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President Biden sets out the new role of America in the Asia Pacific region at the APEC CEO Summit. Key points from hours of discussion Biden had with Xi Jinping during his visit to the US- 

"Let me be clear. America does not seek conflict with China." And that "America is not decoupling with China. It is de-risking and diversifying from China." For his part Jinping has said- "There are a thousand reasons for us to want good relations with the US." This may be the biggest achievement of both leaders.

 

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Stefanos Tsitsipas plays Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open final.

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Contrary to earlier media reports of Mr Naimi the Saudi oil minister saying that the market was healthy and "well balanced" and that no cuts were expected, it turns out that after extensive debate the OPEC ministers agreed on a cut of 520,000 barrels a day or less than 1% of the world's oil supply. It would put OPEC production back to 32.7 million barrels a day same as the first 3 months of 2008. This was done to avert excess supply in the market but Algeria's oil minister said that this would not affect the downward trend in prices as buyer nations in USA and Europe had already built up supply inventories from weaker demand. Iran, Libya and Algeria argued that there was a supply glut or imbalance from reduced demand. OPEC President is Chakib Khelil of Algeria. Russia's top energy ministers and head of Roseft attended ths OPEC meeting. Sechin head of Rosneft Russia's largest oil company run by the government said tht Russia is preparing a memorandum of understanding for deeened cooperation with OPEC. At tis point OPEC supplie 40% of the world's energy, Russia supplies another 11%. ...

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Americans Pegula, Navarro, Fritz, and Tiafoe at US Open Tennis 2025, all advance in the early rounds.

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Kehlil President of OPEC says there will be no meeting before the scheduled meeting in September, and that the markets are well supplied. He says theree are no indications that there is shortage of supplies. Saudi increase in production of 300,000 brrels is only a small token he says.

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Bharat Jagdeo, vice president of Guyana tells the WSJ it wants to produce as much oil as it can quickly before renewble energy takes over. Guyana has $40 billion of Mobil projects that can add 1 million barrels a day by 2030. Non-OPEC producers US, Brazil and Guyana can boost output by 5.1 million barrels a day, OPEC+ can only increase production by 800,000 barrels a day. This means the US can help keep oil prices at levels that help India/Indonesia, Europe and the US grow.  Brazil and Guyana do not want OPEC mandated production cuts.

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Rafael Nadal makes a remarkable comeback to beat Medvedev after losing the first two sets in the 2022 Australian Open tennis tournament. The match lasted 5 hours till 1 am the next day. Nadal says "Being honest one month and a half ago, I did not know if I will be back on the tour plying tennis again... you don't know how much I fought to be here." Nadal is one of the of the most resilient players in sports having comeback from difficult situations repeatedly, as he gives his all down to the last point regardless of the score. 

 

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Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp wins in straight sets against Carlos Alcaraz of Spain in the early rounds of the US Open Tennis championship.

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Carlos Alcaraz finishes a five set 4 hours at the US Open semifinals, after a quarter finals game that lasted 5 hours all the way to the early hours of the morning at 5 am. The youngster from Spain meets another new face at the US Open Casper Ruud of Norway. The old game had disappeared with very few net points and fewer lob shots. Ruud and Alcaraz are taking the game back to how it was played by the likes of Laver and Nastase in the 1960's and 1970's when a whole mix of shots and agility at the net was always part of the game.

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Microsoft embraces open-source software for the first time. CEO Steve Ballmer once considered Linux open-source software "a cancer." Microsoft announces the creation of Microsoft Open Technologies in April 2012, as a unit that will manage the introduction of open source software programs and the compatibility of Microsoft software with open-source software. Cloud computing has strong elements of open-source software in it and Web services provided by Google and Facebook rely on Linus's open-source software. Younger programmers are trained with working on Linux and it is important for Microsoft to accept and work with the open-source software community to retain its influence in the field.

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Jannick Sinner of Italy wins in 4 sets over Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open in a decisive manner 6-1,6-2, 6-7, 6-3. Novak Djokovic had an unbeaten 20-0 record at the Austrlain Open. Sinner is the rising 22 year old from Italy who has emerged in the way Spain's Alcaraz has in world tennis over the last 2 years.

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Some of the gentlemanly aspects of the game going back to the 50's and 60's, and 70's, including courtesy and sportsmanship are lost as media hypes winning and losing at the US Open Tennis at Forest Hills. Always looking for television moments and attention getting the media enlarges the slightest faults of players, much more than players themselves who go through the game focused on their game skills. A game between Bonzi of a France and Medvedev of Russia in 5 sets which Bonzi won is yet another example. Late night games with crowds are not new to the game. Ilie Nastase and Rod Laver played many late night games with crowds keen to see the skills of the players not focused on winners and losers in the 1970's.

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OPEC ministers debating 1 million barrel reduction in production. Disagreement over how cuts should be distributed among members. Saudi Arabia, although very influential, has remained silent due to upcoming mid-term US elections. OPEC output has grown to 30 million barrels a day, the highest level in over 25 years. Additional article titled "OPEC Approves Cut to Output by 1 Million Barrels" for similar insights.

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Berlin Brandenburg Airport or BER was supposed to open in 2011 or 2012,instead it will open in October 2020, nine years behind schedule, three times over budget. There were 2 parliamentary probes into what went wrong. The planning was faulty and plans were changed, blueprints were not finalized, resulting in a long sequence of problems with such basic items such as the fire safety system, and shoddy electrical wiring, faulty smoke extractions systems. A technical manager was jailed for three years for accepting a bribe from a contractor who then went bankrupt.  The airport CEO Mr. Daldrup says his job was to mop up problems like a "crime scene cleaner." It may be an example of how German values in hard work and good engineering declined as the country lost its focus in the period after reunification and the austerity years under chancellors Schroeder, Merkel, a period when new infrastructure and public services suffered neglect.

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The UK is open to American proposals for a global minimum tax rate given that it includes a fairer split of the taxes from US tech companies. Discussions are taking place under the umbrella of the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This is intended to prevent tax escape by large companies which choose the lowest tax jurisdictions that are set up just for that purpose. The result has been that Europe and the US have suffered from decades of underinvestment and neglect of essential infrastructure and weakened the health and education systems leaving essentials of quality of living underfunded in cities and towns across Europe and the US. The pandemic has brought the lesson home in many ways. The UK has already increased the corporate tax rate to 25% in March to help pay for pandemic related help packages. The US Biden administration has proposed a 28% tax rate, and Treasury Secretary Yellen has suggested 21% as the minimum corporate tax rate. ...

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Eighteen year old Bianca Andreescu of Canada wins the U.S. Open 6-3, 7-5 defeating 37 year old veteran Serena Williams as she attempted a comeback. The intelligent game with a whole range of shots and use of creative game mixing up the shots was a feature of Andrescu's style that made it fun to watch the game. Martina Navritolova says Andrescu's style is so creative that its great to have a new player like her in the game.