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Efforts to setup an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria based on the model set by the Autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq. An opportunity for Kurdish people to be able to live with their own language and culture within the framework of a federal state in Iraq and Syria. The Kurdish Autonomous region based in Erbil has acted as a mediator between Sunni and Shiite interests and worked within the framework of a federal state in Iraq. Turkey still fears the minority Kurds within its borders and seeks to assimilate them into Turkey. The government of prime minister Erdogan has shifted the political stance with Kurds by seeking Kurdish support in elections. There is the example in Europe and Asia of people in certain regions working within a federal state that tolerates the culture and language of the people within the state- the Catalans and Basque people in Spain are one example. This has come after years of repression of language and culture, and it has only changed as a new spirit of tolerance has prevailed in Europe after the pain of the period between the wars. A range of other communities with distinct language and culture have learned to function and prosper within a federal state- French Quebec within Canada is another example in N. America. In Asia, the best example is India, which is a federal state with many languages and cultures, varied enough to be amazing. A properly functioning democracy and economic system, with educational systems that support tolerant attitudes, provides the framework for this to happen. It is challenging at times but it is a better alternative to generations of conflict....

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Krugman calls the fiscal compact agreement in Europe and the efforts to impose austerity measures- at a time of 24% unemployment in Spain- simply insane and a form of economic suicide. A different view was expressed by Martin Feldstein in the WSJ, April 5, 2012, Europe Needs the Bond Vigilantes, in which he pointed to areas in the Fiscal Compact agreement for Europe that do not impose strict spending limits.

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The Markit surveys for manufacturing orders measures manufacturers response to whether business is getting better or worse in eight countries, the U.S., China, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The figure 50 means that the same number of companies are saying orders are improving as ones that are saying it is not improving. For May 2012, the number is 50.5 for the U.S., 43.0 in Germany, and Italy 47.4.

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France and Germany remained far apart on approach to banking regulation in Dec. 2012. Germany does not support regulatory powers of the ECB over Germany's small and midsized savings banks which lend to small businesses and consumers. France supports regulation of all 6000 banks in the eurozone by the ECB. Germany also raises concerns about how the regulatory powers of the ECB can affect its powers in setting interest rates. Germany does not support the British position for regulatory powers over London based banks to remain in Britain. Coming up with a new banking supervisor for European banks with regulatory powers of supervision is needed for Spain to get access to additional EU financing. This is also part of the new financial architecture for the eurozone, including deposit guarantees, which needs to be set up.

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Tourism is boosting the economies of southern Europe. The tourist economy is ultra competitive in places such as Lisbon and Madrid because the  debt crisis of Spain, Portugal, Greece has led to devaluing their currencies with the US dollar. There are more American tourists in Portugal than Spanish tourists who are attracted by lower cost vacations. Europe now generates $500 million dollars from tourism one third of total tourist dollars worldwide. Portugal's economy is growing at 8%. This WSJ report looks at tourism in Portugal. It also raises questions about Southern Europe's overdependence on tourism industry which is cyclical.

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Spanish footballer Andres Iniesta retires at 40 years age in October 2024. He is Spain's most loved footballer for his humility and his skills.

Another loved footballer Argentina's Lionel Messi says of Iniesta-

“One of the most magical teammates and one of those who I most enjoyed playing together, Andrés Iniesta, the ball will miss you and so will we! I wish you all the best, you are a phenomenon."

Like Messi Iniesta is about 5-7 - 5-8 in height. Yet their speed with the ball was always amazing.

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Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, says Germany can move faster than expected to allow shared liability of eurozone debt. He also accepts the need for short term measures such as the European Stability Facility buying bonds of Spain and Italy in private markets to drive down yields. Schauble indicated this flexibility in an hour long interview with the WSJ on June 27, 2012. This comes after Angela Merkel's remarks made in talks with coalition partners the Free Democrats that she would not accept any mutualization of debt in the eurozone in her life time. Schauble reiterated his view that before joint liability of debt can take place there has to be a joint EU fiscal policy, and sequencing was critical. He called for a EU fiscal commissioner arrangement for reviewing EU member budgets and policies. At the same time he said Germany was open to some level of mutual financial support between members of the eurozone, under the right conditions.

