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Iran War and rescue of pilot of downed F15-E in mountainous terrain in southern Iran April 4 2026. CSAR or Search and Rescue Missions become a critical part of the war. The pilot was a colonel trained for the mission and spent 24 hours in mountainous terrain which was monitored by US forces, after intelligence located him in a mountain crevice. For this to be possible unlike in the Vietnam War and Korean War other nations are not involved as in the earlier Cold War.  The US under DJT as president has shifted to respecting Russia as a Northern European power that it can talk with (meetings with Putin in Alaska 2025) and China as a trade partner (planned meeting in Beijing in April 2026) that it can talk with unlike with previous administrations of Biden, Obama and Bush where China had afree hand in economic matters and global trade and Russia was shut out of the world economic system by elites who ran the government in the US at that time. Russia seeks reintegration in the world political and economic systems, and China seeks acceptance as an economic power which the US respects, both points in which the US has offered to accept. US has also repeated the line to China that it was not going to do the job of keeping Hormuz open for China and Japan to get 90% of oil imports, and in oding so risk losing its soldier's lives, while China and Japan can quietly watch doing nothing to help free navigation of international waters. Note that the narrowest strip of water of 13 miles separates Oman from Iran so that a part of these waters are on the Omani side and not on the Iranian side making free use of that Omani part under international law possible- in which sense Iranian hostile activity closing the Omani side also is a violation of free navigation. This is not pointed out by Iran or Japan or even Britain who are benefitting from US action and remaining silent or being ambivalent or accusing US of being interventionist even when everyone knows MAGA base rejected Bush in the Republican party and the elites and embraced DJT for great part because they want nothing to do with interventionist adventures in the Middle East for certain. US is getting a bum rap from European allies and from China, India, Japan and the media inside the US and in those countries as if the US seeks oil from the Middle East. It was Britain where a lot of the posturing goes on about non intervention that started this oil based intervention since 1900 in Iran itself, and in artificial states of Iraq, Syria, that it created out of the collapsed Ottoman Empire in World War 1. Sykes and Picot were the US and French diplomats who set that up. US under DJT has accomplished self sufficiency in oil and US has no need for anything from the Middle East, no desire to even get involved, and MAGA well grasps that fact and wants to keep it that way. Only nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles with long range to hit US and EU are reason for US action, which is reason enough for EU, China, Russia to set their own goals so that non proliferation in dangerous areas is prevented. So that the people of China, Russia, India, Europe and the rest of the world can enjoy the fruits of their own labors after a century of severe hardships and struggles which the American people if not their elites respect, and the fruits of peaceful cooperation which the American people extend to the World, and to China, Russia and India. ...

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The U.S. vice presidential debate between Mike Spence and Tim Kaine showed Kaine focussing attention on Trump's crude attacks on women, praise for Russian president Putin, and opposition to the minimum wage. Spence's tone was measured and his focus was on deflecting the attacks on the crude language used by Trump in the campaign by saying Trump was "not a polished professional politician," like the others, and not responding to the Kaine references to Trump. Spence stuck to issues about immigration open borders, abortion, president Obama's inaction in Syria, the plight of workers in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He did not respond to repeated questions on Trump's failure to disclose his tax returns and his business failures leading to close to a billion dollars in losses and not having paid taxes for 18 years, as disclosed by the New York Times. Spence had to choose between hurting his own chances for reelection with the traditional Republican voters alienated by Trump and standing up for Trump's crude language against women and minorities. He deftly tried to the best using his skills as a radio broadcaster. Kaine who is usually more measured and thoughtful, had to choose between his traditional style of speaking and the role he was expected to play bringing to the public's attention the crude language and style of the Trump campaign and the instability reflected in it. He used his skills as a litigator to ask repeated questions on Trump, especially on the taxes, which leads to questions about funding infrastructure development and jobs without the wealthy paying their share of taxes. ...

