POLICE have been called to a potential hostage situation after Tottenham Court Road in London, one of the country’s busiest shopping streets, was closed. Businesses and shoppers were evacuated from the area at midday. Scotland Yard said it had sent a negotiator to the scene after reports of a man throwing furniture out of a window several floors up. A spokesman said it was “too early to say if the suspect was armed or indeed had taken any hostages”. Joaqam Ramus, who works at nearby Cafe Fresco, said before being evacuated: “There was talk of a bomb and somebody having a hostage in a building. “All Tottenham Court Road is closed and so are we - the police told us to shut. “We don’t know what it is but it seems someone has a hostage.” A spokesman for Transport for London could not confirm details of the ongoing operation but confirmed they were “aware of an incident”. Staff from news website The Huffington Post UK were evacuated from their building after a man reportedly wearing a gas canister threatened to blow himself up in the adjoining building, they said. People near the scene reported shots being fired and said computers and equipment had been thrown out of the windows of the office block housing the Huffington Post. Huffington Post UK executive editor Stephen Hull posted a video on Twitter of an office worker who saw the man enter the building. Abby Baafi, 27, the head of training and operations at Advantage, a company which offers HGV courses, told Mr Hull the man had targeted her offices and was currently holding four men hostage. In a video posted on YouTube, she said: “What happened is, we were in the office and someone came in. He asked him what his name was and he said it was Michael Green. “I recognised him because he was one of our previous customers but he is not quite stable - mentally stable. “He turned up, strapped up with gasoline cylinders, and threatened to blow up the office. “He said he doesn’t care about his life. He doesn’t care about anything, he is going to blow up everybody. “He was specifically looking for me but I said ‘My name’s not Abby’ and he let me go.” Ms Baafi said the man failed the HGV training course and wanted his money back.
The death toll from the world's worst outbreak of Ebola stood on Wednesday at 1,069 from 1,975 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, the agency said. The majority were in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, while four people have died in Nigeria. The agency's apparent acknowledgement the situation is worse than previously thought could spur governments and aid organisations to take stronger measures against the virus. "Staff at the outbreak sites see evidence that the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak," the organisation said. "WHO is coordinating a massive scaling up of the international response, marshalling support from individual countries, disease control agencies, agencies within the United Nations system, and others." International agencies are looking into emergency food drops and truck convoys to reach hungry people in Liberia and Sierra Leone cordoned off from the outside world to halt the sprea...
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