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Media headlines focused on Xi's statements on Taiwan. China is concerned that US not recognize Taiwan independence, but not much beyond that. China puts Iran much lower on the list of issues it considers important. It appears that China first priority is to be accepted as an equal partner with the US as a superpower. That is Xi's goal in this trip. Issues of Hormuz and Iran not something China considers important. China has an interest in a non-nuclear Iran, in no nuclear weapons proliferation. As the US has made this a priority China prefers to be not vocal on this issue, as it relies on the US to see this is done. A secondary priority for China is to have the US agree that China could continue to import from the Hormuz Straits to met its oil needs. As China has relations with Arab states it is carefully balancing this with relations with Iran. What does this mean? It means China and US are in considerable agreement on the current situation in the Gulf region and in the Middle East. China sees beyond Iran, so does the US. Both countries are focused on the future - on reindustrialization in the US and China on the next phase in its industrialization. New countries and blocs are also emerging that will rival China and the US- India/Japan and the European Union under leadership of Germany and France. These four countries or blocs are all thinking of the world beyond a failed Middle East- the economic issues they face and how best to tackle them, and the issues relating to borders and security, how best to tackle them. ...

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France sees 2500 new cases in a new high since May on August 11 as cases surge in Europe. Of 600,000 new tests about 11,600 were positive.

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The problem facing Africa is whether vaccine supplies will run out before new vaccine supplies come from America, Britain and France. Only less than 1% of African people have been fully vaccinated out of a population of 1.3 billion people. US president Biden said America will provide 500 million doses of Pfizer vaccine to poor nations before the G-7 meeting in Cornwall, UK. Britain added 100 million and France 30 million doses. With new more transmissable variants out there Africa is in considerable danger today. The Delta variant from India has been shown to be about 70% more contagious than the Alpha variant from Kent UK. It is already the dominant variant for new cases in the UK. The new variants are now spreading in Africa. Cities such as Johannesburg, South Africa, and Kampala, Uganda are seeing a surge in cases. Another problem in Africa is that governments are increasingly reluctant to impose strong lockdowns because of the economy. Already it is believed that Africa's middle class has been severely affected during the last 18 months. ...

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The 2.2 billion Swiss franc plan of pharmaceutical company Novartis to remake its production facility site in northern Basel near the Rhine river, with new buildings designed by famous architects. 14 new buildings with different architectural designs are part of the complex that is being built. This is giving new life to the area in St Johann, bringing in boutiques, showrooms and Art Basel. It is connected to France and Germany by a new tram line and a new Swiss underground highway.

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A country smaller than the US state of Connecticut will host the first World Cup Soccer games in the Arab world from November 21 to December 18. England will play US , the day after Thanksgiving.

Group A  Netherlands with Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal

Group B   England with Iran, US, Wales or Scotland/Ukraine

Group C.  Argentina with Saudi, Mexico, Poland

Group D   France with Peru, Australia/United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Tunisia

Group E  Spain, Germany, Japan with Costa Rica or New Zealand

Group F  Belgium with Canada, Morocco, Croatia

Group G.  Brazil with Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon

Group H   Portugal with Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea 

Defending champion France has it better in its group. 

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A sign of the changing policies in Europe as it reflects on too loose immigration policies that leave locals left out to bring in foreigners, France's Macron plans to establish a system of quotas for immigrant workers. A singular complaint in France's rural areas and in East Germany is that the locals feel left out as the governments focus on accomodating immigrants. Europe's post war immigrant policy was designed for Europeans and integration along the ideals of post-war Europe so policies will revert to these original principles. In doing this there is also the strategy of blocking further losses to right wing parties of parties that have called themselves centre right or centre left but inadvertently drifted away from original principles guiding postwar European reconstruction and shifted towards a tech elitist view of the world.

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The NFP Front populaire alliance of socialist parties wins the most seats 200+ in early projections in the National Assembly in France. Macron's Ensemble party comes in second with about 150 seats, and the RN National Rally third with about 130 seats. This is the most closely watched election in European Union in decades. Voter turnout was 67% up from 48% in the last election. Only the Front Populaire called for investment in the French economy- not the Macron Ensemble or the Le Pen RN party- and taking serious cost of living action for gas prices, food prices, transport prices, for the struggling lower and middle classes in France. With corporations and the super rich paying their fair share- also a modest share- investment of $140 billion is planned for infrastructure, manufacturing, jobs and wages, climate change action in the French Nation.

