Month: March 2017

The United Nations begins negotiations Monday on a legally binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

This comes as the United States commences a review of what role its nuclear weapons should now play.

“Shortly after taking office, the president directed a new Nuclear Posture Review to ensure that the United States nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21st century threats and reassure our allies,” White House senior assistant press secretary Michael Short told VOA Friday. “The review is underway and is being led by the secretary of defense.”

Those around the world yearning for a planet free of nuclear weapons are likely to be disappointed with the outcomes both at the United Nations and the White House.

“I personally support a world without nuclear weapons,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. “But I would also admit it would be very hard to get there.” 

NATO vote

The Obama administration last year strongly encouraged NATO allies to vote against the start of negotiations at the U.N., contending such a ban would hinder cooperation to respond to nuclear threats from adversaries.

The proposed U.N. treaty “aims to delegitimize the concept of nuclear deterrence upon which many U.S. allies and partners depend,” according to a notice Washington sent to NATO on October 17.

Some in the Trump administration would like to see it abandon Obama’s stated goal of a world without nuclear weapons and lift the moratorium on U.S nuclear weapons testing.

“We have not conducted an experiment in over 20 years. Since then we’ve made some changes to our nuclear warheads, and we don’t fully understand how those changes might play out in operational scenarios,” said Michaela Dodge, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

Examining whether global nuclear disarmament “is a realistic goal” is part of the Nuclear Posture Review, according to Christopher Ford, the National Security Council’s senior director for weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation, who spoke at a conference in Washington last Tuesday.

The Trump administration “may come to a different conclusion than the Obama administration came to as to how realistic it is to make that a goal that drives your near and midterm policy approaches,” Pifer, director of the Brookings Arms Control Initiative, said during a seminar the following day devoted to how U.S. and Russian leaders can avoid renewed nuclear tensions.

Number of weapons

Also on the table, according to National Security Council officials, are the number of U.S. weapons needed to counter other nuclear-armed countries and whether new devices should be added to its atomic arsenal.

“I think over time President Trump and his team at the Pentagon are going to recognize that we do need to continue to have verifiable arms limits with Russia,” said Pifer, also a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. “We don’t want a new arms race. We don’t want to open the door to new types of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing, which would have grave ramifications for the global arms reduction and nonproliferation process.”

That also appears to be the view in Moscow.

A former Russian arms control negotiator, who attended the Washington seminar told VOA the Kremlin desires resuming dialogue in this arena.

“For the Russian side, if United States is forthcoming and comes up with something interesting, it would be very difficult for Russia to say, ‘Nyet, we’re not interested.’ No. No way,” said Victor Mizin, deputy director of the Institute for International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs.

The self-described former Cold Warrior terms the current situation as a “hybrid cold war,” contending the rhetoric is worse than it was in the 1980s.

For the past several years, the United States has accused Russia of violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a landmark arms control agreement of the Cold War.

Ford, the only senior nuclear policy official yet appointed by Trump, said the administration is reviewing responses to Russia’s deployment of nuclear-capable cruise missiles, which led to the U.S. accusations.

“What usually happens, as you well know, is the United States over-complies with agreements while permitting Russia to have more wiggle room in an effort to save the agreement itself,” Dodge, at the Heritage Foundation, told VOA.

Arms control

Another influential Russian academic visiting Washington in recent days for conferences and seminars on arms control, Sergey Rogov, expressed concern about the Trump administration’s apparent distaste for multilateral treaties, noting contradictory comments made by candidate Trump on nuclear issues.

“Apparently today there is no nuclear policy for the new administration,” said Rogov, director of the Institute of U.S.-Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who added, however, “it’s still early. But the problem is the Republican Party has almost no arms controllers left.”

President Trump, on the campaign trail, did speak both of a desire to see the abolition of nuclear weapons and of giving an unrivaled arsenal to the United States, which he said had fallen behind in its nuclear capabilities.

