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Annalena Baerbock German Foreign Minister continues to voice concerns about German policy towards China after the sale of a stake in Hamburg port to Chinese shipping company Cosco. Chancellor Scholz went ahead with a smaller stake after opposition from 6 ministries within his administration including the Free Democrats and the Greens. He will be visiting China soon after the recent party Congress. Scholz's spokesperson says Scholz does not favor decoupling with China, yet favors diversifying and minimizing the risks.

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What a new kind of war with drones can do to damage civilian infrastructure and the effect on water supplies for civilians is the subject of this report in the DW.com. The Ukraine war enters a new phase with attacks on civilian infrastructure, talk of a dirty bomb, and nuclear threats.

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Low vaccination for booster doses with only 7% of people eligible statewide getting the dose, lifting of mask mandate on subways, and spread of flu, RSV, and new covid strains are leading to a surge of cases in New York City hospitals. Pediatric and elderly cases are also increasing.

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The problems for returning refugees and those left behind in Ukraine are shown in this report in the WSJ.

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Tarcisio de Freitas, who allied with Bolsonaro, wins by a 10% margin over the PT candidate in Brazil's largest state Sao Paulo. About a third of Brazil's GDP is represented by Sao Paulo.

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This opinion in The Guardian points out the difficulty that Lula da Silva faces in governing after a narrow margin of victory of about 1.8 percentage points in the presidential election in Brazil. It is a very different country than the one in which he was first elected in 2003. The right wing parties gained 249 seats compared to 141 seats for the Lula PT party in the lower house of parliament. This means Lula will have a harder time governing, needing centrist party support, and tackling the large fiscal deficit of 8% of GDP.

In the elections for the governors of states Bolsonaro won in 14 of 27 states including the large state of Sao Paulo. Lula owed his victory to large margins in the 10 relatively poor northeastern states where incomes are below $400 a month including Bahia. Where incomes are over $400 as in Sao Paulo the vote was in Bolsonaro's favor.

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The social media site Twitter frequently loses money and took on $13 billion in debt says this report in the NYT. Musk faces financial challenges a he takes over the company, and this report says the company would be unlikely to invest and simply be paying the bills. Twitter it says, has not made a profit for 8 of its past 10 years. 

Twitter's interest expense alone would grow from $50 million to $1 billion with the new debt. Company operations generated about $630 million in cash flow to fund operations. Twitter had $6 billion in cash before the buyout and a large part of this would have gone to close the acquisition. All the financial resources of the company will now go to service the debt. About $1.2 billion in marketing expenses mostly salaries are likely to be cut. And layoffs of a significant fraction of the total employees may be a way to conserve capital to service the added debt, this report shows.

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How historically working class areas in Pennsylvania including Scranton vote in the midterms, and how Mr. Fetterman with his small town roots is able to attract such working class votes for his race against Republicans Mr. Oz, a TV talk host, is crucial to determining when and how working class families in America link up with Mr. Biden. This NYT report looks at Pennsylvania in late October 2022.

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Spain's women's soccer team wins the Under 17 world soccer FIFA championship after beating Germany 1-0 and Colombia 1-0. The Spanish soccer team showed remarkable team coordination and control of the ball throughout these games. The preparation of these players appears to be rigorous and carefully done, keeping Spain at the top of women's soccer.

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At the opening of the new aircraft manufcturing complex in Vadodara, Gujarat, PM Modi says- "The defense and aerospace sectors will be two important pillars of making India self reliant (atman nirbhar). We have. agoal of $25 billion in defense manufacturing by 2025, defense exports will be $5 billion." He said India will need 2000 aircraft in 15 years. "India will move forward with the mantra Make in India. Make for the Globe."

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The US Supreme Court will now decide how much liability protection Section 230 gives the internet companies such as Google and how much control by two or three companies over the internet serves the interests of the American public.

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Us natural gas prices are down 40% from August highs after warm autumn weather, record gas production, and gas storage facilities that are filling up fast. This will be a relief for Americans this winter.