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What is the oldest man alive like. Bob Weighton was presented with his certificate by the Guinness World Records this week. He lives in a assisted living home and is self isolating. Here is someone who has been through the 1918-20 Spanish flu pandemic that took millions of lives all over the world. What is he like? He was a professor of Marine Engineering at the City University of London till he retired at age 65 in 1973. Weighton says he is very pleased he was able to live so long and make so many friends. He has had serious medical operations but nothing he has experienced is like the coronavirus and self-isolation. He calls it "bizarre." But his advice is that there is nothing you can do about this so you might as well do what you can and  never mind about what you can't. He has 3 children, 10 grandchildren and 25 great grand children. He and wife Agnes traveled and worked around the world then settled back in the UK. She and his wife Agnes who passed away in 1993 volunteered in retirement as marraige counselors and helped youth groups in Alton.  ...

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President Biden launches the US Asian Economic Framework during his visit to Tokyo. Biden's main achievement on his Asian trip is to lay the foundations for the economic framework of the free world democratic countries drawing in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, countries from ASEAN, in addition to the core of Japan and South Korea. India, Australia and New Zealand are now seen as part of the core group in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. By 2030 and 2040 this trip will be remembered for laying the foundations for the new economic relationships and supply chains in Asia, policies similar to that of Harry Truman after the Second World War that set the policies of US for the rest of the twentieth century. It is similar to the US EU Trade and Technology Council in setting a economic union of friendly free world countries in trade, technology, capital and supply chains. Four pillars are set by president Biden- digital policies, climate change action, supply chain renewal action, and transparency plus good governance. These are also the policies pursued by the Modi administration in India, which has set priorities in these four areas. The other aspects of the policies of president Biden are to set policies friendly to working families and set to promote worker incomes and conditions. ...

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PM Modi closes the 100th episode with the words- "Charaiveti, charaiveti, charaiveti, chalte raho, chalte raho"- from the Vedanta and Buddhist period in India is about life's endless journey and to keep moving, to keep moving, a whole country and about a billion and a half people on the move. Ideas become popular movements and the radio talk show every month by prime minister Modi takes on new meaning for hundreds of millions of young people in India. Ideas about "Swachh Bharat" or Clean India Mission, about the environment, health, about technology and education to transform the country, about women becoming a part of the economy, about the dignity of workers, about starting small business that creates jobs, about renewable energy. 

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Microsoft leaders for reasons of climate change action and aid to poor African and Latin American nations see the positives in Harris-Walz focus on investment in the future. A similar situation exists with JP Morgan Chase bank leaders. Intel and Ford Motor Company leaders see the Biden administration investment in American companies for stronger competition with Chinese or Taiwanese companies, and for climate change action by investing in EV industry technologies, in the same way. Overall cutting corporate taxes is not as big a priority for American business as government assistance and support to match the hidden subsidies Taiwan and China, South Korean governments give to their companies in Chips and EV's, other advanced technologies industries.

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As part of Gandhi 150th the Hindustan Times gives pictures from archives of the independence struggle and Gandhi's efforts to get the British to quit India. After a period of 21 years in South Africa as a lawyer for rights of indentured laborers (coolies the British term) and of Indians in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India in 1914. He followed the program of personal responsibility starting with himself, that he had written in "Hind Swaraj" on a steamship from Britain to South Africa in 1910, for the next 20 years. He did not blame the British, and asked Indians to take responsibility for what had happened, and write a new chapter.   A period of home rule in the provinces with Congress party administrations in the 1930's ended by 1938. Gandhi launched the Quit India movement in 1942 with leaders Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, and Jawaharlal Nehru. The end of the war and the rejection of Churchill in Britain's post war election in 1945 led to a Labour government led by Clement Atlee that sent Lord Mountbatten to negotiate British withdrawal from India. Gandhi saw clearly that in a country largely of rural labor in subsistence agriculture, getting people to learn about their own dignity was a first and indispensable step.  Once this was done, home rule administrations could pick up the experience of local government  (Hind Swaraj). His idea was that a few tens of thousands of Britishers focussed on trade as the British were a nation of shopkeepers, in the midst of hundreds of millions of people with a new found  sense of dignity and participation in political life, would make the British realize there was little advantage in staying. By the end of the war in 1945 experts looking into the archives show John Keynes advising the British government to withdraw because the cost was too great for Britain to remain, particularly after the war had drained a lot of Britain's wealth. ...

