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A German reporter questions the value of the G20 meetings following the violence on streets at the last Hamburg meeting. He says the first G20 during the global financial crisis was useful but later meetings have not lived up to the hope for discussion and search for solutions to world problems. Global trade is at the top of the agenda following the tariffs dispute between China and the U.S. Divergent interests of participants are a problem. Would going back to G-7 in private meetings be a solution asks this reporter.

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WSJ reminds readers that it has not endorsed a presidential candidate since 1928. That it is not about to do it with the two candidates Biden and Trump. It sees many liabilities in the Republican candidate and does not see the future of America in what it calls four long years of political trench warfare. WSJ does not see a reinvestment in the economy, rebuilding of its infrastructure and preparing the transition to clean energy as two overriding priorities as do Democrats under leadership of Biden and policy being shaped by Sullivan after much study and reflection shown in speeches at Brookings and CFR. As a result it punts at the very time it should be looking to the future with confidence in the principles that built this nation as JFK has shown in his Profiles of Courage (1952) of senators and Congressmen who looked into their souls for the courage needed to face the future. It says Trump has been the greatest Democratic turnout machine since FDR, and Obama, with underperformances since then. It also refers to the court cases and says one third of Republican voters in Super Tuesday polls this week in March 2024 find that a conviction would be disqualifying. WSJ Editorial Board also says the Trump Presidency was a stress test for US institutions, that the checks and balances held. It sees no hope of political realignment in a Trump restoration, it sees only "four long years of political trench warfare. ...

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Op-ed contributor Reno writes about the cultural decline of the middle class and its lost sense of participation in the nation's politics. He describes the effects of social decline with use of drugs, children born outside of marraige, and children raised by grandparents. Political elites on the right and left see the white middle class as not being part of a multicultural and globalized future, which they hope to run, leading to its alienation and support for candidates such as Trump and Sanders, says Reno.

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Russians vote in 2021 parliamentary elections. With 30% of votes cast the United Russia party of Mr. Putin wins 45% of votes cast, followed by the Communist party of the Russian Federation with 22%, and the Liberal Democratic party getting 8%. Russia has mixed voting system with half the seats directly elected from party lists, and the other half assigned to individual candidates. United Russia had 334 seats out of total 450 seats in the outgoing parliament. Putin will need over 300 seats in the new parliament to get the two thirds majority to enact changes to the constitution. Putin needs this to extend his current term which ends in 2024.  Putin draws most of his support from the older part of the population that has seen the hardships imposed following the collapse of Communism around 1990. This led to collapse of the ruble currency, increase in poverty, an effort by oligarchs to capture state enterprises, and a chaotic period for law and order. Shockingly during that period even life spans of Russians declined as reported in the WSJ. Liberals who supported the shift to democracy had not anticipated all the ill effects of introducing capitalist free market systems in such a sudden and free fall way. Such sudden shifts to free markets are now better understood and seen as the wrong way, as western capital markets fail without inbuilt protections, safety net for workers and retired people, and are subject to serious distortions if no vigilant authority exists. This is in reality not a free market but a market captured by the few, in the interests of the few. Once this was clear retired people, pensioners, military, law enforcement, and liberals realizing what had happened shifted support to United Russia founded by Mr. Putin. Mr. Putin faces the typical situation faced by incumbents over long periods where there is a sense of the need for change. Yet the pandemic and other economic crises that could happen in the event of mismanaged economy are never really too distant for countries such as Russia, China, India that are developed but yet have not the strong industrial base of US, Germany, France. Such economic crises including the ruble currency and Russian energy companies were better managed under Putin than under the chaotic period following the collapse of communism and the introduction of so called "free markets" that were anything but. During the recentfree fall in oil prices Putin was able to manage a transition period with the help of president Trump who negotiated a price for oil with the Saudis to protect US shale oil workers and companies, as well as Russian workers and oil companies. As a result Russians particularly young people look for alternative places to vote for opposition parties such as Liberals, Communist party, and other parties. But the majority of Russians including those working for state energy and other state companies tend to stay with Putin's choices for state, regional and federal administration and for parliament. Nationalist spirit also provides additional support as Putin has restored Russia's status as one of the important nations in the world. Some missteps such as interference in US elections have led to a loss of some of this international influence, yet even president Biden understands the situation in Russia and is willing to work with Putin with new rules of conduct Under the Russian system about 70% of the laws are not made by parliament but are done by the government and the administration of the president and then go through parliament. In addition to parliamentary vote there are 6 governor races and three races for heads of regional republics. ...

