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NYT's Mokoto Rich provides this excellent report from Daegu, the fourth largest city in South Korea, where the current president's father attended teacher's college, and where she draws her base of support. Her father is the dictator president Park who ruled South Korea from 1961 to 1979, known for efforts to modernize South Korea and protect it from the Communist North.Most of the city's residents no longer support president Park Geun-hye because they say even though she herself is a good person, she had poor judgement in having a friend who they say swindled her. That friend Ms. Choo Soon-Sil won favors and contracts using the powers of the presidential office with the full knowledge of the president. This makes her incompetent for the presidential office say even conservative supporters who disagree with the opposition's protests. 

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The Economist magazine says the difficult process of Brexit is now being put by Theresa May into the hands of the pro-Brexit ministers, Liam Fox, David Davis and Boris Johnson. Just staffing the Department for Exiting the EU under Davis, and the Department for International Trade under Liam Fox is taking a lot of time. And the differences between Fox and Davis also figure into the time it will take to invoke Article 50. It says the points put forward by Brexiters that Britain could revert to WTO rules do not work so well in practice, and it takes years to negotiate new trade agreements with other countries. It sees many problems, and says it is no wonder that Theresa May has told the Brexiter ministers to come up with answers as they are the ones who have sold this idea to the country.

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American women outperformed at the Rio Olympic Summer Games by winning 27 gold medals compared to 18 for the American men. A big part of why this was possible is that women have equal access to sports gained with the education amendment Title IX in 1972. One of every two American girls participate in sports in high school. More women watched the Summer Olympics in Rio than men. Seeing American women do so well acts a role model for young girls watching and thinking "I can do that."  Thirty years ago this was not the case. A lot has changed since then. This is especially true for black women in the games with African American athletes, Simone Biles in gymnastics, Simone Manuel in swimming, Ashleigh Johnson in water polo. With the success comes an effort to try new sports to break more barriers.

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A 20 minute train ride east of Brussels you find yourself in the oldest university in Belgium, in the Flemish town of Leuven. With 60,000 students the university buildings resemble Oxbridge except their are no enclosures. The university was founded in 1425. 

Leuven is a cosy, cobble stoned, easy for walking city, less known than Bruges which means less crowds, and a chance to explore without tourists in sight. A good pre Christmas break says The Times.

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A telecom price war in India leaves Vodafone and Reliance Communications with huge losses. This is the result of an offer of free internet for 6 months by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio. Jio has extended this offer for another 3 months. With this offer Jio a new entrant to telecom has gained 100 million subscribers in a short period.

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This WSJ report shows how retirement looks in America from the financial and lifestyle aspects. The median net worth for people 65-74 years is about $266,000 compared to an average net worth of 5 times that of $1.2 million for this group. This means wealth is highly skewed in America today with a small percentage of high wealth group pushing the average up this much- a result of neglect of American manufacturing that sharply reduced income and savings security of working families, and the impact of laissez faire policies of the administrations since the 1970's with financial crises hurting workers and families. The impact of wars was also borne heavily by workers and families with the neglect of infrastructure and public services in a misallocation of the nation's wealth.  Other points of note are the way time is spent today in retirement with less educational activity or volunteer work than one would imagine, and not enough time for exercize. Only a miniscule amount of time goes to volunteer work (.17 hours) or reading (.57 hours) compared to watching television (4.50 hours) for retirees. Exercize that keeps people healthy one would expect it to go up in retirement only shows .29 hours. Arts and entertainment or cultural activities only 0.05 hours, people are lonelier spending less time with each other with 0.57 hours for socializing and communicating. All showing how Americans in retirement can do better and live better lives by increasing the amount of time they spend in these healthy activities and less on television. Television which is also a sedentary activity takes up 3 times all the other activities essential for healthy living just mentioned combined. Little or no time is spent in meditation, mindfulness or mental wellness, as this grouped under prayer shows only .07 hours or just a few minutes a day.  Small changes that are made in the right direction would do much good for the quality of living for all Americans. Combined with an effort for the renewal of infrastructure and public services this would be an effort in the right direction, contributing to the well being of America.   ...

