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The most alarming report is that from researchers at Peking University Health Sciences Center in Beijing, which shows 10 years of data on lead poisoning. Its conclusion: About 34% of children in China have blood levels that exceed the WHO limit of 100 micrograms per 1 litre of blood. A whole generation of children may be compromised. To avoid being noticed factories that have toxic byproducts or emissions are being setup in the countryside. Lead products are added to herbal products that are sold by weight to make them weigh more. It is regularly added to plastics and vinyl to make it temperature resistant. Once in the human bloodstream lead mimics other substances like calcium and zinc and iron and binds to sites in the brain intended for calcium disrupting brain cells leading to ireversible brain impairment. See the article in August 2, 2007 NYT, about the recall of 1 million Mattel toys, Elmos and Big Birds, for lead detected in them. Note that Mattel's monitoring system did not catch this, it was caught by a retailer....

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Michelle Obama and the "Let Girls Learn" Initiative in 2015 for the 62 million girls not in school.

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As farm product rotted on farms because of a lack of buyers, India has come up with new ways of getting farm agricultural product to buyers in urban areas. The Indian government has approved online sales direct from farmers to buyers outside the country. Within the country enterprising farmers  and app developers for farm produce sales directly to consumers in cities are changing the way agricultural produce distribution works. This report in the Guardian shows how sales are being made from remote Meghalaya state to buyers in cities for product ranging from turmeric, pineapple, jackfruit, and cashew. Prices are about 70% higher helping boost farmers incomes.  Several states have relaxed rules allowing farmers to sell anywhere in the country.  In other parts of the country this is happening with a proliferation of such apps creating a virtual marketplace. Other examples are a grape orchard farm in Gudahalli with sales made in Bengaluru at 30 apartment complexes. One site founder in Chandigarh says he has in 2 months sold 20,000 tons of produce ranging from avocados of the Nilgiris to papaya from Chattisgarh. His app Harvesting Farmer Network also helps with packaging and delivery. In other developments Gaia Agritech is helping farmers on the Konkan coast in Maharashtra hit hard by a pause in exports, sell to housing societies in Pune and Mumbai. This is part of a broader debate in India after coronavirus pandemic. One idea is that people have a family farmer just like they have a family doctor, encouraging organic agriculture, fresh produce for healthier living. By helping farmers it makes for a better economy, as about a sixth of India's GDP comes from farmers and most of the jobs are in farming and agricultural economy. ...

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How leisure and services provide a larger degree of happines than continual acquisition of material goods. The shift to a more thoughtful lifestyle with careful spending on the things that create happiness, as slower growth and weaker job and housing markets create the shift to a new kind of normalcy. Travel, hobbies and outdoor activities, ways of spending time creatively which lead to more happiness, addding anticipation, and other ways of finding pleasure in the many small joys of life.

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China's crude steel production fell 12.4% from ayear earlier to 35.2 million metric tons in November 2008 and finished steel was down 11% in November. Overall industrial output rose by 5.4% over a year earlier. And electricity output dropped 9.6% over a year earlier in November. And the declines will get bigger in coming months as both export factories and the housing market slow down rapidly. The stimulus spending on infrastructure will improve things but not till the second quarter of 2009.

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The problems of a building a new landfill and temporarily using an old one in Tripoli, Libya. Residents around the old landfill refuse to it being used any longer because it breeds disease and a contaminated environment. Meanwhile a million tons of garbage is piling up on city streets. The new government has promised to build a new one but desperately needs to use the old one till the new one is setup. Libyans say the problem of administration is acute in Libya, because unlike in Egypt there is no effective civil service, and the country was simply run on the decisions of one man and not much moving without that. The whole structure of administration is going to have to be built from scratch.

