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"Not ideal" says Ben Stokes, "yeah disappointing" says Steve Smith, about the 10mm of grass on the pitch that led to 20 wickets on the first day 36 wickets by the second day. Cricket Australia is disappointing a lot of fans when the Test match at MCG cricket grounds is over in 2 days- not since 1904 has something like this happened at MCCG- and there is an investigation, too much left to the cricket grounds preparation experts without supervision by Cricket Australia. Stokes says to be brutally honest it was bad for 90,000 fans. About England critics after losing 3 Tests, Stokes says that now goes to zero the idea of England not having won at all. Stokes and Root hug in the locker room, a sign of relief.

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France was exceptionally well prepared says France 24, citing a report in Le Monde, for the SARS crisis in 2002 and the H1N1 influenza in 2009. A billion masks were stockpiled by 2009. Following the H1N1 influenza not appearing in any significant way the media, political parties and the public shifted their attention away from public health crises preparation. For H1N1 the government spent 1 billion dollars some of it going to pharmaceutical labs. The eurozone financial crisis that followed the global financial crisis shifted policy to austerity measures. The entire preparation effort for influenza type health crises was abandoned as too costly.  The same pattern repeated in Britain which was also well prepared before 2010. Austerity budgets after 2010 had little room for public health investment.  One could say a similar pattern was seen in the U.S. Today the worst hit countries are U.S., Britain, France and other European countries. France which had 1 billion masks in 2009 to tackle a possible H1N1 epidemic finds itself with 150 million masks in March 2020 and scrambling to find masks. Some masks which were usable were even destroyed as expired, ministers and experts who had built up the prevention effort in 2009 were even demoted and forgotten, as was much of the preparation in these years. It wasn't just medical supplies pubic awareness had practically disappeared. In the U.S., in Europe, the same situation of a lack of public awareness so that experts, government, and the public could work together quickly, was clear to see. In countries such as Taiwan the preparation led to speedy response at all levels, making contact tracing, isolation of clusters effective. In the U.S. and Europe this early, early, period was lost leading to makeup mitigation measures and the growing sense of a loss of control over the virus. ...

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In a closely watched election Mr. Wilders of the far Right in Netherlands gains 20 seats, far behind centre right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy of prime minister Rutte who won 33 seats. The Dutch Green party which is strongly pro- Europe went from 4 seats to 14 seats, the Christian Democratic Appeal party gained 19 seats and the pro-European Democrats 66 party also gained 19 seats. In the 150 member parliament Rutte needs 76 seats to form a new coalition government, and he is likely to ally with these other parties to form a new government that supports strongly the European Union. This editorial in the NYT says the people of the Netherlands turned out in large numbers to support pro-European Union parties. Next the focus is on France and Marie Le Pen's challenge from the far Right. Cyber threats from Russia are seen as a way to discredit otherwise strong candidates, and the French government is taking this seriously. Chancellor Merkel said she "was very happy that a high turnout led to a very pro-European result," and president Hollande said this was "a clear victory against extremism."  ...

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Can an old Bavarian dance help to get one in shape while working at the desk or sitting watching sports on television. Watch this by clicking on Original Article to take you to DW.com article. A simple exercise routine that involves touching ones heel while standing, lifting one leg and touching the heel. The first the time doing this from the front then doing it from the leg lifted in the back. After touching the heel with leg lifted in the back one speeds this up. Then one adds to this a kneeling step. The three steps are repeated in that sequence and form an exercise routine based on an old Bavarian dance.

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Lula and Milei clash at Mercosur. Lula of Brazil talks about a humanitarian crisis in US policy to pressure Venezuela's military installed government but fails to say that a third of Venezuela's population, about 10 million people have left the country as refugees to neighboring countries including Colombia and the US. Inflation at over 100% and mismanagement of the economy have destroyed a once relatively affluent oil producing country in Latin America. Hyperinflation in 2018, and 270% inflation in 2025, and lack of open free elections, lack of food and medicine. A story of socialist ideas that have led to military involvement in politics followed by economic disaster in the western hemisphere, in a country that had a educated middle class and a thriving oil industry. Not since the Spanish opening up Latin America to immigration from Europe by 1600 has the continent of Latin America seen such a mass migration which is not reflected in many media outlets including the NYT, Washington Post and BBC, Guardian. The blockade by the US of oil into and out of Venezuela is affecting Cuba and other countries which depend on this oil. ...

