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Canada's pitch to the US before tough negotiations with Jamieson Greer to preserve Canada's automobile industry, its aluminium industry, dairy industry with benefits gained in the past. US had also put forward its pitch for 82% North American content and 50% of it from the US for all automobiles sold in the US. Carney takes a positive approach presenting Canada as a strong partner that would Make America Great Again by offering its vast mineral resources, and its resources of oil and LNG. It says LNG will double from 2030 to 2040 from 50 million to 100 million tonnes of LNG annually. 56 critical minerals agreements with $18 billion in investment, doubling the electricity grid for lowest cost power and second lowest emission in OECD countries. Canada is an anomaly in trade says Sir Ivor Jennings in his book on the British Commonwealth. Its trade east to west is an anomaly when if it was truly apart of the North American economic region it would trade north to south. This is the result of Montgomery's failure to take Quebec during the War of Independence as Washington planned the war with Britain. For instance Ontario would trade with Vermont and New Hampshire and New York near its borders. Instead the dairy industry in Canada operates in competition with the US and sends product east to west. Washington and Oregon are not trading normally with neighbors British Columbia instead shipping product back to eastern Canada. For years the US allowed Canada and Mexico benefits in trade that hurt is own auto industry. Jamieson Greer is expected to change this so that US manufacturing can compete with China and European Union on a level playing field. ...

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China responds to a U.S. threat of tariff of 10% on additional $300 billion of exports to the U.S. by suspending all agricultural imports from the U.S.

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Three women who ranked in the top three of the IAS exams in India. The IAS provides the people who run the Civil Service in India and fill most senior government positions throughout India. Shruti Sharma, 26 years, is from Delhi, and studied History at St Stephens College and JNU. Her family is from Bijnore, Uttar Pradesh. Ankita Agrawal, 25 years, is from a business family in Kolkata. She has a Bachelors in Economics from St Stephens, and studied political science, international relations. Gamini Singla, 23 years, is from Punjab's Sangrur, and has AB Tech from Punjab Engineering College in Chandigarh. She chose Sociology as optional subject. 

All three want to contribute to education, women's empowerment and to society. All three did not pass on the first attempt. They did mostly self-study and used newspapers to follow current affairs. 

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Would a generic Democrat do better? Mr. Biden's weakness is with less engaged voters says this analysis of a Times Siena poll showing less support in battleground states. One queer aspect of this poll is that Kamala Harris does slightly better because she does better with non white voters. Mr. Biden does well with white voters retaining all of his support achieved in the 2020 election with white voters. Another queer aspect of this poll is that a so called generic Democrat would win by large margins of over 5% in most of the battleground states over Mr. Trump, in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Another queer aspect of the poll is that Michigan has all three- the Governor's position, the State Assembly and other positions in the hands of Democrats who have performed well in the state.

