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The email server controversy has had the effect of obscuring Hillary Clinton's message about her policies. Hillary Clinton's instincts in a lifetime in politics made it harder for her to apologize and let the matter fade away. Because the 2016 campaign is run by committee, has some members of Obama's campaign team, and led by Mr. Podesta who is close to Mr. Clinton, with senior advisors offering advice, it is not as coherent as the 2014 campaign team in offering advice to the candidate. As a result it took a while before advisors could relay the message that the email controversy was not just about Mrs. Clinton's and Bill Clinton's conviction that she had done nothing wrong, but about the larger message to voters on her campaign platform. By early September it was being obscured by the enthusiasm in the Sanders campaign, and non stop coverage of the email controversy in the media. Her falling popularity in the polls was the signal that led Hillary Clinton finally to say "sorry, I shouldn't have done this."...

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Sony plans to commercialize its new LED television display technology to return its television business to profitability.

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Roger McNamee, an early investor in Google and Facebook, writes this opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper saying that there are very serious problems in the way the "addiction" created by Facebook and Google products is affecting children. Lyrarc.com also points out that the reading and literacy scores in the U.S. and other countries are affected by how the new technology is used by digital gatekeepers. See our FAQ. Tim Berners Lee calls this a massive distraction for learning and youngsters. Melinda Gates has cited this as a problem she has faced in her own effort to raise her children.  Here is the main problem as stated by McNamee- of the millions of content pieces that can be shown the digital gatekeepers show only the content that is fit for their business model, and the best content from an educational point of view whether literacy, reading skills, civic literacy, all types of literacy and knowledge, is not only not the priority but is for the most part absent. He points out that that if not for the advertising business model this would be different- the focus could shift to experiences that educate, enrich and inspire users to better lives and better lifestyles. The smartphone has become pervasive in everyday lives to an astonishing degree- about 150 times a day with 2000 swipes and touches- to the point that it is changing the way people live and think without their realizing it. With it come new risks to the way we live and what we believe, like never before in history. ...

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The U.S. Congress is now taking a more active position particularly in the Senate which has a Republican majority. Republicans led by Lamar Alexander,  a senior senator since 2003, voted against Mr. Trump's emergency declaration to obtain funding for a border wall.

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This report in the NYT contrasts the 2009 protests in Iran that centred on the capital Tehran and the university with the protests in 2017. The protests in 2009 known as the Green Movement were a political protest against what was seen as the fradulent election of Mr. Ahmadinejad. The protests were from the opposition candidates who thought they had won. This led to the suppression of the movement with harsh action by the government. In 2017 Tehran is quiet. The election of Rouhani as president in 2013 led to a gradual improvement and meeting some of the aspirations of the protesters in Tehran in 2009. This has led to indifference in Tehran to the protests across smaller provincial cities in the rest of the country.  People in Tehran are still concerned about corruption and political conditions. Yet they see the protests from economic conditions in the rest of the country as lacking a clear goal and there is a sense that this could lead to chaos in the country.  ...

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U.S. president Obama says at a rally in Philadelphia that Donald Trump is a fradulent champion of the working class, saying that Trump is simply exploiting the populist mood, that for 70 years he has shown no concern for working class people. Obama told the crowd he understood the public's mood for change and that he himself had benefitted from it. Yet he said that it did not add up. Obama said: "This guy is suddenly going to be your champion? I mean, he spent most of his life trying to stay as far away from working people as he could, and now this guy is going to be the champion of the working people. Huh." "I mean he wasn't going to let you in his golf course. He wasn't going to let you buy in his condo. And now suddenly this guy is going to be your champion." 

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A BP led consortium won the right to develop the giant Rumaila oil field. Efforts for seven other oil and gas fields did not result in striking deals with oil companies. The Iraqi government set aggressive pricing for 20 year technical service contracts in which companies were paid fees for boosting output, and set this at $2 abarrel. The sole award for the Rumaila field can boost Iraqi oil output from the current 2.4 million barrels a day to more than 4 million barrels aday which is the Iraqi oil ministry's goal. The BP led group includes the China Petroleum Company. It bid $3.99 but finally accepted the $2.00 a barrel payment.

