Month: November 2018
There’s been a lot of progress in the fight against AIDS over the past 30 years, but as the 30th World AIDS Day is observed on Dec. 1 — people still die from the disease. And others are newly infected every day even though the tools are available to end the epidemic.
Fear, stigma and ignorance. The World Health Organization says these are the reasons the AIDS epidemic is not over because doctors can treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
With treatment, no one needs to die from AIDS, and those with the virus can’t give it to someone else. In addition, with prevention therapy, no one needs to get infected.
Dr. Jared Baeten, an HIV specialist at the University of Washington, spoke to us via Skype and says even with these tools we’re not there yet.
“… because the ability to deliver those at the scale and with the coverage needed to be able to get HIV to go away is not nearly where it should be,” said Baeten.
Nearly a million people still die every year from AIDS. Professor Steffani Strathdee at the University of California San Diego says one of the biggest challenges is that HIV often affects people on the fringes of some societies around the world.
“There are populations all over the world that are underserved and these include injection drug users and sex workers, in particular,” Strathdee said.
It also includes men who have sex with men, transgender people, prisoners and the sexual partners of these people. Professor Strathdee says people who are hungry or need shelter are more concerned about their immediate needs than they are about HIV.
“My research and research in this field really shows you have to address the whole person and their needs in order to address HIV as one of their health concerns,” Strathdee said.
Strathdee says unless this happens, countries will have to bear the heavy social and economic costs of AIDS.
In addition, Baeten says testing and treatment have to be available to everyone.
“The biggest thing that we’ve learned for preventing HIV in the last decades is that there is no magic bullet, but when you put a whole bunch of really good things together and it has exactly the kind of impact that a magic bullet can give you,” Beaten said
Scientists say using these tools, educating people and getting more people into treatment will reduce stigma, and then, when a vaccine comes along, we can finally put an end to AIDS.
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Tremendous progress has been made in efforts to wipe out polio around the world. Before a global eradication program began 30 years ago, about 350,000 children became paralyzed from polio each year. The figure dropped to 28 in 2018.
Nevertheless, Helen Rees, chair of the World Health Organization’s emergency committee, said Friday that polio remained an international threat. She said every available health strategy must be used to prevent the wild polio virus from spreading across borders.
“The fear is that we might well see a resurgence, that we could see exportation again and a reversal of all of the work and all of the country global efforts that have gone into trying to eradicate polio,” Rees said. “And we certainly cannot allow that to happen.”
Polio remains endemic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. Rees said that over the last few months, there has been a worrying exportation of the wild polio virus to and from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“We have got widespread, positive environmental sampling in Pakistan,” she said. “And in Afghanistan, because of the more difficult situation there in terms of security, we are unable to access probably as many as a million children for vaccination.”
Separately, there is good news from the African region. The director of WHO’s polio eradication program, Michel Zaffran, noted that the wild polio virus has not been seen in Nigeria since it was last detected more than two years ago.
If this keeps up, he said, the regional certification commission could be able to declare the wild polio virus eradicated from the African region at the end of 2019 or early 2020. He said $4.2 billion would be needed over the next five years to see the last of this disease.
Polio, which has no cure, invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours. The WHO says polio is transmitted from one person to another through the fecal-oral route, or less frequently by a common vehicle like contaminated food and water. Fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and limb pain are among polio’s symptoms.
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Ahead of World AIDS Day, Uganda is recruiting women to participate in a trial of an injectable antiretroviral drug to replace Truvada, a daily pill that has low adherence by users. The trial will assess if the new drug – Cabotegravir – can further reduce the risk of acquiring HIV. Halima Athumani has more from Kampala.
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U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto have signed the new U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement, a deal designed to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports.
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Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s charity has announced a $50 million donation to help fight the nation’s opioid epidemic.
Bloomberg Philanthropies said over the next three years it will help up to 10 states address the causes of opioid addiction and strengthen prevention and treatment programs. Its initiative involves a partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Johns Hopkins University and Vital Strategies.
