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Patrick Buisson, a key Sarkozy adviser, who helped him win the presidential election in 2007, says Marie LePen's chances in the 2017 election are dimmer than people realize. Her Front National is popular in the north of France with working class people who formerly voted in favor of the Communist or Left parties. In the south of France in areas like Nice her niece Marion is popular with people who have social views on the right on abortion, and gay marraige. The problem is reconciling these 2 blocs of voters and the way Le Pen appears to have moderated her views on social issues. The opposing candidate from the Right parties formerly led by Sarkozy is Francois Fillon, actually prime minister for the full term of 5 years under Sarkozy. Fillon's views are closer to the FN voters in the south and opposes gay marraige and abortion, and has a strong foothold with Catholic voters in traditionally Catholic France. It is this split that hurts LePen who had hoped to run against Bordeaux mayor LeJuppe. The left parties are in disarray and likely not to be a factor. Another difference is that the voters in the south of FN do not see it the same way as FN voters in the north on issues of increasing the size of the state. Voters in southern France do not favor increasing the size of the state as Le Pen has promised and opposed by Fillon. Fillon has plans to cut France's large state employees by 600,000. France has a large state owned sector of companies and increasing the work week to 48 hours, reducing the state sector size to help private companies with incentives is seen as a way to increase productivity and grow the economy, plans supported by Fillon. A major problem for Marie LePen is her family name of Le Pen which Buisson says people in France associate with her father Jean LePen, and extremist positions. Buisson thinks Marie LePen will never be able to shake off this image in the second round of the election as she loses some of her right wing Catholic support to Fillon, and fails to attract enough working class voters in the north of France because of the family name. ...

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So far 17 million people in the UK have received the Astra Zeneca vaccine.  35 cases of blood clots, 15 of pulmonary embolism and 22 of deep vein thrombosis have been reported across the UK and EU. In a normal year more than this number of cases of blood clots are seen say experts. These occur naturally in the population, including elderly population. Astra Zeneca's chief medical officer, Ann Taylor, says the number of blood clots in the 17 million people who have received the vaccine across Europe is actually lower than would be expected in the general population. The EU countries of Germany, France, Netherlands and Italy have temporarily stopped using it after 3 healthcare workers in Norway had blood clots. In Germany 7 out of 1.6 million had a rare condition of cerebral sinus thrombosis. Both EU and medical regulators say that there is no evidence that these blood clots are caused by the vaccine. The number of clots are similar to what was seen in the population before the coronavirus. Also this report in The Times says taken together there is no difference between the number of clots in the population that received the Pfizer vaccine or the Astra Zeneca vaccine.  The Daily Telegraph reports that one in 1000 people have blood clots every year, so that for 17 million people in vaccinated population with the Astra Zeneca vaccine there would be 17000 cases of blood clots over 12 months. During the clinical trials Astra Zeneca reported there were fewer people with blood clots who had been vaccinated than in the people who were not vaccinated. ...

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Allyson Chiu and Emily Wright show how inventors in India are working on more efficient residential air conditioning units that cool single rooms. About 1.2 billion units are there across the globe, billions more may be needed to replace the old ones and to meet surging demand in Asia, Latin America and Africa. International Energy Agency estimate is for these AC units to triple by 2050 what they are now, adding 2.4 billion AC units. Using the existing technology and emissions would mean putting 2 billion metric tons of emissions from these older AC units into the atmosphere in 2050 or what 476 million cars put out, says IEA.  The Indian government, RMI, a global coalition including Gree of China, and Daikin of Japan are doing the research on new AC units. In 2015 about 5% of India's 300 million households had such AC units. 8-10 million units were sold in 2023. This would rise to 1 billion units sold and installed by 2050 says IEA, that would emit 25 gigatons of cumulative emissions in 2050, or what a staggering  6 billion gas powered cars emit. ...

