Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thousands participate in nation wide marches, in support of missing and killed Ayotzinapa students The new dictatorship...

Borderland Beat

Thousands participate in nation wide marches, in support of missing and killed Ayotzinapa students

Posted: 08 Oct 2014 10:24 PM PDT

Borderland Beat posted by Lala

Depending on whose figures one chooses to go with, fifteen to 20 thousand protestors marched in support of the students of Ayotzinapa, the rally was held at the monument of the Angel of Independence at the Zócalo in Mexico City.

Several colleges such as UNAM and IPN, human rightsorganizations, along side people outside any group showing up to lend their support.

Thousands more marched in the Guerrero Capital city of Chilpancingo, and many small towns of the state, Oaxaca City had an impresive turnout. Other states:

Coahuila, Chiapas, Jalisco, Michoacan, Queretaro, Nuevo Leon, Chihuahua, Quintana Roo, Morelos, DUrango, San Luis Potosi, and Puebla.

Protestors chanted phrases like "You are not alone!" and "We ask for education and are given bullets."

'In the Zocalo held a rally in which parents spoke of missing pupils and students. The actor DanielGiménez Cacho and vocalist of Café Tacuba, Ruben Albarran, read a statement signed by many organizations

Brown University Rhode Is.

The Universidad Iberoamericana issued a statement in which The institution sympathized "with the community of the institution, with the families of young people victimized and missing.

"It also demanded the prompt clarification of the facts, prosecution and punishment of those responsible, and the administration of due process of integral reparation and non-repetition of "these heinous acts."

EZLN Zapatistas Silent march

Report Arturo Sanchez (Arturosji)

The new dictatorship

Posted: 08 Oct 2014 02:32 PM PDT

Proceso (10-6-14)

By Javier Sicilia, translated by un vato for Borderland Beat

As most readers know, Javier Sicilia was a poet until his son was murdered by sicarios. He became an activist for victims' rights. -- un vato

Military personnel after a confrontation with sicarios in the Lagunitas mountains in Jalisco

MEXICO, D.F. (Proceso).--Crime in our country has two faces; that which comes from criminal organizations is called a criminal offense, and that which comes from the State is called a violation of human rights. This last was, fundamentally, what motivated Felipe Calderon to entrap the General Law for Victims (Ley General de Victimas) in a constitutional controversy during the last months of his mandate. He did not want to accept -- he still refuses to do so-- (the existence of) crime by the State. The law was enacted, nevertheless, at the beginning of Enrique Pena Nieto's administration. But the government, every time it makes reference to it, reduces it to simple crime.

Amidst the 100,000 deaths, the 30,000 disappeared, the hundreds of kidnappings and the constant, serious denunciations by national and international organizations of human rights violations, not only do we not know yet how many of those crimes are attributable to the State, but instead, the governments who administer the State continue to deny the crimes or blame them on the crime that they live with in an almost natural way.

Mexico lives like this -- it has been said many times -- a failed State, an interpenetrated State, a criminal State or a Narco-State. Whatever it may be that these characterizations are still unable to define, in reality it is a new form of totalitarianism, or that "perfect dictatorship" that Mario Vargas Llosa once referred to.

In his book, Remnants of Auschwitz; The Witness and the Archive, (Zone Books, 2002), Giorgio Agamben, points out that the ultimate finality of Auschwitz and the Nazi concentration camps was not the mass murder that was carried out there, bur rather, the creation of a class of human being that in concentration camp argot were called "muslims": perhaps -- says Agamben, among the various hypotheses he proposes in trying to explain the epithet-- because in the imagination of that period, a "muslim" was a fatalist, a being who had submitted to blind fate, to a determinism.

Those beings who, through force of brutalization, had lost any dignity, had become a species of animals so tame they could be used for anything. They were completely exploitable. They would never resist anything. Agamben saw in them a continuation of the figure of "the holy man" -- men that, under ancient Roman law, the State would not protect, and whose torture, murder or exploitation was not a crime in a legal sense--. He also saw in them one of the conditions, to a greater or lesser degree, for the existence of the State, which combines in itself sovereignty -- the power to destroy life, the legitimate use of force-- and government: the combination of arrangements or institutions to administer it.

