4350-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

© REUTERS/William Urdaneta
People gather outside a health center as they wait to get treatment for malaria, in San Felix, Venezuela November 3, 2017.

On a recent morning in Venezuela's southern jungle state of Bolivar, Amanda Santamaria, her two sons, one daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter lined up in front of a shabby community health center in the hope of receiving treatment for malaria.

All five of them are afflicted by the mosquito-borne disease, which is rapidly spreading through Venezuela as an economic meltdown strips the country of medicine and doctors.

"We don't know if this is a curse, but the entire area is awash in malaria," said Santamaria, 56, suffering her second bout of the illness in the last three months and relying on palliative herbal teas because she has not found regular drugs.

The family was waiting with some 500 others under the scorching sun in the hope of receiving treatment.

Unsanitary conditions in Bolivar are thought to have led to a recent flare-up in malaria, a life-threatening disease that had been largely brought under control in Venezuela in the 1990s.

The outbreak was likely initially caused by illegal mining. The miners cut down rainforests and often work in pools of stagnant water, which favors the spread of mosquitoes and malaria.

In a rare release of data earlier this year, government statistics showed there were 240,613 cases of malaria last year, up 76 percent compared with 2015, with most in Bolivar.

The former Health Minister was fired after the data was published, and it has not been updated since.

The government did not respond to a request for comment on the malaria outbreak.

On a visit to Bolivar in early November, the vice minister for health, Moira Tovar, said the outbreak in the state would be controlled within three months. She said that 32 people had died during just one week in late October.

"What are (these deaths) due to? They're due to people who are infected and who know about the illness but don't visit health centers on time. Instead they wait for the condition to worsen before seeking attention," she said.

MALARIA SPREADS TO CITIES

The government has not given an overall death toll.

But health activists and doctor groups estimate that around 200 people have died from malaria over the last year nationwide, and fear the illness is starting to afflict populated urban centers.

"The mines have a high proportion of young adults, but their kids and pregnant partners are in the cities, and that's a bigger problem: the entire family is at risk of falling ill," said doctor and former health minister Jose Felix Oletta, a government critic.

The regional arm of the World Health Organization last month announced the arrival of over one million anti-malarial pills, which doctors deem insufficient. Patients must visit their nearest health center up to four times to complete treatment in what officials say is an attempt to avoid feeding the black market for drugs.

Still, in Venezuela's shortages-hit economy, there is a black market for nearly everything.

"In the mines they offer you pills for a gram and a half of gold," said Yudith Sanchez, a 28 year-old cook in an illegal gold mine.

Others have turned to brewing bark from cinchona trees, which was popular during the colonial era for its antiseptic properties.

"We're going to die because there is no treatment," said homemaker Yaritza Figuera, 29. Suffering from malaria, her nine year-old son sat on the floor in a health center because the waiting room was full.

