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Japanese prime minister Kishida replaces four members of his cabinet after a probe of fund raising by a faction within the LDP.  Saito Ken is the new minister for economy, trade and industry. Hayashi Yoshimasa is new Cabinet secretary. Also with incoming ministers are the ministries for agriculture and for internal affairs. Prosecutors were investigating the sales of fundraising tickets.

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Mr Obama meets Mr Putin at his residence for breakfast which lasted 2 hours. Mr Obama said that he recognized "the extraordinary work that you've done on behalf of the RUssian people." And Mr Putin said, "with you we link all our hopes for the furtherance of relations between our two countries." Pavel Palazhchenko an interpreter for Mikhail Gorbachev, who met with Obama, put it this way about Medvedev and Obama- "they represent a different generation, many of the dogs in the old fights are really not their dogs. And they will be willing to take afresh look at some issues." As the head of one of the investment funds put it to a CNBC reporter about U.S. -Russian relations, the left does not like Russia, and the right does not like Russia. When asked about corruption in Russia, this businessmen said that he had worked in India, and sure he knew about corruption , "I'm from New Jersey." So with all the hopes and good intentions, and new leaders, Obama can get stuck on issues like Georgia, and political freedom, still agree on reduction of nuclear weapons stockpiles. He attended aconference on civil society and while stressing importance of freedom of expresssion and assembly, the rule of law, he brought ameasure of humility. He said" Icome before you with humility. I think in the past there has ben atendency for the United States to lecture rather than to listen. And we obviously still have much work to do with our own democracy in the United States. But nevertheless share common values and interest in building a strong democratic culture in Russia as well as the United States." ...

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This report in WSJ from Kharkiv, Ukraine, shows sentiment in eastern Ukraine is shifting. As Russian troops are massed at the border the sentiment is shifting in the eastern part of Ukraine. Kharikiv is just half an hour from the border.

This report says the sentiment has shifted as people in Kharkiv have seen the economy deteriorate in Donestsk and Luhansk after 2014 after Russian installed militias assumed control. The economy in Kharkiv and the rest of Ukraine has done much better say experts. Kharkiv is where the Soviet Ukrainian government was established about on hundred years ago after an independence drive for Ukraine at that time failed.

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Chase Banks' Jamie Dimon says he worries about China as a competitor and an adversary, but his real worry is that we in the United States can "get our act together."

“If we are not the pre-eminent military and the pre-eminent economy in 40 years, we will not be the reserve currency. People tell me we are enormously resilient. I agree with that. I think this time is different. This time we have to get our act together and do it very quickly.” 

“What I really worry about is us,” he said. “Can we get our own act together—our own values, our own capabilities, our own management?”

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English parents struggling to feed their children even this preschool teacher in London, as Emma Bubola reports for the NYT from London, UK. It is atrocious says a church minister running a food bank in Derby, in central England, that working families are having to come to food banks. Prince Charles talked first about people at food banks in his Christmas message this year. One estimate is that a fifth of familes are from families with jobs but unable to keep up with the cost of living. Warm spaces are being set up in Methodist and other churches. One food bank worker says you see ambulance crew, teachers, and asks what does this say about the community, about the country? Ten years of Tory austerity policies have made things worse. On a recent night a nurse walks into a food bank in the east London neighborhood of Hackney. This isn't a normal Britain.

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73 million boomer reach the age of 80 in the US in 2023. By 80 years the brain can have lost its vigor yet our bodies can reach 100 with modern medicine, making it necessary to understand and tackle aging truly well. This is the message from AARP in the recent issue of its publication. 

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Marion Rouse, Director of the Women's Tour de France is interviewed by FR24. The Women's cycling event is from July 24 to July 31. Here she talks about the resumption of this event after it stopped in 1989 and what it will mean to a new generation of young women cyclists. These girls on the side of the road cheering will now have women as role models, says Rouse who remembers herself as a little cyclist at age six years.

