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Viktor Orban's defeat in the Hungarian election in April 2026 comes after decades of his blocking policies that emerged from the European Union in Brussels and is a relief for the European Union and Germany as it takes on the responsibility of leading continental Europe in its stance of opposition to Russia in the war in Ukraine with help of France and Britain. Peter Magyar who is staunchly pro European Union wins Hungary's 2026 election in a landslide with 137 seats to 57 with 77% of electorate voting as Viktor Orban concedes. Magyar's Tisza party gets 57% of the votes to 40% for Orban. Peter Magyar 45 years was part of the Orban Fidesz party before he formed his own party with dissatisfaction about the extent of corruption under Fidesz. Orban as head of the Fidesz was prime minister 1998-2002 then again in 2010 to 2026 for a period of 20 years spanning the first quarter of the 21st century. Magyar is not a progressive or so called liberal and shares many of the same views on social issues of Orban but he is pro-European Union and reflects the views of the Hungarian nation as independent in Eastern Europe and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in an uprising against Soviet rule. In the period before the two world wars from 1600 Hungary was the place where in addition to Austria and Vienna, the Hapsburgs and other European armies pushed back the Ottoman Empire's expansion into Europe. Hungary was a key part of the Hapsburg Empire which ruled from Vienna, Austria, over most of Eastern Europe for 1600-1918. The Hapsburg Empire collapsed in World War I on the side of the Germans and a new nation Hungary emerged by 1921 but was much smaller than Hungary of the Hapsburg era. Today Hungary is a nation of 10 million with its capital on the Budapest on the Danube river in the heart of Central Europe. ...

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Bruni of the NYT interviews the new Mayor of Rome, a transplant surgeon who lived most of his life in Pennsylvania. The effort by expatriates like the new mayor Ignazio Marino to give Italy a new start following the Berlusconi era and the stagnation in Italy's political and economic system. Marino won with 64% of the vote. Many of the people Bruni talked to in Italy are deeply conscious of the difficulties facing Italy as it tries to put itself on a new path, making a transfer to a younger generation, ending the Berlusconi era, and puting aside the sclerotic ways of the past.

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iCET Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technologies is a new program that was agreed to between president Biden and prime minister Modi at the Quad Summit in May 2022. It has the focus of building the US relationship with India for advanced and emerging technologies in the competition with China, and also as a way to expand India's role in the US and EU supply chain arrangement. Its first inaugural dialogue happened this week between Jake Sullivan NSA for the US and Ajit Doval NSA for India. The goals of iCET are To seek to build supply chains which increase co-production and co-development between the countries  To increase linkages between the countries startup ecosystems To broaden defense innovation and technology cooperation To build resilient semiconductor supply chains  Space cooperation STEM talent Next generation 5G and 6G telecommunications cooperation The US will speed up approval of GE Engines making of engines in India for light combat aircraft manufactured in India. ...

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As India takes on the presidency of the G20 in December the first steps are being taken by the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to build closer ties with India. The Hindu gives this intervew with Baerbock that shows Germany's keen interest in building the India Germany partnership. This sets the stage for the bi-annual India Germany summit meeting, with German chancellor Scholz to visit India in early 2023. Some of Baerbock's comments show energy and enthusiasm for India to work closely with Europe. "Our countries have so much to offer one another. We want to tap that enormous potential. One such example is the concrete agreement we will sign during my visit, making it a lot easier for both Indians and Germans to study, research and work in our respective countries." "Today's era is not the era of war, that was Mr Modi's message to Putin- that was the resounding message and I highly appreciate India's seminal role in achieving this." ...

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Fei Fei Lee and John Etchemendy co-founders of Stanford Univeristy's Institute for Human-centred Artificial Intelligence the public sector needs to lead AI development.  Acceptance and advocacy by the people at Stanford University that AI is too important to be left to the private sector. That like space exploration conducted by NASA and the Hoover Dam and Tennessee Valley Authority during the Depression, the Erie Canal in the mid nineteenth century, some work is better done by the public sector. For this to happen Stanford needs to accept its position as one of the many great educational and cultural institutions of this country not what Silicon Valley and the Reagan era hand it to being its preeminent beneficiary and representative. This marks a change at Stanford after thinking long and hard about the dangers to America that have emerged from the Reagan era thought that took in its fold Democrats like Clinton and Obama- the 2009 financial crisis fueled by deregulation and defunding of infrastructure and manufacturing, that laid the seeds for America's downward spiral.  ...

