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Three tankers held off the coast of Mumbai by India's Cost Guard have been sanctioned for carrying Iranian oil. India stopped buying Iranian oil in DJT's first term 2016-2020. In his second term DJT wanted India to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil as a way to reduce funding for Russia's invasion of Ukraine now in its fourth year. India has stopped buying Russian oil as part of the goodwill effort to reach trade agreements with the US, EU, and Germany. The seizing of the oil tankers is part of a new effort by India to support bringing Russia to the negotiating table to end the Ukraine war. Russia has demanded Ukraine turn over Donetsk region to end the war, which is a major stumbling block as Ukraine says there are Ukrainians living in Donetsk region. Germany's increase in its defense budget and investment in its armed forces has led to Germany+ (Germany plus UK and France) acting as the chief supporter of Ukraine, after the US has taken more of a neutral stand. The US basically wanting to end the war in 2026 so that the US can address the situation in the western hemisphere with drug and migrant trafficking gangs in Mexico, Venezuela and Columbia, and rebuild its economy to bring back manufacturing from China. For India the guiding principle of its foreign policy is Gandhiji's thinking and advice for fairness and peaceful coexistence - it does not believe in a British inspired NATO expanding on the borders of Russia, and at the same time does not see how a war on a neighboring Russian speaking region is in Russia's continued interest for a fourth year with bombing of energy infrastructure to leave Kviv in darkness. Non -alignment was Nehru's not Gandhiji's idea- the ideas of respect and fairness are basic to Gandhiji's thinking and India will remain true to his ideas in world relations. One aspect of this change in world affairs is missed by all and the media, that is that with the EU and US+ Japan, and India+ Indonesia there is a population of 1 billion of western peoples, and about 2 billion of Asian peoples, for a total of 3 billion people. This is a region three times the size of China, which with its access to capital and technology, labour and good governance is in a position to industrialize and reindustrialize, and bring manufacturing/science and technology to the core of this economic region by 2035. An industrialized India with 2X-3X the size of its current GDP will still be governed on Gandhiji's ideas for world relations in 2047. ...

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Modi speech for the ages to the people of Barrackpore, West Bengal, April 27 2026 surpasses any but the best of Gandhi's speeches for a century since the 1930's. "Shakti ki Bhakti" pilgrimage for the ages for the women and children and families of Bengal and India. A plea for freedom of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa as a north star for India, in the task of urbanization, modernization industrialization, and scientific revolution of India. "Purvi Bharat ka bahvisya sudhar kanrna chunav hai." This northeast that is key to the future of India's 1.4 billion people in this election in West Bengal of May 4, 2026 after 5 decades of failed governance, of failed industrialization and failed modernization in a region of 300 million people, half the size of the European Union. Impatience in Modi's voice with the pace of change that has failed the aspirations of a young generation of India.  This has left the northeast region as a backward agrarian economy. Change in federal  overnment for rapid modernization in India came in 2014 with Modi government. It was stalled for a few years by the Covid pandemic. The effort for modernization of the Indian economy after 5 decades of failed good governance is thus in its first decade and in that decade impeded by the state governments of Maharastra and Rajasthan in the western region that also includes Gujarat. In the northeast failed governance continued in West Bengal , Bihar and Orissa. In Delhi and the Punjab a similar situation. It is only now that Maharashtra and Rajasthan are aligned with federal government in industry and modernization goals. And it is only now that Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal are aligning themselves at the state level with the federal goals for modernization and rapid urbanization plus industrialization. In the south Tamilnadu (Madras region) and Kerala (Kochi), and Karnataka (Bangalore region) are also lacking in aligning with the efforts at the federal level. As a result the changes that are happening have the potential to bring a new wave of industrialization and modernization in the north, northeast and western regions of India with the federal government and the state governments in alignment on industrialization and modernization. This could bring to the world economy a development similar to China's second decade of development from 2000 to 2010 when a new surge happened in China's modernization. India's modernization will happen with the reindustrialization in the US and the European Union  and will set the pace for the world economy in the decades to come. ...

