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Though Shenzen in some ways is a faster growing region than Hong Kong, the significance of Hong Kong lies in its banking industry. The rise of Chinese banks has increased the role of Hong Kong. Much of China's overseas business is channeled through Hong Kong. 416 global subsidiaries of Chinese banks are in Hong Kong. This report in the WSJ looks at the role of Hong Kong for China in banking and finance.

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Boris Johnson, who heads a minority government in Britain following resignation of Theresa May, will do just about anything to push Britain out of the European Union by October 31st. He has said he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than ask for an extension of the October 31st deadline. The British parliament is dead set on preventing that and has passed legislation requiring a extension of the October 31st deadline to January 2020. Johnson is even willing to go to jail for breaking the law, on the grounds that he is simply supporting the people's referendum choice over an elected parliament. This is itself a strange situation because the elected representatives in parliament decide for the people, and views in a referendum can change over time. Johnson says the reports of Britain's economy taking a blow from simply falling out of the European Union without a negotiated deal are exaggerated. He even once said all it means is that there might be "a shortage of Mars chocolate bars." Before becoming prime minister with a one vote majority in parliament which he promptly lost on the first day parliament met, Boris was a journalist who was elected Mayor of London. His only other position was for a brief period with controversy as Foreign Secretary in Theresa May's government. By taking in as chief adviser the head of the Brexit referendum Leave campaign Mr. Cummings, Mr. Johnson shows he believes he could win a general election with a carefully orchestrated campaign like that of Leave that blames the Labour Party, and the Scottish National party for stopping Brexit and halting the people's mandate.  The question is whether Cummings has gone too far or Boris Johnson has gone too far using Cumming's methods and views. Many Conservative moderates were expelled from the Conservative Party by Johnson and Cummings leaving the Conservative Party in self-destructive mode and the worst shape it has been in its history. It is not clear that after 10 years of austerity and rule by the Conservative party, and the mess from the single minded pursuit of Brexit that has overshadowed Britain's other priorities, that the British public would simply give a broken Conservative Party another mandate without thinking carefully about all the consequences. More so amid the lack of trust that is a feature of the Boris Johnson minority government.  ...

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Watch this British woman sailing around the world in a sailing ship. At 77 years she is the oldest person to sail round the world, solo, unassisted.

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The oldest person to sail around the world alone, non-stop and unassisted is a British woman. She is 77 years old. She comes from Lymington, Hampshire in England. Jeanne Socrates ended her 320 days voyage in Victoria, Canada. This is also the second time she has done it. In 2013 she was the oldest woman to make the circumnavigation of the world. Her boat is 38 feet long called Nereida. The mainsail and backupsail sustained damage, and solar panels were lost overboard.  The wind gods she said were not with her and she had two cyclones off Hawaii to avoid, and one in the Indian Ocean to avoid. She wasted time with that. She has received a lot of support, which she says comes from people realizing and appreciating the way she persevered and overcame so many problems on the way around in different oceans, showing it can be done. Shortly after retiring she and her husband took up sailing. After her husband died in 2003 she continued sailing. She took up the daunting effort to learn all about the systems on the Nereida and dealing with a whole range of problems. Her first attempt at nonstop sailing around the world was in 2009, when rigging problems led to giving it up. Another effort four years later in 2012 also failed. She persisted and in 2013 made the successful attempt. Jeanne Socrates has overcome a number of setbacks in her career. In 2017  before she made her current effort she fell off her boat, breaking her neck and ribs as she prepared. She recovered from that fall. A look at her website shows how she has persevered over many, many years, making repeated attempts, following  up with more effort after the last one failed. That she also brings a cheerful positive attitude throughout and enjoys nature, birds, and meeting people on land during her trips from Sweden to Mauritius, to Mexico, is clear from looking at the many photographs on her website.   ...

