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Mr. Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the select committee on foreign affairs, a Tory MP, says UK companies are vulnerable to takeover by foreign state backed entities and calls for new laws to protect British companies. Prime minister Boris Johnson is preparing to announce new laws that will make it mandatory for British companies to report to the government when any foreign company attempts to take over 25% of the shares in a British company, or which could pose a security threat, with strong sanctions. Failing to do so would have directors jailed, disqualified, or face large fines.

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One way to tackle procrastination that works is to clear all distractions, focus on the positive effects of getting tasks perceived as difficult done first, and enabling this by breaking up a difficult perceived task into a couple of smaller tasks. 

Other things to do to get work done is to set specific times such as 9 to 11 am for perceived difficult work, simple rewards are set such as having a cup of coffee afterwards or taking a walk after two hours of work, time cleared by distractions pushed out of the way. People usually find out that it wasn't that bad anyway to tackle that perceived difficult work, and it helps to have tackled it and the couple of other tasks that are sitting on your desk remaining to be done. Pretty soon your list clears up, increasing satisfaction, rewarding yourself along the way,  and you have a new burst of motivation to tackle more.

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French youth are an important part of the protests in France in extending the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. A neuropsychologist at a Paris hospital says "are there any social benefits they haven't rolled back," in this report in FR24. Youth feel that the reform asking workers to work longer in the current situation in France is basically unfair at a time when workers are facing a cost of living crisis and are just coming out of a once in a century pandemic. And with the stress on schools, hospitals and older people, the shrinking savings of workers and families as pandemic period benefits are being phased out. In the US and Germany there is support for working families during the cost of living crisis, much less so in France, and even less in Britain. France is facing protests and possible strikes, Britain has strikes across health, transport and education. 

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Berlin Brandenburg Airport or BER was supposed to open in 2011 or 2012,instead it will open in October 2020, nine years behind schedule, three times over budget. There were 2 parliamentary probes into what went wrong. The planning was faulty and plans were changed, blueprints were not finalized, resulting in a long sequence of problems with such basic items such as the fire safety system, and shoddy electrical wiring, faulty smoke extractions systems. A technical manager was jailed for three years for accepting a bribe from a contractor who then went bankrupt.  The airport CEO Mr. Daldrup says his job was to mop up problems like a "crime scene cleaner." It may be an example of how German values in hard work and good engineering declined as the country lost its focus in the period after reunification and the austerity years under chancellors Schroeder, Merkel, a period when new infrastructure and public services suffered neglect.

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"If you outsource your learning (your human knowledge then why exist?" asks Nadella, head of Microsoft. After all he says a company is a learning system. We at Lyrarc with our skepticism of the value of  robots and AI by themselves without the driving human component, thoroughly agree with Nadella of Microsoft. Nadella says the best thing is to have as many AI models as companies- hundreds of thousands of companies as learning systems keeping their individual human knowledge bases intact alongside AI supplements. The industry jargon for this is "open weight models" which is to take a basic core of AI and add your own individual learning component for an individualized learning system. To enable this Microsoft is offering multi models including cost effective Deep Seek and Cohere in its Azure AI Foundry, Amazon doing the same with Bedrock and Google following the same path. In an interview with Yash Patil cited in Business Insider, Nadella Explains, saying-  "My simple thing is there should be as many models in the world as firms in the world. Because after all, what is a firm? A firm is a learning system." "I don't want to be locked into any one model. I want to be able to use my own context, my own data — in fact, my own traces to maybe even take a much more open-weight, cost-efficient model or a fine-tuned model." "It can't be, 'Hey, look, I have two frontier models or three frontier models' or whatever, some finite set that have learned everything that is differentiated today in the economy because then it collapses.'" "You can always buy a tool, you can even outsource a task or even a job, but you can't outsource your learning. If you outsource your learning, then why exist?" ...

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Kamala Harris laid out her economic plan for Cost of Living Action at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. This includes action to restrict price gouging, excessive prices of supermarkets for groceries. It includes restricting rent increases to 5%, a first time home buyer help with down payment of $25,000, and a child tax credit of $6000 per child.

Kamala Harris said:

"Your salary should be enough to provide you and your family with a good quality of life … such as, no child should have to grow up in poverty. Such as, after years of hard work, you should be able to retire with dignity, and you should be able to join a union if you choose.”

“Our supply chains have now improved, and prices are still too high,” Harris said. “Many of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in two decades. And while many grocery chains pass along these savings, others still aren’t."