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Deteriorating China Iran relations as the oil imports from Iran for China face US tariffs of 25% on China's exports to US, and US economic relations far more significant for the Chinese economy. China gets somwhere between 1.4 to 1.6 million barrels aday from Iran (80% of Iran's oil exports) into Shandong refiners at $10 below Brent crude prices. Another 400 mbd comes from Venezuela to China. This means $30 billion comes to Iran from oil sales to China at $59 a barrel, and $8 billion for Venezuela from oil sales to China. This has financed much of the bellicose policies towards the US in the western hemisphere and in the Gulf region. Iran's bellicose policies in the Middle East, its nuclear policy, are now seen by China as a distraction and  detract from good economic relations with the US. China $400 billion oil deal 25 year cooperation agreement signed in 2021 was signed under the Biden administration and China today faces a completely different situation in 2026. Even China's relations with Russia are not the same as the US builds better relations with Russia. A wind down of the Ukraine war would change the situation completely and ensure peace in Europe including Russia, as the US works with the EU to meet future challenges having learned from this experience in Europe (Ukraine dividing Europe) and in the Western hemisphere (drug/ migrant. trafficking). When historians write this chapter of the inflows of capital from advanced West to Arab countries and the Gulf region they will write about the huge contrast between China/India's efforts to modernize and these nations where much of that capital was wasted in wars and conflicts and in grandiose projects that made no material difference to the standard of living and quality of life of the vast number of ordinary people. Once the oil dividend is gone with fossil fuels replaced with renewable energy by 2035-2040 this opportunity to advance is lost for the Arab and Gulf region. ...

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India China Border and rail connection $40 billion project Chengdu to Lhasa 2025. The infrastructure brings China greater access to the western region of China some of it from the occupation of Tibet in the 1950's that now makes up territory the size of 80% of the contiguous US. India is rapidly modernizing it's side of the border with tunnels and bridges.  This situation is new. For most of history from 1000 to 1950's China had only a remote connection with the Tibetan and Indian border regions where nomadic tribes and Tibetans lived. Very few Chinese numbering by the hundreds or a few thousands may have visited the region as even under the British contacts were very limited with Tibet and border regions in the Himalayas. For China it is far from its major population centers in Beijing and Shanghai and Hong Kong, Shenzen. And it provides few advantages in spreading over a vast region that is remote and in high over 15,000 feet in the Tibetan and border regions. It is only the invasion of Korea and China by Japan in the close of the nineteenth and early part of the 20th century that has created the idea of having buffer regions that protect it from foreign powers. And this is what may happen over the next 50 years as the region goes back to what it was before the 1950's, but with modernization, as India does not seek to reach out beyond Himalayan borders into regions closer to China. ...

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Yoon Suk Yeol from visit to Biden at White House as South Korea's president to jail sentence for life for ordering arrests and deploying military troops on Dec 3 2024. It shows the unstable situation for democracy and politics in South Korea, with the country polarized. It is much more polarized than the US  or Europe. South Korea may have advanced rapidly with its economy using Japan as a model, yet the political situation in South Korea and the Korean peninsula remains highly unstable. By comparison India has a long history of elected assemblies in the states and regions dating back to the 1936-37 provincial assembly elections under the British- nearing a century of democratic self government by 2036, ten years from now. Even the shorter period of elected government in South Korea was interrupted by dictatorships and the military rule. The Indian Constitution modeled on the unwritten constitution of Britain and the written one in the US, has the allegiance of a population of 1.4 billion people, unprecedented in the history of mankind. There are as many languages in India as in Europe and the media is lively in every language, so that it is an encounter that is the one of the wonders of the world to know and grow up inside India in the second half of the twentieth and the first part of the 21st century. It is also the first modernization effort in the context of Britoish and American democratic forms of government for over 1.4 billion people, almost 2 billion people counting other regions such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, that use India as their role model. The economic dynamism of the region required integration of sorts with the European Union and the US for scientific and industrial cooperation at every level which is now happening. ...

