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Chile's new constitution was drafted after a vote on a constitutional convention in which many people not involved before and on the fringes of society including indigenous groups were elected. More than half are independents and from different groups of society not well represented before. As a result of this the lack of experience has led to enshrining every single right that one could think of instead of focusing on what the protests were about about - the pension system, unfairness in access to health housing and education in the way funds are allocated from the budget, and promoting fairness in government.  At this time there is no certainty that it will be passed. A 36 year old student protest leader Gabriel Boric is the president elected after two years of protests about the unfairness of the system that took shape under a constitution written by a military dictator Pinochet who ran the country from 1973 to 1990. Pinochet came to power in a coup that is common in the history of South American Republics such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile and other countries. During the period of the government of Marxist president Salvador Allende the country was polarized resulting in the military taking over.  If the constitution is rejected a new convention will be formed to write a new constitution. In following the Structure of the US, Canadian, or British constitution, or the Indian it is important to look at the document so that it will stand the test of time rather than simply enumerating the rights of man. It is also important to focus on how to make the basic rights such as food, housing and education be well funded and society to be run along lines of basic fairness in incomes, while protecting enterprise and industry that can create new wealth for the country. The large South American economies are mainly dependent on commodities for export and there is a need to fund new business sectors which are not in commodity products- copper in the case of Chile- so that the economy can develop in a way that funds progress in incomes. ...

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India's robust debate as a democracy is of an astonishing size and diversity of opinion. The debate did not diminish when there was one federal party in many states under Indira Gandhi (1970's). It actually increased many times during this period compared to the period under Jawaharlal Nehru (1950's) taking the example of one state Gujarat as an example of what was going on in 18 states of that time. Newspapers in Gujarati such as Jansatta, Gujarat Samachar and others carried on a vigorous debate with opposing points of view to the Indira Gandhi government at the state and federal level of the 1970's. Most people in places like New York and London fail to understand or see the local language newspapers or are totally unaware of their existence, and the debate carried on in their pages. So that they falsely assume what a small group of English language newspapers tell them about the vigor of Indian democratic debate that is truly unmatched anywhere in the world. And in terms of its 22 languages in one nation one could say in the entire history of the world. Swapan Dasgupta in the Times of India gives the staggering number of publications today in 2023- 144,520 publications reaching 386 million people every day. And 392 television news channels . All in 22 languages. To ignore the local languages as if they did not exist is to ignore India as if a billion people did not exist. Or as it is for China to say that everything written in Chinese papers and Chinese news channels did not exist. Dasgupta also points out that one should take Mr. Modi and the BJP out of this as at the national level its a 10 year old phenomenon. Look back from 2010 for the sixty years from 1950 to 2010 and India was as badly misconceived, misrepresented, and misperceived back then. India he says fell from 105th place in Freedom House rankings in 2006 to 140th place in 2013. Mr. Modi only enters the picture after that. Dasgupta points out the small sample for these ratings 150 respondents and the methodology having missed much if not everything that is needed in a robust democratic debate. There is another aspect which is present which is prominent in New York and London and Washington D.C. and that is that non-alignment is not popular.  One has to see the way Adlai Stevenson running against Eisenhower twice in the 1950's very warmly received Jawaharlal Nehru on his visit to the US and compare it with the way the US perceived India under John Foster Dulles after Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952 to understand this aspect of American perception. Dulles was facing the Soviet Union and the British under Churchill then Macmillan had an equal disdain for Nehru's non alignment and tilt towards the Soviet Union. These root perceptions did not change with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and continued into the 1970's when Nehru's daughter Indira Gandhi was prime minister and continued non alignment.  India's political alignment after the pandemic is anything but non-aligned. It thinks, acts and lives in a way that is similar to the people of the US and Europe. Not even because it chooses to but because of what it is, coming from being part of its ancient path of Vedanta and Buddhist civilization that is the core Asian experience. It also needs to bring 400 million out of poverty and build the next phase of industrialization and modernization that requires fossil fuels in large quantities at lower prices to sustain its rapid growth. Some of it comes from Russia purely as an economic decision during the pandemic. The Biden administration fully supports India in this task of rapidly growth to meet the aspirations of a mostly young population- sourcing fossil fuels from whichever source that makes sense. To become a key part of the US new supply chain that reverses the overconcentration of the supply chain in China. It can only be said then that Freedom House has the peculiar affliction left behind from the John Foster Dulles period, combined with a bit of arrogance in failing to grasp the central fact of India which is its 22 languages forging one nation- a task nowhere seen in the history of the world. ...

