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Bradley and Nabhan of the WSJ report from Quara Tepe in Iraq and the weak Iraqi military unable to control parts of the country from attacks by better armed and trained ISIS militants, some from the old Iraqi army before the U.S. invasion and others from the war in Syria. The failure of the Maliki government to bring together Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, as a new election apporaches and Maliki is likely to be elected for a third term. A divided parliament and the lack of U.S. presence after the withdrawal in 2011 at Malik's insistence. The U.S. has refrained from supplying the Iraqi military for fear of aggravating ethnic tensions, with the Sunnis saying Maliki is practicing ethnic cleansing under the guise of fighting terrorism. Under Maliki Iraqi airspace has been used to supply the Assad regime from Iran, according to some reports, making the U.S. wary of supplying the Iraqi military as it has little influence left.

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Greg Ip of the WSJ points to the economic changes in China's economy and the threat of deflation in 2016 with the large debt and slowing economy. For the last decade China was seen as a currency manipulator as it kept the value of its currency lower to increase imports. With the large changes in China's economic situation in 2015-2016 China may face a situation similiar to Japan with deflationary trends. China faces political pressures in 2016 with the U.S. presidential election in 2016 to not intervene with the currency. The goal of making the yuan a global currency adds to these pressures. Other factors are the need to service debt in dollars of Chinese property companies.

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The 2010 census reveals significant changes in the population mix in the U.S. The number of Hispanic people increased significantly, especially so in the under 18 age group. The Hispanic population went up by 43%, increasing to 50.5 million in 2010, compared to 35.3 million in 2000. Overall Hispanics make up 16% of the U.S. population of 308.7 million. One of the striking facts in the change is that children under age of 18 make up one third of the Hispanic population compared to one fifth for the white population. Texas by itself added 979,000 people under age 18, with 931,000 being Hispanic. 92% of the population growth since 2000-of 25.1 million- came from minorities of all kinds. And mixed race is another major category with nine million people. Asian American population also increased, especially in major cities such as San Francisco, San Jose and New York. Overall 63.7% of people identified as white, 16.3% as Hispanic, 12.2% as black, 4.7% as Asian, 0.7% as American Indian or Alaska natives. New York and Washington saw black populations decline. Detroit dropped out of the top ten cities replaced by San Jose. Chicago's population declined, New York's went up by 2% to 8.2 million people. ...

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This NYT editorial lists ways in which the NSA violated the law- the internal auditor's report showing NSA broke federal privacy laws, breaking into the communication links of Google, Apple and other data centers, James Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence testifying in March that the NSA was not collecing data on millions of Americans which was "a lie" says NYT, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court saying one of the practices violated the Constitution, and federal judge Leon's ruling saying the magnitude of phone records collection violated the U.S. Constitution calling it Orwellian. It calls on the Obama administration to end the vilification of Snowden and provide Snowden with incentive to return to the U.S.

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The educational system in Italy suffers from the same problems as the economy- a strong tendency to exclude young people who can bring new energy and new skills to the classroom or the workplace. New teachers are made temporary working at lower salaries with only 1 year contracts. The average age for teachers is 50. A teaching exam for new positions would normally be held every 3 years. The Education Ministry simply postponed this and the exam held in 2012 is the first since 1999. Upto now hiring freezes and budget cuts were common. The exam held in 2012 attracted 321,000 applicants for 11,500 job openings. Young people in other professions such as law who were stuck in temporary work also applied. This also reflects a high unemployment rate of 14% for people ages 24-35.

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William Dudley who spent 20 years at Goldman Sachs and was its Chief Economist, before his position as executive vice president of the Fed's markets group, will now head the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

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Gen. Keane and Pletka say action by the U.S. is needed in 2013 to render ineffective the airdefense system and runways used by warplanes of the Assad regime. They emphasize that the U.S. has the technology and capacity to do this even with the Russian systems added in Syria. The lack of a U.S. response in the face of the Assad regime's attacks on civilian populations and use of chemical weapons, the support to the U.S. from the Arab world and Turkey, and the huge refugee problems in Jordan and Turkey, say Keane and Pletka, will lead to creating a worse situation than the relatively small risks of destroying the runways for Assad's warplanes and the airdefense system.

