israel, come to Israel’,” he explains. “Jews have a right to live wherever they like, and in times of terror, Israel should focus on just that.”

Kesselman speaks from considerable experience. Since arriving in the Swedish city of Malmö over 10 years ago, the Chabad rabbi from Detroit has been subjected to seemingly never-ending verbal and physical assaults. Recently, somebody in a car threw a bottle at his head as he was walking down the street. (It narrowly missed.)

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A century ago, Kesselman’s predecessors and their fellow Jews walked the streets of Malmö without having to worry about such encounters. So did Jews in Copenhagen, Malmö’s twin city on the other side of the Øresund Sound. Indeed, since arriving primarily from Central and Eastern Europe some five centuries ago, Denmark’s Jewish community has been an integral part of the country. Yes, there were occasional anti-Semitic attacks, but by the 19th century Jews were allowed to attend university, buy property, found schools and join guilds. Politiken, a leading morning broadsheet, was co-founded by a member of a prominent Jewish family.

In 1943, occupied Denmark received orders from Berlin to arrest some 7,800 Jews. But, in a remarkable feat, thanks to a courageous tipoff by a German military attaché, good-willed Danes managed to help almost every single Danish Jew escape across the Øresund to neutral Sweden. Only 52 Danish Jews perished in the Holocaust.

As a child, Copenhagener Max Meyer remembers: “I could wear a kippa if I wanted.” But that has now changed, and not just on account of last week’s shootings. “There’s growing anti-Semitism in Denmark,” Meyer reports. “Some people have arrived here from the Middle East and bring their opinions about Israel with them. If someone has a relative who was killed in Gaza, I can sort of understand their anger. But by Danes at large, we Jews are being held responsible for the actions of the Israeli government.” He’s making a crucial point: with Netanyahu’s right-wing government unpopular in other countries, local Jews feel the heat. “Lord, how are they increased that trouble me! Many are they that rise up against me,” as the Jewish King David put it three millennia ago.

On the other side of the strait in Sweden, the newly-arrived Danish Jews quickly became part of Swedish society after the war. Some found new homes in Malmö and were soon joined by Holocaust survivors. But decades later, this proud city has been making the headlines for a much more unpalatable reason: anti-Semitism. Indeed, the ugly sentiments now affecting Copenhagen and other cities in Europe have been on display here for several years now. In the past two years alone, the police in the Skåne region, where Malmö is the largest city, have received 137 reports of anti-Semitic crimes. Kesselman, easy to spot thanks to his Chabad attire and hairstyle, bears the brunt of the attacks, while police officers investigating the crimes find themselves frustrated by the fact that there’s often not enough evidence to bring them to prosecution.


Like Kesselman, Oskar Deutsch refuses to pack up his life and heed Netanyahu’s call to emigrate. “I like living in Austria,” explains the Viennese coffee merchant who is president of the Jewish community in Vienna as well as the national Jewish association in Austria. “We work quite well with the security agencies and feel well-protected.” Indeed, notes Deutsch, he doesn’t know a single Israeli president or prime minister who hasn’t issued a similar call. “It’s fine to issue the invitation, and I’m glad to have the option of moving to Israel, but every family should decide for itself where it wants to live,” he adds. As far as Deutsch is concerned, what’s required is serious political attention to anti-Semitic violence.

According to Levi Matusof, a French rabbi who works in Brussels on behalf of Jewish organisations, most Jews will stay put. “If someone wants to make the aliyah to Israel, of course that’s their choice,” he explains. “But even with some people already doing it, a lot of people will stay. And we Jews have a sense of belonging to Europe. We want to remain here.”

Denmark’s chief rabbi, Jair Melchior, has also criticised Netanyahu’s invitation, explaining that fear is not a reason to move to Israel. Melchior, an eighth-generation Danish rabbi, is the son of rabbi Michael Melchior, who has been a leading moderate voice in Israeli politics – including as deputy foreign minister – since moving there a number of years ago.

The obvious dilemma is this: liberal European democracies, hoping that everyone can just get along, have been skirting the issue of Islamic radicalisation, treating it primarily as a law enforcement issue. Now, with radical Muslims attacking Jews in Paris and Copenhagen, as well as in Toulouse in 2012, that gentle approach seems inadequate.

“I’m worried because I see law enforcement and politicians reacting to anti-Semitic terror rather than trying enough to prevent it,” argues Kesselman. “I can imagine that European politicians aren’t happy when Netanyahu calls for Jews to come to Israel, but what they don’t understand is that Israel is doing everything in its power to protect Jews. European politicians and law enforcement agencies aren’t doing the same because they don’t understand that what’s happening today is an existential threat to their Jewish minorities.”

Malmö, Copenhagen and Paris are showcases of globalisation: modern, affluent and homes to people from every corner of the world. People from 175 countries live in Malmö, making up 30% of the population. And, to their credit, law enforcement agencies are diligently carrying out preventive anti-hate-crime work. PET, Denmark’s highly efficient counter-intelligence agency, has successfully pioneered a strategy of infiltrating jihadi networks to prevent terrorist attacks there. Working with prisons and social workers, PET has also implemented an early-warning system, where would-be hate criminals can receive care and attention before descending into violence. “We’re doing everything we can, but not even in a dictatorship can you prevent every crime,” PET’s former operations director, Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen, says. “Lone wolves are a huge challenge for security services, but even they have to purchase their weapons. What we can do is to convince arms sellers that it’s vital for them to make contact with the police if they notice anything in the least suspicious.” The police force in Malmö, a city of some 280,000 residents, now boasts its very own hate crime coordinator.

Kesselman will proudly keep wearing his distinctive hat. And he’s staying put in Malmö: “Giving in to terror would play into the hands of those who are involved with it,” he explains. And – of that he’s certain – if Europe’s Jews felt that law enforcement did all in their power to protect them, they’d feel more secure. But how much protection a government can guarantee remains to be seen.

Meyer, too, is staying put – for now. “I have my family here,” he says. “But if my kids decided they wanted to move to Israel, I’d move with them. I’d rather be a street sweeper in Tel Aviv than a hidden Jew in Denmark.”