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Strong criticism from Attorney General Luisa Ortega, and dissension inside the government, led to the Supreme Court retracting parts of its decision to nullify the powers of the legislature. Ortega called the move "a rupture of the constitutional order." Most of the judges are appointed on the court by the Maduro government. Strong criticism by the OAS calling it a "self inflicted coup", by other governments in Latin America, also led to retracting parts of the decision by the Supreme Court. Nicholas Maduro succeeded Mr. Chavez who was the democratically elected president of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. Maduro narrowly won the election in 2013 by a margin of about 1.5% over Henrique Capriles. In 2015 in National Assembly elections the opposition parties won a majority in the National Assembly. Protests against the Maduro government were followed by a recall attempt in 2016 which was suppressed. Inflation and economic conditions in Venezuela worsened under Maduro with the collapse of oil prices. The devaluation of the currency, high inflation and shortages of basic goods have led to widespread protests. As the situation worsened the Supreme Court in support of the government gradually chipped away at the powers of the National Assembly since 2016, leading to the situation in April 2016 with  the effort to strip the Assembly of all powers and remove the immunity from prosecution of legislators. Maduro is a former bus driver for the city of Caracas bus system, and a trade unionist. He was part of the movement supporting Chavez release after a coup attempt, foreign minister 2006-2013, and appointed Chavez successor in 2012.  Max Fisher and Amanda Taub of the NYT go on to discuss the writings of political scientists, including Dutch expert Cas Mudde, who pointed out that populism often starts its climb because established institutions and elites have become unresponsive to pubic needs. Yet the replacement is with what starts out as an effort to bring fairness- yet ends up creating another elite, suppressing opposition, and creating a new set of problems, even threatening the institutional framework of democracy such as elected assembly as happened last week in Venezuela.  In Venezuela the Chavez populist movement was initially intended to reduce corruption in the court system, the established parties control over media, and ensure oil revenues were used to provide services to poor regions and neighborhoods.  In the process over two decades it introduced a system that set up a Bolivarist class of its own based on socialist goals, failed to integrate the economy into the global economy for modernization, and created an overdependence on oil revenues that hurt the country when prices dropped sharply. High inflation, corruption, shortages of basic goods, and an economy slipping behind neighboring countries in Latin America, are the result by 2017. Seeing the situation in Venezuela in the context of current populist trends in the U.S. and Europe may be a stretch because the situation in Venezuela is unique to Latin America in some ways and is from an earlier period. High inflation, collapsing economy, debt problems and mismanagement of the economy, devaluation of currency, are problems faced by Brazil, Argentina, and other countries in Latin America, happening under conservative as well as populist governments since the 1960's. It is different in two respects, the disconnect with the global economy that prevents modernization, and the trend towards authoritarianism, as seen in Venezuela.     ...

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New Zealand makes a sharp swing to the conservative National Party which wins 39% of the vote up from 26%, with Labour Party dropping from 50% to 27%. Labour under Jacinda Adern elected in 2020 failed to deliver on promises of transformational change. The last time National Party ran the government was in the 1980's.

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Vic Starmer spent the day after Thursday's election night at a race course in Surrey. Her mother introduced her to flat racing and she spent time at the Doncaster race course while growing up. She is a solicitor, ten years younger than Keir Starmer, and works in occupational health for the NHS. Vic met Keir Starmer when he called her about a brief she prepared as a solicitor. Starmer says their first interaction was when she was questioned about the brief and s she put down the phone was overheard saying "who the fuck does he think he is?"  Vic grew up in a middle class home in north London the daughter of a father whose family left Poland in the 1930's who worked as a accountant, and a mother who was a GP physician. She went to Cardiff University to study sociology and law, was elected student union president in 1994. They married when Keir was 45 years. Keir Starmer says about her-      " very sassy, very down to earth, no nonsense from anyone." She was political long before Keir, she understands politics, yet she wants to stay outside politics. On the walls in their Kentish Town kitchen the pictures reflect her space, nothing political, just the Doncaster race course, a familiar space for her.   ...

