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High unemployment estimated at about 30% in Algeria and a stagnant economy. About 300,000 graduates come out of universities each year and the economy is not creating jobs for new graduates. Political life is at a standstill during the long rule of the current president Bouteflika who is 76.

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Muhammadu Buhari wins the March 2015 presidential election in Nigeria winning 54% of the vote compared to 45% for incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan. The peaceful transition is another first for Africa for the size of a country like Nigeria. Buhari was a military ruler for 20 months following a 1983 coup. This is his fourth try running for president. This time he campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, and anti-terrorism campaign as Boko Haram insurgency is affecting the northeast of the country. He also campaigned for economic development and jobs, as Nigeria is sorely lacking infrastructure development such as road, water, electricity, especially in the Muslim north of the country where Buhari is from. Incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan failed to tackle the problems, and the situation deteriorated in 2014-2015 with the lack of security in the country, as the Boko Haram insurgency affected the northeast. In 2015 oil prices collapsed leading to a sharp depreciation in the value of the Naira, Nigeria's currency, and lower oil revenues, a significant setback....

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Eric Cantor is the senior Republican leader in the House of Representatives. He is a key figure in the negotiations with the Obama White House over the budget, deficit reduction, and raising the debt ceiling. Cantor and House Speaker Boehner are leading the negotiations on the Republican side. Cantor rejects any compromise on tax increases. He told reporters: "I think behind this notion of 'We want shared sacrifice' that they continue to say means 'We want to raise taxes,' and we don't accept that we raise taxes in an economy like this." Cantor is a lawyer and a former state legislator from a district that covers the Richmond, Virginia, suburbs. He was elected in 2000. Through his "Young Guns" program Cantor recruited many of the 87 new Republicans who were elected in 2010. It is this support from rank and file Congressman that has propelled Cantor into a leadership position for the deficit talks. Responding to critics that say a compromise is needed from both sides in the talks, Cantor says- "I don't think the White House understands how difficult it is for fiscal conservatives to say they are going to vote for a debt-ceiling increase." On June 23, Cantor pulled out of talks with the White House. In the current round of negotiations Boehner pulled back from "a grand bargain" which included tax increases, after consulting with Cantor....

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Karen Elliott House, who has reported extensively from Saudi Arabia for a long time, says the Saudi succession to a younger generation is established, yet the different strains on the fabric of Saudi society continue. The parts of the society that are Islamic fundamentalist see the monarchy as too worldly compared to a militant Islamic State, and the western educated class sees the monarchy and religious clerics as not making enough room for modern ideas, for women and a free press. Inside the kingdom the very dichotomy that allowed the Saudi state to flourish from its beginnings in the feudal period of the late eighteenth century with Wahhabbi given the role of religious authority in exchange for guaranteeing political legitimacy of the monarchy now creates tensions in a modern state. Outside the kingdom Iran is seen as a rival state in the region, and the Saudi monarchy is seeking the support of the U.S. to fight Islamic State. Ibn Saud, described as a skilled statesman by John Foster Dulles, carefully strengthened the monarchy's role in the region for the first half of the twentieth century in his dealings with Britain and the U.S., and successors including King Abdullah continued his policies. Saudi Arabia now is in a new period of radicalism, and conflicts in the region, with an aging leadership in transition, a house divided against itself, as Karen Elliott House who as observed the kingdom for so long points out....

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Karen Eliott House was a former publisher of the WSJ. Now with WSJ in Murdoch's News Corporation's hands, she is a fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center. Here she points to the diverging situation between the USA and Saudi Arabia. She thinks the US cannot protect the Saudi monarchy (which dates back to Abdul Aziz and his support from President Roosevelt first by recognition of the new state of Saudi Arabia in 1932 and support during the war), from its domestic challenges. One of these domestic challenges is changing demographics as the young or people below 15 years age make up 40% of the population, rising unemployment, and pressures for modernization which the monarchy has done little to respond to, and the lack of democratic forms which would give people a chance to vent their feelings. For the U.S. the frustration is that the Saudis have done little or can do little for the USA in the way of moderating oil prices as they move still higher, because of speculative trends, decline of production in its own maturing oil fields, and needs to finance huge new plants and cities to provide employment to a growing population. In fact Libyan oil officials has been more of a moderating influence recently than the Saudi oil officials. So it appears that what Karen is saying is that the Saudis are pursuing their own interests in their region and the wider region that includes South Asia and Northern Africa, and the US is pursuing its own interests, which at this time are not as clearly defined, except securing oil supplies and protecting Israel. The 2 countries USA and Saudi Arabia are going their diverging and different ways in a way that is irreversible....

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Abe's new team in Japan. Yasuhisa Shiozaki one of the more aggressive appointments signalling change balanced by appointments of older men from his faction in the LDP. Hiroko Ota, a protege of Mr. Takenanka becomes economy minister in charge of the council on Economic and Fiscal Policy. Aso continues as foreign minister and will try to smooth Japan-China relations.

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Jean Francois-Cope, a protege of former president Sarkozy is declared a winner in the party election for the Union for Popular Movement (UMP) in France. Centrist candidate Francois Fillon continues to contest the vote and this decision. Fears of a fracturing of the centre right parties in France. Sarkozy moved to the right in the presidential election in an effort to draw votes from the right wing party of Marie Le Pen. Fillon stands for a more centrist nationalistic Gaullist position. The vote was so tight that Fillon contends he won by 26 votes and will challenge the decision in civil court. The Socialist party of prime minister Hollande faces problems of its own with the sharp decline in popularity of Hollande over his handling of economic issues.