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 Turkish German scientist Ugur Sahin who invented the mRNA vaccine for coronavirus is interviewed by Der Spiegel. He sees a new world of pharmaceuticals from this invention, with the first treatments of cancer.

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Spain's Mariano Rajoy loses a no confidence motion in parliament and resigns as prime minister in May 2018. He is replaced by Pedro Sanchez of the opposition Socialist Party. It has only 84 seats in the 350 member parliament making his government short lived and paving the way for new elections. Rajoy came in after the 2009 financial crisis assuming the prime minister position in 2011. He has governed throughout the period of the economic crisis and high unemployment in Spain during the eurozone debt crisis, the collapse of the housing boom, the banking bailout and austerity programs in Spain. Economic growth resumed gradually since 2013.

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Iran's new president is a moderate cleric Hassan Rohani. He won the presidential election in June 2013 with 18 million votes, or 50.7% of the votes cast. The second runnerup received only 16% of the vote, making Rohani the overwhelming choice of Iranian voters discontented after years of international sanctions over the nuclear development issue and the confrontational stance of the previous president Mr. Ahmadinejad. In a televised debate before the election Rohani summed up this discontent with the economic situation: "It's nice for the centrifuges to run but people's livelihoods have also to run, our factories have also to run." He contrasted the situation when he was the chief nuclear negotiator for Iran under president Mohamad Khatami, another moderate, when Iran avoided international sanctions, with the current situation. Currently even essential aircraft parts for Iran's national airline are difficult to source. Mr. Khamanei called Rohani "the people's choice." Khamanei and Rohani met to discuss the new government, which observers in Tehran say offers an opportunity for national reconciliation. The Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders also offered their support to Rohani. The Green Movement, Khatami and Rafsanjani supported Rohani before the elections. Rohani is known for his ability to reach out to all parties. He comes from a working class family in a small town in the province of Semnan, entered theological seminary later apprenticing himself to clerics at Qom, the main home of leaders of the Shiite religion. He then attended law school at Tehran University, becoming a student activist during the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Later Rohani studied in Scotland getting master's and doctorate degrees in law, which gives him a unique insight into concepts such as the rule of law for an Iranian cleric. He was member of parliament, deputy speaker of parliament and head of the management committee of the national broadcast service, and a member of the National Security Council....

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President Trump reverses himself and says he supports intelligence agencies assessment showing Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election of 2016. Earlier Trump told reporters on an Asian trip he did not think Russia meddled in the U.S. election. He cited Russian president Putin's remarks on the matter about not meddling after a brief meeting. and said he agreed with Putin on this point.

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Retired General James Mattis headed Central Command under the Obama administration. He is the new U.S. Defense Secretary. Mattis is critical but has said "there is no going back" on the Iran nuclear agreement. Mattis also has said any U.S. president regarding allies as "freeloaders" is nuts. This is different from Trump's campaign speeches, Yet the trait of Mattis in Afghanistan and Iraq duty is that of aggressively following the enemy, he has been called "Mad Dog,"  and the 66 year old officer brings deep battlefield experience, is highly regarded in the military ranks, and had friction with the Obama administration- traits for which he is well regarded by Trump.

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The influence of the spontaneous and bold George Romney, three term governor of Michigan, and presidential candidate in 1968, on his son Mitt Romney during the final weeks of the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. George Romney as CEO of American Motors was known for going over the fence to talk directly with UAW union workers. A more cautious approach of Mitt was an effort to correct Dad's weakness of talking out loud in a media intensive world where everything gets analyzed instantly. During the final weeks with this cautious approach having its own problems in not giving voters a clear picture of who the candidate is, Mitt Romney found himself again turning to "Dad," for that spontaneous and bold approach to put himself out there for who he is. On the lectern before the start of the first presidential debate Mitt scribbled the word "Dad," a reminder of how he should handle the debate with Obama. Ann Romney shared this with a television reporter in a choking voice.

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Daniel Henninger of the WSJ Editorial Board says even if a Republican is elected president it would be a question of 4 more years of what? The big problem today he says is the small number of legislators in the US House of Representatives, about 20 in the Freedom Caucus, that are opposed to the government operating unless they get their way. The result is that independent Speakers of the Republican controlled House, with Republicans having a slim majority, are unable to get elected, and the Speaker elected is a relative newcomer Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who entered Congress as recently as 2017. The new Speaker has said the legislation passed by a bipartisan group of Senators in the US Senate 70-30 for aid to Ukraine is "dead on arrival." Result an impasse with some saying this is the most ineffective Congress ever. In this situation if a Republican is elected president says Henninger he can do little because a loss of even one legislative branch to Democrats the House or the Senate would leave America where it started- in an impasse for 2024-2028. For this reason he says even though Mr. Trump said he would do great things there was little he could point to in his vision for the future, and little he could do just by signing executive orders that would later be reversed.  ...