(sott.net)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 11/25/2017 10:50:11 AM
	WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ARA SAN JUAN SUBMARINE IN ARGENTINA BY CONOR GAFFEY ON 11/23/17 AT 8:30 AM It’s been over a week since a navy submarine disappeared off the coast of Argentina, and time is running out for the 44 people on board. A spokesman for the Argentine navy said that the search for the ARA San Juan had now entered a “critical phase,” as the crew’s oxygen supply may be close to running out. Over a dozen countries, including the United States, have contributed to the search effort. On Wednesday, the Argentine navy said it was investigating after reports emerged of a loud noise detected in the hours after the sub went missing. File picture released by Telam showing the ARA San Juan submarine being delivered to the Argentine Navy after being repaired at the Argentine Naval Industrial Complex (CINAR) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on May 23, 2014. The sub went missing on November 15. ALEJANDRO MORITZ/AFP/GETTY Where happened to the ARA San Juan? The sub was on a routine mission last week, traveling back from Ushuaia—a city close to the southernmost tip of South America—to the Mar del Plata naval base. The sub’s crew made contact with the navy, reporting an “electrical breakdown,” according to naval commander Gabriel Galeazzi. The sub surfaced to report the problem, which Galeazzi described as a “short circuit” in the vessel’s batteries. The sub was ordered to return immediately to Mar del Plata. But according to a BBC report, the captain made contact with the naval base once more, around 7:30 a.m. local time on November 15, to say that a temporary fix had been made for the problem; the sub would submerge and travel directly to the base. Since then, there has been no contact from the submarine. On Thursday the Guardian reported that Argentine navy spokesman, Captain Enrique Balbi, said search teams had returned to an area some 30 miles north of the sub’s last registered position, after a “hydro-acoustic anomaly” was detected by the U.S. and others. The noise occurred a few hours after final contact on November 15. Balbi said they didn’t want to speculate on what caused it and refused to confirm whether it could have been caused by an explosion. Who is onboard the sub? The 66-meter sub—which was built in Germany in 1983—is carrying a crew of 44 submariners. Forty-three of the crew members are male, but the sub is also carrying Eliana Maria Krawczyk, the first female submarine officer in Argentina. Krawczyk, 35, was born in the landlocked Argentine province of Misiones and joined the navy in 2004. She graduated from the country’s submarine and diving school in 2012, and her sister told Reuters that she had been aboard the ARA San Juan when it made the same trip from Ushuaia in 2016 without incident. “It is like she was born for this,” said Silvina Krawczyk. “She really likes to do what she does in the navy.” Maria Krawczyk, a submarine officer on board the Argentine navy submarine ARA San Juan—which went missing in the South Atlantic on November 15—is seen in this still image taken from a Ministry of Defense of Argentina video obtained by Reuters.MINISTERIO DE DEFENSA DE ARGENTINA/VIA REUTERS The sub was under the command of Pedro Martin Fernandez at the time of the incident. Who is looking for the submarine? Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri has promised to devote all the resources required to find the ARA San Juan. Macri met with the families of the missing sailors at Mar del Plata on Monday. Mauricio Macri ✔@mauriciomacri Estuve en la base de Mar del Plata para acompañar y ofrecer todo mi apoyo a los familiares de la tripulación del submarino ARA San Juan en estas horas difíciles. Seguimos desplegando todos los recursos nacionales e internacionales disponibles para hallarlos lo antes posible. 12:41 PM - Nov 20, 2017 1,227 Replies 4,826 Retweets 16,302 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy The United States has sent four unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and two search planes to try and find the lost sub. A NASA research plane has flown over the search area but failed to find anything. The UUVs will use sonar imaging technology to create images of the sea floor, which could help to find the sub if it is on the seabed. President Donald Trump said he had ordered the mission. “45 people aboard and not much time left. May God be with them and the people of Argentina!” said Trump, citing an incorrect figure for the number of crew. Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump I have long given the order to help Argentina with the Search and Rescue mission of their missing submarine. 45 people aboard and not much time left. May God be with them and the people of Argentina! 4:32 PM - Nov 22, 2017 10,471 Replies 25,309 Retweets 121,041 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy Other countries including Russia, the U.K. and Brazil are among those that have deployed resources, ships or planes to help with the search. How long do the sailors have? Officials have said that the submarine has an oxygen supply of around seven or eight days maximum. But if the sub has managed to surface during the period it has been missing, it may have been able to replenish its oxygen supply. Submariners are trained to slow down their breathing rates and reduce activity to reduce oxygen when a problem occurs. But if there was a problem with the sub’s power supply, this too could endanger the crew: generators are often used on subs to separate oxygen from water through a process known as electrolysis. People pray outside Argentina's Navy base in Mar del Plata, on the Atlantic coast south of Buenos Aires, while the search for the missing ARA San Juan submarine continues, on November 22.EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AFP/GETTY What are the families saying? Many of the family members of the missing crew have criticized the navy and Argentina’s government for a slow response. A video of President Macri meeting with family members has been widely shared; in the video, a woman berates the president for deploying a 34-year-old sub on the 10-day journey, saying it was “practically suicide to send them out in something so old.