UAE-based foundation organizes free ‘cataract caravans’ in Philippines

UAE-based foundation organizes free ‘cataract caravans’ in Philippines
A medical worker conducts an eye care service for a Filipino woman in Catarman, Northern Samar province on Nov. 18, 2023. (Noor Dubai Foundation)
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Updated 10 March 2024
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UAE-based foundation organizes free ‘cataract caravans’ in Philippines

UAE-based foundation organizes free ‘cataract caravans’ in Philippines
  • Over 2 million Filipinos are affected by some form of visual impairment
  • Some areas in the Philippines lack access to good eye care services

Manila: A UAE-based charity foundation organized free eye treatment initiatives in one of the Philippines’ largest islands, as it seeks to support the local community and improve accessibility to quality eye care. 

More than 2 million Filipinos are affected by some form of visual impairment, including over 1 million people who are affected by cataracts. 

Noor Dubai Foundation, which focuses on the global prevention of blindness and visual impairment, set up specialized caravans in Samar Island in November and February, where doctors carried out various eye care services, including hundreds of cataract surgeries. 

“Over 1,969 persons benefited through the program’s activities, which included screening and providing diagnosis and eye care,” the UAE Embassy in Manila said in a statement. 

Under the program, doctors conducted 586 cataract surgeries and distributed 454 spectacles and medicines. The initiatives were launched in the provinces of Northern Samar and Eastern Samar, the latter of which concluded on Feb. 22. 

Dr. Manal Taryam, CEO of the Noor Dubai Foundation, said that around 441,000 people in the Philippines are still awaiting cataract surgeries.

She said the numbers are concerning, as not only are there a limited number of ophthalmologists in Samar Island, but cataract surgeries are also expensive. It is estimated that such a procedure costs between $1,000 and $1,700, while the daily average income for residents is not more than $6. 

“For these reasons, we at the Noor Dubai Foundation were keen on conducting several outreach programs to support the community and improve accessibility to good-quality eye care,” Dr. Taryam said in a statement. 

Mohammed Obaid Al-Qataam Al-Zaabi also thanked the Philippine government for its “great cooperation” in the program. 

“The UAE has been maintaining strong friendship ties with the Republic of the Philippines, especially in the medical field.  The embassy expresses its gratitude to Noor Dubai Foundation for their great efforts and sustainable charitable program,” he said. 


Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar
Updated 06 December 2024
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Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, another step toward overhauling US policy.
“He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US,” Trump said in a post on his social-media site Truth Social.
The crypto czar and other officials in Trump’s incoming administration such as the chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected to reshape US policy on digital currency along with a newly created crypto advisory council.
Trump’s tech backers generally want to see minimal regulation around AI and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying Washington would throttle growing innovative sectors with excessive rules.
Trump announced on Wednesday that he was nominating prominent Washington lawyer and crypto advocate Paul Atkins to lead the SEC, in a move celebrated by the industry.
Trump — who once labeled crypto a scam — embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time on Wednesday night, a milestone hailed even by skeptics as a coming-of-age for digital assets as investors bet on a friendly US administration to cement the place of cryptocurrencies in financial markets.
Born in South Africa, Sacks, 52, is a co-founder of venture capital firm Craft Ventures and an early leader of PayPal, a payment processing firm that was acquired by eBay in 2002.
Sacks is also a former chief executive of software company Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise users.
He was an early evangelist of cryptocurrencies, telling CNBC in a 2017 interview that he believed the rise of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was revolutionizing the Internet.
“It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of web. Some people have called it the decentralized web or the Internet of money,” he said.
Trump said Sacks will also lead a White House advisory council on science and technology. 


Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China
Updated 06 December 2024
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Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he has chosen former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China.
“He will be instrumental in implementing my strategy to maintain Peace in the region, and a productive working relationship with China’s leaders,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, has said he will impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop the trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl.
He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 percent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.


Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill
Updated 06 December 2024
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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON: Billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy spent several hours Thursday swapping ideas with lawmakers about President-elect Donald Trump’s DOGE initiative to dismantle parts of the federal government.
Meeting behind closed doors at the Capitol, Musk told the mostly Republican lawmakers they would be keeping a “naughty and nice” list of those who join in the budget slashing proposals and those who don’t, according to lawmakers who attended.
“We’re going to see a lot of change around here in Washington,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, as Musk, with his young son on his shoulders, breezed by and into the private meeting.
Trump tapped the two business titans to head his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a nongovernmental task force assigned to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations — all part of what he calls his “Save America” agenda for a second term in the White House.
Washington has seen this before, with ambitious efforts to reduce the size and scope of the federal government that historically have run into resistance when the public is confronted with cuts to trusted programs that millions of Americans depend on for jobs, health care, military security and everyday needs.
But this time Trump is staffing his administration with battle-tested architects of sweeping proposals, some outlined in Project 2025, to severely reduce and reshape the government. Musk and Ramaswamy have said they plan to work alongside the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, headed by Trump’s nominee Russ Vought, a mastermind of past cuts.
“DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared for the onslaught.”
Trump said Thursday that he would also name venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” and lead the Presidential Council of Advisers for Science and Technology. Trump said in a social media post that Sacks would help “steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.” Trump’s transition team didn’t say whether Sacks would be a government employee or a temporary government worker who would not be bound by the same ethics and disclosure rules.
Sacks visited Mar-a-Lago earlier Thursday, according to an investor who held an event at Trump’s Florida club. The longtime conservative was key to introducing Vice President-elect JD Vance to donors, helping him prove he could raise money. Sacks hosted a fundraiser for Trump and Vance at his San Francisco home.
Musk and Ramaswamy faced a first test as they sat on a auditorium stage in the Capitol basement, as House and Senate lawmakers, almost exclusively Republicans, lined up at the microphones to share ideas for ways to address the nation’s budget imbalances.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, brought up the Department of Education as a good place to cut. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisconsin, said to look at office space and how little of it is being used. Others talked about the need for workers to return to their offices.
Afterward, Johnson declined to say if Medicare, Social Security or other popular programs were off limits for cuts, describing this first meeting as a “brainstorming” session with more to come.
“They said everything has to be looked at,” said Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., who joined with Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, in launching what they are calling the DOGE caucus in the House, with more than 50 Republicans and two Democratic members.
Musk and Ramaswamy appeared to be taking it all in, Musk at times even taking notes, lawmakers said — experiencing a day in the life of congressional leadership, as the meeting went on and on, with lawmakers lined up 20-deep for their chance to speak.
“It was just what I’d hoped for, where it was a question and answer session, so that members could come up, express their ideas, concerns, ask questions,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who will chair a House Oversight subcommittee in the new year on DOGE.
To be sure, it wasn’t the full Congress participating, as most Democrats did not join.
New York Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi said when he heard Musk mention that he was open to hearing from Democrats, he dashed over to join toward the end of the session.
“Let’s do some things to try and make government more efficient — without hurting people,” Suozzi said.
Musk and Ramaswamy left lawmakers with the impression they would be back for more, holding regular meetings and starting a podcast or some other way to share information with Americans to gauge public support — or opposition — to the proposals.
While neither Musk nor Ramaswamy have much public service experience, they bring track records in private business — Musk’s operations have vast government contracts — and enthusiasm for Trump’s agenda, having campaigned alongside him in the final stretch of the election.
The world’s richest man, Musk poured millions into a get-out-the-vote effort to help the former president return to the White House. He is known politically for having transformed the popular social media site formerly known as Twitter into X, a platform embraced by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” enthusiasts.
Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is neither a department nor part of the government, which frees Musk and Ramaswamy from having to go through the typical ethics and background checks required for federal employment. They said they will not be paid for their work.
One good-government group has said that DOGE, as a presidential advisory panel, should be expected to adhere to traditional practices of transparency, equal representation and public input — as happened with similar advisory entities from the Reagan to the Obama administrations.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act “is designed expressly for situations like this,” wrote Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, the co-chairs of Public Citizen, in a letter to the Trump transition team.
“If the government is going to turn to unelected and politically unaccountable persons to make recommendations as grand as $2 trillion in budget cuts, it must ensure those recommendations come from a balanced and transparent process not rigged to benefit insiders.”
The nation’s $6 trillion federal budget routinely runs a deficit, which this year ran $1.8 trillion, a historic high, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It has not been balanced since the Clinton administration more than two decades ago.
Republicans generally blame what they see as exorbitant spending for the deficit, while Democrats point to tax cuts enacted under Republican presidents Trump and George W. Bush as the major driver.
Receipts last year as a percentage of gross domestic product came in just below the average for the past 50 years, while outlays were equal to 23.4 percent of GDP, compared to the 50-year average of 21.1 percent.
Some of the biggest increases in spending last year occurred with politically popular programs that lawmakers will be reticent to touch. For example, spending on Social Security benefits went up 8 percent, Medicare outlays increased 9 percent, spending on defense went up 7 percent and spending on veterans health care rose 14 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, said the significance of the meeting was that it was even taking place, “that there’s honest dialogue between Congress and two, like, rock star administration guys.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he would like to see Musk testify before the House Armed Services Committee on the “bloated defense budget.”
“I’d like to see Elon recommend some cuts. Let’s have him testify,” Khanna said.


