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UNICEF say 2.5 million children are not attending school in Syria and another 1 million are in danger of dropping out. And that one third of school buildings are destroyed. This is what is left after decades of civil war. The intervention of local and foreign powers in the Arab world has led to huge breakdowns in society, and massive destruction in countries facing civil war such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya. This is the kind of situation that happened in China's northern and southern provinces in the 1930's, and 1940's. A new pathway for peaceful development outside of ideologies and socialist movements, pan arabist or religious movements need to be found for the region, the Arab world in North Africa to the Middle East. China, Korea, and Vietnam found a way out after civil wars over 1940-1975. India is putting out a map for a course of action with Vikshit Bharat  or Developed India after two centuries of stagnation under the British Empire 1756-1947, and 5 decades of stagnation under the Congress Raj 1947-2000. The spirit of development and desire for modernization, for modern science and technology, good governance and institutions, must come from within.   ...

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Different styles of Elon Musk and Vice President Vance. One tempestuous and following instincts and moods for Musk, the other careful study to arrive at conclusions and an openness to bipartisan approaches for JD Vance. Vance brings his Yale Law School education and the discipline of his experience in the Marine Corps, in addition to a sounding board with Usha Vance who is also a Yale Law School graduate. This report shows a quiet demeanor of Vance and underestimates this compared to the noisy and difficult to control demeanor of Musk in the first 100 days of the DJT second term in 2025. Vance age 40 years brings an exceptional ability to understand and grasp the issues to dialogue with people of different perspectives including Democrats (seen live in television debate with Time Walz) that will be of great value in the second term of DJT as the Operation Wetback of Eisenhower of 1954 is carried out in 2025, new immigration laws are passed on bipartisan basis, and the trade tariffs are conducted on a selective basis after careful study with the president getting advice from the Vice President, and policies are carried out to help small factory towns across America recover from the Clinton-Bush-Obama years of shipping out American manufacturing. ...

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Germany is going through a second year of slight economic contraction. The newly elected government of chancellor Merz has setup a $1 trillion fund to invest in infrastructure and defense. This will increase the debt to GDP ratio from 62% much lower than other advanced economies to 75%, and could give the German economy a rebound with $500 billion for fixing aging infrastructure. Germany's unemployment rate stands at 6.3% in March 2025. The economy weathered a energy crisis with the cutoff of energy supplies from Russia during the term of chancellor Scholz. Infrastructure, child care, was neglected under Merkel and previous administrations as it was in the US under Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. The 2009 financial crisis, the eurozone debt crisis and the pandemic, Ukraine crisis from 2009 to 2024 have provided headwinds for action to renew Germany till now. A $1 trillion new fund and removal of the constitutional brake under the newly elected parliamentary majority of the CSU/CDU, the SPD and the Greens is the first step with $500 billion earmarked for fixing aging infrastructure, digitization of the economy, and other investment. The unemployment situation is deteriorating in the auto industry which was poorly managed and is now being hit with US tariffs of 25% on imported cars made by BMW, Mercedes and VW. ...

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Discussion between New York Times reporter Bruni and Rep. Ryan, Rep Harman in the U.S. Congress. The problems facing the Democratic Party discussed include negativity towards Trump instead of  focus on issues facing working class Americans, and elitism.

Some of the problems can be traced to the Obama administration on trade issues, and inability to relate to working class Americans in midwestern states, that created an opening for the Republican Party and Trump. 

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InterContinental Hotels plans to have a new Hualuxe Hotels and Resorts brand upscale hotel chain in China. Plans call for hotels in 100 Chinese cities in 15-20 years.

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Sales have declined and share price dropped by 40% since J.C. Penney's new CEO, Ron Johnson, tried to bring strategies that worked with Apple to the U.S. department store.

