Daily Archives: May 2, 2017

In a brief photo opportunity with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said President Donald Trump's call with Russian President Vladimir Putin was very productive with a lot of exchanges. (May 2) AP

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.(Photo: DON EMMERT, AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON The United States and Russia appeared to be inching toward mediating a cease-fire in the Syrian civil war Tuesday, asPresident Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for theirfirst known conversation since Trump ordered airstrikes on a Syrian air base last month.

The Syrian civil war dominated the discussion, the White House said, and the two leaders "agreed that the suffering in Syria has gone on for far too long and that all parties must do all they can to end the violence."

U.S. and Russian accounts of the Tuesday phone call between contained no hints of the usual friction points, andboth sides generally agreed on the tone and substance of the exchange. (White House: "The conversation was a very good one." Kremlin:"The conversation was held in a business-like and constructive atmosphere.")

Putin even invited Trump to talk more and to meet face-to-face when both leaders are in Hamburg, Germany for the G-20 summit of major economic powers in July. That meeting was almost certain to happen anyway, but the White House version of the phone call made no mention of a future meeting.

Mysterious rash of Russian deaths casts suspicion on Vladimir Putin

Despite Trump's entreaties to Putin during the presidential campaign, Syria has remained a source of tension. Russia supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and senior U.S. officials have stopped just short of suggesting Russian complicity in a deadly sarin gas attack on civilians in northwestern Syria. Trump ordered airstrikes on a Syrian airfield in retaliation, giving Russian forces just enough notice to get out of the line of fire.

In their account on Tuesday, the Russians also said the leaders "agreed to enliven dialogue" between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as cease fire talks continue in Kazakhstan this week.

The two leaders also talked about what both sides called a "dangerous situation" as North Korea continues missile tests in defiance of international agreements.

It was at least the thirdconversation between the two leaders since Trump's inauguration.

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Trump's call with Vladimir Putin suggests some progress on Syria - USA TODAY

Vice President Mike Pence gives a statement after a meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 20, 2017. . (photo credit:REUTERS)

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration has already reconstituted the Middle East peace process by fostering "goodwill" amongst Israelis and Palestinians, US Vice President Mike Pence said at an Israeli Independence Day reception held at the White House on Tuesday.

Reiterating the president's "personal commitment to resolving the Israeli and Palestinian conflict," Pence said the new administration had found a way to pursue peace whilst simultaneously devoting itself to securing the Jewish state.

"Even now, were making valuable progress toward the noble goal of peace," Pence said. "Thanks to the presidents tireless leadership, momentum is building and goodwill is growing. And that while there will undoubtedly have to be compromises, you can rest assured President Donald Trump will never compromise the safety and security of the Jewish state of Israel not now, not ever."

Pence said that Trump's appointment of Friedman and of US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley were examples of his "unapologetic" commitment to Israel. So, too, is his consideration of a plan to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a policy initiative he is seriously considering "as we speak," Pence told the crowd.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to visit the White House on Wednesday.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, US ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) attended the White House reception, which brought together several leaders of the Jewish American community as well as Israel's ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer.

Executive Director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center Nathan Diament, who was at the event called it historic in the literal sense.

No one was able to think of a previous occasion in which the White House hosted a reception specifically in honor of Yom Haatzmaut, he told the Post. That says something special about the United States and about the US- Israel relationship.

Certainly for those of us in the room who are religious Zionists, with the talk on the part of the Vice President and Senator Hatch about [...] their great support for Israel is incredibly encouraging and affirming, he added.

Regarding Vice President Pences remarks about the US embassy move to Jerusalem, Diament said that while the administration is seriously considering it, the subject will also depend on the conversation between Trump and Abbas on Wednesday.

In a room full of Jewish people there isnt really consensus, he said. But if there is any point of consensus, I think it would be that there is an expectation [among Jewish leaders] that President Trump and his administration will try to push ahead with President Abbas some ideas towards negotiations.

Pence said he called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wish him a "happy Independence Day" before the event. The Israeli embassy hosts a separate party to mark the holiday on Tuesday evening.

