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WSJ reporters Yoon and Martin report from Pyongyang and Seoul about the vast changes and modernization that is coming to North Korea as the country learns lessons about the failures in the past. Aid from Russia and China, shipments of goods from a now industrialized China means that North Korea was posed to change in a short time if it took decisive steps to improve industry and the standard of living of the people. About $10 billion from Russia and support from China have made a difference. This means the kind of instability of a nuclear powered but poor and isolated North Korea, is less visible today than at previous periods in the last 50 years. This is happening with tighter sanctions than ever on North Korea by the US and EU nations. China and Russia have provided major inputs for the changes in North Korea and the concern for the living standards of the people that is visible today according to these reports.

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Angola's recent election gives the country a new president Joao Lourenco. Since independence Angola is governed by the MPLA led by Jose Dos Santos. Lourenco was selected by Dos Santos to help Angola navigate a difficult period when oil prices have fallen. Dos Santos remains a key figure in Angola- his daughter heads the oil company that generates 95% of Angola's export revenues, and his son heads the sovereign wealth fund. Lourenco's wife is an executive director of the World Bank, and helped negotiate a loan from the IMF for $1.4 billion in 2009. Lorenco is a low key figure who started by joining the MPLA in the struggle for independence at the age of 20, and is seen as a person Mr. Santos is appointing as he considers retirement.

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Seib of the WSJ compares the Reagan election in 1980 with Trump's bid in 2016. He finds the idea of an outsider when the public mood was for change favoring Trump, but says the comparison with Reagan falls short because Reagan had behind him 8 years as governor of the largest state in the country, and a bid for the nomination 4 years earlier. He also had personal positive approval ratings of about 70 percent compared to 27 percent for Trump.  Reagan's first trp after the convention in 1980 was to Alabama to win the support of George Wallace people in the Deep South. His focus was on reuniting all parts of the Republican Party something absent in 2016. Seib's comment about Trump being stronger on the economy is not clear. With the economy recovering, and slowing down as the presidential election approaches amid increasing uncertainty, it is possible that voters would not want to risk abrupt and sudden changes with an untested candidate. Working class voters could still see some of their concerns for change addressed by the Bernie Sanders part of the Democratic platform with help in college tution, addressing wage concerns, and opposing export of jobs, when Trump's program gives few specifics. Another difference between Reagan and Trump is that Reagan had put together an economic team under Shultz which was able to win credibility with an actual plan to implement in the first 100 days. ...

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On the first days of her campaign Kamala Harris addresses the American Federation of Teachers. One of the big issues is learning loss for children during the pandemic. How to address reading loss, learning loss of children who are falling behind? Harris supports teachers in many ways. She wants to see the hard work of teachers respected and compensated by increasing teacher pay. Lyrarc's Movement for Global Literacy is focused on this same issue how to address reading comprehension loss among children in the US, that was weak to begin with and is now in trouble with the pandemic learning loss. Lyrarc is a useful tool and essential tool following serious learning loss from the pandemic, for increasing literacy and reading comprehension of children and young people in the US, UK, India and other countries. With NAEP test scores showing two thirds of children in 8th grade failing Reading Comprehension, and 75% failing Civics comprehension Lyrarc is an essential tool for addressing this problem. ...

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In extended diplomacy Carney visits Beijing, China and says middle powers are seeking ways to interact and trade in a world of big power rivalry. His visit is followed by visits by UK's Starmer and Germany's Merz, and preceded by Macron. At the same time Merz visits Ahmedabad for a kite festival and signs a new trade agreement with India, followed by Leyen and Costa of the EU who sign a EU-India trade agreement for 27 countries of the European Union. All this suggests carefully planned effort in Europe to create new channels of trade and reorient existing trade relationships that will be more resilient with the US shifting to focus on Monroe Doctrine idea of the Western hemisphere as its region of influence and security. This report shows pictures of Starmer and Xi meeting at the Plough Pub in UK in 2015 and reflects on how this has changed 11 years later with China now  a dominant power with the world's 3rd largest economy and a third of world's manufacturing and logistics. How does this change the relationship with China in 2026 for UK and Canada, and the EU? At the same time Germany-India and EU-India relationship creates a 2 billion people market with capital, technology and labor potential to create the largest potential driven economic group in the world, combining EU's 20 trillion to India's $4 trillion economy and mutually complementing, which has potential to rival the US at $30 trillion by 2030 as India grows rapidly in the new EU/Germany/India market and the EU gets a new boost with the complementarity of the two regions by 2035. This suggests that something new is happening and Germany after a lot of soul searching have hit on something we should see blossom by 2030 in the way China has grown since that picture with Cameron of Xi at the Plough Pub in UK. A problem China faces as it continues to push exports is that EU/ India and US will take in less exports and there is only so much it can put in Latin American and African market, UK/Canada market leading to industries with massive oversupply. Major economic redirection may result from the Merz/Leyen/Costa visit and firming up trade agreements with India if the EU, Germany and India have the determination to seize this opportunity in the 21st Century. As Leyen said it has the potential to create a stable world with values of the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and Mahajima Nikaya of the Buddha supporting the industrial states that emerged from the Industrial Revolutions. ...

