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When it comes to climate change China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world- more than North America, Europe, South America and Africa combined. It emits about one third of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. When it comes to climate change action China is meeting its 2030 targets 6 years earlier, and it is meeting all the increased use of energy through renewables. Yet there is another side and this is that China is building coal fired plants at a rapid pace to meet its energy needs. Xie Zenhua meets John Kerry at Sunnylands estate in southern California to discuss how China and the US can cooperate on climate change action. No two nations are so critical to meet the challenges posed by climate change from fires to floods and drought.

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Eri Machii, founded AfriMedico, a nonprofit organization designed to deliver medicine to remote regions in countries in Africa. She worked in Niger under a Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers program after two years working as a pharmacist. There she learned about the dangers in Africa in remote villages where travel and delivery expenses were high and infrastructure lacking. She devised a method of Okigusuri for Africa where as in traditional Japan medicines were left in a kit in villages and people paid only for what they used. Payment is done by cell phone using the M-Pesa money transfer system. Maichii learned about okigusiri as a system used in Japan throughout its history in places where infrastructure was lacking, lack of universal health insurance, and large families living together. She found that this was true for distant villages in countries like Tanzania where she implemented the system under AfriMedico. 20 volunteers helped found the organization and Tanzania pharmacist network helped guide them in setting it up. Large amounts of medicine taken at one time reduce the cost of transport. Use of the system of medikits in urban areas helped subsidize the village use. This is a system that has great potential for medicine delivery in many parts of Africa and Asia that have the same problem of access to basic medicine kits- so that treatment can be done earlier in the process for quicker less costly recovery, improving general health conditions. One can think of Indonesia, Philippines, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, West and East African countries as having potential for wider use of this system. As people pay for only the medicines used using cell phones the system has wide applicability from cost and access point if supported by private and governmental agencies in these countries.   ...

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China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, countries that are part of the G-20 are not part of the G-8. Without the developing countries no real progress can be made on climate change or on emissions control. Climate change was a key focus of this summit in Itlay for the G-8 but with India and China only on the sidelines and acting more as an opposition excluded from the main deliberations the whole climate change agenda had to be shelved. The European countries lose influence in an enlarged summit so the G-8 keeps going along. Sweden holds the rotating Presidency of the EU, so the Swedes are there also. And so is Portugal in away with Manuel Barroso representing the European Commisssion. Except Japan, Asia is not represented, and no country from Africa or Latin America is represented. The European club looks like an anachronism and it is. Merkel and Sarkozy say they know this, but there is too much resistance in Europe to giving up this privilege. When the Guardian reported that Italy may be left out in future meetings of an expanded summit. the Italian press and the Italian prime minister Berlusconi denounced the report. Other countries that lose influence in an expanded arrangement are Canada and Japan. ...

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Two of three obese people live in developing countries. About 29% of the global population is obese in 2013, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Between 1980 and 2013, obesity increased by 47% for kids and 27% for adults in the global population. Dr Murray of IHME says no country was the exception. Diet and inactivity are the principal culprits. About 37% of world's men and 38% of women are obese. Obesity increased rapidly first in developed countries, becoming noticeable by 1980 and slowing since 2006, and now is growing fast in developing countries. Germany is a surprise No. 8 on the list. The U.S. No. 1 ranking tells a lot about the misguided priorities of living in the U.S., lack of education on healthy eating and healthy living, and not putting healthy habits at the top of things to do above making more money. An extreme case is South Africa where 42% of women are obese. The most obese countries are by rank - U.S., China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, Germany, Pakistan, Indonesia. Middle Eastern and North African countries have high obesity rates for children. The study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation....

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Microsoft leaders for reasons of climate change action and aid to poor African and Latin American nations see the positives in Harris-Walz focus on investment in the future. A similar situation exists with JP Morgan Chase bank leaders. Intel and Ford Motor Company leaders see the Biden administration investment in American companies for stronger competition with Chinese or Taiwanese companies, and for climate change action by investing in EV industry technologies, in the same way. Overall cutting corporate taxes is not as big a priority for American business as government assistance and support to match the hidden subsidies Taiwan and China, South Korean governments give to their companies in Chips and EV's, other advanced technologies industries.

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Ram Manohar Lohia, George Fernandes and Mulayam Singh Yadav are socialist leaders in the early years following independence who followed some of the same sentiments for renewal of India that are carrying India forward and have helped it cope with the pandemic and other problems. Yadav was chosen for Padma Vibhushan award this year. About Lohia it can be said that he provided a vigorous voice for democratic alternatives during the Nehru period, as did Acharya Kripalani. Both of whom have received less attention in independent India on the verge of its 75th anniversary in 2024 than they deserved.  They and in some ways Mulayam as a student of Lohia provided the voices needed for the vibrant Democracy that is India today, that is a partner for the democracies of the world from the US to Europe to Brazil and Mexico, to South Africa.

