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How virus containment failed at its origin in Wuhan with politics overriding the agency setup to tackle pandemics. Dr George Gao an Oxford trained virologist was in charge of China's agency for pandemic disease control. This story shows how his effort ran in to problems from authorites in the province and other problems. Scientists in U.S. and Britain and in China say had the effort to control the virus started 3 weeks earlier by December 1, 95% fewer cases would have happened in China. With additional steps to control pandemic spread such as air and rail, auto travel restrictions this also means the virus could have been contained within China with only a limited and better controlled spread overseas. The bungled response in China shown here affected first China, then the whole world.

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One day in 1964 Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose decided that an impossible object could actually exist - a black hole in the galaxy after a planet collapses.Einstein's theory of relativity had predicted that when stars collapse they could form infinitely dense points of matter that no light would be allowed to escape. The formation of black holes supports Einstein's Theory of Relativity says the Nobel Prize Committee. Penrose is 89 and says it is good to get the Nobel Prize when one is good and old. Stephen Hawking a younger physicist passed away and was not included in the prize after supporting Penrose's work. Two astronomers in the U.S. at UCLA, Los Angeles, get a quarter of the prize for their work detecting black holes in the sky and providing evidence of a super massive black hole in the center of our galaxy. Pennrose says "If you have got grand ambitions its bad to get a Nobel Prize too early, it gets in the way of your science." ...

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With better control over the coronavirus than U.S. and Europe, South Korea is not rushing to buy the vaccines developed by Pfizer or Moderna. It is waiting to see how the vaccine rollouts work in other countries before buying the vaccine. South Korea is also looking at getting better price from manufacturers after the rollouts in the U.S. and Europe. South Korea is moving cautiously and has said it wants to get 10 million doses through the Covax initiative the main global effort to provide broad access to vaccines. Another 20 million doses would be secured from private companies. This is in contrast to the approach in Japan where the government has signed deals for purchase of 290 million doses for 145 million people for its population of 126 million. The money allocated is $6.5 billion and the goal is to vaccinate everyone by first half of 2021.  If it works this would prepare Japan for the Tokyo Summer Olympics to open in July, after 1 year delay. South Korea has the freedom to do this and wait to see what vaccine works best with least long term effects because their are relatively fewer cases there. A total of 313 new daily cases on November 18, lower than daily cases in a single county in the state of Michigan in the U.S. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use anew kind of gene based technology that has never been approved to prevent infectious diseases. Other competition is the vaccine from Oxford and Astra Zeneca which uses an existing technology that is used in existing vaccines modified for use in coronavirus. The Oxford vaccine and a vaccine from Johnson and Johnson are expected to have a lower price. Because life is functioning very close to normal South Korea is in the unusual position of saying that its people have no reason to be anxious for vaccine procurement, as indicated by its deputy director of Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Only three fifths of the population is the target for vaccination by fall of 2021. ...

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There are 100 vaccines being developed all over the world, of these 30 are in India. One is a collaboration with Britain for the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine to be produced largely in India. The other is one by ICMR. Other vaccines are the Johnson and Johnson  one dose onl vaccine. These vaccines have the advantage of not requiring ultra low temperature storage. 

Even though the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is off to a start in Britain this does not mean that the other vaccines are not going to be out soon as early as by the end of December. There is also no clarity on how long the protection lasts. More than the one billion doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be required making the other vaccines just as or even more important. Asia and Latin America, Africa are still not in the picture and will have to be for the protection to be effective.

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Sir Keir Starmer is elected leader of the Labour Party in Britain with 56% of the vote. Starmer 57 years old, is a human rights lawyer who was director of public prosecutions from 2008 to 2013, and elected Labour leader just 5 years after being elected to parliament. Angela Rayner, shadow education secretary won the deputy leadership race with 52% of the vote. 

The new shadow chancellor is the MP for Oxford East since 2017 Ms. Anneliese Dodds. She is a former academic and member of the European parliament. Jo Stevens the MP from Cardiff East is the new shadow foreign secretary. He resigned from the Corbyn team in 2017 to oppose Brexit.

