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Germany protests the British government's efforts to pressure the Guardian newspaper to hand over documents leaked by Snowden on security surveillance.

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The U.S. unemployment rate declined to 7.7% in February 2013 from 7.9% in January, with 236,000 jobs added. IHS Global Insight's forecast of GDP growth is 1.5% for the first half of 2013 because of spending cuts and the increase in Social Security taxes in Jan 2013. Macroeconomic Advisors predicts the federal spending cuts will lead to loss of about 700,000 jobs, with most of this ocurring in the second and third quarters. As a result economists expect the unemployment rate to be at about 7.5% by the end of 2013. The job gains were broad based including manufacturing and business services, and 48,000 construction jobs were addd. At the same time the labor force participation rate declined to 63.5% reflecting some workers retiring and some discouraged workers dropping out of the job market.

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Alarge number of illegal immigrants are Latinos from Latin American countries, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and a host of other Latin American countries. Getting an opportunity to live normal lives is what they are after. This is resulting in street protests and public campaigns for the Obama administration to carry out its pledge to help them get legalized status with new legislation.

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With a new corporate board in place the government is planning to sell a 51% stake in Satyam to a private bidder. Satyam's capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange is now $600 million down from $7 billion in May 2008. Spice, a tech firm, Larsen and Toubro, Mahindra and others have expressed interest. One estimate of cost to settle lawsuits is $440 to $840 million.

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Ford continues to struggle in getting people's attention and in getting people into the showrooms to seriously look at Ford. One problem is the fierce competition even as Ford cars and other vehicles get better in quality and safety and reliability, the competitiion is not standing still. The latest in this effort overseen by mullaly is the Swap My Ride Campaign now underwaywhere people exchange the car they drive for a Ford vehicle like the Edge crossover.

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Viktor Zubkow becomes new Prime Minister of Russia. He is close to Putin from his St Petersburg days and worked on Putin's staff in those days.

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Criticism of China by Obama and Clinton ahead of Ohio primary March 4, 2008.

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Wholesale price inflation reached a 13 year high of 11% as India faces steep rises in the price of food and energy. The government's recent decision to remove some energy subsidies increased energy prices by about 10%. The central bank raised its key short term lending rate by 0.5 percentage points to 8.5% and increased the amount of cash banks must keep in reserve.

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Somalia where local self government is suggested to replace years of anarchy with central governments that are no more than a bunch of squabbling ministers with no civil service or government structures and only soldiers at the bottom, nothing in between, in a clan based society of 7 million people, where social order for generations is clan order by elders.

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This report by Jia Lynn Yang in NYT covers only the Coolidge period and the JFK period ignoring the wider trend since the 1850's when immigration from Asia to the US was discouraged. The laws limiting Japanese, Chinese and Indian immigrants were put in place long before 1924 by the 1890's. Japan agreed to limit immigration to the US under an agreement with the US after 1900. China was undergoing a transition under the Boxer Rebellion and upheaval in government in the period after 1900, India was part of Britain's colonial Empire.It does not mention that Chinese laborers helped do the dangerous work to build the railroads east to west. It also ignores the immigration from Mexico which was a special case in immigration because of Mexico's relationship along the border, first with the Mexican American War that achieved Jefferson's idea of a continental nation coast to coast. Mexico was a source of labor for US agriculture in the 1930's and 1940's when Asian immigration was severely constrained. When Gen. Eisenhower won the election in 1952 immigration policy was on the agenda, in fact Truman had a commission look at it by 1950. Operation Wetback was launched by Eisenhower and returned millions of Mexican migrants back to Mexico. Fearing the lack of farm help for Mexican agriculture Mexican agricultural interests supported the return of migrants. All this is left out by Lynn Yang. For almost a century Asian immigration was discouraged till JFK with experience in Asia during the war looked at Asian immigration to US differently passing new legislation to support this in the JFK/LBJ terms as president. In this sense the operations under DJT at the Border  and in the US in 2025-2026 are similar to what happened under Operation Wetback under a popular president Eisenhower, after the surge in Mexican migration adding millions of migrants to the US population in the 1930's and 1940's. A greater glimpse of the US can only be imagined if after the early immigration and discovery of the continent by the Spanish, the French and the British by 1600, the continent had not been unified first by the war of 1756-1763 with the French and Indian Wars creating the original 13 British colonies before the War of Independence in 1776, and the expansion to Spanish/Mexican territory to the West and South including California, Texas and Florida in the Mexican American War of 1846-48. In that situation there would be five sectors in America- British, Spanish, French, Mexican and American. The US could not have advanced as an industrial power divided in this way and would not have attracted immigrants from Europe the away it did. If it was split into two Southern confederacy and Northern Union states it would also have led to a similar situation. There would be conflict. It is only divine intervention and the courage and ideas of Jefferson and Washington, the work of president Polk, the leadership of Lincoln, and the industrial revolution on a large scale of one Nation in peace for most of the 19th century, that it became a haven for immigrants from a troubled Europe, a struggling Asia and Mexico. ...

