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“No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar”
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
– Abraham Lincoln
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Trump is Taking a Wrecking Ball to NATO: For 70 years the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has promoted democratic values and provided collective security for its 29 North American and European member partners. Created after the end of WWII, NATO was originally designed to be a bulwark against aggression by the Soviet Union. The intergovernmental alliance as it exists today continues to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through military and political means. But in just two years, US president Donald Trump has gravely damaged the alliance, and the beneficiaries are democracy’s enemies: Russia and China.
Throughout Trump’s multiple assaults on America’s international partnerships, European leaders had clung to the hope that the trans-Atlantic ties would withstand the barrage. But Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the just-concluded prestigious annual security conference in Munich, in which he encouraged European nations to follow the US out of the Iran nuclear deal, left other leaders angry, and dispelled the last remnants of hope that they could continue to rely on the US. They see Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, and suspension of the INF arms-control treaty with Russia, as leaving Europe less safe, and his renewal of sanctions against Iran as hurting European companies far more than American ones.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was most passionate when speaking about the dangers of unilateral actions by major partners, without discussing the consequences with allies. Trump’s recent announcements that American troops would leave northern Syria and Afghanistan would only help Russia and Iran, she said. The French foreign minister agreed, adding that the US policy in Syria was “a mystery to me.” Only Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was happily noting the strains, remarking that the Euro-Atlantic relationship had become increasingly tense. “We see new cracks forming, and old cracks deepening,” Lavrov said.
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Do You Want The Good News Or The Bad News?: Most Americans do not have a good understanding of the world health report card. Americans tend to overestimate health problems in poorer nations and underestimate the percentage of children getting vaccinated in developing countries. One area that definitely needs improvement, however, is infectious disease prevention and treatment. A professor of global public health says respiratory diseases have been on the rise, and that’s where we should be focusing. “Childhood pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of death in under-5 children and kills more kids than malaria and diarrhea combined”, she said. An estimated 880,000 children age 2 and under died of the disease in 2016. Their deaths could have been prevented with vaccination or antibiotics.
The good news for global health is that the mortality rate for children under age 5 has decreased by more than 50 percent in the last 30 years. Deaths of women during childbirth have been cut in half, there’s been a major turnaround in the HIV epidemic, a significant decrease in death from malaria, and an increased life expectancy in every country. At the same time, American-style eating habits are gaining popularity in developing countries, meaning obesity and diabetes are becoming epidemics. And while the rate of cigarette smoking has fallen to a record low in the US and is declining in other Western nations, it is still a major problem in developing countries.
Additional reads: “Brexit could put 1.7 million people around globe into extreme poverty – study. Britain leaving the EU could hit least-developed countries hard, with Cambodia most affected, report finds.” and “‘The devastation of human life is in view’: what a burning world tells us about climate change.” (Guardian)
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KEEPING OUR EYE ON
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Give Vaccinations A Shot: In many parts of the world health care workers risk their lives to deliver vaccines to vulnerable communities. In northern Nigeria in 2013 health workers were winding down an immunization drive to vaccinate children against the polio virus when armed gunmen appeared and opened fire, killing nine of them. Medical staff have been attacked and killed in Pakistan while delivering polio vaccines to rural areas or conflict zones. Outside of high-risk areas or conflict zones, delivering vaccines in developing countries can pose serious logistical challenges. An emergency operations manager at Doctors Without Borders said that in parts of Congo, where a measles outbreak is ongoing, medical staff must travel for days by motorbike or canoe to access isolated villages. Without these efforts outbreaks of a highly contagious viruses can quickly balloon to crisis levels. Three cases of measles confirmed in the capital city of Madagascar last October had escalated to thousands of cases by November.
In the US vaccines that can prevent the spread of measles and other deadly viruses are readily available. Unfortunately, conspiracy theories that vaccines are ineffective or can cause certain disabilities and medical conditions have led a number of American parents to resist vaccinating their children. This year the World Health Organization named “vaccine hesitancy” one of the top threats to global health. According to the report, measles has increased by 30 percent globally and “some countries that were close to eliminating the disease have seen a resurgence.” It is extremely frustrating to those in the medical field. One expert remarked: “You have at your disposal all the benefits of modern life that are supposed to make your life healthy and strong and long. And then a segment of the population rejects that. It’s exasperating.”
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A Small Emergency Of Six Billion Dollars: President Trump spoke from the Rose Garden Friday, declaring there’s a “national emergency” of illegal immigration and drug smuggling at the southern US-Mexico border, and he will be taking away monies already allocated by Congress for things like drug interdiction, disaster relief for residents of California and Puerto Rico, and constructing housing for military families, in order to build his wall “faster.” He actually said on camera: “I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.” Notwithstanding statistical facts, some from Trump’s own administration, one wonders: if it doesn’t have to be done quickly, is it really an emergency? It’s not that other presidents haven’t declared emergencies—it’s been done dozens of times since the law was codified in 1976, but for what, under what circumstances and for how much? The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse. Is it okay for a president to “redirect” monies already allocated for specific purposes in order to simply increase the amount for something Congress refused to grant in the first place? Courts will be deciding that as the legal challenges have already begun. (NPR)
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LOOSE NUTS
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The Calculated Introvert: How to Make Connections That Count — Advice From a Silicon Valley Veteran (and Introvert) (First Round) Networking is important. I use to hate it but because it’s so important, I have learned to embrace it and become a calculated introvert. Networking is at a high level a two part process: who to network with and how to network. On the who, be very careful, as Jim Rohn, a motivational speaker says: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” We try to network with those we respect, admire, and can learn from. And as a mentor, we try to help those who can most benefit from our assistance.
And on the how, if you invest in your personal and professional relationships then one will see a return on investment. Networking is not the random connecting on LinkedIn. We are firm believers in relationships over revenue (because in the long run good, strong, foundational relationships drive greater revenue).
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LAST MORSELS
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“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
– Abraham Lincoln
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