In Mexico, both the crime that the State says it pursues, but which it does not punish, or does so selectively, as well as the violation of human rights that the State denies, seem to be going in the same direction as the construct of a "muslim" in Auschwitz. Crime, the bloody and horrifying dimensions that it has reached in Mexico, and its systematic impunity, have been getting a large portion of Mexicans used to living in defenseless docility. Instead of protesting, many are becoming indifferent to the crimes that others suffer, and, for that reason, coming to accept, fatalistically, that one day they will also be murdered, kidnapped, tortured, disappeared or extorted with impunity. The abdication by the State of its duty to protect us under its institutions and programs for as long as we live has been creating a perception in many of us that living means submitting to fate, to "that's the way things are", to "what are we going to do about it".

On the other hand, the violations of human rights appear to be directed at those who refuse to accept the situation. Those who rebel against the vulnerability that is the result of crime, impunity or abuse of power are, in many cases viewed as criminals and subjected to confinement, isolation and torture, sometimes physical, sometimes psychological. The case of Jose Manuel Mireles and his 383 self defense members, in Michoacan; that of Nestora Salgado in Guerrero, and of Mario Luna in Sonora, to name just those most mentioned in the media, illustrate this well. All of them rebelled against defenselessness. Crimes were also fabricated against all of them to cover up the violations of their human rights. Their confinement and their reduction to a criminal condition carries a message: either you accept living in defenselessness and docility like everybody else, or we will force you to do so.

This form of totalitarianism or dictatorship is new in appearance, but not in nature. It is a previously unknown form of State violence that has lost its ideological mask as its reason for existing. Mexico's state machinery, that through its institutional orders pretends -- as it tells us every day -- to regulate conflicts in a rational and legal manner, each day reveals itself to be more compatible with an extreme violence of a new coinage that day after day erases the gains of the civilizing process and is converting us into slave material or animals for slaughter. In its debacle, the State is becoming less of a judicial and political apparatus and is turning into a machine for submission and destruction, governed not by political imperatives, as in Nazism or Soviet (ideology), or military juntas, but rather by purely economic motives.

In addition, I believe that we have to respect the San Andres Accords, stop the war, liberate Jose Manuel Mireles, his self defense forces and all the Zapatistas and Atenco people who are in prison, do justice to victims of violence and prosecute governors and government officials who are criminals.

El Chapo Guzmán, Ismael Zambada Charged With A Dozen Killings In New U.S. Indictment

Posted: 08 Oct 2014 12:18 PM PDT

By Dolia Estevez for Forbes

Mexican drug lord Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán can now add murder to the long list of drug-related crimes he is accused of in the U.S. A 21-count indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of New York on September 25 alleges that Sinaloa Cartel leaders El Chapo Guzmán and Ismael El Mayo Zambada employed “sicarios,” or hitmen, to carry out “hundreds of acts of violence, including murders, assaults, kidnappings, assassinations and acts of torture.”

Considered the most powerful kingpin in the world before his arrest earlier this year in Mexico, El Chapo was the leader of what the indictment describes as the “largest drug trafficking organization in the world.” Zambada was El Chapo’s trusted right-hand man. U.S. law enforcement believe Zambada has succeded El Chapo as head of the criminal organization. Zambada is thought to be hiding in the mountains of Sinaloa, his home state on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

The 48-page indictment alleges that Guzmán and Zambada conspired to “intentionally kill” members of Mexican law enforcement, military personnel and public officials. Among the people whose killings they are charged to have ordered are:

Roberto Velasco Bravo, a commander with Mexico’s now-defunct Ministry of Public Security in charge of the organized crime investigation unit, who was gunned down by hit men in 2008 in Tepito, one of Mexico City’s most violent and drug-infested neighborhoods.

Rafael Ramírez Jaime, the chief of the arrest division with the State of Mexico’s Attorney General Office, who was executed by hitmen in 2008 in his home in Tlalnepantla, a municipality of the state of Mexico, north of Mexico City.

Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes was killed by a dozen hitmen in 2004 in the parking lot of a cinema in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa. He was shot 500 times. Rodolfo was the youngest brother of the legendary Amado Carrillo Fuentes, better known as the Lord of the Skies. The older Carrillo Fuentes was the head of the Carrillo Fuentes cartel until he died in 1997 when he was undergoing facial plastic surgery and liposuction. The execution of Amado’s brother triggered a bloody war between the Carillo Fuentes and Sinaloa cartels.

