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To ensure a recovery in profits in 2010-2011, Ford's strategy was to sell the Focus and Fiesta small cars at a higher price point even if this meant lower sales. Profit margins for the North American region were above 10%, and Ford's president of the Americas, Mark Fields, says this will be maintained for 2012. In the first 3 quarters of 2011, Ford's profits were $6.6 billion. Analysts for Edmunds.com say Ford has shied away from offering large discounts, subsidizing leases and other incentives, and tried to maintain higher margins. The average price for the Focus of $20,589 being higher than average prices of rivals except for the Jetta from VW, according to Edmunds. The average price of the Fiesta is higher than rivals except for the Honda Fit, according to this information. Focus sales increased by 2% in 2011 over 2010, even as compact car sales went up by 8.7%, according to Autodata. Sales of the Fiesta actually fell by 30% in December 2011 compared to the prior year. The result of this strategy is that inventories of small cars are up significantly for Ford. By 2011 years end Ford had on dealer lots inventory of Focus cars at 92 days current sales, and Fiesta cars at 126 days. Normal inventory is considered less than 60 days supply. By comparison GM had a 68 day supply for the Cruze, and a 61 day supply for the Chevy Sonic. The challenge for Ford is to hold on to its pricing strategy, which means reducing production to work off the extra inventory....

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Herbert cites figures from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston which divides households into 10 groups based on annual household income at looks at unemployment levels in eachfot 4th quarter 2009. The highest group with incomes of larger than $150,000 had unemployment of 3.2%, the next group at $100,000 to $149,999 at 4%, households earning $60,000 to $75,000 had jobless rate of 6.4%, with $50,000 to $59,000 a 7.8% jobless rate. Its only when you get $40,000 to $49,000 that you see jobless rates of 9%, that is close to the national average. The worst pain is in the lower middle class groups with the 7.8% and 9% unemployment and in the income groups of $12,500 to $20,000 which have 19.1% unemployment. For workers at the bottom the unemployment rate is 31%! The workers in service industries, such as food preparers, building cleaners, less educated, high school dropouts, blue collar workers, workers in the construction industry, many blacks and Hispanics, are all hard hit. This also gives some idea why the jobless situation does not cause the same anguish in the media coverage as most of it is concentrated among young people, immigrants, illegal immigrants, Hispanics, minorities, and in service and construction industry type occupations. This creates a fragile situation from a social cohesion perspective especially as the lower middle class is also in the same situation and this combined with the working class blue collar and service and construction workers is a large segmet of society....

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Informed sources say Portugal will require 90 billion euros ($129 billion) in a bailout package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Of this 10 billion euros will be needed in June 2011. Germany's finance minister Schauble, said the austerity program that is part of the bailout will be put together in the next 2-3 weeks with the help of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF. The bailout will probably be structured in several phases coming before and after June 5 elections in Portugal. The current Socrates administration and a new administration will share responsibility in negotiations for the deal. The opposition Social Democrats who are front runners supported by 39% of the voters and the CDS party with 7%, both support the current government's bailout request. A Social Democrats-CDS coalition is likely after the June elections. The leader of the Social Democrats, Pedro Coelho, is involved in the negotiations. The crisis came to this point after Portuguese banks-which were among the principal buyers of government debt- decided to stop buying additional governmet debt. This meant the government with low cash reserves had little chance of meeting the 4.9 billion euros in debt repayments in June, after a 4.2 billion euro debt repayment in April. The Portuguese government had preferred a bridge loan from the EU but the EU declined this request, insisting on austerity measures. A recent effort by the Socrates government to get an austerity package was defeated in Parliament, leading to Socrates' resignation. ...

