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CPC Central Committee Proposal on Formulating the 15th FIve Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (4th Plenary Session 20th Central Committee October 23 2025). It gives the outline of main ideas in domestic and foreign policies that China adopts for the next 15th 5 year Plan to 2030. It shows how China wants to navigate the next 5 years in the world. It gives the first signs that China wants to do Socialist Modernization, Chinese style Modernization of its economic and social structures in this phase. The first impression from this and the 2026 National People's Congress is that China is seeking to work with Germany, with EU and with the US to modernize its economy, not as in the past, but now more sensitive to all the changes taking place in the world. The goals are comprehensive yet presented in modest manner ( no China Dream ambitiously worded goals that had ruffled feathers in the US) presenting China in a way that would win acceptance and integration into the world's leading powers.  ...

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Three BBC correspondents on China's 2026 National People's Congress - effort to invest in childcare and elder care services to increase consumer spending. To continue in solar, robotics, AI, EV's, and exports as before. The problems of industrial overcapacity and pushing subsidized product into the US or EU that cause trade tensions and tariffs will continue.  New 301 investigations by US Trade Representative are taking place and will complete by mid-July. Germany's chancellor was in Beijing making a similar point about industrial overcapacity and German business is now facing the same threats to their business that the US has gone through. The one other way for China to grow is to increase consumer spending- hence the effort to help young people with childcare costs and retired people with elder care. The payments to seniors is low says the BBC's McDonnell who says the increase in payment to rural and non-working urban residents of $3 per month is miniscule. No details given for housing support to newly married couples. On one aspect relevant to the Iran war-China is increasing its efforts on renewable energy to reduce imports from volatile Middle East. ...

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Young men's views of women in 2026 King's College/Ipsos survey shows men feeling left out in this economy and frustrated, the result is to be blaming women. 

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Balen Shah, 35 years, wins general elections in Nepal in March 2026 after student protests in 2025 ousted the government of PM Oli from the older generation of politicians.

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MacKenzie Scott who cofounded the early startup on books of Amazon with Jeff Bezos, and her foundation gift giving to the underprivileged, native Americans, Black Americans, and other causes by 2026. Scott's stake is $18 billion in Amazon in 2025. Data driven approach she adopted gets through 6490 organizations and narrows that down to 822, and comes up with 384 grant recipients, says the WSJ. No applications just a call and $20 million or $50 million is the approach she has taken and the money is given on trust no monitoring.

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Nepal is a remote mountainous country with some of the highest Himalayan mountain ranges and Mt. Everest. For decades it has stagnated economically with Chinese help making little difference, Indian help more recent, and the country with per capita income of about $1500 for a population of  29 million. Neighboring India with 1.4 billion people is seeing huge increase in young people's aspirations in neighboring Indian states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh under the Modi government. Average age in Nepal is 25 years, in Bihar a neighboring state in India it is 22 years. This is affecting Nepal with the similar lack of tolerance for corrupt governments that cannot deliver on infrastructure and health/education. Urbanization is only 17% in Bihar state in India that is neighbor of Nepal and most people live in rural areas, the same is true for Nepal with 20% urbanization. Per capita income in Bihar state is $900 one third of India's $2700 per capita income, in Nepal it is $1500. Who is Balen Shah- a 35 year old structural engineer into hiphop music who is Mayor of Kathmandu, the capital. He supported the student protests against the corruption of government led by PM Oli which had to resign. His party RSD leads in two thirds of 275 parliamentary seats. Each voter gets 2 votes, one is for 165 seats on first past the post basis, and the other vote is to allocate 110 seats based on the party vote. Average age in Nepal is 25 years with 800,000 first time voters in voting population of 19 million.  ...

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BBC Persian service reaches 24 million people in Iran and overseas- it shows reactions of Iranians after first week of war. 

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The CDU runs the state of Baden-Wurttemberg (Stuttgart, Tubingen) in a coalition with the Greens. The Greens premier is retiring. Merz is hoping for a win in the state in an upcoming election. The AfD is polling at 20%, SPD is losing ground.