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David Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, replaced CEO Muilenberg in 2020 so that Boing could address problems with it's 737 aircraft. A piece of a Boeing jet 737 9 has a piece of the aircraft blow off on an Alaska Airlines flight in January 2024. Calhoun was with GE running its engine business for two decades, joined Blackstone, before becoming the new CEO at Boeing. The 737 9 aircraft emergency evacuation shows that the safety culture at Boeing rooted in manufacturing practices at Boeing factories and supplier factories is weak. The problem for this plane was a door and a plug made at a supplier in Wichita, Kansas, and assembly at Boeing factory in Renton, Washington, says this report in WSJ. Airlines are voicing their concerns. Southwest and Alaska Airlines have entirely Boeing fleets and do not source from Airbus. A look at Calhoun's background shows that he worked with GE till 2006 and has since then worked for Blackstone private equity, without the manufacturing experience that would be needed to tackle the factory operations and work culture and practices at the Renton factory and its suppliers. Calhoun graduated with a Bachelors degree in Accounting from Virginia Tech in 1979 and is from the Philadelphia area.  ...

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The lack of a comprehensive rainfall database and current flood maps for the US affects the ability to take climate change action and tackle floods says this report in NYT.

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France's Social Security bill passes in parliament under PM LeCornu with support of Socialists and Greens December 2025. Previous PM's faile to compromise. LeCornu changes his style and wins support of Socialists and Greens (who abstain) with removal of reforms to the Social Security system and by increasing spending on healthcare. This also separates socialists from more intransigent elements on the socialist side led by Melanchon (Insoumise). 

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Some readers of WSJ in their comments found this story about travel overseas a bit pretentious and privileged, but we have put this in anyway, as it reflects a sincere attempt to share experience. Some of it relates to slowing down in travel to relate to nature as one gets older. Some of it to explore new or fascinating places that have some meaning for us. A recent visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, and the original Golden Temple in Amritsar from ancient history, both under night skies and waters surrounding the temple had the same effect. Spending nights looking up at the night sky at constellations, hearing stories about them and learning about them as the writers say is an experience that is precious at this time of the pandemic. Slowing down is an experience we can all do such as taking train trips as the writers say they did from Denver to California. This allows one to explore nature at a slower pace. A trip to the St Lawrence Seaway in Quebec and up the St Lawrence river was one of those experiences in the wilderness that had the same impact.  ...

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Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive is the new Treasury Secretary in the Trump administration. His ties to Goldman Sachs go beyond his own work at the firm. His father joined Goldman in 1957, and worked for his entire career at the investment bank. Steven's brother Alan also worked at Goldman. During the campaign Trump was severe in his criticism of his opponents Cruz and Clinton's ties to the bank. Ironies abound, not only is the new Treasury Secretary from Goldman, his connections go back a generation. The Treasury Secretary under Clinton was Goldman Sachs executive Robert Rubin. Under Bush who followed Clinton the Treasury Secretary was Goldman Sachs executive Henry Paulson. Under Republican and Democratic administrations Goldman Sachs executives have held key positions. Mr Mnuchin was campaign finance chairman for Trump for 6 months leading to him being chosen for Treasury Secretary. Mnuchin joined Goldman in 1985. During the campaign Trump was also severe in his criticism of financier George Soros, making this a key point in a debate with Clinton for taking Soros's support. This report by Das and Ensign points out that in 2002 Mnuchin left Goldman to run a credit fund set up by George Soros. In 2004 Mnuchin founded hedge fund Dune Capital Management LP with Soros support.  When IndyMac bank collapsed a deal with the government was arranged that covered a part of any future loan losses being taken by FDIC, and Dune was one of several hedge funds and private equity funds including Soros funds that acquired it for $1.5 billion. The renamed IndyMac bank was called OneWest with Mnuchin as chairman. OneWest was sold in 2014 at a large profit to CIT Group Inc. This report says CIT Group took a $230 million charge in July 2015 for accounting problems at OneWest.  During the latter part of the Trump campaign after he joined it in May 2016, Mnuchin set up a joint fundraising agreement with the Republican National Committee. This made it possible for major donors to give to the Republican party and Mr Trump. The head of the Republican National Committee is Mr. Lewis Eisenberg. Having run the technology division at Goldman, Mnuchin was prominent in Goldman and investment banking circles in New York.    ...

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The mRNA vaccine production is running into bottlenecks because the mRNA derived from DNA, needs to be encapsulated in lipids. Lipids supply is limited. The detailed production process is described here in the WSJ. 

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For UK's 5.5 million small businesses soaring energy costs is the pressing issue if they are to continue operating in 2022, says his BBC report. Liz Truss needs to act fast say small business owners.

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Walmart is going to require employees to use certain hospitals for costly spine surgeries, an effort to weed out unnecessary procedures and lower healthcare costs. The retailer earlier used a voluntary scheme to get employees to use the hospitals offering lower cost quality care, but found that half of the people needing spine surgery who volunteered to travel decided not to undergo expensive spine surgery. A spinal fusion surgery costs $77,000 at Mayo Clinic which tries to first see if other options of physical therapy can do the job. Walmart has insurance coverage for 1 million people.

