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Japan's economy minister, Mr. Seko, says that with no-deal Brexit Britain will lose access to Japan's new economic partnership agreement with the European Union which last month created the world's largest free trade zone. Seko said 1000 Japanese companies have invested in the UK creating 150,000 jobs, because it served as "a gateway to the European market."

Nissan is scaling back its Sunderland factory. Sony and Panasonic are relocating their EU headquarters to Amsterdam. Honda will close its Swindon plant in 2021. Seko said "uncertainty for the consequences of Brexit is spreading in Japanese industry."

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The intelligence community in the U.S. and the defense department supported strong action on the Russia spy issue, overcoming president Trump's early reluctance to take action. Three options were presented to the president and he chose the middle option, which offered flexibility yet also sent a strong message. The action taken expelled 60 Russian spies and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle. Russia responded by closing the U.S. consulate in St Petersburg. This is the first time that the U.S. and its allies Germay and Britain, France have acted decisively and in coordination in response to Russian moves. Germany is also moving towards stronger action.

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This story by Asa Fitch of the WSJ shows how NVIDIA co-founder Jensen Huang, built NVIDIA into a major semiconductor company. He did this by developing faster chips for graphics and other uses using parallel processing instead of sequential processing. It is now a rival to Intel as it plans an acquisition of ARM Holdings in Britain. Huang started NVIDIA in 1993 when computer users wanted faster computer graphics.  NVIDIA has about $10 billion in sales compared to larger rival Ital with $72 billion in sales. With its efforts in AI and other tech fields NVIDIA now surpasses Intel in valuation. Softbank bought ARM Holdings in 2016 for $32 billion. It is now looking to sell ARM to NVIDIA or another buyer. Problems it faces in the acquisition is British laws that may decide to prevent approval for sale of the company and the loss of jobs. ARM based in Cambridge has 6700 employees. ARM makes the chips for smartphones. The trade war between the U.S. and China and the sale of ARM chips to Huawei are also factors that will be considered in British approval or disapproval of this sale of a British company owned by Softbank of Japan.  ...

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Boris Johnson wins the race to lead the Conservative Party and become the next prime minister of Britain. Several ministers resigned underlining the problem he faces lacking support from the Conservative party members who do not support exit from the European Union without some deal or arrangement with the EU. He will lead a minority government that could fall with the loss of support from within the Conservative Party itself. Boris Johnson beat Jeremy Hunt by 92,153 votes to 46,656. He now has a margin of only three votes with the help of the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland and faltering support from members of the Conservative Party who see Boris Johnson's idea of simply leaving the EU on October 31st deal or no deal as problematic. 

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This article gives some simple answers to questions about how the NHS test and Trace system setup by Baroness Harding could go so wrong. It was setup as a separate agency and ignored some of the vital information of how contact tracing should be done close to local area coming out of Germany. This information was available early and was also on the Lyrarc site, as Germany had effective contact tracing as early as March-April. First Britain wasted time waiting for some brilliant App to do the work. The when this was going nowhere the NHS Test and Trace was setup but ignored the need for this to be done locally and followed up with personal visits to the homes of those needing to be visited to isolate. Most important- the local knowledge and the persons doing the calling having human skills to get people to cooperate and feel reassured. Less important or not at all- sophisticated equipment, a simple desktop, national database to which data is connected and sourced and a desk, a skilled motivated local person the key. Germany resorted to using the underutilized state or local employees who were diverted to these tasks but extraordinarily effective.  ...

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HBO may be capitalizing on cultural portrayals of unethical world of finance for successful television shows that do little to change the culture in America. During the 2009 financial crisis decade many such shows were seen, yet after Big Pharma and Finance, a new player Tech monopolies joined the list of unethical behavior, new technologies continue to operate without government setting the rules for fair play and level playing field essential for capital and labor to function in a modern economy- rules for capital and rules for labor set by "serious" public servants not revolving door public servants who finish their careers in the same banks, pharma or tech company monopolies. Bothe houses of Congress are then captured by the Big Pharma, Finance, and Tech monopolies, resulting in "Capture Capitalism" that has existed in different forms and yet cleaned up every 50-75 years since 1750, Adam Smith's fight against the monopolies of the East India Companies of Britain, Holland and Denmark. ...

