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Soaring numbers of false negatives in coronavirus testing are risking the effectiveness of the British testing program say scientists and doctors. This has reached a high of 30%. The results of testing are skewed because the testing has to be done properly with the swab inserted deep into a person's throat and nose to the point of it being uncomfortable.

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Italy and France have implemented vaccine passes. The health pass in France has helped to reverse the trend of waning vaccinations. In the two weeks after the vaccine health pass was made mandatory in France for cafes, transport and restaurants, the vaccinations for second dose increased by 6 million and the vaccination for first dose increased by 5 million. In Italy vaccinations increased by 200%.

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The centre right coalition parties win the Italian election with 45% of the vote. Meloni's party The Brothers of Italy win 26% of the vote.  As in Sweden where a centre right party joined centrist parties to form a government immigration was an issue in the election. She campaigned for family friendly benefits, stopping immigration, and improving working families incomes.

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After two quarters of no growth the German economy contracted by 0.1% in the third quarter of 2023. The Constitutional Court ruled that German government's diverting $60 billion of unused pandemic funds to its climate and transformation fund was unconstitutional. If cuts are made in public spending as a result it could push Germany into a recession, says IMK Institute.

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Inflation is down in industrialized countries of Europe and in the US. Inflation has dropped from about 10% to about 3% in the US and Europe. In the Netherlands prices are lower than a year earlier. In the eurozone inflation dropped to 2.9% in October from 4.3% in September. In 2024 further decline in inflation is expected as retail sales slow or decline.

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The Judge in the classified documents case sets the trial date for a speedy trial that takes place not in December as requested by the prosecution but a few months later in May 2024. This means the American people can have all the full facts and information to make their decisions on the course for America to follow in the next 25 years.

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Support for Mandela's African National Congress, the ANC, has dropped as it fails to manage the economy for growth to meet aspirations of young people. Support dropped to below 40% and a majority for ANC in parliament is unlikely in the upcoming election. The pandemic hit South Africa hard and the weak economy, lack of growth, high unemployment, are serious problems.

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This Canadian opinion in the WSJ by Philip Cross of Statistics Canada, says Canada's opportunity to diversify its exports to places other than the US, especially for auto exports is essentially nil, and for oil exports because of a lack of pipelines will lead to losses of tens of billions of dollars.  He then goes on to say that Canada should wait for American buyers to suffer as car prices increase by $12,000. No such increase is likely. As pointed out by the UAW's Fain Shawn and others capacity utilization at US auto plants is low with only 60 to 65% capacity utlilization. Ford with 60% capacity utilization, has 568,000 cars in inventory 8% higher than 2024, and make 80% of its cars entirely in the US. Ford is actually cutting prices of its cars as of April 2025 under it's "From America For America Program." Ford and GM could replace German and other cars as Americans shift to buying American. Hyundai and Kia are already shifting production to the US. South Korean and Japanese leaders will support the US as it is the right thing to do. This Canadian opinion does not acknowledge that the US is simply creating a level playing field, a point USTR Jamieson and DJT repeatedly make, and the Japanese, South Koreans, and even the Chinese understand. These countries were given the benefit they received for three decades through the absolute generous attitude of the American people.   ...

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David Segal takes a detailed look inside Apple's retail stores in the U.S. and talks with employees at different stores to find out what its like working as an hourly employee at an Apple store. World wide Apple's 327 global stores sold $16 billion in Apple products. Per employee the sales are about $473,000, but at an hourly rate of about $12 the average employee makes about $25,000 per year. After recent wage raises this could be up to about $36,000. The National Retail Federation says electronics stores have about an average of $206,000 in sales per employee. Contrary to what most people may think most of Apple's employees are not engineers and other professionals, about 30,000 of the 43,000 Apple employees in the U.S. work as hourly employees in the retail stores. Most are young people in the early 20's, single, with health insurance provided by Apple not costing as much for that age group. There is no career path and most leave after a couple of years. Because of the Apple mystique and the drive to create new user friendly products there are many young people looking for this kind of temporary work, especially now with high unemployment. ...

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Two of three obese people live in developing countries. About 29% of the global population is obese in 2013, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Between 1980 and 2013, obesity increased by 47% for kids and 27% for adults in the global population. Dr Murray of IHME says no country was the exception. Diet and inactivity are the principal culprits. About 37% of world's men and 38% of women are obese. Obesity increased rapidly first in developed countries, becoming noticeable by 1980 and slowing since 2006, and now is growing fast in developing countries. Germany is a surprise No. 8 on the list. The U.S. No. 1 ranking tells a lot about the misguided priorities of living in the U.S., lack of education on healthy eating and healthy living, and not putting healthy habits at the top of things to do above making more money. An extreme case is South Africa where 42% of women are obese. The most obese countries are by rank - U.S., China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan, Indonesia. Middle Eastern and North African countries have high obesity rates for children. The study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation....