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Koichi Hamada, a former professor of economcs at Yale University, is one of prime minister Abe's advisors for the policy called Abenomics. He says the increase in the consumption tax was never part of Abenomics. It was the legacy of the previous Democratic Party of Japan's policies and of prime minister Noda, who pushed for it in the last 2 years of his administration. Nikkei polls in 2011 showed 53% of the public opposed to the doubling of the consumption tax to 10% by 2015 proposed by Noda and passed in 2012. Ichiro Ozawa's group of legislators left the DPJ over this issue. The real force behind the push to double the tax was the Finance Ministry, which warned the Abe government that not increasing the tax would make Japan look fiscally irresponsible. The Finance Ministry appears to have lost sense of the timing and fiscal hawks in the LDP party had gone along with it. The deteriorating global economy in the third quarter has hurt Japanese exports, and the lack of wage increases coupled with the increase in the consumption tax to 8% from 5% made Japanese feel poorer, leading to conditions that exacerbated the situation. Recognizing this Yamamoto says Abe has called the snap election in Dec. 2014, after postponing the second increase in the consumption tax to 10% in 2015 which the Noda legislation set to the future date of 2017. He says Abe had to have the guts to take on the Finance Ministry for Abenomics to work....

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The American consumer is becoming frugal since the crisis hit in 2008. But it will take along time to reduce the debt piled up over the years. By 2008 end American households had $13.8 trillion in debt, which is close to the $14.3 trillion output of the entire US economy, not adjsted for inflation in 2008. American households started 2008 with debt at 133% of disposable income. At the end of 2008 this had only dropped 3 percentage points to 130% of disposable income. With unemployment higher, companies reducing hours, and local governments having a certain number of days of furlough, and wage growth slow or nonexistent, the debt will take longer to reduce. WIth this debt overhang, and the lack of easy credit even though the credit markets are working again, its going to be harder to see a consumer driven V shaped recovery. In the 2001 recession consumers took on more debt to provide aconsumer driven V shaped recovery. At that time the debt to disposable income ratio went above 100%. See graph. And its gone up steadily since, with super low interest rates encouraging borrowing, and then as the Fed raised rates consumers went heavily into mortgages and housing in a speculative bubble. This time not only is the credit not there to finance such a recovery, but a number of conditions such as permanent loss of a large number of manufacturing jobs, rising unemployment and use of parttime workers, the need to payoff debt, create definite constraints to consumer spending....

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A 35% rise against the dollar of the Brazilian real and a rise of 80% of the Brazilian Bovespa index in 2009, following quickly after the global financial crisis, shows the big swings in emerging markets stock and currency values. Brazil is a big exporter of agricultural and mining commodities. Brazilian government is concerned about short term investors who are piling into investments there, but could pull out quickly in another crisis. The government imposed a 2% tax on foreign investments- designed to reduce currency volatility and discourage short term speculative investors. A slowdown in demand for commodities from China or other countries could quickly reverse this rise. And a rise of this proportion in so short a time, coming on the heels of a financial crisis, shows the nature of swings in the global economy that are of increasig concern today. In October 2008 Brazil's currency lost a third of its value compared to August 2008, and the Bovespa index fell by 50%. The central bank had to use its currency reserves to prevent a severe drop in the value of the real. Short term investors were pulling money out of the stock market resulting in dollar outflows, and many Brazilian companies that had bet against the dollar in currency derivative contracts suffered huge losses. The situation was similiar in Mexico. It shows the fragility of economies depending on commodities exports, and the lack of mechanisms to track these derivatives and to restrain speculative short term investors. ...

