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Germany is now in the same situation as France, Spain and Britain during the second wave with over 500 deaths daily in the first week of December. The partial lockdown with closing of the leisure sector and keeping work open, and retail shops open has not helped keep the virus in check as hoped. Christmas is an important holiday period in Germany and crowds continue to form in many shopping areas spreading the virus. Chancellor Merkel lacks authority in a pandemic as the law says states have to decide how best to tackle a pandemic.

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France and Britain are at loggerheads over fishing rights in UK waters. UK will now have 4 Navy patrol ships protect its fishing waters in the event of a no deal Brexit. French and other EU fishermen get 60% of the fish taken from UK waters. UK exclusive economic zone extends 200 miles from the shore. Conservative ministers have doubled the total fleet of patrol ships from four to eight. During patrol in extreme cases a EU boat can be impounded and taken to the nearest EU port, otherwise it could be boarded and inspected.

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Philip Rucker of the WP provides this exceptional account of people on the Staten Island Ferry in New York. Construction workers who like Tump's toughness to tackle terrorism, jobs, and other issues. Others who sees Trump's name on properties all over Manhattan, and think he will bring prosperity. And the female worker at a food pantry who says she sees too many immigrants and looks to Trump to fix this. Staten Island is one of New York's boroughs with a population of 500,000 mostly white people that is not connected to city by subway, is heavily Republican, with new immigrants creating community tensions.

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According to a report from the Southern Education Foundation about 51% of the students from pre-Kindergarden to 12th grade in the U.S. were eligible for the federal program of free and reduced price lunches, using an analysis of 2013 federal data. With the highest proportion of students in poverty concentrated in states in the southern and western U.S.. States all across the south, including Texas, show high concentrations approaching 60-70%, and states in the west such as California show about 50-60%. Midwestern states such as Illinois and Michigan show rates over 50%. The implications of this data are that these children from poor and sometimes chaotic backgrounds trail other children in educational development, are less likely to have educationally enriching activity, and more susceptible to dropping out or never attending college. Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation says the map showing this is striking. He points to the disinclination to invest in young people today, compared to the focus on leadership in areas of creating opportunity and upward mobility in the decades of the 50's through the 80's. Michael Rebell of Teachers College at Columbia University, says reaching this point where a majority of public school children are from poor backgrounds has happened sooner, and the trend has accelerated over time. ...

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The Obama administration makes the decision on June 13, 2013, to supply arms to Syrian opposition forces to the Assad regime and enforce a limited no-fly zone inside Syria. The decision comes as forces of the Assad regime make gains over poorly armed opposition forces and threaten the Syrian opposition's base in the city of Aleppo.

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Japan's military budget will become the third largest after the US and China and take on offensive capabilities, under the new plan of prime minister Kishida. More than half of Japanese now support Japan taking on this role in defense against China and to ensure an open Indo-Pacific. The military buildup calls for $320 billion in spending over 5 years to deter China, and includes missile deployment. The national security paper released in Dec 2023 says- "The strategic challenge posed by China is the biggest Japan has ever faced." To do this Japan's foreign and defense ministers met with their counterparts in the US this week, ahead of a meeting in the US between Kishida and US president Biden. 

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DW.com has this exceptional story on the elections in France through the pictures drawn by cartoonists in French newspapers. As polls show Macron with over 60% of the vote, cartoonists reflected on the situation of a new president with little experience and his "en marche" movement only one year old, looking at it with skepticism. Cartoonist Antoine Chereau shows a common person reflecting on the situation, with the title Macron leads in the first round, the person says that after being deceived by the right and the left, the French are now choosing to try out deception from the centrist. Loic Secheress shows Macron at the steering wheel of a car, with the title the second round Uberized, two passengers in the back saying they do not want to go right or left, and Macron saying- then alright we are going straight into the wall. On the Socialists splitting the vote between Hamon with 6% and Melenchon with about 20%, instead of putting up one candidate and heading into the runoff,  cartoonist Plantu shows Hamon and Melenchon riding one bike in opposite directions, with the title - the losing machine. Cartoonist Soulcie drawing for Le Monde shows a tour guide in front of the Louvre museum pointing to the pyramid architecture in front of the museum and saying- here are the last remains of the socialist civilization. Allan Barte's drawing looks at the elections as another disappointing experience for voters. He shows two voters in front of posters of Marine Le Pen and Macron, one saying I hadn't realized what the expression really meant until now, and the girl next to him says "election piege a cons," meaning "elections are a trap for idiots" used in the May 1968 street protests in France. ...

