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BP has serious problems with its corporate culture, and with management board that has failed in finding a good CEO and a good chairman. BP chairman Manifold from a Irish Building Supplies company is removed for being too aggressive and "shouty," belittling colleagues. This is the thrid chairman in a short time and happens when a new CEO joined in April. The previous CEO was let go because of his green strategy and net zero goals that led to a decline in profits. The new CEO's job was to withdraw from the green strategy to tackle climate change and transition away from fossil fuels.

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Lebanon with its economic struggles now faces breakup into sectarian divisions in 2026.

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OPLAN is the German defense plan draft by Lt. Gen. Andre Bodeman which was started after chancellor Schulz's Zeitenwende "epochal change" speech in 2022. After that speech Schulz created a plan for $100 billion euros for defense of Germany.The intent is to prepare to defend Europe in case of clash with Russia. It goes back to a different era the Cold War of the 1960's. To improve infrastructure Gemany now plans to spend 166 billion euros, of which 100 billion euros go to railways, to update essential infrastructure. The new Merz of CDU government with SPD's Pistorius as Defense Minister is a relatively strong coalition government which plans to spend 500 billion euros for defense and upgrade the Bundeswehr for military readiness.

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The European Union is about to ban social media platforms from accessing children under age 13. This is how Ursula Van Leyen puts it - it is not about children accessing social media, it is about social media platforms accessing our children, says Leyen. She will announce this in her address to the European Union in September. A new report by a psychologist Fegert and an epidemiologist Melchior comes to the conclusion that social media is harmful for children, not just under 13 years, restrictions should be placed on 13 to 18 year olds also to prevent infinite scrolling and other addictive features. Australia has announced a ban setting the age at 16 years. Britain is tightening its ban. France is planning to ban setting the age at 16. The following countries are about to do this- Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. When the EU announces a ban it will apply to all of Europe. In the US Florida passed a ban setting age at 14 years. Across Europe children spend 4 to 6 hours on social media a day and for 60% of children it is having harmful effects on emotional health and creating psychosocial problems for children. It also affects the education, the reading comprehension of children as less books are read, and a whole new generation of children is growing up in a way that was never before seen in the Modern period where books and reading were a key aspect of modern society for the last 200 years. ...

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World leaders Macron, Merz, Meloni  and Albanese were favorable, DJT was very supportive of Andy Burnham. 

At first DJT described Burnham as “the mayor of a town” and “extremely liberal."  On Monday night DJT had had a “very good conversation” with Burnham, Both talked about North Sea oil, and Burnham has opened up North Sea oil for UK exploration.

“The Prime Minister has got a big job ahead of him, but he will be able to do it and, of course, the U.S.A. will be there to help!” DJT posted on Truth Social. “The call was interesting, and went very well. I wished Prime Minister Burnham, GOOD LUCK AND GODSPEED!”

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"By the end we felt dead"- Jude Bellingham on the game with Norway 2-1 where England did not play its best in the Miami heat and humidity, yet found a way in the closing minutes of the game.

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Times of London gives same reasons as Lyrarc.com for picking Healey as chancellor 5 years experience with Treasury and a year at Housing working for Gordon Brown and Labour. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Gordon Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1999. In 2002 he was appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and in 2005 Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In 2009 he was Minister of State for Housing and Planning. Shadow Secretary of Health in 2010 and 2016, Shadow Secretary for Defense under Starmer after supporting Starmer for leadership of the Labour Party. Then Defense Secretary under Starmer. It is the Treasury experience plus holding positions in Housing, Defense, and covering trade unions as a journalist, 30 plus years in parliament from a constituency in Yorkshire that has suffered the same sort of decline that Burnham wants to fix, that make Healey not a surprise choice but the obvious choice for the hope that Burnham wants to bring to Britain. Because hope also depends on sound policy and that depends on an experienced team that knows how to get things done for the reindustrialization of Britain, for improving living standards of its people and restoring faith in Labour. It means having the right people in the right positions and hard work, after "honest reflection" on what has gone wrong for so long. ...

