Police Brutality Claims Shadow Tunisia Elections

Tunisian women demonstrate outside a courthouse where three police officers face charges of rape of a 27-year-old woman, in Tunis, Tunisia. 

TUNIS, TUNISIA (AP) — When Mohammed Ali Snoussi was arrested last month in Tunis, witnesses say, police beat him with truncheons, stripped him naked and threatened to rape him in broad daylight.

The Interior Ministry said Snoussi was wanted for drug possession, trafficking and assaulting police. He lasted six days in police detention cells, before he was transferred to a hospital where he died in a coma, his body covered in bruises.

Nearly four years after an uprising fueled largely by anger over police brutality overthrew one of the most repressive states in the region, ordinary Tunisians say daily abuses by security forces remain a major problem in the country. On Sunday, Tunisians are set to vote in parliamentary elections that will nearly complete the democratic transition begun by the revolution, but many fear the brutal ways of the former regime are creeping back — and in fact may never have gone away.

According to Human Rights Watch, police regularly abuse detainees in prison and pre-trial detention facilities, denying them access to legal counsel and holding them in filthy, overcrowded cells. In a survey of 100 detainees awaiting charges, the organization found that 30 percent said they had been subject to physical abuse including electric shocks, in order to extract confessions or evidence.

"I think we can say with confidence that practices of police abuse never stopped," said Amna Guellali, Human Rights Watch's Tunisian representative. Those bearing the brunt of the police violence are ordinary, lower income Tunisians living in poor neighborhoods regularly targeted under harsh drug possession laws, which mandate at least a year in prison for carrying drugs, said the rights group.

Much like pre-revolution times, they face nighttime house raids and constant neighborhood sweeps, followed by abuse in the police stations, with little recourse to justice, activists say. Tunisia's police have long treated the poor harshly, and the Arab Spring upheavals were in fact set off when an itinerant fruit vendor set himself on fire in protest against police abuse.

Tunisian Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou admitted there are abuses in prison, but strongly denied systematic torture of detainees. In a radio interview this month, he said Snoussi died of drug use which caused a lung infection that spread to his heart. He said a prosecutor and an investigator found no traces of police beating him.

"The autopsy is clear. It is not logical that after the revolution we would hide the truth," he said. "You can't assign security forces responsibility for a natural death, as was the case." In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, most security forces withdrew from the streets of Tunisia in the face of the widespread outrage against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's police state. But the rise of extremist groups during the ensuing social instability has led to their rehabilitation.

In the past few years, Islamic radicals went from publicly demonstrating for greater piety to attacking people. Two left-wing politicians were gunned down in 2013 and dozens of soldiers were killed in attacks in remote border regions, causing people to clamor for greater security.

According to critics, however, terrorism is being used as an excuse to let the police literally get away with murder — with ordinary people rather than extremists or government opponents the most common targets.

In August, security services in the southern city of Kasserine opened fire on a car travelling home from a wedding, killing two young women. Violent protests broke out in the city, demanding prosecution of the officers involved.

But Kasserine is near Mount Chaambi on the Algerian border, which is believed to be the hideout for a group of al-Qaida-linked militants. The Interior Ministry maintained the officers were only defending themselves, and no one was prosecuted.

During the time of Ben Ali, the Interior Ministry was notorious for using the threat of sexual violence to intimidate female activists and for launching smear campaigns against government opponents. Sabra Badbabis, a 25 year-old human rights activist and blogger in Tunis, said the behavior continues. She described how she recently left work at a call center around midnight to find herself accosted by two men who turned out to be plainclothes policemen.

"They grabbed me and pulled my arms back and pushed my head down," she said. "Don't say you're a respectable woman," she recalled them telling her. "You went out at this time of night. Whatever happens to you is your fault."

She said she was taken the police station, where she was insulted and propositioned. She said she was only released after she threatened to make the incident public on her blog. The Association Against Torture in Tunisia wants to persuade the new crop of lawmakers who emerge from the election to take measures against police violations. The group's general secretary, Mondher Cherni, said the goal is to pressure the newly elected politicians to carry out real reform of security services and detention centers.

