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The Biden administration is pushing ahead with a new supply chain at a virtual two day meeting of 17 countries. In addition to the US and the European Union trade and economy ministers of Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore, Indonesia, will attend. It is an effort to build an alternative to the existing supply chain because of its dangerous dependence on China and Russia.

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The rapid gains in Indian digital public infrastructure have interoperability and can benefit other countries. Digital public infrastructure plays a crucial role in providing inclusive access to public services effectively and efficiently. Countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina in Latin America, and countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam in Asia, countries in Africa, can benefit from the Indian experience. This topic  is part of the G-20 discussions in India.

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Ministers of foreign affairs and defense from the U.S. will visit India for the 2+2 India - U.S. Ministerial Dialogue. Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Esper will meet Indian ministers Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh for closer ties on October 27. The American ministers will also visit Jakarta, Indonesia and Colombo, Sri Lanka. Their goal is for a open and free Indo-Pacific region through cooperation of the nations in the region.

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India to export 1 million tons of wheat to Egypt. India now supplies wheat to Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, UAE, and other countries in the Asian region. This meets a growing need after the Ukraine war cutoff supplies on which much of the Middle East depends for wheat.

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The huge difference 2 percentage point difference in votes in Delhi makes is the 40 seats gained by Modi's BJP for a landslide win. A win for the hopes and aspirations of 1.7 billion people of Bharat+ (Bharat plus Indonesia) can be seen in the Nation's capital Delhi.

Modi's BJP party gains 7.5 percentage points going from 38.3 percentage points of the vote in Delhi state to 48.8, and the ruling AAP party losing 10 percentage points going from 53.8 percentage points to 43.8 percentage points. 

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Only about a third of the people in southeast Asia are fully vaccinated compared to 58% in the US. With growing inequality and a slowdown in production the supply chain in this region is hit hard. The region includes Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. This region's growth rate is cut from 4.4% in April to 2.5% for 2021 by the World Bank. Manila based Asian Development Bank forecast is for 3.1% growth as coronavirus outbreaks lead to major lockdowns. This happened in Malaysia, Cambodia, and Indonesia. It has also worsened the global supply chain disruptions from clothes to cars and commodities.

As supply chains are restructured, and western countries increase manufacturing at home to avoid higher shipping costs, uncertainty of far flung supply chains, production is likely to decline.

World Bank sees 24 million more people below the poverty line in Asia this year than projected earlier.

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Wages in emerging markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are rising following an increase in wages in China. Malaysia's government announced a minimum wage for the first time. China increased its minimum wage by 8.6% to 1260 yuan ($199) in January 2012. Shenzen region minimum wage was raised 14% to 1500 yuan, and Tianjin region's by 13% to 1310 yuan, according to Xinhua news agency. Rise in minimum wage has ranged from 40% in Thailand to 20% in Indonesia. The new minimum wage proposed by Malaysia's government is about 900 ringgit ($264-$297). In Thailand the new minimum wage is set at 300 baht ($9.78) a day, an increase of about 40%.

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China trade pause deadline of Aug 12 and its renewal. US negotiators Bessent and Greer in Stockholm report back to DJT for a final decision on whether to extend the trade truce with China by 3 months. China wants to remove the duty related to fentanyl entering the US from origins of the chemicals in China of 20% imposed by DJT, yet trade negotiators say no significant improvements on cracking down on the chemicals used to make fentanyl are seen. Currently duties are at 50-55% and would go up to 80% without a truce. The UK, Japan and European Union, Indonesia, Vietnam have come up with trade agreements with the US by July 28, 2025.

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The glass ceiling facing locals for senior management positions at operations of western companies in China, India, Indonesia and other parts of Asia. Western companies are not doing enough to train and develop managerial talent in China, India and other Asian countries.

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As Iranian Foreign Minister left Pakistan before arrival of American negotiators showing lack of interest in negotiations on nuclear issue and navigation on which US has insisted, the talks are on pause. The US goal is only for the safety of the Iranian people and the peoples of the Gulf kingdoms, and the Arab world divided into unmanageable countries in some situations by colonial Empires of the British and French in 1921 (Syria, Iraq), the wider Arab world from Egyot to Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, to be free of nuclear weapons. Because these colonial policies not of the US but of the British and French and the counter response of Arab nationalism, have created 5 decades of wars in the world. It is then to remove these nuclear materials to another country such as Russia. The misperceptions created in the media appear in some parts to cast the US as a colonial power which it never was in the way of the Spanish, the British, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the French, the Danish. In fact exactly the opposite. One cannot think of an American who felt deeply for the situation the Chinese people were left in with the Japanese invasion than Gen. Joe Stilwell, as shown by Barbara Tuchman in her book Stilwell and the American Experience in China. Stilwell amazingly risked his life in railroad cars behind Imperial Japanese Army enemy lines in north eastern China in the 1930's because of his deep ly feelings for China at that time. Ever since the US differed with the British and the French on reparations during the Boxer rebellion of 1902, with Woodrow Wilson using the funds to create Tsinghua University in Peking (Beijing), the US has been benevolent in its intentions and as shown in its policy to Africa a partner for nations in Asia and Africa- with China, India, Indonesia, a large part of the Asian population, and now with Africa as shown in the investments in Angola, Congo, Zambia on this page. FDR made it clear in his letter of reply to Gandhi's letter from Wardha whose side America is on even in the middle of World War II. ...