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Veering between reckless intervention and doing nothing has led to some of the problems the US faces even today.  Barrack Obama created the hope for Arab Spring at Cairo University in 2009, which he failed to follow up on. Ronald Reagan and his Arab envoy Donald Rumsfeld, Defense minister Weinberger, supported a reckless intervention on the Iraq side against Iran in 1980 after winning the election following the capture of hostages in the American Embassy in Iran. Reagan was reckless in such intervention not understanding what was happening in a religious sectarian and Arab Socialist ideologies war in which US interests were not involved. Le Monde of France recounts how Barrack Obama hesitated to followup on his warnings in 2011 after the Arab Spring. This led to Obama doing nothing in the face of just what he had stated at Cairo University of people "having the ability of speaking their mind and having say in how they are governed," and US intention "we will support them everywhere." Another instance of no action was with a failed state situation and  millions of refugees in Venezuela after a Bolivarist Chavez ideological economic collapse similar in some ways to Arab ideologies Iraq and Syria. US did not follow the Monroe Doctrine on non intervention of foreign European powers on the American continents. Obama's speech and then inaction may be at the root of today's problems of migration and the divisions it has caused. Millions of Syrian refugees left for Greece, Hungary and Germany in 2015-2016. It was followed by Brexit again on migration. And in 2016 migration and the Border in the US election. And again in 2022 and 2024 the Border and migration the big issue in the US election. In a speech at Cairo University in 2009 during a visit to Egypt. Obama said: "I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere." On September 11, 2012 following the death of Libyan dictator Muammar Khadafi and the beginning of civil war in Libya, the Libyan mission in Benghazi was attacked with US ambassador Christopher Stevens killed just 2 months before the US presidential election.  Faced with use of chemical weapons Obama issued a warning to Syrian regime in Damascus- then following the Libyan experience did nothing. Le Monde cites an interview with president Hollande of France in 2015 who expressed his frustration with France willing to act.  Obama underestimated the ISIS in the region says Le Monde, leading to the situation by 2015 of the eastern part of the country linked to the region around Mosul going under ISIS. By 2016 the problem of ISIS was left to next US president DJT to tackle by Obama, a result of the inaction in 2012-2013 on Syria, says Le Monde. And like Angela Merkel in Germany on migration, Barrack Obama simply rationalized his action, with the US and the EU left to tackle the results of these actions.     ...

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500 million tons of plastics are produced today compared to 250 million tons in 2004. Califonria sued Exxon Mobil in Sept 2024 for overhyping the promise of recycling. In reality says NYT's Hiroko Tabuchi only some of it gets recycled- an astounding low rate of 30% getting recycled- and the rest 70% of 500 million tons or 350 million tons ending up incinerated or in landfills or ending up in the environment on coastlines. The NAPCOR is association for PET resources, PET standing for single use plastic the kind you have in water or soda bottles. It is presenting the promise of recycling and the importance of these bottles for hydrating, without stating that there are alternatives.  All the time this is going on the threat to public health for the people, for us all, gets larger. Note that even developing nations such as India have the prime minister himself take up the campaign against microplastics, plastics bags and bottles, as Mr. Narendra Modi has done in India. A conference in Busan South Korea is discussing a global plastics treaty to end this plastics threat to health and the land we live in. It shows how regulation is needed in a capital-ist economy because companies and jobs at companies of 70 plastics and recycling companies are at stake and so is the public health, our health and our land, its coastlines and waters. ...

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Tim Walz shown as a local music fan in this report by Marc Tracy. A fan of Bob Dylan and the Prince. Did you know Bob Dylan was from Duluth Minnesota? And of Bruce Springsteen - specifically "Nebraska- Reason to Believe" a favorite of Nebraska's own Tim Walz. 