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The Royal Mail is the oldest mail institution in the world. After a series of strikes a share of ownership is given to Czech billionaire Kretinsky 49 years, who built his company in European energy markets and pipleines to Russia. BBC Reports on this unusual step and what it means for one of Britain's oldest and sacred institutions.

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Mr Leung, the highly unpopular Chief Executive of Hong Kong, and target of protesters demanding his resignation and universal suffrage in 2017 as originally promised, is a reserved man who does not interact much with the public. His secondary scholing was at Kings School in Hong Kong followed by studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic for a higher diploma in building surveying. He then studied valuation and estate management at Bristol Polytechnic in Britain graduating in 1977. He was a surveyor by training and worked in this field to help China open up its property markets in the 1980's. By 30 he was made head of the JLW real estate firm's Hong Kong branch, and in 1993 formed his own firm DTZ Debenham. Throughout his life he has worked for or had close ties to the authorites in Beijing in the property field, and has little political experience. In 1985 he was elected to the Hong Kong Basic Law Consultative Committee, and later became its Secretary General. This was followed by a position in the Chinese government as a member of the National Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference till 2012. His first political campaign in 2012 was itself of a limited nature because he only had to win support from members of a 1200 member pro-China, pro-business Executive Council that currently approves nominees and elects the Chief Executive. Albert Ho, one of three candidates in 2012, says Leung was completely insulated from political pressures, political give and take, and uses a "greenhouse" comparison to describe this isolation from the public. His progressive credentials for providing affordable housing involve ideas to open up housing development in territories near Hong Kong appear to be merely election period ideas. The large gaps between rich and poor, or rich and a struggling middle class in Hong Kong- becoming sharply accentuated in China to the point where China is probably one of the most unequal societies similiar to Brazil- are also keenly present in Hong Kong. How much part this plays in the protests is not clear in media reports, though the "Occupy Central" name for one of the protest groups suggests a connection to social issues as well. Protestors may see democratically elected chief executives as more responsive to voter concerns including social, income, housing and other issues, in sharp contrast to more than 1200 well heeled business executives who have prospered greatly in China's boom years. China's national leadership under Jinping and LiKeqiang appeared to sense this income divide as they focussed on extragavant displays of wealth in the transition, but may still have failed to grasp how big that gap has become and how the political processes of rigid control cannot keep up with the times even with the best of intentions. Especially when growth slows and the problems of the boom years such as hyperinflation in property prices and pollution remain unsolved. Bloomberg quietly let the Occupy Wall Sreet protests fizzle out clearing protestors at times, yet voters could peacefully elect Mr. Blasio as Mayor of New York in response, a level to which Beijing's political system has not evolved and to which Hong Kong offers both a challenge and an opportunity. As one protester quoted in the NYT put it- "we are not the enemy, we are the people."...

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Bernie Sanders launches his 2020 presidential campaign at Brooklyn College by sharing his personal story of parents who were immigrants from Germany during the Nazi period. His father made a living selling paint to hardware stores and the family struggled in the early years.  He tells students he lived only a short distance away growing up "in a three and half room rent controlled apartment, and going to quality public schools." Mr. Sanders is the top choice in the early primaries including New Hampshire, competing with former vice president Mr. Biden. His campaign raised $10 million in just two weeks at the beginning of the campaign. He is campaigning for Medicare for All, $15 minimum wage, tution free public college. With Mr. Corbyn leading the Labor party in Britain in a new direction, Mr. Sanders is leading the Democratic Party in a new direction, both supporting the pro-working class traditional policies of their parties for most of the twentieth century. ...

