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China has over the last 10 years expanded its investments and trade with Latin America to match that with its earlier investment in Africa. China's trade and investment structures in Latin America are designed differently to correct for earlier mistakes in Africa where investments turned into a debt trap for African nations. This time China invested slowly in Latin America and created better terms for loan repayment. A look at the public debt to China as percentage of GDP shows for Brazil $30 billion is less than 1% of GDP of $2.174 trillion (World Bank). After the outcry on public debt to China of Pakistan and some African nations China has a different strategy and Brazil has a different strategy slowing borrowing and focusing loans on infrastructure projects with good returns on investment. Brazil total debt to China since 2005 is $30 billion with loan borrowings slowing down (China's strategy) in the last decade, and carefully arranged by Brazil. Contrast this with $26 billion owed by Pakistan to China on GDP of Pakistan of 338 billion in 2023- 7.7 percentage points. Sri Lanka owes $24 billion to China on $84 billion GDP of Sri Lanka- 28 percentage points.   ...

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The mistakes  and the right action done in Italy that the world can learn from as Italy tackles the coronavirus. The coronavirus is a dangerous pandemic yet there is one part of it that can be used to take the right action. The timeline of countries affected early in January and February and early March with information from these countries on what worked very effectively and what did not work with bad results is available. The mistakes were made in Bergamo, a town in Lombardy region of northern Italy with the highest number of infections and deaths in Italy. Bergamo had limited testing, no rigorous attitude for quarantining those who had come in contact with people testing positive, and lack of contact tracing. In Vo another town in northern Italy the situation is a complete contrast with resort to mass testing and isolation of clusters which has reduced infections to zero and made it a safe place. Vo is a small rural town 85 miles east of Bergamo in the Veneto region. This was the method used in South Korea, China, Taiwan and other Asian countries that have overcome the virus. Bergamo is an example of what failed in Italy with the worst number of fatalities. The health crisis worldwide has shown this  method of first general quarantine to buy time to build capabilities for testing  and preventing things spiralling out of control,  then mass testing, contact tracing and isolating the people who test positive, and repeating this process again and again till infections are way down,  is the only way to control this crisis. In the early days massive quarantine or stay at home strictly enforced is the best solution till production of tests accelerates to permit mass testing and isolating the clusters of infections. This mass quarantine buys time for accelerated production of tests and building up the capabilities of labs to process these tests, including use of a central national lab centre with national data on computers for microbiologists to monitor the entire country. This was done in South Korea reports in WSJ show. This is vital for everyone involved in the effort to control the virus to understand based on the experience of  countries that have successfully overcome coronavirus. It is the experience in South Korea and Italy that the U.S. White House response coordinator Dr. Brx is looking at and learning from as she and the White House team in the U.S., governors of all 51 states, health officials including CDC, are looking at as they execute their action plan in phases.  ...

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As both Harris and Trump focus on increasing Border Security and fighting transnational gangs at the Border, Mexico's new president Claudia Sheinbaum has a strategy for the first 100 days to tackle the 10 cities with the highest homicide rates that include Acapulco, Guanajuato.

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U.S. president Obama is critical of the role played by the media in the 2016 election campaign in a keynote speech at a journalism dinner for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. Obama said lately " I spend a lot of time reflecting on how this system- how this crazy system of self-government works. How we can make it work. And this is as important to making it work as anything. People getting information they can trust and that has substance and truth and facts behind it." He added that "what we are seeing right now does corrode our democracy and our society. When our elected officials and political campaigns become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn't matter what is true or not, that makes it impossible for us to make decisions on behalf of future generations." On the way Donald Trump's campaign has lowered the level of public debate Obama had this to say- referring indirectly to the NYT report of over $1.9 billion of free television coverage given to Donald Trump by the media- the country, "would be better servedif billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when the politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they can't keep.. and there are reporters here who know they can't keep them." The wall between the U.S. and Mexico to be built with Mexico's financing, the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, the 45% tariff on imports from China, reducing support for NATO, are some of the campaign themes used to appeal to disaffected voters by Mr. Trump in the election, which are some of the puzzling ways in which the election campaign for 2016 has evolved- without proper media scrutiny, and what some critics say panders to ratings at a time of shrinking television staffs and budgets. ...

