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China says its students are subject to harsh questioning when coming to the US, and these students face racial discrimination in the US. 105,000 student visas for Chinese students were issued by the US embassy in Beijing and consulates in China in 2023 as the pandemic recedes and normal exchange relations resume. About 50,000 exchange program participants in the US are expected to visit China over 5 years. Nicholas Burns, 68 years, is the new US ambassador to China in April 2022. As the mood changes in the US with both presidential candidates ramping up their stand on trade with China and tariffs, US China relations face headwinds after the normalization of US-China relations following the pandemic, when Xi and Biden met in San Francisco in 2023. Chinese student facing racial discrimination in the US and the difficulties with learning English pose serious problems for Chinese students which Nicholas Burns in a diplomat sheltered world may have no idea of. This applies to students from mainland China and Taiwan alike. Burns may have too hastily dismissed this side of the perspective from Xi Jinping. ...

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Biden's record on taking America through the pandemic, and getting the largest vaccination program in history like that of prime minister Modi has been forgotten to some extent by the Nation and more by the media than the Nation. Decisions on supply chain concentration in China were made long before Biden for decades since Clinton and Bush, Obama and Trump, which caused the spurt of inflation and cost of living to 9% that has so disconcerted Americans on incomes below $100,000. Biden and Fed chairman Powell brought this down to 3% in 2023. Yet the cost of living in housing and transport has lingering effects that lead to people describing Biden's record in a disparaging way as this title suggest, when it has through investments of trillions in aging dilapidated  infrastructure and in renewable energy, chips, science given America a pathway to a bright vision for the future. It is left to Kamal Harris to communicate this vision and what it offers for America's future. ...

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Spain's Catalan independence parties led by Arturo Mas win 48% of the vote and a majority of seats in the regional parliament in 2015.

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About a third of Conservative party members of the 10,000 who will be voting soon for a new leader still like Mr. Boris Johnson. Some say he has his faults, but who doesn't. Mr. Johnson has a flamboyant carefree bouncy style that has endeared him to supporters, and had he taken the public more seriously to be consistent and steady he may well have remained a prime minister. He is the only leader of the Tories who could convince traditional Labor voters to vote Tory. Ms. Truss, who has unstinting support of Mr. Johnson will continue to see Mr. Johnson as a respected leader if she is elected. Truss sees Johnson getting a well earned break, as she put it in a debate, like his hero Churchill who lost elections in 1945 only to come back in 1951 with more experience, restraint and wisdom. In a recent debate she stood by Mr. Johnson saying he did not need to resign. Today's Tories are leaderless and not recognizable as a single entity without the prime minister. With a little restraint, awareness of his inexperience, openness and respect for the British public, Mr. Johnson may well have remained prime minister. He now appears to be seeking a second opportunity, says this report in WSJ. It is hard to imagine Brexit without Boris Johnson. He defied the established reasoning through common sense observation. He once said that the only thing Britain would lose from Brexit is that there would be a shortage of Mars bars. Ms. Truss is somewhere between Labor and the Conservative in her life long convictions, yet has taken the Brexit cause to heart. Sir Keir Starmer Labor leader says he too will be trying to make Brexit work. ...

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Pictures that are poetic, this one taken by Agence France Presse's Brendan Smialowski.  Bernie Sanders, the independent Senator from Vermont being what else Bernie Sanders. Not schmoozing with people. Bernie in mittens made by a Vermont school teacher, the mittens prominent. It was taken at Biden's inauguration and shows Bernie Sanders in his typical self, independent, unswerving.

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After two quarters of no growth the German economy contracted by 0.1% in the third quarter of 2023. The Constitutional Court ruled that German government's diverting $60 billion of unused pandemic funds to its climate and transformation fund was unconstitutional. If cuts are made in public spending as a result it could push Germany into a recession, says IMK Institute.