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The US Fed under Jerome Powell stress tests of 31 banks for 2024 shows the banks can withstand a rise in unemployment to 10% and 36% drop in house prices. This is relevant now that the new administration of DJT makes another effort to correct the huge trade imbalance with China, Mexico and Canada, which itself is destabilizing in the long run and needs to be addressed. The first term of DJT failed to correct the imbalance with new tariffs kept in place by the Biden administration. This is not just one's imagination, reports suggest China has poured $230 billion of subsidies into its EV industry since 2003 mandate given by premier Jen Biao to dominate that industry. And now has capacity of 20 million car production a year, twice the domestic demand in gasoline cars, wanting to send the surplus production to the US and Europe. This isn't the 1930's type of tariffs, it is simply to get a fair even playing field for trade, where no one side is massively subsidizing and dumping which is one of the principles of WTO free trade that is being broken by China and Mexico. Specifically the anti dumping clause in Article 6 of the 1994 GATT agreement on free world trading mechanism to ensure free and fair trade. ...

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Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana and chancellor emeritus of Purdue University, reminds Americans of the uses of humor and poking fun at leaders and government to lighten things up and bring a sense of humility to those in power- good for them and good for America. Even a serious fighter for independence for 300 million people (1.4 billion today) as Mohandas Gandhi always kept some room for humor in that fight against the British Empire. Never losing sight of the fact that all are human beings with their vices and foolishness, prone to error. He quotes PJ Rourke of National Lampoon from the 1970's- “It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.” And “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.” After Adlai Stevenson's loss in 1952 and again in 1956 to Ike Eisenhower in the presidential elections he told this story about a boy who stubbed his toe in the dark- “They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.” ...

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Starmer of the UK's plan for Ukraine is clearly a stop gap plan in the chaotic manner in which DJT plan for disbanding NATO was conducted. This gives time for the Europeans to act. Meanwhile Leyen's EU -Leyen was Defense Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany- put out a $158 billion plan for funding defense. Merz of the CDU is clear how his coalition with SPD will act for independence from America on Europe's defense. Within weeks or months one can expect the Federal Republic take the lead for the defense of Europe, with the partnership of France, and the Nordic countries of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and the UK. As Merz said clearly- “My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA." European perceptions of recent happenings in the Ukraine war and the war's progression from the beginnings over three years will matter in 2025 as Europe, as Germany, France and Britain take on the role of bringing a fair peace to Europe that closes the war and does the reconstituting of defense architecture of Europe under new institutions that needed to be taken up in the 1990's after the fall of the Berlin Wall. ...

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Recession forecasts come from economists using obsolete economic theory, not looking at the situation on the ground- continuing this where US lost its industrial base, lost 5 million jobs, tens of thousands of factories, means falling behind to a point where US cannot make comeback as the largest economic power. It is the situation Lincoln faced where between 1830's and 1860 similar to 1995-2025 for three decades the US in one situation saw slavery getting entrenched, and in 2025 sees economic decline getting entrenched. Lincoln's answer was then and it speaks to us now- Fifteen decades ago A. Lincoln stated- "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and we shall save our country." IMF forecast of no US or world recession in 2025-2026. Earlier Chase Bank and other forecasts showed increase in chance of recession. WSJ forecast says 45% chance of recession in next 12 months but also says there was prediction of 60% chance of recession in 2022 and in 2023 which did not happen. ...

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Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. Here he looks at the origins of the term "people of color" and to what extent there are changes in America that relate to the relevance of the use of the term in American vocabulary. He says the "people of color" term in our vocabulary was based on the idea that America was a white supremacist society that would not give average people, disadvantaged people a fair chance for a better life, whether they be the 48 million black people, 62 million Spanish speaking people, or the 25 million Asian people. To a large extent as America moves into the middle of the 21st century most Americans see themselves as part of the creation of the Modern World, with science and technology at its core.  Even Spain which early in the 16th century settled this continent, for two centuries lost its place in the Modern World created in Northern Europe after the Renaissance, falling into poverty, then recovered its origins when it joined the modern world in the 1970's by joining the European Union. A science museum  financed with EU funds in the ancient city of Valencia, Spain, brings Spanish children in every day to know Spain's own achievements in science and the advancing world of technology. ...

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Donald Keene, began teaching Japanese literature at Columbia University in 1955. He has lectured on Japan at Columbia for 56 years! Prof. Keene, 88 years old, taught the final session of a graduate seminar on traditional Japanese Noh plays on April 26, 2011. He started as a freshman at Columbia in 1938 and went on to complete graduate studies at Columbia in Japanese. In his early years he was hooked on Japanese literature after reading the Tale of Genji in 49 cent paperback volumes. During the last session of the seminar he quoted the final lines in "Matsukaze," a play by Japanese writer Kanami. That line says- "all that is left is the wind in the pines."