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Pictures and moment by moment account of the final penalty shootout in The Guardian of the big game of the soccer season between PSG and Arsenal, Champions League Final in Budapest, Hungary.  A French soccer team prevails over a British soccer team with fans going in large numbers to Budapest for the game. PSG under Luis Enrique quiet style team play prevails in shootout at Champions League Final over Arsenal. The game 1-1 after a goal in the 7th minute by Germany's Havertz, and and an equalizer in the 65th minute by Dembele on a penalty kick. Hakimi, Mendes, Neve, Dembele, Ruiz, Barcola, Marquinhos and Doue, goalkeeper Marin were pulled together by Spanish coach Luis Enrique into a tightly knit team that played consistently to keep Arsenal to 1-1, with 92% accuracy in passes. Luis Enrique has given PSG a new mentality compared to star centric days when Mbappe, Neymar, Messi played at PSG when team play was secondary.  Luis Enrique says about the game that he"decided a long time ago to stay calm and try to enjoy it because you need luck to win on penalties. I think we were great in terms of the quality of our kicks and also the goalkeeper. It’s amazing [to retain the Champions League]. Maybe today both teams deserved to win, but the way we played the whole season, I think we deserve it. We’ll try to do it again next year. Why not? The match started in the best way for them, scoring after a lucky action. We are used to attacking [against a low block] but they are strong physically, they know how to defend and it was very tough." ...

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DJT is flown back on the old Air Force One shifting out of the newer Qatari plane turned into a Air Force One,  on the way back from Turkey because of security risks. The NATO metings were held in July in Turkey.

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UK wealth tax could raise 10 billion pounds a year- what if it was entirely allocated to Defense Spending reaching 3% as a special contribution till wealth inequalities are fixed, so that measures can be taken on cost of living relief. 

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US and DJT policy to deport illegal migrants after the first year in March 2026- a reassessment on how far to go with mass deportation.

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Something the US president says was "unusual" was the move to a defensive posture reverting to back five, in the substitutions, style of play, and DJT says putting Kane in defense in the second half. "You have a great player in England who I've played golf with. And he is Harry [Kane] who has been fantastic. I think they perhaps made a mistake when they made him a defensive player. What do I know about soccer? They took the lead, and they took their best player and put him on defence." "We got to be a little offensive, right. But no, I'm not going to call it, what do I know about coaching? But that was a little unusual." Messi gets a lot of media attention because of media focus is on stars. In the actual results of the Premier League, Bundesliga, and La Liga, it is Harry Kane who stands out in Bundesliga performance during the last soccer season. He is arguably as good a player as Messi, and the Argentine team would have had a lot to handle with Kane and Bellingham, Saka, Rice and Stones all pushing up front. It may have broken up the Argentine attack with rapid counterattack and the result- England may still be in the finals with Spain. ...

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Iran War and rescue of pilot of downed F15-E in mountainous terrain in southern Iran April 4 2026. CSAR or Search and Rescue Missions become a critical part of the war. The pilot was a colonel trained for the mission and spent 24 hours in mountainous terrain which was monitored by US forces, after intelligence located him in a mountain crevice. For this to be possible unlike in the Vietnam War and Korean War other nations are not involved as in the earlier Cold War.  The US under DJT as president has shifted to respecting Russia as a Northern European power that it can talk with (meetings with Putin in Alaska 2025) and China as a trade partner (planned meeting in Beijing in April 2026) that it can talk with unlike with previous administrations of Biden, Obama and Bush where China had afree hand in economic matters and global trade and Russia was shut out of the world economic system by elites who ran the government in the US at that time. Russia seeks reintegration in the world political and economic systems, and China seeks acceptance as an economic power which the US respects, both points in which the US has offered to accept. US has also repeated the line to China that it was not going to do the job of keeping Hormuz open for China and Japan to get 90% of oil imports, and in oding so risk losing its soldier's lives, while China and Japan can quietly watch doing nothing to help free navigation of international waters. Note that the narrowest strip of water of 13 miles separates Oman from Iran so that a part of these waters are on the Omani side and not on the Iranian side making free use of that Omani part under international law possible- in which sense Iranian hostile activity closing the Omani side also is a violation of free navigation. This is not pointed out by Iran or Japan or even Britain who are benefitting from US action and remaining silent or being ambivalent or accusing US of being interventionist even when everyone knows MAGA base rejected Bush in the Republican party and the elites and embraced DJT for great part because they want nothing to do with interventionist adventures in the Middle East for certain. US is getting a bum rap from European allies and from China, India, Japan and the media inside the US and in those countries as if the US seeks oil from the Middle East. It was Britain where a lot of the posturing goes on about non intervention that started this oil based intervention since 1900 in Iran itself, and in artificial states of Iraq, Syria, that it created out of the collapsed Ottoman Empire in World War 1. Sykes and Picot were the US and French diplomats who set that up. US under DJT has accomplished self sufficiency in oil and US has no need for anything from the Middle East, no desire to even get involved, and MAGA well grasps that fact and wants to keep it that way. Only nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles with long range to hit US and EU are reason for US action, which is reason enough for EU, China, Russia to set their own goals so that non proliferation in dangerous areas is prevented. So that the people of China, Russia, India, Europe and the rest of the world can enjoy the fruits of their own labors after a century of severe hardships and struggles which the American people if not their elites respect, and the fruits of peaceful cooperation which the American people extend to the World, and to China, Russia and India. ...