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Indonesia is a country with a long history of Hindu and Buddhist culture before conversion to Islam through traders from Malaysia and Sufi saints in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Hanuman and other deities from India are also part of the existing culture and traditions. Communist influence has been alien to this culture and tradition as in India. It was part of the Dutch empire in the east and a source of European trade in spices from the seventeenth century. It is also a extensive island chain of Java, Sumatra and other islands with a population of 280 million very closely linked to India culturally and with links to America since independence. Indonesia was given a great deal of importance during the Cold War with Robert Kennedy and other leaders visiting Indonesia during the period after Sukarno in the sixties. By 2000 the US engagement with China had evolved to the point that neglected India, Indonesia and the entire south east Asian region in a preference for links with China.  The British division of India led to the US links with India and Indonesia being shaped by that division and the Cold War with Russia. The confusion of the struggle against colonial rule of the British and Dutch led to leaders such as Nehru and Sukarno who compounded the difficulties of the Cold War and perpetuated with it the old British idea of a divided South Asia on a religious basis that had supported British rule and set the conditions that made it possible for a small group of English civil servants to run the country. This led to the Indian and Indonesian relationship with the US being stifled as the US struggled to rid itself of the British obsession with a divided India. Culturally India and Indonesia are part of an extended region in Asia with development aspirations and a youthful population that aspires to better infrastructure, better education, healthcare and ease of living, and the better opportunities in life. This is what migration did for Europeans who left for America for a new life on the east coast and on the prairies of America. It has little to do with the obsessions of the British and the Dutch that divided the region between the Indus and the Ganges and divided the Indonesian islands. That phase is now coming to an end as China reverts to its Communist period leadership under a new generation led by Mr. Jinping, a son of one of the veterans of the Communist Revolution of 1949. The US has to evolve its relations with India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries into new ties of trade, culture and technological exchange. This is needed as it winds down its close trade relations with China in its supply chain to rebuild a new supply chain after the trade wars and the pandemic revealed the deep flaws of that supply chain. What is needed is not the efforts of one changing adminstration after another, but an effort started by president Biden that will last through different administrations as the US engages with Asia in the way that it engaged with Europe after FDR and Truman for most of the twentieth century. And one that rids itself of the obsessions of divided regions from the colonial period of the Dutch and the British. The1.6 billion people in India and Indonesia share a  common aspiration of being a major part of the Free World with America. ...

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India lags behind in the number of tourists visiting the country. Part of the reason was the lack of good infrastructure in the country. Indian Railways and new highways, modern river transport has opened up remote parts of the country from the jungles of Assam to deserts of Rajasthan, the mountainous regions of Kashmir, Sikkim, Bhutan and Ladakh, Arunachal, and the river regions of the Brahmaputra river and Ganges to tourism. Compared to France with 100 million tourists a year India has about a tenth of that.  Tourism is now seen as an engine for job growth as small handicraft industries can tap into the tourist market, hotels and restaurants can add to employment. The new budget for 2025-26 recognizes this by almost tripling the 95 million euros budget for 2024 to 283 million euros in 2025. Delhi with images of pollution is a distraction yet the tourist from Europe or America can find much to see in smaller towns and metros in the country from Buddhist and Vedic civilizations thousands of years old and recent history after invasions from Western Asia and Europe since 1600, and interesting cuisine, culture, language and regional influences. ...

