Podcasts about World Bank

There've now been more than two-thousand flight delays or cancellations in the US linked to the continuing government shutdown. International routes aren't being affected, but many air traffic controllers who've gone unpaid are calling in sick or taking other jobs. Jamaica is set to receive a $150 million payout from its catastrophe bond after Hurricane Melissa. It's the first time it's been triggered in full. The World Bank tells the BBC it's a vital boost to the country's recovery. Andrew Peach also examines Elon Musk's trillion-dollar pay award after Tesla shareholders back a record-breaking deal that could make the world's richest man even richer. We hear from one investor who voted against it.

The World Bank has confirmed that Jamaica will receive a full $150 million payout from its catastrophe bond, which is the maximum possible, after Hurricane Melissa met the pre-agreed trigger conditions. Leanna Byrne hears from Jorge Familiar, the World Bank's vice-president and treasurer. Also, one of the biggest broadcasters in the UK has confirmed its "preliminary" discussions with Comcast, owner of Sky, to sell its broadcasting business for around $2 billion. And, as the US government shutdown hits 38 days, we look at one government tax lawyer in Washington DC, who is staying busy by running a full-time hot dog stand. Presenter: Leanna Byrne Producer: Ahmed Adan Editor: Gideon Long

Hakeem Anwar discusses his new report "Life Under Digital ID". He demonstrates how the rollout of digital identity is happening fast and globally, financed by globalist supranational organizations (e.g. UN, World Bank, Bill Gates). It will increasingly become impossible to use public or private services without digital identity. He provides the best summary of what can be done at this late stage in the game. Watch on BitChute / Brighteon / Rumble / Substack / YouTube *Support Geopolitics & Empire! Become a Member https://geopoliticsandempire.substack.com Donate https://geopoliticsandempire.com/donations Consult https://geopoliticsandempire.com/consultation **Visit Our Affiliates & Sponsors! Above Phone https://abovephone.com/?above=geopolitics easyDNS (15% off with GEOPOLITICS) https://easydns.com Escape The Technocracy (15% off with GEOPOLITICS) https://escapethetechnocracy.com/geopolitics Outbound Mexico https://outboundmx.com PassVult https://passvult.com Sociatates Civis https://societates-civis.com StartMail https://www.startmail.com/partner/?ref=ngu4nzr Wise Wolf Gold https://www.wolfpack.gold/?ref=geopolitics Websites Above Phone https://abovephone.com/geopolitics Take Back Our Tech https://takebackourtech.org Substack https://tbot.substack.com Life Under Digital ID: A Global Analysis with Solutions https://abovephone.com/digital-id About Hakeem Anwar Hakeem Anwar is a technologist, activist, educator, and entrepreneur who dropped his corporate career to work on meaningful social movements. He is a core member of the Freedom Cell Network, and co-producer of The Greater Reset. He's helped grow both of these movements to tens and thousands of people while protecting the privacy of their users. Since then he has began educating and assisting others by launching #TakeBackOurTech, a free educational initiative that teaches people to use friendly, open, and transparent technologies across computers, phones, browsers, health considerations and much more. He's also co-founded Above Phone – a complete privacy phone solution that combines secure hardware, open-source operating systems, and cutting-edge privacy services. *Podcast intro music is from the song "The Queens Jig" by "Musicke & Mirth" from their album "Music for Two Lyra Viols": http://musicke-mirth.de/en/recordings.html (available on iTunes or Amazon)

Watch here: https://youtu.be/ybqWLEwL28Y  From economic reform and rising government spending to cultural shifts and the decline of liberalism, Costello reflects on the ideas that shaped the Howard years and what's needed to renew them today.

How can we train the next generation of entrepreneurs? In developing economies, more than a billion dollars a year is spent on this type of training, but does it work, are we training the right people with the right skills – and what opportunities are there to do better? David McKenzie of the World Bank is one of the senior editors of the latest version of the VoxDevLit on Training Entrepreneurs. He tells Tim Phillips what we know about what training can achieve, why training programmes are not “one size fits all”, and what this all means for policy.  The VoxDevLit on training entrepreneurs: https://voxdev.org/voxdevlit/training-entrepreneurs

This week on Skip The Queue we explore the science behind ensuring good visitor experiences, by looking at the role data has to play in thisJoining me are two experts in this field, Professor Jim Deegan, economist, tourism policy expert, and founder of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies at the University of Limerick, and Ernesto Sánchez- Batista, an expert in destination planning and digital transformation.Together, they have been instrumental in developing a new Tourism Data Dashboard. This has been utilised to transform the visitor experience at The Cliffs of Moher, one of  Ireland's most iconic landmarks.Let's find out how, and what they've achieved.  We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop' — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.Download your FREE copy here: https://pages.crowdconvert.co.uk/skip-the-queue-playbookSkip the Queue is brought to you by Crowd Convert. We provide attractions with the tools and expertise to create world-class digital interactions. Very simply, we're here to rehumanise commerce. Your host is Paul Marden.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn.Show references:  Jim Deegan - PHD Scholar of Cliffs of Moer Projecthttps://www.cliffsofmoher.ie/https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/economy/arid-41721501.htmlhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-deegan-94438b2a/Jim Deegan is the Director of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies (NCTPS), University of Limerick(UL), a member of the Economics Department( Head of department, 2011-2016) ) and Professor of Tourism Policy. He is an economist by training and his research interests and publications are in all facets of public policy for tourism. Jim is a highly cited author in tourism economics/policy papers and he acts as a referee for all the top rated international journals in tourism and has served on editorial boards of numerous journals that have included the Cornell Quarterly and Tourism Economics. As director of the NCTPS at UL he has raised more than €6 million through project research and philanthropic donations  that has funded research scholarships for more than 25 students to study tourism at postgraduate level. Jim has undertaken project research on behalf of the World Bank, The European Commission, Eurostat, The Irish Government, Failte Ireland, Tourism Ireland, the Marine Institute, the Law Society and many other public and private sector organisations across the world. He was the project lead for the team that delivered Ireland's first Tourism Satellite Account in 2004.Jim has served on numerous public and private sector committees/boards on tourism issues over the last 25 years and was a founding member of the Business Tourism Forum of Failte Ireland  from 2004 and was appointed to the Board of The National Tourism Development Authority( Failte Ireland) by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in 2013. He is currently a board member of the Birr Scientific and Heritage Foundation. Jim was the founding chairman and a shareholder in Treaty Radio Ltd that was sold to UTV PLC for €15.7million in 2002. Ernesto Batista Sánchez - PHD Scholar of Cliffs of Moer Projecthttps://www.ul.ie/business/departments/department-economics/research/national-centre-tourism-policy-studieshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/ebats/Ernesto Batista Sánchez is a PhD researcher at the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies (NCTPS), Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. Prior to this, he worked as an Assistant Professor in Tourism programmes at the University of Holguín, Cuba. He graduated with a first-class honours MA in International Tourism from the University of Limerick in 2020 and holds a PhD from the University of Holguín (2024). His research explores the application of technology and data analysis in tourism. The 2025 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsTake the Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report

