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Tsutsui Yoshinobu, head of Keidanren, Japan's business federation, says China limiting exports of vital raw materials is "an obvious act of economic coercion." For the first time in 2025 Keidanren cancelled its annual dialogue meeting with China's representatives.  This was a followup to comments by Japanese PM Sanae that it would consider an attack on Taiwan as a danger to Japan's security. Sanae now enjoys 62% popularity rating. After 2 years of the LDp government with aminority in parliament she has announced a snap election to gain an abasolute majority in parliament. In the last elections small nationalist parties gained a large share of votes. Changes are happening in Japanese politics as a younger generation becomes more nationalistic. Sanae was made PM only recently at the end of 2025 after the PM in the LDP party faced criticism and resigned. Before he resigned he quickly signed a trade agreement with the US DJT administration to maintain Japanese exports to US at a 15% tariff. ...

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In a sign of the severity of climate change impact in China 86 cities in southern and eastern China are shown to have heat alerts as of July 12. Temperatures over 40 degrees were only recorded for 15 days since 1873 in Shanghai says this report in The Guardian. Shanghai expects hot weather of 40 degrees. Cities Nanjing, Wuhan and Chongqing are experiencing extreme weather.

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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Yukiya Amano, answers questions in a closed door 90 minute meeting with the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The IAEA chief says he cannot disclose details of his investigation into Iran's earlier weapons activities, or the agency's agreement with Iran for the inspection of nuclear facilities. Senator Corker who heads the committee said most senators left the meeting with greater concerns about the inspection process. The IAEA chief cited as reasons for the secrecy, independence of the agency, and what he called "a legal obligation" to protect confidential information. Senator Barroso described the process as one in which an NFL player or athlete is asked to mail in his own urine sample. Of particular concern to senators is the Parchin site where testing ocurred in the early 2000's, which Amano has said Iran is trying to sanitize, and which is not part of this agreement. Iran has not agreed to IAEA requests to interview a Iranian scientist Mr. Fakhrizadeh or other top Iranian military officers and nuclear scientists as part of its probe into past Iranian nuclear activities, Yukiya Amano told the WSJ in an intervew. ...

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Peggy Noonan, quotes from "Hiroshima," by John Hersey, written one year after the disaster from the dropping of the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in Japan. About 100,000 people died instantly, and another 100,000 lay sick or dying in the first moments of the bomb's explosion- as a sheet of light like the sun cut across the sky in an instant. She rightly points out that it is 70 years since the bomb was dropped, and people in a new generation no longer remember the bomb and what happened. That earlier generation struggled with the thought of the bombing for decades. Now it is only a faint memory, and Noonan does a great and profound service by reminding readers of what happened, and why they should care. In the chaotic situation of the Middle East the risks of the bomb and nuclear proliferation are a serious issue that is not getting the attention it needs. Everything stops. Life sinks into the earth. It can happen.

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Putin says in "Direct Line" marathon of questions on December 19, 2025 in a Moscow Hall that the western nations in NATO played dirty tricks on Russia with expanding NATO westwards after promises they would not expand an inch.

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The second time around European leaders are more adept at handling a new DJT administration in the US. Scholz meets with Orban in Budapest. All European leaders meet in Budapest to assert a combined approach to Ukraine, to the US tariffs plans. European Union leaders feel confident they can come up with solutions acceptable to Europe, and assert Europe's interests without being dependent on the US.

Even the collapse of the Scholz German coalition government with the FDP party and Lindner defecting is taken in stride by saying that a new coalition will take its place. The loss of the FDP is not seen as critical as it is down to less than 4% in popular support in Germany. Orban and Hungary are also brought into the discussion to present a united Europe.

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Its called the most one side win in Champion League's history, the win of PSG Paris over Inter Milan May 31, 2025.

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Honda takes its first loss since 1957 with a$15.7 billion loss on closing operations of electric vehicle manufacturing in the US. This is similar to losses taken by Ford, GM and Stellantis. Honda says in its statement that “In the U.S., the expansion of the E.V. market has slowed down due to several factors, including the easing of fossil fuel regulations and revisions to E.V. incentives.” It talks about reduced profitability after tariffs- "The extremely challenging earnings is compounded by a decline in the profitability of gasoline and hybrid models due to the impact of newly imposed tariffs.”

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What is the Pirates party in European Union countries? It started as a party of tech savy young people about 15 years ago who were fed up with the mainstream parties. For the first time Pirates and Mayors party in Czech Republic will form a coalition government in 2021. Ivan Bartos head of the Pirates party says the party is "a new wind, no oligarch or big sponsors and completely transparent." It is in a way a party like the Greens, away from established parties, with younger people who are tech savy and want openness in society. In the Czech election the party was able in alliance with other centrist parties to defeat a scandal ridden minority government of billionaire Babis that opposed EU climate change policies.

