Episode 159 - Ebola Spread and Puerto Rico Erupts

The Ebola Virus is making an appearance in another country now - the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  That's not good.  And Corruption rears it's ugly head in Puerto Rico.  Again.  All that coming up on today's hot zone.

 

Hi folks!  Thanks for all the great feedback on yesterday's episode.  I'm off tomorrow on my biggest trip yet this year.  Four Continents, Seven Countries and 56,000 air miles over the next three weeks.  I'll be in Nigeria, reporting on Boko Haram and ISIS, then off to South Africa where I'll be reporting on crime and the murder of white farmers, and then to Afghanistan where I'll get to visit my son Mason and embed with his medevac unit for a few days.  I'm really looking forward to that.  

 

Over the next few days I'm going to be airing some original content and some re-run content from earlier this year.  All of it is really good stuff, and I'll be filling in with whatever I can manage to produce while I'm on the road.  

 

Okay, before I get to the big stories for today I want to just comment on a shooting that took place in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil yesterday.  A turkish diplomat was gunned down inside a popular restaurant in a highly secure area of the city.  In fact, I believe the offices of our security team when I was there with Oliver North a couple years ago are located in the same building as this restaurant.  

 

It's got the whole city of Erbil in an uproar because this sort of thing normally does not happen in kurdistan.  Erbil is so safe I'd gladly take my family there on vacation.  Here's a little video I shot while I was there in February:

 

Anyway, there have been a lot of tensions between the kurds and the turks as of late, as they have both laid claim to the syrian region known as Rojava, and this won't make things any better.  The Iranians bombed the kurds near their border over the past few days, and I'm sure that involved some of the troops I interviewed when I was there earlier this year.

 

Meanwhile the bombing by Assads forces and the Russians continues in Idlib, in northern syria.  and that's causing lots more civilian casualties.  The kurds who make up the syrian democratic forces already have their hands full with tens of thousands of former isis wives in several camps, and those places are really starting to get out of control.   A couple days ago someone raised an ISIS flag over the Al Hol camp, and the video shows lots of kids dancing around the flagpole and shouting Allah Akhbar.  So ISIS as an idea is obviously alive and well in many places around the world, even Syria.  So that's wonderful.  It's a really difficult question of what to do with these ISIS kids - I mean, how do you deprogram them when their mothers are still true believers?  Glad that's not my job.  I'd say send a bunch of Christian missionaries in there and do your best to convert them.  Because if you don't change their hearts, you are going to have a real challenge changing their minds.  

 

Okay, on to Puerto Rico, where protests are happening after evidence of massive corruption has come to light inside the government.  A lot of it has to do with the billions of dollars in aid money that was pumped into Puerto rico after the 2107 hurricane that all but wiped the island protectorate off the map.  So far hundreds of thousands of people have moved to the US mainland, and that will have a profound effect on the 2020 election - mark my words.  But it turns out the leaders on the island were directing much of that aid money - not to where it was needed most, but to their cronies.  Same song, different verse.  Puerto rico has always been known for it's massive corruption, and I found that out when I was there covering the aftermath of hurricane Maria.

 

[hurricane maria]

 

Protesters are now calling for the governor of Puerto Rico to step down, and that will probably happen considering the dirt they have on him.  Let's hope they don't replace him with the mayor of San Juan, who is an outright socialist.  

 

Okay, on to Congo.  Bad news came in over the past few days that a Congolese pastor  in the eastern city of Goma contracted Ebola, and it has many locals there worried. IN the town of Beni, Congo, aid workers were giving out the ebola vaccine, which was developed in part by Doctor Ellen Jo Barron, who we've had on the podcast a couple of times.  People in Congo often respond violently to the efforts to administer the vaccine though, since the primitive thinking goes that medics are actually infecting people with the virus.  So a real challenge for those combatting this on the front lines.  

 

If you haven't seen it, let me recommend a powerful documentary about the ebola epidemic filmed by my friend David Darg.  Darg is one of my heroes and was nominated for an oscar for his coverage of Ebola back in 2014.

 

I visited Goma years ago and here's what they were dealing with back then.

 

[goma package]

 

World health officials are saying this is a game changer, as Goma is a regional hub for travelers from all over Africa.  Which considering the primitive state of the place when I was there, is kind of hard to believe.  

 

[officials]

 

I'm going to keep following this story and especially as I spend the next week or so in Africa.  Ebola is no joke, and Africa is the perfect storm of humanity that it could infect and possibly kill millions.  This makes I think four countries now where it's killed people, just in this most recent outbreak.  With all the people fleeing violence in that part of Africa, it could easily hitch a ride to the western hemisphere with one of these migrants.  

 

So that's all I have for today folks. Thanks for watching.  Keep checking my facebook page for updates and photos from my upcoming trip.