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The title says it all. The Jobs bank the United Autoworkers trade union in the US setup in GM in 1984 threatened American automaker GM's very survival in 2006. It put workers who were not needed at GM in a jobs bank. It basically meant the idled workers -many of them close to retirement -would stay there till they retired doing nothing collecting full salary. As Mohandas Gandhi had done for India in Hind Swaraj in 1910, the American labor movement needs to look at itself in the mirror if labor is to find its way into a world of dignity and fairness in wages that Mr.Biden truly seeks for American workers.   It was setup when GM had 45% of the US market and 415,000 workers. By 2006 113,000 workers were not needed with GM having lost marketshare to Japanese makers and the Jobs bank was costing GM about $10 million a week, half a billion a year threatening its survival. The Labor movement and the UAW union did nothing to fight its own membership and set it on the right course in union with management, putting at risk the very foundation that labor had put in place since Wilson, FDR and Truman for  fairness in wages and working conditions. Jeremy Peters tells the story in the NYT. That it was recent as 2006 and shows how much had gone wrong with the labor movement and the failure of its leaders to do the right thing. The Jobs Bank says NYT was intended to prevent manufacturers from shifting manufacturing overseas, instead it did just that by undermining confidence in unions and the American labor movement, and in American workers. Two crippling wars initiated by Republicans Bush and continued by Democrat Obama, disinvestment in American manufacturing, companies like Apple shifting their entire manufacturing through outshoring to Taiwan and China, the 2009 crisis from deregulation of American banks, led to the loss of not one, but two decades for America. In today's news a modest $2 in minimum wage increase from $15 to $17 over 3 years is all that New York governor Kathy Hochul could get- even though Assembly Democrats were asking for more- to give American workers and families a fair wage to meet the cost of living crisis.  ...

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About 7 million people or 10.3% of people living in France in 2021 were immigrants, says national statistics agency INSEE. Compare that with 6.5% in 1968. About one third have acquired French citizenship. What this has done to French society is to shift sentiment away from protecting workers and families struggling with a cost of living crisis by splitting the vote of traditional parties supporting working class families. Shifting some of it to the far right anti-immigration parties that have emerged since 2010. This has added to the fracturing of society that happened from neglect of manufacturing communities across France as more manufacturing was concentrated overseas in  China. Neglect of rural areas and smaller towns, the emergence of tech hubs disconnected from the larger community across France has added to this. This is true of other European countries and a similar situation happened in the US. Denmark's prime minister is very candid about this, saying immigration of this type hurts the working class families in Denmark. Mette Frederiksen of the Social Democrats is the first to have clearly stated this problem and is providing a new way of protecting Danish workers and families from these social and technological changes in society from which they have no protection. President Biden in the US has also grasped clearly the dimensions and magnitude of the problems facing workers and families in the US. The problem is not limited to worker loss of income security, it affects the whole society and the public as a whole in other ways. Opportunistic politicians using anti-immigration appeals without a true commitment to democratic principles and ideas have tendencies that threaten democracy itself. This is the real danger of concentrating manufacturing in one country such as happened with China. And of neglecting rural areas and small towns. For this reason Frederiksen in Denmark, Biden in the US, and other leaders in Europe are looking for ways to send aid and industry promoting assistance to poor countries but restricting illegal immigration. This requires handling cultural issues which have further hit society with care- "with malice towards none, with charity for all," so that the focus can be kept on the real issues affecting workers and families of the cost of living crisis and a better life, better education, health care and public services for all, to improve the quality of living. It requires a new state of mindfulness from leaders in North America and Europe, as well as from allied countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa.  ...

