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Leadership and the courage to look at things differently and realize the changes going on across the world were required for reaching an agreement on cooperation between the U.S. and India in the field of civilian nuclear energy development. The agreement provides for separating the civilian and military nuclear programs. Under the agreement 14 of India's 22 nuclear plants would be classified as as for civilian use and made subject to inspections. This establishes the framework for developing nuclear energy in India with U.S. help to meet India's pressing energy needs. Bush said it was important not to get stuck in the past- "I'm trying to think differently, not to stay stuck in the past, and recognize that by thinking differently, particularly on nuclear power, we can achieve some important objectives." Bush emphasized this in a joint news conference with Indian premier Manmohan Singh- "What this agreement says is, things change, times change, that leadership can make a difference." The Bush administration is working to establish greater cooperation with India and Japan in the Asian region....

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Russia's national airline, Aeroflot, has goen through a transformation by improving safety and inflight service through a rigorous program of training for pilots and inflight service personnel by 2015. It is 51 percent state owned. Aeroflot has the advantage of the Moscow hub which cuts passenger travel time to distant destinations by 2 hours compared to Dubai hub of Emirates airlines. A flight New York to Shanghai is shorter by 2 hours for Chinese travellers. The Moscow- Rome flight is 80 percent filled by Chinese passengers for example. Passenger volume is up 10.3 percent in the first 9 months of the year, even as air travel in Russia was down 3.4 percent in Russia, according to Aeroflot and transport ministry. One advantage enjoyed by Aeroflot is its very young fleet of planes, with age of 4.3 years on average in 2014, compared to Delta at 17 years and British Airways at 12.6. It has 118 Airbuses and 25 Boeings, and has added 21 locally made Sukhoi Superjets to support the local aircraft maker. ...

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Public opinion in France is divided about France's dependence on nuclear power. Ifop's survey of Nov. 13, 2011, shows 40% of the French are now "hesitant" about nuclear power, about 33% favor nuclear power and 17% are against it. About two-thirds of the ruling UMP party of Nicholas Sarkozy supports nuclear power, while half of the Socialist party supporters say they are not sure about the path ahead. The issue is becoming important in the election, as the UMP claims the Socialist party's proposal to shut down 24 of the 58 reactors if elected will cost thousands of jobs and solar power cannot take its place overnight. The French are a bit puzzled by the nuclear issue in contrast to Germany where the issue arouses strong emotions, because nuclear energy had become accepted in France till the Fukushima nuclear disaster raised safety issues. EDF which operates the plants plans to increase spending on safety measures and on maintenance after audits by the French nuclear regulator. EDF's share price was down 40% since the nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan....

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Air Canada is planning a campaign to persuade business travellers to try Air Canada hubs in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, for flights to Europe, Asia and other long distance destinations. This strategy is aimed at secondary markets in the U.S. that lack direct service to Asian countries. Toronto's Pearson airport has just completed a C$4.4 billion modernization. In Vancouver and Montreal passengers connecting to the U.S. will no longer have to claim their baggage and will go directly to U.S. customs. The same arrangement is being planned for Toronto this fall. Air Canada is counting on its fleet of younger planes and wide body aircraft and a pleasant experience through Canadian airports. Recent capacity additions for Aisa will also help. Air Canada's trans-Pacific traffic increased by 22% in 2010 from 2009. Air Canada made a profit in 2010, after suffering a serious loss of 1 billion Canadian dollars in 2008. Air Canada's CEO Calin Rovinescu's strategy is part of his effort to make Air Canada "an international powerhouse," making Toronto and other Canadian hubs some of the world's major gateways....

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Stevenson and Gough describe the remarkable success of AirAsia under Tony Fernandes, who turned it into Asia's largest budget carrier with 43 million passengers in 2013. Fernandes acquired the airline for 1 Malaysia ringgit or 29 cents in Sept. 2001 from a Malaysian conglomerate. He is an accountant educated in Britain, originally from Goa, India, who worked as a Warner Music executive in Southeast Asia. Fernandes says he was encouraged by the founder of British budget carrier EasyJet, and hired executives from Ryanair. Expanding in Asia was accomplished with acquisitions and partial ownership in local airlines located in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, India, Japan and other countries. Using the Ryanair model AirAsia has maintained a low cost structure, while increasing revenues with prices for addon options such as seat selection and checkin. It has revenues of $1.1 billion and is profitable. The airline uses relatively new Airbus 320 planes that are also used by other successful budget carriers. Fernandes has a hands on style of management reflected in this account of his handling of an AirAsia accident in Indonesia in Jan. 2015....

