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Jack Draper of Britain joins the ranks of inspiring British sports athletes such as Brayshaw of the British women's Olympic rowing team who had suffered injuries in an accident to come back for the gold medal. Draper after suffering hip pain flareup and much preparation, hard work, gets to the finals of the Indian Wells Open to bean Rune of Denmark. Draper had no sign of nerves throughout his game. He had struggled in pre-season with flareups of hip pain. “I felt like I deserve it, in all honesty. The amount of adversity I’ve been through, the amount of sacrifices and time all the people around me have put in and the hard work, it’s an emotional feeling to know how much you’ve gone through and put in. To be here now and say I’m going to be No 7 in the world, honestly I can’t tell you how much that means to me.” Draper acknowledged the efforts of his team in a picture shown here in The Times. About his own effort Draper says- “I wasn’t expecting this. I put in a lot of work over time. I am just so grateful and so happy to be out there and able to play with my body feeling healthy and my mind feeling great. Just all the work I have done in the last few years, it feels like it is coming together on the big stage." In 2022 a new player 19 year old Carlos Alacaraz of Spain burst into the top ten by winning the US Open over 23 year old Casper Ruud of Norway. In 2025  23 year old Jack Draper of Britain beat Alcaraz and 21 year old Rune of Denmark to win the finals 6-2, 6-2 of the Indian Wells US tennis championship. There is now a generational shift in tennis. And not just men's tennis. The women's tennis final was won by 17 year old Mira Andreeva of Russia after losing the first set to Sabalenka 6-1, she maintained composure after a toilet break to win 2-6, 6-4, 6-3. ...

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Business Week's Michael Lewis has some serious questions and a message for investment bank Goldman. His questions- ACA was incompetent which is why it was chosen as CDO (collaterized debt obligation) manager. ACA was chosen by Goldman precisely because it did not know what it was doing and lost $900 million in the process. So too IKB, the dull witted German bank which lost $150 million. Goldman did not lose $100 million on the Abacus deal because Goldman was shorting the subprime market by March 2007 the time of the Abacus deal. Knowing this requires transparency of all dealings of Goldman's proprietary trading desk to understand real losses. Fab Tourre, the 27 year old Frenchman, is just a kid in this game. The real name behind this is Jonathan Egol. Who is this guy who clearly knew the subprime market was doomed in 2006 in remarks he made at the time.

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The UN-Turkey arranged Black Sea corridor has enabled shipping of Ukraine grain to poor countries and countries depending on such supplies to feed their people. About 1 million tons were shipped in August and in one week to Sept 4 another 1 million tons were shipped. Russia says only small shipments are going to the poor or poorest countries. The figures provided by Ukraine are as follows:  54 vessels to Asia carrying 1 million metric tons of foodgrains 16 vessels to Africa carrying 469,000 metric tons. 32 vessels to Europe carrying 853,000 metric tons. Turkey is the largest recipient according to UN data. Also receiving largest shipments are Iran, South Korea and Egypt. EU makes up 23% according to UN data. Un says the first shipments were for the backlog of ships trapped in Black Sea ports that could not leave after the invasion in February of Ukraine. These are determined by international markets for grain. The UN says priority will be given to shipments to poor countries once a steady flow of ships from Black Sea ports takes place. Turkey which arranged the shipments and is closes to the Black Sea ports and Egypt have depended on Ukraine for grain supplies and rising inflation had become a major problem in the two countries. The two are also some of the most populated countries in the region. Turkey for this reason has a major interest in keeping this route open.   ...

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This story by Fiona Macdonald of BBC is from the BBC Britain series to be found on the Britain homepage.  It has some remarkable poems that help one deal with the fears of everyday life, how to cross these barriers that one comes across with different feelings of both hope and despair, how to bend with them and come out healing and growing. It shows how poetry can help bring a calmer soother element into our busy and sometimes frantic lives. Poetry that is read for its deeper subtle meaning with pauses and time to reflect on the words, each word gently,and let it gradually sink into our subconscious minds. The results can be amazing if it is read the right way, slowly, and not the way we read journalism, news reports, prose or essays. It is well worth reading the poems given here by Fiona Macdonald, even reading one can be soothing and calming in its effect.

