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Chancellor Merkel visits Latvia in August 2014 and calls for a "persistent NATO presence" in the Baltic states. Merkel also visits Ukraine for talks with Ukrainian leaders. Germany is also mediating in the crisis and helped to arrange a meeting between Russian president Putin and Ukraine president Poroshenko in Belarus.

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Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, is coming under increasing criticism for supporting the Conservative-Liberal coalition government's austerity plan, and for lack of efforts to fight inflationary pressures. On a major issue on which King has taken a clear stand- that the largest British banks should increase capital levels exceeding the international standards- not much has happened. Consumer prices in Britain were up at a 3.7% annual rate in December, and the government's austerity policies will also cause pain. In a recent speech King said that the Bank of England had limited ability to fight the higher unemployment and increased inflation. It was an admission of the limits of central bankers in the current situation. King said "a squeeze in living standards is the inevitable price to pay for the financial crisis and the subsequent rebalancing of the UK and world economies.

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How the Bush presidency started with hopes in domestic policy that were never to come to fruition. Jacob Weisberg, editor of Slate, reflects on the promise of the Bush State of the Union address of Feb. 2001, and the compassionate conservatism it evoked- the Bush priorities of education, setting higher educaion standards, immigration reform, helping needy and at risk children, health care access. He recalls the words used by Bush in Spanish: "Juntos podemos," we can do it together. As governor of Texas Bush had focussed on racial disparities and gaps in education, winning 27% of black votes and a third of Hispanic votes. Then came 9/11 (2002), weapons of mass destruction (from 2003 onwards), which soon overshadowed the education efforts, grants to extend health insurance coverage, initiative to encourage mentring of at-risk children. The $10 billion program to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean is a part of the Bush legacy, other areas were overcome by the distraction of wars in the Middle East....

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The poor performance of GM shares since its IPO offering. GM shares in July 2012 were 41% below the November 2010 initial offering price. Ford was at its lowest level in 2 years. One problem facing both automakers is the weakness in European sales. A second is the uncertainty for U.S. sales in a weak economy.

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The 177 acre campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that is the Pfizer Research labs is closed, sealed off and silent, an empty place, now that Pfizer has decided to close the labs for good. Lipitor was invented here by a group of researchers who had their foundation in chemistry. One of them was a Yugoslavian immigrant to the UK who moved here, Dr Sliskovic to join Warner Lambert. Pfizer acquired Warner Lambert in 2000, now 7 years later the Labs are closed as chemist based research has not produced much in results.For years chemists at these labs have labored without finding a new drug. The success of Lipitor has sustained this research generating $13 billion a year. But now Pfizer is looking to outsource some of the chemist based work to places like India. Some of the research money will go to biotech research which now looks more promising and research will be handled from it Coonecticut based research offices. The whole field of chemistry based resarch for pharmaceuticals is changing and is not what it once was and chemists are looking for jobs in other fields....

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Keller reflects on Putin and Russia's effort to pull Ukraine away from the European Union as protests continue in Ukraine.