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Macron started out in the Socialist Party in Amiens, France. After going to elite schooling he joins the Socialist Party ministry of Francois Hollande. As Minister of the Economy he rises rapidly to replace Hollande with his own party called the Movement that he sets up and within a year wins presidential elections. The rapid rise, the lack of his Movement party having much experience and put together quickly with new younger people, his aloof presidency, and a lack of connection with the problems brought on by the deindustrialisation of France as production shifts to China, the problems of lack of work and cost of living in smaller towns in France, lead to Macron's loss of popularity. His party won only 10% of the vote in EU elections and 20% in the first round of Assembly elections in 2024. He is now allied with Sarkozy's Les Republicains, the very party he sought to replace by calling it old school and no longer relevant.  A small faction of the Les Republicains shifts out to ally with the National Rally of Le Pen and together the 2 parties seek a majority or near majority in the Assembly to take the prime minister position under Macron. The result would be a too young at 28 years Bardella as PM and the Socialist Alliance a close second in the National Assembly. Macron would have to come to terms with the Socialists he had abandoned to run the country and appoint Oliver Faure as prime minister if a second round gives his Movement and the Socialists over 50% of the vote. ...

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Four questions Palmisano emphasized during the period when he led IBM from 2002 to 2011. Palmisano joined IBM in 1973. They were- why should someone spend money on the company's product or what is unique about the company, why should somebody work for a manager, why would a country let you operate there, and why would someone invest his money in your company.

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Managers need to take care that they do not become insulated, and do become insensitive to the workplace and workers, as this can lead to making costly mistakes, says Rosabeth Kanter. Kanter says this has led many top managers to distance themselves from the workplace, feel entitled, and think they are indispensable, leading to mistakes that led to them resigning in the last 2 years.

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WSJ was effective in calling to the attention of the US president that tactics of one Border Patrol officer were against the American tradition and appeared to be not what police, ICE and Border Patrol, DHS itself was doing in the past. Greg Bovino of Border Patrol led sweeps in LA, Chicago and other cities in what people inside ICE and DHS including Border Head Homan  considered  "unnecessarily aggressive"  and less effective tactics. By being provocative in tactics this attracted more protestors on streets, made law enforcement look worse than when it was using the normal approach of ICE, and by reducing the local authorites cooperation required more and more Border patrol and ICE agents till it became unworkable and attracted critics from within the government and Republicans in Congress. Even DJT said that the this agent was an "out there kind of guy." In Congress many Republicans including Kennedy of Louisiana went on the floor of the Senate asserting the right of peaceful protest enshrined in the US Constitution and called for soul searching to get effective but the right kind of law enforcement that was the tradition in America. Anotehr aspect of what happened in Minneapolis is the troubled history of the city as this is where George Floyd and unarmed man during Covid lost his life in a situation with Minneapolis police, which had already created a sense of unease in that city, compared to Chicago, and Los Angeles BP and ICE sweeps which did not end up like this. In Nashville, and Washington DC National Guard not ICE operated which has different training.  ...

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See these really remarkable black and white pictures of what happens in a period of decay for industrialized economies as old industries die out- as happened in the UK,  in the US with communities left without hope. Only now with Biden and Starmer a new sense of purpose for the US and UK to correct what went woefully wrong- no plans for transition to new industries and outshoring of the nation's industrial base. This exhibition of 20/20 of photos taken by Kilip and Smith in black and white is at the Parr Gallery in Bristol, UK- you can see it here by clicking on original article right now. It is the failure to plan for the transition that has led the Conservatives from Thatcher onwards to the situation today, and a similar situation in the US from Reagan onwards. The haphazard transition has let China take the lead in new industries with government support. Only now is America under Biden making a real transition and backing up new industries for factory jobs with government support and planning for the next 10 years. Britain with the Conservatives in charge is without a clue and financially strapped- the mood in Birtiain is now for Labour under Starmer to right things the way Biden is doing in the US.  ...

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Biden goes to Brownsville, Texas, on the same day that Trump goes to the Texas border with Governor Abbott. Biden talks to Border Patrol and Trump visits a barbed wire section of the border with Abbott. The two visits show different approaches to the fight to control border crossings of migrants that reached 250,000 in December, an all time high that requires action and has the support of the president. Biden offered a compromise legislation with Republicans in the Senate which passed 70 to 30 with 22 Republican senators supporting Biden to toughen the asylum policies, add Border Patrol resources, and make it harder for fentanyl to enter the country. Biden has worked out and agreement with China and Xi Jinping as part of an overall economic agreement and cooperation to eliminate the source of fentanyl production in China. Republicans led by Trump hoped to use immigration as an issue in the election in Nov. 2024 and refused to even let the House vote on it, as there is likely a majority in the House that would pass it over Mr. Trump's objections. Republicans now look to president Biden to issue executive orders to get the job done to which Congress offers it deference today. Biden has the State of the Union speech coming up next week.   ...

