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Women's World Cup Final at Navi Mumbai 2025 -India vs South Africa. India 298. South Africa requiring 9 runs an over at 209 for 6, are bowled out for 246. Deepti Sharma with a knock of 87 and 2 wickets is player of the match, Shefali Verma could have been player of the match with 5 wickets. Harmanpreet Kaur with her own batting performance and captaincy could also have been player of the match. South African captain Wolvardt scores 100 but requires much more to get to 9 runs an over when South Africa were 209 for 6. The batting performance of Kaur and Sharma and bowling by Verma and Sharma set India on the right path to win this game.

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World Bank projections of Indian growth rate are lowered from 6.6% to 5.8% because of DJT US administration's 50% tariff on imports from India. "It is in America’s national interest, then, for South Asia, and especially India, to grow at a rapid clip. That would create a counterweight in Asia to China’s massive economic and military expansion." This is the opinion of the Editorial Board of The Washington Post. It goes on to say that -  "But Trump is determined to negotiate a grand trade bargain with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, so he didn’t impose secondary sanctions on their purchases of Russian crude.Trump wants U.S. trade policy to be more self-interested, but it doesn’t serve America’s strategic interests to strengthen China’s position relative to its neighbors. At some level, the administration surely knows this." The Washington Post has identified a basic flaw in the US policy towards India. Both parties in America have fallen into a trap of believing that first Japan, then China with accelerated economic expansion in the 1920's and 30's and in the 2000's and 2010's  are not going to run into issues with such expansion, this being the military and the separation from US economic cooperation that enabled the economic expansion of both Asian countries. Another aspect is that in 1950 China was similar in size of economy to India at 1.18, in 1903 and in 1962 at 1.18, and the gap between China and India is only a story of the last 2 decades. By 2047 India surely has the potential to close this gap with economic and technological integration with the US and European economies that were the pillars of China's economic expansion in an earlier period.  There are other aspects of culture and size- The Bhagavad Gita and the Bible provided Gandhi with an integrated view of western civilization. With its interactions and adoption of western institutions and government, of law, the new Indian state and its neighbor Indonesia represent 1.7 billion people in Asia, with Japan and the Philippines 2 billion people twice the size of China.   ...

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Yaghi immigrant from Jordan at Arizona State Univeristy,  Kitagawa at Kyoto University and Robson at University of Melbourne win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2025 for work on creating new compounds from molecular structures.

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WSJ with subscribers up to 4.1 million and other Dow Jones products, are key parts of revenue for Murdoch's business group in 2025. 85% of profits are derived from Dow Jones for News Corp. The Australian and British newspapers do not generate much profit and The Sun has seen years of losses. These newspapers gave Murdoch his start in Australia and UK, but have built up losses today.

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Nigel Farage in The Times of London, August 23 2025. The Times of London on why some of Farage's ideas need to be heard to stop illegal migrants and asylum hotels that are increasingly unpopular with the British public. Tony Abbott of Australia pursued an independent policy on migration that makes it clear illegal migration had no place in Australia. Dnemark's socialist prime minister has done the same for Denmark. And chancellor Merz of Germany has taken action on the same principle that illegal migration has no place in Germany.  

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Simon Wilde of The Times Analysis of a Test cricket series for the Ages, India vs England 2025- showing 10 Key Moments in the Series of 5 Tests over 25 days of cricket. He compares it to Ashes cricket series back to 1981, 2005, and 2023. I would go furhter back to the West Indies Australia series of 1960 which ended up tied, with both sides having the same score down to the last run. It was a series in which Richie Benaud and Gary Sobers played major roles. Siraj has Christiano Ronaldo on his phone screen with the words BELIEVE! as he prepares for the final day's bowling. The catch of Siraj that did not count as he went over the boundary line for Brooks, and the last ball of the match at the Oval that flattened the wicket of Atkinson, the fielding effort of Woakes that cost him a dislocated shoulder and his heroic effort to come out for the 10th wicket when it was painful to run, the burst of sixes and fours knock of Sundar as India went up to 396, and the tense nervousness of the crowd in the final moments, Gill's perplexed face as he arranged the fielding deep at the boundary lines to avoid fours and the final sigh of relief when Siraj bowled out Atkinson- these were the moments that linger in the memory of the final test at the Oval in London. ...