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All the extreme rhetoric on how Project 2025 is going to be adopted under a DJT administration has led to unease that there will be deterioration in the government and society.  Yet it simply may not work that way.   A second objective look at Project 2025 and how it's value to Republicans will be carefully evaluated piece by piece by DJT is needed. Keeping in mind 2026 House and Senate elections, winning broad support for the traditional Republican conservative line of thinking, and maintaining the support of all Republicans in the business, government, media and other sectors.  1. Replacing federal employees with party loyalists. This happens at the top of every agency of the government for every government in the US and Europe after an election for the last century. At today's unemployment level of 4 percent, adult males actually 3.9% and adult females 3.6%, and considering the higher salaries paid in the private sector, the tenuous nature of joining as a party loyalist as the national mood can shift at any time and things change again in 2027; where was the federal government going to find employees to be replaced at mid and lower levels? There is also the situation seen in 1928 when a Republican Hoover victory made Democrat NY Governor Al Smith compel a reluctant Franklin Roosevelt, who was just recovering from polio, to run for NY Governor. By 1931 over 3 years Franklin Roosevelt and Columbia University's Frances Perkins tested programs to stabilize employment in the US, introduce unemployment insurance as a new concept, and a 40 hour week also new, in the entire northeastern + midwestern states, all governors working together. By 1931 in just 3 years Franklin Roosevelt was on the clear path to sweeping victory in 1932 with a tested program to stabilize employment. 2.  The No. 1 goal is to restore the traditional family. It is clear in 2024 that the vast majority of Americans, whites, women as well as men, of all age groups, whites as well as Latinos and Asians, blacks, see that things like transgender "have somehow gone too far." 3. Cultural Literacy is needed for any nation to long survive. This is not even on any platform. Yet knowledge about America's history of settlement of the continent -correcting for treatment of American Indians, blacks, Chinese, Japanese without pointless race controversies- is being rapidly lost, and with it an understanding of America's civic institutions and Constitution, its founders and presidents, and evolution of the nation over the 20th century with the Industrial Revolution. The very terminology that has defined public knowledge about these United States is fast disappearing. It is a cause for unease in the minds of people in rural and urban, conservative and other parts of the political spectrum alike of what will happen to America as this is lost. 4. On immigration  a consensus was reached by president Biden that migrant flow was mishandled and the Lankford legislation offered by Republican leaders accepted by both parties to stop the flow. During his first term president Eisenhower conducted a program of returning illegal migrants to their home countries, Germany is doing this now and the UK's Labor party has made it No. 1 priority to stop migrant smuggling. 5. An effort to increase oil and gas production. This will help bring down the cost of living by reducing energy costs in the US and also helping Europe to do the same. Biden had already accepted the idea of the temporary need to do this to ease cost of living burden on the people of this Nation. The economic cost of wind and solar, are ultimate drivers for expanding renewable energy as major form of climate change action. In the first term of DJT 2016-2020 the lower cost of natural gas made it economical to switch from oil to gas. In the Biden term 2020-2024 all the effort to increase EV's on the road ran into the problem of lack of charging stations. It is possible that spread of charging stations could reverse this in the second term of DJT. It is the private sector and also the local governments that play a big part, climate change action will continue, and new R&D breakthroughs will happen to jump start it again.    ...

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The first major restructuring and overhaul for modernization of Indian Railways since independence in 1947. The goal is to make Indian Railways an efficient and modern organization that can deliver on technology and compare well with rail systems of Europe and China in its plan for 2030. Central Public Sector Enterprises CPSE will cover all production units of Indian Rail. Indian Railway Construction Limited IRCON will oversee all construction of infrastructure for Indian Rail. 

The Cabinet Secretariat has written to the CEO of the Railway Board calling for monthly reports on the action plan to ensure speedy implementation.

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China's central bank the PBOC,  says this report in The World Economic Forum, banned all cryptocurrency transactions in 2021, because of the role of cryptocurrency in facilitating financial crime, as well as presenting growing risks to China's financial system.  

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The Speaker of the Indian parliament, Mr. Om Birla, calls an all party meeting in an effort to raise the level of dialogue and discussion in parliament. The prime minister Mr. Modi, and Mr. Rajnath Singh meet Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Mulayam SIngh Yadav of the Opposition parties.

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For the first time deaths in Britain from coronavirus exceed 100,000. Deaths reached 103,602 on January 27, 2021, with all of the UK in lockdown again. Britain now has the highest coronavirus deaths per million population in the world. Analysis in The Times looks at what went wrong.

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Swathi Shree, 25 years, ranks 42 All India and 1 for Tamilnadu in the Union Public Service Commission civil services exam. She is set to join the IAS. She did her undergraduate degree in Agriculture from RVS Agricultural College in Thanjavur. Her mother is a retired postal assistant.

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Remote learning during the pandemic left students with a lack of basic skills. Companies are now working to address these skill issues and training is provided on the job. The scores on tests for students in all professions from nursing and medical to engineering have fallen with remote learning.

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Bringing all private operators under a public enterprise called Great British Railways is a plan of the Starmer administration. It is part of the effort to bring transport to net zero in emissions. The Guardian looks at Labour's plans. It will require investment in rail infrastructure.

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Tight skinny swim suits that can take 20 minutes to put on and intense hydration, having to be ready and report 15 minutes before the starting time, all make it hard for swimmers to resist nature, and peeing in the pool is far too common, says the WSJ.