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Technology is reshaping the world of oil by 2018. The U.S. Permian Basin stretching from West Texas to New Mexico now produces more oil than the UAE and is likely to soon surpass Iran- production is at 3.1 million barrels a a day. There are as many rigs as in 2011 yet the production has tripled because of the use of high tech rigs that can move quickly to new locations over wide areas and with tech that can see hundreds of feet into the rock. By 2019 the U.S. will surpass Russia as the world's largest producer of oil. The drop in oil prices to about $40 a barrel in recent years is a result of Saudi efforts to block shale oil development by lowering prices. This has not worked. Initially some high cost producers exited the industry and the shale industry suffered. Over time the new technologies spurred by lower oil prices have led to the anticipated drop in cost. Shale oil can now be produced by core producers at $40 a barrel and still be profitable according to this WSJ report. All Middle Eastern countries cannot meet budget needs at $40 a barrel. In 2018 oil prices increased back up to $77 a barrel. In the next wave of declining prices the shale industry is better positioned than the OPEC countries.   ...

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Joseph Stiglitz describes policies and programs of the Obama administration that favor banks and avoid a government takeover of over leveraged and badly managed banks in the U.S. President Obama's policy transfers financial assets to banks on highly favorable terms even though some of the banks made bad decisions and highly overleveraged assets creating the 2008 global financial crisis. The policies avoid a government takeover of banks, policies which the U.S. aggressively pushed for in other countries such as S. Korea during the 1997 financial crisis with Rubin, Summers and Geithner at Treasury. These policies would come under strong criticism because it rewarded risk taking and kept in place an incentive system that led to such behaviours- creating "heads I win, tails you lose" psychology. It also delinks the performance-reward relationship that is the basis of free enterprise in western economies. A problem that would be left from the crisis and the Obama administration's response to it is "Too-Big-To-Fail," with banks larger than before. The FDIC and U.S. Fed's plans for banks to have living wills for an orderly windup under Dodd-Frank legislation only goes a part of the way in tackling this problem. In the U.S., and in Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, the related problem of high bonuses continues into 2014, with RBS bank in Britain one of the egregious examples and highly unpopular with the British public. The lack of similiar government help to homeowners, advocated by Reagan economic advisor Martin Feldstein and FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair from the beginnings of the crisis stands in sharp contrast to the response of the Obama administration. See the links for Barr, Feldstein and Hoenig. In an ultimate irony from the crisis handling much of the damage from foreclosures was done to minorities which supported the administration. ...

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Even though Brexit is seen as bad for the British economy from a a loss of trade with the EU of as much as 40% and the gains from Brexit that were expected from free trade deals and deregulation too small or illusory, the pro Brexiters soldier on unswayed by this. Prime minister Theresa May is seen as being able to take this deal with the EU through parliament in a second vote after losing the first vote. Behind this thinking are thoughts about how the opposition under Labour and gains made by Labour in a future election could bring together disparate parts of the Conservative party to get this through parliament. The abolishing of free movement between the EU and Britain, is cited as a gain from Brexit. Yet it is this loss of free movement and losses in trade with the EU that are expected to lead to a loss of 3% in GDP per head for every British person, making ordinary British people poorer. In the absence of a Brexit vote Britons would have an additional 2% of GDP per head, according to the Centre for European Reform, a think tank.    ...