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US Russia relations improve in 2025. The new national security document of US put out by the DJT Administration says that Russia is not a threat.  It sticks to migration and western identities when facing civilizational erasure over next two decades as key threats to the US. It poses questions for the European Union, Germany and France, yet also offers away out of the "mess" in Ukraine with the Russians saying NATO was too close to their borders as the real issue, and the US not aligning itself with NATO reducing big power tensions including nuclear arsenal expansion. Germany rebuilding the Bundeswehr and it's military offers a rebalancing of the military situation yet is not the long term solution to the Ukraine problem, NATO limiting it's role and the US limiting it's role in NATO offers a solution that preserves the long term interests of Western Europe(Germany, France, Italy, UK, Spain) and preserves world peace and dialogue. It also promotes integration of India and Russia into the world trade and world economy as it diversifies from the dominance of China in world trade and the world economy of the last 20 years of free trade that deindustrialized US and Europe. What this national security document does not say is that China's dominance in world trade and the errors of the US, Europe, Japan, Russia, India in world trading relationships and their economic approach that made this possible is the central issue and calls for diversification of supply channels in the world economy. This shifts the direction of the world in a peaceful direction where the US, Japan and Europe, India can compete in economic growth and trade with China on equal terms. ...

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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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The election of Sebastian Pinera only confirms a new emphasis in Latin America towards a social cohesion agenda. In Mexico with Calderon, in Columbia with Uribe, in Brazil with Luiz Inacio Da Silva, in Chile with Pinera promising to work closely with the Concertacion and carry on social programs introduced by that coalition which reduced poverty, the trend is the same. It is to put behind Latin America the struggles between the military, the universities, business, unions and other parts of society and forge a common consensus for coupling social programs for the less well off with business friendly policies to improve the economy. Its even a process that is taking place in Spain which has a great deal of influence on Latin America, as Spain combines social support programs with business friendly policies. And the Concertacion President in Chile, Michelle Bachelet, leaves with personal popularity ratings of about 75% showing that these policies are popular with Chileans, as they are in places like Brazil and Mexico. The fatigue with 20 year old Concertacion rule shows with a change in administration but overall policy direction will in large measure continue....

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Nvidia's Head of Engineering, Jonah Alben, is from Schenectady, upstate New York. Here he is credited with exporting the latest US advanced chips to China by reducing their effectiveness. US administrations Biden's and DJT's say this pushes the rules of export controls. It also undermines the US lead in advanced technologies needed for the US to keep the peace in the Pacific and in Europe as new tensions emerge over Taiwan and in Eastern Europe. For years the US egregiously restricted the flow of technologies to democracies such as India and allowed a concentration of semiconductor manufacture in Taiwan, over concentration of manufacturing in China, both of which led to supply chain issues in recent years and pose supply chain issues in the future. Ironically restrictions on technologies sale to India which with 1.4 billon people, and a similar culture in Indonesia forms homogenous culture of 1.7 billion people, is the only place of this size where parliamentary democracy has taken root. With an exercise of legislative assemblies through elections in all Indian states in the 1930's under the British with Mohandas Gandhi's leadership and example. Because of Gandhi and the leaders who preceded him Dadabhai Naoroji and Vivekananda in the 1890's India has older democratic forms than Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain and most of Europe, all of Asia, Latin America and Africa. It also has among the ordinary people a deep respect for Lincon, FDR and his fight to help Gandhi with Sukarno fight the British and Dutch Empires to bring freedom to 1.7 billion people.  ...