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Bill Gates resigned his seat on Microsoft Board on March 13, 2020. This report in the WSJ looks at the situation at Microsoft in late 2019 when members of the Microsoft Board hired a law firm to conduct an investigation in late 2019 after a Microsoft female engineer's letter. This was a company that Gates founded and which expanded through acquisitions of other smaller companies.  The same day he resigned his seat on Berkshire's Board led by Warren Buffett. Mr. Gates started Microsoft in 1975, was CEO till 2000, and chairman till 2014. He then turned to work with his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   Microsoft has market value of $1.8 trillion, Apple a value of $2.1 trillion.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has assets of $37 billion income of $53 billion, and the personal assets of Bill and Melinda Gates have an estimated value of $130 billion. One of the mistaken assumptions is that any one foundation such as the Bill Gates foundation has the resources, knowledge, technologies, expertise and leadership to tackle problems that confront large countries such as the US, India, or a bloc such as European Union. Imagine some billionaire taking on the role of a Franklin Delano Roosevelt in tackling the Depression or a billionaire tackling the problem India faces today in public health. It is only governments of the US, India and large nations such as the UK that can pull together the resources needed and the cooperation needed between its industrial base companies to achieve goals for public health. This type of effort can pull together resources of trillions of dollars that no one company or billionaire or group of billionaires can put together, and pull together massive resources of engineers, scientists, and other people across hundreds of companies that cannot even be measured. This is one of the lessons of this pandemic because the WHO was left with the job of handling the pandemic and governments of US, France, UK, Germany, India, Russia and leading nations had retreated from their essential role as guardians of the public interest in people's health and left much of the task to others. As they reassume this role this needs to be given a firm and solid footing and lessons learned. ...

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Textualism or strict interpretation of the Constitution word for word may be back but one can never be sure. No sooner is one decision made in a certain direction with a particular approach to the law whether it be textualism or something else it then comes up for rethinking a few years later, under a different approach to the law or from a new angle. This is the law practiced in most British style courts of law including the US.  Former Justice Breyer of the US Supreme Court replaced by his law clerk Ketanji Jackson, is interviewed by NYT's Adam Liptak. Today so much is written about Breyer as a non textualist, and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh recent additions to the Court as textualist or strict interpreters of the Constitution based on when it was written with what intent. Yet as thinking individuals who like the rest of the American people grow in their understanding all Justices cannot be categorized  in this way. Breyer says he worked with retired Justices Kennedy and Souter and found them to be willing and keen on hearing all angles. Then it has to be said that both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were law clerks for Kennedy. Much of American law at the highest court actually is no better than any other human creation - it tries to approximate as best one can the people of the US. Sotomayor coming from Puerto Rican descent, Ketanji Jackson from minority black, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch from Georgetown preparatory schools where Kavanaugh's paternal grandfather attended Yale something even JFK could not claim, Chief Justice Roberts coming from a company professional type background, Barrett a professor at a Catholic university, Kagan with a Bostonian JFK style background, Alito old Italian and Clarence old minority black background. Breyer retired recently to make way for a younger judge, Judge Ketanji Jackson who was law clerk to Breyer. Breyer is writing a new book which he hopes the conservatives on the Supreme Court will read- Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch. The book coming out March 26 has the title- Reading the Constitution- Why I Chose Pragmatism not Textualism. He hope these Justices will read the book and say their colleague was making sense, would say that it was not a bad point. ...

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The battle of Dien Bien Phu has another significance as looking back it was not the cold war conflict with the soviets but a struggle for freedom and independence from French colonial rule. The conflict cast a shadow over the Kennedy administration, and after John Kennedy lost his life in Dallas, led to a loss of Kennedy's vision of the New Frontier, ideas that were lost for 4 decades of mediocre or inexperienced leaders from Nixon to Clinton, Bush and Obama and Trump that embroiled America in distant wars and wasted resources needed at home for infrastructure and needs of the people. FR24 looks back at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu 1954, that gave Vietnam freedom from colonial rule and independence. The French ended their rule and Vietnam was divided into 2 states. The US was drawn into the struggle by support and advisers to the new government in the South. Just 6 months after Dien Bien Phu the French were faced with another conflict with the Algerian war of independence that went on till 1962. In the South Vietnam situation it happened in the backdrop of the struggle of the US with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic founded by Mao in 1949, called the Cold War. In 1956 Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush the Hungarian revolution. It is in this context that president Kennedy was pulled into the conflict of North and South Vietnam. Would Kennedy in a second term have handled it differently than Lyndon Johnson who with the Tonkin resolution had America drawn into the conflict left behind by the colonial French power. It is possible Kennedy would have handled it by consulting Congress and the people and looked for solutions outside Cold War conflict. The result and the end of Kennedy's term led to the vision of the New Frontier and Kennedy's imaginative leadership being forgotten with a series of mediocre presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump for three decades leaving America into expanded wars in Cambodia, Star Wars competition wit the Soviets, Iraq, Afghanistan and wasted America's resources, neglecting its infrastructure and needs of its people in health and education. ...

