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Delocalisation for Airbus as most of its production is in the euro area and its sales are in dollars. This policy is gradually taking hold to outsource manufacturing without making some of the errors that Boeing made with the Dreamliner.

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How Nokia designs its phones. It uses teams of anthropologists, and psychologists in its design group to understand the ways people around the world behave and communicate. The designers go into the field and look for changes in behaviour new patterns , and look for new ideas , so new phones van be designed based on what they se anfd understand in the field. A research group looks atmacro societal trends and short term micro trends based on colors textures fashions. It looks for local country specific trends and at regional similiarities. Nokia is looking for something it did not realize before also, a learning process. Thats how it stumbled on the idea of a phone that would be shared by a group of people in poor rural areas. And this had to be designed differently to make it easy to use but also not look like a cheap phone. There would be a shared address book, protection from dust on the keypad, and a demo mode making it easy to use, and a call tracker to allow people to track cost. With this kinds of phones Nokia expects to sell to 2 billion of these phones to new customers in the next 10 years in China India Brazil and Africa. Nokia is also setting up a design studio with a design school Shrishti in Bangalore....

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The Indian approach to acquisitions is to leave things alone and learn from the way things are done by western companies. This is the approach taken by Tata Motors to its acquisition of LandRover and Jaguar. Its also the approach of Infosys, Wipro, and other Indian companies.

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How Airbus is learning from the mistakes made in Boeing's Dreamliner, which will be out in late 2009. Airbus's competing plane the A350 will come out in 2013. Use of outside contractors and puttting all that work together is a critical issue once again, especially with production spread out around the world, including Russia and China.

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Senator Mitch McConnell, the U.S. Senate Majority leader, and Speaker Ryan, achieved a win in the U.S. Congress which is expected to set a new trend of bipartisan cooperation, as the House passed the bill in Dec. 2015 for $1.1 trillion spending with a vote of 316 to 113, and the Senate with vote of 65 to 33. The persuasion on the Republican side was based on giving Speaker Ryan a strong hand in negotiations with the White House in 2016. Ryan secured a lifting of the oil export ban for the Republican side in return for flexibility in spending. Ryan deftly sent the issue of Puerto Rico having access to bankruptcy laws to the committe chairmen to come up with a plan in March to get the needed votes. Democrats had pushed for aid to Puerto Rico. Also included in the bill that passed is giving more voice to emerging market countries China and India in the running of the IMF.

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Italy's prime minister, Mario Monti, in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, June 22, 2012, says the detailed blueprint for action will not come out of the meetings in Rome of European leaders at the end of June. But he added: "there will be some strong elements and a short road, I hope, short, a few months, to get from there to the overall project." Separately Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, said after meeting European financial leaders in Luxembourg: "A determined and forceful move towards complete European monetary union should be reaffirmed in order to restore faith. At the moment, the viability of the European monetary system is questioned." Monti is a former senior EU official, and Christine Lagarde was France's finance minister under president Sarkozy. The difference now compared to meetings in 2010, is the changes in France, Italy, and Spain, and at the IMF, with new leaders Hollande in France, Monti in Italy, and Rajoy in Spain, and Lagarde at the IMF, and a new context in that the austerity policies by themselves are seen as failing to produce the desired results. A further change in the dynamic is the win by Social Democrats in regional elections in Germany and Hollande opening a dialogue with the German Social Democrats. The dialogue with Merkel has been enhanced by appointing seasoned EU officials in key positions in the Hollande administration in anticipation of a tighter fiscal union in the EU....

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This WSJ editorial says president Obama's second inaugural address missed the opportunity to bind old wounds with a reference to King on Martin Luther King day. The president chose to set forth a broader liberal agenda including climate change. The editorial points to the tone of the inaugural as setting the tone for the rest of the term and the possibility of return to the rancor that characterized the first term. "We the People" from the Consititution was mentioned several times in the sense of "collective action" that defined this text as government action. The programs of Medicare Medicaid and Social Security as "committments we make to each other." And the programs "do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great," which are seen by the Journal as not appropriate for an Inaugural address that rises above the fray of politics.

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This Journal editorial cites the regulatory burdens imposed on small and medium sized businesses in Italy that discourage hiring and innovation. Prime minister Mario Monti's efforts to reduce these burdens and change labor laws in Italy.

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New rules for euro currency nations in Sept. 2011. The rules provide for sanctions against countries with budget deficits exceeding 3% of GDP, and national debt exceeding 60% of GDP. Countries that break the rules will be required to make a cash deposit in a non-interest bearing account for an amount that is 0.2% of GDP. If the situation continues the deposit becomes a fine. The European Commission will still require finance ministers permission to impose sanctions, but the voting system makes this harder to block. The European Parliament will consider 6 pieces of legislation to make these changes.

