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With more vaccines available from Pfizer and Moderna, and the poor SinoVac Chinese vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant, Brazil and other countries in Latin America and Asia are shifting away from Chinese vaccines. Brazil's federal government has halted negotiations for additional doses of Chinese vaccines. In the early stages in 2020 Chinese vaccines helped Brazil cope with the devastating rise in cases. The slow pace of vaccinations in US and Europe has freed up more vaccine doses of Pfizer for other countries including Brazil. From accounting for 80% of vaccines in Brazil early in 2020, SinoVac vaccines now make up only 35% of Brazil's vaccine doses. At that time Brazil bought 100 million doses of SinoVac vaccine which were delivered. The local producer of SinoVac vaccine, the Butantan Institute will no longer make Chinese vaccines. While Sinovac vaccines are effective at preventing deaths, the vaccines have a low effectiveness rate for symptomatic infections. ...

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Migrants cross the border freely wading through murky thigh high water of the Rio Grande in the Del Rio sector of the US Border Patrol. WSJ shows migrants crossing the river. About 13,000 migrants are in Del Rio mostly from Haiti after a natural disaster. Flights from Texas will now take most of them back to Haiti . US Border Protection is expected to have 600 added personnel in the area today. US Border Patrol has made 215,000 arrests in the Del Rio sector, the second busiest of the Border Patrol's nine southern sectors. Word had spread in community of Haitians looking for job opportunities that this was a safe place to cross.

The Biden administration is moving to tackle this mistaken perception that US is likely to let migrants in. Haiti says it will take the migrants back into the country. Other migrants are from Guatemala, Cuba and Honduras.

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A series of attacks against foreign businesses takes place in South Africa. High unemployment and the failure of the African National Congress governments under recent presidents Mbeki and Zuma to tackle deep inequalities and poverty have aggravated tensions. The violence was seen in Johannesburg and Pretoria. This has worsened relations between South Africa and Nigeria, Tanzania. My Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress was elected president after the dismissal of the former president. Ramaphosa in a national address recalled the support received from African nations in the struggle against Apartheid. Slow growth and high unemployment with corruption, in Nigeria and South Africa two dominant economies in Africa, have increased tensions and rivalry between the two countries. For South Africa trading ties to the continent are important. About 44% of agricultural exports of $3.9 billion go to African nations, increasing from 30% in the prior decade.  ...

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This report about 996, referring to nine am to nine pm 6 workdays a week, shows it is becoming highly unpopular among tech workers in China, as tech companies slash jobs and workers work longer hours. A campaign on GitHub a code sharing platform is called 996/ICU speaks of such gruelling hours as the way to end up in the ICU. It got 250,000 positive user comments.

This type of work at tech companies is leading to fatigue, chronic illness, stress and lack of any free time to think or even exercize, leading to health problems. Yet some company CEO's push 996 against the mounting evidence that this is not the best for employees and can lead to por producivity. Recent studies about the cities such as Mumbai, India, or Tokyo, Japan, show productivity is a fraction of the productivity in many European countries working normal hours. Mumbai vs. Dublin for example. Dublin has a lot higher productivity.

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This report in WSJ shows how the situation in Syria changed since 2011. The Kurds are spread out over several states formed as the British and French empires in the Middle East collapsed, leaving an ethnic group of 30 million people spread out over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

A Kurdish zone was set up in northern Syria after the collapse of ISIS in operations by the U.S. and the Kurds in 2016-2018. A border area was taken by Turkey in the recent push by Turkish forces into border areas bordering Turkey, with the withdrawal of U.S. forces and Mr. Trump placing sanctions on Turkey. The incursion ended in a week after Russia agreed to broker a deal and the Kurdish forces left the border with Turkey. Turkey has Kurdish people in the southeast of the country who participate in elections and are Turkish citizens, and Iraq has an autonomous region run by the Kurds.

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Efforts of prime minister Theresa May to somehow force members of parliament to back her Brexit deal through repeated votes in parliament have collapsed. Speaker Bercrow says the same deal cannot be voted on twice. Last week the British parliament rejected May's Brexit deal by the largest margin of any bill in parliamentary history. The vote rejecting her deal was with a margin of 149 votes. Speaker Bercrow cited a parliamentary convention dating back to 1604.  

