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Crowley home to Gatwick airport- situation of migrants in UK in one English town, shown in The Guardian. Migrants has become a divisive issue in Britain with Labour shifting to new policy on migrants, many Conservative party leaders joining Reform UK party. The situation is similar across the continent in Italy, Germany and France, Netherlands and Nordic countries. It is also a divisive issue in the US in January 2026, and has been since the Operation Wetback under President Eisenhower in 1954 as the US Border at the time was not secure following large migrant flows similar to the last decade. The issues of citizenship are still what they were in 1904 when US president Teddy Roosevelt in his Annual Message to Congress said- "The citizenship of our country should not be debased. It is vital that we keep high the standard of living of our wage workers, and therefore we should not admit masses of men whose standards of living, customs and habits, are such that they tend to lower the level of the American wage worker, and above all we should not admit any man of an unworthy type, any man of whom we can say that he will himself be a bad citizen, or his children and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding to the sum of the good citizenship of the country."    ...

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This merger is part of a process that happened after 1970 when Penguin Books a national institution in Britain in the war years 1939-1945 was acquired by Pearson Plc, and later sold in 2013  to German publisher Bertelsmann. Penguin became a part of British culture because it sold a million cheap paperbacks at 6 pence in 1939 and continued to provide low cost access to books to all parts of the English speaking world from UK to Asia till the 1960's. The astonishing period of creativity and design of founder Allen Lane ended in 1970 after Pearson Plc focused on profitability and acquisitions. Under this new deal in 2021 a large part of the world publishing industry would come under the control of German publishing house Bertelsmann. Penguin Random House is owned by Bertelsmann and the deal would bring its rival Simon and Schuster under its control. The US Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block it. Attorney General Merrick Garland says- "American authors and consumers will pay the price of this anticompetitive merger- lower advances for authors, and ultimately fewer books and less variety for consumers." Penguin Random House already controls 22% of titles published in the US. The US publishing industry has already seen mergers leading to reduced competition. News Corp. acquired Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in May and merged it into Harper Collins. Largadere Hachette acquired Workman in September. ...

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British prime minister Boris Johnson will visit India in January at the invitation of Indian prime minister Modi. It is the first bilateral visit of Mr. Johnson since taking office. Johnson says he really looks forward to the trip and delivering on the quantum leap to create jobs and growth for the two countries. He has invited Modi to the G7 Summit in London as a guest nation along with Australia and South Korea. Mr. Johnson will also host a climate change summit. This is the first visit to India by a British prime minister since John Major. Because of the historical relationship and the British Commonwealth of nations, and as leaders in the English speaking world, both countries have a lot in common. The parliamentary system India adopted comes from Britain. India's role in the Indian ocean as a maritime power alongside Britain and Australia also comes from the period when Britain was the preeminent maritime power in the world. Indian companies in UK have $41 billion pounds in sales and half a million British jobs come from Indian companies. India also is UK's biggest partner in pharmaceuticals, making 50% of the world's vaccines. ...

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Germany's news and culture broadcasting service Deutsche Welle for listeners overseas was started in 1953. Its charter is to promote "democratic values," and "free exchange between peoples." It broadcasts in 30 languages and reaches 100 million people. The German government has increased its budget by 9.3% to 294 million euros, with new bureau in Kiev and planned expansion of the English news service. A new multimedia English language service DWNews will be launched in April 2015. The German language service faces uncertainty as it is not part of the expanded service, and Deutsche Welle has seen shrinking budgets for the last 15 years.

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The warning light is again on for Greece in the beginning of 2012, as the rapidly deteriorating economy makes a 50% loss by private creditors insufficient to help it meet repayment or refinancing of bonds coming due in 2012. Additional funds will be needed from EU countries unwilling to do this. 14.5 billion euros in Greek bonds come due on March 20, 2012. Greece also faces a public increasingly resistant to austerity cuts. A vountary exchage of existing Greek bonds by private creditors for new bonds at 50% face value and maturing over a longer period will be done under English law. This will be harder to change in the future. Most of the existing bonds were issued under Greek law which can be altered by Greece's parliament.

