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New public bodies set up in the first 100 days by Keir Starmer will play a role in the transformation of Britain after decades of Tory rule that set Britain back in many ways. The Guardian looks at some of these public bodies and the role they will play in bringing a better life for the British people-

The Industrial Strategy Council

GB Energy

Border Security Command

Skills England

National Infrastructure and Service Transformative Authority

Passenger Standards Authority

Regulatory Innovations Office

National Jobs and Career Office

Fair Work Agency

Ethics and Integrity Commission

House of Commons Modernisation Committee

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The 11th Annual State of the News Media Report of the Pew Research Center is optimistic about the future of the news media business and news organizations. The optimism centers on the new investments in the business leading to new hiring for Buzz Feed, Washington Post, and other organizations, the access to news media on the tablets and the smartphones, the new ways and tools used to reach a younger demographic, on line video clips on the digital websites which are drawing users away from the news cable networks with viewership of Fox, CNN and MSNBC declining 11%. Six of 10 adults watch video online and half of them watch news videos. Interactive data presentation is popular. Younger people of highschool or college age get news on Facebook and social media networks, another way of consuming news information. Especially useful are results of the Pew Center's research showing 68% of American adults connect to the internet on tablets or smartphones, and 31% of tablet owners telling Pew they were taking out more time for news information. The tablet is particularly well suited for news information, and as lighter, thinner, easier to hold and fit into a pocket tablets are designed at lower prices, this trend is likely to get stronger....

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Wang Lequan, who is the party leader for Xinjiang, is aprotege of Chinese President Hu . He was pulled into the party from Hu's days in the Chinese Communist Youth League. He is from Shadong province China's industrial and petroleum capital. Because of his familiarity with the oil industry Wang may have beeen transferred to Xinjiang province. He arrived in Xinjiang just as the Soviet Union was dissolving, and the central Asian administrative regions that were formed inside the Soviet Union were becoming independent countries. China's army had occupied Xinjiang in 1949 under Mao. Millions of Chinese were leaving the Xinjiang area and the thinking was that the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang would also form their own country. What happened was that Wang reestablished the Chinese presence in Xinjiang province. He opened the Xinjiang region's oil and gas fields to drilling, laid pipelines east to China and west to Kazakhstan. A Production and Construction Corps was formed so that Chinese soldiers leaving the army service could find work, and this was later listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. With growing industry and government jobs, many Chinese were attracted back to Xinjiang. In the 1990's 2 million Chinese went back to Xinjiang. At the same time his policies may have had the effect of making the local Uighur people feel that their culture and language weere being threatened and they needed to fight for its survival. Wang acting with dictatorial powers tightly constrained Uighur culture and religion. He substituted Mandarin for Uighur in primary schools, saying minority languages were "out of step with the 21st century," and banned or restricted Islamic practices among government workers, including the wearing of beards and head scarves and religious practice like fasting and praying while at work. He has been Communist party leader in Xinjiang for 15 years, which is unusually long, such jobs usually only lasting 10 years. SInce 9/11 Wang has fought hard to limit the influence of separatism, and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an Uighur group, and he has swept up thousands of Uighurs accused of terrorism or religious extremism. He worked to have the East Tukestan group listed as Al Quaeda allies by the Bush administration in 2002. He is closely allied to President Hu who supported Wang, giving him a seat on the Politburo. Wang's protege in Xinjiang has been placed in charge in Tibet. There is a sense with Wang and Hu, that a failure now in Xinjiang and in Tibet to control unrest would lead others in the Chinese leadership who think differently on theses issues to bring a different leadership to succeed them. The difficulty here is that the Han who now comprise 40% of the population in Xinjiang, and are heavily involved in the oil and gas industry, have brough a modernizing influence to Xinjiang but may not be received by the Uighurs as apositive influence. First any government that is in power for as long as 15-20 years tends to lose support over time. This happened with the Congress in Kashmir. Too powerful or corrupt, and lose touch with the young people. But compared to India the democratic ways of that country have helped it recognize the need for respecting the language, religion and culture of the people of each region. The British did the same, so it was something that went back to British times. With the monopoly of power of the Communist party, lack of precedent and amodel to follow that respected different culture and languages, the intolerance of Uighur and Tibetan language, religion and culture, creates a different situation in China. Elections were held in Kashmir recently and an effort is being made for reconciliation with different groups, the media is open and different voices are heard. No such prospect remains for Tibet and Xinjiang. ...

