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Popularity in both Houses of Parliament of UK for under 16 years ban on social media following Australian example. It now looks like the UK will follow Australia with the ban on social media for under 16 year olds and improve the quality and scale of education in the UK, mental health of children, and role of parents in education. For this to happen the people have had to rely not on politicians but on popular outcry and sentiment.

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What Tokyo looked like after it was rebuilt following the 1923 earthquake is shown in 100 prints from the Edo-Tokyo Museum. It is now exhibited at the Maison de la culture du Japon a Paris.

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President says special interests are gearing up for afight, special interests include insurers who face competitive bidding for medicare coverage, big student lenders and banks who don't like the idea of subsidies for student loans, and oil and gas companies that don't like the end of certain tax breaks. The system worked for them but the President says he works for the American people in his weekly radio address.

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Geopolitical problems and installation of US air defense systems in South Korea led to Chinese restrictions on South Korea. This led Samsung to reduce its labor force in China from 60,000 to 18,000 in 2023. It shifted operations to India and Vietnam. It is Vietnam's largest exporter and makes 20-30% of its global smartphones in India. Apple is only now beginning to shift to India. This is called decoupling or de-risking after an excessive concentration of manufacturing by companies like Apple in China.

Xiaomi took a large share of the local market in China from Samsung, another reason Samsung reduced presence in China. It still gets advanced components from China. In India Samsung has a dominant market presence. Because India is a price conscious market Apple has only a small market share in India.

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The difficult situation facing a six term Congressman from New York who is the new Minority Leader in the US House of Representatives. Mr Hakim Jeffries faces a difficult debt ceiling vote in the US Congress during his first year as Leader for the Democratic party in the House. All 213 Democrats have signed a special petition that would force a vote in the House if the debt ceiling negotiations fail. This is 5 votes short. The vote would then require 5 moderate House Republican members to support it for it to pass. The idea is that only if push comes to shove and no agreement is reached leading to financially disastrous results for Americans in which they would be blamed by their constituents for not acting, moderates from states like New York might join the Democrats.

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The National Health Service in Britain is struggling under the effects of budget cuts, covid delays, and an aging population, says the WSJ. With the cost of living crisis and the Tory resistance to wage increases when nurses are found turning to food banks there is now a strike by healthcare workers. A former head of the NHS says the UK healthcare system is facing a crisis like nothing he has seen in his career. The UK has mistaken cheapness for efficiency in its approach to health, and it is now coming to roost. It is coming apart- people with heart attacks have to wait average one and half hours for an ambulance. Hospital beds are scarce tuning patients away. One in ten are on waiting lists for non emergency surgeries. 

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After a career of 30-40 years in business, medicine or other profession, starting when one graduates from school, the first year after retirement can be difficult. As shown here in the story of Sherry Mendelson, a psychiatrist who says she faced a tectonic shift. How she coped in her own words by rethinking roles and old habits. Finding new passions for activities alone, and together with her husband.

Simple things like hearing aids that can make a difference, adapting to bad knees and not being able to ski. But finding a new passion in writing helped her regain her longtime passion for psychiatry and her home office sanctuary. In the process making awkward adjustments to one another and one's spouse, discovering new wisdom, moments of shared appreciation. 

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 The average work has declined in Europe, and increased slightly in America. It is about one day a week less in Europe for the 5 largest European economies, according to the OECD. Shorter work hours set by employers and furloughs are affecting workers in Europe. This is because many European businesses used shorter working hours to avoid layoffs during the pandemic. 

Nearly 2 million Europeans are in furlough programs with governments making up the lost pay.

Working hours are less in Southern Europe because of a lack of full time work. About one third of workers in France and half in Spain and Italy would like to work more hours but cannnot find the extra hours. In Germany one fourth of workers choose to work less than 30 hours a week by choice.

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Greg Ip, chief economic commentator of the WSJ says economists like Summers with his theory of secular stagnation, and Kenneth Rogoff with his theory of the debt hangover from the 2009 financial crisis, have missed the true story of the last ten years with consistent growth, low inflation and lower unemployment than thought possible. Unemployment at 3.5% shows that the natural rate of unemployment is much lower that the 5% thought by economists and economic theory, and unused capacity in the economy that is being tapped for growth.