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German digital decline-only 20% of Dusseldorf administrative public services are online, Berlin much less than Dusseldorf, other cities in Germany lag behind. Denmark is way ahead of Germany with all public and administrative services shown on one site for every citizen of Denmark. In Germany there is institutional inflation in that each city does digital development separate from others, and there is no national system. It may have come from Germany's disinclination to centralize things in the political system after the Nazi period of the 1930's destroyed liberties, which extends into the social sphere. In any case fax machines are common in Germany, and are needed to correspond with public services of city and state. Germany's IT industry association Bitkom tells DW in this report that 77% of German companies still use fax machines, and 25% use fax machines frequently.

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A first of its kind- getting hospitals and medical clinics to go solar with solar panels supplying all the energy needed. A solar powered medical clinic in Hollister, California.

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With 686 million doses of vaccine given to people over age 18 India has now given more vaccine doses to people than all the G7 nations combined- this includes US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan. About 7 million doses were given on a recent day in the first week of September 2021. About half of the population of 1.2 billion people is vaccinated with one dose and 17% are fully vaccinated.

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Kylian Mbappe of France showed exceptional skill in his assist for Olivier Giroud and his 2 goals in the 3-1 French win over Poland. He has handled all the attention and hype without it letting it affect his concentration, speed and skill in soccer. Only Messi and Ronaldo come close.

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Two British teams Liverpool and Manchester City and two Spanish teams are all that remain in the semifinals of the Champions League soccer. Manchester City face Real on April 26, May 4, and May 28. Pep Guardiola says it is an honor to play a side like Real Madrid.

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The Times looks at whether female leaders are better in handling situations like the pandemic. When it looks at all the information without cherry-picking this report says they are no better than male leaders. Sanna Marin of Finland and Angela Merkel are not better than a Biden or a Modi.

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The kids go off one by one to college, only then do parents actively raising their children realize that its all over. Parents are the ones needing help seeing how empty nest parents feel. It is a sudden change after over twenty years of being conditioned to something else.

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A WSJ poll taken on Dec 3-7 of 1500 voters shows popularity of De Santis and Biden tied at 43%, Trump at 36% for all voters. Between Trump and De Santis the popularity of each is at 52% for De Santis vs 38% for Trump, among likely primary voters.

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Jaguar Land Rover is dropping the Land Rover name and will be called JLR with an all electric line planned by 2036. The holding company JLR will have 4 brands- Range Rover at the high end, the off-road Defender made in Slovakia, the Discovery as a family brand, and the Jaguar now priced at the high end. The strategy is designed to cope with stiff competition from Tesla and other EV brands, by moving it upscale- the average price of JLR going to 77,000 pounds from 44,000 pounds.  Batteries will be sourced from a new gigafactory in Europe built by Tata Motors, the parent company. A new Range Rover all electric will come out in 2024. With the new strategy only 330,000 vehicles would take it to breakeven instead of 660,000. JLR turned profitable in the last financial year generating cash flow of $1.3 billion pounds in last 6 months. It will invest 15 billion pounds over 5 years. 29,000 employees out of 40,000 will be upskilled to support the all new electric line to build, sell and service new EV's. ...

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Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, points out some basic truths about health care as it is practiced today in the USA, and healthcare spending as it stands today. He questions whether starting out with extra spending plans to provide coverage to all will help solve the basic problems facing American health care. Too many tests and diagnostic procedures used by doctors is not aproblem that will be solved by spending more money to cover everyone. And government taking on more spending to cover all will not address all the other major shortcomings of the American way of practicing medicine, like prescribing a battery of tests, that tend to drive up costs, to just mention one of the problems. And it will not address any of the shortcomings in the way Americans take care of their health, diet, exercize and healthy lifestyles. THese are critical to get good health outcomes for the people, and which combined with careful spending of dollars where it will provide the greatest benefit, is the only way the health care solutions can be found....

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Readers Haven and Harrington comment on the op-ed "Don't Blame Jim Cramer", March 17, in the Washington Post. Jon Stewart took Jim Cramer and CNBC to task for helping inflate the financial bubble with the TV program. A lot of this went on on in all the news programs CNBC and on Bloomberg, as the business news media in their revenue model depend on viewers and advertising revenues, and are not rewarded for good reporting and analysis. Hype and other kinds of promotion, can win better ratings then patient, against the tide reporting and analysis. Reward systems determine the way, humans, media, and other things in our economics system respond. These are essentially unchanged and remain so one bubble after another, tech, housing, credit, on and on.