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In a country with 70% inflation and debt of $83 billion, the NPP party leader Anura Dissanayake  who had only 3% of votes in the 2019 election wins by a landslide. Sri Lanka's economy is stabilizing with IMF assistance and negotiation, yet the economy has left the people in great difficulty to meet basic needs. Dissanayake led the JVP party in 1989-1997 period with considerable disturbances for which he has apologized. The Rajapaksa government also won with a landslide but failed during covid and the debt buildup crippled the economy and left the central bank without funds for essential imports. Ranil Wickremasinghe of a centre right party the UNP led a government after the economic collapse and negotiated a deal with the IMF, which included raising taxes to stabilize finances. Corruption and depletion of funds that are allocated for infrastructure and essential economic improvement, is a perennial problem in Sri Lanka since independence, making it impossible to build a modern economy from what the British left- rubber and tea plantations, an educated citizenry, good administration without the investment it deserved.  This problem also exists in India, Malaysia and many parts of Asia. The Modi government in Gujarat and the federal level was the first to break away from this by making every infrastructure dollar count and well spent with delivery in 3-4 years of highways, hospitals, airports, bridges, and logistics infrastructure for exports. ...

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The Soviet experience in Afghanistan and the documents now in the hands of Ameican and Russian scholars from the archives. These documents show the commander of Soviet forces in Afghanistan Akhromeyev sent amessage similiar to General McChrystal's to the Soviet Politburo on November 13, 1996. It asked for more troops just as the soviets were in the seventh year of their nine year long Afghan conflict, with 110,000 troops unable to do more than control the provincial centers. With the rest of the country in the political control of the mujahideen. He told his commander in chief; To occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such avast land where the insurgents can just diappear into the hills." Victor Sebestyen points out that the scenes of the soviet's fighting were in places like Knadahar and Helmand provinces where the Americans are seeing the heavist fighting, in the south and eastern parts of Afghanistan. He also points out that the Soviet Defence Staff chief Ogarkov actually advised against the Soviet invasion from the beginning saying: "it will align the entire Islamic East against us, and mire us in unfamiliar, difficult conditions. But he was overruled by Brezhnev and cutoff in midsentence with the reply, "focus on military maters and leave the policy making to us." ...

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Eighteen year old Bianca Andreescu, part Romanian, playing for Canada in the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, a teenager with poise and creativity, wins against veteran player Serena Williams 6-3, 7-5. Martina Navratilova, who with Margaret Court is one of the women's tennis great players, describes Andreescu's game as so refreshing and old fashioned because it is the creative game that was played by fellow Romanian Ilie Nastase and players like Rod Laver and John Newcombe from another era. In a highly creative game with poise and variety of shots Andrescu is bringing back the game to what it once was. In today's game, says Navratilova, players stay on the baseline and play similar shots till something happens. Andrescu intelligently and creatively used a variety of shots, making it fun to watch her play.

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Improving business conditions and lower unemployment are helping president Macron of France recover from a drop in popularity following the yellow vest protests. Macron tackled the crisis by changing his style of governance from top down to a listener style with regular town hall meetings and meetings with people who were critical of his government. Recent poll from Elabe shows 33% approve of the French leader compared to 23% in December 2018 at the height of the yellow vest protests. The yellow vest protests were from people who felt left out at the lower end of the wage scale who were protesting increasing inequality. Macron also offered minimum wage earners billions of dollars and shelved his economic agenda till he had a better grasp of the French public's opinions. The recovery in the economy means Macron has more flexibility in taking up priority items in the national agenda. The French pension system is fragmented with about 43 different plans, with some plans for transport workers offering generous retirement by age 52. The system is also likely to go into deficit of 10 billion euros in 2022. Brazil has run into major economic crisis from generous pension plans taking up a major part of the budget. Macron wants to increase the number of years people work before they collect pensions, not just increase the retirement age of 62. Most major European countries are at 65 years retirement age, the U.S. is at 66 years. Transport workers paralysed the nation's transport system including subways and bus systems recently to keep their generous benefits. Macron sees himself as promoting a national agenda similar to India for GST, and other countries tackling shortfall in pension systems by increasing the retirement age, even though in the short run people who benefit from the old system oppose it. By addressing grievances at the lower wage levels and tackling glaring issues in the way benefits such as pensions are distributed Macron can win enough support to offset the opposition of entrenched groups. Lawyers will see their pension contributions double for lower benefits and are opposing the pensions overhaul. For decades workers in different groups or sectors took to the streets in protest making any changes even if well thought out and in the national interest hard to make in France. By taking on entrenched groups tactically and first letting the groups express their sentiment before announcing top down changes, and by being an empathetic listener, Macron is showing that he has learned a lot from the past year without losing his sense of what is best for France. It just maybe that in the short run there is an offset gaining some support from neutral groups and losing support of entrenched groups. Yet in the long run when the dust settles there is more overall support particularly through empathetic listening and carefully planned flexible approach to making changes that improve the economy and reduce unemployment. ...

