LyrArc Article Gist
Indian PM Modi will take part in the swearing in of a new government in Maharashtra on December 5, 2024. Maharashtra and Gujarat with cities Mumbai and Ahmedabad were part of Bombay state in 1947 after independence. It was also the largest trade and industrial region of India. Today it is poised under the Modi government to deliver industrialization on a scale that matches that of China for a modern Vikshit Bharat over the next decade and to 2040. This is the real significance of this event which in some ways surpasses the US election in significance and the scale of transformation of the largest nation in the world.

LyrArc Article Gist
Brexit negotiation guidelines from the EU rule out parallel talks on both Britian's future relationship with the EU and the separation agreement negotiations, preferring a phased approach. Only when the first phase of separation is complete or at an advanced stage would the second phase of future relationship with the EU be negotiated. The EU Council president, Donald Tusk, says the process would be long, complex and at times confrontational. Der Spiegel online writing on the negotiation describes the approach in a meeting with the lead German negotiator Mr. Oettinger, on the team of Michael Barnier who leads the negotiations for the EU- Oettinger focussed on what Britain owes the EU, estimated at over 60 billion euros. So far apart are the British and EU positions that Michael Barnier has no idea on the pathway for these negotiations, only awareness of the priorities such as the rights of EU and British citizens in each others region, says Der Spiegel. Looking at Theresa May speaking in parliament about her decision to move forward with Brexit in a letter to the EU invoking Article 50, one senses a mixture of confidence and nationalist appeal, far different from reality on the ground. The Leader of the Opposition cited government figures for a sharp decline in GDP as a result of Brexit, and the Scottish leader in parliament went so far as to say the government attitude in negotiations made "Scottish independence inevitable"- all headwinds Theresa May appears to be ignoring or treating with disdain. At this time the EU and the British prime minister appear to be talking over rather than to each other.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
John Lyons of the WSJ writes in this report from Seoul, South Korea, that president Moon may have inadvertently contributed to the sense of the futility of talking to South Korea about missile defense when he opposed the installation of the Thaad, Terminal high altitude missile system, in his election campaign. This led to the U.S. and the South Korean government of president Ms. Park moving ahead with the system before Moon was elected. Moon is a human rights lawyer who favored improved relations with North Korea. Domestic South Korean politics were decided by younger voters alienated by the existing business structure, leading to the conviction of president Park and later the head of Samsung on corruption charges, and the election of Mr. Moon. In foreign affairs the picture is quite different as Moon is seen in South Korea as not being consulted by the U.S. as it frames policy for the region. South Koreans call this "Korea passing." As U.S. and Japan are directly affected by North Korean missile tests, the most recent on August 29th passing over Japan, U.S. president Trump consults with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. People in Japan are cited in the NYT as saying recently, that they knew they had to worry about earthquakes, but had not expected to have to worry about missiles. A recent report in NYT showed that most people in Seoul have not prepared seriously to use underground shelters because they do not believe a war could take place with Seoul only 35 miles from the North Korea border. The U.S. policy is now focused on working with China, and coordinating its policy with Japan. A U.S. anti ballistic missile test was conducted from the ship USS John Paul Jones on August 29th. Moon has changed his position and now supports Thaad missile defense. South Koreans are apparently resigned to the prospect of "Korea passing." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in WSJ says 4 months before becoming China's president in 2012 Xi Jinping issued a Communist party directive as head of the party committee overseeing the former British colony. The directive cautioned officials about a growing separatist sentiment in Hong Kong. It said "we must dare to struggle and be good at fighting," a retired official describes as Xi's approach. Another facet of Xi's views on Hong Kong are that his father as a party leader for the southern province of Guangdong in 1978 to 1980 near Hong Kong was the first after the Cultural Revolution to set up ties between the mainland and the British colony of Hong Kong. China was experimenting with a different model for the economy and Xi's father set up the early links with Hong Kong so that the flow of economic refugees from mainland China to Hong Kong could be reduced and the gap in living standards could be narrowed. He set up the first "Special Economic Zone" and met delegations to start the Sino-British talks on Hong Kong's future. Xi Jinping grew up in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. His father Xi Zhongzun, was jailed in 1962 in internal party struggles, and his family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966. The Cultural Revolution that went on till 1976 ironically was an attempt to stamp out possible capitalist or imperialist influences from the colonial period and the opium wars with Britain. He was later rehabilitated under premier Deng. During the turmoil Xi with some difficulty was admitted to University after spending some years in the countryside. His