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Winkler says Nokia may make it but it looks more likely that Research In Motion may not make it through the current storm.

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The strong showing by National Front leader Marie Le Pen and her focus on the economy in France, and the lack of growth with austerity measures, is likely to change the way the eurozone countries respond to the deficits and German insistence on austerity cuts. Marie Le Pen's economic positions for more government spending to reduce unemployment and provide additional benefits is closer to Socialist candidate Hollande's position. The right wing party in Holland also voiced the same concern recently- that it did not want to hurt Dutch pensioners with austerity cuts- when it refused to support the Dutch government leading to its collapse and new elections.

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Musharraf facing growing upopularity with one poll showing over 75% do not approve of him is about to resign as he faces impeachment by the newly elected government.

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Kurczewski test drives aNano LX around the test drive track near the Tata Pimpri factory, and on city streets. He thinks the pickup is good for Indian city streets. The four speed manual transmission makes changing gears abreeze. The 0.6 liter engine is half the size of the Toyota Yaris or the Honda Fit. Acceleration is slow 30 seconds to reach 60mph, but in Indian traffic this works fine. Visibility is excellent. No exterior passenger side mirror, no radio, and luggage goes in from inside the car, all deisgned to keep costs down. THere is Airconditioning in the LX which accounts for half of Nano orders so far and goes for $3800. Three point safety belts, but no air bags. A Nano Europa with improvements to meet European safety and emission standards and air bags will be intorduced to Europe in 2011, and asimilar car also intoroduced to the USA by 2011 possibly at Chrysler-FIat dealers.

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Q. and A. with Rohde and Keeler of the NYT on the Rohde account of being with the Taliban for 7 months.

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U.S. president Trump delivers a forceful speech at the UN General Assembly. He says the U.S. would take strong action against North Korea, and called both Iran and North Korea "rogue nations." President Bush first used the language of "rogue nations" for North Korea and Iran in a speech at West Point Military Academy in June 2002. In that speech Bush also said he reserved the right for pre-emptive action. This was followed by the invasion of Iraq. Trump also said the U.S. was "prepared to take further action" on Venezuela. French president Macron offered his own view, that the door for dialogue was open with North Korea. Prime minister Netanyahu of Israel affirmed Trump's statements on Iran calling Iran's access to nuclear weapons dangerous.  Fifteen years after Bush's speech the situation has not changed. In some ways it has deteriorated with the war in Syria, and continuing war in Iraq, the refugee crisis, and the ballistic missile testing by North Korea. ...

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Missteps by the Detroit automakers include fighting fuel efficiency legislation in 2005, even when the USA faced higher gas prices, and diluting the fuel efficiency legislation with a target of 35mpg for 2020 at a time when Europeans were taking up more aggressive challenges as public opinion there moved in that direction. They also spent heavily in lobbying spending, about $175 million for GM and Ford in the last 10 years, and some would say lobbying against the national interest and the national security interest of the USA, because failure to reduce consumption of oil through fuel efficient cars weakens the economy by sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas to mideast countries. The closing of plants in states like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Delaware and consolidating their operations closer to home weakened Congressional support, And the foreign auto makers built plants in places in the south like Alabama resulting in Senator Shelby of Alabama becoming allied with them. Rick Wagoner failed to show the vision and leadership needed, and Detroit failed to realize that vision and leadership were required to run these companies. not coming up through the large bureaucracies of these companies. And people associate him with declining market share and a company in decline and asky why. The whole mood of the country is reflected in newspaper columns across the country, in reader comments that run into the hundreds for each article overwhelmingly negative for taxpayer money going to Detroit automakers. This is the situation today and catches the Detroit automakers management, union, dealers, suppliers, by surprise as they have become so used to the status quo and know nothing different....

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The two candidates on ways they would help the auto industry recover. Obam woul provide more federal dollars to help push R&D in the development of new fuel efficient technologies and make the R&D tax credit permanent. McCainwould offer more tax incentives and infrastructure support for developing new technologies for fuel efficient automobiles and expanding availability of alternative fuels.

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The contamination of staple foods such as rice, cabbage, carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes and other staples of the Chinese food, as water and soil remain contaminated after years of spilling toxic chemicals into the environment.

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The small segment of society in Pakistan that controls business, has large agricultural holdings, and the politicians in parliament, all benefit from a system in which they pay very little in taxes. These groups draw the maximum benefit from their privileged position. According to a transparency promotion organization in Pakistan, the average member of parliament in Pakistan has net worth of over $900,000 and pays little in taxes. A senior tax offical says the tax revenues in 2009 were the lowest in the country's history. According to Pakistan's tax rules income taxes are owed by anyone making more than $3,488 a year. Analysts estimate that of the 10 million who should be paying taxes only 2.5 million are actually paying taxes. And the tax collection is extremely poor, so that less than 2% of the population of 170 million pay taxes, with tax collection as a percent of GDP among the lowest in the world. Pakistan's laws do not allow questioning of money transferred from abroad, so a lot of money can be channeled to Dubai and brought back into Pakistan. This is important becuase the burden of this falls on the poor, in the appalling quality of infrastructure and public services, and the widening gap in the quality of life of most people in the country compared to the affluent few. ...

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What are the systemic effects of one of the automakers going out of business? It affects the whole supplier base. This is the case in the event of a liquidation of assets, closing Delphi and so on. This was mentioned by Wagoner as the alternative and not prepackaged bankruptcy with DIP set aside loan for warranty financing which some experts are advocating in combination with a government loan with strings attached including a change in management. Some of the strings are covered in a New York Times editorial reflecting public opinion on the democratic side on this issue, and that includes removal of current management of Detroit auto companies, and fuel efficiency targets raised higher than legislation passed recently under heavy lobbying pressure from these automakers. Contraction of automakers and job contraction should be differentiated from liquidation of assets. The contraction of automaker jobs not just at the Detroit companies but also at Japanese plants in the US is going to happen even with a government loan to Detroit as Honda is also reducing its workforce and this will happen at Toyota also. The carefully planned bankruptcy with carefully and fully addressed warranty and other issues could be made to work along with sufficient government loan money in the $50-$70 billion range in return for equity and other conditions, and its not clear why the management of the Detroit auto companies see it as impossible and not just difficult, when they are already facing considerable difficulties in this market and with public opinion. Rampell talks about how jobs lost are not recoverable, and this is fairly obvious considering that the Japanese and the Germans are unlikely to relocate in the same areas that Detroit has located its plants , and prefer to go and build green plants to specification, and hire very carefully so that workers with the Toyota or Honda frame of mind are hired to work there. This can change depending on individual circumstances but is what they generally prefer to do. Also its important to bear in mind that forecasts that are being used of 13-14 million vehicle market in 2009 are just guesses, it could turn out that the sales drop to something like 10 -12 million vehicles, in which case there will be contraction of jobs on a large scale even at the Japanese and Korean and German plants which there is even now but on a smaller scale. ...

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The situation in Tunisia and Egypt where internet communications have helped pro-democracy protestors contrasts with the situation in Iran, Belarus and China where the one party regimes have used the internet against pro-democracy protestors.