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The failure of Conservatives and Boris Johnson to put up a plan to tackle high obesity in Britain is shown in this report. It shows that Japan successfully tackled obesity in the nineties and how it did so starting with school lunches, and new habits to reduce portions in restaurants, eat only until 80% full, and cultural changes on how a person should look with a term for nearly obese.

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Can an old Bavarian dance help to get one in shape while working at the desk or sitting watching sports on television. Watch this by clicking on Original Article to take you to DW.com article. A simple exercise routine that involves touching ones heel while standing, lifting one leg and touching the heel. The first the time doing this from the front then doing it from the leg lifted in the back. After touching the heel with leg lifted in the back one speeds this up. Then one adds to this a kneeling step. The three steps are repeated in that sequence and form an exercise routine based on an old Bavarian dance.

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Ashraf Khalil describes the history of relations between the Muslim Brotherhood leadership and the leaders of secular parties with prescient remarks on how this creates problems in Egypt's transition to democratic government. The mistake made by the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, says Khalil, is to insist on a quick move to elections in November 2011, with the Brotherhood hoping to gain advantage in seats with its organization already in place compared to the secular parties which need more time to stage an organized effort. If this results in a lopsided result with the Muslim Brotherhood gaining more seats than its real strength, and the secular parties feeling left out in a revolution to set up democratic government that they led, Egypt's transition to democracy will remain flawed. This is now the stuation as the military which sets the rules and the Muslim Brotherhood have agreed on immediate elections. The Muslim Brotherhood's leaders have spent years being suppressed by the Mubarak regime, and lack the experience needed for such a difficult transition as Egypt faces, even with the best of intentions. Compressing the transition into a short time frame makes it even more difficult. Errors of judgement by Muslim Brotherhood leaders in not developing a consensus, and the uncertain role of the post-Mubarak military and police, compound the difficulties and risks....

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The Inflation Reduction Act has $8.8 billion for heat pump rebates and assistance. Heat pumps are more efficient than existing furnaces or air conditioning units. Only 22% of Americans know about the heat pump rebate compared to 32% who know about the EV vehicle rebate of $7500. Heat pump rebate is for $2000 by the federal government, and $8000 for a rebate from the state beginning in 2024. Heat pump installations surged with new home sales in 2022 and slowed as home sales slowed with higher interest rates. 

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Chile's new constitution that replaces one written in 1980 under military rule, is likely to be rejected in a vote on September 4. It puts every conceivable right into the constitution beyond the basic rights of fairness in the economic, in incomes, in health and education services access, and pensions the original reasons for the two years of protests. About 80% of the Chileans voted in members of the constitution drafting boy the Convention. About 47% say reject and 38 say accept, 17% undecided at this time in a poll cited by DW.com. Controversial are judicial setup for indigenous groups (13% of Chileans), abortion in a predominantly Catholic country, and women holding 50% of positions in all public positions as mandatory, and the environment in a predominantly copper export based economy.

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Iran missile attack on Diego Garcia UK base in the Indian Ocean, March 22 2026. This is a ballistic missile attack 2500 miles or 4000 kilometers from Iran. One missed and one was intercepted by an American destroyer ship near Diego Garcia. 

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Mikaela Shiffrin of Edwards, Colorado, and her original coach, mother Eileen, her candor, and her spirited struggle - as she recovers from a punctured abdomen crash and PTSD to compete in slalom skiing at the Milan Olympics in Feb. 2026. The adjoining story gives her own account of her ordeal and her recovery winning the slalom by a second and a half at the Milan Cortina Olympics in 2026. The title is a misnomer as its not revenge. Her first reaction as she finished her slalom ski run yesterday- so true for someone with this amazing candor and openness seen in her words in the adjoining story of her struggle with PTSD - was complete disbelief that she had won the slalom event in the Olympics at Cortina.  

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Denning uses the Brazilian government's scrapping of a 6% tax on foreign purchases of bonds to slow the slide in the value of the Brazilian currency, the Real, to point to the changed situation today for Brazil, India, Turkey and S. Africa. Current account deficits in these countries are high, and foreign investors sentiment about emerging markets may be affected by the street protests in Turkey, reducing inflows of capital. The mining worker protests in S. Africa and the street protests in Turkey, have led to a decline in the currencies of the two countries. The Fed's quantitative easing program may be coming to a close, which would reduce the flows of capital to emerging market countries. Turkey has seen a boom in domestic credit supported partly by foreign capital inflows. The current account deficit to GDP ratio for Turkey is expected to be 7.28% in 2013, for S. Africa 6.46%, and Brazil 3.25%, according to IMF forecast.

