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Turkey's recognition for Syria's national coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

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Efforts by prime minister Erdogan of Turkey to reach a peace agreement with the Kurdish PKK and its leader Mr. Ocalan who is in a Turkish prison since 1999. Mr. Ocalan is reported to be ready to reach an agreement. Prime minister Erdogan is keen on reaching an agreement because of the war in Syria, where a group related to the PKK and Ocalan is in control of the Kurdish northeastern region in Syria. This creates a situation where the Kurds in northern Iraq and in Syria could form a Kurdish state. Other reasons for Erdogan to push forward with an agreement are his intention to rewrite the Turkish constitution to setup an executive presidency. Erdogan would then be able to run for president. He would need Kurdish voters support for this move. In recent years Turkey has moved closer to Iraq, is its main trading partner and a destination for Turkish exports. Turkey now sees itself as a regional power in the Middle East after years of waiting to become part of the European Union. Turkey sees other advantages for this move to a peaceful Middle East- it sees benefits from trade with Egypt, and a new Syria after the fall of the Assad regime, making the whole region a destination for Turkish exports and foreign investment. As part of this move Erdogan's administration is lifting curbs on the use of the Kurdish language in the Kurdish southeast of Turkey and in the regional capital of Diyarbakir. This is an example of how trade, commerce and changing political conditions can create peaceful progress. It is reminiscent of the situation in Spain where the Catalan language was suppressed by the government of Franco till the 1980's, when the formation of the European Union and the changed political climate led to autonomy for Catalonia under a elected federal government....

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It makes for good political rhetoric, but in reality the flow of money goes both ways. A lot of investments are made by American companies overseas. This time the flow of oil money because of high oil prices, from the USA and Europe to the Middle East is being recycled back to the USA in the form of investments in the US through small equity stakes in companies and more so through purchases of capital equipment and services to build Saudi infrastructure projects. The $500 billion investment plan over several years in Saudi Arabia is to build everything from new cities, aluminium plants, electricity generation plants and chemicals and plastics plants. The fears and rhetoric are overblown, as the USA also invests overseas with holdings according to the Treasury department of $6 trillion of foreign stock and debt. The acceleration of foreign investment in the US is to be seen in the numbers, as the dollar gets weaker, and its more advantageous for Canadians and Euuropeans to invest here. Last year $414 billion of foreign investors money went into buying stakes in American companies and building factories and purchasing stock, according to Thomson Financial. Thats up 90% from 2006 and represented one fourth of all announced deals. This year in just 2 weeks foreign investors poured $22.6 billion in just the first 2 weeks of January, and that represents one half of all deals. Shows how quickly the picture is changing. One way of looking at it is that Americans buy a lot of foreign goods and the money Americans use to pay for a lot of imports is now being returned to the USA in the form of foreign investments. Note that foreign investment is desirable because it brings new ideas and technology and new management methods to the host country from other countries. These foreign investors in many cases are able to make these investments overseas because they are good at what they do, having them in the host country benefits the host country and shakes up competition in the particular industry in the host country that is receiving the investment. This is why economies once relatively unfavorable to foreign investors like Japan and S. Korea are now passionately seeking foreign investment to make their economies thrive through the exchange and inflow of new ideas and ways of doing things. The same can be and is true for the USA. The other aspect is that most of the investment is still from countries like Canada, Germany, Japan, S. Korea which are big free trade partners of the USA. Manufacturing investment is heavily skewed to European and Japanese companies. Foreign multinational investment (Sony, Toyota etc) grew to $43.3 billion in 2007 from $39.2 billion in 2006 according to OCO Monitor, and will accelerate significantly as companies like VW and other German companies find it cheaper to build in the USA and shift more manufacturing here. To get an idea why the rhetoric is overblown Canada spent the most in buying American companies, $65 billion in 2007, according to Thomson Financial. Russia spent $572 million and India $3.3 billion. How will this improve the chances of the USA making it out of this recession? Five million American work for foreign companies in the USA. Of these one third are manufacturing jobs. These jobs pay about 30% more than jobs in American owned companies. Figures from Treasury Department. There will be more of these jobs as companies like VW build plants here. Roubini Economics estimates that an infusion of about $300-400 billion is needed for the USA to overcome the effects of the current mortgage and credit crisis. $414 billion was invested in the USA by foreign investors according to Thomson Financial in 2007, going up from something like $200 billion in 2006. If this pace continues becasue of some of the same underlying reasons as the weaker dollar, stronger economies overseas, then $200 billion additional investments this year would add that much to a stimulus package of $150 billion by one estimate, to provide a boost of somewhere around $350 billion. In the range of the needed boost. Companies like IBM and GE which have significant investments in India and China and investments in software or infrastructure industries that are growing rapidly or Caterpillar with growth in construction overseas, may keep growing through this downturn. This recession may hit selectively and differently, not be a complete hit to the USA economy, and could prevent it from going beyond 2009 with recovery in 2010. ...

