Disaster-prone countries that keep rebuilding homes, roads and utilities are in danger of becoming uninsurable unless their new infrastructure is built to survive further catastrophe, experts said Friday at a World Bank conference.

New construction must be low in carbon emissions and built on safe land at less risk of destruction as extreme weather intensifies under global warming, they said.

More infrastructure is about to be built in the next 20 years than was built in the past 2,000 years, said experts at the World Bank conference on infrastructure and resilience held in Washington.

The total cost of that infrastructure is seen at some $5 trillion a year.

“The expense of a constant construct, reconstruct, reconstruct, frankly, no country can afford,” said Christiana Figueres, former United Nations’ climate chief.

“Because we know we will be getting more of these effects, we cannot let ourselves get to a scenario where we are systemically uninsurable,” said Figueres.

Among recent disaster losses, no more than half were covered by insurance, she said.

Extreme weather such as flooding, severe storms and drought is increasing with global warming, experts say.

Mapping risky areas and determining the cost of making infrastructure resilient must be done before rebuilding, said Figueres.

She estimated the cost of making low-carbon infrastructure that can withstand shocks might be an additional 10 percent.

Although governments are increasingly aware of the need for resilient infrastructure, residents need incentive and encouragement to rebuild wisely, said Kamal Kishore, member of India’s National Disaster Management Authority.

“If you have a bridge across the River Ganges and you stop it for a day … the economic impact is huge,” he said. “We really have to make the case of life-cycle costs and benefits, not just the upfront costs of infrastructure.”

India has made considerable progress in reducing deaths from cyclones due to a combination of resilient infrastructure, community networks and scientific advances, he said.

Data indicating possible risk must be easily available to ensure infrastructure is not built on land prone to floods or other disasters, said Aris Papadopoulos, former chief executive of cement company Titan America. Papadopoulos recently set up a private-sector risk reduction network with the U.N.’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

“We build in vulnerable locations to the same standards as were built in the safer location, and what’s the result? We have disaster,” he said.

Urging a modern-day Marshall Plan to rebuild the Caribbean devastated by recent hurricanes, British businessman Richard Branson said the islands need more hurricane-proof homes and stronger electricity systems.

The original Marshall Plan was a multibillion-dollar U.S. program that helped rebuild Western European after World War II.

Cutting dependency on costly fossil fuels and switching to solar or wind energy would free up resources for islands that spend as much as a quarter of their national expenditures on fuel, said Branson.

Branson is trying to set up a fund to help Caribbean nations replace fossil fuel-dependent utilities with low-carbon renewable energy sources.

“How much more destruction is needed to show that the way we treat our planet is having serious consequences and sadly will have even more serious consequences?” he asked.
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From: MeNeedIt

Bigger and more powerful flying drones are slowly entering everyday life. At this year’s international technology show in Dubai, a number of drone manufacturers displayed machines that could substantially increase the mobility of various public services, from police and firefighters to taxis. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

It covers almost three-fourths of the planet, but it’s probably not a good idea to fill your cup from a river. Drinkable water flows to most of our taps only after it gets a good scrubbing. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports from a drinking water treatment plant in the Washington metropolitan area.
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From: MeNeedIt

Following the U.S. decision Thursday to quit the United Nations organization for education, science and culture, Israel announced it too will withdraw. The United States stopped funding UNESCO after the Palestinian Authority was accepted into the agency as a full member. As a member subject to membership dues, the United States accumulated a $600 million debt over the years. But as VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports, the Trump administration also cited anti-Israel bias as a reason for withdrawal.
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From: MeNeedIt

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator said Thursday that that little progress was made with the U.K. in a fifth round of talks on the country’s departure from the EU in 2019, and that he cannot yet recommend broadening negotiations to include trade.

Michel Barnier said that despite the “constructive spirit” shown in this week’s negotiations in Brussels, “we haven’t made any great steps forward.” On the question of how much Britain has to pay to settle its financial commitments, he said: “We have reached a state of deadlock, which is disturbing.”

Barnier said he would not be able to recommend to EU leaders meeting next week that “sufficient progress” has been made to broaden the talks to future EU-British relations like trade.

The leaders meet in Brussels on Oct. 19-20, and it had been hoped they would agree to widen the talks.

The EU says this can only happen when there has been progress on the issues of the financial settlement, the rights of citizens affected by Brexit and the status of the Northern Ireland-Ireland border.

But Britain says these issues are closely intertwined with their future relations like trade and must be discussed together.

