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Violation of international law or tacit approval of drug states and suppression of the election results in Venezuela- position taken by Oxford's Dill and Germany's Steinmeier is itself controversial. Merz's is realistic. For those concerned about international law is it restricted to any particular period? Then the British policy in China supported by the other powers Japan, Russia, Germany and France to suppress the Boxer rebellion in 1901 and expand Treaty ports that forced opium on China in the period 1850 to the 1930's was not just a egregious violation, horrendous violation of basic human rights on a scale unimaginable in modern times. Much of the prosperity of the Netherlands and Britain, France was achieved through such policy in Asia. Yet Oxford's Dill and Steinmeier have chosen not to look at European history and the Empires of Europe in Asia and Africa for 300 years since 1700. By comparison Venezuelan action comes after the great patience of well meaning people, and the silence of elites in the US and Europe about massive migration encouraged by the regime in Venezuela of one third of its population about 9 million people to neighboring countries including the US, and suppression of free elections, complete mismanagement leading to 150% inflation destroying its economy.  It was not only these elites in the US and Europe that were responsible through their silence, but also the Bush and Obama wars in the Middle East which sapped the resources of the United States. Why is this happening when the Venezuelan people are the main benificiaries of the action taken by the US president to send in its military. All oil sales revenue will no longer go to a corrupt "drugs" state but be used to directly help the Venezuelan people achieve a better standard of living, bring down inflation  and invest in modernization, in these unusual circumstance a program run by Bessent at US Treasury. Those who dislike the unconventional but well meaning style of the US president and his occasional poor choice of words, find every opportunity for criticism even ignoring facts and common sense. Under Chavez and Maduro the Venezuelan economy was simply mismanaged to the point of being destroyed and an affluent country reduced to poverty and inflation so bad that one third or 9 milllion people left for neighboring countries. On this Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier have only this to say- it is somebody's else's problem. we will remain silent. Similarly on introducing nuclear weapons in the Middle East -where most nation states have intermittent wars and economic mismanagement for the last 50 years the artificial states from the Ottoman Empire of Syria and Iraq, Libya, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Sudan every state impoverished by war and economic mismanagement - Dill at Oxford and Steinmeier in Germany also have only this to say- it is somebody else's problem not ours, we will remain silent. ...

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Reliance India Limited to build 168,000 b/d Clean shale oil refinery in Brownsville Texas, to cut US trade imbalance of $58 billion with India by $15 billion a year, about 25%. Much of the product could be exported to India from the port of Brownsville in Texas. This helps improve relations with India as the US president was looking for ways to cut the trade deficit with India. The US India trade agreement is based on increased energy exports by US to India. US has a trade imbalnce with India of $58 billion which was an issue in recent trade talks with India. US wants India to get energy product from the US under the US India Trade Agreement. The president of America First Refining Trey Giggs says- "The United States has a surplus of light shale oil but a shortage of refining capacity designed to process it." This CLEAN refinery will strengthen the domestic supply chain. For India and Reliance (RIL) this is also a way to get out of the quagmire of getting supplies from the Middle East.   ...

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Xi's "Great Rejuvenationof the Chinese Nation" compared favorably to DJT's "Make America Great Again" by Xi Jinping during DJT visit to Zhonghanhai Compound of China's leaders in Beijing. Xi Jinping says during DJT visit to Beijing May 14 2026- “Through strengthened cooperation, both China and the United States can promote their respective development and revitalization." This is important to grasp if one wants to understand China. Much of the media focuses on this or that smaller aspect of the DJT visit to China, including the NYT when it shows DJT invited to a walk on the garden grounds of the Zhonghanhai Compound. It does not accept that president Xi Jinping finds little that is relevant to China today and its aspirations in places like Iran and the Middle East. That Xi admires the US efforts for reindustrialization and renewal in the same way he sees the rejuvenation and renewal of the great Chinese Nation and sees this as shared goals for betterment of their people's lives.  ...

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Elena Mayors Taylor gold medalist at Milan WInter Olympics 2026 age 41 years, is th eoldest gold medalist in Olympic history. Her colleague in the winter sport of bobsledding is Armbruster Humphries who has 3 gold medals and is 40 years She says-  "You get a lot of people that like to write you off as soon as you reach 40, it's all downhill from there, is what you hear. I think Elana and I are both proof that that's not true." Former bronze medalist from Britain Jon Jackson says of Elena- "She is not only a ferocious athlete but also a beautiful human being and a genuine person. It has been a real show of dedication to keep going through the struggles of now being a mum in a high-performance sport, the dedication that takes to maintain that level of physical fitness and the hard work of being a parent. It shows her true nature." Elena has 3 children with disabilities and is an advocate for mums. "It should be celebrated that they're both mums, using mum power, both in their early 40s and it's great to see them competing at the top of the world not only physically but the drive and experience too,"   ...