father remained loyal to the ideals of the Chinese Revolution even though he had suffered from the internal party struggles, an experience remains a strong memory for Xi Jinping. It is as if the period is seen as a period of experimentation and failure for the party not for its ideals of China rising from the colonial period after its failure to engage with the world before the colonial period leading to backwardness. The unity of the country had to be maintained bringing Hong Kong and possibly Taiwan together with the mainland. Rejuvenation was happening and stability was essential for Chia to grow and emerge into the "China Dream" a word coined by Xi for its emergence in the community of nations as an equal to western powers after the colonial period of oppression and cultural backwardness. In this way he is different than other leaders before him who followed premier Deng who started the experimentation with markets and economic structures. The leader preceding him was party secretary in Tibet with a prime minister who was an engineer working on public projects, in sharp contrast to Xi who had the the sense of authority from seeing different phases of Communist party experimentation in his early years. The Bo Xi Lai incident during the transition before 2012 also influenced Xi. This was an attempt similar possibly to the attempt by Lin Piao under Mao to subvert Communist Party leadership into a new direction bringing China under Soviet influence after the break by Mao. Bo Xi Lai, a party secretary for an interior less developed region Chongqing, who rose from being Mayor of Dalien to governor of Liaoning province. Bo Xi Lai attempted to subvert the process operating since the Cultural Revolution of leadership by consensus within the party ensuring stability and continuity needed for development and pushing the trauma of the Cultural Revolution out of memory. He did this by seeking high party office for his own ambitions not for the party and China's interests that guided leaders after the Cultural Revolution. This incident and the period of two decades of growth of market economy had led to growing corruption and Xi was convinced that "corruption would doom the Communist Party and the State" and the resulting instability was bad for China. During this period in 2012 Xi Jinping said that it was necessary to remove "tigers and flies" who could endanger the party's ideals and the future growth and stability of the country.  About 10,000 party officials were removed for corruption, and the rule of Politburo Standing Committee immunity (PSC) of the party operating after the Cultural Revolution was removed. The PSC is the body that at the top of the organization structure that runs China. On Hong Kong Xi now believes that the problem is best tackled by the Hong Kong government not by intervening from Beijing. There is increasing perception in Beijing and Hong Kong that the local government, business leaders have messed things up, by getting into the habit of telling Beijing planners what they wanted to hear, and failing to communicate with the 7 million people of Hong Kong. These leaders are also in a bind because Xi believes that Beijing exercized "overall governance authority" over Hong Kong. A 2014 government white paper warns against "confused or lopsided perceptions" of Hong Kong's status, saying that its partial autonomy comes "solely from the authorization of the central leadership."     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
German chancellor Merkel and France's president Hollande meet in Notre-Dame de Reims cathderal for a service that commemorates the 50th anniversary of a mass held at Reims cathedral. That Mass was held at Reims in May 1962 with the hope for a lasting reconciliation between Germany and France in a region affected by recurring wars, and was attended by Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle. The service in July 2012 brings together two leaders after tense discussions at eurozone summit meetings on the future of the eurozone and austerity measures. It is also a reminder of the deeper ties that bring the two countries together after a century of conflict, and the resilience in the face of difficulties shown by a previous generation of leaders in building these ties. It needs to be remembered that it was German chancellor Kohl, Angela Merkel's mentor, one of the postwar leaders who promoted European unity during the period of German reunificaton, who speeded up the agenda for the creating the eurozone and euro currency without the necessary underpinnings of deposit insurance and a eurozone financial regulator with powers to examine the books of European banks and exercize financial supervision. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This editorial in the WSJ points out the dangers to the Republican party in taking the stand on immigraton along the lines suggested by Donald Trump in August 2015- deportation for all illegal immigrants, no birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, and no remittances allowed for illegal immigrants to their home countries. It points out that remittances actually improve the economies of the countries south of the U.S. border in Latin America and reduce illegal immigration. There is a need for seasonal workers in farm areas where there is a severe shortage of workers even at $17 an hour. Reducing immigration is better accomplished by more guest worker programs. A likely result would be the move of farms and factories to regions with low cost labor in Latin America or other countries. For the Republican Party this type of policy would bring back the period of the 1920's, says the WSJ, when Irish and Italian immigration was opposed by the party, alienating the two ethnic groups till they were won back in the Reagan period- a sure way to lose in 2016....