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Mr Obama meets Mr Putin at his residence for breakfast which lasted 2 hours. Mr Obama said that he recognized "the extraordinary work that you've done on behalf of the RUssian people." And Mr Putin said, "with you we link all our hopes for the furtherance of relations between our two countries." Pavel Palazhchenko an interpreter for Mikhail Gorbachev, who met with Obama, put it this way about Medvedev and Obama- "they represent a different generation, many of the dogs in the old fights are really not their dogs. And they will be willing to take afresh look at some issues." As the head of one of the investment funds put it to a CNBC reporter about U.S. -Russian relations, the left does not like Russia, and the right does not like Russia. When asked about corruption in Russia, this businessmen said that he had worked in India, and sure he knew about corruption , "I'm from New Jersey." So with all the hopes and good intentions, and new leaders, Obama can get stuck on issues like Georgia, and political freedom, still agree on reduction of nuclear weapons stockpiles. He attended aconference on civil society and while stressing importance of freedom of expresssion and assembly, the rule of law, he brought ameasure of humility. He said" Icome before you with humility. I think in the past there has ben atendency for the United States to lecture rather than to listen. And we obviously still have much work to do with our own democracy in the United States. But nevertheless share common values and interest in building a strong democratic culture in Russia as well as the United States." ...

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President Medvedev of Russia talks with Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov for over an hour at the President's residence. The paper specializes in investigative journalism and has been critical of the control of media and politics under Putin. Four of Novaya Gazeta's reporters were killed or died mysteriously in the past 9 years, with the last Anna Politkovskaya. But Medvedev did not go beyond offering lawyerly answers according to the report. A Russian talkshow host says Medvedev can talk nicely, but can he act, and is there followup. Others see the move as a way to reduce tensions at a time of economic suffering of the people from the impact of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.

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The Putin Medvedev administration is reluctant to lowere the value of the ruble seeing the stable ruble as sign of the hard won recovery of the last decade. The Russian stock market has lost 68% of its value so far in 2008 and the banking sector is affected. Russia has committed about $200 billion in the bailout plan and the central bank has raised intrest ates for the fifth time most by 1 percentage point to reduce capital outflows from the country. For weeks Russia has used its foreign currency reserves to keep the ruble from falling further. In the process it has used up $112 billion in reserves since the summer. It still has $485 billion in reserves.

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Trump has an interview with Larry King, a veteran TV personality, who made the interview for the Russian government controlled RT network. In it Trump says the war in the Middle East has cost the U.S. trillions of dollars and that we should never have gone in there. The interview was phoned in and done as a favor to Larry King, lasting 10 minutes and ending abruptly.  Trump also denied the Russians are involved in the hacking of the Democratic Party computer networks. The issues over Trump's opposition to the war in Iraq also comes up in an NBC interview. Media sources say this is not true, that initially Trump supported the U.S. going into the war, and Matt Lauer of NBC has come under criticism for not pursuing this question with Trump. It has become common for political leaders to blame the Bush administration for action since 9/11 including the war in Afghanistan, and the war over WMD in Iraq, because of the unpopularity of the wars today. Yet at the time this was not the case, and only when WMD was not proven and the war in Iraq's Anbar province dragging on did the situation change. Separately Trump in other events praised Putin as a stronger leader than president Obama. This has come under criticism from Republican party leaders. ...

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Michael Birnbaum, the Post, Moscow bureau chief talks to experts and politicians in Moscow about the economic situation as the ruble declines by 36% since July, with the fall in oil prices accelerating its fall and reducing the impact of central bank intervention in slowing the decline. He cites a Putin interview with Tass news agency in Nov. which he says a tieup is possible between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to bring down oil prices as a way to strengthen the effect of sanctions in changing Russian policy. Russian Finance minister Anton Siluanov says lost oil revenue impact is about $90 to $100 billion a year, added to the cost of sanctions at $40 billion. Significant capital flight also adds to the overall cost. Russian companies borrowing in dollars have large debt payments due that will need to be supported by the Russian government, an added cost. This will put the Russian economy in recession in 2015. The central bank expects inflaion at 10% in 2015. Large losses of this magnitude will be harder to sustain and deplete international reserves of $429 billion as of Oct. 2014. The thinking of ordinary Russians is reflected in an independent Levada Center opinion poll showing 61% of Russians expecting a decline in living standards and economic crisis in the near future. The man most responsible for stabilizing Russia's finances, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, who had profound public disagreements with president Medvedev over increases in the military budget, warned of an economic crisis following the parliamentary and presidential elections. A major weakness of the Putin-Medvedev second and third terms is the failure to use higher oil revenues to expand the tech sector and other industries to diversify Russian exports away from oil. ...