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF6k23XD_rQ) Family members said on Sunday that they had received messages from crew members before contact was lost; they spoke of a problem with the sub’s batteries. Captain Galeazzi only confirmed on Monday that the sub had reported an issue on November 15, but said that no distress signal had been sent out. There’s been criticism of delays in releasing information and a lack of communication between the Argentine navy and government. According to Argentine news site Infobae, the country’s defense minister, Oscar Aguad, only learned that the sub was missing after reading it in the press. (newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 11/25/2017 5:15:37 PM
	Militants Kill 305 at Sufi Mosque in Egypt’s Deadliest Terrorist Attack By DECLAN WALSH and NOUR YOUSSEFNOV. 24, 2017 At least 235 people were killed when militants detonated explosives and sprayed gunfire at a crowded Sufi mosque near Egypt’s Sinai coast. By BARBARA MARCOLINI and CHRIS CIRILLO on November 24, 2017. Photo by European Pressphoto Agency. Watch in Times Video » CAIRO — Militants detonated a bomb inside a crowded mosque in the Sinai Peninsula on Friday and then sprayed gunfire on panicked worshipers as they fled, killing at least 305 people and wounding at least 128 others. Officials called it the deadliest terrorist attack in Egypt’s modern history. The scale and ruthlessness of the assault, in an area racked by an Islamist insurgency, sent shock waves across the nation — not just for the number of deaths but also for the choice of target. Attacks on mosques are rare in Egypt, where the Islamic State has targeted Coptic Christian churches and pilgrims but avoided Muslim places of worship. The attack injected a new element into Egypt’s struggle with militants because most of the victims were Sufi Muslims, who practice a mystical form of Islam that the Islamic State and other Sunni extremist groups deem heretical. And it underscored the failure of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has justified his harsh crackdown on political freedom in the name of crushing Islamic militancy, to deliver on his promises of security. “The scene was horrific,” said Ibrahim Sheteewi, a resident of Bir al-Abed, the small north Sinai town where the attack took place. “The bodies were scattered on the ground outside the mosque. I hope God punishes them for this.” Hours later, the Egyptian military carried out several airstrikes near Bir al-Abed targeting militants fleeing in four-wheel-drive vehicles, an Egyptian military official said. On Saturday, Egypt’s top prosecutor, Nabil Sadek, said in a statement that the death toll had risen and included at least 27 children. A witness said he had helped gather the bodies of 25 of them. Between 25 and 30 militants carried out the attack, the statement said. They barged in carrying automatic weapons and the Islamic State flag. “The perpetrators of the terrorist attack posted themselves in front of the door of the mosque and its 12 windows,” the statement said. Image via Google Earth World leaders condemned the mosque attack, with President Trump denouncing it as “horrible and cowardly.” He said later that it explained why the United States needed a border wall with Mexico and restrictions on immigration, which he referred to as “the ban.” Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump Will be calling the President of Egypt in a short while to discuss the tragic terrorist attack, with so much loss of life. We have to get TOUGHER AND SMARTER than ever before, and we will. Need the WALL, need the BAN! God bless the people of Egypt. 1:49 PM - Nov 24, 2017 22,752 Replies 18,021 Retweets 83,328 likes See Donald J. Trump's other Tweets Mr. Sisi has struggled to impose his authority over Sinai since he came to power in a military takeover in 2013. Islamist militants who had found a safe haven in Sinai for attacks on Israel then turned their guns on the Egyptian armed forces. But even by recent standards in Egypt, where militants have blown up Christian worshipers as they knelt at church pews and gunned down pilgrims in buses, the attack on Friday was unusually ruthless. “I can’t believe they attacked a mosque,” a Muslim cleric in Bir al-Abed said by phone, requesting anonymity for fear he could also be attacked. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but in the past year a local affiliate of the Islamic State has killed a number of Sufis in the area and singled out the district where the attack took place as a potential target. The attack started midday during Friday Prayers when a bomb — probably set off by a suicide bomber, security officials said — ripped through Al Rawda mosque in Bir al-Abed, 125 miles northeast of Cairo. As worshipers fled, they were confronted by masked gunmen who, witnesses said, had pulled up outside in five four-wheel-drive vehicles. The gunmen set fire to cars parked outside the mosque to hinder escape, and opened fire on ambulances as they arrived on the scene, a government official said on state television. Mayna Nasser, 40, who was shot twice in the shoulder, drifted in and out of consciousness as he was rushed to a hospital. “My children were there; my children were there,” he said, according to Samy, a volunteer emergency worker who drove him there and who declined to give his last name. Local emergency services were so overwhelmed that some of the wounded had to be transported to the hospital in the back of a cattle truck, he said.Many were taken to the general hospital in the main northern Sinai town of El Arish, where medics described chaotic scenes as staff struggled to deal with a flood of dead and wounded, many with extensive burns or severed limbs. “We are swamped,” said one medical official, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity. “We don’t know what to say. This is insane.” Other victims, like Mohammed Abdel Salam, a 22-year-old construction worker, ended up in a hospital in the nearby city of Ismailia. “I wish I never stopped to pray,” he said. “I’m not even a Sufi. I was just there by accident.” Most worshipers at the mosque were Sufi Muslims, who practice a mystical form of Islam that some extremists consider heretical. CreditEuropean Pressphoto Agency Many were taken to the general hospital in the main northern Sinai town of El Arish, where medics described chaotic scenes as staff struggled to deal with a flood of dead and wounded, many with extensive burns or severed limbs. “We are swamped,” said one medical official, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity. “We don’t know what to say. This is insane.” Other victims, like Mohammed Abdel Salam, a 22-year-old construction worker, ended up in a hospital in the nearby city of Ismailia. “I wish I never stopped to pray,” he said. “I’m not even a Sufi. I was just there by accident.”urity officials, including the interior minister, spy chief and defense minister. “The military and the police will take revenge,” he said in a televised speech. Mr. Sisi convened an emergency meeting of top security officials, including the interior minister, spy chief and defense minister. “The military and the police will take revenge,” he said in a televised speech. Until a spate of attacks on Christian churches this year, Egyptian militants had avoided large-scale assaults on Egyptian civilians, perhaps because such attacks tend to backfire. After a massacre in Luxor that killed 62 people, mostly tourists, in 1997, President Hosni Mubarak began a sweeping crackdown that crushed an Islamist insurgency centered in southern Egypt. When a new insurgency flared in north Sinai after the military takeover in 2013, its leaders were careful to focus their attacks on uniformed security forces. But as those militants embraced the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, they have gradually set aside that lesson. An Islamist militia in Sinai, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014 and has since proved to be one of its most effective local affiliates. The group’s deadliest attack targeted a Russian jetliner that crashed shortly after takeoff from Sharm el Sheikh in 2015, killing all 224 people on board. In an interview published in an Islamic State magazine last January, a commander in Sinai outlined the group’s hatred for Sufis and their practices, including the veneration of tombs, the sacrificial slaughter of animals and what he termed “sorcery and soothsaying.” The interview, in English, identifies Rawda, the district where Friday’s attack occurred, as one of three areas where Sufis live in Sinai that the group intended to “eradicate.” Abdallah Abdel Nasser, 14, being treated at a hospital in Ismailia for wounds suffered in the attack.CreditAmr Nabil/Associated Press It featured a photograph of a black hooded figure brandishing a sword over the kneeling figure of an elderly Sufi cleric, Sulayman Abu Hiraz, who was executed in Sinai in late 2016. The Islamic State said the cleric, said to be 100 years old, had been killed for practicing witchcraft. Many residents of Bir al-Abed, on the main road through northern Sinai, are Bedouins from the Abu Greir tribe, which is predominantly Sufi. Residents said that despite recent Islamic State threats, the town had been largely peaceful. The Islamic State, a Sunni movement, has long considered Sufis, along with Shiite Muslims, apostates, and has a history of attacking their mosques in other countries. Sufis may be Sunni or Shiite but most are Sunni. Since 2016, when the militant group released a video describing Sufism as a “disease,” it has claimed attacks that have killed at least 130 worshipers at Sufi shrines, most of them in Pakistan. Elsewhere, the Islamic State has made a spectacle of bulldozing Sufi shrines, describing their removal as a form of purifying the faith. Egyptian security forces have closely monitored Islamic State fighters returning from Syria and Iraq, amid worries that an influx of battle-hardened jihadis could insert a volatile new element into Egypt’s militant mix. In October, Mr. Sisi ordered a major reshuffle of his security team after an ambush in the desert left at least 16 Egyptian security officials dead. That attack was later claimed by a previously unknown group called Ansar al-Islam, which is believed to have links to Al Qaeda. Friday’s attack was a blow to Egypt’s hopes that it could stem the tide of Islamist violence in Sinai through the government’s sponsorship