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Mr. Lula Da Silva returns as president after 12 years after a closely contested win securing 51% of the vote.  It is a crucial time for saving the Amazon rain forest to tackle climate change, and for economic revival. About 33 million went hungry in Brazil in 2022 compared to 19 million in 2020 showing the difficulties Brazil faces. About 700,000 people died during the pandemic. The Worker's party pushed through a constitutional amendment last month to lift a spending cap so that about $28 billion in extra spending  can help alleviate these problems. 

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This WSJ report shows the Kimmich goal that won the game for Bayern Munich against Dortmund. Three weeks of practice have improved the goal scoring for many Bundesliga teams. Goals scored as a percentage of opportunities has gone up from 15% to 19% for Bayern, and from 19% to 26% for Dortmund. Dortmund's coach says they made the best of it during three weeks of practice starting in April when within social distancing guidelines the Bundesliga began practice. Lots of technical work, work in front of goal, and stuff they never get to practice. Pandemic practices created so much more time for shooting. The goal that Kimmich made was one that he had done in practice. 

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On the first days of her campaign Kamala Harris addresses the American Federation of Teachers. One of the big issues is learning loss for children during the pandemic. How to address reading loss, learning loss of children who are falling behind? Harris supports teachers in many ways. She wants to see the hard work of teachers respected and compensated by increasing teacher pay. Lyrarc's Movement for Global Literacy is focused on this same issue how to address reading comprehension loss among children in the US, that was weak to begin with and is now in trouble with the pandemic learning loss. Lyrarc is a useful tool and essential tool following serious learning loss from the pandemic, for increasing literacy and reading comprehension of children and young people in the US, UK, India and other countries. With NAEP test scores showing two thirds of children in 8th grade failing Reading Comprehension, and 75% failing Civics comprehension Lyrarc is an essential tool for addressing this problem. ...

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US shipbuilding in 2025- US nuclear submarine built for South Korea by South Korea's Hanwha at PhillyShipyard in Philadelphia. South Korea is investing heavily in shipbuilding in the US under the new DJT effort to rebuild the US Navy. This happens when shipbuilders UK and the US who led the world in shipbuilding have ceded places to Japan, South Korea and China PRC. The once mighty shipbuilding industry in places like Glasgow and Philadelphia now makes less than 5% of the world's ships. South Korea is the only nation with the shipbuilding capacity and technologies that competes with China. Much of the world's shipping logistics and port networks are now controlled by China. It is not even the situation where Teddy Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt as Secretaries of the Navy build  America's shipbuilding industry before World War 1. The situation today requires a resolute effort to build up the shipbuilding industry that was neglected by the shortsightedness of a generation of American business and managers who mesmerized by financial markets failed to see the importance of essential infrastructure. ...

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Bill Clinton, a former president, is no longer a popular figure in the Democratic Party in 2025. A new generation of leaders in the Democrats seek to put Clinton in the past. Clinton's main achievement are the peace accords in Ireland and in the Balkans with Serbia and Croatia, Bosnia. In domestic policy Clinton did little to anticipate the problems of getting health insurance for all, outshoring, and increasing jobs and wages for factory workers. He was involved in the scandal with an intern that led to efforts to impeach him and resulted in much of the second term being wasted in the process. It was under his successor Bush that the egregious provision that removed the power of Medicare to negotiate prices of drugs with manufacturers was passed. Bush was pushed into the war in the Middle East after 9/11 attacks by Middle East terrorists and havens in Afghanistan, that led to a two decades war in Afghanistan. Withdrawal happened under DJT and Biden consuming resources and time leading to the affordability crisis, outshoring of jobs and lower wages for factory workers. No one talks now about Clinton, Bush, Obama, because of these wars and the loss of America's leadership in manufacturing, squandered resources of attention, time and money that would have created new infrastructure and health insurance for all, inshoring. ...

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Hubbard points out that beyond the public show of confidence Saudi Arabia is a society undergoing change and the future remains uncertain. In Jan. 2015 King Salman, 79, succeeded King Abdullah when he died at the age of 90. With the drop in oil prices and the Saudi role to avoid production cuts, the Saudis have a buget deficit of $39 billion for 2015. Reserves are estimated at $750 billion by the IMF. Saudi policies under Salman will remain unchanged.