Bloomberg, who has been considering a 2020 Democratic presidential bid, was expected to discuss the funding Friday during his keynote address at The Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington. A spokeswoman said there was “no stated link” between his political aspirations and the $50 million investment to fight opioids.
Bloomberg’s charity said CDC data shows there were more than 70,000 U.S. drug overdose deaths last year, including more than 47,000 from opioids, the highest numbers on record. It said those numbers are a leading factor in the decline of U.S. life expectancy over the past three years.
Bloomberg called the sobering numbers part of “a national crisis.”
“For the first time since World War I, life expectancy in the U.S. has declined over the past three years — and opioids are a big reason why,” he said. “We cannot sit by and allow this alarming trend to continue — not when so many Americans are being killed in what should be the prime of their lives.”
He said in a statement he hoped his charity’s work in Pennsylvania, one of the states hardest hit by the opioids crisis, would lay the groundwork “for more effective action across the country.”
The partnership focuses on identifying new approaches to tackle opioids and plugging gaps in current treatment and prevention programs. Staff members from partner organizations will support state and local programs to reduce opioid-related deaths, and successful initiatives and guidelines will be replicated elsewhere, with the goal of creating a model for the rest of the nation.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf said he was “deeply grateful” for the financial and technical resources his state will receive through the partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies.
“From our first responders and health care professionals to teachers and social service providers, heroes across our commonwealth are saving lives and protecting residents in our communities every day from this awful scourge,” Wolf, a Democrat, said in a statement issued by the Bloomberg charity. “We are doing everything we can to help them, and I am confident that this partnership will mark a turning point in our efforts.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration said this month in its National Drug Threat Assessment that heroin, fentanyl and other opioids continue to be the highest drug threat in the nation.
Bloomberg, who has been an independent, a Republican and a Democrat, declared lifetime allegiance to the Democratic Party and outlined an aggressive timeline for deciding whether to run for president in an interview with The Associated Press this month. He has regularly criticized President Donald Trump and spent a fortune to help elect Democrats in the midterm elections.
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During Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s successful campaign for the Mexican presidency, his advisers met representatives of dozens of investment funds to allay fears about the leftist’s plans, saying he prized economic stability and wanted to attract foreign capital.
Initially, it worked.
When Lopez Obrador won office by a landslide on July 1, the peso and the stock market rose, buoyed by his conciliatory tone.
The rally continued when Mexico and the United States reached a deal to rework the NAFTA trade pact in late August.
But the mood has since changed.
Lopez Obrador, who takes office Saturday, began saying in September that Mexico was “bankrupt.” When he canceled a new $13 billion Mexico City airport on Oct. 29 on the basis of a widely-derided referendum, investors took flight.
“[Lopez Obrador] behaved quite well from the election in early July until the referendum on the airport. That was really an indication of his true colors,” said Penny Foley, portfolio manager for emerging markets and international equities groups at TCW Group Inc, which manages $198 billion in total.
Foley said the referendum prompted TCW to cut its exposure to bonds issued by state oil firm Pemex, on the grounds that under a Lopez Obrador administration the company would be driven more by politics than by profit.
“We are now slightly underweight Mexico in the dollar fund and neutral in the local currency fund,” she added.
Lopez Obrador wants to attract investment from home and abroad to fuel economic growth and drive an ambitious infrastructure agenda, including a major rail project linking Cancun to Mexico’s southeast, plus a new oil refinery.
Yet decisions such as the airport cancellation have fed investors’ concerns he could push Mexico toward a more authoritarian, arbitrary and partisan form of government.
Mexico’s S&P/BVM IPC stock index has tumbled 17 percent since the market’s post-election peak on Aug. 28, while the peso has fallen around 8 percent against the dollar.
Bond yields on Mexican 10-year sovereign debt have jumped 121 basis points, a sign investors see it as a riskier bet.
By contrast, yields on Brazil’s 10-year debt have fallen over 20 basis points since the Oct. 28 presidential election victory of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right politician who has appointed a group of pro-market economists to his team. Mexican corporate debt markets have taken note.
Airport operator GAP, which controls terminals in a dozen cities including Tijuana and Guadalajara, canceled a planned 6 billion peso debt issuance this week.