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Rural America has the same percentage of Americans that are prone to fringe views as urban America about 27%, the rest are simply trying to find ways to meet severe health, educational, lack of investment in rural areas by government, and cost of living challenges, that other communities have, says Nicholas Jacobs, professor of Colby College. He knows rural America as he shows in his new book -The Politics of Place and the Disuniting of America. Jacobs lives in rural Maine and has both studied reams of data and himself lives in a rural area. Here is the truth he says- Rural America is suffering from chronic health conditions, health worker and hospital shortages, limited employment opportunities and infrastructure deficits, rural schools suffering from funding gaps and teacher shortages. Similar to urban, yes, yet even worse, and need understanding not recrimination. What JFK rightly called, a policy "to lift all boats," from his speech in Arkansas, saying rural Arkansas was as much the Nation, as Massachusetts. He warns Americans to be careful what they listen to about rural America in talk shows or in books written to get audiences from one segment of the population or the other, with gross mischaracterizations of Rural America and its so called rage, with condescending views about people simply struggling to make sense of all the change some of it for the worse going on around them- in this period of Beaverbrook television or internet media. Beaverbook television is after a press baron in the last century in Britain who saw it fit to take advantage of crises of any sort to sell tons of newspapers for a profit, along the way promoting any bias that he had regardless of whether it was proven right or wrong. At one point UK press barons including Beaverbrook, controlled 13 million circulation the most in the world in 1947. Today instead of newsprint it is in book, television, social media or the internet video formats. This can concoct narratives of people that do not exist by using polls that are inadequate, and superficial understanding, with no effort to look for credible answers to difficult questions, and no effort to look for solutions that "lifts all boats," in America and in the World. ...

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Isaacson's new book on Musk says Musk's story is a cautionary tale. The compulsion to be drama magnet or mean are not prized traits, say others.  More sinister (the hell) is celebrating a culture that does not respect the need for worklife balance, of respect for nutrition and exercize for good health. Musk's methods which he calls "algorithm", a word known more for obscurity than meaning, are nothing new. For years as the US, Japan and China, now India have innovated there is a focus on simplifying things, and to do this questioning the existing way of doing things by breaking down the existing method into pieces and reorganizing the pieces of the puzzle leaving out unneeded pieces. What is the key to his success as it was for Jobs at Apple is creating a culture in which people would invest in and take risks for innovation at the high end of the price spectrum. Jobs used design and new stuff like the iPod and iPad, iPhone to do this. Musk does this through playing the role of a social media icon but a dangerous one that does not respect worklife balance and good health habits of nutrition, exercize and mindfulness. In processes this can give you a process that takes less time and money- how India's moon mission and rover Chandrayan 3 was done for $78 million showing these work practices of Musk are nothing new, and universally adopted by successful companies and nations. Newer ask your employees to do what you would not do, is also adopted by the best managers. By turning it into a mantra it obscures the fact that America today is a country of massive inequalities where two thirds of 4th graders cannot pass ACT reading test and half of retirees have zero savings, working people and families face a cost of living and health crisis and are badly neglected. How does it help to role model as an icon and popularize a culture that tolerates and accepts such conditions that would leave men deeply troubled, including America's leaders Washington, Lincoln and FDR if they were alive today. ...