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'Valuable progress' already made toward Mideast peace, Pence says - Jerusalem Post Israel News

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Woody Johnson: I'm patient if there's progress NBCSports.com Progress can be defined many different ways, which allows for a different point of view in January about the job Maccagnan and Bowles are doing than Johnson has right now. However it is defined, going 2-14 or 3-13 often makes it harder to find so ... and more »

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Woody Johnson: I'm patient if there's progress - NBCSports.com

May 2, 2017 by Steve Cohen

The integration of economic development, modern management and environmental protection created the field of sustainability management. The effort to ensure that humans could continue to benefit from the miracle of this planet, and increase the distribution of those benefits to all of humanity is well underway. In some sense, it is a race against time as we learn how to reduce the impact of economic development on the planet's ecological systems. Some environmental damage is irreversible, and in some cases remediation is extremely expensive. While the damage continues, I also see progress and I believe the momentum behind sustainability will increase. Human ingenuity, changing global culture and the health impacts of environmental destruction are factors that are leading to progress in the transition to a sustainable economy.

Population pressure continues to increase, but we now know that economic development brings declining birth and death rates and that in some developed nations, such as the United States, population would be shrinking without immigration. In developed countries, such as Japan, where immigration is rare, population is shrinking. While our society is aging, people are living longer, more productive and healthier lives. As the world develops, poverty decreases, and population begins to stabilize. While no one can predict the future, it is possible to foresee the end of the era of massive population growth.

We are also learning to apply technology to enable economic growth without increased levels of pollution. As I noted in a piece I wrote in late February:

"According to the EPA, from 1980 to 2015 the US GDP grew by 153 percent, our population grew by 41 percent, vehicle miles traveled grew by 106 percent, but air pollution declined by 65 percent."

A typical response I receive to this fact is that we must have exported all our dirty industry and that is why we could achieve this result. However, most air pollution comes from motor vehicles and power plants, and the outputs of those sources have grown, while technology has reduced their production of pollution.

We are also learning how to live more sustainable lifestyles. We've replaced trips to the mall with trips to the gym. We are using bikes more, walking more, smoking less, and paying more attention to what we eat. Our cities are developing green infrastructure to reduce the impact of flooding on our streets and waterways. We are learning how to share autos, cabs and even homes when we travel. Young people are increasingly interested in experiences and less interested in owning stuff. More and more of our time is devoted to the low impact consumption of music, movies, news, games, social communication and anything else that appears on our smart phones. Young people think about where their food comes from and its impact on their own health and the health of other living beings.

A critically important indicator of progress is the changing attitudes of the public. This is most clearly seen in the views of young people in the developed world, but it is reflected in urban and community governance and in the changing behavior of many corporations. A recent study highlights the progress now underway:

"A new report from WWF, Calvert Investments, CDP and Ceres finds nearly half of Fortune 500 companies48 percenthave at least one climate or clean energy target, up five percent from an earlier 2014 reportNearly 80,000 emission-reducing projects by 190 Fortune 500 companies reporting data showed nearly $3.7 billion in savings in 2016 aloneThe largest companies in the Fortune 500the Fortune 100continue to lead: Sixty-three percent of Fortune 100 companies have set one or more clean energy targets."

Even as the climate deniers and fossil fuel zealots take over the federal government, industry, cities and communities are making the transition to a more efficient renewable energy based economy. This is being driven by a number of simultaneous positive developments:

Cities and companies see sustainability as a method of communicating their modernity and sensitivity to changing market and social conditions. State governments, particularly in California and New York are looking to modernize the electric grid and the business models of power utilities to permit decentralized, distributed generation of energy. They are doing this to improve the resiliency and cost of their energy systems to serve the needs of residents and businesses, but the environmental impact of smart-grids will be profound. Smart-grids will increase the use of renewables and reduce the vulnerability of our power system to natural and human made disasters.

As a management professor, one of the most promising trends I see is the deep interest of college and graduate students in learning how to integrate the physical dimensions of sustainability into routine organizational decision making and operations. Millennials are interested in energy use, healthy workplaces, water and material efficiency, and in reducing the environmental impacts of their organization's production process and of the goods and services they help create. This has not replaced other goals such as profit and market share in the private sector and accomplishment of key missions in the public sector, but it is viewed as means of achieving routine organizational goals. Just as a good accounting system facilitates organizational productivity, well-managed physical resources contribute to an organization's efficiency and effectiveness. This is a generation that is comfortable with technology and expects instantaneous access to information about everything. Cost data promotes reduced use of material resources and waste reduction. The goal of reducing environmental impact is seen as consistent with other goals and not something they need to trade off if they are to succeed.