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David Brooks says one of the good things about the ugly election campaign of 2016 and its depletion of moral capital, is the way people are responding to it by finding their voice for something better and uplifting. He cites Michelle Obama as one example of someone who acts not as a politician but as a mother in her behaviour and talk. He praises Hillary Clinton for adopting this Michelle tone and giving 3 answers he calls great in the final debate with Trump. The answers came on the questions about Trump and denigration of women,  on the contrast between the experience gained on a television show "Apprentice," and the experience of Clinton as senator and secretary of state. Brooks says they were given in a gradual understated manner, showing moral sentiment and a quiet contempt, similar to how a mother or parent would respond and not a politician. Another way to look at it is that the contrast was so great between her and her opponent's experience and respect for parenthood, and the campaign so long with so many people who had shown indifference when they should have known and done better, that Hillary Clinton simply stood her own ground based on her own Protestant Methodist faith and conviction.  ...

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Bruce Reidel, Obama administration advisor on the war in Afghanistan, conducted a policy review in 2009. He says a policy of engagement he advised in 2009 now needs reshaping. He points to recent events that show the Pakistani ISI and the military who run Pakistan are in direct conflict with U.S. policy in the region. Especially after the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Kabul and the killing of a former Afghan president who was expected to lead peace talks. Reidel says this requires a reshaping of U.S. policy and a policy of containment which would reduce military assistance to Pakistan, and at the same time shape policies that would help the people of Pakistan, such as reducing tariffs on textiles.

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Lack of individual accountability has been a defining feature of large U.S. Justice Department legal settlements with banks and other corporate entities since 2009. This WSJ editorial says establishing individual accountability where wrongdoing has happened is something it has consistently called for since 2009, especially as establishing this would reduce the unnecessary burden imposed on shareholders and employees who may have had nothing do to with the wrongdoing.

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This televised debate of Republican presidential candidates focussed on Iran's development of a nuclear weapon. Rick Perry said he would impose sanctions on Iran's central bank, something the Obama administration is reluctant to do because it might disrupt international oil markets. Romney and Gingrich said they would use military action if other measures failed. Huntsman called for a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, saying: "This nation's future is not in Afghanistan. this nation's future is not in Iraq." Ron Paul said hw opposed military interventions in conflicts overseas. Perry and Gingrich said U.S. aid to Pakistan should be suspended because Pakistan was not a reliable partner.

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The inventor of the white LED bulb is the son of a Japanese father and an American mother. He invented the LED bulb by doing research in a small company which required courage to get the research funded for IGaN. Only a few researchers were following this route less than 1%, Nakamura had the confidence in himself, believed in himself to take this route that led to the white LED bulb. The more he was turned down the angrier he became and had it approved by the founder of the company. In 1992 he made the first white LED bulb. Why is this important. It shows what we can do when we pursue what our mind tells us and what comes from inside. Nakamura had to work very hard to do this. In a small company he says he had to do everything himself. So thats it the LED bulb. Amazing and what an achievement for climate change action. California uses 35% of its electricity for lighting alone. White LED cuts this in half. ...

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Arango takes a look back at the history of Iraq- the 400 years of Ottoman rule and the role of Gertrude Bell in defining Iraq's current borders under British rule. Saddam Hussein, Maliki and Islamic State pitted Sunnis against Shiites and Sunnis against Kurds for the last 40 years, leavig a divided country. The current effort to put Iraq together as a country with different faiths and communities under prime minister Abadi will take many years after so much bloodshed. Northern Ireland shows that it can be done after much pain and loss, when all realize putting the past behind is the only way forward.

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U.S. president Trump signs an executive order on March 28, 2017, reversing the American commitment to the Paris climate change agreement. The executive order also lifts a moratorium on the sale of coalmining leases on federal lands. The Obama administration 2015 clean power plan was designed to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. It was blocked by courts in 2016. Trump says he is reversing president Obama's war on coal. Earlier he approved the Keystone pipeline for bringing oil from oil sands in Canada to the U.S.. Under the Paris agreement the U.S. agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26-28% by 2025 from 2005 levels. Market changes including the availability of cheap natural gas from technology advances fracking and hydraulic fracturing is leading a shift away from coal, apart from Obama administration regulations. Another factor is the long term trend towards cleaner energy, with large energy producers such as American Electric Power and other companies planning for the long term which is likely to be in the direction of cleaner energy. These companies see the Trump administration changes as a situation that may not be for the long term. ...

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One of the first questions by moderators in the Univision debate in Florida focussing on immigration issues related to the anti-immigrant sentiment fostered by Donald Trump. Trumps statements on Hispanics and Muslims came under withering criticism from Clinton and Sanders. Hillary Clinton stated in reference to the Trump campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" that you can't make America great by doing things that do not reflect America's values. She said she would continue to speak up against the anti-immigrant sentiment created by Trump's derogatory statements about immigrants.