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The views being currently argued in meetings with the President about the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Vice President Biden's view: Completely change the goal and strategy. Scale down the military presence. Change the goal from protecting the people from the Taliban- and note that reports on the ground suggest that the people are indifferent and see the Americans and the Taliban as equally bad, with the Americans as foreigners far worse, see Doris Kearns others- to accelerated training of the Afghan forces to fight the Taliban. The focus of US interests would shift to Pakistan. Biden points to the disparity for every $1 spent in Pakistan $30 goes to Afghanistan, and the US real interests lie in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. The US would work with Pakistan to take out Al Quaeda in the border regions. And the proof is that this is working, as Al Quaeda figures have been taken out with Pakistan's help. Counterinsurgency would be replaced by counter terrorism so the US doesn't get bogged down in support of a failing government. The fraud in the recent elections and increasing isolation and loss of support for the Karzai government, supported by unofficial evidence from the ground, make this a serious option, especially as President Obama knows the Karzai government does not merit support and presents a losing proposition. The second view is that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton- Ike Shelton of Missouri on the Armed Services Committee and Leslie Gelb (see links) share this view- who said in an interview on PBS, "Well Al Quaeda's no longer in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can't tell you how fast Al Quaeda would be back in Afghanistan." The problem with this view is that the US has only a limited presence in a large mountainous country with the difficult terrain that Afghanistan has, and its not American ground troops that have done the damage in taking out Al Quaeda, its mostly high tech drones. WIth a wider engagement and expanded US ground troops in support of a failing government, that is alleged to have corrupt and narcoltics connections, the popular support would dwindle to the point that the extra troops would not be seen as protecting the population- because how do you protect a people who simply don't care or are suspicious of you? The solution requires some sort of settlement with the Taliban, which guarantees that it not serve as a haven for Al Quaeda. Progress with schools and modernization would have to be, at least in the short run, be given upon the basis of the U.S. coming to terms with what it can and cannot accomplish at an acceptable cost, and the idea of vital interests not lying in Afghanistan but Pakistan. The missing elements in this puzzle would help this strategy, bringing together key countries in South Asia, India and Pakistan, to assume greater joint responsibilities and abandon the entire postindependence. approach to relations. The third view is that presented by Bruce Reidel, who led the Obama administration's strategy review of Afghaistan and Pakistan earlier this year, and is based on pragmatic considerations and the unofficial information on the ground. Reidel puts it this way: "A counterinsurgency can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner, and thats in doubt now." And he goes on to say "part of the reason you are seeing a hesitancy to jump deeper into the pool is that thay are looking to see if they can make lemonade out of the lemons we got from the Afghan election." For a complete change in policy and focus Obama would have to admit that he now has different information, and he is willing to admit to have misread the situation during the first 6 months and during the campaign. That is a test of leadership, being able to change after looking at the reality of the situation and digesting it fully. ...

