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Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, is likely to become the next Attorney General of the U.S. This is the first time since President Monroe in 1817 that a top prosecutor was directly appointed as Attorney General. She was first nominated in 1999 as U.S. attorney in the Clinton administration, and returned to this office in 2010. She does not have any ties to president Obama. This should help speed up the nomination. Her long experience as a prosecutor, her experience with civil rights and terrorism related cases, and her openness, are cited as key qualifications.

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It took Scholz one year after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to visit Ukraine. By comparison new German chancellor Merz visited Ukraine in three days after taking office. Merz in his first speech in parliament said- “In Ukraine, nothing less than the peace order of our entire continent is at stake. In this historic moment of decision, Europe must stand together more closely than ever before.” Starmer of UK and Macron of France had already formed close relations with Ukraine in 2025. Merz, Starmer and Macron now have a clear objective not to let Russia advance its objectives in Ukraine or Eastern Europe.  This report by NYT's Schuetze and Santora from Berlin and Kviv, shows the changing situation in the war. The war is now expected to to go on for another year as the Russian side sees its economic industrial base larger than Ukraine's industrial base letting it prevail over time. Russia has spurned the offer of US peace negotiations or tacitly agreeing to it but continuing the war with large missile attacks on Ukraine. In this situation Germany plans to help build industrial base in Ukraine for war effort and supply arms and equipment, financial help. Ukraine says it needs $30 billion to continue the war effort in 2025.   ...

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Peter Magyar Explained- Magyar 45 years was a follower of Orban till 2024 when he broke from the Fidesz ruling party. He married the Justice Minister Judit Varga of the Fidesz in 2006. He was a Hungarian diplomat in Brussels and held senior positions in state companies. The break with Fidesz came when Varga resigned over a government scandal. There is some skepticism even among Magyar's supporters and hope that things will change from the corruption that this report says is the most corrupt in the EU with funds from the EU for public services. Hungary now gets access to 18 billion euros of EU funds that were blocked because of Orban's policies.

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India will allow automobile imports at 10% duty instead of 110%, allowing 250,000 EU automobiles into the Indian market, as part of the deal that benefits Germany. Tariff on European wines will go down from 150% to 20-40%. Duties on olive oil and processed food such as pasta and chocolates will go down to zero, which will benefit Italy, and Switzerland. A labor mobility agreement will let professional workers and seasonal workers from India into EU and EU to India. New talks will bring India into the EU's Horizon Research Programme.

It will double EU exports to India by 2032 over 6 years when it is implemented starting in 2027. An astonishing 97% of traded goods are included for cutting or eliminating tariffs. It will save EU 4 billion euros in duties, says the EU. Tariffs are cut on a vast arrayof industrial products- iron and steel (India benefits) chemicals, plastics, pharmaceuticals (India benefits) and machinery (Germany benefits).

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India received $135 billion in remittances in 2024-25 from the 18.5 million Indian diaspora, of which 10 million live in the Middle East region sending $51 billion a year. This finances the merchandise trade deficit.  In UAE alone there are 247,000 Indian students and immigrant labor is the main labor supply in the Gulf kingdoms.  Crude oil of 25-30 million barrels is on the seas as inventory to which India has access making crude oil supplies not an issue for the short term. Indian refinery production for export can also be adjusted if needed. India has received a 100 day exemption to import Russian oil from the US since the Gulf war began easing concerns for crude oil supplies. Situation for LPG is more complicated. India has used the Chabahar port to ship supplies of aid to Afghanistan on an overland route which will not operate till the tensions ease. 

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How is it that GM would predict sales close to 16 million when no one else sees that happening. Is it just optimistic, even in the face of last years forecast which also stumbled badly with no improvement in the second half as expected. Instead GM closes the year 2007 with sales down 6% over 2006. And much worse numbers for Ford which saw 12% decline, and Chrysler a 3% decline. Chrysler continues to sell to rental fleets. Toyota's and Honda's sales grew by 3.1 and 2.8% respectively. But this year 2008 Toyota doesn't expect to do well with only a 1% increase. Nissan and Hyundai are in the same straits as the Big Three American makers in inventory of cars and sell to rental car fleets. In terms of inventory per point of market share Nissan has excess production capacity and more cars as inventory, about 39,000 per point of Nissan's market share similar to the Big Three. Toyota and Honda have 28,000 per point of their market share.

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The US is investing $6 billion in manufacturing of arms for shipment overseas. This is being done so that 100,000 155mm shells can be made instead of 30,000 a month by the end of 2025. Three production lines at a cost of $1 billion at General Dynamics factory in Texas are put in place to reach 50,000 shells a month. This ammunition is needed in Ukraine where thousand of shells are used each day.