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All the extreme rhetoric on how Project 2025 is going to be adopted under a DJT administration has led to unease that there will be deterioration in the government and society.  Yet it simply may not work that way.   A second objective look at Project 2025 and how it's value to Republicans will be carefully evaluated piece by piece by DJT is needed. Keeping in mind 2026 House and Senate elections, winning broad support for the traditional Republican conservative line of thinking, and maintaining the support of all Republicans in the business, government, media and other sectors.  1. Replacing federal employees with party loyalists. This happens at the top of every agency of the government for every government in the US and Europe after an election for the last century. At today's unemployment level of 4 percent, adult males actually 3.9% and adult females 3.6%, and considering the higher salaries paid in the private sector, the tenuous nature of joining as a party loyalist as the national mood can shift at any time and things change again in 2027; where was the federal government going to find employees to be replaced at mid and lower levels? There is also the situation seen in 1928 when a Republican Hoover victory made Democrat NY Governor Al Smith compel a reluctant Franklin Roosevelt, who was just recovering from polio, to run for NY Governor. By 1931 over 3 years Franklin Roosevelt and Columbia University's Frances Perkins tested programs to stabilize employment in the US, introduce unemployment insurance as a new concept, and a 40 hour week also new, in the entire northeastern + midwestern states, all governors working together. By 1931 in just 3 years Franklin Roosevelt was on the clear path to sweeping victory in 1932 with a tested program to stabilize employment. 2.  The No. 1 goal is to restore the traditional family. It is clear in 2024 that the vast majority of Americans, whites, women as well as men, of all age groups, whites as well as Latinos and Asians, blacks, see that things like transgender "have somehow gone too far." 3. Cultural Literacy is needed for any nation to long survive. This is not even on any platform. Yet knowledge about America's history of settlement of the continent -correcting for treatment of American Indians, blacks, Chinese, Japanese without pointless race controversies- is being rapidly lost, and with it an understanding of America's civic institutions and Constitution, its founders and presidents, and evolution of the nation over the 20th century with the Industrial Revolution. The very terminology that has defined public knowledge about these United States is fast disappearing. It is a cause for unease in the minds of people in rural and urban, conservative and other parts of the political spectrum alike of what will happen to America as this is lost. 4. On immigration  a consensus was reached by president Biden that migrant flow was mishandled and the Lankford legislation offered by Republican leaders accepted by both parties to stop the flow. During his first term president Eisenhower conducted a program of returning illegal migrants to their home countries, Germany is doing this now and the UK's Labor party has made it No. 1 priority to stop migrant smuggling. 5. An effort to increase oil and gas production. This will help bring down the cost of living by reducing energy costs in the US and also helping Europe to do the same. Biden had already accepted the idea of the temporary need to do this to ease cost of living burden on the people of this Nation. The economic cost of wind and solar, are ultimate drivers for expanding renewable energy as major form of climate change action. In the first term of DJT 2016-2020 the lower cost of natural gas made it economical to switch from oil to gas. In the Biden term 2020-2024 all the effort to increase EV's on the road ran into the problem of lack of charging stations. It is possible that spread of charging stations could reverse this in the second term of DJT. It is the private sector and also the local governments that play a big part, climate change action will continue, and new R&D breakthroughs will happen to jump start it again.    ...

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This look at China and leaders Mao, Chou-en-lai, Deng, Xi Jinping through the lens of the Hoover Institution series on authoritarianism "The Party's Interest Come First," by Hoover research fellow Turgian makes the same errors as is evident from expert at Oxford University/ Kennedy School Rana Shantasil Mitter of Indian descent. Which is to see China as an academic, not by immersing oneself in China of 1890- 1950 into the lives of China's millions of ordinary people. And how is one to immerse oneself into these lives. One can do this through the eyes of General Stilwell who loved and immersed himself in China like it could be said no other American of that period in Barbara Tuchman's well researched account of this China of 1890-1950.  One clue to this is also that Tuchman unlike Torgian or Mitter by a long shot is the only writer who met Mao in Beijing in the 1970's. In 1971 she met Mao and made observations on the lives of the people in "Notes from China- If Mao had met Roosevelt in 1945." As a result of Tuchman's account of Stilwell's personal experience of China since 1900's being lost to most Americans, there is no concept of what China had experienced with the gradual collapse of China's economy and politcal structures, its defense as China, like India, and Asia as a whole failed to experience the opening up to science and technology and modern ways of thought since 1600. The results were catastrophic for the Chinese people and for the people of India leading to economic destruction on a scale unknown in history and lives shortened and reduced by poverty.  ...

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Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates points out in this intervew with Holman Jenkins of the WSJ, that Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who worsened Shiite-Sunni relations, was the principal cause of the unraveling that happened in Iraq during the first term of U.S. president Obama. He says President Obama failed to do what was done by president Bush to persist and obtain Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq, to maintain a U.S. foce presence in Iraq. Presence of U.S. forces would have prevented the spread of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. U.S. force presence would have provided a more even handed treatment of Sunnis in the region, creating the conditions for peace by having Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites continue talks about the future of Iraq. Gates grew up in Kansas in the 1950's, attended the College of William and Mary for undergraduate studies, studied Russian and Soviet history in grad school at Indiana University and Georgetown University, before joining the CIA. Gates was selected by Brzezinski to work in the White House, worked under Brent Snowcroft, and as head of the CIA (1991-1993) during the elder Bush administration. He was Secretary of Defense from 2006-2011, under presidents George Bush and Barack Obama, succeeding Donald Rumsfeld. He was succeeded by Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, and Ashton Carter. ...

