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The former commander of the NATO US forces in Europe 2014-2018, Gen. Ben Hodges, says the war could end in 2023 with air support to Ukraine. Hodges tells DW.com's Ines Pohl, that the only red line for Washington's support in Ukraine is "boots on the ground." Hodges says Ukraine must retake Crimea to maintain the international rules based order and the UN Charter.

About the Russian offensive in Feb 2023 Hodges says Russia was attempting to "surge" a new offensive but it does not have the capability to launch a "major' one. "They don't have the armored forces, the ability to break through," and that it will not change the "overall operational environment in Ukraine." This is the first serious assessment of the new phase in the war on an overall basis looking at the larger picture of Russian and Ukraine plus outside support capabilities. 

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France and Italy are imposing strict rules for their lockdown and tougher enforcement to control spread of coronavirus. India has imposed a quarantine, a total ban on leaving the home with a televised address by prime minister Modi that set a 21 day lockdown period. Modi said "if the pandemic cannot be managed in 21 days it would set India back by 21 years." 

Fines of $3000 euros are imposed in Italy and cars seized by the police. A special form has to filled out in Italy showing where one is going and checked by police if leaving the home. In France one needs an Affidavit of Movement by Special Dispensation is a filled form required for everyone outside the home. All open air markets are closed in France and drones are used to warn people outside.

All domestic and international flights in India are stopped. All domestic passenger trains and bus services in India are also stopped.

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One cocoa pod gives enough cocoa for one chocolate bar. Cocoa farms in Ghana and Ivory Coast are the world's largest producers of cocoa. Production declined in 2024 by about 25% in the two countries from bad weather with rain in the dry season and not enough rain in the west season. To protect farmers both West African countries decided to give farmers a fixed price for their cocoa. With surging prices farmers do not get to benefit from the higher price. Government fertilizer support is lacking.

With buyers in Europe insisting that no trees get cut on forested land for new farming, farmers are restricted to their old plots and have to take out old trees which costs more. As a result of these factors cocoa farms are shifting to other crops including palm oil in Ghana.

Other countries in West Africa including Cameroon and Nigeria are also producing cocoa. Outside of this region Ecuador and Brazil also produce cocoa.

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Australia's Qantas airline and its low cost carrier Jetstar is facing new competition on international routes from Malaysian airline Air Asia X. Air Asia X has new promotional one way fares of 60 Australian dollars for its Kuala Lumpur-Sydney route starting in April 2012. Scoot run by Singapore Airlines is also another competitor with 400 seats from Sydney to Australia each day. Virgin Australia is offering 30% lower fares on business class fares for domestic routes covering Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Jetstar has provided 26% of Qantas earnings in the year ending June 30. So far Qantas has been the main beneficiary from the 50% increase in Australians going overseas in the last 5 years.

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The Supreme Court of the US lets stand the ruling of lower courts and the National Labor Relations Board that says unions can organize and represent workers on the docks in container terminal at South Charleston. The Charleston terminal is in right-to-work state South Carolina. It is the fourth largest container terminal on the East Coast after NY NJ Terminal, Port of Savannah Terminal, and Port of Virginia. A new terminal is being built at Savannah on 395 acres to handle addition 2 million containers per year. Savannah, Georgia is another right-to-work state. Georgia Ports Authority now says it is talking to the ILA and the decision for union labor will not affect its plans for expansion. The Biden administration has supported cost of living action through increase in workers wages and helping workers organize through unions after a long period when labor was not able to push for a fair wage and the relationships between labor and employers were excessively drifting against workers. Rail strikes were settled with an agreement, auto strikes were settled with Biden on the picket lines in Detroit for the United Auto workers. International Longshoremans Association labor efforts at NLRB are part of this story of Biden and the changing face of labor in the US.   ...

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Joe Biden's efforts to rebuild the American economy are getting so little mention in either the NYT or WSJ or elsewhere that Biden writes this article in the WSJ to share what he has done for the American economy, workers and families in the US since 2020. It comes at a time when the US is being challenged in not only chips, science, defense, but also at amore basic level as education and healthcare, public services. Only one third of American children in 8th grade can pass NAEP test reading comprehension yet much of $346 billion going into ventures in 2021 is being wasted as America's capital allocation system and capital markets fail to serve the American people is shown in today's WSJ pages. The scale of what can be done with the right amount of capital going into the right places and not the wrong places and with determination to rebuild can only be imagined- Mr. Biden says here that additional $2.5 trillion can be reduced in the deficit by "cutting the wasteful spending on special interests and ensuring the wealthiest Americans and corporations pay their fair share of taxes." It also means vital investments can then be made in education, in infrastructure, science and technologies, and other areas where it is missing today through planned misallocation. ...

