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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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Bill Keller tells U.S. president Obama that if he is serious about looking at the right path in Egypt he should go back and read his own speech made in May 2011, at the beginning of the Arab Spring. He points out that the Eastern European countries under Soviet supported communist regimes did not evolve into democracies without help and guidance from the western world. It took years of work and is still in progress with the European Union leaders taking on the issues of authoritarian tendencies in Ukraine, Romania, and other countries. Early on the reason why European Union leaders, Germany, the UK, France, Spain and other nations were very sensitive to the issue of genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo, was that their idea of Europe after the horrors of the last major war were for a civilized Europe with no place for leaders like Milosevic. President Clinton joined the effort and the western world was firm in its resolve which continued till the transfer of Milosevic to the Hague Tribunal, and the negotiations for a different Serbia to enter the EU completed only recently, nearly 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are long and difficult processes because of history, conflicts, poverty, prejudice, ignorance and demagoguery, but the EU, the U.S. and its partners withstood the test. The Arab world is different but the aspirations for freedom and economic progress are the same, and the U.S. should follow the same values and instincts in the way forward in the Middle East. The path chosen by the military in Egypt of firing on civilians and suppressing all dissenters is not sustainable, says Keller. ...

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Anat Admati, is a professor of finance and economics at Stanford University School of Business. He says banks should depend on generating 30% of their assets from equity, something the banking industry of today in the U.S. and Europe considers heretical. More of the bank's assets should come from equity and much less from borrowed funds. Outside of banking healthy corporations in the U.S. carry debt at about 70% of assets and there is no reason banks should not do the same. In 2013 says Admati, the situation is not much different from that after the 2008 global financial crisis- large banks carry liabilities and debt at over 90% of their assets. The $2.2 trillion in debt at JP Morgan Chase bank is about 91% of assets of $2.4 trillion. Basel III regulations allow banks to borrow upto 95% of assets, and proposed banking regulations in the U.S. put this at 95%, with the way this is measured still being debated. At such high levels of debt the margin of error is small, and systemic risk which is high in a globally interconnected banking system means the whole banking system can freeze from one large bank going into failure such as Lehman Brothers. This happened in 2008 and the margin of error is still small, which is why global banking is such a high wire act with the U.S. Federal Reserve, the ECB and other central banks issuing regular warnings and regulators faced with the task of keeping the banking system in check through vigilance and investigations of banks violating laws. How much difference has Dodd-Frank legislation in the U.S. made after 2008? Jason from Atlanta says in response to Admati's article, that the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was 37 pages and the banking system did not freeze up in the way it did in 2008 for the rest of the twentieth century until its repeal. The 879 page Dodd-Frank legislation of 2011 is overly voluminous and still leaves 243 rules to be written by regulators in consultation with the financial industry. Banks are larger now than they were in 2008 and have an outsized influence in shaping the rules, leaving the U.S. Federal Reserve's supervisory committee and Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo with the job of somehow keeping banks out of trouble. JP Morgan Chase, Admati reminds readers, has $2.4 trillion in assets as of June 30, 2013, and debts of $2.2 trillion, with $1.2 trillon in deposits and $ 1 trillion in other debt owed to money market funds, other banks, bondholders and the like. ...

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Amazon has 15,000 employees in Seattle from global employees of about 97,000. New towers being built in downtown Seattle will bring 12,000 new workers to Seattle. The development is similiar to that of other companies such as Twitter which are developing urban spaces to attract young employees with children. This means the city has to bring public schools and create residential space in the city. The area Amazon is using was bought by Microsoft founder Paul Allen for development that never started and is from the city's gritty maritime past. Northeastern University based in Boston has started a remote campus near Amazon buildings. A park next to the Museum of History and Industry provides green space. And the Museum itself was renovated with a contribution from Amazon founder Bezos. Amazon's head of global estate and facilities, John Schoelter, says the renewal of the area was apparent as soon as Amazon began work in South Lake Union area. Instead of driving through this area people now mingle in urban spaces here. ...

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Novo Nordisk faces increasing competition in the rapidly growing diabetes market.

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This WSJ editorial points to the damage done in the Middle East by president Obama's inaction in Syria, in human terms with chemical attacks by Assad, the hundreds of thousands of refugees, 100,000 dead, and the Sunnis from Syria who are fighting Iranians and Hezbollah in Iraq creating a new wave of violence in Iraq after years of U.S. effort.

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A call to U.S. and European leaders to uphold civilized values after the repeated use of chemical weapons and poison gases in Syria by Bashir Assad. Roberts quotes the poet Wilfrid Owen who fought on the Western Front in World War I and witnessed the horror of gas attacks at the time. The poem is "Dulce et Decorum Est." It describes a chlorine gas attack at that time. The Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Aphyxiating, Poisonous and other Gases, banned their use in 1925. The hesitant response of president Obama to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by Assad compares very unfavorably with the Sarkozy-Cameron action in Libya and president Clinton's response in Kosovo after attacks on civilian populations. It also fails to uphold civilization values. This is true also of the government of Hollande in France, Merkel in Germany, which have failed to respond. The focus on domestic issues and the eurozone crisis does not make any less the responsibility of western leaders on this issue. Russia under Putin and China under Jinping have not grasped the importance of standing up for civilization and values to be credible in world affairs....

