Around the World: March 20, 2015

 

GENEVA (AP) — By early June of last year, the Ebola epidemic centered on Guinea was the deadliest ever recorded. Foreign workers were being evacuated. Top disease-fighters warned that the virus could soon spread across West Africa.

 

But the World Health Organization resisted sounding the alarm until August, partly for political reasons, despite the fact that senior staff in Africa proposed doing so in June, The Associated Press has found. The two-month delay, some argue, may have cost lives. More than 10,000 are believed to have been killed by the virus since WHO first announced the outbreak a year ago.

 

WHO has acknowledged acting too slowly to control the Ebola epidemic. In its defense, the agency says the virus's spread was unprecedented and blames several factors, including lack of resources and intelligence from the field. Internal documents obtained by AP, however, show WHO's top leaders were informed of how dire the situation was. But they held off on declaring an emergency in part because it could have angered the countries involved, interfered with their mining interests or restricted the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in October.

 

Declaring an emergency was "a last resort," Dr. Sylvie Briand, who runs WHO's pandemic and epidemic diseases department, said in a June 5 email to a colleague who floated the idea. "It may be more efficient to use other diplomatic means for now."

 

Five days after Briand's email, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan was sent a memo that warned cases might soon appear in Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea Bissau. But it went on to say that declaring an international emergency or even convening a committee to discuss it "could be seen as a hostile act."

 

 

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Around lunchtime, the crackle of gunfire broke the leisurely calm of a visit to one of Tunisia's best-known museums: Two attackers went on a rampage targeting tourists. By the end, after police traded fire with the gunmen and special forces barreled in, the duo and 21 others were dead.

 

Tunisia's deadliest terror attack in more than a decade jolted locals out of their daily routines and took the cherished lives of visitors who make up a major breadwinner for the democracy-minded North African country of 11 million, according to accounts from witnesses, victims and a police official.

 

Wednesday's attack at Tunis' National Bardo Museum, claimed by the Islamic State group that has sought to spread its bloodthirsty influence beyond its base in Syria and Iraq, drew immediate condemnation from many world leaders and promises from Tunisian officials and citizens that they won't bow to terror.

 

For Mohamed Ali, an unemployed 42-year-old father of four who lives in the Bardo district, the episode upended a family stroll to the zoo. Looking in through a high fence around the museum grounds next to parliament, he saw men pull automatic weapons out of bags and calmly walk inside, opening fire on tourists either inside a bus or emerging from it.

 

"There were police on one side of the bus that they set upon, and the terrorists were hiding on the other side," he told The Associated Press in an interview in the popular La Gazelle cafe across the street a day after the attack. "There was an exchange of fire, and the gunmen took refuge in the museum."

 

 

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Want to understand what nuclear talks with Iran are about but don't know uranium from plutonium, or a centrifuge from a fuel cycle?

 

Here is a primer for the technical talks in Switzerland as U.S. and Iranian negotiators try to seal a framework agreement before the end of March, scaling back Iranian programs that can lead to nuclear weapons and easing crippling sanctions. The deadline for a final accord is end of June.

 

The United States' primary concern is Iran's ability to enrich uranium. Iran says its aims are for peaceful energy, medical and scientific purposes, but many governments believe it has nuclear weapons ambitions.

 

 

TORSHAVN, Faeroe Islands (AP) — Thousands of sky-gazers on the Faeroe Islands are hoping for the clouds to part so that they can get a clear view of a total solar eclipse.

 

The tiny island group in the North Atlantic and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard are the only places on land where the sun will be completely obscured by the moon during Friday's eclipse.

 

Clouds are covering the sky over the capital, Torshavn, but with the sun occasionally breaking through, as the big moment nears.

 

More than 11,000 tourists, eclipse chasers and scientists with telescopes, cameras and glasses for safe direct solar viewing have invaded the Faeroes for the almost three-minute-long astronomical sensation.

 

The phenomenon will later be seen in Svalbard, more than 2,000 kilometers (1,270 miles) to the northeast.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Whether the issue is immigration or federal budgets, Republicans keep learning a bitter lesson: Their sizable and near-historic congressional majority doesn't necessarily mean they can govern.

 

House Republican leaders confronted that truth again this week when fiscal conservatives unexpectedly blocked a leadership plan for the new federal budget.

 

The struggle, which pits Republicans who want a more robust military against those bent on cutting spending, will have to be resolved later in the full House.

 

Even if that happens, however, lawmakers say GOP leaders will still confront deep ideological divisions that could wreak chaos later this year when it's time to raise the debt ceiling, fund the government and address other big issues that fire up conservative talk shows.

 

GOP leaders lack some of the disciplinary tools their predecessors had, colleagues say. And a significant number of House Republicans have little incentive to bend because they are elected by fiercely conservative voters who detest political compromise.