The indictment alleges that Guzmán and Zambada were also behind the assassinations of Raul LNU, known as “Robachivas,” and Julio Beltrán, presumably Mexican drug criminals.

Guzmán and Zambada have not been charged in Mexico for the alleged murderers of these individuals.

Additionally, Guzmán and Zambada are charged with attempted murder of two individuals identified as John Doe #1 and #2, and with the murders of John Doe #3 to #8. While the identities of these individuals are known to the grand jury, they are classified in the indictment.

They are also accused of murder conspiracy and attempted murder of members of the Beltrán, Carrillo Fuentes, Zeta and Felix Arrellano criminal syndicates.

The indictment alleges that through “a network of corrupt police and political contacts” the Sinaloa Cartel “directed a large scale narcotics transportation network involving the use of land, air and sea transportation assets, shipping multi-ton quantities of cocaine from South America, through Central America and Mexico, and finally into the U.S.”

The sale of these drugs in the U.S., it goes on, generated billions of dollars in profits, which were then laundered back to Mexico. “The drug money was often transported from the U.S. to Mexico in vehicles containing hidden compartments and through other clandestine means.”

The new indictment replaced one unsealed by the same court in 2009 against Guzmán, Zambada, his son Jesús El Vicentillo Zambada, and three Mexican drugs lords: Arturo Beltrán Leyva (killed in 2009), his brother Hector Beltrán Leyva (arrested in Mexico) and Ignacio Coronel (killed in 2010). El Vicentillo Zambada was extradited to the U.S. in 2010 and is currently collaborating with U.S. law enforcement against the Sinaloa leaders, including his father.

Despite facing federal charges in at least seven U.S. jurisdictions, Washington has not requested El Chapo’s extradition. Mexico has strongly rejected the idea of sending Guzmán to the U.S. He is currently behind bars in a high-security prison outside Mexico City.

The U.S. has not requested Zambada’s extradition either. Yet the new indictment strengthens Washington’s hand to ask for his detention for the purpose of extradition. If Mexico accepts and hands him over to the U.S., New York would most likely be the first to try him given these new murder charges.

U.S. Trial underway for reputed Mexican cartel member

Posted: 08 Oct 2014 10:23 AM PDT

Posted on Borderland Beat by Mars 220

Secret video and audio recordings will show a member of a violent Mexican drug cartel conspiring with fellow gang members and undercover FBI agents to expand the gang's cocaine empire into the United States and Europe, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Rafael Humberto Celaya Valenzuela, who prosecutors said is part of the Sinaloa cartel, is charged with conspiracy to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine plus heroin and methamphetamine. His trial opened in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Feith said Valenzuela and other members of the cartel met over the course of three years with undercover agents who portrayed themselves as members of an organized crime ring that wanted to move tons of cocaine into the U.S. and Europe.

Two others arrested with Valenzuela in 2012 have pleaded guilty to working with the Sinaloa cartel. One of them, Jesus Gutierrez-Guzman, is a cousin of the cartel's notorious leader, Joaquin Guzman, known as "El Chapo." Joaquin Guzman escaped prison in 2001 and ran the enterprise from a series of hideouts and safe houses across Mexico, earning billions of dollars moving tons of cocaine and other drugs to the United States, prosecutors have said. He has been indicted in numerous states besides New Hampshire but it is unclear if he will be extradited.

Feith said that during the meetings, which occurred in New Castle, New Hampshire, Madrid, the Virgin Islands, Miami and elsewhere, the conspirators and undercover agents at first discussed shipments of 1,000 kilos of cocaine with one of the cartel members promising they could deliver 20 tons.

Following three "test loads" in which the cartel sent pineapples to make sure they weren't being set up by law enforcement, cartel members said they would ship a fourth test but the FBI agents said enough was enough and that it was time to ship the drugs, Feith said. A shipment of 346 kilos was shipped to Spain where the conspirators were arrested in August 2012.