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E.J. Dionne, of Gerogetown University and the Brookings Institution, says the current situation in U.S. politics resembles the 1912 presidential election when a Princeton professor Democrat Woodrow Wilson called for stronger curbs on big financial institutions, and Republican Teddy Roosevelt, a former president, called for tighter regulation. During his presidency Roosevelt had helped pass legislation to curb monopolies, and represented the Progressive wing of the Republican party. Taft who was president was Teddy Roosevelt's protege and vice president before becoming president, and alienated Roosevelt by moving away from progressive actions taken during Roosevelt's administration. Dionne says Hillary Clinton's views are similiar to Teddy Roosevelt's views, and Bernie Sanders' views to Wilson's views. Wilson won 435 electoral votes to Roosevelt's 88, and Tafts 8. The big difference now is that on the Republican side the progressive wing that Teddy Roosevelt established is non existent, with Cruz's positions similiar to Reagan's, Kasich and Cruz at best close to Jack Kemp's views on broadening the Republican base with concern for working class issues, and Trump's views not clear because of lack of clear policy or programs beyond the personality based campaign. Dionne points to the problems facing the "progressives" of Sander's young supporters staying away from the polling booths with Hillary Clinton as the nominee, putting a Republican nominee into the White House. Overlooked here is the idea that much of the election campaign even in an advanced country like the U.S. is fought on slogans, leaving out some critical facts. The problems progressives face emerged during a period when a Democrat was president, and the influence of lobbyists had not diminished. Outsiders on the Republican side are focussed on diminishing the power of lobbyists, the political calculus of elections, and other interests that have affected policy in the last 8 years hurting the middle class and working class. ...

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The last time there was a war with Hamas was in 2006 under prime minister Olmert of the Kadima party. It happened when Olmert was negotiating a peace settlement with Mr. Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and the two sides had come very close differing on refugee resettlement and how much of West Bank in percentage each side would give up.  Olmert was being investigated for financial dealings by prosecutors which led to derailing further negotiations ,and the Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza shutting down peace efforts. A former mayor of Jerusalem from Likud for ten years and prime minister of Israel from Kadima party reflects on his efforts to bring a settlement with the Palestinians which would create the conditions for the two communities peaceful coexistence. NPR's Dana Estrin talked to Ehud Olmert in 2022 in this interview which you can listen to on NPR audio by clicking on article.

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Daniela Hernandez shows in this WSJ video how smaller pieces of plastic, microscopic or micro size fragments of plastic broken up by wind and rubbing against other surfaces, and through degradation, are found in the world's oceans. These microscopic pieces smaller than a strand of hair are hard to pull out compared to plastic bottles. This kind of contamination from the 10 million metric tons estimated to end up in the oceans is harder to detect and harder to remove.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a section of the ocean near Hawaii in the Pacific ocean that is 1.6 million square kilometers large, twice the size of Texas or three times size of France,  and has a concentrated level of plastic. There are patches like this all over the world's oceans. This is also where the microscopic plastic pieces are widely spread out invisible to the human eye but gradually disintegrating into smaller and smaller particles that are consumed by fish and marine life. Over time it has poses serious risks to our environment closer to our beaches and maritime coastline, ending up on rivers and contaminating groundwater. As this is not being monitored the risks of this kind of contamination from the widespread use of plastics is unknown but yet significant. One of the easiest ways to tackle this also helps clean up our ocean beaches and river banks and makes them more attractive- this is to pick up all the plastic we can ourselves through volunteering our time in clean up efforts. Hundreds of thousands of such volunteer efforts can really make a difference in cleaning up our beaches and rivers. Clean up efforts should be supplemented with efforts at monitoring these fragile areas in the ecosystem for illegal handling of plastic and littering of these areas.   ...

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The FDIC acknowledges that it has not been able to get banks interested in a pilot program called the Legacy Loans Program. That program was designed to give the banks an opportunity to sell off $1 billion of troubled mortgages. Since November with the efforts of the Troubled Asset Program under Secretary Paulson to have the banks sell off these assets in an auction or some other way, the whole issue of getting the toxic or troubled assets off the books of the banks has been effectively shelved. The Obama administration's version of this was the Geithner Public Private Partnership program, but this like Paulson's TARP never really got off the ground. Instead several things have happened that have enabled banks to show higher profits and improve stock prices. The period from March 2009 to June 2009, a period of several months has seen bank stock prices recover and banks are now able to raise capital on their own from investors. The government's "stress tests" gave the banks credibility with investors and they were designed not to be so stringent as to affect confidence. The mark to market rule has also been relaxed so that banks are no longer required to show these toxic assets at prices that reflect large losses. Bank executives also are wary of the new executive compensation rules of the government. All of these things have combined to create asituation where some confidence has been restored, but at the same time experts are pointing out that the underlying problems of an estimated $1 trillion in troubled assets remains. Banks are even less likely to want to part with these assets at lower prices now that some semblence of confidence is returning, as they would then have to show large losses. What this implies is that if the economy suffered a setback, these problems would return and be just as intractable as ever....