“I hope the member states will see the progress we have made and take a step forward” next week, British Brexit envoy David Davis told reporters.

“We would like them to give Michel the means to broaden the negotiations. It’s up to them whether they do it. Clearly I think it’s in the interests of the United Kingdom and the European Union that they do,” Davis said.

Barnier said the two sides would work to achieve “sufficient progress” in time for a subsequent meeting of EU leaders in December.

Britain must leave the EU on March 29, 2019, but the negotiations must be completed within about a year to leave time for EU states’ national parliaments to ratify the Brexit agreement.

Barnier reaffirmed that parting with “no deal will be a very bad deal.”

“To be clear, on our side, we will be ready to face any eventualities, and all the eventualities,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Frustrated by failures in Congress, President Donald Trump will try to put his own stamp on health care with an executive order Thursday that aims to make lower-premium plans more widely available.

But the president’s move is likely to encounter opposition from medical associations, consumer groups and perhaps even some insurers — the same coalition that so far has blocked congressional Republicans from repealing and replacing former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Critics say the White House approach would raise costs for the sick and the lower-premium coverage provided to healthy people would come with significant gaps.

Administration officials say one of the main ideas is to ease the way for groups and associations to sponsor coverage that can be marketed across the land, reflecting Trump’s longstanding belief that interstate competition will lead to lower premiums for consumers who buy their own health insurance policies, as well as for small businesses.

Less cost, but less coverage

Those “association health plans” could be shielded from state and federal requirements such as mandates for coverage of certain standard benefits, equal pricing regardless of a customer’s health status, and no dollar limits on how much the insurer would pay out.

Other elements of the White House proposal may include:

Easing current restrictions on short-term policies that last less than a year, an option for people making a life transition, from recent college graduates to early retirees.
Allowing employers to set aside pre-tax dollars so workers can use the money to buy an individual health policy.

No impact on 2018

Democrats are bracing for another effort by Trump to dismantle Obamacare, this time relying on the rule-making powers of the executive branch. Staffers at the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury have been working on the options since shortly after the president took office.

But as Trump himself once said, health care is complicated and working his will won’t be as easy as signing a presidential order. Some parts of the plan will have to go through the agency rule-making process, which involves notice and comment, and can take months. State attorneys general and state insurance regulators may try to block the White House in court, seeing the plan as a challenge to their traditional authority.

Experts say Trump’s plan probably wouldn’t have much impact on premiums for 2018, which are expected to be sharply higher in many states for people buying their own policies.

Sponsors would have to be found to offer and market the new style association plans, and insurers would have to step up to design and administer them. For insurers, this would come at a time when much of the industry seems to have embraced the consumer protections required by the Obama health law.

​Markets less viable

Depending on the scope of the order, some experts say the new plans created by the White House would draw healthy people away from Obamacare insurance markets, making them less viable for consumers and insurers alike. This could start happening as early as 2019. Premiums for those in the health law’s markets would keep rising, and so would taxpayer costs for subsidizing coverage.

“If the order is as expansive as it sounds, association plans could create insurance products that would siphon off healthy people with lower premiums and skinnier benefits, leading more insurers to exit the ACA marketplace or raise premiums significantly,” Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation said recently.

“Healthy middle-class people not now eligible for subsidies could get cheaper insurance, but people with pre-existing conditions could be priced out of the market altogether,” he added.

Nonetheless conservatives such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., believe the federal government has overstepped its bounds in regulating the private health insurance market. They argue that loosening federal rules would allow insurers to design plans that, although they may not cover as much, work perfectly well for many people.

17 million buy policies

About 17 million people now buy individual health insurance policies.

Nearly 9 million consumers receive tax credits under the Affordable Care Act and are protected from higher premiums.

But those who get no subsidies are exposed to the full brunt of cost increases that could reach well into the double digits in many states next year.

Many in this latter group are solid middle-class, including self-employed business people and early retirees. Cutting their premiums has been a longstanding political promise for Republicans.
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From: MeNeedIt

Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo sought at least $1 billion in damages and a public apology from Uber Technologies Inc as conditions for settling its high-profile trade secret lawsuit against the ride-services company, sources familiar with the proposal told Reuters.

The Waymo self-driving car unit also asked that an independent monitor be appointed to ensure Uber does not use Waymo technology in the future, the sources said.

Uber rejected those terms, said the sources, who were not authorized to publicly discuss settlement talks.

The precise dollar amount requested by Waymo and the exact time the offer was made could not be learned.