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After China returns 2 Boeing planes, Boeing CEO says the company will find other buyers and will not send planes to China.

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The major provisions of the Republican House healthcare bill that passed by a vote of 217-213 are- 1. To help people buy insurance coverage the bill offers $2000 to $4000 a year, upto $14,000 a year in credits based mainly on age, reducing them for families making $150,000, individuals making $75,000. 2.  Under the Affordable Care Act insurers cannot charge older Americans more than 3 times for same coverage they offer to younger people, the new bill makes this 5 times. This would increase premiums for older Americans and reduce it for younger Americans. This is the most controversial part of the bill. Older Americans supported the Republican party in the presidential election. 3. The new bill ends Medicaid as an open ended entitlement and places this on a budget with cuts of $880 billion over 10 years. 4. To mollify conservative Republicans a provision allows state to opt out some provisions of the ACA that requires minimum benefits such as maternity care and emergency services. It retains coverage for pre-existing conditions to mollify moderate Republicans. The bill provides states with $138 billion over 10 years to subsidize premiums, provide coverage for pre-existing conditions, mental healthcare and drug addiction. 5. The bill removes the taxes imposed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on high income people of about $300 billion over 10 years by repealing a payroll tax increase and tax on investment income. This bill and the ACA offer 2 competing visions on healthcare, both bills passed only by a margin of 4-5 votes in the House. The ACA overlooked the impact on premiums causing discontent among middle income Americans. The new bill lets premiums rise for older Americans in order to keep premiums down for other Americans. This shows the many tradeoffs involved and choices being made, and the lack of a consensus on the issue of healthcare in the U.S., becoming a highly politicized issue instead of the way it is treated in western Europe.     ...

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American companies on the Standard and Poors 500 stock index are sitting on a pile of cash-estimated at $960 billion. This includes undistributed foreign earnings that would incur 35% taxes if brought into the U.S. At the same time companies are hoarding this cash, using some of it for acquisitions, and only gradually increasing dividends. The dividend payout ratio- the percentage of earnings paid out as dividends- is at 28.9% for the past 4 quarters according to Standard & Poors. The dividend payout ratio was 46% for three decades since 1936, and 52% for the last two decades, according to Standard & Poors. Zweig cites Benjamin Graham who stated that companies should pay two thirds of dividends to shareholders. Why? Because shareholders can make better use of the money. With too much money companies tend not to make the best productive use of capital. One example is Microsofts's purchase of Skype at $8.5 billion, considered inflated by many analysts. Graham stated that when the companies are not making productive use of the capital it is appropriate to expect that it be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends. At the 50% ratio one dividend fund manager says companies could return $207 billion to investors. ...

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By preventing serious illness in patients two pills for coronavirus from Pfizer and Merck can change the course of this pandemic. Pfizer will give a royalty free license to Medicines Patent Pool, an organization backed by the United Nations for its coronavirus pill. Merck has also given a royalty free license to Medicines Patent Pool for it pill. This organization will then grant a license for the manufacture of the coronavirus pills to poor developing countries. India is included in the list of countries yet China, Russia and Brazil are excluded for the Pfizer license.  Merck has given Indian generics manufacturers approval to make the pill. This will provide supplies of the pill to 105 developing countries, South Africa will also make the pill to provide it at $10 a course in Africa. Pfizer will begin manufacturing of large quantities in 2022 with 50 million planned for 2022 and 21 million in the first half of 2022. Pfizer pill will be made available in 95 countries. The Merck pill is called Molnupiravir. Pfizer pill is called Paxlovid with 30 pills taken over the course of 5 days. Pfizer pill is effective in studies when given to people who had not been vaccinated. It has to be given within 3-4 days of getting coronavirus confirmed through a test which makes testing critical for its use. ...

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Penelope Fitzgerald in her book Human Voices  says about BBC Calling- During the second World War the BBC was about "scattering human voices in the darkness of Europe." The BBC gets 137 million pounds from the Foreign Office.There is no provision for 2026, the BBC is entirely dependent onthe license fee. How will it be financed for its role in bringing Britain to the world as it did since its founding in 1932. Many parts of the world depend on radio, and on BBC broadcasts for information, more so as propaganda and disinformation fill the airwaves and print as the BBC and VOA make program cuts and management changes. In March 2025 most of VOA's staff was placed on administrative leave and $153 million was allocated for shutting down VOA. The US Congress opposed the idea and allocated $200 million a reduction from about $260 million in 2024 for VOA, and $644 million for USAGM US Agency for Global Media. BBC World Service operates in 134 countries with budget of $400 million pounds of which 221 million pounds comes from the UK Foreign Office. ...