"The earth will be struck with plagues of all kinds;" [Mélanie added here: "Besides pestilence and famine, which will be widespread"] Our Lady of La Salette 19 Sept. 1846 (Published by Mélanie 1879)
"Woe to the inhabitants of the earth. There will be bloody wars, and famines; plagues and contagious diseases" Our Lady of La Salette 19 Sept. 1846 (Published by Mélanie 1879)
Congo’s Ebola Outbreak Isn’t Just Congo’s Problem
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- In 2014, the U.S. led the effort by governments to blunt the world’s biggest outbreak of Ebola, which took more than 11,000 lives in West Africa before it was declared over in mid-2016. Now, a smaller but more complex outbreak rages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the U.S. response has been shaped by indifference and bureaucratic haggling. The consequences are potentially disastrous, and not just for those immediately at risk.
Why the Latest Ebola Outbreak Raises Fears
So far, nearly 2,700 cases have been reported and almost 1,800 have died. Uganda has counted three cases near its border with the DRC, and two have been reported in Goma, a city of more than two million that has a busy border with Rwanda and an international airport. The chief medical officer of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently told a Senate panel, “the outbreak is not under control.” Last week, the World Health Organization said it will need $324 million to fight the disease over the next six months, about three times more than it’s been given.
President Donald Trump has failed to respond with urgency. (No great surprise: During the West African outbreak in 2014, he faulted President Barack Obama for sending U.S. personnel, saying “perhaps the president should put all Africans on Obamacare rather than sending the troops.”) His administration eliminated the global health-security portfolio from the National Security Council and announced plans to take away $252 million in leftover Ebola funds the day after the new outbreak began. Fortunately, it changed its mind on the funding, and Congress restored funding for many of his planned cuts to global health spending.
Now the U.S. is hesitating about granting a waiver to Congo under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act to allow it to access tens of millions of dollars that would help in the response. Despite pleas from the World Health Organization, the State Department has yet to allow CDC staff to go into the field, citing security concerns. (Personnel from nongovernmental organizations already face many of the same risks.)
There’s a risk that the outbreak will spread in crowded urban areas in the heart of Africa. If that possibility is unpersuasive, there’s also a risk to the U.S.: Regional turmoil is enlarging the trickle of refugees from Congo showing up at the southern border. The U.S. should lift restrictions on aid, as Senator Bob Menendez has called for, and help CDC deploy its skills. It should spur a new global effort – partnering for this purpose with China, Congo’s biggest foreign investor.
To be sure, this emergency presents severe difficulties. It has affected provinces plagued by violence perpetrated by dozens of militias. More than 15 years after “Africa’s world war” took millions of lives, the DRC still hosts the United Nations’ biggest peacekeeping mission. The afflicted provinces have also been victims of official neglect and repression. Public mistrust is so intense that some see Ebola as a fraud or government conspiracy. Responders and health-care facilities have been attacked.
This underlines the need to combine an effective emergency response with stronger pressure for political reform and better government. Greater support for the UN’s peacekeeping mission would help; the administration’s reflexive effort to wind it down will not. Senator Lindsey Graham called the new epidemic “a case study – Exhibit A – of why you can’t withdraw from the world.” He’s right. The U.S. can’t solve Congo’s problems, but it can’t afford to ignore them, either.
--Editors: James Gibney, Clive Crook
“The great chastisement will come, because men will not be converted; yet it is only their conversion that can hinder these scourges. God will begin to strike men by inflicting lighter punishments in order to open their eyes; then He will stop, or may repeat His former warnings to give place for repentance. But sinners will not avail themselves of these opportunities; He will, in consequence, send more severe castigations, anxious to move sinners to repentance, but all in vain. Finally, the obduracy of sinners shall draw upon their heads the greatest and most terrible calamities. Mélanie
“We are all guilty! Penance is not done, and sin increases daily. Those who should come forward to do good are retained by fear. Evil is great. A moderate punishment serves only to irritate the spirits, because they view all things with human eyes. God could work a miracle to convert and change the aspect of the earth without chastisement. God will work a miracle; it will be a stroke of His mercy; but after the wicked shall have inebriated themselves with blood, the scourge shall arrive Mélanie
“What countries shall be preserved from such calamities? Where shall we go for refuge? I, in my turn, shall ask, What is the country that observes the commandments of God? What country is not influenced by human fear where the interest of the Church and the glory of God are at stake? (Ah, indeed! What country, what nation upon earth?) In behalf of my Superior and myself, I have often asked myself where we could go for refuge, had we the means for the journey and for our subsistence, on condition that no person were to know it? But I renounce these useless thoughts. We are very guilty! In consequence of this, it is necessary that a very great and terrible scourge should come to revive our faith, and to restore to us our very reason, which we have almost entirely lost. Mélanie
MARIA OF THE CROSS,
Victim of Jesus nee MELANIE CALVAT,
Shepherdess of La Salette
"I protest highly against a different text, which people may dare publish after my death. I protest once more against the very false statements of all those who dare say and write First that I embroidered the Secret; second, against those who state that the Queen Mother did not say to transmit the Secret to all her people." Mélanie
No comments:
Post a Comment