“We decided to wait for better conditions,” GAP chief financial officer Saul Villarreal told Reuters.
Some European businesses are also in wait-and-see mode, said Alberico Peyron, a board member and former head of the Italian chamber of commerce in Mexico.
There was “no panic so far,” but a few executives had put plans on hold until the picture became clearer, he said, adding: “There are more who are worried than are optimistic.”
‘Errors’ made
After 30 years of kicking against the establishment, the veteran Lopez Obrador, a 65-year-old former mayor of Mexico City, claimed the presidency with a promise to clean up government, cut poverty and tame Mexico’s drug cartels.
Aiming to almost double economic growth to around 4 percent, Lopez Obrador wants to revive Pemex, increase pensions and spur development in the poorer south to contain illegal immigration that has strained ties with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Lopez Obrador says rooting out corruption will free up billions of dollars, while he intends to save more with pay cuts for civil servants. However, critics say the cuts could affect the quality of officials in his new administration.
Johannes Hauser, managing director of the German chamber of commerce in Mexico, told Reuters the association’s annual survey of firms, currently underway, was upbeat on Mexico.
Still, initial results suggested companies were not quite as eager to invest or create new jobs as they were a year ago. And the airport cancellation had been a shock, he said.
During their campaign outreach, some of Lopez Obrador’s advisers sought to play down the airport’s importance to markets, while others suggested it was likely to be completed.
Without providing evidence, Lopez Obrador said the project — which has been under construction since 2015 — was tainted by corruption. But more than once, Lopez Obrador had raised the possibility of turning its completion into a private concession.
Incoming Finance Minister Carlos Urzua, whose team sat down with financial heavyweights such as Bank of America, BlackRock, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, told Reuters in April that foreign investors were “not very worried” about the airport.
Now, the scrapping of the hub has raised the prospect of a messy legal dispute with investors that could cost billions of dollars — as well as cloud interest in new projects.
Some members of Lopez Obrador’s incoming government privately express deep misgivings about the decision to cancel the airport, which was based on a referendum organized by his own party in which barely 1 percent of the electorate voted.
They felt the poll, which critics lambasted as opaque and open to abuse, undermined the credibility he had built up over the years he spent campaigning against corruption and vote-rigging.
Lopez Obrador’s taste for rule by referendum, and changes to laws governing everything from banking to mining and pension funds that have been proposed by his National Regeneration Movement and the party’s allies in Congress, have further curdled sentiment.
“I’ve moved from being cautiously optimistic after the election, to being quite pessimistic now,” said Andres Rozental, a former deputy foreign minister of Mexico. “He’s not building on what he got. He’s destroying little by little what he got.”
Facing questions about the airport controversy from a panel of prominent Mexican journalists this month, Lopez Obrador was unrepentant about the referendum, saying that “errors” made were blown out of proportion by adversaries trying to hurt him.
“What I regard as most important in my life is my honesty,” he said. “We are not creating a dictatorship,” he added, repeating what is a frequent aside in his public pronouncements.
Nevertheless, Arturo Herrera, an incoming deputy finance minister, conceded this week that the transition had tested the next government, which must present its first budget by mid-December.
“What we’re all learning is that we need to be extremely careful,” he told Mexican television.
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It may be the world’s sixth largest, but most other things about India’s economy are up for debate.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is under fire for the release of new historical GDP figures that significantly downgraded growth during the years the opposition Congress party was in power, replacing old government estimates and those prepared by an independent committee.
The figures, released by the government’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), showed growth in the 10 years of Congress rule to 2014 averaged 6.7 percent, below an average of 7.4 percent under the current government. A previous government estimate had growth under Congress at 7.8 percent.
P. Chidambaram, a former Congress finance minister, called the release “a joke”. In response India’s current finance minister, the BJP’s Arun Jaitley, said the CSO was a credible organization.
The fallout comes at a critical time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
India’s economy grew a weaker-than-expected 7.1 percent in the July-September quarter, from a more than two-year high of 8.2 percent in the previous quarter, government data showed on Friday.