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In China since 1981 the poorest people making below $1.25 a day fell to 207 million in 2005 from 835 million in 1981. In India the number of people below $1.25 a day increased to 455 million in 2005 from 420 million people in 1981. The share of the people in poverty fell to 42 percent from 60 percent during the same period. Corresponding figures for East Asia including China show a drop from 80% of the people in poverty in 1981 dropping to 18% in 2005. The proportion of people living below the $1.25 a day poverty line worldwide fell over the nerarly 25 year period from 1981 to 2005 from 52% in 1981 to 26% in 2005. In subSaharan Africa, now the poorest region half or 50% of the people live under the poverty line of $1.25 a day in 2005 almost where it was in 1981. In absolute numbers the region had 380 million people living below the poverty line in 2005 compared to 200 million people in 1981. Note that the World Bank this year changed the poverty line from $1 to $1.25 a day, to make allowance for the inflation that is hitting the poorer countries. Is China a rich nation after the Olympics? Some parts of China, the coastal regions and the regions around big cities like Shanghai and Beijing are relatively affluent with pockets of poorer people but in the rest of the country there is poverty as defined perhaps in terms of deep poverty, poverty, poor middle class without health insurance or any kind of savings for emergencies. With 200 million people in 2005 below the poverty line a question could be asked how many people in China below say $2.00 a day which could be seen as being poor at a time when inflation in food and fuel costs has been significant in developing countries. If its somewhere in the range of 300 and 400 million people in China this explains why in relative terms China would identify with India and the rest of the developing countries and it also explains its stand in the WTO trade talks acting as a developing country protecting the rights of agriculture and farmers within China. And it also explains the reasons why China sees a long transition before it ceases to be a poor developing country and why there is real concern that these 300-400 million people as well as others adversely affected by the rapid industrialization and exercize of state authority, corruption and increasing gaps between rich and poor, adverse effects on environment, that these people adversely affected are listened to and accomodated in the interests of stable progress and fairness. Much of recent history has shown that countries open to foreign trade have done better given the right conditions and careful policy measures. China opened up around 1981, and India around 1991. Also progress and gains are more significant in infrastructure building and in poverty reduction in the latter phases of development as the synergies increase, capital pool increases, and the development accelerates, this shows why China's gains look significant compared to India's at this point in time. In ten years or fifteen years a better assessment could be made and then some points may favor China and some India, and the results will be a result of different history, experiences and problems faced and routes taken because of prior developments in each region and varying complexity. ...

