LyrArc Article Gist
China's president Xi Jinping visiting a trade fair in Shanghai, says China will shift to larger imports as it responds to calls from the U.S. and Europe to further open its markets, and buy more rather than focus on selling to the world. He said "it is China's sincere commitment to open the Chinese market." More than 80% of China's trading partners have trade deficits with China with severe complaints and tariffs imposed on Chinese goods by the U.S. president Trump.

LyrArc Article Gist
It is true carrots are good for eyesight and to prevent macular degeneration. Sunglasses help prevent ultraviolet rays from affecting the eyes. Reading without taking your eyes off the page is not conducive to good eye health- take time out every 20 minutes to look outside for at least 20 seconds. It is a good idea to relax the eyes by looking at Nature, what is good for mental health is also good for the eyes. Move the eyes to the left the right and draw large imaginary visualization circles with the eyes, large squares, for 30 seconds as away to exercize the eyes. Closing the eyes and concentrating on an imaginary visualization candle is a form of meditation that is also good for resting the eyes. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Portugal's constitutional court rules against a government action to reduce public sector worker's traditional extra 2 months salary for each year in 2013-2014. Portugal is required to meet a deficit target of 3% in 2013. The EC and the IMF provided 78 billion euros in loans to Portugal and have indicated flexibility in adjusting the economic program.

LyrArc Article Gist
Energy subsidies costing billions of dollars are keeping gas prices lower in France than other parts of the EU till December. French president Macron says a series of crises from droughts, the war in Ukraine and energy shortages will lead to an end to the abundance and called for conservation, and restraint in energy use. France uses nuclear energy in much larger proportion than any other country making it dependent on Russian gas imports for only 17% of its consumption. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Atsuyoshi Koike of Japan's Rapidus co-developing with IBM new 2 nanometer chip for production in 2026, wafer by wafer in 15 days instead of in batches taking 50 days. Koike says he will charge a Shinkansen fee referring to the bullet trains in Japan. He sees the failure by Japan to join the US in co-producing chips as a mistake, ceding ground to Taiwan's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung. Japan's government supports Rapidus with $600 million in funding and anotehr $1.7 billion comes from Japanese companies Sony, NTT and others. By comparison TSMC will invest $56 billion to produce advanced chips in scale in 2026. Japan is step by step getting back into the chip business by making a joint effort with the US.

LyrArc Article Gist
France's high speed train network SNCF and its new trains TGV m are the focus of French Connections series in FR24. It is a great success for France as it connects 230 cities across France and decentralizes the country making remote areas reachable in hours. 770 kms Paris Marseille is covered in 3 hours. It has transported about 3 billion passengers since its founding in 1981 under Francois Mitterand. 122 million people traveled on TGV trains in 2023, and this is increasing by 20% a year. The trains travel at 350 kilometers an hour and are capable of over 500 kms per hour. For countries like India this is very useful to know as the first bullet trains based on Japanese technology are being built for route Bombay- Ahmedabad- Jaipur- Delhi. It shows that if it worked so well in France it can work well in the US or India. In India it could transport many times the 122 million in France and connect remote regions exceeding 1000 kms. Madras Srinagar is 3000 kms or 1900 miles. Imagine this being done in 7 hours at 400 kms per hour. It would really decentralize India. Same for the US for Austin Texas to Boston Massachusetts 1600 miles in 7 hours. It would better integrate communities in the US that are far apart socially.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This report on Germany's view of US DJT Tariffs does not cite any German economists or experts. It simply rehashes the views of American economists who are the source of the problems America has on world trade because they supported textbook ideas about trade that have no connection to reality onthe ground - the experience in towns and communities dependent on factories across America for two decades. It says nothing, prefers to ignore and present a false narrative that has been around for so long in America that has led to it's deindustrialization with loss of 5 million jobs and tens of thousands of factories. It is destroying America's industrial base, while Germany sends its millions of cars Made in Germany into the US.  This is the kind of approach taken by Germany and China because they benefit from a system that American companies and economists, and three previous presidents have allowed or tolerated from Clinton, Bush, Obama for 25 years. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Venezuela's Maduro faces trial in the US and Judge Alvin Hellerstein 92 years old in the Southern District of New York is presiding over that case. There is no mandatory retirement age for judges which means they can be practicing well into their 90's. The concern expressed by experts is that the case could go on for years and the judge's health had to be good for that period.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Stimson Center looks at the closing of an era of Conservative politics in Japan which ended in 2025 after the death of Shinzo Abe and the 2 year premiership of Kishida. Interview is conducted by the Stimson Center of a senior Japanese political figure with 30 years of experience in the Foreign Service, and the author of the only English language book on Shinzo Abe, reflecting the paucity of research on Japan. Shinzo Abe was premier for a short time in 2005-2006 and for a full term in 2012. He made changes to Japan's SDF, its partnership with India, Australia in the Quad, and his economic policy which increased women's participation in the economy. For the first time in post war Japan there was a new sensde of confidence under Abe and he is missed sorely in Japan today. Yet as this senior Japanese politician says, Japan has changed the way the US and Europe have changed, and nationalist politics are replacing old Conservative politics of the LDP. In a way also how the deindustrialization of US, Europe and Japan has also taken place discrediting that era. Takaichi Sanae is itself a representative of the new era, as she did not hesitate to say Japan would get involved if China attacked Taiwan. Her popularity is at 62% and she has called a snap election, as she came in to replace Shigeru Ishiba in October 2025 and was not directly elected PM. Yet in the long view this is also a misconception because neither the Stimson Center or the interview participants had a keen sense of who Abe really was and Abe's grasp of the history of the Kamakura period of Buddhist Japan and China, India, of the 12th century before the foreign invasions from the north. One of Shinzo Abe's biggest legacies is the relationship that was close to his heart, the relationship with India and prime minister Modi. This week chancellor Merz of the Federal Republic of Germany was at the kite festival with PM Modi in Ahmedabad and at the Sabarmati Ashram of Gandhiji. The same degree of warmth shown by the German leader and Modi reflecting Vivekananda's time in Germany, was seen long time back between Modi and Abe. The bullet train project Mumbai to Ahmedabad and the ones that follow across India are a testimony to the warmth shown by Abe for India, and his knowledge of history from the Buddhist period in India when by the 12th century in Japan in Dogen's time Tenjiku (India) was the sacred homeland of Buddhism. Today India has revived the Buddhist traditions and centers of Buddhism, the universities and research centers for Buddhism from that period in Indian history. Buddhism started in India near Nepal in what is now Bihar state at Sarnath and Kushinagar, and spread through China to Japan and Korea. The whole continent of Asia would reflect Buddhist ideals and ideas without the intervening period of Vedic culture in India and China's Mongolian and Manchurian northern invasions, and the periods of European colonialism. Today Buddhism and The Bhagavad Gita are itself strung like pearls on a string as the Gita itself says, part of the long spiritual traditions of three nations- India, China and Japan, and of the many others Vietnam and Korea. ("All these worlds have their rest in me as many pearls on a string." -Mascaro tr. of Bhagavad Gita, Penguin). As Asian nations and peoples come to their own inner selves, find their inmost self, this is the culture that really pervades all of Asia. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will lead US negotiating team in US- Japan  talks for Liberation Day Tariffs April 2, 2025 Negotiations.

