LyrArc Article Gist
Report that shows 24000 drones in Jan-July 2025 and 728 on July 10, as Russian factories turn out more drones in a day by July 2025 than it turned out in a month in the earlier period of the war. Drones now commonplace on Ukrainian skies. 

LyrArc Article Gist
FR24 looks at all the presidential contenders in the French election. The fragmentation is evident in the French electoral scene similar to that in Germany. In a runoff for the second round on April 24 who these contenders support will be crucial for the outcome.  

LyrArc Article Gist
India and China agree to a legally binding deal on climate change and emissions that would be drafted by 2015, and take effect in 2020. This would bring them in line with or symmetrical with the U.S. and European countries for controlling emissions.

LyrArc Article Gist
After 14 years carrying 1 billion passengers the Dreamliner 787 crash in Ahmedabad 2025 is the first major incident. The flaps not unfolding is a suspected cause of the incident, in addition to the engines losing thrust, with the possibility of birds in the vicinity crashing into the plane. Ahmedabad area is known for the huge number of birds.

LyrArc Article Gist
Timeline in NYT on DJT-Jamieson USTR  Tariffs to March 13, 2025. Reciprocal tariffs to go into effect April 2, 2025 on Mexico and Canada. Reciprocal tariffs are seen as based on fairness- "we charge them what they charge us."  Why is this action necessary?  Because Canada, Mexico, EU, South Korea, Japan, China gained unfair advantages due to the inaction of administrations dating back to Clinton, Bush, Obama which were never reversed. Other nations have no incentive to trade on the principle of fairness inducing the US to take action to open discussions on fair trade and on what the tariffs should be going forward from 2025. US Trade Representative Lighthizer under DJT first term was Deputy Trade Representative under Reagan when he negotiated fair trade with the Japanese in the 1980's who he says stalled and stalled till finally agreeing to real discussions. So this is nothing new China, Canada and Mexico have taken the place of Japan. In this second term of DJT Lighthizer's Deputy Trade Representative is now the US Trade Representative. This means the discussions are in the hands of seasoned American trade officials with a keen grasp of details supported by Scott Bessent at Treasury and Luttnick at Commerce Department. What it is NOT is an effort to coerce other nations by the US. Like Japan in the 1980's with Reagan and Lighthizer as USTR, in 2025 China, Canada, Mexico, South Korea Taiwan and other nations would like to slow this return to fair trade by stalling and stalling, and presenting a different picture of the facts. But will that work? As it did not with Japan in the 1980's when Lighthizer got them to sit down to have real discussions on fair trade. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Consumption at 88 retailers in Japan from shoes to glasses increased by 20.5% in March 2014 and decreased 1.8% in April, according to brokerage firm CLSA. This suggests the Japanese economy can ride out the effects of an increase in the consumption tax and stay on the growth track in 2014-2015.

LyrArc Article Gist
The increasing number of dengue fever cases in South America with 2.6 million cases in 2024 three times that in 2023.

Costa Rica, Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, Colombia top foreign destinations for US travelers have high rate of dengue fever caused by mosquitoes. Cases in South America spike during the summer which is from December to February.