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A report by the Longevity Science Panel for the UK says the life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest neighborhoods in England has increased since 2001. In 2001 this was 7.2 years, by 2015 this increased to 8.4 years. The government points to cancer rates, the Longevity Science Panel report authors say income inequality was the main factor. To do this report LSP looked at data from the Office for National Statistics for 2015, which divided England into 33,000 residential areas and rated them on factors ranging from income levels, health, education and crime. This report points out that men and women from the bottom fifth were 80% more likely than the top fifth to die in any given year. 

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Andhra Pradesh on India's southeast coastline with 25 parliament seats and Bihar in India's north and east with 40 parliament seats and long history of being part of the BJP led National Democratic Alliance are now key to a five year term for prime minister Modi in India. Modi's BJP party won 240 seats out of 543 in parliament.  Chandrababu Naidu of Telegu Desam Party won 135 seats in the state Assembly election in Andhra Pradesh (NDA), all but 18 seats. It wins 22 of 25 seats in India's parliament (NDA). It also shows the wide swings in Indian elections that no party is safe. Telgu Desam Party (NDA)  won on the platform of a double engine government at state and federal levels to create jobs and modernize its rural agricultural economy. In the last 2019 election the Opposition YSRCP party won almost all the seats in the state assembly and in 2024 lost almost all the seats. In 1995 Telegu Desam Party joined Atal Bihari Vajpayee's BJP to form a government and during elections that followed for Vajpayee's 5 year term (1999-2004) he was part of the NDA. He has served three terms as chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, two terms before Telengana was formed and one term after Telengana split off from Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh is centered around the Vizag region on India's south eastern coastline and the cities of Vijayawada and Guntur with a 1000 kilometer coastline on Bay of Bengal. ...

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Desmond Tutu who died yesterday, was one of the three leaders with Nelson Mandela, and De Klerk who shaped a new South Africa with an attitude of rebuilding through reconciliation that stands out in the recent history of Africa and the world. South Africa's potential and the lives of the South African people are better under a framework that brings all communities together for unity and cooperation. After years of fighting Apartheid policies Tutu headed the Reconciliation Commission when De Klerk and Mandela crafted a way out for South Africa from segregation and international isolation. After failures of the ANC under Jacob Zuma, Desmond Tutu called for changes. He also was the first to point out the failings of African countries that descended into misrule and oppression. Tutu was as important to South Africa as Mandela and Klerk in the way he made democracy work by calling it out when it failed to live up to the ideals. Born in 1931 he witnessed the transition of African countries into free nations, with some failing to achieve the aspirations that drove the freedom struggle. The son of a teacher he followed in his father's footsteps after graduating from the University of South Africa at a time when black schools suffered from crippling lack of resources.  He went to King's College, University of London on a scholarship, and earned a bachelor's and master's degree there. Living in England helped free him from the self-contempt that results from racism, he says in his 2006 biography. Like Gandhi the years spent in England gave him a sense of what could be learned from this experience in shaping the future. He returned in 1975 and fought Apartheid using Gandhi's methods of non-violent non-cooperation. In 2025 South Africa will have completed 50 years since that time and can look back at how far it has come even with the shortcomings. And the steps that can now be taken for modernization as India and other nations move forward to show democracy can effectively deliver on good governance and economic progress to fulfill the aspirations of the people for a better life. ...

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This podcast in the WSJ by Sarah Randazzo shows how 15 months of the Theranos trial have revealed ways in which Silicon Valley startups raise cash. It shows the culture of creating hype and so called buzz behind startups that was lauded in business culture but has led to massive capital misallocation away from essential needs of society for infrastructure, health services, and education, investing in new technologies at home and fighting climate change. Many such situations are recorded in the pages of the WSJ, of hype and huge losses for investors in the last decade when some of the most egregious behaviour happened. Along with this was the acceptance in the business culture of shipping jobs and technology overseas, then shipping products halfway across the globe what could be easily be made in the home country- leading to a loss of control over the future and with it a loss of hope. The WSJ says the trial was a referendum on how Silicon Valley startups raise cash, with the jury finding Holmes guilty on 4 counts. The pandemic has led to rethinking and going back to basics, discarding all the unessentials or self-harm behaviours.  ...

