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France with about 6 million Muslims and a history of colonial rule in North African Arab countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and other countries) faces a challenge of integrating Muslims into French society. Germany with a large population of Turkish origin also faces a similiar challenge. The attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo for poking fun at Islam, in a manner similiar to its satirical work on Catholicism, leads to the death of 12 journalists, a policeman and a policewoman. Erlanger and Bennhold describe the reaction of people in France. Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College , London, says about anti-immigrant sentiment increasing in Europe to the point where it is uncoupling working class families from the elites in Europe and reaching into the mainstream of society.

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Maggie Smith was known by people who knew her as a person of great wit and humor. This is how she described herself-

"My career is chequered. I think I got pigeonholed in humour … If you do comedy, you kind of don’t count. Comedy is never considered the real thing.” 

There was much humor, laughter, and yet there was the way this also brought out in her performances the anguish of the human condition as in "The Prime of Jean Brodie," about an Edinburgh teacher with a misguided admiration for Mussolini and the event that led to realizing her moral blindness when she says "Mary McGregor", hearing that one of her impressionable girl students had died in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's.

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With issues of job losses, deindustrialization, cost of living, climate change, budget allocations to infrastructure shifting to the war in Ukraine and defense preparedness, the divisions in the country from outdated marraige laws is simply incomprehensible.

French Mayor Menard of Mediterranean city Breziers raises issues about French marraige laws and illegal migrants remaining in France, with an illegal migrant ordered to leave making use of this law to remain in France. French marraige laws give automatic right of residence upon marraige to a French citizen and give French nationality in 4 years. Marraiges are conducted by the mayors of a city or his representatives This is an unconventional arrangement. A bill amending these marraige laws is now before the French parliament. This has become an issue in France with the failure to deport 7% of those ordered to leave.

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The Times looks at the Australian performance against India 3-1 Test Series Win. England plays both teams, in June-July 2025 against India, and in November for the Ashes against Australia.

Boland takes 10 wickets in the SCG Test. Bumrah goes for scans following an injury with too much resting on his pace bowling for the Indian team. Batsmen in both teams except Head and Jaiswal disappoint. MCG and SCG cricket grounds see record numbers attending the Test matches. India takes the first Test match in style then falls apart. Neither the Australians or the Indians are convincing. Pant's lack of patience at the MCG leads to a loss for India and the Australians scrape through at the SCG with Bumrah out of the game, this is how Mike Atherton of The Times sees the Test Series Australia won. 

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Chase Banks' Jamie Dimon says he worries about China as a competitor and an adversary, but his real worry is that we in the United States can "get our act together."

“If we are not the pre-eminent military and the pre-eminent economy in 40 years, we will not be the reserve currency. People tell me we are enormously resilient. I agree with that. I think this time is different. This time we have to get our act together and do it very quickly.” 

“What I really worry about is us,” he said. “Can we get our own act together—our own values, our own capabilities, our own management?”

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What this tennis report is not saying is that only a generation ago the drop shot was standard and a key part of the game. The base line hitters era is now gone as player after player from Europe is shifting to the way tennis was always played with a great mix of shots. This drop shot or the related shot the lob was normal when Ile Nastase, Newcombe, Rosewall and Laver played in the 1970's and 1980's, games this reviewer watched late into the night at tennis tournaments in the US and Canada. It was because of the range of strokes that tennis was fun to watch and became popular at the time. The reason is that drop shots, lobs, take skills, timing, mixing shots with speed and with touches, and requiring a keen sense of the flow.

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Social unrest in France from student unions and worker unions of the SUD and CGT. The effects of the higher joblessness with unemployment moving upward from 7.9% and expected to hit 10% in 2010, is showing up in strikes and worker action in the streets as well as student union protests. Because of the way hiring practices have evolved, a 2 tier labor market has developed with overly protected permanent jobs and flexible short term contract labor. Its the jobs in flexible short term contracts that are the first to go, and as they are concentrated among the young, the joblessness among young people in France is much higher.

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What is the role of a small wine importer of European wines who supplies local stores in NY city, and other similar business, in a issue of $1 trillion trade imbalances that destroyed American manufacturing and millions of jobs as large US business corporations shipped manufacturing to China? The trade deficit with China has led to loss of 3.8 million jobs, 75% of them or 2.9 million in manufacturing.  Go back to 1990 and Beijing was a city of bicycles not cars. If Beijing shifted to a open economy and simply imported products from the US and Europe as it had done since 1700 it would have remained a backward agricultural economy. It took 20 years of focused effort after 2000 for China with US technological assistance to excel in manufacturing, as the US had done after 1920. Can or cannot the US excel in Manufacturing with its own focused effort and restore jobs and decent wages to the American people, that is the question. That a $1 trillion deficit that has already destroyed the US manufacturing and its capacity to defend itself by rapidly building up the US Navy, is that not an emergency, then what is, is also the question, and the role, the duty, of the president of the US in such a situation. The federal appeals court has allowed the DJT Tariffs to remain in place till it goes to the US Supreme Court. Today May 30 the WSJ in a front page article shown here says the one California shipyard could assemble a supply ship in 5 days in 1942. China's independence in the fight against Imperial Japan and the Kwantung Army's adventures, and the independence of Europe in the 1940's depended on this vital US capacity. Is this forgotten? FDR acted step by step by 1938 to restore the US lost capacity at that time, what is the role of the president today? ...