Waymo’s tough negotiating stance reflects the company’s confidence in its legal position after months of pretrial victories in a case that may help to determine who emerges in the forefront of the fast-growing field of self-driving cars.

The aggressive settlement demands also suggest that Waymo is not in a hurry to resolve the lawsuit, in part because of its value as a distraction for Uber leadership, said Elizabeth Rowe, a trade secret expert at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

Waymo recently persuaded a San Francisco federal judge to delay a trial to decide the dispute from October to early December, citing the need to investigate evidence Uber had not disclosed earlier.

No further settlement talks are scheduled, the sources said. The judge overseeing the case mandated that the companies enter mediation with a court-appointed magistrate.

Amy Candido, a Waymo attorney, declined to comment on any settlement talks, but said the company’s reasons for suing Uber are “pretty clear.”

“Waymo had one goal: to stop Uber from using its trade secrets,” she said. “That remains its goal.”

An Uber spokesperson declined to comment.

Waymo sued Uber in February, claiming that former engineer Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 confidential files before leaving to set up a self-driving truck company, called Otto, which Uber acquired soon after.

Uber denied using any of Waymo’s trade secrets.
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From: MeNeedIt

In his new autobiography, retired astronaut Scott Kelly gives an unflinchingly blunt take on his U.S. record-breaking year in space and the challenging life events that got him there.

This isn’t your usual astronaut’s memoir.

Kelly recounts dumpster diving on the International Space Station for discarded meals after a supply capsule was destroyed and ending up with “some dude’s used underwear” in his hands. He writes about the congestion, headaches and burning eyes he endured from high carbon dioxide levels and the feeling no one cared at Mission Control in Houston.

In his book, Kelly tells how prostate cancer surgery almost got him banned from space station duty, and how his vision problem during an earlier spaceflight almost cost him the one-year mission, which spanned from March 2015 to March 2016.

He tells how he visited a tattoo parlor before launch and got black dots all over his body to make it easier to take ultrasound tests in orbit, and how he fashioned extra vomit bags for a nauseated crewmate.

Making story ‘more believable’

Kelly said his goal in writing Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery was to tell the whole story.

So many other NASA astronauts’ memoirs “focus on the good stuff and not necessarily the personal things that happened in their lives, things they might not be proud of, things that we all have that makes us normal, relatable people,” he told The Associated Press. “So I felt like sharing is good, but … the bad stuff, too, makes the story more believable.”

In the book, he writes about a little-known incident that he says occurred during his first space station stint in 2010, when a Russian cosmonaut came untethered during a spacewalk and began floating away. Luckily, Oleg Skripochka happened to hit an antenna that bounced him back toward the space station, enabling him to grab on and save his life, according to Kelly.

Kelly said that even though he was aboard the space station at the time, he didn’t learn about the incident until his yearlong mission five years later, when it casually came up in conversation with other cosmonauts. “I was, like, really? Holy crap. Crazy,” Kelly recalled in an AP interview.

He remembered Skripochka had looked shaken, but thought it was because he had been out on his first spacewalk.

No confirmation

On Wednesday, the Russian Space Agency’s press department said it contacted Skripochka, who did not confirm Kelly’s account. No other comment was provided.

“I’ve often pondered what we would have done if we’d known he was drifting irretrievably away from the station,” Kelly writes. “It probably would have been possible to tie his family into the comm system in his spacesuit so they could say goodbye before the rising CO2 or oxygen deprivation caused him to lose consciousness — not something I wanted to spend a lot of time thinking about as my own spacewalk was approaching.”

Published by Knopf, Endurance comes out next Tuesday. So does a version for children, My Journey to the Stars, put out by Penguin Random House.

Kelly, 53, said he didn’t discover his passion for aviation and space until reading Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book The Right Stuff in college. Kelly writes that he was a terrible student and most likely suffered from attention deficit disorder.

The former spaceman also tells how he realized right before his wedding that he didn’t want to go through with it, but did anyway, leading to a troubled marriage and eventually divorce, and how he initially didn’t want “that space station stink” on him — getting space station assignments — for fear it would limit his shuttle-flying opportunities. He flew twice on space shuttles and had two extended stays at the space station, sharing the entire 340-day mission, his last, with Russian Mikhail Kornienko.

A ‘below-average guy’

When asked whether it was difficult exposing his weaknesses when astronauts are supposed to be perfect or close to it, Kelly replied, “Naw, I feel like I’m like a below-average guy doing slightly above-average stuff.”

Kelly figured he might write a book, given it was NASA’s longest single spaceflight ever. So he kept a journal in orbit and took notes about how the place looked, smelled and felt “to make someone feel like they were on the space station.”