Corbyn sceptics swept the elections to the National Executive Committee. Starmer supports EU freedom of movement to continue, public ownership of services such as post, rail and energy, and raising income tax on the top 5% of earners.

 

 

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Yannis Stournaras, economcs professor at the University of Athens becomes the finance minister in the new administration of prime minister Antonis Samaras. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University in economic theory and policy, lectured at St. Catherine's College, Oxford and at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. He was special advisor on monetary policy to the finance minstry and Greece's central bank. His public official positions include vice chairman of the Greek natural gas company and board member of the public debt management agency. He is well qualified to lead the effort for Greece to remain in the European Union with modified terms that extend the achievement of deficit targets by 2 years to 2016, and offer tax cuts and other growth oriented measures to get the Greek economy back on the path to recovery and growth after 4 years of declining GDP. He also brings a sense of committment to the EU, because he was chief economic advisor to Greece's Finance Ministry in 1994-2000 and took part in the negotiations that led to Greece's joining the eurozone in 2001. His strong views about changes needed to Greece's overregulated economy which favors special interests also coincide with the moves for labor and other reforms taken by the Monti and Rajoy governments in Italy and Spain. ...

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This article in DW.com cites experts who point out that the Republican Party always had tensions within it because of the diverging interests of three groups that have allied together to form the party- Wealthy businessmen and corporate interests, evangelicals, and white working class people who have seen their incomes decline for several decades. The interests of each group have some overlap, are sometimes masked but frequently they diverge. Nigel Bowles, former director of the Rothermere Institute at Oxford University, says there is no particular reason that this coalition would hold together, that it was unstable to begin with, a wonder that it did not split up earlier. Scott Lucas, an expert on American Studies at the University of Birmingham, says that Reagan showed great skill in holding this coalition together, and Donald Trump has taken it apart by mobilizing only one constituency of white working class voters and leaving out others. The break between Republican party leaders Ryan, McCain, and state party leaders, with Trump is unprecedented in post war American politics, and putting it back together now looks like a lost cause in the medium term.  ...

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The evolution of the Murdoch newspaper and television business from a small Adelaide newspaper News of Adelaide circulation 75,000 inherited from his father Keith Murdoch in the 1950's, is shown in this NYT report. It comes as a new generation is taking the place of the old. Rupert was then a student of 23 years at Oxford University in the 1950's. In the 1980's he acquired New York Post and The Times of London. By 1988 Rupert Murdoch shifted to use technology in the newspaper business. He followed this by acquiring other newspapers and setting up a television business Sky Television in the UK by 1989, and Fox News television channel in 1996. These television channels along with CNN and NBC, ABC now appeal to an older demographic in the mid to late sixties age. Much of the younger audience gets its information from the internet. Murdoch failed to develop the internet side of the business appealing to younger audiences. In this sense much of the influence of these older television channels is in a fluid shape likely to diminish in the future. ...

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This report in WSJ shows that AI or Artificial Intelligence cannot work without human intelligence behind it. As the Facebook Russian episode of inauthentic accounts shows it can lead to dire results. Human have to play a active and constantly overseeing role for it to work. In fact the bigger the AI effort the bigger the need for humans to actively conduct and monitor it and back it up with human intelligence. Truckloads of human intelligence are needed for a primitive AI system to be able to sort out data and process it. The process continues once a AI system is created or it will likely fail with disastrous results. Context is critical. Oxford University experts say hundreds of thousands of people are involved in human intelligence to make AI work.

