The risk from the deadly Ebola outbreak has been raised to the highest level for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Friday, as the toll continues to rise.

The WHO upgraded its risk assessment level from high to very high for the DRC, while keeping the regional risk level at high and the global risk level at low.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the situation was “deeply worrisome”.

He said there were now nearly 750 suspected cases in the DRC and 177 suspected deaths, as health workers scramble to track down contacts of everyone thought to be infected with the virus.

“The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is spreading rapidly,” he told a press conference.

“So far, 82 cases have been confirmed in DRC, with seven confirmed deaths.

“But we know the epidemic in DRC is much larger. There are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths.”

He said the situation in Uganda was “stable”, with two cases confirmed in people who travelled from DRC and one death.

Measures taken in Uganda, including “intense contact tracing” and calling off the Martyrs’ Day commemorations, “appear to have been effective in preventing the further spread of the virus,” Tedros added.

While a US national who was working in the DRC has tested positive and been transferred to Germany for care, Tedros said another US national deemed to be a high-risk contact had been transferred to the Czech Republic.

Besides national staff already in the DRC, he said 22 international staff had been deployed to the field, “including some of our most experienced people”.

Tedros said that violence and insecurity were impeding the response to the outbreak in the DRC.

Treatment trials planned

Ebola is a deadly viral disease spread through direct contact with bodily fluids. It can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.

There are no approved vaccines or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola behind the current outbreak.

There have only been two previous outbreaks of Bundibugyo, in Uganda in 2007 and DRC in 2012.

WHO chief scientist Sylvie Briand said the UN agency was making an inventory of all existing tools which might be useful in combating the outbreak and then prioritising them, with safety and efficacy the main criteria.

The WHO research and development branch has convened its technical advisory group on treatments, which recommended the prioritisation of two monoclonal antibodies for clinical trials.

It also recommended evaluating the antiviral obeldesivir in clinical trials as post-exposure prophylaxis for people who are high-risk contacts.

Briand said it looked “promising” as something that might be able to prevent infected contacts from going on to develop disease from that infection.

The WHO is also in talks with partners on developing eventual vaccines that work against Bundibugyo.

New Delhi’s iconic auto-rickshaws have received a Donald Trump-themed makeover to mark the United States’ 250th Independence celebrations and the upcoming India visit of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but not everyone is a fan.

The US embassy said it is providing thousands of vehicle covers emblazoned with Trump’s face and the US flag for the ubiquitous three-wheeled taxi rickshaws plying the sprawling megacity.

“Happy Birthday America!”, the cover reads, fitted to the back of the usually yellow-and-green rickshaws, also known as tuk-tuks. “250 years old”.

US Ambassador Sergio Gor, who was previously in charge of staffing the second Trump administration with loyalists, launched the rickshaw campaign in April featuring “iconic American images”.

The US embassy in New Delhi told AFP that “thousands of tuk-tuks currently in circulation will be sponsored to showcase messages celebrating America’s 250th birthday”. Some include the Statue of Liberty.

In sweltering heat at a fuel station, 24-year-old Tushar wielded a hammer as he fitted a Trump face cover to a three-wheeled rickshaw.

“We get around 60 to 70 of these covers every day from a supplier,” Tushar, who uses only one name, told AFP, saying he earns around 50 rupees (half a dollar) to fit each one.

He was busy persuading drivers to fit the free covers as they sat in queues for compressed natural gas (CNG), sweetening the deal with a small packet of tea.

“The gifts keep changing,” Tushar said. “Sometimes, it is pickles.”

‘Trump ruined everything’

India has been hard hit by fuel disruptions following the US and Israeli strikes on Iran that led to Tehran’s stranglehold on the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

New Delhi announced fuel-saving measures last week, including work-from-home days for government employees, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for reduced consumption.

India, the world’s third-largest oil buyer, normally sources about half of its crude through the Strait of Hormuz.

The country had been one of the few in the region to not hike domestic fuel prices, but has raised costs twice since last week — sparking anger, especially among commercial drivers.

“I know it’s Trump, but I have got a new cover — and without paying anything,” said driver Murari Lal, saying a new plain cover costs around 700 rupees ($7).

Another driver was less enthusiastic.

“I won’t get the cover, even if it is for free,” he said, declining to give his name. “Trump has ruined everything.”

Drivers usually risk a fine if they display adverts on their vehicles, although some still promote brands, language-speaking courses, little-known sexual wellness clinics or paint nationalistic slogans like “My India is Great”.

Tushar said he faced a tough task persuading some to put Trump on their vehicle.

“Those who read the newspapers are angry at him over the war,” he said. “They refuse us straight up.”

Rubio arrives in India on Saturday, for a multi-city tour of the world’s most populous nation — where he will seek to build ties beyond government meetings in the capital.

He will visit four Indian cities, beginning in Kolkata, home to one of the oldest US diplomatic posts — which got its first consul in 1792, just 16 years after Washington’s independence.

Rubio then attends a gala reception in New Delhi for the 250th anniversary of US independence from Britain, on July 4, 1776.

Forecasters say a potentially “super” El Nino is rapidly taking shape in the Pacific — but whether it evolves into a history-making event could hinge on fickle winds and other volatile atmospheric shifts.

The fast-warming tropical Pacific is pointing to a major event but a crucial weakening of trade winds — capable of turbocharging or throttling the phenomenon — has yet to materialise.

