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Rinku Singh cricketer from Aligarh who hit six sixes off the last 6 balls in a IPL cricket league game in Ahmedabad for an improbable win over the Gujarat Titans.

"I hadn't even started playing cricket when I was asked to take up a job along with my brother. It was to mop the floor of a coaching center. I refused. I did't have academics to back me. Yet I chose cricket."

"I have worked really hard on my game. I only wanted to play cricket as I knew there was nothing else for me. I focused only on cricket. It is paying dividends now."

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Companies now realize that stretched supply chains is a risky business. Shipping costs have tripled and in some cases are ten times what they were before the pandemic. Logistics, containers, shipping, manufacturing in remote locations, is making this more complex and unmanageable. Cuts in coal consumption in China and economic recovery is pushing up demand for oil leading to $80 a barrel in oil prices. Outages in factories in south east Asian countries and China are leading to shortages in semiconductors and other products in the supply chain. This is affecting automobile production and other production affected by lack of such inputs.

This is prompting a serious rethink of existing supply chains.

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DW.com looks at why India is facing a oxygen shortage. Most oxygen manufacturers are in the east of the country and most of the coronavirus infections are in the west and north of the country. India normally produces 7000 tons of oxygen a day, which is being ramped up to 9000 tons a day and airlifted or sent by rail truck express trains to the north and west. German military aircraft are on the way to India on Wednesday May 5 that have on board a oxygen generating plant that can produce 400,000 litres of oxygen a day. Germany's ambassador to India says German aid is making a difference.

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Two months of lockdown will cost France 120 billion euros. 

France's Budget Minister says debt will reach 9% of gross economic output in 2020.

Throughout the financial crisis in the eurozone France was restricted to keep the deficit under 3 percent and public debt at 60% of GDP -with some flexibility but with warnings- under the Stability and Growth Pact of 1997 fiscal rules underpinning the European Monetary Union. Today the debt is at 115% of GDP up from 100% before the crisis. 

Now the deficit will be three times the 3% envisaged by SGP.

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Efforts by the Physiology Society and Centre for Ageing Better (CAB), Make Movement Your Mission, and other groups in Britain to launch a national public health campaign. This effort is designed to get older people to exercize and form the contact with others that helps physical and mental health during the coronavirus restrictions and lockdown. It is a campaign for public health resilience.

Medical experts warn that lack of activity even for a few days can build up into negative effects on muscle mass. Three "snack sized" breaks of exercize for 20 minutes each day are suggested as well as super bubbles of 4 people, and guidance on nutrition, mental well being.

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Federico Chiesa scored by improvising in a brilliant way for Italy to help Italy win 2-1 in overtime against Austria. His father scored at Anfield in Euro 96 against the Czech Republic. The other goal was scored by Matteo Pessina with an assist from Andrea Belotti. Italy continued to "hang in there, and have self-belief" as they faced difficulty throughout the second half. Both goals were scored in the first overtime of fifteen minutes, with both sides scoreless in the first 90 minutes. Chiesa's goal was similar to Gosen's for Germany, one in which younger players stepped up their game.

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President Trump cancels a summit meeting with the Taliban and Afghan leaders at Camp David planned for this week as a step forward in ongoing peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban attacks in Kabul that killed an American soldier was the reason given for cancelling the meeting. President Trump has as one of his goals ending the war in Afghanistan that has tied up American and allied resources over two decades. The long drawn out conflict has little support in the U.S. particularly because of domestic priorities including infrastructure and the economy, and the lack of any national interests for the U.S. in foreign wars.

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Several experts point to a dangerous change in the nature of unemployment in this downturn. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, says people are more likely to get stuck with unemployment now than at any time in the post war period. Andrew Stettner, deputy Director of the National Employment Law Project, says a larger share of the unemployed are not going to be able to go to the same line of work. They will need new skills, just like an auto worker in a permanently downsized industry would have to find new skills to make a product in the renewable energy field or health care. And the law as it currently stands does not help either. Because if an unmeployed worker looks for training or goes back to school he loses his unemployment benefits, something the Obama administration proposes to change. What this means is that many of the unemployed will end up as permanent job losers. Rob Valetta, an economist at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank says that throughout the the last 3 decades including good times, the unemployment pool is shifting towards permanent job losers. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economist, points out that once workers exhaust their unemployment benefits and don't get new training, they become disconnected to the labor market, and bascially end up on disability or become permanently unemployed. The statistics bear this out. In April 2009, 47.1% of the people collecting state unemployment insurance exhausted the usual 26 weeks of benefits without finding work, according to the Bureau of Laor Statistics, that is the highest rate on record. In December 2007, there were about 2 unemployed workers for every job opening, according to Labor Department data. In March 2009 there were five unemployed workers for every opening. Mark Beaupre, 49, of Providence, R.I. lost his $8 an hour manufacturing job an year ago, one of many manufacturing jobs he has held since the 1980's. His wife Cathy lost her customer service job a year ago. This couple who together made $50,000 a year, are now behind on their mortgage payments and have applied for food assistance. At a recent job fair in Providence he says three thousand people turned up and he could not even get into the parking lot. ...

