This year marks the half-way point in an international campaign to provide children and adults the world over with access to life-saving vaccines. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on the progress – and what’s at stake in this campaign.
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Month: April 2017
A supply ship bearing John Glenn’s name arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday.
Astronauts used the station’s big robot arm to grab the capsule, as the craft flew 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Germany.
NASA’s commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, named the spacecraft the S.S. John Glenn in honor of the first American to orbit Earth. It rocketed from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday with nearly 7,700 pounds of food, experiments and other goods.
Glenn died in December at age 95 and was buried earlier this month at Arlington National Cemetery. His widow, Annie, granted permission for Orbital ATK to use his name for the Cygnus spacecraft. The company, in fact, sent up some memorabilia for the Glenn family.
Glenn made history in 1962 when he soared into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his one-man Mercury capsule. He returned to space in 1998 aboard shuttle Discovery, at age 77, right before station construction began in orbit.
Space station commander Peggy Whitson — who on Monday will set a U.S. record for most accumulated time in orbit — notified Mission Control when the capsule was captured.
“We’re very proud to welcome on board the S.S. John Glenn,” said French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who took part in the operation. The contents “will be put to good use to continue our mission of research, exploration and discovery.”
Whitson and Pesquet have been living on the space station since November, along with a Russian. They were joined by another American and Russian on Thursday.
Whitson is making her third space station flight. Early Monday, she will surpass the 534-day, two-hour-and-change mark set by astronaut Jeffrey Williams last year. President Donald Trump will call her from the Oval Office to offer congratulations.
The S.S. John Glenn, meanwhile, will remain at the orbiting outpost until July, when it is let go to burn up in the atmosphere.
Six years ago, 194 countries signed on to the Global Vaccine Action Plan, an international campaign to provide children and adults around the world with access to life-saving vaccines.
The goal of the program is to prevent millions of people from getting vaccine-preventable diseases by the time it ends in 2020. The idea is to provide universal access to vaccines to protect people of all ages, from the very young to the very old.
Dr. Flavia Bustreo, is the assistant director-general for Family, Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization.
“Immunization and vaccines are the most powerful public health tools that we have currently, “ she said.
Millions of children saved
Bustreo says 35 years ago, 13 million children lost their lives from diseases that could be prevented by vaccines.
She says that number has been reduced to 6 million, but 6 million is still too high.
Today, 85 percent of children are vaccinated against measles and other deadly diseases, but Bustreo says more children need these vaccines.
“We need to have vaccination coverage that is about 90 percent, in order to have what we call the ‘herd effect’ … which means you cover the children who are vaccinated, but also, because of the reduction of transmission of infections, you also cover the children that are not vaccinated,” Bustreo said.
Final push on polio
Because of vaccines, polio is on the brink of eradication. Polio exists in two conflict zones: in northern Nigeria and along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Last year there were 37 cases. Compare that to the 350,000 cases in 1988 when the eradication campaign began.
There’s a special urgency to vaccinate all children against polio. Dr. David Nabarro has worked on a number of health programs at the World Health Organization and now as a special envoy for the United Nations.
“The last part of eradicating any disease is always the hardest part,” he said. “If you don’t do it, you lose everything. To do it, you’ve got to really bring all the energy and commitment you can to bear, and it requires a special kind of dedication.”
Vaccines have prevented millions of deaths and countless numbers of children from becoming disabled. By 2020, at the conclusion of the Global Vaccine Action Plan, the U.N. wants to see countries strengthen routine immunizations for all children. It wants to complete the effort to end polio and to control other vaccine-preventable diseases. Also, the goal is to be well on the way in developing new vaccines for other diseases that plague our world.
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Marches took place in hundreds of cities around the world Saturday in support of science. Organizers hoped to bring government attention to fact-based decisions on health, the environment, safety and the economy. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti brings us the sights and sounds from these rallies – she starts in Washington.
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Global plastic consumption reached more than 110 million tons in 2009. Plastic can take up to 1,000 years to degrade. When it does degrade, it can end up as tiny bits of poisonous microplastics in the bodies of animals we eat. But an English company has created a new product that might help solve the problem: an edible water bottle called Ooho. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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A fungus that causes “vomitoxin” has been found in some U.S. corn harvested last year, forcing poultry and pork farmers to test their grain, and giving headaches to grain growers wrestling with massive supplies and low prices.
The plant toxin sickens livestock and can also make humans and pets ill.
The appearance of vomitoxin and other toxins produced by fungi is affecting ethanol markets and prompting grain processors to seek alternative sources of feed supplies.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture first isolated the toxin in 1973 after an unusually wet winter in the Midwest. The compound was given what researchers described as the trivial name vomitoxin because pigs refused to eat the infected corn or vomited after consuming it. The U.S. Corn Belt had earlier outbreaks of infection from the toxin in 1966 and 1928.
The spread of vomitoxin is concentrated in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and parts of Iowa and Michigan, and its full impact is not yet known, according to state officials and data gathered by food testing firm Neogen Corp.
In Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana, a considerable share of corn crops tested since last fall’s harvest have had vomitoxin levels high enough to be considered too toxic for humans, pets, hogs, chickens and dairy cattle, according to public and private data compiled by Neogen. The company did not state what percent of each state’s corn crop was tested.
Toxin levels
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows vomitoxin levels of up to 1 part per million (ppm) in human and pet foods and recommends levels under 5 ppm in grain for hogs, 10 ppm for chickens and dairy cattle. Beef cattle can withstand toxin levels up to 30 ppm.
Alltech Inc, a Kentucky-based feed supplement company, said 73 percent of feed samples it has tested this year have vomitoxin. The company analyzed samples sent by farmers whose animals have fallen ill.
“We know there is lots of bad corn out there, because corn byproducts keep getting worse,” said Max Hawkins, a nutritionist with Alltech.
Neogen, which sells grain testing supplies, reported a 29 percent jump in global sales for toxin tests, with strong demand for vomitoxin tests, in their fiscal third quarter, ending Feb. 28.
“We’re polling our customers and continually talking to them about the levels they’re seeing. Those levels are not going down,” said Pat Frasco, director of sales for Neogen’s milling, grain and pet food business.
The problem, stemming from heavy rain before and during the 2016 harvest, prompted farmers to store wet grain, said farmers, ethanol makers and grain inspectors.
The issue was compounded by farmers and grain elevators storing corn on the ground and other improvised spaces, sometimes covering the grain piles with plastic tarps. Grain buyers say they will have a clearer picture of the problem later this spring, as more farm-stored grain is moved to market.
