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Tsutsui Yoshinobu, head of Keidanren, Japan's business federation, says China limiting exports of vital raw materials is "an obvious act of economic coercion." For the first time in 2025 Keidanren cancelled its annual dialogue meeting with China's representatives.  This was a followup to comments by Japanese PM Sanae that it would consider an attack on Taiwan as a danger to Japan's security. Sanae now enjoys 62% popularity rating. After 2 years of the LDp government with aminority in parliament she has announced a snap election to gain an abasolute majority in parliament. In the last elections small nationalist parties gained a large share of votes. Changes are happening in Japanese politics as a younger generation becomes more nationalistic. Sanae was made PM only recently at the end of 2025 after the PM in the LDP party faced criticism and resigned. Before he resigned he quickly signed a trade agreement with the US DJT administration to maintain Japanese exports to US at a 15% tariff. ...

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Mayuzumi Madoka shows the cultural cross connection across 36 countries from India and Iran to Russia and Europe with short single verse poetry written in Japanese style called Haiku. The theme is "life," flowers, nature, and hope for the future.

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A cap on the number of medical students by the Conservatives is seen by Labor Shadow Secretary for Health as shortsighted. He says Conservatives have concluded that there is no point in increasing medical students as they will come into the workplace when the Labour party is back in government. The NHS desperately needs more doctors.

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US and Kennedy at HHS pulls back from Denmark's policy on vaccines.

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Wyson Lungu returned to Zambia after studying in the US and joined a telecommunications company in Lusaka. On one of his trips to a remote part of Zambia his car broke down and needed repairs. It took 24 hours before a man with a bicycle helped get him to a place 8 hours away by bicycle. This was one of the few bicycles in that village. Most women simply walked 4 hours carrying farm produce for sale on roadsides starting at 2 or 3 in the morning. This is when Lungu started a bicycle business for farming villages, and so far has sold 3000 bicycles to women in farming villages, with bicycle repair places set up in the villages for bicycle repair and maintenance. This is changing lives in these remote farming villages of Zambia and helping women who do agricultural work in small farms. Lungu relies on cooperative associations he sets up in the villages to organize the sales including payment in instalments and through barter of commodities such as crops or maize. ...

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To increase the appeal of the Conservative party and help it stage a comeback, party leader and now prime minister Cameron, made a pledge not to reduce the budgets for health care and the National Health Service. By sticking to keeping this pledge Cameron is committing to much deeper cuts in government agencies, public sector jobs, and other areas. Carl Emmerson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says that because of this the cuts elsewhere will rise to a much deeper 25%. Phillip Cowley, a political scientist, says that the NHS is a totemic issue with the British people, and helped Cameron get the top job, as the Labor party could not hit the Conservatives on the issue of the National Health Service.

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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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The Cass Commission of the National Health Service in Britain looked at the serious risks to health of children and mental health of parents from transgender medical activities.

The Cass Commission in Britain of the National Health Service NHS has raised serious concerns about transgender medicine and its impact on the health of young people. Parents across the US and in European countries are very seriously worried about the impact on their children creating a great deal of stress, coming so soon after the pandemic when elder care caused much distress.

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Salad company Sweetgreen supports Naomi Osaka as she draws attention to mental health issues. During the pandemic large parts of the population in countries such as the UK are known to be affected by mental health issues. The NHS, other agencies are tackling this and providing help.

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We show here several articles from The Guardian on the topic of family time. Keir Starmer said he would keep Friday nights after 6 pm for family time. His wife Vic Starmer 50 years, works in occiupational health at the NHS and wants to continue her life as usual unaffected by Labour's and her husband's win. The couple wanted to stay at their north London home and not move to 10 Downing Street as the two value their privacy highly. One of the children is taking the GCSE's and the wish is for the family to keep going on as normal. Starmer says he also get a direct insight into the NHS from Vic Starmer's interaction with the NHS staff.

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This article gives some simple answers to questions about how the NHS test and Trace system setup by Baroness Harding could go so wrong. It was setup as a separate agency and ignored some of the vital information of how contact tracing should be done close to local area coming out of Germany. This information was available early and was also on the Lyrarc site, as Germany had effective contact tracing as early as March-April. First Britain wasted time waiting for some brilliant App to do the work. The when this was going nowhere the NHS Test and Trace was setup but ignored the need for this to be done locally and followed up with personal visits to the homes of those needing to be visited to isolate. Most important- the local knowledge and the persons doing the calling having human skills to get people to cooperate and feel reassured. Less important or not at all- sophisticated equipment, a simple desktop, national database to which data is connected and sourced and a desk, a skilled motivated local person the key. Germany resorted to using the underutilized state or local employees who were diverted to these tasks but extraordinarily effective.  ...

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Captain Sir Tom Moore a 100 year old veteran who served in the Wellington regiment in World War II was knighted for his walks in his garden in Bedfordshire raising $3 million for the NHS.

His positive spirit is reflected in his words that he doe not feel very old inside, maintaining a youthful spirit in older age. He cooks his own dinner and walked for miles in his garden to raise money for the National Health Service.