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Questions about the true cost of the Obama health care legislation and the assumption that the legislation cuts the deficit by billions of dollars. This WSJ editorial says one has to look at this closely, and not merely look at CBO projections, which may be based in a certain context and not reflect the true costs, especially because many accounting gimmicks and use of numbers to present a particular picture is taking place. The information this editorial cites is that: it uses 10 years of taxes to fund six years of subsidies, Social Security and Medicare revenues are double-counted to the tune of $398 billion, a new program funding long-tem care frontloads taxes but backloads spending, and the assumption of an automatic 25% cut to physician payments that Congress is unwilling to authorize. Rep. Rand Paul has tried to present an alternative view which needs to be studied just as closely, because of the enormous impact of a jump in spending at a time when the public finances are fragile. WSJ also cites the work of Richard Foster, the chief Medicare actuary, as an alternate perspective of how things could turn out, Doug Holtz-Eakin, and Eugene Steuerle. It calls for common sense in evaluating programs, entitlements, defense or other government spending. They not only cost money, but costs escalate over time as history has shown over decades, till they eventually are discovered to be not affordable unless the middle class is willing to dig deeper into its finances to pay for them. Alternate perspectives from a range of informed opinion, Howard Dean, Martin Feldstein, and the head of Harvard's Medical School show that the issue needs to be looked at closely and carefully and cannot be something in which CBO numbers can be trusted to tell the whole story. Especially when common sense, history, and informed opinion across a spectrum of thought advises caution, and fragile public finances also suggest caution. Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont, says the health care bill is not real reform, and may do more harm than good. He says in a Washington Post article, December 17, 2009, the Obama health care bill does not insert competition into insurance markets, does not significantly reduce costs, and does not improve the delivery and use of health services. It was he says done with a political calculus and crafted for votes not real reform. Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of the Harvard Medical School, gave the Obama health reform bill an "F" grade, saying in a Nov 18, 2009, WSJ article, that it was disingenuous to call this reform, Congress and the White House were simply deceiving the public. He said the bill will accelerate US health care spending, postpone most of the major health care problems, expecially the ones that drive cost, including the "fee for service" system and delivery of health care. He says in his discussions with economists and other health care leaders the opinion was unanimous that the bill will accelerate health care spending. He cites Massachusetts as an example, where access to care was expanded under the same dysfunctional system, and spending went up, and it doesn't work. Feldstein, who in early 2008 suggested proactive solutions to the mortgage debt crisis which were never adopted, says that the Obama health care law means higher taxes in the long run to pay for the $1 trillion cost of health care for the uninsured group over 10 years. Feldstein says that the Obama plan is to cut Medicare to cut spending, and will reduce the amount of medical services, as reduced spending comes from fewer services, not reducing payments to providers. And he asks if the cost reductions are weighted too heavily towards reduced services and not reduced payments to providers ,would this result in large cuts to services to affect the quality of healthcare for the 85% of the American people who are accustomed to a different pattern of healthcare. ...

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A course on diversity and how to avoid stereotyping people, at the Jericho Middle School in New York state.

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Gurcharan Das on the appalling governance in India and the slowing economic growth.

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A sobering view of international conflicts looking at the ones in the English experience, with the Scots and the Irish. The conflict with the Scots actually went on from 1296 when King Edward I tried to claim the throne of Scotland with resistance from William Wallace and Robert Bruce, with terrorist tactics, frequent burning, looting and killing on both sides. And many battles that were inconclusive. The accession of Scottish person to the English throne as James I did not end it and it was'nt till 1745 till it ended. A referendum was held in the 18th century in Scotland and the commercial interests of Glasgow and Edinburgh prevailed in the end. Scotland saw the rich opportunities in trade and commerce from the expanding British Empire. Something that can be seen in exhibits at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. In this sense political rapprochment fails when the time is not ripe, and when there are other changes in society and economy things can change enough to create an entirely new situation in which old conflicts simply take a backseat to something else. For Ireland the economic changes of the recent years creating a vibrant Irish economy gives Ireland enough confidence in itself to work with England, and set things on the path to peaceful development on the Irish isle. ...

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Reorganization of production at Airbus by production at one plant rather than spreading production across countries jealous about losing jobs.