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Who is this boy born in 1971 growing up in Dutch Apartheid South Africa who studied at Pretoria Boys School in 1988? The head teacher at Pretoria Boys was Armstrong who reflected the English values that came from the British settlement of South Africa in the 19th century till the Boer War period- the English fighting what they see as the less cultured Dutch settlers in Natal state around 1900.  The answer -Elon Musk, who went back to Canada, his mother's country. His father Errol Musk still lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Till 2016 Elon and his brother were alienated from their father over Apartheid and the relations between blacks and whites of that period.  The illegal immigration since 2016, fentanyl crisis causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US from illegal flows of drugs from Mexico and Canada with sourcing from China, the collapse of Venezuela and gang crime in central American states has changed the thinking of the Musk family since 2020, says this story in The Guardian. ...

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Oxfam agency does a study to show the extent of damage done by colonialism in Asia-taking one of three examples India, China and Indonesia with population today of about 3 billion people. British colonial rule in India-from the 1750's to 1950,  estimate is about $34 trillion. It is important because Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (1910) is the result of work done by Dadabhai Naoroji in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) in coming up with an estimate in the $trillions that showed Gandhi "the extent of the poverty of India." Gandhi's famous letter to the Viceroy in 1923 comes from looking at the British budget for India where little is invested in Indian development much of it going to policing India. An average of $650- $750 per capita income in1600 for both Britain, Netherlands and India, China and Indonesia diverges to $100 in India, China and Indonesia and $10,000 in Britain in 1947. The Dutch and Britain had financed their industrial Revolution that generated most of this prosperity using funds squeezed from taxation, seizure of provincial treasuries,  and unfair trade in India by the British and Dutch East India Companies from 1750 to 1940.  What made this possible is the advance of science and technology that gives the British Navy and the smaller Dutch Navy the edge beginning in the 1600's and maintained for two hundred years to 1800's to defeat the French Navy. And with a leap forward in the Industrial Revolution propelled by science and technology to maintain this edge against all newcomers till 1920's when the US and Japanese Navies contended for superiority. In 1588 the British Navy under Queen Elizabeth had more 400 ton ships and bigger ship guns than the Spanish Empire's Navy under Phillip the Second that dominated Spain, Italy and Germany, and Latin America. This was the turning point the year 1588, when the Spanish Armada was destroyed by the English Navy and by storms in the English Channel. A new book "Armada" by English historians Martin and Parker (2023) shows this as a turning point from which the British and the Dutch started after defeating Spain. There are questions about what led to attitudes towards science and technology moving forward in Northern Europe and stagnating in not just India and China but also in Spain in 1600-1900. One could arguably say and ask how is it that Spain became as poor as India and China by 1900-1950?  Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) says it is the insulated agricultural valleys of the Ganges and the Yangste river civilizations of India and China that are at fault. Yet one could say this for the Rhine, Danube or the other river based civilizations of Europe. It is primarily the advance of the Renaissance philosophy that opened up thinking in Europe and not in Asia, to ask questions about the world around us, to venture out, to test and experiment then invest capital where Asia and Europe moved apart.      ...

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BKA German Federal Investigative Police data showing about 2 million crime suspects in 2024- of which 172,000 temporary migrants asylum seekers which 8.8%. There are about 3.06 temporary migrants in Germany out of a population of 83.6 million people, which is about 3.7% of the population, according to BKA figures cited by DW.com. The population of migrants living in Germany including Syria, Ukraine and other countries is about 3.5 million which is about 4.2% of the population. In terms of crime it is more about the anxiety and sense of disquiet this has created in the population, the money invested in benefits when much of German infrastructure has dire needs for investment with the rail and transport systems breaking down, and the wide disparities in living standards eroded in the last two decades in society. All this has to be considered in grasping why it has been so unsettling in some areas of Germany, Europe and the US. There are other factors such as women's safety, a sense of disquiet that was created in English towns where asylum seekers were put up in hotels as in Bedford. Many crimes get wide publicity and this further intensifies the sense of anxiety in the neighborhoods where young migrants from Africa and the Middle East, Asia are staying. The differences in culture and behaviours increases the sense of discomfort in neighborhoods. It is unlikely that this will go away because of incidents of attack by migrants in the towns and cities of Europe and the US every month, increasing homeless situations and deterioration in local neighborhoods.   ...

