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Efforts to repair strained Saudi ties with a visit by U.S. president Obama in March 2014.

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Local customs, tradition and history of development play a part in each region. This is the message from Islamist politicians who want to bridge the differences with the USA in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan. They want to keep some of their Islamic ways of life and still work with the US. These Islamic organizations are working to reduce the violence in the region and promote democratic discourse and electoral representation. This is happening amid widespread mistrust of the U.S. of all Islamist politicians. There are negative perceptions about things Western which are not automatically accepted in these highly tradition bound areas of Pakistan, especially the Afghanistan border regions. Some kind of rapprocement could bring peace to the region and cool growth of militants. Is there a basic misunderstanding of the area and are their other more gradual ways of bringing these areas into the mainstream. Of modernizing these societies over time so they gradually accept women's rights, education and development as opposed to the sudden onset of change. One sign - these areas need hospitals, they need roads and there is no disagreement about this. Once they see the benefits of development and militancy drops then it s easier for them to understand the benefits of schools for girls, women's rights, and education and all other development. Its like the American South trying to baccept negro rights after years of blatant racism, took some time but now some of the southern states can't even be recognized from what they used to be in their perception of black people....

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Stephens says the lack of swift military action to protect the U.S. consulate in Benghazi by all means available was not undertaken by President Obama from Wall Street Journal accounts of what happened. The reason given was not to violate Libya's sovereignty, instead an effort was made by the State Department to get the Libyan government to send reinforcements. This was the situation at 5 pm on Sept 11, in an Oval Office meeting, when news of the attack on the consulate reached President Obama. A suggestion was made according to WSJ reports for U.S. planes to fly in from the closest airbase to scare away the attackers but was not adopted. The Obama adminstration was slow to act decisively in the struggle for freedom from the Gaddafi dictatorship and agreed to support the French-British effort after the war was underway for some time. This is likely to have left the U.S. with a lack of sufficient intelligence on the ground about the movement of remnants of Gaddafi's army, mercenaries from Mali, and terrorist groups, which are suspected of involvement in the attack, and which had threatened Ambassador Stevens according to his diary. The U.S. consulate in Benghazi was burned down in a deliberately planned attack and one of America's finest diplomats Stevens lost his life in the attack. ...

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Orlik cites a 2011 survey from China's South Western University of Finance and Economics, which surveyed 8000 households and found that 55% of Chinese households had little or no savings for that year. 10% of households control 86% of wealth and 56% of household income. Surveys in 1995 and 2002 showed 10% of households controlled 31% and 41% of wealth. In the U.S. top 10% of households control 74% of the wealth, according to the Federal Reserve figures. What this means, says Orlik, is that before China can shift to consumption based growth the low incomes of the majority of households have to go up, requiring a major policy shift. Under current policies and even with movement in the direction of the DRC/World Bank policy report for China for a gradual shift away from state owned enterprises, there is little prospect for rebalancing the world economy.

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The US gets the lowest score among the large industrialized nations- way behind Europe- in its record on greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution policies, agricultural policies, smog, and other environment criteria in a survey done jointly by researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities. On regional smog the US has a very poor score.

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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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The local elections in Turkey with the AKP winning 46% of the vote, the CHP 28%, after 80% of the votes were counted on March 30, 2014. The AKP retained control of the mayors position in Istanbul where Erdogan made his start in politics. With a little less than half the vote going to opposition parties and the suppression of the media by the Erdogan government, Turkey remains as divided as ever. Turkey's economic boom on which Erdogan stakes his claim to govern has depended on a credit boom based on foreign capital inflows and foreign investment. The crisis in emerging markets has reduced foreign capital inflows, the political divisions have reduced inflows even further, creating serious economic risks for Turkey that Erdogan and AKP appear to be oblivious to.

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A Peterson Institute of International Economics study on the TPP trade agreement shows it would reduce growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector by a fifth, according to this report in the NYT. Workers incomes and job losses in manufacturing are a key concern for voters and account for the surge in polls for Trump and Sanders in the U.S. presidential election of 2016. All four leading candidates Clinton, Sanders, Trump and Cruz oppose the TPP agreement. Congress will wait till after the election to decide. This is a big issue today because about 5 million jobs have been lost in 1977-2014, according to the Alliance for American Manufacturing. The Peterson study predicts job losses of 50,000 a year, yet another study by Tufts University predicts job losses of 450,000 a year. Another study by the Economic Policy Institute study shows other damaging effects such as labor's share of national income declining from the TPP.

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Former Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, has called for fresh thinking in U.S. foreign policy and foreign engagements after the wars in Iran and Afghanistan cost the U.S. about one trillion dollars. He says the U.S. should avoid single issue engagement, get the participation of other countries, and increase common ground on a host of issues which concern most of the major nations in the world. This is why we have a G-20 and not a G-8, says Hagel. This policy also helps the U.S. by having other countries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East take up some of the responsibilities that would otherwise fall disproportionately on the U.S., and lets the U.S. devote attention to strengthening the domestic economy which underpins strength in world affairs. On Iran he sees continuing talks as the better approach to coming up with a solution, for which he has come under criticism from some Republicans.

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Krugman says the TPP is no big deal because most of the trade in that region is free, protectionism is way down. He cites a recent report on American import restraints by the International Trade Commission putting their total cost at 0.01% of GDP.

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Ajami makes the point that opinions and attitudes -after the Obama efforts to improve America's standing in the Muslim world - havent changed much since the Bush days. He cites the Pew Global Attitudes Survey for 2009- In Turkey after the Obama Anakra visit favorable rating is only 14%, 69% are unreconciled. In Egypt 27% have favorable view 70% do not, in Pakistan unfavorables actally went up from 63% to 68%. He also points to the situation in Iran where the protester for the fraud in the election of Ahmadinejad did not receive much supprt from Obama, as the Obama administration decided to engage with Ahmadinejad to achieve nuclear settlement. In effect the rhetoric from Obama has not been matched with courage of convicitions , and lacks the courage to turn a new chapter by breaking from the past not just with talk but in real policy changes. And says Ajami the Arabs havve stopped listening to the rhetoric as little has been accomplished by way of change. At the same time false expectations may have been aroused because the Cairo speech was made at the University with the aging Mubarak at Obama's side, and beyond addressing these students the feeling clearly must be that the US would simply continue its policies of supporting old regimes that tolerate no dissent of any kind such as Mubarak's. ...