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PM Narendra Modi addressed a World Bank organized "Making it Personal: How behavioural change can tackle climate change" conference. Modi called it part of democratising the battle against climate change. "Simple acts in daily lives are powerful, there will be a very positive impact on the environment. The people of India have done a lot in this matter in the last few years." "People driven efforts improved the sex ratio in many parts of India. It was the people who led a massive cleanliness drive. Be it rivers, beaches or roads, they are ensuring public places are free of litter. And it was the people who made the switch to LED bulbs a success. Nearly 370 million LED bulbs have been sold in India. This helps in avoiding 39 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year." The Mission Life Modi introduced with the Secretary General of the United Nations has achieved much in India- "The farmers of India ensured the coverage of nearly seven hundred thousand hectares of farmland by micro-irrigation. Fulfilling the mantra of 'Per Drop More Crop', this has saved a huge amount of water. Under Mission Life our efforts are spread across many domains such as: Making local bodies environment-friendly, saving water, saving energy, reducing waste, and e-waste, adopting healthy lifestyles, adoption of natural farming, promotion of millets." ...

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This Editorial in the WSJ says Obama's complete inaction in Syria led to problems later on. It destabilized the entire Middle East in a way that Reagan destabilized the region with intervention in the region. Russian unease with NATO at its borders was not sensed in US and EU- and no efforts to address these concerns to reach an agreement to create the right kind of environment for peaceful coexistence that is only now being beginning to be seen as needed. Other serious consequences were the migration from the Middle East to Europe after Arab Spring in 2011- migration to Greece and Italy and onwards to Hungary, Austria and Germany. During the Merkel years little was done to identify and act on the sources of the problem- instability in the Middle East and Africa and dealing with the problem at the source. This led to AfD in Germany taking up the unease felt by the German people at the size of the illegal migration. This led in ricocheting manner to migration fears in Britain and Reform UK taking up the unease felt by the  British people.  This problem of migration found new sources in 2024- Venezuela and Central America for the US and cross Channel migration in the UK and again it's size stirred up unease- because of the size of illegal migration in the millions. ...

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Rapid growth and higher costs have led Vanguard to slip in customer service in recent years. WSJ looks at customer complaints about Vanguard service. Vanguard offers low cost index funds and is the largest company in this business. A new CEO is expected to tackle this issue.

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Pulling back from the surge in both ICE agents patrolling Minneapolis streets and protestors going to the streets in a confrontation Border head Homan says this was not the right way of going about law enforcement. Homan said “I do not want to hear that everything that’s been done here is perfect." Instead of street sweep patrols by Border Patrol agents Border head Homan says after meeting with Atty Gen. Ellison of Minnesota, ICE will get people charged with crimes from the jails. In earlier remarks by Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Secretary, she had mentioned that Minnesota state and local authorites were not cooperating and releasing people from the jails to the streets making ICE job more difficult. The Minnesota local authorites now agreed to cooperation with federal immigration authorites for better law enforcement. Minnesota is unique because the governor of the state and mayor are Democrats, and governor Walz was the VP candidate of Kamala Harris for Democrats, with a certain amount of belligerant opposition in that state to DJT and Homan. The lack of cooperation and the antipathy between the federal and local officials carried over, and more and more Border Patrol and immigration personnel were sent to the state reaching 3000. Compared to other Democrat states or cities- California and Tennessee, Washington DC, where initially there was criticism in the state of ICE Minnesota turned out to be different. The president was critical of the way Somali immigrants were settled in the state and the reported fraud for state benefits. The presence of ICE and Border Patrol under Bovino on Minneapolis streets led to more protests and confrontation. The DJT administration and Congress, other states are learning from this experience. ...

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Cordoba and Gurman cover the Justice Department case against Raul Castro, 94 years, of Cuba who runs the country. Jim Ratcliffe of the US government visited Cuba recently to let the Cuban government know that it had to make changes and there was a limited window. Raul Castro was defense minister, and is brother of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who fought to overthrow the government of dictator Batista, made some short term improvements, but failed badly for the Cuban people with a policy that confronted the US and brought foreign powers to the western hemisphere. China could remain communist, keep Mao's memory, and adopt the market system, to develop the modern economy it has because of adopting western ideas, science and technology. And build what is otherwise a free market economy, and became a key trade partner, briefly an ally of the US as the Soviet Union collapsed- nothing like this happened in Cuba. Tourism was used simply as a way to protect the rest of the completely centralized economy and a state within a state built through an elite that ran a separate section of the armed forces under Raul Castro, kept a regimented society. Even that has failed. Nowhere in Latin America is there so many signs of failure, and it has also brought down societies that copied the rhetoric and nationalist slogans such as Venezuela and Colombia. In some parts of Mexico the Cuban rhetoric still sounds good but the reality is starkly different, Mexico itself is run on a model closer to that in the US, and Mexico has serious problems in civil society relating to immigration and drugs in its relationship with the US. ...