It also shows the limitations of economics and economic theory. The need always for fresh thinking and a bolder idea of what is possible. The potential for economic growth by unleashing each country's best human and technological potential in the face of obstacles. 

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Black and white pictures of the legendary Indian hockey player Dhyan Chand who took India to gold medals in hockey in 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympic games. Each time with stick skills and persistence in the field. Like Vinoo Mankad in Indian cricket Dhyan Chand goes back to a period long forgotten. Mankad belonged to the period just after independence 1946 -1959, Dhyan Chand goes back to the period under the British Empire. His birthday August 29 is now India's National Sports Day. The Khel or Games Ratna Award is now named after him. National Stadium in New Delhi is now Dhyan Chand Stadium. The name evoked much pride during the 1920's and 1930's when India was still struggling for independence and striving to become a new nation.

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Ajaz Patel comes from a humble background in Mumbai before moving to New Zealand as a child. Here he recalls the excitement of getting his first cricket spikes. His father worked at his brother's automotive shop in the new country and his mother was a schoolteacher.

Ajaz did the incredible feat of getting all 10 wickets with spin bowling at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai in his first innings bowling for New Zealand. Like Jim Laker 10 for 53 against Australia in 1956, and Anil Kumble with 10 wickets against Pakistan, Ajaz's effort is a result of hard work, patience, and knowhow, says this report in The Times. And in Azaz's situation he had less experience as his first Test match was played at age 30 years. 

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The Klamath river flows for 250 miles from the Cascade mountains in Oregon through California to the Pacific ocean. The Washington Post gives this look at this part of the Pacific Northwest where dams built during the period 1900-1960 for electrification which interrupted the natural flow of the river are now being removed. This is a part of restoring the ecology of this region and reducing the long term effects of climate change. More than 2000 dams have been removed since 1912, with half of these removals coming in the last 10 years. Over the years dams like these on the Klamath are no longer useful as cheaper sources of electricity exist and do not serve for flood control. For many this is a way to restore the balance to the ecology of the region.

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US president Biden makes these remarks at Emmanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Biden tells this South Carolina audience that the idea of the South fighting for States Rights was presented as the South's cause in fighting the Civil War after the end of that war. This he said was a distortion of the truth as the Civil War was fought to end slavery in these United States once and for all, which for America was "the original sin." Biden says something like this is happening today as the truth is being distorted. Much of this history of slavery began by the seventeenth and eighteenth century in Charleston itself. It is here that Biden began his successful campaign for president in 2020 and was the inspiration for his effort.

 

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The efforts by the Republican Senator Lankford of Oklahoma with the help of Senator Graham of South Carolina, Senator Tillis of North Carolina, and other Republican senior senators, to get a immigration bill through the US Congress that president Biden supports to close the border with Mexico immediately after its passing, is the subject of this video in the WSJ. It says this is the only solution for the immigration crisis not waiting another 12 months to take action. The problem is the parole and asylum policies of the US which need fixing, says Senator Lindsay Graham, the senior Republican in the Senate. The bill would do just that, yet faces opposition from Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana in the House of Representatives who says the bill would be dead on arrival in the House, making it inexplicable.

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Click on Original Article for Images of ten old towns in Germany most on UNESCO World Heritage. The most well known is Heidelberg on the Neckar river with its old town, castle and old bridge. Then there are the Hanseatic League trading towns of Lubeck and Wismar both near the Baltic Sea. In Wismar with access to the Baltic Sea its old town and three cathedrals. Lubeck surrounded by two branches of the Trave river like an island. In the Middle Ages trade made Lubeck rich and there are many buildings from that period. Then there is Rothenberg in Bavaria with its walkable defensive wall and medieval town largely preserved with timber framed houses. Red brick or clay and wood framed houses in colorful designs form part of all these towns.