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The risks to the Romney campaign in the U.S. Republican primaries after his work at Bain Capital comes under scrutiny. In the 1994 Senate election in Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy defeated Romney by focussing on the loss of jobs at companies acquired by Bain Capital. Kennedy's television advertising showed employees at Ampad who lost their jobs after a takeover by Bain Capital. A study by Stephen Davis of the University of Chicago, John Haltiwinger of the University of Maryland, Jos Lerner of Harvard, Ron Jarmin and John Miranda of the Census Bureau; looks at 3,200 buyouts between 1982 and 2005. It shows private equity firms shrinking the number of employees by about 6% more than other firms in the first 5 years. It also shows the firms largely offsetting the job losses through the firms that succeed and are expanded with new employees. This study does not look at a longer time frame. A recent examination of buyouts by Bain Capital over an eight year period by the Wall Street Journal gives a better picture because some of the firms went into bankruptcy during the 8-10 year time frame. Many of the jobs added are in the retail sector with lower wage levels- at Sports Authority, Staples, Toys R' Us, and Michael's for Bain Capital. ...

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Of the 54 Blue Dog in the House, six have retired, 39 are in competitive races, and 22 of those are in pure toss-ups, according tot he Cook Political Report. Blue Dogs are Democrats from the conservative districts, which says one expert makes them an endangered species anyway. The result will be that the returning Congress will have Democrats who are more liberal than the previous Congress. The same dynamc is being repeated on the Republican side with some 50 newcomers expected, and they are not from the political centre. This will make for a very polarized Congress, with less opportunity for new legislation in areas where it is needed.

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Germany generated 45% of its energy from coal and 25% from renewable energy sources in 2013, according to AG Energiebilanzen. Chancellor Merkel, who as environment minister supported the Kyoto agreement in 1997, announced a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 62 to 78 million tons by 2020. The cuts will rest largely on improving energy efficiency, and with a third of the cuts in the power industry. With the drive to close 17 nuclear plants in Germany, the power industry has increasingly relied on coal generated energy. This is an effort to change this situation. It is supported by German public opinion.

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In the first quarter of 2011 consumer demand for gold in China increased by 47% over the prior year quarter to 233 tons, according to the World Gold Council's data. Most of this is for jewelry accounting for 64% in 2010, with gold bar demand increasing as an hedge against inflation. Orlik points out that if inflation decreases from the existing level of 5.3%, and with the increase in wealth management products from Chinese banks, the demand for gold may not be sustained as it offers no return. He says urban resident demand may have reached its peak and there is not much demand from the rural population. Central bank purchases to shift a small part of foreign exchange reserves to gold is the only other factor for a push up in gold prices.

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A 1000 mile windswept coastline and 300 days of sunshine make the southern African nation of Namibia an attractive location for green hydrogen projects. Green hydrogen is produced using wind and solar energy. There is a 50 fold increase in green hydrogen projects in just the last 12 months globally. The costly technology needs many projects to get to lower costs through technological advances. Germany is doing a pilot project in Luderitz, Namibia. Luderitz will need a deep water project to ship the fuel out.   Renewable wind and solar energy is used to distil the hydrogen atoms in water, as opposed to the currently used method to maky hydrogen from fossil fuels, known as gray hydrogen, or blue hydrogen if the emissions from fossil fuels are captured. Namibia is chosen as its natural advantages could bring the costs down faster. Other locations being adopted are Morocco, Australia, and Chile. The two sites in Namibia had bids from Africa's Sasol, Australia's Fortescu, Germany's Enertrag and Hyphen Hydrogen.  Hyphen Hydrogen won the bid for the two sites. It says the $9.4 billion project is targeting 300,000 metric tons of green hydrogen production a year from 5 gigawatts of renewable energy generation capacity by 2030. "Now all of a sudden the desert has become valuable," says Namibia's finance minister Mr. Shiimi. Additional asset for Namibia is that it ranks highest after Cape Verde in Africa for transparency, creating ease of doing business. It is ranked 57 in Transparency International rank of transparency for countries in 2020. China is 78, India 86 in rank. Namibia is putting up $45 million for the feasibility study on the project with the sesert scrub land an hour from Luderitz, once a diamond mining town on a rocky Atlantic coastline in 1900. Two sites are located in the area each 675 square miles. South Africa is severely short of energy supplies and a pipeline is being considered to take the Namibian hydrogen to South Africa. The African region is expanding in renewable energy. Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya provides 17% of installed electricity capacity in Kenya with 365 wind turbines.     ...