LyrArc Article Gist
French surgeon, Dr Jacques Beres, who is 71, was one of the founders of Medecins San Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders. He operated on 89 people in Homs and Homs province, during the attack on the region by forces loyal to President Bashar of Syria. Hager, Hodge and Rouselle give an account of the efforts to save lives by Dr. Beres. His trip to Syria was supported by the France-Syria Democracy group and by UAM93, which represents Muslim associations in the Paris suburb of Seine St-Dennis. Dr. Beres told the French radio network RTL that he was sad, and that he saw useless suffering in Homs, with cruelty and meanness for children and families.

LyrArc Article Gist
Class and the divide between rich and poor, educated and uneducated, urban and rural, in China. Even with rapid industrialization in the urban mostly coastal regions, a large number of China's people live in rural areas and in the hinterland away from the big cities. October 1, is the 60th anniversary of communist rule. With the internet and more communication of all types, incidents in which the rich and powerful are treated differently by the judicial system- and can get away with light sentences for wrongdoing or crimes- cause a great deal of anger among the people. In this traffic accident in Hangzhou, one of the rich people's kids- the young emperors is how they are referred to in Chinese- runs over and kills on the pavement a 25 year old telecom engineer from a rural area near Changsha. He had to work hard to get to college and become a engineer, and his parents struggled to pay his tution in college. The 20 year old racing car driver gets away with a light sentence of 3 years, and is suspected to have used a stand-in for the trial, who would also serve the sentence. The public in Hangzhou was upset about this and blogs all over China began to talk about this. The police initially covered up the incident, saying the speed was 43 mph. Only after public pressure did the police say it was double that, and that the Mitsubishi racer used by the rich kid was retrofitted for speed....

LyrArc Article Gist
Poland has a huge shortage of doctors and nurses. The ratio of doctors to every 100,000 of population is the lowest in the European Union. It is twice that in Germany whose relative success in tackling covid pandemic comes from having foreign doctors and nurses treat patients. Consider that the average age of Polish doctors is 53, only a few years from retirement. The situation in terms of immigration reminds pone of East Germany and its depopulation of young people who left for West Germany. Something like this has happened in Poland in health care.  In similar ways other countries in the EU, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania stocked up on ventilators but now have few doctors and nurses left to operate them. It is stretching the limits of human endurance as this report shows in WSJ, with doctors working 36 hour shifts and working 73 hours a week.  Here we see Dr. Rotnicki, who works these long hours at a hospital in western Poland and says that it is like the Second World War, that it is hard times in Poland for health care workers. This report says Italian and British hospitals, not just German ones, are tackling coronavirus with Polish, Hungarian and Romanian doctors and nurses. This report shows that headhunters in Germany drive in to western Poland blanketing windshields with pamphlets promising 5 times more pay, 2 years of free language classes and housing. In Slovakia a third of all nursing graduates leave the coutnry immediately after graduation. In Poland not nursing pay has lagged behind with fewer going into nursing schools. Staff remaining in the region are older and educated under communism when less English was taught, or have returned back home from years overseas. Forcing doctors to give up private practice and work in public hospitals during coronavirus pandemic is not working in Hungary, where surveys find 6 out of ten medical school graduates intending to leave Hungary. These doctors say they are better off working at Aldi and Tesco if needed and making more pay, plus getting weekends off. Poland only recently increased pay for healthcare workers, some even survived on cash given to them by patients. Not a good situation for a country to be in and reflecting the wrong priorities not just in the U.S. and western Europe, but also in eastern Europe, during the last 3 decades. These priorities shifted money away from health care, education and infrastructure priorities. The people simply lost control of their spending allocation to "financial markets" that shifted money in a way that benefited only small group in society neglecting others and national interests. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The former editor of Britain's Daily Telegraph says that there is no coherent political strategy in Afghanistan, and that Obama's support for troop "surge" in Afghanistan is more a gesture to the generals than a convicing path to success. He says the 30,000 troop surge makes headlnes but shrinks small in the vast mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. The Pakistani people are increasingly more so than 2001 and 2006, hostile to Americans in the region. And hard core security forces in Pakistan also are against increases in US troops. And because of the Karzai regime's failure the Taliban have real if limited support. And Britain he says is turning irrevocably against the war.