Iowa State University grain quality expert Charles Hurburgh said the sheer size of the harvest in 2016 — the largest in U.S. history — complicates the job of managing toxins in grain, especially in the core Midwest.
“Mycotoxins are very hard to handle in high volume,” he said. “You can’t test every truckload, or if you do, you are only going to unload 20 trucks in a day.” By comparison, corn processors in Iowa unload 400 or more trucks a day.
Biofuel impact
Ethanol makers are feeling the impact. Turning corn into ethanol creates a byproduct called distillers dried grains (DDGs), which is sold as animal feed. With fuel prices low, the DDGs can boost profitability.
But the refining process triples the concentration of mycotoxins, making the feed byproduct less attractive. DDG prices in Indiana fell to $92.50 per ton in February, the lowest since 2009, and now are selling for $97.50 per ton, according to USDA.
Many ethanol plants are testing nearly every load of corn they receive for the presence of vomitoxin, said Indiana grain inspector Doug Titus, whose company has labs at The Andersons Inc., a grain handler, and energy company Valero Energy sites.
The Andersons in a February call with analysts said vomitoxin has hurt results at three of its refineries in the eastern U.S.
“That will be with us for some time,” Andersons’ chief executive Pat Bowe said.
Mixing with clean grain
Missouri grain farmer Doug Roth, who put grain into storage after last year’s wet harvest, has seen a few loads of corn rejected by clients who make pet food after the grain tested positive for low levels of fumonisin, a type of mycotoxin.
Roth said he paid to reroute the grain to livestock producers in Arkansas, who planned to blend it with unaffected grain in order to mitigate the effect of the toxins.
U.S. farmers with clean corn are reaping a price bump. A Cardinal Ethanol plant in Union City, Indiana, is offering grain sellers a 10-cent per bushel premium for corn with less than one-part-per-million or less of vomitoxin in it, according to the company’s website.
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Drawn-out deaths. Communities torn apart. Survivor’s guilt. Patrick Fallah says his memories of the days when the Ebola virus swept through Liberia are so awful that he sometimes has trouble focusing on the present.
“Sometimes when I have a flashback of the death of my son and others who died in the Ebola treatment unit, I don’t want to speak to people. I grieve so much that my mind is not really on what I am doing,” said Fallah, 30, who lost his 8-month-old son and stepmother and is president of the National Ebola Survivors Network of Liberia.
The trauma of the world’s deadliest Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 11,300, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, has left many survivors fighting a battle some worry will never end.
But Liberia, one of the world’s poorest countries and with just one psychiatrist, has announced the ambitious goal of expanding access to mental health care to 70 percent of its population in the next few years.
The World Health Organization declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in June, estimating that more than 10,000 people who had been infected have survived in the three West African countries, including more than 4,000 in Liberia.
As the world’s attention has turned to other crises, many Ebola survivors still face the psychological consequences of the epidemic, feeling guilt over their pasts and worry for their futures without resources to deal with the pain.
Mental health is often an expense far beyond the reach of impoverished countries. Liberia is still struggling to rebuild its basic health services after more than a decade of back-to-back civil wars that left a quarter-million people dead, with many killings carried out by drugged, under-age fighters notorious for hacking off survivors’ limbs.
Then Ebola arrived, frightening Liberians with its lack of a cure and its transmission through contact with body fluids. Many people became too scared to touch others or offer comfort as the death toll grew.
Now Liberia’s government has announced its ambition to expand mental health care access to its more than 4.2 million people, with help from the U.S.-based The Carter Center.
“After the civil war, people didn’t go through enough counseling. You have people already going through post-traumatic depression. Then Ebola came, and that built on what was already going on,” said Dr. Francis Kateh, Liberia’s deputy health minister and chief medical officer.
The Carter Center is helping to train Liberia’s health care workers to identify mental health issues.
Last month, 21 clinicians specializing in child and adolescent mental health graduated from the training. They join 187 mental health professionals who have been trained by the center since 2010 to work in prisons, with refugees or in other settings and are based in primary care clinics and hospitals around the country.
The Carter Center hopes to replicate its program in other countries, including Sierra Leone.
But educating the public will take time, the new mental health workers say.
“There are many people living with mental health problems in Liberia without knowing they are,” said one of the new specialists, Theophilus A. Joe.
Stigma remains around mental health issues, said Musulyn Massaqoui, a registered nurse and another recent graduate. Most people come to clinics only for physical issues, she said.
Ebola survivors often have hearing and vision problems, joint pain or chronic fatigue, according to the medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders. Many also are shunned by their communities and family members, making them vulnerable to mental health issues.
Children left orphaned by Ebola or who watched family members die are especially challenged, said Fallah with Liberia’s survivors’ network, which has about 1,800 members.
“They continue to have depression. They are still thinking about their parents,” he said. “Sometimes when they sit in the class, they don’t concentrate.” During the holidays, some feel so neglected that they “want to take up knife to kill themselves.”
Some of Liberia’s newly trained mental health workers have been placed in schools and orphanages to lessen the chances of stigma, said The Carter Center’s mental health program director, Eve Byrd.
That approach is critical, she said. “If you address childhood trauma early, you’re most likely to decrease symptoms of illness as the person ages.”
Stigma in Liberia has proven to be deadly. In March, an Ebola survivor who made the cover of Time magazine for her work as a nurse during the outbreak died when she experienced complications after childbirth and the nurses on duty were too afraid to touch her.
European scientists are taking part in the March for Science demonstration taking place in hundreds of cities around the world to commemorate Earth Day. Science and research skeptics are becoming more mainstream in an era of populist and Eurosceptic movements. And on both sides of the Atlantic, there is less funding to support independent research.
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a professor at the University of Leuven, says shifting priorities in Europe has had an impact on the work of scientists.
“Now funds for fundamental research are much more difficult to get. Even if the budget remains the same or sometimes has increased, there was a shift in priorities towards research that is supposed to deliver more immediate results in terms of job creation or that kind of thing. Or research that helps the European industry to bring a product to the market. And climate scientists are not building any products that the European industries can sell.”
The European Union set a target for its member states that they should spend three percent of their budget on science, but many countries are only at around two percent.
Scientists hope that by joining forces globally, they will raise awareness about a global trend that seems to take science less serious. With U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House and populist and Eurosceptic movements gaining popularity in Europe, scientists say their budgets are being reduced and their work is being taken less serious.
Bas Eickhout, a scientist and member of the European Parliament for the Greens Party, says climate change policy should not be seen as a “left wing hobby.” He calls on scientist to be more involved in the decision making process.