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The old online websites AOL and Yahoo are going through a transformation. Yahoo finalized an agreement to merge its web-search with Microsoft and much of their advertising busiesses. This leaves Yahoo with its popular finance, sports and news websites which are cheap to run as they are mostly aggregators of other websites' content with little that is Yahoo's own content. Yahoo's plan is to expand its audience , especially in develpoing countries where internet use is growing fast, and to package that audience in ways attractive to advertisers. In October 2009, according to comScore market research firm Yahoo had 158 millon visitors in America, and AOL had 98 millon. Yahoo! Mail has 106 million users monthly worldwide, AOL's email service has 336 million. The difference strategy pursued by Armstrong who is new CEO at AOL is to focus on creating new content. AOL is running about 80 websites covering everything from fashion (stylelist.com) and country music (theboot.com) to local news (patch.com). And has launched a website called seed.com to get people to contribute content. In this way it has about 3500 journalists on its payroll, some 500 of them work full-time. Armstrong thinks advertisers will pay a premium to appear next to this original niche site and home-made content. So far advertising has held up in this severe downturn, with online display advertising -the banners and boxes that show up on websites- at about $3.8 billion in the first half of 2009 in America, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau....

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The Obama first family and its many mulicultural faces from Kenyan, Indonesian, Chinese to African American and White abolitionists from Missouri. Truly a new face of the American continent. About 25% of white Americans have interracial marraiges and nearly half of all black Americans belong to a multiracial family, according to estimates made by Joshua Goldstein of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. What it does is wake one up to the reality, the changes that have already ocurred in the country which most people had not realized. With Blacks, Hispanics, Jewish people, Asian Americans, the 25% of whites in interracial marraiges, recent immigrants, white women, and white males making up this mosaic of cultures and communities that makeup America. And the geographical mix is also just as varied, with the west and the northwest and the midwest and east having a bigger share of this mosaic than the south and the mountain states. Whites in interracial marraiges tends to breakup the traditional white protestant insular demographic. On the religious side there is a breakup of the traditional white demographic with Irish Americans especially those in the east tending to move away from the traditional white protestant insular demographic because of their own particular historical and cultural narrative. The Obama story is one of tapping into these different demographics and changing faces of America at the right time, when the conservative southern demographic, represented by the Bush family, combined with related demographic groups in counties and neighborhoods around the country had lost popular support from two wars and a failing economy....

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How ACA a company that provided bond insurance for Collaterized Debt Obligation or CDO's basically did not provide good insurance to the CDO issuers becase it did not have the financial resources necessary to do this but instead let banks and investment houses to benefit from the accounting rules in the insurance industry which allow another set of accounting rules different from GAAP (Geerally Accepted Accounting Principles). Under these rules banks and investment houses did not have to follow the mark to market rules of GAAP and could book the difference between interest payments and the insurance premium across the life of the bond (5-10 years), in the quarter they bough the insurance, what were essentially illusory profits. Merill Lynch issued a lot of these CDO's. In November 2007 ACA was forced to take $1 billion in losses for the third quarter. Standard and Poors downgraded ACA from A to CCC a month later. The downgrade forced ACA to come up with more collateral to show that it had the funds to back up its insurance. When it came short of funds Merrill Lynch, UBS, CIBC had to take big losses on these policies. This began the first big shocks on the Street at te end of 2007. Note that $43 billion in securities backed by risky corporate loans and bonds like the ones used for a lot of the buyouts have insurance from ACA. These could be the next to sour and lead to more writedowns as the economy weakens. ...

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Sheila Bair is playing a larger and larger role in this crisis as the Bush administration and Paulson take a series of missteps. She had earlier proposed her own plan for addressing the roots of the crisis which she said are home prices, and preventing risisng foreclosures was the best way to address this. She has offered loan modifications through FDIC run IndyMac bank. Now she speaks up about her disagreement with how the crisis should be handled as little has been done to help homeowners considering the scale of the crisis. Alan Blinder of Princeton university, a former Fed vice chairman has called her the real hero in all this throughout this year as she has had the foresight to suggest action to help homeowners, and has acted vigorously in other areas related to the banks. "Why there has been such a political focus on making sure we are not unduly helping borrowers but then we are providing this massive assistance at the institutional level, I don't understand it." And Sheila Bair went on to say "This agency, with its genesis in the Great Depression, has a sense of purpose now perhaps more than any other agency." Her term as chairman of the FDIC lasts till mid 2011 and her term on the FDIC Board till 2013. With 2 weeks to go for the Presidential election and her term going into the next administration, her voice is increasingly the one that will be heard by policymakers coming to grips with the economy. ...