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The Republican tax bill that passed the House and Senate in Dec. 2017 is likely to increase the deficit in the range of about $516 billion according to Tax Foundation or $ 1trillion according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, after boost to growth is included. This time in an effort to get a win Republicans cast aside doubts about the effects on the deficit to get it passed. During the Obama years tax legislation failed to get Republican support because of impact on deficits. The reluctance of president Obama to touch the deductions as proposed by the Simpson-Bowles Commission showed the politically cautious approach taken by Obama.  The new bill was examined by the NYT for its impact on various income groups. For people making over $50,000 over 80% get a cut in taxes, about 10% see no difference and the rest see increase in taxes. This goes up by a few percentage points to 84-85% in cuts for people making over 200,000 to $ 1 million, and drops to 80% for over $1 million incomes. About 20% see an increase in taxes for incomes over $1 million.  As evidence of how the tax bill impacts in greater detail this is not provided by the NYT, and shows that the impact of the bill is still not fully understood.     ...

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Edouard Philippe resigns as prime minister as he begins a new phase for the 2022 presidential elections. His popularity increased to 50% for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in France, exceeding Macron's 38% in June. Mr. Philippe won the race for New Havre in recent municipal elections in which Mr. Macron's party failed to win a single large city, making its future uncertain. The Ecology party recently split from Mr. Macron's party in parliament. In 3 years in office Mr. Philippe maintained his independence and did not join the Macron party. Mr. Philippe followed a conservative path in government. His replacement is Mr Castex, mayor of a small town Prades in southern France.