“Not in policy making itself but providing information to politicians is crucial. And quite often once we start with decision making, that information is just lost. Scientist are really a bit too scared for the word lobby, and I don’t think its lobbying that your doing, but its also trying to feed decision making also during the negotiations, and not only at the beginning.”
The March for Science is a volunteer based movement and organizers say there is an “alarming trend toward discrediting scientific consensus and restricting scientific discovery.” The organizers aim to celebrate science and hold political and science leaders accountable, but do not affiliate with any political party.
Sofie Vanthournout, director of Sense about Science EU, a charity advocating the importance of science, says the march aims to change the perspective of citizens and politicians who doubt the importance of science:
“The message that we want to bring it is important for every aspect of our lives, for every aspect of society. Whether it’s in technology that we use in our daily lives or whether it is for important decisions that politicians make about our lives. We don’t want scientists to tell politicians what to do but we need the politicians to have access to all of the facts and all of the knowledge that is available.”
One week after the March of Science, the Peoples Climate March will follow. In 2015, the world came together to sign the Paris Accord, an agreement signed by almost all nations in the world to curb global warming.
U.S. President Trump promised during his election campaign to pull the United States out of the international accord, but later softened his stance, saying he thinks there is “some connectivity” between human activity and global warming.
Scientists are taking the unprecedented step of staging marches in more than 600 cities worldwide in the face of what they see as a growing political assault on evidence-based knowledge.
Thousands of scientists and their supporters are attending March for Science events Saturday across the globe, including those in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Cape Town, London Madrid, Nigeria and Seoul.
In Berlin, organizers said about 10,000 people marched toward the Brandenberg Gate holding up placards that read “Facts not feelings” and We love experts — those with evidence.”
Marchers in Geneva carried signs that said “Science — A candle in the Dark” and “Science is the Answer.”
In London, demonstrators marched from the Science Museum to Parliament Square in Westminister holding placards supporting science.
The March for Science thrusts scientists, who generally avoid advocacy and whose work is based on impartial experimentation, into a more visible spotlight.
For nuclear physics graduate student Chelsea Bartram, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” were the last straw.
President Donald Trump had disputed photographic evidence of the size of his inauguration crowd. Reporters challenged him, prompting Conway to respond that the administration gave “alternative facts.”
“Many scientists I know, myself included, spend so many hours in the lab sacrificing enormous amounts of their life for this abstract idea” that understanding reality can benefit human civilization, said Bartram, who is pursuing a doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“And then to have someone say, ‘Well, that’s not important anymore,’ it’s so devastating,” Bartram added.
So Bartram planned to support science’s role in government decisions on health, safety, the economy and more by joining demonstrators at the flagship March for Science event in Washington.
The Washington event featured speakers and several large teach-in tents on the National Mall where scientists, educators and leaders from a variety of disciplines discussed their work, effective science communication strategies and training in public advocacy. Organizers say the event is non-partisan and is not aimed against the Trump administration or any politician or party.
Organizers of the international event, which coincides with Earth Day, say it is the first step in a global movement to acknowledge and defend the vital role science plays in everyday life.
“Science extends our lives, protects our planet, puts food on our table (and) contributes to the economy,” says Caroline Weinberg, national co-chair for the March for Science.
“Policymakers threaten our present and future by ignoring scientific evidence when crafting policy, threatening scientific advancement through budget cuts and limiting the public’s knowledge by silencing scientists,” Weinberg said.
Trump’s most recent budget proposal calls for cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that would eliminate some 56 programs and drastically reduce funding for the agency’s Office of Research and Development and Science Advisory Board. Trump’s budget proposal also recommends some $6 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the largest public funder of biomedical research funding in the world.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a first-generation Iraqi immigrant, is the pediatrician who alerted officials in Flint, Michigan that the city’s water was contaminated with lead. She is a March for Science honorary national co-chair. “We march for science so that scientists have the freedom like I did, to speak out, free from politicization and to continue to make the world a better place.”
Tipping point
Organizers have not released expected crowd size estimates. But the dispute over crowd sizes was just one small example of what scientists see as a larger pattern. During the U.S. presidential campaign, Trump dismissed the scientific consensus about the dangers of human-induced climate change. His appointee to lead the EPA, Scott Pruitt, also does not accept climate science. He has repeatedly clashed with the agency he now heads.
But scientists say their frustration has been building for decades.
“We might have reached a tipping point now, but acting as though this is a new thing is giving too much credit to the current administration,” said Weinberg.
And it goes far beyond climate change, Weinberg added. “It’s about not paying attention to the best research on things like food stamps. It’s about cutting things like Head Start and after-school programs,” to name a few. “And that all affects health, because that’s a time to set kids on the right path.”
Critics say a public protest risks further politicizing science, turning scientists into just another interest group.
Bartram sums up a widespread response: on hot button issues like climate change, opponents have already done it. “I don’t think anything we do is going to further politicize it,” she said.
Disconnect
But if the goal is to get policymakers to listen, “A march isn’t going to change anything,” said Rob Young, head of coastal research at Western Carolina University.
Young says much of the problem stems from the growing disconnect between scientists and voters, especially the rural and working class people who voted for Trump. He says most probably have never met a scientist.
Scientists need to get out of the lab more, he said, and explain how their work affects people’s health and livelihoods.
That’s what march organizers hope, too.
The American Geophysical Union’s Davidson said a major post-march goal is more public engagement.
“I think the day is gone when scientists can stay in their ivory towers and assume that everyone is going to recognize their value,” he added.
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The desperate effort this week to find two hikers who disappeared at the bottom of the Grand Canyon represented the National Park Service’s most extensive use yet of drones in a search-and-rescue mission.
The Grand Canyon is the only national park with its own fleet of unmanned aircraft for locating people who have gotten lost, stranded, injured or killed. Under a program that began last fall, it has five drones and four certified operators.
While the aerial search for the two hikers came up empty, it threw a spotlight on technology that can enter crevices and other rugged spots unreachable by foot while sparing searchers the dangers of going up in a helicopter.
Beautiful and dangerous
With its steep cliffs, nearly 2,000 square miles and mesmerizing views, the Grand Canyon can be as dangerous as it is captivating.
Rangers were confronted with 1,200 medical emergencies, 293 search-and-rescue missions and 17 deaths in 2016, a year in which the park had nearly 6 million visitors. Last summer, a 35-year-old Yelp executive tripped while hiking, fell backward and was found dead 400 feet below.
“Our historic model was to take the helicopter to look and see,” said Grand Canyon chief ranger Matt Vandzura. But now, drones can offer “that same close look but without putting any people at risk. It has dramatically increased our ability to keep our people safe.”