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Japan does not support Russian assets plan of the EU to use assets in Belgium $210 billion for Ukraine loans. A $71 billion shortfall in the Ukraine 2026 budget. EU's Leyen wants to use Russian assets in Belgium. Belgium is against the idea. Only Canada and UK support it.

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The Biden $1.9 trillion aid package that cleared the US Congress on March 10, 2021 sets the stage for an economic rebound by 2022. OECD forecasts now show the US economy by the end of 2022 to be larger than forecast before the pandemic. In trade and other business policy the Biden administration is quietly following the changes made under the Trump administration to make the US position stronger in international trade and manufacturing, and remaking supply chains to meet US interests.

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Cordoba and Gurman cover the Justice Department case against Raul Castro, 94 years, of Cuba who runs the country. Jim Ratcliffe of the US government visited Cuba recently to let the Cuban government know that it had to make changes and there was a limited window. Raul Castro was defense minister, and is brother of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who fought to overthrow the government of dictator Batista, made some short term improvements, but failed badly for the Cuban people with a policy that confronted the US and brought foreign powers to the western hemisphere. China could remain communist, keep Mao's memory, and adopt the market system, to develop the modern economy it has because of adopting western ideas, science and technology. And build what is otherwise a free market economy, and became a key trade partner, briefly an ally of the US as the Soviet Union collapsed- nothing like this happened in Cuba. Tourism was used simply as a way to protect the rest of the completely centralized economy and a state within a state built through an elite that ran a separate section of the armed forces under Raul Castro, kept a regimented society. Even that has failed. Nowhere in Latin America is there so many signs of failure, and it has also brought down societies that copied the rhetoric and nationalist slogans such as Venezuela and Colombia. In some parts of Mexico the Cuban rhetoric still sounds good but the reality is starkly different, Mexico itself is run on a model closer to that in the US, and Mexico has serious problems in civil society relating to immigration and drugs in its relationship with the US. ...

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India takes up the UN's International Year of Millets at a special event in Parliament shown here in The Indian Express.

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US crude oil futures for November delivery reach about $94 a barrel by September 27. Oil prices are up 30% since June 2023.

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The real reason for the high valuation of $41 billion for Sky Broadcasting by Comcast as it bids for Sky is the need to compete with Netflix, says this piece in the WSJ. Sky has 23 million customers and a strong position in the UK, making it attractive to Comcast. Yet it says this could be a problem for Disney or Comcast as Sky could end up being simply an incumbent TV provider and not the solution they need.

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Alberta referendum of October 19 2026 for separation from Canada. Alberta with oil and gas, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with agricultural production provide Eastern Canadian provinces such as Ontario and Quebec with food and energy,  Sepratist sentiment in Alberta comes from a sense that Alberta is being exploited by Eastern Canada for the last 100 years. An independent Alberta would be aligned with the US, more likely, though it could be part of the US states. Canada says Sir Ivor Jennings in his book Commonwealth of Nations, if it had joined the US in 1776 would have trade patterns north to south with trade between Vermont and New Hampshire to Ontario, Birtish Columbia with Washington state, instead of the east to west trade of the last 250 years with western Canadian product shipped to the more populated east. Alberta has 12 % of the population of Canada of 40 million or about 5 million people and contributes 15% of the Canadian economy.

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US Supreme Court in 6-3 majority rules against tariffs by DJT, but makes no mention of refunds.

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3 million people affected as Medicare Advantage Plans pull out of some counties in the US by March 2026.