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The new airport terminal for New Delhi, India, compares favorably with the airports in Hong Kong and Singapore. Bangalore and Hyderabad have new airports, and Mumbai is getting a new airport in 2012.

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The Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 was a pivotal battle in the American Civil War and the Gettysburg address was conceived in prayer by Abraham Lincoln. There were times when Lincoln felt that he needed to pray for God's help in these crucial weeks of the Civil War when it would be decided through divine intervention whether a nation so conceived ("that all men are create equal and are endowed by theit Creator with some inalienable rights") can long endure. "That this Nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." The act of Prayer when it matters most is now lost on a new generation.

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Alex Frangos says mainland shares are still trading at a premium. He cites the Hang Seng A-H Share Premium Index, that shows the difference for shares in the freely trading Hong Kong market with the less freely trading mainland China market- the mainland shares trade in Jan 2016 at a premium of 38%, when the five year average premium is 8%. He cites other figures to show that Beijing policymakers face a difficult task to keep stock prices from reaching a natural valuation.

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As early as June 15, 2007, internal J.P. Morgan documents show, high-level risk management officers at Chase's investment bank sent e-mail to colleagues to report that Madoff was suspected to be running a Ponzi scheme. In Feb 2006, a risk analyst at Chase reported to his superiors that the returns of the Madoff Fund did not make sense, as it did far better than the securities reportedly in the portfolio. A lawsuit is being filed by the bankruptcy trustee of the Madoff Fund against Chase for allowing Madoff to bring billions of dollars of investor's cash into and out of his Chase bank accounts right upto the day of his arrest in Dec 2008. At the same time Chase had withdrawn $241 million of the $271 million it had invested in Madoff-linked hedge funds.

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The NYT's Scott Shane talks to residents of Baltimore and the neighborhoods where a community center and CVS store were set ablaze. Baltimore has suffered from economic decline as the city's major employer Bethlehem Steel closed its plant, and fewer industry jobs remained to sustain poorer neighborhoods. Incarceration, drug use, crime, all have taken a toll as more residents left the city for the suburbs. Unlike Detroit which has the auto industry, and dilapidated buildings are gradually being replaced with newer structures, Baltimore has only one large employer, John Hopkins University and its medical complex. Economist Basu says the loss is felt more deeply because efforts were being made to give new life to poorer neighborhoods, and because the rest of the country will now have a different impression of the city reducing outside investment.

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Russia is excluded for the second year for the G-7 Summit meeting of leaders in Berlin, in June 2015. The exclusion follows Russian intervention in Ukraine.

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China is increasing export rebates aand investing in vocational training to keep the economy growing . Laid off workers are returning to their farms. THe real impact on growth and industrial production will come in 2009 according to Clement Chen, the chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries. Because China has sustained a high growth rate for so long and the US has not yet felt the full impact of the recession it is possible to underestimate the impact on China's export dependent economy of a deep slump in exports as western markets shrink. The current 9% for the third quarter which does not reflect the credit crisis of October in global markets shows merely the early impact of slowing growth, with serious debt induced dowturn in the western economies China could see its growth drop to 6-7%.

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A small fishing community in the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong is transformed into an industrial and tech hub in three decades of industrialization and growth, since Deng Xiaoping's opening to capitalism and foreign investment in 1979.

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It is not far away as India and Canada have a long relationship in the British Commonwealth of Nations as prominent members. India and the Eu relationship was also building up for years to get to the takeoff stage with huge potential. The US India trade relationship will also benefit from the deals signed with Germany and EU as it gives new approaches to do trade with US.

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Nickel cadmium batteries - this year 2008 the European Union is banning the sale of all nickel cadmium batteries. Question is why is the US not banning them. And why are companies like Energizer, Duracell, P&G, Mattel, Toys R Us and Walmart still buying them? Why is Panasonic making them? A toy costs $1.50 less to make using nickel cadmium batteries. Are parents aware of what it does to workers making them? Are plants safe in developing countries especially in corruption prone coercive environments like the one in factories in China? Some of the owners of such factories are in Hong Kong, Hong Kong based companies, are they aware enough of the risks and the ethics of doing is? This story is of an engineer who was exposed to factory conditions in a company GP that was supposed to be a good company to work for, and few knew about the effects of cadmium in the year 1995 when she joined. The Panasonic factory is in Wuxi which is not in some remote part of China. And note this about 10% of China's arable land is contaminated with heavy metals such as cadmium according to China's own State Environmental Protection Agency, and the metals are entering China's food supply. 12 studies have shown unsafe level of cadmium in fruits and vegetables. Is this a necessary price of industrialization or is it possible to find a way thats better- a challenge for countries like India. Can there be better protection of workers and still have industrialization? Wouldn't it make sense that a motivated well treated work force will perform better in better working conditions. Aren't there costs involved for workers and owners of such plants. Owners also bear costs, bad press, medical payments, workers leave and good workers are hard to find in the wave of bad publicity and health risks, customers in the west refuse to buy the product, the company's brand name is tarnished forever, as would happen for GP in this case. The coercive patterns of using police to suppress publicity for a Hong Kong Company shows owners in Hong Kong have the same disregard for worker rights, even when living in an area that one hears talk about democratic rights. See the link to chemical spills contaminating a river in China also by a Hong Kong based company. ...

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Mohamed El-Erian is cohead at Pimco with Bill Gross. He was with the IMF for 15 years before joining Pimco which he left in 2005 to go to Harvard. He left Haarvard in december and rejoined Pimco. Pimco or the Pacific Investment Mangement Company oversees $810 billion in assets. Every spring employees of Pimco get together to paint a big picture view of what secular trends will drive markets. El-Erian says he missed this at Harvard. Very few of the investment managers marketing products to Harvard Investment Mnagement were anchored by secular or long term views. He appreciates the disciplined hardwired thinking that Bill Gross goes through on such issues as the end of the Cold War, the spread of capitalism in emerging markes, the USA productivity surge, and the rise of China's influence on the global economy. El-Erian thinks these secular long term views are anchors that help you from getting caught up in bad trades. In his view the last decade saw the balance sheet of emerging markets get recapitalized, the after Enron and Worldcom the US corporate and industrial sector recapitalized its balance sheet. Now its the US financial system that is recapitalizing its balance sheet, once this period is over it will be seen as very positive. He sees the USA about three quarters of the way through a major dislocation that has repriced the financial system. He sees risk for the small and midsized USA banks that are heaavily tied to commercial real estate and the consumer. The pressure is great for consumers. And unemployment is absolutely the key for the next 6 months, El-Erian emphasizes, because if too many people lose their jobs income and consumption will be thrown off balance. He says Pimco is focussing on senior parts of the capital structure with very high quality bonds....

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Gap Inc. plans to open 2 stores in Beijing and Shanghai in late 2010. It is part of an expansion strategy that covers markets in Hong Kong, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Romania. The stores in China will be company owned.