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In his farewell speech Boris Johnson, with true British resilient spirit,  says "I will be giving fervent support to Liz Truss and her government every step of the way." Johnson likened his transfer of power to Ms Truss to a relay race. "The baton will be handed over," saying it "unexpectedly turned into a relay race, they changed the rules halfway through." But he expressed no feelings of regret, having come to terms with the arrangement in his own way. More likely Johnson is without saying it still determining the policies and direction of the government, perhaps more so now with Liz Truss and his loyalists the only persons in the cabinet and running the British government. Johnson addressed people's fears about the energy price increases- "the UK would continue to have the strength to give people cash they need to get through this energy crisis that is caused by Putin's vicious war."  He listed his government's achievements- the response to Covid. Some of this is forgotten as the UK not the EU leadership was first to move forward with vaccination plans. Johnson put his government's faith in the vaccine invented at Oxford University and committed early while the EU languished under Merkel and her protege Ursula Von der Leyen. The EU fell behind in providing vaccine leadership as Britain forged ahead early, giving hope to the rest of the world's population including India that adopted the Oxford vaccine. Johnson likened his role to the missions to the planets- "Let me say I am now like one of those booster rockets that has fulfilled its function and I will be re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down invisibly into some remote and obscure corner of the Pacific." Johnson has taken the situation in a truly British way without any rancor and gracefully. With Liz Truss in charge he even gets a break after the difficult period handling the once in a century pandemic, handing over to a younger member of his group, and yet deciding on many of the policies and guiding the government for the term it was elected for to 2024. History will look at him favorably for his handling of the pandemic and vaccination, and for his instincts about the Ukraine war and Britain's unwavering support, and now in guiding Truss to provide Britain with strong support for the cost of living crisis caused by the war. His failings stem partly from his exuberance and optimistic spirit, but nowhere near detract from these achievements. ...

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Supreme Court protects parent opt out of LGBTQ stories and requiring age verification for porn sites. Texas was where the civil rights movement got its support from president LBJ, a Democrat and FDR follower. And still Texas vote for the age verification for porn sites was voted for with support being 164-1. Yet Elena Kagan, who was a Harvard legal scholar, now Supreme Court Justice did not support this decision, and offered a flaky and irresponsible dissent- “Carefully drawn age verification laws stand a real chance of surviving.” What about the harm done to minors while the scholars quibble about legal writing. Kagan was in elite schools all her life, Hunter high school in NYC, Princeton Worcester Oxford, Harvard Law School,  and deputy assistant to Clinton, before Clinton's economic aide Summers picked her for Harvard Law School Dean, and Obama picked her for SC Justice. In 2025 these elitist backgrounds have failed, and are failing to address the problems of the Nation in a direct common sense way as faced by ordinary Americans and even by the 164 of 165 members of the Texas state legislature, which is saying a lot. A search shows failure of Google and of AI after search of 10 pages on Google no mention is found that the vote in Texas legislature was 164 to 1. Parents have to protect their rights and 22 states are now passing this law. ...

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This editorial view in The Guardian says the Tories win in 2019 was a result of homeowners and mortgage holders feeling richer with the soaring house prices in England. It could hurt the Conservatives as interest rates rise and house prices drop. Conservatives could lose support gradually, then suddenly as home prices drop fast. It cites the forthcoming book Shattered Nation by Prof. Danny Dorling of Oxford University on the extractive model of housing in Britain being out of step with its European neighbors. Dorling says that had house prices gone up with inflation in the last 70 years, the average home in Britain would have cost 63,000 pounds, that is twice the median UK salary of 31,000 pounds. Instead government's ONS shows price of average house in Britain is 296,000 pounds in 2022 August, up 36,000 pounds- the price increase of 14% is one year's salary. Dorling says money is siphoned off from the less well off to the already wealthy when paying excessive rents, buying an overpriced house, or keeping up with larger mortgage payments. Lawmakers don't see the problem Dorling says because so many of them are landlords including Mr. Sunak. ...

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Justin Lahart of the WSJ says the positive news from the May unemployment report comes as a complete surprise. No one expected the addition of 2.5 million jobs, and the reduction of the unemployment rate from 14.7% to 13.3% for May, as reported by the Labor Department. Lahart says that even though the response rate for the Labor Department survey measuring the jobless rate had only 67%- instead of the usual 82%- it is broadly reliable. About half of the jobs bounceback comes from the leisure and hospitality industry. Some of this from the creative ways restaurants responded by doing an active takeout business and bringing in some of the workers.  Other businesses also responded in creative ways to keep running. As long as the reopening of the economy can be done safely, more people can be back to work. The significant relief from the government for small business could also help these businesses weather the crisis. The Global Vaccine Summit recently opened provided more positive news. Plans are underway for India's Serum Institute to produce 400 million doses of the Oxford vaccine by December, providing more hope for recovery. ...