The president also mentioned the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Islamic State and publicly pondered whether countries such as Japan and South Korea, protected under the American nuclear umbrella, might be better off having their own such weapons.

The U.S. nuclear posture review is expected to take 12 to 18 months. The previous one was completed in 2010 during the first term of President Barack Obama.

U.S. nuclear policymakers will now also be keeping one eye on the activities at the United Nations where the negotiations threaten to upset the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That treaty allowed the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France, who are also the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, to retain their nuclear weapons for an unspecified time.

Anti-nuclear activists

Some anti-nuclear activists expressed disappointed with the Obama administration, despite its denuclearization rhetoric, because it requested large increases for nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. They are not expecting good news from the Trump administration.

“But throwing out even this rhetorical commitment, arguing that a world without nuclear weapons is unrealistic, and hinting at the resumption of explosive nuclear weapon testing means violating international law, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and a clear expression of support for nuclear weapons,” said Ray Acheson, director of the disarmament program of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Acheson told VOA her organization sees this as “posing enormous risks to the existing nonproliferation regime” and “will essentially be equivalent to throwing the last several decades of iterative work towards nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation into the dustbin of history.”
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The United Nations is to begin negotiations Monday on a legally binding treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons. This comes as the United States begins a review of the role its nuclear weapons should now play. VOA White House Bureau Chief Correspondent Steve Herman reports.
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Friday’s surprising move by U.S. Republican leadership to pull the bill known as the American Health Care Act was partly because of its rejection by a small group of conservative Republicans known as the Freedom Caucus.

The leader, Mark Meadows of North Carolina, said in a statement Friday that he had promised voters he would fight not only for a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, but also “a replacement with a market-driven approach that brings down costs and provides more choices for the American people.”

For the Freedom Caucus, the Republican health care bill was not conservative enough, even after the Trump administration gave in to demands to withdraw some essential health benefits.

The Republican bill could not pass without the support of the caucus, which has about 30 members.

Trump was reportedly irritated by the decision of the Freedom Caucus when he complained Friday about the lack of compliance by Republicans who refused to back the legislation.

Formed in 2015

The Freedom Caucus is 2 years old, having formed at a Republican congressional retreat in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in January 2015. The nine founders allowed others to join only if they confirmed they were willing to vote against the Speaker of the House — at the time, John Boehner — on issues that the group opposed.

The group soon flexed its collective muscle by helping to oust Boehner in September of that year. Boehner’s successor, Paul Ryan, had the support of a supermajority of Freedom Caucus members, which helped him get elected.

The Freedom Caucus is one of a number of lawmakers’ interest groups, known as caucuses, that meet and vote together on common legislative goals. Other Republican caucuses include the moderate Tuesday Group and the large, conservative Republican Study Committee.

Other caucuses

On the Democratic side, some conservative Democrats are members of the Blue Dog Caucus, while liberals are more likely to join the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Bipartisan groups include the Congressional Black Caucus, for African-Americans, and the Climate Solutions Caucus, for work on climate change.
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U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year’s American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank.

In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine’s war with pro-Russian separatists.

VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has stated that the combat losses and hacking never happened.

Some see overblown allegations

CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last year, but some cybersecurity experts have questioned its evidence. The company has come under fire from some Republicans who say charges of Kremlin meddling in the election are overblown.

After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by “Fancy Bear,” a group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

CrowdStrike’s claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media.

On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.

The company removed language that said Ukraine’s artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS.

The original CrowdStrike report was dated Dec. 22, 2016, and the updated report was dated March 23, 2017.

The company also removed language saying Ukraine’s howitzers suffered “the highest percentage of loss of any … artillery pieces in Ukraine’s arsenal.”

Finally, CrowdStrike deleted a statement saying “deployment of this malware-infected application may have contributed to the high-loss nature of this platform” — meaning the howitzers — and excised a link sourcing its IISS data to a blogger in Russia-occupied Crimea.