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Fox News and WSJ are taking differing positions on Epstein case with Fox News ignoring it and the WSJ carrying the story. Murdoch and DJT have a complicated relationship in July 2025 following the $10 billion DJT lawsuit against Murdoch filed in late July after a story in the WSJ. WSJ parent company Dow Jones says it stands by the story and will defend the accuracy of its reporting. Both the DJT Republicans and the Fox News network appeal to conservative viewers of television, and people in business. WSJ has carried stories questioning the tariff policies of the president, and is critical. It is also not fully supportive of policies to handle migrants. Fox News another Murdoch news outlet is through programs like "Hannity" supporting the president and DJT supports it. This creates a dichotomy in the support when DJT and Republicans are putting forward an agenda that is moving fast on the economy, migration, crime, and world trade requiring support to keep the conservative groups together in the US. This is not a situation encountered before as the nation is moving to a crossroads in which direction it should take. And this does not even take up the issues of climate protection which will come up, and of pharmaceutical companies overcharging Americans for healthcare, other battles that will take place.   ...

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Cummins raises questions about the Australian team. Lyons failed to get a wicket in 34 overs against South Africa 2025. Is the Lyons, Hazlewood, Cummins, Starc bowling with few new additions not enough for the games ahead? Markram's 136 against Australia showed the need for changes in Australia's lineup.

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Alluring scenery but hollowing out. Rail station in Dunedin New Zealand looks like it is from the 19th or early 20th century. New Zealand wages are 27% lower than Australian wages in 2025. New Zealand's weak, economy cuts in public services in 2025 affect jobs and employment. New Zealand sees emigration of 69,000 for the year to Feb 2025, highest on record.  Australia has mining and huge demand from China and India for its coal to support it's economy. In a paradox black coal in the interior supports a healthy lifestyle with weather and sports in the coastal belt of Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, and further up the coastline in Perth and Adelaide. New Zealand life means higher grocery prices and less quality than Australia, it means health services are not as good, and the public services are being cut to reduce the deficit and borrowing. Most migration is to Auckland and towns in the interior look scenic such as Dunedin but are increasingly seeing people leaving for lack of prospects, lack of pay raises and high cost of living, poor public services. This is a cycle that was felt in 2002 and goes back a long way and is unlikely to change. ...

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This is an amazing story of fortitude and resilience not just for Australia but for the world. Not for defeating the Opposition Leader in his parliamentary seat of 24 years on her third try. No, not that. It is her smiling face as she battled the odds, a year into the death of her oldest son to leukemia, a few years after she herself managed to save her son Zac who was in a pram she was moving in a parking lot when hit by a 88 year old who lost control of his car and pinned her. She lost a leg in that accident and saved her son Zac by pushing the pram out of the way just in the nick of time. She has an artificial leg but this has not deterred her, not when she was refused service at a restaurant, and could not find a home in Dickson, Brisbane region which was disability conducive. She is the daughter of Queensland MP Peter Lawlor. She is shown here with her father and her son Zac. She won the seat held by Australia's  Conservatives Opposition leader Peter Dutton in the Brisbane region for 24 years in the Austrlian election won by Labour's Albanese ...

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This article is from The Guardian, September 6, 2019. Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime minister on Murdoch's News Corp. and antagonism towards Australia's Labour party and towards climate change action, and to Australian broadband speed. Some creators of content are also unwittingly adopting strategies that pose other dangers to society, to competition, to an educated public, including News Corp. News Corp. (owner Fox News) strategy is to create affinity, to create communities for content. When actively done and pursued in excess by powerful creators of content such as News Corp. this leads to the fragmentation of civic society into groups not generated by honest discussion among civic minded people, but by revenue generating artificially created groups where the affinity is exploited by the creator of content as an outsider. This is inimical to society, education, honest discussion of civic minded people, and of democracy itself. ...

