SUMMARY: Venezuela is in freefall after years of recession, skyrocketing inflation and a formidable food crisis, sparking outcry and protest. It's pushed angry Venezuelans to take to the streets on a regular basis, demanding that President Nicolas Maduro step down, and inspired a fierce government crackdown. Special correspondent Nadja Drost and videographer Bruno Federico report.
SUMMARY: U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is warning Americans of the prevalence of substance abuse and the risks of not addressing it. His new report describes the lethal impact and widespread scope of addiction. William Brangham speaks with Murthy for more on why so few people find effective treatment, the stigma around addiction and the corresponding medical and legal costs of the problem.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour): According to the Surgeon General's report more than 27 million Americans have problems with prescription drugs, illegal drugs or alcohol. But just a fraction of those people, only 10 percent, get meaningful help. The report cites missed opportunities for prevention and treatment and it says our substance abuse costs the country a staggering 440 billion a year. I'm joined by the US surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy. Doctor, thank you very much for being here.
VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. Surgeon General: Really glad to be with you.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: This is a pretty sobering report. Millions of people suffering, very, very few people are getting help. When you compiled all this data, were you surprised by what you had found?
VIVEK MURTHY: Well, I had seen the problem up close as a doctor practicing medicine. When I came into medicine, I expected as an internal medicine doctor to primarily see people with diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. And I was shocked by the number of patients who came under my care who actually had substance abuse.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You were seeing this in private practice before being tapped to be in the federal government?
VIVEK MURTHY: Yes, I have always seen this — we even — starting in medical school itself and then on throughout my medical career, the experience was not unique to me but many of my clinician colleagues were seeing the same thing and they were really surprised.
When I became Surgeon General and had the privilege of travelling around the country and hearing people's stories firsthand, I found that every community was touched in some way by substance abuse disorders. I went to a small fishing village in Alaska called Napaskiak which is accessible only by boat and no roads to go there and even in this small village of less than 500 people, the small little building where they kept medications had been broken into multiple times by people seeking out prescription painkillers.
SUMMARY: In Venezuela, hundreds of thousands came out in protest against President Nicolas Maduro, whose approval ratings have reached record lows. The cause for discontent: Food is now incredibly scarce and far too expensive to buy, and the hunger is leading to and caused by growing corruption. Nathan Halverson of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting reports from Caracas.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): In Caracas, today, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans turned out to protest against President Nicolas Maduro's government and called for an end to his rule.
The country has been plagued by a deepening economic crisis, corruption, crime, all of which have contributed to a worsening food shortage.
Nathan Halverson of Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting recently visited Caracas,.
NATHAN HALVERSON, Center for Investigative Reporting: Well before sunrise, hungry Venezuelans are waiting outside grocery stores praying for food trucks to arrive. By mid-morning, with streets crowded with anxious faces, there is little hope.
WOMAN (through translator): There is only butter and oil. We need them to send us more food.
QUESTION (through translator): When did you get here?
WOMAN (through translator): At 4:00 a.m.
MAN (through translator): I got here at 8:00 p.m. last night.
As Venezuelans watch their country crumble and their desperation and hunger spill into the streets, their anger with President Nicolas Maduro and his party has become explosive.
WOMAN (through translator): This is what's happening in Venezuela. We're starving. We're struggling, thanks to this government. It's the Maduro diet.
NATHAN HALVERSON: Police now guard grocery stores across the country, holding back the hungry and volatile mobs.
MAN (through translator): Why are you taking me out of line? I was here early. I also need food.
NATHAN HALVERSON: Some 90 percent of Venezuelans now report that food has become too expensive to buy. Hungry mobs are increasingly rioting and looting bakeries and food trucks. This has forced everyday people to try and calm desperate crowds, like this grocery store manager.
SUMMARY: China has the largest Baby Boom generation in the world. But now just years away from a mass retirement, that country is headed toward a severe workforce crisis and retirement cost cash crunch. Due to the country's one-child policy from 1978 until 2015, the younger generation poised to take over is relatively small. What's the solution? Judy Woodruff reports in conjunction with the Atlantic.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): In Southeast Asia, tensions continue to simmer as China claims sovereignty over the South China Sea, a busy international trade route.
The United States and China have both beefed up their naval presence there, leading to fears of a military confrontation. This is just one example of China flexing its military muscle in recent months, and it coincides with a slowdown in the nation's economy.
Writing in “The Atlantic” magazine, journalist Howard French sees a connection between the two, pointing out that, as China's population ages, the country faces a huge demographic problem that will affect all aspects of its economic and military aspirations.