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The Lewinsky scandal broke out in January 1998. Bill Clinton admitted "an imprpper relationship" in August 1998. The vote to impeach Clinton was in December 1998. The acquittal took place in Jan-Feb 1999 with the lack of a two thirds majority of 67 votes in the Senate. The damage is not just in reputations. It is in distraction sufficient to lead to flawed legislation that lacked key provisions for the China US Relations Act of 2000 that was taken up by the Senate in May 2000. Could such a major step be taken in the last year of a lame duck administration? Republicans returned to the White House in December of 2000 with George Bush. There were no provisions in the China Relations Act for abuse of the status after joining WTO through unfair trad practices. The result is millions of jobs lost and the entire manufacturing base of the US and Europe shipped to China by 2019. Under Xi Jinping China returned to an adversarial relationship with the US on the issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan. It could have done serious damage to the 1.4 billion people of India as the gap between China and India opened up dangerous security implications for South Asia, a time when governance model of the Nehru era had failed by 2014 leading to fragmentation of the kind that happened in China when Japan had surged ahead in the 1920's and 1930's leading to the devastating war and Japanese invasion of China in the 1930's by provoked incidents. It shows the grave consequences of poor governance including the periods under Bush and Obama that led to decisions to get into wars in remote mountainous and desert regions. A series of such events can as shown by Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University, that can lead to permanent decline for regions and nations. Under both Biden and DJT an effort is underway to respond to these challenges. ...

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Mexico continues to be a problem state for the US with drug trafficking a part of the culture, not fully recognizing the damage it does to society in its neighbors, and not accepting responsibility for good governance that respects the lives of people in the North American region. More lives are lost to this drug trafficking across the US borders from Mexico, more lives lost in the US than in all the wars combined since the First World War in 1914. No recognition of this fact and the common responsibility of leaders to the people of North America.

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India European Union Trade Deal - huge potential for EU and India for 2 billion people size markets, new manufacturing hubs, and advanced scientific + technological cooperation. Timing is critical. From the first term of DJT 2016-2020 it became clear that the supply chain concentration in China was a serious error for America and Europe. Modi came into manage the federal government in India in 2014- that first phase was to tackle the basic problems in health care sanitation and road infrastructure, agriculture. By the second term of DJT Europe had realized something had to be done to reduce concentration of trade  supply chains in China. Two things had to happen to bring India and EU together. The Ukraine War and China's indirect participation on the side of Russia, the change in administration from Merkel to SPD's Schulz,  and in 2026 to Merz and the CDU created a new awareness of the need for EU and India to come together. Yet Scholz SPD hung onto the special trade relationship even in the face of the Ukraine war and China's shift when it allowed the port of Hamburg stake taken by China to be retained. Something had to happen to jerk Germany and with it the EU out of its inability to shift towards India. Merz took this step in 2026 as the relationship with China soured over Ukraine war and the grasp of the dangers of overconcentration of the China relationship with Germany that Merkel had created. On the other side Modi had to get India's logistics, road and rail networks, ports ready for such a trade relationship where goods could be quickly shipped into and out of India. Modi worked on these investments on a rapid basis in his second and third terms. India had to offer stability in the relationship. This meant winning elections to set up state governments in key states such as Maharashtra for Bombay (Mumbai) region, Delhi capital region, and Bihar/ Orissa (Patna region northeast), Rajasthan (Jaipur northwest region), local city governments in Bombay (Mumbai) region and in the south in Andhra (Vizag region) + Trivandrum (Kerala). The combination of federal and state and city governments working in unison plus logistics and transportation, put India in contention for the role of a size and magnitude that would make a difference for Europe in its relations with China and Russia. That necessity was now fulfilled and in place. Merz and Modi, seized the chance at the kite festival in Gujarat's Ahmedabad, with a vist to the Sabarmati Ashram of modern India's founder Mohandas Gandhiji. Von Der Leyen also from CDU now joins the former premier of Portugal Antonio de Costa as heads of EU to attend the Republic Day parade celebrations in New Delhi on January 26. Nothing happened by chance. It took the hard work that in Robert Frost's words in Mowing ( "the fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows my long scythe whispered, for the earnest love that laid the swale in rows"). Japan plunged headlong into imperial ambitions after its modernization, China has ambitions under its Communist/ Markets system, India as the homeland of the Buddha and the Buddhist civilization of China, Japan and Indochina, and with its special place for Mohandas Gandhiji brings the European civilization in connection with a civilization that is just as old and advanced as the European in its philosophical and religious foundations with practice in real life, and not likely to flounder on the rocks as the Japanese and Chinese expansionist ambition based ideas. And once again with Robert Frost in- Putting in the Seed in Springtime, for Merz, Leyen, Da Costa, and for Gandhi and Modi - "On through the watching for that early birth when just as the soil tarnishes with weed, The sturdy seedling with arched body comes shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs."     ...