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Conventional monetary policy is ineffective in a liquidity trap. At that point short term interest rates are at zero, and conventional monetary policy is ineffective at this zero bound. Unconventional policies such as buying long term Treasury bonds by the Federal Reserve may be adopted, but their effectiveness has not been proven. This is something the Fed is attempting to do in the U.S. after the 2008 financial crisis. This was tried in Japan in a deflationary situation and the results did not show conclusively that it works, because Japan remained at a borderline deflationary situation for years while this policy was implemented by the Bank of Japan. The $600 billion bond buying program of the U.S. Fed in late 2010, known as QE II, was implemented to reduce the chance of deflation taking hold and to stimulate growth. Krugman and others argue for the need of fiscal policy and government spending to step in to support the unconventional monetary policy. This becomes more difficult to do with the increasing budget deficit the U.S. is facing in 2011....

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Stuart Broad's remarkable achievement of 500 wickets as England beat West Indies in the Third Test at Old Trafford. He joins Glenn McGrath and James Anderson in an elite club of bowlers. He was made man of the match and of the 3 Test series after taking 10 wickets in the Third Test and hitting a quick 62 runs. 

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Tense moments after India's Chandrayan 2 covers 364,000 miles in space, coming close to the lunar surface at the South Pole, as close as 2.1 kilometres before losing communication with the ISRO Space Center. ISRO scientist Sivan and prime minister Modi at the Space Center.  Mr. Modi says he fully supports the space program's mission, saying the need was for continued "prayas" effort and learning from the experience. "Stay steady, look ahead," the prime minister tells ISRO scientists.

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Ballmer is not able to answer the question about how by taking 2 companies that are slow moving you could combine them and get acceleration- except by saying that 2 people working on search would now be one person after integrating the 2 companies, and one person is freed to work on aspects of the emerging social media and work with other publishers. Is Ballmer too optimistic about such an integration of Yahoo and Microsoft when he says that we (both companies) have fantastic talent and fantastic assets, and this would just get Microsoft the breakthrough in search and advertising its looking for. The integration alone would take a lot of management time especially considering the different cultures. The comparitive freedom of the search companies and the more structured hierarchical approach, some would say regimented approach, at Microsoft. Could microsoft culture stifle Yahoo culture or would Microsoft end up changing its culture, which may be less likely considering that Microsoft and Ballmer are the ones integrating Yahoo. ...

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Ram Nath Kovind is selected by the BJP party as its candidate for President of India. Kovind is a lawyer practicing before the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court, former member of the upper house Rajya Sabha for 12 years. He was appointed Governor of Bihar in 2014.

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Schmidle describes how the militancy in Pakistan's border provinces is shifting to younger people who continue fighting the old battles against America and the West. He observes the opening of a campaign office of the Islamist party, the Jamiat Ulema -e-Islam or J.I.I., from a crowded rooftop in Quetta, Baluchistan, where this party runs the provincial government. The rhetoric against the U.S. is mild compared to earlier years, as a new election approaches. In the last election the Islamist parties under the alliance Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, won 10% of the vote with pro-Taliban sentiment running high. The MMA alliance ran two provincial governments. Now there is asplit in the Islamist parties, between the factions working within the democratic process and other factions including younger militants who are against Musharraf and elections. This comes after the shooting of Benazir Bhutto by militant Islamists.

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The Chief Minister of Kerala writes about the Kochi Water Metro project to be inaugurated by pm Modi. The project was built at a cost of about $150 million with state funding and a loan from KfW, a German development bank that funds climate green infrastructure. 78 electric boats powered by batteries will transport people in Kochi between 38 terminals spanning 10 islands on the Arabian Sea.

The boats are built at Cochin shipyard with cutting edge design, light weight boats of aluminium hull and FRP superstructure. High court to Vypin on the first phase takes 20 minutes with tickets costing Rs. 20. Kochi One cards can enable seamless travel on Kochi Water Metro to Kochi Metro with weekly and monthly passes,

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Life in the Ukrainian city of Odessa on the Black Sea as Russia exits the grain shipment agreement and sends missiles into grain infrastructure facilities. People still come to Odessa to get some change and feel the air on the Black Sea. The pictures here show pop music competition groups practicing outside the Opera center in Odessa's downtown. People come to bars and shops in Odessa known as a Black Sea resort city.