Conservative Party leaders opposing May's deal Jacob Rees Mogg welcomed the Speaker's ruling. The Conservative Party is so divided on this issue of exiting the European Union that it has severely undermined Mrs. May's authority in parliament. Mr. Mogg favors leaving the European Union with no deal regardless of the consequences. On the other side is the Labour Party and some Conservative party members who are adamantly opposed to this.

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This analysis in the NYT about U.S. action in Venezuela supporting the Guiado interim government, says this is the first intervention for a president who is against intervention. The head of the Inter American Dialogue, Mr. Shifter, says Senator Rubio and Florida senators who are close to Latin America played a role in bringing to Mr. Trump's attention the problems and refugees leaving Venezuela.

As the government shutdown continues over a wall with Mexico, president Trump has taken a different tone in his support of new and credible elections in Venezuela for a way out of the economic collapse in Venezuela. In this situation most of the nations of Latin America have come out in support of Mr. Trump, including Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Peru, and Canada has taken a lead along with the U.S. for the first time. The EU has also supported the move for credible and new elections set up by an interim government.

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British prime minister Theresa May's EU withdrawal agreement was defeated in the House of Commons by a vote of 344 to 286, a margin of 58 votes. 5 Labour MP's voted in favor, and 34 Brexiteer MP's in the European Research Group voted against. The Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland voted against. The vote did not include a declaration on the future relations with the European Union. The vote happened on March 29, the deadline for Britain to leave the EU. A new deadline of April 10 has been set to seek a longer extension.

Options going forward are to use a longer delay of a year to come up with consensus, have a second referendum, or hold a general election. Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn called for Mrs. May to resign and hold a general election. Britain will hold European parliament elections in May.

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Peru is one more example of how the corruption scandals surrounding Brazil's construction firm Odebrecht is affecting other countries in Latin America. A former president Alan Garcia was found dead having shot himself to prevent arrest by police in Lima, Peru. Alan Garcia was one of 4 Peruvian presidents involved in a vast Odebrecht scandal involving construction contracts, alongside Pablo Kuczynski, Ollanta Humala, Alejandro Toledo.

A judge in Lima ordered Kuczynski be on preventive custody in a money laundering investigation. PPK or Kuczynski led Peru until 2016 until resigning in March 2018 after moves to impeach him over links to Oderecht. Garcia served as president for 2 terms 1985-1990, and 2006- 2011. In Brazil the Odebrecht scandal and the scandal in oil company Petrobras led to a change in government after elections that led to a win by Mr Bolsonaro over the ruling Workers party that governed Brazil for over a decade.

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President Trump announces a $ 16 billion farm aid program to help American farmers hurt by Chinese tariffs on American agricultural products. The money goes directly in payments to farmers. Mr. Trump sees the tariffs on Chinese products as paying for the program.

The Trump administration has blacklisted China's Huawei  and president Trump says that he considers it to be a threat to national security. He also sees it as a bargaining chip in future trade negotiations with the Chinese. China's president Xi sees his country's national sovereignty in how it sets its own economic policy and manages its economy as an issue. Both sides are far apart. Xi even cited the Long March led by Communist leader Mao to Yenan in the 1930's as an example of the fortitude needed by China in dealing with the American challenge.

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Chennai, a city of 10 million in India faces a water crisis. It is approaching a situation of Day Zero when the water utility in the city can not any longer provide regular supplies of water through tap water. Tankers with water are used instead. This situation is a result of the 4 reservoirs used for Chennai water suffering from drought in the area- two are dry and the other two are almost dry. Water tankers supply water at the cost of an average salary of 9000 rupees  a month as shown in this story in the WSJ.

Cities such as Shimla, Managalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, also face water supplies crisis. All over India 600 million people live in water stressed areas, according to NITI Aayog, a government policy think tank. By 2030 the demand for water is expected to double. With weak monsoon rains the government is calling for water conservation.

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This expert who reviews the Internet for the NYT says that he is comfortable with many of the tools that existed back in 2009, Recent tech advances have costs in privacy, excessive advertising, lack of calm moments to reflect, constant buzz that disturbs more than it helps quiet thinking, and losses in productivity for small gains in bits and pieces here and there. Not much in the App world that he finds extraordinarily useful considering all the costs that are not tallied up because they affect our lives taking away a lot without one noticing.