The drones are about 18 inches across and 10 inches high, with a battery life of about 20 minutes. Drone operators watch the video in real time and then analyze it again at the end of the day.
Missing hikers
The aircraft were used Monday through Wednesday in the search for LouAnn Merrell, 62, and her step grandson, Jackson Standefer, 14. The park also sent out three ground search teams of about 20 people in all, an inflatable motorboat and a helicopter.
Merrell and Standefer vanished last weekend after losing their footing while crossing a creek near the North Rim. They were on a hike with Merrell’s husband, Merrell Boot Co. co-founder Randy Merrell, and the boy’s mother.
The park soon scaled back the operation and stopped using the drones but continued the search. In a statement, the hikers’ families backed the decision and said they were “still praying for a miracle.”
Drones used before
In November, after a visitor drove off a cliff and died, drones were sent in to examine the trees and brush and make sure it was safe for a helicopter to fly in and lift the car out.
The next month, rangers used a drone to locate a woman who had jumped to her death. Then they rappelled down to retrieve the body.
The dangers of flying choppers in the canyon were illustrated in 2003, when a Park Service helicopter experienced a mechanical failure and crash-landed on the North Rim. Those aboard suffered only minor injuries; the helicopter was totaled.
Other national parks use drones, but for wildlife research. The use of private drones is prohibited in national parks.
James Doyle, a spokesman for the park service’s Intermountain region, said other national parks would probably seek their own drone fleets, too. He said the Grand Canyon’s extreme topography, it is a mile deep, makes it a perfect candidate.
“It’s a wonderful tool for the unfortunate situation we just found ourselves in at Grand Canyon,” Doyle said.
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The founder of Microsoft, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, has given a passionate defense of foreign aid while voicing fears the political climate in the U.S. and in Britain could result in cuts to aid budgets. In a speech this week in London, he warned that withdrawing aid would “create a leadership vacuum that others will fill.”
Gates, who gives $5 billion a year to development aid through the foundation he set up with his wife, Melinda, is one of the world’s most generous philanthropists. In a speech at London’s Royal United Services Institute this week, he voiced fears that the political tide is turning against foreign aid.
“It concerns me that some world leaders are misinterpreting recent events as reasons to turn inward instead of seeing them for what they are: problems that although they are difficult and will take time, can be solved — if we invest in the long-term solutions that are necessary,” Gates said.
Watch: Billionaire Philanthropist Bill Gates Warns Against Cuts to Aid Budgets
The United States remains by far the world’s biggest donor, funding long-term programs and emergency relief across the globe. But President Donald Trump is proposing significant cuts to the $43-billion foreign aid budget as part of efforts to reduce government debt.
Gates argues that many critics of foreign aid don’t realize the major progress that has been achieved.
“If you could only pick one number to highlight the effectiveness of the development agenda since 1990, I would pick the number 122 million. That’s the number of children’s lives that have been saved,” he said.
He disputed the notion that funding foreign aid is a bottomless pit.
“As you bring down that childhood death rate, families choose to have less children,” he said. “The population goes down very substantially. Which brings within reach all of the things society is trying to do: better health, better education, economic opportunity.”
Gates’ speech in London comes as Britain gears up for a snap election in June. The UK is one of the few developed countries to meet the U.N. aid budget target of 0.7 percent of GDP. Current Prime Minister Theresa May has committed to keeping that pledge but many in her party want aid money diverted to the military.
Gates said he wanted to make the case for the facts.
“When aid is mismanaged it is a double crime, stealing both from the taxpayer and from the poor.” he said. “But let’s be clear. The bulk of this aid is getting to its recipients and having an incredible effect. There will always be a need to adjust, we’re working in very tough countries, so you’ll never get 100 percent perfect effectiveness. But you can learn. And every year, the aid is better spent.”
Aid agencies say the debate could not come at a worse time, with about 65 million refugees around the world, worsening conflicts in the Middle East and famine striking East Africa.
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Lawmakers from coal-mining states are pushing to extend health benefits for more than 22,000 retired miners and widows whose medical coverage is set to expire at the end of April.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and other coal-state Democrats threatened to shut down the government over the issue in December, but they retreated after winning a four-month extension that preserves benefits through April 30.
As lawmakers return to the Capitol following a two-week recess, Manchin says the time for extensions is over.
“We will use every vehicle we can, every pathway we can, to make sure we do not leave here … until we have our miners protected,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor before the break.
“We’ve been very patient,” Manchin said. “I am not going to have another notice sent out to our retired miners, to their widows, saying we’ve given you 90 days or 120 days extension. That’s not going to happen this time.”
Deadline is Friday
But as a Friday deadline looms to keep the government open, lawmakers have not reached agreement on extending the benefits. A plan pushed by GOP leaders in the House would extend health benefits for 20 months, through the end of 2018.
Manchin said Senate Democrats are against that idea because it’s only a partial fix. At least a dozen Senate Republicans are willing to join Democrats in support of a more complete plan that addresses health benefits and a related issue over failing pension plans for nearly 100,000 unionized miners, Manchin said.
“This shouldn’t be a Republican or Democrat issue,” he said in an interview. “This is an issue of fairness.”
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said McConnell supports legislation to protect and permanently extend the health benefits, but had no word on the progress of talks related to the spending bill.
A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan also offered no update.
Pieces and parts
President Donald Trump, who has vowed to revive the struggling coal industry, has given “verbal support” for the miners’ benefits, Manchin said, but needs to do more.
“I need him now to either tweet or call Senator McConnell and tell him it’s time to act,” Manchin said. “Mr. President, if you are listening, please tweet out: ‘Mitch, help us. We need you.’”
Trump and Republicans have decried what they describe as a “war on coal” waged by the Obama administration, and have taken a series of actions since Trump took office to boost coal production and reduce regulations, including a rule to protect streams from coal-mining debris.
Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters that the White House is “happy to talk … about pieces and parts of the miners’ programs” as part of negotiations on a bill to keep the government open.
“I don’t think we’re very interested in the pension component of that but more interested in talking about the health care component of that,” Mulvaney said.
Pension problem is bigger
Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, said he is hopeful a compromise can be reached on health benefits, but he complained that Republicans appear unwilling to address the far more costly pension issue. Congress scrapped a $3 billion, 10-year measure to stabilize failing pension funds last year.
“The pension part is not going to go away. It only gets worse by the day,” he said.
Account balances have dwindled amid the coal’s industry steep decline, including continued layoffs and a rash of bankruptcy filings that have spread to the industry’s largest companies. Without congressional intervention, some pension funds could run out of cash by next year, the union says.
For the moment, Congress appears focused on health benefits.