In an email, CrowdStrike spokeswoman Ilina Dmitrova said the new estimates of Ukrainian artillery losses resulted from conversations with Henry Boyd, an IISS research associate for defense and military analysis. She declined to say what prompted the contact.

CrowdStrike defends report

“This update does not in any way impact the core premise of the report that the FANCY BEAR threat actor implanted malware into a D-30 targeting application developed by a Ukrainian military officer,” Dmitrova wrote.

Reached by VOA, the IISS confirmed providing CrowdStrike with new information about combat losses, but declined to comment on CrowdStrike’s hacking assertions.

“We don’t think the current version of the [CrowdStrike] report draws conclusions with regard to our data, other than quoting the clarification we provided to them,” IISS told VOA.

Dmitrova noted that the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community have also concluded that Russia was behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager.

The release of embarrassing Democratic emails during last year’s U.S. political campaign, and the subsequent finding by intelligence agencies that the hacks were meant to help then-candidate Donald Trump, have led to investigations by the FBI and intelligence committees in both the House and Senate.

Trump and White House officials have denied colluding with Russians.
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Khmerload, a Cambodian entertainment news website modeled after the American media giant Buzzfeed, has become the country’s first local tech startup to attract the backing of Silicon Valley investors.

A $200,000 investment to be exact.

The money came from 500 Startups, a global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator founded by PayPal and Google alumni, Dave McClure and Christine Tsai, who took notice of the website, launched five years ago.

The grant pushed the company’s value to more than $1 million, according to In Vichet, Khmerload’s founder and CEO.

Several sites, and growing

Vichet, also the CEO and founder of Cambodia’s popular Little Fashion ecommerce site, said he convinced investors that Khmerload had growth potential, enough for a return on the investment.

“We showed them that we are in the top three websites in Cambodia,” said Vichet, who did his graduate work in economics at the University of Michigan. “We also have traction in Myanmar, where we recently expanded. So they see that we have done a lot while already generating revenue. They saw our potential.”

Khailee Ng, the Southeast Asia-based managing partner of 500 Startups, said Khmerload’s probable growth extends far beyond Cambodia’s borders.

“Getting to the top media position behind Facebook and Google’s properties with such a lean budget is something not many entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia have done,” Ng said.

“I’ve actually never seen anything quite like it. To be profitable, yet have increasing traffic growth rates? This investment decision is easy,” he added. 

The $1 million may not seem like much compared with the $1.7 billion value of Buzzfeed, until measured against Cambodia’s per capita income of $1,070, according to the latest World Bank estimate.

More Cambodians on internet

The 500 Startups grant comes as more and more Cambodians are using the internet and Facebook, according to an Asia Foundation study that found most go online exclusively through their smartphones. This mimics trends for sites like Buzzfeed.

Khmerload has gained more than 17 million page views per month in Cambodia, allowing it to expand into Myanmar last year, opening a sister site, Myanmarload, which already generates about 20 million page views per month.

It has also carried out a successful pilot in Indonesia, said Vichet, and was incorporated in Singapore as Mediaload.

However, Khmerload’s Buzzfeed-style approach of viral content and quick clicks has led to criticism.

Content diversifying

Vichet admits that the site originally relied heavily on tabloid and entertainment content or, as he put it, “nonpolitical content,” an important distinction in a nation where the constitution provides for a free press, but where the state closely monitors the media and — one way or another — controls its content.

But as the site has grown to reach millions, he says, it has diversified to include more informative content, including educational materials and technology news.

And 500 Startups is no doubt aware of Cambodians growing embrace of the online world. In 2000, an estimated 6,000 Cambodians used the internet. Today, the company estimates 5 million active users in Cambodia.

Tech startups are also on the rise. About 120 have sprung up in Cambodia, along with some 10 co-working spaces in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, according to Thul Rithy, founder of Phnom Penh-based co-working spaces SmallWorld and Emerald Hub.

