Obama administration urges calm over US Ebola case

WASHINGTON —The Obama administration urged calm over the single case of Ebola in the United States, seeking to reassure the American public that there was little chance of an outbreak of the disease in this country. At the same time, the military said it had begun the long-awaited aid to disease-ravaged Liberia, with medical testing at two new labs and construction of treatment centers.

The administration has long contended that the best way to contain Ebola is to attack it at its source. The Pentagon’s spokesman said Friday that up to 4,000 troops could be deployed to West Africa, a number that has been slowly climbing as military leaders arrive and assess the need.

But in the U.S., “we need to get the information out because there is a lot of fear,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National Institutes of Health.

“Our health care infrastructure in the United States is well-equipped to stop Ebola in its tracks.”

The unusual high-level briefing at the White House Friday reflected the administration’s urgency in seeking to reassure the public that a wide-spread outbreak of Ebola in the U.S. was unlikely.

Fauci was one of five senior administration officials who briefed reporters Friday, including Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell and Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama’s top homeland security adviser.

Monaco said the U.S. was not considering a travel ban to prevent people from the hardest-hit West African countries from coming to the U.S. and said efforts were instead focused on identify high-risk individuals before they leave the outbreak zone. Dozens and dozens of people have been stopped from getting on flights in the region, she said.

“The most effective way to go about controlling this is to prevent those individuals from getting on a plane in the first place,” she said.

The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the nation went to a Dallas hospital last week but was mistakenly sent home, despite revealing he was visiting from Liberia, before returning by ambulance days later. Texas officials now are monitoring 50 people, 10 of whom they consider at high risk, who came into the contact with the man. They’ve had to quarantine four of them, and even had problems getting rid of the infectious waste left in the apartment where the patient stayed.

“There were things that did not go the way they should have in Dallas,” acknowledged Fauci, director of NIH’s National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “But there were a lot of things that went right and are going right.”

The White House said Obama planned to meet with his national security advisers Monday to discuss the Ebola outbreak and the administration’s response.

Back at the Pentagon, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said the military has begun medical testing for Ebola at two new labs in Liberia. Also, service members are starting to build two treatment centers there for victims of the deadly disease, he said, and a hospital for infected medical personnel should be finished by the end of the month.

Kirby said that the service members are not going to treat patients and are not expected to come in contact with anyone who is infected. But he said the military is training the troops about how to avoid getting Ebola, and also setting plans in place to deal with any service member who might get infected.

“We’re going to train them up on what Ebola looks like, feels like, does. While they’re there, they’re going to be constantly monitored on a regular, frequent basis,” Kirby said. “There will be a screening process to make sure that once they’re no longer there, that we’re able to stay in touch with them, make sure that they haven’t … felt or experienced any symptoms.”

He added that troops will also have personal protection equipment if needed and will be trained in how to use it. He said he is unaware of any special staffing or other changes at military hospitals in the United States to prepare them for caring for Ebola patients.

There are about 230 U.S. troops deployed for the Ebola mission now. About two dozen are in Senegal setting up a transportation center and the rest are in Liberia. The Army on Friday said that up to 3,200 soldiers from various units around the country will be going to Liberia, including 1,800 from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, who will arrive late this month.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

PH, US to sign access pact Monday

 MANILA, Philippines—Washington and Manila have reached a 10-year pact that would allow a larger US military presence in the Philippines as it grapples with increasingly tense territorial disputes with China, according to two Philippine officials and a confidential government primer seen by The Associated Press on Sunday.

The Agreement on Enhanced Defense Cooperation, which would give American forces temporary access to selected military camps and allow them to preposition fighter jets and ships, is due to be signed Monday at the Department of Defense, shortly before the arrival of US President Barack Obama, the officials said. Obama’s two-day visit is the last leg of a four-country Asian tour that also took him to Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.

The two officials spoke with AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details of the pact ahead of its signing.

“Yes, you can say we got what we wanted,” a ranking government official told the Inquirer. “After 10 years, the agreement may be renewed or not renewed,” said the source who likewise requested anonymity. The term of the agreement was one of the contentious points of the deal, the source said.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and US Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg are to sign the agreement at 10 a.m., just a few hours before Obama arrives in the country.

A Philippine government primer on the defense accord did not indicate how many additional US troops would be deployed “on temporary and rotational basis,” but it said the number would depend on the scale of joint military activities to be held in Philippine camps.    




‘Military occupation’

Militants slammed the agreement, saying it “ushers a new period of military occupation.”

“We condemn in the strongest terms the brazen treachery of the Aquino regime which is set to sign tomorrow the US-PH Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, just before the arrival of US president Obama,” said Bayan Secretary General Renato Reyes in a text message on Sunday.

A nationwide protest is set against the defense pact and Obama’s visit in the country.

He said the deal is an “obvious gift of a puppet president to his imperialist master.”

“Aquino now gains the distinction of reversing the gains from the rejection of US bases in 1991. He ushers a new period of US military occupation, underscoring our country’s status as a neo-colony. We will fight this new foreign imposition,” Reyes also said.