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Jean Raspail is the French author  of "Camp of the Saints" and of "Me Antoine de Tounens King of Patagonia," winner Grand Prize of the Novel 1981 Academie Francaise. Written by Raspail, the son of the Founder of Le Figaro French newspaper in 1973, Camp of the Saints is a book describing Raspail's extraordinary vision of how boats from Bengal would suddenly appear at French shores carrying millions of people from Bengal fleeing conditions of squalor and extreme poverty. 1971 was the year of the Bangladesh war with millions of refugees from Bangladesh at the time called East Pakistan pouring into India from Bangladesh, hit by massive floods the year prior, and then facing an army of occupation from West Pakistan's Punjab ethnic group dominated Army. While calling Raspail's Camp of the Saints "openly racist" Le Monde does not show the events described here as being entirely real- the squalid and the squalor into which Bengal had been plunged by a over a century of British rule in India that as Gandhi showed in the 1920's in "Young India" magazine spent most of the budget on policing, and very little on development except rail for logistics to hold the Empire together. On this the French Left or French Right or the European Left or Right is silent, preferring not to open up the similar situation facing China Hongkong, Shanghai as Treaty ports and Beijing after the Boxer rebellion, the Middle East with Sykes and Picot creating artificial states of Syria and Iraq, and controlling states of Iran and Egypt, and Indochina as French colony. It is not "racist" it only shows what Raspail might have seen on television at that time of the truly squalid conditions, including a famine in Bengal in 1944 that was aggravated by British policies. If Raspail imagined that boats from Bengal would arrive at the shores of France it is not something that is not connected to reality, it is the squalor and squalid conditions- except the reality the so called Right and the Left failed to say was a result of the centuries of colonization that made the region miss the Industrial Revolution. Western India around Bombay and Ahmedabad was far more developed by the 1970's and more so by 2003 when Camp of the Saints was republished. In 2026 Camp of the Saints is outdated. Northern India, Western India and Central India is in the kind of rapid modernization that happened in China, with bullet trains, ports and new highways, new industrial infrastructure, housing, going up every year under the Modi Government. In the paradox of today the Modi government is referred to as racist or religious right without reference to its essential condition, its very spirit of modernization based on science and technology acknowledging and revering the contributions of European nations and America. Bangladesh is eastern Muslim part of Bengal. West Bengal is part of the federal Union of Indian States, and has fallen into disrepair and industrial backwardness within Indian states because of the lack of the rapid modernization that India is going through, under mismanagement of the scale of Venezuela. Much of the media in the west does not report the scale of the mismanagement of some of the states in India that were built on the legacy of the early decades after independence of policy to slow down industrialization and corruption that destroyed infrastructure investment. The federal government of India and the states run by the party at the federal level in northern, western, central and north eastern India oppose migration to the US and Europe and are now growing at the fastest pace in the world, faster than China, growing at 10-12 percent a year. Bihar state in India is the home of Lord Buddha and the origins of Buddhist civilization of China and Japan. It has a population of 130 million and is growing at 22% a year in 2026. India needs its young people at home, even though it is willing to loan some of its technical people to Germany and Europe and the US. The Indian federal government policy and policy of these Indian states run under federal policy is to oppose migration and find jobs for millions in a rapidly modernizing economy at home. This then is the reality in India, as well as China, with 2.8 billion people. No one in India, not Gandhi if he were here today, not the government in the Indian federal union and states faults Raspail and others and calls them "racist," because of the extraordinary help first Japan, then China and now India receives from America and the European Union to develop and modernize quickly. In fact Indians look with admiration on the western leaders in science and technology, the scientists and inventors of Europe and the US, and are eager to emulate them in the future. And this is true also of the people of China, and reflects the aspirations of the new generation. ...

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This title is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. Specifically the idea of 50% increase. 99 Irish citizens deported in 2025, a 50% jump over 2024, when one hundred thousand Irish citizens live in the US. The title could have read one tenth of one percent of Irish citizens living in the US were deported in 2025. Kennedy, Biden, Reagan were Irish in origins, most Irish are law abiding citizens, most are integrated into American society. The law applies equally to all- it only goes to show that the law applies to the Irish also and that it is fairly implemented consistent with US Supreme Court decisions supporting Congress and the Executive when it comes to immigration to the US, Latin Americans and Irish alike are treated equally under the law.