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BBC shows the elections in which large majority of seats went to the Liberals, Conservatives, Labour. In 1945 Clement Attlee won a majority of 145 seats on a program to rebuild Britain after the Second World War, to create the NHS and social security for the older population. Conservatives under Winston Churchill lost 189 seats, but came back 6 years later as the Cold War with the Soviet Union was happening. Twice this changed in 1979 with Margaret Thatcher unwinding some of the aspects of the unions and public enterprises, followed by Labour under Tony Blair accepting the culture of Conservatives that has gone on to the present day in which government is not proactive. Blair won majorities in 1997 and 2001 of 179 and 167 seats yet as seen from today laid the seeds of the problems of Conservative policies getting such wide acceptance that even when the River Thames was polluted and water was privatized for profit motives including loading $19 billion in debt, it did not cause serious questions to be raised. The public shift to Labour in 2024 happens when a complete reversal of the culture of the government not being proactive in the public interest and not supporting  manufacturing to compete worldwide is being reversed. ...

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The Social Democrats leader Sigmar Gabriel is Economics Minister in the coalition government of Angela Merkel in Germany. He is sympathetic to French premier Manuel Valls effort to reduce austerity in the 2015 French budget now being reviewed by Brussels. Here he takes the initiative to call for discussion on the issue of growth and austerity facing the European Union, by joining French Economics minister Emmanuel Macron in asking two economists Pisani-Ferry and Enderlein at the Berlin Institute of Governance for advice on generating growth. The process started in late summer with the defeat of the centre right government in Sweden which supported Merkel's strict austerity policies for balanced budgets. The elections to the European parliament showed the dire situation facing Cameron in Britain and Hollande in France with the unpopularity of austerity policies, higher taxes and cutbacks. The Socialist Hollande government has the lowest public opinion ratings of any postwar government in France, at 18%, and it is unwilling to go further down the road with austerity. At the same time Valls has found a partner in Italy with the growing popularity of Matteo Renzi in Italy who won 40% of the vote in Italy for the EU parliamentary elections of 2014. ECB president Mario Draghi, has generated the debate by saying at a October 2014 Brookings Institution conference in Washington D.C. that countries that have fiscal space (referring to Germany) should use it. He added that governments that did not take action in the economic crisis facing the eurozone of no growth will be swept away by public opinion. IMF president Lagarde, a former French Finance Minister under Sarkozy, has also questioned policy of strict austerity. For the first time since the start of the eurozone crisis in 2010 there is an opportunity for open discussion on future policies for renewal in the eurozone....

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Ivan Rogers, UK ambassador to the European Union for three years till 2017 was sharply critical of the British government and forecast some of the Brexit problems. He has a book "9 Lessons in Brexit," which appeared in Feb. 2019. Here he is interviewed by Der Spiegel. He says he expected some of the problems but is still surprised that 4 weeks before the deadline the political class in Britain has not yet figured out what kind of Brexit they want. Here he points out that Cameron and Blair represented the centre in British politics. But that centre has now collapsed after the financial crisis and the period of austerity led to widening gaps between the different parts of British society. The public is now deeply alienated from both major parties. In both parties the populists on the left and the right have gained a bigger influence, as a result there are no centre right or centre left figures who command public influence. Rogers is a civil servant of high rank who has worked with several prime ministers including Blair and Cameron. His comments are worth listening to.  Was Theresa May the right person to tackle Brexit? Her problem says ROgers is that she started with a hardline position of reducing the number of people entering the UK from inside or outside the EU. Once you do this you cannot have free movement of goods, services and capital, so you have to leave the single market. And if Britain wanted a fully autonomous trade policy then it cannot stay in the customs union. Rogers thinks Theresa May never really understood what this meant- that it was going much further out of the European Union than Norway or Switzerland, or even Turkey. Now as she is trying to go back her right wing cries betrayal. Do British prime ministers understand the single market, the customs union, or how the EU really works? Rogers worked on European issues for a long time and he says after working very closely with British prime ministers that none of them had a deep understanding of how the European Union works. Plus they lack any emotional attachment to the EU, because of the mercantile relationship Britain has had with its neighbors. About the relationships in Europe between the Germans, the French, the British, what is it and what will it be like? Rogers says he has not seen a thinner relationship in his lifetime. He thinks the European political elites are not talking to each other anything like what was done 20 or 30 years ago. He says the Brits have to take a lot of the responsibility because the British political class lost interest in Europe. What could the Europeans have done? Rogers says the chaos continues because the British don't really know where they want to go. It opaque about the relationship on purpose. Have the Europeans thought about what kind of a continent they want to see after all this is over? This interview tells you more about the Brexit problem that many reports and opinions, bringing a thoughtful way of looking at the problem. ...