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Schmidle describes how the militancy in Pakistan's border provinces is shifting to younger people who continue fighting the old battles against America and the West. He observes the opening of a campaign office of the Islamist party, the Jamiat Ulema -e-Islam or J.I.I., from a crowded rooftop in Quetta, Baluchistan, where this party runs the provincial government. The rhetoric against the U.S. is mild compared to earlier years, as a new election approaches. In the last election the Islamist parties under the alliance Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, won 10% of the vote with pro-Taliban sentiment running high. The MMA alliance ran two provincial governments. Now there is asplit in the Islamist parties, between the factions working within the democratic process and other factions including younger militants who are against Musharraf and elections. This comes after the shooting of Benazir Bhutto by militant Islamists.

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U.S. Secretary of State Clinton and Turkey's foreign minister Davutoglu met in early August 2012 and agreed to set up intensive operational planning and coordination of the two countries efforts on Syria to end the Assad regime. The two foreign ministers said a unified task force with intelligence, military and political leaders would be set up immediately and will look at all options including direct assistance to the democracy movement and forces fighting the Assad regime.

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President Obama attends a filming of a show for "The View" hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and co-host Barbara Walters at ABC studios on Sept 24, 2012. This happens just as world leaders are greeted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as they arrive for a meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. And just as Tim Arango reports in the NYT that the situation in the Middle East is seeing spillover affects from Syria that affect the entire region, and Middle East tensions are rising.

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Russian oil policy at work in towns like Kalyazin, 100 miles north of Moscow, and across Russia. Gasification program is being extended, plan is to increase coverage from 53% to 60% of the people in Russia in the 2005-2007 program. Increase prices to discourage wasteful use and promote energy saving technologies in cooperation with German companies so that more gas is available for export at higher world market prices, especially to the European market. Use profits to promote exploration and increase exports. Germany gets 45% of its gas from Russia and has built close relationships with Gazprom. See the article in BW, July 31, 2006, Jack Ewing, "The Lines that Bind" and references to German-Russian ties: 1) Gerhard Schroeder, former Chancellor, as managing director of the pipeline joint venture, the $5.7 billion North European Gas pipeline formed by partners Ruhrgas, BASF and Gazprom. Ruhrgas owns 6.4% of Gazprom, and its CEO Burckhard Bergmann sits on Gazprom's Board. 2) The survey by Berlin pollster Forsa shows that 75% of Germans support the pipeline project, 45% consider Gazprom a reliable energy supplier vs. the 26% who consider Saudi Arabia as dependable. 3) At an industrial fair in Hanover German business leaders supportive of Gazprom as follows. Klaus Mangold for Daimler management board member considers it " a totally normal market economic process" for Russia to have threatended to supply China with the same gas if European countries cultivate other sources of energy supply. Michael Gloss, German Minister of Economics and Technology, says its good thing to have a neighbor close to home as a supplier. Ruhrgas, Essen based, is a subsidiary of Dusseldorf company E.O.N., and Wintershall, Kassel based, is a subsidiary of BASF. Wintershall management Board member Rainer Seele, speaks of not just partnerships but friendships. 4) Interlocking ownership of assets between Gazprom and the German companies. Gazprom 35% ownership of the assets in the WinGas Joint Venture, Wintershall gets 35% of the equity and 25% of voting shares in the gas field that supports the pipeline. Ruhrgas traded assets in Hungary for 25% ownership of the same gas field. 5) The German relationship under Merkel changes little because she has no options, German suppliers have long term contracts with Gazprom. This article shows how the Russian policy is being shaped on the ground in small towwns like Kalyazin. The one on Gazprom about "The Lines that Bind," shows how the policy is to build relationships with German suppliers, interlocking ownership of assets, increasing the supplies to Germany from the current 45% to over 50 %. Using German investment in joint venture with Gazprom for exploration and development and building pipelines and securing long term contracts at higher prices. Note the reference in article "Can Gazprom Keep the Gas On?" by BW's Moscow Bureau Chief, Jason Bush, BW July 31, 2006- ironically the policy that caused a lot of controversy between Russia and Ukraine about Russian energy prices will actually provide Gazprom with more profits to put into exploration. Forecasts referred to by Bush show that it is expected to earn $20 billion on $62 billion in revenues. ...

