Free Republic

Cases have increased by 8% in just a week with nearly 2,000 people infected by the deadly airborne strain. Some 143 people have now been killed by the “medieval disease” in Madagascar. There are now warnings the plague could stretch across the sea and reach mainland Africa. Such an outbreak would be catastrophic and there are fears the virus could go global. Nine countries are now on high alert and have been told to brace for the plague.

The outbreak, the 'worst in 50 years', is being fueled by a strain more lethal than the one which usually strikes the country off the coast of Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) now states there are 1,801 suspected cases - significantly higher than the 1,309 it reported last Thursday. Academics have revealed such a jump in cases over the period of five days is concerning and have predicted it could get worse. The most recent statistics show there have been 127 deaths. Professor Robin May, an infectious diseases expert at Birmingham University, told MailOnline that 'whichever way you look'...

FULL TITLE: DANCING WITH DEATH Plague is spreading because relatives are digging up their Black Death dead and DANCING with the corpses as part of ancient Madagascan ritual called Famadihana =========================================================================== Madagascans have been told to stop the traditional practice of Famadihana - which sees locals dig up deceased relatives and dance with them before they are re-buried. It is feared the ceremony has helped spread an outbreak of pneumonic plague that has left more than 120 dead on the African island It is feared the ceremony has helped spread an outbreak of pneumonic plague that has left more than...

The deadly plague sweeping Madagascar may have a particularly gruesome cause — a local tradition of dancing with dead bodies. SEE ALSO Madagascar's plague outbreak is spreading at an alarming rate Madagascar's plague outbreak is spreading at an alarming rate Health officials suspect it’s no coincidence that the outbreak — which has infected more than 1,100 people and killed 124 since August — coincides with the time of year when families customarily exhume the remains of dead relatives, wrap them in a sheet, and dance with them through the streets in a sacred ritual, AFP reports. “If a person dies...

The plague outbreak in Madagascar is continuing to spread at unprecedented rates, with 57 deaths and more than 680 cases. The latest figures are from October 12. An estimated 329 of these cases, and 25 deaths, were in the capital, Antananarivo. The cases, reported by both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Bureau for Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) in Madagascar, include probable and suspected cases as well those that have been confirmed by laboratory tests. While the country experiences regular outbreaks, with an estimated 400 cases of plague each year, this time things are very different, experts...

Charred debris, possibly belonging to the missing MH370 plane, has been handed to investigators - raising the prospect of a flash fire on board the ill-fated jet. An American amateur investigator handed over several pieces of blackened debris to Australia's Transport Safety Bureau on Monday in what may prove to be a breakthrough in one of the biggest mysteries in aviation history. Blaine Gibson said the material, which had washed up in Madagascar, included what appeared to be an internal panel.

If you’ve been worried that there isn’t an easy enough way to help your kids understand the thorny issues of overt racism championed by presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Netflix — as it often does — has a show for you. The Emmy-winning Netflix original show “All Hail King Julien,” based on the popular DreamWorks movie-series “Madagascar,” debuts its third season Friday. And there’s an episode about Trump. Although the King Julien character was not originally intended to be a Trump parody in the “Madagascar” universe, the show’s creators decided the royal lemur could be a perfect teaching tool...

t was seven months ago that federal agents with guns drawn raided the Gibson guitar factories in Nashville and Memphis. A half million dollars worth of Indian rosewood and ebony was seized under the premise that it had been imported illegally. The feds also took a number of guitars and computer hard drives. The factory was shut down for the day and employees told to go home. Yet after all this time, the Department of Justice has shown no sign that it will file criminal charges against Gibson. What’s more – it has been almost 3 years since federal agents...

IRS Scandal: The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies. On Aug. 24, 2011, federal agents executed four search warrants on Gibson Guitar Corp. facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tenn., and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. One of the top makers of acoustic and electric guitars, including the iconic Les Paul introduced in 1952, Gibson was accused of using wood illegally obtained in violation of the century-old Lacey Act, which outlaws trafficking in...

In yet another sign we're getting closer to figuring out what happened to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, battered luggage has washed up on an island near where plane debris was found this week. Malaysian and Australian officials have said that it's "almost certain" the plane debris came from a Boeing 777. Flight MH370 is currently the only missing Boeing 777 in the world. It's unclear whether the suitcase that was found on Reunion Island near Madagascar in the Indian Ocean is from the missing plane, but it's a possibility considering where the suitcase washed up.