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The European Recovery Fund package finally gets settled after long negotiations over the weekend. It is settled by lowering the nonrepayable direct aid to countries hardest hit by the pandemic of 500 billion euros the initial target to 390 billion euros. The change was made to meet Dutch demands that are based on right wing parties in Netherlands critical of the deal and upcoming elections in the country. Mr. Rutte of the Netherlands held on to the end. He has been in power for about ten years by following the Dutch mood carefully. This time both Merkel and Macron, both France and Germany supported the 500 billion euro plan for nonrepayable aid to countries particularly in southern Europe that took the brunt of the pandemic- Spain, Italy and Greece. The EU's executive branch will now for first time issue debt on a large scale to fund this nonrepayable aid and additional loans of 360 billion euros. There is also a multiyear EU budget of 1 trillion euros for 2021 to 2027 designed to meet the goals of European recovery. The way the EU is setup a lone holdout or a small country like the Netherlands with the help of two other small countries Denmark and Sweden could hold up the agreement against the interests of the larger nations Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal. Poland and Hungary also strongly supported the 500 billion euro target for nonrepayable aid. The combined population of these countries is about 314 million compared to just 17 million for Netherlands, 10 million for Sweden, and 6 million for Denmark. In addition Merkel has recovered her footing in Germany after the pandemic and most right wing parties in Europe have lost ground during the pandemic. That Mr. Rutte could push this far in the face of the need to show solidarity at a time like this shows weakness in the fabric and structure of the EU, and its rules and organizing charter. Normally a blocking minority would need 4 countries and 35% of the population to block EU proposals supported by the majority. This could be used if the blocking is seen as not in the common interest. In recent years most decision are made with unanimity, but this is one in which solidarity needed to be shown without the long negotiations taking some of the spirit and vigour behind the earlier plan. ...

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The Russian position for a ceasefire in Ukraine and peace talks is set forth by president Putin. "Our principled position is that state of Ukraine must be neutral, non aligned and free of nuclear weapons." Putin wants Ukraine to give up Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, Russian speaking regions in the east of Ukraine. Capitals of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and some of the territory is controlled by Ukraine today. It means that Russia could accept a ceasefire under the present lines of control. It also means Ukraine would not be part of NATO, though it could be part of the European Union, as a peace settlement. All western sanctions on Russia would have to be lifted. Throughout the decade of this war Russia has maintained close connections to the Russian speaking eastern part of Ukraine with historically close ties to Russia and as Ukraine public opinion shifted to the EU Russia began its efforts to bring these regions under its control even when German-Russian relations were better during Merkel years. Russia has the support of China and Brazil in its position. At some point if a settlement is reached one possibility is that the line of actual control or LAC would be put in place. It happened in the Korean War, when the demilitarized zone was setup and in other conflicts on the Indian border with China and Pakistan, in Cyprus between Greece and Turkey. For it to happen Russia will have to dispel fears in the EU and the US that Russia will continue the conflict at some later stage till all its objectives are achieved. This requires removing the perception that Putin is set on achieving all his objectives to reopen the war at some later stage. Mr. Putin hinted at this by saying "today we are making a concrete real peace proposal," and adding that Russia was not ''talking about freezing the conflict, but its final resolution." In this situation it is the western doubt about Putin's intentions that is another barrier to a settlement on European security, with continued destruction in Ukraine when the war has entered a stalemate where both sides have exhausted their resources and have little to gain by prolonging this conflict. ...

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Life in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, is shown alongside as the city struggles with most of its infrastructure destroyed in the war. The $61.5 billion aid to Ukraine was passed in the US Congress only with the efforts of Mitch McConnell who never gave up even in February and March when bills passed in the Senate were stalled in the House as the former president and some of the Republican base wavered. Mitch McConnell says now after the vote of 79 to 18 that passed  in the Senate that "at times I felt I was the only Reagan Republican left." At a meeting with the president in late February he wanted to start the meeting because he says-" I wasn't trying to convince Johnson of anything other than we had a time problem. I did't think we had time to fool around." Speaker Mike Johnson had wavered in calling for a House vote of a Senate bill on Ukraine aid after the former president had declined support. "He had a spine of steel and wouldn't give in to pressure from those in our caucus who did not have the depth of understanding of the stakes and who had reached different conclusions" says  Susan Collins who visited Ukraine in 2022 with McConnell. She calls him "steadfast and unwavering." Pat Schumer says "I give him a huge amount of credit. we were shoulder to shoulder on this." As he stays in the Senate till his term ends in January 2027, Mitch McConnell can look back on two decades of leadership in Senate realizing he had added nine Republican votes to get it 31 Republicans for Ukraine aid at a critical time. He says of two rules he has followed for 18 years - you take a lot of arrows, and yet you never speak about your members on or off the record, and in that sense he is free to pursue his own interests and has a lot of latitude now till 2027. He will be sorely needed in the Senate as the voice of experience and depth of understanding.   ...