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Questions about whether the emerging market countries are looking ahead at a period of lower growth in the next decade. If the slowdown in 2013 is structural then these countries have to to make changes in economic policies that will help them return to higher rates of growth. If the slowdown is cyclical then this is temporary and emerging market countries will return to higher growth rates. Countries such as Brazil, Mexico and India need to improve infrastructure and educational systems, and invest in research and development to generate more growth. Turkey and India depend on foreign capital, which puts limits to growth, creating a need to boost domestic savings and investment for long term growth. Lower rate of about 7% compared to the 9-10% of the last decade in China are because the wave of investment in construction and infrastructure building through huge state investments is now slowing, says Peter Aslund of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. It is a positive prospect for China, according to Kalpana Kochhar, a deputy director of IMF, because of the asset bubbles developing in real estate. It is seen positively by China's new government as it tackles problems created by a rush to industrialization of widespread pollution of the environment, and lack of balanced development without attention paid to healthcare, worker wages and social security. Stephen Schwartz of BBVA bank, says urbanizaton will drive further gains, especially in India, which has lagged behind the gains made in China and is likely to follow the rapid urbanization seen in China. New elections in India in 2014 are likely to lead to more growth oriented government policies. A pause in the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy of withdrawing economic stimulus gives emerging markets, especially India, and opportunity to come up with new economic policies to restore growth....

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New York Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is President Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. Saying that Stomayor had arigorous intellect and a mastery of the law, President Obama went on to say at an announcement ceremony, that the judge's inspiring story was crucial in his decision. One that was made with deep reflection and careful deliberation. Obama quoted Justice Oliver Wendell Homes- "the life of the law has not beenlogic, it has been experience." And added his own words to those of Holmes- its vital that ajustice know "how the world works, and how ordinary people live." Sotomayor is from the Bronx part of New York City. Her parents immigrated from Puerto Rico and lived in a poor neighborhood. Her mother worked six day weeks to earn enough money to send her and a brother to Catholic school. From there she got into Princeton University, where she once felt like "a vistor landing in an alien country," but graduated summa cum laude. She went on to Yale law school, where she was editor of the Yale Law Journal, workwed for Robert Morgenthau in the district attorney's office in New York and later went into private practice. She was nominated by the first President Bush in 1991 to the federal appeals court on the advice of Senator Patrick Moynihan, and then by Bill Clinton to the appeals court in 1997. Judge Sotomayor takes pride in her ethnicity, gender and growing up in the poor part of the Bronx, and said in a2002 lecture- " I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who has'nt lived that life."...

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President Obama's address at the White House on financial regulatory reform. They cover all aspects of the financial system, and focus on the structural deficiencies that were evident in this crisis from the late night meetings needed to resolve the situations at Lehman, AIG and other financial firms, because no structure existed for an orderly resolution. The decision was made to give the Fed powers - for both the responsibility and the accountability to be clear- to resolve these situations and to set new rules that ensure that risks do not build up in the system. Besides the Fed's new powers, a new oversight council consisting of regulators from all areas is expected to monitor risks and assess areas of weakness. The other critical aspect is the consumer protection agency. Its job will be to ensure openness, fair-dealing and transparency take place for financial products like mortgages, credit cards and other loans. Other areas of weakness in the financial system in which players are able to game the system or thwart the proper functioning of free markets, are addressed one by one. By not scrapping the old system and building from there- instead preferring to correct areas of weakness akin to major remodeling of an old structure like you find in major European cities- Obama says he understands that "markets are not an unalloyed force for good or evil" as zealous free marketers or those who see the ills of capitalism in its raw form would have one believe. So he goes on to say " in many ways our financial system reflects us." The most government can do, or the best it can do -and it becomes a necessary obligation of government for markets to function correctly- is to set the rules of the road correctly, rules of openness, fair-dealing and transparency; the rest is upto us....