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An extraordinary moment in history took place at Rajghat Gandhiji Memorial in New Delhi on September 10, 2023. The leaders of 20 largest nations from all over the world observed a moment of silence after devotional hymns at the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi. Click on original article to pull up the larger picture and take our On the Spot Quiz on which countries were paired together on either side. On either side of Modi are Widodo (Indonesia) and Lula (Brazil), next to them either side Macron and Biden, Albanese and Sunak, EU's Michel and Leyen , Erdogan and Yeong, Fernandez and Meloni, Qiang and Kishida, Lavrov and Scholz, Sissi and Ramaphosa, Rutte and Trudeau. Can you tell which countries each pair of leaders are from? Answer below for our first On the Spot Quiz. Answer: France and US, Australia and UK, EU's pair, Turkey and South Korea, Argentina and Italy, China and Japan, Russia and Germany, Egypt and South Africa. It is an exceptionally well thought out arrangement. With Indonesia and Brazil on either side of India, you have the core of the aspiring population of 1.7 billion people more than anywhere else on the planet Earth, who think alike, act alike. And next to them are leaders of France and US, Australia and Britain, and the European Union, who are resolutely backing the shift in agenda- debt assistance, tripling renewable energy, and a new infrastructure building effort for ease of living.   ...

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Inflation of 40%, a currency that has collapsed, debt at $58 billion or 105% of GDP that takes up one third of the country's budget just for dept payments, this isn't some economically weak African country. This is Ghana today, similar to about 54 countries in the Global South in even worse shape. Just before the pandemic in 2018 it recorded 6% growth. It is an agriculturally rich country with cassava and plantain production, the second largest cocoa producer in the world, and and oil producer.  Ghana has accepted a $3 billion loan from the IMF. The pandemic hit Ghana hard, followed by the Ukraine war and costly oil imports as Ghana lacks refinery capacity. 

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This means Lal Bahadur Shastri as much as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi in her own way, other prime ministers such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee till today. In a way this would include all of the leaders such as Govind Vallabh Pant and Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Subhas Bose and presidents Rajagopalchari, Rajendra Prasad, and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, southerners and northerners alike, westerners like Babasaheb Ambedkar and northeasterners like Syama Prasad Mukherjee. And above all Mohandas Gandhi and his mentors Tilak, Gokhale. It all started with Dadabhai Naoroji, a member of the British parliament in the Victorian period of prime minister Gladstone, who wrote the classic "Poverty and UnBritish Rule in India" which inspired Gandhi to write his own Hind Swaraj in 1910 on a ship from South Africa to London to negotiate for the rights of overseas Indians. Naoroji and Gokhale provided the tactical approach for Gandhi to learn and combine with his own ideas for Swaraj.

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Efforts to build air defense systems for Guam, American base 1300 miles east of the Philippines. China has stockpiled missiles that could reach Guam, says this report in the WSJ. There are 150,000 American civilians in Guam, which is an island the size of Chicago. As Guam is entirely American the US can operate from Guam in a manner that it cannot do from Okinawa or other bases in the Pacific, or in South Korea. About 50,000 Americans are based at Okinawa, Japan. US has 22,000 military personnel on Guam island. Guam played a critical role in the early days of the Pacific War with Japan and after it was retaken from the Japanese.

This is becoming important as the US faces the prospect of being able to help protect Taiwan's independence, and protect free navigation on seas in the Indo-Pacific region that extends from Africa to India and Australia and to western US.

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India plans to vaccinate 300 million people in the first drive of the vaccination campaign. The two vaccines approved are the Covishield from Astra Zeneca partnership with Serum Institute of India, and the Bharat Biotech vaccine. India is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, and its vaccination production and campaign is being watched closely.  The largest maker of vaccines is Serum Institute of India based in Pune. Countries that are seeking India's help in vaccines are Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh. Brazil has ordered 1.5 million vaccine doses. The Indian government has approved sending vaccines to other governments. Price of 100 million doses to be supplied by Serum Institute to the Indian government is 200 rupees a dose or about $2.73 a dose. Vaccine sold in private markets will be priced at 2000 rupees a dose. Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech have stockpiled 70 million doses. ...

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Coronavirus has given time for developing world to prepare as it hit Europe first, but now that it has hit Brazil, Mexico, India, South Africa, it is following a pattern that keeps it there for months with no end in sight. This is straining hospital and doctor resources to the limit and leaving doctors stressed and exhausted. This report looks at the nonstop flow at one of Mexico City's largest hospitals Salvador Zubiran.

