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Jaishankar on the connection between the Indian and Pacific Ocean region into one integral whole with the emergence of independent nations from the British, French, and Dutch Empires in the region, and the growth of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand. The growth of trade and use of sea lanes for supply chains, modern shipping and logistics, have created sea lanes that stretch from the Gulf and Suez to Hawaii and Seattle. India plays a critical role with the US, Australia and Japan to ensure international law and open shipping lanes for all nations in the Indo-Pacific. Jaishankar also touches on infrastructure developments such as the new Trilateral Highway that connects India's northeast to Burma and Thailand. This opens up ties on land between the three nations with connections into Malaysia and Indonesia. That would enhance the movement open people and goods, and cultural connect that would create a new northeast- southeast Asian connection. It restores what was the long lost connection that India once had with nations from Thailand to Indonesia, and Vietnam to Japan through China. This is the connection that brought Buddhism from India's north east in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to these countries.  Look East, Act East, the Quad, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework are all ways of saying the same thing of making the East connections the vital ones in India's social, economic and political, cultural life, restoring the connections in which India thrived and existed as one entity. It also brings life to the Gulf countries which are otherwise isolated in a sea of European nations on one side of the Mediterranean and Russia on the other side near the Black Sea that have different historical interests and cultures. This sees the central Asian connections through Afghanistan as being secondary and of less significance in the long history of nations such as India, China, Korea and Japan from the Buddhist era. That secondary connection brought an interruption of the long Buddhism and Vedanta civilization in India, intermittent wars, and the division of the country under the British Empire. It is a natural progression in a long history that seeks to restore the natural and intuitive connections to the Vedanta and Buddhist regions in the East that are part of the Indo-Pacific. These are now integrated with the settlers from Britain who sought to build better and fairer societies based on the rights of man in the new nations of Australia and America. This gives new life and meaning to this vast Indo-Pacific region. The British Empire and the other colonial empires simply bring back an orientation to the period of colonial wars of the nineteenth and twentieth century, which tore apart China and then Japan, and used resources in India for these wars, and which ended with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These wars also leave behind memories in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan and Korea that can only be truly be put behind by looking at Vedanta and Buddhist Asia as it once was from India to China to Japan. And to the regions of Australia and the US that brought new meaning to the modern scientific period and the rights of man in settler societies away from Europe. ...

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Greg Ip looks at the Chinese economy its strengths and and many weaknesses including debt and declining foreign investment in 2023, as president Xi visits the US this coming week. With a slowing economy, high youth unemployment and excessive debt, China remains a resilient economy because it has strengths in manufacturing. It would take the US the next decade to build up its manufacturing capabilities after neglecting this important field with mistaken policies for three decades under presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump. President Biden is taking steps for this new manufacturing revival to take place.

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There is no treatment for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease linked to obesity. It is twice as prevalent in Hispanics compared to other whites and African Americans. The fatty liver is a result of bad eating habits and lifestyle with little exercize. It is expected to be the leading cause of liver transplants in the U.S. by 2020. At the current rate about 25 millon Americans are expected to have the disease by 2025, according to the chief of liver transplant division at UCLA School of Medicine.

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Vikshit Bharat 2047, Voice of Youth is launched in December 2023 by prime minister Narendra Modi. The plan is for India to be a fully developed economy by 2047.

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More than half of the money in the $1.9 trillion aid package that was passed in the US Congress will go to people who need it most, the unemployed, the poor and struggling Americans on low incomes. The pandemic hit this group very hard. US president Biden has taken on a new role of supporting the poor, not just the working class as he has done with his roots in a working class district in Delaware. Biden says the aid will give the working class and struggling Americans "a fighting chance."

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PM Modi inaugurates 5G service in 13 cities in India. These cities are Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Pune, Delhi, Gurugram, Chandigarh, Jamnagar, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Chennai, Varanasi, and Kolkata. Other cities will be connected in the next few months and other parts of India in the next phase of 1 to 3 years. Jio's Akash Ambani and Mukesh Ambani took the leadership role in pioneering 4G in India. Jio is now playing a key role in pioneering the transformational technology of 5G throughout India.

