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U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson calls Russia "incompetent" for letting Syria hold onto chemical weapons even after a deal to remove the weapons was made and implemented. Tillerson was also critical of Russian attempts to influence elections in France and Germany.

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Much of what is written here about Xi Jinping pursuing Chinese socialist vision was known since he became president in 2013 when China's Communist party was losing its appeal, and efforts were made to seize power within the communist party by a leader in the western province of Chongqing. Bo Xi Lai attempted to take advantage of the situation with appeals to the working class and without any genuine commitment beyond a power grab. It was well known that Xi Jinping is a son of one of the veterans of the Communist party under Mao, Xi Zhongxun, unlike leaders who followed premier Deng Xiaoping such as Jiang Zemin. Zemin was a relatively unknown figure who was in university during the crucial period of 1947-49 when Mao came to power in mainland China. It would not be correct to say that little was known about Xi's own ideas about socialism as the long term answer to China's problems. Xi also came in as president at a time when the Communist party was losing its appeal to working class people after three administrations that followed premier Den Xiaoping. These three administrations followed a form of state capitalism that allowed companies to pollute the environment, compete without any regulations, and allowed to operate without any controls as long as they pursued growth aggressively and expanded the economy.There was an effort by Communist party regional leader in western Chinese province of Chongqing, Bo Xi Lai, to use this as an opportunity to grab power in China. During his first year as president Xi had to resolve this issue by having a court trial after revelations of corruption and misuse of power by Bo Xi Lai.  Xi's father Zhongxun's role in the revolutionary movement offers clues to Xi's own convictions and faith in the party. Zhongxun was a communist soldier who set up the revolutionary base areas in Shanxi-Gansu northwest border region of China that provided a refuge for Mao's army following the Long March. Other clues come from Zhongxun's role as head of propaganda during the period after 1944 and in 1952. Xi's family background particularly on his mother's side shows a fervent commitment to Chinese socialist vision during the chaotic years when the Japanese invaded China and Chiang Kai-Shek's nationalist forces failed to defend China's sovereignty. One reason Xi has been less understood is that little attention is paid to Xi's mother, Qi Xin who was highly educated and fervently believed in Chinese socialism and nationalist spirit during the Japanese invasion in 1938. In fact Qi Xin had to leave middle school after the Japanese took over Beijing. She joined the Counter Japanese Political and Military University to continue education and in 1941 attended the Central Party school. She met Xi's father Zhongxun in 1944. In 1953 she enrolled in the Marx School of Communism, and it was her position at the school that offered her husband added protection during the Cultural Revolution that affected Deng Xiaoping and others. With such a history in the 1930's, 1940's, and 1950's it is likely that Xi was profoundly influenced by his father's role in the revolutionary movement, and his mother's faith in socialism with national spirit as the way to protect against the foreign invasions. It would now appear that by the time Xi joined the Politburo in 2003 there was no question about the future course China would take given the role of his parents, and the events of 1938 the fall of Beijing, his mother having to flee, and the events that followed. Xi showed resilience during the period of the Great Proletarian Revolution when he was sent to the villages at a time when he would be studying in school and college. He was sent to an agricultural commune in largely rural Shanxi province where he worked as a manual laborer alongside other people and developed a relationship with the local farmers. Unlike other leaders during that period which could even be said about premier Deng Xiaoping in 1989, Xi took a different lesson from this experience largely because his father and mother were committed to the socialist vision for the long run. His father was still not fully rehabilitated by premier Chou en-lai when Xi was allowed to enter Beijing's Tsinghua University in 1975. He studied chemical engineering at Tsinghua graduating in 1979. Upon graduation he worked as a assistant for 3 years to a vice premier who was minister of defense. He then left Beijing for Hebei province to work as a deputy secretary of the provincial CCP. He was made Mayor of Xiamen, then governor of Fujian province in 1999 where he tackled environmental conservation before moving to Zheziang province. His father