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Gerlad Seib in the WSJ points out that other issues may be distractions, the no. 1 issue for Democrats in the U.S. is to get back the blue collar workers it has lost. One thing he says Democrats need to stop is to talk down to blue collar workers on cultural issues this can happen even without knowing it, as blue collar workers may sense it differently. He points out that the migration issue has divided the centrist parties as we point out in the insights provided by Jose de Cordoba in the article on Guatemalan migration in today's WSJ. This has happened in the U.S., Britain and in European Union countries such as Germany, France, Italy, and in Eastern Europe.  In the U.S. it is this drift to tech support, to pushing trade agreements such as TPP that hurt manufacturing,  and moving away from bread and butter issues of working families that have led to a drift away for Democrats from their usual base with working class people. The Labour Party in Britain has sensed this, and the CDU, the SDP in Germany are beginning to recognize that migration and austerity regimes for the economy need not be a distraction from basic issues with the end of the Merkel years, yet the Democratic Party is yet to find its footing in the U.S. ...

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With 3.7 million workers in the informal economy Italy is one of the worst hit European countries. Italy's south, including Naples and its capital Campania is one of the hardest hit. Italy's lockdown ended May 18, with some restrictions. Affected worst are small business owners such as shopkeepers, restaurant owners and market vendors, also hit are workers employed in tourism and entertainment. The Italian government has made a 600 euro emergency payment to self employed or part time workers, and 12 million workers have applied so far for these payments, about half of the workforce. A new payment by the government will cover workers in the informal economy with a55 million euro additional aid package by the government of prime minister Conte. Italy's economy will decline by 9.5% in 2020, exceeded in Europe only by Greece. The country is seeing a further erosion of the lower middle class after the difficult period following both the financial crisis of 2008, the eurozone crisis, austerity cuts which hurt people across southern European countries, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy. It is also true that Italians came together during this difficult period in a way not seen since World War II and prime minister Conte provided much needed leadership for Italy, with growing confidence in his leadership. This provides a new sense of hope that Italy can come to grips with many problems it has faced in the last 2 decades, similar to that in other parts of Europe where investment in  infrastructure and manufacturing has fallen behind. ...

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Polls show the New Democratic Party (NDP) surging in the polls in today's Canadian elections. The NDP is drawing voter support from the Liberal Party and from the Bloc Quebecois party in Quebec. The Liberals are now in danger of finishing third behind the NDP in the elections. The Liberals were in power for 32 of the last 50 years, with premier Pierre Trudeau being the most well known figure from the Liberal party. The Bloc Quebecois trails the NDP in Quebec by 16 percentage points in some polls. The NDP program calls for improved health care services, carbon reduction strategies and increased spending for seniors. The NDP proposes to spend 70 billion Canadian dollars for these programs.The party leader Jack Layton could become prime minister in a coalition with the Liberals or join an alliance with the Conservatives led by Steven Harper. In the last parliament NDP held 36 seats. It is now expected to win 100 seats in the 308 seat House. The Conservatives had 143 seats and need 155 to secure a majority, which now appears unlikely....

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With voter turn out at 72% in Finland's election the National Coalition party headed by Petteri Orpo gets 20.8% of the vote, the far right nation first Finns party 20.1% and the SDP 19.9%. The NCP party will form a new government in coalition with one of the two other parties. The NCP supports Ukraine in its war with Russia and also its joining NATO. It advocates less spending on unemployment and housing benefits. The Finns party is for less non EU country immigration. Boosting the economy and creating new jobs is also part of the new government's program.