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"Feierabend" is the German word for when you stop working for the rest of the day. It is also the period after stopping work and beginning a period of leisure and rest. Germans working from home for government, in software industry and in other business places, are using this time when work stops at say 4 or 5 pm to shift to exercize. Here Nils Backhaus, of Germany's Federal Institute for Health, marks the end of a day's work by taking his racing bike and cruising along the the tranquil landscapes of the Ruhr river, just outside Dortmund. Stress and recovery go hand in hand, it is the bodily rhythm for Nils Backhaus and many Germans. You cannot do double time the next day. You have to first regenerate and get renewed after a day's work. This improves both health and the productiveness of work. It also creates enthusiasm the next day to begin work. A clean disconnection is needed says this report and "Feierabend" helps one do it. Workers working from home can end up working too much with no demarcation that ends the day. During the coronavirus with many workers working from home this demarcation has been lost for many people resulting in overwork and fatigue of body and mind. Microsoft 365 team has seen this surge to the point where managers have the software do this demarcation to stop work, and ask people using the software to say how they feel. What better way than something like Feierabend where one makes a clean break from work and goes out and does something completely different. It gives the mind and body a chance to rest and to regenerate. Prof. Rothauge of the Catholic University of Eichstatt who has studied the history of the evolution of work says this comes from an historical context. The industrial revolution introduced new work habits and days structured around work routines. This also provided a period of breaking away from work to rest. It was important to see the rest period as a way to regenerate not simply engage in some other equally taxing work. It was all part of the same coin, resting and renewal of mind and spirit after a day's work ended enabled one to make a fresh start the next day. It was what made productive work possible and an integral part of it.  During the coronavirus it is very important to do this regeneration and renewal, and to start this by having a clear disconnection from work after several hours of intensive work or a day of normal pace work. Intensive work of 3-4 hours or 4-5 hours can make up a days work at home because of the uninterrupted nature of working remotely from home, say workers with extensive experience of working from home. At that point break away and make the clean break or disconnection to regenerate and renew for the next day. ...

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Chancellor Scholz tells the German parliament before a special EU summit-that Putin "will not achieve his goals in Ukraine, not on the battlefield, not through a dictated peace." He responds to the Russian Defense Ministry claim that the western tank supplies are drawing NATO into the conflict and could lead to an "unpredictable escalation." Scholz said- "It is not NATO in war against Russia. It is Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

"From the first day of the war our strongest characteristic lies in our cohesion. We simply will not allow a country to invade another and disrupt peace in Europe."

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Breaking the norm of jobs requiring sitting down in one place for long hours that is killing us with health problems is desperately needed today. 20,000 NPR listeners joined this study by the Columbia University Medical Center to see if they could break the habit and set a new model for work behaviours. Participants were asked to take a break of 5 minutes every hour. 70% took the break showing that given the right encouragement people are willing to try something new that improves job performance, mental health, and physical health.

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Cornavirus has hurt workers in the wage categories of less than $16 an hour to a much greater degree than workers who earn more than $16 or $28 as shown in this chart from the WSJ. Workers earning more than $28 are more likely to be working from home particularly workers offering professional services such as in software, legal, accounting. These are people who are well educated and well off, compared to people earning less than $16 an hour who are less educated and less well off. The worst hit are workers in restaurants, in the tourism industry, airline workers, who face uncertain prospects 6 months into the pandemic for the next 6 months. Government help to these workers is also uncertain and diminished because of budget constraints after the trillion dollars already injected into the economy in the U.S, and separately in Europe, and the significant help provided in other countries including India. This applies to the informal economy workers in India and Latin America who are the hardest hit outside U.S. and Europe, including street vendors. The informal economy is a large part of the economies of the countries in Asia and Latin America. China has reintroduced the informal economy in some cities as a way to take the pressure off the formal economy after the drop in demand for manufactured products from the U.S. and Europe. ...