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Spain's plan to reduce corporate taxes by 5% and individual income taxes by average 12.5% in 2015-2016, reversing earlier austerity measures. A similiar move in Italy.

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The WSJ's Juan Montes, in an exceptional report from Mexico City, tells the story behind a landmark achievement for Mexico- Pacto Por Mexico of Dec. 2, 2012. The major political parties of the right, centre and left forge an agreement for the way forward for Mexico- beyond monopolistic pricing and industry structures in Mexico that hurt consumers, to increase foreign investment and new technlogies to modernize the national oil company Pemex operations, change labor laws, and create a climate for higher growth. The pact is broad ranging, shows a grasp of the problems facing modern Mexico, and ranges from anti-monopoly laws to getting junk food out of schools considering Mexico's high obesity and diabetes rate. It covers 95 goals. It is hard to overstate the significance of this achievement for modern Mexico. Montes describes the initiative of the PRD leader Zambrones in rebranding his PRD party as a moderate left wing party open to new ideas. This happened after the departure of Lopez Obrador from the PRD to form his own party in September. Zambrano and PRD moderates brought up the idea based on what happened in a landmark deal in Spain in 1977, that helped transform Spain after decades of stagnation under the Franco dictatorship. Around July after the presidential election, PRD president Zambrano, and the PRD's Jesus Ortega, held meetings in Mexico City with Jose Murat, a senior PRI politician, and PRI president elect Nieto's top advisor, economist Luis Videgaray. The decision was made by president Nieto and economist Luis Videgaray to pursue the discussions for joint agreement on vital issues facing Mexico. The PAN party was brought into the discussions. By mid-September nine people from the PRD, PRI and PAN started work on a draft agreement at Murat's home. The ground rules were set for discussions to be private, to have agreement on all points or assume nothing had been agreed, and not let current events disturb the talks. The nine participants set up the broad principles, and then a group of three, one from each party was given the task of coming up with the right language for the pact. By the end of November a 34 page draft was put together. A night of intense work to 2 a.m. followed the inauguaration of president Nieto on Dec. 1, with the Pact ready for announcement on Dec. 2, 2012. The Pact is a landmark achievement in its potential for changing Mexico and creating decades of economic progress similiar to that envisioned by the Spanish parties for Spain in 1977. ...

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The corporate share buybacks announced by U.S. companies in the last 3 months now exceed $200 billion, more than double than in 2017, according to a WSJ analysis. This includes Cisco, Wells Fargo, AbbVie, Amgen, Alphabet (Google). The surge in corporate buybacks started in December after the tax cut of the Trump administration cut U.S. taxes by $1.5 trillion over a decade, cutting the corporate tax rate for large companies from 35% to 21%. The tax cut also included a one time tax for repatriation of $2 trillion held by U.S. companies overseas. This WSJ analysis says there are questions whether the tax cut is working, whether it will encourage new investment, lead to companies increasing wages, or whether this will largely result in corporations returning money to investors with larger dividends and corporate buybacks. Morgan Stanley's analysis of earnings transcripts of companies in the S&P 500 show 44% of the companies say they will use some portion of the tax gains to make capital investments and increase wages, with 28% going in the opposite direction and using them to return money to shareholders. Experts caution that corporate buybacks do not always lead to the company's stock outperforming the stock market. The future of companies depends more on the capital investments and in human capital. There is a sense that workers wages have stagnated since the mortgage financial crisis in 2008, with the economic crisis, globalization and outsourcing, reduced alternatives for workers, geographic pressures in relocation, all pushing wages down.  This is being closely watched with articles on stagnation in wage growth this week in the NYT and WSJ, and earlier in the Economist magazine. Reports on the Trump administration tax cuts passed by a Republican Congress suggested a large tilt towards benefitting the highest income households. Problem with higher stock prices reaching the broader middle class are recognized in that one third of stocks are owned by overseas investors, and 84% of the remaining stocks are owned by the wealthiest 10%. Republicans have turned to bonuses typically of $1000 per person given by companies yet this amounts now to about a few billion dollars over an estimated 4 million Americans, says this WSJ analysis. This is not enough to justify a huge tax cut and raise the deficit by over a trillion over 10 years on the assumption that it would lead to higher wages or capital investment when about $200 billion goes to boosting stock prices. This comes at a time when the American middle class is not broadly invested in the stock market after the exit following the battering stock prices took during the 2008 financial crisis. ...

