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Xi's "Great Rejuvenationof the Chinese Nation" compared favorably to DJT's "Make America Great Again" by Xi Jinping during DJT visit to Zhonghanhai Compound of China's leaders in Beijing. Xi Jinping says during DJT visit to Beijing May 14 2026- “Through strengthened cooperation, both China and the United States can promote their respective development and revitalization." This is important to grasp if one wants to understand China. Much of the media focuses on this or that smaller aspect of the DJT visit to China, including the NYT when it shows DJT invited to a walk on the garden grounds of the Zhonghanhai Compound. It does not accept that president Xi Jinping finds little that is relevant to China today and its aspirations in places like Iran and the Middle East. That Xi admires the US efforts for reindustrialization and renewal in the same way he sees the rejuvenation and renewal of the great Chinese Nation and sees this as shared goals for betterment of their people's lives.  ...

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Diana Nyad makes a second attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida. This is her second attempt, the last one in 1978. After the 1978 attempt she settled into a career as a radio and television journalist. She is now 61. One day when she was driving in Los Angles the thought went through her mind about what she felt she wanted to do most- and this was to make the effort one more time to cross the distance between Cuba and Florida. In August 1978 her effort failed because of high winds and eight foot waves. After 49 hours and 41 minutes she found herself way offcourse closer to Brownsville, Texas, as the nearest land point. Here Sally Jenkins documents that first swim and the preparation for the second one, coming long after the first at the age of 61. Last summer Nyad swam for 24 hours on the coast of Florida as part of the training. Nyad will have the help of scientific advance in the three decades since 1978. Jennifer Clark, a satellite oceanographer based in Annapolis and her husband Dan, a meteorologist, are experts on Gulf stream water conditions. They will look for a three day period when waves are calmer and water conditions are warmer. Another advance is the use of kayakers with devices that create electric waves who will paddle alongside her to ward off sharks. And Nyad has Dr Broder, a clinical professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, to help monitor her physical condition and fluid loss. Still as Broder says, its 98% about Nyad's focussed effort. And about age, Nyad says, she forgets, as she trains by swimming from island to island in the Caribbean. For oceanographic expert Jennifer who is 65, there is something vicarious about Nyad's effort, as it is for the others who are helping with the expedition....

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Liverpool fans sing this song on Portugal's Diogo Jota from Clearwater Revival, the lines are-

"Oh, he wears the No 20 / He will take us to victory / And when he’s running down the left wing / He’ll cut inside and score for LFC / He’s a lad from Portugal / Better than Figo don’t you know / Oh, his name is Diogo!”

The roaring fans of the Liverpool Football Club in England remember Diogo Jota, the Portugal soccer player who won people's hearts. He died in a car accident.

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China's dependence on an export sector that is uncertain 14% growth (EV's electronics) vs. 0.2% growth in domestic spending April 2026. Costlier energy inputs are affecting China in the way that is affecting Germany's economy in 2026. The US has increased tariffs, Germany and the EU are likely to do the same as they see their economy erode with Chinese exports in German markets replacing German manufacturing. China has set 4.5% growth target much of it from ramping up exports and depends on cheaper inputs for energy as Germany has done for economic growth. This is being gradually eroded as US/EU want to reindustrialize and make things and products realizing the errors in industrial policy of previous administrations Bush and Obama in US and Schroeder/Merkel in Germany. At the same time India wants to be a manufacturing hub like China. When that happens by 2030 China's growth will be similar to the US of 2-3% a year as exports decrease. Eastern India is the New East and South China with 700 million people for the first time in 2025-2026 under double engine governments. Double engine meaning state, local and federal governments all under the same party (the BJP National party) so that industrial policy is conducted along the lines of a Master Plan tested in western Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. This has been seen before. As Japan rapid rise of the 1960's and 1970's slowed by 1980, China's rapid rise of the 1990's and 2000's slowed by 2025 and India in 2025 is picking up from China in the way China picked up from Japan. This means an industrialized US and EU, rapidly industrializing India will face a slowing China and aging China by 2030. Knowing this pattern helps US and EU leaders, Indian leaders, look at the long term in their plans, having confidence in their investments in industrial progress for the next 5 years. ...

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Russia is excluded for the second year for the G-7 Summit meeting of leaders in Berlin, in June 2015. The exclusion follows Russian intervention in Ukraine.

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The media in US and in Europe presents the US and China on a confrontational course little aware that there is quietly emerging a new trend encouraged by both leaders of the two world powers. "Strategic Stability" in US -China relations instead of China seen as a rival and a threat- is now the goal of Xi Jinping of China in 2026 US-China dialogues and meetings. This was abundantly clear during the DJT visit to Beijing August 14 2026 and will continue to shape relations during Xi's visit in September. This is different from the confrontational attitude taken by both DJT in the first administration and Biden in his four years in office. The result is that these tensions are being gradually brought down which started in 2014, were exacerbated by Covid pandemic in 2019, and were put to the test in 2025 with tariffs policies of the incoming DJT administration. A decade of mistrust now being replaced by  buildup of cooperation, establishing a sense of trust and friendship. Partly out of necessity and partly from choice.This was not secured by giving up on issues the US or China saw as important. US did not concede anything on issues of fentanyl entering the US from Mexico, and tariffs for reducing trade deficits. Similarly China did not concede much on issues it saw as important, mutual respect for China as a significant power, and seeing China's different system of government and industrialization as legitimate and worthy of respect. On Hong Kong and on Taiwan both sides decided to see ambiguity and live and let live as the best option. So that in 2026 nothing, not the Iran War or anything that happens in the Middle East is to be allowed to deter both sides from making the educated good and decent choices that are available to them based on attitude of mutual respect.  ...

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Author and traveler Paul Theroux, who has visited most parts of the world, discovers Mexico as a place for the young in spirit as he crosses the border from the U.S. Here he gives his own sense of what it is like to travel in Mexico as he get older, in his own inimitable style.

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Craig Smith, the head of Surgery at Columbia University's hospital in New York, and Craig Smith the writer using language that provides solace to many people at a difficult time. He is also poetic at times quoting from John Wooden, as well as Emily Dickinson. He is in the middle of this public health crisis that is New York City today. When he gave the presidential address to the American Association for Thoracic Surgery he opened and closed his lecture with meditations on a Yeats poem. Here he is as a human talking to humans caught in a most perplexing time for medicine.

He quotes Emily Dickinson in one note saying- 

"Not opening when the dawn will come/ I open every door." Doors are opening all over the place.

 

 

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Squats are a very good way to stay fit.

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The challenges of immigration with legal vs illegal entry into the US is a topic in some media reporting as the US seeks to do what the US did to tackle out of control illegal migration in 1954 under president Eisenhower. This one from the NYT happens in a small town in Missouri in a pancake and waffle restaurant. Earlier reports in the WSJ showed in 2024 the way Republican areas in small towns in Kansas were making an effort to attract immigrants to meet the need for people in manpower depleted public services. The basic idea of legal vs illegal and all the consequences on a national scale in the US and in Europe when illegal migrations gets out of control and creates divided communities, and strain on public funds and resources, is one that has been seen for over a decade. In Missouri, in a largely Republican town in the US the friendly nature of American public to immigrants is seen in the way the local community cared for and had genuine respect for the worker at the restaurant. Yet there is also the sense among members of this small community that US law should be respected.   ...