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China is building a port hub at Chancay that will have an initial 1.5 million TEU or twenty foot long containers capacity. It will be opened by president Xi in November. This megaport will cut the time it takes from South American coastline to Shanghai from 35 days to 25 days. Before this port China trade was conducted through Long Beach or Manzanillo in Mexico. China is now Brazil's largest trading partner and this port offers the possibility of connecting further from Brazil to Peru by land. This does pose new challenges such as crossing the Andes mountains and Brazilian jungle. The port will cost COSCO China's large shipping company $3.5 billion. China has invested in 100 foreign seaports with $30 billion over 2 decades. The port of Piraeus is operated by Chinese companies, and China has invested in a stake in the port of Hamburg, Germany which is the main gateway for Chinese exports into the EU. The US neglected Latin America and India during the three decades in which Reagan and Bush Sr, Bush Jr, engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wasting trillions of dollars, neglecting infrastructure investment in the US, and in Latin America and India. Over two decades the US has invested by comparison trillions of dollars in wars in Iraq starting with Reagan and Weinberger, Bush Sr. in the 1980's, and Bush junior in Afghanistan. Much of the oil dividend of the Middle East wasted by regimes in the region in wars. Not only the US infrastructure was starved of resources, Latin America, India and Indonesia did not receive the investment these countries needed for rapid development. Yet today Reagan and Bush are lauded for their contribution by Baker in WSJ today and by columnists in the NYT. The fall of the Berlin Wall was itself just an episode in the US relations with Russia as Russia and China are competing with the US. Germany itself of the Berlin Wall remains divided (with AfD popular in the East around Dresden), and Germany divided on pursuing policies that lead to worsening relations with Russia. Germany also maintains a strong trading relationship with China including a stake in Hamburg port given to China during the pandemic at a time when the supply chain over concentration in China was being questioned in US, EU, India. ...

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Shares of Adani Enterprises went up by 3000% over 5 years putting valuations at extreme levels, says this report in the WSJ. This has created a disconnect between valuations and fundamentals say some experts. Hindenburg Research is a American forensic financial research firm started in 2017 by Nathan Anderson in New York City with 5 employees. It has issued a critical report of the Adani Group companies leading to a loss of 18.5% of its valuation. Adani Group companies make up 5% of the Bombay Stock Exchange and are a big part of its renewable energy effort even though the company had major interests in coal in Australia. Adani is trying to make the switch to renewable solar and wind energy and at the same time meet India's continuing need for coal because of its large population. The situation is similar to China and is poorly understood in the US and Europe, the effort to make large investments in renewable energy even as the company provides energy from fossil fuels. Adani set up the Mundra port in Gujarat helping Gujarat become energy sufficient and making it the most industrialized part of India. The London based Financial Times took a look at the Adani Group long before Hindenburg Research in the last 2 years and concluded that Adani Group companies have grown rapidly because India's effort for industrialization requires aggressive investment and risk taking which none of the other companies including India's Tata and Reliance Group are able to do in infrastructure and energy in the same way that Adani has. Reliance Group has invested in 4G and 5G and setup Jio to create low cost access to fast internet in India. When it comes to roads, airports, coal and renewable energy Adani has invested aggressively. This has created the perception that the Adani Group has benefited from its relations with the government. As the Financial Times put it Adani Group was the only private investor willing to take up the challenge of super sized goals needed for India's rapid growth. In this sense a forensic research company based on short selling is up against a company that has already faced skepticism about its rapid emergence as a renewable energy focused company shifting from fossil fuels, a transition neither Exxon or Chevron in the US have been able to do. ...

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BBC answers the question "Who is Keir Starmer?" in this report on the new British prime minister. He graduated from Leeds University and studied law at Leeds and Oxford. He joined the Socialist Movement soon after college. He was a prominent contributor to magazine Socialist Lawyer. In school he had joined the Young Socialists, Labour's youth organization. His name is from the first leader of the Labour party Keir Hardie. He is the first from his family to go to college. From 1988 to 2008 he was a practicing lawyer and concentrated his efforts on his work till he was made the Director of Public Prosecutions, the chief prosecutor of England and Wales. Keir likes to talk about this period including prosecuting terrorist gangs as an example of public service. It was late only until age 52 in 2015 that he was given the safe Labour parliamentary seat in north London of Holborn St Pancras. Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of Labour in 2015. Sir Keir worked well with Jeremy Corbyn during this period and was Immigration Secretary and Brexit Secretary from the back benches. When Corbyn's leadership was challenged Starmer supported this, with Corbyn resigning in 2020 after the 2019 election defeat and being replaced by Starmer.  Then followed a period of fighting the Conservatives and only coming level to the Conservatives in 2021 in popular support. The changes that made Labour more popular and reversing finally the decline of 14 years did not come till 2023 only 12 months before this election. Throughout Sir Keir maintained his composure and moderate positions, distancing himself from Corbyn, to regain the confidence of the British people. When one sees that the votes increase in 2024 is only 2% for Labour in 2024 one realizes the achievement of Sir Keir in transforming Labour to run the country that is so needed today. The slight increase in votes converts into a landslide through careful planning and strategy, but it also hides the fact that the British people have turned to Labour for answers and solutions to the problems they face. Such is the level of confidence that Sir Keir has built over time bit by bit, as he says "brick by brick," something that is clearly in Sir Keir's character and manner of doing things. ...