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Making some territorial concessions appears to be the only way for peace talks to succeed. For a long time there was insistence on territorial sovereignty of Ukraine by EU and NATO leaders. This appears to have prolonged the war- with needless loss of life on both sides, and costly damage to Ukraine infrastructure, a population that had to face additional winters and hardship in war ravaged areas. NATO's Stoltenberg from Norway, leaders of northern Nordic and Baltic countries, the UK, could take that position without having to face the hardship of the war. NATO had to be re-formed under a new name and new structure  following the collapse of the Soviet Union, with wariness about the possibility of centuries old since 1700 UK and Nordic historical adversarial relationship with Russia casting a shadow over that organization, and embroiling the US in conflicts not of its own choice or of wise leadership. This is the root cause of the Ukraine war. It would have been best to completely restructure NATO and give it a new name without Northern European nations leading it. Principles matter once soviet communism was no longer there NATO formed for its expansionism in 1950's had served it's purpose. Rasmussen from Denmark and Stoltenberg from Norway led the organization for the last decade and half from 2009-2014 and 2014 to 2025, with backing from Obama/Merkel for most of the period of the war in Ukraine. Also most of the period NATO expanded to Russian borders happened under Northern European leaders from Spain, Britain and Nordics (Solana, Robertson, Scheffer, Rasmussen and Stoltenberg) and the organization NATO getting the northern European slant based on historical adversarial relationship of Britain and Russia since 1700- for no other reason than the British wanting to protect its large Empire and commerce in India which in the 18th and 19th century included most of Asia. Under Robertson the UK Defense Secretary much of this transformation into turning NATO into something anti-Russian happened which was primarily because of British and Nordic perceptions of Russia as an adversary. Robertson added the following countries at the Prague Summit in 2002 to NATO- the Baltics, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Russia faced internal upheaval in those years and Yeltsin in resigned in 1999, Putin was elected in 2000. It is clear that Russia had suffered severe economic hardship in that period and Putin's first goal in 2002 was to stabilize the economy.  It could be said that this turning NATO over to UK and Nordics was a huge mistake considering that Russia was still the largest nuclear power after the US, and British policy was now determining US policy. And Britain's Robertson/NATO should not have involved itself in the Afghanistan war using Article 5, as the US could have handled this alone and limited that engagement. It got US involved in another conflict, conflict with Russia that was to come in Ukraine on the side of the Baltics and Ukraine, without US clearly understanding what the roots of that war was about and implied confrontation with Russia 20 years after the Prague Summit in 2002 under George Bush junior. The incompetence of Bush and Obama/Merkel laid the seeds of the Ukraine war in 2022 following Robertson, Rasmussen, Stoltenberg, small Nordic nations and Britain creating a conflict that did not need to happen, with loss of hundreds of thousands of lives of Russian speaking fraternal peoples of both Russia and Ukraine. The Republican sentiment under DJT of the tragedy of such huge losses of young people, and desire to end this loss of life, can nowhere be seen in bellicose talk in northern European nations, that take the US for granted to fight their wars.  The wisdom of Washington, Lincoln and TR/FDR clearly caution in getting involved in European centuries old animosities. For the US it meant in practical terms that it could no longer carry out the Monroe Doctrine essential for peace and good governance in the western hemisphere as only a Russia desperate to make its views known about NATO would interfere in the western hemisphere against US assertion of the Monroe Doctrine with the US Navy. Instead drug trafficking gangs took over Latin American countries and created a flow of fentanyl and millions of people through migrant traffickers across the US southern border. As America has expressed its concern for loss of Russian and Ukrainian men in the war for the first time under DJT Russia has distanced itself from Venezuela, Mexico and Latin America. The loss of hundreds of thousands of young Americans to fentanyl is a shared tragedy with the loss of hundreds of thousands of young Russians and Ukrainians in the last decade. How reliable are Northern European countries when it comes to protecting the eastern seaboard of the US with the acquisition of Greenland? It is a policy pursued by presidents since the Alaska Acquisition from Russia. By Seward, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman and DJT. Denmark the land where NATO secretary general Rasmussen was from followed by Stoltenberg from Norway  (for 15 of the years of the war in Ukraine 2010-2025) the US efforts to protect its eastern seaboard are rebuffed by both Denmark and Norway, and the US presented in a negative light as an imperialist power in the face of Danish East India Company's  colonial attitude since 1700 clearly imitating the colonial British East India company.  It shows Northern European nations looking out for themselves not for the US, and embroiling the US in their wars at the cost of the entire western hemisphere being destabilized. The population of UK, Denmark and Norway, Baltics is far less than the Mumbai, Shanghai, Sao Paulo , Berlin and Tokyo regions. Should the views of a small population in northern Europe of 2% of the total determine the future of US, Europe, China, India, Brazil, and other parts of the world with 5 billion people the 98%, when issues of war and nuclear conflict, nuclear buildup, the western hemisphere destabilized with drug trafficking gangs running rampant in countries, divide the world in opposing blocs, when the wellbeing of most of the world's people in Asia and Latin America, Africa is at stake by establishing a essential degree of cooperation by all sides. The US under DJT has chosen a wise policy of cooperation over conflict -with China, with Russia, with all the major powers, and with smaller powers. Reading the wisdom contained in the writings of Washington, Lincoln, TR/FDR confirms it is clearly the wise choice. ...

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Robert Stavins of the environmental economics program at Harvard is cited in this NYT article by Coral Davenport. Stavin says that even with the change in policy favoring fossil under Trump administration the trend is towards using less fossil fuel and this trend is unlikely to change. This makes the claims of Trump that half a million jobs can be created with less regulation of the coal industry and shale oil industry, less likely. Industry is shifting away from coal for economic reasons and investors preferences, say experts. At the same time the progress away from fossil fuels is likely to be inadequate to avoid the worst effects of global warming, says Stavins. The change by industry is reflected in the decisions made by executives such as Nicholas Akins at American Electric Power, Ohio based electric power company. Akins tells NYT that he is making decisions for power generation 20, 30 and 40 years from now, and this assumes some form of carbon control. He says no question but that industry will move forward with cleaner energy and that means closing large coal facilities. The incoming Trump administration does not affect his policy. Another factor away from coal is dictated by economics- the availability of cheap natural gas from hydraulic fracturing. Incentives for renewable sources such as wind, solar, are not likely to change either say experts, because the solar panels and wind turbines are made in Republican and Democratic favoring districts and have support of Republicans in places like Arizona, Texas and Kansas. ...