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This opinion by Mr. Swain, editorial page writer at the Wall Street Journal says it is regrettable that the expert class in America has failed to acknowledge its errors or conduct self-criticism. A new generation of journalists, think tank authors, and experts, will soon replace the old. They, he says, will make a fair assessment of the Trump years and look at their forerunners as acting in crucial moments, as idiots. He offers an alternative view of lockdowns as hurting the economy and causing a sharp recession in which people had to go without income, and some even hungry. To support this he says many parts of the country did not lock down and managed to keep hospitals running fine. California and New York with Democratic governors and large numbers of Democratic voters have borne the brunt of the pandemic in America. He points out the changes in the Middle East with policy that has brought Israel and the Arab world closer. The wars in foreign lands that are no longer being fought wasting precious resources. Democrats and the news media acted to consider Mr. Trump's election as illegitimate and the result of collusion with a Russian president, says Swain, till the Mueller investigation proved this to be not true. The real reason for Trump's election being that the Clinton-Obama Democrats had neglected working class interests and sent jobs overseas, and the Democratic party had shifted far from its working class base. That there is much for reflection in both political parties is stated in this view as the Democrats rush to a second impeachment Feb. 9, after president Biden has setup his new administration, and in the middle of a national emergency pandemic.   ...

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New car sales are increasing rapidly in the EU market in 2015. For the 1st quarter 2015 sales were up 8.6% to 3.5 million units, and 11% in March 2015, over the prior year, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. Sales up significantly in Spain by 41%, in Portugal by 42% and Italy 15%, Greece and Ireland by double digits, France 9.3%, Germany 9%, for March 2015 over the prior year.

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India crosses the 10 million mark in coronavirus cases for the first time on December 18, 2020. The number of deaths is at 146,000. The U.S. is the only other country with over 10 million cases. U.S. has 17 million cases and 318,000 deaths on December 18. The daily cases in India peaked in September at about 94,000 and have declined to 27,000 in December. The U.S. meanwhile is hit by a second wave that is much worse than the first. Daily cases now are close to 250,000 on December 18, 2020. The daily cases in the second wave are much more severe than the first. They have increased by a factor of 5 to 10 times. Places which got through the first wave without severe damage are hit hard in December. This includes Germany, and California. In California daily cases exceed 50,000 and in Germany 30,000. In California, France, Germany, and UK, Spain, the daily cases far exceed earlier cases in the first wave by a factor of 5 to 10 times. For this reason India needs to be wary of a resurgence in the pandemic in a second wave. With its large population, need for economic recovery, and opportunity to benefit from the vaccine developments and its strict protocols for testing, isolation and social distancing, mask wearing, India can carefully and vigilantly prepare for the second wave. ...

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Adam Taylor explains what Brexit is about. What should be added is that Brexit is a child of the time in 2015-2016 when Angela Merkel was ill prepared to tackle the sudden wave of migrants from North Africa from wars and population growth outstripping what little progress was made, making decisions to let in close to a million migrants. Migrants are now being returned back to their home countries and the issue has faded. The austerity policies in the EU with Greece, Spain and Portugal as bad poster childs for the EU are also largely over, with economic recovery in Europe.  As a result confidence is growing in the future of the European Union. What pessimists including Mr. Trump saw as a breakup of the European Union is no longer the case. Britain's long negotiations and divisions for Brexit are now reinforcing an opposite conclusion- that it is beneficial to stay in the European Union. Fully 68% in a Eurobarometer Survey of 27 EU countries by the European Commission in March 2019 think so, only 17% think it is not beneficial. In Britain also a majority now support membership in the EU. The European Union and Britain have a lot to learn from this experience and the divisions generated, which is likely to be part of the acquired experience of a new generation of leaders.  ...

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Perpignan, France, is a small town at the foothills of the Pyrenees, near Spain. It was called Perpignan Catalan. Its mayor is Aliot who is from the RN National Rally party. It is one of the poorest regions in France. The RN was elected after several tries in which the other parties banded together against RN till it did not work anymore. This report in The Guardian looks a the change the RN brought and says it was about more police, cleanliness, and television. No structural changes have happened that would reduce poverty or bring more jobs and opportunity to the area, or improve the infrastructure and public services. As a result it is more visual but as one resident says I kept my doors open anyway, so that no real change happened. This change for the better has not happened under Macron and it is this frustration that led voters to give Aliot and RN a chance in Perpignan. Yet this report shows it has not changed much, that the poverty and lack of opportunity is real and other solutions than RN are needed. And still the LR and Macron's Renaissance party keep making derogatory remarks and labelling the alternatives from the Socialist parties as unrealistic even though the Socialist Alliance calls for investing $140 billion in infrastructure, public services and cost of living action to improve the lives of ordinary working people and families. ...