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Gates experience one rainy night in March, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, welcoming 4 dead soldiers who lost their lives to a roadside bomb on a rutted road near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, provides an insight into what he sees as important for the US military. One is to address the realities of the war that is facing the US in the now, not some theoretical conventional war as the Pentagon is overly focused on. This war is fought in insurgencies in Iraq and in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area. And even the takeover of nuclear weapons by Taliban, is not ruled out with the collapse of the government in Pakistan. So he sees reason for doing things quickly. At Dover that night, Gates expressed his anger to his staff, "find out why they had'nt gotten their goddamn MRAP's yet (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles). Gates went into the 747 carrying the draped coffins, and knelt alone and prayed for 5 minutes. Gates was President of Texas A&M University, before he took the assignment at Defense during the last 2 years of the Bush administration. He knows the ways of the bureaucracy, and is a persistent and effective when faced with lack of cooperation and delays. When the field commanders in Afghanistan said they needed 40 Predator combat air patrols instead of the 12 they had, Gates went around the bureaucratic delays and had his task force set up and and doing problem solving down to details. They went about getting more flying time, and pilots, and control stations in the air force to support this. He keeps presentations limited to 45 minutes, and inists all slides be turned in the day before, for him to look over carefully. And he is decisive in making changes. The Army Secretary was asked to come to Washington immediately, and fired on the spot, not Gates says for the appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital, but for not acknowledging that problems existed and taking quick action to fix them. And Gates is using the 2010 Defense budget to steer away from large scale conventional weapons programs, and get more money for the immediate needs of the field commanders in the wars being fought today. He makes it clear in talking with lawmakers, that "listening to our troops and commanders, unvarnished and unscripted, has from the moment I took the job been the greatest single source of ideas on what the department needs to do." In doing this he has to face up to the bureaucracy and set ways of doing things at the Defense Department, things that were never questioned under his predecessor Rumsfeld. In 2008 the generals who run the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps formally "non-concurred" with the classified version of Gates's National Defense Strategy, which said it was necessary "to take additional acceptable risk" in the area of conventional war so that the military could improve its ability to fight irregular wars. Gates met with all the defense chiefs to listen to their objections, and decided to draw his own conclusion after thinking it over, that the reasons given "were non-compelling," considering the grave dangers that the military was facing in existing wars. Gates is convinced that its his job to give the troops in the field the equipment and resources they need, and he is not letting the military brass or officials block the way. He does not let the criticism affect him. Gates is very quiet when he listens to arguments presented on the other side that he does not share, responding in a thoughtful and controlled manner. Last week, Jaffe of the WPost says, Gates flew to Afghnistan to ask for the resignation of Gen McKiernan the field commander there, a man he had chosen 11 months earlier, but now felt was the wrong man for the job. During this trip he visited a new base being built in southern Afghanistan, and met four marines whose MRAP vehicle took the blast from a roadside bomb, all survived with minor scratches and injuries, and one broken arm. Gates was mightily pleased. ...

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India's new bankruptcy law is a big step forward in letting credit markets function normally and drawing in new capital. The new law says the bankruptcy should be completed in 180 days after a default. Indian banks hold about $105 billion in non-performing or bad loans, according to the Reserve Bank of India. It is essential that India cope with the bad debt to attract new capital investment and increase growth. Asset reconstruction company being formed by Ambit and J.C. Flowers & Company was approved in late 2016 by the Reserve Bank of India, India's central bank. So far Indian banks have showed unwillingness to take a loss on the loans and take a big discount. Only $3 billion in asset reconstruction has taken place in 2016 through selling bad loans, according to Credit Suisse. Indian industry has relied heavily on bank loans and sale of stock for capital investment as the corporate bond market is undeveloped. This is about to change to finance growth, with the bankruptcy law and transparency as a first step. Larger foreign firms are teaming up with local partners to tackle distressed debt and bad loans, with locals knowledge of risks making it easier to profit from capital invested. ICICI bank won the first ruling of the new bankruptcy law by the National Company Law Tribunal against Innoventive to recover assets, providing the first test of the law. In the past such action would drag on for years, showing India is now serious about getting rid of bad loans in the banking system, and to revitalize credit markets to finance new growth. ...