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The faltering approach on Syria of the Obama administration and the events that lead to the decision on June 13, 2013, to provide arms to the opposition forces.

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The effort by Prince Bandar, a senior advisor to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to send arms to Syrian rebels through a command center in Jordan, after differences with Turkey and Qatar on how to arm rebels. WSJ reporters Entous, Malas and Coker provide a detailed account of the Saudi effort under Prince Bandar. The Saudis are determined to bring down the Assad regime especially now that chemical weapons are involved.

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Gao points to the huge gap between the opportunities available for urban students compared to that of the sixty million rural students, who are "left behind" by their parents and cared for by grandparents. The rural students have much fewer opportunities and fewer resources for learning.

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Millenials are moving away from political parties to look at individual candidates in 2014. Attitudes are changing moving away from gender politics. A Pew Research Center survey of March 2014 shows 50% of millenials consider themselves political independents. And 31% believe there is not much difference between Democrats and Republicans.

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To get an idea of the scale of paralysis in the Congress party administration of Manmohan Singh in India in 2011-2014 consider this- more than $100 billion in critical infrastructure projects were held up by slow growth and red tape, according to estimates of the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy. The Congress party was too preoccupied with fighting charges of corruption adding to the lack of leadership from Singh and Gandhi, and focussed on programs of subsidies for voters to prepare for the 2014 elections. In the last 12 months alone ending in March 2014, manufacturing projects of about $54 billion were shelved, according to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy. The climate of uncertainty led to Indian companies investing overseas, or simply holding back instead of investing in the Indian economy. Industrial production declined for the first time since the 1990's during the 12 months ending in March 2014. It is in this vaccum in leadership since 2012, and a seriously troubled economy, that the 2014 parliamentary elections were held. Impatient young voters- with about 100 million new young voters added to voting lists- gave Modi and the BJP party an absolute majority and mandate for coming up with new solutions to India's problems in jobs and infrastructure....

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The new J.D. Powers Quality Survey put out in Feb 2013 showed the Lexus, Toyota, Mercedes, Buick, Chevrolet, Lincoln and Dodge Ram brands performing at the top level in number of problems reported by owners of 3 year old vehicles. Land Rover, Jeep and VW brands did poorly. Most of the Chrysler Dodge cars performed poorly. The redesign of vehicles initiated by Fiat Chrysler CEO Marchionne does not show up in this study. The redesigned Jeep and other vehicles will show in next years study. The study also showed buyers of economy vehicles were likely to switch easily when buying another car. New models are showing fewer problems and are more dependable compared to previous years, with the average number of problems declining from 170 per 100 vehicles in 2009, to 132 in 2011, and 126 in 2012.

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Athenahealth, a provider of software for physicians, is intervewed by Jon Kamp about the efforts to promote digitization in physician's offices.

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Government GDP figures show the GDP shrank by 1.8% in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, the first such contraction in the economy since 2009. Household consumption was down 3.2%. The sharp decline in the value of the lira by 20% in 2016 makes imports costlier, in an economy dependent on consumption spending and tourism for higher GDP growth. Political uncertainty with instability in Turkey following a crackdown on opposition and media also leads to decline in foreign investment and investment by domestic firms.

