World Trade Center reopens for business

Thirteen years after the 9-11 terrorist attack, the resurrected World Trade Center is opening for business. It’s an emotional milestone for both New Yorkers and the nation.

Publishing giant Conde Nast will start moving into One World Trade Center on Monday. The 104-story, $3.9 billion skyscraper dominates the Manhattan skyline and is America’s tallest building.

The building is the centerpiece of the 16-acre site where the decimated twin towers once stood and where more than 2,700 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s constructed with steel-reinforced concrete.

The executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the building and the World Trade Center site, says the building’s reopening is a major milestone.

Gates Foundation boosts aid to stamp out malaria; targets Ebola

Philanthropist Bill Gates says he wants to end malaria in his lifetime and will give more money toward that goal, part of his broader fight against tropical diseases that are getting unusual public attention because of the Ebola epidemic.

In an interview with The Associated Press and in prepared remarks for a speech Sunday at a global health conference in New Orleans, the Microsoft co-founder said his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would increase its malaria program budget by 30 per cent, to more than $200 million per year. That’s on top of the foundation’s other donations to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

“Small steps won’t get the job done,” and scientists don’t have all the tools they need to eradicate malaria, Gates said.

His plan includes developing a drug or vaccine to purge the malaria parasite in people who carry it without showing symptoms – a “human reservoir” that helps spread the disease.

“If we commit to investing in all of these approaches, I believe that we can eradicate malaria in the next generation,” Gates said. “Let me put it this way – I just turned 59 the other day. If we can’t get rid of malaria in my lifetime, I’d be very disappointed.”

Gates spoke at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, a conference that usually gets little public notice, about diseases often referred to as “neglected.”

That is not the case this year. On Wednesday, Louisiana officials created a stir by asking the 3,500 people registered for the conference to stay away if they have been to certain West African countries or have had contact with an Ebola patient in the last 21 days, the maximum incubation period for Ebola.

Conference organizers called the stance an overreaction to Ebola fears, and said it would prevent some scientists from presenting studies on the outbreak, which has killed about 5,000 Africans this year.

In all, Gates said his foundation will commit more than $500 million this year to fight malaria, pneumonia, and diarrheal and parasitic diseases in poor countries. Here are some he discussed.

EBOLA

The conference comes “at a critical moment in the history of global health” because of the world’s largest outbreak of Ebola, Gates said. He and his wife have pledged $50 million to help contain it and for research on treatments, rapid tests and vaccines. Another Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, has pledged $100 million, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, $25 million.

The global response to Ebola initially stumbled and revealed flaws in our health systems, Gates said. Since then, some countries and groups have helped, but much more is needed, he said.

MALARIA

It kills more than 600,000 people each year, mostly children in Africa but also in Asia, Latin America and other areas.

It is caused by parasites spread through the bite of infected mosquitoes. In areas where the disease is common, people can develop partial immunity – they carry the parasite but don’t get sick, and mosquitoes who bite them become infected and then spread the disease when they bite others.

Efforts to control the disease, such as bed nets to prevent mosquito bites, must continue but “the only way to stop malaria is to end it forever,” Gates said.

His plan includes $156 million over five years to the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to develop vaccines that prevent mosquitoes from infecting people and vice versa.

Dr. Chris Plowe, a malaria expert at the University of Maryland’s Center for Vaccine Development and incoming president of the tropical medicine group, said targeting silent infection is key because “if you want to eradicate or eliminate malaria, you have to get rid of all the parasites.”

The idea of ending malaria in 20 to 40 years “is faster than most people expect,” but a good goal, Plowe said.

POLIO

Gates called polio eradication “my top priority,” noting the viral disease remains endemic in three countries – Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He cited progress: Polio was eliminated in India earlier this year, and as of early September, Nigeria had confirmed only six wild poliovirus cases this year.

“There is now a real chance that we’ll soon get the polio case count for the entire continent of Africa down to zero,” he said.

DENGUE FEVER

The mosquito-borne disease, also known as breakbone fever for the pain it causes, has spread from a few countries a few decades ago to more than 100 today, including the southern United States. An experimental vaccine seems to prevent most severe disease and hospitalizations. Details of a major study on it will be presented at the conference on Monday, and Gates said his foundation would work to build on that work and make a vaccine available to all who need it.