of a Palestinian peace initiative involving Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. Islamic State militants have previously used tunnels into Gaza to obtain weapons and get medical treatment for wounded fighters. One benefit for Egypt of the peace initiative, which Egypt’s General Intelligence Directorate has mediated, is greater control over those tunnels. In a statement, Hamas denounced the attack as a “criminal explosion” that “violates all heavenly commandments and human values” because it attacked a mosque. “It is a grave challenge to Muslims worldwide,” the group said. Follow Declan Walsh on Twitter: @declanwalsh. Declan Walsh reported from Cairo, and Nour Youssef from Ismailia, Egypt. David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from London, Rukmini Callimachi from New York, and David M. Halbfinger from Jerusalem.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 11/25/2017 6:08:20 PM
	2 men questioned by UK police after panic in central London By GREGORY KATZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON — Nov 25, 2017, 10:23 AM ET The Associated Press Police officers and members of the public walk near the entrance of Oxford Circus subway station in the west of London after it was reopened Friday Nov. 24, 2017. British police flooded London's busy Oxford Circus area Friday after receiving multiple reports of "shots fired." They have not located any casualties. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) Two men sought by authorities after an altercation at a central London subway station that led to panic at the heart of the Oxford Street shopping district turned themselves in to police for questioning Saturday, officials said. Two men aged 21 and 40 went to a police station voluntarily after a public appeal was launched, British Transport Police said. Both were interviewed by police. They haven't been identified or charged with any crime. Authorities believe the two men had some type of confrontation on the Oxford Circus subway platform Friday afternoon, sparking panicky, false reports that guns had been fired. Several people were injured and nine were taken to hospital, including one with leg injuries, after chaos erupted in the packed station on Friday. Panic spread quickly near the Oxford Circus subway station on Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year. But police said after evacuating two subway stations that there were no indications that any shots had been fired. The public response to the altercation, fueled by unfounded social media posts about gunfire, indicated that Londoners remain on edge after a year marred by numerous extremist attacks. British Transport Police had released photos of the two men on Friday night and appealed for information about the incident. Police initially treated the reported gunfire as a possible terrorism incident and social media was filled with alarming false reports about shooting at several locations. The singer Olly Murs contributed to the confusion by tweeting about gunfire at the famous Selfridges department store on Oxford Street. Some people were injured in the stampede away from the subway station. Major stores opened as usual Saturday as crowds descended in search of bargains. Britain's official terrorist threat level is set as "severe," indicating that intelligence analysts believe an attack is highly likely. (abcNEWS)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 11/25/2017 6:21:33 PM
	Egypt president vows forceful response after mosque massacre Samer aL-Atrush AFPNovember 25, 2017 Security forces are fighting the Egyptian branch of the Islamic State group in the Sinai peninsula (AFP Photo/MOHAMED EL-SHAHED) Cairo (AFP) - Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to respond forcefully after attackers killed at least 305 worshippers in a packed mosque in restive North Sinai province, the country's deadliest attack in recent memory. Al-Sisi declared three days of mourning would begin Saturday, the day after the gun and bomb assault on the Rawda mosque, roughly 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the North Sinai capital of El-Arish. In a televised speech the president pledged to "respond with brutal force", adding that "the army and police will avenge our martyrs and return security and stability with force in the coming short period". Several hours later Egyptian air force jets destroyed vehicles used in the attack and "terrorist" locations where weapons and ammunition were stocked, an army spokesman said. Witnesses said assailants had surrounded the mosque with all-terrain vehicles and detonated a bomb. They then mowed down panicked worshippers as they tried to flee and used congregants' vehicles they had set alight to block routes to the mosque. The state prosecutor's office said in a statement that 305 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in the attack, the scale of which is unprecedented in a four-year insurgency by Islamist extremist groups. AFP photographs of the scene indicated that children were among the dead. World leaders condemned the attack. US President Donald Trump condemned on Twitter the "horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenceless worshippers". The grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, condemned "in the strongest terms this barbaric terrorist attack". - IS targeting of Sufis - There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bloodshed. The Islamic State group's Egypt branch has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, and also civilians accused of working with the