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Coal India, is a state run monopoly which is a huge stumbling block for India's economic development. India lags behind Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia in the percentage of the population having electricity. Production methods do not use modern technology similiar to mines in other countries, and the average age of the 333,000 employees is 45-50 years. An eight hour shift at some mines produces as much coal as a mine in the U.S. does in 5 minutes, because of the lack of modern technology. About 300 million Indians lack electricity. The Modi administration's focus is on improving efficiency, introducing competition, and bringing major technological changes to the coal industry. Piyush Goyal, India's Coal minister faces one of the biggest challenges in the Modi administration. His focus is on efficiency, and the Modi administration has set a target of 1 billion tons for 2020, a 15% increase in production each year for the next 5 years.

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Across Africa the situation is worsening for food security following the pandemic. More people are likely to die from food insecurity than from the pandemic. A succession of crises including drought, a locust swarm moving over vast parts east Africa into South Asia, and tons of crops rotting in the field after the lockdowns, are making the situation worse. With the lockdowns many informal economy workers are not able to earn a living, with no safety net this means they are going without food and slipping deeper into poverty. Remittances from overseas supported many people in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and this has dropped by about 20-30%. As a result the World Food Program estimated in April that 265 million people, double that in 2019 will face world hunger- 3 in every 100 in the world. About 821 million will face food insecurity. The world food system is fragile with just none plant species accounting for two thirds the global crop, with threats of soil erosion, rising temperatures, extreme weather and disease. Wars, high inflation, political struggles, and conflicts make things worse. The hope comes from the fact that this time the largest countries China and India are emerging in 2020 very different from what they faced for most of the nineteenth century, with recurring famines and lack of access to food supplies. India now even allows farmers to export food to buyers in other countries directly. Getting money into the hands of farmers and people in food insecurity areas is one way for them to access existing food supplies all over the world. ...

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In a continuing effort to make certain all of the massive supplies of palm oil it uses- 1.36 million tons of palm oil a year- comes from sustainable sources, Unilever plans an investment of $100 million for a palm oil processing plant in Indonesia. Unilever's plan is to reach the goal of getting all of the palm oil it uses from sustainable sources by 2020, up from only 2% in 2011. This is part of its committment to the environment. Palm oil goes into making Dove soap, Magnum ice cream, and Vaseline lotion. The deforestation issue is becoming serious as land is cleared for palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the only way for Unilever to be certain that it is done in a sustainable way is to move closer to the source of supplies.

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The U.S. Agriculture Department cuts its estimate of corn crop yield per acre in the U.S. by 15.5%, as a result of the severe drought in 2012. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, says the situation for farmers is better this time than during the last drought in 1988. Now 85% of farmers have crop insurance compared to 25% in 1988. The Agriculture Department estimate is for a 3-4% increase in prices in 2013. Capital Economics says the impact on GDP in the U.S. will be about 0.1%. Because 40% of the corn crop goes into ethanol production there is renewed debate about the 2005/2007 Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires 13.2 billion gallons of corn based biofuel be made in 2012. Worldwide the bad weather conditions in Brazil, India and Russia are worsening the outlook for food supplies. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says global food prices increased by 6% in July 2012, with corn prices up 23%.

