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The Journal's interview with Weight Watchers International CEO, David Kirchhoff. Weight Watcher's strategies focus on increasing its online business and getting males to join Weight Watchers. According to Kirchhoff it has 1.4 million people, 90% of whom are women, attending meetings each week all over the world. Online business is surging, with an average of 1.8 million additional subscribers for the first 3 quarters of 2011. In the first 3 quarters of 2011 the online business showed gains of 70%. Estimates are for the online business to generate $400 million in revenues and $200 million in operating income in 2011. Today 65% of the business is in the U.S. and a large part of the rest is in Europe. Kirchhoff sees new opportunities in China, where poor lifestyles- the use of the internet instead of being outdoors, and the increased access to all kinds of food- is creating a surge in obesity.

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In another one of the unusual twists in the early days of the Trump presidency, Trump says president Obama ordered wiretapping of Trump Towers. Media analysts say this is an effort to deflect criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for meeting Russian officials during the election campaign. The FBI says this claim of wiretapping by Obama should be withdrawn. Obama refutes the allegation.

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U.S. president Trump will host NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg at the White House on April 12, 2017, as tensions between Russia and the U.S. increase following the U.S. missile strikes in Syria. White House officials say Trump is "100% committed to NATO." In May Trump will meet other heads of government at a NATO meeting in Brussels. 

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This years pension hike of 5.35% in Germany is being completely eaten up by the inflation of 5.1% leaving pensioners in the same situation as before after many years when no adjustments were made. The catchup factor for meeting cost of living changes and inflation was put on hold by chancellor Merkel in 2018, another way social goals were not met under Merkel while infrastructure and child care were also neglected. Only now under a SPD Greens coalition are these problems of falling standard of living being tackled.

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Modi's meeting with Pope Francis planned for half an hour lasts for an hour. Both leaders discussed climate change, inequality, upward mobility, and recovery from the coronavirus. Mr. Modi gave Pope Francis a silver candelabra and a book, The Climate Climb: India's strategy, action, and achievements. The Pope gave Mr. Modi a collection of his main teaching documents and a bronze medallion featuring a tree and the words in Italian "The desert will become a garden."  Modi invited Pope Francis to visit India.

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Mexico's foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard is to present a peace plan for Ukraine at the UN General Assembly. The proposal is for Pope Francis, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and prime minister Narendra Modi of India, to form a dialogue and peace committee. Mexico is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. Narendra Modi talked to Mr. Putin at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Council and is said to have told Putin that "this is no time for war."

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The Global Green Credit Initiative is launched by the UAE's Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed, with Narendra Modi of India, Ulf Kristersson of Sweden, Charles Michel of the European Union. Green Credits have huge potential to transform the landscape of climate change. Companies and individuals buy green credits to reduce their carbon footprint and corporations do so for meeting climate regulation.  Today as the adjoining WSJ article shows market is about $1 billion for carbon credits expected to grow to $250 billion by 2050.

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An audio recording of a July 21, 2021 meeting at a Trump golf club in Bedminster, NJ, where Trump and his aides met with people writing an autobiography of Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, is said to be the turning point that made prosecutors pursue an indictment in this WSJ report. In that recording Mr. Trump is heard showing them a document about a US plan to attack Iran. He did this to dispute a story in the New Yorker, says this report.

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The UK is drasticall falling behind in renewable energy and on its meeting its commitment to the Paris Accords after failure to act on the part of Tory prime minister Sunak. It will have to ramp up action under Labour. The Climate Change Committee annual report to parliament shows Sunak approved projects would only meet one third of the emissions cuts Britain promised to cut emissions by 68% by 2030. Labour has approved three giant solar farms. This will not be enough as a five fold increase in installations is needed for solar.

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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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"My economic plan is working and we are just getting started," says president Biden about the US economy as it registers growth of 2.4% in the second quarter. Inflation is cut to 3% from about 9% last year. Even US central bank Fed increases in rates by 5 percentage points since March 22 at consecutive bank meetings has not slowed down the US economy enough. Biden says there is nothing accidental about this. Biden pushed investment in the US. Business investment increased by 56% in the last quarter accounting for a third of the economic growth, much of it in infrastructure, in bridges and roads, in manufacturing plants. Biden administration has allocated $299 billion in infrastructure funding for projects, another $503 billion is done by private investment. And more is coming down the pipeline.