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Peter Robinson of Uncommon Knowledge (Hoover Institution) interview with Robert Thomson, CEO News Corp. on March 29, 2014. Much of what Robinson has described in this interview comes out to be true. He says here in 2014 that anything Google touches it devalues. Thomson is saying that by aggregating content as an outsider this creates this condition of devaluing the content. Google and other social media companies are not creators of the content. The WSJ, NYT, BBC. Le Monde and others create the content. When Google and others like it acquire so much power over  distribution of the content it creates a situation where distribution becomes vastly more important than the creation of the content. This is inimical, says Thomson, to creators and creation of the content. Hidden here is that this power is acquired by engineering it from the start. The distribution platforms are not regulated, and are not restricted by anti-monopoly laws, so that the technologies can be designed around products that give maximum power and revenue potential to distributors of content like Google. Content become almost an after thought- it is there simply to be exploited by the distributors of the content who invent the technologies or shape these technologies after acquiring them in a monopoly environment. Otner dangers posed by distributos of content becoming door keepers to "knowledge" in society are that they treat all content good and bad as the same. Some creators of content are also unwittingly adopting strategies that pose other dangers to society, to competition, to an educated public, including News Corp. News Corp strategy is to create affinity, to create communities for content. When actively done and pursued in excess by powerful creators of content such as New Corp. this leads to the fragmentation of civic society into groups not generated by honest discussion among civic minded people, but by revenue generating artificially created groups where the affinity is exploited by the creator of content as an outsider. This is inimical to society, education, honest discussion of civic minded people, and of democracy itself. ...

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Australian PM Anthony Albanese sets May 3, 2025 for Australian elections. Labor party is in a tight race with Sutton's Liberal party coalition. Sutton proposes cuts in bureaucracy, and efforts to reduce cost of living pressures in the suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney, cut immigration and replace coal powered plants with small nuclear reactors.

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The UK Education Report from Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson as shown in The Times says “In practice, high standards currently too often means high standards for some — our ambition is high standards for all”. It sees the basic emphasis on knowledge depth and excellence in education, the infrastructure as working well and intends to keep this. The change is to bring all schools up to these higher standards. Childcare infrastructure and services would be made available to all.  Rote education and stress on memorization, taking too many GCSE exams, student stress from the large number of exams more than Ireland and twice that of Canada, not enough apprenticeship training programs, will be points that will receive attention. “The national curriculum should remain relevant and up to date while embedding and recognising the importance of cultural knowledge stemming from the past.” More emphasis on developing this kind of national curriculum. ...

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Bridget Phillipson and Keir Starmer are politicians who would like to get things done and take ideas from all sides in the effort to improve life for British parents and children. See the article alongside on the changes proposed by Phillipson and Starmer to bring better education to all schools, and keeping the best of the Academy system- just spreading the best to all parts of the country.  Zoe Wiliiams had this interview with Bridget Philipson in The Guardian, March 21, 2023, when she was UK Shadow Education Secretary with big plans to revive childcare and children's education in UK schools. Phillipson is now Education Secretary and is getting a bill passed in Parliament to improve some aspects of the British education system keeping the infrastructure and foundations that are delivering well. Phillipson grew up in a dilapidated northeast England neighborhood in Tyne and Wear. She describes this as a place with an air of decline with a railroad track and idled chemical plant in the area, high youth unemployment. He mother and her grandparents provided a caring home and signed her up for drama lessons on Saturdays. She attended Catholic school and went on to study at Oxford University in Modern Languages and Modern History, returning to work for Sunderland City Council for 2 years instead of going to London. She is seen as self-effacing but vigorous in putting forward ideas on better childcare and children's education for British children.   ...