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A French Appeals Court upholds a 2019 verdict of penalty on Swiss bank UBS for helping wealthy clients in France evade taxes. The court ordered UBS to pay $2 billion, reducing the earlier penalty from $5 billion.

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Walmart sold three of its overseas store operations in the last 2 months, some at a loss as it decides to focus on e-commerce. Walmart exited operations in Japan keeping a 15% stake and selling the rest of the operation to other companies. Walmart sold Asda Group Ltd. in UK at a non-cash after tax loss of $2 billion and operations in Argentina at a non-cash aftertax loss of $1 billion. In 2018 Walmart sold its operations in Brazil at a loss.

It has been hard for Walmart to use the same strategies that it used in the U.S. to achieve dominant position by squeezing out inefficiencies in supply chain and getting the best price from suppliers.  In Japan its subsidiary Seiyu required infusion of $2 billion in 2008 without generating any income in recent years. 

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Harris was on the Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday where she reminded television viewers about the values America needs going forward, values that stretch back to the days of previous leaders FDR, TR and Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson who penned the words in the Declaration of Independence. "I think a lot boils down to values. I just read values on the line here. It does. I mean, think about it, Oprah. The idea that some would suggest and that my opponent suggests, which is that the measure of the strength of a leader based on who you beat down. Come on. The real measure of the strength of a leader. You don’t know who you lift up." Harris and members of the audience were visibly shaken as they heard the story of a girl Amber Thurman  who died in Georgia after seeking help following an abortion ban in Georgia. Harris said- "Amber’s story highlights the fact that, among everything that is wrong with these bans and what has happened in terms of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it’s a health-care crisis. It’s a health-care crisis that affects the patient and the profession.” ...

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The U.S. trade deficit with China was declining till the coronavirus hit in February. Now it is back on the way up, a warning signal for the Trump administration as it seeks to stop sending American wealth out of the country in an utterly disproportionate way of $346 billion in just 2019 after taking action on tariffs and renegotiating trade agreements.  Imports grew 11% in July to $231 billion. While exports increased but not as much by 8.1% to $168 billion in July, still well below February/s $209 billion. That leaves a trade gap of $63 billion. This is the largest trade deficit since July 2008. The U.S. trade deficit is a major issue and is watched carefully as the Trump administration sets a goal of rebalancing world trade so that the U.S. no longer runs such large trade deficits with China, and Germany, and does not shift wealth overseas. The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2019 was $346 billion, with Japan and Germany it is much smaller close to $70 billion for each country. The Trump administration goal is to all out reduce this deficit through trade agreements and other actions that stop the current outflow of U.S. wealth overseas by $1 billion a day to just one country. For this it seek a level playing field which means other countries have to face tariffs if they unfairly subsidize their industries or violate labor rights for unfair competition, or in other ways seek to unfairly gain an advantage over the U.S. including through transfer of technologies from the U.S. ...

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A live interview by BBC Hindi with Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi. In the interview Kejriwal says there are 55 deaths from the demonentisation by removal of 500 and 1000 rupee notes in India. When questioned about this and proof, Kejriwal says BBC is biased. The effort by the the Modi government to  remove these rupee notes is an effort to get people in the informal economy,  the deals in real estate, and people in other parts of the economy which pay little or no taxes to bring the cash to banks and pay the taxes due. This is intended to increase government revenue for investments in infrastructure and education, healthcare. services. The large scale of the shift has caused difficulties for ordinary people, and the upper classes, and the government is working to work through these problems. In India the black money as it is called is estimated to run to about 1 trillion dollars. It is also the result of corruption and has deprived the economy of needed investments and modernization. ...