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India European Union Trade Agreement of 2026- game changer in world trade reconfiguring supply channels with 2 billion people market. EU's Leyen says she is determined to push ahead and make this the defining trade arrangement of this century. That the EU will deliver. For India it gives a reliable partner for modernization of its logistics, its infrastructure, and its industrialization, India's modernization in a rapid way. Similar to what China gained over 2 decades with its trading relationship with the EU, even surpassing that because of newer technologies in 2025-2050. It is a relationship based on two cultures and two civilizations, on respect for European and Buddhist/Vedic civilization for each other, totally different from the Imperial Japan of the 1930's that overran China, and the CCP in China ambitions for China Dreams based on belligerent action or support for belligerent action as in Ukraine. Leyen goes as far as citing Romain Rolland, a western philosopher of Indian civilization in the concluding point in her speech. In fact the first translation of the Bhagavad Gita was done by Charles Wilkins in 1765 taking it out of the hands of the Brahmins in Varanasi similar to how William Tyndale translated the New testament into English from Greek in 1534.  The Bhagavad Gita was then translated by German philosopher Frederick Schlegel into German from Sanskrit, spreading learning of Asian languages throughout Europe. India owes a lot to Europe and Europe to India, for two civilizations that speak the same human language of spiritual aspirations. ...

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CBID or Cai Business Indepth is a new English language service covering financial news and analysis. The company's website is www.cbid.com. An advertising campaign will start this week, and a number of other products such as industry reports economic data is expected. CBID has hired 30 reporters. David Legg, Managing Director of Europe and Asia for the Gerson Lehrman Group, helps connect country and industry expert providers with investors.

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Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar visits Ahmedabad for the introduction of the new Gujarati language edition of his book, The India Way- Strategies for an Uncertain World. At the meeting to take questions on the Gujarati edition at IIM Ahmedabad,  Jaishankar said India is now the fifth largest economy in the world. During the Nehru period it was the 20th largest economy in the world. It now has the capacity to take a leading part in world affairs. In a few years by 2030 India is expected to become the third largest economy in the world. And with its economy integrated into that of the US economy in a way that no other economy has been it will make the US-India economy by far the largest of any economic combination in the world. Because both are English speaking and both are modern democracies, and the traditions of Lincoln and Mohandas Gandhi, of St Paul and the Vedanta with Buddhism deeply rooted in each country. This is the true meaning of the Indo-Pacific. As Jaishankar pointed out in Ahmedabad there is no point in the water that says here is where the Pacific starts- that is the reality. Once you are in the Indian Ocean east of Africa you can travel on the ocean all the way past India to Indonesia, the Japanese Islands and the Hawaiian Islands till you reach the western shores of the United States. For India, the US and Australia, and Japan this is the ocean pathways that they are committed to keep open and with the international rule of law for all nations. In renewable energy, in climate change action, in managing soil and water, in agricultural innovation, and in technologies of all kinds India can now lead the way. Scientific curiosity, learning curve, manufacturing and innovation, education that brings new skills for a large workforce, India can tap into the resources of the world and make its own contributions to this resource for all mankind.  ...

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An interview with Sir Howard Stringer, December 2007 at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. Note the reply to the learning Japanese question, direct and saying what it is and has to be in this situation. Its better if the senior Japanese learned English or talked in English because Sony is a copanythats huge in international markets. And it wasn't going to work for Sir Howard because he was'nt going to be conversational better to accept that fact and go on to getting Sony back on its feet as a pioneer which is how it started out under Morita in the sixties. The other response is to the question about closing factories and unprofitable businesses - he asked the senior Japanese staff to look at the numbers, to take a good hard look at the numbers, what did they have to do in all honesty in the light of their situation. Interesting not much else was needed. Refreshing direct and honest approach to the issues. Best is the response to the question about his job, he wonders if he will survive this intact, will he survive this in one piece, which would be a real miracle. An Englishman who is an American in England, an Englishman in America, and a westerner in Japan. ...