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Mr Carney's calm demeanor and performance as head of the Bank of Canada, Canada's central bank, during the period before and after the financial crisis of 2008, and his 13 years of private sector experience at Goldman Sachs including handling of sovereign debt and emerging market debt, were part of the invaluable experience considered in the selection process for the next Governor of the Bank of England. Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Osborne, encouraged Mr. Carney to apply for the position. Carney is head of the Financial Stability Board, which has responsibilities to reduce systemic risk. This experience is also considered valuable because of the expanded responsibilities of the Bank of England, Britain's central bank, which now include overseeing and regulating British financial institutions. The Financial Services Authority was scrapped and its responsibilities placed in the central bank with the Governor overseeing a committe inside the bank that is in charge of regulatory affairs....

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Dudley Althaus looks at Mexico's 2018 election from a working class suburb of Mexico City called Valle de Chalco. Once a squatter settlement outside Mexico City this area was courted by the ruling PRI Institutional Revolutionary party for 3 decades with a social investing program building sewers, water and power lines. Today this area like others in the state of Mexico have turned to a new party Morena led by Manuel Lopez Obrador, to find a way out of the corruption, violence and failure of the rule of law under the PRI. Obrador left the socialist PRD party to form Morena in 2014 after running for president on the PRD ticket twice. The thirst for change is widespread inside Mexico giving Obrador a higher vote margin in state of Mexico than the 53% he won overall in Mexico. The PRI won just 16% of the vote. The old politics of piggy bank and patronage of the PRI is now discredited in Mexico.  The reason the old politics does not work anymore is the change in places like this from a shanty town of tin shacks to a bustling city of 400,000. This place has a technical school, a state university branch, rows of well kept cinder  block homes along with malls and wealthier homes. With basic necessities being met Mexican workers are turning to larger issues of national identity and how the next chapter can be written in the social contract. Obrador's nationalist message and criticism of the globalized economy struck workers and middle class as the right direction for Mexico. This came just as president Trump brought new views on immigration and NAFTA on the other side of the border challenging Mexico to find its own direction and independent position in the world economy, even building new links to other countries in Europe and Asia. ...

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Bradsher describes a Sinopec shale gas project in Jiaoshizhen after talking to local people in the area. The safety hazards for drilling much deeper than required in the U.S., and the health hazards from contamination of water supplies for drinking water. This is the early period for shale gas drilling in China and Sinopec is gaining valuable experience for future drilling efforts that meet safety and health standards.

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Allan Blakeney was health minister of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, and later premier of the province. Blakeney, as health minister in premier Woodrow Lloyd's government expanded a program in 1962 to cover the costs of doctor provided medical care. Earlier in 1946, the Saskatchewan government of Tommy Douglas setup a program of universal insurance coverage for hospitalization. This program of universal healthcare was extended to all of Canada in 1966. He later headed the provincial New Democratic Party and was premier of Saskatchewan from 1971-1982. During this period he introduced a New Deal for People, which included a dental program for children, prescription drug program, subsidized housing and a guaranteed income supplement for the elderly poor.

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Queen Elizabeth was more comfortable with Labour prime ministers than Conservatives. This included Harold Wilson of Labour. The Queen had a prickly relationship with Margaret Thatcher. King Charles  has strong views on social issues such as housing and migration, and on climate change. Charles 75 years and Keir Starmer 61 years are shown here to have similar views on social issues in Britain. If Starmer wins the election they will meet weekly, and have much in common. The royal historian says there is a meeting of minds in terms of the social issues at stake, the plight of the people of Britain. The national anthem was played at the beginning of the Labour Conference in 2022. Sir Keir Starmer was made Queen's Counsel in 2004 and was knighted in 2014 for his services in public prosecutions. 