HOWARD FRENCH, The Atlantic: China has its own Baby Boom generation. And China's baby boom generation, because of the size of China itself, is the world's largest baby boom generation.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Howard French, a former Shanghai bureau chief for The New York Times, has written extensively about China, and he's photographed its people.
HOWARD FRENCH: This baby boom generation in China will start to hit retirement age in the very next few years, let's say by the end of this decade.
And, at that moment, extraordinary numbers of Chinese people will exit the work force, and the Chinese work force, which has already begun to shrink, will shrink in a vastly accelerated way. And so China's going to face huge retirement costs and Social Security costs, health care costs, related to this immense aging of the population.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What are the implications for China as a country and for the Chinese economy?
HOWARD FRENCH: China will have the biggest aging crisis that the world has ever seen over the next generation, and this happens at a time when Chinese ambitions, geopolitically speaking, are expanding.
And at some point, these two phenomena will collide, and very tough decisions will have to be made about guns vs. canes. In other words, how much can we afford to invest in our geopolitical ambitions, vs. how much must we invest in terms of supporting our population?
SUMMARY: The EU deal with Turkey to stem the tide of migrants crossing the Aegean Sea has seen more and more asylum seekers flocking to the western Mediterranean, with deadly results. More than 1,000 have drowned there in the past several weeks, and the ones that do succeed face an uncertain future. Gwen Ifill talks to Amin Awad of the UN refugee agency for more on how Europe is combating the crisis.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Mr. Awad, welcome.
On this program, we have seen the terrible stories of the hundreds of thousands of refugees coming, especially from the Mideast and Africa, trying to get to Greece, trying to get to Turkey, trying to get into Europe.
Has that problem, has it gotten worse or gotten better since this whole crisis began?
AMIN AWAD, Director for Middle East and N. Africa Bureau, UNHCR: I think this problem of migrants and refugees and secondary movement is persisting.
I wouldn’t say it’s getting better or it’s getting worse, simply because the conditions that people are fleeing are getting worse. The serious situation is not better than it was before. Cessation of hostilities ended. The resumption of fighting continued. And as a result, people are fleeing.
The poverty and impoverishment that people fleeing sub-Saharan Africa continue to persist. There isn’t a south-north collaboration, as used to be before. People are fearing — fleeing Niger, where there is conflict. There is poverty. And they seek opportunity, new places, market and labor and mobility.
And some of them are fleeing conflict, coming from East Africa, the Horn of Africa, or the central part of Africa or the western part of Africa. So the root causes for flight are still there. And the world has to come up with more mechanisms and better mechanisms to tackle the root causes of these conflicts or poverty.
GWEN IFILL: So the root causes are still there, but the welcome mat is not there anymore. In fact, it’s certainly not there in Turkey, and it’s certainly not there in Germany like it once was. So how does that affect the flow?
AMIN AWAD: People — the flow will persist. People will continue to try all they can to make it to safety, to make it to better places, to find opportunity or protection.
If the welcoming mat is not there, then there ought to be equal investment in the communities where conflicts are and where poverty is, and try to stem the flow in a more dynamic and cooperative manner.
But you also have to uphold all international instruments, the international protection, international national refugee law, the international human rights law. We have to rally around these and similar, because that’s what makes the world also orderly.
SUMMARY: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced new plans to require member states to absorb a share of 160,000 asylum seekers flocking to Italy, Greece and Hungary. European Union Ambassador David O'Sullivan joins Gwen Ifill to discuss the announced proposal.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Joining us now to talk about that push and pull, and the announced proposal today to help remedy the crisis, is the European Union’s ambassador to the United States, David O’Sullivan.
Welcome.
DAVID O’SULLIVAN, European Union Ambassador to the United States: Thank you.
GWEN IFILL: So let’s talk about the proposal put forth today to take — to accept 160,000 of these migrants and refugees and spread them somehow among different countries in the E.U. How feasible is that?
DAVID O’SULLIVAN: I think it’s eminently feasible.
I mean, you need to understand, of course, that this is basically a proposal designed to relieve the immediate pressure on the front-line countries in Europe who’ve had to bear the brunt of the increased wave of refugees, particularly Italy and Greece coming from the Mediterranean, and now Hungary through the route of the Western Balkans.
It’s clear that these countries, enormous efforts though they have made — and the Italians and Greek people have been extremely generous in their reaction — it is more that they can cope with, so we do need a redistribution of people already on European soil across all of our member states, so the burden can be shared more equitably.
But this is not the only action which is being proposed, of course. We’re also looking at stepping up action across the borders. We are the largest donor of humanitarian assistance to the refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
But, as your report has shown, the system there is at breaking point, and this is part of the push that the international community will also need to address.
