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The trial of Tian Wenhua, of a large dairy company in China, for failing to monitor the safety of baby milk powder, and covering up knowledge that dairy products contained impermissible amounts of melamine. The problem of milk powder tainted by addition of melamine chemical to watered down product to falsely raise protein count has been found to be widespread in China. About 300,000 children were sickened by the formula leading to 6 deaths. Tian and three other Sanlu executives are on trial. Tian says she knew about the contaminated milk powder in May 2008 but did not alert officials till August. By that time Sanlu had made 900 tons of the contaminated powder. Executives at Fonterra Group of New Zealand, which owns a large stake in Sanlu, came to know of the problem and insisted Sanlu make a recall. China's effort to bring western companies like Smithfield Foods to enter China's pork industry is part of the effort to build safety and credibility into food products sold in China.

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About 80% of Ballmer's money ($150 billion -former Microsoft CEO) is in Microsoft stock and 20% in index funds. He tried investing in stocks, Colgate Palmolive at advice of Jim Cramer a college buddy. Then tried diversifying. Tried money managers and found it difficult to find ones that outperform. So he dumped them all. His approach was shaped by Warren Buffet who says put it in S&P shaped index fund. He says-  Keep it Simple. Keep it Simple. We are financially blessed. What I seek says Ballmer is not to have anxiety, not to have to spend a lot of time, where we are blessed enough if we make 7%, the standard S&P return in the long run. He had luck listening to the right people and his loyalty to the company.  When Balmer left office as CEO in 2014 Microsoft market capitalization was $300 million. Ten years later it is $3 trillion with work on cloud computing and AI. Microsoft gained 29%  each year in that period including dividends, the S&P 13% with dividends, endowments 8%. As investor non-investor Ballmer now exceeds $150 billion and is No. 9. Most investments are in one trick ponies Google for example or in two trick ponies Apple, Amazon or Microsoft. One trick pony means they milk it, and milk it, and milk it. Three trick ponies not many you can find. ...

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After the rate cut by the Bank of England the best that Britons can hope for, says the Economist magazine, is that the recession is mild and the warnings of the Remain campaign on the economy do not turn out to be true. The QE and the rate cut will not be enough to stave off a recession. The Economist calls for public investment spending to improve business confidence, but says this is unlikely with the chancellor, Philip Hammond, not preparing any immediate action.

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New affordability and choice in EV's in US under $40000 in 2025. Even without incentives from the government EV's remain an attractive option now that new gasoline cars cost an average of $49,000 and affordable EV's come at price range uder $40,000. In Germany VW has EV models for about $30,000 and this pricing and choice of models can be expected in the US in 2026. Mims looks at how EV's are now a realistic option for car buyers in 2025. Americans drive an average of 33 miles a day- the 300 mile range of new EV's means charging once a week is good enough. New EV batteries are better and can outlast a vehice's life. Savings from low maintenance costs can make up for any shortfalls for EV's.

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Annette Bening  age 65 and Jodie Foster age 60 show up as real athletes in the film "Nyad," which shows Diana Nyad's 110 mile swim from Cuba to Florida in 2013 at age 64. Jodie Foster and Annette Bening say about their role- they were frustrated by so few roles for mature women in Hollywood, so that she wanted to shatter age images in people's heads. Bening trained every day for 1 year under US Olympian Rada Owen. It meant spending 4 to 8 hours in the water.

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Ireland becomes the first European country to go into lockdown. Daily coronavirus cases were at 1031 on October 19, 2020. All non-essential businesses shutdown and everyone asked to stay at home, with exercize allowed only within a 5 mile radius of home. Lockdown is for 6 weeks. Schools will be allowed to remain open.

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New uranium mines starting up in Arizona, Utah, and other parts of the western United States. In 1980 before nuclear energy went out of favor after the Three Mile Accident and Chernobyl US produced 44 million pounds of uranium. Much of it now comes from Russia. In 2024 the production is down to about 50,000 pounds. It is being revived in new mines in Arizona and Utah, underneath the earth's surface as shown in this NYT report. Yet fewer people work in extraction because of the technology which sends water into the ground which dissolves uranium and it is then brought up and sent to processing to make it into yellow cake.

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The Trump speech at Motera stadium in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in which he quotes Swami Vivekananda, with the line- "While our nations have many differences they are propelled by a fundamental truth, the truth that all of us are blessed with divine light, and every person is endowed with a sacred soul." 

