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The 1MDB scandal in Malaysia involving misrouting of development funds in Malaysia has led to a change in government in Malaysia with return of Mahathir Mohammed and investigations into banks and members of the previous government. This article in BBC provides a look into what happened from a popular perspective of its global saga and people involved from international elites. More information can be found using search term 1MDB in Lyrarc.com with groups, links and articles over several years as it unfolded.

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Germany's National Statistics Office reports the country showed a budget surplus of 36.6 billion euros in 2017. The economy expanded at 2.2%, the highest growth since 2011. Export growth was strong with exports up 2.7 percent in 2017.

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Erdbrink describes the evolution of trade relations with China which helped Iran during the period of western sanctions. Because of trade with the U.S. and western partners, China was careful to use the Bank of Kunlun, created to handle financial transactions with Iran, for import of oil and export of automobiles and other products.

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Michael Phillips of the WSJ provides a profile of typical Donald Trump supporters, a couple Joey and Tina Elias, driving from Alabama to Pensacola, Florida to attend a Trump rally. Joey, 46 years old, lost his job in 2010, and has since worked at jobs a little above the minimum wage. Tina, 44 years old, is assistant director of a daycare center. They have worked hard to build a house on a 3 acre plot of land, after living for several years in a mobile home. They have 2 children, and Joey says he has to worry about job security before making any purchases. They are against free trade, as its not seen as favoring working Americans. They favor a strong military, because they see president Obama as defunding the military and weakening America overseas. They say they are not racially motivated, believe in God, but not church going. They don't feel strongly about social cultural issues, believing in live and let live. They say they like Trump not because he is saying anything new, only because he has voiced their concerns, they have felt this way for a long time. They want to see America winning- and to win as the country wins. What is striking is that the couple face some of the same job insecurity, and the paycheck to paycheck job insecurity and fear of losing what they have with job loss, that is being felt by average working Americans after the 2009 economic crisis. On the Democratic side Bernie Sanders is gaining support from white working class people who share the same anxieties about economic insecurity following the 2009 economic crisis....

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China raises objections to the setup of the U.S. THADD missile defense system to protect South Korea, but the South Korean government of president Park Geun-hye is determined to go forward. The U.S. and South Korea say the North's missile tests have created conditions for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System to be setup to protect South Korea.

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Anne Applebaum of the WP describes the effect of a Dutch referendum on a 2014 European Union trade and cooperation treaty with Ukraine which taps into Dutch anti-immigrant sentiment of right wing parties and anti-corruption sentiment of left wing parties. It passed with a two thirds majority and 32 % of people voting. Applebaum says the centre right government in the Netherlands has not commented on the referendum which is "consultative." She says officials in the Dutch government told her they did not want to become the focus of anti-government sentiment in the media, because of the small majority in parliament.

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The U.S. takes in 70,000 refugees a year, but only 1500 Syrian refugees have been taken in by the U.S. by Sept. 2015, as a huge migrant refugee crisis unfolds in Europe. Germany has to make the same background checks and is moving quickly, the U.S. takes 18-24 months. The withdrawal of the U.S. from the Middle East under the Obama administration led to the collapse of the fragile situation in Libya, Iraq and Syria, and the unraveling of these countries, a direct cause of the massive refugee crisis in the region with about half the Syrian population and large parts of Iraqi, Kurdish, and Libyan population dislocated. The result is a massive humanitarian crisis, turning the hopes of the Arab Spring into something no one could have imagined across North Africa. In a small Lutheran church in Frankfurt, Paulskirche, is the German story of a popular movement that spread throughout Europe in 1848, for a transition from autocratic governments to parliamentary democracy. Aspirations similiar to that expressed in the Middle East and North Africa in 2013-2014 in the Arab Spring were expressed in Germany and many parts of Europe in 1848. In the centre of Berlin on the Kurfstendamm lie the bombed but preserved ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, telling the story of the intervening years 1848-1949. It took many years before the same aspirations for liberty found shape in Germany's Public Law of 1949, finally finding a safe resting place after years of failing to unify a people around the ideas of liberty and justice for all, and not nationalism. Germans who had the hardest time waging that fight, by embracing the refugees in a spirit of openness carry on that fight into this century. Paul asks the question- who will lead? A Lutheran pastor's daughter takes up the fight without the slightest hesitation, and full measure of confidence with the words- "Europe will have failed on the question of refugees, if the close connection between it and universal civil rights is destroyed." ...