It takes a lot of wisdom and individualism to take only what helps one and put away the rest of what is sent our way by so called Tech. Not foregetting that before the word Tech was coined the world had already invented the computer, jet planes, and the silicon chip, and put men on the moon. Hype. Surely.

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The UK decision makes purchases of Huawei equipment for UK 5G networks illegal from the end of 2020 and gives carriers till the end of 2027 to strip out existing Huawei gear from 5G networks. The move Mr. Dowden, British minister in charge of digital issues, says will cost $2.5 billion and delay the development of 5G by 2 to 3 years. He said the whole sector suffers from a "global market failure" and is "dangerously reliant on too few vendors." The UK and Australia, U.S. decision will accelerate the development of more vendors in international alliance to come up with alternatives. Other European governments face pressure from legislators in Germany, Italy, and France  to reconsider decisions on 5G. In the UK some members of parliament are critical of the long time given to phase out Huawei gear in 5G networks. 

 

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The U.S. orders the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas. The State Department in a statement said China was conducting "massive illegal spying and influence operations throughout the U.S. against U.S. government officials and American citizens," saying such activities have increased. Footage on local television stations purportedly showed people burning documents on consulate premises, and firefighters were called, says this report in the WSJ. In Copenhagen, Secretary of State Pompeo citing two hacking indictments and U.S. jobs stolen by China's policies, said  "President Trump has said, 'Enough, we're not going to allow this to continue to happen." The two hacking indictments relate to two hackers in China working for China's civilian intelligence agency, targeting American firms involved in coronavirus research and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of sensitive information from companies around the world, says this report in the WSJ. ...

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A project that started when he was 29 before Michael Byard left Britain for Australia to work for a shipping company, is renewed years later when Byard is 74 years and finished when he is 80. Byard built a complete 5 foot replica of Admiral Nelson's flagship HMS Victory from 3000 pieces all intricately put together. The Royal Navy has preserved the HMS Victory as the only surviving ship from the period of the Napoleonic war 1803-1815. Nelson used the flagship to command the British Navy during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Read Roger Knight's "Victory" for the story of the British Navy during the period that spans the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic War between 1793 and 1815, when the Royal Navy established British influence throughout the Mediterranean and in Asia and Africa. 

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This report in the Indian Express shows the situation in Indian states. Only Delhi has a 90% recovery rate which means the virus spread is slowing and recovery is happening. All Indian states combined have a recovery rate of 70%. This means there are many new cases as others are recovering. Deaths are at about 2% and should eventually reach 1%.

Maharashtra cases exceed 500,000 and Tamilnadu 300,000, followed by Andhra and Karnataka in the top 4 states. By comparison the large states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have together 220,000 cases and about 2600 deaths much less than Tamilnadu or Andhra Pradesh. Cases are now distributed in northern and southern India in the same proportion. Maharashtra and city of Bombay have not recovered in the way Delhi is recovering. In Maharashtra the inexperience of the administration compares with the experienced administration in Delhi of Mr. Kejriwal.

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What happens when a town grows so fast that it cannot cope- with overcrowded schools, 20 mile commutes that take 90 minutes, and a water system that fails frequently.  It started with South Carolina, a Sunbelt state cutting property taxes to about half to attract more people from neighboring states. Lake Wylie, South Carolina in America's sunbelt attracted so many newcomers, about 80% of its population, that it cannot handle the too rapid growth.

The school system placed a $15,000 impact fee to build new schools that is set on each new house constructed. The city council of the town placed a 16 month moratorium on commercial and residential rezoning requests, new apartment complexes and subdivisions. Similar bans on growth are increasing in South Carolina and booming towns in America's sunbelt as the consequences of unplanned haphazard growth with tax incentives are becoming burdensome.

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Italy is planning to place a quarantine in the north covering the region around Milan and 11 provinces nearby, in a draft decree from the prime minister's office, says this report in the WSJ. When a final decision is made the quarantine would go into effect March 8 and go on till April 3, 2020. This move is similar to the quarantine steps taken in China which helped limit the health crisis in China from coronavirus. The new decree also includes tight restrictions on travel in the affected areas. 