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Difficulties facing the recovering airline industry as the price of oil continues its increase. Goldman Sach's Group raised its forecast from $68 per barrel in 2007 and 2008 to $80 in 2007 and $90 in 2008. Airlines have already taken a lot of the costcutting steps from flying lighter more fuel efficient planes to smaller steps like reducing the weight of beverage carts and taxiing on the runway with one engine and so on. But their forecasting and business plan estimates of oil costs have been far off the mark and hedging has been inadequate. Lasty year as per the ATA, Airline Transport Association, 42% of the consumption on average was hedged at $60 per barrel, this year 2007 only 31% of fuel consumption on average has been hedged at $62 per barrel. To give some idea of how far off the mark, United's business plan used $50 per barrel through 2010, and Delta used $65 in its business plan for 2007. Expect more fare increases and capacity reductions if this price trend for oil continues. ...

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The clout of China's environmental agency the State Environment Protection Administration has grown significnatly in the past 12 months. SEPA rejected 110 projects in 2006 for environmental damage, and in 2007 it rejected 187 or about $91 billion worth of projects for environmental damage. China requires environemntal asses ment for sttell mills, power plants and other projects as part of the approval process. So even as criticism of the Chinese government has built up for environmental damage SEPA is getting new clout and the government is rethinking how all these projects can some day come back to haunt the administration for environmental impact if something isnt done very quickly to cancel all projects that dont meet environmental quality standards. This is something to keep watching first because it ensures longterm sustainable economic progress and second it reduces the cost of cleaning up which would reduce economic growth in the future, third because the quality of air and water lead to really sustainable economic development in the future. This is a Watch Link for sustainable economic development. ...

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Did GM miscalculate when after Katrina SUV sales took a dive, in the wake of higher gas prices in the summer of 2005. Instead of gving it thought and thinking about various possible scenarios in the future GM moved up the introduction of a new SUV models program and invested $175 million in updating the the Janesville Wisconsin SUV plant that was turning out 200,000 SUV's a year. And the unions also wanted to hang onto the SUV program and included product guarantees for several of GM's SUV plants, including a new line of SUV's for Janesville to come out in 2012. Each SUV made $10,000 to $15,000 per vehicle whereas passenger cars did not make money. Why? How? Considering that Honda was making profits selling passenger cars and so was Toyota, and Honda stuck to making better cars, and the Germans and the Japanese were not putting all their eggs in one basket. Something strange was going on, kind of a cosy trap for the Detroit automakers.

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Prakash and Ghosh in the Hindusthan Times remind readers that even though India has ambitious plans for renewable energy much remains to be done in shifting to clean coal technologies. An estimated 80% of India's coal plants use obsolete technologies, making this an obvious area for improvement. India plans to make solar the source of 100GW of 175GW it plans to generate in renewable energy by 2022. Yet it must not be forgotten that coal is a dominant source for the foreseeable future and shifting to clean coal technologies is an area that should get top priority from the government. Today India is the third largest in terms of carbon emissions after the U.S and China.

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The lengths airlines are going to reduce fuel costs including using 757' s on long haul routes and short haul planes on long transatlantic flights.

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Workers at the VW plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee voted 712 to 626 in Feb. 2014 to reject membership in the UAW union. This makes it more difficult for the union to make inroads in the Southern states. In an unusual step VW- cooperating with the IG Metalls union in Germany- let union organizers into the plant for over a week and cooperated with the UAW to setup the election. VW wanted to setup a works council, a committee of employees which gives management feedback for running of the plant, similiar to ones operating in Germany.

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Russia reluctant to let in Chinese companies to build plants in the country because Russian manufacturers are concerned the Chinese will drive down prices and margins.