LyrArc Article Gist
This report in DW.com says Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine with fierce fighting, was sparsely populated till the mid 19th century. It was only after industrialization that Donbas began to develop with its large coal reserves. During this period the public use of Ukrainian was suppressed in the Russian Empire, and Russian established as the language of education says Hausman from the Leibniz Institute. After the Russian Civil War it was made part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. During this Soviet period more and more Russian came to Donbas. People in Donbas always spoke Ukrainian and had ties to both Russia and Ukraine. Up to 2014 it was an important industrial region of Ukraine. After 2014 it has suffered considerably from the mines, and fighting in the separatist areas wanting to join Russia leaving it derelict and in a very poor state says DW.com. Between 2014 and 2022 Russian supported separatists fought the Ukraine army till a ceasefire was arranged with the Minsk Agreements. It is this disputed region that Russia is fighting for after the failure to take the capital Kviv which is closer to the Polish border in western Ukraine. Closest to Poland is the city of Lviv. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Extreme drought affected Minnesota cattle farmers leading to elimination of many cattle herds.               Wildfire smoke from Canada settled down over the cities of St Paul and Minneapolis for days.                 Lack of enough snow and ice in winter led to losses in ice fishing and cross country skiing making winters unnatural in Great Lakes Region that also includes Wisconsin and Michigan. Walz acted, and his plain spoken communication style made a difference clearing misperceptions. Pew Research shows 67% of Americans favor clean energy but misperceptions abound.          Minnesota during his two terms now produces 50% of its energy from wind, solar and nuclear. Minnesota is now likely to be ahead of California in getting to 100% wind solar and nuclear for all its energy. Walz set the date 2040 into law for this to happen with 40 climate initiatives. A bill signed into law speeds up the permits for renewable energy projects. Walz’s communication style shows that when people understand the benefits and specifics you get things done. “The surest way to get people to buy in is to create a job that pays well in their community. All of us are going to have to be better about our smart politics, about bringing people in.”        ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister of Iraq, on his vision for Iraq after the American withdrawal in 2011. Iraq's role as one of many democratic countries in a new Middle East and a new Arab region. He sees combining and expanding the powers of the provinces, while preserving unity of Iraq, as a way around the demands for more autonomy in the provinces. He also sees a policy in which Iraq turns down foreign interference in Iraq as the best way moving forward. He sees a building boom in Baghdad, as a millon homes are built for low income families and the country draws foreign investment.

