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Chuck Searcy, 79 years, was in the Vietnam War at Khe Sanh in 1968 as an intelligence officer. In 1992 he first sees unexploded ordnance- from US bombing in Vietnam. He has over many years cleared an unbelievable amount of these dangerous devices. 8 million tons of ordnance was dropped near Khe Sanh near the Ho Chi Minh trail from 1965 to 1975. About 100,000 people have died or sustained injuries. Hang Nam and Searcy founded Project Renew in 2001- since then almost a million tons of these explosive devices have been removed and children taught to stay away safely. Norwegian's People's Aid is also doing the project to cut injuries to zero. It operates 180 deminers.

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The twin banners of Science and Modernization of the May 4, 1919 movement kept high through the last 100 years are revived at the 20th Chinese CCP Party Congress in 2022. Xi Jinping used the phrase "self reliance in science and technology" five times as the US and EU gradually close the doors to shipping out advanced technologies to China, and limit flows of capital to concentrate on development at home.  A new section was added to his report for "Science and Education."

Xi told the Congress- "We must regard science and technology as our primary productive force, talent as our primary resource, and innovation as our primary driver of growth."

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It used to be in the past that growing more food would address the problem of malnourishment. After years of decline of malnourished people BBC shows that the trend is reversing and there will be 821 million malnourished people in coming years. The reason for this is that of the thousands of crops that were known to humankind from its beginnings we are down to about 100 and about 40% of people on the planet rely mainly on 3 crops- rice, wheat and corn. The result is a lack of necessary micro nutrients in today's diet. What we plant, what we eat matters, changes in agriculture have a significant bearing on the quality of our lives, and concern all of us.

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In a remarkable statement of how he sees India in 2022 US president Biden goes all out- "There's so much that our countries can and will do together, and I am committed to making the US-India parnership among the closest we have on Earth." "The closest we have on Earth" is a statement of how the US and India partnership should be given the work of Mohandas Gandhi and its leaders in the nineteenth and twentieth century including Vivekananda, and India's history as the home of Buddhism and the Vedanta. No one has ever put it in such words till Biden in his outspoken way and style. 

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Scott McCartney retires from the WSJ after 29 years. Since 2001 he writes the Middle Seat column in the WSJ to give readers better ideas on how to travel. Looking back he says things have not become that much better these days, even a bit worse with crowded planes and costly flights.

International business class is one of the things that are better with lie flat seats. Planes are safer today. Trusted traveller has taken the tedious aspect of security checks and made it less burdensome. Some of the credit and our thanks for the positive changes, letting airlines and airports know when they needed to listen, that credit goes to Scott McCartney's column. 

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India is a founding member and lead chair of Global Partnership on AI. At the GPAI Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, December 11, 2023, prime minister Narendra Modi talks about India's potential  for cutting edge research and also about the risks and dangers of AI. "AI is transformative. Yet its transparency is essential, data and algorithms have to be transparent, and free from bias, for its right beginning, to be useful to humanity." Modi describes the useful aspects of AI for India's health sector and for other sectors, and India's UN Sustainability Goals. The safe and ethical use of AI and its democratization with AI for All a focus in India.

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How the bipartisan deal put forward by Senator Lankford, LIndsay Graham and Tillis from the Republican side and Senate Majority Leader Schumer and Biden on the Democratic side is now stalled with no support in the House from Speaker Mike Johnson of Alabama. This analysis in the Washington Post shows it was tried before by Senators McCain and Kennedy in 2013, and in 2018, yet each time the US Congress has failed to act. This time the US Border Patrol has endorsed the Lankford Schumer effort and Arizona Senator Sinema, senators from Alabama and others, all women have made passionate pleas considering the need for a solution. Sinema made the plea for all Arizonans yesterday in Congress.

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Xi Jinping's 3 day visit to Russia and his meetings with Mr. Putin. China presents the trip as an effort to start peace talks between Russia and Ukraine based on its proposals. China is also affected by the war in Ukraine as it works against China's recovery from the economic effects of the pandemic. China sees Russia as a partner in what it sees as a multipolar world, yet it is too close to Germany and the European Union, relations which provide it with access to western technology needed for its continuing growth. China does not want to disrupt the relationship with Germany and the European Union over the war in Ukraine.