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Ben Hubbard of the NYT describes the problems created by the Russian bombing campaing in Syria for the civilian population, and the lack of any changes on the ground. Russia may soon be looking for a way out from its involvement in the region, says Hubbard, because of the costs of such an involvement over time.

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The Biden administration has set new rules for restricting leading edge chip manufacturing in China. The policy is intended to prevent military use of advanced chip technologies by China, a policy adopted by Xi Jinping in China. US and China have differences on Taiwan and the Asia-Pacific region. Companies making chips will have to decide if they will invest in the US or China. Any leading edge manufacturing in China of chips over $100,000 or increasing manufacturing capacity by 5% will lead to restrictions being placed on these manufacturers for working with the US. This sends a clear message about US policy for leading edge chip technologies that the US seeks to protect from misuse by other countries.

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Shabana Mahmood, Labour MP, is Keir Starmer's campaign chief for the Labour party. She describes how she struggled over the years to bring the party to where it is now- having a new level of support from the British people. She is Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood. Her first experience with Labour comes from being with her father who was chairman of the Labour party in the area she represents in parliament. Her father was an engineer who came from Kashmir, had been to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and had a great deal of reverence for the British system of parliamentary government. Mahmood met Sunak at Lincoln's College, Oxford, in her junior year. 

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Chuck Searcy, 79 years, was in the Vietnam War at Khe Sanh in 1968 as an intelligence officer. In 1992 he first sees unexploded ordnance- from US bombing in Vietnam. He has over many years cleared an unbelievable amount of these dangerous devices. 8 million tons of ordnance was dropped near Khe Sanh near the Ho Chi Minh trail from 1965 to 1975. About 100,000 people have died or sustained injuries. Hang Nam and Searcy founded Project Renew in 2001- since then almost a million tons of these explosive devices have been removed and children taught to stay away safely. Norwegian's People's Aid is also doing the project to cut injuries to zero. It operates 180 deminers.

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Housing markets in US that went up with jump in demand during the pandemic, markets in Nashville, Austin, Phoenix, are now in downswing. Migration patterns turbocharged by the pandemic are now fading. Overbuilding, slowing in population growth and lack of affordability are creating  vacant office space, and unsold single family homes. From 2020 to 2022 Austin house prices jumped by 60% with very low borrowing costs,, now in 2024 they are down 11% from the peak in 2022. Demand  dropped with a surge in interest rates creating unaffordability. By 2023 home sales reached a 30 year low. even today Austin homes are seen as 35% overvalued as home prices increased at over twice the rate of per capita incomes of 22%.

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Exclusive deals with Samsung, Apple and Mozilla have turned Google into an exclusive monopoly for internet use. The US Justice Department is taking aim at this in the trial that begins today September 12, 2023. It limits choice for Americans and unfairly rewards monopolistic behaviours. President Biden said famously in his State of the Union speech this February "capitalism without competition is not capitalism, it is extortion." It is why the Biden administration is serious about the Tech monopolies which distort the fairness of the American system leading to a monopoly over information so that different ideas are not represented in the same way as they would be in a competitive situation. It also means monopolistic pricing behaviours. 

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This report in the WSJ gives an inside look at recent events in Venezuela. Venezuela's Opposition was fractured without a common strategy to deal with Mr. Maduro for the last 3 years, until Jose Guiado and a small group called Popular Will decided to take action. On Jan 23, 2019 very few opposition leaders knew that the leader of the National Assembly, Jose Guiado, would declare himself president in front of a crowd of 100,000. Venezuela is enduring horrendous inflation of over 1 million percent for the year. After 3 years of setbacks a small group of opposition leaders decided to take action seeing the National Assembly as reflecting democratic voice in the country. In December leaders discussed strategy and a breakthrough came on Jan. 4th when the Lima Group of 14 Latin American countries and Canada called on Mr. Maduro to hand over power to the National Assembly. Most countries have not accepted the results of the recent election of Mr. Maduro. As recently as Jan. 22 even Mr Guiado was not convinced. It was only after Mr. Mike Pence the U.S. VIce President called to express support that he came around. ...

