Tag: Nigeria

Pandora Report 7.26.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

Mason students are working through their summer courses and I’m happy to say mine is OVER! Let the summer begin (two months late)! This week we’ve got great news about Polio in Nigeria and a somber anniversary in Japan. We’ve also got other stories you may have missed.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week!

A-Bomb Victims Remembered in Potsdam, Where Truman Ordered Nuclear Strikes

Coming up on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, German and Japanese citizens in the city of Potsdam held a remembrance ceremony for both the victims that died in the blast and the future. Japan has become, according to the former President of the International Court of Justice, the world’s conscience against nuclear weapons and power. Why? Japan is “the only country in the world to have been the victim of both military and civilian nuclear energy, having experienced the crazy danger of the atom, both in its military applications, destruction of life and its beneficial civilian use, which has now turned into a nightmare with the serious incidents of Fukushima.”

Japan Times—“The Potsdam Conference was held between July 17 and Aug. 2 in 1945. The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and another bomb on Nagasaki three days later. On Aug. 15 that year, Emperor Hirohito announced to the nation that Japan had accepted the Potsdam Declaration, in which the United States, Britain and China demanded the nation’s unconditional surrender.”

Nigeria Beats Polio

Very, very, very exciting news: Nigeria has not had a case of polio in a year. A year! This makes Nigeria polio free and the last country in Africa to eliminate the disease. The achievement was possible with contributions from the Nigerian government (where elimination of the disease was a point of “national pride”), UNICEF, the WHO, the CDC, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International, and other organizations. With Nigeria’s accomplishment, there are only two other countries in the world where polio still exists—Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Voice of America—“Carol Pandek heads Rotary International’s polio program. She told VOA via Skype that a year being polio-free is a milestone for Nigeria, but noted that it is not over. “Now they need to continue to do high quality immunization campaigns for the next several years,” she said, as well as have a strong surveillance system so, should there be any new cases, they can be identified as soon as possible.”

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Image Credit: Fg2

Pandora Report 6.7.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

We’ve got stories this week about MERS spread in South Korea and Ebola drugs that may already be in your medicine cabinet. We’ve also got some stories you may have missed.

As a reminder, the Early Registration Deadline for the Pandemics, Bioterrorism, and International Security professional education course has been extended to June 15. For more information and registration, please click here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

South Korea Grapples to Contain MERS as 1,369 in Quarantine

The big story this week is MERS in South Korea. Last week we reported that there were five cases. As of Friday, the number has jumped to 36 confirmed cases and three deaths. Hundreds of schools have closed in an effort to prevent further spreading of the disease, which arrived in a 68-year old index patient who had traveled in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. Many in public health have been surprised by the extent of the outbreak in South Korea because the virus has not been shown to pass easily from human to human and the health care system is “considered to be sophisticated and modern.”

CNN—“‘This is quite unusual. I think this is the only country, apart from those in the Middle East, that has such a number of cases,” said [Dr. Leo] Poon [a virology expert at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, who worked on the SARS outbreak more than a decade ago]. “It’s not entirely surprising. In the Middle East, people in Saudi Arabia had hospital outbreaks where a few people got infected. It’s a similar situation at the moment.’”

Drugs to Fight Ebola May Already Be in Your Medicine Cabinet, Study Suggests

A team from USAMRIID, the University of Virginia, and Horizon Discovery Inc. have been working to determine if any existing drugs could be used to fight Ebola. Using 2,635 compounds, including FDA-approved drugs, amino acids, food additives, vitamins and minerals they discovered a possible answer could already be in your medicine cabinet—Zoloft and Vascor.

The LA Times—“But Zoloft (also known by the generic name sertraline) and Vascor (generic name bepridil) had more encouraging results. Of the 10 mice that got Zoloft, seven survived for 28 days. Even better, all 10 of the mice treated with Vascor were still alive 28 days after [Ebola] infection. For the sake of comparison, all of the untreated mice that served as controls were dead within nine days.”

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Image Credit: Shikhlinski

Terrorism in 2013

by juliadhomstad, posted in News

By Erik Goepner

An estimated 61% more people perished from terrorist attacks in 2013[1] than did in 2012. As the Global Terrorism Index Report authors note, those 18,000 deaths far surpassed the 3,361 deaths from terrorist attacks in 2000. Drawing on data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism’s Global Terrorism Database, the report and the data it contains have much to offer.

Interested in how terrorist group ideology has morphed over the past decade and a half? Check out the following graphic and observe how the religious-based groups have come to dominate terrorist activity.

Terrorism 2013(Source: Global Terrorism Index 2014, p. 31)

Who conducted the attacks? Two-thirds of the fatalities were caused by four groups: the Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda and its affiliates. As the report noted, “extreme interpretations of Wahhabi Islam” were the key commonality among the groups.