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This NYT report on Mohamed Bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, who comes from Abu Dhabi one of the 7 emirates in the Gulf Coastal region, is rare and unusual. It provides stories the prince loves to tell that make a point about how he sees the world. Here he tells them to Robert F. Worth, in the only interview Mohamed bin Zayad has ever given to a journalist from US or Europe. It took a year just to get the interview. The title about a Dark Vision is inappropriate as Mohamed Zayad simply reflects what is a British way of looking at things- valuing the Constitution, keeping religion private even its deeply held beliefs and cultural traditions such as Bedouin's practice, and a general tolerance that characterizes British society and similar societies throughout the history of Europe and Asia that were sitting on shipping lanes and practiced trade for a livelihood. It is also important because the other Mohamed, Mohamed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is seen as someone influenced by the ideas of Mohamed Bin Zayad of Abu Dhabi. President Biden plans a trip to the region in coming months to continue on building a narrative of development for the region. This provide an insight into the coastal regions that include Gujarat across the Gulf in India, that for centuries traded with the Gulf kingdoms. They have a trading mentality and with it comes a tolerance that is also seen in trading nations such as England. This is what brought Britain to India (and China) says Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi went so far as to say that if there was trade on the moon you would find a British shopkeeper was first to setup shop there. Zayed has as a minister in his cabinet, a woman who is minister of Tolerance, Sheikha Lubna al Quasimi.  Zayed is unique for three reasons. He has embedded in his views the spirit of tolerance. As Worth puts it in NYT, Zayed has grasped what is true to the spirit of the Gulf region. The country's location on an ancient shipping lane has bred a type of Islam in the Gulf region, that is open to the world and tolerant.  His father Zayed Nahyan's  tendencies to openness and frank demeanor combine with this tolerance to provide a different kind of leadership. His father had the pluralist instincts that combined traditional Bedouin attitudes with a rare liberal mindedness. He died at age 86 in 2004. Zayed bin Nahyan MBZ's father was selected for these very reasons by the British in 1966 to rule the small Gulf kingdom of Abu Dhabi. In 1966, says this NYT report, the country was mostly illiterate, half of all children died during childbirth and one third of the women during childbirth, there was a complete lack of western medicine. Zayed Nahyan's brother was averse to development making the British select Zayed Nahyan at the request of Abu Dhabhi families. These early years shaped Mohamed Bin Zayed's views of how to see the world. Zayed the son loves to tell stories, and this one in the NYT shows how Mohamed bin Zayed the son and Mohamed bin Nahyan the father share a sense of what it means to be human and support all people's aspirations for a better life. This is the narrative in India and the region of 1.8 billion people that extends from India to Indonesia and Vietnam. This was seen at the G7 when leaders of India and Indonesia were invited to meet with the G7 in Munich, Germany and taken as utterly serious participants in the discussions to shape the Free World. To see the difference- UAE has signed agreements to increase trade with India to $100 billion over 5 years and was thanked by prime minister Modi for treatment of 8 million Indian workers in the Gulf region during the pandemic. Saudis are now stabilizing the Turkish and Egyptian economies with aid and providing some of the funding assistance for Siemens to modernize the entire Egyptian rail system with the latest technology over the next 5 years. Projects of this size that have never been undertaken since 1945. Sometime in the 1980's when Zayed was a young military officer having completed training at the Royal British Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, and educated in Scotland, he went to the grasslands of Tanzania. During his visit to Tanzania he went to several villages to see the Masai tribes. When he returned he sat with his father crosslegged on the floor in traditional Bedouin and Asian style and told him about his travels. His father asked Zayed about all the details- the wildlife, the Masai people and their customs, the extent of poverty in the country. After hearing it all his father asked Zayed what he had done for the people he had encountered. In response Zayed shrugged and answered, the people he met were not Muslims. Zayed still recalls his father's reaction, sudden, forceful and indelible from memory. Zayad says his father took a sudden hold of his arm and spoke to him in a harsh tone and stern demeanor- " We are all God's children."     ...

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Mouhanad Khorchide, is professor of Islamic pedagogy at the University of Munster in Germany. He is offering an innovative approach to teach a gentler and more tolerant Islam as Germany shifts to the teaching of Islam in primary and secondary schools, alongside teaching of the Christian and Jewish faiths. He is the author of the book published in Arabic and as an e-book in English- "Islam in Mercy." He goes back to the open discourse in the Islam of the eight and ninth centuries for ideas, asking questions and seeing this as part of the discourse in the educational process. He is a Palestinian who studied sociology at the University of Vienna. Germany has 4 million Muslims.

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The Financial Times interview with the PM of India as posted on the PM's site. It makes no mention of the efforts for Clean India Swacch Bharat, cooking gas for tens of millions of women, tap water for every household in India, access to the internet and 4G and transition to 5G at data rates that bring access to all, and the modernization of Indian Rail with new technology making transport fast and with comfort. It shows gaps in understanding that are mind boggling. The PM talks in language that the financial community understands- startups, economic achievements, and leaves out the material above that he talks to in every speech in parliament about the transformative effects in the life of India's 1.4 billion people that the financial community does not see as its first concern.  The financial community today is shortsighted and lacks a sense of history and transformations that have already happened. Japan's from the Meiji period and its phases of modernization by 1900, 1900 to 1930's, and 1950 to 1960's. China's after 1990 and between 2000-2019. And India's now underway with Indonesia following India is the largest such change in history for upwards of 1.7 billion people. It is the third phase of Asia's transformation and India is in the early phase of a massive transformation to give standards of living similar or better than the other advanced economies. It is hard for anyone to imagine what this means for upwards of a billion people in Asia. The first phase was to address the centuries old neglect of the vast base of the population at the bottom that was neglected and without hope and at the same time invigorating the drivers of industrialization in the middle class. The financial community today also lacks an understanding of the importance of not letting the infrastructure of the US and European economies deteriorate. This plays the same role as the infrastructure of India that is being built from scratch around the major cities and the second tier group of cities under a Master Plan or Gati Shakti. The financial communtiy has allowed the infrastructure of the US and EU to deteriorate when it plays a role similar to what it does in India and Indonesia. There is not even a mention of infrastructure in this interview. Gati Shakti  India's Infrastructure Plan is a main driver of India's transformation, yet it barely got mentioned in this interview of the Financial Times. At a time when president Biden with bipartisan support in Congress built from years of his hard work in the Senate has launched the biggest infrastructure building effort since the 1960's with investment in trillions of dollars in the US, it is the same effort in India that is beginning to accelerate, that is the biggest reason for hope for the people of the American continent and for the people of Asia.   ...