Modi faces a general election next year, when the performance of the economy under his pro-business administration compared with the Congress era is likely to dominate campaigning.
The spat has also alarmed India’s top statisticians, who have long faced the difficult task of estimating growth and unemployment in an economy with hundreds of millions of informal workers, and dominated its financial press and political cartoons in recent days.
“The entire episode threatens to bring disrepute to India’s statistical services,” said an editorial in Mint, one of the country’s leading business newspapers, on Friday.
A joke widely circulated on WhatsApp said the government would soon be reinterpreting the last cricket World Cup, in which India crashed out in the semi-finals, to say the country won based on a new methodology.
COMPETING INTERESTS
Unlike many major economies, India lacks an independent statistical body.
An organization called the National Statistics Commission (NSC) was formed in 2005 with that intention, though it is yet to be recognized as the official body for generating statistics.
Last year the NSC set up a committee, chaired by economist Sudipto Mundle, to come up with a new set of historical GDP figures.
Its report, published in July, showed growth averaged 8.1 percent in the decade before the BJP took power.
After the figures were cheered by the Congress, the government issued a clarification saying the report “had not yet been finalised and various alternative methods are being explored”. Shortly after, the report was pulled from the government’s website.
“The whole thing has unfortunately become very political,” said Mundle, on the battle between the two parties. “It is very troubling.”
Attempts to formalize the NSC’s role have been successively stonewalled by both Congress and the BJP, said N R Bhanumurthy, who sat on the committee chaired by Mundle.
“They have not shown much interest in making it independent from our government,” he said.
The debate over India’s true level of growth is the latest to frustrate economists looking to measure the performance of the country of 1.3 billion people.
India has not published its official employment survey since 2015, while a smaller quarterly survey on companies employing more than 10 workers has not been released since March while the government comes up with new methodology.
India’s large informal sector made calculating employment “almost impossible”, Bhanumurthy said, leading to a vacuum that was filled with competing political interests.
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A San Francisco chef is the first woman in the United States to be awarded three stars from the Michelin Guide.
Dominique Crenn celebrated the honor on Instagram Thursday with her staff at Atelier Crenn, posting “congratulations to my amazing team.”
It was not the only honor for Crenn in Michelin’s Bay Area guide. Michelin also awarded one star to her new wine bar, Bar Crenn.
One star means “a very good restaurant,” while three stars signify “exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey.”
Michelin’s international director Gwendal Poullennec tells The Mercury News it sends a “very positive message.” Poullennec says Michelin hopes “it will lead to more women operating their own restaurants.”
FIFA’s ethics committee has imposed a four-year ban on a soccer official for accepting a bribe, reportedly from former presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam.
FIFA says Manuel Dende, former president of the Sao Tomean Football Association, is also fined 75,000 Swiss francs ($75,000).
FIFA gave no details about the charges Dende faced, of bribery and corruption plus accepting gifts.
Dende took a $50,000 cash gift from Bin Hammam, according to authors of “The Ugly Game” book about the now-banned Qatari official’s dealings at FIFA.
In 2009, the book states, Dende asked Bin Hammam for $232,000 in his personal bank account to help build artificial pitches on his home island in west Africa.
Citing Bin Hammam correspondence, the book said $50,000 was eventually wired months later.
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The leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada have signed a new North American trade deal, underpinning $1.2 trillion in annual commerce among the three countries.
President Trump is calling the signing of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), following 15 months of frequently acrimonious negotiations, a “very historic day” for a “truly groundbreaking achievement.”
WATCH: New North American Trade Deal Signed in Buenos Aires
The pact will lock in U.S. market access to Canada and Mexico, expand American exports and includes new measures to ensure fair competition, explained Trump as he stood alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
“The autoworkers are a tremendous beneficiary,” said Trump, adding that the USMCA will help stop automotive jobs from going overseas, and he predicted many such jobs will return to the United States.
The agreement’s intellectual property protection will be “the envy of nations all around the world,” said Trump at the signing on the sidelines of the G-20 leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires on Friday morning.