In this episode of the Leading Voices in Food podcast, host Norbert Wilson is joined by food and nutrition policy economists Will Masters and Parke Wilde from Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition, Science and Policy. The discussion centers around the concept of the least cost diet, a tool used to determine the minimum cost required to maintain a nutritionally adequate diet. The conversation delves into the global computational methods and policies related to least cost diets, the challenges of making these diets culturally relevant, and the implications for food policy in both the US and internationally. You will also hear about the lived experiences of people affected by these diets and the need for more comprehensive research to better reflect reality. Interview Summary I know you both have been working in this space around least cost diets for a while. So, let's really start off by just asking a question about what brought you into this work as researchers. Why study least cost diets? Will, let's start with you. I'm a very curious person and this was a puzzle. So, you know, people want health. They want healthy food. Of course, we spend a lot on healthcare and health services, but do seek health in our food. As a child growing up, you know, companies were marketing food as a source of health. And people who had more money would spend more for premium items that were seen as healthy. And in the 2010s for the first time, we had these quantified definitions of what a healthy diet was as we went from 'nutrients' to 'food groups,' from the original dietary guidelines pyramid to the MyPlate. And then internationally, the very first quantified definitions of healthful diets that would work anywhere in the world. And I was like, oh, wow. Is it actually expensive to eat a healthy diet? And how much does it cost? How does it differ by place location? How does it differ over time, seasons, and years? And I just thought it was a fascinating question. Great, thank you for that. Parke? There's a lot of policy importance on this, but part of the fun also of this particular topic is more than almost any that we work on, it's connected to things that we have to think about in our daily lives. So, as you're preparing and purchasing food for your family and you want it to be a healthy. And you want it to still be, you know, tasty enough to satisfy the kids. And it can't take too long because it has to fit into a busy life. So, this one does feel like it's got a personal connection. Thank you both for that. One of the things I heard is there was an availability of data. There was an opportunity that seems like it didn't exist before. Can you speak a little bit about that? Especially Will because you mentioned that point. Will: Yes. So, we have had food composition data identifying for typical items. A can of beans, or even a pizza. You know, what is the expected, on average quantity of each nutrient. But only recently have we had those on a very large scale for global items. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of distinct items. And we had nutrient requirements, but only nutrient by nutrient, and the definition of a food group where you would want not only the nutrients, but also the phytochemicals, the attributes of food from its food matrix that make a vegetable different from just in a vitamin pill. And those came about in, as I mentioned, in the 2010s. And then there's the computational tools and the price observations that get captured. They've been written down on pads of paper, literally, and brought to a headquarters to compute inflation since the 1930s. But access to those in digitized form, only really in the 2000s and only really in the 2010s were we able to have program routines that would download millions and millions of price observations, match them to food composition data, match that food composition information to a healthy diet criterion, and then compute these least cost diets. Now we've computed millions and millions of these thanks to modern computing and all of that data. Great, Will. And you've already started on this, so let's continue on this point. You were talking about some of the computational methods and data that were available globally. Can you give us a good sense of what does a lease cost diet look like from this global perspective because we're going to talk to Parke about whether it is in the US. But let's talk about it in the broad sense globally. In my case the funding opportunity to pay for the graduate students and collaborators internationally came from the Gates Foundation and the UK International Development Agency, initially for a pilot study in Ghana and Tanzania. And then we were able to get more money to scale that up to Africa and South Asia, and then globally through a project called Food Prices for Nutrition. And what we found, first of all, is that to get agreement on what a healthy diet means, we needed to go to something like the least common denominator. The most basic, basic definition from the commonalities among national governments' dietary guidelines. So, in the US, that's MyPlate, or in the UK it's the Eat Well Guide. And each country's dietary guidelines look a little different, but they have these commonalities. So, we distilled that down to six food groups. There's fruits and vegetables, separately. And then there's animal source foods altogether. And in some countries they would separate out milk, like the United States does. And then all starchy staples together. And in some countries, you would separate out whole grains like the US does. And then all edible oils. And those six food groups, in the quantities needed to provide all the nutrients you would need, plus these attributes of food groups beyond just what's in a vitamin pill, turns out to cost about $4 a day. And if you adjust for inflation and differences in the cost of living, the price of housing and so forth around the world, it's very similar. And if you think about seasonal variation in a very remote area, it might rise by 50% in a really bad situation. And if you think about a very remote location where it's difficult to get food to, it might go up to $5.50, but it stays in that range between roughly speaking $2.50 and $5.00. Meanwhile, incomes are varying from around $1.00 a day, and people who cannot possibly afford those more expensive food groups, to $200 a day in which these least expensive items are trivially small in cost compared to the issues that Parke mentioned. We can also talk about what we actually find as the items, and those vary a lot from place to place for some food groups and are very similar to each other in other food groups. So, for example, the least expensive item in an animal source food category is very often dairy in a rich country. But in a really dry, poor country it's dried fish because refrigeration and transport are very expensive. And then to see where there's commonalities in the vegetable category, boy. Onions, tomatoes, carrots are so inexpensive around the world. We've just gotten those supply chains to make the basic ingredients for a vegetable stew really low cost. But then there's all these other different vegetables that are usually more expensive. So, it's very interesting to look at which are the items that would deliver the healthfulness you need and how much they cost. It's surprisingly little from a rich country perspective, and yet still out of reach for so many in low-income countries. Will, thank you for that. And I want to turn now to looking in the US case because I think there's some important commonalities. Parke, can you describe the least cost diet, how it's used here in the US, and its implications for policy? Absolutely. And full disclosure to your audience, this is work on which we've benefited from Norbert's input and wisdom in a way that's been very valuable as a co-author and as an advisor for the quantitative part of what we were doing. For an article in the journal Food Policy, we use the same type of mathematical model that USDA uses when it sets the Thrifty Food Plan, the TFP. A hypothetical diet that's used as the benchmark for the maximum benefit in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is the nation's most important anti-hunger program. And what USDA does with this model diet is it tries to find a hypothetical bundle of foods and beverages that's not too different from what people ordinarily consume. The idea is it should be a familiar diet, it should be one that's reasonably tasty, that people clearly already accept enough. But it can't be exactly that diet. It has to be different enough at least to meet a cost target and to meet a whole long list of nutrition criteria. Including getting enough of the particular nutrients, things like enough calcium or enough protein, and also, matching food group goals reasonably well. Things like having enough fruits, enough vegetables, enough dairy. When, USDA does that, it finds that it's fairly difficult. It's fairly difficult to meet all those goals at once, at a cost and a cost goal all at the same time. And so, it ends up choosing this hypothetical diet that's almost maybe more different than would feel most comfortable from people's typical average consumption. Thank you, Parke. I'm interested to understand the policy implications of this least cost diet. You suggested something about the Thrifty Food Plan and the maximum benefit levels. Can you tell us a little bit more about the policies that are relevant? Yes, so the Thrifty Food Plan update that USDA does every five years has a much bigger policy importance now than it did a few years ago. I used to tell my students that you shouldn't overstate how much policy importance this update has. It might matter a little bit less than you would think. And the reason was because every time they update the Thrifty Food Plan, they use the cost target that is the inflation adjusted or the real cost of the previous edition. It's a little bit as if nobody wanted to open up the whole can of worms about what should the SNAP benefit be in the first place. But everything changed with the update in 2021. In 2021, researchers at the US Department of Agriculture found that it was not possible at the old cost target to find a diet that met all of the nutrition criteria - at all. Even if you were willing to have a diet that was quite different from people's typical consumption. And so, they ended up increasing the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan in small increments until they found a solution to this mathematical model using data on real world prices and on the nutrition characteristics of these foods. And this led to a 21% increase in the permanent value of the maximum SNAP benefit. Many people didn't notice that increase all that much because the increase came into effect at just about the same time that a temporary boost during the COVID era to SNAP benefits was being taken away. So there had been a temporary boost to how much benefits people got as that was taken away at the end of the start of the COVID pandemic then this permanent increase came in and it kind of softened the blow from that change in benefits at that time. But it now ends up meaning that the SNAP benefit is substantially higher than it would've been without this 2021 increase. And there's a lot of policy attention on this in the current Congress and in the current administration. There's perhaps a skeptical eye on whether this increase was good policy. And so, there are proposals to essentially take away the ability to update the Thrifty Food Plan change the maximum SNAP benefit automatically, as it used to. As you know, Norbert, this is part of all sorts of things going on currently. Like we heard in the news, just last week, about plans to end collecting household food security measurement using a major national survey. And so there will be sort of possibly less information about how these programs are doing and whether a certain SNAP benefit is needed in order to protect people from food insecurity and hunger. Parke, this is really important and I'm grateful that we're able to talk about this today in that SNAP benefit levels are still determined by this mathematical program that's supposed to represent a nutritionally adequate diet that also reflects food preferences. And I don't know how many people really understand or appreciate that. I can say I didn't understand or appreciate it until working more in this project. I think it's critical for our listeners to understand just how important this particular mathematical model is, and what it says about what a nutritionally adequate diet looks like in this country. I know the US is one of the countries that uses a model diet like this to help set policy. Will, I'd like to turn to you to see what ways other nations are using this sort of model diet. How have you seen policy receive information from these model diets? It's been a remarkable thing where those initial computational papers that we were able to publish in first in 2018, '19, '20, and governments asking how could we use this in practice. Parke has laid out how it's used in the US with regard to the benefit level of SNAP. The US Thrifty Food Plan has many constraints in addition to the basic ones for the Healthy Diet Basket that I described. Because clearly that Healthy Diet Basket minimum is not something anyone in America would think is acceptable. Just to have milk and frozen vegetables and low-cost bread, that jar peanut butter and that's it. Like that would be clearly not okay. So, internationally what's happened is that first starting in 2020, and then using the current formula in 2022, the United Nations agencies together with the World Bank have done global monitoring of food and nutrition security using this method. So, the least cost items to meet the Healthy Diet Basket in each country provide this global estimate that about a third of the global population have income available for food after taking account of their non-food needs. That is insufficient to buy this healthy diet. What they're actually eating is just starchy staples, oil, some calories from low-cost sugar and that's it. And very small quantities of the fruits and vegetables. And animal source foods are the expensive ones. So, countries have the opportunity to begin calculating this themselves alongside their normal monitoring of inflation with a consumer price index. The first country to do that was Nigeria. And Nigeria began publishing this in January 2024. And it so happened that the country's national minimum wage for civil servants was up for debate at that time. And this was a newly published statistic that turned out to be enormously important for the civil society advocates and the labor unions who were trying to explain why a higher civil service minimum wage was needed. This is for the people who are serving tea or the drivers and the low wage people in these government service agencies. And able to measure how many household members could you feed a healthy diet with a day's worth of the monthly wage. So social protection in the sense of minimum wage and then used in other countries regarding something like our US SNAP program or something like our US WIC program. And trying to define how big should those benefit levels be. That's been the first use. A second use that's emerging is targeting the supply chains for the low-cost vegetables and animal source foods and asking what from experience elsewhere could be an inexpensive animal source food. What could be the most inexpensive fruits. What could be the most inexpensive vegetables? And that is the type of work that we're doing now with governments with continued funding from the Gates Foundation and the UK International Development Agency. Will, it's fascinating to hear this example from Nigeria where all of the work that you all have been doing sort of shows up in this kind of debate. And it really speaks to the power of the research that we all are trying to do as we try to inform policy. Now, as we discussed the least cost diet, there was something that I heard from both of you. Are these diets that people really want? I'm interested to understand a little bit more about that because this is a really critical space.Will, what do we know about the lived experiences of those affected by least cost diet policy implementation. How are real people affected? It's such an important and interesting question, just out of curiosity, but also for just our human understanding of what life is like for people. And then of course the policy actions that could improve. So, to be clear, we've only had these millions of least cost diets, these benchmark 'access to' at a market near you. These are open markets that might be happening twice a week or sometimes all seven days of the week in a small town, in an African country or a urban bodega type market or a supermarket across Asia, Africa. We've only begun to have these benchmarks against which to compare actual food choice, as I mentioned, since 2022. And then really only since 2024 have been able to investigate this question. We're only beginning to match up these benchmark diets to what people actually choose. But the pattern we're seeing is that in low and lower middle-income countries, people definitely spend their money to go towards that healthy diet basket goal. They don't spend all of their additional money on that. But if you improve affordability throughout the range of country incomes - from the lowest income countries in Africa, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, to middle income countries in Africa, like Ghana, Indonesia, an upper middle-income country - people do spend their money to get more animal source foods, more fruits and vegetables, and to reduce the amount of the low cost starchy staples. They do increase the amount of discretionary, sugary meals. And a lot of what they're eating exits the healthy diet basket because there's too much added sodium, too much added sugar. And so, things that would've been healthy become unhealthy because of processing or in a restaurant setting. So, people do spend their money on that. But they are moving towards a healthy diet. That breaks down somewhere in the upper income and high-income countries where additional spending becomes very little correlated with the Healthy Diet Basket. What happens is people way overshoot the Healthy Diet Basket targets for animal source foods and for edible oils because I don't know if you've ever tried it, but one really delicious thing is fried meat. People love it. And even low middle income people overshoot on that. And that displaces the other elements of a healthy diet. And then there's a lot of upgrading, if you will, within the food group. So, people are spending additional money on nicer vegetables. Nicer fruits. Nicer animal source foods without increasing the total amount of them in addition to having overshot the healthy diet levels of many of those food groups. Which of course takes away from the food you would need from the fruits, the vegetables, and the pulses, nuts and seeds, that almost no one gets as much as is considered healthy, of that pulses, nuts and seeds category. Thank you. And I want to shift this to the US example. So, Parke, can you tell us a bit more about the lived experience of those affected by least cost diet policy? How are real people affected? One of the things I've enjoyed about this project that you and I got to work on, Norbert, in cooperation with other colleagues, is that it had both a quantitative and a qualitative part to it. Now, our colleague Sarah Folta led some of the qualitative interviews, sort of real interviews with people in food pantries in four states around the country. And this was published recently in the Journal of Health Education and Behavior. And we asked people about their goals and about what are the different difficulties or constraints that keep them from achieving those goals. And what came out of that was that people often talk about whether their budget constraints and whether their financial difficulties take away their autonomy to sort of be in charge of their own food choices. And this was something that Sarah emphasized as she sort of helped lead us through a process of digesting what was the key findings from these interviews with people. One of the things I liked about doing this study is that because the quantitative and the qualitative part, each had this characteristic of being about what do people want to achieve. This showed up mathematically in the constrained optimization model, but it also showed up in the conversations with people in the food pantry. And what are the constraints that keep people from achieving it. You know, the mathematical model, these are things like all the nutrition constraints and the cost constraints. And then in the real conversations, it's something that people raise in very plain language about what are all the difficulties they have. Either in satisfying their own nutrition aspirations or satisfying some of the requirements for one person or another in the family. Like if people have special diets that are needed or if they have to be gluten free or any number of things. Having the diets be culturally appropriate. And so, I feel like this is one of those classic things where different disciplines have wisdom to bring to bear on what's really very much a shared topic. What I hear from both of you is that these diets, while they are computationally interesting and they reveal some critical realities of how people eat, they can't cover everything. People want to eat certain types of foods. Certain types of foods are more culturally relevant. And that's really clear talking to you, Will, about just sort of the range of foods that end up showing up in these least cost diets and how you were having to make some adjustments there. Parke, as you talked about the work with Sarah Folta thinking through autonomy and sort of a sense of self. This kind of leads us to a question that I want to open up to both of you. What's missing when we talk about these least cost diet modeling exercises and what are the policy implications of that? What are the gaps in our understanding of these model diets and what needs to happen to make them reflect reality better? Parke? Well, you know, there's many things that people in our research community are working on. And it goes quite, quite far afield. But I'm just thinking of two related to our quantitative research using the Thrifty Food Plan type models. We've been working with Yiwen Zhao and Linlin Fan at Penn State University on how these models would work if you relaxed some of the constraints. If people's back in a financial sense weren't back up against the wall, but instead they had just a little more space. We were considering what if they had incentives that gave them a discount on fruits and vegetables, for example, through the SNAP program? Or what if they had a healthy bundle of foods provided through the emergency food system, through food banks or food pantries. What is the effect directly in terms of those foods? But also, what is the effect in terms of just relaxing their budget constraints. They get to have a little more of the foods that they find more preferred or that they had been going without. But then also, in terms of sort of your question about the more personal. You know, what is people's personal relationships with food? How does this play out on the ground? We're working with the graduate student Angelica Valdez Valderrama here at the Friedman School, thinking about what some of the cultural assumptions and of the food group constraints in some of these models are. If you sort of came from a different immigrant tradition or if you came from another community, what things would be different in, for example, decisions about what's called the Mediterranean diet or what's called the healthy US style dietary pattern. How much difference do this sort of breadth, cultural breadth of dietary patterns you could consider, how much difference does that make in terms of what's the outcome of this type of hypothetical diet? Will: And I think, you know, from the global perspective, one really interesting thing is when we do combine data sets and look across these very different cultural settings, dry land, Sahelian Africa versus countries that are coastal versus sort of forest inland countries versus all across Asia, south Asia to East Asia, all across Latin America. We do see the role of these cultural factors. And we see them playing out in very systematic ways that people come to their cultural norms for very good reasons. And then pivot and switch away to new cultural norms. You know, American fast food, for example, switching from beef primarily to chicken primarily. That sort of thing becomes very visible in a matter of years. So, in terms of things that are frontiers for us, remember this is early days. Getting many more nutritionists, people in other fields, looking at first of all, it's just what is really needed for health. Getting those health requirements improved and understood better is a key priority. Our Healthy Diet Basket comes from the work of a nutritionist named Anna Herforth, who has gone around the world studying these dietary guidelines internationally. We're about to get the Eat Lancet dietary recommendations announced, and it'll be very interesting to see how those evolve. Second thing is much better data on prices and computing these diets for more different settings at different times, different locations. Settings that are inner city United States versus very rural. And then this question of comparing to actual diets. And just trying to understand what people are seeking when they choose foods that are clearly not these benchmark least cost items. The purpose is to ask how far away and why and how are they far away? And particularly to understand to what degree are these attributes of the foods themselves: the convenience of the packaging, the preparation of the item, the taste, the flavor, the cultural significance of it. To what degree are we looking at the result of aspirations that are really shaped by marketing. Are really shaped by the fire hose of persuasion that companies are investing in every day. And very strategically and constantly iterating to the best possible spokesperson, the best possible ad campaign. Combining billboards and radio and television such that you're surrounded by this. And when you drive down the street and when you walk into the supermarket, there is no greater effort on the planet than the effort to sell us a particular brand of food. Food companies are basically marketing companies attached to a manufacturing facility, and they are spending much more than the entire combined budget of the NIH and CDC, et cetera, to persuade us to eat what we ultimately choose. And we really don't know to what degree it's the actual factors in the food itself versus the marketing campaigns and the way they've evolved. You know, if you had a choice between taking the food system and regulating it the way we regulate, say housing or vehicles. If we were to say your supermarket should be like an auto dealership, right? So, anything in the auto dealership is very heavily regulated. Everything from the paint to where the gear shift is to how the windows work. Everything is heavily regulated because the auto industry has worked with National Transportation Safety Board and every single crash investigation, et cetera, has led to the standards that we have now. We didn't get taxes on cars without airbags to make us choose cars with airbags. They're just required. And same is true for housing, right? You can't just build, you know, an extension deck behind your house any way you want. A city inspector will force you to tear it out if you haven't built it to code. So, you know, we could regulate the grocery store like we do that. It's not going to happen politically but compare that option to treating groceries the way we used to treat the legal services or pharmaceuticals. Which is you couldn't advertise them. You could sell them, and people would choose based on the actual merit of the lawyer or the pharmaceutical, right? Which would have the bigger impact. Right? If there was zero food advertising, you just walked into the grocery store and chose what you liked. Or you regulate the grocery store the same way we regulate automotive or building trades. Obviously, they both matter. There's, you know, this problem that you can't see, taste or smell the healthiness of food. You're always acting on belief and not a fact when you choose something that you're seeking health. We don't know to what extent choice is distorted away from a low-cost healthy diet by things people genuinely want and need. Such as taste, convenience, culture, and so forth. Versus things that they've been persuaded to want. And there's obviously some of both. All of these things matter. But I'm hopeful that through these least cost diets, we can identify that low-cost options are there. And you could feed your family a very healthy diet at the Thrifty Food Plan level in the United States, or even lower. It would take time, it would take attention, it would be hard. You can take some shortcuts to make that within your time budget, right? And the planning budget. And we can identify what those look like thanks to these model diets. It's a very exciting area of work, but we still have a lot to do to define carefully what are the constraints. What are the real objectives here. And how to go about helping people, acquire these foods that we now know are there within a short commuting distance. You may need to take the bus, you may need carpool. But that's what people actually do to go grocery shopping. And when they get there, we can help people to choose items that would genuinely meet their needs at lower cost. Bios Will Masters is a Professor in the Friedman School of Nutrition, with a secondary appointment in Tufts University's Department of Economics. He is coauthor of the new textbook on Food Economics: Agriculture, Nutrition and Health (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). Before coming to Tufts in 2010 he was a faculty member in Agricultural Economics at Purdue University (1991-2010), and also at the University of Zimbabwe (1989-90), Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (2000) and Columbia University (2003-04). He is former editor-in-chief of the journal Agricultural Economics (2006-2011), and an elected Fellow of the American Society for Nutrition (FASN) as well as a Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA). At Tufts his courses on economics of agriculture, food and nutrition were recognized with student-nominated, University-wide teaching awards in 2019 and 2022, and he leads over a million dollars annually in externally funded research including work on the Agriculture, Nutrition and Health Academy (https://www.anh-academy.org), as well as projects supporting government efforts to calculate the cost and affordability of healthy diets worldwide and work with private enterprises on data analytics for food markets in Africa. Parke Wilde (PhD, Cornell) is a food economist and professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Previously, he worked for USDA's Economic Research Service. At Tufts, Parke teaches graduate-level courses in statistics, U.S. food policy, and climate change. His research addresses the economics of U.S. food and nutrition policy, including federal nutrition assistance programs. He was Director of Design for the SNAP Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) evaluation. He has been a member of the National Academy of Medicine's Food Forum and is on the scientific and technical advisory committee for Menus of Change, an initiative to advance the health and sustainability of the restaurant industry. He directs the USDA-funded Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) Partnership. He received the AAEA Distinguished Quality of Communication Award for his textbook, Food Policy in the United States: An Introduction (Routledge/Earthscan), whose third edition was released in April 2025. 