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A survey by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper in Feb. 2013 shows 71% support for the Abe government. The effort to reduce the overvalued yen's currency value using monetary policy of the Bank of Japan, fighting deflation by setting a 2% goal for inflation, moral suasion with business leaders to increase wages, are all part of an effort to get the Japanese economy moving again. The Nikkei Stock Average is up nearly one third to 11,000. Unlike previous prime ministers, Abe is prime minister for the second time, and is likely to have a better plan for building public supprt for his economic moves which are described in Japan as "Abenomics." Recent meeings of the EU leaders have taken Japan's currency moves as steps related to fighing deflation and not efforts to manipulate its currency. The Swiss who are major exporting nation like Japan have also taken strong steps to keep their currency at competitive levels, giving Japan a precedent from Europe. With sharply slower growth in emerging markets, in China and India, the revival of growth in Japan would be seen as an encouraging sign in the global economy in 2013-2014....

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It costs Israel about $200 million a day. Building repairs from buildings damaged by missiles might coast $400 million. A month of war could add up to $12 billion. Air defense systems cost $700,000 for incoming drones and missiles per interception for the David system. For the Arrow system it costs $4 million per interception for ballistic missiles. This is why the ballistic missiles and drones launched against Israel from sites in Iran are big hit first. It is also why US -Russia and relations are so important in any of these regional conflicts. As two technologically sophisticated military powers both need responsible behaviour to prevent conflicts involving nuclear weapns proliferation. In this sense the idea of western powers is a colonial period idea of the colonial powers Britain and France, that the US should be wary of accepting and the importance of western civilization that includes Russia as a reliable concept that maintains world peace and nuclear non proliferation. ...

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China want its company COSCO to have an equal share in ownership of the 40 ports including ones in Panama that Hutchison of Hong Kong is selling for $23 billion to Black Rock and MSC. 

In 2014 China blocked a deal where Maersk would merge with a French shipping company and MSC to form a larger company. Much of China's export surge and its manufacturing capacity largely for exports rests on shipping and logistics and a large role is played by Denmark's Maersk and by COSCO. This has led to the US and Europe losing with its manufacturing base its role in world shipping, and as a result also in shipbuilding. All three are linked. India as it builds its manufacturing base is also building up its logistics and shipping terminals. DJT has emphasized the importance of the ports and it is seen as an affront that the country that built the Panama Canal has ceded its ports there.

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A look back through Lyrarc at how rainforest deforestation was taking place in 2007 and amazing UN pictures of maps of Borneo island for 2000, 2005, 2020 showing how deforestation was taking out most of Borneo's rainforest by 2020. This is a call to action from Lyrarc after the pledge of Brazil, Russia, China, India, US, Indonesia to stop deforestation at the COP26 Glasgow.  This report from Surabaya, Indonesia, by Tom Wright, in the July 3, 2007, Wall Street Journal WSJ shows how this was extensive deforestation of one of the few remaining rainforests on the planet earth was taking place and is a must read for everyone. The links show work by a British ecologist journalist who fought hard to prevent continued deforestation in Sarawak, Malaysia, where she grew up as a child when her father was a colonial period police officer in that region. She could see the disappearing canopy in the rainforest and her protests were carried out from the outside.  ...

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Two thirds of Americans are becoming pessimistic about the economy. This is one of the results of a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. This is up from 53% in January. Voters are losing confidence in the idea that the Democrats can come up with better solutions than the Republicans. Only 24% of those polled have positive feelings for the Republican party, with Democrats doing only slightly better. Democratic pollster, Peter Hart- who along with Republican pollster Bill McInturff conducted the survey- calls it the JetBlue election. This description is from the JetBlue flight attendent who ran from the plane after exiting through an emergency chute. There is a sense of severe discomfort and looking for the exit, he says. With 6 in 10 of those polled expressing a loss of confidence in the policies of the Obama administration to improve the economy, including 83% of independents, and a quarter of Democrats. The situation has deteriorated on the confidence level with the war in Afghanistan as well. 68% of those polled say they are less confident now that the war in Afghanistan can be brought to a successful conclusion....

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Vegetable prices in China went up by 22% in July 2010, from a year earlier, and grain prices went up by 12%, eggs by 8%. About a third of household budgets go to food in the budgets of people in India and China. Wheat prices are climbing on world markets after the ban on Russian exports, and rice prices are also climbing with the floods in Pakistan ruining the rice crop- Pakistan being the No.3 world's rice exporter. Personal spending accounts for 36% of overall GDP in China and 57% in India. Food prices in China were up 6.8% in July, 2010. Industrialization in China, and agricultural land freely taken over for factory sites with the consent of local authorites, may be a complicating factor. See the link to BYD's acquisition of agricultural land for factory site.

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The number of supercommuters is up significantly as a result of the drop in home prices and high unemployment. It is up 60% in Manhattan since 2002, up to 59,000 or 3% of the workforce. In the Philadelphia- New Jersey corridor- it is 7.3% according to NYU. Houston saw a large increase between 2002 and 2009. In Maricopa County near Phoenix, 131,000 people or 8.6% of the labor force supercommutes. About 13% of the workforce or 427,000 people supercommute in Texas. Prof. Mitchell Moss of New York University, defines a 100 mile plus commute to get to work as a supercommute. His work at NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation shows 1.15 million people supercommuting in 10 major U.S. metropolitan areas. Employers are showing flexibility not wanting to have to dispose off properties, and employees prefer not to uproot families.

