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This podcast in the SWI swissinfo.ch explains what the UN agency International Telecommunications Union is and why it is important. The ITU is responsible for governance of the world internet and broadcasting. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland. It is the oldest UN agency as it was founded in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union. The US Biden administration has nominated Doreen Bogdan-Martin to the key position of head of this important UN agency to maintain a free and open internet. Doreen Bogdan-Martin is from New Jersey, US, and graduated with a Masters degree in International Communications Policy from American University. She joined the ITU as a Policy Analyst in 1994, and is head of the Telecommunications Development Bureau of the ITU.

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U.S., UK and Swiss regulators charged UBS AG with conspiracy to rig the London Interbank Offered Rate or LIBOR. LIBOR is the interest rate at which large banks lend to each other and is determined from daily reports made by 16 banks to the British Banking Association, giving the rate at which the bank borrows from its peer banks. This rate helps determine the rate for trillions of dollars in securities, home and auto loans, swaps and derivatives. A tiny movement in LIBOR can affect trading profits, and it influences perceptions of a bank's health particularly in a crisis such as the 2008 financial crisis. Every day a 16 bank panel reports this rate to British financial authorites. UBS took full responsibilty and pleaded guilty to criminal fraud. UBS settled the charges for $1.5 billion. Barclays PLC, a UK bank, settled charges for LIBOR manipulation in mid 2012 for $450 million, ending in the departure of the bank chairman and CEO. Britain's regulator the Financial Services Authority, FSA, says in its report that rigging the rate was "routine and widespread" at UBS in order to increase trading profits, done with the knowledge of senior managers, and included cash awards or trading opportunities to employees at other banks to participate in manipulating the LIBOR rate. During one period of 18 months UBS paid 15000 British pounds to a firm of outside brokers every 3 months. FSA says LIBOR and versions of it are "at risk of being improperly influenced " between Jan. 2005-2010. What this means is other large settlements with other banks can be expected. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have lost $3 billon from this manipulation of LIBOR, according to an internal report from the inspector general of the Federal housing Finance Agency, which also says Fannie and Freddie should sue the banks responsible. The whole issue of LIBOR came to light after an article was published in the WSJ, April 16, 2012, and a WSJ study on LIBOR using credit default insurance to track LIBOR rates, on May 29, 2012....

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Jonathan Kanter is one of the leaders of a movement that sees big tech companies as monopolists in the tradition of the 19th century railroad and oil companies that gave the original inspiration for the anitrust laws of the United States. Laws that created a better America by building competition in the marketplace and ensuring fairness.

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Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...

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German chancellor Merkel met with leaders of Germany's 16 federal states to come up with an exit plan for reopening the economy from the lockdown in phases. In the first phase shops with up to 800 square metres of space will reopen on April 20. Bookshops, libraries, car dealers, bicycle shops, and museums will open too. Larger retailers will wait till May 4 to reopen. On May 4 school children in primary school can attend school and teenagers can take exams. Germany has 133,000 infected cases, 3592 deaths. Merkel warned that the performance with coronavirus was "fragile and provisional success" and the need for social distancing measures. A ban on gatherings of more than 2 people from separate households will remain in place till May 1. The government will strongly recommend that face masks be worn in public and in shops, public transport. Mass events will be prohibited till September. Bars clubs and restaurants will remain closed at least till May 3, or beyond. ...

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Indian lady doctors who were pioneers in their field between 1860 and 1930 are shown here in this podcast in The Hindu. They had to balance work and family lives, and face many obstacles as they pioneered in their field. 