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Middle managers is just a term, in reality leaders of tomorrow will be learning, practicing their craft, working on projects and products as a part of teams that report to some more experienced manager, who can provide the team the benefit of his experience and mentor these managers. These are not factory floor positions and interface directly with senior managers of the company. Without a seamless integration of all people in the company working in harmony, something has seriously gone wrong in the way the company should work. One might guess from the way companies especially financial institutions have been run, that along with CEO and senior manager aggrandizement, and layoffs of whitecollar workers who bear the brunt of the downturn along with people in the frontline in factories, that these teams and managers have been left out in the cold. Osterman in his book "The Truth about Middle Managers" points to this alienation of middle managers. These managers and teams especially in industries like the auto industry may lack the committment to the company and there may be widespread cynicism about the way senior management and CEO's are running the company. If things are happening the way they should these are the leaders of tomorrow and should be consulted and given increasing responsibility, and older management should make way for new leaders to better adapt to new conditions facing the company and meet new challenges. Instead as in the auto industry boards and CEO's and senior managers perpetuate themselves and their older mindset and their outdated strategies leading to disaster, and the elimination of the positions of these very managers and teams on which the real hopes of the company should rest....

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The nuclear trade deal with India and approval by the Nuclear Suppliers Group. If passed by Congresas in September the deal goes into effect. At the NSG, New Zealand, Austria and China were the holdouts and had to be persuaded by the United States. Under the deal India cannot conduct nuclear weapons tests and if it does its upto the USA to decide if it will continue to supply India with nuclear materials and technologies. India is running short of uranium and other nuclear materials it needs for its civilian andnuclear weapons programs since it was refused access by the NSG after earlier tests decades before. It also depends on how the US sees China and Pakistan in relation to India and its nuclear programs. One thing is certain India will push forward aggressively with new nuclear energy programs and setup its own nuclear energy reactors to provide its growing energy needs and to reduce existing shortages and also lower its oil bill. So in the next couple of years or the next decade the world will certainly see the peaceful development of nuclear energy and development of new technologies in the nuclear energy field as India becomes a key user and developer of nuclear energy technologies. At that point India may become a part of the fabric of peaceful nuclear energy development in the world as it meets asignificant part of its energy needs through nuclear reactors. It will be a welcome development as it will ease the burden on oil supplies that in the case of China became a key part of the upward pressure on oil prices as China relied mostly on oil and gas for energy needs. This is probably the thinking in the current Republican administration as it pushed hard for this nuclear deal to supply India....

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Demonstrations by public workers in Madison, Wisconsin. Public workers are protesting cuts in benefits by Republican governor, Scott Walker. Governor Walker is proposing legislation that will require public workers to pay more for health insurance and pensions, resulting in a reduction in take home pay of about 7%. He is also proposing changes that limit bargaining to basic wages, excluding benefits from bargaining. Wisconsin faces a deficit gap of $3.6 billion for the next 2 years.

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Several experts point to a dangerous change in the nature of unemployment in this downturn. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, says people are more likely to get stuck with unemployment now than at any time in the post war period. Andrew Stettner, deputy Director of the National Employment Law Project, says a larger share of the unemployed are not going to be able to go to the same line of work. They will need new skills, just like an auto worker in a permanently downsized industry would have to find new skills to make a product in the renewable energy field or health care. And the law as it currently stands does not help either. Because if an unmeployed worker looks for training or goes back to school he loses his unemployment benefits, something the Obama administration proposes to change. What this means is that many of the unemployed will end up as permanent job losers. Rob Valetta, an economist at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank says that throughout the the last 3 decades including good times, the unemployment pool is shifting towards permanent job losers. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economist, points out that once workers exhaust their unemployment benefits and don't get new training, they become disconnected to the labor market, and bascially end up on disability or become permanently unemployed. The statistics bear this out. In April 2009, 47.1% of the people collecting state unemployment insurance exhausted the usual 26 weeks of benefits without finding work, according to the Bureau of Laor Statistics, that is the highest rate on record. In December 2007, there were about 2 unemployed workers for every job opening, according to Labor Department data. In March 2009 there were five unemployed workers for every opening. Mark Beaupre, 49, of Providence, R.I. lost his $8 an hour manufacturing job an year ago, one of many manufacturing jobs he has held since the 1980's. His wife Cathy lost her customer service job a year ago. This couple who together made $50,000 a year, are now behind on their mortgage payments and have applied for food assistance. At a recent job fair in Providence he says three thousand people turned up and he could not even get into the parking lot. ...