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It never made sense to make soap 13,000 miles away in China and ship it to the US, and reflected everything that had gone wrong in a once thriving America and how business had lost common sense. Bath and Body Works is correcting that, as shown here in the WSJ. Yet this is 2023, and so many opportunities for doing this were missed already. It took the pandemic to bring some common sense.

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German response to Greenland tariff is muted- "appropriate response at appropriate time" realizing that Denmark and Nordic countries not Poland, Austria, Hungary, Russia, China, and other countries are concerned about Greenland, and after action by Denmark's government that "is going nowhere" in the words of DJT.  Denmark has misrepresented the facts and US history in relation to Greenland's exploration by US Navy and Adm. Perry in 1890's is ignored, Denmarks colonial power history is left out which is how it acquired Greenland in 1813 in Treaty of Kiel with Sweden in exchange of territory during Napoleonic Wars. Much of this can easily be researched and it is baffling that the Danish socialist party government is bringing NATO into this as it has to do with security of the eastern seaboard of the US, a concern since the early days of the founding of the Republic of the US since 1820's.

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The head of a pilots union says he no longer trusts that Boeing is following the quality practices it has followed for three decades that have made Boeing planes safe. Serious concerns about quality issues under management that comes from the financial sector without the extensive experience in the manufacturing or other related areas, about how workers put together the planes. A senior manager is cited in this BBC report that the culture at Boeing has been toxic to trust for over ten years so that even if new safety steps are introduced and new procedures added the lack of trust makes them nearly ineffective.

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Color maps of home rental price increases by county regions in the US are shown in this report in the Washington Post. Though rent prices increased by 19% since 2019 prices increased for rent by only 1% in 2024, according to Washington Post analysis of rent data from CoStar Group. See how rents have increased by county regions in color maps. Price increases are cooling off, in some cases declining, says this report. US president Biden has proposed a limit of 5% for increases in home rentals. Vice President Kamala Harris has proposed help for families paying more than 30% of household income for home rentals.

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As German chancellor Merkel pointed out at the EU summit, all central European states and Eastern European staes are not doing the same. Czech Republic and Poland are doing relatively better, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic Countries are in serious crisis. And smaller Slovenia and Slovakia are part of the core countries in the EU which use the euro. The Baltic countries are looking to Sweden to help and the Swedish Finance Minister has said it is the political responsibility of Sweden to help the Baltic countries, which Sweden should consider as part of the home region. Romania is looking to a reluctant Germany for help. And voices in Europe are asking if it isn't the political responsiility of Western European countries like Germany to help, and if not what does it mean to be part of the European Union? The Eastern European countries caught up in this crisis with their currencies losing value and large loan repayments to western European banks, feel they embraced the liberal capitalist model without any knowledge or experience with its fluctuations and crisis prone nature, as part of the integration into a united Europe. Now they are left they feel, to drift on their own. The recent emergency European summit meeting in Brussels saw the Czech prime minister Topolanek, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU, say that no member would be left in the lurch, and the need to avoid a dividing line in Europe that North-South or East-West. The Hungarian prime minister insisted on a special European Union fund of upto $241 billion to protect the weakest members, and circulated a paper saying that Central Europe's refinancing needs for 2009 were $380 billion. So far the governments of the EU have already spent $380 billion in bank recapitalizations and put up $3.17 trillion to guarantee bank's loans and to get credit moving again. And the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank have promised $31.1 billion to Eastern European countries....