Feith on Tuesday picked up a pink-wrapped kilo of cocaine and waved it in front of the jury of nine women and five men. He said the evidence will show Valenzuela willingly agreed to enter the conspiracy to distribute drugs.

Valenzuela's lawyers reserved their right to make an opening statement later.

Before the trial started, both sides acknowledged that Valenzuela had turned down a plea agreement that would have gotten him 10 to 20 years in prison, instead of the 10 years to life he faces at trial.

Also arrested with Valenzuela and Gutierrez-Guzman was Samuel Zazueta Valenzuela, no relationship to Rafael Valenzuela, who has pleaded guilty. Another man, Jesus Soto, pleaded guilty last month in a separate, but related, case.

Source: YahooNews

Autodefensas Arrive in Iguala, calls EPN's actions theater

Posted: 08 Oct 2014 05:01 PM PDT

Demanding the removal of Governor Aguirre, the group also slams EPN:

" Peña Nieto, is now pretending to be so concerned about these students

after years of stigmatizing Ayotzinapa"

As Mexico gears up for mass marches on Wednesday, two community police groups join in the search for the disappeared students and demand the resignation of the governor of Guerrero.

Approximately 500 autodefensas members of the Union of Peoples and Organizations of the State of Guerrero (UPOEG) arrived in Iguala at the request of parents, on Tuesday night to help search for the 43 students missing since September 26.

Spokesperson Bruno Plácido Valerio said that despite the mass graves found on the outskirts of Iguala, “there is no guarantee that the charred bodies are those of the students.”

“Organized crime has been killing people in the same area for years,” he added.

Of the 43 disappeared students, 17 are from Tecoanapa, Ayutla and la Costa Chica, where UPOEG has a strong presence. “Those are the children of our members,” said Plácido Valerio. “That’s why we’re joining in the search, and we hope all the family members will do the same.”

The UPOEG leader said that his group is unarmed and willing to cooperate with the gendarmes who have now been assigned control of Iguala.

At the same time, the community police of the Regional Coordinating Group of Community Authorities of the Montaña and Costa Chica of Guerrero (CRAC-PC) issued a statement demanding the resignation of Guerrero Governor Ángel Aguirre, charging that he is an “accomplice of organized crime," whose aim is to "silence social protest.”

The CRAC-PC went on to say that Aguirre, like Mexican president Peña Nieto, is “now pretending to be so concerned about these students after years of stigmatizing Ayotzinapa as a 'breeding ground for guerrillas,' just because the young people protest and demand their right to education.”

The community security authorities also accused Aguirre of a long list of crimes including the murder of Ayotzinapa students Jorge Alexis Herrera Pino and Gabriel Echeverríain a police operation carried out on December 12, 2011. (above photo)

On following page is a video from Vice about the autodefensas group, why they organized and the situation in Gurrero- Vice goes along with them on their night patrols

Sources:Telesur and Vice

How Firestone Shut Ebola Down

PLIMER: "Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland. Since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.

Where does all the carbon dioxide come from ????

Ian Rutherford Plimer is an Australian geologist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published 130 scientific papers, six books and edited the Encyclopedia of Geology.

Born 12 February 1946 (age 67)
Residence Australia
Nationality Australian
Fields Earth Science, Geology, Mining Engineering
Institutions University of New England,University of Newcastle,University of Melbourne,University of Adelaide
Alma mater University of New South Wales,Macquarie University
Thesis The pipe deposits of tungsten-molybdenum-bismuth in eastern Australia (1976)
Notable awards Eureka Prize (1995, 2002),Centenary Medal (2003), Clarke Medal
(2004)

Where Does the Carbon Dioxide Really Come From?
Professor Ian Plimer could not have said it better!
If you've read his book you will agree, this is a good summary.

PLIMER: "Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland. Since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.

Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - its that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life.

I know....it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kids "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cent light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs.....

well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes, FOUR DAYS - by that volcano in Iceland has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud at any one time - EVERY DAY.9/27/14......Mount Ontake over the weekend in Japan

I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.

Yes, folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over one year - think about it.

Of course, I shouldn't spoil this 'touchy-feely tree-hugging' moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-recognized 800-year global heating and cooling
cycle, which keeps happening despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect climate change.

And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud, but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years. And it happens every year.

Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you, on the basis of the bogus 'human-caused' climate-change scenario.

Hey, isn't it interesting how they don't mention 'Global Warming' anymore, but just"Climate Change" - you know why?

It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull**** artists got caught with their pants down.

And, just keep in mind that you might yet be stuck with an Emissions Trading Scheme - that whopping new tax - imposed on you that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer.

It won't stop any volcanoes from erupting, that's for sure... No matter what Leonardo Dicaprio says!

But, hey, relax...give the world a hug and have a nice day!"

Professor Piot, as a young scientist in Antwerp, you were part of the team that discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. How did it happen?

Peter Piot was a researcher at a lab in Antwerp when a pilot brought him a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had fallen mysteriously ill in Zaire

Rafaela von Bredow and Veronika Hackenbroch

Saturday 4 October 2014

The Observer

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/04/ebola-zaire-peter-piot-outbreak

----

Professor Piot, as a young scientist in Antwerp, you were part of the team that discovered the Ebola virus in 1976. How did it happen?

I still remember exactly. One day in September, a pilot from Sabena Airlines brought us a shiny blue Thermos and a letter from a doctor in Kinshasa in what was then Zaire. In the Thermos, he wrote, there was a blood sample from a Belgian nun who had recently fallen ill from a mysterious sickness in Yambuku, a remote village in the northern part of the country. He asked us to test the sample for yellow fever.

These days, Ebola may only be researched in high-security laboratories. How did you protect yourself back then?

We had no idea how dangerous the virus was. And there were no high-security labs in Belgium. We just wore our white lab coats and protective gloves. When we opened the Thermos, the ice inside had largely melted and one of the vials had broken. Blood and glass shards were floating in the ice water. We fished the other, intact, test tube out of the slop and began examining the blood for pathogens, using the methods that were standard at the time.

But the yellow fever virus apparently had nothing to do with the nun's illness.

No. And the tests for Lassa fever and typhoid were also negative. What, then, could it be? Our hopes were dependent on being able to isolate the virus from the sample. To do so, we injected it into mice and other lab animals. At first nothing happened for several days. We thought that perhaps the pathogen had been damaged from insufficient refrigeration in the Thermos. But then one animal after the next began to die. We began to realise that the sample contained something quite deadly.

But you continued?

Other samples from the nun, who had since died, arrived from Kinshasa. When we were just about able to begin examining the virus under an electron microscope, the World Health Organisation instructed us to send all of our samples to a high-security lab in England. But my boss at the time wanted to bring our work to conclusion no matter what. He grabbed a vial containing virus material to examine it, but his hand was shaking and he dropped it on a colleague's foot. The vial shattered. My only thought was: "Oh, shit!" We immediately disinfected everything, and luckily our colleague was wearing thick leather shoes. Nothing happened to any of us.

In the end, you were finally able to create an image of the virus using the electron microscope.

Yes, and our first thought was: "What the hell is that?" The virus that we had spent so much time searching for was very big, very long and worm-like. It had no similarities with yellow fever. Rather, it looked like the extremely dangerous Marburg virus which, like ebola, causes a haemorrhagic fever. In the 1960s the virus killed several laboratory workers in Marburg, Germany.

Were you afraid at that point?

I knew almost nothing about the Marburg virus at the time. When I tell my students about it today, they think I must come from the stone age. But I actually had to go the library and look it up in an atlas of virology. It was the American Centres for Disease Control which determined a short time later that it wasn't the Marburg virus, but a related, unknown virus. We had also learned in the meantime that hundreds of people had already succumbed to the virus in Yambuku and the area around it.

A few days later, you became one of the first scientists to fly to Zaire.

Yes. The nun who had died and her fellow sisters were all from Belgium. In Yambuku, which had been part of the Belgian Congo, they operated a small mission hospital. When the Belgian government decided to send someone, I volunteered immediately. I was 27 and felt a bit like my childhood hero, Tintin. And, I have to admit, I was intoxicated by the chance to track down something totally new.

A girl is led to an ambulance after showing signs of Ebola infection in the village of Freeman Reserve, 30 miles north of the Liberian capital, Monrovia. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

Was there any room for fear, or at least worry?