LyrArc Article Gist
Stephen Miller, as both intellectual and organizer, is shaping policy on immigration at the White House as adviser to Kristi Noem, head of Homeland Security. He is a dedicated follower of DJT and White House deputy chief of staff. He also brought Prof. Navarro to the attention of DJT on trade policies.  He was a key figure in the first DJT administration at the age of 31 having served as communications secretary for Senator Jeff Sessions and developed his ideas during the period with Sessions. As director of speech writing and senior adviser to DJT,  he wrote some of president DJT's policy speeches in the first term, the speech to the Republican National Convention 2016 , and the Inaugural Address of 2017,  including the speech on Jan. 6th 2020 following the storming of the Capitol building.  Who is Stephen Miller? He comes from a Jewish family that immigrated in his grandfather's generation in 1903 to Ellis Island from Belarus, during a period of discrimination in Russian regions. During the period on campus at Duke University where he graduated in Political Science, Miller was a follower of a prolific author, David Horowitz. Horowitz was part of the Jewish leftist intellectual movement in New York in the post war period, but after the 1980's joined the Reagan movement and questioned the ideas he had believed in, questioned what he saw as the antisemitism on US campuses. At Santa Monica public school in California in 2000-2003 Stephen Miller questioned the multiculturalism that replaced the America of the founding fathers, that he saw at the school. It is this perspective that also underlies Stephen Miller's ideas about universities, about immigration, about the economy and China under Bush, Obama and Biden. Miller is also an organizer as he set up the America First Legal in 2020 with funding from donors on the right which has filed many lawsuits during Biden's term in office.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The effects of drought on the Colorado river and the dams in the arid west of the US which support 40 million people. This is also part of the fastest growing region in the US. The seven states along the river must negotiate major cuts in water use by mid-August or the federal government has to step in an make the cuts, says this NYT report. Years of overuse of water and climate change have led to this situation.  Lake Mead the US's largest water reservoir is two thirds empty. It is fed by the Colorado river. The upstream states or Upper basin states are Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah. The downstream states or Lower Basin states are Nevada, California, and Arizona. Downstream and upstream states have to figure out how the water cuts will be made. Agriculture use makes up 70-80% of the water use. Then there are the sprawling cities such as Los Angeles and Denver and Salt Lake City. Affected are the Imperial Irrigation District in Southern California, a major agricultural area. Las Vegas has come up with solutions for its 1.6 miillion metro area population by conserving water and staying under its 1.8% of the river allocation even as the population grows. Converting lawns and turf to desert and growing only arid zone vegetation to conserve water is being applied. This is a reality check for climate change and a reversal from the earlier effort in the 1930's to impose brute will on the landscape to build huge sprawling cities and agriculture zones. Now all that has to go into adapting to the landscape and fitting into it, limiting the use of water, recycling it, and conserving water in every way possible. It means adapting in every way, not acting in crisis solution mode but shifting to a whole new way of adapting to the environment that should have been there in the first place with some respect for Nature. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The latest news from Catalonia ahead of the Dec. 21, 2017 election shows a hugely divided region in Catalonia, as prime minister Rajoy of Spain campaigns in Barcelona. The head of the left wing ERC party which is likely to win the largest share of the vote according to a poll in newspaper La Vanguardia was arrested along with fired ministers in the Puigdemont government. This time unlike the 2015 election ERC party says it will not join Mr. Puigdemont in a single pro independence bloc. Mr. Puigdemont is in exile in Brussels after declaring independence for Catalonia. Barcelona's mayor Ada Palau who won in 2015 on a platform showing support for people who suffered after the financial crisis and real estate meltdown, says she does not support the independence movement. Palau says Mr. Puigedemont and others "tricked the population for their own interests." She is critical of the way prime minister Rajoy handled the crisis including invoking Article 155 to dismiss the elected government for new elections. Palau has broken the pact with the Socialist Party. This shows a fragmented and divided population when it comes to independence. This BBC report says about half of Catalans today do not support independence for a complete break with Spain. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