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People of a new generation cannot imagine that India that they know today could not exist without the integration of 560 smaller kingdoms within overall British India that were allowed self rule under British conditions and law. They made up no less than one third of the British Empire in India. During India's 75th anniversary of independence and looking to India's 100th year a young generation born after 1947 growing up in post-British India cannot easily imagine the critical years after 1910, with Gandhi writing Hind Swaraj that year during a period when he negotiated for the rights of Indians in South Africa just to move freely. The years of the struggle for Swaraj between 1910 and 1931, the Satyagraha March to the Sea at Porbandar to protest the British Salt Tax, the elected assemblies that brought the first experience with self-rule in the thirties, and the "karenge o marenge" pledge to do or die with Quit India Movement in 1942 by Gandhi.  The dominant role of Jawaharlal Nehru after 1947, and that of daughter Indira Gandhi after him, wittingly or unwittingly had the intended or unintended effect of obscuring from view the role of many of the leaders around Gandhi of whom Jawaharlal Nehru was just one. No doubt about Jawaharlal who wore a prisoners badge number token around his neck and spent years in British jails. No doubt about his contribution. Lyrarc throws a spotlight on other leaders who made equally large contributions so that India's young people can get a better sense of what this struggle involved and how it was won by the  people of that time  under the most difficult conditions and trials. This includes Vallabhbhai Patel, Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalachari, Maulana Azad, and the young Lal Bahadur Shastri. Others Naoroji, Vidyasagar, Vivekananda, from an even earlier period, Gokhale and Tilak, are people on whose shoulders Mohandas Gandhi stood on and fully accepted as his mentors, as do today's Indian leaders. This BBC report looks at the role of Vallabhbhai Patel of Kheda district in Gujarat state and of his assistant VP Menon. Gandhi was born in 1869, Patel in 1875 and Nehru in 1889. In 1947 Gandhi made the decision to go with Jawaharlal Nehru who was 14 years younger than Vallabhbhai Patel as the younger leader and prime minister who could take India through this critical first decade after independence with Patel as deputy prime minister. Patel died of heart conditions in 1950. Patel's assistant during the crucial period of negotiations for independence after the war ended in 1945 with Viceroy Mountbatten was V.P. Menon.  Mohandas Gandhi always believed that with hundreds of millions of Indians gaining consciousness of their rights even under British concepts of free men and free people, and a sense of their own dignity under God, the British would simply have to leave. His faith in the Bhagavad Gita that affirmed this right under God was firm and indomitable. This was true by 1947. He needed other leaders around him to structure the form this independence would take in terms of administration of the country and the constitution of the new nation. He also needed to bring those parts of British India that were not absorbed into direct British rule during successive wars between 1756 and 1857. These small kingdoms were retained under princely rule after the British decided to halt the policy of integrating them into direct rule following a war in 1857 that almost led to the downfall of the British in India. How large was this area is hard to comprehend when one sees that this was one third of British India in land mass from the Himalayan mountains to the Indian Ocean. Harder still it is to grasp that it would involve bringing in about 560 different princely states or kingdoms into the new India of 1947. It was the task of Vallabhbhai Patel and of his assistant V P Menon to do this. Southik Biswas of the BBC tells the story of how this was done with pictures from that period- click on Original Article to see the BBC report. It also shows how much modern India owes to Vallabhbhai Patel, as it does to Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Atal Bihari Vajapayee, to Tilak and all the people in the jails of Andaman, to Naoroji and Gokhale. And how much it owes to today's leaders who have made it their task to bring Har Ghar Jal, cooking gas, and electricity to every family in every village in India, never losing sight of that last poorest of men and women in the land that Vivekananda and then Mohandas Gandhi never lost sight of.   ...

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Experts say there are only a couple of hundred high-integrity welders in Britain. Many manufacuring jobs go unfilled because of lack of skilled workers. Britain is trying to close this gap and reduce unemployment for young people by increasing apprenticeships in industry and worker training. The UK government allocated 1.57 billion pounds on worker training programs in 2013. Britain had 868,000 people in apprenticeship programs in 2013. EEF, a British trade group, says 80% of manufacturers have difficulty finding skilled workers with technical skills. Britain has done very poorly in the area of worker skills training according to the OECD. About 2.74 million new manufacturing jobs are expected to be created in Britain by 2020, of this 1.86 million will require engineering skills, according to EEF. A lot more needs to be done, as companies need to double the number of apprenticeships to meet expected needs.