passed away in 2002 and it would appear that he was carefully trained in different provinces instead of staying in Beijing, for a position of national leadership. Xi got his break in 2007 when the upper leadership of Shanghai city was tainted in a wide ranging pension fund scheme. He was made party secretary for Shanghai. This was the position Jiang Zemin had held before he succeeded premier Deng Xiaoping. In only a few months in October 2007 Xi was made one of the 8 Politburo members, ready to succeed Hu Jintao as president. Xi's perception of being sent to the villages and making it to university education was that it was part of the long run socialist struggle, with pain that his father had also endured as simply a phase in which things would be right in the end. Xi's mother comes across as a resilient figure and one who had herself gone through the struggles of the 1930's and aided her husband on one occasion. Some of this resilience could have been passed on to the son. Xi's wife is a zealous participant in Chinese dance and music performances that created enthusiasm for the Chinese socialist revolution from the 1930's period. In his conversations  with colleagues in the party, in culture and temperament, Xi has been forthright about this background and his style of work.  Xi is unlike premier Deng and the presidents who succeeded him such as Hu Jintao mentored by a former mayor of Shanghai Jiang Zemin who came to power in 1989. Xi is more in line with the leaders around Mao like his father in his outlook and thinking, with a cautious temperament that comes from years going through ups and downs of political struggles. He is once said to have responded with dismay about being in a top position in the government knowing how precarious this had been for his father. The education at Tsinghua, his engineering background, and his easy familiarity with farmers in the provinces, mean that he understands China and its history well enough to have the confidence to shape Chinese policies in a way that none of his predecessors had except Mao, premier Chou-en-lai, Liu Shao Chi and a few veterans from that time in the 1930's. That Xi waited patiently for so long to gradually assert his ideas about socialist vision for China may be the surprising part of his behaviour till 2021.  It may be that he wanted to make the changes only after he could persuade party leaders and colleagues of his vision and long run goals. And because the Chinese economy had grown so large that it would take time to steer the ship in a different direction for the long term. In most of the negotiations with president Trump he cautiously let trade negotiators handle the situation, all the time learning about how to tackle problems of China's relationship with US and Europe. US president Biden also has a vision that is veering towards a socialist perspective in terms of bringing gains of progress to workers and families. So does Mr. Trump, Mr. Boris Johnson in UK, and Social Democrat's Scholz in Germany. It is both economic and political as Mr. Xi is quoted as saying in this WSJ report. The necessities of such action are both economic, social and politically driven as capitalism has veered way off course.  In this report it is mentioned that Soho China 40% stake was taken by a large capital markets firm in New York in the hope of large gains, as Soho China developer was a tycoon who wanted to leave China. Seeing it as not favorable to his company following events in Hong Kong. This behaviour of capital markets groups in New York and tech companies in Silicon Valley, driven by profits and not aware of the social and economic problems of working class American families is a problem in the US and in Europe. It is also what has driven so many large tech companies to expand manufacturing operations in China, that hurt US manufacturing capabilities and American workers jobs- an issue raised by president Trump and taken up by president Biden. Biden has already moved to make Intel Corporation change its plans and invest in American manufacturing technologies in a quietly implemented U turn. US president Biden is left with the unenviable job of solving this huge problem during the pandemic. He has also committed to a somewhat socialistic vision with a $3.5 trillion plan for workers and families, as has vice chancellor Scholz in Germany with his own version of programs, after the failures of unregulated forms of capitalism. Scholz goes so far as to say his mission is to show that there is really no such thing as a self-made man, that it is help from society, his fellow citizens, and government, that makes it possible for him to do his work. In a sense the world is shifting away from Reagan forms of capitalism without regulation after seeing disastrous results during the pandemic. Not just China. Some form of government guidance and regulations are now seen as essential in China, the US, UK, Germany and India for a better society and a better, healthier life, and for opportunity for all in each country.   ...