In this WSJ report a top American Defense Department official before resigning says- "I have no problem with feeding China or trading with China. I have a problem with arming China." Advanced or sensitive manufacturing technology is still being approved for export to China says this report in WSJ, even as the US perceives this to be a national security threat. Experts say the Commerce Department report approval process needs overhaul and the US needs close coordination with the European Union on this process. Of the total US $124 billion in exports to China in 2020 only half of one percent needed a license Commerce Department data reviewed by WSJ shows. Of that small fraction of one half percent Commerce Department approved 2562  applications or 94%. This even includes array of semiconductors, aerospace components, artificial intelligence technologies that could be added to China's military. This means that even towards the end of the Trump administration with its talk about national security threats, through the four years 2016-2020, nothing much happened in this important field.  The difficulty that the Trump administration faced and America faces is putting company and business interests first or American security interests and retaining competitive technological advantage interests first. American administrations and business have consistently failed to follow what plain ordinary Americans understand by America first. Even when it is clearly evident that America is handing over sensitive advanced technologies with very little in return, and creating out of nowhere competition that poses serious risks for the national interest, business and administrations operate indifferent to the national interest. Even right into the period when this is making the world a riskier and more dangerous place.   This is the state of affairs today, and the situation is not about Congressmen visiting Taiwan or ships going through the seas in that region, or international law. All that is American policy  and is well known and well understood. What is missing is the right action and the right determination behind other action that is sending a different message at the same time -that the US is oblivious to its own interests. That administrations, even those such as the recent Republican one under Mr. Trump, see a higher priority in following American business wherever it goes in pursuit of individual company interests alone, even if it does not accord with the national interest. Lobbying groups distort what policy should be in the public interest and in the interest of both countries, leading to a breakdown in the whole process itself whenever governments surrender their role of protecting the public interest.  Outshoring manufacturing was bad economically at the level of communities across the US, leading to divisions that weakened the country in the last decade, it was also bad for the economy of the country with loss of the best manufacturing jobs, beyond what economists in their ignorance of the big picture sought to show was the consumer- often the same person who lost a job or stopped seeking work- paying less. It was bad also for China as it created the hyper growth that rapidly contaminated land, air and water and created an inherently unstable relationship in trade with destruction of jobs at a pace that America had not faced with Japan and with which it could not cope. Could a pace that worked for both nations have worked? At the root is the notion that business knows best even if it is in plain sight to every plain American that the country's most advanced technologies are being shipped out. Governments do not fulfill their responsibilities and fail when they fail to tell business what rules are in the public interest, as it was never in the first role of business to protect the public interest. That the European Union has simply followed the US in this has created a problem for both the US and the European Union of deviating from what plain Americans or Europeans see as abundantly clear.  Even in plain dollars and cents business and economists fail to grasp the true cost for the whole country or whole people compared to the benefit for an individual or an individual company. The cost of wars even small wars can be be trillions of dollars which are borne by the whole country or people, and most of it by the middle and less economically well off classes in a country. Creating a belligerent competitor in world affairs and the risk of conflict and war is to lose trillions of dollars when the benefit to an individual, groups, or individual companies is no more but a tiny fraction of that trillion dollar cost, not including what all the plain people pay in human lives. It is not that anyone benefits as the people in the belligerent competitor country follow the same pattern of loss that would happen in the US. One should ask is it not a loss for China also? The example of Imperialist Japan is not so far off in time for Americans or Asians including the Chinese and Japanese people who suffered so greatly to forget. Business remains oblivious to the public interest not just for America but for the world, individual companies do not see it as their role beyond that of pursuing individual company interest. Is it not then for the government to set the rules. Is it alright for government to not fulfill its responsibilities? Even when this pushes the world faster to into conflicts as technologies take the place of exercise of wisdom in conflict, and even when there are unmet challenges such as climate change that affect the whole planet.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The pro-independence party of Catalan president Arturo Mas called an election two years ahead of schedule in an effort to increase autonomy for Catalonia in relations with the central government of Spain. He failed in negotiations to reduce the tax burden for Catalonia in relations with the federal government in Madrid. Arturo Mas's party lost seats in the regional election, ending up with 50 seats compared to the 62 seats it held previously in the 135 seat regional parliament in Barcelona. Other pro independence parties gained seats. The left leaning Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya party increased its seats from 10 to 21 seats. The Partido Popular of Spain's premier Rajoy won 19 seats, up one seat from the 18 it held earlier. There is considerable questioning inside Spain about whether this issue should be brought up at a time of 25% unemployment and negotiations with the EU for loans to restore the health of Spain's banking system.