Mediaload’s next moves include expansions into Vietnam and Laos, Vichet said. He’s also keen to help other Cambodians obtain Silicon Valley investment.

“Even with a good idea, it is really hard for Cambodians to get an investment from [Silicon Valley], as there is no precedent of success,” Vichet said. “I hope I can deliver good returns to them so that in the future they will invest in other Cambodian technology startups.”

This report was originally published by VOA’s Khmer Service.
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President Donald Trump’s startling allegation that former President Barack Obama tapped his phones during last year’s election is pitting the White House against U.S. intelligence officials, sparking grave concern in law enforcement circles and alarming Democrats and Republicans alike.

A look at the controversy:

Trump’s allegation

On March 4, while at his Florida estate, Trump angrily tweeted that Obama was behind a politically motivated plot to upend his campaign. He alleged that the former president conducted surveillance in October at Trump Tower, the New York skyscraper where he ran his campaign and transition. He also maintains a residence there.

He compared the alleged surveillance to “Nixon/Watergate” and “McCarthyism.” Moreover, he called Obama a “Bad (or sick) guy.”

The tweets reflected the president’s growing frustration with swirling reports about his advisers’ alleged ties to Russia. Questions about his campaign’s ties to Russia have been compounded by U.S. intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia interfered with the election to help Trump triumph over Hillary Clinton, along with disclosures about his aides’ contacts with a Russian official.

Obama denies it’s true

No president can legally order a wiretap against a U.S. citizen. Obtaining one would require officials at the Justice Department to seek permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, which is shrouded in secrecy.

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said a “cardinal rule” of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered in Justice Department investigations, which are supposed to be conducted free of political influence.

“As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen,” Lewis said, adding that “any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”

Trump kicks it to committee

A few days later, Trump asked Congress to investigate his allegations. Without saying where the president got the information that led to his tweets, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was “going off information that he’s seen.” If the allegation were true, she said, “this is the greatest overreach and the greatest abuse of power that I think we’ve ever seen and a huge attack on democracy itself.”

White House Press Secretary Spars With CNN Reporter on Wiretapping Claims

Trump stands alone

With Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill refusing to embrace Trump’s wiretap allegation, the president was out on a limb.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, pressured Trump to provide the public with more information about his allegation. “The dimensions of this are huge. It’s accusing the president of the United States of violating the law. That’s never happened before,” he said.

For a while, it appeared that the White House was walking back Trump’s tweets.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer tried to clarify Trump’s comments, saying the president wasn’t using the word wiretapping literally. 

“The president used the word wiretap in quotes to mean broadly surveillance and other activities,” Spicer said. He also suggested Trump wasn’t accusing Obama specifically, but instead referring to the actions of the Obama administration.

But Trump himself didn’t back down. He predicted in an interview with Fox News that there would be “some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.” He didn’t elaborate. It remains unclear if he’s holding onto some evidence that justify his tweets.

Comey: ‘No Information That Supports’ Wiretapping Tweets

Comey talks

In testimony Monday at a politically charged congressional hearing, FBI Director James Comey brought the curtain down on speculation about the wiretap.

“With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey said. The same was true, he added, of the Justice Department.

With the denial by the nation’s top enforcement official, the controversy appeared dead.

Nunes muddies the water

On Wednesday, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee held a hastily scheduled news conference to make a startling announcement.

“I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition,” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said. “Details about persons associated with the incoming administration — details with little apparent foreign intelligence value — were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”

Nunes also said that he had confirmed that Trump transition team identities were unmasked. 

“I want to be clear,” he said. “None of this surveillance was related to Russia, or the investigation of Russian activities, or of the Trump team.”

Nunes told members of the news media before consulting with members of his committee and then went to the White House to share his information with Trump.

Nunes’ actions incensed Democrats on the committee.