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Pier Luigi Bersani from the northern Emilio Romagna region, head of the centre-left Democratic party, is the leading candidate for prime minister in Italy's 2013 elections. His party has 37.8% support in a recent poll. The Democratic party has an electoral alliance with the SEL Left, Ecology and Freedom party, which has 5.1% in the poll. Berlusconi's People of Freedom party has 18.2% support and the antiestablishment party of Beppe Grillo, the Five Star Movement has 20% support. Prime minister Mario Monti is being encouraged to run by business and centrist parties. Bersani said in an interview, he will continue Monti's policies if elected. He says he supports greater flexibility so that policies do not focus only on austerity, at the same time he will respect the committments Italy has gven to the EU and move forward with pro-competition actions.

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Iranian president Ahmadinejad's populist agenda covers- 1. Social goals: A $4 billion national school renovation program. Raised salaries for workers in Iran's government run companies and raised minimum wage 50%. Has plans to give shares in government controlled companies to the poor and working classes. Iran subsidizes basic staples and gasoline. These subsidies existed before Ahmadinejad. Gasoline costs 40 cents a gallon. Against these social goals are committments by Iran as part of its plan to join the WTO, which includes limiting the subsidy on gasoline to only a certain number of gallons per user. 2. Economic costs of the programs. Dipping into the Oil Stabilization Fund to finance subsidies. Iran imports about half of its gasoline as it lacks enough oil refineries to supply itself. This means as gasoline prices go up Iran has to dip into the stabilization fund to finance subsidies. Inflation is running at 15%. Will oil spending fuel inflation further is a looming question. In 2005 $7.7 billion was taken out of the Oil Stabilization Fund to fund subsidies for wheat, gasoline and other items. 3. Ahmadinejad's election promise was "to put the oil revenue on the dinner table of every Iranian." 4. After the runup in oil prices Iran now generates $49 billion from oil and natural gas. This is twice the amount compared to four years ago....

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Both the Democratic and Republican parties are in danger of splitting as reader comments to this analysis in The Times shows. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has little in common with the rest of the party. The Republican party has shifted to take on the working class base of the traditional Democratic party creating a confusing array of interests in each party with no particular sense of loyalty.

 

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The changes Har Ghar Jal Mission for clean safe drinking water for every rural household by 2022 is making a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of millions of people in India. Shown in this video on Har Ghar Jal is its implementation at the local level in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh with a population of 228 million people near New Delhi.

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Boris Johnson was never for austerity and says this in his new book, yet he failed to make the major investments in the British economy in the way Biden has done in the US, and in some ways has left Labor's Starmer with difficult decisions with the strained budget finances of Britain. Of the investments he protected from John Osborne and his austerity plans as chancellor under Cameron Boris Johnson says- “Those big investments – Crossrail, the Olympic site, the Westfield Centre at Shepherd’s Bush – were fortuitously timed for London: vast counter-cyclical programmes that kept the spades going into the ground and people in work.” This was as Mayor of London in 2016. Of Osborne and Cameron so little is left, and so little came out of the period of austerity other than the failed investments Britain failed to make, simply a lost decade for Britain. And the diversion of Brexit under Johnson not taking Britain to a good place for the standard of living of the British people. Of the intraparty conflicts in the Tories he says Sunak's resignation as chancellor should never have happened calling it "worse than a crime," and a mistake for Sunak, the party, and the country. Johnson says that many days as PM he would come back to No.10 flat, exhausted and working into the evening when he should have been talking to colleagues, MP's to keep them all together. After Sunak's resignation from Boris Johnson's cabinet the Tory Conservatives split further apart, this time in the Boris Johnson faction of the party. Sunak's elevation to prime minister was short lived ending up with the Tories going downhill from there.  On the singular goal that led to the splits- that of Brexit- Johnson has little more to say than that in his travels he had found people wanted more Britain. ...