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Gates experience one rainy night in March, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, welcoming 4 dead soldiers who lost their lives to a roadside bomb on a rutted road near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, provides an insight into what he sees as important for the US military. One is to address the realities of the war that is facing the US in the now, not some theoretical conventional war as the Pentagon is overly focused on. This war is fought in insurgencies in Iraq and in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area. And even the takeover of nuclear weapons by Taliban, is not ruled out with the collapse of the government in Pakistan. So he sees reason for doing things quickly. At Dover that night, Gates expressed his anger to his staff, "find out why they had'nt gotten their goddamn MRAP's yet (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles). Gates went into the 747 carrying the draped coffins, and knelt alone and prayed for 5 minutes. Gates was President of Texas A&M University, before he took the assignment at Defense during the last 2 years of the Bush administration. He knows the ways of the bureaucracy, and is a persistent and effective when faced with lack of cooperation and delays. When the field commanders in Afghanistan said they needed 40 Predator combat air patrols instead of the 12 they had, Gates went around the bureaucratic delays and had his task force set up and and doing problem solving down to details. They went about getting more flying time, and pilots, and control stations in the air force to support this. He keeps presentations limited to 45 minutes, and inists all slides be turned in the day before, for him to look over carefully. And he is decisive in making changes. The Army Secretary was asked to come to Washington immediately, and fired on the spot, not Gates says for the appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital, but for not acknowledging that problems existed and taking quick action to fix them. And Gates is using the 2010 Defense budget to steer away from large scale conventional weapons programs, and get more money for the immediate needs of the field commanders in the wars being fought today. He makes it clear in talking with lawmakers, that "listening to our troops and commanders, unvarnished and unscripted, has from the moment I took the job been the greatest single source of ideas on what the department needs to do." In doing this he has to face up to the bureaucracy and set ways of doing things at the Defense Department, things that were never questioned under his predecessor Rumsfeld. In 2008 the generals who run the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps formally "non-concurred" with the classified version of Gates's National Defense Strategy, which said it was necessary "to take additional acceptable risk" in the area of conventional war so that the military could improve its ability to fight irregular wars. Gates met with all the defense chiefs to listen to their objections, and decided to draw his own conclusion after thinking it over, that the reasons given "were non-compelling," considering the grave dangers that the military was facing in existing wars. Gates is convinced that its his job to give the troops in the field the equipment and resources they need, and he is not letting the military brass or officials block the way. He does not let the criticism affect him. Gates is very quiet when he listens to arguments presented on the other side that he does not share, responding in a thoughtful and controlled manner. Last week, Jaffe of the WPost says, Gates flew to Afghnistan to ask for the resignation of Gen McKiernan the field commander there, a man he had chosen 11 months earlier, but now felt was the wrong man for the job. During this trip he visited a new base being built in southern Afghanistan, and met four marines whose MRAP vehicle took the blast from a roadside bomb, all survived with minor scratches and injuries, and one broken arm. Gates was mightily pleased. ...

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The Japanese ambassador to India, Hiroshi Suzuki, tells the Hindustan Times how close coordination was done between the Hiroshima G7 meetings and the G20 meetings in India. He say the problems of the Global South such as debt, food prices, climate change, are serious in prime minister Kishida's thinking and there is a need to show results. All aspects of India Japan relations including trade and economic ties and defense are moving forward, he says.

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Antonio Guterres was prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002. As climate change action leader he plays an important role in 2022. He is interviewed here by The Guardian with a look at his role so far before COP27 opens in Egypt. Guterres became Secretary General of the United Nations in 2017. His leadership and visible presence is a source of reduction of tensions during the war in Ukraine and a source of renewed commitment during the climate change disasters of 2022.

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Larger investments are needed in science and technology development, and in research and development, secondary and higher education, says Naushad Forbes, for India to reach its potential. He says industry has been too timid when it comes to setting goals for design, innovation, and research and development. He calls for a listening society and culture that is open to to outside ideas, continuously makes connections with the outside world, and is keen to apply new ideas learned in the interactions.

