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The transcript of the call between president Trump and Ukraine president is not  word by word account. It comes from notes taken on the call by key aides. No complete recordings or transcripts exist. The practice is for the National Security Advisor, in this case John Bolton, to be present or in the West Wing, and a few key aides.

After the unauthorized release of calls Trump made to the Mexican president early in his administration in which he said it was OK if Mexico did not pay for a wall as long as it looked like Mexico was paying, the circle of people involved is limited to a few aides. Because of this some of the calls were transferred to a separate server which was considered highly confidential. This is now the subject of an impeachment inquiry in the U.S. Congress.

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U.S. oil exports are expected to average 1 million barrels a day for all of 2017. In 2016 in some months the average was 1 million barrels a day. U.S. oil exports make up 1% of global oil volumes, yet the added inventory has helped keep prices in the range of $46  to $55 a barrel in mid 2017. American crude is at a $2.50 discount over the Brent crude benchmark, making it profitable to export to far away locations. Back-haul economics also helps as tankers coming back from the middle east can now take crude back with a stop in Europe. Oil exports go to China and Europe. Production declines in China have led to China importing from the U.S.

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Donald Trump is acquitted in the second impeachment trial with a vote in the Senate of 53 in favor to 47 against. A two thirds majority is required to impeach a president. Senators Burr of North Carolina and Cassidy of Louisiana were Republicans who joined the expected ones to vote for impeachment- the Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Republican defense lawyer insisted that Trump's speech to his supporters was not an intention to incite them on the day of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 but an expression of his rights to free speech guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment. He made the point that the prosecution lawyers had selectively focused attention on the words "fight like hell" and taken them out of the entire context in which they were made, ignoring key parts of Mr. Trump's speech. The defense argued that the president had already left office and this made an impeachment unconstitutional. Seventy five million voters voted for Mr. Trump and he cited this as the most number of votes won by a sitting president. President Biden is shifting his attention to the president's agenda and needs Republican support to pass key legislation including financial help to households, unemployed, and business to recover from the pandemic. The U.S. health effort behind the vaccination drive and seeing the struggle in Europe to access key medical supplies of vaccine is also leading to new efforts to move beyond the rhetoric to the hard work ahead with support of all parties. As part of this the trial once it reached the Senate was quickly resolved in about 5 days. The defense used only a small fraction of the time allotted with bipartisan effort to not let the trial drag on, bipartisan effort to putting some statements simply on the record and not calling witnesses.   ...

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Michael Barnier leads the negotiating team for the EU as it begins negotiations with Britain on Brexit. He is a former foreign minister of France and former EU commissioner, giving him the necessary skills and experience. Yet as he meets with the Affairs of the European Committee in the German parliament, even Barnier is not clear how the negotiations will be conducted. Only that the issues relating to disentangling the closely interwoven economies of the EU and Britain relate to nationals of the EU and Britain in each others region, the common 20,000 legally binding regulations, and the price tag for Britain to pay of 60 billion euros. The leading German in the negotiating team is Gunther Oettinger, a former EU budget commissioner, and he tells Der Spiegel that the bill may be even higher than that number. The figure will be arrived at by taking into account the obligations of Britain and applying this to assets. The obligations include the money owed to the EU budget, share of medium term budget planning to 2020, share of pension payments to EU civil servants. The British take a different view and do not understand why they have to pay this amount when they are exiting. The British want to see their future relationship on trade and access to the EU markets discussed early, but the EU position is just the opposite, first exit negotiations to be completed by September 2018, then other discussions on trade. March 29, 2019 is the date set for Britain to be no longer a member of the EU. Yet even the sequence of issues has not been set and the sides could not be further apart than they are now. Each side looking at its situation domestically with elections in the EU in 2017, and May facing the added challenge of Scotland threatening to leave the UK. ...