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Lego bricks are wildly popular in many countries including the U.S. Lego has seen "supernatural" growth in the last 8 years, according to Soren Torp Laursen, who heads the North American operations. Growth is now slowing, just as the Lego movie has achieved box office record for 3 weeks at No. 1. Data from NPD Group show U.S. consumer sales up 1% to $1.35 billion in 2013, giving Lego 7.8% share of U.S. toy market. Total sales were $4 billion in 2012. New products led to a surge in U.S. sales in 2012 by 26%. German sales were up 4% in 2013 compared to 13% in 2012, Germany making up 10% of its total sales. Now Lego is bringing out Lego sets based on the movie. About half of the 40 billion bricks are made in a small town of Billund in Denmark.

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Boeing's goal is to make 10 Dreamliners a month by late 2013. The current rate is 2 per month, which Boeing hopes to move up to 2.5 a month by November 2011, and 3.5 a month by early Spring. Boeing CEO, McInerney, says it will take a few years before each Dreamliner turns a profit. He expects this will happen before 2020. The large investment during this decade should see returns in terms of an annuity for 25-35 years, said McInerney. The Dreamliner is the first jetliner to be made largely of plastic-composite materials, in place of aluminium. To build the Dreamliner Boeing had to accomplish what McInerney calls "game-changing innovation," and at the same time achieve improvements in production techniques. Jim Albaugh, head of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes division, says the next step is to take what takes an hour and half to assemble and bring this down to 15 minutes. This will help meet a long backlog of orders. Boeing has 820 orders for the Dreamliner as of Sept. 2011. The first Dreamliner was delivered on Sept. 26, 2011, to All Nippon Airways....

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Microsoft has done poorly in anticipating and developing products for the internet and mobile devices. On the enterprise side the server and tools business has done well. Microsoft's Server And Tools business made operating profit of $8.2 billion in the year ending June 2013, up 13% from the prior year. Office 365 sold on a subscription basis to accomodate the shift to cloud computing, and other cloud products are expected to make up for decline in Windows revenues with decline in PC sales. Satya Nadella, who ran the Server and Tools business from 2011 till he was shifted to head the cloud computing effort in the reorganization of 2013, is a candidate for the CEO position.

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A threefold increase in immigration to meet staff and labour shortages makes using immigration as an issue in the next election risky for Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives in Britain. In a strange twist it is the Conservatives under Boris Johnson who campaigned on immigration  to take Britain out of the EU now having a record on immigration of this kind. In 2019 Sunak battlecry " get Brexit done" was for lower immigration from a level of 245,000 that year. In 2022 it was a net migration of 720,000 for Britain. Most of this has come from student, work and family visa routes, and legal asylum channels from Ukraine Hong Kong and Afghanistan. Now economists believe it is a result of shortages of labour and staff, and high domestic wages.

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This report in the NYT shows that Mr. Trump thought his forceful personality and going for the big deal would work where a quarter century of diplomacy had failed- to get North Korea to completely give up its nuclear materials and facilities in exchange for complete lifting of sanctions.  The meeting at a French era colonial building in Hanoi was the result of Mr. Trump's sense that he had developed a special relationship with Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader, so that he could suggest a grand bargain to Kim. Meanwhile North Korean negotiators had put forward plans for lifting of the most recent Trump sanctions that were affecting the economy and ordinary people severely in exchange for closing down of the Yongbyon nuclear complex but kept details vague. When Mr. Trump met Kim at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi he gave Kim a detailed list of the nuclear facilities including one that developed uranium near Pyongyang for complete denuclearization, the U.S. goal.  The North Koreans were simply not ready to give up all facilities at once as they said the trust had to be built up before such a move. This report shows the nature of the wild swings from the early efforts to tighten sanctions and take strong action against North Korea., to the meetings in Singapore and Hanoi. At the time Mr. Tillerson at the State Department had suggested after a visit to Beijing that there were 2 or 3 avenues open, which Mr. Trump rejected and instead fired Mr. Tillerson. Mr. Pompeo who replaced Mr. Tillerson at State Department formerly headed the CIA and had detailed knowledge of the North's nuclear program including facilities hidden in tunnels all over North Korea. He and Mr. Bolton the National Security Adviser did not favor having the meetings first in Singapore and then in Hanoi. After the South Korean president's efforts to increase friendship with the North Koreans and his visit to Pyongyang he passed on an offer for Mr. Trump to meet Kim Jong-Un which Mr. Trump in a complete turnaround immediately accepted. This led to meetings in Singapore and then Hanoi with Kim against the advice of Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo. At this point North Korea has suspended further tests but continues its nuclear development. The U.S. has suspended military exercises with South Korea.  ...