“The chairman will need to decide whether he is the chairman of an independent investigation, which includes allegations of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians, or whether he is going to act as a surrogate of the White House, because he cannot do both,” said the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Schiff said the chairman’s actions raised doubt about whether the House intelligence committee’s investigation can be impartial.

Nunes apologized Thursday to members of the committee, which was scheduled to hold its second hearing of the investigation next week.
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The U.S. State Department has asked American embassies and consulates around the world to identify certain groups that should get extra scrutiny when they apply for visas.

This directive also instructs U.S. posts overseas to review the social media accounts of visa applicants who are suspected of terrorist ties or of having been in Islamic State group-controlled areas.

The diplomatic cables sent by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directed embassies to convene security and intelligence working groups to determine “a list of criteria identifying sets of post-applicant populations warranting increased scrutiny.”

Even if the applicant otherwise qualifies for a visa, those identified as meeting the criteria would require additional scrutiny and possible denial.

It is the first evidence of the “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States that President Donald Trump promised during his campaign.

Embassy officials must now scrutinize a broader pool of visa applicants to determine if they pose security risks to the United States, according to four cables sent between March 10 and March 17.

The directives, first reported by Reuters, quickly drew criticism from rights groups and others who’ve accused Trump of discriminating against Muslims through his now-suspended ban on travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries.

Amnesty International on Thursday called for the department to publicize the guidance.

“These measures could provide license for discrimination based on national origin and religion,” the human rights group said in a letter to Tillerson. “They could provide a pretext for barring individuals based on their nonviolent beliefs and expression. Social media checks, as well as demands for social media passwords at U.S. borders, have significant implications for privacy and freedom of expression.”
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The Department of Veterans Affairs is warning of a rapidly growing backlog for veterans who seek to appeal decisions involving disability benefits, saying it will need much more staff even as money remains in question due to a tightening Trump administration budget.

The red flag is included in a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday. The VA says the wait time of as much as five years for veterans seeking resolution of their claims would continue to grow without a “hiring surge” in the next budget year beginning in October.

Without the staff, the VA said, the backlog could exceed 1 million within a decade, and “veterans may have to wait an average of 8.5 years” to have their appeals resolved.

4.1 million veterans receive funds

The department provides $63.7 billion in disability compensation payments each year to about 4.1 million veterans with conditions incurred during their military service.

Setting a goal to decide most appeals within one year by 2021, the VA set aside additional money in 2017 to boost full-time staff by 36 percent, or 242. It also estimated that a hiring surge of up to 1,458 more staff would be necessary in 2018.

But in comments to GAO, the VA acknowledged Thursday that its workforce plan was “highly dependent on VA’s annual budget appropriation,” and that it could not necessarily commit fully to the hiring.

Budget calls for 6 percent boost

Trump’s budget blueprint calls for a 6 percent increase in VA funding, mostly to pay for rising health costs to treat veterans. The VA is one of three agencies slated for more money amid sizable cuts to other domestic programs.

But the White House plan has yet to spell out specific funding for hiring of more VA staff to handle both disability claims and appeals, only saying it planned to continue “critical investments” to transform VA claims processing. In testimony to Congress this week, VA inspector general Michael Missal said the Trump administration was proposing to carry over 2017 funding levels to 2018 for most VA discretionary programs.

Asked for additional detail, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget said, “Stay tuned.”

Appeals process ‘broken’

VA Secretary David Shulkin has pointed to reform of the VA’s disability appeals process as one of his top 10 priorities, calling the current system “broken.” He has backed legislation introduced last year aimed at streamlining the appeals process, but has been less clear about available money for hiring. Last week, after being prodded by members of Congress, Shulkin released a memorandum detailing a few hundred more exemptions to the federal hiring freeze, in part to allow for the hiring of claims processors authorized in 2017.

“These workforce shortages are deeply troubling,” said Senator Jon Tester of Montana, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. “It’s time we get these folks hired.”

