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An obscure parliamentary precedent was used by Speaker Bercrow to end Theresa May's strategy of repeated votes in Britain's parliament to browbeat reluctant Brexiters to vote for her negotiated settlement with the European Union. The precedent was set as far back as 1604 and was designed to protect the powers of parliament in the face of a Scottish royal assuming the role of sovereign of Britain. Repeated votes on the same proposals are not allowed if the intention is to find ways to get reluctant members of parliament to vote in favor, essentially by bullying them into this. This is also why Brexiter MP's have hailed the Speaker's decision in their opposition to Theresa May. Britain's constitution is based not on a single document like the U.S. Constitution. It is based on a a collective set of laws and precedents. A parliamentary rule book published by Thomas Erskine in 1844 sets out these rules in 1097 pages, available for 439 pounds in parliament's bookshop. It has gone through 24 editions. Speaker Bercrow says of the rule he was referring to as a statement on page 397 of the 24th edition.  There is not much time, just 10 days, for prime minister Theresa May to end the current parliamentary session and call a new one to nullify Speaker Bercrow's decision. This would also further antagonize the 40 Brexiter MP's led by Mr. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson in May's own party, making it impossible for parliament to agree on a course of action. ...

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Israel's Benny Gantz leader of the Blue and White party leading in seats in parliament with 33 seats to Likud's 31 seats, and his centre left coalition having 57 seats to Likud coalition's 55 seats, has rejected a call for a unity government with Likud bloc. Under such an arrangement Mr. Lieberman's party with 9 seats would also join the coalition. Mr. Lieberman pulled out of a coalition with Likud because of his opposition to ultra orthodox parties leading to this election in Israel in 2019. Mr. Netanyahu's rise in politics with Likud came with his close relationship with Lieberman. With this coming apart Israel is looking to the future with the emergence of new governing parties to replace the old politics and governance.

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Spain's women's soccer team wins the Under 17 world soccer FIFA championship after beating Germany 1-0 and Colombia 1-0. The Spanish soccer team showed remarkable team coordination and control of the ball throughout these games. The preparation of these players appears to be rigorous and carefully done, keeping Spain at the top of women's soccer.

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The popularity of women's performers including Taylor Swift with the ERA's tour, and groups of women attending such events during the summer, is the subject of this report in WSJ. With more women joining the workforce after the pandemic, increase in women's wages, there is more spending power to boost the economy of different regions in the US.

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Bridgeport, Connecticut, an old American manufacturing town that is getting back its manufacturing prowess. Bridgeport was home to Remington, to divisions of Westinghouse and General Electric, Bryan Electric. During the allied effort in WWII it made half a million Thompson submachine guns. After the deindustrialization of the 1980's and 1990's and the period of stagnation since, the city is now making a resurgence in manufacturing using a talented workforce and education system. A resolute effort to revive American manufacturing can be seen everywhere. Newer companies are different from the past using new technologies, highly trained employees, these businesses are smaller, cleaner and more expensive to operate, say city planners and new business owners.

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Indian foreign minister Jaishankar tells a conference in Begaluru that what happens outside India affects each and every Indian. Inflation with prices of fertilizer, foodgrains and oil are affected by the war in Ukraine, coronavirus started in Wuhan, China, the incursions since 2020 in the Himalayas were started at our borders by China and began with its invasion of Tibet, what is happening on the border in Kashmir with crossborder terrorism happens with China's support of Pakistan.  Gaining access to pools of US and European capital and technology will involve action taken by foreign investors from outside India's borders in lands far away. This will affect the infrastructure and the speed and scale of India's industrialization and modernization, and will affect every Indian. It will also help India compete with other industrialized countries including China, and emerge as a leader of the Free World along with US and European Union. The world is where everything takes place and India's place is in the Free World. ...

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The former commander of the NATO US forces in Europe 2014-2018, Gen. Ben Hodges, says the war could end in 2023 with air support to Ukraine. Hodges tells DW.com's Ines Pohl, that the only red line for Washington's support in Ukraine is "boots on the ground." Hodges says Ukraine must retake Crimea to maintain the international rules based order and the UN Charter.

About the Russian offensive in Feb 2023 Hodges says Russia was attempting to "surge" a new offensive but it does not have the capability to launch a "major' one. "They don't have the armored forces, the ability to break through," and that it will not change the "overall operational environment in Ukraine." This is the first serious assessment of the new phase in the war on an overall basis looking at the larger picture of Russian and Ukraine plus outside support capabilities. 