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Gaza Palestine Peace deal by DJT where all hostages are exchanged for Israel stopping war in Gaza and pulling back to one half of Gaza October 14 2025. Hamas supporters Turkey and Qatar were involved. The talks were held in Sharm-al-Sheikh seaside resort in Egypt and final talks at the villa of Gen. Rashad Intelligence Chief of Egypt. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff for the US got Israel's participation. For Israel the fatigue from the long war would give it a respite. It was achieved by not getting into the smaller details so the Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza. Israel said it will withdraw from half of Gaza and establish its presence in the other half of Gaza as Israel tries to figure out a way to ensure its security and end threats from Gaza Palestinian area. For the world community including the US and European leaders in Egypt including Britain, Spain, Germany, and other leaders this was an opportunity to remove divisions in their countries on the issue of Palestine as the continuation of the war had led to hunger and flattened most of Gaza's buildings. The issues of Palestine and Israel's right to exist without wars and threats, of new settlements, once again are left for another day as the oil rich kingdoms of the Middle East and the Arab countries, US, Israel and Europe fail to open a new chapter for Israel and for Palestine. Most importantly the Palestinian and Israeli leaders exercizing the foresight to bring peace in the ways that have ended strife over territory and control in places like the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain which have been in conflict from the year 1500. It is striking how little was gained from initial events leading to the war and how little the war had to do with the problems of illegal migration, of cost of living, of infrastructure neglect facing the US, Europe. It is certain that the peace deal will now allow the focus on the problems facing the US and Europe, removing the distraction of this sudden flareup of conflict that never should have happened.  ...

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Kerala and Tamilnadu states with declining fertility, migration and ageing society are outliers in India with about half its population under the age of 25. About 600 million people in India are in the 18-35 age group- a clear case of rising aspirations society is happening in India at the very time that the US and European Union are looking at India for the future with shared values of representative democracy, open societies, and building a new supply chain in Asia. This BBC report looks at the state of Kerala where migration is leaving parts of the state only with elderly people. About 10% of the $100 billion in remittances each year from Indians overseas come to the state of Kerala. Life span is about 75 years in Kerala exceeding the national life span of 69 years. However this is looking at it backwards as India remains a vibrantly young country even with the advances in longevity where much of India is close to age 70 years in longevity and advances in medical care and health are taking place at a rapid pace. The problems of Kerala are an outlier for India. ...

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Oxford Biomedica is the company that is part of the consortium making the coronavirus vaccine being developed by Oxford University's Jenner Institute.  Her Mr. Dawson describes the challenges he faced and cash crunches 4 times in 12 years, the last 4 years ago. The turning point he says was in 2012 when the cell and gene therapy was validated with a new drug developed for a form of cancer using this method. Oxford Biomedica is setting up a facility for manufacturing the vaccine in England at a 84,000 square foot former Royal Mail sorting facility in the city's business park called Oxpark. Dawson says cell and gene therapy is going to be big in health care. He did not see it coming till 2012. In 2014 he says during a cash crunch they had realized that what they had to do at Biomedica was to get to the time when it was going to be big. Today Astra Zeneca of the UK is organizing the effort and includes the use of British and Indian facilities for manufacturing, and Oxford University for research effort. ...

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Two Slovenians were in the lead for the Tour de France as new talent has emerged. Roglic was leading as he entered the last two stages of the cycling event. He represented a Dutch team Jumbo Visma which failed to make it after Roglic simply failed to find his true form in the stage before the last stage. What was astonishing to see on French television was the gradual collapse of Roglic's lead during the climb and Pogacar building a comfortable lead of about 2 minutes at the end of the stage before the last. Roglic seemed exhausted shocked and ruffled at the end and Pogacar appeared to be calm and assured as he finished the race. Before the stage the sports director of the Dutch Jumbo- Visma team had strong disagreement and altercation with the organizers when a routine check of Roglic's bike was made to see if it was within regulations. He was cited for poor behaviour and barred from further attendance of the remaining stages which could have affected the team's overall composure. ...