LyrArc Article Gist
Eri Machii, founded AfriMedico, a nonprofit organization designed to deliver medicine to remote regions in countries in Africa. She worked in Niger under a Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers program after two years working as a pharmacist. There she learned about the dangers in Africa in remote villages where travel and delivery expenses were high and infrastructure lacking. She devised a method of Okigusuri for Africa where as in traditional Japan medicines were left in a kit in villages and people paid only for what they used. Payment is done by cell phone using the M-Pesa money transfer system. Maichii learned about okigusiri as a system used in Japan throughout its history in places where infrastructure was lacking, lack of universal health insurance, and large families living together. She found that this was true for distant villages in countries like Tanzania where she implemented the system under AfriMedico. 20 volunteers helped found the organization and Tanzania pharmacist network helped guide them in setting it up. Large amounts of medicine taken at one time reduce the cost of transport. Use of the system of medikits in urban areas helped subsidize the village use. This is a system that has great potential for medicine delivery in many parts of Africa and Asia that have the same problem of access to basic medicine kits- so that treatment can be done earlier in the process for quicker less costly recovery, improving general health conditions. One can think of Indonesia, Philippines, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, West and East African countries as having potential for wider use of this system. As people pay for only the medicines used using cell phones the system has wide applicability from cost and access point if supported by private and governmental agencies in these countries.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Policy on China in the second year of the DJT Administration- shift from adversary positions to cooperation. A shift in policy after the meetings with Chinese leaders Xi and Wang Yi at Busan, South Korea in 2025. WSJ Analysis looks at what happened in the first term of DJT, the Biden Administration that followed and in 2025 in US-China relations and how the posture changed, how Xi and his team built rapport with DJT and his team over the tumultuous period in 2025. US turned to Xi in getting Iran to the table for negotiations in Islamabad meetings after the month long effort to take out Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program infrastructure. This was arranged in the early hours of Tuesday April 7th 2026. Throughout the US air campaign in Iran China pursued the policy it had set at Busan of not letting it affect US- China relations and the DJT visit to Beijing believing it sets the basis for the future course of US- China that affects the whole world beyond regions such as the Middle East where little headway has been made in bringing about peace. China US, EU, India, Brazil, Latin America, Africa, Indonesia, make up most of the world's population and China remains focused on ensuring the US and China can through their cooperation maintain peace in the world overall. This is reflected in this statement of China's Foreign Ministry on Busan meeting as the beginning of something new and big for the world- "Over the past seven decades and more, we have been working from generation to generation on the same blueprint to make it a reality. We have no intention to challenge or supplant anyone. Our focus has always been on managing China’s own affairs well, improving ourselves, and sharing development opportunities with all countries across the world. And that is an important secret to our success. China will further deepen reform across the board, expand opening up, and promote higher-quality economic growth while achieving an appropriate increase in economic output, and advance well-rounded human development and common prosperity for all. This will also expand the space for cooperation between China and the United States." This relates to China's worst fear, worst nightmare - that before it can become a fully developed economy for 1.4 billion people it would find itself in the situation that faces Japan of an aging society and weak growth something Japan faces as a fully developed economy much smaller of 120 million people. Japan per capita GDP is at $36,000 2.5 times China's at $14,000 and about a fifth of Germany's at $64,000, about a seventh of the USA at $92,000. So that if China does not continue along the path of development it has followed since 1990 working with the US and EU it faces the prospect of losing forever the prospect of joining Japan and fall into lower than middle income status when large parts of the interior of China a third of its economy that is rural are still living in poor economy status with per capita GDP of $3500, which is 8% of the GDP per capita of the poorest state heavily rural state of Mississippi in the US. Even Shanghai and Beijing with about $32,000 per capita GDP are only about 58% of the per capita GDP of Louisiana in the bottom one third of US states. Xi Wang Yi, Lifeng are doing what China must do to compete with advanced US and European economies and Japan- continue to work with the US on the development model that has worked the best for China since 1990. It is not about supplanting anyone China is serious when it says here- "Over the past seven decades and more, we have been working from generation to generation on the same blueprint to make it a reality. We have no intention to challenge or supplant anyone. Our focus has always been on managing China’s own affairs well, improving ourselves, and sharing development opportunities with all countries across the world." ...