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Both sides hold positions unacceptable to the other in the Russia Ukraine conflict making negotiations difficult. Russia wants to hold on to annexed regions in the east including Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia continues shelling of Kherson after it was taken back by Ukraine. The conflict drags on in the winter months. The civilian population of Ukraine bears a significant burden from damage to the electricity grid, reducing heating and lighting in the winter.

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Anthropic and Amodei siblings Dario, Daniella. To their credit they have come up with Claude and a new way to tackle the potential of artificial intelligence through mining of troves of world data. Simply mining such data will not achieve a good result. For the complex tasks of managing things and people ethical driven models and models that behave like good humans is essential. In theprocess exposing the limits of artificial intelligence so that the complex tasks of understanding and making decisions is left purely to human beings with emotions, feelings , mind and a spirit-ual life. 

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Jean Raspail is the French author  of "Camp of the Saints" and of "Me Antoine de Tounens King of Patagonia," winner Grand Prize of the Novel 1981 Academie Francaise. Written by Raspail, the son of the Founder of Le Figaro French newspaper in 1973, Camp of the Saints is a book describing Raspail's extraordinary vision of how boats from Bengal would suddenly appear at French shores carrying millions of people from Bengal fleeing conditions of squalor and extreme poverty. 1971 was the year of the Bangladesh war with millions of refugees from Bangladesh at the time called East Pakistan pouring into India from Bangladesh, hit by massive floods the year prior, and then facing an army of occupation from West Pakistan's Punjab ethnic group dominated Army. While calling Raspail's Camp of the Saints "openly racist" Le Monde does not show the events described here as being entirely real- the squalid and the squalor into which Bengal had been plunged by a over a century of British rule in India that as Gandhi showed in the 1920's in "Young India" magazine spent most of the budget on policing, and very little on development except rail for logistics to hold the Empire together. On this the French Left or French Right or the European Left or Right is silent, preferring not to open up the similar situation facing China Hongkong, Shanghai as Treaty ports and Beijing after the Boxer rebellion, the Middle East with Sykes and Picot creating artificial states of Syria and Iraq, and controlling states of Iran and Egypt, and Indochina as French colony. It is not "racist" it only shows what Raspail might have seen on television at that time of the truly squalid conditions, including a famine in Bengal in 1944 that was aggravated by British policies. If Raspail imagined that boats from Bengal would arrive at the shores of France it is not something that is not connected to reality, it is the squalor and squalid conditions- except the reality the so called Right and the Left failed to say was a result of the centuries of colonization that made the region miss the Industrial Revolution. Western India around Bombay and Ahmedabad was far more developed by the 1970's and more so by 2003 when Camp of the Saints was republished. In 2026 Camp of the Saints is outdated. Northern India, Western India and Central India is in the kind of rapid modernization that happened in China, with bullet trains, ports and new highways, new industrial infrastructure, housing, going up every year under the Modi Government. In the paradox of today the Modi government is referred to as racist or religious right without reference to its essential condition, its very spirit of modernization based on science and technology acknowledging and revering the contributions of European nations and America. Bangladesh is eastern Muslim part of Bengal. West Bengal is part of the federal Union of Indian States, and has fallen into disrepair and industrial backwardness within Indian states because of the lack of the rapid modernization that India is going through, under mismanagement of the scale of Venezuela. Much of the media in the west does not report the scale of the mismanagement of some of the states in India that were built on the legacy of the early decades after independence of policy to slow down industrialization and corruption that destroyed infrastructure investment. The federal government of India and the states run by the party at the federal level in northern, western, central and north eastern India oppose migration to the US and Europe and are now growing at the fastest pace in the world, faster than China, growing at 10-12 percent a year. Bihar state in India is the home of Lord Buddha and the origins of Buddhist civilization of China and Japan. It has a population of 130 million and is growing at 22% a year in 2026. India needs its young people at home, even though it is willing to loan some of its technical people to Germany and Europe and the US. The Indian federal government policy and policy of these Indian states run under federal policy is to oppose migration and find jobs for millions in a rapidly modernizing economy at home. This then is the reality in India, as well as China, with 2.8 billion people. No one in India, not Gandhi if he were here today, not the government in the Indian federal union and states faults Raspail and others and calls them "racist," because of the extraordinary help first Japan, then China and now India receives from America and the European Union to develop and modernize quickly. In fact Indians look with admiration on the western leaders in science and technology, the scientists and inventors of Europe and the US, and are eager to emulate them in the future. And this is true also of the people of China, and reflects the aspirations of the new generation. ...