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DW.com has this exceptional story on the elections in France through the pictures drawn by cartoonists in French newspapers. As polls show Macron with over 60% of the vote, cartoonists reflected on the situation of a new president with little experience and his "en marche" movement only one year old, looking at it with skepticism. Cartoonist Antoine Chereau shows a common person reflecting on the situation, with the title Macron leads in the first round, the person says that after being deceived by the right and the left, the French are now choosing to try out deception from the centrist. Loic Secheress shows Macron at the steering wheel of a car, with the title the second round Uberized, two passengers in the back saying they do not want to go right or left, and Macron saying- then alright we are going straight into the wall. On the Socialists splitting the vote between Hamon with 6% and Melenchon with about 20%, instead of putting up one candidate and heading into the runoff,  cartoonist Plantu shows Hamon and Melenchon riding one bike in opposite directions, with the title - the losing machine. Cartoonist Soulcie drawing for Le Monde shows a tour guide in front of the Louvre museum pointing to the pyramid architecture in front of the museum and saying- here are the last remains of the socialist civilization. Allan Barte's drawing looks at the elections as another disappointing experience for voters. He shows two voters in front of posters of Marine Le Pen and Macron, one saying I hadn't realized what the expression really meant until now, and the girl next to him says "election piege a cons," meaning "elections are a trap for idiots" used in the May 1968 street protests in France. ...

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The mismanagement of the economy under president Macri is leading to an economic crisis in the country. By embracing economic orthodoxy and slashing subsidies for fuel, electricity and transportation Mr. Macri who won the election 3 years ago has cause the prices of these basic goods to skyrocket. This has hurt the middle class and poor in Argentina. For most of this century Argentina has pursued populist policies, and in the last five decades periods of free market principle based economics were followed by severe crises, and subsequent restoration of populist policies to improve the economic conditions that had deteriorated.  The peso lost half of its value in 2018, leading to a IMF bailout of $57 billion. Inflation is at 50%, unemployment above 9%. To stem the fall in the peso the central bank increased interest rates to 60% stifling the economy and business. Under his predecessor Christine Kirchner the peso's value suffered and its currency reserves were low after fall in soyabean prices, yet the currency had not suffered the kind of decline that it has seen under Mr. Macri. The cutting of subsidies and the economic crisis has increased the number of poor to about a third of the population. Argentina now faces another of the repeated cycles of going from a populist Peronist administration to a free market orthodoxy supporting government, followed by an economic crisis and a shift back to Peronist populist administration policies. Part of the problem is that Argentina, and Brazil, and most of Latin America is still dependent on commodity exports, and the economy dependent on commodity prices. The manufacturing sector has not taken off as it has in Asian countries. This has led to repeated crises in times when the currency reserves declined and affected the currency, also leading to bouts of severe inflation.   ...

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Germany is well known for its auto industry and machinery industries. It lags well behind other countries in its investment in internet infrastructure. Germany ranks 33rd worldwide in average monthly fixed broadband connection speeds, and 47th in mobile, according to Speedtest Global Index. The U.S. ranks No. 7 in fixed broadband and 37th in mobile. To get a sense of how far behind the U.S. and Germany are in mobile infrastructure and in average monthly mobile connection speeds consider Croatia is No. 9 and Canada is No. 3, Australia No. 4 in mobile. Consider in fixed broadband Romania is No. 4 and Hungary No. 10. What happened? In Germany strict fiscal rules prevented investment in infrastructure without considering how much good essential infrastructure can add to economic growth. There was a decade of disinvestment under Merkel in the country's infrastructure. Consider that Germany relies on copper for rather than glass fiber for linking end users to the fixed line network. Deutsche Telekom laced a strategy for investing in a new network in the last decade when early on in the decade Telecom companies inFrance ad Portugal were rolling out new all fiber networks in keeping with a 2010 European Union report that recommended EU countries invest in fiber. So that today after a decade of disinvestment in essential infrastructure Germany is finally waking up to the fact that its development is uneven at best and lopsided for certain with production facilities in cars and other machinery but failure to invest in the technology that drives machines and cars. Even the updating excuse given by Deutsche Telkom of vectoring or reducing interference sounds strange a decade ago as stated in this report, using the same cooper connections simply reducing noise, a failure of singular proportions to modernize. As a result some of the fastest connections are now in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea in Asia or countries such as Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland in Europe. ...