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Documents cited by German magazine Der Spiegel show the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) spying on the European delegation to the UN. An open letter to Britain's prime minister David Cameron published on Sept. 1, 2013 in Nordic newspapers, Sweden's Dagens Nyheter, Finland's Helsingin Sanomat, Denmark's Politiken, and Norway's Aftenposten, says: "We are deeply concerned that a stout defender of democracy and free debate such as the United Kingdom uses anti-terror legislation in order to legalize what amounts to harrassment of both the newspaper and individuals associated with it." The reference was to the Guardian newspaper which was asked to hand over Snowden document files to the British government. The Guardian newspaper destroyed computer equipment containing Snowden files after being pressured by the Birtish government. The open letter said Cameron's action "were undermining the position of the free press throughout the world." The issue of spying by the NSA has aroused strong sentiment in Germany and the Nordic countries because of memories of the period before 1945....

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Steven Erlanger describes the mood in France as it faces problems of improving competitiveness in a rapidly moving global economy. A sense that the actions of the Hollande government will not be enough to tackle the need for deeper changes.

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Declan Walsh describes the role of the military in Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan which has marginalized political parties and democratic process. The shift in Pakistan towards a democratic state shows the limits of the military's role in politics. Throughout Asia and Latin America, beyond just the Arab world, S. Korea, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, the movement is towards democratic processes of government. As political parties mature a more centrist position was adopted in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Islamist parties in Turkey, a similar trend is likely in the rest of the Muslim world as political parties are able to mature and deliver in economic terms and improving living conditions. The Saudis and UAE may be able to deliver in economic terms because of oil prices and supplies, each country and the people in the region has to determine how it will tackle its economic problems and move forward or fall behind in a rapidly developing global economy. Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and India are no exception....

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In extensive ranging comments Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg describes her positions on Supreme Court cases to Adam Liptak of the NYT. She hopes the next president after this one will be a fine one and is not perturbed by liberals who would like to see her leave so that another liberal could be appointed in her place. Ginsberg is 80 years, but says she works with her trainer twice a week, and works just as hard as in previous terms. She loves her work and will go on as long as she is able to do it. Her work leading the liberal opinion of Justices on the bench shows a senior justice in command of the issues. She has a framed copy of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on a wall and sees it as a response by Congress to her dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Rubber Company. That 2007 ruling said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imposes strict limits for workplace discrimination suits. She sees the present Congress as too timid to take up more issues related to affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act. On the court's decision for the Voting Rights Act Ginsberg said in her dissent "It is like throwing away your umbrella after a rainstorm because you don't need it." Her views on Roe vs. Wade are that the law was too sweeping in making abortion rights constitutional and could have taken a different approach of striking down the law in Texas....

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The reorganization underway at NBCUniversal under CEO Steve Burke. Burke is quick to end the practice of different fiefdoms operating at NBCUniversal incuding NBC Sports, and expects all divisions to work together to produce synergy. He uses the example of a Symphony orchestra. Of 20 senior executives at NBCUniversal from the GE days only 5 remain, and the rest of the management structure is streamlined. Dick Ebersol who ran NBC Sports as his own sports empire, including the Olympics, with little oversight is out. About $12 billion has gone into sports because of the potential for advertising. Burke, 55, is from a family with a history in the television business- his dad was CEO of Capital Cities/ABC. He was in corporate strategy at Walt Disney Co. before he joined Comcast in 1998 to develop corporate strategy and acquisitions under Mr. Roberts. The opportunity at NBC gives Comcast a shot at building a business that spans its cable business and a content development company. Operating cash flow for NBCU is up 21% for the second quarter of 2013....

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Microsoft has done poorly in anticipating and developing products for the internet and mobile devices. On the enterprise side the server and tools business has done well. Microsoft's Server And Tools business made operating profit of $8.2 billion in the year ending June 2013, up 13% from the prior year. Office 365 sold on a subscription basis to accomodate the shift to cloud computing, and other cloud products are expected to make up for decline in Windows revenues with decline in PC sales. Satya Nadella, who ran the Server and Tools business from 2011 till he was shifted to head the cloud computing effort in the reorganization of 2013, is a candidate for the CEO position.

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Microsoft shares were up 7% after the announcement about the departure of Steve Ballmer from the CEO position. Steve Ballmer became president in 1998 to run Microsoft's operations. He was a college buddy of Microsoft founder Bill Gates at Harvard. Ballmer graduated from Harvard with a degree in mathematics and economics and worked for 2 years at P&G before Gates persuaded him to join him at Microsoft. For decades the duo of Gates and Ballmer ran the company till Ballmer was made CEO in 2000. Ballmer completes three decades at Microsoft. During most of this period Ballmer focussed on protecting the existing franchise of Windows operating systems software and the Office suite sold on all PC's except Apple Macs. Missteps include Windows Vista, which was followed by the more successful Windows 7. Windows 8 has failed to make a significant dent in the market. A poor decision in retrospect to acquire Yahoo for about $44 billion did not happen, as Yahoo did not pursue discussions. The efforts in smartphones with Nokia and the Surface tablet have failed to produce results. Under Ballmer Microsoft only gradually shifted to cloud computing. The departure of Ballmer comes as a major reorganization was underway in 2013, and the company was shifting its strategy to become a provider of devices and services in place of its main role making software sales for PC's....

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Microsoft generates most of its profits from its Windows software and the Office Suite on the 315 million PC's sold annually. The Bing search engine and the XBox videogame have been marginally profitable or sustained losses. Ballmer's focus was on protecting the Windows franchise from new technologies and products. In the process Microsoft was not able to capitalize on new opportunities as technology shifted including cloud computing, smartphones and tablets. A new CEO after Ballmer is expected to come up with a new strategy.