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This report in the WSJ shows Cubans lacking water for washing, sanitation, and having electricity blackouts or electricity for only 4 hours a day. Cuba lacks money to buy oil. The economy has long been shown to be frozen in the past without the technological change seen in other countries in the developing world. It shows the only model that works is one of good governance, access to US and European capital and technology for modernization, close relations with the US, building domestic knowledge base and engineers for  modernization, as sine qua non essental conditions in the Modern World since 1950. China and India tried under Mao and Nehru under socialist regimes but failed. The Monroe Doctrine is not for the US, it is an essential pre condition for countries in the western hemisphere on which the other essential conditions are laid to create modern societies. China and India with the essential conditions achieving modernization under Modi and Deng and his successors. It is true that Cuban dictator Batista's regime was a bad one in the 1950's, yet the answer is not to put in its place or as a reaction to this an idealistic version which like human nature is prone to corruption and decline, but build on sound and firm ground foundations tsuch as these essential conditions and sine qua non that stand the test of time and are good for the American continent. ...

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Cost of Living Crisis under Biden, Affordability Crisis under DJT, and the situation in Feb 2026 with 2.4% inflation and job creation at 130,000 jobs in January 2026. Is this a sign that the tariffs policy is greatly misrepresented and misunderstood? The flexibility in tariffs, attention to financial markets through Scott Bessent's keen sghts at the Treasury shared with the president, the cutouts for key countries such as India to exclude semiconductors and cell phonesand other products from tariffs. For instance under tariffs increase India actually increased its exports by diversifying its economy and signing a trade agreement with Germany and the EU, followed by the trade agreement with the US, so that it remains an enven stronger economic partner. The same is true for Japan where elections are leading to a parliamentary majority for PM Sanae Takaichi who wants to work with the US and build a strong economic partnership, and make the large investments in the US it has promised.  Japan and India are two of the five largest economies in the world (US, China, Japan, India, Germany). German Foreign Minister Wadephul for the CDU welcomed Marco Rubio's call for a "new Western Century" and for strengthening western civilization common heritage of the US and Europe. This means 4 of the 5 largest economies in the world are in sync for the future of world trade, and their economic future.  ...

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The new India built refinery by RIL (Reliance India Limited) in the US at Brownsville, Texas, will reduce US trade balance by $15 billion a year and will produce oil using cleaner US shale oil and newer technologies that are less polluting for the environment.  India's RIL Refinery Project for $300 billion at Brownsville, Texas, is Explained here in the Indian Express. The Project is called America First Refining, and was announced by the US president recently.  $125 billion for 60 million barrels of US shale oil processed annually over 20 years and $175 billion for 2.5 billion gallons of refined product to be produced annually for 20 years. US  imports about 2.8 billion barrels a year and (exports 1 billion barrels a year) at a cost of $180 billion a year. This means the trade imbalance from crude imports will be cut by about 10% annually. The new refinery is the first in 50 years and is designed to process cleaner lighter shale oil from the US Permian Basin -whereas existing refineries are designed with older technology for heavier crude oil such as the US gets from Venezuela. Reliance India Limited has a fast turnaround time on projects- new project will come onstream in 2027. It currently has the world's largest single refining complex in Jamnagar, Gujarat, India.  ...

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A pipeline through Ukraine territory supplies Hungary and Slovakia. It had to be functional and restored for Ukraine to get 90 billion euros from the European Union. Hungary has a new leader and the loan was quickly approved, the pipeline restored weeks after the Hungarian election ousting Orban.

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Ford Motor Company makes a huge decision to exit the sedan business by discontinuing the Ford Focus and Fusion sedan car lines. The decision was made under CEO Hackett, and CFO Shanks, and means that Ford will have no fuel efficient car lines to offer to customers. During the recovery after 2008 and the bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM fuel efficient cars were one way the auto industry in Detroit was able to come back. Ford still depended heavily on the F series truck for profits as the market improved. With the current  popularity of SUV's the U.S. automakers are once again shifting to SUV's which does not protect the American automakers in competition with Japanese automakers if the demand partly shifts back again to sedans. Toyota has retained the Corolla and Camry and continues to upgrade its sedan models offering a broader product line better able to handle shifts in consumer demand that have in the past created problems for Ford and Chrysler. Chrysler has shifted away from sedans since 2016. Mr. Hackett is a former CEO of Michigan based office furniture maker Steelcase, and it is not clear if the lessons learned over the last decade at Ford Motor in competition with the Japanese resonate under a CEO with a different background such as that of its current CEO. ...