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Wang Lequan, who is the party leader for Xinjiang, is aprotege of Chinese President Hu . He was pulled into the party from Hu's days in the Chinese Communist Youth League. He is from Shadong province China's industrial and petroleum capital. Because of his familiarity with the oil industry Wang may have beeen transferred to Xinjiang province. He arrived in Xinjiang just as the Soviet Union was dissolving, and the central Asian administrative regions that were formed inside the Soviet Union were becoming independent countries. China's army had occupied Xinjiang in 1949 under Mao. Millions of Chinese were leaving the Xinjiang area and the thinking was that the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang would also form their own country. What happened was that Wang reestablished the Chinese presence in Xinjiang province. He opened the Xinjiang region's oil and gas fields to drilling, laid pipelines east to China and west to Kazakhstan. A Production and Construction Corps was formed so that Chinese soldiers leaving the army service could find work, and this was later listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. With growing industry and government jobs, many Chinese were attracted back to Xinjiang. In the 1990's 2 million Chinese went back to Xinjiang. At the same time his policies may have had the effect of making the local Uighur people feel that their culture and language weere being threatened and they needed to fight for its survival. Wang acting with dictatorial powers tightly constrained Uighur culture and religion. He substituted Mandarin for Uighur in primary schools, saying minority languages were "out of step with the 21st century," and banned or restricted Islamic practices among government workers, including the wearing of beards and head scarves and religious practice like fasting and praying while at work. He has been Communist party leader in Xinjiang for 15 years, which is unusually long, such jobs usually only lasting 10 years. SInce 9/11 Wang has fought hard to limit the influence of separatism, and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an Uighur group, and he has swept up thousands of Uighurs accused of terrorism or religious extremism. He worked to have the East Tukestan group listed as Al Quaeda allies by the Bush administration in 2002. He is closely allied to President Hu who supported Wang, giving him a seat on the Politburo. Wang's protege in Xinjiang has been placed in charge in Tibet. There is a sense with Wang and Hu, that a failure now in Xinjiang and in Tibet to control unrest would lead others in the Chinese leadership who think differently on theses issues to bring a different leadership to succeed them. The difficulty here is that the Han who now comprise 40% of the population in Xinjiang, and are heavily involved in the oil and gas industry, have brough a modernizing influence to Xinjiang but may not be received by the Uighurs as apositive influence. First any government that is in power for as long as 15-20 years tends to lose support over time. This happened with the Congress in Kashmir. Too powerful or corrupt, and lose touch with the young people. But compared to India the democratic ways of that country have helped it recognize the need for respecting the language, religion and culture of the people of each region. The British did the same, so it was something that went back to British times. With the monopoly of power of the Communist party, lack of precedent and amodel to follow that respected different culture and languages, the intolerance of Uighur and Tibetan language, religion and culture, creates a different situation in China. Elections were held in Kashmir recently and an effort is being made for reconciliation with different groups, the media is open and different voices are heard. No such prospect remains for Tibet and Xinjiang. ...

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The Iraqi army moves against Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq after taking Raqqa from ISIS and Kirkuk from the Kurds. The fragile peace between the autonomous Kurdish region and the central government in Iraq broke down after the Kurdistan autonomous government held a referendum in all Kurdish controlled regions in Iraq, including parts taken from ISIS. The Kurds held the referendum for an independent state on Sept 25, 2017. This puts the U.S. in a difficult position as it supported the Kurds against ISIS, when the Iraqi army was disorganized in 2015-2016. Turkey also opposes the Kurds move for an independent state that could include parts of Turkey.

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German farmers are facing both floods in Bavaria and drought in regions 500 kilometres away in other parts of Germany. This report shows how farmers are coping with the effects of climate change.

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The border crossing at Kirkenes, Norway, remains one of the few border points in the EU with Russia that are open, where visitors go back and forth between Russia and Norway. This part of Norway near the Arctic Circle was taken back by the Soviets in the war, after Nazi Germany occupied Norway. Russia let Norway run this region from that time leading to friendly relations. Norway is the only neighboring country that was never at war with Russia. Because of its location far up in the Arctic Circle it remains a unique location with Russian ships coming here. 
And 62 miles from the Norwegian coast is Russia's ballistic missile submarine fleet. Norway as part of NATO provides support to Ukraine with $7.2 billion in aid. It also is a major supplier to EU for oil and gas helping the EU after the cutoff of Russian oil and gas supplies.