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A survey of 10,000 knowledge workers by Future Forum cited in WSJ shows 78% of workers care about and want location flexibility. And 95% of workers want flexible hours. This survey also found that 72% of workers in knowledge industries who are not happy with their level of flexibility are likely to seek out new opportunities in the next year. 

This happens as employers are finding it hard to get workers. The new hybrid arrangements during the pandemic have created a new workplace culture with hybrid arrangements, flexible work, going into the office only some of the time. More than two thirds of employees say they the hybrid setup was their preferred way of working.

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The Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover will separate from the main propulsion craft of Chandrayan 3 to go into circular orbit of the moon and begin a separate journey. to land on the moon August 23, 2023. This will put Vikram rover within 30 kilometres of the moon at the shortest distance and 100 kilometres at the longest distance. The final landing will be attempted by manoeuvres from this orbit by deboosting the craft. The trick will be to get the velocity down at 30 kilometres away to a safe speed for a landing below. Changing the orientation of the craft from horizontal to vertical is part of the manoeuvring planned by ISRO, the Indian Space organization.

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Trump's Attorney General William Barr was Attorney General of George Bush in 1992-1994 and brings extensive experience, which may have helped him stand his ground on December 1, 2020 rejecting claims of presidential election fraud at a meeting on Dec. 1 with Mr. Trump. In his book 'One Damn Thing After Another," Barr describes what happened on December 1, when he had lunch with Mike Balsamo of the Associated Press. Mike asked him what Barr was finding about election fraud claims. Barr's answer was that to date he had not found fraud on a scale that would have affected the outcome of the election. Within a short time this information was all over the country.

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DW.com gives this detailed account of the developments in the Luis Rubiales case in Spanish football, including comments made by Spain's leading footballer Andres Iniesta on the need to restore the integrity of Spanish football and the women's game. Iniesta's statement begins with the words, "as a father of three daughters and a husband..," that he was saddened by the events that have affected the wonderful history created by Spanish footballers during the World Cup and the image of Spain and Spanish football in the world. Spain and Portugal, Morocco are a contender for the World Cup hosting in 2030 which could depend on how this case is resolved, says DW.com.

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Biden as president for 2024 and the matter of age is the subject of this report in WSJ. For too long the press has looked at president Biden's age as drawback ignoring his vast experience, and not Trump's only 3 years younger with poor food and exercise habits and overweight, as pointed out by Duke University Prof. Frank Bruni in the NYT. Here the WSJ at last shows that half of Americans born in 1942 are alive, with many of them about 650,000 working, 18% more than a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau. The saying is that 80 years is the new 60, because of advances in medicine, given healthy habits and exercise. 

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This story in WSJ says China may have a lead in electric car battery sales in 2024 and beyond. China is investing heavily in battery plants and EV plants in Europe and the US. This would help China meet the restrictions on import of electric vehicles from China by the Biden administration. CATL increased its market share in Europe from 10% to 24%. Sales of EV vehicles in China went up by 37% in the first 9 months of 2023, and China is the top exporter of electric vehicles. CATL's electric battery sales in Europe doubled compared to 60% for LG. And in excluding China sales CATL has caught up with LG both having 28% of the market.

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In the event that the US Supreme Court halts president Biden's student loan payments assistance plan about 45 million borrowers will be affected in the US. Young people who believed in getting a higher education or going to university will be penalized for that decision. It will affect the retail sector and standards of living, during a cost of living crisis.One of the achievements of the 20th century similar to achievements in medicine and other fields was the open access to education to all. Without it no part of the world can call itself part of enlightened civilization coming out of the creation of the modern world which started in Europe and spread to the US, then to Asia.

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The monopoly over news publishing in the UK began in 1981 with the purchase of loss making The Times through negotiations with the trade unions.  As shown in The Guardian Rupert Murdoch met with Margaret Thatcher on Jan 3 1981 weeks before the matter was brought up by Thatcher at a cabinet meeting so that it would not be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. This is revealed in the Thatcher papers held at the Churchill archives in Cambridge 30 years after the event in 2012. This was the year Ronald Reagan's administration replaced Jimmy Carter's administration in 1981. In 2022 Tories Secretary Nadine Torries removed controls that protected the editorial independence of The Times. 