Cherni says police brutality is alienating whole sections of Tunisian society from the nation's democratic transition. "The people feel that the state doesn't look after them," he said, "because it's not stopping this."

Probe: UNC Academic Fraud Was 'Shadow Curriculum

University of North Carolina Chancellor Carol Folt, center, addresses the media following a special joint meeting of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors and the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees  

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — A scandal involving bogus classes and inflated grades at the University of North Carolina was bigger than previously reported, encompassing about 1,500 athletes who got easy A's and B's over a span of nearly two decades, according to an investigation released Wednesday.

At least nine university employees were fired or under disciplinary review, and the question now becomes what, if anything, the NCAA will do next. Penalties could range from fewer scholarships to vacated wins.

Most of the athletes were football players or members of the school's cherished basketball program, which won three of its five national titles during the scandal (1993, 2005, 2009). Athletic director Bubba Cunningham wouldn't speculate on any possible sanctions.

"We'll work with the NCAA and work through the report with them as part of our ongoing investigation," Cunningham said. "That's going to take some time." In all, about 3,100 students enrolled in classes they didn't have to show up for in what was deemed a "shadow curriculum" within the former African and Afro-American Studies (AFAM) department from 1993 to 2011, the report by former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein found.

Many at the university hoped Wainstein's eight-month investigation would bring some closure. Instead, it found more academic fraud than previous investigations by the NCAA and the school. The UNC case stands out among academic scandals at Harvard, Duke and the Naval Academy, said Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education who studies cheating.

"I think the existence of fake classes and automatic grades — you might say an athlete track, where essentially you might as well not have the university at all — I think that's pretty extreme. I hope it's pretty extreme," he said.

The scandal reached back to the final years of legendary men's basketball coach Dean Smith's tenure, as well as Mack Brown's time as football coach before leaving for Texas and John Swofford's stint as athletic director before becoming Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner.

The NCAA reopened its probe over the summer. Cunningham said the school had no immediate plans to impose its own penalties as it did during an NCAA investigation into the football program that began in 2010.

The school and the NCAA said in a joint statement they would review Wainstein's report "under the same standards that are applied in all NCAA infractions cases." They declined to comment on possible rules violations.

The focus was courses that required only a research paper that was often scanned quickly by a secretary, who gave out high grades regardless of the quality of work. The report also outlined how counselors for athletes steered struggling students to the classes, with two counselors even suggesting grades. Several knew the courses were easy and didn't have an instructor.

Chancellor Carol Folt wouldn't identify the terminated employees or those facing disciplinary review. "I think it's very clear that this is an academic, an athletic and a university problem," Folt said.

Wainstein's report said it found no evidence of similar problems in other departments. In addition, Hall of Fame men's basketball coach Roy Williams and other current coaches said they were aware there were independent study courses offering easy grades, but they didn't know the classes were fake.

Wainstein said he found no reason not to believe them. Faculty and administration officials missed or looked past red flags, such as unusually high numbers of independent study course enrollments in the department, the report said.

"By the mid-2000s, these classes had become a primary — if not the primary — way that struggling athletes kept themselves from having eligibility problems," the report said. Unlike previous inquiries by former Gov. Jim Martin and the school, Wainstein had the cooperation of former department chairman Julius Nyang'oro and retired office administrator Deborah Crowder — the two people at the center of the scandal.

Nyang'oro was indicted in December on a felony fraud charge, though it was dropped after he agreed to cooperate with Wainstein's probe. Crowder was never charged. It was Crowder who started the paper classes to help struggling students with "watered-down requirements" not long after Nyang'oro became chairman in 1992, according to the report. Though not a faculty member, she registered students for the courses, assigned topics and handed out high grades regardless of the work and also signed Nyang'oro's name to grade rolls.