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This report in WSJ looks at the Biden education, healthcare and climate change plan. It is part of the Families and Workers Plan put forward by president Biden for $3.6 trillion. This figure has now been lowered to $2 trillion and may drop crucial provisions for education such as the cost free community college which poses serious risks for working class families unable to afford community college, and skews education access even further to higher income families. It also lowers college attendance of American men, which is falling to alarming levels. The reason the plans are being whittled down is the 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate and the failure of Republicans and two Democrat senators Manchin of West Virginia, Sinema of Arizona to support community college access. Parts of the current bill support child care, access to affordable housing and in home care for elderly Americans. New elections for Senate and House of Representatives in 2022 would have to settle the issues related to financing assistance for families and workers as the Senate today is divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. A separate Bipartisan Infrastructure package has the support of all in the US Congress to build bridges and roads, other infrastructure badly neglected by different administrations over the last 2 decades. ...

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The New York Times editorial on the violent military action against Morsi protest camps near Cairo University on August 14. NYT calls for cutting off the $1.3 billion in aid to Egypt. Baradei, Morsi, and the moderates are seen as complicit in letting the military take advantage of the split in the political parties through their failure to reach a compromise on constitutional and other issues. NYT calls it a foreign policy disaster for the U.S. and a tragedy for Egypt to return to military rule. U.S. president Obama is seen as having shown lack of leadership for both Egypt and Syria. The likely conclusion being that the low key approach has failed and the opportunity for a more peaceful Middle East focussed on improving the living conditions of the people in the region has been lost through inaction.

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This FR24 article is from November 2, 2022. 

 She calls herself a 4th generation Social Democrat and sees working class families as the worst hit by the politics of the open migration policies of the past. These policies only created the politics that did little for working families struggling to make a living and for an economy that supports working families. She now favors zero immigraton policies. Mette Frederiksen is favored by 58% in a recent poll. She won 50 seats in parliament for the Social Democrats with a majority for her centre left bloc in Denmark elections. In Denmark's fragmented political landscape her party Social Democrats won 28% of the vote.

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The divergent approach to coronavirus taken in Asian societies and Europe.

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Jeff Flake, U.S. Senator from Arizona tells Republican candidates, "Distance yourself from Trump," and Flake is thinking not just of 2016, but of elections to come.  In the West generally it is not just about minorities, but also the educated white collar professionals in cities such as Salt Lake City, Denver and Phoenix. The percentage of registered Republicans in Colorado dropped by 4 percentage points since 2012, and now Democrats have the same share of registered voters. In Arizona Hillary Clinton has invested resources to register more Hispanics and minorities. The distancing from Trump by Romney and the shift of the Mormon vote is making Utah also a place where Clinton is catching up in polls. As a result most of the West now looks very different. The remaining western states of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, say experts have a total of 13 of the 538 Electoral College votes. With Utah this is 19. 

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Ford Motor is building a manufacturing plant for EV cars on a 3600 acre site in Stanton, Tennessee. This will add 6000 jobs to this part of rural Tennessee.

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NYT shows maps of the region hit by the earthquake in Turkey.

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Mick Clegg worked with Christiano Ronaldo as his athletic trainer during his first spell with Manchester United. At the time Ronaldo was 18-24 years. During that time Ronaldo did not lift heavy weights, instead he used light weights and gradually stepped up the intensity with repetitions or changing the weight lifted.  Ronaldo is on a Mediteranean diet with particular attention to protein for the training he does. Without the diet he would not have the body he has with hardly any fat. He also takes carbohydrates to make sure he keeps up his energy level, and vitamins, minerals.  Mick Clegg points out that people on Mediterranean type diets take afternoon naps and Ronaldo takes a nap in the afternoon. A 40 minute nap in the afternoon after eating helps one to recover from the hard work of the morning, says Clegg. Christiano's mental attitude stands out in Clegg's experience working with him- his determination. He set a goal of working harder than Welshman Ryan Giggs, and was keen on taking the advice of experts and incorporating it into his routine. It is this that makes Ronaldo the player that he is. There is also a sense of calm about Ronaldo in a game where he remains composed till an opportunity comes late in the game as in the game with Villareal. At 36 in his second time with Manchester United Ronaldo is far stronger mentally than when he left Manchester United in 2009, says Clegg. ...