Unsurprisingly, more than 50% of the fatalities occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria accounted for another 30% of the fatalities.  In total, those five countries bore the brunt for 82% of terrorist-caused fatalities last year.

Looking at the details of the attacks, half of them resulted in no fatalities. Approximately 40% killed between one and five people, while 10% took the lives of six or more human beings. The most lethal form of attack was suicide bomber. While suicide attacks had the highest failure rate (56%), they caused an average of 11 fatalities per attack as compared to two fatalities for all other forms of terrorist attack.

Last year, suicide attacks only accounted for five percent of all terrorist attacks. Of concern, though, the Islamic State conducted 58 of the suicide attacks. By comparison, the two most prolific suicide attack groups over the past decade—al-Qaeda in Iraq and Tehrik-I-Taliban in Pakistan—have averaged 13 and 14 suicide attacks per year, respectively.

As a final note—perhaps for balance, perhaps to recognize the role of fear in terrorism—how might we understand the tragic loss of 18,000 lives to terrorism last year as compared to the 430,000[2] who were killed in homicides?

 

Image Credit: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Terrorism Prevention

[1] The authors of the report note that the manner of data collection for the Global Terrorism Database became more automated in 2011. As a result, some events that may have been missed in prior years would now be collected, possibly inflating numbers for 2011 and following years. In response, they modeled three approaches. For example, their conservative model indicated the number of terrorist events rose by 475% since 2000, as compared to a 689% increase for the upper bounded model.

[2] See the Global Study on Homicide 2013 available at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/publications-by-date.html

Pandora Report 11.9.14

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

We’ve got some timely stories this week: just in time for Veteran’s Day, we look at military exposure to chemical agents in Iraq, and at the beginning of flu season we look at the newest suspension of Yoshihiro Kawaoka’s H5N1 research. We’ve also got an Ebola update.

Have a great week!

More Than 600 Reported Chemical Exposure in Iraq, Pentagon Acknowledges

With Veteran’s Day on Tuesday, The New York Times uncovered an unfortunate military oversight that could affect over 600 service members. Originally, NYT found 17 soldiers who had been exposed to abandoned, damaged, or degraded chemical weapons in Iraq. Later 25 more came forward, and after a review of Pentagon records, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said that hundreds of troops told the military they were exposed. The Pentagon says it will now expand outreach to veterans who believe they may have been exposed.

The New York Times—“Phillip Carter, who leads veterans programs at the Center for a New American Security, called the Pentagon’s failure to organize and follow up on the information “a stunning oversight.” Paul Rieckhoff, founder and executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the military must restore trust by sharing information.”

Kawaoka’s Controversial Flu Research at UW-Madison On Hold Again

Once again, Yoshihiro Kawaoka has halted his research of H5N1 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kawaoka created an altered version of the H5N1 flu virus to look at transmissibility between mammals. On October 17, the Obama administration said they would postpone federal funding for gain-of-function studies, including those involving flu, SARS and MERS. Roughly 50% of Kawaoka’s work involves gain of function, and he paused all experiments that “might enhance pathogenicity or transmissibility.”

Wisconsin State Journal—“The White House announcement comes in response to incidents this year involving anthrax, flu and smallpox at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. “The incidents occurring at federal facilities this summer have underscored the importance of laboratory safety, and they also prompted calls for a reassessment of the risks and benefits that are associated with research involving dangerous pathogens,” Samuel Stanley, chairman of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, said during a meeting of the group Oct. 22.”

This Week in Ebola

The Ebola ‘outbreak’ in Texas is over and MSF has confirmed the decline of cases in Liberia, however, Ebola cases have risen ‘sharply’ in Sierra Leone. While Kari Hickox remained in the news explaining the reasons she fought against quarantine, it appears, as feared, that mandatory quarantine for volunteers returning from West Africa is causing some to re-consider their commitments. Meanwhile the U.S. Army has identified five possible bases for returning troop quarantine and the Pentagon has awarded a $9.5 million contract Profectus BioSciences, Inc. for development of an Ebola vaccine. President Obama asked Congress for $6 billion to fight Ebola in the U.S. and West Africa. NBC News reported that “The U.S. is keen to be seen as leading the international response to Ebola” but there is another country in the Americas contributing to the fight—Cuba. Also in the Americas, Canada’s policy of denying visas for people coming from West Africa is called into question, and five American airports are learning a lot about infection control. Back in West Africa, Nigeria’s success in fighting Ebola has been attributed to their fight against polio. Lastly, on the heels of Mark Zuckerberg’s $25 million donation to fight Ebola, he launched a button at the top the newsfeed that links users to places where they can donate, too.