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For every 10 yen change in the exchange rate, profits of exporters are likely to increase by 7-10%, according to Goldman Sachs. This includes companies such as Toyota, Sharp, Panasonic, Sony and Asahi Group Holdings.

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The Fed's own files, data from 21,000 Fed transactions over 2007-2010, are revealed in a kind of Wikileaks release. The data is available because of a transparency provision in the Dodd-Frank bill introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. This editorial in the Wall Street Journal shows that banks on Wall Street received much more help than advertised. Goldman Sachs is shown to have used the Primary Dealer Credit Facility 212 times for an amount of nearly $600 billion. Morgan Stanley is shown to have used the overnight Fed lending program 212 times from March 2008 to March 2009. The Wall Street Journal editorial concludes that this makes it impossible for someone to argue that either bank would have survived the financial storm without the Fed's help. The same is true for General Electric. GE tapped the Fed's Commercial Paper Funding Facility 12 times for more than $15 billion And with the help of the FDIC's debt guarantee program GE sold $60 billion of government guaranteed debt. GE and Citicorp are shown to be the heaviest users of that program from November 2008 to Juy 2009. The overwhelming lesson, says this editorial, is to ensure that there is no repeat of this kind of situation. And the new Congress needs to tighten the too-big-to-fail criteria....

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The IMF, ECB, and the EU, are requiring Greece to make cuts to private sector salaries by a reported 25% to bring Greece's wages more in line with a country like Portugal, because of the lower productivity of Greek workers and a way to make Greek goods more competitive. This is one way to accomplish what a devaluation of the drachma would have done when Greece was outside the eurozone. Greece's minimum wage is about $1000 a month- officials from the troika want to see this go down about $750 a month. The difficulty is that consumer prices are higher in Greece, with gasoline at $8 a gallon and other prices higher due to cartels that control the distribution of consumer goods in Greece. Other austerity measures required by the troika as a condition for further aid to Greece are pension cuts and higher taxes on businesses. Labor unions and business leaders pointed out other factors affecting Greece's competitiveness in a letter to prime minister Papademos as they opposed drastic wage cuts- the letter said " competitiveness is affected more by factors like bureaucracy- which is fed by complex regulation, state intervention, the tax system, corruption and antibusiness mentality rather than wage costs."...

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78 year old president Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan steps down after 30 years in power. Presidential elections will be held with a caretaker who is Senate president in charge till then. He juggled the competing interests of China and Russia to attract investment in the energy industry. China has invested $30 billion in the country as a link in the Belt and Road Initiative in infrastructure, mining and financial sectors.  Russia is the largest trading partner. Since 2002 GDP per capita has increased six times according to the World Bank.

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After the Phase 1 trade deal with China led to cancellation of new tariffs on computers, mobile phones and the remaining products imported from China, tariffs are still in place on $370 billion of imports from China. President Trump says China agreed to import $32 billion of agricultural goods, with the figures reaching $50 billion in 2020. The prior high was $26 billion in 2012. This comes as a big relief for the agricultural farm sector which had 24% more bankruptcies in 2019. Farmers are now more likely to vote for president Trump as they did in the last election. In addition China agreed to buy $200 billion more of American goods over the next 2 years. This combined with the USMCA agreement to replace NAFTA, for North American trade, is good news for president Trump and for the U.S. economy for 2% annual growth. The S&P stock index went up by 29% in 2019. The big concession by China is its agreement to agree to penalties if it does not keep up its part of the bargain.  Intellectual property protection remains a challenge and Mr. Trump may have decided to take a tactical success and shore up his base of farmers and small business people before taking up these issues in the future. China for its part may have decided to make a tactical move of its own as it has nothing to lose in importing more farm products from the U.S. in exchange for being able to continue to make the computers, iPhones and tech products it manufactures, just like before. China has not conceded much in terms of its goals set  in "Made in China 2025." Both sides are taking a much needed pause to consolidate their positions, as the fundamental differences remain to be tackled. Huawei and Chinese technology issue remains as before with the U.S. wary of China's technological gains in 5G telecom equipment and keen on building and protecting America's technological advantage in future trade relations. ...