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Create small, more transparent financial institutions out of the big banks by breaking these big banks up and selling them to private equity. These big banks are too big to save, too big to manage, andprone to taking excessive risk, thus damaging the economy. Craft policy and antitrust laws so that no financial firms become too large, as this has been proven to create risks for the whole economy. Do this by dividing banks up regionally or by type of business. TARP simply contimues the old game of big banks and financial institutions. These are the views of Paul Krugman and Simon Johnson presented to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress on April 21, 2009. Also on the panel Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig who said policy measures have focussed too heavily on propping up big institutions like AIG.

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Russia uses SCO or Shanghai Cooperation Organization to present it's case on Ukraine saying a coup supported by the US and Europe was the root cause of the crisis, in other words an effort to turn a Russian language country against Russia with it's effort to delink from Russia and join the European Union. US seeing China as the main competitor is trying under a Republican administration to bring Russia back into the European and US fold. The Europeans Germany and France, UK under Macron, Starmer and Merz are pushing back and see it primarily from the Northern European perspective of a Russian threat as they have over centuries of rivalry in Europe since 1600. China sees Germany and German led EU as its main source of western technology, trade and capital needed for a state run capitalism to function effectively. Germany seeks to keep it's China relations on a even keel for its economic interests, so does China. In this situation it can be surmised that it is the Europeans that asked DJT to sanction India for buying Russian oil to cut Russian source of oil resource sales by $119 billion leaving China's $136 billion purchase of oil from Russia aside (knowing China would not cancel sales easily), to buy time till Germany can build up arms supply to Ukraine. India is buying time to make a gradual shift to stand with the US and the improved US-Russia relations under the Republicans can only help India gradually shift to where it always stands- with the English speaking people of the world, the US and Britain, a policy Gandhi firmly supported and which India as an ancient civilization of the Buddha and the Bhagavad Gita finds itself at home with.   ...

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U.S. Secretary of State Clinton and Turkey's foreign minister Davutoglu met in early August 2012 and agreed to set up intensive operational planning and coordination of the two countries efforts on Syria to end the Assad regime. The two foreign ministers said a unified task force with intelligence, military and political leaders would be set up immediately and will look at all options including direct assistance to the democracy movement and forces fighting the Assad regime.

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China's trade surplus increased to $18.4 billion in April from $5.4 billion in March. Exports were up 4.9%, slower than expected and down from 8.9% in March. But imports went up by only 0.3%, much lower than March's 5.3% increase. The hopes for improving the trade balance in recent months may be dashed because of slowing imports for infrastructure development, as economic growth slows in China, even as export growth declines from its earlier high levels.

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The comparison of China with Japan as stress builds up from overexpansion of credit in the banking system. The sharp increase in credit following the 2008 financial crisis has built up stress in China's banking system. Japan went through a period of low growth and insufficient lending by banks. Banks refinanced bad debts to zombie companies in Japan leading to a long period of low growth. China faces a similiar period of low growth after a credit expansion binge.

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Efforts by the Chinese government to control a bubble in housing prices in 2012- 2013 include a 20% capital gains tax on property transactions. Sales volume for real estate developers in Shanghai in the last quarter of 2012 was up 63% over the prior year, according to real estate agency SouFun. Prices increased by 26% for that period. China Overseas Land and Investment shares were up 46% over the prior year on the Hong Kong market.

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Prime minister Monti of Italy played a key role in getting Germany to accept short term measures for the eurozone crisis. This includes having the European Financial Stability Facility, the eurozone's bailout fund, buying govenment bonds of Spain and Italy directly in private markets to reduce the unsustainably high yields on these bonds. The plans proposed by the EU include setting up a European banking regulator.

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Resistance to opening up India's retail industry from coalition partners in India's Congress party led government.

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Showing how much the Social Democratic party in Germany needed to show progress on key issues Martin Schulz of the SPD was ordered by the party to bring up contentious issues in negotiations relating to social cohesion. One was the two tier system in healthcare where some are able to pay for more privileges in the nation's health care system with private insurance and others are in the public health system. The other issue is the ability under current German law for companies to issue 2 year temporary contracts. The SPD party did badly in the last elections because working class voters do not see it fighting hard enough for worker rights and ensuring an equitable system.On the health issue a commission will look into how the system can equalize medical fees between people privately and publicly insured. On the employment issue companies can only terminate without cause in 1.5 years instead of the 2 years. Small compromises, yet in long negotiations with a 24 hour session for a breakthrough and everyone exhausted, the snail's progress over 13 days and one night worked to set up a new coalition after all. Still one hurdle remains- getting the SPD membership to vote yes even though its youth wing is opposed. ...

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How has the nation's capital fared after the pandemic? Some answers- population decline by 25,000, tourism is back up to 1.6 million, businesses coming back, more room in Metro trains with remote work, and businesses coming back in the city.