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Lucy Powell, deputy leader of Labour party, on Andy Burnham as the right choice for Denton seat in parliament, as the Greens would not have gone after that seat the way they did knowing Burnham was in it. Lucy Powell says of Andy Burham of the Greater Manchester region-  people “see in him someone who is on their side, someone who is delivering those Labour values and those Labour policies”. Starmer's error was to keep Burnham out, and he well realizes this.

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EU chief Von der Leyen says- "phasing out of nuclear energy was a strategic mistake,"  at Second Nuclear Energy Conference in Paris, March 10 2026. As the war with Iran rages over nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles development in the first week of March 2026, Macron opens the Second civilian Nuclear Energy Conference in Paris. France is the only nation that gets most of its energy from nuclear reactors- 70% from 58 nuclear reactors. And $9 billion in nuclear energy exports. With renewables and hydropower France as the lowest carbon grid in the world. Leyen of the EU says "This reduction ‌in the share of nuclear was a choice, I believe that it was a strategic mistake for Europe to turn its back on a reliable, affordable source of low-emissions power." "For fossil fuels, we are completely dependent on expensive and volatile imports. They are putting us at a structural disadvantage to other regions."  ...

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US shifts to Naval Blockade strategy, says ceasefire on, no war powers authorization needed from Congress. Naval blockade started on April 13 on its 18th day on May 1. It means Iran's economy is affected by lack of oil revenues to finance the economic needs the longer the blockade goes on, with US goal to remove danger of nuclear materials inside Iran requiring ti to be shipped out to Russia or a third safe country. This is a goal that is supported by all nations that do not want to see nuclear weapons in a dangerously volatile region with 5 decades of wars by 2025.

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Iraq as two states in one now dragged into Iran War by Iran sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces that are part of the two state government. It points to a never ending conflict in this region, even after Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Finding alternative sources of oil and accelerating renewable energy are ways to stay away from the Middle East, easier to accomplish through innovation and rapid progress than sourcing oil from the region.  Irreconciliable differences between religious sects complicated further by the artificial countries created of Syria and Iraq created by the British and French Empires from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire by 1921 are enough reason to stay out of the Middle East conflicts for the US, Russia, India, China, the European Union.  The British and French colonial powers that drew up the map of Iraq and Syria created states with different populations that made no difference to them in 1921, but which create unmanageable and impossible to run states today. This is learning from the bitter experience of 50 years of conflict and wars that led through war distraction to deindustrialization of the US and European Union, and consequently to the tariff wars with China, a process that is still unwinding today. The US is better off developing new oil supplies as it considers another push in renewable energy, the EU, China and India have the resources to make a new push for renewable energy and efficient use of energy similar to Germany and Japan, using additional supplies from the US as a transition point. Imagine combining the energy technological innovation that is a bigger motivation combining the scientific minds and resources of China, Japan, India, the US and Europe, than the dislocation and internal strife inside these countries that is generated from the Middle East -that is itself the legacy of irrational decisions made by colonial powers of the 1920's,  1930's and 1940's that remain a hundred years later- impossible to resolve except by working with new solutions for energy outside of the region. ...

