briefs

WASHINGTON (MCT) – U.S. health officials are warning that a sometimes-deadly tropical disease… WASHINGTON (MCT) – U.S. health officials are warning that a sometimes-deadly tropical disease that’s spread by mosquitoes is re-emerging worldwide and could gain a foothold in the U.S. one day.

Dengue, a flu-like illness that infects 50 million to 100 million people a year, has been growing more prevalent and severe as it moves from tropical regions into more temperate areas such as Puerto Rico, where it’s now endemic, and along the U.S. border with Mexico.

An estimated 21 people are thought to have died from dengue fever last year in Puerto Rico, where the number of cases jumped to more than 10,000 in 2007 from about 3,000 the year before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 30,000 cases were reported in Mexico last year.

Despite these and other sporadic outbreaks, dengue hasn’t established itself in the continental United States. But a number of factors suggest that one day it could.

Expanded migration of a mosquito that transmits the disease, increased urbanization, and rising temperatures and rainfall – possibly caused by global warming – have helped fuel an alarming global resurgence of the disease. This increases the likelihood that it could strike even harder in the U.S.

The CDC estimates that 100 to 200 cases each year are introduced into the United States by travelers. – Tony Pugh, McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT) – From the gates of U.S. Southern Command in Doral, Fla., to Europe and beyond, activists donned orange jumpsuits on Friday in an orchestrated global protest on the sixth anniversary of the establishment of the terror prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Amnesty International declared the day of demonstrations – a call for the Bush administration to close the prison camps that opened Jan. 11, 2002.

And opponents from college students to veterans of sixties era protests responded with street theater.

In South Florida, about 60 protesters met morning rush-hour motorists with chants of “Hey-hey, ho-ho, U.S. out of Guantanamo” and waved signs declaring “Torture is Terror,” at a busy intersection.

In Washington, reports said 80-plus protesters were arrested at the Supreme Court after chanting “Shut it down” and issued citations for violating an ordinance that prohibits demonstration on the court grounds.

In Brussels, Belgian activists crouched over in a long line, adopting so-called “stress positions” approved by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as an authorized interrogation technique.

In Istanbul, Turkish women in traditional garb stood in protest alongside a mock prisoner – burlap bag on his head – wearing trademark orange and chains.

Near the U.S. Embassy in London, Amnesty International demonstrators set up replica prison cages at Grosvenor Square and spent the night in them.

The United States holds 275 foreign men as “enemy combatants” at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba – among them, alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and 14 other men once held in secret sites by the CIA until President Bush had them transferred to the base for possible trial. – Carol Rosenberg, McClatchy Newspapers