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Image Credit: NBC News

Game of Goons: Boko Haram & the War on Educated Girls

by juliadhomstad, posted in News

By Alena M. James

It has been nearly a month since the terrorist organization known as Boko Haram raided a secondary school located in Chibok—a Local Government Area located in Borno State, Nigeria. During the raid, the terrorist group abducted more than 200 girls and loaded them onto trucks. Many of the girls were tricked into believing the terrorists were soldiers. Some of the girls believed the men to be evil and managed to escape the village by jumping from the trucks to get away. The brave girls who escaped shared their horrific stories with loved ones and authorities who were startled by the event that had transpired.

The majority of the girls involved in the abduction campaign remain missing and social movements are taking place to spread awareness and rally support in efforts to find them. Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani girl who was targeted for assassination by the Taliban, spoke out against the abductions referring to the abductees as “her sisters” and condemned Boko Haram for their lack of understanding of Islam saying, “They should go and they should learn Islam, and I think that they should think of these girls as their own sisters. How can one imprison their own sisters and treat them in such a bad way?” Malala has helped to perpetuate the #BringBackOurGirls campaign to speak up for her sisters.

In an unsettling video message acquired by Nigerian authorities, the terrorist group’s leader, Abubaka Shekau, announced he intends to sell the 15-18 year old girls into the human trafficking market coercing the girls into marriages, forcing them into slavery, and having them sexually exploited.  The extremist leader declared, “I abducted a girl at a Western education school and you are disturbed. I said Western education should end. Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married.”

Several countries have offered their support in the search for the missing girls. France, the United Kingdom, China, and the United States have deployed teams to aid in rescue efforts. Reports have suggested that the girls have been divided into groups and likely carried across Nigeria’s borders into the countries of Chad and Cameroon.

Boko Haram is an Islamic Extremist Group that was founded in 2002. Since then, the terrorist organization has fought against the Nigerian government which they view as advocates for the influence of Western Culture. The U.S. declared Boko Haram a terrorist organization in 2013 based on their suicide attack on a UN building in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, in 2011.

Following is a Terrorist Group profile on the organization.

Ideology

The group firmly adheres to Islam and believes that western influence does not belong in Nigeria.  The organization fights against Western societies and deems Western education as sinful. The group desires to make Nigeria an Islamist State and seeks to impose Sharia Law on the country. They also target “false Muslims.”

Leadership Style

The organization was first led by Mohammed Yusuf, a western educated Nigerian who considered Western Education to corrupt one’s belief in one God.  Analysts have described Yusuf as being both very wealthy and highly educated. Yusuf was killed trying to escape Nigerian police in 2009.  After Yusuf’s death, he was succeed by Abubakr Sheku.  Sheku has been described as a quiet theologian possessing an eidetic memory. He is fluent in the languages of Kanuri, Hausa, Arabic, and English. Reports indicate that Sheku lacks charisma and oratorical skills, but his ruthless actions makes him incredibly dangerous. The US placed a $7 million bounty on Sheku. The leader continually releases recorded video messages taking credit for its terrorist operations in Nigeria.

Demographics

Several reports have announced classified members of the Boko Haram as being individuals stemming from low social economic statuses. The group attracts individuals in need of wealth and is believed to be comprised of men from other countries such as Chad, Somalia, and Sudan.

Monetary Sources

It is unclear from where Boko Haram receives the monetary resources to fund its operations, but reports suggest the group relies on contributions from its members and possibly other Islamic militant groups.

Logistical & Tactical Resources

The group is suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda and to have received training in terrorist tactics such as carrying out explosion operations. The US reported in its 2011 National Strategy for Counterterrorism (page 16) that Boko Haram had ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). However, even Al Qaeda has expressed its opposition to the school girls’ abductions.

Targets

According to START’s Global Terrorism Database, the group has targeted numerous establishments over the years. Businesses, educational institutions, government facilities, military facilities, police stations, bus stations, private citizens, religious figures, and telecommunication establishments, among others. The group has targeted 52 educational facilities and 79 government buildings.

Weapon Types

Also, according to data collected from START’s Global Terrorism Database, the group relies heavily on explosives, firearms, and incendiary devices to carry out its operations. Armed assaults comprise the majority of the organization’s attacks. The database indicates that more than 320 armed assaults and 205 bombing/explosion attacks have been carried out by Boko Haram.

 

Much of the information collected in the profile above was obtained and summarized from circulating news sources, a report provided by the Anti-Defamation League published in 2012, an exposition provided by The Council on Foreign Relations, and the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism’s Global Terrorism Database. Additional sources contributing information can be found via the links provided.

 

(Image Credit: NBC)