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High inflation and depreciating currencies in India, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa in 2012-2014.

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The US now leads a new 12 nation economic alliance meant to advance the 4 pillars of digital economy, supply chain renewal, defense, and transparency plus good governance. The alliance includes partners Japan, South Korea, with Australia, India and Indonesia and other ASEAN nations. On his first trip to Asia president Biden said at the launch announcement of the US led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity in Tokyo- "The future of the 21st Century economy is going to largely be written in the Indo-Pacific- in our region. We're writing the new rules." Behind this announcement one senses a lot of preparatory work has already been done in discussions with key partners in Japan and South Korea, as well as with India, Indonesia and other ASEAN nations. In terms of population the countries involved may exceed 2 billion people with the largest GDP in the world. With other links such as the US EU Trade and Technology Council the group encompasses most of the industrialized world. Combined with Latin America this would reach about 3 billion people. With Biden setting a new vision for the Free World after another US president Harry Truman did this in the years following the Second World War. ...

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Prices of gas for cooking and electricity are up 30% in Brazil in 2021 adding to the pain after the pandemic. Countries in Europe and Canada to Indonesia face much higher prices in 2021. Energy prices have jumped and supply bottlenecks have increased inflation. As more people are vaccinated the return to normal activity is also putting pressure on prices. About 72% of Brazilians have at least one dose of vaccine, higher than in the US. There is less vaccine hesitancy in Latin America and Asia.

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NYT provides an extraordinary display of working age population demographic data in graphics for the world and individual countries to 2050. India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt and African countries are given the opportunity to make progress similar to South Korea, Japan and China over the next 25 years. India with 1.4 billion people and a determined federal government can set the stage for the type of progress that can modernize the country and build a level of infrastructure that compares with the best in Europe, the US and Japan.

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Cecilia Wang is herself a birthright citizen from parents on student visas from Taiwan hence her views reflect her position before the the Court on DJT Executive Order.  She says the admission of Wang Kim in an 1898 case to US citizenship is a 128 American tradition when history shows very little sentiment in the American public and in the US Congress favoring legal immigration of any form from Asia (Japan, China and India). In fact a deal made by Teddy Roosevelt with Japan included an understanding with the Japanese government in the 1900's that Japan would restrict immigration from Japan to the US. Throughout the period 1850-1960 for 110 years one finds very little immigration of Asians to the US- mostly European selectively in phases after 1900 by steamboat as can be seen at the Smithsonian museum exhibits in Washington DC. Thus the Court is taking up a narrative that was never true. It was only JFK and LBJ who changed this by the 1960's- if one reads JFK and his grasp of the events in Indonesia, India, of Asia in WWII from his experiences as a soldier in the Asia Pacific region- not as the narrative suggests as an extension of civil rights for Black people, but for a deep respect and understanding of Asian people's aspirations that he opened up immigration to the US in the 1960's for Asians. This is why it is a stretch of the imagination for Cecilia Wang to say- Cecilia Wang -"your ancestors could be on the Mayflower or be undocumented immigrants but you and I are exactly the same as US citizens." Even after 60 years of reading the speeches and writing of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, TR and FDR, JFK, of Carl Sandburg's volumes of Lincoln, the poetry of America of Walt Whitman, committing Robert Frost poems to memory, there is more a sense of humility and even greater earnest  desire to learn about this Nation, and of the scientific endeavors of Europe since 1600 that eluded Asia, than making statements about the first voyages and the people who ventured out on the Mayflower. One has to look with awe at the sculptures in Geneva, Switzerland, of these brave people in the 1600's who for religious and other reasons made their way in difficult voyages over the Atlantic to America, much less say were the same as them. It is more about honoring JFK's words in appreciation of his opening for Asia, on thinking more about what you can do for your country than what your country can do for you. ...