He was among a group of senators, including Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, on Thursday who reintroduced legislation to overhaul the disability appeals system.

Additional staffing urgently needed

In a phone interview, VA officials said they had been devoting additional staff in recent years to address the appeals backlog but that broader reform from Congress, including added staffing, was urgently needed.

“We plan to continue to hire to the extent we can,” said Dave McLenachen, director of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s appeals management office.

In the GAO report, auditors as a whole found the VA’s staffing estimates sound but cautioned the government’s second-largest agency needed a better plan to make sure additional staff are properly trained and have adequate office space.
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President Donald Trump, who has sought to ban travelers from Iran and other Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States, issued a holiday greeting Wednesday to Iranians celebrating the New Year holiday known as Nowruz.

Trump, who has also criticized the nuclear deal between Iran and Western powers negotiated during President Barack Obama’s administration, did not refer to the travel ban in his statement.

“Nowruz means ‘new day’ in Persian. It is an occasion to celebrate new beginnings, a sentiment that is particularly meaningful for so many Iranians who have come to our country in recent decades to make a new start in a free land,” Trump said in a statement issued by the White House.

Nowruz is Iran’s most important national event and is celebrated with family gatherings, vacations and gift-giving. “For many years, I have greatly enjoyed wonderful friendships with Iranian-Americans, one of the most successful immigrant groups in our country’s contemporary history,” he said.

Trump has taken a hard line on immigration, both as a presidential candidate and since taking office. He tried twice with executive orders to prevent people from several Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States, and he has promised to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

The latest order sought a 90-day ban on travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. A federal judge struck down parts of the ban on the day it was set to go into effect. Trump’s administration has said it will appeal.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg agreed with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday to look for a date that would allow all NATO allies to attend a meeting of foreign ministers.

Tillerson had initially decided to skip talks set for April 5-6 in Brussels, unsettling European allies who have questioned President Donald Trump’s commitment to the alliance. But the State Department said on Tuesday that Tillerson had proposed new dates for the talks, his first such NATO meeting.

“We have agreed to look into how we can solve this scheduling issue,” Stoltenberg told Reuters at a meeting to discuss the fight against Islamic State. “But I’m absolutely certain that we will find a date which works for all of the allies.”

Stoltenberg sought to put to rest any ambiguity about the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO.

“There’s been a very clear and strong message from President Trump … that the United States is … strongly committed to NATO and to the Trans-Atlantic bond. This is not only in words, but also in deeds,” Stoltenberg said.

Pavel discloses visit with Russian

During his election campaign and on the eve of taking office in January, Trump called NATO “obsolete,” although he has since said he strongly supports the alliance. Trump has also pressed NATO members to meet spending targets.

Stoltenberg also said the head of NATO’s military committee, Petr Pavel, recently held a telephone call with the chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

Pavel said last month he hoped to hold the first telephone call in more than two years with Russia’s military chiefs in which he would outline why NATO believes its biggest military build-up since the end of the Cold War is not a threat to the Kremlin.

When asked when the phone call took place, Stoltenberg only said it was recent.

Worried since Russia’s 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea that Moscow could invade Poland or the Baltic states, NATO is bolstering its eastern flank with troops and war games and warehoused U.S. equipment ready for a rapid response force of up to 40,000 personnel.

Over 1,000 US soldiers in Poland

A U.S.-led battalion of more than 1,100 soldiers will be deployed in Poland from the start of April, as the alliance sets up a new force in response to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

“And when tensions are high it’s even more important that we talk together and that we have open lines of military and political communications,” Stoltenberg said.

Russia says the alliance build-up threatens the stability of central Europe. It has some 330,000 troops amassed in its Western military district around Moscow, NATO believes.

Stoltenberg said it was too early to tell when the next meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, where the Russian ambassador to the North Atlantic alliance sits with member states’ envoys, would be. 
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The extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has set a new record low for the wintertime in a region strongly affected by long-term trends of global warming, U.S. and European scientists said Wednesday.

