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The virus threat is easing, but US hospitals are still as full as ever

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At Massachusetts General Hospital in downtown Boston, the hallways of the emergency department are lined with dozens of patients waiting to get a room upstairs.

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Cyber attacks accelerated in 2022, further highlighting predicted … – Mondaq

Cyber attacks accelerated in 2022, further highlighting predicted …  Mondaq
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The Orthodox Oligarch, His Guard Dog, and Their Tsarist Dream

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Oligarch Konstantin Malofeev and ex-intelligence officer Igor Girkin are on a mission to restore Russia’s imperial glory. To do so they need to destroy Ukraine.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly required doctors after … – Sky News Australia

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly required doctors after …  Sky News Australia
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AP Trending SummaryBrief at 6:38 a.m. EST | Coronavirus … – The Lawton Constitution

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Deadly earthquake exacerbates suffering of displaced Syrians

The deadly 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey near the Syrian border has hit hard in areas that house millions of war-displaced Syrians
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An Expert Reappears as a Ghost

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George Kennan’s warnings on Ukraine find fresh relevance.

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Russia-Ukraine conflict exposes Biden security team’s inability to plan ahead foxnews.com/opinion/russia… #FoxNews

Russia-Ukraine conflict exposes Biden security team’s inability to plan ahead foxnews.com/opinion/russia… #FoxNews
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Deadly earthquake exacerbates suffering of displaced Syrians

DARKUSH, Syria (AP) — A steady stream of injured were flowing into an overwhelmed hospital in the town of Darkush, in rebel-held northwestern Syria on Monday, after a deadly earthquake struck the region. Mothers hovered over crying children.

Amid the chaos, one man sat with a dazed expression, his face covered with abrasions.

The man, Osama Abdul Hamid, had barely made it out alive with his wife and four children from his apartment building in the nearby village of Azmarin. Many of their neighbors were not so lucky.

“The building is four stories, and from three of them, no one made it out,” Abdul Hamid said, breaking down in tears. “God gave me a new lease on life.”

The powerful 7.8 magnitude quake that struck before dawn on Monday wreaked new damage and suffering in Syria’s last rebel-held enclave, already wrecked by years of fighting and bombardment and housing millions of displaced Syrians who had fled their homes during the country’s civil war.

Hospitals and clinics were flooded with injured. In the enclave, centered in Idlib province, many of the displaced live in dire conditions in makeshift camps. Many others there and in neighboring government-held areas are housed in buildings weakened by past bombings and left even more vulnerable to shocks from earthquakes.

The quake caused total and partial damage to buildings in at least 58 villages, towns and cities in northwestern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.

More than 1,300 people were killed in Turkey and Syria, with the toll expected to climb. In the opposition-held territory in Syria, more than 100 were reported dead, but hundreds more were believed be buried under the rubble of their homes.

“This disaster will worsen the suffering of Syrians already struggling with a severe humanitarian crisis,” Carsten Hansen, the director for Middle East at the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a statement. “Millions have already been forced to flee by war in the wider region and now many more will be displaced by disaster.”

In the hospital in Darkush in western Idlib, Abdel Hamid told how his family were sleeping in their apartment when they were roused by powerful, prolonged shaking. They ran from the apartment, but “before we reached the door of the building, the whole building came down on us,” he said.

A wooden door shielded them from the worst force of the collapse — they all got out alive. He and his wife and three of the children suffered head injuries but are all in stable condition.

The scale of the casualties quickly overwhelmed the hospital’s resources, said Majdi al-Ibrahim, a general surgeon at the hospital.

“We need urgent help. The danger is beyond our capacity,” he said.

The Syrian American Medical Society, which runs hospitals in northern Syria and southern Turkey, said in a statement that its facilities are “overwhelmed with patients filling the hallways” and called urgently for “trauma supplies and a comprehensive emergency response to save lives and treat the injured.”

The opposition territory in the northwest corner of Syria has held out for years even after Syrian government forces retook most rebel-held areas around the country.

Fighting still flares from time to time with Russian-backed Syrian forces nearby. Parts of the territory are run by rebel groups, including a dominant al-Qaida-linked militant faction, while parts are under a Turkish-backed administration known as the Syrian Interim Government.

The disaster came on the heels of severe winter storms, further adding to the misery of those left without shelter.

“There is rain and the weather is very cold, there is snow in some of the areas,” Abdel Hakim al-Masri, economy minister with the Turkish-backed regional administration, told The Associated Press. He noted that some of the displacement camps in the area had been decimated by the quake.

“There is a huge amount of suffering, and this will increase it,” he said.

___

Sewell reported from Beirut.

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Turkey quake kills 912 in historic disaster, Erdogan says

2023-02-06T11:42:10Z

Rescuers search for survivors under the rubble following an earthquake in Diyarbakir, Turkey February 6, 2023. REUTERS/Sertac Kayar

At least 912 people were killed and more than 5,000 injured when a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey overnight, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, calling it a historic disaster for which the death toll is likely to rise.

The quake was centred on the province of Kahramanmaras and shook southern Turkey and northern Syria overnight. It was followed by another powerful tremor with a 7.7 magnitude in the same region at around 1025 GMT.

Erdogan said 2,818 buildings collapsed after the first tremor, describing it as the country’s “largest disaster” since 1939, when a major quake struck the eastern province of Erzincan.

In 1999, a tremor of similar magnitude devastated Izmit and the heavily populated eastern Marmara Sea region near Istanbul, killing more than 17,000.

“Everyone is putting their heart and soul into efforts, although the winter season, cold weather and the earthquake happening during the night make things more difficult,” he told reporters in a news conference at Turkey’s disaster coordination centre in Ankara.

“We do not know how high the casualty numbers will go as efforts to lift the debris continue in several buildings in the earthquake zone,” he said.

Some 9,000 personnel were taking part in the rescue operations, he said. Offers off assistance have been made by NATO, the European Union and 45 countries, he added.

Erdogan said 5,385 people had been injured in the quake as rescue operations continued, with 2,470 people rescued from the ruins of buildings.

“Today is a day for 85 million to be together as one heart,” he said.

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