authorities, in attacks in the north of the Sinai peninsula. They have also targeted followers of the mystical Sufi branch of Sunni Islam as well as Christians. A tribal leader and head of a Bedouin militia that fights IS told AFP that the mosque is known as a place where Sufis gather. The Islamic State group shares the puritan Salafi view that Sufis are heretics for seeking the intercession of saints. The jihadists had previously kidnapped and beheaded an elderly Sufi leader, accusing him of practising magic which Islam forbids, and abducted Sufi practitioners later released after "repenting". The group has killed more than 100 Christians in church bombings and shootings in Sinai and other parts of Egypt, forcing many to flee the peninsula. The military has struggled to quell jihadists who pledged allegiance to IS in November 2014. The jihadists have since increasingly turned to civilian targets, attacking not only Christians and Sufis but also Bedouin Sinai inhabitants accused of working with the army. The Gaza Strip's border crossing with Egypt that had been due to reopen Saturday will remain closed until further notice because of the attack, a Palestinian official said. Aside from IS, Egypt also faces a threat from Al-Qaeda-aligned jihadists who operate out of neighbouring Libya. A group calling itself Ansar al-Islam -- Supporters of Islam in Arabic -- claimed an October ambush in Egypt's Western Desert that killed at least 16 policemen. Many of those killed belonged to the interior ministry's secretive National Security Service. The military later conducted air strikes on the attackers, killing their leader Emad al-Din Abdel Hamid, a most wanted jihadist who was a military officer before joining an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group in Libya's militant stronghold of Derna. (Yahoo)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 11/25/2017 6:40:47 PM
	Venezuela: Malaria outbreak spreads in the midst of drug shortage and unsanitary conditions Maria Ramirez Yahoo News Sat, 25 Nov 2017 16:42 UTC © REUTERS/William Urdaneta People gather outside a health center as they wait to get treatment for malaria, in San Felix, Venezuela November 3, 2017. On a recent morning in Venezuela's southern jungle state of Bolivar, Amanda Santamaria, her two sons, one daughter-in-law, and a granddaughter lined up in front of a shabby community health center in the hope of receiving treatment for malaria. All five of them are afflicted by the mosquito-borne disease, which is rapidly spreading through Venezuela as an economic meltdown strips the country of medicine and doctors. "We don't know if this is a curse, but the entire area is awash in malaria," said Santamaria, 56, suffering her second bout of the illness in the last three months and relying on palliative herbal teas because she has not found regular drugs. The family was waiting with some 500 others under the scorching sun in the hope of receiving treatment. Unsanitary conditions in Bolivar are thought to have led to a recent flare-up in malaria, a life-threatening disease that had been largely brought under control in Venezuela in the 1990s. The outbreak was likely initially caused by illegal mining. The miners cut down rainforests and often work in pools of stagnant water, which favors the spread of mosquitoes and malaria. In a rare release of data earlier this year, government statistics showed there were 240,613 cases of malaria last year, up 76 percent compared with 2015, with most in Bolivar. The former Health Minister was fired after the data was published, and it has not been updated since. The government did not respond to a request for comment on the malaria outbreak. On a visit to Bolivar in early November, the vice minister for health, Moira Tovar, said the outbreak in the state would be controlled within three months. She said that 32 people had died during just one week in late October. "What are (these deaths) due to? They're due to people who are infected and who know about the illness but don't visit health centers on time. Instead they wait for the condition to worsen before seeking attention," she said. MALARIA SPREADS TO CITIES The government has not given an overall death toll. But health activists and doctor groups estimate that around 200 people have died from malaria over the last year nationwide, and fear the illness is starting to afflict populated urban centers. "The mines have a high proportion of young adults, but their kids and pregnant partners are in the cities, and that's a bigger problem: the entire family is at risk of falling ill," said doctor and former health minister Jose Felix Oletta, a government critic. The regional arm of the World Health Organization last month announced the arrival of over one million anti-malarial pills, which doctors deem insufficient. Patients must visit their nearest health center up to four times to complete treatment in what officials say is an attempt to avoid feeding the black market for drugs. Still, in Venezuela's shortages-hit economy, there is a black market for nearly everything. "In the mines they offer you pills for a gram and a half of gold," said Yudith Sanchez, a 28 year-old cook in an illegal gold mine. Others have turned to brewing bark from cinchona trees, which was popular during the colonial era for its antiseptic properties. "We're going to die because there is no treatment," said homemaker Yaritza Figuera, 29. Suffering from malaria, her nine year-old son sat on the floor in a health center because the waiting room was full. (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