LyrArc Article Gist
In 2015 the new government of Antonio Costa took a U turn from austerity policies followed in return for a bailout from the European Union. This has helped Portugal achieve the highest growth in a decade coming back from a severe slump. Unemployment is cut in half with growth in the tourist industry, and investment in agriculture, construction, aerospace.  Traditional industries such as paper mills and textiles have invested in new technology resulting in a boom in exports. German companies Bosch, Mercedes Benz, and others have also invested in the country. Portugal has a good relationship with Germany and the European Union which has also helped attract foreign investment. Prime minister Antonio Costa says "too much austerity deepens a recession and leads to a vicious circle." Antonio Costa came to power in 2015 on promises to reverse cuts in income made by the previous government to reduce the deficit in exchange for a 78 billion euro international bailout. The government backed by left parties left out of government since 1974 with the collapse of the dictatorship, was able to increase public sector salaries, the minimum wage and pensions, over objections of the IMF and the German government. Incentives were given to small business in the form of tax incentives, development subsidies and funding. Budget balancing was achieved by cutting expenditure on infrastructure and other spending, cutting the budget deficit from 4.4% when Costa took office to 1%. A surplus is planned for 2020, ending a quarter century of budget deficits. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Under Mette Frederiksen immigration which reached 21,000 in 2015 was down to a little over 1000 a year. She is a strong fighter for workers and families and labor rights and yet tough on illegal immigration. She has been proven right about this as Britain and the US under Biden are seeing illegal immigration as a threat to workers and labour, are seeing the risks of distraction from illegal immigration doing a serious disservice to workers and families by making it hard to fight for workers and families on wages, cost of living and other issues.  Even with a strong record of fighting for workers and families, Frederiksen was one of the first European leaders to see the dangers of illegal immigration to society. It gave parts of the political spectrum that had no interest all along in workers and families doing well, an issue to run on that would come to cause grave harm to workers and families. This turned out to be the error of Angela Merkel a CDU leader brought up in Communist East Germany, who had no idea of the risks of her approach for open immigration. As Merkel let this chapter unfold it created fissures in Europe, with Tories and Nigel Farage taking Britain out of the EU and laying waste to its economy for 5 years till Labour's Starmer adopted a tough immigration policy and became prime minister in 2024. That danger then spread to the US in 2016 which also suffered as Republicans and Trump did the same in the US around rhetoric but without serious action on immigration till the Lankford- Biden legislation.  That bill would have closed the border with Mexico and ended immigration as an issue forever if passed into law in December 2023, as Senator Lankford says would have happened. Ending immigration as an issue forever alongside foreign wars as an issue, so that a concentrated effort could be made on improving badly damaged lives of workers and families. And on rebuilding badly damaged manufacturing in the US, rebuilding collapsing infrastructure, and competing with better education and healthcare with the large Asian countries China, Japan/ South Korea, India. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Jay Powell at US central bank the Fed says economy is strong and stable in March 2025. He points to low unemployment at 4% and other improvements including in lowering inflation that show the US economy in good shape, in his comments at Congressional hearings.

LyrArc Article Gist
WSJ with subscribers up to 4.1 million and other Dow Jones products, are key parts of revenue for Murdoch's business group in 2025. 85% of profits are derived from Dow Jones for News Corp. The Australian and British newspapers do not generate much profit and The Sun has seen years of losses. These newspapers gave Murdoch his start in Australia and UK, but have built up losses today.

LyrArc Article Gist
With July 9 deadline coming up, tariffs on Japan and South Korea go up to 25%, and a warning is sent to BRICS countries China, Brazil and India on July 7, 2025 of additional 10% in tariffs.

DJT stated on his social media site Truth Social- "Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged additional 10% tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy.”

LyrArc Article Gist
Mohammed Siraj dismisses Jamie Overton after his two boundaries brought England close to the winning score, and in the final ball of the Test series on August 4, 2025, he knocks off Atkinson's wicket to give India a win for the ages by 7 runs- similar to one in which Gary Sobers played for West Indies vs Australia in which the margin was zero runs, the Test tied on December 14, 1960.

LyrArc Article Gist
Chase loan balances on credit cards including Sapphire grow to $325 billion with net revenue rate of 10.2% and $6.9 billion profit in 1st quarter 2025. Chase is now the leader in credit cards surpassing Visa, Mastercard and American Express with it's card business offering future profitability on other lending to the same customer over the lifetime of the customer. It can also leverage its internet banking to make the card business more efficient.

LyrArc Article Gist
The mood in Germany, France and UK as Europe ponders a European response to the 28 Point Peace Plan negotiated by the US president with Russian negotiators over 3 days in Washington DC. This is reflected by views expressed in Le Monde of France in November 2025, showing concern for lack of military preparedness in Europe and the sense that Russia could be a military threat to Europe in the next 3-4 years.

LyrArc Article Gist
Oil and gas, pharmaceuticals are not affected by the 26% US tariffs on India in April 2025. The domestic market in India is large enough and growing. India could use this opportunity to get its manufacturers in shape to compete with US products. It is making a huge effort to improve manufacturing, infrastructure and logistics base that will make it a completely different competitor by 2030. Having a stable government focused on grwoth and the economy, infrastructure, farmer's welfare, was a major step for India in 2024. Much of the base for industrial growth and modernization will be laid by 2030.