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Report on Climate Science put out by the US Energy Department in 2025 questioning the severity and impending nature of climate change effects. It is challenged by scientists who believe in the severity and impending nature of climate change, quite the opposite. Koonin, a Fellow at the Hoover Instituion at Stanford describes the work and its conclusions. He says the research is peer reviewed and looks at 200 years of climate research. Some of the conclusions- That climate change models claiming catastrophic situations are ultra sensitive and lead to extreme scenarios.  It talks about climate variability, and model deficiencies, data limitations. And says data for climate over continental US show no long term trends for extreme weather events. Global sea level rise of 8 inches since 1800 is not disputed but it says US tide gauge data shows no long term acceleration in warming globe.  On one point there has been agreement even in the Biden administration- what the US does to cut emissions will little effect the global changes in warming- because of coal use by China and India defended as needed for electricity for two billion people, an essential need. Thus the desire for a calculated tradeoff which lets the US take advantage of its abundance of oil and gas to reduce the cost of living for ordinary Americans, also an essential need. Because of the declining cost of natural gas vs coal, coal is in gradual phase out, and declining cost of solar means Germany, China, India are making the shift to solar, and nuclear energy provides another option. The difference is that the DJT administration is taking government out of the effort and letting the private sector work out building of renewable sources. Government is not always the answer as electric cars are likely to make more gains in 2026 than under the Biden administration because of VW, Mercedes, BYD, Ford and GM coming up with cars that can do close to 500 miles on one charge and the cost of an EV down to about $30,000 to $40,000. ...

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USC Justices Roberts, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett questioning Solicitor General Sauer, and lawyer for the small business Katyal, on Tariffs by the US president DJT in November 2025. Coney Barrett says the whole thing is a big mess. Treasury Secretary Bessent who watched the proceedings in the Court benches says the issue of fentanyl is one of the reasons for tariffs on China which has played a uncooperative role on this issue of fentanyl sourced by drug trafficking gangs on America's borders. Bessent saying that it is a policy tool when unfriendly powers seek to hurt America. DJT says a SCOTUS ruling against the Tariffs would reduce America to Third World status. Most American themselves are being told by the media interests that the issue of young Americans dying from fentanyl is an issue like many others not that it is the heart of the issue that more Americans have died from fentanyl than the youth of America who died in the Korean, Vietnam and First World Wars combined. The wine import company with 19 employees whose lawyer Katyal filed a petition to SCOTUS is a tiny part of the people harmed by tariffs. It could easily be compensated from the tariffs revenue of $500 billion in 2025-2026 as could other businesses. How does the SCOTUS decide what policy the US is to use. With recalcitrant Asian nations Japan and China the only way is years of negotiations that lead nowhere on world trade. Is SCOTUS responsible or Congress to the American people when the supply chain disruptions caused by concentration of the supply chain in China led to huge price increases making life unaffordable for the low income earners,  including cost of automobiles? Large companies acting on the DJT signals are reducing this concentration in China actively, the trade deficit is coming down, the tariffs revenue is a fund to offset the cost to Americans mostly smaller businesses as large businesses increased their margins in 2022-2024 pricing moves so that today only about 30% of the tariff cost is borne by the average Americans, the rest by large businesses and some of it by exporters in China and Japan. ...

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The new iPad coming out in March 2012 will be priced at $499, with the prior version being priced now at $399. Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, says the iPad sales in the 4th quarter of 2011 surpassed sales of PC's by any individual manufacturer. To give some idea of the impact Apple's sales of $9.5 billion for iPads in the 4th quarter were twice the sales revenue made by Microsoft for Windows software and close to the total revenue of Google during the quarter. This third generation iPad looks like the previous one. It has an A5X quad-core chip for faster processing and a higher resolution screen with 2,048 by 1,536 pixels. The new iPad also works on the new cellphone network technology called LTE. It works on AT&T and Verizon's networks. Users can dictate e-mail on this device.

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Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke's writings as a professor at Princeton on the banking crisis in Japan after the real estate bubble, a crisis similiar to what the U.S. is experiencing.