Hundreds of American military personnel have already been deployed in the southern Philippines since 2002 to provide counterterrorism training and as advisers to Filipino soldiers who have been battling Muslim militants for decades.

The Philippine Constitution bars permanent US military bases. Under the agreement, a Filipino base commander would have access to entire areas to be shared with American forces, according to the primer.

Disagreements over Philippine access to designated US areas within local camps had hampered the negotiations for the agreement last year.

Better coordination

The agreement would promote better coordination between US and Filipino forces, boost the 120,000-strong Philippine military’s capability to monitor and secure the country’s territory, and respond to natural disasters and other emergencies.

“Prepositioned materiel will allow for timely responses in the event of disasters—natural or otherwise,” the primer said.

The presence of foreign troops is a sensitive issue in the Philippines, a former American colony.

The Philippine Senate voted in 1991 to close down major US bases at Subic and Clark. However, in 1999, it ratified a pact with the United States allowing temporary visits by American forces. That paved the way for hundreds of US forces to hold counterterrorism combat exercises with Filipino troops dealing with insurgents in the country’s south.

This time, the focus of the Philippines and its underfunded military has increasingly turned to external threats, as territorial spats with China in the potentially oil- and gas-rich South China Sea (West Philippine Sea) have heated up in recent years. The Philippines has turned to Washington, its longtime defense treaty ally, for help to modernize its Navy and Air Force, among Asia’s weakest.

Chinese paramilitary ships took effective control of the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Panatag Shoal), a rich fishing ground off the northwestern Philippines, in 2012. Last year, Chinese coast guard ships were deployed to another contested offshore West Philippine Sea territory, Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal), where they have been trying to block food supplies and rotation of Filipino marines aboard a grounded Philippine Navy ship in the shallow waters of the remote coral outcrops.

Pivot to Asia 


The Philippines’ desire to bolster its territorial defense has dovetailed with Washington’s intention to pivot away from years of heavy military engagement in the Middle East to Asia, partly as a counterweight to China’s rising clout.

Such convergence would work to deter China’s increasingly assertive stance in disputed territories but the question that begs to be answered remains whether Washington would come to the rescue of Manila if its territorial claims over part of the West Philippine Sea escalate into an armed conflict with Beijing.

Obama is to arrive at 1:30 p.m. Monday. Hounding him throughout his trip to Asia is the question on how he would reassure allies of Washington’s support amid China’s expansionism and growing military and economic influence in the region.

It’s the same question that will confront him when he and President Aquino face the media in a joint press conference in Malacañang at 3:25 p.m.

Prior to facing reporters, Obama and Aquino will sit down for an expanded bilateral meeting.

“President Aquino will convey the country’s vision for an enduring and strategic Philippine-US partnership that will be characterized by modern, mature and forward-looking bilateral relations,” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma said in a radio interview.

He said this would center on “three major fronts: strengthening political and security cooperation, expanding trade and investments, tourism and development cooperation, and deepening people-to-people ties.”

Mutual defense pact 


Coloma did not say exactly how the new defense agreement with the United States would help the Philippines in its territorial conflict with China. “Our view is that our good coordination with them will continue and so will their commitment to be one with our country in the aspect of national defense based on the existing treaty,” he said.

Coloma was referring to the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, which the Palace considers the foundation of the new defense agreement with Washington.

Article 5 of the treaty states that “an armed attack on either of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of either of the parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific or on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.”

“In guarding the West Philippine Sea and our exclusive economic zone, we have to do it on our own,” defense analyst Antonio Custodio told the Inquirer. “We should not expect a blank check from the United States,” he said, pointing to the standoff at Scarborough Shoal in 2012. “We lost Scarborough Shoal to China. Where was the United States?”—With reports from Christian V. Esguerra and Nikko Dizon of PDI, and Frances Mangosing of INQUIRER.net

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

World leaders, celebrities remember Nelson Mandela’s legacy

MANILA, Philippines—Nelson Mandela, arguably the personification of democracy and unity, has left his legacy imprinted on the world and on its influential personalities.

“He achieved more than could be expected of any man,” United States President Barack Obama said.

In his Twitter page, Obama described the South African leader responsible for the abolition of apartheid as “a man who took history in his hands and bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice.”

He also asked to give thanks to “the fact that Nelson Mandela lived.”

South African President Jacob Zuma described Mandela as a father to the people, and a son to the nation.

“Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a South African social rights activist, said that Mandela was the unifying force of South Africa.

“He was a unifier from the moment he walked out of prison. He taught us how to come together and believe in ourselves.”

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said Mandela has “touched our lives in deeply personal ways.”

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that with Mandela’s abolition of Apartheid, Mandela has “succeeded in building a nation.”

“Mr. Mandela fought with strong determination to abolish apartheid, and he succeeded in building a country with reconciliation as its foundation.”

Former US President Bill Clinton described Mandela as a champion in human history.