LyrArc Article Gist
As Foreign Minister in the Moraji Desai government he met Premier Deng and restored ties with China in 1979, leading to yearly meetings that continue to this day for keeping peace- following the invasion of Tibet by China in the 1950's and the border war with India in 1962. That border in Ladakh and Arunachal is again the place of border disputes and casualties at the LAC in 2021-2022. China completes its first phase of modernization by this time, India embarks on its first phase of modernization and seeks calm on the border in alliance with the US to concentrate on development efforts. The British period in India brings with it borders set from that time. The invasion by the Japanese of China leads to Communist control following a civil war and a sense in China that it needs borders that extend to Tibet to be secure. This generates the Indian Chinese border disputes that extend from Ladakh to Arunachal in the high mountain altitudes of the Himalayas. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Safety checks at Norfolk Southern are the subject of this report in the WSJ. The derailment of a freight train leading to spill of toxic chemicals in Ohio on Feb 3, 2023, led to concern about the safety practices at American railroads in the efforts to cut costs. The National Transportation Safety Board has opened a probe into the safety culture and practices of Norfolk Southern. One practice called PSR or precison scheduled railroading has been used by railroads in America to cut costs. This means fewer employees, longer freight trains as long as 3 miles, and fewer locomotives. The result is that employees count went down from 159,000 in 2011 to 115,000 in 2021 a drop of 28% even when freight dropped by 11%. This increased profits resulting in higher dividends and stock buybacks, with a heavier workload and less time off  even for sick days until a threatened strike. President Biden intervened to set a new pay and work deal and an element of fairness for workers. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in the Mint suggests that there is strong economic growth in India today yet more needs to be done to broaden the economic recovery to reach all segments of the population. Pent-up demand is leading to economic spending for higher income segments of the population, yet sales of two wheelers for the moderate and lower income segments as shown in graphs here have fallen badly.

The next step is for a broad based recovery as India expands its vaccination drive. There is no room for relaxation of the vaccination drive as prime minister Modi pointed out to lagging district heads in a national virtual meeting on the same day that he returned from COP26 Glasgow. So much has happened in 2021 with the surge in coronavirus in India in the middle of the year, and the economic rebound is in its early stages requiring vigilant and careful attention from industry and government in the months ahead through 2022.

LyrArc Article Gist
A great transformation is taking place for 172 million people -after the grueling experience of pandemic followed by effects of Ukraine war, and climate change- in building external resilience. The quick IMF action in Bangladesh in contrast to Sri Lanka. After taking in the shock of pandemic and the war in Ukraine Bangladesh faced large drops in remittances and in export revenues. Added to that problems in foreign exchange reserve management and exchange rate management. By getting immediate access of aid from IMF $4.7 billion and additional assistance from India Bangladesh is now in a position where in less than a year it has rebounded with current account surplus reaching $2 billion in the first half of the 2023-2024 fiscal year, as reported by Xinhua. Increasing productivity, education of labor force, increasing female participation in the workforce, social investment in economy, will give Bangladesh a chance to reach from LDC to lower middle income status by 2031.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The closest parallel of the campaigns for president in 2016, 2020, 2024 are in the campaign of 1952. The difference is that Eisenhower was widely respected in both parties and had fought the war against Germany and Japan alongside Gen.George Marshall under president Harry Truman. His name was put on the ballot in New Hampshire but he himself preferred not to run or run as an Independent according to JFK. The Eastern Establishment including Governor Dewey of NY pushed for Eisenhower while the Midwestern States more isolationist in their approach supported Robert Taft. Eisenhower also did not choose Senator Nixon and he was chosen to win support in California and as a compromise with the Taft group. Eisenhower did not at any time approve of the reckless criticism tactics of McCarthy, though he remained silent on the issue not wanting to distract from the need to find a new approach to ending the war in Korea and with the Soviets than the one offered by Truman. There was also the weariness of the people with the wars.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
A look at how Kamala Harris plans to focus on specific aspects of the Biden Economic Policy Agenda that are of the greatest concern for the American public. Cost of living action is the highest priority. Harris has ideas on this issue to cut housing costs and has specific proposals from 2023 with rising housing costs to tackle this by limiting rent increases to 5%. She will also come up with specific actions to sharpen her focus on cost of living issues to help ordinary Americans cope with rising cost of living for groceries, autos, auto repair bills, insurance costs, and energy costs. Economic advisors include the following from the years since 2020 with Biden as his VP- Brian Nelson,Treasury Department, Mike Pyle   Deputy National Economic Advisor for International Economics, Brian Deese     former National Economic Council Director  Gene Sperling, former Biden Economic Adviser, Deane Millison former Harris Economic Adviser, Rohini Kosoglu, Grace Landrieu, Bharat Ramamurti.      ...