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Reliance Industries plan for new 4G telecom network in India using the latest technologies.

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A formal lifting of economic sanctions takes place in Jan 2016 with the implementation of the nuclear deal with Iran, a landmark event.

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The economic relationship between Texas and Mexico and the presidential elections in Mexico. The effects on immigration of policies pursued by the presidential candidates.

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India's inflation rate declined to 4.4% in Nov. 2014 and 5% in Dec. 2014. Price pressures are moderating throughout the economy. With lower oil prices in 2015 and long term trend for lower prices the outlook has improved for controlling inflation. The central bank governor Rajan cut rates by one quarter of a percentage point in Jan. 2015 and indicated further rate cuts are ahead to boost economic growth. The financial markets reflect a 1% decline in interest rates and the stock markets were up 2% in Jan. 2015

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India's central bank chief, Rajan, favors a lower inflation target of 4%, with fluctuations of 2% up or down. Lower inflation is critical for India to achieve higher growth rates. The World Bank lowered the rate of growth in the global economy but kept the rate of growth of 6.4% for India unchanged. Rajan also favors creating a more formal system for setting rates, with a committee like the Open Market Committee in the U.S. deliberating over the different factors for such a decision. Rajan was a professor at the University of Chicago, and chief economist at the IMF, before joining the central bank. Central bank policies have helped stabilize India's currency, the rupee. The lower cost of oil for India with an oil import bill of $100 billion is a big boost for economic growth. For the global economy this comes at a time when China's growth rate is slowing to below 7%.

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Strong competition from Samsung in emerging markets is another hurdle facing Nokia in its plans for recovery.

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As the U.S. population ages and grows at a slower pace the demand for automobiles is likely to peak in 2013-2014, and moderate in subsequent years. Automakers need to be vigilant about adding manufacturing capacity to avoid the problems faced in the last decade when sales and profits declined.

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The Trump administration says waivers for China, India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey to import Iranian oil that expire in May will not be renewed. The decision is to have zero exemptions. Earlier Taiwan, Greece and Italy, also on the list, decided to find other sources of imported oil. Iranian oil exports are estimate to be below 1 million barrels a day compared to 2.5 million barrels a day before president Trump abandoned the Obama administration negotiated Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed oil sanctions. 

Saudis and UAE say they will keep the oil market in balance, and president Trump is also relying on U.S. shale oil supplies. The move faces resistance from China which says the U.S. has no jurisdiction to interfere. India haces issues with the U.S. for importing from not only Iran, but also Venezuela, Turkey and Iran are neighbors, India and Iran are neighbors, both with cultural ties to Iran, making the situation difficult for both countries.

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Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, says the electric battery in the newly designed Ford Focus EV electric car costs about $12,000 to $15,000. The car price is $39,200. The similiar gasoline powered car price is about $22,000. This car has a 23 hour kilowatt hour battery pack. Based on this information the cost is $522- $650 per kilwatt hour. The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal reaching $300 per kilowatt hour by 2013, as it funds new electric car development in the U.S. The Ford Focus EV is directly competing against the Nissan Leaf. The Leaf starts at $35,200, with a range of 73 miles on a full charge compared to 76 for the Focus EV. The Focus can be recharged in three and half hours using a 240 volt charger, compared to 7 hours for the Leaf. What the battery cost tells us is that the electric car development has to bring costs down rapidly for electric cars to become price competitive.

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Pierre Razoux, a French historian provides this account of the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, at a cost of 680,000 people killed and $1.1 trillion in war destruction and money diverted from the economy. In 1980 Saddam Hussein of Iraq launched the war by attacking Iran which had just come under the Ayatollah Khomeini with the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. The war dragged on for 8 years with Khomeini persisting in the war. With U.S. and Saudi policy to increase production bringing the price of oil down from $30 to $10 designed to bring Iran and Iraq to the peace talks, as well as the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan, all three being major oil producers. The dollar also weakened by 37% during this period. The diplomatic isolation of the Khomeini regime made it more difficult for Iran to buy arms on credit than Iraq could, leading to the war ending with Iran finding it no longer possible to continue the human losses. The Carter administration, particularly with National Security Advisor Brzezinski, tilted towards Iraq to oppose Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Saudis also supported Iraq during the early period. Under president Reagan the U.S. began covert and direct assistance to Iraq to prevent an Iraqi defeat early in the war. Rumsfeld visited Baghdad in December 1983 and March 1984 to organize the U.S. effort to oppose Iran. This may have laid the seeds for future conflicts that lasted through the administrations of the elder and junior Bush. As Razoux points out the Revolutionary Guards became entrenched from this period in Iran's history, making it difficult for election process to work or elected governments to operate. 23 months following the end of that war in 1988 Saddam Hussein launched a war on Kuwait, leading to the U.S. led Gulf war and the entry of the U.S. into a ground combat role, which was followed by the invasion of Iraq under George Bush after 9/11 attacks. The twin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are estimated to have cost the U.S. over 1 trillion dollars. The result today is largely the division on the ground into Shia regions under the Revolutionary Guards and the Shiite government in Baghdad, and Sunni regions led by Islamic State and autonomous Iraqi Sunni tribes, ignoring the Iran-Iraq boundaries set in the colonial period by the French and the British. In all the amount spent in the Khomeini-Saddam war of $ 1 trillion being about $2 trillion in today's money, and the $1 trillion spent by the U.S., means about $3 trillion has gone into the wars in this region. This comes at a time of deficits in government budgets in the U.S. and a deep recession in the U.S. and Europe. It also explains why the U.S. public is reluctant to take even the minor action such as giving a standoff "no-fly zone" protection to the rebels in Syria, and supported the Obama administration in its reluctance to keep even the basic military force in place to protect its diplomatic mission in Libya, where the cost would be small relative to earlier enlarged military missions under the two elder and junior Bush administrations. The result is that refugees are pouring into Europe from Syria and Libya, through Turkey. Turkey itself is host to millions of refugees in camps along its border. The vacuum and the withdrawal of the Obama administration from the region has led to the rise of Islamic State with covert assistance from Sunni regimes in the region to counteract the growing influence of Shiite Iran. It also may explain the Iranian people's support for the nuclear weapons effort through years of sanctions, leading finally to an agreement with the Obama administration that relaxes sanctions in exchange for a future possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. Lost in the conflict is the Arab Spring of 2012-2013, with the Tunisian democracy the only surviving result of that movement for democracy and awakening among Arab peoples. The Reagan administration in its aggressive anti-Soviet position made large errors- including ignoring human rights abuses and use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, by supporting Iraq and reversing position after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, having a disastrous effect on the entire region decades later. Much of the Obama administration's reluctance for any action may stem from the U.S. role in this period and its consequences of protracted conflict. ...

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Kyushu Electric Power's Sendai Nuclear Plant is the first nuclear plant to be brought back into operation on August 10, 2015, as Japan brings back nuclear plants with strict safety standards under the Abe administration. Household electric bills had gone up by 25% with nuclear plants shut down.