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BBC Transport correspondent Tom Edwards gives this report on the Elizabeth Line, the Crossrail project that connects London from east to west. He has seen the infrastructure project project from its inception in 2005, past the planned opening date of 2018, till today, through all the ups and downs for a project of this size and complexity. It is the largest infrastructure project in Europe. Most of the tunneling was actually done on time says Edwards, but signaling from stations, and software ran into problems along the way. There were some deaths inside the tunnels and some outside over ground with vehicle accidents. Edwards provides glimpses into the most advanced infrastructure project attempted in Britain for decades. Queen Elizabeth opened the Elizabeth Line at Paddington Station. Station ambient characteristics are also covered in the BBC in a separate article, each station having unique design from Berkshire to Essex. BBC videos and pictures show the evolution of the line, with new management team brought in after delays. At the end of May the new Elizabeth Line will be open to the public. It has been quite a journey says Edwards, with public skepticism over delays, and the pandemic's financial problems. It is surreal now says Edwards, to see trains whizzing through tunnels every 5 minutes. ...

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About a third of Conservative party members of the 10,000 who will be voting soon for a new leader still like Mr. Boris Johnson. Some say he has his faults, but who doesn't. Mr. Johnson has a flamboyant carefree bouncy style that has endeared him to supporters, and had he taken the public more seriously to be consistent and steady he may well have remained a prime minister. He is the only leader of the Tories who could convince traditional Labor voters to vote Tory. Ms. Truss, who has unstinting support of Mr. Johnson will continue to see Mr. Johnson as a respected leader if she is elected. Truss sees Johnson getting a well earned break, as she put it in a debate, like his hero Churchill who lost elections in 1945 only to come back in 1951 with more experience, restraint and wisdom. In a recent debate she stood by Mr. Johnson saying he did not need to resign. Today's Tories are leaderless and not recognizable as a single entity without the prime minister. With a little restraint, awareness of his inexperience, openness and respect for the British public, Mr. Johnson may well have remained prime minister. He now appears to be seeking a second opportunity, says this report in WSJ. It is hard to imagine Brexit without Boris Johnson. He defied the established reasoning through common sense observation. He once said that the only thing Britain would lose from Brexit is that there would be a shortage of Mars bars. Ms. Truss is somewhere between Labor and the Conservative in her life long convictions, yet has taken the Brexit cause to heart. Sir Keir Starmer Labor leader says he too will be trying to make Brexit work. ...

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The European Union’s total defense spending increased by 30% from 2021 to 2024, to 326 billion euro or $341 billion. That is 1.9% of the EU’s GDP it's economic output, according to European Defense Agency. It is still short of 2%.  Britain will ramp up defense spending all the way up to 3% in 2027. Britain is short of defense equipment with transfers to Ukraine and with much of the defense budget going to maintain a nuclear deterrent. This leaves less for other defense needs. This report says most of the procurement for defense equipment goes to countries outside Europe.The Kiel Institute says 80% comes from outside EU. It is not mere shortage of funds it is the severe bottleneck from lack of defense manufacturing industry  that is putting Germany, France and UK in a situation where they are too dependent on the US. It takes years to build this capacity. Russia built it up during 3 years of war by going to a wartime economy and it now produces 4 times the ammunition Europe produces. The US did the same to match and exceed Russian capabilities and capacity, Europe lagged behind with unwillingness of Macron and of Scholz in particular to switch funds from needs in transport, infrastructure to defense. The debt brake Merkel to stop debt based infrastructure investment is what ails Germany. It has had two pernicious effects it created the AfD's surge by lowering economic growth and investment in public needs - housing, transport, public services. It worsened the SPD and CDU performance by not investing in security with no policies to return crime committing refugees to their home countries. A combination of aid and other assistance, diplomacy, secured the cooperation of countries to take them back. A strong display of action on removing refugees committing any offenses would have lessened the number of terrorism incidents. ...