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Edison's learning mindset and his persistence has lessons in work today.

These lessons apply to individuals as well as countries and groups, to create a thinking mindset. Will this plan work, what are the assumptions and what is it based on, test it out. If it fails try changing it. Test again. Does it work. What were the assumptions and what is it based on, what if we change this part. Try again. In this way Edison found answers to difficult problems in his inventions. 

The search for a vaccine, other problem solving at the individual, small group, and national level, can be done in this way. For the vaccine there is the added factor of time- how quickly can we do this? The Oxford vaccine works with an approach that has worked for other types of coronavirus in the past research efforts, what component can be changed or inserted so that a tested approach can be used instead of starting from scratch in this case.

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How the Cowley plant stands as a fine example of how foreign investment has helped regenerate the area around Oxford university. BMW has invested more than $560 million in the plant since 2000 and in April 2007 the plant produced its millionth Mini a car based on a contemporary design of the old Morris Mini car. BMW has with its investments contributed about 55,000 jobs and $5 billion to the British economy in 2004 according to Oxford Economic Forecasting. UK received foreign investment that was 37% of of its gross domestic product in 2005, higher than France 28%, germany 18%, and the USA 13%, according to figures from the United Nation Conference for trade and Development. It has helped the British economy as the unemployment rate is lower than most of the EU countries. In the financial services industry a lot of foreign investors from USA, Germany and Switzerland have bought British firms and the financial services industry has thrived with all the international presence and Britian has increased its position as a centre of global financial services....

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After the loss of a crucial UK byelection by Labour under Keir Starmer (May 2021 Hartlepool) Shabana Mahmood says she brought out her inner-Kashmiri and steadied the party with wins in other byelections over the Tories. Shabana is the daughter of a teenager from Kashmir who came to Britain in the sixties, studied to be an engineer and settled in Birmingham. She is the Shadow Secretary of Justice and as a Oxford trained barrister she wants to put Britain's justice system on a good footing by remaking prisons and making the system work.  Shabana is a special kind of person simply because she has kept her values and religious beliefs and still taken the best of British thought and culture and the scieintific mind even as Britain faces real challenges. One is struck by the sheer broadness of her mind-  “I don’t like anything that smells of fundamentalism in any way, religious or political or ideological, it doesn’t really matter what it is, in the end. “It’s quite authoritarian in nature, and in my own life experience of people that are most intransigent and the most prescriptive about what everyone else can say and think and do tend not to be the best of people themselves.” ...

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British regulators say they have"absolute confidence" in the Pfizer vaccine after analysis of over 1000 pages of data on the vaccine. The vaccine was approved by the Medicine and Health care products Regulatory Agency. The first vaccines to be shipped to Britain are being packed in Belgium. Britain has secured 40 million doses enough for 20 million people. Vaccination will begin as soon as doses reach Britain. The NHS will prioritize, first care home staff and residents, then healthcare workers, followed by people over 80 years age. Clinically vulnerable people will get a jab alongside people ages 70-74. People with severe obesity and underlying conditions will get jab after people over 60 years, followed by people over 50 years. About 34% of the 66 million population of Britain is over 50 years age, which is about 22 million. This means the Pfizer vaccine ( with doses already secured by Britain enough for 20 million people) covers over 90% of these people or 19 million people and the 1.1 million workers in NHS. Rapid progress in vaccinating these people would make Britain the first country in the world to have done this, a remarkable achievement. By the end of the year the Oxford vaccine should also be available making it possible to proceed with vaccinating the rest of the population of 46 million people. ...