The USMCA replaces NAFTA, a pact Trump roundly criticized during his 2016 presidential campaign, terming it the worst trade deal in history and blaming it for the loss of American manufacturing jobs since it went into effect in 1994.
“We’ve taken a lot of barbs and a little abuse and we got there,” Trump said thanking Trudeau and Pena Nieto. “It’s great for all of our countries.”
It will be a while, however, before the agreement can take effect as lawmakers from all three countries must approve the USCMA.
“It’s been so well-reviewed I don’t expect to have much of a problem” getting the pact through the U.S. Congress, Trump said at the signing ceremony.
That could prove to be an overly optimistic assessment.
“It’s going to be a very tough sell,” predicts Congressman Bill Pascrell of the state New Jersey, who is one of the top Democrats on the House subcommittee that oversees trade issues.
The opposition Democrats take control of the House in January.
The National Association of Manufacturers is calling for swift approval by U.S. lawmakers.
“With 2 million American jobs dependent on exports to Canada and Mexico, Congress should move expeditiously to review the USMCA before the end of this year. We look forward to working with the administration and Congress to ensure the USMCA is implemented and enforced in a way that empowers manufacturers in America to continue investing in our people and our communities,” the powerful business group said in a statement released shortly after the signing ceremony.
Trump noted the signing in Argentina comes on the last day in office for the Mexican president, who is being succeeded by leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, elected five months ago.
“It is really an incredible way to end a presidency,” Trump said to Pena Nieto, promoting applause from the Mexican officials in the audience.
The outgoing Mexican leader hailed the as providing “more and better opportunities to our people,” predicting that “North America will grow stronger and be more prosperous.”
Pena Nieto also said the new agreement provides improved protection of workers’ rights and the environment.
The Canadian prime minister agreed that it will “protect jobs, strengthen the middle class and create new opportunities for businesses.”
Trudeau, speaking in French and English, did not refer to the agreement by the USMCA acronym, instead calling it “the new NAFTA.” He also said, “the task isn’t done, more hard work is ahead.”
His government is officially calling the pact the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
Noting this week’s announcement by top North American automaker General Motors to close several factories in Canada and the United States, Trudeau lamented the factory shutdowns “are a heavy blow.”
“Make no mistake, we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and communities,” added Trudeau.
The signing of the so-called free trade agreement comes at a time when tens of billions of dollars of tariffs remain in place on goods traded among the three countries.
“Tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum are entirely inconsistent with the overall goals of the USMCA,” according to a letter signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and groups representing auto, chemical, grocery, retail and agricultural interests.
Retaliatory tariffs by Mexico have harmed U.S. dairy and pork farmers.
Mexican negotiators reportedly desire modifications to limit future metal shipments to the United States to 80 percent of current levels, while Canada is resisting quotas in the face of inexpensive steel from China entering the American market.
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World leaders are preparing for what’s set to be a fiery G-20 summit starting Friday in Buenos Aires. The two-day meeting brings together leaders representing two-thirds of the world’s people and 85 percent of the global economy.
The summit is being held against the backdrop of a spiraling trade war between the United States and China that has set the global economy on edge, on top of a series of geopolitical flashpoints from Ukraine, to the Middle East, to the South China Sea.
WATCH: G-20 Prepares for Fiery Summit Amid Trade War, Security Tensions
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to raise existing tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports and has warned of more penalties if no agreement is reached with Beijing on issues like trade imbalances and intellectual property.
The White House believes it holds the momentum for a possible deal.
“Most observers believe China to be in a slump whereas the United States is in a very strong, solid position going into this summit,” White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow said Tuesday.
China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, warned of grave consequences if the trade war intensifies.
“In the last century we had two world wars, and in between them a Great Depression. I don’t think anyone should really try to have a repetition of history,” Tiankai said Wednesday.
The first G-20 leaders’ summit was held in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008. Since then there has been a role reversal says Tristen Naylor, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.
“A decade on, the greatest threat to established economic order is actually surprisingly coming from in many ways the chief defender of that order, with the protectionist trade wars kicked off by President Trump and the ‘America First’ foreign policy.”