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Democrats face an uphill battle to recover lost territory during the Obama presidency. The efforts to promote Trans Pacific Trade Agreement by Obama against the interests of the unions, working class Americans, is one example of the way president Obama had alienated working class Americans. By being too close to Silicon Valley and failing to understand the changes in states with blue collar workers Democrats lost some of the working class base that had always voted Democratic. On social issues the party drifted too far in one direction in appealing to small groups and in the process drifting away from blue collar workers who were Democratic in the past but did not share the same passion for these issues. About 90% of better educated Americans were liberal yet among blue collar workers who had voted Democratic in the 1990's only 60% were liberal in the same way. The changes in America's landscape with the shift of manufacturing centres away from cities such as Pittsburgh to blue collar suburbs stretching from Michigan and Wisconsin to the Carolinas and the Deep South, created a new blue collar worker base that was more aligned with Republicans on social issues such as abortion, LGBT, and gun control. As a result the conservative base of the Republican Party now finds itself aligned with the blue collar worker, while the Democratic Party in places like New York and California is more aligned with the workers in the financial industry and in Silicon Valley. The improving economy gives more room for Republicans even with policies that might not help its new working class base as it strives to meet policy demands from wealthier Americans in the Republican Party.   ...

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Bernie Sanders presents the case for Medicare for All, healthcare for all legislation in the U.S. Congress introduced in September 2017. It has the support of 15 Senators. He says the current system is costly, wasteful and bureaucratic. It is time says Sanders for the U.S. to join the rest of the industrialized world, join Britain, France, Germany and other countries of Europe, Japan and Australia, Canada, with healthcare for all Americans. After all he says only 50 miles north of his electoral district in the Burlington, Vermont area is Canada, where the system of healthcare for all works better than in the U.S.  And the Canadians, Germans, French, and British do this spending less than half the U.S. does. In 2015 the U.S. spent $10,000 per person for healthcare, this means that it cost less than $5000 per person in these advanced countries and the way they do it can be studied and its best aspects adopted by the U.S.  He says this is because the U.S. healthcare system is designed to maintain profits for the medical-industrial complex. A major problem is the manner in which the issue is distorted by different sides on the issue of health care in the U.S., without a consensus being developed on what the common interest is in a civilized society. Mostly because the U.S. unlike other societies is still grappling with the issue of what values it embraces on healthcare being made available to all. Under this legislation the transition to healthcare for all would take place over 4 years. In the first year eligibility for Medicare would start at age 55 years, and children under 18 would be covered. In the second year the eligibility starts at 45 years, in the third year at 35 years, in the fourth all are covered.  ...

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Feldstein says that for the 85% of the people who have healthcare the Obama proposals are not a good deal. The Obama proposals mean higher taxes in the long run to pay for the $1 trillion cost of healthcare for the uninsured group over 10 years. This lower income group has no coverage despite the $300 billion Medicaid program. Feldstein says there surely must be better and less costly ways of getting this lowincome group healthcare. Raising the top income tax rate to 45% from 35%- as a result of letting the Bush tax cuts expire and adding aproposed health surcharge on higher income individuals- would actually lower revenues for the government, as it would change behavior of high income individuals in ways that lower their taxable inome. The result is higher deficits and higher taxes when even without this large deficits are projected for the future. How to slow the rapid growth in healthcare spending? The Obama plan is to cut spending on Medicare. Feldstein sees the govenment's effort aimed at reducing the amount of medical services, as reduced spending comes from fewer services, not reduced payments to providers. Will this result in enough of acost reduction to make the system work. And if the cost reductions are too heavily weighted towards reduced services and not reduced payments to providers would this result in large cuts to services to affect the quality of healthcare for the 85% who are accustomed to a different pattern of healthcare, even though it is structured to allow cost escalation. Feldstein offers no solutions to the problems of cost escalation except to suggest that the Obama plan does not really tackle the cost escalation issues directly with providers, and instead burdens the national finances to an extraordinary degree. And the need for apause and reflection....