White House aides discuss preemptive pardons for Trump targets, sources say

White House aides discuss preemptive pardons for Trump targets, sources say
Updated 06 December 2024
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White House aides discuss preemptive pardons for Trump targets, sources say

White House aides discuss preemptive pardons for Trump targets, sources say

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s top aides are discussing whether preemptive pardons to current and former public officials who may be targeted by the incoming Trump administration should be considered, but Biden has not yet made a decision on the topic, sources said.
White House officials are debating whether the president should dole out such pardons to people who have not committed crimes and about the message that would send, the sources said.
Biden is aware of the discussions but has not participated in the wider conversation, one senior White House official said. Any decision would ultimately be Biden’s to make.
The conversations have picked up steam after Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, on Sunday, after previously saying he would not issue such a pardon. Trump’s pick for FBI Director, Kash Patel, who has vowed retribution against critics of the president-elect, has also alarmed senior White House and administration officials.
Among those being considered are former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, an outspoken critic of Trump; Anthony Fauci, who helped coordinate Biden’s COVID-19 response; California’s Senator-elect Adam Schiff, who led the first impeachment effort against Trump; and retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the source said.
Top White House officials leading the process are White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and White House counsel Ed Siskel, the sources said.
A White House spokesperson declined comment.
“The question right now is whether people being considered for these pardons want them,” said one of the sources.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier this week to expect more pardons from Biden before the end of his term.
The US Constitution gives a president broad pardon powers but preemptive pardons for offenses that have not yet been charged are largely untested.
Politico was first to report the story. 


Russia’s Lavrov signals readiness to use any means in Ukraine conflict

Russia’s Lavrov signals readiness to use any means in Ukraine conflict
Updated 06 December 2024
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Russia’s Lavrov signals readiness to use any means in Ukraine conflict

Russia’s Lavrov signals readiness to use any means in Ukraine conflict

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview broadcast on Thursday, said the use of a hypersonic missile in the Ukraine war sought to make the West understand that Moscow was ready to use any means to ensure no “strategic defeat” would be inflicted on Moscow.
“The message is that you, I mean the US and the allies of the US, who also provide these long-range weapons to the Kyiv regime — they must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call a strategic defeat of Russia,” Lavrov told US journalist Tucker Carlson.
Lavrov also said it was a “very serious mistake” for anyone in the West to presume that Russia had no red lines or that they were “being moved again and again.”