By Ye Xie and Amy Li, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategists

On Oct. 16, 2007, the Shanghai Composite Index hit a record high of 6,092. Exactly 16 years later, the benchmark closed 50% below that record. On Chinese social media, ridiculing the poor stock-market performance has become a national pastime.

Even the recent arrival of the National Team – state-backed entities such as a sovereign wealth fund and pension funds — did little to shore up sentiment. To be fair, though, their support has been half-hearted, at best.

Despite data showing the economy is stabilizing, the stock market has continued to trade poorly. The announcement that a sovereign wealth fund was buying bank stocks and reports that Beijing is considering a gigantic stabilization fund barely made any difference.

One headwind has been the relentless selling by foreign investors. They are on track to pull out from the northbound stock connect for a third consecutive month, which would mark the longest outflows since the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stock connection debuted in 2016. In August, a record 90 billion yuan ($12 billion) of funds flew out the door.

Coincidentally, August also saw a record inflow of 143 billion yuan into Chinese equity ETFs trading on the mainland. That was quite an unusual splurge, almost double the previous record.

According to Goldman Sachs, the National Team — which collectively owns about 3.5% of the market value of local stocks — was largely behind the ETF purchases. The net inflows to the National Team’s top-five “favorite” ETFs surged by more than 90 billion yuan that month.

If that was the case, they have since become dormant. Investors added 23 billion yuan to ETFs in September, before withdrawing 6.5 billion yuan this month. If sustained, October would be only the second time on record when both ETFs and northbound connect registered net outflows.

It seems to suggest that support from the National Team was rather opportunistic and lukewarm. It steps in only when foreign outflows become sizable.

Agricultural water withdrawal way beyond the limit of renewable freshwater resources is most common today in countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports that, according to the FAO Aquastat database where the latest available year for the data is 2020, several other nations, with Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Pakistan and India all sticking out for using up a higher share of their freshwater resources in agriculture than their neighbors.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Desert climates like on the Arabian peninsular make countries there overextend their annual water budgets by agriculture alone.

This has led to studies concluding that the United Arab Emirates, for example, could run out of groundwater by 2030. In Pakistan and Iran, between 63 and 70 percent of renewable freshwater resources were dedicated to agriculture in 2020, rising to 68 and 77 percent including all freshwater uses. Extensive and water-intensive agriculture, including cotton crops, is also driving up freshwater use in the semi-arid climates of Central Asia. Here, Uzbekistan used 111 percent of renewable water resources per year, followed by Turkmenistan at 65 percent (106 percent when counting all freshwater use). The only other country extending its freshwater budget only when combining agriculture and other freshwater uses was Jordan.

Agriculture accounts for 72 percent of all freshwater withdrawals globally, including a lot of overuse. According to the FAO, global freshwater resources per person have declined by 20 percent in the past decades, while water availability and quality have also deteriorated. Additional factors playing a role in this are pollution and climate change, stretching the precious resource even thinner.

October 16 marks World Food Day, which this year has the motto: Water is life, water is food. Leave no one behind.

Authored by Benjamin Kew via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

New York's Supreme Court has upheld its previous ruling invalidating the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers, a decision that will have ramifications on the power of the state's executive.

The ruling came from the Supreme Court's Appellate Division, Fourth Department, which dismissed the state's appeal to have the mandate reinstated.

"4th Dept dismissed state’s appeal as moot, and declined to vacate lower court win," attorney Sujata Gibson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"The mandate is over and declared unconstitutional," she continued. "[Thank you] [Children's Health Defense], [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], and [Medical Professionals For Informed Consent], and everyone who helped in this fight.

"Doesn’t make up for the harm [New York] Inflicted, but will help protect us from more."

The health care worker vaccine mandate was first implemented in September 2021, resulting in the departure or termination of about 34,000 medical professionals from their positions.

That mandate was originally struck down by the state's Supreme Court in January, although the state's executive branch chose to appeal the decision.

In his opinion in Medical Professionals for Informed Consent vs. Bassett, Justice Gerard Neri wrote that the state's Department of Health was "clearly prohibited from mandating any vaccination outside of those specifically authorized by the legislature" and that it had "blatantly violated the boundaries of its authority as set forth by the legislature.”

Justice Neri added that the mandate was “arbitrary and capricious” given that the COVID-19 vaccines failed to prevent transmission of the virus, meaning the policy had no rational basis.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, had previously explained her opposition to rehiring health care workers who lost their jobs as a result of the vaccine, saying that this was "not the right answer."

“I think everybody who goes into a health care facility or a nursing home should have the assurance and their family member should know that we have taken all steps to protect the public health," she said at the time. "And that includes making sure those who come in contact with them at their time of most vulnerability, when they are sick or elderly, will not pass on the virus."

In April, the state agreed to unilaterally drop the mandate of its own accord, although it still contested the decision for the sake of maintaining executive authority.

"Due to the changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic and evolving vaccine recommendations, the New York State Department of Health has begun the process of repealing the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for workers at regulated health care facilities," the state health department stated.

Last October, the New York Supreme Court also struck down a mandate enforced specifically by New York City on all public employees, with Justice Ralph Porzio arguing there was no evidence to "support the rationality of keeping a vaccination mandate for public employees, while vacating the mandate for private sector employees or creating a carveout for certain professions, like athletes, artists, and performers."

In January 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court similarly blocked an attempt by President Joe Biden to enforce a mandate on large private companies that their employees either get the vaccine or face regular testing. However, it did allow the mandate to continue in medical facilities that took funding from Medicare and Medicaid.

"Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly,” the court wrote in its unsigned opinion. "Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category."

Margaret Florini, a spokesperson for Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, told The Defender that the latest decision was a "historic" win that would help prevent such abuses of power in the future.

"I think we will see many new lawsuits come about because of this historic win," Ms. Florini said. "There is still plenty of work to be done. We lost so much, not just money but relationships, marriages, friends, and homes. We cannot forget what was done to us, and we must continue to shed light on it and make impactful changes that will truly prevent this from happening again."