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Millions of people who are first time users for whom affordability is an issue in countries from Nigeria, Ivory Coast to India, Indonesia, are connecting to the internet. This time not with smartphones made by Samsung or cheaper Chinese smartphones made by Xiaomi or Huawei, but by using a new smart feature phone that cuts down the price such as the Jio phone by Reliance Jio in India. This costs only about $25 compared to $100 to about $300 for lower cost smartphones These phones provide basic features, some apps, messaging, internet access at low cost. About 3.4 billion people without the money to buy costlier smartphones are turning to this just like people did 20 years ago with lowcost Nokia basic phones until smartphones appeared. Monthly cost for mobile data access to internet is $2.50 a month for all the mobile data he needs or Rs. 1750. Batteries last for days in countries where electricity is unreliable. A fruit vendor in New Delhi makes $80 a month or  Rs 5600. A Jio phone fo him costs Rs 1400 compared to paying Rs 7000 or $100 for a Chinese smartphone. Reliance partnered with Hong Kong's KaiOS Technologies Inc. which makes the most widely used operating system powering smart feature phones. Jio sold 60 million Jio phones and 370 million such smart feature basic phones are forecast to be sold in 3 years by 2022. Reliance Jio is being imitated by others. Orange SA of France has launched an inexpensive smart feature phone bundled with inexpensive mobile data plans in Ivory Coast, Burkina Fso and Cameroon and plans to put this in other former French colonies in Africa and Arab countries. WizPhone plans to introduce a $7 phone in Indonesia. KaiOS is working with Brazilian manufacturers to roll out cheap phones there.  In advanced countries Nokia is offering revamped versions of its candy bar shaped phones with added web access to enthusiasts. These cost $100. A whole new group of people who could not afford a smart phone are now being connected after Jio's pioneering effort in India. ...

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Gerald Seib of the WSJ describes the huge wave of young supporters who helped Labor party leader Corbyn in Britain's 2017 general election. He cites an analysis by the Financial Times that shows young people backed Labor over the Conservatives by 51 points more than the national average. People over age 65 backed Conservatives by 32 points more than the national average. This points to a staggering age gap of 83 points, said the Financial Times. Young people failed to turn out in large numbers during the Brexit vote, and this was a large factor in the pro Brexit win. One exit poll shows turnout went up by 12% in 2017 compared to the 2015 parliamentary election. Only 26% of voters in a WSJ/NBC poll for ages 18-34 years say they approve of U.S. president Trump's performance, 64% disapprove. Seib says the movement of Corbyn is similar to the Bernie Sanders movement in the U.S. and has implications for a similar surge of support showing up in the U.S.

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Adam Schiff Senator from California interview in Senate Office Feb 2026 Wash. Post- a Democrat joins the Agriculture Committee and attends farm bureau meetings. Adam Schiff talks about his role in Congress as a Democrat in Feb 2026 to deliver for the people of California for the 3 more years of the DJT administration. As Senator he sees himself as representing 40 million people of Califonria as opposed to the 800,000 people in his congressional district in the Los Angeles area. In that sense he has to take into account that DJT turned up a significant vote in California, exceeded only by Texas and Florida in 2024. He sounds ambivalent about his earlier positions opposing the president and the president's rhetoric. He has to work with administration offficals if he is to deliver on projects that help Californians. This is a position taken by Kathy Hochul governor of New York state, and by Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, both Democrats. Projects include saving a couple of rural hospitals and seeing to it that Department of Agriculture offices remain open in remote parts of California. He has sought out an assignment on the Senate Agriculture Committee. He now realizes that the Democrats have not done enough for Californians or for America, and had not looked for new ways to tackle tough problems-  working people voted for DJT he says “because they were struggling. They were working harder than ever. And they could barely get by. And the Democratic Party had come to be viewed as the party of a status quo. They found the status quo was deeply unsatisfactory.”  Like Ruben Gallego in Arizona there is a sense that a lot has to change in the Democratic party down to grassroots work and efforts which is why Schiff now attends farm bureau meetings up and down the state. ...