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Which dilapidated or broken road and bridge infrastructure will be rebuilt first under president Biden's plan? The WSJ looks at the $110 billion in new funding over 5 years to do this. In addition $66 billion for rail, and $39 billion for public transit. So much needs to be done. The list goes on and on. The head of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation, Mr. Tymon, says projects that were not going to get done in 6 years will now get done in 2 years. This is the big difference today, compared to the period under president Obama when little got done. After president Trump put a big spotlight on broken American infrastructure enough of a consensus exists to get on with the work in a big way. Normally the federal government provides about 50% of the funding for state highway and bridge projects. Take Rhode Island, Biden's bill would provide $300 million a year over 5 years, over $60 million over previous yearly levels. Of Rhode Island's 777 bridges 19% are deficient or dilapidated. The longer the bridge is deficient the costlier it becomes to fix. Bad infrastructure affects industry in multiple ways, a problem ignored for too long. Some of them date back to 1903, some to 1958.  In Woonsocket Rhode Island, 5 older bridges are deficient that are vital for local companies, including textile mill, and plastics manufacturer.  One deficient bridge at Naval Station, Newport, to Quonset Business Park with 200 companies is handling steady truck traffic. These are critical bridges for manufacturing says the city's Mayor.  Another state Missouri shows how the Biden investment will change infrastructure in the states. Annual capital funding of $1 billion will go to $1.5 billion over 5 years, says the Director of Missouri's Department of Transportation. That puts within reach all $3 billion of wish list projects that were considered high priorities. ...

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Cost overruns on the dams approaching 96%, and the debt burden especially for smaller economies.

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A professor of economics of innovation and public value at University College, London, says one-off deals such as the one with Land Rover to produce electric car batteries is not an adequate response to the big industrial strategies of the US and the European Union. Mariana Mazzucato says in this Guardian article the UK's decision to leave the EU is costing 100 billion pounds in output. Of 100 leading Uk manufacturers about half say their suppliers in the EU are more cautious about doing business in the UK. She compares the US industrial strategy that combines public and private investment of $3.5 trillion over the next decade, and the EU's for $2 trillion with Britain's effort. She says of the UK that it has nothing like this and worse with austerity it is moving in the opposite direction. Another problem is the change in governments of the Tories and new industrial policy every time there is a new minister. Business investment in UK is 19% less than the G7 average. The civil service needs investment, as she says Britain has become addicted to outsourcing the core functions of the public sector. Mazzucato says the government for aid to the private sector should do what Germany and France have done to expect reduction in carbon emissions, or as the US has done with Biden's Chips Act of giving aid given that there are no share buybacks by companies.   ...

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19 percent of China's exports went to the US in 2017, in 2024 this is 15%, but wait, the difference of 4 percent it is simply coming back to the US but through Southeast Asia. As a result some of the same issues that puzzled Trump negotiators exist today. China's exports surged 12.7% in October 2024 over the prior year. Biden was facing this situation and had yet to respond to the surge in exports to US. These exports were sent to Mexico and to Southeast Asia to circumvent the tariffs. It is the same situation revisited in 2024 with two other aspects of the Chinese economy-economic stimulus gets smaller and the housing and construction industry has imploded, the economy has slower growth. The overall price level in the US with a 60% tariff plus 10% for all countries would be 0.72 addition to the price level of 1.10 percent today- that is when including the depreciation of China's yuan by 10%. as it did last time. The result would be price level in the US at 1.82%, according to J.P. Morgan. Drag on China's GDP of the Trump tariffs in first term was 0.65% according to one investment bank GS, with 60% tariffs it would be 2%. Trump secured a return of $116 billion or 58% of the $200 billion China said it would buy of US exports. The other 42%- the deal was not completed in the end. ...

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Where does US president DJT get his "good genetics" for his health? It comes from his mother's side where for generations his grandparents and previous generations were fisherman on the shores of the northern British Isles islands. Specifically Tong, a village on the island of Lewis in Scotland. These were rugged coastlines where fisherman fought hard to make a living in the 19th century. His mother immigrated from Scotland to the US as a young girl seeking a better life. She later married a up and coming builder of homes in New York state.

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Binance's Zhao,  Zach Witkoff, Eric and Don Trump Jr.,  Luttnick and World Liberty crypto finance dealings are covered in this WSJ Report Feb 8, 2026 by Angus Berwick and Eliot Brown. It shows how the startup culture in finance can have unintended consequences, with new deals on an untested product crypto finance using star quality of the new DJT administration that benefit dealmakers.UAE and other financial firms invested in these products of companies built around crypto finance to gain access to the White House from the latter half of 2025 to early 2025.  

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Youth unemployment and forced migration plays a major role in the Nepal general election. Rapper music Balendra Shah 35 years wins in parliamentary constituency over ex-PM Oli and wins the Nepal general election. He formed the RSP party to voice student protests against PM Oli's government and corruption, which was forced to resign. His goal is to generate 1.2 million jobs and double the per capital GDP from about $1500 to $3000. Nepal reflects the general jump in aspirations of youth across the Indian region. 800,000 young voters voted for the first time.