We are in the early stages of a politics and culture built on perceptions generated via social media. These new forms of communication are used to gather people to demonstrate against injustice, but are also used to spread inaccurate accounts of people and events. The internet enabled Barack Obama to raise the funds needed to win the Presidency in 2008 and the entertainment value of Donald Trump brought TV ratings and web site clicks more typical of reality television than TV news. We live in an observed world where everyone with a smartphone is a videographer, and if people aren't present to record something, cameras, drones and satellites are often available to fill in. This means that fiction can easily go viral, but so too can the images of toxics leaking into a water supply. Global warming is no hoax to people who see images of ice sheets melting; and deforestation can be seen from aerial images that are a click away. Over-fishing in our oceans in part due to China's growing wealth and demand is an emerging crisis that adds to the impression that we are using up the planet's resources.

Young people know the planet is more crowded and that resources and opportunities are both becoming increasingly scarce. I believe that these perceptions underlie the broadly based, non-ideological drive for sustainability. While the long term political impact of the internet and constant communication is not yet clear (it brought us Obama and Trump), the facts of environmental degradation are more difficult to hide. It may be possible to deny climate change models, but orange rivers and particulate-laden skies provide simple and easy-to-understand messages.

Negative factors may motivate some of the drive toward sustainability, but I believe most of the progress is coming because a sustainable, renewable resource based life style is satisfying and positive. Sitting in a traffic jam is less fun than riding a bike. Paying less for electricity is no one's idea of suffering. A positive vision of sustainability underlies much of the progress we have made thus far, and will be of increasing importance as the transition to a renewable resource based economy gains momentum.

Explore further: Why states are pushing ahead with clean energy despite Trump's embrace of coal

Provided by: Earth Institute, Columbia University

This story is republished courtesy of Earth Institute, Columbia University: blogs.ei.columbia.edu .

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The progress toward sustainability - Phys.Org

In a Research Article published in PLOS Medicine, Richard Hayes of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK and colleagues report early findings from PopART -- a clinical trial evaluating an intervention to achieve universal HIV testing and treatment -- in Zambia. The authors estimate that, after 1 y of the intervention, the proportion of people with HIV who knew their infection status had increased from 52% to 78% (men) and from 56% to 87% (women); and that the overall proportion of people with HIV receiving antiretroviral treatment (ART) had increased from 44% to 61%.

Despite progress against the HIV epidemic, some 2.1 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2015, according to the most recent estimates from UNAIDS (the joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS). In that year, more than a million people died from HIV-related illnesses, mostly in low- and middle-income countries. To accelerate progress against this disastrous toll of ill health and mortality, UNAIDS has set ambitious "90-90-90" targets: by 2020, 90% of people infected with HIV should know their status, with 90% of people diagnosed with HIV infection to be receiving ART and 90% of people receiving treatment to have viral suppression. PopART and other large studies are aiming to evaluate programmes for universal testing and treatment towards these goals and to measure their effect on the number of new HIV infections.

PopART (also known as HPTN 071) is being implemented in 21 urban communities in Zambia and South Africa with a total population of around 1 million. The new paper reports findings from the first year of the study in Zambia only. In PopART, community HIV care providers systematically visit people in their homes to offer HIV testing and counselling, with linkage to appropriate facility-based care and follow-up for people with HIV, tuberculosis and other diseases. Hayes and colleagues report that, after 1 y, the estimated population proportion of those with HIV infection knowing their status was close to the UNAIDS target in women (87%); the lower proportion in men (78%) suggests that reaching men through home visits may be challenging. Although the estimated proportion of HIV-positive people on ART increased from 44% to 61%, this falls short of the 81% target (90% of 90%). The data also suggest that ART coverage was lower in younger adults with HIV. The trial is ongoing, and additional findings will be reported in future years.

Collins Iwuji and Marie-Louise Newell discuss the research in an accompanying Perspective, concluding that "Overall, these results would suggest that it is unlikely that the rather optimistic forecasts...of an imminent end to the global HIV epidemic will be fulfilled. Substantial resources are needed to further scale up ART for all HIV-positive adults, and allocation of limited resources will need to be optimised on the basis of evidence of efficacy."

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Controlling the HIV epidemic: A progress report on efforts in sub-Saharan Africa - Science Daily