CHIKUNGUNYA

Another mosquito-borne disease, chikungunya causes fever and extremely painful joints. It spread to the Caribbean last year after expanding in Africa and South Asia, and in July, the first locally acquired case in the U.S. was documented in Florida. It’s an important field for research and vaccine development, Gates said.

Pro-Russian rebels vote for leaders in eastern Ukraine

Pro-Russian rebels elected a separatist leadership in eastern Ukraine on Sunday in a vote President Petro Poroshenko called "a farce".

Mining electrician-turned-rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko won over 81 percent of the vote, according to the exit polls of an election that has worsened a standoff between Russia and the West.

The United States and European Union have already denounced it as illegitimate, but Russia has said it would recognize the result, deepening a crisis that began with the popular overthrow of a Moscow-backed president in February.

Poroshenko said the vote was "a farce, (conducted) under the barrels of tanks and machineguns".

"I hope Russia will not recognize the so-called elections because they are a clear violation of the Sept. 5 Minsk protocol, which was also signed by Russia's representative," he said, referring to an international peace agreement meant to end months of fighting between the separatists and Ukrainian troops.

In Donetsk, eastern Ukraine's former industrial capital and the separatists' political and military stronghold, Soviet music blared out of speakers in front of a central voting station carrying the separatist's red black and blue flag.

Across the region suffering from years of neglect and months of conflict, Russian speakers wary of the new pro-European government in Kiev stood in freezing temperatures to cast their vote, some near the remains of shrapnel from mortar bombings.

"We are citizens of Donetsk, and we don't want to live under the Kiev government that has turned its back on us," said Sergei Kovalenko, 58, a private security guard who came to vote with his wife at a polling station set up at an elementary school.

People brought truck loads of carrots, potatoes and cabbages to polling stations where they were sold off for pennies to those waiting in line.

Some of the heaviest artillery shelling of the past few weeks could be heard hours before voting was to begin. Rebels said more artillery was heard in a northern district of Donetsk during the vote.

Ukraine's military said three of its soldiers had been killed in the past 24 hours, two of them by an explosion at a check point near the city of Mariupol, which is under Ukrainian control.

Although sporadically broken, the Sept 5. truce has allowed a semblance of normality to return to Donetsk following violence that has killed more than 4,000 people.

Kiev says the Minsk agreements, signed by rebel leaders and envoys from Kiev, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), arrange for elections held under Ukrainian law that would appoint purely local officials.

But the rebels' plan to elect leaders and institutions in a breakaway territory in the regions of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk violates that agreement, Kiev says.

CONSOLIDATING POWER

Early last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would recognize the vote. On Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Russian President Vladimir Putin the election was illegitimate and would not be recognized by Europe.

Zakharchenko, the current rebel prime minister whose campaign advertisements are plastered across Donetsk, was almost certain to win the vote for the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic.

Using colorful language in a heavy local accent, Zakharchenko, 38, has compared the region's coal deposits to the oil reserves in the United Arab Emirates and has promised pensioners a stipend that will allow them to go on safari in Australia.

Wearing a dark suit rather than his usual military fatigues, Zakharchenko dropped his vote into a ballot box at a polling station at a local school: "For justice, happiness, peace and prosperity".

His opponents, two lesser known separatist figures, have rarely appeared in public. Public bulletins of the three candidates made no mention of the policies they endorse, but rather just listed biographical information.

"He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep. He works only for us 150 percent of the time," said Lyudmila Kovalenko, who works at a school. She said the rebel leadership had fixed the windows of the school after it was hit by a mortar.

Zakharchenko's election as rebel leader will mean little by way of change for the region which is increasingly dependent on Russia for support financially and politically.

"FOR THE REBELS THEMSELVES"

Rebels say the election will legitimize the separatist leadership and consolidate power in the midst of a humanitarian crisis which will only be worsened by the oncoming winter.

They have brought in observers from Europe and the Russian-backed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from the former Soviet republic of Georgia around the break up of the Soviet Union, as Donetsk and Luhansk did from Ukraine.

An exit poll monitor, Natalia Samostrokova, 35, said that by noon Zakharchenko was winning with some "90 percent of the vote and then some" as she scanned the results of her survey in a voting station in Makiyivka, east of Donetsk.