The informal economy in these countries makes it harder to lockdown completely or for a long period. Now that the economy is reopened the larger population and congestion and the inability to have further lockdowns or tightened restrictions for economic reasons makes for the flow of new coronavirus patients over many months. Some restrictions have been reintroduced in India and the higher recovery rate of close to 70% has offered some glimmer of hope, yet more needs to happen to win this fight.

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Shardul Thakur makes history with 7 wickets for 61 runs in the second Test match at Wanderers in Johannesburg. He says he loves playing Test cricket and "it is the purest form of the game." His mindset is different when playing Test cricket where he wants to give it his best.

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Jack Mapanje is a visiting fellow at Newcastle University Center for Literary Arts in Britain and has written a memoir of his period in prison. He was in Mikuyu Prison in Malawi when the news of Mandela's release was brought to him as a rumor by a prison guard. The same guard had earlier brought the rumor in 1989 that South African President Klerk had started secret talks with Mandela. He describes the therapeutic effect of rumors in prison. At the time Martin Munthali was also a political prisoner in Malawi after being sent to prison by Malawi's president Hastings Banda, a year after Mandela was sent to prison. Mandela spent 27 years in prison before his release. After Mandela's release, political prisoners at Mikuyu were released and free elections were planned putting an end to the regime of Hastings Banda, who had supported the Apartheid government in South Africa.

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Wilkins was British inventor, scientist and educator with profound unbelievable impact. Some thoughts on what it means for America to reject Science in 2024 for Climate Change in the face of sudden floods, wildfires- for Western civilization was based on Science since 1648, Eastern civilizations missing it completely. When George Washington was fighting in the Pennsylvania country against American Indians and the French, on the other side of the Atlantic a Britisher from Somerset was part of the British East India Company that had won control of Bengal in northeastern India. In 1760 Wilkins arrived in Calcutta a youth of 21 as clerk for the British East India Company, rising to examiner for new employees at the company. It is Wilkins as a printer who creates the first typography for both Persian and Bengali, and who translates for the first time the Bhagavad Gita into English from Sanskrit in 1785.  This is of interest mainly because the American colonists were fighting an Empire whose chief base of the Empire was in Bengal and which generated the funding of the British war against the American colonists led by Washington, Adams and Jefferson. This was before Bengal also funded the British fight against Napoleon in Spain and Portugal. And by the 1850's funded Britain's wars in Chinese ports including Hong Kong. Wilkins is key to this puzzle about India and China- why they succumbed to European colonialism? Gandhi says the Indians invited them in as they were mainly shopkeepers and commercial interests. It is also true that after the end of the 30 years war in 1648, the British, French and Dutch followed Science creating the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution, that India and China missed.  Imagine then what it means to reject Science in the West in 2024 on Climate Change? Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj in November 1909 on the boat Kildonan Castle from London to South Africa. In it he says Indians have to look in the mirror and accept that it is they the princes of India who invited the British sepoys of the British East India Company into Indian states for their wars and losing Bengal, then the rest of India. ...

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Chris Froome who represented Team Sky and Britain in the 2015 Tour de France cycling race, was born of British parents in Kenya and grew up in Kenya and South Africa.

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Boosting vaccine production for the Indo-Pacific region that includes Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam with production done through Biological E in Hyderabad will be discussed at the meeting with Biden. Japan will fund the project, and Australia will handle the distribution. This will be part of a followup to a March 12 virtual meeting of Quad leaders. This effort to meet the vaccine supplies challenge for the Asian region covering south east Asia and its population of 600 million will be one of the major outcomes of Quad countries collaboration, making it a peacetime collaboration that supports development in the region without burdening the financial position of any country.  The other part of US- Indian collaboration and Quad collaboration centers on two related themes after healthcare and pandemic. The immediate challenge is to tackle the breakdown in the supply chain for semiconductors. The US and Europe can no longer depend entirely on a supply chain based in Taiwan. The narrowest part of the Taiwan Straits which separates Taiwan from the Chinese mainland is only 81 miles wide, which makes continued dependence on chip production on Taiwan an unreliable option and the need to build a new supply chain for Japan, EU and US. Plans will be made to address this in the talks. The Biden administration has already taken action with Intel Corp making a U turn and bringing chip manufacturing back home to the US with $50 billion investment planned. India and other Asian countries may form additional options for semiconductor manufacturing. The third part of the Quad effort will center on US and Japan ramping up infrastructure building capabilities with India to build infrastructure across Asian countries and in Africa that will be financed in a way that will not have some of the liabilities of the Chinese initiative called Belt and Road. Loans given by Chinese state banks and contracts including manpower from Chinese contractors are now seen as not meeting the needs of Asian and African countries. These loans most of the time cannot be repaid as in Zambia, and other parts of Africa, and in Pakistan, leading to interest accumulating on debt and making future infrastructure development extremely difficult. The use of manpower from China also means no learning curve for infrastructure is formed for local companies and infrastructure comes without new jobs jobs being created.  For most of the period 1900 -1950 the British built Asian and African infrastructure. During the period 1950 onwards the US assumed a major role, as did the Soviets. This changed after belligerent Reagan administration policies and wars in the Middle East sapped the funds that could have gone to infrastructure building that would improved living standards in Asia and Africa. Mr Biden wants to see this change and this is what he meant when he said at the UN General Assembly today- " we want relentless diplomacy to take the place of relentless wars." He means every word of this and the diplomacy is between allies and also adversaries, but mostly with allies such as Japan, the EU and India to build a better world. That he has to do this quickly Biden is aware of that, which is why he said "the next 10 years will determine our future."   ...