Geopolitical tensions between several G-20 nations are simmering. The meeting comes days after Russia rammed Ukrainian vessels in international waters off Crimea and seized several of its naval personnel. Kyiv has warned that it faces the danger of an all-out war with its neighbor.
In response, Trump raised doubts about a planned meeting at the summit with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, telling The Washington Post newspaper that he was “awaiting a full report from his national security team about the incident.”
He then abruptly canceled the meeting after a in-flight briefing on his way to Buenos Aires.
Speaking Wednesday to business leaders in Moscow, President Putin blamed Ukraine.
“What was the [Russian] border control force supposed to do? Military ships have illegally entered into the territorial waters of the Russian Federation,” Putin said.
Also scheduled to attend the summit is Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who the West has implicated in the torture and killing last month of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will also be there.
“All are going to be in the same room at the same time. And this is a critical moment for them to at least discuss some of the critical flashpoints,” says analyst Naylor.
He adds that it’s vital the summit is seen to make progress on key global challenges.
“How ought the economic system operate? Is protectionism a good thing or a bad thing? Is climate change real or not? If these countries can’t agree, it sends a very, very strong signal to everybody not at the table that maybe they don’t need to sign up.”
Thousands of anti-globalization protesters are gathering in Buenos Aires. Many Argentineans are angry at the government’s $57 billion rescue package with the International Monetary Fund, in return for sweeping spending cuts.
About 22,000 police officers are being deployed in Argentina’s capital, but some of the fiercest battles could take place inside the summit itself.
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Angola’s most famous operatic tenor hopes to inspire more Africans to take up the classical music form. Nelson Ebo has performed around the world and is currently starring with the Heartbeat Opera company on stage in New York. He recently sang in Washington, where VOA Portuguese Service’s Mayra de Lassalette met up with him.
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Top administration officials are debating whether to create a stand-alone Space Force to handle space defense or a Space Force that falls within the Air Force, officials tell VOA.
Either option requires congressional approval, which could prove difficult with a Democratic-led House and a Republican-led Senate.
An Oct. 26 memo obtained by VOA directs that the Department of Defense create the “optimal organizational construct to meet (the president’s) intent.”
The memo, signed by Executive Secretary of the National Space Council Scott Pace and National Security Council official Earl Matthews, instructs the Pentagon to focus on whether the Space Force is most efficient as a new independent department or as “a separate service within the Department of the Air Force, along the lines of the U.S. Marine Corps within the Department of the Navy or the U.S. Coast Guard within the Department of Homeland Security.”
Support in the House
This latter organizational structure has bipartisan support in the House, but the former has often been seen by Democrats as an expensive solution.
Vice President Mike Pence and Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan met Thursday to discuss how to build the first new military branch since 1947, as President Donald Trump has directed.
A National Space Council official told VOA Thursday the October memo does not represent a shift in White House guidance.
“The direction to create the U.S. Space Force remains exactly the same, and the Space Council is continuing to work with the departments and agencies responsible for implementing the president’s direction to develop the sixth branch of the Armed Forces,” the official said.
Space Command next?
Officials say the president also intends to establish a U.S. Space Command, a move already directed by Congress.
The U.S. military is organized into 10 combatant commands based on either geography, such as Indo-Pacific Command and European Command, or unified functions, such a Transportation Command and Cyber Command.
This new, 11th combatant command would oversee space defense much like U.S. Cyber Command oversees cyber defense. Space Command is expected to start in mid-2019 with initial operation capability.
Officials familiar with Space Force deliberations have raised concerns to VOA that a new military branch could duplicate the work of the new combatant command. They say a separate military service may not be needed once the combatant command is fully operational.
“You don’t see a Cyber Force in addition to Cyber Command,” one official said on condition of anonymity.
Cost estimates for the Space Command have been modeled after the creation of U.S. Strategic Command, which was set up in the early 1990s. The biggest expense will be the creation of a new headquarters for the combatant command in order to make room for providing new capabilities, according to one official.
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Three tiny rocks brought back from the moon in 1970 by the unmanned Soviet Luna-16 mission sold for $855,000 on Thursday at a New York auction.