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The Venezuelan government provides gasoline to people in the country at a few cents a gallon- almost free. Even Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Kuwait which have way better financial balances and dollar reserves do not provide gasoline at such prices. The result is chronic shortages of basic parts and other imports because the government does not have enough dollar reserves for imports. Venezuela devalued its currency by 32% recently, making imports more expensive and pushing inflation up even higher to 28%. The problems it creates are excessive and wasteful use of gasoline, and free gasoline that then provides consumers money to pay for surging cost of everyday imported products. Nullifying any real benefits when shortages, inflation, dilapidated infrastructure and lack of development and jobs, are taken into account. The lack of capital to invest in the oil industry has led to declining production making the situation unsustainable. Yet neither party of Maduro or Capriles in the upcoming April 14, 2013 election, following the death of Chavez, supports ending this subsidy. Efforts to end the subsidy by president Carlos Andres Perez in 1986 led to riots and about hundred deaths in police response, and a coup by Chavez, then a military officer, a few years later. Under Chavez the subsidy was extended to the level at which gasoline is about 4 cents a gallon. Compare this with the price in neighboring Colombia at $4.72 a gallon, and Brazil at $5.40 per gallon. Consumption per capita in Venezuela is excessively high, about seven times per capita than neighboring Columbia. The investment in infrastucture is hobbled by lack of capital, the capital Caracas dilapidated, and no major infrastructure projects taken up by the government. It costs Venezuela 8.6% of GDP or $27 billion to pay for the excessively high subsidy, compared to 3.2% of GDP going to healthcare spending and 5.1% for education. In comparison Indonesia, another developing country, uses 2.5% of GDP or 21 billion for its subsidy for a population of over 200 million. It is not that a fuel subsidy is provided, but the entitlement to free gasoline that makes Venezuela the lone exception. There is a reason why prices in Brazil and China, large developing countries, price gasoline to motorists at over $4 a gallon- to discourage excessive and wasteful use, and release scarce capital for infrastructure development, building dollar reserves for imports of machinery and equipment, and other uses in industrializing economies. Compare Venezuela with Bolivia under the socialist government of Evo Morales. In 2010 Bolivia increased its price of gasoline by 80%. The price in 2013 is about $2.00 per gallon. Morales cushioned the increase by increasing salaries in the health and education sectors, armed forces and police by 20%, and increasing prices of locally produced wheat, corn and rice by 10%. Morales said he did this to reduce state subsidies of $380 million for $660 million in gasoline imports, of which $150 million was siphoned off by smuggling gasoline to neigboring countries. Incentives were provided to oil companies to produce gasoline in Bolivia to reduce imports. ...

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Battles in Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, and the rural region around Aleppo, near the border with Turkey. The rural areas around Aleppo and the border crossings with Turkey are now controlled by the Free Syrian Army fighting the Assad regime.