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Mr. Vanderhei of Politico leaves to form a rival political coverage site called Axios, which has funding from Comcast Universal. The result of a rift between Mr Albritton, the owner, and the CEO, Mr. Vanderhei, is that many executives are now leaving Politico, putting it into a crisis. 

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National security scrutiny increases for China's telecom company ZTE. These concerns led to Washington blocking a takeover of Qualcomm by Singapore's Broadcom Ltd. This is playing out in the middle of economic tensions between the U.S. and China over trade and intellectual property issues.

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With heightened scrutiny of president Trump's interactions with Russia, and lack of detailed documentation of what was said at meetings, Mr. Trump told reporters - "I never worked for Russia." House Democrats are looking at whether there was an effort to limit documentation of meetings. 

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Two Cameroonians explore their country's history and tradition doing research into Africa's collective memory. They focus on law, traditional customs, and art. The name Cameroon also has colonial origins - coming from the camaroes or shrimps in Portuguese that were found by Portuguese explorers.

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The Economist magazine presents the case for a second referendum on Brexit, because of the bad choices facing the UK once parliament rejects the current EU agreement negotiated by prime minister Theresa May. No brexit deal will be bad for the UK, the prospect of new elections remains. 

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Tokyo enters a lockdown as Governor Koike warns of the danger of public complacency after the cherry blossom season. She called for the public's cooperation. She asked residents to work from home. The Tokyo metropolitan region has about 30 million people in a densely crowded area. 

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401 K catchup contributions for people over 50 years will be put under new restrictions for IRS rules for 2026. Under new rules any catch up contributions for earners above $145,000 will have to be made in an account which pays taxes up front into a Roth Account.

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This opinion in DW.com says Donald Trump has done exactly the opposite of what he said during the election campaign when he was severely critical of China on trade issues. This report cites the many statements in some detail made by Trump about China. During a recent visit to China he says president Trump seemed to go out of his way to show agreement with president Jinping, quite the reverse of what he said he would do during the election campaign. U.S. influence and prestige is seen as declining as a result of president Trump's policies.

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The July 2017 unemployment rate drops to 4.3% from 4.4% the prior month. The Labor Department reported nonfarm payrolls up by 209,000. One in four of these jobs were in the restaurant business, resulting in more lower paying jobs. Economic growth remains low at 2%.

A better gauge of the jobless situation is the U-6 which includes underemployment and people on parttime jobs looking to work full time, and people who have stopped looking-it is at 8.6% in July, same as the prior month. It was 7.9% in late 2007 before the financial crisis.

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The International Longshoreman's Union representing 45,000 dockworkers may go on strike next week if negotiations for a 77% pay raise over 6 years remain stalled. This would ties up all Gulf, East coast and other ports in the US from Maine to Texas. The Biden administration is closely following the negotiations after the UAW and other unions have negotiated better wages and benefits that meet cost of living pressures.

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The new Senate Majority leader was raised in a two room house in tiny Murdo, South Dakota, in the wind swept prairies of the United States. Another Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield was raised by his aunt and uncle in a tiny town of Great Falls Montana in the period leading to the First World War. Thune brings a unique ability to tackle the situation facing the Senate today.

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Starmer and Home Office say 16,400 deportations have been made in 6 months to home countries in Jan 2025, this is inthe first 6 months of the Labour government. This includes asylum seekers, illegal migrants, and foreign criminals. Starmer is shown at the City of London police headquarters on Jan 30, 2025. 

This says the Home Office is the highest since 2017 when 17,328 were returned.

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There are questions whether the Black Rock Germany "Dare Capitalism" (his book) model of CDU's Merz with a debt brake support limiting investments needed in the economy are right for Germany's future. Wash. Post says people close to him say he is direct and pragmatic but also arrogant and thin skinned. Friedrich Merz is 69 years, Konrad Adenauer was 73 years when he took office. 