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West Bengal gets a new start after 50 years of mismanagement, corruption and breakdown of law and order, and economic failures, with a new BJP Modi led administration. The speed of the changes are simply astonishing as a state of close to 100 million people -where industrialization never took off as it has in other states, and rural poverty exists in ways thought to belong to the colonial days under the British- gets an administration at the federal level under Modi committed to industrialization, modernization of the economy, on the same rapid scale as that launched in the rest of eastern India. This is a territory half the size of the European Union, once called the Bengal Presidency under the British Empire, comprised of states of Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Assam, and Andhra Pradesh, a region where the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers from the mighty Himalayas flow into the sea. It is a low moment for India similar to the period after the Proleterian Cultural Revolution of Mao in China by 1970 and the few remaining leaders under premier Chou-en-lai making a resolute effort under Deng Xiaoping to make a new effort to modernize and industrialize China working with the US and the European Union. That effort went through the initial phase to 1990 to familiarize Communist China with the US and European market systems, and a new phase to 2010 by which time most of these goals had been achieved. India is poised to make that scale of change today over the next two decades as it is already familiarized with the US and European market systems and its net step is in technological advancement and rapid industrialization at scale something that alone can meet the aspirations of the South Asian region. ...

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Going to a baseball game or a cricket game, a soccer game or basketball game, used to be part of the experience of growing up as a child not only in America, but in many parts of Asia since the 1950's. Sports organizers are failing the public and the Nation, many nations, when they let prices keep out the vast majority of the young people from sports games. This is true of the New York Knicks games in 2026 with the San Antonio Spurs, with tickets transport, everything going up. Here DW.com asks important questions about the FIFA World Cup. Most of America's younger generation, the vast majority of children will be excluded from these games. DW.com writes about the cheapest ticket listed on the FIFA website at $8625 and one ticket listed for $690,000. When told the cheapest ticket for the first Paraguay US game was $1000 US president DJT said it was "ridiculous," that he woudn't pay that either, and expressed real disappointment. DW.com raises other questions about the sudden 50% increase in teams and 60% increase in games for the World Cup in 2026. Teams suddenly up from 32 to 48, and games from 64 to 104. If more smaller football associations or countries were to be added, would it have been better to try this out in smaller steps? Has this diluted the sporting quality of individual games. If more games why would prices jump this much? Last World Cup the average price of a ticket was the same as the list price and no resale markets to create artificially high prices in the stratosphere driving out most buyers. ESPN looks at he process that set these prices in the adjoining piece. ...

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Lee Kwan Yew reflects on life in his 87th year with his wife, 89 years, mute and bedridden. He keeps active with a regimen of cycling, swimming and massage and keeps up his schedule of meetings and work as he understands not doing this wold be to go downhill quickly. And also laughs at the futility of it all, as each year he has less energy than the last. His wife Kwa, has been a constant companion since their days as law students in London. He misses the comfort other people find in religion and prayer.

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Opening windows and doors to let in fresh air is as important as wearing masks and social distancing to prevent coronavirus. In places where people gather and in homes it is important to let in fresh air so that there is new fresh air circulating in rooms 3-4 times for every hour. It is being used as a strategy in schools in Germany to bring in fresh air. Putting MERV 13 type air filters in central air conditioning and heating systems is important in offices, shops and other spaces. A complete redesign of the systems that are old is needed. There are 36,000 schools in the U.S. that have old failing systems of heating and cooling. It would cost $360 billion to change these systems if each system cost $10,000 which is on the low side. This shows that good intentions are not enough, new priorities need to be set and the old priorities which misallocated funds through existing capital allocation structures in the West coasts and East coast cities no longer serve the purpose of the Renewal of America.  ...

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This Editorial in Le Monde says the French president faced a contradictory challenge he did not quite resolve and which gets worse in his second term. He has called for dissolution of the National Assembly as a result. That challenge was to reduce he far right vote but he had done little to implement a policy that would remove the causes of people supporting the far right. It is not only immigration. Immigration has also been tackled across Europe by agreement across all parties to keep out migrants. The lingering issues of worker discontent stem from struggles to make a living during cost of living crisis, and this is true across Europe and also in the US, even in India in the last elections. The other issue is loss of manufacturing that has led to deindustrialization and affected standards of living across Europe and the US. Small and midsized towns in France and in Europe have suffered from the stress of loss of manufacturing and public services without the local revenues to build better living spaces and communities. The policy to reverse this has started in the US, and requires more investment across Europe in infrastructure and public services, timely delivery, so that people across France and Europe can see the results in their daily lives. This then is the challenge for France, and for Germany, and for Europe. It is also the challenge in the US and in India. ...