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Biden tells the UN General Assembly he has seen the world since coming to the Senate in 1972 age 29. "Sweeping, aspirational, stubborn, defiant" says WSJ, 52 years later president Biden describes what was overcome- A long drawn war in Vietnam ended with America and Vietnam meeting as friends and partners this year showing there is path forward to reconciliation, to peace. Speaking out agains Apartheid in South Africa in the 1980's and seeing the racist regime fall. Peace in the Balkans and how he held Milosevic accountable for war crimes in the 1990's. And Afghanistan becoming longer than the Vietnam War, four presidents did not end it. "Four American presidents had faced that decision, but I was determined not to leave it to the fifth." How he has hope for the Middle East and Ukraine. “I have hope. It always seems impossible until it is done.”  ...

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PM Narendra Modi is nominated in the historic old parliament building in New Delhi for a new five year term in office by the parties in the National Democratic Alliance on June 7, 2024. The importance of the event is because of the 294 seats of 543 in parliament of the NDA parties and the nomination based on achieving the vision of a developed country similar to the US, EU, Japan and China, by 2030. With the modernization complete by 2047, the 100th anniversary of Gandhi's struggle that won Hind Swaraj (Indian freedom), the title of a book put out by Gandhiji in 1909 as he negotiated a settlement with the British Empire for South African Indians and Black people. Leaders of every party in NDA cited this as the reason and the goal in their nomination speeches.

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The third or booster dose of vaccine is needed to take out the Omicron variant. The UK Health Security Agency analyzed data from 581 Omicron cases and thousands of Delta cases to calculate how effective vaccines such as Pfizer and Astra Zeneca were against the Omicron variant. This early analysis shows a third booster dose prevents around 75% of people from getting any coronavirus symptoms. The double dose of the vaccine however provides good protection against severe coronavirus that needed hospital treatment says the UK Health Security Agency. Of equal concern is the rate of spread of the Omicron variant. Here this BBC report shows graphs of UK National Health Security Agency which show the rate of spread is rapid with cases doubling every 2-3 days. For the UK which on December 10 had about 1265 cases this means says this BBC report that the number of Omicron cases could be well above 100,000 in the UK by the end of December. The BBC graph shows the curve for Omicron cases moving in a close to vertical direction upwards. Reports say the experience in South Africa where the Omicron variant was first detected is similar in pattern causing rapid spread. ...

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A Phase 1 trial of over a thousand volunteers shows the Oxford vaccine works well with minimum side effects that can be handled with acetaminophen. Phase 2 trial is underway with volunteers in UK, Brazil and South Africa. Participants given the vaccine had significant increase in antibodies to neutralize the disease, and T cells for long term protection. About 70% reported fatigue or headaches which can be handled with acetaminophen. After the Ebola crisis of 2014 in West Africa the British government invested 120 million pounds to form a group to develop vaccines for top 10 likely threats dubbed "Disease X." On this list was the coronavirus. Scientists at the Jenner Institute at Oxford formed a team as part of this effort. Sarah Gilbert and Adrian Hill led the scientists at Jenner and pioneered research for  a new way to do this- to first replace a part of the virus with a component of the new virus. Then to remove the part of the virus that allows it to replicate in humans. This method is called recombinant adenovirus vector. The Oxford scientists used existing technology in new ways to increase the chances of getting a good vaccine early.  The first vaccine could be developed and tested for mass production by September. A 30,000 participant trial begins in U.S. in August. About 1 billion doses could be manufactured by end of 2020. India's Serum Institute has the manufacturing facilities to do this near Pune, India.  ...