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Khamanei as leader of post revolution Iran set up Iranian supported military organizations in neighboring countries such as in Lebanon (Hezbollah), in Iraq, and in Syria, in Yemen (Houthis), over two decades, but failed to make the gains that Asian nations in that period made by investing entirely every dollar in the homeland economy of Iran. By comparing with Asian nations such as South Korea/Japan/Taiwan/China and now India/Vietnam the entire region from Iran and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Persian Gulf, Egypt can be seen as having lost some vital decades of the early twenty first century, and the scale of the difference is nothing short of staggering.  China after suffering invasion from Britain and then Japan, after civil wars and the Korean War, after going through this for two centuries sought peaceful development in 1990-2025, working with Japan and Britain countries that caused so much suffering yet China sough rapprochement, patiently with humility, with incredible results.  Gandhi also sought rapprochement with Britain through the British Commonwealth and cherished institutions of parliament and science learned and gathered from Britain. This was woefully missing in West Asia. When considering the access to capital in fossil fuel sales, the region of West Asia around Egypt may be seen as having recorded the largest wasted capital in wars in world history in the period 1920 -2047 (with only 20 years left to 2047),  by which time India, China, Europe and the US will have shifted from fossil to solar nuclear and renewables and fossil will be no longer generating revenue flows. Very little time is left as development will be that much harder by 2047 without the capital and result being one of being left behind in this new world that is facing us all.  ...

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In a complete reversal of Chavez socialist Venezuela oil policy that led to underinvestment in oil industry and its gradual collapse with mismanagement corruption- the new oil law sets 15% tax and 30% royalty fees . This encourages US investment other than Chevron which is already in the country. Rodriguez, the interim president says "We're talking about the future. We are talking about the country that we are going to give to our children."  US Secretary of State Rubio cited this achievement in the interests of the Venezuelan people in the Senate hearing yesterday. Rubio is from Latin America, has a deep knowledge of the region and is interested in its future for the next generation, he knows what went wrong and what can be corrected for a better future for the region. For this reason the Monroe Doctrine is not about US alone, but the US helping the region prosper and improve the lives of people in the region. A very important point when there is misrepresentation of US policy in the region and the world, something Rubio never tired of pointing out in the Senate hearing yesterday. Once again in a country that was one of the best in Latin America Venezuelan oil can help Venezuela get back on its feet as a reliable and successful partner for America in the western hemisphere, a model for the rest of the region after so much suffering and mismanagement acting as a lesson for future generations in the western hemisphere. ...

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Sophie Landrin's Le Monde report on Sri Lanka Ditwah cyclone devastation December 9 2025. Her report with pictures of the destruction wrought by the cyclone show parts of the Kandy region in the mountainous uplands in the central part of Sri Lanka, including the University of Peradeniya. There was no warning when the cyclone hit with 10,000 of 16,000 student on the campus. This is the worst cyclone to hit Sri Lanka in the last hundred years. Sri Lanka is a island nation that is Buddhist located at southern tip of India. It has been hit by a civil war, financial crisis with no central bank reserves, the pandemic, and now the cyclone. 

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50 Economists are surveyed by WSJ from banks and universities to small consulting firms. The consensus is that unemployment will remain the same and inflation a bit higher (2.9% instead of 2.6%) if the war is temporary. At what price point and for how long does it cause problems of a recession? The price point is in the region of $138 and in the region of 14 weeks. Inflation predicted at 2.6% is now estimated to increase to 2.9% in this survey March 16-March 18. The attack on gas and oil fields in Qatar, UAE, Saudi and Iran may pose a different kind of problem making it harder to repair than the Straits of Hormuz closure which could be opened at any time and allow tanker traffic to resume supplies.