Harbinger Showcase is a weekly podcast featuring highlights from Canada's #1 coast-to-coast community of politically and socially progressive podcasts. On this episode we discuss how Doug Ford and Mark Carney's housing policies heavily favour corporate landlords on THE BREACH SHOW, talk about the best case outcome of the NDP leadership race on THE NORTH STATE, speak with the World Bank's Chief Climate Economist about the links between climate change and poverty on GREEN MAJORITY and explore Universal Basic Income and how its appeal relates to left-wing politics and strategy on ALBERTA ADVANTAGE.The Harbinger Media Network includes 83 podcasts focused on social, economic and environmental justice and featuring journalists, academics and activists on shows like The Breach Show, Tech Won't Save Us, Press Progress Sources & more.Harbinger Showcase is syndicated to community and campus radio and heard every week on CKUT 90.3FM in Montreal, at CFUV 101.9FM in Victoria, at CIVL 101.7FM in Abbotsford, at CHLY 101.7FM in Nanaimo, on CJUM 101.5FM and CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg, at CiTR 101.9FM, CJSF 90.1FM and at CFRO 100.5FM in Vancouver, at Hamilton's CFMU 93.3FM, at Radio Laurier in Waterloo, at CJTM 1280AM in Toronto, at CJAM 99.1FM in Windsor and at CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Find out more about the network, subscribe to the weekly newsletter and support our work at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Harbinger Showcase is a weekly podcast featuring highlights from Canada's #1 coast-to-coast community of politically and socially progressive podcasts. On this episode we discuss how Doug Ford and Mark Carney's housing policies heavily favour corporate landlords on THE BREACH SHOW, talk about the best case outcome of the NDP leadership race on THE NORTH STATE, speak with the World Bank's Chief Climate Economist about the links between climate change and poverty on GREEN MAJORITY and explore Universal Basic Income and how its appeal relates to left-wing politics and strategy on ALBERTA ADVANTAGE.The Harbinger Media Network includes 83 podcasts focused on social, economic and environmental justice and featuring journalists, academics and activists on shows like The Breach Show, Tech Won't Save Us, Press Progress Sources & more.Harbinger Showcase is syndicated to community and campus radio and heard every week on CKUT 90.3FM in Montreal, at CFUV 101.9FM in Victoria, at CIVL 101.7FM in Abbotsford, at CHLY 101.7FM in Nanaimo, on CJUM 101.5FM and CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg, at CiTR 101.9FM, CJSF 90.1FM and at CFRO 100.5FM in Vancouver, at Hamilton's CFMU 93.3FM, at Radio Laurier in Waterloo, at CJTM 1280AM in Toronto, at CJAM 99.1FM in Windsor and at CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Find out more about the network, subscribe to the weekly newsletter and support our work at harbingermedianetwork.com.

In this episode, host Michelle Pascoe sits down with global crisis and risk management expert Christine Miller. Together, they unpack how CEOs and executives can close the "leadership gap" by transforming uncertainty into strategic opportunity. Drawing on decades of global work with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and emergency services, Christine reveals how empowering your mid-level leaders to assess and manage risk protects your brand, culture, and bottom line. Michelle and Christine discuss: The real leadership gap — how excluding middle managers from risk decisions weakens organisations Crisis-tested lessons from Christine's global disaster work with governments and corporations Why proactive risk management fuels innovation, culture, and trust The role of AI in risk, resilience, and real-time decision-making Practical steps to embed “risk thinking” in leadership systems Resources & Links Contact Chris directly: chris@b4crisis.com.au Access Risk & Risk Management resources: RMIA.org.au  Work With Michelle Michelle Pascoe helps hospitality, tourism, and service-based leaders build resilient, empowered teams that thrive in change. Explore her Leadership Development Programs, Customer Experience Training, and Keynote Speaking at michellepascoe.com.

As China's economic influence expands, so does its ambition to shape the very system that once constrained it. In this episode of The China-Global South Podcast, Eric speaks with Greg Chin and Kevin Gallagher from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center about their new book that details China's transformation from a "rules taker" within the Bretton Woods system to a "rules maker" who's now reshaping the international development finance architecture. Greg and Kevin explore the country's growing role in the IMF and World Bank, its creation of new institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB), and what this means for developing nations navigating between Western and Chinese-led finance. CHAPTERS: • Introduction – A brief calm in U.S.–China tensions • Rule Taker → Rule Maker – China's rise inside global finance • Building Alternatives – Creating the AIIB and NDB • Two-Way Countervailing Power – Leveraging inside–outside influence • Green Finance and "Next Practices" – Raising the bar on development norms • Debt and Diplomacy – How China handles restructuring • Institutional Layering – Shaping without dismantling • Washington's Dilemma – Anxiety over losing control • The Global South's New Agency – More options, more leverage • A New Multilateral Moment – Uncertain future for global governance SHOW NOTES:

Robert S. McNamara was widely considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his generation. He was an invaluable ally of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson as their secretary of defense, and he had a deeply moving relationship with Jackie Kennedy. But to the country, McNamara was the leading advocate for American escalation in Vietnam. He strongly advised Johnson to deploy hundreds of thousands of American ground troops, just weeks before concluding that the war was unwinnable, and for the next two and a half years McNamara failed to urge Johnson to cut his losses and withdraw. Join us to hear Philip and William Taubman examine McNamara's life of intense personal contradictions—from his childhood, his career as a young faculty member at Harvard Business School, and his World War II service, to his leadership of the Ford Motor Company and the World Bank. They had access to materials previously unavailable to McNamara biographers, including Jacqueline Kennedy's warm letters to McNamara; family correspondence dating back to McNamara's service in World War II; and a secret diary maintained by McNamara's top Vietnam policy aide. What emerges is a comprehensive story of the controversial former leader of the Pentagon: riven by melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and a profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late. The Taubmans relate this story in McNamara at War, presenting a portrait of a man at war with himself―with a grave influence on the history of the United States and the world. The Commonwealth Club of California is a nonprofit public forum; we welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our programming. A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Philip Taubman photo by and copyright Linda Cicero, Stanford University; William Taubman photo by Michele Stapleton; courtesy the speakers. Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs. Organizer: George Hammond  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As China's economic influence expands, so does its ambition to shape the very system that once constrained it. In this episode of The China-Global South Podcast, Eric speaks with Greg Chin and Kevin Gallagher from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center about their new book that details China's transformation from a "rules taker" within the Bretton Woods system to a "rules maker" who's now reshaping the international development finance architecture. Greg and Kevin explore the country's growing role in the IMF and World Bank, its creation of new institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB), and what this means for developing nations navigating between Western and Chinese-led finance. CHAPTERS: • Introduction – A brief calm in U.S.–China tensions • Rule Taker → Rule Maker – China's rise inside global finance • Building Alternatives – Creating the AIIB and NDB • Two-Way Countervailing Power – Leveraging inside–outside influence • Green Finance and "Next Practices" – Raising the bar on development norms • Debt and Diplomacy – How China handles restructuring • Institutional Layering – Shaping without dismantling • Washington's Dilemma – Anxiety over losing control • The Global South's New Agency – More options, more leverage • A New Multilateral Moment – Uncertain future for global governance SHOW NOTES:

YFYI (Yoga For Your Intellect) is a conversational, digital approach to the 5000+ year old, ancient eastern philosophy of Vedanta.Would you like to experience a live YFYI for you and your team? Email yogaforyourintellect@gmail.com for details.About the hosts: James Beshara is a world-renowned founder and startup investor (ranked as high as the #2 global venture investor by investment platforms like AngelList) and has been invited to speak at places such as Harvard Business School, Stanford University, and The World Bank.Joseph Emmett has been a student of Vedanta for over 25 years, teaching this “perennial philosophy” around the world, with over a decade spent at the Vedanta Academy in Malavli, India under the guidance and teaching of acclaimed Vedanta philosopher and author, Swami A. Parthasarathy.In addition to weekly podcast episodes, the hosts, James and Joseph, also host a weekly Clubhouse conversation on Friday mornings with open Q&A (search for the ‘Yoga For Your Intellect' club within the Clubhouse app).Would you like to dive in deeper? Our recommendation is to read the clearest and most complete work on Vedanta in recent history — ‘Vedanta Treatise: The Eternities' by A. Parthasarathy, which can be found on Amazon. We also encourage you to subscribe to these conversations if you find them valuable for more weekly insights to the perennial philosophy.For the deepest dive, check out Swami A. Parthasarathy's eLearning program here:https://elearning.vedantaworld.org/Resources: Swami Parthasarathy: https://www.vedantaworld.org/about/swamijiVedanta Treatise: The Eternities: https://www.vedantaworld.org/books-and-media/12-books/86-vedanta-treatise-the-eternitiesBhagavad Gita: https://www.vedantaworld.org/books-and-media/12-books/82-bhagavad-gitaVedanta Academy: https://www.vedantaworld.org/about/vedanta-academyJoseph Emmett: https://www.vedantahouston.org/josephjiJames Beshara: https://jjbeshara.com/about/

DITCH YOUR DOCTOR! https://www.livelongerformula.com/wam Get a natural health practitioner and work with Christian Yordanov! Mention WAM and get a FREE masterclass! You will ALSO get a FREE metabolic function assessment! GET YOUR APRICOT SEEDS at the life-saving Richardson Nutritional Center HERE: https://rncstore.com/r?id=bg8qc1 Use code JOSH to save money! Get Your SUPER-SUPPLIMENTS HERE: https://vni.life/wam Use Code WAM15 & Save 15%! Life changing formulas you can't find anywhere else! GET YOUR WAV WATCH HERE: https://buy.wavwatch.com/WAM Use Code WAM to save $100 and purchase amazing healing frequency technology! Josh Sigurdson reports on the renewed fear campaign for Bird Flu as so-called "experts" claim rather than H5N1, there's a quickly spreading epidemic of H9N2 that risks people worldwide. As the news blasts out this latest propaganda, the UK claims 150,000 birds were impacted by Bird Flu (H5N1) leading to mass culling, similar to what we've seen before. This correlates with an already disrupted and crumbling supply chain for both chicken and beef. Simultaneously, Defra has imposed orders for regional poultry housing following the fear surrounding Bird Flu. St. Louis County, Missouri is also claiming there is a Bird Flu outbreak. The UK has previously mandated backyard chicken registration over Bird Flu fears and recently, the United Nations and the World Bank are targeting small scale chicken farms during their Bird Flu Global Summit. We've also seen as of this month the largest pandemic exercise in history out of the UK with Exercise Polaris. Fear surrounding flu outbreaks are hitting the news everywhere. More and more studies are coming out about the dangers of the Covid injections, yet we see the government continue to double down with the fast tracking of self amplifying mRNA vaccines for Bird Flu. While RFK Jr claims to be fighting big pharma, he had pushed MMR vaccines for Measles, the US government has released 10 new mRNA vaccines for children aged 6 months to 11 years old and Trump gave $7 billion to Pfizer which gives them a monopoly on the next fake pandemic as well as legal protection. Let's also not forget that RFK Jr was confirmed by a pharma funded house. This fearmongering will continue and let's not forget to what end and why. This is all part of the same puzzle to bring in technocracy worldwide utilizing manufactured emergencies. Prepare. Stay tuned for more from WAM! HELP SUPPORT US AS WE DOCUMENT HISTORY HERE: https://gogetfunding.com/help-keep-wam-alive/# GET HEIRLOOM SEEDS & NON GMO SURVIVAL FOOD HERE: https://heavensharvest.com/ USE Code WAM to save 5% plus free shipping! BUY GOLD HERE: https://firstnationalbullion.com/schedule-consult/ FIND OUR CoinTree page here: https://cointr.ee/joshsigurdson PURCHASE MERECHANDISE HERE: https://world-alternative-media.creator-spring.com/ PayPal: ancientwonderstelevision@gmail.com JOIN US on SubscribeStar here: https://www.subscribestar.com/world-alternative-media For subscriber only content! Pledge here! Just a dollar a month can help us alive! https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2652072&ty=h&u=2652072 BITCOIN ADDRESS: 18d1WEnYYhBRgZVbeyLr6UfiJhrQygcgNU World Alternative Media 2025

We've all been there—juggling new tech, new expectations, and wondering if our students are really learning what matters. In this chat, we talk about “pedagogical debt” (the gap between what we know works in teaching and what we actually do), how AI is shaking things up, and why the right kind of curiosity can help. At its heart, it's a conversation about making sure technology serves learning—not the other way around. Dr. Punya Mishra (punyamishra.com) is the Associate Dean of Scholarship and Innovation at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. He has an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering, two Master's degrees in Visual Communication and Mass Communications, and a Ph.D. in Educational psychology. He co-developed the TPACK framework, described as “the most significant advancement in technology integration in the past 25 years.” Dr. Caroline Fell Kurban is the advisor to the Rector at MEF University. She was the founding Director of the Center of Research and Best Practices for Learning and Teaching (CELT) at MEF University and teaches in the Faculty of Education. She holds a BSc in Geology, an MSc in TESOL, an MA in Technology and Learning Design, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics. Fell Kurban is currently the head of the Global Terminology Project and the creator of the GenAI-U technology integration framework. Dr. Liz Kolb is a clinical professor at the University of Michigan and the author of several books, including Cell Phones in the Classroom and Help Your Child Learn with Cell Phones and Web 2.0. Kolb has been a featured and keynote speaker at conferences throughout the U.S. and Canada. She created the Triple E Framework for effective teaching with digital technologies and blogs at cellphonesinlearning.com. Dr. Puentedura is the Founder and President of Hippasus, a consulting practice focusing on transformative applications of information technologies to education. He has implemented these approaches for over thirty years at various K-20 institutions and health and arts organizations. He is the creator of the SAMR model for selecting, using, and evaluating technology in education and has guided multiple projects worldwide. Dr. Helen Crompton is the Executive Director of the Research Institute for Digital Innovation in Learning at ODUGlobal and Professor of Instructional Technology at Old Dominion University. Dr. Crompton earned her Ph.D. in educational technology and mathematics education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel ill. Dr. Crompton is recognized for her outstanding contributions and is on Stanford's esteemed list of the world's Top 2% of Scientists. She is the creator of the SETI framework. She frequently serves as a consultant for various governments and bilateral and multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, on driving meaningful change in educational technology.

La ministre du développement a affirmé que la France continuerait de pousser la World Bank à consacrer 45 % de ses prêts aux objectifs climatiques, malgré les pressions américaines.Traduction : France's development minister stated the country will continue to urge the World Bank to allocate 45 % of its lending to climate goals despite U.S. pressure. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Trade policies shape everything from the price of goods to the stability of global economies, but how do they actually work? In part one of this two-part series, Plugged into Public Health host Lauren Lavin sits down with Dr. Anne Villamil, professor of economics at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business, to unpack the history and complexity of international trade. Dr. Villamil shares her experience working at the U.S. Trade Representative's Office in Washington, D.C., and explains how trade institutions like the World Bank and World Trade Organization came to exist after World War II. Together, they explore how trade agreements are negotiated, what lessons past trade wars can teach us, and why tariffs are back in the spotlight today. Tune in next week for part two, where Dr. Villamil breaks down how tariffs work in the modern U.S. economy. A transcript of this episode will be available here soon. Have a question for our podcast crew or an idea for an episode? You can email them at CPH-GradAmbassador@uiowa.edu You can also support Plugged in to Public Health by sharing this episode and others with your friends, colleagues, and social networks. #publichealth #globaltrade #tariffs #trade #internationaltrade #economics #politics #policies #tradewars #healthcare

Today we had the pleasure of hosting Obinna Isiadinso, Global Sector Lead for Data Center Investments at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. Obinna leads investment teams on valuation and execution considerations, reviews private equity and credit transaction structures, and participates in transaction negotiations in the Data Center and Cloud sectors in emerging markets globally. He is also the author of the Global Data Center Hub on Substack (linked here). His career spans private equity, infrastructure, and real assets. We were thrilled to host Obinna and learn from him on one of today's most dynamic topics. In our discussion, Obinna outlines the IFC's role as the private financing arm of the World Bank, shares his background in private equity and digital infrastructure, and describes his current global portfolio focus. He explains the IFC's structure and mission to achieve commercial returns while ensuring developmental impact, its ~$100 billion balance sheet, and dual role as a lender and equity investor. We cover the IFC's role in digital infrastructure and data centers, why data centers matter for emerging market development, the IFC's investment approach and capital structure, and Obinna's Substack, which tracks and summarizes global data center activity. We discuss global market sizing (U.S. ~30 GW; Northern Virginia 3–4 GW; Europe FLAP-D ~1-1.5 GW each; South America ~1 GW; Africa ~500 MW, ~250 MW in South Africa; India ~1.2-1.3 GW; China ~3-4 GW; Malaysia ~250 MW with ~1 GW pipeline in 3-5 years), the growth outlook with hyperscalers planning to add 30-50 GW in 3-5 years and roughly ~$400 billion capex this year, cost benchmarks ($10-12 million/MW plus chips), build times, EBITDA economics, current valuation multiples, the evolving fuel mix, and the IFC's sustainability criteria. Obinna summarizes the IFC's market-by-market approach to energy sourcing, rising power demand in emerging markets (and potential competition for scarce power), the IFC's initiatives to expand generation and grid capacity in Africa, and the Middle East's bid to be a ‘Switzerland of AI Infrastructure.' We ended by asking Obinna for key trends he's watching including diversification of AI models, continuous training workloads, and growing private credit participation. It was a fascinating conversation and we can't thank Obinna enough for joining and sharing his insights. We look forward to staying in touch. Mike Bradley noted that this will be a pivotal week for markets, with the FOMC rate decision on Wednesday, a slew of Q3 reports from Big AI/Tech and Energy/Electricity companies throughout this week, and an OPEC+ meeting being held over the weekend. In the bond market, the 10-year bond yield continues to be stuck in the 4% range. The Fed is expected to cut interest rates by 25bps both this week and again in December. On the oil market front, WTI price has slipped back to ~$60/bbl as oil traders seem fixated again on the 2026 oil supply surplus rather than Russian oil sanctions. OPEC+ is expected to raise November oil production by another 137kbpd (similar to October) at this weekend's OPEC+ meeting. At Veriten, we still envision oil markets in 2026 being a “tale of two markets” with 1H26 being challenged and 2H26 being pretty constructive. In global market news, President Javier Milei's party scored a major win in Argentina's legislative elections, sending bond yields lower, the peso modestly higher, and a 20%+ surge in the Argentina stock market. On the broader equity market front, the S&P 500 continues to reach new highs with this week's move mostly due to optimism of a China-U.S. trade deal. A handful of Big AI/Tech names will be reporting this week (AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, META & MSFT) which could increase broader marke

This week on Cleaning Up, we welcome back Rachel Kyte, the UK's Special Representative for Climate Change, for a deep dive into the shifting landscape of global climate diplomacy ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil.Rachel brings decades of experience — from leading Sustainable Energy for All under Ban Ki-Moon to senior roles at the World Bank and IFC — to unpack how countries, investors, and institutions are navigating the new era of implementation.Together, Michael and Rachel explore:How the UK is re-engaging globally on climate and energy policy.The evolution of climate finance and why capital still struggles to flow into emerging markets.Which path the world will follow, the US petrostate model, or China's electrostate model.Why investing in grids, governance, and infrastructure is still missing from the energy transition.What to expect at COP30 — from forest finance to a possible rethink of the annual COP model.And how countries from Africa to Asia are shaping their own pathways to clean growth and energy security.Rachel also reflects on public attitudes, the politicization of climate action, and the need for pragmatic cooperation over rhetoric.Leadership Circle:Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links and more:Rachel's first appearance on Cleaning Up: https://youtu.be/Umq5pICThDMInside the World's Biggest Investor - Ep138: Carine Smith IhenachoThe Planet's Leading Diplomat - Ep70: Ban Ki-moonSustainable Energy for All - Ep16: Dr Kandeh K. Yumkella

In an exclusive interview hosted by Landry Signé, Anna Bjerde, the World Bank's managing director of operations, discusses the Bank's top priorities and challenges in achieving its mandate in a changing world. This interview was recorded on-site on Day One of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's 2025 Annual Meetings in Washington, D.C. This is the final episode of season four of Foresight Africa podcast. Show notes and transcript Foresight Africa podcast is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on Apple, Spotify, Afripods, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu.