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The German state elections will be conducted under new election laws- a voter over 16 years old votes for one of 70 constituencies in the first state election in Baden-Wurttemberg and also votes for a party that helps determine the distribution of seats by party in the state parliament. The CDU candidate Manuel Hagel is leading by small margin over the Greens candidate Cem Ozdemir. This is the first state in 7 state elections in 2026 with cities of Stuttgart and Tubingen, Munich.

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"Because of the pressure on public services that resentment (by public) is real"- Shabana Mohamed tears up old rules in asylums that put migrants before British neighborhoods. Under the old rules refugees were given 5 years of protection and allowed to bring their families, followed by possible permanent status. Now this is cut to 30 months and if the country is safe the person has to go back, Waiting time to be able to settle in Britain will be extended to 10 years. The system worked in Denmark cutting by 90% the flow of migrants. In 2025 100,000 claimed asylum inUK half of them coming in small boats.  The asylum people placed in hotels has resulted in an outcry from locals in many British towns who see a way of life of the British people being pressured by the migrants some from remote countries with different cultures and leading to lack of safety for women on the streets. In Denmark without these changes the labour working class party would have lost power to a movement like that of Nigel Farage Reform UK which wants to shut the door completely on migrants. Public patience appears to be gone. Similar situations have happened in Dutch politics and is happening in other countries including Germany and France. ...

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Borg Brende, a former foreign minister of Norway, resigns from leading Davos Economic Forum over Epstein connections- astonishingly he interviewed Merz other leaders on Davos Forum broadcasts. This is one more reason that Davos or Switzerland is not where one should look to or for a real understanding of what is happening in the world that extends to places that have little in common with Switzerland, and look very different, from Japan to India and China, from Spain to Italy, and from Canada and the US to Britain and Australia, from Brazil to Chile and Argentina. So many other forums exist and so much happens there, there is also the G-20 and other world gatherings, and meetings of regional leaders where so much more happens.

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US president DJT in his State of the Union made immigration a major issue saying Democrats could not be trusted with Borders after the disasters of recent years. The president told Congress in his State of the Union address 2026-

“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens—not illegal aliens."

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WSJ reports in Feb 25, 2026 that most of the Mexican states and the Cancun, Tulum, Puerta Vallarta and other coastal tourist areas are controlled by different drug cartels. It is a collapse of good governance in a neighboring state for the US along a continent size border with huge ramifications for the US ignored by administrations ion the US for three decades (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama), along with collapse in governance across Latin America. Only now are the dangers and effects on the US being fully grasped.

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Elena Mayors Taylor gold medalist at Milan WInter Olympics 2026 age 41 years, is th eoldest gold medalist in Olympic history. Her colleague in the winter sport of bobsledding is Armbruster Humphries who has 3 gold medals and is 40 years She says-  "You get a lot of people that like to write you off as soon as you reach 40, it's all downhill from there, is what you hear. I think Elana and I are both proof that that's not true." Former bronze medalist from Britain Jon Jackson says of Elena- "She is not only a ferocious athlete but also a beautiful human being and a genuine person. It has been a real show of dedication to keep going through the struggles of now being a mum in a high-performance sport, the dedication that takes to maintain that level of physical fitness and the hard work of being a parent. It shows her true nature." Elena has 3 children with disabilities and is an advocate for mums. "It should be celebrated that they're both mums, using mum power, both in their early 40s and it's great to see them competing at the top of the world not only physically but the drive and experience too,"   ...

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Chris Wormald to be replaced by Antonia Romeo as Cabinet Secretary in Feb 2026. The only way Keir Starmer can get a new start is to be himself and follow his convictions about what is right for the nation. It means getting a new team that will help him implement a plan of action. Antonia Romeo top civil servant in Britain's Home Ministry, is given the job of Cabinet Secretary replacing Chris Wormald. This means the PM will be getting better advice on making choices for the future compared to McSweeney and Wormald, political and civil servant members from the previous team that were overawed by people in powerful positions, and did not respect people of conviction and honesty regardless of where in Labour that they came from. The future of Britain and the US, and of Europe will be build by people of honesty and conviction, common sense, and willingness to learn, not by false notions of centrist and left or right that for too long have determined the nature and sway of politics. For this to happen Starmer must look deep within himself. ...