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This report in the WSJ shows in an extraordinary detailed way going back 20 years how under each administration Bush, Obama, Trump in the US and Angela Merkel in Germany, Hollande and Macron in France, the serious differences in the world view and thinking between president Putin of Russia and western leaders were simply ignored or overlooked. Mr. Putin truly believed in Ukraine and Russia as one people, researched history on his own and wrote an essay that made him more convinced than ever about his views that separation of Ukraine from Russia was an artificial construct, more so in the last two years.  By integrating the German and European Union economies with Russia and China without coming to terms with the large separation in views of the world and ignoring Russian views because of its economic size as an economy the size of France, both Merkel and Obama's policies failed to grasp what was happening. This report shows in much detail each event since 2005 that led to increasing distrust by Putin of western leaders.  The integration of the economies of the west and the integration of supply chains with China and Russia continued even after serious concerns had developed during the Trump administration. US and European business was operating on a completely different path not taking this into account in any way. It was only in the Biden administration and after the election of Scholz in Germany in 2021 that the situation was becoming clear. On the other side Ukraine itself and its people had changed in ways that were not anticipated by people in Germany or Russia, much less the leaders in Germany or Russia. There was a genuine sense that Ukraine was a national identity leading to the Ukraine resistance and a prolonged conflict. Brendan Simms, Cambridge historian shows how Europe went through conflicts and wars in its history as each of the major European nations sought advantage from 1453 to the present in his book, "Europe- The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present." Small gains were made in these wars that dragged on bringing great suffering to ordinary people.These wars involved England, France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Russia. ...

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Eighteen Senate Republicans under Mitch McConnell, the Minority leader in the US Senate, hold firm to support all Democrats for aid to Ukraine bill. This includes Senator Tillis of North Carolina who vigorously supported the aid bill on the floor of the Senate. Senator McConnell said "It is become fashionable in some circles to disregard the global interests of a global power, to bemoan the responsibilities of global leadership. It is idle work for idle minds, and it has no place in the US Senate." Mr. Trump and some Republican senators helped kill a immigration compromise legislation that Mr. Biden said would make it possible to close the border the day it was passed. This group also opposed the aid bill and lobbied to get the aid bill killed in the US Senate.

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North Korea's trade with China has plunged 75% in 2020 and the economy has suffered the worst in a generation. Trade with China withered to $1.7 million in October for a 99% drop. A weak health system meant North Korea had no choice but to shut down completely. It locked off some provinces and shut down foreign tourism. Prices of food staples like sugar have quadrupled.  

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China expands the trading range of the yuan to 1%. The yuan is set by the People's Bank of China, China's central bank, at 6.2879 yuan per U.S. dollar on March 14, 2012 or 15 to 16 U.S. cents to the yuan. The yuan rate is set daily by the PBOC, called the parity rate, and was previously allowed to trade in a 0.5% trading range.

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The Labor Dept. shows U.S. job vacancy rate of 2.6% and 3.5 million job openings at the end of Feb. 2012. This was an increase from three million in the prior year. The job vacancy rate shows job openings as a percentage of total U.S. jobs. The large and increasing number of job vacancies suggest that there is a mismatch of skills that will take a long time to be corrected and a slower decline in the unemployment rate.

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Obama's comments during a visit to Greece about the challenges facing multiracial and multicultural societies such as the U.S. and the people left behind through globalization. He says "we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an "us" and a "them."  Obama also referred to a global elite "that seems to live by a different set of rules, such as being able to avoid taxes," which he said "fuels a feeling that globalization only benefits those at the top," and leads to a push back from people who feel they are losing control over their future." The problem for workers is that fewer and fewer workers are needed in todays advanced automated factories and manufacturing moves across borders leading to anxiety. The president may have realized the extent of the damage only in the closing days of the campaign in 2016, because of his support for trade agreements without talking in this manner about the lives of workers.  ...

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The 6.6% US core inflation for September 2022 excludes energy and food. Much of this core inflation is rental or housing costs. Since there is a lag in the data measurement it does not reflect cooling housing costs. Still the food and energy costs are stubbornly high so that inflation is real and hitting Americans hard.

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Ted Cruz is seen as the most pro-Israel candidate for the Republican nomination. In this story by Flegenheimer in the NYT Cruz visits a Hasidic bakery in Brooklyn, New York, as children roll out matso dough right in front of Cruz.