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France's Paris St Gemain team wins by scoring 2 goals in the last 10 minutes of the game over a team from Bergamo, Italy that scored early, to reach the semi finals of the Champions League. The unlikely scorer is a player Choupo-Moting from France/Cameroon who played well for Mainz in the Bundesliga years ago under the new PSG coach Thomas Tuchel but has not played well for a long time. Tuchel also has that history of disciplined and patient work that brought results in coaching Mainz, then Dortmund and now PSG. He was only 25 years when an injury led to him having to retire as a player. Five years later at 30 he emerged doing youth coaching for soccer teams leading to the coaching work at Mainz.

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During the grueling days of cycling in the high altitude of the Alps region cyclists are mostly close almost shoulder to shoulder they can hear the breathing. Each cyclist senses the other and this is how they decide when to make a break for it and pedal harder. Sensing an opportunity to break away. Geraint Thomas does this in this stage of the Tour de France in the Alps mountains. Other riders are Julian Alaiphillipe of France, Quintana of Colombia who trains in the Andes, and Nibali of Italy. Five riders are within two minutes of each other in this high stakes game on the road.

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Sofia Diego from the Southern European region of Spain and Portugal, says the idea of a multi-speed European Union as put forward by some in Brussels, including Jean-Claude Juncker, is not the answer- because at some point it makes the whole exercize of a united Europe futile with some countries choosing to ignore the very ideal of European unity. In fact she says we have come too far in that direction and it is necessary to pause and reflect what this means. France's leading presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has called for a closer union as a better solution to eurozone financial stability with a tighter union. German public opinion and other opinion in the EU does not favor more concessions following Brexit. This opinion from a Southern European country shows how young people especially have developed a new attitude and feeling of togetherness as the European generation. Young people from all parts of Europe have a changed attitude compared to previous generation, and this is a valuable experience that needs to be nurtured with closer interaction to take the EU experiment to the next stage. ...

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The political situation is evolving in France as the En Marche movement that Mr. Macron founded loses its majority in parliament. Seven members earlier left to join a centre right party Agir. Seven members last week started a new centre left party called Ecology.

The pandemic has resulted in a new political environment with a shift back to popularity of France's traditional state directed model with careful attention to infrastructure, health and public services to improve the quality of life. En Marche is shifting in this direction. Recent political shift to the centre right Republicans in Lyon has left En Marche without a significant presence in France's second largest city where it was founded.

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This is huge- for Germany, for France, and for the European Union. After initial hesitation and a decade of not looking ahead, Germany under Angela Merkel is finally not just looking ahead to its vision for Germany but doing this as a part of the larger European community. And the European Central Bank after its initial lack of community spirit, is paving the way with its own actions for the Europe wide recovery with a significant increase in lending to EU countries.  Germany's finance ministry has agreed to spend 130 billion euros on more than 50 initiatives to promote growth in Germany. No longer is the government looking at the car industry as it did in the past. It is looking beyond to what Merkel calls the "profound upheaval" coming from climate change and digitisation. For Merkel after the changes caused by the pandemic something more had to be done- "We just could'nt introduce a traditional stimulus package. It had to be done with an eye to the future, so that is what we especially emphasized."  This also brings together France's Macron and Germany's Merkel in a combined effort to bring Europe up to face the future with confidence. It is amazing how the pandemic has changed minds in Europe. From the long drawn out period since 2008 when traditional policy ideas and austerity thinking prevailed, to the idea today that this is no way to face the future with confidence for Europe to be back on its own feet, for hope to return. Instead of partnering in austerity with the Dutch and the Swedes, the finance ministry is now looking to France, Italy and Spain, considering the common pain of the core European countries during the pandemic and looking to the future.  Merkel moved to circumvent the traditional Bundestag's refusal to permit debt sharing  across the euro area by producing 500 billion euros of grants for hard hit businesses across the European Union. As Macron says it was a necessary  step- " What is sure is that this 500 billion euros will not be repaid by the beneficiaries.... We are proposing to do real transfers (of money) ... that's a major step." Forecasts from Capital Economics and other forecasters show the European Union's major economies of France, Italy and Germany rebounding quickly in 2021 after the blow in 2020, in a V shaped recovery with growth of close to 6% in France, and higher in Italy because of the bigger hit taken there than Germany. The strong U.S. jobs report with addition of 2.5 million jobs for May shows that the rebound can be sharp upward swing if the policy, will and community spirit is summoned up by leaders and people, no matter what happened in the past decade. It is also based on having the right spirit that knows about investing where it really counts for the people - in infrastructure, health, public services, and avoiding the misallocation of resources and spending that happened before. ...