Enthusiasm for the rebel cause, which was at its peak in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east following the ouster of Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich, waned after violence closedbanks and many stores, forcing people out of work.

Voting stations drew a steady stream of people on Sunday, but many Donetsk residents say the vote will change nothing and question its validity given there are no voters lists.

"I don't see why I should vote. It won't change anything, and besides the election isn't for the people of Donetsk. It's for the rebels themselves," said Vitaly, 34.

Thousands protest Burkina Faso army 'coup'

 Burkina Faso's army cleared thousands of protesters from the capital and opened fire at state TV headquarters on Sunday, killing one person, as it sought to restore order following the resignation of President Blaise Compaore two days ago.

Compaore's 27 years in charge of the landlocked former French colony ended abruptly on Friday after two days of mass protests aimed at thwarting his bid to change the constitution to extend his rule.

The army then selected Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Zida as transitional leader, overriding an earlier claim by the army chief of staff.

But on Sunday there were signs of discontent with the appointment as thousands gathered in the capital Ouagadougou to demand a return to civilian rule, in line with the West African country's constitution.

Witnesses said prominent opposition leader Saran Sereme and an army general, along with a crowd of their supporters, headed to the RTB Television site on Sunday afternoon to declare themselves in charge of the transition but were thwarted by the army. Sereme denied this on local news website Burkina 24, saying she was brought to the station by force.

Gunshots rang out at the station and the channel was taken off the air for several hours. One person in the crowd was killed, an army spokesman said, calling for calm.

"The army does not want power. But the anarchy needs to stop. Any violation will be punished with the utmost energy," said Auguste Barry, referring to the incident at the television station earlier in the day.

Shortly afterwards, presidential guards moved in to prevent access to Ouagadougou's central Place de la Nation, the site of violent demonstrations against Compaore last week in which three people were killed and the parliament set ablaze.

BETRAYAL BY ARMY

Earlier, local people voiced outrage over what they saw as an attempt by the army to hijack their uprising and criticized the role of Zida, a large bespectacled man little known outside military circles whose trademark is a red beret.

One citizen carried a placard saying "Zida = Judas" while another said "Zida - get out of here".

"They are coming from Kossyam to enslave us," said protester Sanou Eric, referring to the country's presidential palace. "This is a coup d'etat. Zida has come out of nowhere."

"I am here to stop the army from stealing our victory," said another protester, Boubacar Sow.

The head of the United Nations Office for West Africa joined the United States and the African Union in rejecting the army's seizure of power but expressed cautious optimism about a return to civilian rule. Washington has also called for a power transfer to civilian authorities.

"We are hoping for a transition led by civilians in line with the constitution," Mohammed Ibn Chambas said.

"He (Zida) said he will reflect and try to work with the U.N., African Union and the Economic Community of West African States and to find an acceptable agreement which conforms to the constitution," said Chambas, adding that sanctions were a possibility if there was no progress.

Under Burkina Faso's constitution, the head of the National Assembly should take office if the president resigns, with a mandate to organize elections within 90 days. However the army has dissolved the legislature and suspended the constitution.

REGIONAL ALLY

Compaore, who seized power in the small, impoverished country in a 1987 coup, became a key ally of the United States and former colonial power France in operations against al Qaeda- linked groups in West Africa.

Locals blame Compaore for not doing more to tackle poverty in the nation of 17 million people by reinvesting government earnings from the gold and cotton sectors.

Diplomats say one reason why Compaore was so reluctant to leave power was his fear of prosecution on human rights charges, possibly linked to the death of left-wing revolutionary and former president Thomas Sankara, dubbed "Africa's Che Guevara".

Neighboring Ivory Coast confirmed on Saturday that Compaore had arrived there with his family and entourage but did not specify where he was staying.

The events in Ouagadougou are also being carefully followed by a generation of long-serving African leaders in Benin, Congo Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo who are also approaching the constitutional limits of their terms in office.

The United States and other Western countries have urged leaders to respect their constitutions, although analysts say that external pressure to democratize may be governed by strategic interests.

Washington can freeze military cooperation with Burkina Faso if it deems a coup has taken place.