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A study by AARP of 514 brand name and generic drugs between 2005 and 2009, shows that generic drug prices went down an average of 31% during this period, and brand name drug prices went up by 41%. One of the authors of the report says that it is important to look at individual drug prices and not studies showing total spending on drugs, because this is a significant cost for people paying out-of-pocket, It drives up insurance premiums, and pushes retirees into coverage gaps in Medicare Part D drug program. Analysts indicate pharmaceutical companies are increasing prices on drugs before patent expiration to get as much profit before the patents expire.

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If the wording in the Pew Research Survey were to include that only the government can tackle huge problems in climate change, infrastructure, and manufacturing, the over 50% of Americans that support government taking on these responsibilities might just as well be closer to 60-70 percent. The tide is turning as the whole culture since Reagan and the key adopters of Reagan's theory  successive Democratic administrations of Clinton and Obama is being reversed- Democrats and Independents supporting the change to get government to tackle these problems is up 15 percentage points. Another shift is the young people who are filled with frustration by the lack of government taking on a bigger role to solve problems such as climate change, manufacturing jobs in US, infrastructure rebuilding that only the government can do. 

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Woman and better educated suburban people supported Nikki Haley. By contrast rural less educated went to the former president. What happens to these Haley supporters is important in 2024. Many are conservatives yet they are not finding a home in the new Republican party that has shifted from what it was before to look very different from before the 2009 financial crisis. The gradual disappearance of manufacturing in America as it was shipped overseas and the damage to communities built around it, the neglect of rural areas, the spiralling cost of healthcare, were already ripping apart the social fabric, only to be hit with the 2009 financial crisis from banking mismanagement and greed. The social and economic fabric which was next hit by the pandemic is only now recovering under president Biden. The Trump one term with all its good intentions failed to deliver on infrastructure and rebuilding manufacturing. The Biden work is a work in progress yet of a scale that America did in the 1950's to become the dominant nation after World War II through Truman, Ike and JFK. ...

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Jimmy Kimmel on ABC Disney- makes a joke that is not a joke. "This is something beyond the pale Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC" posted on Monday afternoon by the president on Truth Social. The president calls it a "call to violence." Just days later an attempt at assassination of the president at the White House Correspondents dinner at the Washington Hilton in DC.

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Life in Ukraine, for school summer camps, as the war drags on. A struggle to keep a sense of normal life in the midst of war. The battle lines are now almost in place and not changing much, yet the war means missile attacks on infrastructure every week.

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There are four pillars to this fight Biden and Harris are now waging. Biden tackled infrastructure by getting the Congress to pass the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act to put trillions of dollars into rebuilding aging and dilapidated American roads, bridges, airports, ports, rural internet. This also tackled Manufacturing and factory jobs in the US neglected for 3 decades, the second pillar. The third pillar for Biden was getting American wages that had fallen behind to catch up by supporting labor in wage negotiations.  Something was missing as Cost of Living for housing, childcare, remained. This is where Harris has stepped in with Jerome Powell of the Fed. Powell cutting interest rates to make housing more accessible and Harris putting in $25,000 for first time homeowners for a down payment, build 3 million new homes, $6000 for childcare for parents, and $50,000 for small businesses to start. Specific programs at specific targets in FDR type "bold, persistent experimentation" activity. Put together the four pillars mean giving strength to the US economy which Powell says is "in solid shape." ...

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Gives abrief history of AOL and the demise of its original model as an email pioneer. Its now shifting to being acontent provider run by Armstrong, an ex-Google executive. Tells how AOL outflanked and outcompeted CompuServe and prodigy by letting users use their own names instead of astring of numbers. But AOL did not see the coming shift from email through the AOL site to email that would not require dialing in to AOL. And AOL spent $40 on advertising per customer. Hotmail anticipated the shift and it was free, it also used viral marketing. Every Hotmail email would say "Get your free e-mail at Hotmail." With the change in technology enabling email without signing into aparticular website and free access AOL went into reverse and downhill. MSN bought Hotmail for $400 million, and Google email brought the next wave of changes with email coming free with a search that helped one speedily navigate through pages on the web.