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In making his announcement to run for president in 2024 president Biden told a trade union audience that for Mr. Trump reviving American manufacturing was merely a punchline- not much happened. Krugman in this NYT report shows that Mr. Trump never acted seriously to directly make that happen. President Biden has passed legislation that creates trillions of dollars of investments in infrastructure, renewable energy, chips manufacturing, electric vehicles, and advanced manufacturing technologies. Krugman says in addition to what the government is spending private companies are also planning to invest trillions of dollars. As a result the US is in the process of building its manufacturing base for the first time after decades of neglect under the Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump administrations.  Economists have created a major handicap for investments in manufacturing with theories that are no longer relevant, and by their lack of understanding of the realities of workers and families in the US as manufacturing shriveled. They never figured into their analysis the loss of tax revenue base supported by factories in the US that led to disinvestment in towns and communities across the US. As public services and investment in these communities dwindled without the local revenues to support them. Mr. Krugman lacks the keen grasp of these issues that Biden as the longest serving Senator in the US has. Biden had so much time on the ground observing the situation in Scranton and other parts of Pennsylvania and Delaware, and much of the midwestern US seeing what happens first hand as factories close. Krugman is not able to make the case that manufacturing so truly needs. Yet even Krugman has some sense of the big changes underway in the US that Biden has created that will lead to the renewal of America. ...

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15th Civil Servants Day in a country of 1.2 billion people where the role of civil servants is critical for development. This is what the prime minister Mr. Modi had to say to civil servants-"Taking the dreams of the common man to level of resolve is the responsibility of the system. The Sankalp or resolve should be taken to siddhi or completion and that should be the goal for all of us. We should be there to handhold at every stage in this journey of sapna or dream to sankalp to siddhi." In addition it is imperative "that the schemes and governance models be developed in the global context and be updated regularly," says prime minister Modi. He also emphasized the importance of sharing the experiences of the award winners with others on weekly basis. Also important experimentation where one scheme is chosen for implementation in a few districts and the experience discussed in next year's Civil Service Day. In this way enlarging on successful experiments that has proved invaluable for electricity supplies and renewable energy. This kind of culture being important to make progress. The Hindu provides this list for winners of the PM's Awards for Excellence in Public Administration in categories below Innovation- Gujarat Education Department, Agriculture Department Ladakh, Department of Land Resources West Champaran Bihar, Bongaigon Assam Seamless end to end service delivery without human intervention- Karnataka, New Delhi Municipal Council PM Svanidhi Yojana- Varanasi UP, Anantnag Jammu and Kashmir One district-One product -Darbhanga Bihar, Siddharthnagar UP Poshan Abhiyaan -  Kumuram Bheem Asifabad Telngana, Datia Madhya Pradesh Khelo India-  Churu Rajashthan, Bishnupur Manipur   ...

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The Times takes a good look at Liz Truss, who she is, what are her good points and areas she will need to work on. It says Truss was ignored by Conservatives including Theresa May after  being brought in by Cameron as Environment Secretary in 2014. She comes from a intellectual family with her father a Math professor and her education at Merton College, Oxford University. She also had the opportunity to build on her economics and accounting background at Treasury, and at the Ministry of International Trade where she signed a number of trade deals for Britain.  What has changed her was her decision to learn and develop on her own after being ignored in the Conservative party. She shifted from Remain to becoming an aggressive supporter of Brexit and coming out decisively for Boris Johnson as prime minister.  She is willing to challenge the Treasury and others in the civil service when she feels she needs to. Her challenge says The Times is to develop the skills that are needed to work with others and take the country forward. One advantage she has is that she has confidence in her own experience and education to have strong personalities work in her team. Another quality that helps her is that she is not ideologically a conservative, so that she is willing to try new ideas to get the economy working and move Britain forward. And adding to that she has the depth that Cameron and Johnson lacked with her experience gained in parliament, at Treasury, in the International Trade ministry, and recently as Foreign Secretary. She may well be the underestimated candidate compared to a mostly predictable Sunak. ...