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Announcing that he would not attend the COP27 Summit in Egypt and then deciding to go shows a lack of commitment, says Mark Landler of Rishi Sunak's decision to finally attend the climate change meeting. Mr. Johnson is remembered for his clear support at COP26 in Glasgow and he will be attending the meeting in Egypt as a private citizen. The demotion of Mr. Alok Sharma by Sunak after his role in organizing the COP26 Summit in Glasgow also does not help. Mr. Ben Wallace, and Mr. Cleverly hold the Defense and Foreign Ministry positions in Sunak's cabinet and supported Mr. Johnson throughout and after Mr. Sunak withdrew his support leading to Mr. Johnson's resignation, says Landler. During a cost of living crisis, there is also a sense that there is not enough commitment from the Tories to meeting the challenges of ordinary families with support, in addition to problems of climate change remaining unaddressed under Mr. Sunak's leadership.

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India takes on the G20 presidency on December 1, 2023. Modi's phrase "this is not an era of war" becomes the classic part of India's vision for G20, that the next generation will miss out on development if conflict takes the place of cooperation. India stands firm on this point at the G20 and it is accepted by world leaders at the summit in Indonesia and makes it to the joint declaration as a key point. Modi also extended his hand to China's Xi Jinping showing where India stands. India's connections to Indonesia from ancient times, from the Buddhist and Hindu periods of Indian civilization, the connections to Hanuman that extend to Indonesia, were mentioned by Mr. Modi as he took on the role held by Mr. Widodo of Indonesia. India offers a new path forward and a lifestyle suited to the period of tackling climate change through its ancient Yogic civilization, Mr. Modi said.

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Biden's love of Irish poetry comes through at critical moments in his career. His efforts reading his uncle Ed Finnegan's book of W. B. Yeats poetry and trying to memorize some lines as a child to  help overcome his stutter. His quoting of Seamus Haney at critical times in his career- and after winning the 2020 election. He also quoted Haney in the Irish parliament this week using Haney's translation of the Greek playwright Sophocles- Haney's The Cure at Troy. In a way says NPR Biden found his own voice through Yeats. One can see from the speech at the Irish parliament that the words of a Yeats or a Haney has a magical effect on him- helps him come alive and become invested with a youthful energy, and a new found vigor that comes from purposeful living. He combines Haney on hope with his reference to Chinese president Xi and being asked what defines America- his answer "Possibilities." 

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Jim Tankersley of the NYT is the author of the book- The Riches of This Land- The Untold, True Story of America's Middle Class. He is NYT's White House Correspondent with a focus on economic policy, and has written for more than a decade on the decline in opportunity for American workers. Here he tells readers why president Biden's plan to invest in human capital as well as the tangible capital of infrastructure building is so badly needed in America today. Human capital is found in education of children and college students, in support to women to get back into the workforce during this pandemic to bring their skills and talent to the workforce. This means financing education pre K through college, and paid leave for caregivers who are mostly women. Also part of the plan is investment in a rapid transition out of this period of dependence on fossil fuels and in the nation's scientific and technological capacity to come up with new solutions.   ...

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PM Modi tells parliament in a reply to the president's address yesterday laying out the government's program, that if India operated at the speed of previous governments before 2014 it would take three decades to get to No.3 in the world's economies. Instead India plans to move from the 5th largest economy in the world to No.3 by 2030. He pointed to the investments that the government had made in providing housing, income support, water, on a scale uparalleled in history to bring 250 million people out of poverty. The four pillars of the programs are Nari Shakti women's progress, Yuva Shakti youth progress, Anna Data farmers progress, and strengthening the industrial infrastructure of the country. The prime minister pointed to previous prime ministers having doubts about what India could achieve in the community of nations and compared it to the convictions, the hard work and the single minded determination of the people driving progress today who have no such doubts. ...

