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The Weekly GAB - Friday, August 18, 2017
U.S. Global Leadership Coalition | www.usglc.org
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USGLC in the News

CNN
USAID Leader Sees 'Extraordinary' Need |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=MwtSQ7tlY59q7vq0TszwwA

Laura Koran and Nicole Gaouette

The new leader of the premier US aid and humanitarian agency said
Wednesday its ultimate goal should be to put itself out of business,
even as he admitted the scale of global need is "truly extraordinary.
I believe, philosophically, the purpose of foreign assistance is to
end the need for its existence," said Mark Green, the new
administrator at the US Agency for International Development, as he
laid out plans to make the agency more streamlined and efficient by
re-examining the way the US procures and distributes aid worldwide.
Green, a former lawmaker and ambassador, is taking on the challenge at
a time when his agency's budget faces deep cuts. Green has also been
senior director at the US Global Leadership Coalition, a network of
400 businesses, NGOs, policy experts and leaders that supports US
engagement in the world and the use of development as a tool of US
foreign policy.

Who's in the News

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
We're Holding Pyongyang to Account

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=MTf3bZeJX-In3y4H4DzFug

Secretary James Mattis is the U.S. Defense Secretary and Secretary Rex
Tillerson is the U.S. Secretary of State.

In the past few months, multiple illegal North Korean
ballistic-missile and ICBM tests-coupled with the most recent
bellicose language from Pyongyang about striking the U.S., Guam, our
allies and our interests in the Asia-Pacific region-have
escalated tensions between North Korea and America to levels not
experienced since the Korean War. In response, the Trump
administration, with the support of the international community, is
applying diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve
the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula and a dismantling of the regime's
ballistic-missile programs. We are replacing the failed policy of
"strategic patience," which expedited the North Korean
threat, with a new policy of strategic accountability.

REUTERS

Interview with Raj Shah: Proposed U.S. Aid Cuts Threaten 'Disaster'
for World's Poor |
http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=u_enEftvg0mXnflPp9zQcA

Laurie Goering

Aid to help developing countries fight poverty, hunger, disease and
climate change is likely to fall 50 to 70 percent under proposed U.S.
budget cuts, a "disaster" for the world's poor, the president of The
Rockefeller Foundation has warned. Closing the expected gap through
private or charitable spending looks unlikely, added Rajiv Shah, who
ran the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2009 to
2015. If the 15 largest U.S. foundations, including giants such as the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, combined their donations, the
total would not match the cuts proposed just to USAID funding by
President Donald Trump's administration, Shah said. "This is not the
kind of problem philanthropy can step in and solve - or should," he
said. "These are public-sector responsibilities."

FOREIGN POLICY
The Global Hunger Crisis Will Not Be Tweeted

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Carolyn Miles is President and CEO of Save the Children.

Americans are exhausted by political infighting, government inaction,
and tweets. In East Africa, the Lake Chad basin, and Yemen, people are
exhausted by violence and hunger. Millions have fled their homes to
escape deadly conflicts, walking hundreds of miles and eating just one
meal per day, if they are lucky. Malnutrition is making them
susceptible to life-threatening illness, and they are forced to watch
their livestock - the only way to make a living in many of these
communities - starve to death. The United Nations has called
this the worst humanitarian emergency since World War II, with 20
million people at risk of starvation in just four African and Middle
Eastern countries. And yet most Americans have only a vague idea this
is happening.

GATES NOTES
Mosquito Wars

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=jKNARe50Rvsj8w37yhyIzA

Bill Gates

This October marks a decade since Melinda and I first called for
eradicating malaria. It was a controversial move at the time, but the
progress made since then has convinced many that this is a realistic
goal (although some are still skeptical). In the war against malaria
and the mosquitoes who carry it, we're already fighting on every
front. Consider the wide array of innovations in development right
now. I think we will see an end to malaria in my lifetime. It's
a preventable and curable disease, and the public health community has
already demonstrated that it's possible to shrink the map and
save lives. These new tools in the development pipeline will play a
huge role in reaching our goal. While we're still decades away
from wiping malaria off the map for good, one thing is clear: the
mosquito has met its match.

Development & Diplomacy

THE WASHINGTON POST
A Foreign Assistance Philosophy for an Era of Limited Resources |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=72tx0iPsN82VurpGEcgt5g

Carol Morello

The former Republican congressman from Wisconsin [Mark Green], who
most recently headed the International Republican Institute, started
work Monday as USAID administrator. His biggest challenge, though, may
be in arguing for foreign aid within the administration -
compared with on Capitol Hill, where support for development
assistance is broad and bipartisan. He acknowledged that some cuts
will be needed and that aid deemed inefficient or ineffective may not
survive. "We have to find ways to do more with less," he
said. "We're living in a time of limited resources. Part
of the mandate, to me, is to make sure that we're doing just
that."