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About a third of Conservative party members of the 10,000 who will be voting soon for a new leader still like Mr. Boris Johnson. Some say he has his faults, but who doesn't. Mr. Johnson has a flamboyant carefree bouncy style that has endeared him to supporters, and had he taken the public more seriously to be consistent and steady he may well have remained a prime minister. He is the only leader of the Tories who could convince traditional Labor voters to vote Tory. Ms. Truss, who has unstinting support of Mr. Johnson will continue to see Mr. Johnson as a respected leader if she is elected. Truss sees Johnson getting a well earned break, as she put it in a debate, like his hero Churchill who lost elections in 1945 only to come back in 1951 with more experience, restraint and wisdom. In a recent debate she stood by Mr. Johnson saying he did not need to resign. Today's Tories are leaderless and not recognizable as a single entity without the prime minister. With a little restraint, awareness of his inexperience, openness and respect for the British public, Mr. Johnson may well have remained prime minister. He now appears to be seeking a second opportunity, says this report in WSJ. It is hard to imagine Brexit without Boris Johnson. He defied the established reasoning through common sense observation. He once said that the only thing Britain would lose from Brexit is that there would be a shortage of Mars bars. Ms. Truss is somewhere between Labor and the Conservative in her life long convictions, yet has taken the Brexit cause to heart. Sir Keir Starmer Labor leader says he too will be trying to make Brexit work. ...

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Hear the complete speech of German Chancellor Scholz to an extraordinary session of the German Parliament on DW.com. This may be the most important speech in the last 30 years of German history since reunification. An extraordinary speech that sets the tone for the new Europe that Germany leads with its partners in the European Union. Fundamentally Scholz tells the German people that Germany is fighting alongside Europe for its freedom and democracy, so that the last 30 years of peace are seen not as an exception in history. Germany will not let Putin take us back to the imperial wars of the 19th century, Putin told parliament. Scholz tells the German people sending arms to Ukraine "was the only response possible to Russian aggression." He also tells them that it was not the Russian people, it was Putin who had launched this aggression. "This is Putin's War. Putin is destroying the European security structure." "A peaceful free Europe, we will defend it." This is the way Scholz finished his speech. Scholz outlined 5 actions Germany was taking including actions on investing $100 billion in Bundeswehr armed forces, in strengthening NATO capabilities, in building up Germany's technological capabilities, in 2 huge natural gas terminals. The entire German parliament stood up to applaud for a long time as Scholz described how Germany was with the Russian people who braved arrest to protest Putin's War, and there are many, many, Russians who do not support the war. Reconciliation with Russia remains a building block of German policy he said.   ...

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This report from Germany in DW.com says Germany tried to build a softer relationship with Russia during the leadership of Adenauer of CDU and  Brandt of SPD. This continued under Schmidt and Schroeder. Under Merkel of CDU the emotional aspect of the relationship as Russia retreated from Bolshevism and Soviet Union collapsed was lost. Little attention was paid to East Germany and to how the fall of the Soviet Union had affected Russia negatively,and became purely focused on German industry and trade with cheap Russian gas supplies. Even as Germany did not invest in shared burden for defense with the US, and Germany under Merkel increased dependence on Russian gas supplies to 55% with the Nordstream gas pipeline from Russia, and shut down nuclear energy.  As a result the emotional or mental health aspect of the relationship with Russia of Germany was lost under Merkel. The focus on purely financial aspect of things has been proved wrong both for the economy as physical infrastructure was neglected under Merkel and social infrastructure such as child care and other social aspects of society were sorely neglected. A new broader framework that needs to be built will have to keep this in mind.  All the hard work and good intentions of the Adenauer and Brandt years has been lost with the short sighted basis of relations based purely on finance and trade under Merkel's leadership. This happened also in the US relationship with China with the relations based purely on finance and trade under Clinton, Bush, Obama proving to be too fragile as they did not protect other social aspects within the two countries as inequality widened and whole segments of society were neglected.  ...

