The UK will have their election May 5th. connexions has some interesting chatter about the election.

Angola
Things in Angola are getting tense as people get more spooked about the Marburg virus which has claimed it 150th victim, making it the worst known outbreak in history.

Many in Luanda, a city of 3.8 million people, withdrew their children from school. Shops ran low on supplies of bleach, which was bought by families to disinfect their water supplies.

State radio broadcast an emergency message every 10 minutes, saying: “Alert, Marburg. Don’t touch any corpse. Inform the health authorities about any suspicious illnesses or death due to bleeding.”

Angola’s health ministry said that 163 cases of Marburg had been recorded so far. All are believed to have originated in the province of Uige, 180 miles north-east of Luanda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Four people have died in the capital, all of whom are thought to have travelled from Uige.

Symptoms take 5 to 7 days to manifest and the mortality rate to date according to the CDC has been about 25%.

More here, here and here.

Fatoumata Diallo, the World Health Organisation’s representative in Luanda says:

“It’s important to realise that Marburg is very new for us. It is serious since it is not well known.

“It is a threat because its symptoms are not well known. It has symptoms similar to malaria, amoebic dysentery or TB.”

The Marburg virus is both incurable and highly infectious. The slightest contact with the bodily fluids of a victim spreads the condition. It causes fever, internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea and is deadly in the great majority of cases.

Gomery Inquiry
The Toronto Sun is reporting:

Canada’s attorney general is probing possible breaches of a publication ban set up to protect explosive testimony at the AdScam inquiry. Justice spokesman Patrick Charette said federal lawyers are looking into the Internet sites reproducing excerpts of Montreal ad exec Jean Brault’s testimony and providing a link to a U.S. blog featuring more extensive coverage of the hearing.

“We have to decide what the best course of action is,” Charette said, adding federal lawyers could charge Canadian bloggers and website owners with contempt of court or suggest AdScam Justice John Gomery issue warning letters.

The inquiry began in September, the interm report is due in November.

The US blog that used an unverified source from the inquiry hasn’t received reports from this source for a few days. If I was that internal inquiry source, I’d be laying low too. He might not be that hard to find, and consequences for him could be serious.

CTV is reporting the ban may be lifted tomorrow.

Paul Wells has some wit about the vitrol and blog chatter. This is one.

The adjective “explosive” is now banned in any description of Jean Brault’s testimony. All other adjectives are permitted.

Hey look. I can come up with lots of adjectives.

“Volcanic,” “nitrous,” “damning,” “sulphurous,” “stupendous,” “nasty,” “incriminatory,” “stunning,” “extremely dubious, given the track record of the source.”

See? it’s easy. So you really don’t have to be the 60th reporter to use the same adjective.

Some of his other observations in previous posts are quite funny.

James Bow speaks some reason to the surrounding hyperbole:

Even more chum was added to the water when American bloggers, not subject to the publication ban, started posting details of the witnesses’ testimony. Some braver Canadian bloggers started posting links to the information before deciding that discretion was the better part of valour and pulling their content. All of this, the speculation, the innuendo, the risk of running afoul of the law, all served to supercharge the right end of the blogosphere. I’m sure that some Conservative bloggers feel they’re on the cusp of a revolution, complete with the risk that the Feds will come down on their ears for making a principled stand against the publication ban.

How disappointed are people going to be when the publication bans lapse and the Canadian public just shrugs its shoulders?

That’s what’s going to happen, folks. For a number of reasons; not the least of which is that all the speculation over the fall of the government has raised expectations over just how bad the revelations are going to be. Reality hardly ever lives up to the hype.

Secondly, for the past two months, we have had four issues upon which the government was on the brink of falling, the Gomery revelations being only the latest. There’s the Kyoto protocol. There’s the same sex marriage law. There’s the budget itself.

US Passports

Public Security Minister Anne McLellan said Americans may also have to carry the document to enter Canada.

“Our system has really always worked on the basis of reciprocity,” McLellan said outside the House of Commons.

“And therefore we will review our requirements for American citizens and we’re going to do that in collaboration with the United States.

“There’s no point in either of us going off in a direction without working together to determine how best we can facilitate the flow – a free flow – and movement of low-risk individuals.”

McLellan’s comments come as the U.S. State Department announced that by 2007, most Canadians will need a passport to enter the United States.

And by 2008, most Americans who visit Canada won’t be able to re-enter their country without a passport.

Published 3 years, 7 months ago