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A Pew Research Center poll in September 2016 finds 81 percent of Indians have a favorable opinion of Narendra Modi in 2016, compared to 87 percent in 2015. Even among supporters of the opposition Indian National Congress a majority say they have a favorable opinion of Mr. Modi. The author of the poll, Bruce Stokes, says the opinion of frustration of the Indian elites and media about the Modi administration is not reflected in public opinion. Recently the Modi government passed legislation for a national Goods and Services Tax replacing overlapping state and federal taxes that are seen as holding up growth.  Issues the Indian public ranks high are corruption, unemployment and terrorism.

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Vindu Goel of the NYT gives this report on IBM's expansion in India including an interview with Vanitha Narayanan, chairman of IBM India. In 2017 IBM had 130,000 employees in India, at operations in Pune, Calcutta, Chennai and Bangalore and other cities, double that in 2007. The U.S. operations have about 100,000 employees. As IBM's revenues have declined with technology disruptions, it has concentrated on expansion in India with its vast base of knowledge workers and costs of about one half to one fifth of what it would cost in the U.S. IBM has 380,000 employees worldwide, with 26% in the U.S. and 34% in India, and 40% in other countries. Microsoft employs 8000 employees in India and 124,000 total worldwide, Google has 1800 in India and 72,000 worldwide.  IBM removed operations in India in 1978 after a dispute with the Indian government. In 1993 it started operations in India in a joint venture with Tata. By 2004 the operations had expanded and IBM took full control. A $750 million 10 year contract was signed in 2004 with an Indian phone company Bharti Airtel. As Goel points out the shift is happening towards expansion in India with the growing demand from industry and government in India. The Watson venture has expanded in healthcare in India with contracts including one with Maniphal Hospitals. In 2016 this had reached $38 billion in hardware and software, services, to Indian industry and the government agencies. IBM's work is not simply in offsourced work from American companies. High tech and cutting edge research is also taking place and expanding. IBM is now uniquely positioned to get an expanding share of the business as more tech services are provided to the hundreds of millions of people in India who did not have access to tech and tech services before. Research concentrates on doing this at a fraction of the cost and in new ways suited to the local region, so that services can be delivered with a wider reach. This report provides a new perspective on how the next decade could see American companies with a long term focus take advantage of the rapid growth in the fastest growing large economy in the world, with advantages for both the U.S. and India. ...

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Kamala Harris support could exceed the 92% won by Biden in 2020 in Detroit. Harris could also exceed the 45% support in Macomb County for Biden in 2020, as Whitmer support was 52% in 2022 Governor's election. Macomb is a county with mostly white voters and union voters.  Union vote is split with concerns about EV's helping Trump, and standing on the picket line in a UAW strike helping Biden. Harris is also doing much better with younger voters who feel energized by Harris. Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer did well even with voters in western Michigan towns like Grand Rapids in 2022.

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Not just climate or infrastructure or manufacturing USA, what happens to forever chemicals and PFAS, dangerous chemicals in our food and water supplies under a Reagan style deregulation 2025-2028 that risks the lives of ordinary Americans, asks Erin Brockovich. She talks about the issues at stake to protect our water and food supplies from contamination.

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Adam Taylor explains what Brexit is about. What should be added is that Brexit is a child of the time in 2015-2016 when Angela Merkel was ill prepared to tackle the sudden wave of migrants from North Africa from wars and population growth outstripping what little progress was made, making decisions to let in close to a million migrants. Migrants are now being returned back to their home countries and the issue has faded. The austerity policies in the EU with Greece, Spain and Portugal as bad poster childs for the EU are also largely over, with economic recovery in Europe.  As a result confidence is growing in the future of the European Union. What pessimists including Mr. Trump saw as a breakup of the European Union is no longer the case. Britain's long negotiations and divisions for Brexit are now reinforcing an opposite conclusion- that it is beneficial to stay in the European Union. Fully 68% in a Eurobarometer Survey of 27 EU countries by the European Commission in March 2019 think so, only 17% think it is not beneficial. In Britain also a majority now support membership in the EU. The European Union and Britain have a lot to learn from this experience and the divisions generated, which is likely to be part of the acquired experience of a new generation of leaders.  ...

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South Africa suffers from power shortages reducing output at metals and engineering firms. The electricity supplier Eskom has a large $20 billion funding gap and has cash shortages. About $230 million is owed by South African cities which collect payments. IMF estimates are for slower growth with a ceiling of 2.5% with the dire power situation. Growth in 2014 is estimated at a mere 1.4%. The government of president Zuma is not seen by experts as effective in tackling the economy and problems at Eskom. Moody's has cut Eskom's debt to junk status making it difficult to attract financing. Foreign investment is declining.

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Changes in Chinese policy that stem from a realization that the old model of making China the world's manufacturing center based on cost efficient labor and cheap energy is becoming obsolete. And the need for green technology and policies and for moving upscale to more sophisticated mind intensive less polluting products.