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Jane Spencer interviews Lenovo CEO, Bill Amelio. Amelio throws light into how a company can best operate in China and reach out to a global market. Consider the way Amelio recruits Chinese talent working in the local language, and how he works with Chinese managers who tend to be more reticent on issues and opinion. Amelio is unique in his approach to hiring Chinese managers and building a bench with deep talent. He has abandoned what he calls the "colonial approach" of hiring with expat executives interviewing in English for managers in emerging markets. He says its a good idea to leave the English filter out to get more talent. Instead he has English language classes for the hired managers to help them improve language skills. Amelio talks about Lenovo's approach to the U.S. and other international markets as it competes with the likes of Acer and Dell. Amelio headed Dell's Asian operations prior to this position. Lenovo is testing ideas for giving low cost access at $100-$150 to people in India and China. The way this works is for Lenovo working with Intel and Microsoft to reduce the cost by 50%. For the bank to have half the ownership and the customer paying for the rest. Customers would buy cards for 10 hours of computing, and buy the computer back from the bank through regular use. Lenovo's strategy is to go after small and medium size businesses and consumers to increase market share in the U.S. and Europe. To do this it is using soccer star Ronaldinho and basketball stars to give Lenovo visibility as a brand. In other areas, Amelio has brought Dell managers to Lenovo to improve the supply chain management, an area Lenovo needed to improve....

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South African captain Dean Elgar reflects on how he is handling the leadership role for the cricket team building understanding and trust of players from different cultures and social backgrounds in the team- white, black, Afrikaans, English Afrikaans, Indian. He brings a remarkable sensitivity to his role and describes his style of listening and acting as a friend off the field to learn about the players on his team. It is a role like no other captain of a sports team faces. Elgar says he does'nt think there is another country in the world that has to deal with this kind of dynamics in society.   He says there is always light at the end of the tunnel, a glimmer of hope, as he take on all this pressure without showing it. Seeing him as many will on television on the cricket field during the 3 Test series at Centurion, Johannesburg and Cape Town, one senses the kind of change in South Africa that gives so much hope and optimism for the future. He say he always thinks we must'nt stop learning from each other, we must sit down and listen more. This has made him more concerned and wary about the past and even more emotionally attached to the players, as he handles the huge amount of diversity- a massive learning curve with a lot of humility. On the day of the death of Desmond Tutu as cricket commentators talk about his humble and unselfish spirit, Dean Elgar appears to have defined his own role in just the right way.   ...

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Experts say there may not be much difference whether a voluntary deal is reached between Greece and the Institute of International Finance or a deal is forced on private bondholders by Greece for the 93% of Greek bonds that are based on Greek laws. Most of the large banks that hold Greek bonds will be subject to persuasion by European authorites (EU, ECB) to accept the deal offered by Greece that brings debt down to 120% of GDP by 2020. The remaining holdouts are the hedge funds that will want to opt out of a voluntary arrangement anyway, because a forced deal by Greece would allow them to collect payments on their credit default swaps. Adam Lerrick, an expert on sovereign debt restructurings, says the hedge funds and other private bondholders are framing the discussion into one of a voluntary agreement that is orderly and an involuntary agreement that is disorderly, as a tactic to scare the European authorites (the EU, ECB) and Greece. He says not only can forced restructurings be orderly, but in this case the improved prospects for Greece with serious debt reduction would lead to a ratings upgrade for Greece. Some hedge funds have said they will sue if forced into the deal. Michael Waibel, at the Lauerpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University, says the case would first go to Greek courts where it would be received without much sympathy, and then to the European Court of Human Rights. Only the small number of bonds under Swiss and English law with pari passu clauses insisting on equal treatment of bondholders have any prospects, and even then legal enforcement of any awards is uncertain as shown in the case of Argentina. The 93% of bonds under Greek law have no such clauses and this gives Greece the option for special treatment of bonds held by the ECB....