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The first proposal that led to the strike at Boeing offered workers only 27%. The new proposal offer 43% over 4 years. As this increase is over 4 years some of the wage increase is dissipated by inflation over that period. For 33,000 workers at Boeing it represented a fair settlement that would also help the company rebuild its finances, and it was approved by 59% of the workers voting at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Workers are back to work by November 12. Workers were upset about a deal 10 years back that let Boeing freeze a pension plan that guaranteed monthly retirement payouts. Boeing lost $6.1 billion in the 3rd quarter 2024 and raised $21 billion by selling shares to investors to strengthen its financial position. Quality control was a major issue, a series of financial industry professionals failed to understand the production assembly line processes. Julie Su, Labor Secretary facilitated the discussions. President Biden said “Good contracts benefit workers, businesses and consumers." The deal includes a $12,000 ratification bonus, compared to $3000 bonus in the initial offer. And it calls for improved retirement benefits, commitment by Boeing to build its next commercial airplane in the Seattle region.   ...

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Landers and Gale of the WSJ show how undersupplied conscript soldiers, high inflation and industrial breakdowns during wartime have led to major upheavals in Russia. Three conflicts led to such changes in Russia's domestic situation. The Russo-Japanese war in 1905 led to Russia seeing one fourth of 340,000 Russian troops killed in a battle near the Chinese city of Shenyang, and loss of most of its Baltic fleet in a Japanese attack on Port Arthur. The war ended with a peace treaty arranged by president Theodore Roosevelt of the United States. The Russian czar gave up most of his absolute powers in 1905.  In 1914 Ukraine was involved in regime change as the Germans fought to take Ukraine. The czar wanted to keep Russia's expansive sphere of influence. Without Ukraine's agriculture and industry and its population Russia would not be a great power, says an expert on Czarist Russia. At the time the Russian military was ill prepared in motorized vehicles and communications equipment, and industry lacked the ability to resupply the military. Inflation jumped leading to unrest and protests. Fighting in the First World War led to millions of refugees. In 2022 experts see the same old problem of seeking spheres of influence leading to wars, and the lack of sufficient ability to cope with prolonged wars when short wars were expected by the regimes in power in Russia. Dissent inside Russia and protests led to the abdication of Czar Nicholas in March 2017, and Bolsheviks led by Lenin seizing power in November of 2017. By 1979 Ukrainian leader Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union as Russia's economy could not keep up with modernization. Seeking spheres of influence Brezhnev pushed into a long war in Afghanistan in the mistaken idea that a quick strike on Kabul with a change in government would achieve Soviet goals in central Asia. By 1989 the Russian army withdrew from Afghanistan and in 1990 the protests led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of Russia as a separate country. Landers and Gale of the WSJ see these events in Russian history showing how wars have led to domestic changes and upheavals in Russia when leaders projected power beyond Russia's capacity to handle the results of conflict. Russia's economy is about the size of Italy or Britain say experts and its industry much smaller than the European Union economies and the US, Japan combined.  ...

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The loss of 75 million J&J vaccine doses with failure at a manufacturing plant in Baltimore. The FDA is looking at what to do with 170 million doses produced by Emergent Biosolutions, a contractor, that made vaccines for J&J and Astra Zeneca. Contamination at the Baltimore plant makes the vaccines made there unusable.