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Putin's Russia year end QA sessions- "Direct Line" Marathon of 3 million questions. Two from the BBC. Answering the BBC Putin said "if you don't cheat us like you cheated us with Nato's eastward expansion", there would be no more war activity from Russia. Putin believes NATO and European leaders had promised no expansion to Gorbachev before the Soviet Union collapsed. Archives from 1950 show that NATO was formed as Soviets expanded after World War II. At the time Truman took up defense of Turkey and Greece from Soviet expansion. As Eastern Europe became part of the Soviet sphere the situation went on from 1950 to 1990 of 40 years with regional wars in Korea, Vietnam. The Russian leaders including Putin who set Russia on the path to economic recovery had a deep sense of loss of respect as Russia was treated as another European country by Netherlands, Britain and France, Germany former colonial powers that had difficult relations with Russia. It is this deep sense of loss of respect that these leaders felt after the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia suffered economic and political decline from 1990 to 2000 which was reversed by decades of economic growth. This was a period of economic growth in China. As China asserted itself in Hong Kong, Russia pushed back in Crimea and Ukraine regions that had long ties with Russia of language and culture. Had western leaders disbanded NATO and formed a new alliance with new goals with a vision for peaceful coexistence with Russia in the east the situation could have turned to be different. In 2025 the European powers Germany, France and Britain are not willing to see Russia gain points from the outright invasion of Ukraine presenting new obstacles to a peaceful settlement. Ukrainian sentiment is also a factor as giving parts of Donetsk would be unpopular.  ...

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US 15 year security guarantee or 30 years discussed in 20 Point Peace Plan at Ukraine US DJT meeting December 29, 2025. Ukraine says US has proposed 15 years, Ukraine wants 30 years. The war has lasted 15 years. A free economic zone in Donetsk region proposed by the US. Talks simultaneously with Ukraine and Russia with a referendum in Ukraine to get agreement to the deal.

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British MP raises issue of Arab Gulf countries providing 37% of China's oil imports, excluding Iraq 27%, vs 11% from Iran and 20% from Russia- 2024 US EIA. Tom Tugendhat says China has to balance its interests in the region after the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, between Iran, Gulf monarchies, and Russia. China also faces a more credible choice of accelerating the development of renewable energy in the same way that India and the European Union face. US will act as a supplier of last resort  adding Venezuelan and other supplies but temporarily as the entire Middle East region poses quandaries for China, the US, and India, European Union. The quandary stems from the irreconciliable differences between religious sects in the region, post 1950 ideological and religious militancy,  in which neither China, India, the US, Russia or the European Union wants to get drawn into after 5 decades of bitter experience in the Middle East.

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One fifth of Kviv's population of 3 million has left the city, 4000 apartment buildings are without electricity in Kviv, this winter January 2026. This is the worst of the last couple of winters of the war, as Russia attacks energy infrastructure in Kviv on a large scale even as peace talks continue. Russia insists on control of Donbas region. Much of Ukraine today remembers a famine from the Soviet period, Russia remembers its proud history, language and culture from its beginnings in the Kviv region around the 14th century, that is the what this conflict is about. On one dimension it is about NATO and European Union expansion on another about the history and culture, language in a Russian language part of the world and the effort of Ukraine in the 21st century to seek a new identity. It is a struggle between fraternal people in the Russian region and in that sense a tragedy. It doesn't have to be one for Europe, for Germany. NATO was created when the Soviet Union expanded after 1948 and Britain was a key protagonist of NATO. Would its disbanding after Soviet Union disbanded leaving Russia as a country with centuries of its own history, would this have been the right action. If needed a new organization with a new name and Russia invited to join, would this have helped? Could this have focused attention on a new power as chancellor Merz has said, the new power being China being something requiring attention. The US is beginning to have new thoughts in this winter on 2026. The northern European nations (Britain, Poland, Finland and the Nordic countries, Baltics) have historical conflicts for centuries among themselves, they appear to be using NATO for their own historical conflicts. The US understands this, it is looking for a way to get a peace settlement so it can focus on the western hemisphere and not entangle itself in northern European conflicts that have been happening since 1600 with changing actors. The Republican have taken the lead under DJT for a new approach to put American people and their wellbeing, their right to live free of drugs(Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia), to live free of illegal migrants (Guatemala, Mexico, Venezuela), and improve on the shaky supply chains that were concentrated in China to bring jobs home that were lost by the millions (tariff policy), and to make living affordable (energy, agriculture).  ...