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The NFP Front populaire alliance of socialist parties wins the most seats 200+ in early projections in the National Assembly in France. Macron's Ensemble party comes in second with about 150 seats, and the RN National Rally third with about 130 seats. This is the most closely watched election in European Union in decades. Voter turnout was 67% up from 48% in the last election. Only the Front Populaire called for investment in the French economy- not the Macron Ensemble or the Le Pen RN party- and taking serious cost of living action for gas prices, food prices, transport prices, for the struggling lower and middle classes in France. With corporations and the super rich paying their fair share- also a modest share- investment of $140 billion is planned for infrastructure, manufacturing, jobs and wages, climate change action in the French Nation.

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Maroes Oldenburg of Netherlands stays calm in the final micro seconds taking a cue from the British rowers on the previous day as the Netherlands quad women rowing team win gold Paris Olympics 2024 by a fraction of a second- 0.18 seconds to be exact. Jonathan Liew of The Guardian shows the spirited Dutch effort in the final seconds. Maroes Oldenburg is recovering from a bicycling accident while traveling in Austria breaking her back, when she had to have a 6 hour surgery and was told she may not make it. It took 1 month for her to walk. “For anyone who needs some inspiration, break your neck and you can win Olympic gold,” says Maroes.  Glover who came in second has three children. Liew laments the lack of investment in childcare for woman athletes with small children, 124 years after women were admitted into the Olympics. Paris Olympics has a small investment in childcare, a nursery for the first time. Liew is right in saying throwing flowers from a distance at athletes is the easy part, giving working parents the tools to do well and childcare comes down to choices that we make. ...

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A sign of the growing people to people relationship of the US and India is the number of Indians in US graduate schools which went up from 68,000 to 102,000 in the 2021-2022 academic year, up 48%. There almost as many Indians taking the GRE exam for entry into US graduate schools in 2023 as Americans taking GRE in the US. Another sign of the expanding people to people relationship is the decision of the Biden administration to give 1 million visitor visas to Indians in the coming year. In India physical sciences and humanities for GRE exceed engineering by a wide margin, showing the shift in subjects. Under India's new education policy NEP the shift is to a more multidisciplinary approach and allowing students to mix science subjects, math with humanities. This approach is seen as best for India to produce a new generation that can think for itself better than the purely engineering science or medical track graduates of the past who had limited knowledge of the humanities. This overly engineering focus has prevailed in the educational approaches of Japan and China during their rapid growth period. India under the Modi administration is betting on a wider knowedge of different and contrasting subjects and disciplines for its future. ...

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Efforts to de-escalate the situation in Catalonia by Arturo Mas, head of the previous government in Catalonia. He says that realistically Catalans need to get international support before taking any more steps, even if the pro-independence parties win in the regional election.

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Without government aid about 12 million more people would have fallen into poverty in the US during the pandemic in 2020-2021. This is evident from census figures analyzed in the WSJ and NYT. The Supplemental Poverty Measure -which takes into account a broader range of income and expenses including hundreds of billions of dollars of pandemic aid -shows that poverty actually declined, dropping by 2.9% to 9.1%, as a result of government taking action in the US under the Trump and Biden administrations. The $400 billion  dollars of stimulus checks and aid during the Trump and Biden administrations in 2021 have made a real difference in the lives of not just poor Americans but Americans in the middle class and all sections of society. Similar aid was delivered in the European Union and Britain. In India government aid was distributed by depositing money directly into hundreds of millions of bank accounts of poor and marginal income people. Aid included food aid in grains, lentils and vegetables directly provided at subsidized prices or free by the government. Right wing or left wing government designations were meaningless as governments of different persuasions acted decisively to provide direct and timely help in US, Europe, and India. ...