“History will remember Mandela as a champion of human dignity and freedom, for peace and reconciliation,” Clinton said.

British Prime Minister said that “a great light has gone out in the world,” in his description of Mandela.

Poland’s Solidarity leader and former president Lech Walesa said simply, “a great man has died.”

The sporting world

Mandela not only touched world leaders but the also sports especially rugby, the same spectacle that united a torn Africa in 1995,

“He used the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the first major sporting event to be hosted in South Africa after the 1994 democratic elections, as an instrument of change to help promote unity amongs all South Africans,” the South African Rugby Union said.

English cricket legend Geoffrey Boycott gave Mandela the highest honor when he expressed his condolences for the man.

“I asked if he was a bowler or a batsman. He smiled and said he was an all-rounder. I said ‘I thought you were a God.’”

Former England football captain and Manchester United legend David Beckham described Mandela as someone who “had genuine for so many people.”

“We have lost a true gentleman and a courageous human being. It was truly an honor to have known a man who had genuine love for so many people.”

Manchester United also tweeted their sympathies for the man that changed South Africa.

“We are saddened to hear of Nelson Mandela’s death. He was truly a great man,” the club Twitter posted, together with a photograph of Mandela and United’s former manager Sir Alex Ferguson

Boxing legend Mike Tyson, who heard of Mandela’s death in Africa also posted a photograph of Mandela posing with a clenched fist with boxing promoter Don King and legendary welterweight Sugar Ray Leonard.

“I’m hearing about Nelson Mandela’s death while on African soil in Oran, Algeria. Sending prayers to Mandela’s family.


Stars knelt for ‘God’

U2 frontman Bono, who have dedicated most of his professional life for charity, especially in Africa, put Mandela on high regard in the growth of South Africa.

“Without Mandela, would Africa be experiencing its best decade of growth and poverty reduction?”

South African actress Charlize Theron has prayed for Mandela and said that the African hero’s impact “will live forever.”

“Rest in Peace Madiba. You will be missed, but your impact on this world will live forever.”

Samuel L. Jackson also, who personally met Mandela, said he has never met a person “better” than Mandela.

“Never met a better person in my life than Nelson Mandela. My sympathy to his family and country.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Obama camp assails 'vampire' Romney in new ad

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama’s camp unleashed a fierce assault on his Republican foe Mitt Romney Monday, slamming the former venture capitalist as a “vampire” who got rich by bleeding dry ailing firms.

A new campaign ad airing in battleground states related how Romney’s firm Bain Capital took over and ultimately closed a steel plant in Kansas City, Missouri and featured emotive testimony from workers who lost their jobs.

The assault marked a key moment in the campaign ahead of November’s election, as Obama seeks to shred Romney’s main argument that his business background qualifies him to revive the US economy.

“Since Romney’s central premise is that he’s an economic wizard who can grow the economy—it’s worth examining what that wizardry is all about,” said Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager.

“Mitt Romney’s business experience wasn’t about growing companies and creating jobs and long-term economic growth.

“In deal after deal, Romney’s first priority was to make a personal profit, regardless of the cost to others.”

Romney’s campaign seemed ready for the attack—within hours they issued their own ad lauding Bain’s role in starting up another steel firm, which now employs 6,000 people.

The Obama spot, which will air in Iowa, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, features the story of several steelworkers who lost their jobs, pension benefits and health care coverage in the plant’s closure.

“Bain Capital walked away with a lot of money made off this plant. We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer,” said John Wiseman, a steel worker who lost his job when GST Steel closed.

Jack Cobb, who was a steelworker for 31 years, added of Bain’s purchase of their firm: “It was like a vampire, it came in and sucked the life out of us.”

The ad juxtaposes clips of Romney saying that he cares about jobs and the unemployed with the testimony of steelworkers thrown out of work when Bain Capital finally closed down their firm in 2001 with the loss of 750 jobs.

“It was like watching an old friend bleed to death,” said steelworker Joe Soptic, in the ad, relating the moment the last steel was made in the plant.

Romney’s campaign hit back at the president’s economic record, which the former Massachusetts governor wants to make the central point of the campaign ahead of the election.

“We welcome the Obama campaign’s attempt to pivot back to jobs and a discussion of their failed record,” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

The Romney ad told the story of Steel Dynamics an Indiana-based firm founded with the help of money from Bain Capital.

“American workers in a small town-proving that anything is possible in America,” the ad’s narrator said.

The Obama campaign however accused Romney of being selective with the truth arguing that Bain’s $18.2 million investment was dwarfed by the $77 million contribution from Indiana tax payers.

It also said that while Bain was invested in the firm, it only employed 600 people, far short of the 6,000 jobs supported by the company after its later merger with other steel workers.

Romney says that his experience as a venture capitalist responsible for building brands like the Staples office supplies store, have given him a unique understanding of the economy.

But Obama’s campaign sees Romney’s past as a perfect match for the president’s narrative that a greed-laced rampage by Wall Street firms deprived the middle class of a “fair shake” at the American Dream.

source: japantoday.com