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Thomas Piketty is France's and Europe's best trained economist today with highly popular books, one on Capital, and one on Capital and Ideology. Piketty was trained at the London School of Economics, where Greens leader Annalena Baerbock of Germany was also a student, and today he is professor at LSE. His research has shown that for economic growth to happen after the pandemic European societies need to take the lead and build fairer societies where everyone has a decent living and a fair share of the pool of resources in each country. Piketty is respected by leaders that range from Biden and Scholz in US and Germany to president Xi in China. Biden's Families and Workers plan and Scholz's plan for dignity of workers and working class, and the Common Prosperity campaign of president Xi for greater investments in education, healthcare and housing are all inspired by Piketty and by the socially conscious background of these leaders. Prime minister Modi's plans for Jal Jeevan, cooking gas, to ease the burden on hundreds of millions of Indian women, for farmers with small land holdings in agriculture to improve output and use less chemicals, and for investments in infrastructure projects, housing, are also coming from similar concerns for growth and fairness. ...

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As Lyrarc would say a new culture is taking hold in America. Call it centrism or popularist, rejection of neoliberal whatever that term means, or any other term, it is basically about following good common sense, one's observation of real life and what is working or not working for ordinary Americans. Republicans and Democrats are shifting to policies that worked under Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, and to views expressed by John F. Kennedy for a fair society that respects the work and dignity and quality of life of all Americans of every class and level of education. And oppose business monopolies, oppose efforts to restrict workers rights. There is a growing sense in both parties that the policies of Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama have not worked for ordinary people in America. These are seen as wasted three decades that plunged America into foreign wars, let manufacturing decline, reduced standard of living, let its infrastructure deteriorate. This is why president Biden has achieved remarkable success in putting together legislation with support from key Republicans including McConnell for chips, science, infrastructure and other investment spending. Leonhardt is hardly alone in seeing that this is the path America will take in the coming decades. What is significant now is that the culture and mental framework itself is being transformed. ...

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The first proposal that led to the strike at Boeing offered workers only 27%. The new proposal offer 43% over 4 years. As this increase is over 4 years some of the wage increase is dissipated by inflation over that period. For 33,000 workers at Boeing it represented a fair settlement that would also help the company rebuild its finances, and it was approved by 59% of the workers voting at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Workers are back to work by November 12. Workers were upset about a deal 10 years back that let Boeing freeze a pension plan that guaranteed monthly retirement payouts. Boeing lost $6.1 billion in the 3rd quarter 2024 and raised $21 billion by selling shares to investors to strengthen its financial position. Quality control was a major issue, a series of financial industry professionals failed to understand the production assembly line processes. Julie Su, Labor Secretary facilitated the discussions. President Biden said “Good contracts benefit workers, businesses and consumers." The deal includes a $12,000 ratification bonus, compared to $3000 bonus in the initial offer. And it calls for improved retirement benefits, commitment by Boeing to build its next commercial airplane in the Seattle region.   ...

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A Lebanese shopkeeper's son who is a lawyer, did his Masters degree in Economics at the University of Sao Paulo. In this interview he is shown as a tucano, a member of the white, college educated, wealthy and male group in Brazil, also the name of the centre right Social Democracy party of Cardozo since the 1994 elections. PT's Lula da Silva elected as president in 2002 turned to Haddad to run the Education ministry in 2005. Since then Haddad has mediated between worker's factions and the moderate elements in the PT Party of Trabajadores or Workers Party, the party Lula founded with others in 1980 during the redemocratization period. During the period when Lula was in prison in 2018- after the election in which Haddad lost 45% to 55% to a representative of the military and centre far right parties Captain Jair Bolsanaro- Haddad visited Lula in prison.  Haddad is now Finance Minister in Brazil with inflation at 4.5%, unemployment at 7.5%, and GDP growth of 1.5% following 3% growth in GDP in 2023. Haddad says in this interview that he is seen as austerica within the PT because of his economic policies. Popularity of PT has dropped with Lula's approval at a low of 28 percent in June 2025. ...