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Who is Ed Whitacre? What is he like and where is he from? Ed Whitacre headed Southwestern Bell or SBC, which he merged with AT&T. Bored as a retiree in San Antonio after leaving AT&T, he took the job at GM. He golfs, wishes and hunts with his chocolate Labrador retriever at a ranch near his house in San Antonio. He is impatient by nature and likes to see things done. Managers who worked with him at Southwestern Bell say while they were working on day to day business, Whitacre would be the one thinking ahead, trying to figure out how to compete in the future, and the things that were likely to happen in the changing environment. For a smaller Bell he saw that it was simply whether his Bell would be acquired or whether he would acquire other Bell companies. He is a hands-on guy who like to do things himself, like running a bulldozer around his ranch, one of the things Whitacre likes to do. His beginnings are in small town Texas. The place is a sleepy railroad town called Ennis, Texas, where for 50 years his father was a locomotive engineer. Whitacre says his father had never finished high school, and he did not want Whitacre working for the railroad. Both his parents insisted that he get acollege degree. Whitacre went to Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas, because the tution was only $75, and landed a job at Southwestern Bell in 1963 as a facility engineer. And he stayed with the company all the way- with 19 moves living in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas- till it became the new AT&T. Frost, a retired San Antonio banker and a member of Southwestern Bell's Board in 1990 when Whitacre became CEO, says Whitacre started from the bottom, and literally, even climbing telephone poles. So it isn't surprising that this guy walks around the GM Renaissance Center, talks to GM employees, tries out a Taco at the Food Court at the Renn center (says its OK but not like Texas tacos), and uses all elevators like everybody else, unlike GM executives who equiped elevators so they could bypass floors. And he isn't hesitant to wear jeans and a sweat shirt while visiting a factory, which he says is all the clean clothing he had at the hotel. Now he has an apartment. Works 14 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, and has his phone ringing just when he hopes to leave town to escape for a weekend. ...

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The basic problems facing American health care. Douglas Elmendorf , head of the Congressional Budget Office, says none of the bills he has seen make the fundamental changes needed in how medical care is delivered and paid for. The big issue is the unwilingness of different interests to accept serious changes. THe NYT says the long run solution to the problem of rising costs is to move away from the fee-for-service system that pays hospitals and doctors for each additional service they provide and into anew system that is organized around ways that encourage low-cost and high quality healthcare. The difficulty is that the long run may be too far, considering the seriousness of the crisis. Elmendor also suggests taxing employer provided health benefits, as this will discourage the excessive use of medical care. As the NYT says this is politically risky, even though it believes this may be a way to the new system which has to discourage the use of health care in the manner it is conducted now, with too many tests being conducted. A new system requires an enlightened approach on the part of each interest group in the face of a crisis, and the failure to do that may only end up retaining some of the worst aspects of the old system just mentioned that drive up costs and make universal health care unaffordable....

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Ashwini Vaishnaw says, that for good governance on the internet the entire existing governance structure of the internet needs fundamental rethinking. As everything that is put out on the internet tends to be believed, clear responsibility has to be taken for what is put out. 

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It has been done before, Muslim nations shifting their entire mindset to modernization. Under Kemal Ataturk this happened in the 1920's after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and Ataturk seeing the colonial powers effort to dismember their region turned his effort to modernize Turkey with only one single objective that ensured freedom from colonial powers. Leslie Chang says in this WSJ report that Egyptian women are not joining the workforce in large numbers as they do in large numbers in China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, and Muslim nations such as Malaysia and Bangladesh. For every one woman working there are four at home and it is culturally frowned upon for women to work. There are a small number of highly educated women but this is deceptive says Chang as the overwhelming number are at home and they cannot make a contribution to the economy. See the report in WSJ alongside about the weak condition of the Egyptian economy and how with high inflation of 30% and weak currency, Egypt with help not coming from wealthy Gulf neighbors Saudis and UAE, has taken a $8 billion IMF loan. Egypt and Pakistan show the need for culture and education to make the shift to modernization to work hand in hand, the entire goals of nationhood to shift to one single objective of modernization. For this to happen a national consensus around modernization has to be achieved so that the entire culture is focused on simply one overriding objective.  ...

