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Venezuelan president Chavez says his cancer has returned and he will need more surgery in Cuba. This comes shortly after winning the presidential election. He asks Venzuelans to support vice president Nicholas Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, for president if new elections are held. Venezuela's constitution requires new elections in 1 month if Chavez dies or resigns. Higher spending in the election year has widened the gap between revenues and spending from 5% to 20%, with expectations Venezuela's currency, the Bolivar, will be devalued.

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A professor from Harvard's Kennedy school describes the Hungarians failure to remember the 1956 Hungarian uprising crushed by the Soviet Union as migrants suffering enormous hardship make their way to Keleti train station in Budapest, Hungary. The Orban government in Hungary refused to let migrants take trains to Austria and Germany. Chancellor Merkel said the Schengen Agreement allowing free movement itself was being called into question. The Orban government later relented and put migrants on buses to Vienna. Throughout this crisis as media showed pictures of the hardships suffered by migrants, and chancellor Merkel assured asylum for hundreds of thousands of migrants, Obama and Harper were silent on the issue. The appalling numbers tell the story, says Ignatieff- with about 1500 for the U.S. and 166 for the UK, according to news reports. He is very critical of Obama, Cameron and Harper, representing the U.S., UK, and Canada, for doing so little.

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The U.S. vice presidential debate between Mike Spence and Tim Kaine showed Kaine focussing attention on Trump's crude attacks on women, praise for Russian president Putin, and opposition to the minimum wage. Spence's tone was measured and his focus was on deflecting the attacks on the crude language used by Trump in the campaign by saying Trump was "not a polished professional politician," like the others, and not responding to the Kaine references to Trump. Spence stuck to issues about immigration open borders, abortion, president Obama's inaction in Syria, the plight of workers in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He did not respond to repeated questions on Trump's failure to disclose his tax returns and his business failures leading to close to a billion dollars in losses and not having paid taxes for 18 years, as disclosed by the New York Times. Spence had to choose between hurting his own chances for reelection with the traditional Republican voters alienated by Trump and standing up for Trump's crude language against women and minorities. He deftly tried to the best using his skills as a radio broadcaster. Kaine who is usually more measured and thoughtful, had to choose between his traditional style of speaking and the role he was expected to play bringing to the public's attention the crude language and style of the Trump campaign and the instability reflected in it. He used his skills as a litigator to ask repeated questions on Trump, especially on the taxes, which leads to questions about funding infrastructure development and jobs without the wealthy paying their share of taxes. ...

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Kristof of the NYT recalls how his own father was a refugee from Eastern Europe, swam the Danube river to safety, and was given refuge by a family in Oregon. He points to the failure of world leadership in both Washington, Moscow and Arab capitals leading to the conflict in which about half of the Syrian people are dislocated by civil war.

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Israelis from across the political spectrum say the nuclear deal with Iran in negotiations with the U.S., Britain and France, threatens Israel. Israel's nuclear experts say the 12 month breakout window for Iran to break the agreement and rush to develop a nuclear weapon in 12 months is not sufficient, because of the time it takes for detection and develop the response. Israelis have a deep distrust of Iran's intentions. On the other side of the Middle East the Saudis are also expressing serious concerns about the negotiations giving Iran enough leeway to keep the nuclear program and make a weapon at a future date. The proposed agreement creates further disagreement between prime minister Netanyahu and U.S. president Obama.

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The difficult relationship between Obama and Netanyahu and how the two leaders could find common ground in 2013 out of necessity.

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Douthat says the record of Texas in jobs, in education, in minority achievement, in rising wages, and in preventing a real estate bubble is genuine and needs to be respected. He is uncertain as to how much of this is a result of Rick Perry's leadership in the state.