The region has been historically underrepresented in leadership at global standard setters like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The region has been historically underrepresented in leadership at global standard setters like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Sharath Martin, who holds positions in global accounting body ACCA and WWF-Malaysia, tells the Eco-Business Podcast what must change. Tune in as we discuss: The reasons behind Asean's lack of leadership at global financial and sustainability standard setters The region's strengths and challenges  The need to price in nature and biodiversity Whether the consensus-driven Asean Way is still relevant How Asean's mindset needs to shift

SEND ME A TEXT MESSAGE NOWThis is the Monday Fall, where the weekend's lies meet Monday's reality.This episode exposes the quiet chokehold being placed on truth itself. Across every screen and platform, from Washington to Wall Street, the same pattern is taking shape. What you can say, what you can see, and what you can believe are all being shaped for you.My first story takes you deep inside the tightening grip of social media control.The same digital platforms that once promised freedom of speech are now quietly deciding which voices matter. It is not about politics. It is about power, and who gets to keep it.Next, I move into a story that should shake anyone who still believes in a free press.Journalists who once stood their ground inside the Pentagon are now walking out, refusing to play by new rules that turn reporting into stage management. It is a moment that marks something far bigger than headlines. It marks the end of trust between the press and the powerful.From there, the focus shifts to the world stage and a so-called truce that is not what it seems.The United States and China are once again selling calm while chaos brews underneath. This story reveals what these photo opportunities really mean for global stability and why every investor cheering a breakthru may be cheering a ghost.And finally, the focus turns to the global economy itself, where the numbers look strong but the foundation is cracking.The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are sending quiet warnings, showing why this slowdown is not a crash but something far more dangerous. It is a slow fade into exhaustion, a system running on fumes while leaders smile for the cameras.Each of these stories connects to one truth.Control the message, and you control the public. Censorship is not always loud. Sometimes it is subtle, polite, and dressed as protection. What matters is that people keep asking questions, keep challenging power, and keep believing that truth belongs to everyone.A World Gone Mad Podcast exists to fight that silence.My Podcast is a voice for anyone who refuses to accept the scripted version of reality. Listen, question, share, and help keep independent commentary alive. Because if the people who still care about truth stay quiet, the silence becomes permanent.You can reach me by email at: WolfPackTalks@gmail.comAWorldGoneMadPodcast@gmail.com

McNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. 1955

McNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. 1968

McNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. 1968

SHOW 10-24-25 CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR THE SHOW BEGINS IN THE DOUBTS ABOUT CANADA  IN THE EYES OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. FIRST HOUR 9-915 Pennsylvania Aims to Be AI Capital with US-Made Non-Lithium Batteries. Salena Zito reports on Governor Shapiro's plan to establish Pennsylvania as the AI and data center capital, capitalizing on its energy resources and university system. She focuses on EOS, a Turtle Creek company making non-lithium batteries that are 97% US-made, countering reliance on Chinese lithium. AI data centers require high energy reliability, favoring coal and natural gas infrastructure. Governor Shapiro supports this buildout, including a $22 million grant for EOS. 915-930 Italian Olive Harvest and Historical Vatican-UK Royal Visit. Lorenzo Fiori reports that the olive harvest in Tuscany is expected to be low in quantity due to mosquito damage caused by humidity and rain. However, recent strong winds helped remove damaged olives, potentially ensuring a "very tasty" oil. Fiori also discusses the historical visit of King Charles III to the Vatican's Sistine Chapel to pray with Pope Francis. This event, which Fiori found spectacular, is seen as crucial for restoring dialogue between the Anglican and Catholic Churches after centuries of division. 930-945 Small Business Economy Steady; AI Remains a 'Toy'. Gene Marks reports on the small business economy, noting steady activity among machine parts manufacturers, often preparing for an "onshoring boom." Construction and housing are holding steady but anticipate a future boom as interest rates decline. Tariffs have a muted impact, often absorbed or passed on as separate invoice line items for transparency. Marks demonstrates that AI, despite its advances, is not ready for prime-time business use, failing to accurately generate a requested image of a Yorkshire Terrier hitting a home run. 945-1000 Small Business Economy Steady; AI Remains a 'Toy'. Gene Marks reports on the small business economy, noting steady activity among machine parts manufacturers, often preparing for an "onshoring boom." Construction and housing are holding steady but anticipate a future boom as interest rates decline. Tariffs have a muted impact, often absorbed or passed on as separate invoice line items for transparency. Marks demonstrates that AI, despite its advances, is not ready for prime-time business use, failing to accurately generate a requested image of a Yorkshire Terrier hitting a home run. SECOND HOUR 10-1015 Pacific Palisades Housing Dispute and West Coast Infrastructure Challenges. Jeff Bliss covers West Coast issues, including traffic disruption from new high-speed rail construction between Southern California and Las Vegas. Pacific Palisades residents are protesting state and local plans to use burned-out lots for high-density, multistory affordable housing, fearing the change in community character and increased traffic. Additionally, copper theft from EV charging stations is undermining Los Angeles's zero emissions goals. Homeless encampments are also sparking major brush fire concerns in areas like Malibu and the Sepulveda Basin. 1015-1030 Pennsylvania Pursues Data Center Hub Status, Converting Golf Courses. Jim McTague reports on Pennsylvania's effort to become a data center hub, citing over $90 billion committed investment statewide. York County secured $5 billion, with plans including converting Brierwood Golf Course into a data center. This effort faces public resistance fueled by fears of higher electricity and water prices. McTague notes that consumer spending in Lancaster County is "steady." The conversion of golf courses reflects the decline of golf, seen as a "dinosaur" activity that takes too much time. 1030-1045 Professor Epstein Slams Trump's Economic Policies as 'State Socialism'. Professor Richard Epstein analyzes four Trump administration economic decisions concerning Intel, Nvidia, US Steel, and MP Mining, labeling them forms of state-owned enterprise or "state socialism." Epstein argues that acquiring golden shares or negotiating side deals—like Nvidia paying 15% of China revenue—destroys market value, undercuts competitors, and violates the neutral application of laws. He also critiques the Gaza deal, stating Hamas must be wiped out before any subsequent phases of the agreement can proceed. 1045-1100 Professor Epstein Slams Trump's Economic Policies as 'State Socialism'. Professor Richard Epstein analyzes four Trump administration economic decisions concerning Intel, Nvidia, US Steel, and MP Mining, labeling them forms of state-owned enterprise or "state socialism." Epstein argues that acquiring golden shares or negotiating side deals—like Nvidia paying 15% of China revenue—destroys market value, undercuts competitors, and violates the neutral application of laws. He also critiques the Gaza deal, stating Hamas must be wiped out before any subsequent phases of the agreement can proceed. THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 cMcNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. 1115-1130 cMcNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. 1130-1145 cMcNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. 1145-1200 cMcNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 Trump Administration's Economic Interventionism Questioned as 'State Capitalism'. Veronique de Rugy critiques the Trump administration's economic policies regarding companies like Intel, US Steel, and MP Mining, calling them "state capitalism" or forms of nationalization. She argues that the government acquiring a minority share in Intel creates bad incentives and unfair competitive advantages. Regarding MP Mining, de Rugy notes that guaranteeing a price floor fails to address the underlying issue of government regulation hindering rare earth production in the US.E 1215-1230 The Postponement of the Budapest Meeting and Negotiating with Putin. Cliff May discusses the postponement of the Trump-Putin Budapest meeting, attributing it to Marco Rubio insisting on a cessation of hostilities, which Foreign Minister Lavrov rejected, demanding "all Ukraine." May warns President Trump against being outnegotiated, referencing Stalin's success over Roosevelt and Churchill at Yalta. Putin admires Stalin, who expanded the Russian Empire and engineered the Holodomor famine. May stresses that Russians negotiate only to win, not to compromise. 1230-1245 NASA's Artemis Woes, Chinese Debris, and Global Space Industry Shifts. Bob Zimmerman discusses NASA's Artemis program, noting Administrator Sean Duffy is using a social media feud with Elon Musk as a "shiny object" to distract from the Orion capsule's untrustworthy heat shield risks. Other space issues include China's dangerous rocket debris crashes, some using highly toxic fuels, and European satellite companies consolidating into Project Bromo due to competition. Zimmerman also highlights the discovery of a large asteroid orbiting near Venus and Lockheed Martin's investment in Venus Aerospace's radical rocket engine design. 1245-100 AM NASA's Artemis Woes, Chinese Debris, and Global Space Industry Shifts. Bob Zimmerman discusses NASA's Artemis program, noting Administrator Sean Duffy is using a social media feud with Elon Musk as a "shiny object" to distract from the Orion capsule's untrustworthy heat shield risks. Other space issues include China's dangerous rocket debris crashes, some using highly toxic fuels, and European satellite companies consolidating into Project Bromo due to competition. Zimmerman also highlights the discovery of a large asteroid orbiting near Venus and Lockheed Martin's investment in Venus Aerospace's radical rocket engine design.

McNamara at War: Loyalty, Secrets, and the Vietnam Conflict. Professor William Taubman discusses Robert McNamara's complicated role during the LBJ years. McNamara enabled the Vietnam War escalation, notably misrepresenting the Gulf of Tonkin incidents to Congress. Despite later secretly opposing the war ("I want so badly to bring the boys home"), he remained silent due to loyalty to Johnson and the presidency. Taubman also details McNamara's role spying on the Kennedys for LBJ and his "loving" relationship with Jackie Kennedy. His post-Pentagon role at the World Bank served as a form of repentance. 1968

The 5 or 6 richest people in the world now own most American media and social media. This is the story of how exactly they have bought up the vast majority of what Americans hear, see, and read. PLUS, the World Bank has been working its hardest to help the struggling people of Nigeria. Then why have Nigerians only gotten poorer since the World Bank started "helping" them?

