On Thursday, Donald Trump will walk into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, shake Xi Jinping's hand, and declare it a great meeting. There will be announcements. There will be numbers — billions of dollars in Chinese purchase commitments, a new bilateral mechanism with an important-sounding name, possibly a joint statement on Iran. Trump will post on Truth Social. Markets will rally briefly. Pundits will argue about who won. None of that will tell you what actually happened. What is actually happening in Beijing this week is something more consequential and more uncomfortable than the summit theatre will reveal: two leaders of two deeply mutually dependent superpowers, both of whom need this meeting to succeed for entirely different reasons, sitting across a table in a world that has already moved past the assumptions that defined their last nine months of negotiations. The Iran war changed the equations. The rare earth gambit changed the power balance. Taiwan is sitting in...
Nissan has won the contract to supply the city of New York with its next gen taxis. Nissan won the contract over finalists Ford and Karsan and the contract will last for the next ten years, starting late 2013 while all the older taxis will be off the streets by late 2018. The Nissan NV200 was unveiled on Tuesday ahead of the New York international auto show. The new Taxi comes with all the bells and whistles and will replace the Fords and Toyota Siennas currently prowling the city. The new cab will come with features like: Back seat cell phone and USB ports for charging Transparent roof panel Independently controlled rear air-conditioning Carbon lined head-liner to reduce odor Anti-bacterial non-stick surfaces Airbags for rear-seat occupants Lights to inform taxi doors are being opened A new horn light to reduce honking. An original post by Sociolatte