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Larry Schwartz, the American diplomat in Cairo who deplored the anti-Islamic video on the Prophet Muhammad in Sept. 2012

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India's inflation rate declined to 4.4% in Nov. 2014 and 5% in Dec. 2014. Price pressures are moderating throughout the economy. With lower oil prices in 2015 and long term trend for lower prices the outlook has improved for controlling inflation. The central bank governor Rajan cut rates by one quarter of a percentage point in Jan. 2015 and indicated further rate cuts are ahead to boost economic growth. The financial markets reflect a 1% decline in interest rates and the stock markets were up 2% in Jan. 2015

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The WSJ discloses that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition 160 page report in 2012 described Google's anti-compettitive practices and recommended a anit-trust lawsuit for three anti-competitive practices. The WSJ obtained documents based on the Freedom of Information Act. Mullins and Winkler provide a detailed account of the practices cited in the report as anti-competitive. The FTC Commissioners did not act on the report and instead voted unanimously in 2013 to end the investigation after Google agreed to some voluntary changes. The report stated a different conclusion: Google's "conduct has resulted-and will result- in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets." Mullins and Winkler point out that this report shows Google's statement that no wrongdoing was found is incorrect.

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This article by Rosenthal of the NYT followed the interview by NYT's Baker and Haberman with president Trump in July 2017. 

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France with about 6 million Muslims and a history of colonial rule in North African Arab countries (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and other countries) faces a challenge of integrating Muslims into French society. Germany with a large population of Turkish origin also faces a similiar challenge. The attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo for poking fun at Islam, in a manner similiar to its satirical work on Catholicism, leads to the death of 12 journalists, a policeman and a policewoman. Erlanger and Bennhold describe the reaction of people in France. Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College , London, says about anti-immigrant sentiment increasing in Europe to the point where it is uncoupling working class families from the elites in Europe and reaching into the mainstream of society.

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The effort to shift China's economc growth away from the rampant overbuilding in housing and industrial capacity of the past to domestic consumption, and focus on meeting the demand for better medical care, quality of food, education and other quality of life products. China's leaders met at the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing in Dec. 2015 to work out ways to make this shift so that growth rate of 6.5% and other goals can be met. Plans include reducing industrial overcapacity, dealing with overinvestment and unused inventory in housing, reducing financial risks from high corporate debt to GDP ratio approaching 160% estimated by Standard and Poors Ratings Services. By comparison the U.S. debt to GDP ratio is 70%. A steep rise resulted from the huge China stimulus program of 2008-2009, when the ratio was 98% for China. Experts such as Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute are pessimistic about the prospects of successfully implementing reforms, saying reducing industrial overcapacity was a goal of the new Jinping Li-Keqiang leadership in 2013, but not much progress has been made in 2 years....

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Former U.S. president Bush says the U.S. has an important role as a beacon of freedom, human rights and democracy in the world. The U.S. should not shrink from the challenges in the name of a false and temporary stability, and flexibility should not mean ambiguity, difficulties should not mean shrugging away from America's role. Patience, creativity and active American leadership are needed. The Bush administration supported the struggles of people in central Europe and in other countries. This is from a speech Bush gave at the Bush Institute, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, a year into the Arab Spring. A speech that was giving voice to the aspirations of people in the Arab world.

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Bill Keller compares the situation in 1940 with that of today. He sees isolationist tendencies in the U.S. today similiar to that which prevailed in the U.S. in 1940 when Roosevelt faced the Nazi invasion of Europe.

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With 80% of its exports going to the U.S. the growth rate and jobs in Mexico are seeing the impact Finance Minister Carstens expects no growth in 2009. As Mexico's finances are in better shape than in past recessions there is room for some stimulus projects by Petroleos Mexicanos, the government oil company, by auctioning 2 highway projects, for expanding unemployment benefits, and giving $150 million in aid to industries hit by the credit crisis. About 250,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the last few months of 2008.

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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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Former Defense Secretary in the second term of the Obama administration, Chuck Hagel, says U.S. president Obama hurt his credibility when he failed to act on his own comments of a "red line" being crossed following the chemical attacks in Syria by the Assad government. Hagel was critical in an article in Foreign Policy magazine of the way the national security advisor, Susan E. Rice, ran discussions on foreign policy issues, with too many meetings and discussion followed up with deferring difficult decisions.

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Charlie Hebdo weekly is part of a long tradition of satirical magazines that poke fun at leaders and organized religion including Catholicism and Islam. This dates back to the days of the French Revolution. The magazine received many threats from Islamists. In January 2015 attacks by 3 young terrorists killed 12 journalists, a policeman and a police woman.