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There is a price for a socialist state run society adopting capitalism without understanding it. Russia experienced this in the 1990's as the Soviet system collapsed and the capitalist system took its place by 1990 with flagrant abuses. Only to be stabilized in the Putin years till the war in Ukraine affected the Russian economy. China avoided this fate by continuing its accelerated path to industrialization till the 2009 financial crisis. But hidden in its seemingly successful modernization effort was the role of LGFV's and selling of land to support the LGFV's. Local governments did not take on debt themselves, they passed on the debt to Local Government Financing Vehicles LGFV's- about 8 trillion dollars of debt 80%-90% not serviceable for interest payments, zombie status requiring borrowing for annual spending.  Most city councils or mayors did not understand these vehicles were debt and some even asked "do we have to pay it back?" LGFV's were not understood by mayors and city councils brought up under a socialist state run economy. They used it to follow the central government in Beijing's orders to come up with projects to boost growth year after year to rates of growth of 10% in the 1990's and 2000's, heedless of the risks because they never really understood the capitalist system and its pitfalls.  As long as land could be sold there was some revenue for local governments and room for shifting $8 trillion in debt to other LGFV's. Once the construction industry collapsed and companies went bankrupt their were few buyers for land. The central government cannot take on some of this $8 trillion in debt. As a result China is now facing what the Russians faced - a crisis from lack of grasp of the severe pitfalls of capitalism when its risks are not understood for economies that were in the 20th century experiencing upheavals, wars and then socialist state run economies. What this means is that the Chinese economy will slow, has no choice but to slow down for the next decade to find solutions to this debt overhang over its economy and industrial plans. It also means China's support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict is also problematic for China's internal growth to meet the aspirations of its people. As long as the administration in the US continues to pursue its own economic policies for growth as Biden has done by investing in the American economy, it will have the opportunity to lead the free world and be able to hold out hope for aspirations of countries and regions such as India, Africa and Latin America. ...

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US Defense Spending charts as percentage of GDP since 1929 startling fact seen in this chart of Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis- that in 2026 we are seeing 1929-1937 levels of military spending to GDP ratio of 2-3% just before it jumped to 45% in 1940 in World War II. It is a cautionary tale not to spend too little (2-4% is a danger point), as lack of military modernization means a lot more spending soon after, almost 10 times that- 10 times 4% or 40%. Message to the US is not what Starmer and company are saying in Europe- it is that don't invite the existential crisis of 1940 again for western (US, EU, Canada, UK) and eastern democracies (India, Japan, Indonesia, Australia) by ignoring costs of military modernization. And 2-4% of GDP for military spending is not going to do this.

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This report by NYT's Choe Sang Hun shows in a brief and lucid manner the charges against South Korea's president Park Geun-hye, as the National Assembly votes on a motion to impeach her.  Her close friend and advisor, Ms. Choo Soon-sil, is involved. Ms. Soon-sil is accused by prosecutors of seeking favors from corporations such as Hyundai, and using the help of the president or the administration to secure these favors. This includes contracts for companies and foundations run by Ms. Soon-sil. In the proceedings before the National Assembly business leaders of the nation's largest companies have confirmed that they could not say no because of requests coming from the administration and the presidential office. About $69 million of donations to the foundations were made. The conglomerate Lotte donated $6 million for a sports complex to be built so that Ms. Soon-sil's company Blue K could run it. Prosecutors say these companies feared retaliation or tax investigations if they did not comply with requests from the presidential office. Other charges are about national intelligence and this relates to orders from president Park to an aide to give 47 classified documents to Ms. Choi Soon-sil between 2013 and 2016. Choi had no security clearance and the documents showed who would be appointed to top government positions including national intelligence director. The opposition in the National Assembly says this violates her constitutional obligations. The constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press were violated say opposition leaders because a newspaper's president was fired for covering Ms. Choi's activities. ...

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The European Union would accept extension of the deadline on Brexit of March 29, and a second referendum could take place. Theresa May could go over the heads of her squabbling MP's and call a second referendum or a general election, says this report in The Guardian. 

A British request for extension of the deadline is seen as inevitable because it is impossible to pass the necessary pre-Brexit legislation before March 29. Conditions could include a second referendum and allowing the UK government to appoint national parliamentarians for the EU parliament as EU elections are in late May 2019. Because there is no majority for a second referendum just yet, and because the only way to get support in parliament is to have in place the customs union rejected by far right Conservative MP's, extending the date is the only viable option.