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Jancee Dunn of NYT talks to Margareta Magnusson 86 years, author of The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly. Margareta says you can be young upstairs in your head even if your joints creak. Kart besavar means dear or cherished pain, taking on an annoying obligation, to see even something that is a nuisance as something that one must find a way to cherish. Laura Carstensen at Stanford Centre for Longevity calls it finding joy with a tear in the eye. Then there are the intuitive and simple things to do- be among younger people. It is to be in tune with the young person you yourself once have been. Just ask them questions, listen to them, give them food, says Margareta. Do not accept the internalized narrative that with ageism comes rigidity. Fight this narrative and build a younger person in you on your own. One way to do this is to say yes to new things and try them out, be willing to experiment with things, the way you did when you were young.

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There can be some comfort with the loss of the usual social contact during the period of lockdown and working from home. There are is the opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect in prayer or meditation. There is also time to spend in gardens or parks, a patio or balcony to be outside. As Adrian Higgins of the Washington Post- who has two books on gardening and covered it since the 1980's- points out here we are not apart from nature or above it, we are nature, and plants and birds outside are fellow beings of a sort. Most of us live in tight urban environments and this is a great opportunity to break away from all the noise and bustle and experience some time with nature and with ourselves. A time for renewal and listening to our inner voices, as the gods may be reminding us about living a better and slower life. Higgins reminds us that sometimes it is an experience that is alive in memory as there is a word for it in Japanese and in German, and in other languages. In Japan shinrin-yoku is about forest bathing, by finding a woodland or park and experiencing the stillness. Germans call it a forest walk or waldspaziergang. Plant gardens or parks will do, even landscaped areas in urban settings. The shades in a garden with sunlight falling in different ways on leaves and plants. We develop a capacity to notice things we stopped noticing as we grew up. Just walk or sit quietly and look. Plants and trees also take away some of the isolation and loneliness as they are fellow travelers of a sort. As anyone who has planted will know we can look forward to the new flowering, and the growth into next year, and the next. We have got too intertwined with the short term and the immediate fulfillment, and this draws us out of this in ways that enrich and nourish our lives.     ...

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A shortage of manpower is leading Russia to offer 3 month contracts to get recruits at $4000 a month four times the regular pay. Russia is also trying to get soldiers from past wars to join who are 40 plus years old. This report looks at the situation in Russia as it tries to avoid a mobilization and declaring war- the current operation is called a Special Operation. Street by street fighting and building by building fighting is leading to a loss of Russian troops even after artillery barrages in cities and towns in the eastern region.

 

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The second lockdown in France that begins October 29 for 4 weeks is very different from the first. It incorporates many of the lessons learned during the first lockdown.  The construction industry will remain open after this made a large dent in the French economy during the first lockdown. Schools K-12 will now remain open, with children required to wear masks at age six, and stricter rules for masks and visiting parents. The universities will remain open with classes online, but physically closed. Buses metro and other transport will remain open. Churches will remain open but be limited to very small gatherings. Parks forests, gardens and beaches will remain open this time but one has to live within 1 kilometre to access them and limited to 1 hour. People are prohibited from travelling outside the region in which they are registered. People can exercize for 1 hour within 1 kilometre of their home. All are required to carry a signed form for any type of activity, including shopping, work, accessing essential services, or for their one hour exercize. Not having the signed form would lead to a fine of 135 euros. Because bars, restaurants will be closed people in these hard hit industries will get 100% of their pay from the government. In other industries companies will contribute 15% and the government 85% so that these people are covered. ...

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This NYT report looks at the gradual breakdown in Silicon Valley of the "fake it till you make it" culture. A vast misallocation of resources by startups and other business, a waste of hundreds of billions of dollars needed for investment in rebuilding the American economy and manufacturing.

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Kate Bingham, head of the Vaccine Task Force in Britain is commended for her intelligent approach in placing bets on vaccines in different technologies, "four buckets" as she calls them. This includes the Moderna and Pfizer in the mRNA technology and the viral vector Astra Zeneca, J&J vaccines. This approach made the British vaccination drive effective by being supported by a resilient supply system.