Costs are going up and up. The average cost of family health plans from employers is up 5% this year to $20,000, with workers paying one third of cost, a survey by Kaiser Family Foundation shows. 

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Surat in India's state of Gujarat is the 14th of 15 cities in Guardian's Megacities series. Other cities from India are Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. This city is at the point where the Tapi river meets the Arabian sea and is prone to flooding. The city is spending about $400 million on projects including live tracking of buses, new water treatment plants, solar and biogas generation, automated LED street lights. Some of the funding comes from India's Smart City Initiative launched in 2015 for 100 cities.

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Migrants and Jihadist tendencies in Europe in the years 2016-2026 a period in which Europe put up with attacks on crowds across European cities. Laurent Raviot was the judge of the Paris Criminal Court for the Nice Attack by a Tunisian migrant on July 14 2016 ramming a truck into crowds in Nice killing 86 people, injuring 458 people gathered on the English Promenade on Bastille Day celebrations. On the 10th anniversary of that attack and after many such attacks across Europe Le Monde interviews Judge Raviot, who describes his own emotions while judging this case. A minute silence for the people killed to honor those who died that day was held before the Spain France soccer World Cup game today. Judge Raviot says he hasn't completely recovered from judging such a huge case, he says- "I want to go to the Promenade des Anglais, to see it in the sunshine, filled with joy, telling myself that it's over, that we've moved on and that life is regaining its colors, its light." This is something that the whole of France, the whole of Europe, needs to recover from, this mindless exercise in letting in so many migrants and others who radicalized from remote parts of the world. ...

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Rodrigo - what he does is "indefinable" being in the right places at the right time- winner of best player in World Cup Soccer 2026. He is tall but not imposing. He is not the super athlete. In a World Cup that is dominated by television advertising pushing celebrities every minute, and tickets that few can afford, Rodrigo is the ultimate irony says this report in The Guardian by Jonathan Wilson. Not Haaland, not Mbappe, not Messi, the star celebrities and goal scorers, but Rodrigo or Rodri who is a cerebral player in the Spanish tradition of Busquets. Wilson rightly cites Mauricio Pochettino, the US coach, when he says that the US cannot produce a Rodrigo because of the way it manages soccer expecting parents to pay thousands of dollar for their child to join a club, which leaves out large parts of the US people. And what they get in return is physical prowess. What matters in soccer is tactical awareness and technical ability which are difficult to measure and intuitive. There is another aspect to Rodrigo he struggled for the last 2 seasons after an injury, recovering in time for the World Cup. The results are plain to see. Messi says this report could not play his style of game because of Rodrigo and players like Rodrigo in the Spanish team. ...

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Prime minister Boris Johnson says at an event before the coming UN climate change conference in Glasgow that Britain will bring forward a ban on the sale of gasoline and hybrid cars to 2035 from 2040, to promote efforts to fight climate change.

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Defense minister Rajnath Singh says on the last day of Aero India, that India has "great potential to emerge as a global and regional Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) hub, given the cost competitiveness of its manpower resources, the availability of abundant specialist capabilities and geographical advantages."

Between 2016 nd 2019, 138 proposals worth over $37 billion for domestic manufacturing of defense equipment components were approved. Aero components sector is expected to double from 30,000 crore today to 60,000 crore by 2025. Aerospace has a big role to play in reaching the targets of domestic defense production of $25 billion and exports of $5 billion by 2025. India will have moved from defense production of $11 billion to $25 billion by 2025.

This includes the LUH new generation single engine helicopter to be designed and developed by HAL.

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Even though U.S. president Trump has singled out countries such as Mexico, South Korea and China for trade practices, the U.S. today faces stronger competition in trade from Germany. The trade surplus with Germany for 2016 was $297 billion for Germany compared to $245 billion for China, according to Ifo economic institute. China's trade surplus according to the World Bank was down from 10% of gross domestic product or GDP in 2007 to 3% in 2016, while Germany's has gone up to 8.5%. The Chinese currency is seen as not being undervalued by some experts, while the euro has lost a quarter of its value in the last 3 years, giving Geman exporters an edge. The U.S. also competes with Germany in nine of the 10 export categories such as machinery and electronic equipment, according to the Peterson Institute. Then why is the focus under U.S. president Trump not including Germany? One reason is that China's products have put a downward pressure on U.S. manufacturing wages, and the the speed with the Chinese manufacturing has grown in certain industries. Germany has very few of the manufacturing subsidies that China provides to its industries. And the depreciation in the euro is not favored by the German government as it opposes the policies of the European Central Bank. Germany also has a higher propensity to save about 10% of GDP compared to about 3% for the U.S., according to OECD. As a result Germany is accumulating foreign assets at a faster rate than any other nation, while the U.S. is borrowing capital from overseas. Ways to change this are minimum wage regulations introduced by the government, but larger measures such as increasing government investment in the economy are not supported as the country prepares for the future with an aging population.   ...