LyrArc Article Gist
In extended diplomacy Carney visits Beijing, China and says middle powers are seeking ways to interact and trade in a world of big power rivalry. His visit is followed by visits by UK's Starmer and Germany's Merz, and preceded by Macron. At the same time Merz visits Ahmedabad for a kite festival and signs a new trade agreement with India, followed by Leyen and Costa of the EU who sign a EU-India trade agreement for 27 countries of the European Union. All this suggests carefully planned effort in Europe to create new channels of trade and reorient existing trade relationships that will be more resilient with the US shifting to focus on Monroe Doctrine idea of the Western hemisphere as its region of influence and security. This report shows pictures of Starmer and Xi meeting at the Plough Pub in UK in 2015 and reflects on how this has changed 11 years later with China now  a dominant power with the world's 3rd largest economy and a third of world's manufacturing and logistics. How does this change the relationship with China in 2026 for UK and Canada, and the EU? At the same time Germany-India and EU-India relationship creates a 2 billion people market with capital, technology and labor potential to create the largest potential driven economic group in the world, combining EU's 20 trillion to India's $4 trillion economy and mutually complementing, which has potential to rival the US at $30 trillion by 2030 as India grows rapidly in the new EU/Germany/India market and the EU gets a new boost with the complementarity of the two regions by 2035. This suggests that something new is happening and Germany after a lot of soul searching have hit on something we should see blossom by 2030 in the way China has grown since that picture with Cameron of Xi at the Plough Pub in UK. A problem China faces as it continues to push exports is that EU/ India and US will take in less exports and there is only so much it can put in Latin American and African market, UK/Canada market leading to industries with massive oversupply. Major economic redirection may result from the Merz/Leyen/Costa visit and firming up trade agreements with India if the EU, Germany and India have the determination to seize this opportunity in the 21st Century. As Leyen said it has the potential to create a stable world with values of the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and Mahajima Nikaya of the Buddha supporting the industrial states that emerged from the Industrial Revolutions. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
"Brazil no Espelho" or "Brazil in the Mirror" by Felipe Nunes is cited by Brian Winter of Americas Quarterly in 2026 just before the October 2026 election. Lula has had a good run in the last 4 years with 3% growth of the economy, improvement in working class transfers and low unemployment. Lula's drawback is he is turning 80 years, and the Brazil of today is changing in its social aspects into one that is becoming more faith oriented. With evangelical Christianity on the rise and now about 30% of the people, including in the poorer areas of cities once supporting tax and transfers policies of Lula such as Bolsa Familia. Asked about their faith Brazilians are exception in the world for numbers Nunes shows can be found nowhere else- over 95% saying they are believers that their faith is the most important aspect of their life. Brazilians are also putting family first. There is a certain fatigue with the state supporting the economic lives of people, particularly with a recent Master Banco revelations of wrongdoing in business circles, reminder of the Car Wash Scandal after Lula left office. Brazilians say working for oneself is more important than working for the government. Brazil's economy is also transformed in many ways in its size and potential since the start of the Lula government in 2003. Brazil is now the 9th largest economy in the world, growing similar to India as the 3rd largest. The notions of left and right wing politics are now in both countries being replaced with a belief in a higher Being that guides us all. The ideas of Faith, Family and Work independent of the State is the direction in the European Union and other nations in the world.  Brazil as part of the Western hemisphere, and the US asserting the Monroe Doctrine after its experience with drugs and fentanyl, mass migration across its borders, it is now a different hemisphere than before. The US has shifted to securing the western hemisphere from the swings that happened in Cuba and Venezuela over decades that have led to economic disaster, and to millions of displaced Venezuelans crossing borders. In this situation much has changed across Latin America and North America.  In any situation the US is likely to find a favorable investment climate in Brazil, closer relations with Brazil, in its own hemisphere, as it has with India in Asia. A Brazil that would work to give balance to the US process of economic cooperation with Latin America that was the intent of John F. Kennedy in the Alliance for Progress. A vision never realized, put on hold for over 50 years, yet now ready to be realized. ...