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The Irish prime minister Varadkar says it is time to move on. When he assumed office he was the first from an ethnic minority background to lead Ireland, the son of an Irish mother and an Indian immigrant father. He took Ireland through the crises of coronavirus pandemic, Brexit, and improved unemployment and budget shortfalls. Recently he accepted defeat on a referendum intended to remove language in the Irish Constitution on a clause about "a woman's life within the home." Disagreements over the language of the referendum led to its not getting approved on International Women's Day by about 70% of the vote with 44% of people voting. It suggest there was no enthusiasm and its relevance at this time was not understood. It is not clear why there was a need for this referendum in the first place to remove one text of the constitution that respects the role of family and mother's contributions in the home. During the pandemic for instance women played a major role, and sometimes took on a greater share of the burden. Efforts to have women's participation as shown in Japan and India does not require constitutional wording to be changed. Japan has done remarkably well and India is about to do this. And removing the wording about women's role at home, instead of encouraging or adding wording about women actively participating in the workforce and actions to make that possible, accomplishes little. Coupling this with a wording that includes gay families in the definition of family while removing the role of women in the family language seemed to be making changes that had little to do with each other. ...

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This 40 minute IMF Video looks indepth into how far the Paris Agreement on Climate Change of 2015 has moved the world to address 1.5 degree change in climate? What is the situation in 2023 as we move towards 2030? NIcholas Stern of LSE says the peak of emissions will be reached by 2024 however the curve will not be pretty as the drop in the curve will be a small dip in emissions not steep drop that we need. Action is needed to accelerate.. Pilita Clark of the Financial Times conducts a discussion with Nicholas Stern of the Grantham Institute at London School of Economics, Bo Li Deputy Managing Director of IMF, and Zhou Xiaochuan who heads China's Boao Forum and formerly was Governor of the Bank of China.

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Gender parity in higher education for women in India has suffered a serious setback says this report in The Indian Express. The burden of Covid pandemic has fallen disproportionately on women in India and enrollments in higher education have fallen for women.

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A second term Trump-Vance will face uphill risks and a mess in economics from a Trumpian Republican party and Congress, says WSJ. WSJ Editorial Board says a second Trump term is not without risks. Tariffs cost 1.1% in annual growth in the Trump first term says WSJ, and it did have an impact on inflation. It would have had greater impact on inflation with the supply chain crisis of Biden's first term, had this supply chain crisis happened in Trump's first term. A second term Trump-Vance support tariffs as high as 60% on Chinese imports which would have a bigger effect on inflation and economic growth than of the first term. The key difference is that with tax cuts a basic rule for Republican policies Trump-Vance second term would not invest in infrastructure the way Mr. Biden has done and Biden will do so in a second term. As a result the economic growth is likely to be greater and inflation smaller under a Biden administration. Trillions of dollars in investment in the economy and infrastructure under Biden in a second term will be missing in a Trump-Vance tax cuts administration policy. And with it hundreds of thousand of jobs created each quarter will be missing in Trump-Vance second term. Add to this the level of clarity of stable economic policy under a Biden second term and contrast it with some of the chaos in economic policy of a Trump-Vance second term. The basic contradiction between tax cuts policy and the nation's need for infrastructure spending/rebuilding under a Republican under Trump administration will not go away, present a huge stumbling block. Chaotic policy could come from Project 2025 that says consider abolishing the US central bank Federal Reserve. This kind of erratic and unwise policy proposals are clearly not happening under Biden and Yellen. Another key difference is the cost to the economy of delays of several years in doing nothing for climate in Trump-Vance 2024-2028. Severe effects on climate if nothing is done could cause acceleration of climate negative costs which a future economy under Democrats would face, in reality the Nation would face. America's Business has taken a short term approach to climate change, when the time comes to pay the costs of short term thinking it assumes it is somebody else's problem- this happened with supply chain concentration in China the burden falling on the middle and lower classes, it would happen again with missing climate change action under Trump-Vance second term. ...

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India's Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar tells the 96th Meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi that the word 'Bharat' meaning India from a centuries old expression means a belief and an attitude. "To me, Bharat is actually a belief and an attitude for me, Bharat has an economic dimension. It has a political meaning. It has cultural, social, I would say even personal expressions.. At the end of the day it means don't let other people define you. Try and define yourself. That it has to come from itself because the very term Bharat which is so laden with symbolism actually captures centuries of what we are all about as a people."

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Largest drone and missile attacks on Kviv and Lviv of the war on August 20 2025 soon after DJT meeting with Putin in Alaska and EU leaders meeting at White House. This has raised concerns that Russia is not seriously working to end the war. The lack of EU peacekeeping force acceptance by Russia poses serious obstacles to Ukraine or the EU supporting an agreement that has no safeguards. It means the war may continue for some time till both sides see no gains from continuing the war. Russia's position at this time is that territorial changes need to be made in eastern region.