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US president Biden points out in his letter to the US Congress- "When I was elected President, a pandemic was raging and our economy was reeling, and trickle-down economics had undermined our nation’s growth long-term. I was determined to rebuild from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down, because when the middle class does well, we all do well. We can give everyone a fair shot and leave no one behind. Our plan has brought transformational progress." "Along the way, we’ve achieved one of the most successful legislative records in generations, bringing new opportunities to communities of all sizes nationwide. We’re tackling years of underinvestment in public infrastructure, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing, making sure the future is made in America by American workers. We’re making the biggest investment in American infrastructure in generations, including over $400 billion for 46,000 projects in 4,500 communities to date. These projects are rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, railroads, ports, airports, public transit, water systems, high-speed internet, and more, in every part of the country. We’re also making the most significant investment in fighting climate change in history—advancing breakthroughs in clean technology, boosting energy independence, lowering electricity costs for hardworking families, and revitalizing fence-line communities smothered by a legacy of pollution. At the same time, we’re working with the private sector to strengthen America’s semiconductor and advanced manufacturing industries as well, empowering workers and small businesses to share in the benefits. Already, my Investing in America agenda has attracted $650 billion." ...

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This BBC Travel story about mindfulness, a sort of meditation with nature, and getting close to nature as a sort of healing inside, comes from the southern region of Western Australia, 360 kilometres southeast of Perth. It could have come from native peoples in America, Asia, Africa or other parts of the world. The author visits the Noorang people, part of the 750,000 native people who lived there when the first British settlers arrived there in 1788. Captain Cook had just landed there in 1770 as part of British Navy and Royal Society expedition on the ship HMS Endeavour. Today this is part of the Botany Bay National Park in the Sydney region of eastern Australia. The author visits the streams rivers and hills in the region near Perth as he undergoes a kind of spiritual reconnection with nature. The less the vibration man has the more the mindfulness and ability to connect with nature and the inner self, the author is shown as he lets things go soaking himself in a river. Many native people's rituals and are ways to respect nature and connect to it as to a mother.  In India modern people relate to ancient civilization through yoga and spiritual writings from an earlier period. There too the idea of nature or rivers and mountains as spiritual and healing, strengthening of body and spirit can be seen. The Narmada river flowing from east to west across mountain ranges in India is seen as a spiritual  mother just as rivers are in this story about native peoples in Australia's southern region south of Perth, western Australia. ...

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It is not commonly realized how much of an economic collapse Russia suffered as a result of Mr. Gorbachev's failure to plan a smooth transition out of communism- a 40% drop in  drop in GDP, a peak of 2000% increase in inflation, and drop in life expectancy from 69 years to 65. With lack of safeguards in place for vulnerable sectors such as the elderly and displaced workers, no setup for securing the rule of law, no periods of experimentation with market economy in parts of the country as China had done. Krugman says it was worse than the Great Depression in the US in the 1930's, a particularly traumatic period Americans remember, because the collapse was deeper, and the rogue elements took over parts of the economy leading to a breakdown of the rule of law. One hears too much about the fall of the Berlin Wall, great for West Germany and less about the trauma this was for elderly and vulnerable workers in  East Germany, and for Russia as a whole. Here Paul Krugman describes what happened and how this brought to power another group under Putin. For Putin and many Russians these are the memories that lead them to say it was the "greatest catastrophe" of the twentieth century. Krugman has put this in graphs showing the economic data from multiple sources, including the World Bank and US Bureau of Economic Analysis. The graphs show the Great Depression in the US was about loss of 27% of GDP, inflation was not severe and FDR ensured both rule of law and hope with his election to tackle the problems, including America's vast resources. ...

