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Republicans held onto 4 of 6 seats in recall elections following Governor Walker's spending cuts and restrictions on the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions.

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This article clearly shows that Russia is turning the corner for full scale use of western technology to tap oil and gas fields in the North. Note the efforts to bring in western expertise include- 1. Efforts to hire Donald Evans, former U.S. Commerce Secretary, to be Chairman of Rosneft. Evans turned down the offer. The hiring of Peter O'Brien a former Morgan Stanley investment banker as chief financial advser.2. With China National Petroleum as a strategic partner. 2. The financial backing and expertise of state run oil companies around the world now give them the ability to contract directly with Schlumberger or Baker Hughes or other oil field technology suppliers. This changes the whole playing field with less need to negotiate with the major oil companies and the ability to do it themselves at their own pace and strategic advantage and execute their own oil policy. Previously negotiating with the oil companies meant giving up some of the ownership of the oil fields to the oil companies in return for the technology. The oil services companies sell the technologies on a fee basis. 3. The pressure to move ahead aggressively with new technology. Estimates from IEA in Paris by Chief Economist Fatih Birol, show that increasing oil production by one and half million barrels a day to level of ten and half million barrels a a day requires Russia to invest $900 billion dollars by 2030 or about 40 billion a year. The only way to generate this kind of investment is to grow its oil development capabilities, keep prices high but stable, invest in the latest technology and bring some of it inhouse....

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Treatment costs with Praluent for cholesterol control are extremely high at $14,600 a year.

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Google's Eric Schmidt on how new technology can provide an innovation advantage in the fight against organized drug trafficking gangs in Mexico.

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As BP reports large losses in the second quarter resulting from its focus on safety, and building a smaller but more profitable company, BP's CEO Dudley says- "One of the things we are not going to do is drift off the path of focus on safety." He emphasized this by adding that "stepping up the accelerator of performance in place of that is not going to happen." BP has cut overall production from 3 million barrels a day in 2009 to 2.3 million barrrels as it focuses on safety and profitability. Dudley says "its going to be value over safety." As it finishes repair and improvement work in the Gulf of Mexico, BP will repeat the exercize in its North Sea fields. Extensive maintenace work is leading to extended shutdown periods.

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Investors in China fear that the overheated economy and property bubbles, may see a sharp turn with excessive tightening of monetary policy. China rebounded quickly after the 2008 crisis, but did this with a huge stimulus and by encouraging excessive lending levels. Some of this local government lending is suspected to have gone into low quality projects with the danger of bad loans. Inflation was 2.8% in April, and as lending tightens the Shanghai Composite Index has fallen 16% in the last month. The crisis in Europe, the extremely short 2-3 month horizon of mainland Chinese investors, the excessive supply of shares- attempts to raise $74 billion in share issuance in mainland and Hong Kong markets and an IPO of $30 billion for Agricultural Bank of China- all put pressure on stocks. OECD index of leading indicators for March 2010 show a drop from February, and the Chinese economy grew 11.9% in the first quarter 2010.

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Felipe Calderon's offers a strong defense of his policy to fight organized drug trafficking in Mexico on the Presidential website, and shifts some of the blame for the violence to the U.S. and previous administrations that allowed the problem to grow.

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The situation in 2010 in Monterrey, Mexico's third largest city after Mexico City and Guadalajara, which produces 10% of the country's economic output. Many Americans and affluent Mexicans are leaving Monterrey as two drug gangs the Zetas and the Gulf cartel launch a war in the city. Even the U.S. consulate is taking steps to move out children from the city. Long term resident expatriates are also leaving. Many leave for Texas. Local police forces are corrupted and this leaves the drug gangs free to roam in the city especially after 10 pm and often in broad daylight. So many executives from Cemex, headquartered in Monterrey, are leaving the city that CEO Zambrano is calling those leaving "cowards."

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Attorneys for homeowners describe the foreclosure process as a mass production line, and efforts to avoid foreclosure as a fight against a machine. In most cases a person would be needed to read what they file, but in many mortgage firms no such person existed. They describe the problem as industry wide and pervasive- and involving loan servicers, law firms, docment processing companies and others. The big mortgage companies, including government bailed out Fannies Mae and Freddie Mac, were eager to get bad loans off their books so they imposed penalties if the process was not speeded up.

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After the failed Unocal Corp. bid in 2005, China's policy has shifted to taking minority stakes, not taking an active role, and keeping Chinese managers at a distance from U.S. advanced technology. The result is a surge in investment in the U.S. and Canadian energy industry with $17 billion invested since 2010, according to Dealogic. By buying a small stake in a company Chinese government advisors see the opportunity to to get an entry into new markets and gain the exerience and knowledge needed to keep up with new drilling techniques. This comes at a time when China expects to become the world's largest oil consuming country because of the surging use of automobiles in the country, according to the International Energy Agency. Natural gas consumption doubled in China between 2006 and 2010 according to the BP Statistical Review.

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The growing middle class in Mexico is to be seen in cities like Queretaro, far from the drug violence seen in cities on the Texas border. Even though growth has averaged only 2-3%, the number of Mexicans who see themselves as middle class in a country of over 100 million is 65%, according to a survey by pollster Jorge Buendia. The definition of middle class is a new refrigerator, a car and a couple of cellphones. Sometimes this is also aspiring to be or thinking you are middle class. A big change is the shift to small families. Astonishing as this may sound, Mexico's fertility rate has declined from 7.3 children per woman in 1960 to 2.3 today, according to the World Bank. The U.S. fertility rate is 2.1 children per woman.

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The U.S. Supreme Court addresses questions raised by Arizona's immigration laws. Justices expressed skepticism where the Arizona law imposes penalties and enforcement beyond what is required by Congress. At the same Justices said it was acceptable for states to do what the federal law already envisions, such as immigration officials sharing information with state police, as long as penalties and enforcement did not go beyond what Congress requires. While Justices were receptive to aspects of the law that required state police to check immigration status, they were skeptical about aspects of the law that challenge the right of illegal immigrants to seek work.

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A shift in priorities and focus of the three candidates away from the drug war, to reducing the level of violence.

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Of the approximately 411,000 deportation cases at the U.S. immigration courts for deportation of children of illegal immigrants only 593 illegal immigrant students had received relief by halting their deportation by June 2012. This came as a big surprise showing how little the Obama administration had done to help children of illegal immigrants. In its response to the administration the Republican party hoped to reach out to the Latino community and Hispanic immigrants with its own initiative. Senator Marc Rubio of Florida was ready to introduce a bill helping illegal immigrant students by giving them temporary status. At this point President Obama issued his executive order ending deportations for about 800,000 immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children.