Scientists say these interactions are notoriously complex and difficult to predict — making it too early to confidently forecast how powerful this El Nino could become.

Flashing red

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said there is about an 80 per cent chance of El Nino developing by July.

Sea temperatures in key El Nino zones of the equatorial Pacific are rapidly rising, and an enormous pool of abnormally warm water is massing beneath the surface.

Several leading weather services are predicting Pacific sea temperatures could surge 2.5 degrees Celsius or more above average later this year — exceptionally high projections.

Just three events — 1982/83, 1997/98 and 2015/16 — have breached 2 degrees Celsius since the first major El Nino recorded in the modern era in 1877/78.

Adam Scaife, head of long-range prediction at the UK Met Office, said this El Nino could be the strongest in decades or “even be of record strength”.

“There’s definitely something coming. We’re very confident about that, and it looks like it will be a big event,” he told AFP.

Wily winds

The NOAA forecasted a one-in-three chance this episode will hit 2 degrees Celsius or above — crossing into what is dubbed “super El Nino” territory.

But key pieces of the puzzle had yet to fall into place, said Michelle L’Heureux, NOAA’s El Nino-Southern Oscillation lead.

El Ninos build strength as the ocean and atmosphere increasingly “couple” over the summer months, shifting air pressure, cloud patterns and winds.

This feedback loop can turn a modest El Nino into a blockbuster event, supercharging heat and triggering chaotic weather worldwide.

A hallmark of the strongest El Ninos is the weakening of trade winds that blow east to west across the equator.

But those winds are unpredictable and can strengthen unexpectedly, said L’Heureux.

“When that happens, it pauses the growth of El Nino or even reverses it,” she told AFP.

“Ultimately, the strength of this event will likely be influenced by these details, like the low-level winds, which we cannot predict many months in advance.”

Heat incoming

El Nino tends to peak around December but ocean heat releases slowly and can drive up global temperatures the following years.

Many record-hot years — including 1998, 2010, 2016, 2023 and 2024 — followed major El Nino events or developed alongside them.

Climate scientists interviewed by AFP said global heat records could fall in 2026 — but 2027 was the year to watch.

There “could easily be a new record level of global warmth in 2027” if an extreme El Nino takes shape this year, said Scaife.

It remains unclear whether Earth’s warming is influencing El Nino intensity. The last event in 2023/24 was weaker than episodes in 1982/83 and 1997/98, making any trend hard to pin down.

Scientists stress that stronger El Ninos raise the odds of more severe impacts — but do not guarantee them.

Yet even a weaker event now unfolds in a world transformed by climate change, with extra heat and moisture loading an already feverish atmosphere and oceans.

That means El Nino’s impacts could become more extreme even if the phenomenon itself is not growing stronger.

“The impacts of this El Nino — on things like rainfall and of course temperature — are riding on top of climate change, and could well be larger than anything we’ve seen in the past,” said Scaife.

Different world

Every El Nino is different, but major events often follow familiar patterns: drought across parts of the Amazon, Indonesia and Australia, disrupted Indian monsoons, and shifting rainfall throughout the tropics.

But climate change has shifted the baseline so dramatically that “history is a poorer guide for seasonal predictions,” climatologist Felicity Gamble at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology told AFP.

“What happened during an El Nino event 20 years ago is probably quite different to how it might manifest these days.”

Forecasts are also complicated by climate-driven ocean warming, which makes it easier to trigger El Nino conditions and harder to distinguish La Nina, its opposite cooling phase, against a hotter backdrop, Gamble said.

The Bureau of Meteorology and NOAA have started filtering out background warming to improve forecast accuracy. Other weather agencies are adopting similar adjusted benchmarks.

Even still, Australia is predicting El Nino could reach 2.8 degrees Celsius — potentially a history-making event.

NEW YORK: SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO filing included some out of this world details, including a provision that founder Elon Musk’s massive bonus only kicks in if one million humans settle on Mars.

The bonus structure, laid out in SpaceX’s prospectus filed with US regulators on Wednesday, reads less like a compensation agreement and more like a science fiction plot.

Musk’s bonus is contingent on SpaceX’s stock market value hitting targets ranging from $400 billion to $6 trillion — along with the company moving a million people to a planet 140 million miles (225 million kilometres) away.

Musk describes that ambition as essential to the long-term survival of the human race, though most experts see it as being at least decades away. Still, Musk will do just fine if the IPO goes ahead in the coming weeks as planned.

At the company’s reported target valuation of $1.75 trillion, Musk’s existing stake would be worth an estimated $735 billion — before a single person sets foot on the Red Planet.

A second, smaller bonus ties an additional 60 million shares to a different moonshot: building data centers in orbit capable of delivering 100 terawatts of computing power per year — a figure that dwarfs anything that exists on Earth today. SpaceX filed for its long-awaited IPO Wednesday, targeting a listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker “SPCX” in what could be the largest public offering in Wall Street history.

The company’s Starship rocket — whose latest iteration could launch on Thursday — is explicitly designed with Mars colonization in mind.

The filing confirmed a dual-class share structure that will leave Musk firmly in control of the company after the listing, sidestepping the kind of governance fights that have dogged him at Tesla, where shareholders have repeatedly taken aim at his compensation and the board’s independence.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2026