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After a long drought Spain is hit by a heat wave. There are no rains in April leaving a large agricultural region south of Valencia and other parts of Spain without water. There is a sense that the current concept of water use by building more reservoirs has to be completely redone as rivers run dry.

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This 700 kilometre path around Prince Edward Island in Canada done after seeing a similar path along the ocean in northern Spain for the pilgirmage to Santiago de Compostela shows what volunteers can accomplish with a simple idea, some tools and extra time. This can be done in many other parts of the world.

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Orange juice from Brazil, copper from Chile, electronics and pharma from India, and aircraft from EU, are part of broad exemptions in US tariffs plans. The exemptions are designed to give flexibility to US negotiators where it helps the US economy to import these items. 

This month negotiating teams from Japan, EU, South Korea and othere countries are trying to get exemptions for other items. BMW is seeking export rebates for exports of SUV's to EU from its US factories. And VW is seeking to use investments it says it will make in the US manufacturing as a way to get exemptions in tariffs or lower tariff rate similar to the way Apple has negotiated a tariff exemption for its Chinese exports to the US by saying it will invest $100 billion in the US manufacturing. US negotiators have to get the firm guarantees that these investments are going to be made.

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The Smer-Social Democracy party led by Robert Fico won an absolute majority in the Slovakian parliament. Smer-Social Democracy party won 83 of 150 seats in parliament. The party campaigned on the theme that the austerity measures were too hard on the poorer segments of society, and did not do enough for job creation. Unemployment in Slovakia is at 13%. The shift also marks changing opinion in Hungary, France, and other EU countries about austerity measures and the impact on countries with high unemployment, in the absence of efforts to stimulate job creation.

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This FR24 article is from November 2, 2022. 

 She calls herself a 4th generation Social Democrat and sees working class families as the worst hit by the politics of the open migration policies of the past. These policies only created the politics that did little for working families struggling to make a living and for an economy that supports working families. She now favors zero immigraton policies. Mette Frederiksen is favored by 58% in a recent poll. She won 50 seats in parliament for the Social Democrats with a majority for her centre left bloc in Denmark elections. In Denmark's fragmented political landscape her party Social Democrats won 28% of the vote.

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Stanley Fischer and Daniel Tarullo are part of a new internal committee setup at the U.S. Federal Reserve to oversee efforts at the Fed to maintain financial stability. The idea was developed by Janet Yellen and Stanley Fischer to prevent future crises from developing.

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Yoon Suk Yeol from visit to Biden at White House as South Korea's president to jail sentence for life for ordering arrests and deploying military troops on Dec 3 2024. It shows the unstable situation for democracy and politics in South Korea, with the country polarized. It is much more polarized than the US  or Europe. South Korea may have advanced rapidly with its economy using Japan as a model, yet the political situation in South Korea and the Korean peninsula remains highly unstable. By comparison India has a long history of elected assemblies in the states and regions dating back to the 1936-37 provincial assembly elections under the British- nearing a century of democratic self government by 2036, ten years from now. Even the shorter period of elected government in South Korea was interrupted by dictatorships and the military rule. The Indian Constitution modeled on the unwritten constitution of Britain and the written one in the US, has the allegiance of a population of 1.4 billion people, unprecedented in the history of mankind. There are as many languages in India as in Europe and the media is lively in every language, so that it is an encounter that is the one of the wonders of the world to know and grow up inside India in the second half of the twentieth and the first part of the 21st century. It is also the first modernization effort in the context of Britoish and American democratic forms of government for over 1.4 billion people, almost 2 billion people counting other regions such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, that use India as their role model. The economic dynamism of the region required integration of sorts with the European Union and the US for scientific and industrial cooperation at every level which is now happening. ...