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Gen. Milley is being succeeded as chairman Joint Chiefs by Air Force chief C. Q. Brown. General Mark Milley completed a 4 year term as chairman Joint Chiefs at a ceremony attended by president Biden. He told the crowd- "We do not take an oath to an individual, we take an oath to the Constitution, to the idea that is America, and we are willing to die to protect it." Milley is a Bostonian whose father a Navy Corpsman fought in World War II. He was picked by former president Trump just as former Attorney General Barr and former vice president Mike Pence were picked by Trump, yet Pence, Barr and Milley, all had serious differences with Mr. Trump. All defended democracy and the transition from one president to another in January 2021.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi gives his radio broadcast Mann Ki Baat -Conversation from My Mind- for June 2024, returning from the months long general election. The arrival of the monsoon rains gives Modi an opportunity to showcase umbrellas made by small industry in Kerala, on the southeast coastline of India. To showcase Indian products is a regular aspect of the radio show. Here Modi shows that snow peas from Pulwama, Kashmir are now going to London, England. Araku coffee gives employment to 150,000 tribal people in Andhra Pradesh. It is becoming known in Europe. Modi extols the images of hundreds of thousands of people doing yoga near the Nile river and on the Red Sea coastline in Egypt, and Yoga day sessions in Kashmir and in Saudi Arabia. International Yoga Day was an opportunity to do yoga in Srinagar, Kashmir.

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Britain turns to Labour as the lead for Labour party increases to 27 points after Sunak announces the general election will be held on July 4, 2024. What would a Starmer administration look like and how will it meet the expectations of Britain for generational change after the failure of Brexit, and 14 years of austerity policies that failed to invest in Britain and failed to deliver on infrastructure and housing? These are questions not easily answered as Britain's finances are left in a bad state by the Tories for Labour. Starmer is taking the right approach to first get a grasp of the tremendous challenges facing Labour in this situation. It was easy for Boris Johnson and the Tories to make the promises that were never kept and left the British people in the lurch.

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Djokovic who struggled with a knee injury and pain put every effort he could muster into his game. He won over young Spanish player Alcaraz in 2 tiebreakers 7-6, 7-6. The injury happened for a miniscus tear during his quarterfinals game with Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece. He had only 24 hours to recover before the semifinals game against Italy's Mussetti and seemed very worried. It shows the effort put into the games by athletes in the face of adversity. In cycling overcoming tire punctures and precious seconds, in rowing 0.18 seconds separating Netherlands women's scull quad from the second place,  injuries of women's rower Brayshaw in a horse riding accident and a British rower who came back from a surgery after a bike accident to win gold.

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DJT Executive Order for Maritime Revival,  Bipartisan effort for US Maritime Revival by Senators Todd Young (R) and Mark Kelly (D). If not much is done it will put the US behind in maritime shipping by a generation. The US and India are both starting from a low point but accelerating their effort. India's effort to connect the Arabian Sea with the Mediterranean is India's plan with Italy and other countries. The US is recalibrating the US ports by bringing them back under the US such as the Panama Canal ports, and imposing costs on competitors so that it can compete on a level playing field. Mike Waltz in the DJT administration was pushing maritime infrastructure  development during his time in the US Congress.

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Buffeted by the North Sea and winds in the Scottish isles of the Outer Hebrides, one finds what BBC Newsnight's Stephen Smith calls "a formidable Calvinism" that is the maternal roots of what looks like a bit wild Donald J Trump. DJT's mother Mary Ann MacLeod visited the Hebrides isle of Lewis, was well respected in the community and spoke Gaelic. Even though DJT did not visit frequently he encouraged Stephen Smith to look at his maternal roots. DJT's grandfather was a fisherman and his great grandfather lost his life fishing in the North Sea. One can imagine something of Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea in this story from the 1800's, and trace the resilience of DJT back to that period.

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Audi is the second largest car company in the premium car category in China after BMW. Audi now plans to make 700,000 cars in China by 2015 instead of 2020 as planned earlier. Audi say executives say the premium car segment in China is growing rapidly in China. It expects sales to grow overall at a a more normal pace than the frenetic pace of recent years. The slower growth in the economy at 7-8%, which is reflected in slower sales in the overall market, is not the case with the premium cars. Because of rapid growth in 4-5 years the Chinese market for premium cars will look more like mature markets in the U.S. and Europe, says Audi sales chief Schwarzenbauer.