Sea ice around the North Pole expands to its biggest extent of the year in February or March after a deep freeze in the winter polar darkness and shrinks to the smallest of the year in September, at the end of the brief Arctic summer.

Arctic sea ice appeared to reach its annual maximum extent March 7, the lowest maximum in the 38-year satellite record, according to the Colorado-based U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

On that date, the ice covered 14.42 million square kilometers (5.57 million square miles), 97,000 square kilometers less than the previous lowest maximum that occurred February 25, 2015.

The trend of shrinking ice around the North Pole in recent decades has been one of the starkest signs of climate change.

The thaw is harming the hunting livelihoods of the indigenous peoples and threatening wildlife, such as polar bears. It also makes the region more accessible for shipping as well as oil and gas exploration.

Worldwide, last year was the warmest on record for the third year in a row, despite government efforts to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions under a 2015 Paris Agreement that aims to phase out the use of fossil fuels this century.

German findings similar

Earlier Wednesday, scientists at the University of Bremen in Germany published similar findings. Their data showed that the ice covered 14.49 million square kilometers (5.59 million square miles) February 22, almost the size of Russia, fractionally smaller than the previous winter low of 14.58 million square kilometers set last year in satellite records dating back to the 1970s.

“We’ve passed the winter maximum,” Georg Heygster, of the Institute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen told Reuters. Only a sudden, unusual March freeze would push the ice above the February extent.

Sea ice in the Arctic could vanish by 2050 on a trend of rising emissions, according to a U.N. panel of climate experts.

Antarctica also at record low

At the other end of the world, sea ice around Antarctica hit a record low for the southern summer last month, the NSIDC said.

The shrinking sea ice exposes more water to the sun’s rays in summertime. That can accelerate global warming because dark blue water soaks up more of the sun’s heat than white ice or snow, which reflects it back into space.
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The Big One may be overdue to hit California, but scientists near Los Angeles have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake: abrupt sinking of land, potentially below sea level.

The last known major quake on the San Andreas fault occurred in 1857, but three quakes over the last 2,000 years on nearby faults made ground just outside Los Angeles city limits sink as much as 3 feet, according to a study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports.

Seismologists estimate the 800-mile-long San Andreas, which runs most of the length of the state, should see a large quake roughly every 150 years.

Scientists from California State University-Fullerton and the U.S. Geological Survey found evidence the older quakes caused part of the coastline south of Long Beach to drop by 1½ to 3 feet. Today, that could result in the area ending up at or below sea level, said Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby, who worked with the paper’s lead author, graduate student Robert Leeper.

“It’s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,” Kirby said. “Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.”

Some factors unclear

The study was limited to a roughly two-square-mile area inside the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge, near the Newport-Inglewood and Rose Canyon faults. Kirby acknowledged that the exact frequency of events on the faults is unclear, as is the risk that another quake will occur in the near future.

The smallest of the historic earthquakes was most likely more intense than the strongest on record in the area, the magnitude 6.3 Long Beach earthquake of 1933, which killed 120 people and caused the inflation-adjusted equivalent of nearly $1 billion in damage.

Today, the survey site is sandwiched by the cities of Huntington Beach and Long Beach, home to over 600,000 people, while nearby Los Angeles County has a population of 10 million.

Seismologist John Vidale, head of the University of Washington-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, said after reviewing the study that he was skeptical such powerful quakes could occur very frequently in the area.

Kirby noted that the team could collect soil core samples only within the relatively undisturbed refuge, and that taking deeper samples would shed light on the seismic record even further back, potentially giving scientists more examples of similar quakes to work from.
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Amid continuing economic turmoil, Venezuela skipped heating oil contributions to a Massachusetts-based nonprofit for a second consecutive winter, signaling that the popular program that began with fanfare after Hurricane Katrina may be kaput.

