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There is widespread belief in representative democracies that officials are out of touch, and that political parties do not represent the people. Pew Research also shows that about 50% of people believe that more women, more young people and people from poor backgrounds can make a positive difference. And about a third of people feel that business people, religious figures, and labor union members could make things worse. The intuitive sense of the US and also for Mexico and Canada is that more young people, more women and more people of poor backgrounds are needed for positive difference.

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Hoem Depot was started in 1978 with the simple concept of helping weekend home renovation and improvement by men and women who had a passion for doing this.

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The Stimson Center looks at the closing of an era of Conservative politics in Japan which ended in 2025 after the death of Shinzo Abe and the 2 year premiership of Kishida. Interview is conducted by the Stimson Center of a senior Japanese political figure with 30 years of experience in the Foreign Service, and the author of the only English language book on Shinzo Abe, reflecting the paucity of research on Japan. Shinzo Abe was premier for a short time in 2005-2006 and for a full term in 2012. He made changes to Japan's SDF, its partnership with India, Australia in the Quad, and his economic policy which increased women's participation in the economy. For the first time in post war Japan there was a new sensde of confidence under Abe and he is missed sorely in Japan today. Yet as this senior Japanese politician says, Japan has changed the way the US and Europe have changed, and nationalist politics are replacing old Conservative politics of the LDP. In a way also how the deindustrialization of US, Europe and Japan has also taken place discrediting that era. Takaichi Sanae is itself a representative of the new era, as she did not hesitate to say Japan would get involved if China attacked Taiwan. Her popularity is at 62% and she has called a snap election, as she came in to replace Shigeru Ishiba in October 2025 and was not directly elected PM. Yet in the long view this is also a misconception because neither the Stimson Center or the interview participants had a keen sense of who Abe really was and Abe's grasp of the history of the Kamakura period of Buddhist Japan and China, India, of the 12th century before the foreign invasions from the north. One of Shinzo Abe's biggest legacies is the relationship that was close to his heart, the relationship with India and prime minister Modi. This week chancellor Merz of the Federal Republic of Germany was at the kite festival with PM Modi in Ahmedabad and at the Sabarmati Ashram of Gandhiji. The same degree of warmth shown by the German leader and Modi reflecting Vivekananda's time in Germany, was seen long time back between Modi and Abe. The bullet train project Mumbai to Ahmedabad and the ones that follow across India are a testimony to the warmth shown by Abe for India, and his knowledge of history from the Buddhist period in India when by the 12th century in Japan in Dogen's time Tenjiku (India) was the sacred homeland of Buddhism. Today India has revived the Buddhist traditions and centers of Buddhism, the universities and research centers for Buddhism from that period in Indian history. Buddhism started in India near Nepal in what is now Bihar state at Sarnath and Kushinagar, and spread through China to Japan and Korea. The whole continent of Asia would reflect Buddhist ideals and ideas without the intervening period of Vedic culture in India and China's Mongolian and Manchurian northern invasions, and the periods of European colonialism. Today Buddhism and The Bhagavad Gita are itself strung like pearls on a string as the Gita itself says, part of the long spiritual traditions of three nations- India, China and Japan, and of the many others Vietnam and Korea. ("All these worlds have their rest in me as many pearls on a string." -Mascaro tr. of Bhagavad Gita, Penguin). As Asian nations and peoples come to their own inner selves, find their inmost self, this is the culture that really pervades all of Asia. ...

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Emma Hayes of the UK transforms the US women's soccer team by winning over Brazil 1-0 in the finals of Paris Olympics soccer 2024. It is only 3 months since she took over as coach.