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The Kashmir Valley and the Kashmir region had a multiethnic community of Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus in the hundreds of years before 1947. It all disappeared after the cabinet meeting of Liaquat Ali Khan on 12th September 1947 when the plan to attack Kashmir using armed Pathan tribesmen and supporting military forces was approved. By the end of that year the surprise invasion had split Kashmir into two regions and led to a large scale dispersal of Sikhs, Hindus and other ethnic communities. This BBC report shows how this happened and how it changed a once peaceful region with a multiethnic society. Till the 15th century this region was Hindu and Buddhist with influences of Tibetan Buddhism and a center of creativity for Sanskrit culture and language. It changed with the Afghan and Persian invasions by 1580 and conversion to Islam of some of the Hindu population. By 1700 the Mughal empire decline and Afghan, Durrani dynasties ruled till about 1800 when the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh included Kashmir in the Sikh Empire based in Lahore, Punjab. This lasted under British patronage of the Dogra dynasty of Sikhs till 1947. In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, the population of the princely state of Kashmir was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695 were Muslims, 689,073 Hindus, 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists. The Muslim population was not homogenous and contained many tribes and the Gilgit Baltistan region was Shia Muslim, the Kashmir Valley Sunni Muslim and the mountainous regions had Pathans and many other tribes. This is why the region may have had Sikh and British rule for 150 years with even the Muslim communities existing with many different sub religions and living in amulti racial multi ethnic fabric that was upset by the invasion from the newly created state of Pakistan based in Islamabad using Pathan tribesmen and supporting military forces. What changed this was that after Kashmir was split in two by this invasion, China entered the northern border region of Kashmir called Aksai Chin and parts of Ladakh by building roads in 1956-57 and the occupation by China of this region including Tibet thousands of miles from Beijing in a remote region expansion by Communist China. ...

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(Article on TSM from NYT, February 22, 2023.) When Morris Chang setup his factories for chip production in Taiwan in the 1980's America was the leader in chip production. He tapped into American technology at MIT and other American research universities. Over decades of support from government subsidies and easy transfers of American technology Morris Chang built up what is TSMC today. Chang now sees the building of a plant in Arizona as a challenging task. Originally from Ninbo, Zhejiang province, China, and having survived the Sino Japanese war and civil war in China he went to Hong Kong in 1949. Without the bachelors and masters degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1953-54 and the first jobs at Sylvania Semiconductor in 1955, Texas Instruments in 1958-83, both pioneers in semiconductor production, Chang would not have been able to found TSMC. Mistaken laissez faire economic theory destroyed America's own semiconductor industry. Texas Instruments invested in Chang for him to get his PhD. degree from Stanford in electrical engineering in 1964 and enabled him to run its worldwide semiconductor business. Without this start enabled by companies at the cutting edge of US technological innovation and institutions such as MIT and Stanford, TSMC would not exist today.  Chang's approach was to price ahead of the cost curve which essentially means taking smaller profits in the short term to gain advantage over the long term. In this way he built TSMC with the help of support from Taiwan's government. About the Arizona plant Chang says it was similar to putting up a plant in Washington State, which he postponed after people, cost and cultural problems. A dream fulfilled became a nightmare fulfilled, he says and postponed that plant. This lack of enthusiasm shows a lack of memory an awareness of the difficulties that Chang himself must have experienced in 25 years of work at Texas Instruments- with cultural, cost and people problems, and the efforts at American pioneer manufacturing companies to assist Chang. Chang is reported to have said on a Brrokings Institution podcast that building a wafer plant in America will be "a very expensive exercize in futility," forgetting that he got his own start in America, with American engineers, American science and technology, and American manufacturing, and American workers. ...