In West Virginia, about 8,500 retired miners and their families face loss of benefits if Congress does not act. Some mining families have been unable to make doctor’s appointments after May 1 because of uncertainty over whether medical bills will be paid, Smith said.
Other states affected include Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Alabama.
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Motorists in Pyongyang are scrambling to fill their tanks as gas stations begin limiting services or closing amid concerns of a spreading shortage.
A sign outside one station in the North Korean capital said Friday that sales were being restricted to diplomats or vehicles used by international organizations, while others were closed or turning away local residents. Lines at other stations were much longer than usual and prices appeared to be rising significantly.
The cause of the restrictions or how long they might last were not immediately known.
Fuel from China
North Korea relies heavily on China for its fuel supply, and Beijing has reportedly been tightening its enforcement of international sanctions aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
The issue was raised at a regular Chinese Foreign Ministry news conference in Beijing Friday after a Chinese media outlet, Global Times, reported gas stations were restricting service and charging higher prices.
But spokesman Lu Kang gave an ambiguous response when asked if China was restricting fuel deliveries.
“As for what kind of policy China is taking, I think you should listen to the authoritative remarks or statements of the Chinese government,” he said, without elaborating on what those remarks or statements are. “For the remarks made by certain people or circulated online, it is up to you if you want to take them as references.”
New sanctions an option
One of China’s top North Korea scholars, Kim Dong-jil, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Studies of Peking University, said he had not heard of new restrictions on fuel to pressure Pyongyang, but said they are considered to be an option.
China’s Ministry of Commerce had no immediate comment
Gasoline was selling at $1.25 per kilogram at one station, up from the previous 70-80 cents. According to a sign outside a station where ordinary North Korean vehicles were being turned away, the restrictions took effect Wednesday.
Gasoline is sold in North Korea by the kilogram, roughly equivalent to a liter (0.26 gallon).
When buying gas in North Korea, customers usually first purchase coupons at a cashier’s booth for the amount of fuel they want. After filling up the tank, leftover coupons can be used on later visits until their expiration date. A common amount for the coupons is 15 kilograms (19.65 liters or 5.2 U.S. gallons).
Supply is controlled by the state, but prices can vary from one station to another.
More cars to fuel
The military, state ministries and priority projects have the best access. Several chains of gas stations are operated under different state-run enterprises, for example, Air Koryo, the national flagship airline, operates gas stations as well.
Traffic in Pyongyang has gotten heavier than in past years, when visitors had often been struck by the lack of cars on the capital’s broad avenues.
The greater number of cars, including swelling fleets of taxis, has been an indication of greater economic activity, as many are used for business purposes, such as transporting people or goods.
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Ear infections are one of those things almost everyone has to deal with. They’re painful, but generally easily treatable. But for many people, chronic ear infections can significantly affect their hearing and their quality of life. Polish doctors may have discovered a tiny solution for what can be a big problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Silicon Valley is not the only place to find the next Mark Zuckerberg. Nearly 9,000 tech startups call New York City home, and their offerings reflect the unique needs of the most populous city in the U.S. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports from the NY Tech Day event in New York.
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Even after disembarking from North Korea’s Air Koryo plane at Pyongyang airport, it’s difficult to miss the airline’s brand. The Air Koryo conglomerate makes cigarettes and fizzy drinks, besides owning a taxi fleet and petrol stations – and all have the same flying crane logo as the carrier.
The military-controlled airline expanded into consumer products in earnest in recent months, visitors to the isolated country say. It was not clear if the diversification into the domestic market was related to the loss of many international routes when the United Nations slapped economic sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Washington is now considering tougher measures, including a global ban on Air Koryo itself, to punish North Korea for continuing weapons tests, U.S. officials have said.
But any U.S. action on Air Koryo would not be binding on other nations and would have little effect unless joined by China and Russia – both of which have sought to introduce exceptions to United Nations sanctions on North Korea in the past.
“China may indeed agree to this kind of ban on Air Koryo since it seems like China and the U.S. have reached an agreement that North Korea needs to be dealt with in some way. But the question is whether Russia will agree to sanctions against Air Koryo,” said Sun Xingjie, an associate professor at China’s Jilin University.
North Korean officials are rarely accessible to reporters, and it was not possible to get comment from Air Koryo or from the Pyongyang government.
Air Koryo now flies only to Beijing and three other cities in China, and to Vladivostok in Russia. Flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kuwait were dropped last year but just last month, Air Koryo added a route from Pyongyang to the Chinese city of Dandong, the main transit point for trade between the two countries.
Air Koryo has 15 active planes on its fleet, either Russian or Ukrainian-made, and uses refuelling, maintenance and repair facilities in China and Russia, according to aviation databases and U.N. documents.
The airline has a number of domestic flights connecting the capital Pyongyang to Orang, Sondok and Samjiyon towns, according to a schedule available last year.
Businesses in secretive North Korea do not publicly share information about revenues or costs, so it was not possible to determine what effect any existing sanctions have had or may have in future.
But visitors to North Korea say the Air Koryo conglomerate, owned by the country’s air force, is clearly expanding.
Cabs, Gas Stations
In 2015, the conglomerate launched its own brand of sky-blue taxis which now parade the streets of Pyongyang alongside cabs from at least eight other state-owned companies.
Air Koryo colas and cigarettes are available in shops across Pyongyang.
Air Koryo started branching into soft drinks late last year, said Simon Cockerell of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which organizes travel to North Korea.
It got into retail sales of petrol in January. “They have at least one petrol station in Pyongyang, perhaps two,” Cockerell said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Air Koryo products make it to market before too long.”
A United Nations panel which investigates North Korean sanctions infringements said in a report in February there was an “absence of boundaries” between Air Koryo and the air force.
“The airline’s assets are actively utilised for military purposes,” the report said.
“Outwardly, this seems like a commercial airline, but in effect, this is run by the government,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in South Korea.
The United Nations has not sanctioned Air Koryo, although it has accused it of being involved in the smuggling of banned goods. Civilian aircraft are exempt from the U.N. ban on jet fuel exports to North Korea when refuelling overseas. Member states are required to inspect any cargo originating from North Korea, including on Air Koryo flights.
In December, the United States designated Air Koryo, 16 of its aircraft and 10 of its offices as “sanctioned entities,” meaning that U.S. citizens are generally prevented from engaging in transactions with them. It was not clear if the ban extended to Americans flying on the airline for tourism.
Officials at Pyongyang’s airport said they were unconcerned about any attempts by the global community to strengthen sanctions that could target Air Koryo directly.
“We are not afraid, we have our own counter actions prepared,” said a customs official, without elaborating, standing at the Air Koryo check-in counter.