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Efforts are being made at the current Commonwealth meeting in London to revive the organization of nations that were part of the British Empire. In earlier years India had stayed away from the organization and it was becoming outdated. Prince Charles personally carried an invitation to prime minister Modi of India asking him to attend Commonwealth meeting in London in 2018. Britain is keen on reviving the organization following plans to exit the EU and set up trade deals with countries such as India.

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The decision reached at the OPEC meeting on June 5, 2015, was to maintain production at current levels of an official level of 30 million barrels a day. This official level now acts as an indicator, as actual production is estimated at 31 million barrels a day.

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Comments in the WSJ on the Trump - Putin meeting in Helsinki, and what the U.S. president should watch for in conversations and negotiations.  It says Mr. Putin's top priority is to shore up his prestige at home, to enhance his political standing. It says Mr. Trump is intent on showing the two countries can get along well but is skeptical of Mr. Putin's intentions on arms control and other issues. The efforts to increase the discord between the European Union and the U.S. are seen by the WSJ as Mr.Putin's effort to erode the will of the West to add to its capabilities. That any American president has to be wary of this effort especially in light of recent events.   From Mr. Putin's point of view the Russian economy is now in much better shape than when the "liberals" were running the country with a collapse of the Russian currency. The need to restore Russian prestige. That the expansion of the EUropean Union and NATO to the borders of Russia, and the situation in first Georgia and then Ukraine, required Russia to respond to protect its defense from foreign threats.This led to wars and intervention in Georgia and then Ukraine as part of Russian policy in response to advances of the West to its borders, and support of proxy governments in the Middle East. The response to economic sanctions was to turn to influence elections in the U.S. and Europe and the U.S. to soften sanctions. On the issue of sanctions this has not happened and the goal of Russia is to mitigate the effect of sanctions. ...

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OPEC's fears of decline in demand in 2007 from global slowdown. Efforts to stem price decline but no concerted action.

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Transcripts released for the U.S. Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) 2006 meetings show Fed chairman Bernanke and then New York Fed president Geithner ignored the risks of a hard landing from the mortgage and housing bubble. Geithner even went so far as to say about retiring chairman Greenspan, who also ignored the risks from the bubble and set the tone during his long period as chairman at the Fed: "I'd like the record to show that I think you're pretty terrific, too...And thinking about the probabilities, I think the risk that we decide in the future that you're even better than we think is higher than the alternative." In evaluating the risks facing the U.S. economy in December 2006, at the height of the bubble, Geithner stated: "The current weakness in the economy still seems principally to stem from the direct effects of the slowdown in housing on construction activity... The softer than expected recent numbers don't argue in our view, for a substantial reassessment of the risks in the outlook." The Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke, said at the first meeting in March 2006: " Strong fundamentals support a relatively soft landing in housing... I think we are unlikely to see growth being derailed by the housing market." When a Fed economist gave a presentation in March 2006 on the risks in Iceland, Bernanke said- "We'd like a full report on the Icelandic," at which point the rest of the group erupted with laughter. Iceland defaulted on its debts in 2008. Warnings about housing by Fed Governor Susan Bies were ignored by Bernanke and Geithner. Two highly leveraged Wall Street investment banks collapsed in 2008- Bear Stearns in March and Lehman in September- from the impact of the bursting of the bubble in housing and mortgages. When they collapsed these banks were leveraged at about 30 to 1, as most of the warning signs had been ignored by regulators including the Federal Reserve....