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Experts at the East-West Center in Honolulu, say China will add about 55 million barrels to its strategic reserves in 2012, which is another factor that will keep oil prices high in 2012. A number of new storage locations are coming on stream to store the additional reserves. China imported 5.57 millon barrels a day in March 2012, an increase of 8.7% from the prior year month. Oil imports for the 1st quarter of 2012 increased by 11% over the prior year quarter, according to China's General Administration of Customs. This is a much faster pace than imports in 2011, which increased by 6%. China is building its strategic reserves to reach a goal of 90 days supply similiar to the U.S. strategic reserves. Lu Tienan, director of China's National Energy Administration, said at a conference in the first week of April that current total oil stocks, including strategic and commercial are enough for 40 days. It is doing this in the face of higher oil prices, because of the threat of sanctions against Iran's nuclear program could lead to a cutoff of Iranian supplies. China's oil imports from Iran were 11% of total imports in 2011, making this an urgent priority for China. Estimates of the East-West Center are for crude oil imports at an average of 5.77 million barrels a day in 2012, an increase of 13% over 2011. International Energy Agency estimates are for China's total oil demand for 2012 to be 9.9 million barrels a day in 2012, an increase of 6% over 2011....

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Micheal Martin, prime minister of the Irish Republic, says the 2011 visit by Queen Elizabeth to Ireland helped in "lightening the load of history." A history which has seen the British rule over the island of Ireland since 1603. The use of Irish language was banned the period of The Plantations with British settlements began in the Northeast and south east, and of British law, leading to great resentment by the Irish. The Queen spoke words of Irish during her visit to Dublin Castle for state dinner and laid a wreath at the Dublin Garden of Rememberance, a park that is dedicated to the Irish men and Irish women who fought against British rule.  One of these Irish women is remembered in India as Sister Nivedita, who helped organize the early efforts of Swami Vivekanada's mission to revive the effort for practice of yoga and for Swaraj or self rule in British India.

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Jay Powell and the US Fed have less to worry about from China's increasing demand for oil in 2023 that could keep oil prices high, says this column in WSJ. China says Taplin, has over 50% of oil demand coming from the construction industry, heavy industry and the trucking that backs it up. The construction industry has problems from years of overexpansion, and heavy industry, manufacturing, faces lower demand for Chinese exports from the US and Europe in 2023. This means oil demand will not increase enough to keep oil prices high, says Taplin. This puts the Fed in a better position to tackle inflation, just as the decline in global shipping and spare capacity in shipping, supply chains returning to normal is helping the Fed.

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Us stock market gains of 24% in 2023 are seen as a surprise after fears of Fed tightening leading to a downturn. Instead inflation has come down and with government investment in infrastructure and bringing factories back to the US, boosting US manufacturing, the US is building a stronger economy. A related WSJ article has graphs that show over 50% of US households owning stocks so that the gains in stocks since 2020 are now more widely shared in the US population. Along with wage gains and bringing down the cost of living and moderating housing costs it sets the stage for a recovery of America from the free market experiments that followed after Reagan leading to the 2009 financial crisis, neglect of manufacturing and shipping of factories overseas.

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This report in WSJ says industry and Boeing officials now increasingly believe that workers at Boeing factory reinstalled a plug in 737 Max 9 jet but failed to put back the bolts. The door plug blew off 16000 feet over Oregon leading to an emergency landing. Boeing is affected by lack of good quality practices and worker training for quality standards for several years. The question remains why this sort of defect is not detected in the final inspection detail checklist, with a second final inspection and third for overall quality. And why the plane is not checked again for obvious defects by the airline when it receives the new plane.The cost of this is minimal compared to the cost of compensating airlines for losses in some way and loss of customer loyalty.

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The Ministry of Commerce in China conducts anti-monopoly reviews and sets rules for which divestments need to occur in merger arrangements. In the Pfizer merger with Wyeth, the Ministry required Pfizer to sell a Chinese swine vaccine business to Harbin Pharmaceutical Group.. The concern- Pfizer could control 50% of the swine vaccine business in China with some 500 million pigs. Five other merger and acquisition transactions have come under review. Coca-Cola's $2.4 billon acquisition for a Chinese juice maker is stalled. Novartis and Eli Lilly showed interest but the Ministry of Commerce preferred to steer things to a Chinese player. In future it is expected that rules will favor up and comig local companies over large foreign companies.