Iraqi Kurds reinforce Kobani as U.S. planes pound Islamic State targets

 Syrian Kurds welcomed the arrival in Kobani of Iraqi Kurdish fighters with their heavy weapons, hoping they might tip the balance in the battle to defend the town against Islamic State, as U.S.-led air strikes continued to bomb the ultra-hardline group in Iraq and Syria.

Air strikes have helped to foil several attempts by the al Qaeda offshoot, notorious for its beheading of hostages, to take over Kobani. But they have done little to stop its advances, in particular in Sunni areas of western Iraq, where it has executed hundreds of tribesmen.

Islamic State fighters have mocked the U.S. air strikes as a campaign against Islam that they say has angered Muslims and helped the group win followers across the globe.

The arrival of the 150 Iraqi fighters, who have yet to participate in the battle, marks the first time Turkey has allowed ground troops from outside Syria to reinforce Syrian Kurds, who have been defending Kobani for more than 40 days.

The fighters - known as peshmerga, or "those who defy death" - were preparing themselves for the battle and are expected to take part in action in Kobani later on Saturday, Kurdish officials said.

"What was lacking is the weapons and ammunition, so the arrival of more of it plus the fighters will help tip the balance of the battle," Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of Kobani district, told Reuters by telephone from Kobani.

"The whole issue is the weapons and ammunition. Of course more fighters will help."

The U.S. military said it had carried out 10 air strikes against IS militants, five near Kobani and five in Iraq, since Friday.

The Kobani strikes "suppressed or destroyed" nine Islamic State fighting positions and a building. In Iraq, air strikes destroyed an Islamic State vehicle southwest of Mosul Dam and hit four vehicles and four buildings used by militants near Al Qaim, the U.S. military said in a statement.

DAUNTLESS AND EXPANDING

Undeterred by the air strikes, the Islamic State fighters continued a mass killing campaign in Iraq to wipe out resistance against the group. They executed 85 more members of the Albu Nimr tribe, according to a tribal leader and security official.

Tribal chief Sheikh Naeem al-Ga'oud told Reuters that Islamic State had killed 50 members of Albu Nimr who were fleeing the group in Anbar province on Friday. In a separate incident, a security official said 35 bodies had been found in a mass grave.

The group has executed a total of more than 300 tribe members in the past few days, Ga'oud and the official said.

Albu Nimr had held out for weeks under siege by Islamic State, but finally ran low on ammunition, fuel and food.

The militants have lost hundreds if not thousands of fighters since the Islamic State was declared in June, in battles against other Sunni rebels, Islamist groups, forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and in U.S.-led air strikes.

But fighters inside the group say that it was receiving hundreds of volunteers every month, which was helping it carry our more attacks. It was also receiving pledge of allegiances from Islamist groups in the world including Pakistan, Africa and some Arab states.

In another sign of the group's relentless efforts to expand despite the U.S.-led attacks, dozens of residents of the Libyan town of Derna have pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the group and self-proclaimed Caliph of all Muslims, according to a video posted online and residents.

Derna, a port halfway between the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi and the Egyptian border, has since 2011 turned into a gathering point for militant Islamists and al Qaeda sympathizers.

Fifteen members of Islamic State, led by an Egyptian and a Saudi national, traveled to Derna from Syria in September to try to rally support and establish an Islamic State branch in Libya, Egyptian security officials have said.

FSA IN KOBANI

On Saturday, intense gunfire could be heard in the town of Kobani and Iraqi peshmerga could be seen on the western side of the town, talking with YPG fighters - the main Syrian Kurdish armed group defending the town - and standing next to a cannon, footage from Reuters Television showed.

Also on the west of the city, fighters from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) who went to defend the town were seen driving flatbed trucks mounted with heavy machine guns and flying the three-star green, white and black Syrian flag, Reuters TV footage showed.

But the move by FSA - a term used to refer to dozens of armed groups fighting against Assad and Islamic State - drew criticism from opposition activists, who urged the fighters to deploy on fronts where the Western-backed rebels were losing to Assad's forces and to Islamists.

Syria's al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front seized on Saturday the Jabal al-Zawiya region, the last remaining stronghold of Western-backed rebels in Syria's northwest province of Idlib, after days of fighting.