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Jill Biden teaches at Northern Virginia Community College. She wants to continue her job teaching community college students helping them prepare for 4 year colleges, even after Mr. Joe Biden becomes the new president of the U.S.  This story of Jill Biden in The Times is exceptional in giving a vivid picture of the person closest to the new U.S. president. Both the Bidens, Joe and Jill, come from working class families in the northeastern U.S. Mr. Biden's life is marked by a single event that has affected his whole life the death in a car accident of his first wife Naomi in December 1972 when he was running for U.S. Senator in Delaware. He won that election becoming the youngest senator in U.S. history. The family retained high ambitions for Joe, hoping that he would become president. Jill met Joe Biden during this campaign and she married Joe in 1975. Jill had spent 13 years of her career teaching English in secondary schools, and the past 27 years teaching in community colleges, including the eight years when Biden was Vice President. Along the way she studied for 2 Masters degrees and a doctoral degree. Her dissertation for the doctoral degree was on the topic- Student Retention at Community Colleges: Meeting Student Needs. Student dropout rates are high about one in three in community colleges dropout.  It is a sign of the misplaced priorities of today that Dr. Biden takes pride in her degree and many do not think this is important enough a topic for a dissertation. Not only her education and hard work studying for advanced education makes her a unique asset, there are other parts of her character that make her exceptional and right for the times. Jill Biden entered a family that in some ways after Naomi's death was broken. The were two children surviving the fatal car accident in 1972, Beau and Hunter. This story shows how she handled this in a way that required extraordinary serenity and composure. There was the ambition of the family. There was the memory of the accident and Naomi. There was the cynicism about her passion for education in fashionable Democratic party circles out of touch with the roots of the national character in education and in libraries starting with Ben Franklin and Jefferson. With president Biden entering office at a time when the U.S. as a country is broken by the very neglect of education, healthcare and working class Americans, Jill Biden at 69 years has the experience, vigor of spirit and character needed today.   ...

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Baden-Powell was founder of the Boy Scouts which has given millions of boy scouts throughout Asia, Australia, Africa, Latin America and North America a sense of purpose when they were attending elementary and secondary school throughout the twentieth century. For girl scouts it added confidence to girls and enabled them to grow in many ways.  So it comes as a surprise that Baden-Powell is seen in this way. Gandhi never questioned British rule directly during the period when he fought for human rights in South Africa during the period 1893-1915. During the Boer War in 1900 Gandhi volunteered to form the Natal Ambulance Corps that as stretcher bearers helped treat British soldiers in the Boer War. He was given the Queens South Africa medal. In the Zulu war he repeated this by being part of the ambulance corps supporting British troops, but also treated Zulu wounded. Gandhi acted as a loyal part of the British Empire and throughout most of the period into the 1920's acted with loyalty to the British Empire. Few questioned British rule at the time, and Gandhi followed Gokhale's advice in 1915 as he returned to India at the age of 45. Gokhale was a moderate who accepted the British rule in India and sought provincial assemblies and self-rule under the British Empire. Gandhi's whole thinking was shaped by British traditions, British laws, British democracy, having attended a British school in Rajkot, Saurashtra province of Gujarat state. The letter helping him make his move for education as a barrister in England came through the British political agent in Rajkot, who was a friend of his father, the Diwan of the princely state of Porbander, Gujarat. Even Swami Vivekananda was helped by leaders of princely states in Saurashtra who pledged loyalty to the British Empire in India, one of whom was a close friend who helped Vivekananda come to America. It may be too easy to look back and make everything look good, when in reality it is complex, but yet ordinary human beings are in search for the right path. As Vivekananda's guru said you will still get there but "it is good to travel by a clean path." I visited the Gandhi home and museum in Porbander in September 2019. Driving in along the Saurashtra, Gujarat coastline we hit a rainstorm and when we reached the home it was in heavy rain. After visiting the home I went to a small bookshop in the museum and came across a copy of a small book Gandhi wrote in 1910 on a steamship back to South Africa from London, with the title- "Hind Swaraj or Home Rule." That little book written in the form of a dialogue between the reader and the editor by Gandhi amazes me as it was the basis of the movement after 1915 all the way into the 1930's. His clarity of thinking and his sincerity and steadfast purpose was such that it stood the test of time. Gandhi even goes as far as to say the English did not take India, India was given to them, given to English traders as Indian princes vied with each other for the favor of Company Bahadur, British forces designed to protect the East India Company's warehouses. That they remained in India for the purpose of trade and Indians helped them to do so. To blame them was for Gandhi to perpetuate their power. For him British arms and ammuniton were perfectly useless.  Gandhi writes this dialogue about Gokhale in the book which is worth reading at this time, as it was in 1910. Reader: Gokhale has constituted himself a great friend of the English, he says we have to learn a great deal from them, that we have to learn their political wisdom before we can talk of Home Rule. I am tired of reading his speeches. Editor: If you are tired it only betrays your impatience. We believe that those who are discontented with the slowness of their parents and are angry because the parents would not run with their children, are considered disrespectful to their parents. Professor Gokhale occupies the place of a parent. What does it matter if he cannot run with us? A nation that is desirous of home rule cannot afford to despise its ancestors. We shall become useless if we lack respect for our elders. only men with mature thoughts are capable of ruling themselves and not the hasty-tempered. Moreover how many Indian were there like Professor Gokhale, when he gave himself to Indian education? I verily believe that whatever Professor Gokhale does, he does with pure motives, and with a view of serving India... our chief purpose is not to decry his work , but to believe that he is infinitely greater than we are, and to feel assured that with his work for India, ours is infinitesmial."   ...