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India's roadmap for the first of 25 years to 2047 shows key goals of Inclusive Development and Empowered youth, women and all sections of society in growth. It builds on the work since 2014 of Leaving No One Behind.  Sab Ka Saath, Sab Ka Vikas, Sab Ka Viswas, Sab Ka Prayas remain the key ideas behind it. With All, For Everyones progress, Confidence of All, Efforts of All. To provide essential nutrition as the floor foodgrains were provided to 800 million for 28 months and extended to Jan. 1, 2024, investing $31 billion. Building also on having achieved the doubling of per capita income to 2 lakh rupees, about $2500 since 2014, ensuring better quality of living and life of dignity for all citizens.

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This report on Mumbai's underground subway by Corinne Abrams was first published in WSJ January 6, 2019 with Lyrarc gist. Then as happened too often in the past it became the victim of a change in government with the new government in December 2019 stalling the rapid work on the project. Only when it was voted out in June 2022 did the rapid work shown in this Jan 2019 WSJ report resume. It has accelerated under Ashwini Bhide's leadership of the METRO organization and work is back to round the clock 24 hours a day. "A 27 station, 21 mile subway is being built under one of Asia's most crowded cities- Mumbai. It is moving ahead at the pace of one mile a month, with 9 miles complete, started in 2016 the $3.3 billion Metro Line 3 is on track to be completed by 2021. The government of prime minister Modi is eager to show that it is able to tackle some of the toughest infrastructure projects like this one and get them done on  time. As the head of the Metro Rail Corporation, Ms. Ashwini Bhide puts it this should have been done yesterday, considering the appalling and difficult rides facing Mumbai's millions of residents every day on its old and creaky rail system. There is she says " a desperation" to get this done as is true for so many of the infrastructure projects that need to be done in India." "When complete it will take 1.6 million riders a day 80 feet underground to destinations across the city in air conditioned coaches." ...

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Nehru's speech on the first anniversary of Indian Independence reflects the troubles of partition, integrating princely states, the refugees from Pakistan, and the world situation in 1948 with civil war and hyper inflation in China, Berlin blockade by Russia, and the impending invasion of South Korea by June 1949. Nehru talk about the "Kartavya" of the ordinary citizens, the path shown by Gandhi, self-reliance, and courage, discipline, grit needed in hard times. Nehru's Kashmiri Hindi differs from the more western accent to Hindi of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Both are shown on this page in audio broadcasts from the All India Archives and gives one a feel for the times and their relevance to guide India towards Vikshit Bharat 2047.

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France's Paris St Gemain team wins by scoring 2 goals in the last 10 minutes of the game over a team from Bergamo, Italy that scored early, to reach the semi finals of the Champions League. The unlikely scorer is a player Choupo-Moting from France/Cameroon who played well for Mainz in the Bundesliga years ago under the new PSG coach Thomas Tuchel but has not played well for a long time. Tuchel also has that history of disciplined and patient work that brought results in coaching Mainz, then Dortmund and now PSG. He was only 25 years when an injury led to him having to retire as a player. Five years later at 30 he emerged doing youth coaching for soccer teams leading to the coaching work at Mainz.

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The BBC looks at burnout for service workers in the US and Europe leading to the great resignation. Most service workers are quitting their jobs as the level of burnout has increased in the last few months compared to the early days of the pandemic in 2020. One owner of a restaurant in Britain says she closed it not because there were not enough customers, not because it was losing money. She closed it because workers were not showing up for work. She says whether they say it or not workers at her restaurant were experiencing a lot of anxiety. This meant her carrying a heavy load till she decided it was better to close  when she was on top than be carried out on a stretcher. Another manager of a variety store in South Carolina says after working 60-70 hours a week for months the only way he could get a day off was to ask another manager to do a 16 hour shift. Long work days in the US, low pay, and disrespect for their work, was common for service workers in the US. They now face verbal abuse of customers feeling the accumulated stress of the pandemic and taking it out on service workers. Higher wages are not inducing workers to come back. Service workers are choosing to retrain for other careers with better pay, better hours, or going back to study. ...