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Foreign investment in the auto industry is having a significant impact in the growth of Mexico's middle class. VW has plants in Puebla, General Motors in Silao, Chrysler in Toluca, Nissan in Aguascalientes. Production increased by 24% in February 2012 over the prior year. The growth is likely to continue. Facilities in Mexico have high productivity and are technologically equiped comparable to plants in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Nissan plans a $2 billion investment in a plant in Aguascalientes. Because of the lower cost of living, with food, transportation and health care costing less, even though household appliances cost more, workers at a Mexican plant earning $4 an hour in pay and benefits or $130 a week can still have a decent standard of living. Foreign investment is likely to grow with Mexico's emphasis on technical education - about 130,000 engineers graduating each year according to Mexico's president Calderon- the work ethic of young Mexicans joining manufacturing plants, the productivity of these lower cost plants, and a growing market in Latin America. Nissan plans to produce 1 million cars in Mexico with an investment of $2 billion in Aguascalientes. Nissan has succeeded in taking over from VW as the preeminent manufacturer in Mexico, and has 32,000 workers in the Aguascalientes area, once a small town but now a thriving city of 700,000. Drug cartels have no interest in places like Aguasalientes, which is why foreign investment continues to come into Mexico. The lack of economical credit- interest rate on car loans is about 10%- and the flow of about 600,000 used cars each year into Mexico from the U.S. has restricted growth in Mexico's automobile market. Jose Munoz, Nissan's senior executive for Latin America sees this changing as more credit including Nissan's new financing center in Aguascalientes make lower cost credit easily available to a growing middle class....

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With a unanimous vote of the company's board on Nov. 28, 2011, American Airlines filed for bankruptcy. Gerard Arpey, CEO since 2003, is known to have resisted the move. Arpey decided to retire and will be replaced as CEO and chairman by Thomas Horton, the president of American Airlines. Analysts and management say the move is a proactive effort to take action before AMR's financial posiiton deteriorates further. AMR has about $4.1 billion in cash and short term investments. One airline analyst described it as an offensive bankruptcy to reduce labor costs and leasing costs in a proactive manner. American Airlines management has said in the past that its costs are $800 million higher than other airlines, because its pilots fly shorter hours and have more liberal work rules. Cost per available seat mile, an industry metric including labor and operating costs, is about 10% higher for American compared to Delta Airlines. American is also hit by higher fuel costs especially because about a third of its fleet uses older McDonnell Douglas MD-80's, and its regional carrier American Eagle flies 50 seat jets that are less efficient. American has total losses of $11.4 billion for the period 2001-2010. Additional loss was incurred for $982 million in the three quarters of 2011. Efforts to increase fuel effiicency of its fleet which is on average 15 years old, are underway. A $38 billion order for 460 new single aisle planes from Airbus and Boeing, with $13 billion in financing from the aircraft companies, was placed in July 2011. AMR says it will keep the order as planned. The end result is likely to be a smaller airline with fewer employees, fewer planes, fewer routes, and cuts at AMR's smaller hubs in Los Angeles and Chicago, says one aviation specialist....

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After the financial crisis of 2008-2009, commercial real estate defaults posed a serious threat to the US economy. Now this threat is receding with low interest rates making it easier to get cheap financing, which raises the returns. For banks the rising earnings give a cushion to absorb losses, letting them sell distressed properties and not have to hold onto them. From office towers in Manhattan to Florida apartment buildings and retail properties in Washington, commercial real estate values are going up. Prices of commercial real estate properties sold by institutional investors went up by 19% in 2010, according to an index developed by the MIT Center for Real Estate. Investors have boosted the prices of bonds backed by commerical real estate to the highest level in two years. The managing director at Real Capital Analytics says, that with values going up, both the owners and lenders have more room to work out difficult situations. Real Capital Analytics January 2011 report shows that of the $52 billion in retail properties to fall into default, a little over half have completed workouts. In Feb 2010, the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Asset Relief Program said that the commercial real estate market had the potential to pose a serious threat to the US economy. The panel estimated that about half of the $1.4 trillion in commercial property real estate loans set to be paid off by 2014 were under water, where the borrower owes more than the property is worth. Market segments for hotel, apartment buildings and retail are going up. Hotel occupancy rates in the top 25 markets went up from 60% to 64%, according to Smith Travel Research. Sales of apartment buildings in the US went up as home ownership hit new lows, and lease rates went up to the highest levels in 4 years, according to Axiometrics....