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UK Labour party Manifesto of 2024 called for the abolition of the House of Lords- The Guardian says it is "doorstep issue" and not too late to do it in 2026. The House of Lord's would go and be replaced with an upper house chamber more representative of the people of Britain. The Guardian calls it the "rotten house of sleazy patronage" and says that it is not peripheral to the dismal ratings of PM Starmer and Labour, that Starmer's instincts in the Opposition were correct.

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The Guardian in its Editorial on Keir Starmer on February 10, 2026, says Labour was in the political wilderness for 18 years, and yet it has taken only 14 months for the project which put it into power to implode. It is referring to the project of McSweeney from County Cork, Ireland, and others to put a centrist to replace Corbyn, and selecting Keir Starmer. This was a weakness from the start as a candidate has to emerge on his own merits not be put in place by handlers like McSweeney, as he would not be able to govern on his own thinking and make his own decisions.  McSweeney was a campaign organizer and not successful at that as portrayed as Labour could have taken more than the 34% of the vote it received after 18 years of Tory rule without the likes of McSweeney. The Guardian says "excessive power and influence" was given by Starmer to McSweeney, and that the outsourcing of Britain's direction served neither the prime minister or the country well.  This is aserious flaw. McSweeney did not have the long experience of advisers that backed up Biden in the White House. And even the long experience of Biden group of advisers failed Biden when it came to immigration policy and the Border. And yet the question remains why was there such a lack in the talent pool for good governance for Labour, as it was for the Conservatives, for 3 decades since the 1990's? Similar to the situation with Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama governance in the US, why is there not a good talent pool for effective governance in the UK and the US? The Guardian goes on to question the judgement of Starmer and the clique around him including McSweeney for their attitude towards helping the working class in support payments during a cost of living crisis- what it calls a contempt filled approach of the cliques to the normal priorities of a Labour party. The Editorial concludes that Labour has lost control of the trajectory of events- as more Mandelson emails are expected- and that it is hard to see how this trust can be won back. For Britain having 5 prime ministers over 4 years is a shocking lack of the talent, of confidence, that once prevailed in the nation that once led the world with the Industrial Revolution, and in science and technology. ...

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DJT endorses Sanae Takaichi and Takaichi says alliance with US has potential that is LIMITLESS after winning a two thirds majority in parliament. DJT had whole heartedly endorsed Takaichi and visited Japan recently. Takaichi visits the US before DJT goes to Beijing for trade talks and improving relations.

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Complicity of elites is a key question in the Epstein scandal. Even when some of this was known the seriousness of it was ignored by elites. About the Mandelson scandal that is rocking Britain in the beginning of February 2026 with questions for Keir Starmer, it can be said that elites just had too much awe and respect for the major centers in the world of finance or sought ot be part of that world when these centers of finance had themselves lost their sense of purpose in the Nation, as Labour's Mandelson did. In the larger sense of the influence of the financial industry on elites in the events leading to the 2009 financial crisis where the name Bear Stearns comes up repeatedly, of the pharmaceutical industry on elites in 2026, it could be said that the influence on policymaking elites is a pernicious one. As Teddy Roosevelt points out in Chapter 5 of his Autobiography titled Applied Idealism, some elites had too much respect and awe for big financial interests. TR wrote of these elites in his time- "Some of the men foremost in the struggle for Civil Service Reform have taken a position of honorable leadership in the battle for those other and more vital reforms. But many of them promptly abandoned the field of effort for decency when the battle took the form, not of a fight agains the petty grafting of small bosses and small politicians- a vitally necessary battle, be it remembered- but of a fight against the great entrenched powers of privilege, a fight to secure justice through the law for ordinary men and women, instead of leaving them to suffer cruel injustice either because the law failed to protect them  or because it was twisted from its legitimate purpose into a means for oppressing them." ...