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Andy Kessler looks at the prospects for China's effort to dominate the market for advanced chips used in everyday devices, just as it did in solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.  He says Apple leaves US manufacturing technologies at a disadvantage by securing its M1 processor chip from Taiwan's TSMC. Intel has fallen behind in 10 nanometer chips and will need a few years says Kessler.  Kessler says Chinese threat to invade Taiwan which has made the US and the EU take a firmer stand on Ukraine poses a danger to TSMC which has 5 fabs or factories in just 1 science Park- Hsinchu Science Park. This poses a question is it safe to concentrate about 92% of the world's semiconductor production in one place Taiwan so close to the mainland of China? And knowing sit tight taking no action? Google's last chairman Eric Schmidt asks this question in the WSJ and calls for a new investments in the US to manufacture advanced semiconductors and other semiconductors for everyday use so that the US national security is protected. Even the $50 billion that is in Congressional legislation has yet to be approved by the US Congress, says Schmidt, showing that US Congress is not moving quickly to address this problem. South Korea and Taiwan including TSMC need to be told to make a large part of the semiconductors in the US and other locations such as India to diversify production. 92% of world semiconductors made in Taiwan that could be taken out with a few missiles, is no way to diversify manufacturing, when manufacturing can be done in India or other parts of the world with lower costs and with needed engineering manpower. ...

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After 3 decades the US is finally offering the scale and scope of infrastructure investment overseas that is needed. President Biden says $200 billion will be invested in infrastructure overseas over 5 years at meetings of the G-7 in the Alps south of Munich in Germany. Along with its partners and with government and private investments the size of the investment will reach $600 billion over 5 years to 2027. This will include projects such as $2 billion for solar energy in Angola, and a $600 million submarine telecommunications cable connecting France to Singapore.

It is a combination of direct government aid and private investment. President Biden sees Build Back Better World as the overseas version of his Build Back Better America for workers and families in the US for which Congress has authorized $1 trillion in infrastructure and climate change initiatives in the US.

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With better control over the coronavirus than U.S. and Europe, South Korea is not rushing to buy the vaccines developed by Pfizer or Moderna. It is waiting to see how the vaccine rollouts work in other countries before buying the vaccine. South Korea is also looking at getting better price from manufacturers after the rollouts in the U.S. and Europe. South Korea is moving cautiously and has said it wants to get 10 million doses through the Covax initiative the main global effort to provide broad access to vaccines. Another 20 million doses would be secured from private companies. This is in contrast to the approach in Japan where the government has signed deals for purchase of 290 million doses for 145 million people for its population of 126 million. The money allocated is $6.5 billion and the goal is to vaccinate everyone by first half of 2021.  If it works this would prepare Japan for the Tokyo Summer Olympics to open in July, after 1 year delay. South Korea has the freedom to do this and wait to see what vaccine works best with least long term effects because their are relatively fewer cases there. A total of 313 new daily cases on November 18, lower than daily cases in a single county in the state of Michigan in the U.S. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use anew kind of gene based technology that has never been approved to prevent infectious diseases. Other competition is the vaccine from Oxford and Astra Zeneca which uses an existing technology that is used in existing vaccines modified for use in coronavirus. The Oxford vaccine and a vaccine from Johnson and Johnson are expected to have a lower price. Because life is functioning very close to normal South Korea is in the unusual position of saying that its people have no reason to be anxious for vaccine procurement, as indicated by its deputy director of Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Only three fifths of the population is the target for vaccination by fall of 2021. ...