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Washington Post looks at history of rare earths since 1945, and how the US EU and Japan let China become the sole supplier of rare earth minerals. This error is being corrected in 2025 and the US, EU, Japan remain vulnerable for the next 2 years till these countries build up an alternative supply of rare earths. It is a situation where vital national interests in the US and EU, Japan were lost sight of for three decades.

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The gaps between myth and reality of the Conservatives continues to grow says this view from Labour expressed in The Guardian. With the chaos in the Conservatives and three prime ministers out in a short period- first with Brexit, then with the factions supporting and against Boris Johnson who led the fight to take Britain out of the European Union, the promises made to the North of England that led to Johnson's win in the election are falling by the wayside. There is no real progress in levelling up wealth and development gaps between regions in Britain, the commitment to tackling climate change is wavering and inconsistent when the rest of Europe and the US is moving forward with clear intent and funding, and the effort to tackle the cost of living crisis lacks conviction and plan changing by the day.     

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Laura Meckler describes the many experiences as First Lady in Arkansas and in the White House, the many political investigations that happened, that led to the more cautious style Hillary has taken since becoming Senator from New York. This combined with her intense longing for privacy have led to the strange situation where people do not the human person that is Hillary, when they are inundated with information about the Clintons as a couple. With the 2016 campaign that human person is what is coming out as her fighting spirit kicks in, for someone who has seen all sides over a long time. 

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Argentina's 25% export tax on soyabeans exports  has led to a mere 8% increase in soyabean acreage since 2009 compared to 118% in Brazil that has no such tax. Productivity in agriculture is restricted because lower profits mean less is invested in patented seeds and agricultural equipment. Agriculture becomes less profitable. There is also a 10% tax on wheat exports. These taxes did not exist by 2000 in Latin American countries. Under Nestor Kirchner Argentina reintroduced the export tax after repudiating the debt, devaluing the peso, and shifting the economy to diverting more agricultural production for domestic use. This worked for a while during the crisis. It is now a problem limiting growth of agricultural exports and limiting economic growth. Even under Xavier Milei, the new president who is discarding many parts of the old regime, the export tax is not discarded as it is needed to balance the budget to fight high inflation.

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Experts say the U.S. or Iran's adversaries lack the ground game that they could help organize spontaneous protests all over Iran. In recent days the economic conditions in Iran have led to widespread protests. The last time such widespread protests happened in Iran was in 2009, which were suppressed. This time economic  conditions and the way the country is run have led to protests.

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AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria says it is critical to do three things to prevent a possible third wave from becoming a serious threat in India. The three steps are- to adopt covid appropriate behaviours such as mask wearing, social distancing and washing hands and to not fall into the habit of thinking that the virus has gone away when it is spreading and developing into new mutations. To do testing, tracing and micro containment zones quickly to isolate infection prone areas and prevent transmission. Gene sequencing analysis would enable understanding variants quickly to respond. And to vaccinate rapidly the entire Indian population, a program which is being tackled by the federal government.

These tasks are critical also to let the economy recover and let all segments of society recover soon from the pandemic. It is through mutual responsibility and fulfilling one's duty by every citizen that this becomes possible.

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Chris Buckley of the NYT looks at selected speeches of president Xi of China to military officers during the first 5 years 2012 to 2017 but fails to look at the China Xi Jinping faced in these years. It was a period of change in China when it was not clear which direction China would take after the messy experiment with free markets under a socialist state controlled system led by the CCP. That period from 1990 onwards led to hypergrowth in China that modernized China yet shifted American and European manufacturing to China alienating working class communities in the western countries. It hurt China also through widespread contamination of air and water, and widespread corruption and decline of the CCP. The Bo Xilai demagogic effort to subvert the system from inside happened by 2012 endangering the system itself from the inside while it responded to the pressures created by the experiment with free market from corruption, regional inequality, and other problems. ...

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That former Fed chairman Volcker considered CEO attestation a critical part of the Volcker Rule is reflected in his advice about its implementation- to keep broad and let the responsibility for seeing that the proper activity takes place on bank management. CEO attestation is now part of the final form of the Volcker Rule requiring CEO's to sign off that the financial firm is in compliance. It may lead to a sequence of attestations or sub-certifications from business heads to upper management in actual practice, says Joseph Grundfest at Stanford University. The Financial Stability Oversight Council, created under the Dodd-Frank legislation, proposed this requirement saying that the rule require" public attestation by the CEO that compliance standards are continually being met." The WSJ points out that 5 of the FSOC's members are also top officials at government agencies writing the Volcker Rule. Jacob Lew, Treasury Secretary, leads the council. Lew says about the individual accountability of the top executive- "it puts in place strong compliance requirements that require those in charge of financial institutions to make sure that the 'tone at the top' sends the right signals to the whole firm."...