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Walter Mead describes the roots of the refugee crisis in 2015, as millions of refugees flee Syria, Iraq, and other countries in the Middle East, lying in the failure of governments throughout the Middle East to accomodate modernity, women's rights and technological progress into the old Islamic thinking. He says he sees this in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and other countries in the Middle East. The Arab Spring which aroused so much hope for the people of the region has floudered in the failure of both the Islamic leaders, the military elite, and civil society to come up with a consensus rooted in what a modern Islamic society that accomodates modernity, women's rights, the participation of people in their government, technological progress should look like. The Western nations of Europe and the U.S. also underwent soul searching to come up with a modern Christian society through its own struggles, which the Islamic societies have failed to do; and as a result floundered and broken up by sectarian, religious and military conflicts. Mead takes the long view, yet falls short when it comes to how European leaders and societies face individual challenges to bring their own Christian faith and ideals into the real world, in the way chancellor Merkel has responded in Germany. Europeans have had their own period of conflicts and civil wars, the refugee crisis and refugees in chancellor Merkel's words who "have gone through the hell of a civil war" are very real, and how each European responds defines who he is and how far Europe has come from its own dark days....

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Ghannouchi of Tunisia's Ennahada Party puts forward ideas for a pathway that Islamists could follow to integrate into the political life of Middle Eastern countries- compromise, working together with non-Islamist parties for the common good, focussing on economic development, pursuing moderate Islamist ideas, bringing in those excluded from the political process thorough a new inclusiveness, and respecting the opposition. He sees the successful election in Tunisia in which Ennahada worked with the opposition parties to ensure a smooth transition, as a model for other countries and the Arab neighborhood. In 2014 another process of smooth transition after elections, and respect for the opposition, happened in Indonesia with the election of Jakarta governor Widodo to be the new president. This set another model of respect for democracy, fair elections, respect for the opposition, focus on economic development and inclusiveness, for Muslim countries in another part of the world. Pakistan is another Muslim country which is working to create a model in the presence of much violence from Pakistan Taliban, and interventions by the military in politics. Assistance from the U.S. helped Iraq make the transition under the Bush administration till it unraveled with the policies of the Obama administration. Libya had the potential to make the transition with continued western cooperation and support- a change in administrations in the U.S. and France resulted in policies not supportive of a stable transition. The whole process now needs to be fostered carefully by western liberal democracies. Here Ennahada's Ghannouchi tells the world about the lessons learned by Islamist parties themselves for pathways to embrace for more inclusive societies focussed on economic development and progress....

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A report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows growing income inequality in 34 OECD countries. OECD Secretary General, Angel Gurria says: "The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries. This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that the greater inequality fosters greater social mobility. Without a comprehensive strategy for inclusive growth, income inequality will continue to rise." Countries with the largest ratios between incomes at the top and the bottom, are the United States, Turkey and Israel, roughly 14 to 1. Germany, Denmark and Sweden have ratios of 6 to 1, with their ratios up from the 1980's. Gaps in Chile and Mexico are at 25 to 1. The study covers the period from 1980 to 2008. Overall inequality went up by 25% in the U.S. from 1980. In 2008 the top ten percent in the U.S. earned $114,000, 15 times than incomes for the bottom 10%. The top 1% of Americans saw incomes go up from 1980 to 2008, increasing from 8 percent to 18 percent. The richest 1% having $1.3 million in after tax income, and the lowest 20% making $17,700. The trends have accentuated an increase at the highest end- the top 1% and top 10% of the people- and a sharp decrease for the bottom 20%, which can be grasped from the $17,700 and the $1.3 million, both at extreme ends. The study attributes the rise in inequality to a growing gap in wages for highly skilled workers as technology advances, a surge in foreign direct investment and a looser regulatory regime that reduces employee protections leading to wage premiums for financial jobs and smaller incomes for workers at the bottom. Income groups and professions and sectors that had the greatest influence in government were able during this period to get the greatest protection for incomes, and able also to maximize their incomes. Incomes in the financial sector increased dramatically in the last decade, as a result of deregulation leading to higher risk and speculative activities in the financial sector, leading to the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Financial crises further depress incomes at the lower end. Similiar income inequality trends can be seen for India and China. China has a Ginni coefficient of 0.5 according to researchers at Beijing Normal University, up from 0.3 three decades ago- a Ginni Coefficient above 0.4 is considered destabilizing. Another factor that played a part in these countries is corruption and lobbying by special interests for favored treatment of sectors or groups. Austerity measures taken in Europe and in the U.S. are likely to widen income gaps by depressing the lower end income groups, creating social unrest, especially in the absence of efforts to stimulate growth....