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Unemployment in Spain among people ages 16-24 is 42.9%. This is the highest rate in Europe, and it is double the overall rate of 19.3% for Spain. By comparison the overall jobless rate in the USA for workers ages 16-24 is up to 19.1%. Why this high an unemployment rate for young workers? Greece has youth unemployment rate of 25%, while Ireland has a youth unemployment rate of 28.%, and Italy 26.9%. The rate in Poland is 21.2%, down from 35% a few years ago. In Eastern Europe overall the rate is 27.9%. This puts Spain at a level higher than Eastern European countries where youth unemployment has traditionally been higher. Worse, this is a result of a spike in unemployment from 17% at the height of the boom three years ago, to the currrent 43%. Alfonso Prieto, deputy secretary general of employment studies at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, says this high rate in Spain is a result of a disproportionate share of Spanish youth employed on temporary contracts. During the boom years a large number of young workers joined a culture of temporary work, with the term "mil euristas," used for workers on 1000 euros a month. With the economy in trouble these were the first people laid off. Low skilled and immigrant workers who lost jobs are also reflected in the statistics, as Spain witnessed an influx of millions of immigrants during the boom. Still worse the government is under tremendous pressure from the EU and bond markets because its budget deficit reached 11% of GDP in 2011, and austerity measures are being adopted. Spain is spending 30 billion euros in unemployment benefits, but the money is not doing much to prepare workers for jobs in new industries or new vocations for the future. ...

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The FDIC chairman, Mr. Gruenberg has defined the agency's strategy under the "orderly liquidation authority" given by the Dodd-Frank legislation to deal with financial firm failures. The Lehman Brothers collapse ruffled fianncial markets worldwide because of the lack of such authority and a organzed well defined plan to deal with bank failures. Gruenberg described the plans to the WSJ. Once the Treasury Department and federal agencies agree that a financial institution has to be taken over, the FDIC would first unwind the parent holding compay of the firm by putting it in receivership and revoking its charter. Unlike the situation for Lehman, the firm's subsidiaries can continue to operate, with financial support from the FDIC held parent company provided by the U.S. government under Dodd-Frank legislation. The next step would be for FDIC to create a "bridge company," with most of the firm's assets going into it. At that point equity holders would be wiped out and a debt for equity swap would be made with creditors. The firm would come out of this process as with a Chapter 11 bankrupcy, as a new recapitalized private firm. The FDIC is trying to build credibility in the markets that it has the ability to do this smoothly, and Gruenberg admits that till it happens its hard to convince markets in a decisive way. Another problem is that 85% of the international assets and derivatives of top U.S. banks are in the UK. Former Fed chairman Volcker is guiding the FDIC, and he sees the FDIC's efforts to work closely with the UK very favorably. These efforts are significant and vital to avoid the worldwide disruption in financial markets that ocurred after the Lehman collapse, and provide a well planned action plan in place of an ad hoc day by day response....

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Academy Heights Elementary, of Pinehurst, N. Carolina, is expected to close as part of the cost cutting efforts in North Carolina. The state is trying to close a budget deficit. Monroe County's superintendent proposed closing the school to save $500,000. The school has a 98% pass rate on state exams, an award winning math program. It is ranked the second best kindergarden to 5th grade schools in North Carolina. Parents and teachers point out that many of the students come from middle class families where both parents are working, and military families from Fort Bragg, and this is not just the demographics of being near Pinehurst resort; as higher income parents tend to send their children to private schools. They point to the way staff, parents and students work to create an environment that challenges children to learn. The questions here remain ones that are being taken up throughout the country- how to invest or disinvest in education in the face of budget deficits. Should education take cuts and how much? Another twist here is that Academy Heights is in a depressed black neighborhood of Tarrytown whose residents go to to other schools even though Academy Heights urges students from Tarrytown to apply. It is an elementary school and as elementary education has a special role to play in early childhood development, how much of these cuts should fall on elementary schools? Should the best schools be cut under any circumstances or should they be supported with sacrifices made elsewhere or do moderately higher taxes make sense in these situations? Does it make sense to preserve existing excellent schools even as the search for improvement in educational systems takes place -with investments like the $290 million the Gates foundation is committing to improving selected schools? produce excellence in other schools?...