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This article by General James Jones is the second from the highest ranks of the Obama administration, saying the entire Middle East policy of U.S. president Obama was flawed and could lead to dangerous consequences. Gen. Jones, former National Security Advisor to Obama 2009-2010, says the situation today is worse than in 1991 when the U.S. launched Operation Provide Comfort to protect Kurdish refugees in Northern Iraq from Saddam Hussein, with an engagement of about 5 years and 25,000 Allied troops. Jones says the crisis in Iraq and Syria is of an order several times worse than 1991 and at any time since the 2003 invasion, as it involves the setup of a terrorist ISIS state in the heart of the Middle East. What went wrong? Jones says all the warnings from other Middle East nations about Maliki's corrupt policy and sectarianism used to stay in power turned to be true. Even Maliki's own advisors and colleagues say in a separate report by Matt Bradley that Maliki battled not for the Iraqi state but only to preserve his own power. Jones calls the U.S. president's decision not to act in Syria when the "red line" of use of chemical weapons was crossed, the failure to maintain a limited military training presence in Iraq after 2011, and not insisting that Mr. Maliki arm the Kurds, as having gravely aggravated the problem in 2014. Jones calls for arming the Kurds directly with sufficient weaponry for defending their region and providing immediate expanded aid to the Abadi government, appointment of a special envoy to ensure direct and immediate communications with Baghdad and with Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite leaders. He calls also for close air support of Iraqi and Kurdish operations, and an aggressive diplomatic effort to unify the Middle Eastern nations to remove ISIS from the region. Jones says this is the right thing to do in the name of all the Iraqi people yearning for peace, for the U.S. service personnel who made sacrifices in Iraq for 23 years, and for U.S. national security....

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This Journal editorial points to the 3 page letter from Gen. Dempsey that make a U.S. response in Syria seem difficult and laborious, cost $1 billion a month, and endless. Gen. Keane points to the Syrian air force operating from just 6 main air strips and with about 50 aircraft out of 100 operational, using this to terrorize the opposition and the countryside indiscriminately including civilian population. Taking these out with cruise missile and other strikes is all that is needed, not even a no-fly zone says Keane. Short of a proper response the U.S. and the Obama administration could only end up leaving the Assad regime in place for longer, says the Journal. Aid to rebel groups that can then do the work of completing the transition is the right strategy, says the Journal.

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The NYT editorial in April 2013 supporting a cautious response in Syria as it reports the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government.

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Bernard Lewis's "The Arabs in History," is a short book which confirms Zakaria's point about the openness of Islamic societies before the 19th century, with some exceptions in certain periods. Most books or a quick look at Wikipedia shows us that the Renaissance in Europe in the 15th century got its boost from books by ancient Greek authors that were available in Arab societies long after they were forgotten in Europe. His point about Indonesia and India is also true to a large extent except for periods such as the one under Aurangzeb (17th c.). Muslim societies in British India (todays Pakistan and Bangladesh) experienced less social and educational reforms under the British than Hindu societies for various reasons leading to larger backwardness, illiteracy which breed extremist ideas. This is likely to change throughout North African Arab societies and South Asia in the next 50 years, especially with the modernization drive underway in India, which is likely to spread to other parts of the region. Islam as a missionary religion with force of arms spread in the 7th-9th century rapidly over Arab North Africa and parts of west Asia, and later to South Asia. Once established there were long periods of openness to ideas and books, and different cultures ( with the exception of preferences for Muslims), and a stress on commerce which inherently reduces religious vehemence, as the example of Britain shows. For this reason the current conditions in Islamic societies is more atypical than typical. A factor that has worsened it is that 19th c.-20th c. Islamic societies have put less emphasis on commerce and industry than historically seen in prosperous Islamic societies, on which more research is needed to understand why. Another factor is the impact of the interface with technologically and scientifically progressing Europe and America not becoming a learning experience for acquisition of this science and technology and making it one's own, a pattern seen in Buddhist societies of Japan in 19th c., South Korea in 20thc.,and China 21st c. Because Buddhism sprang from Hinduism or a response to Hindu ideas in India, India could be put alongside China for the 21st c. rapid assimilation of western science and technology making it one's own. When there is a violent collison between Japan and U.S. Admiral Dewey's ships, or China and British advances around 1900, the initial reaction of rejection is reversed with adoption of western technology and practices making it one's own. Similiar response in India. Islamic societies have had an extended period of rejection for reasons not fully understood even today. This is likely to generate the kind of internal debate about how to revert back to the usual mode of adoption in Islamic civilization, with the potential catalyst in India and other locations in the Middle East. The most respected German of the 19th century is Alexander Von Humboldt, a naturalist who advanced scientific knowledge, and a mentor to Charles Darwin in England, author of "Origin of the Species." Humboldt says- "There are no inferior races, we are all humans, and we are all destined to reach for and grasp liberty." That Humboldt spent most of his best years in Paris, France, which he compared to the provincialism in his native Berlin, goes to show how Humboldt, Darwin and Humboldt's friend Aime Bonpland of France, maintained close cooperation and friendship and anticipated the close cooperation in Europe since the second half of the 20th c., long before European politicians and governments grasped this. Commerce, science, travel, media and free exchange of ideas, are as favorable to progress as politics and ideology is inimical to it....

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Germany has 4 million Muslims and Russia 13 million Muslims. Germany is considering banning the anti-Islamic video in Sept 2012. Russia will ban the video and has warned internet companies not to show the video because of its extremist content.

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A leader of the Syrian moderate democratic opposition to the Assad regime calls for help from the Obama administration for the moderates and Free Syrian Army. The request for Manpads to counteract Assad's air attacks and the deteriorating situation around the city of Aleppo and in Northern Syrian areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army. The collaboration between the Hezbollah, Assad's forces, and the ISIS as each attempt to increase the areas under their control pushing out the Free Syrian Army and moderate forces fighting the Assad regime. Hillary Clinton comes out against the Obama administration's policies in August 2014, saying "don't do stupid stuff" basis of Obama policies is not the basis for a sound foreign policy. Obama comes out with a $500 million aid plan for the Free Syrian Army but the approach is vacillating and slow, leading to a rapidly deteriorating situation, and a complete breakdown of what was a period of hope called the Arab Spring.