They’re the only documented lunar rocks in private hands, Sotheby’s auction house said. The U.S. collector who bought the rocks was not named.
The sellers, also from the U.S., bought the rocks for $442,500 at a Sotheby’s Russian space history sale in 1993. That was the first time that a piece of a celestial body had been offered for sale to the public.
The rocks originally had been given to the widow of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, the former director of the Soviet Union’s space program, by the Soviet government in recognition of her husband’s work.
It is extremely rare for authentic lunar samples to come on the market. All samples collected by American astronauts are deemed the property of the U.S. government — except one.
Last year, a bag used by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong to collect moon dust was sold by Sotheby’s for $1.8 million, netting a hefty profit for its owner.
A Chicago-area woman, Nancy Carlson, bought the bag, which had been misidentified, at an online government auction for $995. After she sent it to NASA for identification, the space agency confirmed that it had been used by Armstrong and still contained moon dust.
NASA fought to keep the bag but lost a court fight in 2016.
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U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein called on social media companies and technology firms Thursday to work with law enforcement to protect the public from cybercriminals.
Speaking at a symposium on online crime, Rosenstein said that “social media platforms provide unprecedented opportunities for the free exchange of ideas. But many users do not understand that the platforms allow malicious actors, including foreign government agents, to deceive them by launching vast influence operations.”
He said it was up to the companies to “place security on the same footing as novelty and convenience, and design technology accordingly.”
He warned that if the technology sector failed to do so, government would have to step in.
“I think the companies now do understand if they do not take it upon themselves to self-regulate — which is essentially the theme of my talk today — they will face the potential of government regulation,” he said.
Extortion scheme
Rosenstein’s remarks came a day after the Justice Department charged two Iranian hackers in connection with a multimillion-dollar cybercrime and extortion scheme that targeted government agencies, cities and businesses.
Rosenstein said many tech companies are willing to work with law enforcement and to prevent the use of their platforms to spread disinformation.
But he said that “some technology experts castigate colleagues who engage with law enforcement to address encryption and similar challenges. Just because people are quick to criticize you does not mean that you are doing the wrong thing.”
U.S. law enforcement officials have long been pushing tech companies to make it easier for them to access information on private devices such as cellphones and social media accounts. But most firms have resisted, citing privacy of the users.
Rosenstein said data encryption practices were a “significant detriment to public safety.”
“Improvements in the ability to investigate crime and hold perpetrators accountable must match the pace at which technology is making crimes easier to commit and more destructive,” Rosenstein said.
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The number of uninsured children in the United States has increased for the first time in nearly a decade, placing it at 3.9 million in 2017, according to a report Thursday from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families.
Nationally, the number of uninsured children increased by an estimated 276,000 in 2017, from a historic low of 4.7 percent in 2016 to 5 percent last year. Experts say about 75 percent of the newly uninsured children are clustered in states that did not expand Medicaid such as Florida, Texas and Georgia.
Under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Florida and other states could take federal funding to help pay for health coverage for nearly 900,000 people, but the Republican-led Legislature in Florida voted against it. The vast majority of states have already expanded Medicaid and increased the number of residents eligible for its coverage.
Joan Alker, executive director for Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, has written the report for the last eight years and said she’s never seen the rates of uninsured children go up in all 50 states, which happened last year.
Better economy, low unemployment
She said that what is perhaps most concerning is that the uninsured rate among children increased despite an improving economy and low unemployment rate that allowed more children to get private coverage through their parents.
The study blamed the increases on the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to prompt an overhaul of publicly funded health care. There were major efforts to repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act and cut Medicaid, and the children’s CHIP insurance funding also ran out and hung in the balance for months before Congress extended it.
“There was a lot of confusion among families as to whether these public coverage sources were available,” Alker said.
At the same time, the Trump administration slashed funding for advertising and enrollment counselors to help sign people up for these health insurance programs. The country’s enrollment decline was not just in Medicaid and CHIP, but also in Obamacare, or the federal marketplace where parents can purchase private health insurance and often receive a subsidy to help pay for it.
The report noted that many of the children who do not have health insurance are eligible for coverage but just aren’t enrolled.