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Modi speech for the ages to the people of Barrackpore, West Bengal, April 27 2026 surpasses any but the best of Gandhi's speeches for a century since the 1930's. "Shakti ki Bhakti" pilgrimage for the ages for the women and children and families of Bengal and India. A plea for freedom of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa as a north star for India, in the task of urbanization, modernization industrialization, and scientific revolution of India. "Purvi Bharat ka bahvisya sudhar kanrna chunav hai." This northeast that is key to the future of India's 1.4 billion people in this election in West Bengal of May 4, 2026 after 5 decades of failed governance, of failed industrialization and failed modernization in a region of 300 million people, half the size of the European Union. Impatience in Modi's voice with the pace of change that has failed the aspirations of a young generation of India.  This has left the northeast region as a backward agrarian economy. Change in federal  overnment for rapid modernization in India came in 2014 with Modi government. It was stalled for a few years by the Covid pandemic. The effort for modernization of the Indian economy after 5 decades of failed good governance is thus in its first decade and in that decade impeded by the state governments of Maharastra and Rajasthan in the western region that also includes Gujarat. In the northeast failed governance continued in West Bengal , Bihar and Orissa. In Delhi and the Punjab a similar situation. It is only now that Maharashtra and Rajasthan are aligned with federal government in industry and modernization goals. And it is only now that Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal are aligning themselves at the state level with the federal goals for modernization and rapid urbanization plus industrialization. In the south Tamilnadu (Madras region) and Kerala (Kochi), and Karnataka (Bangalore region) are also lacking in aligning with the efforts at the federal level. As a result the changes that are happening have the potential to bring a new wave of industrialization and modernization in the north, northeast and western regions of India with the federal government and the state governments in alignment on industrialization and modernization. This could bring to the world economy a development similar to China's second decade of development from 2000 to 2010 when a new surge happened in China's modernization. India's modernization will happen with the reindustrialization in the US and the European Union  and will set the pace for the world economy in the decades to come. ...

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This exceptional report on Hillary Clinton shows how difficult it has become to know Hillary Clinton through media accounts because it has been so distorted. Part of the distortion is from bits and pieces of her life being known, not the complete person. This comes from election campaigns dating back to Bill Clinton's second campaign for governor against Gay White, in which the fact that she had not changed her name and did not mix well with Arkansas's conservative society and manners, made this aspiring Northerner not looked at positively. Bill Clinton lost that election and came back to win in the next election for Governor. For that to happen Hillary had to change her name and the way she dressed to fit into Arkansas culture. Continually throughout Bill's career including the presidential campaigns Hillary Clinton had to change or adapt her persona as "Hillary" the person in politics as a candidate's wife, to fit in with what the public wanted to see.  Another facet of Hillary is her strong sense of privacy, not to reveal too much of herself, partly from her mother's ordeal as a child, partly from her Methodist upbringing not to speak too much about oneself. Her bookish nature as a person who studied policy, made this more evident. Political campaigns use some details about how a candidate or his wife is perceived, and Hillary herself said in 1995, telling the Washington Post that "I don't think you can know anybody else," because of what she called the crude mechanisms that only take bits and pieces of a person's life, not the whole person. Her own campaign for president suffered from this distortion as Mark Penn, her campaign strategist, pushed for her experience and hard work to be the basis of her campaign against Obama. Obama had his own focus groups in New Hampshire and Iowa show him that he could could do well as a story teller for change and a movement. It was not till the second presidential run in 2016 that the idea of a woman's movement was what Hillary was clearly put forward as. Throughout all this and all the years the woman Hillary Clinton has been essentially the same, adaption does not mean that you are less of what you are, however great the belittling in the media's version of life and events. And this is the Hillary Clinton, not the "Hillary," America is facing in October 2016, as the country ponders its on future, following some of the most denigration of women in any presidential campaign of the last two hundred years. ...

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Pregnant women should not be bringing lawsuits for getting birthright citizenship for their children says the US Supreme Court in June 2025. Judge Coney Barrett says in 6-3 deicsion of the SC that district courts cannot rule beyond their state on birthright citizenship or act as a decider on executive branch decisions.

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Democrats feel the landscape has shifted in their favor for the midterms in 2022 after the US Supreme court ruled against abortion in its Roe vs Wade decision. Democrats feel they can now appeal to more women and to independents and that this issue has energized some of its campaign base. The Kansas vote affirming abortion rights has further energized Democrats.

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Republicans say they are for Family and Children and values that support marraige. Yet they oppose actions to reduce child poverty, paid maternity leave and women's rights that help protect women in marraiges, oppose action that would increase incomes for poor and middle class families in favor of the highest income groups. He says Biden took action that cut child poverty in half and faced resistance from Republicans. These are questions that don't go away as Democrats could do more for families and children yet Republicans aren't letting their actions match their words.

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Elina Svitolina of Ukraine wins in three sets over Iga Swiatek of Poland to make it to the semifinals of Wimbledon. Svitolina says the war made her stronger, and also made her mentally stronger. "Mentally I don't take difficult situations as like a disaster you know? There are worse things in life." The Ukraine war is a women's war as millions of women became refugees in different parts of Europe including Swiatek's Poland. 