GWEN IFILL: A lot at the breaking point, including emotions.
DAVID O’SULLIVAN: Indeed.
GWEN IFILL: I want to talk about the 160,000, though, because you’re saying that is a baseline, that’s where you begin, not where you necessarily end.
And you’re talking about enforcing by putting in place, mandating quotas, certain countries have to accept a certain amount. How do you enforce that?
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including Hillary Clinton’s latest interview on her use of a private email server, Donald Trump’s pledge not to run as a third-party candidate, plus who should be stepping up to address the refugee crisis in Europe.
MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist: I will say this about Secretary Clinton today. Her answer to Andrea on Joe Biden was pitch-perfect. I mean, it was human, it was natural, it was very personal in the best sense. And it didn’t have any political angle to it that I could detect.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Well, she asked her, do you have a comment about the fact that he’s considering running?
MARK SHIELDS: Right. Oh, I’m sorry. Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And she said, it’s not for me to say. And then she went on to say, he needs the space to think about it, right?
MARK SHIELDS: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Michael, we ran a clip of what the Vice President said last night at that speech at the synagogue in Atlanta.
Do you think get the sense that he’s leaning away? He clearly didn’t sound like he is there yet.
MICHAEL GERSON, Washington Post: I get the sense that you’re seeing that process in public, exactly what he’s thinking about this. It’s one of his appeals, is this transparency.
And this is a family that underwent a terrible trauma three months ago, that, you know, a trauma like that can strengthen a family, but it also can be a difficult time. And a presidential campaign brings minute and massive scrutiny.
And so I think that is a real issue. But he could come in here. He doesn’t fit an ideological gap. He’s very much like Clinton in a lot of his views. There is no ideological gap he would fill. But there is a kind of ethical gap that he might fill.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): The Islamic State has entered our consciousness for multiple reasons.
Partly for the savagery they are willing to commit and also because of the savvy they display in spreading their message.
For some analysis yesterday I spoke with Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution and author of “Temptations of Power: Islamists & Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East” and Philip Smyth, a researcher at the University of Maryland and blogger at Hizballah Cavalcade, who studies Islamic extremism.
So, Shadi Hamid, compare these guys to al-Qaida. It seems that we were almost better off getting these grainy video tapes from Osama bin Laden out of a cave compared to what we are seeing today.
SHADI HAMID, Brookings Institution: So ISIS are quite advanced in their marketing and media strategy, they’ve been very active on Twitter and for those of us on the outside trying to follow them, you can actually engage with some of these people on Twitter. And they’re actively tweeting about somewhat mundane things.
There was actually a Twitter mime, where ISIS fighters were eating jars of Nutella. But on the other hand, you also see very savage things like beheadings.
So, there’s a kind of strange duality, a schizophrenia that they’re showing this dark, brutal side, but they’re also trying to show, at least as they might see it a more humane side to Western audiences.
And we’re not going to buy that as Americans, but for people who are potentially sympathetic or fence sitters, seeing those images can actually be appealing.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): And joining us now to help us understand this new landscape of the Middle East is Steven Simon, a former senior director for Middle Eastern and North African affairs on the National Security Council staff from 2011 to 2012. He’s now a senior fellow at the Middle East institute. And Hisham Melhem, Washington bureau chief of Al-Arabiya news channel.
Welcome to both of you.
Hisham, it’s a given. The world has changed, right? Help us first by laying out the camps, so to speak, that we face.
HISHAM MELHEM, Al Arabiya News: As we know, the uprisings that began three-and-a-half years ago unfortunately have morphed into civil wars, Yemen, Libya and, worst of all, Syria.
Syria is the prototype place where it’s a proxy war for some regional powers. The camps, so to speak, are the regime in Damascus, which is Alawi core Islam. Alawi are an offshoot of Shia Islam, supported mainly by Iran, which is the major regional Shiite power, as well as by Hezbollah — Hezbollah is working for — essentially serving Iranian interests there — and also supported by militias from Iraq.
So you have the Shia coalition fighting to save the regime in Damascus. And in that sense, Iran and Hezbollah are more important for the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s regime than Moscow.
On the other hand, you have the majority Syrians, who — happens to be Sunnis in case — in state of revolt against the regime. They are supported by the Sunni powers in the region, from Turkey, to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Adding to the difficulty, a different strain of Ebola has appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo, causing 13 deaths so far.
Here at home, the National Institutes of Health announced today it will start testing an experimental Ebola vaccine next week.
For more on that development, I’m joined by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH. He will oversee those trials.
Dr. Fauci, thanks for joining us again.
What would trials like this look like?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: Well, first of all, it’s an early phase one trial.
