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Italy's prime minister, Mario Monti, a senior EU official before becoming prime minister, has the credibility and credentials to bring the French and German sides together on a new plan forward for the European Union, says Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post. In this report from Rome, where leaders of Italy, Spain, France and Germany are meeting to discuss solutions Pearlstein describes the solutions Monti is putting forward. The European Investment Fund would be built up so that it has funding of about $175 billion or 1% of Europe's GDP to finance truly productivity and growth enhancing projects of innovative small and medium sized business in transportation, energy, education and environmental sectors. These companies have suffered shortages of capital as banks pulled bank from lending. It is the inadequate private investment that is causing the greatest damage in this crisis and $175 billion is at the low end of the amount needed in this crisis. Other steps Monti is pushing forward- for immediate steps to tackle the crisis deposit insurance to prevent a run on banks is essential for European banks. This would come with a eurozone regulatory authority that would have the powers to regulate European banks. The European Financial Stability Facility would be the "sovereign buyer of last resort," under Monti's proposal. Eurobonds come up as a key part of the solution. This is not because German and French taxpayers would be required to finance economies of Spain and Italy. As was shown by the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) a well designed program could pay for itself. This would include the EU financial authority taking up stakes in the banks getting help and closing banks that are insolvent. The key point is that if properly executed and executed in a timely and appropriate way this does not have to cost French and German taxpayers- the important thing being to support the eurozone economies before the situation deteriorates. Borrowing at 6% for Spain and Italy will only put the situation out of control as deficits rise rapidly. The concessions for tighter regulation of European banking systems, reducing risk in banking, setting up adequate reserves, closing poorly run banks, and ceding powers to a European Financial Authority that can make the final decisions, are the steps that would have to go with these arrangements. Sound financial management requires that the kind of banking risks taken in the speculative bubbles in Spain, the lack of transparency and credibility in banking estimates of bad loans in the system, and the glossing over the problems at Bankia, would have to be addressed in solutions through regulation by a credible European Financial Authority to convince skeptical German public opinion that financial accounts are conducted in a proper manner....

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This exceptional report by Chulov in the Guardian shows the changes in the war in Iraq and Syria in 2015-2016 since the downing of a Russian jet by Turkey in late 2015. It says that the Syrian government's future was uncertain in late 2015 with Turkish support for rebel forces in the north. During this period Russia curtailed trade and tourism relations with Turkey, and improved relations with the Kurds. Russia intervened in northern Syria directly to prevent a collapse of Syrian government forces in the north. Kurdish forces were already controlling large parts of the Syrian territory adjoining Turkey, and Turkey was concerned about the support to Kurds within Turkey from Kurds in Syria and a historical movement for  Kurdish independence. In April 2016 Russia made a move to win Turkish support by saying it would support the territorial integrity of Syria, so that no support would be given to the Kurds. As the U.S. consistently supported the Kurds in the fight against ISIS, Turkey under prime minister Erdogan changed its policy of support for rebel forces in Syria to focus on what it perceived as the threat fom Kudish control of the region at its Syrian borders. Rebel forces were told to focus not on the Syrian government forces but on ISIS, leading to withdrawal of support in Aleppo. What remains now of the war in Syria and Iraq is Iranian influence in Iraq, the Russian influence from support of the Syrian government in Damascus, and for the first time U.S. ground forces in the north with 900 troops supported by artillery on the side of the Kurds. The next stage in the war to take ISIS controlled Raqqa is being negotiated between Russia, Turkey and the U.S., according to this report.  ...

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Belgium's justice and interior ministers acknowledge the error in not taking action after being alerted by Turkish authorites of Islamic radicals suspected to be a serious terrorist threat. Turkey's president raised this issue in the media about the Belgian officials failure to act on a Turkish request to take into custody a radical arrested in Turkey for trying to enter Syria. The individual was one of two brothers who were suicide bombers in the attack at the Brussels airport and subway in March 2016.