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This WSJ Investigation into workculture and poor treatment of women and minorities shows behaviour has not changed over the years. Some of the internal investigations go back to the time when Sheila Bair was head of the FDIC in 2009. The FDIC plays an important role in regulation of the banking system. It is not attracting younger employees with the workculture. That this has been ignored for so long is over decades is beyond comprehension, that such behaviour could exist as reported in the WSJ is astonishing. 

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BBC reports on Iran protests January 2026. Protests happened with students, with women periodically over the last two decades. Iran over the years since the monarchy in the 1880's and democratic movements (parliaments) in 1900's, monarchy in the 1930's and 1960's, socialist governments 1960's. Cold War and restored monarchy in 1970's, religious theocracy 1990's till today has gone through many different governments. It was part of the British Empire (that included India/Pakistan) and Russia's buffer region in the 18th and 19th century.  After economic sanctions from US and Europe the economy depends on sanctioned oil exports. Its defense operations divert much of the funding from oil based resources away from economic development . Much of that was a result of the anticolonial socialist ideologies that spread from North Africa (Algeria, Egypt) to Iraq and Syria that led to wars in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan- which also led to Iraq's version the Baathist ideology invading Iran. Russia and the US have extracted themselves at much loss from these conflicts by 2025 and are posed at a historic rapprochement in relations. For Iran there is today no danger from the region or from European powers, and like the US the people and the country are asking questions about the economic and living conditions from so much in resources now diverted to external conflicts- like the US the people in the region of Iran and the entire Middle East apart from a few small oil rich regions with a tiny part of the overall population- maybe 5% in Qatar and UAE, and Saudi- feel the impact of little investment in rapid economic development of the overall region. A region with a population close to the European Union of 500 million but a tiny fraction of economic development investment for the vast majority of people in Egypt and other parts of North Africa and regions of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan. Most of the investment of $1 trillion is concentrated in the 10% of the population of over 500 million people in oil resource Saudi Arabia, UAE/Qatar monarchies, the rest languishing in war, and now meaningless- in terms of living standards- of anticolonial ideologies or militant religious ideologies, or internecine/ethnic conflict. ...

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In the third and final debate of the 2016 U.S. presidential election Hillary Clinton shows she has mastered the techniques used by Trump to use short jabs and comments to unsettle her opponent, yet doing it in a meaningful way to make a point about how she is better qualified and her program helps the middle and working class.

On taxes she added to her plan about not increasing taxes for people making more than $250,000, with the comment that it would increase her and Trump's taxes provided she said Trump hasn't "figured out how to get out of it." It also was meant to draw Trump's response about not revealing his tax returns and plans to give hugely disproportionate tax cuts to higher income people. Trump called her "a nasty women," in response, which was a point cited by media reports as a negative for women voters.

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Gail Collins of the NYT describes the Hillary she came to know during the period she was Senator, a liberating time for Hillary Clinton, when she could be more of a private citizen, free of the publicity and attention as an active First Lady.  She chose to take up her assignment as New York Senator by visiting constituents and getting to know New York state, coming from Illinois and settling in Arkansas with her husband Bill Clinton in the early years. As Hillary herself said that was the first time she had lived in New York, and it was a time in which nobody cared in a nation having gotten tired of hearing about the Clintons, a welcome moment for Hillary who chose in her inimitable style to get to knowing her constituents. Collins tells about the enthusiasm of middle aged women in those days when women used their husband's name just to get a credit card, and it was harder for women to get a job than men. Bill Clinton talks about the Hillary he knew at law school and the years in Arkansas at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, and describes a real person that he came to know, not gregarious and easy with strangers as he was but with something deep inside caring for other people. One time he tells her that she could run for office, and she tells him in the courtship days that he was being silly that no one would vote for her. Americans must appear to Hillary as not caring much for First Lady or presidential spouses getting deeply involved in government, and American men not really passionate about women in key roles in government,  and as time passed and women in the thirties had grown accustomed to the newly won rights that Hillary and others had fought hard for to the point of looking for something new- throughout this Hillary was tested as never before. As the nominee of the Democratic Party for president she now had to prove that the old was also part of bringing in the new, that a passion for new encounters, experience and learning, combined with patience and perseverance, were also needed in the tasks of regenerating and renewal. If only she looked more carefully she would find that the first president having fought a long and difficult war for about ten years with men "half starved and often in rags", George Washington, also faced skepticism and doubts about him, which he alludes to frequently in his letters.      ...