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Pakistan follows other countries by making vaccination mandatory for all public sector workers. Pakistan also requires vaccination to go to airports. France and some other countries in Europe have taken this action to prevent spread of the Delta variant.

According to the US Census Bureau 3.6 million Americans say they face eviction in 2 months as the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to end suspension of evictions July 31, 2021.

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With 686 million doses of vaccine given to people over age 18 India has now given more vaccine doses to people than all the G7 nations combined- this includes US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan. About 7 million doses were given on a recent day in the first week of September 2021. About half of the population of 1.2 billion people is vaccinated with one dose and 17% are fully vaccinated.

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Global Foundries based in New York and STMicroelectronics based in Switzerland are teaming up to invest $5.7 billion for a semiconductor factory in Crolles, in southeastern France. The French government will provide additional funding and support for a new home based technology supply chain. The plant will create 1000 jobs.

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The Swiss form of government with a permanent Unity government and one that steers to the moderate and centre is shown here in France 24 report. The recent elections showed immigration an important issue. Yet climate change has not receded as an issue after progress in passing a climate bill.

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Europe is importing natural gas for heating homes and industry like never before as it shifts imports from Russia to the US, says this report in WSJ. Shown here is the import of LNG from tankers at the LNG terminal in Cherniere, France. Between 2021 and 2022 imports of US LNG to Europe more than doubled. The WSJ shows how drilling for gas takes place in Texas and Louisiana. That gas finds its way through pipelines to places where it is converted into LNG by freezing and transported by tankers across the high seas to European LNG terminals like Cherniere in France. The shale gas comes from the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico and a basin in Texas and Louisiana. Technological advances enable drilling 2 miles vertically and then two miles horizontally to reach into shale rock containing gas. Impurities are taken out to get gas that can be sent through pipelines to liquefied natural gas storage locations on the Gulf coast of America. Tankers take the LNG to LNG terminals in Europe that distribute the gas to homes. ...

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This leader in The Economist magazine says a hard Brexit of the sort announced by Theresa May at a Conservative Party conference is clearly bad for Britain. It also point out that half of British people voted to remain. It is not clear that voters have voted for a hard Brexit, a soft Brexit, or voter alienation with elites and effects of years of austerity since the financial crisis have helped tilt the vote to Brexit. It points out that the rhetoric may be damaging Britain's chance of negotiating a Brexit that limits damage to GDP, which the Treasury estimates to be nearly twice the loss in GDP if a member of a single market as compared to leaving it. British government leaders may be overestimating the willingness of leaders of France, Germany and other countries to make concessions. By talking up to their party base politicians such as May may be putting German and French leaders to also toughen their positions on free movement as an integral principle of the European Union, and consequently of membership in a single market. ...

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France goes to the polls on April 10. Marie Le Pen is shrinking Mr. Macron's lead in the polls. Most of the other candidates other than Mr. Melenchon show less than 10% support from voters including Valerie Pecresse of the Republicans who have failed to arouse much enthusiasm The Republicans and the Socialist party of Mr. Mitterand and Mr. Hollande were defeated in the last presidential election by Mr. Macron. Today the choice is between Le Pen with her inexperience and her policies skeptical of the European Union and Mr. Macron who is more experienced but lacking an effective social policy in addressing the social problems in France raised by the yellow vist protesters. Immigration is an issue in this campaign and Mr. Macron has taken a tougher stand on immigration and cultural issues following several terrorist incidents. There is a general lack of enthusiasm with 25% of the voters not expected to vote, many of them 25-34 years old. With 37% of the voters not decided which way they will vote and some votes cast even if the candidate selected was seen as having some drawbacks, the elections in France are a vivid contrast to the recent election in Germany with the Greens and Social Democrats ending the CDU's four terms leading the government under Merkel. Mr. Macron only campaigned in the last 8 days before the election.   ...

