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Hyundai says it has a road map, though not pecisely outlined, of how it will achieve its goal of an average of 50 mpg for all cars in its lineup. Hyundai sees 75-80 % of its cars running on gasoline engines, and 15-20% being hybrids or plug in hybrids, and 5% runnning on fuel batteries by 2025. Hyundai today is America's fuel economy leader with an average of 30.8 mpg in 2008, the most recent Environmental Protection Agency figures. Honda's comparable figure is 30.1 mpg, Toyota's 29 mpg, and about 24 mpg for Detroit carmakers. Rules set by the government require 35.5 mpg in 2016. Hyundai prefers to take the role of leader in setting fuel economy goals.

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Kamala Harris to visit Arizona and the Southern Border today. Will call for tough border action and signing into law immigration legislation negotiated by Republican Senator Lankford that would close the Southern Border. Labour's Starmer is taking the same steps in Britain, so is France under Macron and Barnier, so are Northern European socialist leaders such as Mette Frederiksen of Denmark who want to see immigration stopped so that cost of living and the economy, childcare, issues of importance for workers and families can be addressed vigorously.

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Cotton prices spike going up as much as 30 % in 2 days creating a shock in the cotton markets. Some blame millions of dollars in bets by institutional traders and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission is conducting an investigation whether they are artificially inflated.

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Paramount bid for Warner Discovery including cable channel CNN, new offers expected Feb 2026 to exceed one by Netflix.

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The bulk of this or 7.5 billion euros goes to increase monthly pay by 183 euros for nurses and healthcare workers in France, long overdue.

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A 2007 video of Obama speaking at Hampton University in Virginia on race relations, on the slow relief sent to Hurricane Katrina affected residents of New Orleans because they were black, praising pastor Wright, and presenting a different view on race relations than President Obama has made in public appearances. The video has surfaced again in the final weeks of the 2012 presidential campaign, especially as polarization has increased in the last four years.

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Lydia Polgreen and Marcus Mabry talk to black and white South Africans in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Afrikaaner Orange Free State. The National Party which started Apartheid as state policy in 1948 and the African National Congress were both founded in Bloemfontein. The accounts provide insights into race relations in South Africa and the growing gap between the economic condition of black and white people. After free elections and about 20 years of ANC governments under Mandela, Mbeki, and Zuma, progress has been made in primary and secondary schooling but most blacks are falling behind in the skills needed in a modern economy as shown by the widening income gap from $17,000 in 2001 to $30,000 in 2011. Less than 40% of South Africans socialize with other races, according to SA Reconciliation Barometer. 22% of whites and 20% of blacks live in racially integrated neighborhoods. 11% of white children and 15% of black children attend integrated schools. The result is a South Africa where a lot remains to be done after Mandela....

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Changing governments and loss of the vision of the labor movement in the early decades after independence has led Israel to this impasse. Benny Gantz of the wartime Unity government calls for new elections in September as demonstrations for a new government take place in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. US president Biden tells Netanyahu on Thursday that US support hinges on treatment of civilians in Gaza. Biden says he "outraged and heart broken" at the airstrikes on aid workers vehicles in Gaza. Gantz, a former general and prime minister of Israel, said- “This agreed-upon date for elections will leave us time to continue the security effort, and it will allow Israeli citizens to know that we will soon need to renew the trust between us,” he told a news conference. “It will prevent the rupture among the people.”  One of the problems Israel faces is the political fragmentation, many parties and frequent elections leading to changes in government unlike the early decades after independence when the Labor party offered effective leadership. The social Labor and agriculture farms movement is how Israel started and prime ministers till 1980's were from this Labor and farms movement including David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir. As Israel evolved into a more technology oriented state this aspect was lost leading to a great measure of inequality, and changing governments without a clear vision for the future.   ...

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Problems with the rural development and agriculture projects conducted by USAID in Afghanistan include overspending in 2009, followed by sharp cutbacks in 2010 and 2011 as budget cuts were made. In 2009 USAID made a grant of $300 million to Arlington based International Relief and Development (IRD) to help farmers in Kandahar and Helmand improve productivity over just one year, at the insistence of Richard Holbrooke. The focus was on paying for day labor jobs to clean canals, offer subsidized seeds to encourage switching from opium poppies, distributing tractors, and building gravel roads. Because many districts of the two provinces were considered unsafe for work, much of the money was concentrated on a few districts and in one year. As a result farmers in Kandahar got more seed than they needed and they in turn sold tons of seed and tractors in Pakistan for cash. A senior program official at IRD says it wasn't realistic to pour so much money in one year. But USAID officials say overspending and poor oversight made the program seriously flawed. There was also a difference in the views of the military and USAID on the value of day jobs. The U.S. military sees this as away of protecting its efforts, of literally protecting its flanks, as this keeps unemployed youth from joining the Taliban. At the same time senior USAID officials wanted to see multiple companies bid for the next $350 millon on a follow-on project. When the USAID team of specialists again awarded it to IRD, senior offficials at USAID decided to cancel the program. The program was then redesigned in the expectation that other companies would bid for it. In the meantime USAID gave IRD 3 quarterly extensions, the last expiring June 30, 2011. The US military sees the day labor program as crucial for its military efforts, so there is kind of an impasse with USAID reluctantly giving in. IRD meantime is shutting down activites in Helmand and will do this also in Kandahar probably by the end of May, as its contract has not been renewed because of problems with the program. USAID has a high staff turnover rate of 85% a year in Kabul which complicates things with the shifting priorities of different officials. Some programs are being scaled back- a job retraining program seen as requiring $125 million over 18 months is being scaled back to $40 million. Others such as a USAID project for coordinating disparate rural rehabilitation projects for $140 million is held back because of lack of agreement with the Afghan government about how it should proceed. In parts of Kandahar USAID had found several contractors doing the same work. See the groups on Dexter Filkins, and on Commander Adams, which touch on serious development issues and the war....