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A letter sent by a Conservative member of parliament Heaton-Harris to universities in Britain suggesting that there was something wrong about the way universities have supported the European Union has created an uproar in Britain. A former Conservative chairman Christopher Patten, who is chancellor of Oxford University called this an "extraordianry example of outrageous and foolish behaviour." Others called it a sign of McCarthyism in Britain. It also goes to show how tense the situation has become in Britain, with the Daily Mail newspaper that supports Brexit's anti-immigrant stance adding to the tension with its coverage. Even Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has not come out unscathed,  with some Conservative lawmakers calling him "enemy of Brexit."

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Questions raised about Ramadan's support for democracy in Arab countries including the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which was started by his maternal grandfather according to Ahmari. In a recent C-SPAN television event on Ramadan's new book on the Arab awakening he says one reason he works for the Iran broadcasting network and the Quatari network, which represent opposite points of view in the Muslim world, is to maintain contact and dialogue within different points of view. Ramadan teaches at Oxford University.

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Herman Rompuy, president of the European Union, says Europe can't afford its social system without economic growth. Timothy Garten Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford, thinks Europe will have to totally redesign the social model and the social market economy. He points to comments about increasing economic growth as part of the "old rhetoric and totally indequate to the crisis we face." Instead of the social rhetoric he sees the need for the "language of blood, sweat and tears."

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Comment by a former Tory leader, Sir Ian Duncan Smith, on negotiations with the European Union's Ursula Leyen, show how much the term sovereignty has become the word on which everything depends. Smith said on December 10 about the EU demands that Britain adhere to EU environmental and other rules after leaving the EU, "either Britain is sovereign, or it is not."  The word sovereign is discussed in this context in this Times analysis. The word comes from the old French word "sovereinete" during the period when the King's authority was being contested by feudal lords in 16th century France. The Oxford dictionary defines it as the authority of a state to govern itself, and to do this without outside interference. Tory leaders such as David Davis and others including Smith see this as meaning making your own laws. For the European Union to insist on its laws being primary and British law asked to conform with EU law making it secondary, would not only be outside interference, but also divided authority. Older French and British political philosophers Hobbes and Rousseau see this as divided authority. Even though the meaning has changed in modern times, the essential definition in the Oxford Dictionary remains undivided authority. Which is why these Tory leaders insist on the original definition as the right one. Behind the wrangling there is the sense among Leavers that Britain could do better in economic terms by setting its own direction, and doing business its way. How would a new economic power in India by 2030 affect Britain, would it create many more opportunities for Britain to grow because of its history and cultural ties. Could the relationship with the U.S. provide more opportunities for growth? What about French indifference and even disdain of Britain, does Britain have other options? Isn't the European Union merely a Franco-German alliance led politically by France and economically by Germany, and propelled by their three wars since 1871, with a bunch of European countries added in, and what has Britain got to do with it? Closer to the negotiations with Leyen there is also the question - isn't France trying to make certain with its demand that Britain not violate EU law, that Britain's ingenuity and free wheeling spirit outside the European Union does not let it grow faster than France? Where one gets Boris Johnson's immediate reply that Britain is better off not being stuck inside "EU's regulatory orbit."   At the other end of the world you have India with "Atman Nirbhar Bharat" calling for a self-reliant economy and taking the time for transitioning out of the trade relationship with China, at short term cost and long term advantage. Britain is closely watching India as it makes big strides in developing infrastructure, in renewable energy, and setting a bold vision for the future. Even France is mapping out a pathway to self-reliant economy as it looks at ways to bring production home after the pandemic. The pandemic has only reinforced the drive to be self-reliant. ...

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This report in The Times take a look at the work Liz Truss has done as International Trade Secretary and now Foreign Secretary. Truss does not want Britain to become economically dependent on China. More than Johnson Truss is a UK Atlanticist who wants the UK to work with the US and the EU to build a western world that is entirely independent of China. Looking at her work and experience it would appear that Truss is the most underestimated of the candidates for prime minister, much more so than Sunak. She can be strident and aggressive but she has gone through a process of thinking and studying before that with a willingness to try new ideas. She come from an intellectual  family and one that was active in left wing activism. She studied at a comprehensive school in Leeds before going to Merton College Oxford  to study philosophy, economics and politics, and was willing to change her thinking when persuaded about a different course of action to get better results. She also gained the knowledge she needs to do her own thinking with experience first hand as Chief Secretary at Treasury, Secretary of International Trade, and as Foreign Secretary, getting trade deals with Australia and negotiating with other countries. Cameron, May, Johnson lacked this kind of knowledge and experience. And Sunak also falls way short of this kind of knowledge acquired and experience handling international assignments key to Britain's advancement after Brexit. ...