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US to take stakes in American companies to help them achieve goals of Make in America with Intel stake the first action. The $8.9 billion Biden intended for Intel to make chips in the US will be handed over to Intel but for a stake in the company of 10%. For years Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and China have subsidized their companies in different and some hidden ways. Many times these companies have sustained losses as they built for the long term in volatile market situations. Nvidia now a trillion dollar company was at one time a company struggling to survive saved only by a Japanese corporate investor as shown in a recent WSJ report. The US has taken no such action losing its dominant position in many advanced industries including chips till the Biden and DJT administrations. Yet the media keeps voicing the old ideas of market capitalism as if there is such a thing when state capitalism operates with market capitalism in the Chinese model, and a form of semi state capitalism operates with market capitalism in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan with hidden subsidies by the state to build dominant positions in certain industrial sectors. Even US companies are willing to take such subsidies as when Elon Musk builds car plants in China with state assistance and support, which never comes up in the media even when the Chinese EV makers are learning from the Americans and Tesla is losing market share in China. Theory is for the textbooks and economists,  in business all forms of capitalism work including a mix of state and market, and America has to invent its way back to lead the way in advanced industries.  ...

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A whole range of issues can be seen in the debt crises in developing countries. The margin for error shrinks with poor governance, lack of honest assessment and transparency for finances, wars and conflicts within or outside the countries, living beyond their means, lack of focus on development, infrastructure that is unproductive or unaffordable including some Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure at higher interest rates. Countries that are dependent on overseas remittances, tourism, that were hit hard by the pandemic have seen their finances further weakened reducing the margin for error even more to the point that the smallest tipping point can lead to huge crises. Once the finances are weak all it takes is an external tipping point that creates serious crisis. The war in Ukraine with shortages of wheat, fertilizer and skyrocketing oil prices acted as that tipping point. Because this was a major blow the crises have a level of magnitude that is more than a payments crisis. One sees this in South Asia in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and in the Middle East for countries such as Egypt and Tunisia shown in this WSJ report. It is now not simply a crisis but a crisis of great magnitude because in the case of Sri Lanka and Pakistan this WSJ report says that both countries foreign exchange reserves have dwindled to the point where they can pay for only one or two months of imports according to central bank data, analysts and IMF. This crisis has affected countries that were seeing steady foreign investment such as Turkey for decades, then a sharp falloff in foreign investment with a change in the climate for foreign investment. The crisis has taken the form of high inflation, significant depreciation of currency that makes imports costlier so that shrinking revenues from loss of remittances, tourism, or other sources will now have less value in supporting import needs. Lack of a credible path can delay setting a path out of the crisis. The $1.5 billion fuel and electricity subsidy made by the prime minister of Pakistan in late February was done without IMF approval leading to the IMF program having to be renegotiated. Lack of national political and cultural consensus on a solution simply makes it that much more difficult to find the way through it. In this regard South Korea was able to tackle the 1997 financial payments crisis effectively because of a national consensus. The situation in Egypt- Egypt has borrowed $20 billion from the IMF since 2016., placing it second to Argentina in aid from IMF since 1980's.  In 2020 and 2021 Egypt' government spent more than 40% of its revenue servicing its debt, and is forecast to do the same in 2022. The situation in Tunisia- A shortage of sugar, flour, and other critical supplies, and government delaying wage payments to civil servants. The government got $400 million in financing last month from the World Bank and hopes to secure a lifeline from the IMF. Compared to the period between the 2 World Wars the two bright spots are China and India where lessons of the past of civil wars, religious or political conflict, and poor governance, lack of knowledge of how the western countries industrialized and modernized, was replaced with the conviction that drives patient effort, courage in the face of adversity, honesty, and humility to learn including from western countries that have forged their own path through the same difficult road. The most difficult experiences have offered lessons which were learned- for South Korea the Korean War and invasion from the north, China the civil war and Japanese invasion, for India the partition of India and million of refugees. Stagnation from stumbled efforts also taught lessons, the Great Leap Forward in China, the License Raj with corruption in India.       ...

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Inflation of 40%, a currency that has collapsed, debt at $58 billion or 105% of GDP that takes up one third of the country's budget just for dept payments, this isn't some economically weak African country. This is Ghana today, similar to about 54 countries in the Global South in even worse shape. Just before the pandemic in 2018 it recorded 6% growth. It is an agriculturally rich country with cassava and plantain production, the second largest cocoa producer in the world, and and oil producer.  Ghana has accepted a $3 billion loan from the IMF. The pandemic hit Ghana hard, followed by the Ukraine war and costly oil imports as Ghana lacks refinery capacity. 