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Watching Joanna Stern of WSJ interview Sam Altman and Murali Murthi gives the impression that Altman was  moving too quickly and Murthi was saying the right things but lacked the experience and capacity to tackle AI's vast responsibilities. This also stems from the fact that what young Stanford and other tech graduates in their early thirties have done in the last 2 decades ends a chapter in America's tech history. AI is an entirely different technology which requires the involvement of major parts of America's whole technological and scientific community and its society, not just a few individuals. This is also the lesson from the pandemic for virus research where not just the Cambridge, Massachusetts community needed to be involved, but vast parts of America'a health and medicine scientific community and the American public. A million lives were lost in the pandemic in the US alone, and millions all over the world. It is a lesson that should never be forgotten- that technology can get out of control. ...

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How the expression "owning the libs" found its way into the current vocabulary and its meaning today. Seen as it relates to the Republican party and choices of some sections of the party to overemphasize the importance of so called culture wars on the difference of opinion about abortion and women, immigration, diversity. This happens in the context of the larger issues of national importance of national character, America's leadership in the world, America's position in science and technology in the world, American education, fighting climate change and rebuilding the nation's infrastructure. After the Ukraine war, differences with China, and the reorganization of America's supply chain in the world reducing concentration in China, creating new opportunities for America in science and technology leadership, a new attitude is taking hold. One that deemphasizes this type of "owning the libs" discourse that leads nowhere in rebuilding America to rebuilding America and also its European and Asian allies to prepare for a better, hope filled future. ...

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Travel to one of America's best national parks Grand Teton National Park is still one of the top destinations for travelers. Jackson Hole Wyoming airport is being expanded in 2025.

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"Today's era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this." Modi tells Putin at a meeting this week with the Russian leader. And Putin's reply "I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine and the concerns that you constantly express. We will do our best to stop this as soon as possible. Only unfortunately the opposing side, the leadership of Ukraine, announced that it wants to achieve its goals by military means  as they say "on the battlefield."

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What were the stories in the Economist magazine that were the most read stories of 2019? Not on president Trump. On Malaysia, China under Jinping, and exodus from San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The most read article was on the newly elected president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro. The mismanagement of the economy particularly extravagant state spending on the Olympics and soccer stadiums for the World Cup at the expense of basic sanitation services, bus and transport services, health services, led to the result of a majority of Brazilians rejecting the Workers Party and its leader former president Lula. Unfortunately most of the media including the Economist did not draw attention to this gap. During a period in which income from mining with export of iron ore, and soyabeans to China, enabled Brazil to live beyond its means, there was no effort to draw attention to glaring gaps in development of public services such as sanitation, bus services and transport, lack of building infrastructure other than to support mining. Glaring gaps in education and health services made the situation worse. The second most read piece in the Economist  was on March 10th- Malaysia's PM is about to steal an election. Here the Economist magazine joined the Wall Street Journal which originally broke the story on the 1MDB fund and irregularities in Malaysia where a development fund was misused by the government. Najib actually lost that election and the WSJ covered the story of the developments that followed in which Malaysia's new governemnt led by a returning former prime minister in his nineties Mahathir Mohammed, ousted his own protege Mr. Najib.  The third most read piece in the Economist magazine was - How the West got China Wrong.  Unfortunately the Economist magazine and most of the media covered China in the two decade long boom years without covering the other emerging story as well in which Mr. Lighthizer (now president Trump's top trade adviser) and others questioned the huge unsustainable trade surpluses in U.S. trade with China. With the economy facing huge downside risks and rising trade tensions with the U.S. Chinese president Jinping's move to remove the limit on terms in office in the Constitution was considered a shift from the notion that China was likely to turn into a democracy. Mr. Jinping had already completed his first term in office and the anti-corruption campaign, managing the economic boom for a soft landing, was carried out with the central leadership of the party, after the destabilization evident in the early part of Xi Jinping's first term. Much of China's path was predictable and rational behaviour in its national interest, what was not clearly defined or defended was the way the U.S. could sustain the trade deficits that had reached a billion dollars a day. Leading to Mr. Trump seizing on this as an election issue to form a bloc of voters separate from the two main parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. The fifth most read piece was on Oct 11, 2018- the next recession. It pointed out that with low interest rates central banks in the U.S. and Europe and America could not cope effectively with a recession. The sixth most read piece was on June 29, 2018- Bullshit jobs and the yoke of managerial feudalism. It cited Prof. David Graeber of the London School of Economics, who wrote a short essay that went viral on the prevalence of work that had no social or economic reason to exist, work he called "bullshit jobs". Graeber said people want to feel they are transforming the world around them in a way that is leading to a positive difference. No. 7, 8, 9, were on Bitcoin, Netflix and programming language Python. No. 10 most read was on Aug. 30, 2018- Why startups are leaving Silicon Valley. It showed that in 2017 more people left the county of San Francisco than entered. The main reason the cost of living was burdensome and out of control. As Amazon shifts attention to India and Brazil, and Apple pulls back from India, social media companies coming under fire for disinformation, this period of Tech is making way for a shift in a new direction. A direction that focuses on people's lives, wages, spending on much needed infrastructure and services. ...