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Bruce Reidel, Obama administration advisor on the war in Afghanistan, conducted a policy review in 2009. He says a policy of engagement he advised in 2009 now needs reshaping. He points to recent events that show the Pakistani ISI and the military who run Pakistan are in direct conflict with U.S. policy in the region. Especially after the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Kabul and the killing of a former Afghan president who was expected to lead peace talks. Reidel says this requires a reshaping of U.S. policy and a policy of containment which would reduce military assistance to Pakistan, and at the same time shape policies that would help the people of Pakistan, such as reducing tariffs on textiles.

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Japan's Foreign Minister tells Martin Fackler of the NYT in an interview that the Abe government will follow previous governments in the postwar period that apologized for colonial policies that caused suffering in other parts of Asia. He repeatedly calls for Japanese to be humble about the past. Previous statements by persons seen to be close to the government, including the head of NHK broadcaster, were interpreted negatively in S. Korea, China and the U.S. as needlessly escalating tensions in the region. China and S. Korea responded with a public relations campaign of their own to present what happened in the prewar period. S. Korean president Park refused to meet Japan's premier Abe. Kishida used NYT and Fackler to send a message to a global audience about Japan taking a path of peace since 1945.

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Chandrasekeran looks back on the troop surge ordered by President Obama on the advice of General Petraeus and General McChrystal in Afghanistan, and the results in Afghanistan as the U.S. withdraws troops in 2012-2013.

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What is the educational system Toyota is relying on as it faces a huge problem stemming from its high growth rate of new employees overseas who have little knowledge of the Toyota Way and the Toyota Production System. Another part of the same problemis that as it ages many of the last generation of Toyota executives who were there from the inception of Toyota's early days in the USA and the early days of the extraordinary growth in the 80's and 90's will now be retiring or in their seventies and eighties. All this is happening as the American Big Three and the German manufacturers are getting new blood and going through a process of renewal, and the Americans especially are seeing themselves as the underdogs coming from behind. So Toyota's concerns can be seen in a new light, any complacency on its part is going to be costly in the long run. Toyota is using the Toyoa Institute in rural Mikkabi, Japan for training its senior executives like Randy Pflughaupt, chief of US marketing for the Toyota brand. Watanabe, presidetn, Fujio Cho chairman, and Akio Toyoda of the Toyota family personally teach there and share their personal experiences. Toyota asks executives there to come up with a problem Toyota faces and come up with a proposed solution all on one 11 by 17 sheet of paper. Hands on on the ground on site fact finding and exploration are stressed. A management school Globis in Japan instructs Toyota's middle management inthe Toyota philosophy including quality control philosophy methods such as asking the 5 Why's, why a problem is ocurring until one reaches 5 or 6 levels of answers. Global centers in USA Europe and Asia have been opened by Toyota to train roving experts who can help increase the numbers of roving experts from todays 2000 mostly at this time from Japan. These roving experts teach older employees as well as coach younger ones. Then there are the Toyota Technical Training Institutes. The one in Bangalore for example offers an intensive program for new hires to teach Toyota's basic principles. The one in Bangalore has 21 teachers. And appicants selection is tight in India just 64 out of 5000. Before working on the assembly line the applicants will spend 2 years in classes in technical training, including discipline and personal grooming. Its interesting that the applicant mentioned here was from a village where his family and friends were especially proud of his Toyota uniform and training. The idea may be to avoid the problems of trade unionism, worker feeling of entitlement and worker rights which has led to the problems in the US and in India of workers not willing to learn new things being open to new ideas. One way would be to avoid entirely areas where there has been trade union influence, history and activity such as rural Kentucky or rural Karnataka. The student Harish Hanumantayappa is 17 years old and sees this as an opportunity that was not even in his imagination, which makes for a highly enthusiastic trainee, just the kind Toyota may be looking for away from India's trade union and worker indiscipline environments in some states and regions. Reflecting on this one can note that its natural for Toyota to respond in this fashion and it may extend the period in which the Toyota Production System and the Toyota Way functions effectively. But companies like HP also had what they called the HP Way but eventually this suffered a decline as new managers and leadership came into the picture. Only now is HP recovering and getting back its step under a manager who spent his training years at NCR not a training ground for managers, but may have been chosen for his good management instincts and performance and personal characteristics. Also many of the tenets such as asking 5 Why's and the Toyota Production System except for the Just In Time Innovation are basic quality control philsophy that is practiced all over Japanese industry and is practiced worldwide and originated in quality control philosophy in the United States in the 1920's and 1930's before declining and then coming back in the 1980's with Deming and Juran two American quality control advocates. So there is a pattern of decline as new managers forget old ideas and its not clear if Toyota can overcome this tendency completely, except to sustain the memory of what Toyota is and how they got here for as long as possible for a new generation of managers. And the risks to Toyota may also come from another direction to which Toyota may not pay as much attention which is the innovation that Americans are known for, and the innovative thinking mode is a bit different from the rigorous training of the total quality mode. ction ...