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Arsene Wenger was 47 in 1996 when reports said he had resigned in the very first year that he took up the coaching role at Arsenal. The media was skeptical about this Frenchman and outsider with a persistent question "Arsene Who?" On that day after returning to London from a visit to the south of France to meet a friend Annie, Wenger decided to immediately go out and meet reporters outside Arsenal offices. He told the media  that the reports were totally unfounded, the rumors of photos of him in preposterous situations false. Time passed and still more lies were published, says Wenger.Then suddenly the British media including Sky News responded with apologies to Wenger for the rumors.  At no time says Wenger in his new book, "My Life in Red and White," did he lose his conviction that the British could be counted on to be fair. He says that he had to stand up to the brutality of the moment. That only in this way could he keep up his optimism and values and not let this destabilize the club. ...

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Women feel overwhelmed with housework during the pandemic. About 80% of women feel responsible for house work compared to 28% of men, according to a NYU and U Penn study. On average women do one and half times the house chores compared to men. This difference is wider when looking at households where men do very little of the housework. The author of "Fair Play" a book about dividing housework says women are burned out, stressed and full of rage about the way household chores are handled. The pandemic has seen a further deterioration in the amount of time men spend doing household chores, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, creating a situation of tension. As men have worked from home during the pandemic the once invisible labor of women is now in plain sight. For women who have quit their jobs and looking for a way to get back to work there is an additional element of frustration. WSJ looks at ways in which men can make the changes to create a healthier situation at home, and reduce the tension. ...

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The war of the Houthi rebels in the Persian Gulf shipping lanes turns into a stalemate with the US Navy and Air Force reports WSJ. US oil money supports many of these conflicts as it finds its way to the Middle East where development priorities fall behind decade after decade.

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An analysis done for the Wall Street Journal by real estate portal Zillow.com, shows the median down payment in nine major U.S. cities rose to 22% in 2010 on properties purchased with conventional mortgages. Banks favor higher down payments today because it reduces the chances of delinquencies. Median down payments were at about 20% in 1990, then the payments declined in the nine cities Zillow looked at: Chicago, Stockton, Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa. The drop went as far as 4% in 4th quarter 2006, and in some places close to zero. Experts say these are the markets where more home buyers are under water. A 2009 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis shows that buyers with smaller down payments are more likely to default in unfavorable economic situations. A contributing cause of the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis was the very low down payments. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chairwoman Sheila Bair, says she supports minimum 20% down payments....

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President Trump plans to introduce  tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium. It is not clear whether this will be targeted at Countries flooding the U.S. market with cheap metals, or generally for all countries. Executives from the steel industry and aluminium industries met with Trump at the White House. This would fulfill one of the president's campaign promises.

There is a vigorous debate in the White House between advisors who advocate limiting the measures such as Gen Mattis at Defense, Gary Cohn at the Economic Council, on one side, and the Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Peter Navarro, on the other. 

Mr. Lighthizer has convinced the president of the need for strong action, yet he has hesitated in the past. Now president Trump says he wants "free, fair and smart trade," and will not let "American companies and workers be taken advantage of any longer."

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 Roger Stone, an adviser to president Trump, is indicted in the Mueller investigation for his connections to the Wikileaks campaign to discredit Democratic Party leaders including Mr. Podesta and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Hacked Emails of the two leaders were hacked and passed onto Wikileaks Julian Assange, who then released sensitive emails to the media in batches at critical moments in the election campaign of 2016.

This report provides details of the emails showing contacts between Roger Stone and Wikileaks, with Stone's contacts with Bannon, who headed the Trump campaign. Stone was arrested in Fort Lauderdale on July 25, 2019, and released on bail.

This shows how the campaign unfolded and how Wikileaks leaked emails damaged the Democrats campaign effort by damaging the credibility of Hillary Rodham Clinton, referred to as HRH in the emails and of Mr. Podesta, leading to the questions about the Clinton Foundation.

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Michigan governor Whitmer at Michigan's Selfridge Air Force Base with DJT on April 29, 2025. Selfridge base will be continued with 15 new fighter jets to replace old jets. DJT says Whitmer successfully lobbied for the base in the White House. Whitmer works with DJT on issues that relate to tariffs, the auto industry in Michigan, defense, and restoring the Nation's industrial base.