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Zimbabwe is facing a huge crisis from drought conditions in the country. About 2 million people in Harare lack running water as the dams are drying up to a trickle. Waters from the Zambezi river that go down to Victoria Falls are a third less than in normal conditions. The Falls separate Zimbabwe from Zambia. 
BBC's Hard Talk program shows a parched desert looking region with elephants struggling to survive in the national park near Victoria Falls. 

This report in The Times says that 815,000 acres of forest are being chopped down each year in Zimbabwe as desperate residents cut down remaining trees to fight lack of fuel, blackouts and poverty. One has simply to see this devastated region to grasp the effect of drought and effects of climate change combined with effects of poverty and lack of governance.

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European banks hold $147 billion of Portugal's assets and $117 billion of Greece's assets. The banking systems of Euopean lending countries are heavily exposed in the event of a sovereign default which is why it is in the self interest of Germany and France to come up with an aid package that restores confidence in financial markets, to avoid a direct hit to their banking system. Because of the ineptitude of Europe's decisionmakers, especially Chancellor Angela Merkel, private investors will not play the role in helping roll over Greek debt at tolerable interest rates that they could have played. With the now larger aid package of $160 billon there are still concerns from other angles. One is that debts of Greece will continue to grow- hence the three year aid plan. Analysis by the Economist suggests that the Greek government debt would rise to 149% of GDP by 2014 even with an aggressive budget deficit reduction of 12 percentage points (excluding interest costs). This assumes an interest cost of 5% in the aid package. In an average year Greece needs to refinance 40 billon euros of its debt and $70 billon is needed to cover cumulative budget deficits till 2014, hence the need for the IMF to step in and the nervousness in financial markets. ...

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Is a Win-Win possible for the US/Israel and Iran possible with the US/Israel strikes and operations started March 1, 2026. Not just for the American and Israeli people, but for the people of the Arab countries and for the people of Iran, and for the people of Russia. Greg Ip in the WSJ, Marc Thiessen in the NYT, and Bret Stephens of the NYT have looked at this in this way and offer an alternative view of what might happen, even though the tendency of the WSJ and the Washington Post is to be skeptical and the NYT with an opposition to all things DJT offering pessimistic version. First, all the anticolonial writings that were read by Khamanei in Moshaad are no longer the case as the US is no longer acting to secure some benefit to itself as the British and French colonial powers did for themselves or their oil companies in pre1960's Iran. Second the US truly wants to learn the lessons of 30 years of troubles in the region at every level of the DJT administration which is to extend a true olive branch to the subdued foe as it did to Germany and Japan under generals Eisenhower and McArthur. Third moderates in Iran could emerge as in Germany ( Adenauer) and in Japan Shigeru Yoshida who worked to adopt the 1947 Japanese Constitution under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Behind the student protests and now national protests there is a realization in Iran that living perpetually under sanctions is not the way to live, that it can increase oil production, get investment in its industry, and raise standards of living, by doing something different. That nuclear weapons development, supporting movements overseas, perpetual conflicts with Arab states, these things have been tried and are not working. That this is the last chance to build a prosperous Iran before fossil fuels are replaced by renewable energy over 10-15 years and which will make it that much harder to modernize and develop Iran for the benefit of Iran's future 110 million people. The gap with India will only widen as India catches up with China, the way China caught up with Japan. It is better to accept that these anticolonial writings that emerged from decolonizing Arab North Africa applied to the British and the French, and that the world is a different place today as the Indians and the Chinese have realized modernizing ancient societies with ancient religions is possible with the help of the Americans and the Europeans, working with the Americans and the Europeans. Theodore Roosevelt says in his Autobiography that one should be careful to judge people as the best have some negative aspects and the worst have some positive aspects, an experience he described in his dealings with progressives and those who opposed changes. Adenauer and Yoshida had contacts and dealings with earlier governments defeated in the war, but wanted to search for an entirely different path for rebuilding their countries having learned from experience. A thoughtful moderate Iranian outcome is possible as happened in Germany and Japan and which is beginning to develop in Venezuela.   ...