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Changes that are ocurring in Pakistan that are different from what was seen in the past. Pakistan's elite appears to have lost touch with ordinary Pakistanis. The country is becoming more Islamic in its thinking. America is now cited as the biggest threat for Pakistan in Pew Research and Gallup surveys by close to 60% of those surveyed. India is seen as much less of a threat, less than 20% see India as a threat. Over 10% see the Pakistan Taliban as a threat. Pakistan may be looking more inward now than in the past. In the past India dominated the military's thinking. Now it is concerned about too large of an American footprint in Pakistan, and may be encouraging the perception that America is a threat to Pakistan's having nuclear weapons. Pakistan's failure to invest in education, a budget for the military that takes a disproportionate share of resources, lack of investments in infrastructure continue to affect Pakistan. Female literacy is low, at about 40%. Support for democracy is not strong because of poor governance. Democracy in Pakistan is distorted by the large landowning families dominating Parliament. And the two main parties are dominated by the Bhutto and Sharif families. Only 42% of those surveyed said democracy was the best form of government in the Pew poll. Both the military and civilian governments have failed to make wise decisions that would bring opportunities to ordinary Pakistanis. Too much of the nation's resources were wasted in costly conflicts with India, and involvement in Afghanistan, which have not done much for Pakistan. In this situation Pakistan and Pakistanis continue to struggle along with no clear direction, but somehow make things work. A pullback from conflicts in neighboring states and focus on improving the lives of ordinary Pakistanis requires some far-sighted leadership....

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Lee Cheuk-yan, chairman of the pro-democracy Labor Party, describes the 17 year old Wong and young people in high schools to a crowd in Hong Kong in this way- these are very young faces, the old men in Hong Kong including many in the elite who dared not to speak up for Hong Kong's cherished traditions and rights out of caution will die, but these young people will carry on. Wong started the group Scholarism as an internet based movement to fight the 2012 "patriotic classes" plan of the Communist Party and Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. That movement took hold in Hong Kong and the government had to shelve the plan. This time he is fighting for universal suffrage in Hong Kong in 2017 with the right to elect its own leaders without prescreening by the Communist Party. This is in the spirit of the Basic Law, former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten tells the BBC. Patten helped negotiate the transfer agreement for Hong Kong and handled the transfer in 1997. In August 2014 China changed this intent leading to protest demonstrations. Wong is of Protestant parents who helped stir in him a sense of opposing social injustice. Beyond Hong Kong there is something else at work- a sense that the new leaders in Beijing are choosing the Putin Way that sees these demonstrations as inspired by foreign forces and treating all NGO's as foreign agents. In a larger sense the old leaders are living in a past world of territorial gains and keeping tight grip on power, when the world is now interdependent economically and politically, with change requiring new approaches to problems. The presence of 15 year old high school students and very young generation suggests no such foreign interference, as most of these students are very young....

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A major shift in public opinion happened between 1990 in the public's perception and tolerance of gay people and gay marraige. Support for gay marraige in Journal/NBC News polling shows young people, especially people 18-34 year old, were leading the way. In this group support for gay marraigne increased from 47% in 2009 to 57% in 2012, going up to 74% in March 2015. The increase is also shown in suburban residents, political independents, Midwesterners and Hispanics. A key factor in the change is that many people now know of one person in their work or personal lives who is gay. Technology, television and internet media also helped changed attitudes. In 1990 7 of 8 Americans said sexual relations between the same sex were wrong. In 2004 only 3 of ten Americans supported same sex marraige. A vote in Maine shows the dramatic shift- in 2009 same sex marraige was rejected by 53%, in 2012 53% approved it. The change in attitudes is faster than happened for miscegenation, which took 30 years after the Supreme Court ruled against anti-miscegenation laws to reach a point where a majority of Americans approved marraiges between black and white people. The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision on June 25, 2015, now makes gay marraige legal in all 50 states, and strikes down bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Yet there are a significant number of Americans who do not favor same sex marraige especially in southern states such as Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama. A Pew Research Center poll shows 73% of white evangelical Protestants do not approve of same sex marraige. Other groups who do not favor same sex marraige in the Pew polling are conservatives and persons born before the post World War baby boom. ...