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England could be a leading soccer country for years to come because of its younger players, and success of youth soccer teams. England has the third youngest team in the World Cup in Russia and is in the semi finals.

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Lingling Wei on Chinese policy on trade with the US in the WSJ and China seeking a visit by DJT to Beijing instead of APEC side meeting in South Korea. A meeting in Washington DC is seen as risky after the Zelensky meeting with DJT took an unexpected turn, and the idea of meeting in Beijing gives more opportunity for getting an organized result and show China's standing in the world of nations. This happens after XI met Putin in Beijing on Victory Day celebrations for World War II where Russian and Chinese losses were far larger than European or US losses. China's huge losses in the millions have not received much attention in the US or Europe. This is also true for losses by the Philippines, Indonesia and India from decisions made during wartime by colonial powers and the Imperial Japanese Army. A meeting of Xi and DJT in Beijing from China's point of view may also show China is ready to work with the US in trade and the economy where it has huge interests in a stable transition to where Chinese industry does not overproduce what it cannot sell and seeks a diversified market shifting away from concentration in the US. Both Xi and DJT are playing to a domestic and international audience to show they are wise leaders willing to engage and at the same time protecting their national interests. The issues of support for Ukraine and fentanyl sources in China remain unresolved. ...

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BBC's Mark Tullly reflects on the period of coverage from 1962-1994 of South Asia. He says of Indira Gandhi that she took the democratic process out of the Indian National Congress party, and set up her sons as future leaders that was undemocratic. Here he reflects on that period in an intervew with the BBC after he left the BBC.  He has deep connections to the Indian period after 1800 as his great grand father on his mothers side was around 1840 in a part of Uttar Pradesh where British planters had farmers plant opium that would later be bought by planters for export. This coincides with the period when Britain in Hong Kong traded in opium as part of British trading in the emerging colonial culture British Empire. There is mixed legacy for Britain in India and China. The history of the Opium Wars in the 1850's and opening up of colonial ports ended with the 1900's revolution and the emergence of the CCP in China by 1950. In India the legacy was mixed bringing together this part of Asia into a new nation and bringing parliamentary traditions of Britain that provided the basis for good governance.  Tully is a softspoken thoughtful Englishman who revolted against British classical education in his youth and studied history and religion at Cambridge, made friends with the future bishops of Canterbury and Lincoln at Cambridge. He is not the Englishman of the Empire as his fondest memories are of the servants verandahs on the bungalows of Britishers and the smoke from their quarters, and the language. So it is a thoughtful view that he gives of the undemocratic nature of Indira Gandhi and mismanagement of the economy that could have changed if India had gone in a different direction under other leaders in the the 1990's. Why is this significant? China's modernization drive started in the 1990's. India's by the undemocratic nature and mismanagement under Indira Gandhi did not start its modernization till 2010, about 20 years after China, opening up a huge gap that is only now being corrected leading to problems for world security, US security, European security and Indian security. And delaying the aspirations of development of 1.4 billion people for 2 decades. Vikshit Bharat cannot come fast enough for both Merz in Germany and Leyen at the European Union, who last week and this week visit Ahmedabad and India for the Kite festival and for Republic Day 2026. ...