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Most of the problems in Eastern Europe follow from overborrowing by the privae sector , consumers and corporate borrowing, in foreign currencies. According to David Roche of Independent Strategy, private sector foreign currency debt rose to 126% of foreign exchange reserves between 2002 and 2007. Roche is former head of research and global strategy at Morgan Stanley. As a result he says, 50% of household debt is in foreign currency in Hungary, 30-40% in Poland and Romania, and over 70% in the Baltic states. The debt in lowcost foreign currencies like Swiss Frances, Euros, and even yen, also expanded in the corporate sector. BY mid 2008 non-financial corporate debt in foreign currencies reached over 45% of corporate laibilities in Bulgaria, over 30% in Ukraine and Baltics, and over 20% in Hungary and Russia. To get an idea of the way the foreign subsidiaries of major western european banks expanded their lending, note that lending to homeowners between 2002 and 2007 doubled each year in Romania, rose 60-80% in the Baltics and Bulgaria, rose 20-30% in Poland and Hungary. And lending to corporations grew 20-30% a year. There is aclear suggestio of reckless lending and reckless borrowing in these numbers just as was seen in the way mortgage lending ocurred in the USA. The history of this kind of lending goes back to the reckless lending in Latin America in the eighties that led to lost decades many years before, and is a recurring story. Now Roche sees loss of GDP of 5%-6% for Turkey, Russia, Romania, Czech Republic and Poland, and 8-10% in Hungary, Bulgaria and the Baltic states. That would take 40% of foreign exchange reserves in Turkey,Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Ukraine. And this will have a human cost in jobs lost, crime, poverty, and years of progress lost in these countries. And it will ricochet back to the parent companies of the European banks that did a lot of this lending, with $130 billion additional losses, and a loss of 10% of tier one capital (equity capital plus disclosed reserves) of Western European banks....

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Rosario, Argentina is the hometown of Lionel Messi. DW.com looks at this city, the third largest in Argentina, and capital of Santa Fe state. Two of Argentina's famous soccer coaches were born in Rosario. Lionel Scaloni, the current national coach and 1978 coach Cesar Luis Menotti. Argentina lost to Germany 1-0 in 2014, and 8 years later locals are sensing something big as Argentina meets France on Sunday.

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DJT announces actions on Liberation Day, April 2, 2025 freeing America on attacks on its manufacturing base and its workers for 50 years since the 1970's. He announces reciprocal tariffs on all nations with large trading imbalances with the US, a 34% tariff on China and a 20% tariff on all imports from the European Union. These nations he says have taken advantage of the US and looted and pillaged the US workers and communities for decades mainly because of the presidents who sat in the White House executive room and allowed this to happen. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advised all trading nations-  "My advice to every country right now is, do not retaliate." His advice- "sit back, take it in.... Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation". The US is in no mood to be lectured or retaliated when these countries including China, Japan, South Korea and the EU, Taiwan, India a list of about 20 nations have taken unfair advantage of the US in trade for 3 decades. ...

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DW.com looks at the challenges India faces in meeting its target of generating 500 gigawatts from renewable energy by 2030. Meeting Glasgow COP26 conference targets requires India to increase installation of solar energy at three times the rate in the past, as well as make massive investments in storage and grid infrastructure, says one expert. Right now India is on track to meet target of 175 gigawatts for 2022-2023.

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Airbus will be run by Louis Gallois as head of the management team with Thomas Enders reporting to him. Ruediger Grube becomes Chairman of EADS. He will oversee Gallois and Enders and the rest of the Airbus management team. The dual structure was considered inappropriate for a company in a competitive business environment and blamed for many of Airbus's recent problems. It has been taken out with Gallois now in charge of decisions and responsible for the running of the company. This was important to French president Sarkozy and agreement was achieved with Ms. Merkel, his German counterpart.

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Some 51.5 million women representing 49% of the total of 104 million voters will vote in the December 2018 general election. Yet only 22 were members of parliament in the 350 member parliament. Zobaer Ahmed in DW.com shows how women remain marginalized and underrepresented in Bangladesh government and parliament. The women leaders Hasina and Zia are from influential political families. Hasina's Awami League party has fielded only 25 women for the December election.

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Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier, says Airbus is set to double its profit margin by 2015 through improvements in efficiency and management. In 2012 EADS Airbus unit showed an operating profit margin of about 4% on sales of 39 billon euros, compared to Boeing commercial airplane division operating margin of 9.6% on sales of $49 billion. Under the 51 year old French engineer Airbus is redoing the way it makes planes, giving factory managers more freedom to make decisions, and bringing an "entrepreneurial spirit" to the company. Each plant is treated as a small business, and Bregier says the fact that the planes are complex does not mean that one needs to be complex in doing things. Airbus parent company EADS stock has risen by 50% in the past year with shares at 42.84 euros on June 14, 2013. The reduced stakes of the French government and Daimler AG in EADS has increased the amount of freely traded shares to 72% from 54%, increasing pressure from investors for better performance. Airbus has 150,000 employees and subcontractors and changing the culture in the organization is a difficult task. Bregier was chief operating officer for 5 years before assuming the CEO position in June 2012. ...