Kim, the South Korean professor, said any sanctions on Air Koryo would have mostly a symbolic effect.
“It will not cause huge damage to the North Korean economy,” he said in the Korean language. “Air Koryo is not a ‘dollar box'[which makes a lot of foreign money].”
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U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a full review of the powers given to government regulators to oversee the banking and finance industries following the financial meltdown of 2008.
Trump went to the Treasury Department on Friday to sign three executive orders that start the process of fulfilling his campaign pledges to undo regulations that he says unduly strain the U.S. economy.
“My entire administration [is] working around the clock to help struggling Americans achieve their financial dreams … and have real confidence in the future,” Trump said as he signed the orders. “Together we will restore prosperity to this nation.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin explained that two of the orders could eventually lead to a significant revision of controversial provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform law.
“Our goal is to make this a smarter, more effective process that reduces the kind of systemic risk that harmed so many Americans during the financial crisis of 2008,” Mnuchin said.
Dodd-Frank reform
One order temporarily freezes a portion of Dodd-Frank known as the Orderly Liquidation Authority, which gives the federal government broad discretion in making loans to failing financial institutions. The Trump administration argues that the OLA encourages excessive risk-taking by banks because taxpayers are potentially liable for bad loans.
Trump on Friday called the Dodd-Frank regulations “unfair” and “damaging,” saying they had “failed to hold Wall Street firms accountable.”
Critics say the review is aimed at revoking Obama-era reforms that have brought stability and transparency to the sometimes murky world of high finance, and helped to prevent another crisis.
Edwin Truman, who served as a senior Treasury official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, says Dodd-Frank encourages banks to raise more capital and be more open about their activities.
“That doesn’t mean that a complicated piece of legislation like Dodd-Frank couldn’t be improved and tweaked,” Truman told VOA. “It’s like Obamacare. It could be improved while maintaining its basic principles. So there’s scope for reform but not really repeal or replacement.”
Boston University law professor Tamar Frankel, an expert in financial system regulation, said Dodd-Frank has not achieved the purpose for which it was designed, which is to create consumer confidence in the banking industry. But she worries that a rollback of Obama-era regulations could bring about a return to dangerous lending practices.
“Loans of the kind banks made before 2008 are the poison of any financial system,” Frankel said.
Tax laws
Trump’s latest orders also authorize a review of tax laws, which the president argues impose an undue burden on taxpayers.
“This is such a privilege for me to sign,” he said during the ceremony. “This is really the beginning of a whole new way of life that this country hasn’t seen in really many, many years.”
Secretary Mnuchin told reporters Friday he was looking forward to taking a hard look at the tax code.
“We are going to go through and look at every significant financial regulation that’s been done in the past year and a half,” Mnuchin explained. “We’re going to determine if they’re needed in the tax code, or if they’re unnecessary.”
In making his case, Mnuchin pointed to statistics showing individuals and businesses cumulatively spend a total of 6.1 billion hours complying with the tax code each year, at a cost to the U.S. economy of $234.4 billion. He said the basic Form 1040 used to file taxes had grown from 34 lines and two pages of instructions to 79 lines and 211 pages of instructions.
Mnuchin has 180 days to report back to the president with recommended reforms.
Trump also hinted Friday that he’s almost ready to make another big announcement on taxes, saying he was ready to unveil a “massive tax cut” next week, shortly before he reaches the symbolic 100-day mark of his presidency.
“The process has begun long ago, ” he said, “but it really formally begins on Wednesday.”
In a separate interview with The Associated Press, Trump said the plan would provide tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. He would not provide details of the plan, saying only that the tax cuts will be “bigger I believe than any tax cut ever.”
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Greece far exceeded its international lenders’ budget demands last year, official data showed on Friday, posting its first overall budget surplus in 21 years even when debt repayments are included.
The primary surplus — the leftover before debt repayments that is the focus of International Monetary Fund-European Union creditors — was more than eight times what they had targeted.
Data released by Greek statistics service ELSTAT — to be confirmed on Monday by the EU — showed the primary budget surplus at 3.9 percent of gross domestic product last year versus a downwardly revised 2.3 percent deficit in 2015.
This was calculated under European System of Accounts guidelines, which differ from the methodology used by Greece’s in bailout deliberations.
Under EU-IMF standards, the surplus was even larger.
Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the primary budget surplus under bailout terms reached 4.19 percent of gross domestic product last year versus the 0.5 percent of GDP target.
“It is more than eight times above target,” Tzanakopoulos said in a statement. “Therefore, the targets set under the bailout program for 2017 and 2018 will certainly be attained.”
Debt-strapped Greece and its creditors have been at odds for months over the country’s fiscal performance, delaying the conclusion of a key bailout review which could unlock needed bailout funds.
The IMF, which has reservations on whether Greece can meet high primary surplus targets, has yet to decide if it will fund Greece’s current bailout, which expires in 2018.
The 2016 outperformance could lead the fund to revise some of its projections. The IMF’s participation is seen as a condition for Germany to unlock new funds to Greece.
Athens hopes to discuss the fund’s participation and its projections at the sidelines of the IMF’s spring meetings in Washington. EU and IMF mission chiefs are expected to return to Athens on Tuesday to discuss the bailout review.
After meeting Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos in Washington, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said: “We had constructive discussions in preparation for the return of the mission to discuss the two legs of the Greece program: policies and debt relief.”
ELSTAT said the overall surplus including debt repayments reached 0.7 percent of GDP compared with a 5.9 percent deficit in 2015.
Analysts attributed the outperformance to the implementation of bailout measures and increased efforts to improve the state’s revenue collection capacity.
“It’s an impressive outperformance versus the bailout program target for the primary surplus,” said Athens-based Eurobank’s chief economist Platon Monokroussos.
“The data suggests that the 2017 fiscal target under the bailout program is fully attainable under the current baseline macroeconomic scenario,” he said.
Athens faces a primary surplus target of 1.75 percent of GDP this year.
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In 16 U.S. cities, citizen scientists, including schoolchildren, spent a few days this month documenting plant and animal species and helping scientists understand their regions’ diversity and the challenges many species face.
The City Nature Challenge, held April 14-18, is a competition that was started last year by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences. This year, it involved institutions across the United States. The challenge is to see which city can document the most species; results are to be announced Saturday, which is Earth Day.
“Last year, it was San Francisco against Los Angeles,” said Lila Higgins, manager of citizen science at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “This year, it’s L.A. versus San Francisco and New York and Chicago and Seattle and many, many other cities.”
