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With China's economy slowing, fewer jobs for college graduates in the cities, what is president Xi- who is visiting San Francisco this week- doing to tackle this problem? Even in Guangdong province with cities like Shenzen, it is very, very, very rural says Brian Spegele in this WSJ discussion. He talks about widespreard rural poverty. From his own experience spending time in the countryside in the impressionable years Xi has put this task to revitalize the rural areas to young people. In Guangdong alone about 300,000 youngsters will be given the opportunity to improve their credentials for future government work by going to the rural areas to bring talent that was drained from the 20 years of free market hypergrowth and urbanization. China is about 40% rural in 2023 and these regions have suffered badly, and Xi's efforts to revitalize come at a time after the pandemic when it makes little sense to continue urbanization as the only solution to problems. ...

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Dr. Wolfe, a drug safety critic and head of the health group of Public Citizen, a Ralph Nader founded consumer advocacy organization, has been appointed to a four year term on the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Committee. Dr Wolfe's has a history as a consumer advocate for health safety and a critic of the corporate influence in FDA decisions. He would like to see fewer copycats of popular drugs and limits on direct to consumer advertising. Here Dr Wolfe's personal style as an activist is explored. He admits he tends to have firm opinions.

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The Russian economy will contract by 10% and the Ukraine economy by 20% in 2022, says the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The bank was setup to revive Eastern European economies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2023 the Ukraine economy is expected to rebound by 23% with assistance from US and EU. The Russian economy faces long term challenges with lack of access to technology from EU and US and the loss of well educated workers leaving Russia, and is expected to face a long period of stagnation. The war has affected 60% of Ukraine's economic output and electricity consumption is down by 60%, with one third of Ukraine businesses closed, factories shutdown. Ukraine will be a much poorer country because a lot of stock has been destroyed, says Beata Javorcik, EBRD's chief economist. For Russia the drag on the economy will be present even if a peace agreement leads to lifting of sanctions says EBRD. Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Armenia will also feel the effect of the slowdown with loss of remittance from workers in Russia. The faster shift to renewable energy and LNG in Germany, and a similar boost to renewable energy with COP26 Glasgow getting a boost in EU and the US, will result in loss of value of oil assets in Russia. With loss of technology access from US and EU Russian conversion away from a energy based economy will be slowed. All this is likely to lead to a difficult period for Russia. This means there are no gainers from this war, including China, which could see a further acceleration in US and EU restructuring of the supply chain away from China, leading to further slowing of growth. ...

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Maggie Haberman of the NYT looks at Mr. Trump's search for media savy lawyers. Lawyers are hired based on intuition and seeing how they perform on television without much thought and analysis.

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Germany's Federal Criminal Police (BKA) says its online tip portal is hit by hackers in a denial of service attack. The site was restored to normal service shortly afterwards. The tip portal was for the public to share video and text on clues to the attack.

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Websites for vaccination appointments are hard to navigate and can be hard to use for seniors that are not tech savvy. This video in WSJ shows tips to use for getting vaccine appointments. 

Gather information on websites that let you make appointments. Its very important to keep checking and to grab the appointment quickly.

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Just 2 weeks before president Xi's arrival in New Delhi for a G-20 Summit, Xi meets prime minister Modi at the Johannesburg BRICS summit. Modi and Xi agree on an expeditious disengagement of forces at the Line of Actual Control after Modi tells Xi that maintaining peace and tranquility in the border areas and respecting the LAC is essential for a normal India China relationship.  

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The Black teen jobless rate in 2011, the third year of the Obama administration- a shocking 46.5%!

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IMV architecture for rugged vehicles and the Hilux brand of vehicles for emerging markets, are two favorable factors that Toyota hopes will generate half a million more sales than the old Hilux line. Toyota has spent $1.4 billion on building plants in India, Indonesia, Argentina and S. Africa and other countries to develop the new vehicles with new chassis, engines and other parts made in developing countries. These plants say chief engineer Hoskawa help reduce costs by 20-25% for the Hilux line of rugged vehicles with new chassis. But a port strike in India which makes the manual transmitssions, and a problem at the plant in Indonesia which makes gasoline engines- which are then shipped to plants for assembly in South Africa and Argentina- could cause problems. To cushion against such events Toyota keeps 2 weeks supply of engines and other parts in Thailand.

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The U.S., Japan, Finland and other countries are looking seriously at 6G after falling behind in 5G.

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Dortmund's coach speaks of a very odd experience, "surreal" as his team beats Schalke 4-0 in the Bundesliga in front of an empty stadium that normally holds 80,000 people. Over 175,000 coronavirus cases by May 16 in Germany and France and 240,000 in Britain. Still life moves on and televised matches in the Bundesliga, the French and Premier Leagues, will bring back sports to millions of football fans around the world. Dortmund is now 1 point behind leaders Bayern Munich.