LyrArc Article Gist
This interview in DW.com by Stefan Dege with author Sebastian Sons ("Built on Sand: A Problematic Ally"), looks at the changes in Saudi Arabia as a new generation of younger leaders under Prince Salman take over the desert region. A big change is that benefitting women in Saudi Arabia. The driving ban lifted is only one change. The bigger change is in the way educated Saudi women will now be integrated into the labor market.  This means improvements in gender relations can also now take place.  One reason cited here that these top down changes from Prince Salman are more likely to happen affecting Saudi society at the grassroots is that 70% of the Saudi population is under 30 years of age. Many have studied overseas and are educated, seeking a freer and more open life. The younger generation is euphoric says Sons, and they put all their hopes on Prince Salman that he can find a way out of the entrenched societal ways  that limit young people, and women from economic participation.  The Wahhabi clerics are seen as a junior partner to the monarchy in Saudi Arabia, and they too see the economic participation of women as necessary in today's tight economic situation. There is even optimism that Merkel could push for better women's rights, and for a Goethe Insitute for better cultural understanding in Riyadh. A very detailed timeline on women's rights in Saudi Arabia is provided here including education and personal ID's. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Li Keqiang, China's new premier, is a member of the "Class of 77," who gained entry to Peking University when university entrance exams were reinstated after Mao's death. This is a period of great curiosity in China about the outside world. Li described it this way in 2008: "In this period knowledge was expanding with the speed of an explosion. I came here not just for knowledge, but to mold a kind of temperament, to master a kind of academic discipline." This he did by working extremely hard trying to master the English language and Western legal theory. He is now the only leader in China who can speak fluent English and is familiar with western concepts of law. For this he owes much to one of his professors, Gong Xiangrui, who studied at the London School of Economics in the 1930's and supported a multiparty system for China. Li was selected as one of the students to translate "The Due Process of Law" by Lord Denning, a British jurist. He spent the next 15 years in the Communist party's Youth League and moved up through the ranks. Many of the "Class of 77' " are still close friends and in academic positions in Singapore, Hong Kong and other universities. He understands the weaknesses in China's legal system because many of his close friends are lawyers, judges and law professors. Evidence of his intellectual openness, is his return to Peking University for a masters degree in economics years later, his thesis on urbanization, and his sponsorship through the Development Reform Commission think tank and the World Bank's Zoellick, of the report published in 2012, "China 2030." That report called for China to change course and reverse the role of state owned firms in the economy, giving consumers a bigger role. Like many of China's leaders this openness also meant during the period of turmoil of the Mao period and the decades following this, of a reticence to talk about political change that came over the entire country, in the words of the 2012 Chinese Nobel Prize Laureate's name, Mo Yan, a kind of "Don't Speak." Taking any kind of political position was simply too risky. The presence of 4 older Politburo members in their mid-60's who are close allies of former president Jiang Zemin and likely to preserve the status quo, also suggests a cautious approach in making changes. One key difference between Jinping- Keqiang from the Jintao-Wen Biao leadership is that Jinping has experience in provincial leadership positions in Hebei, and Keqiang was provincial leader in Henan, China's most populous province, as well as leader in industrial Liaoning province. By odd contrast Hu Jintao was a leader in the remote Tibet region and Wen Biao was a geologist in the northeast for many years. This gives the new leadership team a first hand knowledge of conditions in populous provinces, and the connections with the World Bank's Zoellick a kind of window to the outside that no other leader has had. Jiang Zemin, a former mayor of Shanghai, China' most westernized city in the 1930's and today, was himself a experimenter in his own right when he initiated the changes tht gave China entry into the World Trade Organization. His support of Xi Jinping gives Xi the needed backing for making change happen when the time comes....