By 1999, in an apparent effort to work around the number of independent studies students could take, Crowder began offering lecture classes that didn't meet. After her retirement in 2009, Nyang'oro met requests from football counselors to continue the sham classes and graded papers "with an eye to boosting" a student's grade-point average, according to the report. He stepped down in 2011 as questions were raised.

Beth Bridger, one of the former football counselors named in Wainstein's report, was fired Wednesday as an academic adviser for athletes at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. A school spokeswoman Janine Iamunno said it would not comment further. Bridger was hired there in January.

Associated Press writer Emery Dalesio contributed to this report.

Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aaronbeardap

Ebola: Providing Time To Fight The Virus

Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks at a news conference in Atlanta. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — People who shared an apartment with the country's first Ebola patient are emerging from quarantine healthy. And while Thomas Eric Duncan died and two U.S. nurses were infected caring for him, there are successes, too: A nurse infected in Spain has recovered, as have four American aid workers infected in West Africa. Even there, not everyone dies.

So why do some people escape Ebola, and not others? The end of quarantine for 43 people in Dallas who had contact with Duncan "simply supports what most of us who know something about the disease have been saying all along: It's not that easily spread," said Dr. Joseph McCormick of the University of Texas School of Public Health. Formerly with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, McCormick worked on the first known Ebola outbreak in 1976 and numerous other outbreaks of Ebola and related hemorrhagic viruses.

Ebola spreads by contact with bodily fluids, such as through a break in the skin or someone with contaminated hands touching the eyes or nose. Once inside the body, Ebola establishes a foothold by targeting the immune system's first line of defense, essentially disabling its alarms. The virus rapidly reproduces, infecting multiple kinds of cells before the immune system recognizes the threat and starts to fight back.

Only after enough virus is produced do symptoms appear, starting with fever, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. And only then is someone contagious. It's not clear why Ebola runs a different course in different people. But how rapidly symptoms appear depends partly on how much virus a patient was initially exposed to, McCormick said.

The World Health Organization has made clear that there's far more virus in blood, vomit and feces than in other bodily fluids. There is no specific treatment for Ebola but specialists say basic supportive care — providing intravenous fluids and nutrients, and maintaining blood pressure — is crucial to give the body time to fight off the virus.

Profuse vomiting and diarrhea can cause dehydration. Worse, in the most severe cases, patients' blood vessels start to leak, causing blood pressure to drop to dangerous levels and fluid to build up in the lungs.

"The key issue is balance between keeping their blood pressure up by giving them fluids, and not pushing them into pulmonary edema where they're literally going to drown," McCormick said. Death usually is due to shock and organ failure.

"We depend on the body's defenses to control the virus," said Dr. Bruce Ribner, who runs the infectious disease unit at Atlanta's Emory University Hospital, which successfully treated three aid workers with Ebola and now is treating one of the Dallas nurses.

"We just have to keep the patient alive long enough in order for the body to control this infection," he said. What about experimental treatments? Doctors at Emory and Nebraska Medical Center, which successfully treated another aid worker and now is treating a video journalist infected in West Africa, say there's no way to know if those treatment really helped. Options include a plasma transfusion, donated by Ebola survivors who have antibodies in their blood able to fight Ebola, or a handful of experimental drugs that are in short supply.

But survival also can depend on how rapidly someone gets care. It also may be affected by factors beyond anyone's control: McCormick's research suggests it partly depends on how the immune system reacts early on — whether too many white blood cells die before they can fight the virus. Other research has linked genetic immune factors to increased survival.

Designer Oscar de la Renta Dead

Fashion designer Oscar de la Renta presenting his Fall 1968 Collection June 3, 1968. Image: Sal Traina/Conde Nast Archives.

Oscar de la Renta who dressed first ladies, socialites and Hollywood stars for more than four decades, died Monday evening at his Connecticut home. He was 82.

Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, De la Renta was trained by Cristóbal Balenciaga and Antonio del Castillo. An award-winning designer, he worked for Lanvin and Balmain; his eponymous fashion house continues to dress leading figures, from film stars to royalty, into the 2010s. De la Renta is particularly known for his red carpet gowns and evening wear. 

From 1993 to 2002, Oscar de la Renta designed the haute couture collection for the house of Balmain, becoming the first Dominican to design for a French couture house. In 2006, the Oscar de la Renta label diversified into bridal wear.

Ebola Fear, Monitoring Eases For Some In Dallas

Christine Wade, a registered nurse at the University of Texas Medical Branch, greets Carnival Magic passengers disembarking in Galveston, Texas on Sunday, Oct. 19, 2014.

DALLAS (AP) — Ebola fears began to ease for some Monday as a monitoring period passed for those who had close contact with a victim of the disease and after a cruise ship scare ended with the boat returning to port and a lab worker on board testing negative for the virus.

Federal officials meanwhile ramped up readiness to deal with future cases. A top government official said revised guidance instructs health workers treating Ebola patients to wear protective gear "with no skin showing." The Pentagon said it is forming a team to support civilian medical staff in the U.S.

In Dallas, Louise Troh and several friends and family members will finally be free Monday to leave a stranger's home where they have been confined under armed guard for 21 days — the maximum incubation period for Ebola. They had close contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man who died of the disease at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on Oct. 8.

"I want to breathe, I want to really grieve, I want privacy with my family," Troh told The Associated Press. The incubation period also has passed for about a dozen health workers who encountered Duncan when he went to the Dallas hospital for the first time, on Sept. 25.

Duncan was sent home but returned by ambulance on Sept. 28 and was admitted. Two nurses who treated him during that second visit — Nina Pham and Amber Vinson — are now hospitalized with Ebola. Vinson's family issued a statement Sunday saying they have hired a lawyer and are troubled by comments and media coverage that "mischaracterize" Vinson, who is being treated at Emory University in Atlanta. Vinson "has not and would not knowingly expose herself or anyone else," the statement says.

Dallas County and federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials cleared her to fly last week to Dallas from Ohio, and "suggestions that she ignored any of the physician and government-provided protocols recommended to her are patently untrue and hurtful," the family says.

On Sunday, a Carnival Cruise Lines ship returned to Galveston, Texas, from a seven-day trip marred by worries over a health worker on board who was being monitored for Ebola. The lab supervisor had handled a specimen from Duncan and isolated herself on the ship as a precaution.

About 4,000 passengers on the cruise had to miss a stop in Cozumel, Mexico, where the boat was not allowed to dock because of the scare. Carnival said it was informed by U.S. health authorities Sunday morning that the worker tested negative for Ebola.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said those caring for Duncan were vulnerable because some of their skin was exposed. The CDC is working on revisions to safety protocols. Earlier ones, Fauci said, were based on a World Health Organization model for care in remote places, often outdoors, and without intensive training for health workers.

"So there were parts about that protocol that left vulnerability, parts of the skin that were open," Fauci said. Health officials had previously allowed hospitals some flexibility to use available covering when dealing with suspected Ebola patients. The new guidelines are expected to set firmer standards: calling for full-body suits and hoods that protect worker's necks; setting rigorous rules for removal of equipment and disinfection of hands; and requiring a "site manager" to supervise the putting on and taking off of equipment.

The guidelines also are expected to require a "buddy system" in which workers check each other as they come in and go out, according to an official who was familiar with the guidelines but not authorized to discuss them before their release.

Hospital workers also will be expected to exhaustively practice getting in and out of the equipment, the official said. Nurses have been clamoring for more guidance and better garb, saying they have never cared for Ebola patients before and feel unprepared and underequipped.

"If hospital administrators had to take care of Ebola patients, they would have the gold standard and hazmat suits," said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, a union with 185,000 members.

In some places where they have the suits, nurses have not practiced taking them on and off. "The hospital is sending them essentially a link to the CDC website. That's not preparation. That's like a do-it-yourself manual," DeMoro said.