 

 

DARRINGTON, Wash. (AP) — The new sign for Steelhead Drive is fresh green with white lettering. But the road it announces is a mere stub of pavement, ending in a massive gray-and-brown scab of mud, clay and broken timber where a rural Washington state neighborhood once sat.

 

A rain-soaked hillside collapsed suddenly on March 22, 2014, sending 18 million tons of sand and soil thundering across a river valley north of Seattle, destroying dozens of homes and entombing 43 people in the deadliest landslide in U.S. history.

 

A year later, as a bill moves through the state legislature to improve mapping of landslide-prone areas and give local planners a better idea of risky development areas, the mangled cars and homes have been cleaned up, but reminders of loss are everywhere.

 

"Those thoughts and memories are out there every time you head down the valley," said Dan Rankin, the mayor in nearby Darrington.

 

Yet living with the scarred landscape also reminds them of how they tirelessly searched for victims, of their gratitude for the well-wishes they received and of the millions of dollars in contributions that poured in for housing, counseling and mortgage payments on destroyed properties.

 

 

TANNA ISLAND, Vanuatu (AP) — Thousands of people left homeless by a fierce cyclone remained stuck in shelters across Vanuatu on Friday, waiting for relief and longing for a return to normalcy as the death toll from the disaster rose by two to 13.

 

Australian and French troops arrived on the South Pacific nation's hard-hit island of Tanna, where shaken residents were still waiting for help after their villages were flattened by Cyclone Pam's 270 kilometer (168 mile) per hour winds last Saturday.

 

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, citing figures from Vanuatu's National Disaster Management Office, upgraded the number of confirmed deaths to 13 from 11. Among the dead were seven people from Tafea Province, which includes Tanna, and six from Shefa Province, which includes the main island of Efate.

 

Still, given the immense power of the storm, the relatively low death toll is a testament to the residents' experience in dealing with cyclones. In many villages, people found shelter in special structures built with sturdy walls that can withstand heavy winds.

 

Vanuatu's government authorized the distribution of emergency food and water supplies to affected areas, but was still waiting to finish its damage assessment report before beginning a wider distribution of relief items.

 

 

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Just when flowering bulbs were poking out their heads and snow shovels were getting a well-deserved rest, winter weather has come back. And on the first day of spring no less.

 

Forecasters say a storm will dump up to 6 inches of snow on the Northeast and mid-Atlantic on Friday. New England will be on the lower end of the snow totals but even Boston, which has seen a record 108.6 inches of snow, could get an inch or 2 more.

 

A few locations, particularly in the higher elevations, could see much more of the white stuff, said meteorologist Bruce Terry of the National Weather Service. South central Pennsylvania will be in the bulls-eye of the storm and receive up to 10 inches of snow, he said on Thursday. Western Maryland could get slammed with up to 8 inches.

 

Terry said that of all the cities, New York will get hit the hardest. The Big Apple is expected to get 4 to 6 inches of wet snow.

 

Some areas also will see rain.

 

 

Actress and Kentucky Wildcats fan Ashley Judd is firing back at those who posted threats and hateful comments online after she tweeted that she thought Arkansas was playing dirty in its SEC basketball matchup with her alma mater.

 

In an online essay posted Thursday on mic.com, Judd says she routinely copes with tweets that "sexualize, objectify, insult, degrade and even physically threaten me."

 

But she writes, "this particular tsunami of gender-based violence and misogyny flooding my Twitter feed was overwhelming."

 

Judd said this week in an interview on MSNBC that she planned to press charges if she could.

 

She wrote in the essay, "I must, as a woman who was once a girl, as someone who uses the Internet, as a citizen of the world, address personally, spiritually, publicly and even legally, the ripe dangers that invariably accompany being a woman and having an opinion about sports or, frankly, anything else."

 

 

Fourteen is the new 12 this year at the NCAA Tournament.

 

The heart-pounding first full day of the tournament was headlined by two No. 14 seeds taking down two No. 3 seeds before the day was even half over. Trendy Final Four pick Iowa State lost to UAB, 60-59, and Georgia State edged Baylor, 57-56. Northeastern nearly made it a clean sweep for the three 14s in action on Thursday when it put a scare into Notre Dame before falling 69-65.

 

Northeastern and UAB had two of the five one-point victories on the day, the most ever for a single day in the tournament and as many as the previous two tournaments combined. Now at least one 14-seed has beaten a 3 in each of the last three tournaments. It was the first time since 1995 that two No. 14s have advanced.

 

Conventional wisdom when filling out brackets includes always picking a 12 seed to beat a No. 5. It happens practically every year. But this time around, Utah beat Stephen F. Austin and Arkansas beat underdog Wofford to make the No. 5s 2-0 on the day.

 

There is one more 14 seed waiting to play. Albany will play No. 3 Oklahoma on Friday.