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Arsene Wenger was 47 in 1996 when reports said he had resigned in the very first year that he took up the coaching role at Arsenal. The media was skeptical about this Frenchman and outsider with a persistent question "Arsene Who?" On that day after returning to London from a visit to the south of France to meet a friend Annie, Wenger decided to immediately go out and meet reporters outside Arsenal offices. He told the media  that the reports were totally unfounded, the rumors of photos of him in preposterous situations false. Time passed and still more lies were published, says Wenger.Then suddenly the British media including Sky News responded with apologies to Wenger for the rumors.  At no time says Wenger in his new book, "My Life in Red and White," did he lose his conviction that the British could be counted on to be fair. He says that he had to stand up to the brutality of the moment. That only in this way could he keep up his optimism and values and not let this destabilize the club. ...

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On October 28 France reported 36,000 daily coronavirus cases. French president Macron announced a new lockdown starting October 30 that last till December 1.  Under this second lockdown people can leave home only to go to work, to go to school, to give assistance to loved ones, for essential shopping and for 1 hour of physical exercize. People will have to show documentation when leaving home. Travel between regions is banned. Bars and restaurants and nonessential businesses will be closed. Universities and higher education will be done online. Schools will remain open, essential businesses will remain open. Most public services will be open. Factories, farms and construction sites can continue to operate. There will be extensive economic support for business and people. Small businesses will have access to 10,000 euros per month of assistance, employees get short term work assistance, and people having trouble with rent receive assistance. About half of intensive care beds are now taken in France. And Macron said transferring patients to other regions will not be possible as the virus is everywhere. ...

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With coronavirus spread out over wide parts of each country and with so many people infected it is very difficult to do the contact tracing and isolation that was tried during the first wave. In Germany during the first wave efforts for contact tracing and isolation worked reasonably well. During the second wave in November things have changed. In Germany authorites do not know in November where 75% of the people testing positive for coronavirus got it. In Spain this figure is 93% for the last week of October. In France and Italy it is at 80%. In New York it is over 50%. Other problems are the increasing number of cases where the coronavirus is spread in an home setting, the lack of restaurant data collected on who visits, and the delay in getting test results. In Germany frequently people say they cannot remember where they were. Researchers from the German version of the FBI, the Pasteur Institute in France and the Koch Institute in Germany are getting involved in November to understand in what settings the virus spreads most. ...

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Most questions about the vaccines from Oxford, Pfizer and Moderna are answered in this Q&A in The Times.  The Oxford vaccine is the only vaccine that is being provided at cost to the public at a cost of 4 pounds, Pfizer using German technology at 15 pounds and Moderna from Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 28 pounds. The Oxford vaccine can be stored in a fridge, the others use mRNA technology of messenger RNA which requires ultra low temperature storage. Astra Zeneca could have handled the trials and methodology for results in a better way. As the two trials one that produced results of 62% and the other results of 90% cannot be combined to give results of 70% but are two distinct and separate trials. However too much emphasis has been placed on the vaccine, as other prevention measures remain important for 2021. Other vaccines are being developed in Britain with new technology and in India by ICMR which are in trials stage and about which not enough is known. The Russian and Chinese vaccines have not released detailed data limiting their use around the world. ...

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Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia's leader for less than 2 years, is a courageous choice for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, says the Guardian. He has accomplished much in a short time with the peace arrangements with Eritrea, ending a 20 year old war, and opening up dialogue and discussion in the country by lifting bans on opposition groups. Half of the cabinet is female, and the head of the election commission an exiled dissident.  Yet the Guardian is cautiously optimistic because the change is sudden and dramatic, it needs to be consolidated for the long term. The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front appointed him as leader to make these changes. What the Nobel Prize COmmittee has done is to recognize the hope that this brings to Africa, torn as it has been by recurring wars and ethnic conflicts for  way too long after the scars of colonialism. Can the positive changes in Asia provide new inspiration to Africa that this can be overcome and modernization, improvement in the lives of people happen as everyone each on his own account takes personal responsibility.   ...