‘More of a fluctuation’
Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the figures were statistically insignificant.
He did agree that there were dips in Medicaid enrollment and through the Obamacare marketplace, but noted there’s no enrollment cutoff for Medicaid, meaning families can sign up their children year-round.
“It’s really more of a fluctuation. There’s no policy driver there,” he said, saying he didn’t think marketing cuts had any impact.
In Florida, the uninsured rate went from 288,000 in 2016 to 325,000 in 2017.
Florida has one of the highest rates of uninsured residents in the country, and also has had the highest number of enrollees purchasing insurance through the Obamacare federal marketplace. However, Medicaid expansion in Florida is likely off the table for this upcoming legislative session. Incoming Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is against it. His opponent, Democrat Andrew Gillum, campaigned heavily on his support to expand Medicaid coverage for more residents.
The report also expressed concern that strict immigration policies and enforcement were making many immigrant families leery of enrolling, even if their children were eligible for health coverage. “We think it’s really this national unwelcome mat regarding public coverage,” Alker said.
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The Mystery Writers of America withdrew a major honor Thursday from author Linda Fairstein after other writers condemned the ex-prosecutor’s role in New York’s notorious “Central Park Five” case.
The decision, just two days after the Grand Master Award was announced, marked the first time the group has ever rescinded the prize, which recognizes lifetime achievement and has been given to such scribes as Sue Grafton and Stephen King.
“MWA cannot move forward with an award that lacks the support of such a large percentage of our members,” the group said in a statement that also pledged to re-evaluate its process for selecting honorees.
Fairstein, known for her best-selling novels featuring prosecutor Alex Cooper, was speaking at a conference Thursday and referred an inquiry to her publisher, Penguin Publishing Group’s Dutton imprint. It had no immediate comment.
When the award was announced Tuesday, Fairstein called it “a thrilling surprise.”
“I’m pinching myself,” she tweeted at the time.
But some prominent mystery writers, including Attica Locke and Nick Kolakowski, expressed outrage over the decision. On Thursday, Locke tweeted “Thank you (at)EdgarAwards for listening.”
Fairstein was the top Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor when five teenagers were charged with the 1989 rape and beating of a female investment banker jogging in Central Park.
The attack became a national symbol of urban mayhem at a time when New York City’s murder rate was nearing its historical peak. The case also bared the city’s racial and class divide, painting a portrait of a crew of black and Hispanic youths “wilding” and preying on a white professional. Donald Trump, a New York real estate developer at the time, bought full-page newspaper ads reading “Bring Back The Death Penalty. Bring Back Our Police!”
The teens said they were coerced into confessing their involvement in the attack. Their convictions were overturned in 2002 after convicted murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to committing the crime alone, and DNA linked him to it.
Prosecutors stopped short of declaring the five innocent but withdrew all charges. The legal time clock had run out for charging Reyes, who was already serving life in prison on other convictions.
Fairstein observed the boys’ 1989 interrogation, conducted by another prosecutor and police. She didn’t personally try the case.
Since its collapse, she has denied the teens were coerced and has defended authorities’ conduct in the case, explored in a 2013 documentary by Ken Burns.
The city reached a roughly $41 million settlement with the five the next year, while not admitting any wrongdoing.
Locke and Fairstein exchanged caustic tweets after the award was announced. Locke, who is working with Ava DuVernay on a Netflix docudrama about the case, called Fairstein “almost singlehandedly responsible for the wrongful incarceration of the Central Park Five” and castigated her for not apologizing.
Fairstein responded by tweeting Locke should “learn your facts,” adding: “Your anger and comments are so misdirected.”
Fairstein built a reputation as a pioneering prosecutor of sexual offenses during her 25 years of leading the Manhattan district attorney’s sex crimes unit. She retired in 2002, but was already established as a crime novelist.
In 1995, she agreed to a two-book, $500,000 deal. Her first novel, “Final Jeopardy,” came out in 1996 and was the basis for an Edgar-nominated TV miniseries starring Dana Delany. Her other books include “Killer Look,” “Devil’s Bridge” and “Lethal Legacy.”
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