Why is your rent so high? What are the policies that created this housing crisis, and what policies can get us out of it? This week we launch the first two parts of our new series, ‘Who Does It Best?'. At a time when many people feel like their governments are not taking care of them, we wondered: how do policies actually shape our daily lives? And are there places getting it right?    In Housing Part 1, Katz takes us on a journey through Vienna, Finland, and Paris, looking for Europe's most ambitious housing policies and what we can learn from them (and maybe even copy?!). But first, Katz and Dominic sit down to face the elephant in the room: money, housing, and inheritance.   If you're curious about where you stand on your country's wealth ladder, you can find the World Bank's wealth calculator here.    If you want to know your renters' rights, many countries have renters' unions that give (legal) advice. Here is the Dutch one: Woonbond.   Interested in hearing more radio that looks at how politics gets into our intimate lives? Journalist Anna Sale's book and podcast “about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more” have been a huge inspiration for this podcast.   And most importantly, this series was fully funded by you - our listeners! Our generous crowdfunders hit our goal within two months, and made it possible for us to do extensive reporting fully independently. We couldn't be more grateful. If you're feeling inspired to support our ongoing work, please go to patreon.com/europeanspodcast. You can donate as little as 3 euros, less than an overpriced cappuccino! But you can also donate plenty more ;)   Want to support us in another way? Please consider telling one or two friends specifically about this episode, and sharing it with them. It is the most effective way for us to reach people! Written, reported and produced by: Katz Laszlo Editors: Jasmin Baoumy, Katy Lee Editorial support: Dominic Kraemer, Morgan Childs, Uršula Zaletelj, Maja Stepančič Sound design: Jesse Lou Lawson Mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak Music and SFX: Epidemic & FreeSound.Org, including pneumatic drill by acclivity Artwork: RTiiiKA Special thanks to: Vera Vrijmoeth, Georgia Walker, Cody Hochstenbach, Molly Broome, Juha Kahila, Ton Heijdra, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, Museum Het Schip, Woonbond, and the many more friends and strangers who talked to us about housing and money. YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | hello@europeanspodcast.com    

Katz goes back to the drawing board. If the housing crisis is really about wealth inequality, doesn't the policy we need to fix it… need to address wealth inequality? We go in deep, and what Katz finds makes us wonder: are we even having the right conversation when it comes to the housing crisis?    If you're curious about where you stand on your country's wealth ladder, you can find the World Bank's calculator here, which adjusts for things like home ownership.    The intergenerational wealth audit that Molly co-authored, you can find here.   You can find one of the OECD's reports on housing tax in Europe here.   You can find Cody's book on housing shame here.   Interested in hearing more radio that looks at how politics gets into our intimate lives? Journalist Anna Sale's book and podcast “about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more” have been a huge inspiration.   If you want to know your renters' rights, many countries have renters' unions that give (legal) advice. Here's the Dutch one: Woonbond.   And most importantly, this series was fully funded by you - our listeners! Our generous crowdfunders hit our goal within two months, and made it possible for us to do extensive reporting fully independently. We couldn't be more grateful. If you're feeling inspired to support our ongoing work, please go to patreon.com/europeanspodcast. You can donate as little as 3 euros, less than an overpriced cappuccino! But you can also donate plenty more ;)   Want to support us in another way? Please consider telling one or two friends specifically about this episode, and sharing it with them. It is the most effective way for us to reach people! Written, reported and produced by: Katz Laszlo Editors: Jasmin Baoumy, Katy Lee Editorial support: Dominic Kraemer, Morgan Childs, Uršula Zaletelj, Maja Stepančič Sound design: Jesse Lou Lawson Mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak Music and SFX: Epidemic & FreeSound.Org Artwork: RTiiiKA Special thanks to: Vera Vrijmoeth, Georgia Walker, Cody Hochstenbach, Molly Broome, Juha Kahila, Ton Heijdra, Marie-Jeanne Dumont, Museum Het Schip, Woonbond, and the many more friends and strangers who talked to us about housing and money.   YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | hello@europeanspodcast.com

Spoiler alert: Bitcoin is not boiling the oceans. $ BTC 109,080 Block Height 920,405 Today's guest on the show is Daniel Batten who joins me to discuss his work concerning Bitcoin mining. How did Daniel find himself on a mission to start fighting the fudsters, such as Greenpeace and many other paid shills who are hell bent on trying to label Bitcoin as bad for the environment? What was the response to his first-ever post about his research and how did that make him feel? Why has he moved to Costa Rica and what does he hope to do with vast piles of rotting garbage? A huge thank you to Daniel for all his work in the Bitcoin space and for fighting the endless stream of complete nonsense! Learn more about Daniel here - https://batcoinz.com/ Follow Daniel here - Twitter - @DSBatten Check out my book ‘Choose Life' - https://bitcoinbook.shop/search?q=prince ALL LINKS HERE - FOR DISCOUNTS AND OFFERS - https://vida.page/princey - https://linktr.ee/princey21m Pleb Service Announcements: Join 18 thousand Bitcoiners on @orangepillapp https://signup.theorangepillapp.com/opa/princey Support the pod via @fountain_app -https://fountain.fm/show/2oJTnUm5VKs3xmSVdf5n The Once Bitten YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Princey21m The Bitcoin And Show: https://www.bitcoinandshow.com/ https://fountain.fm/show/eK5XaSb3UaLRavU3lYrI Shills and Mench's: CONFERENCES 2025: BITFEST - MANCHESTER - ENGLAND - 21st - 23rd November 2025. https://bitfest.uk/ - USE CODE BITTEN - 10% BTC JAPAN - TPKYO - 23rd - 24th November. https://btc-jpn.com/en USE CODE BITTEN - 10% PAY WITH FLASH. Accept Bitcoin on your website or platform with no-code and low-code integrations. https://paywithflash.com/ RELAI - STACK SATS - www.relai.me/Bitten Use Code BITTEN SWAN BITCOIN - www.swan.com/bitten BITBOX - SELF CUSTODY YOUR BITCOIN - www.bitbox.swiss/bitten Use Code BITTEN PLEBEIAN MARKET - BUY AND SELL STUFF FOR SATS; https://plebeian.market/ @PlebeianMarket ZAPRITE - https://zaprite.com/bitten - Invoicing and accounting for Bitcoiners - Save $40 KONSENSUS NETWORK - Buy bitcoin books in different languages. Use code BITTEN for 10% discount - https://bitcoinbook.shop?ref=bitten SEEDOR STEEL PLATE BACK-UP - @seedor_io use the code BITTEN for a 5% discount. www.seedor.io/BITTEN SATSBACK - Shop online and earn back sats! https://satsback.com/register/5AxjyPRZV8PNJGlM HEATBIT - Home Bitcoin mining - https://www.heatbit.com/?ref=DANIELPRINCE - Use code BITTEN. CRYPTOTAG STEEL PLATE BACK-UP https://cryptotag.io - USE CODE BITTEN for 10% discount. In this podcast episode, Daniel Batten discusses the environmental impacts of Bitcoin mining, his journey into Bitcoin, the IMF's influence on Bitcoin adoption, and his current projects in Latin America. Key Topics: Bitcoin and the environment The role of Bitcoin in stabilizing grids and accelerating renewable energy transition IMF and its influence on Bitcoin adoption Bitcoin as a solution to landfills CH4 Capital Summary: Daniel Batten debunks the common misconception that Bitcoin is bad for the environment by comparing it to the early days of solar technology, which also faced similar criticisms. He explains that Bitcoin mining, when powered by renewable energy sources, can be emission-reducing. He emphasizes that negative headlines about Bitcoin's environmental impact often overshadow positive stories, such as its role in mitigating methane emissions, stabilizing the grid, and accelerating the renewable energy transition. Daniel criticizes the media for disproportionately reporting negative aspects of Bitcoin mining while ignoring positive externalities. He uses the example of wasted wind energy in the UK, where wind farms are often built in remote locations without adequate infrastructure to transport the electricity to consumers. He explains that Bitcoin mining can utilize this wasted energy, turning a problem into an economic opportunity. Daniel shares his journey into Bitcoin, which began with his work in impact investing. He invested in climate tech companies focused on reducing CO2 emissions, but he wanted to have a more immediate and significant impact, particularly on methane emissions. His research led him to landfills, a major source of methane emissions, and he realized that Bitcoin mining could provide an economic incentive to capture and utilize landfill gas for energy. Daniel explains the concept of modern sanitary landfills that are lined to prevent leakage into the soil. However, these landfills create a compacted environment that causes the waste to rot without air, producing methane. Most of the landfills in the world release methane into the air, which is harmful to the environment. Daniel talks about the cost to build landfills, which can be hundreds of millions of dollars. He said waste management will always be one of the biggest single line items on your local government bill. He discusses the potential for Bitcoin mining to utilize wasted energy from hydro dams, as demonstrated by Bhutan. Bhutan used wasted energy from the hydro dams to mine Bitcoin, which helped them avoid an IMF bailout. Now Bitcoin mining is 40% of their entire GDP. There are now 10 nation states that are mining bitcoin. According to Daniel, the predominant method has been to mine bitcoin as a nation state and to acquire Bitcoin that way. Daniel discusses the IMF's concerns about Bitcoin adoption in countries like El Salvador, Argentina, Pakistan, and the Central African Republic. He suggests that the IMF's concerns are not genuine but are driven by the fear of losing customers and geopolitical influence. He discusses John Perkins's work on economic hitmen and how the IMF and World Bank can trap countries in debt cycles, extracting resources and influencing their economies. Daniel shares that he is currently located in Costa Rica, where he is working on projects to capture landfill gas and use it for Bitcoin mining. He's working on establishing the infrastructure needed to capture and utilize landfill gas for Bitcoin mining. He highlights the challenges of finding suitable sites for Bitcoin mining, regardless of the energy source. He discusses CH4 Capital, a company he operates where people can get a non-exceptional return. CH4 capital is a vehicle where people can get a combination of money coming in through the loan repayments, but also through the carbon credits without the conditions that the IMF have attached. Finally, Daniel shares who he would give his last orange pill to: the head of the United Nations, because the story of Bitcoin's social utility is so untold. He says that if the head of the UN knew that 300,000 refugees have used Bitcoin to flee their homeland and set up from scratch, then those sorts of stories would just find their way through into popular consciousness much more.

In this powerful conversation, Prof. Achyut Wagle, one of Nepal's most respected economists and academics, unpacks the deep-rooted issues holding Nepal back — from corruption and weak leadership to education, unemployment, and governance. Known for his sharp insights on economics and public policy, Prof. Wagle explains how Nepal's Gen Z revolution reflects a broader demand for accountability, economic reform, and transparency. The discussion covers corruption control mechanisms, the impact of the shadow economy, and how the core economic agenda has been ignored in all seven versions of Nepal's constitution. Prof. Wagle also analyzes the quality of education, the reality of Nepali students abroad, and the challenges in creating meaningful employment at home. Later, the conversation moves to geopolitics, foreign policy, and media responsibility, ending with Prof. Wagle's insight on how Nepal moved from 2% to 7.8% growth according to the World Bank, and what it will take to sustain that progress.

McNamara's Path to Power: Statistical Control at Harvard Following Pearl Harbor William Taubman, Amherst College, with John Batchelor The discussion with Professor William Taubman focuses on Robert McNamara, a brilliant student his whole life who was famously known for his roles as Defense Secretary and World Bank leader, and later for apologizing for Vietnam War mistakes. The conversation traces the moment McNamara moved from being a young professor at Harvard Business School to making decisions for the U.S. Air Force. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, McNamara, wanting very much to participate in the war, rushed to discuss the conflict with his neighbors. The war came to him when Tex Thornton, who was at the Pentagon, arrived from Washington to establish a school at Harvard where officers would learn statistical control. McNamara was one of the first Harvard instructors to agree to teach the new curriculum. Thornton quickly realized that McNamara was the "pick of the litter at Harvard" and the ideal person to fit his mission of attracting brilliant Harvard professors to teach statistical control to American officers, thus beginning McNamara's influential career.