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With higher mortgage rates at 7% from 4% during the pandemic sellers and buyers are not moving forward. There is a sharp drop in US homes for sale by 14% in June over 2022, to 1.1 million homes, according to NAR. Home builders are building new homes to meet demand. Sellers often prefer to rent out existing homes and rent in their new location. Buyers preferring to rent with limited supply to choose from.

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The Glasgow COP26 summit could be the beginning of a new era for mankind as the city that started the industrial revolution in Britain takes the world on a turn into a new era of ecologically conscious living. This BBC report looks at changes we should be experiencing in 2022 to 2030. Electric cars that take the place of current automobiles, increasing use of construction materials other than cement and concrete, use of solar and wind energy. From a mental health standpoint lifestyles built around walking and cycling, more forested areas and green spaces in and around cities, cleaner air, quieter cities, food choices and agricultural choices made around health and better ecology. Personal investments, corporate investments and pensions of $139 trillion invested in a way that cuts carbon emissions. Governments and private citizens enabling transparency and regulation, weekly monitoring on matters relating to emissions in one's own neighborhoods and local region.  ...

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U.S. president Obama's chief of staff and former deputy national security advisor, Denis McDonough, meets with Peter Altmaier, Chancellor Merkel's chief of staff, and Gunter Heiss, head of Directorate-General 6 of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service in July 2014. The meeting was part of an effort to improve U.S.-German relations following the problems created by NSA spying in Germany. This meeting took place following the shooting of a Malaysian airline flight over Ukraine and the call for stronger western sanctions on Russia. U.S. president Obama sought to convey to Merkel the importance he placed on German-U.S. relations after Obama failed to make a serious effort to soothe tensions with Germany over spying revelations.

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U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, Mark Udall, and Martin Heinrich, say they strongly disagree with the surveillance bill ratified by their colleagues on the Senate Intelligence Committee. This bill allows the continued bulk collection of Americans telephone records as long as there are rules when the government looks at them. The three senators say this violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which has embedded in it the principle that the government has no power to seiize records of individual Americans without evidence of wrongful actions. The senators cite Benjamin Franklin about the dangers of giving up essential liberties for temporary safety and losing both. Their view is that the bill excessively codifies current surveillance activities of the NSA without putting in the necessary safeguards and their view have not been considered, in many cases by a single vote in the Intelligence Committee.

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The first Japanese American to reside permanently in America Kanaye Nagasawa was a samurai from 1864 Edo era isolationist Japan. He left Japan in secrecy at 19 as part of a group on a secret mission to learn science and technology from the West. He eventually settled in Sonoma county, California, and set up the wine industry in the region. BBC series Rediscovered America tell his story and the story of the Japanese Americans in the US.

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The author is a resident scholar of the American Enterprise Institute. He says conservatism and the Republican Party have failed to recognize the problems of the American working class, leading to the rise of Trump. He adds that it will take more than one election cycle for Republicans to change this, it will take a lot more effort lasting many years. Speaker Ryan arranged a forum on working class problems, poverty and lack of opportunity, but only after Trump had made appeals to older white working class Americans who have done poorly in the last decade, making him the front runner in the race, and relegated Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio to single digit support.