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As the Nation faces discord over the right Path Forward it is important to remember- the pandemic's costs for a once in a century event are still being added up. Not just 1 million dead. 1 million with struggles over Long Covid. The toll on the elderly affecting tens of millions of caregivers. 10 million affected by decision not to vaccinate- with adverse symptoms and at work, 20-50 million affected by the financial losses stemming from the pandemic hit to jobs and work in 2019-2020. As the Nation discusses its future there is a sense that many have been left behind even with the best intentions of government. With huge wins in infrastructure now and ahead of us,  the wins are not enough in cutting pharmaceutical and other day to day living costs. Harris has a plan and Trump has no plan for Cost of Living Action. Yet a lot more could have been done for cost of living action given a president with a single focus determination to fix problems, make the large investments needed and full support of both houses of Congress. It is this lack of full Congressional support of a determined president for taking action that has led to insufficient effort to fix cost of living, wages and public services- something that needs to change to bring help to the middle class and lower income working people of America. ...

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From 2007 to 2022 US electricity demand flattened with new energy efficient technologies. It is now poised to increase from 2022 to 2035 and the process is happening  with approval of new natural gas plants and new data centers, new manufacturing plants needing large amounts of renewable energy. This say Plumer and Popovich in NYT could very well upset president Biden's plans to get 100% of energy from renewables by 2035 and cut greenhouse gas emissions by half to tackle climate change. Utilities are moving ahead with putting up new natural gas plants, and new data centers are needed for the shift to remote work since 2020, electric automobile and chip making plants are coming up at a rapid pace. Without a sustained effort the climate change action needed may not take place with the long lead times to bring renewable solar, wind and other energy and put it in place for transmission. This report looks at the data centers coming up in Virginia and the EV manufacturing plants in Georgia as examples for the new demand and how it could upset plans for climate change action. ...

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Qatar's sovereign wealth fund supports PSG Paris and Qatar Airways supports Bayern Munich. Barcelona is one of the richest clubs along with PSG but says this report it has wasted a lot of money about $950 million getting players that it later deemed not needed, 30 players for that amount since 2014.This includes Coutinho who scored 2 of the 8 goals of Bayern in the 8-2 Bayern win over Barcelona. Bayern also played with Thiago Alcantara a player released by Barcelona. All the time Barcelona was looking at players to support Messi and making bad decisions. It released Neymar to PSG for $260 million even though it had second thoughts about the merits of that decision, just because of the money. For what you get for the money Bayern got key players for under $120 million to beat Lyon. Manchester city spent $600 million by contrast to put together its team. For Bayern its home grown talent comes from Thomas Muller and Alaba. Lewandowski and Goretzka were signed up. The best talent comes from youngsters Serge Gnabry of France and Alphonso Davies of Canada, for a combined $21 million. PSG also has broken the bank in signings but it has cooled down since and is calmer now. It signed Mbappe for $160 million, a critical piece of the plan for PSG. PSG coach Tuchel brought back Chuopo Moting for free and he was the hero for the win over Atalanta in the closing minutes. Simply an act of faith in his players by Tuchel from old times when Tuchel coached the youth leagues, which he loved doing.  Bayern chairman Rummenigge says "we'll try to save money." Making the best use of money starting with homegrown talent and young promising players is a winning game. At key points in the game with Barcelona, Davies and Coutinho showed the value of this approach. ...

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Jacobs and Richtel of the NYT give this exceptional story of how Mexico changed between 1980 and 2016. Following the joining of NAFTA free trade zone the Mexican diet and food ecosystem began to more closely resemble the food diet system in the U.S. bringing with it severe health consequences. Soda and coke are now more entrenched in Mexico, as are fast food outlets. In 1980 only 7% of Mexicans were obese, compared to 20% in 2016, according to Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington. And diabetes kills 80,000 people a year, becoming the top killer according to the World Health Organization. A trade expert at Tufts University, Timothy Wise, says Mexico took on the worst aspects of a first world country like the U.S., with few protections. A similar problem is taking place in India and China as obesity grows, according to the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard, as low nutrient highly processed foods of large food companies with huge advertising budgets take a prominent place in diets. This is a growing problem for countries from Colombia to Ghana and Nigeria. ...