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This report in the WSJ says the increase in Saudi production announced on June 2 will do more for Saudi Arabia diplomatically as it improves relations with the Bdien administration, and much less for oil markets. The increase of 648,000 barrels a day for both July and August is seen as a drop in the bucket. Only Saudis and UAE have spare capacity- estimated to be at 3 million barrels a day of spare capacity. The Russian oil production has already dropped by 1 million barrels a day since the start of the war in Ukraine and will drop further after the European Union oil embargo on 90% of oil supplied by Russia to the EU. Russia may even withhold supplies from the market to keep oil prices high as it is selling oil at a large discount. Russia evades western oil sanctions by selling oil using transfers out at sea and in other ways that do not reveal the source of the oil. Saudis and UAE are seeking better relations with the US to gain security guarantees after drone and other attacks by Yemeni rebels and Iran. Earlier president Biden had distanced himself from Saudi Arabia following human rights situations that led to deteriorating relations. The EU oil embargo, high oil prices that are hurting poorer countries all over the world, and the commitments by the US and other European partners to reduce fossil oil fuels production and increase renewable energy production are now added factors that the US is including in its relations with the Middle East as it seeks to balance different factors. Saudis see an opening for improved relations.   ...

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UK Business Secretary Kwarteng orders a National Security Review of the acquisition by Chinese semiconductor maker Wingtech through a Dutch subsidiary of a semiconductor factory in Wales. The factories in Wales are becoming a hub of the UK semiconductor industry with research and manufacture of compound semiconductors, which enable electric batteries for cars to get more mileage. Nine Congressmen in the US wrote to the Biden administration about the acquisition and its dangers for the UK and US semiconductor industry's technology being shifted to China. The head of the UK Foreign Affairs committee in parliament also alerted the UK government of the risks involved. The UK government has passed a law that allows it to retroactively cancel deals that are considered a risk for national security. Under the Bush and Obama administrations there was a transfer of western technology through acquisitions of this type and not much was done by the governments in Europe and the US. This enabled China to acquire western technology using its state subsidized firms which had better access to financing for acquiring key western technologies. It was only under the Trump administration that 2 decades after it started in 2000 this process was given attention. It was ignored in the same manner that the Germans under chancellors Schroeder and Merkel allowed Russian energy companies to dominate the energy sector in Germany even to the point of acquiring ownership of the storage of energy on German soil. That dependence allowed by German elites according to the Manchester Guardian in a recent article is now unwinding with the brave and unceasing efforts of Economy Minister Habeck,  who is now the most popular person in Germany for making this  correction in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine with China's support. ...

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Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar makes a 3 day visit to Saudi Arabia. He addressed diplomats at the Prince Saud Al Faisal Institute of Diplomatic Studies in Riyadh. He will co-chair with Prince Faisal bin Al Saud the first ministerial meeting of the Committee on Political, Security, Social and Cultural  Cooperation (PSSC), established under the framework of the India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council. What is happening here is that the Saudis can build their own ties in the region as they choose what is best for the future, compared to the relationship in the past which was as a state mainly dependent on the US but which sorely lagged behind in educationally, culturally, in developing its own scientific and technology institutions to transition into the modern age. The relationship in the past also appeared to be rooted in the colonial period that had transitioned only half way out of the colonial period into the relationship built by America's FDR and succeeding presidents with the royal family and monarchy of Saudi Arabia. Under Mohamad Bin Salman it now gives Saudis an opportunity to make its own choices with the help of neighbors such as India, Japan, and other countries. It also strengthens the relationship with the US and the EU in unseen ways through the Saudi relationship with India, Japan and other countries. Bilateral trade is at $30 billion for FY22 April to December. India imports 18% of crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia. Indian imports worth $23 billion, Indian exports worth $7 billion to Saudis. About 2.2 million Indians are living in Saudi Arabia. During the pandemic India was the closest health ally of the Saudis.   ...