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Scott Anderson of the NYT provides an indepth look at the Arab World and its fragmentation through the eyes of five people from each part of the Arab world- Egyptian, Kurd, Syrian, Iraqi and Jordanian. He says the countries that fell apart are precisely the ones that were formed by the British and the French, and Italy, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire  using divide and rule policies- Britain in Iraq, France in Syria, and Italy in Libya- without much thought given to setting up viable nation states. This is why Iraq has a Sunni-Shia divide, Syria has similar divisions, and Libya with a largely tribal based structure, never really held together after the colonial powers left, and were held together only by strong dictators. Today's problems trace back to these historical events. This is complicated by the largely young demographic and restlessness of the people for change coupled with problems of underdevelopment in education, tribal loyalties, religious loyalties, and lack of political and social structures that could keep the countries together as change and transition to democratic processes took place. The role of the military further complicated matters in Egypt. Even Iran experienced these divisions because of the intervention of the great powers including Russia in Iran since 1900, leading to swings between liberal governments, foreign power supported governments, and a swing back to religious leadership as at present. This is one view of the region, others are presented by Ramadan (Oxford),  Bernard Lewis (Princeton), and leaders in Qatar and Emirates, other experts, some of whom point to the failure in leadership and the elites to find solutions to the problems of underdevelopment, in education, health, infrastructure, and aspirations for a voice in their governance. As the same divisions left by colonial powers affected Asia- in India, China, and Korea, but a larger vision of progress prevailed through crises and difficulties.        ...

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Lawrence Katz, Harvard labor economist, talks to Friedman about the jobs crisis in the U.S.. Katz identifies three jobs crises occurring at the same time today. One is the drop in the demand for goods and services that resulted from the longer term effects of the financial crisis of 2008, with rising foreclosures, weak housing markets, bad debt on the balance sheets of banks, and interest rates at close to zero reducing the scope of action by the Federal Reserve bank. The second, is the widespread long term unemployment with workers dropping out of the labor market. The third, is the nature of new factories and hiring. Work in new factories is done through increased automation, information technology and fewer workers. As a result job creation is a fraction of what it was in the past. Not mentioned here is the shrinking of the public sector under the strain of budget deficits for local, state and federal government. This leads to the question of how America will create jobs in the future. Katz believes the answer is creating more "hubs," networked urban areas like Austin, Silicon Valley, and Raleigh-Durham, by bringing together universities, high-tech manufacturers, software providers, and startup companies, to cooperate in creating new products that enhance people's lives worldwide. This has to be done by the private sector and government working together to build the infrastructure and make the investments in education, training of workers, and equipment for new job creation....

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In his plain talk on Syria Trump said the primary message to Russia was: "You should have peace in Syria; its enough." This is the message foreign minister Tillerson is delivering in Moscow. He described the Russian support for the Syrian government as: "I think it's very bad for Russia, I think it's very bad for mankind, it's very bad for this world." He also described Chinese president Xi Jinping's response at a state dinner during dessert when Trump told him about the U.S. missile attack on Syrian airfield, as expressing the sentiment that it was OK considering the chemical attacks by the Syrian government on civilians and children. The closest any president gets to the plain talk given by Trump is during the period of the Cold War when Truman also had this kind of plain talking style to deliver the message that needed to be heard.

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Since 2011 democracy protests Tunisia's unemployment rate has increased from 13% to 18%, with an estimated 750,000 people unemployed. About one third of the unemployed are college graduates. By 2015 about 100,000 new college graduates will be looking for jobs each year. Tunisia's economy contracted 1.8% in 2011 with a 30% drop in tourists, according to the World Bank, which predicts 2.2% growth in GDP in 2012 and 4.6% by 2014. The democracy struggle in the Middle East started in Tunisia and demographics in Tunisia are similiar to that of the rest of the Middle East, with a surging number of young people and college graduates looking for jobs.

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Whitney Harris was assistant to Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. He did much of the investigative work to document the genocide. He told Der Spiegel in 2005 he had no idea of the scale of crimes when he started gathering evidence. He persevered in his efforts to establish a permanent International Criminal Court after the war. In the post war period he taught law at Southern Methodist University, and was a corporate attorney for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company.

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Questions and Answers about Islamic State on the BBC website give a short and simple look at Islamic State or ISIS in Syria and Iraq, its origins and how it developed upto the Iraqi government's efforts to retake Mosul in northern Iraq in Dec. 2016.

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Paul Peterson, a professor who heads the Program on Education Policy at Harvard, says that public school education has not done as well as private or charter school education. In two areas character or values, and school discipline, public schools lag far behind private schools or charter schools. Private schools score 59% and 46% in these two areas, public schools lag far behind at 21% and 17%, in the 2016 Education Next Survey, says Peterson. He says by appointing Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, the Trump administration sees the need to think how public schools can benefit from improvement in these areas.

