A worried world watches as Ebola death toll rises; Liberia declares emergency
August 7, 2014 -- Updated 0720 GMT (1520 HKT)
A nurse in Nigeria. A businessman in Saudi Arabia. A Spanish priest in Liberia.
With the World Health Organization announcing Wednesday that 932 deaths had been reported or confirmed as a result of Ebola hemorrhagic fever, Saudi Arabia joined the list of countries with suspected cases.
"This is the biggest and most complex Ebola outbreak in history," Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
Nearly all of those deaths have been in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where more than 1,700 cases have been reported, according to WHO. The agency said 108 new cases were reported between Saturday and Monday in those countries and Nigeria.
7 August 2014 Last updated at 07:25
Top Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity
Two top Khmer Rouge leaders have been jailed for life after being convicted by Cambodia's UN-backed tribunal of crimes against humanity.
Nuon Chea, 88, served as leader Pol Pot's deputy and Khieu Samphan, 83, was the Maoist regime's head of state.
They are the first top-level leaders to be held accountable for its crimes.
Up to two million people are thought to have died under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime - of starvation and overwork or executed as enemies of the state.
Judge Nil Nonn said the men were guilty of "extermination encompassing murder, political persecution, and other inhumane acts comprising forced transfer, enforced disappearances and attacks against human dignity''.
Uproar as India photo shoot mimics bus gang-rape case
Photographer Raj Shetye criticised after posing fashion models in scenes echoing brutal and fatal assault of woman on bus
An Indian photographer has sparked outrage for a fashion shoot that depicted a woman being assaulted on a bus, echoing a fatal gang-rape that shocked the nation.
The project by photographer Raj Shetye, called The Wrong Turn, appeared in his online portfolio and was then taken down, but not before coming to the attention of the media. The photos show a female model dressed in high-end fashion garments being groped on a bus by a group of men, also fashionably dressed, in various poses.
In one image the woman is on the floor with a man standing over her, while one shows her struggling with two men gripping her arms and another has two men pinning her down on the seats.
Erdogan’s rhetoric risks fuelling anti-Semitism in Turkey
Prime minister says Israel’s actions have surpassed ‘even Hitler’s’
Stephen Starr
A walk through Istanbul’s touristy Galata neighbourhood reveals churches, mosques and no fewer than three synagogues.
Under the shadow of the Galata Tower, tiny surveillance cameras sit perched above the Neve Shalom synagogue’s heavy, metal doors on which the Star of David is inscribed. A sheer concrete wall, conspicuous because of the absence of any windows or glass, occupies the floors above the entrance.
Unlike the nearby churches and mosques, there is little life outside the building. Visitors are required to fill out application forms and provide passport details at least four days in advance of entering Istanbul’s synagogues.
But history has shown there’s good reason for caution.
Threat from drug-resistant malaria is 'immense'
Drug-resistant malaria parasites are spreading across Southeast Asia, a new study found. Oxford University's Elizabeth Ashley, who led the study, tells DW the mutation poses a major threat to advances in malaria control.
The study, carried out by the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, concluded that the strand of the disease that is resistant to the world's most effective antimalarial drug - artemisinin - is now firmly established in border regions in four Southeast Asian countries. The scientists analyzed blood samples from over 1,200 malaria patients in 10 countries across Asia and Africa and found thatPlasmodium falciparum, which is the most deadly form of the malaria-causing parasite and resistant to the treatment drug, is now common in parts of Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos.
Reassuringly, researchers found no signs of resistance in the three African sites included in the study: Kenya, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, there are signs of emerging resistance of the mosquito-borne disease in central Myanmar, southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia. The researchers said doubling the course of antimalarial treatment, from three days to six, could help fight the resistance problem, but time was short. Malaria killed an estimated 627,000 people in 2012, mostly African children, according to the WHO.
40,000 Yazidi refugees trapped in Iraqi mountains, face dehydration, starvation
August 7, 2014 - 11:27AMMitchell Prothero
Erbil: Desperate to reach tens of thousands of people who fled the Islamist militant takeover of the northern Iraqi city of Sinjar and are now trapped in rugged mountains outside the city, international aid officials and representatives of the Kurdistan Regional Government on Wednesday called for the United States to mount a humanitarian mission to reach the beleaguered refugees.
With reports indicating that the displaced people were running out of water, a Kurdish security official said that the Iraqi air force lacked the resources needed to deliver enough supplies to ease the crisis. An Iraqi helicopter reportedly dropped some aid on Tuesday, he said, but it was unclear whether that assistance - primarily, bottled water - had reached its target.
International aid officials said there is no way to safely approach the area by land.
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