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Chief of TechMet a company in mineral resource development says that it will take years to dislodge China's dominance in rare metals mining and development for metals critical to technologies in car batteries, wind turbines, cellphones. This includes nickel and cobalt for car batteries.Last week president Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and authorizing use of the Defense Production Act to speed development of mines. The U.S. imports 80% of its rare earth elements from China, with further supply coming indirectly from the country. For 14 of 35 critical types of minerals the U.S. has no domestic production. Gallium for light emitting diodes in cell phones is one of these metals. Half of Barite a metal used in hydraulic fracturing for shale oil is imported from China. To get some idea of the neglect in U.S.policy in these area under three administrations, the U.S. in the 1980's was the largest producer of rare earth metals and the technology to process them. Today there is only one mine the Mountain Pass mine in California, and no processing plants. It takes about 10 years to develop a mine. Just as in health care products essential to tackle the virus the U.S has found its manufacturing and technology base left in woeful shape after manufacturing and mining were neglected in a failed policy. Under the guise of globalization corporations transferred essential manufacturing from the U.S. and Europe to China, without understanding the importance these products played in the life of countries, and governments neglected to help local manufacturers and mining companies. Governments play a critical role as China has done by providing loans and grants to develop the national industrial base. Tariffs and quotas are also used to promote local development of the manufacturing base and mining base. Another factor is that investors are more able to invest in these companies when the government take some of the risk with its help and active support. With the Trump executive order comes a new awareness in Canada, Australia, and European Union which are now taking active steps to nurture and develop the local resources. ...

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An around the clock tv network called Planet Green for Discovery Channel, an investment bet of $100 million that viewers with interest in global warming issues will support it.

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The FDA has found deficiencies and violations of safe manufacturing practices at 2 Ranbaxy plants in India. The FDA issued a ban on imports of 30 generic drugs from Ranbaxy in India.

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A rapid increase in the number of Russians with favorable views of the US going up past 30% as one sign of the effort to improve US Russia relations by Trump and Putin is seen in March 2025. A call by Trump to Putin will take place March 18, 2025 to start discussions on how to settle the Ukraine conflict including land, power plants and exchanges and getting to the root cause of the war- NATO expansion. Some solutions include NATO being disbanded in its current form as archaic as there is no Soviet Union, its original goal being stopping Soviets from setting pro- Soviet governments, setup in Czechoslovakia and attempts to do this in Greece and Turkey. Truman formed NATO for this purpose in 1949 after the Berlin Blockade by Soviets. WIth nuclear arsenals being replenished in Russia and China, India, Japan, small nuclear states such as North Korea, Pakistan, the situation is different today with responsible policies needed today on this issue which are impeded by the idea of NATO on the borders of Russia and the Eastern European and British view of Russia as the pre-eminent threat not shared by India, Brazil, China and the new administration of DJT in the US. A long period of peaceful coexistence and arms control developed in the late 1960's, 1970's and 1980's between the US, German Federal Republic and Soviet Union/ GDR Germany. ...

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France's Thomas Piketty concentrated on inequality and arrives at no solutions or relief, just a historical summary that is also intuitively seen. The pandemic, climate change's impact on agriculture and livable planet, the Ukraine war have raised three questions right before our eyes that are broader and cover more and deeper ground.  The pandemic showed that the dependence on manufacturing in remote locations was a serious error. Climate change showed that agriculture the ability to feed the world itself was affected by this dependence on remote location manufacturing.  Much of this manufacturing was shipped out to China, Europe and the US lost their manufacturing base and with the communities spread out  across the US and EU lost factories and work. Manufacturing was not just shipped out to China, the process was concentrated in a short span of time leading to destruction of the environment on an unprecedented scale in China and the world  by burning lots of coal and fossil fuels. The Russian invasion of Ukraine showed the failure of this arrangement  and exposed its cracks  for Europe, US, and the free world in Asia and Latin America. The shipping out of manufacturing in this way not only destroyed communities and jobs in manufacturing in the US and the EU, but also led to such a broad accumulation of  dollar reserves in Russia and China, that enabled the invasion of neighboring countries in Europe without serious consequences to their economies, the invasion of Ukraine and the threatened takeover of Taiwan. By tackling these issues and building a supply chain concentrated more at home and in the free world better manufacturing jobs will be created in Europe and the US and in the nations of the free world that mitigate and reduce all the effects of inequality that Piketty and others talk about. The newer factories built in advanced nations of the EU and the US and set up in the free world in Asia and other countries, will be built with climate change in mind and make the shift away from coal and fossil fuels, and for conservation plus efficiency in use of energy at every step in the newly built supply chain. The results will be good for all countries in the world including the US, EU, China and India, as climate change can be aggressively tackled in this way with the latest technology and trillions of dollar of capital investments for the benefit of all. ...

