We still cant hear you. I wonder if we should try having you sign in again or have you call in rather than just a video link and we could hear you by dialing in. I will let my staff interact with you directly and in the meantime we will begin with some questions. My apologies, Mister Morrison, we will get this worked out. Let me look for any of our witnesses that can be heard. The current pandemic began in china. If possible the next pandemic may begin somewhere else. If the pandemic were to begin or begin spreading in africa what level of confidence do you have in our ability to identify that it is taking place, what transparency would we find, given there was not much transparency out of china in some critical early days and weeks, how would you assess the threat of a pandemic coming from the african continent . Can i start . Sure. Im confident that should such a pandemic start in africa we would have tremendous cooperation. I look back on the situation with ebola in west africa wher
Intelligence Committee Heard from former ambassadors and diplomatic officials. House committee on intelligence, first remote hearing. Before we proceed to where were topic today, the impact of the covid19 pandemic in Subsaharan Africa, i want to address some housekeeping matters. Todays session will be conducted on an unclassified basis. Urged tonts are inrain from presenting compliance with House Resolution 965 and resolutions for remote proceedings. Like many of you, i would have preferred to hold this in person in washington, d. C. , but because of the threat of covid19 we remain serious and widespread and are proceeding remotely to ensure the safety of our witnesses, members, staff, and the public. I was hoping that todays hearing would be bipartisan. Unfortunately, our republican colleagues have decided not to dissipate. I hope they will not to participate. I hope they will join us in the future and im committed to continuing our work notwithstanding the pandemic, and both sides o
Several of whom will participate remotely. I will come artisticpa wish panl of witnesses. I thank them for a period. Today we will hear from mr. Steven berry, president and chief exec of Competitive Carriers Association paid ms. Shirley bloomfield, chief executive officer of the ruralhe broadband association. Mr. Dean kimmelman, Senior Advisor of Public Knowledge who will be appearing at testified remotely and mr. Jonathans vulture, president and chief executive officer of u. S. Telecom broadband association. The crisis has changed lead dramatically for every american. As the administration and the center for Disease Control and prevention encourages social a distancing to prevent further spread of the virus normalia activities like work, school and Health Care Services are now increasingly taking place online. This has caused a huge uptick for the use of broadband in one estimate shows that every Broadband Usage is up by 47 since the pandemic began. The good news is theres been progre
Welcome to the Virtual Event we are having. This is concerning confronting the healthcare crisis in Rural America. Today we are releasing recommendations for this. Im bill hoagland, a Senior Vice President with the center, and have the distinct pleasure of working with and overseeing our health care project. We have a very full agenda. Let me get a few logistics out of the way quickly. We are all adjusting to this new way of conducting meetings and events. We hope everything works out as we go through and i want to say thank you to the Production Company for helping us put this on. For those of you who have joined this zoom platform, you will receive a message shortly from one of our staff, morgan bailey, in the chat box function with a link to the report. For the viewers, the cspan viewers and others who wish to get a copy of the report, you can go to our website, bipartisan policy. Org, and a link will be on the bpc events page under the health section. Later this morning, you will h
I want to thank the witnesses for taking the time for your thoughtful testimony. I want to thank the audience members. Im not sure why you are not over on the house side. It must be paid staff. I appreciate everyone coming here. The hearing title is unprecedented migration at the southern border, the year in review. I would like to start with the decade in review. I refer everybody to my chart. This is a chart i have been updating for the last 34 years. As long as you have been on the committee. It is important to lay out what the history has been. Certainly from my standpoint. Some key policy changes. I would argue they contributed to what i consider an ongoing crisis even though we have made some process progress. That chart reflects all minors and people coming to this country as family units. Earlier versions only focused on Central American children and family members. Initially, we had 3000, 4000 unaccompanied children. We werent even keeping track of families because it wasnt a