Mr. Trump visited Sabarmati Ashram, the site where Gandhi spent many years,  right after landing on a 8000 mile non- stop flight to Ahmedabad, and is shown trying his hand with Gandhi's cotton textile making wheel and reflecting on the stone bench in this place by the river Sabarmati where so much happened.

 

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Questions about the sanity of having a nuclear plant at Indian Point, only 35 miles from midtown Manhattan, in a metropolitan region with 20 million people. A 50 mile circle from the plant includes almost all of New York City, parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Indian Point's evacuation plans cover a 10 mile circle with about 300,000 people, twenty miles out the distance cited for Fukushima, is about a million people.

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Of the $19 billion in aid to farmers for the coronavirus, $16 billion of the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, goes in direct payments to farmers and rancher with checks going out end of May. Another $3 billion goes to mass purchases of dairy, meat and produce that will be distributed through food banks. Faced with loss of sales with restaurants and schools closed, and disruptions in deliveries to grocery stores, farmers in the U.S. have stopped or slowed production. As a result huge quantities of food that can't be sold are being destroyed. Plowing under thousands of acres of vegetables, dumping millions of gallons of milk, and destroying eggs. In addition to this aid Agriculture Secretary Perdue says the department is using funds set aside under the larger coronavirus relief aid package of $2 trillion for the U.S., and funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation. Mr. Perdue is himself a farmer from Georgia, who was governor for eight years. These funds are separate from the $28 billion to farmers being distributed by USDA to offset losses from loss of sales to China. USDA plans to make monthly purchases of $100 million each of fresh produce, dairy products and meat, and work with the nation's food distributors to assemble a pre-approved box of food to be given out at food banks and other outlets. ...

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Unilever is facing higher prices for the vegetable oil, such as palm oil it uses for making soap and margarine. It is passing on the costs to consumers. Nestle and Danone SA are passing on the higher prices to consumers. Nestle increased the average wholesale price for all its products by 5.3%. Higher feed costs make it more expensive for Danone to keep cows, raising milk prices and with it prices of yogurt, cheese and other milk products. As a result food inflation is running at 5% in the USA and prices are higher in Europe and in other parts of the world. Because of the increasing demand for better nutrition levels and better food in diets in China and India and other parts of the world, and low grain production levels, and the increasing amount of land diverted to other uses, including ethanol production in the USA, there are food shortages and higher prices for corn and other grains.

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See these awesome pictures of the starry skies and the rendezvous between Jupiter and Saturn as seen from earth in December 2020 to remind us of our place in the vast Milky Way and outer space. Jupiter takes 12 years to circle the sun, Saturn 30 years they came this close in 1623. As Giles Sparrow points out in his book "21 Stars in The Milky Way," ther are 200 billion stars, and distances are vast beyond comprehension. Thousands of years for light travelling at 300,000 kilometres a second to get to earth from distant stars in The Milky Way! Think of that and there is so little we know at this time of the pandemic about so many things!

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India's External Affairs Minister Jaishankar visits Sri Lanka. He says-  "We felt strongly that Sri Lanka's neighbors must take proactive steps to facilitate its recovery. India decided not to wait for others but to do what we believe is right. We extended financing reassurances to IMF to clear the way for Sri Lanka to move forward."  He emphasized the enormous renewable energy potential of the island nation which India supports. The larger region provides new possibilities for Sri Lanka to get the benefits of scale for energy development. He pointed out that India is " prepared to go the extra mile when Sri Lanka feels the need." India and Sri Lanka share a long history from the period of the first conversion by Mahinda from India of the island to Buddhism.

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Plan B for US president DJT on Tariffs - Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act to place a 150 day 15% tariff. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Trade Investigations under Section 301. Much of this set of laws are already in place and being used by the US. A law passed in 1930 is another avenue for tariffs Section 338 of ther Tariff Act of 1930. The US government and US president DJT could also have Congress enact a new law as it has majority in both the Senate and the House and the president could make acase for the reasonable use of tariffs with the EU and Japan having taken advantage of trade to the disadvantage of the US. There is also broad support for fentanyl action by the president using economic action on tariffs on nations Canada, Mexico, China that continue to let the flow of fentanyl across their borders for use by drug trafficking gangs in Mexico to send over US land border at the 2000 mile long US-Mexico border.