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This article in The Lancet published in February 2018 throws much light on how the ban on gain of function research on virus was lifted -research that carries with it the danger of increasing transmission of virus if something unexpected happens in the manipulation of a virus. It was lifted in 2018 in the US by officials in the US Health Ministry, NIH and HHS. The Cambridge group of scientists and experts opposed lifting the ban on such dangerous research that could make the virus more contagious through manipulation. Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard School of Public Health wrote at the time that the lab research to create a more lethal strain of virus could lead to "an accidental pandemic" yet he was ignored. The public in America and in the world is unaware of how this created serious risks for public health in the world through the coronavirus.  Did US health officials lift the ban on such research without consulting other countries such as India, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and the EU on its ramifications. Were public health experts and the publics themselves in the US and around the world not drawn into the discussion of public health and the dangers that existed. Not only did officials in HHS and NIH restart the research by lifting the ban but also sent funds overseas for such research- was this a proper or thoughtful action considering the risks involved.  Is enhanced surveillance of virus- a dubious benefit from manipulation of a virus- something a few health officials can decide for the whole world in addition to the US. How are health officials in one or two countries responsible to the people in India, Brazil, Europe and the poorest populations in the world in the world in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, people who have suffered devastating consequences from transmissibility of the virus, including children and older people with health problems. India, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, UK, and other countries worst hit by the coronavirus must ask serious questions about how they can protect their people if institutions in the US and international institutions are seen as failing to protect world public health. ...

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Food aid given by the Indian government to every household in need was critical in tackling the two years of the pandemic for a country with 1.2 billion people. Few realize the significance and real meaning of this in the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Here Dr. Iso shows how during the Edo period (1603-1867) in Japan 7.5 kilos of rice were given to each backstreet tenement house and the importance given to speed. In this sense the Modi government was following a practice that goes back to ancient times. This kind of social spending for food, medicine, and other social needs is a part of the common history in Asian countries and also has its history in European societies. 

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Everyone over 50 years is to be given the vaccine in just a few months of 2021 by the NHS. A massive logistics and training effort is underway. The government changed the law to let student doctors, physiotherapists, and dental workers to give the vaccine. Retired doctors and nurses are called in. Britain has a war effort to counter antivaccine propaganda unlike other countries such as France and Germany. Compare that 79% of Britons are seeking the vaccine, 54% in France and 64% in the U.S. showing that the UK is doing a much better job. Vaccination starts next week for over 80 year old people. The world is watching.

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Labour Party's strategy in the coming British election is to tie Boris Johnson to Trump. This resonates especially on the issue of the National Health Service, with Labour saying a trade deal with the U.S. planned by Johnson is likely to raise costs of NHS with costly U.S. priced drugs. Mr. Trump says he sees little chance of the Johnson negotiated trade deal with the European Union allowing for a trade deal with the U.S. negating Conservatives plan to make Brexit work by negotiating trade deals independently. 

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The pending sale of Barnes and Noble.

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Captain Tom Moore a soldier from the Second World War II who marks his 100th birthday and has become a national hero in Britain. He decided to take 100 laps in his garden before he turned 100 to thank the Nation Health Service for a surgery of his hip. The activity created a fund raising drive for NHS raising 30 million pounds.

See the Royal Mail mailbox painted blue in his honor for the 100th birthday in this story, and the Spitfire and Hurricane planes flown  by the RAF in his honor. Tom showed humor in adversity, and a mature wisdom, no-nonsense attitude, to be an inspiration for young and old, says Britain's army chief.

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New pictures released by NHS shows vaccination queues at Salisbury Cathedral near London, England. UK has reached 50% of people vaccinated or 33 million people, with July 31, 2021, the target date for all adults to be vaccinated. It took 136 days to do this for 64% of adults. Other parts of Europe are still struggling.

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The NHS Nightingale hospital was built in 9 days by converting the ExCel convention center in east London. This is the largest hospital of this kind ever built with 4000 beds. Prince Charles opening it by video link from his home in Scotland said it was " a spectacular and almost unbelievable feat of work." The hospital is named after the founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale. The British government drafted hundreds of army engineers to help contractors build the hospital in record time. It will need 16,000 staff and hundreds of volunteers. 

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The use of cathedrals in Britain as vaccination centres is seen as a glorious way to bring people of all ages, particularly  the elderly in the community into a wonderful setting to preserve health. They came since the Middle Ages for a cure, and they come today for hope and care. The Archbishop of Canterbury thanks the cathedrals and the NHS for serving the community in such a beautiful way.

The famous cathedrals of England at Lichfield, Salisbury and Blackburn inviting people in for vaccination is the heart warming story of this month. Salisbury is one of the oldest and has copies of the Magna Carta, the historic document that put forward the rights of the people in a constitutional monarchy.

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Fortunately even here there is room for optimism as male life expectancy declined by only 0.2 years from 79.2 years to 79.0 years the level in 2014. Considering the scale and intensity of this pandemic this is a sign or resilience of the UK with the work of NHS at the forefront. Female life expectancy has remained unchanged in 2020 at 82.9 years, about three years more than men.

With more consciousness about the risks of obesity, importance of nutrition and exercise habits information given wide attention, there may be some positive signs from this period that will lead to a healthier population.

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By 6-3 vote Supreme Court of US says the Transgender medical treatment Tennessee ban is constitutional. The Cass Commission in the UK review for the NHS UK looked into transgender medical treatments and has emphasized the risks to children and adults. It points to the "shaky foundations" for transgender medical treatments and suggests a more holistic approach. Much of the US had gone in a different an untested direction under previous administrations ignoring the important points in the UK NHS Cass Commission's findings in its Report in April 2024. It also played an important part in the defeat of politicians in 2024 with a lax attitude to important health and safety concerns of American parents.