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The governor of India's central bank, the RBI, says cryptocurrency are a threat to the economy and stability and savings of ordinary Indians. He believes private cryptocurrencies should be prohibited. He recently launched RBI own digital currency to combat the problem of private cryptocurrency firms. There is no proper regulatory oversight for cryptocurrency leading to abuses as most recently seen in the dramatic collapse of FTX in the US which was based in the Bahamas. It is covered by the WSJ.

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Boris Johnson, chaired the meeting of G-7 leaders from US, Canada, Europe and Japan. He used the meeting to make a call for "levelling up" following the pandemic and avoiding the policies of the 2009 financial crisis and recession when little was done to help the people who faced hardships. Boris Johnson does not like the word "austerity" and he called for greater efforts to create opportunity, and to support women and girl's education in poor countries.

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Gerard Baker in the WSJ says the abortion rulings of the Supreme Court and the Inflation Reduction Act, Climate Change bills have energized Democrats. He says that as the chances of president Trump running as the nominee of the Republican party in 2024 increased in August, the electoral prospects for Congress of the Republican party have diminished. He says the Mar-a-lago taking of documents by FBI and investigation are also now seen as part of national security issues.

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China mourns the loss of premier Li Keqiang who served for over a decade with Xi Jinping. Li Keqiang died at the age of 68 years from heart failure. Li came from a humble background and was fortunate to be able to complete his education just when China was opening up to the world. He passed university exams soon after the end of the chaos from the Great Proleterian Cultural Revolution. He eager to absorb ideas about western constitutional government at the time.

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A old $2 million coal mine in Wyoming is now the biggest find for rare earth elements in the US since 1952. It could be worth as much as $37 billion says this report in WSJ. Randall Watkins the son of Ashland Oil founder the elder Watkins, runs Ramaco, the $600 million metallurgical coal company that bought this coal mine. He says he has learned lessons from his father that will help him build on this rare earth elements discovery for commercialization.

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Kessler in the WP corrects Obama's claim that he created 800,000 jobs. He says this is clever arithmetic as it takes a low point in Feb. 2010 following the financial crisis. Kessler points out that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. manufacturing jobs were 12.56 million in Jan. 2009 when Obama became president. In Nov. 2016, early estimates show there were 12.26 million manufacturing jobs, a loss of 300,000. This loss does not reflect the problems in the U.S. auto industry and older industries in the midwestern states as a result of trade and globalization that speeded up with the rapid industrialization of China. And led as Greg Ip pointed out in a recent WSJ report to a rapid acceleration of job losses in a decade that did not happen in the same scale during Japan's industrialization and urbanization in the sixties. This aggravated the situation in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, and was met with a feeble response from Democrats. Even a economist like Krugman favoring the Obama administration's efforts came to the conclusion that TPP did not add much to gains from trade as most of the gains had already been realized. More of the gains went to tech and IT in California, at the expense of the auto industry based in the midwest. A report in WP show a president too close to IT in California and failing to grasp the situation in the midwest. Voters punish whoever is in power, regardless of being Conservative or Liberal, in Canada the hollowing out of manufacturing under Harper in Ontario and Quebec led to the win by Trudeau's Liberals.  ...

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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.

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Felipe Calderon is President of Mexico till Dec. 1, 2012, when Enrique Pena Nieto takes office. He describes the priorities for the next administration at the Mexican cultural center in Washington D.C. The first is to allow foreign investment in Mexico's oil industry. His efforts to do this were watered down in Mexico's Congress. The renewal of the ban on assault weapons in the U.S. is another priority, as 80% of the 150,000 weapons confiscated by Mexican law enforcement were bought in U.S. gun shops. Calderon's says he worked hard in his term of office to make Mexico "a rule-of-law state."

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Mike Flynn, who briefly held the position of National Security Adviser before resigning, tells the FBI and Congressional officials that he is willing to be interviewed if he is given immunity for prosecution. Flynn, a former general, resigned after accepting that he misled White House officials about the phone conversations with the Russian ambassador. Also an issue and seen as improper is that Flynn was paid for speeches by Russia's state sponsored network RT just before becoming an adviser to the Trump campaign, according to documents given to a congressional oversight committee.