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England miss the tenacity and run scoring ability of Alastair Cook as they lose the Ashes. England was unable to come up with anything to match the legendary scoring of Australia's Steve Smith in the Ashes fourth Test with 210 and 82 in two briliiant knocks with the bat at Old Trafford on Sunday.  Cook reflects on his own period as Captain of the English side in his new book. He now plays county cricket for Essex after Test cricket drained him and he decided to retire. He says from the first time a Test cricketer gets on the scoreboard he is the subject of incessant reporting on averages for the batsmen- for whom there is no rest- because between the glorious hundred he is out for nought or 20 more often. He recalls his last game in Test cricket when he was able to score 147 in the second innings against India, and he considers himself so fortunate to be able to retire at that time. England is going through a period when it feels it is short on good batsmen. And Cook says after Strauss retired in 2012 he could not find a stable partner, not one of the 14 he batted with lasting long. What does he think of Steve Smith? Cook says he is phenomenal.  The best three batsmen he has seen- Lara, Ponting, and Kallis. The good batsmen in English country cricket are still too young. He thinks the best way to keep Test cricket strong is to have less of it so that it remains special. This way fans would be riveted. And this would mean players would not have to choose between franchise cricket and Test cricket. ...

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India's ISRO Space Agency officials say the Orbiter Chandrayan 2 which is circling the moon and collecting data, has taken pictures of the Vikram lander. The lander did make it to the lunar surface though it lost contact because of a rough landing.

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It took 4 hours and fifty minutes for Rafa Nadal to win the U.S. Open Tennis Championships against newcomer Danil Medvedev. At 33 years Nadal had to overcome hurdles physical and mental. He won the first two sets 7-5, 6-3, before losing the next 2 sets 5-7, 4-6. It took all the hard work he does on the court practicing his strokes to help him win the fifth deciding set 6-4.

Nadal says of the match- "The last three hours of the match were very, very, intense, no? Very tough mentally and physically too. The crowd were amazing, all these facts that make the moment super special, no? unforgettable moment."

The crowd of 24,000 boisterous fans were with Nadal, particularly after Medvedev's brat like statements the week before, but were also carried away by the intensity of the game and the skills of the younger player.

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The last West Indies captain to lead a formidable West Indies team was Richie RIchardson. Sandip G of the Indian Express writes from Antigua about Richardson's early batting experiences at school and how he evolved facing fast bowlers. RIchardson started out idolizing legendary batsmen like Rohan Kanhai who were steady batsmen and batted in Test matches for days.    It was an early experience with his coach who put on fast bowlers at school to Richardson at bat, that got Richardson started on his trademark cut shot. Fearing for his life Richardson closed his eyes and hit one out of the field that was lost forever. Soon he became known as "the fastest blade in the Caribbean," for the way he could strike at fast bowling. Richardson says its not like he became good at the cut stroke overnight. He would practice the shot 1000 times a day.  It was Rohan Kanhai from Guyana who once said that you have to put every poor delivery away to the boundary and some good ones too, making the bowlers think. Flashing blade and canny, were words used for Kanhai. This was true for Richardson too with his cut shot. Today as he is perfecting his golf game or when his motivation dips he has only to look back over his shoulder to the high walls of his house, to his backyard where he practiced the cut shot, and all that drive and energy from that time would come back to him. ...

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President Trump cancels a summit meeting with the Taliban and Afghan leaders at Camp David planned for this week as a step forward in ongoing peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban attacks in Kabul that killed an American soldier was the reason given for cancelling the meeting. President Trump has as one of his goals ending the war in Afghanistan that has tied up American and allied resources over two decades. The long drawn out conflict has little support in the U.S. particularly because of domestic priorities including infrastructure and the economy, and the lack of any national interests for the U.S. in foreign wars.

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Eighteen year old Bianca Andreescu, part Romanian, playing for Canada in the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, a teenager with poise and creativity, wins against veteran player Serena Williams 6-3, 7-5. Martina Navratilova, who with Margaret Court is one of the women's tennis great players, describes Andreescu's game as so refreshing and old fashioned because it is the creative game that was played by fellow Romanian Ilie Nastase and players like Rod Laver and John Newcombe from another era. In a highly creative game with poise and variety of shots Andrescu is bringing back the game to what it once was. In today's game, says Navratilova, players stay on the baseline and play similar shots till something happens. Andrescu intelligently and creatively used a variety of shots, making it fun to watch her play.