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Report from Smart Ageing Summit at Oxford 2026. It rejects the notion common in society that physical decline is inevitable with age. It puts the responsibility of good health on healthy living which means about 80% of the responsibility is on each one of us to maintain good health. Things that are important says this report are completely abstain from alcohol, avoid processed foods (what RFK Jr is telling us as Health Secretary), prioritize sleep, cultivating a "not-meat" mindset, not eating after 6.30 pm. Other studies such as the Oxford Population Health with half a million UK participants show environmental exposures and healthy living habits have far greater importance than biological ageing and inherited genetics. Which also supports this conclusion that it is upto each one of us to build a better quality of life as we age. We assume here that the society we live in is healthy and there are no natural disasters such as climate change or human made disasters such as wars and conflicts, human exacerbation disasters such as not investing in healthcare, education and infrastructure for good public services such as transportation, parks and recreation. Yet that cannot be taken for granted and it is also important for our own healthy living and our spiritual health to invest some of our time and put our money into making sure that this investment takes place in building a healthy society and environment to live in. We do this in our civic life, as parents at parent teacher meetings, as custodians of the environment, being active in our neighborhoods, in business practices, and in supporting and monitoring investments in education and healthcare for our communities. ...

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Independent contractors rule reinstated by DJT administration following employee status push by Biden and unions. This affects 11.9 million workers in the US. Independent contractors cannot unionize and lack some of the protections of labor law. The independent contractors get to choose where they work for remote work days and get to choose the projects they want to take up, set their own hours which can help for childcare or care for parents. It includes workers in real estate, construction, arts, design, and personal care, where most of these independent contractors work. Only a small part is in Uber drivers or DoorDash delivery gig workers. This Editorial Board opinion in Wash. post cites Bureau of Labor Statistics that says from a 2023 survey that 80% of this worker group prefers independent contractor work to full time traditional employment which has less flexibility.

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View from Le Monde in France on the visions of Macron, Merz,, and Rubio for rebuilding the transatlantic alliance.  France under Macron sees less hope for the rebuild of the transatlantic friendship. The Germans under Merz and Soder of Bavaria see it differently. As shown in Nina Haase's interveiw with Johann Wadephul Germany's Foreign Minister, he sees Marco Rubio's speech very positively and like Merz wants to rebuild the relationship. It is not fully understood in Europe that Vance was also. partly reflecting his own views and his own tendency to sound and act like DJT. RUbio was once a candidate for the presidency in 2014 whom DJT had to defeat in the primaries. Rubio's recent book on how the elites have failed US and Europe shows a man of his own convictions. He and DJT agree because he brings out the best that is in the Republican party today to look back at its heroes from the past, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln with a profound belief in western civilization and America's role in it. When seen in this context it changes everything- all that talk of Vance means little because Vance is a much less experienced politician from the midwestern state of Ohio compared to Rubio with his long years in the Florida legislature and in the Senate in Foreign Affairs. Rubio speaks for the United States so much more so than an inexperienced and very young politician from Ohio who has emerged only in the last 5 years, compared to Rubio's 20 years in public service. ...