On Sunday the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had ordered the formation of a 30-person military support team to assist civilian medical professionals in the U.S. to treat Ebola. The team will be formed by Northern Command's Commander, Gen. Chuck Jacoby, and will comprise 20 critical care nurses, five doctors trained in infectious disease and five trainers in infectious disease protocols. Once formed, the team will undergo up to a week of specialized training in infection control and personal protective equipment at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, then remain in "prepare to deploy" status for 30 days.

The team won't be sent overseas, and will "be called upon domestically only if deemed prudent by our public health professionals," Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement.

Stobbe reported from Atlanta.

Associated Press writers Emily Schmall in Fort Worth, Texas; Jill Craig in Galveston, Texas; and Josh Hoffner in Dallas contributed to this report.

Pope Paul VI Beatified

 The tapestry of the newly-beatified Pope Paul VI is hanged on a balcony of St. Peter's basilica during the mass held by Pope Francis on the occasion of the end of the extraordinary synod of the family and the beatification of Paul VI in St Peter's Square, Vatican City, 19 October 2014. Paul VI, who was pope from 1963 until his death in 1978, got the go-ahead for beatification in May when the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints said that he performed a miracle by intervening in the inexplicable healing of an unborn child. Image: Maurizio Brambatti

Suspected Boko Haram Militants Mount Two Deadly attacks After Nigeria 'Ceasefire'

MAIDUGURI NIGERIA (REUTERS) - Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed several people in two attacks on Nigerian villages that occurred after a government announcement of a ceasefire, security sources and witnesses said on Saturday.

In the first attack, suspected insurgents attacked the village of Abadam on Friday night, killing at least one person and ransacking homes, while another attack on the village of Dzur on Saturday morning left at least eight people dead.

Nigeria's armed forces chief, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, announced on Friday a deal with Boko Haram for a ceasefire that would enable the release of girls whose abduction in the remote northeastern town of Chibok in April caused international shock and outrage.

(Reporting by Lanre Ola; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Mark Potter)

Ebola Monitoring Inconsistent As Virus Spread

An excerpt from a Texas Department of State Health Services document that healthcare workers with possible exposure to Ebola are being asked to sign. The document is signed by David L. Lakey, M.D.

DALLAS, TEXAS (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The top administrator in Dallas County rushed to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital this week responding to urgent news: One of its nurses had caught Ebola from a patient. He quickly asked for the hospital's watch list to find out who else might be at risk.

"It was explained to me that this person, (nurse) Nina Pham, was not on a monitoring list because she was self-monitoring," said Judge Clay Jenkins, who is overseeing the county's emergency response. Simply put, she and her co-workers, who were handing fluids, inserting IVs and cleaning Thomas Eric Duncan in his dying days, were supposed to take their own temperatures and let someone know if they felt sick.

That wasn't nearly enough for Jenkins, and that evening, he began to make changes. Hospital officials told potentially exposed hospital workers to stop seeing patients other than Pham. But the next day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowed another nurse who cared for Duncan, Amber Vinson, to get on a plane in Ohio and fly to Dallas with a mild fever. She was later diagnosed with Ebola, and CDC Director Tom Frieden has conceded that she "should not have travelled on a commercial airline."

Friends and family who had contact with Duncan before he was hospitalized were confined to homes under armed guard, but nurses who handled his contagious bodily fluids were allowed to treat other patients, take mass transit and get on airplanes. The inconsistent response by health officials in monitoring and limiting the movement of health workers has been one of the critical blunders in the Ebola outbreak.

"I don't think the directions provided to people at first were as clear as they needed to be, and there have been changes in the instructions given to people over time," said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, a doctor who did his residency in Dallas.

Local health authorities have said repeatedly throughout the response that their guidance and direction can change. "Please keep in mind the contact list is fluid meaning people may fall off the list or new people may be added to the list depending on new information that could arise at any time on any given day," said Dallas County health department spokeswoman Erikka Neroes on Friday when asked how many people are even being monitored.