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The economic crisis is global because with a few exceptions like Germany the housing prices have seen a bubble around the world, worse than in the US in places like Ireland and the UK, and similiar to Florida and California in Spain, and also in places like China and India whwere a stock market bubble helped sustain housing price increases. In China and India the crisis comes in the shape of higher inflation, food prices, and huge stock market declines, along with the housing declines, and lower economic growth as China shifts from an export model to domestic consumption letting a third of the low cost factories in Guangdong province close down. Look for serious effects and global economic slowdown from a series of intertwined crisis housing credit and in Asia stock markets.

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US naval blockade of Iran in Arabian Sea starts April 13 2026. US destroyed Iran's larger ships 158 of them, yet Iran also has a fleet of smaller attack boats which it plans to use in Hormuz. These are harder to detect and can be hidden in coves along the Iranian coast and used against ships. The US with its naval blockade is now prepared to do what it has done also in Venezuela, stop and interdict fast drug boats on the Venezuelan side in the Atlantic ocean. By blockading Venezuela in the ocean US is using its strengths, and stopping drug boats its ability to pinpoint traffic on the ocean. Similar capabilities are well suited to Arabian Sea and Red Sea on the open oceans and away from narrow Hormuz playing to US strengths and capabilities. Aircraft carriers and destroyers and the US Air Force is in a position to do what it does best control open seas like the British did in their heyday of the Royal Navy for most of 1750-1920. This avoids options of Hormuz itself with its narrow 15 mile gap of water between Oman and Iran too close to mountainous terrain on either side, and of the Kharg Island option which would require special forces to be backed up with more ground forces. This is the most viable option and the interlude of couple of weeks has given the president an opportunity to make a better choice for positioning the US forces where the US has its strongest points. What is lacking is the individual powers of Britain and France whose leaders Starmer and Macron have popularity below 20%. Yet the US is better off making good choices and not having these nations alongside. The posturing by European nations is limited to France and UK, as Germany and Italy are in sync with the US position. Much of the media operates as if the goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to the Middle East is not important for long term peace for nations such as China and India with about 3 billion people and the billions of people of Asia, Latin America and Africa. For the first time in 400 years since 1600 as Asian civilizations began a long decline China and India have emerged in 2000-2030 into the kind of modern economies and societies that exist in Europe and the US. The last thing they need is the risk of destroying the Modern World with nuclear proliferation when it took centuries to get to the right opportunity after 1950 to modernize China and India. Xi's and Modi's generation are the first to experience modernization in Asia after Japan's experience. ...

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The Labor department reported that unemployment surged to 10.2 % in October 2009. 190,000 jobs were lost in October 2009. Ther breakdown lokks like this. Construction lost 62,000 jobs, manufacturing lost 61,000 jobs forming the bulk of the job losses. Its interesting to note that only 16,000 jobs were gained in the federal government and 16,000 jobs were lost at the local government level making the net gain zero at the government level. And what was gained in the health care sector 28,700 jobs and in educational services 10,700 jobs for a total of 39,400 jobs was completely offset by 39,800 jobs lost in retail sector. The useful point here is that local governments are hurting and retail sector is hurting and little is going to change this as long as job losses continue and the gains at the government level and healthcare and educational services are simply offset by losses inretail and local government. This situation will likely ocntinue into 2010. The losses in manufacturing are likely to continue. A sample of companies like Eaton, Boeing and John Deere shows that 2010 will not generate many jobs. Eaton has decided to have its 55,000 employees take aweek of each quarter, so there is one twelfth work capacity unused which is where Eaton will turn to before hiring. At Boeing there are layoffs of 10,000 planned but its also hiring 3800 workers for anew factory in South Carolina, and at John Deere 452 workers will be recalled in November but in December there is aplanned shutdown. A September Survey by Business Roundtable found that 13% of firms planned to increase employment in the next 6 months, but 40% planned to cut payrolls. So manufacturing looks to go on like this in 2010 with slowing but continued job losses. The numbers show that in October the median number of weeks it takes to find ajob up to 18.7 weeks which is the highest number since the sixties. What gets ignored by the small print you find it in the Wall Street Journal is the broader unemployment rate which is 17.5% when you include those who have stopped looking, those who work part time but need full time work and the marginally unemployed. The rates jump for younger workers here and in Europe also. ...