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In a game where the physical push and shove happened abundantly with many fouls including some involving Toni Kroos and leading to the sending off of Pedri, the Spaniards simply were the more resilient side. Spain led for most of the regular play period with a goal from Dani Olmo from a Yamal pass. Wirtz scored for Germany only in the 86th minute with a scramble taking place in front of goal. Spain were the better team overall and scored in extra time in what was a quarter final game but could have been the final, such was the intensity displayed by Germany who were seen by their fans as not having the determination to win in other games. Spain simply had some of the best players- Rodrigo, Yamal , Olmo and Morata and the play was relentless on both sides.

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US Supreme Court hears arguments from D. John Sauer Solicitor General of the US on DJT Tariffs Wednesday, November 5, 2025. The Supreme Court will hear about a case brought by a small wine importing company with 19 employees. The US president used the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) that allows the president to impose tariffs. The IEEPA was introduced by president Jimmy Carter in 1977. It was used during the Iran hostage crisis. It has been used for the Venezuelan regime after elections were rigged with human rights violations, on Belarus as early as 2006, and on Mexico for drug cartels. This increases the responsibilities of the Justices of the Court as these sanctions have broad support of the American people. Tariffs were imposed on China for illicit fentanyl flows and a 25% tariff was imposed on Canada and Mexico under Executive Orders 14193, 14194, and 20% on China under Executive Order 14195 in 2025 for illicit drug traffic flows across their borders into the US. Illicit flows that has taken the lives in the case of fentanyl of more young people than were killed in the Vietnam, Korean and First World Wars combined.  For the reason that the economic aspect of tariffs now overlaps with trading partners abuse of basic rights of their largest trading partner the US in the case of Canada, Mexico and China not stopping such flows, the issue before the Supreme Court is basic to the US as a Nation to protect its citizens under these Executive Orders and IEEPA- not the kind of interpretation of the law the USC does for most or almost all of its cases. In 2025 a lot of the discourse is distorted and does not reflect the way citizens of the Nation should show concern for the welfare and safety of their fellow citizens in communities around them severely hurt by the scourge of fentanyl and other opioids making their way from other countries conducted by drug trafficking gangs outside the US.  Also relevant is that the tariffs are correcting trade deficits of $1 trillion of the world with China that threaten the economic security of the US, EU, India and other countries. Larger companies are moving their supply chains out of China to reduce concentration in China, impact on inflation is slight with 3.0 % inflation in September 2025. Smaller companies such as the wine company in this lawsuit are unable to do so. Most of the smaller businesses affected can be compensated with a fund from the tariffs revenue of $500 billion in 2025-2026. In this way the goals of the US as a Nation can be achieved of reducing the supply channels concentration in China, cutting supply chain concentration in China, for fair trade with trading partners EU/Japan, and for action on fentanyl and drug trafficking. Justice Roberts and his team have a lot to think about in this effort by the Nation to correct abuses that should never been allowed to happen. ...