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In May 2023 Germany's Scholz overruled Habeck to let sale of 24.9% of Hamburg port to COSCO go through. Here is how over 2000-2016 China build its world class network of containerized shipping ports while the second Bush added the war in Afghanistan to the wars in Iraq started by Reagan/Bush. Without defense costs China built this world ports network. Piraeus in Greece, south of Athens, a port concession acquired in 2004 Antwerp in Belgium (Austrian Netherlands), a minority stake in a container port acquired in 2008. In 2013 with sale of Terminal Link ports in a Cosco 49% stake deal by CMA of France CMA holding 51%, China has stakes in Zeerbrugge and Antwerp, Busan South Korea, and Le Havre, Montoir and Fos in France, Xiamen in China, Miami and Houston in US. Rotterdam, Netherlands- Cosco acquired in 2016 a 35% stake in Euromax Terminal in Rotterdam from Hong Kong's Hutchison's Holdings for $125 million. Valencia and Bilbao majority  51% stake for $270 million, when JP Morgan paid as much as $950 million to ACS of Spain for these ports after the 2009 crisis led to Spanish divestments. Today measured in TEU shipping containers China sends goods to Europe 10 times what it takes in through Spanish ports. ...

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Le Monde asks what is the role of religion in the founding of the US from the time of Mayflower Compact 1620 by Calvinist preachers? Two books published after the failure of the Spanish Armada naval invasion of Britain under Queen Elizabeth in 1588 set the stage for an alternative colonization of America and Britain's effort to contest the Americas against the Catholic monarchs of Spain. Agnes Delahaye, Prof of American Civilization at Lumiere University Lyon 2, in France, describes this in an interview in Le Monde. Her book is Adventurers, Puritans, Pilgrims, Amerca's Founding Myths. The first book in 1583 that set the stage for English exploration in the Americas is- A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by a Dominican missionary, Bartolome de las Casas, and says the Spanish solders tarnished and ruined their Christian duty. The second in 1584 was Discourse of Western Planting by Richard Hakluyt showed Queen Elizabeth with the true religious conviction and practice against the Spanish "black legend," of conquest, and unChristian treatment of native Americans. The Pilgrim Fathers and the migration on the Mayflower and other British ships came through this movement. The settlers around 1600 came from small Calvinist congregations under Brewster and Robinson. Mayflower Compact was the constitutional document in 1620 setting forth their aims. ...

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Mr. Trump told Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar at the White House he is disappointed with the way Brexit has evolved in the three years since he supported Brexit during the election campaign. Trump said "it is tearing the country apart. Its actually tearing a lot of countries apart."  After a series of votes in the British parliament Trump told reporters he gave May some negotiating advice. "I gave the prime minister my ideas on how to negotiate. I think she would have been successful., she did'nt listen to that." So what happened? What advice did Trump give on negotiating? There are only some hints on this. Theresa May told the BBC in an interview after Trump's visit to London in July 2018- "He told me I should sue the E.U. -not go into negotiations., Sue them."  Trump made a prediction a day after the referendum to Leave saying "the E.U. is going to break up." This was at the time of the financial crisis in the European Union with problems in Greece, Spain and Portugal. Since then the economies of these countries revived. Spain has 3% growth for three years even though it faces fresh elections. In his 2000 book "The America we Deserve" Trump pointed out his sense threat the U.S. should pull back from the E.U and save millions of dollars annually. In recent years he has suggested that the E.U was "a foe"  and "it was formed as a consortium so that it could compete with the United States." The problems in Europe happened in the period 2016-2018 with divisions emerging on the issue of immigration. This wave of immigration was a result of Arab and African conflicts and lag in Africa between development and the rapidly rising population. Chancellor Merkel was ill prepared to handle this wave of immigration and in retrospect her policy did little to address the roots of the problems of immigration from North Africa, a policy later adopted when popular support for immigration of this kind and scale declined. It affected the vote for Brexit playing into deep seated doubts about the benefits of EU membership in parts of Britain.  Mr. Trump supports no-deal Brexit which was defeated by large margins in the British parliament and lacks support across all parts of society, business and political parties in Britain. Trump own sense that Brexit has divided many countries and his dialogue with the Irish prime minister must show an awareness of the views of Ireland about the hard won peace and E.U. borders in Ireland.     ...