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Barton Swaim editorial page writer of the WSJ on Vladimir Putin Weekend Interview with Beatrice de Graaf of Utrecht Uiversity and Niels Drost of Clingendael Institute in The Hague, Netherlands - how Western World missed Czar Peter the Great's World View and its shaping Putin's World View creating vast misconceptions when US thinks Russia thinks like western norms.  Could the US have missed a key component of the thinking of Russian leaders in putting themselves in the line of Russian kings (Czars) since the Enlightenment with belief in nationality, autocracy and Empire of the Enlightenment. “Of course he (Putin) also refers to the Second World War, and he does refer to Stalin—but not that much. Far more often he talks about the great Russian czars.” And the great Czars that was important to Putin, de Graaf counts 3000 statues built in Russia to these role models for Putin. In the early years says de Graaf Putin talked incessantly about the modernization of Russia, Russia joining the Modern World in the years of the Enlightenment, Russia fighting off Napoleon and under the Soviets Nazi Germans. Graaf says he talked about- “Peter the Great and European interests, of Catherine the Great and literacy and the Enlightenment. He spoke of Alexander I and Europe joining to defeat Napoleon." Deep down Putin felt in these talks 11,000 of them on the Putin site which puts up his speeches and talks over a 20 year period, which Niels Grost with his fluency in Russian has looked at. Of these 3000 talks and speeches are in this reference to the great Czars. Even before Ukraine there was a sense of hurt that considering the vast expanse that Russia occupies in Europe Russia had by restoring the old Russia by 2000 found itself in a odd predicament. As de Graaf and Swain point out the US market based economy based on GDP, the US presidents such as Bush and Obama saw Russia as a  middle power based on its exports and imports, its trade, its commerce which was the only way they could see the world. This led to a special kind of shortsightedness says this interview in the WSJ. Putin's key adviser says of Russia's goal - to be seen as a Northern European Power (from WSJ) in 2025.Putin sees Russia as looking for "respect," as a goal.  This is where US business may have got it all wrong- the authors say about China and India- and the US, seeing themselves as Empires not in today's Modern World as with imperialist ambitions, but with a historic sense of regional presence across Asia and North America with their rapid modernization. DJT's talk of Canada as a 51st state, one finds US business as accepting the idea that Canada is part of the US regional influence. And under the Monroe Doctrine of 1824 revived by no less than Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, in its cooperation form by JFK in 1960, the regional influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere is also accepted by US business and the American public. It is this context that the authors say offer an alternative view of the Russian leader and his policies. Beatrice de Graaf and Niels Drost are the author of "Putin's Czarist Dream" At that point there is in addition to nationality, autocracy and Empire of the czars the ideas embedded in Eastern Orthodox Christianity which are different says de Graaf of Utrecht University in Netherlands, from Western Christianity. This Eastern Orthodox Christian idea is a bit different from St. Augustine's just war and discussion of what constitutes a just war, and the definition of that being given under Russian tradition by Russian Czars or leaders who Putin identifies himself with such as Peter the Great. Peter the Great  created the beginnings of Russia as a modern European state in St. Petersburg during the years of the Enlightenment. In the Eastern Asian tradition the Bhagavad Gita also has a discussion of what constitutes a just war so that it extends to different regions of the world not just European. ...

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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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Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, India, UK, European Union elections are taking place by June 2024 and US in November 2024. Yet it is misleading to lump them together. Much discontent is there to see as in the UK with cost of living, governance, time wasted on Brexit, India with lingering effects of the pandemic on rural voters, caste based voting. In India protest vote of lower caste Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, even with government support in forms of universal healthcare, food for poor households during pandemic extended, cooking gas, housing support, clean tap water, direct bank account deposit to accounts of poor and farmers. Yet in the states in the south and east in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and generally in the south the BJP vote count increased so that losses in the north were made up leaving the percentage of vote for India for Modi's BJP party at 37 percent in 2024 instead of 38% in 2019, losing the absolute majority 240 seats of 543 yet having campaigned heavily for partners who added seats 294 of 543. In the UK Keir Starmer may see some vote preference for Labor erode yet the Conservative record is in shambles even conservative experts will say, as in India where the opposition parties offer no prospects for the future and little track record for making India the second or third largest economy in the world which the BJP has set and shown to have achieved over 10 years by taking India to No. 5 in the world economies. ...

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G7 Finance Ministers plan to release 300 million barrels of oil (2 weeks worth of Straits of Hormuz lost oil production ) to keep oil prices in check. Oil Prices reach $101 a barrel after 1 week of the US Israel war with Iran. Oil going through Straits of Hormuz are 20 million barrels a day, if 300 million barrels are released that would cover another 15 days of the war. By that time safety has to be reestablished, and additional production brought from Venezuela, from Russia for use by India, so that maybe 50% of the 20 million barrels can be produced from other locations in the world to make up for the loss. Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency says-  "In addition to the challenges of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a substantial amount of oil production has been curtailed. This is creating significant and growing risks for the market. "IEA member countries currently hold over 1.2 billion barrels of public emergency oil stocks, with a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held under government obligation."       ...

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Oil prices and the US war with Iran -Straits of Hormuz how much of it remains open, European supplies, and drop in production in Gulf region, how these risks are managed will have an impact on inflation. Inflation could end up at 2.9% instead of 2% says Greg Ip. Gep Ip does not take into acocunt new flexible oil policy under which India gets a waiver to buy oil supplies from Russia, China sources more of its supplies from Russia to make up for the supplies lost from the Middle East. Russia steps in for a temporary period to keep oil prices lower. US ramps up Venezuelan and its own oil production to meet the needs of other countries such as Japan and S. Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Europe. Conservation measures are enacted to reduce oil use for the same level of GDP as taken in Japan and Germany.