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This analysis in the NYT shows that Labour won 412 seats in the British Parliament with only one third of the vote, and only 60% of voters participating. And Reform UK of Nigel Farage with 14% of the vote across UK won only 4 seats. The Greens won only 4 seats with 7% of the vote. The Conservatives with 23% of the vote won 120 seats. Labour's share of the youngest vote in the youngest seats actually dropped from 51% to 44%, with votes going to Reform UK and to the Liberal Democrats. Conservatives dropped across the board but still did better with older voters. And the Liberal Democrats astonishingly gained about 60 seats with just a slight increase of votes of only 0.08% increase in votes from 11.6% to 12.2% pushing its seat count from 11 in 2019 to 71 seats in 2024. This is why Keir Starmer has won big yet knows he has alot of work to do and promises stability as well as change that begins today for Britain, a cautious approach that also seeks to make further gains in the future by winning the hearts of the British people and also bringing relief for cost of living to the British public and good government. Building infrastructure and public services will come as Labour wins the confidence of Britons with a larger vote share in the coming years to support sweeping changes that Britain needs for infrastructure health, education and public services. ...

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UK's Keir Starmer makes 6 pledges to the British people- "Living standards should rise so that growth was felt by everyone, everywhere." Real household disposable income per person, GDP per capita by 2029. Build 1.5 million new homes in 5 years and fast track 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure projects. 92% of patients have to wait no more than 18 weeks for routine operations and appointments by March 2029. 29,000 officers for neighborhood policing and stopping anti-social behavior-1 for every 8000 people. 95% of low carbon electricity generation by 2030. 5% gas generation kept in reserve for unanticipated situations. It is Boris Johnson's target from 2022 in contrast to DJT's reverting to oil and gas to 2027 with industry following its continued but slower shift to gas and wind/solar. A pledge on living standards as the goal not growth is what Starmer sees as the dire need today. Growth that would put the UK ahead of all countries in the G7 is put aside for raising living standards for ALL the British people. A recognition that the two can mean very different things. Under the current plan fufilfillment of pledges is seen in the growth rate of 0.5% a year that is set in 2024. ...

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That is before Wengfeng branched out into AI and his venture DeepSeek to do at a tiny fraction of the cost what these chaps at OpenAI had been openly propagandizing to take not billions, even trillions out of capital markets to leave us all worse of without funds for essential needs in education, schools, healthcare, childcare, transportation. Liang Wengfeng, who founded a $8 billion hedge fund and  invested in AI research fo Deppseek that does in $5.6 million what it takes OpenAI $100 million to do. It started with quant models to predict share prices. He wrote the introduction to the Chinese edition of Zuckerman's book on hedge fund manager Jan Simmons who was into advanced work on quantified modelling for share prices. It says-   “Whenever I encounter difficulties at work, I recall Simons’s words: ‘There must be a way to model prices.' " Liang also says “The publication of this book unravels many previously unresolved mysteries and brings us a wealth of experiences to learn from.” That is before Wengfeng branched out into AI an his venture DeepSeek to do at a tiny fraction of the cost what this chaps at OpenAI had been openly propagandizing to take not billions, even trillions out of capital markets to leave us all worse of without funds for essential needs in education, schools, healthcare, childcare, transportation. ...

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How to re-book and get some cash for flight cancellations.

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Turkey's currency Lira dropped to 7.2 to the dollar on August 13, 2018, taking the drop in the currency in 2018 to about 70%. About 90% of Turkey's debt with foreign lenders is denominated in foreign currencies. Turkey is highly dependent on money from overseas to finance growth and credit. 

The risks increase with higher interest rates in the U.S. and the falling value in the Lira which makes it harder to pay off debt. Turkey faces loss of confidence from foreign investors as its relations with the U.S. deteriorate in a tariff war with the U.S. increasing the focus on factors long ignored by American and European investors such as its high dependence on dollar denominated loans.

Analysts say the problems in Turley are unlikely to be systemic for all emerging markets because Turkey's problems are unique with questions about the management of the economy and the authoritarian rule of president Erdogan.