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Mexico's domestic market is growing and compacts are about half of Mexico's 1.13 vehicle market. The San Luis Potosi plant will be able to make 160,000 compact cars a year, an investment of $650 million. Some of this could go to Mexico's own need for compacts in the domestic market. Also this could supply the U.S. market where GM needs compacts to compete with Japanese and Korean models. One of the reasons Mexico is able to compete with the Southern United States is is its high quality work force at a fraction of the cost. See the link to Mexico's turning out a large number of engineering graduates. When companies look at where to put a new plant, Mexico is starting to compete a lot more with Detroit, said Gabriel Renero, a consultant at Deloitte in Mexico City. They are finding a very attractive work force in this country. In the last year, American automakers have all introduced a variety of new models from their Mexican assembly plants. Being able to produce any kind of vehicle looks good in the global market, says Renero....

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The water situation on the Euphrates river. Three reporters for the NYT, Amir, Mohammed, and Abeer, join NYT's Campbell Robertson in talking to farmers along different stretches of theEuphrates river in Iraq, near Jubaish, Karbala and where it meets the Tigris. The causes of the problem are the water policies of TUrkey and Syria which are the upstrema countries and have built dams along the river which control its flow, a two year drought, and water mismanagement and neglect in Iraq. The river is significantly smaller now, and at this rate could be half of what it once was. It affects rice and wheat fields along the river which are turning into scorched dirt, canals becoming small streams, and water treatment plants sitting idle. The area for wheat and barley in the rainfed north is down 95%, and the date and citrus orchards in the east are dry. There are no treaties for water use with Turkey and Syria, so the situation is unpredictable. Recently Turkey doubled the waer flow into the Euphrates, a mover that increased water flow to ablut 60% to cover half the irrigation requirements for the rice growing season....

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Consumer buying habits at Walmart in the last 6 months since the sharp downturn in the economy hit in October 2008. Executives in merchandising at Walmart, Target and other stores discuss trends with the WSJ. There is adisciplined shopper with less browsing on the aisles. FOod is up on the list. Private label groceries at lower cost are selling well. At Walmart sales are up for refrigerated pizza,lower grades of meat. Ground beef and chicken sell way better than steak and beef. And carbohydrates are doing better than protein foods, so that pasta is doing well. Staying at home and entertaining at home is the trend says Fleming of Walmart, from the take and bake pizza at $5 to the movie and popcorn. Which is why the luggage section and trvel is slow, and flat screen tv's are selling well. Vitamins, herbs and plants for vegetable gardens are up as customers try to plant their own vegetable gardens. Car maintenance and repair is big, sales of motor oil, filters and tires. are some of Walmarts big sellers. Whatever makes the car last longer is considered attractive by customers. And home repair items are selling well at Home Depot....

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With China's automobile market declining for the fifth month in a row, and trade tensions rising, it now appears that carmakers such as Ford expanded too quickly in the Chinese market. Ford, Peugeot, and Hyundai appear to have poorly times their expansion in China, expanding at the tail end of the Chinese boom just ahead of the new Trump administration's efforts to challenge China's lopsided trade balance.  It has become so bad that this report shows workers at a Peugeot factory in China spending their days washing floors and attending Communist political study sessions at work. At a Ford plant workers shifts are reduced to a couple of days a month. Sales grew 3% in 2017 and declined 2% in the first 11 months of 2018, after increases of 14% in previous years taking the market to 28 million in a dizzying ride as it surpassed the U.S. sales of 17.5 million. Overcapacity is a problem in China with the aggressive expansion. There is capacity to make 43 million cars, but will produce 29 million in 2018, according to PwC, consulting firm. Ford meanwhile put in a new plant in Harbin in 2017, expanding its capacity to 1.6 million a year, but sales peaked at 1.27 million in 2016, and are down 6% in 2017, and 34% in 2018 to about 700,000. While there are no layoffs some workers are making only $220 monthly, forcing them to take second jobs as cab drivers or couriers. Suzuki decided to quit in 2018 exiting China entirely just so it would not pile up losses in what is now a market that is way overblown from the boom years. Electric vehicle production in the pipeline of about 7.5 million vehicles will compound this problem further with 32 new plants planned by 26 firms.   ...