The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the epidemic.

It is expected to pass a resolution demanding a more forceful international response to the crisis, urging member countries to provide medical staff and field hospitals.

The resolution will also call for the lifting of travel restrictions that have prevented health workers from offering assistance. UN officials have described the outbreak as a health crisis "unparalleled in modern times".護髮中 心

The BBC's Umaru Fofana says frenetic shopping had been taking place ahead of Friday's lockdown

The World Bank's analysis said billions of dollars could be drained from West African countries by the end of next year if the virus continued to spread.

Under the worst-case scenario, the global development lender predicted that economic growth next year could be reduced by 2.3 percentage points in Guinea and 8.9 percentage points in Sierra Leone.

It predicted Liberia's economy would be hardest-hit, losing 11.7 percentage points off its growth next year.

The report emphasised the need to tackle the fear of the disease, as well as the virus itself. It said "aversion behaviour", arising from concerns about contagion, was having a bigger economic impact than the "direct costs" imposed by the epidemic.torial

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Bangkok's traffic problem has been getting worse since the government introduced a policy to refund tax for first-time car buyers.managerbaby’blog


Coupled with the Thai aspiration to own a car and get some status, this policy has resulted in five million vehicles in a city which can only cope with less than two million cars. Kissbabyyou

Once I got into a jam in downtown Bangkok, when I spent almost two hours moving less than a kilometre. Sometimes, my colleagues have arrived at work up to four hours late. I think the city should be more serious about public transport. People have better things to do than sit on the roads for hours every day.

Two or three weeks ago, travelling from Pathum Thani to central Bangkok, it took four and a half hours for a journey which usually takes less than an hour. Sirithep Vadrakchit, Thailand
Jakarta, Indonesia
Jakarta

Indonesians living in Jakarta have their own word for traffic jam - the inevitable "macet".
Continue reading the main story
Allan Bell's commute

I'm moving to a new job and will give myself 90 minutes to two hours to cover 20-25km
Mode of transport: I usually use taxis as they are generally braver
Another option is the Ojek, a motorcycle taxi service - it's good, fast and cuts through the traffic, and large numbers of people in hospitals all over Jakarta can attest to its popularity

Your life is planned around the traffic jams which often continue through the day. Travelling even short distances can take hours and some parts of the city are in a constant state of jam.

Unfortunately there is little alternative. Public transport is poor and even recent initiatives such as a trans-Jakarta bus lane are inefficient and even contribute to the problem by clogging intersections and reducing road space while moving comparatively small numbers of people.

Last week I went out to visit our new house. My driver got lost and ended up in Ciputat, a suburb notorious for traffic, and it took us about 30 minutes to cover 2km. Two hours to work in Sao Paolo? it's the stuff of dreams. Allan Bell, Jakartagilrmananger‘blog
Nairobi, Kenya
Nairobi jamhulahua

The worst thing that the British colonialists left us with were the roundabouts.
huukserのblog
Arthur Buliva's commute

On a good traffic-free day, one hour to cover 12km - but on Friday evenings, your guess is as good as mine - anything from three hours
Mode of transport: Matatu (minibus) and my own car occasionally

These are the main source of traffic problems in Nairobi since the place to which you are headed may be very clear, but because the cars already in the roundabout have the right of way you are forced to wait.

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There has been fresh shelling near Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine, raising fears that a recently agreed ceasefire may collapse.

The truce held for much of Saturday but shelling in Mariupol, which killed one woman, was followed by the Donetsk airport blasts early on Sunday.

The two cities then turned quiet, with no reports of clashes overnight.
There has been fresh shelling near Donetsk airport in eastern Ukraine, raising fears that a recently agreed ceasefire may collapse.

The truce held for much of Saturday but shelling in Mariupol, which killed one woman, was followed by the Donetsk airport blasts early on Sunday.

The two cities then turned quiet, with no reports of clashes overnight.

Fighting in the east has killed some 2,600 people since April. The truce and roadmap to peace were agreed on Friday.

On Sunday, Ukrainian security official Volodymyr Poliovyi said 864 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the conflict began.

Russia has repeatedly denied accusations by Ukraine and the West that it has been sending troops into Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions to help the rebels, who want to establish an independent state
We have just been at Donetsk airport which has in recent weeks been the focus of the fighting between Ukrainian forces and separatist rebels, with Ukrainian troops inside the main building there holding the airport.

We have heard a lot of mortars being fired, both into the airport area and outgoing as well. We also met an observer team from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

It said most of the firing was outgoing from the airport, ie from Ukrainian troops. It said the firing had caused some fires in villages nearby but stressed that, although a violation of the ceasefire, the fighting at Donetsk airport was not sufficient to actually make the ceasefire collapse.

line.

Fighting in the east has killed some 2,600 people since April. The truce and roadmap to peace were agreed on Friday.

On Sunday, Ukrainian security official Volodymyr Poliovyi said 864 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed since the conflict began.

Russia has repeatedly denied accusations by Ukraine and the West that it has been sending troops into Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions to help the rebels, who want to establish an independent state.Honybaby‘blogHonybbfloweew123flowergilr‘blogmansiseのblog

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Uighur Muslims dominated Xinjiang's population until heavy migration of Han, the largest ethnic group in China, began in the region.

Several media outlets have noted reports in Western media outlets that the authorities are promoting Han migration and inter-ethnic marriages "in a bid to quell the Uighurs".

The autonomous region, in China's far west, has seen an upsurge in violence in recent months, which Beijing blames on Uighur separatists.

A few news portals have published articles supporting the policy, and suggest that the plan should also be implemented elsewhere.

However, the Global Times has observed scepticism over the scheme with some arguing that authorities should not intervene in citizens' personal matters.

According to the paper, local officials have stopped publicising the policy amid increased media attention.

"The intention of the policy is good, but it has to be carefully implemented… It might end up strengthening ethnic identity and create social pressure on [mixed-race] families," warns Li Xiaoxia, a professor with the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, adding that mixed marriages are "rare in Xinjiang and are not likely to spread".
'Militarism in Japan'

Meanwhile, papers commemorate the 69th anniversary of China's second war with Japan.

Japanese forces invaded and occupied Manchuria in northern China in 1931. A wider war between the two countries began in 1937 and ended with Japan's surrender in August 1945, days after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The commemorative event comes amid strained ties between Beijing and Tokyo over historical issues and territorial disputes.

Several papers have published editorials and articles recalling the "disasters and suffering that the invasion caused", while warning against the "revival of militarism in Japan".

"The celebration of the victory is not only to commemorate the event, but it is also in defence of peace… Until today, lessons from history must still be remembered as the right-wing forces in Japan are still white-washing history and becoming more aggressive," says the People's Daily.

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