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The IMF's World Economic Outlook in March 2008. The IMF Outlook has been behind the curve in looking ahead at the world economy. The IMF chief economist Simon Johnson cut the baseline forecast cut its US growth forecast by a percentage point since its January outlook, its now at 0.5% for 2008 and 0.6% for 2009. But thats when the Fed minutes already show the discussion about a" severe and protracted recession " in the USA, so it looks like its a bit late and after the fact. And some experts expect a contraction in the US economy this year. More indicative is its forecast of the European economy which is not as upbeat as the OECD estimates and suggests that the ECB may be more receptive to monetary easing and lowering interest rates because of lower growth in the Euro region. IMF sees eurozone growth at 1.4% in 2008 and 1.2% in 2009. Germany and France are expected to grow at 1.4%.

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India like China is more interested in modernization that brings equality with Europe and America so that the period of misfortunes that struck India and China- as a result of the vastly superior technology and force of Europe as it found a passage to the East around the Cape of Good Hope- is over.  Think about this. If anything happened to democracy and pluralism in the US Indian democracy and pluralism would still be standing a hundred years down the road or the next hundred years after that. What does that say about India? Why? Because India has learnt its lessons under Vivekananda, Tilak, Gandhiji, Modiji, and understands the need for technology, trade and modernization, which is what Modi as a Gujarati with the trading mentality like the British is really after. The so called Hinduism as it is really about the Upanishads and the Gita and the Buddha, and Communism, are really not the driving force in India or China.The Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita like the Bible offer a way an ethos to resolutely fight the corruption and leakages of funds that take the investments out of modernization leaving everyone poor. And India also benefits when democracy works and acts as an enabling force for a modern economy that creates "a rising tide that lifts all boats" (people). Democracy is the tool for development and to tackle diversity of 1.4 billion people. Adam Smith was right writing then in the 1780's around the French revolutionary period and American independence - "Hereafter perhaps the natives of these countries (India, China, Indonesia) may grow stronger, or those of Europe grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at the equality of courage and force, which by inspiring mutual fear, can alone overawe the injustice of independent nations into respect for one another." India's leaders fought hard after the 1700's for preserving independence from the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British, only they were divided. Ranjit Singh in the north fought the Mughals and the British in the Punjab. The Marathas on the western front fought the Mughals and the British. The result as Gandhi points out in Hind Swaraj in his question "who made the British Company Bahadur?" It was Indian princely kingdoms vying for support from the armies of the British East India Company interested in profits from seizing Indian princely treasuries and trade. Note that Sri Lanka or Ceylon fell to the Portuguese in 1505. The technology gap between Europe and Asia had opened up even that early by 1500's in ship building, in warships and use of maritime navigation technologies. Consider that in 1534 Jacques Cartier was out on his first trips from St Malo, France across Atlantic to explore past Newfoundland to the mouth of the St Lawrence river. The Portuguese and then the Dutch had already beaten the British and the French by 100 years- Britain's exploration of India through East India settlements in Bengal began much later in the 1600's. India like China built around river based civilizations as Adam Smith points out in his Wealth of Nations, Chapter 7, Part 3, America and East Indies-of the natives of India and China Smith says their struck "a dreadful misfortune" that arisen more by accident, that "the superiority of force seemed to be so great on the side of the Europeans, that they were able to commit with impunity every sort of injustice in these remote countries." Every Indian or Chinese will agree with this so great was the misfortune for India and China from the injustice of European nations in the 19th century so much so that Cordell Hull speaking for Franklin Roosevelt and all Americans broadcast to the world in the throes of World War II in 1942 America's call to the world for a new world order based on freedom and development for all nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. America's Secretary of State Cordell Hull said: "In this vast struggle, we, Americans, stand united with those who, like ourselves, are fighting for the preservation of their freedom; with those who are fighting to regain the freedom of which they have been brutally deprived; with those who are fighting for the opportunity to achieve freedom."     ...

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10 year U.S. Treasury yields drop below 1.5% in June 2012. German bond yields in negative territory.

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The large response triggered on the internet by Anne-Marie Slaughter's article in the July/August 2012 issue of the Atlantic on women and work, how it is difficult for women to work and raise children without making changes in today's American society so that a healthy balance can be achieved.