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Eighteen year old Bianca Andreescu of Canada wins the U.S. Open 6-3, 7-5 defeating 37 year old veteran Serena Williams as she attempted a comeback. The intelligent game with a whole range of shots and use of creative game mixing up the shots was a feature of Andrescu's style that made it fun to watch the game. Martina Navritolova says Andrescu's style is so creative that its great to have a new player like her in the game.

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Brilliant batting from Steve Smith with 210 in the first innings and a quick 82 in the second innings for the Ashes Test at Old Trafford. Australia set England a goal of 383. Pat Cummins took two wickets with England not scoring, with Pat Root bowled out in the first ball. England at 18 for two wickets have a uphill battle to save the Test. Steve Smith was adept at handling all the different bowling. 

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The instruments on board the Orbiter for Chandrayan 2, India's Moon mission, will be enabling much of the scientific work. The Orbiter is functioning well and will be there for 7.5 years providing critical scientific data on this side of the moon, even though the Vikram Lander did not function as planned.

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During the first term of the NDA government two programs were launched to restart the Indian economy- one was Make In India, and the other was Skill India.

This report in Indian Express looks at Skill India, its history and goals, and progress. 

For Skill India to meet its ambitious goals of training "a minimum of 300 million people by 2022" much remains to be done. The quality of training, the active participation of industry and manufacturing in the training, the setup of vocational training of high quality in schools, has to be the focus of new efforts. Lack of results in meeting the needs of unemployed young people, is also because of the lack of growth in the industrial sector. For this to happen getting rid of the problems of non-performing loans has to be speeded up, partly through recapitalization of banks, and partly through other methods. 

 

 

 

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M Vanitha is the Project Director and Ritu Karidhal is the Mission Director for India's Moon Mission, Chandrayan 2. The two women aerospace scientists were in charge of the mission's details. India's moon space program may be the only space program in the world where the mission directors are women aerospace scientists. The Head of ISRO the organization running the space program, Mr. Sivan, is a aerospace scientist with 36 years experience in all types of rocket design and technology, who headed the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center and the Liquid Propulsion Systems Center. Mr. Sivan took over in 2018 and directed the program to the launch in July in the face of delays and technical problems with the Vikram Lander. He comes from Tamilnadu from a rural region near Kanya Kumari who graduated from IIT Madras with a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering. 

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The head of ISRO, India's Space Agency, is an unassuming man of simple needs and simple living. He studied in the Tamil medium, doing his Bachelors in Science from Kanyakumari Hindu College. He comes from a farming family in a village of Kanyakumari.  Used to walking barefoot, wore a dhoti, and only wore slippers when he went to Engineering college. Even with modest rural means, helping his father in his fields, he got his Masters in Aeronautical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, pursued Aerospace Engineering at Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and PhD. from IIT, Bombay. He is meticulous about details, and would cancel a meeting till errors found were corrected. Behind the unassuming simple manner is a extremely diligent person who has worked in every phase of rocket design and technology for 36 years at India's Space Agency. India achieved a world record by sending 104 satellites into space with one flight of PSLV, a third generation satellite  launch vehicle with liquid stages, in February 2017- Sivan was a key scientist in this endeavor. He is in every sense a vindication of Gandhi's idea in Hind Swaraj written in a steamship coming back from London to South Africa in 1910 that India would have to go back to its own language, culture, bring opportunity to the mass of rural India, before adopting new technologies from all places. He is also a vindication of the idea that the most diligent and dedicated scientists and engineers willing to persevere over decades are the key to progress for Asia's developing nations, and similarly for a bright future in Africa and Latin America. ...

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Cities that drop in the Livability Index of the Economist Intelligence Unit include New Delhi with poor air quality and petty crime slipping 6 places to 117  and Mumbai for culture downgrade by two places to 118. Karachi is at 136 place and Dhaka is the third lowest with weak infrastructure. Melbourne, Australia and Vienna, Austria are the top 2 places.