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About one in 5 German workers are in minijobs- about 7.4 million people in May 2013, according to estimates from the WSJ and Germany's Federal Employment Agency. Minijobs are a form of part time work that gets a German worker 450 euros a month free from taxes. Many of these jobs are in retail, healthcare and offer these industries more flexibility. Jobs are done by women, elderly, immigrants without work. The intent was to move these workers into full time work, but this is not happening as most workers in minijobs end up in a deadend status.

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A survey by GlaxoSmithKline shows that 60% of S. Africans are clinically overweight. A study by Imperial College of London, shows 75% of S. African women are overweight, 43% are obese an increase from 24% in 1980. As a result about 13% of the S. African population suffers from diabetes.

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Michigan has three highest elected officials who are women Gretchen Whitmer Governor, Benson Secretary of State, and Nessel as Attorney General. The former Governor was Jennifer Granholm who is now in the cabinet of president Biden as Secretary of Energy.  Harris has moved up by 5 percentage points in Michigan and has the support of people across all communities in the state. Even though Michigan and Wisconsin are shown as states similar to Kansas and Iowa, they have in Michigan a strong manufacturing worker base, and in Wisconsin the influence of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, that make the state very different and forward looking in its thinking.

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Jim Tankersley of the NYT is the author of the book- The Riches of This Land- The Untold, True Story of America's Middle Class. He is NYT's White House Correspondent with a focus on economic policy, and has written for more than a decade on the decline in opportunity for American workers. Here he tells readers why president Biden's plan to invest in human capital as well as the tangible capital of infrastructure building is so badly needed in America today. Human capital is found in education of children and college students, in support to women to get back into the workforce during this pandemic to bring their skills and talent to the workforce. This means financing education pre K through college, and paid leave for caregivers who are mostly women. Also part of the plan is investment in a rapid transition out of this period of dependence on fossil fuels and in the nation's scientific and technological capacity to come up with new solutions.   ...

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The regulation of Google, Meta, Twitter and other tech companies needed to ensure that the serious negative impact on society, on women and children, and on education and society, with its damaging effects can be removed. This is essential to build the better society of tomorrow after the pandemic.

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American men took the biggest hit for life expectancy in an Oxford University study, with life expectancy dropping by 2.2 years in 2020. American women life expectancy dropped by 2.65 years. Lithuanian men had a decline of 1.7 years. This is the largest decline going back to the days of the Great Depression in the 1930's

Elsewhere in Europe, life expectancy declined in many countries for the first time since the Second World War. This happened in Spain, Italy, England, Wales and Belgium. Women in 8 countries and men in 11 countries had drops in life expectancy over more than 1 year.

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Japan has accomplished a remarkable transformation of its workforce and its economy even as the working age population is declining. For years Japan was seen as a stagnant economy with a rapidly aging population. In recent years Japan has shown how a change in policy can work. Since 2012 working age population declined by 4.7 million, yet the number of people working increased by 4.4 million. The proportion of the population in the workforce rose sharply since 2012. To do this Japan turned to three underutilized parts of its workforce and population- the elderly, women and new immigrants. Japan has pursued an active policy of reviving the economy by bringing women into the workforce and breaking taboos on new immigrants. In 2004 Japan raised retirement age from 60 to 65, and then made it mandatory for companies to raise or abolish the retirement age, or introduce a system for re-employing workers who retire. This has changed Japan a lot with Japanese men working well into their 60's and 70's. In the west coast city of Kanagawa which now has a bullet train to Tokyo, out migration was a big problem that added to a declining workforce. The head of Ohara, a family owned company that makes desserts tried a novel method of advertising to seniors in apartment blocks and starting attracting seniors to fill worker shortages. It found that seniors came to work on time, performed even tedious tasks, and brought a great deal of experience. Since then the regional government has started programs to get more retirees and women into the workforce. The special programs teach small companies to adapt to the needs of retiree workers who can work in shorter shifts of few hours and do less physical jobs. Women need predictable hours to pickup children from school and shorter work weeks, for which the regional government program helps companies adapt by sending in specialists to guide the companies. As a result female participation in the workforce, for very long a big handicap is no longer so. Female participation has jumped to 63%, higher even than that in the OECD where the average is 62 years.  Japanese women had a M curve that meant they worked most in their 20's. less in the 30's with children, and more in the 50's. First the government tried to correct this with extended parental leave, increased childcare, and rewarding companies with good work-life balance. Then in 2009 the effort accelerated with employers required to offer 6 hour days if a worker asked for this. Under prime minister Abe's "womenomics" effort child care was significantly expanded- by 2015 Tokyo went from 28 to 38 spots open for every 100 two year olds. Alongside these efforts the Abe government tried to get companies to rethink their assumptions about quantity of work and overtime as productive effort. One could work shorter hours and be productive, and the old notions were seen as resulting in lower productivity. As fathers with parental leave took on more responsibility the changes transformed the attitudes for women at work. Most remarkable is the quiet change in immigration policy. The government allowed foreign construction workers to address shortages for work on the 2020 Olympics. It introduced a 3-5 year visas program for nursing care workers. Two new categories of visas will add 340,000 additional blue collar workers over next 5 years. The total foreign born workers in Japan doubled from 2012 to 2017 to 1.3 million. ...