The young citizen scientists took photos and recorded observations on their cellphones, uploading the data through a phone app called iNaturalist.
Frank Az, 9, of Esperanza Elementary School in Los Angeles said he loves observing nature, “finding different species of birds and insects.” He was outside the museum with binoculars and a cellphone camera, along with other students.
His friend, Andrea Garcia, was excited as she described finding “two mourning doves in their nest” as well as “ants, bees and a house finch.”
The children worked with some adult scientists who monitor species in this region, including Greg Pauly, a specialist on amphibians and reptiles at the Natural History Museum. Pauly said that Los Angeles is one of the world’s 35 top biodiversity hot spots, but that the sprawling urban complex also faces “a large threat to that biodiversity.”
The children documented their sightings of insects, flowers and birds alongside their teachers. It is something they do regularly at school. Principal Brad Rumble of Esperanza Elementary said the migration of one bird species had captured the children’s interest.
“Every year, we do a contest to predict when will the yellow-rumped warbler first arrive on campus,” he said. The students vote, and those who correctly guess the date when the tiny visitor appears get a trip to the Natural History Museum.
“That little bird,” said Rumble, “brings up so many wonderings about geography and range and weather, and why does it like this tree? These questions form in students’ minds, and they’re off and running.”
The children are learning many lessons, said museum President Lori Bettison-Varga.
“We are part of this environment, and they are part of this environment — the plants, the animals, the critters that live here,” she said, “so it’s really helping us to understand how to increase the health of our environment.”
And this annual competition, she said, gets people of all ages involved in science.
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NASA’s Cassini spacecraft faces one last perilous adventure around Saturn.
Cassini swings past Saturn’s mega moon Titan early Saturday for a gravity-assisted, orbit-tweaking nudge.
“That last kiss goodbye,” as project manager Earl Maize calls it, will push Cassini onto a path no spacecraft has gone before — into the gap between Saturn and its rings. It’s treacherous territory. A particle from the rings — even as small as a speck of sand — could cripple Cassini, given its velocity.
Cassini will make its first pass through the relatively narrow gap Wednesday. Twenty-two crossings are planned, about one a week, until September, when Cassini goes in and never comes out, vaporizing in Saturn’s atmosphere.
Launched in 1997, Cassini reached Saturn in 2004 and has been exploring it from orbit ever since. Its European traveling companion, Huygens, landed on Titan in 2005. Cassini’s fuel tank is practically empty, so with little left to lose, NASA has opted for a risky, but science-rich grand finale.
“What a spectacular end to a spectacular mission,” said Jim Green, NASA’s planetary science division director. “I feel a little sad in many ways that Cassini’s discoveries will end. But I’m also quite optimistic that we’re going to discover some new and really exciting science as we probe the region we’ve never probed before.”
There’s no turning back once Cassini flies past Titan, Maize said. The spacecraft on Wednesday will hurtle through the 1,200-mile-wide gap (1,900 kilometers) between Saturn’s atmosphere and its rings, at a breakneck 70,000-plus mph (113,000 kph).
From a navigation standpoint, “this is an easy shot,” Maize said. The operation will be run from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The concern is whether computer models of Saturn’s rings are accurate. On a few of the crossings, Cassini is “kind of flirting with the edge of where we think it’s safe,” he noted.
For at least the first trip through the gap, Cassini’s big dish antenna will face forward to shield the science instruments from any ring particles that might be lurking there. A couple instruments will provide a quick rundown on the dust situation.
Scientists anticipate lots of lightweight impacts, since the spacecraft will be going through extremely small material, more like smoke than distinct particles. Material from the innermost D ring — which is slowly extending into Saturn — should be diffuse enough “that we should be fine,” Maize said.
If the models are wrong and Cassini is clobbered by BB-size material, it still will end up exactly where NASA is aiming for on Sept. 15 — at Saturn. The space agency wants to keep the 22-foot-high, 13-foot-wide spacecraft away from Titan and its lakes of liquid methane and from the ice-encrusted moon Enceladus and its underground ocean and spouting geysers. It doesn’t want to shower contaminating wreckage onto these worlds that might harbor life.
This last leg of Cassini’s 20-year, $3.27 billion voyage should allow scientists to measure the mass of the multiple rings — shedding light on how old they are and how they formed — and also to determine the composition of the countless ring particles. First spotted by Galileo in 1610, the rings are believed to be 99 percent ice; the remaining 1 percent is a mystery, said project scientist Linda Spilker. A cosmic dust analyzer on Cassini will scoop up ring particles and analyze them.
“Imagine the pictures we’re going to get back of Saturn’s rings,” Spilker said.
Cassini will have the best views ever of Saturn’s poles, as it skims its surface. Near mission’s end, Spilker said, “we’re actually going to dip our toe” into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending back measurements until the last possible moment.
All this is on top of a science mission that already has rewritten the textbooks on the Saturnian system.
“But the best is still yet to come — perhaps,” Maize said at a news conference in early April. “But we are certainly going to provide more excitement.”
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The pressure was on for Abdul Gouda and his classmates at George Mason University: not only did their graduation depend on the success of their project, but so did the hopes of impossibly cute 10-year-old girl.
Fifth-grader Isabella Nicola wanted to play the violin, but she was born with no left hand and a severely abbreviated forearm. Her music teacher at Island Creek Elementary in Fairfax County had built her a prosthetic allowing her to move the bow with her left arm and finger the strings with her right — the opposite of how violin is usually taught. But the prosthetic was heavy and he thought there might be a better option. He reached out to Mason, his alma mater.
As it happened, Gouda and his four teammates in the bioengineering department were in the market for a project — students are required to take on a capstone project their senior year, and their initial idea had fallen through.
Still, Gouda admitted some hesitation at the outset.
“It’s sort of a lot of pressure,” he said. “You’ve got this young girl whose counting on you and you’re expected to deliver.”
The team — Gouda, Mona Elkholy, Ella Novoselsky, Racha Salha and Yasser Alhindi — developed multiple prototypes throughout the year. There was a fair amount of literature on similar projects that helped them get a good start, but Isabella’s case is unique to her, and the project included plenty of trial and error.
Isabella communicated easily with the group and provided feedback, especially about the weight. The first came in at 13 ounces; the final version shaved an ounce or two off of that after feedback from Isabella.
The team enlisted a music professor at Mason, Elizabeth Adams, who provided feedback on what Isabella would need to play the violin with some finesse.
On Thursday, Isabella received her final prosthetic, built from a 3-D printer, and hot pink (at her request) with “Isabella’s attachment” emblazoned on the forearm.