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This article in The Telegraph shows the debate in the House of Commons on Syria and comments by various MP's. It also reveals the impasse on Syria with Boris Johnson of the Conservative Party using it to score points against Jeremy Corbyn of Labor Party by calling for demonstrations by peace groups at Russian embassies, and Corbyn's response to this saying all parties embassies including the U.S. should be included. By October 2016 with about 100,000 children and 275,000 civilians trapped inside the Aleppo region in northern Syria, and Russian bombings of Aleppo, the situation is dire. With U.S. president Obama's inaction on Syria, the refugee crisis in Europe from Syrian refugees exceeding 2 million in the Middle East, the situation in Syria is at the point where lacking an effective option to setup a no fly zone at this late stage the political parties in Britain and in the U.S. trade charges against each other. German chancellor Merkel and foreign minister Steinmier visit Ethiopia and Nigeria to stem the flow of refugees from economic crisis at the source with aid and support, as Germany works on its own efforts. France's Hollande tells Putin a visit to France would have only Syria as topic for discussions and calls for Syria to be brought up as war crimes. Even the Telegraph's title is misleading as the article covers the debate in the House on Commons on Syria, but the title appeals to Telegraph readers critical of Corbyn when the debate is about Syria and what action to take about the bombings.   ...

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US president Biden authorizes $350 million in immediate military assistance to Ukraine. Western leaders now believe that NATO countries are at risk if they do not help stop the invasion, as it now appears that Russia seeks to restore a sphere of influence across Eastern Europe that existed under the Soviet Union. In 1956 Soviet tanks entered Budapest, Hungary. A situation reminiscent of that in Hungary is now taking place in Ukraine in 2022. Earlier the Russian view of Ukraine neutrality was accepted by western leaders- the situation has changed during the last week, as it is now perceived that Russia seeks to change the situation in Eastern Europe. This completely alters western Europe's and America's view of the situation in Ukraine. All this has happened in a matter of days, and in a few weeks. On the Russian side the invasion is not popular with street protests in Moscow and people on the street skeptical about the invasion and its objectives. The view is beginning to emerge that this invasion only breaks the fraternal ties between the Belarus, Ukrainian and Russian peoples that have existed for centuries. In this sense the politics and governments of the present are not relevant as much as the shared history. Ironically it is this shared history that Mr. Putin seemed to want to assert. Yet it ignored the fact that Ukraine also has a shared history with Poland and the Baltic countries and the desire for a different system of government is common to all the people's of the world. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia and India; UK and Scotland or Ireland; Sweden, Norway and Denmark, Canada, Britain and the US; Hungary, Austria and Germany; all have a shared history yet the people in each country at different periods of history have made their own choices and decided what they would do as independent countries.  ...

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Article critical of Russia, acknowledges progress under Putin and popularity of Putin. But is critical of the lack of freedom of the press, election of governors of states, lack of democratic proces ensured freedoms including NGO's, and the corruption of bureaucracy.

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WSJ tells the story about Biden being slow to act in 2021 and 2022 to close the Southern Border, without telling the complete story and all the facts. Biden did close the Border in 2024 by executive order- when Trump blocked passage of Republican Lankford's legislation in Feb 2024 supported by Biden to close the southern Border. No mention is made that Biden was faced with a once in a century pandemic, winning the fight for vaccines over skepticism, and on Feb. 22 2022 Putin launching an attack on Kiev, Ukraine, and negotiating to get the crumbling infrastructure of the US rebuilt, funds for CHIPS and Science. On top of this the Venezuelan economy completely collapsed leading to an unanticipated migrant surge. Only FDR and Lincoln faced so many huge challenges and tackled them one by one. Without these facts the result can be to stall the biggest boom in manufacturing under president Biden/Harris that America has experienced since the space race in the 1960's. ...