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Bernard Lewis's "The Arabs in History," is a short book which confirms Zakaria's point about the openness of Islamic societies before the 19th century, with some exceptions in certain periods. Most books or a quick look at Wikipedia shows us that the Renaissance in Europe in the 15th century got its boost from books by ancient Greek authors that were available in Arab societies long after they were forgotten in Europe. His point about Indonesia and India is also true to a large extent except for periods such as the one under Aurangzeb (17th c.). Muslim societies in British India (todays Pakistan and Bangladesh) experienced less social and educational reforms under the British than Hindu societies for various reasons leading to larger backwardness, illiteracy which breed extremist ideas. This is likely to change throughout North African Arab societies and South Asia in the next 50 years, especially with the modernization drive underway in India, which is likely to spread to other parts of the region. Islam as a missionary religion with force of arms spread in the 7th-9th century rapidly over Arab North Africa and parts of west Asia, and later to South Asia. Once established there were long periods of openness to ideas and books, and different cultures ( with the exception of preferences for Muslims), and a stress on commerce which inherently reduces religious vehemence, as the example of Britain shows. For this reason the current conditions in Islamic societies is more atypical than typical. A factor that has worsened it is that 19th c.-20th c. Islamic societies have put less emphasis on commerce and industry than historically seen in prosperous Islamic societies, on which more research is needed to understand why. Another factor is the impact of the interface with technologically and scientifically progressing Europe and America not becoming a learning experience for acquisition of this science and technology and making it one's own, a pattern seen in Buddhist societies of Japan in 19th c., South Korea in 20thc.,and China 21st c. Because Buddhism sprang from Hinduism or a response to Hindu ideas in India, India could be put alongside China for the 21st c. rapid assimilation of western science and technology making it one's own. When there is a violent collison between Japan and U.S. Admiral Dewey's ships, or China and British advances around 1900, the initial reaction of rejection is reversed with adoption of western technology and practices making it one's own. Similiar response in India. Islamic societies have had an extended period of rejection for reasons not fully understood even today. This is likely to generate the kind of internal debate about how to revert back to the usual mode of adoption in Islamic civilization, with the potential catalyst in India and other locations in the Middle East. The most respected German of the 19th century is Alexander Von Humboldt, a naturalist who advanced scientific knowledge, and a mentor to Charles Darwin in England, author of "Origin of the Species." Humboldt says- "There are no inferior races, we are all humans, and we are all destined to reach for and grasp liberty." That Humboldt spent most of his best years in Paris, France, which he compared to the provincialism in his native Berlin, goes to show how Humboldt, Darwin and Humboldt's friend Aime Bonpland of France, maintained close cooperation and friendship and anticipated the close cooperation in Europe since the second half of the 20th c., long before European politicians and governments grasped this. Commerce, science, travel, media and free exchange of ideas, are as favorable to progress as politics and ideology is inimical to it....

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Mark Sanford, Republican Governor of South Carolina, cites Donald Trump in May 2014 on releasing tax returns. At the time Trump is quoted as saying: "If I run for office, I will release my tax returns, absolutely, I would love that." Sanford says he released his tax returns, and Mike Spence, the Republican vice presidential candidate has released his tax returns, and calls on Trump to release his returns as promised. Hillary Clinton has released her tax returns, which show she paid 34% of income in taxes. Sanford says it is important information both for transparency in the political process and in giving voters an opportunity to evaluate those who want to govern the country. He also says that this is the reason a banker asks for tax returns before making a loan, that talking is'nt enough tax returns tell the real story,  and the reason why this is a precedent too important to be broken in 2016. This has become increasingly important in this election year with the public expecting corporations and wealthy individuals to pay their fair share of taxes, so that programs to aid workers left behind during the recession, provide job retraining, finance the infrastructure that will create new jobs, provide access to college for working class and poor, require adequate government revenues. ...

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In a complete reversal of the situation in 2012 when Spain's and Italy's bond yields reached about 8%, Spain's 10 year government bond yields declined to 2.579% on June 8, 2014, according to Tradeweb. The ECB's efforts to fight deflation by injecting money into the financial system in 2014, and investor search for higher yields, is driving up the price of Spain's bonds and reducing yields below that of U.S. Treasurys for the first time. The period it took for this to happen- just 2 years!

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China announced that it would make its exchange rate flexible, but also emphasized that it would do so gradually. What this means is that China will have a managed floating exchange rate. China followed a managed floating policy between mid 2005 and mid 2008, with a 21% upward valuation during that period for the yuan. During the 2008 crisis upto now the rate was pegged. The yuan was pegged at 6.83 yuan to the dollar. China is now rebalancing its economy so that it is not overly dependent on exports. The idea is to let domestic wages and domestic consumption pick up the slack in the markets of Europe and the USA. Europe is taking up austerity measures, and the mood in the US is shifting towards concern about growing budget and trade deficits. See the groups for "China wages" and "China workers."