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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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It may come as a shock to the Egyptian people and freedom loving Arabs and Americans everywhere that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the Mubarak government "stable" and "responding to the legitmate interests of the Egyptian people," on Tuesday January 25, 2011. Vice President Biden said on Jan 27, in a night interview on PBS, that he would not call Mubarak a dictator and did not think he should step down. This Washinton Post editorial is strongly critical of the Obama administration for its statements implying that the 30 year Mubarak regime would continue. It says Mr Obama spoke with Mubarak on Friday night and after speaking to Mubarak stated that he would continue working with Mubarak, and not once mentioning elections. The Washington Post says it is dangerous to assume that the energized and enraged people of Egypt protesting on the streets of Cairo and other cities will back down and carry a dialogue with a regime that has repressed every form of assembly and free expression for three decades. It supports the moderate and democratic platform of leaders of the protests and of Mr El-Baradei. This includes lifting of a hated emergency law that bans peaceful assembly, the right to freely organize political parties, and allowing free democratic elections. The Post calls on the Obama administration to prepare for the peaceful implementation of the opposition platform, and telling the Egyptian army without qualification, that violent repression would rupture the rellationship with the United States....

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Israeli intelligence from a Syria unit that oversees the movement of chemical weapons in Syria was the source confirming that the weapons were moved to Damascus suburbs to prepare for an attack on a rebel held area.

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The Philippines president Aquino visits Washington and requests military aid, especially surveillance military aircraft and land based radar. This comes as relations between China and the Philippines are strained by disputes over territory in the South China Sea. Aquino meets with editors of the Washington Post and describes his concerns.

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This report by David Sanger in the NYT cites insiders in the Obama administration suggesting that the Saudis never really considered the peace talks in the region organized by Secretary of State Kerry as a serious effort with the escalation in the bombing by Russia, and other events including Iran's two ballistic missile tests. Turkey was drawn into the conflict with Russian bombing of ethnic Turkish groups at the border with Syria. By ignoring these events affecting Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries, the Obama administration appeared to be calling for a peace effort that seemed to have little prospect of succeeding. As Trofimov suggests in a separate report in the WSJ the Saudis were more focussed on winning domestic support from conservative Sunnis, seeing the Obama administration as ineffective on the issue of refugees from Syria and the conditions for the civilian population.

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Between 2008 and 2009 September the price of polysilicon for solar energy products dropped from $400 per kilogram to $50 per kilogram. This doomed any chances that Solyndra could succeed, yet in 2010 and into 2011 Solyndra executives maintained that the company was in good shape financially.

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The impact on polluted cities and urban areas in Asia especially China and India of the huge rise in pollution in recent years with industrial development that did not concern itself with the environment and other causes. How the current slowdown gives a chance to redirect growth on to sustainable and healthy patterns without losing improvements in standards of living, health, education, nutrition, and general well being.

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The deal for a peaceful end to the protester camps of Morsi supporters arranged by the U.S. and the E.U. through the foreign ministers from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. E.U. envoy for Egypt, Bernardino Leon, says a simple package was proposed by Burns, Leon, and the two foreign ministers for removal of the camps to be followed by talks between the government and the Brotherhood party leading to new elections. Gen. Sissi refused to accept the package leading to the resignation of the leader of the secular parties, El Baradei. This deal by Leon is referred to by the minister for planning and international cooperation of the Morsi government in his op-ed in the NYT on August 16, 2013, and was an effort by the international community to bring a peaceful resolution of the problem leading to new elections.