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China's new prime minister Li Keqiang makes his first foreign trip with a trade delegation for talks with Indian representatives and business leaders, showing the importance he places on India. India offers China's companies access to large opportunties in infrastructure development, and China can benefit from India in the area of information technology and pharmaceuticals. Trade is envisioned as expanding from $70 billion in 2012 to $100 billion by 2015, and expanding rapidly as the two economies grow. Economic contacts also would provide an anchor for future relations as China faces difficulties in its relations with Japan, and S. E. Asian countries, and a U.S. wary of China's capabilities. This was pointed out in the joint statement. Li Keqiang also emphasized this in an editorial page article in India's daily newspaper, the Hindu, saying India and China have "to work hand in hand," to promote Asia as "an anchor for world peace." A peaceful India-China trade and economic relationship opens the way for investment and participation in development by China alongside Japan, Germany, France, UK and the U.S. in India, as the next major source for global economic growth. This also serves to defuse Asian tensions as both economies grow, and increased contacts between cities in India and China with the twining of cities program launched in the meetings. India can use China's capabilities in infrastructure development, the two countries share the need for information sharing on lowcost solutions in healthcare, in managing urbanization, and solutions for clean water in rural areas, and use of IT solutions in development, where much remains to be accomplished through cooperation. Some of these themes are the focus of Li Keqiang in his efforts for urbanization in China. ...

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Barry Schwartz, a Psychology Professor at Swarthmore College, and author of Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, points out that the 35 years of research shows that you get exactly what you pay for, but it turns out to be the opposite of what you want, and there are a lot of ways that incentive based compensation can go wrong. In theory choosing a parameter like share price and creating incentives to promote shareholder interests through higher share price as a measure of executive performance is reasonable, but it assumes that there is no manipulation of share price, or other external factors do not distort the measure of performance. In reality you get a situation like Merrill Lynch and other financial firms that gave out huge bonuses and executive pay even while bad decisions- that were later to sink the firms- were being incentivized. Schwartz points to research worldwide by Bruno Frey, Oberhozer-Gee, Uri Gneezy, James Heyman and Dan Ariely, that shows that incentives tend to remove the moral dimension from decisionmaking. Heyman's reaearch showed that when people offer passers by a token payment for help lifting a couch from a van, they are less likely to lend a hand when they are offered nothing. The question people ask themselves he says when money isn't part of the equation is very different he says: what are my responsibilities, what should I do that will fulfill these responsibilities to other people and to my country? In his view even though we put a lot of faith in incentives as a society to influence behaviour in a positive way, they actually do the reverse. Even if they work for some time, after a while some people who have fewer scruples learn ways to game the system and gradually distort the way it functions, leading to perverse results endangering all....

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The Economist looks at the 3 options facing Britain and America to tackle the financial crisis, and evaluates each option for its merits. It says nationalization is an option, and adds that it supported the nationalization of Northern Rock in the UK early on. Where nationalization is the best option considering the scale of the problem, as in the case of RBS in the UK, this should be followed without exacerbating the problem by pretending that it can be avoided. With its huge losses and large committments by the government of Britain, the state ends up with majority ownership. So for individual banks this policy would be a good one. With the government on both sides of the table, this avoids the major problem of how to value the assets, and of the bank's shareholders plotting to grab taxpayer's money. Expect to hear more about nationalization as a best option under the circumstances, says the Economist. This may also be because the situation is likely to get much worse in 2010. The single most important criteria should be it says returning the individual bank to good health. The other option is to collect toxic assets in a bad bank, with the clean bank rid of these assets not having to set aside reserves for losses of an unknown magnitude. This helps get lending and credit starting to flow again if banks are more willing to lend. The third option is guarantees by the government regarding the bad assets and insurance. The Economist does not think the insurance and gurarantees offered by the British government recently will work by itself, and feels it should have been combined with the separation of toxic assets of banks in a bad bank. The Economist also feels scale will be needed considering the magnitude of the problem and its continual escalation....