The decision by Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum Corp. to bow out of the program founded by Joseph P. Kennedy II, which has helped hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, coincides with plummeting oil prices and corresponding economic problems in oil-rich Venezuela.

Hopes of a late contribution to the “Joe-4-Oil” program to help the poor heat their homes faded with spring’s arrival this week, Kennedy said.

“While this is not good news, it certainly isn’t surprising,” the businessman and former congressman told The Associated Press.

Citgo officials declined to comment.

The Citgo heating oil program was launched after Katrina damaged U.S. refining capacity in 2005, causing energy costs to spike as winter approached.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the fiery leader who died in 2013, responded to an appeal from Kennedy to help out after criticizing then-Republican President George W. Bush for failing to do enough for the poor. Houston-based Citgo is a subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company.

Over the years, the program has provided $500 million in heating assistance to 2 million program participants in 25 states and the District of Columbia, supplementing federal energy assistance.

Rita Soucier, 80, said she and her husband received assistance many times over the years, helping the couple stay warm in their trailer in Howland, Maine.

This year, there was no help, said Soucier, whose husband, a retired paper mill worker, died last month. But she said she’s grateful for past help, typically 100 gallons of heating oil.

“It helps a lot when you’re not the richest people in the world,” said Soucier, who said her needs are few. “As long as I can get by, I don’t want any more or any less.”

Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has been hurt by declining prices. The unraveling economy, cuts to social programs and growing political divisions have rocked the once-stable country, leading to food shortages and a dramatic drop in currency value.

Citizens Energy continues to operate other programs. The nonprofit was created in 1979 to channel revenue from commercial enterprises to charitable programs.

But the heating oil program may fold. The “Joe-4-Oil” television advertisements did not run this year or last, and a message online said that applications for winter heating oil help were not being accepted.

The nonprofit isn’t giving up hope, however. The Citgo program was suspended in 2009, only to return a few months later.

Citizens Energy continues to operate solar, wind and transmission projects that provide assistance, including solar panels for low-income homes, energy grants for homeless shelters and natural gas subsidies for low-income households.

“The good news is Citizens Energy continues to grow and prosper and provide significant benefits to low-income people around our country as a result of businesses that provide the financial firepower to fulfill our mission,” Kennedy said.
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Some of the world’s largest hotel chains are taking part in an initiative aimed at cutting food waste, which includes re-thinking menus to prevent food from ending up in the trash, an environmental organization said Tuesday.

About a dozen hotels across the United States run by groups including Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott International will take part in a 12-week pilot program to cut food waste in hospitality, according to World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

“Imagine every hotel breakfast buffet or conference luncheon eliminating food waste,” Pete Pearson, WWF director of food waste, said in a statement.

About a third of food produced around the world is never eaten because it is spoiled after harvest and during transportation, or thrown away by shops and consumers.

Yet almost 800 million people worldwide go to bed hungry every night, according to United Nations figures.

In the United States, some 133 billion pounds (66 million tons) of food was wasted by consumers and the retail sector in 2010 at a loss of almost $162 billion, according to estimates by U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Pearson said some of the hotel chefs would work to make sure menus for banquets and large events could be quickly adjusted if necessary, and part of the excess food reused for other meals.

“No chef likes wasting food,” he told Reuters by phone.

Throwing out food wastes the water, energy and fuel needed to grow, store and transport it, campaigners say, while discarded food ends up in landfills where it rots, releasing harmful greenhouse gases.

Launched with support from the American Hotel & Lodging Association and the Rockefeller Foundation, the initiative will also focus on training staff and raising customers’ awareness.

“We’ve already seen that hotel guests are more than willing to conserve water and energy, simply by placing a card on their pillows or hanging their towels,” said Devon Klatell, associate director at the Rockefeller Foundation.

“Our hunch is that they’ll also take action to be part of the fight to cut food waste,” he added.

Reducing food waste is a good investment for companies that can save an average of $14 for every dollar spent on it, a recent study showed.
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