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National Portrait Gallery exhibition on "America's Presidents," opens May 15 after a month long closure during which the writing about each president was changed to take out comments from the culture wars in the description of each President. The format includes extracts from farewell addresses, basic resume of life, education, accomplishments. For the recent presidents history's assessment is not known so that descriptions cannot be authoritative. For the presidents from an earlier period there is a sense of authority. For instance the presidency of James K. Polk- “The presidency of James K. Polk reflected his belief in Manifest Destiny,” begins one summary. Another is "Andrew Jackson campaigned for president as a self-made man." Previous descriptions were filled with controversial statements which have been corrected. “Andrew Jackson’s life was colored by struggle, conflict, and aggression.” The Washington Post says it now drops the omniscient judgment it is making which has caused controversy and quotes Jackson giving his own self-analysis: “’I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me,’ Andrew Jackson reportedly told a friend. This kind of omniscient judgement is seen at the National Portrait Gallery on Woodrow Wilson. It said- “Wilson is most often remembered as a champion of liberal values, but recent scrutiny has drawn attention to his regressive actions with regard to women’s voting rights and segregation in the government, as well as other violations of civil rights.” Is this fair to Woodrow Wilson who laid some of the basic foundations -for what was to come later with the efforts of Franklin Roosevelt -in setting up the fair conditions for working men and women in the industries of the day, the essentials of the modern economy? New wall text says Wilson supported the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. But it could have said more as these presidents from George Washington and Jefferson,Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy/LBJ, laid the foundations of the modern society and economy we have today, and its democratic parliamentary process, industrial development, higher standard of living than the rest of the world. One such laggard is the entrance to the Smithsonian Exhibition in Washington DC where Benjamin Franklin's efforts and achievements do not receive the recognition and admiration of the Nation's future generations of young people, with statements of this kind including race relations. It is not stated that Ben Franklin was the President of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. And little is shown about the 6 difficult 6 week voyages across the Atlantic ocean to London and France that secured the support of France critical for Washington to win in the deciding battles of the War of Independence; and signing the peace settlement with Britain that set up this glorious experiment with democracy that is ours now for 250 years. The current zeal to see things only from today's lens puts everyone at risk from the founding fathers to the eminent writers of America. For instance the media tends to exalt contemporary writers and ignores the writers that set America apart for its uniqueness and being exceptional for much of its 250 years. Too much of this mistaken view only makes one miss the significance of 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and what it means to the people of the world on different continents Asia, Africa and Latin America. Whitman and Longfellow are forgotten and were it not for some brave schools and teachers in public schools left out of the curriculum. Whitman has this to say about Longfellow- "Longfellow brings what is always dearest as poetry to the general human heart and taste, and probably must be so in the nature of things. He is certainly the sort of bard and counteractant most needed for our materialistic, self-assertive, money-worshipping, Anglo-Saxon races, and especially for the present age in America- an age tyrannically regulated with reference to the manufacturer, the merchant, the financier, the politician and the day workman- for whom and among whom he comes as the poet of melody, courtesy, deference- poet of the mellow twilight of the past in Italy, Germany, Spain, and in Northern Europe- poet of all sympathetic gentleness- and universal poet of women and young people. I should have to think long if I were ask'd to name the man who has done more, and in more valuable directions, for America." ...

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This report in WSJ shows how Mexico is planning to receive hundreds of thousands of migrants returned back to Mexico by the DJT administration in the US. The deportation program has led to a 90 percent drop in jungle border crossings across Panama into Mexico from Central and South America. Migrant entry from other countries is also expected to drop similar to this. Previous Mexican administrations allowed the flow of migrants through Mexico from Central and South America helping create the problem of illegal migration to the US of such large numbers of people, without carefully looking at the consequences of such policies. This happened also after World War II leading to president Truman appointing a Commission on this issue in the waning days of his administration and the Eisenhower administration putting the Attorney General in charge of the Operation Wetback in 1954 which returned about 1 million migrants back to Mexico. At that time as happened in 2024 the US was no longer able to cope with flow of such migrants across borders. US legislation has fallen behind the times in addressing immigration issues and this has placed an inappropriate burden on the American people. Bipartisan legislation has to be done as was agreed by Biden and Senator Lankford on the US Congress Republican side, with changes that DJT Republicans sought to have in that bill on numbers of entry and other points. ...