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Landers and Gale of the WSJ show how undersupplied conscript soldiers, high inflation and industrial breakdowns during wartime have led to major upheavals in Russia. Three conflicts led to such changes in Russia's domestic situation. The Russo-Japanese war in 1905 led to Russia seeing one fourth of 340,000 Russian troops killed in a battle near the Chinese city of Shenyang, and loss of most of its Baltic fleet in a Japanese attack on Port Arthur. The war ended with a peace treaty arranged by president Theodore Roosevelt of the United States. The Russian czar gave up most of his absolute powers in 1905.  In 1914 Ukraine was involved in regime change as the Germans fought to take Ukraine. The czar wanted to keep Russia's expansive sphere of influence. Without Ukraine's agriculture and industry and its population Russia would not be a great power, says an expert on Czarist Russia. At the time the Russian military was ill prepared in motorized vehicles and communications equipment, and industry lacked the ability to resupply the military. Inflation jumped leading to unrest and protests. Fighting in the First World War led to millions of refugees. In 2022 experts see the same old problem of seeking spheres of influence leading to wars, and the lack of sufficient ability to cope with prolonged wars when short wars were expected by the regimes in power in Russia. Dissent inside Russia and protests led to the abdication of Czar Nicholas in March 2017, and Bolsheviks led by Lenin seizing power in November of 2017. By 1979 Ukrainian leader Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union as Russia's economy could not keep up with modernization. Seeking spheres of influence Brezhnev pushed into a long war in Afghanistan in the mistaken idea that a quick strike on Kabul with a change in government would achieve Soviet goals in central Asia. By 1989 the Russian army withdrew from Afghanistan and in 1990 the protests led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of Russia as a separate country. Landers and Gale of the WSJ see these events in Russian history showing how wars have led to domestic changes and upheavals in Russia when leaders projected power beyond Russia's capacity to handle the results of conflict. Russia's economy is about the size of Italy or Britain say experts and its industry much smaller than the European Union economies and the US, Japan combined.  ...

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Mr. Trump's conflict with the Justice Department in the last weeks of his presidency to appoint a new Attorney General with intent to contest the results of the presidential election of 2020, is shown in this report in NYT. This created risks for American democracy. The cracks in social cohesion following four decades of foreign wars 1980-2021, irresponsible behavior of financial institutions leading to financial crises and impoverishment of America, incompetent elites, neglect of rural America, ceding of technology and competitive position to China, failure to fund education, healthcare and infrastructure, under presidents Reagan, elder Bush, Clinton,  Bush, Obama, led to a situation of revolt against the status quo by a maverick politician using a new and proven dangerous form of communication social media. Ultimately this put democracy at risk. Lessons from this are only now being learned as people in the Biden administration and outside of it reflect on what happened. In this WSJ report Mr. Trump is seen pressuring officials of the Justice Department to agree to appointment of a new Attorney General shortly after the election. This was seen as an effort to question the results of the 2020 presidential election. A leading senator on the Judiciary Committee says this would lead to "shredding the US Constitution to stay in power." Of this and also of four decades of neglect in America Washington has this to say in his first Inaugural Address on April 30, 1789- "The blessed religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even in some instances be made subservient to the vilest of purposes. Should, hereafter, those entrusted with the management of this government, incited by the lust of power and prompted by the supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution, and violate the inalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable- and if I may so express myself, that no wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other." ...

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A nuclear plant in a war zone with repeated shelling? This is taken up in this debate video of 44 minutes in FR24 which you can click on. The world has not seen this since the start of nuclear energy from plants in the 1950's. Calder Hall the first UK nuclear power station and the first in western Europe started in 1956. Eisenhower opened the first US nuclear power station Shippingport on the Ohio river in Pennsylvania, 50 kilometres from Pittsburgh in 1958 as part of the Atoms for Peace Program. The US built 54 nuclear plants that are operating today in 2022 generating 50% of the renewable energy in use today in the US. The question is what does the unthinkable conducted by the Russians and Ukrainians, by weaponizing a nuclear plant do to public perception of the safety of the Atoms for Peace Program initiated by president Eisenhower in 1954? What does this damaging of public safety perceptions after Fukushima do to the Atoms for Peace type of programs in China India, and European Union that are part of the emissions cutting programs in the world? These are serious questions at a time when climate change is not simply a word but means floods, fires, drought, and declining food production all over the world from Spain to Pakistan, from Germany to China. China and India are affected. China has 53 nuclear plants in 2021 with 50 GW and plans to double this by 2030. India has 22 nuclear plants  with 8 GW in 2021 and plans to triple this to 22 GW by 2030. How will climate change be tackled with public safety perceptions affected with another nuclear accident like that in Fukushima arising from shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. As the president of the UN Security Council Zhang Jun of China clearly stated at the UN SC meeting last week that China opposed use of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant by Russia (or Ukraine) in any way that could lead to damaging nuclear safety leading to an unintended accident. China only gets about 5% of its energy from nuclear, India about 3%, and this will need to increase multiple times to tackle climate change. France gets 70% of its energy from nuclear, the US 20%, by comparison. Nuclear energy safety and clear rules to prevent weaponizing of nuclear plant zones is essential and a solution like that developed for the food grain shipments from Odessa through Black Sea to the Mediterranean has to be arranged quickly. ...