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Liz Sly of the Washington Post provides this exceptional account of the different phases of the war in Syria originating in 2011 with the Syria democracy protests, suppression of protests by the Assad regime, civil war by 2012 , Russian intervention by Putin, the U.S. under Obama and France under Hollande on the sidelines in 2012-2014. The result is a breakup of Syria by 2014 with coastal areas under the Assad regime supported by Russia and Iran, the Kurdish controlled areas, areas controlled by various rebel groups, and the control of other areas by Islamic State which also gained control of Mosul in Iraq. France conducting an air campaign in Syria in 2015 in response to terrorist attacks originating in Syria. With a number of foreign countries involved in support of Sunni and Shia factions in the conflict, the Turks opposing Kurdish autonomy, the U.S. supporting Kurdish forces after withdrawal from Iraq under president Obama, the situation by the beginning of 2016 was much more complex than in 2011. The five year period led to a situation where half of the population of Syria of 22 million is displaced or turns into refugees, about 2 million in refugee camps in Turkey, and 500,000 seeking asylum in Germany and Austria. In Iraq an additional 2 million are displaced or refugees with the Sunni-Shia conflict. Understanding of the events and insights over these 5 years can be gained from the group- "Events for the democracy protests and the struggle for freedom in Syria." The intervention of foreign countries and the missing element of U.S. leadership in the region in 2011-2015 as the U.S. and France remain preoccupied with economic crisis, lead to a situation where most Syrians decide to leave the country entirely. ...

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Mark Landler of the NYT looks at presidents TR, FDR, Reagan, Carter, and other presidents, and compares their moral leadership with the situation under president Trump after the Charlottesville car attack. Landler says of president Trump that his reluctance to pass moral judgement is a genuine part of president Trump's beliefs. This is also why Trump has not seen the actions of some world leaders in moral terms, including Putin in Syria. Yet as is seen from the time of Jefferson and Lincoln, U.S. presidents have adopted a moral tone. This has not changed since then. The presidency is seen as a place that puts forward the best ideals of the country. Even though leaders have not always lived up to these ideals-  Landler cites the internment of Japanese in World War II by FDR, the failure of Obama to set up humanitarian safe zones for refugees in Syria, Nixon's and Clinton's personal moral failures. Yet the idea always has remained that this was part of the president's moral role and duty- to set the tone for the whole country, not to reject the idea of moral judgement itself as immaterial and not relevant, as president Trump has done. It may be a time for the country as a whole to reflect and move back to where it was, recovering what it has lost by grasping the significance of this moral idea. To do this by building literacy, tolerance, and fairness into all its actions, making this a part of the foundation of national character.        ...

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New winds in South Asia. Democratic change and peaceful economic development comes to Nepal as elctions are held for a new Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution. One leader says Nepal cannot ignore the winds of liberalization privatization and globalization. What are the effects of change in China, in India and recent changes in Pakistan on Nepal? And the changes and two transitions in Russia to Yeltsin and then to Putin. And again in Eastern Europe. All showing divergent paths to peaceful economic development They have to be significant.

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Medvedev's speech on Russian television asking Putin to lead in the most important position in the executive power as chairman of the government. He also recounts Russia's experience of the last 20 years, what happened and how Russians have reacted, and the current needs in the light of the Putin years as President.

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Indian prime minister Modi meets president Putin in Sochi, Russia. India is seeking to maintain its ties with Russia even as Russia seeks a new relationship with Pakistan including sales of military transport. Putin and Modi support a multi-polar world order in their discussions. India has 62% of defense imports from Russia in the last 5 years, as it shifts to a relationship of jointly developing arms systems and technologies, and shifting purchases to other countries. India joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization with Russian support. Russia is also active in building Indian atomic energy plants.