What does it really take to influence transformational change? Today we're getting into the challenge of consulting and coaching in a very unstable world and how to influence leaders to buy-in and lead transformational change when the world is experiencing a historic wave of disruption – economic, political and institutional – unfolding all at once. To help us catalyze real leadership and organizational transformation, I'm bringing onto the show Seth Kahan. Seth is a recognized thought leader, strategist and expert in tackling complex global challenges. His work focuses on creating social movements and mobilizing collective action to solve intractable problems. In this episode, you'll hear: How Seth Kahan went from street theater to the World Bank and what that taught him about leading large-scale change. The difference between incremental and transformational change, and why real transformation must be systemic. What consultants and leaders each bring to the table when driving meaningful change. Why influence starts with compassion, listening, and creating allies instead of trying to convince. How self-compassion and discernment help you lead change without losing your heart. Where to dive in: (00:00) Navigating Complex Change in Consulting(04:48) Making the Leap to Entrepreneurship(10:12) Leadership and Transformation in Change(17:03) Developing Influence Skills for Change Initiatives(28:15) Embracing Compassion in Change Leadership(35:55) Navigating Organizational Change Dynamics(42:22) Navigating Uncertain Times in Leadership(48:21) Navigating Transformational Change in Leadership(55:25) Strategic Leadership and Influence Skills Next steps: Learn more from Seth Kahan: Visit visionaryleadership.com and check out his book Getting Change Right for practical frameworks on leading transformation. Reflect on your own influence style: Ask yourself, am I trying to convince people, or am I inviting them to join me as allies in change? Practice self-compassion: Notice where you're hard on yourself during times of uncertainty and give yourself the same grace you'd offer a client. Revisit your client readiness checklist: Before taking on a big project, make sure the organization and leaders truly want change, not just quick fixes. About the guest: Seth Kahan is a recognized thought leader, strategist, and expert in tackling complex global challenges. With a background at the World Bank and extensive experience collaborating with organizations that take on some of the world's toughest problems, he has pioneered frameworks for addressing “Grand Challenges”—the world's most pressing issues. Known for his ability to unite diverse organizations and drive systemic change, Seth's work focuses on creating social movements and mobilizing collective action to solve intractable problems. https://visionaryleadership.com/ About the host: Betsy Jordyn is a business mentor, brand messaging strategist, and former Disney consultant who helps purpose-driven consultants and coaches build profitable businesses rooted in their unique strengths. With over 20 years in the industry and a knack for turning big ideas into clear positioning, she's your go-to for strategy that aligns with your calling. Ready to turn your expertise into a business that makes both impact and income? Work with me: https://www.betsyjordyn.com/services

Martín A. Rossi is Professor of Economics and Vice Rector at San Andrés University, with a PhD from Oxford. His work has been published in in leading academic journals such as Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, American Economic Review: Insights, Economic Journal, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Development Economics. Beyond academia, Martín served as Secretary of Deregulation in Argentina's Ministry of Deregulation and State Transformation under President Javier Milei, contributing to efforts to reduce bureaucracy and promote economic freedom. A competitive tennis player in his youth, he brings personal insights from the sport to discussions on discipline and motivation. As a father of two daughters, Martín balances his high-profile career with family life, offering grounded perspectives on raising resilient children in a challenging economic landscape. As an advisor to governments in Latin America and Africa, as well as international organizations like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and UNICEF, Martín contributes to evidence-based policies on education, health, and youth development, emphasizing incentives, family involvement, and public interventions for positive outcomes.ParentShift course 30% OFF with the code "TRIBE". Link below: ParentShift (English): https://www.hernanchousa.com/courses/parentshift?ref=c23daa Entrena Tu Legado (Spanish): https://www.hernanchousa.com/courses/entrenatulegado?ref=c23daaTake a look at Martin's work on his website  https://sites.google.com/a/udesa.edu.ar/mrossi/home?authuser=0You can explore more of Hernan's work on his website, https://www.hernanchousa.com/Music Production by Sebastian Klauer

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports rebuilding Syria after over a decade of civil war is expected to cost about $216 billion, the World Bank estimates.

YFYI (Yoga For Your Intellect) is a conversational, digital approach to the 5000+ year old, ancient eastern philosophy of Vedanta.Would you like to experience a live YFYI for you and your team? Email yogaforyourintellect@gmail.com for details.About the hosts: James Beshara is a world-renowned founder and startup investor (ranked as high as the #2 global venture investor by investment platforms like AngelList) and has been invited to speak at places such as Harvard Business School, Stanford University, and The World Bank.Joseph Emmett has been a student of Vedanta for over 25 years, teaching this “perennial philosophy” around the world, with over a decade spent at the Vedanta Academy in Malavli, India under the guidance and teaching of acclaimed Vedanta philosopher and author, Swami A. Parthasarathy.In addition to weekly podcast episodes, the hosts, James and Joseph, also host a weekly Clubhouse conversation on Friday mornings with open Q&A (search for the ‘Yoga For Your Intellect' club within the Clubhouse app).Would you like to dive in deeper? Our recommendation is to read the clearest and most complete work on Vedanta in recent history — ‘Vedanta Treatise: The Eternities' by A. Parthasarathy, which can be found on Amazon. We also encourage you to subscribe to these conversations if you find them valuable for more weekly insights to the perennial philosophy.For the deepest dive, check out Swami A. Parthasarathy's eLearning program here:https://elearning.vedantaworld.org/Resources: Swami Parthasarathy: https://www.vedantaworld.org/about/swamijiVedanta Treatise: The Eternities: https://www.vedantaworld.org/books-and-media/12-books/86-vedanta-treatise-the-eternitiesBhagavad Gita: https://www.vedantaworld.org/books-and-media/12-books/82-bhagavad-gitaVedanta Academy: https://www.vedantaworld.org/about/vedanta-academyJoseph Emmett: https://www.vedantahouston.org/josephjiJames Beshara: https://jjbeshara.com/about/

Join Dr. Francisco Sagasti, former President of Peru, and Hoover Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster, as they discuss lessons from Sagasti's leadership, regional challenges to freedom and prosperity in Latin America, and his latest books, which explore the life and relevance of Sir Francis Bacon's philosophy for today's international system. Reflecting on Peru's turbulent political landscape and its role in a new era of geopolitical competition, Sagasti shares his perspective on the recent ouster of President Dina Boluarte and his advice to the interim leadership. He explores the roots of popular discontent in Peru, the demands of citizens seeking accountable governance, and his concerns about sovereignty from an economic and cognitive warfare perspective. Despite these pressures, Sagasti discusses his continued confidence in democracy and the qualities that must be rekindled in political leadership to sustain it for future generations. For more conversations from world leaders from key countries, subscribe to receive instant notification of the next episode.  ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Dr. Francisco Sagasti served as President of Peru from November 2020 to July 2021. Sagasti previously served in the Peruvian Congress where he headed his party's parliamentary caucus and chaired the Science, Technology, and Innovation Committee. He has been Head of Strategic Planning at the World Bank and President of the United Nations Council on Science and Technology.  Sagasti has taught at the Wharton School, IE Business School, and the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Sagasti is currently a professor at Pacífico Business School in Lima. He is the founder of the Peruvian think tank GRADE.  He is a prolific scholar who has authored over 25 books and hundreds of academic papers. Sagasti holds engineering degrees from the National Engineering University in Peru and Penn State University, as well as a PhD in operations research and social systems sciences from the University of Pennsylvania. H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He was the 25th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.

“When you bring the human approach… people bring business to you.” -Sherry Grote   Sherry Grote is an international marketing executive, speaker, and fractional CMO known for driving revenue growth and organizational alignment across global B2B SaaS companies. With over two decades of experience, she's led transformative marketing initiatives at every stage of business growth—from being the first employee at a startup that scaled to a scheduled IPO with Goldman Sachs to doubling revenue for a bootstrapped company in just nine months. Her leadership blends strategic vision with hands-on execution, harmonizing strategy, data, and collaboration to deliver measurable, scalable results. As the founder of The Harmony Hero Initiative, Sherry empowers caregivers and marginalized leaders to go from unseen to unforgettable, helping them balance purpose, performance, and personal well-being through coaching and executive development. Whether building high-impact demand generation engines, mentoring marketing leaders, or speaking on stages around the world, Sherry is passionate about turning complexity into clarity and growth into lasting impact. Website: https://theharmonyhero.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherrygrote/ Instagram: @theharmonyhero Facebook: The Harmony Hero   Mariam Nusrat is a Forbes Next 1k Entrepreneur, Clinton Global Honoree, Tedx speaker and winner of the Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Show, Mariam Nusrat is a US-based Pakistani entrepreneur, with 11 years in the purposeful video games sector and 15 years of experience in the Edtech space, working at the World Bank across 22 different countries.  Mariam is the Founder of Breshna.io, a no-code/AI game maker platform that empowers users to create, share and monetize their own purposeful video games at lightning speed, think Canva for games!   The platform has over 2m game clicks, 180k registered game makers and 160k+ games published across education, social impact and marketing. Mariam has also raised $2.7m in seed funding from investors including Paris Hilton and Randi Zuckerberg.  Mariam also founded GRID, a gaming studio that creates low-cost mobile games for positive behavior change among the bottom billion. The team has created games for a wide range of development projects focusing on education, reproductive health, climate action and social cohesion.  Mariam is on a mission to unleash the power of no-code and AI technology to empower the next 100m people to tell their stories through video games. Website: https://breshna.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariamnusrat/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Breshna Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breshnagame/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breshnagame/   In this episode, Sherry and Mariam share how purpose and innovation can transform both people and businesses. They discuss the power of authentic leadership, the rise of no-code and AI technologies, and how creativity—whether in marketing or game design—can be a force for empowerment, growth, and lasting impact.   Apply to join our marketing mastermind group: https://notypicalmoments.typeform.com/to/hWLDNgjz Follow No Typical Moments at: Website: https://notypicalmoments.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/no-typical-moments-llc/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4G7csw9j7zpjdASvpMzqUA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notypicalmoments Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NTMoments

From Washington to London, the balance between growth and stability remains razor thin. In this special Investec Focus Radio UK episode, host Jeremy Maggs is in conversation with Ruth Leas, CEO of Investec UK, following the IMF and World Bank meetings. They unpack the latest global growth forecasts, the persistent challenge of inflation, and why, despite mounting debt and geopolitical strain, optimism is returning to the UK market. Investec

U.S. and Chinese officials are getting together on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington to try and preserve a fraying trade truce. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a ray of hope, ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month. Plus, what economic picture is non-governmental data painting right now? And, we'll hear how some countries are vying for a piece of the AI revolution.

U.S. and Chinese officials are getting together on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington to try and preserve a fraying trade truce. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a ray of hope, ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month. Plus, what economic picture is non-governmental data painting right now? And, we'll hear how some countries are vying for a piece of the AI revolution.

In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Caroline Stokes, author of AfterShock to 2030: A CEO's Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate, and Societal Collapse.Caroline is a global leadership strategist, PCC-level executive coach, and a Sony alum who helped launch PlayStation. A leading voice on 5th Industrial Revolution leadership, she blends trauma-aware systems, emotionally intelligent AI, and adaptive intelligence to help CEOs reinvent for a polycrisis era. Her work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Forbes, and she's spoken at the World Bank, IEEE, and even the UN Peace Day celebration in Los Angeles.In this episode, you'll learn how to shift from old-paradigm playbooks to a 100-day transformation that rebuilds your organization from the inside out, why leaders must decarbonize habits (yes, even how we read) to build truly sustainable systems, and how to turn AI, climate shocks, and societal unrest into a strategic advantage with emotionally intelligent, ecosystem-first leadership.We hope you enjoy this incredible conversation with Caroline Stokes.To Learn More about Caroline and buy her book visit: The Book: https://a.co/d/03g9gbjWebsite/Socials:https://www.theforward.co/https://www.linkedin.com/in/ocarolinestokeshttps://x.com/oCarolineStokeshttps://www.instagram.com/ocarolinestokes/https://www.facebook.com/theforwardcohttps://www.threads.com/@ocarolinestokesChapters: 0:001:46 Building a future for the next generations5:26 Shocks on leadership levels from today's world changes10:19 Caroline's shocking experience in England & Singapore 14:24 We forget we've experienced profound change17:08 Evolving & embracing disruptions (human capital, technology, ecosystems)21:15 Book's environmental impact (and why her book is only digital)33:13 Read less & apply more (& reduce the environmental negative impact)37:26 How to adapt to the upcoming change (hint: curiosity & deep work)42:31 “Neuroplasticity is the meaning of life”________________________________________________Join the world's largest non-fiction Book community!https://www.instagram.com/bookthinkers/The purpose of this podcast is to connect you, the listener, with new books, new mentors, and new resources that will help you achieve more and live better. Each and every episode will feature one of the world's top authors so that you know each and every time you tune-in, there is something valuable to learn. If you have any recommendations for guests, please DM them to us on Instagram. (www.instagram.com/bookthinkers)If you enjoyed this show, please consider leaving a review. It takes less than 60-seconds of your time, and really makes a difference when I am trying to land new guests. For more BookThinkers content, check out our Instagram or our website. Thank you for your time!