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David Barboza of NYT describes the hidden subsidies China gives to Foxconn for its plant in Zhengzhou, in a poor region of China. The factory there makes about half a million iPhones a day. These subsidies include incentive packages, infrastructure building, local government help of about $1.5 billion. As a result Apple has high margins. For a 32 gigabyte iPhone 7 that costs $400 to make, the retail price is about $649 in the U.S.  The hidden subsidies is why Apple can maintain dominance as profits are reinvested. And the result is that with only 12% of the smartphone market Apple can take in 90% of the profit, according to Strategy Analytics. Barboza looks back at Apple before co-founder Steve Jobs left in 1985 as focussing on manufacturing at plants in Colorado and California. By 2001 with iPod sales soaring the move to China under Cook, who previously worked for Compaq, was underway. With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the move to China for manufacturing accelerated. The reason: only China offered the kind of subsidies, the speed of approval and building of infrastructure facilities, the local government support, the hundreds of thousands of workers, and the best tooling engineers, to produce in huge volumes with speed, and maintaining quality levels. Earlier plants including one in Colorado Springs that this Lyrarc editor was invited to visit just prior to Jobs rejoining Apple had many quality problems, so much so that Apple had a large part of the manufactured personal computers set aside for rework. The quality levels were dismal, defects were unbelievably high. This is the Apple manufacturing process and plant that Jobs must have seen when he returned, and which he hired Cook to fix. Not only were costs higher in the U.S., (subsidies in China came later) when Jobs looked at the manufacturing quality and the inability to get the quality he needed from American workers and engineers at that time in the 1990's, only then did he turn to China- and the more he saw what was possible to accomplish there he sensed an unusual opportunity to finally put the ghosts of memories from competition with Microsoft at rest, and to surpass everything that had been done in Silicon Valley. The result one of the most ingenious and large manufacturing networks in the world, huge profits for an American company, except for one thing- it would not do much for American workers. ...

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Japanese Dads are taking on a bigger role and changing parenting. BBC Future shows this story about Japanese dads from a new generations that are taking on the joys, difficulties and responsibilities of parenting.  A new kind of superhero in Japanese manga comics is Ikumen, a Japanese term (from ikuji for childcare) for young dads actively spending time with their children compared to an earlier generation of fathers who spent most of their time at work, and rarely took on family responsibilities. During the sixties and seventies as Japan emerged from the wartime recovery and modernized Japanese culture defined men's role to spend most of the time at work, even getting allowance for spending from their wives who controlled the family budget.  In 2010 the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare started the Ikumen project to increase paternal involvement in child caring. This was a major cultural change and was part of the change in culture needed for the Third Arrow of Japan's Abenomics project to get women's participation up to western country levels. Today the women's participation rate in workplaces exceeds that of the U.S. Even in the 1980's men spent on average about 40 minutes with their children mostly during the family meal in the evening and even had to have their wives find their clothes. The common saying was - "jishin, kaminari, kaji, oyaji," earthquake, thunder, fire and father, remote and given respect. Women's reaction was not positive as they postponed marraige for later, then even not marrying at all for the next generation, leading to reduced childbirth rates. The Ikumen project projected fathers in a masculine role of heroes for taking on parenting, like the t-shirt logo "Strength for Society" portraying them as saving society, saving the  country. About 45% now support the idea of "men should work, women should stay at home" compared to 60% in 1992- drop of 15%. The statistics do not quite tell the story because during this period women participation in the workplace has jumped to western country levels as part of Abenomics Third Arrow to revive the economy. The problem that is still being tackled is that of bosses in the workplace who lack awareness and discourage taking paternal leave which has risen from 2% to 7% in five years 2012 to 2017. ...