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A big change and a rare combination of events is causing labor costs to rise. China's new labor law makes it more difficult for employers to reduce wage costs by methods used in amarket environent without an enforeable code of conduct. The costs of certain raw materials like plastics have gone up significantly. Environmental laws are taken more seriously. And just when wage and raw material costs are rising the government in response to international pressure on the trade surplus is phasing out tax rebates on the less sophisticated products like toys, apparel, leather etc with the intention of moving into more sophisticated products like electronics and cars. As a result after years of falling prices in 2006 prices of Chinese goods in the US went up by 2.4%. And China is putting pressure on commodity prices worldwide through its growing use. All this contributed to USA inflation going up 4.1% in 2007 from 2.5% in 2006. How will this change in 2008 and the years ahead just when the USA is entering a recession and period of sluggish growth? About 7.5% of American spending on consumer goods come from China. With the weaker dollar in relation to the yuan, Chinese factories get fewer yuan for their exports to the USA, the depreciation of the dollar being about 7.6% in 2007 with more depreication ahead in 2008 and 2009. Factory wages have gone up by 80 % in the last few years and the lowest factory wage is about $125 according to experts. Chinese factories have already factored all this into their new pricing asking for price increases of 20, 30, 40 or 50 % according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. What to expect then on the retail shelves of stores in the USA? Expect a price increase of 10% on Chinese goods. This means from now on Chinese goods instead of lowering inflation in the USA will actually add to inflationand the area of cheap goods coming to a close. As it takes time to move production to places elsewhere in Asia like Vietnam and India its going to be some time before another country takes the place of China....

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The severe drought in China is affecting the provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, Hebei and Shanxi, which produce about two thirds of China's wheat. China's Xinhua news agency is reporting that the drought in Shandong province could be "the worst drought in 200 years." China's retail wheat flour prices were up 8% over the two months to January and up 16% from the same month in 2010. The drought puts at risk the winter wheat crop harvested in June, according to the FAO. The FAO provided figures showing that 5.16 million hectares of a total of 14 million hectares of wheat producing areas are affected. China maintains large stores of wheat, estimated at 53 millon tons in Dec 2010, by Ma Wenfeng, an analyst with Beijing Agribusiness Consultant Ltd. The reserves act as a buffer for shortages.

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Rural America has the same percentage of Americans that are prone to fringe views as urban America about 27%, the rest are simply trying to find ways to meet severe health, educational, lack of investment in rural areas by government, and cost of living challenges, that other communities have, says Nicholas Jacobs, professor of Colby College. He knows rural America as he shows in his new book -The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America. Jacobs lives in rural Maine and has both studied reams of data and himself lives in a rural area. Here is the truth he says- Rural America is suffering from chronic health conditions, health worker and hospital shortages, limited employment opportunities and infrastructure deficits, rural schools suffering from funding gaps and teacher shortages. Similar to urban, yes, yet even worse, and need understanding not recrimination. What JFK rightly called, a policy "to lift all boats," from his speech in Arkansas, saying rural Arkansas was as much the Nation, as Massachusetts. He warns Americans to be careful what they listen to about rural America in talk shows or in books written to get audiences from one segment of the population or the other, with gross mischaracterizations of Rural America and its so called rage, with condescending views about people simply struggling to make sense of all the change some of it for the worse going on around them- in this period of Beaverbrook television or internet media. Beaverbook television is after a press baron in the last century in Britain who saw it fit to take advantage of crises of any sort to sell tons of newspapers for a profit, along the way promoting any bias that he had regardless of whether it was proven right or wrong. At one point UK press barons including Beaverbrook, controlled 13 million circulation the most in the world in 1947. Today instead of newsprint it is in book, television, social media or the internet video formats. This can concoct narratives of people that do not exist by using polls that are inadequate, and superficial understanding, with no effort to look for credible answers to difficult questions, and no effort to look for solutions that "lifts all boats," in America and in the World. ...