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Anton Troianovski reports for NYT from Geneva on the talks between Russian foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on the Russian proposals for redrawing of the boundaries between Russia and Eastern Europe. Russia has insisted talks take place without the Europeans. The Russian view is that the current borders with strong US presence in Eastern Europe- in Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, and other parts of Eastern Europe were a result of the new borders being thrust on a weakened Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The US insists it will not do anything without working with its European allies, but is willing to look for some areas of common ground. European Union and Germany see the new Eastern Europe formed as a result of the self determination of countries in the region, and their right to choose their future. Ukraine was historically close to Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Ukraine had developed two identities with eastern parts of the country closer to Russia reflecting earlier close ties and the western parts of Ukraine closer to Poland such as cities Lviv and Kiev reflecting the mood in Poland and Baltics for an independent Ukraine. Lviv is only 70 kilometres from the Polish border and shows traces of the Austro-Hugarian central European heritage. Kiev is about 300 miles from the Polish border in north central Europe. Elections led to governments alternating between close ties to Russia and distant ties to Russia with the two recent governments opposed to Russian interference in its affairs. President Putin responded with invasion of Crimea and forming an autonomous region in eastern Ukraine. In the latest move Putin seeks to reset the borders in a way that is favorable to Russia.   ...

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Germany's new president Steinmeier vigorously defends democracy and the European Union, in his first major speech after accepting the post of president. He calls for "push back together" against the foes of democracy. Passion and commitment marked the style of president Gauck, says Furstenau of DW.com, and this is true also for Steinmeier. Both also share personal conviction matched with personal experience, Gauck as a pastor in the former GDR looking for alternatives as the GDR crumbled, and Steinmeier is respected for his exceptional work in diplomacy for Germany. Both bring a striaghtforward manner but tremendous sincerity, so that the message is heard with respect from all parts of Germany. Furstenau calls him a German and European patriot. In Gauck's last speech he called for affirming Germany in the EU- "although voices may praise the fool's gold of long outdated nationalism, we will remain Germans- as Europeans, although the uncertainty of our times may be alarming, we will not flee from our responsibility." Steinmeier echoes the same message, backed up with personal conviction and long experience in serving Germany. Gauck called for a "vigilant democracy" that maintains the basic conditions for peace and dialogue, and also shows the willingness to defend the republic and the Basic Law, because " we do not want our country or other European member states to become the playthings of actors who are pursuing entirely different interests." In his acceptance speech Steinmeier called for courage, after Gauck had laid down the theme of Germans "not overlooking the potential within us.... trusting in our own strength and staying calm and composed."   ...

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British Labour party leader says any Brexit deal should be put to a referendum. Earlier many Labour party members supported a second referendum with Mr. Corbyn yet to make a clear stand. During the local elections and the elections to European parliament the Labour party had losses to parties that favored canceling Brexit, including the Liberal Democrats. Corbyn said: "Let the people decide the country's future, either in a general election or through a public vote on any Brexit deal agreed by Parliament." He made these remarks ahead of a meeting with the prime minister of Ireland.  A poll conducted by Panelbase shows  a second referendum on Brexit would get 52% for Remain in the EU and 45% for Leave the EU compared to 52% for Leave and 48% voting Remain in the 2016 referendum. Parliament has to vote for a second referendum for it to take place. The Liberal Democrats made large gains in the recent European elections on the mandate to hold a second referendum, including in Mr. Corbyn's North London area.  If Mr. Boris Johnson succeeds Theresa May as prime minister the Conservative Party faces even more hurdles. European Union is even less likely to negotiate a deal with Mr. Johnson. A withdrawal from the EU without a negotiated agreement favored by Mr. Johnson is unlikely to get support in parliament as it has repeatedly blocked such a move. The alternative is fresh elections not favored by Conservative Party as it is losing credibility, or a second referendum. Alternative also is fresh elections followed by a second referendum by the winning party.   ...