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Patel's speech on August 15 1948, provides a point of reflection for Gandhi's project of Hind Swaraj announced in his book Hind Swaraj written on a steamship voyage in 1909 returning to South Africa from England, and this week's Vikshit Bharat 2047 vision taking shape 75 years after 1947. Hear this audio podcast from All India Radio of Indian Deputy prime minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's broadcast to the Indian Nation on Aug 15, 1948. It  is a point for reflection just one year after independence when the "paramountcy of the British inIndia came to an end," yet it was not clear that India would be pulled together as one Nation or be in pieces "Tukda, tukda." 75 years ago Patel talks about the situation in China where civil war raged- on that day the NYT showed Koumintang and Communist armies facing each other near Nanking and in Shantung province. Hyper inflation had already hit Shanghai a sack of rice cost 6.7 million yuan and the highest denomination currency was 180 million yuan, the Kouminatang decided to print money to fight the civil war.  Malaysia had riots and communist insurgency was about to take place. Synghman Rhee was made president of South Korea with US Gen. Douglas McArthur present in Seoul and the invasion by Communist North Korea on June 25, 1950 was around the corner.  Israel's Ben Gurion asked the UN to have Arab armies withdraw or it would have to go to war. In India the Kashmir invasion in the Himalayas starts on 12 September 1947 with Liaquat Ali Khan approving plans for tribals and Pathans to attack Kashmir.The states of Hyderabad, Travancore and Junagadh among princely states(which were one third of the British Empire) that had not been integrated. In Europe the Berlin Blockade had started in June 1948. This is the Asia and Europe that Patel saw in 1948 as he pondered on the meaning of Gandhi's success and what had still to be achieved. It is also a point of reflection in advance of  August 15, when India gained its freedom from British rule and set the stage for the decolonization of Indonesia from the Dutch, of Vietnam from the French, and Malaya from the British, followed by decolonization in all of Africa. ...

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This editorial in the WSJ points out the dangers to the Republican party in taking the stand on immigraton along the lines suggested by Donald Trump in August 2015- deportation for all illegal immigrants, no birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, and no remittances allowed for illegal immigrants to their home countries. It points out that remittances actually improve the economies of the countries south of the U.S. border in Latin America and reduce illegal immigration. There is a need for seasonal workers in farm areas where there is a severe shortage of workers even at $17 an hour. Reducing immigration is better accomplished by more guest worker programs. A likely result would be the move of farms and factories to regions with low cost labor in Latin America or other countries. For the Republican Party this type of policy would bring back the period of the 1920's, says the WSJ, when Irish and Italian immigration was opposed by the party, alienating the two ethnic groups till they were won back in the Reagan period- a sure way to lose in 2016....

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Exxon to invest $600 million in producing liquird transportation fuels from algae- organisms in water called oilgae. Its a research effort that will take 5-10 years to bring results with large scale commercial production. The project will be conducted in partnership with Synthetic Genomics, abiotechnology companyfounded by genomics pioneer Craig Venter. Algae generated energy is apromising technology which yields 2000 gallons of fuel per acre of production each year compared with 650 gallons for palm trees, and 450 gallons for sugarcanes which Brazil uses for producing energy. Corn which has become controversial in recent years yields 250 gallons per acre with energy, and water supplies required to grow corn, and the impact on food supplies. Exxon is also showing support for the work of Dr. Venter, ascientist who is known for decoding the hman genome in the 1990's. In recent years he has done research in searching for micro-organisms that can be turned into fuel. Algal biofuel called oilgae by environmentalists is made from algae that have molecular structures that are similiar to petroleum products like gasoline, and is compatible with the existing transportation structure....

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Dr Norman Borlaug passes away at 95. He was a plant scientist who invented special rust fungus resitant varieties of wheat through work for the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico. In this work he used the climate of the Sonoran desert and the Mexican highlands to develop this rust resistant wheat variety. He came up with asmaller wheat plant which with fertilizer counld increase yields enormously. Brough up in Minnesota of Norwegian parents, he studied in aone room schoolhouse and pursued his doctorate in plant sciences at the University of Minnesota during the depression. At this time he saw hungry people in Minneapolis, and this stayed with him as he was persuaded to take up the job with the Rockefeller Foundation in Mexico after working at Du Pont. Mexico meant dismal conditions and vast amounts of travel between the desert and the highlands. But his unflagging persistance and good humor in these difficult conditions led to results with the new varieties of wheat. This was then used in Mexico and later in India and Pakistan in the 70's with the wheat crop in 1968 maring the beginning of ther green revolution. ...