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Coal is making a comeback as many countries in Asia are bringing back coal units following LNG shortages. Impact of Hormuz shutdown- 40% increased use of coal in Korea, coal units reactivated in India, and put on standby in Italy. Italy delays phaseout of coal to 2038. Coal is a reliable fuel in this period of Hormuz Straits shutdown. Much of Asia's LNG comes through Hormuz. Use of coal in the US shown here in graphs which in a second explain why the DJT administration and Republicans say it makes so little difference what the US does in coal for climate change when China and India make up 90% of the use of coal. Consider what these charts show- use of coal in 2027 in the US is 331 million metric tons vs 1422 million metric tons for India, almost 5 times the US coal use happening in India. EU is 244 million metric tons. But wait the Chinese number is much much larger than India's - 5005 million metric tons used in China in 2027. India's coal use alone is 3 times that of the EU and the US combined.  China's coal use is about 10 times the coal used in the US and EU combined. And when one compares US+EU use of coal to India + China coal use - India and China used in 2027 13 times as much as the US and European Union.  Which is why because cutting coal use also impacts communities hit hardest by the Elites of America (Bush+ Obama) shipping out its whole manufacturing base to China. These communities get some relief from these same Elites policies that shut down all coal plants, instead of using a carefully structured wind down that allows some selective use of coal plants which are cleaned up for emissions, and pushes China to do more. Small cuts in coal use in China which has benefitted from our Elites shipping out the national manufacturing base of the US to China, would make a bigger difference than large cuts or total shutdown of coal plants in the US, where the communities impacted are in the rural parts of America that have lost factories and jobs such as in Pennsylvania due to Bush and Obama policies of looking the other way to deindustrialization of America. ...

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After severe losses Hertz, Avis and Enterprise sold much of their fleet of rental cars. Today they are having to meet rising demand with fleet of cars about 40% below normal levels. A chip shortage is reducing the supply of new cars having an impact on travel and on airlines.

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This report in WSJ shows how people are adapting to coronavirus pandemic taking the long view and settling down with new arrangements that will continue into 2021. Some software engineers are shown redesigning their homes to setup offices for working dads and moms where they previously worked out of temporary arrangements in the home. Physicians used telemedicine in the early months of the pandemic. They still see patients only once or a couple of times a week in specially designed arrangements where patients stay in the parking lot till they their appointment and waiting rooms are largely empty. It is a season of deeper adaptation as people realize they are in this for the long run into 2021. Workers are setting up new routines and home offices, families are trying new rituals, and businesses are trying new ways to energize their employees, all with the objective of making it work in the long term. Though the economy has reopened office buildings are largely remaining empty, schools and colleges are remote teaching as cases are climbing with the daily average at 40,000 a week in the U.S. and over 70,000 in India each day. ...

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Airports and airlines are trying to promote flying by offering coid testing to avoid quarantines imposed by state and federal governments. Airports are opening test centres offering the PCR test which takes 48 hours for results and rapid tests that take 15 minutes but are not as accurate. Some airlines are looking at designating certain flights as covid tested flights with all passengers either tested and negative or having been removed from the flight. Lufthansa has testing at airports in Frankfurt and Munich with the German government agreeing to it that people tested and negative did not have to quarantine for 14 days. Following this summer traffic jumped. The head of the resting task force at Lufthansa, Mr. Leffers, says testing is now becoming an integral part of the flying experience. Bermuda has some of the toughest testing rules with tests required on Day 1, Day 4, Day 7 and Day 14, resulting in low traffic over the summer. Yet with covid rates rising elsewhere Bermuda has become a safer destination resulting in a large increase in traffic this month. ...

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Large investments in infrastructure by president Biden with bipartisan support in Congress is having positive effects. New technologies and rising pay in the trades is leading to many young people joining it instead of the college route as the US rebuilds itself from scratch in the third decade of the 21st century.