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Bernard Lewis's "The Arabs in History," is a short book which confirms Zakaria's point about the openness of Islamic societies before the 19th century, with some exceptions in certain periods. Most books or a quick look at Wikipedia shows us that the Renaissance in Europe in the 15th century got its boost from books by ancient Greek authors that were available in Arab societies long after they were forgotten in Europe. His point about Indonesia and India is also true to a large extent except for periods such as the one under Aurangzeb (17th c.). Muslim societies in British India (todays Pakistan and Bangladesh) experienced less social and educational reforms under the British than Hindu societies for various reasons leading to larger backwardness, illiteracy which breed extremist ideas. This is likely to change throughout North African Arab societies and South Asia in the next 50 years, especially with the modernization drive underway in India, which is likely to spread to other parts of the region. Islam as a missionary religion with force of arms spread in the 7th-9th century rapidly over Arab North Africa and parts of west Asia, and later to South Asia. Once established there were long periods of openness to ideas and books, and different cultures ( with the exception of preferences for Muslims), and a stress on commerce which inherently reduces religious vehemence, as the example of Britain shows. For this reason the current conditions in Islamic societies is more atypical than typical. A factor that has worsened it is that 19th c.-20th c. Islamic societies have put less emphasis on commerce and industry than historically seen in prosperous Islamic societies, on which more research is needed to understand why. Another factor is the impact of the interface with technologically and scientifically progressing Europe and America not becoming a learning experience for acquisition of this science and technology and making it one's own, a pattern seen in Buddhist societies of Japan in 19th c., South Korea in 20thc.,and China 21st c. Because Buddhism sprang from Hinduism or a response to Hindu ideas in India, India could be put alongside China for the 21st c. rapid assimilation of western science and technology making it one's own. When there is a violent collison between Japan and U.S. Admiral Dewey's ships, or China and British advances around 1900, the initial reaction of rejection is reversed with adoption of western technology and practices making it one's own. Similiar response in India. Islamic societies have had an extended period of rejection for reasons not fully understood even today. This is likely to generate the kind of internal debate about how to revert back to the usual mode of adoption in Islamic civilization, with the potential catalyst in India and other locations in the Middle East. The most respected German of the 19th century is Alexander Von Humboldt, a naturalist who advanced scientific knowledge, and a mentor to Charles Darwin in England, author of "Origin of the Species." Humboldt says- "There are no inferior races, we are all humans, and we are all destined to reach for and grasp liberty." That Humboldt spent most of his best years in Paris, France, which he compared to the provincialism in his native Berlin, goes to show how Humboldt, Darwin and Humboldt's friend Aime Bonpland of France, maintained close cooperation and friendship and anticipated the close cooperation in Europe since the second half of the 20th c., long before European politicians and governments grasped this. Commerce, science, travel, media and free exchange of ideas, are as favorable to progress as politics and ideology is inimical to it....