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 Harris's role for the Border was limited to telling Central American migrants to stay home. Much of the migration was a result of wars started in the Reagan years in Central American states of Nicaragua and San Salvador. This destabilized the region and led to gangs taking over parts of the country in San Salvador and entrenching Castro style regime in Nicaragua, leading to outward migration of young people. As this report points out Harris was supposed to take on decades of such misguided policies in Central America in a few months. A drought hit agricultural coffee regions of Guatemala increasing migration. Her role instead was to ensure several wins. Win No.1 to generate stability setting up the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala, singling out corrupt regimes. Win No. 2 to generate jobs. US AID and IFDC loans were increased, foreign investment attracted to generate 250,000 jobs. Win No. 3 the increased stability led to gradually declining migration from Central America. What replaced it was Venezuela. And that is a repeat story of Reagan style wars in Central America. Under the Trump Administration the US did not take up the Monroe Doctrine and act directly to support a stable fairly elected government in Venezuela, an obvious solution. Instead going half way- destabilizing the government but then left it on its own. The result about a third of the population leaving the country in these years to Colombia and other parts of Latin America in a immense humanitarian tragedy.  In 2023 Venezuelans not Guatemalans entered at the US Border in large numbers, most of them middle class families that left Venezuela after hyperinflation and mismanagement of the economy. Realizing the danger by January 2024 Biden negotiated with Senate Minority Leader McConnell and his Republican representative Senator Lankford to pass legislation in the Senate closing the Border. All that was needed was the House to act and 30 years of Border problem would be solved.This was blocked in the House by new Speaker Mike Johnson on advice from former president Trump who chose to use the issue in the 2024 election. Biden then used his executive powers to close the Border leading to lower numbers of migrants under Biden by July 2024 than under Trump. Migration Border Czar was never a term used by Democrats in the Obama and Biden years. Biden who also served in a role given migration as one of the issues to handle under Obama, had this as only one of his assignments. Biden played more important roles in foreign policy with his experience as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for decades. Border policy was made by president Obama and his advisers. The same is true of Harris, Border policy being done by president Biden and his advisers. Similar to Biden's role as VP Harris was given assignment to cover foreign policy and was the US representative at 3 Munich Security Conferences in 2021-2024 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz of Germany said of Harris last week that he had full confidence in Harris as both competent and experienced. ...

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France's GDF Suez takes a $20.4 billion writedown. The European power generation industry is taking large losses as a result of the growth in wind and solar energy.

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This report in Der Spiegel shows how the efforts to act on climate change are stalled in Germany with the failure to agree on how coal fired plants will be closed in the ongoing three party negotiations. The FDP party is pro-business and no agreement is reached with the Greens and the CDU on how to move ahead with the 65% of German power plants that do not rely on renewable energy such as solar and wind. Modern gas facilities are unprofitable making this a major challenge for Germany to cut power emissions under the Paris Climate Change Agreement and German targets of the Merkel government. Spiegel points out that energy companies are not keen on keeping the old coal power plants which are now outdated and an agreement is needed.

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Patti Pope, CEO of Consumers Energy, a Michigan power company serving 7 million consumers, is moving to greener sources for energy. Consumers Energy retired 7 coal fired power plants and is shifting to solar farms, wind farms for energy, smart thermostats and meters, new infrastructure, taking advantage of the lower costs of renewable energy.

It plans to invest $25 billion over the next 10 years, including to add 6 gigawatts of solar power requiring 59 square miles of solar panels in its service area. Included are plans to help customers to produce and manage their own power as more users install solar panels in homes.

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In an overwhelming victory in Burma's 2015 general election Aung San Suu Kyi's party wins 80% of the vote, with the military backed party winning only 41 seats of 491 seats in parliament. The National League for Democracy wins 397 seats. Both sides underestimated their strength. Suu Kyi supporters estimated they would get 60% of the vote, and the military expected to win about 130 seats. The 1990 elections and Suu Kyi's victory were annulled by the military. This time Suu Kyi will appoint the president, as she is banned from taking office under the military drafted constitution. It has taken 25 years for the change in Burma. China and India supported the military rulers in Burma, while the U.S. and UK consistently opposed the military. India a regional democracy put regional considerations ahead of democratic process, showing how even democratic governments failed to respond, especially when the military cracked down on Buddhist temples in 2007. Mrs Bush, Hillary Clinton, and other Americans showed strong support for Suu Kyi throughout her house arrest following the 1990 election. Hillary Clinton visited Myanmar as U.S. Secretary of State in 2011 to show her support for Suu Kyi, which may have set the process in motion for the 2015 free election in Burma. ...

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Difficulties faced in winning the farm vote in Gujarat made it harder for Modi's BJP party to win Modi's home state in recent elections. This could lead to a more cautious approach from the BJP government. Price supports and subsidies were an issue for cotton farmers in Gujarat, leading to the loss of seats for the BJP party in Saurashtra region of Gujarat. The BJP resisted measures to boost price supports, subsidies and debt forgiveness leading to the loss of farmers support.

Modi remains popular in the country yet the election shows corruption, difficult situation of farmers facing inflation and water issues, and voters willingness to shift support, could make the ruling party more cautious in taking steps after the introduction of GST unified tax system and monetization slowed growth to 5.7% by mid-2017.