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WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ARA SAN JUAN SUBMARINE IN ARGENTINA

Militants Kill 305 at Sufi Mosque in Egypt’s Deadliest Terrorist Attack

But even by recent standards in Egypt, where militants have blown up Christian worshipers as they knelt at church pews and gunned down pilgrims in buses, the attack on Friday was unusually ruthless.

“I can’t believe they attacked a mosque,” a Muslim cleric in Bir al-Abed said by phone, requesting anonymity for fear he could also be attacked.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but in the past year a local affiliate of the Islamic State has killed a number of Sufis in the area and singled out the district where the attack took place as a potential target.

The gunmen set fire to cars parked outside the mosque to hinder escape, and opened fire on ambulances as they arrived on the scene, a government official said on state television.

Mayna Nasser, 40, who was shot twice in the shoulder, drifted in and out of consciousness as he was rushed to a hospital. “My children were there; my children were there,” he said, according to Samy, a volunteer emergency worker who drove him there and who declined to give his last name.

“We are swamped,” said one medical official, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity. “We don’t know what to say. This is insane.”

Other victims, like Mohammed Abdel Salam, a 22-year-old construction worker, ended up in a hospital in the nearby city of Ismailia. “I wish I never stopped to pray,” he said. “I’m not even a Sufi. I was just there by accident.”

Most worshipers at the mosque were Sufi Muslims, who practice a mystical form of Islam that some extremists consider heretical. CreditEuropean Pressphoto Agency

Many were taken to the general hospital in the main northern Sinai town of El Arish, where medics described chaotic scenes as staff struggled to deal with a flood of dead and wounded, many with extensive burns or severed limbs.

“We are swamped,” said one medical official, speaking by phone on condition of anonymity. “We don’t know what to say. This is insane.”

2 men questioned by UK police after panic in central London

Egypt president vows forceful response after mosque massacre

Venezuela: Malaria outbreak spreads in the midst of drug shortage and unsanitary conditions

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