Of course it was clear to us that we were dealing with one of the deadliest infectious diseases the world had ever seen – and we had no idea that it was transmitted via bodily fluids! It could also have been mosquitoes. We wore protective suits and latex gloves and I even borrowed a pair of motorcycle goggles to cover my eyes. But in the jungle heat it was impossible to use the gas masks that we bought in Kinshasa. Even so, the Ebola patients I treated were probably just as shocked by my appearance as they were about their intense suffering. I took blood from around 10 of these patients. I was most worried about accidentally poking myself with the needle and infecting myself that way.

But you apparently managed to avoid becoming infected.

Well, at some point I did actually develop a high fever, a headache and diarrhoea …

... similar to Ebola symptoms?

Exactly. I immediately thought: "Damn, this is it!" But then I tried to keep my cool. I knew the symptoms I had could be from something completely different and harmless. And it really would have been stupid to spend two weeks in the horrible isolation tent that had been set up for us scientists for the worst case. So I just stayed alone in my room and waited. Of course, I didn't get a wink of sleep, but luckily I began feeling better by the next day. It was just a gastrointestinal infection. Actually, that is the best thing that can happen in your life: you look death in the eye but survive. It changed my whole approach, my whole outlook on life at the time.

You were also the one who gave the virus its name. Why Ebola?

On that day our team sat together late into the night – we had also had a couple of drinks – discussing the question. We definitely didn't want to name the new pathogen "Yambuku virus", because that would have stigmatised the place forever. There was a map hanging on the wall and our American team leader suggested looking for the nearest river and giving the virus its name. It was the Ebola river. So by around three or four in the morning we had found a name. But the map was small and inexact. We only learned later that the nearest river was actually a different one. But Ebola is a nice name, isn't it?

In the end, you discovered that the Belgian nuns had unwittingly spread the virus. How did that happen?

In their hospital they regularly gave pregnant women vitamin injections using unsterilised needles. By doing so, they infected many young women in Yambuku with the virus. We told the nuns about the terrible mistake they had made, but looking back I would say that we were much too careful in our choice of words. Clinics that failed to observe this and other rules of hygiene functioned as catalysts in all additional Ebola outbreaks. They drastically sped up the spread of the virus or made the spread possible in the first place. Even in the current Ebola outbreak in west Africa, hospitals unfortunately played this ignominious role in the beginning.

After Yambuku, you spent the next 30 years of your professional life devoted to combating Aids. But now Ebola has caught up to you again. American scientists fear that hundreds of thousands of people could ultimately become infected. Was such an epidemic to be expected?

No, not at all. On the contrary, I always thought that Ebola, in comparison to Aids or malaria, didn't present much of a problem because the outbreaks were always brief and local. Around June it became clear to me that there was something fundamentally different about this outbreak. At about the same time, the aid organisation Médecins Sans Frontières sounded the alarm. We Flemish tend to be rather unemotional, but it was at that point that I began to get really worried.

Why did WHO react so late?

On the one hand, it was because their African regional office isn't staffed with the most capable people but with political appointees. And the headquarters in Geneva suffered large budget cuts that had been agreed to by member states. The department for haemorrhagic fever and the one responsible for the management of epidemic emergencies were hit hard. But since August WHO has regained a leadership role.

There is actually a well-established procedure for curtailing Ebola outbreaks: isolating those infected and closely monitoring those who had contact with them. How could a catastrophe such as the one we are now seeing even happen?

I think it is what people call a perfect storm: when every individual circumstance is a bit worse than normal and they then combine to create a disaster. And with this epidemic there were many factors that were disadvantageous from the very beginning. Some of the countries involved were just emerging from terrible civil wars, many of their doctors had fled and their healthcare systems had collapsed. In all of Liberia, for example, there were only 51 doctors in 2010, and many of them have since died of Ebola.

The fact that the outbreak began in the densely populated border region between Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia ...

… also contributed to the catastrophe. Because the people there are extremely mobile, it was much more difficult than usual to track down those who had had contact with the infected people. Because the dead in this region are traditionally buried in the towns and villages they were born in, there were highly contagious Ebola corpses travelling back and forth across the borders in pickups and taxis. The result was that the epidemic kept flaring up in different places.

For the first time in its history, the virus also reached metropolises such as Monrovia and Freetown. Is that the worst thing that can happen?