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Nestle's strategy to meet increases in commodity costs going into its products is to steadily but gradually increase prices. Nestle has detected the rise in commodity costs early from its close contact with 600,000 farmers around the world. This goes back to 2007, when it steadily increased the prices of milk powder and did not lower prices as commodity costs temporarily decreased. Nestle relied on the expectation of rising prices as demand in developing countries surged. Even when prices of milk powder declined from $5500 a ton in 2007, Nestle did not lower prices. The commodity price increases will add $3 billion to Nestle's costs. The other part of the strategy is to lower packaging and other costs- savings in this area reached $1.5 billion in 2010- so that price increases on food products can be kept at 8-10% a year. Without these savings Nestle says the increases would have to be be higher, approaching 12%. Nestle is also developing new products that command higher prices. An example is the single serve capsules for its Nespresso coffee machines....

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With the death toll over 10,000 on March 7, and a rise of 16% over the previous day, French public health authorites have set new rules for exercize with a daytime jogging ban. Jogging is allowed only when the streets are at the quietest in Paris and not allowed between 10.00 and 19.00 local time.

France's lockdown is strict unlike that in America. Anyone going outside has to carry a document giving the reason- shopping for necessities, visiting a doctor, or exercize within 1 kilometre or half a mile of their address. Police have fined hundreds of thousands of people for breaking these restrictions.

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Prime minister Modi of India says India has take a step forward for bringing in the people of the Global South into G20 discussions. India, he says, has set a path for getting development to the last mile, the last person in the public who in previous years was left out. This was done through digital infrastructure for bank accounts for hundreds of millions of people, cooking gas stoves for women in rural areas, housing, tap water for every one of India's households, sanitation including toilets, road infrastructure. Much of this was done at low cost with technologies that can be transferred to  a billion people in Africa and 700 million in other parts of Asia such as the Philippines and Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. This is the lasting achievement of the G20 first in Jakarta, Indonesia, and now in New Delhi, 24 months of leadership of Modi and Widodo of Indonesia as partners. It is also why Mr. Modi was in Jakarta just one day before the G20 Summit for ASEAN meeting that brings India into close relations with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations).  ...

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As Eliud Kipchoge sets a record with running the marathon under 2 hours in October 2019, The Times looks at another time and another record- Roger Bannister of Britain running the mile in under 4 minutes in 1954.

The contrast- the BBC showed the Bannister run only afterwards, Kipchoge was shown on 25 television networks. Both had pacemakers, runners who set the pace for them and fell back. Weather was carefully planned for Kipchoge, Bannister took a chance on May 6, 1954 at Paddington grounds. Bannister was a medical student, Kipchoge was working at running going to sleep and back to running. Bannister had a ham salad, Kipchoge had oatmeal before the run. Both tried to break records at the Olympics and decided on this as an alternative for a personal best and setting a time record.

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Israel's military chief told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz he did not think the Iranians will go the last mile and build a nuclear bomb. This takes some of the hysteria and escalation out of the crisis. The chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, said: "I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people." He said about Ayatollah Khamanei- "I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile."

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Every day lost in the struggle with coronavirus is a big thing, which is why Itay's most affluent northern region has gone from being well equipped with resources of healthcare to seeing the health system overburdened to the point of disaster. This WSJ report shows why this has a lesson and an early warning for how the U.S. and other countries should design their response. It is also why the White House team that includes President Trump in the U.S. emphasized the plan for just the first 15 Days in the news conference at the Brady Room in the White House on March 16. It is saying the first 15 days are critical, not a day to lose.  It does not matter if you are an advanced economy with state of the art hospitals. Social behaviours must change, old rules rewritten and implemented throughout nations, quickly in days. Here WSJ shows lessons learned by Dr. Cereda at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania who trained in Milan and was in constant contact with colleagues in Milan and elsewhere. Many of the lessons relate to not overburdening hospitals and health systems and protecting health systems. This means mild to moderate cases are managed from home and not in the hospital, through massive deployment of outreach services and telemedicine. It means therapies can be delivered at home or through mobile clinics. The second major lesson from Italy is to protect healthcare workers and doctors. The entire White House team with Dr Faucci of CDC and Dr Brx, head of Infectious Diseases in the U.S. news conference of president Trump March 16, focused on the goal of protecting healthcare workers, doctors and hospitals, so they remained strong to take on the crisis. The second goal of the White House team is to protect the elderly with medical conditions. To do this only the most serious patients are treated in hospitals the rest for mild to moderate at home.  Studying the conditions in Bergamo and other parts of Lombardy and northern Italy, is helping U.S. medical leaders to prepare for the current nationwide effort, the 15 days plan announced by the White House. The lessons from the Papa Giovanni Hospital in Bergamo are important say U.S. medical leaders, including Dr. Brendan Carr, head of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Health System in New York.  He says build capacity in hospital beds before we need it. Clear out hospital space and add new hospital beds.  ...