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In a Fox News Interview with Sean Hannity Venezuela's Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says her stand-in Edmundo Gonzalez won by 70% of the vote in the 2024 election. In 2026 she says she would get 90% of the vote. She tells Hannity:  "I do want to say today, on behalf of the Venezuelan people, how grateful we are for his courageous mission.” She wants to share the Nobel Peace Prize with DJT.   Secretary of State Marco Rubio, points out that one reason the US is working through the interim leadership is that most of the Opposition has left Venezuela. DJT has said "it would be very tough" for Machado to become the leader of Venezuela because of the military, gangs and other militias that Chavez and Maduro have created that would disrupt the country's transition. DJT's view is that “We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote...No, it’s going to take a period of time. We have — we have to nurse the country back to health." The key is maintaining the county's stability after Maduro and this is what the US president intends to do first. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pointed to this, that most of the Opposition is now outside Venezuela, sadly. Rubio told NBC Meet the Press - “We are dealing with the immediate reality. The immediate reality is that, unfortunately and sadly, but unfortunately the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela. We have short-term things that have to be addressed right away.”  For getting the right result to restore Venezuela and the US to carry out the Monroe Doctrine in the best possible way- the US is taking each step carefully to achieve good results well into the future. ...

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Najib Razak of the UMNO United Malay National Organization who succeeded post independence leader Mahathir Mohamed of Malaysia is implicated in the1MDB scandal that also involved Goldman Sachs. $4.3 billion is estimated to be stolen from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. Razak is given a15 year jail sentence in a scandal that has rocked Malaysian politics and reduced confidence in Malaysia's investment for modernization. irreparable harm is done to the nation's British inherited institutions for law and order, responsible parliamentary government, following the long premiership of Mahathir, ethnic nationalist "putra" movement of the UMNO, and the governments that followed Mahathir including Razak. Similar problems have affected other countries with ethnic nationalist movements in Sri Lanka where corruption and mismanagement of the state finances and treasury led to lack of funds for essential imports, and in other countries in Asia. Corrupt practices and misuse of state funds intended for development became a feature of government in Indian states following the rule of the Indian Congress party under Jawaharlal Nehru, with ethnic nationalism creating ethnic states in India, and causing irreparable harm to development and modernization with lack of capital and policy decisions. This has led to the lag of modernization in India with China of about 10-15 years that also affects defense at the Himalayan border with China as China's hybrid state capitalist economy surpassed India and matched the US in 2 decades 2000-2025. Only now is India under responsible governance pushing to close the gap and modernize rapidly under a new government in it's third term. Much of the thinking that accompanied post independence decolonization is now under question with it's assumptions that decolonization alone would lead to development is debunked. Modernization as China and India has learned comes from the good and responsible use of abundant capital, abundant labor, and abundant management resources, abundant technological access, good policy and plans at the federal and state levels, and good sustained leadership from the top. ...

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New York City faces a $2 billion deficit in current fiscal year in 2026 and $10 billion the following year. This means there is less funding for new Mayor Mamdani's programs for groceries/transport for New Yorkers. Mamdani was elected by people in the hope that he could find ways for struggling New Yorkers to handle the cost of living crisis in 2026. New programs Mamdani promised were free bus service with costs annually (cost 0.8 billion), new rent stabilized units (annual cost $7 billion),  universal child care (annual cost $ 6 billion). A state corporate tax hike could generate $5 billion and a millionaires tax $4 billion, not enough for $13.8 billion cost for these services. The other problem is the way the city has handled its finances- this report shows declining projections for expenditures under former mayor Adams for public assistance, rental assistance, and MTA subsidies items which one would expect to go up in a large city the size of New York with new immigrants.The report says the shortfalls were met by using funds meant for the next year. Already Mamdani is not able to expand the state voucher program for residents facing eviction because of these budget constraints. This is the pattern in New York of making new promises not funded on the revenue side. Mamdani promised smaller class sizes but did not show where the funding for extra teachers would come from. For New Yorkers this adds a bit of realism to the idea that a new Mayor and new promises is the answer to its problems. Only about two thirds of its budget comes from its revenues the rest from federal and state funding which means an overall solution firing on all fronts, with federal and local cooperation, private investment, good governance, foreign investment, is needed to tackle the problems of major cities like New York. ...

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In remarks published in English on the Bundesbank website, Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank president and member of the ECB governing council said: "The ECB should be aware of its independence. This also requires it to respect, and not to overstep its own mandate." This is seen as a pushback by the Bundesbank to ECB president Draghi's comments on July 23, 2012, about doing all that is necessary to keep the eurozone together. Weidmann referring to the situation in France recollecting his days as a student in France in 1987, said there were "two different worldviews colliding." And that this situation prevailed in all political debates right up to the present day. He says about deflationary tendencies -"If these countries go through adjustment processes which result in decreases in wages and prices, then this constitutes one-off shifts in the wage and price structure and not deflation."

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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." ...