She played some scales as she adjusted the fit, and even a few bars of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
“Oh my gosh, that’s so much better,” Isabella said as she tried out the new prosthetic.
And the team had a surprise for her, a plug-in attachment designed to let her grip a handlebar and ride a bicycle.
“I feel very blessed that I have this amazing group of people,” Isabella said.
Isabella had her heart set on playing music when the school began offering strings lessons in fourth grade.
“I’ve never told her no. I told her we would try. There was no guarantee the school would be able to do an adaptation,” said her mother, Andrea Cabrera. “Through these little miracles, it kept going forward.”
Isabella never had any doubt it would come together.
“I felt right away that I’d be able to play,” she said. “I’ve always had perseverance.”
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that he plans to be respectful and engage the United States with a fact-based approach to solving problems a day after Donald Trump called Canada a “disgrace” for policies that hurt American farmers.
Trudeau said during a news conference alongside visiting Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Parliament Hill that he will stand up for Canada’s interests and people.
“The way to do that is to make arguments in a respectful fashion, based on facts, and work constructively and collaboratively with our neighbors,” said the Liberal leader.
The U.S. president took aim at Canada’s dairy industry this week for creating a new lower-priced classification of milk product that he argues hurts U.S. producers. Trump said it has put farmers in Wisconsin and New York state out of business.
Canada changed its policy on pricing domestic milk to cover more dairy ingredients, leading to lower prices for Canadian products including ultra-filtered milk that compete with U.S. milk. Canada’s dairy sector is protected by high tariffs on imported products and controls on domestic production as a means of supporting prices that farmers receive.
Trump said on Thursday “what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers is a disgrace”.
The U.S. president criticized Canadian policies related to a few industries including lumber, timber and energy, adding that officials will have to get to the negotiating table with Canada very quickly.
Trump also said this week he would make “some very big changes” to the NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico or “we are going to get rid of NAFTA for once and for all.”
The threat to get rid of or alter NAFTA is a potential problem for Canada, whose biggest trade partner is the United States.
Gentiloni and Trudeau on the other hand were keen to display their support for free trade and open borders, including the Canada-EU free trade pact, amid growing populist opposition.
Gentiloni, who had been in Washington on Thursday, said Canada and Italy share a common, pro-trade world view and that they live in “interesting times.” He also said the anti-trade movement is bigger than one single country.
“The United States president’s opinions are perfectly legitimate,” the Italian leader said through a translator. “But we have to be aware of the fact that this push goes against free trade as a catalyst for world growth … that is why we need to work politically, culturally and economically to fight against this trend.”
Italy is to host the G7 leaders’ summit next month, which will be part of Trump’s entry into the world of multilateral summitry.
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In some of the world’s remotest corners, health workers armed with smartphones, digital maps and medication are making steady progress in eliminating trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, a leading expert said.
Better living conditions have wiped out trachoma in many countries but some 200 million people are still at risk of contracting the disease, according to the International Trachoma Initiative (ITI).
Trachoma is categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), one of a group of 18 debilitating and sometimes fatal illnesses that affect 1.5 billion people, mainly in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Efforts to treat trachoma include improving access to clean water and decreasing the number of infected people by treating them with antibiotics.
ITI Director Paul Emerson said antibiotics donation programs, increased government spending, a global mapping project identifying hotspots and the use of smartphones to collect data had been gamechangers in fighting trachoma.
“We know where the disease is, we know what to do about it and where do it,” Emerson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“That may sound simple but we can only reach our goal of eliminating trachoma through a combination of joined-up efforts.”
Trachoma can be prevented in childhood by having facilities for children to wash their faces and if caught soon enough the disease is easily treatable with repeated doses of antibiotics.
Those suffering with an advance stage of the disease, in which the eyelashes turn inward and scrape the cornea, can be treated with simple surgery.
This week, governments and private donors pledged more than $800 million at a meeting in Geneva to accelerate the fight against NTDs.
The Geneva gathering came five years after a meeting in London brought a commitment by the public and private sectors to achieve WHO goals for the control and elimination of NTDs.
Fight Gathers Steam
In 2015, nearly one billion people received treatments donated by pharmaceutical companies for at least one NTD, a 36 percent increase since 2011, the WHO said this week.
The fight against trachoma has also gathered momentum as the number of people at risk dropped by 50 percent in the last six years, while those requiring treatment now stands at 182 million, down from 325 million, according to the ITI.
Emerson said thanks to the Global Trachoma Mapping Project (GTMP), an effort to document where the disease is endemic, health workers can now say for sure where treatment is needed.
Ethiopia is one of the countries that has made significant strides in fighting trachoma, said Emerson.
The government has included fighting trachoma as a target in its national health plan, provided significant domestic funding, participated in the mapping project and is training doctors to conduct surgeries to correct the effects of trachoma.
Health workers in Ethiopia use smart phones to collect data in the field that are then streamed to an analyst who can call the field team to correct errors in real time, he said.
But despite progress in fighting trachoma and other NTDs, experts agree that drug companies need to step up donations of medicines.
“The challenge now is in reaching the most neglected populations, communities in conflict and in closing the funding gaps,” said Emerson.
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The U.S. government says it will not waive trade sanctions for U.S. companies seeking to drill for oil in Russia, including for U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made the announcement Friday, indicating that the United States would maintain a tough stance on sanctions against Russia.
“In consultation with President Donald J. Trump, the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions,” he said in a brief statement.
Exxon has sought permission to drill in several areas that are currently off limits because of the Russian sanctions, including in the Black Sea. It sought to resume a joint venture with Rosneft, a Russian state-owned oil company.
Exxon’s former CEO Rex Tillerson, who is now secretary of state in Trump’s Cabinet, has recused himself from the administration’s decision.
Tillerson has established close ties with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, and has previously spoken out against the sanctions.
Crimea-related sanctions
The United States and the European Union imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014 in response to Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.
The European Union sanctions do not keep European oil companies from operating in Russia, a fact that has frustrated Exxon.
“We understand the statement today by Secretary Mnuchin in consultation with President Trump,” Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said in statement. However, he said the company was hamstrung by the U.S. government’s position.
“Our 2015 application for a license under the provisions outlined in the U.S. sanctions was made to enable our company to meet its contractual obligations under a joint venture agreement in Russia, where competitor companies are authorized to undertake such work under European sanctions,” Jeffers said.
Exxon has said the company previously received several waivers from the sanctions during the Obama administration for limited work with Rosneft.
Friday’s announcement comes as U.S. lawmakers continue to investigate possible ties between some Trump campaign aides and Moscow. It also comes at a time when relations between the United States and Russia have become more strained following a U.S. missile strike in Syria.
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