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Frederick Taylor's engineering time standards for each activity are back now in retailing with H.B. Maynard now called OWO a company that devises engineered labor standardsfor every activity in the cashier line, from greeting to scanning and bagging. The idea is to monitor performance based on these standards. OWO says its methods can cut costs for labor by 5% to 15%. Stores like Limited, Gap, ToyR Us, TJX, Nike, Meijer supermarkets and others use them. If a cashiers falls below 95% of the standard he is watched by a manager and then he receives counselling, after which he may be transferred to a lowerpaying job or fired. Those who cannot handle the stress leave after a year or so on the job. Has OWO considered the impact on older customers who may simply decide not to shop at Meijer as cashiers may end up rushing them. Has it considred the impact on customers who now may not be looked in the eye with a friendly face. There is less talk between cashiers and it can speed up the line but wait there are fewer cashiers now so the waiting time may not change much as the whole idea is to cut labor costs by 5-10%. ...

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A new Nuclear Fuel Bank has private funding of $50 million from Warren Buffett, and additional funding from Kuwait, US, the EU, Norway, and the UAE. The total funding so far is $157 million. With this initial funding the International Atomic Agency has setup a global nuclear fuel bank that countries can turn to for developing nuclear power. At this time more countries are turning to nuclear power as a source of energy supplies. The development of nuclear supplies and purifying uranium also lends itself to the making of nuclear weapons. By providing an independent source the IAE agency provides a way to remove the ambiguity present in the development of nuclear energy. As the idea of atomic fuel banks is gaining hold Rusia also has set up a bank. When enriched at lower levels uranium can be used for nuclear energy. When enriched at higher levels this becomes a fuel for making atomic bombs. Which is why nuclear experts want to see the uranium turned into fuel rods as quickly as possible, because it is hard to turn the rods into weapons. This money will be enough to buy 80 tons of fuel- enough for refueling one reactor....

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The new EPA rules for auto emission standards were setup under the Obama administration in 2012. The rules are a major part of the effort to meet the challenge of pollution and clean air. The Trump administration and EPA chief Scott Pruitt plan to reverse the higher standards. The new standards which had the support of automakers when enacted require that average fuel economy be doubled to about 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This would cut oil use by 12 billion barrels over the lifetime of the cars and reduce carbon dioxide pollution by about 6 billion tons.  The EPA under president Trump does not say how much the standards will be rolled back. This also leads to one more tension between California and the Trump administration. California plans to vigorously oppose the rollback. Under the Clean Air Act of 1970 California has historically made its own rules and was followed by 12 other states making up one third of the car market in the U.S. If the Trump administration is able to to this it would create two markets for automobiles in the U.S. which is not in the interest of automakers who are having second thoughts about the change. Amazingly a suburban Virginia Chevy dealership has vigorously opposed being used as the location for the EPA under the Trump administration making an announcement on this issue. Chevy dealerships are saying the Trump administration does not have the facts, that the auto industry has done very well in the last 4-5 years. Chevrolet and GM do not want to be associated with the politics on this issue. California has historically acted as a pioneer in automobile standards with the rest of the nation following. The Trump administration move would be an effort to break this precedent.  ...

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Russian and China sign a contract for Russian natural gas from undeveloped fields in Siberia during Putin's visit to Beijing in May 2014. The 30 year contract is for about $400 billion. China gets natural gas at prices about 25-40% below the current cost of importing liquefied natural gas from Australia, Qatar, Malaysia and other countries, according to RBC Capital Markets. For the last decade China and Russia have failed to agree on a price. In these negotiations a price was reached but is being kept a commercial secret. China imports large amounts of natural gas by pipeline from Turkmenistan at about $10 per million British Thermal Units (BTU's). Gazprom needs about $12 per million BTU's to break even. The two Siberian fields are the Kovykta field and Chayanda field which would remain undeveloped without the deal to supply China. Russia will spend about $55 billion for pipelines and infrastructure on its side, and China $20 billion. China's needs for natural gas were 170 billion cubic metres in 2013, growing to about six times consumption of about 30 billion cubic metres in 2000, according to China's NDRC. This is expected to reach 420 billion cubic metres by 2020. Currently 17.7 million metric tons come by pipeline mostly from Turkmenistan and 15.5 million metric tons of LNG mostly from Qatar and Australia, according to China General Customs Administration. The deal will put on hold higher cost LNG projects for Asian countries and make mores gas available at reduced prices in Asia, according to analysts....