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It shows that Brexit promised cutting migrant flow but its action did just the opposite by removing cooperation with France on fighting migrant trafficking. Could doing away with EU bureaucracy and getting a special degree of autonomy have been accomplished in other ways than Brexit. Was this also the fault of French and German governments under Hollande/Macron and Merkel. The failures to accomplish Brexit goal to cut migrants of Conservatives and now continued failure in 2025 under a Labour government shows the need for European nations to work together. This is what president Macron and prime minister Starmer agreed to on Macron's visit to England on the invitation of King Charles, a pilot program that aims at breaking the migrant boats trafficking model. It will return boat migrants crossing the English Channel from France back to France.  Starmer says- "This is groundbreaking, because this is a scheme intended to break the model, and to make it clear that if you cross in a small boat, then you'll end up where you started. In exchange for every return, a different individual will be allowed to come here safely." The scheme will start in coming weeks.    ...

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By winning the Glenrothes byelection by a large margin, Labor's candidate, a headmaster in the school Gordon Brown attended, and where Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah campaigned personally, showed that Gordon Brown is winning support from the UK public through his handling of the economic crisis in the UK. And also for his leadership to American and European governments that were faltering in the early period of the crisis in October 2008, till Brown took decisive action to recapitalize Scottish and other English banks, something the Americans and Europeans later followed. The Scottish candidate was in favor of independence for Scotland, and whether Scotland benefits by independence from England was put in doubt after two of Scotland's leading banks including the Royal Bank of Scotland were rescued by Gordon Brown's government.

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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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Jeb Bush sees many who come to the U.S. looking for a better life as similiar to people who arrived here in earlier waves of immigrants all the way back to 1800. He described the actions of many who come to the U.S. illegally as an "act of love," and "act of committment to family," in a talk at College Station Texas, on the 25th anniversary celebration of the presidency of his father, George H.W. Bush. Its breaking the law, he says, but different, not a felony. Benjamin Franklin describes German immigrants to Pennsylvania in his writings at a time when immigrants were what made this country. They were different in some ways then but long since became part of the fabric of America, as have new immigrants in the different periods of the 19th and 20th century. Here is what Benjamin Franklin says about the German immigrants whom he praises for habitual "Industry and Frugality they bring with them," in a letter to Peter Collinson, May 19th 1753, addressing the fears as well as what they could bring to the new country, which throws light on todays immigration debates in a new light. "In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious." And then saying in the same letter-"Yet I am not for refusing entirely to admit them into our Colonies: all that seems to be necessary, is, to distribute them more equally, mix them with the English, establish English Schools where they are now too thick settled, and take some care to prevent the practice lately fallen into by some of the Ship Owners, of sweeping the German Goals to make up the number of their passengers. I say I am not against the Admission of Germans in general, for they have their Virtues, their industry and frugality is exemplary; They are excellent husbandmen and contribute greatly to the improvement of a Country." ...