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DJT selects as Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who was Chief Investment Officer for George Soros before starting his own hedge fund. Bessent was investment officer for George Soros when he made the bet against the British sterling currrency. His hedge fund manages $500 million in assets. He supported Mr. Trump in his first bid in 2016 and joined his campaign effort at a time when Nikki Haley was in the primaries. While campaigning he offered economic advice to DJT and said  Trump should strive for 3+3+3 for the economy cutting the deficit to 3% of GDP, 3% GDP growth to reduce the deficit with more tax revenues, and 3 million barrels a day of oil production in the US.

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 High school geography teacher Tim Walz says of actions taken such as the universal school meals signed into Minnesota law earlier this year, as simple common sense. “What a monster! Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn and women are making their own healthcare decisions,” Walz says. Walz has the common sense that is lacking  when a failed cultural mindset puts everything into neatly labeled boxes such as "liberal" and "progressive." It took 50 yeas to get to this point after Reagan and four southern politicians two from Texas and two from Georgia and Arkansas left America in this mess where school meals vs going hungry is debated in political terms.

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Plan B is to reimpose the tariffs using the Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act and Section 301 which puts the tariffs on firm legal footing. In fact the ruling by the ITC Court on the use of emergency powers under IEEPA law said there was already Section 122 on the basis of which serious trade imbalances could be addressed. Trade Adviser Navarro told Bloomberg that this was a possible strategy to reimpose the tariffs. The federal appeals court has allowed the tariffs to remain in place after the ITC ruling. The administration is appealing it to the US Supreme Court saying that the ITC ruling has unfairly jeopardized the president's negotiations with other countries. 

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South Korea prepares for new elections with about a third or quarter of the people strongly supporting Yoon whose impeachment was upheld by the Constitutional Court April 4, 2025. Adjoining BBC Special Report shows how Yoon went astray. The gist also shows how South Korean democracy is only since 1988 compared to India's 1948, and how India's democratic traditions were formed under the Birtish with representation in parliament, first British then Indian, and in state assemblies in the 1930's, under Nehru in 1950's.

Today with the US imposing 25% tariffs on South Korea there is no government to make a response or strategy to deal with this.

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The U.S. Census Bureau shows incomes of American households, the median household income, surged in 2015 by 5.2%. This increased by $2800 to $56,500. This is the largest increase since 1967. It shows that steadily improving employment and hiring is leading to improvement in incomes for the middle and working class. Ris in minimum wage has also helped . The largest increase was for the lowest 20% of the income tiers. Full time working women did better than men, with increase annually of 2.7% for women, and 1.5% for men. Nocitizen incomes increased 10.5% to $45,100, native born households went up 4.4% to $57,200. The number of people without health insurance also declined from 33 million or 10.4% of the population to  29 million people or 9.1%. Another way the changes are helping lower income households is the decline of the official poverty rate to 13.5% in 2015 by 1.2 percentage points from 14.8% in 2014. Through a series of small incremental steps the path is being set for a recovery of household incomes for the middle class and working class. A bright spot is that the improvement has affected all age groups, household types, regions and ethnic groups, though among full time workers women did better than men. In this recession older white men have had more difficulties getting back into the workforce. This is reflected in the political scene in 2015-2016 for the election season. ...

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Low voter turnout and record abstentions were a significant aspect of the parliamentary election in France. Voter turnout was about 52% in the the first round and expected to be low in the second round.

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For the first time foreign ministers of Russia and the US, Lavrov and Blinken meet briefly since the start of the Ukraine war. The meeting takes place at the G20 foreign ministers meeting in India.

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Us natural gas prices are down 40% from August highs after warm autumn weather, record gas production, and gas storage facilities that are filling up fast. This will be a relief for Americans this winter.

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US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has confidential conversations with Nikolai Patrushev a key adviser to Russian president Putin to avoid any further escalation of the war including nuclear threats, says this report in WSJ.