“The book hasn’t come out yet,” Kelly said, “and as I get closer to it coming out, I’m thinking, ‘Man, I’ve got to live with this for the rest of my life.’ ”

Kelly’s identical twin brother, Mark, also a former Navy pilot and NASA astronaut as well as an author, was among the several people who read early drafts. Scott Kelly devotes several pages to the 2011 shooting of his sister-in-law, former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Aboard the space station at the time, Kelly wondered whether he was calling his family too much — “whether in my effort to be there for them I was becoming intrusive.”

Back on Earth and now retired for 1½ years, Kelly said he misses being in space. Of course, when he was in space, he missed Earth. He credits that saying to a Russian crewmate, Gennady Padalka, the world’s most experienced spaceman, and isn’t sure the saying made it into the book.

“I need to write a sequel of all the stuff I left out.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The sexual harassment scandal surrounding one of Hollywood’s most powerful movie producers deepened this week as a report published in The New Yorker magazine accused Harvey Weinstein of raping three women. VOA’S Jeff Custer reports from Washington
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From: MeNeedIt

The once-powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was suspended from the British film academy Tuesday as allegations of his decades of sexual abuse continue to emerge.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts said in a statement Wednesday that Weinstein’s membership had been “suspended, effective immediately.”

The organization, which had previously received money from Weinstein to fund its charitable work, called his alleged sexual transgressions “completely unacceptable and incompatible with BAFTA’s values.”

Weinstein was fired by the board of his production company, the Weinstein Co., on Monday following an explosive New York Times report, in which 13 women accused him of sexually harassing or assaulting them.

On Tuesday, another report from the New Yorker emerged, in which three women accused Weinstein of raping them. Actresses Asia Argento and Lucia Evans went on the record in the New Yorker story to accuse Weinstein of raping them, while another woman chose to remain anonymous.

Among the accusers are some of Hollywood’s A-listers, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rosanna Arquette.

The New Yorker story says 16 current and former employees at the Weinstein Co. and Miramax either witnessed or knew of Weinstein’s sexual abuse. According to the report, all of those employees said Weinstein’s sexual deviancy was widely known within the two companies.

The 65-year-old Weinstein oversaw production of many popular films over the last 30 years, including Shakespeare in Love, Pulp Fiction, Sex, Lies and Videotape, The English Patient, Good Will Hunting and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. He ran Miramax and later the Weinstein movie companies with his brother Bob Weinstein.

His fall came quickly after the Times reported on his unwanted sexual advances on women stretching over nearly three decades. The story said Weinstein, who is known in Hollywood for his demanding control of film productions and angry outbursts, had paid confidential settlements to his female accusers.

In a statement last week, Weinstein said that “the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.” Later, he claimed some of the newspaper’s claims were false and said he would sue for defamation.

Weinstein took a leave of absence from his company Friday, but on Sunday the board said that “in light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days,” it had told him that “his employment is terminated, effective immediately.”

High-profile reactions

Weinstein has been big donor in recent years to Democratic politicians in the U.S., including twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But with the sexual harassment revelations, Democratic political figures scrambled over the weekend to distance themselves from the disgraced filmmaker.

Several Democrat politicians, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren have promised to donate money they received from Weinstein to charities supporting women.

Clinton broke her silence on the matter Tuesday, saying she was “shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein.”

“The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated,” she added in a statement.

“Any man who demeans and degrades women in such fashion needs to be condemned and held accountable, regardless of wealth or status,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement Tuesday. “We should celebrate the courage of women who have come forward to tell these painful stories.”

President Donald Trump said over the weekend he’s “known Harvey Weinstein for a long time” and he is “not at all surprised” by the sexual abuse allegations.

Matt Damon’s first film, Good Will Hunting, won him his first Oscar after Weinstein took a chance on a script from Damon and fellow unknown, Ben Affleck.

“We know this stuff goes on in the world. I did five or six movies with Harvey. I never saw this,” Damon told CNN’s Deadline in an interview published Tuesday.

He added later in the interview: “This morning, I just feel absolutely sick to my stomach.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Attorneys for the Trump administration said a federal judge has no authority to second-guess a presidential permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline as they seek to stop a lawsuit that would block the project.

Justice Department attorneys are due in U.S. District Court in Montana on Wednesday to defend the administration’s March approval of the 1,179-mile pipeline — a lightning rod in the debate over what to do about climate change.