The Indian government has supported the effort to get several companies to make the Sputnik Russian vaccine in India in an effort to diversify supplies. Reddy Labs is one of the major manufacturers working on the Sputnik vaccine in 2021.

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Christina Romer, Prof. of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, was chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors under U.S. president Obama. Here she discusses the different aspects of the debate on raising the minimum wage. Romer says the negative effects on unemployment are small. The impact on consumer spending is also limited. The anti-poverty effects are real for raising the minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour, says Romer, as over half the families earning a minimum wage make less than $40,000 an hour. President Obama called for raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour in 2013. Studies show 13 million U.S. workers earning less than $9 an hour. Raising the incomes of these families by about $3500 an year under the president's proposal gives workers badly needed income to cope with rising cost of gas, food and other basic necessities. The effects on consumer spending are small, estimated at between $10 to $20 billion. Its main virtue is keeping the principle of fairness and maintaining social cohesion at a time of increaing inequality. Romer says there is competition for workers which makes it possible for workers at the lower end to get a fair wage, but does not account for the effect of high unemployment which takes pressure off raising the minimum wage in the market economy. Another benefit for countries of keeping a fair minimum wage is that other actions can be taken to improve competitiveness for business and manufacturing and reducing the deficit and be seen in a positive context of overall improvement. This is part of the case made in Europe for boosting the mnimum wage as austerity measures are taking place....

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The Trump indictment under RICO or racketeer laws draws this reaction in the WSJ. WSJ says the alleged behaviour was rotten, but does it gain credibility by being prosecuted under racketeer laws. It describes the Trump response as more delusional than criminal- that a decisive share of Republicans in suburbs did not want Mr. Trump for four more years. WSJ Editorial Board view is that there is no defending the conduct undermining confidence in the election result in 2020 and it would be a mistake for Republicans to try.

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This report in BBC on climate change issues in Australia with bushfires and floods and the hottest decade in history, was written four days before the election. It says even with the extreme weather disasters phasing out fossil fuels was a politically toxic issue in Australia and no party wanted to talk about it except the Greens. The election has changed this decisively with the Greens and other smaller parties getting one third of the vote. No party has proposed cutting carbon emissions by over 50%- Labour at 43% and Morrison coalition at 26%. Labour won by taking up climate change as an issue.

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The German labor union GDL is negotiating with Deutsche Bahn. It seeks a 35 hour work week, the reduction of work week for shift workers in rail transport to 35 hours from 28 hours a week. It is also seeking collective agreement for parts of rail infrastructure in Germany. Deutsche Bahn has not accepted this. GDL says there were confidential details of the negotiations leaked to the press including the Bild, and quit negotiations in the recent turn of events. Two strikes affected the rail system as talks fail to reach an agreement.

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This essay from the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center which puts focus on preventive medicine looks at the food we eat in a different way. In order to have a real conversation on food it says ignore the latest fads on nutrition on keto, paleo or other diets, and think about how our ancestors ate in a healthy way that both prevented disease and provided the right nutrition. It was mostly plants as meat was not freely and easily available. So much so that the consumption of meat and animal protein may have gone up by as much as 90% today. Processed foods did not exist, and unprocessed plant foods were there in abundance. They were not called low fat low carb or vegan then. It is during the beginning of the 19th and in the 20th century that the production and marketing of shelf stable, nutrient poor, high calorie, high sugar and salt processed foods replaced the normal way our ancestors had their food leading to the public health crisis of today, both in health quality, outcomes and cost.  It says replace meat and where appropriate dairy healthier plant based beans, lentils, whole grains, and vegetables, fruits so that animal protein gets back to the levels of the centuries before the 20th century shift to processed foods. It says use common sense beans including soyabeans and lentil beans replace meat wherever possible and oats with berries and nuts replace eggs. Vegetable and garbanzo beans salad replaces cheese and yogurt reducing the cheese or yogurt to very moderate levels. Focus on wholesome food and eat like our ancestors did and exercize then everything else will fall into place. ...