On Thursday, Jenkins announced stricter restrictions that require hospital staffers who had been potentially exposed to stay away from the public for 21 days and check their temperature twice a day, once in person with a public health worker. It was the first written order anyone being monitored has been asked to sign.

"They can walk their dog, but they can't go to church; they can't go to schools; they can't go to shopping centers," said Mayor Mike Rawlings. Public health epidemiologists were notifying the health care workers of the directions Friday, said Texas Department of State Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams.

But even those medical agreements allow some wiggle room. For example, they say public transit isn't outright banned but "should be discussed with the public health authority." Officials say 125 friends, family, doctors, nurses, technicians, ambulance drivers and others may have been exposed in the days before Duncan died on Oct. 8. Since then, the two nurses have tested positive and at least 18 other people in Texas and Ohio have been identified as secondary contacts who also merit watching.

At first, the monitoring sounded relatively simple: track down the contacts, monitor them with a least twice daily temperature records and test people who develop symptoms for Ebola. State officials would be in charge, working with the CDC and Dallas County authorities.

But different hospital workers had different levels of monitoring, based in part on their exposure risk. Some self-reported some temperatures. Some continued to care for patients. The county moved Duncan's girlfriend, Louise Troh, her 13-year-old son, Duncan's nephew, and a family friend from their apartment to a guarded house in an undisclosed location, where a health official comes by twice a day and takes their temperatures. The unusual confinement order was imposed after the family failed to comply with a request not to leave their apartment, Jenkins said.

Pham and Vinson have been taken to medical centers with isolation units in Maryland and Atlanta. There are four such centers in the U.S. At the National Institutes of Health medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, spokeswoman Amanda Fine says staff involved in caring for people with Ebola are given thermometers and instructions and must measure and submit body temperatures twice daily.

Taylor Wilson, a spokesman for the Nebraska isolation unit, which has also been treating Ebola patients, said that every time health care workers go into the unit, they must stop and take their temperature and other vital signs and log the results. They are also advised to keep an eye out for any symptoms.

He said that there are no restrictions on the staff's movements outside of work.

Associated Press writer Emily Schmall contributed to this report from Fort Worth.

Food Deliveries In Sierra Leone To Fight Ebola

People from a community affected by Ebola virus receive food aid from World Food program in Monrovia, Liberia.

FREETOWN, SIERRA LEONE (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The U.N.'s World Food Program on Saturday delivered emergency food rations to 265,000 people, many of them quarantined in Sierra Leone, to help fight the spread of Ebola.

Food supplies are being distributed in the Waterloo district on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, WFP's Alexis Masciarelli told the Associated Press. Waterloo has seen some of the highest cases of Ebola infections and the deliveries are to help quarantined families by providing them enough to eat so they do not leave their homes to look for food. The deliveries began Friday and are continuing Saturday, said Masciarelli.

More countries have banned travelers from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, where the dreaded, fatal disease is believed to have claimed more than 4,500 lives. Cape Verde, an island nation, on Oct. 9 announced that it would deny entry to non-resident foreigners coming from those three countries or who have been to those countries in the previous 30 days, the International SOS website reported. Mauritius on Oct. 8 banned entry to all travelers who have visited Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Senegal and Congo in the last two months.

Seychelles on Oct. 8 suspended entry to travelers who have visited Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Nigeria or Congo (DRC) 28 days prior to their journey, with the exception of Seychellois citizens, International SOS, a medical and travel security services company, reported.

In Sierra Leone, WFP mobilized 700 aid workers to distribute more than 800 metric tons of food — rice and super cereal — to meet families' food needs for 30 days. The distribution is in partnership with Caritas, Community Integrated Development Organization, civil society organizations and young volunteers.

"Our team is out in Waterloo to distribute food," said WFP's Masciarelli. "We started on Friday and are continuing Saturday. It is a huge exercise." The aim of the distribution is to stabilize quarantined families by giving them enough to eat so that they do not leave their homes to look for food.