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German automobile companies have made some bad bets on China sales. Sales in China have collapsed for Porsche as Chinese are buying local Chinese products and local Chinese autos are competitive. NYT reports on Porsche and the bad bet on China sales, then as tariffs hit serious problems.

Oliver Blume Porsche CEO says-

"Our market in China has literally collapsed. U.S. import tariffs are weighing on our business.”

“We already faced massive headwinds last year — now we are experiencing a violent storm."

Audi, Mercedes and BMW have been caught in a storm by making most of their US sold cars in Germany. The warnings from the first DJT term were ignores as they were by Apple in the US which continued to make in China. These companies are now facing problems of acting within a short time to take action to build in America to avoid tariffs.

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Mark Hulbert lists the quality stocks with low P/E ratios, little debt, high return on equity, and long records of earnings growth spanning long periods that limit volatility after the emerging markets crisis of 2014. He adds a cautionary note on the idea of quality stocks by saying P/E ratios matter, that quality stocks at a high price are a bad investment and at extraordinary prices are a extraodinarily bad investment, citing the Nifty Fifty stocks of quality in 1972 that lost value in the stock market slide in 1973. He takes quality stocks Disney, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson off the list of quality stocks because of high P/E ratios, a critical criteria. Hulbert's list for financial quality companies and their P/E ratios in Jan. 2014: AT&T telecom 9.4, Aflac insurance 9.1, Allstate insurance 10.9, Apple computer and telecom 12.7, Bank of Nova Scotia 11.0, Chevron oil 10.0, Cisco computer hardware 12.2, IBM technology 11.7, Royal Bank of Canada 11.5, Wells Fargo banking 11.5. These P/E ratios compare with the S&P 500 P/E of 17.3....

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A poll by Hebrew University of Jerusalem shows two thirds of Israelis oppose a truce in which the three aims are not achieved of stopping nuclear weapons development, stopping ballistic missile weapons development and action through proxies in the Middle East. Other polls JPPI show as much as 93% of Israel's Jewish population support the war to achieve these goals. 

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The Berlin conference in 2020 on Libya is an effort taken seriously by chancellor Merkel and French president Macron, supported by president Trump, for an "inner-Libyan reconciliation process" with "a sovereign Libya" that would prevent another larger large scale emigration to Europe from North Africa. On one side is a UN backed government of Mr. Fayez Sarraj, that controls Tripoli and the west and on the other a group of Militias under Mr. Haftar that controls the south and east.  Various foreign powers are fueling the conflict and the goal is have them disengage and drop support for their faction- Turkey for the Tripoli government and the Saudis and UAE, with Egypt, Russia supporting the rival government. All hope to gain influence, for what that means, at the risk of large scale refugees and further destruction, and dislocation of European unity through large scale emigration to Europe. It is almost like the Thirty Years War when Sweden, Austria, and the French fought proxy wars in Europe in other countries mainly in German states and central Europe. That period? - 1618-1648, losses of 8 million dead from wars, famine and plague, with loss of 20% of the German population. What started as Catholic- Protestant ended up with Austrian Hapsburg- French rivalry wars, today local religious factions conflict with secular factions ending with rival power conflict.  The foreign policy expert for Merkel Mr. Hardt says "it is key to the further stabilization of North and West Africa. If we succeed in leading Libya into a peaceful future, it would be a milestone for the entire region." ...

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BJP led by prime minister Narendra Modi wins a huge majority of 325 seats out of 405 in India's largest state Uttar Pradesh for the state assembly elections. The national opposition party Congress wins only 7 seats in what was once the main source of Congress support during the period of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. This will enable the BJP to push forward with the modernization program for infrastructure and roads, and other development. Opposition in the upper house Rajya Sabha and lack of support from states will not be a major hurdle in development now that BJP has won in states such as Orissa, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarkhand in recent state elections after its win in the 2014 national parliamentary election. This also gives credibility to the government's other efforts such as demonetisation to fight corruption in real estate and other areas. India's GDP is a fraction of China's and it is smaller than that of countries such as Indonesia, because of the poor administration and lack of development in India's 2 largest states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the northern Hindi speaking region. To double the GDP from its current level will require doubling the GDP of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Bihar's state government is run by a former BJP leader, who has also pushed for improving standards of living and economic growth.  ...