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Farmers protests asking for minimum support price to be extended to other products beyond rice and wheat. About 260 million people are employed in agriculture in India with many farmers on small plots, and large farms depleting water supplies. Efforts to introduce market pricing that would increase farm incomes and to shift more agricultural labor to the industrial sectors that build modern infrastructure and to factories are designed to improve standards of living. The pandemic and the years of slow growth before 2014 and lack of infrastructure building in earlier decades means the kind of shift of agricultural workers to factories that happened in China will be the task of the next ten years. The next budget for 2024-2025 shown in adjoining powerpoint shows the increase of capital expenditures of 11.1% in the coming year for infrastructure that is meant to catch up to the advanced industrial economies of the world with sustained investment at scale over the next decade. ...

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Jenny Strasbourg of the WSJ provides this much needed report from London about the courageous decision by AstraZeneca and Oxford University to give vaccines away at no profit to the whole world, to billions of people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Without this brave decision by a British company and a British University the world would be a lot poorer, more variants could have happened, making us realize the great contribution Britain has made and how indispensable it is to the planet. Add to this the effort of Indian companies including Serum Institute that provided the manufacturing facilities and capabilities for making most of the British vaccine. AstraZeneca delivered 2.3 billion doses of the vaccine globally as of mid-December, according to the company. The International Monetary Fund estimates that low and middle income countries received 3.25 billion vaccines as of Dec. 11, About half of this or 1.6 billion doses were Astra Zeneca shots. This is a bigger share than any other vaccine by far and a life saver to the world. AstraZeneca stepped up early in a true to the best ideals in Britain to meet the needs of the world-  aiming to deliver 3 billion doses in 2022 and sell them at no profit as long as the pandemic continues. As the shot does not need cold storage it is ideal for India and other Asia, Africa and Latin America. "We are all very proud throughout the company of the impact we have had," says AstrZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot. By far the biggest manufacturing was done at Serum Institute of India which supplied 1.3 billion doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to 70 countries. Mr. Modi pushed forward the export of vaccine made in India to the world from the beginning in the same spirit of cooperation and the best ideals that Britain was living upto. Serum Institute can produce as much as 250 million doses of vaccine a month making it possible for India to tackle the vaccination population of 1.3 billion people.   None of this could have happened without Oxford University and AstraZeneca and Indian companies with Mr. Modi's active support living up to the best ideals of Britain and India for the world. "When you add up the benefits to humanity, I think you'll find the vaccine holds up pretty well in terms of the ill health it has prevented, and the deaths it has prevented," says John Bell, a senior Oxford academic who in 2020 guided the University through its vaccine-partnership talks with Astra Zeneca. Because in the real world AstraZeneca shot has held up so well it is also a choice for booster shots. ...

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International aid arrives from the UK, France, US, and the European Union, as India faces a surge of the coronavirus in April 2021. A flight with oxygen and ventilators arrives from the UK. The EU is pooling resources, France is preparing flights with equipment. The United States Biden administration says it will release some of the 60 million doses of Astra Zeneca vaccine to India that remain unused in the US to address vaccine shortages.

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This analysis in the WSJ looks at president Trump's handling of the economy during the period before and following the coronavirus. It says a Gallup poll taken in September showed 56% or a majority of Americans thought they were better off than four years ago. The same poll shows handling of the coronavirus that hurt the economy not getting high marks for the president. A lot of uncertainty remains says this report.

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Layoffs at Microsoft, Amazon and Google are offset by more hiring. So that the companies are smaller by a small margin in 2023 compared to 2022, yet way larger than 2018. WSJ looks at the growing size of these companies. At Microsoft the headcount is 101,000 outside the US, a 70% increase since 2019. Apple's 161,000 employees are much higher than the 137,000 in 2019. A small trimming of employees only took down 3000 employees.