Backed by other hardline Islamist groups, the Nusra Front are waging a major military campaign against the Syria Revolutionaries' Front led by Jamal Maarouf, a key figure in the armed opposition to Assad, after accusing him of being corrupt and working for the West against them.

Culled from Reuters

Virgin Galactic spaceship test flight ends in fatal crash

Richard Branson is set to meet his Virgin Galactic space team in California's Mojave Desert on Saturday following the crash of a passenger spaceship being developed by his company that killed one pilot and seriously injured the other.

The entrepreneur has pledged to keep up the drive for space travel, saying on the company's web site: "Space is hard - but worth it. We will persevere and move forward together."

Friday's crash of the suborbital vehicle, undergoing its first powered test flight since January over the Mojave, 95 miles (150 km) north of Los Angeles, was the second disaster suffered by a private space company in less than a week, dealing a blow to the fledgling commercial space launch industry.

On Tuesday, an Antares rocket built and launched by Orbital Sciences Corp exploded after liftoff from Wallops Island, Virginia, destroying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.

In the Virgin crash, one pilot body was found in the wreckage, while the second pilot, who ejected and parachuted to the ground, survived with serious injuries, according to Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood.

The survivor was found more than a mile from the main wreckage of SpaceShipTwo near the Mojave Air and Space Port, he said.

Television footage of the crash site showed wreckage of the spacecraft lying in two large pieces on the ground, and the company said the spacecraft was destroyed. Youngblood said a debris field was spread over more than a mile.

Both crew members were test pilots for Scaled Composites, the Northrop Grumman Corp subsidiary that designed and built the spacecraft for Virgin and lost three other employees in a July 2007 ground test accident.

"While not a NASA mission, the pain of this (new)tragedy will be felt by all the men and women who have devoted their lives to exploration," NASA, the U.S. space agency, said in a statement.

NEW FUEL

The crash occurred shortly after the craft separated from the jet airplane that carried it aloft for its high-altitude launch.

Scaled Composites President Kevin Mickey told a news conference on Friday the ill-fated flight was the first using a new rocket fuel formula the company switched to in May. He said the formula "had been proven and tested on the ground" before Friday's test launch.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending one of its teams to investigate.

More than 800 people have paid or put down deposits to eventually fly aboard the spaceship, which is hauled to an altitude of about 45,000 feet (13.7 kms) and released by Virgin's White Knight Two carrier jet airplane.

Cost of a ride on the ship now goes for $250,000 and among those who have signed up are celebrities including singer Lady Gaga and actors Angelina Jolie and Ashton Kutcher.

The Virgin and Antares back-to-back accidents are set backs for he commercial space launch industry, which has been taking on more work traditionally done by the governments while also expanding for-profit space markets, including tourism.

Culled from Reuters News

Nigeria's GDP on a steady rise despite Insurgency

Amb. Martin Uhomoibhi, outgoing Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Thursday that Nigeria’s economic growth rate had been steady despite the insurgency.

Uhomoibhi said this in an interview with NAN on the side line of an event organised in his honour by the African Diplomatic Corps in Abuja.

He commended the efforts of the military to curb the spread of terrorism in the country. “Terrorism is a challenge, it’s not a Nigerian problem, it’s a global challenge but Nigeria is attacking it from a uniquely Nigerian perspective.

“We are pursuing a whole of government approach using what we call ‘the carrot and stick approach’ to deal with it and I bet you, evil can never overcome good.

“The sheer size and the determination of the Nigerian people, the commitment of our leaders to that target is unmistakable and we will, with the collaboration and support of the world, deal with terrorism.

“If you look at the history all over the world what is happening is not new. It is naïve to think that terrorism can be dealt with in 24 hours; Nigeria is dealing with it in our development strategy.

“Nigeria is achieving 7.4 per cent growth of the GDP (Gross Domestic Products) every year for six years consecutively in spite of terrorism.

“There is no nation on earth that has battled terrorism and maintained a GDP growth. Nigeria has emerged as the biggest economy in the continent; emerged as the second most entertaining industry in the world.

“It is the latest kid on the block as one of the most attractive investment destination in the world. Look at what Nigeria is doing; rather than what it is not doing. With this, terrorism will pass.”

He also called urged Nigerians not to relent in the fight against terrorism
Culled from PM News Nigeria.