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Kuwait oil production cut as storage fills up March 2026. Fewer tankers are making it through the Straits of Hormuz. Huge inventory on tankers in ocean waters and the added supplies from Venezuela help relieve the pressure on oil supplies as Iranian oil production stops. The US allows India to get Russian oil for 100 days in this special situation of war in the Middle East region. 

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Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer meets Russian leader Putin for 90 minutes and tells him that he has "lost the war morally" and that "in war both sides are losers." As shown by the World Bank today the Russian economy could be impacted by somewhere between 11% to 25% loss for its economy, for Ukraine the loss would be 45%. For Belarus, Moldova and former soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Krygyz, the loss to their economies about 30% because the region is interconnected with remittances and other trade impacted. These would be devastating economic losses. The entire region in this part of Europe would be suffering losses. Many of the countries would have to turn to the IMF or the World Bank to remain solvent. One of Russian leader Putin's goals was to build a rival economic bloc from former Soviet republics and regions. Instead the invasion has done just the opposite. The economic losses will have impoverished the whole region.   ...

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China's rapid construction in the Doklam plateau of Bhutan is covered in this report in WSJ. This is a small corridor of territory that connects parts of India to its northeast. PM Modi recently visited Bhutan and India has a security treaty with Bhutan which adjoins populated regions of India in the northern Ganges region. History is being repeated with China intervening in the northernmost regions of Indian Himalayas in 1950- 2024 at great distance from China's population centers in mainland China in the way Japan intervened in the far northern regions of China in the 1870-1945 period. Modern road and aircraft connections have made this possible for China- yet today India is building its own road and aircraft capabilities rapidly so that in the long run not much is to be gained for China in the Himalayan region where it has not had a presence since the early Buddhist period of Bodhidharma that brought Buddhism to China from India in the 5th century. It is a reminder that both suffered from colonialism and are struggling to find a path that benefits their peoples, that eventually rejects the path Japan had found to lead nowhere. ...

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This Washington Post Editorial Board Opinion asks Europe to get serious about its energy needs and finding alternate supplies than Hormuz, that the US president DJT is sending the right message "Go get your own oil." And this is true also for China, Japan, South Korea and India. What there is no need for is the posturing of these countries when it is China and Japan that are dependent on Hormuz strait and that region for 90% of their imports, not the US which is zero dependent and self sufficient. Germany has shown the way with only 6% of its imports from that region, Italy and Britain have not acted to find other alternate supplies. 

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Israel's use of latest generation F-35 aircraft, modified for its own use, and drone attacks from within Iran changed the course of the war in the first 48 hours. Israel now controls skies over Iran. Missiles launched from within Iran continue to operate but are being targeted by Israeli planes including the use of its older aircraft. Air defenses and missile launching places within Iran are being steadily put out operation which makes it difficult to launch missiles as the days pass. This WSJ report compares the Ukraine war with the air wars with Iran, saying Russia did not operate its planes over Ukraine after the first days of the war. US warnings helped Ukraine prepare its air defenses and the better integration of air defense capabilities across cyber and other lines helped Ukraine maintain control over its skies. Russia was left with missile attacks and drone attacks and a slow war of attrition in the Ukraine War which resulted in staggering casualties. With Germany stepping in under Merz the Ukraine war enters a new phase after Russian gains in 2024. Germany is stepping in to the role played by the US working with France and Britain, as the US focuses its energies on the other threat posed by China in the Indo-Pacific region.  Eventually this will lead to another stalemate in the war in Ukraine after a swing one way, then a swing the other way, and now a swing back to where both sides have little to gain and reach a compromise, Ukraine giving up sovereignty to regions controlled by Russia and Russia recognizing Ukraine as an independent nation. ...