The food deliveries in the Waterloo area are going to "all Ebola-affected people - be it in treatment centers or in quarantined households - to prevent this health crisis from becoming a food and nutrition crisis," said Gon Myers, WFP Country Director in Sierra Leone.

"We have to deploy many staff, split people into smaller groups and speed up the distribution process to reduce risks both for the people receiving food and for staff, as Waterloo has seen some of the highest cases of Ebola infections in recent days," Myers said.

A ship containing 7,000 tons of rice is expected to dock at Freetown on Sunday, said Masciarelli. "About two-thirds of the rice will be unloaded in Freetown to be delivered to people in Sierra Leone. The ship will then deliver the remaining rice to Liberia."

A ship carrying British troops is also headed to Sierra Leone to battle the worst-ever outbreak of Ebola in history.

Meldrum reported from Johannesburg.

Independent Investigation Demanded For Nigerian Killed By Phoenix Police

Attorney Sabinus Megwa (center) with Ngozi Mbegbu, the widow of Balantine Mbegbu. 

(PHOENIX, ARIZONA) -- A neighbor had dialed 911 to report disturbances at the Mbegbus residence on Thursday, October 6, 2014. According to the Phoenix New Times, upon arrival of the police and attempts to calm Balantine Mbegbu down, a "belligerent and confrontational" Mbegbu assaulted one of the officers and kicked one on the groin, noted the police statement, from around which Mbegbu was shot with a taser gun and handcuffed by the officer. As it happened, from the Phoenix Police Department report, Mbegbu was rushed to the hospital by paramedics where the 63-year old was pronounced dead. In a related story, Sabinus Megwa, attorney for Mbegbu's wife gave a different account from what Mbegbu's wife and sister-in-law had told him, saying there was no fight at the Mbegbus' home, and there was no need for police presence. Meanwhile, Megwa, representing the Mbegbus and protesters stormed the Phoenix City Hall Thursday, October 16, 2014 with calls for an independent investigation into the case. Image: Mathew Hendley/PNT

S. Africa Or Ghana Could Replace Morocco As African Cup Host

AFP PHOTO

Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa and Ghana have been asked by the Africa Cup of Nations organisers whether they are prepared to host the 2015 tournament if Morocco withdraw over Ebola fears.

A letter from African Football Confederation (CAF) secretary general Hicham El Amrani asks an unknown number of national associations whether they would be ready to organise the event.
The letter reads in part:

"In case Morocco refuses to maintain the staging of the competition at the agreed dates, CAF would like to know whether your federation would be willing and able to organise the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations.

"Kindly note that this letter is also sent to some other federations capable of staging the 2015 edition of the event.

"In case CAF receives two or more positive responses, a draw will be made by the executive committee to designate the host of the 2015 edition."

A senior football official in Johannesburg told AFP on condition of anonymity that South Africa and Ghana were among the countries who received the letter.

Morocco said last week that they wanted the January 17-February 8 tournament postponed because they feared it could trigger a spread of the Ebola epidemic.

Almost 4,500 people have died this year from Ebola, mainly in west African states Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Guinea and Sierra Leone play home fixtures outside the country, and neither team are likely qualifiers for the 2015 tournament.

Liberia were eliminated in the preliminary rounds.

CAF rejected the Moroccan request to delay the biennial African football showpiece, but will discuss the issue on November 2 in Algeria.

African football supremo Issa Hayatou will then travel to Morocco with a delegation for make-or-break talks.

If Morocco insist on a postponement, the African body will choose new hosts.

South Africa have twice been 'emergency' hosts, taking over in 1996 from cash-strapped Kenya and last year from strife-torn Libya.

Ghana staged the Cup of Nations in 1963, 1978 and 2008 and were last-minute co-hosts with Nigeria in 2000 after Zimbabwe failed to meet deadlines.


No country has hosted successive editions of the 57-year tournament.