In large cities – particularly in chaotic slums – it is virtually impossible to find those who had contact with patients, no matter how great the effort. That is why I am so worried about Nigeria as well. The country is home to mega-cities like Lagos and Port Harcourt, and if the Ebola virus lodges there and begins to spread, it would be an unimaginable catastrophe.

Have we completely lost control of the epidemic?

I have always been an optimist and I think that we now have no other choice than to try everything, really everything. It's good that the United States and some other countries are finally beginning to help. But Germany or even Belgium, for example, must do a lot more. And it should be clear to all of us: This isn't just an epidemic any more. This is a humanitarian catastrophe. We don't just need care personnel, but also logistics experts, trucks, jeeps and foodstuffs. Such an epidemic can destabilise entire regions. I can only hope that we will be able to get it under control. I really never thought that it could get this bad.

What can really be done in a situation when anyone can become infected on the streets and, like in Monrovia, even the taxis are contaminated?

We urgently need to come up with new strategies. Currently, helpers are no longer able to care for all the patients in treatment centres. So caregivers need to teach family members who are providing care to patients how to protect themselves from infection to the extent possible. This on-site educational work is currently the greatest challenge. Sierra Leone experimented with a three-day curfew in an attempt to at least flatten out the infection curve a bit. At first I thought: "That is totally crazy." But now I wonder, "why not?" At least, as long as these measures aren't imposed with military power.

A three-day curfew sounds a bit desperate.

Yes, it is rather medieval. But what can you do? Even in 2014, we hardly have any way to combat this virus.

Do you think we might be facing the beginnings of a pandemic?

There will certainly be Ebola patients from Africa who come to us in the hopes of receiving treatment. And they might even infect a few people here who may then die. But an outbreak in Europe or North America would quickly be brought under control. I am more worried about the many people from India who work in trade or industry in west Africa. It would only take one of them to become infected, travel to India to visit relatives during the virus's incubation period, and then, once he becomes sick, go to a public hospital there. Doctors and nurses in India, too, often don't wear protective gloves. They would immediately become infected and spread the virus.

The virus is continually changing its genetic makeup. The more people who become infected, the greater the chance becomes that it will mutate ...

... which might speed its spread. Yes, that really is the apocalyptic scenario. Humans are actually just an accidental host for the virus, and not a good one. From the perspective of a virus, it isn't desirable for its host, within which the pathogen hopes to multiply, to die so quickly. It would be much better for the virus to allow us to stay alive longer.

Could the virus suddenly change itself such that it could be spread through the air?

Like measles, you mean? Luckily that is extremely unlikely. But a mutation that would allow Ebola patients to live a couple of weeks longer is certainly possible and would be advantageous for the virus. But that would allow Ebola patients to infect many, many more people than is currently the case.

But that is just speculation, isn't it?

Certainly. But it is just one of many possible ways the virus could change to spread itself more easily. And it is clear that the virus is mutating.

You and two colleagues wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal supporting the testing of experimental drugs. Do you think that could be the solution?

Patients could probably be treated most quickly with blood serum from Ebola survivors, even if that would likely be extremely difficult given the chaotic local conditions. We need to find out now if these methods, or if experimental drugs like ZMapp, really help. But we should definitely not rely entirely on new treatments. For most people, they will come too late in this epidemic. But if they help, they should be made available for the next outbreak.

Testing of two vaccines is also beginning. It will take a while, of course, but could it be that only a vaccine can stop the epidemic?

I hope that's not the case. But who knows? Maybe.

In Zaire during that first outbreak, a hospital with poor hygiene was responsible for spreading the illness. Today almost the same thing is happening. Was Louis Pasteur right when he said: "It is the microbes who will have the last word"?

Of course, we are a long way away from declaring victory over bacteria and viruses. HIV is still here; in London alone, five gay men become infected daily. An increasing number of bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. And I can still see the Ebola patients in Yambuku, how they died in their shacks and we couldn't do anything except let them die. In principle, it's still the same today. That is very depressing. But it also provides me with a strong motivation to do something. I love life. That is why I am doing everything I can to convince the powerful in this world to finally send sufficient help to west Africa. Now!

Der Spiegel

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