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German economic growth drops in 2026 to below 1%. What is happening?Germany manufacturing jobs drop to 6.6 million lowest in 10 years in 2026 as China makes same products for less and better. China is shipping more of its products to the German market and displacing German products in world markets. The same problems affecting the US in loss of manufacturing jobs is affecting Germany. This is happening as China uses long range plans coordinated with industry and state owned companies to deliver superior results in world markets to American and German companies competing on their own without coordination with the government in a long range plan and effort. The American and German companies face greater uncertainty in markets and are slow to invest in critical areas and technologies as a result leaving them exposed to Chinese competition. China has used the Japanese style subsidizing its industries and has another advantage in doing this in that many are state owned companies or heavily subsidized and supported by the state. After 1990 the fall of the Soviet system led to a sense that free markets in their purest form were better. This was not really true as the soviet system of state planning failed because it did not use the best features of the market economy that work. Japan adapted the market system to its needs and used state partnership with private industry to produce good results. The US did not learn from Japan's example. China learned from both the failure of soviet style planning and the success of the Japanese system to adapt its state plannning system by including aspects of the market economy. The US and Germany can only learn from these examples and adapt US market economy by including aspects of what worked for China and Japan of state plannning and long range plans of industry and government. Look back to how FDR won the war- within 5 years 1940-1945 he combined the best aspects of the planning and coordination of government and industry to achieve goals not thought possible. Britain did the same which shows such planning and coordination is not only a part of the US system of business and industry, it is just that these lessons and the lessons of other nations like Japan and China after 1950 were forgotten. India is now adapting its system for business and industry, and government for five year plans borrowing and learning from the examples of the US, Japan, China and the EU. ...

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US Tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 announced for July 24 2026 by Office of US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to replace 10% tariffs that expire following a US Supreme court decision. In a few weeks another set of tariffs will be introduced to apply to goods from nations that subsidize excess manufacturing capacity. Was the media attention on the tariffs a good idea considering the main motive for it to be the US effort to get back its supply chain lost to China through the mistakes of previous administrations for 30 years? Not enough attention was paid to this and the importance for the US economy and for jobs in the different states in America of manufacturing jobs lost with the loss of the supply chain to China and from unfair trade practices of Japan, EU, Mexico, Canada and other countries. They are allies but trade matters to the wellbeing and the lives of many Americans particularly in the industries and the small towns across America over the last 30 years. ...