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Attorney General Sessions says the driver of the car who drove into protesters could be prosecuted in a number of ways including for a hate crime. The protest was against a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. A car driven by 20 year old James Alex Fields drove into protesters injuring 19 and killing one woman. The local charges being made are for hit and run, malicious wounding, and the Justice Department is conducting its own probe. The comments by Sessions contrasted with the statement blaming both sides by president Trump, which led to strong criticism in the media and by the business community.

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Confessore describes ways in which the Republican Party agenda moved away from the interests of ordinary American working class voters in the last decade, ignoring some of the effects of the 2008 financial crisis and the deep recession in the years that followed.

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This WSJ report sees Angela Merkel as leaving an international legacy of cooling relations with America. It says Angela Merkel turned down US president Biden's first call after his election as president because she was going to her cottage in the country that weekend. This report says after 4 terms Merkel is to be seen as dramatically increasing her country's economic dependence on China, pushing through a energy deal with Russia, joining France in challenging US political influence in Europe, rejecting American requests on economic policy and setting Berlin's openness to Chinese technology.  What happened with her youthful fascination with America during the years growing up in East Germany asks the WSJ? It also says of the Bush years of unregulated banking leading to the 2009 US banking crisis- that left her with a distaste for Anglo-Saxon banks and Wall Street lobbying. Of the Obama years it says Merkel found Obama unsteady, verbose, and sometimes meddling, with the spying on Merkel's phone also giving her a sense of disrespect to Germany. The result was that Merkel increasingly was fascinated by the Chinese experiment in development, visiting China 13 times while in office, studying Chinese history, politics and economics.  Merkel over this period met with the Dalai Lama and had questions about one party rule by CCP. Yet she became more and more resigned to Germany as a country of 80 million, not the EU and Europe as one group united in vision with a population of about 500 million, larger than America that could be a force for good in its own right. She said "we can be as hardworking, awesome,  as super as we like, but as a country of 80 million we won't be able to prevail if China ever decided that it no longer wants to have good relations with Germany." She ignored the experience of Sweden and Scandinavian countries in their relations with China. In saying this she ignored the potential of India and its neighbors in south-east Asia that make up about 2 billion people or about twice the population of China. She also seemed unaware of the role Woodrow Wilson, FDR, have played in realizing the democratic vision of the German revolutionaries of 1948 who failed to bring democratic government to Germany. And she had forgotten of the role Harry Truman, the commoner president of the US, who played a major role in establishing German democracy and its dignity during the Berlin Crisis after the blockade of Berlin by the Soviets in 1948. The mediocrity of presidents from Bush to Trump has bothered Merkel. Yet it may very well be that there is nothing mediocre about Mr. Biden and America's vision about its future as it grapples with the social and economic problems of the last three decades, as it has done before in its history and come through. ...

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This article in the Guardian points out that Britain did not just wake up one morning and find itself in a strange predicament of leaving the European Union. This was happening over two decades as leaders appealed to immigration fears on the right to win voters and the leaders of the Labor party failed to protect their traditional working class base. Voter turnout declined and it points out that Cameron of the Conservative party won the election in 2015 with only 24 percent of the eligible voters, as the hold of the Conservatives and Labor parties declined with each successive election on their voter base as they desperately tried to shore up support by appealing to voters fears even as they literally abandoned their traditional voter base and appeared elitist to less educated, poor workers. The economic crisis and austerity policies created a new voter group of disaffected voters who turned to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the Scottish National Party (SNP). The referendum offered by Cameron in 2015 on the EU against the advice of coalition partner Vince Cable and the Liberal Party, without an understanding of the situation in the country after years of austerity policies was only one of a long series of developments that unfolded over two decades unraveling years of work building a better Britain following 1945. ...

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The WHO, World Health Organization, comes under criticism for failing to warn about the pandemic. President Trump says the U.S. finances the WHO with $450 million but the WHO has opposed some of the basic common sense approaches to the virus such as early quarantines and suspension of flights from virus hotspots. Including opposing the U.S. action taken by president Trump on January 27, 2020 to close all passenger flights between U.S. and China. A 14 day quarantine was put into effect for Hubei province. About 8.5 million passengers visited the U.S. from China in 2018 according to the U.S.Transportation Department. Reports show Chinese cities deserted on NYT January 30, but infections only 1300 a week earlier going up to 12,000 and only 259 deaths. President Trump says the world was misled by the WHO on the extent of the crisis developing in China, as he sets up a review of the WHO's role in the crisis and on funding by the U.S. President Trump says the crisis in the U.S. would be much larger if some of the 8.5 million passengers from China arrived in U.S. cities. He also says the decision was his own intuition about what was happening with health experts not realizing the extent of the crisis as there was very little data on the crisis. Most of the experts Mr. Fauci and Dr Birx were also not aware at the time of the gravity of the crisis, and some leading epidemiologists at American universities even called it an emotional reaction. ...