The new action is being taken as earlier measures have not limited the spread of coronavirus. They were requested by the government in Lombardy, which combined with Emilia Romagna and Veneto are the worst hit of the regions in northern Italy with about 85% of cases. It also means the industrial economy with 40% of GDP is affected.

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China has used the quarantine and strict measures to contain the coronavirus. After being taken by surprise in the way the coronavirus developed in Wuhan region China shifted to large scale containment and quarantine. To do this China used technology, mobile carrier information, volunteers going from door to door and enforced quarantine action. Other countries in Europe, including Italy, are adopting measures such as quarantine and appeals to the public for cooperative behaviours.

The entire approach is new yet shows how government and citizens can work together to contain epidemics of this kind in the modern world of urbanized areas and close contact in subways, streets, and stadiums. The approach in democratic countries may vary from China yet essentially strong bold action has proved to be the way to go, not vacillating and acting one step at a time till things are out of control. 

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Hardship withdrawals from 401(k)s reach high of 4.8% in 2024. Analysis of 3 million retirement accounts at Vanguard research for 2008-2022 shows higher volatility for hourly paid workers than salaried workers. Hourly paid workers have income swings of 15% compared to salaried and when they leave an employer often take out savings in 401(k)s- 42% with income $50,000 to $75,000 took out their savings compared to 28% in salaried group with same income. Many do so to deal with emergency needs. Thus income volatility hurts workers savings in the hourly sector.

A US law passed in 2022 lets employers automatically enroll employees earning less than $160,000 in emergency savings accounts that they can put in $2500 every year in a Roth type account and withdraw from it penalty and tax free. This is helping some employees avoid touching their 401(k)s.

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Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party wins election for president in South Korea 2025- 49% to 41% for Kim Moon-soo for the conservative candidate. South Korea's election was the result of the ouster of conservative president Yoon, who was a former prosecutor who split South Korean politics with a hardline stance and was ousted recently. Lee is a factory woker who seeks to keep South Korea firmly with the US in Asia, yet also seeks to balance this with good realtions with key trading partner China.

Biden invited Yoon to the White House as he sought to bring South Korea and Japan as firm partners in the Asia Pacific only to see Yoon ousted over losing support within his own conservative party for conspiracy theories and declaring martial law, lack of flexibility. The election of Lee offers an opportunity to bring South Korea back to moderation and unity in its internal affairs.

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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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The Affordable Care Act subsidies are basically a band aid approach to a fundamentally broken health care system in the US, says Washington Post Editorial Board on Nov. 1, 2025. The 22 million ACA subsidies will cost $350 billion over 10 years. Democrats have the government shutdown over this issue of extending Obama ACA subsidies where enrolment increased in the covid and Biden years with generous subsidies. The Washington Post looks at how we got here since 1945, decisions made about employer insurance plans that created a patchwork of plans from private sector and other plans outside it with perverse incentives and inefficient subsidies. It calls the system stupid, and politicians looking to the next 2 year midterm elections wary of addressing the whole problem in the proper way for a system that will benefit all the people of the US.

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This report in the NYT says South Korea is putting itself at a disadvantage by investing in the US and with its commitments for buying LNG from the US. It like other articles in the NYT sells America short. The goodwill earned by Japan and South Korea by the approach to trade agreements that acknowledges the unfair treatment the US put up with from both partners for decades is something that will be remembered by the American people. Any agreement South Korea and Japan make with the US will be to the lasting benefit of the two Asian nations as it is built on shared goodwill of the American people and the people of Japan and Korea. Agreements with China are largely temporary adjustments in a larger situation of competition between the US and Europe with China and are transient arrangements.

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BBC Director General who started out with Pepsi Cola and later joined BBC Tim Davie resigns. Also resigning is BBC CEO Deborah Turness for their role in BBC's editing of a Trump speech at the Capitol Jan. 6. The Guardian shows the speeches side by side, edited and original in today's Guardian Nov. 10. Editing led to a settlement with CBS News. BBC is being sued for $1 billion by DJT for damage to reputation resulting from such misreporting. The trust in the media is affected by such reporting errors and alternative media sources such as Lyrarc.com are now playing a useful role in the US and Europe, Asia to give a fair and open, transparent presentation of what is happening in the world to build educated and informed mindsets that affects and shapes people's lives.