Government of Canada invests in three teams of Canadian and Latin American and Caribbean scientists to help address unanswered questions about Zika virus [...] “This initiative is key to helping protect populations in the Americas and Canada from Zika and other related diseases. This funding will allow leading researchers from Latin America and Canada to collaborate on cutting-edge research, discovering new knowledge and tools to more rapidly detect, respond and control the virus.” 

U.S. representative Raúl Grijalva said climate change is the greatest danger facing the world right now in his closing speech at the Science Diplomacy and Policy with Focus on the Americas conference in Tucson. Applause erupted from the conference attendees, speakers, panelists and organizers in the audience. [...] The conference aimed to provide a “state of the art” vision for the future in science diplomacy and policy. 

If you were to ask the VOA’s editors why they run stories that violate their Charter, they would probably tell you that they don’t have the manpower to cover everything. But these lapses are, in the end, inexcusable. [...] If the VOA’s editors have to choose between running a one-sided story that violates their Charter, or no story at all, then they should run no story at all.

Despite the new U.S. President's well-known openness toward the Kremlin, I can think of no relationship where public diplomacy and exchanges are more important or harder to do than the relationship between the U.S. and Russia. 

Currently, President Peña Nieto and his entourage are being presented with an opportunity to redeem themselves. If they manage to get a good deal throughout this turmoil, they have the opportunity to mend Mexico’s international image–as well as their own.

VOA is probably not a high priority for the new administration, but inevitably it will fall under scrutiny. [...] I was initially skeptical about the alarmist reports concerning VOA's future. But with a president who touts "America First" and a Republican majority in Congress unwilling to defy the White House, I am no longer so sanguine. Anything is possible.

These professionals need Tillerson just as Tillerson will need these professionals to conduct America’s foreign relations and to repair the damage done to relationships in the past several weeks. America’s newest face to the world will need to present a more reassuring diplomacy than that conducted most recently. In banning visas for all citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, Trump played to the fears of his nativist political base.