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Indian PM Modi at G-7 Talks in Kananaskis Alberta, Canada June 15-17, 2025. Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand will meet Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar at the talks with Canadian prime minister Carney. Who is Anita Anand? It is said about her grandfather V.A. Sundaram that he passionately fought the British Empire but had a strong interest in English culture and literature. He sent his children to British Universities while helping build with his mentor Mandan Mohan Malaviya, the Banaras Hindu University, and working with Gandhiji for Indian Independence during the Round Table Conference of 1931 in London. Sundaram's son immigrated to Nova Scotia, and his granddaughter is now the Foreign Minister of Canada after having held posts of head of the Treasury Board, Internal Trade, Defense, Procurement during Covid, and is Member of Parliament from Oakville, Ontario. There are 2 million Canadians of Indian descent in Canada, and some like Geeta Anand have connections to the India's and Gandhiji's struggle for Independence against the British Empire. India today with Britain leads the British Commonwealth of Nations.  ...

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The Economist describes efforts in the European Union countries to come up with a common approach to the problem of integrating migrants into the European Union. There is the problem of migrants from English, French or Italian speaking regions in North Africa or the Middle East preferring to immigrate to countries where knowledge of the language makes integration easier. Germany has come up with an approach to integrate migrants that is the largest and furthest ahead in the EU. Finland has a program to integrate migrants from Somalia. The Economist points out the need in the EU as society ages, for young people from outside to fill the need for workers to support a larger numer of pensioners. For this to happen governments in Europe have to manage this carefully, so that fears of terrorism and political backlash in society against immigrants can be overcome.

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More details about Akio Toyoda and his father Shoichiro Toyoda. Yoshi Inaba is expected to be akey advisor and Shoichiro will be advising his son, as the idea is to mentor him for the new position while the elder Shoichiro still is in good health. Akio is hands on, and likes to drop in without any publicity, anonymously, to look into how things are going and see for himself. He did this at an Ann Arbor dealership last summer, and has dropped in on Jim Lentz, a senior executive in the Americanoperations in the same way. He is unpretentious and can mix with younger exectutives and talks directly in English. He is expected to be more involved in the global operations of Toyota, to travel widely and introduce diversity into Toyota's executive ranks, which have remained Japan centric all these years for a company that is so global.

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This Weekend Essay in The Times by Tom McTague looks at the European Union skepticism about the US after the failure of three administrations under Bush, Obama and Trump to extricate America from wars,  concentrate on building its infrastructure and manufacturing, renewing the lives of workers and families that were neglected. That skepticism came from administrations in Europe that also failed the Europeans in much the same way with the neglect of infrastructure, manufacturing, and little done for climate change under Schroeder and Merkel, Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron. The dependence on China for manufacturing and on Russia for energy for the EU and Britain made the situation even worse than in the US.  Al this has changed with the election of president Biden in the US, and Scholz with Habeck- Baerbock in Germany and with the recent elections in France upholding workers and families, acting on climate change. A false idea is presented about the Europe vs US and dominance as each is part of the free world alongside India, Australia, Japan, South east Asia, Latin America, French and English language Africa. This is why one has the G7 and G20 with countries like Argentina, Brazil and Indonesia critical parts of the free world. It is the ignorance of many officials in the EU more than the sentiments of the people of the free world in all these countries that leads to these false ideas about which country is dominant and skepticism - none are dominant it is through the unity of all and a shared vision in international rule of law, fairness, humility, respect for poorer nations. It is this that Kipling talked about in his poem "Intercessional," the lines repeatedly calling for the Lord's grace and for man to merit that grace with "a humble and contrite heart." It is also the spirit that so recently Mohandas Gandhi grasped and put forward for India and the world. Europeans talk about dominance- think about this for a moment, Gandhi merely asked for the right to move freely for Indians and Asians including Chinese at a meeting in 1908 where he gave a speech. The speech was on May 18, 1908, at the YMCA in Johannesburg and it debated the question "Are Asiatic and colored Races a Menace to the British Empire."  Not a word of ill will was uttered by Mohandas Gandhi even when talking about segregation in the speech. It is a humble and contrite heart that the Lord listens to. Both India and South Africa found a way out in a different way with faith in a higher authority, that even the British had not failed to address as Kipling clearly shows. ...