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Indian finance minister Sitharaman announces a new stimulus package "Atman Nirbhar Bharat." This includes an effort to incentivize creation of employment opportunities for people making less than Rs. 15,000 a month ($215 a month), called "Atman Nirbhar Rozghar Yojana, for a period of 2 years. Sitharaman cited stock market rebound and foreign reserves reaching $560 billion to show that along with the government efforts and planned infrastructure the economy would make a robust recovery. Because of India's large informal economy help to street vendors and other small retail is critical in the Indian economy. The finance minister cited the "One Nation, One Ration Card" which allows street vendors and other retail merchants to access foodgrains from FPS of choice in 28 states and union territories in India. This is part of the effort to build demand and upward mobility in the economy. The names given for these efforts or yojanas are unique- PM SVANidhi stands for PM's Street Vendors Atmannirbhar Nidhi. Atmannirbhar is the overall plan for self reliance in the economy and the prime minister Modi has pushed for buying Made in India, to promote jobs and technology + capital accumulation in Indian manufacturing. India took a blow from the coronavirus with close to 9 million infected by the virus and lockdown in March. By September 20 the daily cases reached 100,000, and by November 10 the daily cases have dropped to 44,000. Social distancing and mask wearing are widely accepted in India. India has other advantages in the large pharmaceutical industry and access to drugs at government regulated and low prices as part of the planned effort after independence in 1947. Other aspects of Indian life are cultural preference for vegetables and fruits in the diet, and spices, herbs in cooking, yoga practice, which are anti-inflammatory and promote healthy living.  With the largest population in the world the region in the Indian ocean comprising the countries of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma and Indonesia, former parts of the British and Dutch empires, is a region where the coronavirus posed a great threat to human life. An early carefully orchestrated lockdown by prime minister Modi  helped with the message in March that India faced a singular choice - between going back 21 years in development or controlling the coronavirus in 21 crucial days. The setting up of the direct transfer of money to bank accounts  of farmers, urban street vendors and lower income people in rural areas by giving everyone a bank account under a government plan early in the first term of the current administration enabled it to send aid directly when coronavirus hit the country. Other schemes included cooking gas for women in rural areas who depended on firewood for cooking. These schemes and sanitation infrastructure setup under the Clean India campaign, helped India build an element of resilience when coronavirus hit.  The government plan to remove interstate barriers to commerce and integrate tax system collection at the federal level, bringing parts of the informal economy into the formal economy, have increased revenues that now finance an infrastructure plan that hopes to match the one in China over the next decade.   ...

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This report in the Washington Post uses Frequently Asked Questions to give readers an understanding of the India China border conflict. The roots of the conflict lie in  China's claim to Tibet based on Chinese troops going to aid Tibet in 1792. This based on the Qing dynasty sending troops to aid Tibet after a Nepalese invasion of Tibet. Tibet and Nepal are neighboring countries in the Himalayan mountains,  Nepal has a border with Indian state of Bihar, and Tibet is north and northeast of Nepal, all in close proximity of several hundred kilometres from India but four thousand kilometres from Beijing near Korea and Japan. The Sino Nepalese war, called the Gurkha war in Chinese, was the result of a dispute between Nepal and Tibet over debased silver coinage supplied by Nepal to Tibet and Tibet's demand for compensation, as well as a dispute about salt supplied by Tibet to Nepal. Chinese forces were repelled by  the Nepalese Gorkhas, and eventually the conflict was settled with a peace treaty between Nepal and Tibet with Chinese mediation for the Tibetan side. When the British East India company intervened in the region in 1815 China was not present, and when Nepal and Tibet had another war in 1855 China was not present.  For the first half of the twentieth century Tibet printed its own stamps and was an independent country negotiating treaties with Britain. China's brief intervention in 1792 is the fact cited by China for its claim to Tibet. Crossing the high mountains to get to Tibet from China's western frontier was for most of history and during this 1792 intervention, a journey that took 3 or 4 months with yaks and mules. Because of the sheer logistics China was present only in a symbolic way in Tibet or Nepal, both regions far more autonomous and remote from China than say a Finland near Russia. It takes 5 hours to go from Helsinki to St Petersburg in Russia. This is about the distance between the border with Nepal in Bihar, India, to Tibetan border with Nepal. By contrast it takes four thousand kilometres journey from Beijing to Tibet and over steep mountain ranges and rivers which would took months of journey with mules and yaks all the way into the twentieth century.  Finland was part of Sweden till 1809 when it became part of Russian Empire, till 1917 when it became an independent country. The Soviet Union invaded Finland one more time before World War II and was repelled, but this is attributed to Russian fears that Finland could be used as a base for an invasion of Russia. Tibet was a buffer between the British Empire and China. Chinese Nationalists party and Communist party thinking may have changed after Japan's invasion of China in the thirties, making extending China's western frontiers to the borders of India as part of the new nationalist idea.  How else can one see Beijing in East Asia throughout its history suddenly at the border with India after its takeover of Tibet in 1950. The period in 1950 when India was just coming out of the partition and tackling millions of refugees on the border with newly created Pakistan.      ...