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The Trump campaign still operates on the basis of the idea "Let Trump be Trump." It is only now beginning the effort to set up a campaign organization for the primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire, intending to do this with with lean structure at the top. On policy proposals Trump says he will rely on experts in each field. For a tax plan he has asked advisors to come up with a plan that simplifies and cuts taxes, aids the middle class, tackles abuses such as corporate "inversions" and to "tax the paper pushing hedge-fund guys." Jeb Bush has adopted a similiar position in the tax plan he has announced. Trump appeals to voters with anti-establishment rhetoric appealing to the average voter, mixed with a dose of individual bravado. The political organization has Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager, Michael Glassner as national political director, Daniel Scavino as head of social media, and Hope Hicks as press secretary. Lewandowski's only experience is heading the 2002 re-election effort for Republican Bob Smith to the U.S. Senate from New Hampshire, in which John Sununu was elected. The campaign lacks the experience and ground support for a long effort in the Republican primaries, and experts say it would face a vigorous television ad campaign from opponents as the primaries get closer....

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On February 11, 2011, the day Mubarak leaves office, Mohamed ElBaradei, has this to say in the New York Times. ElBaradei won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, and headed the International Atomic Energy Agency. He says the only thing to fear for Egyptians and the international community is the shadow of a repressive past. He sees the rebirth of Egypt as representing the hope of a new era in which Arab society, Muslim culture and the Middle East, are no longer seen through the lens of war and radicalism, but as contributors to the forward march of humanity, modernized by advanced science and technology, enriching society by its diversity of art and culture. To get this process started he calls for a three member presidential council with one member from the military, and a transitional government of national unity to run the country. Its first tasks would be to dissolve the Parliament, abolish the old constitution, replace it with a provisional constitution. The primary job of the new interim governmet and presidential council would be to set in motion the process to turn Egypt into a free and democratic society. The first step for that process would be drafting a democratic constitution to be put to a referendum, and preparing for free and fair presidential elections within one year....

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Steven Ford reads an eulogy written by his father Gerald Ford for the funeral of Jimmy Carter. Likewise Jimmy Carter read the eulogy he wrote for Gerald Ford who passed away in 2002. Both families grew to become very close, so close that it is difficult to describe in words. How was this even possible one may ask considering the harsh rhetoric of the Ford-Carter debates and the pardoning of Richard Nixon for Watergate after impeachment of a Republican president by Congress who had served as Vice President for 8 years under Eisenhower 1952-1960 and lost only to Kennedy in 1960.  Today we think of "fascist," "stupid," and "criminal" as ugly DJT and the Harris Clinton rhetoric.  How about "improper"  "ill-advised," "incompetent," and "morally, politically, and intellectually bankrupt," in the Carter Ford rhetoric. Does this mean there is still hope? After all president Biden said he had invited president Trump DJT to the White House on the morning of Jan 20 and will be there at the Inauguration on the same day. That is one way to make America great again. Already Senator Thune who grew up in a small town in Montana in a two room home has embraced Carter's humble beginnings in the heartland. ...

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McChrystal as one of the five best generals in the army today according to one general who worked with him in Iraq, and the perfect man for th job. He was chief of staff for an army task force during operations to overthrow the Taliban in Afghnistan so his work with Afghanistan goes back many years. He is a field and hands on kind of guy, and at the same time has the intellect and listening ability to coordinate things with others, which may be badly needed here.

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US unemployment rate was at about 3.7% for the third quarter 2022 and 263,000 jobs were added in November according to the Labor Department. Other estimates show that these numbers could be overstated by 500,000 for the year and likely to be revised. There is a shortage of labour after the pandemic and the labor participation rate is lower than before the pandemic. The Fed chairman Jay Powell discussed the strong labor market and his plan to attack inflation with rising housing, food, energy costs coupled with wage increases using Fed policy of raising interest rates. Rates could go up to 4.5% with another 0.75 % increase in December 2022.  Powell said in response to questions at the Brookings Institution last week that he was feeling his way through this inflation episode that was very different from previous bouts of inflation having started with supply chain issues that stemmed from the pandemic. It then became widespread with fears that it could get entrenched if a sharp stand is not taken by the Fed. Powell also says that he is acutely aware that he wanted to pause and see the effects of interest rate increases so that there is no overreaching that would hurt the lower income groups. He emphasized that lack of aggressive action by the Fed could let inflation go on for 4 or 5 years hurting these lower income groups the most because the wage increases would be more than wiped out by inflation. Finding the right balance is important to Powell as he looks to manage the risks on both sides of this issue- to hit inflation hard without hurting the lower income groups of society. ...