(Poster's note: I searched by title and keyword and didn't find this already on FR) A pilot from New York believes he has found the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airline Flight 370 off the coast of Thailand after searching thousands of satellite images online. Michael Hoebel, 60, spent hours trawling through the images made available to the public on a crowd-sourcing website, TomNod.com, before coming across what he believes is the doomed plane. The recreational pilot from Tonawanda said he was shocked to discover that the aircraft, which vanished two months ago, appeared to be in one piece beneath...

British woman Katherine Tee is saying she spotted what she believes is the missing Malaysian Air flight MH370 while she was sailing. She saw in early March, but is only now coming forward because she did not believe her eyes at the time. Tee said that while she and her husband Marc Horn were sailing across the Indian Ocean from India to Thailand, she spotted what looked like a plane on fire during the night of March 7. She thought she was hallucinating, but after the media coverage, she looked up the flight plan of the aircraft and discovered their...

THE $90 million search for MH370 has discovered “man made objects” almost four kilometres under the surface of the southern Indian Ocean, but they are not the missing Boeing 777. Instead the debris is thought to be from an ancient shipwreck, comprising an anchor and other items. Australian Transport Safety Bureau Operational Search Director Peter Foley said they were “obviously disappointed” the discovery was not the missing aircraft.

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was "highly likely" on autopilot when it ran out of fuel and crashed into the Indian Ocean, Australian researchers have said. A new search area for the missing Boeing 777 plane has been announced by the Australian government .... Deputy Prime Minister Warren Trust confirmed the search will move further south to an area 1,800km (1,100 miles) off the western coast of Australia.... An expert group has reviewed the existing information on MH370, revealing that is it probable that the plane was on autopilot when it ended its flight. Truss said it was "highly, highly likely...

'U.S. military shot down MH370 because they thought it had been hacked and was about to be used in terror attack', claims former airline boss Marc Dugain says U.S. Navy in Indian Ocean attacked the plane He claims that islanders saw the plane fly close to a U.S. base Also alleges that a spy told him to back away from his probe into MH370 A former airline boss and writer claims the U.S. downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 because the military feared it had been taken over by hackers and was about to be used in a 9/11-style attack. Marc...

A second senior airline industry source has revealed his belief that there is some sort of conspiracy behind the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. As The Herald Sun reports, Emirates president and CEO Sir Tim Clark made world headlines in October when he revealed his doubts about the fate of the missing plane, which disappeared early in the morning of March 8 this year. Now a second senior airline industry source has voiced his doubts about the fate of the plane, with the even wilder claim that the Boeing 777 may have been shot down by US military personnel...

Was Flight MH370 captured by aliens? Stolen by Israeli agents? Or did it crash in Ukraine? A round-up of the best conspiracy theories LAST UPDATED AT 12:06 ON Thu 4 Dec 2014 See related:  Flight MH17: new footage shows aftermath of crash – video MH370: search for missing plane could be over by May The mystery of flight MH370: 7 other planes that vanished In the ongoing absence of firm evidence about the fate of missing flight MH370, the world's conspiracy theorists have weighed in with explanations of their own for the disappearance of the Malaysia Airways plane.The susbsequent...

Searchers Focus on April 5 Signals as Confidence Fades Over April 8 Detections Searchers preparing to resume the underwater hunt for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 increasingly suspect that some of the electronic signals detected last month didn't come from the jetliner's black-box flight recorders, a senior Australian naval officer said. The doubts—based on further acoustic analysis of the transmissions by Australian authorities over recent weeks—represent another potential setback in the two-month-old operation. An initial underwater search in the southern Indian Ocean has already failed to find any sign of the missing plane, while a costly air-and-ship search of the ocean's...

The search for a missing Malaysia Airlines MASM.KL jetliner suffered a further setback on Thursday after Australian officials said wreckage from the aircraft was not on the seabed in the area they had identified.... The search was narrowed last month after a series of acoustic pings thought to be from the plane's black box recorders were heard near where analysis of satellite data put its last location, some 1,600 km (1,000 miles) off the northwest coast of Australia. "The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has advised that the search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered...

(CNN) -- The four acoustic pings at the center of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 for the past seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes, a U.S. Navy official told CNN. The acknowledgment came Wednesday as searchers wrapped up the first phase of their effort, having scanned 329 square miles of southern Indian Ocean floor without finding any wreckage from the Boeing 777-200.