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A new West Coast Model is emerging with ballot measures in the states of Washington, California and Oregon. The model is to make up for decades of faulty income distribution which favored tech communities in west coast states leaving behind people from minority communities and the working class outside tech hubs such as San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. During this period budgets for education and healthcare, social services and essential infrastructure suffered as budgets were squeezed for local governments. Minimum wage also lagged behind and communities struggled to keep up. Washington votes for a ballot measure that raises the minimum wage to $13.25 statewide and mandate paid sick leave for workers. In California a ballot measure makes permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires to use these funds for education. In Oregon measure 97 places a gross receipts tax on corporations with annual sales in Oregon over $25 million, raising $3 billion a year for schools, health care and other programs. The California and Washington measures are likely to pass, Oregon uncertain, say experts. And even in Oregon supporters have learned from the experience to put forward new proposals on the ballot. The Washington measure is supported by Nick Hanauer, and Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures in Seattle, who say it is essential to put more money in workers wages to increase growth and to bring better lives outside the tech hub areas. Most of the tech booms of the last two decades have not touched the areas outside tech hub metropolitan areas. The conservative approach adopted in Louisiana and Kansas of reducing taxes first and then when holes in state budgets developed to cut education, health and other service expenditures has not worked, and it has led to the backlash in the form of the new West Coast Model, which is expected to be brought up in other states in the east and midwest. The tech hub areas have grown with the boom in tech but this has largely ignored the rural areas, communities just outside of the tech cities, and led to uneven and distorted growth shortchanging the working class and the middle class, and hurting investment in education and healthcare across each state. Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution conservative think tank ,says that its hard to deny that the balanced growth for all communities across the state has lagged far behind as the tech booms boosted growth in the economies of California, Oregon and Washington. An article in the German online site Zeit on Silicon Valley described this vividly showing how this can happen in communities sitting side by side in the San Jose area, with minority Hispanic communities and working class communties seeing very little of the benefits of growth. ...

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India moves ahead with the the purchase of $5 billion S-400 long range surface-to-air missile system from Russia durinf president Putin's visit to New Delhi. Delivery of 5 of the systems will take place over 2 years. India hopes to have a transaction specific waiver for the purchases as the U.S. is placing sanctions on defense purchases by countries from Russia. U.S. sanctioned China in September 2018 for its purchases of 25 Sukhoi jet fighters and S-400 missile systems from Russia.

India has set a goal of diversifying its arms purchases. From 79% of arms purchases sourced from Russia, the figure dropped to 62% in 2013-2017 compared to the preceding 5 year period.

India and Russia have set the goal of expanding bilateral trade from current $10 billion in 2017 to $25 billion  by 2025. 

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Socialist Party in Spain increases its share of the vote to 29%, and emerges as the largest party to form a government with the socialist leaning Podemos party in 2019 elections. It does this by returning to its labour base and working class roots. It pitches a platform of worker's rights, higher taxes on wealthy, environmental roots, issues important to its social democratic roots. The WSJ cites a 57 year old employee of Spain's health service Antonio Benitez, living in Andalusia who says people have a hard time making ends meet, and its about time socialist parties speak of the main pillars of being socialist, without all the deviations to the centre. As free market thinking entered the mindset of leaders in the UK such as Tony Blair and Gerhard Scroder in Germany, Clinton in the U.S., the shift began towards economic efficiency in the tradeoff with equality and social justice. This was aggravated by the effects of international trade and technology in worsening income disparities and unsettling communities in traditional manufacturing. This trend is now being reversed as Socialist parties or Labour allied parties in the UK, Spain,and increasingly in the U.S., take a new position different from the past. A political scientist at the Free University of Amsterdam says its like these parties got hit on the head and now decided to go back to core values around equality, reducing disparities, social justice and the environment. Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party in Britain increased Labour's vote in the 2017 elections to 40% up from 30% in 2015. Italy's Socialists won 41% of the vote in 2014 European elections, moved to the centrist positions that made firing workers easier, pension overhauls raising retirement age, leading to losing half its support with 21% ahead of European elections in 2019. Pedro Sanchez of Spain raised the minimum wage by 22% before winning the 2019 elections compared to his predecessor Socialist premier Zapatero who is reported to have said "cutting taxes is left wing." Now workers rights and higher taxes on corporation are on the agenda.  ...

