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Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak, tells the Wall Street Journal in an interview, that the protests throughout the Arab world are a movement in the right direction, and moving Arab societies toward modernity. His view is that Israel should not fear changes in the region and should offer bold concessions in setting up the conditions for a permanent peace with Palestinians.

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Medtronic's former CEO, Bill George, says Medtronic's plan to reincorporate in Ireland as part of the merger with Covidien is intended to make it possible to use cash piled up overseas. The cash overseas if repatriated to the U.S. would incur corporate taxes of 35%. Medtronic can use its overseas cash resources to finance the acquisition of Covidien. The combination of the two companies will enhance cash flow, says Medtronic's CEO, Omar Ishak. Covidien's overseas cash and future earning from its businesses is not subject to U.S. repatriation taxes. As a result the combined company following merger will have only 40% of total cash "trapped" overseas, compared to 60% before a merger.

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Low price Wuling vans in China sell for under $3500 and are used mostly for agricultural purposes. The vans will be exported to other countries by GM, a partner in the GM Wuling Automobile Company in China.

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Dart Management, a vulture fund based in the Cayman Islands, received 90% of the 436 million euros bond payment by Greece on May 15, 2012. Dart is one of the holdout investors who did not participate in the Greek debt restructuring deal. It planned to sue the Greek government. This has implications for the other holdout investors with about 6-7 billion euros of Greek bonds. The reason given by the Greek government was that this caught Greece at a bad time- suing Greece could have tied up European bailout funds that Greece needs to make interest payments on its debt. The timing is bad from another standpoint, as it will further exacerbate voter discontent with the parties associated with the government just before the second Greek elections in June 2012.

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A new generation of younger leaders takes over at the European Central Bank under Mario Draghi. Belgian economist Peter Praet succeeds Peter Stark of Germany in the Economics Department. Portugal's Vitor Constancio is vice president. Jorg Asmussen, 45, from Germany is on the ECB executive board, so is Benoit Coeure, 42, from France, and Klaas Knot, 44, from the Netherlands. Asmussen will head the ECB's International Division. Jens Weidmann,43, is the new head of the Bundesbank. The result experts say could be a reorientation of the ECB's outlook away from the rigid anti-inflation stance of Draghi's predecessor, Claude Trichet, and a willingness to try new approaches to help Europe tackle this recession.

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The amazing story of Abdel Hakim Belhaj who is seen as a foe by the CIA and turned over to Gaddafi's regime from Bangkok, followed by six years in Libyan jails. He is in the Western mountains near Tripoli leading a brigade that enters Tripoli. Because of the military discipline and experience gained in Afghanistan, Belhaj is put in charge of Tripoli by the Libyan Transitional Council. He looks to the future and is grateful to NATO and the U.S. for freeing his country. He holds no rancor for the past and looks to the future.

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According to data from the American Mortgage Banker's Associationone in seven households are behind on their payments on mortgages or in foreclosure. This data shows that 14.4% of first lien mortgages on one to four family homes in the third quarter were 30 days or more overdue or in foreclosure process. This results in about 7.5 millin households at risk of losing homes. This percentage was 10% in 2008 and 7.3% in 2007.

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In a program of gradual change the new leadership under premier Li Keqiang steers China's economy in the new direction set by the DRC Report: China 2030 and the Third Plenum in Nov. 2013. New priorities listed under major Tasks in the annual work report by Li Keqiang place setting up deposit insurance at the top of the list. Policy changes include allowing cities to issue bonds directly to increase transparency in construction spending and control burgeoning debt.

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Roshe gives an independent view of whats happening in the economy and sees a recession, sticky inflation that will last a long time for the US and the world economy in a semirecession for a long time. Roche of independent Strategy consultancy in London does not see the Fed's actions to increase liquidity having any effect in resolving the issues of solvency which have resulted from the overleveraging of brokerage and mortgage firms on Wall Street, only exacerbating the effects of a weaker dollar and higher inflation over the longer term. He points out that hedge fund and broker balance sheets or nondeposit financial institutions (NDFI's) half the size of banks in the USA and a quarter of the size of banks in Europe have their assets and liabilities financed by repurchase agreements. They lend and borrow against the collateral of assets that are marked to market, which means that they can borrow more and easily in a rising market cycle and can borrow less and with more difficulty in a falling market cycle. With the contracting cycle in place now they are facing insolvency issues. This may have been delayed till now because of investment banking profits and having credit lines for the duration of a contract. Till now investmet banking profits gave them leverage over lenders who made money from fees in investment banking. Now the banks hurt by writedowns of loans in mortgages and other areas are likely to tighten lending and call in their loans. What the Fed's actions will do is delay things a bit but not prevent a credit contraction and fall in asset prices. David Roche was Global Strategist for Morgan Stanley before starting Independent Strategy to provide fresh thinking and new insights on financial markets. His estimate is that reduction in available credit for corporate investment in technology, R&D and factories as a result of contraction in the financial system will require reducing corporate debt ultimately by 11-12 %. This will generate a loss of 5% points of real GDP growth for the US and put into a recession. For Europe he estimates loss of 2% points of real GDP growth. Global credit losses of $1.4 trillion would cause a contraction in world GDP of 2.5 percentage points or half the current rate of growth. For the global economy he sees a gray dull world of semi-recession and stickly inflation that will last a long time even without any major policy blunders. If this is original thinking and he is right then the Fed, the IMF, the Council of Economic Advisors, and general thinking on Wall Street that sees a short recession lasting several quarters may be in for a big shock....

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The Obama administration announced a policy of increasing the number of refugees accepted in fiscal 2017 to 110,000. This will be an increase from 85,000 in 2016, and 70,000 in the prior 3 years. Secretary of State Kerry says the target is consistent  with the idea that all countries need to do more, and if we could do more we would. After 3 years of cautious policy president Obama now follows Chancellor Merkel's lead.

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Toyota projects net income for fiscal year ending March 2014 of 1.9 trillion yen or about $18.8 billion, exceeding combined earnings of GM, Ford and Chrysler.

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Product obsolescence in a matter of weeks- the situation with the HP Touchpad. The Touchpad tablet is introduced at a retail price of $399 for 16GB and $499 for 32GB versions on July 1, 2011. The product is scrapped by CEO Apotheker after disappointing sales within weeks of introduction. It is now sold at a sale price of $99 in the last week of August 2011. This shows the astounding rate at which things change in the high tech product markets. Nokia, Nintendo, and now HP have seen their fortunes change quickly in 2011.

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German exports to Russia are growing at a rate of 25% for the first quarter of 2008, according to Mangold of the Ost-Ausschuss, a group promoting trade with Russia, even though it is only 3% of all German exports. Russia- Germany trade has reached 57 billion euros for 2007. German exports to Russia are vital to the continued growth of the small and middle sized companies in Germany. About 4600 of these companies operate in Russia today. These companies produce chemicals, autos and machine tools. The promotion of this trade was the focus ofa conference in Dresden last month with top level officials from both countries.

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How GM is seeing the value of new technologies not just for their value in commercialization but in the value in brand image. To be seen as the innovation leader does a lot for brand image and this does a lot for selling cars across a whole lineup which does't remotely use that technology. This is the case with hydrogen fueled cars and GM is now taking this challenge seriously. Refueling remains an issue but all untested technologies have to start somewhere and GM wants to be seen as an innovator from now on.