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Efforts to close the route used by migrants on Panama's border with Columbia which is now the real US Border in the South. At this border migrants make their way through jungle called the 70 mile Darien Gap to reach buses taking them to Mexico.

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Winnie Hu of NYT on the BQE Brooklyn Queens Expressway that for half mile has cantilevered 3 level structure that will fall apart by 2029. How to fix it concerns city planners in New York. Some planners want to put a park in its place and build a tunnel for the heaviest traffic. There is interest in being transformative and doing something big. The other actions already taken are  are to keep reinforcing it, cut traffic to 2 lanes, not to salt it in winter. Now planners say 2029 is when it will fall apart and time is running out for this as well as other infrastructure in New York such as Penn Station with Madison Square Garden built over it. And yet one finds no reflection on the sad state of New York and other city infrastructure in the US, when capital is being invested with plans to spend to the tune of 1.5 to 3 trillion dollars by 2030 on AI data centers and other sites. This will simply result in crowding out investment in infrastructure, so that the US will trade places with China and even India as a Third World country. And yet wealthy New Yorkers who use the nation's and the city's subways present an attitude of indifference to the decrepit condition of the Nation's and their own city's infrastructure. ...

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The large infrastructure investments in the high speed rail network - estimated at $300 billon- have increased the debt of the railway ministry to about 5% of national GDP in the 1st quarter of 2011.The high speed rail lines are not likely to be economically viable, with revenues not enough to pay for operation and investment costs. With the higher fares it would take 9% of monthly disposable per capita income of urbanites or 555 yuan ($86) to pay for the cheapest ticket on the 300 mile Beijing-Shanghai high speed rail line. This makes high speed rail less affordable for middle and lower income people in China. The acceleration of the program in 2008 with stimulus funds and the moving up of deadlines for completion have led to corruption, stress on suppliers, and overinvestment. The program suffered from lack of good financial management and supervision in the rush to complete the program. Lack of equitable access and affordability to income groups from a majority of Chinese people have left the impression that it was for higher income groups. Higher tolls on highways and now the higher prices on highspeed rail have left the impression among ordinary Chinese that all income groups are not being served by the large infrastructure investments....

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President Trump announced that he is declaring a national emergency to bypass Congress and pursue building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. This comes as the president accepted $1.4 billion, a fourth of the $5.7 billion he had asked for from Congress. Mr. Trump hopes to add additional funding by declaring a national emergency as the U.S. Congress turned down his request for a longer wall. Congress only included funding for a 55 mile long fence along the Rio Grande River at the border with Mexico. To keep a campaign pledge to build that wall Mr. Trump acted with the support of Republicans including Senator Graham. Trump said he expected that "we'll be sued, and they will sue us in the ninth circuit, and then we will end up in the Supreme Court and hopefully we will get a fair shake." Under Trump's declared national emergency about $3.6 billion would be taken from the Pentagon's military construction fund and $2.5 billion from the Pentagon's drug interdiction programme. This will be challenged in the courts. Trump is under pressure from his support base to show that accepting the Congress offer of $1.4 billion and a 55 mile fence was equal to surrender. ...

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Melanie Garson, professor at University College, London, says attention was diverted to expansionist settler programs in the West Bank leading to lax efforts for security on the border with Gaza. Parties on the right controlled the key ministry of Defense and their priorities were the West bank diverting resources,  say experts in this France24 report. Warnings were ignored from the Army, and from Egypt, according to this report. Garson says it will be very hard for Netanyahu to avoid responsibility for not having the mechanisms in place to protect people on the border with Gaza. On this page a former prime minister of Israel who had reached an agreement with Abbas of the Palestinian Authority for peaceful coexistence of the Jewish and Palestinian reflects on that progress and its disruption by rocket attacks from Gaza by Hamas leading to the Gaza war in 2006, 17 years earlier. The patterns are similar with the Israelis and  Palestinians close to an agreement but not going the last mile and external forces disrupting the process at the last moment. ...