Sunday Roundup - September 21, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Ebola, Ukraine, rebuilding Gaza, Islamic State, and, in brief, Scotland, Obamacare, and the impact of unemployment benefits.

Ebola

Map is from WHO website

The death toll in the Ebola outbreak afflicting west Africa has now surpassed 2,600.  Besides the west African nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, cases have also been reported in Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal.  Healthcare workers, already in very short supply in the impoverished countries hardest-hit by the outbreak, have paid an especially heavy price. 318 of them have been infected across four west African countries, 151 of whom have died.     Al Jazeera reported on Thursday: More than 700 more Ebola cases have emerged in West Africa in the past week week, a statistic that showed the outbreak was rapidly accelerating, the World Health Organisation has said....Later on Thursday, the UN Security Council declared the outbreak a "threat to international peace and security" and called on all states to provide urgent resources and assistance to help tackle the crisis. The alarm came as Sierra Leone readied for an unprecedented three-day nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the Ebola in a controversial move which experts claimed could worsen the epidemic. The population of six million will be confined to their homes from midnight on Thursday as almost 30,000 volunteers go door-to-door uncovering patients and bodies hidden in people's homes.  The US has pledged to send 3,000 troops to help in the fight the disease. In addition, Cuba, Uganda, and China are all sending medical teams to the afflicted area.   As reported in The Guardian on September 16: President Barack Obama called the Ebola epidemic in west Africa a potential threat to global security as the White House pledged to send 3,000 troops to fight the worst ever outbreak of the disease in history...Almost $1bn (£620m) is needed to contain the Ebola epidemic raging across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which could infect up to 20,000 people if unchecked by the end of the year, the UN warned..."If not dealt with effectively now, Ebola could become a major humanitarian crisis in countries currently affected," Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief, told reporters in Geneva. The capacity of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to provide even the most basic necessities was, she warned, "on the brink of collapse".  Scientific American posted a response to a NYT op-ed that raised the specter of the virus mutating to an airborne pathogen: Interviews with several infectious diseases experts reveal that whereas such a mutation—or more likely series of mutations—might physically be possible, it’s highly unlikely.  Let's hope so.

Ukraine

Map is from Al Jazeera February 27 article

The September 5 ceasefire in the Ukraine appears to be holding in spite of sporadic violations. The Independent reported on September 15: The conflict-wracked eastern Ukraine city of Luhansk had a rare day of jubilation yesterday as pro-Russian fighters paraded military vehicles victoriously through city streets – as other areas saw continued shelling in the conflict between government forces and the rebels...Luhansk’s population of about 250,000 people, reduced because of the war, emerged to celebrate “city day” yesterday, which opened on a sombre note as priests led hundreds of residents in prayer in commemoration of those killed during a government-mounted siege of the city.  Speaking at the open-air service by the Mother of Sorrows Church, local separatist leader Igor Plotnitsky mourned those that had been killed and in an unusually conciliatory public statement called for forgiveness for those responsible. Luhansk has suffered more casualties and damage from the conflict than any other city.  Alec Luhn, in a September 16 Foreign Policy dispatch, writes of the rebuilding effort there.  The pause in fighting has...been the first chance to assess the damage to the city and hopefully begin reconstruction. Residents have been trying to rebuild their homes, but most workplaces and banks have shut down, and many government benefits and pensions have not been paid for months. Construction materials, especially glass and artificial roofing, are in short supply. Winter is coming, but the gas pipes in many places have been shredded by shelling. And there's no guarantee that the fragile peace will last....If the cease-fire holds, the task of rebuilding will be the first test of the separatist government's ability to not just foment rebellion but also to run a state. "Life is returning to normal," the new head of the self-declared [Luhansk People's Republic], Igor Plotnitsky, told journalists after sharing a glass of champagne with a newly married couple accompanied by rebel groomsmen in camouflage. Not all residents are so optimistic.  Luhn quotes a woman selling spices in the midst of a burned out marketplace.  "We're hoping for the best, but we expect the shelling to start again...The number of [Ukrainian] troops outside the city is increasing." 

