Defying pressure, US lets UN denounce Israeli settlements

LUANDA — Angola on Friday declared the end of a yellow fever outbreak that killed at least 400 people, after an emergency United Nations vaccination campaign covering 25 million people.

The outbreak erupted in December last year in the slums of the capital Luanda, spreading to 16 of Angola’s 18 provinces and into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Officials said no new cases had been reported in Angola since June after the mass vaccination campaign was launched in both countries.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) described it as the world’s worst yellow fever outbreak in a generation.

“Since June 23 that Angola has not registered new epidemic cases of yellow fever, everything is under control and it is finished,” Health Minister Luis Sambo told a press conference in Luanda.

Last month WHO said the outbreak in Angola and DRC was “coming to a close” after more than 7 300 suspected cases and a vaccination effort involving 41 000 volunteers. There is no specific treatment for yellow fever, a viral haemorrhagic disease transmitted mainly by the same species of mosquito that also spreads Zika and dengue.

Yellow fever vaccinations are routinely recommended for travellers to Angola, though the country had not previously seen a significant outbreak since 1986. — News24 THE United States on Friday allowed the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, defying heavy pressure from long-time ally Israel and President-elect Donald Trump for Washington to wield its veto.

A US abstention paved the way for the 15-member council to approve the resolution, with 14 votes in favor, prompting applause in the council chamber.

The action by President Barack Obama’s administration follows growing U.S. frustration over the unrelenting construction of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a future independent state. “Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has encouraged the expansion of Jewish settlements in territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, said in a statement.

The US action just weeks before Obama ends eight years as president broke with the long-standing American approach of shielding Israel, which receives more than $3 billion in annual US military aid, from such action.

The United States, Russia, France, Britain and China have veto power on the council. The resolution, put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and Trump, was the first adopted by the council on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly — News24

Angola declares end to deadly yellow fever epidemic