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A Fox News journalist, Heather Nauert, is selected as the next UN ambassador by president Trump. She succeeds Nikki Haley. Nauert was State Department spokesman, and is one of many Fox News personalities selected by president Trump.

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COP16 on Biodiversity in Cali, Colombia, in November 2024, is a source of pride for Colombians.

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US Supreme Court hears arguments from D. John Sauer Solicitor General of the US on DJT Tariffs Wednesday, November 5, 2025. The Supreme Court will hear about a case brought by a small wine importing company with 19 employees. The US president used the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) that allows the president to impose tariffs. The IEEPA was introduced by president Jimmy Carter in 1977. It was used during the Iran hostage crisis. It has been used for the Venezuelan regime after elections were rigged with human rights violations, on Belarus as early as 2006, and on Mexico for drug cartels. This increases the responsibilities of the Justices of the Court as these sanctions have broad support of the American people. Tariffs were imposed on China for illicit fentanyl flows and a 25% tariff was imposed on Canada and Mexico under Executive Orders 14193, 14194, and 20% on China under Executive Order 14195 in 2025 for illicit drug traffic flows across their borders into the US. Illicit flows that has taken the lives in the case of fentanyl of more young people than were killed in the Vietnam, Korean and First World Wars combined.  For the reason that the economic aspect of tariffs now overlaps with trading partners abuse of basic rights of their largest trading partner the US in the case of Canada, Mexico and China not stopping such flows, the issue before the Supreme Court is basic to the US as a Nation to protect its citizens under these Executive Orders and IEEPA- not the kind of interpretation of the law the USC does for most or almost all of its cases. In 2025 a lot of the discourse is distorted and does not reflect the way citizens of the Nation should show concern for the welfare and safety of their fellow citizens in communities around them severely hurt by the scourge of fentanyl and other opioids making their way from other countries conducted by drug trafficking gangs outside the US.  Also relevant is that the tariffs are correcting trade deficits of $1 trillion of the world with China that threaten the economic security of the US, EU, India and other countries. Larger companies are moving their supply chains out of China to reduce concentration in China, impact on inflation is slight with 3.0 % inflation in September 2025. Smaller companies such as the wine company in this lawsuit are unable to do so. Most of the smaller businesses affected can be compensated with a fund from the tariffs revenue of $500 billion in 2025-2026. In this way the goals of the US as a Nation can be achieved of reducing the supply channels concentration in China, cutting supply chain concentration in China, for fair trade with trading partners EU/Japan, and for action on fentanyl and drug trafficking. Justice Roberts and his team have a lot to think about in this effort by the Nation to correct abuses that should never been allowed to happen. ...

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A useful look at all demographic groups age, race and gender in 2024 compared to 2020 and 2016 offered by DW.com. There is higher participation today in the process of choosing candidates than ever before even as mediums including the internet have become increasingly fragmented. Candidates in 2024 have to reach many smaller groups of demographics by race, gender, education, ages groups over television and radio than ever before. 

244 million people over the age of 18 will participate in choosing between Harris and Trump in 2024 and for the US Congress.

71% of white voters voted compared to 59% for non white voters. Only 54% of Latinos voted in 2020. Youngest voters 18 years to 29 years participation in 2016 was very low just 39%, it increased to 50% in 2020. 

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Maggie Smith was known by people who knew her as a person of great wit and humor. This is how she described herself-

"My career is chequered. I think I got pigeonholed in humour … If you do comedy, you kind of don’t count. Comedy is never considered the real thing.” 

There was much humor, laughter, and yet there was the way this also brought out in her performances the anguish of the human condition as in "The Prime of Jean Brodie," about an Edinburgh teacher with a misguided admiration for Mussolini and the event that led to realizing her moral blindness when she says "Mary McGregor", hearing that one of her impressionable girl students had died in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's.

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Chase Banks' Jamie Dimon says he worries about China as a competitor and an adversary, but his real worry is that we in the United States can "get our act together."

“If we are not the pre-eminent military and the pre-eminent economy in 40 years, we will not be the reserve currency. People tell me we are enormously resilient. I agree with that. I think this time is different. This time we have to get our act together and do it very quickly.” 

“What I really worry about is us,” he said. “Can we get our own act together—our own values, our own capabilities, our own management?”