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The CEO of Salesforce Mr. Benioff was able to win support from president Trump for an initiative to plant a trillion trees as a way to improve the environment. Mr. Trump is skeptical about climate change and has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Climate Change Agreement. But he is enthusiastic about planting trees.

As trees grow they absorb the gas emissions that cause climate change. Estimates from experts show 1.2 trillion trees could absorb as much as 25% of carbon in the atmosphere.

Mr. Benioff says planting trees is the ultimate bi-partisan issue, and who isn't pro-tree. Young Republicans are shifting away from the party on the issue of climate change and Republican leaders are making modest proposals as a way to show they are also concerned about protecting the environment. Some say Mr. Trump's views on this issue are shifting even though he has his own views on how quickly to move away from fossil fuels. 

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The Economist magazine looks at how Netanyahu is rallying his conservative base and core supporters on the right wing of Israeli politics to overcome corruption charges and a blue and white coalition led by Benny Gantz, a former head of the Israeli armed forces. Critics say Netanyahu has increased divisions in Israeli society. Netanyahu claims he is the best person to maintain Israel's security and his core supporters prefer the status quo. 

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Shabana Mahmood, new UK Home Secretary in September 2025 says -"Will do whatever it takes to secure our borders. I am not the kind of person who just hangs around."

About Shabana Mahmood it has been said- “She prides herself on not being woke. She prides herself on having normal-person instincts and understanding where the electorate is.”

The Times says this may be just what Labour Party and Starmer needs right now.

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For the first time in decades Mexico has a president who travels on regular commercial flights, flying in tourist class. There is no presidential plane, no presidential mansion. He starts his day at 6 am with a crime report and a Cabinet meeting By 7 am he is at the presidential palace giving a free wheeling press conference. He has in 3 months talked to the media and the public more than was done in 6 years under the previous presidents. By noon he is on his way to catch a commercial flight to a provincial city such as Guadalajara.  There he meets local leaders, eats at a local cafeteria, and attends an open rally. He is most comfortable brushing against people, pressing the flesh, and making some comments in one liners, something he has done for twenty years since becoming the Mayor of Mexico City.  He is a bit evangelical, more like Bernie Sanders, but with the power. Mexicans listen to him attentively. Mexicans were so fed up with corruption, neglect of public opinion, and lack of rule of law, that Obrador after contesting with difficulty in previous two elections won decisively in the recent presidential election with large majorities in parliament. He has in the first 100 days moved to scrap a new $12 billion airport with costly cost overrruns using a referendum to make the decision. He has also cooperated with the Trump administration to slow the flow of migrants from central America, working with the U.S. on a $11 billion investment in Mexico and Central America to create the jobs and secure environment so that people can stay in their homes.   ...

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Munich Security Conference is being organized by Christoph Heusgen, the conference chair, who was an adviser to Angela Merkel and previous German  Representative at the United Nations. It will be held Feb 14-16 at the Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich. JD Vance will be attending for the US with alarge delegation including Keith Kellogg US DJT envoy to Ukraine and Zelensky of Ukraine. German federal elections are on Feb. 23, 2025 with CDU's Merz holding a lead. Pete Hegseth Defense Secretary is not attending the conference. Hegseth has expressed views skeptical about Ukraine. Mark Rutte, the former Dutch PM is attending as Secretary General of NATO. The Munich Security Conference Report cites DJT and says- "Indeed, the notion of 'resource scarcity' has become a central premise of Republican foreign policy thinking." Germany barely spends 2% on defense. DJT wants to see 5%. DJT's comments are published in the Munich Security Report- "We were being ripped off by European nations both on trade and on NATO." "If you don't pay, we're not going to protect you." ...