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See the adjoining report in DW.com that covers the planned meeting between Japanese PM Kishida and Kim of North Korea to reduce tensions in the region. Kishida is taking a proactive approach as the ideological positions have failed and talking directly to North Korea as Junichiro Koizumi had done in 2004 (with a visit to Pyongyang when Kim's father was president) is now the right course. It is now twenty years that this was not tried. Former president Trump met Kim of North Korea at the Demilitarized Zone DMZ near Seoul in 2019. Not much changed after that meeting. North Korea has increased missile testing with ICBM missiles and increased its nuclear missiles with improvement in technology since then. One aspect of the Reagan/Weinberger era policy was its sense that America would keep investing in defense and at some point everyone else would fall behind. This has not happened. After a slowdown in its economy in the early 1990's opportunities to build Russia relations were left to business interests and opportunities were lost. The memory of that period of Russia's economic collapse lingers and feeds a sense that somehow Russia was diminsished by waht happened after the abrupt collapse of the Russian position in Eastern Europe.  In fact the only nuclear missile tests conducted in this 21st century were conducted by North Korea.  ...

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During this pandemic people are rethinking their choices in work and career. Many are saying that what is important is finding purpose and joy in work. The working from home has exposed the barebones of work, eight hours alone without the meetings and the offices. Finding joy and a sense of satisfaction that comes from doing something useful have become more important than ever. One finds gratitude in having work that gives purpose and joy. BBC looks at the issues surrounding worklife choices today. More people in IT and in the finance industry are choosing to opt out for other careers. 

One of the persons interviewed in this report says it is important to consider whether the work brings new energy, new enthusiasm or is it drawing energy and leaving one feeling drained at the end of the day.

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During a meeting with British prime minister Boris Johnson, German chancellor Olaf Scholz says Germany will stop importing Russian oil by the end of this year and stop importing Russian gas very soon. Johnson said Germany will stop importing Russian gas by 2024, and that a lot of infrasgtructure had to be put in place. He called the German decision a big one and said that he applauded the German decision which was a seismic one to move away from Russian hydrocarbons. Scholz said this would be permanent and that Germany would be 100% on renewable energy in 20 years.

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The true story of the two German scientists, children of immigrants from Germany, who did the research behind the Pfizer vaccine for coronavirus. One the son of a guest worker from Turkey who worked at a car factory in Cologne, another the daughter of a doctor who finished medical school and immigrated to Germany. They started primarily on cancer vaccines using new mRNA technologies. Much of their work focused on meeting the gap that had developed says Ozlem Tureci, between what was done in the labs and what was available to patients and doctors. 

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Plans for the Quad countries to launch a new effort in the last quarter of 2021 to produce 1 billion vaccines in 2022 for adding to supplies in the Indo-Pacific region that includes Indonesia, Malaysia Thailand and Vietnam. Japan would provide the financing for the manufacture of vaccines in India using American technology and raw material supplies. Australia would help with delivery in the Indo-Pacific region. The foreign ministers of the Quad countries, US, Japan, Australia and India, will meet on June 29 in Matera, during a G-20 foreign ministers meeting in Italy. 

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Biden's visit to Israel brings Israel and Mr. Netanyahu closer to a two state solution of the Israeli Palestinian problem. Mr. Biden and Mr. Blinken attend a meeting of the cabinet of the Unity government in Israel that includes the Opposition leader Yair Lapid. Once the shooting stops this opens the way for a comprehensive solution to the Israeli Palestinian problem with all sides, including all sides inside Israel. Mr. Netanyahu is seen as having lost authority, and the confidence of Israelis. this could bring Israel to the centre, says Steve Erlanger, chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe of NYT.

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This letter in the New York Times questions the wisdom of the NYT report that Mr. Rosenstein suggested in 2017 Justice Department meetings the need for invoking the 25th Amendment for the removal of the U.S. president Trump. It says this would lead to departure of Mr. Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General and leaves the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in U.S. elections without support from the Justice Department. Mr. Rosenstein says today he does not see a need for the invoking of the 25th Amendment

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Jack Ma of Alibaba is a very different person in 2023. This WSJ report looks at his activities in 2022 which included a stay in Hakone, Japan, visits within Japan, visit to Netherlands, Fiji. His current interest is in food production and meeting the agricultural needs in China over the next 20 years. Most of the time he is anonymous and people in the vicinity have no idea that this is Jack Ma.

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In a meeting charged with emotion Theresa May says she will not run again as a way to get support from a pro-Brexit MP's faction in her party that includes Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees Moog. Some members of this faction support exiting the EU even if it means no-deal is reached on future relations between the EU and Britain including agreement on membership in the customs union.