The TransCanada proposal would transport Canadian crude oil through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing system of lines to carry oil to Gulf Coast refineries.

The Obama administration rejected the project before the proposal was revived in March by President Donald Trump, who said it would create jobs and lead to greater energy independence.

Conservation groups and Native American organizations that sued over the project argue that an environmental review completed in 2014 was inadequate. They’ve asked U.S. District Judge Brian Morris to revoke its permit.

Government attorneys said in their motion to throw out the case that Morris can’t interfere because the Constitution gives Trump authority over matters of foreign affairs and national security.

“The remedy that plaintiffs seek — an injunction against the presidential permit — is not available because such an order would impermissibly infringe on the president’s authority,” Justice Department attorney Bridget McNeil wrote.

The project’s economics have shifted considerably since the pipeline was proposed in 2008, with low oil prices and the high cost of extracting Canadian crude from Alberta’s oil sands now casting doubt on whether it would be profitable.

Opponents say those market changes undercut arguments from Keystone supporters that oil sands crude would get to consumers by another means if the pipeline was not built.

The opponents said the current market conditions should have been weighed by the State Department before it issued the permit.

“In a low oil market world, adding close to a million barrels a day of capacity out of the tar sands is a lifeline for that industry. You can’t say it’s going to find its way to market whether this pipeline is built,” said attorney Doug Hayes with the Sierra Club, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits.

A State Department spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on lawsuits.

A TransCanada executive in August raised doubts about Keystone’s prospects and said the Calgary-based company would decide later this year about whether to start construction.

Company spokesman Matthew John said Tuesday that the project was in the national interests of the U.S. and Canada. He declined to address the lawsuits or the pipeline’s economic prospects.

TransCanada last week canceled plans for a pipeline that would have carried crude from Alberta to New Brunswick on the Atlantic coast. The company cited regulatory delays and “the associated cost implications” faced by its Energy East Pipeline proposal.

Heated opposition

In the U.S., Keystone has faced heated opposition from landowners whose property would be crossed by the line and farmers who live downstream from river crossings.

Opponents planned a rally ahead of Wednesday’s hearing in Great Falls to draw attention to their concerns.

Among the protesters will be Dena Hoff, who farms along the Yellowstone River near the small city of Glendive, Montana, 13 miles downstream of where Keystone XL would cross the waterway. Hoff worries about a repeat of a 2015 oil pipeline spill into the Yellowstone at the edge of her property that fouled Glendive’s drinking water supply.

“They’re talking about endangering one of the most historic, iconic and economically important rivers in this part of the country,” she said.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission must decide by Nov. 23 whether to give approval. South Dakota and Montana regulators have approved the project.
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From: MeNeedIt

A study shows there has been a tenfold increase in the number of obese and overweight children and adolescents worldwide in just 40 years.

In one of the biggest epidemiological studies ever undertaken, scientists with the World Health Organization and Imperial College London analyzed height and weight data for 130 million people since 1975, to get their Body Mass Index or BMI.

The most dramatic changes have occurred in middle income countries in regions such as East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. Lead author, Professor Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London is surprised by the speed of change.

“Places that a few decades ago, there may have been very little obesity and a fair amount of underweight children, suddenly are bordering on having epidemics.”

In higher income countries, rates of childhood obesity have plateaued but remain very high. In that income group, the United States had the highest obesity rates.

Poor policymaking blamed

Researchers say the global obesity epidemic is a result of food marketing and poor policymaking across the globe.

“Rather than being an individual’s choice, it’s the hard environments that people choose their foods in  healthy foods being priced out of reach, and especially out of reach of the poor, and unhealthy foods being marketed aggressively, together with perhaps not having a safe play area for children, that are leading to weight gain,” says Ezzati.

Obesity is an underlying cause of many diseases later in life, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers. But Ezzati says it also has a big impact in childhood.

“It’s associated with a stigma, so psycho-social consequences for the children. There is some evidence that it actually affects the educational outcome for the children.”

Major health challenge

The study also looked at the number of underweight children, which still represents a major health challenge in the poorest parts of the world. India had the highest prevalence of moderately and severely underweight young people across the four decades.

“We really need to deal with the two issues at the same time. So we can’t wait to deal with underweight, and then worry about overweight and obesity. The transition happens really fast and they are all different forms of malnutrition,” says Ezzati.

Authors of the report are calling for policymakers to find ways to make healthy, nutritious food more available at home and school, especially in poorer families and communities, alongside higher taxes on unhealthy foods.
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From: MeNeedIt