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The Socialist party is likely to win the most seats in the Dutch parliament in the Sept 12, 2012 elections. Research firms TNS NIPO and Peil.nl polls show the Socialist Party winning 37 seats up from 15 currently, in a 150 member Dutch parliament. The Liberal party in the ruling coalition is expected to win 30 seats down from 31 currently. The right wing Freedom party that withdrew from the ruling coalition is shown as winning 18 seats down from 24 seats currently. The Socialist party will need to form a coalition with the Labor party which is expected to win 17 seats down from 30 seats currently. Because of the fragmentation of seats between parties, a Socialist-Labor coalition will still need the support of other parties. The current coalition government's austerity drive is not popular with voters leading to a shift. The EC estimate is for a 0.9% decline in GDP in 2012, with 0.7% growth in 2013, but with the global slowdown underway this recovery is in doubt. Offical government estimates show a slowing economy for years, and the need for 20 billion in euros in budget savings for 2013-2017. The Socialist party leader Emile Roemer, wants more time to reduce the budget deficit to 3% of GDP, to do this by 2015 instead of the 2013 target set by Mr. Rutte in the current ruling coalition. Roemer also supports a broadening of the ECB's mandate from price stability to stimulating the economy for creating jobs....

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This important WSJ report shows how the CDC labs failed to come with the test after contamination of a component and failure of the third part of the three part test components. In the absence of a working test from CDC where delays cost three weeks of February the private labs all over the country and state labs could have developed their own test, yet HHS and FDA required approval for these labs to develop their own test and use it. From Feb. 8 when state and city public health labs detected problems with the CDC test to Feb 29 when solutions were developed including simply excluding the third part of the three component test, and letting labs around the country do their own test, were 3 crucial weeks that let the virus spread out of control. The CDC, HHHS, and the FDA and their managers and heads of departments bear responsibility for these errors. Week after week the delays continued, instead the two component test which detects if the genetic material in the sample is coronavirus material, could simply have been approved at the outset instead of the approval for this given weeks later. The third component of the test checks if the virus mutated, according to this report. There is no explanation why the labs all over the U.S. were not allowed to go ahead on February 9 itself or within a few days after that to develop their own tests once it was clear the CDC test did not work on that day. CDC officials failed to recognize that there was a possibility that they may not be able to fix the faulty third component of the test and the risks if they gave false reassurances. There is also no explanation of why a German designed test was not used once the CDC test failed on Feb. 9, which would be a proper way for action considering that this pandemic had already shutdown parts of China by this time. Alarming also is the mention in this report that on Feb. 22 a FDA official in charge of lab diagnostics  flies to Atlanta where the CDC Respiratory Diagnostic lab which developed the test is located. His boss FDA medical device center director is cited from later information as describing the lab as "filthy" meaning the lab had the potential to contaminate, and going so far as saying that if it had been any other lab it would have been shut down. Considering that investment in public health has deteriorated over the last two decades and that there has been a massive misallocation of capital in the country away from public infrastructure this is appalling. The thought of critical labs for emergency health needs as not being up to high quality standards in the U.S. as a result of two decades of misspending, that this shows, is very disturbing.  This WSJ report is based on interviews with people who know about the testing crisis, and undisclosed emails, correspondence on the issues involved. Community transmission began in January 2020 in the U.S. These delays were costly in February and could have been prevented either by going with the German design on Feb 10 or asking labs across the U.S. to develop their own test, and letting other labs immediately use the modified 2 component test of CDC that worked instead of doing this action weeks later. Mardi Gras on Feb 25 and other places where large crowds gathered in sports stadiums could have been stopped had testing gone forward and shown the true extent of the community transmission in these critical weeks.  First China delayed a U.S. team of experts coming into the country for weeks, and then the CDC, FDA, HHS, failed to get testing started, creating  a false sense of complacency. Two crucial errors outside and inside the country that caused so much damage to America and the world.   ...

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Under Ford's common platform strategy basic parts for the Ford Escape would go into 1.9 million vehicles by 2016. This would enable Ford to create savings in every facet of development and production.