DEVEX
Special Feature: A History of American Public Opinion on Foreign Aid

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=n-TU3HR9JmIhVN5lxN8z4g

John Norris, executive director of the Sustainable Security and
Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress

The development community reacted with shock when President Donald
Trump's budget called for cuts of more than 30 percent to the
U.S. foreign assistance program. While the shape of Trump's
approach to development will still go through many iterations, the
fact remains that a sitting U.S. president calculated that there would
be no significant political fallout to potentially gutting
America's aid programs. A look at the history of public opinion
toward foreign assistance programs helps explain why and is essential
in helping the community come to grips with where it now finds itself.

THE GUARDIAN

Sierra Leone: Fears of Second Mudslide as Week of National Mourning
Begins |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=pUZG9oOw2LsVQ_UehC8IoA

Rebecca Ratcliffe and Cooper Inveen

Hundreds have queued outside a mortuary in Freetown to search for
their loved ones, following a mudslide on Monday that has claimed at
least 400 lives. A further 600 people are still unaccounted for,
according to the Red Cross, which has continued to search for bodies
buried in the debris. Recovery efforts have been hampered by the
country's dangerous terrain, a lack of equipment and the sheer
scale of the tragedy. A national emergency has been declared and the
country's security level has been moved to three, the highest
status. The deputy health minister, Madina Rahman, said Freetown was
now facing a possible cholera outbreak, as a result of the
contaminated water pooling in the streets and bodies lying in the
open.

POLITICO
Fears Grow That Trump Could Ignore Congress on Spending |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=hkTOe33nqSQSEnL6Y0VVdA

Nahal Toosi

Lawmakers and activists are preparing for the possibility that
President Donald Trump's administration, in its zeal to slash the
federal budget, will take the rare step of deliberately not spending
all the money Congress gives it - a move sure to trigger legal
and political battles. The concern is mainly focused on the State
Department, where Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has drawn criticism
for failing to spend $80 million allocated by Congress to fight
Russian and terrorist propaganda and for trying to freeze
congressionally authorized fellowships for women and minorities.
Activists and congressional officials fear such practices could take
hold at other U.S. departments and agencies under Trump.

Politics & Foreign Policy

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Pence Praises Argentina as a Model Partner While Raising Pressure on
Venezuela |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=Xl8Y8I7RXr_k1OFDvRtoZA

Philip Rucker

Vice President Mike Pence celebrated Argentina as a model for a
prosperous Latin America and vowed additional U.S. trade partnerships
in Buenos Aires on Tuesday while also seeking to further isolate
Venezuela and pressure its autocratic leader to reverse course and
restore democracy there. Delivering the centerpiece speech of his
weeklong visit to South and Central America, Pence on Tuesday declared
"the dawn of a new era in the New World." He carried a message of
unity here to Buenos Aires and promoted economic and security ties
between the Trump administration and Argentine President Mauricio
Macri's government.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

South Korea's Leader Bluntly Warns U.S. Against Striking North |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=oW5uvH2f4T75KqMXh9uGVA

Choe Sang-hun

With his public alarmed by President Trump's recent threats to
North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea issued an unusually
blunt rebuke to the United States on Tuesday, warning that any
unilateral military action against the North over its nuclear weapons
program would be intolerable. "No one should be allowed to
decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South
Korean agreement," Mr. Moon said in a nationally televised
speech. But President Trump's threat to bring "fire and
fury" to North Korea, along with other statements from American
officials about the possibility of war, has unnerved many South
Koreans and put pressure on Mr. Moon to live up to his campaign
promise. "Our government will do everything it can to prevent
war from breaking out," he said in his speech Tuesday.

CNN
Tillerson: 'Hate is Not an American Value' |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=yN-LPOL3gEr1p8guSd1CSA

Nicole Gaouette

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivered a powerful condemnation
Friday of both hate and those who "protect or accept hate speech" in
any form -- a sharp contrast with comments made by President Donald
Trump on the white supremacist demonstrators in Charlottesville,
Virginia. Speaking at the State Department to a diverse array of
participants in one of the agency's student programs, Tillerson said
the events of the past week had raised the issues of race relations
and diversity in the workplace and that he wanted to address the
topic. "It's simply important to say -- although I think it's
well-understood and embraced, I'm certain, by everyone in this room --
we all know hate is not an American value, nowhere is it an American
value," the top US diplomat said.

NPR

At NAFTA Kickoff, U.S., Mexico and Canada Already Show Signs of
Disagreement |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=4b1vZ83znSe6qC_rlh6q4A

Danielle Kurtzleben

Officials from the U.S., Mexico and Canada met Wednesday to begin
renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In an
opening statement, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer praised
President Trump for the fact that these negotiations were even
happening. "American politicians have been promising to renegotiate
NAFTA for years, but today, President Trump is going to fulfill those
promises," he said. Wednesday's kickoff is the culmination of a
process that began in May, when Lighthizer formally notified Congress
that the administration would renegotiate the deal "to support
higher-paying jobs in the United States and to grow the U.S.
economy."


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