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Vast majority of DJT supporters 88% (down from 95%), approve of the president DJT's overall performance. On tariffs and Big Beautiful Bill. Democrats vastly disapproving, the messaging on cuts to Medicaid even though it's funding had grown close to $1 trillion ($909 billion in 2024), the uncertainty on tariffs even though the $1 trillion China trade surplus needed serious corrective action, federal government job cuts, leads to much larger proportions of Democrats opposing than Republicans supporting leading to about 60% unfavorable overall on tariffs and Big Beautiful Bill. Such unpopular action is sometimes the role of government like the action to rebuild the trading system and bring restraint to runaway spending on benefits, and can be overcome with a strong economy and capital investment for growth in future years. Another problem for the DJT administration is in the messaging to get the message across when some of the president's actions can be inconsistent or appear inconsistent. Add to this the distractions such as international diplomacy on Ukraine that take the president's time. Yet changes were needed in the international trading system and tough action is sometimes necessary when most countries and groupings, China EU, Canada, Mexico, can game the system their benefit to the detriment of the American people and jobs/communities at home. On the Big Beautiful Bill at the rate of growth in funding for Medicaid to $909 billion in 2024 from $2 billion at its inception under LBJ in the 1960's some restraint on spending would ultimately keep such help flowing where it is needed over the long haul. ...

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After reading this editorial in the WSJ about the origins of the coronavirus, readers will have more questions about EcoHealth Alliance nonprofit which sent $3.4 million to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for  research with potential for risky consequences to world public health if something went wrong.  What is gain of function research and what purpose is served in making virus more infectious and contagious such that the National Institutes of Health would send funding overseas for such research are questions that readers may have. Were all the risks considered for such research overseas. The editorial says the US Congress is not showing interest in the origins and the US president Biden has to take up this- some readers might have a question what would make the US Congress not interested in this when coronavirus has affected the US, India, Brazil, Europe, and the poorest countries on earth in unimaginable ways. Can such important matters as world public health fall under the authority of one person, such as Dr. Fauci and other health officials from one country or two countries, when other countries such as India, Brazil, UK, France, Italy, Germany, EU countries, are gravely affected. Global public health has suffered badly and billions of people around the world, in the poorest countries as well as the people in US and Europe have suffered unimaginably in 2020 and 2021 as a consequence of poor decisions. Much needs to be done to get the people themselves informed about public health and how it can be shaped in the future. ...

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The BBC cites Mr. Trump's comments on Sean Hannity Show that Attorney General Barr made up his mind "right on the spot" after receiving the Mueller Report before even going into the Report's findings. It says this confirms that Mr. Barr had already made up his mind as stated in an unsolicited June 2018 memo to the Justice Department about presidential immunity from obstruction charges, a reason Mr. Trump chose Barr.

Mr. Mueller did not make a traditional "prosecutorial judgement" because he left it up to Congress as it was not the role of the Justice Department under which Mr. Mueller operated. At issue is also the 34 pages "redacted" by Mr. Barr from the Mueller Report, and Congress will want to see the full Report and all the evidence on obstruction before making up its own mind, says the BBC.

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New Harvard Medical School studies showing importance of lithium in the brain to prevent Alzheimer amyloid plaques and tau tangles, shown in this report of Washington Post by Mark Johnson. The studies at Harvrd Medical School will appear in Journal Nature. A 2017 study in Denmark showed presence of lithium in drinking water lowering dementia. The studies done on mice have to be now tested on humans. The brain uses only very small amounts of lithium to maintain the good functioning and prevent plaques and help neurons to communicate and talk with one another. Lithium helps form the myelin that coats and insulates the communication lines and helps microligial cells clear cellular debris.

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The effect of farm protests on India Canada relations after Mr. Trudeau's remarks as he faces a possible snap election in 2021. About half of Canada's Indian immigrants of 1.6 million people are from the Punjab.

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German Defense Minister Pistorius visit to Kviv comes as Russia plans an offensive in Ukraine with newly mobilized additions to its armed forces.

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This article in The Guardian on the lifting of the ban on a kind of risky research on virus in labs that involves increasing the power of pathogenic virus, first appeared on March 9, 2016. It is called gain of function research. The ban was lifted in 2018. It shows how fiercely this decision was opposed in the scientific community, even as some virologists and bureaucrats went ahead. An agency National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, going by the acronym NSABB would make the recommendations to National Institutes of Health or NIH agency, and the Health Ministry in the US called the HHS.