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It took 75 years for a British prime minister to visit Gandhi Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. George Bernard Shaw, the English writer, in a handwritten note at the Nehru museum in Allahabad after meeting Gandhi says "ask somebody 100 years hence" about Gandhi's contribution to the world. Today it is more clearer than ever. Mohandas Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj on a ship from South Africa to London in 1910 after negotiating with the British government on behalf of Indians in South Africa. In 1915 Gandhi returned to India and used his savings to buy 110 acres of land for the ashram on the banks of the river Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. By 1923 Gandhi was questioning the expenditures of the British government that did little for the development of the country and a budget that was focused on military expenditures, in his magazine Young India, with nothing for developing the country except for railways and transport. Gandhi launched his non cooperation movement for self-rule or Swaraj from the Ashram. By 1937 elections were held and the first provincial assemblies were set up in an experiment for self-rule. In 1930 the Salt March for noncooperation in the British salt monopoly, salt seen as the common man's right, was launched from the Ashram. In 1942 the Quit India movement was launched in the middle of World War II. In 1945 after Labour party's Clement Atlee won the election in a landslide against Winston Churchill the path opened for Britain to start negotiations with Gandhi for independence. In 1947 India was free. Why 75 years for a British prime minister? Much of the period after 1950's was lost in the recovery from partition, wars on Kashmir, China's entry into Tibet and the invasion of India. The non aligned movement under Nehru and Indira Gandhi and successor governments to 2000 appearing more as voicing a grievance for being left out led to an ambivalence of the US and UK towards India, and reflected a period when India was small in economic terms and lacked the opportunity to find its place in the world as a country with the largest population in the world. Which today with with Bangladesh and Indonesia sharing a common history of Hinduism and Buddhism represents 1.6 billion people. In the Nehru home museum in Allahabad there is a hand written note by British writer George Bernard Shaw who visited India and the Nehru home. It says it would take maybe 100 years before the world realized the significance of what Gandhi had done and only at that time would the world truly understand Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Boris Johnson's effort to make up for 75 years that went by without UK prime minister's visit to Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad is one such moment that George Bernard Shaw had seen coming.  George Bernard Shaw's handwritten not at the Nehru Museum in Allahabad says- "What is the place of Mahatma Gandhi in political philosophy? I do not know. Ask somebody a century hence. I recollect Gandhi as only a very likeable fellow- Mahatma from India. We did not talk Mahatma shop."       G. Bernard Shaw            28/6/1947     ...

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DW.com reporter Sean Goodwin goes from Germany to Australia and finds a very different attitude to coronavirus, kind of laid back. Australians he says have a sense that it is a lucky country, and that "she'll be right." The government and Sydney have been slow to adjust to the reality. A stay at home order is now in place in Sydney and New South Wales state.  Australians seem to think they are somehow far away and isolated from the world's problems. It is a cruisy optimistic mentality, says this report.

 

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How the shorter workweek is being tried at places such as Microsoft Japan, Toyota Gothenburg, Australian software company Icelab, and South Korean e-commerce company Woowa Brothers, with good results. Results include better collaboration, setting priorities effectively, and mutual respect for time. Workers get time to think, gain new perspectives, gather new ideas, and recover from weekly pressures. This WSJ reporter looked at over one hundred companies and found that if  done right it can improve company profitability and productivity. In a 4 week trial Microsoft Japan improved productivity by 40%. Alex Pang shows how this is being done in a new book - "Shorter: Work Better, Smarter and Less- Here's How." One way the shorter workweek works is by making everyone think what was not working during hectic work weeks without desired results, more work just adding to pressure and not producing results. For instance meetings had to be shorter and confined to certain hours only. Distractions had to be cut down effectively. Even soft music could help people concentrate. Building a new culture also helps bring people closer and find ways to work more effectively than in the past. The reinvigoration and ability to recover from pressures works wonders say experts and brings a new level of concentration, motivation and effectiveness. It is interesting to note that some of the pioneering effort in this area is coming from Japan and South Korea where long hours were tried and people began to realize that this approach to better results had serious drawbacks, and there had to be better ways.    ...

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The difficulties posed by the absence of Xi Jinping at New Delhi G20 Summit are discussed here in the WSJ. Today September 9 the G20 leaders from 20 nations meet, absent will be Mexico's Obrador, China's Xi, and Russia's Putin. China's premier will attend the meeting. China's Xi met with India's Modi at the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg, last month. China's premier is a close associate of Xi's and his chief of staff for decades, so that any suggestion that Xi is reducing contact with other world leaders in 2023 is incorrect. Xi will meet Biden at the APEC meeting US is hosting San Francisco Nov. 12-18 that will focus on Asia Pacific nations.