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This article in NYT by a China expert based in Hong Kong points out that a key driver in the current developmetns in Korea are not understood. With the growth of China's influence in East Asia and a decline in American influence many of the countries in the region are rebalancing. Vietnam and Singapore are pushing back. In the same way North Korea under Kim Jong Un is concerned about its dependence on China with 90% of its trade conducted with China. The Chinese participation in the strong sanctions introduced by president Trump has increased this awareness of its dependence on China. President Xi Jinping has also ignored North Korea as China focuses on larger issues in international relations, including its relationships with the U.S., EU and India. This strategic development is what drives the current meetings between president Moon of South Korea and president Kim of North Korea, and the planned meeting of Kim with president Trump.  This China expert says the shift in better relations could be part of North Korea's effort to open up to the U.S, South Korea and Japan, in an effort to diversify its relationships to reduce dependence on China. This does not mean the unification of North and South Korea, he says, because it would mean loss of power for the Kim regime and would be too costly for the South. The nuclear missile development was part of an effort to preserve the Kim regime. The Kim regime is also focusing efforts on economic development which would be better achieved by opening up to the U.S., South Korea and Japan. ...

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See how dysfunctional today's politics have become in the way the Speaker in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. president expressed utter disdain for each other and their opposite political parties at the State of the Union gathering in the U.S. Congress. Trump focussed on the economic gains for the U.S. in trade and the economy, and sees impeachment efforts as unfair as not rising to the level of high crimes and demeanors defined for that in the U.S. Constitution. Pelosi and Democrats see Trump's style and manner as violating norms for politics followed earlier.  Harry Truman, a president in the fifties never got much respect from Republicans who saw his style and manner as too rustic and Missouri farmlike. Andrew Johnson a Republican during the early post Civil War period after Lincoln, without the education of the upper class was treated with disdain by Democrats. Interestingly both were chosen by icons Roosevelt and Lincoln. This time the focus of attention is a president who comes from outside, motivated to run in politics as he said in his speech in Congress by the wrongs the U.S. suffered from other nations in business and trade. Truman got attention from Roosevelt through the hard work to cut the extensive cost overruns and mismanagement in production for the war effort. Johnson for his loyalty to the Union from a Southern state, Tennessee. All seemed to shrug off the disdain without much discomfort and Truman was known to say- "The Buck Stops Here." ...

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Questions raised by Nicholas Kristof of the NYT on Russian hacking during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Kristof says the implausible or far fetched idea of foreign interference in U.S. elections is not as implausible as it may appear.

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In a new first China's Chang'e-4 probe is about to touch down Jan 3rd on the dark side of the moon, and dispatch a rover in a vast crater to explore the moon. China is using this as the first step in setting up a planned lunar base by 2030. This happens as president Trump revives the U.S. space program after it languished under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations restricting to unmanned space exploration.

China National Space Administration is the best funded space agency in the world after U.S.'s NASA. Some experts say NASA has lost its focus falling victim to shifting political agendas. An earlier funded program to return astronauts to the moon by NASA was cancelled in 2010 during the Obama administration. This is now jolting the Trump administration into action to revive the programs whose goals are now harder to achieve for the moon program dates in 2023.

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The Sanders and Clinton campaigns work together to limit damage for party unity at the Philadelphia National Convention of the Democratic Party. This follows DNC email leaks showing DNC bias against Bernie Sanders.

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Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority, says when you consider that London gets 7 times the infrastructure spending per person than West Midlands, "its not bloody surprising" that his region is not growing fast. West Midlands covers a large part of central England, including Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry. Even life expectancy is lower by 8 years in Blackpool, and disposable income can be quarter in Camden compared to North London. Labor's Corbyn and Conservative's Thatcher in the British general election are both campaigning for reviving the regions outside London, that have seen investment in people and technology lag substantially behind London. Regional revival is the big issue in this election. Consider that London which accounted for about 15% of economic output in the 1980's now accounts for nearly 25% of economic output of Britain. Berlin is about 4% of Germany's economy, and Paris 10% of France's economy. A word of caution on Brexit is sounded by experts at the University of Birmingham, who say the whole process of Brexit is so complicated that it may detract from the task of reviving this region. Even though the political upheaval had origins in this discontent, was it more about shifting government attention to the gap between London and the rest of the country, and less about a complex process of withdrawal from the European Union. ...