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U.S. president Obama at the G-7 Summit in Korn in the Bavarian Alps. He talks about the Islamic State having replenished its fighters with a flow of foreign fighters to Iraq continuing unimpeded, and resulting in tactical successes in Anbar province for ISIS. He also firms up the G-7's stand against the Putin government's actions and intervention in Ukraine. This takes time from the other issues of climate change and trade that were part of the discussions. One aspect of the summit was close interaction in the unique setting of the Bavarian Alps between president Obama and German chancellor Merkel. This was shown in unique photo settings, designed to convey the partnership between Germany and the U.S., as the G-7 confront problems in the Middle East and Eastern Europe that require joint leadership.

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Lingling Wei on Chinese policy on trade with the US in the WSJ and China seeking a visit by DJT to Beijing instead of APEC side meeting in South Korea. A meeting in Washington DC is seen as risky after the Zelensky meeting with DJT took an unexpected turn, and the idea of meeting in Beijing gives more opportunity for getting an organized result and show China's standing in the world of nations. This happens after XI met Putin in Beijing on Victory Day celebrations for World War II where Russian and Chinese losses were far larger than European or US losses. China's huge losses in the millions have not received much attention in the US or Europe. This is also true for losses by the Philippines, Indonesia and India from decisions made during wartime by colonial powers and the Imperial Japanese Army. A meeting of Xi and DJT in Beijing from China's point of view may also show China is ready to work with the US in trade and the economy where it has huge interests in a stable transition to where Chinese industry does not overproduce what it cannot sell and seeks a diversified market shifting away from concentration in the US. Both Xi and DJT are playing to a domestic and international audience to show they are wise leaders willing to engage and at the same time protecting their national interests. The issues of support for Ukraine and fentanyl sources in China remain unresolved. ...

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Elvira Nabiullina, head of Russia's central bank, is a think tank economist who was Economy minister before becoming chief economic advisor to Russian president Putin in 2012. She is one of the liberal economists in Russia who see the years of economic growth following ruble devaluation in 1998 as an example of how devaluation can actually help the economy. The devaluation lowers costs for manufacturing and agriculture, and is seen by some economists as having done more than oil price increases to help the Russian economy grow during president Putin's first term from 1999 to 2004. Nabiullina's position to support a free float after the sharp decline in the value of the ruble following the plunge in oil prices, is based on the need she sees to use the crisis to reduce Russian overdependence on imports. This policy had other advantages by reducing the need to tap Russia's foreign currency reserves to defend the ruble. Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves are at $385 billion. In Jan 2015 the central bank cut interest rates. A policy of increasing rates would trigger a sharper recesssion. Russia faces a unique situation in that the oil price decline and the decline in the value of the ruble occurred at about the same time of about 50%, so that the budget continues to be balanced. The number of rubles coming in from oil exports remains the same after the crisis. Nabiullina told Russia 24 television- "We have to live in a different zone, Russians should orient ourselves more toward our own sources of financing projects, and to give a chance to import substitution."...

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Here the NYT answers questions about the Panama Papers- what they are, who is shown to have used the tax havens to avoid taxes, and what this all means. Politburo members in China, relatives of president Xi Jinping, close associates of Mr. Putin of Russia, prime minister Cameron's father, the new head of FIFA, the head of Transparency Chile, president Mauricio Macri of Argentina, prime minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, are some of the figures mentioned by the NYT. An unnamed source tapped into the files of offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca in Panama to collect 2.6 terabytes of data or 11.5 million documents that contain this information, and gave it to a German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung about a year ago. These papers were then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and 100 news agencies including The Guardian.

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The Tokyo National Stadium design approved by a 2012 panel headed by architect Tadao Ando, is scrapped by prime minister Abe of Japan. The design was by the firm Hadid Architects in Britain. Public criticism over the cost of the project for the Tokyo Olympics led to its cancellation. The original project cost estimate was 130 billion yen, with the new cost almost double that of 252 billion yen. Surprisingly Tadao Ando says it was not the panel's job to figure out the cost and he did not have any idea what the cost would be when the design was selected. The debt problems in Greece began with the Athens Olympics. And it is widely thought that president Putin spent too much ($47 billion) on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, especially now that Russia's economy is contracting and there is a need for stimulus spending on useful infrastructure.