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The toll taken by mines planted during wars of yesterday on the daily lives of Afghan people as children going out in rural areas are maimed by hidden bombs. Even as the endless war recedes  this is a daily fear across this land.

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Software from Crowdstrike was supposed to prevent crashes instead it led to this crash.

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Tata and Airbus will jointly make 56 C-295 aircraft in India for the Indian Air Force. 16 aircraft will be Made in India by 2025.

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Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves dropped to $2.9 billion in February 2023, says this report in the WSJ, enough to cover 2 weeks of imports and a fraction of debt servicing requirements. Under an IMF agreement that is being negotiated $1.1 billion will be given by the IMF, which would lead to further lending by other countries and banks based on IMF oversight. This includes putting $630 million in  additional taxes and increasing the price of electricity. Successive governments have decided to avoid the IMF conditions of increasing taxes and price of electricity. Donor countries such as Saudis and Qatar, UAE, would step in once IMF oversight is in place and invest in airports, power plants, oil and gas companies, and make loans to Pakistan once the IMF oversight is in place, says WSJ.   Sri Lanka faced a similar situation after it delayed an IMF program and loan, leading to financial crisis. The situation is now stabilized with the IMF on the verge of making a $2.9 billion loan and other banks making loans on the basis of IMF oversight. In Sri Lanka's case India is a serious donor, investor and supporter of Sri Lankan recovery. ...

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The story from the side of an Shiite Iraqi Brigade commander who served in the Hussain army in the Iran-Iraq war, that shows how the Americans under General Petraeus persevered and won with a new counterinsurgency strategy of clearing an area of militants and then carrying out humnanitarian projects by living in the same areas where the militants lived so to speak spread out among the people, This has worked in the insurgency areas around Ramadi and also in the Mahdi areas in Basra and gives the Iraqi army the confidence to bring safety and law and order to Iraq. The perseverance of the Americans and corrective actions like in this case letting former Iraqi army soldiers enlist and work in the new Iraqi army and letting some of them rebuild their brigades as is the case with Al-Azawi. Gaining the confidence and support of tribal leaders has been another element of this strategy as well as getting some of the insurgents on the American payroll under the Awakening groups. And quite a lot of credit goes to Petraeus for leading this effort against the odds and using unconventional methods that helped get the job done and bring some sense of safety throughout Iraq in an unbelievable turnabout of events....

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Incredible story of a Denmark software company run by a 41 year old bodybuilder Stein Bagger, who called it IT Factory. The company, its software deals, everything about it including Stein Bagger's PhD was phony, and in the end outrageously unbelievable that something like this could be allowed to happen. How gullible can people get? This fellow was named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year with a Danish minister present at an event in Copenhagen, just when he was surrendering to police in Los Angeles. Banks and IBM and other firms lost $182 in total as this fellow borrowed from banks to record fake deals of purchases by phony customers from his company.

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Michael Boskin, the elder president Bush's chairman of the Council of Economc Advisors was instrumental in setting up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Here he points to the dire need to open up trade between India and Pakistan. Trade today between the two countries is $2.7 billion. Under trade models Boskin says the trade could be 20 times larger, about $50 billion. This would increase benefits and wages in both countries and is badly needed and long overdue.

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David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, is interviewed by Tom Keene. Stockman says the US has $52 trillion of debt on a $14.5 trillion economy, a ratio of 3.6 times GDP. Historically, before 1980, it has been around 1.6. This debtification of the US, he says, is the major problem facing the US today. Stockman sees little or no economic growth in the next 5 to 10 years, as debt reduction progresses.

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The U.S. is moving quickly to gain access to an effective vaccine by September or October 2020. It is doing this by providing the money for companies to conduct trials and ramp up manufacturing in a big way. The U.S. government has agreed to give Astra Zeneca upto $1.2 billion to secure supply of a Oxford University developed vaccine which could be ready by October. Astra Zeneca has agreed to make the vaccine under a licensing deal with Oxford University's Jenner Institute and promised it will not make a profit on this. U.S. has also given $483 million to Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for making the vaccine. Both Oxford and Moderna are testing the vaccine on humans. Oxford uses a tested older technology, Moderna a new technology. UK has given Astra Zeneca $79 million to secure 100 million doses of the vaccine, with 30 million ready by September. Oxford is also in negotiations with Gavi the international vaccine alliance, and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations on further deals to boost production. Oxford began a 1100 person study in April, and is  doing a 5000 person trial in late May.  ...

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Two hundred thousand pilgrims to come to Pope Francis funeral in Italy, April 26, 2025.

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Anantha Nageswaran of the CEA tells Sansad TV that the RBI estimate of 6.4% is close to the government's estimate of growth. He says RBI's estimate is based on oil prices of $95 per barrel higher than it is today. He says India's financial system is in much better shape than in the previous decade and the corporate sector is deleveraged, MSME's are in good shape with government support, giving the government confidence in its figures for growth.

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Austria, Greece, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Israel, are smaller countries that have formed a group that is meeting every 2 weeks with videoconferences to coordinate strategy for tourism and reopening their economies.

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Italy is only now waking up to the challenge of climate change. Over a 36 hour period northern Italy's Emilio Romagna region received half the annual rainfall. A similar situation was experienced with sudden rainfall and floods in Germany last year.

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Merkel's personal popularity and her calm demeanour will help hold the party and the new coaltion with the Free Democrats together, says political science professor Gerd Langguth of Bonn University in Germany, but her party's poor showing will create problems for her. The Free Democrats increased their share of the vote to 15% from 9.5% and the Christian Democrats went from 35% to 34%. Merkel has not been able to strengthen the base of the Christian Democrats which includes astrong Catholic wing. At the same time the new coalition partner will enable her to pursue policies and reforms more openly.

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President Macron calls it "the moment of truth" for Europe. The European Recovery Fund includes $500 billion in nonrepayable money to be handed out to countries hit hardest by the pandemic as a show of solidarity and support for the European community. Only one lone holdout are the Dutch, who have not earlier and today show little solidarity with the European community. It is supported by Merkel and the CDU, Macron, EU president Leyen, the head of the European Central Bank's Lagarde. This report in BBNC shows how the funds would be distributed- Italy 81 billion euros Spain  77 billion euros France   39 billion euros Poland 38 billion euros Greece  32 billion euros Germany 30 billion euros Portugal 17 billion euros France plans to put the 39 billion euros towards its own 100 billion euros recovery plan. 20 billion euros of this will go to insulating buildings and for bicycle lanes in cities in France.   ...

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How Irmaa adjustments affects US Medicare deductions on Social Security checks for 6 million seniors.

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Burton Malkiel says other ways to rebalance and adjust allocations after the surge in equity prices in the U.S. and Europe are to invest in high quality emerging market bonds, quality U.S. municipal bonds with rates of 7%, high quality large caps with dividends over 5%, and quality emerging market stocks which are at price earning multiples of 10.

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How the war is changing and the difficulties in keeping the peace in Iraq. Will a civil war break out, or will a defacto partitioning of the country take place. How will this affect Iraqi oil production?

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The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory May 2020 study cited here in the WSJ, was conducted to find how the coronavirus originated. This US government lab based in California has considerable experience on biological issues and looked at the genetic makeup of the coronavirus. It concluded that a lab accident was plausible, says this report in the WSJ.