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The strong challenge to prime minister Netanyahu from the Zionist Union party in Israel's March 2015 general elections. Public dissatisfaction with the Netanyahu government is increasing in Israel, giving the Zionist Union party and its leader Isaac Hezog, an opportunity to lead Israel.

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U.S. president Trump asks for resignation of Attorney General Jeff Session after the 2018 Congressional elections. The Democratic Party gained a majority in the House of Representatives, with the Republican Party retaining control of the Senate. This makes further investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election likely. The official probe into this meddling is being conducted by Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, which is supervised by Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein because Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation.  The resignation leads to the Justice Department being headed by Matthew Whitaker, Mr. Session's top aide. Mr. Whitaker, a former prosecutor, is a conservative legal advocate who was critical of the Mueller investigation, in several tweets cited in this WSJ report, calling it  political fishing expedition," and calling for cutting the budget of the Mueller investigation to make it ineffective. Mr. Whitaker now supervises the Mueller investigation for 210 days till a successor is nominated by Mr. Trump. ...

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DW.com looks at the summit of international leaders in Beijing, from 40 countries as China promotes the Belt and Road Initiative to use the skills it has gained in building infrastructure in China to build much needed infrastructure in Asia and Africa. The Belt and Road Initiative is now part of the Chinese Constitution since 2017. Projects in Africa are part of providing a much needed building of infrastructure to meet the needs of a jump in population in Africa that would add a billion people by 2025. Better terms were promised including forgiveness of interest for Ethiopia, and more transparency set as the Belt and Road Initiative addresses concerns in the host countries.

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Carney calls Canadian elections on April 28 2025. He was head of the Bank of England and comes from the financial sector. The opposition leader from the Conservatives cannot be ruled out as he enjoyed increase in popularity after Trudeau's popularity declined after being in power since 2015. Carney has never contested an election and the example of Sunak is recent. Sunak called an early election only to lose badly to Labour in 2024 after serious missteps by the Liberals and a split in the party. That split has not been fixed by Carney in any way. 

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Pictures of huge floods in Sydney and other parts of New South Wales in Australia. About 20,000 people have been evacuated. In one place a mobile home floated for one mile in flood waters.

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Edward Johnson and daughter Abby Johnson- Fidelity Investments succession turmoil and Abby Johnson emerging as CEO is covered in a new book- House of Fidelity by Justin Baer, Deputy Markets Editor WSJ. CEO Edward Johnson (Ned) failed to come up with a succession plan and executives under him were planning to sell the company to Chase or another bank. Ned had talked to Chase's Dimon in 2005 and said he was not interested in selling the company founded by his father. Yet this is what executives under Ned, Reynolds had in mind, who did not have confidence in Abby Johnson's leadership. Fidelity Investments has recovered from poor performance in that period and manages the pension plans of employers in the US, being the largest in this business. In 2026 Fidelity manages life savings of 20% of American adults and 50% of these customers signed up in last 5 years, says WSJ. After a period in her performance in the mutual funds business which was not great Abby was listed for demotion by executives under her father, who would sent her to run the philanthropy part of the business. It shows how awoman now 64 years struggled through this period and took the bold step of defying her father through control of 41% of the stock of the company to gain control of the company- a step that led to her father relenting and letting Abby run the company. It is a tale of how in such situations even the most favored can be put at a disadvantage by perceptions - in this case by Reynolds of Abby's leadership and ability- and need to act swiftly and decisively after impressions have been formed that lead to an outcome that doesn't need to occur. Her father Ned even though he in his younger period was a good stock picker, failed in two ways. By not planning a clear succession and lacking confidence in his daughter to overcome temporary obstacles. ...

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PM Modi will lead a mass yoga event on International Yoga Day 2022 on the Mysuru Palace Grounds. The theme this year is "Yoga for Humanity" and 2.5 million people will take part in various events around the world.