"Japan remains among America’s closest allies, and I look forward to our upcoming productive engagement regarding tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, currency issues, and government subsidies.” 

DJT says

"Countries from all over the world are talking to us. Tough but fair parameters are being set. Spoke to the Japanese prime minister this morning. He is sending a top team to negotiate. They have treated US very poorly on trade. The don't take our cars but we take MILLIONS of them. It all has to change but especially with CHINA.

LyrArc Article Gist
Mike Atherton looks at how England played against India in the Second Test at Lord's in 2021, starting the fifth day in a strong position but losing by 151 runs. A ninth wicket partnership between Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami for 89 runs and loss of 2 early English wickets for a duck changed everything. Atherton says one bad hour as Bumrah and Shami put off the English bowlers changed the emotional aspects of the game for England. 

LyrArc Article Gist
This graphic shows the increase of interest rates by central banks around the world to cope with inflation and risks to the economy. Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, Argentina have large increase in rates. The US increased rates by 0.75% this week.

LyrArc Article Gist
That climate change is real and pervasive can be seen in the low levels of water in America's largest river the Mississippi. As in Europe with the Rhine river in Germany water levels never seen for decades are creating problems along the river.

LyrArc Article Gist
Powell at the Fed, the US central bank, and DJT have different views on reducing interest rates. Most of the business community and heads of banks see it as essential that the Fed be able to decide independently when to lower interest rates. Jay Powell was selected by DJT in the first term and Biden continued with Jay Powell. Powell carefully monitors the economy, the cost of living, supply chain inflation, jobs reports, and the international situation, to come up with his view, which is that inflation is moderating and job situation and the economy are good, so that the Fed does not need to take action at this time.  In this situation where the president wants to see lower interest rates to lower the interest burden on government borrowings for the larger defense budget and other priorities., including trade action, Bessent has stepped in. His advice to the president as he did earlier on tariffs is to show flexibility. The president listens.  Earlier with Liberation Day tariffs Bessent advised DJT to give financial markets confidence in the new policies by a willingness to reduce them or pause them. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
As revelations of sexual harassment of women in the media industry come into the open following the Weinstein story, NYT provides essays by women who retell their own experiences and discuss the way forward from here. Many women were afraid to talk about it fearing it would hurt them in a workplace dominated by men, though many women were aware of the harassment situations. Yet each group of women in each workplace remained to some extent isolated, and unable to bring the issue out in the open to formulate plans for protections to be put in place. Women CEO's rarely took up the issue, preferring to work on company issues, taking sexual harassment to be a social issue not a business issue. Even though this issue affects the workplace itself in many ways, some of them insidious and detrimental to all. Men often did not take the lead to clear things up and create a good workplace environment, preferring to remain silent in the face of a corrosion of trust.