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Comey sends another letter to Congressional committees on Nov. 6, just 2 days before the election, saying that "based on our review we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton." Just 9 days prior to the election Comey had written to Congress that the FBI was looking into emails found on the computer of Mr Weiner, estranged husband of Clinton aide Abedin. By doing this Comey had inserted himself and the FBI into the election in a way that was not proper said leaders of both parties. The heavy criticism continued with Vice presidential candidate Kaine, president Obama and Secretary Clinton, seeing this as a blatant political move by Comey, who is a Republican. It is likely to remain a subject of criticism long after the election, say experts.

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This NYT report by Patrick Kingsley shows how the hopes for peace with Kurds in Turkey under the Erdogan government have faded. By 2015 peace talks faltered with Kurdish separatist groups. Kingsley's report shows towns such as Sirnak and Cizre in the southeastern part of Turkey are now ghost towns after government troops and tanks moved in. This means that Turkey not only has about 3 million refugees from Syria and Iraq fleeing the war there, but also large numbers of refugees in Kurdish areas inside Turkey. Added to this are the tensions between the party of prime minister Erdogan and the opposition, following a crackdown and as the referendum for granting new powers to the presidency under Mr. Erdogan approaches.

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IEA shows China in 2030 with 54% of mining and 77% of refining for rare earth minerals- a near monopoly. It is this monopoly that China is now using to negotiate with the US. Rare earth minerals are needed for many advanced technology products and renewable energy. This move by China to strictly restrict access to rare earth was not anticipated by US negotiators. US negotiatons with China relate to China's access to technologies, to the US market, and on the subject of fentanyl coming in from China to Mexico and illegally brought into the US. 

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Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health says in Jan 2018 issue of Harvard Chan Institute of Public Health journal that an "accidental pandemic" could result from the lifting of the ban on a risky kind of research favored by some virologist professionals.  In "Three Questions, Three Answers" Lipsitch tells why. Most members of the broader scientific and medical community had serious questions and were fiercely against such research which had questionable value and great risk. At the beginning the interviewer Karen Feldscher writes:  "January 8, 2018- Last month the US government lifted a three year moratorium on funding risky research to genetically alter deadly viruses in ways that could make them even more lethal. Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard Chan School thinks the move could create an accidental pandemic." Lipsitch says rejecting the virologists who supported this dangerous research: "Others, like myself, worry that the human error could lead to the accidental release of a virus that has been enhanced in the lab so that it is more deadly and contagious than it already is." He cites an accident in 2014 at US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Lab where workers were exposed to anthrax that was improperly handled. "Another accident like that- if it involved a virus that was both newly created and highly contagious- has the potential to jeopardize millions of people."  Lipsitch points out that this kind of research has given us modest scientific knowledge, was not essential to tackling the virus epidemics, was only one type of many types of research, and a type of research whose aims could be achieved in other ways that were not deadly to humans. Lipsitch pointed this out in The Journal of Medical Ethics stating the ethical considerations at stake. The lifting of the ban led to research at labs that is seen as a possible scenario of what happened to cause an accidental pandemic. The people of the world, and not just in America but the people of the whole world, and the poorest countries with little resources- Asia, Africa, Latin America bearing the consequences of this decision that violated medical ethical considerations of setting up a potential accidental pandemic.   ...

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U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, wins by 84% to his challenger's 16% of the vote in the Republican primary for his House seat of Janesville, Wisconsin. The challenger Nehlen, an executive at a water filtration company, adopted many of Trump's positions including building a wall and had the support of the group Tea Party Patriots. Trump lost to Ted Cruz in Wisconsin and lost in the 1st congressional district covering Janesville by 19 percentage points. Janesville, is a former industrial working class town that has lost many factory jobs over the years, and this election shows the trade issue is not the only issue on people's minds when they vote. That it is easy for a candidate to use it as wedge even when they do not mean what they say by outsourcing themselves, or have few real solutions- especially as public opinion in both parties is opposed to a shift of jobs overseas for the last decade. Ryan said about his win- "I'm a local guy, people know who I am, they know what I believe in and they know I mean what I say and I say what I mean and I don't do it in a mean way." Some Republican experts say Ryan's job of winning his seat very easily, protecting the congressional majority of Republicans, and dealing with Trump as the nominee, is the hardest job in politics. ...