Gaza Reconstruction
Haaretz reported on Tuesday's announcement that the United Nations had brokered an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that would allow reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip to proceed.  [UN Middle East envoy Robert] Serry told the UN Security Council that the United Nations had brokered the deal "to enable work at the scale required in the strip, involving the private sector in Gaza and giving a lead role to the Palestinian Authority in the reconstruction effort, while providing security assurances through UN monitoring that these materials will not be diverted from their entirely civilian purpose."  Damage to Gaza from the Israeli siege has been estimated to be as high as $7.8 billion.  On September 18, Haaretz also carried a Reuters report on Saudi Arabia's pledge of $500 million to help rebuild Gaza.  Saudi Arabia's commitment comes ahead of a conference in Cairo on Oct. 12 when Palestinian leaders hope other donors, including Turkey, Qatar, the European Union and United States, will step forward with promises of support. 

Islamic State

On September 18, the US Congress completed its approval of Obama's plan to provide arms and training for Syrian rebel forces, primarily Sunnis in a civil war with Syria's primarily Shia government.  Sunni Saudi Arabia lobbied Congressional leaders prior to the vote.  As the US begins its military action against Islamic State, getting ourselves into a sectarian fight that we should have no part in, many commentators see a danger of escalation.  Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian  argues that unclear military goals have been an American tradition for decades - resulting in the loss of countless lives and dollars.  A military lesson the United States seems doomed to constantly forget and painfully re-learn: unclear goals invite escalation.  Referring to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's testimony before Congress that US military may engage in "close combat advising", Ackerman writes: Dempsey’s euphemism bursts the seams of Barack Obama’s insistence that US troops will not return to combat in Iraq. That was itself a rhetorical escalation from the White House’s earlier assurance against troops on the ground, full stop, which has proved difficult to square with the current 1,700 US troops now in Iraq, 1,600 more than were there in June. Perhaps more candidly, Dempsey said Obama has asked the general to come back for “case-by-case” authorization on involving US troops in combat, even as the president again forswore ground combat in a speech at MacDill air force base on Wednesday.  Obama's stated objectives in this third Iraq war are not clearly defined and there may be no way of knowing when they are achieved.  Ackerman continues: Obama follows in an ignominious presidential tradition. George W Bush’s goals for the second Iraq war pivoted from the mirage of eliminating weapons of mass destruction to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein to the preservation of something resembling democracy....The pattern has held, with few exceptions, since the second world war ended. Korea’s “police action” resulted in a gruesome stalemate once Douglas MacArthur reinvented the war from the preservation of a US ally in Seoul to the destruction of Moscow’s ally in Pyongyang. As many as two generations of US policymakers wish to get over Vietnam, their unrealistic guarantees to foreign proxies and preference for military solutions to entrenched, obscure political challenges repeat the central mistakes contributing to a traumatizing escalation.  US wars are more likely to end through an exogenous event – such as Russia’s diplomatic restraint of Serbia to end the 1999 Kosovo air war or Libyan rebels’ killing of Muammar Gaddafi to end the 2011 Libya air war – than through the deliberate application of military force.  

In Brief/Links

Scottish voters rejected independence from the UK on Thursday by a 55 - 45 percent vote.  The Scotsman reported on the promises from Labour and the Conservatives on greater autonomy for Scotland and on the resignation of Scotland's First Prime Minister, Alex Salmond, "after his lifelong dream of an independent Scotland was rejected by the people."  In the last weeks before the referendum. numerous British politicians came to Scotland to argue for a "no" vote.   The Independent had an interesting list of "eight things you never realized were Scottish". [The Independent, Sep 17]

Finally, here are two (more) stories that put the lie to fallacious GOP talking points.
Re: "People insured through the state and federal health care exchanges are not paying their premiums" - More than 90% of the estimated 8 million people originally signed up to get  their health insurance through the state and federal healthcare exchanges (7.3 million) are paying their premiums and remain in the program. [Kaiser Health News, Sep 19]
Re: "Extending unemployment benefits makes people lazy and drop out of the labor force."
Extending benefits to unemployed workers beyond the 26 weeks provided by most states has little effect on the unemployment rate and essentially no impact on labor force participation, a recent working paper released by the Federal Reserve Board found.  [Daily Kos, Sep 12]   Daily Kos blogger Dartagnan adds: Republicans have blocked every attempt to provide extended  benefits to the long- term unemployed since 2013...[and] haven't passed a single piece of job-creating legislation.  So what has been the result of this "experiment?"  The Labor Force participation rate is at a record low in this country: A record 92,269,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in August, as the labor force participation rate matched a 36-year low of 62.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.