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Reporting for this highly informative article on wind energy development in Brazil was done with a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. Forero gives a detailed account of the setup of about 400 huge wind turbines larger than the size of a Airbus 380 in a windy area of Bahia state by a Brazilian company Renova Energia. It is an area that experts say is nearly perfect for the steady wind needed. Brazil has increased its wind generation capacity to 3% of its energy generation in 3 years since the first auction for companies seeking to build wind farms. By 2021 energy planners in Brazil see this going up to 10% of its energy generating capacity. New limits on the generation of hydropower is shifting the focus to speeding up the development of wind energy by the government of Dilma Roussef. State owned banks provide loans to companies like Renova Energia. New technology from French, Dutch, and Spanish companies with advanced sensors that shift the position of blades to adapt to wind conditions, the size of windmills of over 400 feet, and 1.6 megawatt turbines, make wind energy a realistic option for Brazil's expanding energy needs growing at 5% a year. French energy company Alsthom has a plant outside Salvador, the capital of Bahia state, to manufacture windmill components. This helps meet Brazilian government requirements for a certain percentage of local manufacuring of components....

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The NYT calls for the rewriting of the relevant passage in the Patriot Act that is used as a justification for data vacuuming by presidents Bush and Obama. NYT editorial board says it was never intended to allow collection of every phone call and every email information, that this is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution, and also the spirit of the law. The editorial concludes that president Obama never intended to implement the changes recommended by his presidential panel on reforming the NSA surveillance, even though he keeps talking about striking a balance between civil liberties and security surveillance.

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A Liberal Democrat, Lord Alderdice, praises the courage of Prince Philip when he stood alongside Queen Elizabeth as she shook hands with Martin McGuiness- the handshake that ended the war in Northern Ireland. Martin McGuiness led the IRA at the time when Lord Mountbatten, a father figure for Prince Philip and his mentor, was killed in the conflict of Northern Ireland.

The Duke of Cambridge describes his grandfather as "an extraordinary man and part of an extraordinary generation."

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Cost of living action on oil and food prices, and wage gains by workers, the overall economic expansion and jobs, will play a role in Northampton County, Saginaw County and Hillsborough County, in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Hampshire. Other counties in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin affected by the same issues and hurt by the demanufacturing in the US from the Reagan era, the sense of falling behind in places like Bethlehem, Pennsylvania will determine the direction of the US in 2024.

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"When the Legends Played in the Leagues" is the Wisden Book of the Year. The Guardian shows Gary Sobers, the West Indies cricketer from the sixties and the seventies who is one of the most famous cricketers of all time. It shows English cricket in the English Leagues for 1950- 2000. Included here are West Indies cricketers Lance Gibbs, Wesley Hall and Rohan Kanhai. What Ken Rosewall and Rod Laver were to tennis Sobers and Kanhai were to cricket in that era.

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Belafonte is a rare activist from the civil rights era who brought much attention to civil rights and humanitarian issues. Entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte worked with Martin Luther King in the civil rights marches of the 1960's. He helped organize the March on Washington in 1963. Shown in WSJ is a rare black and white photo of Belafonte with the Rev. Martin Luther King and civil rights marchers in Montgomery Alabama in 1965. Belafonte enlisted in the US Navy and after discharge lived in New York City. He attended the Dramatic Workshop of The New School of Social Research where he discovered his passion for the theater. He won all four awards, Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Oscar and covered music, theatre, film with his versatility and skills. He helped popularize Caribbean style music in the US with the album Calypso in the 1950's with over a million copies sold, including Day-O (the Banana Boat Song). He was equally passionate in film about the emerging consciousness of black people in the Caribbean and Africa as countries became independent in the 50's and 60's. He was portrayed in that role in Island in the Sun in the changing politics of the colonial era in the Caribbean. ...

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The popularity of women's performers including Taylor Swift with the ERA's tour, and groups of women attending such events during the summer, is the subject of this report in WSJ. With more women joining the workforce after the pandemic, increase in women's wages, there is more spending power to boost the economy of different regions in the US.

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The changing attitudes to regulation after serious regulatory failures in the last years of the Bush administration. The temper and mood of the new Obama administration.

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Henry Kissinger's first book is on the Napoleonic Wars and how the Austrian chancellor Metternich negotiated a peace that after 1815 kept a fragile peace in Europe till the war in 1914. Sometimes it is said that Kissinger as NSA and Secretary of State to US president Richard Nixon modeled his role from that of Metternich who with Kissinger shared a German background. This was based on realism and was based on offsetting the tyranny of Napoleon in Europe with a balance of power between Britain and Austria-Hungary.