And by phase one, we mean this is the first time this vaccine has been put in humans. So safety is paramount, so you take a very small number of people, 20 in total, three at a time, and you use the vaccine to determine if there are untoward effects, any inflammation, any idiosyncratic or hypersensitivity reactions, pain or anything that might be a red flag about safety.
And also you learn whether it induces the kind of response in a person that you would hope would be protective against Ebola infection. The reason why we chose this vaccine is that it showed very favorable results in an animal model, a monkey model, in which it protected monkeys very well against a challenge with lethal Ebola.
So this is a first, because it’s the first time this has been in a human, in now what will be a series of steps to ultimately develop it to determine if, in fact, it is effective.
SUMMARY: The Ebola virus has now reached a fifth country. Officials announced a Guinean student in Senegal was confirmed to have the disease. Meanwhile, a new report traces the deadly outbreak to a funeral in Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. Hari Sreenivasan talks to Stephen Gire of Harvard University about his on-the-ground experience in Sierra Leone and the latest on how the virus has spread.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): For more on what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine, I’m joined by Andrew Kramer of The New York Times. He joins us from Donetsk.
So, Andrew, you were visiting a town where the Russian troops were streaming in. Describe that scene to us.
ANDREW KRAMER, The New York Times: Yes, this was in the town of Novoazovsk on the Azov Sea. And we were standing on the outside of the town speaking with Ukrainian soldiers who were retreating.
These soldiers were convinced they were fighting the Russians. At least many of them were. We didn’t see the troops coming in, but they were said to have come across the border from Russia into Ukraine. It was a very chaotic scene. And, in fact, a day later, that town was seized by the pro-Russian forces.
HARI SREENIVASAN: You also spoke of locals in that area. What did they think about what’s happening?
ANDREW KRAMER: Well, people here who support the Russian cause are obviously cheered by this development. The rebel organization had been on its last legs militarily in recent weeks.
The Ukrainian army was closing in on towns of Donetsk and Luhansk. And now there’s been a reversal of fortunes, a turning of the tide here. The separatists and, according to Ukrainian government, with the support of Russia, has moved across the Russian border and has now opened a new front in the south along the seashore with the cities of Novoazovsk and Mariupol as the objectives.
Now, a rebel commander I spoke with said the intention is to form a defensive triangle out of these two cities and Donetsk and hopefully force the Ukrainian government into settlement talks on more favorable terms.
SUMMARY: For more perspective about what options the United States and its Western allies have to deal with the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, Nicholas Burns joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype from Massachusetts. Burns is a former Under Secretary of State and now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
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HARI SREENIVASAN: And what about this idea of Novorossiya, something that the Russians have said, ‘Sure, we’ll stop all of this if we can just go ahead and annex this portion of Ukraine back?’ It seems that whether we like it or not, they’ve already sent the troops in and are, in fact, taking over that part of Ukraine.
R. NICHOLAS BURNS: Well, it’s a very unsettling and destabilizing concept that you’d say that, ‘We have a right as Russians to unite all Russians outside the borders of Russia.’ There are significant populations of Russians, of course, in Ukraine, but also in Moldova, in Belarus, in Kazakhstan, in Uzbekistan.
Should we support the Russian government’s right to march into those countries, take over portions of those countries simply because ethnic Russians are living there? This is an inexact comparison, of course, but that was essentially the philosophy of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s, that they would unite the Germans living outside the German Reich.
It’s a very dangerous, destabilizing concept we vowed after the second World War we would not allow that kind of action in Europe. And here it is with President Putin, with this Novorossiya, New Russia concept, which is dangerous. And it needs to be opposed by the United States and the Western Europeans.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Other victims of the Islamic State in recent weeks include Christians and members of the Yazidi minority. Most who were lucky enough to escape have flooded the Kurdish -controlled region in Northern Iraq with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
Tonight, chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner takes a close look at these newly internally displaced persons, or IDPs, and efforts to contain their suffering.
MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour): A Boeing 747 touched down in the afternoon heat of Irbil today, carrying 100 tons of United Nations Refugee Agency aid, the first wave of fresh supplies since the U.N. last week announced a heightened level of emergency for Northeastern Iraq.
NED COLT, Spokesman, UN High Commissioner for Refugees: It can’t be done overnight. No one would suggest otherwise. But now the system is up and running in a major way. So, we’re not just getting materials in that we already have in stock, but we are bringing them in from around the world.
MARGARET WARNER: The tents in this shipment will shelter at least 20,000 people, but that’s just a fraction of the estimated 1.25 million Iraqis who have fled into the country’s Kurdish region since the self-proclaimed Islamic State began its onslaught here eight months ago.