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Of these letters mostly all commend the remarkable efforts of Joe Biden. One by Stanley Saulny stands out. He commends president Biden for his remarkable stamina during the Air Force Academy graduation. He says saluting 921 times and shaking hands 921 times as Biden did that day could not be done without considerable arm and shoulder pain, yet Biden did no complain or boast of his feat, as he wanted to do this for every graduating student. Mr Saunlny is a physician and graduated years ago from the same Air Force Academy where he attended this event as father of a graduating student. He tripped and the media distorted reality as there was a sandbag placed in a trippable way that could not be seen.  

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This exceptional report in DW.com covers a topic rarely tackled directly. How does society and the government tackle the growing problem of anorexia among young women, and the way advertising has promoted this idea through unrealistic even dangerous standards of beauty. Regulations in France prohibit underweight women being employed as models. Spain has introduced similar legislation. This is one of the many problems that are tackled on a bipartisan basis by the CDU, CSU and the SPD parties as a coalition government is formed. The head of the SPD parliamentary group, Karl Lauterbach, says this is an illness with a hgih mortality rate for women in Germany. The CSU agrees with this and new legislation is being planned to require realistic standards in advertising and in hiring of women in advertising.

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Britain recorded the most deaths in Europe. Brazil and Russia have over 10,000 cases of coronavirus each, and the U.S. records cases close to that in the peak in April. Cases were up worldwide for May 6 to 92,000 with a quarter of these cases or about 24,000 in the U.S. The jump in cases takes the total to 3.77 million with a third of them in the U.S., according to John Hopkins database. Russia and Brazil had a slow start but are now registering large numbers of cases showing that India and other countries with limited testing could face the same situation. Russia has ramped up testing, and so have the U.S. and the UK. Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin says for example that about 300,000 of the 12 million people in Moscow have the virus based on sampling surveys, more than 3 times the confirmed cases. Restrictions remain in place in Moscow beyond May 11.  Countries that were hit earlier by the virus such as Spain and France are reopening gradually after May 11. France will use red and green zones to handle restrictions so that the restrictions are customized to each place in the country. ...

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Vice admiral Henrique Gouveia de Melo, is a former submarine commander who has instilled confidence in Portugal's vaccination drive. The drive had a faltering start in January 2021. Gouveia has reminded Portuguese people of the vaccine campaigns that came before- against measles, polio and other deadly diseases. Public memories of these campaigns including the first national vaccination plan in 1965 have helped take the fully vaccinated percentage to 83%, highest in the European Union. Israel and UK are at 61% and 66% fully vaccinated after starting much earlier.  Spain is also close to Portugal in fully vaccinated people. In Portugal the focus remained on protecting people, and vaccine skeptics played a very small role. Portugal used large scale vaccination centers in sports facilities with the help of the military and municipalities.  Gouveia brought with him a team of 30 military strategists, mathematicians and doctors to work with health ministry officials to coordinate a network of 300 vaccination centers, mostly in municipal sports stadiums, with 5000 doctors, nurses and volunteers. 154,000 jabs were given daily. He is shown in military uniform talking to people, instilling trust and confidence day after day. ...

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It took Panasonic 6 years to get its Wuxi factory near Shanghai, China, to near net zero carbon dioxide emissions. It was tough say company executives. Panasonic has a job on its hands. It would take 37 such efforts to neutralize the 2.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions of the company's operations. When suppliers are included this is only 2% of the 110 million metric tons associated with Panasonic. To get an idea of how much this is- it is the same as  half of Spain's annual emissions, and five times that of Apple Inc. Zeroing out emissions would take till 2030, or beyond, depending on how much pressure there is from customers, investors and government. It is this pressure from all sources that is making the 100 largest corporate emitters to take notice and take action on climate change. Solar panels are only part of the action, every part of company operations has to be examined and changes made including energy saving so that less energy is needed in the first place.  For companies taking such action this report by WSJ on Panasonic Wuxi is a lesson on how it is done, step by step. ...