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The Washington Post's Lillian Cunningham interviews Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, in April 2014. In this exceptional interview Lagarde talks about her personal life experiences that have given her new strength to tackle the difficult jobs as finance minister of France and head of the IMF, during a period of turmoil at the organization, and the global financial crises of 2009 followed by the eurozone financial crisis. No other woman in recent times has faced a series of crises of this magnitude and tackled them with such fortitude, exceptional insight, and ability to stand up for what she believes is the right course of action. She says she has seen many instances where women are given jobs which are tough and expected to sort out a mess or revitalize an organization. Her own approach she describes here emerged from personal anguish of losing her father to a debilitating illness at a young age as the eldest in her family, and remembering her dad's advice to stand up for what she believed, to face a tough situation and come out stronger. Lagarde's view on leadership is that it is about getting people excited about the purpose of an organization. Just as every human being has a purpose in life, so organizations with people working together develop a joint purpose, and the job of a leader is to enable people to get them to achieve that purpose....

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Professor Zoubida Charrouf of Mohamed V University in Rabat, Morocco, with the support of Morocco's Ministry of Agriculture is pushing cooperatives in Morocco that produce Argan oil to increase wages for women. Wages are sometimes as low as $50 a month for the women who work with piles of fruit in the countryside along the Atlantic coast. Many work for below the minimum wage in Morocco. Women do most of this work. Argan trees are native to this part of Morocco and Berber women have the skills for this work.  Argan oil is used in Morocco for dipping bread and a food. In Europe and America. Argan oil is used by the cosmetic industry. A similar situation is faced by people in agriculture in other regions. In Ghana cocoa farmers are faced with precarious prices for cocoa and struggle to make a decent living. In Morocco there is the threat also of industrial production of argan- harvesting and production of argan oil using modern machinery, cutting costs but also depriving these Berber women of a chance to earn a living. How can these different factors be processed in a way that leads to a win-win, fair-fair situation for consumers and producers? ...

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A management shakeup takes place at Nike with the departure of several executives and the HR chief for inappropriate behaviour. Nike is described as having a boy's club culture in this report which shows some women left Nike to join rivals Puma and Adidas, and others conducted a survey about conditions for women at the company relating to pay inequity, and allegations of inappropriate workplace behaviour. Following the survey Nike CEO Parker conducted his own internal investigation leading to the management shakeup. Nike will now setup mandatory manager training so that it takes the steps to become a women friendly workplace.

Nike has developed an aggressive competitive culture in its competition with Adidas and other brands. This has added to difficulties for women at the company.

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NYT reporters Kantor, Abrams and Haberman describe the life of Ivanka Trump, and ways in which she has become the closest person to Trump. She has made an effort to study the issues relating to women and plans to act as a moderating influence on the Trump administration. This report cites aides who say the two have a special relationship and discuss thoughts from morning until late into the night. Ivanka Trump says she is perceived differently since the election campaign even though she is the same person. Even making a small influence on the president would be a great deal, says Ivanka Trump. At Trump's urging and the invitation from Merkel, she participated in a women's summit at the G-20 with Merkel and other leaders in Germany.