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If the trade war escalates to the point at which president Trump imposes tariffs on all Chinese goods imported into the U.S. on Jan. 1, 2019, China could retaliate with its own tariffs and this might affect Boeing aircraft as well. The results would be to tip the economies of both countries into a recession, and affect Mr. Trump's best chances for reelection in 2020. This can happen as Mr. Trump has a great deal of confidence in his negotiating style. The negotiations so far have shown China misread the U.S. and Mr. Trump leading to a strong U.S. response.  There is also the importance of not losing face, Mr. Xi's domestic audience, Chinese industry that sees a fundamental change from state subsidies model as eroding its position and offering resistance, patriotic sentiment making it harder to meet U.S. demands. Fundamentally for Mr. Trump it is about U.S. trade deficit and changing the huge trade surplus of almost $1 trillion that China enjoys each year with the U.S. which has been and is no longer sustainable. Mr. Trump also has the backing of Republicans on this issue and Democrats cannot afford to be soft on this issue as it involves American workers and jobs are at stake. Both sides could be in for a protracted negotiation as Mr. Trump feels it is right for Americans to expect fair trade and technology transfer that respects American concerns. In addition the U.S. could sense that it exports less to China, is less dependent on exports than China, and as the party that is hurt by unfair practices insist on its position. After Japan agreed to U.S. demands that it reverse a huge trade surplus in the seventies in which Mr. Lighthizer was the negotiator its growth declined sharply and is economy stagnated. China may sense inside that this could happen to its economy. Today Lighthizer the U.S. negotiator and Trade Representative could also push hard because of he was able to convince Japan to change its course. ...

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Clause 5 paragraph of the US Iran Memorandum clearly says international laws of freedom of navigation shall be respected by all parties, and the Hormuz demined opened for traffic by Iran. IRGC would not come to the agreement without its inserting that it would work with Omani authorites  to open the Hormuz straits shipping. The WSJ sees the additions made by IRGC in the Memorandum to show the interpretation by Iran IRGC, yet freedom of navigation under international law is unequivocal and clear that no country can block a shipping channel. The US knowing that possibility existed Iran would not be opening the channel, or would disrupt the Omani route, has plan to make Hormuz not a factor in oil prices by using alternative supplies as its backup plan in coordination with China, India, Japan and other coutnries. Here is paragraph 5 of the Memorandum with Iran- "The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be instated within 30 days." "The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialog with the Sultanate of Oman, to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz, in discussion with other Persian Gulf Littoral States, in line with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz." This is not a careless error or overlooked by the US, it clearly states "international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states." Hormuz is significant only in the way oil supplies through the channel are supplied to China, India, Japan, and other countries, and in the way it sets oil prices based on supply and demand. The US goal is to create enough alternative supplies for India and Japan, and China for its part in cooperation with the US agreeing to do without the 4 million barrels a day it got through Hormuz. UAE has not used about .7 mbd and Saudis not used about 5 mbd in the past of their pipelines that are outside of Hormuz. This gives a total of of China's 4 mbd and on the demand side Saudi UAE combined 5.7 mbd for a total of 9 million mbd or 9 million barrels a day that reduces dependence on Hormuz. Even if 80% of Hormuz oil of 20 mbd is blocked again, this will mean the offset from China doing without Hormuz and the pipelines providing about half of the Hormuz supplies. Of the remaining 6 million barrels a day needed half could come from increased drilling for oil production (in Venezuela and other places) and half from conservation in the world outside of China- the US, EU, India, Africa, Latin America. With this covering 16 million barrels a day the world could still cope without 80% or most of the Hormuz supplies in the event Iran threatens to shut off Hormuz again. Even the trickle coming out of Hormuz of 4  mbd could be replaced from the petroleum reserves of the US, EU, Japan, India and other countries. In this way the US policy is to bypass Hormuz completely and use the period of the ceasefire to plan accordingly, knowing the IRGC never wanted to honor the Memorandum for opening Hormuz, it was only pressured to do so and would go back to its original intent. UAE plans new pipelines and overland routes. It would also bring down oil prices after a small surge from $70 a barrel to $80- $85 a barrel, before coming down again as additional supplies are created and demand side addressed through renewable energy and EV's. ...