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Considering the fines and sanctions by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, during the time Mary Schapiro headed the organization from 2007 -2008, it did not take a serious watchdog role over the brokerage business that it was expected to supervise. NASD which she formerly headed, and FINRA, did several examinations of the brokerage business of Mr Madoff who ran a$50 billion Ponzi scheme, but failed to find anything wrong. Her agency in 2007 concluded that Madoff's firm had only violated some technical rules. Also fines and sanctions assessed by FINRA declined during the time she headed it. Fines levied by FINRA declined from $148 million in 2005, the year of her predecessor, to $40 million in 2008. Ms. Schapiro headed NASD regulatory arm in 1996, NASD itself in 2006, and FINRA after its creation in 2007. FINRA is a private agency set up by Wall Street to regulate itself. As the prevailing opinion at the time, with the SEC severely understaffed, was that Wall Street could regulate itself, agencies like FINRA had a bigger responsibility than was realized by Ms Schapiro and others. One securities lawyer who represented firms examined by FINRA, says FINRA should at least have asked more questions about the Madoff operation. In a November 2006 speech to the Securites Industry and Financial Markets Association, Mary Schapiro says, "we remain utterly committed to our regulatory mission but we should be also committed to doing no unnecessary harm or restriction to innovation in the industry and markets". Some of the stuff that went on in the name of innovation went against some basics and commonsense, and the failure to follow tested old good financial practices to separate sound innovation from unsound innovation, was a failure of that period. Schapiro's statement seemed to be a contradiction of a severe nature when examined closely, because how could she remain committed 100% to the regulatory mission if she made strong exceptions for innovations whose true logic and effectiveness only time could tell. The element of caution that should be a key part of the regulator's temperament and mental build was entirely missing. See the link to financial regulators in India, and of how this task was handled with that element of caution and skepticism of prevailing opinion. Other failure of FINRA is that it lagged behind state regulators in catching upto the mess resulting in afreeze up of auction rate securites markets. In June and July 2008, Massachusetts and New York securities regulators filed fraud charges against big firms in that matter. Another failure was the failure to look into the mortgage securites that were held in brokerage accounts and see that the valuations of these securites are sound. Finra only filed small cases against Lehman Brothers, with a fine of only $125,000 for failing to keep accurate books and records. As late as May 7, 2008 in speaking at the Financial Services Institute meeting, Schapiro was asked about what FINRA was doing to regulate complex packaged products like mortgage securites. And even though credit rating agencies had by this time been exposed as having failed, Ms Schapiro would only say, according to a financial advisor who asked the question, that "we have credit rating agencies that rate them." A pretty hands off view for a regulator when the cracks in the system were already exposed in mid 2008. Another facet of this is the high levels of compensation especially for a regulator. For her job at FINRA she received pay of $3.1 million a year including $2.5 million in compensation and $615,000 in benefits and deferred pay. In 2007 she also earned $449,000 in cash and stock grants as director of Duke Energy and Kraft Foods. All of which means that it is straining credulity for Obama to suggest that Mary Schapiro is the best person the Democrats could find for this critical job, in which the record has been severely impaired....