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This report in DW.com discusses the quick rise of Annalena Baerbock, 40 years, to the co-leader role with better known Robert Habeck, 51 years, at a party conference in 2018. In the winter of 2019 she was supported by a huge 97% of delegates at the party conference, with Habeck getting 90%. She has an advantage in foreign policy issues with her education in England at the London School of Economics, where she studied for her Masters degree in International Law. She speaks fluent English, rare in German politics. Baerbock spent 1 year in the US when she was only 16 years old. Very useful now with changes in Europe, the US and India. Boris Johnson in Britain, Biden in the US, and Modi in India, all speaking English.  She has spoken up against xenophobia, and being from Potsdam in the east is able to understand issues facing East Germany. A big change Baerbock says happened in 2019. Then she and Habeck decided to open up the Greens to become a big tent party that welcomes people from all sides. This was a smart choice at the time as Germans moved away from the two main parties- the SPD and the CDU. Dismay from the Schroder years when working class issues were ignored, and dissatisfaction with the Merkel years when investments in infrastructure, social care, health, education were neglected.  AfD support has stalled with the end of the migrant crisis and immigration no longer an issue. Baerbock says today of that 2019 party conference- "What we knew then was that we wanted to open our party up, that we wanted to make policies for a broad society: inviting and with clear objectives. Here today I want to make an offer, for the whole of society, as an invitation to lead our diverse, strong, rich country into a good future." Key changes that could happen in Germany in 2022- Phase out of coal powered energy by earlier date than 2038. No support for increased defense spending. Yet this is not likely to be an issue with the new American Biden administration. Infrastructure and vital investments in health and education would become a top priority similar to the US, UK and India. Careful policy coordination by Germany with the US, UK, France, India and Japan, and other EU nations, as the world shifts into a period in which lessons learned from the pandemic and the last three decades lead to renewal of supply channels and renewal of societies.   ...

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Gerald Seib of the WSJ describes the huge wave of young supporters who helped Labor party leader Corbyn in Britain's 2017 general election. He cites an analysis by the Financial Times that shows young people backed Labor over the Conservatives by 51 points more than the national average. People over age 65 backed Conservatives by 32 points more than the national average. This points to a staggering age gap of 83 points, said the Financial Times. Young people failed to turn out in large numbers during the Brexit vote, and this was a large factor in the pro Brexit win. One exit poll shows turnout went up by 12% in 2017 compared to the 2015 parliamentary election. Only 26% of voters in a WSJ/NBC poll for ages 18-34 years say they approve of U.S. president Trump's performance, 64% disapprove. Seib says the movement of Corbyn is similar to the Bernie Sanders movement in the U.S. and has implications for a similar surge of support showing up in the U.S.

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Talks at the White House between Macron of France and DJT on Feb 24, 2025. DJT says Russian president Putin will accept European and American troops in Ukraine to monitor a peace settlement as a peace keeping force. French troops were offered for such aforce by Macron. DJT says he asked Putin directly this question and the answer was yes for a peacekeeping force to end the war. Analysis by The Times shows Britain and the EU are coming to terms with DJT policy to end the war and Europe shouldering its defense  responsibilities and costs because America has challenges in the Asia Pacific with the rise of China. 

To get an idea of China's resources and capacity it now has over 50% of ship building capacity in the world. The US is only now ramping up its efforts to build ships and increase the effectiveness and size of the US Navy, and a major defense effort is underway.