Keith Ferrazzi, is a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Never Eat Alone, Leading Without Authority, Competing in the New World of Work, and his newest book, Teamship: 10 Shifts to Becoming a Dream Team. Keith is recognized as the world's top executive team coach, having coached the transformation of Fortune 50 corporations, the World Bank, fast growth Unicorns and even governments of entire countries. You've perhaps seen him on the Today's Show, or CNN, or read his columns in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, WSJ, Fortune, Fast Company, and Inc. Magazine. Keith founded Ferrazzi Greenlight—a team coaching firm—and leads the greenlight research institute focused on team transformation. In addition to his mission of elevating human capital in the workplace, Keith is a passionate philanthropist and an advocate for transforming the foster care system.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact CEOD@bmhcc.org if you have any questions about claiming credit.

Joe's Premium Subscription: www.standardgrain.comGrain Markets and Other Stuff Links-Apple PodcastsSpotifyTikTokYouTubeFutures and options trading involves risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.

CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR 1900 KYIV THE SHOW BEGINS IN THE DOUBTS THAT CONGRESS IS CAPABLE OF CUTTING SPENDING..... 10-8-25 FIRST HOUR 9-915 HEADLINE: Arab Intellectuals Fail Palestinians by Prioritizing Populism and Victimhood Narrative in Gaza ConflictGUEST NAME: Hussain Abdul-Hussain SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Hussain Abdul-Hussain about Hamas utilizing the power of victimhood to justify atrocities and vilify opponents. Arab and Muslim intellectuals have failed Palestinians by prioritizing populism over introspection and self-critique. Regional actors like Egypt prioritize populist narratives over national interests, exemplified by refusing to open the Sinai border despite humanitarian suffering. The key recommendation is challenging the narrative and fostering a reliable, mature Palestinian government. 915-930 HEADLINE: Arab Intellectuals Fail Palestinians by Prioritizing Populism and Victimhood Narrative in Gaza ConflictGUEST NAME: Hussain Abdul-Hussain SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Hussain Abdul-Hussain about Hamas utilizing the power of victimhood to justify atrocities and vilify opponents. Arab and Muslim intellectuals have failed Palestinians by prioritizing populism over introspection and self-critique. Regional actors like Egypt prioritize populist narratives over national interests, exemplified by refusing to open the Sinai border despite humanitarian suffering. The key recommendation is challenging the narrative and fostering a reliable, mature Palestinian government. 930-945 HEADLINE: Russian Oil and Gas Revenue Squeezed as Prices Drop, Turkey Shifts to US LNG, and China Delays Pipeline GUEST NAME: Michael Bernstam SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Michael Bernstam about Russia facing severe budget pressure due to declining oil prices projected to reach $40 per barrel for Russian oil and global oil surplus. Turkey, a major buyer, is abandoning Russian natural gas after signing a 20-year LNG contract with the US. Russia refuses Indian rupee payments, demanding Chinese renminbi, which India lacks. China has stalled the major Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline project indefinitely. Russia utilizes stablecoin and Bitcoin via Central Asian banks to circumvent payment sanctions. 945-1000 HEADLINE: UN Snapback Sanctions Imposed on Iran; Debate Over Nuclear Dismantlement and Enrichment GUEST NAME: Andrea Stricker SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Andrea Stricker about the US and Europe securing the snapback of UN sanctions against Iran after 2015 JCPOA restrictions expired. Iran's non-compliance with inspection demands triggered these severe sanctions. The discussion covers the need for full dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program, including both enrichment and weaponization capabilities, to avoid future conflict. Concerns persist about Iran potentially retaining enrichment capabilities through low-level enrichment proposals and its continued non-cooperation with IAEA inspections. SECOND HOUR 10-1015 HEADLINE: Commodities Rise and UK Flag Controversy: French Weather, Market Trends, and British Politics GUEST NAME: Simon Constable SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Simon Constable about key commodities like copper up 16% and steel up 15% signaling strong economic demand. Coffee prices remain very high at 52% increase. The conversation addresses French political turmoil, though non-citizens cannot vote. In the UK, the St. George's flag has become highly controversial, viewed by some as associated with racism, unlike the Union Jack. This flag controversy reflects a desire among segments like the white working class to assert English identity. 1015-1030 HEADLINE: Commodities Rise and UK Flag Controversy: French Weather, Market Trends, and British Politics GUEST NAME: Simon Constable SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Simon Constable about key commodities like copper up 16% and steel up 15% signaling strong economic demand. Coffee prices remain very high at 52% increase. The conversation addresses French political turmoil, though non-citizens cannot vote. In the UK, the St. George's flag has become highly controversial, viewed by some as associated with racism, unlike the Union Jack. This flag controversy reflects a desire among segments like the white working class to assert English identity. 1030-1045 HEADLINE: China's Economic Contradictions: Deflation and Consumer Wariness Undermine GDP Growth ClaimsGUEST NAME: Fraser Howie SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Fraser Howie about China facing severe economic contradictions despite high World Bank forecasts. Deflation remains rampant with frequently negative CPI and PPI figures. Consumer wariness and high youth unemployment at one in seven persist throughout the economy. The GDP growth figure is viewed as untrustworthy, manufactured through debt in a command economy. Decreased container ship arrivals point to limited actual growth, exacerbated by higher US tariffs. Economic reforms appear unlikely as centralization under Xi Jinping continues. 1045-1100 HEADLINE: Takaichi Sanae Elected LDP Head, Faces Coalition Challenge to Become Japan's First Female Prime Minister GUEST NAME: Lance Gatling SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Lance Gatling about Takaichi Sanae being elected head of Japan's LDP, positioning her to potentially become the first female Prime Minister. A conservative figure, she supports visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Her immediate challenge is forming a majority coalition, as the junior partner Komeito disagrees with her conservative positions and social policies. President Trump praised her election, signaling potential for strong bilateral relations. THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 VHEADLINE: DeepSeek AI: Chinese LLM Performance and Security Flaws Revealed Amid Semiconductor Export Circumvention GUEST NAME: Jack Burnham SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Jack Burnham about competition in Large Language Models between the US and China's DeepSeek. A NIST study found US models superior in software engineering, though DeepSeek showed parity in scientific questions. Critically, DeepSeek models exhibited significant security flaws. China attempts to circumvent US export controls on GPUs by smuggling and using cloud computing centers in Southeast Asia. Additionally, China aims to dominate global telecommunications through control of supply chains and legal mechanisms granting the CCP access to firm data.E V 1115-1130 HEADLINE: DeepSeek AI: Chinese LLM Performance and Security Flaws Revealed Amid Semiconductor Export Circumvention GUEST NAME: Jack Burnham SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Jack Burnham about competition in Large Language Models between the US and China's DeepSeek. A NIST study found US models superior in software engineering, though DeepSeek showed parity in scientific questions. Critically, DeepSeek models exhibited significant security flaws. China attempts to circumvent US export controls on GPUs by smuggling and using cloud computing centers in Southeast Asia. Additionally, China aims to dominate global telecommunications through control of supply chains and legal mechanisms granting the CCP access to firm data. 1130-1145 HEADLINE: Taiwanese Influencer Charged for Threatening President; Mainland Chinese Influence Tactics ExposedGUEST NAME: Mark Simon SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Mark Simon about internet personality Holger Chen under investigation in Taiwan for calling for President William Lai's decapitation. This highlights mainland Chinese influence operations utilizing influencers who push themes of military threat and Chinese greatness. Chen is suspected of having a mainland-affiliated paymaster due to lack of local commercial support. Taiwan's population primarily identifies as Taiwanese and is unnerved by constant military threats. A key propaganda goal is convincing Taiwan that the US will not intervene. 1145-1200 HEADLINE: Sentinel ICBM Modernization is Critical and Cost-Effective Deterrent Against Great Power CompetitionGUEST NAME: Peter Huessy SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Peter Huessy about the Sentinel program replacing aging 55-year-old Minuteman ICBMs, aiming for lower operating costs and improved capabilities. Cost overruns stem from necessary infrastructure upgrades, including replacing thousands of miles of digital command and control cabling and building new silos. Maintaining the ICBM deterrent is financially and strategically crucial, saving hundreds of billions compared to relying solely on submarines. The need for modernization reflects the end of the post-Cold War "holiday from history," requiring rebuilding against threats from China and Russia. FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 HEADLINE: Supreme Court Battles Over Presidential Impoundment Authority and the Separation of Powers GUEST NAME: Josh Blackman SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Josh Blackman about Supreme Court eras focusing on the separation of powers. Currently, the court is addressing presidential impoundment—the executive's authority to withhold appropriated funds. Earlier rulings, particularly 1975's Train v. City of New York, constrained this power. The Roberts Court appears sympathetic to reclaiming presidential authority lost during the Nixon era. The outcome of this ongoing litigation will determine the proper balance between executive and legislative branches. 1215-1230 HEADLINE: Supreme Court Battles Over Presidential Impoundment Authority and the Separation of Powers GUEST NAME: Josh Blackman SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Josh Blackman about Supreme Court eras focusing on the separation of powers. Currently, the court is addressing presidential impoundment—the executive's authority to withhold appropriated funds. Earlier rulings, particularly 1975's Train v. City of New York, constrained this power. The Roberts Court appears sympathetic to reclaiming presidential authority lost during the Nixon era. The outcome of this ongoing litigation will determine the proper balance between executive and legislative branches. 1230-1245 HEADLINE: Space Force Awards Contracts to SpaceX and ULA; Juno Mission Ending, Launch Competition Heats UpGUEST NAME: Bob Zimmerman SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Bob Zimmerman about Space Force awarding over $1 billion in launch contracts to SpaceX for five launches and ULA for two launches, highlighting growing demand for launch services. ULA's non-reusable rockets contrast with SpaceX's cheaper, reusable approach, while Blue Origin continues to lag behind. Other developments include Firefly entering defense contracting through its Scitec acquisition, Rocket Lab securing additional commercial launches, and the likely end of the long-running Juno Jupiter mission due to budget constraints. 1245-100 AM HEADLINE: Space Force Awards Contracts to SpaceX and ULA; Juno Mission Ending, Launch Competition Heats UpGUEST NAME: Bob Zimmerman SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Bob Zimmerman about Space Force awarding over $1 billion in launch contracts to SpaceX for five launches and ULA for two launches, highlighting growing demand for launch services. ULA's non-reusable rockets contrast with SpaceX's cheaper, reusable approach, while Blue Origin continues to lag behind. Other developments include Firefly entering defense contracting through its Scitec acquisition, Rocket Lab securing additional commercial launches, and the likely end of the long-running Juno Jupiter mission due to budget constraints.

HEADLINE: China's Economic Contradictions: Deflation and Consumer Wariness Undermine GDP Growth ClaimsGUEST NAME: Fraser Howie SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Fraser Howie about China facing severe economic contradictions despite high World Bank forecasts. Deflation remains rampant with frequently negative CPI and PPI figures. Consumer wariness and high youth unemployment at one in seven persist throughout the economy. The GDP growth figure is viewed as untrustworthy, manufactured through debt in a command economy. Decreased container ship arrivals point to limited actual growth, exacerbated by higher US tariffs. Economic reforms appear unlikely as centralization under Xi Jinping continues.

     PREVIEW HEADLINE: Questioning the Validity of China's Increased GDP Expectations GUEST NAME: Fraser Howie SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Fraser Howie about the World Bank/IMF raising GDP expectations for China. Howie suggests these organizations reluctantly avoid public negativity about China and rely on models. He notes results depend entirely on inputs, calling the process "classic rubbish in, rubbish out."

PREVIEW HEADLINE: Questioning the Validity of China's Increased GDP Expectations GUEST NAME: Fraser Howie SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Fraser Howie about the World Bank/IMF raising GDP expectations for China. Howie suggests these organizations reluctantly avoid public negativity about China and rely on models. He notes results depend entirely on inputs, calling the process "classic rubbish in, rubbish out."