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This exceptional report on Hillary Clinton shows how difficult it has become to know Hillary Clinton through media accounts because it has been so distorted. Part of the distortion is from bits and pieces of her life being known, not the complete person. This comes from election campaigns dating back to Bill Clinton's second campaign for governor against Gay White, in which the fact that she had not changed her name and did not mix well with Arkansas's conservative society and manners, made this aspiring Northerner not looked at positively. Bill Clinton lost that election and came back to win in the next election for Governor. For that to happen Hillary had to change her name and the way she dressed to fit into Arkansas culture. Continually throughout Bill's career including the presidential campaigns Hillary Clinton had to change or adapt her persona as "Hillary" the person in politics as a candidate's wife, to fit in with what the public wanted to see.  Another facet of Hillary is her strong sense of privacy, not to reveal too much of herself, partly from her mother's ordeal as a child, partly from her Methodist upbringing not to speak too much about oneself. Her bookish nature as a person who studied policy, made this more evident. Political campaigns use some details about how a candidate or his wife is perceived, and Hillary herself said in 1995, telling the Washington Post that "I don't think you can know anybody else," because of what she called the crude mechanisms that only take bits and pieces of a person's life, not the whole person. Her own campaign for president suffered from this distortion as Mark Penn, her campaign strategist, pushed for her experience and hard work to be the basis of her campaign against Obama. Obama had his own focus groups in New Hampshire and Iowa show him that he could could do well as a story teller for change and a movement. It was not till the second presidential run in 2016 that the idea of a woman's movement was what Hillary was clearly put forward as. Throughout all this and all the years the woman Hillary Clinton has been essentially the same, adaption does not mean that you are less of what you are, however great the belittling in the media's version of life and events. And this is the Hillary Clinton, not the "Hillary," America is facing in October 2016, as the country ponders its on future, following some of the most denigration of women in any presidential campaign of the last two hundred years. ...

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The new iPad introduced in March 2012 with HD screen resolution and LTE capabilities is also priced at $499, with the older version priced down to $399. The iPad sales for the 4th quarter 2011 were larger than the PC sales of any individual manufacturer of PC's, according to Apple CEO, Tim Cook, showing the potential and demand for the tablet computers.

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48% of British voters see immigration as the most important issue says Ipsos. And 31% say their local area is housing more than its fair share of asylum seekers growing to 61% of Reform UK voters. Reform UK is now leading party with 34% of the vote to Labour's 25% and Liberals 11%. The report in the WSJ on Augu 28 shows how the Labour government did not live up to it's talk on immigration. It also shows how the Conservatives and Boris Johnson failed by opening up non EU immigration from Asia on the grounds that it would bring in the brightest and yet dropped the basic colege degree requirement paradoxically. Lobbying from health care home care increased migration for this field under Conservatives and is only now being reversed by Labour. Labour has been too slow and the culture of Britain and Labour has not changed enough to grasp the problem. Their are vested interests in Britain such as universities and home care health care that have influenced the conduct of policy so that migration on non-eu has replaced eu migration after Brexit but not attracted the most qualified immigrants. The 4% of the British population that entered Britain after Brexit as immigrants, millions arrived and now when Labour is trying to bring this down faces a large number of dependent applications.University students are now bringing in their dependents at rates that have skyrocketed. ...

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Italy's Five Star party agrees to form a new government in alliance with the Democratic Party. Mr. Conte will continue as prime minister and heads the new government. Five Star party's coalition government with Mr. Salvini's Northern League was formed after elections in 2018. It collapsed after Mr. Salvini decided to breakup the coalition government in the hope of taking advantage of increasing popularity in the polls. The Five Star Movement was founded in protest against the conventional politics in Italy, but decided to join the establishment Democratic Party after Mr. Salvini's moves to call fresh elections.