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Krugman says voters in France, Greece, the UK and other countries are protesting against austerity measures imposed in the EU countries. The policies were based on the assumption made by the Chrisitian Democrats in Germany that the German model if applied in other countries would generate the kind of recovery Germany made in the last decade from the high unemployment under chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. German wage restraint agreement between unions, industry and government made this possible under the Hartz reforms, and France is already embarking on wage restraint, with the two major parties, unions and industry backing the plan. But for this to work France and other countries such as Spain and Italy have to be able to export to Germany or other countries. German workers are suffering from stagnant wages for many years, stemming from concessions made to reduce unemployment. Allowing wages to rise in Germany when there is a shortage of workers in industry, would benefit workers in Germany and help France and other EU countries increase exports. German industry is failing to make this normal adjustment in markets by insisting on smaller concessions, even though there is support within the government for higher wages. German growth was possible because of demand outside for its exporters. The "austerity measures" Germany supports would depress demand inside the domestic economies of France, Spain, Italy and other EU countries, and without the wage and inflation adjustments with Germany leave demand weak outside. Without needed demand output falls, unemployment rises and tax revenues decline, leaving deficits worse than before, and a dangerous downward spiral. Better management of finances as Germany has insisted has ceased to become the issue, as both Hollande in France and Rajoy in Spain, and Monti in Italy, are keen on getting control of finances, especially regional spending in Spain....

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Faltering peace talks in Moscow December 2, 2025, after EU modifications of US/Russian draft developed by Witkoff with Putin adviser Dimitriev. Putin says European nations have modifed the plan and this is unacceptable to Russia. Putin says-

“All these changes are meant to do one thing. To block this entire peace process.” He said European nations were trying to hand Russia a strategic defeat. 

Because the proposals were drafted without Ukrainian involvement and involved conceding parts of eastern Ukraine there were serious doubts about the earlier plan from the EU and France, Germany, Britain.

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Le Monde shows Fontainebleau Forest just 60 miles from Paris as a adaptable forest with ONF help 2025. ONF is the National Forestry Office in France, and its regional unit's deputy head, Mr. Boudin, describes how ONF has made this forest a lab for adaptable forests management. Its DEPERIS protocol puts drones over the forest to categorize 765 trees in categoreis from A to D. About 40% of the forest is suffering effects of shortage of water as the forest is on a sandy plain increasing the effects of drought and heat in summers. Another ONF plan is to plant 60,000 seedlings of downy oak, beech and other saplings each year, protecting areas of trees that need protection. In this way it is 20 years of other forests in other parts of the world.

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Germany Economy Minister Peter Altmaier says Germany expects a shallower recession. GDP in 2020  is expected to be down by 5.8% much lower than the 10-15% in other countries. Exports in June were up by 15% to China and down by 20% to the U.S. Economies of Spain and the UK are expected to see twice the decline in GDP in 2020. Italy and Germany are seeing a increase in manufacturing output, Spain and France a decline. 

Still Germany remains exposed to other trading partners than China, such as the U.S. and Britain, total exports are expected to be down 12% in 2020. About 11% of workers are using short term work subsidies to stay at home. Cases of the virus are surging in France and Spain. In Germany there is a surge but it is slowing since last week. Mr. Altmaier thinks Germany can avoid a second lockdown.

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UK prime minister Sunak makes changes to policies of the UK post-Brexit that bring the UK closer to France and the European Union. This follows a deterioration of Britain's relations with the EU and France under Boris Johnson during the years Brexit happened. Sunak also comes up with a different policy for Northern Ireland closer to the EU's position. Mark Landler has covered Britain and the EU for NYT over three decades. He calls Boris Johnson's approach bombastic and one that made loud claims for "Global Britain" with little to show in results.

Sunak's challenges are in Britain with strikes across transportation, health sector and NHS, and the cost of living crisis. Labour party is seen as having better solutions and as more caring in its policies for both the environment, workers and families in 2023.

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The founder of the modern Olympics is Pierre de Cobertin, a Frenchman. In 1894 he came up with the concept of reviving the ancient games in Greece held every 4 years. In 1896 the first Olympics were held in Athens, Greece. Coubertin is criticized for his colonialist views and for preventing women from participating. His name rarely comes up in the Paris Olympics. Englishmen Thomas Arnold of the Rugby School and William Brookes helped Coubertin develop his ideas on the value of athletics in forming character and the complementing role of sport with intellectual work. Early in his life Coubertin tried to bring the English use of sports in schools to France. He saw the value of athletics competitions in building a core group that could take part in France's defense following the war with Gemany in 1871. His participation in bringing he Olympics of 1936 to Germany is seen as giving credibility to the Nazi regime, which colors his record.