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Bridget Phillipson and Keir Starmer are politicians who would like to get things done and take ideas from all sides in the effort to improve life for British parents and children. See the article alongside on the changes proposed by Phillipson and Starmer to bring better education to all schools, and keeping the best of the Academy system- just spreading the best to all parts of the country.  Zoe Wiliiams had this interview with Bridget Philipson in The Guardian, March 21, 2023, when she was UK Shadow Education Secretary with big plans to revive childcare and children's education in UK schools. Phillipson is now Education Secretary and is getting a bill passed in Parliament to improve some aspects of the British education system keeping the infrastructure and foundations that are delivering well. Phillipson grew up in a dilapidated northeast England neighborhood in Tyne and Wear. She describes this as a place with an air of decline with a railroad track and idled chemical plant in the area, high youth unemployment. He mother and her grandparents provided a caring home and signed her up for drama lessons on Saturdays. She attended Catholic school and went on to study at Oxford University in Modern Languages and Modern History, returning to work for Sunderland City Council for 2 years instead of going to London. She is seen as self-effacing but vigorous in putting forward ideas on better childcare and children's education for British children.   ...

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There was some element of reckless behaviour when Britain tossed aside misgivings to let Tories let in private sector investing into companies in the water sector. The WSJ now calls it the world's largest failure in private sector water investment. Today there is eColi in the water in River Thames so much so that in the Oxford Cambridge rowing race rowers were advised not to make contact wih the water. It goes back to Victorian sewers which was a problem not tackled by companies interested in profits in areas that wiser men had decided is best done by public sector investment. These are the hidden failures of the Thatcher/Reagan years that are only now coming to light. The company Thames Water loaded up on debt to pay investors dividends while the company failed to upgrade London's sewer system, which has spilled what amounts to 34,000 Olympic swimming pools of raw sewage into the river since 2020. The US has not been so reckless as most water and sewage systems are still publicly owned. Near central London a matted mountain of wet wipes and sanitary products along with sewage washed into River Thames is called Wet Wipe Island. Thames Water took on so much debt $23 billion that it defaulted on its debt. How could this be in a modern developed nation, and what about all the other infrastructure investments in Britain rusting  from the Industrial Revolution that need investment? Tories have let Britain down. There are lessons for the US and Germany, France, India and China. ...

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Emma Tucker describes the elation in the News Desk and for reporters of the WSJ on August 1, 2024  following the release of a young reporter Evan Gershkovich held by Russia for coverage in sensitive Russian regions. Emma Tucker said-    "We are grateful to President Biden and his administration for working with persistence and determination to bring Evan home rather than see him shipped off to a Russian work camp for a crime he didn’t commit. We are also grateful to the other governments that helped bring an end to Evan’s nightmare, in particular the German government that played such a critical role." Who is Emma Tucker and why does it matter?-   It matters because of monopolistic/oligopolistic hold over communication of news in the public space that belongs to public service since Lincoln, TR, FDR, Kennedy in the US, and it's shaping of public perceptions such as no action needed on climate change fires/floods, or on infrastructure investment in a dilapidated US. Emma Tucker studied in Sussex and in New Mexico before studying philosophy, economics and politics at Oxford. She becomes a graduate trainee at the Financial Times  in 1990 continuing for 30 years right into Covid years (FT now owned by employee owned Nikkei since 2015 acquired from Pearson for $1.32 billion). In 2022 she was selected to run Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal acquired by him for $5 billion- including $2.25 billion premium- from the Bancroft family that owned it and Dow Jones since 1928.   ...