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New UBS CEO, Sergio Ermotti, plans to scale down UBS investment banking operations because of stricter regulations and a changing market environment. He said in an interview that UBS will go back to what it was in the 1990's, that he now sees the investment banking boom of the last ten years as an aberration. He also sees rival banks taking the same route. The plan is to shrink risk-weighted assets from 300 billion Swiss francs today to 145 billion Swiss francs by scaling back or exiting in areas such as asset securitization, complex fixed income structured products and trading in some equity products. UBS will cut 2000 investment banking jobs to 16,500 in 2013. The focus will shift to foreign exchange, commodities and mergers and acquisitions. Investment banking made a profit for only one of the last 4 years, taking up two thirds of the bank's capital and earning 26% of the group's the pretax profit in the last year. The new plan will reduce the size of the investment bank so that it makes up less than half of the group assets by 2016....

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A situation now in the Euro-zone countries of Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain, that is similiar to what Argentina faced when its economy collapsed and the peso was devalued in 2001. The Argentine peso was pegged to the dollar increasing the attractiveness of Argentine bonds for foreign investors. A severe recession in the 1990's made it difficult for Argentina to service its debt. And the high value of the peso made it harder for Argentine exporters to compete . A devaluation of the Brazilian currency in 2001 left Argentina in a situation where it was no longer able to compete. The government fell and the economy suffered a severe blow with depression and cuts in spending. Both the Argentine peso's peg to the dollar and the adoption of the euro by Greece, Portugal, and Spain prevent adjustment through a devaluation, making the situation worse over time. Some experts from that time including Mohamed El-Arian of PIMCO see the exit of some countries from the euro-zone. Their view is that bondholders in Europe will have to accept new securities that pay less interest and mature over a longer period....

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Questions raised by analysts at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the European Policy Center in Brussels, about the lack of leadership from Chancellor Merkel of Germany and EU leaders in addressing swiftly the crisis facing Greece and countries in southern Europe. Facing voter displeasure in Germany Merkel stalled in the hope of delaying adecision till after a regional election in Germay on May 9. In the process Merkel turned a smaller crisis in Greece into a crisis facing many countries in Europe including Spain, Portugal and Italy, and a crisis for the euro currency. French member of Parliament Juvin, told the French press: "are they waiting for the collapse of the euro?" One sticking point is that the Lisbon Treaty has no provisions for coordinating fiscal policies, and Germany did not insist earlier on oversight of Greek statistics which were generally known to be false since the 1990's. Another French member of the European Parliament, Le Grip, insisted on the need for a new European economic government, and the creation of new institutional responsibilites. The problem lies in the feeling in countries like Germany not to cede sovereignty on economic matters to a European economic body. ...

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Ted Koppel, managing editor of ABC's "Nightline" news program from 1980 to 2005, says it brings sadness to see the television networks drowning viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their entrenched biases. Its good financially for the networks, he says, but not good for the American republic. He acknowledges the realities of today's journalism- scores of media options, a million or more clusters of consumers, who are harvesting as he puts it, information and news from like-minded providers. That is the way news and information is served up nowadays. And as he points out the shift of news from a public service to a profitable commodity is irreversible. At the same time talk is cheap, and the tendency for strongly held but unsubstantiated views is very prevalent. And yet the need for clear unobjective reporting is greater today than ever before. Covering news in other countries is now more needed than before, but foreign bureaus are expensive and such news harder to collect. As a result many foreign bureaus have seen severe cuts or were closed. Koppel cites Daniel Patrick Moynihan's observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."...

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German chancellor Merkel and France's president Hollande meet in Notre-Dame de Reims cathderal for a service that commemorates the 50th anniversary of a mass held at Reims cathedral. That Mass was held at Reims in May 1962 with the hope for a lasting reconciliation between Germany and France in a region affected by recurring wars, and was attended by Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle. The service in July 2012 brings together two leaders after tense discussions at eurozone summit meetings on the future of the eurozone and austerity measures. It is also a reminder of the deeper ties that bring the two countries together after a century of conflict, and the resilience in the face of difficulties shown by a previous generation of leaders in building these ties. It needs to be remembered that it was German chancellor Kohl, Angela Merkel's mentor, one of the postwar leaders who promoted European unity during the period of German reunificaton, who speeded up the agenda for the creating the eurozone and euro currency without the necessary underpinnings of deposit insurance and a eurozone financial regulator with powers to examine the books of European banks and exercize financial supervision. ...