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Let sleeping tariffs lie is the approach of S. Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, India, European Union, Germany, UK-  expect all trade agreements with the US to remain in place after Supreme Court decision as no country wants to go through the intensely difficult process of renegotiating on tariffs. It is also the case that DJT can replace these same tariffs using other tools and different legislation passed by Congress to stop unfair trading practices by other nations. The president is also appealing to the public, some of the tariffs are about fentanyl flows into the US, the unfair trade practices and subsidies were a problem for the Biden administration and rebuilding manufacturing was the goal of both DJT and Biden, and will be for future administrations.  When the media NYT, Washington Post respond they are following the editorial line taken that opposes the DJT administration on all issues, when WSJ respond it takes the textbook approach of economists and finance people that free markets are best without considering the real life issues. This is why the president said at his press conference after the Supreme Court decision that 22 Nobel Prize economists had said the economy could not be turned around for growth and low inflation in 1 year, and were proved wrong after the experience of 2025 with low inflation at 2.8%, low unemployment 4.3%, and growth of 2.2% in real GDP (with strong growth in quarters 2&3 of 3.8% and 4.4%). Expect all tariffs to be in place under other legislation to be in place in coming months. ...

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Walter Mead of WSJ offers this view- expect more action from DJT in 2026 not less, than 2025. The president took the US Supreme Court's decision in stride, noting that it lets him do the same thing on tariffs- charge tariffs on countries doing unfair trade with the US- with other tools in trade legislation, just not IIEP rules. On the practical side every country wants to keep its trade agreement with the US said the president- Britain, Japan, South Korea, Germany, China, India. China and India have increased exports in 2025 even with tariffs rules that allow some exemptions. Large trading nations do not want the uncertainty that comes with renegotiating agreements arrived at with much difficulty with the US. This is not mentioned much in the media such as WSJ and NYT which instead  focus on the tariff revenue already collected of $130 billion and its use or refunding. What is relevant is that the purpose of splitting powers beteen the executive branch and the Supreme Court and Congress is preceded to a great extent by the public's ideas about what is fair, of rights of the US to fair trade, and preventing the deindustrialization of US and Europe. Which is why the Supreme Court has tried to tread warily on issue of illegal migrants by millions entering the country, and is trying to tread warily on issue of rebuilding American industry and infrastructure using tariffs to reduce concentration in China and act to restore a fair trading system for the US and the world. ...

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The UK NHS is urgently tracking down parents of 35,000 children in London who are not fully vaccinated against polio, says this report in The Times. Health officials have detected the first outbreak since 1984. They are trying to trace it back to a "single household or street." London has lower rates of polio vaccination than the rest of England, dropping to levels that are seen as risky for the health of children. Vaccination rates are low in north and east London says this report in The Times. In London as a whole the vaccination rate for one year olds in 2021 is at 87%,  5 percentage points lower than that of the UK as a whole of 92%.  

Lack of investment in public health and services has weakened the public health system even as hundreds of billions of dollars were misallocated by capital markets gone astray. The pandemic exacerbated a bad situation in public health lowering vaccination rates even further.

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WSJ reports from Pakistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, Indonesia and Brazil show the effects of inflation in the price of grains, oil, cereals, other essential food supplies, and oil in these countries. In Beirut the price of flour is up 1000%. In Kenya bread prices are up 40%. In Indonesia the government has put price controls on cooking oil. In Brazil Petrobras increased oil prices by 19%. In Turkey a sharp increase in the price of sunflower oil caused panic buying. In Uganda price of vegetable oil has doubled, and wheat up 25%. Russia and Ukraine supply one third of the cereal exports in the world and 52% of the sunflower oil. Higher fertilizer prices are a problem for farmers as Russia is the largest producer of fertilizer. Increase in wheat prices are an acute problem for Turkey which imports over 80% of wheat supplies and Egypt which imports 70%. Overall World Bank officials say this could be a problem as bad as the coronavirus pandemic itself. ...