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This is an indepth article on Donald Trump's financial holdings, looking at the debt that Trump has built up in his real estate dealings, by Susanne Craig of the NYT. To get a detailed look of this the NYT inquiry into the holdings engaged RedVision Systems, a national property information firm to search publicly available data. Much of Trump's business is shrouded in mystery. But it is well known that Trump has used debt to build his business in a way that is not considered good practice in business, having led to three bankruptcies. Trump says he "is the king of debt." And "he loves debt." The recovery of real estate values during a rescue effort for the country's financial system also helped Trump tackle debt in a way that was not available to other entrepreneurs who suffered from the oil price collapse- one of them McClendon also used debt aggressively and his business collapsed leading to suicidal car crash. You can love excessive debt only if the government supports you with some sort of financial guarnatee misplaced, or you are lucky to get away with it- just ask McClendon. The irony is that the rescue of the financial system led to the low interest rates that hurt savings of the middle and working class, and the lack of help to Main Street in the home foreclosure crisis also hurt the same people disproportionately. The Obama administration policies in this regard rescued the very same business interests such as the New York real commercial estate symbolized by Trump, that are now appealing to those hurt as president Obama worked to let the financial system recover. The intention was never to support excessively overleveraged banks or overleveraged real estate built on debt, but in reality this is what happened. A nation cannot run its financial affairs in this manner of overleveraging to extract high profits that an investment bank such as Lehman or Goldman Sachs does, or a real estate company such as Trump's does- if regulators let them do this. Normally after the financial crisis of such dimensions that it shook the world economy in 2008-2009 leading to fears of a collapse as happened in the 1930's, the same faces would not still be there. But this is a strange period or a transition period where things are being sorted out, and the same faces Blankfein at Goldman Sachs and Trump in New York commercial real estate are with us.  And though the bashing of Goldman Sachs connection to Clinton is evident in the campaigns of Trump and Sanders, the bashing of Trump real estate and finance companies with its overleveraging and bankruptcies is evident in the campaign of Clinton against one posing as a representative of the working class. John Paulson who benefitted by shorting mortgage securities that caused the financial crisis of 2008 is on Trump's top economic advisory team, including the hedge funds and financial interests on Wall Street that Trump is saying support Clinton. No one, not the NYT or WSJ, can answer this, its just the paradox of today's situation. Hillary Clinton can say she has learned her lesson, with her Methodist upbringing and her own supporters such as Robert Reich and others, and break with the past especially as it in no way contributes to her success as president, not one bit. In fact rebuilding the middle class and infrastructure require entirely different connections and views on life, a different imagination.  Trump has billions of dollars and a real estate business that is so complex that even the NYT and property information firms can only say that in the end it is shrouded in mystery. Companies owned by Trump says the NYT from this inquiry have debt of $650 million. Other Trump business activities through 3 passive partnerships owe an additional $2 billion. It is a lot easier for Hillary Clinton to put the speech fees behind her as they have little to do with what she is as a Methodist and a proponent of improving women's lives, than it is for Donald Trump- for whom his business is everything that he is including his art of the deal- to reject who he is. ...

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The US House of Representatives led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy passes a debt ceiling bill with a close vote on largely party lines 217 to 215 votes. The bill raises the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts of 14%. President Biden cited Moody's analysis showing a loss of 780,000 jobs with such large spending cuts. The bill has no chance of approval in a Democrat led Senate.

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New Zealand faces the need to look for other overseas market following the changing situation for Australia that led to trade friction with China. Australia has diversified its exports to follow policies in the Indo-Pacific with the US, India and Japan as allies. Last weeks meeting of the New Zealand prime minister Ardern with president Biden led to a joint declaration by both countries on Pacific Ocean security.

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Sophie Landrin's Le Monde report on Sri Lanka Ditwah cyclone devastation December 9 2025. Her report with pictures of the destruction wrought by the cyclone show parts of the Kandy region in the mountainous uplands in the central part of Sri Lanka, including the University of Peradeniya. There was no warning when the cyclone hit with 10,000 of 16,000 student on the campus. This is the worst cyclone to hit Sri Lanka in the last hundred years. Sri Lanka is a island nation that is Buddhist located at southern tip of India. It has been hit by a civil war, financial crisis with no central bank reserves, the pandemic, and now the cyclone. 

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Europe has few options on Greenland beyond a statement that "Greenland belongs to its people" knowing Denmark was a colonial power, says Le Monde. Peary  of US Navy discovered northern Greenland and claimed it for the US in 1880's, US offered to buy it in 1867 with Alaska Purchase. And under several administrations including Harry Truman in 1946. As the US commanders in chief in 1946 it is "completely useless for Denmark," vital for the US and security on the eastern seaboard of the US.  Denmark has done little for Greenland or the Inuit population of Greenland, in health, education and transportation.

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Poland's collapsing birth rate at 1.0 compared 1.62 in France another Catholic country, and Spain's 1.1, Germany's 1.3- 2.1 is the replacement rate per woman. This has profound consequences for Poland. The future workforce will be 20% smaller compared to 4% smaller in France in 2 decades. Many schools will close in rural areas which are hit hard. There are more deaths than births in many small towns. At this rate 1.7 million homes will become vacant in 2 decades.This report looks at Warsaw as well as rural areas near Belarus where the war has created much anxiety. The population of Poland will shrink from 36 million to 31 million over three decades if these trends continue. By 2000 the birhtrate dropped from 2.1 to 1.3 and the government introduced payments of 190 euros per child per month and expanded the childcare system. But this has not helped as the rate dropped to 1.03 in 2025. Under the Communist system industries were located in small towns and men stayed there while women moved to cities leading to a mismathch for men and women. The economic boom that doubled per capita income led to less interest in having children. The economy was supported by long hours of work which led to less interest in bearing children for women. Other reasons are a lack of interest in sharing and making the effort, the cost of raising children in a hyper competitive society like South Korea where births are at 0.7. ...