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Critics of the Obama administration's so-called "light footprint strategy" for the Middle East say it is more about keeping distance from problems in that region. This is a reaction to the extensive involvement of the U.S. in two wars in that region and intuitively makes sense, as well as being in line with American public opinion to focus on problems at home. The shift or pivot to Asia of president Obama also comes in that context. The problem with this approach is that this ignores the fact that most of the momentum and effort for the freedom struggles throughout the Middle East from Tunisia first, then Libya, Egypt, and now Syria, comes from within. The lead role is now being taken by France and Britain, with German public opinion also lined up in support. The U.S. in forfeiting its role as a facilitator with strategies such as "no-fly-zones" is losing the opportunity to gain the goodwill in the Middle East with cost that is negligible in comparison to the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, and comes after the huge U.S. effort to remove one dictator in Iraq. A minor followup effort is all that is required from an administration that pushed for the "surge" in Afghanistan. When history is written the investment of the Obama administration in Afghanistan may show little results, if what is considered by the media and experts as an unpopular and undemocratic government of Karzai falls in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal. There is little doubt in public opinion in the U.S. and worldwide that the movement for freedom and democracy in the Middle East and democratically elected governments will become a lasting facet of the new Middle East. It also provides huge opportunties for trade and investment as is shown by the gains made by Turkey in just 2 years. This is why the Obama adminstration policies in the Middle East show a lack of grasp of the facts showing the Middle East as opportunity more than threat for the next decade, especially in its overreaction to the Bush era policies. This happens as there is a demographic explosion of young people in the Middle East. An administration that was keen to sense the demographic changes in North America, has failed to grasp this fact and why the struggle in the Middle East flashes daily on television screens young people carrying on the struggle. A pivot to Asia means a pivot to the Far East more than Asia because India is part of the South Asian-Middle Eastern region, which presents another paradox because as China is slowing the entire South Asian-Middle Eastern region of Asia is where future growth is expected to accelerate in the next decade. ...

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How unequal Britain is compared to say Finland or France and its effects on gender relationships is shown in this report by Elle Hunt in The Guardian. Wealth and assets grow faster in value than income growth in the UK and a small section of the population has inherited wealth that accumulates faster than income. Vast gaps in income and wealth are shown for several marriages, how each person felt in the marriage, how they had to deal with public perceptions, and where their own sense of wellbeing helped them navigate this territory. In France or Finland with lower wealth and income disparities and a different culture much less of this is expected than in the UK or the US which has Anglo-Saxon cultural tendencies.

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Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has called for an "innovative, co-operative and responsible" approach to Brexit, saying that fragmentation is in no one's interest. With the British pound weakening inflation is expected to rise ahead of growth in wages. Speaking at the Mansion House next to the Governor was Philip Hammond, Britain's finance minister, who pointed out that people did not vote for Brexit to become poorer. This report in the BBC points to Hammond's position becoming closer to Mark Carney's following the parliamentary election in June 2017.

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Britain's Home secretary, Yvette Cooper, is setting up a Young Future's unit to help teenagers exposed to social media, mental health issues, and other pressures who could get into trouble with the law. This was seen during the UK riots with persons ages 12-15 in court for throwing stones or rioting. Cooper says- “It’s always been tricky to go through the teenage years, but it feels like for generation Alpha it’s got much, much harder,”  “You’ve got the pressures from social media, county lines and child criminal exploitation, the rise in the antisocial behaviour that we’ve seen, and … pressures on child and adolescent mental health. So we’re responding to that.” Cooper,  announced her goal for a £100m “young futures” policy at last year’s Labour conference.   The home secretary will tell councils and police forces you have till Christmas to put proposals into effect to tackle crime among young people. New Home Office guidelines will be put out by the end of the year setting out how networks of police, mental health professionals, local schools, youth offending teams and charities can work together to help get teenagers avoid crime. ...

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The huge failure to tackle insulation of British homes in several schemes launched for energy security by first Cameron and then Johnson, are shown here in The Guardian. Many businesses in the insulation industry closed in 2013 with the neglect from the Cameron government. In a recent energy security plan the administration of Boris Johnson failed to show a plan for insulation of British homes. As a result of this neglect over a decade the British homes are among the leakiest in Europe when it comes to insulation. Labor party has announced a plan to insulate 2 million homes in the first year alone in response, and to do this over 10 years at the cost of 60 billion pounds. Italy has a plan where it pays 110% for the cost of insulation, replacing boilers, installing heat pumps, installing solar panels, for Italian homes. It has cost 17.5 billion pounds so far. One or two year programmes are insufficient and likely to fail. The flipflopping of Mr. Cameron on green energy the worst kind of solution. This is because something like a ten year programme is needed to get serious results in energy efficiency for homes in Britain. To retrofit new building 30,000 skilled workers are needed, to install efficient new heating systems 60,000 new technicians. There is a stagnating level of technical skills of this kind in the UK as a result of neglect and lack of a well executed strategy. ...