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Japanese Dads are taking on a bigger role and changing parenting. BBC Future shows this story about Japanese dads from a new generations that are taking on the joys, difficulties and responsibilities of parenting.  A new kind of superhero in Japanese manga comics is Ikumen, a Japanese term (from ikuji for childcare) for young dads actively spending time with their children compared to an earlier generation of fathers who spent most of their time at work, and rarely took on family responsibilities. During the sixties and seventies as Japan emerged from the wartime recovery and modernized Japanese culture defined men's role to spend most of the time at work, even getting allowance for spending from their wives who controlled the family budget.  In 2010 the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare started the Ikumen project to increase paternal involvement in child caring. This was a major cultural change and was part of the change in culture needed for the Third Arrow of Japan's Abenomics project to get women's participation up to western country levels. Today the women's participation rate in workplaces exceeds that of the U.S. Even in the 1980's men spent on average about 40 minutes with their children mostly during the family meal in the evening and even had to have their wives find their clothes. The common saying was - "jishin, kaminari, kaji, oyaji," earthquake, thunder, fire and father, remote and given respect. Women's reaction was not positive as they postponed marraige for later, then even not marrying at all for the next generation, leading to reduced childbirth rates. The Ikumen project projected fathers in a masculine role of heroes for taking on parenting, like the t-shirt logo "Strength for Society" portraying them as saving society, saving the  country. About 45% now support the idea of "men should work, women should stay at home" compared to 60% in 1992- drop of 15%. The statistics do not quite tell the story because during this period women participation in the workplace has jumped to western country levels as part of Abenomics Third Arrow to revive the economy. The problem that is still being tackled is that of bosses in the workplace who lack awareness and discourage taking paternal leave which has risen from 2% to 7% in five years 2012 to 2017. ...

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UK's energy company, BG Group PLC is offering 12.9 billion Australian dollars for Origin Energy. Origin Energy Australia's biggest gas producer is also the owner of large coalbed methane assets, known as coal-seam. Trillions of cubic metres of natural gas are trapped in Australia's coal seams. Extracting this methane has been considered too costly until now as natural gas prices have risen significantly. There are environmental benefits as coal seam gas does not produce any sulfur dioxide or particulates, and emits only 50% of the carbon dioxide emitted when coal is burned.BG already has plans to spend A$8 billion on one LNG plant with capacity for 4 million metric tons a year of LNG. LNG is natural gas, mostly methane cooled to liquid form for transport by ship. This would use the coal-seam assets purchased from Queensland Gas Company for A$664 million as part of plans to start the LNG plant near the port town of Gladstone, in the state of Queensland. The Origin coal seam assets could provide gas for a second plant at the Queensland site. BG has an LNG supply deal to provide 3 million tons a year to Singapore from 2012. BG has prior focus in the Atlantic region with operations in Brazil, the UK, North Sea, and Trinidad and Tobago, the Queensland deal and acquisition of Origin gives BG an entry in Asian LNG markets. This will be the second biggest takeover of an Australian company after Mexican cement maker Cemex's acquisition of Rinker Group for A$16.7 billion....

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Kazuo Hirai becomes the new CEO of Sony, succeeding Howard Stringer. Hirai faces some tough decisions at Sony, as the company's position as a pioneer in electronics has been eroded by Apple, and sales of product hardware have been eroded by Samsung Electronics. Hirai says his strategic goal is to get the 168,000 employees of Sony to place getting the user experience right first before anything else. And that simply being a great producer of hardware products isn't enough for Sony. Hirai's experience is in turning around the Playstation videogaming business. To this he brought an unconventional style. He was educated in the U.S. and Canada as the son of an expatriate Japanese banker, and in Japan he went to the American School where he founded its Audiovisual Club. His first job at CBS/Sony Inc. in Japan was as a translator for bands such as the Beastie Boys and Journey during the visits of these bands to Japan.