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Voter turnout exceeds 70% in the 2014 state assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, India. Voters weary of years of conflict voted in favor of economic development and infrastructure building in the state.

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A documentary that will be shown on HBO in fall 2016 was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2015. It shows the disagreements between Holbrooke, who negotiated the Bosnia accords that ended the war there, and president Obama.

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According to a senior defense industry official Defense Secretary Robert Gates worries that counterinsurgency may not work in Afghanistan. According to the official even 40,000 troops would not give enough troop on the ground to protect the Afghns if the north and west continue to deteriorate. Gates is concerned about sending large amounts of additional US troops to Afghnistan. This is acountry with people very sensitive to occupying powers. A veteran of the soviet intervention there says they have an allergy to foreigners and attributes the soviet defeat to this. See the links in Intelilinks He is aware of the the dangers of this, if the expanded military footprint is seen as that of an occupying power especially when the government in Kabul is hugely unpopular, then this would galvanize new armed opposition to the US and draw US forces and NATO forces into aguerilla war of the type the soviet union faced there. It may do much worse if it galvanizes opposition in side Pakistan. The question Obama is focussing on is whether there is athreat to the US homeland security if other options than expanding troop strength are explored....

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A complete breakdown in negotiations between the U.S. and Russia happens after Russia continues its bombing campaign in Aleppo. About 275,000 people and 100,000 children are in the war torn area in northern Syria. The U.S. had called on Russia to stop the bombing campaign, but Secretary of State Kerry failed to persuade Russia to commit to a ceasefire. The result has been international criticism of the Russian role in the war, and speculation on what president Putin sees Russia gaining from this intervention in DW.com and other sites. 

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Pierre Razoux, a French historian provides this account of the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1980 to 1988, at a cost of 680,000 people killed and $1.1 trillion in war destruction and money diverted from the economy. In 1980 Saddam Hussein of Iraq launched the war by attacking Iran which had just come under the Ayatollah Khomeini with the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979. The war dragged on for 8 years with Khomeini persisting in the war. With U.S. and Saudi policy to increase production bringing the price of oil down from $30 to $10 designed to bring Iran and Iraq to the peace talks, as well as the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan, all three being major oil producers. The dollar also weakened by 37% during this period. The diplomatic isolation of the Khomeini regime made it more difficult for Iran to buy arms on credit than Iraq could, leading to the war ending with Iran finding it no longer possible to continue the human losses. The Carter administration, particularly with National Security Advisor Brzezinski, tilted towards Iraq to oppose Soviets in Afghanistan, and the Saudis also supported Iraq during the early period. Under president Reagan the U.S. began covert and direct assistance to Iraq to prevent an Iraqi defeat early in the war. Rumsfeld visited Baghdad in December 1983 and March 1984 to organize the U.S. effort to oppose Iran. This may have laid the seeds for future conflicts that lasted through the administrations of the elder and junior Bush. As Razoux points out the Revolutionary Guards became entrenched from this period in Iran's history, making it difficult for election process to work or elected governments to operate. 23 months following the end of that war in 1988 Saddam Hussein launched a war on Kuwait, leading to the U.S. led Gulf war and the entry of the U.S. into a ground combat role, which was followed by the invasion of Iraq under George Bush after 9/11 attacks. The twin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are estimated to have cost the U.S. over 1 trillion dollars. The result today is largely the division on the ground into Shia regions under the Revolutionary Guards and the Shiite government in Baghdad, and Sunni regions led by Islamic State and autonomous Iraqi Sunni tribes, ignoring the Iran-Iraq boundaries set in the colonial period by the French and the British. In all the amount spent in the Khomeini-Saddam war of $ 1 trillion being about $2 trillion in today's money, and the $1 trillion spent by the U.S., means about $3 trillion has gone into the wars in this region. This comes at a time of deficits in government budgets in the U.S. and a deep recession in the U.S. and Europe. It also explains why the U.S. public is reluctant to take even the minor action such as giving a standoff "no-fly zone" protection to the rebels in Syria, and supported the Obama administration in its reluctance to keep even the basic military force in place to protect its diplomatic mission in Libya, where the cost would be small relative to earlier enlarged military missions under the two elder and junior Bush administrations. The result is that refugees are pouring into Europe from Syria and Libya, through Turkey. Turkey itself is host to millions of refugees in camps along its border. The vacuum and the withdrawal of the Obama administration from the region has led to the rise of Islamic State with covert assistance from Sunni regimes in the region to counteract the growing influence of Shiite Iran. It also may explain the Iranian people's support for the nuclear weapons effort through years of sanctions, leading finally to an agreement with the Obama administration that relaxes sanctions in exchange for a future possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. Lost in the conflict is the Arab Spring of 2012-2013, with the Tunisian democracy the only surviving result of that movement for democracy and awakening among Arab peoples. The Reagan administration in its aggressive anti-Soviet position made large errors- including ignoring human rights abuses and use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war, by supporting Iraq and reversing position after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, having a disastrous effect on the entire region decades later. Much of the Obama administration's reluctance for any action may stem from the U.S. role in this period and its consequences of protracted conflict. ...

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John Bolton on the efforts needed to secure nuclear and biological weapons in North Korea and to reunite the two Koreas, by joint concerted action between China, the U.S. and South Korea. Prof. Cha of Georgetown University, and the Editorial Board of the Washington Post call for similiar preparation and action on Dec. 20, 2011, soon after Kim's death.